Voices for Voices®

The 3 Most Important Lessons I’ve Learned From Business Chaos | Episode 169

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 169

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The 3 Most Important Lessons I’ve Learned From Business Chaos | Episode 169

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Chapter Markers
0:00 Recovery From Eating Disorder and Medication
22:06 Making Tough Choices for Recovery
27:47 Building Voices for Voices®

What if the high of academic success is overshadowed by the lows of weekend binges and missed work meetings? Our latest episode takes you on a raw and honest journey from the chaotic college party scene to the real-world challenges of balancing late-night escapades with a burgeoning career. We explore the stark realities of maintaining high grades while indulging in heavy partying and the inevitable clashes that arise when the hangover meets the boardroom. Through personal anecdotes, we reveal the struggle of recognizing the need for change but finding it frustratingly difficult to implement.

Join us as we navigate the uncharted waters of post-MBA life, where career uncertainties intersect with social pressures, and the workplace becomes a minefield of layoffs and anxiety. Moving to a new city like Houston, Texas, seemed like the answer, but it brought its own set of challenges, like an office culture steeped in happy hours. We candidly discuss the journey towards prioritizing mental and physical well-being over social expectations and how making values-driven choices leads to true fulfillment. Listen in for an empowering narrative of self-discovery, resilience, and the courage to share personal experiences with the world.

This episode examines the complicated journey from a party-centric college life to finding comfort in personal authenticity and professional responsibilities. The discussion delves into the challenges of alcohol consumption, mental health struggles, and ultimately, the importance of making mindful choices as one transitions into adulthood while navigating work and social expectations.
• Reflecting on the impact of partying during college
• Exploring the transition from academic success to professional life
• The role of alcohol in social settings and workplaces
• Coping with stress and anxiety through alcohol consumption
• The importance of prioritizing mental health and well-being
• Making conscious choices in social environments
• Encouraging authenticity over peer pressure

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to this episode of the Voices for Voices TV Show and Podcast. I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Almeyes. Thank you for joining us on this episode. Thanks for all the support and love you've given us throughout this journey. We're on to help 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. Just so grateful to have this platform to be able to talk, to, share, to put not just my voice or other board members of our organization on the show, but others that we know are helping. Whether that is a tip, a trick, whether that's an experience, whether that is an idea, I'm learning a lot throughout this process and the feedback we're getting and have gotten has been great around kind of the width and the breadth of our guests and of our spectrum. And so, as we kick off this particular episode, you have seen and heard and concluded the episode speaking about what kind of life was, the types of things, the, the substances, from the alcohol to the over-the-counter pills to the clubbing, and then introducing towards the end, talking about really stepping up the academics and really mental clarity at the very. I mean I'm even, as I'm talking right now, kind of turning the clock back. I mean I was. I was hitting on all cylinders. I would. I was able to pick up information very easily, very quickly. I was able to convey information. I was earning A's on just about all the work that I was doing. That was what the introduction was talking about, with the having to see salt and water concoction with flaxseed oil started to integrate something other than food into my, into my regimen.

Speaker 1:

Good lead-in to where where we are with this episode, because this episode we'll talk about graduation, graduating from college, looking for, you know that, that first real job. I didn't have a hmm, I didn't have an internship, so I was coming out of school with not a whole lot of more experience than I had in the classroom and so, as that was was happening, I was continuing my weekends of going out, going to the club party until the wee hours in the morning, and that obviously wasn't good as we can think about, because it was that type of party and not sleeping in on on the weekend. So I'd be out till 2, 3 in the morning, I'd sleep till 11, 12, I'd eat. I'd obviously slept through breakfast, so I didn't eat breakfast. I may have eat breakfast foods when I woke up, but I didn't eat breakfast. I still was including the flax oil and the sea salt concoction into my diet.

Speaker 1:

And what, if we're talking about from like a Friday, friday night, early Saturday morning, waking up around 12 noon on Saturday, I was in the working out phase and so I would spend an hour, maybe an hour and a half, at the gym taking those supplements, going from being under the influence of substances to money to sober up and get a good workout in. To go into the liquor store, because I was now of age and I was, uh, you know, people asked me you know what, what, what, uh, pre-gaming and what, how, all that worked. And so, perfect example I'm, I'm gonna try it in the Saturday I would go, I get, you know, 750 milliliter Jägermeister and I get a few Red Bulls, and that would most times be be kind of the pregame, and so I would drink on the whole thing on a Friday night, a 750 milliliter and and that was just kind of pre-gaming. And then when I was out, I was obviously drinking at the bar at the club. Same thing on Saturday. I wasn't one to have Drink a ton of beer. I looked at things kind of quicker, like I don't want to be sitting around here for three hours through the pregame, and so that was where I looked at the Laker and having the most effect.

Speaker 1:

Now, when I was not 21, and even as I was getting to be the age of 21, I started off with the 151 rum and orange juice, because when I wasn't 21, again, we didn't have a ton of time to really pregame before going to the club and going out. So we wanted something that was potent, that didn't take a lot of time to take effect, and that's probably where, as we move forward with the different substances and that we're wanting, you know, taking pills and doing all those things where I wanted something to take effect rather quickly. So once I got my first job first job in the real world, we'll call it still was going out, still was doing a lot of drinking, a lot of drinking Mostly say a binge drinker on Friday and Saturdays. After the college years there were times where I would go out during the week and I'd pay for it. I'd show up to work. Sometimes I'd fall asleep at my desk. Again, these are things that I'm not proud of, but they happen.

Speaker 1:

I got invited to go on a work trip and so here was me, out of college, like, wow, we're going on a work trip and, you know, food's going to be top of the line surf and turf and all kind of drinks, and it's at the beach. And so here's me just in my mind thinking, oh, okay, this is all going to be a big party. Well, I showed up late to one of the meetings. Needless to say, I got in trouble for that and that didn't deter me from going out and drinking. It just meant for the duration of that trip. I just had to modify. So in my mind, I wasn't really changing my behavior much other than like, okay, I'm gonna be here for another day, I'm just gonna take it easy, but when I get home, we're back on parties, back on weekends. That and and yeah, my behavior really didn't change a whole lot, and that was an area that I obviously hindsight is always 20-20, that you know sitting here today. I wish it did. I wish my behavior did change.

Speaker 1:

The say like the flares or the smoke signals that like, okay, we need to start changing, we need. But I didn't. I was still not working out, partying hard, going to the gym, the whole, working out the muscle. I had the frosted tip hair. And that was kind of where, where I was at their supplements and for the gym, still wasn't incorporating the flax oil and the, the sea salt, and then started doing incorporating more and more protein shakes, you know, multivitamins, vitamin C, and that was kind of how we started to do some transitioning in supplement fashion and I find myself very stressed 24-7, burnout, not eating, not by choice.

Speaker 1:

In my mind. I'm saying not by choice, but maybe it was subconsciously in my mind, because you never want to think that you're not eating because you don't want to eat. So that's, I guess, why I'm saying that, because I I don't want to believe that I wasn't eating because I didn't want to eat, because then I get right, you get in a scary conversation but not like, oh wow, so wasn't eating. Uh, very stressed and a lot of energy was, uh, having panic attacks at red lights driving. Uh, having panic attacks at the grocery stores. At third eye blind concert, which was one of my favorite bands growing up, met the band. I had to leave a concert after, I think, two songs. It was just a hard thing to kind of go through.

Speaker 1:

But then I was still drinking, was still drinking though drinking alcohol, and so drinking alcohol was a way that I was coping with what was happening. Like, alright, well, I'm just gonna, friday night, go to liquor store and here's what we're gonna do, and on Saturday, same thing and a lot of sleeping in. So, again, missing the breakfast hour, meals, breakfast hours Was doing less and less and less working out because I didn't have the energy. I was feeling depressed, almost. Like well, why would I go to the gym? Like well, why would I go to the gym? Like what's the use? I don't have a lot of energy.

Speaker 1:

And that's when I started, I guess, to look at where I was at as a human being, because up until around that time I would have these goals. And so once I got my act straight and around and in college, it was obvious I want to graduate. But when I got my act straight and around, at least academically, it was to graduate and continue to grow my grade point average. And then in the back of my mind after that was I wanted to be an attorney. But that didn't turn out very well because I don't like standardized tests. I didn't do very well on the LSAT, which is the entrance exam for law school. So then I started to think about a master's degree. And so once I graduated from college with my undergrad, it started my first full-time professional employment, my first full-time professional employment.

Speaker 1:

There was a period of time that had to go by before the company I was working for was gonna pay for a majority of my education to get my master's degree. So again, I had academically had this goal, so I kind of had something for me to really go after, still again throwing the party in and it's almost like these parallel lives were kind of going on not doing the partying and it's almost like these parallel lives were kind of going on Not making the best decisions, you know the partying, the clubbing, relationship type of things. Because for the most part my mind was fogged a lot more than I would have liked. And so when I got to the point I was able to go for my MBA, my Master's of Business Administration. I did, and once I finished that I started to think what's next On kind of the academic, professional side of things, because professionally in my role you know the run-in with the idea of the alcohol and miss miss in a meeting on a work trip feel that that caught up to me in that same time frame. So I, I just wasn't getting looked at for promotions, probably for a good reason, probably because I wasn't deserving of that.

Speaker 1:

So I graduated with my MBA, got good grades, but then I was thinking, well, what's next? Because there was always something. Next then I was like well, do I want to go for my PhD, do I not? And so these thoughts were going around in my head. Well, in the professional sense, if you're not going, let's say, back to school, further education, there's training, so that's kind of a school for you know professionals. Well, you go to training on this particular topic or that particular topic. And so I did some trainings, but I felt like I wasn't really going anywhere professionally.

Speaker 1:

Academically, I felt like I was done with the academics. We had our first layoff, or my first layoff at I wasn't affected by it, but our organization. We had cutbacks and that was the first time I saw people lose their jobs come in one morning, leave that morning and be done. And to this day, on the professional side, I still have that trauma. How much of that is there, I don't know, but as I think of different points after that, at different lawyers, my mind and my body seemed to subconsciously know something was up, and so that would get even more and more tense, more and more tense.

Speaker 1:

So I would look to more and more alcohol, more and more alcohol. Again, I couldn't bury my head in the books because I'd already got earned my MBA. And so, after those cutbacks happened, I asked my manager I had five years experience and said, hey, is there gonna be anything coming up for me in the near future? Because there are people I went to school with who they're getting promoted and all these opportunities are opening up for them, but not for me. And so that got me thinking let me sit down with my manager, and my manager said, basically, you're at where you're at, uh, you're out where you're at, you're at where you're at. And so I started looking externally and ended up moving to Houston, texas. It was good in a few ways, but overall it wasn't anything like I had expected.

Speaker 1:

The drinking, the alcohol consumption continued to go on. I was even finding ways to work it in during the week, maybe not getting fully drunk, but having a few beers, having the department happy hour or somebody retiring or somebody being promoted or moving on to a different role, and so that's an area that I want to touch on here is happy hours and happy hours and and kind of how at least in my experience and trust me, I wasn't one to turn down a drink for a long time. And so when you know Fridays or Thursdays are around and these happy hours, hey, you know, the group's going to go, the department's going to go, or so-and-so is retiring, or they got promoted or they went. You went to the happy hours, you went out. Well, almost every happy hour I went to, a high percentage of the people were drinking alcohol, and that's fine, I get it. I'm at a different spot today than where I was then, where I was back, you know, years back. So if you consume alcohol, that's okay. I'm not here to tell anybody you have to do this or do that. I'm just telling you my experience.

Speaker 1:

And and I felt like that was at that time when these happy hours were happening, they're like oh well, I have to go, so there's not a choice there. Well, while I'm there, I'm not just gonna have one or two drinks because I couldn't, I didn't have any self-control when it came, came to alcohol, uh yeah, and at those times, and it would seem almost every week that there would be some type of a happy hour, and it wouldn't just be an hour, it would turn in the three, four hours. Then on weekend, if it was a Friday, happy hour might start at four and you're there to like six. And then for me, I was pre-gaming, so I was going back home. If I didn't have the alcohol, I was going to the store, picking it up, going home, eating some dinner, getting a shower and starting the pregame, and then there's that real transition out to the club. And so it was almost. I didn't have to do a whole lot of thinking, it was just what I did.

Speaker 1:

And so to those out there that are working and they, whether you drink alcohol or not, you don't feel like you have to go to these happy hours. Don't feel like you have to, because there's more to life than going to a happy hour, than going to a work party, because at the end of the day, this will happen 100% of the time. At the end of the day, every single company will look out for the company at the end of the day, and that may or may not include you having a job there. So whether you go to all the happy hours or whether you don't, you have to do what's right for you, not only physically, but mentally, and so for me, but mentally, and so for me, I can go to happy hours and get-togethers at bars.

Speaker 1:

The first couple times after I was in the hospital with the mental health crash, crash, it was hard because I was used to. If I was in a club or bar setting, I was used to getting drunk, having shots. You know the whole nine yards there. Now it it's not that big of a deal. I I decline a lot of them more because I want to. I feel more useful when I'm talking to you and sharing my experiences and putting content together. And so that's actually what happened tonight. I could have went out, but I didn't, and nobody thought any differently. And, oh my gosh, justin didn't go. It's like well, sorry, I can't make it tonight, maybe I'll make it the next time. And so that was the decision I made was to come home and talk with you and share some of these experiences with you.

Speaker 1:

So, whether you're 21, 31, 41, 51, whether you drink alcohol, whether you don't 41, 51, whether you drink alcohol, whether you don't, at the end of the day you need to do what's best for for you, because if you don't, there might not be a you left, meaning could take substances and pills and alcohol and the like, and that could just continue on and on and on and turn into some ugly outcomes, and we don't want that. So if you're gonna drink, if you're gonna go out and party in dogs, uber, lyft just be smart about it. That way Again, I'm not asking anybody to live like me. Trust me, I've had more than my fair share of partying days. I probably partied for 10 people over the time that I was partying, and I'm okay with that. I'm at a new phase in life. Thank you for joining us on this episode, the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Until next time, be a voice for you or somebody in need.

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Justin Alan Hayes

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