Ep. 29 - Surviving Life’s Pickles

Um, yeah, just about a year ago, I walked into your old office, and we met and had some fun discussions.

But, uh, really, uh, 2024, uh, March of 2024, I survived my suicide attempt, and during that recovery time for myself, as I was getting back on my feet, uh, we lost, uh, a fellow coworker to suicide, and then another friend in the industry a week later.

So there was three of us in a matter of a month's time that I knew personally that had all suffered from the same thing.

And we seen a need, and we were trying to figure out how we can help, because we had no idea the significant, uh, impact that suicide and mental health was having in the construction and mining industry at the time.

And so we started a little podcast at that time and said, "Hey, at least maybe we can reach some people by sharing some stories and information." Our podcast is Surviving Life's pickles, and that just ma- stands for Navigating Life's Challenges, and we like to do those together because the, we are stronger as a community.

From that, uh, this all became real.

We had people asking us for more.

"How can we help? How can we help?" And so we started doing research and found some training opportunities, uh, one being mental health first aid, and that's kind of one of our foundational courses that we teach at the Recovery Friendly Workplace nonprofit here in Utah, with a f- heavy focus on construction and mining.

The reason we do that is

isThe course, Mental Health First Aid course, is so foundational.

It teaches you signs and symptoms.

It teaches you how to have a conversation, it teaches you words to say, words not to say, body language to have, body language not to have, and just gives you more information about what's going on in your life and ways to see the signs and symptoms in others people's lives so th- then you can engage them and hopefully prevent, you know, a tragic event from happening, or intervene before a substance abuse situation gets worse, or a family situation gets worse, or, you know, somebody loses their job due to a mental health disorder that they were kind of unaware of.

And so that's why we partnered with the Utah Safety Council to be able to provide these training cal- classes.

And, I mean, really, mental health safety is physical safety.

You can't have one without the other.

They go hand-in-hand.

And so to have a guy on a job site, at a manufacturing plant, um, in an office building, uh, we all suffer from mental health, and we could all use some skills to make our mental health more positive and not so negative, and really reduce that stigma here in Utah when it comes to mental health, substance abuse, and all of these things that when we say it, everybody has a negative reaction.

We're trying to change that more into a positive reaction by providing knowledge and resources and information to people in the place of work and on the job site so they have, they're empowered with these tools that they can have a better life, and they can help others, you know, going through the workspace.

So that's kind of why we do a little bit of what we do and why Mental Health First Aid is such a powerful course that we've partnered with the safe- the Safety Council here in Utah to provide.

I mean, it is just one of the courses we provide.

We, we also provide suicide prevention training.

We also provide, um, a seminar called Mental Health Safety Is Physical Safety, and along with coming and, and just talking to employees and management about how to introduce the idea of mental health safety on the job site or in the office, or all these different things.

And, and that's why we are so happy with this partnership with John here and everybody a part of the Utah Safety Council, is because of the reach and the members they already have.

They're so ingrained of making sure their people are safe.

We're just gonna take it to that next level with being able to provide some of these new trainings.