Garrett Wood: Finding Balance: Mental Health and Work

Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide?
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Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the
world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mantur.
Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide.
Joining us today is Garrett Wood, a National Board certified
health and Wellness coach, clinical hypnotherapist, and executive functioning specialists
with over eighteen years of hands on experience. He has
walked the wall. He's battled his own high stakes burnout
and emerged stronger. Now dedicating his life to helping people
in all walks of life. He will talk about people
masking through endless meetings, wrestling with impostor syndrome, or simply
craving a life where success doesn't come at the cost
of their joy. His approach is as innovative as it
is compassionate. He's not just a coach, he's your partner
in unmasking the real you, healthier and happier, making you unstoppable.
He has a great wealth of information and we're happy
to have him here. So before we dive into our episode,
will be act with an uninterrupted show right after a
word from our sponsors. Thanks for coming on.
I'm excited to be here to talk a little bit
more about this because I don't think it gets talked
about wide enough.
So I'm excited.
Well, it's great to have you on, if you would
give us a little information about what you do.
So, I work with people that are professionals. So they
have a job, they're usually pretty successful at that. They've
been working really art for a long time, and they're
doing well on paper, but when it comes to their
personal life, their relationships, their health, they're struggling. And most
of that comes from missing those cues that they need
to feel better. And so the bigger that gap is personally,
and the more successful they are professionally, those typically seem
to be the clients that show up at my clinic.
Okay, so when your clients walk through your door, what
type of people do you expect to see. Before we
came on, we talked about autistic ADHD special needs, So
what is your typical client look like?
You know, when I first opened my clinic, most of
the people that would come in it was for aches
and paints, be like shoulder pain that they just couldn't
get rid of, or this tension in the body. They
couldn't fully relax and never felt safe to be them
in a place where they could like really get into
that rest and digest state no matter what was going on.
Whether they're at work, they had to be on and
them when they're at home. It didn't feel like that
enough time to fully recover. And after being open for
about two years, a lot of the clientele are coming
in with a formal diagnosis for ADHD, and then some
of the people that didn't have a diagnosis, the symptomologies,
the way they would describe their day was very consistent
with that. And then you get talking to a little
bit of people more, you get to know them a
little more, and they actually shared that they had both
a dual diagnosis of autism and ADHD. So the label
and the DSM is always changing and being updated as
we get new information and updates.
But they have been.
Diagnosed for a long time with some of that, and
so they've gone through those changes of the DSM. So
how they experience the world has been consistently updated with
the new research, but the feelings and experiences they have
have seemed to be consistent across for those last years.
Can you give our listeners a little more information on
what it is that you do this way they can
and get a little more information on how you help
people that come to you.
Yeah. So most of the work that I do is
about increasing well being.
So the idea is, if we're burning out, it's because
we're doing really well at work, but we're not getting
enough support in our personal life to be able to
maintain that, and so we end up in burnout. So
people with different nervous systems, different ways of showing up
in the world. The world isn't necessarily designed to kind
of overlap with what they do, and so trying to
figure out where the biggest expense of their ability to
show up and be productive is versus the biggest.
Benefit to them.
So can we reduce the friction in their life and
increase the ease in different categories? And some of those
are sensory needs that happened that way, Some of it's
executive functioning. Some of it when you've been built into
a system that wasn't designed for you, come up with
some pretty challenging beliefs about yourself and the shame, blaming
built and fear that show up as a result of those.
Also player role as people navigate day to day interactions.
How do you help people get past that? I mean,
this world it can definitely be overwhelming to some people.
So when they get to that breaking point, when they
are completely overwhelmed, facing a possible meltdown or extreme anxiety,
what are the steps you use to help them get
that under control?
Yeah, so the control there is an interesting word, I
would say, how to be more resilience, which is a
little bit different in that the world is challenging and
it's not designed for us. It's not designed for these
individuals with this, Okay, So their meltdowns, the intensity of
the duration, the frequency, the level of anxiety, the frequency,
the duration, that is what we're trying to play with
is to narrow that gap as much as possible so
that way they can have as much joy as they
have access to.
And it's not easy.
It's a lot of work, but some of the little
things really do make a difference. A lot of people
go out there and like, oh, if I do all
this stuff, I'll be enough to feel different. But sometimes
doing more is actually what beats or exacerbates some of
the symptoms that people are having. So sometimes we're looking at, well,
what are you doing that already works, and how can
we do a more of that in an effective way?
And a lot of our interventions seem to be like
really general interventions for people with mental health, like go
for a walk, you know, take down time.
And it's like, sure, but how much would I have
to walk?
And whether I ever really get rid of my anxiety?
Probably not?
No, So what works for you that actually does make
you feel better? What made yesterday better than the day before?
Okay? Can we spend more time doing that?
And so coaching is an outcome based process where it's
not prescriptive. It's actually an experience that people go through
with that person in front of them, And so every
single person is different.
What works for them doesn't work for everybody.
Now you're part of the National Board for a Health
and Wellness correct that is correct? Yes, okay, can you
give us a little information on what it takes to
get certified by that board?
Yeah, So to be able.
To do what I do, there's certification process for that.
There's a the same governing board that makes people sit
for the medical exam certification. It is not the same exam,
completely different, but similar at governing bodies. And so they
wanted a way to actually get people to be a
standard of care that's appropriate that makes it across that
and they've been working pretty hard for the last few
years to kind of create that. And it is about
health and well being. So it's about maintaining health and fitness,
but also mental and emotional well being because those are,
in their view, intertwined. There's no way to really tease
them out from each other. And coaching is more of
what they're focused on. So how do we elicit that
response and make it easier for people to begin that process?
So it involves a lot of motivational interviewing, appreciative inquiry.
You just have to study and take a test, and
then you have to spend quite a few hours working
with people for them to feel comfortable enough creating that
designation and applying to people.
Okay, that makes sense. Now when a person comes to you,
what is the criteria for you to evaluate and then
come up with a plan that ultimately will help them
moving forward?
Yeah, great question.
So everybody's different, everybody's unique, and so trying to figure
out what's the best benefit with the least cost for
them is a lot of.
What the work is that we do.
I talk about the A three framework, which is assessment,
accommodation and alignment, and that isssessment is we borrow sensory
intelligence consulting, which is a doctor of occupational therapy a
Marie Lombard. She has a sensory intelligence consulting where it's
taking people through an assessment. What are all your different
sensory profiles as a low threshold, high threshold or your
sensory seeking or sensory avoiding and which one across?
Which one?
Because some people love the stibular stimulation, they love being
able to feel themselves in space, but then lights or
sounds or noises are too much, and so trying to
make sure we know that and then figure out how
to accommodate it no matter where you are, who you're with,
or what you're trying to do, and then if we
can design your work around you. But that's just one aspect,
right we talk a little bit about other ones.
Can you give me a scenario where you met with
a person your first initial response to yourself was this
isn't going to work. You kind of think, I don't
know if they have the right whatever it takes to
get to the other side of this problem. Then you
just chipped away and chipped away, and finally it worked
out way better than you had anticipated.
So my favorite one with Sensory's stories is there's an
individual I was working with. She works in an office,
and she would have intense anxiety around her feedback that
she would get from time for feedback.
Okay, performance reviews.
Here we go, and it would be really not fun
leading up to it and then really challenging after it
and going through.
The whole process.
We worked through a lot of that. Is this about performance?
Is this about you know, my limiting beliefs? Is this
about you know, having too much coffee and out of
food at that time? What's going on around this, like
how can we help make it easier to be you
in these moments? And then we talked a little bit
about okay, well there's a relationship between you and your supervisor.
What does that feel like?
Does it feel constructive outside of those feedback meetings or
does this feel like you know, a personal attack or
interpersonal conflict here that's going on.
None of that came up. All of that checked out.
I mean, it can always be better.
You cad always sleep more, you can always be better fed,
you can always be better extraly that sure, right, But
they didn't seem to be the outliers, so we're always
looking for that outlier. So what was like interesting to
me is like, oh, okay, my pockets are empty on
this one. I'm like patching my nog. I'm like, what
do we do with a bag of tricks? Is getting
pretty low. But there was just a simple suggestion like, hey,
would your supervisor be open to having your feedback meetings
in a different environment because where they were meeting was
one wall bank of windows on the office building shining
in bright sun.
And then it was like that.
Fishbowl conference room where it's glass all the way around
on the other sides and so open office glass, them
sitting across from each other, kind of that antagonistic with
the sun coming in, and when they would talk, the
voices would echo and reverberate off of that room.
So they went for a walk. They had feedback.
They were side by side, they'd walk around the building
that have those conversations. They went from having a fairly
antagonistic relationship to now they go out for drinks after
work together, they call each other on the weekends. They
actually have an inner personal relationship that's professional but still
valuable for both of them. It turns out that this
sound that was reverberating off of there was triggering their
sensory threshold and they were just getting into a hypervigilant
state and couldn't relax that in getting feedback. No one
likes getting feedback. You're always nervous a little bit, right.
Well, that's actually pretty amazing. Now, how deep do you
dive when you start looking at people's issues that they're
going through. Do you look at their medications, do you
look at what their personal life may be, what their
social life looks like. How deep do you go to
figure out what's actually going on in their lives.
Yeah, as deep as we need to and as wide
as we need to.
Right.
So, I work with a lot of other professionals, and
most people that I work with have a team that
they're working with already. So whether that's a personal trainer, psychiatrist, therapist,
the goal is for us to be able to help
them as best as possible, and so making sure that
they've done all of their due diligence, and then I'm
really there to try to fill in the gaps and
partner with them to try to figure out.
Well, what else haven't we looked at yet?
That might be you know, some low lying fruit still
or some new territory that needs to be explored.
So where do you go when you have a problem
you actually find a solution, yet there seems to be
a small hiccup that still is there. How do you
dig deep enough to find out what's going on? Because
there's just so many things that ultimately can go wrong
in a person's day to day life. It could be business,
it could be personal. It could be that they're autistic,
or they have anxiety or serious mental illness. You can
name any label that you want to put to it.
Every different scenario is unique to itself and can have
a different complication. How do you find out what it
is that fits that particular narrative so that you can
work with these people and they can move forward with
their life.
Yeah, it's a great question. I'm lucky enough that most
of the work I use can find around burnout. So
there's this idea of workplace well being as the general scope,
and so we're working in that, so we have a
finite outcome where we go, Okay, we're trying to make
this easier to be you when you're at working at home. Okay,
one obviously if the other and vice versa. And so
because we have that frame, it kind of shapes how
we kind of go through that, and so it makes
it a little bit easier to get some real work
done because we're not taking everything that it could be
forever because that's overwhelming. We're trying to shrink it down
to a place where it's really actionable.
And here in the.
West, so much of who we are as a person
is defined and reciprocated by the type of work that
we do.
That a lot of.
You know, it's almost like a like a proving ground
where a lot of our things show up in that environment,
and if we can handle them on that smaller scale
and do something that helps there, it does trickle over
into those other areas of life.
But if we try to do.
Everything all the time, Oh, I don't know, you know,
I don't know if I could do it.
Yeah, I get that. Are you the only one in
your office or do you have others that you work
with as well?
So I do a lot of cross referrals, So I
have people that I prefer, partners that I work with
that have their own specialties. So if someone's got some
other stuff that's way outside of the scope that we
want to make sure they're getting the support rolodex and
you know, I send them some options.
In my clinic, it's just me.
And then most of the work that I do is
actually similar to how we're talking now where it's over zoom.
So I have clients that are in Bangkok and another
one tomorrow that's in the UK, and so it really
is pretty fascinating to be able to work with people all.
Over that's very interesting. I'm actually glad you brought it up.
I work with people all around the world with my podcast. Yeah,
what do you find the differences that you do in
the different parts of the world, and then how do
you address it.
So the individuals that I work with that are in
these far fun places have a history of being from
here in the States. So culturally it's pretty similar. The
added difference there is they're taking that culture to that
different area and sometimes there's extra friction there for them
that they wouldn't have experienced here in the States. Sometimes
that's better because it's easier of a culture for them
to lead into.
Sometimes it's more challenging.
Yeah, so how do you handle that? Culture shock can
be just as dramatic as any kind of shock, So
how do you dig and find out what they can
do to help them get through whatever might be happening
because of the culture differences.
Yeah, just thinking about a client that ended up working
in Japan for an extended period of time their remote
first company, and the reason why they went to Japan
is because walking around there is much more motivating and
restorative than it is in their own city. So what's
interesting is the culture shock there for them wasn't a shock.
It was like it wasn't like a cold shower, It
was like a warm bath for them. It was actually
relaxing for it and the formalness of the individuals and
kind of that, like, I guess, more quieter, like professional
kind of demeanor where people are walking around the streets
versus here sometimes in the States it's very interpersonal and
personable like hey, how's it going, and you know that
was too much for them versus being out in public
in Japan. It was very different experience for them, so
they actually enjoyed that. It was fun for them.
Yeah.
Yes, I know a few people that have moved and
lived over in Japan and they say that they love
it there. So with everything that we've talked about, what
do you look at as your biggest challenge? You've built
a successful practice, You're making a real difference in people's lives.
What journey brought you here? Can you share an extremely
challenging job that you had one way you realize this
isn't for me, I need to move on. How did
that experience push you to pivot and ultimately find your
way to the.
Work that you are doing now?
Do you have anything that comes to mind that really
challenged you and really pushed you to the point of
where you finally left it and moved on.
Yeah, So my least favorite.
I've had a lot of jobs, right, I've got a
lot of jobs. My least favorite job was working at
a pool where I was the pool attendant.
I wasn't a lifeguard.
They did have a slide, but it was at a
hotel that was kind of like a rest stop on
the way between La Disneyland and Las Vegas, and.
No one came to those pool.
It was my job to be there all day, every
day making sure that if everybody did get on the
slide they were safe. No one ever came on the slide,
so it was just me by myself all day. That
was the most unsufferable job I have ever had. If
you paid me, you would not be able to pay
me to do that job now, no matter what the
money is, because it was so mind numbingly board I
could not do it.
So do you have people that come into you now
that have those type of jobs that you have to
walk them through it and help them through it. This
way they can still, unfortunately stay at the job that
they do not like. Yet it puts food on the table.
Absolutely. Yeah.
If you have to quit to get better, that is
there's so few people.
That actually have the luxury of being able to afford
to be able to do that.
Most people here in the States, you know, to live
in paycheck to paycheck, maybe three paychecks, right, So if
you have to quit to be okay, that's not a
real viable option for for most people.
If you have the.
Duel income household, maybe you can swing it a little
bit and you can kind of take turns on that,
but even then it's really challenging. So trying to figure
out how we can add as much support as possible
to that person, insulate them against the worst aspects of
the things that mind numb them, that overwhelm them, that
keep them stuck. That's really the name of the game
for most people.
Yes, that is so true.
Now you say that you've worked with several autistic people,
how do you approach that. It's a completely different scenario
than some of these other situations like bipolar or anxiety.
You can't just give them a pill. You can't just
say here, take this pill, call me in the morning. Yeah,
how do you handle those situations?
Yeah? So I don't prescribe medication.
It's not my job, so right, Yeah, and so my
job is to stay really curious. If you've met one
person who has autism. You've met one autistic person, how
it shows up for them, what it does for them
completely different than the next person. The experience is they've
gone through, and what it means for them and the
environment they're in, and so getting really curious and getting
really excited and interested. Yeah, asked about the cupcake on
the table type of job, and this is one of them.
But for me, it feels like that because I really
enjoy getting to know people and their stories and where
they're at. And the excitement for me is about understanding
where they are, what helps, what hurts, and what might
actually be healing for them to go through and experience,
and then helping them to facilitate that in their own
life through a partnership. It's not easy to do, but
it's super fun when it works.
That's awesome. Now you enjoy what you do, and that's
helping people luckily.
Yeah.
With that said, there's a flip side to that too.
Sometimes you can get so entrenched with that person that's
having problems. Sure, they're not taking your advice, they're continuing
to have problems. Meanwhile you're worried about them. How do
you handle that?
Yeah, So in therapeutic settings, that comes up a lot, right,
So you have to make sure you have your own
support system. You have to make sure that you have
your own therapist and your own team that helps supports
you through that process. And you have to have people
to bounce ideas off of that are kind of trusted
so that way you don't get overwhelmed, so you don't
kind of get all absorbed in it, and you'll be
able to have your own ways of stepping away and
turning that part of your brain into something else. So
for me right now, it's rock climbing, which has been
pretty fun to be able to go out and kind
of get in my body and do.
Something like that.
But there's times where, you know, dusting the books off
of my shelf and reorganizing my bookshelves right or trying,
you know, watching one of my.
Favorite movies over again.
But being able to take those little things and add
them into your day as part of it, you know.
So yeah, that totally makes sense on relaxing for yourself.
If you don't take care of yourself, no one else will.
So how wide a spectrum do you see in people?
And I'm not talking about just autism, I mean you
can have autism, PTSD, anxiety, ADHD, schizophrenia. There's just so
many different things. Do you see that wide a spectrum
or is it a little more narrow.
Yeah.
So the people that I typically work with were working
on burnout, So because of that, it's focused about work
and vocational work focused. I always say, I work with
like high achieving, high masking people. So they may not
have autism or ADHD, they might just have a high
performance anxiety. They may not have a clinical diagnosis, they
may not even actually meet the criteria for that, but
that doesn't mean that they don't have an experience that
they're suffering from mouths overwhelming toon the months that they're
challenged with.
Okay, have you had a situation like this? I'm going
to give you a scenario of a person that I
spoke with just the other day. I had a person
come on my podcast and he was going through bouts
of agoraphobia.
At times.
He said it was really scary and it got very
very intense, sometimes to the point and level of destroying
things because he was feeling the intensity from the outside
pressure that affected him. They finally did get him well,
he called himself cured, but not really cured, it was
completely under control. How would have you handle something like that?
Yeah, I would definitely call one of my colleagues that
specializes in anxiety to the point that that would be
their specialty. That's not something that I would necessarily be
the primary care provider in or the support system with
a That would be something that I would want to
make sure that they have that support and that they
have that treated and under control. And now that they're there, okay,
great that when we have this new capacity, Okay, what
are we doing with it? And how can we maintain
that new capacity as we take on new challenges in
our life. That's typically where I would show up in
that process.
Okay, So you kind of remind me, and I'm going
to give you analogy that's going to sound kind of stupid. Yeah,
when people are on cholesterol medications like a statin and
it's not working exactly the way they want it to,
the doc will give this little pill, this a booster.
It's not a statin, but it helps the stat and
do the work to get where they need to be.
So you are kind of like the booster that helps people.
I love it. I'm a booster. Yeah. Hey, if I'm
helping boost people out. I'll take it, you.
Know, absolutely.
The main thing is that the people get help that
they need so they can live a fulfilling life. Now,
what do you think is very important that our audience
should know and hear about the impactful work you've been doing,
your ongoing efforts, and your future plans to support and
uplift those that need help.
Yeah.
I think here in the States, you know, we have
a pretty strong culture of like productivity and worth being synonymous,
and so we end up prioritizing this output from ourselves
and the titles and the ideas and the things that
we can show for all that effort as proof that
we are worth something. And I think we've got a
long history of that for really good reasons here. But
I don't think that that's actually true. I think it's
a a myth that we've all been led to believe.
And so a lot of the work that I'm excited
to be able to do, and the message that I
want to be able to share with people is that
like lasting success, like happiness if you want to call
it that, or sustainable success, where it's like positive affect
throughout your day isn't built through the expense of your
will being. It's actually built through your will being. So
for sacrificing that to get some outcome, we already got
the equation backwards. We're purtting ourselves in harm's way, and
so making sure that that's a message that people have
access to, and then the idea that like, oh, if
I'm not producing, that doesn't mean I have to shame,
blame or guilt myself. I can understand that, like, maybe
that isn't tied to my identity. I can be a
person without being this and making sure that we can
go a little step further and paging that message out
to people.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Now let me ask you this, what you just said
sounds really good on paper.
Yeah, it does. Well.
It's kind of like you read a book that tells
you how to put something together, and it says, oh,
put a into B looks simple, sounds simple. Then you
try and do it and it's like, man, this is
not that easy. How do you get it across to
people when sometimes you look at them and then you
tell them you've got your priorities upside down. They're looking
at their job, they're looking at their money, they're looking
at their financial future. Meanwhile, they're sacrificing their potential happiness
because of their job. So how do you get that
to a point where it can all balance out and
people can be better?
Yeah.
Usually when people show up, they're aware that something needs
to change. They may not know exactly what, and neither
do I, right, but through that work it kind of
shows up that way. I know for my own personal story,
I was there, burned out, overwhelmed, back paying, neck pain,
chronic workout, long shifts, doing really good on paper. Teams
seem to like me. I liked them, you know, whether
they liked to be or not.
I was their boss.
You know, they laughed at my jokes, whatever. But I
enjoyed being there with them. But man, some days my
dog wasn't as cute. Some days my relationship was more
challenging than the other days. And it was pretty challenging
for a long time. But I thought everything was okay
because I was doing what you're supposed to.
Do, right.
But I was going through that at the same time
that one of my colleagues so I looked up to
at the time, was suddenly let go from the organization
where after twenty years of working there, and it was
about two weeks later when I was sitting in a
meeting with his replacement and we got word that that
gentleman decided that he'd given so much of himself to
the company for so long that there wasn't enough left
in his own life to keep investig in it. So
that news kind of shook me up. It goes, hey,
you're on this path, you're going in this direction, and
that's one of the potential outcomes, and you're already feeling
the signs of aches and pains. So how much further
ready go here before we figure something out. I hope
all of my clients don't have to ever go down
that road, right, and anything and everything we can do
to help prevent that, to reverse it and give them
as much as they can get back in their own life.
That's the goal.
Not easy, though, It's definitely not easy, No, that's for sure.
It's a constant battle. Hopefully they can win it. Well,
this has been really good, great conversation, great information. I
really appreciate you taking the time to join us today.
Thanks for having me on.
I really glad to be able to talk about these things.
Yes, it's been great. Thanks again, thanks for taking time
out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today.
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