Summary: Today’s episode is with Tofe Evans, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Has-Plan-until-Hits-ebook/dp/B07B3YPND6/&tag=author-hour20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Everyone Has a Plan Until Shit Hits the Fan</a>. Shit can happen to anyone, whether it’s a life-threatening situation, a death in the family or a business gone bust. In this episode, Tofe will give you the tools to mentally prepare yourself to weather any storm. And Tofe should know: the endurance career he embarked on literally saved his life. He believes in rising above your personal turmoil by conquering your own mind.<br> By the end of this episode, you’ll be better prepared for whatever life throws at you.<br> <br> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Has-Plan-until-Hits-ebook/dp/B07B3YPND6/&tag=author-hour20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a>Get Tofe’s new book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Has-Plan-until-Hits-ebook/dp/B07B3YPND6/&tag=author-hour20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Everyone Has a Plan Until Shit Hits the Fan</a> on Amazon.<br> Find out more at <a href="http://tofe-evans.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tofe-Evans.com</a>.<br> <br> Tofe Evans: This started about four years ago. I was struggling really badly with like depression and anxiety. The thing was, I was never that kind of person.<br> Throughout 2014, I came throughout a bunch of setbacks with relationships, with friendships, with business stuff going on, with finances. It was just a conglomerate of things.<br> It ended up becoming too much for me.<br> I wasn’t diagnosed with depression or anxiety or anything like that. It became like a tidal wave and it just kind of took over me. When I look at it now, the incidents, everything that led up to that really heavy point, they’re not even that bad. It’s just what I did with my thinking. It just felt like I just didn’t see the point in it.<br> There’s 7.6 billion people, however many people there were at the time, and I realized I probably don’t even need to be here.<br> It really did just become too much and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was coping with it with hard drugs and alcohol and self-harm and prescribed medication. I was seeing different doctors around the world, and I didn’t know how to fix it.<br> <br> Discovering Mental Health<br> Tofe Evans: As a male, I was essentially masking. I didn’t like who I was as a person anymore, so I thought, I would just write myself off.<br> Looking at it now, it was probably like when you put Mentos in a coke bottle.<br> That was me. A volcano, it’s going to erupt any second. It’s very chaotic for everyone around you. I was living in an egocentric paradigm, thinking I had it worse than everyone else.<br> <br> Depression is kind of like you’re living too far in the past and anxiety’s being too far in the future.<br> <br> When they’re working together, it’s a pretty terrible feeling.<br> I remember Googling ways to kill myself and like I can attest to this, I don’t know of the exact same sites are up. Some of the sites are like big, bold letters going, “PLEASE DO NOT GO THROUGH WITH THIS.” I can’t even touch the screen anyway because it’s just saturated with tears. I thought these moments only ever happened to rock stars, but it’s actually very prevalent in the world.<br> There is so much stigma attached to it that, at the time, I had no idea what mental health was.<br> Shifting Focus<br> Charlie Hoehn: What is the stigma like in Australia?<br> Tofe Evans: Yeah, it’s actually just as strong. For me, it’s slowly becoming a bit of a household name, trying to make more awareness.<br> In the mining industry, it is Insane. I think the stats are like 20 men commit suicide a week.<br> With mental illness in men, they don’t want to open up.<br> It’s like it’s been passed down like folklore. Don’t do it, don’t cry, all this kind of stuff.<br>
