Work Besties Who Podcast
Building a bold community of work besties 💼👯♀️ to bond 🤝💞, banter 😂🎉, and bloom 🌸✨
🎙️ Listen to the Work Besties Who Podcast: where workplace friendships get real! From tea spills to relatable laughs, we’re unpacking everything about work life's ups, downs, and unforgettable moments.
✨ Join us for candid chats, relatable stories, and a sprinkle of chaos—because what’s work without a little drama and a lot of fun?
💼😄 Hit play, and let’s dive into the messy magic of workplace connections together!
Work Besties:-)
Work Besties Who Podcast
Finding Hope : Power of Starting Over with Gretchen Schoser
EP 61: Finding Hope — The Power of Starting Over with Gretchen Schoser
What if your greatest breakdown became the foundation for your most powerful breakthrough?
This week, we’re joined by Gretchen Schoser — suicide survivor, mental health advocate, and co-host of the award-winning podcast Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads — for a raw and deeply inspiring conversation about resilience, healing, and the messy beauty of starting over.
At 61, Gretchen launched a new career and a new company, blending technical know-how with lived experience to support others in their mental health journey. In this episode, she gets real about the signs we often ignore (in ourselves and others), why laughter can be just as therapeutic as therapy, and how storytelling helps us feel less alone.
Whether you’ve faced your own battles or want to show up better for someone who has, this episode reminds us:
✨ It’s never too late to rewrite your story
✨ Self-care is a survival tool — not a luxury
✨ Owning your reality is where healing begins
🔑 Topics include:
• Recognizing signs of mental health struggles
• Setting boundaries and prioritizing self-care
• Podcasting as a path to healing
• Reinventing life after 60
• Why finding joy is an act of resilience
You can watch the full episode on Youtube
Follow us on IG , TikTok, Threads and LinkedIn
Please rate, comment and provide suggestions for upcoming episodes
Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband
They say it's never too late to start over, but what does that really look like? Today? We're joined by Gretchen mental health advocate, podcast host and tech founder, who proves that resilience doesn't retire. So, as you listen, ask yourself what story about your life or your limits are you ready to rewrite? And stay with us to the very end, because Gretchen will answer the one thing you can do today to start again, no matter what age, no matter what you survive.
Claude:Hi. I'm Claude and I'm Jess. We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night and work besties for life.
Jess:Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos and thrive together in every industry. Work besties.
Gretchen Schoser:Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Claude:We are so excited to have you as well. Thank you so much. I mean, your biography is incredible and so inspiring. You have shared your journey as a suicide attempt survivor, and it is incredible to really say it out loud right, it's such a courage. Can you take us back to a moment that really redefined what resilience really means to you and what came next?
Gretchen Schoser:Well, for me it was the day after my suicide attempt. I'm a true extrovert and an empath, so nobody knew how depressed I was, not even my wife. We'd been together 28 years at that point and I opened up onto social media and let people know what was going on with me, because these were people that I would show up to work every day, smiling and making sure everybody else was laughing except for me. And as soon as I did that, I had about 200 people reach back out to me and say thank you, because now they didn't feel so terrified and alone in their own journey. But they were also terrified, right, because they had no idea how depressed I was.
Gretchen Schoser:If you're an extrovert out there and you have that mask on, take it off, because the only person you end up hurting is yourself. And so for me, my resilience was I started therapy right away and I just started to put one foot back in front of another and dug into therapy and I knew I wanted to live. There was that small glimmer of hope that something was going to get better, and it did, but it came in like an avalanche form, not in a little trickle.
Claude:I love when you say for whoever the extrovert, take off your mask. How do you do that? Do you confide?
Gretchen Schoser:to someone. Yeah, that's one way, like if you don't have somebody that you would call a good friend or a spouse or you didn't feel comfortable opening up to you know somebody in your inner circle. There are crisis hotlines across the world and if you live in an area other than the US or Canada, you can go out to the helphubco and that lists out all the crisis lines across the world. At least talk to one person, at least let somebody know that you're not okay, because when we sock away all that pain and that hurt into our belly, we don't give anybody the opportunity to help us make it to that next minute, that next hour, the next day, and it's kind of like vice versa, right? So if you have, if you're a friend to somebody who's an extrovert and you're not sure how to dig it out of them, ask us a question that we actually have to answer.
Gretchen Schoser:Don't ask us like, hey, how's the day going? Because my typical response was, oh, I'm living the dream, like everything's good. Ask a question hey, how's your mental health today? Or check in on them via text. Everybody loves a good text. Maybe send a funny meme that would drag it out of them to like laugh, but it works both ways. So we not only have to open up, but people have to notice signs, and I think that for me, that's what people missed is they missed the signs.
Jess:I was going to ask you what were some signs that people did miss with you? Or now that you've become involved in it, are you seeing as signs that are kind of more universal?
Gretchen Schoser:Funny you say that. So I just finished my third draft of my book, right? And if you ever want to learn about yourself, write a book. So, like, a few things were like I started to just check out. I didn't want to go to parties, I didn't want to hang out with people, all I wanted to do was sit in my recliner and color. I got super disengaged with work Around. The same time I had been offered an early retirement and like they had taken away all my duties. So I was sitting around work for like eight hours a day doing nothing.
Gretchen Schoser:So if you've ever been in a career and something that you really, really love and it's being taken away from you and then all of a sudden you find out you have nothing to do, it makes you feel worthless, right Like so I would like just check out. I'd like surf the web all day, doom scrolling stuff that you shouldn't do. And then the final thing was and people should have picked up on this when we went to New York City a couple weeks before I attempted suicide, I got super drunk, like super, super drunk, so uncharacteristic for me. I got so drunk I lost my cell phone in New York City. I fell and broke my nose in the hotel room and then had to go get a brand new thousand dollar phone. And if you've ever lost your phone, right despite if you're drunk or not, it's very heart-wrenching because I was thinking to myself I'm not going to be able to log into work now because of authentication and all that. Nobody put two and two together. They just thought I was having a good time, but I was slowly.
Claude:It was a cry for help.
Gretchen Schoser:It was a cry for help that I didn't realize that I needed At the time. I was 59 and a half, so in my generation we've all been taught not to talk about our mental health. Kind of suck it up and move along your day, and that's exactly what I did. I also didn't realize what was going on inside me. I just wanted to check out.
Claude:I was done because a lot had happened between September and December in 2022. It is important for us, especially with a friend or extrovert, to check and really look at their mental health, because they might hide it.
Gretchen Schoser:We are masters at it, okay, not a badge of honor. When you approach people, just be kind. Especially right now, the world is literally on fire, literally. So if you're not sure how, what somebody else's mental health statuses, just be nice. It costs absolutely nothing to be nice. If you don't have anything nice to say, walk away, because that can really hurt somebody.
Claude:We always say right, be nice, because you never know what someone is going through.
Gretchen Schoser:It's so true For me. I would show up to meetings and be laughing and smiling and cracking jokes and helping everybody else out. What I didn't do is I didn't take care of me. And you know how they say self-love and self-care are the buzzwords, but they are not buzzwords. If you are not taking care of yourself, there's absolutely no way you can help anybody else.
Jess:Gretchen, I get being extroverted and really trying to take on that persona at work, but at home that's kind of your place, right. So do you still do that? Were you still doing that there?
Gretchen Schoser:To give you a little bit of context of what happened. Those couple of months before everything happened, my wife had shingles and she was down for eight weeks. So if you've ever been around anybody that has shingles, you know how devastating that is. During that time I hit and killed a deer and then I got catfish. Thankfully I woke up from the depression dream long enough to make sure I didn't end up spending any money. Then we had a good friend of ours pass away unexpectedly. My father-in-law passed away two days before Thanksgiving, throw in some seasonal depression and some holiday depression. So I'm absorbing everybody else's pain but still showing up with a smile on my face every day because that's what people needed.
Claude:So you were taking care of others instead of really taking care of yourself that you needed at this point, or even someone to take care of you.
Gretchen Schoser:you know it was just a whole lot of things that happened in a really short period of time. Yeah, that is a lot.
Jess:Thank you for sharing all of that. You're welcome I think there's helping to just ask those questions, regardless if you're somebody close or not, and helping to tease that out of somebody is so important and I know you've now become very active in it in and of yourself. Would you mind sharing some of that and how you became an advocate?
Gretchen Schoser:been friends for like seven years. Every day, after everything went down, we would call each other and laugh, and we would laugh about things you should never, ever, ever, ever laugh about. But here's the thing about laughter it really. It breaks up your cortisol, it increases your serotonin, gets your endorphins going. So no matter how crappy the day was going to be, we could always go back to that conversation and laugh and we did Mm-hmm. We left at stuff that I'm sure we're going to go to hell for. I'm almost positive. But like it just helped change the trajectory of the day. And so it was during one of those phone calls. It was in the middle of the day and she was asking me what somebody was doing. I was like I don't know and we started talking about squirrels and a whole bunch of like crazy stuff. And it was after that conversation because we had laughed for like 40 minutes I had tears in my eyes. She's like let's do a podcast. And I was like, okay, we'll do a podcast. We thought we would do like three episodes and be done, joke's on us.
Gretchen Schoser:But we wanted to start a podcast where we can normalize how we talk about mental health Because, like I said, everybody that knew me was terrified that they didn't see the signs. They didn't understand how I could go from 10 to a zero and not have anybody know. Every time we share our journeys, we unlock somebody else's prison, because here in the United States we have mental health crises like every single day. We don't have the infrastructure to really help those that need it. Some people don't have insurance and can't get into C-therapy. Some people have devised new techniques that aren't sanctioned anyplace else, and then there's also, like websites that we even gave out, like two years ago, that are no longer available. So having people come onto the podcast and share those insights and those tips and tricks really helps people feel seen and feel heard. We unlock their prison and now they're not so alone in what they're going through, and so that was one of the first things that we did.
Gretchen Schoser:I wanted to write a book about my experience. I just finished my third draft. I'm super happy with it, getting ready to chug through and finish it, but I want people to see me as a story of hope, because, even though I was so depressed and so horribly checked out, I'm a story of hope because I didn't give up and I refuse to give up. I refused to stop moving forward because life keeps throwing these amazing opportunities into my lap and I keep showing up, and I think that's what part of my resilience is, that I keep showing up, but I show up a little bit different now than I did back in the day.
Gretchen Schoser:The first thing my therapist taught me was boundaries. If you have not set boundaries yet, please set your boundaries. They are life-changing. The power of no is an amazing feeling. And then the other thing they taught me is how to put my shields up, because I am an empath. So instead of being everybody's come and suck the life out of me, now I get to pick and choose who gets to suck the life out of me, and that's really important for everybody. Even if you're not an empath, learn when to put up your shields, because you need to reflect some of that energy back on yourself and take care of your inner child.
Gretchen Schoser:I also figured out it's okay to play. I'm going to be 62 next month. I still play. Playing is good. It's good for my heart. It's good to play. I am going to be 62 next month. I still play. Playing is good. It's good for my heart. It's good for my soul. Those three things really helped push me through and my co-host, dirty Skittles. We are still the best of friends. I still call her every morning, we laugh about things she should never, ever, ever laugh about. And what's hard is like she still works. Works there and I have since opened up my own company, so my free time is a little bit more than what hers is, but I still can make her laugh and I think that's crucial.
Claude:Definitely. You just say in the same sentence next month is I'm 62 and I just opened my own company. Can you a bit like let us know a bit about that, Because a lot of times we think 62, that's it, I'm retired. So it's really having new beginning and it's never too late.
Gretchen Schoser:It's never too late. So here's what happened. After I retired, I got really bored and decided to go work for a small consulting firm, and that's exactly what I wanted. I didn't want to go back to a big business. I didn't want to work for 8 million people, so I wouldn't work for this company for until November of last year. And then in November that small consulting firm got picked up by, or acquired by, one of the top five consulting firms and immediately I was like no, this is not going to happen. We would be on camera and I would just have resting bitch face. I couldn't make it go away. Right? People are like you need to come off your camera. And I'm like I'm going to come off the camera and I'm going to come back on. It's going to be the same face. And I had gotten to the point where I wasn't going to compromise anymore. I wanted to do the things that made me happy and this time, when I got depressed, everybody knew I got in and hide it. I let everybody know around me that I was checked out and, like everybody, rallied around me. It was an amazing feeling.
Gretchen Schoser:We had gotten a couple of sponsors for the podcast, but this big consulting firm that was taking us over. They had like an independent clause, and so what that meant is that we couldn't do business with these sponsors because that company had done audits with them. And I was like, well, this is not going to work for me, because if it was just me, I'd be like, oh okay. But you know what? I had a co-host to think about, and then I'd had a couple of people approach me about my book and I really wanted to finish my book, and so I was like hemming and hawing about, like I just want to quit. I just wanted to quit. So like I didn't want to bring it up to my wife because like a few other things were going on. We celebrated our 30th anniversary a couple months ago, we were trying to plan a cool trip, so like I didn't want to broach the subject. But we're in New York City for Christmas and we were at dinner and she's like, hey, I know you really hate your job. You can quit. If you've ever felt like a weighted x-ray blanket, come off your shoulders. It was the best feeling in the world, but I still wanted to work. So we're flying home on the 22nd of December.
Gretchen Schoser:I forgot how long it takes to the isoplane, it takes like a couple hours, which was perfect for me. So I had my phone and I had my resume on my phone and I had ChatGPT. And I'm like so I fed my resume into ChatGPT, I said, based on my 45 years in corporate America and everything I've done with the podcast, help me form an independent consulting firm. Two minutes later it spit out pretty much everything I wanted to do, except for like the last two thirds no-transcript to work. On January 2nd I turned in my two weeks and people were like shocked. Honestly, remember my face? Remember the face? Do you not know how to read the room? And so, like it was like another moment of like where the you know the weight just got lifted off of me. And so I, that same day, I opened up my company and formed my LLC.
Gretchen Schoser:And on December, on January 22nd of this year, um went ahead and um opened my company for real and I just did it. And people are like, how did you do that? Aren't you ready to check out? And I'm like no, because I still have so much to offer the world and I'm truly a subject matter expert in my technical field and I have a lot of passion around the wellness field Because now more than ever, people need to feel like it's okay to talk about their mental health, not to be ashamed to talk about your mental health and to be okay with your mental messiness. I'm going to tell you, 98% of the people out there have some mental messiness going on and they may not want to talk about it, but the more we talk about it, the less stigma there is Totally, and it helps more people too, right, yeah?
Claude:And I know someone that you know know that should go to therapy but doesn't want because again, older generation, et cetera. And I'm like look, if you have a headache or you have the measles, you go and see a doctor, right. Why is the same thing? You know mental health is the same thing. You go and see you have a need. You go and see a doctor, right. Why is the same thing? You know mental health is the same thing. You go and see you have a need, you go and see someone. There's nothing to shame about it, it's funny.
Gretchen Schoser:I had to speed date my therapist, and that's a term that Dirty Skittles came up with. I had to go through three therapists before I found the one that worked. And, you know, person-to-person therapy may not work for everybody, which is cool, because there's 80,000 different types of therapies out there that will work for you. I also dabble in a little bit of art therapy. I, you know, do tapping, I do nature as therapy when it's not super cold or super hot outside, and I practice gratitude every day, like I will tell everybody I am so grateful to be alive every single day.
Claude:Yeah, it goes back again of your message of hope that you're like really the hope.
Gretchen Schoser:It wasn't easy. I shed a lot of tears, I lost a lot of friends because they don't like the new me. But you know what? I am not everybody's Matt anymore. Yeah right, I am my own Matt. So if mama's not happy, nobody's happy.
Jess:Right, right, and they weren't obviously providing back to you. So if they wanted to leave, that's probably the best. Hey, you know what.
Gretchen Schoser:I leave the door open, always a smidge, if they want to come back in.
Jess:I don't completely shut the door Going along the lines of the reinvention and you starting your business which congratulations, knowing that you did do this later in life. What do you want other people, especially kind of those women that are in that same age or any adults in the same age range, to know about starting over?
Gretchen Schoser:Just do it. Don't be afraid to start over, don't? It's not the first time I reinvented myself. It's the biggest time I reinvented myself. Don't be afraid to do it, because you're never going to know if it's going to work out unless you try it. I did write out my pros and cons list. You know I had a lot more pros than I had cons. For the first time in my life I don't have health insurance. I can't justify the cost.
Gretchen Schoser:I'm pretty careful about walking outside because here's what happens when you turn 60 plus like things don't heal like they used to, so you have to be extra careful. But be adventurous. Go find your joy. You know there's so many people out there in their twenties and thirties and forties that are out there chasing the money and chasing the dream. Don't chase any of that. Go chase your happiness, because at the end of the day, that's what's going to get you excited, to get up every morning. That's what's going to get you excited about working 10-hour days and not even realize that you're working 10-hour days. I do that a lot now. Find your passion. Go with lead, with your heart, because there's so many different things you can do out there in the world today that you don't need to work for a company to do it. You can work for yourself and still find the same joy, and that's what I do. Every day. I find a different joy in something I'm doing.
Claude:And what do you want other people, especially women and older people you know to know about?
Gretchen Schoser:starting over. Don't be afraid, because you can be a tiny bit afraid, but don't let fear hold you back. You know you've had all these years of doing life, living life. You've lived experiences. Lived experiences are huge, right. It's so much better than having a college degree in something. If you walk into a company and say, I've had these lived experiences, or if you create your own company based on your lived experiences, it's authentically yours. Nobody gets to steal that from you. Okay, the same thing goes for therapy.
Gretchen Schoser:How are you know it's not going to work? If you don't try, at least try. Right, if it fails, it fails, but at least you tried, and that's always been my why. If it doesn't work out, I can always try again. But that's what life is about. It's like finding those things in your life that bring you joy and that service your purpose and, I don't know, makes you get up and smile in the morning. I smile more now than I have in 20 years, and my wife even said that. She said that's the happiest she's seen me in 20 years, because I get to do this on my own. I'm not working for the man. I get to decide who I want to work with, when I want to work Like yesterday. I took a three-hour nap. It was perfect. You know.
Gretchen Schoser:I turned to the boss. I, perfect. I turned to the boss. I'm like, hey, can we take a three-hour nap? And the boss said sure, and so I did it. Sure, go ahead, but don't be afraid. Just get out there and make that list of things that you maybe have dabbled in in earlier years. Go back and put some focus on that. There's so many ways to make money now. But when you're making it, you're also smiling, Because how many other times have you gone to a corporate job and you sit in your chair and you're like God, is it five o'clock yet? And it's like two minutes after eight. Yeah, we've all been there.
Claude:Yes, or is it Friday yet and it's only Monday?
Jess:Yeah, gretchen you mentioned about your podcasting. It sounds like you got sponsorships from that too, so you are making some money off of that as well.
Gretchen Schoser:Crazy. Thing.
Jess:It's amazing. We know the challenges and hustle that it takes for podcasting, so we commend you on that. You kind of explained what inspired the podcast.
Gretchen Schoser:But I'm curious what's been some of the most surprising elements of having that podcast that's helped you with your healing process? Wow, what a great question so early on in the podcast. It was just Dirty Skittles and I and we started bringing on guests and as we brought on those guests, we got to heal along with our guests. You know, most people that we had talked to up until that point had shared their story with us over a microphone but had never shared it with anybody face-to-face, and so you know like I felt honored that they would come onto our show and talk to us about their mental health journey and things like that, and we're very willing to like share their resources and really wanted to get the message out there that there is help. You can still put one foot in front of the other.
Gretchen Schoser:But we had a guest and she was by far one of my favorite guests. It was our friend Bookie, also known as Liz, and she had end-stage breast cancer, terminal breast cancer, and when she came on, her episode was the most life-altering podcast I'd ever listened to, just because of her whole outlook about life. She didn't have a bucket list, she lived every moment to its fullest. She made sure that her kids and her family were taken care of. For us, you know, we went and got our wills done and took care of all that. It was just her outlook on life.
Gretchen Schoser:And she passed away a month after we our episode aired and it was heartbreaking, but I still refer back to that episode because of everything that she taught me.
Jess:It's touching, that's amazing. Wow, that's heavy. I mean, yeah, it's heavy, but it's kind of uplifting at the same time too.
Gretchen Schoser:It's heavy and we do talk about a lot of heavy, heavy topics on the podcast we record one Saturday a month and we record five to eight episodes one Saturday a month and because I'm in charge of the calendar, I get to make sure that it's not a bunch of heavy topics all on one Saturday because we have to go take care of our own mental health. It's super therapeutic for both of us. We call it our free therapy and you know we always inject some type of laughter into our episodes, even though we talk about some really heavy topics, because once again we go back to laughter. Laughter is a natural healer and it just really breaks up. You know that hard stuff and you know makes it feel real.
Claude:And for our listener, can you share the name of your podcast?
Gretchen Schoser:I sure can. So the name of our podcast is Shit that Goes On In Our Heads, and when you look it up it's got an exclamation point for the eye because apparently shit is still a bad word. Don't understand why Still trying to figure that out, and we are on every platform out there and how fun.
Claude:Do you have Dozie Drops?
Gretchen Schoser:So right now we are dropping one episode a week on Tuesdays. Starting mid-July we are going to drop two episodes a week. That's a lot. We have a huge backlog and I feel bad for our guests. And the other thing with us is we're fully booked with guests until June of 2026.
Jess:Congratulations.
Gretchen Schoser:It's insane.
Jess:Yeah, it's crazy. That's amazing, though. Congratulations. That's a good sign good sign that you'll continue to share those stories.
Gretchen Schoser:My little nuggets, the little nuggets that are out there Like, but for us, for me, like it's not work. It's my passion project and you know, my wife would always say to me she's like I've never seen you work so hard on something you don't get paid for. Well joke on her because we now do get paid, but like it has nothing to do with the money because the mission was never around making money for us. It's about sharing these stories and these journeys and helping the world heal.
Jess:Why do you believe that storytelling is so therapeutic for the mental health recovery?
Gretchen Schoser:I think that people, like even with when I was, you know, sitting up waiting to like take my life is that we feel so alone and terrified and sometimes we don't know how to open up. For me, I didn't know how to, I couldn't find my voice and I couldn't find my footing because I didn't understand what was going on inside of my head. By us sharing our stories, one little thing that we say may unlock something in somebody else's head. Being like this is exactly how I'm feeling and I can see how they were able to get from point A to point B. Maybe, since it worked for them, it'll work for me.
Gretchen Schoser:We have listeners from all over the world and in some cases, they may not know how to reach out to a crisis hotline, so we want to make sure that people have those resources. They may not have a close friend that lives nearby, so they don't know who to open up to. That's why you can contact a crisis line Because, like with the 988 crisis line here in the US and Canada, it's not just for suicide ideation, it's for any type of crisis, and those numbers are free and anonymous. And, you know, the lady that picked up the phone the day I called was the most compassionate lady I'd ever spoken to. So getting that information out to our listeners, letting them know it's okay to open up, even at 59 and a half, even at 62, it's okay to open up Like we are not we are not perfect humans right?
Gretchen Schoser:We all have messiness in our life that we don't know how to deal with, and the nice thing about podcasts is that they are not geographical based. We don't have any boundaries. We are listened to all over the world, just like you guys are. What may have worked for me here in the US may work for somebody in Germany, and that's why I think it's so important that we keep sharing our stories. We keep getting the message out there that it's okay to talk about your mental health and that there should be no shame and you're not weak, asking for help.
Claude:I really see this community that help each other and really take away the whole taboo about mental health. I mean, it is a huge without border community.
Gretchen Schoser:I've seen a huge shift, even in the last two years, especially on LinkedIn. You know companies are really starting to tune in and if you ever wonder why you're not making your bottom line, I don't know, maybe check in on your employees and make sure that their mental health is okay. They are a key factor to you being successful.
Jess:That's probably one that most companies are not even thinking of at all.
Gretchen Schoser:Not now, but that's part of my company's mission is to give them resources that can help them think about that that can help them think about that.
Claude:A lot of companies start to see that and start to give resources like women's resources, mental health resources, even sometimes having some classes during the day about burnout, stress and etc. It's starting. Still a lot of improvement are needed, but I think that, especially since COVID, it really triggered the whole message of mental health 100%.
Gretchen Schoser:I will tell you that during COVID I felt like I was in prison as an extrovert, you know. I couldn't talk to people, I couldn't touch people, I couldn't go outside For me. I still had a job to go to every day and had things to do. But I can't imagine somebody that was stuck at home with somebody that they didn't really love or were in an abusive situation and how that really affected their mental health. And thankfully now people are getting super in tune with their own feelings and opening up about it and not feeling shame, especially men. It's okay to ask for help. There is absolutely zero shame and if people are shaming you, then shame on them. You know, what?
Gretchen Schoser:Maybe like turn around and look at the mirror.
Claude:And I think it's. On the contrary, it's a strength right To be able to open up. On the contrary, it's a strength right to be able to open up. It's you really need to be strong to be able to do that.
Gretchen Schoser:And you have to be super vulnerable. I hope my voice and my story helps somebody make it through the next day or the next week or the next month. It's never too late to start over. There's no shame in asking for help and find your joy. That's what I do Every morning. I start with a 20-minute funny video. It's cats and goats. Lately I don't know what's wrong with me, maybe a few raccoons thrown in there. But I also end that with what I'm grateful for, and I've done that every day since January 20th and it's really helped my mental health.
Jess:I get up and do affirmations, but I feel like that's still in my mind what keeps me from sanity. But maybe I'll switch it up to some cat and goat video.
Gretchen Schoser:Maybe throw in a few baby raccoon videos, because you know they're cute and funny.
Jess:They are cute. They look like little burglars. They are, they're little hamburglars. I feel like your little synopsis right there was almost like the ending to a podcast right there. That was fantastic. I do think those are three mantras that everybody should be thinking about every day and incorporating into their life for sure. So what's one belief about mental health, age or resilience you wish more people would challenge?
Gretchen Schoser:It's never too late to start over. Not at all. You can start small, right? Maybe don't just up and quit your job, but start small. Start thinking about those things that you did back in your 20s and 30s that made you happy, and figure out ways that you can take that and turn it into a passion project. Go from that passion project and think about how you can help somebody with their mental health struggles. Part of that is being kind. You have no idea what a kind statement is to somebody who's really struggling. Even the same thing with a text. Just send them a funny text if you can get them out of their head. But make sure that you're sincere in what your intentions are and know that you are loved and you are wanted and needed in this world and that, no matter how hard things are today, they may not be as hard tomorrow.
Claude:That's so beautiful and I agree. Just sending a little heart text saying I know I'm here for you. You know you don't have to respond, but if you need me I'm here.
Gretchen Schoser:Yes.
Claude:Just from time to time, little hearts.
Gretchen Schoser:There's a great Simon Sinek video on YouTube. It's called Eight Minutes, yes, and it is one of my favorite clips ever. If you ever get reached out to by somebody who is depressed, give them that eight minutes. But when you listen, listen with your ears and not with your mouth, because a lot of times what we need is just somebody to listen to us and maybe not give us any verbal help, because sometimes those words are even more hurtful than the thoughts that are already going on in our heads.
Claude:I love about that eight minute where one of his friends reached out and he didn't understand that they needed the help. And now they have this code, this code. I need eight minutes. That means like help. I need you to call me.
Gretchen Schoser:And that's such a crucial thing and be fortunate that when people do reach out to you and say I need eight minutes, give them those eight minutes. You could save a life.
Jess:And be appreciative that they thought of you to call for that too, yeah, for sure. Something special about that bond and the trust and ability to be vulnerable. So, gretchen, this has been some really amazing content that you shared with us. I do have one final question for you what's that one thing someone can do today to start rewriting their story, no matter how old they are, or even what they've survived or where they are in their life?
Gretchen Schoser:Just start and never give up. You are the owner of your own reality and you don't know what that looks like until you start to open up and figure out what it is. But just start and don't give up on yourself, because the rest of the world's not going to give up on you either.
Claude:So beautiful. Gretchen, thank you so much from the bottom of our heart. It was so powerful and really it was incredible to really open up, like you are the statue of hope and it's so important for people to understand that and the importance of mental health. So thank you so much and to be so vulnerable and sharing your story with us and our audience. In the meantime Work Besties I hope you enjoyed as much as we did. You learned so much. Check up on your Work Besties. Make sure, on your friends, even your colleagues right, be nice. You never know what the other one is going through, and I think that is really a big lesson. We learned even more during this podcast. So, thank you so much and, if you loved it, make sure to also reach out and go listen to Gretchen's podcast and follow us. Listen to us and subscribe and see you next week. Thank you so much.
Gretchen Schoser:Thank you so much for having me.
Jess:Remember whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings or just sending that perfectly timed meme. Having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype squad.
Claude:So keep lifting. Each other laughing through the chaos, and of course, each other laughing through the chaos and, of course, thriving.
Jess:Until next time, stay positive stay productive and don't forget to keep supporting each other. Work besties.
