Stick Around - A Suicide Discussion

Clifford Bauman is an internationally known motivational speaker talking about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Mental Health and Suicide. As a survivor of an attempted suicide he realizes the importance of getting counseling and having a strong support structure. After being diagnosed with PTSD from 18 hours as a first responder to the Pentagon during the September 11, 2001 terror attack, he initially dealt with his condition on his own. Cliff saw that that was not working, and he sought treatment, which changed his life; he now believes that counseling has made him a stronger man and a stronger Soldier.

During our chat, Cliff recommended the following resources:

Jon Gossett recognized that there were too many people dying by suicide in his home town. This set him on a course of action. In February 2014, he founded the Life’s Worth Living Foundation to make a difference where he lived. The foundation has a three-fold mission to raise awareness, educate and prevent suicide. You'll be amazed at the amount of great things they are doing to make a difference! 

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since I last interviews Leslie Weirich! For those of you that are new to “Stick Around”, I interviewed Leslie last year on Suicide Awareness Day. As a recap: Leslie’s son died by suicide on Sept 10th, 5 years ago. He was a stand out student and college football player. Leslie has spent her time ever since spreading awareness through speaking engagements and working with others to prevent suicide.

Kara O'Daniel was born with Spina Bifida. Her family was told that she would never walk and would most likely have mental disabilities. But they never gave up and she miraculously started walking at age 5!

She underwent multiple various surgeries and in 6th grade was severely bullied causing her family to start a school for kids with special needs. Kara has really beat the odds by living independently and becoming a motivational speaker to help others get through tough challenges like bullying.

After struggling for the majority of her life with alcohol use, depression, an eating disorder, self-harm and surviving a suicide attempt, Ashley started a blog - GHOST IN MY BEDROOM - in order to keep herself accountable to her sobriety after failing so many times on her own. Needless to say, it worked! She never could have imagined the impact her 'cynical, not clinical' voice would have, not only helping her find herself, but thousands along the way.

Because of that vulnerability, Ashley has discovered her voice and purpose - to turn her mess into a message - and help others struggling with the same ghosts that once haunted her.

Melissa Rohlfs is a certified holistic health and life coach helping busy women break free from stress/emotional eating and sugar bingeing so they can feel calm, confident and in control. Around food. Around sugar. In stressful situations. In their bodies. In their life. She is committed to empowering women to break free from dieting, emotional eating and self-image issues so they can ditch the diet mentality, and feel empowered in their own skin. 

After her own tumultuous history with food {withholding and then later in life, bingeing}, she learned how to deal with the core issues around her broken relationship with food.  As a result, she felt called to go to school and learn to teach other women how to do the same.  She graduated from the Health Coach Institute as a Holistic Health and Life Coach in 2018 and is the proud owner of Free 2 B Coaching.  She is a proud Boilermaker alumna living in Tucson with her husband, Chad and two kiddos.

Todd Sylvester currently serves as a Mentor & Personal-Development Coach for those looking to get more out of life, and he also works at, what he calls the best University on the Planet, The Wasatch Recovery Treatment Center as a Belief System Counselor. Todd is the author of the popular book, “It’s Time To Start Living” and is featured in Simon Sinek’s book “Find Your Why”. During our chat, one of the most powerful tools he shared was what he calls the three R's to change one's self-image: Recognize, Refuse and Replace. Here are some links to find more inspiration from Todd:

Books Todd has written:

Tim is a Renowned Wall Street analyst that is taking on what could be considered society’s biggest problem today, divorce. The journey that led to him tackling such a significant issue was both personal and professional. After a successful career that eventually landed him on Wall Street Tim met what he thought was the girl of his dreams, only to see that relationship end with bitterness and anger. The journey included work with a marital therapist, and after he discovered the therapist wasn’t really helping decided to tackle the issue himself and has solved the marriage problem.

Jeff Marconette Jr, “the international Make Every Second Count speaker” is a transformational speaker, author, coach, a youth mentor and the host of Make Every Second Count Live on Facebook and YouTube, all from the sleepy town of Piqua, Ohio.  His life nearly ended at the young age of 17 while waiting to turn at a green light.  After 18 years of recovery, which he still continues today, he now sees why it is so important to Make Every Second Count, he stresses that point to everyone he works with because very few people ever get a second chance at life and he doesn’t want anyone to waste the one they get.  It's time for you to stop wasting time and learn how to Make Every Second Count.

Danielle Smason is a free spirit who loves to experience all life has to offer. She wants to bring a deep awareness to women of the potential reasons why they haven't found their answer to healing their emotional and physical pain. And also why they have found more love in their possessions, relationships and success rather than in themselves.

Danielle is a deep old soul who can read through people and bring a completely new awareness using the transformation process she’s created that awakens a woman’s radiance.

Sandahl Taylor is the spouse of an army veteran and mother to two beautiful children; one of which was diagnosed with ODD and SPMD. After her father suffered a heart attack in 2005 and surviving an abusive relationship, Sandahl found her knight in camouflage armor. She has spent the last 19 years advocating for heart and mental health awareness, which is her main focus in her beauty pageantry competition platform.

Johnson Chong is  the award-winning author of Sage Sapien: From Karma to Dharma. He was  the founder of Sagehouse in Singapore, a studio for yoga, pilates,  meditation and spiritual workshops and coaching. He is a native New  Yorker, and has lived on 3 continents, currently based in Sydney,  Australia. He specializes in helping people break free of their mental, emotional and spiritual roadblocks so they can live more aligned to their inner peace and joy versus their fears. Having worked with corporate professionals in various fields, he has a strong interest in working with members of the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized populations. He has also spoken and led workshops at companies like Unilever, Facebook, Nike, UBS, UOB and various other organizations.

Johnson is known as a bridge between ancient wisdom and direct modern  application. In his dynamic coaching style, he integrates the practical  and most useful parts of yogic wisdom, meditation, somatic movement,  energy medicine and shamanic journeying to help his clients breakthrough daily self-criticism and emotional overwhelm. The unique experiences  that Johnson curates offer a profoundly healing self-discovery  experience, followed by very practical and actionable steps to create the most powerful breakthroughs.

In this episode, Johnson shared some resources and links to how you can find him and the work he is a part of:

Ricardo is a serial entrepreneur with an educational background in Finance. He’s acquired knowledge in different fields from his business ventures in the influencer, fashion, and tattoo industries and a non-profit foundation for suicide prevention. Based on his experience in losing a brother to suicide, he learned that most people don't get sad or depressed because of their situation; it's because of their perspective.

He’s learned that a negative perspective evolves into anxiety, depression, drug abuse, etc., and eventually suicidal tendencies.

Heidi Vawdrey has been a registered nurse for 20 years, 17 years of which were in adult intensive care and the last three as an advanced practice  registered nurse working in family medicine.  In the ICU, she frequently cared for people who had survived overdose suicide attempts.  When she began her doctoral program at the University of Utah to study to become a  family nurse practitioner, it became apparent very quickly how much  mental health is deeply intertwined in physical health. 

Heidi has been volunteering with Healthy Riverton, a citizen led community committee, for nearly five years now, and one of their primary focuses is on suicide  prevention.  Through Healthy Riverton, she is a certified QPR instructor, a  nationally recognized suicide prevention curriculum.  In her private medical practice, she screens widely for mental health symptoms and unresolved trauma. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Utah in the College of Nursing, and educates her students on this approach as well.  She was never trained or particularly comfortable with having hard discussions about suicidal thoughts as a bedside nurse, and it's become such a pressing problem that it is part of her quest as a professor and provider to normalize this for the new generation of providers and give them the tools to handle it.

Some resources Heidi shared during our chat include the following:

GLOBALLY, ON AVERAGE, 1 MAN DIES BY SUICIDE EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY! 

Lark Dean Galley has recently felt called to help and serve those who struggle with their value and purpose. Having overcome immense personal challenges in her 55+ years of life, she has continued to grow in her empathy and compassion towards others. After working in the corporate world for 25 years, she left to run her father’s trucking company when he passed away unexpectedly from suicide after struggling with mental illness for most of his life. Realizing there were many entrepreneurs who could benefit from her experience, Lark started her own consulting business.

Her 19 year old son’s suicide in March 2019 reinforced what she’d been hearing from many of her high achieving clients – they felt unworthy and incapable of reaching their goals. Lark went from coaching on the externals to focusing on why each person matters. Her goal is to help 100,000 people choose to stay on this planet and step into their greatness. She has done this in a variety of capacities, but in each she has used the tools and lessons learned from her own struggles.

Mitch Strahlman is a Masters I/O Psychology Student and Health Research Assistant at the University of Texas at Arlington as well as a Volunteer Counselor at the Suicide Prevention Hotline. He graduated from Michigan State with his Bachelor’s in Supply Chain Management and minor in Economics in 2018. Then he worked in Supply Chain for two years, and went back to school full time this fall to pursue Psychology. His end goal is to research ways we can prevent and decrease the amount of suicides in the United States.

Christian Hampshire has been a supporter with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah for about 20 years. He is also a co-founder of “Band2Gther” which is a community of people striving to elevate mental health prosperity and overcome depression. Christian is an avid trail runner and has planned an upcoming run Rim to Rim of the Grand Canyon… 8 TIMES!! 

Felix Dey Grew up and went to college in Germany and received a degree in economics. He then came to Los Angeles, CA in early 2019 to start graduate school and graduated in 2020 with a Masters degree in Entrepreneurship & Innovation from the USC Marshall School of Business
Felix started doing stand up comedy in late 2019 and performed in comedy clubs such as The Comedy Store and Hollywood Improv (now doing Zoom shows). He also hosts a podcast series “The Deyly Show” about personal growth, purpose and passion and is in working on a new book with the title “Humor Is How We All Survive: The Ironic Link Between Comedy and Tragedy” (Expected publication April 2021).

Leslie Weirich was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana and studied Journalism at Indiana University. She's been involved in sales, marketing and recruiting during her career but after she and her husband Keith lost their son Austin to suicide 4 years ago, Leslie began speaking to groups of teenagers about their experience. She learned just how many kids were hurting and how their story could open them up to talking about their pain. Later on, she was asked to be the keynote speaker for the largest non-profit in their state at their annual fundraiser. That evening that she spoke, they raised over $259k to put licensed clinical therapists in schools! 

Damian Todd is a 22 year veteran of the British Royal Marines Commandos. He has visited 76 countries to date, ultimate goal is to visit 100 as a bucket list item. He is also a philanthropist whose ‘crazy ventures’ have returned almost $300,000 for charities – One being The Gumpathon, an event which raised $250,000 by way of 4 men taking 63 days to run from New York to Los Angeles. The other entitled ‘Roll around the clock’, conducted only last year which established a world record in Brazilian JiuJitsu and raised $35,000 for RUOK.

Damian has competed at national level for 2 sports, Track Athletics and Bobsleigh and has won several European titles. He has also tarted a business called The Force of Inspiration through a mindset of leading by inspiring, and by way of a love for his favorite childhood film: Star Wars.

With a decade of sales experience, Jeff understands the importance of Mental Health in achieving peak sales performance.

Battling anxiety, insomnia and panic attacks throughout his sales career - Jeff has used his knowledge of Mental Health to inspire sales teams to reach their full potential through better Mental Health and well-being.

This became especially important, when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in the summer of 2018.

The same strategies involving - mindsets, perspective, self-awareness, empathy, self-control, mindfulness, optimism, grit and habits - that made him successful in sales also aided in his swift recovery.

As a successful individual contributor, sales leader and of late - sales mentor/consultant - Jeff has experience working with sales teams of any size at any stage of growth.

Jeff is the primary voice of the Sales Health Alliance and available for Speaking Engagements, Custom Tailored Workshops and One on One consulting projects.

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid is an accomplished controller of building strategy and an attentive coordinator of construction teams. A Superintendent with a 13-year career portfolio of high-risk projects, she’s put more $1.5 billion of work in place in the aviation and higher education market sectors across the nation. Recognized as one of Construction Business Owner’s 2019 Outstanding Women in Construction and the recipient of Washington Women in Trades' 2019 Workplace Leader Award, she is a champion for careers in construction management and the skilled trades. 

As a conscious role model for the next generation of female superintendents, she boldly reinforces the rising emphasis on psychological safety – advancing the industry through initiatives that examine bias and challenge the stigma of suicide in construction. She is co-chair of the Washington State-focused Construction Suicide Prevention Task Force (in partnership with UW's Forefront Suicide Prevention Program) and champion of the AGC of Washington’s Culture of Care initiative.

Tyler is a well rounded guy with a Bachelors Degree and MBA from Xavier University in Ohio. He is also the author of a book called “A Pirate's Guide to Sales”. He also attended pitch school to master his Presentation skills and has been open about his own struggles with depression and anxiety. Things he is most proud of include:

• Multiple President’s Club/top 10% awards
  
• Successfully built and launched a Tech Business
  
• His balance of work, family and charity

Dan Rowe is passionate about breaking down the stigma around mental health within male dominated environments. Having had a challenging journey with his own mental health he has used these experiences to help others. Dan has worked with numerous businesses to create well-being strategies focused on challenging the idea that 'Men Don't Talk'. 

Outside of work, Dan loves to spend time with his son and is the co-host of a podcast/radio show called 'The 84'. 

Darrell Robinson has been a teacher of high school and college students for over 20 years. He was a school board member over the Herriman UT Area where in 2017-18 there was a cluster of student suicides. Darrell helped the school board and district understand that suicide is not an issue we should sweep under the rug. He has written an article on his website titled “Rats in the Cellar” in reference to a quote from C.S. Lewis. 

On October 31, 2001, William took his 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass out on an open highway and crashed head on into an oncoming semi truck. He was in a coma for 2 months and rehabilitation for another 2 months after his miraculous survival. William had to relearn everything over again; from how to use his muscles, how to read and write, how to speak, and every other day-to-day task most of us take for granted. 

Jason Webb is a LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) and ASUDC (Advanced Substance Use Disorder Counselor). He has been working in the addiction field for 21 years. Jason has seen a lot of suicides in that time including close friends and neighbors. He currently works at the Phoenix recovery center and often times sees suicide and drugs as people’s solution and not the actual problem.