Hello, this is Richard Jacobs, executive director of the Finding Genius Foundation, newly minted non-profit, also host of the Finding Genius Podcast. I want to talk to you today about more things as I learn them about anxiety and depression. This is a year and a half long project that I’ve decided to embark on and raise money for. The premise is this, if you have anxiety or depression or related problems or you know someone that does and you go to an expert, you go to a practitioner and you ask for help, they are likely to try hard to help you and they may give you 1% of all the possible treatments and methods out there. What if, by using researchers and looking at thousands of disparate sources, I can accumulate 21% of all the possible treatments out there. It would be home run on top of home run on top of home run.

That’s the goal of this project, the Anxiety and Depression Codex. As I go through this project I’m going to be creating these audios to teach you what I learn. I want to take you on this journey with me as I go. Some of it may sound pretty basic but that’s okay. We can get into more advanced stuff later on. So, here goes, one thing I learned and unfortunately, I have personal experience with this, people in my family that have anxiety and depression, what I noticed is your mood, my mood, everyone’s mood, it affects everyone around you, it doesn’t just affect you. This is really something important to know. If I have a really bad day at work and I come home, I have to try hard not to take it out on my kids and my wife. I don’t always succeed, I feel terrible if I do get mad at them and I overreact but I have to try and I noticed, it’s pretty easy to notice and think about, again, if you don’t feel good, if you are in pain, if you are upset, if you are depressed, if you are anxious, whatever it is, it affects everyone around you.

It can affect people to the point just as bad as let’s say, an alcoholic can affect people in a family. So, if you know somebody or if someone in your family has depression and/or anxiety, if it’s bad enough, that family can suffer just as much or even more as if it had an alcoholic in it. It doesn’t have to be physical abuse, mental abuse, screaming and yelling and gaslighting and all these kinds of things, easily can be just as hurtful or more hurtful than physical abuse and that’s what I’ve learned unfortunately firsthand. I haven’t done physical abuse; I’ve tried not to do mental abuse. I’m being very honest here; I try my hardest, I’m not perfect, I don’t always succeed. But this made me realize that it is super important.

So, this project, every person that it helps with anxiety and depression, even if it reduces their depression by 20% or 30% or 50% or 10%, whatever it is, it means that the person’s co-workers and fellow churchgoers and family members and people at the store that they interact with are going to get a better version of that person. They are not going to be as terse with them, they are not going to be as short, as moody, as pissy, as abusive etc. I’ve noticed this again in my own life, when I feel good, when I’m having a good day and I’m happy and people have been nice to me, I’m nicer to people. I want to be nicer to them and I’m in a better mood and let’s say, my wife’s yelled at me and she is really mad at me for something whether I deserve it or not. I go out into the world; I’m not going to be as nice to people.

I’m going to be gruff and terse and short and what if that leads to me losing a business deal, what if that leads to me upsetting a friend when I didn’t need to, what if it leads to me yelling at my son or my daughter and hurting them emotionally, maybe for the rest of their life. I don’t know. So, it’s super-important for all listeners to monitor how you feel and look honestly, I mean this is not easy to do but look honestly how your moods and your feelings, whether you have anxiety or depression or not. But look how it affects all the people around you and I think you’ll see when I’m not in a good mood or in a good way, I really shouldn’t be talked to, I mean I’m not good and I’m upsetting the people around me but when I feel good, I’m not.

So, I wanted to point this out and again, maybe it’s a very simple thing, an obvious thing but I think it’s critically important and for me, that further underscores the need to work on that anxiety and depression stuff because again, if I can help people, if we can help thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or a million people, that effect is going to be multiplied by 4, 5 maybe even 10, because each person, yes, there are people that are solo in the world. But a lot of people have aunts, uncles, cousins, mothers, fathers, people go to Starbucks, they go to whatever store or they may go to church, they have co-workers etc. and if I can improve that person’s life and that kind of resonates or extends to everyone in their circle, then I’ve done a lot of good. So, that’s another impetus for this project.

So, I’d like you to check out the codex, that’s the name of the guide we are making for anxiety and depression and it very likely be attached to the email in which this audio was attached. If you have perused it, wonderful, I’d love your feedback. If you feel like you want to donate to this project, we definitely need your help.