Name: Rod
Age Bracket: 40 to 50
Topic: Anger and Mind Set
Location: Surf Coast

Rod’s Story

Rod started his own business in 2001 and oversaw the growth of his business to nine staff in the first eight years. Rod had a positive outlook on life and was very ambitious, he had enjoyed many successes in his short work life and didn’t see any reason for this not continuing.

Rod worked hard and cared about what people thought about him and his business. He had his first major hiccup when two fairly large issues combined to test his strength and resilience. In late 2009 he hurt his back very badly, he was in constant pain particularly when sitting (which he did for about 10 hours a day). Not long after this his biggest client let him know they were cutting their budget by 75%. This put a huge strain on the business cash flow and much pressure on keeping all of his staff.

Rod continued to do what he did best, he worked hard, put up with the back pain and tried to ride out the downturn. Twelve months later the pressure was not easing, the issues built and Rod’s anger at the world was bubbling below the surface almost all the time. While he was still professional with his staff, he was starting to take out the frustration on his family. His attitude was turning from a positive to a negative and he didn’t like it. His passion for his work was being tested and he was having trouble changing his mindset back to his old positive way.

His back rehabilitation was taking a lot of his time, and for all the hard work and pain he was putting up with the monetary rewards within his business didn’t come. He became angry with his staff and felt they were letting him down. They weren’t picking up the slack, he asked himself. “Did they understand how hard he had worked to get this business up and running? Why do they not all care enough to work harder?”

At this stage he lost a couple of valuable staff members and the replacements didn’t work out. This created even more problems, and further dinted his confidence. Rod had successfully employed his own staff for ten years then all of sudden in one year had employed three staff members who didn’t work out. He questioned everything, his confidence, his drive, his achievements. At this point he understood why he felt the way he did but try as he might, he couldn’t turn it around. He didn’t feel depressed, more just lost. He didn’t feel like the old confident Rod who had made a lot of very good business decisions.

Rod didn’t really know how to fix the problem, he didn’t want to talk to a psychiatrist because in his mind he didn’t have mental illness. As the arguments at home became more regular, the mood swings became more excessive. His wife in frustration thought he was insane and asked him repeatedly to get help, which he did. So what kind of help did he get?

Through his business network he was introduced to Jem from Leaders in Life, after only a brief 15 minute chat with Jem he know he had met someone who could help him. They scheduled a fortnightly one hour session and while the first session was confronting (Rod had never spoken to anyone about this sort of stuff before) he was able to unlock the origins of his anger. He was able to understand why his core values were causing such angst and he was able to learn about how and why he thinks and judges people they way did. At the end of the first session Jem had Rod laughing at many of the situations which had caused him great pain.

After one week Rod had noticed a calmness in his response to difficult situations, he was more comfortable with himself and better still his wife noticed a dramatic change and commented so. She was also curious about what had gone on in the session. Rod basically explained he couldn’t change anyone else and was only working on making himself a better person.

It has been a couple of years since that first session and while Rod would admit to having his up and downs, generally speaking he has made a huge change in his mind set and has been very active in discussing his problems and ultimate solution with clients and friends he sees struggling with similar issues. Rod now understands how important it is to work on the health of your mind because without this growth you can become suffocated with negativity which can ruin relationships with all the people you love.

Just like your physical health is an ongoing journey of persistence and hard work so is working on a healthy mind.

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