This snippet is from one of our previous episodes: Money & Mental Health: Why There’s More to It Than You Think… 

We talk a lot about financial health on this podcast, but there’s another pillar often overlooked.

In this TPC Gold episode, we’re joined by John Mendoza, Director of ConNetica and a mental health leader with decades of experience, to explore the deep (and often invisible) connection between financial health, self-worth, and the stories we tell ourselves.

From perfectionism and burnout to identity and belonging, this honest conversation explores:

  • Why community and connection are essential for feeling truly “seen”
  • How negative self-talk (even among high achievers) can cause inner chaos
  • The psychological drivers behind striving for more, even when you’ve “made it”
  • Why mental fitness is just as important as physical fitness (yep, even for elite commandos!)
  • Practical tools to support your own mental health or check in on someone you care about

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Transcript

Bryce Holdaway
Yeah, good observations. Look, John, I’m an amateur massively. I certainly don’t pretend to be anything that I’m not, but my observations are what you said before really come down to two things. The community that you can be around that allows you to be as real or authentic as you can. And, you know, just being down at the local footy club or going to the local netball club, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve connected at an authentic level. So the quicker you can find the space that allows you to be real around others is key. And the other one is around being mindful of the story that you tell yourself, right? Because we’re enough, but most people, in my observation, walk around saying that I’m not enough… therefore I need to have 60,000 on Instagram, or I need to have this amazing job, or I need to drive this amazing car, or I need to just successfully manage my affairs.

Which is fine when everything’s going great, but when that’s taken away, they can potentially fall into a heap. And I can say that from my own experience, right, because you talked about perfectionism before. I am a recovering perfectionist. I feel like I’ve come a long way, but part of that was born out of the fact that I didn’t think what I was doing was good enough. So perfectionists think they’ve got such high standards, but ultimately they’ve got no standards at all. Because if they had a standard, they’d have a benchmark they can measure against right?

John Mendoza
Beautifully expressed.

Bryce Holdaway
I’ve dropped that to a point; Ben and I are so incredibly passionate about our community that we’ve built here and we want to make an impact. So for someone who’s listening to this and they’re able to leverage from your observations from dedicating a very large part of your professional career to this, sometimes it can feel overwhelming to think of what the solution is, but sometimes if we think that it can be as simple as making sure I have a realistic view of my own self; not to put me into the comparison scenario. I’m okay. Everything I’m doing is okay. If I’m a financial failure or a financial success, I’m okay. Because what I’m observing is that people who are financially successful are still incredibly driven by the fact that when they were young, they might have been in a scenario that was in your high risk category that you talked about and they never want to go there ever again.

So you can have this perception of: oh, you’re great, you’re living in a nice house, you’re driving a nice car, you’re doing lots of trave… but deep down they’ve still got this churn that I’m not enough, right? So it’s not just about having financial success, it’s actually about having inner sense that you’re okay. And have a community of people. I mean, this guy that’s standing next to me is a wonderful resource for me, because I get to have laughs and talk footy with him and talk property on this podcast. But if I’ve got something serious I need to talk about, I can pull him aside and say: hey mate, this is what’s going on for me and that’s actually something that I rely on. So I think the steps that people can do who are listening to this is fully invest in all the things that you’re saying, because we’re a hundred percent behind what you’re saying, but also know that the problem isn’t out there. The problem is within ourselves, right? Between our ears. And if we can change some of the dialogue that we’re having between our own ears, some of this stuff starts to become a snowball running down the mountain that achieves your goals much, much quicker of taking people out of these places where they take their life.

John Mendoza
Yeah, look, Bryce, I couldn’t agree more. I love the one that you said about how  a perfectionist doesn’t have any standard because if they did, they will have met it and be satisfied with that. I too, like yourself, am a recovering perfectionist and it still, you know, rises up and bites me every now and again. And it’s listening to and being attentive to that self-talk that’s really important. If we have those warpy thoughts and they’re not checked in a sense, we don’t pull them up and say, look, that’s crap. Um, why am I saying that? Why do I believe that? And if I need help to unpack that, then do not hesitate to go and see a professional, go and see a psychologist, start to talk this through.

One of the people that I met during the review of the defence force was the commander of our commandos. And these were all men at the time in the commando unit. I believe we have our first woman in the commando unit now, which is a great achievement for her and her family and all concerned. But where I was going was that he said it’s as important that the guys here take the time to make sure they’re mentally well as it is to do their weapons training, their physical fitness training, all of those things. They are as important. So he was trying to create an atmosphere in that group of 440 men who are at the sharp end of the spear in terms of the ADF to make sure that they value their mental health as highly as every other attribute that they needed to be those successful commandos.

So that was a really penny drop moment for me that, wow, that puts it very clearly. We have to pay attention to this as importantly as every other aspect of our life. And we’ve got to listen to that self-talk. When it gets a bit warpy, we go off and see someone, we go off and see a psychologist, we go off and see a friend. If we can’t afford a psychology fee, then we see someone… like you talk to Ben about those issues and say, hey, look, I’ve been thinking about this. And he’ll say, that’s really crazy you know, or how did you come up with that idea? Let’s talk that through and you can see it in another way. A problem shared is a problem halved as we often say. That’s again that emphasis on social connection.

Ben Kingsley
Correct and I put my hand up, John, and I think I was 21, 22 when I saw a psychologist for the first time. I was a man in a hurry. I was a pretty Intense individual, overthinking a lot of things in my life, and wanting to get to that end destination and not smelling the roses along the way. And then I had a relationship breakdown, and so you’re sort of thinking, well, is that what I wanted? And I kept chasing, and you look back at now when you’re 30 plus years on longer, you sort of have a good sense of yourself around that. And I agree, it was one of the best things I ever did. Because I just got that reassurance that you’re okay. What you’re experiencing is something that most of us do experience. And with a couple of tools and a few things to think about and write some notes to yourself, you will be able to work through this and get out the other side as a more relaxed and easy-going person. I was, you know, highly intense and there was this, life was a race and a competition, right for me. So I’ve relaxed a little bit, but I still probably carry a bit of that drive and determination with me.

So I think that’s probably what I wanted to ask you around: where do we go to? Do you know of any resources? Obviously we’re getting better; there’s a lot of counsellors that we now get under Medicare, don’t we? in terms of you know psychologists and so forth where we can get three or four consultations. For anyone who’s gone through loss or financial hardship and those types of things and you’re not feeling like you have that confidant that you can talk to, by all means those sessions will just reinforce to you when you get to those, as you say, those high risk moments, because we all have them, those high risk moments that you can just get some clarity and some understanding about you’re not alone… how you’re feeling is reasonable and it’s okay, and that moment will pass. So can you share with us some of the resources that you would be thinking about for those people who may be feeling a little bit unsure about their future?

John Mendoza
Yeah, sure Ben. Three things in terms of becoming, I guess, more aware of what we can do to be mentally healthy. And when we think of being mentally healthy, we think of being resilient, we think of being able to bounce back from setbacks and those sort of things. There’s a brilliant program that was developed in WA by a good friend, Rob Donovan. He’s exported this to a number of countries around the world. It’s called Act Belong Commit, ABC. So good mental health is as easy as ABC. So that’s being active… acting on things, taking action. Belonging is all about that social connection point that we’re making before. Belonging to the local club, the sports club, the surf club… joining something that gives you some satisfaction where you’re contributing.

One of the things we know: if I belong to a green group, a community group that’s trying to enhance the natural environment, that gives me great value in terms of mental benefit. Not only from the belonging, but also contributing to a cleaner, safer environment. So belonging is really important. The last one is about committing. So being committed, having goals, having short term goals that I can see that I’m moving towards. Even if I’ve had a major setback, a financial setback, a bankruptcy, if I’ve got some short-term goals that I can see that I’m achieving, then that’s going to be mentally rewarding, mentally healthy forming. So the Act Belong Commit website, we just go online.

Ben Kingsley
Yeah we’ll get that on the show notes. We’ll make sure we put the link to that.

John Mendoza
And there’s some brilliant vignettes; they’ve got little YouTube clips of people telling their story. One of the best I find is the guy, the firie, the firefighter, who realizes that he’s been doing this stuff all the time. So that’s why he recognizes he can cope with the demands of his job, which involves periods of high trauma, high stress. So Act Belong Commit is about everyone doing things every day for improving our mental health and protecting ourselves in a sense, or being more protected. The second thing is that, yes, we can also look out for our peers, our work colleagues, our neighbours, and sometimes we need some advice on how to do that. How can I reach out to someone that I see that’s struggling, but I’m not sure how I can help them through that? I don’t have to take it on board, but how can I help them find the strength and the resources to get through it?

There’s a little app that we developed with funding from the Queensland government. It’s free. It’s on Google and Apple and it’s called Chats for Life. And if you just go to the Google or Apple store, download that. It was done with the University of Sunshine Coast. And while we were aiming at a younger audience (because we use students and so forth as the actors in it), it gives you very clear advice about how to plan, how to carry out, how to recalibrate. If the person pushes back and says: bugger off, I’m not interested in your help… we might go away and think about, maybe I didn’t do that really well. What else can I do? So it gives you very hands on practical ways of how we can reach out to someone. Because often it’s much harder for them to pick up the phone and call Lifeline or go and see someone because part of our nature is that when we’re under that sort of psychological distress, we actually withdraw. We don’t want to see anyone. We don’t want to go out. We’re probably familiar with these things. We don’t want to go and party. We don’t want to see people. We just want to stay at home or stay under the sheets in the bed. And the thing we need is people around us who will actually help us navigate that really tough period.

The third thing, and you touched on it, we can get access to psychological support services through Medicare. That means going to our GP, and GPs are becoming much more skilful at asking questions about people’s financial positions. So if someone has had a bankruptcy or a major financial loss, then that’s important that the GP knows that and can actually then say, look, you know, maybe right now we need to do something that can help your recovery from this huge setback and maybe seeing a psychologist for a number of sessions is part of that recovery. So I’d strongly encourage people to use those three things. One is about self-care, the ABC message. The other one is about how do we help those around us. And the third one is a really important point of access to services through our GPs.

Ben Kingsley
That’s brilliant John. Ultimately at the end of the day, your mental health is your wealth. Your monetary gains in life and all of that provide for choices, and that’s true but it won’t provide for sustained happiness. You’ve got to be mentally healthy first because that is ultimately healthy, wealthy and wise as they say.