Jay Shifman is a Mental Health and Substance Misuse & Recovery Speaker, Coach, and Advocate and the host of the Choose Your Struggle podcast. Ten years in Recovery, Jay works with those ready to choose the next step in their Mental Health journey. Jay lives in South Carolina with his wife, Lauren, and their dog, Nell. You can learn more at https://campsite.bio/cys_jay.
Can you tell our readers about your background?
I was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. I really can’t say enough about my childhood. I grew up in a Jewish family of privilege with two parents that loved me, a short car ride away from my grandparents. It was great.
The real trouble began when I was diagnosed with ADHD as a preteen. From there, I wasn’t off medication until I was twenty-three. Now we know way more than we did then (this was the late 90s) as far as what those medications do to the developing teen brain. But they really messed me up. I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder a few years into being treated and I ended up completely addicted to prescription pills by my early twenties. At twenty-three, I attempted suicide, overdosed, and ended up in a long-term care facility.
Obviously, this is a long story short kind of situation and you can learn more about my personal journey at my links, but it was there that I decided to get off of all prescription pills. Many of my symptoms eventually went away and now, ten years later, I seek to inspire individuals and their communities to have conversations around issues of Substance Misuse and Mental Health by telling my personal recovery story and educating as often as I can in ways I believe anyone can understand and relate to.
What inspired you to start your business?
I definitely didn’t set out to do this. For the first five years of my recovery, I was extremely private about my struggles with issues of Mental Health and Substance Misuse. The stigma around these topics is REAL! But about five years ago I got over my fears and told my story on stage to a little over 100 people. And it launched me on this path.
I have to make this clear though, it wasn’t an overnight thing. I spent the next three years working other day jobs, building my brand on the side. But finally, I felt the time was right to strike out on my own and start doing this work full time.
I saw the need then and I constantly see the need now. We’re losing over 125,000 Americans every year just to suicide and overdose. I’m not even talking about all the other causes of death that relate to issues of Mental Health and Substance Misuse. Just those two. And yet we’re still not talking about these issues enough. We need more conversations. We need more honest education around drugs, Substance Misuse, and Mental Health. It’s a calling for me. And I don’t see any other way.
Now I preach the mantra of Choose Your Struggle. We live in a world where we are taught, from an early age, to be someone else’s definition of happy. Someone else’s definition of success. Too many people live their entire lives without finding fulfillment. And it’s a major reason why we as a nation are struggling with our collective Mental Health and issues of Substance Misuse. So I work with clients and audiences on how to better choose what you’re going to struggle for and what you want for your life.
Where is your business based?
Currently, I’m just outside Charleston, South Carolina. My wife and I moved here from Cincinnati in August. But we don’t think we’ll be here long-term. We came down to be near her family for a bit, but we’ve felt like fish out of water almost since day one. There’s a lot of truth to the stereotype of ‘Southern Nice.’ But what they don’t tell you is they preserve that ‘Nice’ by ignoring a lot of problems. Very much an “if we don’t talk about this, it’s not real” sort of attitude. Like a kid with his hands in front of his face convinced if he can’t see the monster it’s not real. Which can make this work challenging to say the least. Luckily for me, technology allows me to coach and speak all over the country. So where I’m based doesn’t impact my work nearly as much as it would have five, ten years ago.
How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?
I wish it was as easy as, say, the early 1900s when you could hang a shingle outside your house and call yourself a doctor. “Sure, I’ll fix your leg, and give you a haircut and sell you insurance while I’m at it.” That would make things so much simpler.
No, in reality, I spent the first eight or nine months after striking out on my own just learning. I graduated with a degree in Psychology, and obviously I have a life-degree in lived experience on these topics. But I knew that wasn’t enough. Again, thanks to the wonders of technology, I was able to learn from a few amazing educators and institutions that I normally wouldn’t have been able to, including John Hopkins and the University of Geneva. I’ve since acquired just under ten applied certificates in this field. But I’m not done. I love learning about these issues. So I’m always reading and finding new opportunities for education. And the thinking around these issues is constantly changing. If you don’t continue to educate yourself, you’re going to be left behind.
After that, there really isn’t a secret besides hustle. I got my LLC, Choose Your Struggle, started a podcast by the same name, started advertising my services, and taking every opportunity I could to speak. Eventually, you start breaking into the conversations and spheres of influence. It’s been a year and a half of hard work to get to where I am now and I’m still nowhere near where I eventually want to go, you know? I have lofty goals. But I live this, it’s not just a job for me, and I can look back at how far I’ve come since setting out on my own and be proud of my accomplishments. And that gives me confidence and motivation to keep working hard.
What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?
The podcast has been huge. I love doing it, and the conversations it starts are wonderful. But most importantly, it adds a level of credibility. It’s one thing if a guy who’s done some speaking and coaching reaches out. It’s another thing if that same guy broadcasts a message to thousands of people. I’ve had the chance to chat with leaders I never would have, or at least it would have been a lot harder for me to if it wasn’t for the Choose Your Struggle podcast.
It also helps from the other angle as well. I’ve been interviewed on, probably twenty, twenty-five podcasts just from the time I started my own show. Again, it’s that credibility. I’ve been interviewed in six countries, from household names to obscure niche platforms alike. But if I’m able to connect with one person, then it’s worth it. At the end of the day, it’s about the message, not the messenger.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge for me is that my work, as sad as it is, pushes boundaries. Too many people don’t want to talk about issues of Mental Health or Substance Misuse at all. As I referenced earlier, people would rather pretend the issues don’t exist. We’re still early in the game here. I say all the time that when it comes to Mental Health, we’re back in the wild west.
So it really bugs me when people with more formal education say I have no right to be doing this work. It frustrates me when people say lived experience doesn’t count for anything. They’re wrong, but it still gets under my skin. And for a while, I believed them. Then I started realizing who those people are. They’re mostly rich, older white people. And their discrimination in keeping those with lived experience away from the table is really, at its base, fear. It’s fear of losing their place at the top. It’s fear that they spent their entire lives learning something that, while incredible and appreciated, isn’t more important than living through it. You can study what it’s like to live with a Substance Misuse issue for decades, but you’ll never know the feeling of spending your morning on your bathroom floor as you go through withdrawals. And you should be thankful for that because it’s awful. But if you see that differentiation and instead of embracing it you push me away, that’s on you. That’s your fear and it really has very little to do with me as a person. Which allows me to take a breath and plow forward, away from that criticism.
And let’s be honest, it’s not like we’re out here batting a thousand. We need all the help we can get in this business. We’re losing hundreds of thousands of people a year, millions more are going without any sort of Mental Health or Substance Misuse help. We need all hands on deck. We need more conversations, more people on the street corners screaming for attention on these issues. We can’t be pushing anyone away.
How do you stay focused?
Scheduling. I have goals for my week and certain times set out of different aspects of my work to ensure I stay on target. My work tends to be all over the place, so this is key. But another big part of it is being micro-targeted. I want my work to apply everywhere. I truly believe these issues need to be discussed more in all walks of life. But if I’m too spread out, if I’m spread too thin, I can’t have the impact I want to have. So I have to trust the process, so to speak.
How do you differentiate your business from the competition?
There’s a couple of answers here. The first is my lived experience and my honesty. I’m not the guy who’s going to say “I’m perfect, let me teach you how to be perfect.” We all know those speakers, those coaches, and maybe they do have a secret or two but a lot of their work, it’s snake oil.
That’s not me. I stand before my audiences, my clients and I say “I’m not perfect. I’m far from it.” Instead, I use the allegory of the guy who falls in the hole. Do you know that story? It’s on the main page of my website. But essentially, it’s about a guy in a hopeless situation who can’t get anyone to give him any help until someone who has been through it offers him a hand. That’s me. I’ve been there, and I’ve made it back. I don’t have any get-rich-quick secrets or anything. I’m not Oprah, as much as I’d love to be! But I learned a thing or two going through an experience no one should ever have to go through. Hopefully, I can teach some of that wisdom to you without you going through it for yourself.
And second, to be completely honest, I’m going to outwork you. Not in a “when does that guy sleep?” kind of way. More in a Pete Rose way. I grew up playing baseball, a huge Cincinnati Reds fan. Still am, go Reds. And while we can all agree Pete Rose is a pretty awful guy, he had one amazing quality. He wasn’t the tallest, he wasn’t the fastest or the strongest. He wasn’t the most skilled. But he hustled every damn play. That’s me. I don’t take any of this for granted. I got a second chance in a world, in a country, where most don’t get their first. You better believe I’m going to squeeze every last drop out of this one. And I’m going to do it all for others. That’s my struggle.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
That’s a tough one. Full disclosure, this is my weakness. It’s tough. I’m constantly trying new things to see what works best. I’ve done Google Ads, pretty much every social media ad that exists. I’ve tried advertising on other podcasts. I even tried advertising in the newspaper. Some worked great. Others, not so much.
My work was growing pretty quickly at the beginning of the year. I had six speaking engagements lined up for the months of March through June after knocking out three in January and February. I was feeling pretty good. Then COVID hit. And I lost all those engagements in a week, three of them in one day. Which hurt. That one stung. But I looked around and saw the mass suffering of my neighbors and friends and it reminded me that I was one of the lucky ones. My wife didn’t lose her job. We’re going to be ok. We still had our health. And that made me feel incredibly thankful.
I rebounded from that and doubled down on what I could do. For me, the podcast is number one. It takes a lot of work, sure, but it’s so worth it. My message is being heard by thousands at a time when so many others in my line of work are sitting on their hands, unsure of where to go next. You need to be constantly innovating. Again, in baseball parlance, you play the ball, you can’t let the ball play you. If you sit back and wait for it, the runner’s going to beat the throw. So you charge the ball and fire. Which works for me because patience isn’t a virtue I’m full of. I don’t sit still well. And as I’ve said, I truly believe these topics, and by extension, my work is incredibly important. So I’m always hustling.
What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
The reader deserves to laugh at me when I say this but it’s seriously my number one tip. Shoot your shot. Don’t let what someone else may say stop you. Don’t be embarrassed. I’ve been told countless times by people with PhDs and Masters of whatever that I have no business being at the table with them. I’ve had people laugh at me when I sent a LinkedIn message to someone I admire asking for a chance to pick their brain or interview them for my podcast. But you know what? Those people laughing aren’t the ones succeeding. A lot of that laughter is fear. They’re too afraid to try something new, to think outside the box. They’re comfortable where they are. But comfort doesn’t breed creativity. And creativity is what you need if you’re going to generate positive change.
What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?
Fun question! My favorite app is Trello. I use it ten times a day. As a person with OCD, all that I want to do and have to do can feel overwhelming at times especially if it’s not organized. Trello helps me keep a list of my most pressing tasks, my less pressing tasks, and my completed tasks. Seeing my to-do lists organized helps me take a deep breath and think, “Ok. I can do it all!”
I’m not really a blog person but I use LinkedIn as a blog and follow a bunch of inspiring people. It’s hard to pick a favorite but I recently got to interview Sarah Korenblit, who is a Social Worker and a well-known Mental Health advocate, for my podcast. Her work is inspiring and thoughtful and enlightening, and I really respect a lot of what she has to say. Getting to talk to her was pretty incredible.
I have to give a shout out to a book I return to time and again: Dreamland by Sam Quinones.
The book preaches something I try to remind others of all the time. The story should not be drugs. The story should be the people behind the drugs. To quote a law enforcement contact of mine, “the U.S. has never solved a drug crisis.” We haven’t. We’ve always moved on to the next. Sam does an incredible job of highlighting this in his book. Yes, he discusses opioids and explores the drug stream. But more importantly, he tells the stories of those struggling with substance misuse and how it has ruined their lives. He shows the complicated nature of that issue and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. It should be a required read. I’m talking taught in schools required. Needless to say, I’m a huge Sam Quinones fan.
What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?
I have to give a shout out here to HARO, which stands for Help A Reporter Out. It’s a wonderful resource to find leads on promotion opportunities and, even cooler, learn about what topics are being covered by news sources big and small. I check their emails every day and I’ve developed a few mutually beneficial relationships through their work.
Who is your business role model? Why?
My family lineage has been huge for me. My family has a business that goes back three generations. My grandfather on my mom’s side, who recently passed, ran the business and now my Dad is the CEO. My Mom is on the board and my grandmother has been engaged in the work her whole life. So I was taught business education at a young age. On the other side, my Dad’s father, who also recently passed, was a board leader at two distinct United Way chapters. I couldn’t be prouder of my family’s work and I’ve reaped the benefits now as a business owner. It’s like having an honorary degree in business.
How do you balance work and life?
I have two answers to this.
I’m lucky in away. My life and my work overlap heavily. The Venn Diagram is pretty close to a single circle. When I go out in public, I carry Narcan (which can help reverse an overdose). I rarely go anywhere (before COVID of course) without talking to someone about issues of Mental Health and Substance Misuse. Sure, I’m that annoying guy at the party but I live my call to action. Again, I chose my struggle! So in that respect, there’s perfect balance because I love my work.
On the other hand, everyone has to have downtime. So I do draw hard stops. When I’m done, I’m done. My wife and I make sure we always have time for us. And time for our dog. And my wife’s family, which is why we’re down here in South Carolina. Being the owner of this business, it’s easy to always find more to do. So I have to be strict with myself that when it’s time to stop, it’s time to stop. And my wife is always happy to remind me when I forget.
What’s your favorite way to decompress?
I have a couple of hobbies that I really enjoy and I love to read above almost all else. I’m currently reading Angela Davis’ Autobiography, which is blowing my mind.
But practicing mindfulness is my biggest go-to. I have a few different mindfulness habits I do every day. And they really help. I can tell the difference on days I don’t do my mindfulness work. I’m noticeably more stressed. So I can’t say enough about practicing mindfulness. And if your readers want to know more about non-meditation-based mindfulness, reach out. Let’s chat. I have some tips for you.
What do you have planned for the next six months?
Right now, I’m focused primarily on my podcast, Choose Your Struggle, and finding virtual speaking opportunities. The COVID crisis has made that second tougher but I’ve been enjoying finding ways to virtually connect with audiences and inspire people to talk about the issues of Mental Health and Substance Misuse & Recovery from the comfort of their own homes! Given the uncertainty in the timeline for safely gathering in large groups, I anticipate those to outlets being my main focus for a while to come. But my coaching work is always virtual so I’ve been doubling down on that recently as well.
How can our readers connect with you?
You can find the Choose Your Struggle podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And you connect with me at my website, www.JayShifman.com, or at any of my links: https://campsite.bio/cys_jay.
