Mission And Show Opening

Victor Ingram 0:00

It's my job to understand how people operate in the social environment and try to leverage that to overcoming the barriers barriers they are experiencing mentally, emotionally. So we have to understand there's a need for us. We need each other.

Grantley Martelly 0:32

This is the Real Health Black Men podcast, where we empower men to take control of their health. We provide vital information and build community support. Join us as we discuss everything from major health challenges to mental wellness to physical fitness. So if you're ready to level up your health and your life, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Introducing Colonel Victor Ingram

Grantley Martelly 1:06

Today my guest is retired Colonel Victor Ingram, retired after 30 years in the United States Air Forces from the United States Army Reserve. Victor has also achieved three master's degrees over his career, uh, master's degrees in global leadership, social work, and strategic studies from the U.S. Army College. He has had many decorations in his distinguished career, two of which were the Bronze Star Medals and four motorious service medals. After leaving the military, Victor began a second career as a licensed clinical social worker, where he owns and operates Connections Mental Health Services in Las Vegas, Nevada, providing mental health services to a variety of areas and to members of the armed forces. We'll post more of his biography in the episode notes. Victor was recommended to me by my son, Lieutenant Colonel Rand Martelli of the United States Air Force. So, Victor, let's um begin and welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much, Grantly. How are you today? I'm doing great. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family, your hometown, where you grew up, so that our audience can get to know more about you. Absolutely.

Early Life And Mentors

Victor Ingram 2:26

I'm born and raised here in Las Vegas, Nevada, uh product of a single-parent household. I didn't know my father. My mother raised me along with my brother by herself. Uh, went to UNOV, went to the military, had a really good career in law enforcement. The bulk of my career in the military was reserves. So I was able to work a full-time career and also participate in the military and just really had a lot of fun doing it and achieved a great deal thanks to mentors and people who believed in me.

Grantley Martelly 3:00

Well, thank you. And we all need people who believe in us to spur us on to greater things. It doesn't matter where we start. We can have some pretty shaky stars, but we can do great things if we have mentors in our lives and the ability to succeed.

Marine Corps Recruitment And Escape Route

Grantley Martelly 3:15

So tell us a little bit about your military service as well.

Victor Ingram 3:18

So my career began very unceremoniously. I was a junior in high school going into my senior year, and I got a phone call one day. I was at home and I got a phone call. I picked up the phone, and the guy said, My name is Staff Sergeant Teddy Russell, and I'm with the United States Marine Corps, and I heard you're gonna graduate soon. I said, and he said, Well, I want to recruit you for the Marine Corps. And understand, I'm a I'm a kid from inner city Las Vegas. I had no clue what the Marine Corps was. So I had nothing else to do. I said I listened to the guy. He said, We're the we're the best. Um, what is it? Uh we're tough, uh, have an incredible reputation, uh, very prestigious. All that kind of went in one ear and out the other. And then he said, we'll pay for college. I said, well, tell me more. He said, uh, we have a GI bill, and you'll go to boot camp. I said, tell me more. He said, you're the best, you're the brightest as a Marine. It's something that will be with you for the rest of your life. I said, well, I might be interested in this. Home life was really rough. Uh at that point, my mother had started doing drugs, and she was on the early phases of an addiction. So the military provided for me, it wasn't out. It gave me a way to get out of a really bad situation. So I literally had my mother come the following week and sign a contract and put me in the delayed entry program where I had a year prior to going to boot camp that I could just sit around and get into shape and learn more about the Marine Corps before I went to boot. So, um, what happened after that point? Okay, I graduated from high school. I immediately went to college for the summer. So I took summer courses, and then that summer I went to boot camp. And my

Boot Camp Shock And Transformation

Victor Ingram 5:24

boot camp experience changed my life. I I had never been challenged so much emotionally and physically prior to that point in my life. I remember arriving at the airport, it's MCRD, to MCRD, which is the Marine Corps recruiting depot in San Diego. So I flew into San Diego, arrived at the airport, and there was a guy sitting at the front desk, and he was all smiles. He said, Hey, uh, are you a recruit? I said, I am, I most definitely am. He said, Well, I'm staff sergeant, whatever, and there are a bunch of your buddies on the bus waiting on you to go to boot camp. Just walk out that way, the bus is to the left. I said, Cool. Again, this guy is all smiles. So I get on the bus, and like 30 or 40 other guys on the bus, and we just start chatting it up. Everybody's very friendly, finding out where we're from, all areas of the United States. And it's really a good vibe. I'm like, well, this is something I can do. I got all these new friends, it's gonna be wonderful. Not less than an hour later, the guy gets on the bus, the guy who was at the front desk, he got on the bus. He's the driver. And I've never seen such a transformation of a person in that short of time. He went from a really cool guy to a guy that's he spurred out so many four-letter expletives, and he was so mean to us. He said, You need to shut your trap. You look for it, you don't talk to anybody. Do you understand me? Sir, yes, sir. Do you understand me? Sir, yeah. I mean, the trauma just started, and it was so hilarious because we were all friends up to that point. New acquaintances, if you will. From that point forward, it was every man for himself. We arrive at boot camp, and another guy gets on the bus on the bus, who is meaner than the guy who was the bus driver. He said, You have 30 seconds to exit my bus, and you do not want to be the last man off this bus. So we're like piling over each other, pushing each other to the side, running off the bus. And then they put you in what they call in the Marine Corps the golden footprints. If you're a Marine, you know what the golden footprints are. The golden footprints are footprints that are inlaid in the ground, painted in gold. And they're painted in the and they're painted in the position of attention. So when you're a recruit, you have to stand on those golden footprints so you'll learn the position of attention. So they'll tell you to stand in the golden footprints, and then after telling you to do so, they'll say you don't deserve to be on those footprints because so many Marines came before you, and you're not a Marine yet, so you just it's a temporary position. Get off. So there was there was so much hazing. And I went in in 1986, where they literally had a transformation from the old Marine Corps to the new Marine Corps because the old Marine Corps was very brutal. And this was probably a few shades less brutal. It was still brutal, but it wasn't as bad. But my Marine Corps experience, Grantley, it it shaped me. I was a kid from the inner city who had never really had any high expectations. As I said, I had no father in the home. My mother succumbed to drug addiction. And I was kind of lost. I was kind of lost. And the Marine Corps gave me a tribe, it gave me kinship, it gave me challenge, it gave me belonging. And my boot camp experience, the physical part of it, the mental part of it. When I left boot camp, I knew there was nothing I couldn't do.

Grantley Martelly 9:32

So you went on from the Marine Corps

From Marines To Army Officer

Grantley Martelly 9:35

and you were also in the US Army?

Victor Ingram 9:39

That is correct. After the Marine Corps, I did four years in the Marine Corps, reserves, and then I went into the Army National Guard. I went into ROTC and UNOV, became an officer. So I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army, went in the National Guard, had a very lackluster career as an officer. Very my early stage, those are the stages of my career, um, less than than than than perfect, if you will, or it was it was very lackluster, it was very mediocre. So I kind of floundered. I was a tank platoon commander in the Army National Guard, Nevada Army National Guard. And um I left the Army National Guard in the year 2000, and I left with a horrible evaluation. My commander at the time, his name was Lieutenant Colonel Alan Butson, and he wrote me a scathing evaluation. It was, I was the first lieutenant, he said, do not promote the captain. And I tell you, frankly, I deserve that evaluation because I was not what an officer should have been. So I left, I went what they call individual ready reserves. That's where you're essentially in a holding pattern. They put your name on a list, and in case of emergency, break glass. And typically the emergency does not happen. You just expire on a list where your military service ends. But what happened in 2001, as you know, was the attack on the Twin Towers. So we went to Afghanistan in 2001, and in 2003, we went to Iraq. So in 2004, I'm at home. I got a letter. It had like a Western Union envelope on it, similar to a telegram. I opened the letter. The first sentence said, You're hereby released from the individual ready reserves. So after reading that sentence, I thought, well, they finally got rid of me. I'm no longer on the list. That's the first sentence. The second sentence, sir, and activated for Operation Iraqi Freedom. So literally, they were recalling me as a soldier to active duty. So I called the letter. I called the number that was affixed to the letter. And I said, ma'am, there's been a mistake. This is Victor Ingram, and you have sent me a letter saying that I'm in the Army. I'm no longer in the Army. She said, Sir, did you resign your commission? I said, no, I did not. She said, as an officer, unless you resign your commission, you're always subject to a recall. So

9/11 Recall And Combat Deployments

Victor Ingram 12:26

the letter said, I had 45 days to report to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, excuse me, where I would be trained and then assigned to any area around the world to include Iraq, Afghanistan, Qatar, any area in support of the global war on terror. So literally about 60 days after that letter, was it 60 days? I'm sorry. Probably about three months after that letter, I was downtown Baghdad with bombs coming over the fence. So at that time, were you an officer then? I was still an officer. I was a captain. I was a captain. Okay. Okay. So after that experience, I kind of got my legs. I had some great leadership. I had some great mentoring. And I decided I was going to make a career of it. And I retired about 17 years after that point with 34 years of service. I've been in three branches of the military: the Marine Corps Reserves, the National Army National Guard, and the Army Reserves. And I've served in combat three separate times: Iraq twice, Afghanistan once, and I've done seven tours or seven missions to South Korea, South Korea, where I've served on a four-star general staff.

Grantley Martelly 13:46

Thank you for your service. Really appreciate it.

Victor Ingram 13:48

Thank you.

Grantley Martelly 13:48

Yeah. Yeah. If you can sit back a little bit, we can we can get, I think the light will start flashing, but it's because it's still flashing, yeah. Um, all right. So then you you you got out of the military, you you served military and you got out honorably then. And you started this second career as a clinical social worker. That is correct. Which led you to uh open your business of connections mental health services.

Victor Ingram 14:16

Yes. The way that came about is I retired from my civilian job as a criminal investigator. I would work for the Nevada Gabby Control Board. I would do investigations of organized crime, cheating groups, embezzlement. I did that for about 17 years. And I at the same time, I was also in the Army Reserves where I would deploy to combat, come back to my civilian job, go back to combat, come back to my civilian job, and then go back to combat. So I got, I had some PTSD issues. And I ended up going to the VA for a year of therapy, outpatient therapy, and it was really able to normalize a lot of the things

Transition To Social Work And PTSD Recovery

Victor Ingram 15:05

I'd been through. So I asked myself, is there a way I could pay it forward for all the great things that therapy did for me? And I said, you know what, I'm gonna become a therapist. So I went back to school. I got a master's in social work. I interned for two years in a remote area of Las Vegas. It was a rural town where I really cut my teeth and learned a lot about drug addiction, about psychosis, about uh anxiety, depression, you name it. And then I decided that I was going to start my own practice. I work with veterans, I work with couples, I work with individuals, dealing with your average everyday um barriers that people face in their lives, with relationships, with grief, with anxiety, with anger, just trying to help people navigate some of the rough patches in their lives. And it's really, really fulfilling for me to be able to do that. So I feel like I'm pairing it forward.

Grantley Martelly 16:09

So that experience led you to start your business? Yes. So are you are you so are you so is your business a private business, or are you a contractor to the military? Are you working with them or are you just a separate entity?

Victor Ingram 16:26

I am everything you just said. Okay. You contract work with the government. I also have my own private practice. I'm a gun for hire when it comes to mental health. And again, I I have a lot of background working with veterans. I'm very fortunate that I have a military background where it gives me street cred. When I talk to a soldier, when I talk to an airman, when I talk to a sailor, when I talk to a Marine, of course, I have that background, I think, that opens a door for me with a lot of veterans. But I understand my skills have to be appropriate and my clinical knowledge have to be appropriate to close the deal, if you will, with the veteran.

Building A Practice And Serving Veterans

Victor Ingram 17:16

They respect your veteran status, but after that point, you have to be able to do something tangible for them to help them overcome their dilemmas.

Grantley Martelly 17:23

What services do you provide in your mental health counseling?

Victor Ingram 17:56

I provide clinical director services where I contract with different agencies as their clinical director, helping them establish uh clinical programs. I'm also a clinical supervisor. I supervise LCSW interns as they pursue getting their clinical hours and administrative hours to become licensed social workers, licensed clinical social workers. I provide individual services where I meet with clients, couples, individuals, treat them in a variety of trauma, depression, anxiety, other things in their lives, there are barriers. I also do group therapy. I've done addiction, addiction recovery treatment. It's just been a really incredible opportunity to just serve the community and help others navigate the problems in their lives.

Grantley Martelly 18:52

So are you providing services both to the military and to the civilian population, or are you specialized just in military?

Victor Ingram 18:58

Military and civilian.

Grantley Martelly 19:01

So have you seen any differences? I'm not a mental health professional at all. So some of my questions may seem really basic, but most of my audience is not mental health professionals either. Okay. So have you seen any difference between the issues and the challenges that you encounter with military people that are different from civilian, or are they pretty much the same because you're dealing with people and life?

Victor Ingram 19:26

I'd say there is a difference. Culturally, the military is a very, very strong and uh devoted culture. Um it's governed by uh values and it's more of a clock, it's more of a tight-knit community with a different level of expectations. So for some of the military, it may be more challenging for them to go and seek help because they're taught to be warriors. So you have to break down that stigma of seeking mental help where it's not a weakness,

Military Vs Civilian Mental Health Cultures

Victor Ingram 20:10

it's more of a strength. And I think my military background helps me in that regard. Also, the fact that similar to the old the old hair club commercials where the guy's the CEO, he says, I'm not just a CEO, I'm also a member. Yeah. So I am a PTSD survivor. When I talk to someone, I I have more of a relation to perhaps what they've been through. Not that PTSD is the only thing that people in uniform go through, but when it comes to PTSD, I think I can relate on a different level. So those are the differences for those in uniform, but some of the similarities, absolutely relationships, um past attachment challenges where they have attachments with things in previous in their previous life where they haven't overcome perhaps some abuse, some traumas. Those things are very similar, and those are things that you see in the outside community as well.

Grantley Martelly 21:13

For many years, mental health issues and discussions about mental health has been a taboo among many in our country, especially people in the black community and in and in immigrant communities where we don't talk about these things. Um, but yet we we know that there are issues there that are affecting people. Uh, can you talk a little bit about that and why it's why it's crucial that we normalize the conversation about our mental health just so that we're trying to normalize it about our physical health? But the truth is we're having it in the same physical health as well. That's the reason for this podcast, is to try to normalize the conversation about medical health and physical health and medical health so that we can help each other and make sure that we have a strong community. So, can you can you talk a little bit about the need to normalize those conversations?

Victor Ingram 22:07

Absolutely. I came from a culture where I knew nothing about mental health. I was told just to grin and bear it, I saw a lot of trauma coming up as a kid in terms of gang violence, drug violence, crime in my community. And it created a sense of trauma for me. And when I first started being exposed to what mental health was, I was like, a lot of this makes sense to me. It's important to have the conversation. It's important for black men and black women to acknowledge and in a lot of cases embrace the vulnerabilities.

Normalizing Mental Health In Black Communities

Victor Ingram 22:50

I I really enjoy talking about what makes me weak because when I can have that conversation, that makes me strong. So it starts with the dialogue, open the lines of communication and making it acceptable to her.

Grantley Martelly 23:06

Thank you for that. That that that's really powerful. And the the the other thing that we we're trying to all help people overcome is that it's okay to admit that we need help. Uh why do you think that's so difficult in our community for people to admit they need help?

Victor Ingram 23:25

That's an awesome question. Maybe it's pride, not wanting to be perceived as being weak. Um maybe it's not being able to ask for help and relying on someone to help you, and and risking someone letting you down. There could be a variety of reasons why it's so difficult, but it's still very important to. I mean, we're we're social beings. My my title, the one of the titles, I've had many titles in my lifetime, but one of the ones that I'm most proud of is social worker. It's my job to understand how people operate in the social environment and try to leverage that to overcoming the barriers, barriers they are experiencing mentally and emotionally. So we have to understand there's a need for us.

Grantley Martelly 24:21

We need each other. Do you think that there's some uh cultural and maybe even some religious taboos that has sort of played into white people may be hesitant to seek help?

Victor Ingram 24:34

Don't know much about religion when it comes to mental health. Um, I was raised in the church. Um I'm more spiritual than religious at this stage of my life. But from my experiences and talking to people who have attended church, and church teaches you to pray on it. And sometimes, depending on how the message is conveyed, they don't teach action with prayer. They conflate the action in the in the prayer as being the same thing. So when I have clients who are religious, I ask them, Are you praying

Faith, Prayer, And Taking Action

Victor Ingram 25:11

for action? Are you praying for a solution? Are you praying for the effort? When I was younger, my mother was Pentecostal, I was raised Pentecostal, and I remember how she was just so committed to religion that it kind of substituted for action. My I saw my mother put her bills in her Bible, put her Bible on a mantle and say she's gonna pray on her bills. And I was like, well, that's a wonderful thing, until the lights go off and you can't read the Bible because it's dark. So I I admire my I admired my mother's conviction, but at the same time, I suspected there was some action that was supposed to be associated with the prayer. So, going back to your question, I just think that religion can sometimes be offered as a substitute to mental health and therapy. And I think the two can work in conjunction.

Grantley Martelly 27:28

Yeah, I agree. I agree with that too. The two can work in conjunction, mental health, getting healthy with mental health issues as well as praying and having faith, because God provides people with knowledge and with strength and with um wisdom to help us along our journey. So we need to part of the normalization is to admit that if you're a person of faith and you need help, it doesn't mean that you don't have faith. Yes. That's what I'm trying to get across to people.

Victor Ingram 28:00

The mental health can be an enhancement and they can work in tandem. And when you have that faith and the mental health, you're unstoppable.

Grantley Martelly 28:10

Unstoppable. So let's talk about some of the cultural things. Now, again, I'm not a mental health professional, but some of the reading I've done and some of the things that I've read is that there some people believe that there's some cultural and institutional legacies within, especially the black community and communities of color that are lending to some of the mental health issues that we are seeing in the community. Do you do you subscribe to that or have you seen that have you seen that? I would say yes.

Victor Ingram 28:45

Um being a a cultural and a social scientist, I think there are some traumas in our community that lead

Culture, Accountability, And Family

Victor Ingram 28:58

us to mediocrity. I look at the breakdown of the family unit, I look at the glamorization of violence and the the the very um liberal attitudes towards sex, how we don't couple, we we don't do families any longer. It I I see some of the traumas, and uh I'm not one to always hearken back to slavery as as the reason that we haven't achieved as as I feel that we should have achieved on a cultural level. Because slavery was what 400 years ago, how many years ago? 1865.

Grantley Martelly 29:43

Yeah, three over 350 years ago.

Victor Ingram 29:45

Yeah. So we we have to be accountable, and I think we've lacked a lot of cultural accountability. When when other people look at our culture and they say we we have violent communities, and then we always go back to poverty and and we make excuses as why there's violence in our community, it doesn't negate the fact that our communities are more violent. I grew up in a very violent community, and and it wasn't poverty because we're all were poor. So we had that that that should have been a kinship. But there was violence, and I I don't know where that comes from. I I still struggle with that. I've had debates with friends, and they always talk about systemic reasons why we're disproportionately incarcerated and disproportionately having children on a wedlock and not staying within our families. But I wonder where personal responsibility creeps into it because I was raised in a single parent household. I didn't know my father, and I felt the pain of poverty, and I made a decision that I didn't want that any longer. And I think I've been a good father. I believe I've been a good husband, and I've been a good citizen.

Grantley Martelly 31:01

You know, I wrestled with this myself as well. I I came from a home that I was also raised by my mother. There were eight of us. My father was around periodically for a little bit of time, but never not around. She was a very strong woman of faith and um grew up in what would today be considered a dysfunctional home, dysfunctional community. And I struggled with some of these things and recognized the legacy of institutionalism that could affect our decision. And I actually had a point in my life where I realized that some of the decisions that I was making, I was making because they were normative within the Society in which I live, right? I don't know if that makes sense. And then I had to come to the conclusion with the help of other people. I believe that God put people in my life to help me to confront that and say, do you have to make that decision just because it's normative in your community? Or can you make a better decision? Or and here's other or another decision. And to sort of break that cycle. So I came to the conclusion that it's possible to break the cycle without abandoning your community or your faith or your heritage or your family or your friends or your society.

Victor Ingram 32:26

Does that make sense to you? It makes a ton of sense. I I look back on my life, and there were many times where I tried to self-sabotage. I was on the cusp of achieving something really fantastic in my life. But because no one prior, no one in my family previously had that achievement, I would say, well, I'm just here by happenstance. I really don't deserve this success. One story I always hearken back to is when I was in college, I became very frustrated with ROTC. ROTC is the program that you're in if you want to be an become an officer. So I went to my professor and I said I wanted to quit. I had a decent job at the time. I anticipated getting a great job after I graduated from college, so I no longer needed the program. And I went to him and I said, I want to quit. He said, You signed a contract. I said, Well, big deal. Just tear the contract up. I don't want to do this anymore. He said, you have to finish what you start.

Breaking Cycles And Self‑Sabotage

Victor Ingram 33:37

And he said he wasn't gonna let me out of the program. And if I did get out of the program, he was gonna send me back to the Marine Corps. And I was like, I don't want to go back to the Marine Corps. So I said, since he wouldn't let me out, I'll just go ahead and give him a reason to kick me out. I stopped going to class. I wouldn't make functions. I was a horrible cadet. And I would talk down about the program because I didn't realize the opportunities it would create for me later on in life. So I went to this sergeant. His name was Staff Sergeant. No, he was a Vietnam veteran. He was a master sergeant. And I said, you know, Master Sergeant, this program really sucks. I want out of here. I'm through with this. He told me, I don't give a blank what you do, Ingram. He was very direct, he was very candid, that his world didn't care about my world. And at that point, I thought I was very important and significant. But him telling me that, the way he told me that, it kind of changed me. It opened my eyes up that I wasn't that important on the whole scheme of life, and that if I wanted any kind of success, I could get it on my own. And I ended up finishing the program and retiring as an 06 colonel, which is a very impressive rank. And I have people like Sergeant I to thank for that. It was kind of a reverse psychological moment where I thought he was going to hype me up and encourage me. And he said, I don't care what you do.

Grantley Martelly 35:15

What other things would you like to share with people that we haven't touched about before we get to the three things that you want people to take away from here?

Victor Ingram 35:22

Just that from a equal, a social equalizer, the military is an awesome opportunity. I would want people to embrace the opportunity of the military. And just that you can overcome any barrier in life as long as you put your mind to it.

Grantley Martelly 35:58

What would you say to some person who is struggling about whether I should seek mental

Why And When To Seek Therapy

Grantley Martelly 36:05

health counseling or whether I even need it? I mean, how how do how do people even come to the point to know that they need it? What are some pointers or some things you can use to help our audience to make that assessment?

Victor Ingram 36:16

I I'd say maybe your friend group, if people think that your behavior has changed, I'd say life consequences. If you're having dramatic changes in your life, you've lost jobs, you're losing relationships. And I'd say get a tune-up. I think everyone needs someone to talk to, regardless of where you feel you are in life. That there's nothing wrong with just similar to how you put oil, well, we don't put oil in cars as much anymore, but similar to how you do maintenance on your vehicle, um, get mental health maintenance.

Grantley Martelly 36:52

Just check, see what others think. So you're basically saying that anybody can actually use a mental health tuna. Absolutely. You don't necessarily have to be signing up for five years of therapy. Absolutely, yes. Okay. And and again, this this question we may have answered already, and if we have, just tell me. But um how can they overcome that barrier that would say that would say if I do that, then I'm appearing that I'm weak. I mean, what would you tell them about that?

Victor Ingram 37:29

Um understand that seeking mental health is an opportunity as opposed to uh a chore. There's so much that can be gained from reaching out to someone and getting an objective perspective. The beauty about a therapist is the therapist does not know you. So you have the opportunity to bounce something off of someone who has no bias. When people come to see me, one of the first things I tell them is, I'm your coach, I'm your teacher, I'm your your your coach, coach, teach, I'm I'm a coach, I'm a teacher, I'm a mentor, I'm everything but an enabler. So what that means is you come

Therapy As Coaching And Accountability

Victor Ingram 38:17

to me, you tell me your problem, we'll coach it through, we'll teach it through, we'll mentor it through, and then we'll create a vision of what you want to be. I become your accountability partner after that vision has been created. And when you're not doing what you said you were going to do, I'm not going to enable you. I'm going to call you out on the behavior.

Grantley Martelly 38:40

Thank you. So I think we've covered those three things, but would uh how could we summarize that? What are three things you would like the audience to take away from this conversation?

Victor Ingram 38:51

Regarding mental health or military or just overall?

Grantley Martelly 38:54

Mental mental health.

Victor Ingram 38:55

Mental health. I'd say um get a checkup. Similar to you going when you get your blood work and you get your physical, get a mental health checkup. Go see a therapist. And if you don't feel you're going through something at the level of, of course, a depression, anxiety, something like that, that case, it could be done from a coaching perspective. You could be coached by a therapist. Uh so that's one thing, getting a checkup. Um, I would say um make sure you have a strong social group. Part of good positive mental health is having a solid support network. And another takeaway, I'd say always challenge yourself. Challenge yourself to to be a better person, be a better man, be a better woman, be a better husband, be a better father. And that can involve a lot of of mental health in terms of getting clarity and setting realistic goals for where you want to be.

Grantley Martelly 40:02

Well, thank you, Victor, retired colonel, Victor, and also clinical social worker, business owner, entrepreneur, and successful, successful businessman. Thank you for being our guest. We really appreciate the conversation. My pleasure.

Three Core Takeaways

Grantley Martelly 40:25

Write us at realhealthblackmen at gmail.com. And to support this podcast, either with a one-time contribution or as a monthly subscriber, go to buymeacoffee.com forward slash Real Health Black Men. And for more information about my other podcasts, strategic business consulting, our public speaking requests, and other endeavors, go to my new website, brantlevymartelli.com, Grantley with a white, martelli with a white, grantleymartelli.com, and I thank you for your support.