Launch Alert: Adventures of the Horse Doctor’s Husband 3

Life is flying by at warp speed these days. I guess that means I’m having fun, right? I really am, to be honest. My 8th book just released, which is very exciting. Our podcast, Straight from the Horse Doctor’s Mouth, is booming. And I’m up to my neck in video production for the vet clinic, which I love so much that I’m pretty sure I missed my calling working in Hollywood as a gaffer or something. So, yeah, I’m having a lot of fun!

This isn’t going to be a long blog. I mostly just wanted to let you know that Adventures of the Horse Doctor’s Husband 3 is now available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover. I’m going to get the audiobook recorded at some point, but probably not right away.

I also wanted to say thanks for waiting so long for this book. It’s been due for a couple of years, and I acknowledge that! Hopefully the next one will happen a little faster. And if you haven’t read The Righteous Rage of a Ten-Year-Old Boy, you might find it to be a thought-provoking book to keep you busy while you wait. You can find it here on my website by clicking on Books up in the menu.

Click here for the book description and links to purchase!

That’s all for now. I hope you enjoy the books!

–Justin

A friend of mine is starting a business, and asked me for some help. We got together and had a couple of planning sessions, putting ideas on paper and working out some framework. While we were talking about the pain points her potential clients face, I realized that imposter syndrome was near the top of the list. And then my friend showed her own imposter syndrome by setting her sights really low. And then I worried that I might be giving her bad advice, because what do I know?

For the first thirty-eight years of my life, I didn’t know squat about running a business. I didn’t have any exposure to it at all, because I had always been a non-managerial employee. When I met my wife, that all changed. I had a lot of useful skills, and she saw enough potential in me to trust me with her veterinary business. She also gave me a lot of resources to help me learn what I needed to know, which is a process that’s still going seven years later.

So, I don’t have a business degree. As a matter of fact, I never even went to college. Everything I know about running a business has been learned from books, videos, workshops, podcasts, coaches, and experience. I’ve learned an enormous amount about teams and staffing, and how important it is to have really amazing people in every position. I know how to do the bookkeeping and determine if our cost of goods sold is where it should be. I know how to decide if it’s financially smart to buy an additional ultrasound machine. I also have a side business building and maintaining websites, and I’ve learned a lot about marketing, graphic design, managing client relationships, and time management. But does all that qualify me to give someone else business advice?

The truth about imposter syndrome is that pretty much everyone has it to some degree. When you look at an expert, all you see is them being really good at something. You don’t see all the time it took them to learn it, all the failures, all the doubts about whether or not they’re good enough. So you compare your doubts and failures to their success, and you lose every time. I know. I’ve been doing it all my life.

For me to give good advice to my friend, all I need to do is share my experience. I don’t have to know everything. She doesn’t expect me to know everything, because that would be ridiculous and only I would hold myself to such an impossible standard. If I have five things that I can share with her that will make her business venture better, then that’s a really solid contribution.

That’s the thing about life. If you’re trying to put yourself out there and do something beyond just existing, you aren’t going to know everything, and that’s okay. You’ll collect tidbits from other people that will make you better at what you do, and your expertise will continue to evolve. And those people that you’re drawing tidbits from? They’re evolving too, drawing tidbits from others. That’s how it works. That’s how everyone does it. No one is perfect, and no one expects you to be perfect. Except for you, of course.

So get out there and do your thing. It doesn’t matter what it is. If you want to coach people, share what you know. Commit yourself to learning more and improving your craft. If you want to write a book, write a book. If you want to start a business, you can do it. You don’t have to know all the things before you start. You’ll learn along the way, just like everyone else.

While we’re on the topic, let’s talk about valuing your services, your time, your knowledge. If you have something that will improve someone else’s life, and they’re willing to pay you for that, charge appropriately. Don’t undervalue yourself just because you aren’t at the top tier of whatever it is that you do. If most people who do what you do charge $100, then you should charge $100. If you set your price at $50 because you’re new, you’ll still be charging $50 ten years from now because it’s really hard to double your price once you’re established, and you’ll be miserable and stuck.

Undervaluing yourself is probably the most destructive aspect of imposter syndrome. Lots of businesses fail from poor financial management, and it all starts with not charging enough. If you provide a service to the same clients over and over, it’s really hard to raise your prices significantly. And guess what? People go out of business rather than risking an upset client. If you’ve read my previous blogs, you can probably guess what I’m about to say: insecurities are unbelievably damaging to our lives. Imposter syndrome is an insecurity.

The good news is that you can get past this hurdle. You need confidence, self-awareness, and perspective. I had to spend some time talking with my therapist to develop these things, but it was time well spent. Just having a positive self-image and believing in myself has had a profound impact on my life and my success. And because I’ve found success in my ventures, other people ask me for advice. And because I understand that I don’t have to have ALL the answers in order to give them SOME of the answers, I can share my knowledge and experience with them. And so can you.

I had my last three beers on February 17^th, 2008. I sat at my desk in the spare bedroom after work, reading through the Alcoholics Anonymous website, not with any intention of quitting drinking, but hoping to find a way to get it under control. It was a Monday, and I was coming off another weekend drunk. Nothing bad happened; no scenes or incidents, no fighting, nothing that would qualify as a rock bottom event, just another hangover, and another day of feeling the same way I always felt, which was shitty.

For a long time, I measured my sobriety by the number of days since my last drink. I could tell you how many days it had been up into the four-year range. Even then, I knew that drinking wasn’t my problem, it was just a symptom of my issues. The real problem was the way I felt about myself, and my complete lack of emotional tools. But as long as I didn’t drink, I believed I was winning, or at least, not losing, and while that might be true, it wasn’t enough.

It’s been thirteen years since my last drink, and I have come many a weary mile in understanding myself, and why I became an alcoholic. My self-awareness has steadily increased over time, and that has given me cause to reevaluate what sobriety means for me. At this point, I’ve been sober just about as long as I drank. It’s not really about alcohol anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long time. So how do I define sobriety now?

I used alcohol as a way to escape reality. I rejected myself, and I rejected the world around me, and alcohol changed both of those things for me. But what did I do before I found alcohol? It’s not as if I was a happy-go-lucky kid who just fell apart one day. I was a mess as far back as I can remember. As early as five or six years old, I began reading books alcoholically, which is to say that I used them to escape reality. We didn’t have a television, so books were my only way out. I was reading way ahead of my age group at school, which my teachers commented on regularly. I learned a lot from reading, but the biggest thing I learned was that life was better somewhere else, anywhere else, and that’s where I wanted to be.

Along with my aversion to reality, I also had some major insecurities. I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I was sure that everyone was judging me every second of the day, so I was compelled to prove myself over and over and over. My behavior was driven by my insecurities, and I was convinced that I was failing whatever the expectation was. And when I became an adult in the workplace, I still felt all those same things, and that was a bad headspace to be in. It made me an overachiever with a massive chip on my shoulder. It made me incapable of being a team player. It made every criticism a fight. It made every day a stressful event. And then I would go home and drink it all away: the escape from my horrible reality.

Now that I can clearly see what was happening, I’m starting to think that my sobriety is measured not in the number of days since my last drink, but in whether or not I get hijacked by my insecurities, or if I engage in an escapism behavior. And that’s not something I can measure in days, because I’m presented with a hundred situations every day where I either succumb to a triggered emotion or recognize and override it. And if I’m trying to escape, I’ve probably had my amygdala hijacked repeatedly and I was unable to get out of it. I probably won’t drink over it, but if I’m seeking to escape, it ultimately doesn’t matter if I’m doing that with alcohol, a movie, a tub of ice cream, a slot machine, or any high-risk or escapist behavior. It’s all the same thing: rejecting and avoiding reality.

My goal for today is to recognize when my amygdala is being hijacked. If I can become an observer of my emotions, then I stop being controlled by them. I don’t expect to be successful every time, but I’m shooting for better than 50%. Perhaps as I get better at it, that goal might move to 60% or 70% each day. And it didn’t start at 50%, it started with a goal of recognizing and controlling just one trigger event, and then repeating that. It’s not easy.

For me, the whole point of understanding myself is so that I can change things that I don’t like about myself. Therapy has helped me realize that most of my insecurities aren’t even based on anything real. Behavior modification comes from recognizing when one of those insecurities is triggered, realizing that it’s an invalid feeling and doesn’t actually apply to the situation, and moving forward with control rather than acting out defensively. The more I times I can successfully do that in a day, the better I consider my sobriety.

Today, sobriety is about not being hijacked by my insecurities. It’s about developing emotional tools and self-awareness. And it’s about growth and change, continuous improvement, and becoming my best self. It’s about living, and not just existing. Because I lived the opposite of all those things, and I can tell you from vast experience, there’s a better way.

It’s Okay to Have Feelings!

I think that might end up being the name of my next book. It’s such an important thing, and it’s stunning to me that I didn’t know it until I was 40. Is it just me? I don’t think it’s just me. When I look at the way men act, especially men between the ages of 15-50, I’m pretty sure a lot of them don’t know. If they did, they wouldn’t work so hard to hide their emotions. And I know, it’s not just men, but this is about combatting toxic masculinity, so that’s where I’m pointing the spotlight.

Feel: A 4-Letter Word

Human beings do some ridiculous things. As a species, we make irrational blunders, ignoring facts and reason and acting instead on feelings. But at the same time, we try very hard to pretend we don’t have feelings. This becomes a paradox over time. We have a multitude of feelings about everything, and the older we get, the more things there are for us to have feelings about. At the same time, we’re trying to maintain this façade of being tough and cool and implacable, and the void between the internal experience and the external façade gets bigger and more unstable, and harder to maintain.

Living a lie is exhausting. You always have to be “on” to keep anyone from realizing that you might be a fallible human being with emotions and shortcomings. When you make mistakes, or the façade slips, you have to come up with yet another cover story, another diversion, another lie. And for what?

No one thinks about you as much as you think they do

How much time do you spend in your day thinking about other people? Especially people you admire? Probably very little. As in, zero to one minute. That’s right. We spend all this time and effort trying to manage how other people perceive us, when the reality is, no one is thinking about us for more than a passing second. Everyone is too busy thinking about themselves, just like you and me.

I spent most of my life drawing my self-esteem from what I thought other people thought about me. Did I look to the people who approved of me for that? No, I looked to the people who could never show me approval, like my dad. And when I became an adult, I found other “tough guys” who didn’t approve of me, and I used their disdain as further proof that I wasn’t worthy. And so I tried harder and harder to get that impossible approval. A vicious cycle.

The truth is, those guys, to include my dad, didn’t spend any of their time thinking about me. It wasn’t that they actively disapproved of me, it was that they were so wrapped up in their own shit that I wasn’t even on their radar. I kept doing more ridiculous things to show them how tough and manly I was, and they kept ignoring me, but it had nothing to do with me. I just didn’t realize that for a very long time.

Stop trying to be a rock

I grew up thinking that a man never cried, because big boys don’t cry. I learned from the kids at school that boys don’t write poems for girls they like, cool kids don’t get good grades (only nerds), and that tough guys are impervious to insults. I came to believe that he who cares the least gets the most. And that girls like assholes. And that never being under the power of anyone is the only way to be a real man, because real men don’t get dominated.

And I wasn’t any of those things.

I felt all the feelings, and when I compared myself to the cool kids, they didn’t seem to have any feelings at all. The only feelings my dad had, as far as I knew, were anger and exasperation. So where did that leave me? Alone.

By the time I was 25, I was certain there was something seriously wrong with me. I had worked tirelessly to transform myself into who I thought everyone else expected me to be. I was an asshole, I talked shit to people, I had loud exhaust on my truck so everyone would know I was tough, I rebelled against my boss so he would know that I wasn’t going to be dominated, I was drinking alcoholically, and none of it was working. I still didn’t get the approval I needed so desperately. What was I doing wrong? Why was life so horrible to me?

It’s not about what others think of me

Here’s the thing: Everyone in the world could line up and tell me how awesome I am, but if I don’t believe that I’m awesome, I’ll still feel bad about myself. I could have all the muscles and tough guy stuff, the big truck, the loud Harley, the money, the sexual attention, all the supposed signs of being good enough, and still feel bad about myself. Because it isn’t about any of those things, and it isn’t about impressing other people. Feeling good about myself is an inside job.

I have to like who I am in order to feel good about myself. And for that to happen, the inside needs to match the outside. No more façade, no more fake front, no more pretending to be someone else. I know, it’s scary. But once I got there, it was so unbelievably freeing!

I get to do what makes me happy, and I don’t have to worry about what other people think. It doesn’t matter what they think, for starters, and really, no one is spending much time thinking about me, anyway. And sure, there will be people who don’t like me. Guess what? That’s okay! There are a lot of people that I don’t like, and that fact hasn’t ruined their lives.

So there it is. I have feelings. I have a LOT of feelings. I’m sensitive to criticism, which is a remnant from my poor self-esteem days that I’m still getting past. I have self-doubts. I like artsy things like painting and writing, along with outdoorsy things like hiking and working on my farm with my tractor. I like writing songs and playing them for my wife on my guitar. I like making deep emotional connections with people, and sometimes I cry when things get intense. I’m a long way from perfect. And at the same time, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me. I accept myself, I love myself, and I’m proud of myself. And none of that is based on the opinion of other people.

I urge you to give it a try. It’s not easy, and it took a lot of therapy for me to get here, but I wouldn’t go back to the way I used to be for anything. Oh yeah, I guess I should mention that, too. I had to have help to turn my ship around. I didn’t know how to do it by myself. And there’s nothing wrong with that, either. Therapy is awesome!

So, suck it, toxic masculinity. The only thing I ever got from you was self-loathing, and you can have that back.

In case you haven’t read my new book yet, here’s a spoiler: I’ve learned a LOT about myself in the last year! I was just looking over some of my blogs from two and three years ago, and while I stand by my thoughts from those points in time, I’ve come a long way since then. And that’s a good thing! I’d be disappointed if I found out I haven’t grown.

I spent a solid year going to therapy every week, and it was incredible. That experience is what the new book (The Righteous Rage of a Ten-Year-Old Boy) is based on. For all of my efforts at understanding myself, I still didn’t grasp a couple of key things when I started the counseling sessions. One key thing, really: some negative experiences that I had as a child created negative self-beliefs, and those stuck. They became insecurities, which dictated how I interacted with others.

Remember that time in 1981 when I got a bundle of sticks for Christmas? It was a nice bundle, remember, with the red ribbon tied around it and the yellow Post-it Note with my name on it: To Justin, from Santa. It was because I was a smart mouth too much, and I didn’t clean my room like I was supposed to. Sure, I still did most of my chores, but that’s not the same as doing what you’re told.

And remember that time in 1983 when mom made me sit in the trash can and wait for dad to come home to spank me? She wasn’t very good at spanking, so she let dad do it. But I couldn’t be out goofing off until he got home, of course, so when I got done with my chores, I’d have to stand in the corner or sit in the big nasty trash can and think about what I’d done, and my upcoming beating.

Oh, and remember that time in 1985 when some kids in my neighborhood dumped our big trash can all over the yard, and my dad thought I did it because I was mad about having to take the trash out? Remember how we went around and picked up every piece, and I got a swat for each one? There were 104 pieces of trash, that’s right. And dad wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t believe me that I didn’t do that. That I wasn’t suicidal enough to do something like that. That I was smart enough to know I could never get away with something like that.

I got punished when I did all the right things, too. I had to split and stack the firewood, but I got whipped for pieces that were out of line with the others. I had to dig a trench for a water line, and I did it, but I got whipped for not keeping it straight all the way. I had to go get wrenches when my dad was working on the car, but I got yelled at for taking too long.

Those events combined with a thousand others when I was young, and the belief I formed about myself was that it didn’t matter how hard I tried to be good, I was going to get punished for something. That my guilt or innocence wasn’t even a factor, I was going to lose. That the person who had power over me was never going to believe me. That I had no control over my life. That I’m the victim of whoever controls me.

Most of those beliefs were unconscious by the time I got out of high school, but they were cemented in place. When I went to the Army, those ideas got reinforced a thousand times over. It never occurred to me that the rest of the world might not be that way. By the time I was 23, I just assumed that was how the world worked.

How did that belief impact my life? I had a bad attitude. I resented people in authority. I was belligerent to every supervisor I ever had, combative and argumentative. I relied on being a hard worker to get me up the corporate ladder, never realizing that I was a horrible employee, and a horrible teammate. And of course, I got passed over every time, and that just made me more resentful. I created a self-fulfilling prophesy situation, and I didn’t even know it.

It wasn’t just bosses that I had a problem with, it was anyone who had control over anything in my life that went wrong. If the phone company screwed something up, I took it personal. If a cop pulled me over, I had to make sure he knew that I wasn’t impressed with him, even though I was shaking like a leaf. If someone cut me off in traffic, it just further proved to me that I didn’t matter, and the whole world knew it and went out of their way to shit on me. And that made me angry. It all made me so very angry.

I was 45 when I went to therapy this time. 45 years old, and I finally got down to the center of why those seemingly minor events always pushed me over the edge. Those things that my parents taught me about myself became my truth: I’m not good enough, I’m a piece of garbage, I don’t matter, my efforts will fall short. I hated those concepts, but I never doubted them for a second. And I unconsciously lived my life for 45 years with that as my operating code.

My therapist did EMDR trauma therapy with me, and we took every one of those events apart and dismantled the belief system that my child-self had constructed. We looked at those events with an adult perspective and figured out what was really happening, and I finally understood the truth. It was never me. It was never me that wasn’t good enough, it was my parents. They were the broken people in that situation. I worked hard, I accomplished amazing things, and I never gave up. That’s not a failure, that’s a success!

My therapist helped me change my whole understanding of who I am, and who I’ve always been. She helped me form a positive opinion about myself. I can’t tell you how good that feels. It’s amazing.

So here’s my truth: My name is Justin B. Long. I’m proud of who I am. I forgive myself for not knowing better, sooner. I forgive myself for becoming a raging alcoholic, because it was a natural response to my childhood. I’m proud of myself for breaking out of that cycle of destruction and building a new, positive life. I’m proud of myself for seeking help. I’m proud of who I am today, and I’m excited about who I’ll be five years from now. Because it just keeps getting better!

Well, I stopped writing this blog for a few months to focus on writing the book I was working on, and somehow twenty-seven months went by. Time flies when you’re having fun! I did finish the book though, along with six others, so it wasn’t time wasted.

Since the last time we talked, I wrote three books in the DimWorld sci-fi series, two books in the Adventures of the Horse Doctor’s Husband series, and a how-to book called How to Become an Equine Veterinarian. I just finished my seventh book; a memoir called The Righteous Rage of a Ten-Year-Old Boy. It’s currently at the editor and should be out in early spring 2021.

You See, What Had Happened Was…

Writing The Righteous Rage of a Ten-Year-Old Boy has been a huge growth point for me. It’s a chronical of my journey through therapy, and the things I learned about myself. As a result of this experience, my self-esteem is better, my confidence is better, and my understanding of who I am is better. But far more important than that, my understanding of who I used to be has changed, along with my understanding of why I had all these misconceptions about myself and ended up as a raging alcoholic at the ripe old age of 21.

I had an abusive childhood, which I talk about extensively in the book, and as a result of my experiences, I formed certain erroneous beliefs about myself. Guess what? The negative vision of myself that I created at eight was still there when I was eighteen, and when I was twenty-eight, and when I was thirty-eight. It didn’t change, and why would it? Had I not done this trauma therapy at forty-four, it would have persisted until the day I died.

Here’s an example. One of my many jobs as a kid was splitting and stacking firewood. My dad built a rack for the wood, and I had to fill it every day. The wood had to be neat, too, not just tossed in. I got a swat for every piece of wood that stuck out of line from the others, and there were always at least four or five of those.

When my dad came home from work and inspected my work, I would get my spanking. What I learned was that no matter how hard I try, I’m going to fail, and no matter how hard I work, I’m going to get punished. As an adult, I still believed I wasn’t good enough. I also had a chip on my shoulder, a ready-made resentment against every boss I ever had. That made me a terrible employee because I was argumentative, combative, and angry. I worked really hard, and tried to excel on merit, but my attitude kept me from ever advancing. My belief that I wasn’t good enough became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Finding My Truth

My therapist helped me find my truth. The truth was, we needed firewood to heat the house in the winter. I split and stacked all the firewood, and because of my efforts, the house was warm. The fact that I got punished for that wasn’t because I wasn’t good enough, or that I failed, it was because my dad had a warped sense of motivation. The failure was his, not mine. I did my job, and I was good enough, and our whole family benefitted and enjoyed the fruits of my labor. I was a success!

Imagine how different my life might have been if that belief, and a hundred others just like it from similar situations, had never taken root in my mind? If I had recognized my value early on, and not created a huge resentment towards anyone who had power or authority over me. If I had a positive attitude about myself.

That didn’t happen, of course. My insecurities drove me to become an angry alcoholic, a resentful spouse, a terrible teammate and employee, and a miserable person. Fortunately for me, and those in my life, I managed to get sober when I was thirty-two and begin the huge task of turning the ship around. Thirteen years later, I’m still sailing in a new direction, learning new things about myself, and trying hard to become a better person. And it’s working.

But a lot of people on that same trajectory never change course. They spend their whole lives being miserable, even when everyone knows that counseling is a thing. Why is that?

Masculinity, Toxic and Otherwise

American culture, and maybe it’s human culture, expects men to be tough. Men are never supposed to show pain or any emotion other than rage (and maybe lust). Men are never supposed to ask for help. Men are never supposed to admit they’re wrong. We can never break under pressure, be weak, be fragile, be sensitive, or anything other than a big rock.

Have you ever heard such a lot of bullshit? Humans have twenty-seven emotions, and half the population is expected to jam twenty-six of them down into a corner and forget they exist. Really great men jam all twenty-seven of them in the corner. Talk about being true to yourself, right?

Spoiler alert! I’m not a rock. My feelings got hurt early on, and those wounds never healed. I didn’t know how to heal them, because I didn’t have anybody in my world to help me learn how. The fact that I turned to booze for comfort is no surprise at all. In fact, some sort of destructive or addictive behavior was inevitable.

I’m lucky that I met the man who became my mentor. He helped me see that not only is it okay for me to get help, professional and otherwise, it’s the only way I’m ever going to be satisfied with my life. I owe it to myself to use every resource I can find to improve my quality of life. Why wouldn’t I do that? Why would I suffer needlessly? Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.

I went to therapy to fix myself. I wrote a book about it because it’s important to me for people to know what they’re missing out on. It kills me that people would rather suffer in silence than be seen as weak for seeking therapy. That’s the most absurd idea in the world, yet millions and millions of people do it every day.

I’ll leave you with two thoughts. First: what do you want people to say at your funeral?

That guy was an angry, miserable man, but by God, he was tough. He never even thought about changing. He suffered right up to the end. What a man.

And second:

• Real men get therapy when they need it.
• Real men embrace change.
• Real men are self-aware.
• Real men understand the value of vulnerability.
• Real men are committed to self-improvement.
• Real men aren’t trying to project an image of something they aren’t, because real men aren’t reliant on the opinion of others to feel good about who they are.
• Real men admit when they are wrong.
• Real men have emotions. Somewhere around 27 of them. And that’s okay.
• Real men don’t have all the answers, and that’s okay, too.

Real Men Get Therapy.

Let’s change the social norm.