Ugh! I Thought I Had It Under Control!

Good morning. Good morning everybody. How are we? I got my Cadre sweatshirt on today. Let's go. Cadre hat. Good morning, Good morning, Good morning. Happy Wednesday. Well, being on Cadre, let's chit chat a little bit about it. Good morning everybody. Hope everybody is having a fantastic week. Gotta love this song in the background. Little anxiety. That's what we're gonna be talking about today. Alexa, stop. Hope everybody's having a great day. I just want to share a story with you all on the ride.

So the last three weeks you guys have heard I've been on this big trek and on this big walk. Started in West Virginia, went West Virginia, through Kentucky, through, through Virginia, down through Tennessee, through Georgia, through Alabama and then up to Nashville. So it's three weeks, 500 plus miles. It was just an amazing experience, but I wanted to just share a little bit about my rules, routines and rituals. So for those that don't know, my name is Luke Wendlandt. I've been with Cadre since day one.

One of the things that I deal with and I have dealt with for a long time is my anxiety, right? So by generalized anxiety disorder, they can lead to panic attacks and alcohol. I used alcohol, cope with that for years and years and years. For those that know me, know my story. If you don't, those are some things that I'm going to share about. Also what I share about is professional development, business, entrepreneurialship, endurance, endurance athlete, all the things I just like to share my life experience here and keep it 100% real.

So one of the things I just want to share is over the last four years I've had caffeinated beverages just a few times, right? So my rules, routines and rituals. One of my rules is no caffeine, no alcohol. No caffeine, right? Well, we were on the trip and it was, you know, I go to my regular routine coffee shops when I'm at my regular routine coffee shops, right? Like I always just consistently they know, like decaf. And I say it, I say decaf, I say decaf, I say decaf. So but I always get the venti size Starbucks, the big one.

So it has four shots in it and then I ask for a little bit of oat milk and naturally it's a decaf, right? Well, it was the probably three days to the final trek of our end of our track and we went through a Starbucks. Jason ordered, I ordered, naturally, I asked for a decaf. Well, I tell you what, within an hour I was like off the charts, like, so the energy was up, right? So I was like, let's go. Come on. The music was great. I was dancing with the music. I was walking, like, all of that was great until about three hours later, all of it started to, like, come down for me, right?

So, and what I mean by come down is I felt like my, my, my legs were just getting, like, light, light headed. I was feeling lightheaded. I was feeling like my legs were light. I was holding onto my poles extra tight. And then I just could feel my heart just racing. And so what did I do? What did I do when all that happened? Like, number one, I told Jason right away, who's with me? I said, hey, Jason, just want to let you know, I'm going to sit out this leg, all right? I'm just going to sit out this leg.

I'm just going to wait for you in the van, right? So I waited for him in the van. Then when he got up in the van, I was just very honest with him and I was like, hey, I just want to let you know, I think that at that coffee shop, I think that, you know, we asked for decaf, but I don't think it was decaf. Like, there's a lot of things that are happening to me right now. Number one, my digestive tract was going crazy. Number two, I was feeling, like I said, lightheaded, my hands were sweaty, my feet were feeling like they were floating, my heart was racing, all the things.

So I said, you know, I'm just going to, like, I'm going to take a beat and take a pause. And so I just. But I just let him know all of it. Like, I just said, hey, I just want to share. This is all happening to me, right? This is. And so the more I was able to talk about it, the more I was able to calm myself down. So I just explained what I was feeling, what was happening to me, told him about, you know, the caffeine, caffeine in my life. He knows that I get decaf coffee all the time. So they just made an error.

You know, it happens. But in somebody who has high anxiety and the rules, routines and rituals of life and stating one of my rules is no caffeine, no alcohol. It just took me over the edge. And so this was the first, I would say, panic esque feeling I've had in a long time. Like, total panic, like, because you were so out of control on the road. And I didn't know exactly, you know, how far it'd be to the van and what that looked. Looked like. So I Just like, you know, I'm just going to wait this one out.

And you know, I think it, I learned a lot about that story for not only myself but other individuals. Like, no ego, amigo, just let people know, talk about it, share, inform, educate how you're feeling, what you have going on. And then I think what's the most important thing is what are you gonna do about it from that moment? So I was like, all right, I know I need to drink water, I know I need to recycle through my system as fast as I can. So like let's drink Gatorade, let's drink water, let's do all the things.

And how about we get on the next leg right away, right? How about we get up there, I'll drive a rest, I'll lay down a little bit, I'll do what I need to do, but then come up to the next leg, like let's try to walk a little bit. And so one leg up, I was like, all right, you know, I'll just keep walking around and just walk around the van. So I just kept walking around the van, walking around the van, walking around the van. And then I got up to the next one, the next leg, because we do five mile legs.

So then at the next five mile leg I was like, all right, you know what, I'm going to run some of this off a little bit. I know running works. So then I had my bag and you know, whatever, 20 miles in, 15 miles in. I was like, all right, I'm just going to bang out some miles. So I ran a mile here, a mile there, a mile here, and just feeling like it all coming through my system and through my body. So what does that mean in real time of your world, of your life? Alright, so we're at work, we're at work and you're feeling anxious at work.

What do you need to do? Maybe talk to somebody that you trust, that you care about at work and say, you know, I'm feeling really anxious, I don't really know why, or I do know why, but this is what's happening to me and I need a little bit of time here to take this in. You know, I'm just going to go out to my van, I'm going to go out to my car, I'm going to go out to wherever. I'm going to go to the break room and I'm just going to go breathe for a little bit. And you know what, I'm just going to sit here for a minute and then I'm just going to go walk and then I'm going to go get a bunch of water.

And then after I get a bunch of water, I'm going to put in some calories into my system to see if that helps too. Right. So I just want to make sure that we're all aware, you know, when you have generalized anxiety disorder, when you have panic, when you have any of those things, depression, when you have stuff going on with your mental health, like it doesn't just forever go away. Like, you know, here I am, 20 some odd years removed from really like a full blown first panic attack into, you know, two decades or almost two decades later, you know, when my rules, routines and rituals are broken, I.

E. Sleep is terrible, that is Coffee, caffeine, I. E. Alcohol, which I haven't done in years. But if those things happen, stress is a big one for me too. You know, anxiety can come back and you know, rear its ugly head. C. always talks about regression progression and stagnation. Well, boy, oh boy did I regress. But I learned a lot from it. So the rest of this trip, you should have heard me talk to the coffee shop baristas. Every time I was like, decaf, no decaf. Making sure decaf. Okay, third time now.

Are you sure it's a decaf? Right? Because like the people around here that I go to consistently, the coffee shops, they almost know by now, like, oh, you know, Luke decaf. Luke decaf. Luke decaf. So when you have to establish new rules and routines and rituals outside of your normal, see that you can keep it so normal in your comfort zone, you got to find ways to make sure that your rules, routines and rituals can still stay where you need to go. Otherwise you're going to find yourself regressing to, then progressing.

So that's what happened to me. Thanks JC for always that regression progression and stagnation. That regression was a beautiful thing for me of what I know I need to do in the future, of where I go and how I go there and how I communicate. So. And making sure that caffeine is still always off of my list. So hope this one helps you all. Take care, junk food junkie. You're the best. I saw your post yesterday. I just absolutely love it. I live for your posts. Makes me so happy. 1% better. You're the best.

I'm actually Going to do a whole epic trek journey next week. And what I'm hoping to have happen is that Jason, Cole and Everson can join so we can talk as a foursome of this whole amazing journey. I think it would be an epic story to share with you all. So you all take care. Have a phenomenal week. I hope this little impromptu anxiety talk on a beautiful mental wellbeing Wednesday is just what you all need to kind of reground yourself and get yourself right to propel through the rest of the week.

And then also look at this merch that came through. So if you go to the website and you go right on to Cadre IO and you go check out the merch, it is unbelievable. Off the charts. Like, this sweatshirt is so cool. And just wait, I got one more I got to show you. Okay, check this out. So this is the Cadre stocking that I got my wife, which is really, really cool. So I'll take it out of the bag so you can see. Isn't that amazing? So that's the stocking hat right there. And then this is what I got from my mother in law, Adam.

Check this out. And here's this big, fluffy, Absolutely fluffy. Huge. I mean, you should feel this thing. It is unbelievable. It's like a blanket throw that, you know, goes down to about like knee length. Isn't this amazing? So it's pretty sweet. Pretty sweet stuff. So I got that one as well. But you all take care. Have a phenomenal week. This is what living is all about. You know, sometimes it's the best of days and sometimes the worst of days. And that day was a really tough day. But we get through it.

We survive, you know, the worst of the days that we have and keep moving forward. So you all take care. Thanks for joining in. For those that are watching this post, you can go to our website Cadre IO up on the top, you'll see merch. When you go into the merch side, you'll see all of the Cadre stuff. It's really amazing and it's on an as needed order basis. So whatever you want, just grab it and move on. All right, take care of you guys. Crush your week. Thanks so much for listening in. It's always the best.

Alexa, start. Take care, y'. All. Bye. Bye. Think I need a smuggler up in Russia? You could be my butler. Shama Cutler. Shout out.