Resilience Agenda Radio – Talking About Recovering From Anxiety And Depression, Finding Balance At Work, And Defining Success with Julian Sarafian - Ep.22

Episode 22: Resilience Agenda Radio – The Mental Fitness Podcast

While the pandemic can feel like a fairly distant memory for many as lives start getting back to the new normal, it was a time where many of us had spent day in and day out battling the demons that came out to play – while we were stuck in lockdown. 

From anxiety to depression, to finding the perfect balance to achieve our own versions of success, we speak with Julian Sarafian, a Harvard Law Graduate who went viral globally after describing his experience with mental ill-health on CNBC: '28-year-old Harvard grad who quit his $200,000 job: Here’s the biggest downside of success ‘no one talks about'. 

What You Will Learn:

• The things Julian wishes he knew earlier on, and how he navigated the stigmas attached to mental health and confronting the need to seek help

• The practical and actionable tools that Julian utilizes to strengthen his Mental Fitness

• The importance of having a support system as you work through the challenges of mental ill-health

Today’s Guest: Julian Sarafian

Julian Sarafian is a mental health advocate, content creator, and the founder of For Creators, By Creators.

Julian has been an active voice in the mental health community, growing a community of nearly 350,000 followers across social media channels including TikTok and Instagram.

Prior to his mental health advocacy work, Sarafian worked at a top law firm, Wilson Sonsini where he practiced corporate and transactional law.

He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and UC Berkeley.

Resources

Website: https://www.juliansarafian.com/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@juliansarafian?lang=en

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliansarafian/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliansarafian/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCty8Yi2kiFC0TgCgtEVhKHA

Discord and more: https://beacons.ai/juliansarafian/home

Quotes by Julian Sarafian

“Even in the pandemic when I had accepted, I needed to manage my stress better. Things got darker and darker. You know, the pandemic forced everybody to work from home. I was in big law at the time, which does not care at all about your mental health because the whole system is just work, work, work… but locked in my office, for nine months in a row…[it was a] recipe for disaster when you're not knowing how to manage your mental health.”

"I think at the onset, success should be defined, and what it is for me is spending my time in a way that I'm proud of and that makes me fulfilled."

“If you lose sight of yourself in chasing external validators of success like money or titles or prestige, like being a partner at a law firm, then there's nothing left of you. And at that point, what happens is of course you become depressed and from depression. Stems, alcoholism stems, addiction stems, misery stems, destruction of relationships, stems in the worst cases, suicide, which we see all the time in the professional world.”

“When you think of mental health and you think of like how awkward it is to talk about, it's because it gets like so vulnerable and serious all the time. Whereas in my opinion, we need to just normalize this in the same way we normalize getting a broken bone. – Yeah. I can't really work tomorrow because my depression or whatever is firing up really badly – Like that’s it. Matter of fact.”