Last week we began a two-part interview with Joe Stern, a consultant and program manager here at Salesforce. Joe is passionate about advocating for those with neurodiversity and has made it his goal to increase conversations about mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. We started our conversation last week learning about Joe’s journey after being diagnosed with ADHD at a young age and some of the challenges that have followed from this diagnosis. Now, he coordinates support for mental health in the workplace to help others process similar obstacles more effectively. 

In the second half of our interview, we’ll discuss some of the outlets that Joe has found helpful when taking care of his own mental health. From activities like networking on Animal Crossing, to creating Mental Health Matters resource groups at work, to finding a passion for roasting coffee, Joe has discovered that sometimes the simplest form of therapy is finding something that brings you joy and leaning into it.

Show Highlights:

• Finding therapeutic relief for mental health in unlikely places
• How socializing with others from the workplace in ways that do not involve work can boost both group morale and individual happiness
• The importance of setting up workplace resources for mental health support
• Why it is so important to find a hobby you love and stick with it

Links:

• Joe on Twitter twitter.com/mrjoesterne
• Joe on LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/jamesjosephsterne
• Joe on Github https://github.com/joesterne

Episode Transcript

Joe Sterne:
Surpassing, I would say, my expectations of people really enjoying it because it just ended up being a place where people could talk about themselves freely.

Josh Birk:
Once again, that is Joe Sterne, Program Manager and Salesforce consultant here at Salesforce. I’m Josh Birk, your host of the Salesforce Developer Podcast. And here on the podcast, you’ll hear stories and insights from developers for developers. Today, we sit down and continue our conversation with Joe about his other passion, that being neurodivergence and mental health advocacy. We’re also going to get into a few of his other, other passions, and actually we’re going to kickoff with one of my favorites in how gaming can kind of be therapy for you.

Joe Sterne:
Oh man. I would say that especially these days, it’s definitely one of the few hobbies that I’ve kept longer than almost anything else.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Joe Sterne:
And I find it to be a very productive habit. I can’t do it nearly as often as I’d like, but-

Josh Birk:
Right.

Joe Sterne:
It’s definitely something where, and we were also talking about this when we were planning the show, where I’ve done more networking with Animal Crossing in my current job than I have with, I would say, a typical networking activity. And that’s something that I would never have thought was going to be the case.

Josh Birk:
It’s an interesting sentence as an adult to form. I didn’t think I was going to hear that this morning.

Joe Sterne:
Right. Yeah, and it’s something where, and I guess this is kind of important or least important to me in the era of remote work is, it’s something that connects you to coworkers that’s not work related.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Joe Sterne:
So to me, it’s definitely something where you can immediately connect with somebody over the fact that Tom Nook is a capitalist punk. I don’t know, he’s an okay guy for a raccoon.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Joe Sterne:
But you can talk about stuff like that. You can visit each other’s islands. You can have some sort of interaction with your coworkers that is not work related, which is sometimes harder to do when you are remote with everybody else. Because you don’t necessarily have those serendipitous run-ins, which are absolute hell for anybody that suffers from ADHD, because they’re like, oh, you want to talk? I want to talk. I love to talk. Let’s keep talking. You know what, I’m get up and I’m going to walk around and talk to other people.

Josh Birk:
Let’s keep talking. You weren’t doing any work or anything were you? Let’s talk about this other thing.

Joe Sterne:
Exactly. It’s definitely one of those things for me, where it’s like I don’t miss that part of the office because I’m more effective at home. But at the same time, I need to find other ways to connect with my coworkers that’s not just me asking them, “Hey, what’s the update on this file?”

Josh Birk:
Right, exactly.

Joe Sterne:
Once a week or something along those lines.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. And I think those socializations are so important even prior to burnout to get once again, those nice dopamine hits that are very positive. They’re very healthy. But also to have that ability to see other sides of your coworkers and see the human that’s sort of behind the employee, sort of thing. And yeah, I’m the same. My gaming roots go all the way back to the Atari 2600 that my grandmother got in order to trick me and my cousins to come over to her house. A trick that worked amazingly well. Grandma was no dummy. She knew what she was doing. And it’s always been so super social. And so that’s why Fortnite during the pandemic was, it was just so good. It was just so good to actually get together with people online, and chat and joke, and blow things up, and drive trucks off of cliffs and things like that.

Joe Sterne:
Yeah, so for those listening at home, that’s how Josh and I started to get talking initially was [inaudible 00:04:12] was actually tweeting about this. And I was like, “Hey, if you guys are ever looking for someone else to play Fortnite, I’m fairly terrible. I would love to help bring the squad down.” And that definitely sold everybody immediately.

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Joe Sterne:
I’ve gotten better since then, but that’s how we ended up starting to talk as well. And I think, again, from a networking perspective, the amount of people that I’ve talked to from a gaming aspect, especially when you start factoring in fundraising stuff like extra life, has just been above and beyond anything else I’ve done internally. I don’t know if that’s necessarily by design, but it’s definitely a really cool byproduct. I would say that.

Josh Birk:
Yeah, it’s a really cool byproduct and it hits all of those notes of socialization and fun, and all of those kind of stuff. When I realized my anxiety had gotten so bad that I was basically having a nervous breakdown, my therapist was like, you need to go find something that gives you … because like you were saying earlier, one of the things that hit me was the fact there was so little things in my life that I was doing that brought me any kind of joy. And that sneaks up on you, right? Especially during these dark days. It’s like, well, of course I’m waking up feeling slightly anxious. But then I was like, I can’t the game I was playing, oh, Back 4 Blood, I think it was. And it was like, not, am I not enjoying myself, I’m actually annoyed at the game right now. I’m actually adding to my anxiety playing this.

Josh Birk:
And that was one of my wake up calls because it was like, wait a minute, I’m really stressed out right now. What are things I can do to not be stressed out? And I literally came up blank. I had no answers. And then when I accepted what was going on, I think I played about 120 hours of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla almost continuously because it was just such a pretty, pretty game that my brain could just basically pretend it was on vacation for long enough that at least the anxiety levels came down a few notches, sort of thing. We can’t make everybody a gamer, but we can recommend it all the same. What are some other resources you found that really help you?

Joe Sterne:
Oh man. I’m definitely going to plug the Mental Health Matters group that I helped co-found internally, not because I helped co-found it, but because I’ve found that being able to talk a little bit more frankly about these issues in the workplace is definitely helpful. There was a really just a men’s round table that we hosted a couple months ago that ended up surpassing, I would say, my expectations of people really enjoying it because it just ended up being a place where people could talk about themselves freely without any worries of repercussions or anything like that.

Joe Sterne:
And that definitely showed me how badly we need stuff like that in the workplace, whether it’s employee led or employer led. There’s probably some pretty good legal reasons why some of it’s not employer led that we’re just going to gloss over because this is not the place for it. But I would say this is probably one of the, oh man, one of the few times in recent history, at least since I’ve been alive, that so many people are grieving so many different things at the same time. And I think everyone trying to go on business as usual is ignoring that fact, and addressing it doesn’t mean it’s bad. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to throw everything off or anything like that. It’s more along the lines of like, hey, the world’s currently on fire. We see that too. Here’s some ways that we can help maybe.

Joe Sterne:
In the last couple years I feel for both employee advocacy, as well as just changing the conversation that we’ve had around work is just totally different than, I don’t know, I was led to believe when I was growing up. And I think that change is good. I know there’s people resistant to that change, which I get because change is hard. But making sure there are resources for people to talk internally, I think, is definitely a great place to start. And if it doesn’t exist, try starting it up yourself. It’s definitely something where there was a Mental Health Matters channel in our group that I joined at the very beginning because I was like, “Hey, I can talk about this.” I have a ton of experience. And I’m sharing links and articles that I come across. Eventually they’re like, “Hey, so we’re going to try to make this a formal employee resource group. Would you like to join us?” Absolutely. Do you guys want me to shut up? It was something like that where I was like, yeah, maybe I can help everybody out internally that’s not necessarily my day job.

Josh Birk:
No, and I love that. And what I found was that the more people I talked to about my anxiety, the more I realized, like I rarely ran into somebody who either had not gone through it, was currently going through it, or a loved one or spouse was currently going through it. The commonality is so fierce. And what you’re doing, and what I hope people who have gone through what we’ve gone through and come out the other side, we’re still in recovery, but it’s awareness through transparency. Talk about it. Be willing to let other people know that this isn’t a stigma. This is a health issue. And you’re right, these days it’s like …

Josh Birk:
The other thing I feel like some people are like, well, my trauma’s not really all that bad, right? I’ve heard this like, well, I don’t have it that bad compared to somebody who’s a victim of domestic abuse or something like that. It’s like your brain, it’s not a contest. Trauma’s trauma. Your brain’s going to react to it no matter how … it could be trauma over time. It could be microtrauma, but it’s still damage that’s occurring to your brain and to your body. And without that awareness that’s when you start going right past the warning signs. And on the socialization front, the first thing I did was call every one of my friends and family. And it had helped so much just to converse with people, right, and just be able to actually have that layer of communication that’s like, this is real. And once you realize it’s real, then you can actually deal with it.

Joe Sterne:
Exactly, yeah. And it doesn’t help anybody to try to invalidate your own trauma because everyone’s experience is different.

Josh Birk:
Exactly.

Joe Sterne:
Yes, if you’re trying to keep a massive global scoreboard, maybe.

Josh Birk:
Maybe.

Joe Sterne:
But I don’t think that’s incredibly helpful either because invalidating your own trauma brings yourself out of that equation where it’s like, hey, wait, something did happen to me. It was terrible.

Josh Birk:
Right, right. Yeah. All right. Well, let’s end on a couple of positive notes. First of all, shifting gears slightly, tell me about your coffee.

Joe Sterne:
Oh yes.

Josh Birk:
I guess that’s shifting gears wildly actually.

Joe Sterne:
Yeah, we haven’t talked about coffee at all, or the fact that caffeine doesn’t affect me like it does a neurotypical person. So if that is you, you’re not alone. That took me probably two decades to figure out.

Josh Birk:
So you’re just like drinking coffee and wondering why everybody’s getting the jitters.

Joe Sterne:
Yes. Yes. I’m somebody who you could put four shots of espresso in front of and I could drink it, and then I could go take a nap. Now there is a term for that called slingshotting where you ingest caffeine and you take a nap, so by the time it actually kicks in, you wake back up. But for me, I could just go to bed.

Josh Birk:
Got it.

Joe Sterne:
So yes, I would say that it does not keep me awake like it does a neurotypical person.

Josh Birk:
Interesting.

Joe Sterne:
Unless I’m consuming massive, massive amounts of it, which I don’t do just out of various reasons.

Josh Birk:
So then how did you get into roasting? You don’t get the caffeine hit, but you just started getting into the taste of it.

Joe Sterne:
Well, so two different ways. A, I didn’t know that back when I started roasting. I hadn’t figured it out yet. And then B, I was actually looking for a hobby prior to my brother passing away. And then after my brother passed away, I was like, hey, yeah, I should really find something to do with my time. But prior to my brother passing away, I started experimenting with roasting after seeing a YouTube video on how to roast coffee in a popcorn popper. And I was like, oh, this looks pretty cool. It’s pretty cheap to get this stuff off Amazon when we go out back. Turns out I really like making green things brown. So from there I started roasting more. I ended up getting a hobbyist drum roaster from a company called Sweet Maria’s out in Oakland, California, and started roasting more and more.

Joe Sterne:
And it got to a point where I was making so much coffee that my wife and I couldn’t consume it all due to “caffeine limits or something”. I was making so much that we couldn’t consume it in a timely fashion. So I was just like, all right, you know what, I’m just going to give it to friends and family because I still want to perfect my craft, try to figure out exactly the best way to do this. And the responses I got back from everybody was like, “Wow, this stuff is fantastic. Have you thought about selling it?” I’m like “Not … no.” I was like, all right, so let’s test this theory. So we found a local farmer’s market that would take a chance on us and went there. Because I was like, all right, if I can get strangers to buy and drink this and like it, then my friends aren’t totally full of crap.

Joe Sterne:
And surprise, surprise, their responses were basically the same. So we started doing a couple more farmers markets and then a couple big events. And then got to a point where we were doing so many of these that we were running into some people that had full-time shops that were people that made donuts or sweets or pastries, even a smoothie truck, and started wholesaling to them.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha.

Joe Sterne:
Yeah. So now we’ve been in business since 2016. We have a few wholesale clients. I’ve taken a step back in 2022 with the weekly farmer’s markets just because, candidly, I was tired, but also my son started Cub Scouts and I want to attend those on the weekends.

Josh Birk:
I also love that you have these two side gigs, one is a totally above the board coffee market. And then you’ve got your black market Animal Crossing.

Joe Sterne:
Oh, well, just because I brought you over a few suitcases of gold-

Josh Birk:
Just a few suitcases of gold.

Joe Sterne:
Before the call.

Josh Birk:
Didn’t sound like it was going to be a drug dealer or anything.

Joe Sterne:
No. I left them on the ground like you asked me to.

Josh Birk:
And then walked slowly away.

Joe Sterne:
Right, right. Josh is getting into Animal Crossing, and I’ve been playing it for years. So I-

Josh Birk:
I’m like the one person-

Joe Sterne:
I wanted to share some of my wealth.

Josh Birk:
Which, and I thank you.

Joe Sterne:
Figuratively and literally.

Josh Birk:
And so does my wife because she’s now getting into it as well. And it’s like, I’m like the one person who waited until after the pandemic’s almost over to get into it. Everybody has their tarantula empires and they’re like, here’s some stuff. I’m like, okay. I’m down with being the, there’s got to be an economy term for this. I’m the downstream of like … oh, this is how trickle down economics is actually supposed to work.

Joe Sterne:
Yeah, something like that.

Josh Birk:
Something like that.

Joe Sterne:
I was just going to say that you let other people level up and then you’re just riding those coattails, which is totally fine.

Josh Birk:
Oh yeah. This is the World of Warcraft example of going into a low level server and then having that one guy who’s in like God armor just drop off a bunch of stuff and then disappear in a ball of light.

Joe Sterne:
Exactly, yeah.

Josh Birk:
And that’s our show. Now, before we go, I did ask after Joe’s other, other passion, which is not roasting coffee. Actually turns out to be behind the camera.

Joe Sterne:
I would say some sort of photography would probably be it.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha. Nice.

Joe Sterne:
Whether that’s just, I’ve always been a big fan of point of view video.

Josh Birk:
Got it.

Joe Sterne:
I was a Google Glass Explorer back in the day. I have a pair of Snapchat Spectacles now. I just actually recently got their drone, it’s part of my fleet. I love taking photos and videos using different devices for different purposes, but really just having fun with it. I always, I guess I still do, joke about it that if I didn’t go to school for business, I probably would’ve tried to go to school for film.

Josh Birk:
Okay.

Joe Sterne:
I’ve always loved movies. I’ve always loved trying to frame things up and pretend my eye is the camera ever since I was a kid. I would say that, again, completely wildly different direction, everything else. And I don’t know if I really have necessarily the patience to do directing and, or story boarding, but it sounds cool on the tin, so whatever.

Josh Birk:
I want to thank Joe for the great conversation and information as always. I want to thank you for listening. It’s a very serious topic. We try to have a little bit of fun with it. If anybody out there is struggling with mental health issues, please, please talk to your family, talk to your friends, and seek professional help if necessary. Stuff is extremely important, and we haven’t necessarily done the best of taking care of ourselves over the last few years. So stay safe everybody, stay healthy, and I’ll talk to you next week.