EP 40 | FROM HEROIN TO HOLLYWOOD: MIKE MAJLAK

Episode Summary

Mental health and substance abuse are intertwined.

This episode’s guest knows it very well. Mike Majlak came over to the HINESIGHTS podcast to share his story. It hasn’t been easy, but he is on the other side of pain. He found a connection between his physical fitness and his mental health, and that is how he manages to stay healthy today. He has also found his purpose and even if it’s not clear on how to deliver it, he knows that helping people is necessary for his life. 

Tune in to know more about Mike’s journey and success! 

About the Guest - Mike Majlak

Mike Majlak is a YouTube vlogger, author, former marketing manager, photographer, and podcast-host known for his YouTube channel running 'THE NIGHT SHIFT' series and co-host of the "Impaulsive Podcast" with Logan Paul.

Mike also wrote a book with Riley J. Ford called “The Fifth Vital”. 

Key Take-Aways

  • No matter the trials or tribulations, know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

  • Mental health demons can manifest any day in any shape, way, or form. 

  • Physical activity can help your mental health. 

  • It is extremely cathartic to talk about one’s demons and have a reaction from the other party. 

  • Find your coping mechanisms and strategies to bring you out of dark places. 

  • You can be anything you want in this world if you get healthy. 

Resources

EP 40_Mike Majlak: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

EP 40_Mike Majlak: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Kevin Hines:
My name is Kevin Hines. I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I believe that I had to die, but I lived. Today, I travel the world with my lovely wife, Margaret, sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. Now, we help people be here tomorrow. Welcome to the HINESIGHTS podcast.

Kevin Hines:
What is cracking, Hope Nation? It is your friendly neighborhood, Kevin Hines. And welcome ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, and please welcome our phenomenal guest, Mr. Mike Majlak a.k.a. HeyBigMike on Instagram. He's a young man whose journey through substance use disorder to hope and recovery and on to the other side of pain has been long and arduous. He's a massively successful entrepreneur, social media maverick, Logan Paul's best friend, and the author of the acclaimed best-selling autobiography "The Fifth Vital". Mike is is, to be frank, a no nonsense, tell like it is, all around great guy. Here to share his amazing story with all of you and us. We are so thankful, Mike, welcome!

Mike Majlak:
Dude, thank you for having me, Kevin! I hate these kinds of intros, they actually give me anxiety.

Kevin Hines:
Oh, I'm sorry!

Mike Majlak:
No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't be sorry. Just it's funny because a lot of the times I've done like shows like or other people's podcasts, I don't know what it is, but like subconsciously hearing someone talk about me and you're sitting there and you're like, oh, it's like, you know that feeling of when somebody sings, happy birthday to you and you just.

Kevin Hines:
Self sing?

Mike Majlak:
Yeah. But thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it and always, always willing to come to the table and talk about mental health, obviously a huge part of my life, mental health, and the connection to substance abuse and how those two are intertwined. You know, putting out the book and getting into the space has been great, but I'm, hopefully, I'm just scratching the surface on the impact that I'm able to make in the space because it is such an underrepresented topic right now.

Kevin Hines:
Absolutely. Mike, you battled drug use, you got it in 2010, was that like internally for you?

Mike Majlak:
You know, it was, it was treacherous, it was absolutely horrible, it was, I had a ten year, 9/10-year addiction to opiates, Xanax, cocaine, methadone, everything under the Sun, basically, and every piece of trauma that, that came along with it and the destruction of the family unit as a result of it and criminal background and fell into just a really, really, really dark place where my only hope was staying alive. You know, it was, it was a day-to-day process of just hoping that the next day would come and on a lot of the days, not really hoping that the next day would come, you know, and just, a lot of times hoping that the pain would end. But through that and through that struggle, I found a light in my life that never went out, and it was the most important discovery that I, that I ever made in that trial and through that tribulation, finding out that no matter how dim that light gets, or no matter how distant it seems, that light will grow strong enough and illuminate your entire life one day if you just keep going, which what it has for me, and now the lights are brighter than I could ever imagine, you know?

Kevin Hines:
Absolutely. I love hearing that, Mike, because it's so inspirational for people in pain. After getting clean, what was the path you took to get where you are today? What did you do to change your situation?

Mike Majlak:
So much, just, just tried a lot of new things. Well, first and foremost, when I came out of my addiction or started the recovery process, the first matter was just handling all of the mental health aspects and all of the self-esteem and emotional traumas that come along with a decade long addiction or any addiction of any kind or any lengths. You know, it's a very traumatic thing, and people who have gone through it know that. And so the start of the journey for me was trying to corral my demons, which I still struggle with quite a bit to this day, and they manifest themselves in all kinds of different ways, and anxiety, OCD, feelings of worthlessness, and all of those kinds of things that I still struggle with, but when I first got into recovery, those things had to be, had to be battled head-on and very hard. And so I very quickly found a very strong connection between my physical fitness and I know you can relate to this on, Kevin, but my physical fitness and how I feel about myself physically and also, and the connection to how that makes me feel about myself mentally. And so one of the first things that I did when I got into recovery was I started riding my bike. It's a very big part of my story, and it's actually, we're actually, no one knows, this is an exclusive for the summit, but we're working on a non-profit to start getting bikes to people who are fresh in recovery called Mike's Bikes, and it's, I'm so pumped for it. But that bike became my physical fitness, it became my place of clarity, where I was able to escape all of the chatter because my legs were constantly moving and I was moving and I felt good inside and in my mind, it also became my transportation device to my first 90 meetings. Like, having something like that was very powerful for me, and so one of the first things I always tell to people who are fresh in recovery is get your body moving, get, start to feel what it feels like to feel those positive neurotransmitters and those endorphins and that dopamine that fires off as a result of exercise. That was one of the first steps, to be honest with you.

Kevin Hines:
I love hearing that, man, and I remember we had talked about that during the Boston show we did together back in the day, on that Christmas that came over so it was fantastic.

Mike Majlak:
Great episode.

Kevin Hines:
Absolutely. Mike, the book you wrote The Fifth Vital, it is definitely a no-holds-barred look at your life, the good, the bad, the ugly. Was it hard to write the book as well as freeing to get it all up?

Mike Majlak:
Both those things. You nailed it. It was both those things, at different times, at times it was cathartic and therapeutic. And I think anybody who goes to a therapist and exposes demons and actually has a reaction, whether it be crying or anger or whatever, they realize how freeing that could be. And it's one of the, it's one of the main reasons I always recommend therapy to people or at least talking to someone, talk to someone, if you have a problem, if you feel that blanket of depression or anxiety in your life, please share that story with someone, whether it's a therapist, whether it's a friend, don't hold that stuff in because that release is so, so cathartic and therapeutic. And so for me, writing the book over the course of half a decade, you know, five, six years, I would have those moments where I would just be sitting there and I wouldn't even notice it, but they would just be tears all over the keyboard and I'd be mashing the keyboard through the tears, the keyboard would be drowning, and I realized all of that pain of what I put my family through, of the regret I had for the time that I wasted in my life, which was one of the biggest regrets I've had and had to deal with, all of that stuff was just pouring out of me, and there were so many times where I was like, I can go and I can censor this part, I could make this part a little bit less. So it makes it reflects better upon me. And every time I fought that, fought that, fought that, fought that and it ended up being like you said, no holds barred. And you know, we're really just scratching the surface on what we do with that book as well. I mean, we're in talks on a movie for it now, and it's The Fifth Vital has been a wild, wild ride for me.

Kevin Hines:
Amazing, Mike. It's so beautiful to see someone coming from such devastating pain to having such great success. Now you, you're the co-host of Impaulsive, number one podcast in the world. All right, and with Logan Paul and Maclin and you've got the night shift that you do on a weekly basis. And so you've become this really great social media maverick and your popularity continues to climb to new heights. What is your endgame? What is your goal in this industry or is it just to keep continuing to move forward?

Mike Majlak:
I mean, that's always the goal, Kev, for people like me and you, it's, it's always just pushing forward. And I think, I think it looks really, really pretty from the outside sometimes, and by no means perfect. I make a ton of mistakes on both the show and my content and always, but it still seems glamorous and pretty, oh, he's a celebrity, but the battle continues, man. The battle continues every single day, waking up with feelings of doubt, feelings of anxiety, feeling the racing mind, and what can I do to cope today? What can I do to cope today? And life is, life is dramatically better than it's ever been, and I'm so happy and so grateful. But I never want anyone to look in and say, you know, oh, this is so beautiful, and he was able to get out, it's an ongoing, a process. I know you're not saying that, but what is the end game? I mean, the end game for me, I love long-form content, which is why I wrote the book, I love movies, I love television series, I've started writing some cartoons, I started writing some other creative work, I also have a desire to wrangle my anxiety and wrangle the racing mind even more and become a powerful motivational speaker, which I've started to do a little bit, I've been on stage a couple of times, but also I've started conversations with some TV networks as well for shows with my own in the food space, the travel space, and so it's really hard to predict where the ship's going to go. One thing that I need to do and called to do, and feel purpose to do is to help other people and whether that's through Mike's Bikes, whether it's through doing summits like this, whether it's through speaking tours at rehabilitation centers, I have been vocal about this because of my past and because of the things that I've done in my life and all the drugs I've done, and also the amount of jade that comes out of becoming famous and having access to all the celebrities and all that kind of stuff, the only thing that really makes me feel good anymore is putting a smile on someone else's face or making them feel better about their day or making them feel hope that life is going to get better, that feeling, those emails, those responses, those tweets that I get about my book, hey, I gave up heroin because you wrote this book, I stopped cutting myself because you wrote this book, like, those messages mean more to me than any paycheck or any, you know, like Big House or the girlfriend or any of that stuff. That stuff literally makes me feel like my purpose on this planet is being fulfilled.

Kevin Hines:
Oh, Mike, that's beautiful. And just to be clear, so people really understand that you still go through the anxiety, you still deal with bouts of depression, you still go through this kind of pain and ordeal. It's just like me. Like, I have bipolar disorder, what they call bipolar disorder, and I deal with all kinds of symptoms today, even I live with still suicidal ideations, and.

Mike Majlak:
Yeah.

Kevin Hines:
Have you ever had too suicidal thoughts or idiations?

Mike Majlak:
Very few of them, but I have, and by the way, like I don't know that for addicts especially, I don't know that you genuinely need to say, I want to kill myself or think I want to kill myself before you actually are having those feelings subconsciously, because technically, every time you shoot a bag of heroin that you got from a street dealer or you rob someone to support your crack addiction, you're taking your life into your hands, you know what I'm saying? And so I think that the carelessness that comes along with addiction kind of goes hand in hand with the idea that life is not worth living anymore, you know, and I felt like that for, for a very, very long time. Even in my recovery there were a couple of times where, and I wrote about this briefly in the book, where I had, where the anxiety, where the obsessive thoughts which I deal with still to this day, it became so strong that I couldn't escape them, and I told my my little sister one time at a luncheon on Nantucket, I think about not being here anymore, you know, I think about I have those feelings of wanting the pain to stop and to not have this go on anymore. Luckily, I always had such a strong support system of friends and family and came up very quickly with coping mechanisms, which are so important for people that deal with these kind of things, and it honestly has always made me feel so badly for the homeless addict, the homeless veteran that is, you know, has no one, and is living out on the streets with no system for support and has no one to, as you said, put a hand on their shoulder and say, how are you feeling right now? Or what are you going through? And having someone to talk to and so, I've been very blessed and to have the people that I've had in my life and the thought processes to get out of those ways of thinking, I think that's the important thing to teach people is, man, really look for those coping mechanisms, really look for those strategies to get yourself out of those dark places.

Mike Majlak:
Do you ever find yourself rageful from the past to experience? Do you ever find, is anger a part of your, the issues you deal with on a daily basis? I've seen you kind of blow up on Impaulsive, but it's hard to tell whether that's, if it's silly or is it really you like, what part of that is real?

Mike Majlak:
Yeah, I mean, there's there's definitely a, I'm very not angry because I have different levels. First of all, I'm, I'm a hyper active, super energetic person anyways. And when I start yelling and getting fired up about a topic, it's generally me getting fired up about a topic.

Kevin Hines:
You're just excited.

Mike Majlak:
Overly excited.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Mike Majlak:
But I definitely have a line that when crossed, I can go into bouts of rage and anger and definitely destroyed enough property and gotten in enough fights in my life to realize that I have that. But in my recovery, and I don't know if it's a result of the drugs I did or even my age, I've become much more calm on the outside, on the outside. You know, and I generally stay at a pretty even keel, but, and I also one of the biggest things I think you can find for yourself is that awareness that you are starting to go towards a place that's going to lead somewhere bad and pulling yourself mentally or subconsciously or even physically out of the situation before it gets there. And that's something that comes with age and with wisdom and with learning is like, yo, I'm really getting fired up about something right now on, what I'll often do, and I hate to say this is, I don't know why I said I hate to say this, but I kind of do, I'll often just yield to the other person that I'm getting in an argument with and realize just how trivial the argument truly is in the grand scheme of life. You know what I'm saying? And so like, it's almost like, you know what? Take that victory, take that win. You could have it. I've got so many good things going on in my life that I don't need a victory over you in this argument, and I don't, and I don't want to poorly reflect upon myself from outward onlookers or inward out lookers on that I'm arguing with someone and not stopping when it should have stopped a long time ago, and my favorite lines from Jay-Z is a wise man told me, don't argue with fools, people from a distance can't tell who is who. So when you argue with someone who you feel like doesn't understand something and you're sitting there and you're getting fired up, all people from the outside see when, especially when it gets to that point of anger and rage is two people arguing. So technically, when you argue with someone who you feel like you shouldn't be arguing with, you're just putting yourself on their level. And so there's a lot of times where you need to make your statement, make it known what your views are, and if someone does not agree with that statement and you, and you've had a civil discourse, then you start to feel that start to rise, rise, rise to a point where it could get toxic, you got to just walk away from the situation, and that's just how it goes, you know?

Kevin Hines:
Absolutely. And you brought up Jay-Z. That was my next quote actually, you're a big Jay-Z fan. You love the words that he speaks and his and his messages and his rhymes and his raps. You were quoted as saying one of your favorite Jay-Z lyrics of all time is I'd rather die enormous than live dormant. That always makes you feel like you want to go hard and push yourself to the best you can be, told me you told yourself in your early recovery and it made you feel like you can be great, like, anything was possible. Tell me about that feeling and tell me about your relationship to Jay-Z's music.

Mike Majlak:
Yeah, that was my quote in my yearbook, for my senior quote, that exact line. And you know, Jay always stood out to me even before I started hustling and getting involved with the narcotics life that I was involved with for so long. It always jumped out to me that, that someone could get out of that life and move on to bigger and better things, you know what I'm saying? And so I always listen to him and I like that he escaped and he made it out. But aside from Jay-Z and what he stands for, that feeling of not only being able to escape something but to become one of the biggest in the world at something else was always something that stuck out to me so much, and it's a big part of the book. I tell any person in early recovery, anybody who continues to suffer from mental health problems, you have the ability to not only get out of that, but to go to the highest reaches of this world because of how the world is set up nowadays, because of digital media, because of all of the other means that are to get from the bottom to the top. And so I think for a lot of people, including myself, at times you feel like, OK, if I get out of this mental health problem, if I get out of this addiction, all I'll ever be is a four hundred credit score, a person without a college degree, no, you're not just going to be that, you can be everything, you can go from that baseline all the way to the top of the world, it happens every day. I run into people all the time who have gotten out of severe addictions, have gotten out of severe mental health problems and gone on to be much more successful than I am, way more successful. And I think that story is really, really powerful for people because I think when you're in that addiction or dark place in your life, you often feel like the best you're ever going to do is be at the baseline and be just below the people who are in your high school class who went and got good jobs, but that's not the case. It's not the case anymore, you could literally be anything you want in this world if you just get healthy.

Kevin Hines:
You could literally be anything you want in this world if you just get healthy. That's a great quote. What do you say, Mike, to that individual, that young individual who's misusing substances right now, living with addiction to help pull them out of that hell and onto the same path you're on right now to recovery? What do you say?

Mike Majlak:
Two things really, one, look at me, it's possible. Look at me, it's possible. Like if I, if I hadn't had, not to discount it, but if I hadn't had a weed addiction for six months, that's one thing. If I had tried cocaine a couple of times, I was as bad as you could possibly get. I was living on the streets, severe, severe multi-bundle-a-day heroin addiction, Xanax, crack, cocaine, everything, and I was able to pull out of that to a place where the success now feels better than any drug I've ever done, you know what I'm saying? And so like that feeling of making your family happy and proud, the feeling of helping your mom with the bills, I bought my mom a car, cash like the feeling of that, how that felt for me was better than any drug I've ever done. And so just understand that once you get clean, you get healthy and you start to put some of the right pieces in play, you will find a success that is much bigger and better of a high in life than anything you're doing currently. And so just knowing that it's possible is really, is really the first thing. But then I also tell them, do it now, don't do it tomorrow, don't do it next week. Get clean right now. Right now. Of course it's scary, of course you're unsure of what it's going to feel like, of course you want to stay with your girlfriend who's also using with you or your friends, they feel like they're the only people you have in the world, and they may be right now, but they don't have to be. The only thing you can't get back in this world, is time. You can never get the time back, and one of my biggest regrets was giving up that decade of my life, and for me, it worked out really well. I got a great story and I'm able to help other people as a result of it, but I'm an outlier. I really am in that specific sense. You give that time up and you can't get it back, so the note to the addict is get clean today. Go get clean. Get clean is the first step and then get healthy. Get your mind back, get your clarity and understand that within six weeks, some six months, some a year, maybe, you'll be making the people around you proud, you'll be making yourself proud, you'll be feeling good about yourself. It will happen, it happens every day. Just understand that it's possible and that it will happen if you just keep going.

Kevin Hines:
Amazing. I do hope that when COVID-19 is over and we're able to travel the world again like you normally want to, I hope you and I can speak together because, between our two messages of hope we can really help a lot of people together, I really believe that, but we want to make sure as we wrap this up, that we give a big shout out to Logan Paul and Team Maverick. Thank you, Mike, for sharing part of your life journey with us, we're so honored to have you and your story of struggle, pain, resilience and strength, there are so many, you can learn so much by how to not just survive but thrive in spite of their pain. And they can learn it from you, Mike. And we appreciate you, brother. And so good luck with battling your anxiety, massive luck with your entrepreneurial endeavors, and thank you.

Mike Majlak:
Kevin, thanks for having me, it's been an honor to be here. I love you, Kev.

Kevin Hines:
Love you too, brother.

Kevin Hines:
Margaret and I love sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. For more content and inspiration, go to KevinHinesStory.com or visit us on all social media at KevinHinesStory or on youtube.comKevin/Hines.

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Margaret Hines