Welcome back everyone and happy 2026! Here's to a great year ahead. In this episode, I reflect on 2025 and talk about preparing for 2026. I discuss things I learned in 2025 and things I'm looking forward to in 2026. Join me on the journey this year to getting 1% better every day. As always, love yourself, love others, and go put joy into the world! --TRANSCRIPT-- 00:00:21.549 --> 00:00:51.549 What's going on everybody? Welcome back to Mental Health is Wealth. It's been a while Sophie, forgot. I'm your host Justin Katzen and it's been it's been a long time so welcome back to Mental Health is Wealth. In this podcast I talk about mental health, what mental health means to me, um being an advocate for mental health, letting people know that it's okay to talk about your feelings and it's truly okay not to be okay and just try to change that 2 00:00:51.549 --> 00:01:21.549 stigma about mental health one episode at a time. Whether you are a first time listener for the new year or someone who listens regularly, like I say every episode, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy lives to support me on my journey and just to listen about mental health and if I inspire one person out there I truly lived my purpose. So thank you so much, welcome back, I hope 3 00:01:21.549 --> 00:01:45.249 you enjoy this episode. Happy twenty twenty six happy, new year. I can't believe I'm saying that and when I'm recording this, it's almost the end of the month. Um so we're almost we're almost a month through, it's almost February. Um I hope twenty twenty s I hope twenty twenty six brings my listeners happiness, health, and great memories to you and all of your loved ones. 4 00:01:45.669 --> 00:02:15.669 And this episode, this is just a quick episode about um a reflection personally for me on twenty twenty five and what I learned, some cool things that happened and to look ahead to twenty twenty six what it haves what is it what what it has in store for me and some things that I want to take in to twenty twenty six For. as we get started for twenty twenty five twenty, twenty five was truly a fantastic year 5 00:02:15.669 --> 00:02:45.669 for me with a capital F_ and exclamation point at the end. Uh I'm not saying that nothing challenging or I didn't face any adversity in twenty twenty five because um I did and there was tough times don't, get me wrong there, was dark days there, was long days um but I had so many positives that outweighed them that it made it such a fantastic year where I look back and reflect on it. I'm so grateful for it and I grew for I grew in twenty twenty five but, I also experienced 6 00:02:45.669 --> 00:03:15.669 pretty damn excuse my language pretty damn awesome things and when I say that the number one the number one thing um that happens I have like a s the hugest the biggest the hugest I dunno that's a word the biggest smile on my face right now um I got married to my best friend and I still can't believe I get to call Danielle my wife um by now my listeners know what Danielle means to me um so to get married to her truly meant the world to 7 00:03:15.669 --> 00:03:45.669 and it was the highlight of my life and to this day it was the happiest um and truly the best day of my life and it's a day that I will truly nev never forget Um. I'm getting emotional talking about it because it's just something that I always jumped upon uh since I was a little kid and having my mom and my dad be married for thirty five years and having Michael and my sister um be married for I don't even know how long now, maybe 8 00:03:45.669 --> 00:04:15.669 shoot I should be knowing this over five over five years now just having those two role models in my those two relationships those that are role models in my life um it's made me want to strive to have a mar uh uh marriage like that and now the fact that um I do have that it's truly amazing and it's something I don't take for granted um every any day and every day I just realise how blessed I am um I could talk about it literally for forever but I'm just so 9 00:04:15.669 --> 00:04:45.669 and so grateful for such a beautiful day. Um and every ti every d every time I reflect on the day I just feel so blessed and grateful and I wouldn't want the day to go truly any other way. To have the people that mean the most to both me and to Danielle all there um in one space to celebrate our love um was truly amazing. Um and quick shout out to my cousin Sarah um who was the officiant. Um she was truly amazing and she 10 00:04:45.669 --> 00:05:15.669 mean so much to me personally. She means a lot to Danielle also but she just means so much to me personally. She's my um prayer buddy, she's been there for me through s through some of my hardest times and I thought looking back it was so fitting um to have her up there because she's been there for me and Danielle at some of some of mine like I said and our hardest times and to have her there um by our side doing doing the wedding um and the happiest day on a 11 00:05:15.669 --> 00:05:45.669 happiest day of our life was a truly full circle moment. So 'cause um I'll keep you short because I don't wanna get too emotional but thank you so much um you truly did an amazing job um I love you so much and shout out to my shout out to her son Clay, my cousin Clay, he was the best ring-bearer out there um I love you buddy. Um I kinda touched on it a little bit when I was talking about the wedding but I just gotta take a moment because Danielle truly looked like a queen that day 12 00:05:45.669 --> 00:06:15.469 I just can't wait for what life has in store for us. Um the highs, the lows, the ups, the downs, um the good, the bad, like I said in our in our vows, our endless dance parties, our love is blind dates, um whatever life brings um to us babe, I know it'll truly they make the most oh w I know it truly will make the most of it, so I love you so much and um that's a day that I'll truly never forget for the rest of my life. 13 00:06:15.469 --> 00:06:45.469 As you could tell, I'm probably rambling about the wedding, but I could talk about my wife and the wedding um for the rest is for for for the rest is episode. But the day was truly special. Um Danielle means the world to me. That day meant the world to me. And I'm just forever grateful for th that day and what it meant for all of us. Another great thing that happened in twenty twenty five that I am so excited for is I found out that uh my 14 00:06:45.469 --> 00:07:15.469 was pregnant and that brings so much happiness to me and happiness I have for my sister and my brother-in-law is endless and I can't put into words in this episode how excited I am. Um I'm beyond excited, I don't have words to say it, there's no word to say how excited I am because um my excitement is endless and once I found out I was a baby boy, um I had to get the baby some shoes so, that baby was gonna be a stylin' um just like just like his uncle 15 00:07:15.469 --> 00:07:32.489 And um when I say this, I truly mean it. My sister and Michael are gonna be the best parents out there. I'm not saying that because it's my sister and my brother-in-law. If you know them, you know how lucky that baby boy is gonna be um, because they're truly gonna be the best parents out there. 16 00:07:32.769 --> 00:08:02.769 And even though my sister is older than me, um as I get older, everything I do is tr I try to um love my sister as much as I can, I try to protect my sister as much as I can, and I try to support her in any way and every way possible. Um so now that she's gonna be a mom, it truly hasn't hit me yet, um I'm just so ex oh my God, um I'm just so excited for her, I'm beyond proud of her, and I know that she's gonna be uh she's my 17 00:08:02.769 --> 00:08:29.449 but a damn good mom and that baby boy is gonna be so lucky and sis I'm just so happy for you, I'm so proud of you and just know that your brother's always here for you but that kid's gonna be between you and Michael, that kid's gonna be have so he's gonna have so much love and I am so thankful for you and I'm so thankful that you're gonna be the best mom out there, so I love you so much. 18 00:08:29.449 --> 00:08:59.449 And just as we talk about twenty twenty five, the thing that makes me feel um so happy and so grateful about twenty twenty five is was my f my family was healthy, my family was happy, and they got to live twenty t**t twenty twenty five to the fullest. Um everyone knows that my family means the most to me. So if my family had a good twenty twenty five therefore, I had a great twenty tw twenty five. Um so that's what truly meant the most to me this year was my family was happy and my 19 00:08:59.449 --> 00:09:29.449 family was healthy, and they got to live a great year. We had some great trips. My dad and I went to Seattle. Um but I'm just so happy that my family was h happy and healthy during twenty twenty five, so therefore I was happy. And if I describe if I are described twenty twenty five um in one word, the word that I would say um is blessed, and I wrote this down in my notes. I wrote it all d I wrote it in all capi all capital letters and I 20 00:09:29.449 --> 00:09:59.449 it, because I'm just so grateful for everything that twenty twenty five was, and it just makes me so excited for twenty twenty six. And as I reflect on twenty twenty five, like I said, there was challenges in it, there was adversity, there was some very hard days and some long days, there was a lot of cries, um there was sadness, but overall twenty twenty twenty twenty five was just such a great year, and as I reflect on it, something that I learned in twenty twenty 21 00:09:59.449 --> 00:10:29.449 was to fully believe in myself and whether that's with and that's not in the egotistical way, but I just realised I had to trust myself m trust myself more, whether that was a
