“We should have taken a long rest but, in those days, we couldn’t.”
Sometimes you don’t need a coach. Sometimes growing is not the best option. Put another way:
How many Everly Brothers hits would you sacrifice if you knew it meant the brothers could keep their sanity?
They were often in conflict (mainly about politics, I gather). But boy, could they be in harmony:
I found an old Q magazine (January 2001 if you want to look this up–Q called it quits during the pandemic). The issue features eyewitness accounts of Don Everly’s nervous breakdown during their 1962 tour of the United Kingdom.
The short version: A “speed” doctor with a number of famous patients treated the brothers by prescribing Ritalin. During a rehearsal before one of their British concerts, Don collapsed. The manager was able to keep him away from the press while he was in and out of a hospital for about a year.
“8000 different things”
Think of the Everly Brothers as a business. Then read the following. What is the root cause of the strife affecting the band’s tour?
The Everlys were basically producing their own records and Don at that time was pretty much taking the helm on everything. He was constantly trying to prove himself and he did have a terrible bout of problems at that time.
Producer Snuff Garrett
Donald had not been well for a while and we were semi-cognizant of his situation. It was just the most dreadful period I could ever imagine. There were, like, 8000 different things causing it. It was just terrible.
Phil Everly
I still feel that all the troubles at that time were caused by him subconsciously trying to get away from the terrible demands that touring put on him. They had such an excessive schedule that it’s not surprising one of them cracked.
Songwriting legend Felice Bryant
[The celebrity doctor’s] theory was that our society had become accustomed to all kinds of instant things: “Quick, I’m not feeling good, I want to feel better.” So he would change the metabolism of your chemical make-up [by prescribing speed], but it wasn’t good for you because you had no permanent control of it and you were depending on some outside influence.Phil Everly
Ritalin made you feel energized. You could stay up for days. It just got me strung out. I got so far out there, I didn’t know what I was doing.
Don Everly
The Everlys also mention that the doctor had several other famous patients and that Ritalin wasn’t known to be addictive at the time. It all seemed legitimate. But wait, there’s more. …
“There were too many things happening at the same time.”
What we needed was to take a long vacation, to get off the merry-go-round. There were too many people making too much money off us, keeping us going.
Phil Everly
When I look back on it, there’s no way it could’ve lasted much longer. Things developed too fast. There were too many things happening at the same time. The mainspring were the lawsuits with my wife, my bad experiences in the Marines and the drug addiction we wound up with.
Don Everly
The tensions between Don and me … well, we’re just a family that is like that, I guess. Everything that was happening contributed to it, I guess. But you could just as easily say that the tension between us existed from day one, from birth. And will go on forever.
Phil Everly
If you see a coworker bleeding, you’d take him to the hospital. It’s called triage: separate out first things first. We’ll figure out who can fill out his TPS report later. Right now, we need to make sure he is safe and healing.
But you can’t see a coworker in mental and emotional pain. In fact, they might not want you to know about the pain for fear of being seen as weak.
I shudder to think what might have happened if Don had not collapsed and clued in others. Or if the manager had not been wise enough to realize there was no such thing as “too much money” compared to Don’s mental health. Or if Don had not seen past the “Quick … I want to feel better” temptation of shallow help that doesn’t get at the root of the issue.
Coaches help you move forward when you are stuck. They are for growth.
But sometimes we need to heal from a past trauma. Deal with a damaging behavior. Get to that root.
What was at the root of it for Don? Military PTSD? Marital discord? Sibling rivalry? I don’t know what he needed to address and heal from.
But I am confident that the Everly Brothers would have been OVER if Don had not received the gift of a break.
What colleague were you thinking of as you read this?
If you need a referral to a professional who could help, let’s talk.