#26 - Creator Mental Health Issues No One Talks About with Jon Denton

Jon (: 00:00

Not only is he one of the most famous people in the world and very, very busy, he's literally about to play a show to 80,000 people.

measured him a little bit throughout the day and he connected me with like his assistant's assistant. That's how famous he is.

meets us at the stadium.

us through backstage area, all this sort of stuff. And then outside of the weekends dressing room is I'm not joking, legit. I think there were seven bodyguards outside of there,

standing like fucking

when you've got seven bodyguards staring at you like who the fuck is this guy? Yeah, that puts me on edge. However, we go in a look up he's there like

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 00:35

So you've been in the creator space. You've been on like YouTube for like seven years, five full time, right? And then like 20 years in just content creation engine. Or did you start as like a journalist or something?

Jon (: 00:40

That's correct, yeah.

so my first job in that in this world, I guess you would call it is 22 years old as a video games journalist. I got a job as a staff writer on a magazine back when magazines were a thing. And yeah, so technically, I'm 42 now. So it was actually May thinking about it. It was pretty much exactly 20 years ago that I got the job. I think it was like May 20th or something.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 01:10

So then how did you shift from writing for magazines to doing, I think now it's like largely reaction videos to like albums and things, right?

Jon (: 01:19

Mmm.

job. It incredibly low pay in: 2005

And then got fed up with the company that I was working at went freelance and obviously opened my eyes and ears to other opportunities. So it was still writing for anybody who'd take me and ended up consulting as well. ⁓ for some of the publishers that make games. And I also started consulting for monster energy, ⁓ helping them build their video game program for Europe. And in that time I met a YouTuber called Ali A who we, when we were at monster, we wanted to sign different YouTubers to do brand deals with them. And.

I think I had a kid, so maybe: 2012

That people could make money on it. It's the same question I get asked now. It's 13 years later, but this was my, my revelation that this kid was 19 years old. think he just hit a million subscribers and he was making thousands of pounds every single month at 19 years old and had this huge audience. And to me up until then YouTube had just been somewhere where you shared links to old, like 80s sitcoms that someone had uploaded, you know, or funny meme videos. wasn't. I didn't understand that they were like bloggers and content creators.

But that moment completely changed my brain, completely changed and opened my eyes to what was possible. And so a few years after that, I tried to do the gaming thing on YouTube. learned a lot, made about a hundred plus videos, only got to a thousand subscribers. So didn't really go anywhere, but I learned a lot about the platform. Kind of gave up. We're still doing my normal work and then started to see music reactions on YouTube a couple of years later. Thought that it's something that I'd like to try, sharing them back and forth with a friend.

And then he said, well, we could probably do this. And he was a guy that already had a camera lights. did content creation already, ⁓ for pro wrestling. And so I went up to his house and we shot a couple of videos and the second video that we made or third video that we made started to do well straight away. 4,000 views overnight, which I'm a brand new channel with no subscribers is crazy. And then from there to four months later, was a hundred thousand subscribers and millions of views. Insane, insane blow up.

t viral channels in the UK in: 2018

about music or be a music reviewer. But yeah, here we are.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 04:44

So, but do you have like a background in like music production, being a musician and you're just a fan. You just like listening to music.

Jon (: 04:52

Nada. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, when I was young, I played the violin. did a bit of piano. There is a, you can't see it in the shot. There is a guitar behind me, which I've been meaning to learn to play properly. Like I can play songs on guitar, but I'm not a musician. No.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 05:09

See, that's fascinating. Like, I don't think I've ever, other than obviously like your channel and things like, especially prepping for this, but I don't think I've ever watched a reaction video period, let alone like, like somebody listening to an album and then like making faces at it at like the breakdowns and things. And then just off the cuff riffing about their own thoughts about it. Right.

Jon (: 05:31

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 05:38

Like I understand if you're like a music producer, you're like, ⁓ this is how the chorus works or all see how it's syncopated right here. Cause then I recently did one on sleep token. ⁓ and like I kind of learned about like just the term syncopation and things. Cause there was another video about some of the songs sleep token has done. It's syncopated rhythms. I'm like, I don't even know what the fuck that means. What you're doing. It isn't necessarily like educational.

Jon (: 05:46

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 06:06

Right? You're definitely like the entertainment space with your main channel. And I've watched plenty of like video game walkthroughs or not quite a reaction video, but it's more so like this game is going to be like 70, 80 bucks. It's going to be a hundred hours of my life playing it. I want to do research on the game before I play the game to see if I even want to buy it. But then after I buy it,

Jon (: 06:31

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 06:32

I want to make sure I go and get the best gear and I level up correctly. Right. So with RPGs and shit. So I understand people watching those, what is so, and like your channel currently is like over 500,000 subscribers. Right. So clearly it's very compelling. And in your, one of your recent videos, you talked about like mirror neurons and things and how like you've looked into this, what makes the type of videos just like pure reaction videos.

Jon (: 06:45

That's correct, yeah.

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 07:02

What makes them so compelling for so many people?

Jon (: 07:05

Yeah, it's something that I wanted to look into almost straight away when I found them compelling in the first place before I ever started them. And then when we really got into it and the channel was blowing up, me being me was like, okay, I need to understand the psychology behind this because I want to know what the hell's going on. Because it is, I still enjoy watching them myself. There's something magical about watching somebody else have a positive reaction to something that you enjoy. there's something, seemingly, there are a few art forms

that that reaction is more visceral than other art forms. So there's now reaction videos to almost everything. But the three that I've noticed that create the most visceral responses are music, comedy, and violence. So people reacting to fights in Denny's or the UFC or something like that. So they seem to get the most visceral reactions out of people and seem to be the most compelling as well.

And there's something about, like I said, I looked into this thing, mirror neurons. So, I mean, this is part of whole evolutionary psychology where humans have evolved to look for reactions from other people, mainly for safety, comfort, for the feeling of belonging, a feeling of connection, all of these things we've evolved to have this by looking at each other. And you can, you can feel that in any dynamic that you might be in any good company that you're in.

family, all of these sorts of things. And it's how children learn what's safe, right? Apart from burning their finger on something and going, I'm not going to do that again. You know, they look to their parents to see what is this safe? Am I okay? Do I feel settled? So we learn how to do that. And weirdly, these reaction videos create that same connection between the viewer and the reactor. So I'm always keen to add my thoughts off the cuff, as you say, to add a bit more substance to the videos.

But there is a large percentage of the audience and I can tell by the, by the graphs, whenever I open my mouth, they'll just skip forward to the next bit where I'm just making faces. And some people can, will happily just do the making faces thing. And to be honest, when I watch some, I'll watch some guys who are like composer reacts or producer reacts or something, because I know I'm going to get some educational element to it as well. However, if somebody's just an entertaining dude and they're, you know, I, there was a channel called lost in Vegas. They're, still around.

That was the channel that inspired our channel Rock Reacts, which is two ⁓ American hip hop fans now based in Vegas. A lot of their videos with them discovering metal. So they discovered Metallica, Megadeth, Rage Against Machine, anyone you can think of. They've now done thousands of videos. They're really intelligent ⁓ and charismatic guys. And watching those guys really suddenly appreciate a Metallica track. Master of Puppets, I think was the first one of theirs that I watched. Neither of them are musicians either, just fans, but intelligent, well read fans.

And watching those guys do that was so compelling to me because it added an element of intelligence and an element of thoughtfulness, an element of open-mindedness, which is something that I really look for generally in people. That was so compelling that I thought I could kind of do the same thing. And seemingly there is, well, I know there is a large audience of people who really resonate with that. And so I've stopped, I've looked into it, but I stopped questioning it, if that makes sense.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 10:29

At what point? So let's say I like watching, you know, reaction videos specifically to music. At what point in my own journey am I most likely to watch your videos? Like, is it before I've ever heard the song or is it almost like I've heard the song? I liked the song. I want to see how other people experience it.

Jon (: 10:52

So good question. For me as a viewer, the first one, I've already heard it and I want to see somebody else's reaction. However, I know for a fact, because I get told in the comments that there are plenty of people who save their first listen to watch it with me or another reactor, which to me is crazy. I've never done that, that I can think of. ⁓ Certainly not on an album or song that I was particularly looking forward to, but there is a percentage of people. But if I was to guess...

I would say the majority have a relationship with the song and then enjoy watching other people react to it. there's a, mean, we blew up from reacting to the previous 10 years, mainly of hip hop, which I'd missed. I'd had kids, I'd had life grown up, grown older, and my musical tastes had kind of paused. So the Kendrick Lamar's, J Cole's, Drake's, all of these people, I've not really heard any of their music and people couldn't believe that. But as they get older themselves, they'll realize the same thing will happen to them.

So the audience was very, very keen to say, you need to hear this track. Once they realized that we liked this artist, million requests for the next one. So we try that, which is a great feedback loop for us because we knew that they were going to get views as well. And I have now gone on. I mean, I still do it today. We were talking about sleep token earlier. I've been listening to the new album nonstop since it came out. Well, since I did my video on Monday, can't get enough of it. So I'm just going around finding reaction videos and seeing if there's anybody that.

speaks to me as a reactor. they hit? Do they make me feel? I know I didn't try and intellectualize it too much. Does that feeling happen when I watch the video that clearly other people get from watching mine? And quite often the case that is the case. And if there is an album that I really like or a song that I really like, I will definitely go to my favorite pages and see see what they think. And you know, you're always disappointed if they don't like something that you like. But when it connects, yeah, it is a cool feeling.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 12:51

What is the element of craftsmanship when it comes to your main channel?

Jon (: 12:59

How do you mean by crossmanship?

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 13:02

Yeah. So it sounds like there's a lot of authenticity and like you are actually listening to it for the first time. It's, you know, it isn't stages and whatever. ⁓ and even like, you know, look with the sleep talk of it, you're like, Hey, I think I've heard this song before, but I've probably already forgotten it. Right. So you're honest with all that shit. ⁓ cause obviously like some people do kind of stage shit. So you're actually listening to it for the first time. It's raw. It's authentic.

Jon (: 13:09

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 13:32

But what about the actual craft of being an entertainer and being and doing these reaction videos? What is the craft part of that that you're trying to improve? Or do you even think about it as a craft? Or is it just like, look, dude, I'm going to turn the camera on and just go fucking live.

Jon (: 13:42

Mm.

so definitely think about it as a craft. So what I tried to do from the beginning is what I've since just coined as active listening. This is a phrase that people have used for different things, but I will deliberately try and tune into, especially when I'm listening to something that I know people have a relationship with. So the reason the channel blew up in the first place, like I said, is there are a lot of songs that mean a lot to a lot of people. So...

My mentality going in to listen to any of these songs was can I tune in to whatever frequency it is that the people who love this song are on? Sometimes it's immediate, particularly if it's a genre that I like, particularly if some, you know, like for example, sleep token or metal quite often has, again, to use the word, very visceral moments, which you almost can't help but react to if you're a fan of that type of music. Other music takes more time. We know this as music fans.

So my intention always is can I tune into whatever it is in this music? Can I notice something in the music? Can I really try and focus in on something that is speaking to these people that love it? Now that's a bit easier when I know that there are thousands potentially people who already love the song. I can feel like I can almost tune into it. And I have this weird thing, it's gonna sound strange, but I've sat in this room for many, many years doing this. And when it is a song that has

that presence behind it, say it's a song that's, you know, huge for people over the last 10 years, a Frank Ocean song or something, for example. If I feel like I can feel a million ghosts that love this song, I just feel like, I can't see them, but I just feel like I'm moving my hands around my camera here. I feel like they're there and I kind of try and tune into whatever that is. And it's very taxing. So excuse me, to do a whole album.

in a day as all I can record in the day is a whole album. When we did Rock Reacts, we lived two hours apart, so I had to drive up there. We'd record 20, 25, 30 single track reactions in a day. And I'd drive back just dead because it isn't just like listening to music when I go and do the dishes or, you know, I've since been listening to Sleep Token all week, but I'm listening to it casually. I'm not listening to it actively.

And that first listen, I try and do my very best to get as much out of that first listen as I can. When the songs and album are good, it's easy. When the songs and album are bad, it's easy as well. When the songs and album are mediocre, or I just don't really get it, or I think this just, I get why people like it, but it isn't my cup of tea. Then it's very, it's very challenging because you're trying to make an entertaining video for people, but authenticity and honesty is paramount. can't.

a step away from that. But at the same time, I'm also aware that if I just shit on an album that people like without giving it, you know, this is my first listen to something. So if I just say something shit, do I really have the right to say that on a first listen as a music fan that knows some albums take 10, 20 listens to really get into? So that's the craft. And then I try and feed a bit of storytelling in there.

when something pops into my brain, something from my life. And if anything comes up just from listening to music, I'll try and share that and just try and convey as much as possible how the music's making me feel in the moment. And to be honest, when I was a writer and a game reviewer, that is what I try and that would be the central line to any game review that I wrote. wouldn't try and write about the graphics and the sound and the gameplay and separate everything out. My main thing, if I had 800 words to fill in a magazine would be to, can I?

recreate and capture the feeling that I had playing this game and convey that to the audience, convey that to the reader. If I miss out on how many modes there are, or if I miss out on one little element like that about the game, so be it. Because I want the reader to feel something from my words and know that when they go and play this game or buy it, they could potentially get that same feeling. Not always possible, but that's what I'd always aim for. And I think that has informed the music reactions because, you know, I'd been doing it for 15 years at that point.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 17:58

I really liked that the, like the room full of ghosts thing, but also the idea of like, how can I convey my feelings and my internal slash emotional experiences in a way that my audience can experience a similar thing? Right. Cause like,

Jon (: 18:20

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 18:24

I think it's easy for people. Anytime you see somebody who is, who has developed their craft, who is a craftsman, right? In anything.

Jon (: 18:34

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 18:36

It appears effortless. It appears natural. It appears like you aren't really putting in a lot of work. So people see that like, well fuck, I can do that. He makes it look so easy. I just listened to a song. Like in your case, I just listened to a song and then I just record myself making weird faces or just, random risks. And it's like, there's actually so much craft that goes into something like that of like, how do I not only

Jon (: 18:43

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 19:06

Like you said, engage in active listening for what is actually going on in the song. But how do I practice self-awareness so that I become more in tune with my own visceral reactions to this coupled with how I think other people have already experienced it and then communicate and convey that emotional experience to others. Like do like there's so much fucking craft in that that one I don't think anybody really talks about.

Jon (: 19:34

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 19:35

And I definitely don't think enough people understand how much, how much effort goes into making something look effortless, right? Like, know, before you talked about, know, playing the violin and you know, guitar, piano and shit, when you see somebody. ⁓ so one of like my favorite guitarists is Andy James. ⁓ I don't know who he is or not. ⁓ he, he's got a bunch of solo stuff. and it's a lot of like instrumental, like metal ish guitar stuff. It's fucking phenomenal.

Jon (: 19:56

No, didn't. Right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 20:05

Andy James, he, within the last few years, became one of the guitars for five finger death punch. but I absolutely love his stuff and like the level of like just emotionality he can convey with just a guitar. Cause he doesn't sing. It's just instrumental shit, ⁓ is phenomenal. But it's like, when you see somebody like him play guitar, you're like, that's fucking simple.

Jon (: 20:12

Okay, cool.

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 20:32

It's easy. It looks effortless. He's just going, okay, cool. But then it's like, as soon as you try to pick up a guitar, you're like, I'm a monkey with a rock trying to type a novel on a keyboard. Like I have no idea what I'm doing. Right. And I think that for anybody who has dedicated themselves to a craft, no matter what that craft is, it can be woodworking, playing guitar, telling stories, anything you

Jon (: 20:39

Hahaha.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 21:01

Once you've developed your own craft, you recognize the craftsmanship in others. Because as soon as you had the thought of like, that looks easy. You're like, but it fucking isn't. Cause if it was way more people would be doing it. Right. Talking about like albums and things and layering, right? Cause you said, you know, some things you have to listen to dozens of times.

Jon (: 21:10

Hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 21:29

By no means am I like an audio file or, or whatever. Like I've, you know, I've invested in some, some gadgetry and things over the years, but, ⁓ I wouldn't consider myself like an aficionado with all this.

or overly well versed in, all the albums and things. But one album that I got some of the most mileage out of growing up, because I you talked about liking new metal and things, was Meteora by Lincoln park. And I remember those guys talking about Meteora specifically being an album that they almost overproduced so that every time you listen to it, you would find something new.

Jon (: 21:58

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 22:14

Like it was very different from like their, their previous albums and even though they're, they're newer albums, that one, was like they specifically like our goal with this one is to make it to where every, almost every time for the first dozens or a hundred listens, you find something new. And that was always my experience. What has been an album that has been like that for you that like not only like, it just, is it enjoyable to listen to? But it's like, it was so layered.

that you couldn't fully appreciate it until you spent, you know, weeks worth of listening time with it.

Jon (: 22:48

Mm-hmm.

mean, that album came out in: 2000

when it came out and you know, those guys, they're older than me. They always were, but you know, they were young then as was I, yet still there's a maturity to that record, which I mean, to me that was the pinnacle of new metal and the fact that still going now is amazing and influencing bands like sleep tokens to go back to speak about those again. But since I've been doing the channel, to be honest, because of the frequency of which I've been producing videos, especially in the earlier days, I don't do as many videos now as I used to.

But there was a point where I was doing multiple albums every single week, along with single tracks, trying to upload every single day. And unfortunately, got into a habit of making a video, listening to a record, potentially enjoying it once. And I was too quickly onto the next because of the YouTube grind. And as such didn't spend enough time with these albums to really have that experience with them. That being said, I would say

probably the weekends records, especially the earlier ones, the trilogy records, House of Balloons and Echoes of Silence in particular would be albums that I discovered through the channel. I'd heard some of his songs before on the radio as he'd got a bit more famous. Some of them have made it over here to the UK, but I'd never listened to a record. I'd maybe heard three or four songs. And my audience was just like, when are you gonna do the weekend? When are you gonna do the weekend?

Eventually, I did listen to that first album house of balloons absolutely blew me away that videos got like coming over 800,000 views now and Yeah, that is something that I've gone back to many many many times and yeah every time you hear something new every time you see and Experience a different layer that they've added every felt like one of those records were every note Everything's placed every mixing choice is done deliberately to to really stand the test of time and I would say that about all of his music whether

I like every song or not. And so much music is put out and churned out these days without that care and attention. And, you know, because you've got to be quick, you've got to get the streaming numbers up. You've got to constantly be on the grind, much like, you know, in many ways, musicians have become creators and they have to be on that grind with the world of streaming. That, that care and attention in mixing and mastering and instrumentation is because it's not becoming a lost art. was going to say that, but there's still plenty of artists that

really do care about that stuff, but it's definitely nowhere near as consistent as it used to be when you wouldn't really get a record coming out that hadn't had a buck load of attention put into it because just the way everything was set up. So, yeah. And that's something that I've become quite fatigued by in a lot of the music that I get recommended, especially the last couple of years, it doesn't have that care and attention put into it.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 26:06

So then what? So I am one of the people who have lived under a rock and I am not overly familiar with the weekend ⁓ and his catalog and what makes him so great. I've heard some of his stuff. I've seen some of his, his, you know, clips of his shows and things. People seem to lose their goddamn minds over him. What about him personally and his music is so compelling to so many people.

Jon (: 26:27

Mm.

when he first came out ⁓ in: 2011

from this guy, The Weeknd, spelt weirdly, and no one knew what he looked like. literally no one knew who this guy was. And these dark, brooding R &B records, three coming out within six months gaps of each other, three basically masterpieces, and this mystique around it. And because of that, he built this underground fan base that was completely compelled by what was going on. So he had that kind of narrative element to it as well. And...

There was sort of storytelling elements within the album. You can go back and listen to those old albums. They're quite dark. They're very sexual and they're like, who the fuck is this guy? What life is he living? This is all very weird. Seemingly quite autobiographical. And then, you know, he appears, he sings live, his fan base grows and grows, and then he starts adding a few hits in there that get that radio recognition. It does a track with Daft Punk, a couple in fact.

starts building and building and building. then quickly, it's like one of those artists that's getting very, very, very big. And then it goes like that, like the hockey stick type curve, as you guys in America say. We don't say that over here very much. We do have hockey, but we don't have ice hockey. So we don't say it here. But anyway, yeah. And then he just went completely stratospheric. And then the last three records, he's matured quite a lot as an artist. He doesn't talk about the same subjects as much as he used to. And he's grown into, know, his biggest influence is Michael Jackson, right? So he's grown into a much more of a pop star, but without...

without losing that kind of that grit, kind of darkness to his music. And then, I mean, his latest album that came out this year, Hurry Up Tomorrow, which is actually the movie that comes out tomorrow as a recording is just a it's an amazing record that is all about his reconnection with religion and the sense of self in the, you know, the kind of Buddhist spiritual sense. But also all of the tracks can kind of sound like they're about relationships and just about girls and whatever. But when you actually listen to it,

truly and understand where he is in his life and what he's kind of been through is this person that's actually quite introverted, but is now literally one of the biggest artists in the world selling out stadiums night after night. He's been through a lot to be able to deal with that and hearing that on that album combined with the melody, combined with his songwriting, combined with the production, combined with his brilliant voice, it really is a special piece of work.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 29:30

And you tell me about the story of you meeting him.

Jon (: 29:34

Mm So very, very cool. Obviously. So ⁓ there's a thing that I do on my videos that I started doing a while ago randomly, where if a piece of music is really hitting, I'll get the sunglasses out and put them on really slowly. Actually inspired by Scotty to Hottie from the WWE. Not a lot of people know that from too cool when they used to do that and then do the dancing in the ring. So I've given away my secret.

Anyway, that was like a thing that I'd do and I'd do it on the weekend videos quite often because the music hit like that and it just seemed suitable. and then for some reason, the weekends playing at Coachella a few years ago and he does the same move. So loads of people share it with me. They go, he's doing your move. He's doing your move. Now. I didn't think it was actually doing my move. I was just like, he's also doing this thing. He probably also watched wrestling or he's just putting your sunglasses on slowly. Nothing that's, but let's say so many people send it to me on Twitter.

So, ⁓ it was actually just before going into jujitsu. I'd seen this on my phone. So, ⁓ I just retweeted it and I said something. What did I say? Just say you're a fan, Abel. mainly for my followers, just to laugh at. Go to jujitsu train, open up my phone afterwards. Notifications have gone fucking insane that he has shared that post on his Twitter to 17 million followers with two sunglasses emojis. And I was like, what?

the fuck is going on like full body chills like what the hell has just happened crazy moment you know everybody who supports me and has been a fan of mine for a while is going absolutely nuts at this so I was like this is the moment if ever I'm gonna do it now so second I saw it was like open up Instagram DM him he's got 17 million followers on Instagram he's not going to see this however why not DM Tim thanks so much for the share man like I can't exactly remember what I said I mean I could look it up why not

right here

I said, Hey Abel, the mention on Twitter was amazing. Thank you. And, and then keep being phenomenal, sir. And thanks once again. And then literally about an hour later, get a message back. I won't say exactly what it says, but it was basically along the lines of John love your work so much, blah, blah, blah. And then inviting me to one of his shows, because he was doing a tour in Europe and the conversation went from there, went to that show. ⁓ awesome, incredible experience, but didn't get to meet him. So I made a video about that.

⁓ and how unfortunately didn't get to meet him, but that wasn't the central point of the video, but I talked about the show, how amazing it was told this part of the story about, ⁓ all of this sort of stuff. And I made the crux of the video about how I really want anybody who's watching that is nervous to put themselves out there in their life, whether it's creating content or taking a big step or whatever it is that look, what can happen when you do, you know, crazy stuff can happen when you step outside of that comfort zone, which I don't even think is a comfort zone at all. It's a discomfort zone.

But anyway, that's another topic for a minute. And I wanted that to be the crux of the video and also about the show and how nice he was and all that sort of stuff. Put that video out. Obviously it starts to do well on YouTube because it's very much aligned to my audience. And then within a few hours, he shared that video saying about how much he loved it and the message of it. He shared that on Twitter. like, what the hell is going on now? He's watching my videos? So I messaged him again.

And and yeah, he messaged me back saying that he wants to meet so we didn't get to meet this time Can you come to one of the other european shows? We'll we'll hang out have some coffee And me and my wife natalie were like looking through the things we've got kids. It's difficult to just jump to another country You know, so this is difficult today. We don't have family close to to look after the kids But we figured out that we could go to the france show ⁓ it was in a couple of weeks from now at the time get the kids looked after

Keep going. We go to France, like an hour flight from where I am, not too bad. Go to the show and the whole time the plan is to go and meet him beforehand. But you never quite know in this situation if it's going to happen because obviously not only is he one of the most famous people in the world and very, very busy, he's literally about to play a show to 80,000 people. So if something comes up and he can't meet us, I can understand he's got quite a lot going on, but still.

measured him a little bit throughout the day and he connected me with like his assistant's assistant. That's how famous he is. He meets us at the stadium. The guy Raph takes us through backstage area, all this sort of stuff. And then outside of the weekends dressing room is I'm not joking, legit. I think there were seven bodyguards outside of there, like skinny guys, massive guys. I'm standing like fucking hell. They won't even let Raph who is

the weekend's assistant in at first because he might be sleeping rest. I know he's in these told him to come in anyway. So at this point, I'm pretty damn nervous. Unsurprisingly, I'm about to meet the guy but also the I don't like being a burden or bothering people. It's not really in my nature. So when you've got seven bodyguards staring at you like who the fuck is this guy? Yeah, that puts me on edge. However, we go in a look up he's there like fiddling with something before the

couldn't have been a nicer guy like to the point where if you met

anybody that was this nice, friendly, warm, welcoming, funny, you'd like, that was a fucking cool guy. I'm looking forward to hanging out with him again. But it's literally one of the most famous guys in the world. And genuinely that warm, that friendly. I'm looking down there because I have the picture of us two laughing there. And we sat down had like a half an hour conversation with him about Nintendo Switch games, about life, about family, about, you know, what he's been up to. This was before the new album was even announced.

about what he'd been working on. He made like a little personal video for my kids saying hello and stuff. And then we did some photos, some videos, and we both did the iconic sunglasses move together, which I've put everywhere and has millions and millions of views everywhere now. And yeah, and again, it really goes to show what can happen when you put yourself out there. And I'm not saying you're going to have that situation, but I have also so many other smaller situations where I've interacted with people.

never thought I'd interact with or opportunities that have come up just through putting myself out there. And that actually includes working on the magazines as well. I've got to meet all sorts of wrestlers and things that are going to WWE events through that. So none of this would have happened had I just stayed in my box, you know? So that's what that's the big lesson that I take out of it. I think that's what, you know, Abel actually said that to me in the room when we met that, ⁓ you know, he, really does believe in that and he tries to say the same thing to his fans. And that's what.

he really resonated with in my video and it's something that I talk about a lot online and will continue to forever.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 36:22

That's so fucking cool and like

you know, you hear this thing of, never meet your heroes or, know, your idols or whatever. And there are definitely some people who they're really personable when the cameras are on, but they're just fucking douchebags in real life. But then there are other people who are like the same person on and off, you know, off the camera. And those are the people that I love have just like,

Jon (: 36:38

Mm.

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 36:53

Not only do you, you know, quote unquote, deserve success, meaning you handle it well. And you are the type of person that I would root for to succeed anyway, but you haven't allowed fame and influence to corrupt you in any real way. ⁓ because you know, you're talking about putting yourself and your ideas out into the world. That's a big thing I'm super passionate about. It's one of the reasons for the show. It's one of the reasons for a lot of things that I do is

Jon (: 37:00

Yep.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 37:23

How can I help more people put themselves in our ideas out into the world? Cause I deeply believe that that is both how you build a fulfilling business or a fulfilling life, how you make the world a better place. All this shit. It's just like, you know, imagine a world where the default was we put ourselves in our ideas out into the world, not that is for a micro minority of people. Right? So I I'm, I'm very driven to

Jon (: 37:47

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 37:51

to spread more of that. ⁓ But it's also like

A lot of people really struggle with that idea. Right? So, you know, you and I, we've talked before about like my four horsemen of fear framework and like the most common limited beliefs that people tend to struggle with, right? Fear of failure. What if this doesn't work out? What if I'm not smart enough? What if nobody watches my videos or listens to my music, right? Fear of ridicule, which is how will they react? What will my friends and family say if I do this? Right? You and I, we've also talked about,

Jon (: 38:02

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 38:28

like tall poppy syndrome and things. And that's kind of related to fear of ridicule, fear of uncertainty. You know, I, need to wait until I feel ready to do the thing. I need to learn more before I do anything. And then fear of success. And I think that many people,

want to put themselves and their ideas out into the world, whether that is for YouTube, for books, for music, for anything, the thing that typically holds them back is usually one of those fears, but the fear of success thing, I think fucks up a lot of people because it's like, why would I be afraid to achieve the thing I claim to want? And for a lot of us success represents crossing the threshold. So if you've never achieved major success, however you define it,

Achieving success means becoming somebody different. means your life looking different than it does today. And what if I want to be a musician and I do succeed? What, what if I become corrupted by power and influence? What if I lose my relationships with my loved ones because fame requires that or some shit, right? and I think that

Though that is a valid fear in that that can happen to people sometimes, I think meeting people who have already achieved your version of success, but have maintained their humility, their ambition, their gratitude, their graciousness that makes it real for you. And it shows you that like there's proof that you can succeed and still be a good person. But if you never meet those people,

it's really easy to let that fear hold you back.

Jon (: 40:14

Mm-hmm, for sure.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 40:17

How have you navigated your own fears or imposter syndrome or tall poppy syndrome and things throughout your career?

Jon (: 40:27

That's a really interesting question. Now, obviously, any success that I have can't really be compared to who we're just talking about. But at the same time, you know, I do, if I go to a populated area, I'll probably get recognized once every time that I go out. So that's not something that I was expecting to happen in my life. You know, I spent the first 25 years with that not happening, even when I had an audience in writing. Nobody knew what I looked like.

navigating that, as you spoke about tall poppy syndrome is a is something that we have in the UK. I believe the phrase actually comes from Australia, I'd not heard it before hearing and obviously talk about it. But it's the exact same thing. And us and Australians are pretty similar. Really, I mean, historically, for a reason, but also just just in terms of like, sense of humor, culture, quite similar, although they kind of hate us and we kind of hate them in a friendly way. But

Tall poppy syndrome is where somebody steps out a line, starts to look like they're achieving some sort of success and the culture around them looks to cut them down as in they are the tall poppy and need to be cut down to be at the same level as everything else. And it's a legacy of the class system here in the UK, which is obviously something that is, you know, defined Australian culture as well. And it's not something my, in terms of my perception is so much of an issue.

in America, which is kind of strange because obviously, a lot of American immigration still came from the same places. However, America has its own huge and wide and vast culture and a culture of the American dream and success, right? So it is very, very different in terms of that. But I was fortunate enough when it came to the YouTube thing that I was old enough one and had cultivated a sort of wider friend group of people who were

o game journalist back in the: 2000

You know, trying to make it also as a YouTuber, the guy that I started with had already been doing YouTube and he was a journalist as well. So I didn't have to deal with it then at all, fortunately. However, when I started as a games journalist, my group of friends at the time were all, all of us just had normal jobs, working in a bank, working for the council, you know, all in our early twenties. And I managed to get this job. And even though it wasn't well paid, I quickly felt

that frame group change quite a lot. Now, I don't know if I changed as well at 22 years old and started acting differently. You know, my perception of it was I was exactly the same and they all changed. But with maturity, maybe I changed a little bit. There's always like a missing, missing part of the story, isn't there? So I'm, I'm keen not to say that I was just exactly the same and perfect. And maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. But regardless, I felt that change quite quickly. And

suddenly I would turn up at the pub where we'd always go and meet and I'd sit down at the table and everyone was silent. And it's like, you know, that sense where everybody's been talking about you beforehand and then you sit down and everyone suddenly shuts up. That's what happened quite quickly. And while it wasn't sort of active tall poppy syndrome in terms of being like abused, feel at that moment, perhaps I suddenly represented a fear in all of them that they were not.

achieving their dreams at that point. And we were all really young, but you're only, you can only feel the age that you are. Right. So me at 42 would tell all of them, no, you've all got plenty of time to do whatever you want. But at the moment, when you've been in full time work for two, three, four years, and you're doing something that you hate, you're already having the life sucked out of you. So I can kind of understand what happened there. And then I wasn't a, you know, they, they outcast me within two more months from that. And I'm not friends with any of those people anymore, which I don't care about, but I definitely felt that then.

And thankfully, ⁓ thankfully the people that I interacted with after that, like I say, we're all creatives or people wanting to put themselves out there in some capacity and anybody that might bring that attitude towards me, I was able to get rid of. And thankfully my mom's very supportive of that type of thing. And, you know, I started YouTube after I was married, but my wife is very supportive of that as well. So I didn't have to deal with that specifically.

But ⁓ I definitely feel that that is a lot for a lot of people. Not so much the fear of success thing for the younger people. think maybe I don't know, I don't want to assume but definitely the fear of ridicule, definitely the fear of failure. And what's the What's this for?

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 45:26

Uncertainty, which is I don't know enough. I'm not ready yet. I need to learn more about yeah.

Jon (: 45:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that

that's that that one I, I probably resonate with the most. think everybody has a bit of fear of failure. Everybody has a bit of fear of ridicule because it's kind of just human nature. But I think a lot of people can step through that. But I personally, especially when pivoting to this new space where I'm talking about these things that we've been talking about on this podcast already, helping people. I feel like I just need more and more and more more information. And that is my nature.

anyway, to get as much information as possible to learn. love learning. So this is a positive trait, but it can also, it can also be quite difficult when I'm not taking action because of it. And yeah, I definitely think there's a lot of people that are stuck in that state, especially as we're in a world of endless information now. So there's always another podcast to listen to. There's always another AI prompt to try. There's always something else to try to not take action because I need more and more and more information, but in truth.

As we know, action is the only thing that will start to mitigate some of those feelings, but taking those steps are difficult.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 46:35

that and like, you know, I think maybe like the current young, the youngsters, the, the young generation doesn't have the same level of, of limiting beliefs, uh, older generations have had because they've come up, they've only known the internet, their AI native at this point. Um, so they've, they've seen how viable internet based businesses can be.

whether that's like creator or anything like that. Uh, but I think for the rest of us, especially those of us, you know, like millennials who are sort of on the cusp of everything.

most of us started on like a traditional path, right? So like, I'll speak for myself. So I went to college, was in college for like 12 plus years between bachelor's master's doctorate, did the internship, got the job. And it was like, okay, I like the, my future is like a color by numbers thing. I know what boxes I need to check off to get to the next rung of this ladder. Right. As long as I,

Don't get fired. I get my 3 % raise every year. If I want to get a promotion, these are the things I need to do at this point in my career. There are only really two or three other things I could reasonably do as far as moving up in my profession. And then I'm basically capped.

So I look at that, like there's so much security and, and psychological safety sort of in that predefined default.

But then when you think about, you know, being a creator, entrepreneur, solar per whatever the fuck term you want to put to it, doing your own thing, it's fucking terrifying because it's like, there are endless ways to succeed and there's always somebody else giving you advice on what you need to do or how to do it. And when things conflict, you're like, well, fuck, should I listen to this guru or that guru?

Well, okay. Well, I bought these five gurus things and I still have nothing to show for it. I'm if nothing else, I'm even more confused than I was before. And like, you know, for me, I basically had like a five year plan. I was like, okay, I'm almost at the top of my career. The only thing I can really do is become like president of my local

psychological association. I could maybe become like a director of behavioral health, but beyond that, there's really nothing else I can, I can move up. So it's like, okay, I'll just, I'll work this for five years and then I'll start my own business. I'll become a writer. I'll do all sorts of shit. And then I got fired. And I'm honestly at this point, glad I got fired because getting fired meant that my five year plan had to happen in 30 days.

Jon (: 49:44

Right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 49:46

Cause like I got 30 days notice.

So it was like, fuck, I thought I was going to have five years to like pussy foot around, you know, save up a bunch of money, read all the books, take all the courses. I have 30 days and I have to have a business by the end of 30 days. But like there's so much uncertainty. There's there. It's not a color by number thing. There are no guarantees.

Right? Like every dollar you make is on you to make. When I had a job, as long as I did enough to not get fired, I got paid the same. So whether I was the best employee or the worst employee, I got paid the same amount. And I think that is very intimidating for people who deeply want to do their own thing, but there's no guarantees with this, right? That coupled

with the fact that you're never off, right? Like again, I was salaried, but at 4.30 I was off work. The clinic could have burned to the fucking ground overnight. I wouldn't give a shit. As long as I can clock back in tomorrow so I get my salary check, I don't care. But as a business owner, when I'm done working in my office for the day, it is easy for me to go downstairs, make dinner, or go to the gym, come back and make dinner.

Jon (: 50:50

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 51:09

and then pull open my laptop and keep working and never be present with my loved ones or have this, this toxic belief that rest is a reward. I have to earn. I didn't work hard enough today to earn rest and like I'm prone to working seven days a week largely because I legitimately love what I do. And I, and like,

Jon (: 51:14

Hmm.

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 51:35

the thought of like taking two weeks, like a two week vacation and not being able to write. I honestly, I don't want that. Like I, I, I need to be able to write. Okay. I may only work an hour or four on the weekends, but I legitimately love working, which I understand is a luxury, but it's really easy to just keep working and never be present. And it's like, even if you love what you do, the point of working is

to live is to have the freedom to spend your time with the people you love. So if as an entrepreneur, you're working all the time and you're never present, cause like, okay, I'm downstairs. I'm, you know, hanging out with, with, know, my fiance or, know, you like with the kids and shit. And it's like, I need to get to that email. let me just pull this up real quick. Let me just do this thing real quick. All let me kind of prep the page for tomorrow. And it's like, I'm missing the fucking point cause I'm not present with the people who matter. Right.

Jon (: 52:30

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 52:34

And I think that is such a, so you have all the uncertainty, but then you also have these shitty boundaries and these bullshit beliefs that rest as a reward you have to earn. So then you're working all the time in a field that is very uncertain. And it's just, it can feel like a hamster whale, especially if you do content creation, right. And that inevitably leads to burnout. And you've talked before about CFS, right? Chronic fatigue syndrome.

Jon (: 53:02

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 53:04

and how that plays into just day to day stuff, but also how it can contribute to burnout. Right. Tell me more about how your experience with this has been.

Jon (: 53:11

Yeah.

Sure. So my first experiences with ⁓ CFS or ME as it's sometimes called was in my early 20s. Again, before I got the job as a games journalist. Shortly after university, I got ill with glandular fever, mono as it's known ⁓ more colloquially I think in the US and did my third year of uni college with

with that illness and very low energy and that can take a long time to get over. And one of the things you're not supposed to do when you have that is drink. And I was in the third year of uni, so we can see how that story ended. And so it took a lot longer to kind of pass through my system. And that combined with some sort of traumatic personal news that, ⁓ yeah, we don't need to go into the very specifics right now.

in my very early 20s led to ⁓ me just feeling so exhausted that the thought of people think they understand what it feels like to feel tired, right? And we all know what it feels like to feel tired. We just want to go to bed. Maybe you've had terrible sleep for weeks and you feel so exhausted and all you just could pass out anywhere. The feeling of tiredness from CFS is much more like the feeling of exhaustion from having a flu.

So full body aches, overwhelming fatigue, that for somebody in the middle in, in a real, ⁓ flare up or constant feeling of CFS slash ME is pretty much ever present. And it also contributes to having poor quality of sleep and it just becomes a vicious circle. And because I had no choice at the time to, other than to work, doing a job that I hated in, in a bank putting

Numbers into a spreadsheet. had no real opportunity for rest. And the other thing that, I've since long since much later discovered about burnout as I call it, it's grief for a life that you're not living. So basically the whole time that I was alive, I was wanting my life to be different to what it was, partly because my physical symptoms were so unpleasant and so difficult to deal with. And partly because the actual life that I was living, the job, I absolutely hated it. So almost every single minute that I was awake, I was wishing that I was.

doing something else. was feeling something else and I was doing something else. And that, think, in hindsight, contributed to the feelings perpetuating for years and years, my almost my whole career as a games journalist on the magazines was dealing with these symptoms. And it was only when I decided to go freelance and allow myself the opportunity to physically rest. Even though was working

Not having to get up every single day to go to an office, just having that opportunity to give myself a bit of a, yes, some sleep. My body kept telling me for years, you need to rest for six months over and over. My body would just tell me this. I'd hear this. It was my own voice, but I just hear it over and over again. And eventually I just got myself into a situation where I allowed myself to actually do that. Now I still work during that time and was chasing freelance work and stuff. But like I say, I was getting better sleep. was.

zy decision that it was about: 2011

because of my health condition, I didn't like doing the foreign trips. They were amazing. You got taken out for free and wine and dined and got to play a video game early. It was like dream shit. But the reality of it for me was not because I would feel awful doing that stuff. However, doing the freelance stuff, a lot of that was evolving travel. So again, amazing for most people for me, not so much. I had a trip to New York and ⁓

I mean, I felt so bad, even on the plane on the way out there, ⁓ that I said to myself, and this was from the depths of my heart, from true honesty, I said to myself, if I survive this trip and I genuinely didn't know whether I would or not, that's how bad I felt. If I survive this trip, then when I get back, I'm going to start MMA. I don't care. Like that's what I said to myself. don't care. Like I have to just throw myself into something extreme. I did survive the trip.

Um, it was quite unpleasant. It was also an awesome. Now my memories of it are just fun because we did some cool shit and New York's amazing, but at the moment it was, it was very exhausting at the time, but I survived. Um, and then I, I stuck to my promise. decided, okay, I'm gonna go back. There's a club around the corner from where I live. I'm just going to go and sign up. Like I haven't done exercise for years. I've barely been able to, I've been so exhausted at my worst, the thought of going from here to the kitchen, which is literally there where I'm pointing.

Felt like climbing Everest. was honestly, it was that bad. ⁓ and while I wasn't that bad, at this point, was still the thought of doing a sport like MMA was ridiculous, which is why I just threw myself into it. First class. I genuinely thought I was going to die during the warmups, but again, got myself through it. then brick by brick, bit by bit through MMA and then Jiu-Jitsu built myself back up.

to be somebody that can function in the world and society better. Now I still have flare-ups and issues and some other things because of all this stuff. And it's taken me years of the med... We have the NHS over here, which is an amazing service, right? If you have something life-threatening, phenomenal. If you break something, phenomenal. If you have a psychological or kind of chronic issue, it's fucking rubbish. Like it just is. And, you know, I love the NHS. They've done amazing.

things for both my kids, for my wife giving birth and all this sort of stuff. But there's no real access to decent healthcare of these types of issues in the UK. And we have health insurance here, but obviously once you already have a problem, as I'm sure Americans will be able to talk about getting insurance is basically impossible. this is the situation that a lot of people find themselves over here, that they have chronic issues that aren't life threatening necessarily. And they just have no real way of

getting treated or getting access to good care. So that was me. I had to do my own research and God, I've been down a million rabbit holes, but what I found more recently in the last few years was the idea of, ⁓ trauma in the body and quote unquote stuck emotions. So I realized that this stuff that I'd been through, ⁓ in my sort of late teens, early twenties, I'd never dealt with at all. It just stayed.

in me. And as I started to read books like, ⁓ what's the body keeps the score. As I started to watch more podcasts with people talking about trauma, I started to understand what might be happening to me and what might have happened to me. And while I dealt with a lot of the physical side of things and building myself back up, I'm still suffering symptoms even now 20 years later, which doesn't make sense really if it was something purely medical.

because why would I still be suffering 20 years later from some illness that I got 20 years ago? It's like, okay, that can happen kind of, but it's probably something else going on. And it's only in the last few years that I've really been focusing on what needs to be done to help some of these things. Cause I felt like I got over these issues in terms of day to day, not really thinking about them. They weren't bothering me. They weren't making me sad. ⁓ I thought, but it had been.

pushed down into my body, I think. And I've been spending the last few years really working on trying to release a lot of that stuff, sometimes with help and sometimes most of the time on my own and through my own research. And to say that I'm feeling much better in the last few years from this, from this study that I've done as far as I can best way of describing it would be an understatement. You know, I really feel finally that one, I have an understanding of what it is to I have some

actual actionable solutions that are quite easy in terms of basic mindfulness. Basically, like variability of ⁓ symptom, ⁓ being cognitive of like, yeah, how variable the symptoms are. So I'm not always exhausted all the time. haven't always got a headache, you know, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. And just having that variability in my mind helps me feel better most of the time, all of these sorts of things. So, yeah.

long, long answer to the question, but it's been a two decade journey. ⁓ I don't use the word battle anymore. I just say journey now. And I feel like I'm close to a full recovery. Again, I don't know if that's the word that I'd use either, but almost there. And with a fuckload of knowledge and the fuckload of understanding that I've been accumulating gone down many, like an incorrect rabbit hole over the years, but

I feel like I've accumulated a hell of a lot of knowledge and because of that, not, I'm not going to say I'm in a position to help people with those issues particularly, but I do feel like I'm in position to help people with some of the basic mindfulness stuff, some of the basic understanding of what might be happening if they're struggling with some of these things and how they can potentially just day to day help themselves a little bit through, you know, just learning from somebody who's older and has been through.

quite a lot in terms of dealing with his own shit. So yeah, that's where I'm at.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:03:20

Well, I think that...

Not everybody, but I think a lot of us identify as having some element of a fucked up childhood or whether it was like actually fucked up or, maybe you got bullied at school or maybe you just were insecure because you had a bunch of fucking zits on your face because puberty or some shit ⁓ or your dick was too small or your tits were too small or like, or your tits were too big and like fifth grade, right? Like everybody's self-conscious about some shit. Everybody has gone through something to some degree.

Jon (: 1:03:36

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:03:56

And then there are like the freaks of nature who are outliers who are like, Nope, I had a great childhood. I never had any issues. And I'm like, you should be studied because I don't know anybody like you. I've met one or two people like that. I'm like, I, how do you connect with people? Like one of the easiest ways to connect with somebody is over your fucked up childhood. Like how, how do you, how do you make friends? But like all my friends have trauma. What the fuck do you have? What are we going to talk about? But like, so I I'm not a neuro guy.

Jon (: 1:04:04

Hmm.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:04:25

By training, I am a clinical psychologist, but neuro, you know, I barely passed both my neuro classes, but, um, with, with like quote unquote legitimate trauma and again in air quotes, um, one of the things that trauma does is it can rewire the HPA axis, which is the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. Basically it just means it rewires your brain to like very quickly kick into survival mode. So

you are highly reactive on with things that trigger that. Right. so that's why I like, you can be intelligent and you know, have read all the things, but you still kind of repeat patterns. Sometimes it's effectively because your brain is getting hijacked by a stimulus in your, your environment that is kicking you into survival mode. ⁓ so it takes a lot of

dedicated, deliberate practice to attempt to slowly rewire that. Right. ⁓ like I said, I'm, not a neuro guy, but I always went like the behavioral route or, ⁓ more of like the, cognitive route itself. So not thinking about the actual.

⁓ brain structures, right? But more so the thoughts we have, the behaviors we engage in, things like that. And so I, you know, I went through childhood trauma and shit and I, the majority of like middle school and high school, I would go to sleep daydreaming about beating the shit out of the guy who was like abusive to my mom. Right? So grew up with like domestic violence or shit.

And then I realized it was like, I'm losing sleep every night because of this guy. He isn't losing sleep over me. Right. And you know, I'm not religious. I was, I was raised religious and then wasn't, wasn't for me, but the concept of forgiveness is very common, both in and out of religion. But I had to kind of create my own definition of forgiveness that wasn't tied to a specific faith.

Jon (: 1:06:21

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:06:45

And for me that came more so from like Buddhism, which again, ironically not a faith, but Buddhism is more philosophy whole separate danger. But the whole idea of like holding onto anger and resentment is like holding onto a hot coal with the intention of throwing it at somebody else. Even if you throw it at that person and it hits them, you do so much more damage to yourself by holding onto it. So was like, okay, I need to forgive him.

not because he deserves forgiveness, but because I deserve peace. So I, and that was why I grabbed it to like Stoicism and Buddhism and shit to like deal with my own things. And then eventually I discovered psychology. And I say, I say that cause like all through my childhood, I was in therapy and I fucking hated it. There was one time this one therapist, I think she was a psychiatrist. So she would try to dope me up on meds and shit. And I'm totally fine with meds if you need them.

Jon (: 1:07:20

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:07:42

I am just not pro over medication. ⁓ one day she told my mom, she was like, you know, this Wilkes, your son is too manipulative for therapy. I can't help it. And my mom told me that I was like, that's fucking, I'm like eight. I was like, that's fucking awesome. And she was like, honey, that's the problem that you think that's a combo. was like, I'm, I was like, I'm a kid. If I can out with somebody with a doctor in psychology, I win. I was such an asshole. Did I was such a little shit? Cause like,

Jon (: 1:07:44

Mm-hmm.

You

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:08:11

You know, the one battle I wanted to win the domestic violence shit. I couldn't, I wasn't big enough or strong enough to win. So I found other battles that I could win, right? Have intellectual superiority. And I was such a prick of a kid for a minute, but then like, and I had psychology classes in high school taught by people who didn't understand psychology. I fucking hated psychology. I thought it was a complete bullshit, you know, area.

Jon (: 1:08:14

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:08:40

And then I had a required class, required psychology class in undergrad. And it was like adult development or something. And it was like, you know, with professor Hinton, I was like, okay, so this is a bullshit psychology class that's required for my major. That isn't psychology. I'm expecting some old ass white dude who just like when he walks, like chalk just poofs out of his armpits or some shit and in walked this young black dude from,

from Memphis. I don't know you know anything about Memphis or not, but, um, he, he grew up in a, in a rough neighborhood in like inner city shit. And he was like, Hey everybody, my name is Dr. Keelan Hinton. I'll be a professor. I was like, you have my attention. Cause like he was covered in tattoos. He talked like he was from Memphis. Like he, he had, he let his accent come out and it was great. And one thing she said was like, people are like puzzles and psychology helps you put the pieces in the right places.

Jon (: 1:09:11

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:09:39

And that really stuck with me. Like that day I changed, I walked to the bursar and changed my major in psychology after that one class. And from that moment on, I was like, psychology is what I need to help me understand my own pieces. Like philosophy helped, but psychology is, is the child or grandchild of philosophy for the modern age. And do that for me really helped me deal with my own internal shit. Because I think unless you're aware,

Jon (: 1:09:41

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:10:08

of the shit that fucked you up to any degree, you will continue to repeat those patterns over and over because you're not doing anything to try to change those patterns. So what have been some things that you have found either strategies or insights that really helps you grow into the person you are today?

Jon (: 1:10:30

So a really interesting one is I was bullied quite badly at school from about 13 to 17, I would say. The way school's structured over here, we don't have middle school and high school. We kind of just have what's called secondary school. And my one started at 11 years old and finished it just before I was 18. So seven years in the same school. And yeah, I had a really rough time.

in my teenage years, it was an all boys school. It wasn't physical, I was always a bit bigger and that wasn't that type of school, but it was very much mental. And it was a point where it was every single day I was just being abused constantly every day. And it really, really, really affected me. This went on for years and it has continued to affect me in ways that I didn't realize as I've got older. Now...

went to university afterwards and kind of reinvented myself to a point, although some patterns started to reemerge quite quickly in a friend group that I was in, sort of made myself smaller and ended up being the one that was the, you know, the butt of all the jokes, but those, that friend group was much kinder than actual bullies, but it was still kind of the same pattern repeating. And then got a job, like I say, as a games journalist where it was a bunch of us, it was a bunch of...

It was a bunch of other people who'd been through very similar things realistically, ⁓ whether they're explicit about it or not, the levels of which, ⁓ were different for everybody. But within that circle, that didn't repeat so much because I think that that dynamic just didn't present itself within that. But weirdly, I started, ⁓ noticing something where when I started doing the school run with my kids, so just dropping the kids off at school, picking them up.

I've started to feel really, really uncomfortable interacting with other parents. Now I'm not somebody that can necessarily click with anybody. Like I tend to just gravitate towards people that I find interesting. And most people who are in their thirties and forties who have been doing what our class is boring jobs for most of their life. I don't have a lot to connect with them about and that's fine. But the feeling I was getting was quite intense. And I went in, I was speaking to a therapist at the time.

who I found absolutely just, just a fascinating woman. I almost was interviewing her at parts just because I just found it so fascinating what therapy was. And she also did some internal family system stuff, which I found really interesting as well. ⁓ and she mentioned to me is this like, well, you realize you're stepping into a school and you're, and what are you feeling like when you look around at all the other adults? And it's like, I feel like I'm 14 again. And this is like, well, it's your 14 year old self jumping in front.

terrified that the same thing is going to happen again. And I was like, it fucking is, you know, because that is what it feels like. I feel like I'm that teenage boy looking around and these are the bullies and they're going to make me feel like I used to feel again. I don't want to feel like that anymore. So I'm just not going to talk to fucking anybody. And I was like, what a ridiculous way to be. ⁓ but understandable given what happened. that helped me unravel some of that. that I a more comfortable on the school run then.

Still didn't necessarily want to chat to a lot of the parents, but that's because they're boring, not because I feel like they're going to bully me. But what's even weirder now, even though I've dealt with so much of this stuff, my son is nearly 14. And so obviously there are other 14 year old boys around his mates or, you know, I teach kids jujitsu and he's now in a teenage class. So there's other teenage boys there and I will still have the feeling around teenage. I'm a 42 year old jujitsu black belt, six foot one, over 200 pounds.

I feel intimidated in flashes by 13, 14, 15 year old boys. I'll admit that on camera right now. I still do. And I know why. And then I just, I have a small word with myself about what's actually going on. And chances are, if I'm standing there looking stern faced at a 13 year old boy, he's probably absolutely shitting himself. And it's not really fair for me to be behaving like this because of something that happened to me, you know, nearly 30 years ago. However, ⁓

It's crazy to me. Well, it's not crazy to me, but it's evident to me that these things can still repeat these patterns that were there from from all these years ago. And even just noticing that now, I noticed it literally the other day, it happened to me when I was in the kids jujitsu class, and I caught myself and I sort of shook it off. But I was just like, well, I think this stuff affected me more than I realized I knew it affected me at the time, Jesus, it was awful. But

I think that it's actually something that I need to spend more time working through because it's affecting more elements of my life that, that I realized. And I think they're, they're buried a bit down and it's affecting still certain elements of my relationship, ⁓ relationships, you know, certain anger things, know, just small things that I can actually trace back to those feelings and perhaps stuff from before that, which is why this happened when I was a teenager. Anyway, some

some earlier small T traumas when you know, you're very little and I'm not saying that anything bad happened when I was little because it didn't, but you know, the, the stories of where you get told off in a certain way. And then at that moment you feel like you're going to be abandoned and you're three years old and you know, the small T traumas that go on to affect you in ways that you have no idea that's happening, but just go to inform your entire personality. And it's only through doing the therapy and then

the hundreds, if not thousands of hours of psychologists and other, you know, people, mainly psychologists, bit of stoicism and other kind of more spiritual people as well. I've investigated well understanding what the fuck was going, what the fuck is going on with me because of what the fuck did go on with me. And that's bars. I just thought of that just then. So yeah, I can't even remember what the question was, but I think that was the answer.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:16:35

I don't care what the question was. It was a great answer. there's a, a quote that I always kind of come back to it's by Victor Frankel, Frankel, Frankel, Frankel. I can't fuck this big German, so I'm sure I'm mispronouncing it, but he says between stimulus and response, there is a space in that space is our power to choose our response in our response lies, our growth and our freedom. And like for me,

Jon (: 1:16:36

you

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:17:04

And like, you know, he's psychologist too. This whole like stimulus response thing, right? Most of us, we immediately react. We immediately respond to a stimulus. Very few of us take the time to say, okay, but there is a space. There may be a very small space right now between when I react, but there is a space and I can practice growing that space and making that, know, expanding that space. So I have more time.

Jon (: 1:17:06

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:17:33

between something happening and me deciding which response I want to have to that thing. Right? You know, we, we, you know, the term trigger or triggered are grossly fucking abused at this point. Um, like, I'm triggered. Oh, I need a trigger warning. Shut the fuck up. Like straight up, if you can't function day to day life without trigger warnings, you don't need to be outside. You need to be in fucking therapy. And I say that as a psychologist, like that, that'll get me canceled. I'm sure, but

Jon (: 1:18:02

But would a

world of tricks, sorry to jump in, but would a world of trigger warnings of which they kind of is now, would that potentially exacerbate anybody's problem anyway by, yeah, I saw that, yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:18:11

100 % 100 %

like so serious. My thing like, okay, this is a slight tangent, but like, let's say there is a, a, you're, you're in, you're in public school and they're getting ready to show over. You're in college or some shit, or even just a work meeting. And they're going to show a video. And within that video, there's a brief clip of something that's like a violent sexual thing. That makes sense. Be like trigger warning. Hey, if you're, if, if things that are grossly violent,

are emotionally over stimulating for you know that now. So if you need to walk out or like put your head down, cool. If it is like an extreme thing, sure trigger warnings in that, in that case makes sense. But this whole idea of like trigger warning for it's like, it's like choking hazard. Like here's this whole thing. There's a choking has like motherfucker. I shouldn't need to be told not to swallow this thing that is inedible, right? Or it's like, you know, McDonald's has like the hot cop, like contents hot.

Jon (: 1:19:08

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:19:09

Why in the fuck is that a thing? Right?

Again, that's me being an asshole. I'm sure there's probably a fucking legal reason for it, but this, I firmly firmly believe that if you legitimately need trigger warnings all day, every day, just to go out in normal life, you don't, you are not ready to go out in day to day normal life because day to day normal life won't have those warnings. There will be things that come up.

Cause you're, you're, you're one person in a multitude of millions, right? If you cannot function in a society like that, you need to work on why you can't function in a society like that. Okay. So it doesn't mean victim blaming or some other shit. It's like, you can't handle the reality of what this is that reality isn't the problem. Your inability to handle reality is a problem. That is you are a prime candidate to be in therapy. Now, if you are actively in therapy and still struggling with those things, but

actively working on it. Cool. Okay. Happy medium. But I saw this thing on, I forget the guy, he was a comedian, but he was saying how like millennials are self aware, but don't do anything with it. He was like, we will sit there and say, I have anxiety. And then it's like, okay, cool. What are you doing about it? Nothing. I'm telling you so you can work around my anxiety. Right? Like it's, that joke of like, I have these issues. Like, are you working on them? No, I just want you to know, I had these issues like that's

Jon (: 1:20:29

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:20:35

That's you aren't taking ownership of your life at that point. And that's for me personally, my issue is like, you aren't taking ownership of things that are within your control to start to improve. ⁓ but the, this whole idea of like stimulus and response of like, am I choosing to exert control in the few areas of my life? I do have control to exert, right? Cause most of life out of your control. But if

the stimulus happens rather than reacting automatically. How can I choose to respond? And I think that, you know, for me, entrepreneurship is personal development in disguise because I think entrepreneurship susses out all of your insecurities, all of your toxic patterns, all of your automatic thoughts that fuck you up, right?

Jon (: 1:21:19

Okay.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:21:32

because it's like, so we've been talking about, you know, being bullied. We've been talking about, you know, tall poppy. We've talked about like all these other things dealing with trauma, big T, little T, all of this is echoed every time you upload a YouTube video.

Cause it's like, who am I to do this? How will people react? And then you especially do it like at your level, you inevitably get fucking trolls and people who are just looking for somebody to tear down. So then it's a question of like, how are you reacting to this? How are you engaging with this reality that you can't really control? And there is this stimulus. Somebody is actively talking shit about you. They're trying to personally attack you and that

idea holds so many people back from ever hitting publish period. And then once you go through all of that insecurity to actually hit publish, then people like reality kicks your ass. People actually come in and they say, Hey, you fucking suck. Right. Or like you should kill yourself or like, you're so bad at this. ⁓ people watch this. This is so stupid. Who are you to say this? That like, how do you

respond. you creating a gap between stimulus and response? Or are you letting these other people hijack your emotions because it echoes back to when you were bullied? How have you navigated that?

Jon (: 1:22:59

Mm.

Um, it's an interesting one. I feel that one of the advantages that I've had starting YouTube later in life is that I've been on the internet since it came out in the late nineties. I used to run a very, very small WWF as it was then not even WWE. So someone came in the door.

s the channel that blew up in: 2018

that people can be motherfuckers on the internet. That being said, there is no doubt in my mind. But that being said, can still get caught. So I realized that I could no longer look at my YouTube studio app first thing in the morning, which is something that every creator does, especially when they start blowing up or especially when they start getting any traction. Cause how many views did I get? How's it going? How many subs did I get?

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:23:57

That's a great tagline. That's a great tagline. People can be motherfuckers on the internet. Go ahead.

Jon (: 1:24:21

everybody does it at every level. But the thing is with the YouTube Studio app, it also tells you your latest three comments and there's no way of taking it out of there. So I don't want to see them. Like if I want to engage in my comments, I'll click on my individual video. I'll look at the comments, the most upvoted ones are almost always positive. And I'm not saying that I'm trying to block all negativity out of my life. But I said this to my editor earlier, I don't want your bullshit on my call shit. I just don't want it. I don't need to hear it. This is not an open forum.

Like you can say it, but I don't, this is not what this is. I'm putting out some entertainment or some education, watch it or not. There is an option to leave a comment. Fine. But I can still get caught by some negativity and I've only really experienced it. I would say an overwhelming level once. So yeah, you get trolls, you get people saying that you're shit, getting people saying that, you know, obviously I've reacted to a lot of

like quote unquote black music as a white English guy. So you get some people calling you a culture vulture or, you know, some people being outwardly racist, 97, 98 % positive. I can't complain. However, during the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef from last year, pretty much a year ago now, I was on the site. I was of the opinion that Kendrick Lamar was winning and won that rap beef still at.

And unfortunately, like so much has happened that happens today in our society and it's always happened, but it's very much the case now. People pick size sides and attach themselves deeply, identify themselves deeply with those sides. And because I was a quote unquote Kendrick fan boy at this point, which wasn't true. The Drake fans came for me and they came for me pretty heavy. So every comment section, every live stream, every Instagram, DMs, email everywhere.

And it was exhausting and exasperating to have to just endure that. And I will say the level of abuse in quotation marks that I received during that time was minuscule compared to what some people go through online. It was relentless. It was every day for weeks. It was everywhere, but it was still minuscule for two reasons. One, I, my channel is relatively big, but it's not so big.

And the second thing, I'm not a hugely controversial character online. I certainly don't farm those sorts of interactions. I try and maintain a level head. Unfortunately, people have become, ⁓ they'd had their identities entangled or fused almost with them. The side that they picked in this battle. And I quit, I wanted to talk shit and I wanted to give some back, right? Because it makes you feel good in the moment, but it's just a bad idea.

And especially in that moment, it was a really bad idea because everything you said just came back at me tenfold. So obviously I made a couple of little prods, a couple of little jokes, even on Twitter. My nature is if something funny I think is funny comes into my head, I'll just type it on Twitter. Most of the time, nothing bad happens because of it. This time was not the time to do that. That was just like kicking Hornet's Nest over and over. And I'd start doing things. was like, John, why are you doing this? Why are you doing this for? This is not a good idea. But I still did it sometimes.

But what I realized during this time, I was like, okay, me being me, let's try and find out what's going on here. And now thankfully we have AI so I can type in this is happening during this battle. Why do people get so attached to their celebrities or their teams in a way that affects them so deeply? And I realized that it's not so much that they care that much about Drake or Kendrick or fucking

Trump or whoever team pick, know, pick any team online at the moment, Taylor Swift and BTS. I don't know. It doesn't matter. Why are they so obsessed? And I realize it's because every insult or every loss or every knock at this artist, their identity has become fused with them. So they feel it personally. Don't just take it personally in an intellectual logical set. They feel it personally. And when I realized that I started to have some empathy for them.

Not so much that I was like, you know, it's like fucking leave me alone. Don't get me wrong. And don't ever speak to me like that in real life. But I started to have empathy for him because I was like, wow, if you really do feel like this, every time that happens, I can understand why you're getting so angry, especially if you're younger. And, you know, you're not quite as emotionally developed yet. And you feel it and what actually happened, which is interesting. I spoke about this on a video. There is a very young you might know about this because you're a jiu jitsu guy as well. But

There is a very, very nerdy micro small debate within the world of jujitsu, which itself is a very small nerdy thing where there's basically two schools of how the sport is taught. There's one that's been forever the way the sport has been taught forever. And there's a new way based on kind of modern scientific movement, ⁓ methods that is known as the ecological approach, essentially from ecological psychology, which is a whole nother conversation. Anyway, this is another one of these situations where these two

teams have cropped up and the guy that is a kind of proponent for this new method is quite an outspoken dude. Now he also happens to be a really good dude that I've had some interactions with. He's done me like free consultancy calls. I like him a lot, but he's gathered a bit of like raving fan base behind him. He doesn't really want one, but that's what's happened. There was a debate online. This is so nerdy, but there was a debate online between the quite famous jujitsu athlete called Big Dan Big Ben Big Dan.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:30:05

Dan's here in Austin. I trained with Dan a couple of weeks ago, yeah.

Jon (: 1:30:07

Yeah, you did. saw the photo, in fact, so Big Dan

and this guy called Greg. And I watched the debate and it was super frustrating for me to watch. And I sat there afterwards, feeling stressed, I felt stressed in my body. And I was like, I'm fucking trying to cook and I just trying to be normal. I was like, I'm fucking stressed, man. I'm fucking pissed. And then I was like, why am I pissed? the stupid debate. Who cares? And I was intellectually telling myself to not be pissed off about

And it wasn't working. It wasn't making me not pissed off about it. But then I went, hold on. I'm feeling pissed. Let's actually look into my body. Let's not try and think my way out of this. Let's look into my body. Like feel, feel the feelings for a minute. What's actually happening. And I ran that little protocol from Buddhism, the rain protocol, the recognize, acknowledge, investigate, and then nurture or non-identification to different ways of thinking about the end. So I recognize there's something going on. I'm stressed. Okay. Just, and I acknowledge and accept that that's happening.

So first two are easy because when you try and resist it the whole time, which is what I was doing, why am I pissed off about this? It just kept getting worse. The energy kept getting worse in my body. Then I investigated what's happening here. ⁓ so I feel like if the thing that I believe in and this guy that I believe in his coach is being ridiculed and the whole community is against him. Does that mean I'm going to get ousted from the community? Is it like when I was at school and ousted? ⁓ there it is.

That's why I feel like this because it's the same fucking thing that happened to me when I was at school. Okay. Can I detach myself from that? Non, non-identification. Yeah, easy. No problem. Cause it's not a big deal. Right. But when I had that, was like, this fucking happened to me, but I managed to deal with it. That's what's happening to the Drake fans and the Kendrick fans and the Taylor Swift fans and whoever else fans. And they're just going at each other the whole time, taking it so personally into their fucking bodies. It can't be good for them to be doing that all day, every day online.

because it must be terrible for them physiologically. But when I realized that I felt empathy for the trolls to an extent. And when I say to an extent, it's like I feel for you, I kind of understand what's happening. However, it doesn't excuse or condone behaviors. It just explains them. And there we go.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:32:21

that ecological debate. I get so hot over it. Like you're just sitting here like, okay. So for people who aren't familiar, basically the debate is so the, the, the main way of training jujitsu is you show a technique and then you drill it multiple, multiple times and it effectively bakes it into your muscle memory. through repetition, there's this new ecological or there's another word they've also been throwing around for it. But basically

Jon (: 1:32:48

constraints later approach.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:32:50

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you basically, rather than saying this is the technique, you say, this is the goal you're ultimately trying to achieve, get there in any way you can. So maybe the goal is put their ass on the ground. So it's like, I'm not going to teach you how to do a single leg or a double leg or a foot sweep. The goal is get their ass on the ground in any way you can. And one of the, the, the underlying assumption is

people will figure it out if you just give them the end goal and get like time in not time and position, but time and attaining that goal. That way it allows people to develop their own unique approach, things like this. The issue that fucks people up is it creates a false dichotomy. And I think that's a big piece. Cause when you talk to people who are reasonable, even the people who are super pro drilling also do positional sparring positional sparring.

is a version of the ecological approach where it's like, just escape or sweeper submit, right? We're don't tell you how to sweep or submit. just say sweeper, submit, then reset. That's, that's the reasonable middle ground of like, need to understand and drill things to a degree so that you understand the general concepts. But if you only ever drill and never do positional things or never go live, you can't, you don't actually know the move.

Jon (: 1:33:49

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:34:16

because you can't apply it under pressure when it matters. But if you only ever do the ecological approach, then you're effectively losing the, the philosophy behind jujitsu, jujitsu, which is about technique and timing. Cause that way can optimize for brute strength, speed and athleticism, because you're just trying to achieve that goal. And you may not understand the underlying mechanics of how you got there. So that prioritizes athleticism versus

purely drilling optimizes for people who are intellectual but can't actually execute. Those are the extremes of the debate. But the issue is, is people are like identity politics. People are like, no, no, like drilling, have to drill or like drilling is overrated. You have to actually be, you know, time and position. And then it just gets so fucking heated when the reality is there is probably a middle.

Jon (: 1:35:07

Or at least there's a reasoned conversation. Yeah. And there's very little effort to understand the other people's point of view. It's just know that this, this, this thing. then the problem is, I mean, I can't believe we're getting into this. It's my fault for bringing it up, but the problem is Greg, like, he's so particular about language for various reasons that when somebody doesn't quite come at it, we're using the exact language that he is.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:35:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's just.

Exactly.

Jon (: 1:35:37

explaining from his side. He cannot tolerate it whatsoever and will shut it down immediately. Whereas somebody else would go, I think what you slightly misunderstood me, let's find a synthesis in the middle. So even though I still believe my thing from this sort of movement theory point of view, I can meet you where you're at and maybe we can explore it. But he is not like that as a person and that causes a lot of clashes and there we go. But yeah, it's the same thing. There are examples everywhere. Fucking it was Sega and Nintendo in the, in the playground.

when I was little, it wasn't as actually, you know, there was fistfights over Sonic versus Mario when I was a kid. So yeah, it's been around forever, but online just exacerbates it so much.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:36:17

Apple and Android, Biggie versus Tupac. it's all of these things, right? Because like it's this in-group out-group bias effectively, right? I've like, I am protective of my in-group and naturally if you are not in my group, there's something wrong with you. Cause if you were great, you'd be in my group. Cause my, I chose my group. My group must be the best. Right? And like, I remember this would play out. So like an undergrad, ⁓ I joined a fraternity and we always had to tell pledges. We'd be like, look,

Jon (: 1:36:18

Mmm.

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:36:47

Our fraternity is, the best one for us, but that doesn't mean the other fraternity suck. The other fraternities are the best for their members. We are not going to tolerate this bullshit because like do you like, okay, real quick. Like when I came on to Greek life, literally, so we had Greek row. So we had houses on this, you know, part of street. People would literally walk across the street and just deck somebody at another fraternity house. Like I watched dudes just walk across the street, just casually cross the street and

beat the shit out of somebody else purely because he had different letters on. And like that was, that was Greek life when I came onto campus as a freshman, but collectively we changed it by the time I graduated. But like that was it. Cause it was like, fuck all those other guys. They're not us. And it's like, we cannot like, this is Greek life. Like this is, know, music lovers. is jujitsu lovers. It's just like, you got to see the higher level and realize what is best for you is best for you, but that doesn't mean it is the best for somebody else.

Jon (: 1:37:20

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:37:46

Best is relative. isn't an absolute term most of the time, but we get into this identity of like, if you attack my favorite artist, you're attacking me. I have attached too much of my identity to this other thing. And that's so fucking calm.

Jon (: 1:37:48

Hmm.

It's everywhere. It's just everything right now. It's there is online at the moment. It's literally all there is. That's not true because there's also amazing conversations happening online all the time on great podcasts and in great newsletters and great videos. So I mustn't say it's all there is. However, it's a fucking lot of what there is and people get wrapped up in the drama as well. And, know, I'm not immune to watching a bit of a drama video here and there between whoever's having an argument at the moment, but

I will only allow myself about 30 minutes per day of online drama and then I'm going switch off.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:38:38

But so, so when it comes to like creators and burnout and things like this, right? Kind of looping it back. Another thing that related to this is like we ourselves can become victims of that of like as creators, which I know creators are loaded term. Some people really like it. Some people don't, but as people who create things as a creator, you build parasocial relationships with your audience, meaning they build an affinity. They feel like they know you.

even though you may have never had an actual conversation in the real world, they just, they've watched all your videos. They feel like they know you, right? We're all like this. We're like this with our favorite artists. Like, dude, like if I ever met Andy James, like I don't know any James, I'll be like, dude, I've listened to every one of your fucking songs. Like this is awesome. I feel like I know you. I don't fucking know him at all. Would love to don't fucking know him. Right. But I feel like it, it's really easy for us to get caught up in that. And then

Jon (: 1:39:22

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:39:34

start to see this in group out group. And then we start to see all the other creators in a similar space as competitors. Cause we developed this like scarcity mindset of like people need to listen to me. They can't listen to other people or my people listen to me because my shit is the best or because of whatever all this other person, all fuck this guy did a sleep token react reaction video. Like, well people who watch him aren't watching me and vice versa. This guy's the enemy. And it was like,

I see that play out so often of like seeing other people as your competition, because you think when somebody watches them or buys their thing, they're not going to do that for you. But the reality generally it's like, I'll take the productivity space. For example, you have not bought one productivity book. You have not watched one productivity video. You have watched dozens.

because you are a productivity enthusiast. Cause I don't like the word junkie cause I used to work in addiction treatment. Like, so it's like this rising tide. Like if you like reaction videos, you may have a favorite or two creators that you, go to first, but genre wise, you like reaction videos. Like that's the thing. it's like, okay, cool. Like these aren't my competition. These are potential collaborators or just colleagues.

Jon (: 1:40:35

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:40:59

And I think that coming at it from that perspective has really helped me stay in this for the long term. Because I think it's when you see everybody as competition that exacerbates your burnout because then it's like, well, I have to do more. I have to do better. I have to do, you know, whatever. And then that that just that speeds up the hamster wheel. How have you seen that play out?

Jon (: 1:41:04

Hmm.

⁓ yeah, brilliant question and brilliant insight as well. And I completely agree with you. I've always kind of seen it as colleagues and it's strange because in the magazine days, they were competitors because everybody's on sale on a shelf. However, we'd all go on a trip or to an event or to a press thing in London and everybody would be friendly because even though you work on this different Xbox magazine or whatever, like, we're all just

obscure Sega Saturn game from: 1996

without even realizing why I don't know why actually it's just something that I think I decided upon as a teenager. Maybe during all of that, maybe I have to do some deep dive and investigate why. But when I got to YouTube, I definitely had the colleague and abundance mindset. I'd heard of abundance mindset from probably Gary V. I think he's the first person I heard talk about it. ⁓ and I always give credit to Gary's videos was the kick up the ass that I needed to go and start YouTube for the first time. And the second time, you know, I, I,

I peek and trough with Gary's videos. I watch them for a bit and then switch off. He's a very intense dude. He's a lovely guy. He's messaged me off his own back, just telling me to keep going before I ever messaged him. So shout out to Gary. But I think he was the first person I ever heard say about abundance mindset and talking about that because he's big on that. And that is how I see YouTube. And thankfully, a lot of people that I've interacted with also see YouTube like this, or at least present the fact that they see YouTube like this. So a lot of people are in reactor space.

We all have a common thing because not only are we making the same video so we know the same struggles, but our videos, because it's a copyrighted music content, ⁓ all get copyright claimed by YouTube and the money for those videos would have made gets given back to the label or artists. So we've all had to figure out ways of monetizing our businesses, not through the normal YouTube ad rev way, because we don't get any. We literally, you know.

I'll get a couple of hundred bucks a month for a channel that, you know, and it's biggest is doing 4 million views a month. So, you know, it's not, that was no business. So I had to come up with something else. And then in doing so, because of my experience doing that and what I learned, I've reached out and helped some of the other reactors who were coming up behind me at the time in helping those guys, because I just, that just felt like I was just paying it forward. That's just, it's kind of my nature, to be honest. ⁓ but one thing I did notice about the whole colleague and competitor thing.

Was there is a channel that came up and I spoke to when they were quite small and helped them out. They're called turning the tables. It's a dad and a son. I love those guys. They're from Vancouver, Canada and their channel started blowing up quick and they have loads of videos over a million views. I've done an interview conversation with them, which is brilliant. The dad's older, you know, he's in his, in his fifties, the son's in his relatively early twenties and the dynamic they have is beautiful. But because of,

How good the channel was and how well they did eventually it actually overtook my channel in terms of subscribers and views and I For a moment I did feel a pang of jealousy because when they came up and they had you know When I think I interacted with them They maybe had five six thousand subscribers and I was in the hundreds of thousands and now they're there there are over a hundred but i'm actually happy because I felt that feeling and ran the rain thing that I talked about over that feeling because it's like

I don't want to feel any ill feelings towards these guys. I fucking love these guys. Like they're really, really awesome. I love their videos and personally to interact with, they've just been absolute diamonds, but the feeling happens. So it's like, let's, let's just understand that feeling happened. I felt it. Let's investigate it. Okay. I think that was just some weird natural thing about maybe feeling a bit inadequate about what I've been doing over the last year. It's nothing to do with them. I can deal with that. Let's move on. I think a lot of people might get stuck there.

when, and that's when they're in that scarcity mindset. had a brief flirtation with a scarcity mindset when that happened. I'm, instead of trying to resist that feeling when it happened, but should have probably made it grow. I just acknowledge it very quickly. I mean, this was a less than a minute for me to deal with and come through to the other side on with those guys. And I can't wait till they get to a million subscribers. ⁓ amazing, but I think a lot of people might get stuck.

at that moment. And if they're in that scarcity mindset, they are, everyone is a competitor. That view that that is happening over there is not happening on my channel. That product that's being bought over there is not coming from me. And that, you say, is the recipe for burnout is the recipe for stress. And if you're low endurance for that sort of stuff, it's going to kick your ass quickly. Some people seem to have a higher endurance for it. It's coming for you. They just seem to be able to tolerate the feelings for longer, but it's still, it's coming for you because you can't.

You can't live with that scarcity mindset. You can't live wishing for a life that isn't the live that you're sorry, the life that you're currently living, whether you're going back to talking about how you were, um, you know, you're having, you're dreaming about your, the, the abusive, um, figure in your life when you were a kid, it's all the same principle, right? That you're dreaming of a life that you're not currently living and it causes immense, uh, stress on the body and mind. And that's just that an example of that again. And it happens a lot in the creator space.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:47:04

on. So I think that, you know, in the creator space itself, most of us create for many people, but we create alone. Right. And, you know, both like literally like, you know, you and I, we both have home studios. So like we're literally fucking alone when we're recording shit, but also like

Jon (: 1:47:16

Mmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:47:30

It's a little, a little different in Austin, Texas, specifically because there are a lot of creators. know there are also some like in London and things. ⁓ and like there are, there are hubs throughout the world, but there aren't a lot of hubs, but even, even like, man, even here in Austin, it's just like, I'll, I'll hang out with other creators and shit sometimes, but at the end of the day, we're all creating alone most of the time. And then maybe once a month or when somebody's got a book launch or some shit we hang out.

Jon (: 1:47:40

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:47:58

even though we're not hanging out a whole lot because everybody's so fucking busy doing their own thing. Right. I think that it could be a creator. can be a very lonely, ⁓ profession, right. And there aren't very many really good resources or communities or just anything where you can get like actual support either from peers or people who have been there and done that and, figured some things out along.

And that's why, you you told me, um, you're launching your own, um, sort of mastermind, right around some of these topics. Can you tell me more about that?

Jon (: 1:48:34

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. So

you're completely right. ⁓ One of the reasons this job is so stressful is that it is very isolating. You know, I do spend many, many, many hours on my own. kind of used to it. And I'm lucky that I have family here, but a lot of people don't. They're just working on their own. And that's actually something that's happening to a lot more people since the pandemic anyway, but speaking specifically about creators. Now, on top of that,

As you said, it's a totally new field. There is no support structure. isn't very little understanding of it. We can poke at it from, you know, a psychological lens, especially yourself, but still, this is still relatively new in the grand scheme of human evolution, like this weird thing that we're able to do to this vast reach now. And I feel it operates as a kind of extreme form of business where every single video or drop

or whatever type of content that you put out can potentially explode your career, either positively blow you up or negatively. ⁓ that's actually not really the case, even though it can happen, but it's can certainly feel like that. the chances of you feeling like everything is going to fall apart as an entrepreneur, I think is pretty, pretty steady as a creator. I think that's it's multiplied, right? And then you have an element of, ⁓ identity entanglement where

creators become very much identified with their metrics, their self-worth gets tied into their metrics, their views, their retention, all these sorts of things, their followers, their likes. ⁓ and then on top of that, you have the problem of audience capture, meaning that if somebody is doing YouTube for as long as I have, which is seven years now, obviously your tastes are going to change. And I think this has happened a lot for people who started YouTube channels when they were late teens or, ⁓ maybe early twenties.

we're doing much more youthful type of content. And then suddenly they're 28 years old and their audience is either still kids or they have no idea what, how to check. They're completely different as people as they were when they started on YouTube. And I mean, that's happened to me and I'm from 35 to 42, but imagine if you started at 15 and now you're 23 or you started at 15 and now you're 27. And you see that in some of these creators who have been on the platform a long time have blown up. Um, and now

they have children and they started as children and they are really going through it because they're so captured by an audience who only wants a certain thing from them. And there's certain portion of the audience will say, no, we'll support you, whatever you do. But if that's going from something that's sustaining your entire business and able to pay for bigger creators, able to pay your team, your employees, your, whatever else you've got to pay for. you change and your business drops to one 10th of the revenue that it was at because it

The 10th of the audience that's going to support you still does, but the nine 10th don't. What a situation to be in. It's completely unique. And that is why I've set up a mentorship mastermind. I've been mentoring people behind the scenes pretty much since I started. I've seen myself as an older guy in this space because I am. And it's just a natural feeling for me to want to reach out and lend people a helping hand anyway.

especially younger people. grew up with my brother's eight years younger than me and I spent a lot of time looking after him when we were kids. And so I just think that's something that comes naturally to me anyway. And the idea is that the creators of every single creator I speak to, every single creator that I speak to is stressed, burnt out, being pulled in multiple different directions. They have no idea how to make themselves feel better.

They're stuck. Some people deal with it better than others. are completely strung out. And I feel like I've got myself into a position whereby I've definitely felt that and been through that as a creator. I've definitely worked the 16 hour days, day after day after day. I've definitely been checking my studio out first thing in the morning, last thing at night, stressing. I've definitely not interacted properly with my family because I'm fucking pissed off and stressed that my latest video first hour metrics aren't right. And I've got an eight of 10 instead of a one of 10 YouTube would throw that shit in the bin, by the way.

that thing, ⁓ terrible, terrible for the mind. However, I feel like I've come through the other side of that through some of the experiments that I've run. ran a mad experiment where I tried to see, I mean, this is not something you can tell your audience, but I did it anyway. I wanted to see how little work I could do in a day before my business fell over. And the second I started to feel it actually wobble is like, okay, we need to get back to work. And I realized how much time in each day I was wasting. that's that's not to say I should be producing for 12 straight hours.

But if I'm at this desk, which I was sitting at now from nine in the morning till 10 PM, and maybe I've had a break for an hour and a half to do jujitsu and do some family stuff, but I'm literally here at least 10 hours, but I've only done about three and a half hours of actual solid work towards my business. What was the rest of the time doing? It was doom scrolling. It was checking this. It was fucking getting distracted. It was procrastinating. was distract an 18, which is the term that I've come up with where it's not like the full deep.

Need to sort out something from your childhood procrastination, but it's just the embedded ⁓ physical habits of moving my mouse there to check Twitter 17,000 times a day or having to do this every two sentences because my body just seems to have created this habit. So all of these things are stuff that I feel like that I'm doing a decent job of navigating dealing with. And then I speak to somebody else who has done no work towards any of this through no fault of their own. just not.

a fucking complete nerd for these types of subjects like me and they're just in it. They're in that stress zone. And I just feel like through some fairly gentle conversations, some practices and some strategy stuff, because a lot of people want to talk about actual technical strategy. I need to do this on my Patreon. I need to do this type of video. What should I do in my thumbnail? We can start with those conversations. I know where the conversations are going to end up most of the time. They're going to be about

stress management burnout, they're going to be about the general stresses of just venting being a creator. Cause you cannot talk to your audience about it and people creators do, they make a mistake. The only people that they know who do this, they don't know anyone in real life. Nobody else understands. only people who at least understand what is they do for a job is their audience. But if you're a curator who's at that, maybe at that point built a six figure business and you have a team and stuff and your audience is people who are at a different stage in their life. We were just starting out perhaps and

they're in their first job and you're sitting there complaining about this stress. Some of the audience will support you. A lot of them would be like, who the fuck is this guy? You know, what's he got to complain about? He's got the dream life. And in many ways you do, but also, excuse me, in many ways, if you're miserable and stressed and not sleeping and your nervous system is crashing every single day, that's not a dream life for anybody. long story short, yeah, I've started a program. We have some people coming through already where

I mean, there is elements of it, which are trying to get you to a certain monetary level per month. And I think that's a goal for anybody in this space. But realistically, it's for people who are stressed, strung out in this creative space or entrepreneurship space or creative space. And once somebody to speak to and some protocols, systems, ideas, group coaching to help themselves navigate that in a space that will also be occupied by other people who know how the fuck that feels.

So yeah, that's what I've been building for the last little while. And I also intend to build something broader, bigger, and much less expensive for a wider audience who aren't necessarily creators who are just struggling with some of these issues. Procrastination, perhaps they're struggling with some of the fears of starting, they're struggling with a fear of putting themselves out there. They're struggling with the stress and pressure of modern life, feeling that they need to have purpose. They need to have everything in line.

I'm building something that can help some of those guys as well, because that's so many people in my audience talk to me about these issues. They're not creators yet. Someone who wants to be someone I'm on. But that's another thing that I'm building. That's not ready yet, but the mastermind is. So if anybody is interested in that, they can hit me up or they can just jump on the newsletter and it'll get linked through from there. I'm sure that will be linked. But yeah, that's what I'm building. And I'm not stopping the music reactions. I mean, when I do something like that, Sleep Token record on Monday, I'm like this. I'm not stopping doing this.

because I don't want to lose those moments. I don't want the privilege of having that on video to go away. However, I'm aware that a man moving more into his forties, it's just not, I'm not supposed to be a music critic. I never was. I'm supposed to be somebody that creates connections with people through the vessels, sleep token reference, of high art and great art and high entertainment as well. And...

That's what I feel like I am as a creator and I'm also somebody who's a coach, whether that's jujitsu, whether that's just generally mentorship behind the scenes for people in and out of the creator space. now hopefully as I build towards a business.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:57:49

So like my thing is you have demonstrated competency building your main YouTube channel. Right? So I think too many people come into like either being like a life slash executive coach or a mindset coach, or they build masterminds, group coaching programs, memberships, whatever. And they haven't done fuck all themselves, but they're like, I can help creators with burnout. It's like,

Jon (: 1:58:13

Yeah

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:58:16

Are you a creator? Have you dealt with burnout? Do you have any fucking demonstrate demonstrable competency in this? Well, no, but I just, I, you know, I know I, I Googled it or chat. GPT told me that creative burnout is, on the rise. And I just, I'm trying to make a quick buck. Fuck you versus somebody like you, man. It's like, we're both middle-aged at this point, right? Based on life expectancy, we're both middle-aged is what it is. And I got plenty of gray hairs to prove that too, but like,

Jon (: 1:58:36

Mm.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:58:45

Not only do you have just lived experience as a, as a person, as a man, as a father, as, as a professional, whatever, but you've been in the creator game, the YouTuber game for a long time, but also like from creative from like a journalist writer, you know, pseudo freelancing type of arrangement that is free form, not guaranteed, not color by numbers. You have a ⁓ depth of, of knowledge and lived experience.

Jon (: 1:59:08

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:59:16

that very, very few people have, but very, very many people could benefit from. And like, obviously like I love talking to you, like, know, we've, I've, I've had the, the pleasure of slowly getting to know you over the last couple of years and things, which is why I wanted to have you on the show. And I love what you do. I love the insights you have. ⁓ And like your newsletter is great, right? ⁓ And I will definitely link it ⁓ for everybody to check out. It's, it's well worth a read.

⁓ it's very no bullshit. It's very to the point, but it's also very valuable. And I think we need more actual authentic, ⁓ insights like this, right? A lot of what you do is, is aligned. It is authentic. And so I don't, you know, I don't see the, reaction YouTube video as completely separate from, you know, this, this mentorship mastermind you're doing or the newsletter. It's like,

This is my main thing that I do and have done for a long time. This has given me the ability to have these earned insights. I'm sharing with you all over here, right? You know, I talked to, Ali Abdul, cause he and I worked together for a while. ⁓ and, and one of things that Ali does and guys like Brendan Bouchard and some other people do is you have your main business and then you have like the business behind the business. Right? So for like Ali, that would be like,

Jon (: 2:00:38

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:00:41

He's got his actual YouTube channel that makes a fuck ton of money and things, but then he's got the part time YouTuber Academy, right? Cause people are like, I'll leave. How did you do that? Right? Well, a simple question for you, you people would have is like, how did you build that without burning out or all you did kind of burn out a couple of times or all you navigate a burnout, right? So it's like, you have the main thing that demonstrates, you know, what the fuck you're talking about. And then people like, how did you do that? How can I do that? Not even how can I build ⁓ a reaction YouTube channel?

Jon (: 2:00:55

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:01:10

How do I succeed as a creator without burning out? How do I get the support to stay in this game long term? Cause I don't have that right now. You've been in this long term. You're probably the guy to go to.

Jon (: 2:01:23

But thank you very much for saying that Corey, because that is almost, it was really nice to hear that coming back at me from you. Cause I think you've really put it very succinctly and made me feel great in the process. But I think you're right. think I've been pulled in something you mentioned earlier. Do I listen to this guru or do I listen to this guru? I've been in this situation with this, right? And I'm like, do I need to put a monetary thing on there? Cause otherwise I can't market it. Do I need to do it this way? Sales copy isn't really my bag, even though I feel like I can do it. It's just not.

You know me, I just like to take the piss and be honest and open. That's kind of like my thing. but you're right. It isn't just how to build a reaction channel. Of course I can help people do that. I can help people build YouTube channels in multiple different disciplines based on my knowledge, but it is that how can I do this and stay in the game long-term without burning out or how can I recover from my burnout if it's not too severe that it's like hospital level, obviously.

⁓ and how can I maintain that? Is there, is there a support structure in place? Well, yeah, I can be that support structure because when you're dealing with a situation where you're having a 10 of 10 instead of a one of 10, and you've had three in a row and is everything falling apart or everybody fucking hates me and they're trying to cancel me today or whatever the hell it is that you're going through, there's nowhere to turn apart from your own audience. And like I say, that's not a good move. This is a place.

that you can get help with that.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:02:56

Do yes. And kind of ending on that, like going viral in a way that people are trying to like quote unquote cancel you is something very few people, ⁓ experience. But when you're in it and you're in the shit, having people, you can very quickly go to be like, Hey, what the fuck do I do? Or like, Hey, I don't, I don't know. I don't know what, how, what's going on. That is one of those things where like you want to have that support system.

and not need it rather than need it and not have it. Right. Cause like, you know, I, again, my honest is, is, is pretty small across the board right now, but like I've had friends who like that happened. I've like, they had this, this like Twitter thread go mega mega viral, but there was like, basically people were trying to find an issue with it. And they found one, like one of my buddies, put up this like productivity thing of like, here's how I stay super, you know, disciplined all day, every day as like a big time, like a CEO. And I do also the ship.

Jon (: 2:03:27

Mm. Yeah. Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:03:57

And at a certain point people were like, well, you didn't say anything about your wife. ⁓ you're just, you're making an allocate. It's just your schedule. It has nothing to with your wife. And then somehow people got into, into their heads. Like he was some like fucking chauvinist and like takes his wife for granted. was like, I know this guy personally, he's fucking amazing. And he's talked about his wife many other times. It's just this singular thread. He didn't. And, and dude, he was getting like sub tweeted by other like huge names, like trying to be like,

Jon (: 2:04:21

Mmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:04:26

I spent all day with my wife, like grateful for my wife. like he, dude, he was, he almost like left the internet basically. Cause it was such a fucking like, he was like, do people are trying to like find out where my kids go to school? People are trying to call like this, this, my bosses and shit over here. And I'm like, so like, thankfully he had a support system in that moment, but like, cause it's just, if people are like a dog with a bone, like, ⁓ people are piling onto this guy. Let me get my quick little, little jolt of dopamine by trying to tear him down.

Jon (: 2:04:34

Fuck.

Mmm.

yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:04:56

Dude, it's one of those things that like you, nobody wants to be in that position, but nobody understands being in that position other than other creators. You have to have. And again, like that may never happen to you, but even something as simple as like even just the day to day, even one out of 10, you can say one out of 10, nobody except a motherfucker who's done YouTube knows what the fuck you're saying. Right. Or if you're like, damn, like I put 20 hours of work and it's a nine out of 10 right now, only another creator should be like, damn, and I'm sorry, like give it three months.

Jon (: 2:05:04

Hmm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:05:26

Right? Or like, it's just you, there's so much that so many layers that go into being a creator that if you say like, yeah, this video did well or like, yeah, I got a new client or yeah, whatever. Only other creators understand how much went on behind the scenes to get to that point. And like your best friends in the world, your family, they may be super supportive, but they simply do not understand the full depth of what it means to be a creator.

Jon (: 2:05:38

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:05:55

unless they are also creators.

Jon (: 2:05:57

Yeah, you're right. Damn, man, you're making me feel like I need to join my own program saying this. I need this to fucking support.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:06:05

Dude, I love this. This

is fucking great. Where can people find you and check out all of your awesome shit?

Jon (: 2:06:10

Yeah, so it's just my name on YouTube John Denson, J O N that will come up with the music reaction channel and then everything in the links to the description Everything else is under there the newsletter If you wanted to join the mentorship of that sound site something that you're interested in then just yeah Join the newsletter hit me up on on a dm or somewhere. I don't have a full It's not fully public yet. So it's not like landing page and all that sort of stuff. That's coming soon but ⁓

Yeah, you can find me. I'm easily found these days.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 2:06:41

subscribe to the newsletter and reply to it, hit him up, tell him how awesome he is. ⁓ cause y'all I fucking love John. That's why I had him on the show. I only have people to show that a fucking love and I would just want more people to get to know. Like that's, that's like basically my one rule of like is, do I think this motherfucker is awesome? Do I love what they do and who they are as a person? That's enough for me. ⁓ and you definitely check off those boxes. ⁓ dude, this has been fucking great. I'm so grateful ⁓ that you decided to spend some time with me.