Nick Jobe is a writing coach and industry strategist, working with screenwriters, authors and thought leaders to hone their narrative.

His writing clients have sold pictures to Amazon and Netflix and staffed on major network TV shows.

His approach encourages his writers to think more like entrepreneurs than artists and to disrupt Hollywood norms of engagements in the thought leadership space.

His clients have graced the stages of conferences for women and spoken at Fortune Global 500 companies.

Prior to focusing his all his time on his writers, Nick was an actor writer working on projects like David Fincher's Oscar nominated Monk.

Is that Monk or Mank Mank Mank.

Apologies there.

And the fifth season of Yellowstone.

For more of Nick online, check out his mindset and strategy podcast for screenwriters beyond the Script with co host Stephen Harper or at his website, Page One tv.

Nick, thank you so much for being here, man.

Yeah, man, I'm excited.

So, so glad to be with you both.

Oh, absolutely.

So you, you've known your arsenal for 18 years, is that right?

18 years, man.

We were tadpoles.

Oh man, I'm really sorry.

I'm really sorry about that, bro.

That sucks.

I know.

I mean, you think he's, he's a regressed human now.

You should have seen him back then, all id.

That's hilarious, man.

Yeah, we met, we met in an acting class.

But anyways, man, do.

Something we like to do when we start off with all first time guests is we want to get more into like your story, your personal hero's journey, your major rites of passage, you know, all the things that have kind of led you to who you are today, doing the work that you do and also the perspectives that you have.

Great, man.

You can start whenever, you can start when you were born.

Start when I was born.

Yeah.

And I love those terms, by the way.

I like, I really like the term rites of passage.

You know, you message that to me and I, it really made me think a lot about, you know, what was it that chiseled away the person you see and you hear today?

Right.

What are those, those major events, you know, and I thought about it and it's, it's sometimes, it's sometimes.

I always, I always want to say, like, I hate to start on a negative, but I do think that a lot of my early life had a lot of fear in it.

I think there was, I was kind of a fearful kid.

Imaginative, yes.

Super imaginative.

Right.

My imagination was off the charts, but there was a lot of fear.

Right.

Like I grew up in, in the 80s and I was a latchkey kid.

And, you know, just so happened that I spent a lot of time by myself, you know, and maybe longer at home than I should have stayed at home, right?

I mean, back in the day, it was like, we'll just let the kids go or let them come home whenever.

But for me, you know, I had a single parent household, and I would stay home a lot, waiting for my caregiver, my mom, to come home.

And, you know, now that I'm older, realizing that the time I spent from school to when she got home was probably longer than maybe some of the other kids, right?

So there was an experience that I had where just so much, there was a lot of fear.

And I think that a lot of the things that I've worked through, you know, my own health, anxiety, fear of the future, fear of the past, anxiety and depression, you know, they all kind of come from that time, right?

So I think fearful.

I hate to say it, but I think a lot of my early life had a lot of fear around it.

And again, when you're home alone a lot, you're an only child.

The good side is that there's an.

There's an imaginative component too, right?

I used to, like, my mom used to let me just like, paint and draw on the walls, which all of them, like, what, you know, no holds barred.

So I was so deep in, like, crafting, you know, and like, friends would come over to play he man, and I would have crafted this elaborate, elaborate narrative, right?

I'm like, you know, he man's like, already been.

He's been tortured for six hours.

Skeletor's coming in.

You know, like, I would craft because my imagination, it had to.

There was so much time.

But I think what filled that imagination and, you know, I think in the 80s, kids were probably watching horror movies sooner than they should have been watching horror movies.

And I think what filled that imagination was a lot of, like, the horror movies that I was watching.

Probably too young to be watching them.

So with this, there was this component of like, you know, a little bit of that sort of latchkey kid neglect.

And then there was all this imaginative energy that sometimes trended towards the horrifying.

So when I would sit home alone and wait for my caregiver to come home, you know, and there was, you know, alcoholism, things of that nature there as well.

My imagination would often be filled with, like, you know, what's in those dark spaces over there, right?

Like, there was just.

I was just a.

I was just a little bit of a fearful kid, a sweet kid, a really kind Kid, but a fearful kid.

And I think that those two components really stayed with me kind of all throughout growing up.

Right?

There was like this charming, charismatic guy who had this great imagination, but then there was, there was, there was all this kind of like low grade, low level trauma and you know, fear of making the wrong person mad.

I was just a fearful kid.

And you know, I always kind of fast forward.

Cause I think for me the growing up was moving to New York City.

And I moved to New York City when I was 23.

After taking five years to not finish my undergraduate degree, I moved to New York to do an acting program.

And I was, I don't know why I wanted to go to New York, but my mother gave me the opportunity, you know, and I will say about my mom, she, she did help foster whatever I wanted.

You know, there was a lot of whatever you want, which on some level was a cur, you know, a curse, but also a gift because it allowed me to go, okay, well this is what I want.

And I, I didn't, you know, you know, I know men are generally a little bit more immature than women, but I think I was maybe the most immature 23 year old that I have ever known.

I mean I just didn't, I didn't, I didn't have a lot of inner resilience.

You know, I didn't know anything about my own value.

There was a lot of like health anxiety and fear.

And so my first few years in New York, I think I was really kind of lost.

You know, I was, I was like a chronic weed smoker, you know, really trying to self medicate.

A lot of what I didn't know, I didn't know my, you know, just, just.

It wasn't that I was socially anxious, I was socially pretty graceful, but there was just a lot of fear of things, right, and, and weird health anxieties.

I think I crafted a lot of, I remember when I was seven thinking that I had leg cancer and telling my mother that I'm like we need to go to the hospital, like I'm sick.

And just knowing now looking back that that's not normal, that's not a normal thought for a seven year old to have.

So think about that, you know, 16, 17 years later, that there was just a lot of like the health anxiety I think was another big identifier, you know, for me.

What do you think was like the early seeds or like the catalyst for that health anxiety at such a young age?

I think that, well, well I have, you know, obviously I've Explored a lot of this in therapy.

But I think that some of it had to do with the fact that when I.

When I would become sick, I was able to get the most closeness from my.

My mom.

I was able to get the most closeness from my caregiver.

Being sick or being ill or having some sort of crisis would.

Would create an opportunity to feel really close and maybe get some of that, like, more intimate love that I really longed for.

Yeah.

So I think.

And I.

I remember when I first started recognizing this was an issue, like in my late 20s, I started saying to myself, like, there will be no reward sick.

You know, like, it's.

It's not going to reward you for crafting an illness.

So, yeah, it's cra.

And I remember even my 20s, I was sick a lot.

Whether it was like a throat thing or I was just sick a lot.

One of those kind of kids.

So know, New York, you don't have a choice.

It kind of grows you up.

Right.

I didn't.

You know, first of all, I had like the.

I don't know, there's.

Maybe you guys know.

But there's a term.

I'm going to try and say this in a way that positions me is not to Gen X, but there's a term for girlfriends who like, take guys who need a lot of work and like, get them all set up to.

To succeed.

I don't know if you'd.

But like, I had.

I know what you're talking about.

I just don't.

I had a girlfriend like that who was like, she helped me, like, find a regular job, like, get, you know, like, I.

She stabilized me on some level.

I remember, like, it was in my late 20s, but I think it wasn't until, you know, I was in and out of acting class and I was in acting class with Erasmus.

And our teacher at the time was very much about, you know, deep.

Digging deep into self.

And obviously there was a cap on how far into self I could go because there was tons of guardrails around.

What?

I didn't know.

I didn't know.

I didn't know.

But I.

I think it was really, for me, I started having really bad, bad, bad money issues in my 20s, early 30s, bad, you know, like, I would, you know, I just.

I didn't know how to hold on to money.

Right.

I think it had a lot to do with value.

I would just let money go.

And so I was in an acting class with Larry Moss, the great Larry Moss, and he said out loud to the whole class, I think I was 33, you know, and he had given me a reckoning that week by saying, you know, there's a.

You're in.

You're afraid of antisocial, dark, strong, masculine energies and roles.

Why are you so fearful of being strong, masculine, antisocial, and dark?

What's the fear?

And so that was like the first reckoning.

And then he said to the whole group, and I was like, you know, I remember the day he said this.

I had had to borrow money from a scene partner to have lunch.

And he said, if you're having problems with money and debt, you need to go to Debtors Anonymous and figure out who you're debting to in your history.

Who is it you're debting to?

What is it?

Right?

And so I did, like.

Like a week later, I started going to D.A.

I remember that.

I remember that now because we had lost touch for a couple years, and then when we reconnected, you had been like, you know, in your DA experience and going through all that, that level of your growth.

So, yeah, what is.

What is that?

If you guys can basically, what is the a.

He can explain it.

I mean, you know, at some point, I don't know when AA splintered off into people thinking the 12 steps could cure all kinds of maladies, right?

So there was Overeaters Anonymous, you know, there's Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, and then there was Debtors Anonymous, which was people.

And, you know, I used to go to meetings in New York, and some people would be like, Upper east side wives who just could not stop shopping.

They were just like, shop.

They just couldn't.

The feeling of shopping was filling up something for them.

And for me, I just couldn't hold on to money.

If I had it, it needed to go, right?

And I also was so far away from knowing my own value.

So 12 step, for me was the first really big.

It was.

I had a spiritual awakening in that program, 100%, you know, because when they walked me over to the third step and, like, letting God take over your life, I was like, God, come on, man.

And I'm like, I'm a New Yorker.

I'm like, God, people are not smart people, you know, God, people are not like, those aren't people.

I want to.

Right?

These are like.

And I thought about, you know, the way the media had portrayed the religious right.

Or I thought about people who were invested in God as maybe not as smart for some reason, right?

I had that sort of whatever.

So for me to finally, like, give in and say, well, whatever's going on with me.

I need.

I, I'm, I am powerless over it because I can't, I can't figure out what I can't figure out.

I can't see.

As like Alan Watts would say, I can't see my own head.

Couldn't see what was wrong with me.

So how to.

I really grew up in that program.

You know, part of that program is keeping your numbers so you get really clear with, with how much money you're spending.

Right.

In all areas.

So that clarity like started to just open things right.

And you know, when you're in 12 step, you look for the miracles.

And I had miracles.

There were things opening up, you know, I started to, you know, get some TV auditions and Because I started realizing that being a theater actor was not.

You could not make a career out of it.

I mean, you really can't make a career out of acting anymore.

But that's a whole nother conversation.

But I started to kind of wisen up and a little bit wisen up to my own value.

So I spent a long time in the rooms of DA and it just, it just grew me again.

I don't know if I'd ever had that kind of like lead parental style leadership.

And I, and I, you know, I had a little bit of a distant relationship my.

From my own father.

And so I found in male sponsors a lot of.

The answer to a lot of the father hunger.

I had heard that term father hunger, but I had tons of father hunger.

I was just kind of looking for a man to tell me how, what to do.

Yeah.

You know, so I found a sponsor who was also somebody in the arts.

And I just, I, it, it did a lot for me.

I, you know, I was, I was working in a restaurant at the time, starting to build my writing coaching business little by slowly and you know, all this I was, became very grateful for my restaurant job.

I worked at a very nice restaurant.

I still, I still go back there from time.

I was just there in New York.

I can name check it, I guess, whatever.

I feel, Yeah, I feel, you know, has been there.

Yeah, it's a great restaurant.

But you know, it was a Michelin star place and it taught and you know, and I still, I still remember.

Our conversation because you were doing, I don't know, like data entry.

Like we were acting in New York.

You're doing data entry work.

Yeah.

And as someone who grew up in the restaurant business.

Yeah.

Knowing your personality, knowing your intelligence, knowing how you can be charming, I was like, dude, why aren't you working in the restaurant business part time, like a lot of other creative people are doing.

And then obviously you scored a great job and you, you excelled at it.

And a good example of my sort of fearfulness is that I think I was afraid of dropping things or not being able to carry things or something.

Like, I was like, I don't know if I can carry those glasses, you know.

And sure enough, I did drop, drop and break many glasses early on in that job.

But I was also, you know, I was very good.

Like, again, I was gregarious and all these things.

And there was a system there, right.

It was a fine dining restaurant and I was able to perform on stage every night and allowed me to have the income to grow my writing coaching business, do my acting thing.

And things started to, you know, get better.

I mean, really, that's, you know, 12 step was really the gateway for me to getting better.

And then I was out here and this was.

And then, you know, fast forward to I moved.

I moved to Los Angeles and we reconnected.

We reconnected.

Really?

When you moved out here, which was.

We reconnected several years ago.

Yeah, I moved out here in 2017, so.

And I don't.

And I guess what.

Oh, here's another.

What took me out here was I started meditating and I started.

I started following someone on, on the Internet who suggested trying to meditate two hours per day.

Oh yeah, remember?

And so I started medit.

It was almost six months to a year where I meditated two hours per day.

And I was, dude, talk about.

I mean, there's just no way that can't, can't change your brain chemistry.

I was like, I just remember waking.

I just kind of waking up one day out of a long meditation and being like, what the am I doing in New York?

I do not, I do not like it here.

I don't like being here.

I've lived in the same pretty small studio apartment for seven years.

Right.

Like, what am.

And I think for me, and it's funny, you're Asimos.

You talk about.

When I saw Yudai Fiore that one time, I had a lot of that feeling that people who had good or great things in their life, whether it was a nice apartment or a great career, that those things were for them, but not for me.

Right?

Like, you know, you're awesome.

Oh, he could come to the nice restaurants.

Not really.

For those things are for him these sort of grand, luxurious, expansive things.

They.

They didn't feel like they were for me, which is why I Kind of held so tightly to that little studio apartment I had and that restauran restaurant job.

I, I was just really afraid of what any kind of calculated risk might look like in my life and where it might lead me.

Because in my mind it always led me to the worst possible outcomes.

So, yeah, I woke up from a two hour meditation one day and I'm like, it's time to get the out of here.

And I just did.

You know, I told everybody that I had, I told some people like my landlord and stuff that I had a job in LA and I moved and I think I had 5,000 bucks in my pocket.

Yeah.

Also when was it that.

I know, I remember from our conversation, like, because you said earlier you were like a chronic weed smoker and even like, you know, you, you drink but you stopped.

I remember there was a moment in our, in our past when we had the conversation like, dude, I don't smoke, smoke weed anymore, I don't drink anymore.

You know, that's still the case when I think, you know, two, two things.

Well, when people say like, hey, you know, you have a great life, what'd you do?

I think the two, the two things that I can say is that one, I always ask for help when I, when I can't figure, when I really feel like I'm at a loss.

Yeah, I always go to, to help.

And the other piece is just somehow I think there's been a good inner compass for when shit is not going well.

And with weed I was just like, this feels like a dead end every time.

Like I sm, like I love smoking weed, but my career, my life, my nothing was going anywhere.

And so there's, there's, there's just that inner ticker going like, you're not moving.

I just had a, I just have that, that two, that two step component of that inner ticker that goes, you're stuck right now.

And I get it now, I get it.

In my business, you're stuck right now.

You need to pivot.

And then the second piece that goes, you need to ask someone for help to help you with that pivot because you can't solve it on your own.

So I think I was 30 when I quit smoking weed and I just was like another one that I kind of woke up and was like, this is not, this is not bringing me, this is not getting me anywhere near my highest self.

So yeah, fast forward to moving to LA and I started trying to do my writing coaching business out here, which I'd been kind of building in New York.

And I was kind of self taught.

I'd had a couple classes from screenwriting mentors and I was teaching a class at this place called the Actors Green Room in New York.

And I tried to bring that same stuff out to la.

And I think because LA had all the real writers, like the real screenwriters, I felt such a sense of inferiority, like it was deep that I couldn't promote my services, I couldn't bring myself.

Like I just was like, oh, they know better.

And I, I just kind of shut down that piece of my business for a little while and was still kind of working at a little restaurant in la.

And it was somebody in, in Da who said to me, it's time for you to quit restaurants and you know, your higher power will show you.

And I think a week later the restaurant I was working at closed with 48 hours notice.

Wow, that's the sign.

I remember that, dude.

And I was terrified.

And they're like, you're going to take your writing coaching business and that's going to be your job and your acting jobs, because you get acting jobs a couple every year, that those will be your job.

And I'm like, dude, Those are currently 15 to 20% of my income.

Like, are you joking me?

I didn't know how.

And then, and then co hit, you know, a couple like a year and a half later as I was just scraping by, right?

And Covid was an insane reckoning for me on so many levels because I was terrified in a way I could, not quite, I can't explain, you know, I would see, you know, you yerasimos or other friends being like, you know, the media is trying to drum up fear and da, da, da.

And I'd be like, you know, I would be so deep in my own fear that, that I was like, no, I hate whoever's saying that I hate, you know, because it's gotta be real.

And I was, and I was, I was, I mean, I was snorting cnn, you know, like I was mainlining the fear.

And because there's a feeling, you know, I'm sure you can probably hear it in my, in my talk so far, but, but I have, I've had versions of ocd and there's a feeling, feeling within health OCD that says if I can just get more information, I can feel better.

If I can just get that piece of information that's going to soothe the ocd, that then I can feel better.

And I would just search, you know, Twitter for.

And, and at the beginning of COVID it was all bad news after bad news after bad news.

And it just drove me to this place of.

I mean, I can't even tell you.

I mean, I was living the time.

I was living in a little a frame house with my friends in Santa Monica and I didn't want to leave the room when they were out of their room for like months.

I mean, it was that fucking bad.

I moved into an apartment and I just started going to every 12 step you could go to.

I went to ACA, adult children of Alcoholics.

I went to Al Anon meetings.

I worked the steps in Al Anon.

You know, I was going to DA meetings.

I was going to just trying to get better because I was like, this is not correct.

And friends would call me and be like, you know, first of all, like, whatever you believe on Covid, you're one of the healthiest, strongest people I know.

You're 40 years old, like, you're fucking fine.

You know, like, go live your life like we all are.

And just that very thought, you know?

And again, in your osmos, we can go over it.

I mean, I saw Irasimo sort of flaunting the masks and, you know, saying there's more than meets the eye on in the anti vaccine space.

And I was like, as much as I love this person, I hate this person now, you know, I can't.

And everything that the media pushed up about vilifying those people became true for me.

Right?

It was like you were an expression of every all my fear.

Right?

You were like.

You were the boogeyman.

Yeah, I remember.

Sorry.

I remember.

I think it was like we actually got on a zoom, like maybe a few months into, you know, the whole Covid thing.

And it was kind of like I was just there to listen to you and you kind of share some things that were going on for you and you let me know this and I had to stop following you on Instagram.

And it was just kind of like even that moment, it's the fact that we even had that moment, I think set the stage for things to come after, because it was still a conversation and you were still just kind of like really, like matter of fact, like, hey, man, I love you.

I had to stop following you.

And then I think, you know, we got off zoom and then life took what it took in 20, 20, 20, 21.

We lost touch.

But.

But even we still had that initial moment, you know what I mean?

We did.

And I think you probably got it from me, the least of other people who decided to ostracize you.

Or push you out.

Because I.

I kept having that part of me that was like, but he's such a thoughtful dude.

It doesn't make sense.

Like, it doesn't make sense that I feel like he's so wrong because he's is a smart.

I've always thought of him as a smart guy.

So.

So again, like, going back to that thing that, for me, the clarion call has always been that I need help, and I can't.

I can't.

I can't figure it out on my own.

So I was.

I had an Al Anon sponsor who was really.

Who was a therapist, and he said, I don't think the 12 steps can touch what's going on for you.

And I'm like, what do you mean?

And I was like, you know, fearful that I wouldn't get my, like, unemployment check from COVID that week or whatever the it was.

And he was like, I think this is trauma.

I don't think.

No, no amount of spiritual awakening, no amount of working the steps and 50 programs is going to make you better.

I think you need to do emdr.

And, you know, just like when Larry Moss said to the group, if you're having problems with money and debt, you know, you need to go to DA and figure out who you're dating to, I was like, next day I was like, how do I get an EMDR therapist?

Right?

I was like, there was no.

You know, for some people, it's like.

And I noticed this how, you know, in some cases, I'm really unteachable, but when I'm up against the wall and in pain, I'm super teachable.

Yeah, I'm just fucking give it to me.

And he's like, this is hard medicine, but sometimes you need the hard medicine.

And.

And I.

Dude, literally, next day I started emailing people.

And I think it was.

This is probably like February 2022.

I was still.

And then by March, I was with an EMDR therapist, seeing her twice a week.

And I think yurosimos.

You and I saw each other two months into this.

And yeah, we did, because I remember because, you know, we had lost touch for, let's say, a couple years, you know, whatever.

The.

That time was just crazy.

And I remember I.

I had also gone off Facebook because I was just over Facebook.

But then, you know, Joel and I, our podcast started kind of doing its thing, and I decided, like, well, let me just start sharing some things on Facebook.

And I noticed you started kind of like liking or Harding some of the.

The episodes, especially the Ones that maybe were more personal development based.

And I was like, okay, like, you know, we're.

We're finding way back to each other in a certain way.

And then, like, yeah, like, I just.

I've been in Topanga for a couple years, and we haven't seen each other.

And so I was like, why don't you just come up to Topanga and, you know, come see the place?

Let's.

Let's reconnect.

And I didn't really know where you were in your, like, health anxiety journey at that point.

Like, I didn't know if you were going to roll up to the front door, like, wearing a mask or, like, you can't hug me, but, like, you rolled up, gave me the biggest hug, and I was like, all right, cool.

Let's.

Let's just reconnect.

Yeah.

And again, I think it's.

It's important to note, and I'm sure you know this about me, because I feel like I need to caveat it with this.

I mean, I still.

And you know, this about me, I.

I still.

I think I find, walk a pretty fine line between Eastern and Western in terms on the medicine front.

You know, I do still think my.

My.

My caregiver I listen to the most is my acupuncturist.

But, you know, Western is still a part of it.

So I didn't go full.

You know, I didn't.

I didn't go full here for the truth.

You know, like, let's.

Let's dismantle the Western medicine industry.

But see, as I was like that there was.

That the.

That there was an overreach in terms of the narrative, and that that overreach was plugging into the way I felt.

And I mean, look, all I can say is that there's nothing that changed for me faster than emdr.

I can't.

I mean, the changes were.

I mean, what was it?

I broke up with the woman I was seeing at the time because it just didn't.

All I can say is that I think a lot of what I thought was love before was trauma, was trauma bonding.

And suddenly I didn't feel as close of a connection.

This was like a month into two, two times a week.

Emdr.

Like, I was.

I didn't know what I was like.

I don't.

I don't.

I didn't understand what was going on.

I think within six months, my business tripled.

I think it doubled at first, and it tripled within maybe a year.

And I met my future wife, who I went on to, you know, Like I got, you know, I mean it was, the growth was insane.

Ext.

The growth was insane.

But internally.

Can we.

Real quick, real quickly, man can.

Real quickly.

Because we talk a lot about trauma and nervous system work and all different modalities.

Like we've.

EMDR has kind of popped up in conversations.

But like, can you explain what EMDR is?

Yeah, I mean, I'll explain it the way I understand it.

And, and I actually, the person I have worked with for three years now, we actually don't do the eye movement, we do bilateral tapping, which is another way in.

But the way I understand it is you go back to a traumatic moment or series of traumatic moments and you reframe the belief system about it.

And so much of other therapy talk based therapies are about the conscious understanding of self, whereas the bilateral tapping is.

Taps in.

It starts to reprogram and reprocess your unconscious around a memory so that everything you felt about yourself in a, in a traumatic memory that may have been a negative thought, negative thought pattern or a negative belief system, you truly start to feel, you start to feel a positive belief system around that.

Right.

Whereas maybe something like some neglect or things of that nature may have felt like, well, I'm not valuable, I don't have value in this world.

You start to reframe that.

Right.

Suddenly, suddenly those memories don't, they don't feel the way they felt anymore.

They don't play on you anymore.

Right.

I'm, I mean, all I can say is I'm just not as triggered anymore.

Do I still get triggered?

Yes.

Is it way less?

Yes.

Because I have done tons of targets in emdr and by targets, it's a memory or section of memories and it's about going into that memory and just letting your unconscious flow from it.

And usually if it's a traumatic memory about something, all of those traumatic memories that were connected come up and you didn't even know you're on this.

I mean, you're on a, like a roller coaster.

Does someone have to have clear traumatic memories to seek out EMDR as a therapy?

I mean, you know, I hate to be someone who says this, but I think a lot of people do.

You know, I think a lot of people in the Gen X in that latchkey kids space and kids of the 80s or kids of the early 90s, there was a.

Because there was a lot of probably hands off parenting, hands free parenting.

Like I think there's, there is a lot of it.

But Joel, I feel like the two things that made me A great candidate for it is I'd already done talk therapy for a decade.

I've been in 12 step for six or seven years at that point.

So I had a re.

I knew a lot about myself from a, from a, from a conscious awareness place.

I understood things about myself.

But so I, I don't know because I think even some of the targets I work on now, they're not exactly a traumatic memory, you know, like getting lost at the store or something like that.

It's more a memory that has some negative belief systems around it.

It's like a, it's now we're like really reframing.

So you're saying like, let's say like you got a bad grade in school and then you brought it home and your, your parent.

Again, this is hypothetical.

It's like you're stupid.

You need to do better.

Like something potentially around that.

Right?

Yeah.

And, and, and, and again, you know, we, we all know this, that there are things people said to us over our life that we still remember.

Right.

There's like, you know, I remember I had an acting teacher who said to me in 2004, he said, you'll never be right for the roles that require deep rigor.

You never will be.

But you'll, but you can do these like light comedic things.

You just don't, you really don't have really in you to really think that deep.

Go that deep.

I never forget it.

I mean, talk about an interjected villain.

That will always be in there.

So.

Sure.

You know.

Yeah.

When someone says something to you that hurt you, you know, when you did something that you may not have, maybe.

Give us an example of like one of the most powerful, I guess, things that had a stranglehold over you, which you were able to reframe as a positive.

I mean, I think for me there was a whole series around.

You know, again, it's, you know, I think we as people always want to.

And I just want to caveat this a little bit because my relationship with my mother has made so much evolution over time.

And it was the 80s and she was a single parent, she was doing her best.

But I think being home alone in a 200 year old house as a, maybe a 9 year old from when I got home from school till sometimes later because maybe my parent had worked late and maybe they'd gone out for drinks and I used to sit and just watch the headlights and kind of terrified almost week nightly.

I think that that was very deep in my, in my DNA, you know, just, just, I mean, things around, waiting.

Things about abandonment, things about my value, I mean, were so, so, so reprogramming.

That was like.

Because those.

And.

And, you know, when you do.

When I was doing it, when you go really deep, often the therapist will suggest you go for a long walk afterwards.

The images that came up were so dark and traumatic that I would go for, like two hour walks after our sessions.

Yeah, I would.

I would, like, walk all night because there were so many things that were.

There were so many images that were like, basically kind of shake.

Like I would.

I feel shaken when they would come to me.

Yeah, right.

Because my imagination crafted a lot of boogeymen in that house.

And I.

They.

They.

That was a really, really deep piece, I think, of my.

Just my overall DNA, how I interacted with almost every space in my life.

So what does, like a reframe or a reprogram of that example look like?

Like, is.

Is it like a conscious reframe?

Like, oh, this.

I can flip this into a positive.

Or what's the.

What's the healing mechanism in that?

Well, again, if you're.

So you're doing bilateral tapping, right?

So I'm literally tapping on my physical body.

Yeah, I'm doing.

Right, just like this.

I'm doing bilateral tapping.

And I am going from that memory to wherever my unconscious leads me.

And I'm.

And then I'm.

And then there's a piece of the EMDR where I'm starting to try and feed in the positive cognition, the positive belief system that says, I am valuable.

The world is not a scary place.

I'm okay.

I'm gonna be okay.

Right?

And little by little, just doing that bilateral tapping, the.

The way you feel about the memory changes, it's.

I honestly, I can say it's crazy.

Yeah.

And like, again, the external was that my business exploded.

I met my wife.

I mean, I started.

I started.

I started dating people who felt like value matches.

What I had was.

I had a value explosion.

That's what I call it.

I started really saying.

And that's right around the time I quit.

Because I was like, this is not.

This does not match my fucking value.

Putting up, putting on, you know, spending three hours to send a fucking videotape out into the ether where 500 other people are.

Sending a videotape into the ether is no way to make my bones in this world.

I am just more valuable than that.

And it wasn't like I was angry.

It was just fact.

Suddenly I was just like.

And now I meet with potential clients and I'm like, You're not a value match for me.

Like, just, you know.

And, you know, the one thing, the reason why I kind of broke off from 12 step is that the acceptance piece and the own your own part piece, it wasn't working for me because I was like, I don't want to own my own part, and I don't want to accept shit.

I was like.

And I did with both my parents.

I was like, you know what?

I'm a valuable person.

I need y' all to step up as parents.

I remember calling you awesome Us.

I'm like, I want you to be a bigger friend in my life.

Can you do that?

When I asked you to be involved in my wedding, I started saying that to people.

I'm like, I need more from you.

Because I.

Because I suddenly had this crazy value explosion.

And people.

Clients always come to me like, how do you get that?

And I'm like, it doesn't.

You can't think it.

It's not a.

You can't think it into your brain.

You have to feel it into your body, right?

Because we all know people who have issues of value.

And suddenly that's.

I think that's part of what it was.

I started asking for more money from clients, from my work, for my ideas.

But that reframing, it was just this crazy.

Just value explosion that's, you know, like, my ideas matter.

I matter.

And.

And when I.

Taking it all back to when I came to see it asimos everything, I thought I.

And my health anxiety just got way better.

We did targets around health, right?

It used to be around the COVID time, if I was in the grocery store and someone coughed to my general direction, I would think about it for a couple hours, and I'd go, oh, my God.

Do you think it did it?

I went in my brain, that OCD kind of trickle, right?

Would go.

And after emdr, I would think about it for about two minutes, and then it would.

And then I wouldn't think about it again.

That's big.

I mean, that's a lot of time.

I mean, it is to take back from the looping.

And again, for someone who'd been in talk therapy for 10 years to have these kind of results in three to six months, I was like, holy.

Also, because I want to highlight this because this is what, you know how you say.

Like, people say things and they.

And it stayed with you.

Like, after we had kind of walked around our home and hung out and then you know, just kind of talking about life, like, we got into the conversation of like what happened between us, you know, And I remember you telling me you're like, I decided six.

Well, I started doing emdr and you said, I decided six months ago to stop watching like mainstream media or a.

Lot of it or whatever.

Yeah.

You know, and like, can't like underestimate, like, estimate like the impact of all the like, media you've worked in media, like the power of how that impacts you on such, on a conscious level, on a subconscious level.

And if you're constantly feeding yourself this fear based stuff and you have the stuff that, like the hooks, the hooks into you based on like, you know, your past and your anxiety, like, that's not a great recipe.

So when you said that combined with your personal work, like, it showed, man, it showed in who you are.

And then we had this moment in the kitchen, man, like, where we were just kind of like there.

And like, I love you.

And you're like, I love you.

And like we sat there across from each other with fucking tears in our eyes, you know, and like, for me, like, because especially in our world with what happened in those years, there is so much conversation around people who just thought and said the most horrible things about people in their lives.

And then like four years later they just go on like nothing happened.

And so when I've shared our story, like in private with people, like, dude, like, people are like, yeah, that's never happened in my life, you know, and for, to, for you to have one, the maturity, you know, and even for me to have it, to just be there with you, because I, I, on some level, like, I knew what you had gone through in your life.

And so I had enough understanding of like, why you would have those experiences.

Do you know what I mean?

Because we were, it was personal there and like, to just have that moment where we were just getting along in so many different ways, having these conversations and then to have that moment, like, listen, something happened, let's talk about it, you know, like, instead of like, let's push under the rug and la, la, la, oh, hey, I haven't seen you in forever.

How's life?

Well, again, it's one of those things where the inner compass was like, something's wrong.

Like, you can't, you know, we talk about this like with my son, who's one, you know, it's the idea of repair, right?

It's like you do, you know, and that is one of the things I love about 12 step making amends.

Like, you know, there's gotta, you know, showing up and repairing something is Such a lost fucking art.

And it's like you were such a meaningful person and then suddenly you weren't.

And suddenly you were a boogeyman, right?

You and your wife.

I remember when you saw me, you're like, look at me, my wife.

Do we look like evil people?

Do we look like domestic terrorists?

You know, like.

And I was like, yeah, dude.

And, and, and, and I forgot.

Like I did.

You know, some people hate this term.

But I did go news sober at that time because, yeah, it was because there I, I saw the patterns.

Part of it is I did see the patterns in the media and I did, I had my own here for the truth, you know, becoming a lion moment where I was like, again, I didn't see it fully as like, oh, you know, it's all a conspiracy, but I saw it.

I was like, some of this is not correct.

Some of this is.

Some of this is being.

And that there's a vested interest and a vested objective for a lot of these so called truths.

I mean, again, we've talked about it before.

I don't know where I stand in the new space anymore because now I, I actually can watch without feeling anxious.

And if I go to Reddit, the main news stream of Reddit is so far left that I can't, I can't really connect.

And then if I go to like the R.

Conservative subreddit, it's so far right.

Then I'm like, this feels like just maybe a little too misogynistic and angry and incelly over here.

And so I'm like, where the where is for me, right?

I'm glad you sent me Kaizen, because, because I was like, great.

It feels good for someone who's like, let's step back, you know, like, so I still don't even know where I live in the media space because.

But now I can see it, right?

I see it's.

And, and it's funny, when I work with my writers, I think when writers start to see what writing really is, I see you see the Matrix.

I mean, I saw the Matrix.

I had my Matrix moment right where I was like, oh, right, like the news is just whatever the fucking new download of COVID is going to be, whatever manufactured war we want to do so that, you know, defense contracts can grow.

And I mean like, I saw it.

And also I, I used to be so into politics and I was like, I feel nothing for these people.

I feel nothing for any of them.

I just like, it's, it.

I mean, I, you know, I think Trump is An entertaining new media figure.

But I just.

All that stuff of like, and I say this to people, I go, why are you connecting your own heart and.

And well being to someone else's hopes and dreams?

That has nothing in common with you.

I don't get it.

So that was also a big awakening and part of, I think, why that opened that space that I was like, well, I allowed the media to shape my.

Not just my thoughts, but my deep, deeply held beliefs.

And that's part of why it felt right to make you and your wife the villains at that time.

It's incredible, man.

This is so rare, what you're sharing right now.

And I think the key thing is, despite the journey that you took and the trajectories and the side paths, et cetera, like you, you say, you know, I had a value boost, but I think you always deep down valued that inner compass.

And the difference between you and other people is you always had the recognition that if this thing within me is welling up where something's wrong, I'm stagnant, my life isn't moving, I'm destroying friendships that don't need to be.

I need to pay attention.

And that requires uncommon courage, man.

And I feel like at the, at the core of it, you always had that, you always held onto that.

And I think that's the reason you've been able to kind of, you know, move through some of these veils, for sure.

Thanks, Joel.

Yeah, I always, I always.

This is something that.

Always a question I ponder a lot, especially in the space of like AA or 12 step or NA as I go, what's the difference between the person who is in so much pain as an alcoholic or a drug addict that they walk past an AA meeting and they go, I don't need that shit.

And, and, and then maybe they go on to die or do something terrible.

And the person who goes, you know what, maybe there's hope in there.

You know what I'm saying?

And this is not a, this is not a commercial for 12 Step, because I have a lot of qualms about it, but what's the difference?

You know, where does that get plugged in?

The person who has just enough humility to go, I, Yeah.

My best thinking is not, you know, and that's a very 12 step line.

But my best thinking is not getting me anywhere.

Yeah.

And like a 12 step doesn't need to be perfect, but it's the stepping stone that you needed at the time to reach the other stepping stones, you know, and that's.

That's the.

That's the base.

It's.

The starting point is like, I need something.

Whatever I'm trying to do alone isn't working.

So you're calling something in.

You engage, you experiment.

You try and you move forward.

Who knows?

I mean, who.

Honestly, who knows?

You know, and.

And people.

I think about the fact that my father probably wouldn't be alive without 12 steps.

I mean, I don't know if mine would be that dramatic, but who knows?

That really was.

I mean, I had, as they say, a spiritual awakening.

I just.

Nowadays there's parts of it that feel a little too overly dogmatic.

And so I stopped going, actually, when I started EMDR meetings.

Didn't.

Didn't.

They didn't feel good anymore.

I went to meetings and I was like, this feels a little like, blame me.

And I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah, dude, I love it, man.

It's so good to have this conversation.

It's so good to see the other.

The other day with.

With.

With Claire and.

And Jude.

What a beautiful little, little child you have, I guess.

Man, I love getting into your story.

I'm trying to think.

I want to talk more about all this, and I want to get into your writing, man.

Like.

Like, how do you approach writing?

Like, what has shifted for you?

Because I know we used to joke, like, I don't know if it was from some TV show or you.

Where you got the term or.

But when we went away for your little bachelor weekend, which was, yeah, yeah, let's go eat some good food and see a comedy show, like, you kept saying, like, disrupt, bro, disrupt.

You know, that was like the thing, like, how to be a disruptor.

And it's another thing.

What I.

Which I loved about you is because we shared that, like, how can you be a disruptor?

Meaning, like, how can you go against the grain?

And sure, maybe we've gone about it in different ways, but, like, you've applied this into your work in terms of challenging Hollywood and writing and.

And how someone can go about being a writer.

And so I don't.

Maybe we can talk about that.

And then I definitely want to get into this.

Who AI praise and boom.

And your views on that.

Yeah.

You know, again, I think it goes back to, you know, going back to the rites of passage thing that you talked about.

I think for me, I've had different versions of inferiority complexes.

Right.

I think when I first moved to New York, there was.

There was an inferiority complex around, like, rich, pedigree banker types.

You know, there's.

And When I moved to la, I think there was some inferiority around the sort of clicky intelligentsia of the screenwriting community.

Like there was this.

I didn't know how to get in.

There was.

It felt like there were these.

All these unwritten rules.

And the unwritten rules sounded like kind of like kiss up to somebody for a really long time and then at the right time you can make an ask, but if you do it the wrong way, they may never like you again.

And I was like, that doesn't feel correct.

Like it feels like the entire, the entire way they tell you to interact with entertainment as a screenwriter or anybody, it feels so trauma based.

It's like, you know, you only get one ask in this thing.

And, and I mean, I talked about this on our pod the other day.

You know, showrunners, there's all these tweets about like, you know, don't, don't borrow my time.

You know, like, don't ask me directly for a job.

Like, in what industry should you not ask directly for a job?

There's just all these clicky and my own inferiority, you know, I always present myself to my coaching clients as an insider.

Outsider, right?

Like I have all these outsider thoughts.

But I did play the inside game a little bit, you know, I.

Some scripts, you know, win some contests.

And I had a pitch that I'd written with another showrunner that was in the market for a while.

This thing we had written on reincarnation, this pilot I had written.

So I was kind of doing it and starting to kind of make inroads.

But I just, there was just something about it that felt so weird that, that all the relationships, you know, people are always like, I can't reach out to someone that it might burn my contacts.

So I just, especially in the space of like having this value explosion, I was like, the language of entertainment is fucking broken.

And this weird fear based apprentice forever pay my dues mentality just felt so antithetical to what I felt powerful, disruptive artists should do.

And also, entertainment is not a meritocracy.

So why would you sell it as merit?

Why would you sell it as a merit based thing?

It's the furthest thing from meritocracy.

It is, I've said it on the pot.

It's a chaos ocracy.

There is no rules.

Right?

The rules are date an EPO baby and try and get a pitch into a studio that way.

I mean, you know what I mean?

Or fucking make the news, make the New York Post for dating somebody that you shouldn't date or doing something terrible.

And then maybe you'll get a pitch with a studio.

Like, that's the closest thing to a rule there is.

There's no rules.

It's.

It is truly, it is meant for disruption.

But the industry doesn't want to be disrupted.

So I just started looking at everything all the other screenwriting schools were preaching about, like, make a friend, wait seven years to ask that friend for your one favor.

And then if they say no, then go make another friend for seven years.

I'm like, what the fuck do you do in the meantime?

Work at Starbucks?

Like, it just, it just felt so broken, the whole language.

And so I've made a lot of what I do about trying to disrupt industry norms of engagement and saying, you know, I think the, the whole thing.

They tried to sell us Yurosimos and other actors in New York, like become a co star, say one line on the TV show and then one day you'll be a series lead.

Bullshit.

That does not happen.

That is what they sell to people so that they will go say one line and, and be grateful for it to just be working.

Hashtag blessed.

You know, like, the entertainment industry is not no longer a place for people who want to earn abundantly.

And I'm trying to coach writers who want to earn.

I'm trying to get them to fucking checks.

So, you know, my goal for people is like, stop listening to all your fear based friends and just, and try and get in at the start at the highest level and do it by having a pro level script, a pro level strategy, and thinking of your work like an entrepreneur would.

Right?

Think about positioning marketing where it fits in the market.

Right?

No one wants to talk to you unless you have a star attached anyway.

So go sell your soul to get a star attached.

That's that.

If you want to process, that's a process.

But I just, I just got sick of this, like, touchy, don't make him mad.

I saw this tweet.

It made me so angry.

It was from a showrunner six years ago.

I won't say the name.

And she was like, don't waste my time.

If I give you five minutes, that's five minutes I could have been using, listening to a podcast or reading a book.

Don't ask me directly for a job, ever.

Say to me, if there's ever anything possibly maybe available, I will be open to it.

Don't ask, in what industry does it say don't ask?

You know what I'm saying?

Like, I was just like, that's fucking dumb.

And I'm out here with all my clients trying to, through their successes prove that there's another way.

Yeah, sounds like the iron Rand of screenwriting coaching.

It's just, I just what are we putting these people on pedestals for and saying especially when you hear from so many people that people, top level writers are not as good as the lower level writers or people say like that person's writers room for that show was, was held down by their mid level writers because the showrunners didn't know what the they were doing.

Yeah, but it's almost like it sounds like to succeed within the industry norms, like you have to adopt a value system that is completely contradictory to normal human flourishing.

And so it just fosters this space of muck and low self esteem and, and bullshit.

And like, sounds like what you're doing is like, no, let's lift ourselves up, let's raise the bar, let's raise the tier and let's bring real value to the table and try to switch things up.

Which makes sense.

And the value equation is so broken, even those strikes that for better or worse, you know, I have some thoughts about the strike that were not exactly pro strike, but even those strikes which felt like they went on forever, like they didn't even get much, you know, like they didn't, they didn't even get, I mean both actors and they're so far away from what their true value is that they did.

You know, it's like their negotiating starting point was okay, you know, could we get a 5% raise on residuals?

Meanwhile, streaming companies are making hand over fist.

I mean I was on Yellowstone.

14 million people watch that episode.

And I was in, let's say I was in 7% of the episode, 6% of the episode.

I mean, how much money do you think I made?

Not much.

Right.

Like what about profit sharing for all artists involved at the percentage that you were involved in the production?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I don't know.

I don't know enough about the details of all that.

But I mean, I know with everything going to streaming, things have shifted for whether it's artists, you know, actors, musicians, etc.

The game has changed.

So yeah, it's hard for me to look at the modern business of the actor or the writer or the creator and not see a subtle and innate addiction to under earnings, under being.

You know, and it's almost like this tacit acceptance just go along and it feels like something that just is and something for them probably that can never change.

And they're just buried under this burden of this thing that's crushing them in the hope that there's gonna be a breadcrumb one day in the future.

It sounds.

It's like a classic, like, narcissistic relationship, actually.

You know?

Totally.

Totally.

And.

And because the narrative is always, there's someone who will replace you.

There's someone who will take irreplaceable.

Yeah.

There's someone who will take scale, who's just as good and just as handsome and just as talented and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Right?

So, you know, that's.

That's the strategy piece of what I do.

And then, you know, the craft piece of what I do is.

It's.

It's.

It's really about becoming a narrative master on the.

Like, making narrative so instinctual that if you were in a pitch, in a Hollywood pitch, and they said, can you have three more ideas or can you expound upon this?

Your brain would be able to come up with it in a fucking heartbeat.

Because what I teach people to do is to just.

Is to shift their instincts.

I mean, people come to me, and the work we do is basically like brain surgery, because the way they think about crafting narrative is so far away from what the real way to do it.

I mean, you know, I talk about the conceptual and the intuitive a lot.

Right.

Sort of.

And.

And this is not my ip.

I took this from somebody and I've kind of made it my own.

But this idea that there's a conceptual part of the writer's brain, that is the planning part.

Right.

The math part that is, you know, saying, well, this needs to be paid off in the third act, and this is going to be paid off in the fifth season.

They think far and wide.

And the intuitive part, that feels and hears characters, you know, and feels like they're in the room with them.

And so the great writer is an integrator who can do both of those.

Most writers, one of those are atrophied in them, and they don't really know.

So really, that's what I work people towards, you know, and then eventually the pitching skill, which is the hardest for me to teach, because pitching is both crafting narrative on the spot and selling at the same time.

And particularly artists do not think that way.

It's anathema to their belief system.

Often selling.

What do you mean?

Yeah, yeah.

Sales is just like a dirty word to so many people, you know, even people who want to be coaches, you know, But I don't know if I want to.

How do I Sell myself and sound sleazy or like I'm trying to get something from someone, right?

I mean, you sell your movie or your script or your idea so you can go make another one.

So, you know, I have friends who've built homes on the strength of their writing ideas.

Like, so you can live your life and keep creating more art, not so you can become some evil money grubber.

I mean, you know, it's like my clients have gone to friends and they're like, it's weird that you're so into positioning your film.

Like, maybe if you just let it happen more.

And my clients are like that.

No, like, I'm doing way better than you.

Why would I listen to your.

Again, sort of addiction to this under earning.

Let's go to the edges.

Let's make another short film that goes to one of the 12 million film festivals and get a consolation and get our participation trophy.

Hey, made a short film.

Yeah.

This seems to relate so much just from a general standpoint.

You know, Joel and I talk about this in our group coaching program, Rise above the Herd.

Just like people's relationship to money in general.

You know what I mean?

The relationship to money, whether it's under earning, whether it's like what you said before.

Oh, evil people have.

Have money, you know, and we see even a lot of programming through the media and that, like, all the shitty characters are the real rich billionaires that are there to just ruin everything.

You know what I mean?

And it's like.

And the noble character is the poor person, you know?

So again, this is all this subtle program and we've done episodes on this that, like, impact you, you know, not to mention just like the political stuff and all the other stuff that, like, infiltrates our minds or things that maybe that are being taught in schools and academia, like.

And so it's like, it's rare to be like, hey, like, I'm an individual.

I have value.

I want to create, I want to produce, and I want to be rewarded for my mental brilliance and my creativity and what I bring forth in the world.

Oh, my God.

How dare you think that.

You're so.

You're so full of yourself and selfish.

I mean, Christianity, right?

I mean, you know, Jesus was, you know, right?

This.

And.

And humility has been weaponized.

Can you just have some more humility?

Can you just be more grateful for what you have, that it's been weaponized?

Right.

Humility, I think, is code for don't ask for more.

Don't ask me for more.

That's what it's code for just be humble.

Just be grateful for what you have.

And it's so that is all over the entertainment industry.

Just be grateful to be on set.

Don't think about the fact that you're making a thousand dollars on the show and you may not work again for another quarter.

And life doesn't exist on a thousand dollars a quarter.

I don't know where the you live.

But like the original definition of humility, you won't find this if you Google it today, but it's to have a low sense of one's self importance.

And doesn't that speak to everything we're talking about?

Yeah, like, I get it.

Like, and we've had multiple conversations on this and I love that you said that because like, I have like my, my issues with like humility and like how it's just like thrown out there for everything.

It's just like, okay, I can understand I could have humility that I don't know everything.

Like, I like that.

But when it's like this thing to make you accept being small and be grateful for what you have and like, not like have value in yourself, you know, it's like, also in Australia, I know they have the tall poppy syndrome or the tall poppy thing where it's like if you get to a certain place or if you think yourself.

And again, this isn't to come from like an egotistical quote, unquote egotistical place, just like living and embodying like, damn, like I'm dope as fuck, you know what I mean?

Like, and I tell my clients, I tell my clients often, and I'm going to butcher it and paraphrase it, but I tell them to go watch Snoop Dogg's Walk of Fame speech because the first thing he says is the first thing I'd like to do is thank me.

There is again, there is a fine line between self belief and arrogance.

And I think you got to go right up to it, right?

Like, I think that self belief component, I often say it's, it's a bigger skill set than just the writing skill set in what I'm trying to get people to do.

Just believing that what you say is so dope.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

But the thing is like arrogance, the term arrogance has become so broadened in our society today that any individual that actually has self value, I.e.

themselves, values their rational desires and wants, falls under this arrogance category for not putting everyone else first before themselves.

You know, and this is what Rand spoke about in depth with the virtue of selfishness you know, selfishness in its core essence.

To value the fact that you live and money as the sustenance of your beings, literally the lifeblood of your existence.

No one can really survive or thrive without money.

Like that's the highest act of morality.

To value the fact that you live and value what you need to live.

We all need money to live.

Yeah.

I mean, we look at people who are doing well a lot on social media and we both actively hate them and are jealous and are jealous, you know, we're like, I, I hate that person.

They have such a strong point of view and they're doing so well.

Look at their life.

Yeah.

And a lot of the times it's also even crafted like you don't even know what else is going on behind the scenes too.

So that's a whole nother level to it, you know, But I get it.

Like again, it's like the want, the envy, you know, like the compare, the compare and contrast game that social media sucks you into, which is like, man, like, this is why I love like, like human design or these other systems or anything that can just put the gaze back to yourself, focus on you, who you are, your gifts, what you can build, what you create.

Because you can get lost in the compare and contrast game, man.

Yeah.

And like that, that jealous, envious type, they don't really hate what the other person has.

They hate that they don't have the fortitude and the courage to go for what they really want.

Instead, they keep getting zapped by this unconscious electric fence which says, stay small, don't stand out, don't put yourself first, don't, you know, rise above the herd, any means.

And they feel like they're so far away from it.

Right.

Like they just feel.

Yeah, you don't know what's going on behind the scenes for those people.

Oh, man, there's.

Oh.

Oh.

The other thing I was going to say you made me think of is that the language of the gatekeepers in Hollywood is all about getting you to check your whatever at the door.

Do you know who you are talking to?

Me?

I've seen emails like that.

You're just emailing my office.

You're just calling my office.

How dare you.

Like, do you know it's all about this sort of like shaming.

I saw that a lot in my family of origin.

Like, you know, and again, I always say it goes back to depression era mentality when there was nothing and you asked you would be shamed.

Right.

Because there was so little.

So now that's pervasive the idea that being asked something is an affront to people.

How dare you?

Do you know who.

You know who I am?

Do you know who you are?

Have some humility.

Pay your dues first.

That's the, that is the literal Darth Vader narrative of the gatekeepers.

And I'm just like, no, sorry.

Yeah.

And imagine how much of that that person had to go through before they became the petty tyrants and all of a sudden was in the position of the gatekeeper.

I mean, like, how dare you, you know?

Yeah.

There's no industry.

Well, maybe it's all of them.

Where the blind are truly leading the blind.

Where really no one knows anything and they are just looking for the next trend.

Agents and managers, what is the next trend?

They're not.

That's not, you know, for the most part there used to be, but it's, you know, it's.

That is not a skill set.

No.

And it's.

It's the perfect storm for low grade superficial content, you know?

Right, right.

Which leads us into this whole thing or this whole AI thing.

Right.

Or at least me into part of what I was thinking about it.

What are your thoughts on AI and how AI, I guess, has come into the creative scene and what do you see coming out of this kind of blend?

Well, the first thing I think is that we continue to listen to the heads of industry to set the standard or the moral standard.

And the narrative there is that if you oppose progress, then you will be left behind.

You know, they said this about the Internet.

They said this.

So.

So we look to the industry leaders and we go tech, right?

And we're like, well, listen to them.

That sounds right, but fucking tech people are not artists.

I do not care how many tech companies buy streaming networks and how many formerly tech executives get in on meetings with the top directors.

You are not an artist.

So do not tell me how to make art.

Right.

Because the whole idea of AI is about efficiencies.

I'm sorry, art is not just about efficiencies.

I do.

Artists are not saying, please help me streamline, please help me go faster.

Art is truly a journey into self.

Right?

And the way that ChatGPT gets you and the way that the tech overlords get you, as they say, once they help you kind of reorganize your outline, they say, would you like me to give you the first paragraph?

And right there you're.

Because once you say yes and you think it sounds better than what you could come up with, you're going to have A hard time telling your brain that you're going to be able to craft a better idea.

And now your flow to ideation, which is truly cosmic and spiritual, is snapped because you now believe you've given your power away and you've let the AI instill doubt in you.

You think it's a better writer than you.

And you go, now the idea.

Ideation goes like that.

And it's going to be hard to get your brain to go.

No.

Ideation goes into the heart, into the head, into the.

You know, my ideas come from 30 minutes of meditation every morning, right?

Like, so that's the first way they get you.

And what AI is going to do.

Look, and I can be the old man yelling at clouds all you want.

We can look back at this in five years and go, look, Nick, you were so wrong.

Whatever.

I think artists deep down know something is wrong.

What it's doing is.

It's robbing the writer, the narrative artist, the artist of their coming of age.

Right?

People find themselves in work, the things we write.

The artists were literally.

Eugene o' Neill was crying and screaming through Long Day's Journey into Night.

They learn about their humanity through the work.

Springsteen in his early records was deep, reaching into the depths of his trauma so that we could learn about the depths of our trauma.

So that is the writer's coming of age.

And AI is a prompt based system.

Its goal is efficiencies.

There is no way it will not rob us of the writer's coming of age, the writer's journey in.

When I work with people, I swear to God, sometimes I'm just a professional annoyer.

I'm just like, you can go deeper.

Like there's fucking more here.

There's something you're not telling me about this that is way more interesting, way more personal.

Art is all of us reaching into our deepest, darkest images.

Just like I did to you when I shared about my trauma today.

So that you can have images about your trauma and you can learn about self, right?

The artist learns about self by making the art.

So we can learn about self by listening to the art.

That's why we feel so close to writers and filmmakers and artists now.

Again, I use ChatGPT.

I use it to help me streamline process when I break down things.

But when it, it starts to become an ideator, even, because it always wants to, that's the gateway.

That's where.

That's where text like artists, we got you.

Come on.

Don't you want to see those first 10 pages?

What about it?

Happens to me all the time.

You want to see what that newsletter looks like?

I don't, I want to find it on my own.

I want to go into my brain and find words.

I want to go to thesaurus.com and think about a different word right there.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean that's, that's my basic premise on it is that I don't know any artists who are saying help me with efficiencies.

It's, you know, I completely agree.

I don't think AI has a place in genuine art by any means whatsoever.

I think it's a productivity tool.

It's not a creation tool.

Right, right.

And, and the question is when it, when it comes over, you know, what is it?

What is it doing to us?

Right.

Because right now we're seeing a crazy contraction in the entertainment industry.

Process was already on its way out.

Right.

Larry Moss used to talk about process being on its way out.

Now it's like we want product yesterday.

By the way, for our audience.

Larry Moss is like a really well known acting teacher.

Thank you.

Yeah, I worked with years ago and obviously you have.

And many have.

A couple times.

Yeah, yeah, a couple.

Yes.

I just wanted to let our probably audience that doesn't know about acting teachers know who he is.

Look him up.

He's a visionary.

What was it, what was his one book was really great.

What is it?

Something to live or the Life of the actor Anyway.

Yeah, the Intent to Live.

The Intent to Live.

Yeah, yeah.

Great book.

So, so that's where I start, you know.

And, and, and again it's like we don't, we don't know what that's, that's going to do that.

We don't know what that's going to do to society.

But, but all I'm saying is, you know, because the villains and all this, the villains are us.

Right.

Like we, we live in a ready made world.

Give me more Ready made.

I think that's going to make a real art way more valuable because the market is going to get flooded with superficial ideas, content, product.

And so when you have the raw real thing, it's going to hit people in a different way, I think.

Yeah, Well, I even see it, I'm seeing it now with all the copy that everyone is using and it's like if you engage with chat GPT enough, you know, you, you know how it speaks.

Yeah.

And so you just see it and then it's just like I just don't enjoy it as much.

Like you see people that like can't spell properly.

Or ever use grammar.

Now all of a sudden they have the most polished like perfect sounding like copy and you're like just I, I mean maybe I would judge your lack of spelling and grammar but at least you sounded like yourself, you know.

And I, I say this is someone who utilizes chat GPT.

You know, Joel and I use it to support us on our business.

You know, I, it supports me with my writing as someone who has ideas and stories.

Like I write a lot of stuff and then ChatGPT helps me a little bit and then I go back and edit cr like the cut and paste like element of it, like it's almost so noticeable, you know, as opposed to like a deeper co creative.

Well maybe I don't know if that's the right word but co process and even then sometimes I'm just like, like Joel and I, you know we have group coaching programs and, and, and emails and newsletters and we're setting things up and like it was just like yesterday where I mean I had the most massive headache.

So I'm happy Joel was a straight G.

But like we were like trying to get some emails that were going to go out automatically for a program.

We're working on an email, working on an email sequence and we decided to engage.

Sorry like a welcome sequence.

Well it's just the email sequence for different like elements of the program.

Yeah.

And like we're engaging Claude.

We like, we fed it like all the material etc.

Etc.

And just what all kept producing time and time again.

We were just looking each other's like almost like vomit inducing like literally, you know.

And I'm like this is taking way longer than if I just raw, if I just raw dogged this.

Then I was like 100 you know and we closed it up.

I brought up a note screen and I just had the cosmic download man.

Yeah.

I mean you're a writer too.

So you know, I was just in.

The flow, just banged out like stuff I'm really, really proud of.

And I'm like we never would have ever gotten that if we took the lazy routes.

The lazy route which actually is more time then, then, then the other react if I can just tap in.

And the self esteem that comes from tapping in and bringing forth the goods is like just worth it anyway.

100 the creative adversity, it grows your self belief.

Right.

Overcoming.

Sitting in the bathtub for an hour and going how do I figure out that third act?

Yeah.

And then a week later how do I figure out that third act?

I still can't.

And Then it comes to you in a meditation.

You're like, oh, yeah.

And then you give it to.

And you pitch it to someone.

They're like, oh, shit.

Yeah, exactly.

Do that is.

That is how we come of age.

And you're.

This is another one of my main points, the fucking large language model.

Don't get me started.

You know, once you take out all the stupid ass em dashes, there is a sameness to the tone.

And tone as a writer is your identity.

Yeah, that's your fucking identity.

You find your identity on the page through tone.

Right?

It's, it's not every story has been told.

It's the way you tell the story.

It's the, it's, it's the way your characters talk, which tells us about you.

And if you let the LLM become your tone, we are on the way to a crazy level of homogeny in art.

And it is going.

I don't know what it's going to do.

But like, do you think, honestly, like, like I mentioned, I hear you, I agree with you, but I'm not fearful of it because I feel like real artists in a way should like welcome it.

Yeah, all of you get dumbed down, all of you become homogenized.

I'll keep doing my thing.

You know, this is.

Well, first off, going back to you guys using it and I've used Claude as well.

And look, I've sat with Claude and I've pitched around an idea before because I wanted to see what it could do.

And I was.

And, and again, here's the other thing about you two guys.

You guys also have thought long and hard about your ideas long before chat ever was in the world.

You both thought about what do I care about?

How do I make strong points about what I.

You know, you've done so much original thinking that sure, on some level, chat can maybe be a plug in to amplifying that a little bit.

But again, those people who first go to it for an idea and then say, well, that idea is better than any idea I'll ever come up with.

Because look, writing is hard.

What I do with people, it's hard.

So why not just skip that?

Like people are like when you take.

Look, machines, automated driving, right?

We got Google Maps, no one knows a phone number.

But do we want it to automate something?

That's hard.

And it's hard because it chisels out an amazing fucking narrative.

Human.

And Joel, to your point, that's my thing with my writers because I've seen it start to take them.

I'VE actually started to ban it from sessions because I started seeing it take a writer down a road of not trusting herself.

And now she.

She wrote me the day and she goes, I read an email from one of my other coaches and I see.

I can see the large language model all over it, and it's so boring.

They're saying the exact same things I was writing.

She's like, you're so, so right, so I'll tell a story.

I had a pitch.

A client was doing a pitch to an executive the other day, and I just said to chat.

Can you make this shorter?

It was about 27 minutes.

We needed to be about 17.

And chat changed everything.

It didn't make it shorter.

It changed contextual points.

And we were like this.

It felt like it sounded good.

And I read it, like, two nights before the pitch.

And she had written some of it, I'd co written some of it, and given her ideas.

And I was like, this does not feel good.

Coming off the human tongue.

Something feels wrong.

So I went back like, you, Joel.

And I rewrote every single line in that pitch.

Yeah.

And.

And I had her co write it with me.

And I was like, what do you think we did?

Gave that pitch.

And the executive was like, that's the best pitch I've heard, like, all year.

And every word was us.

And I think if we'd done the LLM version, it would have.

They would have been able to ignore it because it would have felt that same sameness.

Yeah, right.

We.

Because what stands out and what really clicks and connects with someone in that moment, it's.

It's intangible.

It's like this different spark.

It's this different.

Different level of, like, energy or, like, something that smashes you in the heart at a certain point.

And it could be at any point in the thing.

And I just don't believe the LLM models are capable of that.

They're not tapped into the ether, they're not tapped into emotion, they're not tapped into, you know, whatever's out there that possesses us to put it on a page.

And again, you know, Joel, I don't know, because I'm not a tech person.

Right.

But maybe they will be able to solve it.

Maybe they're able to make it more human and whatever.

Whatever.

But I still think, like you said, the person who can think narratively irl, which is what I say to my clients all the time, will be super fucking valuable.

Yeah.

Go get that skill.

Learn how to drive a really strong point and a strong Argument in the thought leadership space.

Learn how to, you know, think, think about in stories.

Escalations.

Right.

Story turns like get your brain patterned for that.

Because you are a better writer than the LLM.

The first problem is people think the LLM is a better writer than them and then you're lost.

Yeah.

Right.

In that moment, you're.

Because you're never going to go back.

You're never going to.

I wonder, I wonder how it's going to be in the future.

Because like I'm 34 years old, right.

I've had many experiences where I'm like, I've had awesome original ideas.

I've put them on paper.

I've been like, I'm really fucking proud of what I've written here.

But for like new writers that haven't had that feedback within themselves and it's just overridden by AI and they had, they don't have that self recognition of I can actually produce something great.

I'm curious how that dance is going to be for people coming up.

Yeah.

I mean, all I can think and is that it has to be a personal revolution.

I mean, right.

It's like you have to.

Because you're never going to get the tech overlords to say, well, we should stop this.

There's never going to be some sort of moral stop.

Or they're like, we don't know where this is.

It's going to have to be you.

And I think it goes a lot to the teachings of Here for the Truth and rise above the herd.

It's like it's going to have to be you that stops and goes, wait a second.

I want to ideate on my own.

I want to learn.

I want to believe that my ideas are super valuable and that the machine can't do better than I can do.

So I'm going to go sit in meditation, in journaling, in talking with other people and work this out on my own.

And I'm going to gain something that I never would have gained by just saying, yeah, Chad, how should I start this first act?

Give me those first 10 pages and we'll go from there.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, also, it's like we started this conversation and we start all our conversations with new guests off with what are some rites of passage that you've gone through?

And like, what is a rite of passage?

Like, writing a story is a rite of passage.

Taking something from nothing and creating it is a rite of passage.

And so it's like you're almost robbing yourself of that rite of passage as A creative person.

I mean, Kerouac, I mean all these people who lived their work.

You know, I listened on that Michael Sarian episode.

I was moved when he talked about the idea of duty, vocation and duty.

And like for writers, you know, there's, there's no line, right.

It's like their life is their writing and they live art.

They live in a life of art and it becomes their work.

You know when you see something and you're like a piece of graphic design or art or whatever and you go like, that's amazing.

It's because that dude's lived a crazy life.

You see that amazing graphic design, it looks trippy.

It looks like an acid trip.

You're like, that dude's like been through it and studied everywhere.

And that's where that piece of imagery came from.

And now any in Silicon Valley can press a button and be like, look, dude, look at this.

Crazy graphic designs came up with.

Dude doesn't have any of the like lived experience or taste.

Yeah.

Like that is again.

And look even beyond the production element of what AI can do.

It's like the richness of the life available to you when you soak in your art and you contemplate your own ideation.

That in itself is invaluable and you can never trade that.

When at the end of the day you get to look back and think, wow.

All the time I spent journeying with myself to produce great art or to come up with amazing ideas like that in itself, beyond what I can produce is worth it.

You know, resilience.

I mean, you, you, you, you.

Before I did emdr, I used to think that my, my self medicating drug of choice was acting class.

Because learning about myself in roles taught me so much about like just trying to figure out roles.

Like I learned I was healing myself, right?

So like again, overcoming these things, it's not just like, well, I want to get good at writing.

It's like, no, you want to, you want.

You're crafting your identity.

Yeah.

You're finding out what you really feel.

What really?

I say to people all the time when they come to my work, they're like, well, I got an idea for a horror film.

And I'm like, well, what do you care about?

What, what, what do you, what are you on fire to talk about?

Because your work needs to start with an objective like that.

Not like, oh, I want to write a horror film in a five million dollar space.

That's aliens or whatever.

Yeah.

Carl Jung has a great quote.

He says, we do not possess creativity.

Creativity possesses us.

And I think when you engage in these shortcuts, you rob yourself of that connection.

You rob yourself of the muse coming and embracing you and having that feeling.

I mean, it truly is when you.

When you solve something, it's.

It's truly spiritual.

And.

And when you share it and people go, thank you for that.

You listen to that song and you cry.

You read that last chapter of the book.

I mean, I was just reading a very popular book, probably not on your reading list.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, one of the biggest books of 2024.

And I was weep the last.

I was weeping onto the page because of the humanity.

I mean, it's just like, fuck, man.

She reached right into me and crafted these characters that felt like I knew them, right?

Like, damn, dude, it.

And.

And to do that, I guarantee she had to have multiple dark knights of the soul.

We want dark.

We don't want to avoid dark nights of the soul, right?

I would have never had that reconciliation with your awesomeness if I didn't have my own dark nights of the soul.

My dark nights of the soul are the reason why I'm here, the reason why I have a business, the reason why people want to work with me.

I love it, man.

And look, I hate to be an old man yelling at clouds.

I've thought about this a lot because I always say in the thought leadership space, it's hard to just be against something, right?

It's hard to just look.

Whoa.

Against.

So I think in the solution space, again, it's, you know, get hungry to go through that coming of age.

Get hungry for that on your own, because you will stand apart.

That's the solution.

Go get hungry to come of age as an artist, you know, to do what Springsteen did and tap into trauma that he never would have had to trap.

Tap into if someone didn't say, I don't know if you.

I don't know what the record was.

I'm paraphrasing terribly, but.

But somebody looked at his first record and was like, there's more here.

And then on that second record, he went in really deep and went into his soul and things that maybe he never wanted to share and put it in the work.

And yeah, I mean, people.

People in the 80s, and they're forever changed.

Listen that record.

Because they were like, I never heard someone talk about their trauma that way.

I never heard someone talk about their pain that way.

The different ways people are here for the truth, you know, And I say this on this podcast often, like the podcast Isn't just let's talk about all things that are happening out there.

But like, who are you?

What do you love?

What do you value?

Can you dive into the depths of you and share that?

You know, do you have a deep level of self knowledge?

You know, what is the truth of your story, of your past, of your present, you know, and bring that into the world, you know, so it's like the double meaning.

It's not just again, like, oh, every conspiracy, you know what I mean?

Like, it's just really like the things that we're talking about here, like here for the truth as a writer.

What does that mean?

And, and you guys are also reframing the humic experience over and over again, right?

It's like it's a reframe of on the human experience and every time it's reframed, somebody gets something new and they may get the piece that saves their life.

Yeah, man.

No, that's why, that's what I mean, the value.

And what I saw in the value in, in the show when you started at your assimos when we were sort of at odds was they may get the piece, right?

Because that's, that's what questioning leads to.

Questioning leads to going, maybe I'm not right in that arena.

I mean, again, maybe.

And that's, that's where I think humility is good.

You know, like what I talked about earlier, like even the title here for the truth, not we didn't call the podcast.

We have the truth, we're here for it.

And so why can't we have conversations that might even be really out there?

Like, like I tend to be a free speech absolutist to us to a certain degree.

And it's like, let's like, why are we so fearful of just, just disagree with something or be like, I don't believe in that.

That's stupid.

Like, get the ideas out there, get the things out there.

We can grapple with them as like free thinking beings and everyone's free to then go, oh, that's full of shit.

Which we see, you know, but like that's what I'm.

Yeah, man, that, that was our initial thing, you know.

Well, people are conflict diverse.

Which takes me to one last point about AI that I would be remiss if I didn't mention there were two other things that AI is also a bit of a yes man.

It is always like, that's great, let's go down that road.

And sometimes you need someone to redirect you and be like, no, those Ideas will never connect, or that narrative doesn't have enough duration to last as long as you think it's gonna last.

Like, that's another piece.

But the other thing I wanna say, Yossimos, in terms of being here for the truth, I would also be remiss if I didn't say that so much of this thinking didn't come out of my own existential dread about future proofing, my own business.

Right.

And future proofing, the writing, the writing craft, it's.

There is some real.

And I think people have felt that dread and go, well, the answer to that dread is I'm just gonna adopt it wholehearted.

You know, Like, I'm just gonna adopt it.

And so I.

I would be remiss to not admit that there's not a part of me that doesn't feel some sense of existential dread about, you know, the future of my business, the future of writing, the future.

You know, I know the WGA is feeling this way as well, and the people in the publishing and author space are feeling this way as well.

So, you know, I've thought about it long.

I thought about it for so long, Joel, that I've changed.

I've changed viewpoints on them a couple times.

Yeah.

And.

And I've.

It's moved.

And I think only recently I've really started to.

And, you know, you've.

You guys have seen probably the two studies that have come out.

The one recently that said there was tons of cognitive debt that Chat was creating and that people's brains were atrophy, being at about a 47 rate.

And then there was another article that came out that said college students are straight up depressed because they feel like they have no agency.

They don't.

You know, they don't.

They don't feel like they have their own ideas.

So I felt like there's been a real, like, alarm bell in me that's like, you.

You got to speak out on this, man.

Like, you just have to.

And not just for fear of your own business.

Because I have an entrepreneur mindset.

If I need to pivot, I can pivot.

But, like, you know, learning to write is really valuable to humanity.

And great stories, they absolutely evolve our culture.

Right.

I mean, Uncle Tom's Cabin allowed the Civil War to happen because it got people thinking and really feeling for the slave, you know, the slaves.

I mean, books change, you know, Ayn Rand.

I mean, these books change culture.

So, like, learning to write and dig into your depths and share your truth in a way we haven't heard that Is super important outside of my own.

My own fear about the future of my industries.

Like, can you imagine, like, Ayn rand like, having AI create 1300 pages of Atlas Shrugged?

And like, what the.

That would sound like and what that would be like, ugh.

You know, like, yeah.

I mean, yeah.

And like, I think.

I think ideation is.

Is the crux and you can use AI and it still serves a place because it's like, okay, help me be more productive with my writing.

Help me generate a schedule that works for me.

I'm feeling stuck creatively.

Can you guide me to some exercises that can help unlock some flow?

You know, it's like, it still has its purpose as a tool in certain ways, but it's like, when it comes to, like, replacing that ideation phase, I think that's when, you know, things turn sour for sure.

I always say, I always say to it, don't offer new ideas or rewrite any of the text.

Yes.

If I use it to organize, I say, I don't want any new ideas from you in this.

Yeah.

And yet I always find some.

But yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like, I feel like I have to be like, listen, why are you.

You're supposed to be intelligent and you're not.

You're being stupid right now.

I still go to it and say, hey, my stomach hurts.

Do you think I have stomach?

I still go to it, you know, I still will have it be a.

Well, listen, it's served a lot of value for me from a research standpoint.

Like, if we're remodeling something or working in the garden, like, I.

I like it.

It feels like it's like a search engine on steroids in some.

In some regards, you know, and it has helped me put together some things and because, you know, I feel like, you know, me, like, I got little thoughts coming from everywhere, and it's just like, oh, cool, let me sit down and get some ideas on the page.

It's helped me craft, you know, my writing in a way.

But you're talking about spending a lot of time writing your own stuff, editing, changing things, you know, which I feel like, I take it, it takes a.

Lot of time, you know, I'm full, raw dog.

I'm full, like, just like Joe, I'm full, raw dog now.

Anytime it's me crafting either a newsletter or anything that's narrative, I will.

I won't even go there because that'd.

Be a good challenge.

Even more so now for me, too, to experience.

And, And.

But even I think what also Becomes more valuable is like even messier writing.

Like yes.

Not.

Not even needing perfect human prose I think stand out more than anything else is just like, you know, the real thing.

Just like conscious streaming in a sense without it having to be perfectly edited phrase rethought about seven times.

We don't need three with a comma in every supporting sentence.

Like yeah, 100.

We want to see the edges, right?

Ye.

These like auto fiction specialists, you know, like Rachel cus.

I mean they're all.

They're like writing exactly what they're feeling at the exact moment.

It's so like kind of dirty and, and imperfect.

Like we just.

You can go right into it, you know, like that's and, and memoir.

I mean intuitive digressions like don't ever let chat do an intuitive digression for you.

You want that to come right from your own heart.

Yeah, it's inspiring.

It's a very inspiring conversation in so many different ways.

You know, one, I've known you longer than most people I'm connected to in my life right now.

And I'm so grateful for our relationship, our friendship, you know, even the journeys that the journey it's been on, you know, where we've had a couple moments where we're like, yeah, nah man, we're not gonna talk for a couple years, whatever.

And man, to where it is now.

And I just like.

And I've always had deep respect for you, you know, and.

And I just love everything that you're doing and I'm happy that it worked out.

When I saw the other day we're having this conversation and it's like, yo, let's, let's us do a podcast, you know about this because I think it's important and I love the way you talk about creativity and yeah man, just.

I love the journey that you've been on and I know it's just going to continue and yeah, thanks for.

Thanks for being here with us.

Yeah, man, thanks for having me.

Joel, great to see you.

Hope to see you in person again soon.

Totally, bro.

For sure, man.

Yeah, I'm super grateful that we had this conversation.

And you know, I want to give credit to Nick again because the difference in this relationship that allowed you two to reconcile was that self reflective aspect of Nick that continued and persevered throughout all the bullshit, throughout all the programming that was thrown at him, you know, and for most people I think in their lives and in our space that had dissonance with friends, like that friend didn't have the quote unquote, humility that self respective piece of let me be here for the truth at all costs.

It never really kicked in and activated where it's like you, I feel like you crave equilibrium.

You craved restoring, you know, rightness to your world more than anything else.

And that's what allowed this to be possible and allowed this beautiful story to be shared here today.

Thanks, Joel.

Yeah.

All right, y' all, thanks for listening.

Oh, Nick, anything I share with our audience, man, like this might be writers listening.

How can they contact you, engage you, find out about your work?

Hey man, if you're willing to go down that dark gauntlet to get great at screenwriting and, and get, you know, be able to be strong in a room and be able to disrupt this industry, then you can reach out to me.

@nickageonetv.com we have our podcast beyond the Script where we're always talking about both mindset and strategy and I'm usually sharing the point of view of trying to disrupt these silly ass Hollywood norms.

So be sure to check out beyond the Script.

Reach out to me @nickageonetv if you want to work with me to craft something great that could change others lives and change your own life in the making.

Awesome, man.

We'll have those links in the show.

Notes.

What, what level, is there a specific level of writer that you take on?

Or is it like anyone that's interested?

Like where, where's that positioned?

Usually it's, it's early career or mid career screenwriters.

Usually once people have had a couple of wins, they generally don't want help anymore or they don't think they need help anymore.

So usually it's people who have either had one win in the space, in the industry space, or they're a little bit past the aspiring.

They have some contacts, they've made some inroads.

But I think the thing that separates clients to people, you know, the wheat from the chaff for people who work for me is people who are really just hungry because I'm sort of an accelerator to go deep and get so good that they can't, they can't be denied.

So they're all over the map.

I mean, you know, knowing a lot about yourself is a good starting place or having that, that's a good starting place for writers because that's where we're going to start.

But yeah, I work with, I think it's usually early career screenwriters to mid career screenwriters.

Usually people who've had four to five wins, they've been on shows, they feel like they don't need help anymore, and I have a whole thoughts on that, but they feel like the teachability goes down, but yeah.

Cool, man.

All right, y' all.

We'll have Nick's links in the show notes.

Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.