Rethinking Mental Health with Johnny Crowder

In this episode, we’re joined by TEDx speaker Johnny Crowder. Johnny is also an abuse and suicide survivor and the Founder of Cope Notes, a text-based mental health platform. Through his lived experience, peer support, and psychology degree, he’s been able to impact millions. He now provides daily support and healing for users in nearly 100 countries worldwide. One in two people will face mental illness in their lifetime — it’s much more widespread than often acknowledged or realized. Participating in treatment and releasing himself from self-judgment set Johnny free to get to a better place with his mental health. During the episode, Johnny shares his personal journey with mental health issues, why he started Cope Notes, and why his difficult journey through entrepreneurship has been more than worthwhile. On this episode of the Live. Love. Engage. podcast: Johnny’s personal experience in coping with mental health issues. Why he says his whole life has been about mental health. Why the message of hope is so important. The biggest struggles Johnny has had to overcome. Why Johnny avoided trauma therapy initially. How men tend to see and respond to mental health issues. The unique struggle women face when dealing with heavy emotions. What motivated Johnny to found Cope Notes. The unique way Cope Notes provides support for its users. Why Johnny calls entrepreneurship a crash course in adaptability. One of Johnny’s favorite parts of being alive. The difference hiring the right people can make in a startup. Practices that keep Johnny feeling mentally well. The importance of seeking help sooner rather than later. Connect with Johnny Johnny’s website: https://johnnycrowder.com/ Cope Notes website: https://copenotes.com/ Quick Links: Join the Live. Love. Engage. Community Intuitive Business Coaching The Live. Love. Engage. Book Support the Podcast with BuyMeACoffee.com Enjoying what you're hearing on Live. Love. Engage.? Subscribe on Goodpods or your favorite podcast platform, and click here to leave a 5 STAR Review. You can also watch the conversation on YouTube. TRANSCRIPT You're listening to the live love engage podcast. On today's show we're gonna be talking about some misconceptions when it comes to mental health and the challenges of running a startup. stay tuned. I am Gloria Grace Rand, founder of the love method and author of the number one, Amazon Best seller Live. Love. Engage. - how to stop doubting yourself and start being yourself. In this podcast, we share practical advice from a spiritual perspective on how to live fully. Love deeply and engage authentically so you can create a life and business with more impact, influence, and income. Welcome to live love, engage. Namaste and welcome to another addition of live. Love, engage, and I am looking forward to our conversation today with Johnny Crowder, who was joining me from Just a couple hundred miles away. I think on the other side of the state where I live. So I wanna welcome you Johnny to live love engage first off. Yeah, thanks for having me. Well, I will, I'm gonna share with our audience today on YouTube and those of you listening on your favorite podcast platform. a little bit about this young man. He is a 29-year-old suicide and abuse survivor, but also a TEDx speaker and the founder of cope notes, which is a text-based. Text based if I could speak today, mental health platform and armed with 10 years of treatment, psychology degree and a decade of pure support through NAMI, which I had to learn, look up because I had heard of it, but I wasn't sure what it stood for and stands for the National Alliance on mental illness. Johnny's youthful vigor for mental health has impacted millions across the globe and I've been Following you for a little bit and, and your entrepreneurial journey. And, and I actually did test out the Cope notes for cuz I know you offer like a free, a free test drive as it were. Yeah. And I was, I was very impressed with it, so I thought, we we'd start off. Well, actually one thing I wanted to share actually with our audience before I dive in. One thing again, when I was doing some research and, and actually trying to figure out what NAMI stood for. I found an interesting statistic in that one in five Americans live with a mental health condition, which was quite surprising now, of course, a serious thing. It's more like. One in 20 Americans, but that's still a lot. And I know there's been a lot of talk of late, certainly with the pandemic and everything that mental health is really starting to be much more talked about. And I think it's getting to be not quite as taboo as it may have been 10, 20, 30 years ago, even. So, I appreciate that you are doing something. This, you know, about helping people. So I thought we'd start off our discussion with just sharing a little bit about why you know, your story and, and also then what led you to, to found your company? Yeah, one thing I'll start with is, one statistic that a lot of people aren't talking about is the lifetime mental health statistic. And actually one in two people will face mental illness in their lifetime. so the one in five just means right now, okay. Someone is dealing with that, but throughout their lifetime, literally every other person on the planet is gonna face something like this. So it's much more widespread than people understand now. And I was one of those one in two. I was the one in two, and, and still am. So I grew up with a number of different diagnoses and I had no idea what I was going through. I didn't start treatment until maybe 10 years after my symptoms started, which is actually the average in America. It takes roughly 10 years between onset of symptoms and care. So I'm kind of a walking statistic, I guess. But I, when I was in treatment, I got really curious about what was going on in my brain and I wanted to learn more. So I started taking psychology classes and then went to school for psychology and started working in peer support in public advocacy. So Pretty much, my whole life has been about mental health, just, for the first quarter century. I wasn't deciding that it would be about mental health. It just kind of happened to me. And now I'm making a conscious choice, like, okay, my time and energy is gonna be dedicated to, improving my own mental health and that of other people. Yeah. I, I appreciate you, you sharing that and it makes sense now that I think about it and I certainly have been touched by that in my own life, in my own family. my mom suffered with depression. I think my, my brother did, my dad was an alcoholic. So all sorts of lovely things going on and in my family. And I, you know, for the most part have been fairly good and have also had my own sets of challenges. So it’s, it is a really. It's so important for people to know that. Well, actually, let me ask you, I have an idea, but what would you think is, is what, what would you say is the most important thing that people ought to know about either mental health in part let's just say mental health? What, what, what do you think is the most important thing people should know about? That's kind of tough. I would say. Probably it it's either the one in two statistic. So like, it is extremely common. But the other thing that comes to mind is the fact that like, you can do something about it. For, for years and years I figured like, well, this is just my brain and I'm stuck with it. And, If you start reading about neuroscience and, your brain's plasticity, its ability to form new neural pathways and learn new things. You start to recognize that like, well, yes, my brain may be wrestling with depression right now, but it doesn't always have to be that way. There are things I can do to equip my brain. So just, I guess the first is that it's really common. The second is that you're not stuck. Love that that's exactly what I was thinking. So, but, but I wanted to give you a chance to say that. Yeah. yeah, that, you know, there's hope it's, you don't have to think that you're, you're stuck there and in this sort of, well, sad, but maybe frustrating also to know that, you know, that the average is like, it takes 10 years from, from like the time Symptoms show up until, you know, you, you get help and, and I guess that's cuz sometimes you are struggling with, you know, well maybe this is just the way I am and, you know, or, or what have you. So what do you think has been, your biggest challenge that you've had, you know, in, in this journey of that you, you know, journey called life, let's just say that. What do you think has been the biggest one you've had to overcome? I mean, definitely illness. Mm-hmm, like, that's huge, like my mental illness and also going through trauma therapy and stuff. Like a lot of that was really difficult, but I think maybe I'm not sure if this is gonna answer your question, but the angle that I'm gonna answer it from is like what kept me from making progress when facing those things. And I would say probably me judging myself. For what I was going through, like a big reason why I didn't do trauma therapy for so long was because I was like, you know, I was abused and that makes me feel weak. And then I wanna talk with someone about my weakness and, you know, I really should have done something and maybe it was my fault. And there was a lot of self-judgment that only served to postpone the inevitable, which was if I'm gonna get healthy, I actually need to participate in treatment. So aside from all the out external hurdles that I face, like all these terrible things happening to me, I think, I was letting a terrible thing happening happen to myself by standing in my own way and saying like, you know, if you were really tough, you wouldn't need therapy and you need to man up, you know, all of that kind of talk. ...