HealthyGamerGG - Validation, Rejection, and More! | Interview with Trihex!

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

Today Dr. K talks with Trihex about validation, improving in private, the fear of rejection, burnout, too many tasks, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael had all the baggage of, I guess, being a black nerd or geek that in a environment that was not rewarding for those predetermined identities. Hello, my friend. Hey, hello. Hello, Dr. Kay. What's going on? What's going on, buddy? A little bit nervous, not going to lie. This is a little bit daunting, not going to lie. So, first of all, what do you go by? And how would you like me to address you today? Um, well, normally tri-hex works. Um, if you want to call me a Michael, we can, we can roll with that.

I'm, I'm indifferent on it. Though, if you actually wanted my take on that, uh, I made my online tag when I was 13. So I was kind of like, I kind of wanted to escape the burden of the IRL identity because of like the stuff I was going to at the time here. But, hey, whatever works for you? Okay. So, you tell me, tri-hex or Michael, what's, what's better? Oh, okay. That's sure. Let's, let's go with Michael. Let's let's let's let's let's break down the the barriers.

Why not? Okay. I'll go there. And I understand you're a little bit nervous? Well, chronic overthinker. So I'm just like, we just got an ice break so that I don't, I'm not so like frigid and like, you know, whatever here. You know, I, you know, yeah. So can I just share with you why I'm excited for today?

Sure. No, please. Go right ahead. So first of all, Michael, I'm, I'm a big fan. So I really appreciate the way that you. You know, we have this idea that a gamer is like a degenerate and, and, you know, someone who's, like, physically out of shape and things like that. And what I really appreciate about some streamers is that they model and also demonstrate that, like, gaming can be a part of a healthy life and you can take care of yourself in other ways, too. And so I just appreciate that about you, man.

Wow, that means a lot. I, you know, it means a lot because in streaming, I find, it's a lot. It's very difficult because the occupation really wants to reward degeneracy. You know, just stay up late, no regulation on schedule, cover all your time zones, delegate, eating out, and ordering, take out all the time here. That way you're not stuck doing any time intensive activities like cooking. And just fitness or even just discipline on physical just eats away all of that. Meal prep, working out, gym, going to and from gym, just wake up, turn over, shower, skip, stream.

That's literally, how else are you going to do, you know, 14 hours streams daily. Yeah. So mine are soapbox there, but like, yeah, it's a, it's, I definitely am putting in a lot of work on that. And trying to, I'm continually fighting to find the balance. Yeah. We need to pay outcome, you know. It almost sounds like you have to choose between taking care of yourself and taking care of your streaming career. Yes.

I think there's definitely a war with that continuously. Yeah. So I, I'd love to hear Michael just. your story and and you know how you came to be where you are if there's some small way in which we can be helpful we'd love to but um i'd love to just hear a little bit about you and and get to know who you are okay well um so let's see here we can start first with the fact that uh i've been twitch streaming a lot longer than a lot of people um i was around i started broadcasting in february 2011 so about four months before twitch was even a thing um so i was at twitch on

one back in a yeah back in july 2011 um but my my roots go even further back than that i've been a competitive gamer a speed runner i've been speed running since uh two thousand four wow um yeah yeah so i was uh so my first recorded speed run was like um was actually done before even youtube was a thing youtube didn't happen until 2005 so i was you know i was 15 years old i thought i was like hot stuff i was uh well i kind of i actually think i kind of was at the time here uh i was recording speed runs and super plays and super game plays on my grandmother's VCR at her house. And she had the good internet. So I was always, I would go every weekend when I was 15.

I'd go over there. And like, I would practice at my house all week long and I go over there and just like, you know, grind and getting this like sick run that I felt looked inhuman. So, so precise and everything else here. And yeah, I actually would mail my VHS tapes off to a website that at the time would host and convert the VHS tape to digital MP4 video. But yeah, I was, I was really, really good at Mar. Mario. And that felt very validating. Prior to that, I was actually a competitive Ukio player in middle school.

Wow. So I was the bottom of the totem pole and social hierarchy because I, I, noteworthy here, I grew up in a rural small town in Louisiana, very, very small. So, you know, being into, remember back in like 2003 here, right? So at that time, anime was not mainstream accepted. It was very much like, belittled in a way here, I guess I would say. Definitely, you know, with the good word. Yeah, yeah, the, the, how don't put this here? It's like, when you're in middle school and high school, the toxic hierarchy of, like, popularity is very, like, superficial. And if you're not with the hive mine of the other big fish, you get eaten alive.

So, in short, because I wasn't doing what the other kids already were doing, I was, I was ostracized as, like, weird or nerdy or whatever. Now, this is also even further reinforced by the, the fact that I'm black. And so because I was the only black kid playing Yu-Gi-O and into Dragon Ball and anime, and also the other nerds in the library doing all this stuff here, because I was the only black kid in there, which, again, I didn't see raceness regard at all here. But, you know, the other kids, because of how, I guess, they were raised in this small town, felt that way. And so I got belittled a lot by the other black kids by being told, hey,

why are you acting so white? Why are you until all what they do? Why don't you, why don't you doing what we do or whatever. And it was always like a very like not like a, not like an intrigued engagement. It was always like they felt like I was attacking judgmental when I was attacking them when, again, they're the ones initiating the conversation. I'm not even the one approaching them. You know, I was indifferent towards whether they were into, I was into or not here. But that definitely attacked my insecurities a ton here because I felt like, well, dang, I'm not being, okay, maybe their logic is correct here. Maybe I'm not being black enough. Maybe I'm not being valid in my identity. Maybe there is a racial war obligation to change my interest to be

publicly presentable in middle school and high school. I felt I was getting gaslit, hardcore there. And it really ate me at me hard. And by extension, you know, going through puberty during teenagehood, when it came to, like, romance, I just felt like I couldn't even like, it was, it was daunting. I couldn't even, like, talk to girls because I was so chronically overthinking on like, well, what, well, what do I talk about? Because, like, you know, The boys are showing me for being into anime and Dragon Ball and all the cool things I think I'm into. So if I talk to a girl, what do I even, what do I open with? You know, I can't open with, what do you play Uguia?

What do I even do? Do you play Uguia? What deck do you mean? Do you think Magic Silver is the top tier card? Yeah, I don't know. I really, I just, so I, I actually famously say here that, like, at the time, I felt like I was stuck in this, like, pyramid of confusion where, like, I felt like girls would say one thing, but they meant a different thing. but they were thinking a third thing. And so that's what I perceive that they were doing.

And therefore, I'm like, okay, well, I have to, like, have to be what I think they want me to be and then hide who I really am. And then pre-plan my next thought and have my next reply to what they'll say to what I think that want me to be continuously. And just, you know, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm frying up all, you know, I'm literally out of RAM. I can't down any more RAM at this point. My, my CPU is fried, even trying to figure all that out. So, yeah.

Yeah, that was, that was, that's sorry. Yeah, can I just kind of summarize what I, what I heard for a second? Sure, please. Wow, Michael, it sounds like actually being Michael was tough. Yeah, yeah. Things didn't get better until college, I would say, for sure. Yeah. I'm just noticing how many different judgments and identities you were juggling.

Right. So the first is like you're a nerd, but you're a black nerd. And the other nerds are not, they don't have the same color of your skin, you know? And I'm not hearing that you actually got necessarily a whole lot of discrimination from them. Correct. But it was really about sort of like this preconceived identity of like what it means to be black. Yes. And whether you fit into that mold, right?

And people sort of almost discriminating against you for having interests that were not traditionally like, I mean, there was this idea, which I think is absurd, which we sort of understand now. But back in the day, I mean, it's still something that I struggle with as well. But, you know, that if you're of a particular race or ethnicity, you're supposed to like particular things. Correct. Yeah. And sort of struggling with that and sort of trying to figure out who you are and not really being a popular kid because of your interests of like the popular kids. are kind of like on your case and then even people that, you know, potentially could have been good, healthy relationships because of your race and your interests,

that was challenging for you. And then we sort of opened the door to any kind of romance kind of stuff where there's like layers of thinking and overthinking and, you know, it's almost like you're treating a interaction with someone from the opposite sex like a strategic play in Yu-Gio where it's like, like, track card and then like, I got to do this. and then like, we got to do this and this. And then if I play this, they're going to do this and they're going to think I'm doing this. And then, like, I can't let them see that this is my aim.

That's a very good way to put it here. Though I think at the time it was, I was terrified of rejection. I don't think I could take it. I was already rejected by most of the kids. I don't tell you're the bottom of the social poll. Like, I'm the only black kid playing Uguio in the library in the morning. So I'm the nerdiest one there by far. And I don't know if I could handle another rejection.

I already felt so minuscule in the self-worth. Sure. I would just, so I thrived and I just, by like ninth grade, I just like said, okay, whatever, like, let's just do it. And so my goal was to become a god like Yu-Gi-o player. Like, I don't need, I don't need their validation. I'll just, like, go in and find my own and my own piece, I guess. It's interesting almost that you went into Yu-Gi-O.

That feels tied together to me. That, you know, like your passion for gaming almost grew out of the ashes of like almost like a normal life that made that sounded a bit dramatic but yes yes i mean it was my calling maybe i yeah i don't i don't know that that's uh and you know a lot of this now like i'm even me just narrating and giving you like the like the narrator pov alongside what was happening at that time here it was all stuff i didn't really acknowledge until like years later like i don't think i really understood how damaging the whole like uh middle school high school social hierarchy was until like i was like i was like 25 years old. I really didn't, all the guy really got it until Twitch popularity really hit me.

And then all those demons came back in 2015, I would say. You mentioned that things got better for you in college. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. So once I, so once I graduated and I got into college, I, uh, or particularly it was community college. I was still too, too, too, broke to actually, like, go to like big boy university. So it's kind of like took like, you know, low key community college while alongside while working just to kind of like, I don't know, get things going here. My mom told me it was really important to like not take that year off of after high school, like, you know, because you're going to get the don't once and then you're going to just like idle forever, which I think is actually some really good advice here. But she told me that.

So I ended up going to community college, just taking a bunch of like filler courses, didn't really have an idea what to do. I didn't even look into if I could even transfer credits and whatnot, just kind of like in there to like be there and do something. But what I was in college, the environment there was just way more relaxed, you know, you know, people are coming in their pajamas pants. There's no like scrutiny over how you dress or how you look. you know, it was just, I don't know, nothing felt, it felt more like the real world where no one really cares how you're dressing as long as you're just like baseline presentable in society. And that felt really refreshing.

You know, you can just make friends and it not be like, again, this like gaving popularity, clout chase that I, and maybe my high school was just like particularly bad. And maybe it's more of a remnant of like just small town USA where there's just a lot of hive mind going on there. And when you're in a more metro city, there's more diversity. And therefore, by extension, there's like less scrutiny on, because there's so many groups, right? I imagine like a big high school in like Houston, Texas. We probably have an anime club, for example.

But if you're in a small town, if you ain't hunting and preishing, then you're the outcast. Yeah. And people love to judge what they don't understand. Wow. So, but yeah, when I was in college, yeah, it got a lot better. I felt way more just normal and less insecure just being myself. Yeah, I think sometimes in college, you know, we're busy living our own life. And in high school and middle school, we're busy living everyone else's.

You know, and it's like, what is this person dressing? Like, that becomes a part of my life. That's what I think about. That's what I comment on. I'm so concerned with other people. Whereas in college, it's like, I don't have time to dress to impress, you know? This is true. Yeah, definitely that.

It's funny reading the back to because, so my high school had school uniforms. Well, my entire state has school uniforms. So you got to wear like khaki pants and like a, um, and a polo button up. But which is meant to like, you know, um, make everyone's income level indistinguishable. That way you can't like, you know, wear like, you know, fancy brands and whatnot. And so it's funny though because shoes were not regulated in this regard. You can wear whatever shoes you want here. So it's just funny because that that policy kind of backfired because then what became so

important for expression was shoes. Like at this point now, whether you had on Js or Air Force One's or, you know, Naratchi. cheese or whatever here or Tim's like that was like the thing so he's kind of like hyper focused on shoes so it's just yeah and you're right if somebody bought new shoes that was like the topic of the day like I don't know and again incredibly and that that being superficial is negative just when it's when it's like superficial to a um aggressive almost animostic sense is whenever it was like draining a little bit there I would say yeah absolutely you know I think it I sort of experience the same thing that

people are going to find ways to distinguish in social hierarchies and you can restrict particular things but then it'll be you know like a particular set of binders or a particular set of shoes or particular watches or particular things and people will find ways to develop a pecking order definitely and so what can you tell me a little bit so it sounds like college went like okay for you in the sense that you started to really not be made fun of not really just judged quite as harshly people were more concerned. And so where did kind of streaming come in and what ended up happening? Okay.

So what happened here was, so I did my first speed run in 2004. I was an active member of that community. Well, really, for Yoshi's Island. Oh, wow. Super Mario World, too. Ishish's Island? The one where you play is Yoshi and you shoot the eggs, that stuff. Yeah, I'm like really, really, really, really good at that one.

I don't want to bore you with the details of it here. But, yeah, that's like the game I'm iconically known for. Um, so I was going to see about them. I'm sorry. Um, I, I, I, I, Ugeo was getting stupid. I, I, I did not agree with some rules that happened there. Not that I don't want to boy with Uguo, Lori either here.

But, uh, so because Ukio was getting whack, which is saying a lot because now YuGio's extra whack now at this point, 20 years later. Why do you assume that the, the rules will bore me? Um, oh, because it's like, it's, it's, it's like, it's like, Michael, I love to hear it. Oh, my God. Okay, well, so, okay, well, okay, well, first, the reason why I think, I thought you would find it boring is because it's just like technical jargon that I don't, I fear, I fear that it's not as interesting to the healthy game audience.

So I hate to give you that meta confession here, but okay, if you, if I can indulge you here. I've never played a game of Yu-Gi-O in my life, but I want to hear so bad. Tell me how to speak up, Michael. Okay, so in late 2004, there was a particular set of Yu-Gu-O cards called Invasion of Chaos that came out in Japan. It was coming to USA pretty soon afterward here. This particular set was insanely broken and had. unprecedented resource management that was completely unethical in the context of how previously

when you would have monsters die because they would attack one another, a monster goes to the graveyard, it's supposed to remain in the graveyard. But now, essentially, what happens is you can now RFG monsters and banished them from the graveyard and use that as a cost to be able to summon these 3,000 attack beatsticks that can go ahead and annihilate anything on the board for practically nothing. And when they do do that, they get byproduct effects that are able to further push your advantage. It's completely ridiculous. So essentially what you can do now is just like play a card, dump five things to your graveyard, RFG, two of them,

bring up your super big dragon and just go ahead and pay 1,000 life points and win the game. So it's essentially, like, rather than your opponent having any capability to do anything about it here, it's just kind of like, press the win button and then turn off your brain, and then you already win. It's like, it's really, really, really, really toxic. And these cards

were so overpowered and so overwhelming that, like, they became known as Staples. And so, like, there was no debt creativity because this meta was so dominant and quite frankly Konami up a deck they didn't care at all here because these cards were because they were there were ultra-airs

they were like yeah they were going to sell yeah these things were like you needed $300 to even get this deck going here they were called chaos decks here to get this thing going here and they were so overwhelmingly powerful they what were you going to do so the game became like obnoxiously paid a win and at the time here

before it was cool before it was cool and if you're a teenager you know I was infusible so I just thought you know yeah this is definitely the um this is You know, yeah, we didn't know that we had those terms of time here. I just saw the balancing was really, really bad. You know, you got the magic gathering kids, always making fun of UGQi kids saying that your game is trash.

You need to, like, you need to ban the entire set here. And then you get, you're just not good. You're going to get skill and just, and in hindsight, now I'm like, and I got tired of it. But then here's the catalyst here. It's a breaking point. So Japan had a, had a, they introduced a ban list because at the time here, there was no ban cards.

It was only cars that were limited to one. And even having one copy of some of these cards were incredibly broken in them and changed the entire deck here. Garbage like Yadigarasu and Chaos Emperor Dragon and Blacklisted Soldier, which is completely broken and needed definitely some kind of like nerfing of some kind here altogether here, much less limited to one. So Japan finally said, okay, we had enough of this, because this is meta is actually bonkers,

and they introduced a ban list where like 15 cards or more were banned at the first generation of this band list. And I told my community, well, say my community, oh my God, told my local high school friends, hey, I have the Japanese ban list here. Remember, this is 2004. So we have like printers. We don't have smartphones here. So like I printed out the sheet.

And I'm like, hey, translated ban list here. Y'all want to play it because I'm kind of tired of like throwing. Stail me down. Yeah, I don't even know how I even had the money to get these cards here. I'm thinking back now when I was 15 was I like, was I like hustling like chocolate milk cartons and whatnot to get these cards? I don't even know how I got this stuff in the first place here. But I'm sure I traded a copy of a game here and there. I think I remember trading Ratchet and Clink for PS2 for like a for like a cannon soldier or something.

I don't even remember at this point. But yeah, I, um, my. my community rejected it. They were like, no, I work too hard to get these cards. No, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, that bailiff is whack to me. And I'm like, well, you know, it's going to come to America eventually, right? Like, usually Konami Japan's going to, you know, prelude what happens in Konami USA. They're going to bring here eventually.

They didn't want to do it. They didn't want to hear it. They didn't even want to adopt it because, hey, here's what happened. This was crazy here. Konami USA was like, oh, well, you know what? This makes a lot of money here. We're going to have two formats. We're going to have the ban list and the not ban list.

where it's still limited to want here. So everyone had the option to remain on the traditional list. And I'm just like, oh, yeah, now no one's ever going to play the game that's going to be, like, in my opinion, fun and better here and strategically diverse. So I was like, okay, this is whack. This is dumb. I'm bored of this. This is so exhausting.

This is a little bit of a win. Turn off your brain. Press the wind button, call it a day thing here. So it was at that point that might disdain for Yu-Gio at that time. I hate Yu-Gio for other reasons now, by the way, here. But at that time, that's whenever I kind of like moved on. It was like, okay, well, speed running. is a thing that I was passively interested in early 2004, but now by late 2004, I'm like,

yo, this is like my thing now. So I wanted to take that, uh, take that and go somewhere, which on that note, last little trivia about that here, uh, the name that my, my tag trihacks actually came from when I won my first online, Yu-Gi-O tournament in like late 2003. How do you? I, I had a way cornered your name back then. And I, um, I, once I got my first dove in a tournament, I was like, ooh, no, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a Yu-Gio dole. now let's go i need a i need a sick tag dude so i just you know meet my scrub self and photoshop at age 13 i was like you know oh polygon lasso tool i can make a hexagon i just put three hexagons together and triple

hexagon short for tri hex that's awesome man yeah so that's so that's when triex came in to play from yuio competitively and then it just carried into what i registered my name as on the speed run a community a year later i'm so glad you shared that yeah so um got i'm got I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm serious. I mean, there's clearly so much passion. Maybe a touch of trauma. Maybe a touch.

No, I mean, it's wild because people, it's wild because people don't know how to read cards either. So like whenever you had a, so think here now. This thing can take you for granted, right? In 2004, again, no one has a smartphone. No one has like a laptop nearby. No one has Wi-Fi. So like when there's a dispute over how a card works,

how do you resolve that conflict? And it was like, so I had to think in advance here and bought my grandma's printer with her expensive overpriced HP Inc and just like print out the rule sets for those known problem cards. I knew these boys were not going to be able to, they was going to assume the best faith in their favor of how the cards operated. So I had to like, you know, bring them that and they would still argue with me about it. So yeah, I got some U-Gi players don't like to read. I'll tell you that much for sure. It is toxic, to say the least. They also cheat a ton.

They, they, why don't you want to, I don't want to make this about UGiL. here because you'll be let's let's take a step back let's maybe talk about a couple other things but if you know if all roads lead to home then that's what they lead and if this ends up being a two-hour yugio rant stream like let's you know let's get it let's do what we need to do do the work that needs to be done you know no it's not it's not yeah it's not that serious um okay so you started speed running and that's wild by the way like recording things on vhs tapes and like mailing them to places to be uploaded? Yeah, there was a website called Speedmo's Archive,

and the staff there notably had a bunch of equipment where they would convert VHS to the digital video. And yeah, they really were passionate about lifting up the speed run scene. You know, before YouTube, they had been announced to 2003. So, yeah, they had a bunch of speed runs. At first it was just Metroid and Quake, if I recall correctly, but they quickly expanded to the other game section, and the other game section blew up because everyone was submitting stuff

from, you know, Banja Kazui to Golden Eye to Mario Kart to everything in between. And they couldn't keep up. And I wanted to hop on that scene. I wanted to be a super gamer. I wanted to validate my existence. I found great validation and pride and, dare I say, purpose with that. At age 15, I had that whole, like, I don't know if everyone goes just here, the whole existential crisis where you're like, you know, what's the point of life? You know, we're all going to die anyway.

That kind of thought in his people's minds. I'm not quite sure here. They hit me really, really hard, and I, um, and I was trying to figure out, well, if I die tomorrow, what's my legacy? And I started having, started becoming infatuated with the idea of like, okay, well, trihex has a legacy. Michael has nothing, I felt. Again, high school was just like not, and middle school was just not there. Very sucked. How, how was it to, and by the way, Michael, I just want to, can I just share a couple things that have come out of your mouth that I would love to, ask you about because I think there's actually a lot of wisdom. So one is you've talked about

overthinking. You use the phrase pyramid of confusion. You talked about how people love to judge what they don't understand. You talked about maybe your mom saying if you take a year off, you're going to get a case of the don't wants and you'll be idle forever. And then you're also talking about this kind of conflict between Purpose and Michael versus Trihex and one has a that they want to run away from and one has a life that is optimistic and growing and has a lot of potential. So can you tell me a little bit more about just like, so what was it like to want to run away from Michael, if that's fair to say, and run towards trihacks? Well, so again, Michael, Michael had all the baggage of, I guess being a black nerd or geek that

in an environment that was not rewarding for those predetermined identities. I didn't choose to be black, and I don't know, whatever. Like, do you choose your interest? I guess you just kind of, you get infatuate with whatever you run into over time here. So there was baggage there. I got called White Mike a ton in high school that I found very. I wanted to avoid conflict, so I never wanted to like really pump up confrontation and call that out. I mean, it was just a bunch of black kids.

Maybe they won the five, maybe they didn't here. But comparatively, when I was trihex, it was like none of the identical identifiers, oh my God, words, were relevant, just my gamer skill and my legacy. Like I was super into that. So, you know, things like learning Photoshop and really getting further on graphic design, getting better at drawing, I can draw pretty well. Well, I had ambition. I wanted to, all the things that I desired to do just were not aligned with like what I had experienced thus far in middle school and high school. So I wanted to, I loved Pixar. I loved animation. I loved cartoons. I wanted to work at Pixar before I died. And I wanted to do everything I could to help develop that skill set getting to that point. So I felt like speed running was a great way to keep me afloat until then, I guess.

Okay. And so help me understand, you know, from, I guess right now you're in college, you're in the speed running scene, you know, between 2004 and 2011 when you started streaming. Like, what was that, what were those years like? So 2004 and 2011 is mostly me just like, and this is important here, actually, we'll say this is important. When I'm speed running, I am producing the final result, the run, right? The perfect run that I'm trying to get here, mistake free and all that. I'm producing that in isolation. I'm usually at my house to myself.

Maybe I'm watching, like, I don't know, a movie on two TVs or whatever here, side by side while I'm, like, grinding my runs all day and whatnot while recording on the VCR. But most importantly, I'm in my isolation. I'm in my flow. I'm in my flow state. I'm getting better. I'm addicted to the progress. And I'm continually seeing myself top myself over and over again and getting even better than what my starter goal was. And it's very, very fulfilling.

However, I do think that people only really care about the end. result. They don't want to see the making of. You don't want to watch a director like make the movie. You want to watch the movie. So by 2011, when streaming becomes a little more palatable, mostly in the context of racing, I mean it's up here, people were racing each other. So it's like, you know, me and you, let's one v one race, Mario Brothers 3. And we'll just, and we just like broadcast it live on like Justin TV or wherever, right? And that was, that was the idea. But people also were taking that and piggybacking off the idea of streaming the races into also streaming. like world record attempts and speed runs.

So once I saw that in 2011, I was like, wait, wait, people will watch people grind, like the repetitive, grueling, 99% fail rate of grinding to get the result. People will watch that. That blew my mind. So whenever I, like, tried it out in February 2011, I was blown away that I had like, you know, 25 viewers on day one. Because I was like, because before, remember, for like six years, seven years,

It was in, it was like, it was purely for myself. It was a self-fulfilling thing. But now it was a social thing. Other people are interested. Yeah, I had an audience and I was like, or, you know, a community. I was like, whoa, okay, let's, because I was already someone at this time here. I, I, I also know worth it here. I never went through the whole like single viewer, the single digit viewer slump where you know,

it's like a, it's like a, it's like a coliseum to get out of here to even get to that, like even to 10 to 10 viewer count because it's so saturated now, right? But I never dealt with that. I was already notable. at the very jump because I had years of a prerequisite skill to show my gamer cloud, I guess, there. And so can you tell us, Michael, a little bit

about what your life has been like since you started streaming? So kind of catching us up from today till maybe like over the last 10 years and we can go into more detail here there. But what's it like being a streamer? Well, okay, there's two distinctions here. There was being a,

part-time streamer while trying to juggle working at a job elsewhere, alongside dealing with IRL, you know, the typical struggle, right? You're part-time stream, but you can stream better if you can do it full-time. That way you could put more effort into it. That was 2011 to 2015. 2015 onwards when I became full-time. And that's like all that's, those are two very different beasts, I would say. So if you're asking about full-time. Tell me about part-time streaming. Okay. Part-time streaming was a time management. galore. I just, I felt like I could never do it enough when I was a, so I was a student, I did go to Big Boy University. I was a student, sorry, I was a full-time, full-time student

until fall 2012. So 2011 to 2012, I barely streamed. I did like two nights a week, if anything, here because I had like a crap ton of homework like any other full-time student. Didn't get much to either, honestly, just kind of like, you know, completely grueling. But I saw that I had the potential. I really, really believe that it actually grow as a streamer if I had the opportunity to really give it a shot. Because I saw other streamers at the time here. They were doing Ocarino of Time in Mario 64 and they were blowing up to, you know, I don't know, I hate to make it superficial here about the view count. But like, that's kind of the metric we all had the time here.

So, you know, they were getting to 300 viewers. I was sitting here stagnant at 50 viewers for a very long time because I could only put in so much time per week. So I decided to drop out of university. I stay drop out. I paused university. I can resume whatever I wanted to. But I was scared to get at the beginning here because my grandmother, she's a teacher and she was teacher for 34 years.

So she's very old school on like, you know, education. That's how you get things going here. And so I paused university in fall 2012 just to give it a shot for full effort. And at that point, it was crazy. I was growing a lot more at that time. though I'm making more about this here now. The, I would say

what happened here is that this is where like the start of like imposter syndrome came into play because I became known so well for being the best at Yoshi's Island. And now that the community had grown, I was not number one.

I was, I think I was number eight. I was top eight. And I felt like I needed to get number one. I was perceived as the, I was the most popular, Yoshi Speed Runner, but I wasn't the best one. And maybe it has to do with the fact that I had a, you know, again, this is where it gets technical here, but like, when it comes to muscle memory, I was the original innovator of all the routes that we had now in Yoshi's Island for 100%.

And so I have like thousands of hours on what was the best route using only my feedback here back at 2000, 2004, 2005. So I made those routes back then. The community was coming because of the streaming was happening now. So now we're from just being also, yeah, no worth it here. I was the only Ocea Island speed runner for like six years. So whenever the community was coming because of the streaming now, there was like, no, 10, 20 runners. And I'm getting, I'm getting passed up, honestly,

because we have now collaboration. They're showing off new routes. And it's harder for me to get them because I have like after, it's not really easy to delete muscle memory. You only really just override it with like more grinding. So I kind of had like a, I would dare say, an upper hill battle to deal with. But regardless of that, though,

I was the most popular streamer for you at that time. So being the most popular one, the most viewed one, but not the best at the game, did give me some kind of conflicts over that I needed. I needed to validate myself by getting to number one. Help me understand that. What part of you needed to validate? Like, help me understand that. That's hardest.

I don't know. That was like, I feel like if you're an imposter. Well, there was this really toxic notion and early streaming of Speedring at the time here that you're a sellout. That if you, people can donate to you and if you do, you're doing it for donations and support and you're not doing it for the love of the game.

Like Speedbring should remain pure. There were some, a lot of toxic, silly ideas that were high-roading a lot here. And it usually came from the camps that had a lower view count that might have been envious, dare I say jealous of those who were more successful at it, possibly.

Um, hard to say really here, but I, I do feel like imposter syndrome does, whenever I learned what that was actually did, does really, um, to me feel like what I was going through at that time. And can you, I can just tell you that I didn't, I did not. I did not allow myself to enjoy streaming until I got world record. I was not, I did not want to play other games. I didn't want to play Mario Party. I didn't want to play casual games. It was Yoshi and only Yoshi because I had to get better at Yoshi. What did it mean to you to get world record? Everything. It meant that I could finally have inner peace. It finally meant that like I am what I think I am. That like what tri-hex is perceived as and what Michael is are one and the same finally. Rather than like, I don't know, like I'm this like I'm this gamer who already peaked and I can't do it.

I see. So can I ask a couple of questions about that? Sure. So here's what I'm kind of, I'm going to try to piece this together a little bit. You let me know if this resonates or not. But so there was Michael, right? White Mike. And then trihex came on the scene.

And trihex is the best Yoshi's Island streamer, speedrunner, whatever. And so, you know, on the inside you're Michael and on the outside your trihex. and everyone expects. You kind of use this term over and over and over again, where you kind of said you're top eight, but you'll sort of highlight the fact that you were perceived as the best, or maybe the most popular, right? There's this, but like if we really look at it,

even hearing you talk about it, it's like you'll give us evidence to the contrary, even when you tell the story, because you'll kind of say, I was perceived as the best, but I was top eight, you know. And so even hearing you talk about it, I'm almost, and now it just kind of clicked for me, that like,

getting world record means that what people expect of you is actually true. Yeah, you nailed it. Like, that, like, this is what the world perceives me as. And there's a, there's almost a sense that until you get that world record, you've jubated people into believing something that you're not. And maybe a part of you was even terrified possibly. that you may not have been able to live up to expectations. Not maybe.

You're exactly that. I was that, if that were the truth, that truth terrified me that I actually couldn't do it. And that comes back in the play later on here in 2015 onward. How so? I honestly thought I had peaked. I really did. So I love Yoshi's Island, my favorite game of all time.

And I grew to hate playing it because I was, reminded of how not good I was at it in my own head. Like when you speed run continuously, I think I think I've been speaking run in the game for I have at least 15,000 hours in the game since 2004, a loose estimate here, a conservative one at that too by the way here. And in one game and in one category. And I, to this day, I'm 10th place now. My best time is from May of 2015. I the new the new runners now

they're over 10 minutes faster to me which is like a huge deal like just insane growth that's happened since then it feels daunting it feels like like the game Celeste

it feels like I'm climbing like 10 of those like to get there because of the mental endurance the insecurities the I feel like I can never get there and not playing the game

or I'm sorry I mean to get you off there no go ahead I I feel like you can't, how do I put this here? It's just like, no matter how hard I try, I will never get there. It's grueling. It's grueling.

And I love the game. I want to play it. I feel like I should enjoy it, but because of just how exhaustingness to acknowledge where I currently am, I hate where I am, I hate where I am. I love improving, but I want to be able to improve in private. That's actually what it is here. I don't want to stream improving at the game. I just want to be better at the game.

I crave the destination, and I loathe having to, like, do that in a transparent manner for streaming here. So it's like if I became like a literal who all to count, no webcam, the microphone, no requirement of interaction, where I just grind the game and become like a junkie game playing robot, I could probably get there in six or 12 months. But because I have to like balance interacting with Chad and like being a charismatic streamer and all that, It just, and then being reminded of, like, you know, who has a world record and what I don't have and what happened and everything else here. It's just draining, man. Can I think for a second? Sure.

There's a lot there. Yeah, I'm sorry. That was that, uh, no, don't apologize. That's, that's, that was positive feedback. How do you feel about being challenged, Michael? Like, now. Um, I'm excited. I, I, I do speed with other games.

Um, being challenged. I would say when I feel prepared, if I have time to prepare, I can thrive. Oh, no, yeah, I was going to make a couple statements that may challenge you in this moment or ask a couple of questions. Oh, oh, oh. So, so. Yeah, go for it. I mean, hold on a second, because you just said, I'm okay being challenged if I can prepare, but like you're not prepared for this. So maybe we should steer clear.

Well, I guess I was thinking of it purely in like the gaming, gaming context. But yeah, I, um, um, um, um. well, this is this is different. Okay. Like, yeah, this is like psychologically challenged, right? There's like, there's like no, like, I'm not pretending that I'm emotionally sound or that I'm like mentally like pristine here.

So, like, I'm on Healthy Gamer, right? So it's like, yeah, I, this is different to me than like, I view this in a different venue entirely than like the competitive gaming space or the war of perception and internet land. So. So, Michael, what? I really appreciate so much about what you've said. Because I think you've got, I think you put to words so well what a lot of what we struggle with. The one thing that has really jumped out to me is improving in private. Okay.

And there's a part of us, we all want to be number one. But what, why do we all want to improve in private? How do you understand that part of you? Because, oh, that's a good question here. So if we go back to like 2018, I used to say it was because I had performance anxiety. I would say that like chat, I play better offline. I swear, I did one hour. And I'm not going to do this here.

Actually, there was a point where it was really getting to me. And I acknowledge, okay, maybe it may be start blaming factors of mental rather than just like factors of the execution here. So Rabin and me like I'm not doing enough practice. Okay, maybe it's the stress of having to do it with a front, with a live audience. So I was starting to do like dirty offline practice and I would do a one hour session just like, you know, chill, put on some lofi, whatever here, just vibe. You know, get back of my, get back of my like, dare I say, Renaissance flow state of 2005 where I would just be, it would just be me and myself. And there was no like threat of like how, how many viewers can I retain while doing it or how, you know, whatever here. Because the reality here is we haven't talked to us yet here.

in the context of speed running, it's not even, it's, it's 90% mental to me. Like, because everyone's good at the game, but are you good at the game when you're on your best pace ever, when you're on world record pace? When you have like triple your normal audience size, you can see that view count getting dumb.

You can see the chat in your peripheral. What does that do to you? Scroll in fat. Oh, you, what it does is expose exactly how confident you are. You can bring it down to a, to an exact percentage number here. That one trick that you want to do on, on whatever,

world 5, 5, 4, the 54 skip, if you are not feeling 99% confident in that trick, you're going to fail it. Like, because you're going to have, it's in your head run free. You get, you got to extract all doubt and get it out there. You need to be able to. And what is, what is the chat scrolling fast? What are the high numbers? You use the word threat.

Um, yeah. Um, because I don't want to fail again. I, because it's the same thing over and over again. You're just like, you, you got to like burn and choke 50 to 100 runs before you even finally feel like you are. before you feel like you're confident. You have to actually be in the familiarity of that scenario to finally understand that

what you're fearing is debatably irrational. You know, you nail it in practice, why are you feeling insecure now? You know, why is the eyeballs got you feeling that kind of way at this point now? Okay. So, yeah. So Michael, yeah.

Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead. So let me ask you a couple questions. So what if I were, I'm going to toss something out. You let me know if this sticks or not. Okay. there's a part of me that wonders, and I'm going to say some statements that are challenging, okay? So, and we're going to, hopefully, if I upset you or say something that's out of line, please let me know. And I realize I'm talking it up too much. I don't think it's actually going to be like bad or anything.

But maybe I'm thinking about my own experiences, but part of what I think is alluring about improving in private is that sometimes we have a doubt that we may not be able to. right? So there's sort of this idea that if I do it publicly, you've shared with us what the challenges of like all the viewers and things like that. It lives rent-free in your head. And you need to be in that flow state, you need to, in order to crack that record in order to get to the top, in order for Michael to become trihex. You have to be operating at 100%. And any amount of Twitch chat scrolling, any amount of viewers, or any amount of that other stuff, that has not when you have been Mozart or bin Bach. And so there's that aspect of streaming and sort of juggling things and stuff like that, which I completely get. I think that makes a lot of sense. We can talk more about that. But there's a part of me that actually wonders like, you know, now you're number 10, used to be number eight. There's a part of me that wonders if there's a part of you that thinks that as these people, like, and I can almost hear the rationalizations in your head that I got to be number one, you know, without any kind of feedback, without learning from other people. the kids are younger now they're they're you know they're faster they're stronger they're you know like

there are people who can grind 15,000 hours whereas like there you are drinking what appears to be a protein shake like you know I'm looking at you in your under armored tea and it's like you take care of yourself and things like that you know you got bills to pay and got to pay your taxes and stuff like that and there are these kids out there that just all they can do is is grind and there's a part of me that wonders, like, if you're in private, like, you can at least fail in private. Ooh, that's a good way to put that. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder if part of the reason that... I'm free from scrutiny, I would say. And the real thing about free from scrutiny is it comes down to, and I think a big part of that is why do you need to be free from scrutiny? And the more you doubt

yourself, the more that you start to wonder, like, will I ever be number one again? Because, like, you know, let's, I mean, let's be honest. Like, every generation gets... better, right? Like, you know, 100 years ago, the chess grandmasters were like in their 60s and then they were in their 40s and then they were in their 30s and, you know, like the best go players in the world, I think, are like 19. And what we're sort of. It's the same thing actually in speed running.

You're not, you're making some really good parallel points here. Yeah, and speed running is the same thing. The kids are younger. I'm sure COVID quarantine probably further accelerated that entirely here with the Fortnite kids and whatever else in between. Yeah, everyone, they're getting younger, they're getting stronger, they're getting faster. The resources to the knowledge here, I mean, I imagine it in chess might as parallel here. The, you know, chess three is probably way more palatable mainstream now than it was maybe

in the 70s or 60s, clearly. And yeah, yeah, now you, if you want to get good at Mars 64, it's, you're like three Wikipedia articles away. from knowing everything the world record holder knows, literally. So what does that mean for you? What does... Just the fact that people are, you know, younger, faster, stronger. They can climb.

So you're a trailblazer, right? So you work really hard to get so far. And you're, you know, you're literally like making a trail that the people behind you can just run down, whereas each inch of that trail was something that you had to, you know, make. It doesn't really bother me that there are other people better. Actually, no one's really toxic, I would say to me. No one, like, no one belittles me. It was all, it was all a war in my head. So help me understand that, because I'm happy to hear you're in a good place, but how did you get there? Because I can imagine that. Well, well, let's not, I wouldn't say I'm in a great,

I'm still working through issues on Yosh's Island, honestly. I would, I just say there's like, there, how do I put this here? There was bullying, how do I, I don't know how to put this here. This is like,

okay, okay, I'll just, I'm just going to throw out there. I don't know how to make this, like, a more palable way to say it here. So,

4chan, there was a group on 4chan called Speed Run General, called SRG. This was like a 4chan anonymous message board group that would usually, like, this was like one of the more larger, spectator groups in speed running, but speed running was very, very young in 2011 and whatnot. And I feel like I got a lot of, I got a lot of attacks from them.

It's a really toxic group. I am not a fan at at all here. But I got a lot of attacks there because I was talkative, I guess I would say here. I was less about the game. I would talk a lot. Major context we haven't gotten to here yet was I was a waiter for eight years. The job I did alongside being a university student and everything else here, from 2007 to 2015, when I went full time, I was a waiter. So naturally, being a waiter, you're just doing social engineering on steroids at all times here.

So I'm able to pinpoint and figure out here, like, when am I taking two hundred and get to a point that keeps you continuously engaged, how to keep the flow of the conversation well, trying to demonstrate mastery of body language, that would come off as approachable, accessible, and charismatic and relatable to anyone I'm talking to and whatnot here, a feel and a vibe for while you're currently at the restaurant, are you here on a movie date? You've got to be somewhere by a certain point. Are you here to, like, milk it? Are you here to like, you know, are you here to watch the football game and therefore it's to be more minimalistic? And that way, I'm not intruding on the, on the football game or whatever here, et cetera. You know, it sounds like poor thinking has its advantages.

Yeah. It's also speed running, too, because it's all about, you know, it's all about optimizing here, you know, when to, you know, because I know that once I get your order in and we can slow the pace down considerably. It's all about the accelerations. a lot, Michael. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've been told that. Yeah, so I did that, I did that a ton. And particularly here, I was always really keen for, like, if you were stuck on an indecisiveness, like, you know, I want to get your order in because you're hungry and the timer's taking here, whether you're, we've ordered your food or not here in the context of your hunger. So I will make it my great effort here to make the conversation as conversational as possible, rather than a more transactional. So I'm trying to like, you know, throw you my recommendation. my top three I would go for, the most popular dishes, what I like, why I like it, that way you feel more welcome to like tell me your top or you're thinking about doing, you know, et cetera, right?

So anyways here, I was awaited for a long period of time. And that, that like, that kind of like exuded into my, my streaming, you know, after I would do a run, I would have like so many, because again, I was in post-aid. I would, not during the run. Yeah, but afterward. Yeah. Yeah. I was in flow state, I would better talk during the run. And then when I'm done, I'm so overwhelmed by questions.

I'm taking each question from chat here, and I'm able to, like, actually take what they're asking and extend the dialogue of what they're asking. You're asking me about my controller, but you really want to know, like, how, why I'm holding the control the way I am. So I would just answer that question with more elaboration on what you're getting to. And it ended up being like, you know, like, I would say like maybe like four hours would be gameplay. And the remaining three would be me just talking because I had so much to say about what people were asking about. And what did Fortune think about that? Say it again. What did 4chan think about that?

Oh, they hated it. They thought it was a sellout. They thought I was, I don't know, like not a real speed runner because every time they would tune in, I'm always just talking and yapping or whatever. It was just haters. But again, I was insecure maybe as a remnant of the middle school, high school thing. I did feel some irrational obligation to be liked by everybody. And again, maybe because of just remnants from that there. And it would really get at me a lot.

In fact, it made me almost quit. It made me almost, I can say here with no. light heart, Dr. K, that I, December 22nd, 2014, that was the day that I wrote a pace bin that I really didn't know what I was going to do next. There was a charity race that was going on here. It was a charity's between me and that at that point, number one, the number one runner. By the way, we didn't bring up to earlier. I was number two at one point. I was number eight, whatever in 2012, but by 2014, through just scathing. amounts of grinding and enduring, I did get to number two.

And me and the number, me and the number one went for a race, but he was way more consistent than me. So like I failed all the hard tricks and I was a 10 minutes behind and I was getting berated by that chat and there was a lot of them that were from that community that were out. Yeah, hitting me really hit me hard. Like, you know, kill yourself and you're trash and you'll never be good. And I guess in their eyes thought it was like, you know, just banter. But I, I'm saddened that I still remember that eight years ago to this day.

Yeah. And the next day, I was just like, this is not why I got into speed running. This is not why I got into streaming. This, like, how I feel right now sucks. And my self-worth has plummeted to nothing. And I genuinely wrote a pace-pin saying, I think I'm done streaming, actually. We're just saying along because I love it. And I didn't know if I could go on any further dealing with that crap ever again.

So, Michael, can you tell me a little bit about what the last few years have been like? So let's say 2015 to 2022. to? Well, this is where it gets totally different. So I get into working out. Actually, actually just start working out until until 20, late 2014, like, I don't know, it might have been like December or whatever here. And I, I went full-time by 2015. At first, I had a full-time sub-goal of 400 subs to be able to, like, you know, lower my expenses and live off of that. but by 2015, I'd, or by July of 2015, I'd already surpassed 600 subs. And I was like, okay, well, what am I scared of?

You know, I said I would do this 200 subs ago and people are sticking around. They like me. Like what I'm doing right now. Maybe I should stop being scared and, like, you know, make that leap, you know. I even had this issue, actually, where I was, like, scared to quit my job, you know. And I even Googled here at Desperation of Mender's here. I googled a, why am I scared to quit my job? And I'd learn here that, yeah, fear of change, fear of habitat and just like, it's a huge step for anyone here.

even if you don't like your job and whatnot. But, yeah, I went full-time July 2015. And my plan was to, like, take the next upcoming Yoshi game and make it my next big thing. And this is big because what happened was Mario Maker 1 released September 11, 2015. And I'm sure you've heard of it, the game where, like, you make the Mario levels and you share it. So that went super viral. That went, like, gigaviral.

And I happened to be the one, maybe the one person who, like, was speedrunner savvy, but also palatable on a mainstream Twitch scale because of my waiter swag and whatnot. So I was able to, like, you know, like, you know, where a speed runner required, you know, flow state into interaction. Here it was like, you know, I can meld to it together because it's bite-sized Mario levels. I played that and I went viral immediately. I went from being like a 400 viewer, whatever person to like 4,000. And then the next day, 6,000. And then the next day, 7,000. And then the next day, 8,000.

And I was an 8,000 viewer person for months. Like, I didn't know what to do. Like, like, this success was so viral and so sudden that I, I thought every day was going to be the last days. I just, like, I just kept doing it. I would just literally go live and do 18-hour binge-a-thons until I couldn't go any further. Like, I was, I tell my roommate, yo, look, 50 bucks. I don't know.

do here. Go go to Walthy House, give yourself something, get me three Texas Roadhouse Meals, whatever here, and we'll, I'm going. And so I just grind into a pulp, kept doing that. And that was kind of the best and the worst thing there. There were a lot of streamers who are definitely jealous of what I had going on. I don't know, I went viral. I was able to take it and retain it and keep going with it here. I felt like I was, I had no, I felt more alone at that time, actually. Whenever I had that monstrous success, like the amount of like, I don't know, the amount of like scam DMs and like, you know, people pretend to be a girl and trying to like, uh, or, or whatever, right, trying to, um, catfish or whatever here. You know, I'm a big fan. I'm a hot grill and, you know, whatever, California, whatever. Dude, everything, everyone had something to sell me now. It was just like, I felt like all my, all protocols of communication were compromised.

Nothing felt real. It felt it was in a simulation. There was even a period where, like, I didn't, like, where I was staying up so late that I was, I was going to bed at 7 p.m. Because I had stayed up so late and continues to put my circadian rhythm further and further back, that there was actually a three-day period where I didn't talk to anybody. I didn't talk with any humans. And it was, and it was really weird.

It actually made me like a little disorienting honestly. My communication entirely was like virtual and surrogate through a monitor and text for like three days straight. That's like a really, really weird feeling. The isolation can be like paralyzing in a way. Because like my my skin became paper thin. Like you know, because I had nothing to ground myself. So my my stakes of like critique. Remember you got to think here.

I'm like 8,000 viewers if I make like one like Xbox joke, you know, L.O. Xbox has no games here. And Xbox fanboy is going to call me, you know, well, they get offended or whatever, right? And then hurts my feelings because I was like, I had no basis for how to like deal with that. Well, anyways, yeah, I was, I became incredibly virally successful and I was not prepared for it. And the amount of feedback you get when you like, I don't know, crack a joke or say something that's like not, you know, anyone can like, you know, Google food it and immediately verify that what you said was wrong or whatever here. I don't know. it's like a lot of feedback all the time.

And like if you don't have like enough ego, I guess to like endure that, it can be pretty draining, you know. Definitely. So that, that happened to me a ton. And so ever since then, of course, also here, I mismanaged here. I would say admittedly. I, um, I wasn't the most disciplined. I felt continuously overwhelmed here.

I had like thousands of DMs on my discord. I had and, you know, Twitter was blowing up and whatnot here. I didn't have like, you know, you know, it's like running an important. power like that if you're like not used to it it's a you crack under it I would say here and I most certainly did what what does crack mean um I stepped away um so to speak I guess uh how do I put this here so if we well see I'm kind of like I'm dancing around the topic but I guess I should get to the topic here the topic would be that um so if you go back here when I told you about you know, when it came to girls that I, I, I, I didn't know how to deal with that insecurity.

And even though I was working out and I was getting in better shape, I thought that being more physically fit would help me deal with this. And I, and there was a point where I convinced myself that, okay, if I get like, if I get abs, like, right, if I really build up and I, like, sculpt and everything here. And once I have abs, I will, I will finally have the confidence I need to finally talk to girls. I was actually scared. I was scared. There were, like, a lot of, like, other, you know, female content creators and whatnot or whatever here. And I just never made a move. I never made a move because I was like, I was paralyzed by fear.

What were you afraid of? I was afraid of rejection. I was afraid that, I was afraid of rejection, but I also was afraid of like coming off as thirsty. I felt like I had to, I felt like I almost had to be like, like a demigod in a way here. I had to like, you know, I lack genitalia. I am, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm triex, the tri-god, and I need to be above the surface more.

level of attraction because this is going to only distract me from what my goals are. I don't know where that even comes from here at this point here now. Maybe it's like an incorrect assessment here. Can I ask you a couple questions about that? Sure. Why do you have to come off as what's, help me understand a little bit about not wanting to come across as thirsty? I don't know.

It's terrifying, man. I don't know. Like I saw some other streamers who would like, you know, hit on girls or whatever. and they would get belittled on it on Twitter for like, ha ha, ha, you horny, ah, you thirsty. And maybe it goes back here to. Yeah, it sounds like you're once again playing Yu-Gi-O, right? Where it's like, if I play this card and I come across as thirsty,

like that's not going to go well. So I can't, and I'm kind of... I can't show I'm vulnerable. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I don't want to show anyone who follows me on Twitter that, like, I'm human and I find attraction possible. Yeah, right?

Yeah, like, so that comes into play here. I mean, kind of a weird question, but do you think you were thirsty? See, okay, thirsty would be like, how would we define thirsty? Not a negative way, no, I don't think I was being unreasonable. I also didn't hit anyone, though. I was, I craved companionship, if that's your asking her.

Yeah, yeah. I definitely, like, found other women attractive, and I definitely would have loved to had a girlfriend. I had never had a girlfriend at this point. I'd been perpetually single forever. I went through some pretty hardships in high school and onward, where I was a virgin for a lot longer than I thought it would be. Again, not that being a virgin is an issue here, and I hate to make it sexual.

I'm sorry if this is a topic you don't talk about or whatever here. Just like, but but in high school, again, in small town, Louisiana is just like, you know, what always was emphasized here is the body count, you know, every, every weekend I'm hearing these guys, you know, brag about how many, how many girls they ran train on and lost other like stuff that I had no interest in. And they just would like, it's really weird. Imagine you have other like 16 year old boys who are just sitting here burning their entire weekend chronically lying to other girls. about how you're the only one. Oh, baby, I love you.

You're my girlfriend. And the whole agenda here is just to like, you know, get them in an environment where they can, they can like finally persuade them by peer pressure to then partake in sexual acts, you know, they want to smash. And it's just, but it's, you know, they're wasting like hours with like phone calls and all the other manipulations, be able to maybe get their 15 minutes of frame or whatever. Yeah, Michael, I'm wondering if actually like that it's interesting, right? Because you're a part of you maybe is afraid of rejection.

but I'm almost kind of envisioning that part of also what you're afraid of is, or actually part of what you didn't know back then was that when you express interest, that interest comes with all of this toxicity. And so you wanted to maybe demonstrate to people that you were interested, but like not in a way that is like those other people. You know, that you were interested in companions. as opposed to smashing. Yeah, yeah, definitely that, yeah.

Well, it gets, it gets worse. So this is something that I feel like maybe isn't given enough attention here, but like I was, ultimately I was catfished twice, and I was devastated that I probably fell for the same person using an alt, you know, and, you know, I got catfish, and then I got, then the rebound was another woman telling me that, you know, she's another member of my community and that's unfortunate that happened here and she wanted to like you know talk to me and help me console me through it here and whatnot and and then that

that was also a catfish and just like at that point I was I was burned so I um I devastated can you tell me what you mean by catfished so by catfish I mean that there was a there was a person who was presenting themselves as what they are not um this was a someone used pictures of some some pretty like female cosplayer. And I, I, I, I, I thought they were real. I thought they were, thought they really wanted to be my friend.

I, I, I had never had. Also, for context here, I, I kind of have, I never, I'd never had had a friend who was a girl before. I, um, again, when I say here, like, or I'm talking like, like, genuinely, like, terrified of, like, misspeaking or, or, or making an idiot myself in front of, in front of women. So I just, I, I just kind of put it off forever. I felt in comfort around guys because I didn't feel judged, but it may go back to some rejections I had in high school where I was told, you know, that they, you know, I was a loser and whatnot.

So the reason I asked about catfishing is, is because I'm still a little bit confused because sometimes when people catfish, you know, there's actually a romantic attraction, but they will use fake pictures and things like that to try to advance a relationship, almost create like some emotional bond, which is kind of manipulative in nature. the mask comes off. But the person, so I've heard of two kinds of catfishing. One, which is, you know, developing a genuine emotional relationship that's based on a lack, or they're genuine or they're real emotions, let's call them that way, but sort of like false advertisements and a lack of trust at the beginning. And then the other kind of catfishing that I've heard about is, is really, in a sense, even more predatory.

And there's like, it's not even a woman. There's no romantic interest on the other side. You know, I've heard of catfishing is kind of like a fear of rejection, which is why I false advertise, but I really am attracted to you or something like that. And I've also heard of like catfishing as a way to like screw people out of money, you know? And so which one are we talking about with you if that makes sense? The N1 resources or anything like that here. They were just, they were, they would never want to.

So they present some pictures, right? I'm a big fan of whatever here. Maybe we should hang out of this coming convention and whatnot here. just like a, you know, whatever, like a nonchalant opener. And then from there it was like, okay, well, do you want to, and they were advancing a little here showing signs that, you know, I find you attractive and whatnot, which was very validating to me here. Because like, this is the first I ever heard from a woman that, oh, I find you attractive.

I had never, that hadn't happened yet. And so, but every time we would try to push for, you know, a phone call or like a video call or just like any kind of like, you know, tangible. It was always like, oh, I'm busy and whatnot, you know, the usual deflection and whatnot. And that happened for like almost three weeks and it was exhausting. Because I wanted to believe so bad that, okay, maybe this is a time. Maybe I actually, maybe I am lovable. Maybe, you know, maybe now, you know, now that I'm in Twitchland and I'm a validated speed runner

and a successful streamer, maybe now all that garbage from high school was just like, you know, a phase. Michael has become trihacks. Yeah, yeah, except that it wasn't. Of course it was a catfish. Of course it wasn't real. And then just, I got devastated. I just, like, I tuned out.

I stopped streaming for like, I don't know, like almost half a month, honestly, which is like a death sentence at the time to keep your momentum up here. So my view count plummeted from like 8K to like 2K. Because then at that point, everyone was very eager to like pick up my momentum from the, from dominating the Mari Maker directory. So, yeah, that dominance diminished considerably when I came back at that point. And even then when I came back, it was because I was streamer guilt. I was so overwhelmingly felt guilty about not streaming here for my, you know, loving community and whatnot.

Because they didn't do anything. This is nothing to do with them. It's just someone with one person. Then I had bad judgment and whatnot. But yeah, that that catfish definitely like really messed me up. Wow, Michael, it sounds like you've had a lot of unfortunate experiences, a lot of struggles over the years, imposter syndrome, discrimination, people sort of taking advantage of emotional vulnerabilities, almost, I mean, Hopefully this isn't, is okay to say, but almost naivete, you know, that you were naive. And you were looking for companionship and someone sort of sniffed that out and kind of took advantage of it once. And then it sounds like they like, the traumatic first experience then made you emotionally vulnerable to it happening again. Yeah, that was, yeah, correct. Yeah, I got, I got a catfished again. and that one was even

though this one, I don't know if the same person or not. I just like, and here's the real issue. The real issue is that you don't get closure. Like even if you like accused them like, hey, look, I have definitive proof here that you are not who you're claiming to be. You're not being transparent right now.

All that happens is just going to just obfuscate that with more lies. Like they're going to min max on plausible deniability further and further and further and use every out they have because how hard can you really pin them down, you know? So it's just like you, you're so, badly all this time invested you just it all feels transactional and you feel objectified or

and whatever else it may be here and it's like you can't even like seek closure you have to just conclude on your own yeah that this is like i'm done being on this merry-go-round of like a psychopath time sync and you just get off of it i'm sorry if i last i had to go so i just appreciated the phrase min-max plausible deniability which i've never heard before but it's it's brilliant Yeah, I don't know. Maybe that's a... No, I mean, I think you've got away with words, dude. It's great, right?

And you're spot on that. I think it's hard, right? Because with some of these relationships, even when you know the truth, you never get an admission. You never... So, like, no matter what happens, you know, it's almost like the more you suspect and the more you try to get closure, the more smoke screen comes up.

And so, like, you're really looking for it, right? You're looking for some kind of tangibility. you're looking for some kind of like admission of guilt. You're looking for some kind of acknowledgement for what you've been through. But the more you reach for that, the more, you know, intangible it becomes. Yeah. So, so, Michael, I noticed we've been talking for a little while. Is there something in particular that you think we haven't touched on yet or something

that you kind of want to talk about or potentially you're struggling with? Well, I've got more questions. but I just want to give you a chance to. Oh, well, I'd say the most recent thing that I've been really like doing better on here is probably productivity struggles. And you ever heard of this phrase, unconquerable task syndrome? Mm-mm. Like a, I don't even know if it's a real like thing or not here.

I just saw it in an article one day. And I was like, this feels like what I'm dealing with right now. There was been like a long period where like, so particularly it comes from. burnout. I've been burned out, but didn't know it was burned out. And then I had productivity struggles because I was burned out, but wasn't aware of it or in denial of it. And then finally, whenever I would like, you know, stream for, I don't know, six days or whatever straight. And I felt like I needed to like really, really get down to some like communication, you know, reply some emails, do some community management tasks, manage my Discord, et cetera here, you know,

run the empire, so to speak. I just couldn't do it. Like, no matter, I would sit there and just stare at my monitor and just be like, bro, I am, I can, I can give it like 20. minutes of focus time and I'm just like totally drained and I'm like bro I cannot why am I so unproductive here and my my go-to-gut reaction was the fact that um maybe I have ADHD maybe I maybe I need to like Adderall or Ritalin or something maybe I need to I need to go I need to be 100% today because I'm so behind and everything here I got a I got a stream you know I try to stream you know eight hours a day try to do at least five days a week you shouldn't do it six days a week here you know I try to shove like I don't know like 80 hours worth of

stuff in a 40-hour work week on my end here and get some other stuff done and just like, and I just felt like I couldn't get it. And the guilt, the guilt felt overwhelming, honestly. And that was really dragging me down for years because I'm just like, how do these other streamers do it? I'm continuously comparing to them and I'm looking how that's what they are. I'm just like, people who came after me, who came after me, you know, I feel like by being a Twitch boomer, I'm, I'm the one here who's stagnant because they're the ones who were able

like see more objectively, maybe here comparatively, like how, what the new meta is and whatnot. And I don't see it. I don't know. That's something I've been struggling with recently here. Can you tell me about unconquerable task syndrome? So it's just like whenever, whenever there's a task you to take care of here, like you need to, for example, let's say you want to zero out your inbox. You have like 100 unread emails just want to kind of go through there and you want to get a

there, file them by, you know, whether it's a receipt purchase or whatever here and just kind of get it knocked out, right? You can do like, I find what happens. I want to, like, make it like a smaller incremental step process, you know, okay, let's, let's, let's categorize 100 emails first, then skim them for anything valuable, then, you know, delegate them to where they got to go and whatnot. And I'll have fun, like taking like a dry race board, just like, you know, writing all, like, the planning of the task is fun.

executing the task is where I'm like, I'm stuck and I'm like, uh, and then I end up like, I don't know, like I, whether or how you unconquer it is different on each person here, but for me, I end up like spassing out and going in different things there. Like in that hundred email inbox, end up like seeing here an email from like, I don't know, whatever, like, hello fresh or whatever. And I'll go over that website and just look at that and, you know, this is a cool here. And I can't focus. I just, I'm so my attention spans already at like 90, 90% consumed.

so like I don't have much left to really give here because I don't really want to be doing this right now. I want to just like, I can't get there. I feel this overwhelming need to do the task, but I just cannot simply execute on the focus of it. Planning it is fun, but doing it is like just, I'm unable to do it. And have you made progress there?

And then I feel very, very guilty. I'm just like, bro, I sit here in front of the computer just like for like an hour and I have him just like, okay, I give up. I'm just going to go for a walk and come back and figure it out here. And it winds up being here. It's like I'll spend like a whole like nine hours on my day off. And I'll have gotten that one thing done.

100 emails filed. And that's it. So you do you do do it. At a slugs pace, yes. At a depressingly slow pace with a lot of breaks in between. And Michael, is it okay? I mean, we could talk about this for the next, you know, 15, 20, 30 minutes if that's okay with you and try to understand what's going on. Sure.

Well, one, it's gotten a lot better now. I will say here, this is like what I've recently been dealing with here, but I'm happy to report that I'm doing a lot better. Yeah, so help us understand how did it get better? I did the unprecedented. So I've been full-time streaming on Twitch since July 2015. I had, I was scared, genuinely scared to take a break. I never took breaks. Even going to Evo, going to TwitchCon, going to other events, always was like a cross-pollination.

of opportunity, I wouldn't really call it off the grid. I didn't even know really what a real vacation was. I was a GameStop employee into a waiter into this. So I've never, like, I've never had like a job of the security and luxury of actually having like, you know, PTO, pay time off, et cetera. So I wouldn't know. I was blessed on, you know, I know that Wariam right now is incredibly privileged being a, you know, whatever, top zero, zero one percent Twitch streamer, content creator, whatever here. So I know that my job is something that's, you know, incredibly envied. So I have, I feel like I have very little room to actually like complain about what I do or, you know, or vent about, you know, what I go through me, me, me, me, me, me.

But I've never had a vacation in that regard. So I didn't even know what like, an actual, the actual objective of a vacation being rejuvenative. I had never entertained that. It was always just like, okay, well, I went to, you know, I went to TwitchCon. That was, that was fun, play, work, whatever here. And I come back. I keep going here. So.

But yeah, I took, for the first time ever, May of this year, May of 2022, I took an entire month off. I didn't plan to. I was going to do two weeks off, but I realized here that, okay, I'm actually really burned out. Let me just take two weeks, obviously, what happens here. And even then, I was scared to even admit that. It took me until, like, May 13th, like, after not being live for like 10 days to finally admit, y'all, I got to keep going here. I got to heal.

Like, I can see, I need to detox. I'm terminally online and I've been working for so long here. I feel uncreative. I come live and it's just because it's the routine, the motions, but I don't really know what I'm doing anymore. Yeah. So that whole month off is what led to me finally really seeing at the core of what was going on there.

And it seems like taking a break really helped you with some of this unconquerable task stuff? Yeah, yeah, because I was able to finally like, So I find, for example, here, I'm not really able to reflect on how I'm doing until I'm away from this environment. So I'm in my office that I'm in, whatever, 80 hours we go or whatever here. And can I really reflect on how to improve my workflow, my tasking and everything in between here when there's always the looming threat of the access to streaming? you know if i if i'm if i'm if i'm only getting like one task done in a nine hour span or i could just go live and stream today and at least get eight hours knocked out there which one am i going to do so that's usually what ends up happening i mean i say okay so i feel incredibly guilty and even more

defeated on the fact that i could have just streamed so until i get away from this office of turmoil i found i wasn't able to reflect so once i did that and went away i was able to think okay okay Well, that what is a, what is, in theory, what is the structure of a, of a productive trihex day on, on a day off? You know, how do I make gym and fitness synergize rather than like antagonize the flow of streaming? And so what I'm kind of hearing you say is that, and this is really common, by the way, that we have, if we have easy ways of being productive. And there are sometimes tasks that we struggle with that. that in theory should be take a small amount of time. But what we always end up doing is, I think you said it beautifully, that I could waste

nine hours doing one hour of work, or I could do the eight hours of work that's easier for me to do. And at the end of the day, I can have done eight hours of work or one hour of work. And so what ends up happening is because our brain knows how to do particular things, what we end up doing is we choose the same easy work, thereby being more efficient, and we never actually get around to the, quote, unquote, hard work, which is going to be less efficient.

And you just can't justify the cost to yourself, right, of taking a break from streaming, like, okay, like I can stream for a day, or I can take a day off, which also I wonder a little bit about, you know, if this goes back to even a case of the don't wants or being idle forever, right? Because like you're saying you've never taken a break and it sounds like early on you were, you know, taught like, hey, no gap years. Like gap years isn't something that people like us do. Vacation isn't something that people like us do, you know?

I do admit it took me a long time to be to me that the desire for vacation is not weakness. I can tell when I was talking to other people on a subconscious level, I would associate vacation and recreation as weakness. I don't know if that, maybe that comes from being a waiter where it's gig economy, and being a waiter is one of the very few jobs that I had access to when I was 18 years old that let me make money more of it proportional to my effort. You know, I found many jobs you're paid in the amount and usually you can get the work done and like, I don't know, half the time, but you're not really paid more to get it done

half the time. So you just kind of end up padding the work. Ultimately, your time is indirectly being perceived as like worthless because you're not being rewarded for being more efficient. You're just rewarded for, right? You know, typical stuff, right? So maybe being awaited for so long is kind of what reinforced to me, just like hustle mentality of just like, well, or really, I don't say hustle because that's not the right. That's a lot. It's like a loaded term these days here, but more like make the most of what you got, you know, never, yeah, never, never idle. Maximize your potential. Is that a better way I'd put it here. Yeah. So, Michael, let me ask you a couple questions.

Or actually, can I just share a couple of thoughts that I thought, you know, you've shared that are really interesting? Absolutely. So the first thing that I want to kind of say is that it sounds like you've really been on a journey for a while and that there were, you know, things that you can be proud of and areas that you really struggled. What I'm really hearing is from being, you know, a young kid who liked nerdy things before nerdy things were cool to, you know, the passion of Yu-Gio, which still traumatizes you to this. day. And we haven't opened the can of worms of why you don't like Yu-Gi-O-Now, which I heard you say,

you know, it's a completely different reason. And then, you know, becoming a speed runner, becoming a streamer, transitioning to full-time, always juggling so many balls. And I think what really is remarkable about hearing your story is the way that you capture moments of difficulty. So this overthinking pyramid of confusion, you know, can't afford a case of the don't wants, min-maxing plausibility, struggling to believe in yourself, struggling to find inner peace, perceiving, you know, you're not good in your own head. You feel guilty for wanting to take a break.

There's so much about what you've said, even some of the stuff in terms of romance, in terms of like, you know, wanting a companion, but being, growing up in frankly kind of a misogynistic environment where, like, you were afraid of being perceived. in a negative light, right? Because that's, when you were growing up, the people who said that were being disingenuous. But if you genuinely want a connection, like, how can you share that with someone without signaling to them, oh, I'm thirsty? And there's just so much stuff that you've kind of gone through, even feeling alone when you're kind of like successful. I mean, there's so much that you've gone through that I think people actually like a lot of people in our community

struggle with whether it's imposter syndrome whether it's burnout whether it's this unconquerable task issue of like there's some work that's very easy for me to do and it's just so hard for me to do other things what what would you share with people who have resonated with a piece of your story like how did you what would you what would you say to them or any advice that you have for them about if they're yeah well first I want to say You blow me away just now. When you tied the negative connotation of being thirsty or even seeking companionship with like tying it back to the misogynistic high school boys, I had never thought about that, actually. I had never thought here that maybe that's where my association bias came into play.

That's brilliant. I never even thought about that. Thank you for that. Yeah, of course. What advice would I give if people are resonating with what we're saying right now would be, again, I really do think here, I do believe that happiness is like being more self-aware. So like, perhaps like understanding what you're feeling will help you be able to figure out why you're feeling what you're feeling.

That's kind of a broad thing. I don't even mean stepping your toes there or whatnot. But I usually use that. So what that means is you got to reflect more often. You got to like, I have found the days to be much more manageable. So, okay, before here, it's like, I feel like I would wake up and I'm already like this high in quicksand or water. Like, it's like, it's 8 a.m. and I'm already about to like fall apart. I'm like, where do I even begin?

I'm walking around a house doing the pacing just like or like the football shake maneuver, whatever it's called here, the jukeying. And I'm just like, where I'm going to go. Like I need to be live in two hours. And I need to like, I need to like eat, gym, shower. Like, my day's already failed. My day's already failed. And I find that if you're going through that feeling of like what feels like damn near suffocation, you got to slow it down and you have to be able to reflect on and idealize here,

what is my ideal day? And like what do I, like, what is priority here? Because you're putting time somewhere, anywhere, everywhere. But there's definitely a priority of what's being, of what's allocating your time and whatnot. So how important is it to you to, like, figure out, like, what you want to get in control of? I find it once I started getting in control of my day, it got a lot, a lot better. Okay. So it sounds like being more aware, really sort of thinking about prioritization, organization.

Yeah, yeah. You know, and being able to reflect will mean that you acknowledge you maybe perhaps you have like, you're trying to shove 30 hours of stuff in a 24 hour day. And in theory, you can do this if you're operating at 140% nonstop here. But can you really sustain working at 140% for 18 hours straight of, or 16 hours straight at being awake here? Probably not. So you need to like, you know, and what happens in is like,

I did think that. And therefore, I always would attack myself, my own critiques of not being able to do the 140% workload daily, every day, all day, no breaks continuously. And then you enter a chain of self-loathing. And then I just feel like,

and then also combine that with like, you know, whatever metrics-driven workload you have here. So, you know, I'm seeing sub-count, view count, you know, whatever it is in our streamer space and whatnot that you look at. And it's like, it's all declining, and I feel like I'm failing. I'm failing, and I don't know how to stop failing. So I feel like I'm just, I feel like I'm just, I feel like I'm just, I'm, I feel like I'm, I'm, I feel

a problem before and it is now. I don't even know where to how to fix it. That sounds very relatable and also terrifying, this sort of sense that you start to fail, you can feel yourself failing, you can see yourself failing, you don't know how you got here. It feels like success is kind of far away. It feels like, you know, you get almost, let's, like the rug gets pulled out from under you.

And you're kind of spinning. And you don't know how to find stability in those moments. Good way to put it here. Yeah. You feel like you're not in control. Yeah, Michael, let me ask you. I've had a tickling question in the back of my mind. And we don't have to talk about this if it's uncomfortable for you.

But we've talked about the challenges you've had in relationships. I'm a little bit curious. You also hinted that you hadn't had a relationship at that point. How, I mean, have you managed? to kind of find healthy relationships, like romantic relationships over time? Yeah, I did. While the catfish and all that was the bad news,

I'm happy to report here that me and my wonderful girlfriend got together November of 2015, and we've been together since. Wow. Yeah, we've been together, me and Jessica, we've been together since like, I don't know, like seven years now onward. Yeah, she's great.

She's my rock. She's definitely, like, the best, biggest, positive change I've had since I can't even recall when my best friend and then some and all that. Can you, is it okay if I ask a couple questions about the relationship? Sure. Yeah. How did y'all get together? Well, that's actually kind of funny.

So what happened was I was playing Mari Maker one day. And actually, I want to say particularly it was a day that like I was frustrated with like maybe the catfish or whatever. I don't even know. I was really, really mad about something here. And I was particularly distant that day. while playing Mario Maker. And people can tell I was visibly distraught. I didn't feel like streaming this day,

but I felt like I had to kind of push through and do it anyway. This is like one of those days in November of 2015 where I was like, I was already gone for 10 days, but I came back because of overwhelming amount of guilt and just kind of like just bitter, right? It's like not my usual like charismatic self here, which by the way here, again,

it's really tough with streaming because like, you know, I feel like for me and you, when we go live, it's like the whole, the bottom 50% of emotions, or it's not an option. You need to like get there, you know? If me and you were like a line cook, you know, your emotional status on being a cook wouldn't affect the food output, right? You don't have to interact with anyone other than your fellow line mates and your head chef or whatever here. But with streaming, it's like if I come here like pre-tilted, pre-salted, pre-aggravated, pre-annoyed, pre-annoyed.

The fuse is a lot smaller there, so I may end up becoming more argumentive or defensive or, you know how this whole thing here works, right? So, yeah, clearly, I was not in the best date here. And she saw that I was upset and she donated. using her tag, Black Antivinem. But I didn't know how to read it because it wasn't capitalized correctly or whatever. So I saw a Black Ant, Black Antevitin being a Spider-Man reference.

That was actually pretty cool. But I saw that it was Black Ant donating and I thought it was like some, I remember reacting saying here that it was a, okay, because they were saying something that's kind of affectionate or whatever. And I was like, okay, thank you, you basement dwelling neck beard.

I don't care, whatever. I actually snapped at the donation, honestly, which is pretty, pretty rude of me, I will admit. Now my proudest moment here, but then my chat they searched, as I said Black Ants, so I didn't even give any thought here, what the whole name was her was, they searched her name,

saw she had an Instagram, saw she had a Twitch on her Instagram, so she actually Twitch streamed, and they were like, and my Discord was like, yo, yo, yo, she's real, bro, and she's cute, too, you got to check her out, bro. So I, like, you know, I panicked here because they were all, like, berating her and telling her, you know, that that's not usually trihacks, he doesn't usually do that kind of thing, he's sorry about that,

They were apologizing for me, which I didn't even know they were even doing. So then I felt like I had to then like, you know, reach out to her and tell her, I'm sorry if my community has been like berating you or whatever. And then, and then from there we started talking. The ice was already broken, you know, the hardest part, the part where actually I initiate the whole like, I think you're, I think you're cute. Maybe we should hang out sometimes something like that. That already happened because Twitch broke that all for me. Let me understand this properly, Michael.

So this relationship, the rock of your life, that you. you've been in for seven years, started off by you calling your girlfriend of seven years a neckbeard, a basement dwelling neck beard. Yes. And then, just to be clear, you use the word berate, but it sounds like actually your Twitch community went to bat for you and did damage control with her. They did, but I didn't know at the time here. I just didn't know, they were like, I didn't know if they were mass harassing her or what?

I didn't know. I didn't know exactly what was going on there. So just to be clear, okay? And maybe I'm simplifying things, but you called your girlfriend the neckbeard, and then Twitch went and did damage control. And y'all have been seven. This is the largest contribution I've ever heard of. Honestly, that's not an exaggeration from Twitch chat. Yeah.

No, they did research, found out she's a real person and said, hey, dumbass. Stop treating her this way. She's legit. Yeah, they did. And then we're also like, hey, he's not usually like this. our bro a chance. It is true because I, now, I didn't tell them I had got double catfished at the time here. Yeah, of course.

Right. But I just like, I'm like, okay, yeah, you're being affectionate or whatever here maybe. I don't, I don't know. I didn't, I didn't believe. I had lost play in humanity. I was so bitter at that point. I was on some like Toby McGuire, Spider-Man three vibes. I was just like, you know, edge.

I was edgy at that point. I was like, bro, I'm so overhumanity at this point. That's got to be the best how we met story I've, I've ever heard. Yeah, actually, I want to say it's a highlight. I got it. You know how high as I never deleted on Twitch? I think it's like buried in there somewhere. I have to find it for y'all one day.

But yeah, it's, it's somewhere in there, yeah. But yeah, we've been, yeah, we've been together ever since. We did, we did long distance for about nine months. And then she wanted to move down to Louisiana. She liked what she saw. And we've been together. Damn right. She did.

Yeah, yeah. Dude, I'm, I am a, I'm a charismatic playboy. I went all out, man. I was like, I had, when she would come, it was like, when we were long distance, she'd come for like, she'd get three days off of work. She would have like 72 hours or whatever for she had to go fly back Sunday evening. I had everything planned out. And I was like, yeah, we're going to go to this park.

We're going to go do this thing. We're going to go. I want to show you this restaurant here. Like I was just like, it's like 10 years of romantic angst all like jam packed into nine months of long distance. Like I was just like, I want to show you the world. Like I'm a lad and you're Jasmine. This is my carpet.

I want to like, I've never had someone to like just like share your love. Care my world with. Yeah. Share my world with. Yeah, that sounds beautiful, dude. Thank you. Yeah. And I've learned a lot, too.

I've gone through a lot of things, you know, having to like really balance trihex and then Michael, the boyfriend. That's been like another task as well. That's been a whole other beast. I've had, I realized I did something pretty remarkable because once people found out that like me and me and Jessica got together and we were long distance for a one. while, I had others who were doing, you were like, hey, I got someone here. I'm, I've, I've been thinking about entering LDR. I see that you and, you and her made it work. Y'all successfully united together in person. How'd you do it? So I've had people actually, you know, reach out for, an effort of advice on, on how do you crack the, what's the secret sauce? What's the weapon X? How'd

you do it? And, which it made me feel pretty, pretty, means that what I did was pretty remarkable, actually, because I feel like a lot of LDR can just, like, linger in the perpetual bit of crap, whether it be insecurities or not being transparent enough here and all that stuff there, which I don't want to, I don't know if you want to de-runs that now, but just like, yeah. Yeah, I mean, can you give me like a five-minute rundown of what you think was very helpful in your LDR and sort of helping it survive long enough to make it no longer long distance? Sure. So I told her in the very beginning here, I'm like, hey, look, I feel like our main objective,

shit, let me an main objective here. Our main idea sounds like game, game lingo. Sure. Our main objective needs to be conquering distance. Like if we are serious here, then we need to establish trust in the very beginning, unaccountable transparency, and that any insecurity you feel about me, feel free to hit me up about it. I feel no animosity or shame if you feel the need to bring something up here right now

because I feel like an LDR, what will happen here is like your smallest insecurity about something will feed and erode our trust. And I feel like the strongest things we have right now in our, and the pillars of our, the pillars of our foundation are going to be communication and trust. So, hit me up with anything you got here.

Whatever, whatever you want to know, whatever you need to know, I'm, I'm more than willing to get that to use. Above everything, I want this to work.

I don't want any, and at the time here, I was taking here, you know, because I'm a streamer, a prolific streamer, and she's her. Maybe it would be like,

you know, it would be like, haters who are coming in and going to throw everything they can at her about me that maybe I've said out of context in the past here

or something like that. I don't know. I didn't even know what I was getting into, honestly. I didn't know what the, you know, it's like, it's like, it's like having known unknowns, like I know what I don't know versus unknown unknowns. Yeah. I don't know what I don't know. And this was like a crap ton of unknown unknown.

So I was just like, hit me up here. So we, we did that. We established at the very beginning or early on. And our goal was to conquer distance, you know, figure out here, am I moving to where you are, you moving to where I am or what are we going to do? It was like, you know, what's our students point we're going to do this here? I feel like we need to see each other more often because I don't know if I can do this whole, like, I don't know if I can do this whole thing here. We just linger for like six months at a time.

So like, you know, maybe can we can we see each other once every six weeks? Is that manageable if you're boss and whatnot? And we try to figure out, you know, when that was. I mean, we were constantly communicating on the next step. Everything was methodical and planned. And when it came down to it, the one, people can debatively hear say that, you know, moving in from LDR after nine months is kind of fast. but we had prepared continuously the whole time through and it was my top priority.

I'd say much more than streaming. For the first time ever, actually, this was like a way bigger to me than streaming was. So I was, you know, I would pretty much stream and do like a little six-hour stream, you know, not the tri-hex tier, eight-hour stream. And then I'd be on the phone with her like four hours after. Like I could not wait to talk to her honestly.

You know, I was like, okay, stream's done. I'm gone, all right, you know, hey, babe, what's up, babe? So, but what the catalyst was that, you know, her lease was going to renew on her apartment. And I felt like I, and it was like, you know, either another nine months onward of more LDR or drop the lease and we make the move happen now. So I was like, what do you want to do? And she was like, let's do it. Now, on that note, I chose deliberately to fly to her and then rent a van and then drive it back down.

That way the transition from her state to Louisiana was like more gradual. I felt like her flying here would have been like a really abrupt thing. And I wanted to make a memory out of the transition. So even though it was actually more expensive, I chose to drive back with her and make it more of a memory. Yeah, I mean, I'm noticing Michael a couple things. The first is that it sounds like you all have both been quite thoughtful and intentional about how you manage this relationship. The second thing that I notice, and it's kind of bizarre because I've seen this time and time and time again that oftentimes the healthiest relationships that I've encountered over the course of my career, my life, are usually, like, pretty idiotic in some way.

I mean, honestly, like, because, like, I'm not, it's not a judgment. It's just, like, the best relationships usually have something that honestly would be, like, okay, moving straight from a long-distance relationship to moving in after nine months, seems fast, right? A lot of people would say, like, oh, that's actually, like, a relationship mistake. That's, you know, and there's something, honestly, there's something stupid about love, like, in a good way. You are not wrong.

The logic center is like, I think I'm a pretty logical person. I was the honeymoon phase. I was like on another world. Yeah. I couldn't even explain it as crazy. And I've seen that. I mean, I certainly know in my relationship, for example, like, you know, my person who's now my wife should have really should have dumped me like for a couple years.

Like, because I wasn't doing nothing. You know, I was like kind of complete just not going anywhere or doing anything. and she just, she really, and she was crushing it in life. And she really should have traded up, you know, IMO. But, and so, you know, we have, we've had our fair share of idiocy in our relationship, too. But I kind of see that. And I think it's like, yeah. So thank you so much for sharing.

Absolutely. Any questions for me before we sort of think about wrapping up? Questions for you? I guess here's let me think here the one I could think of here maybe you could have helped me understand here is like I think I'm coming the terms now with like what I'm calling here streamer guilt

have you ever found an easier way to like balance that like I usually find when if I feel guilty about like I'm not doing enough for my case like okay the thing here is I always feel like I'm not worthy of the community I have. I have a bunch of loving people who have been around. Some of them, you know, 100 month plus subs and it's kind of insane. It's kind of like daunting. Even think here that you've been around. Like the amount of roller coast I've been through with like just like not figuring out myself and whatnot. And they've been around for a 100 plus month. It's like insane to me. How do you ever come to terms of like, you know, I, I've, I'm not. I don't know, I'm not.

You're fulfilled with how you're performing as a streamer. Does that make, does that look at this question? Yeah. Yeah. So, so let me just, uh, unpack that a little bit. So you mentioned streamer guilt. Can you tell me a little bit about that? I feel I feel like I've never made like the peak form content that my community deserves. I feel like it's like a, if they're thirsty, I've never quenched their thirst in terms of like, maybe I maybe I have to them, but I haven't to me. Okay. So I feel I feel guilty about that, especially when I take off like days and stuff to like, I still feel, guilty about taking days off. And what...

I'm trying to currently adhere to like a... Some kind of like, you know, five days on, two days off per week kind of thing. Just so I can have a better work-life balance. I've seen here what that does my mental if I don't do that. But I still feel guilty. And what do you do with that guilt? I... Good question.

I don't internalize it. I mean, do you, like, distract yourself? Do you like, do you think it's legitimate? do you try to process it? Do you talk it through with your girlfriend? Like, where does it go? Yeah. Sometimes I'll talk with my girlfriend about when we go walk our dog daily.

And it will like usually, I don't know. That's a good question. Actually, I need to think that one more honestly. I just know that I feel, I know that once I got subscriber, right? Once I got like a, once I have like a paying patronage that happened here, everything changed. Like July 2013 is when I got a partner. And like, it was at that point here that I never.

ever, like taking a day off, previously before the subscribers existed, it felt I can make taking a day off be constructive. Whereas now I feel like taking days off is usually it feels more destructive. I always feel like I should be doing more or something. Like I have to like learn to enjoy the downtime and being idle and not like always need to do more here. Because I feel like all my competition is always live and they're always doing something here. They're always outdoing me. Yeah. Then again, maybe also I also work.

out so maybe it's a whole different thing because I feel like I need more recovery and whatnot. I don't know. It's hard to say. Okay. Like how do you come with peace of just like not like, how do you come with peace on not always being on, I guess, maybe? Great. So I'm so my answer for you, Michael, is going to be a little bit different. Oddly enough, I feel like I do have an answer. So take that with a grain of salt, right?

But here's what I see in you. So the first thing is that I'm going to take a slightly more spiritual perspective, if that's okay, as opposed to psychological. Sure. So, Michael, you've got a voice in you that calls you to do more, do better. Okay? Okay. I think if you want to do right by your community, that's a good thing. I think what could be going on, sometimes what happens is when we have a spiritual voice within us,

our psychological hang-ups or complexes will hijack and twist what is a good intention into a negative result. So what I think is going on here is if you have gratitude, for example, and you want to make content for your community, and that's what drives you to be a streamer, that's actually a healthy thing. And for you to say, you know, for there to be a part of you to say, I haven't done what I set out to do, I have not done what I'm on this earth to do, that's actually like, I think that's a healthy voice. So some people may say like, oh, you know, like kind of get rid of the guilt, like acknowledge, be grateful, like, you know, this is all. But I think actually what's kind of going on here is I'm noticing a parallel between. you know, Michael and Trihacks and becoming number one in the world, setting a standard for yourself

that until you reach that standard, you're not going to be satisfied. And so there's something going on here where I think what's actually happening is there's a genuine desire to create content and do right by your community, which I actually think you should lean into. I think that's what's going to actually make you the best content creator. The challenge is going to be that for some reason, you're not letting yourself be patient in that accomplishment. Yeah, yeah. Right? So this is the kind of thing we're doing right by your community is not something that you need to do in six months.

It's not something you need to do in nine months or 12 months. This is like, I mean, you've been, you're a boomer, streamer, let's say. But like you're not done, right? Like content creation is going to continue this community. People have been subbing for 100 months. There's going to be 100 more. especially I think you're sort of like an old soul and you can kind of offer a lot of guidance to people in this community, even sharing your stories of your like your romantic relationship and things like that. The reason that we have these kinds of conversations is because I can guarantee you that even today there's a black kid who's in a small rural town who's playing, you know, like whatever kids play nowadays.

And they're terrified that girls are not going to like them because of, you know, the way that their hair is. and there's no, like, barber that knows how to handle their hair, so they just get crappy haircuts. I recently saw a study that actually, like, a remarkable number of African or African-American children face bullying and discrimination specifically due to their hair, like more than 50%. And we as a society actually don't know how to, like, handle, like, most places that will cut hair don't know actually how to handle hair from particular ethnicities. And there's like psychological studies that have been done on this. And so this is the kind of thing where I encourage you to do right by your community, but also be a little bit careful about, I think what's getting in the way is your ego that recognize that you doing right by your community doesn't have to do with you.

It's not actually about you. It's really about service, right? So this is where like I'd encourage you to like take a step back and sort of acknowledge that this is a, this is a main quest. It's a long-term quest. And that this is like a long haul that you don't have to fix everything right now. And think a little bit about the part of you that is fundamentally unsatisfied. Because I'm hearing a theme throughout your life that you've been unsatisfied with your performance at times.

There's always been guilt. There's always been burnout. There's always been like, you know, I can't take a break. There's all kinds of things about a case of the don't wants and being idle forever, which I think like insert themselves into your thinking even to this day. Yeah, maybe. So this is the kind of thing where I would really encourage you to not to try to do right by your community, but oddly enough acknowledge that you may never be able to and that that's actually okay.

Because I think it's that last part that, you know, you can, like, I don't know if this kind of makes sense, but even when we talk about you grun. grinding away at Yoshi's Island at the age of like 16 or whatever, you know, recording things on VHS. That was about you giving it your all. The flow state really isn't about accomplishing. It's really about being fully present in the moment and giving it your all. And I think the more that you can acknowledge that what your community deserves from you is not a particular outcome, but that you offer them what you can. Right. TriHex with all of his growth, all of his XP, and all of his flaws can't necessarily fix your community.

But what you owe them, these people who are actually a little bit responsible for the relationship that you're in now, right, that you should try to give back as service. And I think the more that you can, because this is the key thing is stepping away from our ego, which is what gives us guilt, because this is kind of where, I know what I'm saying is sort of abstract, so let me try to explain. you can't be guilty unless you have a sense of self, right? If I say, oh, I'll look, like, let's say, like, let's take this conversation. So I feel guilty in this conversation because I haven't helped you enough.

But that, I can't feel guilty for that unless I have an expectation of how much I should be able to help you. I see. And that comes from my identity that I'm Dr. Kay and I should be able to help. Oh my God, I didn't live up to what Dr. Kay is capable of. and then I feel guilty. Whereas the, you know, so the way that I kind of handle that is to show up and acknowledge that actually, Dr. K ain't shit. Right. Like, I actually have no idea if I can help you or not help you.

All I know is that I'm going to show up and I'm going to give whatever I have to offer. And for some people, it may be enough and for other people it won't be enough. And in the same way, are you on this earth to support this community that has given you so much 100%. So you're going to give them what you have to offer. Is it going to be enough? Is it not going to be enough? Is trihacks enough? Is Michael enough?

Like, it's not your place to give them enough. It's only your place to give them what you have. I see. How does that sound to you? You nailed it. When you said, second to last point, you said right there about the, about like, I have to win. I have to give it.

I have to accomplish the thing here. It was kind of like what resigning with me was like a, is it a fault of the effort or is it a fault of the pre-calibrated expectation or even the entitlement of what, you know, I need to get to this point, even if it asks for 140% effort. Yeah. So I think if we look at it psychologically, there's actually research that shows it's a pre-calibrated expectation. So if you actually look at the science of entering the flow state, which leads to optimal performance, stepping away from expectation is one of the key prerequisites of entering the flow state.

Wow. Okay. That's a, I got homework to do then. I didn't even know that. Yeah. So it's really interesting. And I think those expectations in turn have to do with ego, right? Because how do you set expectations? They have to do with, okay, what is trihex capable of? And, and, you know, you're bringing up a really good point because, uh, this is the, the, the bad thing is that I've definitely stigmatized emotions a ton. I've, I remember saying myself a ton at the worst of my pit of shit that has been how salty and tilted I've gotten has been, why must I get salty and annoyed? Why can't I be the emotionless robot and just play perfect and just, why can I just grind practice, gain XP and just be perfect in six months. Why must, why must these emotions hold me down from being able to just grind and get the,

and get the results? I dreaded the process. So, try, hex. Let me just like, let's understand that. So what are you doing in that moment? You're moving away from the person that you are, because emotions are a part of you, and you're human, right? And you're beating yourself up for being a human and not living up to the expectation of what you have in your mind. Yeah. You have this idea of trihex, and then here's Michael. And it goes back to, like, my first question, what do you go by? I actually thought about that earlier.

I was like, wait, when he asked the tag thing, I couldn't even answer that one. Like, like, I couldn't even give you an ugly answer. I had to give you the, or I couldn't give you a pretty answer. How to give the ugly truth? I'm like, yeah, complicated. So I think at the end of the day, you are, you're not. try hex, you're Michael. Right? Like, you are this person who's flawed, who has negative emotions, who has guilt, who can sometimes only do one hour of work in nine hours. And the truth of it is,

that's okay. Your guilt actually comes from not what you owe them, but what you expect from yourself, right? You're letting yourself down because you're not living up to that expectation. I'm not hearing your community complaining. No, they're their homies. Right? Yeah, they're, they, they, and so this is all coming from you and coming from what you expect from yourself. And this is where I'm not saying don't give everything you've got. And this is a medicine, frankly, like, I mean, this is a lesson I frankly learned in medicine,

not in India when I was like studying to become a month. But like, what you realize is a doctor is that you can't save a life. You can try. You know, but like, you can try. Yeah. you can you can try but you can't uh yeah it's all you can but what more can you do right you can't wait for beyond your own so beyond your own willpower i can give it a hundred percent and the more that i get caught up and oh my god i'm a brilliant doctor and i should be able to do more that actually

doesn't help the patient that's all about your ego right does that make sense i should be able to help this person more it's like i'm not even thinking about them i'm thinking about my own shortcomings i think about like a veterinarian and if if the if the critter dies on their watch and how they can't get over that they didn't they didn't win win every single time right sometimes it's just going to be like that and so the more that you acknowledge your own humanness the more that you acknowledge that you set an impossible standard for yourself and i think that too in terms of your identity like a couple of other things to think about is that that standard that you set is also born out of your insecurity and that's kind of weird but you you were who you

were and as people started, I don't know how to say this, but like, as they started treating you as less, you create an ego that compensates. So you have to be the best because what you were wasn't good enough. Yeah, compensating. Right? And whereas like, like, just imagine how your life would be different if people were like, you know, oh, it's like totally fine that you're playing Yu-Gi-O. If at the library, there was like a cute girl who also played Yu-Gio. If people had accepted you early on, you would have nothing to prove. That desire to prove comes out of the insecurity. Yeah, yeah.

That makes a lot of sense to me, actually. And so the more that you feel guilty is because you haven't proven what you have to prove. You want to prove to yourself that the community deserves you. So you're going to do right by them. You're going to save the world. But that's all borne out of the insecurity that, you know, you don't deserve them. Yeah, that's what I've been working towards now. You're nailing it all.

I agree. I don't disagree with anything you're saying right now. I've been trying to be proactive on it now rather than reactive. And so I have made a pivot to really doing content that I find fulfilling. So I've been wanting to work on some really abstract stuff, some like true Blue Ocean ideas here, rather than just like being the super gamer and just playing the game of the week or whatever game of the month. I'm like, okay, well, what, what are people going to remember a year from now or five years from now? And I thought here, I wanted to make a fitness guide for gamers.

You know, take the thing I enjoy with fitness and healthy and being, and being a huge advocate for it for both lifestyle options and choices. And also, like, you know, well, I've never heard any gamers who are anti-fitness. A lot of them are intrigued by it here. So I want to, I want to, like, pioneer that connection. And that has me, and I'm excited. And like for the first time and a long time, not the K, I'm actually like, this is an idea that I'm obsessed with and I keep working at it. I'm chipping away at this like master Google.com working on to get to like version one alpha release. And like, but yeah, not to think about that.

More just about, you know, that, yeah, the point is actually like I've been working on what really makes me fulfilled so I can stop feeling this guilt, actually. And I feel like, you know, that's like the whole thing. You know, I've had people tell me, you know, I've lost 60 pounds because of something you said three years ago. that really clicked with me on the mental and the accountability and discipline for like fitness and all that. And I finally get it now. And I'm like, maybe there's something here actually. Yeah. So I'm getting on the better path with that.

And I really do appreciate everything you said because you're, it's crazy. I, ego and insecurities and compensation and the man being the, the, the aftermath of what the child goes through and away here. Yeah. A lot of my teenagehood really is shaping up who I became as an adult. And I think it's important to acknowledge that a lot of your adaptations to that have been responsible for your success. So the mind does this because it does help, right? But at the same time, I think like at some point, the adaptations that we make to our insecurity, like wanting to prove yourself actually leads to you grinding and actually skilling up, right? So there are advantages to that, which is why it's so common for people to do that.

But at your level, Michael, and usually what we have to do is we have to adapt to some kind of insecurity, that adaptation is going to help us for some amount of time, and then we actually have to grow past it. And what I'm really hearing is that, you know, and this is the tricky thing that you're going to have to face is you're going to have a crisis. Maybe you've already done this. You're going to have a crisis of confidence when you have a choice between doing the work that's important and doing the work that makes you successful. And then what's... Wait, wait. versus successful? Yeah.

So what I mean by that is that, and maybe you've already gone through this, is at some point, this happens with a lot of creators, which is what they realize is that, like, if you make a guide to fitness, how is that going to affect your viewership? Right?

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So oftentimes what a lot of creators will have to do is, like, really struggle with that. And it's my experience, actually, that ultimately choosing what's important is the right move. Because over time,

that will actually have more impact I can't say that it'll get you more subs. But when I really think about, you know, if something catastrophic were to happen and you never streamed again, what people are going to remember or the effects that you're going to have is that person who lost 60 pounds and now has the confidence to form a relationship, gets into a healthy relationship. One day has children and then can help those children understand crises of confidence. And the ripple effects from what you do that you will never see as a streamer because it's not. quantifiable in subs and donations and view count and concurrent viewers and stuff like that.

That's the real challenge of devoting yourself to a real important ideal. And so I'd say lean into it and recognize that the part of you that's obsessed with numbers may have a rough patch. But that's where I would also encourage you to use your streamer brain, use this person who's grinded, use this person who sort of knows how to play the game and make that important leverage at all towards your important work. So play the game, but play it for a noble cause. I agree.

That is a, that's, that's what I've been wanting to do is exactly that. I've been wanting to focus on being fulfilling and not being the metric, obsessed meta-chaser. Yeah. And rather be the meta trailblazer, you know? Yeah. Like, even in your regard, I think even healthy gamer entirely, if I can flower you for second here, I think this is like amazing.

Honestly, a lot of your loving community approached me unprovoked, saying that I'd be a great candidate here, and I actually declined it. Or I didn't entertain the idea. I was in a, I was so insecure about even showing any of this here. Like literally last year, that I was like, no, I would never do that, dude. Not, it seems, it's daunting. It's exhausting. I could never actually. And yeah, I'm honestly happy to hear you say that, Michael, because I don't want anyone to

to ever feel pressure to come on here. I know that sometimes that happens and that's the way that, you know, the community is and stuff like that. But I think like, once again, patience, right? So things are going to happen when they're ready to happen. And most importantly, be patient. If you're, if you have that guilty kind of thought, oh, I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. What I'd love for you to do it in that moment is a small cognitive reframe, which is like, okay, my guilt is coming from a genuine place, which I want to support. And why is it that I expect perfection from myself at this point. Why can't I be a little bit more patient with myself?

And really kind of raise awareness of that. I'm going to, actually, I'm going to write that one down. That's, I have to consider that patient with myself. That's a really good one. Wow. Why am I not? Why do I feel entitled to instantaneous gratification success? I don't think it's even gratification success.

It's instantaneous service, right? Okay. Right. So why can't you be good enough for these people that you care about? And that's okay. And, you know, things happen in their time. You know, struggled with relationships, got catfished a couple times, and now you've got your, you know, long-term, healthy relationship. If you weren't ready to come on stream last year, totally fine.

And I think the person that you've brought here today also shares a perspective that's very, very helpful for our community. I think oftentimes we sort of talk to people when they're really struggling, and it's just as important to see people who have gone through it because that gives hope. Yeah, I completely agree with that one there. I love the idea that, you know, we're normalizing that you're not alone and that, you know, everyone has our own struggles and how you arrive with them is all, you know, conditional and loaded in variables here. but normalizing that it's okay to not be okay is, you know, in a way, you're not also like getting compounded by self-loathing while also failing, which is what I was doing. Like when I tell you the pit of shit was bad where every day I'd wake up and I feel like I'm already in the quicksand and I'm panicking and just, again, it turns to self-loathing really,

really bad. And that cycle is almost addictive. It's like a poison almost here. Oh, yeah. So, Michael, let me ask you one last question. So sometimes when people come on, we'll do a a brief meditation at the end of the interview? Are you open to doing something like that? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not a pro, but I like to go for walks. I like to like actually, I find my best.

I've tried conventional and never had enough guidance to really make it work here. But I have found that when I physically am away from my office, and that's when I can do my best reflection, when I'm furthest from the commitment of streaming. So let's give it a shot. Let me ask you a question. Is it okay that you're not a pro? Oh, that's a good question.

Close your eyes. Close your eyes. I'm going to ask you the question again. I want you to pay attention. Is it okay that you're not a pro? Logically, yes, it's okay. I'm not a pro. What are you feeling?

The need to perform well right now. Where is that in your body? The need? Mm-hmm. Ooh. In my head. head. Okay. What are you feeling? Tell me. You feel like a pressure above my head right now. Just like I can, I feel like I'm, I can

see and feel the eyeballs looking at me right now. Okay. I want you to, on how to, on how to meditate or even how to be in the moment right now. Straighten your neck and your spine. Good. Roll your shoulders. Just notice that pressure. also take a moment to notice the absurdity that obviously you're not a proet meditation and yet I ask you is that okay and you're so impatient with yourself I should have been an expert in meditation already

you don't give yourself a moment of like you don't give yourself any slack and now I want you to pay attention to the part of you that doesn't give yourself a break can you find it Mm-hmm. I see it. Tell me about it. Overworked, overutilized, underrested, strained, drained.

Right. So it's, so feel all of, I want you know, feel all of those statements in your body. Like, like, what does it feel to be overworked, overstrained? You really want to know? Yeah. It feels like SpongeBob in the episode where he's at Sandy's house and he's dehydrated beyond, reason. It's like a totally dehydrated sponge with absolutely no moisture. So feel that. It's like I want, it's like I want to sweat because I'm, I'm so drained, but I'm incapable of sweating because I'm so dehydrated. So now what I want you to do is give yourself a drink. Take a deep

breath. Feel it in your abdomen, your chest. Deep breath in. Expand, pull in air, pull in life. Hold it, hold it, and out. Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. I want you to imagine, breathe in again. Feel the air filling your abdomen, your chest, even your shoulders. It's permeating you with hydration. Hold it and out. Slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow.

One more time. Slow, deep breath. Start with the abdomen move to the chest and up the shoulders. Feel the hydration, the life flow into you. invigorating each cell in your body. You're going to feel that tingling, that movement. That's life and out. Now you can resume normal breathing,

but I want you to listen to my words. In this moment, notice the part of you that is relentless, underrested, always wanting more. I want you to be an expert in meditation before you even try. Be patient. acknowledge that that part of you exists for a reason. It's not a bad part, but that in its quest for perfection,

you're the one that pays the price. I'm going to leave you with one simple concept. It's the concept of two arrows. This is a concept from kind of Buddhist thinking that sometimes life shoots an arrow at us and we take it in the knee. We can't control that. but oftentimes what we do is shoot an arrow at ourselves for getting hit by the first one.

It's not just the mistake. It's the self-loathing afterward. You can't control the pain from the first arrow, but then it's the way that we beat ourselves up, the way that you don't forgive yourself. And the more that you engage in that self-loathing, the more that you're not patient with yourself, the more that you don't forgive yourself, that's what's really squeezing the water out of you. So when you feel that way next,

take a moment to close your eyes, spine straight, head straight, neck straight, and breathe in vitality. Acknowledge that there's a part of you that judges yourself. And also acknowledge that you don't have to give into it. That that place is coming from a desperation to prove that you're good enough. I'm not a pro at it.

I need to be a pro-edit. No, you don't. You're perfect exactly. Just notice what you feel in this moment. What's wrong with you? Nothing. You exist. Feel the breath, enter your body.

Fill you up. Feel the strength in the vitality of your form. Feel this body that you've created through hours of effort. This mind that you've honed and refined through years of strategic practice and introspection. Be proud of the life that you've made. Acknowledge that you've got a way to go. But you have a good amount of time to do it. Now put your hands together in Namaste position palms together.

If you know, we're okay with that from a kind of a religious standpoint, it's not really religious. And I want you to rub your palms together. Rub them together. Create friction, heat. A lot of heat, a lot of friction. Cup them over your eyes. Cup them over your eyes. Good. take a deep breath in as you exhale slowly open your eyes and then with one more breath let your hands come down and relax i'm a little bit watery wow that was a that was a journey um that was thank you for that that was i what i can say about that having having done that uh well one i don't know why i'm I don't even know why I'm teary-eyed right now, Jesus.

Time perception. I couldn't tell you if that was five minutes or three minutes or two minutes. Time was abstract there for a little bit. I was really in that. Your voice, I was just going, and I'm just like, okay, I'm going. Good. That was amazing. Thank you.

I'm happy to hear that it was a positive experience for you. I think it's interesting. I don't recommend that people go back and watch the VOD immediately after an interview, but I think anyone who had their eyes open, you can see it in your face, Michael. You could see it. It's interesting. You know what?

You were smiling the whole time. Yeah, I didn't even know. I don't know what expression I was making. I don't even know where I was, like, normally you're like, eyelids are closed and I'm like looking through the aisle. I don't even know what I was doing or what I was looking at. Perfect. So this is...

Nothing. So I don't know how to say this, but stepping outside of time is the best way to learn patience. Stepping outside time, which meditation can help do. Right. So that was your experience. So this is a good meditation for you. So let me give you a couple of instructions. So if you want to do this every day, you can.

But when you're feeling impatient with yourself, when you're feeling the self-loathing, it's not just the mistake that you make. it's the way you beat yourself up. Because in those moments is when you feel the most rung out, right? That's why you couldn't do it in the first place. And the more you expect of yourself, you're squeezing, squeezing, do more, do better, do more, do better. There's not enough time. You should have done it yesterday.

Your mind is going to do that. Take a step back. Necks straight, back straight. Breathe in vitality. Start in the abdomen, move to the lungs, up to the shoulders. You're going to feel the physical sensations. hold the breath and then let it go slowly. Step outside of time for a while.

Sit fully with existence. No deadlines. No time. Exist outside of time. And then slowly as you practice that, you'll learn patience. You can do it five to 15 minutes a day. You can also incorporate other kinds of meditation techniques. You know, you can check out, we've got like YouTube videos and stuff about other meditations.

I would also recommend if you want an introductory practice something called alternate nostril breathing or Nadi Shuddi Pranayam. So you can just Google it. I'll DM you the name of the meditation. Thank you. I almost had alternate nostril breathing? Yep. Yeah.

So that can sort of help you kind of develop a formal practice. And I would say do somewhere between five and 15 minutes a day if you can. You can start every other day a week. And to get clinical benefits of meditation in terms of anxiety and stuff like that, all the studies basically suggest 20 minutes of practice at a minimum of every other day is usually sufficient for some kind of clinical benefit. Okay. Okay.

Great. Thank you. You're very welcome. Yeah. I will say it is reinforcing. The very little I know about meditation I've heard here is that, like, you know, I will admit here I'm guilty of this. Maybe as recently as like last year had you said, you know, I think this,

would benefit you, I'd say, I don't have time. I have too many things to do. I don't have time. I'm drowning in debt over like the backlog of tasks I got to take care of here. I don't have time. And I heard someone, I forget where I say that like, hey, if anyone ever tells you you don't have time, assign them double the amount of time actually. Yeah, that's more than you. Yeah, right. That's, I think the, that quote comes from, I think, the Dalai Lama. I could be misattributing it. but someone, he said, everyone should meditate for a half an hour a day. And if they don't have the time, they should meditate for an hour. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's, I love it. And so, Michael, the last thing I'll kind of leave with you, thank you so much for sharing that, because you said a year ago you would have rejected that. So that's why this conversation didn't happen a year ago. Things happen in their own time when things are ready for it, right? And if, I'm just thinking about I'll kind of leave this. This may be like overly interpretive, but. If Yu-Gi-Oh hadn't released that patch or whatever that set of cards,

you would have never been a speed runner. This is true. This is very... Right? Yeah, I would have definitely... It took a lot of me... I love Yu-Gi-O. I love Yu-Gi-O at its peak and its peak form and what it could have been.

It took a lot for me to feel heartbreaking and actually, like, leave the scene and really, like, move on to something else. So things happen in their own time, so be patient with yourself. because we wouldn't be having if Yu-Gi-o, if they'd never, if they had balanced things better or whatever, like we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. So. And that is true. Wow. Good luck to you, my friend. Thank you so much. And again, I'm a huge fan. I think we do is amazing. I could I could fan girl all day right now. I actually did a, I have consumed a couple episodes of your of your stuff, particularly.

your community was very, they're very, very righteous. I'll just, I'll keep it at that. They, they are, they're, they're best. You have an amazing, wholesome family and community. Yeah, we're, we're, nothing to the best. We're very grateful for it and really appreciate, you know, we really appreciate the community. Right on. So, thank you very much.

Awesome. All right, take your buddy. You're a beast. Thank you. All right. Have a good, buddy. Take care. All right.

Bye. Okay. So, slipped into meditation. We had to catch it before TriHex got distracted. So, wrong way. Okay, let's go this way. Yeah, so I think a couple of things just to remember. So I really appreciated that interview.

First of all, because TriX is so passionate. And I want you all to really take away that if we listen to his story, there were a lot of dark periods of his life, right? Super dark periods. Whether it's being called White Mike, whether it's a young black kid growing up in rural Louisiana, loving Yu-Gi-O, whether it's the people over in, was it Konami that makes Yu-Gio? You know, releasing, like, there's just so much, so much to be in despair. about, right? This game that you love. Like, honestly, like, okay, two favorite parts of the interview, I got to say, I mean, I know

that we sort of helped out and talked about stuff and maybe educated people towards the end, but two favorite parts of the interview, watching him unleash his rant about balance and meta-changes in Yu-Gi-o from, what was it, like 21 years ago or something absurd? That was awesome. And then secondly, discovering that the reason he's in his rock of a relationship is because, first of all, he called his future girlfriend a basement dwelling neck beard. And then Twitch hat, like, legit came to the rescue in his community, went to bat for him. Like, you can't make this stuff up. That was epic.

And, like, if y'all are despairing, I think, take. solace and inspiration that that trihex made it and even if we're sort of thinking oh my god I'm gonna be alone forever like I mean if Twitch hat can do it for trihacks they could you could do it for yourselves so don't give up hope be patient with yourselves you know I think he's grown so much and it's amazing he's like the dude is an inspiration right and it sounds like he's trying to do y'all a solid by putting together this workout doc or whatever like that sounds really cool you know, and I think it's like we're sort of seeing this. Even at the beginning, I didn't, you know, I didn't think about that, but we were talking

today about Camp Canutt and how like Connott is helping Asman Gold and Bisgift like put their lives together and get in shape and feel good about themselves. And so like this community, this world, this internet kind of thing that can lead to addiction and despair and toxicity and all these kinds of things can also lead to people getting in shape. people finding relationships, people understanding themselves better, people learning to forgive each other, and forgive themselves. And it is what we make of it. Right. The biggest scam that we ever pull is convincing ourselves that we don't have power. Convincing ourselves that we're irrelevant. Convincing ourselves that we can't change our lives. because what the mind does is it looks at all of the reasons why something isn't going to help.

It's going to say, oh, it's not enough. It's not enough. It won't help. What difference does it make if I clean my room? What difference does it make if I exercise? Look at all the thousand things that are wrong in the world in my life. What difference does exercise make? And that's because we're operating from this dimension of time.

And I know this is going to sound kind of weird like we're going to get into like strange territory. But if you want to put together your life, stop operating within time. Start operating in the now. Don't worry about the future. I'm not saying don't consider it entirely. But like in this moment, if you decide not to exercise because it's not going to be enough, what you're using is you're letting time trick you into paralysis. And then today becomes tomorrow and tomorrow becomes the next day.

And every single day you say it's not enough, but what about tomorrow? What about this? What about this? What about this? It's all reasons to not act. As Trihex says, it's a case of the don't want us.