The Checkup with Doctor Mike - Treating Steven He's Emotional Damage

Episode Date: February 12, 2023

Steven He is a comedian, actor, and media pioneer who you may have seen online in the last year as the "emotional damage" guy. This line from one of Steven's videos hit a meteoric viral rise in the summer of 2022, but unlike many viral stars who are a flash in the pan, Steven was ready. His years of hustling as a working actor and content creator allowed him to run with his success and build a rapidly growing audience of people who enjoy his "Off Brand" TikToks or YouTube shorts about his most popular character known only as "Asian Dad". Steven has big plans for the future with the impending release of his original series "Ginormo" and a seemingly never-ending waterfall of fresh content across social media. We talked about his health, specifically the recent surgery he had on a cyst above his eye he believes was caused by stress. We also shared stories of our immigration backgrounds. Steven was born in China, raised in Ireland, and then went to college in the UK and studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in NYC, so we actually have a lot on common. I'm so grateful we got to spend a full day together and hope you enjoy our conversation! Follow Steven: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StevenHe IG: https://www.instagram.com/thestevenhe/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@steven_he?lang=en 00:00 Intro 00:51 Worst Auditions 08:32 Starting Social Media 16:38 Emotional Damage 19:26 Mental and Physical Health 26:36 Eyebrow Surgery 44:00 Reading Negative Comments 59:20 Chinese Pressure 1:05:35 Why He Left China 1:13:20 Coping Mechanisms 1:22:53 Failure Management 1:31:30 Lightning Round 1:37:08 Q/A Executive Producer and Host: Dr. Mike Varshavski Produced by Dan Owens and Sam Bowers Art by Caroline Weigum CONTACT: [e-mail]

She comes to China. She gets me. We go on a plane for like 16 hours from China to Ireland. Emotional damage. This is just a trauma that I still carry till this day. My mom put me in the school, said to the principal, here's Stephen. There was not one person who could speak Mandarin in miles. You're in for a very special treat today because we have a conversation with the one and only Stephen He, the creator of the original emotional damage meme. Emotional damage. But he's so much more than that.

He's a filmmaker. He has a monster YouTube, monster TikTok following, and he has a full TV show in the works that's coming out in March. I'm really excited for it. In this conversation, we talk about his real emotional damage from childhood. And obviously, we had to touch on social media and its effects on mental health. It's time for the checkup with Stephen He. Stephen He. Hello. Welcome. Oh, my God, I'm failure. Are you excited? I can't believe I'm in this building. It's, yeah, I'm very old. You're faking it, though. You knew you were in the building because we just did our TikTok war, which you unfairly beat me in. Can I tell you a secret? I'm continuously nervous the whole day. Is it because bear? You're scared of bear? No, it's because I've watched your chat a lot.

And so, yeah, I'm just nervous. Oh, well, that's awesome. Okay. Well, don't be nervous. The goal is to have a good time. Oh, thank you. And we want you to come out of this experience saying that you also want to be a doctor and potentially make your parents proud. That would be.

Wow. If you managed to change my entire career tonight, that would be very significant. So tell me, tell me what was it like when you misheard what your parents wanted from you when you were a child? Misheard. Yeah. What do you mean? Well, your parents said become a doctor and you heard actor and you became an actor.

So that's why I assume happened. I was the best Chinese kid that did exactly what my parents wanted me to do and did not get a degree in anything that could earn me any money. What was your degree in? My degree is called Acting and Global Theater. Wow. That is a bachelor's degree from London. Okay.

And then I came to... Were there any other Asian participants in this program? Ever? It would be funny if I say no and I forget I actually had a classmate who's Asian. Not Chinese. Not Chinese. Okay, not Chinese. The reason I ask is because traditionally that is not a widely accepted and celebrated craft.

Am I right? And I agree with them now. Wait, so now you're on team parents? Yeah, yeah, 100%. Because, okay, I need to like, I want to share this insight because I didn't have it and it hit me like a bus. Yeah. The insight that how many actors actually make minimum wage, let alone a living, let alone paying rent and having a family. I was under the impression that I'll get a degree, I'll become a good actor through all the teachers teaching me, and I'll go and get jobs.

yeah no that's not what happens no so uh i was um i was i lacked that insight that i wish i had back then where do you think most actors know this going in or is this something that hits everybody at some point it yeah it's not a common enough insight i think really not enough people know it but isn't the reason why your parents don't want you to go into acting is precisely because of that reason it is yes so like they tell you but So I guess I've known about the one in a million thing, that you've got to be lucky, you've got to do all of that. But thinking about it as a starry-eyed teenager

is not as impactful as getting rejected 3,000 times. Got it. So it's the bust that hit me that drilled the inside into my head. So it was a rejection, not your parents telling you, hey, you shouldn't do this. Yeah, yeah. Man, we need to. But you're saying you are unhappy that you didn't listen to your parents.

You wish you would have listened to your parents? I think the current version of me is my favorite. I'm very glad that I went and I gave it a try and that I was absolutely slapped out of the audition room thousands of times. I'm very glad that I can kind of continue on a journey with those experiences living in me. So I'm proud of it and I would not change the thing. So how did you go from, like,

I'm actually curious specifically what has been one of the worst auditions that you went up where either the casting people were savages or you did a really bad job or an amazing job, some cool story from your casting case. Oh, it's a lot. I know you have something good.

It's a lot grimmer. So, for example, I've had a lot of these experiences that I hope other people don't but it's happened many times where I'll get an audition, like I'll submit to something first. I'll get an audition and then I would spend half an hour

learning the lines. I spend one hour traveling to the location. That's it. Half an hour and you learn the lines? Yeah. You're that fast at memorizing. It's like two pages. No, that's hard. I've tried to try out for these things. For real. I can't memorize it. You are, you have great memory. No, I don't. I couldn't do it. Really? Couldn't do it. Props. Okay, sorry. I interrupted. That's good. Then, uh, I travel for an hour to the audition room. I sit in the waiting room for 25 minutes. I go in. Um, the assistant says, there's your mark can rolling go ahead and do your thing i perform to the best of my ability and then i exit and i swear i'm not exaggerating a word of this the casting director behind the table

does not look at me once oh not once no eye contact yeah she doesn't know what i look like after spending all of that time working for nothing uh there was that i've had is that is that the norm Is that what they're supposed to do? Like, are they supposed to, like, see what you look like on the film, not what you're like in person? Or is this... Oh, rude. It's rude.

It's rude. Yeah, yeah. And that's why I say, I hope, like, anyone who wants to be coming. I hope you don't have that experience. But it's going to happen to them. Probably. You know, there's just occurrences sometimes where the system is ineffective. Like, here's an example.

More often than I would like to admit, they'll ask 100 actors into an audition room to audition for a part that's already cast. So there is no purpose. What is the value? So for example, for billing, so like are trying to make money? Is that? Not necessarily. Like justify their jobs or something? Oh, usually it's not about it. Usually it's more like if I make a production, I want to cast this guy. He says, yes. And I'm like, okay, cool. He drops out a week before. Oh, no, we have no leading actor. Let's call 100 actors in. And then audition day comes and he says he's back again. So it's a complete waste of of time for those hundred people that I called in.

Got it. So you don't even get to audition. They just say you came for no reason by? They don't say that to your face. They don't say that to your face. And as a hopeful actor, you know, you're thinking rather delusional things like, oh, now I'm in their books and they have heard of me and they'll call me back. They don't call me back.

Wow. Wow. How many auditions do you think you've gone on? Jeez. That's so in, I'll briefly explain how like an actor starts off. you apply to castings and then when you have an agent your agent does the same thing like submits you to castings so when I was when I just graduated I would wake up in the morning and I would submit to 20 jobs and I was so so hungry that I was willing to lose money for an opportunity to act I was willing to travel to like Kentucky to do a Shakespeare play and cover my own travel and lodging wow and lose money just so I can be on stage of couple of times. And I did that. I did that many many times as well. So the submissions I have submitted a over 3,100 submissions. And how many of those did you go to? Oh, the problem like

the percentage of those that call you in, I would say one to 200. Okay. So you did one to 200. How many of those were rejections? I'm I think through my entire career, I think I think I landed seven. Wow, that's tough. No wonder you're discouraged. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, let's hope you're discouraging some other folks right now. It's an insight, you know, whether it's good or not, it's the fact.

So is that why you've made the sort of pivot move to leave the traditional gatekeeper world of Hollywood and come into the world of social media, YouTube, TikTok, have your giant viral moment with emotional damage, everything else that you've been doing? Is that what led you here? Yes, it was, I needed to pivot because I saw what was happening around me and what I was personally experiencing and I was like, yeah, this is not ever

going to pay my rent, ever. So I have to kind of think outside the box. And at the moment, it was because I had noticed an imbalance in the marketing industry where, I love how you're nutty because you know, yes, this is exactly what we do. that marketing in new media was extremely effective, way more effective than traditional. And so the logical kind of progression was brands and companies which shift more of the marketing

budget into new media. And that is a large, large amount of the TV industry's revenue. So upon noticing this, I kind of formulated a prediction that if I could wield millions of viewers, then that would give me leverage in the casting room or even straight to the producer. Okay. So you didn't view it as a money-making scheme yet. You were more so saying, this is a way for me to get into the thing I still want to do. Yes. I saw it as a strategy so that I can maybe go into a casting room and say, hey, if you wouldn't mind

three million extra viewers, cast me. That completely backfired. That did not work at all. Well, it's the same reason why I got into sort of social media and medicine. I viewed it as a way that if I started my practice, I could show patients what I'm capable of doing and they would come into see me in the office. And now we don't even want that to happen. I want to keep both worlds very separate. So we both started off with aspirations in one direction, but kind of found a fork in the road.

Oh, yes. That very much happened. I remember it was exactly 220 videos in. Wow. And I'd been making nothing. I'd make me one or two dollars a day. for YouTube AdSense. You were their premier member.

I had one guy that watched my videos probably. It was me. Thank you. Now I return the favor. And there was one day where a video popped off and it got a few hundred thousand views. And I was making its way up there. And all of a sudden, in one day, I think I made 50 bucks. That blew my head off.

I could not believe I'd made 50 bucks in one day because that could pay for lunch. you could pay for everything. And keep in mind, I was an actor making nothing. I was, you know, my mom and dad were helping me pay rent. So that was huge for me. And then the next day, I think I made $300. Ooh. So I was like, wait, wait, wait a second.

What's going on? And the next day, I think it was 800. What video is this? This was, I think it was a video called Asian parents going through your room. Okay. Very specific. Yes, they just roast everything about their child. So that was when I realized, wait a second, there's this money in this.

And it continued on. And it became a career that I could finally tell my mom, hey, mom, I have an earnings now. I can't pay rent and I can't do stuff like that now. Which, yeah, it would have never been the case in like 30 years if I had kept auditioning. That started growing and then it grew to a bigger business. And now the opposite has happened where I can no longer kind of afford. to audition anymore because I have a team that make the video with me and I need to take care of my people. And if I give, say, a hundred hours of my time for free to auditions like I did last

year, no, that was the year before 2021, then I would lose a lot of revenue and I wouldn't be able to take care of my team. So it's kind of interesting how, yeah, I'm 100% flipped that this career is more fulfilling. You get to do what you want to do. You're not. at the mercy of someone above you that tell you, no, you're not good enough, you're not handsome enough, you're not tall enough, and you actually get to make fulfilling content and entertain people.

How do you balance that with not having to please a gaykeeper, someone above you an exec, but having to please the algorithm or whatever the audience wants out of you when it's not what you might want to do? Oh, that's such a great question. Wow, that's a really great question. And it makes me think, too.

Yeah. I think, yes, every creator meets the struggle of the algorithm wants you to make this, but it's not necessarily what you want to make. It could be for many reasons. For me, it was like I had made 64, I think right now about 64 Asian ad sketches. And I'm running out of ideas. Sure. But they're what gets the views. So how do we navigate that? When I make a general sketch, it's not about my upbringing growing up in China. The views are significantly lower, half, sometimes less. I have a friend, Ian, who told me this piece of advice that may be helpful to others as well, which is he calls it the two one rule that you do two things for the algorithm and you do one thing for yourself. This is from Entourage. Is that right? Yeah. Is that a book?

No, no, Entourage is a TV show about making it in Hollywood. This is a show you got to watch. That's why I didn't make it in Hollywood. It's about a guy who, from Queens and his story. friends how they all move out to LA and become well he becomes the famous actor but his agent would tell him you do two for you two for them and then one for you but you have to do the two yeah i don't remember if that's the right ratio he gave but it was ari gold i think who gave the ratio oh gotcha okay he was actually based off a real figure in hollywood so yeah that's interesting that Ian pointed

yeah so it'll be the experiment this year and the the scene is constantly shifting as well so like Recently, I've started making shorts, and that was an interesting pivot that really freed me because to write a 60-second sketch is quite a different story from writing a two-minute, three-minute sketch. All of a sudden, the process is different. What I need in it is different. The amount of joke is vastly different. I could do a sketch without progression, without plot, without development.

So that was a really nice kind of burst of creativity that I think I needed. after doing a lot of the same sketches. Did you find yourself burning out? How long did you do before you became, you said 200 videos before you went viral? I, yeah, the progression is I had made about 120 videos before I got my first video with a million views. Okay.

And the others were like four. And how long, in how long of a period of time was that? Oh, that must have been a year. Okay. It was a year. So a year of making 120 pieces of content. Yes. Then one does well.

You get a million views. How long has it been since that moment? Oh, then it went down. Oh, it went down. Yeah, so video number 120, I remember this so well. It's a video that I made satirized how my mom used to throw slippers at me. Okay. And then I went down back to about 5,000 views for another 100 videos.

Okay. These are shorter because I started on TikTok as a strategy. At video number 200, that was when the money came in for the first time. Then, from then, I grew to about 2 million, subscribers on YouTube long form, I didn't make sure it's then, um, that might have taken another 40, 50 videos and then emotional damage happened. Okay. And the world just exploded. Okay. How did you come up with emotional damage? So it was a sketch. I wanted to write a sketch about and for those who don't know by the way, emotional damage is a tagline or joke that you have that if

someone, you do it, you explain what it is better than I do because I don't want to misrepresent catchphrase. It's like me, it's like you trying to figure out what the heck pee-whoop means or whatever. There's a meaning? There's a meaning, see? I did not know there's no meaning. Just a random sound I make. Yeah, I love that sound. Emotional damage is a meme. It's sort of off of a sketch that I made called When Asian is a difficulty mode. I had made the sketch. It was not about emotional damage, but somebody took that about three-second clip and sort of putting it behind videos of like a roast or a joke. And from then on, it'd been put behind hundreds,

and I don't know, it's in hundreds of thousands of videos. It got turned into a song remix. And now it's kind of commonly sent among peers as a personal, like, as an inside joke thing. Yeah. Send it to each other. And it was actually in one of my YouTube videos. It was.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, I think you saw it because a lot of people tagged you and they're like, oh my God, look, you're in this. And I'm like, oh, this is so cool, we can connect. And then we ended up meeting at the YouTube event. At the YouTube event, yes. So over this period of time, like 100, 200 videos, a lot of time goes by.

How does your mental health and physical health change during that time? Oh, that's a really interesting change. It's actually more exciting and passionate than now. wait your health was you're taking care of your health you were more passionate about it then also what i mean was like um in the beginning portion before i had made money that was fun it didn't feel like hard work it didn't feel like i had to force myself to do anything no stress yeah it was genuinely fun creativity yes all full freedom of creativity uh and then uh more pieces started to come in you know a team started to come in and uh

other concerns and of course the monetization side, the sponsorship side and the side of the algorithm that have to do certain things to please the algorithm and the audience, that came in and it started making the process a lot more complicated. Like I missed the days where I would go, that's a great idea, I write it, I shoot it, I make a great sketch. Today it's more like at any time I'd have five sketches in production at the same time. One's in a revision, one's in the edit, one's to shut today. the process got more complicated for sure and I find myself spending too much time in the non-creative stuff like the paperwork the business they're running the the companies learning about taxes I don't

like any of the boring stuff yeah yeah so a next step I guess is to learn to to have that handled so I can go back to the creative mind more than the paperwork so when you're not in the creative mind is your mental health suffering yes the oh this is a large thing that happened to me in October last year, October of 2022 in while I was producing a series called Ginovo is going to be out March 25th. So what happened in that period was I was running too many things. I was running kind of three large projects, project number one. I was editing Ginovo. I thought I could do it myself because I've edited videos, but I heavily, heavily underestimated it. So I was editing at that week, the worst of it, 12 hours a day. Wow. And

simultaneously, I was doing a lot of work with the producing side, like the press, preparing content to launch, preparing a schedule, looking at venues to host screening, the producing side of things. And on top of those two, I had my six channels that I had to make content for. and I remember there was one point where things got bad because of my kind of lack of ability I couldn't run those three things at the same time well because you're human yeah yeah this isn't your lack of ability yeah this is your truth of being a human yes I could

shadow clone myself yeah I need to learn that so all three projects started failing the edit was way behind which caused a cast skate effect into I had to call Good Morning America and say I'm so sorry can we push the launch day can we hold the story The the press side stuff wasn't getting done and my channel was three weeks behind All three verticals had failed and for the first time and I'm 26 for the first time in my life My body started not being reliable Like I had very often moments where my heart would beat very uncomfortably

To the point where I had to stop I had to like stop editing Take the time to breathe. Anxiety, panic. It could be. It could be. And also for the first time ever, I started to lose balance. That really worried me. I'd be walking or going to the shop and all of a sudden I'd miss a step.

I was like, okay, I'm scared. Something is not right. And it's because you weren't there in the moment. Your mind was elsewhere or you were physically out, like head spinning, room spinning? Not necessarily room spinning. Like disequilibrium? Yes. for glimpses for like one step if I'm walking somewhere and just a general a little bit

of a nauseous feeling I remember very clear there's one day there's one day I had to my laptop wasn't capable enough of editing I needed to get a more powerful laptop I walked to Apple and that that was in the thick of it that was when everything was going down I remember I would lose balance every now and then have to catch myself from a step and then I was in what I was in Trade Center in New York, people started coming up to me. And I got a group of about seven people talking to me and taking pictures. And I felt like I could fall at any second. So I must have behaved very strangely in front of them. But yeah, I told my mom about it. And I was like, this should not be happening. I hope your mom encouraged you to get checked out. Yes, yes. She encouraged me to

take a step back. And so I took the loss. You know, I, I delayed the show for three three months, cost another like $30,000 to hire on editors to do what I couldn't do, which is funny because they do a better job anyway. And I learned that from then on, I'm like, okay, I've got to make an effort to not abuse my body too much. Did the symptoms fully resolve when you made those changes? It got a lot better. Yeah.

Yeah, it definitely got a lot better. The losing balance thing went away. Now I don't lose the balance. the heart beating uncomfortably thing it was still there for maybe a week then it slowly got back to normal Yeah. Isn't it incredible how the human body

creates symptoms based on what is going on situationally around you and me as a doctor would never be able to know unless I run tests or we change your situation what is the cause of these symptoms because if I if you ask me what are the symptoms of a stroke yeah I could say it's someone walking

and then all of a sudden losing their balance and then not knowing exactly where they are or feeling out of it that could easily be a stroke but it could also be a migraine but it could also be a panic attack it could also be a sleep deprivation so like that's what's difficult about medicine if you're practicing it in the day in the way that it is practiced in this day and age meaning right now most times you walk into a doctor's office it feels like you're an assembly line it's like an express way where patients just move in and out in and out get them in and get them out so you come in the way the doctors practice these days oh you have this symptom okay so that's treatment uh be imaging c okay here you go by versus i got to sit with you i got to talk to you

what's going on in october 2022 that you're feeling this way is there anything else going on Are you sleeping well? And only upon painting this full picture of however long it took us to get to this full conversation, can I possibly even give you some reasonable thoughts of mine as to what to do next? But no one gets that these days. Exactly. It doesn't make sense for a doctor to do all of that in 15 minutes. Yeah.

Well, forget 15 minutes. It's just even from a patient perspective, I don't know if you, did you end up seeking help for this? Like, did you go and get checked out by a doctor? In December, I went, I did get checked out and I did blood tests. Okay, so you did do some tests. Did you feel rushed by the doctor or you were comfortable? You have a good relationship. Oh, no. That was in Ireland, by the way.

Oh, really? Why Ireland? I'm from Ireland. Okay. I should have started with that far. I'm Irish. When I was eight years old, I was born and raised in China and then immigrated to Ireland. Wow, okay. And my Irish accent was going to start coming out.

And then grew up between Ireland and China. 17 years old, I went to London for the bachelor's degree, and then I came to New York. Okay. So I went back home for Christmas, saw a doctor. I felt very well taken care of. I don't even think there was anyone after me. So I had any time, that's too much time as I wanted. So apparently we need to shift our model more towards what's going on in Ireland, which I know nothing of.

But you're saying it's good. It's a positive experience. Yeah, I did not feel rushed. Okay. And everything came back. You're good. You're healthy. We can expect millions of more.

videos from me. You can definitely expect millions of videos. I don't think I've gotten the test result back yet. What, from December? January. It was in January. So we'll see. Yeah, I should have a bit. I should check my name. Well, I hope you should check it. If there's any questions, feel free to send them my way. I can answer general questions. But yeah, that's pretty incredible that you started feeling those effects on your health quickly. I also know that in your past medical history you've had a surgery on your eyebrow. Tell me about that. Oh, this will be the first time it's in public because they've kind of been hiding this. Okay. There's no need to hide. It's perfectly human. Exactly. That's why like we need to break the stigma and I appreciate you doing so.

Awesome. Awesome. So this was from 2021 Q4. It was a quite a stressful period because of deadlines. Previously I'd been making content to however I want. But suddenly, in December, I think I had like 13 continuous deadlines that I had to hit. And of course, you know, things go wrong all the time, like edits are late or a video needs to be reshot, revised. So in about halfway through that period of work, I had a bump started developing here, right here. You might not see us.

On your right eyebrow. Okay. I didn't know what it was. I didn't take it that seriously. but then the bump got infected. It's like a folliculitis. I don't know what that word means. Infected hair follicle.

Oh, I think that's what I was. It got infected and in like three days it puffed up to about the size of an olive. Wow, that's big. Very bothersome. Very bad. And hard to make content with that. Yes. And I did the most Chinese thing ever.

I slapped a Band-Aid on it and just filmed anyway. Really? Yeah. And no one noticed. No one asked questions. A lot of people did. A lot of people were like, why is we wearing a Band-Band-A. So this is the answer, because I had an infected hair follicle, I guess.

I went to the doctors. I think I did. I went to the doctors that gave me antibiotics, and it came back down to an unnoticeable little bump again. But it's noticeable if I touch it, but you can't see it or anything. Then twice after that, in periods of stress, it has gotten affected and just become huge. Really? Is it because you pick at it?

When you're stressed, like, are you picking it? Oh, never, no. Oh, no. I became, like, traumatized. I still, to this day, don't really touch that area of my face because I'm so scared of it, you know, doing the thing. And this is a funny story. We shot Dry Normal in September in L.A.

And it was this huge thing that cost a lot of money. And, like, we had over 100 people work on it. So it was very important. And I was like, what are the chances it pops up during production? Didn't it pop up? Wouldn't it be so funny if it popped up in this time? So this is a true story. It was an eight-day shoot across three weeks.

We survived through the eight days, and the day after rap, it inflated. It became a huge. Wow. So I got so lucky. So you had like a stress cyst. It was, yes. Oh, yeah, at the time, I thought it was luck. I was look.

Luck would have a hilarious sense of humor if it decides. do me now. But then I had the surgery to remove the whole thing. And the doctor, the surgeon did tell me that it had a opening where bacteria can make its way inside the thing. And when I'm stressed, my immune system comes down. Bacteria makes it in and it gets infected. So I learned that there's actually a pattern to this. When I'm highly stressed, it doesn't think. Interesting, interesting. It's almost like not 100% because it's a different cause, but like a cold sore, oftentimes, comes up when you're sick or stressed and this thing just happened to be not a cold sore but a bacterial source instead of a viral source right it's so interesting gets infected

wow but now you've had it surgically removed yes it is removed RIP stresses it's gone forever yes go to hell wow okay so that is a theme that's been happening quite lately and it's caught me off guard so fast what what's the theme that's the theme of the theme of my kind of just having things going wrong. You're 26, nothing's going wrong. Exactly. So I'll describe, I'll describe the things that I notice. For my whole life, I never had to think before I did movements. If I needed to roll down the floor for a video, I'd roll.

But the last year has changed that. Now, before I do a lot of movements, I have to go, okay, so, is my neck okay? Okay, it's grand. It's my, you know, whatever. Okay, it's grand. Okay, let's do it. But for every video now, I stretch, which is the saddest thing that my editor has to watch. What do you mean saddest? This is the most productive, proactive thing you can do. Like, I'm celebrating this as a physician.

Thank you. It's like, I wish I could be as carefree as I was last year and do everything. But now that's happened. And the other thing is, I believe I have a pinched nerve on the back of my neck. It's been there for like two years now. And it's gotten better and worse, probably affected by stress as well. What would happen is, when my neck would be like in a certain movement I'd feel a shoot like a sensation paris seizure we call them okay all in my right arm it didn't last it just flashes and then

it got during the stressful period and this is like two days after the general was shoot I did a very simple movement that I always do I'm at my bed and I lean on my bed very simple movement dude something happened and I felt a huge

shock It was like someone punched the nerve. The feeling of the tingling, what did you say? What did you say? It was called? Parastasia. Parastasia, okay. The parastasia changed. It became something different.

It became very painful. And I didn't move it. I didn't know if I could move it for a minute. 60 seconds, I was laying there still because I was going through the pain. And then two weeks after that, I couldn't move my neck. Wow. So till this day, it still has that parasit. Pesthesia in certain moments.

Well, Pachshedia is what you're feeling, that weird sensation. Okay, yeah. The shooting itself is actually, again, I don't want to make a diagnosis because I don't know the full picture, but it sounds a lot like something known as cervical ridiculapathy. Okay. Where you have the vertebrae in your neck, which are called the cervical vertebrae. There's different sections of the vertebrae going up and down your back. Cervical, thoracic, lumbar sacral, and the last one is the coxics, the little tailbone.

Okay. But on top, the cervical ones, you have nerves that come out. after each vertebrae. And those nerves go and they give sensation to, and movement to the rest of your body. Now the ones in the cervical area, obviously are the ones that go down your arms and give sensation and muscular movement to the arms.

That's in fact how you're able to move your body, feel things, temperature regulation, all of that. Now, if the vertebrae for some reason go into a spasm, whether it's because you slept wrong, you were in a weird position, you were cocking your head weird, because you were stressed, you were carrying your weight with your,

your shoulders shrugged up. You can create such a position that those vertebrae, those bone, put pressure on the nerve, therefore bother the nerve to send these weird signals all the way down rating down the length of the nerve. Yeah. So that's my suspicion. That's a terrifying thing.

It sounds scary, but it's treatable at the source. Which is at the vertebra. Likely, again, it's hard to know without doing all the tests and all, but if it is that, It is at the vertebrae. And that can happen as a result of something functional, like you held your neck in a weird position,

you had something around your neck that you were wearing that made it uncomfortable. Or it could be anatomical, which could be a disc bulge, a growth, a bone spur, all these other things. And those are the least likely options in many people, especially a young person like you who's otherwise healthy,

but you don't rule anything out until you sort of get a good picture in examining a patient. I see, okay. That was a very long-winded explanation about neck pain. No, it radiates out there. Very scary. It shouldn't be scary because it's treatable.

There's a lot of conditions that cause what you're describing as like a neuropathy, which is like pathy in medicine is like a pathological condition, something wrong. Neuro meaning nerve. So a neuropathy that goes down the arms can be a common symptom for a lot of patients that have Lyme disease, diabetes and they can't get rid of it treating their neck because it's coming as a result of an issue at the nerve okay and that's a very different image than what likely you were experiencing right and that becomes trickier i see i do feel neck movements have a great impact on it which means that um that there's a term in medicine called reproducible pain okay and generally speaking

when we say pain is reproducible, that's a good thing, generally speaking. Because if you're telling me you have chest pain and then I press on your rib and I can reproduce the pain, that means it's likely not cardiac. It's not your heart. Because it's likely the muscle, the tissue, the bone,

things that are not super serious. If you're having pain on the other side and it's reproducible when you take a breath, because it's reproducible, I know it's more likely to be the rib rather than the lung tissue. So the fact that yours is reproducible,

oh, if I do this neck movement, something happens, it's more likely coming from that as a source rather than something happening at the nerve itself. Oh, okay, that's good. I'm happy to hear that. So I hope I could give you some reassurance from that aspect. There's another way it kind of affects me. In sports, I very often get caught off guard with,

usually it's a reaching movement. I play badminton, and I've recently kind of started learning tennis. okay uh dude it's it's terrible but roughly every session i play it happens like once okay what happens um it would be a movement i'd move quite fast and it generally be like i'm reaching this way or this way or anyway i'm reaching i'd feel the the attack the stinger yeah the stinger yeah and the stinger usually stiffens this part up i presume that's like it trying to protect itself it could be again hard to know because also the brachial plexus is in this region

which is the grouping of nerves that starts splitting up and giving sensation to the rest of your arm. But it's something happening there. How did you get into racket sports? It's very popular in China. Okay. Growing up there when I was... But you didn't grow up in China.

I did. I was born and raised in China. But then how old were you when you came? Oh, eight. I mean, you didn't grow up in China. Oh, then I had a separate three years. Oh, okay. So you went back.

Yeah, 12 to 14, 15. Like I lived in Russia until I was six. I didn't grow up in Russia. Yeah, that's fair. I guess I grew up, like, pretty... I've lived in China more than I've lived in any other country. You're an international soul. Yes, I have gone to many places.

Okay. Yeah, so it was living in China. Bamminton was the most popular thing. Everyone played badminton. I came kind of to the west in Ireland. It was very little. In America, I found it as an interesting thing. It's like the networking center of Chinese people.

No way. Are you in a league? No, in a club. It's very casual. There's no tournaments or competitiveness. It's more like a certain group of people just show up and have fun. Okay. No one keeps scores.

Okay. But before, I found it very late on because the pandemic kind of stopped everything. So I found it four years into living in New York. I had, I don't think I had any Chinese friends. But then I discovered a badminton club and all of a sudden like, I know everyone now. My people. I found you. Yeah, yeah.

It's the only place I speak Mandarin now. I love it. I go and I chat with everybody. And were they aware of your skits and your work? Oh, yeah. Yeah, they were. Yes, there were a lot of moms bringing their children there to meet me. Oh, that's awesome.

That's awesome. It was absolutely adorable. And then how did you make the transition to tennis? Oh, tennis was very recent. It was because I had been in L.A. And tennis being a very common sport there. and also in my field of film and television just a lot of producers

that I became friends with play tennis so I came, I went along. It was very difficult at first I could not hit the ball being a badminton player but I enjoy it now I think I do get a bit more of a soreness in my shoulder

that's probably a pretty common thing yeah very common thing I mean also I feel tennis I mean much like other sports like golf it's very technique focused where people think that they have to be super strong to but it's more about the technique and how you use your whole body right as a unit as opposed to strength just strength and like overpowering this thing because that goes quite wrong in tennis very

quickly yeah yeah dude yeah a lot of the nerve things did happen in tennis oh interesting when you're picking up a new sport though weird things are are going to happen to your body you're gonna you're gonna be in sore in places that you were never sore before that's so that's like kind of a typical response because your body is adjusting it's almost like when you're a newborn not a newborn but when you're young and you're learning to walk and your body's with each step and each failure is sending new signals to learn and which muscles to grow which muscles don't need to grow and all of that process happens when you're on a tennis court so like what's cool is nerves actually expand and you get better control and activation of certain nerves the more you use them so this is why practice

things a thing. Exactly, yeah. It's like neuroplasticity of the mind that it's able to reshape itself. They always say you can't regrow brain cells, but you can reshape the way that your brain is designed, like different parts of your brain, depending on which ones you use and don't use. That's why the ones that have lowest rates of Alzheimer's, dementia, are the ones that keep social connections alive that are physically active, because we see that using the brain helps rebuild and keep those structures youthful. It's pretty cool. Oh, that is. so interesting. Okay, there's a few parts of that that I find very interesting. The social thing, the pandemic kind of did this to all of us where our social life was cut. Yes. It was restricted.

And that's where that kind of started my content creation. In the last year, I made friends for the first time. I made friends with fellow creators for the first time who, like no one else got what I was saying. I would tell like, you know, my mom about retention rate and it was like she she would have no clue but then I found a group of people who got everything and that did wonders for my happiness for my mental health I felt great well you found a community social support yes I very much appreciate communities yeah that's normal that's like that we all seek that sort of not just approval but mutual understanding it's very difficult when you go and you share your worries or concerns with someone

And even though they might be nice and say they understand, if you feel that they're not being genuine in their understanding, it doesn't feel real, your brain knows. Yes, I bet it does now. So what's the connection between the neural building of those pathways and mental health? Is it the same thing? Well, it's part of it. For example, in mental health, one of the biggest factors that decides whether or not you're going to have a good out. outcome, meaning a good outcome that you will not hurt yourself, that it will be a short-lived experience with this mental health situation, is your social support structure.

Wow. So part of what I do as a doctor when someone comes in with a concern of a diagnosis of general anxiety disorder or major depressive disorder is right away hammering out who's their support structure, who do they lean on. And that not just goes for their benefit and the decrease of disease burden, but also their crisis planning. For example, if I'm worried about them potentially going to a dark place, I would ask them, if you do go into this dark place, can we create a plan? Who can you call so that you don't even need to think in that moment? You say, oh, I'm feeling this way.

This is what I'm supposed to do. we have a plan in place and that all stems from having a good social structure around you and the unfortunate reality is so many of us have a broken social structure or have been hurt by others where we don't trust many other people or don't have great friendships and as a result we struggle because loneliness is the true pandemic that's going on right now not that others are as well but that's the one that is very universal especially in the digital age because we feel like we're more connected, but we're somehow connectedly disconnected. Yes, yes.

And we talked about that earlier when we were saying how everyone is fighting each other on social media and there's groups going into tribes against one another. Actually, I'm curious to ask you this when it comes to mental health. Do you ever have people write negative things to you? Or example, you do a stereotypical Asian parent. Does anyone get upset at you for doing that? or do you own it? Oh, that's pretty funny.

No, I own it because there is nothing wrong with the way I speak. Exactly. Simple fact. It's your own experience. Well, I find quite funny, and this is a new thing coming to America and seeing, you know,

it would be strange. I would consider a strange coming from when I came from, is that the people that would type comments saying they're offended, none of them are Asian people. Okay. I'm a little bit confused here what's exactly going on

but like yeah I'm new to the country so I'm still learning about everything why do you think that is why do you think it's not Asian people like do you think it's like a savior complex that's going on or am I going too deep with it I completely understand where you're coming

from I completely do and I can kind of see a perspective where There are people who mean harm, bullies, racist people. There are people who mean harm that kind of use stereotypes as a way to harm others. And because of that pain that many have experienced, maybe that is what the bad taste is in some people's eyes. Sure.

Whereas in truth, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way we are, with the way we are. way we speak. And I don't want to give power to those bullies. I guess that's my answer from that. No, that's very fair. And I, like you, like to take a charitable thinking approach to it and think that from a lack of knowing the culture, because there may not be a part of it, as you said, that the loudest voices that you get in the common sections are usually not ones from your culture. They believe that this could be detrimental. They get, worried and with good intentions are now creating a problem. Yeah, yeah, it's a perspective.

That is not valuable, basically. Right. It doesn't help anyone, and I don't think it should be the case. Yeah. Yeah, because I think ultimately it stunts our ability to have conversation, discourse, comedy, to laugh at ourselves. In fact, what do you take, like, you're basically a comedian these days on social media. what uh and in film what uh what's your take on the state of comedy in general oh well it's very

different around the world uh the united states is in a very unique spot that i do not see with many other nations where a culture how would i put this into words um people are losing the ability to laugh at themselves i think um and it's not anybody's fault because i know it comes from a place of possible hurt. So, you know, no one's to blame and it's not necessarily a bad thing because if you're just trying to protect yourself, I 100% understand that. But I do have a, kind of an extra caution that I have to put onto all the comedy that I write and to consider a lot about, okay, from what angle can someone get offended by this?

So you actively think about that when you make content? Yes, yes, all the time. Really? Yeah, yeah, all the time. If you didn't have to think about that, would your comedy be different? And how so? Like, here's an example. If I made comedy cases in China, it would be a whole different story.

It would be a whole different story, really. Yeah. Okay, why? You would be more free to make more jokes? Yes, I think I'd be more free. I think there would be more things I could satirize. Wow, okay. So one thing that I try to do is, is individualize all the, all the satire that I make.

So I'll give an example. Instead of making fun of Asian fathers, I make fun of my father. Instead of making fun of failed actors, I make fun of me, the failed actor. so the butt of every joke has to be me whereas if I was doing this in China I'd make fun about you I make fun about everyone else so I think that's the main difference

that the butt of the joke has to be me and me alone not other Chinese people not other young people not other actors not other Do you view that as a positive thing or just whatever I would like to see people regain the ability to laugh at themselves yeah i think there is great power um because that takes the power from the bullies right i agree i think that's an understated point where by being able to laugh at yourself and laugh at your problems yeah comedy can be a healing tool and you wouldn't think that you would think someone's making a joke about me

and certainly comedy can become toxic where someone is bullying you with their comedy yeah and you become just full on stepped on. But then there is also a layer of you're going to a comedy show and the person is doing crowd work and they pick you out and they make jokes about you. And while it may sting a little bit, you're kind of laughing to yourself. Because you're enjoying it. You're like, wow, this is actually really funny. That's a good joke.

And I'm enjoying this. So there is healing in that. And because it requires nuance to figure out and our social media digital world is devoid of nuance. It feels like we have grown an allergy to nuance that because of it, we can't have the comedy that maybe you would have if you were in China. Yes, yes. Yeah, we lose a lot of comedy, a lot of comedy that might be quick. Just even America 30 years ago, right?

There were a lot of fantastic, funny things that today would be considered offensive. And I'm still very much undereducated in the culture here. but it entertained people back then and there wasn't this perspective of everything has to be negative you know everything has to be um i'm offended about this thing yeah i remember watching do you ever watch a comedian don rickles i'm not sure he would roast people all the time but he would roast everybody in the room like it didn't matter what race you were what religion you were what you look like tall sure like he would just roast everybody including himself and he did it with like a layer of love. I remember even seeing skits of him saying like I hate everybody but

I love everybody and because that I'm going to roast everybody and you could see that transcend the hatred and I worry that we might be losing on comedians like that because of their worry of staying monetized or not being or being canceled. To me I think there's a there is for me a very strong and distinctive kind of line. And this transcends culture. It's the same in China. It's the same in the UK. It's the same here.

And that's intention. You know, it's intention. Comedy that intends to satirize something and laugh with people. In my eyes, I would enjoy that. Whereas the bad thing comes when someone has the intention to harm. Sure. So that, I think that's universal. And it feels like most people would be sharp enough in a room

to be able to distinguish the difference between it too. Yes. Like if you have one person get on stage and just be mean. Yeah. Oh, everyone would. You would know. Yeah. You would know in your heart.

You would like, no, this sounds wrong. This is not coming off well. And then if someone is doing it and everyone's involved and it feels like engaging, bringing people in as opposed to pushing people out. I feel like that would be felt. as well. But because we're not feeling both, we've lost our contrast, this measuring stick of what is right. Yeah. Social media, man. Well, it's so funny that you say social media

because you told me you went into this because you get to be your own boss, you get to create whatever content you want. And then on the same flip side, you told me you can't create the content you want because the audience and the algorithm demands something from you. Your comedy abilities are shifted because you're not allowed to say certain things. They're contrasting thoughts. Oh, yeah, that's a very fair point. And all of them, I guess, are valid. Like, my comedy isn't restricted much.

It's more restricted by an algorithm and having to do certain sketches, even though I've run out of ideas or I'm burnt out with that sketch. But the conflict of I was trying to please casting directors and now I'm trying to please an algorithm. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Yes, I am. And the, you know, the stakes are, if I don't please the algorithm, I'll get no views and my income will drop, which it has many times. But that I very strongly would rather be in this side than the auditions. Why? Because it's up to me, you know, every rejection has nothing to do with me.

It's because their lead came back. It's because another actor is taller. So you feel like it's like the audience and the algorithm is more fair? Yes. It gives everybody a shot. Yeah. More democratized. Definitely, definitely more democratized. And when you look at things like the amount of Asian roles available in Hollywood versus, well, this is kind of a new thing, but how Asians have the, let's say opportunities, opportunities that Asian people, actors have in Hollywood versus opportunities that Asian people have here, it is a lot more fair, I think, for, for new media where I can reach hundreds of millions of people by making good content but as an actor I don't ever have that power

I spoke to Cal Penn about this from you've ever seen the movie Harold and Kumar go to White Castle or Van Wilder oh man you're missing some American I'm sorry I'm new but he is an actor that spoke about this and how it was hard for him to get roles

and he would get typecasted he experienced racism in the casting room that they would constantly ask him to do an Indian accent even if the role wasn't for an Indian role and it upset him but then it also as a catch 22 encouraged him to take certain roles that he wouldn't even want to take that were typecasted and maybe not good roles in terms of positioning an Indian person in a positive light because it would ultimately get him to the place where he could get the roles that he would want. What's your take on that catch-22?

Because you sort of did that when you were traveling to Kentucky and paying your own way with the goal of, I'll take this role that's not paying me anything, lose money because I might be the next Brad Pitt.

Yes, I didn't lend that, by the way. I didn't land the Kentucky judge. No, okay. Yeah, the catcher only shows that you have to give value. Oh, there's two ways of looking at it. The being exploited and the race thing, I personally, I don't think I've had much of that. I might go up for roles that like need me to speak Mandarin

or need me to play the piano or like do kung fu stuff. I don't see that as anything negative. You know, I, yeah, I don't think there's any negativity that comes with that. So that's totally fair. But on the work exploiting side, I don't quite like that part. What I mean by the work Exploding side is say I'm a production,

I need to cast the lead actor and I invite 300 actors in. Each actor gives me maybe one hour of work, two hours traveling, so that's 900 hours that I've just asked for that I'm not paying anything and they get nothing out of it. I don't like that.

But it's a funny thing because the same kind of is social media. You know, a lot of people put thousands of hours on making videos and don't make money. Yeah. So the exploitation of work, yeah, I don't like it when it comes to auditioning because, you know, I'm a professional

who got a bachelor's degree in order to do my professional work that I've worked for a few thousand hours a year for zero dollars. But the other side of the other side, the content creation side, it feels more like I'm investing in a business that I'm building and that it's fair. You know, it's not up to someone with power who likes a person. It's actually up to do I make good work. It's interesting because, again, I'm going to keep pointing out

these paradoxes. Yeah. Yeah. Because they're interesting to me. You say that there's a lot of hours that are spent going to these auditions and that the work exploitation on that level is bad. And then you also told me that when you were doing that, it was pleasant, but then now when you're in your own business and you have all these worries, you feel less healthy and more mentally stressed out than you did when you were casting. Oh, yeah, I take that for granted. I think it's a part of business that comes to every business. Okay.

So I take that for granted, but I think you raised a very interesting point with, um, what when I was auditioning, how I was so hungry that I would be exploited, that I would lose money for an opportunity. And I think the reason that is, the reason this whole industry of millions of people doing this is because the demand and supply is just two bonkers. Yes. Like if there were a thousand actors, every actor would get jobs. Yeah. But because there are millions and millions of actors fighting for, you know, a hundred jobs, a thousand jobs. That's what calls this norm that, like,

oh, yeah, you're supposed to work for 30 years and never make minimum wage. I think it's because of that extremely overpowering demand. And the unfairness comes from the selection of who gets to get those roles from the gatekeepers of Hollywood. But then on social media, there's like this also work exploitation,

where now if you upload content you're not even a part of the YouTube partner program you'll still get ads put on your videos which is savage I've known it is kind of like so like they're monetizing your content and you're not even getting a piece of it anymore

that is a strange situation I don't know enough about that to you're like I'm not going to attack YouTube they make me too much money YouTube gave me an opportunity no no I'm not speaking badly about it I'm just saying that this work thing is very tricky to figure out

because it's the same with medical school where a lot of people are pointing out on my social media that medical school's too competitive. They're saying it's too expensive and that's the part I very much agree with. It doesn't need to be that expensive. We need to figure that out. But then they say it's too competitive.

And then I start wondering, what is it mean that it's too competitive? If there's only a certain number of medical schools with only certain number of slots because we only need a certain number of doctors, then it's appropriately competitive. If we need to make more, then maybe the competition will become a little bit more fair, but we shouldn't arbitrarily lower the standards to becoming a physician.

Do you agree? Like just say, oh, you know what? Let's make it easier to get into medical school. Let's lower the requirements. That is such a strange thing. It's a dilemma. I'm not sure I fully understand. So people are demanding that because it is too hard to get in, that they make it easier to get in?

What a strange concept. Yeah. And I don't know if I vibe with it because it feels like it should be appropriately hard to get in because it's a competitive field. Oh, I see. I see. Oh, okay. So it's not about, is it about the individual or the competition of pairing, the competing individual? I see. Well, I'm Chinese.

So you're like, I'm used to competing. Yes. Yeah. I'm used to kind of, I have some stories to tell about that, actually. Oh, tell me a story. Okay, so to answer the question first, I think it should be, it should, first of all, the most important thing is that you have professionals capable of delivering the help that people need. You cannot sacrifice that for the sake of easier entry to the profession. And I, the other parts, I'm not educated enough to get a fair impression of it. So, yeah, in China, so this is, China is a very, very competitive place where there are just a lot of people.

A lot of people fighting for spaces. Although I just heard the population is the first year it decreased. Is that, I would believe that. Deaths to births, I think. Wow. Oh, yeah. Well, like my generation don't have siblings. So it's a culture-wide, nationwide kind of impact that...

Very much so, socially impact. Yeah, hugely. So, and that perfectly leads into my experience being in China when I was 12 to 14, 15 years old, about 14 and a half. While I was there, I just realized it'll be an interesting perspective for Westerners. While I was there, we were doing something called, which is middle school the first half okay so typically children are 13 14 15 years old for this period of school in china as a developing country and education kind of lasts until about when

you're 14 then it stops and if you want to continue education you have to go to private schools because of that there is this massive competitive energy to get into the the private schools. I'm from Shenzhen, which is one of the biggest cities with 12 million people. And while I was there, what I saw was an absolutely unreasonable amount of pressure

on all the 14-year-olds to compete. And the number that I had heard at the time that continue on is less than a half. So that alone is, you know, it decides your life, it decides what kind of career you can have. It's very, very

difficult in China if you don't have education to start career like I did in America. So you've kind of like this, this permanent, unbreakable barrier that you're, you're stuck to terrible jobs, so labor probably work. And there's one aspect that makes this way worse. And that aspect is that none of my generation have siblings except very rare twins. So for the boys, you are the only chance. for your family to carry down their lineage and on your shoulders rest your entire lineage to do well

to become a respected person to become a person of high social class so that's where the culture that I grew up in the culture that I satirized all the time of like parents saying you have to get A's all the time you have to play the piano it's because of that it's because all the parents like this is our only thing that will pass on the lineage and in what be so stressful because now the health and well-being of your parents once they get older is on one person's shoulders as opposed to distribute it amongst multiple siblings. My personal friends, they're complaining about this. It's hard enough as it is for a 25-year-old to get a job or a career in China currently. But each of them are experiencing, say a young

couple gets married, they're into the 20s. They now have four parents of theirs and eight grandparents that will very soon need them to provide for and that pressure is it's very unfair yeah i this is what i hear from my friends who are in china wow yeah so the boff it's a hard it's hard was that why your family decided not to stay my mom i mean not the only reason but one of the my mom just wanted to move i was not consulted in this decision i was told you come here okay thanks mom sure what was the reason Or do you know? She wanted to leave China.

I think she wanted to see more of the world. She wanted to experience other stuff. And at the time, when I was four, my mother and father separated. And so I think, you know, she just wanted a fresh scene to start anew. And the reason we went to Ireland was that was the only other country we had family. So we had a distant uncle in Ireland. And that's why she went. Oh, interesting.

She set up. And eventually she married an Irish man who became my dad. Okay. And I came over. I became Irish, immigrated. and then grew up there. Wow. What an interesting story.

Yeah, not a lot of that. And then why did you go back for the three years? You're going to face palm with this? This is a hundred percent true story. Okay. 100%. In our culture, there is this kind of thing of authority. I do what I'm told, period.

I don't ask questions. I don't say anything. If I'm told me, I'm doing it. I'm with that being from the Soviet family that I'm from. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So you would relate to this. My uncle, who's my mother's brother,

who was kind of like the figure of authority in our family, he lives in China. I had been in Ireland for about two years. That's how ridiculous story is. My uncle came to visit. And when he visited me, he saw that I was doing things. Like, for example,

I would out kick a ball by myself with no one else there. I would just kick a football on a field. Okay. I already saw me, he would see me doing math homework and because I saw every other kid did it, I would like count on my fingers. And he says, Stephen is getting stupid. He's going to come back to China. True story. Translated word for word, Stephen is getting stupid.

He needs to come back to China. Wait, how does kicking a ball in the yard by yourself translate to being stupid? It's because to him, smart kids are doing calculus, not kicking a ball in a field. And the math thing was, I get, okay, fine. It looks down when you do this. It's fine. Yeah, it's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with me.

And so I went, okay, I did what I was told. I went where I went. So I want to ask you this. It's about the experience of immigrating to Ireland. And I believe it had a strong impact on me. When I first went to Ireland, I was eight years old. And this is the story of the first day I was there. I give you a sense of how much of a tiger mom my mom is.

She had been around for two years, and I hadn't seen her in a long, long time. She comes to China. She gets me. We go on a plane for like 16 hours from China to Ireland. We land precisely, I remember, so well because of emotional damage. It's just a trauma that I still carry until this day. We landed at 8 a.m. My mom drove me to our house, and she's like, this is the house you're going to live in now.

I was like, well, okay, what's going on here? And I met my stepdad and he's, he's my dad now. And then she gave me an outfit. She just put this on. I was like, well, okay, I put it on. And then she drove me to school and I was in school by 11. There was. Instant?

I was in school by 11 a.m. From landing? From landing? Exactly. I will always remember that day. And that was one of the most impactful moments of me because it was. You could just say scarring or traumatic. Because that's what that sounds like.

So here's the, that's simple. That's easy for a fellow veteran like myself. The hard part was I was dropped in an environment. My mom put me in the school, said to the principal, here's Stephen, hello, hello. Okay, and then she left, there was not one person who could speak Mandarin in miles. Okay. And eight-year-old me? You spoke no English.

Not a word. Okay. Not a word. Wow. My entire language was taken. And as an eight-year-old, I didn't have the social ability to go. Of course. Uh, I'm sorry, I didn't have that social translator.

Yeah. I didn't have that social ability. Google Translate didn't even exist back then. So, um, for the next, like, year, I became extremely introverted. And I, I, I wasn't myself. I was a child who loved playing with other children. I love making friends, playing games. but because of that sink or swing situation

I became the child that was like sitting in the corner at lunch In fact I used to do this thing It's really sad now that I think of it At lunch I would I would buy a sandwich And I would I would continuously walk around the school Pretending that I had somewhere I needed to get to Oh, I do that all the time But there was nowhere I had to get to

I just had to wait until lunch was over So here's what I want to ask you I think it's possible that the experience kind of stifled my social abilities for like 20 years, 10 years, 20 years. 20 years? Yeah, because I was just as introvert. I spent all of my teenage years

on my bedroom playing a video game. There was like one friend I met every now and then it was to play video games. When I went to London, I was such an introvert that I felt great anxiety going to any kind of party or anything. So again, I spent my entire bachelor's degree in my room. And only, I'd say in the last five years, four years, I guess it could be because of the acting training too, that I had opened up

and found comfort in talking to people and making new friends. So that's a theory that I have, but I want to hear your take on it. To say that it's stifled it is hard to say. Yeah. shifted. Okay. Pivoted for certain because you had to adapt to your circumstances. And kids are really good at adapting and figuring things out, just like how you were smart enough to figure out to walk around with a sandwich. Do you really do that?

Yeah. I don't remember when I did that last, but the whole idea of walking around and pretending I'm going somewhere, I do that. I think I still do that to this day. You do not need to do that. Yeah, but I do that. That's just like a thing I do.

Oh my God. Like if I'm early for something, I'm like, oh, this is not the right building. I'm going to walk around. But meanwhile, I know exactly where I need to go, but I just need to kill some time. Okay, so it's not out of like anxiety. So that strategy was a coping mechanism. Yes, yes, very much. Did it impact you?

Sure. Can we say that it was a negative thing? Hard to say. And I don't want to label it negative or positive. I am very, very grateful for the path because the fact that I can speak English to this ability, it's like. Yeah, how did you learn? They put me in a special AIDS class

for a year. But still, no one spoke Mandarin. So I had no clue what was going. So they would show you a picture and then say a word, I'm assuming? No, they didn't do that. Oh, how did they communicate with you? I had a caretaker, and I was in a group of mentally challenged kids. And everything was kind of led.

We were led to our kind of tables. We were led to the back of the room at classes. And I didn't have anyone that explained it to me, but I picked it up through kind of watching. So like I see everyone else take out their red book. I take out my red book and gradually I learned what the words meant. Got it. So just association. Yes, association.

Do you feel like, and I know I was joking around about it earlier saying the word traumatic that there was a traumatic experience? Do you feel like it was a traumatic experience? Oh, there were a lot of discomfort, a lot. there was a lot of sync or swim, a lot of anxiety, I don't want to go out. Like, not how you felt after the fact, but in the moment. In the moment? Yeah. This is so funny.

Well, no, because the reality is we have something known as ACE in the study of psychology and mental health, which is called adverse childhood events. And we know that as the number of traumatic moments in one's life increase, higher risk for developing other conditions increase as well. And I'm not just talking about mental health condition, I'm talking about physical health conditions, like feeling dizzy and stuff like that. Okay.

And describing a traumatic moment, obviously you go to the worst things watching a loved one die, like in a horrendous way, like your family member dies in your arms or something terrible. A loved one mistreating you is a big one. But coming to a new country being thrown in a sink or swim situation,

having no one to fend for you could be one of those, but it largely depends on the circumstances around it, which I'm not familiar with, and we can spend hours discussing it. Basically, like, I'll give you an example. If you were put into that classroom and you knew you can come home and talk to your mom and your stepdad about it or dad, however you refer to him.

I call them dad about it. And you felt like you had their support. You might go into that classroom hating it, but knowing that you were still safe and that feeling of safety might have prevented it from becoming a traumatic situation for you but it all depends on what your mindset was at the time which is what therapy essentially turns into figuring those things out if that's something you choose to do with your therapist i see that's a great point and i do have an answer for that I have a coping mechanism that has stayed with me for my whole life

and it's being stupid. What do you mean? I don't know if I did this purposely, but there are many moments where I don't associate things. Like, for example, when I'm going through the things, when I'm going through the anxiety and having to deal with the situation, my mind does not go I'll be cool later

I'll go home later it kind of just numbs up and I just go okay I'm here now oh this uncomfortable but I'm here now I'm here now and I still do that many times where I'm in Huck you an example this is to play terrible I won't name any names

but I recently had a thing done where I needed to get stitches I needed to get stitches and the operation I did not get properly numbed. So I felt every bloody stitch. Oh, no. And I went into stupid moor again.

I went, okay, oh, that hurts. Oh, that hurts. Instead of stupid, let's call it something like you dissociated from the moment. Yeah, but it was hard to not feel it. I felt every stitch. No, no, you felt it. But emotionally, you weren't connected. Maybe, yeah.

So what happened that was, I was like, okay, no problem. It'll end. It'll end. And then 10 goes by. Oh, it'll end. And then 20 goes by. How long will this go? And it was my girlfriend who just went.

I was clenching my teeth. But like I didn't say anything. My girlfriend was like, hey, how are you doing? And I was like, yeah, this is quite painful. And the person who was doing the stitches was like, what? What? Wait, what did you tell me? You could have told me like 20 stitches ago.

So that's an example of this thing that I close off and I go, I go endure, endure. Sure. That's a sign that you could have had a dramatic event because you developed a coping mechanism around it. And it's a sign, it's not definite. And it's worth exploring with a mental health professional. Because I think working with a mental health professional, even though it's really hard with our current system here in the U.S.,

it sucks and not everyone has access, we need to fix that. But we all could benefit from it. Because we all have varying degrees of traumas and adverse childhood events. Some of them impact us more in certain ways that are positive, some of them negative, something somewhere in between. And figuring that out with someone who's objective is really helpful.

And I don't want to become your therapist right now because that's not ethical and not ideal for you. But what I will say is the idea of dissociating during hard times is not unique to people who have gone through difficult moments like you have. But also it's just a natural human phenomenon. And I can even give you one that I can relate to myself.

I had my boxing match on Halloween and the person I was fighting against was significantly more skilled than my first fight. My first fight, I was happy to be there, I was excited, I was stoked, I was nervous, and I felt all the nerves, but I was also excited. And then for this next fight, because I was much more nervous or was much more afraid of being nervous, as a protective mechanism, my mind kind of dissociated from those emotions. But what happens and is problematic in a lot of these scenarios is when you blunt emotion, like what we do when we dissociate or you call playing stupid, we actually lose the ability to feel positive. emotions as well? During that time or for a long period?

A lot of times people dissociate for longer periods of time. And when I say positive in that moment, for example, a positive emotion, that moment for you could have been gaining the courage to say something. Yeah, yeah. But because you dissociated so hard, you didn't even connect to your positive emotions. Yes, that's exactly what I've been talking about. Yeah, that's it. You just explained it perfectly.

So for me, I couldn't summon up my nerves, which would have been good because nerves and anxiety is your body's preparing you for a challenge. Okay. So I didn't get to summon that nerves, those nerves, and as a result, I didn't perform as good as I could have had I not dissociated. Or you, in your case with the stitches, did not speak up when you totally with a positive value. You're so right.

All it would have taken is a sentence. Hey, this hurts. And it would have gone away. And when I said that, I did go away because he's not me out more. Exactly. Wow. That's, is there a name for that copium? Dissociation.

Yeah. And that's something we do kind of as a survival mechanism as humans. And that's why you frequently hear, like, sexual assault victims will say, I froze up, or I was like a deer in headlights and I didn't know what to do in that moment. That's almost like a mechanical form of dissociating where you kind of freeze up during those bad moments. But we went really dark with that. Yeah. But interesting, right? I could really learn from this because there are many occasions where all it takes is like I don't want to be here and I can get out of the painful or, or on.

uncomfortable situations. This is like a dog. This is a light little thing. Well, yeah, because you actually have more control than your body's, your mind is letting you believe you have. That's hilarious. But what was the story? So two days ago, I think two days ago, oh my God.

I went from my first facial because I'm making an effort to take care of my body. Fair, fair. I love it. Okay, this is great. So I went into the facial and I remember the person. and started popping my pimples. My eyes were covered, so I couldn't see what tools they used. But it was sore.

It was sore. Wally, it was going on? Yeah, the popping, like the squeezing, it was very sore. And it just kept going on. And it kept going on. It kept going on. After the fact of enduring that for like 20 minutes, I said to my girlfriend, I was like,

I don't think I'll ever do that again. It was very painful. And then she said, why did you tell her to stop? I was like, yeah, why didn't I tell her to stop? It would have been so easy to say. You know, this is also cultural. Because, again, Chinese culture in respecting elders, in treating things in a hierarchy process,

it's very similar in Russian culture. So I have the same situation. Like, I've gone for a massage before, and I was getting a massage, and it was way too rough. And I'm like, no, this person is like, they're trying. That means like they're doing something really powerful. And the next day, I couldn't walk.

Because it was like, but again, I didn't need to. And now I'm trying to learn and say like, okay, it's okay to speak up. It doesn't mean you're spoiled as long as you do it respectfully. Yeah. And I think that's a cultural shift that we need to sort of adjust a little of us. I love that. That's a real piece of value. It's funny that we have a lot of these.

Yeah, it is. I remember your stories from you tell them in your videos like the way you grew up. Your dad made you memorize pages of a book. That's hardcore rule. My social studies textbook. I still remember it. And I would stop. What, you still remember.

Yeah. I don't remember the words. Oh, okay. But I remember, like, reading the chapter about Native Americans or something, and I'm memorizing it, he takes it, he's holding it, and I start off by saying the, and it was Anne, the first word. He hands me the book back, go back. And I was like, this is terrible.

But now I'm so grateful that he did that. Yes, yes. I'm grateful that I went through everything I did. So it's like it's a good learning process because you constantly adapt one way. another. And it's a cool process. My last question is going to be about how you manage your emotions now because now you have failure management as your motto and as your brand. So how do you manage failure? Failure management is a funny thing. It started as a joke. I was satirizing how many times I would be called, hey, that's not good enough. Because our culture

are very similar in the way that the parents has to hold up this tough persona of nothing's ever good enough, right? Mom, I won an Oscar. Why did it then you and two? Nothing's ever good enough. And so it started off as a piece of satire, as a joke,

but then I actually found power in the failures and the rejections. I'm a very logical and mathematical person, and I just thought about this one day. I was like, hey, wait a second, it's really easy to win a one in a million lottery.

All you have to do is lose a couple million times, right? And I started thinking about this in a very large scale of everything I've been doing. The rejections that I had gotten, the videos that have made that didn't work. And at the time I had gone on a journey of studying people who I admired, there was an insight that just blew me away. and that is the people that I admired had failed way more times than I thought Leonardo DiCaprio on his sag after interview says he was rejected for a year straight

that blew my head off imagine you're a casting director and Leonardo DiCaprio walks into your room and you're like nah so that I was like okay wait a second so it's not such a bad thing because all the people who have made it to great length have gotten there. So that has taken power away from the negative rejections and the stuff.

Because it used to make me feel like I was lesser. Like I wasn't good enough and stuff like that. Which, yeah, sometimes are true. I have to get better. Yeah, sure. But now I wear it with pride. I don't fear failure anymore. I know if I try to do one thing, it's going to fail hundreds of times, but I'll pivot and I'll find the way.

so that emotion I have no negative emotion and I wish this to I wish this insight to carry farther and de-villanized failure for more people as well because it's not to be feared but the emotions thing

that's a great thing you mentioned that because I have had extraordinary growth that has changed everything about my emotions and it's because of acting funny enough I went to a school called the neighborhood playhouse in New York City

it's actually the reason I came to the United States It's one of the best schools on the planet. And while I was there, I learned more about myself, a lot more. I learned why I am the way I am. And I learned this concept that everything we experience, every piece of our lives, live inside us always. So even if you forgot the day you accidentally dropped your ice cream cone on the floor when you were six, it actually lives inside you and it works to affect the human you become

and so gradually I started to understand myself oh so this is why I feel anger because I fear because you know when I was six for two years I would finish school and watch

every other child get picked up by their parents and I'd walk on by myself so upon so essentially what kind of the neighborhood playhouse teaches you to do is first to learn your instrument and that was massively impactful i learned why i am the way i am i learned why i feel every emotion i feel and then the other side of the acting is to use it as a as a professional skill and particularly the neighborhood playhouse teaches the miser technique which is a much healthier way to do it i think um

because it's not using your trauma it's using imagination to things that are not real And, you know, once you know yourself enough, you can execute and cry on take 20 takes in a role, for example, like, things like that, and be able to let it go. Yes, I can't do that. No way. Okay, I'm not going to make you cry. 20 takes it around. I did that once for a film.

It was only a little bit ago. But that process, the acting process, now understanding, like, my dad said this thing to me. Over last year, there was a person I was very angry at, very. angry because I believed they wanted to exploit me. Um, uh, and I, I would shout. I would be very like aggressive. Um, and then my dad told me, it's just you. I was like, what, what, what are you talking about? It's just me. And he said, oh, it's, it's, they're pushing your buttons, but it's your buttons. And so I was like, whoa, wait a second. So you're telling me the reason I feel this anger, is because of insecurities that are either poking at sensitive spots that I have to defend with the anger

or stuff like that. After I realize, I look at everything differently now. Like, anytime I feel any negative emotion, I go, it's me. Now, where is that button and why is it there? And by realizing that, it completely disarms the power of the anger. I mean, your level of insight is like 100 right now. you're like where is my sensitive yeah like if you were a Pokemon and you had an insight skill it would be a hundred out of a hundred evolved to the final four yeah because most people

don't do that um whether it's they don't know how they're not disciplined to um they're hurt so much further that they're incapable of doing that in the given moment because in reality we all could get to that point but it's hard we have to put a lot of our egos on the side of It is the hardest thing I've ever done. I genuinely, I wanted, I meant harm to a person who hurt me very much. And that's what was why the anger. And to disarm that anger is the hardest thing I've ever done. Sure.

And it all comes from your successes in balancing your failure, celebrating your failure, building up confidence off of those failures, and then seeing all these things play out and how you have better control over your emotions so that you trust yourself to make those decisions. Yeah. Because it seems like you trust yourself now, right? What do you mean? Like to make that decision to say,

yes, this person's angry or I'm angry at this person, but why? I trust myself enough to figure it out. Because a lot of times we won't have faith in our ability to know the truth that maybe emotionally we're reasoning and are not being objective. But it sounds like you're capable of being quite objective.

There is a very faith. famous Chinese poem and it starts off with these six letters that are so profound. It just, it took me this long to understand it. It's, it's, Renzsichu, sin ben-san, sin-shin,

and it describes, all humans are born good. Although your experiences might defer, your nature is good. That is the perspective that allows me to look at a person who am angry at and go oh damn if i'm in their position i'll probably do the same thing yeah so that's charitable thinking you're doing you're doing all of the psychological terms that we would we would discuss in therapy you're naturally organically doing it which is great that's crazy it's very powerful thank you very much

yeah so well done oh yay growth and today i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna think about the disassociation thing more yeah because there are just uh there are just situations where i don't need to injure stuff And I will say, despite you having 100 out of 100 insight level, working with a mental health professional goes so far in being able to bounce ideas off of to have a non-judgmental person who is completely devoid of emotional reasoning in the moment, because they're not experiencing the same emotions you are or were, that they can help facilitate your internal dialogue. That's fascinating.

Yeah. Interesting stuff. Well, that's why we cheers to failure management. 2020. Cheers. In 2023. Sam, should we do the lightning round? Let's do it, baby. All right.

Lightning round. Lightning round. These are going to be fast. Okay. So we can get you out of here and you don't have to hate us for keeping you so late. Oh, no. I'm good. Okay.

Which character that you've played, whether it be on stage or one you've created on camera, would live the longest. Wow. These are, these are hard for a fast, fast lightning round. Which character? I've played plenty of characters. would live the longest, I think. I have to go fictional Stephen. Fictional Stephen that gets roasted all the time.

I think it's him. Okay. Shortest? Ha ha ha ha. This is pop quiz. There's an actual answer for this. It's I played a, I played a character in Spring Awakening called Murwitz-Shtiefel. And if you know the play, he does not survive till the end.

Oh, okay. Merritt-stifel. Yeah. What's one thing you could do if you could never get hurt? What's one thing I could do if I could never get hurt? Yeah. Like if I say you'll never get hurt doing this, what would it? Oh, oh, okay.

In reality, no superpowers or anything. Well, the superpowers that you won't feel any pain or you won't have any, you won't get hurt. That's a superpower. But only for that one activity. Yeah. Okay. I think. I think I would go into boxing.

Really? Yeah. No way. If I don't get here, because that's my main concern. I just don't want injuries. You would like to box? Yes, I think it would be quite fun.

I think you would. I kind of want to take you into boxing and train you up a little. If I ever go to be with you, Doug. Creator Clash 3. Okay. What's one thing that your body does that not everybody else's body does? Besides form stress cysts. The body's like, yeah, got plenty of that,

whatever you want. I move well for being a thicker guy. Okay. I think I move well. Okay, we're going to find that out in a boxing room. Have you ever almost died? Have I ever almost? Yes, yeah. There are a few experiences I could distinctly remember. Okay, give me one. Oh boy, I didn't have parental controls for most of my life. So I was in many situations where I almost died. So here's some of the easy ones. I remember once riding a bike on a very narrow sidewalk, right? On a road, cars go by, there's a sidewalk. I was riding

the bike and there was a pole directly in my way and things like this narrow. I was like, okay, how am I get the bicycle? And I was speeding. How am I going to get those little? And a car was coming right at me at the perfect timing. I managed to

execute one of these, clock, clock. And then I ducked the pole and came back. I couldn't turn. And duct the car. And duct the car. Yeah, yeah. So that's an example. When I was young, I was, I tried a lot of stuff because there were no parents tell me not to. Sure. So I went to internet bars.

Can I say this? Yeah, say it. I went to internet bars when I was 13 and there was not a good place to go. It was the not legit ones. It was the. The scammy ones. Behind many alleyways, someone's basement ones. And in that place, I saw many drug deals go down.

many illegal activities go down and it's a miracle that I managed to stay out of any of it I probably swear that. And you were 13? I was 13. What's one thing you spend way too much money on? I think I know the answer to that one. Oh!

Way too much money on. Big ticket. I'm a watch collector. Yeah, exactly. We're both watch collectors. We were just romanticizing about that. Which country is funnier, China or Ireland? Oh, Ireland.

Why? Oh, bro. I thought you were going to say China for sure. That's because I satirized, but like the thing is Chinese humor is quite restricted. Okay. And life is harder. So not many people are up for laughing. Okay.

Whereas Irish people are very, very free and they're goofy. I think that's where I got my goofiness from. Okay. Do you have a personal health hack or tip that you love? Oh, great question It's maybe misinformation So please listen to Dr. Mike Please listen to Dr. Mike

I like being upside down I'm gonna Are there whips and leather outfits involved? Because then I don't want to know So let me let me pay the picture When I was young Outside of my house there was a clothes hanging pole metal very strong i used to i was a kid back then i used to love climbing out

the pole it was like a monkey bar thing yeah and you know it's hanging yeah we like that i loved that you still do that i i don't have anything to hang off of anymore i know what i'm getting you for the holidays it's a shame your birthday just passed because i've gotten you this as a version table yes or the thing that you know in the gym you hook the teeter hangups yeah yeah yeah i love that i love hanging off of the bed i'll get you this Is that healthy? I don't want to tell the camera anything people shouldn't do. You love it. It's healthy for you. We'll leave it at that. No medical claims to be proven or disproven here.

Thank you. Okay.