Your Transformation Station - 58. Text Cope Notes New Mental and "Emotional Wellness" Check Crowder, Johnny w/ Favazza

Episode Date: September 30, 2021

(Greg Favazza) and (Johnny Crowder) discuss the origin of the company, and the reason why Cope Notes was created. As an individual who suffered mental health crises, (Johnny Crowder) grew frustrated and dissatisfied with the industry's approach to mental health, and the standard being the person suffering initiates the request of the care, when experiencing difficulty with emotional distress and motivation. Support the showPODCAST INFO:Podcast website: https://ytspod.comApple Podcasts: https://ytspod.com/appleSpotify: https://ytspod.com/spotifyRSS: https://ytspod.com/rssYouTube: https://ytspod.com/youtubeSUPPORT & CONNECT:- Check out the sponsors below, it's the best way to support this podcast- Outgrow: https://www.ytspod.com/outgrow- Quillbot Flow: https://ytspod.com/quilbot - LearnWorlds: https://ytspod.com/learnworlds- Facebook: https://ytspod.com/facebook- Instagram: https://ytspod.com/instagram- TikTok: https://ytspod.com/tiktok- Twitter: https://ytspod.com/x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So the shortest, simplest way I can describe what we do is we use daily text messages to improve mental and emotional health. And each text is written by a peer with lived experience, then reviewed by clinicians, and then delivered at random time so that over time, you never know what we will say or when we will text you, but it trains your brain to think in healthier patterns. We're tapping in to surpassing expectations from the most successful people. people in the modern day and honing in a new foresight, methodologies, and clairvoyance you never knew. This is your transformation station with your host, Greg Favaza.

Johnny Crowder, welcome to your transformation station. Howdy? I'm from Florida, so I get to say that. Nice, nice. I'm from Missouri. I've been all over the U.S., but yes, Missouri for the moment. to tell us about your background, your organization, and your title. Yeah, so it feels weird to say this, but I am the founder and CEO of Cope Notes. And I just, you can think of it like this. I grew up with a number of different mental health diagnoses and I was in an abusive environment in and out of treatment for years.

And I kind of like kept a mental checklist of all the things that bothered me about the mental health resources that I used. And then eventually over time, I just got sick of being frustrated with all of these resources. So I wanted to create a resource that is now Cope Notes that would address a lot of my frustrations with other resources like cost or convenience, accessibility, privacy, stuff like that. So I resonate from what you've just said. I've experienced trauma in my social upbringing. I don't want to go too deep into it, but abuse at a very young age. And it sticks with you. It's all about learning how to handle it and minimize the emotion that's attached to it. So I definitely understand where that lies within us. What are,

types of problems that your organization solves? Well, the one thing that I think has always bothered me about, no matter what type of support I've tried to engage with throughout my life, one thing that's always bothered me is this idea that the onus to reach out for support is on the person who's hurting. So we'll say like, I don't know, we'll say, hey, Greg, if you're hurting, just reach out for help. And it's kind of like saying, you know, in my mind that's like saying, hey,

I see that you do the ankle. That's probably pretty painful. Why don't you just climb to the top of this mountain? And there's a great clinic at the top of the mountain that can fix your ankle. And it's like, what the heck? I can't climb a mountain because I broke my ankle. And we do that to people. We tell them if you're hurting, reach out.

And one thing I really wanted to tackle with Cope Notes, one of the many things I wanted to tackle was how do we get people support before they ask for it? Like, how do we get that perfect? that prevention in place and be proactive instead of waiting until after a headline or a tragedy or a news story. How do we get there six, 12, 24 months before that even happens and start equipping people while they're still healthy? Recognizing the signs, right? So how would you recognize these signs and how would you get them to listen to you at that initial phase? I'm a really big proponent of like habit forming and recognition.

So you don't really always do what you consciously want to do. You commonly do what's most comfortable and your brain is always trying to conserve as many calories as possible. So if you have to make a decision, in all likelihood you're going to make the most comfortable one. And that's basically what habits are. So what I do in my own life is I can. keep an eye out for any kind of pattern breaks. Like if I know every morning before work, I brush my teeth. And then I don't brush my teeth for a couple days. I'm like, uh-oh, there's a pattern break there. I want to keep an eye on that. Could it be indicative

of another type of change? And I also really encourage people to just ask someone that you trust if they recognize a pattern break in you. Like other people can see your life from a different perspective. So I will ask my sister, hey, have you noticed anything different about me in the last couple weeks? And sometimes she'll say, nope. And sometimes she might say, it seems like you've been staying up a lot later. I'm like, ooh, I wonder why. Like, is that maybe just a coincidence? Or is there something there that I want to take a closer look at? Oh, my God. Let's unpack all of that. that you just said that right there that's self-awareness i know that just doesn't happen naturally you had to definitely work on that yeah therapy is is big i would if no one if someone is listening

of this and they haven't tried therapy because they think it's stupid or or not for them i just really encourage you to give it a shot you never know like i i bounced around from therapist to therapist until i found a good one but once i found that good one like i don't see that therapist anymore, but I still use methods that we talked about years and years ago today. That's fantastic. And I'm right there with you. I've experienced numerous different therapists, and I'm currently in transition to finding the right one that fits my past. And let's just go back, but with communicating with a significant other spouse, a family member, and just asking them what's different about you. I mean, that takes a conscious.

effort. It doesn't happen overnight and recognizing that you're not doing your your normal habits, that is a beautiful thing right there to recalibrate yourself when you're about to fall off the beaten path. I also have noticed that, at least for me, I think everybody has kind of physical symptoms to stuff too. Like for me, if I get frustrated, my ears get hot. Like if I can feel myself starting to be frustrated, I can feel like a heat around my ears. And other people have told me like they'll start like wiggling their foot

or they'll like stand up or start stretching or they notice their body doing something. But I think the self-awareness piece is key. Just keep an eye on yourself. And if you notice any kind of trends or patterns, which I'm sure you will, you can, I mean, I literally have a calm down checklist. on my phone. And when I notice myself being frustrated or feeling anxious, I open my calm down checklist and I just pick something from the checklist that I think would make me feel better,

like going on a walk or swimming or listening to music. It's just being prepared, really. That's smart. I mean, because if you didn't have that checklist and you said, you've looked at this checklist over a dozen to maybe a hundred times, you just can't go off the top. of your head, even though you looked at it because you're being affected by the emotion. So that's fantastic that you retort back to some concrete material. Yeah, I always tell people the worst time to make a decision is when your brain is flooded with cortisol. So a lot of people are like, well, figure out how to deal with my frustration. I used to have really bad anger issues. And if you were to ask me when I was furious and throwing things across the room and punching a

hole in the wall, you would ask me, what would you like to do to calm down right now? It's like the worst time to ask me. I should really make those decisions when I'm not frustrated so that the moment my brain starts experiencing that high level of distress, I can basically consult my past self that was calm and ask him what I should do rather than having to come up with something in the moment. Agreed. Agreed. Let's transition. Who in your audience is impacted by these problems? I would argue everybody who has a brain and tells the truth.

Like, yes. I think a big misconception around in the mental health world is that mental health resources are only for certain people. And that creates a lot of distress and people that could have been avoided. Like if you say, you know, let's rewind. I'm 14 years old and I'm counting my Cheerios and I'm not stepping on cracks and I won't touch my food and I can't hug or handshake. And if you were to ask me, do you, would you like some help with some of those things that you're experiencing? I would say no, because I've never been diagnosed with OCD.

So it must not be OCD. And there are people out there right now who are living without a diagnosis and they say, well, I don't need mental health support. And it's kind of like saying, well, I don't have cavities so I don't need to brush my teeth. It's like it's not people with cavities that need to brush your teeth. Everybody with teeth needs to brush them. It's being okay with not being okay. Just understand. Be honest with yourself.

You have a brain. That's actually a really good thing. Just take care of it. Dust it off. But with that previous question, I wanted to initiate a little, a little, some fire out of you, try to get what you really feel. So that's good. I like that. Well, there's some challenges you had with funding the Cope Notes Enterprise. Yeah, the whole thing was a challenge because we were bootstrapped. I mean, we still are. Like, we haven't taken VC funding. So

that is one route that you can take if you're launching a startup and you can go to a VC firm or private equity firm or something or even angel investors and just say, hey, this is what I'm building. Can you please give me money to build it? I am super hardheaded and like very much from the DIY side of things. So I was like, oh, build it myself and I don't need anybody's help. And as a result, it was really difficult. I think one of the hardest parts of building the company has been only being able to spend what the company has made. Because I didn't, it's not like I started the company with a loan from somebody or with a big fat savings account either. Like if we made $100, I had to turn around and figure out how to spend that $100 so that we could make another

$100. It was very much like paycheck to paycheck for a long time. And now we're able to actually hire full-time employees that are on salary. And a couple years ago, there's no way financially we would have been able to do that. Wow. How does that feel just? just to see your hard work coming to life? It's a little freaky. Like I was thinking yesterday, I sat on the couch that I came up with the name for Cope Notes on. I was sitting on that couch,

and I had a big list of potential names for the company, and I said out loud, what about Cope Notes? And my sister was like, it's okay. So I added it to a short list. And it feels weird. like now, you know, three and a half, four years later to be onboarding employees that are like, you know, these are professionals.

These are all everybody is older than me, all the people that I'm hiring. And they are experts in their field. And it feels wild to be in a position where we can hire them and ask them for their expertise, but also have the revenue necessary to hire them in the first place. Now, with your age, this is a personal question for me here. Do you feel like you're almost like slipping through the cracks? Like, like sometimes you ever feel like, I just don't, I don't know if I belong here that there's somebody better that deserves this place? Oh, imposter syndrome is a fun conversation. Yes, thank you. Yeah. I think every person in a leadership position thinks that. And in fact, I'm sure every person in a leadership position thinks that. And in fact, I'm sure every. human thinks that. But specifically if you're in leadership, everybody who's a leader knows people who are better leaders. Like I'm a CEO and I know I have mentors and advisors who would make

much better CEOs than me because as you grow, you meet more and more talented and educated people. And I do think that sometimes, but I catch myself because the contrary thought, like the counterthought to that is why not me? So it's easy to think like, why me? That like, why do I deserve to be here? But I try to challenge that with a thought like, why not me? Who better to be the CEO of a mental health technology company than someone who used every mental health tech tool because they were struggling with mental illness? And I have to like remind myself that I didn't get here on accident.

It's taken a long time. and the market has had ample time to edge me out as a CEO. It's been years. If I wasn't meant to do this, I would have been stomped out by now. Wow. Yeah, that you really hit a lot of good points that we could utilize in our daily practice as far as why not me? Like that motivates me just to hear that. Heck, yeah.

Dude, and also, I don't know if you've ever gone to a store or something and you're like, my card isn't working and someone gets their manager and they're like, I don't know how the machine works. And you're like, you're the manager and you don't know what you're doing. God, yes. You leave feeling like, I could do anything. Like, that's the manager. And she doesn't know. I don't know either.

And it just helps you when you realize that you're not surrounded by like super genius perfect people. You're surrounded by other humans who have probably all of the exact same shortcomings. and pitfalls that you've faced, they just are a little better at hiding it, maybe. That's all. That's enlightening right there. I like that. As an organization, what philosophy does Coke Notes support in terms of organizational leadership? Oh, let me pull up. I'm going to cheat right now. Hold on. Hell yeah. We have a company culture sheet that I am going to read from. So let's see. I'm going to go straight to core beliefs. This is probably the best representation. Of course, we have like mission and vision and management style and communications

and stuff. But these core beliefs, I think, embody like our attitude around our work. So we are agents of change. We make the world a better place with our work. We believe in the power of a positive can-do attitude, which is crucial. We value consistent, clear, honest, transparent communication. We are quick to take personal initiative and ownership. We maintain a strong moral compass operating in the best interest of the end user. We do not take rejection personally, which is super important in your first few years. We are open to new ideas. Nothing is permanent and everything can be improved.

We solve problems before they arise. Prevention is better than damage control. We know that each subscriber represents a real human life and every life is important. And the last one is we learn. learn from losses, celebrate victories, and praise others for a job well done. So that is like who Cope Notes is as a corporate culture. Wow. That it's refreshing to hear a company that promotes well-being over the accomplishment of the mission.

Yeah. That's fantastic. We even have to check ourselves with that too. like I'll find myself overworking all the time. I'll be working way too many hours or stressing myself out. And I realize like I'm running a mental wellness company and creating anxiety in myself. Like that is so ironic and terrible. So we have to check ourselves a lot.

Like, you know, do you need a break? Should you step away? What, you know, would spending the second half of the day with your kid help you recalibrate and you can come in tomorrow feeling fresh? Like, we have to remember that all of our employees, including me, were humans. Is that something that you practice annually, quarterly, however, you pass that information down the channel to remind people that they, their families come first? It's very much case by case. Like we had one of our employees recently had a, her daughter broke her hand. And she was like, oh, I'm sorry, I have to skip out and go to the hospital because

and I'm like, dude, that is really important. Like, you can do your work when you come back. Like, your work isn't going to disappear, right? But your daughter is in pain and is in the hospital and that takes priority. And obviously that's an extreme scenario. But there's also moments where one of our employees has told me, like, I just feel like I'm staring at a bunch of blank code. Like, my brain is just completely.

fried. Stuff is not making sense to me. I'm not focusing. And I'll say, like, do you want to take the rest of the day off and just kind of, you know, go on a swim or listen to music or just kind of like make sure that you aren't fried? Because burnout is probably the number one reason why people quit jobs.

Agreed. As far as getting disengaged from their work based off. just a whole bunch of things that are just pent up inside of them, maybe not being able to look towards a vacation because of financial situations. But having that understanding as a leader is very important to know is to remind them because they're focused on accomplishing what they're supposed to be accomplishing when they come in and clock in. I need them to tell me that too. Like I'm onboarding two new employees today, actually.

and I told both of them like, if you get fried, tell me. If you don't enjoy the work that you're doing, tell me. If you're having an issue with my management style or your relationship with another employee, tell me. Like, I don't know unless you tell me. And I want people to feel empowered to say, Johnny, I woke up feeling super depressed. I have no idea where it came from. It's washing over me like a freaking tidal wave.

and I need to know that. I'd rather have you take a full day to do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself than like try to trudge through work and then just prolong that healing. I like that you're open to like a psychological safe space for employees to speak up regarding an issue with either themselves, with the company and maybe with you, because you might have your blind. on trying to accomplish whatever you're trying to accomplish and you're not seeing what's short term but you're looking long term. My team will always see things that I don't see. That's just by nature of them being somebody else. And I've heard people say like, well,

you don't want to give people mental health days because then they'll just take a bunch of days off. And the fact is if you have employees that are doing that and taking advantage of that policy, they shouldn't be working at a mental health company anyway because they're abusing something that is meant to provide support and relief. So the way I'm seeing it, if I'm choosing to hire somebody, I want to give them that autonomy because if they abuse it, then I made the wrong hire anyway, you know? Let's segue over to our closing. I just have a few more questions. what impact has coat notes had on current mental health crisis? Really our specialty is prevention.

So we don't do crisis counseling. Like we're not the type of tool where if you're going through crisis, you contact cope notes and we walk you through it. No, no, no. This is making sure that you're doing everything you can to prevent crisis. And should you approach crisis, you feel equipped. You can like check in with yourself and ask yourself like, okay, how exactly am I feeling right now? What do I think is contributing to this?

What supports do I think would benefit me right now? Like we're trying to basically train people to face those situations and actually know what to do. So our focus is, I mean, really, when we think about our subscribers, we're thinking about their well-being now versus their well-being once they face a crisis. And the stories that we've heard of people, you know, there have been some really moving moments where like a Cope Notes text,

because they're all randomly timed. You never know when you'll get the text. And we've heard people say that they got a text, you know, right before they were about to engage in self-harm. And it was just the timing of the text just like jerked them awake from that day and they're like, wow, I need to check myself into rehab or I need to call somebody or do something about this.

There have been moments like that, but more often the story is when I thought about engaging in self-harm or when I thought about how depressed I was or anxious it was, I remembered a Cope Notes text from three and a half months ago that totally equipped me to face that scenario. And that's really what we're trying to do is like build a knowledge base inside of people's brains. so that they can kind of turn back when they face a situation and think like, okay, past self,

what have we learned that will equip us to face this? And they have like a tool belt, you know? Yes, forcing people to adapt away from how our parents have taught us. Yeah, we call it the great uneducation. It's unlearning everything that we've been taught and trying to really, challenge a lot of the mentality around like just stuff it down and deal with it tomorrow like no we got unlearn that stuff yes it's that's self-defeating talk just a few more questions here how did you monetize with the with your concept into accessible organization today well when we started I

saw I'm an idealist so when I started Cope Notes it was actually called not a therapist It was a peer support tool and it was completely free. And we couldn't afford to keep it running because it was free. And we didn't have enough money. We couldn't find enough volunteers to keep it up. So I knew that if this idea was going to succeed, we needed to charge money so that we could afford the hosting and the servers, building the scheduler. Like, we needed people to pay us so that we could deliver the service. And I was like, oh, this is why not everything is free because stuff costs money.

So we knew that we didn't want to charge a lot, though. Like my goal, this was even before I knew whether or not it was financially feasible, I thought I want a full year of daily support through Cote Notes to cost less than one therapy session. So I don't know how we're going to have to math that out to make it true, but that's what I want to do. And we wound up going with a subscription model and sticking right around, 10-ish dollars per month. And that made it accessible for people. A lot of digital health vendors now are charging $260 a month, $300 a month, $400 a month.

And we were like, how can we be like 26 times more affordable than the cheapest option out there? And so our focus has always been, you know, yes, we have to monetize it because we have stuff to pay for. Like we have employees. and they have families. The fact is money needs to come into this company for it to grow, but there is a fine line with profit,

and we can draw that to make sure that the company profits enough to grow, but we're not like extorting people and charging hundreds of dollars for something that we don't have to just for the sake of profit. It's the whole ethos behind any social enterprises. We need the company to be profitable, but we also need to be providing a fair amount of value for what we're charging. Well put. That's beautiful.

Just two last questions here. What is some good advice to follow and some bad advice to avoid? For what? For life in general. In your past, if I were to ask you those two questions, what are the first two thoughts that come to mind? Some good advice is something that I used to think was bad advice. So I used to hear people saying like, oh, you got to look out for number one. You got to take care of yourself first. And I was like, screw that.

I love other people. And I really didn't like myself at that point in my life. So I was like, why would I take care of myself when I could help somebody else? Dude, it's the, everyone has heard the oxygen mask analogy where you have to put on your own oxygen mask before you put on someone else's. And I used to hear that stuff and think that's such bad advice. It just leads to selfishness and it eliminates connection with other people. And that's not true. What actually leads to selfishness is running out of air and not being able to help anybody because you didn't take care of yourself.

So. Fuck yes. There you go. Good advice that I'm still learning right now is for the love of all that is holy, please take care of yourself and prioritize your mental health. I spent way too long thinking that this type of conversation would apply to other people and not really me because I was so different and so unique. No, if you have a brain, you need to take care of it. I don't care. I actually don't even care. I tell people this openly. I don't care if it's not cope notes. Like my whole life is built around creating this tool and I believe in it a thousand percent.

But if you don't like it, that's okay. Do something. else. Just make sure that you're doing something every single day. And bad advice, I would say to avoid some bad advice is you can do it on your own. I think that that is so misleading. Every single successful person that I've ever met has mentors or advisors or friends, people that they ask for help. So I admire the DIY mindset and I think there's a lot of good components to it, but it can get really dangerous if you're facing like a mental or emotional struggle. Like depression, you think, I'll just get through it on my own. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying that you can't get through it on your own.

I'm saying you don't have to. It would be so much easier on you if you asked for help. If you just allowed yourself to read something or listen to a lecture or call a friend or contact one of the million providers out there or use an online resource, just don't think that you have to do it on your own. You might be able to, but I don't think you have to. Beautiful. How can our listeners get in touch with you if they want to know more? copenotes.com has everything you will need it. Obviously it has subscriptions.

It has my TED Talk on the About page if you want to learn about the neuroscience behind Copnotes. And also, if you're a podcast person, Copenotes does have a podcast. It's called Drumroll, please. The Copenotes podcast makes perfect sense. So if you look up the Cop Notes podcast on whatever you're using to listen to this episode, We have, I think, about 40 episodes of interviews with real people talking about their mental and emotional health and things that they've learned. It's a really interesting and easy way to kind of dip your toe into the mental health conversation without diving full force.

Beautiful. I will link a couple of the shows, a couple of shows to this show to expose to the audience. Heck, yeah. Beautiful. Now, John, do you have anything else you'd like to leave our audience with? I'll say that it's not an accident if you're still listening to this. Like, don't listen to an entire episode where we talk about mental health and then go, oh, well, anyway, back to my normal life. Like, if you listened this whole time, it should tell you that you care about this. Don't delude yourself into thinking that you just owes happenstance.

I just let it run in the background because I was doing dishes. No, some part of your brain wanted to hear a 40-minute conversation about mental health, and that should be a marker to you that it's worth digging a little deeper. Well, thank you, Johnny. I really do appreciate you coming on the show. Absolutely, brother. Thanks for having me. You've been listening to Your Transformation Station,

rediscovering your true identity and purpose on this planet. We hope you enjoyed the show, and we hope you've gotten some. useful and practical information. In the meantime, connect with us on Facebook and Instagram at YTS The Podcast. We'll be back soon. Until then, this is your transformation station. Signing off. LifeLock, how can I help?

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