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Episode 205: Better Days MtG
227 Plays1 year ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Today we are joined by Ryan Nicholas (aka TronIsBad) to discuss the #BetterDaysMtG hashtag. This has been a movement that Hobbes and Ryan have been spearheading to try and spur the conversation around Mental Health. The goal is to work towards destigmatizing these conversations and hoping to get anyone/everyone to post under this hashtag as they feel comfortable. We hope you all will stick around for this conversations
CW: Mental Health Concerns, Substance Use
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Goblin Lore Podcast
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. This is HobbsQ. We are getting ready. We're going to have a special episode today. We have a guest that we've been meaning to have on for actually quite a while. We have been scheduled with and canceled and rescheduled multiple times with today's guest, which is kind of actually apropos because a lot of times that's been canceling kind of due to mental health reasons I know, especially kind of on my
Sponsor Acknowledgment and Gratitude
00:00:57
Speaker
part.
00:00:57
Speaker
So before we get started, we just want to say thank you to the Grinding Coffee Company. We just really appreciate their willingness to pair with us for charity events, just kind of offer discounts on coffee to anybody that would like it. It keeps me fueled through the show. So yeah, Grinding Coffee Company, check them out. They're LGBT and minority ran and owned coffee company.
00:01:21
Speaker
So like I said, my name is Hobbs Q.
Introduction of Co-host and Guest
00:01:24
Speaker
My pronouns are he, him, and we're going to introduce my co-host Taya's first. Hi, this is Taya, pronouns are she, her, they, them.
00:01:35
Speaker
And we have our guest, Ryan Tron Is Bad, my partner in crime with Better Days MTG. Hi, Ryan. Hey, Hobbs. Hey, Taya. Thank you for having me first and foremost. As Hobbs said, my name is Ryan Nicholas. I go by Tron Is Bad on all social medias. My pronouns are he, him, and I am one half of Better Days MTG. Thanks for having me.
Focus on Better Days MTG Project
00:01:59
Speaker
You're welcome. So yeah, so what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be talking about Better Days MTG. Kind of a project. I think that's the best way to kind of describe it that grew out of some of the work that Ryan was already doing that I basically asked if I could take over and co-opt and just run with and just take full credit for and basically just cut them out in every way, shape or form. So that's what we're going to be talking about today.
00:02:24
Speaker
Before we get started, I would like to do a question, which is share something that you are grateful for today.
Expressions of Gratitude
00:02:31
Speaker
This is something that's been a kind of recurrent thing for me to talk about is this this idea of daily gratitude. And I'm going to go last because I don't actually know if I have one. So, Taya.
00:02:45
Speaker
You had to start with me. Okay. Um, yes, that's rude. Okay. Yeah. This has been a pretty bad day for me because I did not sleep well last night. So I have not had a lot to be grateful today. So I'm just going to say, I am grateful. I got a task done that I've been putting off for about two weeks and it's done and I don't have to worry about it anymore. So that's awesome. I'm proud of you. Yeah. It's.
00:03:15
Speaker
It's not really a big deal, but it's done with, and that's good. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't feel like a big deal, and it's done. And it's done is always a very big thing. Yeah. Does that mean it's my turn? Sure. Okay. I'm still thinking too. All right.
00:03:36
Speaker
I guess, yeah. Today, I am very grateful for the support system that I have. I'm grateful for the friends that I have that are here today, and I'm grateful for my extremely supportive brother. My brother, Rhett, is one of my best friends. He's always asking how stuff is going with me for
00:04:01
Speaker
All the content stuff and he loves seeing me do all this really cool stuff with like podcasts and magic and streaming He actually started streaming himself. So that's like really cool to see But I am also extremely grateful for my incredible partner Nikki She has been so supportive through everything going on of me going on all these trips and
00:04:26
Speaker
me having to take time away to do all this content and she's just always been there in the sense that since we started dating, she's been my rock, she's been my best friend, she's been in my corner just so unconditionally, I'm very, very grateful for her.
00:04:50
Speaker
What is your brother streaming? My brother is a League of Legends streamer. He streams MOBA's and he streams what are they called? Survival games, like Rust and all that kind of stuff.
00:05:10
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah. And yeah, Nikki has been, you know, I see her post is just so supportive and I just, it's just been fantastic to see kind of your relationship even grow even just from the time I've known. Yeah, it's about to grow even more. I'm actually moving in with her over the next month. So congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.
00:05:31
Speaker
So yeah, I actually, I think I did have one today. I was kind of, you know, playing it up a little bit. But right before I came down to record with y'all, it was putting the girls to bedtime. And I got to rock Freya to bed, who's my youngest daughter. And one of the things I was able to do tonight,
00:05:49
Speaker
She she generally is very much a mama's girl. She like cries at times when it's when I'm the one putting her to bed. And so it can sometimes feel a little hurtful, right? Even though it's like, you know, a two year old has no concept of that. But tonight she let me rock her and
00:06:07
Speaker
I do some music, I try to play some music that I enjoy. I'm a very huge music person and I really try to instill or start to get my daughters interested in some of the music that's important to me. I actually rocked her to sleep while playing her They Might Be Giants and sang Birdhouse in Your Soul and Anna Aang to her while rocking her to sleep.
00:06:32
Speaker
And I'm just grateful that I had a good night to do that with my daughter who, you know, it's not that I think that there's definitely times that she wants dad, but it's not as often. So kind of getting that from my youngest felt just good tonight. And I was grateful to have that before coming down to record with y'all. That's awesome. So.
Ryan's Mental Health Advocacy Journey
00:06:54
Speaker
Ryan. Hello. Hey, let's talk Better Days MTG, which didn't always have a name. No, it did not. Can you take us a little bit on the journey? Because, you know, I think for people that don't know, I guess Better Days MTG is a hashtag for all intents and purposes at this point. It is a hashtag.
00:07:14
Speaker
It was developed kind of in collaboration between Ryan and I. Once I approached him about some of the mental health stuff he was already doing on his own, because I wanted to hopefully amplify it. And I was hoping that we could talk about it larger and more. And finding things like a hashtag to get an umbrella so that people can find it was very important to do. And Ryan suggested the name Better Days MTG.
00:07:41
Speaker
So before we get into like the Better Days MTG, can you tell us a little bit of just your kind of background history, kind of why you started doing what you've been doing, really this like video journaling in some ways? Yeah, absolutely. First things first, before I get into it, I want to say, Hobbs, thank you. Thank you for being on this journey with me. It has meant the world to me that I have
00:08:08
Speaker
what I consider one of my extremely close and great friends doing this with me now. So thank you for that. Secondly, to get into everything. So before Better Days MTG even started, before the videos even started, let's go even further than that. I used to post a picture of a cup of coffee every day, every other day, in the morning or in the evening, whenever. I know, listen, don't drink coffee at night. Trust me, it'll ruin your sleep schedule.
00:08:35
Speaker
I've got a big cup of iced tea in my hand right now. Very nice. Is it decaf, Taya? No, no, no, no, no. I never touch decaf. That would be like sacrilege. See? Okay, so we'll talk more later. Luckily, Taya is on the west coast. Okay, that's fair. Okay. All right, that's fair. Yeah, it's still late for, but yeah, that's a whole nother story. The amount of
00:09:02
Speaker
caffeinated tea I drink is probably a bad thing for most people. Probably. Before even starting my magic Twitter, because my Twitter actually is fairly new. I only started this Twitter, I want to say
00:09:20
Speaker
probably late end of last year beginning of this year maybe give or take just to like kind of post like tournament results or talk about magic and just have like a purely magic related Twitter Now one thing that I've always dealt with through therapy Way way back then was my therapist at all has always said why don't you write stuff down?
00:09:43
Speaker
Um, so I've tried to do it and I, I don't, yeah. And I know how I'm still laughing about it. I get it. Uh, but I have always tried to write in a journal to, to like write in the notes app and my phone and it's just like never really worked for me. It's just never been something that I was able to like consciously just sit here and, and do, but then I was like, you know what? I.
00:10:08
Speaker
drink coffee all the time and coffee I can use to relate to other people because other people love coffee. So maybe if I post a picture of a cup of coffee, someone's just going to be like, let me click and now let me read. So when Twitter was, I guess, X or whatever, when Twitter was actually Twitter, it's still Twitter. I refuse to call it X. Yeah, we do too.
00:10:30
Speaker
When it was just 140 characters, I would try to fit something into those 140 characters or I'd post on Instagram or I'd post on Facebook, just like a little focus of something that I'm dealing with or trying to remind people that they're not alone with things. But when I came over to the magic side of Twitter,
00:10:50
Speaker
what I wanted to do and this has been me because I've been a competitive player since 2009. I really had never had the opportunity to play like kitchen counter magic because of who I grew up with and where I grew up. I grew up in North New Jersey where arguably was one of the most densely populated areas for magic gathering as far as competitive players. Like one of my previous housemates that I used to live with, I won't go as far to like name drop people but
00:11:19
Speaker
One of my previous housemates was a previous pro tour winner, and he had taught me how to play competitive magic. My friend Phil, when I first sat down and started playing magic, played against me when I played a golem pre-con deck.
00:11:37
Speaker
and played his painter-servant grindstone combo legacy deck against me. And that immediately just hooked me into magic and hooked me into old extended formats. And that's how I started playing
Mental Health in Competitive Magic
00:11:50
Speaker
magic. And the first month of me playing magic, I went to my first PTQ.
00:11:56
Speaker
That's where I've always been at, but how it ties into what I'm talking about right now is that from 2009 up until now, being a competitive player, I've always noticed that everyone always talks about the glorious sides of magic. Everyone always talks about the glorious sides of winning the Pro Tour, the dream of chasing worlds, the dream of playing in the Mythic Invitational, the dream of just playing at the Pro Tour or
00:12:23
Speaker
back in the day of being good enough to be considered one of the hall of famers. But no one ever talked about how mentally debilitating competitive magic is. And that's what I wanted to talk about. And that's everything that I kind of just opened up my posts into. So I would be very magic the gathering geared with my posts and try to relate to my audience and build my audience of magic players.
00:12:50
Speaker
to try to get Magic players and competitive Magic players to understand that if you are dealing with something, you are not dealing with that thing by yourself, and that I am playing Magic at a highly competitive level almost all of the time, five to seven days a week, and I'm dealing with this stuff too.
00:13:07
Speaker
So that's kind of where all of the posts started coming from. Now let's fast forward a little bit to MagicCon Minneapolis. So I'm going to shout out real quick, Alan from Mental Misplace. Alan is an incredible friend of ours. And Alan and I had went to, I forget where we went to eat. Do you remember that cheeseburger spot that I was telling you about that Alan and I went to go see? It was like Davies or whatever.
00:13:35
Speaker
Uh, it's like this whole, it's like this hole in the wall, maybe, I don't know. It's this hole in the wall bar and grill. And, and the cheeseburgers were filled with cheese. Yeah. Yeah. Juicy Lucy's juicy. Yes. Juicy Lucy's that man. I was trying to remember that all night. There's a five eight club and Matt's, which are two bars that have like a rivalry over who created this thing. But yeah.
00:14:00
Speaker
Sorry, we go down the juicy route. That's a whole episode right there. But yeah, Alan, Alan just pulled me aside, because we're at like one of the mixers and Alan pulled me aside and was just like, Hey, do you like do you eat meat? And I'm like, Yeah, I eat meat. You're asking me to like
00:14:18
Speaker
go go like get a burger like sound something i'm down and i was like awesome was place called you see so is a very intimate setting is like me and alan and we're bonding over these incredible cheeseburgers so alan asked me he goes hey if you're asking can i ask you something about the content you're putting on my shirt of course.
00:14:37
Speaker
And he goes, are you receptive to feedback? I'm like, yeah, I could take feedback. It's fine. And then he said, have you ever thought about making them into videos? Do you think people will listen to them or watch them more if it's a visual thing instead of just spending the time to just read a picture or a post? And I said, no, I've actually never thought of that.
00:14:57
Speaker
Fast forward to two weeks later, I tried my first video form and it was received really well because I personally wasn't immediately comfortable with opening up my vulnerable side of things that I want to focus on in a captured motion of just opening my camera and pressing play, pressing record. Then I did and it was received really, really well.
00:15:25
Speaker
tried to transition from the reading posts into the visual posts. And now here we are. And then, Pobs, you reached out to me and you said, have you ever thought about maybe putting a hashtag under it? And then we talked about that. And now here we are.
00:15:43
Speaker
So I will say, I struggle to – I don't get to consume a lot of content. I just don't have time. I just flat out – I mean, I edit our cast. I am a prolific tweeter. We are all chronically online. I am a chronically online person.
00:16:06
Speaker
with having like, you know, I don't I get to play very rarely. So I like to stream when I'm able to, but like my time to be able to sit down and listen to other podcasts or watch like a video of the day, or to even watch a stream is so limited. I have two girls that are four and a half and two. So
00:16:29
Speaker
Basically, from the time they and I get home and my wife gets home until they go to bed, I don't really have time to just be able to throw on a video. They're not at an age where they're doing their own thing. It's hard for me to keep up with a lot of magic content.
00:16:48
Speaker
I came across Ryan's videos, you know, kind of after Minneapolis, right? So funny, Alan, you know, Alan, we could go on and on about Alan. Alan is half the reason that our mental health charity events that the Goblin Lore has been involved with have been as successful as they are, right? I mean, Alan is just a godsend to this community with his own ability to kind of help with charity work. And
00:17:12
Speaker
Knowing that that kind of all went down around Minneapolis, which is where Taya and I, for the first time, got to see each other. But also did the panel, right?
Mission of the Podcast and Mental Health Advocacy
00:17:27
Speaker
It seemed to be around then that it finally was like, let's start having these conversations. I think the mission of this cast for as long as we've had it, and with Taeya being on prior to even being a host, the episodes that you came on about were all focused really on trying to have some of these conversations, whether it's about Narset and autism or
00:17:50
Speaker
like being trans within the community, some of those early episodes that you came on with, it was, we wanted to, we've always wanted to have these conversations. And we're not always like, it's sometimes it's hard to get people to listen to a even 45 to 50 minute podcast episode, right? Absolutely. We did this at the panel, doing a panel was like an eye opening thing. Like it rejuvenated me in some ways, when we,
00:18:19
Speaker
When we had the reception that we did, like, for first of all, people came. Well, first of all, we proposed it and it got accepted. So like that, that alone was like a huge deal, I know, for us to feel like validated in some ways, at least for me, like not needing an external validation, but like that this is seen as something that was valuable enough that Wizards or Breed Pop, whoever was saying like, yeah, we will, we'll, we'll give this a slot.
00:18:46
Speaker
But like, even the panel was 50 minutes long, right? And it's nice. It's a one-time thing. If people are in an event, they can come to. But how do you keep that going every day? I started seeing Ryan's videos. And, you know, Ryan, it's funny because, you know, I ask people to journal and a lot, right? It's usually my first thing to start with. And I will tell people it's not...
00:19:06
Speaker
I try not to be or I work to not be like rigid about it when I'm asking people to do it in terms of therapy. I'm not like you need a journal. You need to do it this way. It needs to include this type of information. It's more I want to get a feel for just what they're thinking. And for me, though, writing it down is just not the best method.
00:19:25
Speaker
And I stumbled kind of, I mean, I stumbled is not the right word. I mean, I had met you, we had talked, we had had interactions, we were already, you know, building kind of this relationship. But your videos were the first thing that I actually started clicking on because I saw basically that they had a mental health theme to them. And two minutes is digestible. Like, I can go for a walk and I can throw on
00:19:50
Speaker
a video for two minutes. That is very much clear. It's a quick hit. Who knows? Maybe that's my... I don't have ADHD. I have attentional issues though that come along with my depression and anxiety. Two minutes is a very good length of time for me.
00:20:12
Speaker
I actually reached out to Ryan first because I wanted to do this. I wanted to do this, but I also know, like you said, it's this weird area. You're a content creator. I mean, you have sponsorships, you have gone very hard.
00:20:30
Speaker
it doing this is more than just necessarily a hobby, right? You know, working with companies that you want to work with that you believe in. Yeah, absolutely. It's just, it's gone from for me, starting to play magic back in the day. Like I said, I never really had the opportunity to play
00:20:50
Speaker
things casually. I learned how to play competitively in a very competitive setting, and that's just how I've been this entire time. It wasn't until MagicCon Philadelphia that I first started having fun playing Magic, and that's really weird
00:21:06
Speaker
uh really weird to hear me say right like i've been playing this game for over 10 years of course i've had like fun right like i've had fun traveling with friends because that's that's the biggest thing that has always been the allure of magic uh for magic for me is traveling with friends creating memories uh being as good as i can get uh but i never really
00:21:42
Speaker
Magic on Philadelphia really opened up my eyes of the community that I was kind of like just adopted into of being a comp a real player Walking among the commander community as well and it's it's been the most fun that I have had That I feel like I learned how to play magic again. So like now I am just having fun
00:21:51
Speaker
at the end.
00:22:04
Speaker
And so with that, I didn't want to step on toes, right? Like I am definitely like a huge believer in just consent. I don't want people, I also have a lot of myself is concerns about like, I have a very active imagination and a lot of intrusive thinking about just self-worth and, you know, what people will think. My brain does a very, very good job of assuming that people will think the worst.
00:22:34
Speaker
And it's not a good thing necessarily. But, you know, like, well, if I was to start making videos, people will think that I'm just trying to copy Brian and I don't have originality. And, you know, to me, it wasn't a matter of that.
00:22:46
Speaker
I wanted to make sure of that though, right? Like I wanted to make sure that that was something that was what was wanted because for me, I think this is something that we talk about on this show a lot. Our mental health episodes to do like when we've done mental health awareness month or we've done suicide prevention month, we come back to the topic of stigma all the time.
00:23:09
Speaker
We have resources for stigma in every show notes. We have the crisis lines, including the trans lifeline. We have the one for LGBT lifelines. We have all of these. I know that for Alex and I, and I'm not saying this because him and I were doing it for longer, Taya came on. She's now done Mental Health Awareness Month with us, has been on our Mental Health
00:23:38
Speaker
episodes, but I don't want to speak for you, obviously, you're right here that, you know, stigma is something that we've talked a lot about that we want to kind of combat. Mm hmm. And yeah, to me, the number one way that things are combated is to is to have more people just talk about them.
00:23:58
Speaker
And for that, I really saw what Ryan was doing as an opportunity to maybe, you know, in the past we had had a hashtag that was just like, that I had used with like Mental Health MTG. I would use it really in the month of May. I would, I had started like a, basically like an Ask Hobbs type thing on Tuesdays when I worked from home. And it's that thing that you need like a critical mass or before you're able to kind of get things to be
00:24:25
Speaker
heard or seen, right? You have to have people doing it. And it was really what I envisioned when I kind of approached you, right? Yeah. I think when you approached me, I didn't. And I don't know if I told you then, but obviously, I'm going to tell you now. I don't think that you stepped on any kind of toe whatsoever. I was very, very open to the idea because I
00:24:51
Speaker
will be transparent with you and this is, you know, we're talking about mental health now. I'll talk to you about my mental health the day that you asked me regarding the videos and regarding what I was doing. I felt so incredibly by myself doing this thing because like the entire reason why I was doing it and the entire reason why I am doing it is to give other magic players and now other people, non
00:25:18
Speaker
related to Magic
Inclusivity and Community Support
00:25:19
Speaker
the Gathering, which I'll get into after this little part, is that I felt like I was taking it all on in the sense that I am opening up the door for anyone to be able to reach out to me at any time. If you want to talk about anything, I'm here. That's basically what all my videos were getting. Now that I have a partner in all of this and I have so many people that are now willing to
00:25:44
Speaker
in a sense carry the torch of Better Days MTG because now really it is no longer just you and I. You can click on that tab and you can see the amount of people that are being advocates for this and you can see the amount of people that are trying to share their stories and hype other people up and say, hey, we're all here for the same reasons. This initially started as a magic the gathering based thing to make sure that
00:26:06
Speaker
people within the competitive magic community knew that they could talk about the stuff that they have going on as well as the non-competitive magic players. Now I have people that are on my Twitter that are not magic related. Like I know there was obviously won't say names for privacy reasons, but there was this person that reached out to me a couple of weeks ago and they were just like, hey, I just want to let you know that I love those videos that you're doing, but I feel like I could never really talk about
00:26:35
Speaker
any of the stuff that's going on or add to it because I'm not a part of that magic community. That was a really big shot to my system in the sense that that's not what this is about. I don't want it to be exclusive in the sense of it is only for magic players because at this point, it is now for anyone that sees the video, that sees the tab.
00:27:01
Speaker
that Better Days MTG at this point, in my opinion, is absolutely the name of it, but it is just the name for it. Because when you see those videos and you say, Hey, you know what, I have something that I can add to this. I want you to add to that. We want you to add to that. We want to hear the story that you have going on. We want you to be able to share if you're feeling comfortable with sharing, or if you want to send a DM because you feel like you can't talk to anybody else. And now with
00:27:27
Speaker
the multitude of people and to relate this to Magic the Gathering for a second, the multiversal plane of existence that we are on with everyone else, we are now there as an outlet that is opening up the door for people to talk about the stuff that they're going through. That's where I'm at with this. That's what I'm loving about it so much at the current moment.
00:27:51
Speaker
You know, it's interesting that you were saying that, like, when you, when I approached you, that, to tell you, it kind of, it felt almost, I guess, in some ways, how I felt at times with, like, it's kind of like, just putting things out into the void, right? Like, they're just like, it's out there. And I can say, too, that there's been a big part of that for me. And I will say, too, just knowing, seeing the videos, so, so,
00:28:15
Speaker
I will use the name because I know that they're okay with it, but Ben B Negatron, who is somebody that really took up doing this. They're a military member and they work very closely with soldiers in their role that have had kind of mental health concerns. They chose to step up and do basically a video every single day for the month of September as part of Better Days MTG, but also as part of Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month. That was incredible.
00:28:45
Speaker
And Ben flat out said in a recent video,
00:28:50
Speaker
Like he hopes that people get things out of it. He hopes that people really can understand, you know, or identify, or like you're saying, I think of it as not being alone because I think a lot of what we talk about is so universal. And that's my hope is that at the end of the day, it is what I am going through. Like my videos tend to be, you know, sometimes I'll talk about a topic that I think is important for my work, but usually it's still related to something that's very specifically going on with me. And it's such a universal,
00:29:18
Speaker
thing to it. I hope other people get something out of it. But at the end of the day, it's become my online journal. Part of this was I was at a point where I felt kind of
00:29:31
Speaker
after having a very just crappy summer, I will say in a lot of ways. Just one thing after another in terms of physical health, emotional health, like loss within my family, loss at work or just like a lot of work stuff going on, that doing something consistently was kind of escaping me. And knowing that my goal every day at this point is to hit record and talk for two minutes.
00:30:02
Speaker
and I haven't done it every day because I'm not gonna use that word try.
00:30:05
Speaker
I either do it or I don't. I'll get on anybody that wants to. The Yoda phrase do or do not, there is no try comes up on this show a lot because I believe in it. And it's my goal to do it every day. I don't do it every day and that's okay. That's not a matter of that. My goal is to do it. Some days I don't. However, doing it consistently and doing it more days than not that I am now finding myself sitting down and hitting that button and just talking.
00:30:33
Speaker
is my own journal. And I think that it's universal enough that I want, I hope that other people see it. If they don't, they don't, I still did it. And Ben made that point, right? Like he's doing this for himself. And part of this is me doing this for myself. Part of you you've talked about, right? Is like, this is a place where you could be honest and be open about things that are uncomfortable for you as if this was your journal.
00:31:00
Speaker
We're just happening to now share it with others because we think there's benefit.
00:31:07
Speaker
And it's hard, I'll tell you, there's days that I hit that record, I ramble, and then I don't wanna post it. And I do not have a video, I can be very honest with people. I've said this before, the only time I've ever stopped a video and restarted is because of sound noise in the background as I was starting to talk. I don't do multiple takes, some people do. And I think that's why we're gonna talk about this, I think this is the next area I wanted to move into.
00:31:35
Speaker
We want this to be completely inclusive. And how we each choose to do it is going to be different from each of us for what we find benefit from. I find benefit from not hitting stop and start because I am somebody that could easily have a tendency to want to self-censor or to put my best foot forward or have some of that perfectionist or that self-doubt take over. That's not a benefit for me. So I hit record and I post it.
00:32:04
Speaker
I have not had a video that I have recorded that I haven't posted. So when you see that from me, I can tell you right now is because that is what is value to me is it is my it is honesty in the moment because I am hitting it. Some days I have an idea or a theme I want to talk about something that's been on my mind that, you know, either through work or not. Other days, the goal is for me to hit play and I've been having a hit record. I've been having a shitty day.
00:32:33
Speaker
and I hope that something comes up. Yeah, I'm very aligned with the way that you record your videos as well. I know for me personally, I draw my focus from my experiences.
00:32:52
Speaker
I had a rough day at work or if I have this big thing for content that I'm going to have to be making soon and I'm stressed about it. Or transparently and vulnerably if I got into maybe like an argument with my partner or with somebody in my family or how I am learning from things. So when I record my videos, me personally,
00:33:14
Speaker
I don't press play until I know what it is that I want to talk about because I had something to talk about. Sometimes I will press play, press record without kind of like
00:33:28
Speaker
having a focus until I feel like the record is on me. So I just start talking. The only time I'll like edit a video or anything of the sort is if there's like if I'm recording and there's like 40 seconds of just like me walking around in silence because nothing has come to my brain yet. And I'll like chop that portion off. But yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker
Listen, let me tell you the amount of times that I have because you could tell like the settings of which like I'll record it's like against the side of a Starbucks or whatever. So normally when I go to work and I get my Starbucks in the morning, I'm having my Starbucks and I'm walking around outside of the Starbucks just holding a camera up not saying anything until I'm like, this is what I'm talking about.
00:34:18
Speaker
and then it just starts coming from the top of my head and then it'll be the one take and I'll edit off that first beginning like 40 seconds of silence or background noise of me just walking around and that's my video. I generally do all of them in one take. I feel like for these videos and again this can be obviously independent to whoever is recording the video and we all have a personal way of going about things
00:34:43
Speaker
That's how I want it to be received. I want it to be received as authentic. I want it to be received as non-scripted. I want it to be received as, wow, this guy is actually just spilling his heart out of something that he believes in or something that he wants other people to focus on. That's for me. That's how I do them.
00:35:04
Speaker
I think there's people that would completely benefit from doing these that for what they it's it's it's finding out what it is. The reason you're doing it for yourself is going to be the most important. And I'm saying this in the sense of like, I want to be encouraging anybody who wants to do these to do these.
00:35:20
Speaker
If that means that you want to write out what you want to say because you're you're nervous about recording it and you want to be able to practice and you want to take takes or you need to do it however you want to do it. And it's important to you because you still have that value of wanting to share it.
00:35:36
Speaker
Like do it, write it out. I mean, this is the same thing I would tell somebody if they were in my office, if you need to write out a conversation before you have that conversation, do it. Find what maybe will work for you.
Growth and Influence of Better Days MTG
00:35:49
Speaker
If video is not what you want to do and you want to be taking or getting involved.
00:35:55
Speaker
My biggest thing is I'm encouraging people to use the hashtag. That's been the biggest thing of late. So if people don't know within the last week, we created an actual Twitter account for this with a logo that we had designed for Inkling kind of a while back because we wanted to have an image. We wanted it to be able to be something that people could find.
00:36:16
Speaker
The main goal of that account is simply to, you know, not to fill your feed with just like random thoughts of the day by me or Ryan. It's to retweet us, to retweet the people who are using that hashtag or are talking about these ideas, these mental health based things, magic, however we're finding them. And the easiest way for us to find them is to put them under an umbrella because this is what will happen.
00:36:45
Speaker
I search that hashtag every single day. I have since we started using it because I wanted to know, are people using this? Where's Ryan's video? Because my feed is an awful, awful mess. I mean, I don't know about for you all. Over the years I have picked up just like I enjoy engaging people. I mean, you're saying your Twitter feeds a mess. You expect everyone to believe this?
00:37:14
Speaker
The amount of time you spend on Twitter You know the we're gonna ignore that. I have three hundred and twenty one thousand posts in the last 13 years There's crying online and then there's Hobbs I have notifications on for Hobbs because he shares good stuff and you are After a lot of people that I have or I followed left you are like 90% of my notifications
00:37:45
Speaker
But like so that's the thing. I also follow and have these conversations. I like having a lot of my tweets are because I retweet a lot because I find things that are very interesting to me. I also have a lot of conversations where I'm going back and forth with people because I like that. And I follow thirteen hundred people.
00:38:04
Speaker
My feed, I can miss it within that. I always think of it as like Twitter in some ways becomes a snapshot of what I see because I miss so much of it. And I need a way to find it, right? Like before we were using a hashtag, I would have to remember, okay, I need to go to Ryan's.
00:38:20
Speaker
I need to go to Ryan's page today. Has he posted a video yet? If he hasn't, I got to remember to go to it again, right? Now I can at least just check a hashtag. And then the goal with creating a Twitter account for it is you can have that, hopefully, a single account that you can either follow or you can go to and you can see what's been said, quote, unquote, today, the last couple of days.
00:38:46
Speaker
But it's that idea that it's collected in a singular place because we want more people doing this. And there's tons that are showing up now that are just maybe a tweet that somebody realized that they wanted to add that tag to because it was relevant. Great. It does not need to be video. I like really want to like lower the barrier for anybody to have this conversation that's willing to.
00:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I want to touch on something about that really quickly. You just said we want more people to do it, right? I 100% absolutely would love for more people to do it. If you've noticed what you said, did Ryan post the video today?
00:39:32
Speaker
No, I have to check in a couple hours, but now you can just check a better day's MTG hashtag. If you haven't noticed, since we started the hashtag and since a lot more people have been posting, I have been posting less. I have been posting them maybe like a day in between or if I don't do every day, it's every other day. And I love that I can do that because of the fact that I now see
00:40:00
Speaker
what I wanted to happen is happening. I wanted to start kind of just like a snowball thing, and you helped me start a snowball thing of where I don't need to just say, hey, post about what you're feeling, because now people are just doing it. And I think that's so incredible. And it's not like, oh my God, I needed a break from it, but
00:40:23
Speaker
not going to lie. Sometimes your brain just needs a break from it. So it's like, I take joy in the fact that I am now able to sit back and just see the beauty of people feeling comfortable with themselves enough to be able to share their stories. And I pull my strengths from that as well of being able to click on that hashtag and be like, you know what? Now, I don't know whoever this person is, but now this person has now inspired me
00:40:51
Speaker
to make another video for tomorrow. So I think it's now this beautiful cycle of I had so many things to say, and I still have so many things to say, but now I'm seeing everything that everybody else is saying, and I'm drawing inspiration from that. It is a conversation now. It's not just a feeling that you have to be the driving factor. Yeah, absolutely.
00:41:17
Speaker
It's really great to see, honestly. No, it is like the last couple of weeks, because there has been a noticeable uptick. And I mean, like I'm sitting here right now, like I am tearing up just thinking about it, because I've seen posts in there already that just make me, you know, see people being vulnerable in a way that I think that they may have wanted to. Um, but that's scary to do, especially if you're not sure that there's going to be somebody that's going to see it.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, also, by the way, this is completely sidebar to the fact and kind of just a funny thing. Oh, hey, welcome to the Goblin Lore podcast. Way to go. We have not had enough tangents this episode, so I'm glad you're adding some. If you would like some help in retweeting, I don't know, maybe pass along the login information to your other half in this, that's fine.
00:42:16
Speaker
You know, yeah, I could probably also hand out the Goblin Lore password and log in to Alex and Taya too and then not feel that I have to like do everything on your own. But you know, then I would actually feel bad when I make really sarcastic remarks about our social media manager at the Goblin Lore podcast. Oh man, that's funny. You're a prize.
00:42:44
Speaker
So, Ryan, like, it's been, this conversation has been a long dive coming. It's hilarious. We actually literally sat on a panel together before you were even on a podcast. Before I was a part of this podcast. Yeah. You managed to, you know, step up and
00:43:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, just be vulnerable in front of a crowd of people. It was a great panel. I listened to the recording afterwards when we had it on the podcast. I think the biggest thing for me with that podcast, and I appreciate that very, very much. I'm sorry, the biggest thing for me on that panel,
00:43:23
Speaker
was not only the fact that i was able to be vulnerable uh in front of all those people it was the first thing that i first panel that i had ever been a part of so i was grateful for that but it was more so for me and i'm gonna just gonna talk like a little starstruck fanboy for a second is that since before becoming friends with
00:43:44
Speaker
Hobbs and Chase and Chivum, I looked up to each one of these individuals so greatly for the things that they've done within the conversation of the community that to sit besides them and share my feelings on things was
00:43:59
Speaker
I was besides myself the entire time. I was trying really hard to keep it together. But I did. Yeah, I was too. And I failed miserably in some ways. Yeah, I'm an emotional human being.
00:44:14
Speaker
And I'm okay with that. It was the same thing for me when we did the one in Minneapolis, right? I had my co-hosts who I'm so in awe of all the time that I get to work with on a regular basis that it still blows my mind that Alex and Taya still want to do this with me.
00:44:33
Speaker
There are some insecurities of my own that are coming through, but also just that Chase would come along, that Michelle would come along, that they both would just join in. Once again, I think it is... I always want to reach out and aim for shooting for the stars in terms of... I mean, I don't mean that in the sense of celebrity, but I just mean the people whose work I look up to. And to me, it was a no-brainer to invite you onto the cast. I mean, it was basically like...
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, as soon as I was having an idea of like, let's do this again in Vegas, obviously, you were basically the first or second person I reached out to on that panel. And I really appreciate that. I was very, very honored to have been asked.
00:45:22
Speaker
Yeah, I just, doing this type of work is the work that I say that my job's stressful. Like my job sucks sometimes, right? Like I always say this, like I have to, in some ways, this is my, there are a lot of things about my work and about mental health work that I love and that I want to have conversations about. I also have to, you know, like my day to day is oftentimes,
00:45:49
Speaker
not getting to just have these open and frank conversations because I have to be the person in the room who is the therapist. And it is a different role. I can still be vulnerable, but it is completely inappropriate for me to be sharing some of the stuff that I would be able to share on a show. And I didn't have an outlet like that before the Goblin Lord podcast.
00:46:11
Speaker
you know, like I had Twitter, but like, even then that's I've become a lot more vulnerable since I've had an outlet. And to me, it's the more outlets that we can have that allow me to feel that I actually am able to
00:46:24
Speaker
get some of my own needs met, not in a way of like this cast or my friends or my therapist. At the same time, they are my support. And being able to find a way to marry that love between my hobbies and the things that I enjoy doing and the work that I'm still passionate about is a very important outlet for me to feel like I can keep going in my day-to-day.
Navigating Vulnerability and Community Engagement
00:46:49
Speaker
Sorry, it's just you're totally you're good. This Yeah, this is my, my very clear history of depression coming out where I feel the need that I need to say sorry for everything, which is sorry for feeling emotions. You do not apologize for that. And I'm gonna I have a friend that texts me a lot.
00:47:11
Speaker
Uh, that they're very, very anxious and every thing for them is an I'm sorry. And I, I will never be frustrated with having to reassure them being like, Hey, you don't have to apologize for everything. You have people in your life that will be here because you are feeling feelings and you can feel those feelings. So don't apologize. I am also one of those apology people that I apologize for everything. Don't apologize.
00:47:41
Speaker
But I'm sorry for taking up space. Oh, wow. That that was one of the most things from the panel that really hit me, right? Like, oh, yeah, we are allowed to take space. Yeah, yeah. Like, that's valid. Yeah, so, you know, Ryan, like, you know, you and I kind of are we want this to just kind of almost like I think of it as being like a move movement in the sense of like, we just want this to be
00:48:11
Speaker
Like we want to encourage, I think that that's at the end of the day to me is like, I just want people to feel that they, they can, if they want to, that the place is there for it. Um, and I also want it to be for, cause I think that for some people, I know that I've seen this happen where if they're, if those posts that are more sincere and I think deeper get missed, it can oftentimes feel like very invalidating and not just that could be the
00:48:37
Speaker
fact of the algorithm alone. And it is one reason why it's like almost we're trying to or we're tricking as best as we are able to. I mean, at the end of the day, we can't predict. But if there's a way for us to include some of this, I think that it's a great way to make sure that the posts are being seen because I want to be able to validate people when I see those because I think it is so important and I want to encourage more of it.
00:49:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's always to be encouraged. It's always something that we're going to want others to do, like everything that we're doing right now, you know what I mean? But it's a matter of we can lay that foundation, but they're going to be the ones that have to take the next step. And what we can do and what we want to do is we want to be there for them to reassure them that, hey, if you take that next step, I'll catch you.
00:49:32
Speaker
I mean, so somebody is hearing it. Absolutely. And also, if you're just like a lurker and you get the benefit of just seeing this stuff, we hope that that to me is awesome. Right. Like I've had people say, you know, I'm not sure if I want to do a video. I don't know if I can. But it shows to me that they're looking at it and they're thinking and maybe even that is something for them. I just don't want.
00:49:57
Speaker
my community this magic community this community that i feel so drawn to to feel alone and i think that's at the end of the day what it is for me yeah absolutely the amount listen the amount of messages in my message requests that i that i have like seen and like attempted to filter through um you know when i'm not getting a message with somebody being angry that i'm an ambassador because i get those which is very funny to me and they just stay in the requests uh but that's different uh but
00:50:25
Speaker
The amount of people that are in the messages requests that I'm able to read that are simply just there to say, hey, I'm new to your content or I've been watching your content for a while and I haven't posted a video. I'm probably not going to post a video, but what I'm seeing is helping me.
00:50:45
Speaker
That is exactly what it is that is the targeted audience of kind of just like an umbrella of everyone whether it is that you are part taking in what we're doing or if you are just watching as long as it is helping in some kind of way where you can draw inspiration or you can draw literally a better day from.
00:51:05
Speaker
just translated words, that's what we're here for. That is what we want to relay is that we are human, we have feelings, we have stresses, we have pain. Like one of my best friends, and I mentioned this at the panel, we all suffer at so many points in our lives. And one of the biggest mantras that I've held on to is,
00:51:30
Speaker
One of my best friends, Andrew had relayed this to me years ago at this point is that this is a moment of suffering. Suffering is a part of life. May I be kind to myself? And I tell myself that every single day or whenever it is that I am feeling that I'm going through something and to see all these people that are reaching out to me saying like, Hey, thank you for just talking. I will, I will talk until I can't talk anymore. If that is all somebody needs.
00:51:58
Speaker
Yeah. And that's, that's it. I mean, if it, yes, well, luckily I'm good at talking as we obviously are knowing is pointed out from my tweets. Thanks. I mean, not just tweets. I mean, you know, we're going on an hour for this episode and you know, we're, we do this every week almost, you know, this is our second recording this week too. So we're on a roll. We are on a roll. And I always find that like we sit down, we hit record.
00:52:28
Speaker
And words just come out. It's never an issue. And I don't know. I just want to thank everybody that's listening to this or not listening to this. I don't really care at the end of the day. That's a blatant lie, I should say.
00:52:44
Speaker
A lot of times what I get so much out of just sitting down and having a conversation with Taehyun Alex and if we have a guest, we have a guest or whoever it is, I just get so much out of that. It's something that Shiva mentioned with casual magic was like at one point he was like, I just wanted a way to be able to talk to my friends, right? Like if I have a scheduled time, it means I talk to my friends and
00:53:11
Speaker
And throughout this pandemic, this five years of doing this podcast, it has meant that I get to sit down and talk to people that I want to talk to. And I cannot overstate the value that I get from that. Yeah, absolutely. And I feel as one of your guests, I feel grateful.
00:53:30
Speaker
uh, for this position. And I feel grateful that you want to talk to me, you know what I mean? Like, I'm grateful that you're on the other side of things and be like, you know what? I would love to hear that guy speak for a little while. He has nice dulcet tones. Hey, I've been told many times that I should do voice acting because I got a voice for it. I got some voice for it. I got some voice for it. I'm a good antagonist. Well, if they ever make an animated Sopranos, I got it.
00:54:01
Speaker
Good to go. I'm good to go. This was a very cathartic, a lovely hour for me. I don't know about for you to do. This was a very good feels good hour. I appreciated this a lot. Thanks, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you both. Yeah. Well.
00:54:25
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just gonna end this here because I got really nothing else to say besides me probably crying, so that's good. And that's our show for today. You can find all of the hosts on Twitter for now. Hobbs can be found at HobbsQ, Tay can be found at tayatransends, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore chronicler. Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the goblin lord pod on Twitter, or email us at goblinlordpodcast at gmail.com.
00:54:54
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood Gob's Hugs, our link tree can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link from our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at Steve Ruffle on Twitter. Gob and Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing forthos content.
00:55:22
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.