Who You Listen To: Why a Good Thing Fizzles Out, and What Brought the Podcast Back

This is the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. Coming off a long hiatus. I got my boy Matt Dearing out here in the studio with me. Fire. There's fire in this house right now. So thank you for firing this up, Joey. Of course, yeah. What are your thoughts on today? You kind of set this up spontaneously and figured out that our auras were aligning. Yeah, we had a cool talk yesterday about improv, so we might get into that. I would love to get that on tape. But more than that, we were talking and what kind of got me onto it was just thinking about what you said yesterday about finding the why besides when Brian's around. What is the motivator behind that? I prayed on it. I thought on it. I don't know that it's the right answer or not, but this was kind of our thing back in the day, you and I. We incorporated Shea and Brian and whoever else, all the amazing guests we had along the line. But when we first started, it was our thing. It was our thing. Yeah, you're right. And I feel like I've gone back and looked at our old podcast and listened. In times where I needed it, I'll look at the title and be like, which one of these speaks to me or whatever. And we were doing a lot of good. So that's kind of where it came from was our conversation yesterday and just brainstorming on that and being like, you know what, why not throw something at the wall and see if it sticks? Because I do think that we had we had something cool going on. Yeah. And I can tell you something. There are things that so maybe this could be the topic for today, actually, which is this idea of how we as human beings allow the voices, the external voices to determine the importance that we put on something or the value that we put on something. Because I would agree with you that the show that we created was powerful. And it was doing a lot of good. And it actually brought a lot of good into our lives. You and I were very proud of it. And from that show, we got to meet a lot of really neat people. You and I are good at it. We enjoy each other's company. We enjoy talking over the mic. I would do the majority of the show preparation. You would do the majority of the show tech setup, tear down, making sure that everything looked and sounded great. And we were an amazing team. Yeah. It just so happened that at the moment, I was getting up at an extraordinarily early time of the day, which didn't at the time align with your, what do you call that rhythm, the circadian rhythm that people say they get in, right? I know exactly what you're talking about.

potentially your parents, family, whoever, throwing in any kind of negative instead of focusing on the positive. But I can tell you from my vantage point, it wasn't just you, actually. I had this realization yesterday. I was on one of our old podcasts because my daughter found one that she was on when she was little. And I thought the same thing as you. I thought, wow, we were doing a lot of great good in the world. And we were on a vacation and we were still making it happen. And it just, it showed to me the dedication and the importance that you and I had put on the show. We had just decided that this is a thing that gets done no matter what. And a lot of good came from it.

truthfully, it's not my wife's job. No, it's not her responsibility. I have to then protect myself from allowing myself to ask the question, did you watch the show? Because it's not, it's not her job. And if she's in a different place, she would, and she would encourage me differently and would see it differently. Yeah. But at the time it was what it was. And so I needed to instead kick that off of you kick that off of somebody who was watching, was paying attention and was trying to push us up because I would love the critique from a positive standpoint, but I didn't want to hear the accidental, Hey, what you're doing is not important. Yeah, totally. Totally. And that makes sense. Uh, it applies the same way in my life for why, you know, we fizzled out or whatever. Um, because you know, it's all about who you listen to, right. And, and who you seek advice from. That's something like with age I've learned, um, just how powerful that is and how important it is to figure that out for yourself of, uh, who you're talking to about what, you know, and, um, and there are people in your life that you can respect and love and look up to that, you know, you'll take this certain piece of information and they're probably not going to react well to it. So why am I talking to that person about this? If it's important to me, if it's, you know, a lot of the times I think you hit on something great there, like as humans, we want to celebrate the good as it's happening. Yeah. And subconsciously one way or the other, it's so easy to get derailed from that good.

And in this case, like your wife or for me, my family or whatever, like they don't have your, um, like they have your best interest at heart, but they might not always say the right things. Right. But, but in general, people in the world, when they see you doing really good stuff, they get jealous and they want to, they want to take it away from you. Absolutely. And I think honestly, like that's part of what happened was like I, those voices, you know, the pressure of doing it daily at that time and like coordinating everything and the fights in between and whatever, like it became this thing where the, the fun was taken out of it, at least for me, I don't know.

It sounds like you kind of had the same experience or similar, um, over time. Yes. And it, and, and it, it came from you as the fun was stripped out of you, the fun was stripped out of me. And then as the drive was stripped out of me, the drive was stripped out of you. Totally. Right. Like, so, yes. So we're, so we're impacting each other. We're letting the outside voices corrupt us and then corrupt each other. That's what I think was really happening. And so rather than us just going, Hey, here's our bubble. Let's stay in our bubble.

We know what we're doing is great. We know what we're doing is valuable, is important. If we need to make adjustments, we should talk about it, fight about it, get through it, figure it out. But we shouldn't just sort of pretend it's not there until it becomes this thing that, that just sort of dissipates, which is, I believe that that's what happened. Yeah, totally. You know, totally. And, and then this is another interesting thing. Going back to the, what we want is instant validation.

Mm. Totally. We want someone to say that today's podcast, you and me, we just put it on. We didn't even go live. You may just grab the whole thing and put it up. We don't know yet, but we want someone. It's going up. It's going up, ladies and gentlemen. We want someone to listen to this right away and be like, that was awesome. Yeah. That may or may not happen. It probably won't happen because we're just talking about inside baseball here. Mm-hmm. Right. But we would want that. We would want them to be like, dude, you guys, I missed you guys on the air. Like we, like that's what we would want. Yeah. Okay.

So, so what is instant validation? How does that, how does that reflect out? Well, it reflects out in the views. Mm-hmm. It reflects out in the likes. It reflects, reflects out in the comments. So even beyond our family, we weren't getting that instant validation. Yeah. And unfortunately, you don't get to hear until usually years down the line or that you impacted somebody at the, at the most deepest level when they needed you the most. And they were one of those seven views. Mm-hmm. And that podcast meant everything to them that day. Yeah. And because you don't hear that, because you don't know it to be fact and, and we weren't having the full trust and faith in what we were doing, we were instead allowing, allowing ourselves to be motivated, dictated, and, and let ourselves feel what the you know, and then, and that's part of the reason we started was we went virtual and then we were like, cool. Well, we're, if we're doing everything virtually, we may as well do a podcast so people can hear from us. Well, well that, and if you remember, like, this is one of the things I am most proud of. You, I know you remember this. We sat down when we're getting all the news that everyone else is getting. Yeah. And we had a team meeting and these were my exact words. We are going to find ways to give. That's our mission. Yeah. I don't know how it's going to work out, but I'm like, it's going to end up good in the end. If we just give, we give away. And so the podcast was a part of the giving process. We were giving away the information I have up here for free.

Yeah. We were saying, take it. We're not charging for it. Here it is. Here you go. And because of that motivation, it was a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it was, it was something like, like you said, I mean, the impact is huge and, and we just didn't realize it at the time. I don't think like that. I think there were moments where we did, where we're like, oh yeah, we're on fire with this. Like it's totally going in the right direction.

But like you said, there's so many things to get caught up in negatively. And I think, you know, we're, we're humans. Like it's, it's bound to happen. And, and these, these are the type of conversations that get me excited because, uh, cause we've made the mistake and then you can help somebody else to not make that same mistake. For sure. If you'll, if you'll allow me to really quick, I would like to critique both of us and then compliment both of us simultaneously. Sure. Yeah, let's do it. All right. So we'll start with me. I was told yesterday during a student evaluation that somebody said to me, I'm so impressed when you speak, I've watched you and it, and I, I watch you process and decide every word that you're about to say. And it doesn't feel slow. It doesn't feel boring, but it feels precise and important. Like you really chose the words that are going to come out and there's no fluff and there's no filler and it's just, this is the thing that it is. And so that person said, I appreciate getting critiqued from you. I like listening to all of your critiques because it doesn't feel like a waste of my time. A lot of the concepts that we would talk about now, I would say almost all of them are going to be exactly the same because my point of view on the world has really not changed. Yeah, totally. Truth is truth. And I still believe the things I believe.

I might have a better way of saying it. We may be able to get there faster. I may have, I may have concocted some new exercise or something new that, that, that, that throws space work out the door for a moment, but it's not, it's still the, it's for the same purpose, right? Yeah. But the same why. Yes. So, so, but I would say that prior to the podcast, that was something that the podcast helped me develop. It's something that the masterclass next level helped me develop. It's something that you personally helped me develop because I asked you to do so, which was the, the, the tenseness in my forehead. I remember I had forgotten about it, but I remember now that you bring it up. So here's what it was. For the first time ever, we were producing masterclass at a really high level and I wasn't used to being in front of the camera, existing in front of a camera yet to the extent that we now do it regularly all the time. So I had to get used to that. So anytime I was giving a critique of some sorts, I was aware of the fact that we're broadcasting to the world. And I think that tension that I was having up here was that work that I was doing to make sure that what I'm saying is hopefully helpful, hopefully correct, hopefully not going to hurt the person. And, and I'm really struggling. Like my, you can just watch the computer just going, trying to figure out what to say. Yeah.

And, and I hated the way it looked. I was like, you're trying so hard and, and you, you need to fix that. So I asked you to, to tell me about it. And I think, I think you, I think you know this, but I hated it. I asked you to do it, but I hated it. Okay. So like when I would call you out, you're saying every time I hated it because it's never convenient. Yeah. When I was doing it, when I was doing my bad habit that I asked you to correct me on, I would be in a struggle process moment that was probably important in the moment. Yeah. And then you'd tap me on the shoulder and be like, you're doing the forehead thing. And I would be so angry with you for interrupting this because I like, I always was like the students more important than my forehead, but simultaneously I was grateful and I was dropping it. And it wasn't, if I hadn't ever, if I hadn't have said yes to that, hadn't have wanted you to do it. Yeah. And you weren't willing to do it through my problem. I'm sure I gave you a couple of glares and looks of like, not now, but if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have gotten through it. Right. So anyway, I take that compliment from the student from the other day. And I said, I said, thank you. Because he was like, this is something you do. And I was like, thank you. It's something I've worked on really hard. And I try to be very specific about my language. Yeah. So, so that's, so that's the me. You can add on to it if you want, but I'd like to get to the you.

Yeah. No. Do you want to talk on me first or you want me to open up or how do you, how do you want to go about it? Well, I'll just give you my perception of it. And you, you may have a, you, you may have your own perception of our own, of critiquing me and my growth now and your own, but, but here's what I see. When we first started, I was teaching you the tech and then you advanced way past me in the tech really quick. And then it was your baby. Yeah. And you were good at that thing. So like, for instance, people don't understand that it's, it's very difficult to do what you're doing right now, which is stay engaged with me completely. Cut from me to you, you listening, you have a split screen or, or a just, and I don't even know what it's on right now, but you know, and you're able to not only do it, but then think and respond and speak simultaneously. Yeah. Right. So you had the, you, you quickly picked up on the production side of things, but back then I feel like there was a part of you that was trying to either not be heard all the time to, to either like check out sometimes and only come in sometimes, or you were trying to sound like me or something like that. And when it didn't come off, right. You would, you would sort of like, it would get awkward between us. Totally. Totally. And, and now when, cause I can hear it, you know, like, you know, I hear music, I hear the sound of the what's, what's right and not right. Yeah. And I think what was not right back then, I would hear it and it would be like, yeah, like Joey's, he's a great sidekick guy, but he, but he's, it doesn't quite sound right. Yeah. Now I can tell you in my ears, you sound like you belong on the microphone. Thank you. No, that means a lot. And I, I, I couldn't agree with you more actually. I think that's a huge like part of, of what was going on was I didn't, I didn't really have confidence to be on the podcast back then. Like I, I didn't have confidence in what I was saying, if that makes sense. Sure. So like I would, I would try to chime chime in here and there based on certain things. But honestly, sometimes I probably just covered up, like didn't talk about something because I didn't want to go there for myself. Um, and, and if I may, you, you've grown in this area because I was already saying it back then and I would encourage you off the air. I would be so encouraging to say, bring dark to light. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about your weaknesses.

Almost, almost every morning, everybody like for real. And I would, and I would try to explain to you, that's what I'm doing. That's all I'm doing. And it's why I sound differently than you sound, but I couldn't get it through to you because I think all you heard was you're deficient, you're bad, exposed badness. And then there is no good. And it's possible that you just weren't living it yet or hadn't quite like, it wasn't, it was like you understood it intellectually, but it wasn't living in your bones yet. Yeah. I don't know.

Well, it was a brain hurdle for me, honestly. Like this has been one of my big, like, as I've grown up things is just, um, the idea of what goes on in your head and what you're willing to open up to with other people. Um, if you hold all of that in, that does affect your state of being. I don't think I fully understood that back then. The, the, the energy, the weight that, that, that is carried when that goes on. Um, so I would disagree on something or whatever, like have an opinion or not want to go into whatever. And that energy just flew out of me onto you guys. Yeah. And, and I, I do think that's where it came from only because that's one of my struggles just day to day. It's something that like, you know, that that's one of the ways the enemy gets to me is through my own head. But, and probably all of us, but, but, but to your credit, what I'm, what I'm proposing here is that forehead metamorphosis thing that, that I, that I worked really hard on, I use it in everything. Now I was, there's no doubt that I was scrunching my forehead all the time in all day, everyday life. Also, it's just, I didn't know it because it wasn't on camera. Hmm. So the fact that you're able to effortlessly now sound the way you sound and come through the way you come through without that, that energy means that you're, you're already doing it in your everyday life. Otherwise it would be impossible for it to happen right now. Yeah. No, I think you're, I think you're right. Like I said, it's something I've really worked on like hard, um, throughout, like after I left, you know, I've, I've gone on a couple of different journeys and, and learning what the real world is like and growing into my own. And, and, you know, those lessons are hard to come by. And, but, but that's one of the things I'm, I'm super grateful for all that time because it got me to where I am today. And I, I, I really don't think like I could have got there any other way, you know, it's possible, but, but I think some of those lessons that I had to learn, like I wouldn't have been able to learn them from you because I, I had shut that out like that, that possibility, you know, I didn't want to hear it from you. So that, so there's nothing you can do if, if somebody is not willing to hear you out to actually help them, you know, it's just going to be butting heads all the time. Definitely. I'm, I'm, I just had a crazy memory that made me laugh and it was, you know, we're coming up into Valleywood season now, which is, which is just, that's a lot for our studio and it means a lot to us. And I'm remembering that it was the time when you were, you were doing all of the filming, all of the editing for both of the movies. You, you were, to say you were my right hand man is, is an understatement. Like it's, it's almost as if we lived and breathed the same moments. Totally. For, for a month.

And we decided because this meant so much to us, you, we did the podcast. Yeah. Before Valleywood started almost every day of Valleywood. In the morning. I think every day except for the last day, like the premiere day. And we felt guilty about it. We were like, no. But then the premiere day, we did it too. Did we really? We just, we just did it right before the premiere. We podcasted live and then we talked about the red carpet and stuff. We were doing this. That's cool. That's cool.

It's so cool. Like of what we were capable of doing. Yeah. Now, of course, did we get burned out? Yes. You know? And should we have been smarter? Maybe, you know, but the fact that it was so important and that we found a way, it says something, it means something. Yeah. And it was just one of those things where I'm like, holy, holy moly. I just want to talk on this really quick based on that. Like I, again, just going back to that point, I don't think that I, uh, could have done it any other way because again, I wasn't receptive. I wasn't honest with you all the time about how I was feeling about the pressure and whatever. So that like building up over time led to a lot of that like icky feeling. Sure. Sure. Was and, and it was, it's so funny because it's something we got so much joy from, you know, even just talking about it now. It's like, ah, those were good times. Like, of course we did it. Yeah. Cause it's so fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I'm so glad that we're in this place now and, and I'm glad that you reflected and prayed on this moment as well. Because if, if we think about it where we are, there is a magic here, just here, there's a different magic with Brian. Yeah. But there's a magic that's right here. And if, if we can tap into that and be consistent with it and understand what it is and be totally open and transparent, it's sort of like we just did a strategic planning, you and me. Yeah. And it's one that I would normally have done with Brian. I couldn't have done it with him today. You even prefaced that actually. Yes. Like you told me like, this is something I usually do with Brian, but I could use your eye on this. Right. And after we did it, you understood why I asked for your eye because me doing it by myself, it's like, I just can't possibly pre-think all the things that might go wrong. And I want someone to challenge me on those ideas before I make the decision. Right. Yeah. But either way, I'm going to make the decision.

So what you just said was so powerful, which was like, you weren't giving me all of the information I needed to make decisions. And then I was making decisions that might've been negatively impacting your life without knowing the truth of what was real. So now I'm making a decision that might negatively impact you, but completely unknowingly doing so. And then having to receive the consequences or the negative feeling that's attached to that.

And you have to question why, cause you don't know. Right. You know, that's the other thing. And then, and then that's the worst because then you make assumptions. Mm-hmm. Then you're like, they don't like me or their parents don't like me or their brother doesn't like me or whatever the heck it is. And because you don't know, you make those choices. And then when you make those assumptions, then the things that weren't true become true.

Yep. Easily. And that's, what's crazy about our brains is like, for real, we can make those things true. I had, I had made this something I didn't like doing anymore. I had made it a chore. I had made it this thing. Right. Like, and we had built it to such a cool spot. Yeah. Like if I have just been willing to like see that, you know, but, but then, but then it's funny cause we've spent all those years removed. I've been here since August and it just never felt right. For whatever reason, like you've, you've mentioned the podcast, you know, multiple times, whether it was sports podcast, this podcast, the best listener in the room podcast, you started with Tyler, like you've, you've tried and it just, for whatever reason, like it, it took me some time to get there.

But what brought you back? What brought me back here? Originally. Oh, the Lord. And the podcast. Oh yeah. I originally was bringing you in just for the podcast and you weren't really working. If you remember, you were just doing that. You were just doing the new podcast. Like that's how you came back in. This has been, this is, I just thought of it now. Yeah. But that's, that was what it was. It's like, I started that podcast with Tyler and then I'm like, you should really do this with us. And you started showing up and then we, again, we're having fun again. And then before you know it, we're having fun. And before you know it, you're like, yeah, well, I'm not working anywhere else.

Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So, so then we have to decide together how much good in this world can we do with this place together? Yeah. And in what, and in what lanes? And we're not always going to love every aspect of every part of our job, but, but it's like, what, what, where can we fit and how can we be honest and how can we shut down when we need to and pick it back up when we need to and, and just do our best, but help as many people as possible.

I love that. I love that. I don't know. I don't have much more, honestly. This is, this was really good for my soul. Me too. So for, for those of you watching here, let's, let's, let's wrap it right here. Full stop. There are outside forces in your life and there are internal forces in your life and they are constantly pushing you and trying to make you feel like you're unimportant, like you're unvaluable, like what you're doing that is good needs to be stopped or stifled in some way, shape or form. So what you must do is protect yourself. Put up some kind of a barrier.

Do not keep repeating the same mistakes by asking the same people that are giving you the same negative feedback without it being productive. Don't keep going down that loop because what's going to happen is you're going to quit. You're going to lose momentum and instead turn to the Lord, turn to that spirit inside of you and ask what is real, what is true. Help me to continue if what I'm doing is serving you and serving your kingdom.

Thanks for listening to the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. For more information on classes or our programs, go to www.dearingstudio.com. We look forward to seeing you in the future. Thank you.