204: Radical Self Responsibility with JP Sears

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned lifestyle and high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or have had a big setback? And how do we adjust quickly when life throws us major curveballs? On this podcast, I do what I do best. Taking complicated information that is relevant to us now and breaking it down simply with actionable steps. Steps you can implement to level up your own life. I also regularly interview some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on the planet who at their worst, learn how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up, Creating Everything from Nothing if you are new here, I encourage you to go back and listen from episode one for the full transformative experience. At a young age, JP Sears learned that humor was a way to deal with anger and pain. He would feel like he mattered if he could get people to laugh. Humor was his crutch, his way to cope. And it was at the age of 27 when a mentor that he highly respected said to him in a loving interruption, jp, do you know how passive aggressive you can get with your humor? It was in that moment that JP realized he had a much bigger purpose. Today, JP Sears is a conscious comedian, emotional healing coach, author, YouTuber, world traveler and curious student of life. His intention is always to awaken and heal people. Through comedy, he has learned that nothing is ever how it seems and that radical self responsibility and owning emotions and using them as our guides changes things for the better. His work empowers people to live more meaningful lives. He's very active with his online videos where he encourages healing and growth through his humorous and entertaining informative videos which have accumulated over 400 million views. Join in today and learn exactly how JP Sears leveled up and created everything from nothing. Today on Leveling Up, I cannot wait for this conversation because I'm talking with JP Sears. If you have never heard of him or never seen one of his videos, you're definitely sleeping under a rock. Or at least maybe you don't have social media. I've been following him for years. He's made me laugh for years. He did not know me. We have a lot of friends in common, a lot of people in common. And so I just had to get a story. So thank you so much for being here jp.

Yeah, yeah, Natalie, I'm honored and I appreciate you having me on the show, sister.

So you are a conscious comedian and you're hysterical. I mean you really are sick you're one of the only people I have seen that can truly poke fun of literally anything. And it's like, you're so funny. Were you always like that?

You know, yes and no. I was always the comedian, but not necessarily the conscious comedian. I can share what I think that means in a second, but as a kid, you know, ever since I can remember having memories, I was always funny. And, you know, my dad had a great sense of humor and, you know, that taught me. And then it was just such a joy to make my friends and family laugh and try to make my teachers laugh in school without getting in trouble. But sometimes across that line and to be real. Looking back with today's eyes, I can now realize humor is one of the ways that I dealt with pain, how I compensated for pain without really dealing with the pain, which at the time, I'm grateful. That's how innocent, young little JP fumbled into trying to escape his pain.

When you say pain like, what? Tell us what that means. Like, so as a kid, like, what was something coming up as a kid that made you need to cope?

You know, it could be anything from the general insecurities that I would feel that I think all kids go through, like, oh, I feel ugly or I feel like people don't like me, or I'm afraid of being picked on. So those kind of insecurities I would compensate for humor, where the mantra was, if I can get people to laugh at me, then I'll feel like I matter to them and I'll feel safe in their presence. Therefore, I won't have to really vulnerably feel the insecurities that are real in me. And then I would also compensate with more deeper seated, you know, even traumas, like whether my parents were going through divorces and getting back together divorces and all kinds of family stuff going on. You know, I was seven. I didn't know how to dare greatly to be vulnerable, like Brene Brown would advocate he does. So I would make jokes, I would laugh, and it's how I escape my pain. And, you know, some people would, you know, turn towards substance abuse or getting in trouble, which are all ways to compensate for pain. And I'm. I'm fortunate. My way of compensating for pain was humor.

Yeah. Did it just come natural to you? I'm always curious about that because when I meet somebody who's a comedian or is really funny, like, does that come natural? That's something you had to study. Like, how does that even come about? Like, I don't have that I'm not funny like that.

Well, you know, I'm a person who. I think we always learn the most when we don't know we're learning. So I think like when we sit down with the books or we're in the college classroom studying, we're not learning as much as if we're in the experiential classroom called life or a situation or, you know, you learn more about nature when you're out in the woods versus studying in the textbook. So in a sense, I did do the life study of humor where I didn't know I was studying it, but I learned pretty quick how to read people. What's going to make this person laugh? And then the other part of the equation is how do I need to deliver it to make someone laugh? But to answer the other part of the question, for me, the humor and the study of humor, it did come natural. First off, we all have a sense of humor. It's one of our senses. Just like, you know, you have a sense of vision right now, you have a sense of hearing, you also have a sense of humor. But just like maybe say like an outdoors person, maybe a bird watcher, their vision is going to be more developed than yours and than mine, certainly because they've worked on it, they focused on it, they've put in thousands of hours into Seen the Unseen. And so I've put a lot of time in my humor, like just not even knowing that as a kid. So that helped me develop a maybe, maybe I'd say a bigger than average sense of humor.

I'm always curious about this. Like, do you see the irony and things all the time? Like, is that something just natural to you now? Like you'll be watching something serious and you see like the funny part of it or the. Is that part of what it's like being you?

It is part of what it's like. I feel like now I'm a case study.

Sorry, I have so many questions, though. I've not interviewed a comedian before, so that's.

But yeah, you know, to me, the seeing irony, that is such a beautiful source of humor. So I do tend to see the irony in almost anything that's happening. And it can be like my wife is mad at me and she's yelling at me for something. And like inside I'm going like, you're actually doing the exact same thing that you're mad at me for right now. You know, you're angry at me for being angry. And of course, on my good days, I'll keep My mouth shut.

Yeah.

And just. But yeah, you know, it's. For me, one of the beautiful parts of life is seeing beneath the obvious. And one of my all time favorite quotes from. I think it was maybe Alan Watts. I'm sure a thousand different people have said their variation of it. Beautiful quote is nothing is as it seems. And, you know, if we can tap in through the lens of irony, we see an alternate reality beneath the obvious appearance of how something seems to be. And that can be because we're searching for truth. Or it could be we're searching for beauty.

Wow, I love that. That's an interesting way to say. To put that. To circle that back. I never. You're just like another perspective. Just like how some people look at things through a negative lens or they look through it through a positive lens. You're looking through the specific lens almost of this other direction of humor.

Yeah. And it can almost become like a prism where it's like we also look through a positive lens and a negative lens at the same time. And then a completely different lens that shows you that thing inside out. And also the lens of neutrality, of like, if we're not getting polarized with this thing, it's not positive or negative, even though we're acknowledging that those perspectives. What is another way to see this?

Wow. Okay. Now I have another question because this. My husband's really funny. He's not a comedian, but he's really funny. And like, if I ever do a video with my husband, it's like my viral videos. But I will say, being married to that, it annoys me sometimes, especially if I'm being serious or having a conversation. He's. Do you find that happens with people close to you?

Oh, man. I'm forever trying to learn how to not. You know, I feel sorry for my wife on most days. So I mentioned a couple minutes ago, you know, the example of seeing irony. Like, if my wife's upset, like, I could be there seeing like the irony of her upset, which in a way, like, invalidates her upset or the emotional story. And I mentioned how on my good days I'll keep my mouth shut about that, but on my bad days, I'll say what I think is funny in the moment, which is honestly when I'm crossing a line. And let me say this first, with humor, there's a time and a place for it. Now, I think most of us need more humor in our lives. Like, none of us, we all do. We don't go to our doctor and they're like, dude, like, you really need to like, be more serious, like get your stress levels up a little bit. Um, so. But with that said, my old pathology is using humor to escape pain rather than dealing with pain. So when we do that, you know, pain becomes like a rotting energy in us because we're not dealing with it, we're not feeling it. Therefore we're not like running it through our emotional digestive tract so it can run its course through us. So for example, like, if my wife's upset, it's very painful to me when people are angry. I just have my childhood issues with anger. I'm still working through them. So it's tempting for me to use humor in that situation, but that can be very discounting to my wife and her anger. It's very invalidating to her. And it's during those times. My humor isn't coming from like a let's bring joy to the world. My humor is coming from a place of terror that says, I'm afraid of anger. I'm afraid of.

Yeah, it makes, like if someone were to turn to drinking or like, I get what you're saying, like they have a checkout with something 100%.

Except my checkout with humor. It might be a 10 second interlude or a 1 minute interlude. And. And it gets me paid. So it's like a functional dysfunction. But I, you know, over the past 15 years, I have learned a lot. I've realized, like, holy Lord, like, at times I use my humor not constructively and. Yeah, and that's why I've coined the term conscious comedian, because I think we can use humor destructively. An example of that, like we're talking about, like, I can just keep escaping my pain. I can invalidate my wife's real emotions because I'm just making a joke out of everything. Another example is we've all seen or experienced it where someone's making a joke at our expense in an inclusionary honoring way, but in a bullying way.

Yeah. Like if you were shaming people. Shaming. Yeah, I get what you're saying.

And you can get less. And it's usually easy to get less that way. Unfortunately, we realize that's destructive humor. That's the power of humor used destructively. It's hurtful.

I love that you figured this out because I don't know that a lot of people have connected this. And I'm having actually a light bulb moment. I'm just as you're saying this because I think so many of us use something as a crutch for pain. I know for me for years it was work like, well, I'm just going to focus on work all the time. And when my husband would get mad saying things like, you're on social media too much, you're working too much, I'd say, but I'm bringing in money or I'm bringing in this. And what's coming up for me right now is they have to be separate things. Like you can that you don't excuse feeling or being present or doing something because it's good in another way.

Yeah. Amen, sister. I think it's a beautiful light bulb. You know, the achievers tend to place their dysfunction behind noble looking hiding spots. So you know, and I still relate to you like, but I'm working like. Yep, I've overworked. I've used fitness as my crutch, I've used humor as my crutch certainly, and I've used spirituality as my crutch. I started my comedy videos calling out the spiritual ego involved in spiritual communities because that was my practice of self awareness. I was starting to realize I'm using these noble looking hiding spots to hide my dysfunction. And now here's the challenge for weirdo achievers like you. You're not laying in a back alley with a heroin needle, thank God. That's not your dysfunction. That's a lot to deal with, obviously. But the challenge is some of the time when we're doing that exact practice, it's you living your purpose. It's you touching hundreds of thousands, millions of lives, helping people. And then through the sleight of hand of our subconscious and our ego, then that exact same practice jumping on social media to post something that can be self destruction, where we're using it to escape ourselves, disconnect from who's in the room, disconnect from our own feelings, our own thinking, our own fears. And once you know that's possible now it becomes a magnet of self awareness because you can't get out of the jail you don't know your you're in. Once you have the wisdom to ask the question like, am I using this to fulfill my purpose or am I using this to.

Wow, this is so insightful. Jp I have never heard this explained this way. This is really, you know, there's so much conversation around people that go to the drug route or alcohol or even like to some level being totally consumed with your work. But you have this on a whole other level. This is really, really resonating. This is good.

Right on. Well, I'm glad you and I are cut from the Same dysfunctional mold. We can.

But.

The thing is, you and I could live the rest of our lives with the way we're describing our dysfunctions. Like you jumping on social media, me using humor. We could live the rest of our lives without addressing this. And it's not going to destroy our life and we'll probably just get rewarded for it. We might earn more money because of it, but when we're in a place of self realization, not survival, then this awareness can take us to the next level. Whereas, you know, someone who's compensating through alcohol or drugs or overeating, it's not a matter of self realization for them. Their compensation, that's more about survival. It's like you need intervention in order to save your life.

So what happened? Where was the turning point with you that you kind of connected this dots, the dots. Like I know the time I got more aware that I had to start looking at everything was when my business started changing and it wasn't working as well. My husband wanted to leave. Like I had like this turning point. Did something happen or what woke you up to having to go down this path of self realization here?

Yeah, I love the question. And I've had various wake up calls. I need more wake up calls. So it's like awakening in stages probably. But I'll never Forget I was 27, so 12 years ago at this time, and I was in Columbus, Ohio, going to do a weekend immersion with a mentor of mine. He's emotional, spiritual dude, just an angel inside of a human body. And he and I were walking around his office. I think we just got back from lunch and chatting with someone else in the building. When we were done in that conversation, we walked back into his private room. He looked at me in just the most loving way, but it was so damn bold. Scared me. I hated it. Here's what he said to me. Jp, do you know how passive aggressive you get with your humor? And that was, that was one of the most loving things someone could share. I had never even considered it before then. And on a scale of 0 to 10, I was a 10. Uncomfortable. You know, I felt embarrassed, shameful. And you know, he wasn't shaming me, he was loving me.

But my giving you feedback, like the feedback that you needed.

But yeah, my shame was coming up. Like I have never seen this. And they're like, oh my God, I've seen. But that really initiated a new level of awareness about myself, my use of humor and why the humor is coming up. What's the intention behind It. So that was definitely a big awakening.

So you just said, what's the intention? Is that a question that you use now? Like, what's my intention before I go here or before I create this?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm looking at a big sign I have in my wall that says my mission to help people grow, heal, and awaken through conscious comedy. So conscious comedy, back to that definition, is used to help people, specifically for me to help people awaken. So I always get clear on if I'm writing stand up or writing a video, what's my intention here? Because I still need to ask myself that question. Because I've got an ego, and my ego can start, like, it can get passive aggressive. And humor, it's a sword I could use. And by the way, like, not gonna get in trouble for it because, like, it's so. And then also sometimes my intention is just lazy. Like, oh, this is an easy way to get laughs, yet it can actually be a hurtful way of getting laughs. So.

So if you're. If humor initially started to kind of avoid pain, which I know that's a theme with people that are funny or comedians, how did it affect you when, like, you put your first videos out, which were hysterical, but you'd have, like, a hater on there, or people going this opposite direction or not understanding that it's supposed to be funny? And, like, how did. Did that make things harder for you? Like, what was the conversation going on during that.

Yeah, love. Great question. In fact, my videographer just sent me the preview of a finished video we're releasing. It's called Dear Haters.

Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. Can't wait for that.

Yeah, I'm sure with your huge online pres, you could relate to that, seeing negative comments. To be honest with you, at first, when I started getting some level of recognition, it was hard. It wasn't at all catastrophic or disabling. I know it can be for some people, but for me, it was just like, oh, it was a little hard, but it didn't slow me down. And now when I see negative comments, like, zero to 10, it pretty much registers a zero. It just doesn't matter to me. And I don't think I say that with indifference. I think I say that with awareness. That says, like, it doesn't matter to me. And usually, you know, when someone's spewing hate online, that's not a happy person. That's not someone who feels connected to their purpose. That's not someone who's feeling whole inside, at least not in that moment.

So true. I've always, whenever someone's asked me how, like how they deal with a hater or how will they do this? And I'm talking not even people with a huge following, they just get one negative thing. I always have them think like, who's your mentors and do you think or who do you look up to? Or do you think they would ever write those comments? Like I think of like Oprah. Would she ever take the time on social media to tell somebody why they're dumb or lame or whatever? Like nobody that we actually look up to does that. Evolved human does that.

It's not great leadership. It's not coming from a place of wholeness. So the last thing I want to do is first I'm grateful, I don't feel affected. But the last thing I'd want to do is start hating the haters back. Because now that's trying to hurt a hurt person. And I want to be a leader who doesn't try to hurt people when they're at their worst, even if they're lashing out towards me. Now, if it was a physical confrontation, like, cool, I'm going to have some serious boundaries here.

But that's what's funny. They wouldn't do that in person. Like, no one's going to walk up to you at the store and say, hey, it's a keyboard thing 100%.

And the old things, sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt. We forget that wisdom and we, you know, one of the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, don't take things so personally. So we've kind of, we've got a problem now where, you know, whether you're an influencer or you have a following of 11 people, people let themselves get really affected by the comments.

Oh yeah.

Now from a radical self responsibility perspective, I would challenge everybody to not say, hey, they hurt me with a comment. But if you can up level your self ownership and say, I allowed myself to get hurt by what that comment meant to me, now we can start to break free of being enslaved to what other people think of us.

So profound. So good. I'm writing this talk about radical responsibility right there. Yeah, I allowed myself to get hurt by why that comment meant for me. Because the other way is a victim.

Mentality, a hundred percent. If we get rewarded for the victim mentality, we get people feeling sorry for us. We feel it ourselves. We man, we live in the outrage culture. Everything is offensive to everybody, which is what you just said, Natalie. It's Us getting our emotional needs met in a very disempowering way. The victim mentality. Here's where we trick ourselves. That method of disempowerment that we inflict on ourselves, we pretend someone else is doing it to us and we feel empowered. The more we disempower ourselves because we feel more significant. Just because you feel more significant, like, ah, I'm so hurt you did this to me. That doesn't mean you're empowering yourselves. You feel more significant, but you're another.

Huge light bulb, jp. This is so I always share, especially with fat loss, that victim mentality, or being, I call it false assumed truths. Believing that you're a victim of something, it validates you in that moment. Like it makes you feel good in that moment, but it doesn't fix the problem. So what's coming up right now is exactly what you're saying. If we don't own that we are allowing ourselves to get hurt by what a comment meant for us, then we will continue getting hurt by those until we can take that ownership there. That's incredible, because we have to shift us, not them. We can't change other people.

Indeed. You know, it's. You know, I think the more someone allows themselves to be in the arena, and you're in the arena big time, it's so inspiring. You put yourself out there, you touch and improve millions of lives. You empower people. And the more someone allows themselves to step into their power by being in the arena. We realize the arena is always surrounded by stands, people sitting there watching. Now, it's cool, they're spectators. But we realize not all spectators are going to be cheering for us. Now, of course, if you imagine like LeBron James or whoever someone's favorite athlete is, you could just imagine what would happen to their level, their ability to let themselves shine if they were affected by what people in the bleachers are saying.

Yeah, they can't.

LeBron James is an opposing city. And, you know, we as influencers, as leaders, we do humanity a disservice when we let ourselves get swallowed by the victim mentality of letting ourselves be affected by what people say. Because that either causes us to dampen our shine, like, oh, I don't want to get more hate, so let me dim my white light bulb by 20 watts. Or we alter our course. So instead of having, like, here's my true unapologetic message here, now we start altering our course because maybe we're addressing the haters, or maybe we're like, oh, they thought what I said was wrong. So now I'm going to come back with another message. Really doubling down on what I said to prove them wrong.

Yeah. I'm so guilty of what you're saying. And it's interesting as you're talking, I'm realizing that I take a stand big time when it comes to fat loss and aging and all. Like, I have a huge message there and I don't veer. I. Even if people don't like my message, I stick. But I'll tell you, when it comes to like current events and stuff, oh, I'm very vanilla because I am thinking about that. So how do you not. Because I'm so impressed with you. Like, okay, regardless y' all of what you believe in the world right now, like what, whether you're pro mask or not mask or you're pro vaccine or not, like, regardless of what you believe right now, it's amazing to watch JP stand in his power with conviction and sticking to humor and doing all of it, not caring what others are saying about, I mean caring but not letting that, you know, change you have. You had to battle that at all with yourself.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I'd love to say, like, hey, Natalie, like, I'm anointed. I'm the chosen one. I was bit by a squirrel. So like I'm more evolved than people. So like I'm just like so non attached to what they say. It's something I've certainly worked on. And to me, the formula, if I could summarize it, that is ever ongoing work for not being affected by what people are saying. The formula isn't addressing them, it's not proving them wrong. It's not even reading the comments. It's radical self responsibility and owning our emotions that come up. So if and when I do get triggered by what someone says, I own it. I go, oh, my body is generating anger right now. They didn't make me angry, my body generated anger. So anger is always a symptom of fear. So my question of self responsibility so I can like get past this snag for me is what, what's my fear being triggered right now? Am I feeling afraid because I have a sense of rejection which is probably reminded me of my childhood. Am I afraid because I'm not getting their approval? Am I afraid because I feel insignificant, Like I'm not enough to change their mind? And these are questions and maybe we'll never get a hard answer, but I think asking the questions is liberating.

Yeah, that's own the emotion. It's powerful. Because I'll share that. I have not, like, really took a stand for what I personally believe about what's going on in the world. Because I am scared of that. I mean, I'm owning it. I don't want to get in, so. And I think that's why a lot of people stay out of politics or stay out of, like, they were like, I don't. I'm too scared. How do I stay neutral? So it's there. That's a lot to dig into. And I think there's a lot of people facing this right now. I mean, 2020 has been really very interesting, you know, like, you can't not have an opinion. So I've just, I've been amazed at how you've walked through this. I watch your posts. I thought, I go digging in the comments. I just, I'm curious. I'm like, how is he going to respond to this? How. And I've watched you not be fake. I mean, maybe you are phased in private, but I watch you stay you. And I saw a comment this morning on one of your posts when somebody said, you've changed. You're not. And I. But talking to you, I'm like, no, you're just becoming more you. You're not change. You're getting more and more authentic.

Which is to me. And that's the change we want. And of course it probably looks like change to someone else, but to me, the people I don't want to follow is the ones that don't change.

Yeah, don't grow.

You're not letting yourself grow. So for me, it's a beautiful compliment when someone says we've changed. And of course, they probably mean it in a condescending, disapproving way. And that's their. Their thing.

You had all kinds of fans come to your rescue too. That was cool. I saw that. It was like, you don't even have to battle it. Like, they do it for you because people that actually know you, they'll do it for you.

Yeah, man.

Is there anything that's off limits for you? Like, you ever think, okay, maybe this is too far, I shouldn't do this?

Oh, man, not really. You know, I will say when George Floyd, when, you know, when he was killed, and then the week aftermath where there's riots, you know, I'm thinking, I mean, like, I'm so touched by this and I feel so passionate about police brutality and I've seen all this systemic racism I had never seen before. Like, I was just not aware. I'll admit that. Hi Babe, my wife is just waving to me out the window. She's going on a trip. But I was thinking, what can I do? Like, I've got a big platform, but I'm a white guy. Like, I don't know. And then, so I was thinking, like, the racial equality issue, police brutality. I was thinking, this might be off limits for me. But then I would. I had this idea come to me, and I'm like, okay, that feels like an alive idea for a video to help raise awareness on let's honor black people. They've been suppressed, and let's purge the racism that we don't even know is there and what's obvious. So I had this idea come to me. Like, cool, I think I can help with this. But also, I'm a white guy. I've got my blind spots. So I called a friend of mine. Do you know Preston Smith?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.

So by the way, he's been on here.

He's been on the show.

Amazing. So all the listeners, you probably know of Preston, if you don't, you gotta follow him. He's amazing. And Preston is a black man. So I said, preston, here's my video idea. I'm a white guy. How does this bounce off you? He's like, bro, you gotta do this video.

Wow.

And I'm like, cool. I'm doing it. So to answer your question, Natalie, at times I get insecure about a given topic that I feel passionate about, and my insecurity is like, I. I probably haven't addressed this yet. So I'm doing something I've never done before, yet I've never encountered an issue that I consider off limits.

So what's interesting is what I'm hearing you say, too, is you have a strong conscious, but what you're doing is checking your intention, and then you're going through your conscious checks like, okay, I'm going to call my friend that I trust who is black, and I'm going to run it by him. And then that, to you, is. That's a very conscious way of doing it versus what will my following think?

What will people.

I don't know. Or what will. What will they. How will they judge? You went through your own checklist of what? Of the best way to do that, 100%.

And, you know, of course I love my followers. Yet, you know, the 99.9% of them are.

I'm talking about the few that we're gonna. You didn't know that.

We're gonna get, like 0.1% that scream yeah, you know, I'm not after their opinions. If I was, I'd ask them about it. But, you know, other people's opinions do matter because they can see my blind spots. But I will ask the people who I look up to for their opinions, like my wife, Preston, or, you know, getting a text from Tony Robbins, like, bro, I love that video you just released. I'm like, your opinion matters to me, Tony. Thank you.

Did you get a text from him saying that?

I did. Yeah. In fact, this past weekend, just. I'm gonna fangirl for a second. Tony's become a dear friend. He's just. He's changed my life. His events are amazing. And this past weekend, I was at his house in West Palm Beach, Florida. I had a chance to go out there and do a private comedy performance for some of his closest friends.

That's amazing.

Such a joy.

You know what's funny about Tony Robbins? I was at his stepson's wedding years ago, and I didn't know who Tony. This is, like, years ago, I didn't know who he was, and I sat there talking to him, like, had no idea who he was. Now I'm like, I was literally sitting at this small wedding talking to Tony Robbins, and I had no idea who he was. Like, so dumb. Now I know. Clear.

Now you know. I bet that was refreshing. Probably better than I have a conversation with someone who's just.

Who knows what I ask? What do you do? I can only imagine what I. Oh, my gosh. Okay. I have more questions about some of these. I'm very curious about some specific videos. Like, you're very. The very first one I found when I first learned about you, it was a really funny yoga video of you out, like, in nature. And then I remember seeing one about you pretending like you were an influencer or a model or something. How do you come up with these things? Like, where is that? This is just life and you. Then you go home and write it, or what? What does that look like in your brain? I need to know.

You know, I don't feel like I think of ideas. I feel like the ideas just come to me. And part of that is through observation, like, seeing what people are doing. That's ridiculous. Like, anytime there's a disconnect where there's. You know, to put it simply, where there's a lot of ego involved, but they're pretending like there's not a lot of ego involved, that's something.

And then the Instagram model one, that one that you did.

Yeah, yeah. Here's a picture of my thong. Like, wow, how altruistic of you to gift us a thong picture. I'm sure you're not just after likes here and then paying attention to the ridiculousness in my life, the goofy things that I do, either whether it's out of stupidity and I say that lovingly or out of ego. So for me, self awareness is probably the biggest source of comedy. And then, you know, I can portray that pattern of dysfunction, if you will, that ego pattern. I can portray that comedically in a video by either exaggerating it or satirizing it in a certain way.

Oh, my gosh. And your Blue man video. Oh, my gosh.

That blue face thing took over an hour to get off.

Yeah, I'll imagine.

One other thing I have to say on that, Natalie. I'm just gonna. I feel like this is a therapy session, and I love it. Another place where my ideas come from is when I get emotionally charged about something. I think Carl Jung has said emotions are the language of the soul. A lot of times we actually demonize our emotions, like, oh, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm ashamed. That's bad. Let's even medicate that so we can't feel the language of our soul. But I think when we honor our emotions, they're always there to empower us, even though sometimes they don't feel comfortable. So when I feel a strong emotional charge about something, oftentimes I'm realizing, okay, that's feedback getting my attention. What am I passionate about? What am I pissed about? What am I amused by? And that'll become a subject.

So, yeah, no, I get what you're saying, because sometimes I'll have, like, this. This burst of an emotion, reaction and a thought, and I'll, like, it just pours out of me in writing. And I'll put. And those are my best posts ever. And I'll put it out there. And the posts will be the ones that go viral and everyone's commenting on, but they'll also be the ones that trigger the most hate or people saying, like, I don't think you thought before you posted this, but it, like, spills out of me. So I get what you're saying, though. It's like, that's maybe what we're meant to be doing when we're hearing that, or we're feeling that and we're getting that charge.

Indeed. I think those are the most inspired posts, messages, videos that we can put out. And, you know, if we reverse engineer that, if they truly are the most Inspired. They maybe come from your heart, your soul, your intuition, who knows? But they. They come from something probably beyond just our brain. So if they're the most inspired, they're probably going to be the most impactful. And one of the. When there's a message that people need to hear, you're going to have a lot of people just thank you for the message. And then other people that need to hear it the most, they won't be saying thank you. They'll be saying f you. Because it's natural to resist what we need to hear the most. If people didn't need to hear it and it didn't trigger insecurities that are at the core of why they need to hear it, they wouldn't be so emotionally charged by it. It's interesting when people get the most offended or the most pissed off about something, usually they're looking at a truth in the mirror that they need to digest that. But instead of focusing on the truth and seeing that, they start punching the mirror because they don't like what they're seeing or hearing.

I also, I want to suggest, because I want people to really follow you because you really are such an amazing conscious comedian. And you all, I want you to see what he's created. He's so funny. But I also really want to say that again, that it's important. I believe it's important for us to follow and learn from people that have different belief systems from us, too. Because if there's going to be change in this world, we have to understand all sides. We have to understand all sides. And I think I watch social media right now, and people are getting really black and white. It's like, okay, I don't like what you said here, so I'm unfollowing. I'm canceling you. I'm done. And they only want to be in this bubble of people that validate what they believe. How are we going to grow and learn if we're not expanding that?

You know, I would just slam the gavel of agreement down with what you said, Natalie, and just say amen. You know, I think we get comforted the most when we're around people and ideas that we agree with. It's just so comfortable. We don't grow from that. No, we grow and we learn. When we encounter diversification of ideas, opinions, and, you know, I know a lot of us, it's become trendy to throw the term narcissist around, so I'm gonna throw it around. I think it is incredibly narcissistic. Of all of us. And I'm guilty of this at times. I'm not accusing anybody. I'm owning it for myself. It's narcissistic of us to believe we know the end all, be all. It's like, I'll tell you the last thing I'd want for everybody to think the way that I do. First off, the world would become so boring. Second off, just because I have my thoughts doesn't mean they're true. It just means I believe my beliefs. I want to be around people that up level me. That's one of the reasons why I love listening to podcasts and the ones that I get the most benefit from. Just on the scent trail of your wisdom here, Natalie, is when I'm hearing people talk about things that I disagree with.

Yeah.

When we can get past our emotional charge of insecurity as like, oh, no, why they're wrong, we just take some breaths, breathe through that, and then listen, understand.

So important. But I believe connection and conversation and being present solves everything. And I think there's not enough of that happening right now. There's a lot of people talking at people, rallying people against people. There's very little connection and conversation actually happening.

Yeah. You know, connected conversation, there's a word for that. It's called communication. And communion is at the root of communication. And right now, with all the talking at each other, there's no communication. There's no communion, there's no union. It's talking at each other in a way that divides, separates. So I love your thought of we need more connected conversations. And I think knowing the distinction, that's half the battle. When we, when we can realize, like, oh, just because I'm talking or yelling or typing in all caps, that doesn't mean we're communicating. Doesn't mean we're connecting. We can actually be dividing. But when we realize, oh, then there's another thing that also involves words, and it's called communication. It's very different.

You're so good, jp. I'm so glad I got to have this talk with you today. I learned so much about you and, wow, a whole new level to your comedy and your videos and everything now. Now I understand why you're. Why you do some coaching, too. Like, I didn't personal, I was like, what is he coaching? He's a comedian now. I understand you get the whole spectrum of this. So good.

I do my best. And yeah, before I was doing any comedy, I had been doing life coaching. Coaching for about 13 years. I've since Let my practice grow just as called to serve the world in more ways than just one on one. Which that was great, but I'm just trying to follow my call.

I have two final questions for you before I ask where everyone can find you and stuff. I want to know one what do you want somebody to know from your perspective that is really in their own personal rock bottom right now? There's a lot happening in the world. There's people that are very sad, very depressed, really feeling lost. What do you want them to know?

Yeah, that's a great question. A couple things come up. First off, this too shall pass. It's the wisdom of the Buddha, not me. I'm just the messenger. The other thing, and we've all heard it a million times and I think we need to digest it, not just hear it, which is our happiness and contentment. It has to be found within. We can continue to experience that we're living in a living hell by looking on the outside and just seeing how crap isn't going our way and that might be lost the job or the business is closed down and I can't even help it. And the pandemic and are we being lied to and Trump and like Biden's not better.

Yeah.

Happiness isn't going to be found externally. I think we're living in a time of awakening where it has to be found internally. We will continue to feel like we're living in a living hell if we're looking for happiness where it's not. But if we can start to look inward, feel our feelings and find happiness within, we're going to find heaven on earth. That is very easy for me to say and I know it is a hell of a rite of passage to go into. I probably abide by it about 20% of the time, give or take, so I still got 80%. So much work to do. But yeah, that's my message. I'd ask people to stop looking outward for happiness and look inward where it actually is.

So my final question around that is how do they do that? Like, what would. Do you have any. If you were to say, okay, here's three steps and I know this is really dumbing down a big concept here, but you've done so much work around this. Is there like three things people could implement or start doing? If they are starting that search to that, like they're hearing you, they get it. But where do they start?

I think there's only one connection, so. And let's dumb it down even further. What do you mean by Connection. When a baby is crying. Because a baby is just like, strip away all the adult stories, iq. You look at a baby, it teaches us about our true nature that can get lost underneath our intelligence. When a baby is crying, what's the only thing that's going to make it happy? Love. Love. Connection. Absolutely. So a lot of us are used to looking for connection on the outside. Don't get me wrong, we need that. But how can we find happiness within? It is connection with ourselves. How we do that is we have to be connected to our feelings. We have to realize our feelings are the language of our soul. Happiness is a consequence of connection. Just tell someone, be happy, Find it within. It's useless. How you find happiness within, in my opinion, is through connection. No other way. That means all the feelings that we've tried to run away from our whole lives, feelings I've tried to escape through humor or alcohol or overworking or over fitness or over obsession with food or just dissociation. All those feelings, the fears, the shames, we've got to be connected to. Even those otherwise we won't be plugged into the source of happiness. So good connection. And I'll just put a footnote on that. The more we can breathe, the more that facilitates a connection with our feelings. When we're breathing shallow and rapidly, that's the energy of disconnection.

So I love that. And I lived in that breathing of shallow for my whole life until I learned breath work, actually. And that has changed me. It's really amazing. Even if people just spend a few minutes a day, if that's all they can do, just that deep breath, slow. All that jp. This was incredible. Where can people find you? I know you're everywhere, but where do you want? Where should they go? What is your handle on Instagram, YouTube? Where do they find you?

Yeah, my handle on everything is awaken with JP. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all the places. And yeah, it'd be a joy. If you want to connect with me, awaken with jp. And if you find me incredibly offensive or just follow him anyway. Yeah. Or just avoid me.

Follow him anyway. Go to that discomfort because he's really funny, y'. All. Really funny. Thanks so much, jp.

You're welcome, Natalie. Thank you.

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