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Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 117 - Landon Bryant

Landon Bryant is a dynamic force in the world of social media, rapidly gaining fame as an influential Southern storyteller. You likely know Landon from his often hilarious, sometimes controversial (when it comes to sugar or salt on grits), and always insightful "let's discuss..." monologues on Southern culture.


His journey, however, roots back to his days as an acclaimed Art teacher whose passion for education continues but now with a much wider audience. Known for his captivating speaking engagements and Southern flair, Landon leaves audiences deeply satisfied with his influential and authentic voice from the South.

To connect with Landon directly follow:

https://linktr.ee/landontalks

https://www.instagram.com/landontalks/?hl=en

Broadcast on:
26 Sep 2024
Audio Format:
other
Landon outside of just loving your accent and loving the lighthearted nature of all of the content you create I have so much appreciation for all of the work that you put out so first and foremost thank you for sharing your time with me and our audience we really appreciate you being here. Well thank y'all for having me I'm glad to be here. Now Landon who are you tell us what it is that you do. So I'm Landon Bryant and I what do I do like what if somebody can somebody explain it to me know I am a content creator and I was an educator for almost 10 years and now I do this I have a whole social media situation as Landon talks on Instagram and TikTok and Landon talks a lot on YouTube. Where we are about to rebrand the YouTube I've got a book coming out in April next year with hash yet I'm an imprint of hash yet running press and the book is bless your heart a field guide to all things southern. And I host of it and I just stand up comedy so whatever that is that's what I do I love it because you do a lot let's start unpacking that with just a little bit of the career on the education side and I have so much appreciation for this because my wife is a teacher. I just go yeah I have these conversations right just go babe I like love exactly what you're doing how do you feel about the education field and she just goes well like it's awesome that we have summer off but every single year depending on the class if the class isn't like a great class. She just goes I think I want to be doing something else and I just have these awesome conversations around what is education and like why people get into the education field. That's awesome that she does that education is a wild field to get into it really is and or I'm out of it the more I realize how intense field it was and how little like pay there was for so much work going into it so it's definitely a field that you have to love what you do to be a part of it. But then also they can kind of take advantage of that that you love it and that you like are willing to sacrifice for these kids so it's just a whole whole thing we definitely have like visions and education that we need to take care of as a country. There's a lot of really great people in education like your wife and all the people that I know that work in the schools where I was there incredible people. The people are wonderful in education the system needs some need some rehauling but it's a place to work and it was I was very happy in my career with those kids I was the art teacher at an art school. It was a school of the arts so they taught academics using really important to me and it made much I'm really exciting and made it very different every day of that and I was going to do that forever but then all this happened so now do this but education is very important to me. Public education is very important to me I think public school is the way that we can all kind of get on the same page is the way it's kind of an it should be an equalizer for everybody. And I think that's important that we all get a shot at this because it's you know everybody deserves it and education should do that for people is what I think it should so I feel like there's a lot of strides that have made recently in it and there are some really great things. But it's just a difficult challenge to say education is difficult because I mean like with the testing alone. Some kids respond to this kind of test some kids don't respond to this kind of test but we've got to test them all to figure out where we are to make sure that everybody's getting the right education. But how does that look it's complicated it's a complicated world so I miss the kids but I am happy watching it from afar. I love the way that you talk about this because this is one of the actual biggest conversations around our house is like what is the value of testing in education. Because I've always come to it from this weird angle where I go. I don't know exactly if every single teacher teaches all of the kids specifically for an exam or if this is a byproduct but I go aren't you as a teacher at the beginning of the year when you have the first set of exams. Kind of incentivize to put your kids in a more stressful situation to not help them as much to kind of make sure that they don't do as well on the first exams to make sure that you can show progress during the year. And I would just go like if you create your own tests before and after aren't like is it subjective from the standpoint of like you have influence on both results. And isn't that the whole thing and that's that's the whole thing like how much level of responsibility do we give to teachers how much level of responsibility do we give to districts and to states to decide what those tests look like. And it doesn't matter year to year, it's a whole it's a whole thing I don't personally have the solutions to it. There are much smarter people like my wife has her specialist degree in it. And she I feel like she figured out. I just know how to teach art and I know how to do what I do with that I do like I recognize that there has to be some level of like there has to be some level of assessment there has to be some level of response my crazy right now I'm so sorry. Some level of responsibility. So there's got to be some sort of assessment to recognize where the kids are. But then like what does that look like and and then for kids that need accommodations for like special ed accommodations like kids with ADHD or autism. Should their tests look different but like what does that look like even how do we make this differentiated enough for every kid in every specific situation to find out where they are and where they're headed, but at their level. And it'd be appropriate for them. I don't know I think that's the challenge that education's got to match right now and I'm I'm curious to see what happens I think it will be in. I feel like. After coven education really shifted and I feel like it's definitely at a point where it's in a reflection point and everybody's kind of trying to figure out what's next so I'm excited to see what's next with education because I know there's some really bright minds. Working on that and I think it's important and it's exciting to see what happens next. Yeah, now are you worried about the generation of kids who went through school during coven because I find myself in these weird situations where I'm like. Hey, there are a lot of kids who stayed at home and did not get to socialize did not get to, you know, go to through the emotions of every day like waking up getting ready for school. There's something about creating value and finding value in the routine and I go when you take away that routine and you let kids stay in front of computers and stay in front of their tablets. Are we raising the generation of kids who are not going to be able to have in depth conversations with other human beings and just don't have in person skills that they need to thrive in everyday society. Have you had any of those thoughts. That is a really great question and it was something that I was worried about too and I mean obviously something will still worry about it. I don't think that will see the results of that till much later when they're adults. But what I have to say on that is so I was I was a teacher during COVID. And so we all went home that and then we didn't come back and then the first school year we didn't come back and so there was an entire group of kids who had never been to school before. And their first experience with school as four year olds and four year old kindergarten was on the computer was a virtual computer type of situation. So obviously when we headed back to the classroom we were worried about those kids and we were like what's this going to look like what is it going to be like and in my experience and obviously my experience is not universal. But in my experience those kids like the four year olds that I had that year. They were just the most loving group of kids and they cared about each other so much and it was almost like that absence that they had made them more empathetic and made them more. Excited to be with each other. They took care of each other more than other classes had in the past. Sure we had a hard time like staying on our schools and like being in our space that was the difficulties there. But just the empathy and the connection it gave them was really encouraging to me. Obviously there's like data that shows that they were they were behind in that whole sort of thing but my school caught back up to that and they're actually ahead of where they're supposed to be. Now I know that's not a universal experience as well again I know that the school I worked at is an exceptional place. But I think it's almost like who are we comparing them to if they like who are they behind the rest everybody was home. So it's kind of like what was the how far are they behind if everybody was behind at the same time is kind of where I came to it but the kids are remarkable and they're adaptable more adaptable than us. And I first hand in in school in person I will see more of that as we go along the world is different now it's not the same as it was it's a digital world I'm here talking to you I don't even know where you are in the United States. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a different world and their world is more global their world is more digital and have it's almost like school has to meet kids where they are and when we don't do that we're behind. And this is where society is now. So it's kind of like are they behind or is it just a different different scenario now. It's so amazing for me to just get the perspective of somebody who was actually going through this during COVID because you obviously just know so much better than I do. It was wild. It was wild. What was it like tell me about that experience of you know one day be in a classroom and then waking up and going hey tomorrow we're no longer showing up like figure this out on an iPad. Yeah well I'll never forget it and it's a moment I'll almost like it's like a different it's a different world entirely right so we are in art school like I said so there's always a musical every year and I was part of the directors. One of the directors for that and we were directing the Lion King. Very big musical, very intense, very fun, very exciting, really the day before we shut down. That's when we had our musical like the final musical for the year so it was very dramatic and I remember being in that room with the Lion King going on and seeing all these people and it all is different world than it is now like those people everywhere and those people all over each other. And then I was like that we're not going to this is it y'all we're not going to see this again for so long and I was right and it was so wild so my very last memories one that's like full full of people full of chaos full performance and life and excitement. But we kind of like knew what was something was coming we didn't really know and then the very next day they were like that's it. This is it y'all are home and then we went home and it that I do have to say as a teacher, the challenge of digitizing our work was was a huge challenge. But one benefit of it was that we were I like knew I was going to get paid so being home wasn't as scary as for me as it was for a lot of people who weren't sure whose income was directly dependent on them being at work in person you know. It was stressful in a way that we had to translate to the digital world it was not stressful in a way that we knew we were taking care of at home so it was kind of a double edged sword. Quickly translated to digital to the digital world. I worked at an exceptional school it's one of the best schools in the state of Mississippi and Mississippi's not like known for a great education but we were one of the better ones in the state and it was really it's a really good place so they immediately were looking at ways to digitize what we do, and I think they were able to do that as best as they could in that situation my own son went to school with us there I'll never forget that summer. He was going in first grade the year of covid so he missed a large chunk of first grade or his teachers on their own not through the school district didn't pay them to do this it did. They hosted summer school online for their first grade class for their classmates for him and his classmates and we were like at the beach. During covid like not talking anybody in this little condo and he was doing his little work during the summer and I just remember being like so grateful for. Such good teachers that he had to do that with so it was a challenge and it was like an everyday challenge it was not like okay we figured it out let's go forward it was teaching. If you're a good teacher and like your wife is I'm sure she would tell you then you're constantly evaluating your lesson assess and what went on and then what can I do better next time like it's a circular thing you're never like this is the lesson and this is exactly how it should go you should always be like what can I do better what's next how can I make this better for these individual students. And so that same model just applied to this version of it every time what could I do better what how can I make this better for them what would make this a better experience. And so by the time we got back in person we had kind of got a run of things and it got going and then then going back in person while we were still social distancing and we still weren't sure if it was safe it was like kind of we're kind of just thrown back out there. That was an experience as well it definitely like had an impact on how have you like how the system views teachers on students but the spirit of those kids was just so remarkable and that was that was really beautiful to see. And now that the kids that we taught after during and after COVID or kids that I will be following for the rest of their lives because they're so special and so it was such an important thing to go through together. So, you know, really bonded by that I'm sure your wife is to get she went through that with but it was wild it was really wild it's hard to explain even how, how intense of a situation it is but it's almost like when you're on the other side of it is something you can be really proud of. For sure. And there is so much value and exactly this thing that you talked about which is this bonding experience of going through it together. Now, I was in an office going through the same thing and I feel like even when we went back to the office with social distancing, because there wasn't like a shift in power dynamic. We were all kind of on the same page, it was much easier to be like, I have no idea what's going on, you have no idea what's going on, like nobody knows. Like, exactly. But what was it like in a school setting when you have kids looking up to you and being like, land and as supposed to know, and you're like, hold on, I don't know anything and I don't have any more information than you guys. Well, teaching is a practice in pretend and like, you know what you're doing all the time, like that's what you're doing every day is pretending like you know how to do this. That was that I mean we were wearing masks it was a different thing entirely we were staying away from each other and we had dividers between the kids and they were sitting apart from each other so it was like a whole new, a whole new world to learn. Like I said, they're, they're remarkably resilient and they're very adaptable. So it's very quick that they learned how to do it. It's a remarkable experience all around it's very hard to describe it like what it was like in person but those kids were really resilient. We had like dividers up between our desks, we had them scooted apart and before that it was like very group work oriented so that was a difference for our school. We have, you know, then you go into like, okay, I was an art teacher and we were sharing supplies and that was before we knew really is this in the air is this on on stuff if you're a pencil is that a thing. And so now I've got to manage a budget of art supplies for all of us but they can't share any of the supplies. There was a lot, a whole lot of challenges. We had a really great support from the community. People bought us air purifiers. People bought us like sanitizing things and we used all that stuff and it was, it was honestly kind of fun for a second. You know, like when things are new and exciting, it was like a new world. We moved into like normalcy after that and then it seemed like things were not back to normal, they never went back to normal. But things were more routine and were regular a year so after I think that first year back where we had missed the first part of the year, that was a really intense year it's almost like we blocked it out with the masks and all the stuff. Then the last year that I taught was relatively normal, it was a relatively normal year and we had just taken some of the things that we learned that worked in COVID and apply them to our regular classrooms. So it was like we now there's this hybrid version of school that is the best of both worlds now what the things that work in both places like we had an assessment program that we use during during COVID to find out where kids are individually that wasn't our like official you know, it was like a as you go along assessment type of a thing and that worked really well and so now the school uses that as an official program. So I think that is just the addability of human nature is really impressive. Yeah, and I think like COVID was like the perfect opportunity for people to be innovative for people to adjust and for people to come up with some type of like weird ideas that you wouldn't try in any other setting but based on that like you did have some of these awesome outcomes of, Hey, here's a new way to test. Hey, here's a new way to do that thing that we've been trying to do for a while. And I just think it's really, really cool. And it speaks to the flexibility of us as human beings in general. I agree. I like, it's wild to be part of something so transformational because it's like, I had such a unique transformational experience but so did the entire world like humans it all together we all have this transformational experience so it's wild to go through something like that where you it's so unique and so remarkable but like so did everybody so I think that does speak to human nature and how we are like, we can do it we can do it if we really want to and try to. Exactly. Hey, tell me about the first content you started creating. Was it still while you were working as a teacher. So, I would post every now and then I would post stuff like there's like classroom things I did lessons that I did, like I said previously I was the art teacher at an art school so we taught whatever academics the students were learning that week in their classroom we would teach it in our art classes that for a so like the dance teacher would teach a math lesson in third grade I would teach a reading lesson in fourth grade and which rotate through the whole school. So we had to learn all those standards and those kinds of things. And I have severe ADHD and I just forgot where that what question you just asked in the middle of me talking I like completely forgot what what it started. No worries when did the content creation piece into your career and how did you get started. Yes, so I started sharing those lessons because those lessons aren't really online they're not available. Like people don't do that anywhere else so there's not just like you can't just type it on Google like a math lesson for sixth grade using art there's not really those things so started sharing those things and they did pretty well in the teacher community for a while. So in one day I did this was in 2023 posted. So I talk a lot you can tell I have a lot to say and I have a real ramble on on but I was talking to my wife and she's brilliant and her eyes like glazed over a little bit because we've known each other since second grade so every story I have and every fun thing I have to share she's already heard or she was there for it and she was like what if you told your stories to the Internet and that was her nicely being like hush you know like talk to somebody else. So I shared a story of Walmart high school and we can get into Walmart high school if you want to and in that story that really blew up and all but I said some southern phrases like fix into and my good and people were like what do you mean fixing to and I was like what do you mean what do you mean fixing to fix into is fixing to and fixing to in the south means like about to right but so I had to explain that so I was like well let's discuss fixing to and let's discuss my good and let's discuss these phrases and then it just never went down from there like it blew up the Walmart videos blew up and then those discussion videos blew up and it just kept going from there. It's been a wild a wild ride but so was when I started the content creation that was in like February of 2023 as a teacher and it was really intense because it blew up so fast and there was stuff all the time. I was at high level school like I said and so there wasn't just like a lot of time available goal that you have to dedicate to so there was a lot. I was just drowning for the first like end of that last year so we decided to leave the classroom after that but that those few months while I was in school and doing this. I just kept being conscious to myself will be like it's going to be worth it. Let's get to the grind and get going and it'll be worth it later in the future and it has been so far and I'm really grateful that we made that choice it was really scary to leave the classroom. But I'm glad that I did and that first initial bit of content was really really it's been really fun and it hasn't slowed down since and I still have not like grasped it really altogether. Now when you started making this content did you at that point already know that hey next year I'm not going to be back in the classroom was a decision to get out of education already made. No not at all like when like she prompted me to share my stuff online so I shared that Walmart story and it went nuts and then it I decided that I was going to post every day for a year at least like every day consecutively because the rhythm right so I decided to treat it like a puppy and like train it like a like an animal showed up every day I posted between four and seven I posted the same link the videos I used similar backgrounds like their colorful backgrounds. I cut myself out and I tried to use similar captions with similar hashtags and so I just like consistently posted every day for a whole year like that. It went from there and it worked I didn't I didn't I like mid for it too but I didn't know that it would you know like I had intentionally doing these things but I didn't know it would get that big but then in really even maybe possibly March or April of that same year. Top four publishers will first independent publisher but then the top there's like the top five publishers and they were all in my DMS and I was like hold on this is why. So fortunately I tell called Laurel Mississippi is on HGTV it's got a show called hometown on HGTV and so my friend Aaron Napier is the host of that show and so she's navigated this world of whatever this is and has published a few books so I will help. What do what do I do what do I need to do here and she got me in touch with her literary agent and that literary agent navigated my book deal for me. In May when that was finalized kind of knew that our salaries would be replaced by the book deal so we felt a little more secure to leave the classroom but it's very scary to leave like a system that you know that's all we had known was public education. Turns out not that hard to replace public education salaries. But it was scary to leave and the book deals definitely made it a little bit more secure to leave and then with my literary agent Kim Parell at Highland literary she helped me as other deals started coming up and she helped me navigate that by getting me my agent now who is Claire Bemundo and she navigates all the brands for me. And so we worked together for a while and then middle of the year and then in the first year this year I hired a girl from my town to manage my schedule and like manage me altogether. And so I've got like this really great team that's behind the scenes making it all happen I could definitely I could not do it alone I was just drown absolutely drowning. I certainly couldn't teach at the same time I do miss the kids and I drop, we drop my son off every day at that school and I thought going back I was going to be like oh the kids, but I'm every day I'm like bye. Yeah it's time to go. It's time to go and do something else with my day. I love that. Tell me about this transition to actually writing a book based on you know, coming out of the school system and just going hey I have never really tried this before but this feels like a path going on. Yes well very scary first of all is scary to leave any type of system. The book was the challenge that I had no, I have the advantage in all this of being like ignorantly blissful like I live in my own world romanticize world of things and I don't know what I'm doing. So I just like kind of go at it you know like I don't there's not a guidelines to it or anything so I just kind of do what I can right. And with the book they were like you need 52,000 words and I was like fine no big. Fortunately again have my wife and she has spent her career like learning to accommodate people with things like ADHD like I have so she really helped me set up systems to make that book happen like it should have and we got it done. And I'm so surprised at that that did happen but the transition was wild and it is a thing that I like look into the future like are their brand deals coming for next year are their brand deals coming for the year after that like what is the future look like how much will the book sale. It just continues to build and it keeps growing and I trust my team very much the people that are on my team so it's like a lesson in trust but also in just like kind of going for it and it's paid off very well for me so far and I just want to keep doing what I'm doing and now transition to the stage and that is a whole, a whole other thing and I love that as well. So I'm just excited for the future with what comes. I love that. I love that and like there is a story here about someone who is in their everyday job seeing just an opportunity to do something more. At what point did you have enough traction where you went hey this is like going on to be a bigger thing than just a part time gig and this is something that I want to dedicate all of my time to. Well I think it was shortly after it blew up I guess when it first blew up like the first month or two I was like huh wouldn't that be good wouldn't that be cool like but it was never a thought that it could be my actual job like I never really thought that until we got into the series conversations with with the publishing houses and that's when I was like okay. Well maybe we could I could like support my family doing this so that's a remarkable concept to me. So it kind of was like the book gave me the leeway to to do that and I think without the book. Without the book having been secured I would have maybe not done that and it would be a lot scarier but that gave me a lot of like say clearance for the future. And so I feel like that was the advantage right there like I don't I'm not saying everybody go quit your jobs but I'm open up the creative space for me to create and things have blown up since then so it was worth it for me but I security blanket of the book deal behind me you know and then but also a book you don't get paid in one lump for a book deal I don't know how books works but it's like you get a payment when you sign you get a payment when you turn the manuscript in you get a payment when the book comes out and the book comes out and you get a payment when it's met so many things so even that large chunk of change is broken down into smaller ones over time. So it's just a matter of managing the budget and like figuring out what what's coming when and and making all that happen and then the as far as brand deals go I had a idea that brand. I mean again public education. There's not money in that I was like begging for paper sometimes. Yeah, they're like every teacher has that experience of where they go. Like what is this funding and why conversations that I have with my wife are literally like why are we paying for these like supplies for your classroom. And you are I know I know like I was the art teacher at an art school and still was like that begging for paper and pencils but you know that's how it goes so. The money thing is just was just a wild thing and I recognized almost immediately that's not something that I can negotiate because again, coming from public school these numbers are nuts and I'll tell the story. I think means was one of the first companies that reached out to me and they were like, I think I had like a hundred thousand followers at the time. They were like we want, you know, like what, what do you want it how much do you want for this and I was so I went and talked to Aaron's manager and I was like how much should I charge them for this and he was like you need to charge them $2,500 for this real and I was like that's probably that. Then I went back and I was like I will take like 1250 for this and they messaged me back and we're like, that's pretty egregiously low. We're going to start at $2,500 and I was like, what, so really grateful to them because they could have just swindled me and I would have thought I was making a lot of money I really would have thought the 1100 or 1250 was like really great. But I did not know what it was worth I didn't know the value so I'm grateful to always grateful to Bush's big greens because they really showed me that there's some value in it. And then as it kept growing quickly realized that the negotiating of those things was not something that I'm skilled in being Southern is not being very direct and asking for large amounts of money is not something that I'm like very comfortable with. But it is part of that thing so I'm really grateful to Claire because she navigates all that for me she's from Connecticut and has no problem speaking her mind. I'm mad at me for the first like three months we work together. She wasn't. But so that's that's really been eye opening for me is how to work with brands how to negotiate your worth in that and what the value of it is and how valuable it is really and it's very hard to see just like usernames and numbers and understand what it means you know like it since it's gone so smoothly and it's just it's just like goes it almost like after a while the numbers don't mean anything so it's really hard to understand the value of it. Translated into real life so I'm glad I've got a team to help me do that because I certainly don't know what I'm doing with all of it but it's a weird world to navigate if anybody's navigating it like good luck I wish I do what I was doing. I don't. Yeah. I love that you are exactly the type of man who I mean looks at it and just goes I don't know what I don't know so let me get a good team around myself to make sure that I am well taken care of. What are some of the main characteristics of people who you surround yourself with to make sure that you are on the right path and you're not getting yourself into trouble. That is a very great question so Claire my little agent and my agent they kind of came by just happens dance like I knew they were quality because Aaron because of Aaron Napier had the like that is such an advantage in this world to like get introduced to people who are vetted and like know what they're doing because there's so many people that want to take advantage of you are like get you in bad deals. I'm just really fortunate as far as that goes with with those two so that is I just give all the credit to Aaron for allowing me into that world and then like him for getting me clear but then when it came down to me actually hiring me looking for somebody when I needed a daily manager like I needed a schedule manager but business manager like that whole type of situation to get like all that going. A decision because you've got your family members you've got all these people around you that you love and like but like who's the right one for the job. And as the art teacher I had worked closely with a lot of organizations in our town like a lot of nonprofits because they do a lot of things for schools. And our my friend Terry night is I think it's just hilarious because she does the most she does too much all the time she's always doing too much and in all those things. She constantly had to make me do stuff that I did not want to do and wasn't doing it but she was very good like getting me going she like drove me nuts enough to get to make the things happen and she has that like gumption to get up and go to do it. So I just kind of like watched all my friends and was like who could make me do stuff out of all these people like who's the person that could like motivate me while handling stress well like a new she handles dress well while like problem solving and all those things. So I approached her with it in about like about Halloween last year and was like I'm looking for somebody to do this like what what do I do and a big thing with me is taking the initiative to do it is like really difficult for me. She said about me so basically I approached the one person who I had experience with driving me nuts enough to make the stuff happen and now she still now she is cursed with me for doing all that and she's so great at it and she just has those executive functioning skills that I don't have and she has the business mind that I don't have in the organizational skills that I don't mind that I don't have. Mostly though, she took the initiative to like I had those conversations with a few different people in my life. She was like alright, we're getting started in January January first we'll get started we'll have a meeting and she made the meeting she made that sit up and so she kind of just like took the initiative to make it happen. And that's what I needed somebody to take the initiative so she kind of won the job by just saying it was hers and making it hers and then going from there and ever since then she's done such a great job and every day. This what I'm supposed to do but she makes me a schedule. See it on the screen, but she have a list of what I'm supposed to do every day and I do that and I try to get as much done as I can and I drop her nuts I know because I don't get everything done. But we've got a good team going and so that's what I look for and somebody somebody with initiative somebody that like knows what they're doing somebody that can motivate me and understand that I don't. From the beginning understand that I don't want to do whatever the thing is because I probably don't because of ADHD and still can make it happen so it's a really good team I'm really pleased with it. I feel like this is a quality of just creative people in general. Your creativity is a gift and a curse. It's a gift in a sense of like hey you have these great ideas of putting out a product that is relevant that makes sense to people that sticks with people that builds like this great brand awareness. And at the same time there is some disorganization some inability to like stay on task and get other things done. What is it about creative people like what is it about just the nature of creativity that makes you not stick to a typical schedule and makes you kind of live outside of the bounds of the typical like nine to five schedule world. I don't know that's the million dollar question if you figure that out then you can make so much money on telling us all how to arrange ourselves I really don't know I've always had this this ADHD brain. It's always been about creativity for me I'm constantly looking for a new thing that I'm interested in I'm constantly looking for the next novel thing. So it's a balance of like what is exciting to me and what can I actually stick with the consistency is my issue like I will be excited by the thing is new and shiny and then I get bored with it. Like I have to learn to be consistent that's where Terry comes in with stuff like that. It's something about all the little tasks that it takes to like be a person that can cloud your brain with creativity and when your brain is free from those tasks. I'm just able to be so much more creative and make so much more things and so much more stuff so it's almost like having this. It's like you if there's only so much space I can either think about the things I'm supposed to be doing like the daily tasks or I can like create this world. And I'd rather stay in the creating this world type of thing for some people it's more important to like have it all nailed down details for us. So I think it's just like what we have the capacity for and for me and a lot of creative people that I know there's not much capacity for daily tasks but there's lots of capacity for imagination you know that's a problem and a good thing at the same time. I love it because this just makes you so good at exactly what it is that you're doing today and I'm just so happy that you found a lane to have the ability to do all of these incredible things and find something that is a great fit for you. On the other hand tell me about kind of the value that you find and doing some of these things that you don't want to do like staying consistent like I'm sure sitting down and having to write even when you want to do 15 other things but you know that. Hey, part of me getting this bug deal part of me putting out a product that is actually worth something is doing these steps that I don't want to do. Yes, that is actually it's wild because I'm 36 years old so I didn't I didn't mean to be like learning like these huge developmental lessons now I'm like I was set with what I was doing but I've like had to learn so much in the past year and I really struggled through college I did fine in high school but college I really struggled through it because I had untreated ADHD I finally got treated for it and I was successful after that. But I never really learned to manage giant projects like I talked about the consistency was a struggle for me so I would start every semester stoked and like this is going to be great I'm going to have a great time in this class I understand what's going on. But then just I would like trickle off by the end of every semester so it was like this this endurance test for me every time. So this book was a huge project that I had never ever completed anything that big in my life that would take that much time over time. So my wife kind of helping me frame the way I think about the task of each day and break down it break it down into smaller tasks was really valuable to me. But it was when I got done with it I was like wow I've just grown so much like the my capacity for what I think I can do now has grown so much. I think it's kind of like when people get like a master's degree they are doctorate they've done all this extra work they've done the. For sure. They've done the grinding time they've spent the time like actually doing the thing I had never done any of that before I just really skirt by everything I've done I like get to as little as possible to get by. You are aren't you can't do that when you write a book so it was really transformational for me and I haven't done anything that big since then but I definitely feel like stronger I feel. I'm more capable and I feel like I can do so much more stuff after having done that stuff so now there's this reward at the end of me being proud of myself that now I've experienced it so. It's almost like my brain is ready for another task like that because I know the reward at the end does that make sense before I thought it was a reward. You know so it's almost like there's an intrinsic reward that is really really good for me especially having had such trouble in school and take me this long to learn it but it's been very transformational there's been moments when I've been like okay that's enough learning. That's like okay on an office person but I'm going to continue to grow and I think that's how we do good at stuff is just being open to growth and open to learning. And I'm so so proud of you through going through this journey and knowing that on the other side of this is a giant reward there's a bucket of like hey I'm proud of myself for having accomplished this I provide for my family I'm able to do all these incredible things just by putting forth the effort. So let me take you a step back into the school setting now when you weren't necessarily doing that great in class. I'm sure that a lot of people around you are telling you that you know it's because you're not sticking to the curriculum or you're not necessarily smart in that way. But do you ever like when I go back in my mind on some of these things I just go. A lot of the brightest and the best students a lot of the time they're just not necessarily interested in the format of education. Do you think of yourself as one of these people who was like I was incredibly smart and I was super into the topic but not in the way that it was delivered or not in the like structure of a class. Very much so I think about it all day and I can like conversation about it all day and that was kind of one of the things that ended up being confusing for my teachers and professors is like in class you're this wonderful student like you get what we're talking about you're one of the main conversation leaders and that kind of a thing but then it's the outside of the class the stuff that I'm writing and those kinds of things that I just like wasn't able to bring myself to do or would do very poorly last minute that type of stuff. So it was a challenge it was that was a big challenge especially because in class I seem like a very good student. The moment I leave the classroom is it's over with was really hard and then it goes. It's like even affects me to this day because I would think I studied correctly for a test I would like think I was ready for it and then I would never was like I always was like very behind on something or I was like didn't study what I was supposed to or something like that and after you feel over and over again. In that way you kind of set yourself up to think you're going to feel so even with the book from the beginning in the back of my brain the whole time I'm thinking like but I'm really not going to do this like right like I'm really going to do it wrong. So there's this anxiety and self-deprecation that comes with that kind of experience for so long for sure it's more than just in the classroom it affects you it affects like your daily life. So this has been wild because I was successful finally and something like that getting to know yourself is really a task and getting to know how you learn is a task as well and yeah the formats the formats make such a difference. Other classes that I finally like learned are the ones that I'm successful in are the ones that were more conversational so I ended up getting a degree in history because that is kind of sitting at a table talking about it and then of course it was like writing but it was. I got I got done with it so. I love that because you're like history the one place where I actually got to talk and I got to be creative enough to like do some of this. Yes storytelling and some of the sharing ability that I want to be doing either way. You're so right the storytelling aspect of history was and I just thought about that for the first time that's exactly what drew me to it I loved to find the story in history wow. I'm going to the excellent that's exactly what it was that I feel like for us as human beings like storytelling is just such a normal part of our history and for whatever reason like the way that we approach math specifically a lot of the time is like remember this. I like tell yourself a story about this and it's almost counterintuitive because the way that we're hammering children with the knowledge rather than making them active participants in it doesn't work for everyone. And what's crazy to me is like you know you already talked about this process of writing a book as having all this self doubt and like not thinking that you could do it. At what point mentally did this mindset shift from I don't think I can do this I don't think I can do this I don't think I can do this too. I'm doing it and it's almost done and at what point did it start feeling real. When it was almost I didn't trust it at all to like the very and fortunately I had good really great editors are really great agent and they kind of knew to break it down after after the little bit and so they break things down into little tasks. One thing that I've used to really help me is chat gbt not to write the book but I use chat gbt to emails like I will the editors would send like this long list of stuff that they've got to do and by like the third task item I've like lost it I'm like I'm not going to do this so I would take their emails and put it in chat gbt and say ask me these questions one at a time and so it asked me break down the email ask me each question one at a time and then I would make my response that way. And so breaking it down into smaller tasks made it a lot easier for me. But I never believed I was going to be able to do it the whole time kind of like. I guess once I got to like 80% of the way down I was like hmm. I might have might have written this book you know like and then then afterwards like that but it's still still surprising to me and if you were to. It's kind of like part of who I am now at this point and it's not a good quality but I will have self doubt no matter what it is until like the task is getting close to being done even with the standard. Like I've done so many successful stand up shows and I have a great time doing them every time. But before I go on to the stage I get like cold sweat panicky feeling and I'm worried about having enough content to fill the time period that's like what I worry about and that's never happened. That's like never happened I've always had enough content but there's just part of me that always will think you didn't prepare enough you're not ready enough. So I'm constantly trying to teach myself like you are prepared even if you weren't prepared it's going to be fun like that's like that's my daily life that's like what I'm doing every day trying to get over that. Yeah I love that because at certain point I started writing stand up comedy and I've always had this like I don't know what it is but I would say it like the human approach of if you can't make fun of this then it's probably not good. What is the value that you find in doing stand up comedy and you know it's almost like going out of your way to put yourself in uncomfortable situations trying to go into the sink or swim scenario. That is so true and it really is and I value and put myself in uncomfortable situations and getting on the other side of them. Now I do have an advantage with the stand up comedy is that my audience kind of comes with me so I haven't like been in the case where it's like nobody knows me here in this. There's usually people that know me so they kind of know what they're coming for so and I know that it's an advantage in stand up comedy but it is it's like putting yourself out there but you're so much stronger on the other side of those things I really value that I was a competitive swimmer all through high school and elementary school and I hated it so much but there was so much value and I was long distance sore and I just know I can go for a very long time and swim and like I can do it and there's value in that and value to me in like trial by fire even though there's easier ways to approach life you know I really like that sharp and feeling you get after going through all these things but stand up comedy is so much fun. Like however the time you've got to do it anytime and when I come to Chicago for a show you'll have to come do it with me because it's just a blast. I have a really good time I love to connect to the audience I love to tell stories so it kind of when I was younger I used to play in my grandmother's curtains and like play show like here I am with this is my show and the comedy show is kind of like y'all have to watch my show now so what you hear in the curtains this is it's my turn tell me about the best show tell me about the flow of the best show that you've ever had and keep in mind that I'm going to ask you about the war show you ever had that. So this all kind of new and even a lot of my weight on to the stage I'm just totally just like I'm so audacious this lady Heather land she's a comedian southern comedian and she missed me and she was like in February of this year she was like you've done stand up. You've done stand up before haven't you do you want to come to a show with me in Tennessee and I was like yeah. Because like have you done stand up before I had never done stand up before but like I love that but like every dinner that we have with family is a stand up show like that's what we're doing like entertaining each other right you know and I've done. I've done like business lunches and those kinds of things where I was the speaker and I lean into the comedy and those things I was like I know I can do this like I can do it. And I did the show and even that day I felt be the worst I've ever felt physically in my life and it turns out the next day I went and got tested and I was like full blown COVID at the time so like the first show I ever did was like worst case scenario I didn't know what it was doing and never done it before and I was like feeling really bad but the show went so well and I loved it so much so I've only done like five or six shows since then so I'm really getting used to my presence on stage but every show gets better and better and I just love it every time and I recently had a trip to Huntsville and the Nashville and the Huntsville show was it just went so well and it was I felt I was so nervous before it because again like feeling the time makes me nervous. But it just I just connect with the audience and like I've I learned in that show like y'all are here to hang out and have a good time and as long as I'm there doing what I do y'all are going to be doing what y'all are doing in the audience and it's a beautiful time period so then the next show was at Zaines in Nashville which is a huge comedy club and it was like I mean it's like one of the biggest in the country. These celebrities there and it was like wild and it was so good like it just went so well after that experience at Huntsville so I feel like the Huntsville show was a turning point for me where like I went from nervous nervous nervous then I walked on stage and I just nailed it and I had nailed the ones before but that it just felt different and it felt like I could go for even an hour more and that was really fun I had a really good time doing that so Huntsville was really remarkable for me and then Zaines was a big deal because it was such a big deal show and it was so successful and I really really enjoyed that. What was it like being on that historic stage where I mean some of the biggest comedians of all time have performed at Zaines across the entire franchise at all of the locations but specifically the national location just it's one of the best clubs in the country. What was it like knowing that you've now shared the stage with the best of the best to do it. Nuts out and it like it's hard to process like it doesn't make any sense. When I was growing up so I've always been a performer even my wife and I sang in weddings in everybody's wedding in Mississippi for like 10 years like that's what we did so we always were. We're always stage people I've been in musicals I've been in plays I love the stage. I've never imagined I would be on the stage for comedy I thought I was going to be on stage for acting or singing you know so it's wild to be there but I've always had this like dream of like what it would be like to have your show and my previous dreams as a child and as a teenager it was a music show wasn't a comedy show but have your show and I used to have this like ridiculous dream because I grew up in the 2000s and that's when like tabloids were everywhere and you would see people like Sages are like having their managers and doing all the things that celebrities did. And for the zany show I woke up and I went to meet another tick tocker at this facial bar and we got to get facials and then we went and I recently started working with a personal trainer and we went to the gym at the Conrad which is a nice hotel in Nashville and did our personal trainer workout and then I went from there to zany's and I met all these like internet famous people and then I did my show so I like really truly lived my childhood dream like I did the day that you dream about like or that I dreamed about like I did everything I ever thought would be part of like this lifestyle that day I come to all in one day and I was just like stunned just the entire circumstances around it not just the show at zany's itself you know and I hope I always keep that gratefulness and that excitement because it's just so exciting I knew and they can't believe it and then the night at zany's was really really fun I got to meet so many cool people and they did a meet and greet afterwards and the line was just wrapped around it was wow it was wow I am so so happy that you got to I mean live out this childhood dream of an experience because it's such an incredible one and I'm just so proud of you and I'm so happy for you because you are experiencing all of this success isn't weird to you seeing how quickly it's happening given that you know a couple of years ago you were just a teacher in a school just doing the thing that you thought you could be doing forever and today here you are being an author being a standard comic being so many other things very much weird especially because I thought education was gonna be my career I got teacher of the year for the school and I got teacher of the year for the state art teacher of the year for the state of Mississippi so I kind of had like accomplished a lot of the things that I imagined accomplishing in that career so I didn't really see like I didn't see what the future held at all I was like pleased with where I was I certainly didn't see like a lot of growth and a lot of this kind of stuff come in I thought I had done this stuff you know so this is wild to me it's really wild to me I'm really grateful for it it is so fast though and even the book deal and again I have the advantage of being ignorant the book thing was a really expressed type of a book type situation like we wrote that book really quickly compared to other how fast other books goes like other books is like a three-year process and we did this in like eight months so what but I don't have any thing to base it off up I don't know how fast books go I don't know how fast people write books you know so I just like let's go for it but it's just been a like a rocket it's gone so fast and it hasn't slowed down I'm really glad I'm really glad that it hasn't slowed down but it is it is really remarkable I have the advantage though of as far as this like celebrity of it all which is such a strange word I have the advantage of being from small town Mississippi so like anytime I've ever left my house I expect to be reported on by at least six people like to my parents or to my grandparents like everybody knows you so everything you're doing is being reported on so this is really not that different as far as that goes I always expected to be noticed when I go out in public now it's now I'm noticed by a lot of other people but like it's kind of like living in a small town now the small town is just like a lot bigger and I have never been good at remembering people's names in my own town so I'm already really good at pretending like I know like when I see you in the grocery store it's a skill kind of translated really well for me that worked that worked out for me God it just makes me so so happy knowing that you know behind this behind this image of a person online is this incredible human being who's so grateful who's so nice who's just a great person in general there's something rewarding about getting to meet people who understand that even though like the online celebrity and the online status is awesome that the things that you're doing in real life are the ones that matter because the way that you talk about that zany's experience the way that you're able to provide for your family now like it just makes me so happy knowing that you're able to have some of these things and Landon here is the final question that we have for you today what are the things that we're going to see from you in the next year or two years because the craziest thing is it feels like this thing is just taking off and wherever the hell is going to go it's going to be so so good and it has so much opportunity for you well first of all thank you so much for this kind of words that is so nice I'm a key to the success in this is being genuine and is being authentic I think in this in today's age people can like sniff out in all things in authenticity and they can sniff out when you're being fake online so I can only be this on the internet this is all I know so this is all I can be the moment I'm acting I think it would it would turn everybody off I think it would be like not relatable and not interesting so I'm glad that you think that because I only know how to be me next I know I didn't expect like that right there hang on the wall is the front page of the New York Times on Christmas Day a whole article about me and like where do you go from that like I don't know but I do know that I'm just going to stay as genuine as I can I've gotten to meet a lot of like very incredible people through all this and what I've noticed in meeting a lot of these celebrities is how genuine they are and how kind they are and with people like I met a real housewife in New York City and we were in this kind of small room and she went around to every table Britain was bring Whitfield I don't know if you would know her she was real housewife in New York and she went around to every single table and acknowledged like everybody at every table asked if they wanted a photo she was just so kind to everyone and that was my first experience with like real celebrity and I was like wow okay I'm gonna take that to heart and I'm really glad to have seen that because it would seem genuine and that's really all I know how to do is to be June and so I'm gonna continue to be genuine gonna continue to try to be authentic but we do have some really exciting things like the book comes out next year on April Fool's Day of all day it's like and now I'm gonna have to admit it's real but it is real so it comes out next year with a screenwriter we're working on some different things to pitch to Hollywood but Hollywood's kind of in shambles right now so I don't know what what will come of that but it's fun to be a part of that world we've got a newsletter we've got a podcast started we were starting with we have a meeting tomorrow good meeting about it tomorrow we've got a really great production company we actually will use this studio is one of the studios that they use the reverse idea so that's exciting and we're gonna keep growing all these things we're rebranding our YouTube channel to be like longer format versions of what I'm doing instead of just the little videos I want to keep getting better at what I do and more efficient at it I want to invest in my son and his time throughout the day and just be all around better and more available for everything but I hope that you'll see me in more media as we go and I hope that maybe you'll see me on the stage I'll be a book tour and kind of my full comedy tour is that's what's coming up like have a show in Raleigh this week we've got a show in Laurel Mississippi in October then there's San Jose in California there's Ontario and Irvine in California which I thought both of those were Canada California so stand up whatever all forms of media I hope hope to be there and just hope to continue to share positivity with everybody yeah you are just everywhere and I absolutely love it because I could not imagine a better person for all of this positivity to happen to London thank you so much for sharing your time with our audience we love you we appreciate you and we cannot see we cannot wait to see where your journey takes you next Well thank you so much this is so refreshing and such a good time I can't wait to can't wait to share with your audience you're amazing thank you guys for listening and we'll see you next time You