How To Grow As A Person (And Why It Sucks): Johnny Crowder (Transcript)

Read the full transcript of Johnny Crowder’s talk titled “How To Grow As A Person (And Why It Sucks)” at TEDxEustis 2020 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

The Challenges of Personal Growth

Personal growth is tricky. The term “growth” implies millions of tiny thankless steps, which sucks. And the term “personal” implies that nobody can take them for you, which also sucks. But if we consistently interrupt our old thought patterns with new ones, and we resist the urge to judge ourselves for how long this process takes, we won’t waste our lives waiting around for a eureka moment that might never come.

As a member of the “Buy It Now” generation, I am not patient. But in my experience, real, tangible change takes more than two business days and a credit card. Why? Because of this thing: brains are complex, mysterious, and uncooperative. Even with droves of scientists on the case, there’s still so much we don’t understand about them.

The Brain’s Thought Patterns

One thing we do know is that these suckers hardly ever stop thinking. According to the National Science Foundation, some adults think up to 60,000 thoughts every day. But a whopping 48,000 of those are negative. That’s almost one negative thought for every single second we’re awake, which makes optimism the challenge of the century.

Because our brains are filled with anxiety and stress, and our memory banks are overflowing with embarrassing moments and regrets, we know that we don’t always get to choose what leaves a mark. But what if we could interrupt our negative thoughts with something positive? Shouldn’t that, over time, change the way we think and feel?

A Personal Journey

Now, before I jump into a sensitive topic like mental health, I need to clarify something. Just in case the tattoos didn’t give it away, I am not a doctor.

I’m a death metal vocalist. I’m a sneakerhead. I’m a dog person. I’m just about everything but a doctor. I don’t have PhDs on my wall. I have scars on my body.

I’ve survived everything from schoolyard bullying to childhood trauma, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, eating disorders, hallucinations, suicide attempts, and diagnoses ranging from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia to OCD, ADHD, and the rest of the DSM alphabet. For 10 long years, I was taking medication and seeing a therapist, but I wasn’t happy about it. I was negative, angry, depressed, and completely detached from reality.

But nowadays, my whole life is built around positivity and kindness. I tour the world sharing stories of inspiration and hope. I’m just as surprised as you are. And when I’m on the road speaking or playing music, whether I’m at a prison or a school or a business, people always ask me, “What was the turning point, that moment when everything changed?”

The Reality of Change

Now, if my life was a Jim Carrey movie, it would probably look something like this: I’m on my knees in the pouring rain, screaming at the night sky, “Why, God, why?” I get struck by lightning and realize how precious life is, find true love, yada, yada, yada. But in reality, the answer is pretty anticlimactic. That moment never came. There was no overnight cure, no magic spell, no miracle drug, no light bulb, eureka moment.

And I think if I would have waited around for that moment, I’d still be that angry, negative, depressed person. The ugly truth is that my recovery has been a grueling, unglamorous series of microscopic steps that felt annoying and pointless in the moment.

It’s kind of like sailing. If you change your course by even a single degree when you’re out there on the water, you probably won’t notice any difference in trajectory until you’ve already passed whatever it is you were looking for in the first place.

The Struggle for Improvement

But this isn’t to say that everything was smooth sailing from day one. I mean, from self-help gurus to vitamins and meditation apps, I tried everything under the sun with no luck. I thought, “This book was supposed to change my life.” “That Reddit thread said that a therapist should be able to fix me in two months, and this is month five.” “This medication helps other people, so what the heck is wrong with me?”

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Part of the problem is that some of these things set me up for disappointment with lofty promises of quick fixes, which is really what I wanted. But the other part of the problem was me. These things required me to make the first move, and I didn’t like that. Most days I could barely muster up enough initiative to do my laundry, much less make a dent in my recovery journey.

Taking Responsibility for Growth

I kept looking around for something external to save me, a podcast, a counselor, a webinar to take responsibility for my growth. I thought that if I was ever going to feel any better, it would be because of my therapist, my friends, my meds. I felt safer putting that job into the hands of anyone besides a screw-up like me.

So out of sheer desperation, I started leaving sticky notes for myself all around my house, little reminders to check in with myself and reframe what was going on in my mind. And because I can’t stand those cheesy, “just be happy” quotes, I thought I would write my own, some personal takes on what growth looked and felt like to me.

The Impact of Small Changes

As they snuck into my day, whether stuck to my bathroom mirror or hidden in one of my shoes, they were slowly beginning to make an impact. They didn’t magically transform my life circumstances, but they did improve the way I processed them, which was progress.

But after a few days, I started to notice an unfortunate trend. These notes were blending right into the background. I mean, we get used to stuff. Apparently, after our brain processes something enough times, it decides this must not be worth the same response anymore, so it just stops relaying that information to us.

The Challenge of Habituation

This is a psychological phenomenon called habituation, and it’s a classic example of our brain prioritizing efficiency above our own will. Have you ever wondered why you don’t notice the sound of the air conditioner until it turns off? You can thank habituation for that.

And to be honest, I was pretty frustrated with my brain for not cooperating with me. I mean, after all we’ve been through, here I am trying to do my brain a favor. And my biggest roadblock is me?

A New Approach

I wanted to see what would happen if habituation didn’t have a chance to take hold. If a brain didn’t see that message coming, then hopefully it wouldn’t have time to brace for impact. So on the day before Halloween back in 2017, I decided to text a message I needed to hear to 32 of my friends. I said something like, “The second half of today could be great, even if the first half kind of sucked. The past and the future are totally separate things.”

And as the responses rolled in, I couldn’t believe my eyes. One person said, “Whoa, I really needed this. I’m crying in the closet right now because my boyfriend dumped me. How did you know?” Another person said, “Whoa, I really needed this. This morning was fine, but I’m super nervous about my job interview on Thursday. How did you know?”

Even though everyone responded differently, there were two common threads: “I really needed this,” and “How did you know?” And frankly, I didn’t know. Their brains did all the work, stretching the sentiment to fit their own life-specific circumstances, extracting the helpful nuggets and ditching the rest. All I did was interrupt them. That’s when I realized I was onto something.

The Science of Brain Rewiring

So here’s some context. Your brain is constantly rewiring itself. Whenever we think a thought, one synapse shoots a chemical across a cleft to another synapse, creating bridges that our thoughts use to travel throughout our brain. And our brain, over time, recognizes these patterns and rearranges itself to make this process more efficient.

The phrase that helped me remember this concept as a psychology student was catchy enough to stick: “Synapses that fire together, wire together.” Think about your GPS. Whenever you try to get from point A to point B, it defaults to the shortest possible path. Our brain does that too.

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The more often we think a thought, the closer these synapses grow, the more likely we are to think it again, and so on. This means that our thoughts literally change the physical shape of our brain.

And as these patterns gain momentum, they form the foundation of our personality, whether we want them to or not. But if we can interrupt these negative patterns, we have a chance to rob them of that momentum. We can pry those synapses apart and encourage others to grow closer together in their place. Let’s do it.

The Power of External Stimuli

Here’s the kicker, though. It’s not just our own thoughts and emotions that influence this process. I mean, outside stimulus has this effect on us all the time. Have you ever been watching a scary movie and you pause it to take a bathroom break, only to be deathly afraid of what might be hiding behind the shower curtain? On a logical level, you know there’s nothing there. But on an emotional level, you’d rather be safe than sorry.

So when we see, read, or hear about an emotion, our brain kind of tries it on like a fur coat in a dressing room. And boom! Without realizing it, did I scare you? We’re feeling someone else’s feelings. I mean, we know this. Emotions are contagious, right? This is where things like empathy and mob mentality come from.

But just like we can walk away from a horror movie with a fear that isn’t even ours just by being exposed to it, we can also walk away from a Hallmark movie feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. So if we’re going to wind up with an emotional keepsake either way, why not try to choose what it’ll be?

Cope Notes: A Tool for Cognitive Restructuring

I created a resource called Cope Notes to help people replace longstanding unhealthy thought patterns with newer, healthier ones. Usually we deploy ecological momentary interventions that subvert habituation to catalyze cognitive restructuring, which is a clunky way of saying that we use text messages to help people rewire their brains.

And I’d be lying if I said that my journey with Cope Notes isn’t teaching me way more about the human brain than I wanted to know. For example, I always thought it took 21 days to build a habit. Seems easy. But if anyone has ever set a New Year’s resolution before, you know that this isn’t an exact figure. In fact, it can take up to 254 consecutive days for a new habit to take root. That’s a long time, y’all.

Most of us can’t even brush our teeth for 254 days in a row. And think about it. Without that everyday consistency, your 253-day streak can drop right back down to zero with a single decision.

The Brain’s Interpretive Power

And another thing. The power of the human brain to interpret stimulus is downright magical. It’s the same text that empowered one user to divorce an abusive partner, empowered another to propose to the love of their life. Stories like these shine a light on the brain’s incredible ability to stretch and personalize new information. And it encourages people to take ownership of their own growth instead of pawning it off to someone or something else like I used to do.

But typically it’s not one mystical text that changes or saves the life. For me, it’s been hundreds of tiny interruptions gradually eroding my stubborn, destructive habits over the course of months and years. Now, our messages have led countless users to positive life change, from checking into addiction treatment to calling 911 seconds before a suicide attempt. But don’t let any of that distract or fool you. It’s not the text that’s turning someone’s life right side up. It’s the user’s own brain.

The Healing Process: A Comparison

Has anyone here broken a bone before, just by a show of hands? Okay, so think of Cope Notes and any other personal growth resource like a cast on a broken leg. The cast doesn’t heal your leg. Your leg heals your leg. Your body is designed to heal itself. The cast, although itchy and uncomfortable, simply keeps everything in place so that your leg can heal itself correctly.

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Still no magic potions, still no fairy dust, just your anatomy doing what it does best. And deep down, I think our brains want to be healthier. I think we’re all hungry for growth. But the way we think about growth might be holding us back.

Rethinking Growth and Change

So first of all, I want us to rethink this Eureka moment myth. Growth takes time, lots of it. We can’t just work out on Saturday and expect to look like The Rock on Sunday. I mean, think about it. We’d never ask WWE superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, “Can you tell us about the one push-up that got you into the shape you’re in today?” We would never do that. We know that physical change is complicated and it takes time. So why do we expect mental and emotional change to happen instantly?

We need to embrace the idea that slow, incremental change is sustainable and effective, even if it’s not as romantic as we’d like it to be.

And speaking of The Rock, we need to rethink this rock-bottom mentality. A lot of us are under the impression that we need to hit rock bottom before we start turning our lives around, and that’s simply not true. We don’t need to wait until January to make a resolution. There is no quota or threshold we have to meet before we can qualify to make real, concrete change in our everyday life. In fact, the sooner we start making an effort, the better. And yes, that means we can start today.

A Call to Action

So right now, I want you to identify one thing in your life that’s leaving you with a negative emotional keepsake, a social media habit, your favorite Netflix series, a Friday night tradition with the boys. Then I want you to interrupt that pattern and replace it with something you know is healthier for you. Big or small, whatever you choose, you have to stick with it long term. And for accountability’s sake, bring it up to someone you trust. You can even use me as an excuse if you want to.

“I saw a TEDx talk, and this guy said I should bring up how I’ve been feeling. But it’s cool. He’s young. He has tattoos. He’s fine.”

Honestly, as hard as it is, and I know it’s hard, try to find the glory in each and every little victory, no matter how uneventful it may feel, because these are the building blocks that personal growth is made of, and every last one is important. Embark on this beautifully awkward stumble towards normalizing this type of dialogue and growing as a person.

Conclusion

So give yourself some grace. Try to be patient, keyword try, and remember my favorite proverb. I use this in elementary schools all the time: “Everything cool is hard at first, even ice cream.”

Now if you’re anything like me, you’ve half listened to this talk while thinking of all the people in your life it would apply to besides you, right? But let me frame it this way. If you have a body, even if it’s in peak physical condition, the topic of physical health applies to you. And if you have a brain inside of that body, who do you think the topic of mental health applies to?

Besides, maybe in a few years, you’ll be able to look back on this small step as the turning point I never had. And the best part, you won’t have anyone to thank but yourself. Thank you.