#51: Joanne Chiem - Women in Tech, Building a Pokémon YT Channel, and Lessons from Marriage and Divorce - One Thousand Gurus Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
J.R. (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to another episode of 1000 Gurus
with me, your host, jr Yonacruz.
Today's guest is Joanne Chim.
Joanne is originally fromVentura County who, after living
there her entire life, moved toLA County in 2022, shortly
after getting a job with UCLA.
She's currently a systemsadministrator and has been
working in IT since 2009.
So this was another fantasticepisode with a good friend of

(00:23):
mine.
We recently became friends,about two years ago, when she
started dating a close friend ofmine, and I was very intrigued
by her story, which we'll getinto later.
We talk about her getting intothe IT field and helping her
ex-husband build a YouTubechannel to over 700,000
subscribers, but most of what wetalked about was her experience
being in a 16-year relationshipand navigating the challenges

(00:44):
of having a partner who hadmental health problems, but also
the process of getting adivorce, which she describes as
very long, complicated and messy.
But I appreciate her for beingvery vulnerable and opening up
in this recording in hopes thatsharing her story might help
others navigate similarchallenges.
So, without further ado, hopeyou enjoy this episode with
Joanne Chin.
Hello and welcome back to 1000Gurus.

(01:07):
Please welcome my guest, joanneHi thank you.
Honored to be here.
Sorry, same thing, I'm alsohonored to be here.
Thank you for being on the show.
I really appreciate it.
How are you feeling?

Joanne (01:19):
A little nervous, never done a podcast before.
So yeah, speaking is a littlescary sometimes for me.

J.R. (01:25):
Yeah, of course.
No, I think you're in goodcompany.
I think most of my guests havenever been on a podcast but,
like I was saying before, offcamera, I think most people by
the end of it they feel good.
They're like wow, that wasactually easier than I thought.
Most of our anxiety and fearcomes from the unknown, what we
don't expect, and thenafterwards like actually that's
pretty easy, though I do have afew guests who they're like that
was fun, but I'm sweating.

(01:47):
So there are those people too.
So anyways, yeah, thank youagain for being here.
I will go into how I know youand then we'll get started.
So, basically, I met youthrough our mutual friend, marco
, whom you started dating twoand a half years ago, and since
then we've hung out togetherwith our friend group karaoke
crew, which is like a group ofmy friends that we started to go
karaoke and then we'll bring insignificant others like

(02:08):
yourself and david or some otherpeople and we do things outside
of karaoke, but it's a lot offun.
We're all like similar agerange and you also work at ucla
and we met up that one time todo financial coaching for, like,
your retirement account.
I think, yes, which is reallyfun at, really fun, at least for
me.
I like doing money stuff and,yeah, happy to have you on the
show.
You're definitely one of myolder guests and we're going to

(02:29):
get into some fun topics we havenot covered before, which is
particularly marriage anddivorce and lessons learned
there.
So I'm excited to learn fromyour insights.

Joanne (02:38):
Awesome.

J.R. (02:39):
Yeah, I'm excited to share it too.
Any clarifications or what areyou up to?

Joanne (02:43):
I've just I've been working lately.
And just one fun fact about meChim is not actually my legal
last name.
Oh okay, powers is my legallast name.

J.R. (02:53):
Oh okay, when does that come from?

Joanne (02:54):
My marriage.
I still have it legally because, well, it's kind of a cool last
name and it's a pain to changeit Legally.
You a pain to change it legally.
Then you have to do iteverywhere, wherever your name
is, your driver's license,passport, everything so yeah I
don't want to do that what?

J.R. (03:07):
how long have you had powers as your last name?
Just?

Joanne (03:10):
curious, I got married may of 2015, so it's been 10
years, 10 years okay, so.
So chim was your last nameuntil that chim is just
something I decided to have okayum my.
My maiden name is hoke okay,okay.
So, but on my socials and stuff, yeah, I was just like I'll
just pick this as an alias, youknow whatever you know what?

J.R. (03:31):
just joanne.
I'm just gonna refer to joannelike single name, madonna,
that's it exactly.
And then you and marco moved intogether recently, right into
what city is it?
Belflower?
Belflower, yeah, that's whereclose to where I live, same city
, asy.
So we are now neighbors.
It'll be fun, yeah, because,yeah, you used to be up north
more right, closer to work orpast UCLA.

Joanne (03:52):
I was in the Palms.
So like maybe five miles fromUCLA.

J.R. (03:57):
Oh right, Is that south, South of UCLA?

Joanne (03:59):
Okay yeah, closer to the beach, like Venice Beach, in
that direction.

J.R. (04:04):
How's the?
Moving in process.

Joanne (04:07):
Moving is always a pain, no matter where, no matter what
, but we were able to getunpacked relatively easily in
the last bit, so we'll have youguys over soon, though.

J.R. (04:18):
You just have stuff that you need to sort through.

Joanne (04:20):
Yeah, the actual little bits and the arts needs to be
hung.
We got to mount the TV and justlike little things like that.

J.R. (04:27):
But the bulk of it like our clothes and dishes and all
that fun stuff is done one ofthe things that, aside from the
current place where I live,which I've been there for four
years, I was always moving everyyear and it's always a pain.
But what I like about movingthe silver lining is that it
forces you to streamline or haveless stuff, because you, by
nature, can't take everything,so you're forced to remove some

(04:50):
things or be like okay, do Ireally need this?
And people who are in one spotor live with their family, for
example, they just naturallycollect more things.
So I think that's one of thethings I appreciate about having
to move a lot, but it's alsoreally nice to just stay in the
same place, obviously yeah likethat dress changes and stuff.

Joanne (05:06):
I've moved every year, almost every year, for the past
six years.
2023 or 2024 was the only yearI didn't move.

J.R. (05:14):
But yeah, exactly like I try to keep my stuff smaller,
but even then I still have a lotof stuff, yeah, yeah yeah, no
worries, I'm trying to get to apoint where I'm like I'm very
minimal, those minimalist orlike the maria kondo spark joy
sort of thing, where it's likeyou only really have a hundred
or so things and then they'reonly things that are you really

(05:35):
need, like practical or thatspark joy.
And I'm not far from that.
I'm sure I have a lot lessthings than my friends, but I
still know that there's a fewmore steps where I need to.
Just okay, I definitely don'tneed half these things.
I don't.
I know I don't, they're justgathering dust in my place so
many things spark joy for you,though.
Well, that's okay if it sparksjoy like legitimately sparks joy
and like you see it, and it'saround.

(05:56):
That makes sense, I think it's,for I'm referring to the things
of people who just throw it instorage and it's like, then
what's the point of it?
Like you think you need it, butit's really a mentality of the
fear of the future, like, oh, Imight need this in the future,
but it's really you're taking upreal estate that you could just
keep it at the store and theycan keep that real estate for
you and then, when you can buyit when you need it, otherwise

(06:16):
you're just taking up space atyour space.

Joanne (06:18):
Then you won't have it when you need it Exactly.

J.R. (06:20):
That's the reasoning is, you can have it, but then if
you're not using it, it's justreal estate that's taking up
space money.
So I try to think of it thatway.
When I'm like, do I need thisthing?
Can I just keep it at the storeuntil I need it and then I can
buy it.
And it's not like it takes melike 20 days to get something.

Joanne (06:35):
I can just go to Target or whatever.

J.R. (06:37):
Hopefully, yeah, hopefully , but anyways, so glad to hear
that you're adjusting to yournew place.
All right, so we'll go intotopics.
So the first topic is alwaysorigin story.
Jumping off points is where didyou grow up and what were some
of your main influences?

Joanne (06:51):
So I grew up in Camarillo, that's in Ventura
County, about an hour and a halffrom here north of here and I
went to Camarillo High School.
My influences, influences Ithink it was anime, like I would
watch Cartoon Network afterschool and or Toonami at night
and Dragon Ball Z, cowboy, bebop, uh like, yeah, all the classic

(07:15):
stuff.
So that was.
I was a bit of a weeb growingup and I also really liked video
games, like I got the Game Boy,the Game Boy Color when it was
at Costco and had Pokemon andthat changed everything for me.
That was a turning point andPokemon has become my life
basically.
And yeah, I was so into videogames I was trying to download

(07:37):
them off the internet Because Ididn't have a system like a
Super Nintendo, and so I found alot of video games that way and
some of those games I foundstill influence me now, like the
soundtracks and stuff, and Ireally connect with them?

J.R. (07:49):
So, aside from, I guess, them being hobbies that have
continued since childhood untilnow, did it affect your life
trajectory or aspirations, orwhat you do today?

Joanne (08:00):
Yeah, actually when I was younger I wanted to be a vet
or to help animals.
I still love animals, but sinceI really liked video games, I
really grew attached to thecomputer and I really learned a
lot of computer skills justtrying to download these video
games illegally.
And one game that really got megoing was the Sims.

(08:21):
My computer wasn't up to speedenough to be able to handle it,
so in I think I was in ninthgrade I got a video card and
installed the video card all onmy own to get the sims going.
And yeah, I was.
I spent so many hours on thesims, uh, living my life yeah,
sims is.

J.R. (08:41):
I had sims 2 or one of the sims games, but it was super
fun because you can go down thisrabbit hole of customization
and a lot of games are like thatnow and also for me, like when
I was in elementary, middleschool, high school, like roller
coaster, tycoon, oh right, andit's.
I can never win, I'm alwaysjust losing money.
But it was fun for the firststage and I'm like how do I do?
There's never any fulfillment.

(09:03):
It was, it's fun to have themoney and then slowly just goes
away.

Joanne (09:08):
I got a little morbid with with rollercoaster tycoon.
There's this one ride where,like you, go up and go back down
.
I would speed up, speed up thecar so it shoots off the rail.

J.R. (09:19):
You're trying to kill your , the people who visit your bar.

Joanne (09:22):
Just to see what would happen.
Of course, my ratings tankedand stuff.
Yeah, like I go back to thesafe point.
But out of sheer morbid,morbidity.

J.R. (09:31):
I used to dunk people in the water too, just to see,
because you know you're playinggod.
Why not?
yeah, exactly I just thought itwas very weird, because I'm like
, unless I did some hacks andjust had infinite money, I'm
like, why is it always just alosing game?
Maybe that deterred me frombeing an entrepreneur, I don't
know.
Okay, so then you're.
I know that your current careeris in it, so you're saying that
probably video games, anime andthings like that kind of led

(09:54):
you in that direction, asopposed to, like, maybe becoming
a vet or something.

Joanne (09:58):
Yes, yes.
So right as I was getting intocollege, I looked up like how to
actually become a vet andthere's so much schooling and
they go to as much school orthey take as many classes as
like a doctor like a medicalschool yeah, and the medical
school vet medical school isharder to get into than actual,

(10:20):
than human medical school,that's crazy.

J.R. (10:21):
Why is that?

Joanne (10:22):
because there's not that many, oh, so it's like a
availability yeah, it's anavailability thing, so you're
competing with a lot of otherpeople in one tiny little place
and they don't get paid thatwell.
So I was like and I flounderedaround a little bit and when I
really got into it was when Iwas working at Fry's Electronics
.
I was in, I was working inreturns and in returns you have

(10:44):
to test the computer equipmentlike the motherboards and Ram
and stuff before it goes back onthe shelf.
And that's when I was like ohmy gosh, I really like this,
like I have a knack for it and Ilike seeing how it works and
stuff.
And yeah, and I took off fromthere, took classes, got into
the computer repair departmentat Fry's electronics, I wore the
blue coat, fixed computers,built computers and yeah, that's

(11:08):
how that all started.

J.R. (11:09):
Okay.
So then how did you?
Were there any significantmilestones or progressions that
got you to where you are todayin your career?

Joanne (11:18):
So from Fry's Electronics I got a an
internship with Oxnard UnionHigh School District and so I
worked as an intern like a helpdesk intern and then from there
that's where I stayed ineducation and that's why I'm at
UCLA now and I learned a lotfrom the people there just
bugging them hey, can I shadowyou?
I want to see what you do atthe school sites and just really

(11:40):
being a bug, really to learnand to grow, because it's a
genuine interest of mine.
And that's where I became asystem admin and that's what I
am now.
That's what got my job now.

J.R. (11:54):
I see, so do you.
Are you really big intobuilding your own computer?
Yes, okay, I figured.
But, that's a.
That's one of those thingswhere a lot of my friends are
not a lot, but I have somefriends who are really into
building their own PC andthere's like a whole thing
around that.
I'm obviously very ignorant toall of that stuff.
I've never done that, but itseems fun.
When you get into it they'relike yeah, you can build, it's

(12:14):
like your own car right when youcan put different parts in,
find the best ones, andobviously it's mine.

Joanne (12:31):
I did that.
Look at, look at it, go, lookat the shining lights and stuff.
Is this I don't know?
It's a lot of fun for me areyou into?

J.R. (12:38):
is your setup?
Are you into aesthetics like onsocial media, where people have
their crazy computer setups?
Are you into that?

Joanne (12:43):
that I want to like.
Okay, this is kind of shameful,but I don't have a desktop
right now.
I lost it in the divorce so Idon't have it with me so, but
that's my next goal for the endof this year.
I'm going to build a beast of aPC.
I want led lights and I wantshiny.
I want shiny everything.
Yeah, so yeah.

J.R. (13:06):
I'm jealous.
I think part of me I'm not intopcs and I don't really play
video games.
I do like them, but part of mewants to have that, just to have
.
Oh, this is nice.
But I'm like, wait, I don'teven do it, I just want to have
a cool pc.
I just look all flashy, likeyeah, I don't know, it just
looks nice, cool.
So I guess, do you have any forpractical career advice?
Do you have any advice forpeople I guess we mentioned,
like women, breaking into thefield, because it's mostly a

(13:27):
male-dominated field?
Do you have any advice forpeople who want to get into the
field?

Joanne (13:32):
Don't be afraid to ask questions.
I know that people are afraidto ask because they don't want
to look stupid, but it's justreally like you're costing
yourself that.
And for women, like for ladies,I think, as a lady myself, it
is a little gruff when you getin there and you just got to
roll with the punches.
You just got to do what you needto do and study and learn and

(13:53):
just don't be intimidated by thesometimes shortness of the
other co-workers, other peopleworking there they're pretty
these days, it's.
They're a lot more open toteaching people and teaching
women and stuff.

J.R. (14:08):
But it comes down to just confidence and just do it, let's
go do you have any thoughts onwhy it is more male dominated,
like the specific field?

Joanne (14:19):
I think it's just honestly an interest.
I feel like a lot of womenaren't very interested in tech
and stuff and I'm not sure why.
I'm not a psychologist oranything right, you're like.

J.R. (14:30):
I just know that I like it .

Joanne (14:31):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
And I know there is anintimidation factor it.
I've talked to other girls too.
They're like, oh wow, you'relike into in IT.
I look up to you, I'm likereally you look up to you, I'm
like really look up to me.
Oh gross yeah, red flag andthey're just so impressed by,
like me, just jumping in thereand just doing it like, yeah,

(14:51):
just gotta jump in there.
Don't think about it.
Just focus on what you'retrying to achieve, don't try to
be liked or anything like thatyeah.

J.R. (14:58):
So just follow your curiosities, your passions, and
if you think you might like it,just go for it exactly yeah,
it's a little intimidating tonot be able to have like your
peers.

Joanne (15:08):
So it is relieving when there's another woman in the
field and you just automaticallyconnect.
But it's just, it is what it is.

J.R. (15:14):
You just jump in and just do it cool, all right I would
like to switch topics now, sothis is the fun one marriage and
divorce, easy, fun topics.
So I know this is somethingthat you want us to talk about
and one of the things I wantedto ask you, but could you walk
us through, or maybe give us anoverview of your 16 year
marriage?
Is that correct?

Joanne (15:32):
So the whole relationship was 16 years.
So we were dating for nine,almost 10 years before we got
married, and we were married forsix to seven Six on paper,
seven like socially Because sixto seven six on paper, seven
like socially because we spentthe last year trying to work
things out but that didn'thappen, so yeah.

J.R. (15:50):
So then I guess could you walk us through how that all
started, if the context makessense so I met him at 19 at
price electronics and we werejust in our 20s and just dating
and just things are weird.

Joanne (16:03):
in your 20s sometimes Things are weird.

J.R. (16:04):
Yeah, you know age.

Joanne (16:06):
Yeah, age and youth and stupidity and all that stuff.
And we decided to get marriedat 20.
He proposed at 26 or 27.
And we felt like it was right.
And the feelings of love andstuff, they were real, they were
real.
You were real, they were realand so you were real nervous but

(16:28):
no, and yeah, we thought wecould make it work.
We've been together for almost10 years and, like it, almost
everything felt right.
Of course, there's a few thingshere and there that didn't
quite work like feel right, butI think that's with any
relationship, our the big thingthat happened was our big
disagreement was kids, and sothat's what eventually broke

(16:50):
everything down.
Like we thought, how do I saythis?
We started with, okay, maybe wecan work out like not having
kids he wanted kids and I didn't, which was something we
discussed beforehand.
But like I had changed my mind,okay, and but about six months
before the wedding I was like Icame to terms with I don't

(17:12):
actually want to have kids.
I was telling myself I can makethe sacrifice for him, I can do
this because I love him.
I can make the sacrifice,sacrifice.

J.R. (17:20):
And I was realizing I was saying sacrifice, not, it's not
a want to have kids and you haveto have, have, you have to want
to have kids Want to, want tocreate new life and take care of
it and carry it.

Joanne (17:30):
Exactly, and so we got married anyway, because we
thought we're in love, we'llfigure it out, we'll make a new
pathway of life, we'll live adifferent type of life, and we
did.
We tried that.

J.R. (17:53):
We tried different ways of living and it was always an
elephant in the room and it'sthat's what eventually eroded
everything.
So I guess having kids yourselfyou realize you didn't really
want to was like just raisingkids, adopting or something in
general on the table, or youjust didn't really want kids at
all.

Joanne (18:10):
Adopting was on the table, but the adoption process
is really it's long.
It's a long journey.
And he also stopped working afew months after we got married.
He wanted to go back to schoolfull time, and so he did for a
couple of years but didn'tfinish but never go back to
school full-time.
And so he did for a coupleyears but didn't finish, but
never went back to workingfull-time.
So how are we going to raisekids if I'm the only one working

(18:33):
and providing for him?
And that's when he likeexplored youtube and stuff.
But it doesn't make enoughmoney to really do that much.
It's great pocket change, butit does.
It's not enough to support afamily.

J.R. (18:45):
So maybe there was also the financial considerations on
top of the whole kids thing thatmight've affected the
relationship.
You're saying that those aretwo big factors, but I think you
also mentioned that yourex-husband had a bipolar
disorder and narcissism and yousaid that developed over time.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Could you walk us through that?
Maybe what helped you navigatethat situation?

Joanne (19:04):
I't know like at 19, you don't know um, mostly it was
always there yeah, it was alwaysthere, like in hindsight, like
when I'm, when everything wasover and I was thinking about
it's like, oh my god, it wasalways there and I just didn't
know.
Because mental health, likeespecially in the early 2000s,
is not really talked about andthe bipolar, it was hard living

(19:25):
with it because it was veryunpredictable and it felt like
he was always trying to startfights and stuff and it somehow
always became about him.
That's the narcissism piece,and when we, like in the last
few years of our marriage, wewent to therapy, a lot of
therapy, what really made mecome realize it was my therapist

(19:49):
recommended me to read a book.
It's called out of the fog.
Yeah, out of the fog,navigating confusion and
something after narcissisticabuse.
It's by Don, dana andMorningstar, if anybody wants to
read it.

J.R. (20:04):
Yeah, I'll link it.

Joanne (20:06):
And in that book he checked off like eight out of 10
things and it really opened myeyes.
I was like, oh my gosh, he'salmost a textbook narcissist and
with bipolar.
So it was extremelyunpredictable.
And that's when I finallydecided I can't do this anymore.

(20:26):
I like it's been so long I'vebeen dealing with this, so long
I just can't.
And yeah, because of that book.
That's when I realizedeverything.

J.R. (20:36):
Okay, so now there's an element of also, like his
personality might've been verydifficult to be together with.
Was there anything else thathelped you navigate the
situation?
So going to therapy and thenyou had more clarity on what he
is or what he does or histhought processes but it did
anything else help?
Help understand what washappening or yeah, I guess that,

(20:57):
unless you're saying that, onceyou had that realization, then
it was just starting towards theseparation process yeah.

Joanne (21:03):
So before that book, the , the set the therapy that the
events that led up to thatparticular therapy session was
the mushrooms, and so he hadtaken a lot of psilocybin, but
magic mushrooms in october ofJust recreationally, yeah, but

(21:25):
he took a lot of it.
Two ounces worth Two ounces ofmushrooms is a lot because it's
dry and one dose is a gram and ahalf two grams for someone his
size and he micro-dosed it for amonth and a half or so and in
that process he went insane.
He threatened to kill his dad,made a ton of crazy videos put

(21:50):
on Facebook and harassed me andhis entire family every day to
crazy stuff.
I'm going to kill them, I'mgoing to do this.
And that it got to the pointwhere the cops were called like
maybe two or three times and Ihad to, like, take him to the
hospital it was CMH in Venturato get him admitted because the

(22:14):
case manager I don't know whatshe was said that he was showing
signs that were like beyond red, he is a danger to himself and
others.
And so we finally got him tothe hospital and admitted to a
mental hospital after theinitial like they tried to flush
him out of all the stuff thathe took and that was where they

(22:37):
did all the tests and everythingelse and that's the that's
where they came with the finalwith the official diagnosis of
bipolar disorder.
Because of all the streams hehad taken, it spun him into a
drug-induced schizophrenia andso they had to give him really

(22:58):
strong antipsychotics to get himout of it.
And that stuff does take awhile to work and, yeah, that's
how that bipolar disorderdiagnosis came about.
That was in 2021.
And after that whole episode,after he finally calmed down,
that's when we tried to workthings out in 2022, going to
lots of therapy and staying onhis meds and trying different

(23:21):
meds and just a bunch of stuff.
And I wanted to stick by himbecause I took a vow in sickness
and in health and so, yeah,that's why I stayed and so I
thought we can work things out.
He was really good aboutstaying on his meds, which is
great, but nothing changed.
He still didn't want to get ajob.

(23:42):
He his narcissism came out evenmore.
It was like the shrooms, really.
It burnt him.
You can't be high for a monthand a half and not have it
change you rewiring yeah, yeah,it's, it changed him a little
bit, so yeah, that sounds prettyintense.

J.R. (24:00):
What?
I don't know if you know this,but what was the catalyst for
him wanting to try mushrooms?
What was?

Joanne (24:06):
um, we had separated, so I had moved out.
Maybe a month and a half or sobefore he tried the shrooms, we
decided, hey, this is not, thisis not working.
This was summer of 2021.
And so I moved to my mom's andI had surgery hip surgery on my
right side and he came by andvisited and stuff.

(24:27):
He went on Tinder and foundpeople and that's how we got the
shrooms.
Oh, I see.
Yeah yeah, and shrooms hasalways been like part of our
lives, like a little bit hereand there, but never to that
extent dang, that's crazy.

J.R. (24:40):
Okay, so then 2022 you guys trying to reconcile what
made you decide to move forwardwith the.

Joanne (24:45):
Okay, let's get separated process or divorce so
in 2021, we just there wasn'tjust one thing when you're in a
relationship for a very longtime, there's a lot of things
that start to stack and we juststarted realizing like we put on
a great face, but behind closeddoors we were just miserable
and it just felt like we werestuck and couldn't go anywhere.

(25:07):
And the fights were justconstant, constantly fighting at
least once a week, and we wouldfight for hours or a day or two
, um, and decide, yeah, we justdecided space would be good and
it was a mutual decision, butthen everything that came after
that was just a crapshoot sothen, after that, once he's been

(25:32):
on his meds, and you guys aretrying to reconcile what I guess
led to you guys goingofficially moving towards
divorce, was there or did I misssomething?
yeah, no.
So we step, we separated and wewere going like I was going to
file for divorce or legalseparation and then he before
the truth, gotcha, yeah, andthen when, and then you got like

(25:54):
he went crazy and so that kindof put that on the back burner
for a little bit.
I did file for divorce duringthat because as his wife I would
be legally responsible foranything that he can do.
Oh, I see, and so if he hurtanybody, like did in anything, I
would be on the hook for hisactions.
And so I filed just to make surethat, like I, there's at least

(26:15):
something on the books, a date,something like a paper trail
exactly that's yeah, and after Ifiled, I waited until he came
out of it, we talked about it,and that's when we tried to
reconcile and yeah, just thatdidn't work okay.

J.R. (26:29):
So then eventually it went through, but it took a while
because of that episode.
Yeah, alter that process.
Thank you for sharing.
That's like a really intenseperiod of your life and a really
long.
It was right?

Joanne (26:39):
yeah, it was yeah, it was very intense and eye-opening
and this it also gave me aninsight on police and mental
health and just wow, our systemis not built to handle this.
This is this is how schools getshot up.
Sometimes it's like the policenot handling.
I say this because the mentalhealth professional at Kaiser

(27:02):
called the cops because he hadleft her my ex-husband left her
a 35 minute rant just talkingnonstop crazy stuff like
threatening her and stuff.
And when she called the cops,they said, oh, he seems fine,
there's nothing we can do aboutthat.
And she told them like he isshowing signs that he's a danger

(27:23):
to himself and others and theyjust ignored her.
Yeah, that's to me that'sinsane.
Yeah, that's so that was aneye-opener.

J.R. (27:31):
Yeah, we always hear about how, like, police, law
enforcement aren't necessarilyequipped to handle those
situations.
And if we were to, about how,like police, law enforcement
aren't necessarily equipped tohandle those situations, and if
we were to offload, like, thewhole defund the police, like
recently?
Right, it's to offload thoseresponsibilities to people who
actually can do that and notnecessarily people with guns who
might not make the bestdecisions in a heated
environment.
So now I guess, putting a bowon that, I'm sure there are a

(27:52):
lot of things you could havedone differently, but if you
were to give your younger selfadvice or redo anything, or give
advice to other people whomight be considering marriage or
maybe might be already in asort of similar relationship or
situation, do you have anythoughts on that?

Joanne (28:07):
So, for getting married, get a prenup.
Protect yourself is not themost romantic thing.
I get that and it's expensive,but it will save you thousands
and thousands of dollars laterand hours of heartache and pain.
And for those who are goingthrough that, document
everything, screenshoteverything.

(28:28):
If there's any kind of physicalabuse, make that police report,
like write that in there.
I know it's hard because you'rejust so worked up and you don't
want to go to the police station, but you got to get that on the
books or some sort of papertrail because if you go to court
it will be helpful and if youtestify like I did, it did help.

(28:48):
And don't be afraid to talk toother people.
I feel like I was so isolated Ididn't want to tell anybody
anything, so none of my friendsknew what was going on.
Because I I feel like I was soisolated I didn't want to tell
anybody anything, so none of myfriends knew what was going on
because I was ashamed and I wastrying to protect him.
So the isolation is not goodfor those who are going through
it and maybe, like your closefriends, can help you out, find

(29:10):
resources and stuff.

J.R. (29:11):
I had questions on prenups .
I obviously don't know muchabout it.
From what I've heard is,especially if you are wealthy or
you have some sort of nest eggor something like that, it's
always helpful because if you dosplit up, there's a lot to
consider.
But then there's situationswhere, let's say, you're
together for a long time andthen if one or either party is
not working, and then there's acomplicated stuff there.

(29:32):
But from what I've heard, itmakes more sense if you have
this situation but you're sayinglike regardless of your wealth
or income, you should still geta prenup.

Joanne (29:40):
Yeah, because you don't know what's going to happen down
the road, you don't know who'sgoing to end up making more
money or anything like that, andyou want to protect your assets
Like uh um, I didn't do thatand so a good chunk of my
retirement is going to him, andsince he didn't work full time,
he gets all of it.

J.R. (29:56):
You weren't expecting him to not work for so long but, now
that he didn't, and after thefact you're like, okay, well,
pre-nup would have helped this.

Joanne (30:03):
Yeah, exactly it's a pain.
But, like from what I read,it's a pain but I think it's
totally worth it.
Yeah.

J.R. (30:09):
I was listening to a podcast recently and they were
talking about pre-nups and ofcourse, the big argument against
it is it's not romantic, butit's.
I know you don't want it tofail, but it's.
Are you driving without aseatbelt?
Are you living without healthinsurance?
It's, you're obviously don'twant to use it, but you should
still have it just in case, andI think that's very eye opening.
To each his own.

Joanne (30:30):
Just think about it.
Yes, exactly.

J.R. (30:32):
Advice you would give your younger self beyond what you
already mentioned, or tips forother people for similar
situations.

Joanne (30:38):
Advice for my younger self.
Well, I would tell myself, likeyou are stronger than you think
you are, you have a stick Idon't know the right word for it
but like a stick-to-itiveness,You'd stick to it.
Persistence yeah persistence orsomething.
For other people like I, I saidjust don't stay quiet about it.

(30:58):
Talk to people about it, thepeople that you trust, anyway,
and yeah yeah, no, that's.

J.R. (31:03):
I think that's pretty straightforward and good advice.
The last topic we have iscontent creation.
So I know, as an aside, youmentioned that your ex-husband
got into youtube and it was thesilver play award, so could you
walk us through all of that?
Like you said, you helped himachieve that as the camera
person, and then it's watching.

Joanne (31:22):
Delusion and narcissism take over yeah, so he got into
making short videos just for fun.
He started on tiktok and theywere just quaint and just what
kind of short videos they werejust like nonsense videos.
I don't know explain a bit.
It's based around Pokemon,because we both like Pokemon and
it was just I don't know how toexplain it just like his quips.

(31:43):
And eventually it became himopening Pokemon cards in funny
locations, like in a kayak, forexample.
What the yeah?
And because, like we wouldthink of different places and
funny places to rip them open,it got a decent amount of views
and his banter would be is alsopart of it too.
He has.

(32:04):
I would give it to him that heis extremely quick, witted and
clever and creative, and so alot of what I did with him was
just being a cameraman.
When we're, when we are out andabout, it's hard to open cards
and have a camera.
So I would hold the camerabehind him and record and do
like slow zooms.
Or there was a little bit of aseries where he would go to a

(32:27):
claw machine and just try to getthe prize and I would just slow
zoom and he would make commentsand I would shake the camera,
all dramatic and stuff.
It started to get to his headand he started to become more
obsessed about the comments,because YouTube comments are,
yeah, that's the nature of it.
It's terrible.
So he would spend hours justdeleting bad comments instead of

(32:50):
creating content.
And he started to think that,oh yeah, I'm so famous content.
And he started to think that,oh yeah, I'm so famous.
All these kids in malaysia loveme because he wore a godzilla
mask to be more anonymous andand he chalked that up to oh
yeah, was it?
Komodo dragons are really likethey're popular in malaysia and
so that's why I like people inmalaysia love me.

(33:11):
Is this okay, weird?
Yeah, right, like weird logiclinks and stuff and it just as
the camera person.
He started to become moreanxious and more like
controlling over how like I wasfilming and stuff.
And I get it because you want acertain look or whatever for

(33:33):
your videos and it was justanother point of contention
between the two of us.
We hit 100,000 subscribersright when COVID was happening
and which was sad because we hadthis whole thing planned that
we want to do 100,000celebration party.
But the Silver Play Award camein and it was beautiful, like,

(33:57):
despite all the crazy thingsthat have happened, it was
cathartic seeing, like thewritten letter that you get from
I forget who it was, but likesomeone in youtube yeah, yeah,
someone important and socongratulating, thank you
important person.

J.R. (34:11):
Yeah, this letter to me.
Yeah, yeah, so, and I know thesilver play award is important
to a lot of content prettycoveted, yeah, yeah, and so last
I checked, I in this letter tome.

Joanne (34:15):
Yeah, yeah, and I know the Silver Play Award is
important to a lot of contentcreators yeah, it's pretty
coveted, yeah.
Yeah, and so last I checked Ithink the channel's at over
700,000.
So that didn't quite make the 1million to get the Gold Play
Award.
But yeah, that's what happened.

J.R. (34:33):
Yeah, interesting.
So you were part of thatprocess.
A few questions how long didthat take from the start of it?
I don't know if there was apoint where it's okay, this is
all casual, and then it ramps upafter time.
Sometimes that's what happens.
You don't just start off thegate having a goal, sometimes
you build, but also, I guess.
So how long did it take?

Joanne (35:05):
And then, what strategies did you guys have to,
when you guys were seriousabout building this following
that worked for you guys?
I want to say it was like theend of 2019 or so where he
started the the funsy videos forthe heck of it and it we had to
.
We didn't have a strategy, itwas just mostly for fun.
But he noticed that he wasgetting a lot of views and it
was growing and that's where thepressure started to come in.
He's like oh, I got to makevideos like at least once a week
or every couple of days orwhatever.
And yeah, like I said, therewas no script or anything, just

(35:27):
whatever he can come up with offthe top of his head.

J.R. (35:30):
Just an idea.
Let's just film this.
It's regarding Pokemon.

Joanne (35:33):
Yeah, gotcha, let's just film this.
It's regarding pokemon.
Yeah, gotcha, he built littlestories with the little figures
and stuff, like something thatkids would love.
It was pretty wholesome at theit.
I think it's still wholesome,just a little manic towards the
end so how long?

J.R. (35:46):
you said the end of 2019, so how long was it when you got,
when you started, until you hitthe 100k?

Joanne (35:52):
about a year, maybe less than a year, because covid
happened what?
What started in March of 2020.

J.R. (35:58):
Yeah.

Joanne (35:58):
So I think it's a few months after that where we hit
the 100k mark, so it must havebeen less than a year then.

J.R. (36:06):
Okay, yeah.

Joanne (36:06):
Like I don't remember the exact timeline.

J.R. (36:08):
Right, yeah, okay, so about that.
And you said it was primarilylike shorts.

Joanne (36:13):
It was shorts, so it started on TikTok, primarily
like shorts.
It was shorts, so it started onTikTok and he it made him a
little bit of money, butobviously YouTube pays a lot
more and so he imported a lot ofthose TikTok videos onto
YouTube and so he had a backlogof videos that he can just put
up there.
And yeah, we tried the longform videos, but it's a lot of
work.

J.R. (36:33):
Yeah, it's a lot.
It's a different beast.

Joanne (36:34):
Yeah.

J.R. (36:35):
What is?
Do you know what?
The like the payment structure,how they did, at least back
then.
How did YouTube do it?
That was different from TikTok.
I'm familiar with how TikTokpays out, but how does YouTube
do it?

Joanne (36:45):
I unfortunately don't remember.
I just know it's based onclicks and number of views.
There's a formula to it.
I just don't remember exactlywhat it is.
I just mostly played cameramanand just helped them like get
the stuff and set things up andwhatnot.
He was the head of it, like heyeah, he was the creative and
the editor and producer andeverything so you're just like

(37:06):
playing a sister all.

J.R. (37:07):
You're not really sure everything goes into it.
So no instagram, I'm justthinking like now the logistical
stuff, right like no, noinstagram.

Joanne (37:15):
We, like I ran.
We had a dog that was also partof the youtube channel and he
has a character name and stufftoo, so I would run his
instagram as if the dog wasrunning the instagram, and that
was the part of it.
Wasn't like creating newcontent per se, it was just more
like a silly thing that we weredoing that to help promote it,
sort of, but it wasn't like astructured thing.

(37:36):
Let's make clips on Instagramto promote the channel.
It wasn't like.
It wasn't like that.

J.R. (37:42):
Okay, okay, last two questions on this, then.
First thing is did advertisingor promotions or collaborations
ever come into the fray and, ifso, how did you guys deal with
that?
And I guess the second thing isadvice or tips on people, cause
you were.
You weren't lead producing andyou weren't like the creative
director of the channel, but youwere part of it.
If you had any, I don't knowadvice or tips or insights for

(38:03):
how to build a following sinceyou were around.
So collabs and promotions, andthen any tips if you have any
some collabs were there.

Joanne (38:10):
If the collabs that we did do we?
We had to reach out to peoplelike artists and stuff.
He tried to reach out to somelike just local game stores
because they have pokemon cards,and I think he tried reaching
out to a shelter to like help,do, help promote those dogs with

(38:31):
our character dog to get dogsadopted, but it didn't go.
It didn't quite go through.
Okay, as far as followers andbuilding content and stuff.
Is this a lot of work?
You just have to stick with it.
You have to create a scheduleand just work on it as if it's
your job and plan it and whatnot, like it.

(38:52):
Obviously you have creativefreedom, but yeah, this is what
I can tell it's consistent yeah,be consistent and take a like.
If you need a creative break,take a creative break, let's.
It doesn't have to be you,don't have to be a machine, but
you definitely need some sort ofstructure to be successful.
In my opinion and maybe don'tdo mushrooms or yeah, yeah,
maybe, yeah, maybe don't do likedon't break down anything, yeah

(39:16):
yeah, I think that's veryhelpful too.

J.R. (39:17):
And I only ask about the collaborations and the sponsored
stuff is because I, from what Iknow, most content creators.
They make at least 80 of theirmoney from collaborations with
businesses.
Like companies.
It's not necessarily at clickads or ads that just go on and
it's not necessarily from tiktokor youtube.
That's just paying you out perviews.
That is okay money.
But where the real money ismade is with collaborations with

(39:40):
these big companies and thingslike that.
And there's another beast withthat.
But from what I've learned, it'syou can have this huge four or
five figure payout, but then nowyou're really working closely
with, let's say, like Toyota orsomething, and then now it's a
big thing, but then you can pickand choose and then the
platform can determine yourrates and stuff like that.
But that's kind of like the gameof content creators.
And that's one of the thingsthat kind of turned me off about

(40:01):
content creation is when we didour content creation.
It's like we have a brand andwhat we want to do, and I'm
definitely saying no to 90% ofthese because they don't fit our
brand or audience.
But when it does fit, then ittakes a lot of effort, because
you need to appease the brand'simage, what they want out of it,
and then they always want youto deliver results.
But you can't control thealgorithm either.

(40:22):
So it was hit or miss.
I'm like I, we can't promiseyou like I don't know, you will
pay you X amount per X amount ofviews, but no, we did the work
and we're sending it to ouraudience.
You need to pay us for whatthat is.

Joanne (40:40):
If it does, the algorithm doesn't like it then
that's your loss.
Yeah, it's aggravating in thatsense it's not in your, it's not
in your control.
Yeah, at least not all of it.
Anyway, it is a little bit.

J.R. (40:44):
Yeah, you manipulated it, of course, like you can do
things that are more strategicand smart, and what trends are
out there that that are working?
But yeah, that's just a gamefor anyone who's trying to get
to content creation.
It's a different beast.
Don't glamorize it like it's.
Oh yeah, you just make millionsof dollars.
Everyone can be, mr Beast.
No, that's not how that works.

Joanne (41:01):
It's very hard.

J.R. (41:02):
Yeah, it is very hard, Cool, all right.
Anything else before we move onto rapid fire questions.

Joanne (41:07):
Any other things you think we might have?

J.R. (41:08):
missed that are helpful.
Did a piece of advice formarriage.
Did I say that it takes morethan love?
Uh, good, yeah.
So what does it take for a goodmarriage, john?
So just love and feelings,right, yeah, yeah, no plans, a
little bit of, a little bit ofmushrooms yeah, but yeah like a

(41:29):
marriage takes so much more thanlove to build.

Joanne (41:33):
Love is the foundation.
Without that you don't haveanything Just business partners
yeah.
It takes love, and gettingmarried is like a business
partner, the business being yourlife, and so buying a house,
having kids and all that stuff,their life plans doesn't have to
be exactly the same, but theyneed to be able to compliment
each other.
It just there's a lot ofcompromises you have to make too

(41:57):
with marriage to make thingswork and understanding, and you
either grow together or you growapart, and that's it's that's
it.
To grow together, it takes alot of work, a lot of nurturing
and understanding and all thatfun stuff yeah, yeah, talking
through things, trying to have amutual understanding, safe

(42:18):
space, communicate, growtogether, align on expectations
a lot of work.

J.R. (42:23):
It's not just glamorized like I just want to be in a
relationship and then marry, andyou're like that's also harder
than you think.

Joanne (42:28):
Yeah, yeah, relationships are a lot of work.

J.R. (42:30):
Marriage is a lot of work.

Joanne (42:32):
And there's family, the family aspect too no-transcript.

J.R. (42:45):
obviously you'll know when you love someone because it's a
feeling, but what are someother considerations?
You just mentioned family,their family's important, or
both of your families gettingalong, I'm sure, aligning on
values.
It is like a partnership inbusiness because you're merging
your careers, your finances,your health, et cetera.
Are there any otherconsiderations you would ask the

(43:05):
audience to think about beforegetting married?

Joanne (43:08):
It's like a ton.
Yeah, there's a ton.
I like I know the big ones arereligious views and maybe, and
political views, like maybe it'snot like the top thing, but it
should be like similar becauseit's like belief systems right
yeah, it's usually what we're,that's what we're digging into
is your belief systems areimportant, religion, politics,
whatever yeah, it's everythingon there.

J.R. (43:28):
The belief umbrella something to consider okay, so
do you think that encompasseseverything?

Joanne (43:35):
I'm sure there's a lot more.
Yeah, there's a lot more.

J.R. (43:37):
Uh, there's we brought strokes.
I think we hit a lot of stuff,yeah, but there's a book out
there called seven principles ofmarriage I forget the author,
okay, but that's also a good one.
Yeah, yeah, what were the maintakeaways that you got from it.

Joanne (43:49):
it's just the big thing is turning towards each other.
Do not try not to turn awaywhen you need help or like when
you're feeling vulnerable andstuff.
Be vulnerable with your partner.
You should feel safe aroundthem, and that's a big one.

J.R. (44:03):
Yeah, no, no, that's a for me.
In a book, if you have at leastone takeaway, you didn't waste
your time.
There could be multiple, but Ithink that's a good point.
Okay, Ready for rapid fire?
Sure, what's one of the hardestchallenges you face and what
did you learn from it?

Joanne (44:15):
This whole entire podcast.
I think the meat of it, yeah,yeah.

J.R. (44:18):
Cool, just rewind that, guys.
If you could give your youngerself advice, what would it be
now?

Joanne (44:32):
You're stronger than you think you are.
Stick to it.

J.R. (44:33):
Go into computers sooner, rather than later and maybe
invest and put some stock intogoogle.
Do you have I guess it's sidetangent?
You said go into computerssooner.
Do you have an aspirationalcareer that you would like to,
or alternate universe get into?

Joanne (44:46):
I have, weirdly enough, not really.
I feel like the tech industryand field is it feels right and
it feels like I'm at home and Iunderstand it and I have a knack
for it, like a sixth sense forit.
So actually not really okay.

J.R. (44:59):
Or is there any higher level career you aspire to have,
like being happy and where youare, that's great.
I'm just curious if you're likeit'd be cool to be a I don't
know cto of something I don'tknow I want to work in.

Joanne (45:12):
This sounds silly.
It's not space industry, butlike with nasa or with not
aerospace is it aerospace space?
Engineering yeah something likethat maybe not work on the the
stuff that they really work onwith space exploration, but I
would love to be in, likesitting next to like a I don't

(45:33):
know, like someone who's workingon the rockets or something
someone who's working on theexplorer for mars, just that
sort of stuff.
I love space.
I'm a bit of a nerd for planetsand all that sort of stuff, so
I would love to just see thatokay, so maybe like a nasa
position sort of thing or one ofthose space companies that's
cool.

J.R. (45:51):
In the last few years, what new belief, behavior or
habit has improved your life?

Joanne (45:55):
Understanding that not everyone is judging me.
I still have that problem.
I mean everyone's judging youSpoking?
The anxiety.

J.R. (46:05):
Every single person who comes across you is judging you.

Joanne (46:09):
Yeah, it's still something I'm trying to unlearn,
because I had grown up with itand learned it from like
everyone I was around when I wasyounger and so I like people
aren't looking at me, at leastnot that I know of and just
being open and just beingaccepting of people have been,
has been really it's turned outgood things for me because I

(46:31):
feel a lot lighter and I seemore good in people in the world
and stuff not being bitter.
Oh, everyone's judging me.
How dare they?

J.R. (46:40):
I like that.
I think one of my last guests afew episodes ago was saying how
self-love is the root of alllove.
If you can't love yourself,then you can't really accept it
from other people.
And he was saying how if we canlearn to not judge ourselves as
much, then we will feel lessjudgment from others.
I thought that was a good pointbecause I think when we fear
other people judging us, inreality the core of it is that

(47:01):
we're just judging ourselves.

Joanne (47:04):
I think that's totally right.
Like everyone's their ownharshest critic, and I
especially yeah, that, yeah.

J.R. (47:10):
I think we can all relate to that.
If you knew you couldn't fail,what would you try or be doing
right now?

Joanne (47:16):
if I couldn't fail don't say lottery I guess I still
really love animals and I stillwant to do that.
It's failing meaning notgetting paid.

J.R. (47:27):
Well, maybe couldn't fail out, meaning you can achieve the
outcome that you want.
But you would do it because youdon't have fear of failing.

Joanne (47:35):
I guess that's the spirit of the question.
Martial arts.
I love martial arts.
I was in it for I took, I didit for six years and I stopped.
I still want to do that and Ibut I cannot right now because
my body won't let me.

J.R. (47:47):
Oh yeah, physical limitations yeah, makes sense.
What's?

Joanne (47:55):
something you've been pondering recently or think
about often deeply.
Oh man, just everything inhindsight, moving out here from
Ventura County to LA County andjust I've been thinking deeply
about like where this is going,like I have the freedom now and
what can I do with this?
I'm not entirely sure, I'mstill trying to figure that out,

(48:17):
but I guess it's.
I guess I'm more reflecting onit as a I'm grateful for it or
giving myself the opportunity todo this, and where can I take
this opportunity?

J.R. (48:28):
I'm not entirely sure this and where can I take this
opportunity?
I'm not entirely sure.
So when you mean freedom andopportunity, you mean just being
in a different place, or areyou referring to something else?

Joanne (48:36):
Yeah, being in a different place and just, I feel
so less isolated now than Ihave before and I have the means
to go explore.
I don't have anything tying medown to Ventura County.
Oh, I see, and I have the fundsand hopefully in the near
future, the physical ability,physical freedom ability.

J.R. (48:56):
Yeah, yeah, to do it Makes sense.
Do you have a favorite hot takeor something you think most
people won't agree with?

Joanne (49:04):
I think K-pop Demon Hunters is made.
The soundtrack is fantastic,but the the movie was it's our
reign.
It's kind of predictable.

J.R. (49:15):
I know a lot of plot.
The plot okay, the animationwas cute, okay, I haven't seen
it, but so why do you thinkpeople like it then?

Joanne (49:23):
I think people really like the animation style and it
is better than expected.
The soundtrack really carriesthe whole thing, and it is
better than expected.
The soundtrack really carriesthe whole thing, and so I will
like A plus on the soundtrack.
But the story was just Leavingsomething to be desired.
Yeah, it could have been better, but I think it was written
geared.
It was geared towards youngerpeople, like maybe kids or like

(49:45):
high schoolers or something thatchecks out.

J.R. (49:47):
Like more for mass appeal commercial likeability, so
business money Exactly.
That's fair.
What is one of the best or mostworthwhile investments you've
ever made in either time?
Money, energy, et cetera?

Joanne (49:59):
Well, myself, if you want to go metaphoric, if you
want to go with an actual Bothlike yourself, how Like?

J.R. (50:07):
how have you invested in?

Joanne (50:08):
yourself.
Taking like classes sorry,fitness classes doing meditation
, giving time to myself to like,just breathe, take breaks and
just improve on what I can learn.
Taking time for my dog and justjust investing time for myself,
so I can be the better personto be able to take on whatever
comes next.

J.R. (50:29):
I like it.
So now, with more a commercialthing, what is a favorite recent
purchase you've made in the 50to a hundred dollar range.
It doesn't matter price, justrelatively cheap.
That has impacted your life themost recently A $50, a cheaper
thing.

Joanne (50:43):
Uh, shelving, it sounds silly, but it's necessary right.
Yeah, it's necessary, right?
Yeah, it's necessary, like Ihave a lot of stuff, so just
putting it on shelves is greatspecial type of shelving, or
just any shelving, any shelvinga nice shelf would be good, like
something that's sturdy.
I know it sounds it's a boringanswer, but that's what.
That's the most recent thingthat I've recently where have

(51:04):
you bought shelving fromfacebook marketplace?
okay, yeah, like secondhand fromsomeone yeah, like you can find
a lot of good stuff on facebookmarketplace and it's lightly
used and you don't have to payhundreds of dollars for it.
You can pay like 50 and it'sfine.

J.R. (51:17):
No, I second that I find a lot of good stuff on facebook
marketplace.
You don't need to pay retail onsome of these things and some
of these things like shelving ifyou don't really care about
having a brand new thing.
It definitely, definitelychecks the box and I've actually
found.
The last few places I've rentedwere from Facebook Marketplace
and they were good finds becausebefore it was like Craigslist
barely any photo sketchy right.
But then I've done Marketplaceand other sort of platforms but

(51:40):
I've consistently had goodresults from Marketplace.
So I recommend it.
Check it out, okay.
Last question Mediarecommendations.
So check it out, um, okay.
Last question mediarecommendations.
So any favorite books, movies,music videos, articles or any
sort of media that you share orrecommend the most?

Joanne (51:55):
I really like the, so I like audiobooks.
The one by amy poehler, yes,please is that a memoir?
Yes, a memoir, and another funone is dear dear girls by ali
wong.
They're both comedians and Ikind of gravitate towards
audiobooks that's written bycomedians because they know
pacing and when you're listeningto it it sounds like a stand-up
, because they read it normallyright.

(52:17):
Yeah, they normally read it andboth of those books just went
through their career journey andwhat led to their success.
And I learned that like it'sjust a lot of stick-to
Stick-to-itiveness.

J.R. (52:28):
Yeah, and I learned that like it's just a lot of stick to
the intuitiveness, yeah, yeah.

Joanne (52:31):
And it's with Amy Poehler's book.
It's surprising, like how howmuch success can come from good
parents, like getting thatnurturing foundation and
confidence and stuff.
I'm like, wow, okay, that makesa lot of sense, yeah, yeah.

J.R. (52:47):
I've listened to a lot of autobiographies, memoirs et
cetera, and I think at least athird of them are comedy based
because they're alwaysrecommended.
But I love, for example, kevinHart's and Trevor Noah's are my
favorites because they're sofunny and when they read it it's
amazing.
And then they throw in theselittle anecdotes and extras and
you're like damn, that was Ijust like smiling like an idiot
walking around listening to likedamn, that's pretty funny.

Joanne (53:10):
I should check those out .

J.R. (53:10):
Those are my high, like my two actually.
Trevor Noah's Born a Crime, hismemoir probably my top five
recommended books of all time.
I really like it.
I would listen to it again.
But yeah, I will link yourrecommendations in the notes.
Okay, we've come to the end ofRapid Fire, pretty much the end
of the interview.
So congratulations, thank you,you made it, you survived.
So we'll go into endingquestions.

(53:32):
So we always end with gratitude.
Shout out to my mom, joanne,what are you grateful for?

Joanne (53:36):
I'm grateful for just meeting you guys and for my
boyfriend Marco oh my God,You're so cute For just
thrusting me into this life ofsocializing and so many people
and so many good people.
He helped me open my eyes to tohaving new friends and just the
sounds cheesy, but the goodnessof people like I are good yeah,

(54:00):
yeah, it was kind of honestly,I was a little surprised.
I was like, wow, they'reactually, they're not judging me
and they're being reallyencouraging and nice and stuff
and they're pure about it.
I'm like what are you trying toget?

J.R. (54:10):
yeah, what's your angle yeah?
And there is none, and yeah I'mreally grateful for that I'm
glad you guys found each otherbecause marco is that guy.
He's very the goodness ofpeople and he reflects that out
into his social circle, so he'slike a good person to be around.
All right, final ask, or fromthe audience, or final takeaways
you'd like them to have fromthis conversation?

Joanne (54:29):
Takeaways protect yourself.
It takes more than love tobuild a marriage, and just be
confident in what you're, whatyou want to do, just do it, just
do it.

J.R. (54:39):
Just do it.
Nice.
I like it.
Cool.
All right, john, where canpeople find you social media
handles et cetera if they wantto see what you're up to or
check out or reach out oranything?

Joanne (54:49):
So my Instagram is Hokerie H-O-K-E-R-I-E and you
can message me on there if youwant to find me.

J.R. (54:56):
Perfect, yeah, we'll link her social in the description.
So all right, joanne, thank youso much for being here.
I appreciate it.
I think there's good insights.
Thank you for sharing yourstory, of course, and I
hopefully the audience gets alot from it.
So, yeah, I will do my finalsign off.

(55:16):
So thank you guys for beinghere.
I really appreciate it.
Be sure to like, subscribe,follow comments, five stars on
whatever platform you'relistening to.
My stats, or my metrics saymost of you guys listen to this
on Spotify, I guess YouTube, ifyou want A reminder to always be
kind to other people,especially yourself, and always
remember that you can learnsomething from someone if you
take the time to listen.
So thanks for being here.

All Episodes

#51: Joanne Chiem - Women in Tech, Building a Pokémon YT Channel, and Lessons from Marriage and Divorce

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#51: Joanne Chiem - Women in Tech, Building a Pokémon YT Channel, and Lessons from Marriage and Divorce