June 4, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of The Thought Shower, Intern John talks about the problem with being too positive!
Intern John's "Chuy Forever" is a weekend of comedy shows 6/20 & 6/21 in Arlington, Va benefitting Warrior Canine Connection. They train puppies to be service animals for veterans! Tickets are on sale now, InternJohnComedy.com
Every week Intern John discusses adulting, dating, radio life, and more! You can follow Intern John on social media: @InternJohnRadio. You can listen to past episodes at TheThoughtShower.com
Intern John's "Chuy Forever" is a weekend of comedy shows 6/20 & 6/21 in Arlington, Va benefitting Warrior Canine Connection. They train puppies to be service animals for veterans! Tickets are on sale now, InternJohnComedy.com
Every week Intern John discusses adulting, dating, radio life, and more! You can follow Intern John on social media: @InternJohnRadio. You can listen to past episodes at TheThoughtShower.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And a happy Wednesday. Friend. Welcome to the Thought Shower intern. John,
it's my name, back in the Thought Shower studio. Back
to back. Here we are. We're doing it, although part
of the reason why is not the best reason today,
and hopefully it doesn't sound too echoy. I think it
sounds fine. But I had an issue I've been having
issues with dog parents recently. Happened couple WEEKSIA was walking
(00:25):
Skittles and all of a sudden, this dog kind of
came off the leash and the owner's like, he's friendly,
and I go, my dog doesn't know that, and I
had to pick Skittles off the ground. Well, today we
were walking back from our walk and my neighbors had
their dog off their leash hanging out in front of
their place, which is wild behavior. So I tried to
walk Skittles at an angle to where Skittles whin see
(00:48):
the dog. Hopefully dog wins see us. Dog saw Skittles
and started coming our way. Now I understand it's a
yellow lab and that the labs are very friendly and
very nice. However, my dog does know that, and so
I'm like, it's going side, was going side, and I'm
trying to rush him inside. This other dog comes into
my garage and the owners have no idea. I'm like, yo,
(01:11):
what are you doing? Because again, like at that point,
if Skittles did something, your dog is in my garage,
like he have every right to defend what he thinks
is a threat against the family. I don't even know
if the other owners even know. Be honest with you,
because like I showed the dog away and I fell
(01:33):
back because I'm sure it's a good dog. I'm sure
the dog's fine. However, what dog owners seen to not
understand is dogs don't know that he Skittles sees that
as another dog coming in his territory to like hurt
the family, and then there's a dog fight. What are
we doing? Also, it's just wild the cabin, the dog
off the leash in a neighborhood, like there's there's cars,
(01:56):
there's things going on. It's so And I keep saying
this every time. I don't get why you put your
animal in a bad spot and then somebody else's animal
in a bad spot too. To me, it just it
doesn't make sense. But anyway, we're fine, We're doing well.
A Happy Wednesday appreciates you listening. Been a busy week
(02:17):
getting ready for the shows. Man, we're like less than
two weeks away. Been doing that basically every single day.
It's kind of running through it, and it's good. It's
really good. It's been like an emotional couple of weeks, certainly,
and it's trying to work out the kinks. It's crazy
that we're finally here. We're finally two weeks away from
immortalizing Chewy. I think that's a good way of putting it.
(02:38):
I think that this is going to be you know,
it's one of those things where I've never I've never
went back and watched an old show. I listened to
the last one because I was editing the album, which
went number one in the world, thank you very much.
But I've never watched an old show. And I guess
at least with this one, you know, the idea is
if I ever wanted to, it's there, you know, like
(03:01):
the Chewy song. When I wrote that six years ago,
the idea was like, you know, one day he wouldn't
be here. At least I have something to remember and by,
and so I'm kind of keeping that in mind too,
you know. It's it's there, sounds like I saw I
do this anymore like now, this one hasty perfect because
I don't want to listen back to it. You know,
(03:21):
five years from now, five months from now, five weeks
from now, I'll be like, damn it, we shive done more.
You know. So I'm very excited for this. It's gonna
be a lot of fun. There's a few tickets left.
Internjohncomedy dot com. It's gonna be a November No November,
my god, oh god, no, June twentieth, June twenty first,
Arlington Draft House. Cool thing about the draft House as
(03:43):
well is they have food, they have drinks. You can
make it a full on like date night. Everything's right there.
Internjooncomedy dot com. Let me hit this for your Wednesday?
Are you a victim of toxic productivity? I bring this
up because I think that I can be so the
idea that basically i've had this before. I think I
(04:07):
put a lot pressure on myself and I've you know,
talked at nausea about this, but not just on me,
but uh well yeah, on me, but not just because me,
because there's people who rely on me like to produce,
whether it's the show or hockey or the podcast or
comedy like there's people who rely on me, So I
do have a hard time with like there's always something
(04:30):
I could be doing, you know what I mean. Like
if we're at the station and there's downtime, I'm like, well,
we could be recording something, which is tough because then
you do get kind of like burned out and sometimes
it becomes less fun in our space, it's supposed to
be fun. Yeah, you confuse being busy with being valuable. Damn.
(04:51):
They say you wear your part pat Colend like a trophy,
but deep down it feels hollow. Busyness has become your identity,
proof you're doing enough to matter. However, it's a could
mean you fear having nothing to do means you're lazier,
not successful. I think that's fair. I think that makes sense.
And again, especially like in a business like this, where
(05:12):
like it's weird because like we are the product, you
know what I mean. So it's kind of like in
my head sometimes like math I wasn't busy. That would
mean that like the show is not popping off, podcasts
isn't popping off, comedy is not popping off. It is
kind of like that, Like, as a creative is a
bit of a trip where it's like, okay, we have
to always be busy. You feel guilty for resting. I
(05:33):
was just saying that they say rest feels like a
luxury have to earn, not a basic human need. The
guilt creeps up in the second you stop, because you've
been trained to believe stillness equals laziness. I've had this,
I think, especially you know, with Chewy passing. It was like, well,
I should just get back and doing things. And I've
had to give myself a little bit more grace even recently.
(05:55):
But yeah, like we're still grinding it out. You know,
we're still dealing with that loss and it's going to
take a while. And yeah it's been five months, but
it's okay. I talked about this with the gym before,
where I used to be like feel really bad I
didn't go to the gym, and it's kind of like
now like hey, like I'm not training to be a
professional athlete. You know, I go to the gym, you know, uh,
(06:18):
for me, not because I have teammates who acounted me.
It's okay if I need to take a nap and
say go to the gym. If you measure your day
about how much you got done. Yeah, I get that.
Your success metric is your task list. It's full, You're winning,
But you really stopped to ask, did I feel alive today? Damn? Man?
(06:39):
Actually I had that moment today walking in the studio.
So I got to the station around like three thirty
this morning, and I was like, I gotta do this,
this and this, and I had a second rise. Walked
in the lights were off and the show logos on
all TVs in turn Johnny Morning Show. I had to
stop myself and go, hey, this is pretty cool, you know,
like this is what we've always wanted to since we
(07:00):
were seventeen, and we got a chance to do that.
This is a pretty cool thing. I've been trying to
do that more and more is to like stop and
I hate the phrase stop and smell the roses, but
I actually like stop and kind of appreciate you, like,
all right, you know, it's good to be motivated, but
we've we've done big things. If you even I think
even your downtime has to be productive. Yeah, you see,
(07:21):
you squeeze rests in a pre productivity molds. You go
the podcast journally for clarity, meditation, or focus. Even your
downtime becomes another task to optimize. That's tough. Although for
me at least, like I have video games, so that
kind of is like my release because then I can
just focus and do nothing, Like I love video games
(07:41):
because I can just churn my brain off and do nothing.
That's the ultimate best. But I do get that too,
where it's like, even if I go on a walk,
it's like, well, listen to podcasts, I'll take some calls.
If I have a long drive smore, I'll take some calls.
It's like, nah, it's okay, and not do anything for
a while. This is me too. You don't want to
say know to opportunities you don't actually want. Again, in
(08:03):
our industry, it's kind of tough because it's like, you know,
the idea of like all press is good press, and
like you have to do everything to kind of like
get yourself out there and do things. That is tough.
I've done that before where there's a bunch of stuff
I haven't wanted to do, however, thought it was a
good look for the show or whatever else. I get
that if you feel anxious when you have nothing to do,
(08:25):
they stayed empty afternoon feels like failure. Not freedom get
panic when your schedule opens up because of that task list.
Who even are you I have that happening like when
hockey ends the hockey season, because usually my day is
like during hockey season, do the morning show, come back home,
take a nap, work on the next day's show, go
(08:45):
to practice, or go to the gym first, go to practice,
and then once hockey ends, like, oh I can I
have most of the day open. And that's like a
bit of an adjustment of like I can't just surround
it nothing because that's a waste of time. But it's like, yeah,
but as long as your other stuff is done, as
long as the bills are paid, as long as the
dog's fed and water, like you know, it's okay. Kind
of ties in this next one. You use being busy
(09:08):
as a way to avoid being emotional. My therapist told
me this once. Yeah that like the reason I was
because I my first therapist. I was like, yeah, I
had the podcast, has got a millions some listens, hockey
teams winning this, this, Yes, you know you really you
do all those tasks because you just want to build
up those walls. And I was like, oh girl, no,
(09:32):
but also yes, yeah, and I have realized that I
tend to do that. It's just kind of like have
activities going and how from activity activity so that I
could finally or rather not focus on what's going on,
but just kind of be distracted. Like I in this
podcast forgot to mention the bar. That's a huge part
of my time, but I don't realize it, you know
(09:53):
what I mean. It's just kind of like I gotta
be fel like I got to be making moves. It's
one of those things where I tell us to friends
all time or I feel like they're they're running away
from a problem that doesn't exist. I think I have
that too sometimes where it's like I'm chasing this idea
I'm gonna be lazy or a failure. But it's like
that that problem is not even in the rearview mirror.
You know, we's got a relax enjoy ourselves. As far
(10:17):
as we know, we get one go around on this thing, right,
So my playing tonight is to work on the comedy show,
play a little Xbox, watch a Netflix, take a little nappy.
By nappy, I mean pass out, have a fantastic Wednesday.
I'll see a Friday's thash hour
And a happy Wednesday. Friend. Welcome to the Thought Shower intern. John,
it's my name, back in the Thought Shower studio. Back
to back. Here we are. We're doing it, although part
of the reason why is not the best reason today,
and hopefully it doesn't sound too echoy. I think it
sounds fine. But I had an issue I've been having
issues with dog parents recently. Happened couple WEEKSIA was walking
(00:25):
Skittles and all of a sudden, this dog kind of
came off the leash and the owner's like, he's friendly,
and I go, my dog doesn't know that, and I
had to pick Skittles off the ground. Well, today we
were walking back from our walk and my neighbors had
their dog off their leash hanging out in front of
their place, which is wild behavior. So I tried to
walk Skittles at an angle to where Skittles whin see
(00:48):
the dog. Hopefully dog wins see us. Dog saw Skittles
and started coming our way. Now I understand it's a
yellow lab and that the labs are very friendly and
very nice. However, my dog does know that, and so
I'm like, it's going side, was going side, and I'm
trying to rush him inside. This other dog comes into
my garage and the owners have no idea. I'm like, yo,
(01:11):
what are you doing? Because again, like at that point,
if Skittles did something, your dog is in my garage,
like he have every right to defend what he thinks
is a threat against the family. I don't even know
if the other owners even know. Be honest with you,
because like I showed the dog away and I fell
(01:33):
back because I'm sure it's a good dog. I'm sure
the dog's fine. However, what dog owners seen to not
understand is dogs don't know that he Skittles sees that
as another dog coming in his territory to like hurt
the family, and then there's a dog fight. What are
we doing? Also, it's just wild the cabin, the dog
off the leash in a neighborhood, like there's there's cars,
(01:56):
there's things going on. It's so And I keep saying
this every time. I don't get why you put your
animal in a bad spot and then somebody else's animal
in a bad spot too. To me, it just it
doesn't make sense. But anyway, we're fine, We're doing well.
A Happy Wednesday appreciates you listening. Been a busy week
(02:17):
getting ready for the shows. Man, we're like less than
two weeks away. Been doing that basically every single day.
It's kind of running through it, and it's good. It's
really good. It's been like an emotional couple of weeks, certainly,
and it's trying to work out the kinks. It's crazy
that we're finally here. We're finally two weeks away from
immortalizing Chewy. I think that's a good way of putting it.
(02:38):
I think that this is going to be you know,
it's one of those things where I've never I've never
went back and watched an old show. I listened to
the last one because I was editing the album, which
went number one in the world, thank you very much.
But I've never watched an old show. And I guess
at least with this one, you know, the idea is
if I ever wanted to, it's there, you know, like
(03:01):
the Chewy song. When I wrote that six years ago,
the idea was like, you know, one day he wouldn't
be here. At least I have something to remember and by,
and so I'm kind of keeping that in mind too,
you know. It's it's there, sounds like I saw I
do this anymore like now, this one hasty perfect because
I don't want to listen back to it. You know,
(03:21):
five years from now, five months from now, five weeks
from now, I'll be like, damn it, we shive done more.
You know. So I'm very excited for this. It's gonna
be a lot of fun. There's a few tickets left.
Internjohncomedy dot com. It's gonna be a November No November,
my god, oh god, no, June twentieth, June twenty first,
Arlington Draft House. Cool thing about the draft House as
(03:43):
well is they have food, they have drinks. You can
make it a full on like date night. Everything's right there.
Internjooncomedy dot com. Let me hit this for your Wednesday?
Are you a victim of toxic productivity? I bring this
up because I think that I can be so the
idea that basically i've had this before. I think I
(04:07):
put a lot pressure on myself and I've you know,
talked at nausea about this, but not just on me,
but uh well yeah, on me, but not just because me,
because there's people who rely on me like to produce,
whether it's the show or hockey or the podcast or
comedy like there's people who rely on me, So I
do have a hard time with like there's always something
(04:30):
I could be doing, you know what I mean. Like
if we're at the station and there's downtime, I'm like, well,
we could be recording something, which is tough because then
you do get kind of like burned out and sometimes
it becomes less fun in our space, it's supposed to
be fun. Yeah, you confuse being busy with being valuable. Damn.
(04:51):
They say you wear your part pat Colend like a trophy,
but deep down it feels hollow. Busyness has become your identity,
proof you're doing enough to matter. However, it's a could
mean you fear having nothing to do means you're lazier,
not successful. I think that's fair. I think that makes sense.
And again, especially like in a business like this, where
(05:12):
like it's weird because like we are the product, you
know what I mean. So it's kind of like in
my head sometimes like math I wasn't busy. That would
mean that like the show is not popping off, podcasts
isn't popping off, comedy is not popping off. It is
kind of like that, Like, as a creative is a
bit of a trip where it's like, okay, we have
to always be busy. You feel guilty for resting. I
(05:33):
was just saying that they say rest feels like a
luxury have to earn, not a basic human need. The
guilt creeps up in the second you stop, because you've
been trained to believe stillness equals laziness. I've had this,
I think, especially you know, with Chewy passing. It was like, well,
I should just get back and doing things. And I've
had to give myself a little bit more grace even recently.
(05:55):
But yeah, like we're still grinding it out. You know,
we're still dealing with that loss and it's going to
take a while. And yeah it's been five months, but
it's okay. I talked about this with the gym before,
where I used to be like feel really bad I
didn't go to the gym, and it's kind of like
now like hey, like I'm not training to be a
professional athlete. You know, I go to the gym, you know, uh,
(06:18):
for me, not because I have teammates who acounted me.
It's okay if I need to take a nap and
say go to the gym. If you measure your day
about how much you got done. Yeah, I get that.
Your success metric is your task list. It's full, You're winning,
But you really stopped to ask, did I feel alive today? Damn? Man?
(06:39):
Actually I had that moment today walking in the studio.
So I got to the station around like three thirty
this morning, and I was like, I gotta do this,
this and this, and I had a second rise. Walked
in the lights were off and the show logos on
all TVs in turn Johnny Morning Show. I had to
stop myself and go, hey, this is pretty cool, you know,
like this is what we've always wanted to since we
(07:00):
were seventeen, and we got a chance to do that.
This is a pretty cool thing. I've been trying to
do that more and more is to like stop and
I hate the phrase stop and smell the roses, but
I actually like stop and kind of appreciate you, like,
all right, you know, it's good to be motivated, but
we've we've done big things. If you even I think
even your downtime has to be productive. Yeah, you see,
(07:21):
you squeeze rests in a pre productivity molds. You go
the podcast journally for clarity, meditation, or focus. Even your
downtime becomes another task to optimize. That's tough. Although for
me at least, like I have video games, so that
kind of is like my release because then I can
just focus and do nothing, Like I love video games
(07:41):
because I can just churn my brain off and do nothing.
That's the ultimate best. But I do get that too,
where it's like, even if I go on a walk,
it's like, well, listen to podcasts, I'll take some calls.
If I have a long drive smore, I'll take some calls.
It's like, nah, it's okay, and not do anything for
a while. This is me too. You don't want to
say know to opportunities you don't actually want. Again, in
(08:03):
our industry, it's kind of tough because it's like, you know,
the idea of like all press is good press, and
like you have to do everything to kind of like
get yourself out there and do things. That is tough.
I've done that before where there's a bunch of stuff
I haven't wanted to do, however, thought it was a
good look for the show or whatever else. I get
that if you feel anxious when you have nothing to do,
(08:25):
they stayed empty afternoon feels like failure. Not freedom get
panic when your schedule opens up because of that task list.
Who even are you I have that happening like when
hockey ends the hockey season, because usually my day is
like during hockey season, do the morning show, come back home,
take a nap, work on the next day's show, go
(08:45):
to practice, or go to the gym first, go to practice,
and then once hockey ends, like, oh I can I
have most of the day open. And that's like a
bit of an adjustment of like I can't just surround
it nothing because that's a waste of time. But it's like, yeah,
but as long as your other stuff is done, as
long as the bills are paid, as long as the
dog's fed and water, like you know, it's okay. Kind
of ties in this next one. You use being busy
(09:08):
as a way to avoid being emotional. My therapist told
me this once. Yeah that like the reason I was
because I my first therapist. I was like, yeah, I
had the podcast, has got a millions some listens, hockey
teams winning this, this, Yes, you know you really you
do all those tasks because you just want to build
up those walls. And I was like, oh girl, no,
(09:32):
but also yes, yeah, and I have realized that I
tend to do that. It's just kind of like have
activities going and how from activity activity so that I
could finally or rather not focus on what's going on,
but just kind of be distracted. Like I in this
podcast forgot to mention the bar. That's a huge part
of my time, but I don't realize it, you know
(09:53):
what I mean. It's just kind of like I gotta
be fel like I got to be making moves. It's
one of those things where I tell us to friends
all time or I feel like they're they're running away
from a problem that doesn't exist. I think I have
that too sometimes where it's like I'm chasing this idea
I'm gonna be lazy or a failure. But it's like
that that problem is not even in the rearview mirror.
You know, we's got a relax enjoy ourselves. As far
(10:17):
as we know, we get one go around on this thing, right,
So my playing tonight is to work on the comedy show,
play a little Xbox, watch a Netflix, take a little nappy.
By nappy, I mean pass out, have a fantastic Wednesday.
I'll see a Friday's thash hour
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