Breaking Barriers: Creativity in the Digital Age with Evan

✨ Hello, I'm Fran your NLP coach, and in this episode, I'm interviewing Evan Russell about their journey of resilience and creativity.

Meet Evan (they/them), a passionate creator and tech enthusiast dedicated to inspiring creativity through platforms like Canva, YouTube, and storytelling. I can’t wait for you to hear their insights!

You can connect to Evan in the following ways ⬇️
https://www.youtube.com/@mystery_mythos
https://www.tiktok.com/@mysterymythos
https://melancholymentor.com/

Find me @ www.melancholymentor.com

As a coach, I listen without judgment, understanding that others’ views may differ from my own.

#nlpcoach #nlpcoaching #creativity #inspiration #transformation

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Melancholy Coaching Podcast
• 4:42 Evan's Journey with Mindset Growth
• 10:47 Building a Toolkit for Anxiety
• 16:47 Transforming Identity and Self-Discovery
• 21:26 YouTube Tips for Beginners
• 23:38 Mystery Mythos and Creative Projects
• 28:07 Working Together and Services Overview

Transcript

Fran: 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome to the Melancholy Coaching Podcast. I'm Fran, your host and NLP coach. Join me as I interview inspiring business owners and self-improvement seekers about their experiences, while delving into personal development, motivation and strategies for overcoming challenges. Let's ignite our creative potential together challenges.

Fran: 0:29

Let's ignite our creative potential together. Hello and welcome to the Melancholy Coaching Podcast. I'm Fran, your NLP coach, and I'm happy to welcome Evan, a passionate advocate for creativity and storytelling. Evan is a tech enthusiast who loves helping others unlock their creative potential, whether that's through offering training on platforms like Canva or sharing content on YouTube. They believe in making the tech world accessible and fun for everyone, whether you're just starting your own YouTube channel podcast or exploring new ways to express yourself, evan's mission is to inspire creativity and I can't wait for you to hear their insights today. Now I've got a spoiler alert for you.

Fran: 1:13

Evan is actually my partner in life and creative projects. I tend to be the one that talks a lot more and Evan is usually in the background with the tech support. Just for complete transparency, evan has slight audio delay. It could be dyspraxia when we're not too sure, so just kind of, you know, a little bit of patience for us today with this podcast. So, evan, hello, hello, amazing.

Fran: 1:45

I've got three main questions for us to talk around, you know, for us to have a chat about, if that's OK with you. Yeah, amazing, we're just going to approach this podcast just quite gently so that people can get to know us better as a team and you better you know individually or get to know you at all actually say better. Mind you, some people listening actually are in our audience already. So thank you very much for that. We appreciate everybody. Since I've been coaching you, you've been part of my journey. So I retrained as a neuro-linguistic programming coach and you've been right there from the early days of me learning how to do it and then so you've been part of from the early days of me learning how to do it and then so you've been part of the evolution of my coaching journey. So since I've been coaching you, what changes in yourself have you noticed?

Evan: 2:34

now these are going to be to do with your emotional intelligence, your mindset and how you feel about yourself and the world around you yeah, yeah, basically I think now I've got I don't know what's I'm not sure what sort of mindset I had before, but I've definitely got a growth mindset now. So that's, that's changed. Definitely there's been that shifted and my emotional intelligence has increased, like, like definitely, because things that used to affect me and I would could get quite upset about don't anymore. So I seem to be able to rise above things more easily. My anxieties got better because I was carrying a lot of, had a lot of anxiety okay, I'm just going to delve into that slightly.

Fran: 3:24

So with the, the coaching, it's helped you have your own toolkit and your own resources that you can lean into to support yourself. Now you're actually diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, yeah, which I know has been a big challenge for you over the years, and some of your anxiety episodes are quite debilitating yeah, yeah, no, they can be, and it can catch me unaware.

Evan: 3:51

So I'm not always sure, because it could be a build-up of things or it could just be suddenly this situation's arisen and it's like that, not expecting it, and then it can become debilitating, but then, just the same, I can be sailing along, feeling great, and then all of a sudden I just I crash. So you can never tell. You can never tell whether you can't predict it.

Fran: 4:19

With the coaching and with delving into the neurolinguistics. It doesn't necessarily mean like it's a cure for all now. It doesn't stop the original generalized anxiety disorder. What it allows you to do is have that toolkit to lean into. You have to be in a good resourcive state to remember that it's there and to be able to do it. So you still need a lot of support around your anxiety, yeah, but I think that that your, the challenge that it gives you on a day-to-day basis is less than it was when we first started doing the coaching sessions yeah, definitely, I've got things that I will pull out, like you say, of the toolkit.

Evan: 4:59

I now do daily meditations, um, which which wasn't even a thing for me before, but I absolutely love it and I do them. I do it in the morning, I do very quick ones that are guided, because I've got an app that I use. I mean it works for me. But just recently, like in the last few days, I'm thinking to myself I could should really build in another meditation, maybe like later on before bedtime. I haven't managed to do that yet, but it's on my list. So I think, even with, like, the toolkit, it's expanding.

Evan: 5:34

All the time I use journaling. I journal a lot. I journal daily, I journal my gratitude. I know how to set goals. Now, all my gratitude, I know how to set goals now. I didn't even understand what a goal was before. So I think it was like last year I set a massive goal, which was the one about getting a passport and getting out of the country and getting on a plane, because I hadn't been on a plane for years. So it was really a sticking point and I had a lot of anxiety about it and I was stuck. I was a little bit stuck so I'd kind of gone through the motions of getting the form before and then nothing had happened with it and stuff like that to get the passport. But this time I managed to do it get the passport, get on the plane and get out of the country.

Fran: 6:22

I remember that being one of our sessions actually, because by the time that nice big juicy goal was set, we then did a process of breaking it all down and just kind of bringing it into smaller chunks for you, and then you had that accountability so that each step you could achieve it. So the achievement is yours and you did that. It's the just the support of having you know me as your coach there that just gave you that accountability. So it's amazing to see that transformation, because I know that there's a lot more to come as well yeah, yeah, definitely definitely.

Fran: 6:55

I believe that we're all evolving, though. So if we take on, if we adopt a growth mindset and just believe that things are possible and carry on, carry on learning yeah, you know, we can expand our own neural pathways.

Evan: 7:07

We can expand our own, our own worlds and our own realities, and that's exactly what you've been doing yeah, and it's like we would do big, like you say, that was a big goal, but we also would do smaller goals as well. But now in I've noticed, like with my day-to-day stuff, that I do now I'm I'm creating my own little goals and writing them down and I'm just doing it like I'm not really thinking, oh, let's sit down and do a goal. You know, I'm like just just doing it as I'm doing something else, I'm writing down oh, now I want to do this, but it's just just little things yeah, because those, those habits know.

Fran: 7:42

You can start habitual practices as routines and then they just become all part of our unconscious mind. So your unconscious mind kind of steps in and it just flows more seamlessly, doesn't it?

Evan: 7:58

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. So that's something I've noticed and kind of thought that I'd got to where I was going to be. As such, I thought, well, this isn't going to be the end of it and it's not. And then every time I think, oh, I'm not sure, not sure really, what I'm aiming for, right this second. And then all of a sudden something else happens and I'm like, oh yeah, now, I know, I know now, and it just becomes clearer and I'm like, oh yeah, now, I know, I know now, and it just becomes clearer.

Fran: 8:32

So it's definitely all part of creating the reality and the version of your life that you're choosing to have, whereas if you don't even know that that's possible, then you're going to remain stuck.

Evan: 8:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

Fran: 8:43

You know, and it doesn't doesn't mean that everything's fantastic all the time or you're getting all of the things that you want, but just slowly. Things are just coming more into place, aren't they? Because how would you say, with the anxiety aside for one moment, how would you say, generally, your chosen state is so your chosen kind of emotional state is what would that be?

Evan: 9:10

probably happy, packed that happy, you know, that happy, relaxed feeling. Yeah, that's nice like I think that describes it. I'm trying to think, I can't think of any other words that come straight into my mind, so that must be it. It's kind of that happy, happy, chill, you know. Yeah, laid back.

Fran: 9:31

Happy, because that's that's the other thing as well. That with some of the coaching that we've done, is that you can blend that perfect mixture as such over the emotional states or the ways that you choose to be, and you can blend them together to make your own version of what you want, so that kind of happy, relaxed, and it means that's what it means to you. Yeah, you know so. Sometimes it's about identifying it just so that the communication's in there, but it's this, the state of mind and the feeling that brings you is unique to you and you know what that means.

Evan: 10:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, and I think that's what I'm trying to create. So, and also, like I mean with the whole journey thing, I'm just constantly learning, like I'm learning things every day. I've kind of created like my own habit, daily habits that I like to do. I wasn't reading at one point and I've managed to get it in that I'm actually reading daily now and I'm getting through books. I'm not getting through them really, really, really quickly, but I think I've read one, two, three books this year.

Fran: 10:40

Well, apparently time's a relative concept, so you can make up your own. So your timeline is your own to deal with and there's no kind of judgment for that at all. I'm going to just divulge something to anybody listening, which I know is with permission, because obviously Bevan and I are partners, so we know what we can speak publicly about. Now you have a couple of diagnosed medical conditions that bring you into the disability bracket as such, and it that's that in itself has been quite a long process of trying to work out what it was that was wrong with you, with your body, and there's a couple of things that's happened and potentially one of them leads on from the other. So one you've had a really severe case of, I think it was. Was it ulcerative colitis? Colitis, yeah, very severe, that impacted your life for a few years, yeah, and since then you've more recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. So, whether or not one was triggered by the other, because it's all to do with autoimmune yeah, and trauma, body trauma, so it could well be.

Fran: 11:57

And also they put me on some trial drugs and they've been doing research into that and they they think that sometimes that could could bring on fibro as well yeah, because you've had a lot of operations and love so, without getting too caught up in in that detail, it's been quite a really, really extremely challenging journey, hasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, very challenging. Um, so is there any more that you want to say about that?

Evan: 12:27

I mean like the opera, I mean it changed my course in life. So although at the time because obviously it's, it's there's a lot of trauma involved with that and it's it was very the operations were very painful and all the rest of it and you have to work through having being a different person because ultimately I had, you know, body part removed and things like that. So but I think now I kind of see it as like it's put me on this path because had I, who knows, but say that hadn't none of that had happened, maybe I would still be doing the same job, because I was predominantly doing shop work and I was unhappy in in the work that I, that I was stuck in and that that was getting increasingly harder to do due to your disability.

Fran: 13:12

And then, at that time, the undiagnosed fibromyalgia yeah, yeah.

Evan: 13:17

So it's kind of changed my course and then I kind of, with all the coaching and everything that we've done as well, I've realized like my identity, and I think it was like about two years ago I came out as non-binary and I changed my name. So kind of.

Fran: 13:34

I think to myself, without all of that maybe I would still be stuck, who knows so again for anybody listening, your, your identity is, is your own, and we take on identities from the moment we come into the world, really, because we're told we're either good or we're bad, or you know, we can take, we can adopt all of these things as identities. And for you to completely go on this journey of transformation of mind and body as such, because you're learning new ways to support yourself physically, you've then created as such, or evolved into, the identity that you feel you've always meant to be yeah, yeah, wouldn't necessarily have known that from the start no, no, and it's helped me figure a lot of things out as to why I wasn't happy about this and why you know why I wasn't happy about that.

Evan: 14:32

And then and now I just feel at peace, like it felt like when I figured it out I was like, oh, that makes sense. You know it was like a revelation. Yeah, I didn't really, because different generation as well, you don't necessarily realize it was even a thing. Do you know what I mean? Like no one really knows. And you guys, those light bulb, those light bulb moments yeah, yeah.

Evan: 15:00

And it came on and literally like once I realized I was like, oh, this is what I need to do. And with the whole name change thing, that was massive for me, like massive, and it felt like a weight I've been lift. I felt like weight come off me.

Fran: 15:17

So you know bi-generational. I just want everybody to know that I am Gen X, which is the most fabulous one of all yes, I'm only just, but I'm still Gen. X, only, only, just. I'm not sure if you're allowed.

Evan: 15:35

I was born in 78.

Fran: 15:36

I'm definitely Only just yeah, ok, so again for anybody listening, we're UK based, so in the UK you're able to change your name legally and officially via DeepPol. Deeppol, and I'm not sure what the version is in other countries, but I'm quite sure that it's possible for you to do that. You know, wherever you are, there must be a version of it.

Evan: 16:04

Yeah, they've just got different versions. I know that in America they can and it's a different kind of thing, but it's the same, you know.

Fran: 16:12

It needn't necessarily be that you've decided that you know you're non-binary or anything else. It could just be that you want to choose your name. Yeah, because there's various reasons. There could be an estrangement between biological relatives, or you could just not feel aligned with the with the name that you were given and want to choose a different one yeah, yeah, which happens with people, doesn't it?

Evan: 16:39

yeah?

Fran: 16:40

but again, it's realizing that these things are possible, that you can create your version of reality and you can create your identity as well. Yeah, yeah, right. So I've got another question for you now. I know, and you know, that you have a YouTube channel. Yes, so for anyone interested in starting their own, what advice would you give them to get started?

Evan: 17:05

first of all, just start. Just start, because there's a lot of people that would be stuck because they're like going oh, but I need this equipment. Oh, but I need that equipment because some some of the stuff they may have looked up, like, say, they're looking it up on YouTube or Googling it. Everyone's got different advice about it, so it might be stating you need this, this and this. They're like oh, I can't because I haven't got this camera or you know the tech. But literally, just start, because that's what I did.

Fran: 17:35

I just I just started doing it and it's just growing some people are not able to start because they're held in fear and they won't necessarily know that it's fear holding them back because we've all got limiting beliefs. However long and hard you work on yourself, there's always. You know it's like layers it will uncover something else. So there could be limiting beliefs, of fear getting started, of visibility. What will people think? You know there's. There's so many other things as well. That is what I can help everybody with. The tech side of it is what you can help people with.

Evan: 18:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Actually, I have heard people say and written online and stuff that they they were worried about what people thought if they had a youtube channel yeah that's a good point, and I was like which, which wasn't really my concern, so, but literally I was just thinking, shall I just do it? And in the end I just did it one night and then that was it.

Fran: 18:31

So yeah, yeah, no, looking back. So nice piece of advice for everybody's just get started. Can you give like a little, just a bit more, of a youtube tip?

Evan: 18:43

yeah, have good thumbnails, so design, design them like on canva, which, which is a little design app you, you can get canva for you. There's a paid version but there's a free version, so you could do it on that or any other kind of graphic design tools that you use. There's loads out there. But, yeah, make them good and punchy and the thumbnail. For anyone who doesn't understand what that is, it's literally the picture that you see when you're scrolling up and down YouTube. It's the pictures that you're seeing that are overlaid, the video. So they only like, sit on there for like one second, don't know. So as soon as you hit play, they disappear. But they're just to draw, they're just to draw you in. So, yeah, make, make them good and brand. If you, if you've got your own branding, you can brand them or not, you know, it's up to you yeah, so slightly different ways of doing it.

Fran: 19:41

However, there seems to be kind of trends and a certain look generally to you, to youtube and to your specific channel. You can create a look so I'm going to use the word we because I'm involved in this as well. So we have got some youtube channels. So one of them is predominantly run by Evan and I kind of help out with the mindset and, you know, creative ideas and that's mystery mythos and that's an AI generated channel. There will be more added to that and we're going to talk more about that in a moment. There's Melancholy Mentor, which is my channel, but Evan does the editing and puts it together.

Fran: 20:24

Now, both of these channels Mystery Mythos and Melancholy Mentor are for radio plays and dramas. So by that we get the audio of the radio play and drama that's already been created and overlay of a video. So the audio goes with a video, and on mystery myth or sits ai generated. And on the melancholy mentor channel, it's where I go filming out and about on the coast south coast of the uk mainly and if I'm traveling around then I take the tripod and phone with me and record in other places. So if you find Melancholy Mentor, there is a podcast attached to that as well, where Evan and I just chat to each other about highlighting each episode that we've got on the Melancholy Mentor channel. So, with that in mind, what's next for you, evan?

Evan: 21:21

what's next for you, evan? Right, I want to do some on location filming. I'm quite interested in in kind of getting out there. You know, getting getting out there and doing some some filming. I want to, I'm trying to. At the moment I'm doing some kind of research really into kind of maybe haunted places or places of mystery and I'm looking at paul like because that's, you know, that's where we're at, so and there's, there's quite a lot that happens around paul as well so paul is a coastal town in dorset and that's where we're actually based, so it's on the south coast of england yeah, yeah, yeah.

Evan: 21:56

So I'm very interested in doing that. Uh, what else? I've just bought a synthesizer which I'm very excited about. I haven't seen this yet no, no, no, I've only seen a picture of it myself oh, it's not arrived yet no, it's a blue synthesizer and I've done quite a lot of research. I wanted a synthesizer for a long, the longest time, like I've always.

Evan: 22:22

I've never even touched one, so this is a big deal and I'm thinking I could make my own little bits of music to go behind my videos of mystery mythos or as little intros, because obviously then I wouldn't have an issue with trying to clear music.

Fran: 22:41

Yeah, and then with the music in, if you're using. Youtube, in YouTube, in YouTube Studio, you get access to approved music. In there you can get royalty free music or purchase the music. It's not always a given that you can then use it on all social media platforms. There can be some issues with that and obviously if you own the music, you've still got to prove it as well. And whatever platform you use, if you know you're using social media platforms, it's always better to either own the music or be the creator of it and be able to prove that even then potentially there are some issues or use the pre-approved music. That's for each platform, so it can change yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

Evan: 23:28

So that's the idea anyway, with the whole thing because we had.

Fran: 23:31

We had an issue with one of our intros, didn't we? Which is why that came to mind.

Evan: 23:36

Yeah, we had to change it yeah, even though we paid for the, the track, and you get a confirmation email saying you know you you can use this for for whatever because you've paid for it, it still wouldn't clear. So so, yeah, it can still be a problem yeah.

Fran: 23:55

So there's little little challenges and little bumps in the road and we are able to deal with them because we've got that toolkit and that kind of resources. I'm working as a team as well. We tend to find on days when Evan's more tired I'm not, no At times when I'm very. I'm quite a easily distracted person and I twitch a lot and stuff like that. So quite often I've gone off chasing a squirrel or something and then Evan can kind of be the grounding force and bring me back again. So we work well as a team, I think yeah, definitely, definitely.

Evan: 24:34

It's like you say we kind of support each other, don't we?

Fran: 24:37

so it works so what I'm going to do now is just say that there are various ways of working with us. So that means, uh, paid and complimentary services, so you can have me as your coach and evan as your dedicated tech support. If you're curious about your next steps, whether you're facing a specific challenge or feeling stuck or simply wanting to organize your ideas, I'd recommend Clarity Quest, which, including a discovery call, because I'll give you kind of tips and insights during the discovery call. It's five hours of transformative coaching and that's one to one with me. It's very affordable, it's available.

Fran: 25:20

You can find details on our website and, as a bonus with Clarity Quest, you get an additional session. So, on top of that, you'll also get a dedicated session with Evan, who will provide expert support in tech, such as Canva, youtube, sharing in they're quite skilled in WordPress because our own website is built on WordPress, mailly and a basic podcast setup. Plus, you're gaining insights to enhance your skills and your projects. So, depending on what creative endeavor you want to do, and if you want to have a goal-setting, creative kind of structured process around that, then we can help you with that.

Fran: 26:05

So, evan, thank you for sharing your story and your insights. A little bit about your story. We've kind of you know, alluded to that, but we can talk more about it in the future. I believe that you've what you've shared can really inspire and motivate our audience to take that first step towards their own creative goals, because it's with. We've all got challenges, whether they be mind or body, and there there are ways of just moving forward and the pace can be set at your own you know, it's no.

Fran: 26:34

We can all like be influenced by what others are doing or what other businesses are doing or what other self-improvement seekers are doing. This, this path, this journey is your own and the timeline is your own, and we can also be good advocates for that, I think. So if you're interested in learning more about Evan and what they do, you can visit their YouTube channel, which is mystery underscore mythos yeah, mystery underscore mythos. On Instagram, which you go through phases with Instagram, don't you? Probably similar to me? Yeah, so on Instagram, you're mystery mythos.

Fran: 27:14

Now anybody that finds us on social media. We don't have a massive social media presence because we're kind of doing things a lot of the time in the background, because I'm on Instagram as well, my Instagram's like sometimes I forget about it and, of course, our Facebook group, creative Flow and Business Skill Development and Networking. So it's Creative flow and business skill development and networking. I currently at the time of this recording presumably this word is going to be allowed I'm suspended from facebook and messenger and we don't know why. So I'm working to get back, but evan's running all of that at the moment.

Fran: 27:56

You can find us via our website as well, so visit our ever-evolving website, which is because we do it ourselves, which is wwwmelancholymentorcom. So it's wwwmelancholymentorcom you can find out a little bit more about us. Find our podcast, our other podcast, our YouTube channels. We'd love you to kind of be part of our journey and we'd love it if you let us be part of yours. Yeah, if you're interested in more content like this, be sure to check out melancholy coaching on youtube. Until next time, stay curious and keep igniting your creative potential. Bye, bye for now.

Fran: 28:49

thank you for joining me on the melancholy coaching podcast. I'd love you to subscribe For queries or to connect email info at melancholymentorcom. Until next time, keep igniting your creative potential.