Episode 15 - Part 1: Success → Self-Sabotage → Rebuild | Chasing Passion | Greg’s Story

Today’s episode is a real one. We’re sitting down with Greg Johnstone, and this is a story about success, self-sabotage, and what it actually takes to rebuild your life. Greg didn’t come from a place with a clear blueprint for success. He figured things out as he went, built a scrappy mindset, and found ways to win in different areas.

 But at the same time, there was always a pattern running in the background. Find success, reward it, lose control, and repeat. Drinking became the answer to everything. Stress, celebration, bad days, good days… it didn’t matter. And even when things looked good on the outside, there was no real fulfillment behind it. 

Eventually, that path led him to start chasing something he actually cared about, getting into content and comedy, making people laugh, and finding a real sense of purpose for the first time. But the patterns didn’t just disappear. And when he became a father, everything started to hit different. Because now it wasn’t just about him anymore. it was about the example he was setting, and the life he was building for his son. 

This episode dives into that turning point, the moment where he realized he was still stuck in the same cycle, and what it took to finally start breaking it. If you’ve ever felt like you keep starting over or like you can’t hold onto the progress you make, this one’s going to hit.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today's episode is a real one. We're sitting down with Greg Johnstone, and this is a story about success, self-sabotage, and what it actually takes to rebuild your life. Greg didn't come from a place with a clear blueprint for success. He figured things out as he went, built a scrappy mindset, and found ways to win in different areas. But at the same time, there was always a pattern running in the background. Find success, reward it, lose control, and repeat. Drinking became the answer to everything. Stress, celebration, bad days, good days, it didn't matter. And even when things looked good on the outside, there was no real fulfillment behind it. Eventually, that path led him to start chasing something he actually cared about. Getting into content and comedy, making people laugh, and finding a real sense of purpose for the first time. But the patterns didn't just disappear. And when he became a father, everything started to hit different. Because now it wasn't just about him anymore. It was about the example he was setting and the life he was building for his son. This episode dives into that turning point, the moment where he realized he was still stuck in the same cycle and what it took to finally start breaking it. If you ever felt like you keep starting over or like you can't hold on to the progress you make, this one's going to hit.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

All right, everybody. Welcome back. This is episode 15 of the Prime Parent Podcast. And today we have a special guest with us. We have Greg Johnstone here today, and we are going to be going through his story and a few of the big things that we're going to be talking about. Obviously, his past story and how he got to where he is today. Like most people that we deal with, we're going to be talking about the past and how we're getting into the future and where they are now. But the biggest things that we're going to dive into are some of the struggles that Greg had in the past. We're going to be talking about how he had some great success with his tennis career, how he had some great success with his new passions, which is now his comedy and his content. He now has over 4 million followers throughout all the social media accounts, which is absolutely amazing. He's crushing it. But there were some bumps along the way that we are going to dive into. We're also going to be talking about his path as being a parent and how that really kind of changed and got him to where he is today. And we're going to start this up, man. So, Greg, welcome, man. How are you doing today? I'm good, boys. Thanks for thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

I just want to jump in, Mr. Gregory, and um say like a lot of these stories and a lot of these things we talk about, we always see the positive, right? We always see the growth. And I think today's episode is gonna be um awesome in a sense, like we're gonna show the path and the road of what it took to get over four million followers, right? And uh how he's currently um positioned himself, right? Like, I don't think we we talk about that enough. Like I worked my my ass off on social media and I only got 9,000 followers, right? So like I don't think people realize how hard it is. Like when we talk about you know the growth on social media platforms, is you got to show up consistently. Um, the work ethic's gotta be there. Uh so you know, today excites me, and we're uh super excited to have you on, my man. Uh so why don't we start with this, bro? Why don't you you just give us a little bit of you know history of you know what you've done, how how you ended up, you know, into the Instagram world.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Well, I'll give you the I'll give you the full background. I'll give you how I ended up in this exact moment right now. So uh so born born and raised in in the UK, uh, lived there till I was 18 years old. Um, I know we're gonna get into parents. It is the prime parent podcast. And so I can quickly throw out that uh, you know, something uh a little a little unorthodox about that. Met my dad when I was uh 16 years old. Um grew up with just uh, you know, me and my mom and then had a stepdad mixed in there for a little bit, moved out of my house when I was 16, um, you know, grew up playing tennis, uh was one of the top juniors in in the United Kingdom. Uh, 18 years old, move over to the States. Um full scholarship to play for Moorhead State University, home of Phil Sims.

SPEAKER_05 4:12

Um wow, I didn't know that. There you go. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

All right, that's so I tell people for the longest time I used to tell people I was the second best athlete ever to come out of that school. Then you guys remember Kenneth Fareed? Kenneth Farid. In the NBA? Yeah. The big animal. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He went there too. So that pushed me down to number three. You're three now. Um and then uh and then had a really successful college tennis career for a couple of years, uh, transferred to the University of Kentucky when I was one of the top 50 players in Division I. Um, messed that up pretty good. Okay. Um so I took a little step backwards there, kind of lost my mind a little bit. Uh went back to Moorhead State, graduated um right as the world exploded in 2008. I had all these dreams about getting into the comedy world back then. That was sort of really my passion.

SPEAKER_05 4:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Um because there were no jobs to be had in 2008. I sort of fell into tennis coaching starting 2009 back here in New York. And did pretty well at that until about 2019, when I messed that up again. Okay. Uh, and that was when I kind of looked in the mirror and said, all right, let's, you know, what what gets you out of bed in the morning and it's making people laugh?

SPEAKER_05 5:19

Good.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

And so that's when the comedy I really, you know, started doing that and and posting it on social media. So coming up to about six and a half years ago. And, you know, that that took off. And since then I've been combining the two. Um been doing the tennis coaching, um, not as intensely as I was doing it for the first 10 years, but able to combine tennis coaching and you know, now we're at a point where we're also making a career out of making people laugh on stage and on the internet. Yeah, that's amazing. And then I showed up here today, and that's pretty much. And there you go, there you go. There was a wife and a son in there somewhere in the middle of the day. A wife and a son in there at some point. You are that one. You are on the most important thing in my life. There was a wife and my son was born in 2022.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Dan will edit that in halfway about, you know, somewhere through that story. Yeah. Then we'll come back. Maybe at the beginning, the middle, and the end. Yeah. Three times. Perfect. There you go. All right. So why don't we go back to kind of some of the tennis stuff? So, like, talk to me, like, I don't know much about your tennis career and you were into tennis. I know you say you're more head state, Kentucky. Like, did you have fun when you were playing tennis? Did you enjoy it? I know you said you were obviously top 50, which is freaking incredible. That's insane.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

So I was pretty good. So I was um, I don't know how I got into tennis. I started playing tennis when I was like five or six years old. I think I went with a next door neighbor and took a lesson. Okay. And the coaches at the club were like, hey, this this kid's pretty good.

SPEAKER_05 6:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

And then, sort of like with most things in my life, once I grabbed something by the horns, I'm just like, I'm doing this until I'm the absolute best at it.

SPEAKER_05 6:49

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

And so from about the age of 11, I started playing tennis before and then after school for 20 plus hours a week. Wow. Um I wasn't, I mean, I was good, but I wasn't particularly good. I was probably like top 50 in the United Kingdom up until about age 13, 14, because I was a really small kid. And then something sort of clicked at age 13, 14, where all of a sudden you know level just took off. And that's all. I ended up top 20 in the country, then top 15. And then by the time I was like 17 or 18, I was close to top 10. Which is good, but it's not, it's not great. Okay. Um, which is how I ended up at Moorhead State on a full scholarship rather than a bigger school. Okay. Um, I had to get a full scholarship because you know, we didn't have any money growing up, so it was moved to America, you've got to be on a full scholarship. But then things really clicked sort of my sophomore year of college tennis-wise. That was when my level kind of went through the roof. And you know, I still have Moorhead, actually. I was still at Moorhead that sophomore year. I went, I actually went, I went 25 and 1. Wow. Um I beat Louisville's best player, I beat Kentucky's second best player because they happened to sit their best player that match. Wow. Uh he probably would have beat me because he was like number 200 in the world. His name was Jesse Whitman, just a freak. But like I said, him, I beat Indiana's best player. Like I had a really good run.

SPEAKER_05 8:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

And that was when it got to the point where coaches were like, listen, if you if you want to give this trying to go pro thing a run, you you gotta get out of a bit more head state, you've got to go to a big school. Got it. And um and yeah, so I transferred to the University of Kentucky as one of the I was probably the top recruit of transferring in that that round. And then uh and got there and just some things didn't click mentally with the coach. I had a little some some personal struggles there. Okay, and uh and and from a tennis standpoint, that's where it just I I lost my mind. Like I I had some struggles and I took partying in college to a new very bad place. Would you would you say that nutcase?

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Would you say that this would would be one of the first times that like it, I mean, it sounds like you know, from a young age you've had nothing but success, right? And when you've always had success and then you hit that roadblock, you know, would you say that this could be one of the first biggest obstacles that you've faced in your life?

SPEAKER_02 9:02

It was the first. Okay. You know, I lost tennis matches, I'd bet. But this was sort of the first where now I'm I'm 20 years old, I'm 5,000 miles from home, I'm I'm having my first sort of hang on a second, tennis is not this is not going the way I want it to go. Like I'm starting to lose match, like I I'd never had a bad run like that. Yeah. And college tennis is so unforgiving because you're playing two matches a week. So if you have a bad run where you lose some form for a month, you you're playing top players in the country and you're about to go like oh and ten in a row, and you don't have any time to figure it out. That's fast. And and I looking back, I was a I was a young, I was a mature 20-year-old in some ways. Like I'd moved countries, I'd lived on my own for four years. But like in terms of needing guidance and needing some help, I just had none. And with that first sort of setback and the struggle of all of a sudden this dream of going pro is sort of sort of feels like it's getting away from me. I fell into this like, yeah, but you know what I am really good at because I'm really good at going out and I'm really good at partying. And so I kind of you know, you didn't make that decision at 20, 21 years old on purpose where you're like, hey, watch me, watch how much I can drink. But looking back now, it was like, well, of course that compounded not being able to play tennis at a high level. Like you're gonna go out and get smashed four or five nights a week and then still think you're gonna be one of the best players in the country. Like 21-year-olds don't get hangovers, but you're still drinking 16 bud lights a night, like you're gonna, you know, you're not gonna play so well. So it kind of one thing led into another. So like rather than having someone sit me down and just be like, oh, you don't become a bad player overnight. You just lost a bit of form for a few weeks, like you'll get it back. I didn't really have the coach at the time didn't help me in that way. He was an older guy. And he's at Kentucky, right? This is a Kentucky, and he really didn't sort of do I want to call it a mental health struggle that was having that probably is what it would be called now. Like I was having a really tough time.

SPEAKER_05 11:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

And the coach was not one of those, let me pull you aside and help you. He was one of those, I'm just gonna tell you how much you suck, show me, you know, try and prove me wrong. Tough. And I was like, actually, I'll show you how much I can drink. And so that's kind of what I what I ended up doing. Yeah, yeah. And then and then that was the end of it. Then there was no there was no.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

So, how long were you at Kentucky for at that point? Like you, okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yeah, and then and then I was very fortunate that the coach at Moorhead, who was a new coach at the time, called me and he was basically like, Listen, man, don't ruin your life. Don't leave, come back, get your degree. They found they That's amazing from him. Oh, he's his name's Kevin Faultman, and I give him a shower every opportunity I have that guy. He truly was probably the first person that like saved my life in a way, where he was like, Look, you got too much going for you to to throw it away in the past. Oh, that's great. So he got me back to Moorhead, and then they got my fourth year of eligibility, so I was able to play there again. By which time I'd sort of realized that I wasn't gonna go pro anymore, and I started really working on my degree, which was to get behind the scenes in comedy world and acting world and stuff. Oh wow. So this is this was uh Yeah, I knew that that's the industry I wanted to do. I didn't realize that either. Okay, wow. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Now now let me ask you this. Like we talked, you you had mentioned you didn't, your father you met your father when you were 16. Like we we were obviously here at the Prime Parent Podcast talking about parenting and things of that nature. Like, you know, I know the answer, but like, do you feel that that was a significant piece not having your your father in your life up until 16 years old to now when you finally face your first bit of adversity or obstacles that led you to become, you know, exposed to the alcohol and party and scene or Yeah, I don't know because I I think I I was fortunate that that my mum did a great job.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

My my brother and sister, who are 13 and 15 years older than me, did a great job of sort of helping me out. So I don't think it was necessarily not having my dad around that prevented me from not having the s the tools to cope with that struggle. Um, I think the problem was I grew up in a time and an environment, especially in the UK, where what was revered more than any academic, any athletic um results was well, who can drink the most? That was the environment I grew up in in North London. It was, you know, who can drink 16 beers on a Friday and still be walking? Yes. And and and like that's nothing, right? And and and I could, because that's was like, well, you better. Your last name's Johnstone, your dad's an alcoholic, you better you better fly the Johnstone flag. Like, this is what we do. Yeah. And and so, you know, my answer to any problem was, well, you know what, you you drink your sorrows away. And that's what I grew up with. That was that was the way, that was the answer. You had a bad night, just get a few beers and you you'll be all right.

SPEAKER_05 13:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

And then the problem was as well, though, have a good night. Have a few beers. Yeah, you celebrate. Yeah, you know, and that was such an important part of my life. I just knew nothing else. Yeah. Like you drink. I mean the good and the bad, that's tough. Yeah, exactly. Sunday afternoon, and the have one at lunchtime. And you know, yeah, it was alcohol was just ingrained into my life. And that's why I think when I had that first struggle, that's just what I went to. It's what I knew.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yeah, yeah. It was uh, yeah, like you said, it was common. It was what you know and it was easy for you.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

And for me, it's funny, it's because I I've known you for a little bit, I've met you a handful of times at this point, right? But I've always known, like from the moment I saw you, just you have that like feeling when you're around someone who's funny, and like you just you have that vibe where it's like, oh, he's got great energy, he's hilarious, and like you get that all the mess. So then all of a sudden, oh, Greg's gotta be here when we drink, or Greg's gotta be here or so. That's hard.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

That's it. Well, I think I think first of all, I think most funny people have haunted pasts in some way. Like we're all fucked up. Like some bad shit's happened to us, and we're like, you know what? We're either we're either gonna go crazy or we're gonna get really, really funny about it. Um, but that was uh that was the other thing too, is I sort of it was my upbringing, it was my family. We were the ones where it was, all right, well, what are the what's Greg doing? But if we're going out tonight, where's Greg gonna be? You know, he's gonna be the first call because you know, maybe they're not my closest friends, but you know who's gonna drink enough and and make us laugh and be an idiot? Greg. And and that was sort of before there was academics, before there was um tennis, before there was anything. It was all right, well, he's good for a drink.

SPEAKER_05 15:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

And that was yeah, that was the Johnstone upbringing. Got it.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

And that's tough. I I totally get that. So now you're going back to it.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

But let's find a positive in it.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Because it's it's created this, right? This this side of you that now look how successful you are in a sense of your social media platforms, right? So, like, you know, this is it's important because these things in life always happen. I don't, there's some, you know, I love saying this. Things in life don't happen to us, it happens for us, right? So there was a reason.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Oh, for sure. You know? And I think there's a lot of things in my upbringing that that led me to the, you know, to where I'm at now. My mother was an opera singer and had me doing musicals and stuff when I was a kid. So she always had me performing and singing. Uh look, my brother and sister are both absolutely hilarious. And so them being older, I almost had to like, I had to be the funniest 13-year-old you've ever met. Otherwise, nobody even knew I existed. They'd like find me under a chair, but what happened were you doing down there? I'm like setting myself on fire. Like, someone just notice me, please. Pour the water on me. Just know that I it's hilarious. Um, and then, you know, and then you know, all that stuff. So, you know, why why does this stuff happen? Like, yeah, you know, all of those things, and then you know, being that party guy, sort of you figure out how to be around people and how to be social. And yeah, and that, and that sort of leads me to where the social media is now.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

So, all right, we go through all the struggle, right? This was this was you know something that you went through. Where where did this shift take place, right? Like, you know, like what was it, right? You're you know, you you went through Kentucky, you went back to Moorhead, you realized that the professional tennis path wasn't gonna be um, you know, in the future. Where did this shift happen from like, like, did it happen directly after college? You realized, all right, time to get my my shit together, or no, no.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

So I so I went back home uh 2008 after I graduated, and the plan was to get into the entertainment world. There was some like allegedly I had a I was talking to someone at Nickelodeon and I was gonna get in at Nickelodeon at you know at age 23 and then the world exploded, the economy, the 2008 crash happened. So nobody was hiring anyone anywhere. So I went home a year after college and I was working some really you know low-end jobs just to try and make ends meet. And what that meant was I'm going out every Friday, living for the weekend, living the British lifestyle, which is work Monday through Friday, get hammered Friday, Saturday. And so I did that for about six months, and then and then sort of started things started shifting a little bit at that point where I was like, man, this is what am I doing here? Like I feel like I've got so much more to offer the world than being a weekend warrior, like working just for these two nights, like get through the whole week just to get hammered on a Friday and then somehow do it again on the Saturday. Yeah. End up moving back to the States and and look, tennis coaching was sort of the first bit where I took the job initially because I just needed a better paying job. And then all of a sudden I find out a couple months in, I'm like, oh wow, I'm actually really good at this, especially coaching young people to try and get to the level that I got to. Um and so the first initial shift sort of came when I've got to start being present for young people on a daily basis, and having, I mean again, I wouldn't ever say that I was drinking crazy uh like amount of days, but when I would drink on a Friday or a Saturday, I'm getting blacked out and I'm gonna be the most drunk and I'll show you what I can handle.

SPEAKER_05 19:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

And that started becoming detrimental when I'm like, hang on, it's I'm starting to feel groggy at work Monday, Tuesday, and I've got 14, 15, 16-year-olds who are relying on me, relying on my energy. Let's slow this down a little bit and you know, talk about what the shift was. That it never changed. I was that guy through when I had my own academy that was doing very, very well through 2019, and then the club I was at where everything was, I was crushing it, but crushing it to the point where you know now you're not really your heart's not in it, you're not in it 100%, and it's a high-paying job. And they're like, you know, we want someone that's all in here, all in every day. Yep. That's hard.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

You know, let me let me just jump in there because uh you might have said it earlier, but I know in conversation, you know, before we um, you know, before we met here today, it was you've always had some type of success, right? And like again, and I know I watched you develop these these clubs over at Old Oaks. I watched you, you know, on your journey as a as a tennis, tennis pro, excuse me, but then you know, the old Greg Johnstone came in and and and destroyed. Yeah, right, self-destructing, right? So again, just to throw that in there, like, you know, Greg's got a history of being able to build these things up, right? And be very successful, and then somehow blow it.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Yeah, and and I think the the on the tennis side, it it was almost like I was I was doing really well and being really successful in spite of myself. Like I feel like I'm, especially when it comes to young people, like I feel like I'm a good person and I want to do the best for them. So I would never let someone who is relying on me and my coaching. I'm not gonna let them down. But it it got to the point there in 2019 where I'm sort of waking up every day and I'm like, man, this isn't what I want. Wow. Like, I don't want to be doing it. And and look, I'm making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year doing this job, and I've got 60 plus students relying on me, and and I've got kids driving from the city, from New Jersey, from Connecticut coming to train at my program. Like, we've got everybody. That's amazing. And but I'm just like not fulfilled at all. And I think ultimately when that rather than maybe get out of it the right way and say, listen, I've got to follow my passion, I've got to make an adjustment, I've got to find that's when I would go into self destruct mode. And almost, you know, like the the guy that needs to get dumped by the girlfriend because he won't do it himself. That was me like in the professional world. I was like, I'm gonna fuck this up enough with lack of effort, with and again, I'm not dogging it, but when you're in that type of job and it's a lot of money, like they expect prime, they expect to be the best effort.

SPEAKER_03 21:59

They want you to be the best.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

All right, so I'll go out and drink on a Saturday night and I'll be a little hungover at work on a Sunday, which when they're paying you that much money, they'll notice. And it's like I'll just sabotage everything enough for them to kind of push to push me out. But simultaneously be stupid enough to not actually realize that that's what I'm doing. And so that when they pull the rug from under you, now you go, oh, well, how did this happen? What did I do? And then looking back, you're like, well, of course, that's kind of what you wanted, but you just couldn't muscle up and do it the right way. So you just forced them to do it.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Let's talk about that, right? It's uh you you talk about going through the motions in a career where you just, you know, one day woke up not feeling like this was for you. You weren't fulfilled, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Like, well, I knew from the beginning it wasn't for me.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

But so so let's talk about that because I think that's very important that people need to hear. Because a lot, it's not just you. So many of us live a lifestyle where we wake up and I like, you know, we we have conversations, I have conversations with people all the time that that are still going through motions. And, you know, it's like it's just something that's comfortable for them. It comes to a point like where you gotta say, fuck it. And if you know that this isn't something for you that's gonna light you up every morning, you know, like so many people are just not aware to begin with, that that's what they're feeling. For sure. And then you have a lot of people that are aware that just will go through the motions for the next 30 years of their life, 20 years of their life, and then get to the end of the row when they're done working and say, What did I do?

SPEAKER_02 23:35

So my thing was early on, I started making more money than I'd ever seen in my life. And that's not to say that I was that's not to say that I was making a lot of money. That's the problem.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Because then you were fine, you were financially hooked to something that wasn't fulfilling you. Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

That's what a lot of people struggle with for sure. And at age 24, 25, 26, 27, when the number, let's just say it started off at 80 and then 85 and then 100. Now I think I'm the the richest guy in the world making $100,000 at 28 years old. Then all of a sudden, starting at 29, 30 years old, that number goes up to like 350. And now I'm like, wait a minute. Like, I'm making, I didn't even know this amount of money existed. I'm looking up, I'm now about to buy a house and I've got money in savings and and I hate what I'm doing. Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

And it's hard to go backwards. Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

How do you remember that? And the problem is, especially in that tennis coaching world, the the the big time country club jobs that these guys, they're making 300 plus. The number two guy is making 115. So there if there was a option, 180 option or something like that, where it could have been an intermediate, then sure, but you've got to cling on to those top-top jobs because once they're gone, they're gone.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

They're gone. Yeah. Um and that's hard because now you're at these places. I mean, I don't know exactly where you were working, but I'm sure these clubs were like very prestigious, very hard. Like you had to be on a lot, like you said. And I'm sure that was also a struggle.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Yeah, and and especially, you know, the job itself is is hard. But it I, you know, I'm sort of built to be that type of if I was in the tennis world to be, because you're you're being personable, you're you're making people laugh, you're you're running programs, you're like a half tennis coach, half entertainer. So I was very fortunate that that job even existed because it fit exactly the two things that I was good at.

SPEAKER_05 25:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

But but not following the passion of purely just trying to entertain people, trying to make people laugh, it just kept chipping away at me all the time, all the time, all the time. And then, you know, that's when I start making poor decisions again. Like, you know what, let's live for the weekend. Let's get through how many days can we get through before I can drink?

SPEAKER_00 25:47

It's uh of course it's easy, great, it's easy to go that route, right? That when you're not fulfilled what you're doing. For sure. Yeah, it's real easy to make those poor choices.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

But I think the the issue that I had, and again, I I look, would I say it was because I didn't have parents really around growing up? Possibly. I hadn't I didn't know, I didn't know what was going on. Yeah, I was figuring this all out in real time as it was happening. No, I had no financial guidance, financial upbringing. We grew up with nothing. The rule was you have nothing. And I'm sure that made it harder for you. And then you're making money, you're on top of the world, you're kind of like, this is great, and like it just feeds it. And then I have a wife.

SPEAKER_05 26:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

And all of a sudden, how do you, you know, how am I supposed to tell my wife all of a sudden, hey, just so you know, we've got this lovely life. We've just bought a house and I want to give it all up because I want to make people laugh. That's that's a conversation. And she looks at me and she goes, You ain't funny. Like, I love you too, honey. Love you too, baby. But yeah, but other people might think I'm funny. And so that, and really, like it got to the point there in 2019. And again, I got a little fortunate with the pandemic happening because that drove it drove people to online comedy, which may not have existed because trying to make comedy sketches and stuff back then online was was almost like frowned upon. It was like what you're not out in the clubs, yeah, you don't, you can't handle it in the real world. You know, you sit in your face. Yeah. And so then it became like, all right, well, everyone's doing it on the internet. I just happened to get a bit of a head start, and that's when it sort of really took off, and I got and I got a little fortunate like that.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

So let me ask you, in two, you said 2019. Did 2020, I know you said COVID kind of helped you with that, but did that at that point, was that when you were getting trying to get away from the tennis when you were having that issue? Or was that when, like, did that help you get more into the just actually doing social media and online? Did that hurt the tennis career because of the pandemic?

SPEAKER_02 27:36

So I got another tennis coaching job. Okay. Um, because again, now I'm 34 years old and I've got one way to make money. So I get another tennis coaching job. And I literally had meetings with the general manager of that club in Connecticut where I was like, listen, I appreciate you hiring me as your director. I at the time, I think when they hired me, I had a few hundred thousand followers. And I was like, I my heart is in comedy. It was a small club, it it was a bit a big, big step down in that industry in terms of of how much I was making and everything. But the guy knew he was like, okay, this is I guess this is what you're trying to do. And then that job lasted like a year and a half because even at that point, the club members and and general manager was like, listen, man, we we need a tennis director here, not someone who's just trying to be an online comedian. Which one do you want to do? And that was when I walked up. That was that was if I could have done the other one in 2019 and walked away and said, listen, this is where my passion is. We're not a good fit anymore. Let's do that. That's how I handled it the second time around in 2021.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Um that's a good thing, though. That was a great thing. I mean, you're you learn, you learn from a previous experience, which a lot of people don't.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Yeah, you were aware of that. And then so, you know, did COVID help? It was a that was a weird time for everybody. Yeah, for sure. Um but what it did do is it is it, you know, I took what was in front of me, which was a pandemic. People, you know, want to hear about what's going on in the world, and sort of it, it started shaping what I do online now, which is a lot of like political satire, a lot of like news updates and and comedy, like almost like the daily show in two-minute long form on my own page. Yeah, that allowed me to do that while everybody else was you know doing the renegade and whatever other dance models people were doing in 20 years. You were doing the company. I was the only grown-up on there trying to be like, all right, let's do impressions of Donald Trump.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

But you know what? It's working out now for now, which we'll get to. We'll get there. The Prime Parent Podcast mission is for parents who refuse to just survive parenthood. They're here to lead it. We deliver the tools, systems, and strategies to help you stay ready, stay strong, and stay locked in for what matters most.