J.R.: 0:00

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 from Ventura County who, after living there her entire life, moved to LA County in 2022, shortly after getting a job with UCLA. She's currently a systems administrator and has been working in IT since 2009. So this was another fantastic episode with a good friend of mine.

J.R.: 0:23

We recently became friends, about two years ago, when she started dating a close friend of mine, and I was very intrigued by her story, which we'll get into later. We talk about her getting into the IT field and helping her ex-husband build a YouTube channel to over 700,000 subscribers, but most of what we talked about was her experience being in a 16-year relationship and navigating the challenges of having a partner who had mental health problems, but also the process of getting a divorce, which she describes as very long, complicated and messy. But I appreciate her for being very vulnerable and opening up in this recording in hopes that sharing her story might help others navigate similar challenges. So, without further ado, hope you enjoy this episode with Joanne Chin. Hello and welcome back to 1000 Gurus. Please welcome my guest, joanne Hi thank you.

J.R.: 1:10

Honored to be here. Sorry, same thing, I'm also honored to be here. Thank you for being on the show. I really appreciate it. How are you feeling?

Joanne: 1:19

A little nervous, never done a podcast before. So yeah, speaking is a little scary sometimes for me.

J.R.: 1:25

Yeah, of course. No, I think you're in good company. I think most of my guests have never been on a podcast but, like I was saying before, off camera, I think most people by the end of it they feel good. They're like wow, that was actually easier than I thought. Most of our anxiety and fear comes from the unknown, what we don't expect, and then afterwards like actually that's pretty easy, though I do have a few guests who they're like that was fun, but I'm sweating.

J.R.: 1:47

So there are those people too. So anyways, yeah, thank you again for being here. I will go into how I know you and then we'll get started. So, basically, I met you through our mutual friend, marco, whom you started dating two and a half years ago, and since then we've hung out together with our friend group karaoke crew, which is like a group of my friends that we started to go karaoke and then we'll bring in significant others like yourself and david or some other people and we do things outside of karaoke, but it's a lot of fun. We're all like similar age range and you also work at ucla and we met up that one time to do financial coaching for, like, your retirement account. I think, yes, which is really fun 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 my older guests and we're going to get into some fun topics we have not covered before, which is particularly marriage and divorce and lessons learned there. So I'm excited to learn from your insights.

Joanne: 2:38

Awesome.

J.R.: 2:39

Yeah, I'm excited to share it too. Any clarifications or what are you up to?

Joanne: 2:43

I've just I've been working lately. And just one fun fact about me Chim is not actually my legal last name. Oh okay, powers is my legal last name.

J.R.: 2:53

Oh okay, when does that come from?

Joanne: 2:54

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

J.R.: 3:07

how long have you had powers as your last name? Just?

Joanne: 3:10

curious, I got married may of 2015, so it's been 10 years, 10 years okay, so. So chim was your last name until that chim is just something I decided to have okay um 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, you know whatever you know what?

J.R.: 3:31

just joanne. I'm just gonna refer to joanne like single name, madonna, that's it exactly. And then you and marco moved in together recently, right into what city is it? Belflower? Belflower, yeah, that's where close 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 or past UCLA.

Joanne: 3:52

I was in the Palms. So like maybe five miles from UCLA.

J.R.: 3:57

Oh right, Is that south, South of UCLA?

Joanne: 3:59

Okay yeah, closer to the beach, like Venice Beach, in that direction.

J.R.: 4:04

How's the? Moving in process.

Joanne: 4:07

Moving is always a pain, no matter where, no matter what, but we were able to get unpacked relatively easily in the last bit, so we'll have you guys over soon, though.

J.R.: 4:18

You just have stuff that you need to sort through.

Joanne: 4:20

Yeah, the actual little bits and the arts needs to be hung. We got to mount the TV and just like little things like that.

J.R.: 4:27

But the bulk of it like our clothes and dishes and all that fun stuff is done one of the things that, aside from the current place where I live, which I've been there for four years, I was always moving every year and it's always a pain. But what I like about moving the silver lining is that it forces you to streamline or have less stuff, because you, by nature, can't take everything, so you're forced to remove some things or be like okay, do I really need this? And people who are in one spot or live with their family, for example, they just naturally collect more things. So I think that's one of the things I appreciate about having to move a lot, but it's also really nice to just stay in the same place, obviously yeah like that dress changes and stuff.

Joanne: 5:06

I've moved every year, almost every year, for the past six years. 2023 or 2024 was the only year I didn't move.

J.R.: 5:14

But yeah, exactly like I try to keep my stuff smaller, but even then I still have a lot of stuff, yeah, yeah yeah, no worries, I'm trying to get to a point where I'm like I'm very minimal, those minimalist or like the maria kondo spark joy sort of thing, where it's like you only really have a hundred or so things and then they're only things that are you really need, like practical or that spark joy. And I'm not far from that. I'm sure I have a lot less things than my friends, but I still know that there's a few more steps where I need to. Just okay, I definitely don't need half these things. I don't. I know I don't, they're just gathering dust in my place so many things spark joy for you, though.

J.R.: 5:51

Well, that's okay if it sparks joy like legitimately sparks joy and like you see it, and it's around. That makes sense, I think it's, for I'm referring to the things of people who just throw it in storage and it's like, then what's the point of it? Like you think you need it, but it's really a mentality of the fear of the future, like, oh, I might need this in the future, but it's really you're taking up real estate that you could just keep it at the store and they can keep that real estate for you and then, when you can buy it when you need it, otherwise you're just taking up space at your space.

Joanne: 6:18

Then you won't have it when you need it Exactly.

J.R.: 6:20

That's the reasoning is, you can have it, but then if you're not using it, it's just real estate that's taking up space money. So I try to think of it that way. When I'm like, do I need this thing? Can I just keep it at the store until I need it and then I can buy it. And it's not like it takes me like 20 days to get something.

Joanne: 6:35

I can just go to Target or whatever.

J.R.: 6:37

Hopefully, yeah, hopefully, but anyways, so glad to hear that you're adjusting to your new place. All right, so we'll go into topics. So the first topic is always origin story. Jumping off points is where did you grow up and what were some of your main influences?

Joanne: 6:51

So I grew up in Camarillo, that's in Ventura County, about an hour and a half from here north of here and I went to Camarillo High School.

Joanne: 7:00

My influences, influences I think it was anime, like I would watch Cartoon Network after school and or Toonami at night and Dragon Ball Z, cowboy, bebop, uh like, yeah, all the classic stuff. So that was. I was a bit of a weeb growing up 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 and that changed everything for me. That was a turning point and Pokemon has become my life basically. And yeah, I was so into video games I was trying to download them off the internet Because I didn't have a system like a Super Nintendo, and so I found a lot of video games that way and some of those games I found still influence me now, like the soundtracks and stuff, and I really connect with them?

J.R.: 7:49

So, aside from, I guess, them being hobbies that have continued since childhood until now, did it affect your life trajectory or aspirations, or what you do today?

Joanne: 8:00

Yeah, actually when I was younger I wanted to be a vet or to help animals. I still love animals, but since I really liked video games, I really grew attached to the computer and I really learned a lot of computer skills just trying to download these video games illegally. And one game that really got me going was the Sims. My computer wasn't up to speed enough to be able to handle it, so in I think I was in ninth grade I got a video card and installed the video card all on my own to get the sims going. And yeah, I was. I spent so many hours on the sims, uh, living my life yeah, sims is.

J.R.: 8:41

I had sims 2 or one of the sims games, but it was super fun because you can go down this rabbit hole of customization and a lot of games are like that now and also for me, like when I was in elementary, middle school, high school, like roller coaster, tycoon, oh right, and it's. I can never win, I'm always just losing money. But it was fun for the first stage and I'm like how do I do? There's never any fulfillment. It was, it's fun to have the money and then slowly just goes away.

Joanne: 9:08

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 the car so it shoots off the rail.

J.R.: 9:19

You're trying to kill your, the people who visit your bar.

Joanne: 9:22

Just to see what would happen. Of course, my ratings tanked and stuff. Yeah, like I go back to the safe point. But out of sheer morbid, morbidity.

J.R.: 9:31

I used to dunk people in the water too, just to see, because you know you're playing god. Why not?

J.R.: 9:35

yeah, exactly I just thought it was very weird, because I'm like, unless I did some hacks and just had infinite money, I'm like, why is it always just a losing game? Maybe that deterred me from being an entrepreneur, I don't know. Okay, so then you're. I know that your current career is in it, so you're saying that probably video games, anime and things like that kind of led you in that direction, as opposed to, like, maybe becoming a vet or something.

Joanne: 9:58

Yes, yes. So right as I was getting into college, I looked up like how to actually become a vet and there's so much schooling and they go to as much school or they take as many classes as like a doctor like a medical school yeah, and the medical school vet medical school is harder to get into than actual, 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 an availability thing, so you're competing with a lot of other people in one tiny little place and they don't get paid that well. So I was like and I floundered around a little bit and when I really got into it was when I was working at Fry's Electronics. I was in, I was working in returns and in returns you have to test the computer equipment like the motherboards and Ram and stuff before it goes back on the shelf. And that's when I was like oh my gosh, I really like this, like I have a knack for it and I like seeing how it works and stuff. And yeah, and I took off from there, took classes, got into the computer repair department at Fry's electronics, I wore the blue coat, fixed computers, built computers and yeah, that's how that all started.

J.R.: 11:09

Okay. So then how did you? Were there any significant milestones or progressions that got you to where you are today in your career?

Joanne: 11:18

So from Fry's Electronics I got a an internship with Oxnard Union High School District and so I worked as an intern like a help desk intern and then from there that's where I stayed in education and that's why I'm at UCLA now and I learned a lot from the people there just bugging them hey, can I shadow you? I want to see what you do at the school sites and just really being a bug, really to learn and to grow, because it's a genuine interest of mine. And that's where I became a system 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 into building your own computer? Yes, okay, I figured. But, that's a. That's one of those things where a lot of my friends are not a lot, but I have some friends who are really into building their own PC and there's like a whole thing around that. I'm obviously very ignorant to all of that stuff. I've never done that, but it seems fun. When you get into it they're like yeah, you can build, it's like your own car right when you can put different parts in, find the best ones, and obviously it's mine.

Joanne: 12:31

I did that. Look at, look at it, go, look at the shining lights and stuff. Is this I don't know? It's a lot of fun for me are you into?

J.R.: 12:38

is your setup? Are you into aesthetics like on social 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 I don't have it with me so, but that's my next goal for the end of this year. I'm going to build a beast of a PC. I want led lights and I want shiny. I want shiny everything. Yeah, so yeah.

J.R.: 13:06

I'm jealous. I think part of me I'm not into pcs and I don't really play video games. I do like them, but part of me wants to have that, just to have. Oh, this is nice. But I'm like, wait, I don't even do it, I just want to have a cool pc. I just look all flashy, like yeah, I don't know, it just looks nice, cool. So I guess, do you have any for practical career advice? Do you have any advice for people I guess we mentioned, like women, breaking into the field, because it's mostly a male-dominated field? Do you have any advice for people who want to get into the field?

Joanne: 13:32

Don't be afraid to ask questions. I know that people are afraid to ask because they don't want to look stupid, but it's just really 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 get in there and you just got to roll with the punches.

Joanne: 13:50

You just got to do what you need to do and study and learn and just don't be intimidated by the sometimes shortness of the other co-workers, other people working there they're pretty these days, it's. They're a lot more open to teaching 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 on why 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 women aren't very interested in tech and stuff and I'm not sure why. I'm not a psychologist or anything 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 an intimidation factor it. I've talked to other girls too. They're like, oh wow, you're like into in IT. I look up to you, I'm like really you look up to you, I'm like really look up to me. Oh gross yeah, red flag and they're just so impressed by, like me, just jumping in there and just doing it like, yeah, just gotta jump in there. Don't think about it. Just focus on what you're trying to achieve, don't try to be liked or anything like that yeah.

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 to not 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 automatically connect. 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, so this is the fun one marriage and divorce, easy, fun topics. So I know this is something that you want us to talk about and one of the things I wanted to ask you, but could you walk us through, or maybe give us an overview 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 for six to seven Six on paper, seven like socially Because six to seven six on paper, seven like socially because we spent the last year trying to work things out but that didn't happen, so yeah.

J.R.: 15:50

So then I guess could you walk us through how that all started, if the context makes sense so I met him at 19 at price electronics and we were just 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 married at 20. He proposed at 26 or 27. And we felt like it was right. And the feelings of love and stuff, they were real, they were real. You were real, they were real and so you were real nervous but no, and yeah, we thought we could make it work.

Joanne: 16:31

We've been together for almost 10 years and, like it, almost everything felt right. Of course, there's a few things here and there that didn't quite work like feel right, but I think that's with any relationship, our the big thing that happened was our big disagreement was kids, and so that's what eventually broke everything down. Like we thought, how do I say this? We started with, okay, maybe we can 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 I came to terms with I don't actually want to have kids. I was telling myself I can make the 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 have to have, have, you have to want to have kids Want to, want to create 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'll figure it out, we'll make a new pathway of life, we'll live a different 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's that's what eventually eroded everything. So I guess having kids yourself you realize you didn't really want to was like just raising kids, adopting or something in general on the table, or you just 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 a few months after we got married. He wanted to go back to school full time, and so he did for a couple of years but didn't finish but never go back to school full-time. And so he did for a couple years but didn't finish, but never went back to working full-time. So how are we going to raise kids if I'm the only one working and providing for him? And that's when he like explored youtube and stuff. But it doesn't make enough money to really do that much. It's great pocket change, but it does. It's not enough to support a family.

J.R.: 18:45

So maybe there was also the financial considerations on top of the whole kids thing that might've affected the relationship. You're saying that those are two big factors, but I think you also mentioned that your ex-husband had a bipolar disorder and narcissism and you said that developed over time. Correct me if I'm wrong. Could you walk us through that? Maybe what helped you navigate that situation?

Joanne: 19:04

I't know like at 19, you don't know um, mostly it was always there yeah, it was always there, like in hindsight, like when I'm, when everything was over and I was thinking about it's like, oh my god, it was always there and I just didn't know. Because mental health, like especially in the early 2000s, is not really talked about and the bipolar, it was hard living with it because it was very unpredictable and it felt like he was always trying to start fights 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, we went to therapy, a lot of therapy, what really made me come realize it was my therapist recommended me to read a book. It's called out of the fog. Yeah, out of the fog, navigating confusion and something after narcissistic abuse. It's by Don, dana and Morningstar, 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 my eyes. I was like, oh my gosh, he's almost a textbook narcissist and with bipolar. So it was extremely unpredictable. And that's when I finally decided I can't do this anymore. I like it's been so long I've been dealing with this, so long I just can't. And yeah, because of that book. That's when I realized everything.

J.R.: 20:36

Okay, so now there's an element of also, like his personality might've been very difficult to be together with. Was there anything else that helped you navigate the situation? So going to therapy and then you had more clarity on what he is or what he does or his thought processes but it did anything else help? Help understand what was happening or yeah, I guess that, unless you're saying that, once you had that realization, then it was just starting towards the separation process yeah.

Joanne: 21:03

So before that book, the, the set the therapy that the events that led up to that particular therapy session was the mushrooms, and so he had taken a lot of psilocybin, but magic mushrooms in october of Just recreationally, yeah, but he took a lot of it. Two ounces worth Two ounces of mushrooms is a lot because it's dry and one dose is a gram and a half two grams for someone his size and he micro-dosed it for a month 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 on Facebook and harassed me and his entire family every day to crazy stuff. I'm going to kill them, I'm going to do this. And that it got to the point where the cops were called like maybe two or three times and I had to, like, take him to the hospital it was CMH in Ventura to get him admitted because the case manager I don't know what she 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 to the hospital and admitted to a mental hospital after the initial like they tried to flush him out of all the stuff that he took and that was where they did all the tests and everything else and that's the that's where they came with the final with the official diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Because of all the streams he had taken, it spun him into a drug-induced schizophrenia and so they had to give him really strong antipsychotics to get him out of it. And that stuff does take a while to work and, yeah, that's how that bipolar disorder diagnosis came about. That was in 2021.

Joanne: 23:11

And after that whole episode, after he finally calmed down, that's when we tried to work things out in 2022, going to lots of therapy and staying on his meds and trying different meds and just a bunch of stuff. And I wanted to stick by him because 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 about staying on his meds, which is great, but nothing changed. He still didn't want to get a job. He his narcissism came out even more. It was like the shrooms, really. It burnt him. You can't be high for a month and a half and not have it change you rewiring yeah, yeah, it's, it changed him a little bit, so yeah, that sounds pretty intense.

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 so before he tried the shrooms, we decided, hey, this is not, this is not working. This was summer of 2021. And so I moved to my mom's and I had surgery hip surgery on my right side and he came by and visited and stuff. He went on Tinder and found people and that's how we got the shrooms. Oh, I see.

Joanne: 24:32

Yeah yeah, and shrooms has always been like part of our lives, like a little bit here and 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 forward with the.

Joanne: 24:45

Okay, let's get separated process or divorce so in 2021, we just there wasn't just one thing when you're in a relationship for a very long time, there's a lot of things that start to stack and we just started realizing like we put on a great face, but behind closed doors we were just miserable and it just felt like we were stuck and couldn't go anywhere. And the fights were just constant, constantly fighting at least once a week, and we would fight for hours or a day or two, um, and decide, yeah, we just decided space would be good and it was a mutual decision, but then everything that came after that was just a crapshoot so then, after that, once he's been on his meds, and you guys are trying to reconcile what I guess led to you guys going officially moving towards divorce, was there or did I miss something?

Joanne: 25:40

yeah, no. So we step, we separated and we were going like I was going to file for divorce or legal separation and then he before the truth, gotcha, yeah, and then when, and then you got like he went crazy and so that kind of put that on the back burner for a little bit. I did file for divorce during that because as his wife I would be legally responsible for anything that he can do. Oh, I see, and so if he hurt anybody, like did in anything, I would be on the hook for his actions.

Joanne: 26:10

And so I filed just to make sure that, like I, there's at least something on the books, a date, something like a paper trail exactly that's yeah, and after I filed, I waited until he came out of it, we talked about it, and that's when we tried to reconcile and yeah, just that didn'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 intense period 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 an insight on police and mental health and just wow, our system is not built to handle this. This is this is how schools get shot up. Sometimes it's like the police not handling. I say this because the mental health professional at Kaiser called the cops because he had left her my ex-husband left her a 35 minute rant just talking nonstop 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 about that. And she told them like he is showing signs that he's a danger to himself and others and they just ignored her. Yeah, that's to me that's insane. Yeah, that's so that was an eye-opener.

J.R.: 27:31

Yeah, we always hear about how, like, police, law enforcement aren't necessarily equipped to handle those situations. And if we were to, about how, like police, law enforcement aren't necessarily equipped to handle those situations, and if we were to offload, like, the whole defund the police, like recently? Right, it's to offload those responsibilities to people who actually can do that and not necessarily people with guns who might not make the best decisions in a heated environment. So now I guess, putting a bow on that, I'm sure there are a lot of things you could have done differently, but if you were to give your younger self advice or redo anything, or give advice to other people who might be considering marriage or maybe might be already in a sort of similar relationship or situation, do you have any thoughts on that?

Joanne: 28:07

So, for getting married, get a prenup. Protect yourself is not the most romantic thing. I get that and it's expensive, but it will save you thousands and thousands of dollars later and hours of heartache and pain. And for those who are going through that, document everything, screenshot everything. If there's any kind of physical abuse, make that police report, like write that in there.

Joanne: 28:33

I know it's hard because you're just 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 paper trail because if you go to court it will be helpful and if you testify like I did, it did help. And don't be afraid to talk to other people. I feel like I was so isolated I didn't want to tell anybody anything, so none of my friends knew what was going on. Because I I feel like I was so isolated I didn't want to tell anybody anything, so none of my friends knew what was going on because I was ashamed and I was trying to protect him. So the isolation is not good for those who are going through it and maybe, like your close friends, can help you out, find resources and stuff.

J.R.: 29:11

I had questions on prenups. I obviously don't know much about it. From what I've heard is, especially if you are wealthy or you have some sort of nest egg or something like that, it's always helpful because if you do split up, there's a lot to consider. But then there's situations where, let's say, you're together for a long time and then if one or either party is not working, and then there's a complicated stuff there. But from what I've heard, it makes more sense if you have this situation but you're saying like regardless of your wealth or income, you should still get a prenup.

Joanne: 29:40

Yeah, because you don't know what's going to happen down the road, you don't know who's going to end up making more money or anything like that, and you want to protect your assets Like uh um, I didn't do that and so a good chunk of my retirement is going to him, and since 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 the fact 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 of course, the big argument against it is it's not romantic, but it's. I know you don't want it to fail, but it's. Are you driving without a seatbelt? Are you living without health insurance? It's, you're obviously don't want to use it, but you should still have it just in case, and I 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 for other people for similar situations.

Joanne: 30:38

Advice for my younger self. Well, I would tell myself, like you are stronger than you think you are, you have a stick I don't know the right word for it but like a stick-to-itiveness, You'd stick to it. Persistence yeah persistence or something. For other people like I, I said just don't stay quiet about it. Talk to people about it, the people 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 is content creation. So I know, as an aside, you mentioned that your ex-husband got into youtube and it was the silver play award, so could you walk us through all of that? Like you said, you helped him achieve 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 they were just quaint and just what kind of short videos they were just like nonsense videos.

Joanne: 31:35

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 to explain it just like his quips. And eventually it became him opening Pokemon cards in funny locations, like in a kayak, for example. What the yeah? And because, like we would think of different places and funny places to rip them open, it got a decent amount of views and his banter would be is also part of it too. He has.

Joanne: 32:04

I would give it to him that he is extremely quick, witted and clever and creative, and so a lot of what I did with him was just being a cameraman. When we're, when we are out and about, it's hard to open cards and have a camera. So I would hold the camera behind him and record and do like slow zooms. Or there was a little bit of a series where he would go to a claw machine and just try to get the prize and I would just slow zoom and he would make comments and I would shake the camera, all dramatic and stuff. It started to get to his head and 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 just deleting bad comments instead of 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.

Joanne: 32:59

All these kids in malaysia love me because he wore a godzilla mask to be more anonymous and and he chalked that up to oh yeah, was it? Komodo dragons are really like they're popular in malaysia and so that's why I like people in malaysia love me. Is this okay, weird? Yeah, right, like weird logic links and stuff and it just as the camera person. He started to become more anxious and more like controlling over how like I was filming and stuff. And I get it because you want a certain look or whatever for your videos and it was just another point of contention between the two of us. We hit 100,000 subscribers right when COVID was happening and which was sad because we had this whole thing planned that we want to do 100,000 celebration party. But the Silver Play Award came in and it was beautiful, like, despite all the crazy things that have happened, it was cathartic seeing, like the written letter that you get from I forget who it was, but like someone in youtube yeah, yeah, someone important and so congratulating, thank you important person.

J.R.: 34:11

Yeah, this letter to me. Yeah, yeah, so, and I know the silver play award is important to a lot of content pretty coveted, yeah, yeah, and so last I checked, I in this letter to me.

Joanne: 34:15

Yeah, yeah, and I know the Silver Play Award is important to a lot of content creators yeah, it's pretty coveted, yeah. Yeah, and so last I checked I think the channel's at over 700,000. So that didn't quite make the 1 million to get the Gold Play Award. But yeah, that's what happened.

J.R.: 34:33

Yeah, interesting. So you were part of that process. A few questions how long did that take from the start of it? I don't know if there was a point where it's okay, this is all casual, and then it ramps up after time. Sometimes that's what happens. You don't just start off the gate 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 serious about building this following that worked for you guys? I want to say it was like the end of 2019 or so where he started the the funsy videos for the heck of it and it we had to. We didn't have a strategy, it was just mostly for fun. But he noticed that he was getting a lot of views and it was growing and that's where the pressure started to come in. He's like oh, I got to make videos like at least once a week or every couple of days or whatever. And yeah, like I said, there was no script or anything, just whatever he can come up with off the 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 little stories with the little figures and stuff, like something that kids would love. It was pretty wholesome at the it. 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 hit the 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 have been 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 primarily like shorts.

Joanne: 36:13

It was shorts, so it started on TikTok, primarily like shorts. It was shorts, so it started on TikTok and he it made him a little bit of money, but obviously YouTube pays a lot more and so he imported a lot of those TikTok videos onto YouTube and so he had a backlog of videos that he can just put up there. And yeah, we tried the long form 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 TikTok pays out, but how does YouTube do it?

Joanne: 36:45

I unfortunately don't remember. I just know it's based on clicks and number of views. There's a formula to it. I just don't remember exactly what it is. I just mostly played cameraman and just helped them like get the stuff and set things up and whatnot. He was the head of it, like he yeah, he was the creative and the editor and producer and everything so you're just like playing a sister all.

J.R.: 37:07

You're not really sure everything goes into it. So no instagram, I'm just thinking like now the logistical stuff, right like no, no instagram.

Joanne: 37:15

We, like I ran. We had a dog that was also part of the youtube channel and he has a character name and stuff too, so I would run his instagram as if the dog was running the instagram, and that was the part of it. Wasn't like creating new content per se, it was just more like a silly thing that we were doing that to help promote it, sort of, but it wasn't like a structured thing. Let's make clips on Instagram to 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 advertising or promotions or collaborations ever come into the fray and, if so, how did you guys deal with that? And I guess the second thing is advice or tips on people, cause you were. You weren't lead producing and you weren't like the creative director of the channel, but you were part of it. If you had any, I don't know advice or tips or insights for how to build a following since you were around. So collabs and promotions, and then 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 people like artists and stuff. He tried to reach out to some like 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 our character dog to get dogs adopted, but it didn't go. It didn't quite go through. Okay, as far as followers and building content and stuff. Is this a lot of work? You just have to stick with it. You have to create a schedule and just work on it as if it's your job and plan it and whatnot, like it. Obviously you have creative freedom, but yeah, this is what I can tell it's consistent yeah, be consistent and take a like.

Joanne: 39:00

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 of structure to be successful. In my opinion and maybe don't do mushrooms or yeah, yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe don't do like don't break down anything, yeah yeah, I think that's very helpful too.

J.R.: 39:17

And I only ask about the collaborations and the sponsored stuff is because I, from what I know, most content creators. They make at least 80 of their money from collaborations with businesses. Like companies. It's not necessarily at click ads or ads that just go on and it's not necessarily from tiktok or youtube. That's just paying you out per views. That is okay money. But where the real money is made is with collaborations with these big companies and things like that. And there's another beast with that.

J.R.: 39:43

But from what I've learned, it's you can have this huge four or five figure payout, but then now you're really working closely with, let's say, like Toyota or something, and then now it's a big thing, but then you can pick and choose and then the platform can determine your rates and stuff like that.

J.R.: 39:57

But that's kind of like the game of content creators. And that's one of the things that kind of turned me off about content creation is when we did our content creation. It's like we have a brand and what we want to do, and I'm definitely saying no to 90% of these because they don't fit our brand or audience. But when it does fit, then it takes a lot of effort, because you need to appease the brand's image, what they want out of it, and then they always want you to deliver results. But you can't control the algorithm either. So it was hit or miss. I'm like I, we can't promise you like I don't know, you will pay you X amount per X amount of views, but no, we did the work and we're sending it to our audience. You need to pay us for what that is.

Joanne: 40:40

If it does, the algorithm doesn't like it then that's your loss. Yeah, it's aggravating in that sense 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 strategic and smart, and what trends are out there that that are working? But yeah, that's just a game for 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 millions of 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 on to 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 for marriage. Did I say that it takes more than love? Uh, good, yeah. So what does it take for a good marriage, john? So just love and feelings, right, yeah, yeah, no plans, a little bit of, a little bit of mushrooms yeah, but yeah like a marriage takes so much more than love to build.

Joanne: 41:33

Love is the foundation. Without that you don't have anything Just business partners yeah.

Joanne: 41:39

It takes love, and getting married is like a business partner, the business being your life, and so buying a house, having kids and all that stuff, their life plans doesn't have to be exactly the same, but they need to be able to compliment each other. It just there's a lot of compromises you have to make too with marriage to make things work and understanding, and you either grow together or you grow apart, and that's it's that's it. To grow together, it takes a lot of work, a lot of nurturing and understanding and all that fun stuff yeah, yeah, talking through things, trying to have a mutual understanding, safe space, communicate, grow together, 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, and you'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 some other considerations? You just mentioned family, their family's important, or both of your families getting along, I'm sure, aligning on values. It is like a partnership in business because you're merging your careers, your finances, your health, et cetera. Are there any other considerations you would ask the audience to think about before getting married?

Joanne: 43:08

It's like a ton. Yeah, there's a ton. I like I know the big ones are religious views and maybe, and political views, like maybe it's not like the top thing, but it should be like similar because it's like belief systems right yeah, it's usually what we're, that's what we're digging into is your belief systems are important, religion, politics, whatever yeah, it's everything on there.

J.R.: 43:28

The belief umbrella something to consider okay, so do you think that encompasses everything?

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 of marriage I forget the author, okay, but that's also a good one. Yeah, yeah, what were the main takeaways 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 away when you need help or like when you're feeling vulnerable and stuff. Be vulnerable with your partner. You should feel safe around them, 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 least one takeaway, you didn't waste your time. There could be multiple, but I think that's a good point. Okay, Ready for rapid fire? Sure, what's one of the hardest challenges 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 younger self 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 into google. Do you have I guess it's side tangent? You said go into computers sooner. Do you have an aspirational career that you would like to, or alternate universe get into?

Joanne: 44:46

I have, weirdly enough, not really. I feel like the tech industry and field is it feels right and it feels like I'm at home and I understand it and I have a knack for it, like a sixth sense for it. 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 you are, that's great. I'm just curious if you're like it'd be cool to be a I don't know cto of something I don't know I want to work in.

Joanne: 45:12

This sounds silly. It's not space industry, but like with nasa or with not aerospace is it aerospace space? Engineering yeah something like that maybe not work on the the stuff that they really work on with space exploration, but I would love to be in, like sitting next to like a I don't know, like someone who's working on the rockets or something someone who's working on the explorer for mars, just that sort of stuff.

Joanne: 45:40

I love space. I'm a bit of a nerd for planets and all that sort of stuff, so I would love to just see that okay, so maybe like a nasa position sort of thing or one of those 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 you Spoking? 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 it and learned it from like everyone I was around when I was younger and so I like people aren't looking at me, at least not that I know of and just being open and just being accepting of people have been, has been really it's turned out good things for me because I feel a lot lighter and I see more 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 a few episodes ago was saying how self-love is the root of all love. If you can't love yourself, then you can't really accept it from other people. And he was saying how if we can learn to not judge ourselves as much, then we will feel less judgment from others. I thought that was a good point because I think when we fear other people judging us, in reality the core of it is that we're just judging ourselves.

Joanne: 47:04

I think that's totally right. Like everyone's their own harshest 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 still want to do that. It's failing meaning not getting 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 you don'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 did it for six years and I stopped. I still want to do that and I but 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 in hindsight, moving out here from Ventura County to LA County and just 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'm still trying to figure that out, but I guess it's. I guess I'm more reflecting on it as a I'm grateful for it or giving myself the opportunity to do 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 and opportunity, you mean just being in a different place, or are you referring to something else?

Joanne: 48:36

Yeah, being in a different place and just, I feel so less isolated now than I have before and I have the means to go explore. I don't have anything tying me down to Ventura County. Oh, I see, and I have the funds and 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 take or 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 animation was cute, okay, I haven't seen it, but so why do you think people like it then?

Joanne: 49:23

I think people really like the animation style and it is better than expected. The soundtrack really carries the whole thing, and it is better than expected. The soundtrack really carries the whole thing, and so I will like A plus on the soundtrack. But the story was just Leaving something to be desired. Yeah, it could have been better, but I think it was written geared. It was geared towards younger people, like maybe kids or like high schoolers or something that checks 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 most worthwhile 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 Both like 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 just just investing time for myself, so I can be the better person to be able to take on whatever comes next.

J.R.: 50:29

I like it. So now, with more a commercial thing, what is a favorite recent purchase you've made in the 50 to a hundred dollar range. It doesn't matter price, just relatively cheap. That has impacted your life the most 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 I have a lot of stuff, so just putting it on shelves is great special type of shelving, or just any shelving, any shelving a nice shelf would be good, like something that's sturdy. I know it sounds it's a boring answer, but that's what. That's the most recent thing that I've recently where have you bought shelving from facebook marketplace?

Joanne: 51:07

okay, yeah, like secondhand from someone yeah, like you can find a lot of good stuff on facebook marketplace and it's lightly used and you don't have to pay hundreds of dollars for it. You can pay like 50 and it's fine.

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 on some of these things and some of these things like shelving if you don't really care about having a brand new thing. It definitely, definitely checks the box and I've actually found. The last few places I've rented were from Facebook Marketplace and they were good finds because before it was like Craigslist barely any photo sketchy right. But then I've done Marketplace and other sort of platforms but I've consistently had good results from Marketplace. So I recommend it. Check it out, okay. Last question Media recommendations. So check it out, um, okay. Last question media recommendations. So any favorite books, movies, music videos, articles or any sort of media that you share or recommend 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 fun one is dear dear girls by ali wong. They're both comedians and I kind of gravitate towards audiobooks that's written by comedians because they know pacing and when you're listening to it it sounds like a stand-up, because they read it normally right.

Joanne: 52:17

Yeah, they normally read it and both of those books just went through their career journey and what led to their success. And I learned that like it's just 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 how much success can come from good parents, like getting that nurturing foundation and confidence and stuff. I'm like, wow, okay, that makes a 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 a third of them are comedy based because they're always recommended. But I love, for example, kevin Hart's and Trevor Noah's are my favorites because they're so funny and when they read it it's amazing. And then they throw in these little anecdotes and extras and you're like damn, that was I just like smiling like an idiot walking around listening to like damn, 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, his memoir probably my top five recommended books of all time. I really like it. I would listen to it again. But yeah, I will link your recommendations in the notes. Okay, we've come to the end of Rapid Fire, pretty much the end of the interview. So congratulations, thank you, you made it, you survived. So we'll go into ending questions. 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 of socializing and so many people and so many good people. He helped me open my eyes to to having new friends and just the sounds cheesy, but the goodness of people like I are good yeah, yeah, it was kind of honestly, I was a little surprised.

Joanne: 54:03

I was like, wow, they're actually, they're not judging me and they're being really encouraging and nice and stuff and they're pure about it. I'm like what are you trying to get?

J.R.: 54:10

yeah, what's your angle yeah? And there is none, and yeah I'm really grateful for that I'm glad you guys found each other because marco is that guy. He's very the goodness of people and he reflects that out into his social circle, so he's like a good person to be around. All right, final ask, or from the audience, or final takeaways you'd like them to have from this conversation?

Joanne: 54:29

Takeaways protect yourself. It takes more than love to build a marriage, and just be confident in what you're, what you 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 can people find you social media handles et cetera if they want to see what you're up to or check out or reach out or anything?

Joanne: 54:49

So my Instagram is Hokerie H-O-K-E-R-I-E and you can message me on there if you want to find me.

J.R.: 54:56

Perfect, yeah, we'll link her social in the description. So all right, joanne, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. I think there's good insights. Thank you for sharing your story, of course, and I hopefully the audience gets a lot from it. So, yeah, I will do my final sign off. So thank you guys for being here. I really appreciate it. Be sure to like, subscribe, follow comments, five stars on whatever platform you're listening to. My stats, or my metrics say most of you guys listen to this on Spotify, I guess YouTube, if you want A reminder to always be kind to other people, especially yourself, and always remember that you can learn something from someone if you take the time to listen. So thanks for being here.