John Wyles
Download MP3This is the Happy Dev Podcast with me James Brooks and my co host John Wyles. Hey, hey. Welcome back to season 2 of Happy Dev episode 2. In this episode, I'm interviewing my co host, John Wyles. We get to learn about John, his history with mental health, and what the future holds for him.
James Brooks:Now, just before we get into the episode, I want to say that season 2 is shaping up to be really good. We have some amazing guests coming on, and they're all excited to share their experience. Anyway, for now, let's speak to John. Good morning, John. How are you doing?
John Wyles:I am not too bad. Thanks. Today feels like one of those days where I've managed to pack just about every facet of life into one day. So quite a lot to do with the kids, quite a lot to do with work, volunteering stuff, but, but, yeah, those days are quite nice. They was by at least.
James Brooks:Do you find that your schedule gets busier and busier as the year goes on or just or or even in reverse as well? Does it get easier through the end of the
John Wyles:year? I think, yeah, I think things do tend to sort of speed up a little bit through spring and summer and then I don't know. Autumn can sometimes just feel like a bit of a grind, But, yeah, I think it's just I think at the moment, it's just I've kind of taken on a lot of new stuff and it's trying to find its way into, like, the various slots of the week that I can do it all in. But it's it's good. It's good.
James Brooks:It's hard when a lot of it's not paid as well. Like, the you've got the paid stuff always has to kind of be the foundation, hasn't it?
John Wyles:It does. It does. And it's difficult sometimes when the other stuff is perhaps a tiny bit more interesting than the past. Or at least it's kind of more novel and new and you wanna kind of really jump into it with both feet. But, yeah, you have to kinda keep remembering to put food on the table and stuff like that.
James Brooks:So Your kids and wife have to eat them.
John Wyles:Exactly. I know. I know. It's so selfish like that.
James Brooks:So if you haven't listened to the first episode yet, John is our new cohost for Happy Dev season 2. It has been a while since we recorded the first episode. Today at the time of recording is the 6th March. We did actually record the first episode in, like, the 1st week of January, maybe even the second, but we've both been very busy. So editing and releasing has taken a bit more time than we anticipated, largely down to me.
James Brooks:I had laser eye surgery at the start of the year and was kind of blind for a few days and then conferencing. So, hopefully, we're getting him back onto that kind of
John Wyles:Yeah.
James Brooks:Release cycle. So shall we jump straight into it?
John Wyles:I think we should. Yeah.
James Brooks:So can you start by telling us about your first experience with mental health? When did you first realize that maybe you weren't feeling yourself?
John Wyles:And I was actually thinking about this the other day. I it relatively recently, I would say, but in hindsight, it like it probably goes back a lot further. So basically I think I realized about 3 years ago, I think it was mid tail end of the pandemic that something wasn't quite right. And it's almost like the pandemic shook it loose, but I think that stuff had been going along for a very long time. I'd just been ignoring it and sort of increasingly feeling and running on empty Yeah.
John Wyles:For a long time. And I think it was probably when the lockdown sort of eased and stopped. And well, actually going back a step when the pandemic started, it was almost like the whole world kind of grounds to a halt in certain ways, at least certainly did kind of for me and the sort of people around me. Everyone was sort of locked out. Everyone was at home.
John Wyles:Mhmm. And honestly, I I know it was a terrible time for a lot of people. People lost loved ones and so I don't wanna sort of misrepresent how how this comes across. But for me, it felt like the entire world had slowed down to my pace, if that makes sense. Yeah.
John Wyles:And I didn't feel like I was missing out on life. I didn't feel like I was sort of living a a half life or whatever because it felt like everyone was doing that. And for for the first time in forever, it felt like everything had slowed down to how life felt for me. Mhmm. So in a lot of ways, I really enjoyed those lockdowns because it felt like, oh, such a relief.
John Wyles:You know, I'm not missing out on anything. There's nothing to feel like I'm losing out on. But when things started opening up and every you know, life started getting back to normal, that kind of felt like almost like someone had pressed fast forward on everything else, and I was still stuck. Yeah. And I think at that point, I realized something's not right here.
John Wyles:And but, you know, 3 years later, you know, 3 years of fairly expensive therapy later and I can kind of like see in hindsight, I wasn't right for a very long time, like Yeah. In the run up to that, like probably most of my life, you know.
James Brooks:So do you think that you had maybe been depressed for that time or something and that's why it felt like you were unaligned from life, I guess?
John Wyles:I think I was. I think that had sort of fluctuated through life. I think I'd had spells of I think the trouble is I think I'd been very good at suppressing emotion to the point where the irony was that I actually felt pretty much like, oh, I'm on a pretty even keel all the time. You know, I I don't get hugely sad. I don't get very upset by things that would upset other people, but I almost didn't notice that I also didn't enjoy life.
John Wyles:Yeah. Like really connect with anything or very little gave me actual joy. I remember even having a conversation with my wife about it. We were out on some walk on a beautiful sunny day and she was sort of saying, oh, I feel like I'm an like an 8 or 9 out of 10 today. I was like, oh, that's nice.
John Wyles:I kind of I don't feel all right. I feel maybe a 6 today. My band was between 46. You know? I never got down never felt like I got down to a 1 or 2, but I never felt like I got to a 9 or a 10.
John Wyles:And then I realized, oh, I've been like that forever. Yeah. You know?
James Brooks:And that's a very like telltale sign of depression, isn't it? Where you don't a lot of people think that it's just like extreme sadness or like flip flopping between one extreme to the other, but for many people, at least the people I've spoken to and in even my own experience at times, it's just the feeling of meh. Like I'm neither blessed Yeah, it's
John Wyles:an absence of Yeah, it's an absence of Yeah. Of something. Yeah. Yeah. And it's sort of, I mean, funny might be the wrong way, but it's sort of funny to think back on it and to think that I felt that that was like a good thing Yeah.
John Wyles:You know, for such a long time that, oh, I'm fine. You know, everything's fine. Nothing you know, like dog in the burning house, you know, everything's fine. But I wasn't and I don't think I had been for a long time. And it's sort of come and gone through life.
John Wyles:I knew I had a good spell in my twenties whereas in a really lovely kind of house share with some people that I'm still really close friends with. And I think that period in my life felt pretty good. But then we moved to Bristol. The kids were still very little and I think that's probably where it really started to slide because I I found it very hard to make friends as a, you know, an adult with young kids. Yeah.
John Wyles:You think it's gonna be easy and it's not so much that you struggle to make acquaintances that's relatively straightforward, but to make real
James Brooks:Like playground.
John Wyles:Close friends.
James Brooks:Parent friends. Yeah.
John Wyles:Yeah. You say hello to you, but you never really get much beyond that. And yeah, I think I got very isolated when we moved here. Yeah. And it really started to take a toll.
John Wyles:And like I say, then the pandemic came along and sort of shook everything loose, realized I had to do something about it. And then looking back in the rearview mirror, I can kind of sort of see the landscape a lot more clearly than I I could at the time, I think.
James Brooks:When did you move to Bristol then? Was that just pre just before the pandemic?
John Wyles:That would have been 20 that would have been 2016, I think. It was the same year that everything kind of felt like it was going
James Brooks:Also felt wrong.
John Wyles:Trump was elected, Brexit. And like, I remember we moved here and everything was really great for a couple of months. And then, like, it felt like the world got sort of slightly turned upside down with all of that stuff.
James Brooks:Does feel like a turning point in history that like, things weren't great anyway, were they? Let's let's be honest. But but that moment, I I remember thinking, like, the exchange rate had gone down. Brexit was happening. I was like, oh, God, this is this is the end of everything.
John Wyles:Yeah. Back
James Brooks:to the states. No.
John Wyles:We struggled on, got through a pandemic after
James Brooks:that. Resilient.
John Wyles:Yeah. But, yeah, being being consciously aware of my mental health probably the last 3 years, but then looking back, you know, it's something that's been with me for a long time, I think. And
James Brooks:On the subject of kind of close friends when you move, did you at the time? And do you now have any hobbies where you kind of meet other people?
John Wyles:To be honest, no. My and I think this is probably due to a certain way of being that I've had throughout my whole life. I I tend to sort of gravitate towards fairly kind of hobbies. You know, the all the things that I'm interested in don't really involve another person. Yeah.
John Wyles:So like I play the piano or I do some DIY and build things with wood and stuff like that. It often doesn't tend to involve anyone else. Where I have found some success in meeting people is like through voluntary work. So I in Bristol here, I volunteer at the wood recycling project. Yeah.
John Wyles:When things aren't too busy, like, you know, maybe once a week for half a day or a full day, I'll go down and, you know, heft pallets around and build things with scaffold boards and stuff like that. And, dude, there are such a lovely bunch there. Really, really friendly crew who work there. And then more recently, I've started working on like a mental health support line, volunteering a mental health peer support group as a facilitator. The trouble with those things is the as a volunteer, you're kind of there to do a job and it's sort of you do get to know people and you sometimes get to know them fairly well, but it's less purely about a social connection and more of about, you about shared purpose or You're
James Brooks:there to fulfill a role for them. Yeah.
John Wyles:Yeah. And and that does actually feel easier for me. I I find I struggle more where I have to go into a situation where I'm just being me Yeah. You know, like I almost have to be useful in some way to feel more comfortable Yeah. Going into a situation like that.
John Wyles:So these days, I have so much more connection through those things, that that sort of intense feeling of loneliness and isolation isn't there anymore. But I still feel a bit sad about the fact that I haven't got a group of friends in Bristol that I just friends because I'm friends with them and for no other reason. I mean, there are a couple of people like family friends and but the trouble is most of my friendships are sort of through the rest of the family. There are I can't think of more than a couple of people in Bristol that I would go and meet up with just by myself. It's usually
James Brooks:I do think As a family. Maybe I'm I'm being, like, I don't I don't know how to phrase this without maybe coming across wrong, but I do think that men in general have a harder time maintaining and creating friendships on their own than, women. Like, a lot of so there's, there's a group of friends that I have, there's 4 lads, and their wives are friends with my wife and that's how I know them, but I would call them my, like, 3 closest friends. And then my friendships, I really only have 1 or 2, 1 from school when I was, like, 4 years old. He was my best man.
James Brooks:I'm about to be his best man we've known each other. He was like my first memory of school. And then I've got like other friends I've like had throughout college or or friends of friends kind of thing but I don't really speak to them very often. But, yeah, making my own friends now, I wouldn't if I'm honest, I wouldn't even answer again. And I and I have, like, friends in in the, like, Laravel and PHP community development in general.
James Brooks:And I'm lucky enough that I now get to work with some of them, but, yeah, actually, like, friends that I see in person and would call up if I had a problem, very few.
John Wyles:Yeah. I think there's something in that. I mean, obviously, we're talking in very more generalities when we're talking about sort of, you know, all men or all women.
James Brooks:Yeah. I don't want to kind of use that. Really Thing.
John Wyles:Yeah. We're not, but I I think I think there might be something in that. I think for me, like, quite often, a lot of the people that I meet who I really do wanna be kind of friends with tend to be like probably almost more women than men to be honest. And so there's like almost With that, there's almost like an extra layer of kind of like, well, I can't just say, do you wanna go out for a coffee? Because Yeah.
John Wyles:You might be sending out some signals that aren't actually intended or meant to be there. So it can be particularly hard when you run into those situations, I think.
James Brooks:Yeah. There's like a stigma around that that's like Yeah. Marital and societal as well like I'm not here. It's a complicated system, isn't it?
John Wyles:Yeah, it is. And I think as far as sort of if, you know, if I meet another man that I kind of think, oh, he seems really cool. I, you know, I'd like to sort of hang out with him more often. There is that sort of awkwardness, I think. I think maybe because, you know, and I think things are changing gradually, but I think there's that sort of awkwardness of men certainly in our society and traditionally finding it quite hard to express emotion and being able to just be kind of relatively honest about how they feel without having to sort of put on some sort of brave face or kind of almost laughing it off in a way and sort of yeah, it is.
John Wyles:I think you're right. There probably is. I suppose I know that this is again a huge generalization but I know that my wife made friends more easily in Bristol, much more easily in Bristol than I did but that's in part because some of that stuff involved kids and sort of play dates with kids and then getting to know moms through kids.
James Brooks:Yeah, school parties.
John Wyles:Obviously there's no reason why I couldn't have been involved in that but I always felt slightly awkward in those sorts of things, especially when you're like maybe the only dad in a room full of moms, you know, you kind of feel a bit clunky and out of place and it's harder to so I
James Brooks:feel very out of place. I also done that. I've done like groups with both kids and just being the only dad and I'm trying to like sing a song and I can't sing. I'm obviously like a deeper voice.
John Wyles:You've got the only broken voice in the room, the only best voice.
James Brooks:Well, he can't sing and he like, I'm just out. I feel awkward. I look awkward.
John Wyles:Yeah.
James Brooks:That was actually going to be one of my points on the kind of generalization I made there that that women with kids are often at groups or doing the school runs Like I do the school run as well and I know plenty of dads do too but often it's like school run and run we don't I don't know because it's
John Wyles:Yeah.
James Brooks:At least in the school that my kid goes to there's just a lot of moms doing it and the dads are just like running they don't wanna speak to anyone whereas the moms are stopping and having a chat. Again, I'm generalizing that but it is more often than not it is it is that way. And I think that's because they know each other from groups or from school. I didn't grow up in this area either so that kind of my wife knows a lot more people
John Wyles:anyway. Yeah. I've noticed a similar sort of thing as well. And also there's an element of the kind of, like, particularly with school runs and things like that. It's not kind of quality time you're spending because generally 9 times out of 10, you're gonna be interrupted every 3 sentences by a child wanting to tell you something.
John Wyles:The whole the whole the whole atmosphere is quite rushed, You know, you don't and it's it's hard it's hard very hard to get past sort of pleasantries and, you know, the sort of small talk. It's almost like there's a a threshold that you never get beyond to get to get to the point where you say, oh, this was really fun. Like, do you wanna, you know, hang out for a coffee or whatever? It doesn't yeah. It's it's hard to get to the point.
John Wyles:Yeah. Hard to get through the small talk part to get to a point where you actually feel like, I feel confident that this person would probably give me a thumbs up if we wanted to hang out. There's some other Yeah. Oh, yeah. Some other point.
John Wyles:But
James Brooks:Have you watched with you saying that your kids are a bit older now, probably not, but have you watched Bluey?
John Wyles:I don't think so. I've heard of it, but I don't think I've seen it.
James Brooks:I love the smile then like there is an episode, I think it's called cafes or something and basically the premise of the episode is that Bluey gets taken to the park by her dad, they start playing, and then this other girl comes along with her dad and the dad sit at the opposite ends of the park like not acknowledging each other, and then each morning they go back to the park and then like the other kid comes as well and then eventually the kids get their dads involved in the game, they're having a great time, and then they are almost sad when it ends as well and Blue is like oh can they come for breakfast and the dads look at each other really awkwardly like well that's not that's not how this works Whereas the kids are like let's go let's go and then the next day they kind of like they cross that threshold and he's like oh we're gonna go home for breakfast, do you want to join us? And they like go home and it's kind of it's funny as a dad watching that because I've never crossed that threshold in the park, but I have seen the same dad and and whatever.
John Wyles:It's it sounds quite well observed.
James Brooks:Okay. So moving on from from that then, what is it that you find stresses you the most or kind of triggers you into that state of depression or anxiety?
John Wyles:Yeah, I've become very aware that I conduct myself a lot based around a fear of making other people angry. So like I'll be on the lookout for even the slightest little sort of twitch in someone's face or, you know, sort of hyper vigilant for it kind of thing. Yeah. And, what stresses me out is when I feel as though I have in some way inconvenient someone angered someone been a burden for someone. Yeah.
John Wyles:And I I I often find like, you know, starting a new job for a new client, you know, that can be quite a stressful time because you don't quite know where you stand initially and you're trying to find that level of like, okay. Oh, I know if I work this hard, everything's fine. But then, like, even then, I'm kind of always worried if I have a week where I'm not quite on it or, you know, if I'm not really firing all cylinders and the work's not being produced quickly enough, I can almost feel the tension rising even though they might not have said a single word, even though at the end of that week, they might be going, oh, this is great work this week. You know, it's almost like it it doesn't matter. For me, it's an internal barometer that I can feel rising, you know, as I as I feel like I'm not doing enough or I'm not Do you
James Brooks:think that's more your own expectations than anything?
John Wyles:Oh, yeah. None of this in, you know, certainly in adult life is based on the actual reactions not universally positive obviously, but like the number of times that I've actually run into a situation where I've really pissed someone off for like very small, like I But then I work so hard to avoid it that Yeah. I don't know, it's like chicken and egg. I don't know. But yes, it's it's very much based on a sort of a template that I've carried through life kind of expecting those things and Yeah.
John Wyles:Working very hard to mitigate them before they've even happened, before they even have a chance to happen quite often. That's actually one of the things that I've noticed more recently. It's almost like I'm over correcting often which can sometimes ironically particularly with for example my wife you know constantly sort of I don't do it so much now but I used to sort of, you know, oh, are you okay? Are you feeling all right? You seem a little stressed.
John Wyles:Are you okay? You know, almost like almost sort of goading her into it almost. It's like, no, I wasn't, but I am now, you know,
James Brooks:so Ironically having the complete opposite effect. Yeah. Yeah. Why is there something wrong? Should I be wrong?
John Wyles:Pretty much. So, yeah, I I I'm I'm more aware of that these days, but that that is probably the biggest thing that stresses me out. It's, it's not being busy or like life being hectic, You know, I I'm not the best at sort of self organization but when it comes down to it, I can I can get through that stuff? You know, I I don't mind periods where I have to work quite hard or I have to sort of burn the candle at both ends a little bit, but it's, yeah, it's sort of that sort of fear or expectation of an angry response or a disappointed response or
James Brooks:Yeah. Do you think that's like a learnt behavior? Yeah. Yeah.
John Wyles:Something that you could do. I mean, like everyone, you know, you develop templates through life and then you sort of carry those templates into new relationships and new sort of connections with other people. And you can often do it without even realizing it. It was completely unknown to me until the last few years when I started sort of digging into it every week and Yeah. You know, figuring it out.
John Wyles:You Yeah. You can go through an entire lifetime not realizing the sort of patterns that you bring into everything. So whilst I wouldn't claim to have all of that sorted by any means, like, just being aware of it can be incredibly helpful. You can kind of almost not every time, but sometimes at least catch yourself and go, oh, is this like a real thing or is this just my sort of template version of how this is going that's that I'm listening to? So
James Brooks:Yeah. Sometimes I find myself reacting to something that happens in life like the kids do something and I react in a way where I'm like that's learnt behavior as opposed to how I actually want to react. And like in that moment I'm thinking, like, everything is telling me what are you saying? What are you doing? That makes no sense.
James Brooks:And then just taking that, like, deep breath and just starting fresh. Yeah, it's hard
John Wyles:With a template response to something, it's like cookie cutter, you just do it sort of instinctively and it can be very, very hard to, to do anything else. I mean, sometimes it's so ingrained. It feels like it's sort of etched in stone inside you some of those responses you have to people or just your ways of relating to other people.
James Brooks:Yeah. Even no matter how, like, no matter how wrong it feels inside your body is like on autopilot.
John Wyles:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You often notice it after you've done or said something and you're kind of like feeling regretful or maybe because and sometimes it will go the other way.
John Wyles:Sometimes you it won't be like an angry response, for example. Like someone does something to you that you don't like and you let that boundary completely slip and you capitulate to it or whatever. And then afterwards, you're feeling kind of like, Ugh, why did I say yes to that thing or or why didn't I push back on that thing? Or Yeah. You know?
John Wyles:And it's very easy for that to then become internalized and sort of it's self attack as well. And then that's when you start feeling huge amounts of anxiety around things. And, yeah, it's
James Brooks:Yeah.
John Wyles:It's, yeah. It's it's very difficult to break those templates, but just being aware of them in the first instance can be very, very helpful.
James Brooks:So as somebody that is kind of looking to change career into that way, have you got any advice for people that do want to break those templates or recreate them?
John Wyles:I would feel very
James Brooks:I don't know if that's something you've kind of able to speak about just to
John Wyles:Probably not. Okay. Not certainly not not advice. I don't think that would be right for me to be sort of dishing out advice at this stage because I haven't even gone on to one of the training courses yet. I'm just interested in it, and I've been reading about it and sort of doing my own therapy and and learning about things through there.
John Wyles:In the in short
James Brooks:Hang Hang on. We need to put a disclaimer that John's advice is not No. Do not I'm not, yeah,
John Wyles:I'm not a therapist. I I don't I don't know what I'm talking about. So just take all of this with a pinch of salt. From my experience, I can only speak to my experience. The only the thing that has helped me hugely is finding someone that I can talk to who will listen without judgment and who will The thing the thing with therapy almost is it it kind of slows things down to the point where you can actually start to spot them.
John Wyles:And the the issues you've been having in relationships with other people that have bought you to therapy will often get acted out in therapy with the therapist. And it's almost like this little sort of petri dish that you can kind of look into and sort of see, oh, yeah, the way that I've just spoken to you there or the way that I feel about you here and now is actually quite similar to the, you the way I felt about this person or this person or
James Brooks:Yeah.
John Wyles:The problems I had with that person. It's not a quick process, well, certainly from my experience, it can depending on how well defended you are against those sorts of feelings and how well almost well guarded those that little set of templates are, it can take quite a long time to strip those defenses away. Yeah. For me, certainly initially, there was a lot of intellectualizing and sort of trying to look at it all from a very logical cognitive point of view. And it took a long time, like probably a year before I started to actually feel really feel things in therapy and sort of for that to sort of come up so
James Brooks:It's good that you started to that because I know a lot of people go to therapy maybe do a few weeks, a couple of months or something, and then just think, well, I've not really I don't really feel like I've I've identified some things great. Yeah. I thought I'd stop doing that.
John Wyles:I think there's much more awareness of mental health now and probably more acceptance of the idea of people going to therapy and a lot less stigma around that. But I think there's probably still quite a lot of misunderstandings. I think the word therapy gets used as sort of an umbrella term for quite a lot of different things. So those sort of short term, if you went to foot you know, if you did like cognitive behavioral therapy for 5 weeks, 10 weeks, or whatever, that might be very useful for some people and it really might help them to almost address the way that they behave in response to certain thoughts. It's unlikely though in 10 weeks, in fact almost I would say probably almost impossible in 10 weeks that you will be able to uncover and do the work to actually change the underlying things that cause those behaviors.
John Wyles:You might find that you get some useful approaches to dealing with them in the sort of symptoms if you like in the moment, but you're unlikely to create lasting psychological change through something like that. Whereas something like, you know, longer term psychodynamic therapy, that's where you're doing the work to kind of uncover those really deeply embedded patterns Yeah. And and the reasons for them. And it's less to do with here's an exercise, a breathing exercise you can do next time you're feeling anxious. It's more like here's why you behave the way that you do and here's all the ways that it manifests.
John Wyles:I mean, it's it's rarely that kind of concrete in a session.
James Brooks:But Yeah.
John Wyles:Yeah. It's, and that's why I kind of sometimes feel a little bit apprehensive about this new wave of people talking about turning therapy into sort of an AI chatbot.
James Brooks:I think that's just terrible idea, by the way.
John Wyles:I I think I I it makes me shudder to think that there's gonna be to be honest, it's less to do with I tell you what it is. It's the people who are building them think that it's a good idea. Either they think it's a good idea or they're out to make a quick buck. If we're on
James Brooks:the same person, then I think it's to make some money.
John Wyles:Maybe. Well, if it's to make a quick buck, then, yeah, I'll leave everyone else to make their own conclusions on that one. If it's because they think it's a good idea, then they just don't understand what therapy is, you know? Yeah. Therapy is you come to therapy because there is something fundamentally not working for you in the way that you relate to other people.
John Wyles:And the only way you're gonna fix that is through a relationship with another person, a new person, the therapist in this case. And that therapist can become a container for all of those sort of maladapted ways of relating to people and you kind of work it through in relation with a new person. There is no person to do that with with an AI.
James Brooks:Right. And that that that AI isn't going to know the questions to ask you that will help you uncover yourself like the way that you I mean even just doing it like we're on a video chat now I when I mentioned blue, I could see that you smiled and I can see the response that you had to that question for instance. An AI isn't going to do that anytime soon. And even if it did, it's not gonna pick up on those like micro expressions that we as humans know or like that sense of feeling uncomfortable about something. And maybe if I
John Wyles:could see Yeah. I can see why people find them attractive as an idea because it's almost like almost like a quick fix.
James Brooks:Yeah. And ironically, there's no human.
John Wyles:There's no yeah. It's often it will be because the attraction is, oh, there's no human that I have to sort of tell all of these sort of, like, uncomfortable painful things to you. Yeah. But you're not gonna get better. This I mean, it may maybe they might be useful for some very, you know, basic, I don't know, like potentially useful for things like life coaching or, you know, some of those more manualized CBT type things where it's like, okay, try this exercise next time you're feeling anxious and maybe that will help a little bit.
John Wyles:Yeah. But what I'm worried about is there'll be a whole wave of people who think that they've had therapy and they talk to one of these and they feel worse. Yeah. You know, they feel did did has the opposite effect to the one that they want. And then they write off their actual therapy as a result.
John Wyles:They all know I've tried therapy. I tried it with an AI. Well, no, you didn't. Yeah. You said chat GPT for 10 minutes.
John Wyles:Yeah. It's not the same thing at all.
James Brooks:Yeah. I mean, even I don't want to kind of dumb on AI at all, but it really doesn't feel like the right tool for the job.
John Wyles:It's There's so many other useful applications for it. Yeah. I just feel like don't like, this isn't one of them. At least, it's not one of them yet and it probably won't be I wouldn't have thought in our lifetimes. No.
John Wyles:I mean maybe one day there'll be some sort of, you know, AI in a, you know, robot skin suit or something and maybe that will be able to do they will be able to build the the perfect therapist. But even then, like, the whole point is that you're a human being who's struggling to relate to other human beings in some way or yourself, you know, you won't get that from a machine. Yeah. It's this part of the reason why I wanted to switch careers in the first place, you know, and I've spent 16 years staring at a screen and
James Brooks:it's Getting nothing back. Told. Yeah.
John Wyles:Yeah. It's taken a toll. And I've I've I've chosen to work for myself. I've chosen to work remotely. I've chosen to work in a profession where I spend the vast majority of my days staring at a computer screen.
John Wyles:And, that will work for some people, and it has worked for me pretty well ish to up to a point. I think looking back, maybe it wasn't the best thing for me in some cases. But but, yeah, I need something different. I need something new. I need something where I'm actively forming fairly deep connections with other human beings.
John Wyles:I'm almost kind of pivoting way the other way, but, you know.
James Brooks:From class to person. Yeah.
John Wyles:Yeah. Exactly.
James Brooks:So kind of when you are feeling maybe something's wrong or even general or even to maintain everything being okay, what do you do to kind of decompress and be away from the screen?
John Wyles:So I'm not particularly great at self care and it is one of those things that I need to work on. I can kind of do the the basics like I I will I will go for a run a couple of times a week and, you know, I'll try and do this like a 15 minute HIIT workout or something like that. I don't find the exercise gives me some sort of, like, big high Yeah. Or anything like that, but it will almost sort of set the dial back to sort of neutral almost. And last year, I had a few spells of quite severe depression.
John Wyles:And what I found was that getting out for a run was almost it wasn't really anything to do with the exercise. It wasn't anything to do with the run. It was almost just a feeling of actually being in motion, you know, like Yeah. Not feeling completely rooted to the spot stuck. And if I could just get I I can't remember where I heard it from.
John Wyles:I think there might be a psychologist on Twitter that I follow who coined this term, but, it's the idea of activation energy. You have the energy to go for a run. That's not really the problem. The end the issue is you don't have the activation energy to put the shoes on Yeah. And actually get out the door, you know.
John Wyles:It's a good choice. I really struggled with that last year, but I did find that when I wrote myself, like I'm actually looking at it right now, but like there's a sort of a calendar that I wrote in would have been August last year when I was at probably at my worst where I literally were every single day, I have to do some kind of I have to plan my day, do some kind of, like, mobility, like Pilates or something like that. Yeah. Do some sort of exercise. And what was the other thing?
John Wyles:I'll do some headspace as well. And I had to sort of set myself that every single day, I have to tick all of those things off. It was time consuming to say that at
James Brooks:least get all of that
John Wyles:in every day, but it did help. And the activation energy, if you like, to actually create that plan and then sticking with it wasn't so hard but actually kind of like literally firing up Excel creating this little thing to print up on the wall, you know, that might have taken me like 3 weeks. Yeah. You know, I was that kind of place. Outside of that though, an exercise, I I find that quite helpful.
John Wyles:What I am quite bad at though is making time for hobbies without feeling guilty about taking that time. So it's hard for me to do things and just enjoy the process of doing them. But outside of that, you know, I I like I mentioned earlier, like I play piano. I do woodwork. I quite enjoy, like, having I usually have, like, 2 or 3 projects on the go, that, like, remain a third to a half finished and
James Brooks:It's a software developer in you.
John Wyles:Yeah. Yeah. Always good to have an unfinished side project. And then I go through spells as well. I'm going through one at the moment where like I'll kick off like a side project and that will become kind of all consuming for a little bit.
James Brooks:Is that kind of the excitement of the project? I'm excited, I've got these things to build, I've got these decisions to think about, and then you actually get to like the last 5%, which is like another 95%. That kind of thing or Yeah.
John Wyles:There is a bit of that. I I I finished a few of them. Like I finished one recently, it's called impossible, which hopefully by the time this goes out will be more in a slightly more polished state. But basically, it's a it's a sort of help with impostor syndrome, basically. It's a little place where you can note down your note down kind of the good positive things people say about you because quite often, like, if someone says something positive to me, I'm more aware of it these days but like certainly in the past, I would have brushed it off.
John Wyles:Oh, well, yeah. But that thing over there wasn't very good or like I'll negate it in some way. I'll try and find any way I can to sort of minimize the compliment. And one of the helpful ways around that is to start making a note of those things. So I built this little app where you can kind of put those things.
John Wyles:If not really ready to kind of internalize them now, you can just put them in there and then haven't built this bit yet. But in time, it'll maybe like email you, like, occasionally or there'll be, like, tools for things like Raycast and Slack and stuff. So if you're feeling in the need for a little boost, you can kind of ping the app and it'll give you kind of one of the nice things people said about you and
James Brooks:Even
John Wyles:Yes. Sort of like that. Yeah. Yeah.
James Brooks:I like that.
John Wyles:The idea is that not to sort of like swell your ego or anything. I think people who struggle with impostor syndrome actually have almost the opposite problem. It's it's more so that over time, you can kind of almost come to internalize those things. Not maybe not the specific words maybe, but just the general feeling of like, oh, okay. You know what?
John Wyles:I'm telling myself that I'm no good at this thing, but I've got all of this evidence to the country. So okay. Well, maybe I still feel that, but maybe it's not true. And then over time, maybe that can shift more into, you know what? I can do this.
John Wyles:You know, I am okay at this.
James Brooks:I like that as well because it takes the emphasis on the negative. And I don't know if if you're the same, but for me, the positive stuff just kinda brushes off. It's like a very, oh, thanks, and then I'm like, I'll forget about it. And but all the negative stuff if somebody's like you can't do that, I'll show you like Yeah. I will do that or it will or it's like, James was really bad at that and I'll be like, that would just eat away at me, even though it could just be 1 against a 100 comments.
James Brooks:Like that negative thing is what will sit with me more than the positives.
John Wyles:That's the one you cling to. It's interesting to hear you say you have sometimes have that reaction of like almost kind of screw you reaction. Like I show you I have that exact same thing as well. Like if there's even a hint of criticism sometimes I'll like double down, I'll sort of burn my own fuse quite a lot just to show you like, oh, I can do this, like an overachiever
James Brooks:Which isn't there. Almost. Isn't a good thing really because you can go too far with that
John Wyles:Oh, yeah.
James Brooks:And, like, work too hard on something or spend too much time thinking about it, and it it's not a healthy thing to do, unfortunately, even though it could end up with the result that you actually want. So the process of getting there is not always the best.
John Wyles:Exactly. Yeah. Unhealthy is probably the word you end up putting way too much of your effort and time and energy. I suppose, yeah, that's what you're you're burning your own energy to kind of almost, overcorrect something that was just maybe a really minor thing. Yeah.
John Wyles:Really minor. And you just you take it to heart and then you have to, yeah, double down on it, but yeah.
James Brooks:Yeah. That's cool. We will hopefully by the time this goes live, we can get Impossible in the show notes.
John Wyles:Yeah. It technically is live as we speak. It's just that there's a few things in it that I know could be done bit bit better. So, I'm kind of And
James Brooks:VPs ship it?
John Wyles:Yeah. Well, it's been shipped. It's just, yeah. And there's like a little thing in there that people can kind of vote on, like, which extension they want me to build first, like, whether it's Raycast or Slack or browser extension, I think is the other one. So, yeah, if anyone's interested, take a little look and let me know what you wanna see in there.
James Brooks:Yeah. We'll put that in the show notes.
John Wyles:Good stuff. Exciting. Oh, I don't wanna anyone to use it. I built it for me, I'm sure it's but, you know, I do I do want people to use it. But it's that's the rubber hitting the road, I suppose, isn't it, when other people start jumping on board.
John Wyles:Yeah.
James Brooks:So is there anything that you wanted to kind of share a piece of advice that you maybe something you've read in a book that helped you or something your your own therapy sessions have said that you found really kind of stuck with you?
John Wyles:That's quite a tough question. I think one of the things that I have realized in the course of some of this voluntary work that I'm doing at the moment to gain a bit of experience is that it can be very very easy to become quite insular, especially if you're feeling depressed for example or it can be very easy to sort of be looking inwards, not in a selfish way, but just in a you get very wrapped up in your own struggles or feelings or and it can be very hard to sort of realize that actually everyone is probably going through something. I know that sounds for like a bit of a trite thing to say, but being part of those that peer support group or working on that mental health support line, you kind of realize not that your own problems don't matter but they're kind of interwoven. We're all struggling, you know, and it's that Yeah. Whole thing of the human condition and it can be quite easy to lose sight of that if you're able to, in whatever way, zoom out a tiny bit and kind of just realize I am struggling and that does matter, but there are other people who are struggling as well.
John Wyles:And actually, even though it can be incredibly difficult to do, seeking out, you know, support with other people that are going through similar sorts of things or even different things, but just, you know, you can they're also struggling. It's almost like, you can boil everything down to Yeah. That feeling of life is hard sometimes. And it doesn't matter really how you got to that point or how you're even feeling about it. It's just that we're all struggling and it that can feel it can be probably quite easy for that to feel like something that negates your own sense of difficulty or struggle.
John Wyles:But if you can do it in a way that doesn't do that, but like helps you to feel connected, that can be quite a healing thing in itself. Not everyone can afford to go and see a therapist. You know, that's that's a relatively privileged thing to be able to do and I am aware of that. But there are often groups around that can
James Brooks:Yeah.
John Wyles:Provide you with that kind of little feeling of connection, you know, that which can really help to sort of lift you out of that feeling of feeling like everything is awful and it's all in me and there's nothing I can do about it. Yeah. I don't know if that's useful advice, but I would say, you know, if you are feeling along those lines and maybe therapy isn't an option for you or you just don't feel ready for it, maybe seek out like a support group somewhere where you can feel just that little feeling of connection, those threads of connection with other people. You It won't solve all your problems, but it will hopefully lift you just slightly out of yourself just so you can kinda see that there are other options out there.
James Brooks:Not feeling lonely or alone in something because well is always a is always a good help.
John Wyles:Mhmm.
James Brooks:You might not be having the same problems like you say, but knowing that you're not the only one that feels, not yourself
John Wyles:Yeah.
James Brooks:Is nice because especially in the age of social media seeing people post pictures where they're happy or they're traveling or they're I don't know, they've had a baby or whatever it might be and you looking in to that is very you're looking into a very small rectangle that does not paint the whole picture. I think, like you say, zooming out, if you zoom out of that picture and you take in the whole world view of of that person that you're looking at, not everything is a 100%.
John Wyles:No.
James Brooks:So, what makes you a happy dev?
John Wyles:I think I'll answer that with 2 answers. The first on a purely development sort of point of view, I still get that little buzz that you get when you've been banging banging your head against the brick wall trying to get something to work and then it works. Yeah.
James Brooks:Yes. The adrenaline.
John Wyles:Such a good feeling. And that hasn't gone. Like, the idea that I I will probably miss that if I if I stop doing this as a career at some point. Yeah. Like, that feeling of just finally cracking something or just that kinda light bulb moment where you go, got it.
John Wyles:Okay. Now this works. That's that that never gets old. But on a broader level, maybe I've just been very lucky, but I've just worked with some really, really lovely people. I'd start name checking, but I don't wanna start Yeah.
John Wyles:Forgetting anyone's. But I've worked with some people that I'm really fond of, and I think, yeah, I think that's what brings me most joy is finding myself in a little team with people who just get along with each other. They wanna do good work, but it's almost like the work is all kind of almost inside benefit almost like it's just it's just nice building things with other people. And I think I think that's what probably makes me most happy in the job. And like I say, I've just been very fortunate to work with some really great people over the years.
John Wyles:So, yeah, the people, there you go.
James Brooks:That's a good answer, I like that. Okay, well, that brings us to the end of episode 2 of series
John Wyles:2. Thanks, James.
James Brooks:No worries. Thank you very much, John.
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