“Self-awareness is truth.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with Jeristotle Wells, exploring themes of creativity, mathematics, and the constructs of religion. Jeristotle shares his unique perspective on the universe’s mathematical nature, the social constructs surrounding religion, and the mystical energy of creativity.
“We are the physical expression of the universe as people and humans.”
“I try to tell myself every time I’m doing anything, if it impacts one person in a positive way, it was worth doing.”
Jeristotle is a rapper, entrepreneur, and founder of the nonprofit Raps & Apps, dedicated to empowering emerging artists. Based in Corpus Christi, TX, he uses his music and personal story of resilience—returning to his passion at 40 after building a successful business—to inspire others to chase their dreams and create meaningful impact. His work reflects a belief that creativity has no age limit and that true success lies in uplifting others.
Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? Send Nick an email or schedule a time to discuss your podcast today! [email protected]
Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089
Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA
Guest Inquiries right here: [email protected]
Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”
Click To View The Episode Transcript
Nick McGowan (00:02.077)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Jeristotle Wells. Jeristotle, what’s up, man?
Jeristotle (00:13.078)
Hey man, how you doing? It’s exciting to be on the show. I’m excited for it.
Nick McGowan (00:16.901)
Yeah, I’m looking forward to it as well. Hey, why don’t you get us kicked off? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.
Jeristotle (00:25.871)
Awesome. So my name is Jerry Stottle. I’m a hip hop artist. I like music that helps motivate people to achieve their own version of greatness. I’m also a digital marketer by profession, the websites, all that fun stuff. And one thing people don’t know about me is I think that there’s a mathematical equation to the entire universe, but I think that we’re too stupid to figure it out.
Nick McGowan (00:51.707)
Ha ha ha.
So eloquently put, man, I’d said to you, literally moments ago, that part of the reason why I asked this first question is to have something cool come up, but also it can sometimes just take us down the path for the entire episode. As soon as you’re talking about that, my brain instantly jumps to Fibonacci and just how mathematics ties into everything. Growing up, I didn’t like math and I thank God that I have an iPhone that can help me do all the math. It’s like basically,
Jeristotle (00:56.727)
Hehehehehe
Jeristotle (01:01.337)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (01:14.946)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (01:23.751)
Texas instruments in my hand at all times that can make phone calls and help me listen to music. But I’m right there with you. And it’s interesting to see how there’s sacred geometry and there’s all these things that go into it. But let’s actually dive into that a little bit more. What got you to that point of being able to understand that and see that and why are you so excited and infatuated with it?
Jeristotle (01:47.766)
I think the deep one, was really big into math as a kid. think like I understand numbers better than people a lot of times because people aren’t very like, logical, right? Numbers are logical that one plus one is two person plus person is elephant. Sometimes I don’t know why it just is right. So, I think that just as I dive into numbers and the understanding of people and the understanding of like how to build things, it just always kind of
Nick McGowan (01:55.311)
OK.
Jeristotle (02:16.836)
goes back to math and you can find like patterns and things being done consistently correctly. And I think that just experiences in life have made me really, maybe it’s more of a want than a truth, right? It’s like, I feel that that would make the most sense, you know, is if there was something that was tying this all together and not this random.
Nick McGowan (02:42.502)
Hmm.
Jeristotle (02:44.964)
collision of things that just happens to not fall apart. Like to me that doesn’t make sense, right? So I feel like there has to be some kind of unifying force that keeps everything from literally flying apart at the seams.
Nick McGowan (02:48.679)
Yeah
Nick McGowan (02:59.037)
Yeah. Are you are you faith driven? You agnostic? Where do you kind of land on all that?
Jeristotle (03:07.643)
kind of zoom out on that a little bit. think that religion is a game of telephone. And I also think that it’s kind of like language, you know what I mean? So it’s kind of like, if I had this, I used to work for the government for a little while and I had this guy, he worked for the government and he was also a pastor. And he was like, we went out to lunch and he’s just like, you know, talking about religion and think about religion. And I’m like, well, I just have a question for you. Like if I was born in China,
and I never had the opportunity to hear, you know, Christian values or Jesus’s name. And then I died, would I go to hell? Because like, if I would, that doesn’t seem very fair. I didn’t even know, you know, so like, that’s kind of for me, I think religion is very localized. It’s like, but I think it’s an attempt to get to the same thing. Like, I think religions kind of talk in similar ways, like the particular, the peculiarities and the particular rules and
Nick McGowan (03:48.349)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (03:57.628)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (04:05.103)
whatever’s are different and the stories are different, but I think everybody’s kind of trying to get to the same thing, explaining the unexplainable and trying to teach people how to live like a good life is kind of the summary of like every religion.
Nick McGowan (04:17.965)
Yeah, there’s the the system of religion. And I’m right there with you, where it’s like, that’s the system. And there are probably people that are gonna listen to this and crack the hell up. Some others might gasp and be like, my God, fuck you both or whatever. But in all reality, let’s take a step back to where you said people were stupid. Because I mean, really, I’m trying to be as most non judgmental as possible and full candidacy I spent about
Jeristotle (04:29.147)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick McGowan (04:45.149)
10 years playing lead guitar and worship bands for churches and being on back end of things and having conversations. I remember even saying to some people at church, I’m like, yeah, well, every once in a while I’ll smoke some pot and then practice the music for this. And they’re like, my God, what do you mean? I’m like, well, how the fuck do you think I figured out that finger part, the tapping part? Like that wasn’t a normal situation. But also like the religion of it and the system of it that says these rules and all these judgments go together.
Jeristotle (04:48.751)
Nice. Yeah.
Jeristotle (04:59.761)
I dare you. Yeah. Right.
Nick McGowan (05:14.873)
is not what the universe is actually made of. It’s a human construct to be able to go, well, let’s put it in a box so that we can all figure this thing out. And I’ve asked that question before. I’ve had people ask me that question too. Like I did missions trips before to like Russia and some other places and they’re like, well, what if we never heard about Jesus? Would we just die and go to hell? I’m like, solid question. I don’t really know the answer to that. I don’t think any of us will, you know, and like, I’m sure, I’m sure there are people.
Jeristotle (05:19.942)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (05:23.643)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (05:35.196)
Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Nick McGowan (05:43.825)
that say 100 % yes, and there are also people that say 100 % no, but nobody actually knows. So if we just remove the religious side of it, because that’s a system, that’s just a system that people need to feel comfort in, and it’s kind of like a gateway into it. It can be for some people. For you to be able to say there has to be some rhyme or reason to all of this, you’re trying to put logic. And I love the idea of one plus one equals two, but human plus human equals elephant.
Jeristotle (06:02.405)
Right.
Jeristotle (06:12.914)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (06:14.631)
totally makes sense. But I’m right there with you that there’s it’s much deeper than any sort of system or religion or anything like that. There’s more to it when it comes to the math. Now, if you’ve done a lot more of the research and have actually worked with this sort of stuff, I’d be interested in knowing like what you found with that because I’ve seen different people talk about even the quadrivium and Trivium, like reading, writing arithmetic and then how
earth or space and time and music kind of ties into everything. But there’s math within all that. I mean, even as a basic musician, the amount of times you’re thinking like fucking drummer, just stick to the pocket two and four, dude, come on two and four. But how is that related to what you do? And the research that you found? How does that tie into basically how you live life?
Jeristotle (06:48.1)
Right. Exactly.
Jeristotle (06:55.78)
Right, right.
Jeristotle (07:05.169)
I mean, to be honest, I really think I intuit a lot of things. I do read a lot of things, a lot of philosophy, I love math, but I also take things that I’ve learned and try to run it through my own intuition. Because I really think that people, the vision that people have and the experiences that people have are unique to themselves. Like I think that we all see a different color blue. You know what I mean? We all agree that it’s blue, but the blue that I’m seeing isn’t the blue that you’re seeing. Like our lenses are all different, right?
Nick McGowan (07:27.773)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (07:33.426)
Hmm.
Jeristotle (07:34.124)
And I think that if we kind of like again, zoom out a little bit, you know, there’s a string theory concept of the universe. think that that goes down to the string theory concept of a person playing guitar. I think those things are more connected than we know. And like the vibrations of the guitar create the sound and the vibrations of sound. think that kind of is the vibration of the universe creates all of the things that we see in exist. I saw something on maybe it was social media. Maybe I heard.
somebody say it in a speech, it all runs together these days, that like matter is just the speed at which something is moving, right? So like water is water in a liquid form, but gas is a sped up version of water. So it looks differently just based on the frequency or the vibration. So it changes based on the vibration. I’m just like, it’s all again, like you’re saying it’s all math at a certain point, but what is the math? I don’t.
We haven’t come up with it yet, you know?
Nick McGowan (08:32.933)
Yeah, I mean, even thinking about it with that, like we all were trying to find a base level to subscribe to. Like you could tell me that one plus one equals two, and we all agree with that. But that’s because we all agree that one is only one. And you put two of those ones together and you get two of those. So we all agree to that. It’s almost like money and currency.
Jeristotle (08:42.004)
Mm.
Jeristotle (08:57.939)
Yep.
Nick McGowan (09:02.289)
People say, well, this thing costs X amount of dollars and we know the dollar to cost whatever. And I mean, we could probably go a different path. That could not actually based on gold at this point. Fuck Biden. Just like, just print it off, send it out, whatever we need. Yeah. Pull out that magic printer. but we all subscribe to that. And then from there we can build upon it. And I haven’t really thought about this, but even with math, like who’s to say that that math is off because we all subscribe to that. Like,
Jeristotle (09:12.552)
Right. It’s fine. Zero repercussions. Yeah.
Jeristotle (09:29.79)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (09:32.367)
Again, I think as a musician, as a drummer and a bassist, they need to be in step with each other. But the guitar needs to hear the two and the four and understand a bounce off the snare or whatever it is. But we all subscribe to it’s one, two, three, four, three, five, or whatever we’re doing. You know what I mean? but where does that actually come from that we all then subscribe to that to say, well, this is what happens from here. Because I do agree that math.
Jeristotle (09:46.568)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (09:51.25)
Right.
Nick McGowan (10:02.317)
is a major factor to everything. the sacred geometry, the Fibonacci sequence, all of those things, but, and I don’t know, maybe this isn’t where this conversation really goes, but now I’m just thinking about that of like, well, who’s to say that it is or it isn’t, you know?
Jeristotle (10:15.508)
Yeah. Yeah. So there’s some things that we’ve talked about in this conversation so far that we’ve pointed out as social construct, but I would go far and say, what isn’t a social construct? Like, you know what I mean? Like gravity, gravity, we can start there, but like beyond that and even, okay, gravity, you call it gravity. Boom, we’re on here, but go far enough outside of the atmosphere and gravity no longer applies. like, you know what I mean? What rule is absolute?
Nick McGowan (10:29.277)
Touché. Yeah.
Jeristotle (10:45.686)
I don’t know if rules are absolute. They really depend on their environment and their situation and their social constructs. it’s like, think in one of my favorite quotes, I really love quotes is like when Steve Jobs is like, just understand that every role that you listen to was created by somebody who’s no smarter than you. Like that just breaks it down for me every time. It’s like, when you’re trying to do something, there are rules, like don’t do anything that’s going to send you to prison.
Nick McGowan (11:04.637)
Mm-hmm.
Jeristotle (11:15.287)
I live by that rule, right? Everything else is up for debate. know what mean? from that, like, and then just like, how do you create from that, that point versus like, well, everybody said it’s this, it’s like, you know, start from like, you know, like don’t do bad things that are going to get you in trouble for a long period of time and try to do the best possible thing you can for the world and then combine your ideas and then operate in that system. Not like, you know, speed limits and such, you know, but yeah.
Nick McGowan (11:15.709)
Sure.
Nick McGowan (11:41.885)
I think that ties back to religion and everything else too. think like the core basis of it is simple. Just don’t be a dick. Just simple. Just don’t. Just throughout life.
Jeristotle (11:52.425)
Yeah, literally start there. And I think some people just like, okay, I’m like super religious, but like I’m also a dick. And I’m like, well, you know what I mean? Like that doesn’t, I think you’re kind of missing the points, you know?
Nick McGowan (12:01.597)
It doesn’t make sense. I’ve actually said to some people pretty recently too, like if Jesus was here, the brown man he was would be really pissed. He’s not a blonde haired blue eyed dude from like fucking Boston or something. Yeah, exactly. They’re like, who is this? But he’d be like, no, this isn’t what I was talking about. And all the rest of us are all kind of the same. But so.
Jeristotle (12:15.131)
Yeah, yeah, it’s like they got it wrong. Yeah
Jeristotle (12:26.911)
Yeah.
It’s like if Jesus actually returned, would anybody listen to him? real life, real Jesus, like whatever. I’m like, shut up, you don’t know what talking about. Get out of here. But I’m Jesus. But no, I’m Jesus, like seriously. Yeah, whatever.
Nick McGowan (12:36.733)
Geez, for real. It’s like, yeah, we’ve heard that before. Must’ve the same thing back then. Like, yeah, I believe he was a real person. He came here and he’s like, I swear I’m the son of God. They’re like, okay, sure. Yeah. He’s like, swear to God, watch this dude’s dead. Here he comes. Wait a minute. He’s onto something here. Yeah.
Jeristotle (12:51.634)
Yeah, seriously. Yeah. Yeah. No, seriously. okay. Sounds good. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. I don’t know. We gotta get it. We gotta get rid of that guy. He knows too much. what the fuck? Yeah, no. It’s like, it’s crazy.
Nick McGowan (13:06.237)
Well, I’m glad that we got into the math and some of the system stuff here, but one of the big reasons why I wanted to bring you on was to talk about music and creativity and how music ties into what we as people do. Now there’s probably a good portion of people listen to this podcast that either are musicians, have been musicians at some point,
Jeristotle (13:22.017)
Guys.
Nick McGowan (13:34.557)
or at least just love music. I do find it interesting when people are like, I don’t know how to play music and I don’t like music at all. I feel like they may have body parts in a freezer somewhere, but teach their own. So I’m assuming that everybody has some affinity for music, if not a deep love for it. Like you and I, I’m sure we could hear things and like, my God, do you feel how that fits with this? And like, it just hits straight to our soul. But we’re all creative.
Jeristotle (13:45.131)
Ha ha ha ha.
Nick McGowan (14:03.033)
Even the people that don’t think they’re creative, they’re sometimes creative problem solvers and they’re thinking outside of the box. As musicians, we can look at that and we can use the instruments to be able to make things and create things from there and then just stack things upon other things. And like think about how many times you probably played with that keyboard in the back or some MIDI attached to it and you start to layer things to it. You walk away, you come back with fresh ears and you layer different things. You add a different progression over it.
and it becomes something totally different than the original idea. I think that happens within life as well, where people say, I want this thing to happen and then life happens the way it does, but they’ll sometimes get really pissed off about it or upset from a musician’s perspective. If we start off with an idea, like I have tracks that I’ve been working on that the idea is maybe a small hint of it, but what it’s become is something so vastly different and that’s the beautiful progression of it. What are your thoughts of all that?
Jeristotle (14:45.537)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (15:00.569)
Yeah, that’s really awesome. So there’s a couple of different concepts. read this book called Big Magic and it was, it kind of treated creativity as this mystical energy that comes through people. Like people are radio towers, right? And in a part in the book, was like, Michael Jackson would often wake up and call his producer at like three o’clock in the morning and be like, I have an idea for this song. We have to make it right now. We have to make it. And he’s like,
guys like Mike, it’s three o’clock in the morning. He’s like, if I don’t make it right now, Prince is gonna make it. You know? And like, I always treat it like, also when you, people have had those ideas of like, they see something on TV that’s like a product and they’re like, I thought of that two years ago. I should have made that. I think that ideas bounce to people and like, hey, do you wanna do this idea? And if they don’t do it, the idea goes to somebody else. It just bounces around. So the idea.
Nick McGowan (15:33.028)
the
Jeristotle (15:56.288)
is this energy that wants to be born. I think that that’s a concept. And I heard Jay-Z say this in some documentary and he’s like, whenever any real creative, he’s like, we know that we’re just whistles and the wind blows through us and songs come out. And I’m like, man, that’s like super deep. it’s like, we’re just the, we’re the, the,
Nick McGowan (16:17.425)
It’s cool. Yeah.
Jeristotle (16:24.993)
I guess it’s kind of like a radio tower is like we are musicians and artists are in tune enough to something that doesn’t exist that wants to be born. And I think the universe kind of works like that. And this gets a little mystical, I guess. But I think that we are the physical expression of the universe as people and humans. So like things that don’t exist, whatever plane or dimension that is on.
Nick McGowan (16:37.671)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (16:47.911)
Mm-hmm.
Jeristotle (16:54.788)
comes through us as humans and we birth things into physical existence. It kind of goes back to that concept of like vibration, things at a different frequency. Like if you just go from water to steam, but if you take that on another bigger level, like radio waves, we can’t see radio waves, but they exist, right? You know, so I think things can be kind of interpreted at that level. Obviously we get to the point of where we can’t understand what we’re talking about anymore, because we don’t have anything to like,
Nick McGowan (17:13.211)
Mm-hmm.
Jeristotle (17:23.941)
tangibly capture it. But I think that, you know, we know atoms exist, but we can’t see those either. Like, you know, there’s things that exist that we don’t necessarily understand. But if we take things that we do understand, we might be able to be able to extrapolate that and apply it in a reasonable way. And I don’t know, I really do feel that as a creative, a lot of times when I’m really just in the process,
Nick McGowan (17:30.908)
Mm-hmm.
Jeristotle (17:53.219)
I’ll create things and be like, where did that come from? Like, where did that even like dream? Where did dreams come from? I don’t know. Like, it’s just like, where did that, it impresses me sometimes. And I don’t necessarily, I think when I got good at being a creative is when I didn’t take ownership of all my creations. Like when I let go of the, it’s me, me, me part and be like, I’m just here to.
Nick McGowan (17:56.765)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (18:15.815)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (18:20.974)
try to make stuff that’s cool, man, and got more there, there’s more freedom in it. And when I was like, me, this is representing myself and people are gonna, what are people gonna think about it and all that? It’s so stifling. You’re putting yourself in this box and it’s hard to be in that box and be creative at the same time because you’re kind of stifling your creativity. It’s like those are opposite energies. They’re not the same, right?
Nick McGowan (18:23.26)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (18:50.852)
I think if you’re like receptive and like my goal is to make something that’s super cool, super unique, super authentic, and you follow your feelings through the creative process, like I feel like your feelings are kind of like a compass in general, not just with creativity that point you in the right direction. So I like to take that understanding and apply it to the creative process where like, if I feel like this is where this should go, then it’s where it should go. Like the end result is the end result.
Nick McGowan (18:51.025)
Mm.
Jeristotle (19:20.98)
and how people take it is how people take it. That’s not my job. My job is to create the thing. I think there’s consumers and there’s creators and we each play each role. But as a creator, your job is to create, not interpret the reception of the consumer. That’s their job. Be a critic. I made something, what do you think? That’s your job. That’s not my job to do anything about what you think. That’s on you. You know what I mean?
Nick McGowan (19:46.055)
Hmm. Yeah, that, I mean, that spans life. You know, it can be, that’s a lesson for all of us to be able to actually dive deeper into that could be really hard to, keep in our hands because just life happens and you move along and doing these things. But, especially from a musician standpoint, I remember there was, there was a time where I was in, in a band in Philly where we were starting to get big and blowing up and I could feel ego coming up, but then going like,
There’s pressure to keep creating, to keep putting out things that are better than what were put out before, instead of just taking a step back and saying like, let it just come out and let it just create. And when you start to actually step away from it, like I actually need to step away for a handful of years to be able to go, okay, now I can just create. And when I create at this point, I’m right there with you where there’s some things like, and I had kind of alluded to it. I’ll start off with a riff of something. And then like six months later,
Jeristotle (20:36.39)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (20:46.107)
I go, how did this even start? Where did, where did all of this come from? And it doesn’t matter what other people think about it. We get to be able to do us, but the life lesson with this is that it’s purpose. It ties into our purpose and it’s how we actually relate to this world and what we do. think in some ways, social media has really fucked us up. Technology is supposed to be helpful, but we as simple humans at times.
Jeristotle (20:48.38)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeristotle (21:00.999)
Mm.
Jeristotle (21:07.195)
Mmm.
Nick McGowan (21:12.103)
we’ll just grab that thing. Like there are a lot of people that go, well, these creators make all this money and do all these things and look at them. We don’t know actually what happens on the backend of all that stuff. Even the curated shit, when somebody’s got a camera following them around, you only see what they want you to see. You don’t see the full process. And you also don’t need to see that because you just need to watch your own process and work through your own stuff and do your own things. But sometimes that creative…
piece of us that wants to come out just gets like you’re saying stifled because we feel like we have to do it in a certain way, which ties into I think capitalism and us wanting to make money and us wanting to have a significant impact. So how do you actually move through life that way knowing that you may have a significant impact, but you may also not with that one specific song or that one specific thing you’re creating. And how do you keep that as top of mind as you move throughout each day?
Jeristotle (22:07.441)
So when I was in college is when I first started making music and to date myself, this is when that Soldier Boy came out. I can’t even remember how it goes. But Superman, that song. At the time before SoundCloud, there was something called SoundClick and me and my friend used to release our music on there and we’re like, this is cool. then he’s like, listen to this song. It was like number one in the United States or something.
Nick McGowan (22:17.149)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (22:27.719)
Mm-hmm.
Jeristotle (22:37.34)
like popped popped yet. And I listened to it and I was like, this is the dumbest song I’ve ever heard in my life. Nobody will ever like this song. I don’t understand how it’s so popular right now. And then like three months later, it was everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. At that point, I’m like, I don’t know what’s popular. I will never know what’s popular. So I’m just gonna take that off the table. And my job is just to make things and let the world.
Nick McGowan (22:45.82)
Meanwhile.
Nick McGowan (22:58.717)
the
Nick McGowan (23:04.465)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (23:05.533)
do with it what they may. like, that was my like lesson in humbling myself of being like, I don’t know. And I think the more that you think about it, the more you screw it up. Like honestly, it’s like, if you’re like, man, like I really like, is this gonna be like, the more you do that, you’re digging yourself a hole and you’re gonna be like, okay, now it’s time to create and now you’re in a hole. You’re like, I gotta climb out of this hole. So like, don’t do it, don’t do any of that.
Nick McGowan (23:16.701)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (23:29.639)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (23:33.311)
And I think the stuff that hits the most is the authentic stuff, the real stuff. And that’s the stuff that you didn’t dig yourself in a hole about, right? So I think the key is authenticity, not as a catchphrase, but as a human relating to other humans. Remember, there is a phone, you’re on a phone or a computer, I’m on a phone and computer, there’s miles apart, we’re still two humans connecting. And that’s the part that I think people miss about.
Nick McGowan (23:42.429)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (23:58.012)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (24:01.074)
everything in life these days when it comes to social media, it’s social media. Social, they miss the social part. I think when people, if you connect, if you have any friends, you know, start there in real life, not internet friends, in real life, and they stay around you and they don’t just like run away from you, do what you do with them on a digital format. Like be that person, be the person that connects with those people and you can connect with more people online, but don’t aim at
Nick McGowan (24:05.745)
Yeah, should be.
Jeristotle (24:30.567)
like your behavior to maximize your connections because now you’re a fake person. So I think like really is just like be who you are. I think you just start there. If more people could just be that and understand that that person’s a good person. That’s why you have some friends. That’s why you have good conversations. Like that’s the person that you need to be. And if you and here’s the other thing. Numbers.
Nick McGowan (24:36.061)
the
Jeristotle (24:59.868)
Why is a million followers good? if you’re trying to do anything, if you have a thousand, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the thousand true fan theory, if you have a thousand, that’s plenty, that’s amazing. Like, so I think people really need to think smaller when it comes to these things online. if like people are like, man, my post only got 60 likes, it’s like, if there were 60 people listening to you in the audience, you’d freak out. Like,
Nick McGowan (25:08.176)
yeah, thousand rule, yeah.
Nick McGowan (25:17.49)
Hmm.
Jeristotle (25:27.133)
That’s okay, that’s great. Like you’re doing great. 60 is not a small number. You know what I mean? So I think like the million likes, the million follows, the numbers have been skewed online when in reality, if you take that and put it into a real life context, that’s, you know, 50s is a solid, solid showing. So I think people need to kind of like remove the digital veneer off of things and bring it to a real life context and understand that.
Nick McGowan (25:27.133)
the
Nick McGowan (25:35.516)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (25:55.125)
The impact that they’re making with their posts that get 10 likes or 50 likes or they go viral and get a thousand, 10,000 likes, that’s massive. You know what I mean? Like just bring the scale down and understand that your impact doesn’t need to be in the millions. It can be in the tens and that’s a solid, solid thing. I try to tell myself every time I’m doing anything, if it impacts one person in a positive way, it was worth doing. That’s enough for me.
Nick McGowan (26:10.866)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (26:22.705)
big time.
Jeristotle (26:24.032)
And that’s huge, and that goes with the butterfly effect and things of that nature, a little ripple creates another ripple. You change somebody’s day in a positive way, they change somebody else’s day, that person changes somebody else’s day. The small things we do are actually huge things. You know what I mean?
Nick McGowan (26:31.581)
.
Nick McGowan (26:41.061)
Yeah, yeah, and we’ve been going through social media a lot within at least this little bit of the conversation. And it doesn’t always have to be about social media. It’s wherever you are to be able to impact whoever you are, but from your own perspective, and not just doing it for other people. I see the people that’ll make videos at times that are just like, clearly trying to do something to help somebody, but it’s not it’s a selfish thing.
Jeristotle (27:09.312)
Mmm.
Nick McGowan (27:09.753)
And that’s part of one of the reasons why I mainly stepped off social media. At this point, I basically hop onto Facebook marketplace to see if somebody selling dad’s old cards from the closet or something. I’m like, I’ll pick up a couple hundred cards or like who got the newest Victor Webin Yama rookie card or something like that. But everybody that’s trying to actually get those numbers. They’re trying to get numbers instead of just being themselves.
Jeristotle (27:22.901)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (27:38.097)
And there’s a massive difference between trying and just flat out being. I’m really glad you brought up the thousand fan rule. I don’t remember where I heard it, but I think it was from Reverb Nation many, many years ago and some book with that. And the thing that stood out to me was not the thousand, it was the 150. Because once you hit that 150 mark of core fans, those people start to fold over and that’s where you get to that thousand.
Jeristotle (27:49.643)
Mmm.
Jeristotle (27:56.61)
Jeristotle (28:02.827)
Yep. Yep.
Nick McGowan (28:04.669)
but you still ultimately have between 50 to 150 raving fans at that point. So even anything you do, if you get to that point with that, like right now, I’m right there in the same spot. I think we have a few thousand listeners on average that listen to each episode of the podcast, which is cool. I’ve had some people go, holy shit, man, that’s a lot. I’ve had other people go, yeah, well, Rogan does this. I’m like, I don’t give a fuck what Rogan does. I really don’t.
Jeristotle (28:29.951)
Right, Yeah.
Nick McGowan (28:32.069)
If one person listens to anything we talk about and asks themselves different questions or says, maybe I should look at this a little differently. We may never know that they might email and be like, my God, you guys changed my life. But that doesn’t, I don’t expect that. And if somebody wants to send that great, it’s not going to be like, fuck you. I would appreciate those sorts of things, but I don’t ever expect that. I expect that if it lands for people, how it lands, that they then go do something with it.
Jeristotle (28:41.244)
Mm. Yep.
Jeristotle (28:53.057)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (29:01.701)
And there’s no real need for it to be otherwise known, you know, like I think the people that are like, well, I made all this money and I need a library named after me and I need this and need that. It’s like, fuck that. I’d rather be the multimillionaire that walks around in a hoodie. No one fucking has any idea. Like, don’t give me a fucking library. Put that to better use, get people off the streets, do something like that. But being able to make that one little change.
Jeristotle (29:12.171)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick McGowan (29:28.209)
from the trying to do something to us being something, it sounded like that was a pivotal moment for you, where you realize that at one point, and you probably have one of those, duh, fuck, and what the hell have I been doing sort of situations. Is that about right?
Jeristotle (29:40.258)
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
Nick McGowan (29:45.629)
So can you recall that moment or at least that season of time where you started to actually shift away from I’m going to stop trying and start just being and and moving in the direction that you are today?
Jeristotle (29:58.548)
be honest, man, it’s, it’s like, I feel like a lot of things are transitions over time. And then there’s that certain moment that hits you. I feel like when I was younger, creating, it was more about me. It was more about the results. Like, I can make this cool music. maybe I can obtain this by doing this. And, I had a very big, around my thirties, I had a.
Nick McGowan (30:07.057)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (30:15.879)
Mm.
Jeristotle (30:28.992)
explosion of life, can call it, a volcanic eruption of life, where like everything in my life caught on fire. So me and my best friend, we were making music for a number of years. We opened up for Pusha T in Washington, DC. Things were going great. Like we had a lot of like people that were interested in our music saying, keep doing what you’re doing for another year, you’re going to explode. Like people that were in the industry. And then boom, his, had a wife or he had a kid with his future wife.
And then he had to decide, what am I going to do with life? And then, so we tried to keep doing music and he had a lot of the external pressures, family, wife being like, what are you doing with this music thing? We need you to do something more serious. You need to take life more seriously. And that’s why I think one of my biggest things is being able to make creativity a real job. That’s one of my, my driving core principles of life is like, I would love if creativity was considered a real job, not like.
Nick McGowan (31:27.377)
Mm-hmm
Jeristotle (31:28.617)
you need to have a real job to do this. So, you know, we ended up breaking up the group. We didn’t break up the group. We fizzled out and he had to focus on other things. I had to focus on other things and we just stopped doing shows, stopped creating music. We still played around back and forth, but it wasn’t like a pursuit for the future. Right. And it wasn’t something we were building anymore. So that fizzled out. I was a freelance web developer for a while. I had a really big contract that was feeding everything I was doing.
Nick McGowan (31:47.269)
Mm-hmm.
Jeristotle (31:57.346)
that fizzled out, I had a long-term relationship. And when the music fizzled out, then the relationship didn’t look as shiny, because I didn’t have my outlet, right? I didn’t have the thing that I was super passionate about. The relationship was good, but I had gotten into it when I was really young, so I had grown a lot in that process. We kind of grew apart, you know? So all three of those things happened at the same time, basically, in the same year. And that was…
Nick McGowan (32:06.333)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (32:23.837)
Hmm.
Jeristotle (32:25.816)
a humbling experience to say the least. I call it the value of despair in my life. So all those things happened and I was just like, what am I going to do with my life exactly? And I think that I’m a logical person. had it all planned out logically, but what they say like life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. life happened.
I realized that my plans aren’t infallible. That was my first real loss and there were multiple losses, right? Like before that small setbacks, small things here and there. But that’s when I realized that like things happen beyond your control. And the more you attempt to control them, the more you take yourself off of your path a little bit. So it’s like the river of, I really like Buddhism.
philosophies and things of that nature, because they teach you kind of how to be in the river of life, not try to control the river of life kind of thing. And then from there is when I really kind of like, and this was like, I was probably 32. I really just like let go of everything. And I was like, I guess this is funny, like the whole let go and let God thing, I guess, like whatever you God universe, whatever you want to call it. I think it was like, okay, like this is beyond my control.
Nick McGowan (33:26.898)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (33:51.59)
I accept that fact, you know? And then I kind of just started floating a little bit more through life of like, okay, what do I want to do now? I was like, well, I don’t know what I want to do, but I think it’d be cool if I, you know, traveled a little bit. Okay. So I traveled with that flow. My friends hit me up. I had done some web development, some digital marketing. I launched a watch company on Indiegogo Kickstarter kind of.
Nick McGowan (33:54.823)
the
Nick McGowan (34:20.209)
Nice. Yeah.
Jeristotle (34:20.857)
kind of company. So I had done that. So my friends were like, Hey, man, we saw what you’re doing online. We’re going to start a food truck. Like, would you want to help us do that? I’m like, sure, why not? Went with that flow, you know, float floated from Virginia down to Corpus Christi, Texas. And I was like, Yeah, sure. This, sounds cool. Let’s try this out. So we did that work with some friends had fun. It was awesome. Made it had a food truck. We won a couple of like awards with the food truck. And I was like, this is this is cool.
But in that time, like look, this is retrospectively, in that time, I was still in the valley of despair. I didn’t know what I wanted out of life, where I was going, like all the things that I knew were, you know, smoldering in ashes from a year ago. And so I’m just kind of like going with it, going with it, following my, my feelings and my passions and my things that really interested me, you know, and just going with that. And from there, the food truck became a restaurant. We opened up a restaurant.
And then in that restaurant, we were like, man, love like the group of us loved music. So yeah, let’s get some musicians in here. So we started throwing music back in there and then like, I got the network with musicians, hang out with them more. And then that’s kind of what ended up sparking back my interest in pursuing music. And I ended up doing it independently because I’d never really considered myself as an independent artist. I always did it with other people in a group. And I was like, well, what if I tried to do it myself? You know, what would that look like? Could I even do that?
Nick McGowan (35:25.789)
Thanks.
Nick McGowan (35:44.679)
Mm-hmm.
Jeristotle (35:50.51)
And that’s what kind of brought me full circle back to my creative passion of making music. And it was that journey of letting go and following the flow and surrounding myself with a community of people who are on that same wavelength, on that same energy that really wanted to do cool things creatively that literally brought me back to my path of creativity and music. So it was the letting go that got me to where I wanted to go, not me forcing the situation, which like
Nick McGowan (35:53.944)
the
Jeristotle (36:19.556)
I learned that yesterday.
Nick McGowan (36:21.315)
Yeah.
man, I love that. It’s hard to not think that the people that are so stringent and just like, well, this is what my five and my 10 and my 25 year plan looks like. Like I’ve seen life just unfold in beautiful ways. There’s been chaos and different valleys of despair and all that. for all those things to happen are to make you land where you’re at now, which
Jeristotle (36:26.863)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (36:42.726)
Mm-mm.
Nick McGowan (36:52.719)
All the things you continue to flow with will then help you land somewhere else. What the fuck, if you tried to plan all of that? That doesn’t make any sense.
Jeristotle (36:57.415)
Yep. Yeah, would never, I would never have been, I would never have been able, I think that sometimes our plans limit us. Not, not, you know what I mean? I feel like we, again, with the box, we’re like, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that and that. And then opportunities come, you’re like, no, no, no, no, no. It’s not part of my plan. It’s like, like there’s another parable. I love parables too, apparently. Where like, there’s a guy drowning and it’s like somebody, a small raft comes by and he’s like, don’t worry, God will save me.
Nick McGowan (37:06.245)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick McGowan (37:20.061)
the
Jeristotle (37:26.791)
You know, it was fine. he’s like, and again, and then no, so bigger ship comes and another one comes like, don’t worry, God will save it. Then it got drowns. And the guy’s like, I sent you the, I sent you three different, I mean, I I tried to help you. just, you know, I think that’s very similar to what we’re talking about is like, you have to keep your eye, your aperture, let’s call it after you have to keep your aperture open to see the opportunities that are coming your way. And, and don’t be so stringent on your plans because you might be like not.
Nick McGowan (37:26.939)
Yeah, a helicopter.
Nick McGowan (37:37.019)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (37:43.387)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (37:54.021)
being open to something that might be even better than what you’re planning.
Nick McGowan (37:57.681)
Yeah, I think some people, especially people listen to this can appreciate the intuitive side of it. I’m very intuitive. I’m very emotional. So I can feel those things start to come up and I’ll go, they’re, they’re trying to tell me something. And the intuition will lead me in one direction or the other. And sometimes I get like the total feeling or my cool. I’m not going to go that route or they like jump out of my skin. But whether we call intuition or just trust in your gut, I think there’s that feeling.
Jeristotle (38:12.719)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (38:17.915)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nick McGowan (38:27.215)
and that direction that we can take from that if we allow ourselves to do that without being stuck in those boxes of just, well, this is what this has to look like. I remember people being like, by the time I’m whatever age, I’m gonna be married, and then I’m gonna have multiple kids, I’ll have a business and I’ll do this and do that. I remember thinking some of that bullshit before and then like being like, all right, well, I had businesses and I wanted to kill myself. I got a divorce and life is so much fucking better than it’s ever been.
Jeristotle (38:35.9)
Yeah.
Jeristotle (38:53.149)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (38:57.191)
but it’s been a lot to go through. And if we just stuck to those boxes, that’s where we would stay and we wouldn’t actually get out and do the things that we just don’t know are out there yet. So man, I appreciate you getting into everything you’ve gotten into with all that you’ve gone through and all the stuff that we’ve talked about. What’s your advice for somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery?
Jeristotle (39:19.87)
think the first step to self mastery is self and that’s understanding who you are. Being aware of who you are and maybe even going a step further and measuring yourself, measuring who you are. Like, so you might say you want to achieve these big goals in life. Are you taking steps towards that? You know what I mean? Are you doing things of that caliber?
So I think the first step in self mastery is really self awareness and focusing on that because if you don’t do that, you might end up mastering somebody else’s life, not your own life. You know what I mean? So I really think you have to be aware of what you truly want. And when you say you want things, is that your voice or is that society’s voice or is that your parents voice? Like whose voice is setting the goal? And I think a lot of times we get confused by that.
and, I understood that again, when I was 30, I realized that I achieved all the goals that I had set when I was 15 and I hated my life. So whose goals were those goals? They obviously weren’t mine because if I set the goals, wouldn’t I be happy that I achieved those goals? Wouldn’t I enjoy my life, you know, at that point? And then that’s when I realized I was setting goals with logic, not my feelings. And I think your feelings are those things.
Nick McGowan (40:26.396)
Mm-hmm
Jeristotle (40:45.033)
that drive you towards the thing that you’re meant to have and meant to do. And if you don’t listen to your feelings, and I think it takes practice to listen to your feelings over your logic sometimes. So if you don’t practice that, that’s like the root of self-awareness is being aware of how you really feel about things.
Nick McGowan (41:03.195)
Yeah, great way to put that. I’m 160 plus episodes in and I love asking this question to hear what different people think and what they say, but also to be able look for patterns. at around, I guess it was episode 100, I did like a summation. Like this is everything that we’ve talked about and all of that. Self-awareness is the biggest thing that has been the most patterned of all of it. Because you’re right. Like if we’re not self-aware, how can we be aware of anything else? And at the same time,
Jeristotle (41:25.83)
Nick McGowan (41:33.017)
I’ve found that the more self aware I am, the more fucking self aware I am. And the more aware you are of things, the more you’re like, holy shit.
Jeristotle (41:37.547)
It’s punishing. It’s punishing. Yeah, it’s not roses. Self-awareness is not roses and skipping through a dandelion field. It’s very brutal. It’s a very, very brutal thing. But that’s the step that’ll get you to where you want to go because self-awareness is truth. That’s what it is. You can use a different word. It’s truth. It’s like not lying to yourself. And you are the easiest person to lie to, regardless of what you think.
Nick McGowan (41:49.329)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (41:56.978)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (42:04.967)
Big time. Yeah.
Jeristotle (42:06.539)
It’s so nice, it’s fun. You know, you built this whole imaginary world of greatness and then you start measuring and you’re like, I’m full of shit. Oops. You know what I mean? So like, I think that’s very important, you know.
Nick McGowan (42:14.589)
Yeah. Good stuff, man. Well, look, it’s been awesome having you on here. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?
Jeristotle (42:21.227)
Yeah, for sure.
Jeristotle (42:26.835)
Awesome. Everything on socials is at itsjarestotle. And jarestotle.com is where you can go to listen to some of my music and connect with me a little deeper if you want to dive down the rabbit hole.
Nick McGowan (42:38.403)
Awesome. Again, man, thank you so much for being on with us today.
Jeristotle (42:42.047)
Definitely. Thanks for having me.
https://youtu.be/fJpW7kO45CY
