Interview with Kyle Moore

Image from @lifesawreckpodcast Instagram

I have been listening to a mental health podcast called Life's A Wreck since January this year and two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to interview the host, Kyle, over zoom. We talked about many things including how he go started in podcasting, his philosophy on life, why men don't talk about their mental health and how we can take care of our mental health in lockdown. 

Read the interview here. 

What is your podcast about?

Life's a Wreck is a mental health podcast that I started back in 2019 originally as a way for me to document what I was going through mental health wise and steadily, it grew from a podcast that was just started for personal use to something that was a little bit bigger and had the opportunity to talk with some amazing people about the importance of everyday mental health and wellness. Life’s A Wreck is a bit of a philosophy that life is not always supposed to be good and sometimes you kind of have to laugh at all the craziness.

 

How did you get into podcasting? Was it something you studied?

My background was in radio. For my very first job I worked at a local radio station when I was 14 as a Saturday morning radio host. I worked like one or two Saturdays a month, and I went to school for sport media. I just I enjoyed podcasts. When I was going through my own mental health struggles, I listened to some podcasts and it was beneficial to me so I just thought I’ll try to do it myself.

 

What made you decide to start a podcast about mental health?

When I first started Life’s A Wreck, it was called Life's a wreck, so here's a podcast and it was a men’s mental health podcast originally. I saw that men were underserved in the mental health community. Growing up, like, I never talked about mental health with my family or my friends at all. When I went through my mental health challenges, I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know who to talk to what to say? I couldn't put a name on anything, and it made it scary and a lot worse so I wanted to create something that my younger self could have used in a way.

 

Why did you decide to call it Life’s A Wreck?

Life’s A Wreck is my own personal philosophy on life. It's a statement that life doesn't always necessarily go your way. Sometimes you're put in some difficult circumstances, like a lockdown. Throughout my life, I had this idea that my life had to be perfect, like it had to be wake up, there are no issues, and just breeze through life and it's this beautiful, wonderful thing and it is but it's beautiful and wonderful because of how messy it can be, and we’re all in this shared experience. I would always joke with my friends that my life's a wreck, and when I decided to start a mental health podcast, I thought, you know what?  What better name to call it than life's a wreck? So, yeah, just sharing that personal philosophy right in the title.

 

You've had quite a few. Guests on the podcast who have their own stories. Is there one that stands out as a favourite?

There are there are a couple Cam the Artisan is one that stands out. Cam The Artisan is a is a hip-hop R&B artist from Atlanta in the States. He's one of my favourite musicians and I was lucky enough to get him on the podcast. We’re around the same age, and he has recently seen a lot of success. He just had another song hit a million streams on Spotify. I'm happy we've been able to connect and keep in touch through the podcast, so he's somebody who definitely that holds a special place in Life’s A Wreck. Matthew Continetti was my first ever guest on the podcast. He's a host at TSN, which is the sports network. I think it's called the sports network in Canada here. So that one's a good one. I would say the one that stands out the absolute most was, an episode called the East Coast Boys where I sat down with two of my closest friends and talked about mental health, and I in my life couldn't have imagined that I would have the opportunity to sit down with a couple of buddies and have a drink and talk about mental health in a way that was like super casual and fun so I would probably say that one is probably my favourite, but every guest I have on the podcast is amazing.

 

What do you look for when you're choosing who to bring on as a guest?

It's whatever is piquing my interest at the time. Down the road, I'd like to add more people to the production side of the podcast in terms of like guest acquisition and storytelling, it would be nice to have a bigger team on that but for right now, I'm the only one who controls who comes on the podcast and what kind of stories we tell. I just got a tattoo of an art piece the other day I've been very into surrealist artists and that kind of stuff, so I've been reaching out to a lot of museum curators to have conversations about mental health and art and history. I always try to share a story of somebody who either is in the public eye and I don't think has had the opportunity to share that side of themselves or somebody who I think fits that personality of what Life's A Wreck is and when I see somebody out there living their authentic life, I love that so I try to get them on the podcast.

 

In what ways has the pandemic affected your work on the podcast?

I'm in a very small minority demographic where the pandemic was one of the best things that ever happened to me because when I got to come home for that first summer when our government was subsidizing living for a lot of people, I got to work on the podcast full time and it was the reason that I'm at the point where I'm at now, where I can kind of see the podcast and my advocacy work and the brand and the company becoming my full time work within the next year or two and that's really exciting because to turn the worst part of my life into the best part of my life is something that I'm very proud of. So it made me focus on it more. The pandemic showed a lot of us that mental health is really important. You can't be stuck inside for as long as we have been and not focus on your mental health so it was a blessing and a curse that way. It's unfortunate that this had to happen for people to understand the importance of mental health, but I am glad that they got exposed to the world of wellness and mental health. I'm just I'm just fortunate enough to be working in that space. The pandemic actually helped a little bit but you know, if I could have done this without a pandemic, I would have preferred that. But yeah, best case scenario.

 

It seems like men don't talk about their mental health or reach out for help as much as women do. Why do you think that is?

It's purely stigma. From my point of view from work, it is so interesting to see societal perception of men and what we expect of men has warped this sense of wellness, like talking about this idea that men are to be providers and are to be rocks. We see it with fathers and uncles and grandfathers and the culture that they grew up in. There are strict views of what is expected of a man and if you deviate from that you’re ostracized. You're seen less of a man because you can't just suck it up and move on. And it's a shame but the best part about my work  is being somebody who fits a very traditional male form of being tall and playing sports and fitting all of these criteria, that’ seen as manly, but being able to talk openly about my mental health and Like, that's a blessing, because I'm able to show some of the younger men and boys in my community, that you can be seen as just as much of a man and still talk about this stuff and live a life of love, happiness and acceptance versus anger and hate and everything else.

 

How would you encourage someone to be open and reach out for help?

We are living in this age of instant connectivity and you can go and find a community that will be open and accept you. It's not always easy, but you can go and find these communities online. During the pandemic, these communities have done nothing but grow. I think a great example of this is Tether, which I do a lot of work through with the podcast. Tether is an online community for men who struggle with mental health issues or who need a space just to connect with other men who are in a tough spot, and I think that's great. It is important to find somewhere where you can feel comfortable talking about it and then once you feel comfortable talking about your mental health in that space, which is a safe space, you can start to include that mental health conversation into your lifestyle. At the end of the day, we are all human. We’re all going through this shared experience of life. Let's just feel comfortable in talking about who we really are and what we really feel. You can work your way up to it through these communities. Eventually there is going to be that point where you have to take that step and say, I'm putting myself in a bit of a vulnerable position, but I feel like I owe myself this and I'm confident in that. I think that's huge.

 

What advice would you give to people who are not sure how to take care of their mental health in lockdown?

It's so tough because I don't think there’s one definitive answer. If I was to give advice, I would say, having a routine is important. I think routines are something where if you're in a bad mental health space, you're going to be your best friend, your biggest weapon to getting back to being back in a healthy mental space. Once you put your mind in this routine oriented environment, it gives you a a level of healthy control in your life when you're in this pandemic, where so much is out of your control. For me, when I was in lockdown, From the time I woke up until about 11 o'clock in the morning, I would do nothing but mental stimulation. I would play chess, read, play piano and I would always just focus on something that was fun and creative. Then from 11 to 12 or whatever, I would get ready for my day, eat lunch and then from 12 to maybe 6 was my workday. I would get all my work done and then from 6 on, I would poke away at some fun project, some side projects for the podcast, and it gave me the sense of this is my life. I'm not letting everything stay up to chance, I got this. It’s something very small but I think it does make a little bit of a difference. The other thing too is you have to talk about how you're feeling. During this time, if you keep everything that you're feeling bottled up, you're not honouring the experience that you're going through, which is bad. You've got to talk about it with people who are also going through that same experience. Talk about how this has been for them. What are some things that they've been thinking about a lot? Having those conversations, makes it a little less scary because you feel like you're more connected and I think that's an amazing thing. So I would say those are the two tips I would give to go through a situation that is less than ideal.

Kyle, thank you again for making time to talk to me! 

He has a great,casual interviewing style and personality. I highly recommend this podcast to everyone, especially men. 

You can listen to it on Spotify and if you could like to connect with Kyle and keep updated on all the podcast news, follow @lifesawreckpodcast on Instagram!