 What's up everybody? It's Chris from The Reward Soul and yeah, not gonna jump into the intro and all that. I just want to sit here and chat with all of you. I would like your advice. And before I move forward, this video is for my audience, my people, the ride or die people who have been around, stuck around and everything. I'm looking for your advice. I know that the hate mob is gonna come in and they're gonna be saying things like, Oh Chris is playing the victim. Oh, he's not taking accountability. Oh, why are your likes and dislikes off? But it's something that you get used to for a while. So anyways, like I mentioned in the title of this, a drama channel by the name of Cody Rantz reached out to me, said, Hey Chris, you want to do an interview on my channel, share your site and everything like that. So I'm looking for your advice. Alright, so a little backstory about me like, and before I jump into that too, like all I ask in this video is just to put yourself in my shoes. Alright, just step into my shoes real quick, because I know I'm going to sound like a selfish asshole in this video. And I don't have a problem with that. I'm going to be talking a little bit about the psychology of reciprocity. But anyways, just put yourself in my shoes for this video. So for almost a decade, I was a drug addict and alcoholic. I was extremely depressed and anxious most of my life. And I started turning to drugs and alcohol. Seven years ago, I wanted to die. I was going to sleep every single night, hoping that I wouldn't wake up in the morning. I wasn't allowed to see my son. I lost all of my friends, all of my family members, and everything else. Alright, and with tens of thousands of people dying each year from addiction, I was one of the few people who was not only able to get sober, but stay sober. Alright, and it was thanks to 12 step programs, my support group, and people like my mother, who is celebrating 14 years sober in about a month. And just a lot of people who saved my life. So my first couple of years of sobriety, I didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't work my first year. I started working at a little website company and everything. And, you know, I found this kind of meaning and purpose in life when I got sober. Like, I wanted to help people. I wanted to help people who were as hopeless as I was, who were in pain, who were suffering. I wanted to help those people any way I could. And it started out just talking to other addicts and alcoholics in 12 step programs. But then I was presented with the opportunity to work at a drug and alcohol treatment center. And I went there and I loved it. Every single day, aside from the workplace politics and everything like that, working for a big corporation, I loved it. I loved working with clients and the one-on-ones I would have, the groups I got to teach, just seeing that thing click in their mind and they get some hope that maybe they can live a better life and they don't have to turn to drugs or alcohol. That meant everything to me. And the treatment center I was working at was extremely expensive. Like, inpatient treatment without insurance was about $30,000 and you tack on another $10,000 or so for outpatient. Alright? And I was like, why am I only doing this here in this treatment center? Why don't I offer free content out there? So let's talk about the psychology of reciprocity. As much as we want to believe that altruism, like true altruism exists, it doesn't. Alright? Based on what we know about evolution, it doesn't. Alright? We kind of play this tit for tat. And in 12-step programs, I was taught to quit doing things with a motive, right? Motive behind them. Not motive. A motive behind them. Quit being self-seeking. Don't do things expecting something in return. And this is a great way to live, ideally, but it's really hard. See, even in 12-step programs, when we're taught to help others and not ask for anything in return, we're guaranteed our sobriety. One of the promises is if we help other alcoholics and addicts, we will stay sober. So as you can see, even with the most selfless act, we get something in return. You look at doing good things for other people. We get a good feeling from it. I did a bunch of charity events and everything like that and you get a good feeling. So even if you're not asking, like, oh, hey, help me move my house or anything, we still get something in return. So, again, I found this meaning and purpose in life to just help others, to help as many people as possible. I didn't care how many people I helped. I just wanted to help as many people as possible. I wanted to give people hope. But I'm letting you know right now, the last six months of what I've been through, it's had me reevaluating my life, what my purpose is. I felt pretty lost and not sure what I want to do because it's really hard when you grow and you do this thing, trying to help as many people as possible. And then you get thousands and thousands of strangers saying like, no, you're not a good person. You're not doing this to help others. And it's not even really based on anything objective. It's not based on, you know, me like stealing a bunch of money or me doing something like shady, like, you know, with fans or anything like that. It's all based on differences of opinion. And since about six months ago, people have painted me as this type of person. So anyways, Cody Rantz reached out to me and I let Cody know. And Cody, whenever we talk, whenever we talk, I got to go into this a little bit weary because those of you who don't know, my whole controversy started with a bunch of drama channels leaking a DM that I sent to them. So every time I chat with somebody in DM now, I have to go in with the idea that this is going to be put out there publicly. All right. So again, I just want you to put yourself in my shoes. So I told Cody that. And then I was like, you know what? Screw it. Cody Rantz, I love her. All right. She is very sassy and everything like that. It just sucks when I'm on the receiving end of that. All right. We've had conversations, you know, in DMs and everything. But anyways, I let Cody know. I said, Cody, I was like, you've been, you've been trashing me publicly for weeks now. Like, why would I do this? Right. But anyways, I decided to share my story with Cody and I want to share it with all of you. Because again, I want your advice and I just want you to put yourself in my shoes and tell me what you would do if you were me. So I'm about to talk about some other YouTubers and channels and some of my experience. If you know me, I'm very much against cancel culture because it's happened to me. You can form your own opinions about the other YouTubers I mentioned. But if you try to go attack them or anything like that, I don't condone it and I don't want you in my community. But, you know, I just want to be open and honest with all of you. So starting my YouTube channel, I brought in my same idea of trying to help people, right? And I, those of you who have been around for a long time, you know, I have brought in so many small creators on my channel just to give them exposure. I remember when I was trying to build this channel up, people didn't want to collab or anything like that. And I was like, I want to change that, right? So I've had a bunch of people on my channel who have less than a thousand subscribers, you know, some of them only have a few hundred or whatever. So I don't get anything in return from that, right? But it was difficult when a lot of those smaller creators that I helped out, I had nothing, I was getting in return. I helped them out and they turned on me. Again, remember, I told you I was going to sound like a selfish asshole in this video and it's about to get worse. All right? But again, I just want you to put yourself in my shoes. Well, anyways, after my whole controversy happened, like, so Cody was trying to sell me on the idea of like, I'm giving you an opportunity to share your side. All right? And I don't know if Cody just hasn't seen the other interviews with me and stuff like that, but this, excuse me. Sorry, and I'm not going to be editing this video. So you got to deal with my coughs. So anyways, I don't know if she hasn't seen the other interviews with me, but this is the selling point people have had for me, right? So some of the other first creators that I helped out at the time, I was bigger than Todd Grande. There was another guy who showed up called named Nate Smith and there were smaller channels than mine. I was like, okay, you know, I can use my larger audience to try to send you more viewers and everything like that. And these were both licensed professionals who completely turned their back on me. And I'm like, okay, like it's one thing to do something without expecting anything in return. Like if I was just like hitting like zero, like that'd be fine. But as you're going to see as I go on, every time I do something like this to help others, I end up worse. All right, so Todd and Nate, they turned, they didn't back me up. All right, they tried to save their own skin. They didn't back me up. And by the way, I talk about all this in my book, which is free until the first I re-released it for free. So Todd and Nate tried to help them out. Nate just disappeared off YouTube. Todd's channel is still growing. He doesn't really talk about me anymore. That's cool. All right, after my controversy happened, a small creator by the name of Paul grows close. And I love Paul grows close. Go subscribe to him. He reached out to me. He was a small channel. I think he had around the time about 5,000 subscribers. And he said, hey, Chris, I see what's been going on. I want to give you an opportunity to share your side, much like Cody is. And Paul had done a little short series on me, which he was playing into the narrative of, you know, that was being spread about me. But he said, here's your opportunity to share your side. And that sounded enticing. I'm like, okay, I'll share my side. And Paul interviewed me and it's up over on his channel and everything like that. And I thought it would be cool. Like, sure, like use the animosity towards me to build your channel up. And Paul got to sit down and interview me and Paul got to know me and Paul is a great dude. He's going to be huge. Like, I guarantee Paul grows close is going to be a huge creator. He's so smart for his age. He's like, I'm sorry, Paul, if you see this, he's 16, 15, 16, I don't know. Anyways, he's going to be awesome. But anyways, I did that for Paul, not expecting anything returned. It's like, there you go. And I shared my side of the story. I don't think he got too many views on that. Then there was Ryan from Crimson Studios. He actually drove out to Las Vegas to interview me. Same thing. And again, like I didn't mind doing it for him. He's a small, you know, he's a smaller channel. He's kind of a friend. We haven't talked much recently, but I was like, whatever, you know, you'll get some views off this and you're going to share the story. And he sold me too because he said another creator by the name of John Swan was going to also collaborate with him on it. And John Swan is very objective and he doesn't know anything about my situation. So he's going to come into it. Well, that's not what happened. All right. So again, like if nothing happened, if I just stayed the same, that'd be fine. But I actually ended up worse because what John Swan did was he sold through ignorance and poor research that, you know, some stuff that was being spread about my mom. And I wasn't happy about that. Like I mentioned, my mom helped save my life. I love my mom and I tried to defend her. And then Ella did was just perpetuate this narrative that me and my mom were in cahoots trying to scam people and stuff like that. So I ended up worse doing that video with Crimson Studios. And aside from that, you know, I helped him by being part of his video that he was doing on me. But it was hurtful because Ryan would like and reply to tweets that were talking shit about me on Twitter. And I'm like, hmm, okay. Well, then there was Donna from Psych IRL and we collabed earlier this year. I love Donna and, you know, we just don't agree on everything. And anyways, I met up with her. I've loved her channel for a long time and I met up with her and we ended up doing a collaboration. Well, when everything happened to me, you know, her fans were asking her a lot of questions. So she felt obligated to her fans to cover the story and do an update, right? And she asked me if I would be a part of it. Sure, Donna, whatever, right? And we did a little interview thing and everything like that. So I helped her out. She's a larger channel, but she wanted to clear things up with her audience. So I was like, sure, I'll do it, right? She did that. I ended up looking even worse doing that as well. And part of this pattern is too, maybe I just don't know how to fucking talk. So anyways, I do that with her. But yeah, I reached out to Donna recently. It's been about six months. I'm like, hey, Donna, like you want to revisit this subject, you know? And she doesn't, she doesn't want to and not going to lie. It upset me quite a bit. But again, like just put yourself in my shoes. This is a pattern like where I keep helping and helping and helping. And it sounds like a real selfish thing, but like I just want you to be honest with yourself. Would you continue helping other creators to either clear their name or promote their smaller channel or whatever it is? And not only are you not gaining anything, but you're ending up worse. So a couple of months ago, a month or two ago, I was feeling just kind of froggy and a creator by the name of Nicholas Diorio. He made a video about me, you know, not a good video about me. And people are like, you guys should debate, right? And another creator, Augie, who does a live stream, he said, hey, you want to debate with Nick? And I was just feeling froggy. I knew going into that. I'm like, this isn't a debate. I'm walking in to the lion's den, all right? I'm going to be going up against a bunch of people who hate me. So I was like, whatever, I'll do it. I'll help out these smaller creators. And I think it'll be an interesting conversation. So I did that. Augie, before the stream, he gained a ton of subscribers. I went into that stream. I looked like an idiot, you know? Like, again, I was like, you know, I was the away team. And I got thrashed, Bo Blacks jumped in. And in the meantime, Augie was making bank in super chats. All right? So I went into that situation. Not only did I not gain anything, I lost something. And Augie, I think he made over $1,000 in super chat that night. All right? So I just hope you guys see my point of view, because now Cody's reaching out to me and she's like, hey, I want to interview you and give you an opportunity to share your side. And I'm like, Cody, like, if I go into that situation, there's already a bias. Your audience does not like me. All right? Not only that, but I know how this thing works. Me going into that situation, I'm then creating another opportunity for people to take clips of me and spread even more narratives about me, right? And Cody, you know, she said, like, you know, I'm not going to be attacking you. There's going to be fair and unbiased and everything like that. And that's cool. I believe her. I'm 10000% believe her that it would be. But like I said, I would be going into hostile territory, if you will. So I, I've been doing this just trying to give and give and give and give and give and give and give. And it, it hasn't, not only hasn't not helped my reputation, it doesn't even make me feel good anymore. like I hate even talking about this because this is something I talk with my you know therapist about but my again my whole my whole worldview and purpose has been shifting like I love helping people and don't get me wrong I still get a bunch of messages people thanking me I just got one the other day like thanks Chris you encouraged me to go to therapy and everything like that but yeah it's just I don't know like it's it's difficult and I've been you know working a lot on some other projects that I can't really tell you guys about now and stuff like that but like yeah the YouTube community has not been fun for me and I don't know if you guys were in my position what would you want me to do so I'm gonna take a couple things into consideration leave comments let me know what you think should I do an interview with Cody Rance but here's what I'm thinking all right here's the other thing all right so a lot of people have been lying to you a lot of people have been lying to you and saying they read my book and they didn't they've read they've read specific chapters and everything like that here's how I know all right here's how I know that there are things in that book that people would definitely make a video about that they haven't so I know for a fact that most people including primink did not read the book all right like primink said something like oh he mentioned me 60 times like you can just control f in a PDF and see how many times it is that's no evidence that he read the book so most of these people haven't read the book so anyways here's what I was thinking for Cody I was thinking about presenting her with a deal Cody you might be watching this Cody if you read my book and you make a list of questions from my book that you want to send to me we could talk but you sending those questions to me will prove to me that you actually read the book and you didn't just read chapters that you feel pertain to you or pertain to the drama community all right because that is what most people have done who have made videos and interviewed about my book sharing my experience all right because like I said there are some Easter eggs in there if you will where you know people would definitely make some videos about some stuff I talked in there anyways yeah thanks for letting me chat with you guys and just sit down and be open and honest and I meant to mention this at the beginning because most of you are probably gone by now but um this isn't gonna be an ongoing thing like I have a bunch of content like many of you know I've been really diving into psychology lately I've been getting some really good feedback from you guys too like it this is something that makes me really happy because not only have I found purpose in helping people and that's the thing I'm struggling with I love teaching people I love teaching people I come from a family of teachers my grandma who passed away a few years ago she was a teacher her whole life my mom has been a professor of psychology and I don't know it just runs in our DNA I guess but I love teaching so I love reading all of these books and consuming all this knowledge and just trying to pass it on to other people and you know I like finding my group of people who are into this kind of stuff and learning about psychology and human behavior and philosophy and all that kind of stuff so I appreciate everybody who's been reaching out and saying like you've really liked the new videos because I've been going into them just like I don't know if anybody else will like these but I'm I'm having a lot of fun you know just talking about these subjects and like encouraging you know critical thinking and stuff like that so anyways like I said don't worry I'm not gonna just keep like hopping on here and doing like sobby things and going back to my own BS I I know every time I sit down and turn this camera on I got to give you something of value and I want to do that all right but every once in a while I want to hop on here talk a little bit a little bit about me what's going on you know but anyways leave your comments down below if you see people being hateful in the comments down below just ignore them like I do or I'll just remove them to get toxic people off the channel last thing I'll say to any creators I mentioned in this video don't don't go attack them or anything like that you have the right to form your own opinions about them and everything like that but if you join in any kind of hate mob like I don't want you part of my community but let's leave on a happy note I love all of you so much alright but yeah stay tuned I will be covering the Shane Dawson and Jeffrey star series I got a million notes on different psychological studies so I'm hoping I can intertwine them but anyways yeah stay tuned alright I'll see you next time