From CB Radio To Confident Creators

✨ Meet Fran and Evan, creators of Melancholy Mentor, Mystery Mythos and Melancholy Coaching. 

Fran began the storytelling journey on CB Radio in 1980, turning conversations into narratives and learning the art of connecting with audiences across distance and time. Evan has always savoured the transformative power of sound, turning fleeting moments into lasting memories through texture and tone.

✨ They offer coaching and training to turn ideas into a business, create a life you’re passionate about, and launch YouTube, podcasting, or any creative project with confidence.

Follow their journey from feeling like outsiders to creating a life they genuinely love.

Find us @ www.melancholymentor.com
https://youtu.be/66-wS2IjYcU?si=U-Mc0sNoFLzT3H0M

* As a coach, I listen without judgment, understanding that others’ views may differ from my own.

#nlpcoach #nlpcoaching #creativity #inspiration #transformation

Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Introduction
• 2:06 Early Communication Fascination
• 7:14 Our YouTube Channel Journey
• 12:35 Our Creative Purpose
• 18:10 Twilight Zone & Mystery Mythos
• 25:45 Creating Your Own Path Forward

Transcript

Fran: 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome to the Melancholy Coaching Podcast. I'm Fran, your host and NLP coach. Join me as I interview inspiring business owners and self-improvement seekers about their experiences, while delving into personal development, motivation and strategies for overcoming challenges. Let's ignite our creative potential together.

Fran: 0:36

Hello and welcome to the Melancholy Coaching Podcast. I'm Fran, your NLP coach, and in this episode I'm joined by my partner in life and business, evan hey. In season one, episode seven, I interviewed evan about their journey of creativity and resilience, and I start each of the seasons with an introduction. So so far with melancholy coaching, the melancholy coaching podcast, we've done this is our second season, so it's a new project of ours and it also goes out on a relatively new YouTube channel. This is so. Evan's already been introduced.

Fran: 1:16

So I'm just going to just say, like Evan's pronouns are they them? I'm she, her Evan tends to be more quiet than me. I'm she, her Evan tends to be more quiet than me. Um, unless, unless you just let them talk like if you literally just let Evan talk, like you won't get a word in. But anyway, evan's got a bit of a processing delay, so we kind of do what we can with that and I either don't talk at all or I talk too much, and I've always been fascinated by communication. So I was a very shy, very quiet child who discovered Citizens Band Radio, which is CB radio. Yeah, you've never been on it, have you Irfan?

Evan: 1:59

No, I just think it's, I know what it is. I just think it's really in my, my world. That's really cool.

Fran: 2:07

Does that make me really cool. Yeah, so in 1980, I was on Citizens Band Radio and I was on it for about 10 years, probably just over, because it started to dwindle for me in the late 90s, so probably early 2000. I came off, but I started off by sitting in my dad's car with the mag mount, which was like a magnetic aerial that was on the roof of his car with his permission, by the way, because I was only 10 so and the c CB radio was in the car and I run it off the car battery. And his car was a I remember it distinctly. It was a black Vauxhall Victor and if memory serves me rightly, it was SRO776J.

Fran: 2:58

So if anybody has a black Vauxhall Victor that has that registration plate, I used to sit in that and talk on the cb radio. So my handle because when you're on cb radio everybody has a handle so you like a name, like an addy or something like that, so mine was tin tin. Now, everyone thought this was due to the comic series, the adventures of of Tintin. Yeah, and if I said because if I told you what my handle was before, evan.

Evan: 3:32

Yeah, you have. Yeah, and did you, would you have?

Fran: 3:35

initially have just thought maybe it was like Tintin, the Adventures of you know, with Snowy the Dog.

Evan: 3:40

Yeah, yeah. When you first said definitely the first thing that come into my head was Tintin. Yeah, yeah.

Fran: 3:44

When you first said definitely the first thing that come into my head was tin tin. Yeah, it's because it got it kind of got reduced a little bit, like it got shortened, because it actually started out as rintintin. So my cb had as rintintin and I'm not sure why it wasn't rintin or it just I don't know. I think other CB people used to just call me Tintin for short. But Rin Tintin is a very interesting story. So it's actually from a 19 I think it's about 1954 American television show that featured a German shepherd dog. Now this was before the adventures of Tintin. It was also before before lassie. I think pretty sure it was way before lassie. So I think actually the it might have started off as like silent movies. Even the series is based on a true story. So the dog, rintintin, was actually a real dog, like a real dog called Rindy, so in a series. So in 1918, an American corporal, so American soldier, his name was Lee Duncan. He found he was in France and he found a mother German shepherd, so a female dog that had puppies, a litter of puppies, and one of her litter of puppies was a boy dog that lee duncan actually kept for himself and that became rintintin. But he actually found the mama dog and her puppies in a bombed out german kennel during world war one, so I think they were dogs that were being bred for the army and the whole thing was bombed. So there was probably the other dogs were no doubt didn't survive and he found the. The mother and the litter of puppies didn't want to leave them, so he took them back to, you know, presume like his army base and managed to keep a couple of the puppies. I think he kept a girl puppy as well and I can't remember it might have been the name, might have been nanette, and I think the original nanette didn't survive and then was replaced, I think. Anyway, there's a whole like really interesting story about it. So rintin tin, the, the dog actually passed away in 1932. Oh, so the, the american tv show, was descendants of, of the original dog. So pretty sure I'm getting this a little bit muddled, but I'm pretty sure the original dog started off in silent movies, yeah, and was trained by Lee Duncan. Rin Tin Tin has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which I think is amazing. Love that, yeah, and Lee Duncan himself actually passed away in 1960. Okay, and there's a load of movies that star Rin Tin. Tin Lee Duncan himself actually passed away in 1960. Okay, and there's a load of movies that star in Tintin.

Fran: 6:53

If you find really early stuff, then it would be the original dog, and I think the story has it that the mama dog and the other puppies were kind of taken by other people within the army at the time, so they were all saved in one way or another. Yeah, which is really sweet, and that's that's how I started off. And then I've been intrigued by YouTube for years now. I can't remember when YouTube started, but I've got a feeling it must have been. Was it 90s or I didn't actually look that up. So for years I've been intrigued by YouTube and then was thrilled when you said that you're a YouTube fan as well.

Evan: 7:32

I love it. I'm wondering if it was the end of the 90s, but don't hold me to that if it was the end of the 90s but don't hold me to that. 2000s then isn't it. It's going to be 2000s again. Don't hold me.

Fran: 7:45

Don't hold me to that, because I need to look it up but yeah was, was I going into the myspace era instead a little bit?

Evan: 7:50

yeah, it followed. It came in behind, I think, didn't it so?

Fran: 7:55

yeah, so I think I think I was thinking of the origins of my space. Anyway, for a very long time I've been intrigued by YouTube, so I'm a consumer of YouTube and I just love it. And then you said that you were a fan, so in the back of my mind somewhere I've got this idea later in life. This is to start a YouTube channel. Didn't particularly know how or what it would be for, though, and during this was during kind of covid, during a pandemic time, which I have mentioned in previous episodes I have retrained as a neuro-linguistic programming coach, and I also did business strategy, so before that I'd predominantly been a care worker. So I don't come from a background of tech or recording content or even using social media for anything other than consuming. You know other people's content, and around that time you went down a rabbit hole of tech, didn't you?

Evan: 9:06

yeah, yeah, I just started digging into everything. Really. I got really into the video, didn't I? So I kind of got my head around recording things and then editing them, which I'd never done before. So I'd never done anything with video. I'd done little bits and bobs with music. I'd had a go at putting together some music like back in the day and using like fruity loops. So I'd done some little stuff on my computer. So it kind of wasn't totally alien to me, if you know what I mean. I think that set me up a bit. But then working with the video was just so exciting. And then I did some courses, didn't I? I just did some right now.

Fran: 9:44

Your, your ability to kind of have a play around with music actually served me really well, like a few years back, because I actually do some ballque performing, so cabaret work, and I started out thinking, oh, I'm gonna be, you know, I'll be a burlesque. You know, I was in my late 40s and thought, oh, I just I change. You know, get, maybe it's like a hobby, but let's see if I can get a career out of this soon. Decided that it was gonna remain something on the side for me. Um, I've got my reasons for that, don't necessarily need to go into it now.

Fran: 10:21

Let's just say that myself and Evan have been repeatedly let down, ripped off, overcharged, bullied. You know, we're just. We're just those people. You know, we're just those nice people that tend to get kicked. So so a little bit of that happened and I eventually got picked up by a troupe the burlesque troupe that are based in Portsmouth. Very grateful for that. So I perform with them. So I perform with Fox's Burlesque. So if you look up that at all, fox's Burlesque, they're based in Portsmouth and I'm one of their troupe members and I keep it as that. Now I don't tend to really perform elsewhere. And for performing again. Most of that was self-taught and I do performances that have music in them and you would edit the music together for me, wouldn't you, and voice excerpts and stuff like that, and then I went on to singing as well. So you actually get the back tracks ready for me, yeah, and cut the music and things like that. So you've come in really useful for that yeah, because I wasn't.

Evan: 11:27

It didn't scare me. I guess you know what I mean, because I've done it. I've done little bits and bobs, so it wasn't like I was looking at something like I'd never looked at. You know, it was, that was. So it was okay, wasn't it?

Fran: 11:38

but yeah, so initially with the other tech it was to. Again, it was all about me, so it was to support me in learning the neuro-linguistic programming and then attempting to create content. So we started out with very, very basic tech. I had an older laptop that I didn't really know how to use. I'm quite hands-on person. I'm not necessarily tech person, although randomly I can actually touch type and my touch typing speed used to be quite high. But that's from back in the day, yeah. So my use of tech is minimal since kind of my touch typing days and early CB kind of days and you were learning. So we didn't have iPhones, we didn't have like modern tech at all. So everything was a bit harder, because a lot of these things now have kind of built in video editing and built in filters and things like that that you can use, and we didn't have any of that at all, did we? So a lot of it was literally just done by hand, by you learning how to chop something up yeah, yeah, it was, it was.

Evan: 12:50

And like say, I had a very old laptop, can't even remember the make of it, but it was tiny, it wasn't even you wouldn't, couldn't even really call it was a laptop, it was just. I don't even know what it was, but you know, I mean it's really small, you could. It was creaky, it couldn't hardly do anything.

Fran: 13:05

I've been more of a notebook, which is what I had yeah, I think it was, and it struggled.

Evan: 13:10

It did struggle and then I obviously upgraded and, yeah, and it's got better so we've upgraded then, so we still do keep it fairly basic.

Fran: 13:22

So this podcast is recorded via Zoom. Do not be coming for us. It's what we use at the moment because this is our level of learning. So we use Zoom. It splits the audio and it splits the video, and then Evan edits all the video and the audio and everything. But all of this is put together by us. We don't have outside help at all. We don't have anything else doing this, and this will become more apparent in a moment when I tell you what else we do, as to why our capabilities are a little bit limited in producing content.

Fran: 13:57

So we currently have three youtube channels yes, so I think did we start? The first one was it might have been 2023, because the first, the first channel is called melancholy mentor and I'm pretty sure it was might have been late, 22 or 23 that we started that, so still quite recent. So Melancholy Mentor, our YouTube channel, is based on classic literature. So, again, something a little bit different. It's based on classic literature and radio dramas. So we have a Melancholy Mentor podcast that highlights the radio plays and dramas that are featured on the channel. We did one really long season of that before we realised that we needed, for our energy levels, we needed to split them up. So we're only just starting. We're going to be starting at the time of this recording. We're going to be starting season two of Melancholy. Mentor and quality mentor.

Fran: 15:01

Yeah, and that came about through my love of classic literature and the brontes and, you know, being out on the moors and my love of the word melancholy and Edgar Allan Poe and stuff like that, and we just thought it would be a good idea to bring established, already recorded radio dramas and bring them to a new audience with a little bit about the story, a little bit about the origins of it or the book that was involved in in creating the radio drama. So it's all based on creativity. And then we have. So that's. I say that's my channel. Although we run them, I tend to come up with all of these like ideas and then Evan sees what they can put into practice, because Evan literally does all the tech for it.

Fran: 15:47

So the other channel is mostly your channel and it's mystery mythos. Yes, mystery mythos. So mystery mythos is based on science fiction, conspiracy theories, mysteries and aliens. Yeah, pretty much. So again, it's a little bit different and we've started off, with that channel being based on radio dramas, so we use the word radio drama and radio play interchangeably, but it's radio dramas, so it's predominantly sci-fi. There's a slight crossover onto the Melancholy Mentor channel with the sci-fi. There's a slight crossover onto the melancholy mentor channel with the sci-fi content. Yeah, now there are plans. Did say about it in your podcast interview in season one. There are plans to add a podcast to this. That would be quite different from what we've done before and you'd actually like to do some location filming as well.

Evan: 16:38

Yeah, I would. That's like my kind of like a bit of a dream, that one, because I'm like I'm going to do it, like it's not a dream that I'm not going to do, but it's sort of like I can see it, you know. You know when you can see yourself doing something. It's more like that.

Fran: 16:54

Yeah.

Evan: 16:54

I want to do on location filming. I want to find some areas that are maybe haunted and just go out, and you know I know some. Yeah, yeah, just go out and about, you know, because I think it would be fun and I think people would like to see that.

Fran: 17:11

I'd like to see it, so yeah, well, that's, that's what we started off with. It was all the things that we love. Yeah, we kind of put together all the things that we love and the things that we're doing, but by this, what we've learned. We don't gatekeep this, so some of it is paid access and a majority of it is complimentary. That we literally we help many more people than is advertised or that's ever said about us. Yeah, even recently, like, we're often getting asked things or we do projects and things like that and we just don't say anything about it. So, but, right, okay, let me go on to I'm going to come back to the YouTube channels in a moment yeah, so our purpose, our North Star, is simple we want to inspire others to create a life they love, because that's what we're doing. We're creating a life that we love and that we choose, and we're doing it by sharing storytelling, curiosity and coaching. It's by me learning, coaching, I coach myself, I coach Evan. We've kind of really worked on our minds and our mindsets to get to where we are at the moment. So if you're interested in knowing where to start or how to start your own YouTube channel, podcast or social media pages, then I've got a coaching program called Clarity Quest, which is three sessions with me the 90 minute sessions really affordable, and you also get a bonus session of a text session with Evan or with both of us, and then ongoing accountability after that and it's great for creativity. So I'm saying to start a YouTube channel or podcast or something like that. But if there's a creative project that you thought I've always wanted to do that and I don't know how to start, then come and explore it with me and I'll help you. So you can go to wwwmelancholymentorcom and search the work with me menu. We've got other stuff on there as well, so it's melancholy mentor, melancholy coaching. Did you right this is a bit of a random one for anybody listening at the time did you sort the rss feed on the website? No, right? Okay, we need to get that back on, yeah, so that people can see, like some of the podcast stuff as well. And we've. We had a bit of a glitch glitch on our website that we need to look at. So by all means, visit it and see whether or not that's been done. So if the podcast stuff is is on there then, then it's been done. Yeah, and the other channel that we've got is melancholy coaching, so that's a relatively new one.

Fran: 20:02

I did have a specific goal of getting a certain amount of subscribers by August that I didn't reach, which is okay. So I take accountability for that myself and the responsibility for that, because I keep saying I'm going to add extra content to it and I haven't done it. So currently, that has speeches by people like Denzel Washington. Who else have we got on there? Steveve jobs, yeah, so there's there's like speeches that we've got on there, and the melancholy coaching podcast is on there, where I've been interviewing people and I want to add training videos and some meditations and other stuff, and I haven't done it as yet.

Fran: 20:48

Plans to, though. I do plan to see. We're moving along steady and sure aren't we? So this kind of measure of success. I feel successful. I'm pretty sure that you feel successful as well, don't you, evan? Yeah, definitely, yeah, yeah, don't? We don't base ourselves on anybody else. We stay in our own lane. A lot of this, the majority of this, is self-taught through our own inquisitive nature and from being burnt elsewhere. Yeah, a lot of it is self-taught. We're kind of basing it on a few training things that we've done, cause you did some. What was it? You, you did, I did some Udemy courses, udemy, yeah, that was right and um centre of excellence wasn't?

Evan: 21:38

it. Then some of the UFO stuff and things like that, that I've learned, the kooky stuff I've done centre of excellence and the other, uh, sort of like the tech side. I did some Udemy courses. I did one on YouTube. Even so, yeah, it's just given me some knowledge.

Fran: 21:55

YouTube is a great resource, isn't it? Yeah yeah, yeah so, and there's so much on there, so right, okay, back to YouTube again. On your channel, channel mystery mythos what's your favorite episode?

Evan: 22:12

it's twilight zone nightmare at 20 000 feet, that's.

Fran: 22:17

That's my favorite one okay, tell us a little bit about that right, it's about a guy called bob oh god, his name's gone.

Evan: 22:30

It could just be bob bob wilson. Sorry, I do know it. Bob wilson, his second name won't come and he's basically been come, come out of like a kind of like a respite, like he's had a mental breakdown. So he's in, he's recovered and the doctors allowed him to leave. But when he had it he had it on a plane. So when he leaves he's got to go on like through the same plane journey and basically everyone thinks he's a little bit mad because you know, he's been locked away I think it's for like six months or something. So he's done this stint, you know, and he gets put on the plane and his wife's there and she greets him and everything, and basically the long and short of it is that he's on this, this plane, and he's having.

Evan: 23:18

He's really panicky, you know he's he's he's trying not to be, but he is panicky and he glances out onto the, because he's like sat level with the plane wing, and he glances out and sees what he calls a gremlin on the wing. So it's basically a monster. If you look up pictures of it on the internet and everything, you'll see what it is. It's a really cool-looking monster, but yeah, he calls it a gremlin on the wing and basically sees this gremlin. He calls it a gremlin on the wing, so, and basically sees this gremlin peeling back like where the like the, where the engine is. I think it is, but he's peeling, he's peeling it back, oh and everyone will have to listen to find out what happens next.

Fran: 24:02

Find out, yeah, so, and it's actually. The twilight zone was a series of stories, wasn't it? So there a radio, there are radio drama plays of Twilight Zone, of which there are quite a number of them on your channel, and there was also a TV series like a television series, and there was one of this particular episode that starred do you remember who it starred John Lesko and who else? Who was the other one before that?

Evan: 24:34

Oh, william Shatner, William Shatner. On the first one, yeah, william Shatner. And then the second one, it was John Lithgow, wasn't it?

Fran: 24:41

Yeah, so a lot of these have kind of been redone so I think it might have been the original television episode of this. What was it nightmare at 20 000 feet, starred william shatner of star trek fame.

Evan: 24:59

Yeah, so that's the most iconic one. Yeah, and I think the story itself was written by richard matheson, who wrote I Am Legend. So the story, the original original story, was taken from that, wasn't it?

Fran: 25:15

Pretty sure, and then they kind of refilmed it and it was John Lithgow, yeah. So what we've got on the channel. So on Evan's YouTube channel, a lot of it is AI generated. So there's AI generated videos to go with the audio, because obviously as radio dramas we only have the audio. There is it's not like the plays, actual, like um, it's voice actors, yeah so. And on my channel so Melancholy Mentor, it's me just going around with a tripod filming around the seaside and stuff like that. So it's a bit of a different vibe on that channel. But quite a lot of the episodes are either from classic literature books originally, and a lot of them either have movie adaptations or television adaptations as well. So there's like a whole big rabbit hole to go down with these radio dramas.

Evan: 26:11

There really is. It's very, very interesting.

Fran: 26:15

That's why we like sharing it, because the basis of all this is the creativity. So it's a way of us channeling our creativity and sharing it with new audiences. So, whether that be my cabaret performing performing, or you know the music that you put together, or the youtube channels that we're running, it's all based on creativity and us expressing ourselves and creating the life that we choose to have and surrounding ourselves with what we choose to have. So I'm currently sitting, which I do occasionally, so I'm house sitting on my own, remotely. So I'm like out in the countryside, not a lot else around, looking after two beautiful big dogs. So while I'm there, I bring my books with me that I never read. You need them, you gotta have them because I end up doing other things and but I'm looking at them. Right now they're over there on the table. So there you go, come and tell me to get on with reading my books. So it's a little bit about us, a little bit about what we do, and hopefully we're inspiring you with, you know, some motivation to think about what you want to do. So, whatever stage of life you're at, whatever age you're at, what do you want to do? What do you want to do for you. Is there something that you've always wanted to explore? Can we help you with that? So, yeah, thank you for joining us on this journey from self-taught beginners to confident-ish creators, confident-ish getting more confident on youtube. You won't find a lot from us on other social media platforms, although you can, by all means, look us up. There might be a little bit of a crossover, but I don't tend to use much in the way of other platforms at all, and I had right. I'm going to say it.

Fran: 28:18

My, I did have a large Facebook account and it was suspended. So I went a month without it, started a new one so that I could access the group that we've got. So we've got a group on Facebook that you can find as well. And what's that? That's? That's based on creativity, isn't it, evan? Yeah, the group, it's kind of business basics and creativity. Remind me what it's called. It's gone out of of my mind creative flowing business, that's it. Yeah, it's literally just creative flowing business, something. And networking, isn't it? And that's us on Facebook. So I started a new account just so that I could help everyone out and and access the group, because everyone was running it by themselves.

Fran: 29:05

And then Facebook gave me back my large account, to which I decided that I wasn't going to use it anymore. So I deactivated it and I had, relatively for us anyway, a relatively large following and network and stuff like that and just decided that a lot of it. Just I was just going to walk away and start again, which is fine as well. So if it's about enhancing and building up what you've got already, or if it's about starting anew, you know completely new whether or not you want to leave behind what whatever was done before, or whether you just want to start something new because you didn't have it ever to start with, that's fine too. So there you go.

Fran: 29:46

It's a little bit of truth for me that they actually did eventually, after just over a month, give me back the account, give me back access to it, and I decided to walk away from it. So I'm going to say it again. I'm like, shall I say it again, right? So thank you for joining us on this journey from self-taught beginners to confident-ish creators and until next time, stay curious and keep igniting your creative potential bye, bye that was all right.

Fran: 30:20

I like that moon behind you in your background. It looks really good, doesn't it?

Evan: 30:25

yeah, it does when I position my head right with it, then it works. Do you like my fake plant? Yeah, yeah, I love them. Yeah, yeah, they look really good actually. Bye.

Fran: 30:42

Thank you for joining me on the Melancholy Coaching Podcast. I'd love you to subscribe For queries or to connect email info at melancholymentorcom. Until next time, keep igniting your creative potential.