Johnny Crowder is the Founder and CEO of Cope Notes. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Business. After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2010, Johnny realized that mental health services are disorganized and hard to find. He decided to fix this problem by creating Cope Notes, incorporated in 2013.
How he got into drugs
The first identity crisis was when his first band broke up. He started performing shows since was 15. This made him the vocalist of the dark sermon. The band also fulfilled his contract with the record labels. So, when the band broke up, he was devastated. The band broke up because the other guys wanted to get married and have babies.
After the breakup, he spent more than a year in a deep dark depression, figuring out who he was. His entire life was taken away, his friends, career, and confidence. And this is how he got into drugs.
Building Cope Notes
Johnny Crowder was at the end of his rope. He’d been struggling with drug addiction for years, relapsing in and out of rehab centers, and after another relapse, he knew it was time to do something drastic.
“I needed something to keep me accountable that would hold me responsible for my decisions,” says Crowder. “I had a journal in rehab, and I did my best to write every day about how things were going. When I left, I just kept it up.”
That’s when Crowder got his big idea: What if other recovering addicts could have access to a daily journal to keep them accountable? What if there was a notebook that people could use to write down their feelings, experiences, and goals? What if they could share those things with friends and family members?
Could creating such a notebook help save lives?
He came up with the name Cope Notes, the first letters in his name and his mother’s name. Coping with life is exactly what everyone needs to do at some point in their lives.
Finding the inner strength
It all started when he started his treatment in high school. He was very annoying and did not believe what his doctors told him. He even went on to take a college psychology class just to prove them wrong, but as he was learning, he realized that the doctors were right all along. It was also when he understood that there were many things he didn’t know.
He later decided to study psychology because he was very curious about it, and that is when he found his inner strength.
Advise to listeners
You don’t have to be a doctor. You can be the friend or family member who makes that massive impact on somebody. Also, trust what you are curious about, what matters to you, and what should be done.
