Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Luke Colson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Luke thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

I currently run parallel lives. By day, I am the Head Of Creative Partnerships at Untold Studios, a Creative Studio in LA, working on high-end Design and VFX projects for great clients, spanning TV, Film and Music. By night, I run a very rewarding, and jolly successful podcast with my friend Kyle Wise. ‘Well That F*cked Me Up – Surviving Life Changing Events’ was started 3 years ago, and is now listened to in 83 countries, and has been in the charts around the globe. Now to the defining moment, 6 years ago my father died, and a wave of childhood trauma from my early years, crashed over me like a tsunami, bringing up crippling fear, anxiety, depression and ptsd from a number of events that I had locked away. One of those events was the death of my friend, who died in front of me in a road traffic accident when I was eleven. Bear with me I promise this story gets more positive! The ptsd 6 years ago was paralyzing and I had a breakdown, pure and simple. Still to this day I have 3 weeks of my life in this period, that are unaccounted for, and the journey out of this event is still ongoing. What I realized quite quickly, is that I was suffering with ptsd for decades, with no idea that all of this stuff was locked away inside. The first thing I wanted to do was to get my message out there, to speak to others who were / are struggling, and that’s when my friend Kyle suggested we start a podcast. It was covid, and everyone was starting a podcast! You see, Kyle had been through some unspeakable things as a child and was excited about the idea of creating a platform for trauma stories to be shared. We used my laptop, bought a microphone, and sat in my wardrobe thinking of ideas. We started, with me sharing my story, and Kyle sharing his, In a simple 40 minute host and guest format. We went live, and amassed 7 listeners in our first two weeks, lol, but we persevered, and soon had our friends interested in telling their stories of trauma and struggles.. we grew and grew, and even made some theme music. And now, 110 guests in, thousand and thousands of listens each month, and potential guests contacting us daily to be on the show.

Luke, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I grew up in London, and went to Art School at Chelsea School Of Art and then Camberwell Art school, and completed my BA Hons degree in Graphic Design at UWE (University or West of England). Getting into the world of Advertising was a real slog for me. I wanted to be more on the Production, account management, making the deals, side of the industry, it was the late Nineties, and I took a job at a Post Production facility in Soho, literally making tea, and buying lunch for staff and clients. An old school ‘runner’! Little did I know that I would be in Soho for the next twenty years, going from Runner, into scheduling the Edit, Color, and VFX suites, then Head of Scheduling, then jumping over to a great company named Wild Tracks, again as scheduler, and then getting a nice break and joining UNIT Post Production, again in Soho, as their first ever employee, building the company from the ground up, creating London’s first ever Mac run Design and Edit studio! So, even though I was more in the administration, company building side of things, my understanding of Design, really came in handy, building a business in that field! Three years into building UNIT, The Mill came calling, and I began a decade long stint at what was then, the biggest and most well respected VFX studio in the world. I joined as Head of Design, and Executive Producer, and implemented Design as an offering, into The Mill’s infrastructure, for the first time (previously desk top solutions were not a thing, leaning mainly on Flame and Maya, while I helped introduce Nuke, After Effects, and C4D).. I came out to LA, and after two years at Mill LA, joined Elastic, as Senior Executive producer, I was lucky enough to work on Multiple Emmy winning projects, including the Game Of Thrones Main Titles, The Morning Show, and His Dark Materials for which we also won a Bafta award! After 6 years, I joined Untold Studios here in LA, and that is where I sit as I write this interview! Remember, it was around about the time I moved to LA that the cracks started to show in my Mental Health.. but I was unaware of what was to come, I just remember feeling alone, scared, and out of my depth a lot of the time. Now I know that these feelings were my untreated PTSD, that was bubbling underneath, telling me I was undeserving of success, and casting self doubt in my mind. Needless to say, I work in one of the most high pressured industries in the world, and I am working to merge my findings, in what I see in my day today in our industry, and the things I discuss on my Podcast. We ARE getting so much better at discussing mental health, but 99% of the time people are suffering in silence, and have no idea where to start a conversation. I want to bring that to the forefront, to just let people know that bits OK to feel shit, to have doubts, to need help and support, and to ask for help.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

You know, I would, I really would. What is interesting is that I trained in Design, and was quite a good Graphic Designer, b ut as soon as I finished my degree I just new I didn’t have the patience for that profession. I don’t have patience, and I have pretty awesome ADHD, so working in a profession where I can multi-task seemed to fit me really well. I love talking to people, and even more so now, knowing what i know about stress and burnout and mental health, I find it easy to have pretty open conversations and that helps in my line of work dealing with very stressed people all the time!

Can you talk to us about how your funded your firm or practice?

My podcast is self funded, and the good news is, it’s very very cheap to run. I see the podcast as group therapy or group counseling, where people from all walks of life get to come together and be open and vulnerable and know they are in a safe space. I don’t spend any money on the podcast other than the hosting site for the website, and my internet! We have finally started to adverstize, but let me tell you for those of you who think that Podcasting is a way to make quick money, it isn’t! I think one day, it may well be a business for me, I have spoken to some streamers and production companies who have expressed interest in creating a show, with interviews or even animation discussing peoples journeys through trauma and out the other side! It would be amazing for my two worlds to collide like that, creating an animated documentary from the Podcast, who knows, some day soon.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wellthatfuckedmeup.buzzsprout.com
• http://www.untoldstudios.tv/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lukecolson
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-colson-68960428
• Other: Tik Tok – Comedy and Comparisons https://www.tiktok.com/@luke.is.alive_