Jason Meadows; Pharmacist, farmer, podcaster on converting to Mormonism and overcoming stress.

About this episode

Vance interviews Jason Meadows, a hospital pharmacist, cattle rancher, and host of an agriculture-focused mental-health podcast (Ag State of Mind), covering his journey from struggling with untreated anxiety (crystallized by a hay-barn fire incident while away at a conference) to becoming an open advocate for mental-health conversation within rural/agricultural communities — while remaining wary of "cynically" profiting off shared trauma. The conversation transitions into Meadows' conversion to the LDS church after marrying his wife, unpacking Mormon theology (the Book of Mormon as a "second testament," the Nephites/Lamanites narrative), church structure (wards, stakes), and a candid discussion of how his own anti-Mormon upbringing colored his initial skepticism. A major thread is community and social media: both agree that loss of geographically-bound community (church, neighborhood) has left people isolated and that social media's lack of "retribution" enables performative, unaccountable discourse, tying into Vance's Twitter Sober-October experiment and a riff on Miller's "seven items" working-memory theory. The back half covers pharmacology and medicine's over-reliance on SSRIs/benzodiazepines for anxiety treatment (Meadows argues meds are frequently a "first resort" rather than last), COVID-era school quarantine policy skepticism (drawing on his own kids' experience), and closes with goal-setting, journaling/gratitude practices, sibling comparison as a personal "demon," and Meadows' running journey (target: 1,000 miles in 2020) inspired partly by David Goggins.

“That was probably the part of it I struggled with the most, Vance — it is not wanting to be someone who is looking to profit off of their own misfortunes... we don't want it to be a one-up game.”

“The church represents everything that is good and pure about, honestly, about being an American... it's a uniquely American church... one of the first purely American religions.”

“We instituted a new program... a much more home-centered [approach]... we, we stuck to that... and then in fast forward, 14, 15 months and COVID happened and everything shut down.”

Key moments

• ~5%: Origin story — the hay-barn-fire phone call while at a conference in Dallas as the turning point that revealed his own growth in anxiety management.
• ~20%: Enneagram Type Three self-diagnosis and the "people-pleaser" pattern behind his old coping mechanisms (alcohol).
• ~35%: Conversion story to the LDS church — second-date reveal, prior anti-Mormon youth-group conditioning, and warm reception at his current ward in Rolla, Missouri.
• ~48%: COVID foresight tangent — the "prophet as watchman on the tower" framing and the church's 2019 shift to home-centered study just before the pandemic hit.
• ~55-62%: Extended riff on quarantine policy, child COVID risk, and "hijacking our immunity" — both express skepticism of blanket childhood quarantine mandates.
• ~68%: Pharmacology deep-dive — SSRIs, benzodiazepine addiction risk (name-checking Jordan Peterson's benzo dependency), and critique of psychiatric medication as a too-quick first resort.
• ~88%: Goal-setting, journaling, gratitude practice, and the "youngest of five siblings" comparison demon, capped by the Jimmy Buffett/Eric Clapton anecdote about relative comparison.
• ~95%: Running journey — 1,000-mile 2020 goal, half-marathon completed on Halloween, and David Goggins as a shared influence.

Notable quotes

“I wish I knew what he saw 'cause it's something big... he saw what the pandemic, what the lockdowns were going to be.”

“It's virtually unheard of for a child without comorbidities to die of this... I feel like there was some real oversight here.”

“The ease with which we can prescribe medications for these disorders — I feel like we're way too trigger happy on it.”

“That was probably the part of it I struggled with the most — not wanting to be someone who is looking to profit off their own misfortune.”