Hello!

My name is Jon Sue-Ho.  You’d normally be hearing me in a Scottish accent, but today, I’m approaching you with the best American accent I can manage to tell the story of Scottish Pep Talks.

I’ve always tried to help uplift others when they’ve been down.

Once, I saw my co-worker Allison in the lunchroom, her elbow on the lunch table, her hand propping up her dejected head as she sat venting to our other co-worker Kyle.  It seemed like she was having a rough time.

So, I asked her, without really thinking about it, “Do you need a pep talk?” to which she immediately and emphatically replied, “Yes!!!”

And so I gave her a pep talk.  In a Scottish accent.  Why it was in a Scottish accent, no one’s really sure (not even me), but that’s how it happened.

I don’t really remember what I said, but I remember that afterwards she felt a lot better, and I did too.

Afterwards, I started giving Allison and Kyle pep talks on what turned out to be a weekly basis.  Sometimes they’d be inspirational quotes, sometimes hilarious snippets I had written, but always they were in a Scottish accent.

On days I knew I wouldn’t be there to deliver them in person, I would write pep talks on post-it notes I placed on Kyle’s desk, sometimes accompanied by a drawing of a smiley face with a plaid golf hat and a beard (which, for legal purposes, is not based on Kyle (who may or may not have a red beard)).

After a while, I started recording them and emailing them to Allison, Kyle, and a growing list of others.

Then, without disclosing it to Kyle or Allison, I secretly bought the url scottishpeptalks.com and spent four months developing a website to host all the audio recordings.  I hired my friend Adrianne Neiss, an epigeneticist turned graphic designer, to transform my crudely drawn smiley face into a full color logo and a business card design.

On the morning of Monday, September 29, 2014, while wearing plaid shirt, I sat Allison and Kyle down in the lunchroom, pulled out and put on a plaid hat, gave them a very special pep talk, and showed them what I’d done.  That day, they were both certainly full of pep.

And so, the Scottish Pep Talks website was born.

Immediately thereafter I started secretly writing my own versions of classic Christmas songs.  Hiring Jeralee Johnson as music producer and rehiring Adrianne Neiss to do the cover art, I began work on the Scottish Pep Talks Presents Christmas from the Public Domain holiday album. The album featured such great songs as We Wish You a Scottish Christmas, Jingle Kilts, Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel (as if it were sung by William Wallace (I understand the irony), as well as some legitimately nice Christmas music and even a heartfelt reading of the Nativity Story (in a Scottish accent).  By that December I presented Kyle and Allison with their own physical copies of the album.

We’ve slowed down a bit since then, but our goal is to keep up a steady stream of inspirational and hilarious messages (in a Scottish accent) in a wide array of forms.  We’re looking forward to the future.

Scottish Pep Talks is here to make people smile.  Scottish Pep Talks is here to remind you that being nice is worth it, and that silly things, when taken seriously, can make a difference and be a whole lot of fun.

We’re here to be happy and to make a difference. We’re here to be hilarious and ridiculous. And we’re here to be Scottish.

From the beginning, we’ve been here to support our friends (with a little help from you)!

Please help us keep going by donating on our page “The Generous Support of Viewers Like You”