By John Powell – GlobalTV.com

The Gentle Giant was redeemed. After losing out via a fire-making challenge during Survivor 42, Jonathan Young not only overcame the flame during the Survivor 50 finale but he made the final three. Of anyone this season, Jonathan evolved his game to the next level courtesy of friend and mentor Boston Rob. Still, Jonathan has a lot to say about the Survivor 50 winner and the chaotic jury he, Aubry and Joe faced.

John Powell: Jonathan, thank you for taking the time to chat with us today. How are you feeling this morning?

Jonathan Young: Oh, Mr. John, I’ve felt better but I’m getting through it. I’m almost to the end here. The finish line is in my vision.

John Powell: Well, congratulations on taking second place. You played a great game.

Jonathan Young: Thank you, sir. I gave it everything I had.

John Powell: As with any Survivor finale, there’s a lot of discussion going on and a lot of people say that you played the more well-rounded game, Jonathan. How do you feel about that praise that you’re getting for your overall game?

Jonathan Young: Well, the truth is, I think they’re right! I think I played a better game. I did. I changed where I needed to change. I thought that the Season 50 jury would respect it more and that’s what hurts the most. It’s that I thought they would like to see somebody that had their hand in every vote but instead they wanted to see a floater that was in the middle.

I mean, Ozzy said it best: “You let somebody in the middle get to the finale and it’s like, well, wait a second.” That’s why I said, “Can you clarify for me, what does it mean I let somebody in the middle get to the final?” And he said, “Well, somebody was in the middle, the finale, look what’s happening right there.” And then and there, I knew Ozzy wasn’t going to vote for me, which is shocking.

John Powell: You improved your game in every single facet compared to how you played before, not that you played terribly before, but you brought your game up to another level. You’re receiving a lot of praise for that, a lot of effort. What was your thinking coming into this game? Why and how were you going to be different than last time?

Jonathan Young: When you have somebody like Boston Rob as your neighbour, he talks to you for three years. I can’t tell you how many tennis matches we played and I studied Mr. Rob. I’ve even told him, I don’t know how many times, like, “I can’t play your game, Mr. Rob, but if I adapt certain things…”

There’s a book called Meditations, and the beginning of the book is you take this from this person and this from that person. From my mom, I learned peace; from my father, I learned love and courage. So I was like, I can take this piece from Mr. Rob, this piece from Mike, and I did. There’s certain moves you can kind of see where I took from, like the fight with the goat—Boston Rob would do something like that—or notching the bell, Boston Rob would say something like that. So I tried to take little pieces from Mr. Rob and I feel like I did that.

John Powell: Well, that’s not a bad coach to have, all things considered. What do you think are some of the best tips that he gave you that really made a difference to how you played?

Jonathan Young: I mean, even now as this game comes to an end, he said, “You can’t control what you can’t control, so enjoy it.” And he brought up a tribe swap. It’s like, you can’t worry about those things, like I can’t control some of the jury votes. I can’t, regardless of if I played a better game, it doesn’t mean that some people aren’t bitter.

So it’s just remembering that you can’t control that and that people aren’t there to help you win, that is one of the things that he told me about Survivor and that’s kind of stuck out to me. Smile more. I mean, there’s a million things I learned from Mr. Rob. Stuff is written on my face when I feel a certain way and that’s something that he taught me. So, yeah, there are so many.

John Powell: One of the things you must be most proud of you won fire, you did it! How did it feel in that moment? Because that has been, as you said, a monkey on your back for so long, and here you are. That alone must have been worth returning to the game for.

Jonathan Young: It was the fact that I got to redeem myself. Mr. Jeff said, “Well, I mean, the whole theme is Phoenix, and you’re either going down into the ashes or someone’s going to come up in a flame,” and we’re literally making fire. There was a point at the end where I burnt my hands because I wanted to win so bad; I pushed the fire together and brought it to the rope, so I ended up burning my hands to win.

John Powell: There are these other kind of senses on the island that come into play that aren’t maybe there in your normal life because of all the noise around you. Aubry just said the same thing. She goes, “Yeah, like you feel your intuition is different.” You’ve been out there twice now; did you feel a difference in your perception being on the island?

Jonathan Young: I think we all feel it but this is what I credit to God because I look at it like this: it’s a fast, and it’s a forced fast. You’re fasting from food, from electronics and when you take something out of the equation, something else replaces it. So, for example, when somebody is deaf, a lot of the time they can see things that other people can’t, right? The same thing on Survivor: when you take all of these things away, something else is in its place.

John Powell: What do you think Jonathan has to do if he gets to play a third time that’s going to take you over that finish line?

Jonathan Young: Jonathan, I’ll put Joe and Rizo in the finale with me! (laughs) I think that’s what I need to do, because I knew as soon as the ball dropped that if Tiffany or Aubry got to the final, I’d have a hard time winning. I could have told you who was going to vote against me and who was going to vote for me. I knew what was going on in the game and I knew where I stood. That’s one thing that I’m pretty good at—knowing where I stand in people’s minds. Because if you know yourself and you know your enemy, a thousand battles, a thousand victories.

I knew where I stood. It’s like when you’re around Boston Rob, do you pretend that you’re on his level or do you be honest and go, “Well, I know I’m down here, and Rob’s up here”? Or Cirie—you go, “Obviously I can’t play with Cirie or Ozzy, I’ve got to vote them out.” And I thought that would be respected in a game like this. Turns out, having your hand on every vote was a disadvantage, instead of being in the middle. Thank you, you took her to the top.

John Powell: Tell us about that chaotic jury last night.

Jonathan Young: That is such a good point. I’m glad you brought that up, because you had them battling among themselves. I mean Rizo—that didn’t even show—but he took a moment for himself to go by what his question was: “This is my legacy. This is why I have a legacy. Tell me…” He listed his legacy before he goes, “Now, what’s your legacy?” And it’s like everyone was doing it. Not everyone, but a lot of them had an agenda, and it was obvious.

Stephenie had an agenda for me, Cirie had an agenda, and Tiffany had an agenda for Aubry. Once I saw that, I was like, if Cirie can rally troops like that in the game, don’t think for a second she’s not rallying the troops like that in Ponderosa. You know it’s the truth because if you think for a second the game is over when they are voted out—absolutely not. It’s over now. Well, not even now; in about 30 minutes when I’m done with this.

John Powell: You’ve been able to watch the whole season back, and obviously you’re not involved in every discussion or every conversation. Watching it back, what are some of the things that have really surprised you the most? The things that you weren’t aware of?

Jonathan Young: You know, the truth is, it surprised me that there were so many people coming to Cirie at once, right, and asking her what to do. How that wasn’t a red flag to all these people—that she had so many people coming up to her, asking her what to do, and then just blindly saying, “Yes, you’re right.” I was thinking of Ozzy saying, “I was going to go the other way, because you just said that one thing, Cirie, I’m completely changing my mind.”

The amount of power that she had blew my mind, and that’s what I credit my partial loss to, because she did the same thing in Ponderosa, right? If you can just say, “No, we’re all voting for Aubry,” like she did, or “No, we’re all voting for Christian,” then that’s the answer. I mean, that’s how you get and lose votes.

John Powell: If you’re going to come back what do you think you need to fine-tune when it comes to your game, Jonathan?

Jonathan Young: I’ve been working on the perception of me for like four years, five years, but I can’t take away my height or my deep voice. So, I still work on the perception of me. I’ve even seen the fans’ perception of me, and I don’t like it. I don’t know what to do to change that. That’s something that I don’t know if I can work on, or if that’s a… I don’t know, because it seems to go back to what people think, instead of what is actually happening, if you know what I’m saying.

John Powell: Well, Survivor is a game, and the game of life, too, is a lot about perception—people’s own thoughts, what they think. When you talk about the fans, you must have seen a lot of praise, too. Again, a lot of people take the comments to heart. What is on your mind when it comes to how they view you and how they see you in your game?

Jonathan Young: I used to think about people that read the comments who were famous, and they were like, “It hurts me.” I was like, “Why? Why do you care what these other people think?” And then I started doing it, and I was like, oh man, it does hurt. These people are mean. I got a message last night that I can’t even repeat.

John Powell: Wow.

Jonathan Young: That is just absolutely… it’s just… it’s hard to think that a deep or human soul would say that because of a TV show.

John Powell: That’s one of the things, too, is that people are watching a TV show and they don’t understand these are real people; these aren’t characters in a TV show. Looking back, is there anything about your journey that you wish people would have seen, Jonathan?

Jonathan Young: Oh, I had a spear-fishing competition with Ozzy. I wish people would have seen that.

John Powell: Ozzy and then I think Rick mentioned it too, about how you guys had this competition. Explain a little bit about that, because it sounded like something awesome.

Jonathan Young: What did Ozzy say? Did he say he won or lost?

John Powell: He didn’t actually say…

Jonathan Young: He didn’t! (laughs) We all went out there and we had a good time. I shot about 10 fish, and Ozzy shot about four. And Devens—resourceful—we speared a fish for Devens and put it on the end of the spear for him so he could hold it up. It was a lot of fun. Lots of sharks, lots of… that was one of my favourite times on the island, just spending time with everybody.

John Powell: Well, Jonathan, it was wonderful to see you back again. Maybe in the future there’ll be a Survivor Fishing Prize, I don’t know, but I really do hope that we haven’t seen the last of you. Your journey isn’t over, because again, to see the marked improvement from where you came from to where you are today is something everybody’s talking about, and I think you should take a lot of pride in that.

Jonathan Young: Thank you, sir. That means a lot.