Nuanced. - 52. Tim Srigley: Craftsman, Leather Expert & YouTube Creator

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

Tim Srigley is the craftsman behind Black Flag Leather Goods a great leather-working YouTube channel.   Tim Srigley lives in Chilliwack, BC, with his wife and 3 year old daughter. He started leather working in July of 2020. He was on a 3 month paternity leave from work and looking for a hobby to do while his daughter napped each day. That hobby turned into a business and he was suddenly selling a good amount of small goods (wallets, belts, camera straps, etc). It quickly got out of hand and that was all he was doing in his free time. Tim decided to try his hand at making YouTube videos on leather craft and began growing an audience. He decided to close his books and devote his time to YouTube. As of right now he has 4705 subscribers and the channel has turned into just as much of a hobby as the leather craft itself. In his videos he talks about how to get started in leather work, things to avoid, and great tools to use. He shares templates and tutorials on how to make things like leather cup holders, wallets, card holders, as well as tips and tricks.   In this conversation, Aaron and Tim drink whisky and talk about starting YouTube channels, society, family, choosing a hobby, and sharing your passion with others. More specifically, Tim shares his experience working with leather, the journey of starting the Black Flag Leather Goods YouTube channel, his recommendations when starting a YouTube channel, how to make money on YouTube, as well as tips and ticks to make a successful channel.   Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/C5CrxBT7wecSend us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Fair enough. Well, cheers, man. Oh, this is awesome. I really appreciate you being willing to come on. We've been talking for so long, and I think that we're lucky to learn from each other and hear what the journey has been like, and I really admire the work that you're doing in terms of just developing something that shares your passion. And so I'm wondering, can you just tell us about how you got into making leather work videos? because I think that that's,

hopefully the path other people are willing to take is just figuring out what they want to do and then just chasing it and making it a part-time thing and then letting that grow from there. It's funny. It's something I never planned on getting into it all. It started kind of in the pandemic. Like I guess the pandemic started really February-ish, Marchish, 2020.

And so I went on Instagram and started looking at stuff then And then kind of I bought like a pair of red wing leather boots. And then I really liked those. And then I was looking at like nice leather wallets. I had like a cheap one off wish, like one of the elastic band and like metal plate ones. Right. And then I was looking at like just guys making leather stuff, wallets. followed one guy who's actually out of Langley,

so pretty close to here, and started talking with him, and then he kind of was showing me how easy it is to get into. And I just picked up some, there's like leather working tool kits on Amazon for super cheap, like, like 50 bucks. Right.

And they, like, horrible tools. But they, like, I still use a couple of them, but they open the door. Yeah, for sure. So I grabbed one of those and then I grabbed some leather. It was like a, he calls it leather roulette where you just pay a little bit of money and you get whatever he decides to send you. And he's actually at a Saskatchewan.

So it's like, yeah, I was trying to keep my stuff as local as I can. And so I got that and then I just started, I meant to bring it and I forgot, but I made like just a horrible little crappy wallet. I think I like ran out a thread twice while making it and it's super janky looking. But it was the first thing I made. And then I just kept making stuff. My buddy kept helping me out. And, yeah, it just kind of grew into something bigger than I thought. And it just started as a hobby.

I was on paternity leave from work. I just had a kid. And then the COVID thing. So we just, I would put her down for a nap. And then I would just make leather things. Oh, my gosh. Can you introduce yourself for people who might not know who you are and your YouTube channel? Yeah.

So I'm Tim. I run Blackfly Egg leather goods. I just make like small leather goods like wallets and bags, stuff like that. I started selling things online and then it just kind of got too much with working a full-time job and having a kid and stuff. And then I started making YouTube videos and that picked up steam. And it's not like I'm a huge YouTuber or something, but I'm coming up on 5,000 subscribers and I get paid by YouTube. and so I can kind of make what I want and then make my money through videos

and I just make like how to use on for new leather workers, how to make leather things. Right, that's so interesting. Please try the proper 12 by Mr. Connor McGregor. Yeah, I'm excited for this. I'm interested in your feedback and I have McKellen, I think 12 year scotch. That's really good actually.

I really like the Irish whiskey. I was a Scotch purist for a long time. And then I think I started drinking too La Mordeaux, I think it was called. And that's really good, too. Can you tell me, do you know the difference? My partner was just asking because the McAllen is Scotch and whiskey. And she's like, do they mix? How does that work?

Oh, I think for Scotch to be Scotch, it has to be from Scotland is the big thing. Is it a peated one? I'm not, I don't know. Not an expert? Yeah. I think it, I think the most important part is it has to be from Scotland. Okay. I don't know too much, but I know single malt whiskeys mean that it's, um, so malt means that it's malted barley.

Right. So I think that it means it's toasted. I could be totally wrong. Someone's going to correct this. Yeah, that's fine. Because I just enjoy the flavor and I'm always surprised when people are like, I can drink like 12 beers. It's like, I'd rather have something really. good and like that I'd only have to have a sip of and just enjoy the flavor.

Yeah. I think, I think single means it has to be from like one distillery. Right. And I think they can mix the years because they do like what they call like a Salera cask. So like if you have a 20 year whiskey, it might not all be 20 years. It could be say you make a whiskey. Then the next year you cut it with the newest whiskey.

And then the next year you keep and you keep. keep cutting it. And I think the year is the oldest age of the whiskey in there. Oh, interesting. So, but I think that's still single, as in it's like made in the same distillery. Yeah, so it's all got the same type of quality. Yeah, but I'm no whiskey expert. I just like the stuff. Fair enough. So when you were getting interested in leather, is there a reason that it was leather? Is there, like, did you enjoy like the texture or like the rustic look of it? Because we're going to talk later about some of the people that you kind of admire in the YouTube space in the um making and communicating ideas so what was it about leather that kind of made you go

this is worth hopping on amazon this is worth paying 50 bucks and kind of going down this path it it's kind of i'm kind of an old school guy like i like all the like heritage stuff and there was a few things i was looking at the same time and leather was just sort of the most accessible like i was watching leather working videos on youtube i also like knife making I love watching forging and knife making. It's amazing. And guys doing like Damascus blades. What are Damascus blades?

It's like a blade, I wish I had one. It's like a blade where you take a bunch of steel and like different carbon amounts of steel and you fold them together. And then when they like heat it up and press it, you like press it a bunch of times in this big giant hammer thing they have. And then you fold it and they keep doing that. and it makes this, like, crazy design in the blade and the, that's super cool. Interesting. But I don't, I live in a town home in Chilac. I don't have room for a forge and a power hammer and all that.

And then, so I was like, okay, well, that's out. I also was looking at glass blowing, which is pretty cool. That is. It's super expensive. What is the process of, like, glass blowing? It's, they take, like, big, you get big glass rods, and then they heat them up, so they're, pretty much molten and then they just form them into cool things like they use um it's essentially a big forge as well and once it's molten they have all kinds of tools to shape it and then

they can like for a cup they'll actually put a tube into it and blow air into it and make essentially like a molten glass bubble and then they let it cool and that's how they make glasses and, like, decorations and stuff like that. That's so interesting to me because, like, you think about all the different, like, paths you can take in your life. And so many people seem stuck doing, like, a nine to five that they're not passionate about. And, like, all you have to do is find something that kind of catches you. And I don't know if you've watched Harry Potter at all, but they have this idea in it of the golden snitch. And that's whatever it is that makes you interested in something.

It's that thing that pulls you forward and makes you go, I got to go check this out. I got to go start my own thing. I got to do something. And the whole character around Harry Potter is that he's the person who's really good at doing that of figuring out what his passion is and trying to chase that forward and figuring out how he can make a difference and move in the right direction. And so I've enjoyed this podcast because I get to sit down with people and figure out what that crazy journey was to start something like leatherwork.

Like some people are like, I've never thought about leather work in my life. And I think that it's so, there's reason to be optimistic about where we're going in the world because you're able to do this and work another job and start to develop something you're excited about. So what was that early phase like for you? Were you like, I'm going to go all in or was it just like, oh, no, this is taking up all my time? It was definitely like a dip your toe in the water kind of thing. And it takes a long time to even get half decent at it, especially like, I'm not the most. creative guy. This is probably the first creative thing I've ever done. Right. And so learning that took a lot of, like I said, the lead from the other leather

business. He helped me a lot, even to the point of where I was like screwing stuff up. He would go on like a live video with me and, and we'd like stitch something up together and he would watch what I'm doing and be like, oh, that's wrong. This is what you're doing. But he's, I think he's been at it, I've been at it two years in July. and I think he's about four years, five years, I could be wrong, but he's pretty good and he's selling a lot of stuff now. Oh, so he's like, he's gone down that path, and maybe we can get into that. Like, you chose the path of what's called affiliate marketing, where you more just talk

about other products you can purchase to get started, but it sounds like he's chosen the path of actually making and selling the products. Can you walk us through with that? You went in that direction, and it sounds like you kind of went, that's probably not for me. And I think for people who are maybe interested in starting their own thing, starting their own YouTube channel, you can give some insights as to how you go about making that decision. Yeah. It started. I originally, I had no plan on doing YouTube at all. I've always kind of wanted to do YouTube, but I didn't really kind of marry the two together yet. I just was doing the leather

thing. And then when I got good enough to start selling them, I was like, oh, you can actually make, it takes a long time to make a wallet. So like, you can, if you're doing it by hand, you can make a decent amount of money on each one, although probably not, like, probably never are charging enough, I think, if you... It's not scalable in that you produce enough in order to have, like, a, I can relax and not have to be making things in the evening. So, like, the first Christmas season in 2020, I had 30 wallets to make, and they're all, like, completely handmade, like, cut out by hand.

I use an exacto knife and hand stitched, and it was, like, a nightmare. I did get them all done. I got them, I finished them on Christmas Eve, the last two and quickly got it out to the person. Luckily, she was in Chilac, but I had my wife down there kind of helping me where she could, and it was crazy. It was my daughter usually sleeps for about three hours or so on a nap, and it was every single day, like all three of those hours. and then sometimes like going into the night just trying to fulfill all of that and that was kind of where I decided

I was going to pull back a little bit. Was it still fun in those days where you were like doing it? It would sound like it turned into a job and I'm always interested in that like transition because artists like Carrie Lynn Victor talked about how like when it starts to become work when it starts to become like

it's not what you wanted to make it's what somebody else wanted to make. So was that like it became a job? That's exactly what it was. It was when I had 30. And it was like 30 of like three different products. So it was like a whole bunch of the same ones. And then I was like, okay, well, this is this was supposed to be a hobby.

And I was just selling them to kind of fund my next set of tools and stuff to keep doing it. And now I'm like, yeah, like you said, working a job. So that's kind of where I started pulling back. And then I'd also done like a few projects where I wasn't super into them. And then vowed never to make those things again. So then when I started. started YouTube, it was kind of a trial, and it, even though my early videos were like, horrible. They started picking up steam because I guess, like, even if the video production is horrible,

if you put something out there that people, like, that helps someone, I think they can look past that. And so I started gaining subscribers. And then I was like, oh, I can move forward with this. I'm fortunate that I actually know a guy who manages a two million subscribers. subscriber, YouTube channel for his business. And so he was giving me some hints and tips and stuff like that, just saying this is what we did early on. And so I kind of took those and kept going and then watched at scale and then realized that, okay, this is probably something that I could make money at. And so I kind of just completely closed my books, although I closed my books and then I still somehow get orders.

Some people still sweet talk me. So, but it's, it's like a few things versus, you know, 30 right before Christmas. Right. So I don't mind doing that, especially if I'm like, oh, I want to buy this. Well, I can make an extra couple hundred bucks if I put a few hours in on this one thing versus it feeling like a job. It's interesting. So like my partner has been really supportive in terms of like when I, we started basically the same time because I started March 2020 developing the idea of like, what would a podcast? look like.

It was June 2020 that I recorded my first episode which was not great. But over that time she's been supportive after we're done this she's the one who puts together

the little clip of each person being like hi my name is this she's helped with she does like my Instagram now I was terrible at Instagram I didn't understand it and she's taking on more and more it sounds like your wife was right there with you in the December time

what was that like to pitch this idea of doing leather work in your spare time and then having her come down and help you get out orders. I think early on, I think she thought I was a little bit crazy and it was definitely somewhat of a burden because I started like on the kitchen table and so I would like for the first little bit of the paternity leave I was on, she was home too. And so I was like, had this out on the table or whatever. But then she would, she went back to work eventually and I was still off for another two months. And so she would come home and the table's covered in like random leather working crap and like a big like cowhide

sitting there and so I think she was getting a little frustrated with it and then we have a luckily we have an unfinished basement so I just quickly made a little workbench and put it down there but she's been she's been good she's been supportive um she's not she hasn't been like doing my social media and stuff like that but she's helped like with a lot of making of things and definitely been supportive when I'm like, oh, I have to go down and film this weird thing or I have to go, you know, take pictures of this wallets and like, or if we're like out in public and I have like a pocket full of

wallets like putting them on stuff on like the rotary trail, like putting them on rocks and taking stupid pictures of wallets and stuff. That's so cool. I think people underestimate like the behind the same. scenes because like for the podcast for sure people are like oh like you just sit down and record and it's like you don't see like the like question development you don't see like trying to figure out what microphone to use you don't see any of that like process and then me editing the night before I'm about to release it making sure everything looks good that like

this is all on the side of my bed like typing something out and editing people don't see that and so like there's something I think cool about being able to share that of the crazy having a pocket full of wallets that people don't get to see and they don't get to see the commitment, the drive to want to take good photos and share something that people are going to enjoy seeing. Yeah. There's like a bunch of like weird impacts that you wouldn't, like even just looking weird in public when people are like watching you take pictures of dumb little challenge coins and then crap like. But it's like they're sort of missing out because if you don't have that passion where you're like you're thinking of how to make this better or how to,

improve it's something. It's almost like that's like where meaning is found, like where your things are worthwhile and you start to get excited about your day and you're like, oh yeah, sure, I have to go do this. I have to go grocery shopping. I have to do that crap. But afterwards, I get to do what I'm excited about, which is take that good photo, which is to go out here and try and angle this in this way or how can I improve this and reaching out to people who also have those passions, I think is motivational where I'm interested what was that like for you? Was there any people who are like, what are you doing? You need to get back to work? or was everybody pretty supportive?

I mean, honestly, everyone's been pretty supportive. I mean, I still work full time, so it's not like I'm abandoning everything for YouTube, although I do have the one buddy who's like, oh, you're going to go full-time YouTube at some point. And I'm like, oh, I don't know about that. But, yeah, for me, everyone's been pretty supportive other than they'll make some jokes,

influence or jokes or whatever. But I'm, yeah, I've had a good time doing what I'm doing. doing, and I haven't taken too much flack about it yet. That's good. Yeah. Where did you go after deciding not to? You've gone down the YouTube route. Can you walk us through what that sort of looks like, the early stages?

Because, like, you don't think about it. When you watch YouTube, you don't realize the work that needs to go into making a thumbnail, putting in a description, hashtags, like making sure everything is put together that, that catchy line. I had no idea. I've been watching YouTube since I, guys. 2013 or something like that never realized the behind the scenes effort that goes into it yeah youtube is a beast it's it's hard to like you can listen to someone explain it and it's hard to understand it unless you are doing it but like kind of the biggest advice that pretty much

every big YouTuber gives is just to start but I feel like I imagine you were the same way too there's like this before you start up this like month or longer hesitation where you're like putting off doing it because you want it to be so perfect and realistically you just need to like start and put out your crappy videos and i think it's roberto blake that says you you need to make a hundred videos before you'll make a good one your first hundred videos are going to be crap and that's the learning process and so i kind of took that and then i i watch way too much youtube and and way too many of these youtube educators but i just i took that and then mr b says just every video, do one thing better than your previous video.

Yeah. And so I started, I just threw up my first horrible video and just started trying to improve one thing better, which early on was, lighting was really bad for me. It's still not great, but I'm getting there. But lighting was bad, trying to have some kind of personality on camera is bad. Bad, it's still not great. I think it's really good. I think you know where you're taking this, and I think it's good.

But just things like that, like just critique your previous video and then do one thing better each video. They're not going to be a masterpiece. They're not going to be like cinematography, like, early on. You're not going to be Peter McKinnon in your first year. You need to start crappy and just work your way up. And that's the process on YouTube. Like even, like you said, the thumbnails and stuff.

The thumbnails, the titles, the titles are arts themselves. like these big YouTubers have staffers that they have a thumbnail guy, they have a title guy and these people just sit and do just that thing. I had no idea. Yeah. Not all of them, but some of them.

A lot of people outsource to guys, like people on Fiverr, there's like people on Fiverr that make just thumbnails. But it's the thumbnail is arguably more important than your video because you can have the best video and if you have a crap thumbnail, no one's going to even

click on your video. Yeah, that's one of the challenges and like developing something over time because I think of like what my first iteration of the podcast logo looks like compared to now. Like, I think it looks way better. But I didn't know how bad it was when I started and luckily my partner's interested in developing and improving on social media and she did my whole rebrand. And I think it's important that you try and like, I didn't have photos of the guest typically in my first like 50 interviews like it's crazy i've gone back and edited and put photos of them in but to not to lack that and not realize how bad it was but it's the doing the one thing better like you're you're noticing these i like your new logo that you kind of kept it the same style as the as the old

one though like the neon lights yeah it's all rebecca she came to me and she was like yeah we can update your logo this is what i would do and then i was like that looks so much better like It's slick. I like it. Yeah, so just developing something and then figuring out how to grow that into something that people are going to be excited about because it's like you're trying to share your passion. And I think that that's something I struggled with early on was like nobody's going to care. And how do I, like, I don't want to push it on people. And then it's like, but you have to be your own champion for what you're working on.

And you have to figure out how to do that. And I think just that rule of like improving one thing each time, I think that can be applied to like a lot of your life. Yeah, like exercise. going for runs, like doing a little bit more than you did the last time. When you're at work, doing a little bit more work than you did the last time. Like, just seeking to improve is just a good thing overall. Oh, yeah. It's that, like, I think a lot of people want, like, instant gratification now

instead of, like, having to work hard for something. Like, they just expect to be amazing at something off the bat, and that doesn't work with, like, anything unless here there's the odd, like, prodigy. But for most of us, it's, like, grind, right? Yeah. So can you give us a behind the scenes of how, when you're developing a thumbnail, like, what's that process that you go through? Is it that you're, because I've seen, we can talk about vid IQ and which what's, what's the one you use? I use two, buddy. Yeah. It's the same thing. Okay. And so like, there's these things that help you develop what's called SEO, which I always thought was just a nonsense word. And now I'm starting to realize it's not a nonsense word. It's, it kind of depends on what you want to do, like, SEO is a, uh, search engine optimization. And I think it's kind of something that's going out the window just in listening to a lot of podcasts.

But where it is relevant is, say, someone, like, looking on YouTube how to do something. I feel like the SEO is important for searchable content. Like, I want to know how to unplug a toilet or something. It's going to be good for that. I don't think it matters so much for someone that's, like, a really personal reality-based channel, like a vlog or something. I don't think it probably matters too much unless they're teaching you something specific in it.

Interesting. But it's essentially, you want to take keywords. So, like, how to unplug a toilet? And then SEO would be making your description there kind of match those keywords. You want those keywords in it. And you basically want the machine to understand that this video is how to unplug a toilet.

Yeah, and you'll have to try and figure out a way to, like, get that across. Yeah, it's super weird. But then I've been listening to some stuff lately that's saying that the YouTube algorithm so advanced now, that it knows what your video is about. Like, when you put something up on YouTube, it reads all this text, it knows everything that's here, it knows who you are, it understands every single word you say, like, if you go turn your captions on, it's like 98% accurate, just basically.

on you talking. So it knows what's your videos about, I'm pretty sure. Interesting. Yeah. That's freaky to think about. It's kind of weird, yeah. Because, like, would you say that then, like, in my three-hour interviews, it's, like, it's obviously got a transcript of that, but that it knows to, like, when people are searching for stuff, that it would find what's in my transcript? A hundred percent, yeah. That just blew my mind. Yeah, there, I can't remember who it was. I was listening to, like, it was like a Nick Nimman

podcast or something, and he had a guest on. and he kind of is like a guy that's like trying to hack the YouTube algorithm and he intentionally puts things like with text in his background just because he knows that YouTube's going to read it like hashtags and just random stuff and he changes it every episode because he thinks that makes a difference whether it does or not I don't know just random text yeah keywords and stuff oh wow that's so interesting because like I really I don't do you watch with captions I can't watch without them anymore. Like I feel like it just, it all makes more sense when I can see

them talking and I see the cat. Yeah. And I'm one of those people that watches without any sound on most, for the most part. Really? Yeah. Is that because it's at night and make it sometimes? Yeah. Yeah, I've done that as well. And I'm, I'm interested to see where podcasts go. Are you going to, are you at all interested in that space? Yeah. I am. I don't really I love the idea. I don't really have a podcast topic. Right. Other than like, Like, I wouldn't mind, like, just doing some dude chat, BSing kind of podcast. But I don't know how much interest it is there. There's a lot of those.

Yeah, I think that there's, like, camaraderie. I was talking to Adam Gibson because I wouldn't mind doing something like a challenge where we, like, work out for a month and we, him and I compete with each other. But then we sit down each week and we do a podcast on, like, where our competition's at. And then we raise money for charity and try and donate it to a good cause. I was thinking of like what if I ran to hope and then we did like bowls of hope

like raise money for them because hope and hope so I'm interested in like getting more into this I just I feel like now I'm ready to take on different things and approach this differently where this is still be about role models but I want to do something else where it's like it's more just trying and being athletic and trying to do different things with it

so I think that it's just important that people start to find something that they're excited about and then just start to chase that like that bug yeah yeah where are you finding your audiences is it more youtube or more spotify or or the podcast platforms i would say that the podcast platforms predominantly i can get really good numbers on youtube but like you get to know how many people are actually sitting through the whole three-hour interview and it's very rare that somebody's sitting through a whole three-hour interview yeah um so the numbers look i would say better but the real supporters, the people who are like,

that interview really impacted me. Like, I learned so much from that. They're almost all podcast listeners. And so I think that you have a better retention rate with podcasts than with YouTube videos because people exit out or they forget about what they just learned. Where when I talk to somebody and they're like, yeah, I've been listening for two years now,

it's like, what has that been like? And like, how have I changed to you? And like, what have you gotten out of it? That's almost all podcasts. Most people who say, like, I listen on YouTube. It's like, yeah, I watch like 15 minutes, 20 minutes of it, and I didn't, I haven't finished it yet. And it's like, you're never going to finish it. That's not how YouTube is.

Yeah, I could see that. Especially, like, for me, I do take in a lot of podcasts, and I do almost all of them while sitting in a car. So, yeah. The podcast platforms make it easier to bring all that in. Yeah, I think the biggest challenge with that is I switched from, I was on Buzz Sprout. and the benefit to that is you get to put in keywords. But I switched over to Anchor, which is owned by Spotify, because they put my videos on there.

And so people can watch the full interview. And so for certain podcasts, I enjoy Lex Friedman. I'm able to, like, see him talking to Elon Musk. And, like, there's certain parts of that interview where it's like, I need to see what is going on. And there's something super interesting about that. And so I was a really, I'm an early adopter of that. I believe that that's hopefully the route we're going to go.

because I think it's important that you're able to not only hear the person, but see how they're interacting. And that's going to give you the most information on whether or not they're like a good person, whether or not they're credible, whether or not they're reliable. And there's certain people I've had on where I'm like this, and I'm looking at having on like politicians. And so I think it'll be important that we have a video element. So you can see, is this guy, is this guy 100%? Can we trust him? And like, decide for yourself. I don't have all the right answers. I'll just ask the questions the best I can.

but you decide for yourself whether or not the person's good, bad, left, right, like, whatever it is. And so I think that that's hopefully the route more podcasts go. I don't like anchors set up for how I get my numbers because they seem to count, like, if somebody's, they count it differently than BuzzSprout is all I guess I can say. And so it's frustrating to try and figure out how many people are actually listening. And everything that I've heard is like Anchor is unreliable for getting your exact numbers where Buzz Sprout was more reliable. But they can do video.

I got you. How does it work monetizing a podcast? Like, obviously, if you're on YouTube, it's the same as anyone on YouTube, but for, like, Spotify is an amount of time spent? Like, if they come and listen, or is it solely based on sponsorships? I would say you can go to, like, a sponsorship model on things like Anchor. I know Apple Podcast has, like, a membership program that you can be a part of, where they'll help you, you bring in listeners, but you have to pay like $15 a month or something to grow that. The route I've taken is just working with like great organizations that are more focused on the mission than like exactly how many people are listening.

If you're going, if you're working with somebody who's purely focused on like, I guess for me, like how many people are listening, then you're not really understanding why I'm doing this. Because the tough thing about what I'm doing is that there's not like one person I'm talking. It's not just leather where you're able to really hone in on a community of people. It's like one week it's a beekeeper. The next week it's a biologist. The next week it's a farmer. Like it's too sporadic to get consistency and to develop a community the same way. And so hopefully all the sponsors that I've gotten on have been just supportive of the vision of like this is important for the community's benefit.

Oh, that's a good point. It makes it hard to like do the YouTube like niche down thing then. Yeah. that's why like I watch some of the vid Q stuff and I'm like I don't like I can't hone in and then they talk about like you should talk about like a certain topic and like oh you can figure out like what's trending and what topics aren't being discussed I can't help you there I can't do that so it's not an option and so that's something I've been working on trying to figure out how to communicate the message better and with vid IQ's help I have noticed increasing benefits to people just finding my videos on YouTube yeah those guys guys have a really good podcast, too. Which? The VitaQ guys. Yeah, I don't remember what it's called.

Tube talk, I think. Okay, no, I was listening to a guy and he was just talking about it and he was like, this is the route to take. But I've been super inspired by your work because you've been figuring this out and you're like, I would say like three steps ahead of me in terms of like steps you're taking to improve. And so it's always inspirational to connect with you over Instagram and talk about where you're at and what you're working on.

Can you tell us about where you're taking things? I plan to just keep growing the YouTube channel. One of the things is I've found that I also really like doing YouTube. So, like, YouTube's kind of become as much of a hobby as leatherworking is. So now I'm, it's hard to, like, start up another YouTube channel, but I kind of want to start one just for, to do my own thing and see if I can grow that as well. At the same time, the leather one makes money. So it's, it's hard to kind of.

pick and choose where I'm going to go with that. But for the leather one, I just want to keep just growing it. I really want to, my goal has been to make like templates for people making leather things. Like, um, I just really want to make like intricate ones that people would charge money for and put them out for free, to be honest. Right.

Um, that brings me a lot of traffic. And I, I don't know, I feel some of them, some people just kind of overcharge for them. It is a lot of work to make these things. but I just like putting them out for free

and helping people get started and that's why I started the channel and I don't want to stray too far from that even if I am getting paid for it. Can you walk us through how the affiliate marketing works? Because I don't even know if the average person realizes how YouTube, how Amazon sort of work and like the behind the scenes of

we hear about like you get what is it called when you're like us partner with YouTube but can you walk us through how that works and why somebody if they're like I love doing art but I haven't considered doing it on YouTube I keep telling people like consider YouTube because it's scalable it doesn't have the amount of hours you put in you can wake up the next morning and have 10,000 views and you were sleeping during it so can you walk us through sort of how YouTube functions yeah um so YouTube to just get into their partner program, you need a thousand subscribers and you need 4,000 hours of watch time, which is

like the amount of time people have actually spent on your videos. And that, I think it needs to be in the last year. But 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours watch time. And then they get, they let you into, or you can apply to go into the YouTube partner program. They, I have heard of them denying people based on like, I don't know, sketchy content, content or controversial content um basically youtube like they make money on advertisers and so they want their content to be as advertiser friendly as possible and they will kind of grade your content based on who they can act who would be a suitable advertiser on it so some people don't get let into the program or you might not have some of your videos able to be monetized for uh if you're using

like copyrighted material, like music's a big one. But once you're in, they will put ads on your videos and you get a small cut of that. They obviously bring in a lot of money from the advertisers and they will give you more money if you put those ads in front of more people. So it's you want a better video to bring in more viewers who will see their ads and then you get paid more. right um the other way i get paid i actually get more money and there's no like entry level like you can put these on your videos from your first video as i do amazon affiliates

and the way they work is pretty good you show some products or whatever and you will put like a link in your description that it has like a it's like a custom link to you it has like a tracker and once someone clicks on that link for the next 24 hours anything they buy on amazon you get a cut of. That's crazy. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So, like, you'll link, I don't know, I'm linking to small leather working tools and stuff like that, but I've seen, I think I had like a $1,000 camera bought, and I got

a cut of it, and I didn't link to it at all, like, and it's not a huge cut, but it adds up too. And yeah, depending on how many views per video and how many clicks, that's, do you think that that can be abused at all because now I'm just thinking like why wouldn't you like why wouldn't somebody you know just go click that link 24 hours then they go place it or like is that and they could but the like each individual sale is such a small cut that it just it wouldn't be viable at all okay so it's not scalable upwards yeah like I think it's under 10% right it's your friend would it would have to be a good friend buying a lot of stuff to make you any money that way it just

seems like it would be a good strategy of like why not like there's an upside to you and they're supporting something good and they're going to buy the products anyways yeah i don't know it just in my mind i was like why wouldn't you do that yeah it it would work i would say like if you're if you're buying something that you saw from uh someone on youtube i would say if you support that person maybe go click their link and and buy it and give them a little cut of it because it costs you nothing Like, as the person buying it, it costs you nothing extra. Would they even know? Like, does the average person even realize?

Not at all. It's, they just, they are just literally Amazon links in your description. And you're like, hey, you should buy this if you want it. And you, Amazon shares their cut with you. You don't pay anything extra for it. That's so interesting. Yeah. And so you like that route better than the, the other path?

Uh, I, I do. Like, I don't want my videos to be full of ads. I don't mind a few ads. on there. That's how I'm able to keep putting them out. But this way is kind of like offering up something to someone that you think they would like anyway, and they have a decision, like they can decide, oh, I'll buy that or I won't. But it really costs them nothing extra. It doesn't even cost them any time sitting waiting through a non-skippable ad or anything, right? They could be like, oh, that thing's cool. I want to buy it. Click on my link. Hey,

I get an extra dollar that day. It's, I like that model. The downside for it is that there's a lot of crap on Amazon, and it's sometimes the stuff that I would want to recommend. I'll have to recommend from a site that I don't get affiliate sales from. Oh, okay. Just to keep the authenticity. Yeah, like, there's obviously like the better tools and stuff that I use aren't on Amazon, and then I got to just give them the link and not make any money on it. Yeah, that's interesting.

And so where do you think that this is going to go over time? Do you hope to, like, eventually one day move away from your work, or are you happy just keeping it a part-time thing? Where does that come in for you? I think I'm pretty happy keeping it a part-time thing. Like we said earlier, I don't really want it to turn into, like, a job. Yeah. I enjoy making leather things, and I enjoy making YouTube videos.

So I think if I stopped enjoying those, then I wouldn't be happy doing it in my free time. Right now, especially with switching to YouTube, I can make whatever leather things I want, and then I can just kind of spin it into a video. Like, it's nice where I'm not stuck making 30 of the same thing right before girls was. Yeah, that must have been a crazy experience.

So what do you think for other people who are like, they maybe paint or they're working on something like what would your advice be to somebody who's like because like i've met people who are like i want to be a personal trainer and my mindset is like that's great but how can you monetize this on youtube and the reason i lean there is again because it's it's scalable you don't have to be there all the time and that's part of why i like podcast is i like hit post and then i go and do the rest of my day and people tune in and they listen and they're able to hear a good quality conversation. Maybe they're not getting that in their personal life.

Maybe they're not getting the support they need. They can tune in, feel connected to a community, and then, like, have a better day. And so there's a benefit that I don't have to be there to do it. And so that's why I recommend if you're doing personal training, if you like cooking, figure out a way to share that with people and show your passion through that route. So what would your thoughts be on somebody thinking of going down this path?

There's room for everything on YouTube. Like, there's people on there vlogging their day going grocery shopping and making, like, a ton of views. Like, if you have anything that you just want to share with people, just start making videos, especially personal training. That's huge on YouTube. But, like, just if you think you have any kind of message you want to get out there, I would just start making videos. And if you don't make money on it, like, if you don't ever learn the YouTube thing, but you enjoy doing it, then at least you found something you, enjoy doing. If you affect a couple people positively, then at least you've done something. But it's a grind, but it's fun. And I think there's room for pretty much everyone on there.

I agree. And I think that there's just an opportunity to learn something about yourself through the process. What has that been like for you? Because you're talking about how you don't really have a personality. And I don't agree with you because I think you just have like a style that's so, it's like fitting you wouldn't want i i don't think i'd want somebody who's like um into how did you describe it at the beginning of our conversation you called it like your like old school um what did you call oh heritage something something like that i don't think you'd want somebody who's like chaddy or like too energetic it's good that it's coming from like a source like yourself so what has that been like for you what have you learned about yourself through doing this um

I just don't have like this like energetic I'm not naturally super energetic and and bubbly and I found that early early on I was having like a super monotone like my first bad comment on YouTube was actually a good one my first negative comment on YouTube was I would rather watch toenails grow than watch you And it was actually pretty funny, but I went back and watched the video. Dude was spot on. He was kind of a dick, but his message was accurate. And so I just, that's the main thing I've been working on and found is that I wasn't really putting the energy out there. Like, it's almost like you have to put out more on camera than you would in person.

And I do the bare minimum in person. So I've been kind of working on that And it's still That's a big struggle for me It's just being energetic and happy and bubbly on camera It's not really who I am Yeah I had a My first negative comment was like

You're posting like way too much And not basically getting any response And it was because I was trying to do the clips And the full interviews all together And I was putting bare minimum into the thumbnails And so it just looked After he made the comment, I was like, I don't like that comment. And then I went back and looked and I was like, yeah, this isn't good.

Like, this needs to be addressed. And so I removed all the clips, created a separate clips channel. I really could care less about the clips channel. But the most common feedback I got was like, your videos are too long. I'm never going to sit through this. And so I was like, okay, I'll make a clips channel. I don't care about it. You can go watch it from there if you like.

I'm going to focus on this because this is my favorite part of it. And so now the clips are available. People can go watch them if they like, but I have no interest in continuing that or like trying to boost that or support that. It's mainly just trying to focus on the long-form conversations because I think that that's, I think it's the solution to a lot of the problems we're having in our society in terms of the disconnect we feel with people. I feel like things are more polarized. I guess I don't just think that. I've had like historians on who are like, yeah, things are not great in our political dialogues right now. So I think that it's hopefully the solution.

I've been bugging people about like, why don't we interview politicians on, like, podcasts? And then it was like, why aren't I? Like, it's three hours. I can talk to the person and figure out where they're at on certain issues. And so I hope that I can make a positive difference through this and share my passion for people. Because I find people like yourself incredibly interesting of like, how did you get started in this? Like, what is this like? And where do you hope to take this?

And I think that all of those conversations are so inspiring to me because I would have never thought of leather work as my passion. But when I see you doing it and breaking it down and explaining each intricate part of the process, it's like this is way more complicated than you realize. Like making, and I think we live in such a fast-paced society where we take for granted our clothing, our shoes, how it's made with the process is, because we don't have to do it. And then we don't know anybody who does it. And then we kind of forget that this is all a very complex system and that we should be grateful for it. Like even ordering like a equipment. It's like it comes from Australia. Well, Australia during COVID was very difficult to get

things to Canada. And like, again, you don't think about supply chains in those processes unless you're trying to do something outside of the norm. Yeah. Did you listen to that Joe Rogan podcast with Jocco Willink where he talks about the supply chain? Yeah, of clothing. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Like the cost of the CCAN like 10xing since COVID to bring it across from China. It's crazy. I think it's so, I find jocko just so inspirational in that he's just a hardworking individual and he just doesn't take no for an answer and he tries to find a way and i think that that's where we get stuck in so many political dialogues or in conversations with people we get so what it needs to be this simple and i think that we maybe aren't appreciating the value in the hard work that it's going to take to accomplish

something and the value in that and when he was talking to joe rogan and was like yeah like there is a way Like, this is possible. The idea that you can't make something for less in America is just that can't be true. And then he's proven it. He's proven it every step of the way. I think he makes pants now, shoes, sweaters. He makes a whole line of clothing that's more affordable and, like, has more benefits to their economy than shipping it off to China. Oh, absolutely.

I brought you something. Oh. But I wanted to give it to you on camera. thank you yeah i know you're uh up-and-coming lawyer right i am yes so that is the logo i love it if you can see that i think that you've done a tremendous job on when each video starts that oh thank you intro i think it's like incomparable to other videos i watch that intro i literally paid five dollars on like a website just to do it's just but even the sound effects did it come with the sound effects because it was just so

like, I don't know how to describe it. As it was. Okay, look at that. Look at just the, what would you call that? I want to call it rope. I think it's rope. Okay. We're going to call it rope. My wife found that. Found it like in the house or

like, well, like found that it existed and then found some in the house, I think. This is so cool though because like everything lines up. Like the branding is real guys. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so walk me through how you made this. Like, look at this.

So I kind of figured that you'd need a business card holder. Yes, but it feels so... Yeah, it'll soften up. So the leather is by Horween leather, who I think they're one of only a couple tanneries left in the United States. They're out of Chicago. They're probably my favorite leather, and it's like, I could go on about leather, like, longer than my wife would like. But the Horween letter is probably my favorite. It's...

Horween. What does that mean? It's literally one of the founders' names. Okay. I think they started in 1905, I want to say, in Chicago. So they've been around over 100 years. Sorry, can we just double check? What is leather made out of?

that's a that's a that's a it can be made out of any kind of animal skin that one's cow interesting and so is there preferences in i'm sure there is in the leather community of like like this feels so different than i think my phone case is hypothetical leather yeah probably there's um there's a whole bunch of different grades of leather and and it can be like any kind of animal so this is uh i can't really remember the exact leather that is but that'll be vegetable tanned leather by Horween. Right. There's generally two types of tannages. There's vegetable and chrome tan leather. Vegetable tan leather is the more natural. They make a liquid that I think they call it liquor. And it's just made with like oils and saps and leaves and all kinds of their like proprietary liquor that they soak it in to tan it.

It takes anywhere, I think it takes from a month to three months to tan. leather that way. It's generally more expensive, but it's a higher quality product. Right. Whereas the other one's a chrome tanned leather, which is tanned with chromium salts. And it takes under a week. It's really fast. It makes, I wouldn't say it's worse leather. It's different, though. Okay. It's generally softer. It's generally more weatherproof. A lot of people don't like the, I think there's some pollutant issues with the chrome tanning process. I think it's gotten a lot better, but there's zero polluting issues with the vegetable tan leather.

And this is the vegetable tan? That's the vegetable tan. This is so cool. So that's a bit stiffer. The chrome tanned is a bit softer. The chrome tans a little more weather resistant. The veg tan soaks up water and anything like crazy. So it's, they have their places.

Okay. Okay, so is this, this is your preferred? Yeah, for most things. I do have some chrome tan leather at home just for, like, it's good for bags and stuff like that. Do you have a lot of, like, clothing that you wear and, like, stuff that you have now as a consequence that you wear that is leather? Is it more than the average person? Clothing-wise, I don't, I do have a lot of leather boots now. Actually, after seeing all the Horween, my wife actually got, there's a boot brand called Thursday boots out of their New York.

and they make a Horween pair of boots. So my wife has Horween boots by Thursday now, and they're gorgeous, they're really nice boots. Interesting, is it made out of this or the... It's something similar to that. I think there's, like, in tanage is a leather, there's chrome tan, and there's vegetable tan, and then there's like a million things in between.

So Horween has their fancy one they call Chrome Excel, which is kind of a hybrid of the two. Interesting. Yeah. And so how do you go about, like, how does this come When you purchase, like, a large quantity, how does that, what is that process? I can, I can show you pictures, but it's, I, it comes as I get them as half sides. So just think a side of cow.

So they take the skin off as a full cow and split it down the middle and sell them as sides, usually. What is the delivery process for this? It rolls up nicely, so it's just like a long cardboard box. Okay. Yeah, I get them shipped from Saskatchewan from, uh, a supplier called OA leather supplies. And that guy's awesome. It's expensive, but less expensive than you'd think probably to buy a whole side of leather.

Yeah. I think the Horwings about $300 Canadian per side. So, but it's, it's like, cows are big animals. It's like 20 square feet of, of leather, right? Yeah. And then, so what is the process to turn it into something like this? What is the journey? Do you, like, have a plan when you're purchasing where you're like, this is what I want to use it for?

Or is it just like, I'm going to get it and we'll figure it out? It's kind of half and half. Like, sometimes they'll release something that looks pretty cool. And then you're like, oh, I just need that for something. We'll find a place for it later. But I kind of like the old school looking stuff. So I stick to, I mainly like browns and blacks. And it's, yeah, it just.

one to have the like heritage looking style. I don't want anything too flashy. Yeah. Yeah. Do they come in different, do they come in all colors? Because this, this inside, like this looks more, I would say like cork. I don't know how to describe it properly. But I would say it's more cork. And then the outside, just like, what is the process to like stitch this? Because it's so, it takes a lot of detail. Yeah. So it's, it starts with just like a sheet of leather. I have like templates that I've, made you can download and buy free templates like I give my templates out for free so other people do my templates I like to make my own that's kind of part of the whole thing to me so I try not to make other people's but um I just put for that I printed out a thing put it

down on the leather I tape it down cut out print print just in a regular printer yeah just print it out I do actually have a 3D printer and I and I print out some templates that I can use over and over again. Right. And that you would just like hold them down. And then you have like a, it's called that all. And it's just like a pointed tool and you just scratch it out. But that I printed out on paper and just put it on top and then just cut it out.

And it's exactly what you think. You cut it out. Glue the pieces on top. And then you just make a stitching line and stitch it up. But you also have like an emblem for people who. Oh, yeah. Which is a black leather flag? I do.

That's actually, so one of the things that I tried to do is I first try to support anything like local or Canadian. When I source my leather comes from Saskatchewan and anything I can get locally, I do. There's also another good leather store in North Van called Lonsdale. But after that, I try to support small guys. So that stamp is actually a guy that I met on Instagram out of Russia. and he was making all kinds of brass, like leather stamps. He also makes, like, custom etched coins and buttons and stuff like that. So I was talking to him, and then I had him do that one up for me and send it over.

So that's just like a dude in his basement with, like, a little CNC machine making leather stamps. And I thought that was pretty cool. How does it work? Do you just, like, do you have to heat it up? What is the process? So, yeah, so, again, there's. like differences. So if you have the chrome tan leather, then yeah, you probably have to heat it up because it won't take, it's kind of like, leather's kind of like a sponge. The chrome tan

leather is like a dry sponge and the veg tan is a little bit moisture. So with that one, if you just imprinted it on chrome tan, it would just bounce back out. But if you heated it up, it would stay. Right. On the vegetable tan leather, you just like that, you just get it wet a little bit and then stamp it. I use, some guys hit it with a hammer. I use, I have a, it's an arbor press for setting ball bearings. I don't know what that is. It's like, it's just like a two-ton press and it has a lever and you just.

Oh, push down. You just need to pull the lever and it puts some force into it and imprints it. That's so crazy to my brain. And so how does leather work? Because I've heard things that like it gets stronger or gets better over time. Yeah, the patina. Is that what it's called? Yeah, so it's, like I said, it's kind of like a sponge, so it absorbs everything, oils from your skin, oil, so it kind of like develops its own unique look over time.

Right. It'll, I know it feels pretty stiff now. It'll soften up good too, but yeah, it'll, it just kind of changes. It should, that should outlast you. Like, it's, um, the way it's stitched up, like the stitching method is called the saddle stitch. That's how you put a saddle together. No way. So, I mean, for a wallet, that's, you should be able to, like, pass that on to your kids at some point if you wanted.

Like, it shouldn't, uh, like, some of these leather things last, like, hundred years. That's amazing. Yeah. I really appreciate this. This is so unique. I have a card holder that's made out of metal. It's crap. It's got it off of Amazon for, like, $8.

I think I have one of those. And so, it's so unique to have something like this. And I'm definitely going to rep it and be very proud to. make videos with it and be proud to own something made by somebody in our community who found his passion and is choosing to share it. What else do you enjoy making? Like, what are things that are on your radar that you enjoy sharing with people? I really like the wallets. I've made, what I haven't been making recently. I've been making, like, a longer wallet, almost like a girl's clutch kind of thing. That's kind of fun to make. I have, like, I'm trying to, like, I'm

trying to, like I said, I like to do my own design. So I'm trying to design a duffel bag for myself. Like a gym bag? Yeah, sort of. Like a big, I don't know what you would call it, but like a old school, like just a big cylindrical. Yeah. Kind of thing. Almost like maybe like a military duffel kind of thing.

Yeah. Yeah, like making just anything like old school. So when you're making it, is it usually just for yourself? Or do you have like a purpose for? it how do you go about deciding what's going to be next in terms of like what makes sense or do you just have like a lot of leather wallets at home i do i have a drawer full of them um in in different uh levels of quality like starting from my first ones i've made actually i have the first wallet i made is on a youtube set up on the wall oh that's awesome and i keep it there as going to get like a

i think i might get a shadow box thing to put it in but um i pretty much just kind of think of what i want to make. I usually make a prototype which involves like a lot of just I have a roll of leather that was pretty cheap from another local leather place called Tandy. But it's like cheap, not greatest quality leather that I kind of use for like prototyping. And I just make measurements on it, cut something out. And then as long as I keep track on paper of all my measurements, then I can put it into, I use Inkscape, which is like Adobe Alist. straighter. Yeah.

And then I can make a template after the fact. And then I will print that and make kind of the finished copy of it. So I usually end up with like for each template, probably at least three products per one, like one really bad one in the crappy leather. And then one that I've made like the first version after making the template. And then the final one from doing the YouTube video with it. Right. And then it's kind of a mixed bag.

I've given some away. I've sold a couple of them online, or I, uh, sometimes I just, I kind of cater my videos to who has a birthday coming up. That's a good idea. So, yeah, like, uh, my family gets a lot of leather goods as birthday presents. I think that that's like a good way to go though, because you're like, you could look at it, like you're just selling like what you make, but to me it's like you're showing your passion for something.

And I, I think we need to do a. better job of appreciating that of like somebody's putting in like a lot of work to learn something like you're talking about the process of like going on adobe to like actually using like a first kind of project to actually developing the final that's a lot of work and so if you respect your time if you appreciate the time you're putting into it then that is far more effort than going to save on foods and buying like a box of chocolates yeah like that's way more thoughtful to go through that process and I think sometimes it's easy to simplify and think like because people have made like jewelry or like certain items for me and I go like I really appreciate this more because I understand

the work that you had to put into to make something like this whereas I think we get stuck kind of like oh well you're already making this stuff so it must be super easy and it's like it's not easy and they're showing you the passion and something like this as you said is going to last a really long time and I can't go to the store and buy the exact same thing somewhere this this is not not like replicatable in that way. And I think that that's really inspirational. And I don't, I wonder how you feel,

do you think we're going in the right direction when we're talking about like buying local? Because I hear that more. And then Amazon being the biggest company in like the world right now, like we go back and forth between the two. It's a tough. There has to be some balance, I think.

Because like, you have to live within your means too. So buying local just all, isn't always feasible. Like if you're, if you're buying local, you're paying more to be honest and your money's going somewhere better probably but there has to be some balance there like is everybody going to go buy like a couple hundred

dollar like fancy leather wallet when you can do you can make do with an elastic band like you you just have cards now for the most part yeah so i don't know i i like to buy local when i can but I don't feel bad if I don't. It's some things, Amazon subscriptions have changed my life, Matt. I couldn't agree more. I think we underestimate. And like,

that's where I think I get weird about like people being so mad at corporations is because at the end of the day, there's a lot of benefits. Oh, yeah. And I think we like to, I don't know, it's like we almost ignore the benefits. And then we just talk bad about corporations.

A lot of people don't like Jeff Bezos. But it's like, you think about what he did. Like, his whole process for developing Amazon was his mindset was like, if we don't do this ourselves, then like we need to bring it in house and we need to do it better than the competition. And he did that forever. Like, he bought Ring and Ring was like a better tool for him building Amazon. And it was a tool for him to continue his main goal.

And so everything he did was in addition to it. And that strategy has paid dividends that we can't even like quantify. Like the guy's worth like getting. close to a trillion dollars. Like this person's very successful because they had a strategy that they stuck to. He wasn't just like a bad guy. Yeah. I think people don't like people that make a lot of money is what it is.

Yeah. And I don't know. If you, if you, like Elon Musk, I feel like he deserves every single penny that he has. I agree. Everything he does is amazing. Yeah. But. And he's brave.

Like I find him to be the one of the most courageous, like, and you can disagree. Like, I was talking to my partner about this last night. It's crazy how often we have to say, I don't agree with everything he says. Like, I hear that so often now. And it's like, whenever do you agree with something, 100% of what somebody says? Like, at the end of the day, we have different perspectives and that's supposed to make an interesting conversation. It doesn't, like, remove that. I've had, it's been challenging because I've had people on who I know lean left and I know lean right.

And I see the value in both viewpoints. But I've had people on one side go, I can't believe you interviewed that person. And then people from the other side go, I can't believe you spoke to that person. And I had to unfriend you on Facebook for that. And it's like, I'm having on both perspectives. I believe both are necessary and both have a role to play in our society. Yeah. It's just crazy to me that that's, but I think you're right about the people do not like rich people.

No. You don't have to, like, agree with everything. Everyone says, like the tribalism. thing where people get all amped up because someone doesn't agree with them. Like, you and I should be able to disagree on absolutely everything and sit in this room and have a totally civil conversation. Like, it shouldn't matter. I couldn't agree more.

I think that one of the interesting things that you're sort of seeing, though, is, like, people are envious. And I think that that's, that's why I was interested when I asked about, like, do you find people are supportive? Because I feel like the majority of people are supportive, but there are a few people. people I've come across who've been like, yeah, that's pretty cool. And you can see in their demeanor that there's a part of them was like, you shouldn't be doing that. You should be going back to your job and you should play it safe and you should do it how I did it or you should do it how

I think you should have done it. And there's this feeling of like, you shouldn't figure out what your passion is. And it was Camden Hutchison, who was a law professor that I had on and he was talking about how we live in a monoculture. And I was thinking about that in comparison to the States because they have a huge right-left kind of imbalance. But in Canada, it's like, you just go along. You tow whatever the party line is or whatever the common view is. And if you pop your head up a little bit, you're way more likely on all sides to get attacked than anything else. And I think that that's really interesting because it's like, we don't want anyone to stand out too much. And I think that that's really unfortunate because we're all going to shine in

different ways. And you see Elon, it's like, that person is not, like, I don't agree with how he lives his life in a lot of ways. But I'm not, I didn't make Tesla. So I cannot complain or think that I could have done it better with my kind of mindset. Oh, yeah. He's, I don't know. He's kind of out there. Well, he's definitely out there.

But the dude's amazing. And his intentions from what I see here are positive. Do you have any thoughts on what's going on with him and Twitter and what he's trying to do there? Have you been keeping up there? I don't know what he's doing with Twitter. Have you not heard anything about it? No. Oh, he bought.

9.2% of Twitter, and then he was going to go on to their board of directors, and the board of directors was going to invite him on, but then he realized that he was not going to be able to have the same attitude. He wasn't able to voice himself the same way, and so instead he's decided to try and just take over Twitter. And so he gave Twitter an offer of, I want to say, $40 or $50 billion just to buy all of Twitter. And so now Twitter has taking what's called a poison pill, which means they're going to dilute their shares for make it more affordable for their other shareholders to buy shares to reduce Elon's stake in Twitter because they don't want Elon to take it over. And then I think, I want to say it's

Goldman Sachs or there's another company that's working on potentially trying to outbid Elon for owning all of Twitter. That's interesting. Crazy war going on right now over the ownership of Twitter and how it's managed and stuff. That's interesting. Yeah, so it's interesting to see somebody who just like just pulls the trigger on things. Like we don't usually things, whenever we think of like getting something done in the city, in the provincial government, federal government, it's like, okay, well, we're going to have a subcommittee that deals with this, and then it's going to go to the committee, then it's going to go to the head committee,

then it's going to be heard by the prime minister or something like that. He's like, I'm going to buy Twitter. Yeah, just like on a whim. Yeah. Well, if anyone could, it would be him. Yeah. Have you heard of the PBD podcast or valutainment at all? No.

okay, he was on Joe Rogan and I find him really interesting because he's sort of in this field. I enjoy business, I enjoy law. I enjoy hearing about like the bee podcast was really, like I interviewed Paul Van Westendorp and we talked about bees for like three hours. That's cool. And it was super crazy

because I didn't realize that bumblebees, they're thicker so that they can connect, get Paul in and stuff. I'm going off track. But going back to my point is this, there's this guy Patrick Bett, Patrick David Bett, I think. And he does this podcast on business, he interviews various people, and one of the people he was talking to,

he was like, he thinks that Elon is eventually going to try and take over Twitter, and then he's probably going to try and buy something like CNN. And he's going to move out of Tesla and move into the entertainment. And it was just a super interesting idea that Elon would go that direction. Yeah. Well, he's even said that he has, like, he does almost nothing in the day-to-day operations of Tesla anymore. Yeah. Like, it's, it's run for him.

Like, he's said a few times and he wants to move on to something else. But he has, like, the boring company. He has,

what is it, the neuro link? The neural link thing's exciting. I've, I've been following that. Oh, no. Okay, tell me about that,

because you probably know more than I. I just know that you plug something in the back here. Yeah. So I know that he wants to start by making it, like a medical device.

He claims that he'll be able to cure a lot of, um, like spinal cord based paralysis by like I don't know somehow reconnecting everything so they're starting medically he also says that it should be able

if it works the way they think it should be able to cure Alzheimer's once they kind of move past all of that they're I think they're hoping then to make it like available to everybody it should be able to improve like memory and he said like

right down to the point where you could, like, technically, like, live forever. Like, you could download yourself and re-upload yourself and then you get into some serious ethical grounds there. But, yeah, it's, I don't know, pretty exciting. I'm exciting to see where he goes. He says there should be some implementation of it within the next 10 years, he figures. Yeah, I'm always skeptical of Elon's timelines because what did he say about the roadster? He said he was going to have, like, that shipped out a few years ago now, and we still don't have a roadster. Or the cyber truck, which is super interesting.

I'd buy one of those cyber trucks. I have a buddy who bought the, like has a spot in line. Actually, my leather buddy from Langley, he has the, he paid the deposit on it. Oh my gosh, because it wasn't that much, was it? It was like a couple hundred dollars. Like it wasn't like. It's a couple hundred dollars, but it's non-refundable. So it's brilliant startup cash for him.

Yeah. Because he just pay him that money. And then right off the bat, he has all this cash to do with whatever with it. That was the other thing I just heard about him. doing as well, which was he's trying to create another class of shares to raise more money for Tesla, because it seems like the big problem they're having now is that the other car companies are starting to catch up to them. And they're starting to develop, like, I think it was just Volvo. It looks just like the Tesla SUV, just Volvo. And so they're catching up. And their

manufacturing speeds are far better than Tesla's because Tesla has started from nothing to being a car manufacturer and I think they're shipping out like a million teslas which is really good but when you think of all the other car manufacturers they've cotton up and they're going to start beating out Tesla oh yeah and so he needs to raise more money so he can start making more Teslas and that was one of the strategies and so people are frustrated because he's not creating the the value he's just creating more shares and so there's a distrust in that that you're not share value should be based on what what you're producing you're making more of something you're creating a better benefit. And the argument with Elon is that he's pushed up the price of the Tesla stock

just by creating more shares of it, not by creating more value. The counterpoint would be like, how do you value something like Tesla? Like, it's not, like you can't just say that it's worth this. It's what the market's willing to pay. And so that's somewhat arbitrary in the sense that if people are willing to pay, then it's worth that amount based on the market's response. And then you get into a whole discussion of how complex capitalism is and how these class structures work. But those are the things I find really interesting is when there's like strategies and there's opportunities for growth. And when somebody sets that kind of example, it's just I can't disagree with the final outcome of like you've built something like Tesla

that's pushed car manufacturers who said they weren't going to go electric. They were hesitant and hybrid cars were kind of the move. And he just disproved all of that. And that he's made Tesla's vehicles more safe. I don't know if you know about all the dude ads in there. But, like, he was explaining in one interview that if you get hit by a car in a Tesla now, basically, it's safer not to wear a seatbelt. I heard that. And, like, the airbag system will know where you are and will, like, react better than a seatbelt would just keep you in the seat. Yeah. That's a, yeah, I heard that too.

It was crazy. I probably still keep putting my seatbelt on, but. Yeah, for sure. It's just crazy to think about with those type of people. And the fact that they just put in a lot of work over time. and stayed true to their values. Like, I think that's the example. He's like, if you want to draw something from what he did,

it's to figure out what it is for you and just stay true to it. And don't waver. Just keep going because he's been really good at not listening to naysayers. Yeah. Well, like, if he's being genuine, like what he said was the whole purpose of Tesla was not to make this huge, like the biggest electric car company. It was to kind of force the hand of everybody else to start making electric cars. And if that's truly what he was aiming to do, he's done it.

Yeah. Yeah, it's the same with going to Mars, is that, like, his point isn't that, like, Mars is cool. It's that we just need a plan B for this planet. And it's been really interesting because my partner leans towards, like, let's just fix the planet. And I totally hear all of those arguments of, like, let's stop destroying forests. Let's stop.

I don't know if you, I interviewed Lee Harding, and he talks about how we just literally shoot Wolfe. from planes and then just fly away. It's like there's got to be a better way to reduce wolf populations than just machine gunning them from like helicopter. Like I can't imagine being the person there and like doing that to an animal

and then just flying away. Like I feel like that's you have to like do something to your soul in order to be willing to do that. But they do the same thing with the wild pigs in the southern US. Yeah. Where they're feral there. Yeah.

I don't know. They're like rampant there. They are yeah. It's worse than the wolves are. Yeah, it's like, the wolves are like a problem, but like, we could send up some people that would bring them back down to a manageable. Like, I don't know. I don't think that that's the best path. But when, like, I hear the argument for fixing things here. Yeah.

But we do need a plan B. Like, we, um, there was one interview where they were talking about how many meteors go past Earth every year. And it's like, it's like a lot that could hit us that we have no plan to prevent that we don't even know. sometimes they're coming if the sun's in the right spot we don't even know that it's coming and then it flies past us and we go hey a meteor just flew past isn't that like we're very unprepared

for a cataclysmic event and I think that it is important that we have some sort of plan B because right now it's like we have like what eight 10 people in a space station and they're completely reliant on being able to come back to Earth that's not really a good plan. Yeah it'd be bad news for them if one of those things struck

yeah and can you imagine sitting up there for three months and being like running out of food and being like, we can't go back to Earth because it's this on fire. Yeah. And that's it. And you're just waiting. Super sketchy. I wonder how long they can stay up there without assistance from anyone.

Yeah, it's probably not very long. I guess it would have to be like up to six months. But if there's no plan on Earth improving in six months, it's like you're just kind of like waiting. Oh, yeah. That is very depressing. And I'm very grateful that we have people like. Jeff Azos, Elon Musk working on a plan B because I think we just sort of take that for granted that this is, um, it seems like our generation doesn't really feel like we're going to pass away or

die. Like there's this sort of like immortal mentality that people have now. Like, what were your thoughts during the floods? Because that's how I felt was like, oh, our supply chains are not good. They're not as strong as we'd like them to be. And we are not prepared for the circumstance. And going shopping that first day while the floods were occurring was like, Oh, and, like, we're, like, in a competition now. Like, we're not all friends anymore. We're now, like, the shelves are now empty because we're trying to fill our homes. That was, uh, that was kind of crazy, actually.

I feel fortunate there were two, like, great things that I did that weren't intentional at all. But, um, I had just before the floods, I had just done a huge Costco show. So that was good. And then also I have this, uh, a buddy mine who is, like a, kind of like a prepper type, and he had been preaching it to me for years. And just before that, I was like, well, couldn't be the worst thing to get some, like, non-perishable stuff. So I had gone and got a whole bunch of, like, pasta and canned things. And then the flood struck, and I was like, we had tons of food. Like, that didn't even affect us. It was total chance. But I heard the

stores were chaos, and we didn't have to go to them at all. Yeah. It was awesome. So there is, like, I've kind of rethought emergency preparedness. I think that is an important thing. It's like something people don't think about until all of a sudden you need something. And then now you have to mob the stores with everyone. That was another weird thing because people were like getting, there were like two schools of thought. There was the only buy the essentials.

And then there were the people who were like, no, I'm going to take care of my family and make sure that I have food in the house. So I'm going to buy more. And like, again, it's one of those. like, there isn't a wrong answer. If you think that there's a correct answer, you're probably wrong because that's crazy to think that, like, if you run out of food, you are kind of in, like, a chaos state. Yeah.

And so you want to have enough food to take care of your family. And at the end of the day, those are your people. The random person in grocery store is not your people. And so, like, there is, like, again, that balance of, like, how do you approach those situations? Yeah. And it's good that you were prepared. You were sending me videos as well, though, right, of the water coming up.

Yeah, we, uh, so I live right on, right on the river there. Um, luckily I live, um, right where it's kind of the highest point on the dike and not like just outside of the flood zone in the flats there. And then there's also the like secondary dike where they, um, where the fish run. Right. Alongside. So it, uh, it came pretty high up, but it didn't get too sketchy for us. It was like, probably within three feet of the top of the dike though, which is like, Normally you have to walk down the dike and down onto the rocks and stuff. Like it was probably up like 15 or 20 feet, I would imagine. It was crazy. It was. Were you at all nervous or? A little nervous. Yeah.

A little nervous for some friends of ours. We had some friends in Yarrow that had to evacuate, but all their stuff was fine as well. It was, yeah, it was super weird. And it's weird being cut off. Like we were in Ireland. We were cut off from Vancouver and as well from the rest of the Canada. I felt like that was not reported. on the way I thought it was going to be like, we're an island.

And my uncle was like, oh, you're like cut off? And I was like, yeah, like we can't go to Abbotsford. We can't go to Hope. We're just stuck here. Yeah. And he was like, I had no idea. And it's like, this is crazy. It's, you know what was kind of funny is I, um, I kind of just like posted about that

a little bit on my like social media and like on YouTube and stuff. And the amount of support you get from like the community that you make. Yeah. It was crazy. Like, people that have never met me, like, from the vast majority of my viewers are from the United States. And I got so much support from them. And then even the guy that made the stamp there reached out to me from Russia and chatted with me for a bit. Like, it's pretty crazy how you can, you make your own community.

I remember talking to Tim McAlpine, who runs Co-Work Chilalak, and he said something similar. He's like, all my support is, like, I work with credit unions in the U.S. So, like, I'm really well-known in the U.S., and then, like, I'm in Chilac, and most people don't know what I, when I say, like, I work for currency marketing and we work on marketing credit unions, nobody knows what I'm talking about, and they're usually starting to tune out. It's so interesting to have these communities of people, because I'll get comments from people that I don't know. Like, 30 to 40% of my listeners come from the United States, and I don't know all of them, but when they reach out or when they comment, it's like, this is so. it's cool it's bananas it's people you would never ever meet in your life otherwise yeah it's I don't know the internet's amazing I love it yeah I do you think that we underestimate that I was thinking about this last night is like it seems like we're very hyper focused on the flaws of

social media and the internet but it feels like we're not like like one of the things I said in the Fraser Valley panel event was like we're not like acknowledging that the internet is now in indigenous communities. And so if they want to learn about finance, leather work, if they want to find a passion, all they have to do is hop on YouTube. Now, granted, most people use Facebook and they go online and they talk about their day.

But like, the opportunities are now endless. Like, you can go and hear from some of the most wealthy people. Like, there are videos with Warren Buffett. You can go listen to his thoughts on things. And, again, whether you agree with him or not, or do you think he was fair, 100% ethical, You can disagree, but you can go hear from one of the most wealthy people who made money on the stock market. And you can just do that all day long and you can learn about finance.

And, like, I feel like we don't talk about that. No. I feel like people are so scared of, like, anything negative, like, one, they don't want to listen to someone that they disagree with or they don't, like, take criticism well. But I feel like people just kind of, like, jump right down people's throats instead of hearing them out. Or like, like you said earlier, we were talking about our first negative comments on YouTube. Well, like most, I can say probably almost all the negative comments I've got on YouTube were like horrible delivery. Like someone just obviously trying to be a dick and cut me down. Yeah.

But if you get to like the root of what they're saying, there's still a message there. Yeah. And if you can like take the criticism and then then delete the stupid comment because they are just being dumb. But there's there's some truth to. all of those and even like in like normal life someone being a dick to you they they need to find something to criticize to take a job at you and if you can get to that you can kind of find there's there's always kind of a gem in there I think I agree I would not have improved my YouTube channel the way that I did if it wasn't for that negative comment because they gave me

a perspective that I needed like that's I think probably one of the I don't know if you feel the same way. One of my biggest challenges is that like getting feedback, what could I do better? What am I messing up that I could stop messing up if you just told me? Most people are like, oh, these are great. And it's like, I appreciate that. That's obviously I don't want to hear that I'm an idiot and I'm wasting all my time. But if you can tell me what I'm, what I can do better, then I would try and do that. Well, the internet's amazing for that. That was something that I've like talked about in videos too is when I started making leather things, you would make it and then obviously the first people your show or you're like your wife your family like

your friends whoever and of course they're being supportive so oh it looks amazing and those people are not the people that are going to tear apart your work but put it online and someone will like instantly and so like youtube uh reddit's a good one you can post pictures and and people tear it apart and usually pretty like respectfully but they'll give you a proper critique whereas your support next work is not really who you want to go to to tear you apart, I find. Yeah, no, yeah, you shouldn't look for them to it. It's not their job, but it kind of, they're, to boost you up. Yeah.

Can you tell us about Reddit? I've never used that platform. I love Reddit. If there's, if there's anything that you, like, want to do or do, like, any interest, if you type it in there, there's, like, a subreddit for it, like, a whole group dedicated to that thing. Like, there's Reddit, and then it's just divided into a bunch of different sub-brit reddits like for each different topic and there's something for absolutely everything there's

a podcasting one for instance like you where you could go and um talk to other podcasters as well as there's like three or four YouTuber ones where people critique or give tips or whatever for YouTube um there's like a videography one a cinematography one there's they're just communities of people and you join them based on interest instead of who's in it. Like, I'm not a big Facebook fan. I actually got rid of my Facebook and just have, like, a hidden Facebook with no friends just to get the business aspects of Instagram. But you can like, what I didn't like about Facebook is that you follow these people,

and, like, you'll follow, say, all of your friends, say you've 200 friends on there. There's no way that you share every interest of your 200 friends. But if you go on Reddit, then you subscribe to an interest. And it's like an old school forum. So you subscribe to those. And then you just talk about what you want to talk about. Oh, interesting. So it's more based on interest than, like,

because they do have communities on Facebook that are like supposed to be about the interest. But it's often nonsense. Yeah. Yeah, it is. I am in a few good Facebook groups with my like super hidden Facebook. but um mostly i i try to find a community on reddit before i try facebook i like it there and so have you noticed a lot of benefits in terms of the information like what what stands out to you about the platform it's is it anonymous no no no the anonymous ones are kind of

sketchy i would think right um no it's it's not anonymous and i like that every post every comment everything can be upvoted or downvoted and basically if you go say something dumb you'll just get downvoted until nobody sees your thing anymore. Interesting. So it's, I'm sure that gets abused somewhere but the like

the weird niche topics like leather working and stuff that I'm in are pretty good communities on there. I'm sure if you went into like meme ones or something like that there would be a lot more toxicity there but the only thing I know Reddit for was the stock market

and then messing with the value of stocks. Yeah, they could. Like, if your community is big enough, you could easily do that. That's what they did. They did it with GameStop. They all agreed because I don't know how much you know about stocks, but they were shorting GameStop. So big companies like Goldman Sachs were shorting it,

basically saying that this business is likely to go out of business. And so they were voting with their money against GameStop. I'm oversimplifying, and if my law professor is listening to me, you'd be very mad. But what Reddit did was if you take the risk of voting against a stock, when you short it, you're taking a huge risk. And so if the stock goes up, then you're on the hook for the difference between the two. So what GameStop, or what Reddit did was they saw what was going on, and they saw that they were shorting GameStop, so they shot the price of GameStop upwards. So, and I think one of the hedge funds went out of business because they were shorting this one stock so much that Reddit ended up bringing down like a traditional kind of business that you think knows it all and had huge impact.

And then there was this huge conversation about like, should retail investors, which would be you and I, be able to do this in the stock market? Should we be able to play that role? And, like, anybody who's a true capitalist would say yes, because it's your money, you vote with your money, you make the call. But, like, a lot of the traditional investors were, like, retail investors are not smart enough to understand what they're doing and the risks that they're taking. So we need to take these opportunities away from them that would have negative impacts on our economy. So it sounds like they just want to keep control of it. Yeah. Yeah.

It was very interesting. But that's the only interaction I've really had with Red Ed. I could see that because even, like, I don't know. the kind of numbers that you need to affect the stock market. But even in my little leather crafting subreddit, it's still between 2 and 300,000 people in there. So I can only imagine that like investing ones or gaming ones or mean ones, like I bet you they can get millions of people in there.

Yeah. I would think that could affect the stock market. That's very interesting. And so I'm interested to know where you hope to take a lot of your work. do you have like a like a plan in mind do you see like where you were mentioning and if you can tell me about him from your perspective what do you see in the i already forgot his name but you were talking about a person that you admire and um what you see in the work that he's doing and you kind of see like a path an avenue for yourself can you tell me about that yeah um first planning is probably

something that i severely lack in i'm kind of just like flying by the seat of my pants uh one thing that I am planning in talking with my buddy who's involved in a big multi-million YouTube channel, right? He talks about SEO like we were talking earlier. So I have bought a domain called how to leatherwork.com and I'm just kind of almost making that more like a course. And I'm going to explore that avenue of having a course like separate from my brand. And obviously it'll like cross link and promote my other brand because it's still mine but I'm going to try to kind of do like a leather working course to kind of get people started that way um my buddy the lead is is the guy that taught me he's a leather worker nearby us as well um he's gone the sales route

um he has seen a decent amount of success in making a wallet design and then he bought But, well, he found a warehouse in the states that will manufacture these. So not by hand, but they're still really nice. And then he sends them his design and then ships them a whole bunch of, actually he uses Horween leather as well. So he ships them the Horween leather. They manufacture these wallets for him. And then he actually puts them out.

I think he sells via Amazon. But, and then the way Amazon works is kind of cool, too, is Amazon takes on the whole shipping process and puts it they have uh i think they own fulfillment centers yeah and they put them all throughout the country and then when you buy on amazon it kind of calculates where you are and the stock in the nearest fulfillment centers and it sends it to you based on that yeah so i think making something by hand if you want to get rich making stuff by hand it's just not going to happen like you need to you need someone making it for you or you at least need machinery the whole like I know people get like crapped on for like handmade and then they

use machines and stuff but if you want people to put stuff out like it's it's not feasible like leather workers that buy a sewing machine if they call it handmade they get crapped on by people and it's no way it's ridiculous like because like how do you how would you do this other than a sewing machine well it's that's like that's hand stitched and to make to make one of those is to make that, I think that was an hour. That's a pretty easy thing. But you stitched this all yourself. Yeah.

But. I just assume, you should have, you should have told me that. That just blew my mind. But if you use a sewing machine, then you all of a sudden go from an hour, probably down to like half an hour. Right. Like that's, that's one the longest steps. And then think of something like a bag, hand stitching a bag versus using machine is it

completely changed. changes the game for you. Is there a benefit to leather bags in comparison to, like, if you were using it for like a gym bag or something? Like is, would it reduce, like, the scent or something? Like, is there... No, if you're using it for a gym bag, it would probably be worse. It would really absorb stuff, but it would, like, it would last longer for sure.

Yeah. Um, yeah, I'd probably stink, though. So, so for like a business bag, what would be the, what would be the process? Because, like, you think of, like, what they have as staples? It does not feel like this, ladies and gentlemen. It would, for like a business bag, like a messenger bag or something like that. They're, they're kind of cool. Like they, they patina.

So they kind of change and become custom to you. Like they'll, they're one of a kind of all of them. Right. And they just, yeah, it'll be like a heritage item. Like it shouldn't ever, you have to be really hard on it to, to, to, wreck it, especially if it's hand stitched, like that's saddle stitched. So it's made to withstand like a cowboy on a horse kind of thing. So if your, uh, if your messenger bag is under that kind of stress, then you're doing something crazy with it. So do you do custom orders

or do you try and avoid that? Is that like something like if listeners are listening to this and having their minds blown? I, I do not want customers at this point. I, uh, I, I might down the line like I am working on some stuff um like I said I really like YouTube so uh my older brother is kind of thinking about getting into it and him and I are thinking of making a like Ben and Tim make stuff YouTube channel yeah one of the things that we're making is a big tabletop laser cutter right and that would um stop me from having a hand cut everything it would laser cut everything out just like is that hard to make it to cut it oh no it's like it's like it's me in an

exacto knife so it takes time cutting out every piece whereas you can set up a laser and it'll just kind of go

that seems like you would require strength though right to the poor exacto knife is yeah it's you want to

sharpen your tools lots and you want to yeah make sure all of your tools are up to snuff

but there's ways around it though like probably the most common one is there's a thing called the clicker press which is

just you buy a dye which is like a it's just a piece of steel that's in the shape of your whatever parts you're cutting out and it's sharpened and you put it on the piece of leather

and then you have it's like a kind of like my arbor press but bigger has a big flat platform that's I think they're usually like four to ten tons or something like that and then you just pull it and it cuts all the pieces out in like kachunk

oh interesting so people that are selling stuff are using that and then a sewing machine and you can cut your time down like a ton. It's just making everything by hand. It takes time. And then people criticize the people that want to make money selling these things and buying the machinery because they're like, that's not handmade. But then those are the same people that won't want to pay for the time to fully handmake something. Yeah. Like it's it's a crapshoot because they want the fully handmade thing, but they don't want to pay for it. Yeah. That

sounds like everybody. I want what I want and I don't want any rules or regulations around the logic of it. Yeah. And then it causes like people like I've stopped selling, but I was notorious for like undervaluing what I would sell. Like I would sell something and be like, oh, that wasn't enough money. But even like you're worried when it's like you, someone asks for a price, you're like, oh, is that too much? And I think probably any small business does that. I bet you everyone does it. Yeah. Because when like the problem is, like also if you charge what you know, like if you are confident that say something like this

is worth $100 in terms of the work that it takes, is the market going to react or, and then that's sort of your fear is that you don't want to make something and have people to be like, that's too expensive. And you're like, I put a lot of fucking work into this. Like,

can you serious? Well, that's what it is. And then you try to explain to someone like, well, this will probably last you forever or you can buy a Walmart wallet every, every year. I think I

Before I started I think I had a fossil wallet And I think that was my longest lasting when it was like Two years before it fell apart Can you tell me about a fossil Can you compare for me

What the difference between Yeah This and a fossil wallet is For people who are dumb And stuff a fossil wallet It's not dumb It's just not nerdy about leather So they'll usually

Like if you go to Walmart Or any like big box store And see something labeled genuine leather. It's technically, right? Usually, genuine leather is not like a grade term. It's a term that means

this is made of leather. So it's like a huge. It can span the entire spectrum of quality in terms of leather. But it's kind of misleading because genuine leather sounds like a good thing. But if you see like a $10 Walmart, a $10 genuine leather Walmart wallet,

It's made of leather, but it's kind of like the like particle board or OSB of leather. Like it's, so this, sorry. So this is, they call it full grain leather. So this is the flesh side. This is the actual like cows surface of the skin. And if you look, you can see like scars and hair follicles and blemishes and stuff like that. Like, it's, it's completely, like, unedited. So they'll pull the cow, the cow's skin off, and, uh, they will tan it and make these.

And they'll, like, they'll split it into different thicknesses. Like, it's pretty thick when it comes off. Um, so they'll skin off, they'll take some bulk off of the flesh side, leaving the skin side, just kind of unabridged. And then tan it. It's still one piece of skin, one piece of hide, whereas those ones then take, like, whatever they've skinned off of that, whatever, like, they've, they call it sciving or, or, um, splitting. Whatever they've split down. They take those pieces, kind of slap them together, and they usually use, like, a polyurethane-based glue, glue it together, paint the surface, and then say it's genuine leather.

And it is, but it's bonded leather at that point, and it's not the same thing. you just blew my mind about like just trying to think of this as like this is cow like again we get so used to like how things are um like people really struggle now in like convenience stores of like oh no like an animal has to die for me to eat and so we've gotten to this this way of like viewing the world that like nothing is real that like we're not used to thinking of like when we get our chicken breast that's actually a chicken and so when you were like if you look at this and And you start to see, like, the, the parts of the animal and, like, the shape and how it's, like, it's unique because it's literally from a cow. Yeah, that's what I like about it, like, that it's, you can see this character in it. Like, I have pieces at home that have the brand on the cow in them, like, that, like, the brand that was in the cows. You just wrinkled my mind. Like, one of the bags I made, I made it as a birthday present for a friend of ours, and I made her bag and it has a brand. So she has like a, what do you call it?

Like, I forget the name of the bag. She has like a purse kind of thing. And it has a big cow brand on the side of it, which is pretty cool. That is. I should probably mention because a lot of leather workers get flak to and someone listening to this might not be happy. So most of, I would say almost all, I'm sure there's some portion that isn't. But the leather that tannering, uh, that tannery, easy use is a byproduct of the meat industry.

So they are hides that would otherwise just be tossed out. That's good, right? That's what they buy. Yeah. Isn't that a good thing? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, absolutely.

Like, they're not, it's not like they're killing an animal and taking the skin and tossing it out. The skin is the byproduct from making meat. Okay. So, like, it's more ethically sourced is what you're saying. Yeah. And I'm sure there's some exceptions to that. Like, I'm sure there's some.

sketchy practice by some tannery somewhere that's just... Have you ever gotten flack for that? Like, uh, which one is it that the vegans or the vegetarians that are against the use of... I would imagine both are. Wow. Um, I, I've got a little bit of flack, but... Not from the real leather community, just from... No, it, and there's like issues with vegan leather, too.

Like, it's... I didn't even know there was such a thing. Yeah, it's, I think there's a couple good ones. I've heard there's there's guys making or there's people making really cool wallet's out of actually cork which actually looks pretty neat. Yeah. It's not obviously

as durable as like an animal skin. That's literally what it's for us to protect you so it's going to be durable but yeah cork looks good. I've heard there's like fake leather they're making out of cactus. That would be pretty durable.

Yeah. Like cactus is there. But but most of there's like leathers they make make out of different, like, fruits and fibers and stuff like that. But my understanding is it's mostly held together with glues anyways. It's, like, polyurethane-based. So they say that it's animal-free, but then they use sketchy products anyway.

Right. So, I don't know. It's, I'm okay using this. It's, as far as I know, it's a byproduct of the meat industry. Yeah. And it lasts forever. So, like, you'll have that. And now you're not going to buy, you know,

cheaper leather over and over again every year for however long. Yeah, not to get political, but I always get weird about the whole, the sides. Because like, for indigenous people, we would have loved this. Yeah. Like, this is not against my culture. This is right in line with like our values of sustainability. Using the whole body, using every part of it is like the goal of indigenous culture. And so it seems, I don't know, I always like silently sit there.

go like it seems so weird that like we have like a whole community of people who are like vegans and vegetarians who are like supporting indigenous people meanwhile like our whole culture is surrounded around killing animals using the body doing the things that like maybe they wouldn't be in supposed it always just confusing like when you have like people who support the cause indigenous people are interested in and then seeing like our values don't align and like that's fine with me but it's always interesting to kind of see that like typically the people who would be getting mad at you are in support of like a lot of the issues that we're trying to overcome yeah yeah it's i don't know i don't know if it's like just people not looking

into the whole thing or like taking a stance before they've i'm not sure i'm not sure either but it always just surprises me because it's like oh you're like super against most of like you're a vegan you're vegetarian you're against all these things and then you're like you support us and what we would like to do is like um there's a bunch of communities that are working to like regain their fishing industry, grow their hunting industry. And so, like, all these things that perhaps you would be against, you're supporting us and doing the things that you would take a stance against. It's just, it always, like, philosophically, it's confusing to, like, follow.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I, yeah, I kind of like the idea, like, just that that is, like, the surface of that shows, like, the animal's skin. It hasn't been, like, edited. And it's. Yeah, it seems like something we're lacking in our.

Like, again, I don't mean to keep saying the same thing, but, like, it seems like something we're lacking in terms of, like, authenticity. Everything feels like it's, like, replicatable and therefore it has less value. And so when you make something that's like, there will, you could make another, but it would not be identical to this. No. It could not be. That seems like something we should be proud of. Yeah. And it would be from a different animal.

Like, like, well, I have. So I have half of that animal. animals hide. So someone else has the other half. That's only going to make so many things. And then nobody else is going to have anything else from that animal ever. Like that's the weird thing about McDonald's, right? Is like they talk about like how many different like pieces of a cow are in your burger. Because they don't. It's not like this one patty is from this, this one cow. Yeah. That's what they talk about. Right. Yeah. Well, like the, the way these things come, like they'll come with the brand in them. So with the brand, I would be able to source the

farm that it came from and then they have on the flesh side they have serial numbers printed so I bet you that you could track down the cow that each of these things came from like it's that's pretty I don't know that for sure I could for sure track the farm based on the the image of the brand yeah but yeah I bet you that you could track down the cow that came from where do you think you're interested in like the heritage side of things comes from do you can you trace that to like your dad or your mom was interested in this that like this comes from Because the person that you sort of remind me of is like Bill from the town butcher in this belief that like we need quality meat. We need to know where it comes from.

We need to be proud of that. We need to take care of our bodies and we need to take care of these animals so they can take care of us. And so just that mindset is so rare. The instinct is for people to get away from these things. So do you know where this came from? Like what made you interested in this aesthetic, this philosophy? Yeah, I honestly have no idea to be honest. Has it always existed?

Like, you've always enjoyed, like, things that are handcrafted or take off energy to make? I think it's probably more recent. I don't know. Probably, as I've gotten older, I don't feel like I cared about it in my 20s at all, but I don't know. Recently, it's just something that I've kind of adopted. I have no idea where it came from, to be honest. Because if we were, like, a hundred years ago, you'd really, maybe more than a hundred years ago,

you'd remind me of like a blacksmith, like somebody who likes hard work and like building something of quality that you can be proud of, that when somebody talks about it 20 years down the line, they're like, they proudly own what you made. And it seems like you're out of your time in that you're making something of such quality

and such care. And imagine that the community that you're in is similar in that way, that they miss that authenticity, that proud work. workmanship, I think it's called, where you actually, like, do something and when people carry it around, they're proud to have that leather flag. Yeah, I would actually love to blacksmith. I just don't have the room for it. But I don't know where it comes from. I just, I love the idea of, like, having this thing that's, like I said, like you can see it comes from an animal. It's going to last forever. I hated, there was this, actually came from Reddit as well. there was this movement on Reddit called Buy It Once, and it was like a community of people that were sourcing out stuff that you buy once, or buy infrequently anyway, instead of going to Old Navy and buying cheap shirts and jeans, although I buy my shirts from Old Navy, they're $7, but, but like, I started with, I bought a pair of Red Wing boots, which is one of the oldest.

boots, places in the States. They also own the tannery, and I buy a lot of their leather, just because I like their stuff. But those boots, like, instead of buying new shoes every year, you wear the boots, the soles will wear out, obviously. But they're made in a way that the soul is unstitched. You get a new soul on there. Someone stitches it back up, and then your boots keep going. And there's, like, countless cases of people with their grandparents' redwing boots. that they've just taken and carried on and you resold it every couple of years.

But it's not like taking my Nikes and tossing them out and buying new Nikes every year. Right. Which I also do. I'm not going to run in these things. But I just like the heritage items because they just continue on. Like they just keep living life. It's not like causing a ton of waste, not throwing stuff out and buying new stuff constantly. Yeah.

I hate to repeat the same. kind of spiel each time, but there's this idea in indigenous communities. It's called the seven generations principle. And the idea is that we look back seven generations. And so I always try and put it into context. So like maybe your parents or your grandparents face like World War 1, World War II, the Great Recession, the Vietnam War, like they've faced certain challenges. And so through like what would they have hoped during the Cold War? They would have probably hoped for like, I want my kids to be born. I don't want there to be a nuclear war. They would have had certain aspirations. And then you're supposed to look forward seven generations and imagine

like, what could I do in my life to like better position my kids, my grandkids? How can I, often people think of it through wealth, but you can think of it through like, what legacy do I want to set? Certain people have built schools. Certain people have helped support library. There's different ways to like make your contribution to the world. And so it seems like the one area that we've gotten accustomed to, like, replacing things is, like, with our goods. Like, we have the iPhone 10, then 11, then 12. There's no culture anymore of, like, your phone should last you 10 years, and you should be able to, like, throw into a volcano, and it should be fine.

There's no expectation of lasting in our culture anymore. It's, like, we've come to the point of, like, innovation is purely good, and so as long as there's new features added to my phone, I don't. need the old phone anymore and we're doing that more and more with TVs and we're doing that with clothing oh it needs to have this quality or that quality we don't seem to have that same investment in like I want this to be something I can pass on to my children and that they can pass on to their children that seems to be maybe what you're like you're landing on in terms of like the culture shift that we're losing that connection yeah I do like the idea of that like just

being able to pass stuff down and like I feel like it would be cool to be like this all this wallet. My dad used this wallet or or my grand, these were my grandpa's boots or whatever and he was doing this, working in them and now I'm like, it doesn't matter what you're doing. It's just cool that you continue using the same thing. And

that's how it was like most of the time. This is just a recent thing that we you know, buy cheaper stuff, toss it out or what are they called fast fashion. Yeah. Where you buy it, toss it out, buy it, toss it out. Yeah. And we've hit the point where you can buy so much that it's like,

there was another, I forget who made the point, but it's like you can learn a lot through YouTube. But like the point the person was making was like, you can't learn everything from YouTube. No. There's like, there's a lot of wisdom. There's a lot of ways to live your life, ways to like be a good parent that you're just not going to get in a five step crash course. These are the five things you need to know about acts that like sometimes we think since

this is the new medium of communication, therefore it's the best and only medium of communication and there is hopefully a lot you can't learn through YouTube that you learn through your grandparents like family recipes you can't go online and hear about your family's family recipes yeah because that's your family's and they're likely not on YouTube and so connecting with those things and like learning about that and building that up is something that like you should be proud to do that connects you with those past generations in a way that like I don't know if I've talked about this before too is that we don't seem to appreciate our family lineage the way we used to do we don't seem to place that

way to like what did your grandfather do and what how does that apply to you there's this kind of belief that you're your own thing and you have no connection to your grandparents your great grandparents that you're you and so you don't need to know what they did and that seems to be where we're at right now yeah it's funny that you talk about the rest i i like to cook as well so but it's i've thought of that too like we don't my family doesn't have like family recipes and stuff that's not something that we have but i've thought about it and it would be cool to think like with a family recipe like these ancestors of mine were eating this same thing that I'm eating right now and like should taste relatively

the same right like it's going to obviously be somewhat different but like it's like just doing that same it's like a connection between you and them is just so cool yeah and it seems like again it just seems like we're not promoting that that it's whatever is new on skip the dishes or door dash that seems to pull our attention more. And it's not that those things don't have a place. It's not that you have to pick. But being able to like, that's where I think there's space to like admire other traditions like the Jewish tradition. I've heard from Eric Weinstein and Brett Weinstein. The Jewish food is not overall considered like the most delicious food, but they've passed these traditions and the ways of doing things on from generation to generation. And like I

lost my grandmother who was part of like my inspiration for doing this last year and you just think about like the sacrifices people had to make during the great depression they didn't have all the food so they had to figure it out and so they may have developed a recipe that doesn't taste the best but it gives you a reminder of where she was at during that period of her life yeah to make that recipe and then it's like it's more of the story around it than just oh this better be the most delicious yam that I've ever had in my like that's the not always the point of like the recipe but food like really reminds you of of those people like uh i have a mexican friend and she celebrates um day the dead and part of day the dead is that you make your like altar which

is like a dedication to your uh dead relatives and you make their favorite foods and you put them there and you eat your their like favorite foods and it's there's definitely a connection there between foods and people. Yeah, I don't know if you've seen it, but they have it on YouTube right now, but they also have it on Disney Plus. It's Morgan Freeman. He goes through all the different religions, and he does one on God and all the different belief systems around God, like death, all the different approaches,

evil, like saviors, heroes, and they have one on each one. And it's so interesting to see, because we like to separate our I'm I'm Presbyterian, I'm Muslim, and then you see Morgan Freeman goes through each belief system and they're all, they've all got those core elements and those, there's, there's differences in that, like I think it was like a culture in India believes that you're reincarnated and being reincarnated is actually a bad thing. What you want to do is you want to pass on to and like not exist anymore and that that is like you've

succeeded in your life and so you don't need to continue and I might be getting a little bit of that wrong but the idea is that like reincarnation occurs but if you go to this one specific spot you don't have to be reincarnated in anymore and that you've succeeded in your physical existence

where other cultures really struggle with like the idea of like is Jesus a real person or not and I've always tried to land on the idea that like whoever he was there's this idea that like he's the ultimate role model he was not selfish he was not narcissistic he was not out for just himself he was trying to make everybody better and like what if you lived like that like why can't you start to take one step a day to live more like that and to like your choice to support people in the leatherwork and stay true

to that despite opportunities to make more money or to charge people like atlanish amounts for like the templates, you want to lean against that, purely because you want to support people and their passions, and that's why you started staying true to that, I think, is admirable. And I think it's easy for other people to overlook, but, like, you just wonder, how much money could you make if you started selling templates? If you really focused on just, like, marketing those templates and make, you could probably make more money. And so, and, like, you've invested a lot of time.

Nobody could really fault you if you chose to go that route, because think of the time, perhaps with your wife or like just working on things on the side that you've sacrificed to work on this but you've chosen to stay true to it I think that that's admirable but it doesn't get the same golden sticker as like other things get and I think that that's where we need to like reflect more and slow down and think about what do we want to admire about people because we do default to just money how much money does somebody have well that makes them admirable well it doesn't really you should think more about what the person's doing their passion and like I know a lot of people who aren't following their passions who

aren't doing what they need to do so I think that's what needs to be uplifted most of all at this time um when I interviewed Paul he was like I've been doing this since I was 13 like I've loved bees since I was 13 years old it's like that's crazy and this person knows he was explaining how like honeybees they dance in their hive in order to communicate where they're going to go out when they go out like that's cool what and him knowing that and like meet obviously most people not knowing that it's like this person's admirable because they've figured out what they like what they care about and they've shared that with today all of the listeners and all the people who are watching and he shared that with every person he's interacted

with and he does these webinars he shares it with them and so i think that that's what we need to lift up more is just people when they figure out what they care about sharing that with people and being proud that somebody was willing to do that because it seems to be the hardest step is making the first youtube video actually putting yourself out there and putting yourself on mind, then improving from there. Yeah. It for sure is. Like, I think it's hard putting yourself out there for, like, anything.

Like, when you first started anything, you're going to suck. Yeah. It's not going to be great. And for YouTube, you're putting yourself out there in front of basically however many people YouTube wants to show you to. And you're going to get some hate. But I don't know. I feel if you put yourself out there, you're going to get some amount of hate from wherever you do it. And it's just there's always going to be those types of people.

and it's kind of take what you can from it and then just disregard them. Yeah, that seems to be the interesting thing. Do you get a lot of negative, I don't feel like I get any negative comments. Maybe I'm not that big, but I don't get that many negative comments. No, I don't get too much. I get a little bit, or there's people that it's not really they attack you, but it's people that I get some like people commenting on the channel, do this, don't do this. and then you like go check their channel and they don't put out anything like it's like they just want to criticize something yeah so I don't get so much hate I get more of that like one-offs of people telling me how to do stuff based on essentially nothing everything I do on my channel I've like tested and and and there's a reason that I do it like one that I get somewhat frequently is don't put music in the background but everything I've researched

and from like testing it on my channel it extends my retention like just because one person tells you something doesn't necessarily reflect your entire what your entire music in the back of the video that you're making interesting how do you go about choosing that music? It's super easy there's a

well you can get it for free first of all you can get music there's a really good YouTube audio library which is royalty free music that they put out and you can use it in your videos and monetize it, no problem. There's a few companies. I use one called Epidemic Sound. It's

really good. They have, I think they're libraries, like, I want to say like 70,000 songs or something like that. Really good. And then I just kind of listen through and try to find a song that I like. They have like a old school hip-hop kind of section, so

I usually lean towards that, something mellow and put that in the background. Are you more of a hip-hop person? What have music, do you like? I like pretty much everything except country. I like everything, except country. So, who are some of your favorites right now? Oh, man. I don't even know. I'm a big, like, I guess, I feel like I'm, like, aging because I'm not keeping up to date with music, and now it's, now I'm kind of experiencing what probably my parents experienced, but I really like Eminem and, and Dr. Dre and that whole, like, crew that would have been, like, early,

2000s for me and I'm still listening to a lot of their older stuff as well as listening to some of their newer stuff but it's not the same yeah not the same I don't disagree I feel like there there has been a shift I'm a big fan of I've talked about them before echo and Vinjay they're very new independent people but their story is basically like I'm doing what I'm passionate about and I'm fighting to preserve that and I just I've that's my favorite part about hip hop is that it feels like all of it's inspirational in that like they're defying the odds, whatever those odds are. And I find that message super inspirational because, like, my teachers growing up in,

like, middle and high school were, like, this kid's not going to graduate. Like, in front of me, in front of my mom, like, this kid's not on the right path. Your kid's not going to go in the right path. And so, like, hearing that and then listening to the M&Ms, that was super inspirational to me to be like, don't listen to those people. They have no investment in the outcome of your life. And I think that that's where hip-hop comes in. I know a lot of people don't like certain songs

or they have like an idea of what hip hop is or rap but that's always what stood out to me is that belief they're like defy the odds don't listen to the naysayers, chase what you're passionate about. Yeah. Like they'd use bad words and stuff but I always feel like the message was

mostly good and like I don't know a lot of what they say is joking and then people are pretty sensitive and don't like some of their jokes so I don't know. I feel like most of the horrible stuff they talk about doing was said tongue and cheek

and just they're probably not actually doing that stuff. Yeah, I don't disagree. And then I think that one of the challenges is that like we like to have like super, like if you think of radio music, like the music they're able to play, it's like it's super safe. And so it doesn't have like the meaning. It doesn't have a story. And if you don't know what Eminem went through, then you're lacking a whole lot of context of why he makes the music that he makes.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's part of the laziness of, like, criticisms is like, well, I don't like what he's saying. And it's like, you need to understand where he's coming from and what he's overcome. Because one of his recent songs was, like, most people have no idea what I went through. And now they think I'm so famous that, like, I should be this way. But it's like, you don't realize how crazy it is that I went from where I was to where I am today.

And, like, how much odds I had to defy to be here to talk to you and sing. to you today. Yeah, that you even know who he is. It's crazy. Yeah. Like, yeah. And I think he lives, like, I think there's a lot of people kind of in his same circle that were same thing where they just kind of brought themselves out of nothing.

And that's, it's crazy. That's the best story. That's my favorite story is the one that were, like, somebody to fight the odds. Like, bigger than me is a song from Big Sean. And his album, I decided, was like a story. Like, the album is like. like to me, like actual artwork, because the first, the intro is like an old man being like, I failed at life.

I failed at everything. And he's talking about these kids. And he's like, these kids have no one to look up to, man. Like, I, like, I lived for nothing. Like, I just did this job, nine to five, didn't amount to anything. And then throughout the song, he has different spots where he's like, he brings this old man in. And he's like, what could I have done differently? And how could I have impacted people better?

And then the last part of the song, the bigger than me, is where he realized. is that like he can be that person that he made the money he was very successful um by like um breaking records on like billboards and stuff like that but none of that matters if he doesn't give a message that inspires and motivates people to figure out what the passion is and share that with people and then he's like he's talking to his mom on the phone in the last part and he's like I feel like I failed at everything in like a past life or something and then I'm here to like go succeed. I've learned my lesson

from like a past life and it's my job to go turn everything around for my community and like I don't know if you know but like part of this started I have like a great photo

of the paramount behind you and my one of the things that like really got me involved in the community was trying to save the paramount he lost in Detroit he lost his

theater and he's working to bring it back and he's trying to like fund a theater to come back to his community so I like I see a lot of parallels between what he's doing and what I'm trying to do. And so he's been a huge motivator that, like, I don't know, I don't talk about too much, but

talking to you, it's easier to. What I'm talking about other people's lives, it's tough to talk about myself as well. I like that. That's cool. I didn't know any of that, actually. Yeah, I don't. I don't know why these are the albums from I decided. I couldn't figure out anything else to put there, but it looked super bland without something

above and below the logo. So I thought it was important to put something in. It's funny how, like, hip-hop can, like, influence, like, people that you wouldn't think. Like, these guys are, like, completely different from you or I, and then we're still sitting here, like, inspired by them. Even, like, I have another leatherwork buddy that, actually, I'm going on his podcast in June, but, like, he's in L.A. And him and I talk, and we're pretty similar, too. And him and I both have, like, hidden, like, Woutang Clan stuff on our, on our sets, because he's, uh, he's, he's, he's, starting YouTube, but he blew up on TikTok.

Interesting. Yeah. Have you messed around? What are your thoughts on the different social media platforms? I think it's what you like. I mean, TikTok I found if you do like goofy videos, it's easier to blow up there. Like, I don't think anything serious. I shouldn't say anything.

But I think it's easier to blow up there if you're doing something funny. Yeah. And so I've done like a little bit. But they're kind of, they're easy to make. Like it takes me 10 minutes to make a funny TikTok video, and it does pretty well. But even so, it's not really like my passion. It was more of just trying to do something goofy. Yeah.

Yeah, I find that super interesting with TikTok. Because I don't know if you know this, but in China, they don't allow. I was going to say this. Yeah, they don't allow goofy videos to make the top list. They only allow, like, scientific videos, educational videos to make their algorithm is set up differently to highlight different things. And that just makes me sad. It is.

And there's conspiracy theory around it, because it's the Chinese company, is it not, TikTok? Yeah. And so there's conspiracy theory that they intentionally set up the algorithm in North America to dumb us down. What's weird is that people think that that's a conspiracy theory because you think of the Olympics. You think of like Russia in the Olympics and what was that documentary called, Icarus. Yeah. Of how they were trying to dope up their team to do better. And like it's so weird to me when we think about the Olympics because it's like,

Like, it's weird that we define ourselves based on these standards. Like our country is defined, whether we win or lose. And I always find I'm not that big into sports. Like, I know like the soccer competitions go on and hockey and the Olympics go on. I'm just never been that invested. I've gotten way more invested in like the UFC because I love getting connected to one person's story and seeing their rise or their fall or what they go through. And seeing those interviews where like team sports is harder to connect

with because if they fail it's like the team failed it's not like one person and so when you think of like is china like doing this as a conspiracy theory it's like why would they not want to make their society smarter and like have other people trail behind like that seems like what they would want to do if you compare it to like Russia and the Olympics yeah that seems like a smart thing to do it on there and like if they could do why wouldn't they it seems weird that you would want other people to be disadvantaged just trying to be like like an altruistic good person, but it makes sense if you are a competing economy that want to prove that your economy is better than everybody else's. And yeah, they've got some weird stuff

with Huawei too and like different approaches to their systems. And I don't know if you've heard about what's going on in Shanghai, but they've like locked their country back down. No, I didn't hear that. Yeah. At least there's, is Shanghai a city or a state? I do not know if Shanghai is a city or state. But I know that they locked Shanghai back down and they've had real problems because almost all of their food is fresh. Like they don't have preservatives like we do in Canada or the US. And so they have to get like fresh meat. And since they've shut everything down, they've had real problems. I watch breaking points on YouTube and they do their independent journalists and they do a really good job of summarizing things. And that was one of the things they were

talking about. That's another good point to though, like, of like being, we were talking about earlier, how is it a good idea to like buy from Amazon or buy it local? And it's like some of each is good. And that's another good example of like everyone thinks fresh food's better. But no, preserve food definitely has its place. Like you want some of each. I was happy to have preserved food when I was stuck on an island in a flood. Like, yeah, for real. And like, it was interesting to see people react during the like COVID shutdowns because there was there was a little bit of flirting with the idea of like maybe like it would be better if we were more authoritative like it would have been easier to like lock everything down if we had a dictator that was able to just come in and say everything is shut down the way that they did in China and now it's like nobody wants that like the fact that we were able to negotiate things and try and come to decisions that the whole society agreed with seemed like the best path forward but like during during those early days of COVID, like in the news, they were like, yeah, but like China's

able to shut everything down immediately. And there was like a little bit of like jealousy towards their ability to handle it that way. And now it's like, now that we're, I don't know if we can say COVID is over, that we're, I think we're on our way out, that we're putting it in the rear view mirror, suggests that we're in a better state than perhaps Shanghai in their circumstances now, because they're going through it again and they're trying to like get rid of it 100% by locking down, and that doesn't, New Zealand try that, that didn't seem to work very well. Yeah.

Didn't Quebec try that too? I think so. Curfews and stuff? Yeah, it was a very interesting couple of years, and it'll be interesting to see the effects of the lockdowns because now there's research starting to come out to suggest that that was harmful to certain people and that it had various deleterious effects, and I think that hopefully we learn from this. Hopefully there's a lot of knowledge to gain from what we've gone through over these past

few years, because it's been a growing experience for so many to hopefully reconnect with their family. Like, you started your leather work as perhaps partly due to, like, being on paternity leave, but also being at home more, it sounds like. Yeah, I had a kid during COVID, too. What was that like? What was that? Actually, I had a kid, and then I was diagnosed with cancer the next month, right before COVID. Okay, you have to elaborate on that one. So it was, The whole, like, 2020 was like a blur for me. It was crazy. Tell us about that journey.

Okay. First, can you tell us about meeting and, like, finding your wife? Because I think that that's something we don't, we don't talk about enough. It's like, what we love about our spouse. Yeah. There was, there's nothing like, we met online with, like, a long time ago. So we've been together. Oh, we, this is our, I think we've been married 12 years now, 13 years now.

13 years this year coming up. Wow. I think we've been together 15 now, 14 or 15. But yeah, we met online like way back in the day. And then we've just... What was that first date like? What did you guys? Super awkward, man.

We showed up, we went to, we drove out to Othello Tunnels and Hope there and just like went for a walk. But showed up. I think I dropped my keys under the car and then we drove out there, got there. um i had this like crappy old cavalier um as we pulled in my gas gauge decided just all of a sudden it was like lying to me it just went out of gas and then i locked my keys in the car it was a disaster the whole thing was crazy it was and then we're like well what do we do so we just like went for a walk through the tunnels and stuff well like this is a uh a future tim's problem and then uh went for went for went for a walk and then came back and had to call VCAAA and be like,

hey, can you come get the keys out of the car? Also, can you pick a cat of cats? It was, yeah, it was super bad. I was super nervous. And, and, like, oh, I totally looked like a chump. Why?

It was bad. Just, yeah, it got better after that, obviously. But the first one, yeah, I was a nervous wreck, kind of. Luckily, yeah, she, She gave me a second date. And what was that one like?

Much better, I think. I think we just played it safe and went for dinner. But, yeah, fast forward, like I said, 15 years or whatever. And then we finally had a kid. And she's awesome. She's turned in three in August. And that was kind of a culture shock too, especially to, like, she was born in August. And then by next, was it February?

of 2020 who were locked down. So she was born August 2019 and then we were locking down like six months later. Right. And then it was yeah, it was kind of weird like she didn't, hasn't been interacting with kids or anything because of the lockdowns. And now we have her in like a preschool and she's getting to interact with people. But for anyone that had a kid in there, I think it was super weird. What was that like? Were you nervous? Like was it, because you want your kid to be like ready for the world. So it was like tough at all to navigate that and be like, I wish, or were you happy to be like, I get this kid to all to myself? It's kind of a bit of each. Like, I'm kind of like an introvert, so I was kind of happy to stay inside. But I think kids need to socialize. So

it was kind of crappy that she couldn't go out and socialize. And then they would like lift the restrictions. And we would get her out there and try to find her friend. And then they'd shut her back down and like that happened a few times right but i don't know seems not too a phased or she like i guess she got to interact with her family and stuff like that now she's in actually there's this really cool like outdoor preschool that she's in that they meet along the the better river there and they just go and hike and play in the mud and it's super cool i wish i wish something existed like that when i was a kid yeah and then you were diagnosed with cancer yeah so so i was uh we had her in August and then I was diagnosed with cancer in

September. Oh my gosh. What happened? Like, what happened? How did that come about? It was a tumor, like a testicular cancer. Oh my God. So it was pretty apparent. And then it was diagnosed fairly fast and

removed. And the whole thing was like a blur. But then it sucked because like that's one of the easier cancers to deal with. Like I didn't have to undergo radiation or anything like that. Like, I was pretty lucky we cut it early. And it's, uh, I think they said I'm like 99% chance that I'll probably am cured forever now. But, but then it's like scary. And then like Amanda had just, she had a cesarian when she gave birth. So she had just had surgery too and can't like

lift the baby and stuff. And then I went for surgery. And now I can't lift it. It was a, oh my gosh. Yeah, that time was a nightmare. That's, was it at all scary? Or, Was it dealt with so quickly that there wasn't like an opportunity to be? It depended on the day. It was some days were scary. Like more so if I was like alone driving to work or something like that or like if anyone went out, then I was like sitting there alone. Then of course that's all you're thinking about. Right.

And even then like I knew that it wasn't like the worst cancer. Like it happens to a ton of guys. That doesn't seem like it would help that much. It doesn't in the moment. It's now I'm like. oh yeah like I was probably fine like the the doctor seemed like totally chill about it and he's like yeah we got that out of there it'll be fine though or he didn't say it'll be fine but he seemed so casual about it that it was pretty calming um and then yeah going to bc cancer other than bc

cancer like i find they really try to treat you with kid gloves which is probably not the best approach for me like i walked in there thinking i was cured and then filled out their paperwork and thought I was dying. Oh my gosh. So BC cancer was like the worst place? No, I'm sure like they're catered towards like being supportive of people. Yeah. But I walked in there thinking that it was all behind me and then you fill out this paperwork

and it's asking you if you're like suicidal and stuff like that. Which are probably questions that they need to ask. Yeah. But I filled this out and I was like, oh God, I think I'm dying again. Oh, no. So it was kind of a, it was kind of a blur of, uh, from August. 2019 to I don't know

coming out of it now it's been kind of a blur of things Yeah because then the pandemic happens shortly after that right? Yeah exactly yeah and it was just

I was I don't know off having had surgery and then I was off on during the pandemic on paternity leave and it was I don't know kind of weird for me

yeah did the leather work help at all with working through that? Yeah for sure or something. It was like something to do. Yeah. And like I have this, uh, I know I have like tattoos and stuff, but I have this huge

phobia of needles, terrified of them. Yeah. This was like a different kind of needles. Can you tell us about this after year after year? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um, but I was getting, uh, blood taken and tested every two months. Yeah.

For years after. Like, I think I'll have to go for blood next week. Yeah. But, um, it starts at like every two months, you go for blood work. And then. You either do an x-ray or a CT scan, and they alternate because you don't want to do too many CT scans in a year. And then after the first year, I think I went to once every three months, and then it went to once every four months and progresses. And now I'm once a year, I think this is, this will be my last once every six month blood and CT scan, and then I'm once a year, which will be amazing.

But, yeah, terrified of needles. So that was almost worse than surgery for me is getting that much blood drawn. Oh my gosh. So how did you end up getting the tattoos done? Like if you're uncomfortable with the needles. Yeah, it's a totally different experience. It kind of feels like a cat scratch. It hurts, but it doesn't feel like a needle.

Right. Yeah. And it's like, it's, I don't know, kind of looks like a scary thing, but it's actually just super nerdy. I really love old, like, horror books and HP Lovecraft is my. favorite author. Okay. And so this is Cthulhu, which is probably one of his, like, most famous characters. Interesting.

And what does it represent? Nothing. It's like a big alien god in one of his books. It's just my favorite book. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Is that the only tattoo you have? I have a few.

I have actually a whiskey jack on my legs. I like to hike. And it was... What's a whiskey jack? Sorry, it's like a bird. So, it's, um, we've, found them. We hiked up Elk Mountain one day. I love Elk. Yeah, it's probably my favorite hike because it's like short enough and the few is amazing. But when we got to the top, there were

whiskey jacks everywhere and they were coming and like stealing our food. My wife and I, like, because we have like one of those little jet boil things. So we would hike up wherever, like we used to hike a ton. And then I have like a coffee press attachment. So we'd make like coffee at the top of the mountain. No way. Yeah. And then I have like sandwiches and stuff. And these whiskey jacks were like stealing our food. it was crazy they would come and land on you like you would be eating and they would come land on your arm and like peck away i've seen people like put out their hand yeah have like yeah it was crazy so kind of just like that this has like very little meaning other than this is my favorite

book and this is more like that was a fun time like whiskey jacks were like everywhere whenever we'd go hiking yeah it's just kind of represented being out in the bush kind of for me yeah i'm a big fan of Israel Adisania, who's a UFC fighter, and he did a tattoo tour. And I think that those, like, the stories behind tattoos are always, like, interesting, even if they don't have a meaning that, like, somebody, like, it's connection with your favorite book. Like, that often at times, those are not things people ask you in, like, your day to day. Like, what's your favorite book? And, like, what is it, like, why do you enjoy that? Like, those aren't questions that people typically ask. And so having a tattoo of it or, like, an experience you had, I think that's a cool

way to preserve it, and I like the idea of tattoo tours. Yeah. Yeah, I like tattoos that, I'm sorry, I like tattoos that mean something. Yeah. I like that this one has meaning. I think this tattoo's a nicer tattoo, but, but it's, again, it's like just a favorite book. But I like the same, like people saying the meaning behind each of their tattoos. Like, my wife has a whole bunch of them. Yeah. And hers have a lot more meaning than mine do. Do you have any of it come to mind? Um, she has, she actually also has a bird, like not a matching one, but she has a bird on her shoulder that I think was inspired by the same thing. And then there's been this weird like thing in our marriage where birds, even though she's terrified of birds, which is kind of funny. Oh, interesting. But birds of like kind of represented, they've been symbolic for us, like the whole way through even like we honeymooned in Jamaica. We've both always loved Jamaica. And so we immediately. knew we wanted to go there and then like even like bob marley's like three little birds was

playing everywhere there and that's kind of like became our song and like so it's like this weird bird thing she's terrified of them but yeah birds have like followed us everywhere that's funny i'm having uh my grandmother like loved birds and she would go bird watching and her one of her books behind this the stolo coast sailish is one of her bird books and i'm actually trying to have uh chris coo on who uh he does bird tours at blacky spit and all through the Rays Valley. He's got bird photography, and I'm hoping to learn more about birds and owls

and, like, what he sees, sort of like how I did with Paul with bees. Like, I think that that's so interesting that, like, when you go for walks or hikes, there's, you have to overlook so much that you almost become arrogant to the idea that there's stuff to learn, that there's, like, like, you walk up Elk Mountain or something,

or you even go for a walk along the Vedder Trail or a trail near you, and you're walking past, like, different types of grass. different types of trees, different wildlife in the water, different wildlife in the forest. Like there's so much different birds up above you, the different types of bees. Like there's so much life around you,

but you can walk the whole Vetter Trail and not think about any of it. And so like you miss out on so much of it. Yeah. I love that better trail for that. Like I, so we both grew up in Abbotsford actually and simply moved out here just for the price of housing out here was not so great now. But at the time it was.

Yeah, you would have, You would have grabbed it at like a good time because you're right near the vetter, which is like prime, prime real estate now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so we landed in like a really big townhouse, like bigger than a lot of houses. It was actually crazy. And it was total luck.

Like our realtor was amazing and he was taking us to all these amazing places. But none of them were like just right. And it was right in the middle of like a buyer's boom. And there was no. subject to sale of your own place. So we had sold our place and we needed to find a place. And so he had to have that hard talk with us. Like, you guys are going to have to settle pretty soon here.

And then like the next time after we had that talk with him, he found this listing that was like at the bottom of the all the listings online. It was almost like he said it was almost like the realtor that had listed it, like forgot to like relist it. like pull it and relist it to bump it back up to the top. It was just sitting there. It was an amazing price. And we walked in. And from the moment we walked in the front door, we're like, oh, yeah, this is it. And just walked around and we're like, no, this is it.

And he was just like, yeah, I know. It was exactly what we wanted it. Oh my gosh. It's on the river, like not like waterfront, but it's on the river. Like I can be at on the Vedder River in two minutes. Yeah. We have two dogs. There's like an off leash like dog walking section of the, the path there.

We got a couple of bikes. Like it's perfect for, especially like daughter to grow up and ride her bike, go rip down the trail and stuff. It's super cool. Yeah. And the community's only getting better. It's amazing. Yeah. And like one of the, we really like food.

Um, one of the biggest things that COVID actually brought is food trucks actually like food trucking out in public. I feel like food trucks turned into this thing where they only went to events for a long time. Yeah. And now the city of Chiluac has put all these. like designate food vendor the designated spots all along that trail and we can like walk out and like go eat it geez donair is amazing or even like walk down we we'll take the bikes or walk down to vetter.

It's a park. There's a better park. Yeah. Uh, which like there's different ones along the. Down by the bridge. Yes. Yeah. So we'll go there and they got like that coffee truck there.

Yeah. Emble coffee. Oh, it's so good. Yeah. And then, yeah, kid can play on that. I can drink some coffee and eat whatever. I tried. They had that Dutch food truck there.

I tried a bunch of Dutch food. It was really good. Yeah. It's all deep fried, but anything deep fried is good, I guess. But yeah, it was really good. Had some coffee and. I love the idea of doing, like, I don't know if you know who Brendan Schaub is, but he has like food truck diaries, which is like a UFC thing where he sits down with

UFC fighters. I love the idea of that. I love the idea of sitting down over some food and like talking about things for like a 30-minute interview or something. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like a Jerry Seinfeld comics. Yeah, comics having coffee in cars. Yeah, it was just him like taking things he likes and stringing them together.

Yeah. Pitching it to a network, hey, I want to do this, making money off it. Yeah. It's awesome. I couldn't agree more. It sounds like you're really happy in that place, too, and it's a good size, and it's going to be a great place for your family to grow up. Yeah, I love to look. We moved here strictly, completely based on the price of housing out here being better than Abbotsford was.

And now we would never move back to Abbotsford. It was almost like underlying, like, oh, yeah, we'll move back to Abbotsford eventually. But now I just never would. What stood out to you? What made it seem like this was the place to be that was like an improvement? Just like, like I said, the housing cost, it was the primary thing. But we've always liked hiking and camping and stuff. So being like, I mean, I can be on Chilwaukee Lake Road going into the back country in 10 minutes.

Like it's nothing. Or we can go have like a campfire along the river there. It's amazing. Yeah. Whereas there's not a lot of places you can do that. I can, I mean, we can be up in the mountains and in snow and August if we really want. Like, that's just super cool. It's a super cool place to live.

Yeah, I agree. It's very diverse. And like I have a buddy who's an RCMP officer who lives in Langley and he moved from Chilwaukee to Langley for the work. And one of his biggest complaints is like, you can be on. like a back road just enjoying like the stars or just on a cruise and have no traffic around you in Chilac and you don't have to take like a highway to get there and he's like where I live which is like right near the freeway he's like I need to drive on a fruit on like a highway for about 15 minutes to get into Maple Ridge before I'm in an area that has like less densely populated

space and Chilliwack is like you can drive in for five minutes and you can likely be on a road that's taking you to the middle of nowhere. Yeah, you can. And, like, Maple Ridge, like, Golden Ears is gorgeous. That's, that's a nice area. But I feel like Chilwack, you can pretty much drive 30 minutes in any direction and end up somewhere, like, amazing. Yeah. Like, even, like, was that Harrison you were in at the Eagle place that you sent me?

Yeah, that was crazy to me. Like, when the best part of hosting this podcast is meeting and talking to unique people who know things that I would never know of my. independent knowledge of Chilawak and having them be like, oh, you didn't know about this? Like, there's this eagle viewing spot in the middle of a golf course that I thought was completely private. And we just went there. And yeah, we were able to see the Eagles. We were right along the Harrison River.

It was just crazy. Yeah. It was like a 30 minute drive. Like to get from here to there, probably something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's like crazy. Yeah.

And you're like right in this area. And you wouldn't know it. Like they don't market it to people that like, hey, come into our golf. course and come check out our eagles. But, like, yeah, the experience was super cool. And I'm just interested, because Dehila's First Nation just signed a new reconciliation agreement. I'm interested to see how their tourism develops.

And so, like, I keep going out to communities to see what's going on. I'm hoping to help my own community, which is Chihuahawatha First Nation, which is along. If you're heading to Hope from Agassi, we're on the left-hand side. I'm interested to see what other communities are doing in terms of tourism, because I think, again like that back area people want that they'll pay for that and how do we make it really cool because um the other person i'm having on shortly is dean work he uh he runs Fraser valley fishing adventures and um he just built these domes and it's like you sleep in them but you get like the whole night sky when you go into bed and he just built all of those and like those people

are like inspirational like how do you build something like that that It's going to bring in tourism, but also give people those experiences that, again, we're moving away from with, like, being indoors all the time and not going out into the, like, we have so much, what's it called, the light, the, uh, light pollution, that you don't get to see the stars the way you're meant to see the stars. And I think part of that is important for people's humility. So when he's bringing stuff like that back, I just that interests me. That's super cool. I feel like there is like a trend going that way, like to get back to. basics a little bit like I mean I love that stuff but I still like like my phone and internet and that so there is like some give and take but I like that there's it's trending kind of to

get back to it and I hope like you know going out in the bush and having fun comes back because that's I don't know if that's all we did as kids is just hop on bikes and disappear into the bush and come back at vaguely dinner time yeah and just having a little bit more risk in your life. Like, it feels like that's perhaps the biggest thing that we're lacking is a sense of like, this isn't guaranteed. Like, we have so many waivers for everything now. Like, how about when you're leaping off a giant cliff because you're bungee jumping,

you know that it's not the business's fault if you're like something bad happens. Like, you're jumping off a cliff. Like, you want this to be 100% safe? Like, this cannot be 100% safe. No. It's, it feels like everything's like bubble wrapped now. Yeah. There's, I don't know, like even raising our kid, I'm by no means an expert parent.

I've been a parent for two and a half years. But there were like some things where we were just like, that seems weird. Like, why would you safeguard everything this much? Yeah. One of the weird things, we never put up baby gates on the stairs. Yeah. And we're like, well, she needs to learn how to use the stairs. She's awesome at the stairs now.

She's never fallen down the stairs. We were just like super mindful. Like, it almost, I almost feel like some, some baby proofing would almost make you less attentful. Because you're like, oh, that's there to stop that issue. And so there was like a few things where we thought it was like two bubble wrapped and some risk is probably a good thing. Like, they're learning opportunities. Yeah. That's the weird thing.

Even if you compare it to like growing up, there were like the metal slides. Those in the summer, they burn you. They burn. And so like that feeling of like, oh. you got to be careful is like something you just learn and it's an experience that helps shape your understanding of the world and gives you that own responsibility over the consequences rather than I need to go talk to the school or the slide manufacturer and we need to talk about this it's like no there's some things where you need to be ready

for consequences yeah there's like now I'd say one of the biggest benefits of being a parent is that you get to go play on the playgrounds again. Yeah. So I get to see the new equipment. Like a lot of what we played on when we were kids is gone, like long gone. Monkey bars. Monkey bars exist. They're real low now, though.

I think my favorite was like, remember the big like net of tires that was all together and it was like a U shape? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, those are long gone. The one I remember is the one where you'd like, you'd start running and you'd start running and you'd start spinning the thing. Yeah, those are gone. Yeah, those are gone.

Because even then it was like, this is not safe if I let go, I'm flying. Yeah, there's one, like, I would assume it's the modern version of that at Peach Park. Yeah. But they've put in it, like, it spins. Like, it's a little platform they stand on it, has, like, ropes up to the top that they can hang on to.

But it's like they intentionally put horrible bearings in it that it won't spin. Like, it turns. If you turn it, but it won't spin on its own. Right. And I feel like that's a feature they add. They're like, we could give you the fast version or we can slow us down. Yeah.

But I mean, that's not to say like safeguarding. Some things isn't worth it. Like definitely they, so now there's no pea gravel. It seems a park at playgrounds now and it's like bark mulch. That's way nicer to land on. That makes more sense to me. It would even be better if they had that spinning thing. that they were able to land on that instead of.

Exactly. So you're also interested in the UFC, and I'm just interested in your, in future problems. I love it. I haven't been following it too much. I became a big Khab Numerag Madov fan. Really? Yeah, I started to really like that guy,

other than his, like, a little freak out he had with Connor's crew. But then there was, like, a lot to that backstory, too, that led up to that. So I can understand him losing his cool, but man, was he good wrestler. Yeah. And I just like, I was ordering like all of his fights and I just like, I really liked watching him fight. And I'm like, I've done a bit of martial arts, like nothing in the last few years now. And I'm not a wrestler at all. I'm like a stand-up guy.

But watching him wrestle was just, he was like watching a little monkey, watching a spider crawl around the mat. He was amazing. He was so fast and just amazing wrestler. So you didn't keep up with Hamzaa Chimaa at all? No. No, because he's like the next touted. Is he? Yeah, he's touted as better because he just fought Gilbert Burns last week.

And he had fought four guys previous to that and only been punched twice. They were non-significant strikes. And so then he fought Gilbert and it was a three-round war. Wow. And it was really good. But he's kind of touted as like Islam Makachev is kind of touted as like Kabib's younger prodigy. but Hamzad is like interesting because he does it all he's expert wrestler he's loved by people like

Alexander Gustafson and like well respected and then he's got the striking like he knocked one guy down with one punch and it was out and it was like he we just watched him last weekend and he's a very interesting cat because he kind of came out of nowhere and he's taken he's considered like potentially the next corner because he's won all the fights

he just beat the number two now it's Kamar Usman if he wins that fight he's the champ And then he wants to go after welterweight and middleweight. And so, like, I'm very interested to see where he takes it. I love the UFC because I find them so inspirational. And, like, it's, like, it's the highest dose of inspiration that you can get because they're literally going out there. And they're risking their body, their health, their mental health. And, like, if you watch the thrill and the agonies after, they go through, like, what it feels like to lose.

And it's, like, the biggest loss of your life. Yeah. Because it's in front of everyone. and you have this like intense sorrow of like nothing was worth it and for people like Dan Hooker he was away from his family due to COVID he had to go over to the US fight and then he lost he had to spend like four weeks in quarantine by himself without loss like I can't even imagine and so like my respect for what they do is like there's there's not much higher than my respect for those individuals yeah well and they step in there like I know they train kind

of, like, as a team, but then you step in there and you're on your own, like, it's you and one other dude or one other girl, like, it's, you're by yourself out there. And it's another one of those things where you'll step in there and the world's going to criticize everything you do in there, having never stepped in by himself. Like, just to step in the ring is, is a wind in itself. Yeah, because you've done the guts to do that. Yeah. It's, those, those guys are, they're absolutely crazy. Well, like, crazy in a good way. They put so much work into it. And then they have so much guts just to step in the ring

and face another equally scary individual. Absolutely. And you think of people like Connor McGregor, who kind of pioneered it. We were drinking proper 12. And you think of like the willingness to continue to fight despite having enormous amounts of wealth. To like set up for life still wants to do it

because he still wants that respect in the field that he developed himself in. He's someone that came from absolutely nothing, too. He was homeless at one point, I understand. Yeah. Like, unreal. And for him, like, I'm not, uh, not the biggest fan of his, just his antics and stuff, but, like, just watching him fight and continue to want to go out there and fight. Like, there's like, in, in martial arts, there's this trend of once you're at the top, you kind of want to pull away from that because you don't want someone to knock you off the top.

Yeah. Connor seems like someone who will fight anyone any day. It doesn't matter. You name it. He just wants to fight. And I like that about him. Yeah. And I think that that's the challenge that someone like Khabib faces now is that he doesn't

have that same. Like people are like, well, what if he had have faced someone like Charles Olivera, who's the new champ of the 155 pound division? There's like there's questions left. And those questions will only grow over time where Conner, are still in there and win or lose, it's brave to step in there because you don't have to. And that feeling of not, like, it's tough to know how much when you're trying to climb to the top is lost once you're at the top and once you've made all the money and once you could

retire, whether or not, like, there's that old saying of like living in silk sheets, can you really be able to get out of bed the same way you did when you were like on the pavement sleeping on the ground? Like, is that motivation still there? And that's, that's how we're. really interesting thought experiment, even to apply to your own life. I think the difference there is just that Connor just has the love of the game. Like he'll always, I bet you he's always there at some capacity, whether he's like an old man commentating, or I bet you he'll always be around it in some form. And I think even Dana White has said that, that Connor was the guy, that he could be like,

hey, I need you to fight this guy, hey, I need you to fight this guy. And he doesn't care. He's just happy to be there. Yeah. Whereas, Khabib was, I would say he was probably, at least when he was fighting, was the best wrestler out there, made it to the top and then played it safe and was like, no, I'm out. Yeah. And maybe he comes back. Maybe that's a play too, because that has worked before he could make big bucks leaving and then coming back.

Absolutely. So what would you say your game is? What is your love of the game? Is it communicating ideas? Is it communicating heritage? is it like what aspect like because you're doing leather work but you said that could have gone to if you could have that would have gone into like glass blowing that could have gone into different worlds so what is your what would you say like the hallmark of like I don't want to lose this I love this part

of it and I want to continue that whatever it looks like it sounds like it could be YouTube what does that look like yeah I think it's almost more just making something I'm like I would have said leather before I started YouTube and then I started making YouTube videos and now I really like that but looking back there was the interest in like making blades and stuff like that too so I think I just was like looking for a way to make something by hand or make something myself and just not just be a consumer kind of yeah like I don't know it's I like making the videos themselves like they could be about absolutely anything like I'm planning on making a YouTube channel that's just me doing stuff that I like to do, whether it takes off or not. I don't know.

Tell us about that. Like, well, my wife laughs and jokes that I'm kind of the man of a thousand hobbies where I just try everything. It's like a hobby to collect hobbies for me. So I did jump on the like sourdough bandwagon at the start of the pandemic as well because I had time off or. um so sourdough that's the one where you like you need like something to pull like a yeast yeah you need something living to make this like sourdough starter and it's like yeast and bacteria and i wasn't good at it i i do have some i'm trying doing my second attempt at it now but i've never made a good sourdough right but there's that i bought a pizza oven i make pizza at home now that's

something i like to do that i am good at um made some really good pizzas me and my brother are working on we're making, aside I have a 3D printer. We're making replica proton packs from the Ghostbusters. We've almost finished printing out one of them. I just like making things. I recently decided I want to learn to cut my own hair. I don't want to pay for someone to cut my hair anymore.

So this is my first haircut. It looks really good. Thank you. I don't know. I just like doing things myself. And I will pretty much try anything. I really like to cook, so I'm at the point where I make a lot of stuff myself.

Like, I don't buy mayonnaise. I like to make mayonnaise. I like to make mayonnaise. You make your own mayonnaise. Yeah. That's crazy. It's easy. It's like easier than anyone would realize.

Is it easier than buying mayonnaise? I could. If you had to go buy mayonnaise now and I had to make it right here, it would be made by the time you got back. Like before you got back. No way. Yeah, easily. What do you need for mayonnaise?

Some acid, which is like either lemon juice or vinegar, an egg, a cup of oil, some seasonings. Interesting. A blender. It's super easy. And so do you feel like you have this great place, but you remind me of a person who would want to live like more up in the woods? Like just based on like what you're saying, what you're describing to me is a person who's like more, a little more off the grid. Not like 100% off the grid, but a person who's like happy to have like more of a disconnect.

Is that sound accurate? I would like it for some amount of time, but I like my technology too. That's probably another benefit of Chilliwack is it's kind of halfway between. I can be in Vancouver and what, an hour and a quarter. Yeah. Or I can be completely in the middle of nowhere going an hour in the other direction. Yeah. I'm lucky in that my folks bought a cabin up north. by Lone Butte last year.

I don't even know where that is. Oh, it's, I want to say like 100 mile area, kind of way, way out northeast from here. Right. And that's pretty nice. But even then, it's pretty, like, glamorous cabin, like, spot. Like, there's still, like, cell reception and stuff like that. I don't think I would go off the grid for too long.

I like that stuff. Yeah. And can you tell us about that person that you admire who makes, I'm forgetting his name, Oh, Valid. Yeah. Oh, no, the person that has their own YouTube channel, cigars, whiskey. Oh, Jeremy Sears.

There you go. Did you check out his channel? I did, of course. He's pretty good. That's what made me think, like, this might be a good setup. He's pretty good. So that's kind of what I plan on basing my, like, just by, like, my name YouTube channel on his, he just, he's into a lot of the same stuff that I'm into, and he just likes making videos. I think he's a, I think he started as a photographer, kind of Peter McKinnon.

but yeah he's just drinks whiskey makes coffee smoke cigars does a bunch of things and just start making YouTube videos about doing those things I think in his like about section he says I make videos on what I like to do yeah and that's what I want to do so my plan for that is yeah just to make videos almost I guess vlog style kind of thing of me just doing things kind of maybe like an underlying how to do this message in a longer, this is me being me video kind of thing. It's still evolving. No, that makes sense.

It's unique because I'm in the interviews. Like when I wrote a paper on like the different avenues for podcasts and YouTube and like interviews are second to how tos and personalities and just sharing your own journey. And so it's interesting to hear the different. differences between what I'm doing and yours in that yours is going to be just you and you're going to be sharing what you're interested in and developing a community based on that. Yeah. And kind of my idea for that is to sort of pull me out of my comfort zone too.

Like I said, I have issues being like excitable on camera and that was kind of kind of force me to be on camera more and be more entertaining like doing a personality based channel. Yeah. So I don't know how it'll go. I have two videos filmed. I have one uploaded that I am sitting on and haven't hit publish on yet. It's just kind of sitting there like an intro thing. And then I did one of like the first time, like me cutting my hair for the first time,

which is super nerve-wracking. Oh, interesting. Like you recorded that? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Just by yourself downstairs. Yeah.

I just like went in the bathroom and I like hung my camera on the towel rack and cut my own hair. It was super sketchy. It turned out fine. There's a few spots, but it's not so bad. I don't think anybody's going to notice. But it's like, I don't know. It was one of those things I was just thinking, well, I go pay a guy $50 to cut my hair. You pay $50 to get your hair cut?

Well, like, $30. It's like $30, $35, plus tax. You're going to pay. Do they have TV? He does my beard, too. Okay, okay, okay. So, like, yeah, with like a decent haircut and a beard trim and tax and tip, it's about $50. bucks. It's somewhere between 40 and 50.

Right. But that's every time. And then I was like, well, actually, Reddit again, there's a community on Reddit called Self Barber. I went on there, and I went to like a barberer subred it, and I went to the self-barber one, and there's people doing, like, amazing haircuts on themselves. And I was like, why am I paying 50

bucks for this? I'm no male model. I don't need someone to, like, do my hair for me. Like, I need to basically know how to do my hair and cut my beard. So I was like, oh, I'll give it a shot. And I, like, looked up a decent clipper to buy and bonnet was your aesthetic planned

because you have the market that you're going after you have the good aesthetic for like you have this really thick strong beard I guess well I've had the beard for a couple of years now so I don't think so

I think it's just like kind of like doing that kind of like leather heritage stuff is an interesting of mine, but it's probably a look that just kind of plays into my interests as well. Yeah, because the video is just look perfect because you look like the correct person to be doing the videos. Like, it just, it's perfectly synergistic. I feel like it's probably like someone who has an interest in this might have an interest

in this. Like, I feel like they probably just go together by chance. Right. It wasn't like grow the beard because I make leather kind of thing. No, yeah. Like, I definitely don't think that you did the beard just for the, that it's just it comes so naturally like it looks so uh appropriate yeah i could definitely see that there's well i know a ton of leather workers now because i talk to a ton of people but

a lot of them are like just big dudes with beards yeah like hard working individuals i i think that that's yeah i think that that's important that we have individuals like yourself to turn to um and like learn different things from because I think that your willingness like your mindset that you're sharing with people is like a willingness to learn and I think that that's like that open-mindedness to like maybe there's something here and I'm going to go check it out and that development over time is so we have everything we need now yeah it's now just about figuring out what you want to do like there can't we can we talk about like oh like where is like is things affordable or things this but it's like you now there's no excuses on

the table of like I don't know a person in finance so I can't learn about finance I don't have a next door neighbor who's a lawyer so I can't learn about the law it's like the knowledge is there you just have to go sit down and watch the videos and start to understand where to go read the books and start to put things together in order to develop yourself and you are a prime example of that of that willingness to be like I'm going to learn about this and I'm going to learn about that and that culture of lifelong learning

I think is becoming more commonplace but it's so important that people take it seriously and start to look for like what am I interested in let's go watch some videos what do I like about what they do figuring out like am I like I started a substack account

and it was like I don't consider myself a writer I love conversations but I'm going to develop myself in this new way that maybe is a little uncomfortable for me my normal medium to see what's in this medium that I'm not getting from this medium. And so that open-mindedness of like, I'm going to do leather work. Now I'm going to start a YouTube channel.

Now I'm going to learn about how YouTube works. Now I'm going to try something else with YouTube. It's like you're seeing the evolution of yourself over this journey. And I think that that's crazy motivational for people to figure out what they're interested in and then follow that same sort of trajectory. Yeah. And that's about like investing. Like what if you find something you are interested.

invested in investing your time into it too. Like, I mean, you can always pull back if you're like, oh, that's not for me, whatever. But like you had said earlier, you can't learn everything from YouTube. But it's a good place to start. And like, for me, leather, I started there. Then I started interacting with the leatherworking community on Instagram. And then I found a mentor that was nearby who, you know, Skyped with me or whatever, like video chatted with me and taught me stuff.

What did that mean to you? Lots. He still helps me. all the time it's insane like i dropped by his house and he's like oh i have this for you i have this for you do this like it's insane he's amazing does that surprise you that like people are that open that they're that but did that surprise you at all it did it first yeah for sure um and then like getting to know him he's just kind of that guy but then getting to know a lot of like the leather workers it's a really supportive community and I don't I'm not really in a bunch of like creator

spaces other than that community but I would imagine they got to be the same I think like woodworkers and all that are pretty supportive of each other like my old man's a wood turner and he's in a group and they're super supportive of each other and showing each other ideas so I think creators like to play off each other yeah it's something I've tried to encourage in the podcast space is like I think there's an instinct for people to think you're in this space too, therefore you're my competition. But in my mind, it's like, no, because if you're bringing people to the podcast space, if people are listening to you, that's just bringing up the amount of people listening.

And like, I've talked about this a few times, but the average, like, reading ability in Canada is like something like a C out of like ABC. and so it's not great. And so podcasts, audiobooks, these are more YouTube videos, these are more accessible for so many people who don't have good literacy skills. So I think more people in this space making podcasts more commonplace is not hurting anyone,

but there's that initial mindset to be like, oh, you're going to take my listeners. And it's like, the odds that they can listen to this and your video are like super high. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I didn't know the literacy rate was that long. Yeah, it's not.

not great. It's, from my understanding, it's mainly because we have the oil fields and we have such natural resources that there's such an advantage in grades 10, 11, and 12, to drop out of school to go work in the oil fields, to go work in the lumber industry, because it's money today versus a four-year degree, and then you've got your education and, like, what is that worth? What work do you want to do? And so the motivation to drop out or stop school earlier to go work in the oil fields. It's so advantageous for people that they choose that over. That's interesting.

Yeah. Well, I can, I mean, I like to think my literacy rates higher than that, but I don't read at all. So I, and I listen to a ton of podcasts. Yeah, I think it's a, it's a reliable way forward. And I think it just, it makes, like, truck drivers are one of the biggest consumers of podcasts. That makes sense.

But we've been over the course of history, so judgment. of people doing those honest, hard jobs. And even more recently, we've been kind of demeaning to the work of truckers and trying to say, this part of truckers is good and this part of truckers. They're the not intelligent people. And it's like most of these people listen to audiobooks, podcasts. They're educating themselves. And that was something for me where I didn't think I was intelligent when I was going

through high school. Then I'm listening to neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman, breaking down like the brain and how it works, and it's like, oh, maybe I'm not stupid. Maybe I'm like, maybe there's something in this brain that's actually of use. And so I think that they allow you to realize, like, maybe I am interested in neuroscience. Maybe I am, maybe I'm allowed to be interested in these things, even if I don't have a degree in it. Yeah. Yeah, what is, what does Huberman call him, officinados?

Yeah, I like that. Yeah. I like to think I'm an officiantado of it. But, like, half of what he says is over my head. And he's dumbing it down, which is that to you. Yeah, but it's so. cool when people do that and they choose to share it because then you go like wow there's so much of the world that I didn't know and this is what an expert looks like and an expert doesn't

have to be someone in a white lab coat saying you're dumb listen to me I've got the pill for you he's breaking these complex things down and not assuming you're not smart enough to figure it out yeah well and he shows like an expert like the difference between someone who can look up information online and then regurgitate it versus someone who like knows the material Because he can sit there and cite names and studies and, like, the names of everything that he's saying, whereas some keyboard warrior trying to refute you online is going to be on Wikipedia and copy pasting stuff. Like, it's, you can't learn everything online. It's just a good starting point maybe to gauge your interest. Yeah, that was the interesting thing I learned about oral cultures and indigenous communities is that, like, we didn't have things written down.

so it was all based on memory. So a lot of our stories are the mixture of moral stories and geographic locations. And the mixture of the two allow you both to learn how to live a meaningful life, but also tell you where you are in the area. Like Le Chiam means where wild strawberries grow, and at the base of Chiam is a wild strawberry patch. That's interesting. And so there's a mixture of the two that give you an idea of where you are.

and then there's a story of Chiam being like a lady who was turned to stone and that she's looking over all of us. And that's why Chiam is such a tall mountain. And so they can look over all of Sultamieu, which is the Fraser Valley. And so like there's a mixture of the two. There's a story of like the cedar tree. I love cedar. Like if I was going to get into something, it probably would work.

Because I think like that that image beside you, I thought it was so crazy that somebody made that up in Boston Bar. And so the story of the cedar tree is that there was a really, good man who always gave back to his community who was turned into a cedar tree so he could continue to give back to the community. And Stolo people have used cedar trees for a very long time. And I didn't know this, but cedar trees are actually predominantly only located in the lower mainland of British Columbia. They're not really located across Canada or across the U.S. They're mainly here. And so they'd use other trees that were subpar. And so when they'd

have hats or clothing, they were not as good as cedar. And so cedar is considered like top tier. And that story of, like, the man I would compare to, like, a Jesus figure. This person who always gave back, turned to a cedar tree, helps us live high quality lives and improved all of the equipment that we use. Interesting. Yeah. That's really cool. Is that from, like, the trading post thing up in Boston Bar there or from someone that you know? Just somebody that we were working with.

That's super cool. Yeah. Tim, I really appreciate you being willing to. Come on. I cannot be more proud of this. I will be definitely repping this really great. cool business card holder slash I'm going to definitely use it as a wallet. I'm glad you like it in the future.

Can you tell people how they can connect with you on social media, on YouTube, Instagram? Yeah, for sure. Probably if you want to reach out to me, you can go to my website, blackplag leather goods.com, and there's an email form there. Or you can send me a message at Black Flag Leather on Instagram. I do get back to everyone eventually, but I'm getting like more and more messages that sometimes takes me a few days.

You can watch me on Black Flag Leather Goods on YouTube As well as I'm starting a Tim Srigley on YouTube It exists. I have 24 followers already, actually. That's pretty good. That is really good. I don't have anything yet. And then I'm also starting a website called how to leatherwork.com, which is a work in progress, so there's not much there yet.

Hopefully it grows into like a course of how to leather work. That's amazing. And we just did over three hours. Did we really? Yeah. Oh, wow. They flew by. Yeah, absolutely.

And a great conversation. I hope that we can do this in the future because I think I enjoy being more casual. Sometimes I put on the interview hat and I get serious. And I want this to be something where people can tune in and have like a more enjoyable, relaxed conversation. And so I hope that that's what listeners got out of this. It's certainly how I felt, which was more just having a really good conversation. It was super comfortable.

I was nervous coming in. Yeah, that three hours just flew by. That's great to hear. I would definitely come back. Perfect. Well, we'll try and make this a reoccurring thing because I think there's a lot to learn from people like yourself, and maybe there'll be questions in the future, and we can collaborate on that. Yeah, I would love to.

Awesome. Thank you, Tim. Thanks, man.