On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Mark Rober: Feeling Stuck in a Rut? Use THIS Simple 3- Step Method Engineers Use to FINALLY Turn Your Ideas Into Reality!

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

What idea have you been sitting on lately? What’s been holding you back from starting? Today, Jay sits down with engineer, innovator, and YouTube creator Mark Rober to explore the unexpected life experiences that shaped one of the internet’s most beloved minds. Mark shares the childhood moments that ignited his passion for building, breaking, and understanding how the world works, moments nurtured by a mother whose love, imagination, and encouragement helped lay the foundation for his life’s mission. He reflects on how her influence continues to ripple outward, inspiring millions of young people who learn, explore, and dream through his work today. Jay and Mark explore the mindset that carried Mark from NASA engineer to innovative educator, unpacking what it really means to “think like an engineer:” experiment boldly, embrace failure, and treat every setback as an opportunity to learn. They follow Mark’s unusual pivots, from designing Mars rover hardware to crafting Halloween costumes, to ultimately shaping a career that blends curiosity, storytelling, science, and play. Together they reveal the deeper lessons behind Mark’s most viral experiments: why creativity thrives when we stay childlike, how passion reveals itself through repetition, and why the most meaningful work grows from genuine excitement rather than algorithms or expectations. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Think Like an Engineer How to Stay Curious as an Adult How to Follow Your Passion Practically How to Build Ideas That Actually Work How to Find Creativity in Everyday Life How to Recognize Your Real Calling How to Inspire Others Through Your Work Keep following the questions that excite you, keep trying the things that scare you, and keep believing that you’re capable of far more than you realize. Your next breakthrough might be just one experiment, or one brave attempt away. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here.  Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast  What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:16 Were You Always Creative? 04:02 Understanding the Real Impact of Your Life 06:55 What It Really Takes to Work at NASA 09:49 Learning to Think Like an Engineer 11:22 How Rovers Are Tested for Mars 12:20 Searching for Life Beyond Earth 13:24 Follow What You Truly Love Doing 16:11 If You Can Imagine It, You Can Build It 17:22 Practical Wisdom from a Lifelong Tinkerer 20:57 The Pivot from NASA to Apple 23:34 Turning Ideas into Actionable Success 24:45 What is the Engineering Design Process? 28:28 Why Embracing Failure Matters 29:57 Relearning Trust and Finding Love Again 34:56 The Power of Immersion Weekends 36:45 Making Learning Engaging Through Creativity 40:29 Why Mastery Is Worth Pursuing 41:40 Balancing Business with True Creativity 44:51 How Communication Shapes Great Storytelling 47:40 Two Common Mistakes Creators Make 52:30 Staying True to Your Creative Style 54:04 The Importance of Focusing on One Passion 56:44 The Hidden Failures Behind Viral Success 59:35 Giving Kids Room to Be Creative 01:04:30 Curiosity as the Root of Creativity 01:06:07 Inside a Real Creative Process 01:08:45 Where Do You Get Your Big Ideas? 01:11:46 The Mind-Bending Question of Life in the Universe 01:16:02 The Promise and Peril of Rapid AI Growth 01:19:56 Focusing on What You Can Truly Influence  01:24:57 Mark on Final Five Episode Resources: Mark Rober | X Mark Rober | Instagram Mark Rober | Facebook Mark Rober | LinkedIn Mark Rober | TikTok Mark Rober | YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What up, y'all? It's your boy, Kevin on stage. I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Moment, where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends, people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures. What did they mess up on?

What is their heartbreak? And what did they learn from it? I got judged horribly. The judges were like, you're trash. I don't know how you got on the show. Boo, somebody had tomatoes. I'm kidding. But if they had tomatoes, they would have thrown the tomatoes.

Let's be honest. We've all had those moments we'd rather forget. We bumped our head. We made a mistake. The deal fell through. We're embarrassed. We failed. But this podcast is about that and how we made it through.

So when they sat me down, they were kind of like, we got into the small talk, and they were just like, so what do you got? What ideas? And I was like, oh, no. What? Check out Not My Best Moment with me, Kevin, on stage, on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, here we go again, we'll take today's trends and

headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends, like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg, to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics. Put another way, are you high? Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now. But my, goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to here we go again with Cal Penn on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. No one is harmed, no death, no trauma, just a few cells grown in a dish. This is David Eagleman from the Inner Cosmos podcast, and this week we're tackling a tough question where brain

science meets the future. Lab drone meat is going to force us to confront the boundaries. We're of our ethics. And what does this have to do with brain plasticity, social belonging, messed up boundaries between mental categories? What does this uncover about brain science and our calculations of morality? Listen to Inner Cosmos on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're not breaking stuff, it means like you're not really testing the limits. And then when you fail, you don't internalize it like, oh, I'm a failure.

It's like, oh, great. We just learned one more way not to do a thing. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become a happier, healthier, and more healed. My guest today is Mark Roba, engineer, YouTuber, and one of the most creative minds online whose experiments and inventions have inspired millions to fall in love with science and curiosity again. In this episode, we explore how to stay creative, turn failure into fuel, and reconnect with the sense of wonder we often lose as adults. Please welcome to On Purpose, Mark Roba.

Mark, it is great to have you here. Congratulations on your incredible success. Thank you. And I'm excited to dive into your mind. So good to be here. Let's do it. Are you going to make me cry, Jay? Are you a crier?

I can't get emotional. I'm the crier in my relationship. Are you the crier in your relationship? I am. Well, we both kind of cry. How long have you been together now? Yeah, over a year. Over a year.

But that feels like relationship-wise, it happened fast. I mean, as an adult, you know what you want, right? And so it feels like seven years and dog-years relationships. It's been seven years for the one. I love it. I love it. Well, if you're allowed to cry here, definitely, but no, no pressure. No, we don't want any acting tears.

I'm a terrible actor, so you're in luck. I love it. I want to start off just by like, the first question I have for you is, what's the earliest childhood memory you have that you feel defines who you are today? a moment, a friend, an experience from school growing up that you're like, that is why I am the way I am. I think it's a defining moment, one that sticks out, I feel like. So my mom was out of the gate.

You're kidding me talking about my mom. My mom was like had the biggest influence on my life by a very comfortable margin. And she was like a stay-at-home mom. Like, she barely graduated high school. But she was just so encouraging of us and, like, trying to turn us into, like, good humans. And so she would encourage just being creative and, like, out-of-the-box thinking and just, I remember one time, you know, and she, we did chores, like, as to raise a good human. Like, we had a list of chores from the time I was five years old, right? So I was helping prepare dinner

And I was in charge of doing the salad I was cutting the onions And I was like crying Because I was like, oh, this is a thing I don't like this So I was like well I should go I remember upstairs we had these swim goggles So I ran upstairs, got the goggles

Not thinking anything of it And just kept cutting with onions on And now I know that's like a hack Like people know about this But I was like five years old This is like 1986 And I just remember her reaction to that just like she laughed and she's just like no way and like the encouraging she took a picture we have

a family picture of it right and that's 24 pictures in those days so if you're taking a picture you mean it right it's on film and it just felt really good to be in this environment where like that kind of thinking was encouraged um that it is always stuck with me and then you know just growing up you know if i took apart the remote control and i couldn't quite get it back together and, like, I didn't get in trouble for that. It was like, oh, what are you up to now, right? It's like, what are you up to? But it was more celebrated as opposed to something that was just overlooked.

Yeah, that's special. And I feel today, like, that same feeling of, like, creating content and sharing people and, like, getting that reaction of other people being like, oh, man, why didn't I think of that? Like, I love hearing that because that means it was kind of obvious and you took things, you know, especially if I do a build, if I could do the junk you have lying around your house, that's so much better than just like all these technical solution right yeah and so that feeling of coming up with an idea sharing with people and getting feedback on it it's just like it's kind of

addictive yeah that's beautiful and it's amazing when your parents encourage it when when was the last time you shared that story with your mom um so interesting story on that jay which is that like um uh like six months before i made my first youtube video she passed away from als um which i think is like kind of a beautiful thing in the sense that you know we can all disagree on what happens when you die right but this idea that like you never know the true measure of your impact in this life right you do you know you interact with other people even if it's just like what do you say when the guy opens the door for you you know or you open the door for someone like with her you know the channel now reaches you know if seven

72 million subscribers and like billions of views a month. And none of that was on her radar. And like my mission is to get kids, you know, everyone, but especially the young folks stoked about science and education and curiosity because that's what she did to me. And this is also how I feel about like teachers. They're like seed planners, right? And just nobody knows the measure of the full measure of their impact.

And yeah. So I just think it's really sweet. that like, you know, when she passed away, I think she felt really good about, like, the kids she raised. But, like, she just didn't know, like, her direct, like, how she raised me and my siblings is now, like, impacting so many kids and people across the world. So it's really beautiful. Like, that's her version of living on and living forever, regardless of what you think, what happens after we die. Yeah. No, thank you for sharing that, man.

It's so, it's so beautiful to hear that as someone who's, my mom, who's still with us, but the impact she had on me as well, like I feel like my mom showed me how to love. And if anyone ever feels loved by me or feels I can create a safe loving space for other people, it's because my mom did that for me in the most difficult of situations and always made me feel like I had a shield of love around me. And so I've never really had to question whether I'm lovable or not, which is just an insane superpower. And then all that love that you were given just spills onto other people.

And then I was like, oh, how are you so loving and thoughtful? And I'm like, oh, it's my mom. Like it was like, my mom just gave me so much that it had to spill out and spill over into other people. It's actually not me. And it's something that I hold very deeply as well. And I think moms, dads, teachers, mentors, guides, spiritual leaders, whoever your family turns to for support have such a big impact. and now YouTubers, right?

Like, now you, like, there are so many kids and parents that turn to you for your content to inspire their children to think differently. How do you get a job at NASA? Like, I just, when I saw that, when I was looking, I was like, how do you get a job at NASA? Like, that sounds like made up stuff. I mean, you get lucky, first of all.

Like, you know, my resume was just in a stack of resumes. And, yeah, the interview. What did you do at college? So I studied mechanical engineering. Okay. So you had that. Yeah, yeah. So for sure.

You got a start with an engineering degree. I'll give you that. Yeah. From a good school. From a good school. Yeah, I did undergrad at BYU, Y, grad school at USC. Yeah.

Mechanical engineering. Yeah. I remember going in, there's this old engineer there, Don Bickler. And when you interview there, you know, he'd go into his office, he shuts the door. NASA.

This guy's a legend. Invented like the rocker bogey system on the rover. And then you just, you stay in that room for like an hour and he hands you a whiteboard, a whiteboard marker, and he just drills you on questions. And at the end of that, he comes and kind of offers the verdict. And when I left, he's like, he's good, hire him.

So, you know. Tell me what the questions are like. Like, what is that? How's that interview? Because I imagine it's so different from any interviews. Yeah, I mean, they're like technical questions, right? Like, here's a good one. If you have a fishing boat and you have an anchor,

and then you take that anchor and you throw it overboard. And what happens to the, water level on the lake. Does it go up or down? And so it's kind of like a riddle, but the point is you write out the equations on the board, the buoyancy equation, you know, you solve for this, and then the answer is pretty obvious if you can do that. So it's kind of like, questions like this, technical questions, but they're just like rapid fire one after another. Right, right. And so then, yeah, so I worked at NASA for a decade, uh, 10 of those, or about seven of those working on the Mars Curiosity rover. So I have hardware that's like on the jet pack that lowers

of the ground and then also on the top deck of the rover. So you designed? That I designed, built, tested, integrated. How many of you are working on something like that at the same time? Yeah, like, it's like probably 3,000 people all told, like, have a hand in creating something like the Mars rover. Wow. Yeah.

But it's cool, like, to, you know, just be in the backyard. You know, and you see that one dot in the sky that has like the reddish tint, you know, so you know that one's Mars. And you're just like, I've, like, I've touched something that's like on that planet. it and built it and it's it's still working 90 million miles away and where are you based are you this was in this is a jet propulsion laboratory so out in pasadena here okay yeah and how many people work out of there like about 5,000 give or take oh it's huge it was so cool it's like a college campus just like a free exchange of ideas you know talk about creativity just like everything is on

the board and it's just this engineering mindset of like you know we don't know the right answer, but heck, we'll just run a ton of tests and figure out what it is. What was the mindset you think you learned from working at NASA and the people there that you don't think most of us would come across in our daily life? I think this concept of like thinking like an engineer. What does that mean? I've heard that before. I've also heard like think like a rocket scientist.

I'm like, what does that mean? So me, in fact, I have a toy company now, Crunch Labs, where, you know, basically it's like a really fun toy you get every month and the kids can put it together and it teaches the engineering principles what makes them work. And on this side of the box, it says think like an engineer. And the idea there is like it means that like you're not afraid of failure. And you know, you're resilient because you know that failure is part of the process. Like the point is to break stuff and test it. If you're not breaking stuff, it means like you're not really testing the limits. And then when you fail, it's you don't internalize it like, oh, I'm a failure.

it's like, oh, great, we just learned one more way not to do a thing. You're excited, right? It's like, let's try something different. And so I think that philosophy applies to life and the challenge. Like, toddlers are like this, right? Like, when they fall, they're not like, oh, I look so dumb. I'm never going to try and walk again, right? It's like they just get up and try again and they're excited to try again.

You know, the kid who's just tinkering in his garage and doesn't care and it's trying stuff. Like, that's the kid that's just like learning so much, right? And again, this is how you put a rover on Mars. You just break stuff and test it and test it and test it. So you know the limits. And now you know exactly what will work when you go to Mars. And what was the purpose of the rover?

So essentially it's just like to go to, you know, we want, it's good for humanity if we are a multi-planetary species. And so it's like this is the precursor to like humans going and living on Mars. So basically it goes there and says like, what's the soil like? could you plant asparagus there? It turns out you can. Is there water there? Yeah, turns out there is. So all these things that we would want to have on Mars, if we were living there, like the rover,

how much radiation is there here? So it can do a bunch of, let us learn the history of this planet so that, A, we can potentially live there someday, but B, it helps us learn about ourselves. Part of what we know about global warming is by studying Venus, which is basically like a runaway global warming. So by like studying other areas in their solar system, we're able to love. learn, like, more about, you know, how Earth even came about and formed, which helps us to know how do we protect it in the future.

Wow. And so, wait, when you started to get this information and data back that you can grow asparagus, there's water there, what was the big discovery that the rover felt like it achieved that you all walked away with and said, oh, wow, this was mission accomplished? I mean, with science, like, your objectives are always smaller than that, of like, we just want to go there and answer whether or not there's water. You know, life is always the big one. Like, if you can find life on another planet, like, that's pretty wild.

Because if life came to exist twice in our own solar system, you know, then like, there must, like the universe must just be teeming with other forms of life. It's just like a really fascinating question, right? Yeah. Sometimes you don't, you just go there to gather to data. Yes. And then you just look for something interesting to come from the data. But you don't necessarily know ahead of time.

You can have objectives, right? But I think us just getting closer to live there and studying if life did exist there are like always some. And is water there currently flowing? Those kinds of questions are like really interesting with Mars. Yeah, the reason I'm mining it is for two reasons, these questions to you is one is I'm fascinated because it's so different from any world I've ever lived in. And so I'm like a kid in a candy shop right now.

I'm like, this is so cool. And then the second side of it is because I think it's a mindset thing too. The idea that all of these really smart people are building something and there isn't this big goal or objective, there's this idea of we're going to learn and we're going to grow and we're going to figure it out and we'll discover something is such a beautiful mindset for life. Like I think about even with what you were talking about with Crunch Labs, teaching kids at an early age to just experiment, play, break, live with. out the goal of like, oh, I have to build, I'm sure they, I'm sure crunch slept, yeah.

No, you're totally right. Yeah, it's like, that's a great mindset because I feel like if you think about all the companies that we all use today, they didn't start off saying we're going to build a billion dollar company. They just built something that helped people and figured it out and pivoted and gave us another option. Then one day they were valued at billions of dollars. But today, there's a pressure I feel that people have where it's like, if I build an app,

it has to be a billion dollar app. If I build a products company, it has to sell $100 million the first year. If I sell apparel brand, I have to make a million. I feel like we put these goals and objectives. And you're actually saying, well, when we're going to Mars, we're not thinking about those things. I mean, I completely agree with you. Like, I don't love when people expect you to know what you want to be when you grow up when you're like 16 years old. Like, nobody, ask any adult.

And if you ask them what they're doing, if they knew they'd be doing what they're doing now, if they say yes, they're totally lying to you. Like, nobody knows. And that's just the way life is. It's like a river that meanders, right? So it's like, my advice, if you don't know what you want to be in your, you know, a teenager or something, it's like, what do you love to do? Do you love to draw?

And then just dominate it. Just draw like crazy and get so good at it, right? Maybe you love to write or to tell stories. Like, just do that. And then when you do that, like, then more doors will be open to you. So, like, this is kind of my philosophy with life, too. Like, I've had a lot of left and right turns to, get me sitting across from you right now.

And what I do is just like whatever's in front of me, I just give it every single thing I have. And I just try and just crush it and learn as much as possible. And then when you're done with that, it's like, all right, now what are my next options, right? And it's usually pretty clear, to be honest. Like, it's never like, I've honestly never had a moment in life, even quitting NASA to go to YouTube stuff where it's like, is this the right decision?

Is it not? It feels pretty clear. if you've really committed yourself and then you have all the new facts in front of you, right? Yeah. Before we get to that, what did you want to be when you were a kid? And when people asked you that question that you know it.

I wanted to be, my first job I wanted to do was to design play places at McDonald's. You know, like the ball pit things. I used to love those. I was like an architect of those. I remember I'd have all these drawings. We're going to start with a ball pit. We're going to go to the nets.

And now Crunch Labs, which is this actual place I have. It's like this Willy Wonka factory for engineering is sort of the embodiment of that dream. Because we have like secret passageways, you know, a Coke machine opens up into a claw machine that you can like take a picture. It's like the North Pole. Yeah. We have like fired like pistons that you slide down from. You're basically center.

Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Like I'm like Willy Wonka for engineering. Like it has that vibe. Right. It's like a rock paper, scissors machine that it's a robot that beats you every time, a staircase that's, an infinite slinky staircase the slinky just goes so it's like you know if you can dream it up

then you can build it like that's the beauty of being an engineer is like if if something doesn't exist and you want it to exist you could just will it into an existence yeah what a superpower yeah there's this uh there's this amazing i mean this is i'm going totally the opposite way but it you're reminding me of something beautiful there's this uh beautiful verse in eastern spirituality that says the mind moves faster than the gods and the point of it is this idea that the mind can create and build and you can visualize

and it's based off of this character in Vedic history called Vishra Karma who's the architect of the gods so he builds flying palaces and flying cities but he visualizes it all in his head before it becomes manifest and it's that same idea of just like we but you know what's so interesting is

we're talking about that but we all know that it's so natural as a parent to go, okay, but get a real job, right? So, like, you have this dream of, I want to design McDonald's, playhouses, or whatever. And then family, friends, expectations, school. Everyone goes, yeah, but get a real job. Like, I remember I was a kid who loved graphic design

and I love art direction, and I loved juxtaposition and imagery. Like, that was always my, I loved that. It's always been a passion of mine. and my family encouraged it as a good hobby, but get a real job, though. I mean, engineering is such a great skill and such a great job, but how do you encourage young people

and how do you think about the when you're making content to encourage people to live their passion but be pragmatic? And what does that look like? Because you've kind of pursued so many things. I mean, I think it's a yes-am situation, right? For example, for me, like I worked at NASA for a decade. Then I worked at Apple for five years doing product design. I didn't quit Apple until I had 10 million YouTube subscribers.

So, like, this idea of, like, I had to choose one or the other, right? You can kind of do both. You can moonlight as your passion. And then when that becomes big enough, then it's like, oh. And that isn't always the case, but I think there's a lot of situations. There's a middle of that Venn diagram where it's like, you do the passion and pursue it as much as you possibly can while also having the real job, right? I mean, that's like practical advice.

Sometimes it does come to a point, you know, you hear these great stories of actors or something where it's like, I'm just going to really go for it and then they land. But that's also, you know, the scientist to me wants to say, well, there's survivorship bias. So you only hear the stories of the ones that worked. And for the one that does, there's a thousand that don't. So, you know, I think when parents say that, they generally have their best interest in mind for the kid. They want them to be happy and have a life that they can. But at the same time, the kid knows what they're passionate.

So I think it's a very healthy, a very healthy, like, you know, yin and yang there. I don't fault parents for saying that. I think there's a lot of times you could still pursue the thing. You know, you could pursue both. Yeah, I'd agree with you. So my life's the same story. And I'm, that to me is the, to me, that is the best and most likely path for most people, which is you're going to have a steady job.

You're going to figure out something on the side. And you're going to wait for the thing on the side to outpace the thing you're doing right now. and it actually proves to you as an individual whether you really love it. You're doing your evenings, you're doing it in your weekends, you're doing it when it makes no money, you're doing it when it's inconvenient. And you're like, oh, well, if I could do it when I was inconvenient,

then when it's my full-time thing, I'm the luckiest person in the world. 100%. And when I started YouTube, like in 2011, knowing you could like make money off of it. You know what I mean? It was like you just did it really as just a passion. Like I wanted to share these cool ideas with people.

Now it's like the game has changed so much. much. What was the pivot from NASA to Apple? Why did that come about? Why leave NASA? Well, actually, for two years, I was at a Halloween costume company, Jay, before then going to Apple. So that's like... Halloween costume. Wait, how do you go from NASA to a Halloween? Okay, that's the better question. Which is, so my first ever YouTube video, I went to like a Halloween party and I had an iPad on front, an iPad in back of me. And if you cut a hole in the shirts and you do a FaceTime call, it looks like a hole in your body. So you wave your hand in the front and the camera in the back shows it. And that's cool. Again, it felt like being five years old

cutting onions, people at the party were like, this is such a cool costume. What a cool idea. How did I not think of that? So I went home. I put it on YouTube. And my life goal is to be on the Gizmodo, which is like an old tech blog. Yeah, yeah, I remember it. So I made it on the cover of Gizmodo, and then quickly realized I need more life goals. And so I was like, I have more ideas. Like, I should just do one video a month. And for 14 years now, I basically uploaded one video a month about an engineering build or an idea. And the channel's just grown from there.

How did you get that outfit on the cover of Gizmoda? Well, so the YouTube video went up and it went viral. So it was on the front page of CNN. And it was like on all these outlets covered, including Gizmodo. Got it. From there, the one complaint was that cool idea, bro, but I don't have $1,200 for Halloween costing, two iPads, right? And so I was like, all right.

So I came up with an idea for next year where it was like a design printed on the shirt, like a guy's face or something that was like kind of his eye was pulled open. And then if you cut a hole out for the eyeball and then there's a free app of an eyeball that moved around, your eye would work great, Jay. then you had a really cool Halloween costume for like the price of a T-shirt called Digital Duds. So I launched that company

nights and weekends working all week while making YouTube videos and while working at NASA and it did pretty well. So then that did well enough that I sold it to some guys in the UK and I went and worked for them for two years. Wow.

And it's like it's such a, right? This is my example. I mean this is exactly what I was talking about. I have this idea. I thought it was cool. So I moonlit nights and weekends, basically bootstrapped a company. And then when I launched the video the next year to explain what it was, that t-shirt idea, you know, we made our money back in eight hours. And then, yeah, so very meandering. Want to make a real difference this giving season? This December on purpose is part of of pods fight poverty. Podcasts teaming up to lift three villages in Rwanda out of extreme poverty.

We're doing it through Give Directly, which sends cash straight to families so they can choose what they need most. Donate at GiveDirectly.org forward slash on purpose. First time gifts are matched, doubling your impact. Our goal is $1 million by year's end enough to lift 700 families out of poverty. Join us at give directly.org forward slash on purpose. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little bit different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.

Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leveh, Rufus Wainwright, Remy Wolf, Mark Rebbeye, Mavis Staples, really too many to name. And there's still so much more to come in this new season, including the powerful psychedelic duo Black Pumas, my old pal and longtime songwriting friend, Jesse Harris, and the legendary Lucinda Williams. Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the IHeart Radio Act. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Nicholas Sparks is here. I would imagine that you've gotten a lot of feedback about setting a standard of love and romance that a lot of men probably can't measure up to. I have heard such stories at my book signings, right?

Where's my Noah or where's my John from Dear John? And at the same time, in the course of my career, I've had seven marriage proposals in lines to sign my book. Oh, really? They get up to the table. The dude will drop to his knees. And I feel so bad for him. I'm like, dude, you're in a Walmart in Birmingham, Alabama, you know. But it's happened.

And, you know, you get a lot more of those kinds of stories than people coming up and saying, I've ruined men for them for the rest, which I'm glad. I would feel bad if that was more common, actually. No, that's what you come to Dear Chelsea for to get uprated. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, friends. Sophia Bush here, host of Work in Progress. This week, we had such a special guest on the podcast. My Forever Flotus, a mentor, a friend, a wife, a mother, an author, attorney, advocate, television producer,

And now she adds podcast host to the list herself. Friends, Michelle Obama is here. Sophia, I'm beyond thrilled to be able to sit down and chat with you. We talk about it all. Life, love, motherhood, martinis. Vodka martini, dry, straight up, olives. Oh, Alice. Very cold.

My girl. Barely any vermouth. What's next? What she's watching on TV. I am a white lotuser. I am a real housewife's person. I love the dating shows. And tennis.

I just find that to be a bit meditative. You do not want to miss this. Listen to work in progress on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you always have the ability to turn an idea into action and how? What have you learned about that, right? Like there's a big, a lot of people have good ideas. And I'm sure you hear them all the time. I hear them all the time.

People come up to me, be like, Jay, I've had this incredible idea. I want to build this thing. But then it stops there. It doesn't get somewhere. What have you learned about turning ideas into action? What's worked for you? My superpower is my naive optimism. Like, I'm just an idiot that thinks I can do it.

And I don't see, like, I just feel like, oh, this is so obvious. Like, I can totally do this. If I knew the amount of work, it actually would end up being, I'd be very discouraged. but I'm just like an idiot who's like oh yeah I could do this like I think this makes sense like I see the end goal and so then any pitfall that comes along the way like I'm so focused on this end goal and and like that matters right like the attitude you have and whether or not you believe you think you can do it so then if I think I can do it then the next step is like well let me break

this down into all the steps and step one is this and I'm just going to dominate that step and then, you know, just kind of step through it. It's literally the engineering design process, but for ideas and businesses. Walk us through the engineering design process for anyone who doesn't know what that is. Like, break that down for us, make it simple, but... I think the idea, it's just like you have an end goal, an objective, and break it down into the steps and know what you don't know and test what you don't know. It's kind of like, you know, give your best shot at it.

You kind of, in the engineering, let's say if I'm designing a piece for the Mars rover, I think, okay, I think it needs, you know, maybe it's the wheel for the Mars rover. I think it needs to probably look like this. I'm going to design it in CAD. I'm going to analyze it analytically with computer programs. But that's not what I fly to Mars. I take that and then I build it and then I test it to see if it matches. And then sure enough, oh, it does match up. All right, now it's good enough.

I've tested it. Now I can fly it to Mars. So I think it's this idea of like building iteratively and and breaking things. Like part of designing that is I would make one and I would smash it with a bunch of stuff. So I know the limits of the wheel, right? So again, we call that a failure in others outside of engineering. But we embrace that. And it's like, great, now we know.

Now let's tweak it. And we're going to, now we can build something better. Right. But I think a lot of times in life, if you get a bad grade on a test, then you internalize, I'm not good at math. Or a relationship fails. You're like, I'm just not good at this love thing. Or a business fails.

You're like, I guess I'm not a good businessman. But if you look at it like an engineer or even like a video game, I think is like a good way to do it. Like if you frame your challenges like a video game, no one picks up a controller to play a video game and falls in a pit, say Super Mario Brothers or something and thinks, I'm a failure. Like, how embarrassing. I'm terrible at video games. No, you're immediately like, oh, shoot.

What did I just learn from that? Now, I'm going to jump a little faster. I'm going to run a little faster, jump a little. You're excited to try again, right? So just the framing of it, it turns from fear to curiosity where you want to get up and try it again. So if it's like, and you know, you ask me like, oh, when you have ideas, like, I'm thinking of it like a video game where it's like, I want to rescue princess from Bowser.

So when I get the sliding green turtle shell, which could look like a lot of different things, I don't internalize that I'm a bad player. I'm like, got it. I know the shell comes right here. I'm going to jump a little faster. Yeah. Right. And that is a life hack.

Like, truly. This happens to me all the time on just whenever we want to do a big video. We just filmed the video where I made a soccer goalie robot that goes back and forth at like 80 miles an hour. And then Cristiano Ronaldo tried to score on it. Right? It took us like a year to build. So we tracked the ball. And in the first six milliseconds, when the ball has gone from like here to here, I just moved it like maybe.

an eighth of an inch. We know exactly where the goalie needs to be to stop that ball. So it's hilarious to see, you know, he tries to do it and of course... He misses. No, there's no way he can score. It's way too fast. From the penalty kick area. He kicks at 80 miles an hour

and the robot just goes and it stops. Oh my gosh. So the point is, though, with that video, I mean, there was tons of sliding green shells and setbacks. And, you know, and that doesn't mean it doesn't sting, by the way. Failure still can sting. This isn't some fake polyana attitude, right?

But it's this idea of like, oh, dang it. But I'm, okay, here we go. We're going at this again, right? Yeah. And I think that can help you accomplish so much more in life and just have honestly better relationships even, right? Because it's just like the way you approach it is like, okay, what did I learn

versus internalizing that it's something about me? Yeah, well said, really well said. And I love the video game analogy because you're so right. You die, and even though it says game over, you don't feel that way. No. You're like, next play. You know, you want to get another life.

You want to play again. Like, you never ever. And it's so crazy because I'm like, it actually says game over. Yeah. And you don't care. No. And whereas if someone says game over in real life or you get rejected or you don't get a job and you apply for one, that hurts much worse.

And I guess because it feels like he has real stakes. I think it's more like you internal, you think that makes you. Yes. unemployable. You internalize what that means about you. But you don't do that in video games. You don't say I'm a bad video game player. And I think the same is true in life. Like anyone who's got to somewhere in life, they started out sucky at that. Right? And then they just learned and iterated and overcame. It's the same thing. He said with companies. Like no Fortune 100 company today started out doing what they do now. They've pivoted 15 times, right? And so I think it's this ability to just like not

internalize what it says about you and just almost flip it like I'm a person who who embraces failure and celebrates it. Let's it sting just like in a video game. It sucks to miss that key jump on level 8-1 on Super Mario Brothers

with the little platform but it's like dang it we're going back because you're focused on the end goal. You're focused on what that would feel like, not the pits and the mistakes. What's a failure that you ever experienced in life that you did internalize? Did that ever happen? I got married pretty young, and then it's very amicable, but, like, five years ago,

I split with my wife for, you know, I'm pretty private with my private life for, like, reasons and stuff. But, and I was, like, really cautious to get out and, like, date again. It just, it took me a year to even, like, start. And I don't know. It felt like I was just very protective. Like, I didn't, I wanted, if I was going to find my person, like, I wanted them to love me and not the thought of me or, you know, you just want it to be authentic, right? And so, like, I never, I just wasn't, I was being very cautious about everything. And I did find someone that I thought was like, this was it. And I'm, for the first time, like, really opened my heart, right?

Like, being really, really open. and like the worst possible situation happened where it was like it was um it felt it was like a betrayal something happened that it was like it was essentially the worst case where it's like okay i'm going to do this i'm going to really lean in and then it happened and it was absolutely the worst pain like i've experienced as a adult it was like really really hard and it was hard to feel like i would ever find this thing that i felt like other people have found and I'd never felt it my whole life. And so taking a beat after that was like,

I think it was hard. That was like a really, really difficult period for me. But then I honestly, eventually, I came around to this Super Mario thing and I'm like, you know what? Like, it's just a number. Like, I just got to put in the reps. I got to, like, put the work in.

And so I did that and then, again, failed. I was like, I'm going to, in 30 days, I'm going to like try and, this, I'm such an engineer. I basically made a goal where it's like, I'm going on 30 FaceTime date in 30 days. And just like 20 minutes, just to get a feel. Because you know in the first three minutes if there's a connection or not, right? And I did that. And it was, again, Jay, and these were like amazing, accomplished, attractive, lovely human beings, lovely women, right? I felt nothing and I was like

damn like I think is this me so I was like you know what I'm gonna do one more and then I did one more and that's my partner and she's my life partner it's like it and it was a matter of like it was like half hour in it's like yep this is it and it feels like coming home it's like when you find the right person it feels like home it's just like yeah And it's just like no reservations.

And like we're both the same way. And she had the same experience. Yeah, and you met her. And she's had the same experience where she just never felt like she'd found it. And immediately we're just like, this is it. Cool, done. Close the spreadsheet. Delete it.

So you did engineer your way to love. I did engineer my way. Which is funny. Because she's the opposite. She's more like you, Jay. She just puts it out to the universe. So she's the, she's the dreamer and on the thinker. And we try and take credit.

it for us getting together. She's like, look, I put it out to the years. I'm like, no, I put in the work. Yeah, you put in the work. Yeah, no, I love that. I mean, to me, I mean, I'm actually, people know less about, I'm a bit of both as well. There's a, there's an engineer in me, not in the way you are, but in that practical, pragmatic approach to what it really takes to getting the reps in. And, and I like that, that it even applied to love, that doing 30 face time calls and 30 dates, that is what it takes to figure out if you have a connection with someone and to speed it up. I do what I call for myself immersion weekends. And so if I'm really fascinated by something, I will find a coach, find the book, find the TED Talk, find the

course, and do it all in one weekend to figure out whether I care or not. And I do these immersion weekends all the time where I'll literally obsess over something for 48 hours. And if I really like it, then it becomes a part of my consistent schedule. And if I hated it, I won't go back again and I'm okay. And I've loved doing that over time where I'm like, I'm fascinated by this. I don't have time to go on a weekly course. I don't know if I want to invest that time. I don't want to commit to a retreat. Who knows? But I could do it for a whole weekend. That's genius. Yeah, it works. It works wonders for me. And that goes back to kind of what I was saying before. It's just like, whatever's the step in front. Dominate it. And if you really immerse

yourself. Like, it will be very clear at the end of that weekend if this is something you want to do more versus like just dabbling in. Dabbling, yeah. What's an example? I'm going to turn the tables on you. What's the last thing you did like that, like an immersion weekend? The immersion weekend? I'll be honest, I just did it this weekend. It was acting. So I've been getting all these opportunities to like audition for like TV and film. And I've just been kind of going back and forth. I've spent a lot of time on movie sets with actors that I coach, not in acting in in my work. And I've spent a lot of time in movie sets,

but I've never been the person doing it. I've done a few cameos here and there. And because I was getting all these opportunities, my question always is, do I love the process? I'm not interested in the result or is it cool? I'm like, do I actually love doing the thing? And so this whole weekend, I had an acting coach. I was with them for three hours a day.

I was doing all the reading pre of the scripts that they sent me. I was doing the reading of books outside of it around acting and writing, just to see if I enjoy the process. And I was like, worst case, I'm going to hate the process and learn some skills. Best case, I'm going to love it and it's going to open up new opportunities. I loved it. I had a great time. Really?

Yeah, I was reading scripts. I was learning about characters. We were doing scene study and analysis. It was almost like just reading material and discussing it with someone and then trying to figure out what the actor's objectives were and what their tactic is and what their motive is. It was fascinating. Really? I love it.

So you're going to do more then? I'm going to do more then. I'm going to do more coaching. I'm going to take more classes because it was just so, it was so fun. And if it becomes something that I enjoy enough, I would pursue it professionally. But even if I don't, it's just something that I'm currently immersed in. I feel like you would be great. It's like you have to, yeah, putting yourself in the shoes of the person.

Like, I don't even know what to do with like my face. Same thing. It's like, I'm supposed to be sad that I really want to just like, you know, about my lip. But it's like, apparently that's not what you're supposed to do. But that's what was so fascinating about it. And I think we're both talking about this idea of learning something deeply was when you're sitting down with a professional, the way they talk about it.

And he was talking about like the Stanislav method and the Chekhov method. And there's all these, there's systems of why the best of the best. Like they're not just the best because they have it. They've studied systems and they've worked at it. And so to me, he was just like, there's this method where it's called to act as if. So you can't relate to what the character. going through, but you have something that happened in your life that makes you feel that way

that the character's feeling and you channel that. And so to me, it was just, I was just fascinated by the empathy that actors have to have, the compassion, the connection to embody characters. But that was my most recent. I love that. My thing right now, again, like, I'm kind with you, I love mastery, like finding, mine's public speaking. I hate public speaking. I hate it. But my goal is just be really good at it in like a year. So I'm currently, working up. I'm actually doing a TED talk in April. Actually, this is cool to actually mention to you because I haven't really talked about this publicly much. But we're doing, so through the YouTube channel, we've learned how to like hide the vegetables, right? Basically teach science. You don't even

know what's happening, right? So we're taking all the learnings we've taken from that, like, because kids can watch or people can just watch whatever they want to on YouTube, but they choose to watch this. And they're making a full science curriculum. That's amazing. Third to eighth grade, it involves, you know, has my fellow YouTube friends, you know, I just got Cristiano Ronaldo when we were filming him, he's part of it, just a bunch of people in it, but then, you know, resources for the teachers, really cool hands-on activities, they can class, everything. And then it's going to cost us about, it's going to cost us about like $55 million to make. They would make it free forever for all.

Where will it go online? So you don't have, it won't be in your school. No, it's like a, it's like online. Teachers can use it. It's a full, it adheres. all of the standards, right? Because teachers will tell you, like, they can't teach a kid if they don't have their attention.

And what I've learned to do on YouTube is getting their attention. So, for example, the electricity and magnetism lesson, we just filmed this. There's an MRI machine. I put a watermelon inside it. I'm holding like a 10-pound hammer. And then you essentially flip on the MRI machine. And, but, you know, the hammer just flies out of my hand, destroys this watermelon. And now, Jay, I've got your attention.

And now I can say, you know, there's invisible magnetic fields all around. us that exist. Yeah. Right? And so teachers can use these in school. They could play that video. And it has, you know, the whole lesson, what they say back to the kids, it will replace their science curriculum, right?

Wow. And it's going to cost, it's like three years. Why is it going to cost you $55 million? It's a huge undertaking. There's like 46 different units. Like it's science. It's all six through eighth grade science and then also third grade through fifth grade. And you're funding it.

Yeah. I mean, yes, and there are already some generous people who are coming out and helping it fun. But, like, regardless, I was, we started funding it myself anyways with the profits we had from CrunchLams. So we're going to announce that at the TED Talk and, like, that I really want to nail that presentation. I'm happy to help, man. I was good any help. I was lucky. My parents forced me to go to public speaking and drama school when I was 11.

Oh, really? So all my state speaking skills from having studied it for seven years, eight years. and so yeah you're a mask one of my favorite okay yeah i'll record the rehearsal and i'll send it to you yeah yeah i mean they have pros there obviously ted have such a great scripting team and a great pro speaking team they're not j shuddy that's gonna be no that's gonna be amazing i'm excited to see i'm pretty so good i think i feel like it's the most important thing i'll do my whole life but i love that you're doing things that scare you like even at this point having had so much success and having you know being you know the spokesperson for science across the world it's incredible

to see you say, I'm still scared of this. I'm going to do it. No, like, I crave it, Jay. Like, I also, like, I started, like, going to the gym two years ago, same thing, where it's just like, I just love an opportunity for mastery. It is this video game thing, right? I think a lot, if you say that I've seen success in my life, a lot of it comes down to this mentality, but it's like, I just love working on something and the feeling of incrementally getting better. I mean, that's how our brains work, right? You're, I mean, a lot of studies of showed if you get a huge raise and then and then your salaries flat for 10 years versus incrementally go up to that 10 years like you're much happy. You have way more dopamine to your brain if you

incrementally level up. This is again how video games even work. You start the video game with a wooden sword and three hard containers. Because they reverse engineer, you love just like little levels up. So opportunities that life provides you to just find something like that and then get better at the end of a couple years or months or whatever decades. nothing better how do you keep the childlike fun energy playful energy that you have that your work requires and at the same time run businesses because to me that's the balance that young entrepreneurs seasoned entrepreneurs everyone runs into where it's like running the business is a serious business but then the business is all about play curiosity fun crazy experiments right and we'll get into

some of the videos that that you love the most. But how do you think about the curiosity, creativity part of the business and then the running of a business? Yeah, I think it's good. There's been studies that look at like successful mid-range companies. These are companies worth, say, $50 to $500 million or something, or even $10 to $500 million. And what all of them have in common is there's one person who is like has the swim lane of being the creative, the big thinker, the 10x thinker, and then one person who's logistics, right? So, you know, one person who can build the thing and one person who can run the thing. And I was very lucky, a buddy of mine, Jim, you know, worked at Google. I knew he had a very analytical brain. And I said, hey,

I'm thinking about starting this company, crunch labs, you know, make me a model, financial model to see if it works. And he did and educating me on how they work. It's still the model we use today. And the company's doing very well. So he's been the one. So he's been the one. to like, in my opinion, make all the, all the boring stuff. I don't want to look at J. Oh, we have to have like a warehouse that ships out the stuff. Like, I don't know, just find a good one. And he'll geek out over it and he has them.

You know what I mean? And I'm thinking about like, oh, this is, we could do this, you know, but we could do this. So I think truly, if you're starting a business and you're the creative one, just don't try and do the other thing. Yeah. And the good news is if you're the creative one, the other one's a lot easier to find. Like the creative, like the good, that's more of a rare talent. Yeah.

So just find someone to help you. Yeah. It's great advice. Yeah. At some point, if you're small, if you're doing something small, like a Halloween t-shirt company, like you can be both, but at some point it'll just get way too hard. Yeah. No, I fully agree with you.

We did the same. And I remember when I bought on one of my partners in the early days, everyone was like, you don't want to give away a percentage. Like, don't do that. You know, it's all your creativity. And I was like, you have no idea how much time. Because I said to when I'm at, I said, all I want to do is think. study and teach and create.

Like, that's where I want to live. Like, that's my strength, superpower. That's my fascination. Like, I love reading and studying and learning about psychology and ancient wisdom and science and behavioral science. And that's what I love reading, studying, learning, observing humans, and then turning into stuff that people can use to make their lives better.

Yeah. But I don't want to run any of the other stuff. 100%. And so I think knowing that and owning that, like, is a key to staying happy and honestly fighting burnout. I think a lot of times people feel burnt out

in a creative endeavor. It's because they lost sight of what got them in it in the first place and they're managing 15 people and they're a manager now. They're not a creative. And they're like, why am I doing this?

I'm not getting the satisfaction. It's like, oh, because you're not doing what you started doing. Yeah. Yeah. What did you learn at Apple that you didn't learn at NASA? Apple, I would say,

like NASA, I feel like had a lot of smart people at Apple you had to be pretty smart but a very good communicator which is like a I just keyed in on this and communication and and sharing ideas and like telling stories matters a lot in you know people think I'm a good engineer you know I could build cool stuff but it's like I'm an okay engineer Jay I'm a pretty damn good storyteller like and in the videos you're telling stories right

like this video with Cristiano Rinaldo where he said with the goalie robot going back and forth like it starts out like you know this is my childhood dream I want to do this thing and I even landed Donovan takes me out and he's like a coach and he's like dude you suck you know and so it's like okay

well if I can't do with my athletic power that's not going to do with my brain so now I'm going to make this cool right you like you case the whole thing in a story right and I think at Apple I learned that there were some very very good engineers who are also incredible communicators of like explaining ideas. And, you know, that's what really makes a special as a species,

ability to cooperate on large scale. And we do that through telling stories, right? That's, we've evolved to tell stories. Long before you could write stuff down, we communicated through telling stories and making somebody feel something. That's the exact, that's how you make a viral video. You just, you have to evoke a visceral response. Yeah. And if you can do that, that helps you at work because it convinces everyone else like, hey, this is a good idea. Let's all do this. Helps you in your relationships. Like, if you can really create that visceral response by connecting with the human, then, you know, your partner will, your child or friend will accept your apology, right?

Like, it'll help you, yeah, just personal life, business, anything by tapping into the ability and owning the ability of like, I need to say this in a way that connects heart to heart, not brain to brain. Whereas it, you know, NASA was like, well, you know, our roberal. is 20% faster on the gigahertz and it's like nobody cares right yeah Apple I feel like is a very good example of this right like air pods is an example like the come the advertising for AirPods there's technically there's better than any other head you know yes there any like ear in your product out there but the commercials are like the dance it focuses on the feeling right like what does it feel like to have these things not like here's the tech spec of why it's

better yeah and as a result I think they're like if they were a standalone company it would be the market cap would be like, I don't know, it's something crazy, like... Just for the airport. Just for the airport. It's like $50 billion market cap, just for the AirPods. Crazy. It's crazy. Yeah.

No one is harmed, no death, no trauma, just a few cells grown in a dish. This is David Eagleman from the Inner Cosmos podcast, and this week we're tackling a tough question. where brain science meets the future. Lab-grown meat is going to force us to confront the boundaries of our ethics and our imagination. It invites us to question why we draw lines exactly where we do and whether those lines are drawn in ink or in pencil. And what does this have to do with sanctity,

brain plasticity, social belonging, messed up boundaries between mental categories, flesh copyrights, and the future of. of personhood. What is the table we're going to set for ourselves? What does this question uncover about brain science

and our calculations of morality? Listen to Inner Cosmos on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On this week's episode of the next chapter, I, D.D.J.S.

get to sit down with Oprah Winfrey, A media mogul philanthropist and global trailblazer. My life, although it may look like an anomaly, it has only been possible because I was obedient to the calls. This episode dies deep into how Oprah turned pain into purpose and what it really means to evolve with everybody watching. Every decision I have ever made has come from sitting with the spirit, and asking God, what would you have me do first?

Whether you're rebuilding, reimagining, or just trying to hold it together, this one will speak directly to you. Listen to the next chapter on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast, episodes drop weekly. What do you get when you mix 1950s Hollywood, a Cuban musician with a dream, and one of the most iconic sitcoms of all. all time. You get Desi Arness, a trailblazer, a businessman, a husband, and maybe most importantly,

the first Latino to break prime time wide open. I'm Wilmer Valderrama, and yes, I grew up watching him, probably just like you and millions of others. But for me, I saw myself in his story. From plenty canary cages to this night here in New York, it's a long ways. On the podcast starring Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama, I'll take you in a journey to Desi's life, the moments it has overlapped with mine, how he redefined American and television, and what that meant for all of us watching from the sidelines, waiting for a face like hours on screen. This is the story of how one-man's spotlight lit the path for so many others

and how we carry his legacy today. Listen to starring Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama. That's part of the MyCultura Podcast Network available on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Yeah, it's such a, hearing you say that is fascinating because, yeah, I read a study years ago, it was early days, but New York Times did a study on 7,000 pieces of viral content. And the output was the 7,000 pieces of viral content, they made people feel five things. One of five things.

The first was adventure, which your content does all the time, humor, your content does that to, or comedy, obviously. The third feeling was negativity. Yep. Anger. The news, anger, rage. Yours does not do that. The fourth was inspiration, so you felt inspired after watching it.

And the fifth was surprise. And so those were the five emotions. And they were all feelings. And I always share that with people because I'm like, your content's trying to teach me something. It's trying to tell me something. And you're talking about adding value, but when you're trying to add value, you're not making me feel anything. And it's what you were saying about hiding the vegetables. It's like,

if you're making people feel entertained, then you're learning about engineering and process and design and everything. But if I'm like, I'm going to teach you engineering, now I'm not, I'm feeling bored. And that's not on the top five list. And so I'm not feeling anything. I wanted to ask you about, I want to get tactical with you because you're also a YouTube creative genius. It's like, what was the journey from zero to a thousand subscribers? What does that look like for someone if someone's trying to do that as stage one there's a lot of really good reasons to start a youtube channel or to be a creative there's only two bad ones tell us to get rich and to get famous and i think that's like the mistake a lot of people especially now that you know you can get

rich and famous and i think we both started in this game it just wasn't the same like you didn't realize that was it right our passion was like we love this right um i thought it was gonna be i thought I was going to, because I was a consultant at the time. Yeah. I was at Accenture. Oh, really? Yeah. I thought I was going to be a consultant by day and just upload videos by night and weekends because I was like, this is a fun hobby. It was just a creative outlet for me. I was like, I was doing live events, teaching wisdom and teaching classes and meditation

and I would teach at my local gym. I would teach it in my local college. I'd whatever. And I loved it, but I was like, oh, I'd like to share that with more people. I'll just upload some videos. And yeah, I'd know. idea that any of this would ever happen. So, and yeah, we started, I started 2016, you started 2011. Yeah, but ultimately 20, I mean, like, to your point, like, it takes forever to get a thousand subscribers. And so I think the trick is just to make content, just to do it, don't overthink it,

you know, the temptation is you want to make the perfect thing. And again, going back to an engineer, you build prototypes. Like, the biggest mistake when you want to make something is like, I want to build the final thing any object in this room was not built like this was not the final form this was not the initial version of this microphone like it started very simply and then it iterated iterated and so it's the same thing with like creating content or making thing or trying anything like set a low bar you know i like to say like make your goal to to to fail 10 times like flip it make the goal like i want to make 10 videos and my goal is that they don't get more than 100 views in a sense

of like, don't make your metric, but I'm not rich yet and I'm not famous yet. Therefore, I'm a failure. Like, make your met, like, destigmatize the failure and just go for it and make that. So make the goal, you know, maybe a better way to say is make the goal to just upload 10 videos in 10 weeks. That's my goal. I don't care about metric. I don't care about views.

And you will learn so much more through that by then, and then iterating and seeing what worked. Back to a video game. Okay, I said this thing. I started this way. aha the algorithm seemed to really like that you know and that's what the audience wants so now i'm going to lean into that right so it's like just gamify it in that sense and it will be great don't do it to be your merch or famous yeah it's great advice i remember i got to i got my first

thousand subscribers in a month on youtube and i was over the moon like i was so excited i couldn't believe it like i was like this is i'd never stood in front of a i'd maybe done one talk which was a work event which had a thousand people in the audience but i didn't never done my own event with a thousand people. I'd mostly, if I'd done my own event, maybe 50 was the most I'd ever had in my own live events. I thought a thousand subscribers, this is insane. And I remember saying it to my friends, and they were like, yeah, it's probably cool. Like, you know, good for you. And it felt like a failure because it, to them, not to me. Because they were just like, oh, it's a thousand, like, I guess it's going to, you know, net out here. And it was just

so interesting for me to see, like, oh, it was good. I didn't feel that way because I would have stopped. But a thousand to me was a huge win. What's the difference between? getting from a thousand to a hundred thousand like what is changing in skill set mindset ability you start to get like a process down you start to be able to um figure out your own voice i think like from about 10 000 to 100 000 subscribers you start to understand who you are you know and a good place to start by the way is just copying other channels that you like like don't be ashamed at the beginning just to copy someone else's style and you know if you don't know where to start if you don't have something and you'll start doing it and you'll try something one time and it

works and it sticks and then you you know you start to find what your own voice is you've only ever you said you've only ever made one video a month yeah how did you not get sucked in to the landscape when it was like people were making a video a day people making three videos a week people make you know how did you stay true to was it just that your creative vision was so big that you could only ever do one a month. Partly that. And just like, again, I wasn't doing it to chase the views. And you're absolutely right. There was a time in the YouTube algorithm where daily vlogs is how you got all the views. And I said, great. Like, great for everyone else. Like, I am enjoying it this way. This is what I like. This is like the pace I'm comfortable with. Like, I'm very protective. I'm very good

at saying no. Like, that's my superpower. I can have that restraint. And I, you know, I've got a nice comfortable jogging pace on my treadmill, and I'm going to stick with that. So, and even today, you know, good at saying no. What was the hardest thing you ever said no to? You know, early on, there was some opportunities to do some like discovery channel shows that I would have loved as a kid, but then it's like when I had everything else going on, like, I don't know. You just get opportunities that come by that you don't.

It's almost not hard to say no, because it's like unless it's an. absolute hell yes i don't even consider it right and i think that is that can be a superpower is like laser focus like i don't often like pick something that i'm just like i'm on it but like if i do choose something that it's like i want it like i can be like a pipball on it where it's just like i i will not fail i don't know at some point if it's not work you need to pivot and i do but it's like i just get so obsessed with accomplishing the thing that um i can't can just exclude everything else. So I don't have this temptation of like, and I try this, I'm going to try this, I'm going to try this, and now you're just diluted across the board,

right? Because that applies not even for business, but in your relationships, right? In life, if you are stretching yourself thin, you know, I'd much rather give like five people in my life like very deep depth and have that richness of human connection than to spread that thin across 50. Yeah. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's a, yeah, there's almost like there's the experimenting phase where you're trying lots of things out. But then when you know who you are and you know your voice and you know what you're building, you've got to stick to that. And it does make all the difference. And you've got to know when to let something go. Like the videos I used to make on Facebook when I first started as a creator, I don't make them anymore. And it's not because

they weren't amazing and they didn't change my life. It's just that's not who I wanted to be forever. And they would have been really successful now if I carried on making them. But I wouldn't have felt happy. And so I chose what I wanted to do, which was this and telling stories in a certain way that's allowed my life to also be fulfilling as well as successful rather than keeping, keep doing something because the algorithm wants it. That's right. And it doesn't, that gets really dry to, it gets really tiring, I think, and creators get

burnt out chasing the algorithm, which I think we've both seen probably a lot of. Yeah, I think that's right. I think when you crank up that treadmill speed to a sprint pace, that's exciting at first. And it's like, whoa, all these opportunities are coming. but you know the dopamine wears off and you're still sprinting and to me that's the definition of burnout when you're not getting like the positive feedback and you're like really really going for it so to the extent that you could just like keep your treadmill at a jogging speed in creating and in life i think like that's that's the power of saying no yeah and being okay with saying no and not

feeling guilty about it what was the uh i'm looking at your most popular videos and obviously world's largest jello pool can you swim in jello two hundred and three million views six years ago. That video, what went wrong trying to get that video? I lost 10 pounds making that video. I'm not kidding. Because we're making, when I get stressed, I don't eat it. We were making it in my brother's backyard. Because to make jello, no one's ever done this on the internet, by the way. To this day, I'm the only person who never made like an actual jello pool because jello, as you know, you have to get it really cold. You got to, first of all, boil it. And then it's got to put it in the refrigerator, right? So we had like six, you know, 55.

gallon drums that we boiled jello and basically drained it in this pool that we'd built and then he lived in utas it was like the perfect temperature it didn't freeze overnight but got cold enough and so it took a full week and it failed eight different ways and we'd have to tweak and and change it a storm came we're covering it with a tarp but eventually we got that money shot of like a kid belly flopping on this pool of jello and like me swimming in it and uh it felt really good that's like it turns out a very technically difficult problem again my naive optimism was like oh i got this i can do this right yeah and it was very very tricky but we pulled it off what was the hidden vegetable in the egg drop from space video 140 million views two years ago like what was the

what was the hidden vegetable there yeah there again that video had so many failures in it jay Like we tried originally to put a, basically a model rocket on a hot air balloon or a weather balloon and then guide it over a mattress and where it would let go and drop the egg on the mattress. We tried that three different times. And this was costing me like 30,000 times a drop. And eventually I called up one of my buddies at NASA. He's the lead when we try and land something on another planet. And I was like, Adam, how do we do this?

And he's like, oh, what you're trying to do. is create a guided missile. And there's like a hundred people in the United States who know how to do that. And they've all signed a very large stack of papers saying they won't tell anyone. So we're like, oh, we shouldn't try and guide this rocket down then. Well, let's go 100,000 feet up, you know, basically to space,

drop this thing. And then we landed it like the Mars rover. So in that video, we learned about terminal velocity. And we learned about like space environments. But kids know about... I love how you were bugging a NASA friend. who's dealing with like solving like discovery and it's literally the man who like invented how you land on Mars yeah and it's like my phone a friend you're like can you teach me how to

drop an egg yeah on a mattress and he's like yeah no that's called a missile that's amazing well who have you met through doing all of this work that you've just been so like you've learned from or you've been inspired by or someone that you met through this crazy journey that you've been on that has kind of left a mark on you or someone that you were always looked forward to getting to know and you've got to meet. Yeah, I would say, I don't know, weirdly, like a mentor for me actually has been Jimmy Kimmel. Like, you know, he saw one of my videos like a decade ago and said, we should get this guy in the show. And his staff was like after like one or two times going on a show that he really likes you.

And I'm like, you say that to everyone. But like the fourth time, I was like, I think he does really like me. And so now he's like, it was his idea even to start Crunch Labs. the company because people will tell me all the time like you need to do a podcast you need to write a book you need to go on tour and when i double click on it because again i'm going to saying no it always came back to like oh so you can make more money that's like oh good great news i don't spend a lot of money so i've got enough money i don't need to do that right and his point was like yeah but you could reach more brains deeper and that's the idea with crunch labs it's like you're in

the trenches you're not just passively watching a video it's a really fun toy and you're in the trenches, and you get him every month. And he was totally right. Like the noun of letters we get from parents saying, like, this has changed the way my kids sees the world, sees themselves, right? They love it. They go out to the mailbox every month waiting for it to come. Makes a great Christmas present, by the way, Jay.

There we go. Christmas present. Yeah, I was about to say, it's, no, it sounds like the perfect gift. I mean, I think I'll have to, I'm going to get some for my niece and nephew. Okay. Yeah, I think they'll love it because my, I can see my nephew's like 10 years old. and his brain's like that. Like, he wants to build stuff.

He wants to break stuff. He wants to figure things out. My niece is more into, like, Gabby's dollhouse and stuff like that. Well, the good news, Jay, it's funny you mentioned that. No, have you got a Gabby's dollhouse, man? More or less, it's called Creative Kit. So what I do is creative engineering. The engineering part we've got covered.

Bill Box is the toys I was saying. And then we have, like, a robotics one. But, like, the creative part, we never, so we've, like, studied what creativity is. and now there's a version called Creative Kit that it's like six years old and up and it's a little bit of a Trojan horse to get more girls in STEM,

but also it's for boys as well. But they get a whirl every month. It's a different part of a little town they build. And the important part is like it's within guide rails. If you tell a kid, give them a piece of paper and say, come up, you know, draw something. They're like, uh, but if you say like, draw an animal doing something really doing their hobby,

you know, in a place you wouldn't expect. Well, now they have like a seed, right? So it's this idea of like the first one's a tree house, but then you name, it's a little animal's friend that comes with it. And then we're getting that within guidelines to think really creatively. And what this research shows, you could watch these alpha brainwaves in your, is the more time you spend in this space, the easier it is to do it. So it's just like a muscle that you develop. So it's basically giving kids time in this space to be more creative. Did you always want your work and your products to help kids?

Like, was that the goal for the YouTube channel from day? day one. Was it like I want to help young people figure out, young kids figure out? I don't think so, to be completely honest. Like, I think it was more just like, I love sharing ideas. Like, I love the aha moment when you learn something new. And I love even more as like giving that to someone else. Like, here's something I was just talking about with my partner the other day, which is such a cool thing to do.

I don't know if you ever done this. You've ever laying underneath a tree. Yeah. And you just look up or anything where there's like a bunch of little things and you close one eye. And all the leaves feel like they're kind of, or branches kind of feel like they're at the same plane. Because with one eye, you don't have three-dimensional, you know, 3D. But when you open both eyes and realize like, oh, now I know which leaf is in front of me and which one is farther. Like, if you've never done this, you should do it.

And it's remarkable. And it's just, it's immediately just like a teachable moment that shows like, oh, like our brain, because the right eye is a little bit different where the left eye sees, the brain does all this incredible math to tell you how, far and close something is and just to get that moment. And then now once you know that, you're like, wait, with animals, I have noticed like predators, you know, a hawk or a lion, they have eyes on the front of their face so that they can see three-dimensional. But generally speaking, if you're a prey, a zebra or a deer, your eyes are on the side. They don't have the depth perception, but now they can avoid the thing that has three dimensions that's trying

to get them, right? Yeah. So it's like idea like when you just learn something cool like that, Just that nugget and now you've updated your framework for the natural world around you is so exciting and beautiful and addictive to me. And I love to give that to other people. And what I found, I especially love to give that to the young folks. What are you doing to constantly learn things like that? Like where are you coming across statistics, facts, human behavior, animal, like where are you exposed to this? Where are you finding it and discovering it in a way that's helping you feel like you're always on the cusp of something? cool everywhere truly like I think the answer to this question I think what you're driving at

is it kind of starts with a curiosity right just and observing and being like even if there's like a weird on the side of a building or something it's like a pipe that comes out I'm like what what why why is that pipe there like I've never seen a build a pipe come out there on a building and it'll drive me crazy to be honest and I have to figure it out but step one with the scientific method too is just observation right the most interesting thing to hear in science isn't like eureka like i found it the most interesting thing in science to hear like the one thing you want here is like that's interesting like hold on a second right like that wasn't expected let me double click on that and see what's going on there yeah so i think part of learning a bunch is just having a curiosity mind

just asking the question yes yes right and i think that's what i try and do is like i am a fire start my videos are not going to teach you everything you need to know about the natural world but like what i can do is like i can i'm a fire start i'll start that fire in their brain and then they get addicted to this feeling right i'm like the gateway drug dealer to this aha feeling and then they want to go out and learn more right and like that that's beautiful and that's a gift that you can give someone that will last their whole lifelong how do you how do you come up with creative ideas having made a video a month for 10 years. How are you coming up with new ideas?

What's your creative process? Do you sit down in a room, lock away? Are you on your laptop? Are you talking to people? Are you with the team? What's your process? Can I tell you one that you bleep out on this? But you could play it,

but then I want your reaction on camera. That's so good. That's so good. I love that. Is that not so good? Why do I have to bleep that? I love that. No, because I don't want someone to steal it.

Oh, right. Oh, yes. It's such a simple thing. I can tell you it. You're like, banger. Yeah, I love it. You want to know what that is, right? That is amazing.

It's so good. That's so good. So it's just like when I can get that reaction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, the ideas list is long. I always thought you'd run out of ideas, but it's like, I always. It has to be a hell yes. It has to be a hell yes.

But I always tend to have like a year and a half worth of ideas. So like we have every single video we're making in 2026, already like planned out and in process. So you're never trying to react to what's happening in the world or you're not never. Yours is evergreen content. Evergreen. Yeah.

Never. I want it to be evergreen. Yeah. You're not trying to react to like everyone loves AI right now. So we're going to do AI. Everyone loves robotics. So we're doing right. We can't.

I mean, all the videos now cost. We don't do a video that costs less than half a million dollars. Wow. Every video is five hundred dollars. Yeah. Because we're just like, you know, we're doing stuff that's never been done before. So there's like a lot of R&D that goes into making a soccer robot that moves at it. thousand hour.

That's probably the best goalkeeper that Ronaldo's ever faced. For sure it is. Yeah. That's crazy. I can't wait to see that video. It's funny. He's very competitive too. Of course, I have obsessed over Renato since I was 15 years old.

Because I was a United fan. So when he came to United when he was 17, I've been a big fan for like 23 years. So watching, I know how competitive he is. And I'm like, watching him fail is going to be an interesting. His team warned us. They're like, he doesn't. In the end, like, there was a way that we kind of, have had a built-in weakness he could exploit and he did a pretty good job finding it but between

you and me j we might have like we made sure there was a weakness you should just you just now all you have to do is create robots that look like humans that are designed like your a mile per hour goalkeeper and sell them to these teams that's the next thing can you pull off selling an AI computer to Barcelona or real Madrid or that's a banger idea that would be that would be amazing yeah On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way.

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And find out why readers can't put it down. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what's the creative process then? out that far ahead, I love the idea you just gave me that will bleep up, but what, how does obviously that one make sense? And you're like, the thing about good ideas is when you hear them, you go, of course. But coming up with it is not that easy. Yeah, I would say, and I don't have a good answer for this. Except, no, but except to say, because I get asked this a lot, right?

It's like, I think it goes back to just like, my brain is always on, right? The inspiration for ideas can come, you know, and it's just from a conversation I'm having with someone, or I just read something on Reddit, or I'm driving down the free when I'm like, hold on. Or I did this, you know, I'll give you two examples. One, I did this obstacle course for squirrels in my backyard that's kind of popular on the channel, right around COVID. And I was, you know, they were stealing my birdseater. So it's like, all right, but they were stealing my bird seed.

So I was like, you know what? I'm going to make them earn it. So I made an eight-part Ninja Warrior obstacle course and put the bird seat at the end. And sure enough, like, they solved it. It was very entertaining, but, like, the idea for that came for me just laying in bed. And it's hearing them on the roof and knowing they're still my birthday, I was like, hold on. I just do like, man versus animal, engineer versus animal. Or another one, I made this glitter bomb series where, like, someone legitimately stole a package for my porch.

I felt really sad. It was a sliding green shell in Super Mario Brothers. It stung. And then I was like, hold on a second. Like, if anyone could do something about these porch pirate puns, it's like, I'll put a rover on Mars. I could design something. So then it's like four phones, cup of glitter. We track it.

There's fart spray. It's like a whole thing, right? Yeah. And eventually that one took us all the way to, we shut down like three scam call centers in India by tracking them down and glitter bombing them and doing all these other pranks. And then putting that video out in the world, it gets 100 million views with like a bright spotlight and we shut them down. So it's like, again, I couldn't have predicted you would land there. Yeah, yeah. If you just follow the natural steps, it just happens.

Was there a video that you did? But you did it because you just had to put something out and you're like, it's a terrible idea, but then it turned out to be amazing. Yeah, I did a video on bed bugs because I just thought they're fascinating. Like, what is up with bedbugs? They like suck human blood. And if you see bedbugs, they have to be fed like every three days. If you see a bed bug in your house, that means they fed on you. All they can eat is blood.

And so it's like, there's just a lot about them that's fascinating. And my team was like, this is going to kill the channel. No one's going to watch this. And I was just so curious about it, right? So I just went down the rabbit hole deep. And it turned out to be like, I think, an interesting piece of content that has like, I think, 80 million views or something. Wow. That's how it.

So I think if you just approach it with curiosity and legitimately like, you know, I don't pre-write my videos. If I have an idea, I go learn about it. And then once we have the footage, it's like, all right, what's the story here? Yeah. And I think if you have the right attitude, there's. always a really cool story to find. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

What's a question that you still don't have the answer to, but you can't stop thinking about? Do you ever get into that loop of like, I wish I understood how this worked? I don't know. There's like kind of unanswerable questions like, where is all the life in the universe? Like if life exists here, especially if, so NASA's, there's a moon call in Saladus in our solar system that has a molten lava core. and the outside is ice, right? Water. Water, frozen water. So somewhere between the molten lava core and that surface, there's a 70 degree ocean. It's warm. It's water. That's where life form. We know

that's where life formed on this planet. So NASA's building a probe to go out there, essentially. We're going to drill through the ice. We're going to put a submarine down there and basically see what eats it. Right. And if something is there for life to exist twice in our own soul, system kind of independently, then it's like, where is all the rest of life in this huge, huge, huge universe, right? There's, I think, something like, there's a million times more stars than there are grains of sand on the whole planet, the bottom of the ocean. I mean, think about the next time you picked up a handful of sand.

Every one of those sand pieces represents a million stars. I'm talking bottom of the ocean. how unfathomable. That is completely unfathomable. It's unfathomable. But then, like, it's called Fermi's paradox, but there's a few hypotheses of like, well, then why don't we see other signs of life in the universe?

And it's a very fat, if you want a fascinating rabbit hole, look up Fermi's paradox. What have you learned so far? Is it that life form looks different? We can't see it. Well, we don't know, but like some of the hypotheses on why we don't know is like,

it could be there's like super predator civilization there's super predator organisms out there that as soon as you get past a certain point then like okay now this is a problem we're going to go take care of these people so they extinguish life if it gets too high because it could be a threat it could be another one is like intelligences get to a glass ceiling where they destroy themselves when you have the energy that can take you to interstellar to system, well, you could probably use that energy on yourself. And, you know, when we, a lot of organisms fight each other. And, you know, that could be a pretty darn good thing for us to be looking at as a civilization ourselves, right? Like, where you just get too hard and then it just, it collapses

in on itself. It's another hypothesis. One is like they know about us, but we're kind of like an endangered species, like an unconcated tribe in the Amazon. So they're like, shh, just like, leave them We're like, so basically in a zoo over here, right? So there's all these, like, really fun hypotheses on what could be the explanation as to why. That's good. That's what keeps you up at night. Yeah, I think it's a fun. Those kind of things are, like, fun to think about.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But next time you are near sand, truly, think of me, Jay. Take a scoop of that sand and just look at how many grains of sand. That each one of those is a star with planets. Like the potential. I don't know. That's just such a, it breaks your brain. But it's such a beautiful thought of, like, the potential of life.

You've not been to space yet, right? Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. There's some plans on the horizon. Yeah, yeah. You'll go to space, too. Like, I think it's going to come pretty commonplace.

Like, you can get to Australia in, like, I think, 90 minutes through space. So, that's, there's a financial incentive to travel quickly. You travel quickly. Yeah. Absolutely. 90 minutes to Australia, from L.A. Yeah. Wow.

You basically just go up. Yeah. Go over fast. the earth also moves a little bit and you come back down. That's crazy. That's crazy. 90 minutes. Yeah.

Has someone done that? No, but like that's the math, right? I mean, we don't have the ability. Southwest for space hasn't been invented. But like, essentially that, right, wherever there's like a lot of financial incentive to do a thing, like, innovation will be placed towards that. Yeah. So.

What do you get excited about with what's happening with technology, with AI, with Is there anything that you get super excited about right now? And what do you get scared about on the other end or things you get worried about? There's a famous sort of one of the early thinkers. In 2015, I was talking with all my buddies about this, about AI. Nick Bostrom wrote this book about super intelligence. And his beginning analogy to the book is like, imagine there's some sparrows and they find the egg of an owl, just so you know owls eat sparrows, right?

Just we're all clear. And they're like, hey, we're going to raise this owl. we're going to raise them in our nest and it's going to love us and then we can use the owl to like go hunt for us we're going to use the owl to do all these things that will be really useful and you know of course

if you just carry that if that actually happens the owl is born thanks to the sparrows for incubating it but it doesn't end well for the sparrows that's a real concern I share that concern of like a lot of people that could be an outcome of AI I do think

it the best case scenario, though. I think there are some upsides where it's like it solves a lot of the scarcity thing. A lot of the wars and terrible things that have happened in, you know, our history of civilization is a scarcity thing. So if unlimited energy and resources and stuff and something that helps allocate those resources, that could be good, right? It could reduce human suffering a lot. So, I mean, nobody really knows, Jay. I don't know. I'm curious where you land on this. The question I get a lot is do I think AI will ever have a soul? And my response is, I don't know if AI will ever have a soul. I just hope the people building it have a soul because ultimately to me it's the Frankenstein piece of anything we make becomes us. And there's a part of us that's within it. And so if we're scared of an ability that humans have, then we'll be scared of the more bigger, powerful thing that we create that has more of it in it. And so to me it's more about, again, I think we've, I think there's a beautiful statement by Mark Twain where he said that history never

repeats itself, but it always rhymes. And I think we've had enough experiences in history with technology. Like, let's take social media, for example. It started, we didn't really care about how it was going to affect us, everyone had it, and now we're talking about mental health, kids, phones, not just social media, phones, technology early on in life, right? And it's like we know that that's how everything goes. So scaremongering doesn't work because AI is here to stay. It's not disappearing tomorrow. So trying to scare everyone from it is not going to help because it's going to be here.

So I don't love the fear factor piece because it doesn't solve the problem. But the fear factor piece should lead us to being more informed and prepared for what do we do about it when. So for example, hindsight is 2020. if we could go back to 2004 when Facebook was created and YouTube in 2010 or 2009. Yeah, they acquired it in 2008 or something. Yeah, Google, yeah. So you have all of that. But my point's like, if you could go back then and go, okay, let's make some guardrails.

Kids shouldn't be allowed a phone by this age. Social media should have verified access. I don't know. I'm making up things right now. But the point is, how do you prepare for the things that are to come, rather than go, all right, we'll just deal with the whole fact that generations have mental health issues now and now we're dealing with the reactive way. I think humans are, we kind of set ourselves up for failure every time.

Yeah. I mean, it's just so hard without the evidence, right, to convince someone at Facebook where the money's to be made, right? Like, I mean, I completely agree with you. Yeah. But, like, there's just so many unknowns unknowns. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, how do you not? It's not about reducing innovation or doing something.

It's how do we protect the vulnerable? And so if we're saying that kids under a certain age are vulnerable to X, Y, Z, in the same way as, you know, like cigarettes or alcohol or, you know, whatever it is. It's like we agree, we all agreed that until this point, your brain has not developed yet. Yeah. What should we allow and not allow? Yeah. Like kids are watching you, they're having the best time ever.

It's amazing. I wish more people are watching you. But how do you regulate the things that are not doing what you? you're doing. I would say, though, like, I think for people listening, I think it could feel very doomsday. You hear really scary things. And it's like, at the end of the day, it's such a life hack to just control what's in your sphere of influence. Yeah, of course. And it's like, I think, you know, when I get like that and I get nervous, like, well, what can I do to move the needle in my own sphere of influence? And, you know, I'm not creating an AI company. So it's like,

it's a little bit out of my hands in that sense. But it's like, well I think you I mean I was going to bring this up anyway and it connects to what you're saying right now I mean I know you and Jimmy have partnered multiple times to do incredible things for our planet yeah but thank you for being just such you know whenever people are like we made the right people famous I'm like yeah we did like you know it's it's amazing to see you guys using your platform to do the thing that inspiring all these kids and families and parents and young it's all young people that are following you know both of you and for you to galvanize whether it's Kai and, you know, all the guys who are in the space and all the biggest creators and

celebrities jumping in. And, you know, I think this year you raised, what, 40 million? 40 million. Yeah. So the first year we did, this is Mr. Bees and I, right? We did team trees. So we did $20 million to plant 20 million trees. And then a few years later, we did team water.

That's $30 million to. That was cleaning up the beaches. 30 million pounds of trash from the oceans. And then this year we, the audacious goal of $40 million to give two million people cleaning drinking water for decades and we did it but what's the cool thing about that jays the median donation was like five dollars it's amazing so that's that's that's tooth fairy money that's big sale money right there were some big donors in there but like on average it was five dollars and what's so cool about that is then you know they're thinking like global citizens now like they could have spent that

on five dollars on candy on Pokemon cards but they spend it on someone else to get clean drinking water for five years. Again, kind of planting seeds, like someone who now thinks that way, who, you know, picks up trash now because they see it because they're on team seas, right? They don't litter. They take care of the environment because they're on team trees. Like that kind of impact. This is why I love working with young people. It's like it's the same thing with like going to another planet. Like the trajectory you have. In fact, there's motors we have on these on these spacecraft. We call them mouse fart motors where it's like it's the tiniest little poof, because that difference in trajectory, 90 million miles away, is the difference

of hitting a planet and missing by 100 million miles, right? So it's like, the same I'd be like is sort of with life. And this is why I love young folks. Like the clay isn't hardened yet. And so they're impressionable. And at that age, I think we've evolved to think our parents are dumb. Like that's, so you leave the tribe. Like that's in our brain. So to be a voice that can be there to be like, hey, you know, to guide in a way that even parents can't because they're willing to listen to me is kind of a big responsibility and one that, you know, I love opportunities to flex that muscle. I love that, man. It's amazing.

It's incredible watching you both do it. And the fact that you keep taking on a bigger challenge every year and killing it is amazing. Yeah, it's saying such a beautiful example, it's awesome to see, you know, you guys could be doing anything as well and to see you both focus on meaningful, challenge. in the world and issues in the world and helping galvanize so many. Yeah, that's it. Galvanize a bunch of other creators. I mean, at the end of the day, it only works because so many.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, but you guys spearheading it. Sure, yeah. No, for sure. I love that. You get everyone involved, but you need a couple of people to spearhead it, and you guys do an amazing job at that. So, Mark, it's been amazing getting to know you more, too.

It's been, I feel like I've laughed. I've nearly cried. I've definitely got me thinking. And you definitely got me, even just, it's, it's, it's, what I love, is when you meet someone in this format where they're not on screen in their world and you totally have an infectious energy about the world and curiosity and science.

You got me excited. I'm like, I need to be reading more of what you're doing. And that's the best feeling for me where I'm like, oh no, you live, you breathe it, you sleep it, it's who you are. And then when someone's around you, it's like I'm inspired by everything you're fascinated by and it's, you know, let a spark, as you were saying, like lighting a fire.

I love to hear it. You've done that for me. That's my favorite thing. I love that feeling. I love giving that feeling to others. So thank you for the time. Yeah. Mark, I end every episode of On Purpose with the final five.

We ask these to every guest. The questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence, maximum. So Mark Rob, these are your final five. Question number one is, what's the best advice you've ever heard or received? This two shall pass. Like, which is like, it's, it will get easier, but also. So you're not as good as, if things are awesome, like, it will come back down as well. So the regression to the mean.

I have to answer in like a sentence. That's fine. That's fine. Yeah, sentences. Question number two, what's the worst advice you ever heard or received? Like, don't go to bed angry. Like, you're just the idea like... Go to bed.

Just go to bed. You're an emotional mind frame. Like, let it pass with anything, not even with the partner. Just like, let it pass and hit it when you're... and you're not thinking with your lizard brain. Yeah, yeah. It's true, actually, yeah, and also sleep is good for you. So if you're going to stay up angry, it's like probably not going to help.

Question number three, what's something you learned recently that blew your mind? That spider's legs are hydraulic, which is why... I didn't know that, yeah. This is why when they die, they're curled up. It's because there's no more pressure in the system. Basically, they put fluid into it. So you can actually take a syringe and put it into a spider's back and put air into it. and their legs will open and expand.

Oh, wow. More you know, Jay. What's something you've recently learned about yourself? Question number four. That, like, if I'm having a thought that's not productive, like rumination or, like, perseverating on a thing, I want to think it away. And you aren't your thoughts.

Like, your mind is the sky, not the weather. And if you just don't give it life, like, it'll pass. and you don't have to think about it right that's hard to do but like I mean you know this with meditation like you know this better than anyone as an engineer I had to learn this you know on my own

yeah no it's a beautiful thing to remember though that don't believe everything you think and your thoughts are not true and absolutely you're the sky not the clouds and yeah no beautiful fifth and final question we asked this that every guest who's ever been on the show if you could create one law

that everyone in the world had to follow what would it be apart from buy crunch laps for Christmas before you can share a piece of social media information that makes you angry you have to explain what a reasonable thoughtful person on the other side of that argument would say oh that's good

and if you can do that and put that into the prompt then you're allowed to hit share that's good I like I think that would solve like 99% of the world's problems I love that I was giving a presentation research Recently, Kerry Washington invited me to speak at her Day of Unreasonable Conversations, which is all about sparking better conversation. And I had to do a presentation on how do we have healthier conversations online?

And there was a statistic I did some research that found that when people had to read before they retweet, it dropped shares by up to 70%. Wow. Because people don't read what they share. So you're going even one step further to comprehend and to actually. understand a different perspective, but even read before retweet, it just dropped shares, you know? And so, yeah, I love your lawyer. It's a great one. It's a really, really great one because, yeah, it would change so much. Mark, it has been amazing talking to you today.

For the two people who have never seen a Mark Robo video, make sure you go subscribe to Bach's channels. I am definitely getting some of the gifts for my crunch labs. I'm definitely getting some of the crunch slabs for my niece and nephew this Christmas. I think they're going to love it. I can't wait. And Mark, thank you for so much for how you show up, your creativity coming on the show today and sharing so openly and vulnerably. And I look forward to getting to know you better, man. Thank you so much. Thank you. If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more. I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods.

that lead to success and the secret to genuinely loving what you do. If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you. Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value. Like, as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value. That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it. I'm I'm Yvalongoria.

And I'm Maite Gomes Rejoin. And this week on our podcast, Hungry for History, we talk oysters plus the Mianbi Chief stops by. If you're not an oyster lover, don't even talk to me. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells to vote politicians into exile. So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster. No way. Bring back the OsterCon.

Listen to Hungry for History on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, friends. Sophia Bush here, host of Work in Progress. This week, we had such a special guest. a mentor, a friend, a wife, a mother, an author, attorney, advocate, television producer, and now she adds podcast host to the list. Michelle Obama is here. Sophia, I'm beyond thrilled to be able to sit down and chat with you.

Listen to Work in Progress on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Open your free IHeart Radio app, search Work in Progress, and listen now. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Nicholas Sparks is here. I would imagine that you've gotten a lot of feedback about setting a standard of romance that a lot of men can't measure up to. I have heard stories. At the same time, I've had seven marriage proposals in lines to sign my book. Really? I'm up to the table. Doodle drop to his knees at him. I'm like, dude, you're in a Walmart in Birmingham, Alabama, you know. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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