The Iced Coffee Hour - Meet The World's Only Victoria’s Secret FBI Supermodel | Michelle Khare

Episode Date: November 6, 2022

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Michelle Carre has amassed over 3 million subscribers with her unique ability to take on the world's most demanding challenges. From Marine Boot Camp to FBI Academy to training like a Victoria's Secret supermodel, Michelle has completely lived it all while sharing her experiences for the entire world to see. Today we're diving into the business of Michelle, getting an inside look into some of the most demanding careers of the 21st century, seeing which careers make the most amount of money, and all of that starts as soon as you subscribe. Did you subscribe, Jack? No. You going to do it?

Yes. Okay. Welcome back to the Ice Coffee Hour. My name is Michelle. And if I had to guess, I think that the podcast has made $2 million. Oh, man. No. I'm fired by like 10.

Yeah. And then it would be closer. $270,000 exactly today. Just not bad. Just off that. That's amazing. Yeah. And here we are.

And here we are. Back at the old abode. I know. We're in L.A. For Vids Summit. And so we may do and we're back at our old spot now. So thank you so much for being able to make this happen for coming down here. And here's what I found interesting.

Colin and Samir called you the most badass person. What was it in the world? Or what is this? Not in the world. Not on YouTube. On YouTube. On YouTube. On the corner of YouTube.

On the universe. And I had to say, I recently watched your marathon video where you ran 30 miles. And I watched a progression through that. And then I went through the backlog. And I've seen your videos before in the past. But I think it was about a week and a half, two weeks ago. When you posted that video, I went through all the other videos. Oh, God.

I was really impressed because it looked like these movie production videos that you're posting on YouTube, like joining the SWAT team, the 911 dispatch, and you've done these incredible careers for like a week and then documented that. It's incredible. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks for the views.

You're welcome. How did you get started on that? And you start with BuzzFeed. Is that correct? Yeah. So when I moved to L.A., I actually moved out because I was signed to a professional cycling team for road cycling. My senior year of college, I somehow won nationals. And so I got signed and moved to L.A.

And while I was here, I was also working at BuzzFeed because being a female professional athlete is not a very lucrative thing, specifically in cycling. I can't speak for other sports. And so I was literally like waking up at 4, training, going to work, making, you know, the crazy. BuzzFew videos you've seen. And then after work, training again, going to sleep. Friday, I would leave work. Why somewhere in the world race come back. It was a pretty wild experience at the same time. So I was growing as an athlete and also as a video producer. And so it kind of got to this point where I was like, I feel like I should merge these two loves. And so I left my job at BuzzFeed and started Challenge Accepted, which is this I do on my channel. And I kind of said goodbye to professional

cycling because I felt like I could reach a larger audience if I took my skill set of athleticism and everything I learned from being on a professional team and applied it to profession. I'm really curious because you said that you won nationals. There was a time where you were the best female cycler, like basically in high school. Very brief time. Cycler. Cyclist. Was cyclist? Yeah. Cycler. Yeah. Cycler. Well, on a very specific event, the criterion under 23. That's interesting. So I did cross country in high school and I noticed that a lot of the hard work and effort that I put into cross country translates into so many other facets of my life. Have you noticed that your history and cycling translates to some other growth in your professional

career? Yeah, absolutely. I would say that just like being able to be regimented, waking up early, committing full of everything I do, all of that comes from that arena of life. I think there's a big crossover between people who are good at fitness and who are successful in other areas. Because anyone is like really buff or like really dedicated to their craft of like working out. I've noticed though they tend to be good in other areas too because of the same qualities it takes to like go to the gym, do stuff when you don't feel like it. You have to have an affinity for pain. And an understanding that on the other side of pain is something greater.

Yeah. And that applies to any form of entrepreneurship. I think it's also delayed gratification because if you go to the gym once, you're like, why did I get a six pack? Then it's like you want to see the progression over a year and not necessarily like here's a day or a week. Also, if you're physically fit, you feel more motivated just in general. And feeling better, obviously, we'll translate to working hard.

How do you get a job at BuzzFeed? How did that start? What year was this? Oh, my gosh. Like, was this that, this was like that... 2014. So, like, as BuzzFeed is like the heyday, like going through the thing. Right before the heyday.

And then I sort of witnessed that. The rise and fall. Okay. I left the rising fall. To be blunt with it, Graham. That's like the title of a video essay. The rising fall. It sounds exactly like a sunny V-tooth.

I'm watching too many of those videos now. I watch all of them. So, yeah, the rise and fall of bus feet. How did that start? I honestly just applied. Okay. And I got an opportunity to interview. And as part of the interview process, you have to say, like you check a box as you live in Los Angeles.

Obviously, I checked the box, but I didn't. So when I got the interview, I, like, the little savings I had, I was like, I'm just going to buy a round trip ticket to L.A. for 24 hours. I hope I get it. Thank God I did And I moved to LA What's the pay like When you start at BuzzFeed?

Is it good? Or I've heard they Maybe don't pay the most competitive But it's BuzzFeed So it's like you want to get your foot in the door? Well, I mean, I think that at that time The connotation of BuzzFeed Was very different than it is now

And again, this was like You just mentioned Kind of on the rise to peak. I think the peak viewership was in 2015. I might have that wrong. But it was like a really, really cool place to work and to learn. And as you know, even from your experience, working for Graham and everything you've learned from that, you make those sacrifices at the

beginning of your career. So it was definitely like hourly, like just barely above minimum wage. Definitely make a lot more as a solo YouTuber than you do. And what was the appeal to BuzzFeed for you? So I am very, I'm a very structured person. I work very well when there's a coach figure in my life. And I'd seen a lot of other YouTubers just sort of, you know, I put up a video and then I went viral and now I have a career out of it. But at that time, I felt like there were very few case studies of a procedural approach to success on YouTube. And BuzzFeed, to me, was like a digital channel at the time. It was an opportunity to, oh, I could go, you could be on a show there or learn the whole industry. And then after my career at the channel is done, I go on and do something else.

So that's sort of how I saw it. I saw it almost as like, instead of going to grad school and going in debt for grad school, okay, I'm going to go to grad school for YouTube and learn everything. And I did. What were you doing for them exactly? So my technical title was video producer. That really meant everything. Yeah, sure.

So we would have to conceptualize the videos, film them, edit them, upload six a month. And what's the process like? Who comes up with the ideas? Is this all on you and who you run the ideas by? That's the case. Well, again, it's been quite a while since I've been there, but at the time, we would have group brainstorms. We were kind of divided into different teams. There was a team for like food videos or IRL scripted videos.

There was unscripted that we would sort of brainstorm as a team, think it at Greenland and then you'd go off and shoot and edit everything. Speaking that, whatever happened to the one guy? Did the food, did like the most expensive food? Even. Yeah. What happened to it? Are they still doing that? So he, Stephen Lim, Brian and Shane, the guys from BuzzFeed Unsolved,

they left and started their own YouTube channel called Watcher. Are they not doing that format anymore? Because it was so good. I loved when they're in the car and the guys in the back of the audio thing just like tinkering. I miss those videos. Really special. I don't think they're doing that exact series anymore because they're not at BuzzFeed and I'm assuming it's known by them.

But they do kind of similar content. Sure. Got it. And when did you decide to leave? I decided to leave in 2017, and I kind of got to this point where a lot of creators that are probably the most famous creators there, like Quinta, the Tri Guys, etc., they were sort of moving with this really cool department called the development department. They all got these special contracts. And I sort of reached this point where I was like, I could either stay here and wait for the opportunity to be given a contract, or I could leave and, like, read the opportunity to be given a contract, or I could leave and, like, read on my stuff. and see if I can do it and own the whole thing process.

So I really took a risk, but I just put in my two weeks and I was like, I've got to do something for me because again, like being, you know, a first generation immigrant, my dad moved here with nothing. I felt like my whole life I'd sort of done stuff that followed a specific path, whether it was like get a good SAT score, go to a good college, do this, do this. And I was like, you know what, I want to try. carving my own. And if it fails, then you all come back and work here again. Were you making videos on the side already? Or were you just a BuzzFeed? You had some savings and decided to make the

leap. So I would say like six to 12 months before I left, I decided to move into a small studio apartment, cut down all of my expenses. I stopped like literally everything. I pulled the Graham Stefan lifestyle full frugality. That's great. I'm happy. Get a duplex. Drive a Prius. All right. Yes. Not even a Prius, like a really, like 10-year-old car. Invest in watches. No watches. Get that poor GT is an investment. And I did that because I wanted to train myself to be comfortable with failure.

If I go out and do something entrepreneurial and I make no money doing it, I'm going to have to be comfortable with this lifestyle. And so I decided, why not get comfortable there? So everything else is a fun surprise. Every form of success is a surprise. Um, yeah, but thankfully the channel did well. Was it right off the bat? Was it like an instant success? Like what was the first video you posted?

So the first, so I did a why I left BuzzFeed video because everybody did, right? Um, honest. Those pop off, right? They did. Yeah. And I think a lot of people look at those videos and like, oh, it's like a way to get or drama for views or whatever. And I was like, you know what?

I think people are just going to click on this video because of the title. So I instead of sit down, talk to camera about my experience because I was like nobody actually cares I decided to make it a marvel trailer so I hired a bunch of people who were like in the marvel stunt team to craft this fight scene and it was meant to be like a trailer for my channel so it was kind of a fun bait and switch surprise sure but when I posted that video I got a couple hundred thousand drivers now again when other people have a bus feed they've grown a million followers in a week that was not me and so from there I just had steady grind, you know, like grinding out videos, pushing myself.

Because again, like, I didn't have an established show, like the Try Guys or anything when I was there. I really kind of developed that on my own trial and error after my time there. Listen, as we all know, YouTube could be a great way to consume a lot of great free content, but as a creator, it becomes difficult to monetize and could often be very inconsistent. Well, thankfully, today's sponsor You Screen is an easy-to-use membership platform that allows creators with large or small followings to get paid the way you want to. Use screen creators are from a variety of industries and backgrounds, from fitness, education, music, financial courses, or anyone that wants to make money from their video content and create

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creator and you want to have reliable month-to-month income, check out you screen with that link down below in the description. Again, the link is down below in the description to get started today. And now let's get back to the podcast. I'm curious when you put in your two weeks, did they not try to fight for you to keep you around? Because I still feel like although you maybe didn't you didn't have like a dedicated show you're still kind of a staple thank you um i you know i had i had some meetings when i was there before i left but ultimately i stayed firm and my wants and they were not at the time i think seeing the value in keeping me on in that capacity again because i wasn't like dry guy or anything like and other people had left um

And I was just really firm in what I wanted in the level, oh. Wow. You're good, you're good. Don't worry. That's terrifying. Oh, my God. I was like, Buzzmeets calling right now. I think I was just really firm in what I wanted.

And honestly, like the things that I wanted, I could have only gotten doing myself. Having full ownership of the show, having complete creative control. You can really only get that when you totally own something into end. So even if. they had come back with like, oh, we'll pay you this much or this, that, or the other, I don't think I would have gotten the actual value I wanted, I actually had left, which is why, you know, you see so many people have left, and regardless of whatever contract they had.

How long was it until you stumbled upon the current format of your channel? It probably took me a year of trial and error on my own YouTube channel before really developed what, you know, today as a challenge accepted. What was the first one you did? The first one that I did technically, I did a video where I trained like a Victoria's Secret model for five weeks. And I found this guy named Steve who is like in Culver City and he's trained multiple of the Victoria's Secret runway models.

And you know, back then in like 20s 18, I guess that was sort of a hot topic is like how are these women actually preparing for this runway show? I'm someone who is very short. So I would never get hired by Victoria's Secret anyways. But I thought what would happen if I, you know, as a normal person, would push myself to do something like this following the diet, following everything and just see what happens. And the video ended up doing really well. And so I found myself with this crux, like, have these difficult decisions where you can do what's easy. Like you could do a video

that takes a day to produce or you could do something that takes a long time to produce and bet on it. You know, like I don't know when I put up a video that I've spent six months of time filming if it's going to do astronomically well, but I will know that it's a great product and that video really challenged me to do that. Oh my God, we spent five weeks training for this, three weeks

editing, put it up. God knows how it will do. And thankfully it well, so it really encouraged me to just put my head down and really commit fully to every single video I make. What was that process like? Can you walk us through what it was like training?

What was the most surprising from that? that video specifically. Oh my gosh. What was involved in that? Graham's looking for a new training regimen. So again, I was working with Steve Zem, who's a fantastic trainer. I pretty much just show up at like six or seven every day, work out there for two hours, go home.

There was a very specific meal plan that I followed. And from there it was just rinse and repeat. And I would say with any challenge, whether it's fitness or otherwise, the first week is really exciting because it's, Oh my gosh, I have a new lifestyle. I'm really committed. I feel a lot of excitement about it.

It's a whole mind and body shift. And I find that in every single video I do. It doesn't matter if it's training like a Victoria Seagre model, training like a chess grandmaster, every single video I do where I have to commit to something for an extended period of time, it's a complete, like, metamorphosis. Have any of this habit stuck with you?

Let's say the two hours working out in the morning and egg white, It's like, I bet if I do that for a few months, I just stick with it. I just continue that. No, it's really easy to stick to it when you have a video or like a specific goal in mind. But the time period after, like once you put up the video, is this very bizarre like no man's land. And someone I know, another creator actually did a video recently where they like did a body transformation for five weeks. And he texts me. He's like, it's normal to feel completely directionless after the video goes up.

And I was like, yes, completely normal. but I find unless I have a video or like a very specific goal, it doesn't work for me. Like it doesn't become like a full habit shift. Now obviously aspects of things like from my military videos, for example, anytime I've worked with the military or a distinct government organization, I reaffirm that appreciation for waking up early and like every minute of every day can be effectively used. But I don't fully like, I haven't like. fully changed my life.

It's kind of like picking and pulling the things that I love the most about each. What would you say it was your least favorite to train for? Chess. Really? Why is that? Do you just not like chess? Well, it was the hardest. It was the hardest.

There were lots of things I loved about chess and so many great people who tried to help me learn chess when I did it. But chess was absolutely the most difficult because it was fully mental challenge. and like I was a pretty academic person growing up like I was I loved math and but and I thought okay I like math chess chess is math right is it I don't even know I don't know obviously aspects of chess are math yeah but it's definitely a different muscle beyond academia or physical ability I don't even how to describe it but it literally drove me crazy because it was in the pandemic so I couldn't film a lot of the normal stuff I usually film and people had requested chess for a while so I decided I gave myself this arbitrary goal of a thousand equal which is like a ranking within chess

okay I'm gonna try and get a thousand and one of the chess coaches I was working with another YouTuber Gotham chess like okay you can get there in a month maybe three months it took me eight months video is eight months of footage of me just pouring my heart and soul over a freaking chess forward, leaving my mind in the pandemic. Like, I was going through so many arcs. Like the world was shutting down. I was like, tuck inside my brain. That was, chess is, I admit to feed chess.

I feel like I've succeeded. What about it? What about chess? Like, what was the most difficult part about that? Because I know it's all strategy and like, this piece goes here. It's just a game of like logic, right? Or do you have to? It's like logic.

A lot of its memorization. Is it? Yeah. But isn't some you have to know your opponent and like they're more likely to play. aggressive and therefore I have to like filled around that. Exactly. There's a lot of knowing the opponent studying their opening versus yours adjusting your defense

against their opening. Like the permutations of chess are just bitterly infinite and it kind of drove me crazy just a little but I think that it bothered it was tough for me to sit with myself. In every other

challenge there's a physical component I'm moving through something. I understand that pain as an athlete but for some reason Chess because I couldn't There wasn't like a meditation to it for me Like there is my body physically Yeah that makes sense

Is your point you wanted to give up on that one? Oh my God Constantly Scrap this idea Constantly I mean I think there was even a segment of time Where I was like I gotta take a week off I can't you know I had to take time away

I had to come back It was like wrestling this It's like wrestling a snake or something. It was crazy. But yeah, I definitely wanted to give up. There are a lot of times in my videos I want to give up. Even the marathon video that you saw recently, I'm like, do I really need to run 30 miles in the hottest?

Can you explain that to the viewers who have not seen that video? Yeah. So my most recent upload is a video where I ran a marathon in the hottest place on Earth to celebrate my 30th birthday, I guess, weird birthday celebration. And I wanted to do it because I felt like it just sounded like a crazy thing to do. Who would run a marathon in the hottest place on earth? And it turns out, as I learned, there is a group of people who do this every summer. It's called the Badwater 135.

They won 135 miles. Hottest place on Earth in Death Valley. So they're actually the true heroes of this. But I thought, you know what, I want to challenge myself to really ring out the end of my 20s and push myself to that next level. and just see what happens to my body and mind, you know, what can be achieved pushing myself to this limit. So I trained for four weeks. I had four weeks to prepare.

That's not long at all. Don't do that. What is the most who'd run before that? I have done a marathon previously, but it had been a few years and it wasn't in the hottest place on earth. Got it. Okay. Yeah. So for training for a marathon of this nature, you go out, do your run, come home, and immediately get in a sauna.

No water, intentional. What? No water. And you sit there for like 30 minutes, just sweating and honestly confronting that. To acclimate to the heat. Because even though we're here in Los Angeles where it's quite warm during the summer, it doesn't compare to Death Valley. Wow.

Yeah. How challenging was that? Pretty challenging. Was that like harder than the average challenge or not as hard as the average? It was more difficult than the average challenge, I would say. I mean, all of them are incredibly hard. I mean, okay, listen, I, this is going to sound crazy. I would rather run a marathon than do eight months of chess ever again.

What is it about this chess? I would rather go back to Death Valley, put my ass back there and run a marathon in Death Valley. Just like strongly dislike chess now? No, I love chess. When's the last time you played chess casually? The last game I played was literally the game where I crossed a thousand. Are you kidding? So you're just done?

She's play Alex Botes. Oh, she's great. Yeah, she actually helped coach me. Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. If you do a match with her.

Well, I mean, I would lose very promptly, but sure. Maybe we could do chess boxing, so she can handle the chess and I can. That's a good idea. That's what Ludwig. It is doing. That's why the system lets you take payments. Track sales, handle inventory. Manage staff.

the invoices and keep up with finances all in one place. Fly through orders with zero mistakes. Get the data you need and keep everything working together. So you're ready for whatever's next. Learn more about their customizable little plans at squareup.com. Yeah. Isn't that so cool? Yeah.

Yeah. Are you, you're not participating in that? I am not. That would actually be something to participate in. Yeah, that would be good. Boxing. Yeah. Yeah.

That would be interesting. Are there any ideas that you've just automatically just said no to? that you just don't want to do or maybe it's too dangerous or like it's just there are ones that i have said hard no to and then they find their way in somehow and i end up doing them the marathon is one of them um training like a professional gamer was one that i did so i trained with like a professional fortnight team back like a couple years ago when fortnight was a bit more popular that one i was like i don't is anyone going to care about this video because i am not a person who grew up with video games so I didn't know too much about it.

Now, obviously, I understand now just, like, again, being a professional gamer is another thing that I just have more respect for. But probably the one I was most skeptical of was so I went to Fire Academy for, like, training to be a firefighter. And as a part of the trading, they're like, we're going to put you in a burning building.

No, was this a simulated burning building? No, real fire. Was it a real actual fire? That they'd not like, they're not like a real house. Not like a... No, it was a... My apologies. It was a training structure.

That's okay. But the whole thing's lit on fire. Got it. I thought it's like, hey, there's a burning house. You run in there and we'll be there like three minutes. Not quite. I only had a few days of training, but when they said that I was going to do that, I was like, are you actually serious that? You all are going to put me in a suit and have me go in there, not just sit in there

and experience what it's like to be in a burning structure, but there was a challenge involved. they had a mannequin in there and then I like a certain amount of time for me to get in, drag the hose in, spray it down and save the body before it was too late. I was like, are y'all actually serious here? Like I am going in this burning building and, you know, obviously I'm glad that I was surrounded by incredible professionals to help guide me safely through all of that. But you've just gotten to do some really crazy once in a lifetime stuff.

Now one video I found very interesting is the 911 dispatch. Oh, thank you. How did you come up with that idea? Well, actually, what's interesting about that video is, so it's the same organization that we did the firefighting episode with. So I did at South Metro Fire Rescue in Colorado. They're amazing. They actually have their own YouTube channel

where they show a day in the life of being a firefighter, paramedic. The firefighter video, we had a fantastic experience with them. We went back and I did a video where I went on a 24-hour paramedic shift with them. And while we were there, I was just thinking, this is obviously what we're experiencing is crazy. But could you imagine being the person who's answering the phone for victim? And then while on the phone with the victim, calling out the paramedics and the firefighters and everything. So I was just kind of curious. And honestly, it's sort of like at the end of 2021 when we started thinking about this idea, pandemic was still a little hit or miss in terms of filming ability. And we

thought, okay, if we do 911 dispatch, that's a bit more contained. And honestly, I didn't know how I was going to perform. I was like, are people going to care if I'm sitting at a desk answering the phone? And obviously, there's way more drama involved than that. But I truly thought, you know, when we put up the episode, I was like, we'll see how it does. And I did not expect the reaction at all. Because I think we all take for granted the ability to call 911. Like if you passed out right now, we can call a phone number and someone will come at some point. And that is such a privilege. And these people sit at a desk just waiting for those calls and waiting to receive someone on the worst day of their life.

And the mental trauma and the chaos. I wanted to better understand all of that. Yeah. I don't think I could do that. I would get too wrapped up and too emotional and like the calls. And I've heard some of these 9-1-1-1. calls on TikTok. It seems like a new...

Oh, yeah, those are... A new thing right now is posting those calls on TikTok. Yeah. But like, you know, voice... Not the voiceovers, but like showing some B-roll and stuff like that. And I'm amazed at their ability to say so calm and unemotional throughout the call. Oh, my God. And just like, they're like, this has happened.

This is up. Okay. So is, you know, is anyone injured? Oh, what's the injury? Okay. Where are you? Like, stuff like that, but they're not affected. I'd be like, oh, man, are you okay?

Like, Graham, you're so. I wouldn't laugh, but I'm just like, I would, no, of course not. But I'm just saying, I would just be like, you know, I wouldn't be able to understand what I'm hearing. You don't think you could do that? And remain unemotional? No. I don't know, man. I feel like you'd be good at it. You're very logical. No, my heart would be racist. Yeah, I mean, when I did my fake call with an actor at the end of my episode, I didn't know what kind of call I was going to get. And I was so surprised, like, why am I? emotionally impacted, just hearing an actor talk to me about the birthing process and they're

having a baby in their home and I'm the person guiding them through that. I mean, I think I was just so overwhelmed with the fact that like when I was working there and taking this fake baby call, there were people in the office who had actually done that recently. Like, oh yeah, I've delivered multiple babies over the phone. I was the person that parents were calling during the stem shooting, it's incredible. The fact that these people are able to vocally remain calm, well probably mentally going through a billion different hurdles is, it's a different type of bravery to me.

So the comment for 9-11 dispatch people to be like constantly in therapy or in some sort of like. I was wondering what the mental health component is very interesting. And I don't think every dispatch location offers those services. Thankfully, South Metro does have some services of that kind. where they, you know, for any of their employees, I believe, who have experienced something specifically traumatic. How do they become that?

Like, what's the process like to go through that process and say, I want to answer calls for 911? It's a pretty rigorous process. So I got to experience a little bit of it in my video, but there's like a comprehension computer test where it's almost like, it's sort of testing how quickly you can move the mouse and give directions over the phone, those kinds of things.

There's a typing test because while you're on the phone, you're also typing to the paramedics of what's going on. So you're listening and then going through. So that's a lot of the skills. And then, for some of those mock calls like I did to see how you actually perform under pressure. Wow. And what's your process like now for picking a video?

And what does that look like? I pick the topics, honestly, based on things that I'm very curious about. And people will comment. and ask for specific things, but something we did this summer was I actually went to the International Butler Academy in Europe.

It's this castle in the middle of the Netherlands where they train the butlers that go on to serve like the royal family, presidents, billionaires. The profession of buttling is one that I didn't even know. Wait, it's called butling? I think that's the verb. How do you know that still exist, honestly? I thought that was gone like 100 years ago.

You've heard of that, Jack? No, no, just being a butler, Yeah. But isn't that crazy? Do they call them butlers? I feel like, really. No, obviously some of the graduates, they'll go on to, like, work at five-star hotels or executive assistants or something like that.

Yeah, or like Butler Service on cruises. Yeah, some of these people go on to work for, like, private jet families, like, they become a part of the family. What's training like for that? Like, why does someone need to be trained to be a butler? The training for Butler Academy is fascinating. I really can't wait for this video to come out, but. it's a combination of like learning the specifics on every form of etiquette.

There was a three hour class I sat in on tea. If it's a green tea, it steeps at this temperature for this long, and then you remove this and it should be served with honey, not sugar. Like there was a whole like chart like diagrams for every form of etiquette. One of the tasks I have to do is set a table. Did you know that there is a measurement accurate way to set a table, like as in this many centimeters from the fork is the, is the, is the spoon and the knife. And they measure that out?

With these big, like measuring sticks, they pull them out and it has to be measured perfectly. He gave me 45 minutes to do a play setting and I failed. Why does it matter? That's a really good question. And I think that's something I ask in like every episode or challenge that I take on. Why does it, why does it matter or why would you want to do this? And what's fascinating about the Butler Academy is I looked these students in the eyes.

I'm like, why are you doing this? What are you doing this for? And they all genuinely in their heart wanted to serve. They receive, like it's a, it must be a unique gene, in my opinion. But they genuinely find their life's purpose is to help other people. Yeah. And the measurement thing, I was like, I look. That's a little over there.

I was like, why are we doing this? Because when it's done correctly, it's almost an art form. It just looks so beautiful. And I guess some clients at dinner, whatever you, whoever you're trying to impress, those little things that they might not even notice, that's what a butler is responsible for. It's the unspoken and unseen things that make you feel good inside. I feel like if I had a butler, I would just become their friend.

And then they just like be hanging out with me all the time. They wouldn't, like, they couldn't really serve me anymore because, like, we... Yeah, I feel bad asking them to do stuff like that. Like, hey, this fork is like a centimeter off. Like, I couldn't, I wouldn't care. Right. So there's so many things that I would just let slide. It's like, yeah, that's not a big deal.

Oh, yeah, you know, that's fine. I'd be probably too easy. I mean, I learned that I don't think I'm cut out to be a butler, but having one would be great. What does that pay like? Let's say they graduate. How much do they make afterwards? Six figures. Really? Oh my gosh.

It's a 12-week program. You graduate and... Wait a second. So you're saying someone without a college degree could go through a 12-week program, make $100,000. Best side hustle right there. Add that to your next video. Why are people doing this? Because I'd much rather do that than work like four years in college to maybe, yeah,

going to debt from maybe, you know, 50, 60 grand right afterwards. Why aren't more people doing that? I think people don't know what exists. And now they will because of my video. I don't know. I guess I'm thinking we should withhold this information in case YouTube falls

he can then go in there he doesn't want supply to be too I'm just saying it sounds too good to be true a 12 week program like people are going into the trades and like working their way up as an apprentice when they could just be a butler I mean I'm sure it's so competitive like only the top

10% and a lot of the people there had prior hospitality service experience of some kind now not all of them had college graduates college degrees, I should say, by any means. But they all had, like, worked at a nice hotel in some capacity. They had experience before coming here. It wasn't. Well, actually, no, now that I'm thinking about it,

there were a couple people who were 18 years old just graduated high school who were going to Beller Academy. Now, obviously, getting a job after that. That's the difficult part. But the Academy claims that many of their students, on average, go on to six-figure Do they have to learn security to? I would imagine that should be part of their training. Like home security? Just security in general.

Like if they're out with their employer and something happens, that they would have some sort of security training in addition to. Yeah, I think they do that. And I believe they also do, I didn't personally get to experience this, but they also learn some self-defense, how to deal with a guest that may be at a party that they think stolen something, like very difficult social situations. that, I mean, it's incredible what they can do. Be like, sir, empty your pockets.

Let me see what. You know what? This reminds me of something that I think you'd be fantastic at. There's that in England, what was it, the nanny? It was like the super nanny. Oh, my God. I wanted to do a nanny school episode. I reached out to them, but they weren't available this summer.

But please, the Norland school. Yeah, that was it. And that was the one where they make crazy income. But for me, it was the security. aspect of it. Like they have the stroller, but they had this thing where they could like swap the stroller around,

take the kid and like shoot a gun with the other hand. It's like, what? They have to protect the kids at all costs. Yeah. A nanny? A nanny. Yeah.

They're trained with like firearms. Like accuracy and like every weapon you could imagine. I think a secret service agent. It's not even. But they say that the salaries are like 150,000 hours a year when they get through these families. But they could like seriously, think of a good nanny.

A wealthy person would easily pay 300 a year. For someone that travels with them who has security training. Yeah. It's incredible. And the interviews of the people who go through that genuinely love kids and they just want to do it. Exactly. And it makes a ton of money.

Just like the Butler Academy. I was like, why do you want to do this? Yeah. One of the instructors we met with, he said that one of the greatest joys was when he felt that his boss had accepted him as part of the family. Like that was for him a life milestone. Is butling a 9 to 5?

Or is it like a... I think it's like a 24-7 type situation. I'm sure that, you know, in a lot of like upper class households who have this type of service, there are shifts or multiple butlers. But in a way, you're the house manager. If something goes wrong,

with the house or the family, you're there. It would be so hard to have a life outside of buttling. Like having a girlfriend or boy, I had a friend in high school who had a living nanny since he was a kid. Like I think since like, you know, he was born. There was always a living nanny. And she was a part of the family. I mean, just like she'd be at all the family events.

I mean, they embraced her as just like, you know, as you would have, like a brother or a sister. Yeah. And I think she continued to live in that, even after he moved out. She's just that a part of the household. I mean, she was in, like, you know, 60s, I think, at that point. But it seems like a great relationship. I'm really happy. I think it'd be cool to talk a little bit about the structure.

I've been waiting for this question. All right. Here we go. I'm curious about it too because it seems the videos are so well produced. Thank you. I'd imagine there's more than just like you and one person with a camera. Let's guess the size of our team. I'm going to say,

I'm going to say there are probably two to three full-time people. And then three to five half-time. Part-time. Do you have a guess? Yeah. respond to that guess no no no I want to guess you probably have two people for for camera work I would say two people for editing and then one person for like management and so I'm going to say five okay so we have in addition to myself three full-time employees so

you're perfect on right on there and then we have like probably 10 different freelancers that come in and out for filming whatever we do an episode like marathon that was a crew of 13 people. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. So walk us through, like walk us through first like your average day, like an average

work day. How does that, well, what does that process look like? Just in general. Okay. So like, yeah, I got it. Okay. So my day is very completely based on what I'm training for. But typically the way it goes is I'll wake up early.

I will go and get my training done first. So for example, earlier this year, I did a video where I trained like an Olympic boxer for 100 days. So I would go super early in the morning, train, come home, shower, and then the rest of the day I spend producing. So I would say that my strongest skill set is in organization and Google Calendar, email management. Like me and Carissa do a lot of all of that planning.

So when we shoot with the FBI, when we shoot with Secret Service, it's me on those calls. It's me picking the crew and making schedules and everything. thing. So I get like a weird sadistic joy out of that time of stuff. So that's pretty much what I spend the majority of my day doing. And in the afternoon, I'll do some sort of recovery like an ice bath. So I'll do an ice bath. Cook Jenner, put a bed and do it all over again. But this is coupled with like, in a couple weeks, we're going to fly out and shoot a video. So I'll be gone for a week. But then I'm also while we're on set, waking up early, taking calls, training for the other project.

while I'm training for something else. Yeah. At any given time, I'm probably training for two to three different projects at once. But to kind of answer your thing about, like, what's a day like? Like a year or two ago, there was one day where in the morning, I went and I piloted a fighter jet for NASA training, and in the afternoon, I went to ballet class for training like a ballerina for six weeks.

So it's really exciting, which is fun. So what's today? So today, today was, Today we had a team meeting with our editors. We're working on bringing on another editor right now, which is really exciting. We're also hiring. So if you want to pull a jack and just slide into my DMs

and tell me how you can help me, that would be great. There you go. We're available and excited to have you. Yeah, so we were doing that. And then Carissa, actually, our assistant producer, she's part-time Singapore, part-time L.A. So she came in last night. So we were doing stuff with her.

And you're like, let's do a podcast. So we cleared off the afternoon. Thank you. Let's do it. Perfect. Do you have an office or do you work from home? That was an interesting thing I was excited to talk to you about because you're the real estate person. So in the pandemic, we entertained the idea of an office or renting commercial real estate. And when we did the math, I was like, we're going to pay so much money for a rental on commercial real estate.

So what we ended up doing was we found a house that has a guest house. So we re-outfitted the guest house to be our production office and then we live in the main house. It's a very smart idea. That's what we had gone. Oh my God, Graham Stefferson, I did something smart. You did something right this time. Please clip that. Oh my God.

I was so worried. You're going to be like, you're doing it. No. Yeah, you should be moving to Vegas. That's what we did here, though. Jack was in the guest house. And then I was here. And then we have the office here and some other like, you know, we use this for filming.

But it worked out really well. I love it. I love it because we don't have to drive anywhere to go in to work or whatever. And it just saves so much. time because I found that the most valuable resource is my time because I have to use so much of it for training, for being in the car for whatever, that every minute matters. And the less time I can waste, even if it's just walking to the backyard to have a conversation with our team versus driving 10 minutes that every minute matters.

Yeah. I think even yesterday, we did a podcast with Patty Galloway, which is fantastic. He's really good. I spent more time in the car driving down there than we. did actually filming a podcast. Wow. You know that, Jack? Yeah, but you went to the wrong hotel.

No, it was 50 minutes to go from here to Marina Del Rey. 50 minutes. That doesn't make any sense. Lincoln Boulevard. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. During rush hour traffic, Patty was great, but it was 50 minutes down there.

And then I got to the wrong hotels. Jack just tells me he's at the Hyatt. I didn't know, man. There are three Hyatt hotels on Century Boulevard. Three, there's like the Higher Regency, the Hyatt Place, and there's like another Hyatt. I show up to the Hyatt Regency. And Jack says he's room 17-0, or 12-07.

And so I go up to 12-0-0. I'm knocking on the door, and I hear the shower going. And so I called Jack. I'm like, hey, no, you know, the shower is running. He's like, no, Humphrey's there. He'll let you in. I'm thinking maybe Humphreys is in the shower. So I just wait.

So you went to the wrong hotel, strangers room. Oh, my God! But I hear the shower keep going. And then I'm just like, I'm still knocking. They're not getting it, but I hear the shower going. And then I call Jack back. Give me Humphrey's number. I'm like, call Humphrey.

And he says, oh, let me open the. the door for you. I'm like, he's in the shower. He opens it up. He's like, you're not here. Got the wrong hotel. Amazing. Everything up went to the right hotel. But now you have a great story. No, I have a great story.

So that person was taking a shower and they're knocking. I'm curious, like, if they open. I'm here for Jack. I don't know. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Oh, and the only reason I got up to the room, by the way, was someone else went to the 17th floor and used their key card.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It was the only reason. You were a good sport about it, though. That was fine. But yeah, no, I think that time aspect is extremely important. Do you know how much it, how much it costs to make your average video? Yeah, so our average videos these days are anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000.

Wow. Yeah. And how often are you posting? Once a month. Oh my gosh. That is more than I thought. Did you do this math prior to coming on? Or do you just know, just you?

Well, I figured you guys were going to ask me. Yeah. I just know it already. Wow. Does that make you nervous in case the video gets demonetized or it doesn't perform? Or are you pretty content? confident that? So the way that kind of our business,

the way that our business is working currently is obviously we have AdSense and brand deals are awesome. And then we also have a fitness app that we run. So there's kind of an expectation of a certain level of income per month. And so we allocate it in various ways across the different projects. But typically for some of the bigger episodes like the marathon, for example, we're not going to do unless we have a sponsor involved. and it's of a certain pay structure.

So do you figure this out ahead of time? Like you have this video idea, you go to the sponsor negotiated and say, we'll get you this video in three months. Sometimes. Yeah. So for the marathon video, it was a really amazing opportunity.

We partnered with Brooks for that. So we actually made like a full outline with like pictures and, you know, temp VO and everything. And we pitched it to them and they were really into it, thankfully. And they offered to not only pay for the episode and, you know, like a brand deal rate,

but also they provided us professional athletes to be in the episode. They came out. They supported me. It was a really cool partnership. So I'm always looking for those like bigger, more tent pole situations because we have so few videos to choose from, you know, 12 to 15 a year probably, that I am pretty strict on who we work with and how it's going to work

and when it's coming and so. Got it. Should do a day on Wall Street. Please. That would be. And then my CPM would be your CPM. That would be so great. If you did that with like a good sponsor like public.com slash gram,

you would be, that video would do so well. If you rang the bell on Wall Street. I don't know how you could do that. I'm sure somebody watching this podcast would be able to make, but now I want to do that too. Let's do it together. Yeah, I would do that. I'll produce the video so you don't have to worry about.

Yeah, honestly, if you get that opportunity, I'd love just to show up and do that. Okay, because one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today was, I want to do a finance episode because I just think it'd be, obviously you know the benefit of everybody having more education equity on finance and I don't know what we would do but that sounds awesome I would love to do that have you ever seen mike shake oh he's great yeah he did like uh I learned how to day trade and that video did pretty well for him okay and that might be kind of interesting like learning how to day trade in 30 days

yeah so what would I do on wall street because a lot of people from my college I mean I even interviewed for wall street stuff and I don't even know what they do yeah I interviewed and I don't even know what I would have been doing. I mean, my first thought is you're going to get someone who's on the Wall Street Wall Street floor or the trading floor. You're going to watch them go back and forth with their papers and yelling on the phone and like do it. Oh my God.

Pressing buttons. I don't know. I don't know what really they do. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, we have no idea. Like everything I do is from like a laptop. I think it's digital now, right?

They don't have to run across them. Yo, I got this oil contracts. They should have a chip and fall and all the papers fly out of their hand. It's like, oh, I lost my trade. Like proper Leonardo DiCaprio Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah. But I'm sure you could find somebody there who's like busy. He could walk you through the average day.

I've heard though they're very strict on filming. So like a lot of the times they don't want any filming done. So I'm sure maybe you'd be able to get like an exception through that. Like if it goes through the. I have no clue. I'll just call Goldman Sachs. Chants are someone watching has a connection with Wall Street who could maybe put us through to make that happen. But I'd love to do that.

Okay. I'm going to work on making. it happen. I will let you know. How would they let you know? Okay, Michelle Carre plus business at gmail.com. Just email me. If you can do it, just email me. Let's go back to your income. Are you comfortable talking about that? Sure. If a video costs $30,000 to make, what's the ROI on that? Oh, my God. So we, so like I was mentioning to you earlier, we have three,

three different buckets of where we get income from. AdSense is one. And now, because of how the videos are performing this year, we have country. of a standard of where that will be brand deals we only accept over like high level at this point like we don't really do a 60 second shout out or like a random website or anything it has to be like pretty big opportunity and then the fitness app which needs subscription service so even if a video doesn't make 30 grand back an ad since by itself typically we can get that back with the app or like the app and having people go to it like in the marathon video. We also launched a run a 10K challenge, which is another thing we spent today doing.

And basically in the app, you can get all of my workouts, which are actually the workouts I do in the videos. So kind of measure it in a variety of different ways, if that makes sense. What's the app? Could you walk us through this? Yeah. So the app is called MKFit, and it's actually a white label app. So I work with another company who kind of runs all the customer service and back in and everything. but I was really, really excited about this opportunity because instead of selling like

PDFs or like my nutrition guide downloadable thing, it's actually replayable videos of me hundreds of exercises. So when you open the workout, you actually see me demonstrating exercise, how many reps, everything you can fill it out in in the app itself. And it also has recipe guides. You can DM me personally. So like for literally two hours today, we were responding to people who were in the middle of the 10K I want to, yes, it's actually us responding.

It's actually me. Yeah, I love that because I love actually working with people one-on-one. Yeah. That to me is where I find the most value. That's cool. Your fiancé involved in the business as well? Yeah, so he's their creative director. How do you mean him?

I met him working on my YouTube channel, actually. Yeah, so when I left my job, I wanted to work with a director because I was previously at the job, like, you know, being on camera, a director. myself editing everything and I just wanted like an external pair of eyes to kind of be on the lookout for story specifically so Garrett has like a really strong background in traditional filmmaking so he's done multiple docs he's won a bunch of film festival words for narrative too so I brought him on to kind help with that and he is so good at it he's just amazing but how did that start from like the professional aspect to then now there's like a romantic element to it I mean we restrict

a professional friendship for like a year. And who made the, because I'm always curious, like, who made the, what I'm just curious. Do you want to hear the whole love story? Yeah, I do. I want to, like, how do you break? I'm just curious, yeah, right?

So it's a really long, very long story. It's too long for this podcast. Okay. But yeah, I mean, Garrett, you're basically, I don't know how much I can say about this. Okay. I keep looking at Carissa.

Is it scandalous? It's not scandalous. It's just long to explain. But Garrett basically approached me a very romantic way and that I have to tell you something that could either be amazing or ruin our relationship. And he proceeded to tell me how he felt. And I was like, oh my God. Obviously, this makes so much sense.

And so we sort of just like leapt into it headfirst. And I was so nervous because everyone tells you, don't work with your spouse. Don't do this. Don't do whatever. And we really approached it in this really cool way where we like made rules of engagement, almost like kind of like a business pre-up, if you will kind of thing. And once we laid everything out, it just allowed us to be fully creative with one another. And it was so cool.

So I really value the relationship we have. Like we're really good with each other about our working hours. These are our relationship hours. And just the energy that Garrett brings. I know that you probably know from experience both of you that trying to find a partner is one thing, both romantically and business-wise. But finding someone who brings that same level of enthusiasm to what you're doing is like a time in the rough. How do you shut that off, though?

And be like, all right, at 6 p.m. We're going to shift from like work mode now to like, you know, partner mode. Oh my gosh. Now we're in like relationship couples therapy land. I'm just curious. Yeah. So for us, what we do is if it's past a certain time,

we ask permission, like, hey, I have this work thing on my mind, have this really cool idea. Can I talk to you about it? And the other person can say, nah,

I really just want to watch Survivor and go to sleep right now. Can we talk about it in the morning? And sometimes that's hard. You know, when one person's really excited about one specific thing and the other isn't,

but most of the time we end up talking about it. Sure. But we have kind of like this language that we approach when it's not working hours. So sometimes permission is denied. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And how do you separate that?

Because for me, it bleeds, like work bleeds into everything. Of course. And so for me, if it's like, hey, got a 10 out of 10 today, I'm in a bad mood. Oh, absolutely. It's like, how do you shut that off? Or like, if you guys get in an argument, if like a business disagreement, like how does that not carry forward when you're watching Survivor, let's just say? Oh, well, I mean, of course, like the energy of who we are as people carries over in

the same way, if we worked two office jobs and came home and both had bad days, it would impact the relationship. So it's the same thing as that. And obviously, if something really needs to be talked about, we talk about it. And it does bring us closer in our relationship, which is really cool. But yeah, to answer your question, we definitely are like, I just want to watch Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, you can talk about it tomorrow. We'll, like put it in calendar and then talk about it then. That's interesting. So when he approached you, were you all in as soon as you mentioned that? Or did it take you some time to think, oh, let me think this through.

It took me a little time. And then I was like, you know what? I just, let's just try it. It cares. Once we laid everything out too, you know, further into the relationship, it just allows so much freedom. I encourage anyone who's in a romantic relationship

that involves business as well, like lay it out. What happens if this doesn't work out? What happens if we move out? Who keeps what? Like we literally made a spreadsheet of when we move in together. I own this. You own this. that we co-own this, I would keep it, I stay here, you leave.

Like, whatever it is. And thankfully, you know, that is something that has so far had a zero ROI on doing. And it's been a great investment at the same time to take that time and have that perceptively difficult conversation, but like it leads to a lot of relationship intimacy too because you feel so much freedom. Like there's nothing like lingering or like, well, I'm kind of like stuck on this one little thing, but I'm scared to talk about it. No.

Having that open, all-out discussion has been, I mean, really set the tone. I mean, we did that like in the first month. That's great. And when did you get engaged? We got engaged a week before the pandemic. Really? And we're getting married in two weeks. Really?

Congratulations. When is that going to be? When? Sorry, sir, where? Malibu. Wow. That is awesome. Can we ask how much you're going to spend on a wedding?

Do you know how much this is going to be? It's very expensive. It's a 0% ROI. To answer your question. More than 60 grand? I mean... It's pretty, yeah. It's expensive.

Oh my gosh. Malibu. How much do you planning on spending on your wedding? So, pricing this out with me. There's one spot that Macy looked at. I think it was like 30 grand just for the venue. I don't know. It was like...

In L.A.? Yeah, no, it was O'Hai, I think. That's going to be so pretty. Yeah. But it was like 30 grand plus everything else. And then all in it's going to be like probably 50 or 60. There's another. spot she wants me to see on Sunday that I think the venue is like 10k but it includes some other

stuff and they're just now starting to do wedding so they're like we'd be one of the first so I think they want to give us a break on that yeah what about some sort of promotion or something like that what do mean like sponsors yeah are you making content around it we are making content so like we did a video that will be coming out where we plan the entire wedding in a week videos we plan our wedding in a week that's good because you can both plan it in a week and get it over it and get it over over with and also make content. Honestly, if you have the ability to take a week off of work and just say, this is the week we do it, I highly encourage literally everybody to do it because there's no,

like, oh, it's after work and we got to like look at flowers and I'm tired. Like you just bang it out. We lined up every single vendor meeting. We were like, those chairs, this, this, this stress. It was amazing. Do they agree in advance to be in the video? Like they know they're, okay. That's very cool.

And so that pays for the wedding. I mean, so whatever cost, probably. is what you spend. You're going to get it back probably on the video, right? Well, hopefully, I mean, we'll see. If everybody here watches that video, then maybe that's, we'll pay it back. Do you find a sponsor for it? This wedding is sponsored by it.

The new aura ring. That would be fantastic. You know, a lot of the businesses featured in the video are local businesses. So, you know, sometimes we work out like, okay, I'll post on Instagram and we'll get a discount or whatever. But in terms of a title sponsor, we're working on that. But even if we don't get that, that's okay. No.

To me, I think it's going to be a great video. That's kind of how I measure value, which is probably very different from Mr. Graham's stuff. I don't know. I've joked about having sponsors in the past. You like, you know, get public. It gives everyone at the wedding a free stock. It's just, you know, stuff like that.

Please invite me. Like, hey, like under your chair right now is a free stock. One of you guys gets. Some Oprah stuff. One of you guys gets Berkshire Hathaway. That's amazing. Well, how are you? Feeling like, energetically as someone who's incredibly frugal.

Yeah. About spending on a wedding. Why not a lope? Courthouse. Santa Barbara. Part of me wants to do that. But I think there's an aspect to that where, like, family wants to be involved. And, you know.

Are you doing it for family or for you? I think, well, to have a bigger wedding would be for family. If it were for me, I'd probably have more fun just picking a random night, like with no planning at all. I'd just be like, hey. But you know what? We want to do it on. I don't want to say the exact day. We want to do it on the day that we met, like that same day.

So we're kind of limited to like, it's got to be that specific day. But part of me also would just be like, it would be fun just to be like, hey, what are you doing tonight? All right, let's do it. You live in Vegas. I know. But there is something also special about having that exact day. So I think we're leaning towards that exact day. But then I think it also makes sense for people that want to be a part of it.

Yeah. Something that Garrett has helped me understand is just like, there's this concept that the people, I think they like interviewed a bunch of people who were like on their deathbed about regrets and whatnot. And people have said that the people who have the most number of novel life experiences throughout their lifetime feel like their life is longer. So for example, if you work a day job and just kind of doing the same thing every single day, your life will feel much shorter than someone who is investing in tent pole memory experiences. So maybe your life will be a little bit longer from having a blowout wedding.

Maybe. No, I'm just trying to think. Usually it feels longer when you're doing the more repetitive thing because it seems like the day just like drags on. Versus when you're doing new experiences, like a week will go by really fast. So I'm thinking, hey, it feels longer. Look back and remember much stuff if it's the same thing every day. But it feels longer.

At the end of Graham's life, he's like, I lived like, what am I 30? And he's like 90. That's what's going to happen. I don't know. Can you say approximately or assign percentages to like wear income? Yeah, absolutely. So I would say that probably like a large portion, probably 70% of my income is from sponsorships

in those like big 10-pole types of sponsorships. Then it would be, I guess, 15% ad sense and then 15% yeah. Got it. How do you balance between such a rigorous schedule and like a personal life? It's difficult, but I'm fortunate that a lot of the activities that I do for videos are things that I would be curious about in my own real life and my own hobbies. But it does make it difficult because sometimes I have to remind myself when I'm going to the gym to work out. That's not personal time.

It's technically working time. And sometimes it catches up to me. Yeah, but I mean, it's definitely difficult, but I feel like as I've gotten more episodes under my belt and just more time in the YouTube world, I've found a better balance in general and I know when to say no and stop. Where do you want to take it from here? Because it seems like you've got a great format that's working and how do you expand on that? Well, my big goal right now is I want to get nominated for an Emmy for Challenge Accepted. So I would love to be a YouTuber who gets nominated for an Emmy, which other year is. YouTubers have done with the help of other production companies, but I want to see if I can do it

myself. And that's why I've invested so much into the quality of the episodes themselves. Why we don't upload as frequently? Because I'm very particular on the quality of the content itself. And just developing myself as a producer who can produce not just on YouTube, but in other formats as well for television. I've had some experience hosting on traditional TV, and I loved that. So I'd love to kind of grow as a performer, you know, whether it's like, you know, Marvel TV show would be really cool or hosting an adventure show would be amazing to do again. I would also think that there are a lot of ideas that we have about expanding my business in terms of product, whether it's fitness or fitness adjacent or lifestyle based stuff. I can't too much about it. But that's kind

of where I see the business going next is working with like, ideally I'd love to find a company that is making a product kind of in their early stages and see if I can attach with them and work towards it. Got it. To be nominated for an Emmy, where does the content need to be posted? It could be on YouTube.

It could be on YouTube. Really? I thought there had to be like another medium like it. No, Johnny Harris, who is a YouTuber, produced an amazing piece for the New York Times and he literally won an Emmy week. Like, was on stage accepting it. Could anybody be nominated?

Or does it have to be a certain format? Like, can someone nominate me? Like, hey guys, nominate me for an Emmy. Emmy on my video with Mr. Beast, like, without even qualify if enough people? I think there are, you know, there are a lot of, like, different facets of the Emmy. So, like, there's the front-facing primetime Emmys, which we see on TV. Then there's the daytime Emmys, which are for soap operas, law and order, et cetera. So it depends on how you spin it if you want it to qualify as, like, you know, challenge,

except it could technically be, like, short-form documentary. It could be long-form, like, it depends. kind of have to work with someone who's applied previously or like a VR agency to figure out where you fit in. That would be interesting to get one of the interviews as like an Emmy nominated. I'm not going to lie. I don't even know what the Emmy.

But is that, it's a horror. The Emmys are basically the Oscars for TV. I thought that was Golden Globes. It expands. Golden Globes is easy and TV. It's very confusing. Oh, okay.

But it's just different agencies. give out awards. We should get an Emmy, Graham. We should get an Emmy. You know what this podcast will get an Emmy. I want to be a New York Times bestseller at some point. I think that would be a fantastic one. Isn't that like not that challenging?

Yeah. So it's 10,000 physical copies have to be sold, I believe, within a certain time frame. If you sold each copy for like two bucks and then bottom all yourself, I don't know. I don't know if you could do that. That would be an amazing video. You make yourself. a New York Times bestseller.

No one bought it except you. I bought my own. Yeah, you were the only owner of a New York Times. People did that for the Shopify stuff. Was it Shopify or, oh gosh, click funnels. They'd get the awards, but they would buy their own stuff. Please, please. I know a few people.

That is such a good video. I made myself a New York Times bestseller. Yeah, but I wouldn't want to buy my own copies. Because that feels like just cheating. And I don't think, there's no way that that could be. Well, you're doing it for the content. Yeah, it's not like you actually want to be an author. But I do.

No, but the thing is you, if I did it, I won't be serious about it. You know who Alex Fasullo is? Okay, so she's like this girl that ghost rights thing on five, ghost rights things on Fiverr, basically. Is she on TikTok? Yes. Yeah. Okay, okay.

And Graham wanted her to write a book for Graham to be a, what is it, New York Times best set her? No, no, it was a joke for Ramsey. But you wanted that to be a New York Times bestseller, right? For Ramsey? Yes, that was your goal. Was it? Yes.

Wait, I have a question. Is it units, 10,000 units or 10,000, like, of, does it have to be a certain price? I don't know. Can you just make a book that's like $1? Sell it in Barnes & Noble? Yeah, but I feel like then that's a hack that anybody could use is to call themselves the New York Times and South.

But that's why it's a great video. Yeah, you got to exploit the system. I feel like other people would have done it. If you don't do this, I'm going to do this. Yeah. I'm going to make myself a New York Times special. I feel like it then everyone would do it and then it wouldn't work anymore. nobody's done it.

I'm pretty sure they have. I think it's an exploit that people already are aware of and like there's got to be something else to it. There's no YouTube video on it yet. Or it can't or it's got to be sold throughout like a certain amount of stores. Like it's not like someone could like buy 10,000 copies for a dollar each and like spend 50 grand and be one. Yeah.

Plus I wouldn't want to be a New York Times bestseller by like cheating. Okay. Okay. I'd actually want to do it seriously. Yeah, I'll get that. Yeah. But I would like to do that. Now I want to be an Emmy.

award-winning video creator. The right heart and soul. Yeah, I would do that. What's something you think you're doing poorly that you should work on and be better at? This is such a good question. I think what I would like to get better at myself

is I feel comfortable in the entrepreneurial phase of like, I feel totally comfortable cold emailing the FBI and pitching them on a video and making it happen. I feel really comfortable in the entrepreneurial side of my life when it comes to content itself or the avenues that I currently have within the business. But when it comes to like I was mentioning to you earlier, finding a company in its infancy

working with them and becoming their CMO and kind of like marketing the product as my own in that capacity, I find it is very, is a lot more difficult to find those right partnerships. So I think for me it would be expanding in product. I think it would be good for you to associate a little bit more with the finance space than if that's something you're into like the Hormozys and the John Cuckins. Really? Because they're all trying to do stuff that are similar to that. Yeah.

Like finding companies. I'm available. I don't know. I like the challenge concept. I think you could take that to 10 million subscribers. Oh yeah. I mean, truly if I had it my own way and all I had to do was make content,

that's what I would do. That's where my heart is. Absolutely. Yeah. And I feel fortunate that like some people, grow their YouTube channel on one format and they're like, I have to keep one-uping it or it has to be bigger and higher quality. And I feel like we've kind of found a certain threshold for that with what we have already.

And I just want to keep doing that. I mean, if I had it my way, you know, we're bringing on another editor, hopefully we can increase to two uploads a month. That in and of itself will do so much for our channel in terms of viewership, brand opportunities, et cetera. But if I had it my way, I would just do the show. That's all I want to do. Yeah. I think you could do that. I think you should also be doing shorts.

Yes. Yes. I have heard a lot about shorts. I went to the YouTube Creator Summit and the whole time. They were like shorts, shorts, shorts. They were really pushing it. And now you can monetize them. 2023. Yes. So in a few months. Yeah, I'm shocked with shorts. We've been posting shorts in the iced coffee hour. It's driven so much growth. But monetarily, I'm curious where that will go. Like when we activate it, what is the same? CPM on a short. How does it change based on viewership or length? My understanding is that it's going to be based on a percentage. They're going to have like a total fund and then you get a percentage of that. I bet it's going to be higher than TikTok, but probably not going to be that much.

Because there's so many views for shorts. Yes, we can make money off of it. But what does that actually look like? And can someone truly just be a shorts creator? People can be long form only and have really sustainable. Probably not on that sense. It's probably going to be a lot like, YouTube during the adpocalypse where people are not making money on videos, but they're making money

on affiliates and sponsorships. It's probably how it's going to be for shorts. They won't make any money on the short. We'll make money maybe doing a sponsored short every now and then. Yeah. I mean, I'm curious to see where that will go. And truthfully, I haven't done much with shorts just because I've been so focused on long form and our videos take so much in power just to get one long form out.

But the shorts, I'm curious what our own... I bet if you hire... one person, full time, just on shorts, you would double your audience in a year. Just from taking your existing videos. Do you see that translate over to the longs? Now it's beginning to. Okay. Because that's what scared me because I am familiar with a few other very big YouTube channels.

Once they started posting shorts, you get like no views on the longs. I found the opposite. I was really worried about that too. And we started testing on the iced coffee hour posting shorts. And those shorts are getting millions of views. And it's beginning to translate over to the long-form content. Never thought. And so then I started testing on the main channel.

And you're seeing some conversion. Overall, the videos are doing better because I think YouTube is now recognizing that people who watch shorts, a higher percentage of them would be interested in the long form content. They rolled out that feature. It wasn't that way previously.

But then they just changed that. So I'm guessing that probably would. But yeah, your best hire would be one person shorts full time. Pay them really well. Make sure they know shorts and just take every video you've made so far and turn that down into 45 seconds. You would do so well.

I agree. You would double your audience in a year. You should. I'd say that would, that should be your priority. Is it you editing? No, we got this guy Josh. Josh.

Who's editing our shorts right now and we're tweaking a little bit just to optimize them. So he is full time. No, he has multiple clients. One another client? Probably. Or are you trying to hire them full time?

I don't want to push. I don't know. Oh my God, we're going to fight over John? No, I'm sure. I'm sure I'll take it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

It's great. Yeah, because I've, I've had trouble with the short stuff finding someone who can take the story and narrow it down to like one minute. They have to be really good. Right. And I've started, just like I'm obsessive over the long-form content, like from the algorithm standpoint, I start really spending so much time on shorts. And so he'll send me a short and I'll watch it when and come back with notes on top of already his stuff. and I'm getting really into it. And I think it's so much different

than just taking a video, clipping it up and reposting it. Right. But there's so much, yeah. We've had a lot of success with both. Like, we did a week where, like, we had our editor, we're like, you're only going to do shorts.

He took a video and boiled it down into the one minute. And it took a few, like, a while to get it there, but it did well. And then we've also had some success with, like, taking scenes and just making them vertical. What questions do you have for us? Or is there anything else you want? I want to talk about.

That I want to talk about. I'm just having fun. I'm so excited to meet you both. Cool. What would you change about what I'm doing, like financially? How much are you saving and investing? How much am I saving and investing? I'm saving and I'm investing like very conservatively.

How much is like what percentage of your income would you say saving? Probably because I put so much back into the business, probably like 20%. We could get that up. I think we could definitely get that up a little bit. Do you have expensive taste in anything? No. You're not spending money? It's got to be the personal stuff.

That's a nice. That's a nice jacket. I didn't buy it. How much is a jacket? Where's that from? This jacket is an expensive jacket. Really? Yeah.

Who's the designer? It's the mighty company. The what? The mighty company? The mighty company? I've never heard that before. How much would it be? This is a $1,000.

It's a thousand dollar jacket. It's a thousand dollar jacket. I got it as a gift. Gareth. For my, birthday. As I say, as I don't spend money on things. It's a nice, it's a nice jacket.

Because I saw you had something similar for Colin Samir. Yeah, the same company. But I'll, I get that was. It's a good jacket as well. Good jacket, yeah. It's a good jacket. Anyway, so I don't, besides this jacket, I guess, I don't like have, like, I feel like a lot of influencers, they get money.

They're like, I'm going to buy a product purse. I'm going to do this. I'm going to buy, I don't even know. Like, a lot of that stuff. I don't. I don't. Yeah. Everything goes back into my business.

I mean, that's fair. And your channel is growing. So it's not like you're putting money in this business. It's just like not doing well. I think that's fine. I mean, I'd always just say like maybe 25%, like you could just push it up a little bit. Where are you investing it?

Where am I investing in like mutual funds? Do you know which ones? Or what they track? I work with a business manager and I pretty much just tell her like, put it in somewhere safe. Business manager. Yeah. It's kind of interesting. Do you know how much they're?

like charge for that service? For that service? That's like part. Is it flat fee or a percentage of what you invest? It's a percentage of not of the investment of just like total revenue. Wow. Yeah. That's it.

What's the purpose of that? Like what does that serve for you in terms of having a business manager? So because I'm not really at the point where I need like a full time accountant internally, but they handle like everything. So they do taxes, they do payroll, they do investing. Like if a credit card gets stolen, they fix it and whatever. You know, like it's very... I get that.

It's really nice because we have so many freelancers coming in and out. Yeah. And they do all the paperwork. They handle everything. They make sure, yeah, like I don't... Okay. That's pretty nice. Yeah, it's a white glove service situation.

Yeah, it would be a good service to have. You do that all yourself. Yeah. Yeah. It's a mess. It is horrible. Your finances are a mess? Kind of.

It's sloppy. I just, because there's a lot of things where... I think that you need bookkeeping. I do. I mean, I do it myself, but there are some things where I'll get invoices and just like I'll keep a word document on my computer. Word?

Not even Google Doc? No. Oh, my God. I just type it in and I'm, you know, I keep track of payments like that. Excel. Like, this doesn't even make any sense to me. I don't know how to use Excel. I've just been doing it this way since the very beginning.

Okay. And I just like, you know, I have a credit card I used for one thing, a credit card I use for another thing, and like my expenses are there. Yeah. And then like two bank accounts, three bank accounts. Yeah, right. And then at the end of the year, I could look through these, let's just call them six accounts in total and then tally up where the money went.

I mean, there's always a record of like money went from this account over here. And then I could check over here and do that. Okay, that person was paid X amount. but I'm sure it could be better. I'm sure I could be streamlined. So you don't use like rap book or stir or any program like that. We used stir. We used stir, right?

What happened to them? What happened to them? We just, well, we, I don't think we, actually, yeah, we received payments through Stur, but that was it. Like, the people that were paying us changed. There's just, there's just like a lot of money coming in and then it. Too much. Too much money.

Yeah, it's such a big problem. Then an octopus is, you know, everywhere else. And, but I mean, I, I, I track everything. So, like, I know where it's going. But you enjoy that? Sometimes, uh, when it comes to tax time and, like, gathering all of that, it's, I just book out one day. And.

And, you, or you, yes. Yeah. I take one day. I don't do my taxes, no. But in terms of, uh, tracking everything before, like, usually the beginning of the year, I'll take one Saturday. And from the start to the end. end, I'll just coordinate everything and just go through every account, track every penny that

goes in and out, where it's going, and then I reward myself the end of the day with sushi. And, like, that's the one thing I look forward to. I'm not finishing until it takes me a full day. But I would say it's like 10 hours that day. And it's not awful because I know which accounts the money goes in and out of. Yeah, I mean, I would much rather have someone hourly for like full time just doing that. I should. I mean,

you can obviously do whatever. Yeah, I should. I should. I should. I should probably do that. I should probably have a better understanding on stuff. And I think like this year specifically we've just been growing so quickly that like just getting videos

out has been such a priority. And sitting back and being like, where is stuff going financially is something I want to get better at for sure. A lot of it too is I have a big interest in taxes. So sometimes they'll be really. reading up on stuff and then I'll pass it by a tax attorney. Say, what do you think of this? And I'll either say that's a good idea or it's too risky, don't do that or here's why it

doesn't apply to you. But I'll do a lot of research on just random stuff that I see coming up. And I like passing it by, like bouncing ideas off of like a tax professional. It's way too complicated. It should not be that complicated. And you prefer this over hiring a bookkeeper. I should hire a bookkeeper. I think Graham would prefer to hire a bookkeeper.

Graham doesn't like having many, like, employees or anything. Expenses. Yeah. I mean, it's probably a worthwhile expense, but I like just, I know when I do it, I track everything and I have it, but they could do that for me too. But I like just seeing it and then doing the tracking. They would do a better job than me. I get that, though.

It's, I've done it this way for so long that I, it's like it's working. But are you going to continue doing it for the next 10? Do you feel like it's inhibiting your growth? No, no, I don't. It's once Saturday. I mean, like when you think of a weekend, how much time most people waste. It's just like one day.

Out of the month or the year? Out of the year. Oh, okay. I mean, throughout the month. I mean, every day, check the bank account. I'll just like just see what's going in and out. Like, I look at it. But one day, a year.

There's just so much money coming in every day. Just check what, what deposits are coming out. I'd be like, yeah. It just keeps going. I just keep refreshing and like the number keeps growing. Do you? What? God.

Are you laughing? Until you have to pay Jack and then it goes all the way down. Yeah. Then it's just can't zeroes out. It's the same for me and I hate it. I do one day every single year right before the taxes. You do the same thing as me. I do the exact same.

I hate it, dude. And you know you know you don't like it that much. You really. It's a terrible day. But I feel so great after I get it done. Once it's over, it's good. Yeah. So one thing though, I've, because Alex now has a business credit card that's under me.

And so once every other month, I'll look through the credit card for expenses and I'll be like, oh, Alex, what's this? He's like, oh, we did this for the podcast. I'm sure there's a better way to track that. But, yeah. That would require like someone. That would require somebody. Yeah. Man, I was about to say something, Joe.

What did you say? You were saying you did that too? I do that too. Just one day. And I go through, like, I don't even know how many expenses, probably like over a thousand transactions. and I have to remember, like, what did I do in February? That's probably not good to publicly say, but yes, I do that as well. This is what I was going to mention is that this year is the first full year I've paid my estimated taxes.

Usually, I prefer to pay the penalty. I'll pay the full amount at the end of the year. So whatever I would owe for that year, I just pay it all in one lump sum. And I've taken the penalty. Usually I think it's like 3%. And typically in the past, I've justified that I'd rather pay 3% and have access to my money liquid to invest it. And the investments would make me more than what I would get from paying a penalty.

So why not? Why is it different this year? This year, I realized I've been holding onto too much cash. And so I figured I'd rather just instead of way too much money. So I started. But no, no, but my whole point was not to make it. Not to, not to. I've never, because I have not been investing all of it. And so at the end of the year, like it made sense when I was at the point where I'd be

investing everything and then I would find a way to pay the tax like just enough would come in that I could pay the tax afterwards but I'd be investing all of it and really up until like three years ago every year around like November I'd spend all the money because I'd be investing all of it um and then it was last year where I had extras left over where I was like I should have just paid this off instead of paying the penalty because I'm not earning any interest on it and now that just cost me money Okay. So, but it's a great feeling. Now I'm,

now I've actually overpaid on taxes. So I'll get, so I'll get a refund. Nice. I'm really looking forward to that. Yeah. Yeah. I've never,

I would have thought you could only underpay since there's just so much money always comes. Yeah. No, I've overpaid because you're supposed to pay like 110% of your prior year's tax. Um, or like up to and, uh, yeah,

I did that. I finally get a refund. I paid a lot, but I'm hoping that I get some money back. I don't know yet. No. Yeah. Get solar.

Yeah, I should. I also found out, apparently my accountant forgot to close out my California thing when I moved to Las Vegas, so I had like five grand. That, even though I didn't live in California at all last year

for a single day, but I have to pay California still, and I live in Las Vegas. Wait, wait, explain what happened? So apparently, like, I didn't, there's like some form that you have to file if you leave California to announce that you've left,

even though I was in Las Vegas for the entirety of last year, I still have to pay, it's about five grand. because you kept the Because like I didn't close I think it was my yeah my S corp Like I didn't close it until like the next year

Although I did open one then I don't know it's something it's something weird I don't really understand it I'll just take some of his return Yeah yeah I'll take a little low now It'd be nice So are you paid in an S corp Yeah

Through okay interesting Yeah Good business structure It is Jack's happy with it. I'm happy with it. I hope so. What other questions you have?

Okay, so I asked, what do you think I'm doing wrong? What can I do? Oh, sorry, sorry. To go back to your investments. Mutual funds, I'm sure. I'm not on here because I'm a finance person. I want to make that super clear. I feel like index funds might be.

Until I work on Wall Street for a day with Graham. I would say you probably, I'd like to see which mutual funds it is, like how you're invested, but I'd say most likely, if it's a mutual fund, you're already diversified. Yeah. As long as you're not like in bond mutual funds right now, which have like really declined in price. As long as you're not in those,

I'd see you're probably fine. I'm guessing it's just like a diversified index fund basically, which is good. 20%'s not bad. I would just up it a little bit if you're able to. But I would say it's not terrible. But you're also telling me I need to hire a full-time shorts editor. Yes.

But that wouldn't you say it. I think, I don't think it'd be that bad because you're going to get an R-O-1. from the shorts. Like, I think the realistic... Well, that's hard for me to see when it's not monetized. Well, the realistic scenario is that the shorts, yeah, the shorts would probably break even. So let's say you pay somebody like 70 grand a year or like 60 grand or just shorts, which actually might be high if you're only posting like one a week, like one really good

short a week. Let's even say like 50 grand, you'll make that money back from the people that convert to the long form content, the app that you have, or even if you do one or two sponsored a year. will pay for that person entirely. Also just like the creator fund of TikTok, although it is very small, when you couple that with the Instagram Reels bonuses. Oh, and Facebook.

And actually, yeah, and Facebook too. You could actually profit. So there are a couple of months this year. You just post the same content everywhere. Yeah, everywhere. There are a couple of months this year that we actually made money, accounting for the amount that we pay our TikTok. Interesting.

Yeah, just from the TikTok income. And also Snapchat discovered. Try to get like a Snapchat Discover. I have a Snapchat thing. Okay. I don't. You don't use it? Is it a Discover?

You would know if it's Discover. It's, uh, yeah. It's, like, we have a show. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And how often are you posting on that? Once a week? I think it's once a week, yeah.

Okay. They're going through the whole back catalog. Cool. That's, are you doing Facebook? Yes. I am doing Facebook. And how often do you post on there? Once a week also, I believe.

Yeah, I would say for the shorts, because you could double that throughout everything. So Instagram, Facebook Reels, um, Snapchat, you could figure out something on that. I would say you'll make your money back. So that's not an expense. It'll break even. Or you'll make money on it. Okay. So that's what I would do.

But yeah, the income I'm sure sounds fine. Sounds fine. It's not too much money. It's not too much money. It's not too much cash. Yeah. Oh my God.

What's something you think we're doing bad or poorly, I should say? How could we improve? That we can get better at. Yeah. Oh, you could hire a bookiever. Yeah, 100%. I agree with that. That's fair.

I get that. Hmm. Well, tell me. Like, so obviously you guys advise me on the finance. What about content? How are you feeling about the content you're creating and making? Lately good, because there's finally stuff going on in the market. It was a rough last four months for me.

It's odd. When the market is going up, people lose interest in investing. When it's going down, everyone is now interest. Yeah. So it's amazing that I see the difference on views. Every day the market closes up versus down. If the market's down a percent, views usually increased by like, 10 to 20% if the market's up,

user down. It's crazy. So in a way, it's almost as a hedge against my investments because if my investments are going down, I make more. But if my investments are going up, I make less. So it's kind of like... On YouTube. It balances. Yeah, it really balances out. But there's more for me to talk about when the market's going down

because more is happening. More people are interested. Yeah, because like what just happened? What did Jerome Powell just say? How does this affect me? And I think for a lot of people, I think it's just human nature. We're more impacted by losing money than making. So if I told you, like, you could either make 100 or lose 100, you'd fear more than losing 100 than making. So there's more interest in investing.

But I've been pivoting a little bit to these interviews that I've really enjoyed. And my goal is to get like two a month. So what's preventing that? Do you need to hire a producer? No, no, no, no. I have three in the pipeline right now. But I don't want to post them like back to back. So I'm like, I want to post one weight.

Because this is going on the main. This is the main channel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But there's a, I started creating a list of people that I want to meet and interview in that sort of style. And so I'm just kind of working my way through the list. Nice. Yeah, but there's like 20 people on the list that I really want to go through.

Yeah. And are you feeling fulfilled and excited by what you're doing? By that, yes. Because I think that's such a cool style. And it just opens up the audience. Because finance, I think there's, you know, there's a limit to how many people are interested in finance and growing beyond. that is really challenging. Because then you get in the maintenance phase where, like, you know, some people are dropping

off while new people are coming on. And I think there's that natural cycle over time. When you get into interviews, then you tap into people who are interested in the finance of creators or just extraordinary people in general. It doesn't have to be creators. Yeah. I mean, I feel like what you guys are doing definitely works in terms of like the level of fulfillment you have on the main channel as well as the podcast.

How do you feel about your relationship? What do you of you? I always feel like I'm tough on Jack. I feel like sometimes because I'm always like, Jack, we should, like, I'm so on it all the time 24-7 where I think I had that unrealistic expectation for Jack to us like we always got to be working all the time. You know, always pick up the phone call. What do you mean?

Asking permission. Asking for, no. No, we have a good, I think we have a good balance. Okay. That's what I think. And Jack has some great ideas, and I trust Jack's judgment on a lot of things. Like, if I come in with an idea and Jack hates it, like absolutely against it, I'll usually end up siding with Jack unless I'm like 100% sure on the idea. But Jack could usually sway me either way.

We had a good thing going when we were here. We would go for runs. Ah. And we'd run down to the park. It's too hot in Vegas. Well, we just don't live with each other. Oh, okay. Yeah.

But when we were here, we'd run down in the park. And it's kind of creepy. But there's a... Where is this going? It's a children's park. Yeah. But they had these awesome, like, monkey bars. And so...

Awesome monkey bars. They were not just your average monkey bars. They were awesome. You're, like, two guys going there, and then we do pull-ups on the monkey bars. You're usually... Okay, that's fine. That's normal. But sometimes their kids, like, playing on the monkey bars.

So we can, like, just wait around until they stop using them. Then we'd go over, like, do pull-ups. Yeah. We just didn't want to, like, interrupt the kids. You're like, or just like you random guys. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that's honestly, that's the main thing. I realize that communication, obviously,

like everyone knows this in the back of their mind, but they need to be constantly reminded of it, or at least me, is that communication is key. You always need to be talking. Be open with the other person. And I think that's something Graham and I always need to work on,

for sure. But overall, yeah, obviously, he's one of my best friends. Like, very satisfied in the relationship. Do you guys enjoy Vegas?

Yes. It's interesting because when I'm there, I don't want to leave and then when I get here, I kind of feel mixed because we're rarely ever here and sometimes we'll just be here for a weekend. But then when it's here, it's like, wow, it's so nice with the weather and like all the greenery. I miss that. It always takes me a day to get used to it back in Vegas. So I like it when I'm in Vegas and then I also like it when I'm here. What about for you? Yeah, I like Vegas. I definitely like it a lot more than I thought that I would. But I think a big part of that was me just establishing a friend group. So now since I

have like my core friend group very very easy hang out we're done my house is a great culture as well so that's also that makes it nice as well yeah what are you all most intimidated by with your current content or business um timid i would say for the podcast i would say it's intimidating to see what because i watch all the other podcasts too and i see the guests that they have come on some of them I'm like when I see knelt getting on Elon Musk I'm like where do we go from there like how could we ever compete with Elon Musk getting on a podcast um so some of that I'm probably a little bit too hard of myself for that when I see that yeah when I see his knelt is able to pull like such

like to have the president on their podcast I'm like well they did it first but you know I have to remember that you know we're not you know the same as them At least right now, I don't feel very intimidated, honestly, with the podcast at all. At least I don't know how I would just, yeah, describe being intimidated, seeing someone else doing well. I'm like, oh, that opens up a lot of doors just for podcasting in general. Yeah, that is true. How about you with your work? Oh, yeah, I think I'm, I think I'm intimidated in terms of just like the growth overall.

and like hiring new people and making sure that they fit and have the same mission and vibe. I mean, it's taken us so long to find another editor because for us, it's not like said at the video. It's very involved in the edits. And I'm also intimidated by the prospect of expanding into other businesses because I feel so at home with the content itself. But investing in other things in general, kind of freaks me out. Do you worry that it's going to take time away from the video? So you're not going to make as good of the video if your time is split?

I don't worry about that because I will stay up as late as I need to make sure the video is good. It's more just like investing in something that might fail. Yeah. Well, I think even if it does fail, the loss is not going to be that much. Yeah. And the big picture and you'll be able to probably get a video out of it, even if you do fail. True. Which creators do you watch on YouTube?

So I, the creators I feel like I look up to a lot and, learn a lot from and watch a lot of are Brian Trahan, Iraq, Max Fosh. You guys, oh my God. I know, like, I know that name, but yeah, I've probably seen a couple of videos. Max Fosh is someone I'm very inspired by lately. So he is a comedian who also does kind of like IRL challenge content, but he does this crazy stuff like he did a video where he joined the royal family for a day. So we found a distant relative of the royal family.

who literally signed a marriage agreement with him. And then for the day, he was like a part of the royal family. He's done that. Like, his videos are, are really impressive in terms of just, like, the ideas themselves are really funny. And he's a funny person. And obviously, Mike Shake is someone who's kind of similar to my content. So I love him.

He's great. And I think Brian Trahan, he's obviously the person we're all talking about this year, right? to someone who has done high spectacle but maintained a grounded level of himself throughout without having to be an extravagant spending of money for it to be meaningful or even spectacle. I think that's really powerful. I've been watching his vlog channel where he's been watering his grass. It's like how do you make a video that's entertaining? I watch them.

I'm so invested in the grass. I look at that like how could I do something like that? Can you water grass and monetize it? Yeah. But Ian, Ian did one, Save the Squirrels initiative. That was great. Or he just trap squirrels. He makes like a 15 minute video and just like how to trap and release squirrels.

But he made it so hilarious and interesting and like, here's how you make the trap and I'm going to put it here and like report back the next day. I love that sort of content. This is offbeat. Yeah. I appreciate it because it's, it's risky, but with no risk. Like it's risky to invest the time. energy to create the content

and make it like something different from everybody else. But they make it seem so effortless. Like they just happen to like turn on the camera and just happen to be there and record. But like I'm looking at somebody. I'm looking at some of these like these shots that he's getting are so good.

He's thinking this through ahead of time. It's not just off the fly. I bet some of this is at least loosely planned out. Yeah. So I want to be able to do that. Yeah. I'm appreciating this like this new wave have almost returned to grounded personality because there was such a big movement of like money,

money, money and like just wealth extravagance, I think. And now it's sort of coming back to like Casey Neistat returning to YouTube. I'm sure everybody talked about all this stuff. I'm appreciating that almost like homecoming that's happening. Yeah. Yeah, I think Ryan Trans definitely led that with that penny series. Oh, absolutely. And I'm curious to see what he's going to do next.

I think he should just do another penny series. The same thing. I would just do the same thing. Like circumnavigate the globe. Yeah. Or giving a penny to Elon Musk, I think, would be an interesting one. Or just pick someone who's maybe unattainable and be like, I'm going to do that person. Or he did the trading a penny to a house, but maybe like do that again would be interesting.

I think he's got to like go up a little bit. I think going around the world would be really good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do that in another country. If you could circumnavigate the globe on a penny. Take me, Ryan. Yeah.

That would be interesting. I'm curious with your different avenues of content creation and the products surrounding them, what has been your biggest financial mistake? Full self-driving on your Tesla. That is expensive. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I did that for a YouTube video.

And immediately, like, afterwards, I regret this so much because it's like $8,000 or something. It's $12,000 now. It's so expensive. He wanted to make a video around because all the other Tesla videos do super well. and he makes money. But this one, I think the video just under the forum did like... I've had a really bad run.

Every time I've spent money for a video, I've lost money. Every single time. The Pokemon card one? Took two years to break even on that. But you did. But I did break even after two years. Now you're profitable.

So now I'm profitable. With a Pokemon card. You with a Pokemon card. But yeah, but that was a video where I had made three Tesla videos in six months and all of them did one to three million views. And so I thought, well, full self-driving would be interesting. I'm going to buy it and then review it and then it should make its money back in ad revenue.

And it didn't. The video bombed. Why do you think that happened, though? Probably bad title thumbnail. I thought it was an interesting video, but I don't really think people cared that much about it. And I probably just miscalculated, but, you know, the video made two grand back. So I'm in the whole six grand for full self-driving. So it could be worse.

But yeah, I look at that. And it was just like, I spent so much time on that video. And Jack was helping me film at that time. We were like looking for locations to film and like reverse into certain spots. And I spent so long in that video. Are you proud of the product? It's a good video. But I judge those videos by like the R.O.I.

I just, everything has to have the R.O. That does not have an R. So that's where you find your satisfaction is just R. So it could be the worst video you've ever made. You could be like, I don't think that's my best. And if it's a one out of ten, you're like... Kind of, yeah, because that means the audience likes it. So I don't really make too many videos for myself.

I think of what the audience would want to see. And so I gauge that metric based on how many views it gets. What's the retention? What's the overall sentiment about the video in terms of like the comments and if people like it or not? So I make content for the viewer. But you don't think that harms you whenever you get a 10 out of 10 and it's a bad day? I've done better about not taking it personally because then I think to myself, well, it's title, thumbnail, or I misjudged how big the audience is on this.

And some of them I know are going to be tens out of tens, but long tail. Like I would say once a month, I post a video purposely, like how to invest $100 a day as an example. I know my audience's not going to be interested in that, but it picks up a new audience. So over a year, it'll do really well because people are interested in that, but in the short term it doesn't. So I kind of go. Right. Yeah. But like passive income and side hustle videos are the examples.

I say this all the time. I don't like making them, but people love watching them. So every six months, I'll make a passive income video or a side hustle video because people enjoy it. Like an eat your veggies video. Like you just got to do it. You just got to do it. The audience enjoys it. There's an interest in that.

I don't want to deprive them of those videos just because I personally don't like it. Like it's, for me, it's more about the viewer and their enjoyment of it. So if they're happy with it. then I'm happy with it. So I hope that answers it. Well, that's pretty good. I mean, your biggest loss was 6K on a single video. No, I mean, a bigger loss was probably not paying attention to things that I should have been paying attention to.

There were a few things that I've done over the past, like, a year where I should have been more involved than I wasn't. And because I was not as involved as I should have been, they didn't turn out as expected. Like content adjacent. content adjacent stuff, yeah. But that I blame myself for because I think, well, I should, you know, I've been prioritizing all these other things. And if I'm going to do something, I really should be fully involved and I can't be as involved as I would need to while maintaining everything else.

So like something's got to give. I'm not willing to sacrifice anything at this point. So like, you know. And in your, in terms of like your hierarchy of what is important to you is content first then and then the other. Yeah. It's always main channel podcast right below that. second channel, vlog channels down there.

But the main channel's always been the priority because that's like the top of the line funnel. Like people come from the main channel, didn't go to the podcast. It used to be main channel, second channel podcast, but now the podcast is just doing way better. So I think main channel podcast, and we have a lot of overlap between the two.

And for these other ventures you explored, if you don't mind me asking, was it the partnership with the other people involved? or was it just like, you know, I don't know if you felt this, but sometimes I feel like, I've got to make a product because everyone says I'm supposed to. Probably a combination of both. What is your advice in terms of listening to that gut instinct?

Yeah. Every time I've gone against my gut because people have told me, oh, this is a good idea, you should be doing this, I've lost money and have been miserable. And so I've stopped. And that's part of it because I've just always had this, this, air of like I know what what's best I know what I'm doing but other people are telling me you should do this and do this and it makes like really trusted people and I'm like I should do

that that's a good idea but I don't think it's for me and every time I've done that even if it's not something I really feel passionate about I've just lost money it's taken away focus I'm stressed about it's not worth it that's how I felt about like even just simple merch t-shirt hoodie whatever because I feel that my audience is going to expect a certain level of quality or even that it's an athletic material or whatever. And I don't know. Yeah. I've struggled even just simply doing that.

I've always found that unless I'm able to give it 100% and, like, dedicate everything to it, it doesn't turn out as it should. It's not as good as it could be if I was, like, really into it. Like, I have to be as obsessed as I am with the main channel on something else. If I'm not doing that, then it's not going to be as good. Thank you for coming on the ice coffee hour. It means a lot for you to spare this time for us.

Thank you guys for watching. Yeah. Feel free to add me on Instagram, JLS, S, C-L-S-E-L-B-Y. Thank you so much. And that's all. And get your free stock at public.

com slash gram. Thanks. Thanks for having. Is there anything you want to shout out? Yeah, you can follow me at Michelle Carre on YouTube and everywhere else. Cool.

Beautiful. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Seriously for doing this. Oh, my God. Yeah.