The School of Greatness - 1019 Build a Global Community, Leverage Viral Video & Change Lives w/Zach King

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

“It’s not about these surface-level achievements, it’s about being a person who’s putting good into the world.”Master of digital trickery and visual illusions, filmmaker and internet personality, Zach King joins Lewis for a fun, yet deep conversation on today's podcast. They discuss finding your niche, staying focused on your vision, how Zach rose to fame, stayed successful and pushed through self-doubt, and so much more!Read Zach King’s Magical Book Series: https://www.zachkingmagic.com/For more go to: https://www.lewishowes.com/1019Kobe Bryant on Mamba Mentality, NBA Titles, and Oscars: https://link.chtbl.com/691-podKevin Hart Breaks Down His Secrets to Success: https://link.chtbl.com/956-podKatherine Schwarzenegger Pratt on the Power of Forgiveness: https://link.chtbl.com/925-pod

What was the comment you remember right now you see in your mind that affected you the most in the last eight to ten years? The comment that changed my whole career trajectory was Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. American author Harriet Jackson Brown Jr. once said, Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you. An English novelist Terry Pratchett wrote,

It's still magic even if you know how it's done. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My guest today knows what it takes to share the joy of magic and illusions through a digital medium empire that he's built. Many of you might know Zach King from his early days on YouTube, sharing advanced tutorials on filmmaking techniques and mastering visual effects. Or you might know him from Vine,

using a six second platform to inspire wonder and awe in millions of people with his sharp editing skills and visual gags. Or more recently from his viral TikTok videos where he takes practical effects to the next level to create mind-blowing illusions. Zach is a filmmaker with over 8 million subscribers on YouTube, 50 million followers and growing on TikTok and hundreds and hundreds of millions of views

across all platforms. And in this episode, we talk about how to keep yourself focused on your creative vision as a creator, where to start as a content creator today with all the noise, what's happening, all the different platforms. Where do you begin? How do you grow your platforms? The life lessons Zach has learned from his wife and kids, the YouTube comment that changed the course of Zach's life forever, the importance of finding your specific niche, especially when

you're starting out, Zach's passion for family life, foster care, and adoption, and the first steps you can take to become a foster parent. That and so much more. I am so excited. Zach has got such a big heart. I aspire to be as talented as him one day. If you're enjoying this, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. And a quick reminder, if this is your first time here, click that subscribe button over on the School of Greatness on Apple podcast,

as well as give us a rating and review. Okay, after a quick message, the one and only Zach King. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. Super excited for our guest today. The legendary Zach King is in the house. Dude, thanks for having me. Good to see you, brother.

It's good to be here. I'm so excited. We were just talking off camera about how I discovered you on Vine seven, eight years ago, whenever that was. The Vine days. Those were good days. And I think everyone kind of discovered you then who was on the internet. But then I remember you kind of went away, at least in my perspective. When Vine went away, I remember almost like maybe it was

a year or two years ago seeing people say when your content came back people saying isn't that the vine guy it's almost like you went away at least in my perspective yeah but you were still not gone but it just seems like you weren't as mainstream awareness yeah for maybe a couple years is that true or is that just my perspective uh yeah i didn't't go away, but it's kind of that, the syndrome of you get so popular, it's hard to top that. And then it's only downhill from there for a little bit. What I found having a career on the internet,

it's ups and downs because you know me from Vine, but there'll be people watching this who know me from YouTube. It's 12 years ago when I created my first YouTube account and I was teaching filmmaking. And then that had to die. And to this day, there's never been a video on that YouTube channel.

So there's still an audience that's like, where'd that dude go? Interesting. And then the recent uptick has been with TikTok, which is interesting. And it was kind of a little bit, like you question the back of your mind as you're creating,

whether it's, I imagine artists have this, filmmakers definitely have it. Like you're as great as your last work and as vine went away um i was still doing a grinding on youtube and making stuff every day with my team really but you know it was it just didn't hit the same as mine it was a different platform it wasn't going as viral even though it was going as viral like people you never know if it was like a repost. People just, it wasn't the talk of the town, which is what Vine was. It wasn't like culture. Vine was like, this is happening culture.

TikTok is like, this is what's happening culture. Everyone knows like the dances. Everyone knows the songs. Everyone knows the magic. Yes. Right? And it was kind of a little bit exciting to see that uptick on TikTok once again. Because it was kind of like you're like telling yourself, I'm relevant again.

Not that you weren't relevant, but you just kind of had confidence that what you were making was evergreen. And now that I've seen that up and down, you know, three times with YouTube, Vine and TikTok and even other platforms like Instagram, there was a time when we were one of the top three creators right behind Taylor Swift in one year. When was this? Video views. That was 2014 or 15. The first year that they had, first two years, they had their video feature. Cause we were on it's the first ones to jump. Everyone was still using it for, you know,

pictures of their food or their dogs or whatever. And, and. You were coming off Vine high and you were like, let's go create here. Well, I was, I was coming off that and it was like, Vine was 6.2 seconds or whatever. And then Instagram, when they launched it was 15. You're like2 seconds or whatever and then Instagram when they launched it was 15 seconds. At this rate we're gonna be making featured films in

eight years if we double the length every you know two years. So yeah we are continuing to it's never been about the follower count though I think there was a period where and it was if you actually measure I think it was between like 1 and seven million followers on instagram that was the most fun rush it was like you would check the social blade or the graphs and it'd be like 40 000 followers sitting no way 70 000 120 000 and then around seven million it's kind of just became a it can't be about this because then you're going to pivot the content and you're going to be creating stuff for the audience. And you can lose yourself and your own voice and your creativity in that.

And I think your whole fire for creating can die because you're all of a sudden serving this machine. The audience feels like a beast in a way to continue to feed it and keep it growing. How do you keep yourself focused on your vision, your creative process, the artistry of it as opposed to numbers, following growth, engagement? Well, I think I'm at a lucky place where I don't have to worry about growth. And it's, you know, even if you look at that number metric of growing one to seven million followers,

like you kind of tap out in terms of even the brand deal size at seven million. Like brands aren't there to, they don't need somebody with 50 million. If you have seven million, it's probably like the same engagement rate. It's just an extra bonus. And so there wasn't a reason to continue to grow. It's all about making the next video is better or more exciting or a better story or crafted in a more unique way. And the thing that got me into

filmmaking years ago was watching Spielberg. Like I went to film school knowing that I wanted to try to make movies like Steven Spielberg or George Lucas. It was these giant blockbusters, but all of them had a theme of practicality where, you know, you look at those old behind the scenes and they have the real dinosaur head there, like the man, you know, or the, the jaws shark, which gave them a ton of headaches. But like that made the iconicness of that film.

It wasn't like a CG or claymation. You're still talking about still talking about it 20 30 years later yeah because they were breaking ground with what they're doing practically and so the fun of filmmaking to me isn't showing up on set and having green screens and like this fake little tennis ball to look at for eyeline it's actually having some of the things there and that's what i'm what gets me up in the morning now it's like how can i make this video 100% practical? What if there was zero editing? Because I've known for a lot of my digital trickery. But my favorite stuff is like, I just did a video with my kids.

And we were thinking of it. I make blanket forts with my kids all the time. And I was like, wouldn't it be sweet? Almost like a Narnia thing where you go through. I saw this. It's really cool. Did you see the behind the scenes? No, I don't think I have. I'll show you later. But it's one of cool. And did you see the behind the scenes?

I'll show you later, but it's, it's, it's one of my favorite things. I've never posted behind the scenes, not a magician, but I live by the code. I would crush on TikTok. Yeah, it did. It did the behind the scenes behind the scenes because it was a hundred percent practical zero editing where we, we, you know, we go through the tent and I lift up the back blanket and we're in a forest and everyone's, I see see a million theories when we post a video up on the forums of Reddit. Here's what happened. Yeah, like it was some jump cut crazy thing where he got all two of his kids who are, by the way, under three years old, like to line up in the same position when they went to a mountain.

And it was like, no, we had a set and the doors opened up when the camera was inside the tent. You just didn't mentally realize it. The doors open up and we built the set on top of a mountaintop shut up and so that's it is in a mountain so there's no editing yeah it's just like the most simple explanation but I like it's beautiful to me because the problem that we were solving is how do we make this real like it's it would actually be too hard to edit that video and so I get a kick out of whether it's like Fred Astaire did a decades ago a tap dance number

and he was dancing on the walls like he walks up dances on the ceiling and is hanging around in impossible ways and you know they used a rotating room just like they used in Inception and so we were like well to do that like we could walk up a wall and someone could hold me in a green screen suit it would just look funny and and and kind of be a cheap way to do it. So we figured out how to build a rotating room so that we could, you know, do those moves and be, I always want to be like Spider-Man as a kid. And so like that was the video concept we ended up doing.

Wow. But it's practical. How much do these productions cost to build some of these sets? That's where the brand deal money comes in to pay for it. We're like, you know, I mean, building a rotating room is incredibly expensive. You know, it can be in the six figures to build something like that.

But it's worth the payoff just because those videos to me last for a long time. They're evergreen. They're evergreen for until the day I die. Like kids will probably always want to be Spider-Man and walk on a wall, you know, or. And they'll reference your video of that. Like you're referencing Jaws. Maybe. I'm referencing a lot of stuff from Charlie Chaplin. Like it's, I'm not re a lot of people were like, Oh, you've created this new style. Um, but there's a lot of George Milliers was a filmmaker in the early 1900s. He was doing jump cuts. I watched a

lot of his stuff often, which are funny because they're reminiscent of vines are sometimes six seconds long and they would be played in nickelodeons which were like these little machines you put a quarter in or a nickel um for five cents you could watch this it was like up to literally seven seconds a little like you watch somebody punch somebody or like right you watch a person sneeze that was like one of first edison's first films and it's so it seems so trivial but in george's he was doing jump cuts. He would go like this, and then a piano would appear. Right. And people back then were blown away.

Because it all looked choppy, so you could almost barely see the jump cut. But I always wonder what, if Charlie Chaplin were alive today, or some of those early filmmakers who had such primitive technology, what they would be doing. Maybe they, I don't know if they would, I feel like they'd be more Oscar filmmakers, but maybe they'd be down to make some TikToks. TikToks.

What is the biggest fear you have as a creator right now? You've got, I think it's over 80 million followers across platforms. You've got billions and billions of views. What's the fear? Is it that I'm not gonna be as good as my last video, that I'm not gonna stay relevant, that I'll lose myself and all this? What is it for you?

You know, it's interesting as I see my fears come out in the comments, and I know it's a real fear when it pings me. So I don't spend a lot of time in comments anymore. When it triggers you. When it triggers me. I'll read a comment. I'll say, this guy's not relevant anymore. And I'll go, oh, that's a real, like, okay, I must actually believe that's a fear of mine. If it pings me, another one that happens is when people say, when are you going to make your next thing? And I'm always fearful of like, I'm not

going to be able to, not that it's a pivot, but make something longer. Maybe I, what if it's actually a lack of ability to go beyond 15 seconds? You know, what if I can't go a full hour and a half, which has been my dream, which I've been telling people since I was a kid growing up making movies. And so now the weight of it, which isn't right, but for many years I put it on me, like I need to fulfill that and succeed in that

because I've got my whole hometown family rooting for like, we're excited about your TikToks, but like, let us know when you make a film, you know? Oh man. And so being content is something I'm working towards. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most content ever where you're at right now. In terms of family life, fully content. I love where I'm at. With work, I always want to push it. So it's not that I'm not content, but I'm ambitious to see if I could do something else. You're happy, just not satisfied. I am. See, there is satisfaction with the work. When we post, it feels great to finish something

and made something because there is an energy I get and a lot of my team gets from finishing, whether it's a video, any kind of project. It feels great to kind of look back at the process. project. It feels great to kind of look back at the process and it's not as difficult as a birth that I saw my wife go through, but it's a, it is a similar process where you created nothing, something from kind of nothing, like just an idea. Yeah. And use resources or creatively along the way to get that out, to become something that people, millions of people can watch. That's kind of a weird process to think about that in a way that it is magical that you're creating that physical experience, and hopefully you can have

an emotional experience when people watch it, whether it's adding wonder or inspiration in their lives. But yeah, so contentness, I don't know. Where are you at there, career-wise then, one to 10? I'm gonna give it a seven. Somewhere in there. There's a lot more ambition in there. I don't know where that line... So you've never done a full hour, hour and a half film yet?

Not even close. If you add them up, well over that. It's like a director's length, three and a half movie. What would the film be if you could do any film? That's why I don't know. I don't know what the story is. I want it to be... I used to have this thing in film school.

I was like, well, the first film I do is going to be the best thing ever. It's going to be the Damien Chazelle, La La Land that wins an Oscar, the first, you know, like, um, super jealous of that guy's talent. He's amazing. And, and, and, but you know, when I look at, I need to take that pressure off myself. And over the years I've, I've learned to do that. Um, that pressure off myself. And over the years I've learned to do that. That pressure has never been healthy for what I'm producing and who I am as a person. And so I know there's a long form story in there. I don't know what it is, because I'm looking for it.

And that's just allowing the curiosity to continue to ask questions. And I think it'll have something to actually maybe, I never, I loved documentaries growing up, but I never thought I'd make one. I used to actually say like, I don't know, I don't want to make a documentary. But I don't know, it could,

I love the idea of like exploring a topic deeper and immersing myself in that for a couple years. But I also don't have the, those projects take a lot of time. So much time. We did a documentary. It took two and a half years of my life. It's a lot of money.

We haven't made any money from it. And we haven't like, it's just hard. It's more of a creative of a creative process of love yeah right and that's why it has to be that because i i love the um sometimes i'll make these videos especially for youtube that'll be five minutes and that's a lot of energy that goes into a five minute piece but when i when we hit publish it feels good to have to be at peace and and and a couple times we've said this where it's like i don't if this literally gets 10 000 views um it's okay like i'm proud of what we're putting out there and um because i learned so much in the process of making that that it's not even about seeing the response to it it's like it's done once it's published um that whole

the whole journey and uh yeah i don't there's's a longer form story in there. Don't know what it is yet. I feel like a documentary on magic as a whole, like studying great magicians. And that fascinates me. And you kind of throwing in your spin and twist as a host kind of storyteller could be interesting. Yeah, I think you're hitting on some strings there.

That's where my curiosity goes at night. I'll Google like, and there's all these rivalries of magicians and selling the secrets in these shows that, you know. The dark side of magic. Ooh, I like that title. It could be a catchy title. It could be on something.

Co-producer. Exactly. Now, I like to challenge people when they come on the show who have already achieved big things, but they have something missing. And it sounds like the film is something that you would regret not putting out in the world over the next five to 10 years.

Is that right? Before I die. Before you die. Yeah. Okay. I think I'm going to be making what I'm known for now, this idea of magic.

And, you know, it's very, magic is very on the nose. I'm not a magician. And I try to say that a lot too. You can't do any card tricks. Well, it's very, magic is very on the nose, not a magician. And I, and I, I try to say that a lot too. You can't do any cards. Well, it's partly an insecurity, but also like, it's just magicians get mad. They're like, well, you're not a magician because you didn't do, I did magic growing up, but I know it's a, it's a totally different skill. So to me, it deserves a different title, but I think to the audience, they see the wonder they, that same wonder of like, they would see in a magic show and they don't care the process whether it was edited or you practice the actual uh card sleight of hand or whatever the

trick is they just know the experience brought them to that it took them out of body and for even three seconds they spiritually believed that magic was possible and i kids today don't really care about whether how it was done um if it was edited or produced on stage. And so that's why people call it magic. But when I meet people like David Blaine, it's like they can still get you that spiritual place with their cardistry or with their tricks or their stunts in person. And that's somewhere I'll never get to. You have to watch my stuff I have to show you a video you know for sure but that's still mad you create awe and wonder in

those moments yeah for people like whoa how did he do that yeah so you're a magician in your own right there was a big problem for me was still when kids come up and it happened years ago too when vine was first getting populated be teenagers and they'd want to see a magic trick it was like the biggest disappointment it was as if i told them the behind the scenes of of disneyland or something and said like uh because this happened to me i went to shoot at um one of the parks and you know i saw the cast members like take off the solely head and i was like distraught like don't show me this i like yeah i want to be on the other side of disneyland but i would tell them like no it's this whole process and i was breaking it down and they distraught like I like yeah I want to be on the other side of Disneyland but I

would tell him like no it's this whole process and I was breaking it down and they kind of walk away like shoulders they get the photo but like that's they'd walk away bummed it's almost like you should learn one coin trick yeah you can always do yeah and just have something simple yeah so I ended up for the little kids like a lot of kids I had kids cry I would tell them you know oh it's this it's this whole editing thing and you can do it too and they didn't care like they were just bummed and um we ended up making a kid's book just to solve that problem because we wanted to hand them something because i couldn't deliver that experience and so we did like an ar book which

is cool because you could scan it and all the art came alive that's cool um but it was like the backstory to how this kid was magical and where the magic came from and so um that's been my thing i keep them in my car in my backpack when i walk around just to like so when the kids are like see a magic trick i'm like check out what this ar app can do on my book that's cool yeah i saw that on your website where can uh parents get books for the kids find it on amazon or you know wherever books are sold target just type zach king is it acting comics or what is it it? Just look up Zach King and it'll pop like book and it'll come up. I'm curious about how many views do you think you have total

in all your videos in the last 10 years? A couple billion. A couple billion. A couple billion. We've never tallied them, but. Isn't it interesting? I think it's probably more than that with all like TikTok and Vine and everything there,

but isn't it interesting that you're probably one of the most watched filmmakers of all time who didn't get into film school? It's pretty crazy. Isn't that interesting? I have a theory why I didn't get into film school. As of recent, I remember I talked to a friend who applied to the same film school

and I was like, can I see the application? Like, I don't remember it. And it was like 10 pages of essays and then submit your DVD. And as I was going through it, I was like, I don't remember writing essays. And I'm pretty sure, because I remember filling out, there was essays.

And I hated writing growing up. I hated it too. I'm not dyslexic, but I feel like I'm on the border of it where I just can't, I don't like it, I'm bad at it. I only have likelexic, but I, I feel like I'm on the border of it where I just can't, I don't like it. I'm bad at it. Um, I only have like one word to describe things, which is like beautiful. And that's it. Yeah. And then, um, but I was looking, I was like, I bet I didn't write any essays. I bet I just wrote like a sentence for each answer. Like, why do you want to make movies? I love movies. Like that's all I do. Uh, and, and I bet that was part of the reason I didn't get in. But yeah, I mean, that was a bummer for me

because I grew up, I was one of those people, same as I know when you talk to Liz Gilbert, she said like, she knew her passion from early age. And I was that way. I resonate with that. We're like seven years old, camera goes in my hands. I'm like, viewfinder, I'm a director. I can do this.

This is fun. I want to do this for the rest of my life. Found it. And so going to film school and and having the application denied it was the biggest bummer it was like because i knew from such a young age that was where i was going i was going to go to la and make movies and you're from portland right i'm from portland oregon grew up on a little farm area and uh and drove down anyway and got, I went to Biola and so they still had general ed. I could take math, science. It could be at the school. So you got into school, got into school and I lived across, um, who are now some of my best friends on the dorm, other filmmakers.

And I got to know, I was like, what assignments are you doing? So I actually did a lot of my assignments like a year earlier. Cause I just kind of did it with them, but I wasn't in the class. Wow. And I had started to, I wanted to reapply. I missed the, I got denied for like the winter term. You could like, there's a last chance application. Didn't get that. And so I ended up sitting in the back of the classes because, and I guess this is a hack for school today.

Like I think you could sit in the back of class and teachers will never ask if you're enrolled. Right. So I sat in the back of classes and got the teacher signature to like get added to that class. And I would just sit and learn. And after four years, they were like giving out the diplomas and they were like, oh, you're why do you have all these units for film?

Like, we only see you as a general ed student or whatever. And I was like, well, I was a film major. It must be a mistake. And they wrote me that. No way. Yes. I never became a film major till the very end. Until the very last week of senior year when I was before I was going to walk and they were going They broke me the no way Yes, I never became a film major till the very end until the very last week of

Senior year when I was before I was gonna walk and they were gonna give me the graduation thing. So That's a hack for people who want to go to college and get that. I don't know I can't guarantee that'll work So you never actually still got admitted into film school even all the way through you just graduated from I graduated from film school Wow But you know got the same experience and for, film schools, I get asked all the time, is it like, do you recommend film school? What if I have to go on a bunch of debt? Because you could also buy, if you heard arguments of like, I could buy a whole studio for $200,000 education price and go out to LA and move there and try it for three years. And that's also a great option. So for me, it was about meeting

people. I mean, one, I met my wife at the university so worth the the tuition there but for the film experience it's if you're not motivated to get out and meet people and network and go jump on projects or have people jump on your projects uh film school is a great place for people to kind of be that extra push to be thrown into it yeah when was the time you doubted yourself the most since you graduated film school to now along the way doing the business part of my work so business i didn't to do business school um my dad was an entrepreneur so i watched and gleaned what i could from him but um for me that's the self-doubt like i knew my in terms of the filmmaking craft, I know what I enjoy seeing and the tweaks that can be made there.

But for the business, it's always a self-doubt along the way of like, oh, is that the right call? Or the worst, so it's because- Like doing a business deal, charging for something, like what- In the beginning, that's always, you're awkward and you're learning that. But no, it's probably more that

now I have 15 people on my team and it's fluctuated over the years, but it's making the business decision of do we need to downsize now or do we need to scale up now or is that too risky or should I take a loan or like, are we going to be out?

Like, what if we don't, what if for some reason people don't hire influencers in a year from now? Like, where are all these families going to be? And a part of that is I've taken too much over the years on myself and part of that is just

there's a natural system of life that happens, and people will be okay if they'll figure out something. So it's taken a little pressure off myself there, but there's always a self-doubt. It's like I wasn't trained in this. Is this the right whatever business? It could be not really about the deals, but just more about how the business operates.

We need to diversify. You have different coaches come in, and they're like, well, I see you only do one thing. Like, you need to have eight things that bring in revenue in case this one thing, but we're all in on this one thing. You know, for the most part, there's like some different revenue streams, but it's those things that I question.

Yeah, making those decisions, what routes to go down, who to hire, all that stuff, right? When was, what was the comment you remember right now you see in your mind that affected you the most in the last eight to 10 years? Well, in a positive way, there's a comment that really changed my career. I should go back and I don't think I'll remember which one it was because there were several of these comments along the way. But back when I started YouTube, I was making tutorials. So I was teaching people. I had just started going into film school.

And so I was teaching what I was learning for editing and putting that out there. It was really nerdy. I was screen recording my screen and pretty much editing down the ums and putting it on YouTube. And the comment that changed my whole career trajectory was, hey, you should show us with a short film, the demo. So if you're teaching lightsabers, show us, make a two minute short film about with lightsabers and then break it down.

Because they wanted entertainment. It was also probably just stale content. And I was like- And they weren't just how to, they wanted to show me the end result and then break it down. Yeah. And it was those comments and I literally read it

and was like, one night in my dorm, I was like, oh, I could totally do that. Like, I'm working on a lightsaber thing for next week.

I was going to break down like a Star Wars thing and how you could do it yourself. And I was like, the demo film would be like two kittens. My buddy had just adopted kittens with his girlfriend

and that was fresh on my mind. And I was like, oh, well, if we had them play and just like add it in and film them for like a night they would make a funny short it'd be stupid you know right it's one of those ideas you don't think about and uh you don't give yourself notes it's just like let's go do it and we shot it that night i posted the tutorial a couple days later with and had kind of made its own teaser like just posted the video Jena kittens by itself I just called it Jenna yeah it was 45 seconds long and I think I even in the caption was just like tutorial coming next week but little did I know like the viral potential that YouTube it was kind of

YouTube back then was a little bit like tick-tock now where you just if you posted stuff every 20 it might go viral and viral would be a million views and that was actually it's it's oversaturated now there's been a lot of inflation but um back then a million views was like a lot of huge and you could get a hundred thousand subscribers for that it was like a crazy conversion rate people were just signing up for the site and uh it was on the news and the video my parents called me and i had been asleep because I I stayed up all night to Make it to edit that video and I just posted it skipped my classes and went to sleep My parents were like you were on good morning America. They just blow and

Had no clue and they're like do they pay you for that? I was like no And so it was just thrown into that whole world and it wasn't there was a few people ahead of me doing it The first wave of YouTube creators whether it was I mean i remember early days where it was smosh i justine freddie wong justine was crushing yeah yeah incredible creators who were well beyond like they paved the way for figuring out what this looks like and um it kind of started gleaning from them and like figuring out like oh so i should post every, every week, I guess every Friday. And so that was my schedule throughout all of colleges. Let's do tutorials during the week. And then Friday and over time,

by that second, third year, it turned from, the tutorials are kind of like people are now confused. Cause there's like a million, there's a half a million people here watching for the short films. And every time I posted your tutorial, they're unsubscribing or they're just like, what is this? So it evolved pretty quickly and then by the time I was graduating film school, you know, my peers,

that's I think another time I had a little bit of question or self-doubt where it's, hey, 95% of my peers are going to go into Hollywood and do PA work. They're going to be screenwriters. They're going to work their way up for 15 years and become directors. I might get left behind here because I'm doing this weird thing where my parents were really supportive and they actually called it out. They're like, hey, this is unique.

Just go with it. See what is a year or two of failing on this YouTube site and just try it out. And also they're like, your living is cheap. It's like 400 bucks a month in LA. Just go do it. Who pays 400 bucks a month in LA. Like just go do it. And- Who pays 400 bucks a month in LA? Orange County, Orange County, it's over the line. So I ended up committing to like, I'm gonna do YouTube. I'm gonna go hard and- Go for a year or two, see how it goes. Yeah, see and then I hopefully can catch up

to where my friends are and who were out ahead of me in LA. And I continued to do that and slowly it turned into, I had been exposed, barely exposed to a brand deal and did a few of those. And I was like, I can't even do these. Like I need to hire people to help me. So slowly hired on staff and then Vine took off and that was a different beast. I remember my YouTube channel went from half a million subscribers to a million pretty much in like three months. And Vine had gone to two million followers in just a couple, in about

less than a year. So it was a different level of exposure. And you could feel it too when, there'd be like one person a week who'd come up to me in the store from YouTube. But once Vine happened, it was like everybody in the store from youtube but once vine happened it was like everybody in the checkout lady it'd be everybody and uh she became like famous in like a month but vine was the even it's kind of compared to tiktok i think a little bit but it's hard to know where they know me from at this point right um but but vine was the overnight you could feel the difference in person and that was you go a store, you walk down the street and somebody's like, oh. Yeah, that was a weird experience.

How did you not let that get to your head? Or did it get to your head for a while and you had to learn how to humble yourself in a way? Well, I'm naturally an introvert. I love being by myself. So it's really uncomfortable. Not anymore, but in the beginning when people come up, like, I don't know how to have conversation. Like, I edit by myself for 12 hours a day. I work through the night and I had a girlfriend

at that time who ended up, I became engaged and we got married, but she went through that whole journey and she'd be the person who talked. She's like so bubbly and she loves talking to people. That's her, she loves figuring out like, what are, who's in the room and what are their needs and like, let's talk about it. And so she was like whenever i had her i was comfortable it was like hey this is rachel like carry on the conversation here i'll take a photo of you guys

talking yeah so um yeah it was it was different and i think it's it's funny when you can see that uh where you you mentioned the beginning the relevance went down or people, it kind of went to, felt like I wasn't around posting stuff. After Vine went away, right? That just went to show the power that Vine, it was just a different level. And you see it rise again with TikTok. It was actually like less people did recognize me on Vine after years had died, died years ago. And TikTok came around and people would start, you notice when the title changes they're like first you're the viner then you're the ex-fighter and now you're the now it's like some kids only know me from tick tock it's weird yeah man did you have a period where you were like feeling less relevant and you felt insecure about that um i mean you i would

not insecure from uh in my soul but insecure from a business perspective, wondering, Ooh, was I over leveraged in vine? And now will you, will advertisers really come for YouTube brand sponsorships or, or for the main revenues that we support the business? Uh, that's where I always questioned it. And that goes a little bit in line with my questioning the business, uh, skills that i've developed over the years it's like oh yeah you can't be over leveraged in one thing um diversifying more yeah yeah and it turns out that fear wasn't um even valid it there was a lot more i think as people filmmakers especially build for photographers build their brands online it you should go hard in

these these apps you know it should leverage it should go hard in these apps. Should leverage it. Absolutely. Go all in. If TikTok is working for you, go all in on one thing. Absolutely. And then try to diversify later, right? Diversify as you go if you can.

But if you're really thinking of diversification from the beginning, you're going to have less focus on that one thing. And I told one of my buddies early on, like go hard on TikTok and he has a couple million followers now. But you know, a lot of my other friends who I said the same thing to, they were like, well, as I'm building this, I got to also do a podcast and I got to do, and they ended up doing the kind of half fast in the podcast and like half fast with everything. Yeah. And then they never grew on TikTok cause they didn't to also, you need to learn the culture of TikTok and how to speak the language or see what's trending. And really, is it too late to hop on that? Or is it funny?

And does it fit? Do I jive with that? And can it feel in my style as well? So. What's your vision of TikTok moving forward? If someone's listening or watching, should they go on TikTok now all in if they're a creator, if they want to create content, or is it too late? I would be so overwhelmed if they're a creator or if they want to create content or is it too late? I would be so overwhelmed if I was a creator starting now. I'm so thankful that I was able to start what I did when there was, you know, it's kind of like going in real estate. You're one of the first ones there and you can build bigger property and kind of, and

then along the way, I think TikTok is still, if you look at it from a big picture, there's massive exposure you can get. I still have friends who, my sister posted a video the other day and it was her graduating and it got a couple hundred thousand, not because I never, my audience doesn't know she has an account. It's not from me.

It's just the algorithm is so powerful. If it's funny or good or hits with people, it works. So over all the platforms, TikTok still is giving the best exposure you got to go there also you got to instagram reels brand new feature you know they're going to be giving like probably 70 of their real estate for that explore page to reel so jump on that yeah but it's youtube is the scary one like i don't know where i would start like so hard man yeah we're just consistent we're finally starting to really grow now i think we're like 700 something thousand subscribers and i think we had three and a half million views this

month in terms of like but we have an hour long content around a half long content and so it doesn't go as viral and some stuff but we finally started to figure out a process and a system where it's now growing at a nice rate but it's like i've been on there for years doing it but the thing that you're doing and i and i was i love it and i'm there for years doing it but you're doing and I and I was I love it and I'm telling people a similar thing like you're coming from a place of giving yeah like you're giving you get like it's you're called a school of greatness for a reason like people could literally get an education mm-hmm watching your stuff and that's so valuable it's in-depth and

I always felt like that's the place I would start is going back to almost my how to yeah how to like teaching a niche and in really giving value and for free and then you can people and I did I paid through film school by selling my like DVD courses I was manufacturing these two disc things that were eight hours long on top of my it wasn't I wasn't packaging like by YouTube tutorials I was making like new training and selling it every quarter. Final Cut Pro trainings? Yeah, different motion graphics softwares or different special effects packs.

It was a great business. And that was going to be my fallback. If YouTube failed, I was going to go back to that because that was working great. And it's just, but providing value was the simplest business model for it. And that still works. Still works.

Creating content that helps someone solve a problem. We have a very similar story in the fact that I got started in 2008, 2009, and 10. Yep. Broke as a joke. I was playing professional football, making 250 bucks a week, so it wasn't really professional

in the sense of making a lot of money. Got injured, had to kind of recreate my identity, and I got on LinkedIn to try to find a job. And I started spending all this time on LinkedIn, and after six months, people were like, "'Hey, can you show me what you're doing on LinkedIn?' And so by me learning a skill, I started teaching people one-on-one,

kind of like with you, teaching one-on-one. Then I ended up creating a book and course around LinkedIn, and I started making money around it. I was like, wow, this is amazing. And I went all in on that, become known for that one thing of just trying to help people. And then I evolved it into, well, what do I really want to create? I want to do more inspirational stuff. But that's what got me started. Just like teaching got you started. You created a course. Yep. And I think that's where a lot of people kind of take a misstep is when they're creating their accounts. I see I Have a lot of friends either trying to break into it and they go too big

They try to broad they try to hit everybody and doing that it obviously hits nobody or very few people and so the niche I mean you were literally teaching LinkedIn. Yeah, it wasn't social media. Yeah. No you like it was one go more narrow Especially now and then and then you'll figure out from your audience like that mix of what you love doing and then it'll naturally be coming out in the comments they'll be like linkedin what about pinterest i really need to trend on ceo seo on pinterest like and then you if you love it you start all that like yeah the people that are working on tiktok that i'm inspired by they're teaching something specific they're not teaching photography they're teaching like iphone photography like what are the hidden things on your iPhone to make your photos better?

Not like here's how to be a great photographer. The more specific you can go on, specifically TikTok or any platform, the bigger you can grow. And I think that's important for people to know, especially starting out. I love that you started teaching, then you started creating,

and then that became your business model. You also are, I guess not known for, but we have a similar story in the fact that my dad had seven exchange students live with us when I was a kid. So from five years old to about 12, we had seven people from around the world come and live with us. So we kind of fostered part-time, six months at a time.

Was that all at once or over the years? Over the years. Yeah, like every every year would be like a new exchange student yeah who was like their senior year coming in small town ohio and so i learned about culture from people from brazil and japan and germany and france and i would learn the language and experience it and you started uh getting into the foster care movement years ago, but you haven't adopted. Are you fostered first and then you adopted? Yep. So my wife was a social worker and she was working a desk job at a social work, at an

agency where they place foster kids and they do adopted kids too. Sometimes that means kids are on straight track to adoption or they need to go through the foster care system and then figure out if they're going home or if they're going to be adopted and as she was doing that desk job this is right around the time vine was kicking up for me too so um we weren't we early on in marriage we were traveling everywhere together and then she had her job and um you know she felt like while she enjoyed helping get kids play she wasn't really in the field. She wanted to hands-on.

She was a feeling. And she wanted to be a mother. And so she wanted to feel like she was hands-on. We had just moved into a new home at the time. And to us, it had an extra room. And we were like, oh, this is too much for us. At one point, I had all my Legos in there. Because I'm a

massive lego like fan it's almost embarrassing how many legos i have and i won't let my kids touch them to to this day it's like if they're on the shelf like don't touch you can play with these ones but you know already broken um but i had all my legos in there and it just felt like i don't think i need that and we're like we could clear it out and and she could quit her job and then end up doing foster care we could try it out. And she could quit her job and then end up doing foster care. We could try it out. We'll have one kiddo. She came from a family that was adopted.

She was the only biological kid. There was two adopted kids. And I had my youngest sister was adopted into my family. From China, right? From China. So we both had that experience of having siblings that were adopted. And we knew early on in dating, we knew and talked about it like, hey, because I wanted to marry a girl that was gonna do adoption and be open to that and she was likewise with her spouse so we connected on that and this felt like you know you're in the

marriage a great way to figure out if we could do foster care I didn't know what that was I thought it was me what 24 25 20 was, yeah, I think 24. You're still a kid in some ways. I'm still a kid. Really, my business was just picking up. I was just growing a team. And a lot of people would just think, oh, you're too busy. Do it later in your life.

But for us, it was really a strong tug on our hearts. It felt like a mission that we needed to do. And we opened up that room. We had our first kiddo and it was a baby. We signed up for zero to two. So you can pick ages. Wow. You can do, and it sounds a little strange, but you do go through an application of like during this first, you know, next placement, do you want zero to two? Do you want two to five or, and it's really based on what you think you can handle. So me and Rachel felt really guilty saying, I don't think we can handle, like we couldn't take on a mentally handicapped kid. I haven't been trained in that. Maybe in the future I could, but it takes extra care, probably not only just a full-time parent, but maybe a little

bit more support. And so you go through an application process and you go through training and then literally the day you get signed up and it's free to sign up, you you get signed up and it's it's free to sign up but you get a call and it's like hey you want to take in uh you know there's the baby here's their story here's a little bit of like how long we think they're going to be with you and if it's going to go adoption or if it's going to go back to they have like little pulses on the story and um you either say yeah i'm open i can come drop off or I'll pick up that day. So we got a call four days before we finished the application. Like that's how much they need. To come pick up right then.

Yeah, baby. It had been in the NICU, but we went to go pick them up and had our first baby for six months. And so overnight. Within a week. Yeah, the process was six months to get certified but like within four days of us finishing it was like four days before they were like we already know who you're gonna have because they they have so many kiddos that they're gonna they have to put in homes and so

we became parents overnight and it was we had a lot of friends tell us like oh so you didn't you didn't have biological like this is your first kid and it was like we didn't have that nine month window of like anticipation and going to the hospital and birthing and being taught how to do it it's just you're an instant dad instant dad there's a great movie um instant family that um with mark walberg that shows it's it's lighthearted so because foster care is such a serious thing it can be really heavy um that's a great film i recommend to people to watch and just get a sense of what is involved. And their story is kind of intense

because they had, I think, three kiddos at once, siblings. Wow. So what is being a foster? So you fostered one child and then you then adopted? Fostered one kiddo and then they went home. Our first kiddo went home to their family. What is that like? I've had so many friends with different experiences of it.

There's a whole range of them. For us, it's obviously terribly, on one hand, bitter because you have raised this kid for six months, and you're taking on the responsibility of parenthood. We're calling ourselves mom and dad for their attachment. We don't want to be like a babysitteritter and they're getting half love or holding back love because they're getting the full like as if they are a child and for that period they are a child um our love and so it's it's heartbreaking to give back but at the same time their story was

um really amazing i was really i was so proud of their family because you know if if they someone has kids in the foster care system Most likely their parents have been in the foster care system and it goes down generations Just because it's a rut that you know, it's it's hard not to have judgment But when I was before I was educated about foster care, I had a lot of judgment I was like, why can't you just kind of fix yourself and take care of these kids? Yeah, and like these are they're humans and and you're not taking but they just weren't trained like it's not to uh to give them too many outs but they but this family went through the training they did i mean it's hard work to get

back on course from where their life was and so we were celebrating them that's and that's that's the goal like you want to be celebrating the birth parents the whole time it's it's not easy to the whole the whole process because there's just decisions that are made that you're like why did you do this yeah like you were so close and now we had to go another six months and and your kiddo needs to be with you like you're your bio parent um that's probably what's best for them but along the way it's just like you have so much grace for yourself but also just the. Yeah. Because it's not easy for the parents to actually get there. There's a lot of work they have to do to get their kiddos back. And so our second kiddo joined the family.

And we ended up, it just the story turned where he joined our family. And we were just so, we were thrilled. Like he was our son for the first two years that we had him. And the fact that he got to join our family was like Forever son like so cool. How old was he when you joined? So he was two when he was adopted Okay, and what's his name Mason and what is Mason taught you about being a better creator? The kids are the most creative things in the world being a dad

It's changed my eyes and and actually Things in the world being a dad It's changed my eyes and and actually Re-inspired a lot. I think you can see it in my work when you see if you were to go back and see when my kids were somewhere around the age of one and a half or two So just about a year and a half ago I can track back that my work was more inspired that the ideas were slightly better Because you know, I was on the ground with my kids. I'm every day on the ground when I get home at five

looking at grass, looking for bugs, looking for ants, whatever that new thing is that week. Looking for toads was our whole winter experience. There was a pond near us that looks like thousands of toads and we'd catch them and to them they were these scary, we had these stories going and that's so fun. And kids, you can see their innocence and you can see that it's really in the best creatives,

there's no no yet. They haven't been told no. And I catch myself, I'm like, no, you can't cross the road. And instead of explaining like, well, you can do anything, but here's why it's not safe to cross the road. It's a yes and mentality. Yeah, but I'm always yelling, no, like no, no, don't. Why do you have to touch the coffee thing?

Like why did you spill this morning we made espresso? Both my kids by the age of one and a half have learned how to make me a full espresso. Besides putting the thing in and like turning it with the force that it needs, they can make it and hit all the buttons and grind it and everything. That's cool. And that's our ritual in the morning. But he just this morning i'm like no like why did you bang it on that thing it's like you know the pros and really it's um i'm catching myself so i i don't want to be the no person i want to be the expansive and teach them sure there's boundaries of life that

you can that you need to be safe for your own physical well-being but other than that like anything should be possible for the kids as as long as other than that, like anything should be possible for the kids as long as possible. I wanna be there cheering them on and saying, yes, and how do we do that even better? Do they watch your videos? What do they think of your work? I, so I did a magic trick for them.

Just a simple coin trick early on. I think they were like a year and a half or maybe two years old. And they started crying. It was too much to handle. It it was like where did it go and well i pulled it out of their ear after you know it's a classic like it's almost doing like i've done this one to them where i pull off their nose they're scared they're scared so i i stopped doing it for a little bit they've seen a few of my videos when when they're in um because mason's old enough to know what a camera is and he actually enjoys filming and taking photos but um i do show

them the videos that they're in once in a while um because it'll like the camping video um just so that they can full circle know what we were doing if they remember like oh that's why we were on the mountain that day like oh we made a video cool that's cool but they have no idea the followers and i i don't know what raising kids in a monk's fame will look like. So I'm going to have to meet mentors that, you know, have done that successfully and then take from them. How old are they now? Three and a half and two and a half. Wow. Yeah. So they fully don't understand it yet. You know, what's weird is, and we've stopped putting them in videos because of this, people would come up to take pictures with them. Like they would, I wouldn't be around. They'd see

them in a store We had one just a couple months ago a kid came around in Target and it was like Mason and I was on the other edge of the they didn't see me another kid Yeah, another kid in their family and the dad recognized him too He's like and they're also probably like why is he alone? But I was on the edge of the aisle and I could see him but they're like, oh my gosh, it's Mason Let's get a photo and I was like one I was like hello like other parent aisle and I could see him. But they're like, oh my gosh, it's Mason. Let's get a photo. And I was like, one, I was like, hello, like other parent.

You should know like to, that's weird. Because the kid's like three and a half. But it made us like, oh, they're going to have, they know, they're aware of like people coming up to me and taking photos. Now people are asking them. So we're figuring that out. We're navigating. We've kind of gone the opposite of like, we're going to take most, unless it's such a cool concept and they're going to watch us when they're older and just be proud of it. We've kind of gone the opposite of like, we're gonna take most, unless it's such a cool concept

and they're gonna watch us when they're older and just be proud of it, we're pretty much taking them out for a while until they can make the decision and we can guide them through what that looks like. Do you really wanna be in a video? This could be some consequences long term. Sure.

The video you did where it was on the mountain, it was kind of like seeing the back of them, so you weren't really seeing too much, which is pretty cool. When, what advice would you have to creators who are young creators that want to make a career out of this or want to try to make money out of this? Should they focus on early on how to learn about business or should they just focus on their craft and making great art? It's focused on the part that they love the most. So it's not necessarily what they're going to be good at the most because they can hone

it. So for me, I'm not like I have people around me who can help me with the business. If I really wanted to, I could hire a firm and they could I could plug and play with them really easily. Like there's a lot of ways to find the thing that you're not good at and it'll complement you even better, make you stronger. So I would focus on the craft, focus on the thing that you're not good at. And it'll compliment you even better, make you stronger. So I would focus on the craft, focus on the thing. It could be business,

but probably the people joining social media do have a knack for filmmaking or creating video. And then showcasing what they're doing with that. What's the mistake you see a lot of creators making, especially right now, whether it be on TikTok or YouTube or any platform? I mean, the really common one is people joining just to get famous or just to make money

or they know it's the cool popular thing to do. Those are too shallow and those won't take you very far. And they'll lead you making decisions that like, it's tough because when I make a video, I know the things that could make it even better, but sometimes it's compromising things that are already part of who I am or what my brand stands for. Or it's jumping on a trend that just doesn't feel right, but it's so popular.

It's like I should do that one. I don't know. Give an example. What's a recent thing that here's a trend I could have done, but I decided to go a different way because it was not aligned to my brand? go a different way because it was not aligned to my brand um yeah so there's uh there's one where a gal and she's incredibly talented with um her face movements and it's bella porch and she did one of those like bum yeah yeah and so it's got this i love the creativity of it it's amazing and you know i'm thinking maybe there's a version that i could do it's the most watched video on tiktok right now right and so when on tiktok you, if you use the sound and it's, it's a double whammy because it's a great, it's a

popular sound. So that'll trend. But then there's the hashtag, there's her, if you take her account, there's just the fact that it's a, it's an effect, it's a face zoom. And so all these things are compounds. Yeah. It's compounding and it's like, I need to do that, but I would be forcing myself to do it just for the sake of a trend versus there's not a great, at least we haven't written one yet, a great magic trick in our version of surprise and wonder that would pop out of there. Now there could be, we could sit and really force it, but.

I think you did a great one similar to this with, who's the singer? Oh, Selena Gomez, yes. Yeah, yeah, you did something like that where you did like a magazine and then she was there. But that wasn't, yeah, and that was great but because it wasn't a trend. It was just like a natural idea.

So we were just talking about, I think we had seen her on the cover of a variety magazine. It was like, oh, we should work with Selena. You know what would be funny? If I was a hairdresser and just this girl came in and she was like, I want this look. And we were like, oh, we'll just put it over her face and it would transform. That's kind of a natural, like, that works. But forcing it into a trend is the thing that can get us way more views.

But if it doesn't feel right over time, if we do it 20 times, the brand will feel different. It'll feel like- It'll be a trend chaser. Yeah. As opposed to an originator. Yeah. And that's, we're not,

our goal isn't even to originate trends. It's just to put out some fresh ideas. And it's really's, we're not, our goal isn't even to originate trends. It's just to like put out some fresh ideas. And it's really for other, you know, our thing is if people are scrolling through the feed and they get a dose of 15 seconds of like magic that takes them back, you know, whether they're an adult takes them back to like, oh, I like that feeling of seeing a magic show and that like anything's possible. And they take that somehow into their work that week or what they're doing. Like, that's's awesome if they're just surprised for three seconds yeah and take them out of their routine of just going through the feed and yeah go ahead and say for kids like for the first time

if they're seeing magic or they're seeing this wonder that inspires them to maybe go make films you know we get sent clips all the times of kids who try these i have a simple one it's like a jump cut and it's the one where you keep the camera on tripod and i go like and then i freeze and my friends bring uh you know another t-shirt and i throw it off and it's like you cut out the middle section and then there's your jump cut yeah and we get so many videos from kids and families that like make these together that's the fun part it's like if that inspires them to to go from being a consumer of the content to being a creator of it that's the goal because i i i don't use social media myself um but i i do get caught in whenever a new you don't use social media yourself i don't use it for there's it's too addicting for me yeah and so i've just gone off and also i just don't text message is so

practical like that's all i need is just to ping my friend and say like are you coming or whatever like coordinate i don't need i don't need to post a picture of my family or what i'm doing to um and maybe part of that is just like the numbers don't mean they used to mean something to me like it would have a buzz to get a thousand likes on a facebook post or whatever but maybe maybe it's hitting when you hit a million it's just like it's that one to seven million range it It's numb. It's numb. Yeah. Well, you just realize that it's kind of, it's just so surface level. Yeah. But I don't use social and, but TikTok is one where like, I can see how addictive it is. I can, I can be lost for hours. I can continue to scroll. And so the goal is like, let's put something a little edifying in that feed

for people and, and pull them out of it just for a second yeah i mean that that trend i don't know if it's a trend or just a style of like the jump cut with the shirt and clothes i feel like so many people do that now on tiktok yeah that's something you were doing many many years ago no i started that on vine that was a that was a natural like when vine i love creative constraints and that was one of the best things vine gave me was at the time i could make youtube videos that went for two hours long or whatever and i was never gonna do that but when an app came around and said hey it's six seconds like you're literally can't go over that that was actually freeing it was like i need to consolidate what i'm gonna do i went back to my magic roots as a kid and i was like oh i always loved how magicians would do this

disappearing act but i never understood the story so let's just like beef up the story a little bit kind of copy some of these same ideas of trick techniques and put it In six seconds and slowly, you know, you learn Oh well needs to be funnier needs to have a better beginning set up to get the ending and you build that story arc even in six seconds What do you think is missing from your life? You've got one of the biggest creators in the world some of the you know 80 million subscribers on all platforms billions of views well the the biggest thing that i crave is time alone to to really think whether it whether it's

coming back to like figuring out that longer term story. What like finding those moments, you know, I do have my writing time in there, but really to simmer on something, which is what, when I was on YouTube and Vine came around, it was a simmering moment. It was like, I'm not doing anything. Like I have, when you have free time, it's like, I might as well try this Vine app.

And even with TikTok, like we were just doing YouTube, but it was like, we should try TikTok. We were in that moment of simmering. And so it's the simmering period when you- You don't have that time. No, and it's a cause of wanting to do too much or we just, for the most of the year, didn't have any work and now we need to make up for it.

Now you have tons of opportunities. And so the simmering time is gone. It kind of comes out of a time of, I think you've talked about this before. It's a post-season rest from creating. We're creating all the time, every week, weekly, different pieces of content. You never stop.

It's not, even I think music artists can take breaks after their tour before they go into the label for the next recording. At least that's what it looks like from my perspective. It's probably not true. They're probably also creating all the time. But creating is you need a break. And that's what I kind of call that simmering time where you do nothing.

And you're not having to think of, you know, when I post my next video tomorrow, I'll then go into thinking about the next video. But I don't get a break. And so that's what I'm missing. How strategic are you in planning out the next week's months of content? Do you have stuff filmed that's already banked for a month? Is it week by week we're coming up with new ideas?

What's that process like? Some ideas are, we leave space for a trend. There was actually one going on this week. It was, it's kind of a silly one. I don't know if it's gonna hit, it's just a a photo shoot with a ghost and um what people do is put a sheet over their head and put glasses on and we're doing a ghost is just so obvious for us like oh it's it's how you disappear so um we keep time for like a quick trend like that each week like we'll have a half day open for a shoot um the rest of it's

really pre-planned for a couple weeks ahead um or like we have most our shoots for the rest of the year planned just because they're kind of bigger they're like we need to build a set productions yeah like right now we're like can we take can we build a set in probably not antarctica but that's like the dream um because you i won't say that yet, because someone will, it's a good one. But, you know, can we, for big stuff, whether it's like the David Blaine project, you just need months to prep that. But usually we're like two weeks out and in the can ready to go.

Two weeks ahead, you've already recorded. Two weeks ahead, yeah. We've got content for two weeks. For two weeks and then, but it's always scary. Like if you don't, if you're up to that point, it's like you're working, it's so frustrating working that week for the next week's thing. Same thing with a podcast.

We have three episodes a week come out. So we're always trying to get ahead to keep feeding the beast of like three times a week. But when you have a month ahead, it's like, okay, the producer's happy. The team's happy. We're less stressed. But what about when you do the trend stuff and you said like a half day shoot. If you see a trend and you're like, okay, we have a half day window to shoot something,

do you just make it up on the spot? Because some of this stuff takes like time and production and props to, what's the quickest you can make a video in that actually has the magic element? We could do it in a half day if we have kind of all hands on deck, and we think of, an example is,

there was a trend that came out like a year ago called the the bottle cap challenge and i don't know how it's i still don't know how it started but i saw a video of jason statham that was the first one i saw slow motion kicking it kick it off and did you do one of those i was wanting to but i wasn't cool it was like too late it was too late oh bummer and when is it too late to get on a trend well it depends on the trend like some trends are technically, they go for a couple months. Months, months, really? But that one, like that one had a little bit of longevity.

Yeah. I remember seeing one with a guy who like used like his hand with like a sock over it and like took it off. There were so many clever ones. Puppet stuff, yeah. That's when we get the hunch

that it'll be a trend. When you start seeing people take really clever twists and it just gives you a ton of ideas and you're like okay we'll skip most of those because people are going to do those like what's the one most people aren't going to be able to do which is you know we do a lot of stuff that is very difficult to do um it takes time so people kind of will never do those ones what was that one like what'd you do so the bottle cap challenge i was like well what if you know I think we saw similar like oh there

They're kicking it with their feet, but it's really their hand But what if when I kick it off I kick it off with my it is my feet But I'm really small in perspective and then when the cat flies off I fall into the bottom We're seeing this kind of drowning and then I have a friend pick it up the cameraman and drop it and you follow water Goes everywhere. I remember seeing this. Yeah, like that video we talked about in the morning It was just like hey the water bottle or the bottle cap challenge is happening. We got to do something. We start filming. And the key for us is to get into blocking. You can be in your head so much when you're writing an idea. And especially if you have even just four people in a room, everyone has a slightly different version or a different idea of that, what it should be. And unless you're with a camera and like acting it out and blocking it you're not really there's a point where you don't get anywhere and so it's the idea isn't sharpening so we just jump outside and that's our go-to practice it our phrase is like let's get into blocking let's move from like the

table to like doing it because we're going to get nowhere kind of write it on the fly almost and so we we block it and um i remember that the one that i'll never forget that video because we had a kombucha drink that was just in the fridge and we're like let's throw it in and a kid comes at one of our team members is like well you know what would make this even better is like gt's kombucha was just training uh trending last week for this video that cody co did and that's the true kombucha like we should get that because people will talk about that more than even this trend which ended up being the the case. So you went and bought a bottle. He went to the store.

We put GT Dave's in and it was last minute. Like he barely got it in there. We shot the thing. We posted it that night or the next morning. And then GT Dave called us and was like, hey, one, we're sending you like a like we're we're stocking your studio fridges with kombucha. But also that was like super cool. Thank you. Let's do something in the future.

But those videos, you know, they happen fast. It's like we get all hands on. If we have all of us doing it, we can get it done in two days. It's almost like you need a business sponsorship salesperson who's with you, who's like calling the owner of the brand saying, we're about to do this video. Do you want us to keep the label in or take the label out? And here's the rate. Yeah. It's something like. We're about to call this video. Do you want us to keep the label in or take the label out? And here's the rate.

It's something like- We're about to call this other beverage company. Exactly. We've done that in the past and we've talked about that. It's actually a little un- It's unorganic. It's unorganic. Well, no, it's not organic.

It can be organic. That one was super, a lot of people saw it. My friends called me and were like, how much did you get paid for that? And I was like, oh, it wasn't an ad. But it was so front and center, like it should have been an ad. But the internet moves too quick for brand deals to get made on the fly.

That needs, there does need to be an agency that does that. Like they have it ready to go. Like they're just waiting for the trend to happen and they have a client, they just need the connection. And the contract's already in place. That's the problem is by the time you do that and then you get other i love brand deals because they pay the bills but you also need to meet their like well you need to say it this way you need to put the bottle here and you just get more you know sometimes you get on a call and

there's 10 other creatives from their team oh my gosh giving the ideas and you're like get out of here it just slows down the process yeah And it can taint the idea from, especially those trends. They need to be like your fresh idea untainted. If brands understood that they need to trust the creator and just say, we trust you, make it great, do your best and have like one stipulation or something, you could probably create a much better video.

Those are always the best videos. I mean, I had Coca-Cola approach me years ago. It was one of my first brand deals. And they're like, what do you want to do? Like, what can we help you do with finances that you can't do now? And I was like, fly. Like, I've always wanted to hire the Ironman stunt team and fly. And you know what?

We'll just say Coca-Cola made me fly by putting Coke on my feet and shaking it and like opening it. Or a Coke and Mentos thing. And then like upside down and flying. And they were like, sweet, we'll hire the stunt team and we'll pay you. And so that is the best, and that video has been seen over a billion times on various platforms, it's been copied everywhere.

And you're right, it's genius, because they just need to say, like here's what you're great at doing, we're gonna provide finances to go next step, the direction you wanna go and that and that's kind of to it but it is limiting to like the amount of brands that you can work with because that level of budget is they need to be just for general awareness it can't be like a call to action no link in bio to sign up for whatever brand awareness what's the biggest lesson your wife's taught you about being a better creator? She's taught me a lot of lessons.

And she's probably going back to your question about how you stay humble during a rise of fame. Like that's the only thing I can attribute to, you know, her keeping me grounded and family and friends. And she's taught me so many things, but one is really just to not go numb to the journey. There's a lot of things, whether you're traveling and you're used to speaking to her or whatever meet and greets,

and you've probably done the meet and greets where you do 300 people in two hours, and it's like, by the end, you're a robot. You're saying the same things, and then you catch yourself when you say the thing and they didn't even ask you that question, and she's taught me to really be present, like every person that that's meeting you has a need they want to they probably want to they they obviously think they're your friend but it's

really your moment to like talk to them about them whether it's 30 seconds or a minute like be present don't go to the robot version of meet and greet Zach. She seems very emotionally intelligent. She is. She takes, yeah, I have none. So she has to be over capacity. Where do you think you'd be without her? Or if you were a creator who was more single in the last seven years?

I'd probably be doing a lot of the same stuff, but family life would feel very empty. I don't think I would be, she's pushed me to challenge. Like she's kind of the voice of like, hey, we have an extra room. Like, what are we doing? Like we could be doing more.

She's the push of that, you know, where I get pretty content with like, oh, work's good. I'd probably be somewhere like work's going well. I'm just grinding still, single, Zach, if I hadn't met her. But she continues to push to the deeper purpose of life in the areas of it's great to be famous. She's shown a question like, what are you doing with it?

Whether it's the one-on-one interactions or when you're speaking or being more present with people, what are you doing with that? Yeah, the impact you're making with it. What do you want people to really think about you, about your work? When they see your work, what do you want them to think about? I want them to be taken back to that spot. Like I have a vivid memory of as a kid going,

I was visiting Boston and just going about life, but kind of uninspired for a little bit of time and seeing a guy, it was the goofiest costume, but he had a hat on. And he was obviously just ducked like this, but his hat was floating. It looked like he had no face. And it was like the invisible man. And I was just mesmerized. And he was doing magic too, like without looking.

Or he had no head. It looked like an invisible guy doing magic. And I remember getting that dose of inspiration. And so when people watch my work, that is the number one goal, is that they feel inspired and hopefully take it into whatever they're doing. It can be a business person watching it and they go, oh. It's like a perspective shift, which is funny because we do a lot of forced perspective stuff, which is kind of on the nose.

But it is that looking at the world differently and taking a new path that next day you know that's hopefully people can find and tap into their you know I it's like the ratatouille everyone can cook like I really think everyone has a creative bone in their body it's just how much they've used that muscle and how much they've tapped it and trained it. And also following that curiosity to go actually execute an idea based off of what you may have a question about. I've always been fascinated by artists because I never was good at art or painting or all these things.

So I just love watching it. I love appreciating it. And I'll dabble a little bit here and there just for myself. But I look at myself as an artist in the sports field or as an interviewing artist. It's like, how can I use creativity in a thing that I'm good at and make it art? Yeah. So whatever that is for you, like, bring your creativity out in the world. It doesn't have to be video making or art.

Yep. But you can make something art. Yeah. And I'm not an artist in the sense of i might paint i can't do storyboards for the life of me either like i try to sketch out my biggest problem is like if i could have one gift bestowed upon me by the muse it'd be like to make me a beautiful pencil artist and being able to at least draw a storyboard frame with the nose like looking the correct direction and um you know but i think to me people limit art and

artistry and say it applies to only painting or only filmmaking or writing but it's it's every craft can have an art to it i 100 agree and what is your biggest fear right before you launch a video is your biggest fear that it will fail and it won't do as well as you think, that it'll succeed beyond your wildest dreams and be the biggest thing ever, or that everyone will judge and criticize it? Failure, success, or judgment and criticism? Which one's strongest for you or you're afraid of the most? The biggest fear when I hit publish is that my last one, not as good, but is that the last, there was a period too where I really was believing that I'm going to be out of ideas. Like we're 2000 of these short videos in, really, is there any more than that? Like,

or are we just going to do more of the same thing and mix it up a little bit? And for me, when I post not much anymore, but you know, because I'm planned out for three weeks or four weeks, so I know there's more, but like it's in the writing room now. It's when we send it off to production and then I have to sit there with my team

and we're thinking of the next idea. There's always a little piece of, a moment of like, was there anything as good as that last one though? Because we just did like a banger and that was, we felt it as we made it. And then we might have just been drained. And that's where even longevity of the business, you think, how long can this go before I run out of ideas?

Yeah, if I'm not creating hits, is any brand going to want to pay me? And then I'm not going to pay my team and continue going. Yeah. Interesting. Is it a banger? It's almost like you need an idea person, just full time who can come up with ideas. I'm not gonna pay my team and continue going. Interesting. Is it a banger? It's almost like you need an idea person, just full time who can come up with ideas.

Yeah, we have a writing team and we are always coming up with ideas. But you can tell when the idea is good enough to, like we're raising the bar too, a little bit, not every time, but every couple months, we're slowly raising the bar. And it's, are we gonna And the new fear is kind of, can we continue to top it at this level? Or are we going backwards?

At the end of this, are we going to have to be building sets on Mars to be really impressing people? Right, right, right. Going into outer space, yeah. Hanging out with Elon Musk up there. Which would be cool, and I've got to put that on the bucket list then. Mars. Vine on Mars. Interesting. Which would be cool. And I got to put that on the bucket list then. Mars. Vine on Mars.

Interesting. That could be good. How can we support you the most right now? What's the thing that you're inspired by the most that you're doing? I'm most inspired by, really inspired by family life. By figuring that we're just about to open our home again to foster care. Wow.

Which is, we had a break once we had our biological son, Liam, because we were trying to figure out like, what is life with two kids while doing the rest of our life? And so we stabilized the aircraft there. And now it's, let's jump into foster care again, maybe. And two, by the end of this year, I can see us or next year going in with older kids. We haven't tried that. We haven't had, I want some more training in that first to figure out how to talk about what they're

going through with them um because it's it's a little easier with babies because they're not going to tell you all their issues you know um they'll give you a little warning sign with crying but like i don't know what it's like to talk to a four-year-old and explain why their parents they can't live with their parents yeah So I'm excited to develop what that, and we're trying to figure out our home situation. Like what would it look like to have a really safe sanctuary for our kids? Like is there a version of living on a farm

where you could have a bunch of rooms over time, learn to have a bigger capacity of kiddos? That's cool. Like I always loved movies like Cheaper by the Dozen. And I was always inspired. I have a family friend up in Oregon. That's cool. I always loved movies like Cheaper by the Dozen. And I was always inspired. I have a family friend up in Oregon. They have 10 kids.

That's a crazy amount of kids. And I don't want 10 kids right now. But I always loved the energy of it. I loved that there was older kids helping younger kids. And it was just a really fun vibe. And so for me, that would be the dream is figuring out, especially with my wife, how can we create a safe sanctuary where really, whether you're a teenage mom, maybe you're raising even a kid in our home

and we're helping teach that, or we have a baby or a bunch of kiddos, how do you make it safe for them and give that, like every kid deserves a safe childhood. It just feels wrong that it's possible that kids can't have that. And so is there a version of it's kind of like my creativity always goes to filmmaking and now i've lately been thinking

applying you know the even yes and is like the most basic thing we start in writing a new concept it's like we always start meeting one is yes and like let's blue sky it so doing that with family not just my entertainment business but it's what's our family yes and like how how how cool could this be how can you evolve it and for people that are listening or watching who might have a might be connected to what you're saying who've been thinking about fostering what recommendation you have for them or any resources they could look up uh look up an agency in your area. I think it's really helpful to not go directly with the government, but go through an agency because it'll help guide you and be a little bit of a filter to the process.

And, you know, for me and my wife, it's really simple. And we adore people like Mother Teresa, who really just saw an issue and helped. It wasn't like there wasn't a huge thought process. It wasn't like, let's really map this out for 18 years and what's this gonna look like and how is this gonna impact like? If you it's not as hard as people think it's really you you can give your your home space to a kiddo and if you're up for raising a kid at this point Mm-hmm

and If you have a year of time window that you can be open for, like. Because you can do it for six months, a year, a couple of years. Yeah. Right. You can, there's a bunch of options. How many foster kids are there in the USA? In the US, there's a, last that I read was, it's always a lag by a couple of years, but

over 600,000 foster kiddos in the US. I know LA has 30,000 and only 9,000 or 10,000 beds. And so the rest have to be in group homes or go to extra family or it's kind of messy. Yeah, a lot of kids that need some support. That's for sure. I want to ask this question.

We're getting towards the end here. This is called the three truths. Three truths. So I'd like you to imagine it's your last day on earth many, many years from now and you've accomplished all your dreams. You've got 30 kids in foster care you've got farms of kids you've got all the

films you've wanted to make like everything you've done it yeah and it comes down to the last day and for whatever reason you've got to take all of your creative work with you all of your videos got to go to the next place wherever that is so no one has access to this interview your books or any of your creative work yeah but you get to leave behind three lessons that you've learned from your life that you would share with us So all history me to the race and now I'm leaving the last podcast right the last three Yeah, the three things, you know to be true about life that you'd want to leave behind and share with other people three lessons So put yourself in that hypothetical situation yes what

would you say would be those three truths for you the three truths you have to be full of grace you got to be graceful to people I think everybody needs could use a little bit more grace even driving here was so mad at this one guy who just cut me off and I you know I was like you know what I don't know what his day is like but it's like he needs grace and he doesn't need my judgment like i'm okay so it's uh and maybe that needs to be one of them is judge less like i'm always if the one thing i'm lacking is like i'm constantly judging myself but also people yeah like it's so it's so easy to do and Like, it's so easy to do and just judge people less.

I think everyone, you have, it's even in the Bible, right? Like, get the log out of your own eye before you talk about the speck in somebody else's eye. The other one is, and this is the one I, like tell my kids, but, um, my wife's, uh, my mother-in-law, she always says, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. And I would say, invest in great people around you,

like, and try to pick up on that. Like you, you could probably ask yourself like who are the three best people that I, I should be around for as long as possible and, and soak up with them and just surround yourself. I think it makes a huge difference who you surround yourself with. Absolutely. That's a big personal growth saying you are the average of the five people you spend the most

time with. Yeah, that's good. Invest in people for sure. How can we connect to you online? What's the best place? TikTok? It's whatever your jam be if if you have any social media account we're probably there but just google my name and uh you can they're probably already following you there's 80 million people that follow you already so zach king everywhere right it's the same name everywhere yeah i would acknowledge you for a moment zach because you have had such an interesting life and the fact that you constantly show up for yourself. You show up and you just take the next step of creativity. You have an idea. Let me try this out and see if it works. And maybe some things work and they don't, but you keep moving forward. And I really want to acknowledge you for your heart because I

think it takes a special heart for someone who want to adopt foster and keep thinking about kids who don't have a quality family life and i know you grew up with a pretty quality family life and i think it takes a a great man to think that way and open your heart and truly want to help as many kids as possible so i really acknowledge you for that gift that you have just More so than the video work, which is amazing talent, but the gift to want to help young kids, I think is really inspiring. So I acknowledge you for that, man.

And I want to see you make a film in the next couple of years. I want to be at the premiere. Don't give me that pressure. Not in a couple of years. We'll say... The next 10 years.

10 years, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. No pressure, no pressure. But I want to see it happen. Whenever is right for you. So within 10 years. can you commit before 2030? We can, yeah, we can probably work on that. Okay, good, good, good.

I want to see the film, The Dark Side of Magic, or whatever you want to call it. We'll take the credit for that, but, you know, it's a good idea. And my final question for you is, what is your definition of greatness? Oh, definition of greatness. What is your definition of greatness? Oh, definition of greatness. To me, I look at the resilience of so many kiddos who've gone through hard lives. Teenagers, adults who've gone through trauma. Greatness is the resilience and coming back from that trauma and just going down the journey

of healing. It doesn't mean you get fully healed, but that you work, you're ambitious towards some sort of healing. Those are the people I look up to who I'm like, how did you come from this family life and turn out the way you did? It's just incredible, the resilience. So I think greatness is having an incredible capacity of that resilience. And have you, what's the thing you've had to heal the most in your life? You know, I think a lot of it is proving, I grew up in a family where it's very performance-based. And, you know, similar to your story where, you know, for me it was piano. And that was, when I look back at why I love film, when I was four years old watching Jurassic Park,

and I wanted to, when I was seven, I got my hands on the camera, I would play those films for my family. And just kind of recently, in the last couple years, I realized what I loved about showing that work to my family was the gratification of them saying, good job. Good job, the validation. I was earning, no, but I loved the craft.

There was like, I loved doing the the thing but then the extra special like moment the reason i gathered the family on friday night to play it on the big screen for us was at the very end when they would say good job or when it was like oh but you could work on this it was kind of like a bummer and i could you know i was only doing those premieres for the good job and that's a dangerous place to do your work for um for the praise of others because i think it'll lead down some very um uncreative places and just it's not going to be your best work either um and it also is not lasting like you can't sustain yourself over a career just always looking for when i post it people love it you know so the healing is learning. It's not about these surface level achievements.

It's about being over your life, a person who's putting good into the world in whatever way that looks like. Look like being a nurse can look like creating movies. But yeah. Zach King in the house. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. My friend, thank you so much for being here. And a big thank you to Zach King for the house. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for being here, man. Thanks for having me. My friend, thank you so much for being here. And a big thank you to Zach King for sharing his wisdom, opening his heart, and teaching us some practical things that we can do to become better creators and better human beings. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Make sure to tag Zach King over on Instagram or Twitter or YouTube or wherever you're listening to this and you share it out. Make sure to tag him when you share out stories on Instagram and all that other good stuff and

tag me as well to let me know that you're listening to this or watching this. Also, we'd love it if you click that subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts. When you do that, it truly helps spread the message to more people when you click subscribe and when you leave a review. We'd love to hear your feedback, thoughts of how this inspired you, helped you, and improved your life. So click the review button, leave a review, and click that subscribe button as well. If you want to continue to support me and the mission of spreading greatness to more people, that would be amazing.

And if you want inspirational quotes and messages from me every single week to your phone, then text me right now the word podcast to 614-350-3960. And I want to leave you with this quote from Charlie Chaplin, who said, you'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down. I'm telling you, if there's anything I can learn about this and Zach, I've been following his videos for years. The guy is always looking up. He's thinking, he's creative. He's always got some wonder and awe and thinking, how can I bring joy to people in this moment? Think about what you can do in this moment to bring joy to someone in your life and then go do it. I'm so grateful for you. And if no one has told you lately, you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.