The School of Greatness - 198 Create Massive Social Reach and Have Fun Doing It with iJustine

Episode Date: July 6, 2015

If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, videos, and more at http://lewishowes.com/198.

This is episode number 198 with internet celebrity, iJustine. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, 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. This is a very special episode.

We've got Justine Ezerek. I always forget how to pronounce her last name because she never says it. It's just iJustine for the interwebs. And for those that don't know who iJustine is, you've probably never been on social media. She's a producer, actress, host, technology expert, and one of the most subscribed to personalities on YouTube. That's right. She has been nominated for two Teen Choice Awards and four Streamy Awards and is the winner of the People's Voice Webby Award for Best Web Personality Host. She has been named one of The Hollywood Reporter's 50 Most Powerful Digital Players, was called

the Most Influential Person Online by Fast Company, and ranked number six on the Daily Beast 2012 Digital Power Index. She is a powerhouse. And what I love about Justine is her authenticity. She is unapologetic in her expression and who she is. And she allows herself the permission to be goofy

and silly and fun and creative and whatever she wants to be in the moment. And she has built up an incredibly large audience in the process. Very excited about this. And I hope you guys

are going to enjoy this. Make sure to come back to the show notes at lewishouse.com slash 198 because there's a little video of us doing the full interview. If you want to watch this video live, but also we do a little juggling competition and you'll be interested to see

who wins this juggling competition. So make sure to head back to lewishouse.com slash 198. But without further ado, let me dive into this with the one, the only, iJustine. Welcome, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. Very excited about today's guest. Her name is Justine Ezerick. And she's got a new book out called iJustine. It's a memoir about your life. It's very cool. And I want everyone to make sure they go pick up a copy. But I'm very excited you're here. Thank you. High five.

Yeah, high five. This is exciting. Very excited. We were talking before about how I met you, I think, four or five years ago through a daily booth meetup hang thing in New York City. And for four years, I've been trying to reach out to you to make this happen for the interview. And here we are. And for four years, I've been trying to reach out to you to make this happen. And here we are. We finally made it happen. This is crazy. And for those who don't know, I think we became friends on Facebook shortly after that, which you probably don't remember. I do remember that because I went through maybe like three years ago and deleted everyone that I didn't actually know or have ever met. Okay. So that's must have been intense. Yeah.

So you made the cut. That must have been intense. Yeah. So you made the cut. That must have been like a five-day process. Oh my God. No, it was like a four-month process. And then now, you know, anytime a birthday shows up and I'm like, I don't know you, you're gone. It's the birthday cue. Yeah.

It's great. When I delete a lot of people as well. It's amazing. I'm like, happy birthday. You're gone. I like that. And a lot of my friends have interviewed you. And I'm always like, I got to get Justine on someday to really talk about her story.

So I'm excited that we made it happen. I Facebook messaged you, I believe, like once or twice a year over the last three years to say, hey, let's get you on an interview. And then finally when her book came out, she responded. So I was like, perfect. Okay, cool. Well, I feel like I travel so much too. And it's like anytime I'm home, I don't ever want to do anything. I mean, you're doing it all yourself.

You're creating so much content yourself that it's like, why do it for someone else? Yeah. So I get it. Well, no, and it's fun too because I think doing this kind of stuff is very lonely. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. I mean, for YouTubers, we sit in our room by ourselves and talk to no one. To yourself. Yeah.

And essentially, I'll have conversations throughout the day with myself. And I'm like, oh, I got to go turn the camera on so that somebody else can hear that conversation. So it's really weird. Yeah. When you were a kid growing up, did you, uh, you know, talk to yourself or have like imagination? Yeah. I had so many friends. I had friends, I had animals, I had none of those. Well, I don't care. I had some friends and animals, but, um, I don't know. I definitely did have some imaginary friends. I think everybody did. Did you pray? I didn't really, I mean, I was just lonely and I just played with like a basketball and that was my friend, but I didn't like talk to anyone,

but it sounds like, did you like talk and like with Barbies and play and yeah, I was going to say they didn't really last for long in my house, but yeah, I definitely a lot of video games. Okay. And,

uh, I think I read somewhere in like fifth or sixth grade, you built your first website. I did. Okay did okay yeah why were you inspired to create a website then and how and you're in your late 20s oh yeah sure early 30s okay okay uh yes and that was a long time ago so back then you know there was nothing that like wordpress now or and there's other things too you just push a button you have a blog you have a website so. So then I was coding HTML myself and I didn't even know what the heck I was doing. You were using a modem probably a dial up. Oh yeah. And this was so early. It was like 90 something. I'm not sure. But, um, yeah. So one of my friends who's actually a good friend now,

he kicked me in sixth grade. He says this doesn't happen, but it impacted my entire life. And so he kicked me and I had no way to sort of get back at him. So I made a website about him. I wasn't bullying because I didn't post it anywhere. It was more just, man, I'm so upset. Like Steve, he kicked me. This is terrible. So I kind of just took that anger and sort of found a passion of something that I loved because I was like, wow, I had a really good time photoshopping Steve's face over top of like the devil. And I did all this stuff. And then I made the website. I was like, that was fun. Delete. And then I went and continued to make websites from there. So sixth grade. Sixth grade. When was the first website? Did you ever show him that

website? No, I told him about it many years later. So you just showed your imaginary friends. Well, no, I actually did show a real friend. Her name was Natalie. So she was there and she did witness it. Was she amazed at your creation? I don't think so. No. No, we were too young. So when was the first time you created a website that you actually published and you thought, I'm going to create something for a bigger reason than making fun of a friend who kicked me?

Yeah, I did a website. It was called Daily Random Photo. And we called it like DRP. Like, oh, what's Justine's DRP going to be today? And I would post a random photo every single day, all through like high school, all through college. And I coded that again, all HTML. Like, you know, the back buttons, the forward, each page had to link together. It was awful, but it was a lot of fun.

And it was high school. Yeah. So this is probably like all through high school. I did that you're like a child genius i don't know about child genius just you know i i knew enough to be dangerous sure for guys like me that took me you know until college to learn how to to type you know you're like a genius to me right yeah well i'll take that someone pity on me you needed to play mario teaches typing that's how i learned to type. Oh, really? Yeah, it's great. Great game. Oh, my gosh. I think there's like

a Flash game available now. Okay. So it sounds like you created the early Daily Booth before Daily Booth was there. You are right. I did. But the best part, man,

I love Daily Booth. The problem with it, it was way too early and Instagram came out with an app around the same time. If Daily Booth would have had an app,

I think they would have been. It wasn't an app. It was a website, right? It was a website. And you had to screenshot it from your whatever, your camera on your computer. It was it wasn't an app. It was a website, right? You had to like screenshot it from your, your whatever, your camera on your computer.

It was great. It was so much fun. The app would have crushed it. I guess that's kind of what like shots is now, right? It's like the, the selfie. There's so many things.

I got to draw the line somewhere. But do you, because I know you get pretty much started in almost every social networking site early on. Oh, I still have the app. I follow Justin Bieber on it. On Shots?

He was the one that told me to download it. I was like, all right. He told you personally? No. He told me on Twitter. I saw the tweet. You saw the tweet to 60 million people. You were one of the people to saw it.

But that's the thing with the internet is people think it's personal. So I mean, oh yeah, Justin Bieber told me to download it. No. That's just like a lot of the people that watch my videos. It's like, well, Justine told me. Sure, Justine told me about her book and so I did. I was like, thank you.

Thank you. High five, fave on Twitter, give you a retweet. What else? I like it, I like it. So whatever happened to that site then? No, I don't, nothing. I mean, I think I just deleted it. You just deleted it, okay.

And what's the thing that's taken off the most for you since you started in the beginning till now? Is there a site or a social network for you that's taken off the most and sustained that time? I mean, I think YouTube has been very interesting because it's one of those things where they change the algorithm so much as far as like creating content. So you're never really sure what's going to work, which I kind of think has been the only thing that's really kind of kept me interested in it. Really? Because I'm never sure what's going to work.

And half the time, I just post videos that I know will be for my key audience. And sometimes those end up, I hate saying the word viral, but it will go outside of my initial audience. And then I'm like, crap, that was not meant for anyone else to see it, except, you know, like the 20 to 75 000 that i'm okay with seeing it you didn't want to like the executives of the professionals or the guys are interested in seeing some weird no teenager weird video you do or something an example was i was at doing a project with steak and shake and i made like a simple little video i do i love that

is there one here in la there is there's one in santa monica yeah oh there is that's right i used to live in st louis missouri and there's so many there that i would go to yeah that. Is there one here in LA? There is. There's one in Santa Monica. Yeah. Oh, there is. That's right. I used to live in St. Louis, Missouri, and there are so many there that I would go to. Yeah. That's right. There is one. Gosh, their burgers are so good. Oh, it's delicious. Sorry. Go ahead.

No. But anyway, so I made just a video about telling my audience on a second channel that I wanted people to come to meet me at Steak and Shake the next day. Wow. And this wasn't meant to be seen by Steak and Shake. And when was this? It was like a couple weeks ago. Oh, really?

Yeah. Did you shut down the promenade? No. I went to Indiana for the Indy 500. So they were doing like a meet up there. And then Steak and Shake ended up tweeting this video. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No one else was supposed to see it.

Because it was like me and my sister. We were in the hotel. I was in bed. I was just like, all right, chatting with my friends, the internet friends. And they're like, shoot, they tweeted that out. Like that. No one's supposed to see that. That was not a good video.

It was not my best work. So I think that's what's kind of people don't realize, especially kids today, that things that they post, anybody can see it, even if it's deleted. Yeah. It's somewhere. And what happened from that result from them posting that? Oh, nothing. Nothing happened.

Were there a lot of people there or what? Well, there was a bunch of people there. Yeah. But it was just more embarrassing. I was like, oh God, I should have brushed my hair or something like a decent shirt. Maybe. Take this catcher off or something. Yeah.

Okay. I like it. So you're still involved with YouTube because they keep changing. If you knew that you could capitalize on every video did and every video did would go viral, would you keep using it or would you? No, definitely. I mean, yeah. I just think it sort of is a different perspective like i think a lot of people don't realize that

sometimes we don't really want a lot of people to see a specific video is what i'm trying to get why would we post the video then if we don't want people to see it i want specific people to see it more or less like the people that i know that care about me and i'm i have a message for them you know because a lot of people are like this this video is stupid. Why did I watch this? I'm like, well, I don't know why you watched it. You found it, but this message wasn't for you. And I think that's one of the reasons why I really wanted to write a book

was sort of tell the story from beginning to currently where I am. Because it's kind of like bands. They're like, oh, this band just came out of nowhere. They have a number one hit. Yeah, they're after 10 years of practicing together and touring. Yeah, so I think I just wanted people to realize that okay this didn't come out of nowhere yes i have some stupid

crazy videos but there's some content that i like more than others and how many channels do you have i'm assuming you create these different channels so that you can do different videos to specific audiences right yeah so that i mean i now have three so one is like my main channel the third one is like a gaming channel so it's just specific gaming content and then the second one's just extra content that's not for everybody sure but it gets shared because you have uh you know fans that watch all three problems yeah they do and they're sharing it to their friends and yeah so it's bound to happen i've seen your gaming stuff and it's you're a huge gamer right i love it so much it really makes me happy how often do you play video games oh i mean as much as i can

and i and the hard part is traveling. So I'll always have like, I do have like a gaming travel rig that I can take with me. It's like a backpack that has like a monitor in it. No way. And you can put like your Xbox in it. Yeah. But usually I'll always have like my Nintendo DS. So at least I have something with me.

How many hours a day do you play? I don't know. I've been busy lately. It's really sad. I mean, I probably played for like four hours yesterday. Four hours? That's it. That's not even enough time to complete part of a campaign.

Yeah, no. What's your favorite game right now and favorite system? Oh, I'm a huge Xbox fan. I love Xbox and Nintendo, PlayStation. If there's an exclusive game, I'll play it. But I just downloaded the new Batman Arkham Knight game, which is really fun. I've been seeing the commercials for that. Yes, very excited.

But Call of Duty is one of my favorites. And then any Nintendo game. Any original Nintendo game? Anything. Anything by Nintendo. I'm like, I will play it. You'll play it. Okay.

And aren't you like a host for some of these conventions or competitions or whatever they're called? Yeah. So there is tournaments so they call it e-sports e-sports yes so there's a huge e-sports community where these people play video games i mean they're professional athletes right yeah the call of duty was like at the x games the past two years and uh the x games the x games like the physical x games yes so you're right next to like all the skateboarders. Tony Hawk and all these guys. Yeah. And then you've got X gamer, uh, these X boxers, right? Yeah. It's so awesome. I think it's so cool. Like I love it. And a lot of people don't think that that is a sport, but I mean,

chess is a sport. It's intense. It can be intense and it's a lot of teamwork and strategy. Yes. The amount of time these kids put into it. I mean, they don't do anything else. It's their life. It is. Some of them are unbelievable, right? Have you ever played against some of these top pros and how do you compare against them? Yeah,

I have. I'm not, they make me feel terrible about myself. Like a four-year-old, huh? It's awful. Yeah,

I mean, it's just, that really goes to show you that it is a skill and it is a talent. Yes. How much money can be made for these big gamers?

I mean, anything. There's, it's really kind of. What's the top guy make or girl? I would say a couple million a year. Really? From tournament winnings or from-

Maybe not from tournament. There's a lot of other things like sponsorships and that kind of stuff too. But I mean, that's just a random guess. I mean, I really, I'm not sure, but I know one of the biggest tournaments is like a million dollar tournament that Xbox had the past couple of years. So that was something that I got to host and it was really fun. And it's just cool to see like these kids that are so passionate about something, and they were able to make that a job and a career.

When did you realize that what you were doing online started to become a job and a career for you and a lifestyle for you? I think when I was able to buy a bed and not sleep on the floor when I first moved to LA. I was like, well, I'm sleeping on the floor. This is great. Were you in Pittsburgh before then? It was. When did you to, how old were you? I'm around like 2007 to like 23-ish. Okay. So why did you move out here? Honestly, I had one trip out here and

the weather was amazing. I love you. Yeah. Everyone's like, oh, did you want to be an actress? I'm like, no, there's no snow here. It's great. There are so many coffee shops. Right? I love it. I'm from Ohio, so I'm a neighbor of yours. And it's miserable and cold in the winter and humid, hot in the summer. So I get it.

When did you move here? I moved here about three years ago. But I was living in New York City for almost two years and loved it. But the winters are just insane. No, it's terrible. But the energy there, it's just I thrive off that energy, you know? New York's a little too much for me. You're a little introverted?

Very introverted. It's so funny that you're introverted, but you've built this massive following and you do events and you host things, but you really like to just kind of like be by yourself and just do your thing and play video games and speak to imaginary friends on the internet. Well, I think a lot of people are like that too. And you'd be surprised how many, especially people in this industry. In the YouTube space. Yeah, are very introverted, which is why we started doing a lot of this stuff in the first place is because we didn't know how to connect with other people outside of sort of our little circles. Why do you think you didn't know how to connect with people outside of that?

I have no idea really. But it's – I mean I think I liked a lot of different things where nobody around me or in high school liked. I loved taking things apart. I liked computer programming. I liked these other things and there was not really an audience for that. Especially other women who – Yeah. Or girls in high school who were into that.

They were cheerleading or playing sports or chasing guys or whatever. Yeah, not very many at all. So I think once I discovered the internet, I was like, I have so many friends now. This is great. You found the message boards and the social networks. Yeah. All the forums. And then I think at one point I realized that I had more friends in LA, you know.

From online. From online. And then I came out here and I was like, I have friends now. So it's cool. Real friends. Actual friends. Yes. I mean, my two best friends I I have friends now. So it's cool. Real friends. Actual friends. Yes. I mean, my two best friends I met on MySpace.

No way. Do you still have a MySpace page? I do. Do you ever log in? I log in every once in a while. Really? And what do you find? Nothing.

Absolutely nothing. So why not delete the old social networks that you're- I can't do that. Why not? Because that's like a piece of history. Is it? Yes. Okay, it is. Are you just hoarding social networking sites?

Yes, possibly. I've never thought about it that way, but I am sort of a hoarder, so it makes sense. Do you delete yours? I don't even remember the login, so I don't even know if I could get it if I even wanted to. And would you delete it? I don't know. Maybe. Why?

I don't know if there's any use to it. I'm not using it anymore. So why hold on to something that has no value to me or use to me or to the world? I do like to log in and sort of – it's memories. Okay. I understand that. And I think that's one of the things about all of the stuff that we're doing, creating online is having those memories. Like TimeHop.

You love it? I either love it or hate it. I'm like, do not show me any posts about this subject ever again containing this. What are the things you don't want to see in the past? Which things? Relationships that aren't there anymore. Or even things like with family that have passed away or friends that have passed away too. It's like, oh, God.

Yeah. Okay. I know every day on this day. A daily reminder. Yeah. So it really does suck. So think that's man yeah and even like facebook it's like you know those those reminders just pop up happy birthday i'm like oh they passed away like four years ago and you see it or i'm not in a relationship with them or we're not friends anymore because of this reason wow over this journey, so you moved out here and you realized that it could be a career

because you could buy a bed, right? I think so, yeah. 2007, right? Yeah. And how many YouTube subscribers did you have then? Because you were pretty much mostly on YouTube and then Twitter 2008, you were one of the first.

I joined Twitter in 2006. Really? Yeah. I didn't even know Twitter was around in 2006. Exactly. I think I joined at the end of 2007. Really? I think so.

Yeah. I randomly found it because I was looking for like podcast stuff. I was doing like podcasts back then. In 2006 you were looking for podcasts? Oh, yeah. No, I had a podcast in 2006. Wow. And now podcasts are cool again.

Huge. It died for like five years. I know. So I think Odeo was like a podcast service. So then they posted something about Twitter because of Williams was a part of that. And then I was like, Oh, check out this Twitter thing.

And then, so I joined that and then I made all my friends, my actual real life friends join it, who they now are thanking me. They're like, thank you for making me join Twitter in 2006. I think I remember it was 2008 or 2009 where you were like, I remember reading or seeing somewhere on Twitter that you were like trying to be the first one to get to a million or I forget what it was. You have to remind me, but you were like trying to

get to something. It might have been a hundred thousand. Maybe it was a hundred thousand. And you were like tweeting because my business partner at the time was like, oh, this girl's trying to get to a hundred thousand or whatever. Yeah. Because Ashton was trying, it was the first one to try to get to a million. Yeah. But you're before him, you were trying to get to a hundred thousand. Yeah. I remember that. And I was like, who is this girl? I think that was one of the first times I was exposed to you. And I was like, what is this I think that was one of the first times I was exposed to you and I was like what is this crazy girl on my I ask myself that every single

day but that was back to MTV did I think it was their music video awards and I was like their Twitter host so it was like the first time they've ever had like a Twitter correspondent so it was kind of for me it was it's sort of there's a lot of these random things were sort of validated what I was doing was actually doing something.

Yeah. So that was one of those times. Because you were getting opportunities. Yeah. Paid deals probably or cool behind the scenes opportunities, right? Yeah. And I think a lot of people always thought I was crazy, which I still sometimes do, but. And your family was like, what are you doing?

Just shooting videos? Yeah. They, they don't. Why don't you go get a real job, right? I had one and I quit. Wow. What were you working at before? I actually was working for a guy, a director. No way. Doing all of their video production. Yeah. Oh I quit. Wow. What were you working on before? I actually was working for a chiropractor.

No way. Doing all of their video production. Oh, wow. Okay, so you're kind of building your skills up. That's cool. But I was a really fast editor and they didn't realize how quick I was. Okay, I shoot some more videos. Yeah, so I would get what they wanted done that would take someone normally three days.

I would do it in a day. So then I had two free days to do whatever else I wanted. And you were doing your own thing. Exactly. Building it on YouTube or online. Wow. Myspace. I think that was before YouTube. So when did you realize that, wow, this is actually a full-time income, not just like I'm making a few grand here and there, but like, wow, this is a business. This is going to change my life forever financially. When was that? What year was that? And, and,

um, probably 2008, 2009. Really? Yeah. Cause the beginning YouTube didn't have a revenue program either. So I think one of the first websites that had the revenue was rever.com. Do you remember that?

Vaguely. It was really early. They still owe me $25. They're no longer with us. So that for me was like, wow, you can make money online. This is cool.

Um, and then YouTube came along and had their revenue share program. So I think that changed for me and for a lot of creators as well. A lot of YouTubers. And when did you, um, how many subscribers do you have over all your channels on YouTube right now? Do you know?

Over 3 million. Cause I really only count like the, the top three. But again, this is one of these things where I don't ever look. Really? Why not? I don't because I don't want to know.

Why not? It's like as long as – because then it takes the fun away for it for me. Really? I want to have fun. I want to create content. As long as I know people are watching it and enjoying it and coming out to meetups, like that for me is enough. And so many of my friends, I see them so obsessed with numbers.

That's numbers. I'm like, I can't hang out with you because I don't want to hear how you kind of deal with this world. I mean, I think I'm very different in that sense. So what's your vision then for your growth strategy or just for your strategy in general for what you're creating? Is it just to have fun or do you have a vision of like, I want to hit 10 million subscribers or I want to make this much a year or do you not even think about that?

I don't really. As long as you make enough money that comes in, you're happy. You're not like focused on a big dream or a big goal about that. I don't really. As long as you make enough money that comes in, you're happy. You're not like focused on a big dream or a big goal with that. No. And the weird thing for me is like setting goals is I always set these goals. I'm like, I'm bored. I don't want to do that. And I find something else that's even cooler than that. And I've talked to a lot of people who have set these goals that they will do nothing until they achieve that. And they're so pigeonholed in getting to that goal that there's other things that you could have been doing that are so much better than that. So what are the things you want to be doing? And what's the, what's the dream for you then? Wow. I don't, that's, I don't know. I mean,

I have so many things like every day there's something else I want to do. And it's like, if I don't want to do that the next day, then I change. Yeah. So I mean, I don't could work on a movie, which is really fun. Yeah. And I think another reason I started writing the book, too, is because I wanted to pitch sort of a web series idea based around my life. But nobody could really grasp their head around the crazy things that have happened. So I was like, I'm just going to put it in a book and then we'll talk. I feel like you could be a reality show on MTV or VH1 or any of these networks. The problem with reality shows is they're not real.

Of course. I've done one. Yeah. Really? I'm not proud of it. Let's about it oh my gosh i did a uh i did a show you know julie allison yes yeah she had a show on um what's it called it's a bravo yes bravo thank you for that i didn't watch it but i remember it um yeah what was it called it it called? It was like a dating advice show by three relationship experts who were all single. It was called Misadvised.

Because I don't think you should take relationship advice from people that are single, first of all. Yes, true. I'm just saying. Or from 28 to 33-year-old women who are a little crazy, too. Yeah. But that's what made the show. Great television. It's great television.

And she asked me to come on one night to kind of support her for one of these events she was doing and they were going to be filming. She was like, you should come on. It'll be great for you.

You know, whatever. And I was like, okay, but I really don't want to be a part of this. So I'll just come on as like your friend. Don't act like this is a date. So I go on there

and right away, the like two other girls from the show were at this event as well. And right away she goes lewis meet so and so you guys should go on a date and i was like in front of the cameras and the producers are right there and i'm like uh nice to meet you right and the producers are whole night telling me you got to get her number and ask her i was like i don't really want to yeah and i ended up

doing four episodes actually oh my gosh And it was like so torment. My heart was tormented because I was like, I don't think I should be doing this. But my media rep at the time was like, yeah, who cares if a million women see you and it's great for you. But it was like – it was stressful. And I don't know if you've been on reality shows. No. But it wasn't real. Exactly.

That's the thing. It was like, let's do this takeover. And everyone else was like, are you serious? Like this is not what I want to be doing. Yeah. I mean, even filming sort of my own stuff, like something funny will happen.

I'm like, Oh man, I'm like my sister, her name's Jenna. I was like, you have to do it again. Cause that was so funny. So it's a reality show in itself.

It is. But at least like these are things that have actually happened. And a lot of times we just will film something and just leave the camera rolling because we know something funny will happen. Wow. And I mean, for me, like that's actually real.

And I think there's a fine line between what is real and what's not real for a lot of YouTube vlogging type people. And the internet can see through it. I mean, they're so perceptive and they're so used to seeing people that they know and trust. And if you deceive them, you are gone.

I mean, that is one of my biggest goals is to never upset my core audience. And any brands that I work with, it's something that I love. It's something that I would have probably talked about audience. And any brands that I work with, it's something that I love. It's something that I would have probably talked about anyway. And thankfully, I'm actually able to get a sponsorship for it so I can survive. So being authentic and being you is the most important thing. So how do you make your decisions based on the opportunities that come in, the brand opportunities? Because I'm sure you get a lot of companies that say, can you put this on your

YouTube channel or promote this? How do you know? What's your gauge of saying yes or no or if it's going to resonate for you and your audience? I mean, it's just something if I can integrate it organically. Like the Steak and Shake thing. This time with Indy 500, I knew nothing about racing. I had no interest in it. But I was like, I love Steak and Shake.

And now I'm a huge IndyCar fan. Really? Okay. It was so much fun. So it's like, I mean, I like to agree to these random projects, even if I think it might be something that I might not be into because it's fun sort of taking my audience along that ride of, I don't know what I'm doing. Watch me potentially maybe fail. So it's fun. And do you get all these opportunities yourself or do you have an agent now that represents you and tells you what to take or brings you deals? I mean, I do. I do have an agent.

I have a manager and a whole squad of people, which is amazing. But the deals will still come to my inbox. Right, right, right. It's like, you emailed me. You tweeted me. And I think that's amazing because it's like, I can still make those decisions. And again, it's our brand. It's us.

It's people. And I'm not going to have somebody else tell me what I should do. That's why I quit my job. That's why I'm here. Right. That's cool. But if you don't have a vision of how much you want to make, then are there just months where you're like,

I don't feel like doing anything because I have enough money? Or how do you really make that decision of like – Well, I definitely want to make more each year. Okay. So that's nice. Well, you say that. So I wasn't sure. Okay.

Yeah. But there are times where I'm like, I don't want to film anything. And it is that authentic sort of, I guess, vibe. Because if I don't feel like filming, it's going to be very obvious. So even I was supposed to film some stuff this weekend. I'm like, I have to push this video because I don't feel like it. You're not in the mood. You're not ready.

Yeah. And it's stressful. I mean, a lot of people don't understand that. And it is emotional. And I mean, there is that impact where it's like, I'm so exhausted. I physically cannot bring myself to even turn the camera on. Gotcha. Well, I appreciate you coming here to do this.

Yeah. No, it's great. No, I'm good. I slept all weekend. I'm feeling wonderful. Now, tell me about this whole movie thing and what you're really trying to create. What's the movie? What do you?

We haven't officially announced it yet, but we've talked about it. It's on IMDb. I'm like, well, clearly it's out there. But it's fun because it's going to be a huge project. You're producing it, directing it, starring in it. Producing and starring with another one of my friends. So, yeah, it's going to be really cool. And putting up the money for it as well?

No. Okay. So I don't have to do that part. But, yeah, it's going to be fun because a lot of these projects, we work by ourselves. And clearly hosting and doing these other things have been fun. But I think it's something that will be challenging for me because I'm not an actress. But you've acted in Law & Order, Vampire Diaries, Bold and the Beautiful. You've done your own commercials I've seen you in.

So you've done some, right? Yeah. No, I definitely have acted. But I think this is just going to be one of those things where it really pushes you. Stretches you. Yeah, for sure. So I'm not sure I might go crazy by the end of the month. I might say I never want to act again.

But I think it'll be really fun. I kind of have enjoyed playing other characters recently because I've been iJustine for so long. Right. It's like trying to show people that there's another side of it. Which is, again, going back to the book, the title is I, just seen, because there's that separation between I, just seen the character and me as a person. And you have multiple characters on your videos, don't you? Oh, yeah.

We don't have to talk about them because they're all crazy. What's your favorite ones, though? My favorite one actually recently is Libby. She's a lobster. I have a really great video. Do you wear a lobster outfit? Of course. What?

Yeah. She goes to Red Lobster. You might enjoy it. If you don't, it's totally fine because it's not for everybody. Okay. I do have one video I haven't posted yet where she – I don't actually usually drink on camera, but Libby had a few drinks. So she might have got a little –

Libby got a lobster. She got a little tipsy. Is it snapping a little too much? It's great. And she's British. Actually, she's from New Zealand, I think. Let's hear you. Oh.

So – Well, Kiwi accent is much different than a British accent. So which one? I'm not sure what this accent is. Okay, well, let's hear it. Okay. Please hold. It's actually really hard for me to do unless I'm in my lobster. Get the lobster outfit.

It's in my trunk. I'll go get it. So it's a little something like, hello, my name's Libby, and I've got to go get some biscuits. It's usually a little bit higher pitch, but I don't know if I got you. Can you sustain that for a full video? Oh, yeah. And then I can't get out of character. The rest of the day.

Yeah. Your friends are like, where is Justine? It's usually my sister, and she's so embarrassed. Okay. But you get to practice on her, so that's good, right? Yeah. She hates every second of it. I think I took Libby to – well, Libby took Jenna, my sister, to Victoria's Secret. It's great.

In full Libby. Full costume. No way. Yes, it's great. Did you try on anything over the hour? I tried, but the woman was like, you can't really do that here. I was like, sorry. You got to go in the changing room and do that.

No cameras. What's the character that you're least impressed with that you've created or wish you never created? There's really none. None. Okay. They're all fun. Yeah, they're fun. Okay, cool.

So tell me, when is this movie going to come out or what's – are you taking acting classes or do you have a coach or are you just kind of like – The director is pretty awesome. And I feel like the directors are able to pull out performances from people and that's so important right right so i'm not worried my biggest concern is memorizing that is hard for me it's very hard do you memorize in any of your videos or is it all no everything it's just i turn on the camera and start talking that's it yeah okay so we'll see it's really challenging for me i was just shooting videos before you got here and I was like just trying to remember, you know, a little one minute video.

Yeah. Just memorizing what you're going to say. I'd take like 20 takes one time. I was like, gosh, why can't I remember? Promptor. Right? That's it. But then it takes time writing it and I'd just rather.

That's true. Ugh, stressful. One take. Exactly. That's what I want to do every time. So when do you start filming though? When does the process begin? Or has it already started?

In the middle of July. A while. So it's coming up. And there's about a month process? The whole movie? Yeah. And it's hoping to come out in the following year? No, it's October. This year? Yes. That's why I love sort of this industry that we've sort of created because it is so immediate.

You know, even like a movie and just working on something like that to be able to turn it around that quickly is amazing. And what's the distribution strategy for you guys? Is it onflix or youtube or is it you'll see you're not sharing we're not 100 sure yet but we have it yeah yeah yeah no i'm very excited it should be really fun okay um now is there ever too much content to be created can you create too much and i'm thinking of like you know maybe it's different for a YouTuber or YouTube lifestyle person, gala girl. Um, but for just a business owner, an entrepreneur or anyone, is there ever a point where it's like, there's too much content? I can't

watch it all. I think so. And that's why sometimes, you know, creating even more content is not necessarily a bad thing because somebody might skip a day. And if they watch your video today and they didn't watch yesterday, they'll be like, oh, I go back. She had one yesterday. So let me go back and watch that. I mean, I think it's really just about like focusing on what your audience is. Sometimes you might not know what your audience is,

but just listen to them. I mean, I'm very quickly able to tell if somebody likes a video or they don't like a video in the comments. And I think the most painful comments is the ones where people are like, man, you know, I usually really like your videos, but this one wasn't my favorite i'm like oh shoot burn will you ever delete videos no i mean i've definitely set some to private um mostly because it was just

like announcement videos yeah so you don't want it up there yeah it's like hey come over yeah come meet me here well that was like a week ago right right okay yeah so how often is your content scheduled do you have one? I don't have a schedule. I've never had a schedule. Also, I think has been able to keep me sane. Right. Because if you had a structure of every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you'd probably be like, well, I don't want to shoot today. I don't want to post today. And it's hard traveling and doing other things and also trying to manage sort of the channel as well. So it's just, I post when I can. I try to post at least three videos, but at one point I was

posting, yeah, I was posting like 30 videos a week. What? Yeah, by myself. And I was losing my mind. I was posting daily gaming videos. I was posting maybe like three or four gaming videos a day. And then daily on my other channel. And then three to four on my other one.

Yeah. You're insane. Yeah, that's why I'm not doing that anymore. Isn't the biggest YouTuber of gaming person? Yeah, PewDiePie. He's from Sweden. And he just posts hours of video content from him playing video games. That's it.

And he's making millions from it. Yes. Crushing, right? It's crazy. Why are so many people attracted to just watching someone else play video games? I mean, a lot of it, I think, is personality-driven, too. So a lot of these people are watching these videos where they're just having conversations with um you know the viewers they might not necessarily be talking about the game that they're playing and it's also

entertainment too for them because a lot of these kids aren't able to get these games or they want to see somebody play through it to see if this is a game that they want to get and then they sort of get attached to the person too so there's so many different reasons why i think wow yeah and you know this guy i do madam yeah yeah nice guy yeah great. It's great. How often is he posting? Every day? You know, I'm not really sure. Definitely every day. And is your gaming videos do as well as his? No. Why not? Is he like a top pro as well? No, he's not a pro. He's not a pro? No. He's an average gamer. He's a pro at posting. Well, I mean, defining pro is, you know, I think a pro athlete.

Yes. That is their full-time job, playing video games, going to tournaments. He's not. No. He doesn't go to tournaments. He doesn't win. No. But he's making more than probably all of them.

Probably. Wow. Yeah. It's fascinating. It is actually really fascinating. What do you think is the biggest thing that's opened up for you since doing your first YouTube video till now? The biggest thing you've learned about yourself? Learned about myself.

It's been a journey. I am not good at staying on task. I am a procrastinator. And no matter how much I try not to be, I am. So that's why it's very helpful that I was like, I need to have people surrounding me that are able to sort of compensate for the things that I know I'm not good at. You know, even like my sister. Like, I know if we hang out, we're probably not going to get any projects done. So I need to make sure she's at her house telling me what to do.

So you're FaceTiming as opposed to being in person. Yeah, because then we'll just play video games. So, you know, I think just surrounding yourself with people that are able to sort of, you know, lift you up for the things that you're not good at is just super important. So I think that was kind of the stepping stone for me is learning what I wasn't good at and finding people to help fix that. Gotcha. Gotcha. Um, I'm curious if you, uh, you know, with all the content you put out there, every video out there, if it all got erased, what I'm curious is if you could put up one final video that would be the only video people see

for the rest of time from you. And in this video, well, first off, I'll ask you two things. One, what would you post in that video if it was the only video people would ever see and just say it was under five minutes? What would you post?

Under five minutes, which that's a good average YouTube length. I don't know. I don't ever plan my videos either. So if all my videos got deleted today, I would probably just turn on the camera and just start talking. And I don't know what I would say, though, is the problem. OK, well, I'll give you a better question.

OK. If you had one video left, everything was deleted. All your social network was deleted. The internet was done, but you got to put one video out there that the world can see and you can never record again. You can never have any of the other masters go out there. And you got to share three things that you know to be true about the world and your experience and what you've learned, what would those three things be? Um, nothing is as big of a deal as you probably think it is. Um,

nobody actually really cares as much as you think they do. Um, and yeah, just have fun and be nice. Be nice. Yeah. Do you feel like you've been pretty nice? Definitely.

Okay. I think I'm sometimes too nice. Too nice. Yeah. Does it hurt you sometimes? Definitely. Okay. I think I'm sometimes too nice. Too nice? Yeah. Does it hurt you sometimes? I think so. I'm curious about, we don't have to get too personal here, but I'm assuming you've had a number of relationships since you started, let's say, since your first YouTube video, right?

Mm-hmm. And how many relationships have you been in? Like, a total of my entire life. I mean, since you started, like, posting videos till now. Have you been in, like, a of my entire life. I mean, since you started like posting videos till now, have you been like a couple of relationships? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I think the interesting thing there is the one guy that I dated, no one even knew

he existed for years. You know, didn't want. You didn't post about it. No. Okay. Didn't want to have any sort of part in sort of the YouTube world. He didn't want to. No.

Did you want to include him? I didn't really. You didn't care either way. Care. No. And I mean, I think sometimes you want to keep something like personal. Um, and then I have had dated people who also posted YouTube videos and I was like, Holy crap, this is awful. Really? It's terrible. Why? Well, just because you were both doing the same sort of thing. And I don't really like living sort of in this youtube world i feel like i'm a separate type of youtube person i love doing it i don't want to talk about it all day long this is not obsessed about it yeah and like these people are obsessed every day they talk about it yeah i'm like i don't i really don't want this conversation and then i just want to play video

games yeah i just want to like live have fun because you're making me hate it yeah yeah okay and then um i guess the last one, um, that was kind of difficult too, because also sort of a personality and not a YouTuber. No, but, uh, Viner.

No, I think they're even worse. No, I mean, I think it's all just about like personality too and how you, um, perceive that. And,

you know, everything that you see online isn't always actually true. So, you know, a lot of Instagram, no, it's not. And a lot of these kids were just like,

so heartbroken. They're like, Oh, we believed in true love and this and that. I'm like, but you guys, you know, you,

you only saw what we posted and this and that. And, and, and it's so kind of heartbreaking to see sort of like these public relationships not work out because a lot of times, you know, the behind the scenes, you know, the real stories and you see these kids just like, just not well.

Like the things that they're posting about said relationships and divorces that I've seen, like some of my friends go through and the response online and it's like, you just can't say anything. Yeah. Yeah. So now during these relationships, I'm curious, did you feel like you were more inspired to create great content when things were going well? Or did you feel held back in any way when you're in any of these relationships during them? And also, when you were going through, you know, ending these relationships, did you feel like it affected your type of content?

You know, it affected the way you connected with people online? Did you feel any guarded or off in any way? What's your thoughts on that? I mean, if you're not with somebody who inspires you to be a better person, I mean, that I think is just so important. And if it's not a relationship where, I mean, you're trying to build each other up. And I think that's just a really difficult thing, but yeah, it is really hard because, you know, I didn't share a lot of things that was actually going on in my life. And for kids, they're like, well, you haven't posted in a week. What's wrong? Why are you sad? Or I would try to allude to things and because I never

wanted to like post a video and be like, all right, this is official. It's, it's over because a lot of people do that and they just do it for views. And I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. This is something that's personal to me. There's reasons that you guys won't understand. And I don't feel like I have to tell you why. And I don't know. And it's just that paranoia of like, what are people going to think if I don't put it out there, maybe he'll put it out there. And so just kind of didn't really say anything, let people figure it out. Do you feel like you're ever hesitant to connect with someone in a relationship or potentially move forward

because of the fear of your personality or the audience you have and what people are going to think or say? Does it ever affect your decision or make you hesitant moving forward or even hesitant in breaking up because of what it could cause? For sure. Really? All of the above could cause. And, you know. For sure.

Really. All of the above. Really. And because I've seen. No. Well, even like my good friends who I'm like, I don't know if I want to put you in this video because I don't want you to have to read the comments and the things that these people say.

It's awful. I mean, and if they see that, then they're like, well, I don't want to hang out with you if you're filming and making videos. So half the time I just don't. Yeah, because I don't want to put other people in that situation where they have to read something about themselves that is negative or terrible or awful. And then they try to find out where they live. And then they start attacking these people. And it's like, we hate you.

You shouldn't be with Justine. You shouldn't talk to her. And it's like, you guys are crazy. You can't do this. Like, these are actual people. Like cyber bully stalking or something, right? And I mean, a lot of times they mean well, but a lot of times they don't. Yeah.

So how do you manage your own inner emotions when you're going through these breakups or just making decisions? Because again, you have this platform. You don't want to hurt someone. You don't want to hurt yourself. What's your compass? Like, how do you manage those emotions? Yeah. I mean, the good thing is I'll usually have a couple

videos that I have that are just sort of in the can that it's like, I can post this. I shot this. I'm like, I've got this in the back burner that I can post. Um, and I think it's just like taking time to yourself and sort of just, you know, being around friends, being around people who are supportive. And I love my family. So I love being able to just go home and just sort of just chill, relax, or just not talk to anybody for a couple of days, just hang out, stay off the internet. But it's hard because that's your job. And that's the main thing. And it's like, if I'm not able to be true or be honest, or just, you know, have a conversation with my audience, I mean, it's hard, you know, it's like, I don't know. It's just such a huge conflict because it's like, I want to tell you guys everything, but there's things I can't tell you and I can't tell you why.

Yeah. And have you ever taken a digital detox for like a week or a month? Do you think you could do that? I would get really bored, honestly. Just playing video games all day and not being able to share about it. Well, that's still digital. You know? Are you in total digital?

Let's just say social media, just anything online. You could still play video games, but you couldn't communicate with social networks. Yeah, I don't think that's possible because you never know what's going to happen. And I won't know what's going on in the world. Like that is my outside connection to people. You know, I mean, I wake up in the morning. I see what my sister's doing. I see, you know, I get every piece of information.

And maybe I might not post, But I'm still consuming that content. And figuring out what my friends are doing. So what do you think would happen if you had to go to a silent retreat for 30 days? What do you think you'd learn about yourself? Well. No phone. No internet. And couldn't communicate.

Verbally. And. And you just had to meditate. You got to play games. Have you done that before? No. But I have friends who have done like a 10-day silent retreat. And they say they learned so much about themselves.

And they let go of a lot of things they've been holding on to. I'm not sure. Would it drive me crazy? Would it drive you crazy? I don't know. I think it depends on the part where I'm at in my life. Yeah. And what I'm trying to gain from it.

Well, the hard part is I can't really leave. I mean, there's emergencies that sort of happen every single day where I'm like, if I didn't see this text and didn't get to do, I don't know, like my, my account got hacked. Okay. I need to be on guard because these things happen. And so you have to be just available.

Right. That's why I love like the Apple watch actually. Cause I can be like, not important. Yeah. I like it. I remember you actually doing videos about the unveiling. Yeah, it's great.

It's crazy. So I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I feel like it has actually sort of helped me disconnect a little bit more. because you can just kind of glance for a second and be like,

I don't need to check my phone constantly. Yeah. Really? So you recommend people getting it who are obsessed with their phones? Maybe. I mean, I've been saying it's 100% awesome,

but also 100% unnecessary because you don't need it. No, you don't. But I think it has actually sort of helped me a little bit, sort of just kind of be like, okay, I don't need to be checking my phone. Okay. Yeah. I'm not missing out on something. Yeah.

Well, the good thing, too, is I don't actually talk on the phone. So I know if I'm getting a phone call, it's an emergency. You only text. Yeah. Like when people call me, I'm like, what's going on? No, I answer the phone. I'm like, what's wrong? I'm going to call you.

I'm like, are you okay? Justine, I hope you're doing well. I just wanted to say hi and wanted to connect. Like one of my friends called me the day or it was actually for my birthday. I was like, are you okay? Is everything all right? It's like, I just called to wish you a happy birthday. I was like, okay, sorry.

I haven't talked to you in three years. Is everything okay? I've only seen your YouTube videos. Yeah. Do you need a ride to the ER? I don't know. What would your audience be most surprised to learn about you? Something you've never shared? God, I get asked this question all the time and I don't really have an answer for it. You don't have the answer. Yeah. I don't really know.

Is there anything you haven't shared that you want people to know about you? Oh, God, I've shared so much, honestly, and I can't even think of anything. I'm really tired. You got off of a successful book launch. That's why. Well, yeah, and I think a lot of people are like, how do you stay? How do you always have energy? I'm like, I don't.

I'm exhausted. You just turn it on for that moment if you need to. Yeah. Okay. What's your favorite social network right now? I'm real into Instagram. Gosh, me too. Why? Why is it so addictive and powerful? I think because it's photos. You don't have to read. It's kind of, you're just scrolling. And if you want to read, you can. And I think for me too, I only follow sort of like my friends and people that I know on Instagram. So it is very personal. Whereas even

Facebook, some people slip through that I don't really, you know. Well, there's a lot of sponsored ads and things like that. I'm guilty of that. I promote a lot of sponsored things there. So I try to show up in everyone's feed if I can for my business. And Instagram is supposed to be opening up for ads for everyone, which might be a game changer for me too. I've kind of enjoyed the different ads because you can swipe through.

They're nice. And they're beautiful. Like you can get a couple of photos. Yeah, it's great. And they have like little videos sometimes and photos. Yeah, they're pretty cool. Yeah. What do you think is going to be the most powerful social network

for businesses and entrepreneurs to grow their brand, to grow their audience in the next 12 months? Or is it not even created yet? I've been interested. It might not be created, but it's been interesting to see how brands are trying to use Periscope. I just started like a week ago. No, it's crazy crazy it's cool and i i've always loved sort of that live aspect of things but i don't know how brands are necessarily going to use it but i did know

like nintendo was using it at e3 so it was kind of fun to sort of see the behind the scenes stuff that nintendo was releasing you know as they were releasing it and it has to be you know interesting content that we're going to want to tune in for right that second yeah and like a lot of people are busy so you're not able to watch it and then you can't actually watch it live on the web afterwards and it's only there for 24 hours it's kind of snapchatty a little bit yeah i do like snapchat i'm starting to really dig it too it's cool it's funny because people there's a whole culture where people are really obsessed with snapchat and they'll comment on my other social networks about what they loved about my Snapchat.

Yeah. Oh, well, that's nice. You're like, I'm so glad you enjoyed my Snapchat story. I kind of wish they could leave a comment on Snapchat, too. It's kind of like, I wish you could, but maybe that's the whole purpose of it. I think it is sort of the appeal of it. Yeah. Yeah.

And I do have, so I have two Snapchats. One where I just. Two? Well, just for my friends and family. How do you focus on all this stuff? I don't. I'm super AD on all this stuff? I don't. I'm super ADD, which is... How do you even remember which social media sites you have, the logins?

I don't. I forget that a lot. There's a lot. But I mean, that's what I do all day. Right. It's crazy. So you have two Snapchats, one for family and one for the world. Yeah.

Wow. It's fun. It is fun. It is good. But you like Instagram the most right now? I think so. Instagram and Twitter, those are my two go-tos. Still you like Twitter?

Oh, I love Twitter. I do. do i mean yeah you don't like it no i just feel like it's not as powerful of a a driver of exposure anymore i feel like there's too much going on you know i just check what people are constantly saying to me and replying and sharing my podcast or whatever then i'll reply to people that way but i'm not looking at news anymore through there i'm looking on Facebook or elsewhere for that. No, I mean, I use it just to connect with people, mostly just have conversations. And I think when Twitter first started, it wasn't really made for having conversations. And now I think that's the best means of talking to people. Sure.

When do you ever turn off? Do you? When I feel like I have to. You just take the phone away and put the watch on non-vibrate. Doesn't it vibrate? It does. It's been making noises, but I can't figure out how to shut it off. It's all good.

Crazy. Well, a couple of final questions for you. What are you most excited about in your life right now besides the book? Going home to visit my family. How often do you get home? As much as Going home to visit my family. Yeah. How often do you get home? As much as I can. That's cool.

Yeah. So I think that's going to be exciting and hopefully me and my sister are actually going to start a podcast. Called? Yes. We don't know yet.

We're not going to know probably until the fifth episode. So you're going to start an actual podcast on iTunes. Mm-hmm. That's going to go out everywhere. Or like Spotify or we're not sure what's going to happen.

You'll probably blow it up with that. We'll see. We'll see. Grace came out with a podcast. She did, yeah. She's crushing it. She's awesome. I love her. Huge audience. Yeah. She's crushing that TV show she's got now. She's just dominating the world. It's good for her. So you're just going to do a podcast with you and your sister. Have random people on so you

should come over. I'd love to. When are you doing it? We were going to start it last year around... So in two years maybe? No, I think probably very soon

but I'm working on like setting up sort of like a studio so that like I can just actually come in, do it, record, shoot.

That's what I do here. Yeah, it's great. If you have it set up and it's easy to do then you're so much more likely to do it. Well,

I'm sure you have all the equipment you need but if you want any support, let me know. Yeah. And what are you most grateful for in your life recently? I think my friends. Yeah.

Yeah. Cause it's like, you know, a lot of stuff goes on and no one ever actually sees sort of the behind the scenes and all the people that are there to support you. And, and, you know, even just like with the launch of the book, like, you know, seeing so many random friends that just kind of surprised me and came out to like all the book tours and all the random cities. I was like, Oh my gosh, like my best friend from high school, like showed up at the one in Pittsburgh. And I like looked over, I was like, I just started crying.

I was like, it's so good to see you. Um, and a really surreal experience I had at book con. I love RL Stein. Like I used to read all of his books in like middle school. And this little girl came up to me and was like crying. And she like I was like I love you so much and just like like bawling her eyes out I'm like oh honey it's okay like everything's gonna be okay so I'm just hugging her and then I look over and I see R.L. Stine then I start to cry oh my gosh it was so it was weird because I kind of had that moment of having the feeling that this girl was feeling and it was just like this circle of like that that's very meta. Like it was so meta, but then it was like, I understood sort of how these kids were sort of feeling because I had that same initial feeling. I was like, Oh my gosh, Earl

Stein, this PR person's like, honey, do you want a photo? I'm like, yeah, I'm like crying, holding another crying girl. Um, but yeah, I think it's just, you know, I'm just grateful to sort of have that feeling to know what these kids are feeling and know that you're like making an impact in people's lives and and and just getting to see them on like the tour was so awesome and just hearing their stories and hearing you know how i've helped them is that's great it's awesome and if i've helped one person then i'm happy that's cool and what do you feel like is the the most incredible experience you've had maybe it's that since this journey of yours what's the thing that feel like is the most incredible experience you've had, maybe it's that, since this journey of yours?

What's the thing that inspired you the most, the person you got to meet who was the most inspiring, or the opportunity that you got that you wouldn't have got without this? It's just like this unbelievable night of adventure. What was that? I mean, I think there's been so many along the way. Every day you get that, right? There's a lot of random things. There's probably two one i think was a really surreal experience for me is being in uh i was in the black ops 2 commercial

for i mean i was in a commercial for my favorite video game with like robert downey jr that is surreal like i lost my mind like this was it was so amazing and i was like this is crazy like i never thought that would happen and then probably one of the most fun trips i've ever been on was to iceland and just being able to like sort of see Iceland and meet the people. And, you know, I met one of my really good friends there who she ended up, they just had her along for the ride to be like our producer. And I was like, oh my God, now she's like my best friend. And you just never know how you're going to meet people. And sort of even like talking like in the book, like all these people that I've met along the way, like you never know when you're going to see them again or when, I don't know, how they might impact your life. So that's why it's like always be nice to people. Sure, sure. Well, I got a

couple, one final question, but I want to make sure everyone gets a copy of this book. Justine, check it out. It's pretty cool. It's an easy read. Easy read. There's lots of cool photos and stories and you're going to learn all about your journey, which I think is really interesting. A lot more that we talked about today is in this book, so make sure to check it out. Justine, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you before my final question and really acknowledge you for being yourself. I love that you have been yourself throughout this entire process. And that continues to come up for me when we're talking, when I see your posts online, is that you are authentic to being your goofy, silly, outrageous, fun self.

And for me, you take a huge risk every time you post something online. You take the risk of being criticized, of being attacked, of being bullied, of all these different things that people experience online. And you keep doing it with passion and with joy because it fills you up. So I really acknowledge you for the journey you've made, how much you've impacted people's lives, whether you know it or not, and for being yourself. It's been a pleasure to see this and to watch your journey. So final question is what's your definition of greatness?

Greatness. Wow. Honestly, I think that's probably different for everybody. But I mean, for me, I know I've been able to touch so many lives and I'm able to have fun and make a career out of doing something that I love and enjoy and just get to meet so many amazing people. I mean, for me, that's it. Like, everyone's like, well, what do you want to do next? I'm like, well, I'm happy doing what I'm doing right now. Whatever happens next, I mean, we'll see.

Yeah. Cool. Justine, thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate it. There you have it, guys. Thank you so much for joining me and thanks again big shout out to justine for coming on make sure to head back to lewishouse.com slash 198 to connect with her we'll have all of her links to youtube and twitter and instagram and snapchat and all that stuff up on the show notes at lewishouse.com slash 198 share this with your friends posted

everywhere. Let Justine know your thoughts on this tweet her message her on Instagram, wherever and just say, Hey, I listened to the podcast with you and Lewis house and let her know what you thought what you learned. Make sure to pick up a copy of her book as well. We'll have that over on the show notes. It's called I Justine. it's a very cool little book if you want to hear about her story even more, about how she grew this mega empire online and how she lives an awesome life in the process. Thank you guys again for all of your support, for sharing this episode. Again, lewishouse.com slash 198. Share it with your friends everywhere.

Let the universe see it. And subscribe. If this is your first time to the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review. Let me know what you've been thinking about the podcast lately. I love you guys so much. I appreciate you. I hope you have a fantastic day. I will talk to you later. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Great. ស្រូវនប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់