The School of Greatness - 396 Look Forward with Casey Neistat

Episode Date: October 21, 2016

"Living in retrospect is a really bad idea." - Casey Neistat If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/396

This is 5-Minute Friday! I mean, hunger is a very, very powerful motivator. And when I was living in that trailer park with the kid, like we were on welfare for a while. I was a dishwasher. I worked in a crappy seafood restaurant as a dishwasher. Um, which now just sort of parenthetically, my favorite piece of advice to give to young people saying, I don't know what I want to do with my life. I said, get a job doing something you hate because the fastest way to figure out what you love and where you want to be in life is by spending a lot of time doing something you hate. So it's miserable. Yeah. So,

you know, spending 50 hours a week scrubbing pots and pans was like, I was just in my head the whole time fantasizing about what I want to do in life. It's brilliant. I was a truck driver for three months driving from Columbus to Cincinnati and back every day. And it could only go 55 miles an hour, pedal to the metal. And it was so loud and obnoxious and I couldn't do anything. It was just like the most draining time of my life. But it got you thinking. It got me thinking. I was like, what do I need to do to get out of this? Yeah, and for me at that time in my life, it was sort of, I mean, I guess you could say

I was making okay money. I was making enough to like feed my kid and pay my, I think it was 300 bucks in rent, 300 bucks a month rather than mortgage on my trailer. But my biggest fear was not being broke because like when you're at rock bottom and you're on welfare you can still like afford food goodbye yeah goodbye might be a stress like i could afford food and i could afford my trailer so it was like we weren't homeless and weren't starving so to me that was absolute destitution wasn't really like that bad. There's no dignity in it, but still it wasn't.

They went on the streets. That's right. So with that, like my, it's like, what is it? Laszlo's hierarchy of needs. Laszlo's hierarchy of needs. Like, so like once the basic needs were met, then I started to look around and I realized like the greatest fear for this like beautiful little baby boy was that he would grow up and see his dad as

a loser. And that is a, once those basic needs are met, that's an incredibly powerful motivator. Yeah. Because, you know, my dad who's, who's, um, absolutely not a loser. Um, but I watched my dad to provide for his family of six. I watched him work 60 hours a week, hating every minute of it. And he came home from work just hating his job. But feeling trapped, probably. Yeah, he had a family to take care of. He struggled. Now he does what he loves. He has a coffee shop now and he's never been happier. But I watched that and I just saw myself going

down that trajectory. And it wasn't just a job that I hated. It was a job that I hated that didn't provide. It was a job that I hated that did nothing but cover those basic needs. And that was the motivator. That was the motivator. The catalyst for me giving up and moving to New York and going for it was I still look back and I don't know what that was. There are only like two times in my life where I genuinely have no idea what I was thinking. And I moved to New York City in June of 2001

with $800 and a place to stay for three months. And that was it. Where'd you move from? Connecticut, like three hours outside the city. Gotcha. So you'd probably been to the city a number of times. Sure, yeah, yeah. Take the train.

But I knew one person there and I had... And they let you stay for three months. Yeah, that's exactly right. Three months and 800 bucks. No job, no prospects, no education, no skills. And how old were you then? 19. 19. And what was the dream to do? I mean, I wanted to make movies. But you didn't have the skills yet. You were kind of doing a little bit. I knew how to edit an iMovie. Wow. No, I didn't have any skills. Nothing. Okay.

So you wanted to make movies in New York City, but you had no clue, no connections. I knew one thing, and I knew that I would never be able to do it in Connecticut. Right. You knew you had to be there to see what was possible. Yeah. Okay. And what happened? What was the turning point?

I mean, it was tough. I bounced out as a bike messenger. It's a horrible job. I was a bike messenger. And this is back, this is 15 years ago, but it was back when you paid for your cell phone minutes. Remember those days? Oh my gosh, yes. And they would call me on my cell phone to let me know where I had to deliver and pick up packages. And at the end of the first week, my pay was $280. And my cell phone bill for that week was $350. No. So it cost me 70 to work for a week that's right oh my gosh miserable i also got hurt it was a nightmare by a taxi or a car yeah like got doored so you're not making you're losing money working for people insurance yeah um but you

know like eventually i met this artist guy and i did some like grunt work for him and when i say grunt work i mean grunt work right um and showed him some like grunt work for him. And when I say grunt work, I mean grunt work. Right. Um, and showed him some of my movies and kind of met some other people and show my movies to anyone who would listen, anyone who would watch. And eventually I, the first paid gig I got was,

I was hired by this guy who was an art collector. And he's like, I want you to make a movie for my husband for his 50th birthday. And I was like, great. I would love to make a movie for your husband for his 50th birthday. I would take any job. Sure. At bar mitzvah videos, wedding videos. And, um, he was like great i would love to make a movie for your husband for his 50th i would take any job sure that bar mitzvah videos wedding videos and um he was like okay here are a list

of people that that we were going to want you to interview for his wedding his his birthday video and it was like no joke like hillary clinton mario cuomo president bill clinton i was like oh my god living in retrospect is a really bad idea. I say this about everything. I look forward with a laser focus because to pay too much attention to the past and what could have been is just a tremendous exercise in futility. Instead, looking forward and saying, where do I want to be? Just having having all the momentum be there, I think, is what's the best practices for me. I know that if given an opportunity to go back and change anything, I would change nothing because I'm incredibly happy right now. That's great.

And I love it. And I think if it wasn't for those hardships, even really terrible things happening, I don't know that it would have added up to where I am right now. I don't know that it would have added up to where I am right now but I work as hard as I can every day to always make the best decisions I can to contribute to that Thank you.