Latest / "the good work talk show" with mallory contois / the good work talk show | ep. 05 - max schneider (aka @max4cracks)

Transcript

the good work talk show | ep. 05 - max schneider (aka @max4cracks) · "the good work talk show" with mallory contois

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: If something is funny, that's very important to me.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think like a lot of the decisions I've made in my life are based on whether or not I thought they were funny.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Taking life too seriously isn't conducive to building a happy and fulfilled life.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: The internet is just a place where people share negativity.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: You don't make your own brand.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's what people say your brand is that is your brand.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: Are you busy after this?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm gonna be using your pool regardless of whether you're busy or not.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: My guest today is Max Snyder, otherwise known as Max for Crafts, on the internet.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: He has 258,000 followers and 45 million likes on TikTok, which is a lot.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm very excited to hear from him what it's like to put his life on the internet, what it's like creating content for meme culture, and um what we can all learn from his experience going from videographer to content creator.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Mallory Contois, and this is good work.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: Watch your watch your head on our.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I see your.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry to gender your boom mics.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: No, they're hers, for sure.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Are they?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, hers or they's.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: They're definitely not.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're not men.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: They're definitely not men.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: What the heck?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: Well, welcome to good work.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: Max Schneider, welcome.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so happy you're here.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's an honor to be here.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: And just to be, I want to set the stage right away.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: Today you are here as Max Schneider, the human.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: Not Max for cracks, not Silver Lake Cowboy, not what are some other what are some other personas?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: Who others call you?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: At the end of the day, you don't make your own brand.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's what people say your brand is that is your brand.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: Very wise, very wise, Max.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: I agree.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: So today we're here to talk about work and the idea of work and your work and how you've kind of come into this world that you live in.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I like to start these conversations like very, very far back.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I want to ask you about little Max as a kid.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: I want you to tell me a little bit about what you were like as a kid.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: I want you to tell me a little about how you grew up, like what were your main influences, and maybe were there any early signs that this would be who you would become?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: Heck yeah.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um little Max.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: It was a long time ago.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: It was a long time ago.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: Not that long, though.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Ages ago at this point.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: Eons.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: When I was a little kid, I always felt very creative.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like I wanted I was always into cars, so I would draw cars nonstop.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: It was like my hyperfixation was drawing cars, and I thought, I'm gonna become a car designer.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: Cool.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and like, or a race car driver, whichever one.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Whichever one happened for you.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and as I got older and drawing more things, I I think I kind of realized that car designers have to be really, really smart.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're talking about designing something with drag coefficients in mind and all kinds of stuff that's like way above my pay grade.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: So we can as an eight-year-old, it was above your pay grade.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, even as a 30-year-old, it's above my pay grade, you know.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so you were drawing a lot.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: Did you have siblings?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: I have a half-sister.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: My sister, but but she came later in life.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so you were only child vibes for most of your childhood?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, most of my childhood.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: How do you feel like that manifested for you?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like, did you become super independent as a result?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: Did you like being around other people a lot?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I I've always liked being.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh when I was in elementary school, they took me out and put me in the special classroom for like one hour out of the day.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because they were like, well, I think he's like socially a little different because I would play near other kids but not with other kids.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: In preschool, I remember I would I liked playing with the toy cars.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: There was a bucket of toy cars at the daycare that I went to.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: Such a like that's such a visual memory.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: We definitely had the bucket of cars.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's like you know, the colorful buckets, and they had like a green one that had dinosaurs and like a yellow one that had the toy cars.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: So there was, I remember there were two kids that every day they would come and they would play with the dinosaurs with each other.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: I would play with the toy cars.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like nearby.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: Nearby, but I was into the cars, they were the dinosaur guys, so it was like we weren't we were adjacent, but we weren't really able to like play with one another, and I think that kind of carried throughout.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't know if that has to do with um growing up as the only kid in the house because at the end of the day, when I grew up, I spent a lot of time in like daycare programs.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um my mom lived in New York, and my dad lived in California, and I lived with my dad the majority of the time.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: Did you grow up in the LA area?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we bounced around a bit.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh bounced around LA and I went to high school in Huntington Beach.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I consider myself from Huntington Beach.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: Southern California though.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: Southern California.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: Born and raised.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: All right, cool.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: So you were creative, you were drawing.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: Would you have described yourself as more introverted or extroverted?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good question.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know that I could have put words to it at that point in time, and my memory of it isn't clear enough.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: What about high school?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: What was high school like?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: High school, I wanted to be around other people.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I wanted to be social and I wanted to have that kind of likability.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if I like fully realized that that uh my vision for it, but I was like adjacent to it, I guess.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: I transferred high school as two years in.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I had like a little bit of motion at my first high school, and then when I transferred, I had no emotion and I didn't understand the kids there at all.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was like it's like starting over.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: But of course, you know, you make friends eventually playing sports and stuff.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: Did you play sports?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I played lacrosse I played lacrosse in football, and then when I transferred, I just played lacrosse.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: And that helped probably to create a little bit of community, or did you find that those people didn't really like?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: Did you feel like you related to those people, or were you still kind of there's this other world?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: It was a different, it was kind of a different world, but yeah, I stu I started to relate to them.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_03: Are you still drawing at this point?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: Has this has that kind of like continued to be a thing for you?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: Oh well, in high school, but also to this day.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, towards the end of high school, I when I was in high school, I like had this yearning to make money.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to have some money that I could spend on something.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: I never like really had any money that I could spend on anything.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, well, I would, I would, I understood cars, so I would buy and sell cars on on Craigslist.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: So this is how the cars kind of continued as a focal point.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I was like, I understand them.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: I understand what these things are worth.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of fun, and you can fix them up here and there, and then sell them for more.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I also worked selling parts at this, uh, it was like a small boutique car dealership that sold like vintage cars.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, what's a way to make more money doing the same thing?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Selling a house is kind of similar to selling a car.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: I want to get my real estate license.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you're still in high school at this point.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Still in high school.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, this is gonna be my exit strategy.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna get my real estate license as soon as I get out of high school.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna start selling houses, and then boom, I'm gonna be rich.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: Right, because that's what it seems like from the year.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like when you look at when you watch these sort of like house selling shows and you hear about real estate agents.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: So this is how I made$700 billion flipping three houses this year.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right, okay.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: With no money down, right?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's perfect, easy, no problem.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: So what happened?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, yeah, but my dad's like, dude, you gotta go to college.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'll help you out.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Just just just go to go to college.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, what am I gonna do?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point I was like in this like computer art program at high school.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I was like, oh, you know what, this is the only class that I enjoy doing.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I could be a graphic designer.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: So I that was kind of a hot thing at that, but what year are we in when you go from high school to college?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: I started I graduated high school in 2018.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: So so yeah, I suppose it was trendy.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: Still is trendy.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_03: Trendy ish.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: Also fun.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, fun.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I did that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: I I went I went to college, I got a BFA in graphic design.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: Look at you, that's so fancy.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I did I did very well actually.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because I was like, this stuff is easy, it's just like mostly stuff that I actually want to do.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: Versus high school, you just have to do a bunch of you have to do everything.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: You have to do a bunch of stuff you don't want to do all the time, and nobody has any fun.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: And well, some people have fun.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't the type of person to have a ton of fun in high school because like that wasn't that wasn't my peak.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: You knew your peak was coming later.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I didn't know, but I I knew if that was gonna be my peak, that was not a very high peak for me.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: Sure, sure.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and so one of the one of the things that comes up a lot with people on good work and and just in general is this idea of really following momentum or like following the things that feel easy.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: I think sometimes that feels like a trap where you're like, well, if it's easy, it can't be worth doing or whatever.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: But uh you found it sounds like that by following the path of doing things that felt natural or easy to you, that that was a way to kind of actually unlock some performance and talent and and ability to like do really well.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: Is that for sure?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: I I also think like I fundamentally disagree with that mindset to like if it's easy, you shouldn't, it's not worth doing.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what's easy to someone might be incredibly hard to somebody else.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, in the same way, like some people can film a video and do everything first take, and some people have to do it 75 times, and at the end of the day, like, yeah, it's easier for the person who's really naturally very talented at it, but it doesn't make it not worthwhile.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't make it just means that they're able to accomplish whatever they're trying to accomplish quicker.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and so you get that degree.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, did you specialize in anything?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I know you got it in well, you got you said you got your BFA in graphic design.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: Graphic design.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: So you specialized in graphic design.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: Was there anything, any sort of style, any type of project, any like, did you feel like you were starting to develop your taste at that point, or were you sort of just mastering the basics across the board?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think, yeah, they kind of give you a little bit of everything.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: They give you like, at least in the program that I was in, they had like print design, UA UIUX design, uh typography, you know, all the diff different disciplines.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: I knew UIUX was like obviously very uh profitable for a lot of designers.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Especially I went to school in San Jose.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: So like all the stuff around there, like you're gonna work in tech as a designer up there.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: I knew that's not what I wanted to do.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: And why not?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like that that kind of stuff doesn't move me, it doesn't excite me.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it doesn't give you enough space to be creative.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yes, you get to be creative in many ways, but like at the end of the day, you're designing within a very strict brand system of sales force.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they're looking for a set of icons and you know, layout design.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's just kind of more like formulaic and you have to stay within.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it feels very mathematical sometimes.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, definitely.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think unfortunately for a lot of those designers, they will be replaced with by AI.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so was there a medium in college while you were getting your BFA that it was like you were more attracted to?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like had video come into play for you yet, or were you really playing more in graphic design still?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: I like the tactile stuff where like I was really into in college like printing stuff out and then ripping it up and making designs with like the ripped up, and then like take a picture of that and then add in graphics on top of it.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it added in like yeah, like a layered effect, and just felt like something that that was like you weren't really able to recreate that with computer stuff.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: At the time, anyway.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, even now I feel like uh, yeah, there it's something about touching it and for sure doing a one-of-one type of thing.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I find that like when you're making those like uh mistakes or just kind of moving things around or placing things, you see things that you weren't really able to if you're like in this like digital space.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: So all right, so you did that, and then you ended up at an agency, right?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: How talk to me about the transition from from college into sort of the working working world?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so so at like the end of my college career, I was doing freelance work and I was kind of like ready to move on.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: I knew I didn't want to do anything in the Bay because everything was tech there, so I came back down to LA.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, and I started applying for jobs.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: I ended up getting hired at an agency that did like social media campaigns for mostly entertainment clients.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they were like, Cool, you're a little baby and you're a graphic designer, so you're just gonna do whatever, whatever graphic designs, that's kind of what we're looking for.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I was hyped on that.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: That was like my first like official like big boy job.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, so yeah, I did that for a while.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: And at this company, I was like the only person there that was under 30 years old, and I was like, you know, yeah, pretty young, was like 22, maybe.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: 20, yeah, 22, I think.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um so and I was like looking to keep this job, and they had like one guy that did edits and like kind of light animation work, and they had another girl that did graphic design, and then there was me.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, okay, a lot of the stuff that we need is video work.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I need to like get on YouTube and learn After Effects and learn premiere and stuff.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what I did.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: I like taught myself how to do that to make myself not as much of a disposable asset at this company.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, all right, so so you got into this role, you kind of proactively saw that there were people in the company who had a set of skills that were that made them really critical to like where the industry was going, and you wanted to have those skills as well.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: So you self-taught.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: Did you mostly go to school of YouTube or like school of YouTube?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's how you learn anything.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, famously.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Famously, yeah.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: I learned more from I mean, like, even if you go to college, like you do have like some guardrails of okay, you need to like do this project and it needs to like roughly be on par with this, and uh, you know, whatever.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, like you're figuring it out on your own.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's up to you to like, you know, put the pen to paper, so to speak.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: So so yeah, I I basically and I was interested in that.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: I had like downloaded After Effects and messed around with it.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: I was really into there was uh like uh like title sequences.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: There was a really cool one.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: It blew my mind when I saw it.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh the true detective season one title sequence where it had this like double exposure and it was done by this company called Elastic.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: They would do like these like really cool the title sequences have gotten pretty wild in the last few years.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, especially I feel like Apple TV does some really great ones for their own.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Severance one is pretty insane.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: Shrinking has a good one, yeah.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay, that's cool.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's the thing that you were so that's kind of video adjacent.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then how you were like doing learning this short form video in in COVID, right?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: Or like right before was it right before?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: No, this was before.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: This was 2018, 2019.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 2018, 2019.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: But then you were kind of ready when COVID came.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, by the time COVID came, I was pretty good.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point, I was like, okay, cool.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now I'm like pretty good at at animating this stuff, and like the best in the business are the the companies that are doing these like intro sequences, and they had like a bunch of like really cool agencies that I really liked.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: Where it was like Elastic, like I said, Oddfellows did good stuff.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: They had there was a bunch.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: I was like a huge nerd for all this stuff, yeah.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I was like, okay, I want to take that and do something with it.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I had gotten promoted from whatever, just baby graphic designer to senior designer, and I would baby to teenager, yeah.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: They they made they gave me a little bit more money and like you know, wanted I they gave me the senior title, not that it really like meant anything.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, okay, I don't how do I expand?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if there's anywhere for me to like grow at this place because like when I first got there, I was learning from all the people, and you know, there was a guy that was better at at doing motion graphics and after effects than I, and I could like look up to that and try and build up to that, to where like then I I like learned all the stuff.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: I grew to the point where like I didn't necessarily feel like anyone was better than me at it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, well, if no one's better than me at this thing, and I there's nowhere for me to go up and learn other like more managerial skills, it's time for me to move and do something else.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: So at that point, I went and I found a job at a branding agency called Innovation Protocol.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: And what I brought was, hey, you guys do a lot of brand systems.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think video components are gonna be a huge part of these.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think you should be offering video packages to all these clients.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, the head of that company was like, Yeah, okay, sure, yeah, that's something we could travel.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever, yeah.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: We have a guy that does video here.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but like we're we're looking for some support for him too.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: So come on, yeah, let's do the thing.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: So you were kind of uh pitching a role, like you you were you had your eyes set on like I want to do this type of thing at this job, and I'm gonna go convince them that like they need to be doing this.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, I I to me it was like a no-brainer.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like all the big branding agencies, if you look at like to me, the big North Star was like Pentagram, which is in New York, and they were doing like video component of whenever they released a new brand system, they would have like some awesome like video that animates and told the story of their updated visual system and this, that, and the other.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, This is what you guys need to be doing.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: They were like, Well, our clients aren't really like that, you know, whatever, but like we do see your value add, and let's let's try it out.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I got that job, um, and then COVID happened, and I very quickly got fired from that job because I was like the new guy that you know, like didn't necessarily have proven yourself yet.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I hadn't proven myself.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I wasn't the best designer, I was far better at like animating the stuff, whereas like creating the whole brand system, like really for me was like a little boring.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because, like you said, it's kind of like again, mathematical, and you have to like push pixels around and like make sure it looks good on 75 different things.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, this is kind of boring.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: Were you already right making any of your own content at this point, or no?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: Had you I would do it for fun.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you you had started your own channels or I would I would of course had Instagram.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I would as a way to like uh like experiment and also like st keep my curiosity going for like making videos and stuff, I would do stuff just for myself, not for like freelance clients or not for like my actual job clients.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because because then I could do whatever I want about whatever I want.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: Were you in those videos?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like were you were they reminiscent of the type of videos you do now, or was it totally different?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, totally different.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: This was more like I would shoot, I would it'd be like me and my friend like drifting our cars and on like an abandoned road or like skating or whatever, and I would like edit it and color correct it and do like graphics for it.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because it was fun, yeah, it was fun, yeah.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: It was fun, um, and of course, like when I got the job at the branding agency, like not everything we did was very fun or glamorous.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like, okay, cool, there is like still like hope for for the, you know.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and what one thing I hear a lot from people is that they feel some sort of like posting online can feel whatever, right?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: It can feel a little stressful or scary or uncomfortable or cringy or whatever.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: Did you feel that at any point, like when you started posting for yourself, or was it really just and and and maybe it's different when you were creating videos that you weren't in versus when you made that transition to making videos that you were sort of starring in?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm curious if you ever had that feeling.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, well, so it's a little bit interesting because basically, long story short, I went freelance and I took the animation job back, and then I went freelance again.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: I got offered jobs for a bunch of money.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: I turned down those jobs because I realized like corporate stuff wasn't necessarily like the path that I envisioned for my life.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to just like delete eight hours of my day like working for somebody else.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: If anything, I wanted like to do freelance and have the freedom to like reject certain projects or take on certain projects.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: And eventually I got reached out to a long-term friend and freelance client of mine who worked for a company called Donut Media.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: His name is Jesse Wood.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: He was the chief creative officer of this YouTube channel, Donut Media, which was a pretty big YouTube channel.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: I started working with them when they had probably 500,000 subscribers, and then they had grown it to like six million.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: So so they offered me kind of uh, hey, look, we got a deal from Facebook, they want us to come in and make reels.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: We have to do three reels every week.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: We want we I think your Instagram's kind of funny and kind of cool, and you like obviously like get it, get like what our brand is.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: So why don't you come in, you do Facebook reels to satisfy that contract that we have, and and then you can also like make TikToks for us.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: But by virtue of that, I ended up just making a bunch of content.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: And like learning how to because when I got that job, I'd never made a TikTok in my life.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: So you were able to kind of learn through the framework of a job.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: In order how to do this thing.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was very fortunate in that, you know, I I always think like when you're first starting out, you have no idea how to do something.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like go work for somebody.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because like at the end of the day, if you don't know how to do something and you mess it up, you still get paid.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like more of their L to hold.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas like if you don't know how to do something and you take on a client and then you drop the ball on it, yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's like that's your L to hold, and you'll never hear from that client ever again.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_03: So at what point did you make a transition from working for other people to working for yourself?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: And what what did that kind of decision look like for you?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: So basically, the Facebook Reels contract ended, and I continued making TikToks for this for this organization, but I they were like, yo, this stuff actually isn't profitable for us because Facebook was paying your entire like contract before.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now, now it's just basically like burning money for us.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: So uh why don't you do the marketing for our merch?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I did that because I had you know, I had all this, I knew how to operate a camera, I knew how to like write copy, I knew how to animate stuff.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: I had like all I just could kind of do whatever, they could throw me into whatever job, and at this point I had like faked it so many times that I like had this like repertoire of skills, so they're like, Yeah, we kind of we just like having you around, so let's let's just toss you into the into the the merch marketing space.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I did that for them, and at that point I already knew how to build an audience.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, I'll just do this stuff for myself after like having a little tolerance break.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I so I started doing that while still doing that freelance contract, and uh my page grew pretty rapidly just because I had figured it out, and I was like, I'm just gonna do this on the side with the goal being I'm gonna grow my platform here, and then whatever I do after this freelance contract, it'll probably be my own thing.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'll bounce out and I'll have this platform that I can promote whatever that thing is.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so did you did you have any ideas of what that thing would be?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like, did you think you were gonna go start a company or start a clothing line or start something and like use the platform to distribute it?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: Did you know or have any inkling that the platform would be the thing?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: I no, I had no idea.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I didn't think the platform would be the thing.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even think that was.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: I guess it's really hard to promise that to yourself.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I didn't I didn't think that was real.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I was just like, oh what I'll probably end up like making a clothing brand or something because that's what I'm also doing.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right at that point, I was like doing the marketing for this big YouTube channel's merch business.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it would be a natural next step.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll just start my own thing and then I'll have this platform uh with which I can promote it on.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and I just kind of like started making videos.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there was like outfit videos, and then I'd put like a funny caption on them.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that kind of evolved into something else and and grew pretty quickly.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: So within I set the goal at the beginning of 2020, I guess it would have been 2023.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: That oh well at the beginning, at the at the end of this year, my goal was to have 20,000 followers on TikTok, and I was able to achieve that goal by the beginning of February.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then it just kind of continued to grow from there.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um what do you think it was looking back?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: You probably didn't know at the time, but looking back, what do you think it was about your content or your storytelling or your style or whatever it was that people loved or that allowed you to kind of like stand out in a very crowded world?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think I would just kind of like do satire and make fun of stuff that was kind of like around me, which was at the time like you know, the characters of Silver Lake, and and I just would kind of like make videos about that that I thought were funny, and apparently other people thought it was funny.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: And and even people that weren't necessarily familiar with like a Silver Lake, Silver Lake as like a physical place, yeah, because there is sort of like a Silver Lake in everybody's reality, like a Silver Lake archetype.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um like why so many people love the Los Feliz daycare account, too.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know that why?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I don't know that.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it's fantastic.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's just like a satire of what would happen at a Los Feliz Day.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, incredible.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so, like I what I'm hearing is that you you really were building for yourself in a lot of ways.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like the things you were making were things that you personally would want to consume as a consumer.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: Is that right?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like you, the the media you were creating was something that you would think was funny.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: Was that kind of your barometer?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: If you didn't think it was funny, it wasn't going out.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, more or less.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: I thought it was like relatable to me in some capacity.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, at the end of the day, like we wanna, especially if something is so tightly tied to your personal identity, where it's like, I'm putting my face in these videos, I'm putting like that's just like what I wear to work that day, and that's what's going in the video.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you want you want it to be something that kind of like loosely represents who you are or the things that you're surrounded with or identify with.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: On that note, how much of how much of it is contrived or built or designed as a character of how you show up on the internet versus how much of it feels like authentic to who you are?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think it kind of depends video by video, but like, you know, I think it's like every good joke has truth to it, right?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I think the same is true where like obviously like interacting with me versus like if you only knew how I presented on like TikTok or Instagram, like you have no idea who I am, but there are elements of my real persona that shine through.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and at the end of the day, like if something is funny that's very important to me, I think like a lot of the decisions I've made in my life are based on whether or not I thought they were funny.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: Is that because you find joy in bringing other people joy and laughter, or like what's the motivation there?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: For sure, other people and myself, of course, at the end of the day, like I'm searching for like fulfillment and happiness and like taking life too seriously to me isn't conducive to building a happy and fulfilled life.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: Has it has there been anything hard about that process of navigating, like being max in the real world and then creating max on the internet and kind of weaving those things, or has it come fairly naturally?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like, is there anything that causes you stress there or oh for sure.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, can you tell me a little bit about it?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think you know, with anything there's stress involved, but like, you know, navigating uh relationships with an internet persona, they might not always, they might not always vibe.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, like your life in some ways becomes more public.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, people might uh feel a type of way about certain people commenting on stuff.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, like you become desensitized to it at a certain point.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's like if someone comments something mean and you're like not used to being in the public eye, getting like a million people seeing you, like that might feel overwhelming to me.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's like you know, the internet is just a place where people share negativity.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: Had have you always had that outlook, or did you feel that in the beginning?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like, were you did oh I mean did you have to learn that?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: You become desensitized to it.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think like you have to build a degree of separation from it, and I learned that from my like donut days, whereas like when I was posting there, I had no idea what I was doing, and certain things did well and certain things did really, really bad.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the day, like you have to detach from it.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um because like I would just get hate comments all the time on that page.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's in this like uncanny valley of like it's not horrible, but it's not good, and everything in between is gonna get hated on the absolute most.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because people see it and they say, You almost fooled me.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: But you're a phony, you're corny, you're this, you're that, the other.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and of course, like everyone, everyone that's on the internet has their own way of deciding whether you, someone they don't know, they've never interacted with, is authentic or not, in defining your authenticity and your brand.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: What does authenticity mean in that context to you?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like, do you how do you think about being authentic on the internet?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what is what does that mean?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's tough because everything on the internet is inauthentic in some capacity, you know.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: Created.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know, uh authenticity is in as the internet would define it, is like in the eyes of the viewer, much like your brand.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, sure, you could you could do stuff that you feel like is true to yourself.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you can work on projects really hard, you can like put in day in, day out all this work into something.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you might be able to define it for yourself as authentic, but the council of your peers will decide for you.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: How do you resist not like defending your work?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: I don't defend anything.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: I don't defend anything, you know.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you want to hate on it.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't even delete comments or anything.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you could just see.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: Is that part of that desensitized sensitization process though?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like, it can't have been like that at the beginning.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: Did you Yeah, for sure.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I would try to let it go.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think, like, obviously, if you're like deleting stuff or giving shine to those comments that are hating on you, or you know, giving attention to that, you're kind of opening the door for more of it.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I would just try to not engage with it.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of always been my strategy, and I used to care more about it, especially in the earlier days.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, like I couldn't necessarily, when I was first starting, working for somebody else.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like I could go defend my honor in the comment sections from like a company account.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: So so that that was like a little bit.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I got your practice, yeah.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then by the time I started my own thing, then it was like not even something that I like really wanted to do.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, it was more sensitive to it at that point in time, but like what can you do?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: Now I don't care too much.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's it's barely like if I read a mean comment, I had a I read a mean comment the other day.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was like some somebody commented on TikTok that I did, which was an ad, mind you.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, wow, you really fell off.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it's like for for like half of a second, I was like, damn, that hurt.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was like completely out of my mind.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: And like obviously, like I have it in my brain now that we're talking about it, but like it brings up nothing for me because it's just like that's just how it goes.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I've seen like tons of videos online where it's like someone just doing something really cool and genuine, and it'll just be like a bunch of people hating on them.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's just and it kind of de like devalues those comments at that point.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because you're just like, this doesn't even make any sense.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's it's illogical.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: A huge thank you to my friends at Granola for sponsoring the Goodwork Talk Show.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: I started using Granola as just a note taker, but now I use it for every type of meeting and conversation from quick check-ins to creative collaborations and everything in between.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: Granola is an AI notepad that transcribes meetings, whether online or in person, and it creates amazing summaries that you can chat with and you can ask follow-up questions to well after the meeting is over.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: As a busy person with a full-time job and a couple of side projects, I truly couldn't keep track of all of it without granola.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: It helps me stay focused and stay present while still capturing all the details and the important to-dos in the background.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: I even used it on all of these episodes.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: So you'll be able to check the notes for each show and chat with them just like you were sitting here with us.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: Granola also has features for following up and for drafting to-do lists.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: It definitely saves me from dropping balls and it helps me do what I say I'll do.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: The best way to check it out is to try it in your next meeting.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: To read the summary of today's show and chat with that summary, you can visit granola.ai slash goodwork.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: And if you're a new granola user, you'll get three months free.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: Again, that's granola.ai slash goodwork.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm taking this off.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's hot.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sweating.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, while you do that, you can't see how much I'm sweating on camera.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: You look sweatless to me.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: Dry as a bone.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um all right.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: Well, while you do that, I'm gonna pull up the granola question.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: So granola is a note taker.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I love granola.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: Do you use it?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: The food or the app?
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, the well, I'm about to probably start using the app after I do this battery.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the food's delicious.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_03: They sent me a great spoon recently, actually.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but the app is great.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_03: It transcribes everything, and then you can chat with the notes.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I have a secret for you.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, what is it?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: I wore my swim trunks under these pants.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: Just in case.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm for sure drinking.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, there's no just in case.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_03: There's a plan.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have it's are you busy after this?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm gonna be using your pool regardless of whether you're busy or not.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not busy, and I will also hang at the pool.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's a perfect pool, then.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, yeah.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: Granola's been listening to the conversation, it's been taking notes, uh, and now I can chat with those notes.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_03: So I asked it what I should ask you next.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thankful that you disclosed that granola was gonna be listening to us at the beginning of this.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_03: Always.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: Not that I distrust granola.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_03: No, we always disclose.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: We always disclose.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, all right.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_03: How do you decide whether an idea is just funny to you versus strong enough to publish?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's an excellent question, Granola.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_03: Excellent question.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so what I do is I have a bunch of content ideas.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh sometimes they come to me, sometimes I'll see something else that inspired me to create an idea.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: I put it down in my NoTap on my phone.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and a lot of times I'll feel very strongly about an idea at first.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: I let it sit there.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, some ideas you're like, we gotta do that immediately.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like what how and of course there's time between the inception of the idea and and then the creation of it because you know, I mean, like, at least for my content, it's not like I I come up with an idea and I can immediately film it.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: I usually have to uh organize in some capacity or ask someone to film it or or be in a certain environment to film it.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I'll put it down in the notes.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: And do you just use like your Apple notes?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: Apple notes.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, same.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_03: I just have a long, crazy list of like three-word phrases.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, that's pretty much how how mine is.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: We should do a dramatic reading at some point.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, it'll just be like a bunch of like uh the way my videos are, a lot of times it's like text on screen.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: So it'll just have like the text on screen.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes if it's like the text on screen doesn't do so much of the heavy lifting, and there's like a visual component that does more of the heavy lifting, then I'll like have a brief description.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: And brief I mean like a few words of like what's happening so that when I look at it the next time, I'm like, oh, that's what I was thinking that one time.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: Now now I'm back there.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and if it's like a good idea, it's just like an intuition thing, at least for me at this point.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I have a pretty good barometer for if an idea is gonna be pretty solid.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_03: But you sit on it for a minute.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: So you revisit it and make sure you still feel that way.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, at at the minimum, like usually an hour.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's been very few videos where I thought of it and then immediately shot it.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: There has been, but like that's not majority of the time.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: So How often do you come back to the idea and you're like, this isn't actually that funny?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: Probably like 80% of the time.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay, so most of the time.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, most of the time.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: So so that's why my my list it dates back to the very beginning where there's like just a bunch of ideas and only the strongest ones got made, uh, and and the rest just kind of like sat there.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes I'll be like trying to think of some stuff, and I'll go back in the notes and I'll scroll up and I'll say, Oh, I forgot about this one.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll go and I'll make that if it still resonates with me, most of the time.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's so like, you know, when I go back, it's like either because it was bad or because, or maybe it was a decent idea at the time, but it's now something that I've moved on from.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I do the exact same thing.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: I actually recommend, I think everybody should do this.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: Just have a I feel like we overcomplicate this sometimes.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: I just I have the same thing.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_03: I just have a running note in my Apple notes of just like ideas I have.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes there's a theme, like if you create content, I do it for things I'm gonna write about.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_03: But if you just like if you just do yourself the the give yourself the space to write down all ideas, even if they might be bad, and then give yourself space to go back and revisit them.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not a bad thing if they end up being bad.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes you get to reuse them, sometimes they spur something else, but like at least you're capturing those moments of like spark for yourself.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I also have like a bunch of stuff where I'm like, this is the beginnings, this is the very formings of something that could be something eventually down the line.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's also fun to look back on for sure.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: A lot I think a lot of times it'll there'll be something like that where I'm like, okay, cool, like I wasn't ready to fully bake this cookie.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's just cookie dough at the time.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: But but now that I'm looking back, now I can see it from a different perspective and can complete this idea.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I love that.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: I also have like a number of separate notes.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's like I have a content ideas note, I have a YouTube video ideas note, which is usually just like titles.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I also have like a bunch of random notes with like just other ideas, mostly bad.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like I had this idea for a restaurant that was called boy meal.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a terrible idea.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_03: So far, I'm in.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, boy meal.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: So you go into this restaurant and and there's two options.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's a standing room option where like everyone eats over and everyone has their own individual sink, and you don't get this is all all the menu items are are foods that don't come with a plate.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: Give me an example, like a cheeseburger.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, I mean, yeah, it could be a cheeseburger or something handheld, like a burrito, uh-huh.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: Or or a hot pocket or some something like that.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you have to eat it over the sink.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_03: But everyone has their own sink.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone has their own sink in the standing room.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one section of it, and then there's another section of it that's the sitting room.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: And this and in this situation, you have there's like couches, and there's like a coffee table, and you get a plate, but you're like on this communal coffee table, and it's a totally different menu because these are like plated items.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: And they're all like boy meal type things.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_03: As well as the girl dinner.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right, right, right.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it and that might be like a spin-off restaurant is girl dinner.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe they're neighbor restaurants.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: They're right next to each other.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and then the seated portion of the restaurant, you have you have different things like uh you might have like a bowl of rice with like turkey on it and like you know, just some barbecue sauce.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just like like just a bunch of hot sauce.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: And you can get uh you can get a discount off your meal if you order your stuff unseasoned.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: Grass.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: But but these items in my brain would be like gourmet versions of like boy of like a boy.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_03: Do you go with friends or do you go alone?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think it like I think the novelty of it would kind of speak to it.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I ideally you'd go with friends, but you could also go alone.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay, nice.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: And there was also a takeout component, which I don't I don't remember what what it was, but it's in my notes.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's in your notes somewhere.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: All right, well, amazing.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: I love that idea.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think we should investigate it further.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, all right, we're moving on.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_03: We're moving on to the second second section, it's slightly shorter, about your perspectives on work in general.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_03: So this is less about like your your journey and more just about like what is work.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um although these definitely cross over.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_03: You've talked a little bit about this, but like how do you decide what to do versus what to say no to?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_03: I think especially when it comes to brand partnerships, things like this, because for the the viewers understand, like you make your money through brand partnerships.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's how you make a living, and so that's a huge part of the equation here.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think a lot of people don't understand that like there are comput like it's not like Instagram pays you a bunch of money.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think a lot of people have this misconception that you get a bunch of money if you do uh 50 million views on a month on Instagram, they're gonna pay you right pay-per-view kind of thing.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: 20 to 30 grand for that month.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that's just simply not the case.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've had months where I've turned 50, 60 million views, and Instagram would pay me like two grand versus like a brand deal is a lot more money, depending on your following, what spaces you're in, how much that brand likes you, how good you are at negotiating.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um So that's where the majority of the money is.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, there's also money in merch.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: There's and different platforms pay out differently.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: TikTok, for instance, will pay you for viewership if your monetization is on, if your video is over a minute long.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, so video length plays a big factor.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: YouTube pays a lot better because, like, obviously, you know, the it's they can show an ad before the video.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: You can set the ad preferences.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have like an hour-long video, you can put like four or five ad sections in there, and then you get paid for all the people watching that.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so when you're thinking about bringing brands into your world with your audience, how do you decide who to say no to?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm sure you get approached by a whole weird range of things.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's certain spaces that I try to avoid.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's just a personal preference.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't drink, so I avoid like alcohol company partnerships usually, unless it's like um they have like a mock tail or something that I can.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I would I would promote that, but I'm not gonna say yes to like uh we need you to promote our newest buzzball 26% alcohol.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, so I avoid that.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I've historically uh I now I'm very fortunate where when people reach out to me at this point in my career, like they trust the vision.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they I have a good Rolodex of working with brands and implementing brand products, like the other day, uh where we shot it here, which was the Ninja Kitchen slushy twist.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, they they trusted the vision, and like, you know, it's kind of an unconventional approach to advertising.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, where like I I made a video about beverage mogging a rival couple to assert dominance over them with this awesome drink maker.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: And um, they trusted the vision.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I sent it back to them, they they trusted the process, and the video did really well.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so that trust is something that you look for in a part of the stuff.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_03: For sure.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: But that that wasn't the always the case, like because when you're just starting.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: When you're just starting, of course, they they nobody thinks, and of course, like social media marketing has evolved.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas, like, you know, I think companies that are more savvy are aware that like you it's not it can't just be an ad read.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's not gonna be like sure you can do an ad read in a YouTube video because you have that captive audience, but for social media, it has to be it has to feel more organic and it has to you have to be able to implement it into your normal style of content so that your audience can can enjoy the content as well as be served the the ad in a way that's almost more experiential now, like the audience has to experience it in some way through your view or through your eyes.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the people that do the best brand deals are the ones where it feels like they're normal stuff, and and of course, you can tell by the viewership and the engagement that that that's what's successful.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I'm very fortunate to work with partners um that that really like trust that vision and kind of get it.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um I've had you know big big deals, which would be like a three-video deal for a boatload of money that you know I've said yes to.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: They seemed like they got it, and you know, at when it comes time to like present concepts to them and your vision for it, they wanted something that was felt like more of an ad.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I've just gone separate ways.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason is because you want to protect your your platform and your kind of identity or for sure.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, that's an element of it.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: At the end of the day, if the video does well, that's what I want it to do, that's what they want it to do.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's mutually beneficial.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: So if I know something is not gonna do well, you know, it's my page, I've been doing it for a long time.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't want an unhappy client.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, like I'd love to have, you know, lots of money in my pocket, but at the end of the day, like I don't think that is necessarily a good situation for for either of us to be in.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I think that's playing the long game too.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's about a long-term investment in your platform and maybe making harder short-term decisions in order to make that sustainable.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: For sure, sustainability is a big thing.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think uh, you know, if you are making content that feels like an ad, you're gonna alienate that viewer.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think it it seems to me like you care a lot about style and craft, and whether that be clothing style or craft in the style of video or whatever it might be, how do you feel like for folks listening that are maybe in a in a bunch of different industries, like how does that play into building a career or building a personal brand, or like how do you think about the importance of style and craft?
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's all about presentation at the end of the day.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you are an individual an individual and you are the face of something, you know, your style becomes part of your brand system in the same way that you know, for a corporation, it's the logo and it's the language model that they've built around the thing, and it's how that brand, like for instance, like Apple makes makes an item that like looks like this, and it's always looked like that and evolved from that, but you can tell immediately that that's an Apple product in the same way that like you know, my style, somebody might see that and be like, Oh, that's Max's brand.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I see people recognize you on the street or whatever because of your style, too.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you look like a lot of other people, just humans look like other humans, but your style helps to differentiate you as as Max.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I think that's what it is.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, awesome.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's my brand system.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I think we've got one more question.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: One more question.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna start taking the shoes off.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah, we'll do a barefoot last question.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_02: Just for you.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: Just fire it off.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: No feet from me.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we'll blur these out.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: Editor, can we blur these out?
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: The last can we blur these dogs out?
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_03: All right, last question.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_03: What does doing good work mean to you?
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: Doing good work.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I think at the end of the day, good work is something jewelry's coming off too.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: About to jump in right after this.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_02: We'll just keep it rolling.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we can pan the camera and get my dive.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: How deep is this thing?
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's I think like nine feet over here.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_03: Just go not neck first.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's we don't want to end the interview that way.
• 50:53
  unknown: Yeah.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_03: All right, good work.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_03: What does it mean?
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh good work is uh, you know, at the end of the day, there's at least two parties involved in any deal, right?
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: And in a transaction, like we talked about sustainability.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um that transaction should be beneficial for both parties.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: At the end of the day, you're providing a service and you've agreed to the terms of that, whether it's exchange for money, goods, clout, I don't know, whatever, whatever your deal is, if both parties are able to walk away from that happy and feel like they've been provided value in some capacity, that's good work.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_04: Hell yeah.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_04: Heck yeah.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_04: He's going pants.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_03: He's dropping trout on camera.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: These are my these are my swim trunks.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_03: These are swim trunks.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing that they didn't show through.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_03: I guess they're kind of skin colored.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you lost your mic.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sweating on camera here.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Keep it rolling.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: Keep it.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, I guess keep it rolling.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: Just pan it to the pool.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_03: All right, well, this has been good work with Max Schneider.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Granola.