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Alex Fischbein | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #64 | · The Christian Reeve Podcast

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It's another episode of the Christian we've podcast, but
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So thank you. And yeah, let's get into this
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podcast, shall we? Boom.
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Hello. And welcome to another episode
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of the Christian Reef podcast. Today's guests.
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Is a podcaster, a videographer, a basketball superfan
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photographer, software developer.
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This is the so many things. This guy does from Westchester
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in Philadelphia, I believe and he goes by the name, Alex fish
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beIN fishbein. It was fun, like see.
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Okay before I died I was doing this podcast about sitting
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there. Just thinking like, is it fish?
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Being a fish buying fish bait? I don't know.
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It could be either. It's Fifty-fifty.
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Oh yeah. I get both all the time.
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It's fine. Okay.
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That makes sense. Yeah.
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Toto's about your love of basketball and where it all
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began for you. So my love of basketball, really
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started when I was, I think I was only about like eight or
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nine years old. I have an older brother who's 7
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years older than me and he he was big into the Philadelphia
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76ers and at the time they had a big name Guy Allen Iverson and
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he had the newspaper clippings of Allen Iverson like all over
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his bedroom walls and me being the young and impressionable
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kid. I was like wait, this seems
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pretty cool. So I started watching with him.
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I started watching with my family and then ever since then
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it just kind of took off I started playing basketball at
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like I played for my school and then ever since I So, when I was
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about to play in high school, I actually was diagnosed with
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crohn's disease, so I couldn't play at the time and then, so
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that drove me to figure out like, what else I could do with
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basketball other than play since I couldn't play anymore.
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Yeah, it's just frustrating thing when things like this
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happen. I mean, y'all, I was very
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spoiled growing up as well and it's weird for me in basketball.
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Basketball is something that's come later in my life because
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When I was at school. I mean, maybe it was the
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coaches, I don't know, but like it just seemed so impossible,
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Jin, a limit, like, in the sense that, like, you're really small
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and short, and, and that doesn't obviously matter in basketball
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as I found out later, but it just seems so daunting.
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I could kind of get my head around, like, netball and stuff,
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but like basketball just seems impossible right now.
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So, I just sucked it. And then years ago, I started
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because I lived in Europe for But he is and out there, like
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basketball is huge. So I started playing it with a
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few friends, then last summer, obviously, because we're in
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Perpetual lockdown here in the UK, but there are local
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basketball courts, and I was like, well, let's give this a go
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and then I found out my local area, just everyone's obsessed
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with basketball which and that's something.
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I'm looking forward to this summer, but point is that gets
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it kind of comes. Quite quickly.
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But I feel like it's one of those things where it's, like,
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skateboarding, other thing that I did when I was growing up,
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like, yeah, I think it takes a good free to six months or maybe
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depending on the type of player you are too kind of get
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comfortable and like learn how to kind of move in the right
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way, if that makes sense. I don't know.
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Like it's yeah it's interesting but Yeah, - yeah and definitely
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see when like like when somebody's First Learning
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because the, you notice like the the flow to how they're moving
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around. The court isn't the same as
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everybody else. But and it's interesting as well
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because I feel like certain people are very like inclusive.
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Like yeah, come join us. Like it's great.
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Other people are very like no you gotta prove yourself kind of
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thing and yeah I remember there was this one guy actually who's
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Get very really seriously down the local part.
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I played it and I just play for for exercise and fitness and,
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you know, direct enjoy it but there are people that are
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looking to do something with it and this guy's like this guy's
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trash and I'm like, I'll show you and I did it.
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Like, I even beat him in one-on-ones eventually and I'll
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go, I knew because the thing is he's very competitive and so am
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I, so it's good but it It's interesting how like, even if
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you're not like following these things in a professional sense,
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like you always there's different types of players is
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people that play, you know, just for fun, then as people that
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play, you know, because they really have to win and it's just
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interesting, all the different types of people you meet playing
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basketball. And oh, yeah, just there's
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someone always has either like something to prove.
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Or then there's like, you said, people that just are playing for
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the far north. Exercise.
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And it's really funny to see the to come together sometimes
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because then it's like, okay, someone's taking this way too
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seriously right now. Yeah, I remember there was this
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one guy who I know for sure is in, is it a team like a local
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tip? They're young, you know,
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probably like 18 19. So, I give them.
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I give them the benefit of the doubt, because, you know, I'm
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like 10 years older than them, so, it's there, is that
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difference? You don't know me, but I
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remember one thing that was really interesting.
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Was that like we were doing? We were doing three on three and
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we were on the same team and our team lost like, not massively,
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but you know, a little bit, it kind of sucks but, you know, it
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is what it is. And then we went to one of the
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one-on-ones or here in the UK. We tend to call it like King of
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the court or something like that, right?
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You know? Like when you pretty much as
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soon as you hit like sink a ball then you you Basically winner
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stays on kind of thing. Yeah yep and he just had like a
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fire up his ass. I swear because he what he won
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and he continuously want to no one beat him and King of the
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court but he just wasn't happy and I was like, I don't know,
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for me I kind of thought like here's a guy who's really good
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at, you know, really trying hard and as part of a team and
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everything but he's not gaining any enjoyment from it.
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And it's like, Why let these things bother you?
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I don't know, right? I was pretty competitive at
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football when I was young so I can kind of understand but you
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let it go Janome, don't know, like ruin your day, like you
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lose the game. Okay, sucks.
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Then you move on. Like yes, you can't and it's a
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good life lesson. I feel like sports could teach
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you so many life lessons that you don't realize until
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afterwards when you reflect on them.
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Like, that's for me is probably one of the biggest lessons you
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can learn from playing sports is to just let shit go.
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Go then carry that. It's like becomes like a
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suitcase that you've carrying with you like baggage and shit
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right now. That's it.
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Teaches you a lot. Not just about like letting
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stuff go but then like leadership and to end having a
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team and being a team player and all that sort of stuff like
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sports in general are great, especially growing up.
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For sure, for sure, one thing I've noticed as well, that's a
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big thing, this is especially true in football but it can't be
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true in basketball as well. Is when like, everyone kind of
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starts on wants to be like a, what in football?
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Everyone wants to be like a striker.
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You know. Everyone was pretty like center
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of attention, scoring. All the goals obviously because
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basketball is more like team-based thing.
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You know, the way you play together is very important, so
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there is less of this but I've definitely seen it where, you
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know, But in three plays and you're like, it would be much
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better to, you know, run the play to me but instead it's
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like, oh no, I'm gonna just try and fucking sink everything.
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And then you just, you just end up losing that way.
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And I've played so many games with people, where, you know,
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they're trying to their Glory Hunters is probably the best.
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Exactly. You just don't understand how
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team sports work. Your school more.
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If we work as a team he's right try to take on like Five Guys.
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Same time like Yeah, but I think a lot of the time with that it's
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a case of some maturity thing I think like, you know, just sort
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of learning how to best play and make use of your team because it
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really can make the game a lot easier and more enjoyable.
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And from a competitive standpoint, you're more likely
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to win, you know, I mean because it's just wasted team members
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otherwise you know, and you can do things where you're kind of
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running it back to each other continuously and stuff and
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great. That's just out of its strategic
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strategy. I guess the, Yes actually
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lacking. And sometimes exactly exactly.
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Yeah, but hey, you're part of a brand known as the basketball
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society, which describes itself as a multimedia platform and
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Lifestyle brand providing authentic, and exclusive,
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basketball content services and experiences.
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Is so talk us through what your brand actually offers, and your
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particular role there. Yeah.
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So basketball Society offers, I mean, a wide array of things.
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We have a basketball training side of the brand, where we have
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a few coaches, they bring kids in and they train them
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everywhere. From elementary school, all the
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way up through college. Athletes even professional, they
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work with kids on not just Training.
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But also, mental training to we do different things, like yoga
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and meditation and things like that to really unlock the mental
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side of basketball. And then, in the multimedia
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side, we go, and we make like, video mixtapes for kids at
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games. We go and cover games with the
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photography side and we we also have done documentaries on
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specific kids like mini docu-series, kind of things.
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We also have All different like video series going on, one of
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them, being one of them being named protect our Queens where
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we highlight women in and around basketball.
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So not just the players, but the media members, the coaches,
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everything surrounding basketball.
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And just all the women that consume it and then we also do
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podcast. So, my podcast is the
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longest-running one on basketball Society so far.
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It's called the Atlantic files. So we have a couple podcast
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going as well and my specific role, so I'm one of the
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photographers and videographers. So I'll go to a lot of the games
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take pictures at games, write articles about the game saying
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you know, who played the best which kids might be going on to
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play in college, things like that.
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And I also do a lot of the interviews not only on the
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podcast but when we do interviews for protect our
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queens or any other kind of Video series, we have going on
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at the time and also like document a lot of the training.
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So I'll go to the training with our coaches and get video
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pictures of that. Kind of like a
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jack-of-all-trades, really? I'm just, I'm there to kind of
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get everything that are two other like main guys can't.
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So what are some of the biggest success stories you've been able
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to achieve with the basketball Society took group in general?
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So one big thing was we were assigned as the media team for
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what was called the usba Nationals.
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It's like a club High School Club basketball and we were
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signed on to do their entire media for their National
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Tournament and we had video and pictures of Carmelo, Anthony and
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Carmelo, Anthony's son, net played in that tournament.
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Like, ESPN grabbed hold of some of the videos that we had at
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that time. And then we've also I mean
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protect our queens has been a big thing for us to really
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highlighting the women has brought attention to us because
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there isn't many outlets that do that and not just that but ones
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that do it in a fun and creative sort of way.
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The a lot of people are kind of just like these are the women
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who play basketball and that's about it.
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So that's been a huge win for us with a lot of people.
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King that up as well, in terms of even college coaches and
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college Scouts and stuff that actually come to watch these to
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actually see how the players react in an interview and not
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just that, but we've had a like our founder.
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His name is Martin sorries, went over to Ghana and started free
13:29
clinics in Ghana. So they have a whole like, set
13:33
up a whole basketball court, and everything was, and it says,
13:36
basketball society around it. And all It was really cool and
13:40
just gave free clinics to anyone in Ghana that wanted to come in
13:43
and try out some basketballs. So they found some really
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talented kids in there to that very well could make it over to
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the US and play in college or even the NBA later on.
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And yeah, other than that, we've gone to multiple like division,
14:00
one college games, we've gotten into there's a league.
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I don't know if you've heard it called The Big Three.
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It was created by the rapper Ice Cube and oh yeah.
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And it's a three-on-three basketball league and it's a lot
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of retired NBA players. So yeah so we got to we got to
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cover their championship game a couple of years ago so we were
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there to take pictures and video for that.
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And yeah we continue to keep getting college credentials to
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come cover games and everything. And hopefully the next step is
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More professional games. Yeah, yeah.
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Let's let's expand upon this, like what the overall kind of
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goals for for this group, like, other than the one you just laid
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out, just then, right? So our main goal is to really
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bridge, the gap between basketball and Society.
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One of our big questions that we always ask in pretty much.
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Every interview, we asked the people around in surrounding
15:04
basketball. Why Society needs basketball?
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Hmm, that's like that's one of Are our main things is like we
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want to show that basketball not only, you know, helps a lot of
15:17
kids in certain situations but it helps Society in general
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because it like we were just talking about earlier.
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It teaches kids, a lot of things about life like really growing
15:30
up in a lot of different areas and we just want to be there to
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be able to put the two and two together.
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Like a lot of things we still do is like we do a lot of Different
15:41
charitable events where we have kids come out and just play
15:44
basketball. And, and we have like donations
15:48
that go to kids every like we have like a back to school event
15:52
where we give kids book bags and school supplies and everything
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like that, too. And really like, food drives
15:59
that we've done. And, and we have a March Madness
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event that goes with the cut. The big college tournament,
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where we, you know, give back to the community wherever we hold
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it. That time and it's yeah.
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So our main goal is we just want to bridge the two together and
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bring and show it in a more like fun, light more creative way
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rather than the same old. Same old of just like oh this is
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Johnny basketball player. He came out of a bad situation
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and now he has money. Like we've seen those success
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stories not to discredit them because they're big success
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stories. But we've seen those but we want
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to show how Ow basketball might bring together like a church
16:43
group, or how basketball might bring together and older
16:47
retirement community, because they just enjoy playing when
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they were younger and they, that's how they bonded.
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So that's like that's our biggest goal.
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Really, what do you think boss compose biggest contribution to
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society is see that's a really good question.
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I think that I think the biggest contribution is just a sense of
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community, because when I know myself, when I was growing up,
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it was like at any given day. It could be.
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Hey, everyone's playing basketball down the street.
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Like, let's go, let's go. Hang out.
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Let's go play some basketball and it was just, it made days,
17:33
more fun. Like life, more fun because you
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belong to a group of friends. That you could just go at any
17:41
time at your local park, or even if you're on a team, whatever it
17:44
may be. And like that was your
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community. So it gave you kind of that
17:51
sense of like belonging and not just that.
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But there's towns like in in New Jersey, a lot of the whole state
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of New Jersey talks about how the best basketball players come
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from that state, that's one set up.
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So that's one thing that like the entire State can like come
18:14
around is that like we have some of the best basketball players
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there's a ton of basketball players from New Jersey in the
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NBA and that just create like it perpetual.
18:26
Place a sense of community because it's like oh those guys
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are part of us and we're part of them.
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So it I think that that's really the biggest, the biggest
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contribution. Yeah.
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Thanks for that man. And I couldn't agree more with
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that. I think that, yeah, basketball
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has many supposed benefits and you know, I think the way you
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sum that up is perfect really, I'm sure I'm sure there are many
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more I think in general Sports, in general, always have a great
18:55
contribution to a local community.
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I mean, if nothing else particularly I don't know how it
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is in America, but I know in the UK, you know, government offered
19:04
talks about like, Hey, we're putting money into communities
19:08
and we're going to do this and we're going to do that.
19:10
But there's a big difference between what they say and the
19:12
reality and in poor areas. Areas, you know, they don't tend
19:18
to pump a lot of money into into services at the, the most you'll
19:21
ever get is probably like a if you're lucky maybe a youth
19:25
center or something like that. But my point is, if you provide
19:29
things like basketball courts, football fields, basic equipment
19:35
for people to use, it's a way of getting people off the streets
19:39
doing stuff, they shouldn't be doing, and it's, you know, doing
19:42
something positive, you know, like you said that, that sense
19:44
of Unity having people, you can trust rely on feel safe around,
19:49
you know, whatever the case may be, I mean it's basketball is
19:53
one of the ways you can do that. Yeah, couldn't agree more with
19:56
you, for sure. It's a run.
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It back to your podcast. The Atlantic files.
20:02
Obviously, you mentioned a little bit.
20:04
We spoke a little bit about what you do there, but talk to us
20:07
about the general kind of topics that you tend to discuss on the
20:10
and who is actually intended for who's the audience.
20:13
So the Atlantic files is about the Atlantic division in the
20:18
NBA, so that's the Philadelphia 76ers, the New York Knicks.
20:23
The Boston Celtics the Toronto Raptors and the Brooklyn Nets.
20:27
So it's really like since I'm from the suburbs of Philadelphia
20:32
I pretty much cater to like the whole northeast side of the
20:36
United States in terms of NBA fans and really what I talk
20:41
about is I give kind of updates on how the team In the division
20:45
are doing each week, talk about like the big news that happened
20:49
in with any of the teams and give my thoughts and predictions
20:54
on what you know some players might turn out to be.
20:57
If some teams I think might win the championship or anything in
21:01
that nature and I mean I've brought on a decent array of
21:07
guests to to come talk about like the different teams and
21:10
stuff. I've had a like the journalist
21:13
that covers the Adelphia 76ers for the Philadelphia newspaper,
21:18
he he's come on the podcast to talk about them a couple years
21:22
ago when they were really really bad.
21:25
Kind of talked about how if they're elves if they'll ever be
21:28
good again. But uh and that ranges to even
21:33
most recently, my last episode, I actually my girlfriend is a
21:38
physician assistant working in oncology dealing with cancer
21:42
patients. So, One of one NBA player, Caris
21:47
LeVert was found to have kidney cancer.
21:50
So I brought my girlfriend on to talk about kidney cancer and how
21:56
its treated and like different ways that they can come back
21:59
from it and stuff like that. Since that was her expertise, so
22:03
different like a different array of people, come on to talk about
22:07
like even if it's kind of like an adjacent relationship to the
22:13
Atlantic division or basketball in Will they come on and talk
22:16
about that. So is it was a difficult
22:18
interviewing your partner? Feel like it's something that I
22:22
think. Yeah, it's you would probably
22:25
approach the same way you approach of everything, but
22:27
obviously, it must feel a little strange doing the like, how did
22:30
you approach that? Yeah, it was, it definitely was
22:33
strange At first, she we were both laughing and she was like,
22:36
I can't be laughing if we're talking about cancer.
22:38
I'm like, no, I agree. I'm just like, all right, like
22:46
deep breath. Let's just I'm going to ask you
22:47
questions about cancer that you get all the time.
22:50
So I know like I'm not going to be, you know, throwing any hard
22:54
balls or anything. So it ended up it ended up being
22:57
fine after afterwards and she she was really nervous about it
23:01
because she's never been on any kind of like videos or podcasts
23:05
or anything like that. So I had to say I was like,
23:09
look, it's just a conversation between us to.
23:10
I just post it later, like nobody's, you know, really
23:14
listening. Live right now.
23:15
So that's all you got to worry about and then after that she I
23:19
mean she was great with it. So the it definitely was weird
23:23
at first because I've never come to it as like, okay, I'm going
23:27
to interview you but it ended up being a really good one.
23:33
What do you'll poke costing goes for 2021.
23:37
So my goals for 2020, one I want to have, like, one of my
23:42
personal ones was, I want to have more journalists and
23:47
writers on the podcast, especially, because in the u.s.,
23:51
like, written journalism is kind of like disappearing.
23:56
There's a lot of newspapers that are going out of business
24:00
because nobody really gets newspapers anymore.
24:02
They just use social media or whatever it may be, but they not
24:06
transitioning. To an online version.
24:09
They do still have an online version but they usually charge
24:15
for like a subscription to say. Yeah, they're news.
24:19
So a lot of people would rather just like get their news from
24:22
like Twitter instead because they don't have to pay for it.
24:28
So the yeah the the new situation in the United States
24:33
has gotten murkier and murkier as as time has gone on.
24:38
So that was one thing that I personally wanted to have more
24:43
of them on to see cuz there's a lot of them are experts on the
24:47
team that they cover because they cover the team night in and
24:50
night out for the entire season. So some of those are the most
24:53
knowledgeable people and the like one of our overreaching
24:59
goals for basketball Society was we just want to, we just want to
25:02
grow the Outreach of our podcasts.
25:04
It's like, I mean we've Very good feedback from the Atlantic
25:09
files and we've gotten a lot of people to, you know, rate review
25:13
and all that kind of stuff, especially in the Northeast, and
25:15
the United States. But we just want to reach out to
25:18
those fans of those teams that could be anywhere in the United
25:21
States, or even overseas and in Europe, and Asia anywhere.
25:25
So, that's been another big thing.
25:27
We've been looking into and just getting more into the video side
25:32
of the podcast as well, because I wasn't recording video before.
25:37
It not because I didn't have the stuff to record but just because
25:40
it was only me so editing a lot of stuff was a lot of time to
25:44
take to do all of it. So but we started doing more
25:48
video now so we've been wanting to get more into that too.
25:51
So yeah. Well the main things you think
25:54
you've learned from podcasting so far I've learned that
25:59
everybody has some sort of interesting story.
26:03
And it's funny because, like, most of my stuff is just
26:08
basketball, it's not really even about life or anything like
26:11
that, but the more I record with people, the more I listen to
26:17
podcasts, it's, it's just like every every single person I've
26:22
heard or I've spoken to has some sort of story that makes me sit
26:26
back and think like, wow, That's amazing and it's it's really
26:32
cool. It's made me more inquisitive
26:36
whenever I see people just in general.
26:39
Now, not just on a podcast, it's like, oh, I see this person, you
26:43
know, at the coffee shop, it makes me think like, what is
26:46
this person's? Life story.
26:49
So it's been, it's been really cool.
26:51
You know, you've really hit on something there that, that's
26:54
something I've noticed as well from podcasting and It's exactly
26:58
the same for me in real life. Like I feel like in the last
27:02
couple of years, I've transitioned more from that for
27:06
first of all, become more introverted.
27:07
But like secondly I listened way more than I talked of anything.
27:11
Like, I never start conversations, I wait for other
27:14
people to do that, but I always listen because I feel like
27:16
there's way more to be gained in life from listening than
27:19
talking. But yeah.
27:22
Like I remember someone said to me, About a year ago or maybe I
27:27
read it online. A comment below which you know,
27:29
gets cloudy. Someone said to me every person
27:35
has something to offer you or to just offer in general and They
27:45
always know something. At least one thing that you
27:49
don't know. I like, when I sat down and I
27:52
kind of process that I thought that's really interesting and I
27:55
feel like if you can get someone talking, And you just sit and
28:02
listen, or you ask the right questions or whatever, you'll
28:04
find that thing. Or you'll discover something
28:06
like you said, you you never know what they're going to
28:08
share, what they're going to give you that might blow your
28:12
mind, change, your perspective on things, whatever the case may
28:15
be. And a lot of the time people
28:17
were just hoping to be heard, you know they want to talk.
28:22
Yeah. They don't they don't want to
28:24
listen to you. They want to talk and be heard
28:27
and so if you're someone who's capable of listening while, Why
28:31
everyone's going to want to talk to you because but yeah, like
28:37
it's it's interesting, really, especially when you discover,
28:40
like, how few people kind of listen and how many people just
28:45
want to talk and such? Like, I think it is partially an
28:49
ego thing, like, Remy in my life.
28:52
Now, I don't really care if people want to listen to me or
28:54
not, like I feel like this here is the wafer.
28:59
Like if people want to listen to me, though, I'm here, right?
29:02
But in real life, if people don't want to listen to what I
29:04
have to say, I'm not going to waste my energy talking then
29:07
I'll just spend my time doing my stuff.
29:10
Exactly. It's weird.
29:13
Like the less you talk I feel like the more people do kind of
29:16
quiz you are inquisitive. They want to know more maybe
29:18
it's the mystery thing. I don't know but it's like Yeah.
29:24
It's really like something that I do.
29:25
Like I used to be very forthcoming about my life in
29:29
general and I still am to an extent but like I let people do
29:33
the the work I don't really like for example, I only bring up
29:38
stuff from my life. If if it's relevant you know,
29:42
right? So for example, like I do
29:46
volunteering on Mondays and you know, occasionally I have
29:51
conversations with people when were there in like Like
29:54
something will come up and up logo.
29:55
Yeah, well, you know, blah, blah, blah.
29:57
Sometimes when I'm doing this for my YouTube, I do blah, blah
29:59
blah and they're like, oh, you do YouTube and I'm like, yeah,
30:02
but I don't kind of go into it. I just like just leave it there
30:06
and then they can ask the questions, they can quiz
30:10
generator mean. And I'll just write be
30:11
forthcoming because I feel like so many people would just be
30:15
like, yeah, I do this and I did this, and I did this.
30:18
It's like you're trying to show off and it's like, just don't
30:22
like that. Like people just think you're an
30:25
asshole and you do exactly. It's like, okay I get it, I get
30:30
it, it's fine. Like I feel like the bet that
30:35
the best way is to kind of just let people discover that
30:37
themselves. Like I always say look if you
30:40
are interested, here's a link you know right go go at it and
30:44
then the like it's like it's how you do it.
30:48
That's how you do it. That's the way to go about it.
30:50
I don't be like, hey man, check out all these things I do.
30:53
Ooh, on, I so great. It's like yeah, not really
30:59
something that really humbles me as well, all the time other than
31:04
just not like being a nobody that tends to help but I'm still
31:08
who'd like, when you when you sometimes go online just and
31:11
you're browsing. Like, I don't know, Tick Tock
31:13
YouTube, whatever. And you just see the amount of
31:17
people making content so many, and I think that, oh, yeah, when
31:21
things go back to normal, they'll be less.
31:23
Pokers people will have less time again and things, you know,
31:26
will return to normal and and suddenly being a content
31:29
creator, again will become less of a thing that everyone does
31:35
and more of a thing that certain people do, right, right?
31:39
But with that being said, that really helps to strengthen my
31:44
humbleness. When I see that because I go,
31:46
okay, there's loads of people doing this, you know, what makes
31:52
you special like how can you kind of talk?
31:54
Like, go go on about yourself as if you're something special when
31:58
there's like a million people doing what you're doing,
32:01
probably better as I so II just try and focus on my building a
32:06
community as much as I can. But it's interesting with this
32:09
whole thing, like, it takes so many years like Oh yeah, for me,
32:13
I mean, I only probably started this in.
32:16
I'd say about 20, 19 like YouTube and stuff, but with the
32:20
podcast is still very new. I mean, it's probably started in
32:25
like July last year. I believe and it's only now
32:28
starting to get some views here and there, but it's still, I
32:33
don't know, it's still early days like it said, that's what I
32:35
focus. That's another thing as well.
32:37
You can't focus too much on the numbers because then people
32:39
start kind of quizzing you. And you're like, wow, You know,
32:43
people, so ask me, like all how many Subs have you go?
32:46
How many views do you get every on every podcast and that tell
32:50
them? They're not all might well look,
32:54
I'm not trying it. Yeah, exactly.
32:56
It takes, it takes a whole lot of work.
32:59
And, I mean, even like the, the podcast I've been doing, I've
33:02
been doing for five years now 01.
33:05
Okay. Yeah, and it just, it just got
33:09
like most of its rating and reviews.
33:12
In the third year, I was doing it. so it went a long time where
33:19
it was just like a couple people would listen, my parents might
33:23
listen but then really it just kind of like after I got
33:31
actually after I got the one journalist from the Philly
33:33
newspaper that one got a ton of listens because he also shared
33:37
it and then ever since then it just got it got more and more
33:43
like listens and And reviews and subscribes DT.
33:47
Think that's what it takes do for a for a podcast to start
33:50
getting that attention because I hear a lot of people say both
33:54
content creators and just people in general saying.
33:56
Okay you should try this. How you should try this, how you
33:58
should do this. And you know a lot of people
34:01
tell me what you've said. Like I just takes time, you
34:04
know, you just have to keep at it but I feel like you sure you
34:06
need that Catalyst. You need that one thing that one
34:09
guest like that, you know? And I feel like from my podcast,
34:13
maybe that's it. But then, you know, like for
34:16
instance I had a streamer on recently who's got a pretty big
34:19
following and that one got like a few more views but it didn't
34:24
really get any attention and that's nothing against her or
34:27
anything like that. It's just that I think that It's
34:33
difficult to, to get to gain people's attention to gain
34:38
people's interest, like right. Here's a better example that
34:41
there was a guy I had on the podcast who is a professional
34:44
wrestler and he has a big following and it was a similar
34:48
thing like I thought oh this will get a lot of views because
34:50
people will want to hear the interview and know more about
34:54
him and blah blah blah and he plucked it himself.
34:59
He said like hey check it out. Here's a cool thing I did with
35:02
this guy, right? Nothing, you know it's nothing.
35:04
I think it's I don't know what it takes.
35:07
I mean maybe it's just luck but I wonder sometimes I do.
35:11
You think it really is a as a result of that one thing or do
35:16
you think it's a combination of many things?
35:19
I do I do think it's a combination of many things
35:22
because so actually one person I've kind of been for lack of
35:27
better words, studying how they got big was.
35:30
I don't know if you ever heard Heard of the comedian Andrew
35:32
Schultz, heard the name before, okay.
35:36
So he he just started getting big over the last, probably year
35:41
and a half and his, his strategy was, I'm just going to put my
35:48
jokes, like each joke from a stand-up set as a clip on
35:53
YouTube. And I'm just going to let people
35:56
like let the people decide if they think, I'm funny or Not.
35:59
Jesus, And his big thing was he put out a joke.
36:06
I think it was like a joke. A week is either a joke a week
36:10
or a joke a day for a whole year.
36:13
Wow. And he was like because then if
36:16
they see and he would put he also made like a YouTube
36:20
special. So like his comment is First
36:22
comedy, special was free, it was just on YouTube and so people
36:26
would go see the special and then it'd be like okay like this
36:30
guy's pretty funny. Me go check out the rest of his
36:32
Clips or vice versa. They'd see a clip be like.
36:34
Okay, that was a really funny joke.
36:36
Let me go check out the rest of it and I think like the the
36:41
Catalyst moment is still like important because I think it
36:46
could either be luck. It could be the guest or it
36:48
could just be the right timing on a certain topic like the big
36:53
thing. I actually think with that guess
36:55
that I had on, I don't think it was just having him on.
36:59
I think at the time, A lot of people in Philadelphia were just
37:04
looking for hope that their team would get better.
37:08
Yeah. And he kind of came on and was
37:10
like well if the Sixers do this they could be a really good team
37:14
so like they kind of like latched onto that and so I think
37:20
that like timing is definitely a very big thing.
37:23
And it's even something that we have basketball Society have
37:26
learned ever since we started getting more into YouTube to
37:30
because we Put a video out on the Hot Topic that day.
37:34
And then we also tried putting a video on the same topic, like,
37:36
three days later. The one would get like 800 views
37:39
in the other one. Got like, 10.
37:42
So as in the one, that immediately drops on the day
37:46
that it's trending versus a couple of days later.
37:48
Yeah, right. Okay.
37:50
Okay. So we know is that was a big
37:55
factor in it as well, but my thing is to sustain Aim that and
38:01
to actually get the subscribers. Yeah.
38:04
Like you need the Catalyst point to get their eyes on you, but
38:08
you need the rest of your catalog for them to be like, oh,
38:13
it's not just a one video thing. Like, this guy's been doing this
38:17
for a long time. Yeah.
38:19
And there's more to watch, there's more to consume.
38:21
It's not like, oh, I watched one video and I watched all of his
38:24
content. Yeah like I agree, I agree with
38:28
you. I sometimes look at what I've
38:31
done so far with a podcast and because I think it I think we're
38:34
like over 60 episodes now. And I wonder about that
38:38
sometimes. I wonder like, will people go
38:40
back and look at old stuff? I mean because I especially
38:44
think this about YouTube as well.
38:45
Because right, A lot of the time I see just recommended videos
38:49
and they could be from years ago and people do not care like it.
38:53
That's a no right and happy. That gives me hope.
38:55
Because I'm like, damn, why released this a year ago?
38:58
Two years ago, five years ago, maybe this will get Some views
39:01
one day, right, because it sure as hell.
39:04
Wasn't getting any views right now is interesting, though,
39:09
isn't it? Like how that works?
39:11
I mean sometimes it's a result of an algorithm platform thing
39:15
and then sometimes as you say, there's a catalyst thing, one
39:18
person shares it, maybe it's trending one day, whatever the
39:21
case may be, like I don't feel like I've truly got any content
39:26
Bob. There's like one video I did
39:29
that. I see.
39:31
No, I think all of the videos that I have that are that get a
39:34
lot of use like continuously and sort of broke through.
39:38
Because if you think that the standard video, or at least on
39:40
my channels, like anywhere from like 5 to 20 views, I would say
39:44
is like an average, right? Right.
39:46
But then there's those videos that get, like, 1,000 2,000,
39:50
like your whatever and I look at all of them.
39:52
And all of them are a result of either trending topic or There's
39:59
one for instance, I did this cover of a song and there was
40:02
like a celebrity who did it as well and then okay.
40:06
So it's literally like if you if you type Muse endlessly cover
40:11
basically, the first entry is like Ewan McGregor with a like
40:15
little cover from some, I don't know TV series.
40:19
He was doing, it's like a little minute clip that someone's
40:21
pulled and cheekily because it's not him.
40:24
It's like, so kind of YouTuber who's just clipped it, and put
40:27
it there, and they got like a million.
40:28
And Views. And then there's mine under it
40:30
as guys 6K views or close to us. Oh wow.
40:34
Okay, this is funny like how shit like that works.
40:38
But yeah, no. I mean, it makes me wonder, I
40:42
think, I think because we're at least my thing is at that stage
40:46
of it is still growing. So I look at other people whose
40:49
who are doing well, or who are growing.
40:51
And I always wonder, like, what is the Catalyst?
40:53
What is the thing I guess? Yeah.
40:56
As you say, it's a matter of right, place?
40:58
Right time. And various factors.
41:00
But yeah, I think the consistency thing is key but you
41:04
say, you don't want to be a one-hit wonder sort of thing.
41:06
And my thing is always been. I like, I'm still trying to
41:11
develop this podcast and have more discussion based stuff
41:15
eventually because I like the interviews to be as much as
41:20
about the guests as possible. You know, I remember getting a
41:22
really bad hate comment very early on in the podcast and what
41:28
the person is. And I always talk about this
41:29
every now and again when it's relevant, but basically their
41:32
comment was, you know, shut up and let them speak and you know,
41:38
they didn't frame it in the right way, you know, but I took
41:41
that and I was like, as much as I can.
41:44
I will let my guest speaker as much as possible and let that be
41:48
the content as much as I possibly can, you know?
41:53
But I did have that initial thought was like, where is my
41:55
podcast? Like I can't uncle and focused
41:58
but Exactly. That's the thing.
42:00
Yes. Like if so if the guest is is on
42:03
the show I mean it should be about them as much as possible.
42:06
Like, I've been on show other people's shows where even though
42:10
I was the guest, it didn't really matter and then I kind of
42:13
understood a bit more like why it's important to make your
42:16
guests, a feel special and be give them that platform.
42:20
Really ask the right questions push as much as you can out of
42:24
them. Get them talking.
42:25
Like I said Brent. Yeah.
42:26
Yeah, speaking of which, I need to shop.
42:28
Can I ask you a question? So let's talk to us about your
42:32
work as a videographer and photographer.
42:34
What what's involved in those roles?
42:38
So there's been a lot. So actually, this wasn't
42:42
something that I even knew or learned early on.
42:47
I actually picked this up on my own, and I'm self-taught.
42:51
I've got, I actually bought my first camera because of I won my
42:58
Fantasy football league and we all put we all put $100 into
43:03
play the league. So nice.
43:05
The yeah. So the my winnings from that
43:08
League paid for my first camera. Can you say how much is a?
43:13
Yeah do is 800 bucks at the time.
43:15
Damn, that's a good battle. The yeah.
43:19
So I got like a starter kit that had like a couple lenses and
43:23
things like that. So photography was always
43:26
something I was interested. And in like I was always, I
43:30
always thought it was really cool, the action shots that
43:33
people could get in sports, or in, you know, like the action
43:37
sports to like skateboarding and stuff like that.
43:39
I always thought those those photos were super cool.
43:42
So when I finally got like a real camera, I was like, oh now
43:46
I can actually take something sort of like that so, but at the
43:51
time I wasn't really doing like we were just a small basketball
43:56
like blog so we didn't get Get nobody was like, oh yeah, you're
44:01
allowed. And we know who basketball
44:02
Society is. So like we didn't have
44:04
credentials to like big games or anything like that.
44:08
So I was kind of just walking around at the time.
44:11
I was living in Pittsburgh. And so I was just walking around
44:14
the city just taking pictures of things and stuff like that.
44:17
And so like the main things that go into like my photography is
44:23
really just I am very inspired from a lot of the different
44:29
photographers that like I followed at the time.
44:32
And I mean, since then, I followed a whole lot more, but
44:35
it for me, it's all about like vision and then executing
44:43
something as close to the vision as I can.
44:47
So it's kind of like when I'm at a basketball game, I Envision,
44:52
like plays that I want to capture A first.
44:55
So that's how I dictate where I'm going to sit around the
44:58
court. Yeah, and then and then I try
45:03
to, I mean I'll get Bunches of other pictures during that time
45:08
to before a play that I Envision happens, but just to get me the
45:12
better opportunity to get that that image, I'll find that area
45:17
on the court and sit there. But after that, I mean, it's
45:20
really just trying to capture. My big thing is trying to
45:23
capture First action, and then emotion because like anybody
45:29
could take a picture of a guy sitting on the bench like
45:32
drinking his water. So to me, it's always important
45:37
for those two things because those were the things that I was
45:42
drawn to when I was looking at photos.
45:44
It was like those big dunks in a basketball game, or like a guy
45:49
after he hits a shot like screaming, because he's so
45:52
excited. It's so Like those are the two
45:55
things that like really drew me in.
45:57
So then that became what I was looking for when I started
46:00
taking photos and then that once I started doing more and more
46:05
photo, that kind of just bled into videography because in the
46:09
basketball World videos, are becoming way more popular than
46:14
photos are especially excuse me, especially with like, the
46:18
younger generation. They want like the mixtapes, and
46:21
like the rap songs that they love to go over top of that.
46:24
I'm doing cool moves or whatever they're doing, so that kind of
46:29
blood into that because at with videos, I'm still looking for
46:33
the same exact thing. I'm still looking for the action
46:35
in the emotion but I'm just letting it record all the way
46:40
through. So then it became a thing of
46:44
like after learning how to edit photos, which there's still like
46:48
a lot of photo editing that I haven't learned yet.
46:50
But after that getting into video editing was like a whole
46:53
new. East and then it just became.
46:57
Okay, I have these 20 Clips, how do I put them all together to
47:03
create the same emotion and seen that I want to create for this
47:09
player because the other thing is I know a lot of people who
47:13
are like, oh well, if you're putting basketball, has to be a
47:15
fast-paced song, like really, like, go get a motivating song
47:20
and I'm like, some people play the game of basketball, not just
47:23
basketball, but any Port with a, a very like delicate rhythmic
47:30
way and like some tight. Like a lot of times for me I'm
47:34
big into like I'm a very big rap music fan, but I also grew up
47:37
playing trumpet. So like I knew like I knew a lot
47:41
of jazz band things and I was in my jazz band for my school and
47:46
so I really like jazz that goes along with basketball because to
47:51
me basketballs are very poetic kind of Sport and that with like
47:56
the brass and the percussion and everything like jazz to me goes
48:01
the best of basketball. But other people, I mean, I
48:04
would people might not agree but we actually basketball side
48:07
actually became known for using much different music for our
48:11
videos other than we will do ones.
48:15
We're like kids will ask if we could put a song on will be like
48:18
yeah whatever we can put that on but the ones we do are a lot of
48:23
like Gospel inspired rap songs or jazz-inspired songs, so it's
48:31
a lot different of a Vibe than it is from the normal everyday
48:36
Outlet. How do you get over like
48:38
copyright issues with using the music like so we, we did have
48:44
issues with that. In the early going.
48:45
We had to create a whole new Twitter because of that wasn't a
48:49
yeah they I forget who I think it was like Sony or somebody
48:54
went Went back to all of our old tweets and found videos with
48:58
their songs on it and they like hit us with three marks and so
49:02
they banned our Twitter. So hey yeah I know they're from
49:08
like five years ago I was like nobody's looking on Twitter that
49:11
long ago but um but so anymore we what we do is we find people
49:19
who make beats that are still trying to become known And we'll
49:24
use their beats on our videos because we offer them more like,
49:28
hey, we have, you know, x amount of following, if people like
49:32
your beads, they could change. They could send it to other
49:35
people and so on and so forth. So, that was another thing that
49:39
we kind of wanted to do to also like Bridge gaps of, you know,
49:44
society and basketball and stuff.
49:45
Because we even know like we have personal relationships with
49:48
people, who actually are beat producers, and we've used their
49:51
beats on multiple videos and we've Met people through
49:55
YouTube, that throw all sorts of Beats out there and stuff like
49:57
that, too. So, we've been finding people
50:00
that their beats a kind of aligned with, with like our
50:03
thoughts of, you know, jazz or gospel or things like that.
50:07
So, ever since we put those together, that's when we started
50:10
avoiding pretty much all copyrights just bringing it back
50:14
to videography and photography like what the key difference is
50:17
as it pertains to like how you approach it because obviously
50:20
there's going to be some some obvious differences but like as
50:23
far as that, the structure and the form and stuff, like what
50:26
the main differences, So the main difference is for me are
50:32
with photography. I'm pretty much going to stay
50:35
for a lot of the portion of the game, or the training, or
50:39
practice, or whatever it may be, I'm going to stay in around the
50:43
same spot for like, like, if it's a game, I'll stay in the
50:46
same spot for the whole first half of the game, and I'll only
50:49
change spots in the second half. So, but with videos for me, I'm
50:54
pretty much moving around in all sorts of different.
50:58
Has to get every single angle. I could think of because when
51:03
I'm approaching something knowing, I'm going to take a
51:06
video, I'm already thinking of transitions I can make from clip
51:10
to clip or, you know, like openings I can make where it
51:15
starts with like one sort of shot and turns into another sort
51:18
of shot and I'm thinking of you know like little interludes in
51:24
the video of you know like little emotional points of a
51:28
More whatever a player might be saying or a fan might be saying.
51:33
And so I'm moving around constantly when it comes to
51:36
video and I'm thinking of a lot of these Transitions and stuff
51:40
ahead of time whereas photography, I still Vision that
51:45
like those couple images I want to get and I sit at that spot
51:48
that I'm going to get them. I'm going to most likely get
51:51
them but then once I'm there I'm kind of just shooting
51:55
everything. I just I'm taking pictures of
51:58
pretty much. Everything and every moment
52:00
because I don't know which moment is going to be bigger
52:02
than the next moment. So for that it's kind of like,
52:06
okay. Photography is more like, okay,
52:08
find my spot and just shoot it all.
52:11
Whereas videos, kind of flow with what's happening figure out
52:15
my transitions. See, what?
52:17
How I want to connect certain Clips to the other clips and see
52:22
how I want to begin and end of video and kind of just try and
52:26
execute that from all angles. You're also a writer and
52:32
obviously we've kind of learned that that's predominantly like
52:35
writing about the sports and stuff like that.
52:37
But what other things do tend to write about and what's your
52:40
writing process look like? So yeah, mostly right about
52:46
basketball. I've written like way back in
52:50
the day. I used to rate like a little bit
52:52
of poetry, just like along with the kind of jazz background and
53:01
Anymore, it's essentially just basketball, unless I'm feeling
53:05
particularly creative at some point in the day or something.
53:10
And so my process kind of is really like when I'm going to
53:16
cover a basketball game, I'll actually keep notes with me like
53:20
at the time and if there's anything I want to keep in mind
53:25
for a game like it even the writing comes down to like the
53:30
emotion and a Another game. So like just as a for instance,
53:35
when I was going to a lot of our state playoff high school
53:38
basketball games, we I would, I would take note of like the
53:42
emotion of, you know, each team before.
53:46
The game started, I would take note of the emotion of the fans,
53:50
if one set of fans came out in bigger numbers than the other
53:54
set of fans, and kind of the vibe surrounding the game and oh
54:00
after this Kid made a huge play. What was the gym?
54:04
Like at that time? Like, how crazy did the fans get
54:08
or, you know, how crazy, did the team's bench go and things like
54:11
that? So and after I take note of
54:15
those and I bring it home after the game and everything.
54:18
What a lot of the times I'll do is I'll kind of sync up like
54:22
photos or videos. I took of the time and look at
54:25
the notes and then kind of just try and paint the picture
54:29
between the two for. Buddy, that might not be able to
54:33
see a picture. So that's kind of like how I
54:37
process things. It's kind of I paint the picture
54:42
in my mind and try to explain what I'm seeing in my head.
54:49
So even like, when there was one Father's Day, where I wrote a
54:53
short story for my dad, kind of like expressing how much I am
55:00
grateful for him. It was kind of like I want to
55:04
show I want to show how grateful I am for him, but I want to show
55:07
it in a way that like it's almost as if he's watching a
55:11
movie about it. Hmm.
55:13
So then I kind of put forth like a image of okay you're in a
55:19
movie and this is how it the movie is playing out.
55:23
So it's kind of like it more of like visualization and kind of
55:27
just translating that into a lot of times I also think of because
55:34
actually this actually takes To my web development side, it
55:38
takes me to a side of if you had a blind person that couldn't see
55:42
a photo. How would you describe that to
55:44
them? So that's my that's my kind of
55:50
like inspiration. So like I think of like if a
55:52
person couldn't see the game, how would I describe the game to
55:58
that person? And that's kind of what I go
56:00
based upon. That's awesome.
56:03
And like, I couldn't agree more like I think it is kind of the
56:08
same as like when you're listening to sports coverage of
56:13
game, you know. But it's just the Audio I think
56:15
that's like the same thing. You're trying to convey the
56:18
emotion as much as possible at the scene and stuff and I
56:22
suppose it's like standard storytelling.
56:24
Doesn't it like yeah you know you're trying to give people
56:26
that that that idea of what it is but that's awesome.
56:29
And thanks for sharing so you mentioned web development.
56:33
Yeah, you're so you're a software developer.
56:36
Tell us about what exactly you, you develop as it pertains to
56:40
that and what kinds of software you've worked on in the past as
56:43
well. Yeah, so yeah.
56:46
So like I was saying, I was self-taught photography wise
56:51
because for school. I at that I actually went for
56:54
software development, okay? So I went to college for
56:58
software development everything, my actually my first job was
57:02
actually just it help desk because I couldn't find a
57:05
development. Job, which glad I'm not in that
57:08
department anymore. What's that?
57:11
That's of that. But so like my so right now
57:18
basketball Society is like my side hustle.
57:21
So it's something that I want to become my job.
57:24
At some point sooner rather than later would be great.
57:28
But my day job is actually I'm a web developer for.
57:33
I don't know if you've heard of Vanguard.
57:36
Yeah. Yeah.
57:39
Have to please explain. Yeah.
57:40
So vanguard's like a there a financial company that
57:44
specializes in like retirement packages and retirement funds
57:49
and long-term investing. And actually it's funny because
57:53
I most of my time at Vanguard was web development for the UK
57:58
Vanguard website. So that's that's essentially
58:04
what I've been doing was running the website for for vanga Art
58:10
and adding all sorts of new features and new pages and new
58:14
technologies, using the most, you know, up-to-date web
58:18
languages, things like that. And before before I got to
58:23
Vanguard, a lot of my development was like kind of
58:28
assisting, a lot of friends with like, Android app development.
58:32
I dabbled a little bit in app development for iPhones and And
58:40
other than that, it was more. So just like java-based desktop
58:44
applications, things like that. So it kind of It kind of all
58:48
comes together because my favorite thing about development
58:52
was the creative side of it. It was how, how nice can you
58:57
make a website look and run to do some of the most simplest
59:01
tasks? And it was like, I remember one
59:07
of my final projects in college was to make an app for it was
59:14
like to track childhood obesity for the hospital, that was on
59:18
our campus, and my group made an app that like, personally, I
59:24
thought looked amazing. It was it honestly just came
59:27
down to like, a Tracker of like what food you ate, who you were
59:30
with and what you did that day, but the app made it look like it
59:34
was a full like day planner Journal.
59:39
Like just a full-blown like experience really?
59:45
And it was like those kind of things, I think are really cool
59:49
in terms of just having somebody be excited to use your product
59:55
really. And so that's kind of like the
59:58
creative side is what kind of like lead from one thing to
1:00:01
another How do you actually find the time to manage so many
1:00:06
things at once? Because, I mean, obviously,
1:00:09
we've laid out, you know, the fact that you're doing these
1:00:11
different podcasts, there's obviously, the basketball
1:00:13
Society is much more than just a podcast.
1:00:16
You're doing videography and photography.
1:00:18
And it's, there's so many other things that I'm sure, we haven't
1:00:21
even touched on that, you do as well.
1:00:23
How do you find the time to do all of this?
1:00:27
Hi. It's definitely difficult to
1:00:29
have a relationship as well. It's definitely difficult and
1:00:36
and I definitely have to give a shout out to my girlfriend
1:00:39
because she's, she's definitely allowed me to do a lot of
1:00:42
different things and and she's been cool with it.
1:00:46
Also it's been amazing. She's awesome.
1:00:50
So but yeah it's it's like during the day.
1:00:55
I mean it's really all like The day job the development side,
1:00:58
and then like my lunch break. I'll probably do a little bit of
1:01:03
like all edit a little bit of a video or I'll finish editing a
1:01:07
podcast or or a photo or whatever it may be.
1:01:10
And then the moment I am done the day job.
1:01:16
I then I actually usually go to the gym and work out.
1:01:21
And then after that it's kind of like, from I'd say from like
1:01:25
6:30 p.m. Till midnight is like basketball
1:01:29
Society podcasts editing things jumping on a phone call with
1:01:34
some of the other basketball Society.
1:01:36
Guys to talk about, like our strategy for the week on YouTube
1:01:41
or strategy for the week on our website and it's kind of just
1:01:45
yeah, I'm kind of just go. Go go from eight a.m. from the
1:01:49
day job till midnight when I finally am just like all right
1:01:53
I'm time I'm too tired to do anything else.
1:01:59
Don't just about the meditation and mindfulness that you've
1:02:03
employed in your life because it's something that's prevalent
1:02:06
on your social media and stuff. And obviously, I can kind of
1:02:10
picture the benefits and stuff and how it, you know, I've heard
1:02:13
a lot of people over the years talk about how these things help
1:02:17
their lives, in general, but how has it changed your life
1:02:19
specifically? Oh, I mean, it actually directly
1:02:23
relates to the last question about how do I manage everything
1:02:28
in Everything done in a day. I I didn't really start actually
1:02:34
meditation or any of that until this year.
1:02:39
I think that the whole lock down from covid and and everything
1:02:43
like that is what really pushed me to do it.
1:02:46
And there was even like I even saw a therapist at the time for
1:02:51
the first time in my life because it was something that,
1:02:53
you know, all of a sudden I went from doing all these things to
1:02:58
then like Even basketball. There were no games that I
1:03:01
couldn't go to any of these things.
1:03:03
My podcast was kind of just like, covid.
1:03:08
I have nothing to talk about. There is no basketball and, you
1:03:13
know, couldn't go anywhere couldn't do anything.
1:03:15
And so, it was kind of like a shock and it led me to figure
1:03:20
out like, okay, I need to understand myself more mentally
1:03:24
if I'm going to, you know, keep leveling up or upgrading myself
1:03:30
and so it like meditation was actually first Just introduced
1:03:38
to me from our founder Martin sorries.
1:03:40
He started getting into it and he did a whole video series on
1:03:44
our YouTube during like the mental health awareness month
1:03:50
and it was called Soul Talk and he brought on a wide array of
1:03:57
people from players all the way up to, you know, people with
1:04:02
phds studying the brain and stuff and had them.
1:04:07
Come on and talk about, you know, getting into what we all
1:04:10
called the zone or or the Flow State and getting into that, you
1:04:16
know, quickly or quicker than somebody might do.
1:04:21
And he even brought on one of the guys that taught meditation
1:04:27
to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
1:04:30
And so, when I saw that video, I think that's really what pushed
1:04:34
me to do meditation. And really look, They're into
1:04:38
it. I even got his name is George
1:04:40
Mumford, I even got his his book about meditation and and being
1:04:47
in the zone for athletes and it kind of has unlocked like a
1:04:53
whole new kind of drive and even like energy for me to keep doing
1:05:03
all of this all the time because to me, Like once I started doing
1:05:08
meditation and even a little bit of yoga, it was kind of like I
1:05:13
almost like broke up each day into two new days because after
1:05:19
I was done working the day job I would meditate and then it was
1:05:24
kind of like everything from before that was wiped away.
1:05:28
And now I have the rest of the day.
1:05:30
It's almost like a brand new day, so it was, I mean, yeah.
1:05:34
Meditation has been amazing for me.
1:05:37
We'll see, you mentioned covid-19 briefly there.
1:05:41
What has the response to the pandemic been like in
1:05:44
Philadelphia? It's is definitely been rough,
1:05:49
especially like in the city. It has been more restrictive
1:05:54
than the suburbs and stuff outside of the city, okay?
1:05:58
In the city, they there was, like, for the longest time, no,
1:06:02
dining indoor dining anywhere. No, outdoor dining.
1:06:05
At any of the restaurants had to stay home.
1:06:07
Like, only way you can go out, was to get your pick up, your
1:06:10
groceries and go home. Like I was really about it.
1:06:13
They were even the for the longest time.
1:06:15
They're even removing On the rims from the basketball hoops
1:06:19
at parks so that people didn't gather.
1:06:22
So sure. Yeah.
1:06:23
So they were getting very, very restrictive and I think that it,
1:06:31
it drove people crazy first off. But it also brought a lot of
1:06:36
people together because I know, personally, I had a lot of
1:06:40
family members that I didn't really talk to all the time,
1:06:43
whether it's because they just are far away.
1:06:46
Or they're always busy, or I'm always busy.
1:06:49
And when that kind of happened, it was like, I was having Zoom
1:06:51
meetings with family members. I haven't talked to you in like
1:06:53
10 years and I'm rekindling old friendships that kind of just
1:07:01
for whatever reason, disintegrated or fell apart.
1:07:05
And it was like, it was cool because you got to see and talk
1:07:09
to so many different people that you haven't talked to in so
1:07:12
long. But at the same time, it was
1:07:14
like, after the first Month, even two months.
1:07:18
Maybe it got to a point where it was like, okay, I need to, you
1:07:22
know, worry about my own mental health and everything.
1:07:25
And I think that a lot of people started taking that more
1:07:28
seriously to because they started realizing if I, if I
1:07:32
don't have my own mental health, and I'm here by myself, like
1:07:36
what's going to happen? So I think that people started
1:07:39
taking it a little more seriously at that point to
1:07:41
what's the biggest life lesson that you've learned.
1:07:46
Learnt so far. Wow.
1:07:55
I think the biggest life lesson I've learned kind of goes with
1:08:00
what we talked about. Like, the biggest lesson I've
1:08:03
learned with podcasting is just that everyone has a story and
1:08:08
it's better to, it's definitely better to be more inquisitive
1:08:14
and learn from people than it is to just make judgments based on
1:08:18
what you have either seen or heard of that person.
1:08:22
Because like Like some of my friendships, some of my
1:08:30
relationships in terms of, like professional relationships, and
1:08:33
even my relationship with my girlfriend.
1:08:34
Now, there was a lot of different things that, you know,
1:08:37
everyone at preconceived notions about and it made things, it
1:08:41
always makes things worse. And when you just take some time
1:08:46
to actually, like, ask that person how they feel, or even
1:08:50
what they've been through, or even just like as simple as like
1:08:53
how their day is it, And make someone's day or even teach you
1:08:58
so much about that person and kind of bring everybody
1:09:01
together. Like it was it this is a funny
1:09:06
example like my girlfriend when she was younger was really big
1:09:09
into like emo and punk rock music and I was never a bit.
1:09:14
And I was like, oh no. But now like she's showed me all
1:09:20
bunch of all sorts of different music and I've showed her all
1:09:23
sorts of different music and It's been so cool so it's like
1:09:27
just like like that example. There's so many things you can
1:09:30
learn that you might like from other people that you never
1:09:33
would have thought of if you just kind of Judge it ahead of
1:09:35
time. So yeah, it's kind of for me
1:09:38
it's just approach everyone with sort of like an open notebook of
1:09:44
just like what can you write down that?
1:09:47
I might not know. Thanks for sharing.
1:09:52
I wanted to Circle back to this. I almost forgot.
1:09:55
Actually, I had to write it down, so I'm glad I did that.
1:09:58
IT Help Desk position that you had.
1:10:02
Come on, turn it. Turn us why it sucks so much.
1:10:06
Well, so it did the company. We did it help desk for, it was
1:10:11
like an internal, it help desk. So I didn't even have to deal
1:10:13
with just like the random person just calling about whatever it
1:10:17
may be. So I thought that Make it a
1:10:20
little better. But I was wrong.
1:10:24
I actually, there was so many things, the, the TV show.
1:10:30
I forget, I think it might be called it help desk.
1:10:33
Or what was it called? It was, it was a UK Show.
1:10:37
Oh, The IT Crowd. Yeah, IT Crowd.
1:10:39
Yeah, there we go. I watched that on Netflix not
1:10:42
too long ago and I was like, this is essentially how helpdesk
1:10:46
life it for real it. It hit a lot of like how it was
1:10:53
when I was on the job because the managers didn't really know
1:10:57
much about computers. So they can't like, you would
1:11:02
have to help them as well as the people that are calling about
1:11:05
their broken computer or whatever it may be.
1:11:08
But the it was true in the fact that I would say, 95 percent of
1:11:14
the calls we had they just needed to restart the computer.
1:11:18
And so I always get the question to like, from even friends now
1:11:22
that are, like, don't tell me to turn it off and on, I've done
1:11:24
that. And I'm like, we say that
1:11:26
because that usually fixes it, but it was a lot of calls of
1:11:32
like, oh, I'm locked out of my computer.
1:11:35
You must have changed something. I was like, I don't know who you
1:11:37
are. So there's no way I could have
1:11:41
changed. Anything on your computer.
1:11:43
Did you get any bikes stupid people or like any kind of So
1:11:49
what did you get any situations where someone was doing some
1:11:52
stuff they shouldn't have been doing or something like that?
1:11:55
Oh yeah, as far as someone who shouldn't have been doing stuff,
1:12:00
this will I remember one guy said, oh, like my computer
1:12:04
doesn't even turn on. I was like, well, like did
1:12:07
something happen and he was like well like the other day.
1:12:12
Like I spilled something on. I was like, okay, like what did
1:12:16
you spill on it? Because if it's like, It is
1:12:18
water, that's one thing, but if you spilled like something
1:12:21
sticky on it, like that's gonna have to be replaced whatever.
1:12:25
And he was like, oh well, I was working from the bar and the
1:12:30
bartender poured, a drink over it.
1:12:32
I'm like, I was like, well, that's your own fault for that
1:12:37
like, I don't know why you'd be working from the bar, but, and
1:12:42
yeah, I mean A lot of people wouldn't admit to if they were
1:12:47
doing something they shouldn't be doing.
1:12:50
But as far as like dumb things go, I remember having a guy
1:12:55
called me because he was going to retire and he tried to log
1:12:59
into his account. And I was trying to direct him
1:13:05
to the specific site and login and everything.
1:13:07
And he kept saying, like, no, like, it's not working, it's not
1:13:10
working, it's not working. And I'm like, well, like what
1:13:13
are you on? Like what you have to tell me
1:13:16
because I can't I can't remote into your computer because
1:13:18
you're using your personal computer and he's like, I'm on
1:13:21
Google. I was like well that's not the
1:13:23
website that I told you to go to in the first place.
1:13:25
So obviously nothing is working and find.
1:13:28
It was a long story short as a two-and-a-half-hour call what?
1:13:33
Yeah. That and the reason it took so
1:13:37
long is because he didn't know that you could type a capital
1:13:41
letter Oh my God. Come on.
1:13:48
He for the longest time. He tried to put in his password.
1:13:51
I was like do you have any capital letters in there?
1:13:53
He's like yeah. The first letters capitalized.
1:13:54
Like have you been typing one? And he was like, you can type a
1:13:57
capital letter. I was like, how else would your
1:13:59
password have been a capital letter C?
1:14:03
I guess that's a generational divide.
1:14:05
I do understand that but like sometimes it's just fucking
1:14:08
Common Sense, man. Oh, you did it.
1:14:15
Yeah, very glad. I only had to spend one year
1:14:18
there was there anything else like really bad about the job?
1:14:20
I mean, it sounds like you. Because, I mean to me, it kind
1:14:23
of reminds me of when I worked in customer services but like
1:14:26
yeah, I don't know. Is there anything else about the
1:14:28
job that really made it? So unbearable.
1:14:32
Well, so all the people I worked with are actually awesome.
1:14:35
Like all my coworkers are great. The the main terrible part was
1:14:40
just dealing with all the people that had no idea what to do with
1:14:44
computers. Yes, but the other, I would say,
1:14:46
the only other thing was that, you know, we weren't getting
1:14:50
paid much for it either. So, it was all of this
1:14:53
frustration for like barely any money and then on top of that,
1:14:58
there wasn't much area to like move up, like you didn't there
1:15:02
wasn't much chance to like get a promotion.
1:15:05
So it was kind of like if you're going to stay at this point,
1:15:09
like you're staying in this specific job for as long as
1:15:12
you're there. So, Yeah, God, you've moved on.
1:15:19
We've all had those jobs. I do.
1:15:21
Yeah, we had my share for sure. As we draw everything to a close
1:15:26
today. Do you have any final thoughts?
1:15:28
Or maybe some upcoming projects that you like to share with us?
1:15:32
Yeah, so actually the thing I talked about before, protect our
1:15:35
Queens, we have a couple more of our interview videos coming out
1:15:40
for protect our Queens. That's on our YouTube channel,
1:15:42
the basketball Society, YouTube channel And then as far as other
1:15:47
projects, we have a couple more interviews coming up of just all
1:15:53
different types of players from high school all the way up
1:15:56
through professional. So we're going to have a few
1:15:59
more of them on our YouTube channel as well.
1:16:02
And then just the podcast every week having different people on
1:16:06
and everything. So yep it's searching where
1:16:09
everywhere you get Podcast and YouTube on bass, we have
1:16:13
basketball Society. And just specifically the
1:16:16
Atlantic files. So anywhere you get them?
1:16:18
Well, some well yeah, obviously want to say to my listeners,
1:16:22
make sure you go and support Alex's stuff.
1:16:25
He's clearly very passionate about what he does.
1:16:27
And yeah, it does, it does a very good job.
1:16:29
So make sure you go and support him.
1:16:31
And yeah, thank you very much for appearing on the show, man.
1:16:34
I really appreciate it. I appreciate you having me.
1:16:37
No problem has been actually pleasure and what to say to all
1:16:40
my listeners. Thank you very much for watching
1:16:43
/ listening to The Christian we've podcast, as I always say,
1:16:46
if you're on YouTube or Facebook then like, share the video,
1:16:52
subscribe, whatever. And if you're listening to the
1:16:55
question, we podcast via, that's a Spotify Apple podcast Google
1:16:59
podcast. Please leave a review.
1:17:02
I recently received my first ever review and it was very
1:17:06
positive, but here's the thing, I'm happy to receive good or
1:17:10
bad, you know, reviews, anything, any kind of ratings,
1:17:13
anything that's going. To help to push this podcast
1:17:17
forward in some sort of a Direction, so your feedback and
1:17:20
input is very much appreciated. So yeah, thank you very much for
1:17:25
listening to the question we podcast.
1:17:27
And until next time, peace out. One love.
1:17:29
I'll see you in the next one.