Meet The Millionaire FBI Supermodel | Michelle Khare

Michelle Khare has amassed over 3 million subscribers with her unique ability to take on the world's most demanding challenges. From marine boot camp to FBI Academy to training like a Victoria's Secret supermodel, Michelle has completely lived it all while sharing her experiences for the entire world to see. Today we're diving into the business of Michelle, getting an inside look into some of the most demanding careers of the 21st century, seeing which careers make the most amount of money, and all of that starts as soon as you subscribe. Did you subscribe, Jack? No. Are you going to do it? Yes. Okay. Welcome back to the Ice Coffee Hour. My name is Michelle, and if I had to guess, I think that the podcast has made $2 million. Oh, man. No. Divide it by like 10. Yeah, and then it would be closer. $270,000 exactly today. Just off of AdSense. Just off of AdSense. Just off of AdSense, yeah. And here we are we are back at the old abode. I know. We're in LA for VidSummit, and so we make do, and we're back at our old spot now. So, uh Thank you so much for being able to make this happen, for coming down here, and uh here's what I found interesting. Colin and Samir called you the most badass person. What was it? In the world, or what what is this? Not in the world. I think Colin said in the world. Yeah. is it on YouTube? On YouTube. [laughter] On the in the universe. And I have to say, I recently watched your marathon video where you ran 30 miles, and I watched your progression through that, and then I went through the backlog. And I've seen your videos before in the past, but I think it was about a week and a half, 2 weeks ago where when you posted that video, I went through all the other videos. I was I was really impressed because it looked like these movie production uh videos that you're posting on YouTube, like joining the SWAT team, the 911 dispatch. And you've done these incredible careers for like a week, and then documented that. It's incredible. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks for the views. Yeah, you're you're welcome. [laughter] How did you get started on that? And you start with BuzzFeed, is that correct? Yeah, so um when I moved to LA I actually moved out because I was signed to a professional cycling team for road cycling. My senior year of college I somehow won nationals and so I got signed and moved to LA. And while I was here I was also working at Buzzfeed because being a female professional athlete is not a very lucrative thing specifically in cycling you can't speak for other sports and so I was literally like waking up at 4:00, training, going to work, making you know the crazy Buzzfeed videos you've seen and then after work training again, going to sleep. Friday I would leave work, fly somewhere in the world, race, come back. It was a pretty wild experience at the same time so I was growing as an athlete and also as a video producer. And so it kind of got to this point where I was like, I feel like I should merge these two loves. And so I left my job at Buzzfeed and started Challenge Accepted which is a series I do on my channel and I kind of said goodbye to professional cycling because I felt like I could reach a larger audience if I took my skill set of athleticism and everything I learned from being on a professional team and applied it to profession. I'm really curious cuz you said that you won nationals so there was a time where you were the best female cycler like basically in high school? A very brief time. Cycler. Cycler or cyclist? Yeah, [laughter] cycler or cyclist? And well in a very specific event the criterium under 23. That's interesting so I did cross country in high school and I noticed that a lot of the hard work and effort that I put into cross country translates into so many other facets of my life. Have you noticed that your history in cycling translates to some other growth in your professional career? Yeah, absolutely. I would I would say that just like being able to be regimented, waking up early, committing fully to everything I do, all of that comes from that arena of life. there's a big crossover between people who are good at fitness and who are successful in other areas cuz anyone who's like really buff or like really dedicated to their craft of like working out, I've noticed though, they tend to be good in other areas too because of the same qualities it takes to like go to the gym, do stuff when you don't feel like it. You have to have an affinity for pain and an understanding that on the other side of pain is something greater. Yeah. And that applies to any form of entrepreneurship. it's also delayed gratification because if you go to the gym once, you're like, "Why didn't I get a six-pack?" Then it's like you want to see the progression over a year and not necessarily like here's a day or a week. Also, if you're physically fit, you feel more motivated just in general and feeling better obviously will translate to working harder. Yeah. How do you get a job at BuzzFeed? How did that start? What What year was this? Oh my gosh. Like was this that This was like that 2014. So like as Buzz BuzzFeed was like the heyday, like going through their thing. Was that the heyday and then I sort of witnessed that The rise and fall, okay. I I left before fall [laughter] The rise and fall To be blunt with it, Graham. I don't think the title of the video has to say the rise and fall of It It sounds exactly like a SunnyV2 video. I'm watching too many of these videos now. Yeah. [laughter] I watch all of them. But so yeah, the rise and fall of BuzzFeed. Um I honestly just applied and I got an opportunity to interview. And as part of the interview process, you have to say like you check a box as if you live in Los Angeles. Obviously, I checked the box but I didn't. Um so when I got the interview, I like the little savings I had and I was like, "I'm just going to buy a round-trip ticket to LA for 24 hours. Hope I get it." Thank god I did and I moved to LA. What's the pay like when you started BuzzFeed? Is it Is it good or I I've I've heard they maybe don't pay the most competitive but it's BuzzFeed so it's like you want to get your foot in the door. Well, I mean I think that at that time, the connotation of BuzzFeed was very different than it is now. Um and again, this was like like you just mentioned, kind of on the rise to peak. I think the peak viewership was in 2015. I I might have that wrong. Um but it was like a really cool place to work and to learn and as you know even from your experience working for Graham and everything you've learned from that you make those sacrifices at the beginning of your career. So it was definitely like hourly like just barely above minimum wage. Definitely make a lot more as a solo YouTuber than you do. And what was the appeal to BuzzFeed for you? So I am very I'm a very structured person. I work very well when there's a coach figure in my life and I'd seen a lot of other YouTubers just sort of I put up a video and then I went viral and and now I have a career out of it. But at that time I felt like there were very few case studies of a procedural approach to success on YouTube and BuzzFeed to me was like a Disney Channel of YouTube at the time. It was an opportunity to oh I could go I can be on a show there or learn learn the whole industry and then after my career at Disney Channel is done I go on and do something else. So that's sort of how I saw it. I saw it almost as like instead of going to grad school and going in debt for grad school okay I'm going to go to grad school for YouTube and learn everything and I and I did. What were you doing for them exactly? So my technical title was video producer. So that really meant [laughter] everything. Yeah sure. So we would have to conceptualize the videos film them edit them and upload six a month. And what's the process like? Who comes up with the ideas? Is this all on you and you do you run the ideas by if that's the case? Well again it's been a it's been quite a while since I've been there but at the time we would you know have group brainstorms. We were kind of divided into different teams. There was a team for like food videos or IRL scripted videos. There was unscripted so we would sort of brainstorm as a team things would get greenlit and then you'd go off and shoot and edit everything. Speaking of whatever happened to that one guy did the food did like the the most expensive food the least yeah. What happened to it? Are they still doing that? Um so, he, Steven Lim, um Ryan and Shane, who were the guys from BuzzFeed Unsolved, they left and started their own YouTube channel called Watcher. Are they not doing that format anymore? Cuz it was so good. I loved when they were in the car and the guys in the back with the audio things like tinkering. I miss those videos. It was really special. Um I don't think they're doing that exact series anymore cuz they're not at BuzzFeed and I'm assuming it's owned by them, but they do kind of similar content on there. Sure. Got it. And when did you decide to leave? I decided to leave in 2017. And I kind of got to this point where a lot of creators that are probably the most famous creators, they're like Quinta, The Try Guys, etc. They were sort of moved into this really cool department called development department, develop They all got these special contracts. And I sort of reached this point where I was like I could either stay here and wait for the opportunity to be given a contract or I could leave and like really bet on myself and see if I can do it and own the whole thing in the process. Yeah. So, I I really took a risk, but I I just put in my two weeks and I was like, "I've got to do something for me because again, like being, you know, an a first-generation immigrant, um my dad moved here with nothing. I felt like my whole life I'd sort of done stuff that followed a specific path, whether it was like get a good SAT score, go to a college, do this, do this. And I was like, "You know what? I want to try carving my own and if it fails, then you'll come back and work here again." Were you making videos on the side already or were you just a BuzzFeed, you had some savings and decided to make the the leap? So, I would say like 6 to 12 months before I left, I decided to move into a small studio apartment, cut down all of my expenses. I stopped doing like literally everything. I I'm pulled the Gram stuff and lifestyle full frugality. It's great. It's great. I'm happy. A duplex, yeah. [laughter] I drive a Prius. All right. Um not even a Prius, like a really like 10-year-old car. in watches. Okay. [laughter] Um no watches. Ford GT as an investment. Um and I I did that because I wanted to train myself to be comfortable with failure. If I go out and do something entrepreneurial and I make no money doing it, I'm going to have to be comfortable with this lifestyle. And so I decided why not get comfortable there. So everything else is a fun surprise. Every form of success is a surprise. Um yeah, but thankfully the channel did well. Is it right off the bat? Was it like an instant success? Like what was the first video you posted? So the first So I did a why I left BuzzFeed video because everybody did, right? Um honestly pop off, right? They did. Yeah. And I think a lot of people look at those videos and like, "Oh, it's like a way to get tea or drama for views or whatever." And I was like, "You know what? I think people are just going to click on this video because of the title." So I instead of sit-down talk to camera about my experience cuz I was like, "Nobody actually cares." I decided to make it Marvel trailer. So I hired a bunch of people who were like in the Marvel stunt team to craft this fight scene and it was meant to be like a trailer for my channel. So it's kind of a fun bait and switch surprise. Sure. But when I posted that video, I got a couple hundred thousand subscribers. Now again, when other people have left BuzzFeed, they've grown a million followers in a week. That was not me. And so from there, I had just had steady grind. You know, like grinding out videos, pushing myself because again, like I didn't have an established show like the Try Guys or anything when I was there. I really kind of developed that on my own trial and error after my time there. Now, listen, as we all know, YouTube could be a great way to consume a lot of great free content, but as a creator, it becomes difficult to monetize and could often be very inconsistent. Well, thankfully, today's sponsor Uscreen is an easy-to-use membership platform that allows creators with large or small followings to get paid the way you want to. Uscreen creators are from a variety of industries and backgrounds, from fitness, education, music, financial courses, or anyone that wants to make money from their video content and create their own community. 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I'm curious when you put in your 2 weeks, did they not try to fight for you to keep you around? Cuz I still feel like, although you maybe didn't you didn't have like a dedicated show, you were still kind of a staple of Thank you. Um I You know, I had I had some meetings when I was there before I left, but ultimately, I I stayed firm in my wants, and they were not at the time, I think, seeing the value in keeping me on in that capacity. Again, because I wasn't like a try guy or anything like that. And other people had left. Um and I was just really firm in what I wanted in the level Oh. Oh, wow. You're good. You're good. [laughter] Don't worry. That's terrifying. Oh my god, I was like, "Fuzzy is talking right now." [laughter] I think I was just really firm in what I wanted, and honestly, like, the things I wanted, I could have only gotten doing myself, having full ownership of the show, having complete creative control. You can really only get that when you totally own something end to end. So, even if they had come back with like, "Oh, we'll pay you this much, or this, that, or the other." I don't think I would have gotten the actual value I wanted until I actually had left, which is why you know, you see so many people have left, even regardless of whatever contract they had. How long was it until you stumbled upon the current format of your of your channel? It probably took me a year of trial and error on my own YouTube channel before we developed what people know today as Challenge Accepted. And what was the first one you did? The first one that I did, technically, I I did a video where I trained like a Victoria's Secret model for 5 weeks, and I found this guy named Steve who is like in Culver City, and he's trained multiple of the Victoria's Secret runway models. And, you know, back then, in like 2018, I guess, that was sort of a hot topic is like, how are these women actually preparing for this runway show? I'm someone who is very short, so I would never get hired by Victoria's Secret anyways, but I thought, what would happen if I, you know, as a a normal person, would push myself to do something like this, following the diet, following everything, and just see what happens. And, um the video ended up doing really well, and so I I found myself at this crux, like, you have these difficult decisions where you can do what's easy, like you could do a video that takes end to end to produce, or you could do something that takes a really long time to produce, and bet on it, you know? Like, I don't know when I put up a video that I've spent 6 months of time [clears throat] filming if it's going to do astronomically well, but I will know that it's a great product, and that video really challenged me to do that. Yeah. Oh my god, we spent 5 weeks training for this, 3 weeks editing, put it up, God knows how it will do, And thankfully it did well. So it really encouraged me to just put my head down and really commit fully to every single video I make. What was that process like? Can you walk us through what it was like training? And like what was the most surprising from that? The that for that specifically was a yeah. Oh my gosh. was involved in that? Um [laughter] Graham's looking for a new training regimen. Yeah, yeah. He's taking notes. So uh again, I was working with Steve Zim who's a fantastic trainer. So I'd pretty much just show up at like 6:00 or 7:00 every day, work out there for 2 hours, go home. There was a very specific meal plan that I followed. And from there it was just rinse and repeat. And I would say with any challenge, whether it's fitness or otherwise, the first week is really exciting because it's oh my gosh, I have a new lifestyle, I'm really committed, I feel a lot of um excitement about it. It's a whole mind and body shift. And I find that in every single video I do. It doesn't matter if it's training like Victoria's Secret model, training like a chess grandmaster. Every single video I do where I have to commit to something for an extended period of time, it's a complete like metamorphosis, in a way. Have any of these habits stuck with you? Let's say that the 2 hours of working out in the morning and egg whites, like I bet if I did that for a few months, I'd just stick with it. I'd just continue that. No, it's really easy to stick to it when you have a video or like a specific goal in mind. But the time period after, like once you put up the video, is this very bizarre like no man's land. And someone I know, another creator, actually did a video recently where they like did a body transformation for 5 weeks. And he texted me, he's like, "Is it normal to feel completely directionless after the video goes up?" And I was like, "Yes, completely normal." Um but I find unless unless I have a video or like a very specific goal, it doesn't work for me. Like it doesn't become like a full habit shift. Now obviously aspects of things, like from my military videos for example, anytime I've worked with the military or a you know, a a distinct government organization, I reaffirm that appreciation for waking up early and like every minute of every day can be effectively used. Um but I don't fully like I haven't like fully changed my life necessarily from one. It's kind of like picking and pulling the things that I love the most out of each. What would you say was your least favorite to train for? Chess. Really? Why is that? Do you just not like chess? [laughter] Well, what was the hardest? It was the hardest. There were lots of things I loved about chess and so many great people who tried to help me out learn chess when I did it. Um but chess was absolutely the most difficult for me. Um because it was fully mental challenge and I like I was a pretty academic person growing up. Like I was I loved math and but and I thought, okay, I like math. Chess Chess is math, right? Is it? I don't even know. math? I don't even know. Obviously aspects of chess are math, yeah, but it's definitely a different muscle beyond academia or physical ability. I don't even how to describe it, but it literally drove me crazy cuz it was in the pandemic, so I couldn't film a lot of the normal stuff I I usually film and people had requested chess for a while, so I decided I gave myself this arbitrary goal of a thousand ELO, which is like a ranking within chess. I said, okay, I'm going to try and get a thousand and one of the chess coaches I was working with, another YouTuber, Gotham Chess, like, okay, you can get there in a month, maybe three months. It took me eight months. This video is eight months of footage of me just pouring my heart and soul over a freaking chessboard, losing my mind in the pandemic. Like I felt I was going through so many arcs. Like the world was shutting down. I was like stuck inside my brain, but that was chess is I I admit defeat to chess. I feel like I've succeeded it? What about chess? Like what was the most difficult part about that? Cuz I know it's all strategy and like this piece goes here. It's just a game of like logic, right? Or do you have to logic a lot of it's memorization. Is it? Yeah, but isn't it some you have to know your opponent and like they're more likely to play aggressive and therefore I have to like build around that. There's a there's a lot of knowing the opponent, studying [clears throat] their opening versus yours, adjusting your defense against their opening. Like the permutations of chess are just literally infinite and it kind of drove me crazy. Just a little. But I think that it it bothered it was tough for me to sit with myself. In every other challenge, there's a physical component. I'm moving through something. I understand that pain as an athlete. Mhm. Um but for some reason chess, because I couldn't there wasn't like a meditation to it for me like there is moving my body physically. That makes sense. Is there a point you wanted to give up on that one? Oh my god. in between. Scrap scrap this idea. I mean I I think there was even a a segment of time where I was like I got to take a week off. I can't you know I I I had to take time away. I had to come back. Um It it was like wrestling this It's like wrestling a snake or something. [laughter] That was crazy. But yeah, I I definitely wanted to give up. There are a lot of times in my videos I want to give up. Even the marathon video that you saw recently. I'm like do I really need to run 30 miles in the hottest place on Earth? to the viewers who have not seen that video? Yeah, so I I my most recent upload is a video where I ran a marathon in the hottest place on Earth kind of to celebrate my 30th birthday, I guess. Weird weird birthday celebration. And I wanted to do it because I felt like it just sounded like a crazy thing to do. Who would run a marathon in the hottest place on Earth? And it turns out, as I learned, there is a group of people who do this every summer. It's called the Badwater 135. They run 135 miles hottest place on Earth in Death Valley, um which So, they're actually the true heroes of this. But, I thought, "You know what? I want to challenge myself to really ring out the end of my 20s and push myself to that next level and just see what happens to my body and mind, you know? What can be achieved pushing myself to this limit?" So, I trained for 4 weeks. I had 4 weeks to prepare. How long is that? I know. Don't do that, guys. What was the most [laughter] you'd run before that? I have done a marathon previously, but it'd been a few years, and it wasn't in the hottest place on Earth. Got it. Okay. Yeah. So, for uh for training for a marathon of this nature, you go out, you do your run, come home, and immediately get in a sauna. No water. Intentionally. What? No water. And you sit there for like 30 minutes, just sweating and honestly confronting that. To acclimate to the heat. Because even though we're here in Los Angeles, where it's quite warm during the summer, it doesn't compare to Death Valley. So. Wow. Yeah. How challenging was that? Was that like Pretty challenging. That was Was that like [laughter] harder than the average challenge or not as hard as the average? It was more difficult than the average challenge, I would say. I mean, all of them are incredibly hard. I mean, okay, listen. I This is going to sound crazy. I would rather run a marathon than do 8 months of chess ever again. Okay, what is it about this chess thing? to Death Valley, put my ass back there, and run a marathon in Death Valley. You just like strongly dislike chess now? No, I I love chess. When's the last time you played chess casually? of chess. Um the last game I played was literally the game where I crossed 1,000. And I was like, So, you're just done? Should play Alex Botez. Oh, she's great. She She actually helped coach me. Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Is that it? If you do a a match with her. Well, I mean I would lose very promptly, but [laughter] Maybe we could do chess boxing. So, she can handle the chess and I can That's a good idea. That's what love is. is doing. Yeah. Isn't that so cool? Yeah. Yeah. Are you You're not participating in that? I am not. Um That would actually be something to participate in. Chess boxing. Yeah. Yeah. That would be interesting. Are there Are there any ideas that you've just automatically just said no to? That you just don't want to do or maybe it's too dangerous or like it's just There are ones that I have said hard no to and then they find their way in somehow. I end up doing them. The marathon is one of them. Um training like a professional gamer was one that I did. So, I trained with like a professional Fortnite team back like a couple years ago when Fortnite was a bit more popular. That one I was like, I don't Is anyone going to care about this video cuz I am not a person who grew up with video games. So, I didn't know too much about it. Now, obviously I understand now just like again, being a professional gamer is another thing that I just have even more respect for, but probably the one I was most skeptical of was so I went to fire academy for like training to be a firefighter. Yeah. And as a part of the training they they're like, "We're going to put you in a burning building." Now, was this a simulated burning building or like fire. Real fire. real actual fire that they did not like they not Like a real house that was burning. like a it was a my apologies. It was a training structure. That's okay. Yeah. But the whole thing's lit on fire. Got it. Yeah. I thought it's like, "Hey, there's a burning house over there. You run in there and we'll be there in like 3 minutes. See you there." I only had a few days of training, but when they said that I was going to do that I was like, "Are you actually serious that y'all are going to put me in a suit and have me go in there not just sit in there and experience what it's like to be in a a burning structure, but there was a challenge involved. They had a a mannequin in there and then I like a certain amount of time for me to get in, drag the hose in, spray it down, and save the the body before it was too late. I was like, "Are y'all actually serious here? Like I am going in this burning building and um, you know, obviously I'm I'm glad that I was surrounded by incredible professionals to help guide me safely through all of that. But we've just gotten to do some really crazy once-in-a-lifetime stuff. Now, one video I found very interesting is the 911 dispatch. Oh, thank you. up with that idea? Well, actually, what's interesting about that video is So, it's the same organization that we did the firefighting episode with. So, I did um it's South Metro Fire Rescue in Colorado. They're amazing. They actually have their own YouTube channel where they show day-in-the-life of being a firefighter, paramedic. So, we did the firefighter video, we had a fantastic experience with them. We went back and I did a video where I went on a 24-hour paramedic shift with them. And while we were there, I was just thinking, "This is obviously what we're experiencing is crazy, but could you imagine being the person who's answering the phone for victim?" And then, while on the phone with the victim, calling out the paramedics and the firefighters and everything. So, I was just kind of curious. And honestly, it's sort of like at the end of 2021 when we started thinking about this idea, the pandemic was still a little hit or miss in terms of filming ability, and we thought, "Okay, if we do 911 dispatch, it's a bit more contained." And honestly, I didn't know how it was going to perform. I was like, "Are people going to care if I'm sitting at a desk answering the phone?" And obviously, there's way more drama involved than that, but I truly thought, you know, when we put up the episode, I was like, "We'll see how it does." Yeah. And I did not expect the reaction at all. Because I think we all take for granted the ability to call 911. Mhm. Like if you passed out right now, we can call a phone number and someone will come at some point. And that is such a privilege and and these people sit at a desk just waiting for those calls and waiting to receive someone on the worst day of their life. And the mental trauma and the chaos, I wanted to better understand all of that. Yeah, I don't think I could do that. I would get too wrapped up into emotional and like the calls. And I've heard some of these 911 calls on TikTok. It seems like a new those are a new thing right now is posting those calls on TikTok but like, you know, um, voice and not the voice overs but like showing some B-roll and stuff like that. And I'm amazed at their ability to stay so calm and unemotional throughout the call and just and just like they're like, "This is happening, this is happening. Okay, uh, so is, you know, is anyone injured? Oh, what's the injury? Okay. Where are you? Like like stuff like that but they're not affected. I'd be like, Oh, man, you I wouldn't laugh but I'm just like I would [laughter] No, of course not but I but I'm just saying I I would just be like, you know, I I wouldn't be able to understand what they're could do that? And remain unemotional? No. know, man. I feel like you'd be good at it. You're very logical and No, I my heart would be racing. Yeah, I mean, when I did my fake call with an actor Yeah. uh, at the end of my episode, I didn't know what kind of call I was going to get and I was so surprised like, "Why am I so emotionally impacted just hearing an actor talk to me about the birthing process and they're having a baby in their home and I'm the person guiding them through that." I mean, I think I was just so overwhelmed with the fact that like when I was working there and taking this fake baby call, there were people in the office who had actually done that recently. Like, "Oh, yeah, I've delivered multiple babies over the phone." I was the person that parents were calling during the STEM shooting. It's incredible. The The fact that these people are able to vocally remain calm while probably mentally going through a billion different hurdles is it's a different type of bravery to me. So, is it common for 911 dispatch people to be like constantly in therapy or in some sort of like what the The mental health component is very interesting and I don't think every dispatch location offers the services Thankfully, South Metro does have some services of that kind where they um you know, for any of their employees, I believe. who have experienced something specifically traumatic. Yeah, how do they become that? Like, what's the process like to go through that process and say I want to answer calls for 911? It's a pretty rigorous process. So, I got to experience a little bit of it in my video, but there's like a a comprehension computer test where it's almost like it's it's sort of testing how quickly you can move the mouse and give directions over the phone, those kinds of things. There's a typing test because while you're on the phone, you're also typing to the paramedics what's going on. So, you're listening and then going through. Um so, that's a lot of the skills and then of course an interview and doing some of those mock calls like I did to see how you actually perform under pressure. Wow. And what's your process like now for picking a video and like what what does that look like? I pick the topics honestly based on things that I'm very curious about and people will comment and ask for for specific things, but something we did this summer was I actually went to the International Butler Academy in Europe. It's this castle in the middle of the Netherlands where they train the butlers that go on to serve like the royal family, presidents, billionaires. The profession of butlering is one that I didn't even know Wait, it's called butlering? I think that's the verb. How do you know that it still exists, honestly? I thought that was gone like 100 years ago. You You've heard of that, Jack? No, no. Just being a butler, period. Oh, yeah. that crazy? Is that They still Do they call them butlers? I feel like Really? No, obviously some of the graduates still go on to like work at five-star hotels or Executive assistants or something like that. Yeah, or like butler service on cruises. Yeah, some of these people go on to work for like private jet families, like maybe become a part of the family. training like for that? Like why does someone need to be trained to be a a butler? The training for Butler Academy is fascinating. I really can't wait for this video to come out, but um it's a combination of like learning the specifics on every form of etiquette. There was a 3-hour class I sat in on tea. If it's a green tea, it steeps at this temperature for this long, and then you remove this, and it should be served with honey, not sugar. Like there was a whole like chart [snorts] like diagrams for every form of etiquette. One of the tasks I have to do is set a table. Did you know that there is a measurement-accurate way to set a table? Like as in this many centimeters from the fork is the is the is the spoon and the knife and measure that out? With these big like measuring sticks. They pull them out, and it has to be measured perfectly. He gave me 45 minutes to do a place setting, and I failed. Why does it matter? That's a really good question. And I think that's something I ask in like every episode or challenge that I take on. Why does it Why does it matter, or why would you want to do this? What's fascinating about the Butler Academy is I looked these students in the eyes. I'm like, why are you doing this? What are you doing this for? And they all genuinely in their heart wanted to serve. They They receive like it's a It They must be a unique gene, in my opinion, but they genuinely find their life's purpose is to help other people. Yeah. And the the measurement thing, I was like I looked That's a little over the was like, "Why? Why are we doing this?" Because when it's done correctly, it's it's almost an art form. It just looks so beautiful. And I guess to some clients at dinner, whatever you you know, whoever you're trying to impress, those little things that they might not even notice, that's what a butler is responsible for. It's the unspoken and unseen things that make you feel good inside. I feel like if I had a butler, I would just become their friend. And then they'd just like be hanging out with me all the time. It wouldn't like they couldn't really serve me anymore because like we'd Yeah, I feel bad asking them to do stuff like that. Like, "Hey, this fork is like a centimeter off." Like, I couldn't I I wouldn't care. Right. so many things that I would just let slide cuz I'm [laughter] just let it slide. That's not a big deal. Oh, yeah, that you know, that's fine. I'd be probably too easy. I mean, I I learned that I don't think I'm cut out to be a butler, but having one would be great. What is the pay like? Let's say they graduate. How much do they make afterwards? Six figures. Really? Oh my gosh. It's a 12-week program. You graduate and Wait a second. So you're saying someone without a college degree can go through a 12-week program and make a hundred thousand dollars? hustle right there. Add that to your next video. Why aren't people doing this? Cuz I'd much rather do that than work like four years in college to maybe Yeah, going to debt for maybe, you know, 50, 60 grand right afterwards. Why aren't more people doing that? I think people don't know it exists. And now they will because of [laughter] my video. I don't know. Um I I guess it Could be just happening in your I was thinking we should withhold this information in case YouTube falls. He [laughter] can then go in there. He doesn't want supply to be too It's I'm just saying it sounds too good to be true. A 12-week program. Like people are going into the trades and like working their way up as an appren- apprentice. You know, when they could just be a butler. Of course. I mean, I'm sure it's so competitive. Like only the top like 10%. And a lot of the people there had prior hospitality service experience of some kind. Now, not all of them had college graduates college degrees I should say by any means, but they all had like worked at a nice hotel in some capacity. They had experience before coming here. It wasn't Well, actually No, now I'm thinking about it. There were a couple people who were 18 years old just graduated high school who were going to Balor Academy. No, obviously getting a job after this. That's the difficult part. But the academy claims that many of their students on average go on to six figure salary. have to learn security, too? I would imagine that that should be part of their training. Just in security in general. Like if they're out with their their employer and something happens that they would have some sort of security training in addition to Yeah, I think they do that and I believe they also do I didn't personally get to experience this, but they also learn some self defense, um, how to deal with a guest that maybe at a party that they think stolen something like very difficult social situations that I mean, it's incredible what they can do. Be like, "Sir, empty your pockets. Let me see what's inside." [laughter] You know what? There's one This reminds me of something that I think you'd be fantastic at. There's that in England What was it? The nanny. It was like the super nanny one. wanted to do a nanny school episode. I reached out to them, but they weren't available this summer, but Please, the Norland School. Yeah, that was it. And that was the one where they they make crazy income, but they but for me it was the security aspect of it. Like they have the stroller, but they have this thing where they could like swap the stroller around, take the kid, like shoot a gun with the other hand. It's like, "What?" Yeah. And a nanny? A nanny. Yeah, they're they're trained with like firearms. And like like accuracy and like every weapon you could imagine. But but they say that the salaries are like 150,000 dollars a year when they get to the chamber. But they could like seriously think of a a good nanny a wealthy person would easily pay 300 grand a year for someone that travels with them who has security training. Yeah. It's incredible and and the interviews of the people who go through that genuinely love kids Mhm. want to do it and it makes a ton of money. Just like the butler academy. I was like why why do you want to do this? And the genuine like they they one of the instructors we met with he said that one of the greatest joys was when he felt that his boss had accepted as part of the family. Like that was for him a life milestone. Is buttling a 9-5 or is it like a like a 24/7 type situation. I'm sure that you know in a lot of like upper class households who have this type of service there are shifts [clears throat] or multiple butlers. Um but in a way you're you're the house manager. If something goes wrong with the house or the family you're there. It'd be so hard to have a life outside of buttling. Like having a girlfriend or boyfriend or I had a friend in high school who had a live-in nanny since he was a kid. Like I think since like you know he was born there was always a live-in nanny and she was a part of the family. I mean just like she'd be at all the family events. I mean they embraced her as just like you know as you would like a brother or a sister. Yeah. And I think she continued to live in the house even after he moved out cuz she's just that a part of the household. And she's like she was in her like you know 60s I think at that point but um just it seems like a great relationship. You're really happy. I think it'd be cool to talk a little bit about the business structure you have. I've I've been waiting for this question. Here we go. I'm curious about it too because it seems the videos are so well produced Thank you. I'd imagine there's there's more than just like you and one person with a camera. Let's guess the size of her team. I'm going to say I'm going to say they're probably two to three full-time people. And then three to five half-time. Like part-time. Do you have a guess? Yeah. No, no, no. I want to guess. You probably have two people for for camera work. I would say two people for editing and then one person for like management and stuff. I'm going to say five. Okay. So, we have in addition to myself three full-time employees, so you're perfect on right on there. And then we have like probably 10 different freelancers that come in and out for filming. Whenever we do an episode like marathon, that was a crew of 13 people. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. So. So, walk us through like walk us through first like your average day. Like an average work day. How do What is that Well, what does that process look like? Just in general. so like yeah, I got it. Okay. So, my day is very completely based on what I'm training for, but typically the way it goes is I'll wake up early. I will go and get my training done. For So, for example, earlier this year I did a video where I trained like an Olympic boxer for 100 days. So, I would go super early in the morning, train, come home, shower, and then the rest of the day I spend producing. So, I would say that my strongest skill set is in organization and Google calendar, email management, like me and Carissa do a lot of all of that crazy planning. So, when we shoot with the FBI, when we shoot with Secret Service, it's me on those calls. It's me picking the crew and making schedules and everything. So, I I get like a weird sadistic joy out of that type of stuff. So, that's pretty much what I spend the majority of my day doing and then in the afternoon I'll do some sort of recovery like an ice bath so I'll do an ice bath, cook dinner go to bed and do it all over again. But this is coupled with like you know in a couple weeks we're going to fly out and shoot a video so we'll be gone for a week but then I'm also while we're on set waking up early taking calls training for the other projects while I'm training for something else. At any given time I'm probably training for two to three different projects at once. But to kind of answer your thing about like what's a day like? Um like a year or two ago there was one day where in the morning I went and I piloted a fighter jet for NASA training and then in the afternoon I went to ballet class or training like a ballerina for six weeks so it it's really exciting which is fun. So what's today? So today today was um today we had a team meeting with our editors. Um we're working on bringing on another editor right now which is really exciting. We're also hiring so if you want to want to pull a Jack and just slide into my DMs and tell me how you can help me that'd be great. We're available and excited to have you. Yeah so we were doing that and then Carissa actually our assistant producer she's part-time Singapore part-time LA. So she came in last night so we were doing stuff with her and then you're like let's do a podcast so we cleared off the afternoon and we're like let's do it. Perfect. Do you have an office or do you work from home? That was an interesting thing I was excited to talk to you about cuz you're the real estate person. Um so in the pandemic we entertained the idea of an office or renting commercial real estate. And when we did the math I was like we're going to pay so much money for a rental on commercial real estate so what we ended up doing was we found a house that has a guest house. So we re-outfitted the guest house to be our production office and then we live in the main house. It's a very smart idea. That's what we had going on. Grim, that's something I did something smart. You did something right this time. Please clip that. Oh my god, I was so ready you're going to you're going to be like you're doing No, no. Yeah, you should be moving to Vegas. Yeah. [laughter] That's what we did here though. Jack was in the guest house and then I was here and then we have the office here and some other like, you know, we use this for filming. But it worked out really well. I love it. I love it because we don't have to drive anywhere to go in to work or whatever and it just saves time because I found that the most valuable resource is my time because I have to use so much of it for training, for being in the car for whatever that every minute matters and the the less time I can waste even if it's just walking to the backyard to have a conversation with our team versus driving 10 minutes that every minute matters. Yeah, I think even yesterday we did a podcast with Patty Galloway Oh, oh he's fantastic. He's really good. I spent more time in the car driving down there than we did actually filming a podcast. Wow, yeah, that's right. Yeah, but you went to the wrong hotel. No, it was 50 minutes to go from here to Marina Del Rey. That doesn't make any sense. Lincoln Boulevard. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. During rush hour traffic. Patty was great, but it was 50 minutes down there and then I got to the wrong hotel. So Jack [snorts] just tells me he's at the Hyatt. I didn't know, man. There are three Hyatt hotels on Century Boulevard. Three, there's like the Hyatt Regency, the Hyatt Place and there's like another Hyatt. I show up to the Hyatt Regency. And Jack says his room is 1700 1207 and so I go up to 1207. I'm knocking on the door and I hear the shower going and so I called Jack. I'm like, "Hey, no, you know, the shower's running." He's like, "No, Humphrey's there. He'll let you in." I'm thinking maybe Humphrey's is in the shower so I just wait. went to the wrong hotel, stranger's room. Oh my god. so but I hear the shower keep going and then I'm just like I'm still knocking. They're not getting it but I hear the shower going and then I called Jack back. Give me Humphrey's number. I'm like, call Humphrey. Then he says, "Oh, let me open the door for you." I'm like, he's in the shower. [laughter] Opens it up, he's like, "You're not here. You got the wrong hotel." So packed everything up, went to the right hotel. you have a great story. Now I have a great story. So that's that person was taking a shower and they're knocking. I'm curious like if they open and be like, "Am here for Jack?" I don't know. gosh. Yeah. Oh, and the only reason I got up to the room, by the way, was someone else went to the 17th floor and used their key card. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That was the only reason. It's just you were like about it though. That was fine. But yeah, no, I think I think that uh that time aspect is extremely important. Yeah. Do you know how much it how much it costs to make your average video? Yeah, so our average videos these days are anywhere from 20 to 30,000 dollars. Wow. Yeah. And how often are you posting? Once a month. Oh my gosh. That is more than I thought. Did Did you do this math prior to coming on or do you just know just you Well, I figured you guys were going to ask me. I just know it already. Wow. Does that make you nervous in case the video gets demonetized or it doesn't perform or are you pretty confident that Um so the way that kind of our business The way that our business is working currently is obviously we have AdSense and brand deals are awesome. And then we also have a fitness app that we run. So there's kind of an expectation of a certain level of income per [snorts] month. And so we allocate it in various ways across the different projects. But typically for some of the the bigger episodes like the marathon for example, we're not going to do unless we have a sponsor involved and it's of a certain pay structure. Yeah. So do you figure this out ahead of time? Like you have this video idea, you go to the sponsor, negotiate and say, "We'll get you this video in 3 months." Wait for the video. for the marathon video it was a really amazing opportunity. We partnered with Brooks for that. So we actually made like a full outline with like pictures and you know, temp VO and everything and we pitched it to them and they were really into it, thankfully, and they offered to not only pay for the episode and, you know, like a brand deal rate, but also they provided us professional athletes to be in the episode. They came out, they supported me. It was a really cool partnership. So, I'm always looking for those like bigger, more tentpole situations because we have so few videos to choose from, you know, 12 to 15 a year, probably, um that I am pretty strict on who we work with and how it's going to work and when payments come in and so on. Should do a day on Wall Street. Please. That would be That would be really interesting. That would be good. If you did that with like a good uh sponsor like public.com/graham, you would be I That video would do so well. If you rang the bell on Wall Street, I don't know how you could do that. I'm sure somebody watching this podcast would be able to make it but But now I want to do that, too. Now I want that Yeah, we'd both do it. We'd both do it. That would be great. I'll produce the video so you don't have to worry about Yeah, honestly, if you get that opportunity, I'd love to just show up I would love to just show up and do that. Okay, cuz one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was today was I want to do a finance episode cuz I just think it'd be Obviously, you know the benefit of everybody having more um education equity on finance and I don't know what we would do, but that all sounds awesome. love to do that. Have you ever seen Mike Shake? Oh, he's great. Yeah, he did like uh I learned how to day trade and that video did pretty well for him. And that might be kind of interesting like learning how to day trade in 30 days or something. [laughter] You just lose everything. Yeah. So, what would I do on Wall Street? Because a lot of people from my college I mean, I even interviewed for Wall Street stuff and I don't even know what they do. Yeah. and I don't even know what [laughter] I would've been doing. I I mean, my first thought is you're going to get someone who's on the Wall Street uh Wall Street floor or the the trading floor and you're going to watch them go back and forth with their papers and yelling on the phone and like do it with the depressing buttons and stuff like that. I think a lot I don't I don't know I don't know what really they do. You're the finance guru. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. anything. Well, what? Like everything I do is from like last time. I think it's digital now, right? Yeah, they don't have to [laughter] Yo, I got these oil contracts. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like Leonardo DiCaprio, Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah. But I'm sure you could find somebody there who's like busy, could walk you through the average day. I've heard though they're very strict on filming. So like a lot of the times they don't want any filming done. So I'm sure maybe you'd be able to get like an exception through that. Like if it goes through the I I have no clue. Goldman Sachs. Chances are someone watching has a connection with Wall Street who could maybe put us through to make that happen, but I'd love to do that. I'm going to work on making it happen, and I will let you know. How would they let you know? How Okay, michelcarreplusbusiness@gmail.com. Just email me. If you can do it, just email me. Let's go back to your income. Are you comfortable talking about that? Could If If a video costs $30,000 to make, what's the ROI on that? Oh my god. So, we So like I was mentioning to you earlier, we have three three different buckets of where we get income from. AdSense is one, and now because of how the videos have been performing this year, we have kind of a standard of where that will be. Brand deals, we only accept over like a high level at this point. Like we don't really do a 60-second shout-out or like a random website or anything. It has to be like a pretty big opportunity. And then the fitness app, which is a paid subscription service. So even if a video doesn't make 30 grand back in AdSense by itself, typically we can get that back with the app or like plugging the app and having people go to it. Like in the marathon video, we also launched a run a 10K challenge, which is another thing we spent today doing. And basically in the app, you can get all of my workouts, which are actually the workouts I do in the videos. So kind of measure it in a variety of different ways if that makes sense. What's the app? Could you walk us through this? Yeah. Yeah. So, the app is called MK Fit and it's actually a white label app. So, I work with another company who kind of runs all the customer service and back end and everything. But, I was really, really excited about this opportunity because instead of selling like PDFs or like here's my nutrition guide downloadable thing, it's actually replayable videos of me doing hundreds of exercises. So, when you open the workout, you actually see me demonstrating the exercise, tells you how many reps, everything you can fill it out in in the app itself. And it also has recipe guides. You can DM me personally. So, like for literally 2 hours today we were responding to people who were in the middle of the 10K challenge. Yes, it's actually us responding. It's actually me. Yeah, I I love that because I love actually working with people one-on-one. Yeah. Um That That to me is where I find the most value. Yeah. Is your fiance involved in the business as well? Yeah, so he's the creative director. How did you meet him? I met him uh working on my YouTube channel actually. Yeah, so when I left my job, I wanted to work with a director because I was previously at the job like, you know, being on camera, directing myself, editing, everything and I just wanted like an external pair of eyes to kind of be on the lookout for story specifically. So, Garrett has like a really strong background in traditional filmmaking. So, he's done multiple docs. He's won a bunch of film festival awards for narrative, too. So, I brought him on to kind of help with that and he is so good at it. He's He's just amazing and But, how did that start [clears throat] from like the professional aspect to then now there's like a romantic element to it? we were strictly a professional friendship for like a year. And, Who made the Cuz I'm always curious like who made Oh my god. [laughter] I'm just curious. want to hear the whole love story? Yeah, I do. I want to like how do you how do you break? I'm just curious. Yeah, right? So [laughter] It's a really long very long story. It's too long for this podcast. Okay. Um But yeah, I mean Garrett Garrett basically I don't I don't know how much I can say about this. Okay. I keep looking at Carissa for It's [laughter] it's not scandalous. It's just long to explain but Garrett basically approached me very romantic way and said I have to tell you something that could either be amazing or ruin our relationship. And he you know proceeded to tell me how he felt and I was like my God. Obviously this makes so much sense and so we sort of just like leaped into it headfirst and I was so nervous because everyone tells you don't work with your spouse. Don't do this. Don't do whatever and we really approached it in this really cool way where we like made rules of engagement almost like kind of like a business pre-nup if you will kind of thing and once we laid everything out it just allowed us to be fully creative with one another and it was so cool. Um so I I really value the relationship we have like we're really good with each other about these are working hours. These are our relationship hours and just the energy that Garrett brings. I I I know that you probably know from experience both of you that trying to find uh a partner is one thing both romantically and business-wise but finding someone who brings that same level of enthusiasm to what you're doing is like a diamond in the rough. How do you shut that off though and be like all right, it's 6:00 p.m. We're going to shift from like work mode now to like you know partner mode? gosh now we're in like relationship couple therapy land. This is so funny. So for us what we do is if if past a certain time we ask permission like hey I have this work thing on my mind. I have this really cool idea. Can I talk to you about it?" And the other person can say, "Nah, I really just want to watch Survivor and go to sleep right now. Can we talk about it in the morning?" And sometimes that's hard, you know, when one person's really excited about one specific thing and the other isn't, but most of the time we we end up talking about it. But like we we have kind of like this language that we approach when it's not working hours. Yeah. So, sometimes permission is denied. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. do you separate that? Because if for me it bleeds like work bleeds into everything. And so for me if it's like, "Hey, got a 10 out of 10 today. I'm in a bad mood." It's like how does how do you shut that off or like if you guys get in an argument if like like a business disagreement. Like how does that not carry forward when you're watching Survivor, let's just say. Oh, well well, I mean of course like the energy of who we are as people carries over in the same way if we worked two office jobs and came home and both had bad days, it would impact the relationship. So, it's it's the same thing as that. And obviously if something really needs to be talked about, we talk about it and it does bring us closer in our relationship, which is really cool. But yeah, to answer your question, we definitely are like, "Nah, I just want to watch Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon. We can talk about it tomorrow. We'll like put it in calendar and then talk about it then." That's interesting. So, when he approached you, were you all in as soon as you mentioned that? Or did it take you some time to think, "Oh, let me think this through." Like it's time and then I was like, "You know what? I just Let's just try it. Who cares?" Once we laid everything out, too, um you know, further into the relationship, it it just allows so much freedom. I encourage anyone who's in a romantic relationship that involves business as well, like lay it out. What happens if this doesn't work out? What happens if we move out? Who keeps what? Like we literally made a spreadsheet of when we move in together. I own this, you own that, we co-own this, I would keep it, I stay here, you leave. Like whatever it is. And thankfully, you know, that is something that has so far had a zero ROI on doing and it's been a great investment at the same time to take that time and have that perceptively difficult conversation, but like it leads to a lot of relationship intimacy, too, because you feel so much freedom. Like there's nothing like lingering or like, "I well, I'm kind of like stuck on this one little thing, but I'm scared to talk about it." No. Having that open all out discussion has been I mean, really set the tone. I mean, we did that like in the first month. That's great. And when did you get engaged? We got engaged a week before the pandemic and we're getting married in 2 weeks. Really? gosh. Congratulations. When is that going to be? When? Yeah, oh sorry, sorry, the where? Um Malibu. Wow. That is awesome. Now, can we ask how much you're going to spend on the wedding? Do you know how much this is going [laughter] to be? It's very expensive. 0% ROI is the answer to your question. [laughter] More than 60 grand? I mean It's pretty Yeah, it's it's Oh my gosh. Malibu. How much are you planning on spending on your wedding? So, pricing this out with Macy and there's there's one spot that Macy looked at. I think it was like 30 grand just for the venue. I don't know. Uh it was like In LA? Yeah, no, it was Ojai, I think. It's going to be so pretty. Yeah, but it was like 30 grand plus everything else and then all in it's going to be like probably 50 or 60. There's another spot she wants me to see on Sunday that I think the venue is like 10K, but it includes some other stuff and they're just now starting to do uh weddings, so they're like we would be one of the first, so I think they want to give us a break on that. Yeah, what about some sort of promotion or something like that? What do you mean? Like sponsors? We've strategically Yeah, are you making content around it? We are making content. So, like we did a video um that will be coming out where we planned the entire wedding in a week. Video's we planned our wedding in a week. It's a good video. You can plan it in a week and get it over with and also make content. if you have the ability to take a week off of work and just say this is the week we do it, I highly encourage literally everybody to do it because there's no like, "Oh, it's after work and we got to like look at flowers and I'm tired." Like you just bang it out. We lined up every single vendor meeting. We were like, "Those chairs, this, this, this dress." It was Do they agree in advance to be in the video? Like they know they're Okay. That's very cool. And so that pays for the wedding. I mean, so whatever cost probably is what you spend. You're going to get it back probably in the video, right? Well, uh hopefully I mean, we'll we'll see. If everybody here watches that video, then maybe that's what will pay it back. find a sponsor for it? This wedding is sponsored [laughter] by the new Aura ring. That would be fantastic. You know, a lot of the the businesses featured in the video are local businesses. So, you know, sometimes we work out like, "Okay, I'll post on Instagram and we'll get a discount or whatever." But in terms of a title sponsor, we're we're working on that. But even if we don't get that, that's okay. Cuz to me I think it I think it's going to be a great video, so. That's kind of how I measure value, which is probably very different from Mr. Gram Stefan. I don't know. I I've joked about having sponsors in the past. Be like, you know, get Public gives everyone at the wedding a free stock. It's just you know, stuff like that. Like hey, like under under your chair right now is a free stock. One of you guys gets uh One of you guys gets Berkshire Hathaway. [laughter] That's amazing. Well, how are you feeling like we'll see what happens, yeah. Energetically, as someone who's incredibly frugal Yeah. about spending on a wedding, why not elope? Courthouse, Santa Barbara. Part of me wants to do that. Um but I think there's an aspect to that where like family wants to be involved and Well, are you doing it for family or for you? I think well, to have a bigger wedding would be for family. If it were for me, I'd probably have more fun just picking a random night like with no planning at all. I'd just be like, "Hey." But but you know what? We want to do it on um I I don't I don't want to say the exact date. We want to do it on the day that we met. Like, that same day. So, we're kind of limited to like it's got to be that specific day. Um but part of me also just be like, it would be fun just to be like, "Hey, what are you doing tonight?" All right, let's do it. You live in Vegas, so I know. But, but there is something also special about having that exact day. So, I think we're leaning towards that exact day. But, then I think it also makes sense for people that want to be a part of it. Yeah. Something that Garrett has helped me understand is just like there's this concept [snorts] that the people I I think they like interviewed a bunch of people who were like on their death bed about regrets and and and whatnot. And people have said that the people who have the most number of novel life experiences throughout their lifetime feel like their life is longer. So, for example, if you work a day job and you're just kind of doing the same thing every single day, your life will feel much shorter than someone who is investing in tentpole memory experiences. So, Mhm. maybe your life will be a little bit longer from having a blowout wedding. Maybe. [laughter] No, I'm just trying to think usually like it it feels longer when you're doing the more repetitive thing cuz it seems like the day just like drags on versus when you're doing new experiences, like a week will go by really fast. So, I'm thinking, "Hey, it feels longer." and remember much stuff if it's the same thing every day. feels longer when you're to At the end of Graham's life, he's going to be like, "I lived like one of my I lived when [laughter] he's like 90." That's just going to happen. I don't know. Can you say approximately or assign percentages to like where income Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, I would say that probably like a large portion, probably 70% of my income is from sponsorships. And those like big tentpole types of sponsorships. Then it would be, I guess, 15% AdSense and then 15% the app. Got it. How do you balance between such a rigorous schedule and like a personal life? [laughter] Um it's difficult, but I'm fortunate that a lot of the the activities that I do for videos are things that I would curious about in my own real life and my own hobbies, but it does make it difficult because sometimes I have to remind myself when I'm going to the gym to work out, that's not personal time, it's technically working time. And sometimes it catches up to me. Yeah, but I mean it it's it's definitely difficult, but I I feel like as I've gotten more episodes under my belt and just more time in the YouTube world, I've found a better balance in general and I know when to say no and stop. Where do you want to take it from here? Because it seems like you've got a great format that's working and how do you expand on that? Well, my big goal right now is I want to get nominated for an Emmy for Challenge Accepted. Mhm. So, I would love to be a YouTuber who can who gets nominated for an Emmy, which other YouTubers have done with the help of other production companies, but I want to see if I can do it myself. And that's why I've invested so much into the quality of the episodes themselves, why we don't upload as frequently because I'm very particular on the quality of the content itself. And just developing myself as a producer who can produce not just on YouTube, but in other formats as well. Um for television, I've had some experience hosting on traditional TV and I loved that. So, I'd love to kind of grow as a as a performer, um you know, whether it's like being in a Marvel TV show would be really cool or hosting an adventure show would be amazing to do again. I would also think that there are a lot of ideas that we have about expanding my business in terms of product, whether it's fitness or fitness adjacent or lifestyle based stuff. I can't too much about it, but that's kind of where I see the business going next is working with like Ideally, I'd love to find a company that is making a product kind of in their early stages and see if I can attach with them and work towards it. Got it. together. To be nominated for an Emmy, where does the content need to be posted? It could be on YouTube. It could be on YouTube? Really? I thought there had to be like another medium like that. No, um Johnny Harris, who is a YouTuber, produced an amazing piece for the New York Times and he literally won an Emmy this week. Like what was on stage accepting an Emmy. Can anybody be nominated? Or does it have to be a certain format? Like can someone nominate me? Like, "Hey guys, nominate me for an Emmy on my video with Mr. Beast." Does like without even qualify if enough people I I think there you know, there are a lot of like different facets of the Emmy. So like there's the front-facing primetime Emmys, which we see on TV. Then there's the daytime Emmys, which are for soap operas, Law & Order, etc. So it depends on how you spin it if you want it to qualify as like you know, Challenge Accepted could technically be like short-form documentary. It could long-form like it depends. You kind of have to like work with a with someone who's applied previously or like a PR agency to figure out where you fit in. That would be interesting to get one of the interviews is like, you know, an Emmy nominated I'm not going to lie, man. I don't even know what the Emmy what an like is that Emmys are basically the Oscars for TV. I thought that was Golden Globes. The Golden Globes uh expands it it Golden Globes is movies and TV. It's very confusing. Oh, okay. just different agencies that give out awards. We should get an Emmy, Graham. We should get an Yeah. You know what the Emmy is? An Emmy This podcast will get an Emmy. I want to be a New York Times bestseller at some point. I think that would be a fantastic one. Isn't that like not that challenging? Yeah, well so it's 10,000 physical copies have to be sold, I believe, within a certain time frame. Um if you sold each copy for like two bucks and then bought them all yourself. I don't know. I don't know if you could do that though. an amazing video. You make yourself a New York Times best seller. Like you No one bought it except you. I bought my own. Yeah, you were the only owner of a New York Times did that for the for the Shopify stuff? Was it Shopify or um Oh gosh, ClickFunnels. They'd get the awards, but they would buy their own stuff. [gasps and sighs] Please Please say that is such a good video. the stories. I made myself a New York Times best seller. Yeah, but I wouldn't want to buy my own copies. Like cuz that feels like just cheating and I I don't think There's no way that that could be doing it for the content. Yeah, it's not like you actually want to be an author. You know, but the thing is you if I did it I would want to be serious about it. You know who Alex Fasulo is? Okay, so she's like this girl that ghostwrites thing on Fiverr ghostwrites things on Fiverr, basically. Is she on TikTok? Yes. Okay. Okay. And Graham wanted her to to write a book for Graham to be a What is it? A New York Times best seller No, no. It was a joke for Ramsey at Ramsey Manor. wanted that to be a New York Times best seller, right? Yes, that was your goal. Was it? I don't know. Wait, I have a question. Is it units, 10,000 units, or 10,000 like of Does it have to be a certain price point? I don't know. Can you just make a book that's like $1, sell it in Barnes & Yeah, but I feel like it then that's a hack that anybody could use just to call them call themselves a New York Times best seller. a great video. Yeah, you got to exploit the [laughter] other people I feel like other people would have done that. do this, I'm going to do this. I'm going to make myself a New York Times best seller. I feel like it then everyone would do it and then it wouldn't work anymore. I think nobody's done it. I'm pretty sure they have. I I think it's an exploit that people already are aware of and like there there's got to be something else to it. video on it yet. Or Or it can't just Or it's got to be sold throughout like a certain amount of stores. Like it's not like someone could like buy 10,000 copies for a dollar each and like spend 50 grand and be one, yeah. Plus, I wouldn't want to be a New York Times best-seller by like cheating Okay, okay, okay. I'd actually want to do it seriously. Yeah, I'll get that, yeah. But I would like to do that. Now, I want to be a an Emmy Award-winning video creator, yeah. With the right heart and soul. Yeah. I would do that. What's something you think you're doing poorly that you should work on and do better at? Oh, this is such a good question. I think what I would like to get better at myself is I feel comfortable in the entrepreneurial phase of like I feel totally comfortable cold emailing the FBI and pitching them on a video and making it happen. I feel really comfortable in the entrepreneurial side of my life when it comes to content itself or the avenues that I currently have within the business. But when it comes to like like I was mentioning to you earlier, finding a a company in its infancy and working with them and becoming their CMO and kind of like marketing the product as my own in that capacity, I find is is is very is is a lot more difficult to find those right partnerships. So, I think for me it would be expanding in product. I think it'd be good for you to associate a little bit more with the finance space then if that's something you want to look into. Like the Hormozis and the John Coogans. Really? Cuz they're all trying to do stuff that are similar to that, yeah. Like finding companies in their infancy [laughter] I don't know. I like the I like the challenge concept. I think you could take that to 10 million subscribers. [clears throat] Oh, yeah. I mean, if if if truly if I had it my own way and all I had to do was make content, that's what I would do. That's where my heart is, absolutely. Yeah. And I feel fortunate that like some people grow their YouTube channel on one format and they're like, I have to keep one-upping it or it has to be bigger and higher quality. and I feel like we've kind of found a certain threshold for that with what we have already, and I just want to keep doing that. I mean, if I had it my way, you know, we're bringing on another editor. Hopefully, we can increase to two uploads a month. That in and of itself will do so much for our channel in terms of viewership, brand opportunities, etc. But, if I had it my way, I would just do the show. That's all I want to do. Yeah. I think you could do that. I think you should also be doing shorts. Yes. Yes, I have I've heard a lot about shorts. I went to the YouTube Creator Summit, and the whole time they were like, "Shorts, shorts, shorts." They were really pushing it. And now you can monetize them. Uh 2023. Yes, in January. So, yeah, in a few months. Yeah, I'm I'm shocked with shorts. We've been posting shorts in the Ice Coffee Hour. It's driven so much growth. But, but monetarily, I'm curious where that will go. Like, when we can activate it, what is the CPM on a short? How does it change based on viewership or length? Like, My understanding is that it's going to be based on a percentage. They're they're going to have like a total fund, and then you get a percentage of that. I bet it's going to be higher than Tik Tok, but Yeah. probably not going to be that much. There's so many views for shorts. we can make money off of it, but what what does that actually look like? And can someone truly just be a shorts creator? People can be long form only and have Probably not in AdSense. It's probably going to be a lot like YouTube during the adpocalypse, where people are not making money on videos, but they're making money on affiliates and sponsorships. That's probably how it's going to be for shorts. They won't make any money on the short. Yeah. They'll make money maybe doing a sponsored short every now and then. Yeah. I mean, I I I'm curious to see where that will go. And truthfully, I haven't done much with shorts just because I've been so focused on long form, and our videos take so much manpower just to get one long form out. But, the shorts I'm curious what Yeah. I bet if you hired one person full-time just on shorts, you would double your audience in a year. Just from taking your existing videos. over to the longs? Now, it's beginning to. Okay. It's yeah. what scared me because I am familiar with a few other very big YouTube channels. Once they started posting shorts, they get like no views on the longs. I found the opposite. I was really worried about that, too. When we started testing on the Ice Coffee Hour, posting shorts, and those shorts are are getting millions of views, and it's beginning to translate over to the long-form content. Never thought. And so then I started testing on the main channel, and it's you're seeing some conversion. Overall, the videos are doing better because I think YouTube is now recognizing that people who watch shorts, a higher percentage of them would be interested in the long-form content. They rolled out that feature. Yeah. It wasn't that way previously, but then they just changed that. So, I'm guessing that probably will But yeah, your best hire would be one person shorts full-time. Pay them really well, just make sure they know shorts, and just take every video you've made so far and turn that down into 45 seconds. You would do so well. I agree. You would double your audience in a year. You should. I'd say that would That should be your priority. Is it you editing? Who has it Who has No, we got this guy, Josh, Josh. who's um who's editing our shorts right now, and we're we're tweaking a little bit just to optimize them. So, he is full-time? No, he's He has multiple clients. He's like Want another client? Probably. Or are you trying to hire him full-time? I don't want to I don't know. Yeah. Oh my god, we're going to fight over Josh. No, I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure he'll take Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah. you his contact. Yeah. Yeah, cuz I've I've had trouble with the short stuff, finding someone who can take the story and narrow it down to to be really good, and I've started just like I'm obsessive over the long-form content like from the algorithm standpoint. I started really spending so much time on shorts. And so he'll send me a short, and I'll watch it when come back with notes on top of already his stuff, and I'm getting really into it and I think there's there's it's so much different than just taking a video clipping it up and like reposting it. Right. We've had a lot of success with both like we did a week where like we had our editor we're like you're only going to do shorts. He he took a video and boiled it down into the one minute and it's it took a few like a while to get it there but it did well and then we've also had some success with like taking specific scenes and just making them vertical. What questions do you have for us? Or is there anything else you want to talk about? Of that I want to talk about I'm I'm I'm just having fun. I'm so excited to meet you both. What would you change about what I'm doing? Like financially. How much are you saving and investing? How much am I saving and investing? I'm saving and I'm investing like very conservatively like How much is like what percentage of your income would you say you're saving? Probably because I put so much back into the business probably like 20% We could get that up. I think I think we could definitely get that up a little bit. [laughter] Do you have expensive taste in anything? Are you No. You're not spending money like expensive stuff. That's a nice that's a nice jacket. It's a gift. I didn't buy it. How much is the jacket? Where's that from? This jacket is an expensive jacket but Really? Yeah. Who's the designer? Who's it where's it from? Company. The what? The Mighty Company. The Mighty Company? I've never heard that before. How much would it be? This is a thousand dollar jacket but I got it as a gift. I got it as a gift. Who gave it to you? Garrett. [laughter] For my birthday. Um I was about to say as I don't spend money on things. it's a nice jacket cuz I saw you had something similar for Colin and Samir. Yeah. It's the same company. But I I got that was That's a good jacket as well. A good jacket. Yeah. It's a good jacket. Anyway, so I don't besides this jacket I guess I don't like have like I feel like a lot of influencers they get money and they're like I'm going to buy a Prada purse. I'm going to do this. I'm going to buy I don't even know. Like a lot of that stuff. I don't I I don't. Yeah. Everything goes back into my business. I mean, that's fair. And your channel is growing. So, it's not like you're putting money into this business is just like not doing well. I think that's fine. I mean, I'd I'd always just say like maybe 25% like you could just push it up a little bit. Where are you investing it? Where am I investing it? In like mutual funds. Do you know which ones or what they track? [laughter] I work with a business manager and I pretty much tell her like put it in somewhere safe. Business manager. Yeah. That's kind of an interesting. Do you know how much they like charge for that service? For that service? That's like part Is it flat fee or a percentage of what you invest? of not of the investment of um just like total revenue. Wow. Yeah. That's it. What What's the What's the purpose of that? Like what What does that serve for you in terms of having a business manager? So, because I'm not really at the point where I need like a full-time accountant internally, but they handle like everything. So, they do taxes, they do payroll, they do investing. Like if a credit card gets stolen, they fix it and whatever. You know, like it's very I get that. It It's really nice because we have so many freelancers coming in and out. Yeah. And they do all the paperwork, they handle everything, they make sure Yeah, like I don't Okay. I get that. very It's It's a white glove service. we a good service to have. Do you do that all yourself? Yeah. Yeah, I It's a mess. It is It is horrible. Your finances are a mess? Um kind of It's sloppy. I I just cuz cuz There's a lot of things where I think that you need bookkeeping. I do. I mean, I I do it myself, but there are some things where I'll get invoices and just like I'll I keep a a Word document on my computer. I just Word? Not even Google Doc? No. Oh my god. it in and I'm you know, I keep track of payments like that. Like this doesn't even make any sense. know how to use Excel. I've just been doing it this way since the very beginning. Okay. I understand that. just like, you know, I have a credit card I use for one thing, a credit card I use for another thing, and like my expenses are there, and then like two bank accounts, three bank accounts. Yeah, right. at the end of the year I could look through these let's just call them six accounts in total, and then tally up where the money went. I mean, there's always a record of like money went from this account over here, and then I could check over here and do that. Okay, that person was paid X amount. But I'm sure it could be better. I'm sure it could be structured more. use um like Rapbook or Stir or any program like that? We use Stir. We used to. Not anymore. What happened to them? What happened to them? We just Well, we I don't think we Actually, yeah, we received payments through Stir, but that was it. Like they the the people that were paying us changed. There's just There's just like a lot of money coming in, and then it Too much. Too much money coming in. Yeah, it's such a big problem. octopuses, you know, everywhere else. And uh but I mean, I I I track everything, so like I know where it's going, but it's at the But it's a Sometimes uh when it comes to tax time and like gathering all of that, it's I just book out one day. With your accountant? Or you With you? Yeah, I take one day. I don't do my taxes, no. But in terms of uh tracking everything, before like usually the beginning of the year I'll take one Saturday, and from the start to the end I'll just coordinate everything, and just go through every account, track every penny that goes in and out, where it's going, and then I reward myself the end of the day with sushi. And like that's the one thing I look forward to. Like I'm not finishing until It takes me a full day. So but I would say it's like 10 hours that day. It's not awful because I know which accounts the money goes in and out of. Yeah, I mean, I would much rather have someone hourly or like full-time just I probably should. Yeah, I should. mean, not you can obviously do whatever is most comfortable, but I mean like Yeah. I should probably do that. I should probably have a better understanding on stuff. And I think like this year specifically we've just been growing so quickly that like just getting videos out has been such a priority and sitting back and being like where is stuff going financially is something I want to get better at for sure. Yeah. A lot of it too is I I have a big interest in taxes. So sometimes I'll be reading up on stuff and then I'll pass it by a tax attorney. Say, "Hey, I just saw this. Like what do you think of this?" And they'll either like say that's a good idea or it's too risky, don't do that, or here's why it doesn't apply to you. But I'll do a lot of research on on just random stuff that I see coming up and I like passing it by like bouncing ideas off of like a tax professional. It's It's way too complicated. Should not be that complicated. prefer this over hiring a bookkeeper. I should hire a bookkeeper. I think Graham would prefer to hire a bookkeeper. But Graham doesn't like having many like employees or anything. Expensive. Yeah. I mean, it's probably a worthwhile expense, but I like just I know when I do it I I track everything and I have it, but they could do that for me, too. But I like just seeing it and then doing the tracking. They would do a better job than me. I get that, though. It's I've done it this way for so long that I It's like it's working. But are you going to continue doing it for the next 10 Do you feel like it's inhibiting your growth? No. No, I don't. No, cuz it's one Saturday. I mean, like when you think of a weekend, how much time most people waste, it's just like one day. Out of the month or the year? Out of the year. I mean, throughout the month. I mean, I every day check the bank account. I'll just like just see what's going in and out. Like I I I look at it. But one day a year it's just like much money coming in every day. Just check what what the profits are coming out to be. [laughter] It just keeps going. I just keep refreshing and like the number keeps growing. Do you [laughter] What? god. What are you laughing at? Until you have to pay Jack and then it goes all the way down. Yeah. Then it just can't zeros out. It's the same It's the same for me and I hate it. But even I do one day every single year right before the taxes and the same thing as me. I do the exact same thing. [laughter] I hate it, dude. And you know what? You know you don't like it that much. You really I dread it but I feel so great after I get it done. Once it's over it's good but Yeah. The one thing though I've because Alex now has a business credit card that's under me and so once every other month I'll look through the credit card for like expenses and I'll be like, "Oh, Alex, what's this?" She's like, "Oh, we did this for the podcast." I'm like, "What's this?" "Oh, we did this." I'm sure there's a better way to to track that but but yeah. But that would require like someone That would require somebody. Yeah. Man, I said I was about to say something, Joe. What did you say? You were You were saying you did that too. Uh I do that too. Just one day and I go through like I don't even know how many expenses. Probably like over a thousand transactions and I I have to remember like what did I do in February? That's probably not good to publicly say but yes, I do that as well. is what I was going to mention is that [clears throat] this year is the first full year I've paid my estimated taxes. Usually I prefer to pay the penalty. I'll pay the full amount at the end of the year. So whatever I would owe for that year, I just pay it all in one lump sum and I've taken the penalty. Usually I think it's like 3% and typically in the past I've I've justified that I'd rather pay 3% and have access to my money liquid to invest it and the investments would make me more than what I would get from paying the penalty. it different this year? Um this year I I I've been holding on to too much cash, and so I figured I'd rather just instead of There's [snorts] way too much money. Yeah. [laughter] So I started But no, no, but my whole point was What does that even mean? Like what sentence is that? I I've I've never cuz I I have not been investing all of it. And so at the end of the year, like it made sense when I was at the point where I'd be investing everything, and then I would find a way to pay the tax, like just enough would come in that I could pay the tax afterwards, but I'd be investing all of it. And really up until like 3 years ago, every year around like November, I'd spend all the money cuz I'd be investing all of it. Um and then it was last year where I had extras left over where I was like, I should have just paid this off instead of paying the penalty cuz I'm not earning any interest on it, and now that just cost me money. Okay. So. But it's a great feeling. Now I'm Now I've actually overpaid on taxes, so I'll get So I'll get a refund, and I'm really looking forward to that. Yeah. Yeah. I've never I've never had a refund. you could only underpay since there's just so much money always coming. [laughter] Yeah. No, I've overpaid cuz you're supposed to pay like 110% of your prior year's tax Mhm. um or like up to, and uh yeah, I did that. So I finally get a refund. So. I paid a lot, but I'm hoping that I I get some money back. I don't know yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Get solar. Yeah, I should. I've I also found out apparently my accountant forgot to close out my California thing when I moved to Las Vegas, so I owe like five grand that. Even though I I didn't live in California at all that year, for a single day, but I have to pay California still, and I live in Las Vegas. what happened. So apparently like I didn't There's like some form that you have to file if you leave California to announce that you've left, even though I was in Las Vegas for the entirety of last year, I still have to pay It's about five grand. Because you kept the Because like I didn't close I think it was my Yeah, my S corp, like I didn't close it until like the next year, although I did open the one then. I don't know. It's something It's something weird. I don't I don't really understand it. take some of his return to pay Yeah. I'll take a little [laughter] loan now. It'll be nice. Yeah. So, are you paid in an S corp? Yeah. Through. Okay, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Good business structure. It is. Jack's Jack's happy with it. I'm happy with it. [laughter] I hope so. Yeah. What other questions you have? Okay, so I asked, "What do you think I'm doing wrong? What can I do?" Oh, oh, sorry. [laughter] Sorry. To go back to your investments. Okay. Um mutual funds, I'm sure are I'm not on here because I'm a finance [clears throat] person. I want to make that super clear. feel like index funds might be Until I work on Wall Street for a day with Graham. say I would say you're probably I I'd like to see which mutual funds it is, like how you're invested, but I'd say most likely, if it's a mutual fund, you're already diversified. Yeah. Uh as long as you're not like in bond mutual funds right now, which have like really declined in price. As long as you're not in in those. I'd say you're probably fine. I'm guessing it's just like a diversified index fund, basically, which is good. Uh 20% is not bad. I I would just up it a little bit if you're able to. But I would say it's not a terrible me I need to hire a full-time shorts editor. Yes. But that wouldn't be [laughter] I think I I don't think it'd be that bad cuz you're you're going to get an ROI from the shorts. Like Like I think the the realistic for me to see when it's not monetized. The Well, the realistic scenario is that the shorts Yeah, the shorts would probably break even. So, let's say you you pay somebody like 70 grand a year or like 60 grand for just shorts, uh which actually might be high if you're only posting like one a week, like one really good short a week. Let's even say like 50 grand, you'll make that money back from the people that convert to the long-form content, the app that you have, or even if you do one or two sponsored a year, will pay for that person entirely. Also, just like the creator fund on TikTok, although it is very small, when you couple that with the Instagram Reels bonuses, Facebook. Yeah, and Facebook, too. make money. actually you could actually profit. So, there were a couple of months this year same content everywhere. Yeah, everywhere. There were a couple of months this year that we actually made money accounting for the amount that we pay our TikTok. Interesting. Yeah, just from the TikTok income. Like and also Snapchat Discover. Try to get like a Snapchat Discover tile. a Snapchat thing. Okay. You don't use it? Is it Discover? You would know if it's Discover. It's uh yeah. It's like we have a show like Yeah, yeah. Accepted, yeah. And how often are you posting on that? Once a week? it's once a week, yeah. They're going through the whole back catalog. Cool. That's good. Are you doing Facebook? Yes. I am doing Facebook. And how often do you post on there? Once a week, also, I believe. Yeah, I would say for the shorts cuz you could double that throughout everything. So, Instagram, Facebook Reels, um Snapchat, you could figure out something on that. I would say you'll make your money back. So, that's not an expense. It'll break even or you'll make money on it. Okay. So. That's what I would do. But yeah, I The income I'm sure sounds fine. Sounds fine. Sounds fine. It's not too much money. too much It's not too much cash. It's not too much cash. Oh my god. What's something you think we're doing bad or poorly, I should say? How could we improve? Now that we can get better. Yeah. Or you could hire a bookkeeper. [laughter] Okay. Yeah, 100% I agree with that, yeah. That's fair. I can get that. Hm. Well, tell me like So, obviously you guys advised me on the finance. What about content? How are you feeling about the content you're creating and making? Relatively good because there's finally stuff going on in the market. It was a rough last 4 months for me. It's odd when the market is going up, people lose interest in investing. When it's going down, everyone's now in Yeah. So, it's amazing that I see the difference on views. Every day the market closes up versus down. If the market's down a percent, views usually increase by like 10 to 20%. If the market's up, views are down. It's crazy. So, in a way it's it's almost as a hedge against my investments because if my investments are going down, I make more. But if my investments are going up, I make less. So, it's it's kind of like it balances Yeah, it really balances out. But there's more for me to talk about when the market's going down because more is happening. And more people are interested. Yeah, because they're like, "What just happened? What did Jerome Powell just say? How does this affect me?" Um and I think for a lot of people I think it's just human nature where we're more impacted by losing money than making. So, if I told you like you could either make a hundred or lose a hundred, you'd fear more the losing a hundred than making. So, um so there's more interest in investing. But I've been pivoting a little bit to these interviews that I've really enjoyed. And um my goal is to get like two a month. So, what's preventing that? Do you need to hire a producer to No, no, no, no. I have three in the pipeline right now. Um that I but I don't want to post them like back-to-back. So, I'm like I want to post one, wait like two weeks on the main. This is main channel. yeah. Yeah. Um but there's a I I've started creating a list of people that I want to meet and interview in that sort of style. And so, I'm just kind of working my way through the list. Nice. Yeah, but there's like twenty people on the list that I really want to go through. Yeah. And are you feeling fulfilled and excited by what you're doing? By that, yes. Cuz I think that's such a cool style and it just opens up the audience cuz finance I think there's um you know, there's a limit to how many people are interested in finance and growing beyond that is really challenging. Um because then you get in the maintenance phase where like people So, you know, some people are dropping off while new people are coming on and I think there's that that natural cycle over time. But when you get into interviews, then you you tap into people who are interested in the finance of creators or just extraordinary people in general. Doesn't have to be creators. Yeah. I mean, I feel like what you guys are doing definitely works in terms of like the level of fulfillment you have on the main channel as well as the podcast. How do you feel about your relationship, the two of you? Uh I I always feel like I'm I'm tough on Jack. I feel like sometimes because I'm always like, "Jack, we should like I'm so on it all the time, 24/7." Where I think I had that unrealistic expectation for Jack, too. It's like, "We always got to be working all the time." Uh you know, always pick up the phone call. Yeah. What do you mean, asking a romantic relationship. No. [laughter] No, we we have a good I think we have a good balance. That's That's what I That's what I think. And Jack has some great ideas and I trust Jack's judgment on a lot of things. Like, if I come in with an idea and Jack hates it, like absolutely against it, I'll usually end up siding with Jack unless I'm like 100% sure on the idea. But Jack could usually sway me either way. We had a good thing going when we were here, we would go for runs. Ah. run down to the park. It's too hot in Vegas. Uh well, we just don't live with each other anymore. Oh, okay. Yeah. But when we were here, we'd run down to the park and uh it's kind of creepy, but there's a there's a Where's this going? [laughter] It was a It's a It's a children's park, but yeah. They had these awesome like monkey bars. And so, when Awesome monkey bars. They were not just your average monkey bars because they were awesome. You're like two guys going there and then we do pull-ups on the monkey bars. okay with that. But like sometimes there's kids like playing on the monkey bars, so we like just wait around until they stop using them and then we go over there and do pull-ups. Yeah. We just didn't want to like interrupt the kids or like you're just like two random guys. It's not It's their space. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that's honestly that's the main thing. I realized that communication, obviously, like everyone knows this in the back of their mind, but they need to be constantly reminded of it, at least me, is that communication is key. You always need to be talking, be open with the other person, and uh I think that's something Graham and I always need to work on, for sure. Um but overall, yeah, obviously, he's one of my best friends. Like, we're very satisfied with our relationship. Do you guys enjoy Vegas? Yes, it's it's interesting because when I'm there, I don't want to leave. And then when I get here, I kind of feel mixed because we're we're rarely ever here, and sometimes we'll just be here for a weekend. But then when it's here, it's like, "Wow, it's it's so nice with the weather and like all the greenery." I miss that. It only takes me a day to get used to it back in Vegas. But So, I like it when I'm in Vegas, and then I also like it when I'm here. What about for you? Yeah, I like Vegas. I definitely like it a lot more than I thought that I would. But I think a big part of that was me just establishing a friend group. So, now since I have like my core friend group, it's very very easy. Hang out, work done. My house is a great culture as well, so that's also and makes it Nice as well. Yeah. What are y'all most intimidated by? With your current content or business? Um intimidated. I would say for the podcast, I would say it's intimidating to see what cuz I watch all the other podcasts here, and I see the guests that they have come on. Some of them I'm like, when I see Nelk getting on Elon Musk, I'm like, "Where do we go from there? Like, how could we ever compete with Elon Musk getting on a podcast?" Um so, some of that I'm I'm probably a little bit too hard on myself for that. When I see that Yeah, when I see cuz Nelk is able to pull like such incredible like to have the president on their podcast, I'm like, "Welp, they did it first." But, you know, it I have to remember that, you know, we're not you know, the the same the same as them. At least right now, I don't feel very intimidated. Honestly, with the podcast at all. I don't at least I don't know how I would just Yeah, describe being intimidated seeing someone else doing well. I'm like, "Oh, that that opens up a lot of doors just for podcasting in general." Yeah, that is true. How about you with your work? Oh, I Yeah, I think I'm I think I'm intimidated in terms of just like the growth overall. Um and like hiring new people and making sure that they fit and have the same mission and vibe. I mean, it's it's taken us so long to find another editor because for us it's not like just edit the video. It We're very involved in the edits and I'm also intimidated by the prospect of expanding into other businesses because I feel so at home with the content itself, but investing in other things in general kind of freaks me out. Do you worry that it's going to take time away from the video? So, you're not going to make as good of a video if your time is split. I don't worry about that because I will stay up as late as I need to make sure the video is good. It's more just like investing in something that might fail. Yeah. Well, I think even if it does fail, the loss is not going to be that much. Yeah. the big picture and you'll be able to probably get a video out of it even if you do fail. True. Which creators do you watch on YouTube? So, I The creators I feel like I look up to a lot and learn a lot from and watch a lot of are Ryan Trahan, Erik, Max Fosh. Guys, oh my god. like I know that name, but I I yeah, I've probably seen a couple of videos. Max Fosh is someone I'm very inspired by lately. So, he is a comedian who also does kind of like IRL um challenge content, but he does this crazy stuff like he did a video where he joined the royal family for a day. So, he found a distant relative of the royal family who literally signed a marriage agreement with him and then for the day he was like a part of the royal family. He's done that. Like, his videos are are are really impressive in terms of just like the ideas themselves are really funny and he's a funny person. Um and obviously Mike Shake is someone who's kind of similar to my content, so I love him. He's great. And I think Ryan Trahan I I He's obviously the person we're all talking about this year, right? Just someone who has done high spectacle, but maintained a grounded level of himself throughout without it having to be an extravagant spending of money for it to be meaningful or even spectacle. Yeah. I think that's really powerful. I've been watching his vlog channel. Oh, yeah, the secret channel. Where he's been watering his grass. It's like, how do you make a video that's entertaining? And I watch them. I'm so invested in the grass. I look at that like, how could I do something like that? How can you water grass and monetize it? Yeah. Yeah. Um but Ian Ian did one, save the squirrels initiative. great. Um where he just traps squirrels. He make like a 15-minute video and just like, how to trap and release squirrels. But he made it so hilarious and interesting and like, here's how you make the trap and I'm going to put it here and like report back the next day. I love that sort of content. This is offbeat. Yeah. I appreciate it because it's it's risky but with no risk. Like, it's risky to invest the time and energy to create the content. Um and make it like something different from everybody else. But they make it seem so effortless. Like, they just happen to like turn on the camera and just happen to be there and record, but like, I'm looking at somebody I'm looking at some of these like these shots that he's getting are so good. He's thinking this through ahead of time. It's not just off the fly. I bet some of this is at least loosely planned out. Yeah. So, I want to be able to do that. Yeah, I'm appreciating this like this new wave of almost return to grounded personality because there was such a big movement of like money money money and like just wealth extravagance, I think. And now it's it's sort of coming back to like Casey Neistat returning to YouTube. I'm sure everybody talked about all this stuff. I'm appreciating that almost like homecoming that's happening. Yeah. Yeah, I think Ryan Trahan definitely led that um with that penny series and I'm curious to see what he's going to do next. I think he should just do another penny series. The same thing. I would just do the same thing but like circumnavigate the globe. Yeah, or or give giving a penny to Elon Musk I think would be an interesting one or just pick someone who's maybe unattainable and be like I'm going to do that person. Or he did the trading a penny to a house but maybe like do that again would be interesting. Like give him I think he's got to like go up a little bit. I think going around the the world would be really good. Oh yeah, do that in another country. Navigate the globe on a penny. Mhm. Take me, Ryan. Yeah. That would be fine. That would be interesting. I'm curious with your your different avenues of content creation and the products surrounding them what has been your biggest financial mistake? Full self-driving on your Tesla. That is expensive. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. for a YouTube video and immediately like afterwards he's like I regret [laughter] this so much cuz it's like eight grand or something. It's 12 grand now. Yeah, it went up. Yeah. He wanted to make a video around it cuz all the other Tesla videos do super well and he makes money but this one I think the video just underperformed and like I've I've had a really bad run. Every time I've spent money for a video I've lost money. Every single time. the Pokémon card one? Uh took two years to break even on that. But you did. Yeah. But I did break even after two years. Now you're profitable. But not Okay. So now I'm profitable. With the Pokémon card. With the Pokémon card. Um but yeah, but that was a video where like I'd made three Tesla videos in six months and all of them did one to three million views. And so I thought well full self-driving would be interesting. I'm going to buy it and then review it and then it's it should make its money back in ad revenue and it didn't. The video bombed. Um I re Why do you think that happened though? Probably bad title thumbnail. I thought it was an interesting video but I don't really think people cared that much about it. And I probably just miscalculated, but uh you know, the video made two grand back, so I'm I'm in the hole six grand for full self-driving. So, it could be worse, but yeah, I look at that and it was just like I spent so much time on that video. And Jack was helping me film at that time. We're like looking for locations to film and like reverse into certain spots and we I spent so long on that video. Are you proud of the product? Uh it's a good video, but uh but I judge those videos by like the ROI. Mhm. Everything has to have the ROI and that does not have an ROI. find pure satisfaction is just ROI. So, it could be the worst video you've ever made. You could be like, "I don't think that's my best." And if it's a one out of 10, you're like Kind of, yeah, because I because that means the audience likes it. So, I don't really make too many videos for myself. I think of what the audience would want to see. And so, I I gauge that metric based on how many views it gets, what what's the retention, what's the the the overall sentiment about the video in terms of like the comments and if people like it or not. So, I make content for the viewer. But you don't feel like it harms you whenever you get a 10 out of 10 and it's a bad day? Uh I've done better about not taking it personally because then I think to myself, "Well, it's title thumbnail or I I misjudged how big the audience is on this." And some of them I know are going to be 10s out of 10s, but long tail. Like I would say once a month I post a video purposely like how to invest $100 a day as an example. I know my audience is not going to be interested in that, but it picks up a new audience. So, over a year, it'll do really well because people are interested in that, but in the short term it doesn't. So, I kind Long term investment. Right. Yeah. But like passive income and side hustle videos are the examples. I say this all the time. I don't like making them, but people love watching them. So, every six months I'll make a passive income video or a side hustle video because people enjoy it. Like an eat your veggies video. Like you just got to do it. got to do it. Um the audience enjoys it. There's an interest in that. I don't want to deprive them of those videos just because I personally don't like it. Like it's For me it's more about the viewer and their enjoyment of it. So, if they're happy with it, then I'm happy with it. So, hope that answers it. Well, that's pretty good. I mean, if your your biggest loss was 6K on a on a single video. No, I mean, a bigger loss was was probably not paying attention to things that I should have been paying attention to. There were a few things that I've done over the past like year where I should have been more involved and I wasn't and because I was not as involved as I I should have been, um they didn't turn out as expected. Like content adjacent. Content adjacent stuff, yeah. But that I blame myself for because I think, well, I should, you know, I've been prioritizing all these other things and if I'm going to do something, I really should be fully involved and I can't be as involved as I would need to while maintaining everything else. So, like something's got to give. I'm not willing to sacrifice anything at this point. So, like, you know. your to In terms of like your hierarchy of what is important to you is content first then and then the other stuff. Yeah, it's always main channel, podcast right below that, second channel, vlog channel's down there. Um but the main channel's always been the priority cuz that that's like the top of the line funnel. Like people come from the main channel, Yeah. then go to the podcast. It used to be main channel, second channel, podcast, but now the podcast is is just doing way better. So, I think main channel, podcast. And we have a lot of um overlap between the two. And for these other ventures you explored, if you don't mind me asking, was it the partnership with the other people involved or was it just like you you know, I don't know if you felt this, but sometimes I feel like, I've got to make a product because everyone says I'm supposed to and or Probably a combination of both. What is your advice in terms of listening to that gut instinct? For myself if I'm like a Every time every time I've gone against my gut because people have told me oh this is a good idea you should be doing this I've lost money and I've been miserable and so I've stopped and and that's part of it because I've just always had this this air of like I I I know what what's best I know what I'm doing but other people are telling me no you should do this and do this and makes it like really trusted people and I'm like maybe I should do that that's a good idea but I don't think it's for me and every time I've done that even if it's not something I really feel passionate about I've just lost money it's taken away focus I'm stressed about it's not worth it. That's how I felt about like even just simple merch t-shirt hoodie whatever because I feel that my audience is going to expect a certain level of quality or even that it's an athletic material or whatever and I don't know. Yeah. I I've struggled even just simply doing that. I've always found that unless I'm able to give it a 100% and like dedicate everything to it it doesn't turn out as it should it's not as good as it could be if I was like really into it like I have to be as obsessed as I am with the main channel on something else if I'm not doing that then it's not going to be as good. We're back. for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour. It means a lot for you to spare this time for us. Thank you guys for watching. Yeah. Feel free to add me on Instagram j l s s e l b y thank you so much and And get your free stocks public.com Graham. Thanks see you there. Thanks for having anything you want to shout out? Yeah you can follow me I'm Michelle Khare on YouTube and everywhere else. Cool beautiful. All right thanks guys. Thank you thank you seriously for doing this. Oh my god Yeah.