The Rise Of NELK, Donald Trump & Global Chaos - Kyle Forgeard (4K)

Trudeau's out talk to me right away we're just getting into it dude this is it this is the biggest thing that's happening bro I feel like we all knew it was going to happen um but yeah just to see it finally go down it's just it's refreshing I mean like you guys know I grew up in Canada um I moved to the states about 10 years ago when I was around 20 I'm 30 now and it's just like the last 10 years what's happened has just been devastating honestly like Canada is not the same country that I knew when I was grow like growing up how much do you lie at the feet of Trudeau what do you mean how much is it directly he directly responsible for what's happened I mean if you're the commander-in-chief you gota you got to take some blame for sure and yeah I think all Canadians agree it's just it's just a totally different place how so I think Canada's just lost its sense of identity a little bit you know I think being a little too politically correct you know whether it's not letting people say Merry Christmas or we have a poppy that people wear every November Remembrance Day which is supposed to like support the fallen troops just like things that make us Canadian and like little bits of Canadian culture are just getting lost and stuff like that there's obviously just you know a lot of immigration I think immigration could have been done a little better um but yeah I think we're going to see something in Canada really good I'm really optimistic about it I think you see it's happening all over the world right not just the us we saw the results of this election and I think Canada's going to be following Sue I think Canada's in for a big comeback I'm really excited about it a bullish on Canada I'm bullish on Canada yeah I think I think it's gonna make a big comeback I think Trudeau is just a complete loser like I don't know I don't know what's up with that guy I don't know if he just wanted to stay in power but I mean his wife left him I mean that just needed to get the hell out of the out of parliament I saw him correct somebody's language for saying mankind [ __ ] like that that's what I mean we don't want to use that we need to use people kind that so that type of [ __ ] has been happening just all over can it feels like a Babylon B sketch it doesn't feel like a real politician saying something yeah that's what I mean it's just like you need someone that's going to stand up for Canada um and I think there's there's some good choices the Pierre P I think he would do a really good job but kind of giving Canada a big comeback yeah I don't know man it's uh it is kind of like a a everywhere there's America and then every other English-speaking country is kind of coming second at the moment nobody the same with Britain the same with Australia like you their stock went down an awful lot after covid and sort of this overreach and lockdowns and stuff like that no one has really had a fantastic uh four years when it comes to branding unless unless Canada becomes the 51st state right we don't know but yeah yeah well it could could be 52nd if Greenland goes first it's weird cuz like I just went home for Christmas and like it's kind of like 5050 like a lot of people are actually like yo that would be kind of sick you know because I think a lot of Canadians want to come to the states like you know we love traveling here and stuff like that but then obviously there's a lot of Canadians that's like no what the [ __ ] like this is our country but I think I think Trump's just trolling when he says that type of [ __ ] well you'd know you spent enough time with him I would know and I I think I've SP a lot of time with him but the last time that I was with him was which was when we flew on his plane right before the election I got to see like a more real side of him kind of like a button- down literally version like he had his jacket off he had a few buttons off and he was just himself what does that mean what's what is Trump's himself I don't I can't I don't want to say everything because it's just you know it's boys boys being boys at the same time but I don't know it was the way I can explain it is almost like he was like six beers deep but he wasn't like it was just like he was just having the best time we were just laughing cracking jokes just boys being boys so I think and he gets a kick out of getting a reaction out of people so I think when he sees this whole 51st state thing and he sees people like reacting to it he's got to kind of go with it and I think it's also kind of like a negotiation tactic too you know to really I mean the Canadian leaders are all responding to it it's such an absurd thing but at the same time it's becoming so real now that all these Canadian leaders are actually having to respond to it that's why you know that the Troll's gone far enough he's so good at trolling that these guys are actually having to respond serious you know what I'm saying unless they're going to be the governor of Canada what have you learned since being around him watching the way that he operates watching his systems his staff his demeanor was there anything that you took away from spending time with yeah that guy's like I mean when that guy walks into a room obviously he just soaks up obviously all the attention in the room room that's one thing I noticed too one thing I noticed about him too is like yeah he's very he likes to get everybody's opinion whether you're like his most trusted advisor or someone like me or someone that is just in the room he's always asking people what do you think about this what do you think about this what do you think about this what do you think about this I noticed that he does that a lot and I think he's just like subconsciously like kind of collect it's like a poll he does and um I've noticed that he does that a lot he's always asking people what they think of something and then I think that's how he kind of makes decisions as well it's interesting I've heard a lot of criticism around you know uh sort of shallow fragile ego thing not necessarily wanting to hear other people that tell him no or that say things that he doesn't fully understand but on the flip side I've also heard a lot of that that he's always asking like servers in restaurants and and the golf caddy for what their opinion is on stuff so you have this odd dichotomy thing going on yeah he definitely he definitely loves himself there's there's no question about that but you're right yeah exactly if you're at a golf course he's talking to like the back shop guys like he's a people's person which which I find very interesting I think that's one of his his little secrets and you guys got kind of involved in politics a little bit yeah we did we um yeah we worked with like U an organization called send the vote um so they were like a bipartisan organization and it was just about helping people register to vote so we kind of pushed that on our like social media and stuff cuz obviously Neel you know we kind of own that male 18 to35 vote so yeah we were responsible for like hundreds of thousands of people registering to vote which was pretty crazy like after the election like people were coming up to me on the street and like thanking me like I'd be at the gym and people like people were like walking up to me being like yo thank you like thank you for what you did like it was kind of like weird you know I don't know I just feel so normal and we're just kind of doing what our heartfelt like we were obviously big Trump supporters so yeah that whole election was crazy and then Dana White showed at us out in that um the postelection speech like we were the first ones to get shouted out so that whole thing was just surreal and I'm from Canada so like I'm not even I can't even vot speak can so like to me for me to get shout out shouted out in the postelection speech yeah like my parents are like what the like everyone's just like what this is a simulation it is bizarre the crossing over of Independent Media with mainstream political discourse well that's what that's what we saw this election right I guess yeah all the the old news networks now are fascinated and I had to do a bunch of interviews after that election too and they're all fascinated with how did the internet win this election why are young people so obsessed with the internet why why do they watch podcasts like these people are old they have no [ __ ] clue what like you and I are doing like they really don't for us it's so it makes so much sense like Trump goes on Joe Rogan like obviously that's going to be big but for them they're like why was that Joe Rogan thing so big like they're that stupid yeah it's odd I think I take for granted a lot of stuff that to me seems like a like a normal assumption it's like obviously this reaches a lot of people obviously 18 to 35y old guys are spending more time on YouTube than they are on CNN or MSNBC like who who wouldn't have thought that and the fact that there's people to that to whom that is a a revelation really makes me made me realize just how split off and Echo chambered not only the messages that you get within social media but even Medias themselves now yeah I think we probably take the knowledge that like you and I have for granted right hugely it's just yeah it's so normal it's so a part of our everyday lives but but yeah for for especially for older people they just have they have no clue what's going on yeah the impact it's very powerful what we have obviously we both own our like it's almost like we own our own network right like we do so we're in a do you think about uh have you got to the stage where there's this sense of responsibility or obligation with sort of what you're doing what you're saying we were talking about this in the gym earlier on that as the platform grows yeah how much of a obligation do you have or is it can you still just I'm here having fun just doing my thing bro like I don't know if you reach a couple hundred million people a month that yeah it changes the the key to Neel has always just been as best as we can just trying to stay true to like what I think and what I think is funny like I actually like Trump that's why I [ __ ] supported him I didn't do it for any other reason you know what I'm saying if I didn't like him I wouldn't have supported him simple as that so I try to stick to that as much as I possibly can but yeah obviously as you get bigger I guess there is more responsibility but we're so lucky with our fan base that we've always been like the quote unquote like bad guys or like scumbags so it's not like we were like Jake Paul or like Logan Paul or like David DOI that were more squeaky clean squeaky clean you know what I mean and you're waiting them what did you you're waiting for them to make a mistake like they're perfect and then boom when they make a mistake they get cancelled for us we've just been scumbags like we started as scumbags we've never been good guys like we've been getting arrested since 10 years ago we've been with people messing with people so if anything we've gotten like we've actually impr we yeah we've improved as people we're we're growing we're maturing oh my God yeah so I think that's one thing that I'm always feel blessed with too is that yeah our fans just don't really give set such low expectations we set such low low expectations that's the key set low then you can't never get yeah that's funny I uh I remember Rogan saying something along the lines of everybody should always do a comedy set everyone should do a comedy set once so that you can go hey what do I know I'm just a comedian yeah and you get the like comedian eject a seat you know uh get out of jail free card and that's the same with you guys it's like we just do we just do prank YouTube but all those guys were still like like in terms of partying I feel like we were like the first people to ever show like alcohol even in like really YouTube mhm like the first time we went to LA I think like yeah no one really showed anything but behind the scenes they were obviously doing the same [ __ ] right or worse like all all the squeaky clean kids were the ones like that you'd see rip and blow in the [ __ ] Hollywood Hills bathrooms and [ __ ] I swear to God so I was like so they're doing it behind the camera but they have to put on this good boy image which kind of them yeah because everybody's waiting to find out that the holier than thou squeaky clean image is actually broken in some way yeah I mean the reverse of it being like you know Kyle actually went to church on Sunday that's not a scandal yeah but the guy that was going to church on Sunday ripping a gator tail the night before is yeah uh talk to me about Gator tail we have a lot of the same lingo is UK and Canadian like I don't know I guess I guess it's just scumbag workingclass party people right uh and it's a universal language is pretty Niche yeah I suppose so uh anyway it's I imagine that the Aussies are exactly the same everyone's got their own their own sign there's only so many different ways that you can talk about sniffing cocaine or or girls exactly Buzz yeah um talk to me about that sort of trip out to LA and sort of what you learned about La scene you've done a few you did the like LA full D gen mode then the Orange County thing now the Miami thing what have you learned like take me through the different eras of stages of scenes yeah exactly [ __ ] I mean yeah the first trying to think of the first time I yeah the first time it was me and Jesse at the time we had um I believe we' road trip there from Toronto to La so 36-hour Drive in his like shitty car um we called it the toaster it was like a Nissan like one of those boxy ass cars we had like a cooler of food just like we packed a bunch of food put it in the cooler cuz like we were dead broke at the time too and we road trip to VidCon um and his we would stay at Fan houses along the way too so we'd just post on Snapchat and say like hey who wants to we're going to be in St Louis tonight we need to crash somewhere and then I would like add them on Snap I'd FaceTime the people like make sure they weren't like a [ __ ] psycho and we ended up staying at over like probably 30 fans houses throughout like our little trips and none of them were ever weird um and then his car broke down in like the middle of the desert we got stuck there for a week and like we posted again on Snapchat and fans had to come pick us up from Palm Springs and drive us to La um and then we made it to VidCon so that was like our first time kind of being around like other YouTubers and seeing like people that were like really popping successful I think that was at the time like FaZe like we met like all those guys um and I remember those guys came up to us too like someone phase adapt he was like really really big at the time and he told us like yo we watch your videos like every night when we're high and [ __ ] and like just to see like respect from other big YouTubers at the time I think that really motivated us so after that for the next probably five years we would do like we would be in Canada I was working at a golf course so I worked like I did events I did the back shop and I would just save up money and then we would do a trip to La for like 3 months however long long we could AFF grind grind grind grind grind go back to Canada try to keep it going and that went on for like 5 years until we officially um moved to LA yeah so it was like it was a crazy time and every time we'd go home to Canada things would kind of slow down a little bit you know cuz you're living at your parents house um your parents are kind of in your ear a little bit my parents were super supportive but I know Jesse's parents were a little bit in his ear um but yeah when we got out to LA the the very first time full-time it was like definitely a big game changer for us which one felt like real life did going back home to Canada feel like real life or did LA I guess I guess at the time probably going back to LA felt like real life I think I think and that I guess that's kind of sad in a way right but yeah you you kind of just you kind of just outgrow it a little bit I think you know and I I was so blessed to grow up in Canada the way I grew up was just like completely normal middle class like just playing street hockey every day after school running way too much Call of Duty just normal [ __ ] you know so but then you kind of just outgrow it and I think yeah we'd go home and things would just kind of slow down everyone around you is kind of you know they're all in University too so then when when you go to your friends houses like their parents are asking you like oh like what what are your plans like what are you doing like are you going to go back to school like you're kind of everywhere you go you're kind of hit with that question like oh are you going to school what are you doing what what's your plan and I think that kind of subconsciously like eats at you a little bit too I think a lot of people get stuck in that messy middle period that sort of lonely chapter maybe they're doing something that's a little bit different to what their friends around them are maybe there's some pressure from family girlfriend everyone Society to do something that feels a little bit more safe they're kind of making you feel a little bit like a loser right and then you're telling them like oh well I'm doing this YouTube thing and they're like ha like even your friends are kind of like come on you know my friends always [ __ ] supported me so I never had like people putting me down but you feel it a little bit right what would you say to someone who's sort of a little bit younger and has those dreams of breaking out from the mold but is is kind of Uncertain damn I think there's almost I mean I know in Canada especially there's almost like more Security in like chasing your dream now like I think it's it seems so hard to get a a really good job coming out of school now especially where I'm from back home I know people are coming out of school and they just can't get jobs so I would say I mean to me you only have one life the scariest thing to me more than like being broke for a little bit is like living a life that you don't want to live you know I think a lot of people the main thing is they're just scared to be broke for a little bit like they're like well how am I going to pay my bills what am I going to do and it's like I mean we were broke for a long time like we were struggling like we would sleep in cars we would sleep at Fan houses like you got to go through that stage of being broke being having no money to to kind of get to where you need to be right what was the scene in La like cuz you were you guys were there pretty much in sort of the golden era of dgen influence were we were there when you YouTube was probably its biggest it was um like Jake Paul was his probably biggest doing daily Vlogs every day David Dock and then they had the cloud house so FaZe Banks I don't know if you know him but he's like the owner of FaZe I give a lot of credit to to him he basically tweeted out at us and just said hey do you guys want to move into the cloud house and that was like him Alyssa Violet rice gum uh Summer Ray Wolfie who was huge at the time so these were like the biggest YouTubers and we're like nowhere on their level and yeah we land in La start driving and we're driving up through the Hollywood Hills and then we pull up to this massive mansion that we see in all these people's videos and that that was just like completely surreal like I couldn't even believe it just walking into that house like it's a completely insane house $100 million and and we got to live there for like six months rentree shout out FaZe Banks he's Legend um I owe him for life but yeah that was a crazy time just like it was Hollywood [ __ ] like House parties and like you never knew who was going to pull up like Lil Uzi would pull up to your house or Like Rappers all the girls it was pretty crazy it was a crazy time and then you go to Orange County yeah so we stayed in La for a little bit we got our own house there too after that we had like the first house we ever signed a lease on too I think we had like probably 20 people living in there in like a eight bedroom so that was like our very first house we had one room with like three or like two three story bunk beds so like six guys sleeping in a movie theater room wow yeah we it was just like it was kind of like the LA nek frat house so that worked for a bit and were they staff friends staff and friends I mean I live with four of my boys that I grew up with here but yeah we probably have like seven of my boys that are on that work for us and do different things whether it's social media or merch or different stuff that we have going on but yeah did you miss it did you miss that La period that La scene yeah I miss it it was it was pretty it was pretty surreal I mean to live in a house like that and just I feel like no one really gets to experience that you know it it was a cool time but I think yeah I think La is just different now and now it's more of a like it's more of like a tick tocky scene we don't really need to be around there too much there's a lot of good podcast guests there too so we still make La trips but we moved to Miami about a year ago and I I [ __ ] love it talk to me about the difference between LA Miami I mean California is just a little too liberal for us I think I don't know I feel like if we did our whole Trump thing during the election I feel like we would have been getting grilled everywhere we went right like we probably would have got shot up on Melrose and [ __ ] it's dangerous there too like I know St like my boy steiny he got his car robbed like it's it's it's like turning into a d out in the open like he just parked it and someone just like robbed his car like it's pretty dangerous there I think and then Florida just no income tax for me like I told you it's way closer to Toronto so I find myself I always forget about how long going back home a lot more seeing my family seeing my friends how long it is to to fly across the country if you do uh LA to New York it's what five hours probably six five and a half right you lose and you lose three hours so so it's R the same day to get there and a day to get back two travel days so yeah I think La is just a lot different now it's just not it's not quite the same as it used to be yeah but you're locking in a little bit more in Miami as well yeah like healthwise you mean yeah I think this is the best place to kind of be healthy it's a good HQ for us cuz we travel so much too most of our work is on the road whether it's NK videos or podcast so I like coming back here cuz it you saw how it was this morning like this is all we do when we're home like it's like two different lives MH one's on the road and then when we're back here like I really don't do [ __ ] I wake up I [ __ ] work out and then I'll just chill keep the business moving on my phone keep videos moving planning Golf and then we go on the road again and it's chaos so was there a moment that you broke through do you think obiously with NK yeah yeah I don't think so I think the secret to nek and why we have such a cult following is that there's never been one moment that made us it's just been like this the whole time there was never like a huge thing so I think when you blow up that fast like these like like hawk tuas or or whoever have you they come and go so fast right they get so famous so quickly and people become obsessed with them and then they're just gone I think there's also you got to build you got to build that Foundation in other news this episode is brought to you by element you've probably heard me talk about element before and that's because I am frankly dependent on it and every single 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the box that's how confident they are that you love it right now you can get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with any purchase by going to the link in the description below or heading to drink LM nt.com slod wisdom that's drink LM nt.com slod wisdom there's a bit of low-key resentment that maybe the audience or The Wider world has for somebody that appears to have achieved so much Fame so quickly they go huh I wish that was me if if you get picked up out of obscurity because you said a funny sentence on a street interview yeah everybody knows that if not for the chance of God yeah that could have been one of a hundred, other people I agree I agree with that too but I think um I mean you know how much work this is behind the scenes and how strategic you have to be too for us like we've been doing this for 10 years so like you also learn along the way right so now where I am where I am where the stakes are the highest and like you said there's more respons responsibility I've learned so many lessons don't do this don't you know maybe don't trust this person don't get into business with this person these people overnight 24 hours they're super famous and they have no clue business Works how to disc who to trust who to let in they have no clue so they like they're pretty much they're going to get screwed unless they're a genius right some of them last but most of them don't you just say yes to the first person that pops up in your DMs usually the one that's the most shocky exactly and I've I've almost got screwed by managers and [ __ ] too like I've been You' come close to a couple catastrophes close bro decisions that would not make me be here right now for sure like yeah for sure we've almost signed with like a few different managers that maybe even like we were really close to like giving like Equity away that would have like torched us so like one thing too if people are listening like you got to be very very careful who you trust you know like having a partner is like it's like a marriage you got to like you got to be careful who you get into business with so what's the overall lesson there is that move slowly s of don't make rash decisions I think so yeah you got to you got to move slow I think yeah you got to get a team of people around you that you can kind of trust whether it's friends you know some someone that you can at least bounce ideas off cuz yeah yeah I would say just move slow you know don't don't react too quickly to things sit back and just kind of see how things play out sometimes yeah I get the sense that especially in the fast moving world of Internet content creation whether it's brand deals even if you're trying to build a business you know there's this there's always this sense that somebody else could be doing this what if someone else is starting the same business at the same time as me oh my God this is good I need to I must get it moving and so on and so forth but the risk of Ruin of getting it wrong is 100% I agree and the risk of being second or third or fourth to Market the the likelihood of somebody else having the exact same idea and executing it as well as you can if you take your time seems way slower so yeah I've I agree with that I never give a [ __ ] about what anyone else is doing really like maybe I'll get some inspiration from other people but like yeah even some people in our crew will be like yo like this person's doing this like we we should be doing this and I'm like dude just relax like this is this game too is a marathon it's not a Sprint like the entire social media business is like it is such a mental Marathon that if you get caught up in like what other people are doing or you know you're going to lose it and I think the most important thing with this is you got to keep like you got to keep your mind right too that's why I personally don't get caught up in like if I need like a month off from like doing something or like videos I don't get caught up on that because I feel like if people look back in 10 years they're not going to remember like oh they took a month off or whatever it is so from the business side what's the most Revenue that you guys have generated in a day Revenue I mean our merch business I don't think anyone's ever really I feel like we were putting up like Kylie Jenner numbers at at that time in the in the peak of our like merch business when we were uploading nek every week um on the road uh I think our biggest our biggest was 30 million gross in about 30 minutes 30 million in re we had 350,000 people waiting on the site at the time of the drop even Shopify was like what the [ __ ] is going on yeah and and that's Revenue right so that's that's Top Line that's one thing I've never really talked about too much too is and I know my part my old partner Jesse could would agree too is that the revenue sounds nice but when you talk about profit and how much we were spending on videos maybe people that we pranked were suing us like there's there is so much when you that number sounds amazing but in terms of what me and Jesse were chipped away to you know like Steve will do it he was getting paid directly off merch so what me and Jesse were even able to pocket was like nowhere even near that it's that line about uh revenue is Vanity profit is sanity yeah I don't even like talking about Revenue too much to be honest it's it sounds great and it's great to brag about but but I think it's a good I understand what you mean and it's nice that you're like sufficiently humble that you don't want to flex the biggest uh number that you can but but on the flip side what it teaches people is what you can drive in terms of just raw traffic right that in order to take 30 mil you need to be able to have 350,000 people on the site yeah correct yeah that that's impressive for sure like we'd look at the map of the Shopify I don't know if you've ever done like a live drop and you can see all the little it shows where people are um on the site from and the entire world so you just see all these little dots and like you're seeing people in like India and like it was cool it was a really cool that era of Neel was like when was that that had to be like 2017 maybe 2016 so this is before John your now business partner manager this is before that yeah and you were able to still spin this up just all internally yeah I mean that's that's what drew them to us was the the type of numbers we were putting up I don't I don't think I don't know I don't want to say it but I don't think anyone's ever really done what we've done with merch in like a YouTube business what did that what what does the sort of structure of that stuff look like internally um back then yeah it was all inhouse every everything was in-house so we would like we had designers on payroll we had a bunch of different people that would Source stuff from China um all the marketing was done by o God he's like our creative genius he's the goat he edits all our videos every everything was done inh house which was which was even crazier so when we would do a drop there'd be like 25 people and we'd all be in our nek frat house just all everyone has their laptops open and we're all watching the numbers full Wi-Fi connection but at that time it was crazy it's cuz like that was the only thing we were doing you know there was no there was no happy Dad there was no brand deals not even any podcast there was no podcast the only only thing we were doing was pushing merch and we and our fans literally like helped us build this cuz like we weren't getting paid off YouTube at all why we never got paid off YouTube we got we were demonetized since day one like for swearing for alcohol for drug references our our videos never got monetized so that was like that's how we built our merch business like we were we because you needed something that was partner program because the partner program didn't exist yeah we weren't getting paid so it was kind of a blessing in disguise we had to get smart and build a business around our audience so we we weren't lying when we were looking into the lens and telling our fans like hey guys if you guys buy merch like you're keeping the you're keeping the yeah I can eat dinner and not only that I can make we can continue to make these videos so that's how it was like a reoccurring thing where our fans literally kind of helped us make all these videos I think there's something cool and probably another important lesson there to just Linger on about focusing on one thing thing um so you need to learn how business Works how what a good deal looks like what a bad deal looks like what good a good release and um buildup schedule building the anticipation all of that stuff and if you try and do it with too many things at once it's difficult to learn what the lesson is because you're so distributed you're so spread across all of these different projects that you're not actually focused you're not drilling in the learnings from this one thing so for me it was nightclubs and for running 15 years of all of these different events and I would really really dial in what a good buildup sequence looked like and I would understand how to use anticipation to get people to really care about what the outcome was going to be and then I'd understand what the drop off in terms of Interest was and then how you can then restart that with more things and more things and more things and that now gets ported across when we did the launch for new tonic I did exactly the same thing it might as well have been a club night if you changed it from productivity drink to new club night Fridays at whatever Club it would have been the exact same process the exact same thing that I'd learned and I'm going to guess that it's the same thing that you learned from the merch that you then ped across onto happy Dad that you P across oh we've got a new guest coming out it's just building hype yep everything everything in this business is just building hype right and once you learn how to do that I feel like you can apply it to anything talk to me about the the principles that you sort of think about when it comes to building up hype around either a drop new video new podcast episode new happy Dad collab like what are the main areas that you're that you're looking at I don't know I'm not the best at kind of defining the way that like my mind works sometimes but I mean building hype yeah you can't go go wrong with just literally what it is is building hype is like you know say it's dropping on this date and then maybe two days later post something else about it remind people two days later post something different and engaging remind them again and then the day of you know posting like a bunch of times before something happens I think sometimes it is fire just hitting with the sneak attack drop too cuz that goes crazy sometimes but yeah you can't go wrong with with building hype and doing multiple posts building anticipation yeah yeah I mean there was this really interesting study that was done that I loved because I was starting to learn about psychology but I was still in Nightlife and they did a they got people to track um their level of happiness throughout the entire day and night of a going out on a night out and you'd think at what point would happiness be at its highest maybe 12 midnight when you've got a good enough buzz on and you're with your friends and the music's amazing but you're not too messy and so on and so forth it was way before that the time when people were happy the best part of the night's the pregame getting ready with your friends when the music so what does that tell you it tells you that the absolute Bullseye of human pleasure is things are about to be awesome it's anticipation right that's very interesting it's not about the pay off off it's about waiting for the payoff like the hottest part of sex is not the sex bit it's the bit as you're taking your clothes off before sex yeah that's the hottest part yeah because it's the anticipation of what's about to happen and I think that you know what you guys have landed on and certainly what I've landed on it's the same reason that we released clips from this podcast before we release the full episode so this will have a Tuesday clip and a Friday clip and then the episode goes on the Monday yeah because it builds up that anticipation and sometimes people say that it's cruel but I think it's just effectively uh utilizing the human reward system that's a good way of defining it yeah cuz the pregame is the best part of the night for sure when all the boys are just there before the girls pull up and you're just cranking beers just chilling so I I can I can definitely relate to that actually talk to me about the other side then so if that's the most Revenue that you've made in a day what about the most money that you've spent in a day most money I've spent I'm not like a huge I have a few watches and I have like a car but I think yeah the most money I spent I guess was probably it's not like a purchase but probably I retired my parents in the same day about four or five years ago so that took about $700,000 so one one year at Christmas I just I had enough money to do it and like one thing about me is like a lot of people said their parents never supported them but for me I would be like nowhere without my parents I got so [ __ ] lucky and like my mom just says too like they just had Blind Faith like they just believed in me and they supported me so when I kind of had enough money to do that I just did it so that took about yeah like $700,000 to do that yeah that's a big and then my mom got my mom got carried away she I guess she has the free spirit like me she like invested it in like a bunch of like she didn't retire ethereum no she put it put housing market and true us over the last five years so now I got to I just told her this Christmas I got to retire her until she can sell those hes so when when uh Trudeau gets the [ __ ] out she'll be able to sell the two hoses that she bought and then uh yeah but that's probably I like spending my money more on like memories and like taking all my friends on like a trip what about some of the trips um I mean we just had a yeah like this week for New Year's like we just went like a bunch of different places like we just did like fun [ __ ] with everyone like yachts and like stuff like that or like we'll go to Cancun and rent a house and just like chill stuff like that like I feel like spending your money on memories and like I love bringing my friends with me and just like having like a sick ass time I feel like I spend too much money on that type of [ __ ] but in terms of like watches or jewelry or [ __ ] like that I'm not super into that I don't hate it that's a good I guess memories is the best I was G to say it's the [ __ ] best is the lesson from that that as somebody who's come into young wealth you've tried I'm going to guess buying expensive car you just got a new car uh new watches clothes but Steve will do it he bought me my first car shout out Steve so I've actually this is actually the first car I've probably ever bought to be honest because Steve will DOA bought me my first car he bought me a Audi RS7 so that was like 140 Grand shout out to Steve he's bought like 40 people cars so then this the Audi just shut down thing thing was a piece of [ __ ] over like four years later so I was able to just trade that in has the down payment and then just get this new car my business manager said it was a great investment to just Finance it so it's actually the first car I've ever bought thank you business manager uh but yeah the the overall lesson there is as you start to accumulate some spare wealth that you think on balance spending it on experiences especially experiences that you can share with your friends is the best way to do it I love that yeah that's my favorite it's just cuz you never forget that [ __ ] too you know and it's like yeah not everyone can do that [ __ ] so to just I don't know that to me is just stuff you never forget and it just makes you so happy having a good ass time with like your boys nothing beats that what are some of your favorite memories from the last few years maybe ones that haven't been captured on camera I mean if they haven't been uncaptured on camera it's probably for a reason right so I probably can't really talk about them well all right include the ones that if been captured yeah definitely last week we can't talk about um but on I mean best memories I think like probably yeah one of the coolest things we ever did I think was probably the first time we went to Abu Dhabi I was telling you about that that to me was like one of the craziest thing it was the craziest two weeks I've ever had in my life cu the UFC brought us out to Abu Dhabi for khabib's last fight during the co bubble the heat of Co um so we had to quarantine for a total of like 4 days to get there um and then that's when we met like Dana White for the very first time in Abu Dhabi we we got like a whole full scale treatment there and then one week later we went on Air Force One with Dana 2 and met Trump for the first time in 2020 so that was like that's probably the coolest two weeks that like really changed my life I think that just like every time I think back to it I'm just like this is a mind [ __ ] like how did this happen to me it's just yeah there there's been so there's so much crazy [ __ ] with Neel and like over the last 10 years it's just so surreal I can't even believe it a quicker side if you're struggling to fall asleep on the nighttime stay asleep throughout the night or not waking up feeling rested and revitalized in the morning momentus is magnesium l38 is one of my favorite products which I use every single night before I go to bed magnesium l38 is uniquely able to cross the bloodb brain barrier boosting memory Focus cognitive function while also improving sleep and reducing stress this is a huge part of my brain body and sleep stack for momentus which makes a massive impact on my cognition and my strength and my recovery and if you're still on the fence momentus offers a 30-day money back guarantee so you can try it before you go to bed every single night for 29 nights and if you don't love it they'll just give you your money back and they ship internationally right now you can get a 20% discount off everything and that 30-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below are heading to liv.com wisdom and using the code modern wisdom a checkout that's L IV m n us.com wisdom modern wisdom a checkout talk to me about what you've learned since being friends with Dana White a lot I've I've looked up to Dana White like my whole life honestly like I've me and my dad would would watch UFC like when I was on Spike TV when it was just like it was nothing you know I've been watching since I was probably in like 8th grade so I've looked up to Dana White and a lot of the UFC is like way bigger now I don't know how long you've been following it but it wasn't the UFC that it was today like right now it's just like it's such a big brand and stuff but they had to like battle to build that so I've kind of seen the evolution of the UFC as I'm sure a lot of people have listening and like this [ __ ] wasn't even like legal in States like it used to not be legal in New York like I watch these guys like battle state by state never give up and just build it into this like incredible brand that it is today and you see all these other MMA organizations now it's never going to compete with the UFC like the UFC is unmatched but yeah so I've always looked up to Dana White for that and just what he's been able to achieve and he's just you can see he's not a quitter uh from the outside and then when I met him you can really see like that guy is not a [ __ ] quitter how so well even like look how he handled covid right that's what blew up the UFC so much like every other sport shut down UFC was the only one that kept going like Dana White was the only Commissioner of a sport that was able to keep that sport going all throughout the heat of Co not only keep it going blow it the [ __ ] up like Co was actually a good thing for the UFC because it was the only thing on um and that guy yeah just behind the scenes too he doesn't quit you know and he'll call me and give me advice whenever something's going on that that he'll see and yeah he's like I told you before he is just the most loyal guy you will ever meet like it's so crazy like for us he'll just I don't know it's almost like blind loyalty too in in the same way it's just like he's always there for us no matter what and even sometimes like he just doesn't even need to be you know even if I'm like sick he'll like call me and be like yo you good bro like you need an IV like I'll s like he's just always there for us so having a friend like him is it's truly like insane yeah what about the way that you've observed him sort of operate from a business perspective the way that he runs the UFC the way that he sort of deals with his own um re interaction with press with exposure with scrutiny with stuff like that yeah I think I mean he's obviously a Savage right like even though I'm friends with him like I'll literally watch almost every Dana White like post UFC press conference cuz the guy is just Savage like if if a media guy goes out he's going to ream them out you know what to get with Dana White right he's himself he speaks his mind so with the UFC stuff we don't we kind of stay away from that we let him handle the business of that we don't even really talk UFC business with Dana ever because he talks about that [ __ ] all the time when we're with him if we're talking business we're talking about happy Dad we're talking about howad we're talking about the podcast or we're talking about maybe new Ventures that we want to do together in the future and we've never had like any type of partnership like with Dana or the UFC besides like some clothing but there's no like form agreement there's no formal agreement like even with happy Dad and howad um I know Dana had offered me like a little piece of howad back in the day and like I kind of just told him in the most respectful way like I'm really appreciative of this but like I just want to do whatever you want me to do and I don't want to take a percentage of your company like I just want to remain friends and like let's just and he was on the same page and I think I think he like really respected that so with happy Dad he's helped us so much like we'll go and do happy Dad Hower head tours together and stuff so he's kind of like the uncle of Neel right he's pretty much like an big scary Uncle big scary uncle that you don't [ __ ] around with yeah no that guy's he's a legend everyone that knows him in real life knows like how great of a person he is it's wild you know to think that that's able to come across I haven't met Dana but from conversations that I've seen him have from stories that I've heard behind the scenes from stories that I've heard in public uh it is absurd to have somebody that's kind of the head of an organization like that who's the one that seems to have the most credibility this sort of unwavering commitment to his word like even to a fault a lot of the time even when he [ __ ] up and he just decides to be as upfront as possible I know how he does it but he does it and that's why he's D away he's just a [ __ ] well I think what people are really desperate for is authenticity yeah like they're really really hungry for authenticity one of the problems is that if you realize that authenticity is something that people like and resonate with you can try to sort of speedrun it or or growth hack it somehow which is the exact opposite of authentic you can't inauthentically be authentic right you know uh and I think people can just tell they know when you're playing a game when you're trying to manipulate them and even if you don't know why even if you can't say what it is we've got this weird sixth sense that exists behind the back of our head somewhere you go I don't know man there's something there's something up here I just don't get Trudeau perfect example of this with Trudeau like tell me what it is about that guy that makes you not trust him I maybe you can point to specific statements he's made and all the rest of it but he could just tell he's a slime ball largely it's just the fact that he's got this slippery demeanor you think hey I don't [ __ ] trust you guy and he fooled everyone with the free weed legalization when he first ran that what's that I think I think that's like when he first ran it's just cuz he was going to legalize weed like that's why everyone loved them okay that never came to fruition no it did it's legal in Canada okay yeah so I guess he did one good Del on a promise yeah uh but yeah it's watching Dana operate especially at that level especially with the additional amount of scrutiny and all the rest of the stuff that's happened is wild it's very very like I just he just likes to win too one thing about him I I know what drives him and it's proving people wrong and that's kind of one thing I think me and him have in common is we both like just like shutting people up you know like whether it's fans and the comments or for him it's the media shutting people up is a good [ __ ] feeling you know what I mean when everyone's saying something and they're all counting you out it just drives you and you're like I just want to shut these people up so badly I think that's one thing that that drives both of us and then you come back with the w you come back with the dub yeah yeah that's an interesting energy you know what I mean by that or no I know exactly what you mean by it yeah it's a it's a really interesting energy to think about how you need that sometimes I feel well dude proving people wrong think it's a [ __ ] potent fuel yeah it's an incredibly potent Fuel and it's one that you can use very very effectively especially you know I've heard Dana talk about this a couple of times especially with regards to Trump you know that he is happy to burn everything down I mean he said uh there's a story that he talks about to do with Rogan I think where somebody didn't want Rogan to be a part of some something moving forward or he'd been a maybe it was of the scandals oh yeah it's probably when Joe said something [ __ ] yeah yeah the CNN thing or whatever it might be and Dana was prepared to burn everything for one guy yeah of course and you think that's in some ways that's really not good business Acumen but what you're up you're you're working off of such unbelievable loyalty that the business gets ripped along for the ride and what does it tell people what's the subtext that it tells people about the business this is a business that is going to do what it says MH and you can have complete nut of faith in it Y and uh especially you know the world of fight Sports we've seen it how many times over the last couple of months uh Tyson and Jake Paul and the number of criticisms oh it's a throne fight it's the three fight Clause Etc usyk Fury rematch Clauses they're not actually fully throwing punches all of this sort of stuff and I think that it's really important to have for something like the UFC where you trust it yeah even the [ __ ] sniff that this wasn't legitimate the entire organization I'm sure there has to have been some fights that have been a little manipulated here or there because the UFC's done but once they're in once they're in the cage it's done yeah I mean it's the UFC but you've got to have the guy they obviously help put people in the cage that they want to I mean that's obvious but like once they're in the cage it's up to you yeah you know they're they're not fighting for you when you're in the cage mhm yeah yeah can we talk about the Bob situation yeah that full Arc thing so give us the give us the 30,000 foot view of Bob manry I still don't really understand it I mean we still like chirp each other about it I I don't know what he was looking for I mean if you asked drew our guy like he he said that we owed him money and we just didn't so he's a part of the Pod he started the Pod then he was a part of the Pod but Bob was doing his thing right he he was Bob's and Bob me and Bob are great friends now and like I hope we I we will remain great friends hopefully um he's a great guy he's talented he's funny so I wanted to start a podcast and I was always thinking of who to start it with and I was like yo I think this Bob guy's really funny right so we gave him a great [ __ ] deal I think it was like 77,500 or $110,000 an episode 30% of the ads and by the way he has no YouTube channel he's launched like four unsuccessful Pods at this point like four different ones so it's like Bob just show up make some good money let let me keep this consistent let me bring the structure to this so we were doing good and then yeah I think I don't know if he had bad people in his ear that were kind of telling him stuff or whatever it was but um yeah I don't know I think he just thought for some reason we were screwing him and or he was missing out on money that he just wasn't missing out on and he just freaked out I don't I don't know if he was at a bad place everything went nuclear yeah I don't know if he was at a bad place in his life or something as well too but um yeah we weren't cool for a while and that was like the first time I ever really went through some like I've stayed quiet for a while which I always will I I stay quiet until someone really [ __ ] pushes me to the edge you know because I don't want to I never got big by like attacking people online or like airing out personal [ __ ] so that's just not even though I could get views doing it you know that's just not me so I kind of just had to sit back and wait till Bob kind of forced me to a point where I had to like just kind of own his ass a little bit and people kind of saw right through it and we just came with the receipts and that was it and yeah we weren't then he like sued us and [ __ ] and it was a whole thing we we did like a thing that we like joke about now too we had to do um a mediation which is like that was like part of the Clause like if there's ever disagreement you guys have to go into mediation so we had to get on to his to zo div counseling divorce counseling so we had to get on like our side and his side with this lady judge Nagel who we like joke about now and like he got on and his side was just they were like internally arguing like in front of like all of us it was just like it was a complete mess and the judge told us she came into our room and told us like listen I'm not going to lead a horse to water but they have absolutely no case against you guys whatsoever like the judge told us that I don't even know if she was supposed to but that's what she told us so to me the whole thing was just hilarious but we both wasted legal money for no reason so we eventually came to just agreement to drop it and I was like Bob if you want to come on the Pod whenever you whenever you want like come promote whatever you want you can bring ads on the podcast if you want like just like any other guest you know like if Whiz Khalifa comes on and he wants to talk about his weed go ahead but he hasn't he's been on the Pod and he hasn't brought one single ad so he's just but he's back on the Pod now he's he's back on like in and out yeah I mean we're cool it was kind of just I don't know we'll see what happens but he's not back on like full-time he's just kind of in and out but yeah it was a very it was an interesting situation one of the things that we were talking about in the gym earlier on is keeping your private life private M uh and the you can run a business and have people talk about the business but having people talk about how you run your business having people talk about how you run your podcast I think um not good like people are talking about the wrong things yeah so was that degree of uh operational exposure was was that that's for what when you and Boba having this sort of Fallout and then there's all of this kind of exposure of internal backbiting typ I don't enjoy that [ __ ] like I know everyone on the internet now it's all about drama correct and like I mean we could start drama with people too or like whoever it is but that's just not how we got big you know like we've never started drama with people it's always just been about making funny [ __ ] so for me any opportunity we have to like I don't know I just don't look to that to get clouder views that's just not me it's my least it's my least favorite kind yeah like that was that was when I was just pushed to the edge Ed you know so like I'm I'm just going to stay quiet until it's to the point where I I have to defend myself like I don't want to but that's kind of the way that I work I just uh I don't know there is we're really kind of in the the era of criticism yeah drama drama's huge on the internet all people want to see is people fight and just go at each other they said this thing oh my God this singer with that girl and she's releas these text and so on and so forth I don't know man like that's my like the streamers the whole streamers like it's a lot about beef and stuff like that it's just that the clip era I feel like the clipping era that we're in kind of changed that right it's so quick it's so fast like well the most the biggest thing that you can get on YouTube is timeliness so we realized this last year and known that it was a big deal for a while that you're sort of basically being a a news is channel but as mainstream news is declining people are looking to YouTube for their news so much more and search volume is such an important driver so Trump gets shot and then 36 hours later I bring Tim Kennedy on whatever it is 72 hours later I bring Mike Baker on so I've got one Green Beret one xcia guy who's still involved in intelligence stuff and it was nice or whatever that people are interested and that I have people that have got genuine expertise and we can talk about this sort of stuff but it was almost in some ways a little bit disheartening how much those episodes blow up because you think oh there's no reason the episodes were great but they didn't need to be great it was just something that was timely and what's the most timely thing that you can do be start drama and be involved in the drama and just keep talking about it back and forth and uh if you look back I guess that's just human nature right 100% it's the most it's the most important I don't know why we're like that but we just love to see negative [ __ ] about there's some really interesting uh potential evidence about why the human brain grew to be as big as it did which is that it wasn't so we could use tools correctly or so that we could remember the location of plants but because when you have a 150 person tribe broken down into 30 person pods or whatever for me to be able to remember Kyle and Kyle's relationship with Dean and the fact that Kyle and Dean used to be friends but they're not anymore and Jon has actually come in and JN is now Kyle's best friend so kind of feeling about that when you start to scale that up is really computationally difficult which is why you need a lot of ability but it also means that that is so important and Salient to you like if you I don't think humans are particularly good at working out this is some dramatic social information that I need to pay attention to versus some dramatic social information that has absolutely nothing to do with me it's just drama therefore I must be able to pay attention and therefore it's going to um pull me in it's going to suck me in and um if you were to look back I think across your weeks watch time history your pie chart of that the I would doubt if anybody looks at the however many percent 30% 50% more that they look at drama farming stuff and go time well spent like who's saying that no one's saying that no one looks at it and goes I'm really glad that I watched that Brianna chicken fry take down summary video again for the third time that I've seen from two other different channels that sh yeah that [ __ ] got crazy views which is I watched it of course we all watched it you can't not watch it it's like the black hole of of of content it just sucks you no it's just yeah it's just human nature I guess I don't know why we we like to see negative [ __ ] about each other a quick aside traveling should be about the journey not send it the Chaos Head all manner of nightmares have occurred traveling should be about the journey not the chaos of packing which is why I'm a massive fan of pneumatic their travel pack is the biggest game changer that I've ever played with and uh it makes the entire traveling process significantly more enjoyable they've got compartments for everything your laptop your shoes your sunglasses so well organized that even your toothbrush will feel important it's like the Marie condo of luggage everything has got its place and if you're still on the fence their products will last you literally a lifetime with a lifetime guarantee so this is the final backpack that you ever need to buy plus you can return or exchange any product within 30 days for any reason so you can buy your new bag try it for a month fill it with your possessions and if you don't like it they'll give you a money bag and they ship internationally right now you can get a 20% discount off everything from nomatic and see all the products I use and recommend by going to the link in the description below or heading to nomatic docomo wisdom that's nomatic modern wer I got him I'm talking about YouTube and stuff is it weird having Steve I me we bumped into Steve this morning in the gym is it how odd has it been playing that balancing game now it sucks bro I mean you know Ste like nk's not the same without Steve like there's no and you can't show him on YouTube there's no question about it I mean Steve will do it was like he was like the biggest one NK I mean like he's like he was more he was bigger than me like at the time too like so yeah it's it's a very weird situation I I don't quite understand it I mean I guess he was banned for like putting a gambling Link in his URL but I don't know I think I think that was just an excuse something deeper to be honest yeah I think I mean he was repping Trump pretty hard at the time and that that was a different time back then too and then Steve is just like a lot of people I don't know if people know but he is one of the most like naturally like funny guys in like his own way like he has like very dark humor and like I I personally love his dark humor too like I think it's hilarious but I guess there's just certain [ __ ] that you just can't say on YouTube you know what I'm saying so I think YouTube was seeing like some of his dark humor [ __ ] and they're like this is a ticking time bomb waiting to happen and one thing I've learned from YouTube too is they don't YouTube doesn't like negative press about about YouTubers YouTube because that's GNA [ __ ] their right right like their advertisers don't like that press too so I know we learned that um during Co during Co we were like kind of traveling still making videos and we showed up to a college um to film something and we didn't even post anything ourselves like we just like went to the college and we were filming but other people were taking snapchats of us and through that it gained a huge crowd so it looked the all the Articles were YouTubers host Mass Gathering YouTubers this YouTubers that and we got like a manual email from YouTube which you never get you always know when it's like automated right and this said like hey nek boys which is like nek boys is not even on our Channel at YouTube at all it's like NK so and it was a custom email that said you guys need to watch your off off platform responsibility which basically means like we're giving you guys one last warning before you we delete you or they're like or your Channel's deleted so at that time this is and we're like Jesus like we're walking on eggshells so I think since I've had that experience it's kind of the at the end of the day they're just trying to make money in that YouTube office right so if they're looking at Steve and they're saying this guy's making a bunch of crazy J flying close to the Sun flying and probably flying in the son he flies in the straight through it yeah like his videos were hilarious like and the jokes that he makes are [ __ ] hilarious so he was flying in the Sun for sure probably right in the center and I think I think they just used the gambling thing as an excuse to be honest yeah and then I think Steve knows probably he probably could have handled after the the strategy of after getting deleted he probably could have handled it bit more diplomatic a bit more diplomatic and strategic but still I think I mean for them to take his channel down is just like all of them is [ __ ] crazy and then not only that to tell us that we can't even have him in our videos so the editors or or our channel will be deleted the editors on the back end must permanently have this Steve filter well then now it's created this weird thing where it's like Steve also when I met when it's created this weird thing where Steve's around and he obviously wants you know he wants Neel to be success F too and he wants n to keep going he's not the guy that's like yo put me in the [ __ ] put me in the [ __ ] that's not him right our ultimate goal was Steve when I first met him I feel like was to just kind of like help him and make him financially successful and our main goal was to start this happy dead so that's Steve Steve in mind's ultimate goal is to build happy Dad up into a billion dollar company so Steve wants obviously nelk to be successful he wants us to keep pushing happy Dad but yeah I really think that they at least need to start with letting him be in NK videos or something else and it's weird because he'll go on other people's channels and like they won't pick on they won't pick on those channels but for some reason like why why is it only us that you were told specifically that he can't be in videos yeah we were told very specifically that's on the like on the it's like a I know it's like somebody being unpersoned it's [ __ ] yeah and I I think it's you could even bring Tate on you know the most Tate gets deleted on our [ __ ] too okay which is weird maybe you can't yeah full s podcast take got deleted but um I know what you mean yeah it's just the Trump one got taken down as well right the first one yeah but we need I think we need in closing to that we need to like they should let his channel come back I think eventually it's been long enough and then to start they should let him be in like uh or they like they don't let him be in Bradley Martin's con content like it's [ __ ] like they got to let him be on YouTube now like the culture shifting now too like well let's talk about time to bring Steve back the Zuckerberg Chad transformation yeah uh I'm conflicted about this Zuck thing because part of me thinks moving in the right direction nice to see um uh return to freedom of speech Etc but another part of me thinks this is just blowing With the Wind you were cooked when the cooks were in office and you're bigoted now the bigots are in office like judgmentally uh only half joking and I I don't know I get it I get that people like the idea of it moving in the direction that they want but it does seem like kind of a a pretty thinly veiled now that the Free Speech people are in power will just do whatever they think is cool there not see that like does I see it I see it and I kind of saw it coming too and like I think that's what people don't get too is like at the end of the day these are all companies that just want to make money like whether it's YouTube or Facebook meta right like I don't I feel like it's not really a personal Vendetta they have against these people it's just like they're sitting in a boardroom and they're trying to figure out how to make money right so they're going to follow they're going to follow the money so now like obviously Zuck sees what's happening with X he's smart too at the end of the day it's a W for everyone like that we what was about to happen if Trump didn't win was [ __ ] scary go further down that road we were about to lose like free speech like I think we would have lost it completely I mean it's hard to imagine but thank God like the he won and the way that he won reflected where culturally we're at but yeah I think Zuck obviously he probably sick of just getting chirped all the time too at the same time too right like Elon Musk gets to be the man and gets all this praise and like everyone everyone's always ripping on Zuck and zuck's probably just like [ __ ] I want to be the man too like Elon but I think it was very smart I mean there's no better person again to bring on than Dana I think that was that's so smart because Dana is always going to be for the people um he loves social media too like he gets a kick out of just like seeing like he's always showing us numbers and stuff too like we're sending like our biggest reels do well and [ __ ] so he understands social media and then yeah he's he's for the people he's always going to be for uh for free speech like UFC's for free speech so yeah I think Zuck just he had no choice right that transformation is crazy of his visually ideologically in terms of the way that he presents suck yeah yeah crazy I know I I think it was just that I think he just wanted to like I think he just wants to be kind of cool right boys club yeah he wants to join the boys club we'll see we'll let them in right yeah well I tell what's weird when you're thinking about the ecosystem of social media that you don't have an equivalent front and center person on YouTube you know you don't have I mean is it still that Susanna lady maybe Steve will do it soon wow I mean that would be an absolute U-turn um but yeah look I yeah she's gone I like I like the fact that um I like the fact that Faceook even twitch has someone now too right I think that older guy that's like I think like the CEO or something maybe uh yeah YouTube that's interesting I like the fact that um Facebook and that obviously means down stream from that WhatsApp and Instagram Instagram's a big I'm still shadowbanned I've been shadowbanned since uh the week before the election on Instagram for sharing you remember Kamala Harris had the phone up and then showed it and it was her camera yeah I got I'm still since then uh whatever it is down regulated in feed you know all of the little yellow orange circles on the back end got tons of orange circles that I can't get rid of cuz it's a story so I can't delete the thing and it's because of in it's because of the fact Checkers ah so the exact thing that they just brought up is the reason that I've been I'm thinking that I am glad about uh and overall it is a good thing but I'm just a little I don't know skeptical about the purity of the motivations for why there's no Purity there's no Purity they're following the money they have no choice they I mean the election was like a reflection of where society's at that like you they have to be idiots not to like see like holy [ __ ] we got to adjust but at the end of the day it's a W for for society funny the two uh the two topics that they highlighted as well were gender and immigration like probably the two most at least from a campaign perspective the two most aligned talking points when it came to what the candidates were driving home from ads right there was that um ads that the Trump team Cala is for they them Trump is for you one of the most successful political ads in the recent history uh I think a third of their budget was spent on that one ad some some absurd amount of the budget uh and then immigration was you know the flag that was planted in the ground by the Republican side as this is the thing that we're pushing back against I think interesting that those are the two flash points that you're enabling now on meta what what do you mean they're enabling it well that when they talked about these are the sort of topics there were two topics that they specifically called out as being ones that would be um discussion would not be censored around as much and it was gender and immigration they also happened to be the two biggest talking points when it came to the campaign Trail as well that's a new thing they're doing they just said they yeah it was part of the big announcement um a couple of the guys some representative went on Fox and was talking about it but I think it's actually written I yeah if you're Zuck you got to be like he's obviously not an idiot but you got to be a complete tool to not see where like he has no choice like it's pretty obvious right I mean and they're going to have to make all those adjustments I mean yeah I don't know why people don't see it people are just going to fall the money always right I'm interested in what keeps driving you you've mentioned proving people wrong is a part of it uh but that only takes you so far doing something for a deade however many hundreds of uploads thousands of uploads including all of the shorts and all of the work and sourcing creating spining something up internally I don't think people realize just how much work that is yeah what is it that keeps you motivated and keeps driving you forward after doing this for so long I mean I I really [ __ ] like enjoy what we do honestly like I really do and like I'll go through waves of maybe there's a bad video or there's a bad moment on social soci media but for the most part like I really love this [ __ ] like I I started doing this for fun just making videos uploading them not making any money um and I was making like all types of videos like Ser I wanted to be a director when I was younger so I was making like short films that were serious I was making skits and then we were doing pranks we I just loved creating like thinking of something filming it I would edit it myself post post it and then you get that it's like entertaining you know you get that reaction back from people saying they loved it it's like a good feeling um so I don't think I've lost that whatsoever you know even our like our latest nek video I was telling you like the tribe video we did it was just fun like the whole process from thinking of the idea to planning it like getting on the call with forest and talking about doing it to traveling there to filming it and then when we get home sitting with the editors editing it and we you know we're choosing the music we're choosing the font we're choosing just the storyline and then posting it and getting all that great feedback watching the numbers go crazy the entire process is fun and I don't I mean I don't know what else I would be I would be doing I don't want to go back and work at the golf course um that's one thing I I do really love it and then yeah I mean obviously want to be like financially free I think you know I don't I don't know if we can do nek forever maybe we can like maybe it's like we have kids and we're still doing like dad's trips or some [ __ ] and we're bringing the babies and stuff happy Dad in one hand child in another EXA there you go there we go oh yeah we're going to definitely keep going but yeah I mean it would be with happy Dad our ultimate goal is to build it into a billion dollar business and yeah so there's two sides to it there's just the content and then happy Dad is our main what are you more passionate about at the moment I think I'm passionate about both equally I love I think that's one thing that like my partner like John tells me too is like um I can just switch from like a creative side to like a business side like like that like with a light switch you know so I love like being completely creative and like making a video and then I also love getting strategic and like helping build a business so it's almost like I have two hats that get to where and I'm constantly switching them which I think [ __ ] with my mind a little bit too and then sometimes I got to babysit all these [ __ ] too like I don't know if you know steiny all like all these guys are I'm too but so there's a few different hats that I have to wear a quick note I ped with function because I wanted a smarter more comprehensive way to understand what's happening inside of my body twice a year they run lab tests that monitor over a 100 biomarkers and their team of expert Physicians will analyze the data and give you actionable advice to improve your health and lifespan if you been feeling a little bit sluggish your testosterone levels might be the problem they play a massive role in your energy and your performance and being able to see them charted over the course of a year with actionable insights to actually improve them gives you a clear path to making your life better best of all Dr Andrew hbin is their scientific adviser and Dr Mark Heyman is their chief medical officer so you can trust that the data and insights you receive are as sound as they are actionable usually getting these lab tests St would cost thousands but with function it is only $500 and right now you can get the the exact same blood panels that I get and bypass their weight list by going to the link in the description below or heading to function health.com modern wisdom that's function health.com slod wisdom that's a strange one I suppose that you made a name for yourself and still now sort of continue to as being the fun older brother or I guess a younger brother and then now older brother for most of your audience uh but because you're the fr man and the leader and one that's under a lot of scrutiny and one that has to make a lot of the decisions and stuff like that uh there's a sense of obligation as well so balancing I want to have fun with I want to be the fun Uncle Fun Fun older brother type thing with the I also need to be the responsible leader figurehead thing that's something I feel it never used to be like that too much but now I find myself doing that more than ever well you're the boss I know but I never like it gets annoying sometimes too bro kill yeah of course like it's it's like it's also like just don't make me be a buzz kill like I don't want to have to like rip you a the reason you're stepping in to do is because you haven't done the thing that I asked you to do but like some people just don't learn unless you [ __ ] rip them a new [ __ ] so it's like it gets but it does it does frustrate me and it gets annoying so now some things I just kind of let go I'm I'm kind of only focused on what affects nek like I can't I've learned I also can't help everybody I can tell you something once I could tell you something twice if you're gonna keep doing it that's gonna be up to you you know what I'm saying like there's not enough time in my day to babysit everyone's personal lives I I get like I don't know I care about people that are close to me a lot too so I try to help people as much as I can but yeah it gets there's only so much time in a day at the end of the day people are going to do what they kind of want to do yeah there's a few um I think elon's probably a pretty good example of but I read uh sci-fi and and novels and stuff like that and and in in those books a lot of the time uh the person that's the figurehead that's usually the protagonist in the in the book or whatever you get to observe inside of their own mind the price that they need to pay in order to be a leader the fact that they need to do things or say things or make sacrifices um Ernest Shackleton the guy who attempted an Antarctic Crossing in in the sort of 1910s um he he had so many uh self-doubts that he wrote in his diary he had so much concern and didn't know if people were going to survive didn't know if they were going to be able to make it through multiple Antarctic Winters and you sort of see him writing these things down in his diary and then stepping out there to put on this Brave face that inspires everybody around him and it's kind of interesting the the unique cost that a leader has to pay uh in order to keep driving something forward and there are sort of certain very unique challenges that only maybe within even within an organization maybe only two people or one person or a couple of you know very very small group of people actually have to deal with and everybody else kind of gets to come along for the ride everybody else gets to be coached along and um main character energy and sort of assuming that you're the most important person in the story is kind of how everybody sees their life right everybody sees their world as their main character but if you actually look at anybody else's world at best you're a side character at best you're like some anciliary dude that came in partway through but if you really want to be that main character if you like the idea of being the leader if you like the idea of being a figurehead the person that's driving this thing forward there will be prices that you need to pay very very particular unique lonely prices that you can put a brave face on it or you can grin about it as much as you want but ultimately there is a lot of [ __ ] to eat and you are going to have to eat it 100% it comes with the territory I would never complain about it it just yeah I've that's something kind of that I've had to deal with more recently as our business has grown as like you said yeah the the stakes are higher now there's more responsibility so back then when we're just [ __ ] around and we were you know now it's the stakes are higher so there's a lot more on the line there's a lot more on the line what's the uh what's the toughest part of your job I don't want to sound like a [ __ ] or like complaining because like there like what I I'm so [ __ ] grateful for like my life and my job and stuff but I mean if there's one thing that just burns me out maybe it's just traveling like a lot all the time the lack of a the lack of a routine and like structure that that can burn me out like if we're traveling all the time um back when we were probably like drinking a lot and partying that would that was starting to burn me out a lot starting to lose it a little bit maybe but how so uh not like lose it but just I mean as you get older bro too we were talking about it too like bro I obviously just can't I can't drink like a I can't drink like I used to like obviously when I'm 21 I didn't even know what a hangover was I'm 30 now so I get hung like a [ __ ] it feels like I got hit by a bus you know so I think it's just it's that too so when we're part if we're like traveling and drinking a lot too that can burn me out I love I mean I love having a rout too like when I'm in Miami and I'm just on my [ __ ] like just exactly what we did this morning dialed working out that feels really really good to me now the older I get I think the simple things just become more and more important and just taking care of yourself keeping your mind right so if there's one thing it's just that it's just the traveling sometimes Burns you out but do you lose motivation or do you get have low points it seems like you you have this sort of quite upbeat mentality a lot of of the time not only that that's your disposition but also that you need to be that for everybody else they're going to look to you well Kyle's got to bring the vibe to this thing yeah um but I think I think I definitely lose I think I lose motivation sometimes I mean I think everyone goes through points where yeah maybe you just get low or you kind of question like oh do I want to do this like what's the point of this anymore you know I've gone through phases like that where it's just like yeah you're just like why do I need to do this you know what if but I think those are just like little funks that everybody has and you kind of just got to break out of them and you got to kind of like look at stuff from like an outside perspective too um yeah I think I'm so grateful to have this life and like everything I've built so if you think about other people's lives or what they have or what their problems are compared to yours I find that's like a great thing I do sometimes just whenever you're complaining about something like really take a look at what you're complaining about compared to other people's problems so anytime I find myself in a funk I'll kind of just think of that and be like yo this is my problem compared to like someone else's problem like look around me look what I've got not even material-wise like I have a great family I have [ __ ] great friends I have a great life like some people don't have that so all the stuff you kind of take for granted sometimes not everyone has how much do you rely on the sort of group around you do you think he could do this you couldn't do this on your room no the group we have right now is like really really solid like obviously I have Gabe who's like my assistant like Lifesaver he's the best like we've become best friends too and he's like there's no one better than him in anything um yeah I mean o God who edits all our videos Shan Haney Brett Jud there's just like a whole crew of like our whole team is just like so good and I think that's what's as we get bigger and bigger that's what's really important is like having this team it's never a oneman army for sure and yeah now like the crew we have it's like we're all great friends we hang out like we work out we party so I was telling you team's key I've been spending more time around bands and I think uh a lot of what is happening in New Media is Reinventing what already happened in Old media so there's ad breaks right and sometimes there's a little transition sounds between ads and there's regular guests that come up and sometimes there's segments and so it's like all of this existed in radio all of this existed in TV but when I was thinking about um how people that travel a lot like what is an existing artistic Endeavor or project that has some degree of travel in it some degree of um sort of difficult uh sleep and wake schedule maybe there's some partying there's a um obligation for performance all of this stuff like well Comedians and bands are two good examples of this so I've been looking quite closely at how bands sort of maintain their motivation and one of the fascinating things around that is you can have somebody who is an amazing musician who would perform phenomenally on stage that the audience might love but a [ __ ] hang and or vice versa there's someone that's an amazing hang that's great for the morale behind the scenes but can't deliver what they need to do when it comes to this and basically my point being that even with comedians a lot of them will have some sort of tour manager or a warm-up act that goes with them and yeah sure the the tm's got a job to do checking into the hotel dealing with delays Etc the warm-up acts got a job to do they need to make sure that the crowd is nice and ready for you to come on stage and they'll give you a hand but what are they really there for they're there for morale they're there to keep to keep your Vibe good and um yeah I think that's something that I being the solo preneur type D gen thing working away in his room in solitude for a long time I think that's a lesson that I kind of overlooked that I I've done this on my own for you know seven years now I need anyone [ __ ] it I'll just keep doing this you go yeah you're going to get yourself to the stage where you need to lean on other people because you're just going to your Tank's going to be empty and um yeah that's something especially observing you guys and seeing how important that group dynamic is and everybody's here it's your house yeah right it's our house yeah uh but everybody's in here everybody's there for the hang something it's unorthodox something blows up you know someone's coming for you someone's criticizing you they're there to help support you something goes well they're there to celebrate it with you um and we glorify the sort of Sigma male Lone Ranger I'm going to do it on my own thing yeah I don't think that that's the best way to do it to enjoy the good times and I don't think it's the best way to do it to weather the bad times either I agree yeah no we the crew we have right now is like we're all just we're all just friends so it's like yeah we celebrate the good times we battle through the bad times and yeah there's a lot of like it's like a friend group so it's like you're working and you're also having fun so some things aren't done the most professionally but I think that that's always been the magic of nek and like what we've created like you never even sometimes maybe we got a little bit too corporate and stuff too like that never [ __ ] that never works I don't think like for Content like we got an office in OC for a bit and not not that it like killed our content for for anything it was just like waste of money for for for nek um happy Dad completely took over that office cuz they needed the space anyway but for us it's way better for me like now the editing office you saw is like right over there I don't want to drive to the office every day like this is the way that we've always done it it's like I wake up I can just go walk over there after the cold tub and be like what's good how's the video looking boys and I can just go sit with them for 10 minutes and we just like boom we just did like two hours worth of work like as I was coming back to like shower yeah it's funny the uh the need for slack and coals and check-ins and updates and where are we at project management I think that that works in a business obvious like these businesses obviously you need that but I think in a creative business and obviously filming or a YouTube crew any of that typical [ __ ] I find it doesn't work you got to do it your way you got to keep it fun you got to keep it you got to keep good energy yeah you know the second people don't want to be there it's it's not going to be good yeah it's uh it's a really interesting Challenge and it's part of the thing that people don't see where um behind the scenes the energy that you bring to something this is something that Rogan's got so right it's so seamless like going and working like he has just removed all of the friction there is zero friction involved in his entire process and the team that he's got around him and the guys that he likes hanging with are just fire yeah you know he's got his little Squad and you turn up at the studio and he doesn't need to think at all about anything that's going on he gets to turn up and do his thing and then he goes away and nothing saps that energy from him and I think that yeah observing you guys I've learned a lot from sort of seeing how you've held that energy together and I think it's uh it's really impressive and obviously as well the proofs in the pudding you've kept going for 10 years so it while evidently works yeah yeah it's been a long ass Journey for sure what would you like to do next like what's from a Content perspective from a business perspective um I want to this year I'm I'm pretty [ __ ] motivated right now me too I think uh yeah I mean I think last year I got a little bit comfortable maybe for a different couple different reasons but I think this year um even just after the reaction of our last video like the nek channel is so unique what we have like like even the videoos at like 5 mil or something like that's a lot of views for a YouTube video not not a lot of people are getting views like that in our genre obviously Mr Beast gets like crazy number but for our like genre like that's just that's awesome to me so and I had such a great time doing that so a lot of people have been asking for us to like upload more which I want to slightly tough if you go into an uncontacted tribe yeah yeah but I want to I want to get back into like trying to do a lot more nek videos for sure and then keeping the podcast going too we um next week we're going to ufcl so we're going to do like a pod with all those with all those guys and we got a couple good guests in the works and then we got the inauguration so we'll probably we'll have a lot of good gu you able to film at the inauguration we're trying to we we want to try to make an inauguration video for Neel but we'll see it might who gets to go with you because you must have a limited number of tickets you can't just bring every it'll be it'll be me and steiny and then it'll be osgod our filmer and then probably Gabe Gabe will be in charge of Suits he's in charge of Suits heing he wants to be in charge of Suits though G you in charge of suits job we we throw on them okay well we'll see yeah that'll be cool but yeah no this year we just want to uh we just want to kill it with content shorts nek full sen pod how do you come to think about what makes a good uh nek video or what makes a good piece of content the first thing we'll think of is I guess you think of it at the same time but what's going to make a good video obviously but then you have to think of a good title and thumbnail I mean you know how it works but that's that's the main thing so if you think of a good idea then the next thing you think of is okay well what's the title and thumbnail and then if we can't think of that you don't really have a full concept you know what makes it is the title and thumbnail and then actually good quality content yeah but title and thumbnail is everything on YouTube right I mean that's the very first thing you should kind of be thinking about and yeah just what's going to be digestible to like a large audience our whole team likes getting views too like I think that's what we want to make a video and what's going to get the most hype what's going to get the most [ __ ] views like that's what really motivates like me Saleem steiny everybody on our team what's just going to like make noise so what's the watch time on a 40 minute Vlog for you guys do you know I don't even I'm not a [ __ ] huge YouTube analytics guy honestly I let like our guy Juds like super into that like he'll be like bro this short had [ __ ] 110% retention I'm like dude yeah like I don't really I'm not a huge YouTube analytics guy but um yeah lots of completion though yeah yeah for sure yeah there's um I wish that there was a way that we could see more sentiment on YouTube than just click through and watch time and I guess likes kind of contribute a little bit to that and comments kind of contribute but getting a lot of likes is nice too it is good it doesn't do [ __ ] I tell the audience but it just it fires the whole team up to just see like a lot of likes yeah this isn't going to make it go any further but thank you it makes everybody in the office um yeah I wish there was this idea that Twitter had X I guess about um golden hearts or super likes I think they were called and what they had was you maybe got three per week or one per week and it meant that because there was a limited number that you had to use you had to be really selective about what you gave it to but that made that and it was a really big deal you know like on Reddit you can kind of gift people stuff um YouTube should do more [ __ ] like that right it would be so good cuz if there's they've lost like that I don't know like yeah there's not really that much point of even having an account that much right like before it was all about subscribers and you know you would subscribe to people like it kind of sucks now too I don't know if you noticed but it's a lot harder to gain Subs now right way harder and this the number there's no point of subscribing to someone no because if you watch three videos in a row from the same Creator whether you've subscribed or not you're now going to be delivered that YouTube used to be all about your subscriptions yeah yeah I don't know I mean I like the fact that they they need to add they need to bring like a Dana White on for like they they should do something like that they should bring someone on and like add some stuff like that I wonder if they'll follow suit I mean we've certainly seen you know the person that broke through was Elon with then what he changed with regards to Twitter intox and now with mattera as well I wonder if that's going to put some pressure on on YouTube and um that would be great to sort of I think x x has been putting pressure on YouTube because they've got the video uploads yeah yeah I know I mean we're John is pretty tight with he helps out a lot with X and yeah they're definitely what elon's doing is putting pressure on every other social media Network you know because they they have to follow suit I've actually even noticed YouTube is and I want to give credit to YouTube because we we [ __ ] on them a lot but at the end of the day YouTube is [ __ ] great and they they've been a lot more lenient I've noticed I I've noticed since X um I don't think we've gotten like an age restriction in like a long ass time we used to upload everything age restricted age restricted age restricted like now like I noticed yeah I think it during the time of X2 like we would do a podcast with like Donald Trump junor and like he's just going off about like trans and stuff like that like usually that would be like yo an absolute noo and just like no age restriction no nothing so I started to really notice like YouTube is they're following suit as well like they're they're going to have to follow the money everyone's going to have to follow the money I've noticed they've been way less picky on us yeah I well they rolled back the language policy thing that they brought in about a year or 18 months ago Al it was within the first 2 minutes of a video and we're going through and thinking oh God someone said [ __ ] within this time we've got to get rid of that found out that the CW is just an instant demonetization no matter how deep it it can be an hour and a half into a three-h hour long video it's like you're you're getting popped um but are you how much are you tracking this world of kick and twitch and Rumble and whatever the other ones are streaming stuff cuz I kind of see it's huge right right uhhuh I wa I watch it and like even like some people on our team are like should we do this should we stream I just think that I don't know streaming is a it's a big commitment you know and I think to like back in the day when we were younger and we were drinking five times a week to make a video every week I think we probably could have competed in that streaming space but the amount of work that these guys are putting in now for Content I mean they're streaming what six days a week 10 hours 8 like Kai sonat too he's like what 21 like he's [ __ ] yeah they're putting in a lot of work streaming is not the type of thing um that you can just do it once a week like you got to be streaming 30 to whatever hours a week so I just know how content gets done on the nek side it's a little more Wilder there's there's drinking involved and there's things that need to be cut out there's things that oh yeah that's a whole different story yeah a live stream with nelk depending on the video would be yeah we might be [ __ ] on that honestly but um yeah it's just a it's It's a Grind for sure and I think if in like 2017 I think we would have been able to like destroy that space for sure like when we were just young and not even thinking but I don't know I just like the YouTube stuff I like making more of like a finished product and like polishing our videos and I just love the style that we do who is it that's orchestrating the stuff behind the scenes like you say hey it would be great if we went to go and see an uncontacted Amazonian tribe but flights need booking and licenses to get filming rights and and and the kit needs organiz I'll probably like I'll probably mostly like think of the ideas or we just have a group chat with everyone too that we're just always spitballing [ __ ] but yeah I'll kind of I'll press play on the video and tell them like all right I like we all like this idea everyone like it all right boom we're doing it and then we have a producer Griffin um he used to do some stuff on like the air Andre show he's a beast and then Gabe too Gabe and Brett they'll do all the flights all the logistics so I just my job now is like I press play and I dish it off to them and they're all all on top of logistics Austin and Sean will hand could no we used to do everything back in the day I mean I used to edit the videos myself back in the day so I I've had a hat I I was my own assistant back in the day like if there was a prop that needed to get it I would have to go to three different Halloween stores to find the costume so I've like played all those hats that everyone's doing now so I kind of know what needs to be done that's why when I'm hiring them too I'm kind of kniz I know exactly what needs to be done in each situation but no we have a [ __ ] All-Star team so when we press play on a video it's like bang bang bang there's like no [ __ ] that's one thing like Gabe knows too there's no [ __ ] when it comes to like videos like we did a bachelor video recently with steiny as The Bachelor and that was like huge budget we did like five days we did like Miami Nashville and Cancun and it was just like completely dialed to a te so that's one thing I have no complaints about is our our video process is like 10 out of 10 that's why I'm just like yo we got to run this [ __ ] up on nek yeah because you've got the systems and bl we have the system and it's just like such a powerful Channel people want more videos I'm fired up that's sick yeah dude I appreciate the [ __ ] out of you yeah uh it's awesome it really is it's cool to see what you're doing uh I love I love seeing someone that's passionate about what they what they do and is able to scale it and get out of their own way and just hand stuff off and uh yeah I'm excited to see what 25 has in store for both of us crash at this year appreciate you man appreciate you brother let's go uh any more drops any other [ __ ] that people need to check out not really just watch us this year I mean I just talked to big game so everyone everyone watching if we don't do it come trip me come give me [ __ ] stay on our asses I love it yeah appreciate you thank you guys thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that episode with Kyle my fulllength three-hour long conversation with the one and only Alex hosi is waiting for you right here come on press it