Mark Rober: Feeling Stuck in a Rut? Use THIS Simple 3- Step Method Engineers Use to FINALLY Turn Your Ideas Into Reality!

25:33I had this idea. I thought it was cool. So I moonlit nights and weekends, basically bootstrapped the company. And then when I launched the video the next year to explain what it was, that t-shirt idea. You know, we made our money back in eight hours. And then, yeah. So very meandering.

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29:49Did you always have the ability to turn an idea into action and how? What have you learned about that, right? Like there's a big, a lot of people have good ideas. And I'm sure you hear them all the time. I hear them all the time. And people come up to me and be like, Jay, I've had this incredible idea. I want to build this thing. But then it stops there. It doesn't get somewhere. What have you learned about turning ideas into action? What's worked for you? My superpower is my naive optimism. Like, I'm just an idiot that thinks I can do it. And I don't see, like, I just feel like, oh, this is so obvious.

30:22Like, I can totally do this. If I knew the amount of work it actually would end up being, I'd be very discouraged. But I'm just like an idiot who's like, oh yeah, I could do this. Like, I think this makes sense. Like I see the end goal. And so then any pitfall that comes along the way, like I'm so focused on this end goal and like that matters, right? Like the attitude you have and whether or not you believe you think you can do it. And so then if I think I can do it, then the next step is like, well, let me break this down into all the steps. And step one is this, and I'm just going to dominate that step.

30:55And then, you know, just kind of step through it. It's literally the engineering design process, but for ideas and businesses. Walk us through the engineering design process for anyone who doesn't know what that is. Like break that down for us, make it simple. But I think the idea, it's just like you have an end goal, an objective and break it down into the steps and know what you don't know and test what you don't know. It's kind of like, you know, give your best shot at it. You kind of, in the engineering, let's say if I'm designing a piece for the Mars rover, I think, okay, I think it needs, you know, maybe it's the, the, the, the wheel for the Mars rover.

31:32I think it needs to probably look like this. I'm going to design it in CAD. I'm going to analyze it analytically with computer programs, but that's not what I fly to Mars. I take that and then I build it and then I test it to see if it matches. And then sure enough, oh, it does match up. All right. Now it's good enough. I've tested it. Now I can fly it to Mars. So I think it's this idea of like building iteratively and, and, and breaking things like Part of designing that is I would make one and I would smash it with a bunch of stuff. So I know the limits of the wheel, right? So again, we call that a failure in others outside of engineering, but we embrace that.

32:10And it's like, great, now we know. Now let's tweak it and we're going to, now we can build something better, right? But I think a lot of times in life, if you get a bad grade on a test, then you internalize I'm not good at math or a relationship fails. You're like, I'm just not good at this love thing. Or a business fails. You're like, I guess I'm not a good businessman. But if you look at it like an engineer, or even like a video game, I think is like a good way to do it. Like if you frame your challenges like a video game, no one picks up a controller to play a video game and falls in a pit, say Super Mario Brothers or something, and thinks I'm a failure.

32:45Like, how embarrassing. I'm terrible at video games. No, you're immediately like, oh, shoot. What did I just learn from that? I'm going to jump a little faster. I'm going to run a little faster, jump a little. You're excited to try again, right? So just the framing of it, it turns from fear to curiosity, where you want to get up and try it again. So if it's like, and you asked me, oh, when you have ideas, I'm thinking of it like a video game, where it's like, I want to rescue Princess from Bowser. So when I get the sliding green turtle shell, which could look like a lot of different things, I don't internalize that I'm a bad player.

33:18I'm like, got it. I know the shell comes right here. I'm going to jump a little faster, right? And that is a life hack. Like truly, this happens to me all the time on just whenever we want to do a big video. We just filmed a video where I made a soccer goalie robot that goes back and forth at like 80 miles an hour. And then Cristiano Ronaldo tried to score on it. Right. It took us like a year to build. So we tracked the ball. And in the first six milliseconds, when the ball has gone from like here to here, I just moved it like maybe an eighth of an inch. we know exactly where the goalie needs to be to stop that ball so it's hilarious to see you know he tries to do it and of course he misses no he's there's no way he can score it's way too fast from the penalty kick area yeah he kicks it 80 miles an hour and the robot's just like just goes and it's oh my gosh so the point is though with that video i mean there was tons of sliding green shells and setbacks and you know and and that doesn't mean it doesn't sting by the way failure still can sting this isn't some fake Pollyanna attitude right but it's this idea of like oh dang it but I'm okay here we go we're going at this again right yeah and I think that can help you accomplish so much more in life and and just have honestly better relationships even right because it's just like the way you approach it is like okay what did I learn versus internalizing that it's something about me yeah well said really well said and I love the video game analogy because you're so right.

34:48You die. And even though it says game over, you don't feel that way. No. You're like next, next, you know, you want to get another life. You want to play again. Like you never, ever. And it's so crazy. Cause I'm like, it actually says game over and you don't care. And whereas if someone says game over in real life or you get rejected or you don't get a job and you apply for one, that hurts much worse. And I guess because it feels like it has real stakes. I think it's more like you internal, you think that makes you unemployable. You internalize what that means about you, but you don't do that in video games.

35:24You don't say I'm a bad video game player. And I think the same is true in life. Like anyone who's got to somewhere in life, they started out sucky at that. Right. And then they just learned and iterated and overcame. It's the same thing we said with companies, like no fortune 100 company today started out doing what they do now. They've pivoted 15 times, right? And so I think it's this ability to just like not internalize what it says about you and just almost flip it. Like I'm a person who embraces failure and celebrates it. Let's it sting, just like in a video game. It sucks to miss that key jump on level eight, one on Super Mario Brothers, the little platform, but it's like, dang it, we're going back because you're focused on the end goal.

36:07You're focused on what that would feel like, not the pits and the mistakes. What's a failure that you ever experienced in life that you did internalize? Did that ever happen? I got married pretty young. And then it's very amicable, but like five years ago, I split with my wife. I'm pretty private with my private life for like reasons and stuff. But I was like really cautious to get out and like date again. It just, it took me a year to even like start.

36:41Um, and I don't know, it felt like I was just very protective. Like I didn't, I wanted, if I was going to find my person, like I wanted them to love me and not the thought of me or, you know, you just want it to be authentic. Right. Um, and so like, I never, I just wasn't, I was being very cautious about everything. then I did find someone that I thought was like, this was, this was it. And I'm for the first time, like really opened my heart, right? Like being really, really open and like the worst possible situation happened where it was like, it was, um,

37:24it felt, it was like a betrayal. Something happened that it was like, it was essentially this, the worst case where it's like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to really lean in. And then it happened. And it was absolutely the worst pain like I've experienced as an adult. It was like really, really hard. And it was hard to feel like I would ever find this thing that I felt like other people have found. And I've, I'd never felt it my whole life. Um, and so taking a beat after that was like, I think it was hard. That was like a really, really difficult period for me. Um, but then I honestly, eventually I came around to this super Mario thing and I'm like, you know what?

38:03Like, it's just a number. Like, I just got to put in the reps. I got to like put the work in. And so I did that. And then again, failed. I did like, I was like, I'm going to, in 30 days, I'm going to like try and this, I'm such an engineer. I basically made a goal where it's like, I'm going to go on 30 FaceTime dates in 30 days and just like 20 minutes just to get a feel. Cause you know, in the first three minutes, if there's a connection or not. Right. And I did that and it was, again, Jay, and these were like amazing, accomplished, attractive, lovely human beings, lovely women, right? And I felt nothing.

38:42And I was like, damn, like, I think, is this me? So I was like, you know what? I'm going to do one more. And then I did one more. And that's my partner. And she's my life partner. It's like it. And it was a matter of like, it was like half hour in. And it's like, yep, this is it. And it feels like coming home. It's like when you find the right person, it feels like home. It's just like, yeah. And it's just like no reservations. And we're both the same way. And she had the same experience. Yeah, she's wonderful, man. Yeah, and you met her. And she's had the same experience where she just never felt like she'd found it.

39:20And immediately we're just like, this is it. Cool, done. Close the spreadsheet. Delete it. So you did engineer your way to love. I did engineer my way. Which is funny because she's the opposite. She's more like you, Jay. She just puts it out to the universe. So she's the dreamer and I'm the thinker. And we each try and take credit for us getting together. She's like, look, I put it out to the universe. I'm like, no, I put in the work. Yeah, you put in the work. Yeah, no, I love that. I mean, to me, I mean, I'm actually, people know less about, I'm a bit of both as well. There's an engineer in me, not in the way you are, but in that practical, pragmatic approach to what it really takes to getting the reps in.

40:02And I like that, that it even applied to love, that doing 30 FaceTime calls and 30 dates, that is what it takes to figure out if you have a connection with someone and to speed it up. I always, I do what I call for myself immersion weekends. And so if I'm really fascinated by something, I will find a coach, find the book, find the TED talk, find the course and do it all in one weekend to figure out whether I care or not. And I do these immersion weekends all the time where I'll literally obsess over something for 48 hours. And if I really like it, then it becomes a part of my consistent schedule.

40:36And if I hate it, I won't go back again and I'm okay. And I've loved doing that over time where I'm like, I'm fascinated by this. I don't have time to go on a weekly course. I don't know if I want to invest that time. I don't want to commit to a retreat, who knows? But I could do it for a whole weekend. That's genius. Yeah, it works wonders for me. And that goes back to kind of what I was saying before, to just like whatever's the step in front, dominate it. Dominate, yeah. And if you really immerse yourself, like it will be very clear at the end of that weekend if this is something you want to do more versus like just dabbling in it.

41:06Dabbling, yeah. What's an example? I'm going to turn the tables on you. Go on. What's the last thing you did like that? Like an immersion weekend? The immersion weekend? Yeah. I'll be honest. I just did it this weekend. It was acting. So I've been getting all these opportunities to like audition for like TV and film. And I've just been kind of going back and forth. I've spent a lot of time on movie sets with actors that I coach, not in acting, in my work. And I've spent a lot of time on movie sets, but I've never been the person doing it. I've done a few cameos here and there. And because I was getting all these opportunities, my question always is, do I love the process?

41:41I'm not interested in the result or is it cool? I'm like, do I actually love doing the thing? And so this whole weekend, I had an acting coach. I was with them for three hours a day. I was doing all the reading pre of the scripts that they sent me. I was doing the reading of books outside of it around acting and writing just to see if I enjoy the process. And I was like, worst case, I'm going to hate the process and learn some skills. Best case, I'm going to love it. And it's going to open up new opportunities. I loved it. I had a great time. Yeah. I was reading scripts. I was learning about characters.

42:12We were doing scene study and analysis. Like it was, it was almost like just reading material and discussing it with someone and then trying to figure out what the actor's objectives were and what their tactic is and what their motive is. It was fascinating. Really? I love it. So you're going to do more than it was. I'm going to do more coaching. I'm going to take more classes because it was just so, it was so fun. And if it becomes something that I enjoy enough, I would pursue it professionally. But even if I don't, it's just something that I'm currently immersed in. I feel like you would be great.

42:42It's like, you have to, um, yeah, putting yourself in the shoes of the person. Like, I don't even know what to do with like my face. It's like, Like, I'm supposed to be sad that I really want to just like, you know, pout my lip. And it's like, apparently that's not what you're supposed to do. But that's what was so fascinating about it. And I think we're both talking about this idea of learning something deeply was when you're sitting down with a professional, the way they talk about it. And he was talking about like the Stanislav method and the Chekhov method. And there's all these, there's systems of why the best of the best.

43:16Like they're not just the best because they have it. They've studied systems and they've worked at it. And so to me, it was just like, there's this method where it's called to act as if. So you can't relate to what the character's going through, but you have something that happened in your life that makes you feel that way that the character's feeling and you channel that. And so to me, it was just, I was just fascinated by the empathy that actors have to have, the compassion, the connection to embody characters. But that was my most recent - I love that. My thing right now, again, like I'm kind of with you I love mastery like finding mine's public speaking I hate public speaking I hate it but my goal is just be really good at it in like a year so I'm currently working up I'm actually doing a TED talk in April actually this is cool to actually mention to you because I haven't really talked about this publicly much but we're doing so through the YouTube channel we've learned how to like hide the vegetables right basically teach science you don't even know what's happening right so we're taking all the learnings we've taken from that like because kids can watch or people can just watch whatever they want to on youtube but they choose to watch this and they're making a full science curriculum that's amazing third to eighth grade it involves you know has my fellow youtube friends you know i just got cristiano ronaldo and we're filming him he's part of it just a bunch of people in it but then you know resources for the teachers really cool hands-on activities in class everything and then it's gonna cost about it's gonna cost us about like 55 million dollars to make they would make it free forever for all where will it go online so you don't have it won't be in your school no it's like a it's like online teachers can use it it's a full it adheres to all of the standards right because teachers will tell you like they can't teach a kid if they don't have their attention and what i've learned to do on YouTube is getting their attention.

45:06So for example, the electricity and magnetism lesson, we just filmed this. There's an MRI machine. I put a watermelon inside it. I'm holding like a 10 pound hammer. And then you essentially flip on the MRI machine. And, but you know, the hammer just flies out of my hand, destroys this watermelon. And now Jay, I've got your attention. And now I could say, you know, there's invisible magnetic fields all around us that exist. Yeah. Right. And so teachers can use these in school. They could play that video. So and it has, you know, the whole lesson, what they say back to the kids, it will replace their science curriculum.

45:37Right. Wow. And it's going to cost us like three years. Why is it going to cost you fifty five million dollars? It's it's a huge undertaking. There's like forty six different units like it's science. It's all six through eighth grade science and then also third grade through through fifth grade. So and you are funding it. Yeah. And I mean, yes. And there are already some generous people who are coming out and helping it fund. But like, regardless, I was, we've started funding it myself anyways, with the profits we had from Crunch Lams. So we're going to announce that at the TED talk and like that, I really want to nail that presentation.

46:13So I'm happy to help, man. Okay. I was lucky. My parents forced me to go to public speaking and drama school when I was 11. Oh, really? So all my state speaking skills from having studied it for seven years, eight years. And so. Yeah. You're a mess. One of my favorites. Okay. Yeah. I'll record the rehearsal and I'll send it to you. Yeah. I mean, they have pros there. Obviously, Ted have such a great scripting team and a great pro speaking team. They're not Jay Shetty. That's going to be amazing. I'm excited to see that. I'm pretty stoked. I feel like it's the most important thing I'll do my whole life.

46:43But I love that you're doing things that scare you. Like even at this point, having had so much success and having, you know, being, you know, the spokesperson for science across the world. It's incredible to see you say, I'm still scared of this. I'm going to do it. No, like I crave it, Jay. Like I also like, uh, I started like going to the gym two years ago, same thing where it's just like, I just love an opportunity for mastery. It is this video game thing. Right. I think a lot, if you say that I've seen success in my life, a lot of it comes down to this mentality of it's like, I just love working on something and the feeling of incrementally getting better.

47:20I mean, that's how our brains work. Right. You're a lot of studies have showed if you get a huge raise and then, and then your salary's flat. for 10 years versus incrementally go up to that 10 years. Like you're much happier, way more dopamine to your brain. If you incrementally level up, this is again, how video games even work. You start the video game with a wooden sword and three heart containers because they reverse engineer. You love just like little levels up. So opportunities that life provides you to just find something like that and then get better at the end of a couple of years or months or whatever, decades, nothing better.

47:55How do you keep the childlike, fun energy, playful energy that you have that your work requires and at the same time run businesses? Because to me, that's the balance that young entrepreneurs, seasoned entrepreneurs, everyone runs into. It's like running the business is a serious business. But then the business is all about play, curiosity, fun, crazy experiments, right? And we'll get into some of the videos that you love the most. But how do you think about the curiosity, creativity part of the business and then the running of a business? Yeah, I think it's good. There's been studies that look at like successful mid-range companies or companies worth, say, 50 to$500 million or something, or even 10 to$500 million.

48:43And what all of them have in common is there's one person who has the swim lane of being the creative, the big thinker, you know, the 10X thinker, and then one person who's logistics, right? So, you know, one person who can build the thing and one person who can run the thing. And I was very lucky, a buddy of mine, Jim, you know, worked at Google. I knew he had a very analytical brain. And I said, Hey, I'm thinking about starting this company, Crunch Labs, you know, make me a model, financial model to see if it works. And he did and educated me on how they work. It's still the model we use today and the company's doing very well.

49:19So he's been the one to like, in my opinion, make all the, all the boring stuff. I don't want to look at Jay. Oh, we have to have like a, a warehouse that ships out the stuff. Like, I don't know, just find a good one and he'll geek out over it and he has them, you know what I mean? And I'm thinking about like, Oh, this is, we could do this, you know, but we could do this. So I think truly if you're starting a business and you're the creative one, just don't try and do the other thing. And the good news is if you're the creative one, the other one's a lot easier to find. Like the creative, like the good, that's more of a rare talent.

49:52So just find someone to help you. Yeah. It's great advice. Yeah. At some point, if you're small, if you're doing something small, like Halloween t-shirt company, like you can be both, but at some point it'll just get way too hard. Yeah. No, I fully agree with you. We did the same. And I remember when I bought on one of my partners in the early days, everyone was like, you don't want to give away a percentage. Like, don't do that. You know, it's all your creativity. And I was like, you have no idea how much time because i said to my mem i said all i want to do is think study and teach and create like that's that's where i want to live like that's my strength superpower that's my fascination like i love reading and studying and learning about psychology and ancient wisdom and science and behavioral science and i that's that's what i love reading studying learning observing humans and then turning into stuff that people can use to make their lives better yeah but i don't want to run any of the other stuff.

50:44And so I think knowing that and owning that like is a key to staying happy and honestly fighting burnout. I think a lot of times people feel burnt out in a creative endeavor. It's because they lost sight of what got them in it in the first place. And they're managing 15 people and they're a manager now. They're not a creative. And they're like, why am I doing this? I'm not getting the satisfaction. It's like, oh, because you're not doing what you started doing. Yeah. What did you learn at Apple that you didn't learn at NASA? Um, Apple, I would say like NASA, I feel like had a very, a lot of smart people at Apple.

51:18You had to be pretty smart, but a very good communicator, which is like, I just keyed in on this and communication and, and sharing ideas and like telling stories matters a lot in, you know, people think I'm a good engineer, you know, I could build cool stuff, but it's like, I'm an okay engineer, Jay. I'm a pretty damn good storyteller. And in the videos, you're telling stories, right? Like this video with Cristiano Ronaldo, where he said with the goalie robot going back and forth, like it starts out like, you know, this is my childhood dream. I want to do this thing. And I even landed Donovan takes me out and he's like a coach.

51:57And he's like, dude, you suck. You know? And so it's like, okay, well, if I can't do with my athletic prowess, I'm going to do with my brain. So now I'm going to make this goal, right? So you like, You case the whole thing in a story, right? And I think at Apple, I learned that. There are some very, very good engineers who are also incredible communicators of explaining ideas. And that's what really makes us special as a species, the ability to cooperate on large scale. And we do that through telling stories, right? We've evolved to tell stories. Long before you could write stuff down, we communicated through telling stories and making somebody feel something.

52:33That's how you make a viral video. You just, you have to evoke a visceral response. And if you can do that, that helps you at work because it convinces everyone else like, hey, this is a good idea. Let's all do this. Helps you in your relationships. Like if you can really create that visceral response by connecting with the human, then you know, your partner will, or your child or friend will accept your apology, right? Like, um, it'll help you. yeah just personal life business anything by tapping into the ability and owning the ability of like i need to say this in a way that connects heart to heart not brain to brain whereas it you know nasa was like well you know our rover is 20 faster on the gigahertz and it's like nobody cares right apple i feel like is a very good example of this right like airpods is an example like the the advertising for airpods they're just technically they're just better than any other had you know yes there any like ear in your product out there but the commercials are like the dance it focuses on the feeling right like what does it feel like to have these things not like here's the tech spec of why it's better yeah and as a result i think they're like if they were a standalone company it would be the market cap would be like i don't know it's something crazy like just for the airport just for the air it's like 50 billion dollar market cap just for the AirPods.

53:52Crazy. It's crazy.

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57:29Yeah, it's such a, hearing you say that is fascinating because, yeah, I read a study years ago. It was early days, but New York Times did a study on 7 ,000 pieces of viral content. and the output was the 7 ,000 pieces of viral content. They made people feel five things. One of five things. The first was adventure, which your content does all the time. Humor, your content does that too. Or comedy, obviously. The third feeling was negativity. Yep, anger. The news, anger, rage. Yours does not do that. the fourth was inspiration. So you felt inspired after watching it. And the fifth was surprise. And so those were the five emotions and they were all feelings.

58:17And I always share that with people because I'm like, your content is trying to teach me something. It's trying to tell me something. And you're talking about adding value, but when you're trying to add value, you're not making me feel anything. And it's what you were saying about hiding the vegetables. It's like, if you're making people feel entertained, then you're learning about engineering and process and design and everything. But if I'm like, I'm going to teach you engineering, now I'm not, I'm feeling bored. Yeah. And that's not on the top five list. And so I'm not feeling anything. I wanted to ask you about, I want to get tactical with you because you're also a YouTube creative genius.

58:50It's like, what was the journey from zero to a thousand subscribers? What does that look like for someone? If someone's trying to do that as stage one? There's a lot of really good reasons to start a YouTube channel or to be a creative. There's only two bad ones. Tell us. To get rich and to get famous. And I think that's like the mistake a lot of people, especially now that you know, you can get rich and famous. And I think we both started in this game. It just wasn't the same. Like you didn't realize that was it. Right. And we can't, our passion was like, we love this. Right. I thought it was going to be, I thought I was going to, because I was a consultant at the time.

59:27So I was at Accenture. Yeah. I thought I was going to be a consultant by day and just upload videos by night and weekends because I was like, this is a fun hobby. It was, it was just a creative outlet for me. I was like, I was doing live events, teaching wisdom and teaching classes and meditation. And I would teach at my local gym. I would teach at my local college, whatever. And I loved it, but I was like, oh, I'd like to share that with more people. I'll just upload some videos and yeah, I had no idea that any of this would ever happen. So, and yeah, we started, I started 2016, you started 2011.

1:00:02Yeah. But ultimately 20, I mean, like to your point, like it takes forever to get a thousand subscribers. And so I think the trick is just to make content, just to do it. Don't overthink it. You know, the temptation is you want to make the perfect thing. And again, going back to an engineer, you build prototypes. Like the biggest mistake when you want to make something is like, I want to build the final thing. Any object in this room was not built. Like this was not the final form. This was not the initial version of this microphone. Like it started very simply and then it iterated, iterated. And so it's the same thing with like creating content or making things or trying anything like set a low bar.

1:00:39You know, I like to say like, make your goal to, to fail 10 times, like flip it, make the goal. Like I want to make 10 videos. And my goal is that they don't get more than a hundred views in a sense of like, don't make your metric, but I'm not rich yet. And I'm not famous yet. Therefore I'm a failure. Like make your met, like de-stigmatize the failure and just go for it and make that. So make the goal, you know, maybe a better way to say is make the goal to just upload 10 videos in 10 weeks. That's my goal. I don't care about metric. I don't care about views. and you will learn so much more through that by then and then iterating and seeing what worked back to a video game okay i said this thing i started this way aha the algorithm seemed to really like that you know and that's what the audience wants so now i'm going to lean into that right so it's like just gamify it in that sense and it will be great don't do it to be your much or famous yeah it's great advice i remember i got to i got my first thousand subscribers in a month on youtube and i was over the moon like i was so excited i couldn't believe it like i was like this is i'd never stood in front of a i'd maybe done one talk which was a work event which had a thousand people in the audience but i'd never done my own event yeah with a thousand people i'd mostly if i'd done my own event maybe 50 was the most i'd ever had in my own live events to a thousand subscribers this is insane i remember saying to my friends and they were like yeah it's probably cool like you know good for you like you know and it felt like a failure because it to them not to me yeah because they were just like oh it's a thousand like i guess it's gonna you know, now out here.

1:02:13And it was just so interesting for me to see like, oh, it was good. I didn't feel that way because I would have stopped. Yeah. But a thousand to me was a huge win. What's the difference between getting from a thousand to a hundred thousand? Like what is changing in skillset mindset ability? You start to get like a process down. You start to be able to figure out your own voice. I think like from about 10 ,000 to a hundred thousand subscribers, You start to understand who you are, you know, and a good place to start, by the way, is just copying other channels that you like. Like, don't be ashamed at the beginning just to copy someone else's style.

1:02:49And, you know, if you don't know where to start, if you don't have something and you'll start doing it and you'll try something one time and it works and it sticks. And then you, you know, you start to find what your own voice is. You've only ever, you said you've only ever made one video a month. Yeah. how did you not get sucked in to the landscape when it was like people making a video a day people making three videos a week people make you know how did you stay true to was it just that your creative vision was so big that you could only ever do one a month partly that and just like again i wasn't doing it to chase the views and you're absolutely right there was a time in the youtube algorithm where daily vlogs is how you got all the views and i said great great for everyone else.

1:03:31I am enjoying it this way. This is what I like. This is the pace I'm comfortable with. I'm very protective. I'm very good at saying no. That's my superpower. I can have that restraint. I've got a nice, comfortable jogging pace on my treadmill, and I'm going to stick with that. And even today, I'm good at saying no. What was the hardest thing you ever said no to you know early on there were some opportunities to do some like discovery channel shows that i would have loved as a kid but then it's like when i had everything else going on like i don't know you just get opportunities that come by that you don't it's almost not hard to say no because it's like unless it's an absolute hell yes i don't even consider it right and i think that is that can be a superpower is like laser focus like i don't often like pick something that i'm just like I'm on it.

1:04:27But like, if I do choose something that it's like, I want it, like I can be like a pit bull on it where it's just like, I will not fail. I don't know. At some point, if it's not working, you need to pivot. And I do, but it's like, I just get so obsessed with accomplishing the thing that, um, I can just exclude everything else. So I, I'm, I don't have this temptation of like, and I try this, I don't want to try this. I'm going to try this and I try this. And now you're just diluted across the board, right? Because that applies not even for business, but in your relationships, right? In life. If you are stretching yourself thin, you know, I'd much rather give like five people in my life, like very deep depth and have that richness of human connection than to spread that thin across 50.

1:05:10Yeah. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's a, yeah, there's almost like there's the experimenting phase where you're trying lots of things out. Yeah. But then when you know who you are and you know your voice and you know what you're building, you got to stick to that and and it and it does make all the difference and you got to know when to let something go like the the videos I used to make on Facebook when I first started as a creator I don't make them anymore and it's not because they weren't amazing and they didn't change my life it's just that's not who I wanted to be forever yeah and they would have been really successful now if I carried on making them but I wouldn't have felt happy and so I chose what I wanted to do which was this and telling stories in a certain way that's allowed my life to also be fulfilling as well as successful rather than keeping, keep doing something because the algorithm wants it.

1:05:55That's right. And it doesn't, that gets really dry to, it gets really tiring, I think, and creators get burnt out chasing the algorithm, which I think we've both seen probably a lot of. Yeah, I think that's right. I think when you crank up that treadmill speed to a sprint pace, that's exciting at first. And it's like, whoa, all these opportunities are coming, but you know, the dopamine wears off and you're still sprinting. And to me, that's the definition of burnout when you're not getting like the positive feedback and you're like really, really going for it. So to the extent that you could just like keep your treadmill at a jogging speed in creating and in life, I think like that's, that's the power of saying no and being okay with saying no and not feeling guilty about it.

1:06:35What was the, uh, I'm looking at your most popular videos and obviously world's largest jello pool. Can you swim in jello? 203 million views six years ago, that video, what went wrong trying to get that video i lost 10 pounds making that video i'm not kidding because because we were making i get when i get stressed i don't eat it we were making it in my brother's backyard because to make jello no one's ever done this on the internet by the way to this day i'm the only person who ever made like an actual jello pool because jello as you know you have to get it really cold you got to first of all boil it and then it's got to put it in the refrigerator, right?

1:07:10So we had like six, you know, 55 gallon drums that we boiled jello and basically drained it in this pool that we'd built. And then he lived in Utah. So it was like the perfect temperature. It didn't freeze overnight, but got cold enough. And so it took a full week and it failed eight different ways. And we'd have to tweak and change it. A storm came, We're covering it with a tarp. But eventually we got that money shot of like a kid belly flopping on this pool of jello and like me swimming in it. And it felt really good. That's like, I've actually, it turns out a very technically difficult problem.

1:07:50Again, my naive optimism was like, oh, I got this. I can do this. Right. Yeah. And it was very, very tricky, but we pulled it off. What was the hidden vegetable in the egg drop from space video? 140 million views two years ago. Like what was the hidden vegetable there? Yeah, there again, that video had so many failures in it, Jay. Like we tried originally to put basically a model rocket on a hot air balloon or on a weather balloon and then guide it over a mattress where it would let go and drop the egg on the mattress. We tried that three different times and this was costing me like 30 ,000 times a drop.

1:08:28And eventually I called up one of my buddies at NASA. He's the lead when we try and land something on another planet. it. And I was like, Adam, how do we do this? And he's like, Oh, what you're trying to do is create a guided missile. And there's like a hundred people in the United States who know how to do that. And they've all signed a very large stack of papers saying they won't tell anyone. So we're like, Oh, we shouldn't try and guide this rocket down then. Well, let's go a hundred thousand feet up, you know, basically to space, drop this thing. And then we landed it like the Mars rover. So in that video we learned about terminal velocity and we learned about like space environments but kids know about i love how you were bugging a nasa friend yeah who's dealing with like solving like discovery and it's literally the man who like invented how you land on mars yeah and it's like my phone a friend you're like can you teach me how to drop an egg yeah on a mattress and he was like yeah no that's called a missile that's amazing well who have you met through doing all of this work that you've just been so like you've learned from or you've been inspired by or someone that you met through this crazy journey that you've been on that has kind of left a mark on you or someone that you always looked forward to getting to know and you've got to meet yeah i would say i don't know weirdly like a mentor for me actually has been jimmy kimmel like you know he saw one of my videos like a decade ago and said we should get this guy on the show and his staff was like after like one or two times going to show that he really likes you.

1:09:59And I'm like, you say that to everyone. But like the fourth time I was like, I think he does really. And so now he's like, uh, he, it was his idea even to start crunch labs, the company, because people will tell me all the time, like, you need to do a podcast. You need to write a book. You need to go on tour. And when I double click on it, cause again, I'm good at saying no, it always came back to like, Oh, so you can make more money. That's like, Oh, good. Great news. I don't spend a lot of money. So I've got enough money. I don't need to do that. Right. And his point was like, yeah, but you could reach more brains deeper.

1:10:31And that's the idea with Crunch Labs. It's like you're in the trenches. You're not just passively watching a video. It's a really fun toy and you're in the trenches and you get them every month. And he was totally right. Like the noun of letters we get from parents saying like, this has changed the way my kids sees the world, sees themselves, right? They love it. They go out to the mailbox every month waiting for it to come. Makes a great Christmas present, by the way, Jay. There we go. Christmas present. Yeah, I was about to say, it's a, no, it sounds like the perfect gift. I mean, I think I'll have to, I'm going to get some for my niece and nephew.

1:11:03Okay. Yeah, I think they'll love it because I can see my nephew's like 10 years old and his brain's like that. Like he wants to build stuff. He wants to break stuff. He wants to figure things out. My niece is more into like Gabby's Dollhouse and stuff like that. Well, the good news, Jay, it's funny you mentioned that. Oh, all right. Good idea. We just... No, have you got Gabby's Dollhouse, man? More or less. It's called Creative Kit. So what I do is creative engineering. The engineering part we've got covered. Build boxes, the toys I was saying, and then we have like a robotics one. But like the creative part, we never – so we like studied what creativity is.

1:11:37And now there's a version called Creative Kit that it's like six years old and up. And it's a little bit of a Trojan horse to get more girls in STEM. But also it's for boys as well. But they get a whirl every month. It's a different part of a little town they build. And the important part is like it's within guide rails. If you tell a kid, give them a piece of paper and say, come up, you know, draw something. They're like, but if you say like, draw, draw an animal doing something really doing their hobby, you know, in a place you wouldn't expect. Well, now they have like a seed, right? So it's this idea of like the first one's a tree house, but then you name, it's a little animal's friend that comes with it.

1:12:12And then we're getting that within guidelines to think really creatively. And what this research shows, you could watch these alpha brainwaves in your, is the more time you spend in this space, the easier it is to do it. So it's just like a muscle that you develop. So it's basically giving kids time in this space to be more creative. Did you always want your work and your products to help kids? Like, was that the goal for the YouTube channel from day one? Was it like, I want to help young people figure out, young kids figure out? I don't think so, to be completely honest. Like, I think it was more just like, I love sharing ideas.

1:12:45Like, I love the aha moment when you learn something new. And I love even more is like giving that to someone else. Like here's something I was just talking about with my partner the other day, which is such a cool thing to do. I don't know if you've ever done this. If you're ever laying underneath a tree and you just look up or anything where there's like a bunch of little things and you close one eye and all the leaves feel like they're kind of, or branches kind of feel like they're at the same plane because with one eye, you don't have three dimensional, you know, 3d. but when you open both eyes and realize like, oh, now I know which leaf is in front of me and which one is farther.

1:13:20Like if you've never done this, you should do it. And it's remarkable. And it's just, it's immediately just like a teachable moment that shows like, oh, like our brain, because the right eye is a little bit different from what the left eye sees. The brain does all this incredible math to tell you how far and close something is. And just to get that moment. And then now, once you know that you're like, wait, with animals, I have noticed like predators, you know, a hawk or a lion, they have eyes on the front of their face so that they could see three dimensional. But if generally speaking, if you're a prey, a zebra or deer, your eyes are on the side, they don't have the depth perception, but now they can avoid the thing that has three dimensions.

1:14:01That's trying to get them. Right. So it's like ideal. Like when you just learn something cool like that, uh, just that nugget. and now you've updated your framework for the natural world around you is so exciting and beautiful and addictive to me. And I love to give that to other people. And what I found, I especially love to give that to the young folks. What are you doing to constantly learn things like that? Like, where are you coming across statistics, facts, human behavior, animal? Like, where are you exposed to this? Where are you finding it and discovering it in a way that's helping you feel like you're always on the cusp of something cool?

1:14:37everywhere truly like i think the the answer to this question i think what you're driving at is it kind of starts with a curiosity right just and observing and being like even if there's like a weird on the side of a building or something it's like a pipe that comes out i'm like what what why is that pipe there like i've never seen a build a pipe come out there on a building and it'll drive me crazy to be honest and i have to figure it out but the step one with the scientific method too is just observation, right? The most interesting thing to hear in science isn't like Eureka, like I found it.

1:15:11The most interesting thing in science to hear, like the one thing you want to hear is like, that's interesting. Like, hold on a second, right? Like that wasn't expected. Let me double click on that and see what's going on there. So I think part of learning a bunch is just having a curiosity mind, just asking the question. And I think that's what I try and do is like, I am a fire star. My videos are not going to teach you everything you need to know about the natural world. But like, what I can do is like, and like, I can, I'm a fire star. I'll start that fire in their brain. And then they get addicted to this feeling, right?

1:15:46I'm like the gateway drug dealer to this aha feeling. And then they want to go out and learn more, right? And like that, that's beautiful. And that's a gift that you can give someone that will last their whole life long. How do you come up with creative ideas, having made a video a month for 10 years? Yeah. How are you coming up with new ideas? What's your creative process? Do you sit down in a room, lock away? Are you on your laptop? Are you talking to people? Are you with a team? What's your process? Can I tell you one that you bleep out on this, but you could play it, but then I want your reaction on camera.

1:16:25That's so good. That's so good. It's so good. I love that. Is that not so good? Why do I have to bleep that out? I love that. No, because I don't want someone to steal it. Oh, right. Oh, yes. It's such a simple thing. I could tell you it. You're like, banger. Yeah, I love it. You want to know what that is, right? That is amazing. Is it so good? That's so good. So it's just like, when I can get that reaction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, the ideas list is long. I always thought you'd run out of ideas, but it's like, I always - It has to be a hell yes. It has to be a hell yes. Yeah. But I always tend to have like a year and a half worth of ideas.

1:16:58So like we have every single video we're making in 2026 already like planned out and in process. So you're never trying to react to what's happening in the world or you're not. Yours is evergreen content. Evergreen. Yeah. Never. I want it to be evergreen. Yeah. You're not trying to react to like everyone loves AI right now. So we're going to do AI. Everyone loves robotics. So we're doing. We can't. I mean, all the videos now cost. We don't do a video that costs less than half a million dollars. Wow. Right. Every video is 500. Yeah. because we're just like, you know, we're doing stuff that's never been done before.

1:17:28So there's like a lot of R &D that goes into making a soccer robot that moves at 80 miles an hour. That's probably the best goalkeeper that Ronaldo's ever faced in his life. For sure it is, yeah. That's crazy. I can't wait to see that video. It's funny, he's very competitive. Of course, I've obsessed over Ronaldo since I was 15 years old because I was a United fan. So when he came to United when he was 17, I've been a big fan for like 23 years. So watching, I know how competitive he is and I'm like watching him fail is going to be an interesting uh his team warned us they're like he doesn't in the end like there was a way that we kind of had a built-in weakness he could exploit yeah and he did a pretty good job finding it but between you and me jay we might have like we made sure there was a weakness you should just you just now all you have to do is create robots that look like humans that are designed like your a mile per hour goalkeeper and sell them to these that's the next thing can Can you pull off selling an AI computer to Barcelona or Real Madrid?

1:18:26That's a banger idea. That would be amazing.

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1:22:05So what's the creative process then? Now you planned out that far ahead. I love the idea you just gave me that will bleep out. But how does, obviously that one makes sense. And you're like, the thing about good ideas is when you hear them, you go, of course. But coming up with it is not that easy. Yeah, I would say, and I don't have a good answer for this. No, but except to say, because I get asked this a lot, right? It's like, I think it goes back to just like, my brain is always on, right? The inspiration for ideas can come, you know, and, and it's just from a conversation I'm having with someone, or I just read something on Reddit, or I'm driving down the freeway and I'm like, hold on.

1:22:44Or I did this, you know, I'll give you two examples. One, I did this obstacle course for squirrels in my backyard. That's kind of popular on the channel right around COVID. And I was, you know, they were stealing my birdseeder. So it's like, all right, but they were stealing my birdseed. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to make them earn it. So I made an eight part Ninja Warrior obstacle course and put the bird seat at the end. And sure enough, they solved it. It was very entertaining. But like the idea for that came from me just laying in bed and hearing them on the roof and knowing they're still my bird seat.

1:23:11I was like, hold on. I should do like man versus animal, engineer versus animal. Or another one. I made this Glitter Bomb series where like someone legitimately stole a package from my porch. I felt really sad. It was a sliding green shell in Super Mario Brothers. It stung. And then I was like, hold on a second. Like if anyone could do something about these porch pirate punks, it's like, I'll put a rover on Mars. I could design something. So then it's like four phones, cup of glitter. We track it. There's fart spray. It's like a whole thing. Right. Yeah. And eventually that one took us all the way to, we shut down like three scam call centers in India by tracking them down and glitter bombing them and doing all these other pranks.

1:23:50And then putting that video out in the world, it gets a hundred million views with like a bright spotlight and, and we shut them down. So it's like, again, I couldn't have predicted you would land there. If you just follow the natural steps, it just happens. Was there a video that you did because you thought, but you did it because you just had to put something out and you're like, it's a terrible idea, but then it turned out to be amazing. Yeah, I did a video on bed bugs because I just thought they're fascinating. Like, what is up with bed bugs? They like suck human blood. And if you see bed bugs, they have to be fed like every three days.

1:24:21If you see a bed bug in your house, that means they fed on you. All they can eat is blood. And so it's like, there's just a lot about them that's fascinating. And my team was like, this is going to kill the channel. No one's going to watch this. And I was just so curious about it. Right. So I just went down the rabbit hole deep and it turned out to be like, I think an interesting piece of content that has like, I think 80 million views or something. Wow. So I think if you just approach it with curiosity and legitimately, like, you know, I don't pre-write my videos. If I have an idea, I go learn about it.

1:24:54And then once we have the footage, it's like, all right, what's the story here? And I think if you have the right attitude, there's always a really cool story to find. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. What's a question that you still don't have the answer to, but you can't stop thinking about? Do you ever get into that loop of like, I wish I understood how this worked? I don't know. There's like kind of unanswerable questions like, where is all the life in the universe? Like if life exists here, especially if, so NASA's, there's a moon called Enceladus in our solar system that has a molten lava core and the outside is ice, right?

1:25:35Water, water, frozen water. So somewhere between the molten lava core and that surface, there's a 70 degree ocean. It's warm. It's water. That's where life formed. We know that's where life formed on this planet. So NASA's building a probe to go out there, essentially. We're going to drill through the ice. We're going to put a submarine down there and basically see what eats it, right? And if something is there for life to exist twice in our own solar system kind of independently, then it's like, where is all the rest of life in this huge, huge, huge universe, right? There's, I think something like there's a million times more stars than there are grains of sand on the whole planet, the bottom of the ocean.

1:26:20I mean, think about the neck. The last time you picked up a handful of sand, every one of those sand pieces represents a million stars. I'm talking bottom of the ocean. How unfathomable. That's bizarre. That is completely unfathomable. It's unfathomable. So, but then like, it's called Fermi's paradox, but there's a few hypotheses of like, well, then why don't we see other signs of life in the universe? And it's a very fast, if you want a fascinating rabbit hole, look up Fermi's paradox. What have you learned so far? Is it that life form looks different? We can't see it? is it well we don't know but like some of the hypothesis some of the hypotheses on why we don't know is like it could be um there's like super predator civilization there's super predator organisms out there that as soon as you get past a certain point then like okay now this is a problem we're gonna go take care of these people so they extinguish life if it gets too high because it could be a threat.

1:27:20It could be another one is like intelligences get to a glass ceiling where they destroy themselves. When you have the energy that can take you to interstellar, to another system, well, you could probably use that energy on yourself. And, you know, when we, a lot of organisms fight each other and, you know, that could be a pretty darn good thing for us to be looking at as a, as a civilization ourselves, right? Like where you just get too hard and then it just it collapses in on itself is another hypothesis one is like they know about us but it's kind we're kind of like an endangered species like an unconquered tribe in the amazon so they're like just like we're like so basically in a zoo over here right so there's all these like really fun hypotheses on what could be the explanation as to why so that's good yeah that's what keeps you up at night yeah i think it's a fun those kind of things are like fun to think about yeah Yeah, absolutely.

1:28:12But next time you are near sand, truly, think of me, Jay, take a scoop of that sand and just look at how many grains of sand. That each one of those is a star with planets. Like the potential. I don't know. That's just such a, it breaks your brain, but it's such a beautiful thought of like the potential of life. You've not been to space yet, right? Not yet. Not yet. Okay. Not yet. There's some plans on the horizon. You'll go to space too. Like, I think it's going to come pretty commonplace. You can get to Australia in, I think, 90 minutes through space. So there's a financial incentive to travel quickly.

1:28:49To travel quickly. Absolutely. 90 minutes to Australia from LA. Yeah. Wow. You basically just go up, go over fast, and the earth also moves a little bit, and you come back down. That's crazy. That's crazy. 90 minutes. Yeah. Has someone done that yet? No, but that's the math, right? I mean, we don't have the ability. Southwest for space hasn't been invented. But like, essentially that, right? Wherever there's like a lot of financial incentive to do a thing, like innovation will be placed towards that. Yeah. So. What do you get excited about with what's happening with technology, with AI, with this?

1:29:25Is there anything that you get super excited about right now? And what do you get scared about on the other end or things you get worried about? There's a famous sort of one of the early thinkers. And in 2015, I was talking with all my buddies about this, about AI. Nick Bostrom wrote this book about super intelligence. And his beginning analogy to the book is like, imagine there's some sparrows and they find the egg of an owl. Just so you know, owls eat sparrows, right? Just we're all clear. And they're like, hey, we're going to raise this owl. We're going to raise them in our nest and it's going to love us.

1:29:58And then we can use the owl to like go hunt for us. We're going to use the owl to do all these things that will be really useful. and you know of course if you just carry that if that actually happens the owl is born thanks to the sparrows for incubating it but it doesn't end well for the sparrows that's a real concern i share that concern with like a lot of people that could be an outcome of ai i do think it the the best case scenario though i think there are some upsides where it's like it solves a lot of the scarcity thing. A lot of the wars and terrible things that have happened in our history of civilization is a scarcity thing.

1:30:36So if unlimited energy and resources and stuff, and something that helps allocate those resources, that could be good, right? It could reduce human suffering a lot. So, I mean, nobody really knows, Jay. I don't know. I'm curious where you land on this. The question I get a lot is, do I think AI will ever have a soul? And my response is, I don't know if AI will ever have a soul. I just hope the people building it have a soul because ultimately to me, it's the Frankenstein piece of anything we make becomes us. And there's a part of us that's within it. And so if we're scared of an ability that humans have, then we'll be scared of the more bigger, powerful thing that we create that has more of it in it.

1:31:20And so to me, it's more about, again, I think we've, I think there's a beautiful statement by Mark Twain where he said that history never repeats itself, but it always rhymes. And I think we've had enough experiences in history with technology. Like let's take social media, for example. It started, we didn't really care about how it was going to affect us. Everyone had it. And now we're talking about mental health, kids, phones, not just social media, phones, technology early on in life, right? And it's like, we know that that's how everything goes. So scaremongering doesn't work because AI is here to stay.

1:31:56It's not disappearing tomorrow. So trying to scare everyone from it is not going to help because it's going to be here. So I don't love the fear factor piece because it doesn't solve the problem. But the fear factor piece should lead us to being more informed and prepared for what do we do about it when, so for example, hindsight is 2020. 20, if we could go back to 2004 when Facebook was created and YouTube in 2010 or 2009. Yeah. I think they acquired it in 2008 or something. Yeah. Google. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. So you have all of that. And then, but my point's like, if you could go back then and go, okay, let's make some guardrails.

1:32:36Kids shouldn't be allowed a phone by this age. Social media should have verified access. I don't know. I'm making up things right now. But the point is, how do you prepare for the things that to come rather than go, all right, we'll just deal with the whole fact that generations have mental health issues now. And now we're dealing with the reactive way. I think humans, we kind of set ourselves up for failure every time. Yeah. I mean, it's just so hard without the evidence, right? To convince someone at Facebook where the money's to be made, right? Like, I mean, I completely agree with you. Yeah.

1:33:07But like, there's just so many unknowns, unknowns. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, how do you not, it's not about reducing innovation or doing something. It's how do we protect the vulnerable? And so if we're saying that kids under a certain age are vulnerable to X, Y, Z, in the same way as, you know, like cigarettes or alcohol or, you know, whatever it is. It's like, we agree, we all agree that until this point, your brain has not developed yet. What should we allow and not allow? Like kids who are watching you, they're having the best time ever. Like, it's amazing. I wish more people were watching you.

1:33:41Yeah. And, but how do you regulate the things that are not doing what you're doing? I would say though, like, I think for people listening, I think it could feel very doomsday. You hear really scary things. And it's like, at the end of the day, it's such a life hack to just control what's in your sphere of influence. Yeah, of course. And it's like, I think, you know, when I, when I get like that and I get nervous, like, well, what can I do to move the needle in my own sphere of influence? and, you know, I'm not creating an AI company. So it's like, it's a little bit out of my hands in that sense, but it's like.

1:34:15Well, I think you, I mean, I was going to bring this up anyway and it connects to what you're saying right now. I mean, I know you and Jimmy have partnered multiple times to do incredible things for our planet. But thank you for being just such, you know, whenever people are like, we made the right people famous. I'm like, yeah, we did. Like, you know, it's amazing to see you guys using your platform to do the thing that inspiring all these kids and families and parents and young, it's all young people that are following, you know, both of you. And for you to galvanize, whether it's Kai and, you know, all the guys who are in the space and all the biggest creators and celebrities jumping in.

1:34:49And, you know, I think this year you raised what, 40 million? 40 million. Yeah. So the first year we did, this is Mr. Beast and I, right? We did team trees. So we did$20 million to plant 20 million trees. And then a few years later, we did team water. That's$30 million. That was cleaning up the beaches. 30 million pounds of trash from the oceans. And then this year, the audacious goal of$40 million to give 2 million people clean drinking water for decades. And we did it. But what's the cool thing about that, Jay, is the median donation was like$5. That's amazing. So that's tooth fairy money. That's bake sale money, right?

1:35:23There were some big donors in there, but on average, it was$5. And what's so cool about that is then, they're thinking like global citizens now. Like they could have spent that on$5 on candy on Pokemon cards, but they spent it on someone else to get clean drinking water for five years. Again, kind of planting seeds, like someone who now thinks that way, who, you know, picks up trash now because they see it because they're on team C's, right? They don't litter. They take care of the environment because they're on team trees. Like that kind of impact. This is why I love working with young people.

1:35:59It's like it's the same thing with like going to another planet. like the trajectory you have in fact there's motors we have on these on these on these spacecraft we call them mouse fart motors where it's like it's the tiniest little poof because that difference in trajectory 90 million miles away is the difference of hitting a planet and missing by 100 million miles right so it's like the same idea like is sort of with life and this is why I love young folks like the clay isn't hardened yet and so they're impressionable and at that age I think we've evolved to think our parents are dumb. Like that's, so you leave the tribe, like that's in our brain.

1:36:36So to be a voice that can be there to be like, Hey, you know, to guide in a way that even parents can't, because they're willing to listen to me is kind of a big responsibility. And one that, you know, I love opportunities to flex that muscle. I love that, man. It's amazing. It's incredible watching you both do it. And the fact that you keep taking on a bigger challenge every year and killing it is amazing. Yeah, it's setting such a beautiful example. It's awesome to see, you know, you guys could be doing anything as well and to see you both focus on meaningful challenges in the world and issues in the world and helping galvanize so many.

1:37:12Yeah, that's it. Galvanize a bunch of other creators. I mean, at the end of the day, it only works because so many creators joining in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, but you guys spearheading it. Getting it started, sure, yeah. No, for sure. I love that you get everyone involved, but you need a couple of people to spearhead it and you guys do an amazing job of that. So Mark, it's been amazing getting to know you more today. It's been, I feel like I've, I've laughed. I've nearly cried. I've definitely, you definitely got me thinking and you definitely got me even just it's, it's what I love is when you meet someone in this format where they're not on screen in their world and you totally have an infectious energy about the world and curiosity and science.

1:37:51Like you got me excited. I'm like, I need to be reading more of what you're doing. And that's the best feeling for me where I'm like, oh no, you live, you breathe it, you sleep it. It's who you are. And then when someone's around you, it's like, I'm inspired by everything you're fascinated by. And it's, you know, let a spark, as you were saying, like lighting a fire. I love to hear it, Jay. You've done that for me. That's my favorite thing. I love that feeling. I love giving that feeling to others. So thank you for the time. Yeah. Mark, I end every episode of On Purpose with a final five. We ask these to every guest.

1:38:21the questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum so mark rober these are your final five question number one is what's the best advice you've ever heard or received this too shall pass like which is like it's it it will get easier but also you're not as good as if you're if things are awesome like it will come back down as well so the regression to the mean i have to answer in like a sentence that's fine that's fine yeah sentence uh question number two what's the worst advice you ever heard or received?

1:38:55Like, don't go to bed angry. Like you're just the idea, like go to bed, just go to bed. You're an emotional mind frame. Like let it pass with anything, not even with the partner, just like let it pass and hit it when you're not thinking with your lizard brain. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. Actually. Yeah. And also sleep is good for you. So if you're going to stay up angry, it's like probably not going to help. Question number three. what's something you learned recently that blew your mind? That spiders' legs are hydraulic, which is why - I didn't know that, yeah. This is why when they die, they're curled up.

1:39:29It's because there's no more pressure in the system. Basically, they put fluid into it. So you can actually take a syringe and put it into a spider's bag and put air into it and their legs will open and expand. Oh, wow. Wow. More you know, Jay. I know, I know. What's something you recently learned about yourself? question number four that like if i'm having a thought that's not productive like rumination or like perseverating on a thing i want to think it away and you aren't your thoughts like your mind is the sky not the weather and if you just don't give it life like it'll pass yeah and you don't have to think about it right that's hard to do but like i mean you know this with meditation like you know this better than anyone as an engineer i had to learn this you know on my own yeah no it's it's a beautiful thing to remember though that don't believe everything you think and your thoughts are not true and absolutely you're the sky not the clouds and yeah yeah no beautiful uh fifth and final question we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow what would it be apart from buy crunch laps for Christmas.

1:40:42Before you can share a piece of social media information that makes you angry, you have to explain what a reasonable, thoughtful person on the other side of that argument would say. Oh, that's good. And if you can do that and put that into the prompt, then you're allowed to hit share. That's good. I think that would solve like 99 % of the world's problems. I love that. I was giving a presentation recently. Kerry Washington invited me to speak at her day of unreasonable conversations, which is all about sparking better conversation. And I had to do a presentation on how do we have healthier conversations online?

1:41:19And there was a statistic. I did some research that found that when people had to read before they retweet, it dropped shares by up to 70%. Wow. Because people don't read what they share. So you're going even one step further to comprehend and to actually understand a different perspective. But even read before retweet, it just dropped shares, you know? And so, yeah, I love your law. It's a great one. It's a really, really great one because, yeah, it would change so much. Mark, it has been amazing talking to you today. For the two people who have never seen a Mark Rober video, make sure you go subscribe to Mark's channels.

1:41:58I am definitely getting some of the gifts for my Crunch Labs yeah Crunch Labs I am definitely getting some of the Crunch Labs for my niece and nephew this Christmas I think they're gonna love it I can't wait and Mark thank you for so much for how you show up your creativity coming on the show today and sharing so openly and vulnerably and I look forward to getting to know you better man thank you so much thanks for having me Jay this was awesome thank you if this is the year that you're trying to get creative you're trying to build more I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success and the secret to genuinely loving what you do.

1:42:39If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you. Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value. Like as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value. That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it. This episode of On Purpose is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. I believe that travel is one of the greatest gifts that we've ever been given. And Chase Sapphire Reserve has been my gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. When I use my Chase Sapphire Reserve card, I get eight times the points on all the purchases I make through Chase Travel.

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