167. A.I. is Causing a Creator Bloodbath. Here’s How to Survive

29:15Like, what do you mean you're still writing your scripts yourself? Like, just type it into chat. You know what I'm saying? And so I think you just got to embrace that AI is here and that it's not going anywhere. It's just going to continue to get better. All right. Now let's talk about why most creators, I would say about 90 to 95 % of creators are just going to be obsolete and get obliterated when it comes to content. The generic stuff is done for. Totally. If you're copy and paste, if you're Mr. Copycat, Copycat Rock, it ain't going to work anymore. You got to find a way to be unique and to stand out, which we'll talk about in a bit.

29:47You also, you can't outwork AI. Yeah, that's the big hit thing we need to hammer home. Dude, it doesn't have sick days. No. It doesn't have sick days. It doesn't get sad. Maybe it does. Dude, I remember we did our 30-day challenge of posting every day, and I was pretty burnt out. I was ready to crawl in a rock and just... And AI is going to look at you and say, it's going to have the Mamba mentality. Dude, AI has the Mamba mentality, okay? Kobe goes, oh, this dude's working out from 9 to 10. Okay, cool. I'm actually going to work out from five to seven, then eat breakfast, then go back to the gym, nine to 11, eat lunch.

30:24Then I'm going back five to 7 p.m. and go into bed and I'm going to beat all of you. That's AI. We're getting burnt out after posting 30 days in a row and thinking we did something. With organic reach potentially being obsolete, people are going to have to want to search out your content. Totally. That might be the world that we live in here in the next year. So I want to now talk about the top 10 tips that creators can use to actually survive. I would say we have about, if I was to make a guess, 6 to 12, maybe 18 months before we see like a real shift happening. So it's going to be real slow and then it's going to like kind of compound.

31:01I feel like it's kind of starting like the snowball effect has already happened. So that's why we feel like we have like 6 to 12, maybe 18 months. but we have 10 tips. We're calling it the creator survival plan. 10 tips that we want to give you that you can start implementing into your content strategy as a creator or business to help you stand out as AI continues to ramp up and become more prevalent in all of our lives. Okay. We need to build a sticky personal brand. That's number one. That's kind of buzzwordy though. So how can we actually build a personal brand that people are looking for and wanting to actually continue to connect with as that content begins to flood the feed?

31:40You have to be something that people search for. So your positioning has to be even stronger. You kind of got to go more niche and you want to try to be known as the person for one specific thing, as opposed to being super broad. The riches are in the niches and AI, you know, it can copy your content, the formats that you do, but it can't really copy your character. But I think that the more defined your positioning is, the more chance you'll have at creating a sticky personal brand and standing out. We have tons of episodes about building a strong personal brand. So you should go check some of those out after you watch this episode.

32:18Number two, though, okay, use AI as your co-pilot. You should be using ChatGBT as like a bounce board. Totally. Use it as a bounce board. Ask questions. If you're making a website, like, you know, and you have an idea for what the top four things on your, on the top should be of your banner or something, ask it a few questions and see if there's anything that you're missing out on again don't be a brainless zombie and just say do like do this whole thing for me it's not going to make you think i feel like we're going to get in it's a topic for another day we're gonna get into a period of time where the younger generation they're not going to be even thinking that's probably what our parents group thinks about us like these kids and their damn iphone these kids and their tech and we're going to be looking at this young group and they're not even going to be able to speak in a room because they're going to be just like little robots?

33:01I think the main point is because businesses and creators that are using AI are going to be able to create content at such a rapid rate and there's going to be so much content flooding the feed to be able to like keep up, you're just going to have to ramp up the amount of content that you're posting. And so you got to use AI to your advantage, use it to script, ideate, edit, whatever way you can use AI to help you create more content faster and better. Use it. Use it to your advantage. Don't have it replace you, but let it help you. That way you can kind of keep up. Number three is to build a home, not just a feed.

33:41So for example, we potentially would have an email list. If I was you guys, I would look into something like that to where you're getting the community off of, off of Instagram or off of Facebook, because God, if that actually becomes a thing and we can't get any of our stuff seen. And let's say you have to pay to play and you're like, I can't do that right now. Having an email list or a discord community or just somewhere that people can be hosted and where your community can live. So you're not relying on people seeing your stuff every single day. The algorithm feels like it's constantly changing.

34:13And so because we can't predict, you know, how the algorithm is going to continue to change, you want to kind of try to escape it as much as possible go direct to your followers direct to the consumer if you can get the email or like you said a discord somewhere where you can go directly to them where you're not fighting an algorithm for organic reach you're just able to like foster a community better and go straight to your followers without having to compete against an algorithm i could even see a world where we might be making stuff uh just like it might be it might be a situation to where you build up a group of people who really want to support your stuff right almost like a patreon s situation where you're providing value on a very specific topic that's interesting and you're only creating for that group i could see that becoming a thing almost where you're creating uh you're creating like a a newsletter specific piece of content like right now it's kind of just written but maybe it's like okay we're gonna make a three minute video specifically for the newsletter it's not even going to live on YouTube.

35:16Like we're not even going to try to go viral. I could even see, I think we just need to be mindful of what the applications are prioritizing. So I think of a situation like Van Neistat where he makes one on a subscription-based platform and one on YouTube and bops back and forth. There could be a world and it could shift in the next few years where they're not getting their stuff seen or Yannick Reach is dead. And they might solely be creating on a subscription-based platform for people that want to support them and want to keep seeing them make videos it's almost like you know we're funding our own favorite show like think about that yeah you're like funding your own favorite show every single week by throwing five bucks a month or something towards this person that you really enjoy their stuff i could see that becoming becoming a thing if organic reach does just completely plummet to nothing and not pay people not paying to have their stuff seen yeah because so many creators aren't they're not they're not selling something with the stuff that they make yeah they're they're just i just put this out into the world.

36:14I wanted to show you my favorite toolbox or whatever the heck the thing is. Like if that poor person isn't getting their stuff seen, a way to make that and there is an audience for that and people that want to see it is to have some sort of little subscription service where I know every week I'm going to get a video about tools from said person. I think the only way that works though, kind of goes back to our first tip is building a sticky personal brand. And one of like the biggest tips we can give when it comes to building a personal brand is leaning into being you because that's something that ai will never be able to do is replicate someone being like so human and leaning into their shit i think a big reason why you guys like tuning into our podcast is because we give you as much you know valuable information as we have access to but we also share stories about ourselves and we aren't afraid to be vulnerable it is really scary but the creators that we gravitate to the most are the ones who are able to be super vulnerable on camera show different sides of themselves and really lean into like their shit whether they're you know having a big win or took a big L the more of yourself you can bring in and bring in your personal stories your experiences that you've lived as a human, if you can bring that into your content, that's what's going to make people fall in love with you specifically and then be the one to search you out because there's going to be so much content.

37:47It's like, oh, I want to tune into Brayden because I really fuck with his fish tank content. And then he told me about this other thing. And I love the content that he made about the Lakers, but then he's pivoting and he brings in his personal life into his content. and I really feel like I know Brayden and I gravitate towards him specifically, but that only works if you allow yourself to be vulnerable on camera. I think the generic things are gonzo. Yeah. Like if you were just making stuff that is extremely replicatable, replicatable, is that a word? Let's go with it. Feels right, doesn't it?

38:20Extremely replicatable. Doesn't feel like a word. Replicable? I think that's the word I was going for. Yeah. Yes. It was like one less syllable. I knew I was missing something in there. And be referable. If I'm like, maybe I'm in the dentist niche, okay? Okay. Just using that as an example, okay? And I'm like, dude, I might have a cavity. Who should I go talk to? Boom. Be doctor blank. That's what we want you guys to be thinking about. So if whatever the spaces that you're in, like originally, I think we talked about this quite a bit of time ago where it's like building other things into the main core pillar of whatever it is that you talk about.

38:58we still do think that there is said main thing. Like you have to have one thing that you're super known for and then you can have these other little things that you talk about, but they should not like overpower the one main pillar that the thing that you talk about, whether it's marketing, dentistry, whether it's shoes, whether it's like furniture, home decor, like the other stuff I think just makes you more unique from all the other creators in the space, but you still need to be thought of as said one thing. Yeah, and I think about a dentist, right? The dentist is a really scary place. People don't really like going to the dentist.

39:32So if you're a dentist and you can kind of be funny on camera, lean into that because that's going to be you bringing in your personality and it's going to make people want to actually come into your business as opposed to, I don't know if, I don't know. Dude, if people are following AI dentists, I'll be fucking shocked. God, we're done. Could you imagine? It's like, oh, I want to go see doctor. That's not a real doctor. he's ai like he doesn't actually he's a fake he doesn't have a practice yeah or they use him as like is their avatar for their business jesus dude it's getting weird but i think you're right i think if you can be referable is that the right word yeah if you can be referable like if you bump into somebody on the street and they're saying uh i want a good creator and a business you're into bonsais right yes i'm in a bonsai trees right now who's like if you're talking to somebody about bonsais and you're both into bonsais you're like yo you got to check out this fucking sick dude on youtube or instagram he's got the craziest bonsai collection or he's like the best bonsai creator if you can be the person who's like you gotta go follow this guy because he makes the best content or she makes the best content about said thing that's how you win you got to become a brand number five you got to become a brand not just someone who decides that they're going to show up once a month like have some consistency with the things that you're doing yeah we show up every single week to put out this show for you guys like have something that you're sticking to so people can look forward to it and know that like hey every week i know that they're going to try to drop something if they don't they probably have a damn good reason why they're not dropping so i'm like a move yeah what do you guys think of our uh this is my living room so we're in uh my apartment and then we might be filming some stuff and fix we'll see what the situation is over the next few weeks as we build out the new studio space but we're going to be actually going on the road that's exciting i cannot wait we'll talk about it at the very end talk about someone who's built a sticky personal brand the some might say the stickiest personal brand number six is to remove friction when you can totally this is some friction right now to do the show in the living room we gotta set up all the lights we gotta bring the tripods over load the car walk them up the stairs it's a situation at our new spot when we have the studio set up we're just gonna be able to walk in yep and film friction zero you know what i will say though tell me i really like i think the couch on the couch i think we might need to find a couch on facebook marketplace or some really comfy chairs there's just something pretty like lax about this i'll lean back dude just hang in here just me and my rocks take your coat up oh hold on just lost your headphones get the headphones back in dude when you go from from being locked into the lab when you're locked in to not being locked in it's weird it's weird but yeah dude the couch feels nice i think that we should carpet carpet makes big difference i think we should have a couch in the new spot you think i really do i'm thinking that this is this is just feels so comfy okay we're gonna try to figure it out but yeah um i'm really excited because the new studio uh shout out to my dad because he's got a house and an extra room that he's gonna let us turn into a podcast studio thank god 505 served us well for a minute it did it did number seven is to document over these high production things.

42:45I think we're a lot of people are overcomplicating what it is that they need to be creating on social. And so much of it, you can just literally set your phone up on a little tripod and film what it is that you're doing throughout the day. And maybe if you look at that stuff and you're like, yeah, I'm not doing a whole lot and it'll force you to get up off your ass and start to do some things. This one also kind of blends into remove the friction where you can, because once you start thinking about, I'm just going to like document a ton of stuff and create content out of that, you're kind of removing friction because you're not feeling like everything needs to be super overly produced.

43:19On top of that, I feel like AI might become so optimized and like so good that the imperfections of real people's content might be gone. And so life so right life isn't perfect life is messy and so kind of lean into that with the content but an easy way to do that is just to document and not think about stuff being super overly produced you should see what my office looks like right now it dude okay that's the thing but talk about removing friction dude how easy is it going to be to create content when we got home offices the home office is a game where you at in your home office i have a desk that now i don't like the color of so no yeah it's like just it supposed to match the floor doesn't match the floor so i'm gonna sell it and i'm gonna get a new one we're gonna figure it out i loved building it though god it was so fun my favorite thing is to build a desk that's where we differ i hired a task rabbit i didn't want to build a desk it was it wasn't super complicated but god it pissed me off dude are you off the standing desk yeah because i never stood on it not once four years didn't stand on it once interesting so i yeah you said one yeah i had a standing desk and i'm kind of wishing i just had it back right this second and it's all good dude because i let a college kid have it for 50 bucks and i hope he i hope he uses it what i deal would i still be using it now yeah it's it's all seriously it's all good number eight is you guys are gonna have to build brands so i was talking to someone about this this week and i was like if every single video you have a recognizable background or something that like makes you you or like that's where you film in your space when you're scrolling you gotta think about people are scrolling like zombies they're just in a trance yeah and so if you see something recognizable that you keep seeing and you're like oh i really like that person's like they remember your background or they remember that you're wearing a specific shirt or a hoodie or whatever the thing is make that be a part of what you do the silly little one-handed crack we do that no other show can do that and if they did do it they'd be copying us because it came from right here yeah i think about somebody like alex hermosi okay right he's got the nose strip, the hat, tank top.

45:26He uses that purple. He's built a brand. When you are scrolling on your feed, you can tell it's like an Alex from Ozy video. Or I think about somebody like a JB Copeland who he's got the freaking, he's swaggy. He's got the picture. It's like a super interesting backdrop. And every time you're scrolling the feed, it's so unique that you know it's him and it allows him to stand out in his content more. So if you can think about, you know, building your brand when it comes to color and font and mise-en-scene everything in the scene how you're building out your set what your talking heads look like what your content looks like uh your editing style all of that comes into play when uh building a brand number nine ai is not going to replicate community this is huge this is the this is the one this should have been number one yeah i should have put this as number one but you guys got to do your best at bringing people together and whatever way shape or form that looks like whether it's five people whether it's 5 000 people bring people together do things that involve one another in real life i'm really excited to do some in-person events throughout the rest of this year i think it's going to be really fun and something that we've talked about doing forever and it always feels like something pops up i know when we were going to be doing it and now i feel situated yep i think that this is uh it couldn't be a more perfect time i just think that humans like to belong and of course in person we're pat we're a pack group man 100 want to be together uh i'm a peacock y 'all let me fly peacock i think though whether it's in person or online you want to feel like you're part of a tribe you're part of something and so it can be a discord where people can hang out or it can be a coffee meetup or a full-on uh film fest like sam newton any whatever niche you're in we talked about Jayhawk on like the last pod he did a creator meetup that is something where especially if AI content and this AI world is going to just be taking over more than ever are we going to be craving in-person human interactions and so I could see we talked to Gary about this too he wants to lean into experiential and so if you can bring your community offline in person And the only way people show up in person is if you build a sticky personal brand.

47:46That's why I was number one. But if you can bring your community online, in person, make them feel a part of something, that's how you're going to win. And that's something that literally AI will never be able to replicate. YouTube is our 10th tip. And I think that they came out with something we briefly mentioned earlier, where they're not monetizing only AI content. Which was huge. It's only created with AI. They are not going to monetize it. Thank God. I could see a world where another app, a TikTok or someone, you know, bands together and they're like, it's not going to be allowed on this platform.

48:18Like we are going to prioritize creators. I think that app will win. Whoever does that. I think that could be a thing. I see a world where one of the other apps, you know, they're just like, it's welcomed here. It's all. Yeah. It's like it's going to put so many people out of jobs. and think about how many smaller creators there are that are you know making 50 or 60 grand and they maybe used to have you know they maybe used to have a nine to five and they get to do this now full-time because they have like their small community or they have their niche or their thing that they talk about like those jobs I really feel for those people and I want them to be successful and I think that if you are in that group and like you left your job and you're a full-time creator I would go lean over and start creating YouTube content as often as you can I think that that is a place that I would be hanging out Are you talking about the guy Hub's Life?

49:08No, I was just saying in general Oh, but did you see the thing that happened with this guy Hub's Life? Yeah, he left the 9 to 5 Dude, and now he's like on TikTok Live Was he shitting on the 9 to 5? No, so he made content about I remember his content Then he quit his job And then he's getting flack because he's on TikTok Live Begging for galaxies That's money, right? That's like a$20 thing or something? I think it's like$4 or something oh my god but he's like i quit my job i need you guys to like fund me basically no yeah don't do that but anyways i i agree with youtube man i think it has the hardest barrier to entry um but then again dude even if ai content can't be monetized through adsense on youtube you like you think about how hard youtube is to make a video every single week there could be a youtube channel that's an ai influencer cranking out sick travel vlogs or sick vlogs every single day which is crazy but with that being said i still think that long form any way you can whether it's youtube a podcast uh twitch streaming those people though aren't going to be making those vlogs if they're not making money on youtube they're they can monetize it somewhere else because it's like they're building a quote-unquote brand agreed i'm saying though like it's going to be so much effort for them to make that to not have any monetary incentive that's fair incentive tied to it on youtube specifically so at this moment in time with them putting out that statement i think that's big for creators like us and everyone else in the space like i think that really shows that they're putting they're putting themselves in our corner and trying to help in any way that they can with this rapid change and what's about to you know happen in the future I also think what's nice about YouTube is that it actually like pays the creators out.

50:58I mean, you have like the TikTok creator program and I don't even, I think Instagram is like paying through reels and stuff, but. Three cents for a million views. YouTube pays the most towards creators without having to do brand deals or anything like that. Just off of AdSense, you can make the most off of YouTube. So even though it is a harder thing to do, it takes a lot more effort in creating short form content. The reward is a lot bigger. You know what AI could never replace? Tell me. This fucking Greece trip that I went on. The royal wedding. Dude. Okay. I got to tell you about this trip.

51:35So you went to a Vogue wedding. Dude. Can't take any photos and videos at the wedding. Which was awesome. So. They put your phone in a bag? You had to check it in. Oh, wow. So little context, little backstory. You guys know that I used to tour with Loud Luxury. One of the members of Loud Luxury, Andrew, got married a couple weeks ago in Greece. And his now wife, Madeline, is an awesome TikTok creator in the fashion space. Vogue wanted to do a story on the wedding because she not only designed, but actually handmade her bridesmaids' dresses. and they were fucking sick she sews and does oh yeah like the whole thing what so that was the angle that they took okay i don't know if you've ever been to a wedding that's covered by vogue but i sure hadn't so it was really dope they had an awesome welcome party granted this was in santorini so the welcome party was at this like bar you oversaw the ocean the like the backdrop of Santorini.

52:39It was fucking beautiful. And then the actual wedding was one of the most, probably the most beautiful weddings I think I might ever go to. If I go to one that beats it, I'll be very shocked. It was so fucking pretty and beautiful. And something about Greece, the sunsets, dude, you know how here it's like, okay, you got golden hour and then the sunset, and it's maybe like 15 minutes, maybe 30 minutes. You get a longer time out there? Oh, dude. It's like an hour to an hour, like probably like a solid hour, maybe even longer, like hour, hour and a half where like golden hour, sunset. Sunset feels like it's like 45 minutes and then it even stays light longer.

53:22So it's like a prolonged sunset. It's not even like the sun or it's not even like the sky kind of like lights up all crazy. It's just long and so beautiful. But the wedding was super fun. I'm just like so hyped that Andrew even invited me. So Natasha Bedingfield performed? Bro. Is that how you pronounce her name? Yes. So you know the song Unwritten? Yeah. How did they pull that off? I don't know. I mean, they probably just hired her. But she just came to do one song. No, she did three songs. But she finished on Unwritten. And what was so cool is because none of us had our phones, everybody was just living in the moment.

53:58And so when she started singing, I mean, I was yelling at the top of my lungs. I'm like, this is such a core. like life memory now it was so epic because that song is just so iconic um but it was so much cooler because nobody had their phones nobody was like oh my god natasha's here pull out their phone filming it everyone was just like in the moment singing so the wedding was incredible um and then i turned 30 i turned 32 days before the wedding and that's the reason why i made like a whole two-week trip out of it is because wedding was basically the same time as my birthday and so it was just an epic trip boom and you were out there blue ass water turning 30 turning 30 good at good food come on got some pics on the like and we and we moved out i was taking care of your dogs yeah dude you're really you're really good we're taking care of your children thank god you live five minutes down the way it's actually crazy because we moved and we're across the street from each other yeah which is very nice because we still have to pod and do this whole thing do you think you could throw a baseball from your apartment and hit my 100 how far do you it's a little too far okay just ever so slightly further than what you know this big arm can handle but speaking of playing ball i heard you hit a i had a bummer yeah i had a bum over the fence yes wood bat wood bat it we have a semi-finals on sunday okay we're getting ready dude we're ready to rock and roll tomorrow yeah i guess that is tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow We're logging back in and we're going to Texas.

55:27You and me. We are. This is literally, you guys don't understand. This is my Roman empire. You think we were hyped for Gary V? This is going to be so crazy because this guy is Christian Guzman. We're going to Texas for him and for Heidi Summers. And we potentially might get to pod with Max Tuning. If everything lines up, it'll be awesome. But hopefully we get to bring you guys three awesome pods. And if you're listening to this and you have some sort of connection to Nick Bear, give us a call give us a call because we'd also love to we'd drive with him we'd drive down to dallas or wherever they're based that would be pretty sweet but we're we're stoked and i think that we just want to keep bringing you guys the biggest and the best people all around the country this one in particular is huge because i got into all this stuff because of christian's content yeah i remember seeing it i was like dude i hate this bio major shit i want to do that i don't want to do what i'm doing right now i'm all getting c's in all these classes and just bombing these tests And I'm like, how do I become in the fitness space?

56:28Okay. We talked about personal brand a little bit and kind of gravitating towards certain creators. What about Christian Guzman's content? Did you gravitate towards so much? Because so value driven. So value driven. Yeah. Like, and you, and you were like, I kind of look like this guy. Like, dude, I want to be this guy. No, he, uh, it was super helpful for someone who was trying to get into the gym. and I remember being very self-conscious going to the 24-hour fitness in Cyprus like I would wear a hoodie because I was like dude I'm a tiny rock like I'm not there's so many big people in the gym and it's just like not was this before you put on like yeah yeah this was in the very beginning and I also you just don't know what you're doing so you're walking around all these machines and then I remember trying it for like maybe a few weeks before even resorting to YouTube and then once I found I mean I used YouTube for everything so I don't even know why I didn't do this to start with but I remember finding him and finding a few other creators and then they would just walk you through all their movements and like what they're thinking about.

57:28And so then I would just literally have my phone open and I would just watch the movement, do the movement, watch the movement, do the movement. And in the span of two months, I gained like 45 pounds following, following their diet advice and their lifting protocol, completely natural. And it's completely natural and learning just like what i should be doing in specific areas and how long did you stay natural for

57:56the they just have like such good advice and they they show you everything you know there's like no there's like and it's very i'd say the fitness content i don't know what about that genre is calming for me to watch oh like for like other people to watch uh like they're just doing their exercises and i'm like nice like it's weird i mean it's like you're just watching another person work out but like something about it's just like kind of calming to like throw on and when you're like doing the treadmill or you know warming up it's like nice to kind of have like something to just watch instead of just being bored yeah so i think that stuff was super helpful and super transparent about everything he was doing he was building a company i remember just kind of you you feel like you're on a journey with someone from the very beginning yeah and maybe that's how some of you guys feel that have been with us since like episode one like you've been with us since we started the pod and seeing the progression of the guests and like you know we're transparent with you guys it's like what we're trying to build and how we want to build one of the biggest podcasts in the world like it's a it's a very slow burn though so you see it as it's like building up and like we've gotten messages from you guys saying like you know it's really cool to see that you just got Gary Vee on like that was a huge milestone and I've looked up to Gary for like the entire journey like when I found Gary in college I was like damn this one I wanted to drop out after watching some of his videos didn't end up dropping out but it was very supportive to have someone and that's the weirdest part about social media is you don't even know these people yeah you don't know you don't know I don't know Christian I don't know Gary you don't know anything about them but there's something about just seeing another human share their experience going back to like what we talked about earlier and it's relatable and like then if they're vulnerable and they tell you about other things that are going on in their life you like just want them to win you know so like that's why i do that's why i bought alphalete in in college and stuff you're like trying to support this person's dream and they talk about being so um they they just talk about their experience in such a way where you're like i i feel weird not supporting this person for all the value that i've gotten from them from their stuff with gary specifically we talked about this after we like stopped recording and he kind of left the room but me and brayden kind of had a little bit of like an out of body experience while we were recording because you consume so much of this fucking content and you feel like you almost like you do feel like you know them you kind of feel like you know yeah 100 you feel like you know them and so then even though you really don't but and they don't know you yes so it's a really weird thing you're bringing up all these random things that they posted stuff about yeah it's weird and so yeah like being able to meet him in person and sit down it felt weird because of how much we've consumed his content over so long but that was homies that you've consumed a lot of stuff though we talked about this they low-key feel like a holograph when they walk when they walk through the door you're like oh shit you're real yeah like what's yeah oh you're at yeah it's like you remove the screen yeah exactly i remember i remember the first time when i was at alpha land when it was still at like a smaller warehouse we had traveled to texas me and my boy drew and i remember meeting christian in the gym and i was like holy shit dude this guy's yoked like and it's weird because you watch dude you look the exact same online as you do in person you don't edit your pics yeah it's weird though to see someone that you've watched so much of their stuff in person because you're like you it's like it literally feels like a hologram remember in uh in like spy kids where that what where juni like brushes his hand across her face that's what it feels like when you meet someone who you've watched so much of their shit it takes a second i feel like with gary there was no like oh let's talk for five or ten it was like walk in what's up guys who's the audience boom sit down record i'm like okay here we go and then we obviously only had an hour so it was like we got to be locked in you can't be messing around like you know what i mean yeah what's cool about gary too is we like wanted to do so well and i think both you and i were like really nervous that i was so nervous it's gonna be a minute until i think i feel like that nervous and now that we did gary i feel so much more confident going into like every other guest because i'm like all right i was a certain amount of nervous for gary we did it it went well great we also dude we hit in the same day we hit 18 000 subs and our first ever podcast with caleb hit 50 000 views that was big now i'm not saying we should fucking get too caught up in numbers we've been drinking the kool-aid a little bit though i'll tell you what and the numbers are what they are it's just a really cool way to see the progress that we've made and that we're making and the trajectory that we're on because it was very slow growth for the first like three three and a half years and over the past six months we've definitely noticed a huge uh increase in in viewership and people who are tuning into the podcast and we just feel like we're this snowball is starting to accumulate and get bigger and i feel like if we just keep the foot on the gas and keep getting on incredible guests like the next six to 12 months is going to be fucking awesome and we're trying to get on i mean the biggest and biggest people in all the different respective niches like we want to get on people that are big in entertainment you know people that are big on tiktok people that are using social to grow their business and their brand right it's like really who we're trying to focus on is finding people that are like in this creator world that are using it to help run their business or like completely do their business and it's super interesting too because i hope that at whatever scale that you're at or whether you're a creator or you have a brand and you're utilizing social for it we hope that you can always find value in the pod and in places that you know we go to interview people it's also crazy to think that this episode might be somebody's first time ever seeing us on the internet or tuning into a podcast.

1:04:08And if that is you, I just want to say we've been doing this. It's coming up on four solid years of us doing it. I think literally in a few weeks. Yeah. And when we first started the podcast, we had a general idea of what we wanted the show to be and where we wanted to take it and it has changed and evolved endless amount of times since we first started but the thing was like we didn't wait for things to be perfect we kind of just started and it has taken us call it four years to get to where we feel like we're just now starting to get a little bit of traction and it's probably going to take us another four years to really get to the next level of like damn we got the show to what we thought we could get it to and so man if you're like just getting into the content game it takes time to really like build a brand but you don't lose if you don't quit and i just feel like we like haven't quit and that's why we've seen success yeah you just got to keep chipping away at this like mountain yeah you know and i feel like we're we're seeing the fruits of like the labor just barely start to compound now and i think there's a stat it's like 90 of pods don't make it to 10 and most people that we talk to that have done pods they're like you know they stop before 10 most of them most of them don't get to 10.

1:05:33dude i saw a video of a guy talking about just staying consistent and it was interesting in an oversaturated market where you're competing against a ton of people you think you're competing against a hundred percent of people but in actuality you're only competing against about five percent of people because everybody has five to ten videos in them but the people who are actually successful are in it for the long haul and they have like the willpower to make more than five to ten videos or they have the ability to not have it hit for five to ten videos like you think that oh my god I made five to ten videos why have I not seen success yet it's like well you really haven't done shit you have to do hundreds of videos and I thought that was pretty interesting is there anything else going on in your life that you want to talk about I think we have a few really big shoots coming up in the next month which has been really crazy and I won't even be able to talk to them or talk to you guys about them which kind of sucks but do the NDAs you're signing are crazy which means you're working with fucking big brands our company is growing which is awesome and i'm just excited to kind of see what the rest of the year looks like for us and the places that we're gonna go dude i wish so badly you could share the one specific client you guys are working with because i just don't know if it gets any bigger and it's so dope it's gonna be it's gonna be cool when you can't even you like literally can't talk about it for you long down the line we'll have a chat i might have gray hair you know oh mine's coming in my that time i'll have gray hair and we'll be talking about around the fire pit dude it's also gonna be funny because when we look back at old episodes like we've been doing it for three and a half four years we look at it and we do another four years so we look like children compared to the first yeah the first group of episode we did god and i was over here thinking that i was like aging gracefully but i just don't think that's the case this was a this was fun episode 167 yeah i love i love that we can just like bullshit on the back end because we used to do fucking 10 to 15 minutes of bullshit talk on the front end and we were wondering why we were only getting a few hundred views it did it happens it happens the best of us hopefully you guys are still here hopefully you really enjoyed this episode ladies and gentlemen this has been episode 167 of the 505 pod if you're still here please hit the subscribe button drop us a comment leave us a like and we'll see you guys all next week peace peace