Michelle Khare Is The Tom Cruise Of YouTube: How Anxiety Became Her Superpower

32:25you have a huge motor you're very internally motivated uh you were a star student you went to dartmouth you didn't just go to dartmouth you also were on the cycling team there you later went on to compete uh as a cyclist when you were working for buzzfeed full-time you became a professional cyclist you were doing taekwondo like you're you're an athlete full stop like at a very high level so academically ambitious and accomplished athletically accomplished you know at an ivy league school um the traditional route would have been okay what's next you know mckinsey or whatever and you end up with an internship at google tell that story because I think that's also like a sliding door moment for you.

33:16Well, you know, when you don't go down the doctor, lawyer, engineer path, it becomes, okay, can you go into tech? And I think I saw it originally as, here's the hip, cool version of a stable path forward. I mean, you just know if you get a job at a place like that, I think - It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. You're going to have a 401k. Parents will be happy. Yes, and I saw it as, it was the same summer that the movie The Internship came out with Owen Wilson. Oh, is that the one where Robert De Niro is the old guy in the office? I'll be honest, I don't remember any of the plot of this movie.

33:56Anyway, go ahead. But it was a movie about, it was a comedy about being an intern at Google. I don't understand. Oh yes, I remember that. This movie is crazy actually. It kind of came and went, but I do remember, they were actually at Google. They were, I think they shot it there even, which is insane. So it was the same summer that came out. And at that time, it was this sense of this is the cool way to have stability. There's free lunch and there's outings and flexibility. And so I was curious about exploring that. Now, what ended up happening is while I was there, I got to see a little bit of the behind the scenes of YouTube, which was acquired by Google and learn more about this emerging platform and was so interesting to me.

34:44And at the end of the summer, they have this, I don't know if they do this anymore, but there's a designated day when after you've completed the internship, you go back to school and you're waiting by the phone for a phone call to see if you get the job. And I was in a group chat with all of my friends. Everyone's like, I got it. I I'll see you next year. I start July 15th next year. Can't wait to see you. I got my phone call. I did not get the job. So I did not get the job. And had you got the job, you would have happily taken that job. Had I got the job, I would have taken the job for sure. I'm sure.

35:28And again, because I think at that point in my life, I was operating from this deep place of, I've got to find security. I've got to find stability for myself, for my family, for honoring their sacrifice. All of those very deep-rooted fears were driving all of my decisions. And that rejection actually forced me to become creative in many ways for the first time in my life. True creativity of back against the wall. I didn't get this job. Corporate recruiting already happened. What am I going to do? And I appreciate that because it led me to working as a creator in YouTube. And I think a lot of those inflection points happen when your back is against the wall And you have to step forward through that fear.

36:26Your real education in storytelling and production was at BuzzFeed, though. You end up at, is that where you ended up, like, right after college? Yeah, so I ended up at BuzzFeed, which, again, I'm like, in my crazy head, I'm trying to reconcile, all right, so this is sort of the intersection of tech and entertainment. Yeah, that'll be safe and secure. Was that peak BuzzFeed time? It was. So at the time I was there, not because I was there, but I just happened to be there when it was at one point the fastest growing YouTube channel and series of YouTube channels in the world. It was an incredibly cool environment where everyone was in their early 20s.

37:13It was a startup vibe, but creative in an artistically creative way, I suppose. And I would say that I learned a lot about what works on the internet and how to drive a moment on the internet. But I think a lot of the storytelling that I learned specifically that we bring to Challenge Accepted now was meeting the people that I actually collaborate still with to this day on Challenge Accepted. So like Garrett and Nick on our team. So while I was at BuzzFeed, I was also becoming friends with a group of people who all went to film school and learned everything from the ground up and absorbing just by osmosis from them all of this fantastic film history.

38:03and we would, outside of work, go to the events at the Academy Museum and learn about this stuff. So as someone who didn't go to film school, just surrounding myself with people who could say, oh, this is why in this film, the camera moves like this to emphasize this because in the script of XYZ, learning that backwards was really helpful for me. And when I left to create my own channel, um i was really fortunate that they were excited to you know spend a saturday with me collaborating on a on a video together and you were thrown into the deep end and you had to in the chaos of you know buzzfeed uh where so much was happening so quickly you had to figure out how to make these videos how to shoot them edit them get them up online evaluate what's working what's not working and then you know rinse and repeat time and time again i mean that was really your that was your you know kind of navy seal you know boot camp film school experience it really teaches you um a sense of done is better than perfect and urgency we were required to deliver a certain number of videos per week plural videos per week long form youtube videos i mean this was before short vertical video was a thing.

39:25And we were required to ideate, script, shoot, edit, direct, cast, whole nine. But it was always about meeting that quota and hitting that deadline. And sometimes that led to, that pressure led to incredible outcomes. Sometimes a lot of, people experience fatigue and burnout from that. But I really appreciated, you get your hundreds of reps in there of learning what works and what doesn't. And ultimately, even though the business model of our channel and company now is in many ways completely opposite to that because it's scarcity more than anything. It comes from a place of moving when something matters.

40:15And I never want to let go of that. So given this appreciation for stability that had been instilled in you, what was the journey towards releasing yourself from the corporate you know, kind of womb and like going out on your own? Like, how did you make that leap and reconcile that desire or that need or that appreciation for security to venture into a world where there was very little of it? For me, this came down to I accidentally stole a copy of the four-hour work week from a co-worker, which I still have. I don't know who I stole it from, but I have your book. Hit me up. I borrowed this from a co-worker, and I read the book, and it was really impactful to me.

41:15I mean, you know, when you read some of that, when you have your first couple of experiences reading nonfiction literature, I think it it really opens your mind. And I appreciated how Tim very clearly laid out, here is a plan for how you could start your own company or create autonomy for yourself. And while I didn't apply necessarily all of the principles, I did a fear-setting chart. I made a plan nine months before quitting my job of what to do. And it was very simple. I moved into a studio apartment with a roommate. I cut down a lot of my living expenses. I forced myself to make videos every weekend, even if I didn't post them.

42:04I needed to socialize and prove to myself that I actually cared about this thing enough to warrant leaving stability, leaving the nest. But at the end of the day, I think, again, it came from a sense of I felt that I had plateaued in this position, that I had learned a lot, but I wasn't actually challenging myself. And that if I wanted to get to where I ultimately needed to go, the fastest way to get there was to take a big jump. Mm-hmm. So by lowering your overhead and realizing like, okay, I don't need all these, like I can live like leanly. I can stretch whatever savings I have. Give space for taking a little bit of a leap, taking a risk.

43:03Talk a little bit more about the fear setting idea, like whiteboarding out your fears and really kind of confronting what those were at the time. Exactly. I knew that when I left my job, I had a couple months of savings, but I also understood if I get this many views, theoretically, I could make it this much in AdSense and that could cover this, this, and this. So at the beginning, my model was make the best thing I can to garner viewership and really serve the audience. And hopefully I'll see at least living expenses covered by this thing. Some of those key fears I had were running out of money.

43:55They were the shame component of, you know, I've seen at that point other people just in general in my life leave their jobs for an entrepreneurial venture and completely fail. There was fears of just, you know, embarrassing yourself online. I think that the, I've heard other people say this, but the barrier to entry of success is a mountain of cringe. And so I think when you're young, there's this feeling of, man, if I'm out here trying and trying publicly where everyone can see me online, if it's not going well and nobody's watching, everyone's gonna talk about me behind my back. So like all of these things that like you and I know absolutely don't matter now.

44:49And this notion like... she went to dartmouth like what is she doing you know you could be it almost makes it worse uh i mean the fact that you have this education means that you probably even if it didn't work out you could probably go get a job somewhere like you're going to be able to get hired there's a there's a built-in kind of internal security system to that but at the same time there's the internal monologue of like i went and got this amazing education that you know my parents you you know, bled for so that I could have. And now I'm going to go be a YouTuber when I could be doing fill in the blank.

45:27He's okay. You know what I mean? I'll be honest, I hadn't thought about it that way. Thank God it worked out. That's where my mind goes.

45:37Or like my classmates are doing this and I'm here like trying to build a YouTube channel. Yeah. Yeah. Before, I mean, because this is before like, Before it was known that it could be, I think back then people knew that there were YouTubers who had found financial success. But I don't know if universally, and even today I suppose, that it was always a respected profession or that it could be a company. I think that there's been a big shift in the past few years, at least, of understanding these business models are fully-fledged production and IP companies. Yeah, you're running an entire enterprise.

46:21You're running a studio, basically. Exactly. But that wasn't really the idea, you know, eight years ago, necessarily. I mean, not that there weren't examples of that, but it wasn't the way it is now. Right, exactly. And that's why I think part of the fear setting methodology was helpful to me because I gave myself a deadline. I said, I'm going to give myself three months to really make this work with this game plan. And if it doesn't, my LinkedIn is up to date. I'll call around. I'll make it work. I don't think I felt like I would be fine, but I was telling myself I had done enough. and then just going in with the knowledge of these are the three months that are not a gift to me but these are the three months where I prove to myself and to and to my future that it's a worth like I can step up to the plate it's on me to actually find success and I think taking ownership of it's on me if the video goes up this week.

47:28It's on me if it does or does not get views. And if it doesn't get views, it's on me to interpret the data and learn from that and grow as a better storyteller. It's on me to make sure that when people collaborate with me, they're paid on time and effectively. Everything, I think that massive responsibility was very heavy and scary to do alone when I didn't really have any other peers who were doing something like this. But also it gave me empowerment to know that if this doesn't work out, there's no one to blame except for me. So it's on me. The agency is exciting, but daunting at the same time.

48:05So daunting. Yeah. To backtrack a little bit here. I mean, we kind of skipped over the fact that you were a professional cyclist. Yeah. Our overlap. So you're working at BuzzFeed and somehow you're competing as a professional cyclist on the BMW team and traveling every weekend. What were you racing? Crits? I was primarily crits. And then I did some stage races and road races too, but primarily crits. Criterions. How were you training during this time and racing? And then when you went out on your own, did you just decide, okay, I'm putting that aside? Yeah. I mean, here's what happened. When I got the job at BuzzFeed, I also found out that it was a few weeks after I was very lucky to win U23 Nationals that year.

48:57Oh my God. Which is crazy. Okay. No, I'm just going to tell this story because - Okay, please. Here's the story. People probably don't ask you about your cycling career. I'm here for that. Okay. Okay. Please. All right. So I started cycling when I came to LA my junior year on an internship and I didn't have any friends. So I, but I saw everybody here, bikes, it's, you know, very outdoorsy place. So I thought, okay, maybe if I join a cycling group and, and I'll, I'll have friends. Oh my God. So I just started doing it. You hadn't even, so it wasn't like you had been riding bikes forever before this.

49:36Oh my, I wish. Wow. No, no, no, no, no. But walk with me. Okay, so I started riding. Just because the weather here is beautiful and I had no social life, my social life was going to ride a bike. So when most people are hanging out, chilling at home with their friends, I was like, well, if I want to have a social life, I'm going to go to the 7 p.m. Griffith ride tonight. and just by doing that I naturally improved and I was terrible in the beginning because I had no experience with endurance sports whatsoever but I just loved it and I got hooked. You know exactly what I'm talking about and it's a great way to see the city when you're new here so I was getting to see you know the top of Mount Wilson and all the Santa Monica Mountains and even seeing places that people who have lived there their whole lives never get to see.

50:29And so that was just really exciting to me and I enjoyed it. And so when I went back after my internship to college, I was just like, well, I guess I could join the cycling team and see what happens. And it went well. But what happened is after I graduated, there was U23 Nationals and there are two events. There's the road race and then the criterium. The road race happens before the criterium. And I don't think I did exceptionally well in the road race by any means. But what a lot of people do is they look at the results of the road race to know going into the criterium who are the real threats to deal with.

51:15So something happened during the criterium race where some, something just came over me and I realized nobody sees me as a threat. What if I just go off the front? Went off the front. Yeah. Just like have a moment. You know, people just do that and they have a moment. I was like, I'm not going to win this thing. Whatever. I'll just have a moment. Maybe I'll get a nice photo because they always have great photographers at these things. So I do that and 20 minutes pass. and I'm like looking at my garment. I'm like looking at the laps. I'm like, what's going on here? And I'm pushing myself. And exactly that happened where because nobody thought I was a threat, they assumed I would burn out.

52:02And then I ended up winning the race. That is so crazy. So I was not the best cyclist. And this was your senior year in college? Just after I graduated. And then like three weeks later, And I was just like, oh, yeah, I'll go do that. I know somebody who lives in the area. I can stay with them. And I was still trying to figure out what am I supposed to do with my life. So that happened around the same time that I got the job. And so without knowing much about either, I was like, well, let me put an egg in each basket and see what goes the farthest. and what was cool is now both exist in my life in a different way in that I get to be a an athlete for challenge accepted making the show we make and I think that what that period of life taught me where I was like basically Hannah Montana living double life was there is always you could always make time if you care about something there's time for it yeah you will make the time for it.

53:12And really maximizing every single second you have, because I was getting off work at 6 p.m. and immediately going on a training ride, waking up the next day, doing it over and over again. And that is, I think, you know, you have to have balance with that, of course. But it really taught me how to maximize my time and make time work for you. It also adds an added layer of color on your seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. It's like, okay, you're not coming from nothing on this. Like you're a U23 national champion cyclist. Well, there was some time between those two things. Let me clarify.

53:57But knowing that, it's like, oh, she's going to be fine on these marathons. It was really hard. I would rather do a criterium than run seven marathons in a row again. Yeah, that was a big one. Yeah. That was a really big one. It was fraught with all these obstacles and challenges. I mean, the Antarctica marathon was insane. And you got to do it with David Kilgore. I don't know. I've met him. I don't know him well, but no better person to be your shepherd. I mean, was he, I guess he was your coach. You talk about needing a coach, a mentor, and a cheerleader for every one of your projects. That's true.

54:42Yes. Yeah. So I mean, people ask me all the time, what is the, you know, how do you learn something quickly? And I think it is those three things. It's you've got to have a coach, a mentor, and a cheerleader. And those aren't always people. But in the case of our episodes, they typically are. So for the seven marathons challenge, I wanted to have an exceptional coach who has coached people to do great things in endurance sports. So for me, that was coach Gareth. But then I also think it's important to have a mentor, which is someone who has been in that hot seat before. And those are typically two different people.

55:20You know, the person who is coaching the Knicks may not have been a supreme basketball player themselves, but they clearly knew how to win this year. And so the mentor figure for me is, in this case, David Kilgore, who has not only done the seven marathon experience around the world, but he's won it before. before. And so that differentiation is important because you want a coach who knows how to teach and you want a mentor who can relate and empathize to, I know what it feels like to be shivering in Antarctica, questioning how you're going to run 20 more miles. That relatability is important, especially when you're going after something big.

56:04If you're taking a big risk in life in anything, I think there's a sense of aloneness that comes with it. Because if you're really stepping outside of your comfort zone, most people don't in general. So that's important. And then the third role is the cheerleader, which is the person who just loves you no matter what the outcome is. And I think that's really important because it connects you back to planet Earth in a way. of reminding you of the gratitude and also that you will continue to have support moving forward but at the beginning of my journey like the coach mentor etc that was like my coach is a youtube video teaching me how to edit better my mentor is following someone who has uh been a youtuber a year longer than me and just seeing what their trajectory is so the mentorship is not always person to person, but it can be observing and learning from different entities.

57:07And then the cheerleader for me at the beginning of my channel was my sister who really was like, go off, do it. Yeah. You talk so much about your team and you're always crediting them. This is a team effort anytime these challenges are tackled. But to your point, like in the early days, you weren't surrounded by 30 people on a set. That grew over time. So at the beginning, when you would have some audacious idea or some challenge that you wanted to execute, how were you able with limited resources to find the people to build these teams that I'm sure are temporary for the production, but then you have your core long-term everyday team?

57:58How did you slowly assemble that? Did it come from those friends at BuzzFeed initially and then you built upon that? I'm interested in the economics of how you slowly were able to ascend to this place where you're capable of managing these gigantic productions. I learned early on that the concept needs to provide value to the artists and collaborators that you're working with, regardless of how it performs. so for me for those early projects where we would have a crew of 15 or 20 people pretty quickly out the gate of starting my channel even if the offering i even if i couldn't always provide financially in the way that people may have been used to i was able to find ways to allow them to express their creativity in ways they don't get to do on traditional film sets And I learned very quickly that there were frustrations that every department has in working in the studio system.

59:06And so I thought, okay, well, there are very simple ways I can provide comfort and value that aren't always financial. Here's a very basic example. If you work on a big set, there's typically just general catering. Oftentimes, people forget dietary restrictions. They forget vegan. They forget all of this. And so I thought, okay, you know, I might not be able to afford the nicest catering, but I can allow everybody to choose exactly the order that they want from Chipotle or whatever we're ordering. And that small gesture is just an example of many ways I was able to identify what are solvable pain points in your other workplaces that I can fix in mine that at least bring joy to the creation process.

59:58and those are things that we still do today like i think that if you are a producer bringing your crew together you're a party planner you want people to have fun working together you want to create a space that has joy when you when you come to it and if if it doesn't have that then i have failed as a producer so there were there were minor things like that or Even hearing, you know, hair and makeup teams are often frustrated when they come to set and there are no tables for them. And they have nowhere to put their stuff. There's always tables for camera team, but not for hair and makeup. Okay, well, I've got a folding table in my garage and I'll make sure it's laid out nice and that it's labeled properly.

1:00:41That costs zero dollars for me, but it actually means something to someone else. And these people feel seen and honored and respected. Yeah. And another thing that we started doing pretty early was post-mortems on shoots. So again, with not much to offer, what I would tell people is, I would text people after like, hey, how did you feel on set? What can I improve on? And sometimes that feedback was super actionable. Hey, next time we do this, I would like 45 minutes to set this light instead of 30. Great. I can do that next time. And that helps me learn as a producer to better support the people coming together.

1:01:23So we do that for every single shoot, for every single upload. We have a department head postmortem. And that's portable outside of film production. Like if you're on a team or you're leading a team in your workplace, obviously that's like a good idea. Exactly. That's going to engender loyalty and buy-in and emotional connection to the shared mission. And it's something I think that like Kim Scott, for example, emphasizes so well with Radical Candor is I think in the beginning when I, again, was the only entrepreneur in my sphere that I knew who was crazy enough to quit their job and started something.

1:02:02I didn't have any peers to learn from about management, about how to do anything on the business side of things. And I think a lot of young people are scared to ask for feedback after a group project like that. Because sometimes you know, oh, I messed up. Or I already know what they're going to say. And I would argue many times you don't. or many times you think that if you really messed up in the project, it was unnoticeable to other people. And I think like having the bravery to ask for that critical feedback is mission critical. Otherwise you find out months, years later down the line, oh, this has been a problem since whatever.

1:02:52And I could have fixed it so easily. It's so mutually beneficial to ask for critical feedback? Giving feedback and receiving feedback is a skill and an art that is teachable and learnable and vital and critical, but something I didn't appreciate until I moved here and started hanging out with more creative people and started working in a more creative capacity. I never thought much about that. It was something like, whoa, I don't want to hear, I hope it's good, but you don't really value how important it is to be able to be open to constructive criticism. And what you find, and this is probably at a heightened level in a place like Los Angeles where everybody's kind of involved in some kind of creative project, like like welcoming it like being like oh my god i can't wait for this feedback because it's going to make me better as opposed to it being like identity threatening you know and something to like fear like understanding it's when it's when it's given in the right spirit and strategically you're able to receive it in the spirit of like we both want this to be the best thing and we have this shared common vision.

1:04:08And the way we're going to get there is by allowing ourselves to be open and honest. Like that radical candor is like vital to the health of the best interest of a project. So it's something that is difficult, might be difficult now emotionally, egotistically, but always pays dividends in the future.

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1:07:24You're approaching this like you're getting your Harvard MBA, like you're studying Adam Grant and organizational psychology and how to build this team. And you're thinking deeply about all of these things. You're not just, oh, here's a challenge and I need to make a video about it. There's so much more behind the scenes going on that has contributed to not just your success, but also the longevity and the stability of what you've built. Well, thank you. I love Adam Grant, one of my favorite people. He's like your pal now. I mean, I would love to say he's my pal. I think he's really, really cool.

1:08:06He's like an A-list superstar to me. I just love him so much. I think something that I had to learn and unlearn when I started my own endeavor was the concept of slowing down when I saw all of my peers speeding up constantly. And I mean, I'm very grateful for the success we've had, but our trajectory, and you can look at the data, it's been slow and steady growth where some of my peers have experienced massive J curve. And that's because they went in the camp of this is working. We got to go go go go go but i also saw that at a certain point they hit a a mass where they had no infrastructure they hit burnout um there's like financial troubles um and so every step along the way i've just honestly been lucky to be surrounded by people who said actually wait let's think twice about that.

1:09:08Let's consider this. This is not just a video. This is going to be online forever. What is that? Asking important qualitative questions that led to quantitative success. But you have to sometimes sit with that pain of watching other people really go up the roller coaster while you are marinating in this sense of, I hope one day people understand this vision for prestige television on YouTube. Was that always from the beginning, the vision? Like, I want to create the highest quality television worthy type of content because all the incentives in your space were more faster, crazier. And you are in a genre where challenge videos, It's like, okay, well, every new video has to top the one before.

1:10:06And there's an acceleration to your point of like people burning out and flaming out. Like we've all seen people who were big once and you're like, what happened to that person? They're gone. And they either like got into a situation where it just got too crazy or they didn't have the organizational infrastructure to be able to handle it. But you from the beginning, having the self-belief and the conviction to not play that game and say, we're only going to put out the highest quality stuff and it's going to take time. And we're going to have to, you know, kind of go dark, uh, for extended periods of time while we're really workshopping this stuff, uh, and, and be able to have the temerity to withstand, you know, kind of the pressures that are on us to like put stuff out to just say, no, we're going to make this the best and it's going to take time and it'll come out when it's ready to come out.

1:10:55I mean, that's a very traditional Hollywood kind of approach as opposed to a YouTube approach. Well, something I noticed early on was I, at the beginning of the channel, I would do three videos that I thought would just perform well. And then one video that I would really sit with and try to make my best and bring in my friends and make it a little bit of a bigger thing. and I enjoyed the response from those projects more and I saw the community deepening and really responding to those more in-depth projects so the the vision was always how can we bring the learnings from the high performing stuff in into these passion projects and and hopefully you know like have this uh cross axis where the stuff that we enjoy making the most is also the stuff that performs the best.

1:11:51But you have to be humble to, I think, a little bit of that. Sometimes what the audience wants isn't the big flashy thing. And that's okay. And what can I learn from that? How can it make me a better storyteller? The vision, but I had always noticed that with those deeper, more intensive, higher production value projects, I could at least differentiate myself from everyone else. I saw, you know, everybody's doing these big challenge videos, in many cases using clickbait or using drama. Those aren't values I necessarily align with. How else can I stand out? Okay, well, I'm very fortunate to be surrounded by such talented artists.

1:12:35This is how we can stand out is our teamwork here. So it might not always get the most amount of views. But if we do it right, we can create something that does have a high impact on people and a deeper touchpoint to the heart. Because at the end of the day, what I think a great episode does is helps people emotionally rehearse courage. And if we haven't done that, despite how many views that piece may get, it's not actually a success. We have to help people inspire change. And so that's why the comments and feedback on those more in-depth episodes meant more to me. And I saw a larger opportunity for deeper impact.

1:13:17You're playing the long game always. You have your eyes on a very distant horizon where so many people in the creator space are chasing trends and creating from a place of reactivity. Like what's hot now? We need to do this. And they're bouncing around without any kind of firm ballast. And you just seem so grounded in your approach. And there's something beautiful about that. We've lost the appreciation of the artist who disappears for a couple of years, the Quentin Tarantinos, even Christopher Nolans and the Rolling Stones, whoever it is. They're not making TikToks every day. They're working on mastering their craft and they'll come out with something when it's ready to show you and when they do it impacts culture uh in a exponential way as a result so within the kind of context of the creator economy where the pressure is oh you should be posting more and you do the it's it's creatively draining it's exhausting and you're not putting out great work you're just you're kind of like on this hamster wheel so of course people are burning out or getting tired of it or losing their enthusiasm for this medium and you creating fewer pieces of content that are more durable and really thoughtfully conceived and conceptualized and executed on gives them a gives your projects this longer tail, but also establishes you at a different kind of tier that is starting to look more and more like traditional Hollywood.

1:15:02Like we're coming full circle in terms of what's happening. You know, it's like, yeah, like, okay, podcasting was cool because you could just buy a mic and do it anywhere. And then it became a video thing. And then everybody's making their own public access TV show. But now you have to create a network television show in order to be competitive. And we're seeing podcasters who have gigantic staffs of people and they're functioning as if it's the Oprah show and that's what you need to do in order to be successful. And so it's incumbent upon the creator to decide like, what kind of game do they want to play?

1:15:38Do you want to be in that world? Is that what you're doing? What are you really about? And what's your mission? I'm not saying any of these things are wrong choices. They're just not for everybody. And when you're making those decisions based upon what everyone else is doing, you're not looking at the white space and what people aren't doing yet that suits your integrity and your vision for and what you can uniquely offer into the space. And you seem to have a lot of clarity about that, I guess. That's a roundabout way of saying that. I mean, if I had it my way, we would release far more episodes of Challenge Accepted per year.

1:16:18But we have sort of arrived at, at least for now, this happy medium of this is the most number we can put out, while not just maintaining quality as an ambiguous production value term, but also the stories take a long time to tell. This week, we're culminating filming on a project where I've been training for six months to go to Taekwondo Nationals. That story can only be told by me actually training to go to six days a week for six months. You can't compact that into a week-long production schedule, which is what you would have to do if you were doing that project with ABC or Netflix or Amazon.

1:17:00And that's important to me because at the end of the day, the viewers want to see a dramatic transformation in me. They want to see commitment. And that is only earned, unfortunately, through a lot of time put into something. So we have to do a balance of longer term intensive projects amidst projects like the 911 and dispatch that have just as much impact, but are only filmed in a few days. And I think having that humility to inspiration can come from anywhere is so important because I don't know necessarily if I at least have the luxury of if I were to fully fall into the disappearing artist of I'm going to put out one thing per year.

1:17:44I think I would in some ways lose touch with what's performing well. And by that, I don't mean what gets views, but what audiences are engaging with. I think it's important to exist in this ecosphere that your audience is in. And then on the other hand, I know that if I had continued on the rat race path, I wouldn't have differentiated myself. Early in the conversation, you talked a little bit about this idea that several years ago, somebody might get into YouTube because it would create some visibility for what they're doing that might lead to them getting a television show on a cable channel or a network.

1:18:26Now that's been reversed. It's been flipped upside down. I would imagine there's very little that a Netflix or an Amazon or a Hulu could offer you that would make you want to do something with them. It would have to be a unique value proposition because you're commanding an audience that's larger than what they have. And so would you do something with a streamer or a broadcast network? And what would they have to be providing you in order for that to be interesting to you now? It's such an interesting conversation because we are seeing content creators get huge exclusive deals at Amazon, at Netflix, at some of these big streaming.

1:19:12Like Mr. Beast did his show with Amazon, so they made it worth his while. And I think you look at an example like that and see what Jimmy did was one of the most cash intensive, I think the most expensive unscripted reality show that's ever been done. So I think there are always ways to elevate and expand. And I think more than anything, like more than money or opportunity or whatever, I just want this barrier between the two worlds to go down. because to me it's been such a silly arbitrary pencil of a line um and that's why the the work is important to me it's i recognize that when we post an episode and hear feedback that it is it feels like a prestige television show that doesn't just impact me and feels nice to hear it's i want other people to know that i'm not the only content creator doing this there are many people who are striving for this level of excellence.

1:20:17Cleo Abram, Johnny Harris, Brittany Bruschi, there are many people who have arrived here. And I feel like it's this situation of a stereotyping association with it rather than actually truly judging the material for the material. you're not arriving you have arrived and the machine can either accept that and embrace it or they're they are going the way of the dodo and the history is pretty clear i mean when you look back at what happened to the music industry when when napster became a thing and there were record label execs who were still talking about shipping units when you know these mp3s that we're only like two megabytes or whatever we're getting shared all over the world and people like skrillex were figuring out how to make amazing music on a laptop and they're still holding on to this idea that it's going to be the way it always has been and we need to like we need to figure out how to combat this tidal wave that's coming in our direction and the uh people within the music industry who saw the future and embraced what was happening ended up winning and you know Now we're seeing what's happening.

1:21:36It's maybe not so great for artists along the way. We could have a conversation about what the streaming services, Spotify and Apple Music, how is that remunerating the musicians themselves? But the fact of the matter is it happened. And the people who got on board with it early were able to figure out a way forward. And revenue models always follow. And of course, now the digital files are just two gigabytes instead of two megabytes, but it's the same principle. And the development executives and the studio people who are resisting what's happening, the same thing is going to happen. And the people who are embracing you and Clio and like, you know, what's happening in this digital space, everything will get sorted out if they're seeing the opportunity in it.

1:22:29And this convergence of the digital creator space with Hollywood is one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. And I'm so energized and excited about it. Like now late night through Julian is getting ported to YouTube. And what's next? You know, evening news and sports and all of these things. The Academy Awards is going to be on YouTube. And when you look at the audience that YouTube as a whole commands, it dwarfs all of these other streamers, but it doesn't necessarily get the respect that a Netflix does because it's doing a different thing. But it's such a behemoth and it's only going to continue to grow.

1:23:06And the way in which it has captured the imagination of young people, I think is fascinating. Like when you see what happened with Backrooms and Obsession, you know, with Kane Parsons and Curry Barker, like these guys are superstars that started in YouTube. They come with large followings. They're so young and they're making their first features at a level that somebody who has been directing films for 20 years would hope to emulate. You know what I mean? and I have a 19 year old daughter and like she's more excited about going to the movies to see these films than anything else like she loves document documentaries but she doesn't necessarily know who Morgan Spurlock is or even Shane Smith for that part but she will never miss an Andrew Callahan video she's watched every Channel 5 video and I think like seeing this uh generational shift of these young people who are reinventing these mediums and speaking in the language of their generation and how that's connecting with young people, all of which was germinated on YouTube, I think is just absolutely beautiful and fascinating to watch.

1:24:17And you're very much part of that story. I'm really excited that it's happening. It just feels really exciting to me because I, you know, you mentioned earlier when you were talking about the process of making a show in traditional, it's like a dissertation. That's a Wikipedia entry of paragraphs of steps you have to take. And I think about how much great art has been left behind because someone along the way like didn't respond to an email and that massive chain of events that have to happen for success to happen. And I am excited about a future where future storytellers, if they have an amazing idea and have the willpower to make it come to life and to garner an audience who's behind it.

1:25:05I'm excited for them to feel that they have a future for them as a part of telling that story. I think the coolest part is the hybridization. How can these two worlds work together to create amazing... Obviously, back rooms require A24 and the machinations of the traditional system in order to get it into theaters, et cetera. Like that's a best case scenario. In your case, I could see you like tackling some really crazy challenge that you're accepting, but doing it live streamed on Netflix in the way that Alex Honnold climbed the Taipei 101 tower so that it becomes a water cooler moment for the globe.

1:25:52And that's maybe something that you couldn't do on your own. There can be situations in which that makes sense for you, and you can continue to be this independent creator and dip into this other world when it makes sense, and both parties are benefiting mutually from that. I think there's just so much to learn from them. I mean, we are fortunate to get to draw from decades of Hollywood history of how to technically make a piece come to life on video. and I anytime we get to collaborate in any capacity with with a production company or a studio it excites me because I get to learn um and I think what's exciting is it seems like these parties are excited to learn from us too yeah and in the meantime you get to do productions where you can tap into the craft community and maybe get the guy who's been assisting the famous cinematographer and say, you've been doing this long enough, I'm going to let you shoot this.

1:26:56You know, letting people like level up in their kind of, you know, ascension of jobs and giving them the opportunity that maybe it's going to take longer in that other world for them to get. Right. And that's part of just creating a creative space that provides value to the artists who are contributing to the work. So where is this going? Like, what is your forecast for, not for you personally, but just looking at the media landscape like five years from now, 10 years from now, what does it look like? I think that we're going to continue to see more exclusive deals with creators made with streamers.

1:27:33And I think it's going to be really interesting to see what this first swath of creators come up with in those deals and how they parlay their audiences into new IP, new shows, and how people respond. And we've seen so far, like Mark Rober's Crunch Lab show was at the top of Netflix. Jordan and Salish Matters stuff was at the top. And obviously Beast Games performed really well too. And I think when we see these larger creators proving that it works, it opens the door for medium and smaller creators. And I hope that what happens is that rather than it being YouTube's over here and traditional is over here and sometimes we throw a stone across the playground to each other, that it's a bit more free flowing.

1:28:24I also hope because of incredible people like Kane Parsons and Curry Barker that we can see people on YouTube as holistic 360 creators more than just we'll put this person in our show and give them a line because their audience will come and watch it. I think that's actually was a failure of Hollywood probably like five to 10 years ago was this influx of we're just going to insert YouTubers into roles on shows and movies. and I don't know if that was fully successful. That didn't work out at all. It doesn't work because they're seeing the creator as a marketing vehicle instead of a creative contributor to the project.

1:29:04And because we're seeing proof of concept with these bigger creators of their creative is resonating with big streaming audiences too. No surprise because it resonates with millions and millions of people on YouTube. I hope that we can see creators as great producers, as great directors, as great showrunners for many different types of media. Part of the allure for somebody who has a creative ambition with respect to YouTube is you can open it up and you can see people doing something that feels like something you could do. Like think of Marcus Brownlee's earliest videos where it's just, you know, like they're very homegrown.

1:29:50But now with the maturation of the space and the professionalism that we're starting to see and the indistinguishable nature of shows like yours and Cleo Abram from television, do you think about how that impacts the young person who's thinking about jumping into this world? Like now it seems harder. You know, it's like, well, I can't, how am I going to do what Michelle's doing? It just seems as inaccessible as going into a studio and pitching a television show to NBC. But what's beautiful, I think, about someone like Cleo or Johnny Harris, any of these people we've been talking about, is that's if their career says otherwise.

1:30:35their career was not pitching it in in that system to make it come to life it was the slow growth from the beginning um and i also think uh by contrast of channels like outdoor boys that have you know 19 20 million views per video and it is still that very raw bare bones approach it it reminds me of like in the mid 2000s when there was prestige hbo and there's also micro's dirty jobs both have devote devoted and and committed audiences though and both exist on television um though the experience is very different yeah what's what's consistent though is that you can go back and watch the first stuff so you can it's like your whole career is on is on tape you know like like it would be as if like this is true no matter what career you're in like when you start out you don't know what you're doing and you're bumbling around and you make mistakes and you figure it out and you maybe you get fired and you get a different job and you slowly blah blah blah blah like and then you figure out what what you're good at and you build a life around that but on youtube you can see the whole thing you know so if you are intimidated uh by like what michelle's doing like go back and watch your first videos and you can see that evolution right You don't want people to do that.

1:32:02But it might make it easier for somebody to say, oh, it didn't happen overnight. It happened over all of these years. And I can see the growth and how she improved with each one. And that's a lesson in and of itself. For sure. And it is easy to say now, I will acknowledge that, but I am so grateful for those early days of doing it all myself. Because now, and we talk about this on our team, that the best leaders and department heads have worked every position under them. Because now I know how to speak with an editor or a sound mixer and help make their job easier. And I think that helps people respect the leaders they're working for.

1:32:49Yeah. In the traditional filmmaking system, what's interesting is that the director, who's technically in charge of the creative vision, is generally the least experienced person on the set. Which is crazy. Because they only get to do it every so many years, and so many directors are first-time directors, and they surround themselves with all these people who are really good at their jobs, who have been doing this for decades, and they just go from set to set to set. And that director has to command the respect of a crew that knows a lot more about what they're trying to do than the guy who's in charge or the woman who's in charge.

1:33:28Yeah, I mean, we've all experienced having a manager who has never done the job they're asking you to do and the tension that comes with that. So, yeah, I think that's what makes Garrett, for example, in my opinion, a really good director because he's edited, he's done lighting. He's filmed. He still films. I think that connection to all parts of the production process ultimately makes you a better creator too. What have you learned about consistently and consciously placing yourself outside of your comfort zone to confront your fears? What is the message that you want people to feel and understand about that?

1:34:14What is the value in doing that? The fear never goes away. It's like cold plunging. It's always going to be cold. The fear never goes away. But what you can get better at is systematically understanding how to approach it every time. so as we said at the beginning of the conversation i'm a pretty anxious person i when i'm going off to do one of these challenges i'm i'm just as worried as everybody else watching of have we thought of everything am i prepared enough um but the thing that i can control is educating myself preparing myself and so that is what i have gotten better at for sure is over time consistently approaching fear, just knowing, okay, preparing myself, it's going to be painful.

1:35:06It's going to be uncomfortable. I'm going to be embarrassed. None of that will ever change. And what is the call to action to the audience member or the person who has a different relationship with their own fears? Why walk through this fear? What is somebody going to get out of it? How are they going to be transformed on the other side of that confrontation. You've done this so many times, and you know how it goes and what you feel like at the conclusion of one of these experiences. It doesn't always get easier, but the gratification and growth on the other side is just truly unmatched. That if you are truly pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, there's no option but to grow.

1:35:56There really isn't. It's the only way to achieve growth and it is inevitable. Even if you fail in the ultimate goal that you had originally, there will be a learning if you approach it appropriately. And so I just wish more people did it. I wish more people stepped outside of their daily lives and tried something new. I think it makes the world more empathetic and I think it makes people better. And so with Challenge Accepted, I do hope people get to empathetically rehearse bravery and ultimately the real impact is if they go off in their own life and just change one small thing and try something just a little bit different.

1:36:38I would imagine you must have so much self-confidence though because you've done so many crazy hard things, hang off an airplane running the seven marathons on seven continents and like do dropping in and all these like high risk high stress environments and then kind of seeing yourself through you must think like oh i can i can do this i can do that yeah it's a little scary but like i have this track record of being able to like manage myself well that goldy lock ability that you must feel That Goldilocks zone continues to grow as I try new things. I will be a little bit confident when I finish a challenge.

1:37:17And then the next week, I'll learn something new and immediately go right back to rock bottom of humility. What's the thing that scares you the most? Is there a challenge that you're like, no, that's too scary. I'm not doing that. I probably won't be climbing Everest. but I'll say that because I'm actually driven more by the story than necessarily the fear or the accolade um to me Everest is something it's a story that's been told it's been told many many times many people have done it and I don't at this point in in my life know the additive nature of what I would be doing to make it different or interesting um and I think I'm compelled by doing by creating stories that are additive, even if they're following in the footsteps of what someone else has done.

1:38:05I want to find my own spin to it. Also, I don't like being cold. You don't like being cold. That's the reason to do it though. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true.

1:38:19The Tom Cruise Mission Impossible film that you did ends with a cliffhanger. can you talk about can you share what that cliffhanger is sorry spoilers and like where we're at with that right now okay yes so after completing spoiler alert the plane hang stunt we had a goal of convincing the Burj Khalifa to let me climb it to homage the other famous stunt from Mission Impossible that Tom Cruise did where he performed some incredible repelling stunts off the side of this building. Is that the suction cup one? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. With the suction cups or the glove that like the battery got on the glove.

1:39:05Right. Yeah. So we had, um, we put together this incredible plan. Um, and just for fun at the end of the episode, we had this cheeky little call to action for our audience. And what I wasn't expecting was, a few days later, I went on the Instagram account for the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. And it was filled with comments from our audience that just said, let her climb. Hundreds of these comments. And I'm sitting there like, oh my gosh, this poor social media manager is probably like, who is her? Who's climbing what? And we spent quite a while making contacts and moving forward there.

1:39:47As of right now, it's not going to happen. But - So you say, you're an unreliable narrator. But I think that's the spirit of Challenge Accepted is like, you've got to vocalize something crazy and put yourself out there. And technically, as of right now, it was a failed attempt. It did not go through. But I love just manifesting wild things out into the air. And this is also your sweet spot. Like, how do you overcome the no? Yeah. All right. Well, the tallest building in the world, it's not going to happen right now. But what else can we come up with that's equally exciting? And the win and the exciting part was just seeing how many people were thrilled to to potentially see it happen.

1:40:36I know that at one point they said no, because they didn't think that you like were influential enough or something like you didn't have a large enough, you commanding a large enough audience, but is this latest no a different no? Like no word. It's not safe. No, that's true. They've only let a handful of very influential people stand atop the Birch Khalifa, which was part of our request. And to that, I say bet please subscribe to the channel so we okay yeah but yeah I mean that was also like the same spirit of us vocalizing we're gonna go for an Emmy that sounds crazy for an independent YouTube channel who's not a studio show to try and do and I you know at the time of this recording we don't know what the results will be but I I think being brave enough to say it out loud is step one to confronting the fear and the obstacle of what's to come.

1:41:33And that's something I struggled with a lot before all of this. And now it's, if you say it out loud, sometimes you're surprised with how many people come to that calling and say, I want to help. I want to support. Let me see who I know in Dubai. Let me see what's possible. And that journey is really exciting. I mean, that's the story, right? That's the story. That's part of the story. It's like, okay, we got a no. Like, all right, where do we go from here? Like, that's drama and obstacle. Yeah, and then you're equally as revved up as an audience. Oh, we don't want to get that. Yes. See how excited you are about the no?

1:42:09I'm so excited. The other challenge that I've heard you talk about that I want an update on is tightrope walking the Grand Canyon. Yeah, this is a newer one. Okay. This is a newer one. and again a great example of sounds crazy as a stunt but the reason why it's compelling and interesting to me specifically is so I would like to attempt to become the first woman to tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon I find this fear very fascinating to confront because unlike the plane stunt which is you have to have bravery and you have to train and you strap yourself to it and get through the flight. But this is a challenge where it's truly a manifestation of the metaphor of taking a step forward every single time towards the fear.

1:43:08It's the most clear physical manifestation of willing your body to step forward through that. And so I think it's a very interesting exploration of that type of bravery. But yeah, we have begun. we've contacted the canyon um we've begun permitting can i tell you something crazy about filming at the grand canyon we learned that to film in the grand canyon you have to do a biological assessment of the land for endangered species because there is one species of endangered cactus that flowers i think once a year and they have to make sure that the place we are anchoring the tightrope to doesn't have this cactus next to it.

1:43:52Wow. So these are the conversations that we're in right now. My palms are sweating right now, by the way, just thinking about this. It's so fun because I did an episode a couple of years ago where I joined a traveling circus. So for this episode, we actually went back to the traveling circus and I met with the ringmaster to tell him about this idea and hear his reaction. And his palms started sweating too. Yeah. I mean, this is, that's crazy talking. I'm thinking I'm also, that reminds me of Evel Knievel, but it also reminds me of that amazing documentary of the guy, what was the guy's name who tightrope walked between the Twin Towers in New York?

1:44:33Oh my gosh. Man on Wire. Yeah. Man on Wire. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible documentary. I mean, that, I think that image of that walk, which is on the poster that is like our thesis image for this project he's got the long the long pole that he's carrying yeah so we're very early on on that project um again something that might not happen but we have said pretty crazy things and then they happen it just takes time yeah so on some level you are playing like okay it's getting crazier it's getting you know like these are you're notching up the risk level but then next week i am filming a video where in one day i'm gonna attempt to in a flight simulator land a 737 without training now that's a fascinating project is nathan fielder gonna be there coaching you i wish i love nathan fielder i wish um but i that project's interesting to me because uh i think you know a vast majority of people believe according to some study that they could land a plane if called upon to do so on a commercial airline.

1:45:42So I'm going to find out if I could land this plane. And that's a one day - And how much training in advance of that? I'm just going to totally blind. Are you just going to go right into the sim and be like, I don't know what these buttons are, but I'm going to land this giant plane? I will. It'll be a situation as if everyone is incapacitated on the plane except for you. I see. And I have to go in, put a headset on and communicate with air traffic control. I see. And they're going to talk you through it. Yes. Yeah. Which is a scenario air traffic, apparently. Right. I mean, this is a very real scenario that could happen.

1:46:13It could happen. But yeah, that's a very safe contain. We're going to be in a simulator shooting it in a day. And it could have just as much impact as any of these other things. So different things impact different people. And I love being pleasantly surprised with the 911 dispatch episode. Who's going to watch me talk on the phone for 10 minutes? 15 million people cared about it. And it mattered in a way that even I, as someone who was so intimately involved with the project, couldn't have foreseen. So I always welcome that. You never know what people connect with. Well, you're a Red Bull athlete now.

1:46:53So there's nothing that you can't do, Michelle. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see. Like you're an official Red Bull athlete. Well, I'm a Red Bull creator. And there's a difference between the two. But I think the Red Bull athletes are very cool. Did they give you the Red Bull bicycle helmet and all this stuff? I did not. Those are reserved for athletes only. Oh, come on. They can cough one of those up for you. I'm just really grateful because I think 10 years ago, I applied to be a Red Bull athlete when I was a cyclist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I was a cyclist, I found some obscure email address on the website and I sent in this application I put together.

1:47:33I actually like dug it up last year when we when we made the announcement about me being a creator because I was like I need to find this. yeah i applied promptly promptly rejected um and i'm again another good example of i think if i had just gone down only the athlete path i would have missed out on this whole beautiful thing of of uh experiencing many ways of athletically living life and so i love getting to be a red creator i mean it's so cool it's it's um i mean it's just a dream to get to collaborate with them especially because i it was my dream sponsor 10 years ago yeah well speaking of cycling and tom cruise not that we were welding these together um do you know who kate courtney is or do you follow cycling at all so did you see did you see what she won uh she just won national championships like only six months after deciding like maybe i'll try riding a bike on the road and not on trails yeah and just like crush that race it's insane following the whole time i was so excited for her but she had a tom cruise experience also yes did you know that because they filmed that where he parachuted on you know like or when he like the hollywood sign like where he landed there and like he passed the baton onto her when she was riding by on her bike so cool so that just tells me that the universe is saying that you and Kate need to figure out something to do together we do we we had lunch together a couple months ago before she went to do Cape Epic I I just think she's the coolest she's the bomb yeah yeah she um I mean talk about someone with laser precision on their goal she could do whatever she decides to do she could be running anthropic or you know like I mean, she's one of the most capable people.

1:49:29She's really extraordinary. Yeah. But there's a shared DNA here. I'm not surprised you had lunch with her. I love her. What is your counsel to the young creative person who's dreaming of a career like yours or just expressing themselves creatively? Where does that person begin? How should they think about their relationship to craft and setting aside the business aspects of it, just the pure creative expression part of the job? For the pure creative expression part of the job, I think it's about studying what has come before. Something that's cool about Brainstorms for Challenge Accepted is people will come to a brainstorm and reference Apple TV's Widow's Bay, Survivor 50, and a meme on TikTok last week.

1:50:23That can all be in the same conversation because inspiration comes from everywhere. And so I think it's important to understand the history of visual medium. And just by watching it doesn't mean going to film school necessarily. And then participating in it. We're so lucky to live in an era where the only barrier to entry is the upload button. there's kind of no excuse to making something and where i see a lot of young creators getting hung up is they get stuck on the the full plan here's the series here's the the the full plan for 20 episodes i'm like no just just make one see what that if that works because you'll probably change it 30 times before episode two and i think people can get caught in this perfectionism which is really just a paralysis allowing anything to happen.

1:51:18Like you have to be willing to put something up there, take the data from it and move on. And I find among our peers that the people who are just willing to really say done is better than perfect. Sometimes arrive at that format much faster than people who try to crack the format in the show from nothing. Who inspires you? What were your inspirations when you were starting and who inspires you now? The people that inspired me, I think, in the beginning were Mindy Kaling, because I saw her as someone who also went to Dartmouth. I mean, she is such a titan of female Indian creative voice, really making impact intergenerationally.

1:52:04and with challenge accepted a lot of the people i look up to are people like jeff probst um he's your guy yeah i could write a college dissertation on jeff probst and how in hosting how many years has he been doing it since 2000 26 so 26 years so i think what he has done um helming a project for that length of time without distraction. And really inventing and reinventing constantly is so admirable, in addition to the fact that he's just a phenomenal host. I mean, you watch him manage a tribal council and the way he is able to maintain neutrality while also progressing the plot, because that's the role of a host on a show like that, is to progress the plot for the audience.

1:53:00And I think, you know, someone might say, why is a host needed for a show like that? And I think it's because when you watch the contestants at the island in reality, you see who they are behind closed doors and whispering to each other. But what you see at Tribal Council, masterfully conducted by Jeff, is who are the contestants in front of an audience? And the dichotomy of those two things actually tells you a two-part holistic story to the contestant's jury. I'm obsessed with this stuff. So Mindy Kaling, Jeff Probst. um david blaine i think is i'm not a magician but um i think his ability to hold presence and as we were discussing earlier go into hiding and then emerge with something truly fantastic is really admirable um and i mean just as an endurance performer what he has done is really one-of-one.

1:54:01So I love people who have crafted their own nucleus of one-of-one. There's the fear that you confront in the challenge that ends up on screen, but there's also the fear that you're walking through with respect to how you're assembling the pieces behind the scenes in order to even be able to do the challenge. And you talked a lot about this with Tim Ferriss, like, how do you like, when you're trying to, like, execute some idea that involves getting the FBI on board, like, right, there's the fear of like, who do I contact? And like, how am I going to talk to these people and convince them to get on board?

1:54:47And I think you put on like a masterclass on like how to craft the cold email and how to like, sort of talk to people and get them excited about your idea in the same way that you are. So people should all go listen to that or watch that because I don't think we should replicate that. But I do want you to talk a little bit about that part of the fear, like the fear that you have to confront in order to confront the bigger fear that is the on-screen fear. I'll tell you an example from this week. We are working on a project where, if successful, we are going to fly a house with helium balloons as we have seen in one of our favorite Pixar films.

1:55:28The Pixar movie? Oh my God. We're going to do that in real life. Like a real house? Yeah. With balloons. It will be a structure that looks like a house. I see. Yes, yes, yes. Flown exclusively with helium balloons. So no jet propulsion, no hot air. From where to where? We're still working out those details. but when you do something like that we're in a room we're like all right who do we who do we need to call first can we find a helium balloon expert oh there's someone who exists who specializes in that um oh we should call the faa because we're going to be flying we we need the we need a special license i think it's what is it called i'm gonna forget uh oh my gosh it's called an experimental aircraft license and we had we had to get it for the tom cruise project where it just means you're putting something weird in the sky.

1:56:26And I think like there's a beautiful part of that brainstorming where you hear a project like that, you might assume even watching a big TV show do that, that someone just manifests and figures it out because it's a big studio doing it. And what I've learned meeting a lot of producers who work on big studio things, it's the same process of you sit in a room and go through your Rolodex and think about who do I know who knows somebody. And so - There's one person who's got to figure out who you're going to call. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think you have to have, like accept the grassroots part of it.

1:57:06I'm sure you've seen this too, Rich. Like a lot of great business opportunities happen when you just text somebody that you know. It's not this big manufactured thing of this team coming to this conference room to meet people. It's real warm relationships and asking genuine questions. So like when I cold called the FBI, I just think like most people are too afraid to even pick up the phone and, and use their voice to try. And a lot of those cold calls and cold emails are often unanswered, but they lead us in the right direction of where to go next. so what I would say to to the next generation of storytellers is there's never really in my opinion going to be a point when it's like when I get to this level all of these other things are handled for me I think when you are leading a project when you're leading a company when you're leading team there's always going to be something that you have to put your boots on and and do it and accept that that's part of the process and don't have an ego about it is there an ultimate bucket list challenge Is there something that maybe exceeds your capacity to execute right now, but one day you hope to be able to do that you're willing to share?

1:58:27Or would that be, even if you have one, is that something you would want to keep quiet? Something I've been thinking about more and that I can improve on is diversifying the ways that we can impact people. Something I've been excited about lately is actually helping other companies and other people with the projects they're on and bringing the things that I know over there. I think that's the next step. And that's the white space because your videos leave all of us inspired and with a hopefulness and an elevated sense of our own possibility. But then how do we channel that? And you're like an operations person.

1:59:11You're a systems person. How do you take that energy and put it into some kind of template or program where people are given the tools to actually access and begin to practice that in their own life? What should I do, Rich? I don't know. What would you do if you were me? I mean, I think, well, listen, first of all, like Kate Courtney, you can do whatever you want and you will be successful. So you don't need to ask me. I'm going to go into business with Kate. I think you know better than I do. But I would imagine that the corporate world would love to hear how they can train their workforces to be better teams because you have such a good sense of the importance of team building and leadership and also the relationship with fear and how that plays out in the workforce.

1:59:59And with the average person, how do we change our relationship with fear so that we can have a healthier relationship with our own growth and evolution and transformation? So it's that fear piece of walking people up to the ledge of confronting their own fears, because this is what you're consistently practicing and modeling for the world. And then we're like, okay, I should do that. But like, how? A few people have asked me about writing a book, but it scares me. I don't think I can sit with my thoughts for that long, Rich. I think I'm going insane. First of all, I don't have to tell you that that means that this is a challenge you should accept.

2:00:37Oh my God. I don't know if it'll make for a good video. It'll probably be a really boring video. Like I'm afraid of writing a book and now I'm going to sit in a chair. Is worth it in this year? I think it depends. I think that for someone with your stature and your kind of lot in life right now, it would be very easy for you to get a book deal and then sort of pawn it off on a ghostwriter and have them churn out some book that probably will hit the New York Times bestseller, but might not be a great book and might not really reflect what you're capable of sharing. At the same time, I think that you probably have an amazing book in you, but it's a book that you're going to have to write, you know, and you're not going to be able to just like give it to somebody else and have them do the work for you.

2:01:28But if you decide that that is something that is worthy of your investment of time and it's not easy and it's painful and long and all that kind of stuff, I think that there's something not only amazing that could come from that, but also durable. I do think that even in this age of advancing AI, that there is something special about books in terms of their lasting capacity to impact people. I still every day get messages about Finding Ultra, which I wrote 14 years ago. so it would be unusual to get daily feedback on a video you made 14 years ago um you know maybe if you made a movie or a television show but there is something about books just the physical media aspect of it alone that withstand the test of time in our kind of recycled world of content churn where everything you're looking at was uploaded the day before.

2:02:38Sometimes I don't know what additive I could bring to the space. Obviously, the experiences I've had are unique. But some of the tactics, I mean, I learned from Tim Ferriss, from Adam Grant, from Kim, all of these incredible other organizational thought leaders. Sure. And Adam Grant learned from XYZ and Tim learned from XYZ. Adam has a research lab and he figures it out all himself with his subjects. These are convenient excuses to not have to confront this fear, Michelle. I don't want to. But I will say maybe it's not the time yet. Okay. I'm not saying you should do it now. I think what I mean is I feel like I'm still a student.

2:03:21But there will become a time. Yeah, maybe. I think if you wanted to write a book right now, you could write an excellent book. It would come out. It would do amazing. I think people want to go behind the curtain. I wouldn't write a book about just here's all the crazy stuff I did. It would be more like what are the videos not showing and what are the lessons that you've learned that don't lend themselves to showing up in a video but have some kind of valence that would be helpful to somebody who is struggling in their life. Okay. And maybe you just need to bake that cake a little bit longer. but there is something there and I would encourage you at the time that's right for you to explore that.

2:04:07I think I have a pretty good sense on what would make a great episode of TV or YouTube video or short form piece. What for you is that gut instinct of that's a good idea for a book? How do you know? When I can't stop thinking about it. But I didn't think I was going to write another book. I was pretty convinced I wasn't until finally I kind of landed on something I wasn't expecting to that became like unshakable. But I haven't written a book for 14 years for a reason. Why? Because nothing inspired me enough to basically tolerate the blood, sweat, and tears that it takes. Like it's super hard. um so you have to really you have to want it and it has to be an idea that you feel deeply that you deeply need to share because otherwise you're going to end up going through the motions um but i think that i think that there there's hidden gifts for you there okay yeah thank you for the wisdom and i'm not saying you need to do it now again like when when the time is right for you and when you feel like you have an idea that you're ready to express.

2:05:26And you'll know when that time comes, just like you know when this is the next video that I'm going to make. That is so wise. Thank you. I'm glad that I was able to help you. I don't know if I did. You're the one who's inspiring me right now. You're leading the charge. It was an absolute delight to have you here. And I just, I wish you the best and I can't wait to see your next video and to see what you're going to do. You're just bubbling with enthusiasm and motivation and inspiration and you're having a real impact on the world. And I salute you, Michelle, and appreciate you spending time with me today.

2:06:03Well, thank you for inspiring me so much, Rich, and for inviting me into your world. It's crazy to see what's on the other side of this black void, by the way. I just assumed it was a 360 black void. There's other stuff over there, guys. There's people over there, too. people um this has been such a joy exploring this um and maybe next time uh we'll be able to have lunch together and oprah won't be invited to that lunch okay yeah i would love to have lunch with you okay great let's do that um thanks michelle thank you

2:06:46Thank you.