Joshua Weissman: Monetizing Your Passion and Building an Online Empire

I was really bothered with what was being produced in entertainment and food. What the is going on? No one is fixing it. And I was like, I'll fix it.

The content game is. It is the most competitive game there is, and you are competing for the highest and most expensive commodity that we have in this day and age, which is people's attention.

The number one lesson that I learned, you can become great at anything if you are willing to perform the relentless amount of repetition that it requires to become great at it. The two hours of sleep every night that was not by accident. I didn't accidentally hustle my ass off.

I love this podcast because I love talking to friends about how they made their millions and helping business owners solve their problems. It's fulfilling. I love sharing all the secrets. But when I can't meet in person, there's only one tool I use. It's called Riverside. Riverside ensures I can talk to someone anywhere in the world. Recorded in 4k so the quality of the video matches the quality of the humans you're listening to. Riverside records separate audio and video tracks so we can easily cut out those awkward interruptions that are my least favorite part of interviews. They have in platform editing software based off a 99% accurate AI transcription. If that's not simple enough, they take AI one step further for their show notes. It summarizes your entire content into an SEO optimized description and chapters, all automatic. Saves me a ton of money. So you can use Riverside for podcast interviews, panel discussions, presentations, webinars, more, and best of all, it's simple. Try Riverside for yourself with link in the description. Use code Cody for an exclusive discount. I get a deal? You get a deal. Hey everyone, I'm Cody Sanchez and this is the Big Deal podcast for those who don't just want to be rich, but free and do what it actually takes to get there. And today, you're in for a treat with a friend of mine who has accumulated 9 million followers on YouTube, tens of millions across multiple platforms. His name is Joshua Wiseman. If you haven't watched his cooking channels, I don't really know where you've been. You've probably been under a rock. But the reason I brought a chef on to talk to you guys today is for a couple different reasons. One, we talk about food and happiness. Are they correlated? Two, we talk about attention and what it means to be the best in today's world and to go where the attention sits. And the third thing we do is we talk about the differentiation that one can have if one decides to pursue this beautiful thing, which is giving another the gift of sustenance. One of the few things that we need to continue on a go forward basis. We also go over the deal of the week. If you're not subscribed on YouTube, you should definitely go over there right now because you get to see the inside scoop of, of a studio that he built out for half a million bucks that it's so sweet. That has racked up way more than a half a million views.

Bring the band in.

Let's go. Joshua Weissman. So excited for you to be here. I want to talk about the fact that you have, you know, tens of millions of followers cumulative across multiple social platforms. And we're going to talk about food, we're going to talk about health, we're going to talk about nurturing people. But I kind of want to start with something else. When you have tens of millions of people following you, you get a unique perspective into the human psyche.

Oh, yeah.

Do you think that people are happier today than when you were first creating YouTube videos? Like what, nine years ago when you started?

Probably not. You know, I think, I don't know why exactly. I think that there could be socioeconomic pressures right now. So much has changed in like a five year or maybe three to five year time span with COVID and just weird wacky shit happening that's never happened before in society. Like a used car is now $20,000 over MSRP, even though it has 40,000 miles on it. And inflation, everything's more expensive. And. And then a pandemic. And then. And then after the pandemic, I guess it's fine. But is it fine? And like everyone's so confused, you know, after society's gone through all these weird filters, it's kind of like shredded them down to the bone almost, I feel like. And so happiness level seems to be significantly lower. Or the way that they deal with their feelings has definitely changed. It's like the age of the hater in a way. Right. But that's okay. I also think it'll go away. I think it's a phase. But if you scroll on Instagram, you're probably going to find a negative comment 80% of the time and 20% of the time you'll find a positive one at the top.

Totally. So basically, you know, one of the interesting things I think for all of us is there's a bunch of data that shows that social media in many ways makes us less happy. Yeah, I think your videos do a beautiful job of a little bit the Opposite of that. Like, even if I don't want to do the cooking, I like watching yours because it's funny, it's fun, it's ephemeral, It's. It's engaging all your senses. Plus, there's no calories. I just get to watch.

I wish I could add smell to. To one of the senses to engage. That'd be crazy. Your phone was, like, poofing out.

Like, I think that'd be a problem. No, because then I'd be hungry. It's enough to look at it.

And then I funnel that into my Uber Eats thing, and then you're paying me.

This is a business podcast, so this is exactly where we're going.

Exactly. That's what I'm.

When it comes to your content in particular, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is because you have unique ways that you think about food. Like, for instance, I read this quote from you. I just want them to feel something from food. I want to make something that makes them think a little deeper about it. Even someone who's not into food. Cody. Knowing that somebody spent three months developing what's on the plate, that it took 72 hours to get all the different components of it in repair, and that you're going to eat it in 30 seconds, that's crazy. And in my words, like, also beautiful. How do you think about food?

Yeah, I mean, it's a great point. I mean, when you look at, like, art, for example, and I think food is art, and, I mean, it is the culinary art. So just everybody knows. When you look at, like, other forms of art, though, and that can be a painting, it could be music, it could be. Honestly, could be cars. Like, if you're into cars, like automobiles or motorsport. Right. People look at these things that were. That you spent endless and endless amounts of time creating different manufacturers or, I don't know, art directors or whoever came in to make it possible, and all these different people and moving parts, and then they solidify it into this official final thing. And maybe there's multiple drafts, maybe there's 100 drafts, a thousand drafts. Nobody knows. And not to mention all of the failed drafts that led to the understanding to get to that product. And then it's solidified and crystallized in times in some form or another, Right? With music, it would be a song, and it's there forever. With a book, it'd be a book, and it's there forever. With a painting, it's there forever. The irony about food is that same level of attention to detail, care Passion, stress, practice, craftsmanship goes into it, but it is made to be instantaneously destroyed and shit out, literally, right? Like the weirdest form of art I can think of, just because its sole purpose is to be destroyed. And so it's kind of this hypocritical, weird, silly thing that for some reason people in food choose to do well.

I think what's lovely in food in particular, and I think we'd be happier as a society, is if, you know, I walk into a restaurant and there's two things that my business brain goes to right away. One is like, what can we be doing differently here? How can we maximize revenue? Like little sickness, I think about when I sit down is really, man, how lucky are we that somebody determined that they wanted to spend their life perfecting the ability to feed us beautifully? And I think a lot of young people today don't see the full history. There's kind of this snapshot moment that whatever comes out and is put in front of me is in essence all there is. And they don't realize there's this beautiful essay called I Pencil. Have you ever heard it? It's an economics essay. We can link it. It's beautiful. And it basically talks about how if you want to understand the depth of the economy, you should look at one pencil. Because the pencil, basically, they explain all the complexities that go into it, from the lead that has to be created to the wood that has to be chopped down from a rainforest. And it goes all the way through it to the pencil. Finally get it in your hands. It basically talks about this interconnectedness of humanity. And I think about that a lot with food, that there's this beautiful ability at the end of the day for somebody else to decide they want to serve me. And wow, like, aren't we kind of lucky to have that? Totally. And maybe if we saw that more often, we'd realize there was magic all around. But what's interesting is a lot of people actually have the opposite reaction to restaurants these days. I mean, if you think about movies, chefs are really intense. And working in restaurants is super hard. And no, you know, and business, you know, restaurants don't stay in business. But you actually really liked working in restaurants. You talk about it really positively.

You got to have somebody who has a different opinion that's not so negative, Right? We can sit and talk about glamour that people want to hear, which is how hard it is working 14 hour days, coming in on my day off and not getting paid to work on a special, because that was fun. And you're not getting paid to work on a special, but in any other company they would pay you. Right? We could talk about that and get people all riled up and get people excited about how up it is to work in a restaurant, or we could take a step back and be like, well, wait a minute. But people still continually choose to do it, don't they? Why? Because there's more to it than just this like brutalist, beat up society. It's something that's been driven by passion for generations, since the dawn of the first restaurant. It is quite literally partially the nature of how a restaurant must operate to serve you great food. So just as much as someone would be critical to, you know, speak negatively about that lifestyle, they're also equally happy to go sit down at a 10 course meal and wine and dine their husband or wife or whatever and pretend that doesn't exist. It all exists because of the passion and the love that people have to do it. And in a weird way. So from my perspective, for example, or I wouldn't allow myself to stay in certain toxic environments, I knew what was good and what was not good. So I look back fondly on the places I worked at, because I chose to work at places that weren't that bad. Not to say I haven't had pots and pans thrown in my head. Trust me, I have. But in a weird way, like you have to just be that sort of fucked up, twisted person that loves the grind, that loves being intense, that loves the perfectionism. And that's part of the art. The biggest difference between working in food and any other artistic job or career is the whole point is to suffer for what's going on the plate. It is. That is what creating art is, is you suffer for the art. Some of the greatest art pieces ever created were created out of suffering. I'm not saying it's required to make great art. I'm just saying that it's part of the context. What I loved about it was the camaraderie. It was the going to battle every night. It was like being this insane practitioner slash craftsmen and being in a room full of people who feel the same fucking way every day. Like there's not one person who's gonna like fucking scrub this tiny little part of the plate because it has to be that perfect. No one's in question of who the fuck they are in that building. And that's badass because most people don't know who they are.

Rare.

Yeah.

Now you left this restaurant job to do something that People in the restaurant industry especially at the time, probably thought was batshit crazy.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah. You were going to go create videos online instead of working at a Michelin starred restaurant and becoming a real chef. And now you were going to be a YouTuber. How did you decide to do that? Now it probably seems reasonable and lots of people are jumping into it, but back then, especially as young as you were not that reasonable.

Yeah, well, I should clarify that Uchi is not Michelin star. Just for anyone who is watching this, I'm trying to remember what, how that felt, what happened.

Like what was. Tell me about the moment where you made that decision even to go do this different crazy thing.

Well, honestly, you would think that I mostly would think that I would was stupid to wait that long based off of like what I was making on, on YouTube. Like it was like totally overshadowing when I was making $11 an hour at the time. I mean obviously we've scaled this into like a substantial business, but at the time when you're just one person, you're making like 40k a month. It's like, what the fuck is going on? Like you're making literally the cook's salary every month. Like what is going on? Let me give you a very brief intro into how it led into that. So when I started doing it, I was very gung ho about getting into the entertainment slash teaching side of food because I was really bothered with what was being produced in entertainment and food. And I still am. But what really drove me was like, I just feel like this is these people don't care about food. They are not practitioners, they have not worked in restaurants. But, but all that aside, it's just the fact that they didn't care is what drove me so insane. And I was like, this stuff could be so much better and no one's fixing it. No one is fixing it. And I was like, I'll fix it. I could, I could fix this. And so I started making YouTube videos. The funny thing is when I started was when I got the most pushback from people because people were like, dude, like just go home and rest. Yeah, because I wasn't sleeping. I slept for like two, three hours a night for almost a year while I was producing videos. The only way I could make it happen, make full time restaurant and, and YouTube work at the same time. When I left, honestly I think most people were like, that makes sense because it was just like the grind I was putting into it. Most people were like, fucking hell yeah dude. You know, it was cool. But Leading up to leaving, though, before all that, most people would make fun of me, you know, which is fine. Like, that's part of, like, we all razz each other. It didn't. I didn't. I would. Wasn't like, going home crying, you know, but they'd be like. They'd be like, josh, you're gonna go film a YouTube video when you go home? I'd be like, fuck, yeah, I am, you little bitch. You know? And that was like, kind of the vibe.

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So did you just. Have you always been the type of person who just kind of ignores when people make fun of you or think that something you're doing is goofy?

No, no. When I was a kid, I was super overweight, and so I got bullied pretty significantly. But I think that kind of, like, gave me a pretty thick skin early on. And, I mean, I ended up losing all the weight, which was great. I lost, like, 140 pounds when I was, like, 16. So, you know, in a weird way, they kind of pushed me to do that. So it's hard to. I regained this new perspective where I was like. I mean, you know, they were mean to me and they made fun of me. And I'm not saying it was right. And the way they went about it was way, way, way not okay. And I don't condone bullying, but it did push me in a direction that changed my life, which made me realize, oh, I can, like, literally just change something in my life and make good things happen for myself if I'm willing to put in the work. Okay, cool. And that attitude stuck with me from that moment forever. So the whole, like, people saying negative things about me kind of was this wash after that.

At some point, do you get sort of inspired by it, I mean, sometimes I think when I find people that are high performers, it's often I'd rather take somebody who had less talent and a bigger chip on their shoulder than more talent and no chip at all.

Huge. Very good point. I agree with that actually, a lot for me, it's not always, it depends. You have to also be able to put it through the filter and understand what kind of, you know, hate or bullying you're getting. Because there's like some that might be true that maybe you can work on or look into. There's some that are totally like, you know, batshit crazy. There's no, no correlation that one. You can kind of just be like this, this person's not okay. I hope, I hope you're doing better. Bill from Wyoming. I hope you're doing better. Like, Bill, take the kids out. You know something, touch some grass. Yeah, touch some grassber. Like drink, drink, drink, kombucha. You know, I've heard that like the mind gut connection now. So you have to be able to decipher what's real, what's not real. But yeah, I definitely draw motivation from it. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't make me mad. Anyone who's worked in restaurants for long enough, for sure, you have to learn how to take an aggressive beat down as what can I learn from this? And it's not personal. Don't take everything so personally. You know, their words.

Are there mental models that you use to not take things personally and not catch feelings? When you get feedback and pushback, the.

First thing is recognizing that feelings will always be there. You can't make feelings go away. Feelings are out of your control sometimes. I do get feelings nowadays. I don't really. Honestly, I'm kind of like, I don't wanna say numb to it, but I just, I'm seeing the same thing over and over. I'm like, okay, cool. Like that was unoriginal. Let's try something new. If you do get feelings, that's gonna happen. The biggest determiner is what you do, right? Like you just have to decide how you wanna react to those feelings. And if you're able to get into this habit of every time a feeling hits you, it goes into your brain and you mentally process the feeling. You feel it, you feel bad, you will feel bad. That's not going to not feel bad. And you choose to not react in the way that you, in the negative way that you think you should. Whether that's like if, you know, for example, if someone comments something or dm's you something negative. And it could be a close friend, it could be a relative. Right? This happens all the time with relatives. Relatives says something, oh, I don't know if I like this new guy you're dating, you know, or whatever. Then you get that dm, it hits you emotionally and it maybe this one really hurts and you're like, fuck you, grandma, I'm fucking shitting on you today. Just stop for like, you can literally just not do anything for a second. Sit in it, let yourself, you know, be as anxious as you want to be. And then think to yourself before anything, what would be the logical response in this scenario right now? And so in that scenario you might go, I'm just not going to respond right now. I'm going to give this a couple hours. I'm really upset and really mad. Maybe I want to cry. Maybe you do cry. Cool. But you're not going to engage, you're not going to respond to it for the day. And then tomorrow you think about it again. Just make the rule to not respond. Cool. Okay. Next day comes around, oh, I don't really care anymore. Or maybe you do still care, but you don't care enough to respond. And then, okay, then wait another day and that feeling will go away. Feelings will always go away. But the action that you choose to take might be permanent.

When you were working in restaurants, was there ever a time that somebody made you cry?

Yeah, definitely. But I never showed it though. Anyone who, anyone who's worked in a restaurant totally knows what this is like, where you kind of like have that like teary eyed but you like, don't you like hold it, you're like, you hold the tears in. Like I've definitely had that happen a few times. I've been what happened. I've never cried from people being mean. I've cried from being called out and looked like I was a bad practitioner or looked like I was bad at my craft. Because that is like, you know, in the past when you're coming up, that's like the one thing that matters the most. And it's the one thing you're most insecure about because you're like, am I seasoning things well enough? Or like, oh, you know, my fish butchery could be better. And I don't know if I want people to see how I break down like a fish. And then you break down a fish and then someone says something, Geez. There was this one time that. God, nail it. I really hope none of my people that I work with are watching this I was making a gastrique, and a gastrique is really basic. It's like. Basically, the best way to describe is, like, a French sweet and sour sauce. That's not what it is, but it's, like, produced sugar, vinegar, and it's, like a viscous sauce. And I put it in a pot on the stove, and I was leading a team of, like, six people. So I put on the stove, and it takes a while to boil and reduce down, like, 20, 30 minutes. So, like, cool. I'll leave that there. I'll come back and check on it in a second. And I start working on a bunch of things. This guy's this up, and I gotta show him how to do this. I'm like, don't do it like this. Do it like this. I go about my day, and I'm just walking around doing my thing. And then the pastry chef comes up to me. She's like, hey, Josh, your pan's on fire. And I'm like. I'm like, this happens. It's not that big of a deal. I'm like, oh, fine. It's fine. I'll take care of it. I walk over there, and it's not just on fire. It is on fucking fire. Like, literally, this pot's not that big. It's like this big around this deep. And it's shooting a flame, like, six feet into the air, like a conical jet engine. And I'm like, what? How is this? This is sugar and. And white distilled vinegar. How is this even happening? And I'm like, oh, no worries. I know how to handle a fire. Pour kosher salt on it. Suffocated with salt, which is, like, a pretty common technique. Pour salt on it, covers it. Nice hill stops the fire, and then, like, this little flame pokes through, and then it just erupts again. And I'm like, how is this. What is happening? The vice president of the restaurant group, like, the VP of the restaurant group. This guy's been working there since the beginning. He's worked every position in the kitchen, and he walks in and he's like, who the fuck did this stupid ass shit? And everyone just looks at me, and I'm like, I did, Chef. I did that. He looks at me and he just goes, who the fuck lets you lead this team? And then grabs the pan and walks out with the fire going everywhere and walks it outside. And I remember just, like, standing there, it's just, like, dead quiet. And I'm like, don't cry, don't cry. Don't Cry, don't cry. He was right to be that mad. It was pretty bad. It could have, like, burned down the whole kitchen, you know, so it was pretty bad. And then I went out there and like, he was super chill. He was like, hey, look, I'm sorry. He was actually really cool about it afterwards. But, yeah, I almost cried.

I feel that one for you.

Yeah.

Well, I always used to think that, like, finance was the worst at investment banking. We were mean to each other. And then I've had now a bunch of friends that are chefs, and you guys take it to a different level. And I think there's like some good and bad to that. And the good is you've basically gone to the gym of feedback and difficulty so often every day, actually, that the rest of life is kind of a lot easier.

Totally. There's also discipline, too. You can hide discipline, but in a restaurant, you cannot hide discipline, because if you are undisciplined, it visually shows and you will eventually get kicked out of that kitchen if you decide to, you know, tread that water like that for too long.

It seems to me when I look at, like, historically, the industry of food, you had basically, you had chefs, and you had chefs who were great regionally or even in their individual cities. And then you got kind of these superstar chefs, which was TV based, superstar chefs. And then those have really given way to now social media. I don't even know if I always want to say chefs. Some of them are chefs like you, but many are not. And what is your take on. Is it true that, like, the most successful and best chefs today are moving online? And if we categorize success as monetary, perhaps, is this the future of, like, big names in food, or will it always be at a Michelin starred restaurant?

Well, I think big names depends on what you mean by big names. First, to categorize that if you work in restaurants, a big name in food is gonna always be somebody that no one has ever heard of unless you work in that. Right. It's sort of like, I guess maybe in business. Right?

Yeah.

You know, everyone knows, like, the Warren Buffett. Oh, what about Warren Buffett? But, like, I'm sure there's tons of business people that you know that you love or aspire to or have drawn energy from that you might say that I have no idea who they are. Right. But to you, they're like a fucking superstar. And that exists in food. So if we were to take that out of the equation, I guess, I guess the best way we could look at it is like Television versus the Internet, which back in the day was always like the Martha Stewart's, the Ina Gartens, the Gordon Ramsay's. The people that I looked up to when I was a kid, Gordon Ramsey was like, I've always said he's been my North Star since I was a kid. I got into restaurants because of him and Anthony Bourdain. Those two people were literally the two people where I was like, and this is coming from a place where I already wanted to work in food. The Internet, I don't know, it's kind of everything now, right? If you're going to own a business, you should be on the Internet. If you're going to have a restaurant, what are you doing not being on social media? Like, it's not even a question for anybody now in terms of fame, popularity, or, I don't know, growing an audience or who is the next Gordon Ramsay? Me. Where is the attention? It is not on TV as much nearly as it is on the Internet. There's really only a few places that people put their attention. I would break it up based off of their desired experience. And by that I mean, people have different modes for different types of consumption. Now. Before, it was like, you either watch television or you go to the movies. Pick one and have a nice day. And you had two options. It was like, oh, I'm gonna watch one episode of something that's 20, 30 minutes long. Chill, Watch that. You know, maybe you binge and watch a couple episodes if you have it on dvd. Or you can go and spend an hour and a half or two hours and make a big event out of it and have dinner and go out with the family and go see a movie that's dead done. It's gone. It's not coming back. It will never come back. Now you can. I'm not saying you can't, like, go out and have fun with your friends and watch a movie. I'm just saying that now there's so many other ways to consume. So to me, it seems inevitable that, you know, whatever the previous idea of the biggest name in food being on television, I don't think that that exists anymore as much today. But it just, I don't know, it depends. I don't have a crystal ball. It just depends on where the attention is. And to me, it seems quite diffused at the time. And even the biggest heads in television and entertainment are looking at that and going, you know, and they're thinking, kind of scratching their chin, thinking, well, what can we do to, you know, build this out properly. I don't think anyone's going to, you know, die in the process. I do think that there will be like mergers. But it seems to me that the Internet is the place that people go to consume food media.

Yeah, totally. I was meeting with an A24 executive the other day and she was telling me that in their conversation with the streaming services, all of them are sort of pondering how to include like streamed first person POV or user generated content into their systems. Yeah, it actually is crazy. When she was explaining it to me, I'm like, that is wild that actually Netflix has no optionality for anything like that because it seems like such a low hanging fruit for them and it would be free as opposed to how expensive their cost is.

Totally.

How else could you compete against YouTube which cost them $0? It costs you a half a million dollars to build this location. If they were going to do a Netflix series, they'd have to build it all. But you've already done it and they could just stream you on the service just like YouTube does. So it'll be interesting to see if that happens.

Yeah, totally.

Well, let's talk about the monetization of food online and entertainment. I was looking at a bunch of these online food cookers, chefs, et cetera. And I was kind of laughing because everybody's got a tagline, right? So you've got like, you've got like Oliviated who says like horngree. And you know, that's.

Who is that? That's.

Is that somebody else?

Oh, who is that?

My husband's going to be so upset that I can't remember this. Yeah, Susie. Olivia is the one that flicks off the camera.

Pretty fun. Yes, Olivia. Olivia. So it's funny, this actually happened really recently. So Olivia's a friend of mine. She came here, she flew out, we, you know, filmed two videos. It was super fun. She was very chill. I appreciated that very much. And she like blew up out of nowhere. It was crazy. And then there's this other girl, Susie Vidal, I think it is. And I actually had just discovered her like I don't know, a week ago. Olivia texted me and she goes, do you know Susie? And I was like, oh yeah, yeah. I saw one of her videos like yesterday, which was, you know, it was a day or whatever I recently seen. I was like, yeah, I think I know you're talking about. And. And she was like, dude, Susie has been watching you for like four years. Like we got to get together. So anyway, shout out Susie and Olivia.

And I thought it was Kind of brilliant because she has this like, instead of only fans, it's only pans. And then she, instead of being hungry, she asks if you're hornry. It's like perfect for our generation.

It's great.

Yeah. And then Olivia has a little flip off. And then you have multiple signature moves from like the eyebrow. Were those cultivated?

Do you guys. I honestly think all of, all of mine are not intentional at all. I think they're just like tics or something that I do at this stage. Like I have a camera on me all the time, so I just like kind of do shit. I've never intended to create any taglines, but sometimes the audience, you know, honestly I just do things and I pick up on when the audience loves a little thing that I do. And, you know, maybe sometimes I do it more often because I know they like it and I do it for fun. You'll notice if you look through my comments, like everyone. So I was kind of the one who started like really going deep dive on big recipe content that, that does big views, that's applicable for everybody. Right? And so because of that, I used to make this joke where I would go, what did I say? It sort of started along the lines of I started to get annoyed with people because they would ask so many questions that I had already answered. So I was like doing voiceover and one time I was like, don't worry, sweetheart, all right, Papa's got you. And I just did it sort of as like a, you know, silly joke. I don't know what happened, but I got into like people's like daddy issues and daddy kinks because of that. But also just people in general because of like the fact that I'm like teaching and people are kind of looking to me for direction. People refer to me as Papa, like in person and in the comments and in my videos.

I only want to be a papa from now on.

Yeah, it's a real thing. It's a real thing. Like all my comments, like, I posted this video, like, I've been like dieting for a while. I'm starting to like finally get some physique response, you know, your guy's too damn good looking. I'm like trying to compete with him in the gym. I like see him doing something and.

Try to put more. You said you guys were working out the other day.

Yeah, he's good looking. This is a good looking one. So I'm like, I'm over here. Yeah, good work, good work. Anyway, so I've, I've, I've Gotten more fit. And I. You know, I posted this video of me. Like, it was like, my exposed back. I don't know why I did it.

But I was like, it's very saucy.

Yeah.

Let's show the video.

It was unintentionally saucy. Really?

Okay. It was like, you were like that chick that, like, kind of wants to show you her outfit. Like, not all the way. You were, like, kind of over your shoulder. It was great.

My intention. You know what?

The back looks good.

The wig. Thank you. I've noticed that my. I think that that's, like, my biggest asset. I realized that I have good jeans for a good back. And I saw it, and I was like, holy shit. Like, I really built my back out. This is gonna show how lean I've gotten. Cause I've had this back and forth with my audience. I'm like, I'm getting shredded this year. This is happening. So they know I'm doing it. And so I was like, I'm gonna show off my leanness. Cause you can see how lean I am in my back. And it was just a video that I took. The video was, like, two minutes long. I just did the part that showed off how lean my back was, and I was like, oh, people will get it. No, dude, no. And so everyone's like, papa. More like Daddy. And like, Jesus Christ, y', all, I am married.

She probably thinks it's funny, too. I like it.

She's actually less enthused about it anyway. She's just like. She's like, yeah, you look good. And I was like, oh, cool.

Cool. Yeah.

You know what?

I think mustaches, goatees, and probably your back are just for other dudes.

Yeah, it's true.

You know, I think that's. My husband's. The same way. Beards. It's not for me. It's for every other dude.

Love me. It's crazy. Way more than women do, for sure.

Create your content. You were like, I think, one of the early people to create food ASMR cooking videos.

Probably not.

And do you even call your videos that? Because I think it's kind of a cool idea. Like, if I'm listening to this right now as the audience, and I'm thinking of creating content in some way, shape, or form. You talked earlier about, like, I wish I could make them smell. Well, you can't do that, but you can make them hear, you can make them feel, and you can make them see.

Totally.

But a lot of times, people forget the tactile sensation of hearing and how addicting it is.

Yeah, I don't know that I started the ASMR ones like generally, but I know for sure that I was the first, if not one of the very first, like within, like you could count on one hand that was producing food content on, like, TikTok. That's where the short form, right? Because There wasn't even IG reels at the time. It was just TikTok YouTube shorts didn't exist. IG reels didn't exist. It was very sort of silly underground place to be. If you want to know who got me into was Gary.

Smart. He's not often wrong about social media.

No, he's not. I'll listen to anything that man tells me, but I was lucky enough to kind of, you know, I built a relationship with him and his team and, you know, we talk from time to time and he's great. You know, I love him. And I remember him like, just constantly posting about TikTok. And this was very early on I went on there and started producing content and they blew up every goddamn time because it was the only. I was the only one doing it. So it was just. It was very much of. Lots of attention, very little production of content. I just kind of ran with it and then everything. I like to call all these, like, different TikTokers and short form people, my children, because they're. They're. They don't realize they're all copying. They may not be copying me directly, but they're copying someone else who copied me or someone else who copied them. Who copied who? Another person. Another person. It ultimately leads to me because the whole quick cut editing style stuff started.

With that, like, you like, slap the bread.

Slap the bread, Throw the butter on.

Sizzles.

Sizzling. Lots of like. You know, unfortunately in the beginning, I did a lot of sexual innuendos. I noticed that they got pretty good traction. So I did utilize that. Here's a funny story for one that I did. I used to slap my butt, which I really regretted. I really regret doing this. I used to. I used to, like, I used to show my ass. Not my whole ass, just a little piece. So what happened was there was one video that I. This is when I was just me editing. Not a very good editor, by the way. And I was editing a short form or TikTok video. This is like maybe my fourth or fifth or sixth TikTok video, maybe 10th. And they all did pretty good. I upload the video and it does like 8 million views in like less than an hour. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on with this? This one's going crazy. It's not even that good of a video. I'm actually pissed off that this. Why didn't the pizza one do better than this? You know, it was like some random. It was like a grilled cheese or. I don't even remember. And I accidentally left in about 25% into the video. There's this shot where I meant to cut off the back half of that clip, but I didn't. And it was five seconds left in the clip that I didn't cut. And in that five seconds, I turned around and bent over to grab something out of the drawer. I guess I cut it. I didn't cut it short enough. So I did cut it, but not short enough. And so it's literally just me turning around and full ass bending over. The only reason I realized that is I went in the comments and they're like, jesus Christ, he's got two yellow onions back there. That's crazy. I started doing that and they went viral every time I did it. And then I stopped doing it because I was like, this is weird. And now other people do that too. Have you seen that guy? The guy that sexualizes everything in food? I can't remember his, like Cedric something?

No. What does he do?

Cedric Lorenzen.

Oh, I gotta check this out.

I don't even know if you can show a clip.

Really.

It's really sexual.

Okay, we're definitely showing a clip, so let's see if we get kicked off YouTube. Hi, this is Deechen Laichman and I am here to tell you toyotathon is on. So stop by your local Toyota dealer for incredible year end deals on the cars, trucks and SUVs known for their legendary reliability like the stylish and efficient Camry, the Ready for anything RAV4 or check out a rough and rugged Tacoma or Tundra. All with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota let's go places. The holidays are all about family. But at the Chrysler Wrap of the year sales event, it's all about you. Enjoy every mile in the most awarded minivan in America. The Chrysler Pacifica. With the most standard safety features in its class, available Stow n Go seating and the available Stow and back built in vacuum. Make the most of the holidays with a great deal at the Chrysler Pacifica Wrap of the Year sales event based on Ward's small van segment. Based upon the latest available competitor information, Chrysler is a Registered trademark of FCA US llc. There's also that other guy who says like bon appetito betches or something.

Oh, qcp.

Yeah, qcp.

He's wild.

There seems to be a formula for cooking at this moment. Videos. In cooking videos, the formula seems to be like, there's obviously some ASMR component of it that has to be cut pretty quick. It has to be like relatively accessible recipes. Like they can't be too wild and crazy.

Yeah.

And then there's some funny entertainment aspect to it.

I would agree.

Do you have like a formula? You're like, this is what works now.

I also think there's another thing in that as well.

Yeah.

I think it's. Or you have presence, people know who you are. Right. If Cameron Diaz was in this kitchen and I took a video of her and she had no formula, I think it would probably do pretty good. Right?

That's true. Yeah.

Cameron Diaz.

Yeah.

People know me pretty well and me and food already. And they know me because my YouTube channel and so on and so forth. So I think that honestly a lot of my videos do well just because it's me.

Yeah.

And I don't really always consider formula, but we do have generally a direction a video is going to go before we produce it. I think the number one thing, the formula that I always follow is honestly I follow my own viewing intuition very much of like timed cuts, if that makes sense. So I'm very formulaic on how long the attention span lasts per cut. And that's really the main thing that I follow. But like in terms of a saying or like having a saying or whatever that might make sense for someone starting out that doesn't have a presence already. I feel like if you are starting out and you don't know where to begin, especially with food content, what you should do is figure out who you are as a person and reflect that. Don't create a character because a lot of people create characters and I don't think that that's a great way to be happy.

No. I think you get stuck.

Yeah. Find who you are and emphasize that, you know, if you're, if you're like the quiet person who's awkward, fucking let that out. Be awkward on camera. Be quiet and weird. I'm telling you, it will do well. There are so many videos of weird ass shit that do well and I think that that will cultivate an audience of people who, who associate with that type of a person.

Like you're pretty much exactly the person I see in your videos, except maybe Your videos have a slightened volume turn up effect totally. But like everything you do on them, I go, oh, yeah, I've seen that face before, like hanging out.

I don't put on a character. If anything, I just, I put myself in a moment. I'm like, oh, what, what's the energy in this shot? And I just need to bring that energy out. Right. If I was like, you know, I show up and it's 9:00am and you know, I just had my coffee and I already worked out and I'm maybe just still kind of like, you know, in my head about something that bothered me earlier. And I show up on set and I know that we're, we're filming pickups for a shot that's 10 minutes into a video. I'm not going to be like, all right. And then you put the butter in the pan, you know, it's like, oh, they've been watching for 10 minutes and I was talking a certain way. I just need to bring that back in, you know, so that's the other way.

How do you, you guys create a ton of content and you create really high value content and you seem to go viral every single time. You're getting huge views across multiple platforms. How do you keep the creative aspect flowing with the fact that you're like a production house now?

If you make a video and it does crazy views, the first thing you should do is not give a fuck. You need to get out of the whatever feelings you have attached with those views. You need to murder those feelings and look at it formulaically and figure out how to rinse and repeat that process. But honestly, the bigger you get, people think it's like there are things that are easier. It's wonderful to have a production company. You know, I pay people pretty well and it's expensive to run a company. Very expensive, actually.

Yep.

Look, I'm not gonna say numbers, but the simple reality is if you are gonna run a business and you're gonna produce content and you're gonna pay people, please understand that it is going to be, it's going to feel very volatile, it's going to feel very stressful, it's going to feel very pressuring. And now all of a sudden, the videos that you're producing, they have to perform. So how do you make that work? Well, you need to have a thick skin. You need to be ready to. Like. That should not bother you. You should still be able to be creative and expressive. And how do you, how are you creative and expressive by not being stressed out. Good Luck with that. So I think a lot of people will fail there. So first ask yourself if that's something you want to live with. But that said, the way that we do it is it's very feeling based. I have, you know, my top performers that I that are always by my side. We're always working together on creative. I mean, you saw it on the front of these doors. We have written on the front of our doors to the kitchen says honor the audience. I think in the same way for a chef, what makes a great chef is not just making good food. That should be the easy part. Good food should be the easiest fucking part of your job. What makes a great chef is first being the artist, but also being the business person, being the financial analyst, being the marketer. That's what makes a great chef. So if that's what makes a great chef, then to me, that's what would make a great content production studio is you have to be both. And the best way to mesh it is to bring out your creative, allow yourself to be creative, come up with things that resonate with you. Because if they resonate with you, they'll probably resonate with your audience. But then find a way to honor their presence when they're watching you. Which means, you know what? I love this shot. I don't think everyone's gonna love this shot as much as I am. I just don't like, I just know, I know that people will watch this two minute segment of me doing this thing and maybe, you know, maybe 100,000 people will appreciate it, but I need 9 million people to appreciate it.

Yeah, it's really, I think one of the toughest parts that I've realized about the content game is it is the most competitive game there is. There is zero moat to this game. And you are competing for the highest and most expensive commodity that we have in this day and age, which is people's attention. It is the only thing that we cannot create more of and we have infinite optionality for what to do with it. I mean, you are competing with Donald Trump in the same time that you're competing with the hottest new Star wars movie in the same time that you're competing with every single Tiktoker and actually the algorithm of TikTok driving the most viral things out there.

And it's free.

And it's free.

Anybody can do this, right? You're competing with every single human being on planet earth because anyone can walk in and just make content.

So I think it's a really good thing to ask Yourself. Do you actually want to play this game?

Very competitive. You have to have a thick skin. But also, I think the biggest thing, because I feel like the way I said it made it sound like I don't enjoy this. I love this shit. Like, I love doing this. Like, I love it so much that the competition is not me. I don't feel like I'm competing with anybody. I don't feel like I'm fighting to beat X person. I'm fighting because I want to do this forever. And if somebody thinks that they're going to beat me because they want to make better content than me specifically, they will lose. To me, they will lose.

Why do you think you have that type of attitude?

It's sort of like fighting for necessity over fighting for glamour. And I think when you fight for glamour, you eventually will fizzle out and lose. Not just steam in terms of, like, viewership, but you'll lose the motivation to do it over time. Because if you're fighting for something that doesn't actually really matter to you and actually matters more to other people, like your image and how fancy you look and this, that, and the other, yeah, you're gonna run out of energy. It's really hard. Like, you really have to, like, be fighting for something that feels more like necessity and something that you, you know. I fight to continue to do what I do. I love to do this. I want to do it forever. And. Yeah, I mean, that's a tough argument to beat.

I was thinking about this idea yesterday that I'm calling the law of more, which is basically, if you look at some of the best producers or artists of all time, like Picasso, you mentioned before, Picasso has something like 200,000 prints and paintings that he did to become the most prolific artist of all time. If you look at Taylor Swift, she was, like, back and forth between being on tour or creating an album for the entirety of her career since she's been 16 years old.

Crazy.

Which is why she's now almost has more albums than any other soloist. I do think there's some balance between quantity, eventually becoming, with relentless focus, Quality.

Absolutely. How can you create quality without the reps?

Like, if you want to be great, do a lot.

Yes. That is. Well, that. That is the game. Volume is the game. 100%. Working in restaurants, I mean, it's all I really know. I didn't go to college, so a lot of people like to make fun of me sometimes because they're like, oh, my God. He always talks about how he works in restaurants. That's All I know, like, what do you want from me? People talk about when they went to college, they don't get shit on for that. I didn't go to college. I didn't have any formal studies. I went and worked in a brutalist environment and I worked in fucking restaurants. And the number one lesson that I learned was you can become great at anything if you are willing to perform the relentless amount of repetition that it requires to become great at it. And it may be 500 times, it may be 5,000, it may be 10,000, it may be 100,000, maybe a million. It depends on how quickly you learn. It depends on so many factors. But I do believe that anyone can be great at almost anything. It's just how many reps is it going to take? And are you going to, Are you going to be able to do all those reps?

Yeah, it's so true. I've become kind of friends with Tim Grover. Tim wrote a book called Relentless and I think it's a really good screen. If people love that book, they're going to like working in my companies. If they don't, they're not. So I agree with you there. Now, one thing you did that I think is fascinating that you don't get, you don't get enough credit for and people don't talk about is the book launch. Like I want to obsess for a second on how to launch a best selling book in a way that is not ads, that is not even at the time you had a big audience, not the biggest audience, but you sold hundreds of thousands of copies of a cookbook before cookbooks were like mainstream everywhere. Talk to me about how you did that. How do you get 3,000 people to line up to wait to see you for a cookbook signing?

Yeah, that was wild. And also for reference, for the cookbook signings. Any of my audience watching? We're working on creating a better method. Okay. We weren't expecting that many people to show up. We didn't do any paid advertising. There wasn't like, oh, let's put a billboard up, let's. It was all completely organic. Push for the book. Funny enough, actually we did do one ad campaign. We did for free. We did. We were doing this thing with Pinterest. We were working with Pinterest and they gave us free ad space. We used the ad space. You know what's funny? Less than 1% of our sales came from that.

Wow.

And the amount of ad space they gave US was $200,000 worth of ad space. Less than 1% of my sales came from that.

What was the difference?

Authenticity, I think.

Yeah. But it's way more tactical than that. You were systematic as a motherfucker when you were inserting your book. Like, I went back and looked through a bunch of your videos. It's almost like you never marketed because you were in restaurants, but somebody taught you the book. Like, you would be cooking and then you'd be like, yeah, I'm thinking about chicken legs. Ooh. Like on page 57 in my cookbook.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Talk about that insertion project.

It became tactical because I care so much about the viewer's experience.

Mm.

So much so that I modified my marketing perspective to. Whatever I do, if I'm gonna promote my book, it will be in a way that is entertaining and not just totally boring and disruptive from the content that they chose to, you know. So kindly give me their time to watch. The last thing I wanna do is deter them with a shitty promo.

What would that be? A shitty program would be, like, you with the book. Like, look, I'm trying to hit the New York Times bestseller list.

Yeah. Like, people say you should be direct with the audience and say, like, oh, my cookbook is out. I mean, I did say that, and I did have some promos like that. Like, I did. Right. But if every promo is like, my book is out, go and get it. Like, that doesn't. That's not meaningful. Like, it feels very much like, give me your money, motherfucker. And I just don't. I'm not like that. And certainly it's frowned upon from the world that I come from. Always be reserved. Don't, you know, ask for too much. And so I was just trying to avoid being like that. And I think that's how we formulated the whole marketing around. If we're going to have you buy something, we're going to make it entertaining. And even more than that, we're going to lead up to it with value before we deliver that. That we're not just going to go books out. Okay, now let's get to the value. It's like, no value. Value, value, value. By the way, silly, fun thing, Goo Goo Gaga. I'm going to wipe my butt with my book. Which I did. Not literally, but I made it look like that. I launched my book by wiping my ass with a page of it. I tore a page of my book out. I was, like, sitting on the toilet, and I look over and the camera cuts to the empty toilet paper roll, and it cuts back to me and I pull up A sheet of my book. And I'm like. And then it cuts to a black screen. And then it's basically like fades in. It's like, my book is officially out. Like, da, da, da, da. My publisher was like, dude, I can't believe you did that. Like, did it work? Please, please, you know that. Please delete that out of the video. I'm like, we can't. Yeah, we sold like 60,000 copies that day. It was crazy.

So it's basically like giving a little bit more love and juice to the idea of even trying to get your audience to sell something or to buy something, you know, honor the audience would be. I mean, sometimes when I'm talking to my team, I think, one, you should never write a love letter to whom it may be concerned. Right. That makes no sense. And yet most marketing is not named towards you, is not written like you would write a text to a buddy, and is not actually going to get somebody to pick up and do something. It's written like a corporate speak that makes you want to gouge your eyes out. And so instead, yours is kind of the opposite. And you almost lean into the thing that you don't want people to do, which is think that your book is shit.

Yeah. I've also done campaigns where I was like, here are the things that my book is good for. Using it as a shovel or using it to put hot things on. And I put a really hot pan on it, caught my book on fire. Cause it was so hot that it literally caught the pages on fire. And it's just sort of like just being silly. And there was one where I literally said, don't buy my book. Fuck you. And a ton of people bought it. And it was sort of like this thing of, like, what it tells the audience is it's not reverse psychology. I mean, maybe it is, but I wasn't trying to be reverse psychological. What it tells my audience is it says, I don't fucking care if you buy my book or not. I made it for you. And I worked really hard on it, and it's good. And you've trusted me all these years. Here it is. If you don't want to get it, I don't care. Like, it's good. That's it. Me writing the book is good enough for me. And most people, I think, can really resonate with that. And they can sit back and go, wow, you know, he doesn't even need me to buy this shit. But I've watched him for, you know, three, four years or two years. He's always been consistently good. Why wouldn't I get it? And look how confident he is in it. Yeah, like, sure, I'll buy it. It's, you know, 20 bucks or whatever, you know.

What is the process when you're thinking about ads for your book? Do you think about it just like any other type of content?

I treat it exactly like content.

Yeah.

Which is create. What's the creative? What's the story? You know, is there a story? Is it a joke? Is it silly? Is it serious? Is it ang. Is there a point I want to make with it? It should be entertaining without the book being there. Basically, it should be entertaining without the product being there. Are we going to put it in a scenario where it doesn't belong? You know, it's like, it's a cookbook. Should we pretend to do a, I don't know, an ad about getting a lobotomy and like, do something crazy where like I pretend to have a lobotomy and I'm promoting my book and I have no idea what's on the inside of the book and that's the creative. It's like, if it is just fun to watch, that's enough for me. You can never guess how many people will follow through with it until it gets to them. Right. So at least if you entertain them, it's better than nothing.

I think I want to tap really quickly into. So we've talked about how to sell books, we've talked about how to build a content empire. We haven't talked a ton about how your goals have changed over the course of. You were 21 when you first started, is that right?

Man, was I? Holy.

You're 28 now.

How old was I? Jesus, I honestly don't even know.

Early twenties.

It was five. It was probably five years ago. I officially, officially left. So. Yeah, so five years ago.

Five years ago. So five years ago you leave the restaurant and you probably just want to replace your salary, right? You're like, I just want to. Well, you had already by then. I just want to make more money than I do at this other place and I want to be my own boss and I want to grow online to. Now, you know, I have a best selling book. Oh wait, I have two bestselling books. Oh wait. I'm one of the biggest YouTubers out there on cooking. What is next and how has your goal changed as you've climbed your varying mountains?

You know, it's funny. Actually hasn't changed. I would say most people get into this nowadays by accident. Right. They're like, oh, I made a video.

And it went viral one day, and then I kept.

No, motherfucker, that's not what happened here. Like, the two hours of sleep every night, that was not by accident. I didn't accidentally, you know, hustle my ass off. It was very much of, like, when I started, I knew exactly what I wanted to build. And that. That vision of what that is, that, like, thing that I see in the distance is still there. I look at it every day, and I have been looking at it for probably the past, I don't know, decade of my life or maybe even longer, because, you know, I started cooking when I was 5, and I cooked almost every single day all the way up till today. And so I've done the fucking 100 million hour rule, you know, whatever that is. When I was 11, this is the differentiator here, when I was 11 or 12, is when I saw Gordon and I was like, I want to make something like that. I think I can do something like that. And he was a big inspiration for me. And that created a goal in my brain then. And so every decision I've ever made has always been this North Star that I'm looking at, which is to build what I'm building now, but much bigger, with varying different things in it. I don't want to give the whole thing away, but that big goal has never changed. I think the only thing that has changed is the way I approach things. I'm much less emotional about things. I approach things much more analytically. All the sorts of things that you go through when you build a business is you get beat up a bunch, and then you learn how to regulate your.

You almost run out of money. You almost get sued.

Yeah, you almost get sued. Totally. That's happened. And you just kind of learn, oh, this is just running business. Okay, cool. Well, I have this part down and this part down. What else do I need to learn to get better at this? What else do I need to, like, try out? And you learn how to be like, oh, the next venture, I need to take a risk again. I need to feel the sense of risk again, you know? And that's where I'm at right now, where I'm like, I'm taking on more risk now to do the next step.

Yeah, there's gotta be some huge correlation between risks taken from a business perspective and amount of success had. Because I think that's the biggest thing that people don't understand if you're not risking something. I mean, the other day we. We just raised a Bunch of money. And I put in millions of dollars for a company that we're scaling in the SaaS space and I bought it and now we're building it. And you know, I told some of the investors that gave us money, you know, I knock on wood, have never lost money for anybody to date, and I'm not gonna start now. And he kind of turned and looked at me. His name's Donald Park. He was like, if you have never lost anybody's money and you have never failed on a business, you are not taking big enough risks. And I was like, or I'm really good. He's like, never the case.

Whoa, that's crazy. That's actually, that's deep and it's kind of true.

Right? Like if you haven't done a video where you're like, this video, I do not know if it's gonna work and we're gonna spend spent $30,000 on it and fuck, it totally failed. But we learned a bunch of things from it.

Yeah, it's happened.

Yeah. What do you think's the most money you've lost on one video with Venmo Stash?

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Oh, that hurts.

I've lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on videos. Yeah, multiple six figures I've lost on videos. But it's sometimes difficult to calculate what that really means because what is a loss on a video? Especially on long form? Because long form is really powerful. It's not like short form. Someone can watch a short form video and I give a about you. They can watch 20 of your videos and I'll give a shit about you. But long form is a commitment. You're watching a 30 minute, 20 minute video. I mean, people are what my video is like 20, 25 minutes. People are watching television show, basically. It's like you look at the, you could look at the back end of YouTube and basically go, how much money did the video make and how much should I spend on it? And then do your math and be like, this was the roi. Right. But that's not always the case, though, because if you gained 50,000 subscribers, solid subscribers from that video, and then they all watch like, you know, 100 videos each that you're, you're way above your ROI from that. If you think about it, I see it more as an investment than a loss, but I try to be careful with that as well. So.

Yeah, well, I think, you know, creating content online is sort of like running a startup, even if you've been doing it for a long time, because you just have to spend so much money consistently on content with the hopes that it'll eventually turn into more money or just an ability to continue doing the thing that you love to do. And I think that's the hardest part that people don't realize as content creators is they think that they're artists, but they don't realize your component, which is this business component.

That's true.

I want to, like, wrap up a little bit on the food front or my husband will kill me because he hates being called the word foodie, so I won't use that. He likes to cook. It's a naughty. Why is. Yeah, people hate that.

Cringy. You know, it's just kind of like.

Like I'm a breathy.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like, it's like.

Yeah, I would have said that in 2007 and looked back at it and regretted saying that. You know, I don't know.

I've heard, for instance, that some chefs like cooking for themselves but not for others, or like cooking for others but not themselves, but there's a big chasm between the two.

Oh, wow. I've actually never thought of that before before.

Which one are you?

I don't like cooking for myself as much as I like cooking for others.

Interesting by far.

I'll spend days on a. On a dish, and by the time I'm done, like, God damn, I don't want to eat this. Somebody else eat it.

Interesting.

I've been looking at it for days. I do not want to eat this, you know, I'll have a little spoonful and I'm good.

Yeah.

But I'm excited to serve it to people.

So that's the nurturing. Nurturing aspect. That's.

Yeah, it is. Or it's like me being like, I know the best experience of this, and I want you to experience it and enjoy it the same way that I do. And I'm going to create a situation where you can.

I was reading some studies the other day on women today, and more than 60% of women today have never had a man cook for them below 35, which I thought is fascinating.

That makes sense.

And I was wondering, one, what's your take on that? And two, do you think it's, like an unfair advantage as a man to be able to cook and to like cooking for another? Sure.

Shouldn't be an unfair advantage. It seems like such a basic thing. We're the only animals on the planet that cook our food before we eat it. Why does everyone not know how to cook? That's like a evolutionary enigma. That's incredible. It's literally in our DNA. Yeah, it is an advantage. Totally. It was my advantage. Look at that. Definitely my advantage for a long time. Okay. You know, my wife knows it was definitely my advantage, and it was my avenge with her, too.

By the way, do you teach a lot of young men how to cook? Like, do you see them in the comments, learning from you and implementing it?

My audience on YouTube is over 75% men.

That's great.

That crazy.

My husband. Yeah, He's. It's just rewatching it like a creep. So if you're new, I know this is like a one on one level, but say you're a dude because most of our content is dudes watching it. Say you're a dude and you want to impress a chick, but you suck at cooking. Where would you start? Is there like three dishes that you're like, this is doable, but also a crowd pleaser.

Totally. Before you even start, you need to, like, research and understand the person you are cooking for. Do not assume. Do not assume. Don't think that you're the big shot that's going to make the big fancy dinner. Just shut the fuck up and listen and figure out what kind of a woman they are. You know what? If they're vegan and you don't know.

You break up with them immediately. Yeah.

First, you have a very, very important.

Just kidding.

Yeah. More important than anything. Than anything you do. One time, I found this vegan cookbook in Kate's Desk. And it was like. It was like a movie scene where you find like a, like a text, like a.

Like.

Yeah, yeah. But instead it was a vegan cookbook. And I was like, what is this? And she's like, oh, it's like a vegan cookbook. And I'm like, I can't be with you if you do this.

I literally have a meat. What is that? Dry meat? Dryer.

Dry ager.

I have a dry ager.

Yeah. If you don't like the smell of Dry 42 Dry Aged Rib Eye come fresh out the fridge being sliced into a two and a half inch thick steak. It's gonna be cooked perfectly to 135 degrees Fahrenheit, internal medium rare and top with an AA brandy sauce. You. You can't be in love.

Exactly. She ignored you and walked back into the kitchen as one does.

She's like, you're done.

Ask them questions first.

Figure out who the person is. Figure out what they like to eat.

Audience demographic survey. Got it.

Now, assuming that they're a meat eater, assuming that they, you know, like beef, I would always have a beef dish in there. I think beef is really easy to make. Luxurious and nice and fun. Save that to the end if you're doing a course. Doubt. Another thing is a dessert. Pick a really nice dessert or a dessert that's easy to please. Like chocolate chip cookies. I'm telling.

Yeah, telling you totally.

You gotta have a dessert in your arsenal. If you make a killer chocolate chip cookie, I think that alone will. You'll win.

What's like the one little trick? Is it just like sprinkling a little Himalayan sea salt on top? Is there like one little secret?

Sea salt. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Shows you traversing some mountains or some.

Yes, yes. The.

The trick is using my recipe.

Ah, yeah. Page 42.

Yeah. No, I don't.

Okay, fine. I don't know.

But in my first book, I have a really good chocolate chip cookie recipe. If you do need one, you're going to use. But that aside.

Okay, so steal that.

Yeah, so steal that. It's a chocolate chip cookie or. Or some sort of dessert. And then I guess the third, you know, like a. It can be. It could be a protein or I would say some sort of nice. Either side dish slash appetizer or like a starch, you know, like a really nice, nice mashed potato or like a risotto.

Do you have one you really like.

In the new book? I have a 1 pound of butter mashed potato. That's really good.

Okay, that sounds Amazing.

It's insane.

So we go on a mashed potato. We got a. What is it, like a steak? Is that what we're going with? Steaks seem intimidating to me. Like, seems like you could really fuck up a steak.

It's really hard. It's really not hard. I think that they're. That's why it's such a great choice. The first thing I cooked for Kate was a steak seal it.

Okay. So it's actually pretty straightforward. You follow the recipe. You don't have to French feel it. And a steak is doable for most humans.

Yeah. And I think. Look, I think just honestly, there are few. So few men that cook, I think, for their ladies in their life, or the ladies they wish were in their life, that just cooking, you're already so far ahead. I only think you're gaining maybe a 10 to 20% additional advantage by getting really crazy with it.

That's true.

But I think if you go too crazy, like, most of them be like, oh, are you a chef? Like, that's cool. Then it becomes this, like, career thing. Just make a good steak and potatoes and call it a day, you know?

Yeah.

Make a great steak. Like, an incredible steak with a really nice sauce and, like, a mashed potato and like, maybe some. Some roasted broccolini with a little lemony sauce on it and just call it a day. If you're the one making it, you're, like, miles ahead of everybody else. And it's super simple.

Yeah. Plus pair it with, like, a nice French wine.

Yes.

Cheaper, by the way, than most California wines.

Yep. And if you're in California or you're in New York and get one of those fancy girls, make sure it's an orange wine. Okay.

Okay. I think we've just solved in celibacy in the US for young men. Like, food probably solves that problem. And I think it's the same thing for young women, because these days, like, there's this, you know, kind of girl boss, femme movement. But, you know, Chris, my husband, who loves to cook, will tell me that, like, one of the nicest things I can do for him is just take care of his stomach. And so, as much as food seems simple and obvious and genetic, like, if we need to get back to this idea of loving one another a little bit more, of being slightly happier, I think a lot of it starts with our stomachs.

Totally.

And so I think it's a beautiful movement you have, which is why I wanted to talk to you, because, you know, we're really big on this idea. Of community and ownership in this country. And where does most community happen? Around the dinner table. And yet we have lost it. We have, like most families now spend more time in front of the TV than they do in meals together. By far. Phones now 100%. And, you know, we believe that this ability to uber eats our way and doordash our way to everything, which is beautiful. And there is a place for that, and I use it. Plenty is just as good as sitting down with our loved ones and actually cooking something for them. And I just don't think that's true. And so I think this is a really important movement.

Totally. I mean, simple reality is when people think of cooking, and this is coming from the millions of messages, DM's comments that I've read is people only look at one thing when they think, okay, they look at the inefficiency of it. They look at the fact that they're going to have to clean up afterwards. They only look at every single negative aspect of it. So much so that they don't even think about, is there even a benefit? Because the answer is yes. But they cannot look past this wall, which isn't a wall at all. It's this fake veil that's in front of them. And it's like, are you serious? Like, you go through life, you pay your taxes, you go through devastation, emotional devastation. You deal with the hardship of family, you deal with the hardship of just life in general. You don't want to fucking clean a few pots and pans because you're afraid of having to take the time to fucking clean them, but you'll spend two hours on TikTok, like, let's be real for a second, and maybe just try it and see if there was a benefit. And I would say more times than not, the benefit comes in many forms, which is what you learn from cooking, I think, can be applied to life. I think there's a lot to be learned about patience. There's a lot to be learned about focusing on one thing for 30 minutes or an hour, giving all of your attention and effort to Brussels sprout. As silly as it sounds, there is a level of release there that you won't get anywhere else because there's nothing left in society today where you will give that much attention to something so seemingly insignificant.

It's beautifully said. You know, I think the best part of my day, every day almost, is Chris and I have a rule where we do not come home and eat separately. We always eat dinner together if we're home. And it's become a ritual. You know, we, like have this little candle that we light. We always do a cheers. And the cheers isn't allowed to be repeated. So like every night we have to kind of come up with something that we think is special and worthy of cheersing at the end of the day. And then we cook and we don't get that fancy with it. You know, he has your cookbooks, so we copy some of your homework.

Love it.

But the thing that I look forward to is it's an opportunity to really pair with your other human. And it doesn't even have to be your partner. But whether that's friends or family, I truly think that there's some movement back to traditionalism in the US and we're starting to see it. You know, you and I both have friends that we could name and know who are in the massive productivity above all else bucket. And let me tell you what, happiness is not the thing that they chase. And often like that joyfulness in life is missing because they are in the pursuit of what society tells us is important, which is, you know, money and more. Taking a little step back and feeding another human because it is a necessity to. Life is really, really beautiful.

Yeah, people are very black and white, though. You can still be, you know, a hyper efficiency focused person. The irony is restaurants are all about efficiency, which is kind of silly, but you could, you could still be that person that's all about. I mean, I'm not saying unhappy, but that's all about growth and everything. You know, make the numbers go up, make, make more money, make a bigger business, do things to the highest of high. But like, it doesn't mean that you have to eliminate and annihilate all forms of things that could be technically not moving that dial. Because I guarantee you, you do things in your day, every day, no matter who you are. I don't care who you are that are not moving the dial like you think it is. They're just not. It's going to be okay. If you take an hour and a half or two hours to make a meal, even once a month, it's going to be okay. Like, whatever you want to do in life, you're probably going to be okay.

The other thing people are obsessed with these days is being fit and food being a function, not an art form in many ways. And, you know, you've had this fascinating balance of losing hundreds of pounds simultaneously making recipes that are not quote unquote healthy and sampling them and trying them. Can you be both somebody who loves food and Experiences it and fit and healthy.

Totally. And how it's very hard. But I mean, I guess you have, we have to redefine what healthy means also, right. Like is healthy having six pack or is healthy, you know, being a healthier weight, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But I guess if we're, if we're really going to trim this down to what people really care about, it's like, how do I not be fat? It's like kind of the question, right? That's what people really care about. They don't give a about being healthy. They would be more than happy to die at 68 with a six pack.

Dude, it's. That's actually exactly right. I think that's why people hate Brian Johnson. They're like, don't live forever. Who cares? But I want to look hot.

And yeah, I would love to live longer. I don't know when I'm going to die, but I sure as don't want to ruin my quality of life, just that I can live three years longer. Whoop de do. I mean the goddamn steak. What I will say is the way you can balance it is, you know, you don't need to eat crazy every day. I mean, I think some intentionality behind your eating is probably good. Right now I'm like on a more extreme diet because I, I have like a goal that I want to hit just for the sake of my own fitness journey. It's like, oh, you know, I wanna, I wanna like do like a bodybuilding thing and see where I can go with that and try that out. I like having discipline in my life. But the way I do it is like have a, have days that you, you know, are gonna eat a little bit more. Yeah. Under your regime of diet. And have days that are maybe a little more loose or if you can find a way to, you know, make that a daily occurrence where it's like cool. For breakfast. I'm not gonna go too crazy today. I think I'm just gonna have, I don't know, I don't eat breakfast.

I was gonna say you don't like breakfast. That's like your least favorite meal, right?

Eat breakfast that much.

That's so bizarre. But I'll let it go.

I don't know, let's say like a fried egg on a, just a, a piece of toast with slice of avocado. Really chill, Nothing too crazy. Not high calorie. I'm just gonna eat that and not super hungry. Whatever. And then for lunch, maybe you go a little more crazy. Maybe you wanted a burger and fries. Cool. Eat your burger and fries. And then chances are you're probably already gonna be full for the rest of the day anyway. But it's like, okay, I know what I've eaten today. Using my intuition, I'm gonna understand that I probably had a lot of calories. So tonight I'm not starving. I'm just gonna have, like, a chicken breast and some rice and call it a day, you know, and eat vegetables. I mean, you have to find whatever split works for you. Just maybe be mindful about how you're eating and just. That's one way to do it.

Yeah. I think the beautiful part there is, like, listen, you can be Brian Johnson, you can be Peter Attia, you can be the fittest of the fit and be obsessed with that, or you can have your glass of red and steak and also be pretty fit. And so I think it's really cool that you're pairing the two together. And I expect on the next cookbook, you have your eyebrow raised and the six pack on the COVID that what we're going for?

That's what we're going for.

Are you. You know, it's either abs or ass, guys.

I have crazy glutes. I'm not even joking. It's actually insane. I don't know why I think it's thing like, I don't have, like, the biggest, most, like, you know, thick biceps. And my traps are like the. You know, some guys have, like, huge traps, but I have crazy back and crazy glutes.

So maybe that'll be on the cookbook.

Yeah. Be funny if the front of the book was, like, me sitting or like, me standing, and it's like, abs, shirtless, and an apron. And I have an apron on.

Yeah.

And then on the back of the book, it's my bare ass. Because you can't see because my apron's covering my legs.

I love this for you. I think we just decided you guys can put it in the comments. If you want to see Josh's butt on the back of his cookbook, please don't just send him a picture of yours, but not full frontal. And. And I think we've really wrapped this up. Is there anything else you want to tell humans who are probably not as into food as you are, but might just find a place in their heart for it?

So many things I'd like to say. Well, what's the general vibe of the people watching before? Answer.

Probably somebody like me, like somebody who doesn't know what a sous vide is. Or also the mazlan plots or whatever the fuck.

That side dish, las is like the most known term. I'm shocked.

That is not my wife notes. Well, your wife is married to a chef.

Yeah, but she knew before that.

She knew before that. I would also like to know in the comments, who knows what a man's.

What is mise en place?

So they're people like me. So probably, you know, not. Not big chefs, not big cooks, but relatively successful and on the path, thinking about success. And I think we want to slow them down a little bit, get them to think about food. Or if you have anything you want to say on contents too, you can really go wherever you want here.

Just seek out one good eating experience, like work really hard to seek that out, something really special and be really intentional about how you do it and just do it once. And I think the rest will kind of make itself after that. If you choose the right eating experience, I promise you that it'll become more of an internal thought process that grows from there. I don't think anyone needs to go from 0 to 100 and start cooking a sous vide steak and learning what mise en place means or whatever. I don't think that that's what it is. As a matter of fact, my whole goal when I started doing this was never to convince anybody to cook. As a matter of fact, I despise when people try to convince anyone to cook. Half the time I tell people to go fuck themselves. But what I did want to do was get people interested and use food as a vehicle to entertain them, because I think that it will improve everyone's quality of life in some shape or form, whether they cook it or they eat it or there's a fun fact about it, because it's inevitability, an important part of our life. And there is a way for everyone to enjoy food at a really high level somewhere. They just don't seek it out. So seek it out.

Yeah. I just watched a show called Bottle Shock. Have you ever watched that old school movie about wine and the creation of the wine movement in California? And it was like the guy who created the first blind wine tasting. And what I liked about it, what I like about thinking about this too, is in today's society, we really think there are, like, I don't know, two or three ways to determine success. Typically it's like your career. Maybe it's your bank account. Maybe it's also like your health and familial situation. Are you married? Do you have kids? But when I watch movies like that, And I see microcosms, like food. I remember that there is an entire group of humans who have decided to have their own definition of success. And in Bottle Shock, it was like, who can create the most incredible wine imaginable with no interest in anything else, almost no interest in money. And I think one of the cool things about what you talk about is.

The same thing that's almost like sport. Who's the best? Yeah, everyone loves to be the best, you know, so who's the best winemaker? Who's the best chef? Who's the best pastry chef? Who's the best croissant maker in France? Who's the best chocolatier in France? But the funny thing is, food is probably one of the most subjective things of all time. There is no such thing as the best. There's only what's good to you.

Who's the best YouTuber? And again, Joshua Weitzman.

Nobody. It's, it's, it's definitely, it's definitely a deep thought. I think the one, the only thing I could think of after my statement is just, I feel like a lot of people will be sitting here asking, but why? Like, why? Like, you're telling me to seek this thing out, like, why should I care? I'm doing just fine. Why? Well, that's fine. I mean, technically, you don't have to answer that question. But I will say that, like, everyone, in most senses, especially really hard working people, always feel like there's something missing. And this is something that definitely will add to your life in a way that you may not have considered, that's going to be there anyway. It's one of the only things that's going to be there anyway. You're going to be eating any way. You know, just take an extra hour and go to a nice restaurant or something, you know, or, or what have you. I, I, if there's one thing that I've seen change people's lives across the board, regardless of, you know, the color of their skin, who they are, what job they are, they, Sorry. What role they do in their career, whatever they're doing in life, food is easily the one leveling thing that has changed more people's lives than anything else.

I think nailed it. You guys want the inside scoop? So my little summary here is that I don't want you to let the jokes fool you with Joshua Weissman. You know, what really stuck with me from this interview in particular is the attention to detail in just about everything that he does. You know, that saying the way you do anything is the way you do everything well, that is here in excess. I mean, you guys can kind of see it behind me. But this is a real kitchen. You know, a kitchen that costs $300,000 with everything laid out so thoughtfully that he doesn't really have to use his mind. He can use his eyes to the kitchen as he says, you know, we have this meat smoker over in the corner. We have all of his ingredients labeled and situated perfectly. We have, like, 13 knives of all different varietals. We have an entire prep kitchen behind us. There's this wild iPad thing, if you guys could see it, where you can click the different color settings in order to determine whether you want something to be backlit or warm lighting or in this case, a little bit of purple, because this was Tanner's guest today. And so I think the biggest takeaway is it's really hard to beat somebody who's relentless and relentlessly focused on details. And when I watch somebody who has mastery, somebody like Joshua, I see that they don't let the little things slide. It doesn't mean that they're maniacal. It means that they are that word relentless, which I think is a beautiful way to describe a human being in pursuit as a thing that they want more than anybody else. And that is here. And so I wanted to share one of my rich friends with you. I wanted to share Joshua with you today to see what it was like behind the lens of somebody who's gotten billions of eyeballs over five years at a very young age of 28 and done it in a way that's a lot tongue in cheek, but a lot of seriousness behind that joke. And it reminds me of, like, the great comedians today, which I think are one of the pillars of truth that still exist in this world around us. And the great comedians today, what are they? They are obsessed with the detail, with every little comma and punctuation mark that go into the things that they say. And he is a comedian that is also a chef, that is also a YouTuber. And so I hope you took as much away from it as I did today.

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Okay, let's talk about restaurants again. In 2008, women spent 66 minutes a day making and prepping food. In the 1990s, that was 112 minutes. In 1956, that was two and a half hours or 150 minutes. And in the 1900s, that number was 5.5 hours a day. Go all the way back to the 1800s, it was all day. So we need to thank restaurants, farmers, cooks, and technologists everywhere for the restaurant. But here's the rub. If you want to be a chef, maybe don't open one, because most of them fail. They're incredible restaurant groups and people who make millions doing it. You know, you got Nobu, Fox, restaurant concepts, Momofuko, et cetera. But the truth is, restaurants are incredibly complex as a business. First, let's look at the numbers. So, because the numbers are harder to lie with, I like to start there. The average small business in the US sells for around $800,000. The average restaurant goes for $198,000. Why? Because 60% fail in the first year and 80% fail after. Four restaurants on average ain't for making money. Second is margins, or how much money you make from the money that you bring in and put in your actual pocket. On average, restaurants can expect net margins of 3 to 5%. Tiny. I won't do a deal unless I can make 30 cents on every dollar or 30% margins. 3 to 5. You're in trouble if you make a few mistakes. Now imagine a few people don't show up. Food goes sideways, you're out of business. Third, competition. This is what's called a red ocean market. A blue ocean is where you have no competitors. It's like Uber when it was created, or Facebook. Sort of a first. A red ocean is where you have so much competition, you can't throw a rock without hitting another. If you want to make this, I don't know, Herculean task of eating at every restaurant in New York City, for example, it would take you 22.7 years. It'd take 12 years just for Manhattan, three and a half for Queens. And who Even lives out there. The fourth reason I don't like them is procurement. So forecasting demand, storage, waste theft, managing off peak hours, pricing, calculating gross profit of each food item. Let's take just spoilage. You not only have to buy up inventory intelligently, but you have to hope that you are so good at guessing if the fickle crowds will eat your three day old shrimp before they go bad. Fifth, they're really expensive. Restaurants to build out cost anywhere from 95,000 to 2 million. And then you got to deal with, I don't know, all of your employees in the back doing dirty deeds. I don't care if you're a foodie or your buds tell you that you should sell that perfect cheeseburger that you make, don't do it unless they're giving you the startup cash. Restaurants are for humans that simply cannot exist without running one, in my opinion. So go eat there, go frequent them, but you know, don't do deals where you eat. This deal of the week though is not to say that I don't love restaurants, but to say first, don't be greedy. Share this pod with an Edie. Okay, now let's get into the idea that if you don't want to own a restaurant, you could still become a chef fluencer instead. This is a new word. I had no idea what it means. Here's a fascinating example. There's this guy, Thomas Straker. He basically built his whole business around viral short form videos on Instagram and TikTok. He's a London chef with a book and he spent 10 years working in top restaurants in London. And then he kind of thought, I want to bring like high quality, simple cooking to people like Josh did. His big rise to fame was the TikTok series. It's all things butter. In 2022 he started this little series where he just made butter recipes on camera. Like in some instances he didn't even make the butter, he just mixed butter with other things like Marmite. I don't even know what that is, it's probably English. And then combined it with butter and called it Marmite Butter. This series got over 10 million views on just individual clips. So in 2023 he raised $500,000, seeded his company, started calling the company All Things Butter and sold a bunch of flavored butter like garlic and herb. This year they landed a 2.2 million dollar investment from a private equity firm. So as of this May, All Things butter sold about 250,000 blocks of butter. Not too shabby at all. My take for you is let's all cook at home a little bit more together, but maybe skip the restaurant. All right, guys, I hope you liked that episode as much as I liked filming it. It was so cool to see inside of Josh's studio. Hell of a setup, man. My guy is, like, drooling in the background trying to get me to spend more money so that mine gets set up nice like his is. We don't talk a lot about, you know, food on this channel. That's not really my song and dance. We do talk a lot about community, about owning our communities, and about taking things back to the community. And this episode, I think, is really a nice way to put a little bow on that bad boy. All right, if you haven't subscribed, you know the deal. Hit that subscribe button or don't be greedy. Share the podcast with the needy. Thank you guys so much for listening to the Big Deal podcast. You are a big deal to me. See you next week. You know that? I got it. No need to look all in a bag, stunning like this.

Cause I work so hard. I'm the best. I only speak facts.