1019 Build a Global Community, Leverage Viral Video & Change Lives w/Zach King

What was the comment you remember right now you see in your mind that affected you the most in the last 8 to 10 years?

The comment that changed my whole career trajectory was...

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.

And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. American author Harriet Jackson Brown Jr. Once said, live so that when your children think of fairness, caring and integrity, they think of you. An English novelist, Terry Pratchett wrote, it's still magic, even if you know how it's done. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My guest today knows what it takes to share the joy of magic and illusions through a digital medium empire that he's built. Many of you might you might know Zach King from his early days on YouTube, sharing Advanced tutorials on filmmaking techniques and mastering visual effects. Or you might know him from Vine, using a six second platform to inspire wonder and awe in millions of people with his sharp editing skills and visual gags. Or more recently from his viral Tick Tock videos, where he takes practical effects to the next level to create mind-blowing Illusions. Zach is a filmmaker with over 8 million subscribers on YouTube, 50 million followers and growing on Tick Tock, and hundreds and hundreds of millions of views across all platforms. And in this episode, we talk about how to keep yourself focused on your creative vision as a creator, where to start as a content creator today with all the noise, what's happening, all the different platforms. Where do you begin? How do you grow your platforms? The life lessons Zach has learned from his wife and kids, the YouTube comment that changed the course of Zach's life forever, the importance of finding your specific niche, especially when you're starting out. Zach's passion for family life, foster care and adoption, and the first steps you can take to become a foster parent. That and so much more. I am so excited. Zach has got such a big heart. I aspire to be as talented as him one day. If you're enjoying this, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. And a quick reminder, if this is your first time here, click that subscribe button over on the School of Greatness on Apple Podcast, as well as give us a rating and review. Okay, after a quick message, the one and only Zach King. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast.

Super excited for our guest today, the legendary Zach King is in the house. Mom, thanks for having me. Good to see you, brother. Good to be here. So excited. We were just talking off camera about how I discovered you on Vine seven.

Eight years ago, whenever that was.

The Vine days, those were good days. And I think everyone kind of discovered you then who was on the internet. But then I remember you kind of went away, at least in my perspective. When Vine went away, I remember almost like maybe it was a year or two years ago, seeing people say when your content came back, people saying, isn't that the Vine guy? It's almost like you went away, at least in my perspective, but you were still not gone. But it just seems like you weren't as mainstream awareness for maybe a couple years. Is that true or is that just my perspective?

Yeah, I didn't go away, but it's kind of that. the syndrome of you get so popular, it's hard to top that and then it's only downhill from there for a little bit. What I found having a career on the internet, it's ups and downs because you know me from Vine but there'll be people watching this who know me from YouTube 12 years ago when I created my first YouTube account and I was teaching filmmaking and then that had to die and to this day, there's never been a video on that YouTube channel. So, there's still an audience that's like where'd that dude go? Interesting. And then The recent uptick has been with TikTok, which is interesting. And it was kind of a little bit like you question in the back of your mind as you're creating, whether it's, I imagine artists have this, filmmakers definitely have it, like you're as great as your last work. And as Vine went away, I was still doing a grinding on YouTube and making stuff every day with my team. Really? But you know, it was, it just didn't hit the same as Vine. It was a different platform.

It wasn't going as viral.

Even though it was going as viral, like people, you never know if it was like a repost, people just, it wasn't the talk of the town, which was what Vine was.

It wasn't like culture. Like Vine was like, this is happening all over the world. And TikTok is like, this is what's happening culture. Everyone knows like the dances, everyone knows.

The songs, everyone knows the magic. Yes. And it was kind of a little bit exciting to see that uptick on TikTok once again, 'cause it was kind of like you're like telling yourself, I'm relevant again. Not that you weren't relevant, but you just kind of had confidence that what you were making was evergreen. And now that I've seen that up and down three times with YouTube, Vine, and TikTok, and even other platforms like Instagram, there was a time when we were one of the top three creators right behind Taylor Swift in one year. In terms of video views, that was 2014 or '15. The first year that they had, first two years they had their video feature. 'Cause we were on, it's the first ones that jump. Everyone was still using it for, you know, pictures of their food or their dogs or whatever. And, and-- you- were coming off Vine.

High and you were like, let's go create here.

Well, I was coming off that and it was like, mine was 6.2 seconds or whatever. And then Instagram, when they launched it.

It was 15 seconds.

You're like, give me 15 seconds. At this rate, we're gonna be making feature films in eight years if we double the length every, you know, two years. Yeah. So, yeah, we are continuing to, it's never been about the, Follower count though, I think there was a period where, and it was, if you actually measure, I think it was between like one and seven million followers on Instagram. That was the most fun rush. It was like, you would check the social blade or the graphs and it'd be like 40,000 followers, no way, 70,000, 120,000. And then around seven million, it kind of just became a, it can't be about this because then you're gonna pivot the content and you're gonna be creating stuff for the audience and you can lose yourself and your own voice and your creativity in that. and I think your whole fire for creating can die because you're all of a sudden serving this machine and the audience feels like a beast in a way to continue to feed it and keep it growing.

How do you keep yourself focused on your vision, your creative process, the artistry of it as opposed to numbers following growth, engagement?

Well, I think I'm at a lucky place where I don't have to worry about growth and it's, you know, Even if you look at that number metric of growing 1 to 7 million followers, you kind of tap out in terms of even the brand deal size at 7 million. Brands aren't there to, they don't need somebody with 50 million. If you have 7 million, it's probably like the same engagement rate. It's just an extra bonus. And so there wasn't a reason to continue to grow. It's all about making the next video is better or more exciting or a better story or crafted in a more unique way. And the thing that got me into filmmaking years ago was watching Spielberg. Like I went to film school knowing that I wanted to try to make movies like Steven Spielberg or George Lucas who was these giant blockbusters, but all of them had a theme of practicality where, you know, you look at those old behind the scenes and they have the real dinosaur head there. Yeah. Or the jaws shark which gave them a ton of headaches, but like that made the iconicness of that film.

It wasn't like a CG or claymation.

We're still talking about it 20, 30 years later. Yeah, 'cause they were breaking ground with what they were doing practically. And so the fun of filmmaking to me isn't showing up on set and having green screens and like this fake little tennis ball to look at for eye line. It's actually having some of the things there and that's what I'm, what gets me up in the morning now. It's like how can I make this video 100% practical? What if there was zero editing? Because I've known for a lot of my digital trickery, but my favorite stuff is like, I just did a video with my kids and we were thinking of it I make blanket forts with my kids all the time and I was like, wouldn't it be sweet, almost like a Narnia thing where you go through and you can go through-- I saw this. It's really cool. And did you see the behind the scenes? No, I don't think I have. I'll show you later, but it's one of my favorite things I've never posted behind the scenes. Not a magician, but I live by the code of a-- I had a crush on TikTok. Yeah, it did, it did. The behind the scenes. So we showed the behind the scenes because it was 100% practical, zero editing where we go through the tent and I lift up the back blanket and we're in a forest. And everyone's, I see a million theories when we post a video up on the forums of Reddit. Here's what happened. Yeah, like it was some jump cut crazy thing where he got all two of his kids who were, by the way, under three years old, like, to line up in the same position when they went to a mountain. And it was like, no, we had a set and the doors opened up. When the camera was inside the tent, you just didn't mentally realize it. The doors opened up and we built the set on top of a mountain top. Shut up. And so that's in a mountain. So there's no editing. Yeah, it's just like, The most simple explanation, but it's beautiful to me because the problem that we were solving is how do we make this real? It would actually be too hard to edit that video. And so I get a kick out of whether it's like Fred Astaire did a decades ago a tap dance number and he was dancing on the walls. Like he walks up, dances on the ceiling and is hanging around in impossible ways. And you know, they used a rotating room just like they used in an inception. And so we were like, well, to do that. Like we could walk up a wall and someone could hold me in a green screen suit. It would just look funny and kind of be a cheap way to do it. So we figured out how to build a rotating room so that we could, you know, do those moves and be, I always want to be like Spider-Man as kid. And so like that was the video concept we ended up doing.

Wow. But how much do these productions cost to build some of these sets?

That's where the budget- what's the rent? That's where the brand deal money comes in to pay for it. We're like, You know, I mean, building a rotating room is incredibly expensive. You know, it can be in the six figures to build something like that. Wow. But it's worth the payoff just because those videos to me last for a long time. They're evergreen. They're evergreen for until the day I die. Like, kids will probably always want to be Spider-Man and walk on a wall.

You know, or, or. And they'll reference your video of that.

Like, you're referencing Jaws. Maybe I reference a lot of stuff from Charlie Chaplin. Like, it's, I'm not re. A lot of people were like, oh, you've created this new style. But there's a lot, George Méliès was a filmmaker in the early 1900s. He was doing jump cuts. I watch a lot of his stuff often, which are funny because they're reminiscent of vines. They're sometimes six seconds long. And they would be played in Nickelodeons, which were like these little machines. You put a quarter in or a nickel. For five cents, you could watch this. It was like up to literally seven seconds. A little, like you watch somebody punch somebody or like you watch a person sneeze. I was like, one of Edison's first films. And it seems so trivial, but in George's, he was doing jump cuts. He would go like this, and then a piano would appear. And people back then were blown away, like, what? Because it all looked choppy, so you could almost barely see the jump cut. But I always wonder what if Charlie Chaplin were alive today, or some of those early filmmakers who had such primitive technology, what they would be doing. I don't know if they would, I feel like they'd be more Oscar filmmakers, but maybe they'd be down to make some TikToks.

TikToks. What is the biggest fear you have as a creator right now? You've got, I think it's over 80 million followers across platforms, you've got billions and billions of views. What's the fear? Is it that I'm not gonna be as good as my last video? That I'm not gonna stay relevant? That I'll lose myself in all this?

What is it for you? You know what's interesting is I see my fears come out in the comments and I know it's a real fear when it pings me. And I don't spend a lot of time in comments anymore. When it triggers you. When it triggers me. and I'll read a comment and I'll say, this guy's not relevant anymore. And I'll go, oh, that's a real, like, okay, I must actually believe that's a fear of mine. If it pings me, another one that happens is when people say, when are you gonna make your next thing? And I'm always fearful of like, I'm not gonna be able to, not that it's a pivot, but make something longer. Maybe I, what if it's actually a lack of ability to go beyond 15 seconds? You know, what if I can't go, full hour and a half, which has been my dream, which I've been telling people since I was a kid growing up making movies. And so now the weight of it, which isn't right, but for many years I put it on me, like I need to fulfill that and succeed in that, 'cause I've got my whole hometown family rooting for like, we're excited about your TikToks, but like let us know when you make a film, you know? Oh man. And so being content is something I'm working towards.

On a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most content ever, Where are you at right now?

In terms of family life, fully content. I love where I'm at. With work, I always want to push it. So it's not that I'm not content, but I'm ambitious to see if I could do something else.

You're happy, just not satisfied.

I am, see, there is satisfaction with the work. When we post, it feels great to have finished something and made something, because there is an energy I get and a lot of my team gets from finishing, whether it's a video, any kind of project. It feels great to kind of look back at the process and it's not as difficult as a birth that I saw my wife go through, but it is a similar process where you created something from kind of nothing. Imagination. Yeah, and used resources or creativity along the way to get that out, to become something that millions of people can watch. That's kind of a weird process to think about that in a way that it is magical that you're creating that physical experience and hopefully it can have an emotional experience when people watch it, whether it's adding wonder or inspiration in their lives. Yeah. But yeah, so contentment, contentment, I don't know. Where are you at there in career-wise then?

One to ten. I'm gonna give it a seven.

Okay. Somewhere in there, there's a lot more ambition there. I don't know where that line is.

So you've never done a full hour, hour and a half film yet?

Not even close. If you add them up, Well over that. It's like a director's length.

What would the three and a half movie be?

What would the film be if you could do anything? Well, that's why I don't know. I don't know what the story is. I want it to be, I don't want, I used to have this thing in film school. I was like, well, the first film I do is gonna be the best thing ever. It's gonna be the Damien Chazelle, La La Land that wins an Oscar. You know, like, super jealous of that guy's talent. He's amazing. But, you know, when I look at, I need to take that pressure off myself. And over the years, I've learned to do that. that pressure has never been healthy for what I'm producing and who I am as a person. And so I know there's a long form story in there. I don't know what it is because I'm looking for it. And that's just allowing the curiosity to continue to ask questions. I think it'll have something to actually maybe... I love documentaries growing up, but I never thought I'd make one. I used to actually say, I don't know, I don't want to make a documentary. But I don't know. I love the idea of like exploring a topic deeper and immersing myself in that for a couple years. But I also don't have that, those projects take a lot of time.

We did a documentary, it took two and a half years of my life. It's a lot of money. We haven't made any money from it and we haven't like, it's just hard. It's more of a creative process of love.

Yeah, right. And that's why it has to be that because I love the, sometimes I'll make these videos, especially for YouTube that'll be five minutes, and that's a lot of energy that goes into a five-minute piece. But when we hit publish, it feels good to be at peace. And a couple times we've said this where it's like, if this literally gets 10,000 views, it's okay. I'm proud of what we're putting out there. Because I learned so much in the process of making that, that it's not even about seeing the response to it. It's like it's done once it's published, that whole journey. And yeah, there's longer form story in there. Don't know what it is yet.

I feel like a documentary on magic as a whole. Like studying great magicians. And that fascinates you. And you kind of throwing in your spin and twist as a host kind of storyteller could be interesting.

Yeah, I think you're hitting on some strings there. That's where my curiosity goes at night. I'll Google like, there's all these rivalries of magicians and selling the secrets and.

These shows that You know, the dark side of magic. Ooh, I like that title.

It could be a catchy title. It could be on some co-producer.

Exactly. Now, I like to challenge people when they come on the show.

Okay.

Who have already achieved big things, but they have something missing. And it sounds like the film is something that you would regret not putting out in the world over the next five to ten years, is that right?

Before I die.

Before you die.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think I'm gonna be making what I'm known for now, this idea of magic. And, you know, magic is very on the nose. Not a magician. And I try to say that a lot too. You can't do any card tricks. Well, it's partly an insecurity, but also like it's just magicians get mad. They're like, well, you're not a magician because you didn't do... I did magic growing up, but I know it's a totally different skill. So to me it deserves a different title. But I think to the audience they see the wonder, that same wonder of like they would see in a magic show and they don't care the process whether it was edited or you practiced the actual card sleight of hand or whatever the trick is, they just know the experience brought them to that, it took them out of body and for even three seconds they spiritually believe that magic was possible. And kids today don't really care about whether, how it was done, if it was edited or produced on stage. And so that's why people call it magic. But you know when I meet people like David Blaine, it's like they can still get you that spiritual place in with their cardistry or with their tricks or their stunts in person and that's somewhere I'll never get to. Like you have to watch my stuff, I have to show you a video, you know.

For sure. But that's still magic, you create awe and wonder in those moments.

Yeah.

For people like, whoa, how did he do that?

Yeah.

So you're a magician. in your own right.

There was a big problem for me was still when kids come up and it happened years ago too when Vine was first getting popular they'd be teenagers and they'd want to see a magic trick.

There's a video watch.

It was like the biggest disappointment. It was as if I told them the behind the scenes of Disneyland or something and said like, because this happened to me, I went to shoot at one of the parks and you know I saw the cast members like take off the Sully head and I was like, Distraught.

Like, show me this.

I'd like, yeah, I want to be on the other side of Disneyland, but I would tell them like, no, it's this whole process and I was breaking it down and they kind of walk away like shoulders get. They'd get the photo, but like, that's.

They'D walk away bummed. It's almost like you should learn one coin trick. Yes. You can always do.

Yeah. And just have something simple. Yeah, so I ended up, for the little kids, like, and a lot of kids, I had kids cry. I would tell them, you know, oh, it's this whole, editing thing and you can do it too and they didn't care, they were just bummed. And we ended up making a kids book just to solve that problem because we wanted to hand them something because we couldn't deliver that experience. And so we did like an AR book which is cool because you could scan it and all the art came alive.

That's cool.

But it was like the backstory to how this kid was magical and where the magic came from and so that's been my thing, I keep them in my car and my backpack when I walk around just to like So when the kids are like, see a magic trick, I'm like, check out what this.

AR app can do on my book. That's cool. Yeah, I saw that on your website.

Where can parents get books for their kids?

You can find it on Amazon or.

You know, wherever books are sold, Target. Just type Zach King.

Is it Zach King comics or what is it exactly? Just look up Zach King and it'll pop up like book and it'll come up.

I'm curious about how many views do you think you have total in all your videos in the last 10 years?

A couple billion. A couple billion.

A couple billion, yeah.

We've never tallied them, but. Isn't it interesting? I think it's probably more than that with all like TikTok and Vine and everything there, but isn't it interesting that you're probably one of the most watched filmmakers of all time who didn't get into film school?

It's pretty crazy. Isn't that interesting? I have a theory why I didn't get into film school. As of recent, I remember I talked to a friend who applied to the same film school and I was like, Can I see the application? Like, I don't remember it. and it was like 10 pages of essays, and then submit your DVD. And as I was going through it, I was like, I don't remember writing essays. And I'm pretty sure, 'cause I remember filling out there was essays, and I hated writing, growing up.

I hated it too.

I'm not dyslexic, but I feel like I'm on the border of it where I just can't, I don't like it, I'm bad at it. I only have one word to describe things, which is beautiful. Awesome. And then, but I was looking, I was like, I bet I didn't write any essays. I bet I just wrote a sentence for each answer. Like, why do you want to make movies? I love movies. That's all I do. And I bet that was part of the reason I didn't get it. But yeah, I mean, that was a bummer for me, 'cause I grew up, I was one of those people, same as I know when you talk to Liz Gilbert, she said it. She knew her passion from early age, and I was that way. I resonated with that, where seven years old, camera goes in my hands, I'm like, Viewfinder, I'm a director. I can do this. This is fun. I want to do this for my life. Found it. And so going to film school and having the application denied, it was the biggest bummer. Because I knew from such a young age this is where I was going. I was gonna go to LA and make movies.

You're from Portland, right?

I'm from Portland, Oregon. Grew up on a little farm area and drove down anyway. I went to Biola and so they still had general ed. I could take math. science.

It could be at the school.

So you got into school? I got into school and I lived across who are now some of my best friends on the dorm, other filmmakers. And I got to know, I was like, what assignments are you doing? So I actually did a lot of my assignments like a year earlier because I just kind of did it with them, but I wasn't in the class. And I had started, I wanted to reapply. I missed the, I got denied for like the winter term. You could, like there's a last chance application. Didn't get that. and so I ended up sitting in the back of the classes because, and I guess this is a hack for school today, I think you could sit in the back of class and teachers will never ask if you're enrolled. So I sat in the back of classes and got the teacher signature to get added to that class, and I would just sit and learn and after four years they were giving out the diplomas and they were like, oh, why do you have all these units for film? We only see you as a general ed student or whatever, and I was like, I was a film major, it.

Must be a mistake, and they wrote me the letter. No way.

She never became a film major till the very end. Until the very last week of senior year, when I was before I was gonna walk, and they were gonna give me the graduation thing. So, that's a hack for people who wanna go to college and get the.

I don't know, I can't guarantee that'll work. So you never actually still got admitted.

Into film school, even all the way through, you just graduated from film school. I graduated from film school. Wow, that's awesome. But you know, got the same experience, and for me, Film school, I get asked all the time, is it like, do you recommend film school? What if I have to go in a bunch of debt? Because you could also buy, I've heard arguments of like, I could buy a whole studio for $200,000, the education price, and go out to LA and move there and try it for three years. And that's also a great option. So for me, it was about meeting people. I mean, one, I met my wife at the university, so worth the tuition there. But for the film experience, if you're not motivated to get out and meet people and network and go jump on projects or have people jump on your projects, film school is a great place for people to kind of be that extra push.

To be thrown into it.

Yeah.

When was the time you doubted yourself the most since you graduated film school to now?

Along the way, doing the business part of my work. So business, I didn't do business school. My dad was an entrepreneur, so I watched and gleaned what I could from him, but For me, that's the self-doubt. Like I knew in terms of the filmmaking craft, I know what I enjoy seeing and the tweaks that can be made there. But for the business, it's always self-doubt along the way of like, oh, is that the right call?

Or the worst-- so it's-- Like doing a business deal, charging for something.

In the beginning, that's always, you're awkward and you're learning that. But no, it's probably more that now I have 15 people on my team and it's fluctuated over the years. But it's making the business decision of do we need to downsize now or do we need to scale up now or is that too risky or should I take a loan or like is are we gonna be out? Like what if we don't, what if for some reason people don't hire influencers in a year from now, like where are all these families gonna be? And a part of that is I've taken too much over the years on myself and part of that's just there's a natural system of life that happens and people will be okay if, you know, they'll figure out something. So it's taking a little pressure of myself there, but there's always a self-doubt. It's like I wasn't trained in this. Is this the right whatever business? It could be not really about the deals, but just more about how the business operates. We need to diversify. You have different coaches come in and they're like, well, you only do one thing. You need to have eight things that bring in revenue and this one thing, but we're all in on this one thing. For the most part, there's some different revenue streams, but it's It's those things that I question.

Yeah, making those decisions, what routes to go down, who to hire, all that stuff, right?

Yep.

What was the comment you remember right now you see in your mind that affected you the most in the last eight to ten years?

Well, in a positive way, there's a comment that really changed my career. I should go back and I don't think I'll remember which one it was because there were several of these comments along the way, Back when I started YouTube, I was making tutorials. I was teaching people. I had just started the films, going into film school, and so I was teaching what I was learning for editing and putting that out there. It was really nerdy. I was screen recording my screen and posting, pretty much editing down the ums and putting it on YouTube. And the comment that changed my whole career trajectory was, Hey, you should show us with these, like a short film, the demo. So if you're teaching lightsabers, like, show us, make it, make a two-minute short film about with lightsabers and then like break it down. Because they wanted entertainment. It was also like probably just stale content. Yeah.

And they weren't just how-to, they wanted.

Like, show me the end result. Give us a, and then break it down. Yeah, and it was those comments and I literally read it and was like one night in my dorm, I was like, oh, I could totally do that. Like I'm working on a lightsaber thing for next week. I was gonna break down like a Star Wars thing and how you could do it yourself. and I was like, the demo film would be like two kittens. My buddy had just adopted kittens with his girlfriend and that was fresh on my mind and I was like, oh, well if we had them play and just like add it in and film them for like a night, they would make a funny short, it'd be stupid, you know? It's one of those ideas you don't think about and you don't give yourself notes, it's just like, let's go do it. And we shot it that night. I posted the tutorial a couple days later with, and it had kind of made it its own teaser, like just posted the The video. Jedi Kittens by itself. I just called it Jedi Kittens. Yeah, it was 45 seconds long. And I think I even in the captions, it was just like tutorial coming next week or whatever. But little did I know, like the viral potential that YouTube, it was kind of, YouTube back then was a little bit like TikTok now, where you just, if you posted stuff every 20, it might go viral. And viral would be a million views. And that was actually, it's oversaturated now. There's been a lot of inflation. But back then a million views was like a lot of views. and you could get 100,000 subscribers. It was like a crazy conversion rate. People were just signing up for the site. And it was on the news. And the video, my parents called me and I had been asleep because I stayed up all night to edit that video and I just posted it, skipped my classes and went to sleep. My parents were like, you were on Good Morning America. They just played your video. Oh my god. You had no clue. And they're like, do they pay you for that? And I was like, no, I don't know. And so it was just thrown into that whole world and it wasn't There was a few people ahead of me doing it. The first wave of YouTube creators, whether it was, I mean, I remember early days where it was Smosh, IJustine, Freddie Wong. IJustine was crushing. Yeah. Yeah, incredible creators who were well beyond, like they paved the way for figuring out what this looks like. And it kind of started gleaning from them and like figuring out like, oh, I should post every week, I guess, every Friday. And so that was my schedule throughout all of college is Let's do tutorials during the week and then Friday. And over time, by that second, third year, it turned from, the tutorials are kind of like, people are now confused because there's like a million, there's half a million people here watching for the short films. And every time I post a tutorial, they're unsubscribing or they're just like, what is this? So it evolved pretty quickly. And then by the time I was graduating film school, you know, my peers, that's, I think another time I had a little bit of question or self-doubt where it's, hey, 95% of my peers are going to go into Hollywood and do PA work. They're going to be screenwriters. They're going to work their way up for 15 years and become directors. I might get left behind here because I'm doing this weird thing where my parents are really supportive and they actually called it out with like, hey, this is unique. Just go with it. See, what is a year or two of failing on this YouTube site? And just try it out. And also they're like, you,'re living is cheap. It's like 400 bucks a month in LA.

Just go do it.

And-- who pays 400 bucks a month in LA? Orange County. Orange County, right. Yeah, it's over the line.

So I ended up committing to like.

I'm gonna do YouTube, I'm gonna go hard and-- Go for a year or two, see how it goes. Yeah, see, and then I hopefully can catch up to where my friends are and who were out ahead of me in LA. And I continued to do that and slowly it turned into, you know, brand deal. I hadn't been exposed, barely exposed to a brand deal. and did a few of those and was like, I can't even do these. I need to hire people to help me. So slowly hired on staff. And then Vine took off and that was a different beast. I remember my YouTube channel went from half a million subscribers to a million pretty much in like three months. And Vine had gone to two million followers in just a couple, in about less than a year. so it was a different level of exposure. And you could feel it too, and there'd be like one person a week who'd come up to me in the store from YouTube. But once Vine happened, it was like everybody in the store. Really? The checkout lady, it'd be everybody.

And that-- She became like famous in like a month.

Vine was the-- even, it's kind of compared to TikTok, I think, a little bit, but it's hard to know where they know me from at this point.

Right.

But Vine was overnight you could feel the difference in person and that was amazing. You go to a store, you walk.

Down the street and somebody's like, oh.

Yeah, that was a weird experience.

How did you not let that get to your head or did it get to your head for a while and you had to learn how to humble yourself in a way?

Well, I'm naturally an introvert. I love being by myself so it's really uncomfortable. Not anymore, but in the beginning when people come up, I don't know how to have a conversation. I edit by myself for 12 hours a day. I work through the night. And I had a girlfriend at that time who ended up, I became engaged and we got married. But she went through that whole journey and she'd be the person who'd talk. She's like so bubbly and she loves talking to people. That's her. She loves figuring out who's in the room and what are their needs and let's talk about it. And so she was like, whenever I had her, I was comfortable. It was like, hey, this is Rachel, carry on the conversation here.

I'll take a photo that you guys talk.

Yeah. So, yeah, it was different. And I think it's funny when you can see that where you mentioned in the beginning, the relevance went down or people, it kind of went to, felt like I wasn't around posting stuff.

After Vine went away, right?

That just went to show the power of that Vine. It was just a different level. And you see it rise again with TikTok. It was actually like, less people did recognize me on Vine after years had died. Died years ago and TikTok came around and people would start, you notice when the title changes. They're like, first you're the Viner, then you're the ex-Viner and now you're the-- TikTok guy. Some kids only know me from TikTok.

Crazy, right?

It's weird, yeah.

Man, did you have a period where you were feeling less relevant and you felt insecure about that?

I mean, you, not insecure from, in my soul, but insecure from a business perspective, wondering, Ooh, was I over leveraged in Vine? And now will advertisers really come for YouTube brand sponsorships or for the main revenues that we support the business? That's where I always questioned it. And that goes a little bit in line with my questioning the business skills that I've developed over the years. It's like, oh, yeah, you can't be over leveraged in one thing.

Diversifying more, yeah.

Yeah, and it turns out that fear wasn't even valid. There was a lot more, I think as people, filmmakers especially build for photographers, build their brands online, you should go hard in these apps. You should leverage it. Absolutely. Go all in.

If TikTok is working for you, go all in on one thing.

Absolutely.

And then try to diversify later, right?

Diversify as you go if you can, but if you're really thinking of diversification from the beginning, you're gonna have less focus on that one thing. And I told one of my buddies early on, go hard on TikTok. and he has a couple million followers now. But, you know, a lot of my other friends who I said the same thing to, they were like, well, as I'm building this, I gotta also do a podcast. And I gotta do it. And they ended up doing the kind of half fast in the podcast and, like, half fast with everything. Yeah. And then they never grew on Tick Tock because they didn't to also, you need to learn the culture of Tick Tock and how to, to speak the language or see what's trending. And really, is it too late to hop on that, or is it funny? And does Do I jive with that and can it feel in my style as well?

What's your vision of TikTok moving forward? If someone's listening or watching, should they go on TikTok now all in, if they're a creator, if they want to create content, or is it too late?

I would be so overwhelmed if I was a creator starting now. I'm so thankful that I was able to start when I did. It's kind of like going in real estate, you're one of the first ones there and you can build bigger property and kind of And then along the way, I think TikTok is still, if you look at it from a big picture, there's massive exposure you can get. I still have friends who, my sister posted a video the other day and it was for her graduating and it got a couple hundred thousand, not because I never, my audience says no, she has an account. It's not from me. It's just the algorithm is so powerful. If it's funny or good or hits with people, it works. So over all the platforms, TikTok still is giving the best exposure. You gotta go there. Also, you got Instagram Reels, brand new feature. You know they're gonna be giving like probably 70% of their real estate for that Explore page to Reels. So jump on that. Yeah. But it's, YouTube is the scary one.

Like, I don't know where I would start. Like, so hard, man. Yeah, we're just consistent. We're finally starting to really grow now. I think we're like 700 something thousand subscribers and I think we had three and a half million views this month in terms of like, but we have an hour long content or an hour and a half long content. And so it doesn't go as viral in some stuff, but we finally started to figure out a process and system where it's now growing in a nice rate. But it's like, I've been on there for years doing it.

But the thing that you're doing, and I love it and I'm telling people a similar thing, like you're coming from a place of giving. Yeah. Like you're giving, you're called a school of greatness for a reason. Like people could literally get an education watching your stuff. And that's so valuable. I always tell, like that's the place I would start is going back to almost my how to fill. Yeah, how to like teaching a niche and, and really getting value and for free. And then you can, and people, and I did, I paid through film school by selling my like DVD courses. I was manufacturing these two disc things that were eight hours long on top of my, it wasn't, I wasn't packaging like my YouTube tutorials. I was making like new training and selling it every quarter.

Petal Cut Pro trainings?

Yeah, different motion graphics softwares or different special effects packs. It was a great business and that was gonna be my fallback. If YouTube failed, I was gonna go back to that because that was working great. And it's just, but providing value was the simplest business model for it and it still works.

Still works. Creating content that helps someone solve a problem. We have a very similar story in the fact that I got started in 2008, 2009 and 10.

Yep.

Broke as a joke. I was playing professional football, making 250 bucks a week, so it wasn't really professional in the sense of making a lot of money. Got injured, had to kind of recreate my identity, and I got on LinkedIn to try to find a job. And I started spending all this time on LinkedIn, and after six months, people were like, Hey, can you show me what you're doing on LinkedIn? And so by me learning a skill, I started teaching people one-on-one, kind of like with you teaching one-on-one. Then I ended up creating a book and a course around LinkedIn and I started making money around it. I was like, wow, this is amazing. And I went all in on that, become known for that one thing of just trying to help people. And then I evolved it into, well, what do I really want to create? I want to do more inspirational stuff. But that's what got me started, just like teaching got you started.

You created a course. Yep. And I think that's where a lot of people kind of take a misstep is when they're creating their accounts, I see, I have a lot of friends either trying to break into it and they go too big. They try to hit everybody. In doing that, it obviously hits nobody or very few people. And so the niche, I mean, you were literally teaching LinkedIn. It wasn't social media. Yeah, no, you like, it was one platform. Yeah, go more narrow, especially now. And then you'll figure out from your audience that mix of what you love doing, and then it'll naturally be coming out in the comments. They'll be like, LinkedIn, what about Pinterest?

I really need to trend on SEO, SEO on Pinterest. And then if you love it, you just solve it.

Yeah.

Because the people that are working on TikTok that I'm inspired by, they're teaching something specific. They're not teaching photography, they're teaching iPhone photography. Like, what are the hidden things on your iPhone to make your photos better? Not like, here's how to be a great photographer. Right. The more specific you can go on, specifically TikTok or any platform, the bigger you can grow. And I think that's important for people to know, especially starting out. I love that you started teaching, then you started creating, and then that became your business model. You also are, I guess not known for, but we have a similar story in the fact that my dad had seven exchange students live with us when I was a kid, from five years old to about 12. We had seven people from around the world come and live with us. So we kind of fostered part-time, six months at a time.

Was that all at once or over the years?

Over the years. Yeah, like every year it'd be like a new exchange student who was like their senior year coming in small town Ohio. And so I learned about culture from people from Brazil and Japan and Germany and France and I would learn the language and experience it. And you started getting into the foster care movement years ago, but you haven't adopted, or you fostered first and then you adopted.

Yep. So my wife was a social worker and she was working at a desk job at a social work, at an agency. where they place foster kids and they do adopted kids too. Sometimes that means kids are on straight track to adoption or they need to go through the foster care system and then figure out if they're going home or if they're going to be adopted. And as she was doing that desk job, this is right around the time Vine was kicking up for me too. So we weren't, early on in marriage, we were traveling everywhere together and then she had her job and she felt like while she enjoyed helping get kids She wasn't really in the field. She wanted the hands on and she.

Wanted to be a feeling in it.

And she wants to be a mother. And so she wanted to feel like she was hands on. We had just moved into a new home at the time and to us it had an extra room and we were like, oh this is too much for us. Like at one point I had all my Legos in there and it was, because I'm a massive Lego fan. It's almost embarrassing how many Legos I have and I won't let my kids touch them to this day. if they're on the shelf, like don't touch. You can play with these ones, which you know already broken. But I had all my Legos in there and it just felt like, I don't think I need that. And we were like, we could clear it out and she could quit her job and then end up doing foster care and we could try it out. We'll have one kiddo. She came from a family that was adopt, she was the only biological kid, there was two adopted kids. And I had, my youngest sister was adopted into my family. -We're trying to, right? From China, so we both had that experience of having siblings that were adopted. And we knew early on in dating we knew and talked about it like, Hey, 'cause I wanted to marry a girl that was gonna do adoption and be open to that. And she was likewise with her spouse, so we connected on that. And this felt like, you know, year in the marriage, a great way to figure out if we could do foster care. I didn't know what that was. I thought it was messy.

What, 24, 25, 26?

I was, yeah, I think 24. And, you're still a kid in some ways. You're still a kid, just start, you know, really just my business was just picking up, I was just growing a team. And a lot of people would just think, oh, you're too busy, like do it later in your life. But for us it was really a strong tug on our hearts. It felt like a mission that we needed to do. And we opened up that room, we had our first kiddo, and it was a baby. We signed up for zero to two, so you can pick ages.

Wow.

You can do, and it sounds a little strange, but you do go through an application of like, during this first, you know, next placement, do you want zero to two? Do you want two to five? And it's really based on what you think you can handle. So me and Rachel felt really guilty saying, I don't think we can handle, like we couldn't take on a mentally handicapped kid. I haven't been trained in that. Maybe in the future I could, but it takes extra care, probably not only just a full-time parent, but maybe a little bit more support. We, and so you go through an application process and you go through training and then literally the day you get signed up and it's free to sign up, but you get a call and it's like, Hey, you want to take in, you know, here's the baby, here's their story, here's a little bit of like how long we think they're going to be with you and if it's going to go adoption or if it's going to go back to, they have like little pulses on the story and you either say, yeah, I'm open, I can come drop off or I'll pick up that day. So we got a call four days before we finished the application. Like that's how much they knew.

We can pick up right then.

Yeah, baby from the, it had been in the NICU, but we went to go pick them up and had our first baby for six months. And so overnight, within a week. Yeah, the process was six months to get certified, but like within four days of us finishing, it was like four days before they were like, we already know who you're gonna have. 'Cause they have so many kiddos that they have to put in homes. And so we became parents overnight. And it was, we had a lot of friends tell us like, oh, so you didn't have biological kids. Like, this is your first kid. And it was, like, we didn't have that nine-month window of, like, anticipation and going to the hospital and birthing and being taught how to do it. It was just-- you-'re in a drop-- Instant Dad. Instant Dad. There's a great movie, Instant Family, with Mark Wahlberg. that shows, it's lighthearted so because foster care is such a serious thing, it can be really heavy. That's a great film I recommend to people to watch and just get a sense of what is involved. And their story is kind of intense because they had, I think, three kiddos at once, siblings.

Wow, so what is being a foster, so you fostered one child and then adopted another?

One kiddo and then they went home, our first kiddo went home, to their family.

What's that like?

It's, I've had so many friends with different experiences of it. There's a whole range of them for us. It's obviously terribly, on one hand, bitter because you have raised this kid for six months and they are your taking on the responsibility of parenthood. Like we're calling ourselves mom and dad for their attachment. We don't want to be like a babysitter and they're getting half love or who are holding back love because they're getting the full, like, as if they are a child. And for that period, they are a child, our love. And so it's, it's heartbreaking to give back, but at the same time, their story was really amazing. And I was really, I was so proud of their family because, you know, if, if they, someone has kids in the foster care system, most likely their parents have been in the foster care system, and it goes down Generations just because it's a rut that, you know, it's, it's hard not to have judgment, but. Before I was educated about foster care, I had a lot of judgment. I was like, why can't you just fix yourself?

And take care of these kids?

Yeah, and they're humans and you're not taking, but they just weren't trained. It's not to give them too many outs, but this family went through the training. I mean, it's hard work to get back on course from where their life was. And so we were celebrating them. That's cool. And that's the goal. You want to be celebrating the birth parents, the whole time. It's not easy to the whole process because there's just decisions that are made.

That you're like, why did you do this?

Yeah, like you were so close and now we had to go another six months and your kiddo needs to be with you. Like you're bio parent. That's probably what's best for them. But along the way it's just like you have so much grace for yourself but also just the families.

Yeah.

'Cause it's not easy for the parents to actually get there's a lot of work they have to do to get their kiddos back. And so our second kiddo joined the family and we ended up, it just the story turned where he joined our family and we were just so, we were thrilled. Like he was our son for the first two years that we had him and the fact that he got to join our family was like forever son, like so cool.

How old was he when you joined?

So he was two when he was adopted.

Okay. And what's his name?

Mason.

And what has Mason taught you about Being a better creator.

Kids are the most creative things in the world. Being a dad has changed my eyes and actually re-inspired a lot of them. I think you can see it in my work. If you were to go back and see when my kids were somewhere around the age of one and a half or two, so just about a year and a half ago, I can track back that my work was more inspired, that the ideas were slightly better because I was on the ground with my kids, every day on the ground when I get home at five, looking at grass, looking for bugs, looking for ants, whatever that new thing is that week. Looking for toads is our whole winter experience. There was a pond near us that looks like thousands of toads. And we'd catch them and to them, they were these scary, we had these stories going in. And that's so fun. And kids, you can see their innocence and you can see that It's really in the best creatives, there's no no yet. They haven't been told no. And you know, I catch myself, I'm like, no, you can't cross the road. And instead of explaining like, well, you can do anything, but here's why it's not safe to cross the road. It's a yes and mentality. But I'm always yelling, no, no, no, don't, why do you have to touch the coffee thing? Why did you spill this morning we made espresso? Both my kids by the age of.

One and a half have learned how.

To make me a full espresso. I hate that espresso. putting the thing in and like turning it with the force that it needs, they can make it and hit all the buttons and grind it and everything.

That's cool.

And that's our ritual in the morning, but he just spilled this morning. I'm like, no, like why did you bang it on that thing? It's like, you know the process and really it's, I'm catching myself so I don't want to be the no person. I want to be the expansive and teach them, sure there's boundaries of life that you need to be safe for your own physical well-being but other than that, like anything should be possible for the kids as long as possible. I want to be there cheering them on and saying yes, and how do we do that even better?

Do they watch your videos? What do they think of your work?

So I did a magic trick for them, just a simple coin trick early on. I think they were like a year and a half or maybe two years old. And they started crying. It was too much to handle. It was like where did it go? Well, I pulled it out of their ear after. You know, it's a classic like, it's almost do it like I've done this one to them where I pull off their nose. They're scared. They're scared. So, I stopped doing it for a little bit. They've seen a few of my videos when they're in, because Mason's old enough to know what a camera is and he actually enjoys filming and taking photos. But I do show them the videos that they're in once in a while because it a lot like the camping video. Just so that they can full circle know what we were doing if they remember like, oh, that's why we were on the mountain. that day, like, oh, we made a video. Cool.

That's cool.

But they have no idea the followers and I don't know what raising kids in a monk's fame will look like. So I'm gonna have to meet mentors that have done that successfully and then take from them.

How old are they now?

Three and a half and two and a half. Wow, yeah.

So they fully don't understand it yet. Yeah.

But you know what's weird is, and we've stopped putting them in videos because of this, people would come up to take pictures with them. I wouldn't be around, they'd see them in a store. We had one just a couple months ago. A kid came around in Target and was like, Mason? And I was on the other edge of the, they didn't see me. Another kid? Yeah, another kid in their family. And the dad recognized him too. He was like, Is that me? And they were also probably like, why is he alone? But I was on the edge of the aisle and I could see him. But they were like, oh my gosh, it's Mason. Let's get a photo. And I was like, One, I was like, hello, other parents. That's weird. You should know that's weird. 'Cause the kid's like three and a half. It made us like, oh, they're gonna have, they know, they're aware of like people coming up to me and taking photos, now people are asking them. So we're figuring that out, we're navigating. We've kind of gone the opposite of like, we're gonna take most, unless it's such a cool concept and they're gonna watch us when they're older and just be proud of it. We're pretty much taking them out for a while until they can make the decision and we can guide them through what that looks like.

Yeah, that's cool. Do you really wanna be in a video? This could be some consequences long term. Sure. Lavidu did where it was on the mountain. It was kind of like seeing the back of them. So you weren't really seeing too much, which is pretty cool. What advice would you have to creators who are young creators that want to make a career out of this or want to try to make money out of this? Should they focus on early on how to learn about business or should they just focus on their craft and making great art?

It's focused on the part that they love the most. not necessarily what they're gonna be good at the most, 'cause they can hone, but they can hone it. So for me, I'm not, like I have people around me who can help me with the business. If I really wanted to, I could hire a firm and I could plug and play with them really easily. Like there's a lot of ways to find the thing that you're not good at and it'll compliment you even better, make you stronger. So I would focus on the craft, focus on the thing, what, it could be business, but probably the people joining social media, do have a knack for filmmaking or creating video. Yeah. And then showcasing, you know, what they're doing with that.

What's the mistake you see a lot of creators making, especially right now, whether it be on Tick Tock or YouTube or any platform?

What are they? I mean, the really common one is people joining just to get famous or just to, to make money or they, they know it's the, the cool, popular thing to do. Those are too shallow. And those won't take you very far. And they'll lead you making decisions that It's tough because when I make a video, we know the things that could make it even better. But sometimes it's compromising things that are already part of who I am or what my brand stands for. Or it's jumping on a trend that just doesn't feel right but it's so popular, it's like I should do that one. I don't know, but it's a good example.

What's a recent thing that here's a trend that I could have done but I decided to go a different way because it was not aligned to my brand.

So there's one where a gal and she's incredibly talented with her face movements and it's Bella Porch and she does-- I think one of those like bomb videos.

Yeah. And so it's got this, I love.

The creativity of it. It's amazing. And I'm thinking maybe there is a version that I could do. It's the most watched video on TikTok, I think, right now, right? And so on TikTok, if you use the sound and it's a double whammy because it's a popular sound, so that'll trend, but then there's, The hashtag, there's her, if you tag her account. There's just the fact that it's an effect, it's a face zoom. And so all these things compound. Yeah, it's compounding. It's like, I need to do that, but I would be forcing myself to do it just for the sake of a trend versus there's not a great, at least we haven't written one yet, a great magic trick in our version of surprise and wonder that would pop out of there.

Now there could be, we could sit and really force it, but-- I think you did a great one similar to this with Who's the singer?

Oh, it's Selena Gomez.

Yeah, yeah. You did something like that where you.

Did like a magazine and then she was there. But that wasn't, yeah, and that was great because it wasn't a trend. It was just like, it was a natural idea. So like we were just talking about, I think we had seen her on the COVID of a variety magazine. It was like, oh, we should work with Selena. You know it would be funny if I was a hairdresser and just like this girl came in and she was like, I want this look. And we were like, oh, we'll just put it over her face and it would transform. That's kind of a natural, like, that works. But forcing it into a trend is the thing that can get us way more views, but if it doesn't feel right over time, if we do it 20 times, the brand will feel different. It'll feel like-- It'll be a trend.

Chaser as opposed to an originator.

Yeah. And that's-- We're not, our goal isn't even to originate trends. It's just to put out some fresh ideas and it's really for other, you know, our thing is if people are scrolling through the feed, and they get a dose of 15 seconds of magic that takes them back, whether they're an adult, takes them back to oh, I like that feeling of seeing a magic show and that anything's possible and they take that somehow into their work that week or what they're doing, that's awesome. If they're just surprised for three seconds and take them out of their routine of just going through the feed. And same for kids, for the first time, if they're seeing magic or they're seeing this wonder that inspires them to maybe go make films. You know, we get sent clips all the time of kids who try these. I have a simple one, it's like a jump cut, and it's the one where you keep the camera on tripod, and I go like, and then I freeze and my friends bring, you know, another t-shirt and I throw it off, and it's like you cut out the middle section and then there's your jump cut. And we get so many videos from kids and families that like make these together, that's the fun part. It's like if that inspires them to, To go from being a consumer of the content to being a creator of it, that's the goal. 'Cause I don't use social media myself, but I do get caught whenever a.

New ad-- you- don't use social media yourself?

I don't use it for, it's too addicting for me. And so I've just gone off. And also, I just don't, text message is so practical. That's all I need is just to ping my friend and say, are you coming or whatever. Coordinate. I don't need to post a picture of my family or what I'm doing to, and maybe a part of that is just like the numbers don't mean, they used to mean something to me, like it would a buzz to get a thousand likes on a Facebook post or whatever, but maybe it's hitting when you hit a million, it's just like, it's that one to seven million range.

That's once you're tapped out.

It's numb, yeah. Well, you just realize that it's kind of, it's just so surface level. Yeah. But I don't use social and But TikTok is one where I can see how addictive it is. I can be lost forever. I can continue to scroll. And so the goal is like, let's put something a little edifying in that feed for people and pull them out of it just for a second.

Yeah, I mean that trend, I don't know if that's a trend or just a style of the jump cut with the shirt and clothes, I feel like so many people do that now on TikTok. Yeah.

Is that something you were doing many, many years ago? No, I started that on Vine. That was a natural, when Vine, I love creative constraints. and that was one of the best things Vine gave me was at the time I could make YouTube videos that went up for two hours long or whatever, and I was never gonna do that. But when an app came around and said, Hey, it's six seconds, like you're literally can't go over that, that was actually freeing. It was like, I need to consolidate what I'm gonna do. I went back to my magic roots as a kid and it was like, oh, I always loved how magicians would do this disappearing act, but I never understood the story. So let's just like beef up the story a little bit, kind of copy some of these same ideas of trick techniques. and put it in six seconds and slowly you learn, oh, well it needs to be funnier, it needs to have a better beginning setup to get the ending and you build that story arc even in six seconds.

What do you think is missing from your life? You've got one of the biggest creators in the world, 80 million subscribers on all platforms, billions of views.

The biggest thing that I crave is time alone. to really think, whether it's coming back to figuring out that longer term story, finding those moments, you know, I do have my writing time in there, but really to simmer on something, which is what, when I was on YouTube and Vine came around, it was a simmering moment. It was like, I'm not doing anything, when you have free time, it's like, I might as well try this Vine app. And even with TikTok, we were just doing YouTube, but it was like, We should try TikTok. We were in that moment of simmering. And so it's the simmering period when.

You don't have that time.

No, and it's a cause of wanting to do too much or we just, for the most of the year, didn't have any work and now we need to make up for it.

Tons of opportunities.

And so the simmering time is gone. It kind of comes out of a time of, I think you've talked about this before, it's a post-season rest.

Yes.

From creating, like we're creating all the time, every week, weekly, different pieces of content. You never stop. It's not, even I think music artists can take breaks after their tour before they go into the label for the next recording, at least from, that's what it looks like from my perspective. It's probably not true. They're probably also creating all the time, but creating is, you need a break. And that's what I kind of call that simmering time. where you do nothing and you're not having to think of, you know, when I post my next video tomorrow, I'll then go into thinking about the next video, but I don't get a break. And so that's what I'm missing.

How strategic are you in planning out the next weeks, months of content? Do you have stuff filmed that's already banked for a month? Is it week by week we're coming up with new ideas? What's that process like?

Some ideas are we leave space for a trend. there was actually one going on this week. It was, it's kind of silly one. I don't know if it's going to hit, but it's just a photo shoot with a ghost. And what people do is put a sheet over their head and put glasses on and we're doing our ghost is just so obvious for us. Like, oh, it's how you disappear. So we keep time for like a quick trend like that each week. Like we'll have a half day open for a shoot. The rest of it's really pre-planned for A couple weeks ahead. Or like we have most of our shoots for the rest of the year planned, just 'cause they're kind of bigger. They're like, We need to build a set. Productions, yeah. Right now we're like, Can we build a set in-- probably not Antarctica, but that's like the dream. 'Cause you-- I won't say that idea 'cause someone will-- it's a good one. But, you know, can we-- for big stuff, whether it's like the David Blaine project, you just need months to prep that. But usually we're like two weeks at-- out and in the can ready to go. Two weeks.

You've already recorded two weeks. You've got content for two weeks.

For two weeks and then, but it's always scary. Like if you don't, if you're up to that point, it's like you're working.

It'S so frustrating working that week for the next week's thing. Same thing with a podcast. We have three episodes a week come out, so we're always trying to get ahead to keep feeding the beast of like three times a week. But when you have a month ahead, it's like, okay, the producer's happy, the team's happy, we're less stressed, but What about when you do the trend stuff and you said like a half day shoot? If you see a trend and you're like, okay, we have a half day window to shoot something, do you just make it up on the spot? Because some of this stuff takes like time and production and props to... Yep. What's the quickest you can make a video in that actually has the magic element?

We could do it in a half day if we have kind of all hands on deck and we think of... An example is there was a trend that came out like a year ago called, the bottle cap challenge. And I don't know how it's, I still don't know how it started, but I saw a video of Jason Statham. That was the first one I saw, slow motion, kicking it, kick it off.

And did you do one of those?

I wanted to, but I wasn't cool enough. It was like too late. It was too late. Oh, bummer. And when is it too late to get on a trend? Well, it depends on the trend. Like some trends are technically, they go.

For a couple months, months, really. Sometimes. But that one, like that one had a little bit of longevity. Yeah.

I remember seeing one with a guy.

Who like used to like, his hand with like a sock over it and like took it off.

There were so many clever ones. That's when we get the hunch that it'll be a trend. When you start seeing people take really clever twists and it just gives you a ton of ideas and you're like, okay, we'll skip most of those because people are gonna do those. Like what's the one most people aren't gonna be able to do, which is, you know, we do a lot of stuff that is very difficult to do and takes time so people kind of will never do those ones.

What was that one like? What'd you do?

Well, bottle cap challenge, I was like, well, what if, you know, I think we saw similar, like, oh, they're kicking it with their feet, but it's really their hand. But what if when I kick it off, I kick it off with my, it is my feet, but I'm really small in perspective. And then when the cap flies off, I fall into the bottle.

I remember seeing this.

And I'm kind of drowning, and then I have a friend pick it up, the cameraman, and drop it, and you fall out. The water goes everywhere. I remember seeing this, yeah. So like that video, we talked about it in the morning. It was just like, hey, the water bottle, or the bottle cap challenge is happening. We got to do something. We start filming and the key for us is to get into blocking. You can be in your head so much when you're writing an idea and especially if you have even just four people in a room, everyone has a slightly different version or a different idea of that, what it should be. And unless you're with a camera and like acting it out and blocking it, you're not really, there's a point where you don't get anywhere. And so it's the idea isn't sharpening. So we just jump outside and that's our go-to practice it. Our phrase is like, let's get into blocking. that's moved from the table to doing it, 'cause we're gonna get nowhere. Kind of ride it on the fly almost. And so we block it and I remember that the one, I'll never forget that video because we had a kombucha drink that was just in the fridge and we're like, let's throw it in. And a kid comes out, one of our team members is like, well, you know what would make this even better? It's like GT's kombucha was just trending last week for this video that Cody Co did and that's the true kombucha. We should get that 'cause people will talk about that more than even this trend, which ended up being the case.

She went and bought a bottle.

He went to the store, we put GT Dave's in, and it was last minute, like he barely got it in there. We shot the thing, we posted it that night or the next morning, and then GT Dave called us and was like, hey, one, we're sending you like a, we're stocking your studio fridges with kombucha, but also that was like super cool, thank you, let's do something in the future. But those videos, they happen fast. It's like we get all hands on, if we have all of us doing it, we can get it done in two days.

It's almost like you need a business sponsorship sales person who's with you, who's like calling the owner of the brand saying, We're about to do this video. Do you want us to keep the label in or take the label out? And here's the rate. Yeah.

Something like-- We're about to call this other beverage company.

Exactly.

We've done that in the past and we've We've talked about that. It's actually a little un- It's not organic. It's not organic. Well, no, it's not organic. It can be organic. That one was super, a lot of people saw it. My friends called me and were like, how much did you get paid for that? And I was like, oh, it wasn't an ad. But it was so front and center, like it should have been an ad. But the internet moves too quick for brand deals to get made on the fly. That needs, I- It takes a month. There does need to be an agency that does that. They have it ready to go. They're just waiting for the trend to happen, and they have a client they just need the connection and the contract's already in place. That's the problem is by the time you do that and then you get other, I love brand deals because they pay the bills but you also need to meet their like, well, you need to say it this way.

You need to put the bottle here. Well, you just get more, you know.

Sometimes you get on a call and there's 10 other creatives from their team.

Oh my gosh.

Giving the ideas. Then you're like, get out of here. It just slows down the process. Yeah. And it can take the idea from, especially those trends, they need to be like, your fresh idea untainted.

If brands understood that they need to trust the creator and just say, We trust you, make it great, do your best, and have like one stipulation or something, you could probably create a much better video. Those are always the best videos.

I mean, I had Coca-Cola approach me years ago. It was one of my first brand deals and they're like, what do you want to do? Like, what can we help you do with finances that you can't do now? And I was like, fly. Like, I've always wanted to hire the Iron Man stunt team and fly. And you know what? We'll just say Coca-Cola made me fly by putting Coke on my feet and shaking it and like opening it or a Coca Mentos thing. And then like upside down and flying. And they were like, sweet, we'll hire the stunt team and we'll pay you. And so that is the best and that video has been seen over a billion times on various platforms. It's been copied everywhere. And you're right, it's genius because they just need to say like, here's what you're great at doing. We're gonna provide finances to go next step the direction you wanna go and that's kind of it. But it is limiting to the amount of brands that you can work with because that level of budget is, they need to be just for general awareness. It can't be like a call to action no. Link in bio to sign up for whatever.

Brand awareness. What's the biggest lesson your wife's taught you about being a better creator?

She's taught me a lot of lessons. and she's probably going back to your question about how you stay humble during a rise of fame. Like that's the only thing I can attribute to, you know, her keeping me grounded and family and friends. And she's taught me so many things, but one is really just to not go numb to the journey. There's a lot of things, whether you're traveling and you're used to speaking to her or whatever meet and greets. And you can, you've probably done the meet and greets where you do 300 people in two hours and it's like, by the end you're a robot and you're saying the same things and then you catch yourself when you say the thing and they didn't even ask you that question and she's taught me to really be present and like every person that's meeting you has a need. They probably want to, they obviously think they're your friend but it's really your moment to like talk to them about them. Whether it's 30 seconds for a minute, like be present, don't go to the robot version of Meet and greet Zach.

She seems very emotionally intelligent.

She is. She takes, yeah, I have none, so she has to be over capacity.

Where do you think you'd be without her? Or if you were a creator who was more single in the last seven years?

I'd probably be doing a lot of the same stuff, but family life would feel very empty. I don't think I would be, she's, Push me to challenge, like she's kind of the voice of like, Hey, we have an extra room, like what are we doing? Like we could be doing more. She's the push of that, you know, where I get pretty content with like, oh, work's going, I'd probably be somewhere like work's going well, I'm just grinding still, single, Zach, if I hadn't met her. But she continues to push to the deeper purpose of life in the areas of, it's great to be famous, she's show question, like what are you doing with it? Whether it's the one-on-one interactions or when you're speaking or being more present with people, what are you doing with that?

Yeah, the impact you're making with it. What do you want people to really think about you, about your work? When they see your work, what do you want them to think about?

I want them to be taken back to that spot. Like I have a vivid memory as a kid going, I was visiting Boston and just going about life but kind of uninspired for a little bit of time and seeing a guy It was the goofiest costume, but he had a hat on. And he was obviously just ducked like this, but his hat was floating. It looked like he had no face. And it was like the invisible man. And I was just mesmerized. And he was doing magic too, like without looking, or he had no head, it looked like an invisible guy doing magic. And I remember getting that dose of inspiration. And so when people watch my work, that is the number one goal, is that they feel inspired. and hopefully take it into whatever they're doing. It can be a business person watching it and they go, oh, it's like a perspective shift, which is funny because we do a lot of forced perspective stuff, which is kind of on the nose, but it is that looking at the world differently and taking a new path that next day. Hopefully people can find and tap into their, it's like the Ratatouille Everyone can cook. I really think everyone has a creative bone in their body. It's just how much they've used that muscle and how much they've tapped it and trained it. And also following that curiosity to go actually execute an idea based off of what you may have a question about.

I've always been fascinated by artists because I never was good at art or painting or all these things. So I just love watching it. I love appreciating it. and I'll dabble a little bit here and there just for myself, but I look at myself as an artist in the sports field or as an interviewing artist. It's like how can I use creativity in the thing that I'm good at and make it art? So whatever that is for you, bring your creativity out in the world. It doesn't have to be video making or art, but you can make something art.

Yeah, and I'm not an artist in the sense of I can't do storyboards for the life of me either. I try to sketch out My biggest problem is like, if I could have one gift bestowed upon me by the Muse, it'd be like, to make me a beautiful pencil artist and being able to at least draw a storyboard frame with the nose looking the correct direction. And, you know, but I think too many people limit art and artistry and say it applies to only painting or only filmmaking or writing, but it's, every craft can have an art to it.

I 100% agree. And what is your biggest fear right before you launch a video? Is your biggest fear that it will fail and it won't do as well as you think, that it'll succeed beyond your wildest dreams and be the biggest thing ever? Or that everyone will judge and criticize it. Failure, success, or judgment and criticism. Which one's strongest for you?

You'Re afraid of that. The biggest fear when I hit publish is that my last one, not as good, but is that the last, there was a period too where I really was believing that I'm gonna be out of ideas. We're 2000 of these short videos in, really is there any more than that? Or are we just gonna do more of the same thing and mix it up a little bit? And for me when I post, not much anymore. but, you know, because we're planned out for three weeks or four weeks, I know there's more. But, like, it's in the writing room now. It's when we send it off to production and then I have to sit there with my team and we're thinking of the next idea. There's always a little piece of a moment of, like, was there anything as good as that last one, though? Because we just did, like, a banger, and that was we. We felt it as we made it, and then we might have just been drained. And. And that's where even longevity of the business, you think. How long can this go before I run out of ideas?

Yeah, if I'm not creating hits, is any brand gonna wanna pay me and then I'm not gonna be able to pay my team and continue going? Interesting. Is it a banger? It's almost like you need an idea person who's full-time who can come up with ideas.

Yeah, we have a writing team and we are always coming up with ideas. But you can tell when the ideas is good enough to, like we're raising the bar too a little bit. Not every time, but every couple months we're slowly raising the bar. And it's, are we gonna, the new fear is kind of, can we continue to top it at this level? You know, is it, or are we going backwards?

At the end of this, are we.

Gonna have to be building like sets on Mars to be really impressing people? Right, right, right. Going in outer space, yeah.

Hanging out with Elon Musk up there, yeah.

Which would be cool, and I gotta put that on the bucket list then. Mars.

Vine on Mars. Interesting. That can be good. How can we support you the most right now? What's the thing that you're inspired by the most that you're doing?

I'm most inspired by, really inspired by family life. By figuring out we're just about to open our home again to foster care.

Wow.

Which is we had a break once we had our biological son Liam because we were trying to figure out like what is life with two kids while doing the rest of our life. And so we got, we stabilized the aircraft there. And now it's, let's jump into foster care again, maybe, and too, by the end of this year, I can see us or next year going in with older kids. We haven't tried that. We haven't had, I want some more training in that first to figure out how to talk about what they're going through with them. Because it's a little easier with babies because they're not gonna tell you all their issues. They'll give you a little warning sign with crying, but like, I don't know what it's like to talk to a four-year-old and explain why their parents, they can't live with their parents. So I'm excited to develop what that and we're trying to figure out our home situation. Like, what would it look like to have a really safe sanctuary for our kids? Like, is there a version of living on a farm where you could have a bunch of rooms over time, learn to have a bigger capacity of kiddos? That's cool. I always loved movies like Cheaper by the Dozen and I was always inspired. I have a family friend up in Oregon, they have 10 kids. That's crazy amount of kids. And I don't want 10 kids right now. But I always loved the energy of it. I loved that there was older kids helping younger kids and it was just a really fun vibe. And so for me, that would be the dream is figuring out, especially with my wife, how can we create a safe sanctuary where really, whether you're a teenage mom, maybe you're raising even a kid in our home, and we're helping teach that or we have a baby or a bunch of kiddos, how do you make it safe for them and give that, like every kid deserves a safe childhood. It just feels wrong that it's possible that kids can't have that. And so is there a version of it's kind of like my creativity always goes to filmmaking and now I've lately been applying, you know, even Yes to Ancestors like the most basic thing we start in writing a new concept, it's like we always start meeting one is yes, Anne, let's blue sky it. So doing that with family, not just my entertainment business, but it's, was our family, yes, Anne, how cool could this be? How can you evolve it? And for people that are listening or.

Watching who might have a, might be connected to what you're saying, who've been thinking about fostering, what recommendation do you have for them? Or are there any resources they could check out?

Look up Look up an agency in your area. I think it's really helpful to not go directly with the government, but go through an agency because they'll help guide you and be a little bit of a filter to the process. And, you know, for me and my wife it's really simple and we adore people like Mother Teresa who really just saw an issue and helped. It wasn't like there wasn't a huge thought process. It wasn't like, let's really map this out for 18 years and what's this gonna look like and how is this gonna impact, It's not as hard as people think. It's really you can give your home space to a kiddo and if you're up for raising a kid at this point and if you have a year of time window that you can be open for.

Because you can do it for six months or a year, a couple of years.

Yeah, right. There's a bunch of options.

How many foster kids are there in the USA?

In the US, last that I read was it's always a lag. by a couple years, but it's over 600,000 foster kiddos in the US. I know LA has 30,000 and only 9,000 or 10,000 beds. And so the rest have to be in group homes or go to extra family or it's kind of messy. Yeah, a lot of kids need some support.

That's for sure. I want to ask this question. We're getting towards the end here. This is called the Three Truths.

Three Truths.

So I'd like you to imagine it's your last day on earth many, many years from now and you've you've accomplished all your dreams. You've got 30 kids in foster care, you've got farms of kids, you've got all the films you've wanted to make, everything you've done it. And it comes down to the last day and for whatever reason you've got to take all of your creative work with you, all of your videos, got to go to the next place, wherever that is. So no one has access to this interview, your books, or any of your creative work. But you get to leave behind three lessons that you've learned from your life. that you would share with us.

So, all history of me is a race and now I'm leaving the last podcast, right?

The last three, yeah, the three things you know to be true about life that you'd want to leave behind and share with other people. Three lessons. So, put yourself in that hypothetical situation.

Yes.

What would you say would be those three truths for you?

The three truths, you have to be full of grace. You got to be graceful to people. I think everybody needs, could use a little bit more grace. Even driving here, I was so mad at this one guy who just cut me off and I was like, you know what, I don't know what his day is like, but it's like he needs grace and he doesn't need my judgment. I'm okay. And maybe that needs to be one of them is judge less. If the one thing I'm lacking is I'm constantly judging myself but also people, yeah. It's so easy to do and just judge people less. I think everyone you have, it's even in the Bible, right? Like get the log out of your own eye before you talk about the speck in somebody else's eye. The other one is, and this is the one I will tell my kids, but my wife's, my mother-in-law, She always says, Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. And I would say, Invest in great people around you, and try to pick up on that. You could probably ask yourself, who are the three best people that I should be around for as long as possible and soak up with them and just surround yourself. I think it makes a huge difference who you surround yourself with.

Absolutely. That's a big personal growth. saying you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

So, yeah, that's good.

Invest in people for sure. How can we connect to you online? What's the best place? TikTok?

You can search, it's whatever your jam is. We may be, if you have any social media account, we're probably there. But just Google my name and you can find me. They're probably already following you.

There's 80 million people that follow you already. So, Zach King everywhere, right? It's the same name everywhere.

Yeah.

I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Zach, because you have had such an interesting life and the fact that you constantly show up for yourself. You show up and you just take the next step of creativity. You have an idea, let me try this out and see if it works. And maybe some things work and they don't, but you keep moving forward. And I really want to acknowledge you for your heart because I think it takes a special heart for someone to want to adopt, foster, and keep things thinking about kids who don't have a quality family life. And I know you grew up with a pretty quality family life. And I think it takes a great man to think that way and open your heart and truly want to help as many kids as possible. So I really acknowledge you for that gift that you have. More so than the video work, which is amazing talent, but the gift to want to help young kids, I think is really inspiring. So I acknowledge you for that, man. And I want to see you make a film in the next couple of years. I want to be at the premiere.

Don't give me that pressure. Not in a couple of years.

We'll say-- the next 10 years. 10 years, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. No pressure. No pressure.

But I want to see it happen.

Whenever is right for you. So within 10 years, can you commit before 2030? We can, yeah, we could probably work on that. Okay, good, good, good. I want to see the film, the Dark side of Magic, or whatever you want to call it. We'll take the credit for that, but.

You know, it's a good idea.

And my final question for you is, what is your definition of greatness?

Oh, definition of greatness. To me, I look at the resilience of so many kiddos who've gone through hard lives. Teenagers, adults who've gone through trauma. Greatness is the resilience and coming back from that trauma and just going down the journey of healing. Doesn't mean you get fully healed. but that you work, you're ambitious towards some sort of healing. Those are the people I look up to who are like, how did you come from this family life and turn out the way you did? It's just incredible. The resilience. So I think greatness is having incredible capacity of that resilience.

And have you, what's the thing you've had to heal the most in your life?

You know, I think a lot of it is proving, I grew up in a family where it's very performance based and, you know, similar to your story where, you know, for me it was piano. And that was, when I look back at why I Love Film, when I was four years old watching Jurassic Park and I wanted to, when I was seven, I got my hands on the camera, I would play those films for my family. And just kind of recently, in the last couple years, I realized what I loved about showing that work to my family was the gratification of them saying, Good job. Good job.

Like validation.

I was earning-- no, but I love the craft, you know? There was like, I love doing the thing, but then the extra special like moment, the reason I gathered the family on Friday night to play it on the big screen for us was at the very end when they would say, Good job. Or when it was like, oh, but you could work on this, it was kind of like a bummer and I can, you know, I was only doing those premieres for the good job. And that's a dangerous place to do your work for, for the praise of others, 'cause I think it'll lead down some very uncreative places and just, it's not gonna be your best work either. And it also is not lasting. Like you can't sustain yourself over a career just always looking for when I post it, people love it, you know? So the healing is learning. It's not about these surface level achievements. It's about being over your life a person who's putting good into the world in whatever way that looks like. Look like being a nurse can look like creating movies. But yeah.

Zach King in the house. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

My friend, thank you so much for being here. And a big thank you to Zach King for sharing his wisdom, opening his heart, and teaching us some practical things that we can do to become better creators and better human beings. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Make sure to tag Zach King over on Instagram or Twitter or YouTube or wherever you're listening to this and you share it out. Make sure to tag him when you share out stories on Instagram and all that other good stuff and tag me as well to let me know that you're listening to this or watching this. Also, we love it if you click that subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts. When you do that, I truly helps spread the message to more people when you click subscribe and when you leave a review. Would love to hear your feedback thoughts of how this inspired you, helped you and improved your life. So click the review button, leave a review and click that subscribe button as well. If you want to continue to support me and the mission of spreading greatness to more people, that would be amazing. And if you want inspirational quotes and messages from me every single week to your phone, Then text me right now the word podcast to 614-350-3960 and I want to leave you with this quote from Charlie Chaplin who said, you,'ll never find a rainbow if you're looking down. I'm telling you, if there's anything I can learn about this, and Zach, I've been following his videos for years, the guy is always looking up. He's thinking, he's creative, he's always got some wonder and awe. and thinking, how can I bring joy to people in this moment? Think about what you can do in this moment to bring joy to someone in your life, and then go do it. I'm so grateful for you, and if no one has told you lately, you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And you know what time it is? It's time to go out there and do something great.