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it got scary we had to move into a higher security building and I didn't know what to do that's when it got dark
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Casey niist The Godfather of YouTube the king of vlogging one of the most prolific creators in
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history throughout your story there's this objectively delusional persistence towards a goal the word I've been using
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is patience because patience is so unattractive and I think you need to remove this idea of success being this
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romantic beautiful thing it's not when I started my Vlog making a video a day 800 days in a row it took 8 years to go from
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zero to a couple hundred thousand subscribers failing year in in year out of
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$200,000 in debt it's awful you're a loser but patience will smash into
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opportunity and then it went to 10 million subscribers in like 18 months so in life you can get whatever you want
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but are you willing to do that for 20 years if you're not don't bother man you've sold the company you've built the
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channels you've made a huge name for your s at that point that's when it got hard because the only goal that anyone
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should have in life is one of happiness and fulfillment and like this idea that you have to win to be happy could not be
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further from the truth I had by every definition achieved success but I wasn't running the marathon because I wanted to
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get across the Finish Line I was running it because I love the running and the fame was insane like we had to move to
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LA and I didn't know what to do until now is this a new Casey what can we
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expect Casey is a legend he's a legend to so many people he's one of The Originals as
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it relates to creativity content video and YouTube and although most of us know
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Casey what most of us don't know is the Underdog Story the true deep uncovered
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motivations that drove him to become arguably one of the world's most famous
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most acclaimed most celebrated online creators ever and it's a story that
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you'll relate to it's a story of a completely normal dude that was down and out that had a
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very big indistinguishable passion and the more interesting maybe for me as
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someone that's watched Casey's Journey for a far is what he's doing now for the first time ever he talks
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about what his life is right now now that he's not uploading videos every day
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now that he's a little bit further out of the spot light and Casey gives us this blueprint for how we can take that
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thing that we enjoy doing that thing we consider a passion or a hobby and drag it up the mountain and make it an
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incredibly lucrative job how do we turn our passion into a career and how do we
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become number one at the thing we do when everything everything seems to be
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against us that is the story of Casey neistat and that's the story you're going to enjoy today before this episode
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episode starts the one favor I'll ask if you enjoy what we do here and you enjoy the guests that we bring please join the
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Diary of Co journey by hitting the Subscribe button and if you do I'll make you a deal I'll do everything in my
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power to make this show bigger and better for you do we have a deal enjoy
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this [Music]
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episode Casey what do I need to know about your earliest years to understand
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the man that sits before me today I I almost think of people's lives like a set of dominoes that have fallen what
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are those first dominoes that fell to create the man that sits here today oh man how much time you
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got plenty so my whole childhood was just completely unsupervised like there was no did you
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do your homework tonight there was no like dinner at 6 it was like be home before dark or you're going to be in
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trouble trouble never being defined and like dark never being defined and it was just kind of like a very loose kind of
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[ __ ] up wandering childhood of exploration you know like I was telling this story recently but we there were
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railroad tracks behind our house and one of the things we used to do for fun we were little kids is we collect pennies
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and change and we'd lay them on the railroad tracks and the train would go over them and flatten them very cool but
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the train would vibrate the tracks as it approached and the coins would fall off of it so what the only way to to address
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that is you'd put the coins on the train tracks when the train was really close so I you know I don't know I was
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in grammar school which is sixth grade like how old are you then I was like 10 years old it's a little kid and like you
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know train track huge freight train coming and me putting nickels on the train tracks to try to get a flattened coin that's kind of what my childhood
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was like as you look back what is the power and the the gift that that UNS
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supervision gives you because I resonate with that so much I think the reason I became an entrepreneur was because I I've always said this when I was 10
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years old my parents weren't there when I went to bed and they weren't there when I woke up and being the youngest of four it was like they had assumed I'd
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also been parented already so they just they like gave up or something they just got busy so in that void of Independence
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I conducted a lot of experiments and I almost hear that in what you're saying as well that unsupervised allowed for
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exploration that allowed for something yeah I think it's um or like necessity
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is the mother of invention and I think you know if you're 10 and your parents all of a sudden are absent you're just
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forced to figure [ __ ] out it's funny because like all I want to do as a
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parent now is protect my children from the hardships I had when I was little but it is those hardships I had that
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made me who I am and it is like this impossible dichotomy to address it's impossible as a parent like I constantly
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think I'm [ __ ] up my kids like we send them to a private school because we can like if you can afford it which we
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can we're fortunate like why would I not send my kids to the best school but in the back of my brain I think what's best
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for them is to be in some New York City public school figuring it out like I think that's what's but I don't do that
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um because I had a terrible time at public school I hated it so I want to protect them from that so I send them to
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a really fancy school that's lovely and warm and cozy and like am I helping them I don't know but no I think that exactly
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what you were saying like I had no choice but to f figured out when I was little like I worked from like when I
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was super young I figured out how to make a dollar like I was a paper boy when I was really really young
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delivering newspapers and I'd make like 30 bucks a week and then you know when I got to um 8th grade and I started
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smoking pot and I realized like the math behind weed sales I was like okay
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there's like a there's a 400% a 4X return if you buy quarter ounces and you
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break them down and you sell them as dime bags but if you buy a quarter pound and you sell them as eigh you're looking
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at a 1, 1600% return I was like okay so how do I come up with 250 bucks to buy
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the to buy the QP and then let me break that down and then like I haven't hit
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puberty yet I'm a little kid like these guys are going to beat the [ __ ] out of me if I mess with the wrong people so I need to befriend the guys that can
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protect me and like figure out that business um all of that was because I had like I didn't have a choice why were
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you unsupervised where were your parents um and this what I mean by when I say my parents were accidentally um great and I
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do think they tried their best you know like my dad worked a zillion hours a week he had no choice um I think we
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lived like a very middle class livelihood you know like my parents had like nice cars they had
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Volvos but they always bought like 5-year-old Volvos never new cars and like we lived in a house that was like
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comfortable but like you know there's never any food in our house it was like it was fine we always made it by we'd go
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on vacation but it was always like in the back of the station wagon and we go to like Town two hours away and stay in
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a shitty motel for two or three nights but my dad worked all the time and I
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only understood later that it was very like hand to mouth you know he's paycheck to paycheck kind of guy and my
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mother you know I don't I I still don't understand my mom I think she she was one of eight kids my mother is the tail
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end of an aristocracy so it's like I always describe her side of the family as like all the privilege and
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entitlement of an aristocrat with none of the money so I you know I don't my
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mother was just always kind of an enigma and always kind of absent um and I think
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that they were just they tried the best they could and we were just kind of left wandering as kids they divorced at some
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point yeah that's when things got really hard in what way I think that childhood
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always felt like he were sort of Hanging On by a thread I was like one of four my older brother
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van was the first born and he's such a van is such an incredible guy and he's so magnetic and then there's my sister
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who's the only girl and then there's my little baby brother Dean who was the baby and then I was just kind of this
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like accident that happened 13 months after my sister and two years before my brother like it was this so it it's like
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I I was always the loudest and the squeakiest to get the most attention and uh you know
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was I kind of think that like characterized what my the challenges was
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were for me as a kid growing up and then it just got you know the the
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the the tumult of living in that house just kind of precipitated until my parents split up which happened under
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very like auspicious shitty [ __ ] up circumstances and kids being blamed when
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the kids shouldn't have been blamed and um I say all that without faulting my parents again I think they were trying their best but looking back at it it's
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like what the [ __ ] guys I I heard you say previously that you you had to tell
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your father that your mother had been had cheated on him yeah I remember that vividly like I can picture the table we
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were sitting at I can remember his posture I can remember his response to it but yeah you know my my mother you
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know she's a she's a you know she's a good woman she has faults like all of us humans have faults but I think she let
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those manifest in a way that were really dark at that time in her life and it was
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apparent to me as a 14-year-old exactly what was going on exactly what was going
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it was so [ __ ] crystal clear as a 14-year-old yeah like abundantly clear
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and I never really understood my own father's perspective on that but I
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understand that his perspective now it's like you know he's working a million hours a week to keep his head above water and also like you don't want to
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see that you don't like the truth sucks so just like put your head in the sand and ignore it is a very natural response
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to it but I was like fighting with my mother at the time about you know all kinds of the [ __ ] that a teenager fights
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with their parents about getting in trouble at school and all of that so I I was mad at her and I think I you know
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part of part of me addressing that was just sort of confronting my dad what are you gonna do about this woman at 14
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years old you knew your mother was cheating on your father and you told him yeah how does one know
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that I mean it's it it was it was super apparent I mean there very there's a
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handful of very specific situations that just made it
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abundantly clear um and you know I think that's why like you know at the time obviously fought my mom through and
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through but looking back at it it was you know was probably something closer to like a cry for help or a cry for
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attention or just a way of her you know her letting the struggle
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she was facing in the totality of her life manifest like this is the only way can express it is by doing this kind of
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[ __ ] up awful thing as you step out of that chapter of your your childhood what are the fingerprints the character
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fingerprints that are left on you that still are with you today what did that chapter of your life those first s of 15
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years oh I don't think anything has changed like I don't think it's even fingerprints it was so like acute the
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way that I had that I saw my future when I was that young like I knew exactly my
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plan really and exactly my plan and then look the specifics of how that plan was going to come together were ambiguous at
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Best But like I had I knew exactly my plan like New York City was always the plan I remember was like page 41 in my
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social studies book was a two-page spread of the New York City skyline and I wouldn't let myself look at that page
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because it would I would have such an emotional response to it like Tom Hanks in the movie Big I would play that movie
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on repeat because I was like that's me like that's me I'm going to move to New York City and get to be the kid that I wish I could be like that's me to this
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day like I know every word of that movie that movie is like a Bible for me it is a road map for me but you know like i'
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I've made 500 YouTube videos about this single idea but like the mission of my life and this was defined then when I
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was a little kid the sole mission of my life is to realize all the promises I made to myself as a kid you like when
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you're a little kid and you're like someday I'm going to be an astronaut like your mom yells at you and it's like well someday I'm going to have kids and
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I'm not going to yell at them or like you're [ __ ] hungry and you're all out of mac and cheese and you're like some I'm going to have a refrigerator that's
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always filled up with food like whatever it is you know you have a boss that's an [ __ ] and it's like Someday I'm not going to have any boss and like all of
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those promises like my promises could you know they could fill up a phone book and my soulle mission was always like no
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I have to check every single one of these off um the how was always gray but
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the the the to do it was always Vivid and there was never even a doubt that it
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was going to happen like there was never an if ever there's nothing even close to that but life throws at you at that age
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things that you could never have predicted and those things don't seem to have deterred your pursuit of that
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mission you have a child that's what 16 17 years old yeah that was diff yeah so I moved out moved out is such a funny
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way of characterizing I say moved out and I picture like a moving truck pullup I got in a fight with my mom at age 15
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on a Monday night um school night and she gave me this ultimatum this is when
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she and my father were like you really like they were splitting up and getting back together it was like a really gnarly time in the family but we got
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into this fight and I just remember thinking like I was so mad at her at the time I was like you can't tell me what to do and she was like you need to do
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this this and this or get out of this house and I was like all right I'm gonna go and I just like left why why did you
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go like that night I stayed at a friend's house down the street because his parents were like weirdly religious
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but also kind of absent they were always like very warm to me so I was like hey can I sleep here and he's like yeah sure then I slept in another other friend's
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house and then so you ran away from him yeah so I they moved out it wasn't like you know put the couch over there it was
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like I just took a backpack and it was just close to like a stick with a red handkerchief on the back um but I
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eventually moved in with these two girls that were great they were super fun um and you know they were like I'd say I
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was 15 I think they were 17 or 18 and then yeah I started you know one of them
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she and I kind of got close and then like immediately she was pregnant and a year later we had yeah we had a kid and
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that was challenging but even so like I never I remember one moment where like she started freaking out in the car cuz
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she was like you know eight months pregnant and she's like crying and just like you know dealing with it and I
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pulled over and I was like what are you upset about and she was like what are we going to do we don't have any money like
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you don't even have a job like what are we going to do and I was like it's going to be what do you mean what are we going to do it's going to be fine we're going
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to have a kid it's going to be be great it's gonna be fine were you not scared then no it just
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everything made sense I was like oh this is great there's a naivity to it's
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beautiful now I'm scared I always say that like I had nothing to lose then
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like I had nothing and no nothing like I had no reputation you know like my
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friend's parents all thought I was a [ __ ] degenerate they wouldn't let me hang around with my friends because I was such a bad influence so it wasn't
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like I had like a reputation nobody knew me I had nothing I had no money I had no resources I knew no one and when you
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have nothing to lose you're just like a like a rat that's cornered and it was like I'm going to chew my way out of
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this one um and now I'm like I'm so scared and everything I do in life because I'm like it's so good right now
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I don't want to [ __ ] anything up take it really easy like I'm really happy right
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now like this is I want to protect what I've got but no there was a navity then that was just uh
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that was it's hard for me to empathize with how like bright-eyed bushy tail naive I was I remember when like my son
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Owen when his mother when she and I split up um you know she dumped me
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because I was just such a pain in the ass and God bless her for doing so but I remember I was like then I was like okay
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I've got a plan in five years I'm G to move to New York City and I'm gonna figure this out and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that what were you
00:17:25
gonna do in New York I don't know had some cocka made me plan there's always a plan um I don't know what the specific I
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knew that like up until that point in my life I'd only ever worked in the back of restaurants washing dishes or like being
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like a prep cook or just being like the low man in the totem pole takes out the trash and scrubs out the garbage cans
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like does all the [ __ ] work mop um this the only job I'd ever done my my father
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sold used restaurant supplies like if you need a new oven or walk in fridge so he could always get me jobs in
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restaurants and I remember like moving to New New York City my only plan was like I'm just not going to work in a restaurant that's my plan I'm going to
00:18:02
do anything that's not working but I had this 5-year plan to move to New York City and like six months later I quit my
00:18:09
job and moved to New York when you look back at that sort of like 19-year-old kid that quits his job and moves to New York so up until that point what do you
00:18:17
now know as a guy that's in their 40s about the brilliant accidental decisions
00:18:23
you were making at the time like what are the bril you know like The Accidental Brilliance that is probably
00:18:28
objectively stupidity like that's a stupid decision but in hindsight you go I was a genius you know it's I never
00:18:35
would say in hindsight I was a genius it's just be it was raw stupidity and fearlessness but it's like all those
00:18:42
stupid [ __ ] quotes that everybody posts on Instagram that like I hate
00:18:47
about like you know you only live once follow your dreams pursue this like [ __ ] you [ __ ] every one of you um I hate that
00:18:56
[ __ ] I hate inspo porn even though I'm very guilty of Fanning the Flames of inspo porn but like there's so much
00:19:03
truth to all of that and the reason why I hate that [ __ ] is like if you have to be told that it's too late if you're
00:19:10
going to learn that from Instagram post it means nothing nothing to you it's just masturbation like it's it's doing
00:19:16
nothing for anyone people just put it up there to feel good about themselves but
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all of it is true and what I mean by that is like I could never do at age 42
00:19:28
do what I could do at age 19 which is just say [ __ ] it I've got a 10th grade
00:19:33
education no high school diploma no work experience no life experience and a
00:19:38
two-year-old what's the best thing I can do right now I know let me move to the most expensive challenging city in the
00:19:44
world with no plan if I hadn't done it then I I don't know you could ever do that and I think that like when I say
00:19:50
those cheesy quotes are true it's like you kind of have an obligation in in
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life that if you feel something that is so powerful to you like follow through with that and I'm not naive to that now
00:20:03
I wasn't naive to it then but I think now I can articulate it which is like this idea of
00:20:09
privilege if you're like born in the United States of America if you like get to sit at a table and do this like no I
00:20:15
wasn't a rich kid and like yeah I was like on welfare and got free diapers and milk from the state otherwise I wouldn't been able to feed my child and like I
00:20:22
work 60 hours a week in a kitchen making eight bucks an hour I think I got 725 an hour was my starting
00:20:29
um salary and like I that was like I'm like the luckiest person in the world to get to do that are you crazy like do you
00:20:36
know what some kid in South Sudan would do for that opportunity and I just
00:20:41
walked into it I'm like a healthy guy I've got two legs that work and like like I have a brain like I'm the lucky I
00:20:48
won the lotto on life so like if you start life with this winning lotto ticket and it's like oh little hiccup
00:20:55
accidentally had a baby when I was [ __ ] teenager it's like no big deal like they'll just push through this this is going to be great and it's like I
00:21:01
want to live in New York City it's like let's go for it let's do it the privilege there sounds like a privilege of
00:21:07
mindset this objective privilege I guess from being yeah like I push back when people say that my response is like [ __ ]
00:21:13
you privilege of mind no that's an objective privilege name one time in the
00:21:18
history of humanity like what the Sumerians invented the written word 5,000 years ago name one time when
00:21:25
people had the kind of opportunity that like people like us born in the west have like there never existed before
00:21:32
never ever maybe it was a little bit easier for our parents you know what I mean like maybe
00:21:37
like postwar USA was like a little bit easier than it is now maybe now is a
00:21:42
little bit harder than it was for me 20 years ago but like still give me a [ __ ] break like this life is like
00:21:49
it's it's the hardships we face now are so meal compared to what they were 100 years ago objectively 200 years ago you
00:21:57
say that thing that went viral and it was like the reasons why people died in London in the year 1892 and like the
00:22:04
fourth most popular cause of death was teeth like like 60% of the population
00:22:09
are dying because their teeth are [ __ ] up like we have it pretty easy what why don't people so there's going to be
00:22:16
another guy right now that's like washing pots in the back room at the seafood restaurant on the $7 an hour and
00:22:22
he might be listening to this right now and he hears you say that but why why don't people take action beyond that
00:22:28
point and take the big bet when they have objectively potentially nothing to lose oh what's that line from is it
00:22:35
catty Shack or Fletch when he's like the world needs ditch diggers too that's a very cynical take on it but I think a
00:22:41
very practical take is like not everybody wants it and I think that's okay I think that's a wonderful thing I
00:22:47
never understood that I think like in life you can get whatever you want but you can't want whatever you want if you
00:22:53
don't want it there's no creating that but do you think sometimes people want to want want it but they don't really
00:22:59
want yeah of course of course and I think that's okay if you really [ __ ] wanted it you would need this like
00:23:06
inspirational podcast that make you make that decision you'd already be [ __ ] doing it um that's not it to be defeis
00:23:13
it just means that like the only goal that anyone should have in life is one of happiness and fulfillment and like
00:23:19
this idea that you have to win to be happy could not be further from the truth like why do we hear about rock stars and famous actors and these people
00:23:27
that we see as sort of like the the absolute Apex of success in Industry where are they all [ __ ] killing themselves and dying of alcoholism and
00:23:33
like all that Darkness happening at the highest level It's like because that doesn't equal happiness like what is
00:23:39
happiness for you and an example I like to point to is like my best friend in the whole world we grew up together like
00:23:46
um I ran away from home I stayed with him for a little while like we've been together since we were kids you know like when I moved to New York he stayed
00:23:54
in the hometown and like when I quit my job washing dishes I gave him that job he literally took over that job and now
00:24:01
you know here we are 25 years later he still lives in that town um you know he still has a job very similar to what he
00:24:08
had 25 years ago he's got three amazing kids he lives like a very what I would say is like very classic archetypal
00:24:16
middle class American life and like I look at him and I'm like that is the embodiment of like happiness and
00:24:22
fulfillment he has this amazing relationship with his amazing wife he has these three brilliant little kids that he gets to you know make sure he
00:24:29
get they get to school every single day he's got like a cute dog that he goes on runs with he has this amazing life and
00:24:35
no part of that life was being like [ __ ] this I want to like live on the moon
00:24:40
someday I need to run away from all this like his his focus in life was something completely different and I think that I
00:24:48
didn't I I struggled to appreciate that when I was younger but now I see like so much to that and that's why I think like
00:24:55
adjusting the pie in the sky is just just one of happiness and fulfillment and defining those it is up to you Brony
00:25:02
W me was talking about her the other day um she's that I think it's called paliative care nurse in Australia who
00:25:08
interviewed people with one day left to live and she asked them what their biggest regret in their life was and the number one regret of the dying was not
00:25:15
living a life True to Myself And for those people those that do have this
00:25:21
aspiration to start that business or I don't know become a ballet dancer in Europe or whatever that are held back by
00:25:27
potentially some form of fear you know is there is there anything that one can offer them to get them just
00:25:34
to take that that first initial step which seems to be the hardest like getting off the couch or getting out of
00:25:40
quitting the job that you you you might offer to your children if they came to you yeah me I just think that failure is
00:25:46
um I think failure is like the greatest gift I think failure is like it hurts so
00:25:52
bad but failure is like is a part of life and if you're not willing to accept that like failure is part of it you've
00:25:58
got to keep failing um Anvil the story of anvil you know this I made a whole
00:26:05
video about this so I made a YouTube video about this um and then the leads
00:26:10
there's a movie called Anvil I think it's called the story of anvil or something like that Anvil was this like
00:26:16
big hair rock band in the 80s and they opened for like deaf leopard you know
00:26:22
like 50,000 people kind of thing but they never headlined they never broke through they were the always the opening
00:26:28
act they were always like the bridesmaid never the bride and the movie opens showing these huge concerts in the 80s
00:26:35
and Anvil just rocking out and then it cuts and it shows the lead singer and he lives in Canada and he drives a little
00:26:41
van he delivers food to old people making minimum wage like barely able to keep his head above water and he
00:26:47
performs still in his leather outfits is like this middle-aged 50-year-old guy to like six people and they'll be just
00:26:53
drinking beer and he's there giving it his all and the movie is about how Relentless this guy like he's just not
00:26:59
well he borrows money from his sister to record an album nobody buys it can't pay her back she got kids and [ __ ] like it
00:27:04
is the most devastating story you've ever seen because he's unwilling to give
00:27:10
up that dream like he just wouldn't let it go this his whole life and then this documentary comes out and it's [ __ ]
00:27:16
fantastic and because of the documentary Anvil blows up and all of a sudden he is
00:27:23
that Superstar like on tour selling out Arenas in Japan and [ __ ] like he did it
00:27:28
had he given up at any point in time the the documentary wouldn't have been interesting it would just been
00:27:34
another person who threw in the towel but they made this like a filmmaker saw this story it's like that's crazy I need
00:27:40
to tell that story and it yielded that success had he not been willing to take on 40 Years of failure 30 years of
00:27:47
failure um he would have never found success and I think that's the most extreme version of that the reason why I
00:27:54
was interrupting myself is because I made that YouTube video about that's basically the story I just told you and like the director reached out
00:28:02
and was like whatever the guy's name the lead singer vanville he's like dude he loved your YouTube video and I was like yes I was like Star Struck you know what
00:28:09
I mean yeah yeah um but I think failure is overrated I think failure people are so scared of failure and I think the
00:28:15
fear of failure is that it's a fear of what other people are going to think about you persistence that's what I
00:28:22
heard through that story as well just this almost objectively delusional
00:28:27
persistence towards a goal and I don't know if those words are correct because in that situation I I question whether
00:28:33
Anvil's success was ever really making it or the journey itself was the success but in your story I see the same level
00:28:40
of like persistence that a bystander would go that guy's crazy because there
00:28:45
was various stats I saw about how long it took you to get to various success Milestones even when you started daily
00:28:51
vloging I think it took you five years to get to like 400,000 subscribers yeah
00:28:56
throughout your story there this there's this persistence where I go this guy would have carried on doing this because
00:29:03
he wasn't doing this for any particular Milestone what role does persistence Play It's funny because persistence is
00:29:10
such a it's a more accurate word but the word I've been using lately is patience because I think it's so much less sexy I
00:29:17
think persistence is like like under the picture of like little kitten hanging off the branch it's like persistence you
00:29:24
know what I mean it'll never say patience patience is so unattractive active and when people say to me like
00:29:29
what's the one piece of advice you give to an aspiring Creator and you know patience like patience above every
00:29:36
because like if you're not willing to give up if you're willing to stick with it for you will find success or you'll die trying which case [ __ ] it like
00:29:43
whatever you know you're not going to be that person in the palet of care saying
00:29:49
I wish I had hadn't given up because you didn't give up you just kept going you're gonna be that person who's like I've got one day left I can still pull
00:29:56
this [ __ ] off but patience is a really unsexy way of saying it I think you need
00:30:02
to remove the sexiness you need to remove the sensationalism that has that
00:30:07
that uh inspiration has been perverted with is this idea of
00:30:13
like it's this romantic beautiful thing it's not it's [ __ ] awful like failing
00:30:18
year in and year out and having everybody roll their eyes at you and like you know whether you're a musician
00:30:24
who's performing at the mall and no one's paying attention to or you're that YouTuber uploads and you get zero views
00:30:30
like it's [ __ ] awful it's embarrassing you're a loser like it talk
00:30:35
to to Mr Beast Jimmy and it's like his War Stories from when he started YouTube
00:30:41
and he was using his like Mom's busted compact computer with a built-in webcam making these videos that no one watched
00:30:48
they're all deleted scrubed from the internet now they're terrible and just like him going to school the next day and it's like two of his friends from
00:30:54
school saw him and both acknowledge how Terri they were like that kind of
00:31:00
like being told you're that that's failure being told you suck over and over and over and over and then seeing
00:31:08
how much you suck be Quantified by a lack of views or no one showing up to your concert or no one
00:31:14
laughing at your jokes because you're a stand-up comedian or no one showing up your restaurant because you're a chef
00:31:20
like that sucks starting an online store no one buys your [ __ ] t-shirts that
00:31:25
sucks failure sucks so like combine that with patience
00:31:30
like that suck are you willing to do that for 20 years if you're not don't [ __ ] bother man don't bother and
00:31:37
that's why I like the the plainness of the word patience is because it's it
00:31:44
that is what it is there's nothing persistence persistence is like oh you're at Mile 22 persist man you'll get
00:31:50
across the Finish Line in four short miles that's beautiful and fun and hardcore that patience that you and Mr
00:31:57
Beast have both shown and many others where does it come from because objectively any any sane person if
00:32:03
everyone's telling them they're a loser and they suck and their parents are saying you better go get a real job anyone Who's acting in line with their
00:32:09
in their apparent incentives in that moment would quit I I think very simply
00:32:15
it comes for for me and I think probably for Jimmy too we've talked about it he and I have talked about it but there was
00:32:21
no plan B there was no other option you know like I I had no backup plan there
00:32:27
was nothing else I could do it wasn't like I had a college education and there was like a job in an ad agency waiting
00:32:33
for me where I could just say [ __ ] it and go make 80k a year and get a nicer apartment and relax and have a nice go
00:32:39
of it it was like if this doesn't work I'm back in the kitchen making 725 in an hour like you know getting money from
00:32:45
the state so I can pay for like Groceries on a [ __ ] Wick I was on
00:32:51
Wick women infants and children it was a card you'd swipe it and you would pay for your diapers and milk and that's it
00:32:56
if you tried to buy buy like a Nintendo with it it wouldn't work like that I remember that that's was the fallback
00:33:01
that was the alternative um every single turn that was the alternative like I moved to New
00:33:07
York City and I was here for three months I had a three-month sublet that my brother's ex-girlfriend paid for she
00:33:14
was like I'll loan you the money and I was like cool it was her parents credit card that paid for it and it was like
00:33:20
1,800 bucks 600 bucks a month 400 bucks a month for three months I shared it in any event that lease was up I had where
00:33:27
to live in New York and I was like [ __ ] what do I do now and I moved in with some this this guy was like hey man I need extra money if you want to sleep on
00:33:33
my couch my dad pays my rent so you could sleep on my couch and just give me like 300 bucks a month and that way the
00:33:40
money goes to me and I was like deal and I slept on his couch for exactly 11 Nights from September 1st to September
00:33:48
11th 2001 and then the morning of September 11th the entire apartment blew
00:33:53
up with me in it and him in it and I remember like later that day like
00:33:58
getting on the phone with my dad and like the towers are still on fire and my dad being like I think it's time for you
00:34:05
to come come home now come back and I was like what are you talking about like
00:34:10
what what are you talking what do you mean why would I come back and he was like terrorist blew up your apartment you have no job you have no prospects
00:34:18
you have no money and now you have nowhere to sleep I'm like I I'll figure that out I'll be fine later
00:34:25
dad um like that's that that's patience that's delusional patience but you ask
00:34:32
why like what fuels that Pat the plan B was literally moving back to Southeastern Connecticut and getting a
00:34:38
job in a restaurant I read a study once about this whole idea of plan a thinking and they take a group of people and they
00:34:44
tell them to do a puzzle and and in exchange for doing the puzzle um correctly they'll get a snack so they
00:34:51
take two groups and they say okay do this puzzle if you do it correctly you'll get a snack then they take another group and they say do the same puzzle if you do correctly you'll get a
00:34:57
snack but then they say to the group you can also get the same snack just down the hall in the vending machine and in
00:35:04
the second group where they're given a plan B to get the snack motivation level levels drop they spend less time trying
00:35:11
to do the puzzle um and their performance towards doing the puzzle plummets as well just by being aware
00:35:17
that they can get the same reward down this down the hall performance drops and
00:35:22
if there was ever a case for this psychology and they've done this multiple times in multiple studies but it is pretty solid evidence that even
00:35:28
the presence of a plan B can reduce motivation towards your plan a completely completely I mean like I wish
00:35:36
I knew that study because that's such a beautiful beautiful illustration of what it is and also what it means to have a a
00:35:43
knife at your back think I remember the thing I used to say back then when I first started to find success and I
00:35:50
would always be like my life is like I'm running from a pack of starving woles if
00:35:56
if I slow down at all I will be eaten alive like I have one choice and it's to
00:36:02
keep going as fast as I can or I'll be torn to pieces and that's what it felt
00:36:07
like and I love that like that sounds so like negative and dark but like I love that it was such like a motivation and I
00:36:14
pied the friends like I remember I first moved to New York City my first summer here I don't know how but I like fell in
00:36:20
with this like click of because I thought the girls were pretty but like these rich kids and I would go out with
00:36:26
them and I just remember like the way they would pick up the tab and they're my age we like 19 20 years old and
00:36:31
they're picking up like you know hundreds of dollar bar tabs and like always had taxis and like a taxi to me
00:36:37
was like you know it's like a private jet like they were like had all this money and I would always kind of look at
00:36:42
them with this kind of like jealousy and like it was less of a jealousy more just fantasized like imagine if I was the
00:36:51
same age I am now but I had a credit card with an unlimited amount of money like I went to her apartment she lives
00:36:56
in like the 26th floor she has a two-bedroom apartment and she lives alone I'm sharing a 200t studio with
00:37:03
strangers I met on Craigslist we have to wait in line to use the bathroom in the morning and I fantasized about what that
00:37:10
would be like and then seeing as they got older and as I got older them sort
00:37:15
of the sort of wandering and not sure where they want to go in life and all of that where for me it was such a you know
00:37:22
there was such a defined path cuz I didn't have any of those luxuries or any of those benefits that I now look at
00:37:29
back at that as like being virtuous so how do you do that for your kids well that's the million-dollar question
00:37:34
because it's like I never want my kids to feel the that [ __ ] that I had to feel
00:37:39
like the shame of like always hiding in the bathroom when the bill came and like I would always you know
00:37:46
like I always do something I wasn't just like a total take but like I just you
00:37:52
know like I always kind of felt like a scumbag because I was never able to contribute the way that other people were and like that's a really shameful
00:37:57
thing and like I can remember so many times like when I would meet a young lady and she'd be like let we go back to
00:38:04
your place and the excuses that I would come up with because I like lived in an SRO for a while I lived in a halfway
00:38:10
house that I bribed my way into a halfway house for anyone that doesn't know in Europe is a it's where you get
00:38:16
out of jail and you're not allowed to live normally yet in the public right so
00:38:21
they put you into a building where they can monitor you how did you get in there I bribed the guy at the
00:38:28
door um it was like a guy behind glass with like a little slot and you'd have
00:38:33
to check in and check out and I went there and I was like hey do you have any open rooms and he was like no get out of
00:38:39
here and I came back with a carton of cigarettes with a $100 bill in it and I was like I need a room and he was like
00:38:44
all right he's like 531 is yours write your name there and he was like it's $450 a month cash or whatever it was
00:38:51
interestingly when you tell that story of being in a halfway house and having no money and all these things objectively someone looks at that
00:38:57
situation and goes oh man I feel so sorry for you like I so psyched but this speaks to how perspect like a mindset
00:39:03
and a perspective can turn hell into heaven or Heaven into hell yeah I mean like I I some the reason why I learned
00:39:10
about that is it was my I had a friend her cousin lived there and he was like
00:39:16
here's how I got it I bribed the door guy and he's like it's cool it's like don't talk to anybody in the building
00:39:21
and he's like you know some of the people in here are undocumented immigrants and a lot of them are like they just got out of jail I was like
00:39:28
okay that's cool and he's like some of them are homeless people that were given these rooms I'm like okay I can handle
00:39:33
all that they like told me the whole thing of how to get in there and there no bathroom and no
00:39:39
kitchen how did this change Casey I Know video had come into your life around
00:39:45
video came into my life before I moved to New York City that was the catalyst is um my baby mama dumped me I came into
00:39:53
New York to hang around my brother van who I like worship sh and he had just bought he was doing like temp work right
00:40:00
he lived in Brooklyn he had bought the first iMac like the one that was like shaped like a big blue TV and it came
00:40:08
with like footage of like a dog in a um plastic like kitty pool a pool for
00:40:14
children to play and the dog was getting a bath so you could play edit with the footage that came with it and he and I
00:40:20
would just kind of edit that footage over and over so we have a camera so I bought a camera and he had a computer I
00:40:26
came and we'd like film stuff and edit videos of it and I was like I can figure this out and I like maxed out a credit
00:40:31
card and started making terrible videos and I was like that's it I'll become a filmmaker and then I moved to New York
00:40:36
like it was one of the three things I brought to New York when I moved here was this huge iMac and like a backpack
00:40:42
full of clothes and then like my BMX bike which was stolen the next day and you're like 19 this time yeah what was
00:40:49
it do you ever think about the psychological reasons why you were so drawn to video and storytelling
00:40:54
generally I don't know I I have an answer to that but I don't know if this is the why I was drawn to it or maybe
00:40:59
I've just said this so many times it's become my default response but I definitely felt like I never had a voice
00:41:07
you know I think it's because I was like that third out of four kids or like I I never did well in school I was always in
00:41:13
trouble so teachers never listened to me I was always in trouble in getting in fights and stuff so my friend's parents
00:41:19
never liked me um and I just felt like I I was never heard and then I started to
00:41:25
make videos I was kind of articulate my thoughts or an idea in the form of a video and people would respond to that
00:41:31
so I think that was part of it but I don't know I think I also just liked it like there's something about it
00:41:38
that felt so fun and there was something in the end that you would have that was like this finished done thing did you
00:41:44
like movies yeah but I was never like a cynophile as a kid you know like I had
00:41:49
my favorites you know like I love the movie big and I do remember in seventh
00:41:54
grade we got to do um this program where you could like choose a profession and you got to go do that
00:42:01
job and like there's a fiser pharmaceutical had like its headquarters
00:42:07
in nearby town and like a lot of the kids went there to be chemists or scientists and they got to go spend like two hours at fizer there's a submarine
00:42:14
military base a lot of kids got to go onto the base and see what it's like to be in the Navy um and mine was I want to
00:42:20
work at a video rental store because I want to get paid just sit and watch movies all day and they're like all
00:42:27
right I guess we could organize that for you and I remember going there and it was like this kid and he was like yeah I worked the day shift nobody ever comes
00:42:33
by and I was like what do we do and he's like we have to put away those movies it took like three minutes and I was like now what are we doing he's like just
00:42:39
wait for customers so we just sat there and watched TV for like eight hours I was like this is a job I could get into
00:42:45
but I don't think it was like the you know like the Quinton Tarantino where he worked in a video store and studied film
00:42:50
I never had that do you think that's part of the reason you were successful at it though because you're style has
00:42:56
always been so clearly original in so many ways that's how it feels it feels like you are in fact someone that didn't
00:43:03
go to movie school and that's why people resonate with it yeah I I I always say
00:43:08
that like my film making style is because I was never taught the right way to do it so I was forced to find my own
00:43:14
way to do it and I think that kind of thinking is at the same time is sort of
00:43:20
like consumer grade video creation became this ubiquitous thing with computers and editing software and
00:43:26
cameras for the first time ever in the history of humanity you could like the early 2000s you could buy like a DV
00:43:33
digital video camera and you can buy a computer and plug it in you can edit your own videos so my aspiration to make
00:43:39
videos and this machine that let you do it those happened at the exact same time
00:43:44
and because of that I was forced to create my own style like my hard drive
00:43:49
was 10 gigabytes I could edit like like 12 or 16 minutes a video before the hard drive was full so no I made really short
00:43:56
videos and that's why it's like I didn't have a choice I had to be a short video um but I do think yeah like the lack of
00:44:03
formal education and that capacity forced me to be a different kind of filmmaker or approach it differently
00:44:09
anyway do you look back I'm so compelled by originality as like a subject and the
00:44:17
power of originality because when you when a couple of people in society or the world or business or creativity or
00:44:23
movies take the risk of being a origal the issue is they draw in a and
00:44:31
that originality is resonant they draw in a big audience who then look up to them and almost confuse their admiration
00:44:36
for that person with their aspirations for themselves and go I will create like Casey and that is the way to be
00:44:41
successful it's a very logical deduction but it seem but it's clearly flawed because there can be no other caseing it
00:44:47
was tremendously flawed it's what I [ __ ] hate about YouTube um I call
00:44:54
this like the the Mr beas ification of YouTube and I have to be very careful
00:44:59
here Jimmy's a genius what Mr Beast has done on YouTube is brilliant and it's
00:45:04
because of his Brilliance so this is not to take away from him at all I think he is incredible
00:45:12
what he's done and he has no control over the fact that millions of people are trying to copy him but the fact that
00:45:19
millions of people are trying to emulate what he's doing that is the Mr beastify of the platform that I hate because
00:45:25
Jimmy's always been very honest his goal has never been like ask me my goal and now in the most sort of intellectual of
00:45:33
terms I'll look back at it and I'll be like video for me has always been a way of um a refined self-expression for me
00:45:39
to take my thoughts and force them into this sort of articulate six eight minute compartmentalized little video and share
00:45:45
it with the world like that's been my motivation jimmies from day one has just been fine success he was a kid who had
00:45:52
no money he had no resource he had no friends he had nothing and he's like this is a tool I can use to take me to
00:45:57
the highest ples of of business and all of that Jimmy is just as passionate about his chocolate company febles as he
00:46:04
is about his his video creation company you know Mr Beast Enterprise he's just as passionate about his
00:46:10
philanthropy um being successful and helping as many people as possible as he is about making a video about what it
00:46:15
means to live in a million-dollar house like his passion is about that winning so for him it's beautiful but in the
00:46:23
most reductive sense when people look at that they're like okay that's what means to be a YouTuber all that matters is
00:46:28
views and I put next to no value on that none again this isn't the takeaway from
00:46:34
Jimmy because what he's done is incredible but when people Aspire just to get that view count up to me it's a
00:46:40
race to the bottom I [ __ ] hate it I hate it and I do think it's because of
00:46:46
people not knowing what to do so they look to see well who's successful that's how I'm successful let me be that and it
00:46:53
will never work it will never work um it requires sort of an introspection of
00:46:59
like no why do I want to do this what is true to me and then you go and do that and maybe you'll find success and maybe
00:47:04
you won't but at least it'll be true why does truth end up mattering more in that case than view so if there's one path
00:47:11
here and I can get a million subscribers by just doing a Jimmy uh or Casey knockoff Channel or there's this other
00:47:17
path which I go oh there's no blueprint here and it's never been done before and I don't think anyone's going to like
00:47:23
this stuff and it's probably not going to pay my bills why what's the case for pursuing the latter the true path I I
00:47:29
think that truth lasts truth matters like there's a direct there's uh no
00:47:36
correlation rather between the movies that have won best picture the Academy Award for best picture over the last 80
00:47:42
years and the highest grossing movies those two things have been the same like three times four times like one of them
00:47:50
I think was Gone with the Wind meaning that the movies that that the movies
00:47:55
that that the world determines are the most quality most important greatest films the greatest contribution to
00:48:02
culture and Humanity are almost never the same movies that make the most money
00:48:07
Transformers nine was a really cool movie I don't [ __ ] remember what happened I think there's a dinosaur in
00:48:12
it but like you see a movie that affects you you see a movie that that matters to
00:48:18
you you see a little deer needs to fly this documentary by verer Herzog you see the Anvil story and you're thinking
00:48:25
about it I haven't seen that Anvil story in five years I think about that movie every day that lasts so that matters and
00:48:33
me as a 42y old grown adult like I know in life that's what matters there always
00:48:39
there's always going to be junk food there'll always be an appetite for it there'll always be an appetite for [ __ ] reality TV and [ __ ] and you
00:48:47
know like whatever pop stars are popular this week and will disappear next week but the musicians that like change you
00:48:54
the ones that write that song that like uh makes you cry like you'll never forget that so for me like if if you if
00:49:02
you want to be an artist or you say you want to be an artist how could there be any other goal
00:49:08
but that and just to bring this full circle I think the magic of Mr Beast of Jimmy in particular I don't think he's
00:49:13
ever wanted to be an artist and that honesty is why I have so much respect for him he's a he's a he's an Empire
00:49:20
Builder and that's what he's wanted to do and he's done that through video creation but um again neither here and
00:49:25
or there not to digress for me it's like great work matters and it does it
00:49:31
changes people changes me look at the work that like Spike Jones did not his
00:49:37
Oscar award-winning movies but like I look at his little weirdo music videos that I used to watch when I was a kid
00:49:43
and I watch those music videos over and over what's up fat lip the music video that he made with fat lip who was like
00:49:50
the kind of a popular hip-hop artist who didn't have any money and he's like I got this new song Spike but I don't have any money to to make the video so they
00:49:56
went out and they like put fat lip in a clown costume and they filmed it on a VHS camera it's like one of my favorite
00:50:02
music videos ever but I saw that and I was like I can be a filmmaker now if he made a video just
00:50:09
trying to get the most views or whatever it was instead of just him and his friend Fat Lip trying to make something great it might not have done that for me
00:50:16
and that changed my world so like if you're going to share your [ __ ] inspirational quotes on Instagram then
00:50:23
step up like make the that could change the world make the thing that could affect someone don't just give me Mickey
00:50:29
Mouse [ __ ] that's going to get views I I look at both you and Jimmy as Pioneers but for very different reasons
00:50:36
and seemingly for with very different motivations you strike me as someone that was really inspired by the art form
00:50:42
and the storytelling side of like the the creative production process and Jimmy took this it seems like he took
00:50:49
this other approach where it was much more about what the data was telling him to make yeah both of them created
00:50:55
originality though completely you know completely I think Jimmy is in the
00:51:01
history of I think Jimmy is the most important YouTuber in the history of YouTube and I think that arguably I
00:51:09
think he's one of the most important people in the history of entertainment full stop I don't know that anyone has
00:51:15
built an Empire that reaches as many people as what he's doing I think like there will be case studies taught about
00:51:21
him at Harvard um I think what he he is a true Pioneer in every sense of the
00:51:27
word do you care about the views no but that's easy to say I'm like
00:51:34
you know I don't worry about paying rent anymore and like I don't usually don't check the prices at restaurants before I
00:51:40
order dinner so it's easy for me to say um obviously like it's it's uh there was
00:51:47
a time when that really mattered to me and was super super important to me but I've grown up and I've you know a level
00:51:54
of Financial Security which is super real so it's it's less about that and more about doing good work if one of
00:52:00
your kids came to you and they said dad I I want to be a YouTuber and uh what would be the what
00:52:06
would be your response to just that first surface level question I mean it's happened little friend is like she's so
00:52:12
good too but Candace always gets not mad but she's always like take it easy Casey
00:52:18
because I have a tendency to over intellectualize it but I'm like Franny you can make whatever you want um but
00:52:25
you're not allowed to share it and she's like why I want to get subscribers and Views and I'm like well if you make it
00:52:31
like I want I just want to make sure you're making it for you because you want to make something not because you're looking for that I don't know
00:52:38
words I use with her but like that validation I know she would know that word but and that's when Candace is like take
00:52:45
it easy Casey she's eight and I'm like okay all right just do your thing kiddo
00:52:50
but um yeah I think like the concern what is the concern is why like if she wants to
00:52:57
do it because she wants to be an artist [ __ ] yes I will drop everything to help
00:53:02
you on this Mission if you want to do it cuz your little girlfriend at school did it and she got 35 likes and you want to
00:53:08
get more likes than her then like pump The Brak kid like that's you know like
00:53:13
that's what if she says I want to be bigger than Mr Beast the same thing then
00:53:18
you know it's like why like why why do you want to do that you know and also
00:53:23
like I Fame is a very weird very strange thing um and I think
00:53:31
that what the most strange thing about Fame is it's not what you think like there are people
00:53:39
who have achieved and felt some degree of Fame and there are people who haven't and if you're in the haven't Camp
00:53:45
there's no way to understand the have Camp there's no way there's no way and
00:53:53
um having been over here you know like to see someone Aspire for that is like
00:53:59
you know I like no way what's the warning the warning is just like if if
00:54:06
if Fame is a byproduct of what you're doing then it is what it is but if Fame is the
00:54:13
endgame then you're just like one of those [ __ ] reality stars with the [ __ ] up faces because you had so much plastic surgery and like what are you
00:54:19
doing what are you offering the world like why are you here like you're G
00:54:24
you're you're benefiting the world in no way whatsoever you're elevating the world zero this is pure like narcissism
00:54:33
this is just just just for some weird ego Journey that you're on um again this is one of those moments
00:54:40
my wife would be like back off Casey she's eight let her finish her mac and
00:54:46
cheese I wouldn't say it's a kid but like yeah if she says I want to be bigger than Mr Beast like then yeah I
00:54:51
get nervous what if she she says Okay I want to do I want to make YouTube videos cuz I love creating videos but I would
00:54:56
like some advice d add on how to be a successful YouTuber yeah you should see her she has a whole channel that is stop
00:55:03
frame animations of her stuffed animals she's not allowed to have her voice in it or her hands in it you're not allowed to identify that it's in our apartment
00:55:09
okay but she makes those and they're [ __ ] great and they're funny and they're really good so that like yeah we
00:55:15
support we support her so much we buy her the equipment we help her make it we're part of the audience we have like
00:55:21
a family iMessage thread that we distribute the videos on um she even has
00:55:26
her own Instagram handle that has zero followers cace and I don't follow it we
00:55:33
pass the phone around to watch her Instagrams because we don't want her to even associate one like with why she's
00:55:39
doing it even if that like is from us my sister texted and was like Hey you
00:55:45
you've sent me a screen capture of Francine's Tik Tok or whatever can you send me her account we're like no this
00:55:53
is clearly coming from your experience yeah protect them as long as you can man keep the kids so far away from that keep
00:56:00
them far away from views and likes yeah for from seeking validation did you ever
00:56:05
full pray to that uh did I ever fall pray to that uh yeah
00:56:12
but I'm I'm different because I'm I was old like I was literally your age that
00:56:18
you are right now sitting across from me before I had an Instagram account think about how much more you know than an
00:56:25
8-year-old yeah like for an 8-year-old that's the world that she's growing up it's a really scary place like social
00:56:31
media we're seeing how much it [ __ ] kids up we're seeing the Mental Health crisis we're seeing how it's manifesting
00:56:36
we're seeing Eating Disorders because of Instagram we're seeing like all these social issues because of social media
00:56:43
and I think wanting to protect your kids from that is sort of a universal thing not just someone who is lived in that
00:56:49
space um you know I think I had a unique experience with it because I was had
00:56:55
achieved some level of success outside of social media in the world of regular
00:57:00
old media um and then it was on social media that I found real success um but I
00:57:05
was able to do that with that kind of hindsight with that kind of clarity of being an adult being pursuing this
00:57:11
career for 15 years before on social media you found real success yeah was that due to your daily
00:57:19
Vlog predominantly is that the was that the real Catalyst moment terms of growth yeah 100% you know like I van and I my
00:57:26
brother van and I had a television show on HBO um that we sold to HBO in 2008
00:57:32
and that television show was exactly my daily Vlog full stop only eight episodes or something was Eight Episodes 22
00:57:38
minutes 22 to 24 minute episodes but if you watch that Daily Show it looks like an early version of my Vlog it's
00:57:44
identical it's the same exact [ __ ] but that was before YouTube was really a Thing YouTube was invented in 2000 or
00:57:50
launched in 2006 and it was really just a place for watching like basketball reels and like Charlie bit my finger so
00:57:58
you know we put that show on HBO very highly reviewed but nobody watched it it was on at midnight on
00:58:04
Friday nights like it wasn't a breakout success um and then van moved to
00:58:09
California so I was kind of on my own and I was like I just want to do that so I I tried to sell it to MTV and they
00:58:17
didn't get it they're like we know this is great like I showed it to someone there and they brought me in and I met
00:58:23
with the heads of MTV and like met some really powerful people and they're like this is not anything thing we've ever seen this is fantastic but we're not
00:58:29
sure this works on TV and I was like okay cool and then yeah and then I put
00:58:35
it on YouTube and how did that go well you know you talked about the numbers before like so before my daily Vlog I
00:58:41
was considered like a successful YouTuber a celebrated YouTuber I had I think it was 280,000 subscribers and it
00:58:48
had taken me almost a decade to get there I started my YouTube channel in 2007 maybe and by 2014
00:58:55
2015 I had 280,000 subscribers had a couple movies that went truly viral that
00:59:00
had like 5 10 million views um all of my movies did more than like 50 60,000
00:59:07
views which is amazing uh and people liked my videos like the New York Times saw my YouTube
00:59:13
videos and like make videos for us I was doing that back then so I by all definition very successful on YouTube
00:59:21
but then I started my daily Vlog and it took took whatever that was eight years to go from zero to couple hundred
00:59:28
thousand subscribers and my daily Vlog went from couple hundred thousand subscribers to 10 million subscribers in
00:59:33
like 18 months it was a kind of like explosion that I had never felt in any
00:59:39
other capacity in my my career my life what's the lesson that you take away
00:59:44
from that about consistency or compounding or you know yeah that's that thing patience I wasn't really doing
00:59:51
anything different I mean certainly I was working much harder to create a video every every day um it was hard
00:59:56
work but really it was just like I had this Square Peg and I tried to knock it
01:00:03
through thousands of uh round holes for
01:00:09
15 years and like sometimes I was able to jam it through and sometimes it would kind of fall through but I wasn't able
01:00:14
to duplicate it and then all of a sudden like the moon's aligned like the [ __ ] planets aligned Pluto is lined up the sh
01:00:21
the sun shined through like rers of the locked Arc the light came through the city illuminated and like
01:00:28
2015 YouTube was just becoming something more it's the first generation that grew up on YouTube like it had been around
01:00:35
for you know nine years and people had a relationship with this platform and no
01:00:40
one was doing anything of any significant production quality and I had 15 years of experience in making short
01:00:47
videos and I brought all of that to YouTube and then just the episodic aspect of it so I was like you know make
01:00:54
one video of me running around New York City hanging around with my wife having lunch doing something else and then the
01:00:59
video's over and it's like oh who's this funny looking guy in New York whatever do that seven days in a row and you're
01:01:05
like oh this is kind of fun I get to hang out with this guy do it 300 days in a row and it's like I've become part of
01:01:12
your life and that just snowballs like it snowballs in every way it snowballs
01:01:17
algorithmically and that's what those that quantitative explosion was it snowballs financially cuz you get paid
01:01:23
whatever call it a tenth of a cent per view and that doesn't mean much if you're getting 10 views but if you're
01:01:29
getting a 100 million views the money starts to become subst substantive um Brands the kinds of
01:01:35
companies you always wanted to work with maybe one out of every hundred creative directors at an agency has seen your
01:01:41
videos but all a sudden you go from getting 100,000 a month to 100 million a month and now every creative director is
01:01:48
seen your videos they're like we want to work with that guy and it just it just was you know just it happens so quick
01:01:55
and was so explosive and so exciting and so fun sounds like that was your Anvil moment in some respects like the you'd
01:02:01
put in 15 years of work and then your craft and patience had met opportunity
01:02:07
in a way and people might look at those moments and go oh that was you know that's luck because you know you just but what is the rebuttal to that what's
01:02:14
the like they're right it was luck but like luck is what is it luck is where
01:02:19
preparation meets opportunity I'd just been preparing myself for that moment for 15 years you
01:02:25
know and then the opportunity opened up and I was right there and the truth is like most of us see opportunity just flies by us all day every day we're not
01:02:32
ready for it um I was seeking it for that long and you know there's some
01:02:37
other circumstances too my friend Max pointed this out to me when he and I were having a meeting last week which was like when I launched that YouTube
01:02:44
channel um the the daily Vlog rather when I launched that in 2015 I had had a show in HBO that they
01:02:51
bought for $2 million I had had had movies that I produced two of them in
01:02:57
the can film festival I won the cassavetes award at the independent Spirit Awards which was like the Academy
01:03:03
Awards for indie films like I had I worked the New York Times I made movies
01:03:09
for Nike I had by every I had worked for myself at that point in time for 12
01:03:14
years in my own Studio I had by every definition achieved success but the
01:03:20
exact time I launched that YouTube channel I was 200,000 in debt meaning I was more broke then
01:03:28
than when I was on welfare getting checks for my kid because I was so deep in debt because you know the the year
01:03:35
preceding that I was invited to MIT um as a fellow and as a high school dropout
01:03:42
it was like No Greater honor than to get to go to one of the most prestigious academic institutions on the planet and
01:03:49
be invited there um and I remember going there being like whatever I do on the other side of this is going to be
01:03:54
different from what I'm doing now and what I was doing then was making TV commercials and doing fun stuff like that a good career around that time you
01:04:01
read this book yeah what was um what was so inspiring or perspective shifting
01:04:09
about that book hatching Twitter it wasn't around that time so I went to MIT
01:04:14
as a fellow I worked out of the MIT media lab and my lab group was called
01:04:20
the social Computing group and it was you know eight or 10 techn IST one artist who was a painter and then me and
01:04:28
I never to this day I don't know what I was doing there I'm incredibly close to the professor I talk to him all the time
01:04:35
he's since left there and he is a mentor of mine somebody I speak to regularly I still don't know what I was doing there
01:04:41
so mostly I just observed like I was given no assignment I just observed and
01:04:47
I didn't have any friends I was living in Boston my pregnant wife is alone in New York City hating me because I abandoned her and I read this book and
01:04:55
all I knew is that when I was there I wanted to figure out what to do next and the magic of hatching Twitter by the way
01:05:03
Nick bton has since become a good friend but the magic of this amazing book is it
01:05:08
reveals the madness that was a technology startup like the chaos like
01:05:14
you know these guys are all very smart all the guys that started Twitter but like I don't think they're smarter than
01:05:22
me like I think that like there's like you have like regular people and like smart people and then like these
01:05:29
Geniuses that you just can't relate to and I think that like I live somewhere between like regular and close to smart
01:05:36
but not fully smart and I think these guys were like they're just smart persistent people that wanted to do something I was like I can do what they
01:05:42
did I can do that and when I left MIT I was like I'm going to start a technology
01:05:49
company and I didn't know what that meant but it just sounded like a great idea um but the whole time was at MIT I
01:05:55
wasn't making any money so I was living off my credit cards and off my debt my business had a revolving line of credit
01:06:01
at Chase Bank that was maxed out and then I started this company which was basically just meeting with people
01:06:07
telling them I wanted to start a company and yeah and so six months later I was $200,000 in debt I couldn't afford my
01:06:14
half of rent that I owed to my wife who was pregnant um and that's when I
01:06:19
started a daily Vlog and started a technology company and it made made
01:06:25
sense but the reason why I gave that long preface about like I found all this success is it was like I found all that
01:06:30
success I knew there was snack down the hall if I didn't want to do the puzzle and I was like [ __ ] that Let Me Burn It
01:06:36
To The Ground like let me go $200,000 in debt and do something that I have no idea I've never written a line of code
01:06:42
in my life let me start a technology let me start a software development company I've still never written a line code in
01:06:48
my life but let me do that that's a good Pursuit for me um and that's what I did I don't know I'm not sure what I was
01:06:55
thinking what were you thinking I don't know it felt like a great idea it also
01:07:01
like how old are you at this point you're what 30 35 yeah and I also like those guys were such Superstars to me
01:07:07
like Mark Zuckerberg like that in the social network the movie The Social Network that scene that ju supposes him
01:07:14
just sitting in his dorm room writing code with all the cool kids getting on that bus going to the party with all the hot girls and he's just I was like I
01:07:20
want to be that guy and also like I didn't think of anything more explosive it was like I was still you know I had
01:07:27
financial success but like the 2 million bucks from the HBO thing didn't make me a millionaire it's like cut it in half
01:07:33
from taxes you're at a million pay back our investor you're have 400,000 left over there's two of us give half that to van it's $200,000 and then three years
01:07:40
goes by and it's like you're making like middle class income for three years you know we're not rich and I was like I
01:07:46
want to be rich like I want to be a billionaire let me start a tech company that's how I'll get there
01:07:52
unqualified I mean when I look through your story I see someone who was seemingly unqualified to pursue the
01:07:58
things that he pursued over and over again you weren't qualified to get into movies there was no formal education by
01:08:04
any objective standards you weren't qualified to be starting a tech company um what was I thinking what is
01:08:10
unqualified in like because I think most people would say well I I'm not a tech entrepreneur they would like self-label
01:08:16
and then disqualify themselves from doing that and I think in most people's lives they're actually spending more
01:08:22
time disqualifying themselves like logically but you seem to be taking the opposite approach which is you seem to be qualifying yourself for things that
01:08:29
you're objectively unqualified to be pursuing I I had this conversation with Candace my wife last night because it was like what do we do with these little
01:08:37
girls our daughters to show them they can do anything and if they were boys I
01:08:43
knew what to do if they're boys force them to work with their hands like it's one of my regrets of my son my son is 25
01:08:51
now and he's a superstar he's fantastic but you you know he's he loved Academia and I I indulged him in that and I wish
01:08:59
I had been more forceful and encouraging him to learn to work with his hands why
01:09:05
because I think you learn something about life by learning how to build and do things there's this great South Park
01:09:12
special that's on TV right now and like the handyman who like fix your broken
01:09:19
toilet become the billionaires and all the intellects are standing outside Home Depot like holding up signs that are
01:09:25
like I'm a I'm a biologist please hire me like we trade for because it's like
01:09:30
and they're sitting around they're like I wish IID just learned to work with my hands why didn't anybody tell me and I
01:09:36
think what they're saying with that or what I feel what I was able to deduce from that is it's just like there are
01:09:42
Universal aspects of life and humanity and the world that you learn from
01:09:47
working with your hands and like this rule of mind which is that if you don't know what you want
01:09:52
to do in life do something you hate and through that process you'll figure out what it is
01:09:58
that you love like I learned that I wanted to be a filmmaker by scrubbing out chowder pots in that [ __ ] seafood
01:10:04
restaurant in Connecticut 40 50 hours a week just hating it 90 degrees back there in the summer stinks scrubbing
01:10:11
that pot hated it it's a lot of time thinking about what do I wish I was doing so for like kids it's like yeah no
01:10:20
no no no you don't get to go to college instead I'm sending you to this school where you're going to learn how to rebuild diesel engines enjoy it but I
01:10:28
don't know that I can do that to my little blond-haired blueeyed daughters um so you asked me about what it means
01:10:34
to be unqualified I don't know but I think like you know when my bicycle was broken
01:10:41
at home and I was a little kid like I didn't have the tool to fix it I first had to build the tool that I could then
01:10:47
fix my bike with like I wasn't qualified but I had to find that qualification and everything that I did it was the same
01:10:53
kind of thing so why wouldn't I think that I'm qualified to do anything is part of that as I hear you say that and
01:10:59
thinking about this idea of doing stuff with your hands is part of that because like the what it teaches you and I was think about your bike example there is
01:11:05
that when something is broken or when there is a challenge your learning you
01:11:10
learned at that very young age that Casey can solve that problem himself and that lesson of I can close the gap
01:11:16
between what I want and where I am is like an overarching superpower for the rest of your life where the it's you
01:11:23
know the Gap the gap between where you are and where you want to be the gap between Casey being a guy that's you
01:11:29
know making videos to the tech entrepreneur you learned very early in your life that Casey can close the gap
01:11:36
and a lot of people never learn that they think oh I'm unqualified to close the gap or I don't have the skills to close the gap or the money or I'm
01:11:42
scrubbing pots in a back room I can't close the gap but that's evidence and evidence comes from you know closing the
01:11:50
Gap a couple of times with a bike and I had a friend DM me uh this week and it
01:11:56
was something like I don't know what it was but it was this thing that was like had to figure out who High agency
01:12:02
individuals are something like that like there's like five bullet points and number five was like the golden question
01:12:07
who would you call from George Max friend of mine former is that what it was it was like who would you call if you're stuck in a Thai prison to break
01:12:13
you out yeah so that's George Mack who's a former employee one of my former companies he's a superstar he's an
01:12:18
incredible guy he does tweet threads and he did one like last week which is how how to spot a high agent individual and
01:12:24
I think about that a lot because someone very close to me uh couldn't couldn't
01:12:29
find his partner he couldn't find his wife and in a moment of panic he thought
01:12:36
she had been kidnapped um and he's thousands of miles away from me and he didn't know what to
01:12:44
do and he called me in that moment he was like what do I do and I was like give me all of the
01:12:49
information and he gave me all the information and he I was like I need more and I'm like ask asking him all these questions I'm writing it all down
01:12:56
and then I'm like what are you doing right now and he's like I'm going to the police station I said do not go to the police station here's what they're going to do and I was like this is why you
01:13:02
don't do that here are the things you can do to be effective call the call the bank find out what her last transaction
01:13:07
was figure out what her password is on her iCloud account and like going through all these facts like do all that and call me
01:13:13
back and then I hung up with him and I'm like how do I solve this problem and it
01:13:18
wasn't there was never a moment of is there someone that can solve this problem that's not me it was that thing
01:13:26
that's like says it's either in Lockheed Martin or at Nasa where it says in like 100 foot letters it won't fail because
01:13:32
of me like that's what that moment was it was like no I'm the only person who can solve this right now and like sure
01:13:40
enough the next phone call I called him it was very Jason born but I called him like 11 minutes later and I was like
01:13:45
she's at the tennis club she's asleep on the couch and like it was much credit to my
01:13:52
younger brother Dean who is a um who is an actual like Jet Pilot in the Air
01:13:58
Force for helping me figure that out but like it it was interesting like there was something about the fact that he
01:14:04
called me there was something about the fact that I could hear in his voice a total uncertainty and his Instinct was
01:14:11
there has to be a higher authority that can solve this problem and how antithetical that was to my own thinking
01:14:16
which is there's no higher authority there's no one that can solve this better than I can solve this right now
01:14:22
and I think I apply that to most of what I've done throughout my whole life um I
01:14:27
remember like when I was really broke way back in the day I had a 1986 I think
01:14:33
Volvo 240 whatever the one that had the Dual hallogen headlight was great year and somebody crashed into the front
01:14:41
of the car and the estimate to fix it was like 2,200 bucks and the insurance company
01:14:47
just gave me that money and I was like [ __ ] this I was like I can fix this car
01:14:52
myself I remember like my baby mama being like what do you know about fixing cars I'm like how hard could it possibly be and
01:15:00
like in that moment like took the whole front of the car apart I did not do a good job but I did a good enough job and
01:15:05
I pocketed like all of it like 150 bucks to replace those hallogen headlights like screw it all back together um I
01:15:12
mean before we started this podcast you're like Casey what are you doing with your time I'm like just building out my studio I wanted to build my girls a tree for it in there there was never
01:15:18
of like who what Carpenter do I hire to build a tree for it it was like no no I'm going to do this how hard can it be
01:15:26
how hard can yeah how hard can any of it be like give me a big enough pile of balls of wood and enough time I will
01:15:32
build you a spaceship as a mantra for Life how hard can it be there's an air
01:15:37
of naivity which is once you realize how hard it can be it's like like I will never do a software development company
01:15:44
again if I knew now if I knew then would I know now about building that company
01:15:49
no [ __ ] way no chance there's no no chance it sold for what $36 million
01:15:56
though which is a success yeah it's a success a million failures though for
01:16:01
that one success and the failures keep me up way more than the success puts me to sleep
01:16:08
what are those failures um you know like some of the really key failures were like the
01:16:16
naivity that an exit is the Holy Grail like for me like we were all out of
01:16:21
money like my partner mat and I cut our salaries and for the last year and I think the last couple paychecks I was
01:16:27
paying out of my pocket um so we sold the company and everybody got to have a job and everybody got paid out one of
01:16:32
the one of the aspects of the sale was that every employee that had Equity would get a full cash payout immediately
01:16:39
upon the sale um I thought everybody be psyched but when he told everybody they weren't because for them
01:16:47
it was like no no we signed up to build this company with you this is fun this is a startup this is why we didn't take
01:16:54
twice the salary from Facebook we wanted to do something novel with you and now we just get to go work for a big company
01:17:00
and that moment of feeling like I was letting down all of these people that helped me get there it was like yeah I
01:17:07
got to get this fat check I made me a millionaire I was like I got to be a millionaire but I I feel like I
01:17:12
disappointed the people who got me there like the people who like held me up so I
01:17:17
could reach the top I let all of them down and maybe that's unfair but
01:17:23
that's how it felt that's how it still feels um feels weird I have zero
01:17:29
employees right now I don't have an assistant your producer had to call a friend of ours last night to be like I
01:17:36
haven't heard from Casey in three weeks is he gonna show up tomorrow because I don't check my email I don't have an assistant I don't have a schedule I have
01:17:42
no one I mop my own floors and I think a lot of that is like the the
01:17:47
post-traumatic stress of having 35 employees at my tech company and feeling like I let a lot of them down and never
01:17:54
wanted to feel that way again so I was just like [ __ ] it I'll just mop my own floors I might make I might miss an
01:18:00
appointment but there's a million failures that fall underneath that
01:18:05
umbrella of being a manager being a terrible manager that um I think about
01:18:10
way more than the moments of elation that were you know selling that company
01:18:15
what was that moment like though if I zoom in on your psychology throughout that period you you go on this incredible journey to build this
01:18:21
business twist turns and I mean the story of most tech startups most of them fail most of them run out of cash and
01:18:27
then you get this exit um objectively people look at that go oh congratulations amazing you you know
01:18:34
smashed it you're rich you know you got money now what's going on in your psychology the day you get the call you call your investors one of your
01:18:40
investors I think is a good friend of mine and an investor in one of my companies Gary vuk um and then it's
01:18:46
done how are you feeling if I was a fly inside your
01:18:51
head I mean good it was like super thrilling to get across that Finish Line a month after then so a month after that
01:18:59
you know like to get specific like the company CNN Turner bought our company
01:19:05
and you know Matt my business partner and I signed a three-year deal with them to stay on and work with them for three
01:19:10
years and just to tell the Finish Line they fired us 11 month later 11 months later
01:19:17
so for the a month into that it was about how do we build this business into a success underneath
01:19:24
this bigger company and it was exciting but I also think there was a huge amount of naivity
01:19:29
on my part about what the realities of that looked like the what I interpreted as ambiguity
01:19:36
from CNN about what to do wasn't at all ambiguity it was them looking to me to
01:19:41
lead and my lack of awareness of that um is something I look back at now
01:19:48
and just sort of shake my head like this is what I mean by like a thousand failures like I can tell you and I don't
01:19:54
think this is an unfair characterization that like I think they bought my company because they're like this kid is a star
01:20:01
and we want to we want his reach alone is worth this amount of money as a bonus
01:20:06
we're getting all of this Technical knowhow and skill and we're getting the Brilliance of his partner and like this
01:20:11
is a great deal for us but we want that influence and then he'll use all these brilliant people that he has around him
01:20:16
to help promote that influence like that's what they wanted um I can say that uh they also wanted to exploit my
01:20:23
reach doing stupid Mickey Mouse [ __ ] like they had some million-dollar deal for me to like do commercials for a
01:20:28
watch company and I was like guys this isn't why I want to work with you and I said no to that and there's a huge um I
01:20:35
can point to all these things like them being a big Corporation and us being a Nimble startup and them wrecking that
01:20:41
culture but the reality is the reason why we didn't succeed under CNN was because of me and only because of me it
01:20:47
was my failure to recognize the opportunity and build within that
01:20:53
um and I attribute that to Ego I attribute that to naivity someone like you doesn't belong at CNN sure easy to
01:21:00
say now but like [ __ ] you man I can build a spaceship I can do whatever I want I'll fix that Volvo I can build a
01:21:06
[ __ ] company for CNN you know incentivized I was like if I built that company to be a success like the
01:21:12
incentives that they gave for me were out of this world the people I was working with at CNN were incredible
01:21:18
they're brilliant people that the only reason it didn't succeed was because of me and um I don't know you asked how I
01:21:26
felt a month later when I look back at it it's like a month later was when I was probably at like Peak hubris like I
01:21:32
know it all look what I did I know everything what about 11 months later 11
01:21:38
months later it was just exhaustion and wanted to get out just let me let me like when they said we're shutting down
01:21:43
the company I remember it was like super weird like I was in South Africa with my family and they're like we're going to
01:21:49
let you know before the end of the year and like December 31st I like called my kind of boss at CNN I'm like what's
01:21:55
going on with the company are you guys shutting us down or we going to keep going they're like we're going to talk when you get back and we got back and
01:22:00
they're like we're going to meet here I'm like why don't we just meet at our offices or your offices they wanted to meet in like a neutral location and
01:22:06
there's like a head of HR or something in the meeting and they're like we want to let you both know we've decided to
01:22:12
shut down the company and release you from your or whatever they said and I was kind of like okay cool like like it
01:22:19
it was not a big thing it was kind of what I expected um but it was like a sigh of relief
01:22:25
weirdly what what what's what did your plan become for your life after that yeah you know you're this you're this
01:22:31
guy that's checking off your bucket list the bucket list you had as a child you've sold the company you've built the channels you've you know you've made a
01:22:37
huge name for yourself in movie making at that point 11 months later after
01:22:43
leaving the HR meeting with the at the neutral location what is what's the what's the future that's when it got
01:22:49
hard um dark that was like a moment of real darkness
01:22:54
in my life because not because of those external factors but just internally like the fame then was something that I
01:23:02
just did not understand like the only way to quantify it was I had done like three billion views in two years
01:23:10
something like that and the content was all me it was the real version of me I wasn't playing character I wasn't acting
01:23:18
I didn't have on a Superman costume I wasn't like i' always say like love Tyler Duran Brad Pitt's character in
01:23:25
Fight Club but if I met Brad Pitt he's not that person you meet me I am the
01:23:31
person you think you know and the fame was [ __ ] insane
01:23:36
like we had to move into a higher Security building in New York City like it was it got scary that kind of Fame
01:23:43
and when I was winning like putting a video out every day and I had this company all cool [ __ ] to talk about it
01:23:49
was it was like you know you're like coasting on that that but I felt like I wasn't winning like I didn't want to do
01:23:55
my Daily Show anymore I was exhausted from it CNN had just kind of fired me so I wasn't building anything with them I
01:24:01
wasn't sure what to do but I still couldn't step outside without like being like like Justin Bieber kind of swarmed
01:24:09
and I didn't know what to do and I kind of like started the Souther company called 368 with my partner at the time
01:24:15
Paul that was a cool project I started up a new Daily Show with my other friend Dan that was kind of exciting um but
01:24:22
basically it just felt like a bunch of sort of slow why you say dark it's a very interesting way because it was the
01:24:28
first time like it was that thing that I I I I referred to before which is like you attribute happiness and fulfillment
01:24:35
with winning and I had won like this was the first time in my life where I achieved like a level of Financial
01:24:42
Security that you know like if I played my card rights could have meant Financial Security for the rest of my
01:24:48
life like for a guy who couldn't afford diapers that's a [ __ ] Journey that is a big box on the list to check off um
01:24:56
you know like for a guy who like made would drive around in my car giving people VHS copies of my videos I had
01:25:03
three billion views in two years like that's a big box to check off like i' done those things and instead of feeling
01:25:09
like I was like you know I I had done it I had earned it instead of feeling like I was
01:25:14
standing on top of the mountain I just kind of was like what what what now like this isn't this isn't it it wasn't like
01:25:22
I wasn't running the marathon because I wanted to get across the Finish Line like I don't know where I've run 24 marathons I don't know where any of my
01:25:28
medals are I was running it because I love the running like I loved it and it kind of felt like that was over and I
01:25:34
didn't know what to do and it kind yeah it got weird got dark for a little bit that's when we decided to like leave New
01:25:40
York and move to LA and if I was a flly on the wall then in that moment in your life where it's dark and weird what what
01:25:46
do I see in in the walls of your home well first of all the house was
01:25:52
really really nice cuz CNN had just bought my company so it was a really nice House Candace bought the fancy
01:25:58
wallpaper um but no it was mostly like I had a little baby at the time and then a
01:26:04
um like a three-year-old just kind of at home chilling hiding I didn't want to go to
01:26:11
my Studios there be too many people outside uh yeah just unsure uncertain
01:26:18
like I think so much of our decision to move we moved to LA for like three years it was a disaster and moved back to New York but so much of my enthusiasm to
01:26:25
leave New York it was just like I need to get away from all of this and I pictured like la like I was moving to
01:26:30
the moon like nobody would know me there and I could just go to the beach every day and chill out couldn't have been further from the truth but that's so
01:26:37
there was like we decided to move to LA and we didn't move for another seven months or whatever and those seven months was just kind of me hiding and
01:26:43
waiting and Candace you've kind of indirectly made her famous as well because of that whole you know
01:26:49
everything that happened in that chapter of your life which means that both of you can't just like leave live a normal
01:26:55
life can't just walk down the street together um how is she feeling in that moment and does that add strength to the
01:27:02
relationship yeah I mean it was always the whole that's a whole another podcast
01:27:07
but like you know my daily show was effectively uh uh I was just pulling
01:27:13
stories from my life my own real life experiences let me figure out how to turn that into a narrative I'm coming on
01:27:19
your podcast to let me film my journey here and then talk about what this is about and then my journey home and let
01:27:24
me make that today's video and so it's was just this vacuum and whatever was
01:27:30
closest would get sucked in so she's my wife she's my partner my best friend so she would get sucked into the content
01:27:35
all the time mostly she's willing and supportive but not all the time but I still had to make my videos so it had
01:27:43
this you know this burden on her this stress on her some of it was positive you know she was building her own company then and it brought enough
01:27:50
exposure to her that people were like oh I love love what she's doing and it yielded a a kind of it shined a light on
01:27:57
her Brilliance as a designer and a jewelry designer and an entrepreneur herself and she embraced all that but
01:28:05
ultimately yeah it was it was a big stress on our relationship as you know whoop are a sponsor of this podcast which came about
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01:29:19
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huigan family I'd highly recommend you try this out if this next 10 years of your life is a movie what is The
01:29:38
Narrative of this this movie I don't know you ever seen Kona scatti no it's this amazing
01:29:46
movie there's no story at all it's just beautiful establishing shots of cities
01:29:51
with weird music and nothing happens like that's what that's what I feel like my life is right now it's just
01:29:58
like it's so beautiful and wonderful I'm doing [ __ ] all right now I'm doing
01:30:05
nothing and and I feel guilty because I still like I get paid jobs and I take those paid jobs I do them as best as I
01:30:10
can and I think I do a good job with them but I feel a little bit like a um a little bit like I'm I'm selling out or
01:30:17
something because you know I still need to make a living I still can but I'm mostly just riding the momentum that I
01:30:22
created years ago and then just like like I race home from work every day at
01:30:27
like 4:30 in the afternoon so I can be home my kids get home and I just like sit around like you can ask me out to
01:30:33
dinner you can invite me to go to the Met Gala I'm like I can't man I just go home play with my kids every day it's my
01:30:40
favorite thing like kids go to bed at 7:38 whatever go to the gym for like an hour come home like bother Candace for
01:30:47
an hour watch TV go to bed like that's my life and it's f and then during the
01:30:52
day like go hang out in my studio it's just this Clubhouse like fun [ __ ] in it like build stuff make things out of wood
01:31:00
go home tell Candace I worked a lot today play with the kids I just do that over and over and over and then it's
01:31:07
like Christmas and we go visit her family or it's like summertime we like go to the beach I'm just coasting
01:31:13
through life right now and it's fantastic is this a new Casey because the other Casey seemed really like as if
01:31:20
they were striving towards some bucket list thing that they had written when they were a kid this Casey seems to be
01:31:26
yeah I mean look I'm at peace right now but this is not a sustainable I'm at peace right now but
01:31:31
I'm hyper cognizant that this is not sustainable why I mean because I'll just be broke like three years but um
01:31:39
moreover like the only thing that brings me a sense of true like fulfillment in
01:31:46
what is a big part of my life is when I make something that I think is good um
01:31:53
creatively so like I think I'm a good dad that's that part of my life and I think I'm a good husband that's that
01:31:58
part of the life and I'm super Fitness focused and I care a lot about my my
01:32:03
physical um existence that's a part of my life but then there's the majority of
01:32:10
the pie chart is like my professional life and if I'm not making something
01:32:15
even if I make something that's good and I don't share it or post it that checks that that does that I made something
01:32:21
great um what did I do like I made my mother-in-laws for 70th birthday and she
01:32:27
was like will you make me one of those slides shows and I know she was picturing like you know you drop all the photos into like Windows slideshow maker
01:32:33
and push a button but I made like this great video we like played it at our 70th birthday to all of her old lady friends nobody saw that like that did it
01:32:41
for me and I don't feel like I'm like cashing that check right now I don't feel like um if if if I'm looking at
01:32:48
that as like a staying healthy it's like instead of going to the gym I'm like eating chunk food instead of going for a
01:32:54
jog I'm like sitting on the couch like when I get to the office instead of like putting my head down and just making something great which I can do I just
01:33:02
kind of putts around and like reorganize my tools every day do you know I said
01:33:08
earlier at this before we started recording about this word boredom I I use the word boredom not because I'm implying that nothing is happening but
01:33:14
so many of the creatives I've spoken to tell me that you need to have chapters and seasons in your life of like
01:33:20
basically where you're just chilling because those they kind of cultivate an
01:33:26
energy towards the new thing maybe maybe it gives you enough time and space to stand back from the picture to see the
01:33:31
whole painting or to I don't know get some inspiration from something your kid says to you one day or yeah yes look
01:33:37
absolutely like there's a pendulum and my pendulum swung so far when I'm making a video a day 800 days in a row while
01:33:44
running a company with 38 employees while having a wife and a brand new baby at home like you know I didn't sleep for
01:33:51
3 years years like I was running at full speed millions of people with their eyes on me every day and like you could
01:33:57
definitely justify as like the pendulum swing the other direction now like I just need this time to decompress but I don't accept that
01:34:04
because to accept that is to sort of justify my current laziness in general sort of L onfair attitude towards life
01:34:11
like I recognize how indulgent it is right now and I'm not doing this because I need it I'm doing this because I can
01:34:18
if I was broke right now I'd be [ __ ] busting my ass every day if my kids were hungry right now I'd be busting my ass
01:34:25
I'm doing this cuz I can I'm not solving the puzzle cuz right down the hallway
01:34:30
are all the snacks I could ever want and I'm very aware of that so I hear you I
01:34:36
do not accept that justification this is just pure Indulgence and that's all it is it's
01:34:44
great can we to go have some snacks and build a shelf this afternoon it's very honest of you I don't think anyone's
01:34:50
ever said that to me because people do justify justify their Indulgence it's
01:34:56
very interesting what can we expect from you can we expect anything do you know
01:35:02
the answer to that because so many people are like Ultra fans of you I think there's a anticipation of what's
01:35:08
Casey what's the next big thing Casey's gonna do you know I don't the the short
01:35:13
answer like but I've been saying this for a while and I haven't done it it's like this version of my life right now that I do love I really just I have all
01:35:21
these movies written when I say movies I mean YouTube videos written they're like really meaningful and awesome and some
01:35:26
are deep and some are shallow and some are one day shoots and some are three weeks of of writing I just want to make
01:35:34
those I just want to go to my office every day alone and make these videos and put them out on YouTube and like I
01:35:41
deleted the YouTube studio app from my phone I don't look at comments or views anymore I don't check AdSense I don't do
01:35:47
I just click upload and then go back to work that's what I want to do right right now and when I'm beating myself up
01:35:53
about my laziness it's cuz there's no there's nothing stopping me from doing that I just I keep kicking the can but
01:36:00
like that's what I want to do right now like that's it I just want to put my head down and make the things that I
01:36:07
think are great give a [ __ ] if anybody watches them you talked about privilege earlier and acting on your privilege
01:36:14
yeah that is the that to do that is the ultimate privilege like there is nothing more there there's nothing more that's
01:36:21
like the most privileged existence so why aren't you acting on your privilege you've got the lottery ticket uh you
01:36:27
know I I think of like just to go back and be as honest as I is because I don't
01:36:33
I don't I don't have to and I'm embarrassed to say that but that's the truth Jack over there Jack
01:36:40
Sylvester he's uh produced this podcast and directed it with me since the very beginning and you're the reason why he
01:36:46
got into video he told me many years ago I think he told me two years ago when we first started this he says he said Casey
01:36:52
is his dream guest um Jack I'm glad I didn't cancel today thought about it
01:36:58
it's like you know instead of doing that podcast sure would be cool just to sit in my office and do nothing again I'm
01:37:04
glad I'm here but my my question really is about
01:37:10
19-year-old Casey when he first arrived into New York City what is the advice that Casey needed to hear at that point
01:37:16
that he he just didn't get and I'm speaking to all the Jacks out there that are 19 [ __ ] that's tough
01:37:22
um a quick digression like hearing that and then
01:37:27
knowing that unlike my notes app I have 25 great movies that I wrote that I really care about it makes me feel
01:37:36
like Spike Jones has this great idea for a music video to make with fat lip and
01:37:41
if he just decided to go make shelves and have lunch and not make that video it might not have made me get off my
01:37:47
like that's a [ __ ] motivator like that makes me want to create stuff but what's the one piece of
01:37:55
advice I think that like nobody cares about you is something that was never
01:38:00
made clear to me and I mean that in the most positive optimistic inspiring motivating way like I think that
01:38:07
especially if you see yourself as a creative or you want to exist on YouTube or as a filmmaker as a musician or as an artist or a painter any of those things
01:38:14
like you think that everybody's paying attention and because of that it kind of controls how you think and even when I
01:38:20
was young and fearless and nothing to lose I was still so cognizant of like how are people going to react to this
01:38:25
and what's the best way to do like I was so aware and the reality is nobody gives
01:38:31
a [ __ ] everybody is so focused on themselves in this world nobody has time
01:38:36
for you and the sooner you accept that as a creative person the sooner you're
01:38:41
free like you're totally free like do exactly what feels right to you and if
01:38:47
you can get yourself on that trajectory then it goes back to what we were talking about before before about being novel about being an original about not
01:38:53
being a photocopy of somebody who did something if you're that photocopy you will never be the original but the
01:38:59
moment you accept the fact that you nobody cares do your thing nobody cares
01:39:04
and then you start to go down that path you will just get better and better and better you sprinkle on that patience I
01:39:10
was talking about you just keep going you keep going and eventually like that
01:39:15
persistence will just smash into like opportunity where that preparation will
01:39:21
smash into opportunity persistence will smash into opportunity and like your moment of
01:39:26
explosion your your detonation will happen that was verbose but you asked a
01:39:33
big question thank you so much Casey we have um I we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves
01:39:39
a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for but I I did have a question because
01:39:44
you are I mean many people consider you to be the very king of vlogging and we've started a a weekly vlog where
01:39:51
which is going really well we've uploaded I don't know eight or so videos and we've got got congrats engaged
01:39:57
audience great I CU you are the king of vlogging in my eyes I the question I
01:40:02
want to ask you selfishly is what do you make of that whole medium
01:40:08
it it's got It's been on a journey there was a lot of daily vloggers back in the day I used to watch the Sha tards and I
01:40:13
used to watch you and and then you know doing these daily Vlogs and as you said I felt like I was your friend living
01:40:19
your life with you the algorithm change things change it doesn't seem to be the case that there's daily vloggers anymore
01:40:24
even like vlogging on the platform seems to have kind of fallen down a little bit what do you think of I mean I at the
01:40:31
time like when I was doing my daily Vlog I really thought that it was like the
01:40:36
ultimate like um maturation if that's a word like of reality television because
01:40:43
you've got Kim Kardashian and then you have her TV show and in between those two things are all these producers and
01:40:50
directors and writers and all of this fabrication so what happens if you remove the middle part and it's just a
01:40:57
sharing your world like that was the that was the most sort of optimistic Whimsical trajectory that I
01:41:05
saw the genre taking and I think it just never happened it never manifested that
01:41:10
way instead it was a pursuit of sensationalism and Views I think it was corrupted by The View count um I don't
01:41:17
fault anyone I I I was susceptible to that too it was corrupted by The View count so what could have been something
01:41:22
virtuous turned into something I think much less interesting and that crashed and burned
01:41:29
and now in the ashes of that I think we're seeing really really interesting things I think we're seeing Niche
01:41:35
succeed which is so [ __ ] wonderful to see you had to be a YouTuber to succeed
01:41:41
back in the day like one of those you had to fit in to you had to be one of those and now it's like we have these
01:41:47
micro creators that are finding their audiences like friend of mine all he's
01:41:52
into is like fish tanks it's all he does is fish tanks his Channel's huge he's so
01:42:00
good like these guys retro dodo they're friends of mine like I was on they came
01:42:05
to New York to film with me their whole channel is just retro video gaming
01:42:11
devices they're wildly successful they've released books and that is so
01:42:16
amazing like you have eight episodes of your Vlog out now I haven't seen any but
01:42:22
like I'm sure they're much more about this than they are the intimacies of your life and how you got you know like
01:42:27
you're able to lean into that Niche so I think like this thing had all this potential and it crashed and burned and
01:42:33
now out of those ashes we're seeing these sort of beautiful little things Sprout up and I I hope that that's the
01:42:39
trajectory it continues and you're not tempted to Vlog again on a daily basis
01:42:44
if I could do it without having any notoriety or attention from it I would do it that's the only reason you don't do it um it's a big part of the racing
01:42:52
so interesting my like the thing that I fantasize is about is like um Quinton
01:42:59
Tarantino just disappears off the face of the Earth for like six years and then
01:43:04
it's like hey guys I got a new movie coming out in six months and he is the only thing anyone talks about is that
01:43:11
movie and he goes and disappears crawls back into his cave and it's like that is the ultimate I don't [ __ ] know
01:43:17
anything about that guy is he married I don't know does he have kids M like where does he live I don't know what is he doing right now I have no idea kind
01:43:23
of car does he drive don't know what are his Hobbies no idea I know nothing about him but his work I know every word to
01:43:31
every movie he has ever made I appreciate that man for one reason that is his artistic contribution to the
01:43:38
world like that is the ultimate so for me it would like daily vlogging it's like I don't know how to separate the
01:43:44
like selling of me and my personality with the art and that uh conf inflation
01:43:51
starts to [ __ ] with my head and then when people in the street come up to me and engage me yeah it it's it's that
01:43:58
turning into something in the real world that just freaks me out how long have we been talking when
01:44:05
are we done a while okay the question left for you is what is one piece of feedback you
01:44:12
want to give to me oh gosh [ __ ] what is one piece of feedback you want to give to me yes me
01:44:19
stevenh but might be nervous to tell me when you set up a studio in New York
01:44:26
City don't do it 40 minutes out into [ __ ] Brooklyn you figure out how to
01:44:33
build this studio in downtown Manhattan so all of your guests are five minutes away instead of 40 minutes away you were
01:44:40
really busy today no putting up shs and watching TV nothing our studio was in
01:44:46
low low Manhattan until uh this was the first time we've ever done it here but great
01:44:51
feedb did you get come here on your skateboard I thought about it but it doesn't have the range oh [ __ ] I
01:44:57
appreciate that Casey thank you so much for the inspiration this is fantastic I've talked about you for many many years and it's really about the
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principles of towards life but also creation and the artistic side of your work that have inspired me so profoundly
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and even hearing the import you speak so clearly on the importance of Truth and authenticity in what you produce has has
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made me rethink a lot of things that I do and I think in a really important way and you're someone that is further
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further up the ladder that I think creators like myself Are Climbing so if you to shout down these messages mean
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that I don't have to go through the darkness or the confusion or all of those things that you've been through so
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I thank you for that um and I'm very excited to see what you do because you're a Pioneer and people that are creating for their own authentic reasons
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always make the most interesting [ __ ] and so that's going to be a source of in inspiration for me if you do make those
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25 videos in in the notes of your phone so please do appr there do it for
01:45:55
you thank you Casey thanks for having me do you need a podcast to listen to next
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we've discovered that people who liked this episode also tend to absolutely love another recent episode we've done
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so I've linked that episode in the description below I know you'll enjoy
01:46:15
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