This is an iHeart podcast.
Guaranteed human.
I'm Eva Longoria.
And I'm Maite Gomez-Rejuan.
And this week on our podcast, Hungry for History, we talk oysters, plus the Miambi chief stops by.
If you're not an oyster lover, don't even talk to me.
Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells to vote politicians into exile.
So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster.
No way!
Bring back the OsterCon.
Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
What are the cycles fathers pass down that sons are left to heal?
What if being a man wasn't about holding it all together, but learning how to let go?
This is a space where men speak truth and find the power to heal and transform.
I'm Mike Della Rocha.
Welcome to Sacred Lessons.
Listen to Sacred Lessons on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey there, Dr. Jesse Mills here.
I'm the director of the Men's Clinic at UCLA and I want to tell you about my new podcast called The Mailroom.
And I'm Jordan, the show's producer.
And like most guys, I haven't been to the doctor in way too long.
I'll be asking the questions we probably should be asking but aren't.
Every week, we're breaking down the world of men's health, from testosterone and fitness to diets and fertility.
We'll talk science without the jargon and get your real answers to the stuff you actually wonder about.
So check out The Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite shows.
If you're not breaking stuff, it means you're not really... testing the limits.
And then when you fail, you don't internalize it like, oh, I'm a failure.
It's like, oh, great.
We just learned one more way not to do a thing.
Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed.
My guest today is Mark robber engineer, YouTuber and one of the most creative minds online, whose experiments and inventions have inspired millions to fall in love with science and curiosity again.
In this episode, we explore how to stay creative, turn failure into fuel and reconnect with the sense of wonder we often lose as adults.
Please welcome to On Purpose, Mark Rober.
Mark, it is...
Great to have you here.
Congratulations on your incredible success.
Thank you.
And I'm excited to dive into your mind.
So good to be here.
Let's do it.
Are you going to make me cry, Jay?
Are you a crier?
I can't get emotional.
I'm the crier in my relationship.
Are you the crier in your relationship?
I am.
Well, we both kind of cry.
How long have you been together now?
Yeah, over a year.
Over a year.
But that feels like relationship-wise, we... happened fast.
I mean, as an adult, you know what you want, right?
And so it feels like seven years in dog years relationships.
It's been seven years for the one.
I love it.
I love it.
Well, if you're allowed to cry here, definitely, but no, no pressure.
No, we don't want any acting tears.
I'm a terrible actor.
So you're in luck.
I love it.
I want to start off just by like The first question I have for you is what's the earliest childhood memory you have that you feel defines who you are today?
Is there a moment, a friend, an experience from school, growing up, that you're like?
That is why I am the way I am.
Hmm.
I think it's a defining moment.
One that sticks out.
I feel like, so my mom was out of the gate.
You're kidding me talking about my mom.
Uh, uh, my mom was like, had the biggest influence on my life by a very comfortable margin.
And she was like a stay at home mom.
Like she barely graduated high school.
But she was just so encouraging of us and like trying to turn us into like good humans and so she would very she would encourage just being creative and like out of the box thinking and just um, i remember one time, you know, and she, we did chores like as to raise a good human, like we had a list of chores from the time I was five years old, right.
So I was helping prepare dinner and I was in charge of doing the salad.
I was cutting the onions and I was like, crying because I was like, oh, this is a thing.
I don't like this.
So I was like, well, I should go.
I remember upstairs, we had these swim goggles.
So I ran upstairs, got the goggles not thinking anything of it and just kept cutting with onions on.
And now I know that's like a hack, like people know about this, but I was like five years old.
This was like 1986.
And I just remember her reaction to that.
Just like she laughed and she's just like, no way.
And like the encouragement, she took a picture.
We have a family picture of it, right?
That's 24 pictures in those days.
So if you're taking a picture, you mean it, right?
It's on film.
And it just felt really good to be in this environment where like that kind of thinking was encouraged.
It is always stuck with me.
And then you know, just growing up you know if I took apart the remote control and I couldn't quite get it back together again like I didn't get in trouble for that.
It was like, Oh, what are you up to now?
Right.
It's like, what are you up to?
But yeah, It was more celebrated as opposed to something that was just overlooked.
Yeah, that's special.
And I feel today like that same feeling of like creating content and sharing it with people and like getting that reaction of other people being like oh man.
Why didn't I think of that?
Like, I love hearing that.
Cause that means it was kind of obvious and you took things.
You know things, especially if I do a build, if I could do the junk you have lying around your house, that's so much better than just like all these the technical solution.
Right.
Yeah.
And so.
That feeling of coming up with an idea, sharing with people and getting feedback on it.
It's just like it's kind of addictive.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
And it's amazing when your parents encourage it.
When was the last time you shared that story with your mom?
So interesting story on that Jay, which is that, like six months before I made my first YouTube video, she passed away from ALS, which I think is like.
Kind of a beautiful thing in the sense that you know, we can all disagree on what happens when you die, right.
But this idea that like you never know the true measure of your impact in this life, right?
You do, you know...
You interact with other people, even if it's just like what do you say when the guy opens the door for you?
You open the door for someone.
With her, the channel now reaches 72 million subscribers and billions of views a month.
And none of that was on her radar.
And, like my mission is to get kids you know everyone, but especially the young folks stoked about science and education and curiosity, because that's what she did to me.
And this is also how I feel about like teachers.
They're like seed planters.
Right.
And just nobody knows the measure of the full measure of their impact.
And yeah, so I just think it's, it's, it's really sweet.
When she passed away, I think she felt really good about the kids she raised, but she just didn't know her direct... How she raised me and my siblings is now... impacting so many kids and people across the world so it's it's really beautiful like that's her version of of living on living forever regardless of what you think what happens after we die yeah no thank you for sharing that man it's so It's so beautiful to hear that as someone who's my mom, who's still with us, but the impact she had on me as well.
Like I feel like my mom showed me how to love, and if anyone ever feels loved by me or feels I can create a safe loving space for other people, it's because my mom did that for me in the most difficult of situations and always made me feel like I had a shield of love around me.
And so I've never really had to question whether I'm lovable or not, which is just an insane superpower.
And then all that love that you were given just spills onto other people.
And then I was like, oh, how are you so loving and thoughtful?
And I'm like, oh, it's my mom.
Like it was like my mom just gave me so much that it had to spill out and spill over into other people.
It's actually not me.
And it's something that I hold very deeply as well.
And I think moms dads teachers mentors guides, spiritual leaders, whoever your family turns to for support have such a big impact.
And now YouTubers right.
Like now you like.
There are so many kids and parents that turn to you for your content, to inspire their children to think differently.
How do you get a job at NASA?
When I saw that, I was like, how do you get a job at NASA?
That sounds like made up stuff.
I mean, you get lucky, first of all.
My resume was just in a stack of resumes.
And yeah, the interview.
What did you do at college?
So I studied mechanical engineering.
Okay, so you had that.
Yeah, yeah.
So for sure, you got to start with an engineering degree.
I'll give you that.
Um, yeah.
And from a good school, from a good school.
Yeah.
I did undergrad at BYU grad school at USC.
Yeah.
Mechanical engineering.
Yeah.
I remember going in, there's this old engineer there, Don Bickler.
And when you interview there, you know you go into his office, he shuts the door NASA, this guy's a legend, invented like the rocker bogey system on the rover and then you, just you stay in that room for like an hour and he hands you a whiteboard, a whiteboard marker, and he just drills you on questions and at the end of that He comes and kind of offers the verdict.
And when I left, he's like, he's good, hire him.
So, you know.
Tell me what the questions are like.
Like, what is that?
How's that interview?
Because I imagine it's so different from any interview.
Yeah, I mean, they're like technical questions, right?
Like here's a good one if you have a fishing boat and you have an anchor and then you take that anchor and you throw it overboard and what happens to the water level?
On the rate Lake, does it go up or down?
And so it's.
It's kind of like a riddle, but the point is you write out the equations on the board the buoyancy equation, you know you solve for this.
And then the answer is pretty obvious if you can do that.
So it's kind of like questions like this, technical questions, but they're just like rapid fire, one after another.
And so then, yeah.
So I worked at NASA for a decade and Uh 10 of those, or seven of those working on the Mars curiosity Rover.
So I have hardware that was like on the jet pack that lowers it to the ground.
And then also on the top deck of the Rover.
So you designed that I designed, built, tested, integrated.
How many of you are working on something like that at the same time?
Yeah, like it's like probably 3000 people all told like have a hand in creating something like the Mars Rover.
Wow.
Yeah.
But it's cool, like to.
You know, just be in the backyard, you know, and you see that one dot in the sky that has like the reddish tint, you know.
So you know that one's Mars and you're just like, I've like I've touched something that's like on that planet and built it and it's, it's still working 90 million miles away.
And where are you based, are you?
This is a jet propulsion laboratory.
So out in Pasadena here.
Okay.
Yeah.
And how many people work out of there?
Like about 5,000, give or take.
Wow, that's huge.
Yeah.
It was so cool.
It's like a college campus, just like a free exchange of ideas, you know, talk about creativity, just like everything is on the board.
And it's just this engineering mindset of like you know we don't know the right answer, but heck, we'll just run a ton of tests and figure out what it is.
What was the mindset you think you learned from working at NASA and the people there that you don't think most of us would come across in our daily life?
I think this concept of thinking like an engineer...
What does that mean?
I've heard that before.
I've also heard like, think like a rocket scientist.
I'm like, what does that mean?
So me in fact.
I have a toy company now, Crunch Labs, where you know, basically it's like a really fun toy you get every month and the kids can put it together and it teaches the engineering principles, what makes them work.
And on the side of the box, it says, think like an engineer.
And the idea there is, like it means that like you're not afraid of failure and you know you're resilient because You know that failure is part of the process.
Like the point is to break stuff and test it.
If you're not breaking stuff, it means like you're not really testing the limits.
And then when you fail, you don't internalize it like, oh, I'm a failure.
It's like, oh, great.
We just learned one more way not to do a thing.
You're excited, right?
It's like, let's try something different.
And so I think that philosophy applies to life and the challenge like toddlers are like this right.
Like when they fall, they're not like, oh, I look so dumb.
I'm never going to try and walk again, right?
It's like they just get up and try again and they're excited to try again.
You know, the kid who's just tinkering in his garage and doesn't care and is trying stuff like that's the kid.
That's just like learning.
So much right.
And again, this is how you put a rover on Mars.
You just break stuff and test it and test it and test it.
So you know the limits.
And now you know exactly what will work when you go to Mars.
And what was the purpose of the rover?
So essentially, it's just like to go to, you know, we want...
It's good for humanity if we are a multi-planetary species.
And so it's like, this is the precursor to like humans going and living on Mars.
So basically it goes there and says like, what's the soil like?
Could you plant asparagus there?
It turns out you can.
Is there water there?
Yeah, turns out there is.
So all these things that we would want to have on Mars if we were living there like the rover.
How much radiation is there here?
So it can do a bunch of Let us learn the history of this planet so that, A we can potentially live there someday, but B it helps us learn about ourselves.
Part of what we know about global warming is by studying Venus, which is basically like a runaway global warming.
So by like studying other areas in the solar system, we're able to learn, like more about you know how, how earth even works, came about and formed, which helps us to know how do we protect it in the future.
Wow.
And so wait, when you started to get this information and data back that you can grow asparagus, there's water there, what was the big discovery that the rover felt like it achieved that all walked away with and said oh wow this was mission accomplished i mean with science like your objectives are always smaller than that of like we just want to go there and answer whether or not there's water um you know life is always the big one like if you can find life on another planet, that's pretty wild.
Because if life came to exist twice in our own solar system, then the universe must just be teeming with other forms of life.
It's just a really fascinating question, right?
Sometimes you just go there to gather the data and then you just look for something interesting to come from the data.
But you don't necessarily know... ahead of time, you can have objectives, right?
But I think us just getting closer to live there And studying if life did exist there or, like always, some.
And is water there currently flowing?
Those kinds of questions are like really interesting with Mars.
Yeah, the reason I'm mining it is for two reasons.
These questions to you is one is I'm fascinated because it's so different from any world I've ever lived in.
And so I'm like a kid in a candy shop right now.
I'm like, this is so cool.
And then the second side of it is because I think it's a mindset thing too.
The idea that all of these really smart people are building something and there isn't this big goal or objective, there's this idea of we're going to learn and we're going to grow and we're going to figure it out and we'll discover something is such a beautiful mindset for life.
Like I think about, even with what you were talking about, with Crunch Labs, teaching kids at an early age to just experiment play break live, without the goal of like oh, I have to build.
I'm sure they, I'm sure crime celebs.
Yeah.
No, you're totally right.
Yeah.
It's like that's a great mindset, because I feel like, if you think about all the companies that we all work used today, they didn't start off saying we're going to build a billion dollar company.
They just built something that helped people and figured it out and pivoted and gave us another option.
Then one day they were valued at billions of dollars.
Today there's a pressure I feel that people have where it's like if I build an app, it has to be a billion dollar app.
If I build a products company, it has to sell a hundred million the first year.
If I sell a apparel brand, I have to make a million dollars.
I feel like we put these goals and objectives and you're actually saying well, when we're going to Mars, we're not thinking about those things.
I mean, I completely agree with you.
I don't love when people expect you to know what you want to be when you grow up, when you're like 16 years old, like nobody ask any adult.
And if you ask them what they're doing, if they knew they'd be doing what they're doing now.
If they say yes, they're totally lying to you.
Like nobody knows.
And that's just the way life is.
It's like a river that meanders, right?
So it's like my advice if you don't know what you want to be in your, you know, a teenager or something.
It's like, what do you love to do?
Do you love to draw?
Doesn't just dominate it.
Just draw like crazy and get so good at it.
Right.
Maybe you love to write or to tell stories, like just do that.
And then when you do that, like, then more doors will be open to you.
So like, this is kind of my philosophy with life too.
Like I've had a lot of left and right turns to get me sitting across from you right now.
And what I do is just like whatever's in front of me, I just give it every single thing I have.
And I just try and just crush it and learn as much as possible.
And then when you're done with that, it's like, all right, now what are my next options?
Right.
And it's usually pretty clear to be honest.
Like it's never, like I've honestly never had a moment in life, even quitting NASA, to go do YouTube stuff where it's like is this the right decision?
Is it not?
It feels pretty clear if you've really committed yourself, and then you have all the new facts in front of you, right?
Yeah.
Before we get to that, what did you want to be when you were a kid?
And when people ask you that question that you I wanted to be, My first job I wanted to do was to design play places at McDonald's.
You know, like the ball pit things?
I used to love those.
I was like an architect of those.
I remember I'd have all these drawings.
All right, we're going to start with the ball pit.
We're going to go to the nets and now crunch labs, which is this like actual place I have.
It's like this Willy Wonka factory for engineering is sort of the embodiment of that dream.
Cause we have like secret passageways.
You know, a Coke machine opens up into a claw machine that you can like turn.
It's like the North Pole.
Yeah.
We have fire pistons that you slide down from.
You're basically Santa.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, I'm like Willy Wonka for engineering.
It has that vibe, right?
It's like a rock, paper, scissor machine that...
It's a robot that beats you every time.
A staircase that's an infinite slinky staircase.
The slinky just goes.
So it's like, you know, if you can dream it up, then you can build it.
Like.
That's the beauty of being an engineer is like if something doesn't exist and you want it to exist, you could just will it into an existence.
And what a superpower.
Yeah, there's this amazing... I mean, I'm going totally the opposite way, but...
You're reminding me of something beautiful.
There's this beautiful verse in Eastern spirituality that says the mind moves faster than the gods.
And the point of it is this idea that the mind can create and build and you can visualize.
And it's based off of this character in vedic history called vishwakarma, who's the architect of the gods.
So he builds flying palaces and flying cities, and but he visualizes it all in his head before it becomes manifest.
Yeah, and it's that same idea of just like we.
But you know, what's so interesting is We're talking about that, but we all know that it's so natural as a parent to go okay, but get a real job, right.
So like you have this dream of, I want to design McDonald's, Playhouses or whatever.
And then- family, friends, expectations, school, everyone goes, yeah, but get a real job.
Like I remember, I was a kid who loved graphic design and I love art direction and I loved juxtaposition and imagery.
Like that was always my, I loved that.
It's always been a passion of mine.
My family encouraged it, it was a good hobby, but it's like, get a real job though.
I mean, engineering is such a great skill and such a great job, but how do you encourage young people and how do you think about when you're making content to encourage people to Live their passion?
But be pragmatic.
And what does that look like?
Because you've kind of pursued so many things.
I mean, I think it's a yes and situation, right?
For example, for me, like...
I worked at NASA for a decade.
Then I worked at Apple for five years doing product design.
I didn't quit Apple till I had 10 million YouTube subscribers.
So like this idea of like, I had to choose one or the other, right.
Uh, You can kind of do both.
You can moonlight as your passion.
And then when that becomes big enough, then it's like oh, and that isn't always the case, but I think there's a lot of situations.
There's a middle of that Venn diagram where it's like do the passion and pursue it as much as you possibly can while also having the real job right.
I mean, that's like practical advice.
Sometimes it does come to a point, you know you hear these great stories of actors or something, where it's like I'm just going to really go for it.
And then they land.
But that's also, you know, the scientist in me wants to say, well, there's survivorship bias.
So you only hear the stories of the ones that worked.
And for the one that does, there's a thousand that don't.
So um, You know, I think, when parents say that they generally have their best interest in mind for the kid,
They want them to be happy and have a life that they can, but at the same time the kid knows what their passion is.
So I think it's a very healthy, a very healthy, like, you know, yin and yang there.
I don't fault parents for saying that.
I think there's a lot of times you could still pursue the thing.
You know, you just pursue both.
Yeah.
I'd agree with you.
So my life's the same story.
And I'm that to me is the.
To me, that is the best and most likely path for most people, which is you're going to have a steady job.
You're going to figure out something on the side and you're going to wait for the thing on the side to outpace the thing you're doing right now.
And it actually proves to you as an individual whether you really love it.
Because you're doing it in your evenings, you're doing it in your weekends, you're doing it when it makes no money, you're doing it when it's inconvenient.
And you're like oh well, if I could do it when I was inconvenient, then when it's my full-time thing, I'm the luckiest person in the world.
100%.
And when I started YouTube...
Like in 2011, no one knew you could like make money off of it.
You know what I mean?
It was like, you just did it really as just a passion.
Like I wanted to share these cool ideas with people.
Now it's like the game has changed so much.
What was the pivot from NASA to Apple?
Why did that come about?
Why leave NASA?
Well, actually for two years I was at a Halloween costume company Jay, before then going to Apple.
So that's like... Halloween costume company.
Yes.
Wait, how do you go from NASA to a Halloween?
Okay, that's the better question.
Which is so my first ever YouTube video.
I went to like a Halloween party and I had an iPad on front, an iPad in back of me.
And if you cut a hole in the shirts and you do a FaceTime call, it looks like you have a hole in your body.
So you wave your hand in the front and the camera in the back shows it.
That's cool.
Again, it felt like being five years old cutting onions.
People at the party were like, this is such a cool costume.
What a cool idea. how did I not think of that?
So I went home, I put it on YouTube and I my life goal was to be on the Gizmodo, which is like an old tech blog.
Yeah, I remember it.
And so I made it on the cover of Gizmodo and then quickly realized I need more life goals.
And so I was like, I have more ideas.
Like I should just do one video a month.
And for 14 years now, I've basically uploaded one video a month about an engineering build or an idea.
And the channel's just grown from there.
How did you get that outfit on the cover of Gizmodo?
Well, so the YouTube video went up and it went viral.
So it was on the front page of CNN.
It was on all these outlets covered, including Gizmodo.
Got it.
From there, the one complaint was that cool idea bro, but I don't have 1200 for Halloween costume.
Two iPads, right?
And so I was like, all right.
So I came up with an idea for next year where it was like a design printed on the shirt, like a guy's face or something that was like kind of his eye was pulled open.
And then if you cut a hole out for the eyeball and then there's a free app of an eyeball that moved around your eye would have worked great Jay.
Then you had a really cool Halloween costume for like the price of a t-shirt called Digital Duds.
So I launched that company, nights and weekends, working all week while making YouTube videos.
And, uh, while working at NASA and it did pretty well.
So then, that did well enough that I sold it to some guys in the UK and I went and worked for them for for two years.
Wow.
And it's like, it's such a, right.
This is my example.
I mean, this is, this is exactly what I was talking about.
I have this idea.
I thought it was cool.
So I moonlit nights and weekends basically bootstrapped the company.
And then when I launched the video the next year to explain what it was that t-shirt idea you know we made our money back in eight hours and then yeah.
So very meandering.
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On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night.
Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician.
And I'm Hari Kundabolu. comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3am?
On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way.
It's not only about what we can do to improve our health, but also what our health says about us and the way we're living.
Like our episode where we look at diabetes.
In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic.
How preventable is type 2?
Extremely. or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are.
Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world.
Your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but you don't even know.
You don't know.
You don't know.
It's going to be a fun ride, so tune in.
Listen to Health Stuff on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is David Eagleman from the Inner Cosmos podcast, and this week we're tackling a tough question where brain science meets the future.
Lab-grown meat is going to force us to confront the boundaries of our ethics and our imagination.
It invites us to question why we draw lines exactly where we do, and whether those lines are drawn in ink or in pencil.
And what does this have to do with sanctity, brain plasticity, social belonging, messed up boundaries between mental categories, flesh copyrights, and the future of personhood?
What is the table? we're going to set for ourselves.
What does this question uncover about brain science and our calculations of morality?
Listen to Inner Cosmos on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Dani Shapiro, host of the hit podcast, Family Secrets.
What I would do if I didn't feel like I was being accepted is choose an identity that other people can't have.
I knew something had happened to me in the middle of the night, but I couldn't hold on to what had happened.
These are just a few of the moving and important stories I'll be holding space for on my upcoming 13th season of Family Secrets.
Whether you've been on this journey with me from season one or just joining the Family Secrets family, we're so happy to have you with us.
I'll dive deep into the incredible power of secrets, the ones that shape our identities, test our relationships and ultimately, reveal who we truly are.
Listen to Family Secrets on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Did you always have the ability to turn an idea into action and how?
What have you learned about that?
A lot of people have good ideas and I'm sure you hear them all the time.
I hear them all the time.
People come up to me and be like, Jay, I've had this incredible idea.
I want to build this thing.
But then...
It stops there.
It doesn't get somewhere.
What have you learned about turning ideas into action?
What's worked for you?
My superpower is my naive optimism.
Like I'm just an idiot that thinks I can do it.
And I don't see like, I just feel like, oh, this is so obvious.
Like I can totally do this.
If I knew the amount of work it actually would end up being, I'd be very discouraged.
But I'm just like an idiot who's like, oh yeah, I could do this.
Like, I think this makes sense.
Like I see the end goal.
And so then, any pitfall that comes along the way, like I'm so focused on this end goal and like that matters right.
Like the attitude you have and whether or not you believe you think you can do it.
And so then, if I think I can do it, then the next step is like Well, let me break this down into all the steps, and step one is this, and I'm just going to dominate that step.
And then, you know, just kind of step through it.
It's literally the engineering design process. but for ideas and businesses.
Walk us through the engineering design process for anyone who doesn't know what that is.
Break that down for us.
Make it simple.
I think the idea it's just like you have an end goal, an objective, and break it down into the steps and know what you don't know and and test what you don't know is kind of like you know, get your, give your best shot at it.
You kind of in in the engineering.
Let's say, if I'm designing a piece for the Mars rover, I think okay, I think it needs you know, maybe it's the wheel for the Mars rover.
I think it needs to probably look like this.
I'm going to design it in CAD.
I'm going to analyze it analytically with computer programs.
But that's not what I fly to Mars.
I take that and then I build it and then I test it. to see if it matches.
And then sure enough, Oh, it does match up.
All right.
Now it's good enough.
I've tested it.
Now I can fly it to Mars.
So I think it's this idea of like building iteratively and and and breaking things like part of designing.
That is, I would make one and I would smash it with a bunch of stuff.
So I know the limits of the wheel, right?
So again, we call that a failure in others outside of engineering, but we embrace that.
And it's like, great, now we know.
Now let's tweak it. and now we can build something better, right?
But I think a lot of times in life if you get a bad grade on a test, then you internalize I'm not good at math or a relationship fails.
You're like, I'm just not good at this love thing.
Or a business fails.
You're like, I guess I'm not a good businessman.
But if you look at it like an engineer or even like a video game, I think is like a good way to do it.
Like if you frame your challenges like a video game.
No one picks up a controller to play a video game and falls in a pit say Super Mario Brothers or something and thinks I'm a failure.
Like, how embarrassing.
I'm terrible at video games.
No, you're immediately like, oh, shoot.
What did I just learn from that?
I'm going to jump a little faster.
I'm going to run a little faster, jump a little.
You're excited to try again, right?
So just the framing of it.
It turns from fear to curiosity.
Where you'd like, you want to get up and try it again.
So if it's like and you know you asked me like Oh, when you have ideas like, I'm thinking of it like a video game, where it's like I want to rescue princess from Bowser.
So when I get the sliding green turtle shell, which could look like a lot of different things.
I don't internalize that I'm a bad player.
I'm like, got it.
I know the shell comes right here.
I'm going to jump a little faster.
Right.
And that is a life hack.
Like truly this happens to me all the time on just whenever we want to do a big video.
We just filmed a video where I made a soccer goalie robot that goes back and forth at like 80 miles an hour.
And then Cristiano Ronaldo tried to score on it.
Right.
It took us like a year to build.
So we tracked the ball.
And in the first six milliseconds when the ball has gone from like here to here, I just moved it like maybe an eighth of an inch.
We know exactly where the goalie needs to be to stop that ball.
So it's hilarious to see, you know, he tries to do it and of course, He misses.
No, there's no way he can score.
It's way too fast.
From the penalty kick area.
He kicks it 80 miles an hour.
And the robot's just like... Just goes and it stops.
Oh my gosh.
So the point is though, with that video...
I mean, there was tons of sliding green shells and setbacks.
And that doesn't mean it doesn't sting, by the way.
Failure still can sting.
This isn't some fake Pollyanna attitude, right?
But it's this idea of like, oh, dang it. okay, here we go.
We're going at this again, right?
And I think that can help you accomplish so much more in life and just have honestly better relationships, even right.
Because it's just like the way you approach.
It is like okay, what did I learn?
Versus internalizing that it's something about me.
Yeah, well said, really well said.
And I love the video game analogy because you're so right, you die.
And even though it says game over, you don't feel that way.
No.
You're like next, next, you know, you want to get another life.
You want to play again.
Like you never, ever.
And it's so crazy.
Cause I'm like, it actually says game over and you don't care.
No.
And whereas if someone says game over in real life, where you get rejected or you don't get a job and you apply for one, that hurts much worse.
And I guess because it feels like it has real stakes.
I think it's more like you internal, you think that makes you.
Yes.
Yes.
You internalize what that means about you, but you don't do that in video games.
You don't say I'm a bad video game player.
And I think the same is true in life.
Like anyone who's got to somewhere in life, they started out sucky at that.
Yeah.
Right.
And then they just learned and iterated and overcame.
It's the same thing you said with companies like no fortune 100 company today started out doing what they do now.
They've pivoted 15 times.
Right.
Yeah.
And I so I think it's this ability to just like not internalize what it says about you and just almost flip it.
Like I'm a person who embraces failure and celebrates it, lets it sting, just like in a video game.
It sucks to miss that key jump on level eight, one on super Mario brothers, the little platform.
But it's like dang it.
We're going back because you're focused on the end goal.
You're focused on what that would feel like, not the pits and the mistakes.
What's a failure that you ever experienced in life that you did internalize?
Did that ever happen?
I got married pretty young.
And then it's very amicable.
But like five years ago, I split with my wife.
I'm pretty private with my private life for like reasons and stuff.
But I was like really cautious to get out and like date again.
It just took me a year to even like start.
And I don't know.
It felt like.
I was just very protective.
Like I didn't.
I wanted, if I was going to find my person like I wanted them to love me and not the thought of me, or you know, you just want it to be authentic.
Right.
And so like, I never, I just wasn't, I was being very cautious about everything.
And I did find someone that I thought was like, this was, this was it.
And I'm for the first time, like really opened my heart, right?
Like being really, really open.
And yeah, Like the worst possible situation happened where it was like it was like a betrayal.
Something happened that it was like it was essentially the worst case, where it's like okay, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to really lean in.
And then it happened.
And it was absolutely the worst pain I've experienced as an adult.
It was really, really hard.
And it was hard to feel like I would ever find this thing that I felt like other people have found.
And I'd never felt it my whole life.
And so taking a beat after that was like, I think it was hard.
That was like a really, really difficult period for me.
But then I honestly, eventually I came around to this Super Mario thing and I'm like you know what, just a number like i just gotta put in the reps, i gotta like put the work in.
And so i did that and then again failed.
I did like i was like i'm gonna in 30 days, i'm gonna like try, and I'm such an engineer.
I basically made a goal where it's like, I'm going to go on 30 FaceTime dates in 30 days.
And just like 20 minutes, just to get a feel.
Because you know in the first three minutes if there's a connection or not, right?
And I did that and it was...
Again, Jay.
And these were like amazing, accomplished, attractive, lovely human beings, lovely women.
Right.
And I felt nothing.
And I was like, damn, like, I think, is this me?
So I was like, you know what?
I'm going to do one more.
And then I did one more.
And that's my partner.
And she's my life partner.
It's like it.
And it was a matter of like, it was like half hour in.
It was like, yep, this is it.
And it feels like coming home.
It's like when you find the right person, it feels like home.
It's just like...
Yeah.
And it's just like no reservations.
And like, we're both the same way.
And she had the same experience.
Yeah.
And you met her and she's had the same experience where she just never felt like she'd found it.
And immediately we're just like, this is it.
Cool.
Done.
Close the spreadsheet.
Delete it.
So you did engineer your way to love.
I did engineer my way, which is funny.
Because she's the opposite.
She's more like you, Jay.
She just puts it out to the universe.
So she's the dreamer and I'm the thinker.
And we each try and take credit for us getting together.
She's like, look, I put it out to the universe.
I'm like, no, I put in the work.
Yeah, you put in the work.
Yeah, no, I love that.
I mean, to me, I mean, I'm actually...
People know less about... I'm a bit of both as well.
There's an engineer in me, not in the way you are, but in that practical, pragmatic approach to what it really takes to getting the reps in.
And I like that, that it even applied to love, that doing 30...
FaceTime calls and 30 dates.
That is what it takes to figure out if you have a connection with someone and to speed it up.
I always, I do what I call for myself immersion weekends.
And so if I'm really fascinated by something, I will find a coach, find the book, find the TED Talk, find the course and do it all in one weekend to figure out whether I care or not.
And I do these immersion weekends all the time, where I'll literally obsess over something for 48 hours.
And if I really like it, then it becomes a part of my consistent schedule.
And if I hated it, I won't go back again and I'm okay.
And I've loved doing that over time where I'm like, I'm fascinated by this.
I don't have time to go on a weekly course.
I don't know if I want to invest that time.
I don't want to commit to a retreat.
Who knows?
But I could do it for a whole weekend.
That's genius.
Yeah, it works wonders for me.
And that goes back to kind of what I was saying before too, just like whatever's the step in front, dominate it.
And if, and if you really immerse yourself, like it will be very clear at the end of that weekend.
If this is something you want to do more versus like just dabbling in dabbling.
Yeah.
What's an example?
I'm going to turn the tables on you.
What's the last thing you did like that?
Like an immersion weekend?
The immersion weekend?
Yeah.
I'll be honest.
I just did it this weekend.
It was acting.
So I've been getting all these opportunities to like, audition for like TV and film.
And I've just been kind of going back and forth.
I've spent a lot of time on movie sets with actors that I coach, not in acting, in my work.
I've spent a lot of time on movie sets, but I've never been the person doing it.
I've done a few cameos here and there.
And because I was getting all these opportunities, my question always is, do I love the process?
I'm not interested in the result or is it cool?
I'm like, do I actually love doing the thing?
And so this whole weekend at an acting coach, I was with them for three hours a day.
I was doing all the reading pre of the scripts that they sent me.
I was doing the reading of books outside of it, around acting and writing, just to see if I enjoy the process.
And I was like, worst case, I'm gonna hate the process and learn some skills.
Best case, I'm gonna love it and it's gonna open up new opportunities.
I loved it, I had a great time.
Yeah, I was reading scripts, I was learning about characters.
We were doing scene study and analysis.
Like it was.
It was almost like just reading material and discussing it with someone and then trying to figure out what the actor's objectives were and what their tactic is and what their motive is.
It was fascinating.
Really?
I love it.
So you're going to do more then.
I'm going to do more coaching.
I'm going to take more classes because it was just so, it was so fun.
And if it becomes something that I enjoy enough, I would pursue it professionally.
But even if I don't, it's just something that I'm currently immersed in.
I feel like you would be great.
It's like you have to, yeah, putting yourself in the shoes of the person.
Like I don't even know what to do with like, my face.
It's like i'm supposed to be sad that i really want to just like yeah, you know, pout my way.
But it's like, apparently that's not what you're supposed to do, But that was what was so fascinating about it.
And I think we're both talking about this idea of learning something deeply was, when you're sitting down with a professional, the way they talk about it.
And he was talking about like the Stanislav method and the Chekhov method.
And there's all these...
There's systems of why the best of the best.
Like they're not just the best because they have it.
They've studied systems and they've worked at it.
And so to me it was just like.
There's this method where it's called to act as if.
So you can't relate to what the character's going through, but you have something that happened in your life that makes you feel that way that the character's feeling, and you channel that.
And so to me, it was just.
I was just fascinated by the empathy that actors have to have compassion, the connection to embody characters.
But that was my most recent.
I love that.
My thing right now, again, like I'm kind of with you.
I love mastery, like finding mine's public speaking.
I hate public speaking.
I hate it.
But my goal is just be really good at it.
And like, a year.
So I'm currently working up, I'm actually doing a Ted talk in April.
Actually, this is cool to actually mention to you, because I haven't really talked about this publicly much, but we're doing so through the YouTube channel.
We've learned how to like, hide the vegetables, right.
Basically, teach science and you don't even know what's happening, right.
So we're taking all the learnings we've taken from that.
Because kids can watch, or people can just watch whatever they want to on YouTube, but they choose to watch this.
And then we're making a full science curriculum.
That's amazing.
Third to eighth grade.
It involves you know it has my fellow YouTube friends.
You know, I just got Cristiano Ronaldo and we were filming him.
He's part of it.
Just a bunch of people in it.
But then you know resources for the teachers, really cool hands-on activities.
They can class everything.
And then it's going to cost about six, It's going to cost us about like $55 million to make.
They would make it free forever.
Where will it go online?
So you don't have, it won't be in your school.
No, it's like a, it's like online.
Teachers can use it.
It's a full, it adheres to all of the standards, right?
Because teachers will tell you like, They can't teach a kid if they don't have their attention.
And what I've learned to do on YouTube is getting their attention.
So for example, the electricity and magnetism lesson, we just filmed this.
There's an MRI machine.
I put a watermelon inside it.
I'm holding like a 10 pound hammer.
And then you essentially flip on the MRI machine.
But the hammer just flies out of my hand, destroys this watermelon.
And now, Jay, I've got your attention.
And now I can say there's invisible magnetic fields all around us that exist.
Yeah.
Right?
And so teachers can use these in school.
They could play that video.
And it has, you know, the whole lesson, what they say back to the kids.
It will replace their science curriculum, right?
Wow.
And it's going to cost, it's going to take us like three years.
Why is it going to cost you $55 million?
It's a huge undertaking.
There's like 46 different units.
Like it's science.
It's all sixth through eighth grade science.
And then also third grade through fifth grade.
And you are funding it.
Yeah.
And I mean, yes.
And there are already some generous people who are coming out and helping it fun.
But like regardless I was, we started funding it myself anyways with the profits we had from Crunch Labs.
So we're going to announce that at the TED Talk.
And I really want to nail that presentation.
I'm happy to help, man.
I was lucky.
My parents forced me to go to public speaking and drama school when I was 11.
Oh, really?
So all my state speaking skills from... having studied it for seven years, eight years.
And so.
Yeah.
You're a master.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'll, I'll record the rehearsal and I'll send it to you.
Yeah.
I mean, they have pros there.
Obviously Ted have such a great scripting team and a great pro speaking team.
They're not Jay Shetty.
That's going to be, no, that's going to be a I'm excited to see that.
I'm pretty stoked.
I feel like it's the most important thing I'll do my whole life.
But I love that you're doing things that scare you.
Like, even at this point, having had so much success and being the spokesperson for science across the world, It's incredible to see you say I'm still scared of this.
I'm going to do it.
No, like I crave it, Jay.
Like I also like I started like going to the gym two years ago, same thing where it's just like I just love an opportunity for mastery.
It is this video game thing, right?
I think a lot if you say that I've seen success in my life.
A lot of it comes down to this mentality of it's like I just love working on something and the feeling of incrementally getting better.
I mean, that's how our, Brains work, right?
A lot of studies have showed if you get a huge raise and then your salary's flat for 10 years versus incrementally go up to that 10 years, like you're much happier way, more dopamine to your brain.
If you incrementally level up, this is again, how video games even work.
You start the video game with a wooden sword and three heart containers, because they reverse engineer.
You love just like little levels up.
So opportunities that life provides you To just find something like that and then get better at the end of a couple years or months or whatever decades, nothing better.
How do you keep the childlike fun energy, playful energy that you have, that your work requires and at the same time run businesses?
Because to me, that's the balance that young entrepreneurs, seasoned entrepreneurs, everyone runs into where it's like running the business is a serious business.
But then the business is all about play, curiosity, fun, crazy experiments, right?
And we'll get into some of the videos that you love the most.
How do you think about the curiosity, creativity part of the business and then the running of a business?
Yeah, I think it's good.
There's been studies that look at like successful...
These are companies worth, say, $50 to $500 million or something, or even $10 to $500 million.
And what all of them have in common is there's one person who has the swimline of being the creative, the big thinker, you know, the 10 X thinker, and then one person who's logistics
Right.
So, you know, one person who can build the thing and one person who can run the thing.
And I was very lucky, a buddy of mine, Jim.
You know, I worked at Google.
I knew he had a very analytical brain.
And I said hey, I'm thinking about starting this company, Crunch Labs, you know.
Make me a model, financial model, to see if it works.
And he did and educating me on how they work.
It's still the model we use today and the company's doing very well.
Wow.
So he's been the one to like, in my opinion, make all the, all the boring stuff.
I don't want to look at Jay.
Oh, we have to have like a, a warehouse that ships out the stuff.
Like, I don't know, just find a good one.
And he'll geek out over it and he has them, you know what I mean?
And I'm thinking about like, oh, this is, we could do this, you know, but we could do this.
So I think truly, if you're starting a business and you're the creative one, Just don't try and do the other thing.
Yeah.
And the good news is if you're the creative one, the other one's a lot easier to find.
Like the creative, like the good, that's more of a rare talent.
Yeah.
So just find someone to help you.
Yeah.
It's great advice.
Yeah.
At some point, if you're small, if you're doing something small like Halloween t-shirt company, like you, can be both, but at some point it'll just get way too hard.
Yeah.
No, I fully agree with you.
We did the same.
And I remember when I bought on one of my partners in the early days, everyone was like you don't want to give away a percentage.
Like, don't do that.
You know, it's all your creativity.
And I was like you have no idea how much time Because I said to my man I said all I want to do is think, study and teach and create.
Like, that's where I want to live.
Like, that's my...
Strength, superpower, that's my fascination.
Like I love reading and studying and learning about psychology and ancient wisdom and science and behavioral science.
And that's what I love reading studying learning, observing humans and then turning into stuff that people can use to make their lives better.
Yeah.
But I don't want to run any of the other stuff.
And so I think knowing that and owning that like is a key to staying happy and honestly fighting burnout.
Yeah.
I think a lot of times people feel burnt out in a creative endeavor.
It's because they lost of what got them in it in the first place.
And they're managing 15 people.
And they're a manager now.
They're not a creative.
And they're like, why am I doing this?
I'm not getting the satisfaction.
It's like, oh, because you're not doing what you started doing.
What did you learn at Apple that you didn't learn at NASA?
Apple, I would say, like NASA, I feel like had a lot of smart people.
At Apple, you had to be pretty smart, but a very good communicator.
I just keyed in on this.
And Communication and sharing ideas and telling stories matters a lot.
People think I'm a good engineer.
I can build cool stuff, but it's like, I'm an okay engineer, Jay.
I'm a pretty damn good storyteller.
And in the videos, you're telling stories, right?
Like this video with Cristiano Ronaldo where he said with the goalie robot going back and forth, like it starts out.
Like you know, this is my childhood dream.
I want to do this thing.
And I even landed Donovan takes me out and he's like a coach.
And he's like, dude, you suck.
You know?
And so it's like, okay, well, if I can't do with my athletic prowess, I'm going to do with my brain.
So now I'm going to make this cool.
Right.
Do you like you case the whole thing in a story?
Right.
And I think at Apple, I learned that There are some very, very good engineers who are also incredible communicators of like explaining ideas, and you know, that's what really makes us special as a species the ability to cooperate on large scale.
And we do that through telling stories, right?
Yeah. that's we've, we've evolved to tell stories long before you could write stuff down.
We communicated through telling stories and making somebody feel something.
That's the exact, that's how you make a viral video.
You just, You have to evoke a visceral response.
And if you can do that, that helps you at work because it convinces everyone else like hey, this is a good idea.
Let's all do this.
Helps you in your relationships.
Like, if you can really create that visceral response by connecting with the human, then you know your partner will, or your, your child or friend will accept your apology.
Right.
Like, um, it'll help you.
Yeah.
Just personal life business, anything um by tapping into the ability and owning the ability of like I need to say this in a way that connects heart to heart, not brain to brain.
Whereas it, you know, NASA was like well, you know, our Rover is 20 faster on the gigahertz and it's like nobody cares right.
Apple, I feel like, is a very good example of this, right?
Like, AirPods is an example.
Like the advertising for AirPods.
They're just technically, they're just better than any other you know any like in-ear headphones product out there.
But the commercials are like the dance.
It focuses on the feeling right like what does it feel like to have these things not like here's the tech spec of why it's better?
Yeah, And as a result, I think if they were a standalone company, the market cap would be like I don't know, it's something crazy.
Just for the AirPods.
Just for the AirPods.
It's like $50 billion market cap just for the AirPods.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
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Yeah, it's such a... Hearing you say that is fascinating because I read a study years ago.
It was early days, but New York Times did a study on 7,000 pieces of viral content.
And the output was the...
7,000 pieces of viral content, they made people feel five things.
One of five things.
The first was adventure, which your content does all the time.
Humor, your content does that too. or comedy, obviously.
The third feeling was negativity.
The news, anger, rage.
Yours does not do that.
The fourth was inspiration.
So you felt inspired after watching it.
And the fifth was surprise.
And so those were the five emotions and they were all feelings.
And I always share that with people because I'm like, Your content's trying to teach me something.
It's trying to tell me something.
And you're talking about adding value.
But when you're trying to add value, you're not making me feel anything.
And it's what you were saying about hiding the vegetables.
It's like if you're making people feel entertained, then you're learning about engineering and process and design and everything.
But if I'm like I'm going to teach you engineering now, I'm feeling bored and that's not on the top five list.
And so I'm not feeling anything.
I wanted to ask you about...
I want to get tactical with you because you're also a YouTube creative genius.
It's like, what was the journey from zero to a thousand subscribers?
What does that look like for someone if someone's trying to do that as stage one?
There's a lot of really good reasons to start a YouTube channel or to be creative.
There's only two bad ones.
Tell us.
To get rich and to get famous.
And I think that's like the mistake a lot of people, especially now that you know you can get rich and famous.
And...
I think we both started in this game, it just wasn't the same.
You didn't realize that was it, right?
Our passion was like, we love this, right?
I thought it was going to be, I thought I was going to, because I was a consultant at the time.
So I was at Accenture.
Yeah.
I thought I was going to be a consultant by day and just upload videos by night and weekends because I was like this is a fun hobby.
It was, it was just a creative outlet for me.
I was like, I was doing live events, teaching wisdom and teaching classes and meditation.
And I would teach at my local gym.
I would teach at my local college, whatever.
And I loved it, but I was like, oh, I'd like to share that with more people.
I'll just upload some videos.
And yeah, I had no idea that any of this would ever happen.
So, and yeah, we started, I started 2016, you started 2011.
Yeah, but ultimately, I mean, like to your point, like-
It takes forever to get a thousand subscribers.
And so I think the trick is just to make content, just to do it.
Don't overthink it.
The temptation is you want to make the perfect thing.
And again, going back to an engineer, You build prototypes.
The biggest mistake when you want to make something is like, I want to build the final thing.
Any object in this room was not built.
This was not the final form.
This was not the initial version of this microphone.
Like it started very simply and then it iterated, iterated.
And so it's the same thing with like creating content or making thing or trying anything like set a low bar.
You know, I like to say like, make your goal. to fail 10 times, like flip it, make the goal.
Like I want to make 10 videos.
And my goal is that they don't get more than a hundred views.
In a sense of like, don't make your metric, but I'm not rich yet.
And I'm not famous yet.
Therefore I'm a failure.
Like make your met, like destigmatize the failure and just go for it and make that.
So make the goal.
You know, maybe a better way to say is make the goal to just upload 10 videos in 10 weeks.
That's my goal.
I don't care about metric.
I don't care about views.
And you will learn so much more through that by then.
And then iterating and seeing what worked back to a video game.
Okay.
I said this thing, I started this way.
Aha.
The algorithm seemed to really like that, you know, and that's what the audience wants.
So now I'm going to lean into that.
Right.
So it was like, just gamify it in that sense and it will be great.
Don't do it to be on retrofamous.
Yeah, it's great advice.
I remember i got to.
I got my first thousand subscribers in a month on youtube And I was over the moon.
Like I was so excited.
I couldn't believe it.
Like I was.
Like this is I'd never stood in front of a.
I'd maybe done one talk, which was a work event, which had a thousand people in the audience, but I'd never done my own event with a thousand people.
I'd mostly, if I'd done my own event, maybe 50 was the most I'd ever had in my own live events.
I thought a thousand subscribers, this is insane.
And I remember saying it to my friends and they were like, Yeah, it's probably cool.
Like, you know, good for you.
Like you know, and it felt like a failure, because to them, not to me, because they were just like oh, it's a thousand.
Like, I guess it's going to, you know, net out here.
And it was just so interesting for me to see like, oh, it was good.
I didn't feel that way because I would have stopped.
But a thousand to me was a huge win.
What's the difference between getting from a thousand to a hundred thousand?
Like what is changing in skillset, mindset, ability?
You start to get like a process down.
You start to be able to figure out your own voice.
I think from about 10,000 to 100,000 subscribers, you start to understand who you are.
And a good place to start, by the way, is just copying other channels that you like.
Don't be ashamed at the beginning just to copy someone else's style.
And you know, if you don't know where to start, if you don't have something, and you'll start doing it, and you'll try something one time and it works and it sticks, and then you, you know, you start to find what your own voice is.
You've only ever, you said you've only ever made one video a month.
How did you not get sucked in to the landscape when it was like people were making a video a day?
People were making three videos a week.
How did you stay true to?
Was it just that your creative vision was so big that you could only ever do one a month?
Partly that.
And just like, again, I wasn't doing it to chase the views and you're absolutely right.
There was a time in the YouTube algorithm where daily vlogs is how you got all the views.
And I said, great, like great for everyone else.
Like, I am enjoying it this way.
This is what I like.
This is like the pace I'm comfortable with.
Like I'm very protective.
I'm very good at saying no.
Like that's my superpower.
And just like, I can have that restraint.
And I've got a nice, comfortable jogging pace on my treadmill, and I'm going to stick with that.
And even today, good at saying no.
What was the hardest thing you ever said no to.
You know, early on there was some opportunities to do some like discovery channel shows that I would have loved as a kid.
But then it's like when I had everything else going on, like, I don't know.
You just get opportunities that come by that you don't, it's almost not hard to say no.
Cause it's like, unless it's an absolute hell yes, I don't even consider it.
Right.
And I think that is, that can be a superpower is like laser focus.
Like.
I don't often like pick something that I'm just like, I'm on it.
But like, if I do choose something that it's like I want it, like I can be like a pit on it, where it's just like I will not fail.
I don't know.
At some point, if it's not working, you need to pivot.
And I do, but it's like I just get so obsessed with accomplishing the thing that I can just exclude everything else.
So I don't have this temptation of like, I'm going to try this, I'm going to try this, I'm going to try this, I'm going to try this.
And now you're just diluted across the board, right?
Because that applies not even for business, but in your relationships, right?
In life.
If you are stretching yourself thin...
I'd much rather give five people in my life very deep depth and have that richness of human connection than to spread that thin across 50.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's almost like there's the experimenting phase where you're trying lots of things out, but then, when you know who you are and you know your voice and you know what you're building, you've got to stick to that.
And, and it, and it does make all the difference and you've got to know when to let something go.
Like the The videos I used to make on Facebook when I first started as a creator, I don't make them anymore.
And it's not because they weren't amazing and they didn't change my life.
It's just, that's not who I wanted to be forever.
And they would have been really successful now if I carried on making them, but I wouldn't have felt happy.
And so I chose what I wanted to do, which was this and telling stories in a certain way that's allowed my life to also be fulfilling as well as successful, rather than keeping.
Keep doing something because the algorithm wants it.
That's right.
And it doesn't, that gets really dry.
It gets really tiring, I think, and creators get burnt out chasing the algorithm which I think we've both seen probably a lot of.
Yeah, I think that's right.
I think when you crank up that treadmill speed to a sprint pace, that's exciting at first.
And it's like whoa.
All these opportunities are coming, but the dopamine wears off and you're still sprinting.
And to me, that's the definition of burnout.
When you're not getting the positive feedback and you're really, really going for it.
So to the extent that you could just keep your treadmill at a jogging speed in creating and in life, I think.
That's the power of saying no.
And being okay with saying no and not feeling guilty about it.
What was the, I'm looking at your most popular videos and obviously world's largest jello pool.
Can you swim in jello?
203 million views six years ago.
That video, what went wrong trying to get that video?
I lost 10 pounds making that video.
I'm not kidding.
Because... because when I get stressed, I don't eat it.
We were making it in my brother's backyard because to make Jell-O.
No one's ever done this on the internet, by the way.
To this day, I'm the only person who'd ever made like an actual Jell-O pool, because Jell-O, as you know, you have to get it really cold.
You got to, first of all, boil it.
And then it's got to put it in the refrigerator.
Right?
So we had like six, you know 55 gallon drums that we boiled jello and basically drained it in this pool that we'd we'd built, and And then he lived in Utah.
So it was like the perfect temperature.
It didn't freeze overnight, but got cold enough.
And so it took a full week and it failed eight different ways.
And we'd have to tweak and change it.
A storm came, we're covering it with a tarp.
But eventually we got that money shot of like a kid belly flopping on this pool of jello and, like me, swimming in it.
And it felt really good.
That's like, I've actually, it turns out it's a very technically.
Difficult problem.
Again, my naive optimism was like, oh, I got this.
I can do this, right?
Yeah.
And it was very, very tricky, but we pulled it off.
What was the hidden vegetable in the egg?
Drop from space video 140 million views two years ago.
Like what was the?
What was the hidden vegetable there?
Yeah, there again.
That video had so many failures in it jay, like we tried originally to put a a, a basically a model rocket on a hot air balloon or on a weather balloon and then guide it over a mattress where it would let go and drop the egg on the mattress.
We tried that three different times and this was costing me like 30,000 times a drop.
And eventually I called up one of my buddies at NASA.
He's the lead when we try and land something on another planet.
And I was like, Adam, how do we do this?
And he's like, oh, what you're trying to do is create create a guided missile.
And there's like a hundred people in the United States who know how to do that.
And they've all signed a very large stack of papers saying they won't tell anyone.
So we're like, oh, we shouldn't try and guide this rocket down then.
Well, let's go a hundred thousand feet up, you know, basically to space. drop this thing.
And then we landed it like the Mars Rover.
So in that video, we learned about terminal velocity and we learned about like space environments.
I love how you were bugging a NASA friend.
Yeah, dealing with like solving, like discovery.
And It's literally the man who like, invented how you land on Mars.
Yeah.
And it's like my phone of friend.
You're like, can you... teach me how to drop an egg on a mattress.
And he was like, yeah, no, that's called a missile.
That's amazing.
Well, who have you met through doing all of this work that you've just been so like, you've learned from or you've been inspired by, or someone that you met through this crazy journey that you've been on that has kind of left a mark on you, or someone that you always looked forward to getting to know and you've got to meet?
Yeah, I would say...
I don't know, weirdly, like a mentor for me actually has been Jimmy Kimmel.
Like you know, he saw one of my videos like a decade ago and said we should get this guy on the show.
And his staff was like, after like one or two times going to show that he really likes you.
And I'm like, you say that to everyone, but like the fourth time I was like, I think he does really.
And so now he's like, uh, he, it was his idea even to start.
Crunch Labs, the company, because people will tell me all the time, like, you need to do a podcast.
You need to write a book.
You need to go on tour.
And when I double click on it because again, I'm good at saying no it always came back to like oh so you can make more money.
That's like, oh good, great news, i don't spend a lot of money, so i've got enough money, i don't need to do that.
Right?
And his point was like yeah, but you could reach more brains deeper.
And and that's the idea, with crunch labs, it's like you're in the trenches.
You're not just passively watching a video, it's a really fun toy and you're in the trenches and you get them every month.
And he was totally right.
Like the noun of letters we get from parents saying like this has changed the way my kids sees the world, sees themselves right.
They love it.
They go out to the mailbox every month waiting for it to come.
Makes a great Christmas present, by the way, Jay.
There we go.
Makes a great Christmas present.
Yeah, I was about to say.
No, it sounds like the perfect gift.
I mean, I think I'll have to, I'm going to get some for my niece and nephew.
Okay.
Yeah, I think they'll love it because I can see my nephew's like 10 years old.
And his brain's like that.
Like he wants to build stuff.
He wants to break stuff.
He wants to figure things out.
My niece is more into like Gabby's Dollhouse and stuff like that.
Well, the good news, Jay, it's funny you mention that.
No, have you got a Gabby's Dollhouse, man?
More or less.
It's called Creative Kit.
So what I do is creative engineering.
The engineering part we've got covered.
Build boxes, the toys I was saying, and then we have like a robotics one.
But like the creative part, we'd never, so we like studied what creativity is.
And now there's a version called creative kit that it's like six years old and up.
And it's a little bit of a Trojan horse to get more girls in STEM, but also it's for boys as well.
But they get a whirl every month.
It's a different part of a little town they build.
And the important part is like, it's within guide rails.
If you tell a kid, give them a piece of paper and say, come up, you know, draw something.
They're like uh, but if you say like, draw an animal doing something, really doing their hobby, you know, in a place you wouldn't expect.
Well, now they have like a seed, right?
So it's this idea of, like the first one's a tree house, but then you name it's a little animal's friend that comes with it.
And then we're getting that within guidelines to think really creatively.
And what this research shows.
You could watch these alpha brainwaves in your is.
The more time you spend in this space, the easier it is to do it.
So it's just like a muscle that you develop.
So it's basically giving kids time in this space to be more creative.
Did you always want your work and your products to help kids?
Like, was that the goal for the YouTube channel from day one?
Was it like, I want to help young people Figure out, young kids figure out.
I don't think so, to be completely honest.
Like, I think it was more just like, I love sharing ideas.
Like, I love the aha moment when you learn something new.
And I love even more is like giving that to someone else.
Like here's something I was just talking about with my partner the other day, which is such a cool thing to do.
I don't know if you've ever done this.
If you're ever laying underneath a tree and you just look up or anything, where there's like a bunch of little things and you close one eye And all the leaves feel like they're kind of, or branches kind of feel like they're at the same plane.
Because with one eye, you don't have three-dimensional, you know, 3D.
But when you open both eyes and realize like oh, now I know which leaf is in front of me and which one is farther.
Like if you've never done this, you should do it.
And it's remarkable.
And it's immediately just like a teachable moment that shows like oh, like our brain, because the right eye is a little bit different from what the left eye sees.
The brain does all this incredible math to tell you how far and close something is.
And just to get that moment.
And then now, once you know that you're like wait with animals, I have noticed like predators a hawk or a lion, they have eyes on the front of their face so that they could see three-dimensional.
But generally speaking, if you're a prey, a zebra or deer, your eyes are on the side.
They don't have the depth perception, but now...
They can avoid the thing that has three dimensions that's trying to get them, right?
There's this idea like when you just learn something cool like that, just that nugget, and now you've updated your framework for the natural world around you is so exciting and beautiful and addictive to me.
And I love to give that to other people.
And what I found, I especially love, to give that to the young folks.
What are you doing to constantly learn things like that?
Like where are you coming across statistics facts, human behavior, animal?
Like where are you exposed to this?
Where are you finding it, and discovering it in a way that's helping you feel like you're always on the cusp of something cool.
Everywhere.
Truly.
Like I think the answer to this question I think what you're driving at is it kind of starts with a curiosity, right?
And observing.
And being like, even if there's like a weird...
On the side of a building or something, it's like a pipe that comes out.
I'm like, what?
Why is that pipe there?
Like, I've never seen a pipe come out there on a building.
And it'll drive me crazy, to be honest.
And I have to figure it out.
But the step one with the scientific method too is just observation, right?
The most interesting thing to hear in science isn't like Eureka, like I found it.
The most interesting thing in science to hear, like the one thing you want to hear is like that's interesting.
Hold on a second right.
Like that wasn't expected.
Let me double click on that and see what's going on there.
So I think part of learning a bunch is just having a curiosity mind, just asking the question.
Yes, yes.
And I think that's what I try and do is like, I am a fire starter.
My videos are not going to teach you everything you need to know about the natural world.
But like, what I can do is I can like, I can, I'm a fire start.
I'll start that fire in their brain.
And then they get addicted to this feeling, right?
I'm like the gateway drug dealer to this aha feeling.
And then they want to go out and learn more.
Right.
And like that.
That's beautiful.
And that's a gift that you can give someone that will last their whole life long.
How do you come up with creative ideas having made a video a month for 10 years?
Yeah.
How are you coming up with new ideas? what's your creative process?
Do you sit down in a room, lock away?
Are you on your laptop?
Are you talking to people?
Are you with a team?
What's your process?
Can I tell you one that you bleep out on this, but you could play it.
But then I want your reaction on camera.
Yeah.
That's so good.
That's so good.
That's so good.
I love that.
Is that not so good?
Why do I have to bleep that out?
I love that.
No, because I don't want someone to steal it.
Oh, right.
Oh, yes.
It's such a simple thing.
I could tell you it.
You're like...
Yeah, I love it.
Want to know what that is, right?
That is amazing.
It's so good.
That's so good.
So it's just like when I can get that reaction.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The ideas list is long.
I always thought you'd run out of ideas, but it's like...
It has to be a hell yes.
It has to be a hell yes.
But I always tend to have like a year and a half worth of ideas.
We have every single video we're making in 2026 already planned out and in process.
So you're never trying to react to what's happening in the world?
Yours is evergreen content.
Evergreen.
Never.
I want it to be evergreen.
Yeah, you're not trying to react to like, everyone loves AI right now, so we're going to do AI.
Everyone loves robotics.
So we're doing right.
We can't I mean all the videos now cost.
We don't do a video that costs less than half a million dollars.
Wow.
Right.
Every video is 500.
Yeah.
Because we're just like, you know, we're doing stuff that's never been done before.
So there's like a lot of R&D that goes into making a soccer robot that moves at 80 miles an hour.
That's probably the best goalkeeper that Ronaldo's ever faced in his life.
For sure it is, yeah.
That's crazy.
I can't wait to see that video.
It's funny, he's very competitive.
Of course.
I have obsessed over Ronaldo since I was 15 years old because I was a United fan.
So when he came to United when he was 17, I've been a big fan for like 23 years.
So watching I know how competitive he is and I'm like watching him fail is going to be an interesting uh.
His team warned us.
They're like he doesn't in the end, like there was a way that we kind of had a built-in weakness he could exploit.
Yeah, and he did a pretty good job finding it.
But between you and me jay, We made sure there was a weakness.
Now all you have to do is create robots that look like humans, that are designed like your eight mile per hour goalkeeper, and sell them to these teams.
That's the next thing.
Can you pull off selling an AI... computer to Barcelona or Real Madrid.
That's a banger idea.
That would be amazing.
What do you get when you mix 1950s Hollywood, a Cuban musician with a dream and one of the most iconic sitcoms of all time?
You get Desi Arnaz a trailblazer, a businessman, a husband and, maybe most importantly, the first Latino to break primetime wide open.
I'm Wilmer Valderrama and yes, I grew up watching him, probably just like you and millions of others.
But for me, I saw myself in his story.
From cleaning canary cages to this night here in New York, it's a long ways.
And what that meant for all of us watching from the sidelines, waiting for a face like ours on screen.
This is the story of how One Man Spotlight, led the path, or so many others, and how we carry his legacy today.
Listen to, Starring Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey there, Dr. Jesse Mills here.
I'm the director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health.
And I want to tell you about my new podcast called The Mailroom.
And I'm Jordan, the show's producer.
And like a lot of guys, I haven't been to the doctor in many years.
I'll be asking the questions we probably should be asking, but aren't.
Because guys usually don't go to the doctor unless a piece of their face is hanging off or they've broken a bone.
Depends which bone.
Well, that's true.
Every week, we're breaking down the unique world of men's health, from testosterone and fitness to diets and fertility and things that happen in the bedrooms.
It's going to be fun, whether you're 27, 97, or somewhere in between.
Men's Health is about more than six packs and supplements.
It's about energy, confidence, and connection.
We don't just want you to live longer.
We want you to live better.
So check out the mailroom, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite shows.
And some of you may know me as Laura Winslow and I'm Thelma, also known as Aunt Rachel.
If those names ring a bell, then you probably are familiar with the show that we were both on back in the 90s called Family Matters.
Kelly and I have done a lot of things and played a lot of roles over the years, but both of us are just so proud to have been part of Family Matters.
Did you know that we are one of the longest running sitcoms with a black cast?
When we were making the show, there were so many moments filled with joy and laughter and cut up that I will never forget.
Oh, girl, you got that right.
The look that you all give me is so black.
All black people know about the look.
On each episode of Welcome to the Family, we'll share personal reflections about making the show.
Yeah, we'll even bring in part of the cast and some other special guests to join in the fun and spill some tea.
Listen to Welcome to the Family with Telma and Kelly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
So what's the creative process then?
Now you planned out that far ahead.
I love the idea you just gave me that will bleep out, but obviously that one makes sense.
And you're like, the thing about good ideas is when you hear them, you go, of course.
Yeah.
Coming up with it is not that easy.
Yeah, I would say, and I don't have a good answer for this.
No, but except to say, because I get asked this a lot, right?
It's like, I think it goes back to just like, my brain is always on, right?
The inspiration for ideas can come, You know, and it's just from a conversation I'm having with someone, or I just read something on Reddit, or I'm driving down the freeway and I'm like hold on.
Or I did this, you know, I'll give you two examples.
One.
I did this obstacle course for squirrels in my backyard.
That's kind of popular on the channel right around COVID.
And I was, you know, they were stealing my bird seeder.
So it's like, all right, but they were stealing my bird seed.
So I was like, you know what?
I'm going to make them earn it.
So I made an eight-part Ninja Warrior obstacle course and put the bird seat at the end.
And sure enough, they solved it.
It was very entertaining, but the idea for that came from me just laying in bed and just hearing them on the roof and knowing they were stealing my bird seat.
I was like, hold on.
I just do like man versus animal engineer versus animal or another one.
I made this glitter bomb series where like someone legitimately stole a package from my porch.
I felt really sad.
It was a sliding green shell and super Mario brothers.
It stung.
And then I was like, hold on a second.
Like if anyone could do something about these porch pirate punks.
It's like I'll put a Rover on Mars.
I could design something.
So then it's like four phones, cup of glitter.
We track it.
There's fart spray.
It's like a whole thing.
Right.
Yeah.
And eventually that one took us all the way to.
We shut down like three scam call centers in India by tracking them down and glitter, bombing them and doing all these other pranks and then putting that video out in the world.
It gets 100 million views with like a bright spotlight and and we shut them down.
So it's like Again I couldn't have predicted you would land there.
But if you just follow the natural steps, it just happens.
Was there a video that you did, but you did it because you just had to put something out and you're like it's a terrible idea, but then it turned out to be amazing.
Yeah, I did a video on bed bugs.
Because I just thought they're fascinating.
Like, what is up with bedbugs?
They like suck human blood.
And if you see bedbugs, they have to be fed like every three days.
If you see a bedbug in your house, that means they fed on you.
All they can eat is blood.
And so it's like, there's just a lot about them that's fascinating.
And my team was like, this is going to kill the channel.
No, one's going to watch this.
And I was just so curious about it.
Right.
So I just went down the rabbit hole deep.
And it turned out to be like, I think, an interesting piece of content that has like, I think, 80 million views or something.
Wow.
So I think if you just approach it with curiosity and legitimately like...
You know, I don't pre-write my videos.
If I have an idea, I go learn about it.
And then once we have the footage, it's like, all right, what's the story here?
And I think if you have the right attitude, there's always a really cool story to find.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
What's...
What's a question that you still don't have the answer to, but you can't stop thinking about?
Do you ever get into that loop of like, I wish I understood how this worked?
I don't know.
There's like kind of unanswerable questions like, where is all the life in the universe?
Like if life exists here, especially if so NASA's.
There's a moon called Enceladus in our solar system that has a molten lava core and the outside is ice right.
Water, water, frozen water.
So somewhere between the molten lava core and that surface, there's a 70-degree ocean.
It's warm.
It's water.
That's where life formed.
We know that's where life formed on this planet.
So NASA's building a probe to go out there, essentially.
We're going to drill through the ice.
We're going to put a submarine down there and basically see what eats it, right?
And if something is there for life to exist twice in our own solar system, kind of independently, then it's like where is all the?
– rest of life in this huge huge, huge universe, right?
There's, I think something like there's a million times more stars than there are grains of sand on the whole planet.
The bottom of the ocean.
I mean, think about the last time you picked up a handful of sand.
Every one of those sand pieces represents a million stars.
I'm talking bottom of the ocean.
How unfathomable.
That's bizarre.
That is completely unfathomable.
It's unfathomable.
So, but then, like it's called Fermi's paradox, but there's a few hypotheses of like.
Well then, why don't we see other signs of life in the universe?
And it's a very fat, if you want a fascinating rabbit hole.
Look up Fermi's paradox.
What have you learned so far?
Is it that life form looks different?
We can't see it?
Well, we don't know, but some of the hypotheses on why we don't know is it could be there's like super predator civilization.
There's super predator organisms out there that as soon as you get past a certain point, then like okay, now this is a problem.
We're going to go take care of these people.
So they extinguish life if it gets too high because it could be a threat.
It could be another one is like intelligences get to a glass ceiling where they destroy themselves.
When you have the energy that can take you to interstellar to another system well, you could probably use that energy on yourself, and you know, when we, a lot of organisms, fight each other, And you know, that could be a pretty darn good thing for us to be looking at as a civilization ourselves, right?
Like where you just get too hard and then it just, it collapses in on itself is another hypothesis.
One is like they know about us but we're kind of like an endangered species, like an unconquered tribe in the Amazon.
So they're like, shh, just like leave them alone.
We're like, so basically in a zoo over here, right?
So there's all these like really fun hypotheses on what could be the explanation as to why.
That's good.
That's what keeps you up at night.
Yeah, I think it's a fun, those kind of things are like fun to think about.
Yeah, absolutely.
But next time you are near sand, truly, think of me, Jay.
Take a scoop of that sand and just look at how many grains of sand.
That each one of those is a star with planets.
Like the potential.
I don't know.
That's just such a.
It breaks your brain but it's such a beautiful thought of like the potential of life.
You've not been to space yet, right?
Not yet.
Not yet.
Okay.
Not yet.
There's some plans on the horizon.
You'll go to space too.
Like, I think it's going to come pretty commonplace.
Like you can get to Australia in like, I think 90 minutes through space.
So there's a financial incentive to travel quickly.
To travel quickly.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
90 minutes to Australia from LA.
Yeah.
Wow.
You basically just go up.
Yeah.
Go over fast and the earth also moves a little bit and you come back down.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
90 minutes.
Yeah.
Has someone done that yet?
Uh, no, but like that, that's the math, right?
I mean, we don't have the ability.
Southwest for space hasn't been invented, but like essentially that Wherever there's a lot of financial incentive to do a thing, innovation will be placed towards that.
What do you get excited about with what's happening with technology, with AI?
Is there anything that you get super excited about right now?
And what do you get scared about on the other end or things you get worried about?
There's a famous sort of one of the early thinkers and this in 2015 I was talking with all my buddies about this, about AI.
Nick Bostrom wrote this book about super intelligence and his beginning analogy to the book is like imagine there's some sparrows and they find the egg of an owl.
Just so you know, owls eat sparrows, right.
So we're all clear.
Then they're like, Hey, we're going to raise this owl.
We're going to put, raise them in our nest and it's going to love us.
And then we'll can use the owl to like go hunt for us.
We're going to use the owl to do, you know, all these things that would be really useful.
And yeah, Of course, if you just carry that, if that actually happens, the owl is born thanks to the sparrows for incubating it, but it doesn't end well for the sparrows.
That's a real concern.
I share that concern with a lot of people that could be an outcome of AI.
I do think the best case scenario, though I think there are some upsides where it's like it solves a lot of the scarcity thing.
A lot of the wars and terrible things that have happened in our history of civilization is the scarcity thing.
So if unlimited energy and resources and stuff and something that helps allocate those resources, that could be good right.
It could reduce human suffering a lot.
So...
I mean, nobody really knows, Jay.
I don't know.
I'm curious where you land on this.
The question I get a lot is, do I think AI will ever have a soul?
And my response is, I don't know if AI will ever have a soul.
I just hope the people building it have a soul because ultimately to me it's the Frankenstein piece of anything we make becomes us.
And there's a part of us that's within it.
And so if we're scared of an ability that humans have, then we'll be scared of the more bigger, powerful thing that we create that has more of it in it.
And so to me it's more about.
Again, I think we've, I think There's that beautiful statement by Mark Twain where he said that history never repeats itself, but it always rhymes.
And I think we've had enough experiences in history with technology.
Like, let's take social media, for example.
It started... we didn't really care about how it was going to affect us, everyone had it, and now we're talking about mental health, kids, phones, not just social media, phones, technology early on in life, right?
And it's like, we know that that's how everything goes.
So scaremongering doesn't work because AI is here to stay.
It's not disappearing tomorrow.
So trying to scare everyone from it is not going to help because it's going to be here.
So I don't love the fear factor piece because it doesn't solve the problem.
But the fear factor piece should lead us to being more informed and prepared, for what do we do about it when so?
For example, hindsight is 2020.
If we could go back to 2004, when Facebook was created, and YouTube in 2010 or 2009,
Yeah, I think they acquired it in...
2008 or something.
Yeah.
Google.
Yeah.
So, yeah, yeah.
So you have all of that.
And then, but my point's like, if you could go back then and go, okay, let's make some guardrails.
Kids shouldn't be allowed a phone by this age. social media should have verified access.
I don't know, I'm making up things right now.
But the point is, how do you prepare for the things that are to come rather than go?
All right, we'll just deal with the whole fact that generations have mental health issues now, and now we're dealing with the reactive way.
I think humans are... we kind of set ourselves up for failure every time.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just so hard without the evidence, right.
To convince someone at Facebook where the money's to be made.
Right.
Like I mean I completely agree with you, but like there's just so many unknowns unknowns, um Yeah, it's like how do you not?
It's not about reducing innovation or doing something.
It's how do we protect the vulnerable?
And so if we're saying that kids under a certain age are vulnerable to X Y, Z in the same way as you know, like cigarettes or alcohol or you know whatever it is, it's like we agree.
We all agreed that until this point, your brain is not developed yet.
What should we allow and not allow?
Kids are watching you, they're having the best time ever.
It's amazing, I wish more people were watching you.
But how do you regulate the things that are not doing what you're doing?
I would say though, I think for people listening, I think it could feel very doomsday.
You hear really scary things.
And it's like, at the end of the day, it's such a life hack to just control what's in your sphere of influence.
Yeah, of course.
And it's like, I think...
When I get like that and I get nervous, it's like well, what can I do to move the needle in my own sphere of influence?
I'm not creating an AI company, so it's a little bit out of my hands in that sense, but it's like...
Well, I think you I mean, I was going to bring this up anyway and it connects to what you're saying right now.
I mean, I know you and Jimmy have partnered multiple times to do incredible things for our planet, but thank you for being just such.
You know, whenever people are like, we made the right people famous.
I'm like, yeah, we did.
Like, you know, it's, It's amazing to see you guys using your platform to do the thing that inspiring all these kids and families and parents and young, it's all young people that are following, you know, both of you and for you to galvanize, whether it's, and, you know, all the guys who are in this space and all the biggest creators and celebrities jumping in.
And, you know, I think this year you raised, what, 40 million?
40 million.
Yeah.
So the first year we did, this is Mr. Beast and I, right?
We did Team Tree.
So we did 20 million. to plant 20 million trees.
And then a few years later, we did Team Water.
That's $30 million.
That was cleaning up the beaches.
30 million pounds of trash from the oceans.
And then this year, the audacious goal of 40 million, to give 2 million people clean drinking water for decades.
And we did it.
But what's the cool thing about that, Jay, is the median donation was like $5.
That's amazing.
So that's tooth fairy money.
That's bake sale money. right?
There were some big donors in there, but like on average, it was $5.
And what's so cool about that is then you know they're thinking like global citizens now, like they could have spent that on 5 on candy, on Pokemon cards, but they spend it on someone else to get clean drinking water for five years.
Again kind of planting seeds, like someone who now thinks that way, who you know picks up trash now because they see it, because they're on Team Seas right.
They don't litter.
They take care of the environment because they're on team trees.
That kind of impact.
This is why I love working with young people.
It's the same thing with going to another planet.
The trajectory you have.
In fact there's motors we have on these planets, on these spacecraft.
We call them mouse fart motors, where it's like it's the tiniest little poof, because that difference in trajectory, 90 million miles away, is the difference of hitting a planet and missing by 100 million miles right.
So it's like, The same I feel like is sort of with life.
And this is why I love young folks.
The clay isn't hardened yet.
And so they're impressionable.
And at that age, I think we've evolved to think our parents are dumb.
So you leave the tribe.
That's in our brain.
So to be a voice that can be there, to be like Hey, you know, to guide in a way that even parents can't because they're willing to listen to me, is kind of a big responsibility.
And one that I love opportunities to flex that muscle.
I love that, man.
It's amazing.
It's incredible watching you both do it.
And the fact that you keep taking on a bigger challenge every year and killing it is amazing.
Yeah, it's setting such a beautiful example.
It's awesome to see. you guys could be doing anything as well.
And to see you both focus on meaningful challenges in the world and issues in the world and helping galvanize so many.
Yeah, that's it.
Galvanize a bunch of other creators.
I mean, at the end of the day, it only works because so many creators join in.
I mean, but you guys spearheading it.
No, for sure.
I love that you get everyone involved, but... you need a couple of people to spearhead it.
And you guys do an amazing job of that.
So Mark, it's been amazing getting to know you more.
It's been, I feel like I've, I've laughed.
I've nearly cried.
You definitely got me thinking and you definitely got me Even.
Just What I love is when you meet someone in this format, where they're not on screen in their world and you totally have an infectious energy about the world and curiosity and science.
And like, you got me excited.
Like, I'm like, I need to be reading more of what you're doing.
And that's the best feeling for me where I'm like oh no, you live, you breathe it, you sleep it.
It's who you are.
And then when someone's around you, it's like I'm inspired by everything you're fascinated by.
You know spark, as you were saying, like lighting a fire.
I love to hear it.
You've done that for me.
That's my favorite thing.
I love that feeling.
I love giving that feeling to others.
So thank you for the time.
Yeah.
Mark, I end every episode of On Purpose with a final five.
We ask these to every guest.
The questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.
So Mark Rober, these are your final five.
Question number one is what's the best advice you've ever heard or received?
This two shot pass like which is like it's it.
It will get easier, but also you're not as good as if you're.
If things are awesome, like it will come back down as well.
So the regression to the mean, I have to answer in like a sentence.
That's fine.
Yeah.
Sentence.
Uh, question number two what's the worst advice you ever heard or received?
Like don't go to bed angry, like you're just the idea, like go to bed, just go to bed.
You're an emotional mind frame, like let it pass with anything, not even with the partner, just like let it pass and hit it when you're not thinking with your lizard brain.
Yeah Yeah, it's true.
Actually, yeah.
And also sleep is good for you.
So if you're going to stay up angry, it's like probably not going to help.
Question number three, what's something you learned recently that blew your mind?
That spiders legs are hydraulic. which is why I didn't know that.
Yeah.
This is why when they die, they're curled up.
It's because there's no more pressure in the system.
Basically they put fluid into it.
So you can actually take a syringe and put it into a spider's back and put air into it and their legs will open and expand.
More you know, Jay.
I know, I know.
What's something you've recently learned about yourself?
Question number four.
That, like if I'm having a thought that's not productive, like rumination, or like perseverating on a thing, I want to think it away and you aren't your thoughts.
Like your mind is the sky, not the weather.
And if you just don't give it life, like it'll pass and you don't have to think about it.
Right.
Yeah.
That's hard to do, but like I mean you know this with meditation, like you know this better than anyone.
As an engineer, I had to learn this, you know, on my own.
Yeah no, it's a beautiful thing to remember though, that Don't believe everything you think and your thoughts are not true.
And absolutely, you're the sky, not the clouds.
And yeah, no, beautiful.
Fifth and final question we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show.
If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
Apart from buy Crunch Labs for Christmas.
Before you can share a piece of social media information that makes you angry, you have to explain what a reasonable, thoughtful person on the other side of that argument would say.
Oh, that's good.
And if you can do that and put that into the prompt, then you're allowed to hit share.
That's good.
I think that would solve like 99% of the world's problems.
I love that.
I was giving a presentation recently, Kerry Washington invited me to speak at her day of unreasonable conversations, which is all about sparking better conversation.
And I had to do a presentation on how do we have healthier conversations online?
There was a statistic.
I did some research that found that when people had to read before they retweet, it dropped shares by up to 70.
Because people don't read what they share.
So you're going even one step further to comprehend and to actually understand a different perspective.
But even read before retweet, it just dropped shares, you know?
And so, yeah, I love your law.
It's a great one.
It's a really, really great one because-
Yeah, it would change so much.
Mark, it has been amazing talking to you today.
For the two people who have never seen a Mark Rober video, make sure you go subscribe to Mark's channels.
I am definitely getting... uh, some of the gifts for my crunch labs.
I'm, I am definitely getting some of the crunch labs for my niece and nephew this Christmas.
I think they're going to love it.
I can't wait.
And uh Mark, thank you for so much for how you show up your creativity, coming on the show today and sharing so openly and vulnerably.
And I look forward to getting to know you better, man.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me, Jay.
This was awesome.
Thank you.
If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more.
I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success and the secret to genuinely loving what you do.
If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you.
Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value.
Like as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value.
That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it.
What up, y'all?
It's your boy Kev on stage.
I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Moment, where I talk to artists athletes entertainers creators friends, people I admire who had massive success, about their massive failures.
What did they mess up on?
What is their heartbreak?
And what did they learn from it?
I got judged horribly.
The judges were like, you're trash.
I don't know how you got on the show.
Check out Not My Best Moment with me Kev on stage on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Jonathan Goldstein and on the new season of Heavyweight, And so I pointed the gun at him and said this isn't a joke.
A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old.
And a centenarian rediscovers a love...
How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again?
Hi, I'm Dani Shapiro.
We were in the car like a rolling stone came on and he said there's a line in there about your mother.
And I said, what?
What I would do if I didn't feel like I was being accepted is choose an identity that other people can't have.
I knew something had happened to me in the middle of the night, but I couldn't hold on to what had happened.
These are just a few of the moving and important stories on my 13th season of Family Secrets.
Listen to Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
