#32: TheTalentlessWriter - Dropping Out Of College, Having Faith In God, and Pursuing YouTube Full Time

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Hastings Harvest where I interview inspiring young minds, creatives, all types of people and try to harvest how they go about their craft. Today I'm joined by my good friend Demetri, the talentless writer. Well, we've never actually met in person, but we're great online friends. He actually reached out to me after he watched some of my YouTube videos and I think I saw that he had a check mark next to his YouTube channel name and that's the power of the check mark on YouTube and we started talking on Instagram and we've been friends for almost like a couple of years now online. So hopefully we actually meet in person, but this was a good first step to make this podcast and have a long conversation. If you don't know the talentless writer, he is an animation YouTuber with over 345 thousand subscribers. He's been making animation videos for about six years on his channel and he makes videos related to short story time and trending comedy topics. So in this podcast, we talk about how he actually got into self improvement and his whole journey with self help, why he dropped out of college and tried to become a game developer, the keys to his success on YouTube and also my success and how he created a cult of blue bird profile pictures on YouTube, which you might have seen already. If you want to follow him, he's just the talentless writer on both Instagram and YouTube with that all out of the way, enjoy the podcast and let's get into it. Dimitri, welcome to the Hastings Harvest. Thanks for being here. Thanks for doing this with me. I'm excited to get into the convo. First, let's tell the audience and myself because I don't even really remember how did we come into contact. I think you first found me and I don't remember how exactly you reached out to me or how that whole process went because we're quite different spectrums when it comes to YouTube content. How did that come to be? I found out about one of your videos, I forgot how long ago, probably a year ago maybe, and I just commented on the video and since I'm verified, you saw it and then I think I just followed you on Instagram and you followed me back and we just started talking. I've always been a fan of self-help stuff so that's how I found out about your stuff. I don't remember what the video specifically was that I first found out about you. I want to talk about how you got into self-development because I don't see that from YouTubers like you. I know you live with a lot of YouTubers right now who are in more so the comedy, space, more so animation. Are they also in the self-development? Is this a common thing for people who are not straight up in the self-development to occasionally watch self-development videos? How did you get into it? It's nothing not common. Most people that I know that are in my space aren't really into it. For me, it was because before YouTube, I was a programmer and I was just looking for ways to improve my life and better myself. I got super into it because of this thing called Secret Enterrage, I think it was called. I haven't heard of it. It's basically just like this form of entrepreneurs. So basically, I never had a mindset that I could become rich or do whatever I wanted in life. But I was on Instagram one day nine years ago when I first got my first smartphone. And I followed a lot of car pages on Instagram and then one day I saw like an ad on one of the car pages like, oh, do you want to know how people get these cars, follow Secret Enterrage? So I followed that account and like I bought their book or whatever and it was super eye-opening just like what's possible in the world. Because I always had like a very much so a scarcity mindset and I don't know, I just started after that, I just started doing more buying more self-help books, I guess, and watching a lot of videos and talks and stuff like that and I just got super into it. And it's still a part of my life today. I still watch like a lot of stuff based on self-development and read books occasionally. So yeah, it's definitely not something that's super common, but it's mainly because of my start as a programmer, I guess, yeah, and trying to build a business. Did you say it was like a car ad, or like you were looking at cars and saw something like, hey, you want to know how people get these cars? Yeah. That sounds like a total scam, but it seems like that book actually worked out, which is surprising because that sounds like some kind of low-push shit. Third circle theory, it was a pretty good book, but yeah, that was like the first self-help book I read and then after that I started buying a bunch more and just reading more shit and yeah, just because I really like looking at pictures of Lamborghinis, that's how I got into it. Yeah. The manifestation, you got to visualize it. Yeah, exactly. You have talked about, to me, that at one point you were thinking about starting a self-development YouTube channel. Like what was that going to be around what you're doing right now with animation? No. Did you have a completely different type of content planned on that? It would be different. Like you ever watched Fight Me Diocrity? Yes. Yeah, it would just be like that, or like I would just do recaps of books and do those same animations that all those channels use, just that kind of thing. Because I felt like if I did that, it would get me to read more books, it would give me some incentives to read more books, but I never did the idea because I felt like it wasn't really adding much as opposed to what other people are already doing, like Fight Me Diocrity and other channels. So I felt like it wasn't necessary to even do that. So I didn't know that you used to be a programmer before trying to do YouTube. What made you want to switch to that? Like what inspired you to become a YouTuber? Well, originally I became a programmer just to like make money. So I was learning how to code. I had a mobile game business that I was making. That wasn't doing very well. And the reason I started getting into programming was because before programming I wanted to be like a fucking DJ row. Really? Yeah. Why did that come from? DJ? Yeah. Like what? I just wanted to be like a music producer. Yeah. What piqued your interest in it? Like what? Oh, so like before I got into like super super into self-help, I remember I was watching a video of Hardwell performing at Tomorrowland that like big music festival and I was like damn like he looks so happy like why can't I be that happy? So I was like, you know what? I'm going to start fucking making house music and shit. Nice. That's why. How far did you get with it? Oh no, I never even I would just like open up FL studio and look at it and be like I don't know what's going on. I would do that every day. I wasn't even making anything. I was just like researching music theory, but I wasn't like actually making music. But eventually I read this book called Life Hacked and that book got me to I just I related to that book super hard and it got me to get into programming. So I stopped like trying to get into music and then I started programming I got into game development because that's what I really enjoyed doing when I was doing programming. And yeah eventually at that point is when I was in college and like after three weeks of college I dropped out like my first year of college after three years after three weeks I dropped out. And then for the entire rest of the year I was lying to my parents or pretending I was going to college but I wasn't I was just going to like the library and like writing up fucking ideas for different games. And then during that time I was like I really I'm not doing well with programming like I'm not making money and I'm not really enjoying it. So that's why I decided to switch over to YouTube because I was like a dream of mine since I was a little kid just to be a YouTuber mainly a runescape YouTuber but not doing animation instead. Oh yeah I have a hidden YouTube channel where I produced you runescape videos. Have I showed you that? I don't think so. Shout that out right here. You definitely should. People want to check that out. I think it is called Stings Space RS Vids. So Stings is just a reference to my last name Hastings. I don't really remember what my name was on runescape. I'm not sure it was entirely appropriate. So maybe I shouldn't have told people about that but I'm going to keep that in anyway. It doesn't matter. You tried out a bunch of different things as a kid and you dropped out of college it seems like you always knew to some extent that you wanted to take a different route in life. Where do you think that stems from in yourself? That was from just me hating working in the restaurant industry and just fucking I was like I need to do my own shit. I got to be my own boss. I got to make a shit ton of money on my own. I don't want to live this life anymore. So basically my past eight years of my life was me trying to reach that point of being able to do what I want to do for a living and after eight years this maybe past two months is when I finally came to fruition and I'm definitely not even close to being rich yet. I haven't even made six figures a year yet but it's definitely a step in the right direction but it's taken me a very long time to reach this point. For sure. I remember. when we first started DMing on Instagram and you were telling me like, oh yeah, right now I'm working in NYC and what was a pizza shop or something? - Yeah. - And I'm trying to do YouTube full time. Hopefully we get there one day and it's like now you're living in LA with other creators who, I don't know if you looked up to them, but I've certainly watched a lot of their videos and I admire them even though they aren't in my space. So it's really fucking dope to see how far you've come and see people's journey with that. I had a similar experience with realizing that I needed to get out of working for other people because I had worked in so many other restaurant industry jobs. I had worked as a busser, mostly buscers in several different restaurants. I was always the worst worker there and I don't think many of my coworkers ever liked me that much because of how awful I was at the job. Like when I, back then, I was definitely a completely different person. But also when I'm doing a job that I just really despise and don't like and the fact that I didn't have the mindset to push through challenges and be resilient, I just was like the worst worker you could think of. My very last bus job that I ever had was at this city club, which is like a country club in a city basically. And I remember like every 30 minutes I would go to the bathroom and like sit on the toilet and just play on my phone and like I can't, I can't do this for more than 30 minutes. I was the worst worker. And when people hear that, they're really surprised and I'm like, no, like I've had a big transformation with my mindset towards things. 'Cause even if I was required to do that these days, I think I would do a much better job, but still just that whole experience was like, I gotta get out of here. I cannot be working for someone else doing something. I don't like I need to make this work. - Yeah, you know, I was the opposite. I was a really hard worker, like I was a pretty good worker, but I just hated every second of it and I couldn't fucking stand it. - So tell the people who don't know what your YouTube channel is about. What are you doing on your YouTube channel? - So I mainly make like, it's all basically animation. I'll do like animated sketches based around trending topics and shit and just like video games, based around video games. And most of the stories about my life that I animate and I just do a rant that I have about like either work or school or life in general. Just mainly comedy shit. - How did you learn how to animate? - From YouTube, just looking up tutorials on YouTube. I mean, my shit is super simple. It's so crudely drawn and it took me a while to learn it, but I just learned everything through YouTube for free. - Yeah. And how has your animation style evolved over time? Like what made you go with that sort of animation style? - So before the challenge writer, I had like six other YouTube channels for like the year and a half before that channel came out. It was just like over that year and a half or two years. I was just like trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And like my first ones were just like basically stick figures and then like a little better looking stick figures. And then at one point I had like an actual art style but it didn't really, it looked really cool, but like for animation, it didn't really work well. And then even at the beginning of this channel, I have a completely different art style. If you look at like my first three videos on the channel, it was completely different art style. And I was like, all right, I gotta find the right art style that I can, that looks good, but I can also like make quickly 'cause that art style is using at the beginning of this channel, like was taking too long. And if I wanted to do like more complex, like if I wanted to have like the arm up, like I had to draw, redraw everything as opposed to what I have now where it's like stick figure arms and like so it's easy, but it looks better than just basic stick figures. So I think I spent like two weeks just drawing up different character models and stuff until I came up with the idea for like the big eyes and square head. And that's what I stuck with to this day that I love, I love how it looks. That's the classic talentless writer look. - Yeah. - I remember seeing a talentless writer bald figure and that kind of creeped me the fuck out. Who was that with? Who was that for? Johnny Sins, was that? - Oh yeah, yeah, probably. Yeah, I have a bunch of bold ones for depending on who the characters. - What are you used to animate your videos? - I use the like basically the whole Adobe suite. I use Adobe animate for the actual animation. And then I put it in Premiere and then I use Photoshop for the thumbnails. - What advice do you have to people who want to get into this sort of creative endeavor? Like animation? Like where should they start out? Where did you first start? Like did you start right away in Adobe animate? Or is there an easier option right away? - I don't know if there's an easier option. I mean, what I started doing was like, I was basically making slideshows. Like I would put everything in Adobe Illustrator. I would draw like slides on there and then put it all together in iMovie and it was like a slideshow basically 'cause I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I guess Adobe animate a good program to start out with but definitely a little costly when you're first starting out paying. I mean, even with the student plan, if you get the whole entire Adobe suite, it's like $25 a month, which if you're a student that's still like a lot of money to be spending. So you might want to find other ways to acquire it. I'm not saying what, but you know what I mean? And I guess it's a good one to start off with you want to get exclusively into animation but my main recommendation is just create shit and like your first few years of making, like maybe your first two years, right? You're going to make shit that sucks but just like keep making stuff. And there's like this video I remember I was watching called The Gap where like you, there's a point you want to reach and there's a point you're at now with your talent and you just got to keep making stuff until you fill that gap and reach that other point. So you just got to keep making shit until you finally reach that point in my opinion. - From the talentless writer to the talented writer, you think you'll ever change your YouTube channel? - No, I love being called talentless. I don't know why, just like my nickname. I love when people call me that. - You think that's fueled a lot of roasts in your comment section? - What do you mean? - Do you think people see that? And it programs them to be like, oh yeah, this guy is talentless. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, people say that all the time. Especially when I comment on all the people's videos they're like, oh, name checks out. (laughs) - I get that all the time, yeah, it's so funny. - What sort of self-development practices have you applied to your own YouTube channel into animating? Like from back in those days where you were really into it, what have you taken since then and applied to what you do right now? - I don't know, I don't know. It's just so much stuff that I just took bits and pieces from that just build my mindset, I guess, to this day. So there's nothing specific. I guess the tools I would use, I still use a Pomodoro timer when I make stuff. I use the 80/20 rule in terms of my content creation or it doesn't have to be perfect, but wait, no, does that count as the 80/20 rule? No, that doesn't. - I would say. - Yeah, yeah, I don't know why I thought that. No, why did I say that? Anyway, I make sure that I don't have a perfectionist mindset when I make stuff because if I do, then I'm never gonna make anything. So just make sure it's 80% right? - Dude, I think that's one of the biggest things holding people back from starting something is it has to be perfect, right? At the start, it has to be like the top YouTubers that I look up to are the top entrepreneurs, whatever you're trying to get started with. I have this patron on my Patreon who I've talked to for several months now and the reason he subscribed to my Patreon was because he wanted to start his own YouTube channel and get tips on it and keep himself motivated by talking to me and just be able to grow it at a faster pace than he would by himself. And it's been going on for several months now and just every time we talked, he made up another excuse to why he didn't make the video. And most of those excuses revolved around, oh well, you know, I don't have this equipment, I don't like it just didn't turn out the right way when I recorded it and I re-recorded it and it just didn't sound right. And I just had to put my foot down and because this guy pledged for an entire year on my Patreon and that's a lot of money and I want him to be getting the most out of that Patreon subscription, not just me saying, hey man, like, okay, let's like get it done and then we'll talk next month. I put my foot down and I was like, listen dude, here's what we're gonna do. If you, until you put out your first video, we're not gonna talk on the phone anymore. And if it comes to the point where you just seriously cannot put out that video and you say fuck you cool, like fuck you for making me do this, then I'll just give you all of the money that you haven't yet used from your yearly subscription. So I haven't heard back from him since. but I'm hoping that that got him to really start to take action. And so that's just an example of perfectionism. I think if I would have tried so hard at the start to be like my favorite YouTubers or my favorite whatever, I would have never fucking started. Like go look at Demetri's first videos. Go look at my first videos. They're not that good. They're pretty awful actually. That's how you start out. You have to be willing to be a beginner at things. But so many people are scared to be a beginner at things. And they just they think that they need to start out their channel being like Mr. Beast type videos right away or whatever they're trying to do. And so I don't know if you have any any other thoughts you want to add to it. No, I'm just going to say especially when you're starting out and you have no audience like there's nothing to lose. It's not like you have hundreds of thousands of subscribers already and you're putting out content that's not that good. And they're like oh why are we watching this? Like you haven't nobody watching you yet. So you might as well create stuff and put it out there and just build up your your talents and your skills and like learn how to create stuff on YouTube and just build that habit. I think that's the best way to go about it. And yeah that's basically it. No one's watching you. So you might as well just put it out. That's a good that's a very positive perspective of looking at the fact that no one's watching you. So a lot of people usually see that as like why do this then? Yeah. How did you push through that? That's like there's 10 people watching my video. What what's the point of this? I just I just had so much hope and like a vision that eventually it was going to lead to something greater. I mean there were so many times I wanted to give up like so many fucking times. But I was like there was just that sliver of hope that eventually it would work out. And I've been doing YouTube for six years. And now it's been like finally paying off. So yeah just six-year grant. You just got to be delusional enough to think that'll work out eventually. That's that's a good way to put it. It was kind of delusional of me too. You know I had friends when I was at like parties on the weekends and like I was uploading YouTube videos once a week back then and didn't really have that big of an audience at all. Maybe a few hundred people who watch me. They're like yeah man I really hope it works out and I was just like no I know it's going to work out. It has to work out. That sort of mindset. Like there's I didn't really have well I did have a backup plan because I did agree but I was like there's there's no other option other than I have to firmly believe and tell myself that this is gonna happen no matter how long it takes because I'm not going to be the guy that looks back at his life when he's 60 and says oh I wish I would would have just stuck with YouTube another year after doing it for three years so I would have blown up. That's not fucking happening for me. It seems like that's not what you wanted to happen for you. So important mindsets to definitely develop. Let's talk about the bird. Your mascot, whatever you want to call it. Is it your mascot? The brand mascot? Yeah I got it right here with me. Yeah so the people who are audio listeners, talentless writers, profile picture on YouTube is this blue bird with kind of like a smirk with a smile and like sunglasses. It's not it's not it's just a beak. Oh it's a beak? Yeah a lot of people a lot of people have reached out to me and been like I always thought it was a smile but I just realized there's a beak. It looks like a smile to me I think what's causing me to feel that way is because like the sunglasses make it like the dude's like looking all cool and he's like smirking like I didn't know that was a beak that's a game changer. So yeah let's talk about that because I'm sure if you are on YouTube or have been on YouTube for the past I don't know how long it's been since it became like a big thing for people to put that as a profile picture. You've probably seen this blue bird with sunglasses and the great beak. How did you start this basically like cult of bird profile picture makers? So this was like a few months after I first blown up on YouTube. I just wanted to make something like like you know how that one guy had OEA Maximilian Muse like everyone would change to like that Matrix photo and say OEA and then say anything with leafy. Nobody changed their pictures but they would comment hiss on every video they would see. So I wanted to do something like that and I just randomly I don't even remember how I chose to eat your cereal but that was like the thing that one that everyone to comment on every video they saw and and then for the bird it was like one of my earlier videos it's called a little birdie told me just talk about like when you're growing up and like people would be like like someone would tell you like a piece of inspiration you didn't think they knew about you and you're like oh how did you know then like a little birdie told me so I made a video about that and one of the characters in that was that bird the blue bird with the glasses and I thought look cool as an option people will change their profile picture to instead of it just being like my character I want to do something a little different and so yeah I just made a video very cult leader like telling people to do that and a lot of people fucking did it surprisingly because it was also like at my peak of growth in terms of my channel so what what was it that got your channel to pop off oh um honestly I still think back to it it's it's definitely a multitude of things there's not really one thing specifically basically what happened was the end I think it was like October 2019 that was like right when I was like trying to go super hard I was like I have to make you to my job ASAP and I was like uploading every single day for two weeks and then I feel like that might have helped and then also I had just done a collab on my channel with one of my favorite youtubers ever whose content is very similar to mine who I'm super inspired by called Bruce through films so he did a voice on one of my videos and I had featuring Bruce to films in the title and he had made a community post about it saying go check it out go check out the video because I've voiced it and then after I think it was about three weeks after he made that post my I started picking up views and I don't know whether it's because of the daily upload because at the time YouTube was favoring higher quantity and it could have also been nice yeah it was definitely I think it was a mixture of both of those because there wasn't one specific video that popped off and it wasn't even his video that popped off it was just like a combination of videos on my channel getting a decent amount of views that just led to the growth I think just because I had such a big back catalog at that point just people constantly knew your viewers watching that back catalog led to the growth of it yeah so it was November 24th 2019 I hit 100K and then like literally four days before that I had like 10k or something it just it exploded so quickly that's great yeah so continue with that story on on the bird how does that all connect oh so basically I just made I just want to have like my own cool thing where people comment and feel like they're part of a community I guess it was just just a way to boost my ego and feel like I'm a youtuber that's that's how it came about yeah it's interesting to to hear about that and get into the details of like what was the tipping point that made people realize that oh everybody's doing this and then we're gonna do this and then we're gonna do this like do you think it was just because of what was happening at that time of the the snowball effect of your channel or was it particularly the way that you like marketed it in a sense like how did you promote it exactly to get all of these people and they still till this day many people I see on YouTube have the blue bird as their profile picture yeah no I guess it was just the big I forgot what the video I think the video is quite like let's take over it's time to go over YouTube or something and I guess just the passion I had in that video trying to get everyone riled up to come together for this cause of telling everyone to eat their cereal is what led to it yeah I think it wasn't really anything crazy it was just me telling people to do that in a very cult leader-esque way yeah like conviction in your face super about it yeah I think I've watched that video so I remember let's talk about your move to LA so you've been doing this for six years finally it's turned into a full-time thing yeah and you finally have gotten in contact with very very popular people on YouTube that I watch their content pretty frequently in the kind of comedy space like woman coffee and like Brian the leader suspense Joel Haver and you live with a few of these guys how did that come to be and like why like when did you first meet most of those guys and When was the exact moment where you knew, I can do this full time and I can move to LA. Where did this plan come from, too? - So basically, I met Kuhlman and Kuhlman if he didn't, about three years ago, 'cause I used to work for him. He made a post on Instagram. I was a big fan of him. He made a post on Instagram looking for an intern in New York and I applied for it and I got the job. So that's how I met him. And that was also like five months before I grew up on YouTube. So yeah, so I was still pretty small at the time. So I met him when I was super small. Like maybe a couple of thousand subscribers. And then over the years, it just became like super close friends with him and he invited me out to LA to visit March at last year. And that's how I basically met everyone else just from visiting LA. And then eventually, I came out to LA for two months. I was Airbnbing just to check it out and that time I met everyone else. And yeah, during those two months, like I was trying to make my career. I knew I wasn't making enough money to be able to live out there forever. But I was like, all right, I have two months to try to figure this out. But it didn't work out and I had to move back to New York and go back to the pizzeria again for three months. But then it's not that I was making more money, but I had a cheaper rent where I'm staying at right now 'cause the Airbnb was super expensive. And where I'm at right now is a lot cheaper. So I'm able to afford to live out here. So I'm not making like crazy money or anything crazy yet, but it's helpful to have less expensive rent when you're living in LA especially. Yeah, so that's how I'm able to live out here now. Big time, was LA always the goal or did it only become the goal after you had connected with those people? No, it was honestly always the goal. I don't know why, it was just I was, maybe it was because I watched too much entourage or something, I don't know. But LA was always the goal. I remember like four years ago, like sitting at the bus stop in the fucking freezing cold, snowing, like waiting for the bus stop to go to college, which I was dropping out of constantly. And I was like, I'm gonna fucking move to LA one day. I was like looking up on Google, like moving from New York to LA shit like that. Yeah, I don't know why, I was just always the goal. I guess because as a YouTuber, like I watched all these other YouTubers move to LA, like phase and like the first house, I remember was the gamer shore. Just a bunch of obviously YouTubers living in LA, it's very big for that community. Yes, LA was always the goal, but now it's a reality, yeah. - Tell me the story about that one night where you were at, we're at like this crazy nice house in the hills, probably, I'm assuming it was in the hills. And you were taking like stories of it, I saw it on your story and I was super jelly and I was like, why the hell are you living like the typical influencer life right now? And I'm not, what's going on here? - Yeah, that was just a story behind that. A friend of a friend's house, we just went there for dinner. He was like, oh, you want to come to my friend's house for dinner and I was like, yeah, sure. And it's a crazy ass house that he's living in. - So I'm assuming you've met a lot of very, very popular creators, much more popular than I've ever met. What is the experience like meeting these people? When you see them in person because every experience I've had with a creator that I've looked up to, that I've met in real life, I feel like it's very grounding for me and it's like, it's almost a sense of relief to see creators and realize that they're real people and they're just regular ass people who pushed through long enough to become really good at something. What is that experience been like for you? - So the first crowd I met was Danny, he called me and called me Dan and before I met him in person, I was like, oh, I'm probably gonna feel like, it's gonna feel crazy meeting him 'cause, you know, he's someone I've been a fan of for a while, but when I met him, I was like, oh, he's just a regular ass dude. Yeah, most of my experiences meeting creators, like even creators of him, a huge fan of, has just felt super normal. There's only been like one time I felt star struck. - Who was that? - Joel. - Yeah, Joel. - Yeah, and now he's my roommate. That's crazy, it's full circle. - But yeah, every other time, even though like, meeting people, like whether it's Twitch streamers or YouTubers or whatever, it's felt super normal. I don't know why, yeah. I think the only other time before that that I met creators was Danny had this small event he was holding for animators in New York, just anyone could go and buy. And there was a bunch of story time animation YouTubers there that I had watched every single one of their stuff and kind of looked up to. And that time, I had like a pretty negative experience meeting YouTubers 'cause they were very clicky. It really felt like high school. There was only like, there was maybe 15, 20 story time animators there. And like a few of them are super nice, some of the nicest people I've ever met, but then the rest of them, it just felt like high school was so weird. And that really like turned me off from wanting to become friends with other YouTubers. But everyone else I've met has been super nice and it felt super chill meeting them. - Yeah, I feel the same way. I'm a little scared to get to that point where I feel like once you get to a certain threshold with some creators, it's like, if you don't have a certain amount of followers, I'm not even going to look your way. I feel like that's such a big thing in LA. Despite that, I definitely got to visit, and I don't know if I would ever live there, like how are you affording it right now? - They give my rent $1,000, bro. - Oh, that's a damn. Well, I say that said, but people are probably like, what the hell? - Yeah, yeah. - For LA, that is insanely, insanely good. - Yeah, that's super good. - What's your favorite story time animation you've ever done? And tell the story of the story that you told in that video. This customer, the video is called the clean table customer. If you go on my YouTube, it's in, you're not subscribed. It's like the first video that shows up as like the trailer or whatever from my channel. Basically what it was, it was, I was at work, and this guy came in and he went to sit down, he ordered food, and he went to stay. And he was like, oh, like your tables are filthy. Like you got to clean them. And I just cleaned the tables right before he came in, so I was like, what the fuck is he talking about? So I went over the tables and I'm looking at the table that he wants to sit at, and it's clean, it's super clean. So I just pretended to wipe over it. No, I think I cleaned it at first, and then he said it was still dirty. So then I went back and I pretended to wipe over it. And he was like, okay, it's clean now. And I was like, the fuck is this guy? So like this guy was just like, I don't know, he was just trying to bust my bowl or something. What? - Looking for something to complain about. - Yeah, exactly. I don't know what his problem was. The table was clean as fuck. There's really nothing, not a speck of dirt on there. Yeah, it's funnier when you watch the video with the animation, but that was basically the story. Yeah, that's my favorite story time, I think. - Where'd you learn how to tell stories and write? - I guess just like my first video is ever on YouTube, or it's like the stick-free animation. I was writing, as if I was writing like a school essay. It was super formal and didn't sound natural at all. But I think just over time, just writing stuff and like try to figure out how to make it funnier and just write it in the mindset as if I'm telling a story to my friend, as opposed to like telling a story to like an audience, like a TED talk or something. That helped me a lot. And I definitely watched like a lot. I can't remember anything specific, but I've watched like a lot of videos like how to be a better comedy writer or just how to be a better comedian and shit like that. It just over time, over the years, it's just writing a lot has helped me. Just like going back to like how I was talking about just create stuff, even if it sucks. Just as long as you keep practicing and creating stuff, like eventually you're gonna improve over time. And if you don't improve, you're doing something really wrong. I feel like if you're not improving, you're going out of your way to not improve. - Yeah. - Just like you're not putting in any effort. - Yeah, exactly. - The practice of just doing something repeatedly. And I think it's important to emphasize that when you go back to doing that thing, the next time you do it, you should try to improve by 1% every time you do it. And by the end of the year, you'll have improved by 365%. But saying that, there are gonna be days where you don't necessarily improve. You might plateau, you might even have a setback that sets you back farther. But that's what success looks like. And people also just don't understand that on top of this is kind of related to perfectionism is just, people think like success is like this linear straight line. Just goes up like this. It's like, no, dude, if it goes like way down, then way up, then way down, way up. - All the sudden it circles back around and you're like, yeah, it's like a fucking service. And you're like, what's going on? - Yeah, yeah. - But at the end of the day, it's still moving up and up as slowly as it might be. You're still making progress. And it's going to take a lot of fucking work. - Yeah, that's why a lot of work. - I remember I saw this chart where I was like, If you look at success like year to year, it looks like a ladder basically. You're not a ladder like a staircase where like, you're plateauing, sometimes you go down, sometimes you go up, sometimes you stay the same, but if you look at that graph over at 10 year intervals, you just see it going straight up because long term, it's gonna just keep going up and improving even though in the short term, it might be like curving and going all over the place. - Exactly, exactly. What do you do during those times where you feel like shit about what's happening? And like, you know, recently you've talked about on your YouTube channel, your views haven't been as good. What are some of the things you've told yourself or done to get through this? Because I've certainly dealt with it in the past with YouTube. With the way YouTube set up, you know, you've talked about the ranking system one through 10 on YouTube that controls our mental health. For the next few days after we post a video, YouTube has this ranking system for those who don't know. Where every time you post a video, it shows you where that video ranks one through 10 based on your 10 previous videos. So if your video's doing really well, you get one out of 10 and YouTube literally shoots fireworks like out of the fucking thing, out of the one of 10. It's like, hey, you did it, you're good. You know what you're doing. And when you get 10 out of 10, it's like, they doesn't say this exactly, but it's basically like, yeah, you fucking suck. Like, you need to figure it out. Your videos are not good. And so that controls a lot of the roller coaster of emotions that is being a YouTuber. And the views are so unpredictable to an extent. I mean, you can have viral type idea videos that you put out every single time, but at the end of the day, it's just like, depends on trends, it depends on what's going on with other people and what people are searching for right now, especially with something like your channel where you're taking advantage of trends when they happen. So what are the things when YouTube is being annoying, the algorithm is starting to hate you for a second. What are some of the things that you do or tell yourself? - I just try to take like a long term approach. Like think of it as, right now, shit isn't going my way, but I feel like I'm still so early into what I'm doing. It's been six years, but long term, like I haven't hit 10 years yet. Like, imagine this entire six years I've spent where like a lot of it was just trying to figure shit out. And then in the next six years, I feel like I'll be, once I've reached that 12 year mark, I'll be so much more ahead. And like what's happening right now won't even have mattered anymore. I'll just try to treat everything as that put on my channel as an experiment and just practice. And yeah, I'm just like, I haven't hit 10 years yet. Like, and this is a long term thing. There's really nothing to stress about. As much as I want to stress, like even in other industries, like especially you stand up comedy, like people don't even start getting good until 10 years into it. And I've only been doing it for six years. So like, there's nothing I should be really, I shouldn't be worrying that much as I really am. - Yeah. In those instances, so freaking important to focus on the macro, it's like, you know, I took a whole month off of YouTube in January was, yeah, in January. And the next month February, I started posting again. But like, I noticed that more people were unsubscribing than usual. That was starting to get to me. And then also, my views were just lower, no matter how much I posted that month. And so I had to tell myself, who are these people unsubscribing? People that, like, if they see one ounce of me being like inconsistent or unsure of myself, because I was talking and opening up about going through a mental breakdown, these people see one inch of that, they're gonna unsubscribe. They're not the real ones that are gonna stay here with me for this journey anyway. So it doesn't fucking matter. And people are always gonna dislike you and criticize you on the internet, no matter what you do. And I've gotten to that point where it really doesn't affect me too much, the bad criticism. And I do wanna talk about that as well. And then also just think about like, okay, this is one or two months out of my entire YouTube career, which I plan on doing for, I would say at least the next five, 10 years. And that is nothing in the scale of things. I know things are gonna go back up because that's the way that YouTube is. I'm gonna figure it out. And that's what, yeah, that's what led me through a time like that. Focusing on the macro, not focusing on the criticism. And yeah, let's talk about that. You, we all get a lot of criticism online no matter what we do. How do you handle that? - A lot of the comments I think are super dumb. I'll post Instagram stories and have other people make fun of the two. Most of the comments that are negative, I don't really care about it. And sometimes I get happy when there's negative comments 'cause I'm like, I didn't start getting negative comments until I started blowing up on YouTube. So it's clearly a good thing when you're getting hate. 'Cause I always think about like even people who I look up to that are like, that I think make the best content or comedy or anything ever, all get hate. Like people I would have never, like I know people who hate Mr. Beast and I'm like, how do you hate Mr. Beast? Like he's like the nicest guy ever from what I would assume. - I personally think he's insane. - Yeah, he's definitely insane, but like. - Definitely insane. - There's people that think he's like an asshole and like people like my cousin, he's like, oh yeah Mr. Beast is an asshole. Like he's giving money to random people instead of homeless people, but then like he gives money to homeless people and people like, oh he's exploiting homeless people. Like there's always gonna be an issue with whatever you do. But for most of the comments, they don't really bother me the negative ones. The only time it'll bother me sometimes is when people are like, oh I used to like be a really big fan of your videos but now you're not funny anymore. I'm like fuck, that'll bother me because like, they actually used to watch everything I used to do and now they think like I'm not funny anymore. So like, all right, maybe that bothers me a little but not really, I'll get over it. - With those people I feel like you gotta understand that your audience is evolving with you and what they prefer on YouTube and their humor in your case is going to change over time. So inevitably some of them are not gonna like your humor anymore because it's not gonna be for them anymore. So that's the way I would describe that. What is your daily routine look like? Like how do you plan videos? Do you have a structured routine or are you kinda just like, oh I have an idea, let me do it. No, that's literally my routine. I have an idea, I do it. Most of my ideas, it's not coming from me like sitting in a chair trying to think of ideas. It's me like in the shower and then I'll think of an idea or like something will happen and I'll think of an idea or I'll tell someone a story and they'll be like, oh you should make a video about that story and I'm like, oh yeah, never been thought about it. Like I guess the story is pretty funny. Yeah, it's mainly like that kind of stuff. Yeah, most of my, like especially my short sketches, those are literally like made the day I think of them. Like my Will Smith video. Like I had nothing planned for the week. I was actually gonna take a break from YouTube that week and then it was the day the Oscars and the whole Will Smith thing came out and I was like, okay, I guess I gotta go to my room right now and pump out this video and that's basically how it works. Yeah, especially a lot of my stuff I end up scrapping and everything is basically just on the last minute, this very little structure, it's just all over the place, but I kinda like it that way to be honest. Yeah, I do as well. I have a lot of ideas stockpiled up in notion that I write down immediately when I have them and I always suggest that to everybody to-- Yeah, I have a lot of ideas written up to you. You gotta like, right once you have an idea, you gotta write it down immediately or you will forget it. And I find that my best ideas come to me out of nowhere and when I'm not actively trying to find ideas, it's just the way that creativity kind of is. It's an unplanned sporadic type of thing and there needs to be a good balance between that and being scheduled a little bit at least because we're running our own businesses just some extent. So you need to have that balance of like working and setting deadlines for yourself and scheduling things and letting the creativity flow through being bored more or just doing things outside of your work and being not so one-dimensional, I think helps with the work itself. - That would be great. - Yeah, do you believe in God? - Yeah. - And in what sense? - So I grew up Greek Orthodox Christian and there was actually a point like a few years ago in my life where I was like questioning, I was like, I don't know if I believe in God, if I'm an atheist or whatever, but I had the really close call where I almost got in like a super bad car accident and like it felt like by a miracle I avoided it. And after that, that's when I started getting more, I guess spiritual and like believing in God 'cause I was like, that's the only way I was able to survive because some higher power is what stopped me from dying that day and that's when I got super into it. I don't like going to church. and I don't really agree with a lot of religious stuff, but I do feel like I believe in God or a God. Like a higher power that's watching over us that we can look up to and think like, all right, the world isn't just the world, like there's something more going on. - Yeah, I definitely don't, I wouldn't say I believe God in traditional like Christian sense, but I was talking about this with a friend the other day and we were talking about how like there's so many like little coincidences and like things that connect in my life and like the outside world that it's just like, this is a little too fishy here. Like there's something going on behind the scenes here and that kind of makes me believe in a higher power. I do tend to stay skeptical about those things but also have an open mind about them, but I do believe that there is some sort of higher intelligence out there that seems to govern the flow of things and there's like an intelligence that keeps things in a state of balance, regardless if people think the world is out of balance right now. I think there is an equilibrium that things, if that's even the right word, just to sort of balance that things always come back to that is, I don't wanna say planned, but I don't know how else to explain that. Do you believe in fate then? - Yeah, I believe in like fate and destiny and I'm a big believe in the law of attraction, yeah. So then what about the people who right now say, I have no future, I have no good destiny. What should they do? If they firmly believe that their destiny is like a life of shit, what can they possibly do them? - Just 'cause that's what my life was for the longest time, just like I hated my life so much. And anytime I'd like listen to interviews of people saying, like, oh yeah, I went through all these struggles, but then I'm like, oh, your struggle's really weren't shit. I don't know, I just, I feel like you have to have some sliver of hope that at the end of the tunnel, there's something better waiting for you as long as you put in the work and you just try to go after it. You just have to have that sum, that just one thing you hold onto that you feel like, all right, this one thing or this lifestyle change or whatever is gonna lead to me having a better life eventually. You just have to have hope, yeah, even, I don't know, you just have to hold onto something that you feel like will eventually lead to a better situation for yourself. And that's what worked for me. Yeah, for the past eight years I've been telling myself, tomorrow's even my last day working at the Pizzeria. And I told myself that basically every day for like eight years and then finally, after eight years of fucking happened. - That's awesome man, that's awesome. And yeah, regardless if you believe in God or not, one should have faith and optimism in the future. This is like scientifically backed to help you with what you're trying to achieve. And I think a lot of people see their lives as like, I have to complete this thing, I have to get to this certain point in order for my life when I look back to be a life well-lived or fulfilled. And I think that even if, to use myself as an example, even if I never got super big on YouTube, I would have been happy with the journey and what I did because I was doing what I truly enjoyed to do. So even if you think, oh, you know, maybe I'll, like there's that little sliver of like doubt of like, I don't know if I'm ever gonna get to the point where I wanna be at. If you're doing the thing you wanna do, you are at the point where you want to be at. That is the most cliche thing, the journey is the destination, but it is because I'm sure you've experienced this. I've gotten to certain points in my career that I would have never even imagined just a couple of years ago. And I would, back then I would have thought, once I get to this point, once I'm making this amount of money, then I will truly feel like I have made it and I'm happy and I'm just content. That never comes, you just go with the process and you just learn to enjoy that and the fact that you'll always be chasing something more and that's totally fine. And no matter how far you get in that thing, as long as you're just doing the thing you enjoy, then you fucking made it. - I don't know, I feel like something's done, it has maybe happy, like not working in the restaurant industry has maybe very happy. I can't understand that maybe very happy, but no, I totally go, you mean, where you're always gonna be chasing stuff, like I'll make a certain amount of money, I'm like, oh, that's, I wanna reach this by then and just all these goals that the goals that you said for yourself are always gonna be trying to top themselves, but yeah, you should try to get to a certain place where you can have a minimal amount of things happening in your life, like you don't need anything crazy or luxurious, but you'll be happy. And I feel like that's where I'm at right now. - Do you think money buys happiness? - Yeah. - Yeah, I do. - Just straight up? - Yeah, I also don't have a lot of money, but I feel like having money would buy me happiness in the sense that there's a lot less distress about it. Even a lot of people who I know that have a lot of money have told me the same thing, they're like, it definitely helps you have less stress, 'cause I've had so many stressful financial moments in my life and like, all right, maybe buying a Lamborghini won't make you happy, but having, not having the stress of financial worries definitely would make me happier. - Okay, so do you think there's a certain point where it becomes a, like, diminishing returns? - Yeah, yeah, 100%, like that whole $75,000 thing. - Yeah, where do you think it actually is then? - Where do you mean issues? - Yes. - I don't know, 'cause I've never, I haven't made $75,000 a year yet, so I don't know. I haven't hit that point yet for me. I'll let you know when I hit it. - 'Cause for me, I've reached last year, I made six figures, which was crazy, and I thought it was always like, when I was told it was like $70,000, it was around that area. I don't, I think maybe 50 years ago, but now with inflation and everything, no shot. And also I still think the more money that I've made now, I haven't made that much more than last year, but we'll see what happens with the rest of the year. I still feel like there's some aspects where I'm feeling myself stressed less, I suppose, but I've always been one to stress about money even when I have it, which is something I'm trying to, well, I'm happy I have that trait because it makes me very frugal, but sometimes I overdo it to the point where it's like, I could definitely buy this thing and it would make my life a lot easier, but I just choose not to, because I'm still in that mindset of before, 'cause my income, it almost quadrupled in one year, which was crazy, and so I'm still stuck in this mindset of before, but I feel like getting to this point and still like my income is slowly going up, it's like, I don't know, I don't know where that diminishing point of returns is either. Like I think it's past six figures at this point for most people, and it's interesting to think about, and what we were told about how money can't buy happiness. I do think to some extent, if you can't be happy where you are right now, then you're gonna have a difficult time being happy when you have money, but it is much easier to figure yourself out and worry less and figure out how to be happier with yourself and love yourself when you have money. So I guess that's my whole spiel on it. There's one thing I wanna confront you about Dimitri. - Okay. - We're talking about sliding in DMs. So there's a specific influencer we both know, right? - Yeah. - That you're simping a bit for, am I right? - Yeah, it's true. - What's your thought process with that? What's going on with that? - I don't know, bro. - Like you see her in person, right? - Yeah, but you've seen her in person. - Yeah, I did, but I didn't get a chance to talk to her. - I feel like you could have. I feel like you actually could have. And now, what if she's seen those messages? - Then I'm like, why didn't you respond? I'll be like, why didn't you respond? - That's what you'll say for real. - Yeah, no, I don't know. Maybe I'll show her the messages if I see her again. - Let's end it off with the way that I usually end these off. I'm gonna ask you a question, which is, if you could have a billboard that you could put up everywhere for everybody to see what would it say and why? - I would have it say, just keep going. 'Cause I feel like everybody needs that encouragement that they should, they just gotta keep pushing through and whatever is going on in their life right now. now as long as they just keep going eventually hopefully but I think it will eventually work out. I like that mindset because I have the same sort of mindset and it certainly worked out for both of us. Dope yeah thank you for coming on again and if people want to find you work and they find you. Well first off thank you for inviting me onto the podcast this is great. If you have found me basically you can just follow me on YouTube. The other platforms I'm on not really care about you follow me on there. I don't really have them any followers on the rest but on YouTube you can find me at the townless writer. Watch my videos leave a comment and yeah that's it. All right thanks to me true thank you goal.