"I Hid Being Homeless From My Parents To Chase My Dream" Jordan The Stallion

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I would sit and I'd ask myself, like, you know, what do I like? What makes me happy? What are my goals? What are my hobbies? I couldn't answer any of that. I used to be able to know I can't. I relinquish so much of myself for baseball and I made baseball my entire life. I don't even know who I am at all. How does that transition you to start creating content online? I would do videos just to honestly see if I can find myself in them. So there's a lot at stake. I didn't have enough money for the gas to get there. It's literally life-and-death. I'm explaining it in depth, raw in depth. This is what went down. Are you proud of the person you see in the mirror? So there's millions of people that watch you looking at yourself in the mirror. But what do you see when you look at yourself in the mirror now? Wow. Actually, no one has ever asked me that question before. Wow. I tell people, I'm just doing what I normally do in my entire, like, my whole life. The only difference is there is a camera there. So I was talking to myself a lot in the bathroom, sometimes in the mirror, sometimes you gotta psych yourself up to, you know, for a test or like when you're nervous about something. Or sometimes I, in mind you, like my dad, I watched my entire life, like he talked to himself. He would talk to himself about a lot of things he would need to do, get done, all those things. And then, you know, as a kid, you're very impressionable. I found myself doing that a lot. I was just, I was really talking and deliberating with myself a lot. So there's times where I'll be going through something or thinking deep thoughts about something I'm going through in life. And instead of asking advice of others, I would actually ask advice of myself as if I was two different people. If, as wild as I might sound, but it really did help me because it's sometimes I would, in a way, try to be as objective as I can on one end and as subjective as I could on the other and see how that would go. So when I looked in the mirror, I really saw another person that I can deliberate with in a way growing up, which was, which was big for me. And ironically, I was never confident in how I looked as a person, you know, I would look at myself and ask like, what qualities about myself do I like? Do I not like it? And I would really be in deep thought of that as a kid, like as young as maybe eight or nine. And I think now that I start doing these videos, which I love very much, it's a great exercise for me. I learned that if you have an idea, the idea and the ambition and compassion for ideas, that ideas should override anything that you physically have insecurities about for your own right for me personally. So like if I would do videos, I would purposely do videos when I roll right out of bed and just do it. Working daily on that one, daily on it. I think because of, you know, this baseball journey and stuff that we've talked about, we can get into later, of course, but I was always taught because baseball kind of teaches your short-term memory, right? When you make a mistake, learn from your mistakes and, you know, try to develop and be better after that. And any accomplishment, you know, definitely patch stuff on the back a little bit like, hey, good job. But the next day wiped, nothing happened. You got to keep going. And that's how it was with success in general. Like in baseball, when you do something good, you're like, hey, great. Awesome. Cool. You got to prove yourself again tomorrow. And that's how it's always been. So for me, with this specifically, any accomplishment we had, it's fun, but by the next day, it doesn't exist in my mind. It cannot exist in my mind. I have to think, okay, I haven't done anything. I got to continue to go. So because pride in oneself is immediately linked with the recollection of things that you've done in your past, that is a real contradictory thing because you want to be proud of yourself, but that would in turn mean you have to look back and you have to kind of reminisce. And in my brain, the looking back and reminiscing prevents me from the progression. So that's why it's really hard. I'm working on it. I'm very, I'll put you like this. From the things that I've been able to do with my family and with the people I care about and seeing the work that I've been able to do also reflect on the things I've been able to experience, I am very happy and incredibly proud of the fact that we can do this collectively. I need to work on finding pride in myself at some point. I just want to say how remarkable it is as to how grounded you continue to stay even after all of the success and the person that, you know, you have been even before fame and such. It's very obvious that you're still like that same person today, which I think a lot of people start to lose themselves as they accomplish certain things or as, you know, others like Forbes or Time or they start to give you certain accolades and then you start to look at yourself in the mirror a little bit differently, but you seem to look at yourself like as that same guy. I know earlier you had mentioned when you look at yourself and your physical appearance, there might be like some self-doubt there. And going back to your childhood, I read that you dealt with like a lot of bullying growing up and people, I don't know, making fun of you either for the way that you dressed or you said that, people made fun of you for being awkward. Take me back to your childhood. What was your childhood like? Oh my gosh, man. As a kid growing up, you aren't aware of socioeconomic status. You aren't aware of like, you know, struggling times or what have you. I mean, when parents try to really protect you from that. So the world that you're born into is the world that you know. Therefore, you don't know what's better or what's worse. You just know what you know. So for me, my brother and I, we grew up in Victorville. When you're driving to Vegas and you pass by those little town, it's one of those, right? And for me, I loved it. I loved Victorville. I loved it because it's all I knew that was my growing up was that. And my parents did a very great job at protecting my brother and I from the reality or a situation. So my childhood was a lot of like me and my brother just always together. And obviously, you know, we were, of course, our first friends and we couldn't, you know, like kind of talk about, you know, our perspective on things. We'd argue we'd bigger of course with brothers and when we got to school, again, the school was a bit different. You know, I mean, we didn't have the nicest clothes or backpacks or things like that in nature, but we did have, you know, the things that we knew to be normal. So growing up, I always seem to be a bit self aware of at least like who I was. I'm the youngest in my family. I am a kid. I am in this school. I was also aware of outside looking in where I was all the time. And so because I just always was in very deep thought about like, you know, how come this person acts like this and how come I act this way? How come they're this way? And I'm sure a lot of kids go through that. There's developmental years of course, but I was just so in deep with trying to figure out exactly how other people were enacted and why other people are accepted in certain ways and why I wasn't. It was just really hard for me to kind of like find my groove with stuff. My brother was a very popular guy and he was very charming, very, very fun and a fun personality and people really gravitated towards him a lot. And for myself, it was just like, I really was trying to find a vibe of like, you know, how can I get the type of attention or admiration or like wanting to hang out with kind of vibe that all these other kids have had. And I just couldn't find it at that time. And you know, the friends that I did have, I loved him very much because we were very close. But I think because of the fact that I felt so secluded, it made the importance of community and like familial, like I want you to feel comfortable in my presence kind of vibe even when I was younger. So I think that's kind of how our childhood was. So like growing up like from elementary to middle school to high school, the people I did have in my life, I wanted them to feel as though they were really a part of a family and a part of something closer just because I was never a popular person. And that could be a lot of things. I mean, I think for myself, it was again, like growing up, my brother and I both black and so when you go to schools who don't have predominantly black kids in there as well, you know, you look different for everybody else. You're trying to figure out why that is and you're trying to figure out like kind of like why you might get treated certain ways other than not and those kinds of things. So all of that goes through your developmental minds that are like, okay, how do I process what's going on in life? Am I getting treated this way because of this or this and what is it and why is it important to have that discernment? Because for a lot of times, like people who end up bullying you can be a really good friend of yours later on down the road. But that only comes with levels of empathy that you learn as you get older. So I long winded answer to the question, like when my child, it was like, it was a lot of deep thought. It was a lot of like, I felt like I was very much outside of my own body looking in and just trying to figure out exactly just what what it is my life is and what I am. And it was a lot of that. I think more than usual. When I think about my high school years, I also got made fun of a lot and spent so much time just trying to fit in and when I look around, I noticed that the popular kids were always like the stylish ones, in order to be stylish, you got to have money or the athletes. And so I was like, oh, I really want to get into sports because I just wanted to have friends and feel like a sense of belonging. When you saw other kids that were treating you differently because of the way that you dress, like, did that instill something in you that like, hey, when I grow up, I'm going to be so successful that I'm going to have the nicest clothes. that be part of your psychology or what would you think when you were getting made fun of? - Yeah, man, honestly, in that time when I could make fun of like, I was a big daydreamer. I was a big like, I would just get lost in my imagination at times and I would daydream about having very nice clothes and being as suave or as popular, dressing as nice as others. I would really daydream that. I'd be like, one day I would hopefully get to that point like as I get older, I'll get there and that's definitely, it was like something I wanted to achieve. I wanted to achieve this level of coolness, popularity, how you dress and the things you have and all of this. And then I think as I got older, it just never carried off. I tried, I would try to, when I were able to get my hands, I'm like, you know, like the newest, you know, type of fashion jacket shirt, you know, shoes, whatever, backpack, what have you. When I would wear it, it just wouldn't feel right. I would just feel very much like, just kind of an imposter. It just wouldn't feel good. I feel very awkward with it. And I just wanted to revert back to what I normally wear because it felt comfortable. And I think that was a big thing as well as like trying to fight between like, how can I feel uncomfortable dressing? Like what the cooler kids would dress like, but how can I feel so unbelievably comfortable just staying in my bubble of what people would deem, like kind of, just not cool at all, right? So it was a lot of that. I can definitely see these patterns, like continuing even now, when you are to place it your life where you can't afford to have like all the nicer luxuries. But you still live very simply, which we'll get to in a little bit, but you know, going back to when you talk about like you're upbringing in Victorville. And you know, a lot of people grew up without money, but paint me like a more specific picture. 'Cause I know like some of the struggles that you've been through, you were living in your car like while you were attending college, you know, how to choose between like, gas and food at times. So like as you were growing up, what were some of those like daily struggles like? Like early on the daily struggles would kind of be this, like I understood at some point the socio-economic standing of my family and myself. And I realized that my grandparents who was a big factor in trying to help with that. So because of that, I was always mindful of like, we couldn't obviously go out to eat and go, we couldn't go get fast food and stuff. We could only afford, again, like things that were able to be expanded, beans, rice, things of that nature. And my mom would do a tremendous job in making, you know, something little last a very long time. With clothes, I understood the, you know, hand me down kind of situation. My dad's clothes or my brother's clothes when I grew into them and we would do that growing up. And so as we get older, you know, we would work. We, when we had jobs and stuff, like obviously contributing a lot of our paycheck to help with rent, to help with, you know, just making sure we keep the house, right, food, all that kind of stuff. When I was in high school and I wanted to play baseball, my dad and mom had a serious conversation with me because that was the reality situation was, it's like, look, sports is expensive, right? When I wanted to play sports, I would always ask my parents, like, why can't we, why can't we, why can't we? My dad always said, like, oh, you know, we have some time, like when there's time to do, when there's time to do it, not realizing it's just sports that aren't expensive and we just couldn't afford to do the sports situation yet. And so my dad had a conversation with me saying, like, hey, here's the thing, we can either get you, you know, baseball pants or like the baseball glove, but we can't get you both right now. And here's the thing as well. And he was very adamant about this playing sports. He's like, this isn't just something we're buying to get you. This is an investment. We're investing this in you. You can't just bail if you don't like it. Like, pretty got to stick with it because they're not trying to put too much pressure on me at that time. But now as I get older, I realize when this hits an investment, like, it's really putting them out of their way in a bit. And again, like you have other other teammates that have all the nicest things and it's not a problem for them. But for us, it is something we really got a maneuver. And so getting older, like, that's kind of how it always has been. And it's like my parents would always extend themselves as far as I can to make sure I'm okay, even though it would be at the cost to them. And me, as I get older, being hyper aware of that is the case. Therefore, when I need things, I kind of need to take matters into my own hands and not worry them about that. Because I know they would try to, I'd like everybody's parents, or they would try to overextend themselves to help you, even though it would affect them. And so that was kind of the life that I would have all the time. It's like, if my parents needed to help, I know it would hurt in general as an overall. Therefore, I really had to figure out how to make things work. Even if there's no money involved, how can I make things work? And that's kind of how that was. Meet new groupie setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. Try new groupie setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Maybe it's Maybelline. For most people with sports, you start at an early age, right? And then you get better as you go and by the time you're at high school, it's competitive, right? And so it's hard to make it on the high school sports team and especially in college. But you didn't start playing baseball until you were like 15 or 16, man. Yeah. 16 years old. And at that time, you're now having a makeup for people are starting at six years old. So you have like 10 years that you have not played. So I know from reading your story, your work ethic has always been part of the reason for your success. We were just talking about how even while you were in New York, when I saw you last, you had 12 scripts to write like an assured amount of time for some content ideas. But at 16 years old, not everybody thinks that way. And I think I read that you were waking up at like four o'clock in the morning, five o'clock in the morning. So what was going through your mind like waking up that early and working that hard? One thing I learned when I'm very obsessive, I'm a very obsessive person. But I also learned that I can't pick how that obsessiveness is going to work. It kind of picks for me. And before it was like Dragon Ball Z or Power Rangers 'cause I'm a kid and I was obsessed with those things. And then as I got older and I really had a love for sports, or like at least a curiosity for sports. I was actually trying to look for the football coach 'cause I wanted to play football 'cause I watch 'em like do football. Everybody loves football players, man. They got the dope, it's gear, they got the coolest. Just they got a swag to them. I was like, I want that. Like, Kim, we're still trying to figure out how to be cool in this world. I was like, that'll make me cool. And I try to look for the football coach. And I ran into the baseball coach instead. And I didn't know that yet. So he was like, oh yeah, you know what? Me and I sat the baseball field and I was like, wow, football players practice my baseball field. So I went to the baseball field. And I had a big ol' afro and and one shorts, big and one shorts, like these clunky, black shoes, nothing baseball, a flannel t-shirt with shorts, I mean, no sense either. But I walked up to that field and they put a glove in my hand and a baseball. And I've never touched a baseball until then. I was going through this, going through this baseball thing. And after the first practice I had where it was awful. For some reason, right after that happened, I told myself in my brain, I'm like, I'm going to be, I'm going to be a professional baseball player. I want to be in the best practice. For that practice, that practice where there was, there was really nothing from that day that gave me like, you should stick with this. It was quite the opposite, but for some reason, I just like after that practice in my head, I'm like, I want to be a professional baseball player. I'm going to be, I'm going to get to the highest level doing this and it just struck my brain like lightning. And at that point, there was no getting out of my brain. And from that point on, I then had to learn, okay, how do I do this? How do I get from where I'm at now to a professional? I'm 16, I'm a sophomore. And I got to figure out exactly how to get from here to a professional level in what, two years' time, because you got to go to college at some point and transfer out from high school. So the work ethic had to be insane. So I would, yeah, I'd wake up at, I mean, sometimes only three, four in the morning, I would watch any sports documentary, I could possibly find any of, I'd watch all of them, because I was trying to find any athlete, there were semblance of a similar story of what I was going through, so it would give me some type of hope, like, okay, they did it so I can do it. I couldn't find one. And I tried, I watched every E 60, every 30 for 30, every actual feature document, every, like someone who started later in their life, like fans, any, any athlete that made it to a professional level in any sport that started late. And I, in a 60 year, I couldn't find it. So I'd wake up, I'd watch a documentary. I didn't know it was working out. It was like, I know, I never did it before. So I would like, do pushups, sit-ups, that kind of thing, and then I get ready for school, and I go to school. And this is basically the schedule would be wake up, work out, whatever that was in my house, go to school. I would do my homework at lunch in the bathroom. I'd do all my homework there. So that when I go to practice, I could practice with the freshman team, the, the JV team, and the varsity team all in one day. So I do three practices in one day. Mind you, not good at them. If anything, I felt like the guys were very annoyed that I was like working in with everybody, but the coach was like, you can do it. So I did three practices in a day, and then even after that, I'd stay after and I'd hit in the batting cages from maybe what, we get down to practice maybe like four or five of it. I'd stay from five to nine p.m. My parents picked me up at nine p.m. And I started all over again from Monday through Saturday. And Sunday, when the field was closed, I'd stay home and I would just watch anything I possibly could on baseball. And I would just do that every single day. And so at some point, I learned how to exercise. I found a gym at one point. And now we incorporate that in. And I just tried to make it work. As I was younger, I couldn't understand the level of bullying that was happening. When I was in the baseball team, like, I had seniors and juniors that would talk, that were just like, just not. Vive, they didn't like me. They didn't like the fact that I was out there. They didn't like the fact that I was, and I just didn't really understand why. And as I got older, [BLANK_AUDIO] And I then started to try to realize and look at it through their perspective. You have somebody who's walking into the sport that you've played with, everybody they played with, they played with, since they were kids together, right? So it's all a very tight knit group. You're somebody walking into this, right? And from their perspective, they might think, okay, you think this is so easy that you could just come in and do this. I'm not good, clearly. And I'm trying to be nice to everybody and I'm trying to be friend to everybody. And it might just be off-putting and they're like, yeah, I just don't, it seems weird. It seems untrustworthy maybe. And so for them, it was like, hey, maybe go do something else, leave us alone, that kind of thing. And maybe that's what it felt for them. And so as a kid, I couldn't understand that. But now as I get older, I can maybe understand where at least that was coming from. In this circumstance, teammates, coaches, other parents would kind of tell me like, you're not going to make it to this level. If you work really hard, you might make it to this level, but you're never going to get to this level. And you have to rewire your brain to not listen to people who you deem older and know better. Because if you do, you're not going to try. It was a big, rewiring, resistiming of how I even think to continue doing this. And therefore, when I got to my senior year, I went over to Palm Desert and to college at the desert. And that was my big transformation into playing Division One. For most people starting out a brand new sport in high school, if anyone starts something new in high school, you know, the immediate motivation is just to try to make the high school team, right? Maybe even varsity would be overreaching. A lot of people would settle for junior varsity at that point. But you didn't just create, you know, a goal to be on the team. You created a goal to become a professional baseball player at 16 years old first time playing baseball. So where does like that big ambition come from? It was just something in my stomach and my brain in my body. I just, it was like giving up wasn't an option. Like I genuinely, in my brain, the thought of walking away from it was just not even an option. And I think that's kind of where we talk about that obsession factor. Like, you don't choose it. It chooses you, right? It chooses the thing you want to be like when I, the minute in my brain, I said, professional baseball player, everything else was secondary. Nothing else mattered more than getting to this goal. And I would walk through fire, walk through buildings to get to this thing. I don't care what it takes and having that mentality could be exhausting. It's aggressive. It is not for the weak hearted because you go through a lot. But the thing is when you mentally already know for a fact that giving up is an option. People telling you anything at some point really just falls right off you. It doesn't matter at that point. Mind you, I was supposed to, some was still there because I definitely had my nights where I'm really like, I've made it this far. And if I fail at this point, like, I'll be devastated. Which is still me failing at any aspect is a reality. I did have at some point, you know, some friends that I would call and they would, they would give me that reassurance of like, you made it this far, like you can do this. And that's kind of where, where that went. Like that passion, that drive, I tell people, like it's in everybody, but you unlock it in different ways. And I think for me, it was a thing where like the minute it just crossed my brain, it was like electricity, just stung my brain, that was it. And it just, there was no option to stop. And do you think the motivation was finally feeling accepted since you didn't get that, you know, throughout most your childhood or was it to try to escape the financial situation that your family was in and you saw that as like a pathway to financial freedom? It wasn't to be accepted. It was quite the opposite. I think by the time I got to that goal, I got to that goal being a hundred percent myself at that point, an unaccepted non-traditional version of what, what made it to this point. If anything, I was very proud of the idea that, okay, this is genuine proof that you do not have to follow this weird checklist of things that people keep painting up here is you need these things to do this. I, at this point, from what I went through, an exact example of if you have none of these things, you can still be here. And what does that mean? Does that other mean that this isn't valid or you yourself are valid? It doesn't matter if you have this or not. And obviously, the latter, I would believe is important. Like it doesn't matter where you start, it matters how you finish. You could be 16, 17, I would even say 18, and if you're so focused, if you are genuinely focused on the goal that you were setting for yourself, at the end of the day, it's truly about heart, it's about passion, it's about what it is that you are willing to work on to get to this goal. And so I think that was what spoke to me in that regard. In regards to baseball, and I'm certain you can relate to this too, where it, look, fame, success, money, all that stuff. It comes complimentary to what you are doing in your passions, right? So for example, building a studio or being able to express a lot of different versions of art on a daily basis is a drive that drives that wakes you up in the morning and makes you want to go and continue to do it. You don't wake up like, can't wait to be a millionaire. That's not how it goes, right? It's, I want to work on this beautiful talent and passion that I have. And in exchange for that, these things come. And for baseball, I thought of it as, I love walking onto this field every single day and trying my hardest every day and getting better every day. And that is what drives me every single morning. And I want to help my family and I know that doing this will in turn help them. But I'm not doing these things just because I want to get us out of this poverty. I'm doing this because I love this so much and a reward for doing this is getting us out of that poverty. And that is what drives me. Even to this day, what I do with videos, it is the fact that I just love waking up every morning and doing any kind of expression of self video, whatever I can do, interview, filming, anything and that, that expression and learning is so addictive. It's amazing. It's beautiful. It's fun. That part, like, that's what drives me every morning to go and do it. Everything else is simply complimentary. So let's fast forward a little bit. So you graduate high school, I think you went to a community college, you end up at Riverside. And now you're still struggling financially though. Are you working jobs to pay for tuition or how are you getting by? So no. So when I got to Riverside and I made the team and I was able to get scholarship to continue. So you end up making the Riverside team walk through that moment of like when you find out. Gosh, man. Self when it comes to like sports, if you don't have, you know, a coach or somebody helping you kind of push it out to other division one schools, you just do it yourself. So I would go to the library every day and I'd send my GPA, which is a three eight at the time. So GPA, my actual like physical accolades, like six, two, two hundred and what, thirty pounds at the time and all my stuff. You send that out to every coach and be like, "Hey, anybody is anybody interested?" Had some takers here or there, but at the end of it, I ended up having to just go apply academically to these schools and then walk on. And for Riverside, Riverside, UC Riverside was the best chance I had at walking on and possibly making the team. Did you have good grades? Grays were okay enough to worry. You know, I got accepted to everything I applied to academically. And so when I got to UC Riverside, I sat down with the coach and he told me that if you want to make this team, it's a 30-man roster. You can't be better than the 29th guy. You need to be better than the first guy if you want to make this team. Ed didn't determine me. I'm like, "Okay, cool. Sounds good." And even then, he sent me a text and he texted me saying, "Hey, I appreciate the fact that you're so passionate about coming on here." He's like, "But you're not going to make the team, so you really don't have to worry too much about going to all these meetings and doing all these things." And even when the coach of that team is telling you're not going to make the team, you can't listen to that either. Like, "Well, I'm still going to go to the triad. I'm still going to go and still going to do my best to change everybody's mind if I can." So the thing is, when I did the walk-on, when I went to the experience, it was two people, me and another person. That was only two people that were at the triad. So it was me and another kid. And the person, and I'm certain that you can recollect the story as well, but I was trying to explain to him my circumstances was going on. He'd come me off and he was like, "Oh, okay, so you're a nobody. All right, cool." And here are your circumstances. My circumstances were I'm coming from a community college. I thought I had something set up with a scholarship I didn't. Now I'm walking on and I have no really, like I don't really know, like I was getting to that part of it. And he'd come me out and he's like, "Oh, okay, so you're a nobody." I was almost in shock. You went to UC Riverside knowing that you wouldn't be able to make it past the first semester because you couldn't afford it unless you made this baseball team. So that was like, you're betting it all on you making the same. I saved all my money from working over the summer. I had enough. I think it was $1,200. I saved up all my money from the summer for the $1,200 to pay for the first deferred payment. I accepted all my academic classes. I did all my stuff. Did it out to be an actual student. I had everything set up. So I got to the school, again, had no money for anything after that because I put all the money into the deferred payment. The people that I would be able to stay with, right, other family that could, that lives in the Riverside area. I still have to drive over to even stay with them and I didn't have enough money for the gas to get there. So the choice was money for gas to get there, but not back to the school or food to eat. And so that was kind of what it was until money got so slim that food itself wasn't really, like I had to just eat whatever leftover food there was that the school was having from the dining hall. And when I would shower, I'd shower at the rec center at the school gym and just stay at the school in the car because there's no other option at that point. And I start to wait for the tryout app. and where are you living? - I would park at the parking structure across from the school or like, or there's a big parking structure that was right down the street from the school and I would park like at the top little area and sleep in that corner. And then whenever I would come across any kind of money to go see some family, I'd go see them and then I'd come back over and I would do it that way. And in the first little bits of it, I was just like, I got him, I had to do whatever I got, I gotta make this team, I gotta make this team. So that's kind of where that's happening. - So you're sleeping in your car? - Yes. - And this was a 1997 Chevrolet suburban. - 1997 Chevrolet suburban. - They still have today. - Yeah, I still have it, just drove it two days ago. - Well, that's the thing too, is that we're family and I know they're all learning about this as I'm doing these interviews now. But I wouldn't tell them what I was going through at that time. They obviously didn't want them to worry, but it got there. - Did your parents know you were sleeping in a car? - Not at all. - What did they think? - They thought that I had enough situated to go to stay with family, 'cause I did have family that was in the area, or not in the area per se. They were far enough out, I think they're maybe like 40 minutes away from the school, I think at the time. But they were far enough to where they thought I was just staying there full time and then not knowing I could barely get there. - So you were holding all of this in? - Yes. - Because most, you know what, you were in your late, you were 19, 20, you're-- - I was 22, 22 at the time. - And is this a pattern where you don't want your burdens to ever affect anyone else and so you always figure out your own way? - Yes and no, it was not wanting to burden anybody. It was also pressure, it was a lot of pressure. I didn't want them to know I was slipping so much just in regards to the circumstance. Because again, I was so confident in myself that I was gonna make this happen. It wasn't that I was worried that I was gonna be wrong. I didn't want everybody else to be right. Because for seven years, everybody was just telling me I wasn't gonna be able to make this division one thing happen. And I didn't want to give anybody, even a momentary moment of satisfaction thinking that it wasn't going to. Therefore, I wouldn't share anything with anybody if I was going on. I wanted to make this happen and I didn't want anybody to then go. Let's see, I told you. And it didn't matter who was. That's why I kept it all internal. I wanted to see this through. - The anxiety and the stress was you're right. Like, if this didn't happen, my life is not gonna be great. Because I then had to come clean to everybody. Like, hey, I've actually been struggling a lot. This is what's going on. I can't afford to stay at the school anymore that kind of thing. - Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Maybe it's Mavily. - Wow. So there's a lot at stake for you to make this team. I mean, it's a little, it's literally, like, almost life and death, like in a way, right? - It felt like it. - Yeah. - Because a quarter system happened to us that I took my first test and I failed it. 'Cause I didn't know about quarter systems. So I failed my first test, which is not good for grades already. I'm still in the middle of waiting for my results back from the, from the tryout. And the school charged me with the second payment charge for the deferred payment, which I clearly didn't have. So I owed the school, I think it was like $3,000. I had no money in my account at all, obviously. And then I'm also failing this test academically. So I'm really not like, and I'm waiting to see if I even made the team and I have people messaging me, like, hey, how's it going up to all these things? And I can't tell them what's going down at all. And then again, like if I, when I would go be able to see my cousins or my uncle or what have you, like I'm just trying to keep things light and keep things kind of fun. It was, I was very afraid. Two people trying out, there's one spot on the team, or how does it work? Like a, what is really no spot? Yeah, there's a available, there's a one spot basically on that one spot. And the person that you're competing against tells you that you're in no body. Like he's just that confident that he's going to beat you kind of, you know, and it could be, it could have been that, could have been peacocking, it could have been project. Maybe he was like, I need to, maybe he also had to psych himself up to be like, I got to feel like I'm the best person on the field too, you know, for someone to say, and I can understand that now. At that time, I was like, yeah, I was, I wasn't trying to like, be better, everybody else. I just wanted to do well, you know, so it was, it was a lot, but what happens next? I remember we did the trial after the trial got done, the coach walked up and he said, all right. He's like, now we're going to wait six days. He said, if we call you in six days, that means come back in for a follow up and we'll, and we'll go from there. If we don't call you, if you don't hear from us in six days, we don't want you. You're giving your best performance. Best performance. I could possibly get out the thing I'm in training for a whole summer of just pure training that I could possibly do to run the fastest I could, to throw the hardest I could to hit the best I can. All of it, I left it all in that field. I can comfortably say I left it everything on that field that day. That must have been the most stressful six days. First two days, I felt okay. I'm like, all right, you know, I got some time. I got some time, third day, I heard nothing. I got nervous. Thankfully, the guy that also tried out with me would contact me and he's like, hey, did you hear anything? And if he asked me that, I know that they didn't contact me. So I'm like, okay, it was the evening of day five. And I was in my car, I was in my suburban. And I remembered I might have prayed the hardest I ever prayed in my life. Tears down my face. I was pleased, like please, please, please. I'm like, if anything, I think this is the one thing I need this. Like that, it was it was to that point. I'm like, I need this. Everything else was, you know, like it's fine. I'll deal with everything else. But this is the one thing I need. And I remember I was so emotionally overwhelmed. I think I described myself to sleep. I was, I remember, I felt fast asleep. And I would have these dreams where you wake up and you're still in the dream, you wake up and you're still in the dream. And one dream I'd wake up and I got a phone call then I'd wake up and I got no phone call then I'd wake up and I got a phone call. So I didn't know what was real and what wasn't. And so when I actually woke up and I got woke up to the phone ringing, I thought it was a dream. I didn't know if it was real or not. So I answered and they're like, hey, like this is coach blah, blah, blah. Do you think you can come by and talk with us? And I'm like, yes, and I fast as I possibly could over the field. I mean, my pajama bottoms, my pajama bottoms and regular T-shirt I'm sitting down. It's a million degrees outside. And the head coach sat me down and he kind of told me. He said, you know, I wasn't going to take it. It's like, I wasn't going to take it. I wasn't going to take anybody. He's like, but then I talked to the front-off as people in the front-off as whom you've met, whom you've talked with. And they said that your character, your kindness to them, your levity that you brought to them, even in the midst of all the stressful stuff, you were just so kind to everybody. And everybody loved your attitude. He's like, I had to take a second look at you. So I looked at your film again. And he's like, there's a lot of potential there. I was a very-- I hit the ball really hard. I was a very strong hitter. And so he's like, I'm going to have you hit a couple of balls in the cage to see if you're coachable and we'll go from there. So I went into the cage. And I mean, we're hitting for a little while. I'm sweating in my pajama bottoms. I'm just hitting everything I could. Come back, sat down with the coach. And at that point, the Lao case is what we're going to do. We're going to give you a 10-day contract. You can be with the team. You're going to work out with us. You're going to do everything that the team does. And they said, if you can mesh well with the guys, if you can prove that you can work here, then we'll bring you. We'll put you on the team. And so for those 10 days, if you thought I was a lunatic, then every day, I wouldn't even sleep. Like we had 5am, 6am lifting sessions. I'm there at 4.30. And I'm lifting-- and the first one in the field last one to get out on. And every day, every day, every day. And then at that point, by the time the 10 days were up, they said, hey, you know, you're officially on the team. And they wanted to use me almost immediately. They're like, hey, well, have you pinch hit in a couple of games this season? Get the experience of a division one, all of that. And I was out of the moon. I mean, when I tell you, there's no better feeling of euphoria than accomplishing something that nobody thought you'd actually do. I can't explain it. And I wish I could put in the words I really can't. There's not-- I'm not going to lie to you. There's nothing right now in the social media space accomplishment wise that I've done that's felt the same as that. I'm not going to lie to you. And it's unexplainable. You feel as though you're almost a superhero in a way like for a couple of days, just because you can go back home and wear this badge of honor like I did this, right? So the 16-year-old kid who dreamed of becoming a pro baseball player-- Yes. --who walked on-- Yes. Yes. --now you have the chance to get drafted by a pro baseball team. Yes. --but that doesn't work out. No, because a pesky thing pandemic happened and cut the season and half and all the games we were playing, basically, we weren't able to play them. Mind you, I'm still battling to make sure I can have the playing time I need to make sure that I can actually get to the draft and get the offers that I'd like. And the season just got cut off completely and we were done. And so we're all indoors while figuring out what's going on. Mind you, you're eligible for, I guess, called a COVID year. So anybody who was a senior or somebody that was in their last year and didn't get that, the coaches have a chance to then call you back and you can play an extra year to cover that eligibility. I had to learn while I was in the apartment, kind of just figuring out my life. From my other friends or teammates' stories, I had to learn that they already did all that. The coaches called back everybody. They wanted. I never got a phone call. As I didn't know my last day in my uniform, my last day in my uniform, never as a baseball player. And that was something that I it it just like we talk about, right? Like there's the feeling of euphoria that you get when you make the team and there's no better feeling in the world. There's no more crushing feeling than knowing that I just I just played my last game as a baseball player and I had no idea. And so that's what stemming me wanted to make the documentary to baseball because I wanted to make something for anybody that was going to be a 16 year old kid or maybe even younger that wants to play this sport and everyone's telling them they can't do it. I want them to at least be able to find something in a documentary setting or at least just in any way that they can I can show them like it is possible. And if I can do it, you can do this, right? And that's kind of why I made it. When I first made it, it first was like I was upset. Of course, I was very hurt. I was very sad. I was crushed. So I'm writing this script to narrate over the B-roll. I'm writing this script as if it's like why has baseball done this to me? I'm so hurt. I'm so hurt. And then halfway through it just turned into a love letter to baseball and just being grateful that I even had the chance to do it. And I understand that baseball is it's your first experience of loving something that will never love you back. And you have to accept that. I love baseball. Baseball never loved me. And then it wasn't supposed to, right? It will chew you up. It'll spit you out. It's not about you trying to be this, you know, this superstar person. It's about you learning about yourself with this. So my baseball isn't the end. It's simply just a transition period into something new. And so when I made your baseball, it actually really helped me therapeutically into understanding like my life needs to just it has to change. I can't I can't do this like this. So. And was this your first content project? First ever content. How did you ever made a movie? Did you ever film the video before? Never wrote a script. Never made a movie. Never even I haven't even filmed a way to content. Again, you know, most people when they think of I'm going to create content. They're like, I'm going to create a 30-second TikTok, right? Also, most people again, dream of try to make the high school baseball team, you know, if they start playing baseball and they're 16 years old, but here you are. Once again, dream and big. And you're like, I'm not just going to make a short video. I'm going to make an actual documentary. Yeah. That's an ambitious project. Like, how did you figure out the tools like to? So my my brother and my best friend, he, we all love movies. We love movies. And our buddy in mind, he's worked in theater, his whole entire life. He's an actor. He's a director producer, all that stuff. So I contact him as that, hey, I want to make this documentary. How do we do it? And so he sat me down. He's like, we're going to do it this way. We're going to film all these things. And we're going to, and we're going to put it all together into this one project. We called it unfinished at the time. And then afterwards, I'm like, okay, this one's a, it's a longer one. There's no like, happy go lucky message at the end. It's, it's a real raw version of my life and who I am. And I'm like, let's shorten this up and try to make a digestible. And maybe like less than five minutes, just so people can kind of get a vibe of what it is that we're doing. So we made it shorter. I think it was five minutes, four minutes, made short. It was simply just again, and the narration of the love letter I had to baseball understanding, like, I've experienced failures, I've experienced accomplishments. And at the end of it, I'm still who I am. I still have value in this life. And nothing that you will do will fully define who you are. Only you can do that, right? Like, dude, like just because something gives you purpose, doesn't mean that you're only purpose in life, right? And that's kind of what I try to accomplish making this documentary. My dad, like 800 followers on Instagram. So I'm like, how do I get this out to people? Welcome to nine in the morning and I go to bed at 10 in the evening. And I just be sending emails every day, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's what really got it out. We have people like Kyle Kuzma has seen it. We have people like CT Fletcher at the time that reposted it. We have a lot of people that are able to see it and relate to it and post it on their stories. And I was able to get the camera at 800 followers. I think it got 30,000 views on Instagram from it. And mind you, that's all you're muscling it out. But within that, LeBron James and his team inside. And so uninterrupted, I reached out. And we made this segment called more than an athlete. It was like a one minute thing when I'm reading like, you know, about baseball and about who I am. And they put it on their page. And then from there, I got introduced a mile 44, which helped me make a series called I'm going to do it anyway. And it was, it was a way for me to kind of again, be more introduced to not only the production set of things, but also just social media in general is like, okay, this can actually work. So. And what were you doing during this time period? Like, so you're still in school? I'm taking, you're taking remote classes now because it's COVID. And like, how are you getting by? Were you still living in your car? Because I read that you were working like entry-level jobs, like fast food. I was. What types of jobs were you working? So let me check it this right here. I worked for the apartment. I worked for this the school apartments that were down the street from the school. I worked for them for a while. So I was cleaning apartments to get ready for new movements. I think that was like, I did that for about a month and a half. And then after that, I ended up working at Krispy Kreme. And then after I stopped working at Krispy Kreme, I worked at Chipotle. And then after Chipotle, I worked at the pizza place. I was a tutor, a substitute teacher for a little bit. I worked in the finance department for the school. Just trying to find these, and the movie theater. Yeah. I was doing all that whilst this COVID thing was happening. At that point, your dream to become a professional baseball player was dead at the window. You'd given up on that. Yes, but only because again, what it took for me to get to that level, I was 180 pounds on my got to community college. And from just purely just like just an unreal amount of work. I went from 180 to 235 pounds in less than a year. And my whole body structure changed. I was very strong. And I was very big. And I was very much, again, a heavy hitter. But the amount of stress that puts on your body to try to just jump to that, it took a big toll out of me. And again, that was all for the sake of I get drafted. I'm willing to sacrifice that to go get drafted. And so what happened was after the baseball thing didn't work out, I can literally feel my body. Like as I'm working at Christopher Kim, I can feel the aches, the pains of all of it. Because it's just a lot on you. And so my head on my look, man, if I actually go and play baseball now, I mean, I will get injured. I will tear an ACL. I was due for an injury. So your professional baseball dreams don't work out. You're working entry-level jobs, including fast food, crispy cream. Oh, dude. My brother funny enough did videos before I did. And he was the one that kind of, I when I, he made a video, I think about like astrological comparisons. Like if you're, if you're in an Aries, this is what it means to be, if you're Scorpio, it didn't like that. This is a TikTok. It was a TikTok. It was very clever. Did you have a TikTok profile? No, didn't even know what it was. I was so removed. I had no idea what Vine was. I didn't know what, I didn't know any of that stuff. Because I was so focused on baseball, I was like, I could care less. But that was the first time I was introduced to what TikTok was. And I would then just want to download a TikTok and I'm looking at all these videos. Everyone is so talented. They either sing, they dance, they act, they do scripts, they do lip syncing, they do makeup, they do food, they do all these things. I could not do anything. I wasn't a dry, I couldn't draw. I couldn't sing. I didn't act yet at the time. I didn't do, I did not, none of the things on the checklist I could do. So I'm like, well, I'm not talented enough to go viral and do all that. So I'm not going to do that. But the one thing I did notice is that because of the toll that baseball took on me, I would sit and I'd ask myself like, you know, what do I like? And I couldn't answer that. What makes me happy? I couldn't answer that. What are my goals? What are my hobbies? I realized I relinquished so much of myself for baseball and I made baseball my entire life. I don't even know who I am at all anymore. I have no clue. And so I would do videos just to honestly see if I can find myself in them. I didn't really, the whole point wasn't to be famous in the slightest. The earlier videos I'd have, I'd mess around my brother and I'm like, can you make me famous? But it was because I was being an annoying little brother. But I never in a million years thought it actually happens. I was like, okay, I'm just going to do these videos because they're fun for me. And I like them. It was a way to give me out of my anxiety. It was a way to give me out of my little bubble. And it was a way for me to feel as though I was trying to find myself again and like my personality. And then at some point, because again, you're like, this isn't going to go that big. It's fine. I would work these nine to five jobs and I would have such rough experiences with customers, with bosses, with co-workers. I would still in my work clothes go and do a video where I'm holding the phone in the mirror similar to what I had seen before. And I'm just like, this is what happened today. And I'm explaining it in depth, raw in depth. And mind you again, because I'm starting to find myself again, I'm talking like a million miles. I made it. I'm going so fast and I'm recollecting these stories and through whatever the case. And people really like like resonated with it. They really liked it. They really enjoyed me sharing my experiences. And then people were very happy with this. I had a storytelling aspect. So it was more about the stories than the format than like the stories of what I was saying right. rather than what I was doing. - And what made you go in front of America? 'Cause I think most people's first instincts would be your record selfie style, right? - I saw my brother do it. I saw my brother do it first, and I saw okay, I'm like okay, films that way, cool. And for some reason I saw him do it, I'm like that seems normal. I had no questions about it. And then apparently other people also had did that, I'm like where they would like talk in the mirror. In the mirror, I know my okay, that seems practical. And so I just did that for practicality purposes. I didn't think it was an art of any kind. I'm like this seems like the most practical way for me to express myself. And I talked to myself in the mirror. So it was so comfortable for me to just look at me and just talk, so that's kind of how that went. And so I was just do that to explain what I was going through. - And what was that moment where you realized that, hey, this is your honest something here. Like this could actually be a real career, or when you start to get like your first dollar coming in, like what were those moments? - I was working with a piece of shop. And it didn't matter if I was doing it. - You were working at a piece of shop, but even when you had almost two million followers on TikTok. - I was working with a piece of shop when I had eight million followers. My ideology was this, 'cause I mean, growing up like stability is a big thing. Our parents were like a paycheck, a paycheck, right? And it didn't matter if I was happy, sad, funny. It didn't matter. I got paid every two weeks. And that was solid for me. Now the paycheck, I'm only getting maybe worth 500 bucks a month. It's not like I'm getting a lot of money, 'cause again, I'm sharing that money with family and what have you. But from the pizza shop, from the pizza shop. So at that point, like for some reason, I loved that stability and my manager would beg me like, please quit this job and I'm not doing it. And we had to just work around that. So even if we had like events, we might be invited to. If I had work, I couldn't go, like I got work. And so for me, I ended up leaving that pizza job not because of social media was because my grandmother at the town was still alive. And with us, we were taking care of her at our house because she was just not doing well. COVID being a big thing, I told everybody, I'm like, I need you to tell me if somebody's sick, I cannot bring that home, because if I get my grandma's sick, that's it. So I need you to be very transparent with me. And at that time, they just weren't, like I think I was working with people and I had to find out later that they were sick and no one told me. And it was very disheartening for me. So I'm like, I'm leaving, 'cause I cannot run that risk. So I left and as I, because I left, I would be back home, I would go live on TikTok, applying to jobs while I'm live on TikTok, I'm applying to jobs on the computer as I'm talking to people. Just because I'm like, I gotta get a new job. - And you were getting income from TikTok at this point? - We were, yeah, we were making income from the brand deals we were getting at that time. And so mind you, and I'm certain you've experienced this, like you'll learn that like the deals that you get will far exceed the paycheck that you're getting from the nine to five. And so what had happened was, I think my manager saw that as an opportunity to where at that point they made sure I was so busy that I could not follow up with a job application or an interview at that point. They're like, well, you don't have work. So we gotta do all these things. And at that point on, I mean, at some point, I realized like there's too much stuff requiring my attention on the social media side will just focus on this for a while and that's kind of where it went to. It was never a declaration of like, I am quitting to focus on this. It was quite literally, I had quit for other reasons and social media because of what it was doing workwise and even business wise, I couldn't go back to apply to a job. - Would you get recognized at the pizza job? - No. - Okay. - So you're still not, you weren't like break out yet. - My everyday routine stayed the same. I didn't get it recognized really at all. Maybe someone would be like, oh, I saw that video, but it was never a big deal. It was comfy for me. It was able to, I was able to make videos and feel perfectly fine walking outside, I was fine. And so one day we went to the fair, I took my mom to the fair. I was there and somebody had walked up and asked for a picture. I was like, oh my god, yeah, of course. I was like, yeah, great. Got the picture, cool, that was fine. Second person, cool, not problem. Third, fine. And then it was a small line forming. I'm okay, it's not a problem, cool. And then literally before I knew it, we were surrounded, surrounded. There was no way for me to get out of it to where security had came and escorted us out of the fair. And that's when I realized in my brain, I'm like, okay, oh, right. All of the numbers that you see, those are people. - Right. - And they're here. And that's when it really dawned on me. Like, okay, this is, I have to figure out. I have to go and test it for myself. Where am I good to go? Where is it going to be? That's kind of where I went. It was a really scary recollection, like a rather, a revelation. It was a bit scary to think about. - Yeah. Earlier at the start of the interview, when I asked you, what is Jordan think when he looks at himself in the mirror, you said it's a complex answer. What would it take for that answer to be just one word, which is happy? - Yeah, great questions today, got we? - I think what it would take for me to look and say happy is for me to just fully be happy with myself. When I started this, a big thing for me was family. I want my family to be happy because my mom and dad have tried so hard to make sure my brother and I lived a life that we enjoyed, even with the circumstances that we were in. And all I've wanted to do is give that back to them tenfold 'cause they've deserved it. And if I can sit back and look and be able to see that my family has been able to enjoy life in a different way now. And I can actually feel as though there's an overall happiness within the core people that have brought me happiness in my entire life, then I could really look at myself and just say, I'm happy. I'm happy because we are now at a spot in our lives to where nothing has changed besides the opportunities we're able to have for each other and for things ambitiously. You know, we can just enjoy a better quality of life because like I said, seeing what they went through, seeing what my grandmother would go through as well just to try to make them proud. Like that would be so much for me. Right, faith and family of the two things are most important to me. And if those things are satiated, I'm a happy guy. - I love it. I mean, genuinely mean this when I say, like, if I was to ever have a son, I hope he turns out like you. (laughing) Thank you. - Yeah. - Maybe it's Mavily.