Turning Your Worst Fears Into A Career | Michelle Khare

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But if you strip away the emotional component, it's just information. You're putting your body through so much, and you're also sharing this experience with your fans. Where do you draw that line between transparency and having moments that are just for you? There have definitely been times when we've been filming, and I have a very personal moment happen. What is the number one thing that Michelle Kare fears the most? My biggest fear. Well, Michelle, I am so excited to have you here. I just feel like I've been seeing your name everywhere recently. I can't go to any YouTube event or any Emmys event or any brand event I feel like without running into you. So, congrats on such a successful year first off. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I know we've been talking about collaborating for a little bit, and so it's nice that we get to do so in sort of the most meaningful way of creating content, which is having a real conversation, I guess. I know. I can't wait to talk more. Like you said earlier, most of the time when we see each other, it's in a very busy and chaotic setting. So, it's so nice to sit down with you. Yeah. For sure. So, Michelle, when you describe to people what you actually do for a living, how do you tell them what you do? How do I tell people what I do? I host a show called Challenge Accepted, where I tempt the world's toughest stunts and professions. Some might call that being a daredevil. I think it's pretty cool. But at the core, my mission is to inspire young people and specifically young girls to step us at their comfort zone, because I grew up as a young girl who was very anxious, very scared, very afraid. I was the kind of person who wanted to get really good grades and make sure I was on the right path for life and risk was very scary to me. So it's crazy to think that that girl from that small town in Louisiana who was very terrified of even the concept of getting a B is now hanging off of planes, recreating Tom Cruise's deadliest stunt. That's crazy. Yeah, I think that's so admirable. And I definitely see how big of a role like Fear has played in your life. So, you know, when I think people think of overcoming fears, they think of maybe taking a dancing class or trying public speaking, I don't think they think of creating a whole career around it. So where did you get the idea of challenge accepted? Gosh. When I quit my job to start my YouTube channel, I was sort of trying everything. But all of the projects I was attempting, if you go back and look at them, have an element of trying something new. And for me, quitting my job that, you know, was on that path that I had been on my whole entire life to do something completely different was my first risk. Some of my early videos were reviewing Starbucks drinks. That was a risk for me to try something new, to try a different menu item. And from there, I slowly worked my way up to attempting different sports, attempting different ways of life, trying even different diets or warning routines, and it escalated into stunts, committing to training like an Olympic figure skater for multiple months. And now mastering things like Harry Houdini's deadliest magic trick, I think what I've learned along the way is I was always sort of waiting for a magic moment of bam, you're fearless, suddenly. Once you've done 20 challenges, you'll be fearless. And I actually don't think that, like that has ever happened to me, that I have never achieved that. And I don't think I ever will. And so part of the arc of challenge accepted and my own personal growth has been realizing fear is always present, but it's how you mitigate, manage, and recover from it. So that is what I have been slowly learning in my own personal life. And as you started observing how fear can hold you back in your personal life, at what point are you like, this could be an actual content strategy. Gosh, you know, at the beginning of my channel, I'm just throwing things at the wall, trying everything, literally. I had a strategy of making three videos for the studio, and I'm putting this for the studio on quotes, and one video for me. So every month I would make three videos, it didn't matter the topic, it would be trending topics, things I thought, okay, that will just perform well. And then I would make one video a month, this is my little passion project. And though the tipping point, the inflection point for me, was when those passion projects started out performing, the things that I just thought would perform well or were trends. And that's a special inflection point, because it's rare that you get to make the thing you love, and it happens to be what the audience wants to see as well. And the audience was really gravitating towards long in-depth documentary storytelling, not just me transforming my life for a day, but committing fully for months on end. And so, there came a point when I said, what if we just only made a challenge, except if we invest our time and energy into just this idea. And it was a big risk, because our episodes take a long time to make, I'm physically putting myself through something. But it was the right choice, because everyone rallied and committed even more fully to that. Yeah, and for those of you that are not familiar with your content, let's just quickly talk about what some of those risks are. So, I've seen videos of you trying out for the Marines, are you going into the FBI? You've done some of Houdini's most dangerous stunts, and even most recently, you've hung off the side of a military plane. Just like Tom Cruise it, you were the second person in the world to do it. And so, when we're talking about fear, we're talking about, like, there's a chance you might die in these situations. Is that right? Well, you know, for Challenge Accepted, it's about mitigating and approaching risks intelligently. Never out of recklessness or unpreparedness. Those types of stunts can only be unlocked if you have the best people in the world around you. So, for me, as a professional learner, a professional student, if you will, the first step of making an episode of Challenge Accepted is to find the best coach in the world. And I'm relentless and brutal about the casting of the coach. I will delay a project, months, if I don't feel like we have found the right person who is empathetic, kind, a person whose mission I align with, someone I want to spend every single day with, also just energetically. And once we find that person, typically, everything falls into place. Our internal team has intentionally been hired to be people who are from traditional film, who have film school background. And then also people like me and you who have learned on the job and are digital focused. And I think that type of collaboration is disruptive and also allows the unlocking of something spectacular. Really, I think what makes your video so special is the emotional journey of what you're actually going through. Is that challenging to be transparent about the struggle of you preparing to run seven marathon in seven different continents in seven days or becoming a victorious secret model? Like you're putting your body through so much and you're also sharing this experience with your fans. So sort of where do you draw that line between transparency and having moments that are just for you? I have to manage this internal battle between host Michelle who wants to have fun doing the thing. And producer Michelle, who knows that the best story is when I lay it out on the table. And sometimes those come at odds. And there have definitely been times when I have, we've been filming and I have a very personal moment happen. And we get to the edit room and I vocalize, guys, I don't, I don't know, I think we should cut it out. It's too much. The team around me says, no, that's the part everyone's going to remember. That is the part of the video that will inspire young girls and young boys to do something different. This is what makes it human. So I want to show the human component of course. Is there an example you can tell me that comes of my? When we were filming our Taekwondo episode, there was a day that we went to train where as I was training, I got my period and I left through my clothes. And it was so embarrassing. But my instructor was just incredible. He took it like it was just another day of training and he went back to his own house, brought me a new set of clothes and said, "Get back up, we're continuing training." I wanted to cut that out of the video. It's embarrassing. But our team, by the way, and the people who are working on this are all men. They fought to keep it, and they said, "This is important for young girls to see that they can pursue sport. They can have moments like this and continue forward, and it's also important for instructors and other men to see how they can be supportive in these circumstances." Even having the support from the men on my team of like, "We've got to put it in, this is the heart of the story." If you look at the video, it is one of the highest retention points that's seen, and specifically the part where the instructor brings me, you know, mastery, he brings me the new set of clothes. It honestly, it's emotional for me to think about even because it was so compassionate of him to do that and to see me for all versions of me. That's so beautiful. I can just sense the vulnerability and the humanness, and I love how what you said earlier that your mission for wanting to do this was to inspire young people, young girls in particular that they can overcome their fears, that they can also learn new challenges and sort of embrace different career paths that they might be interested in. It certainly reminds me of my journey, and even partly why I started this podcast, I started creating videos because I just was somebody who went through failure quite a bit in my life, and I spent a lot of time just kind of being sad over the different struggles that I was experiencing, and then I realized that those struggles are actually relatable for so many people, so instead of being sad about them, how can I turn them into stories? That became the basis that brought the community together. I think, you know, the internet is historically, like Instagram has talked about in a way that it's all highlight reels, and I think the world is changing where people realize that, you know, those highlight reels are not actually real. The real humanity is found in the bloopers, and even, you know, with this podcast, the reason why I call it "What Happens Next" is because it just, you know, everybody in life encounters hardships, they encounter failures, they encounter embarrassing moments, and what defines them is not those hard moments that they go through, it's about what happens next, it's about them continuing to push forward even through tough times. So I love how you're so mission driven, and you're not scared to put your vulnerability out there, because I agree with you, that is the most inspiring part. When you meet people out, they probably remember those kind of moments that actually made them feel comfortable, and like they're not alone, yeah. You'll see, and I mean, how many young girls have had that happen to them in PE class, you know, and haven't seen that represented in media. And I think, sometimes you talk about, I want to see myself represented in media. And I think, like, sometimes it can be misconstrued as a selfish objective, but I feel that seeing your struggle and your perspective in media can validate someone and empower them to move forward. It shows you're not alone. Right. And I'm not trying to dwell on this conversation about menstrual cycles, but you know, as probably any man in a relationship can relate, like, you know, my wife, when she's going through that time of month, she'll say, like, oh my gosh, she's so embarrassing. Like, tell me if I stand up, can you see anything? And I'm like, hey, well, first off, it's not embarrassing. Like, you know, if that is the case, like, I'm happy to give you my jacket or whatever else, but you don't need to live in fear or humiliation because that's just a human thing. And so a lot of times, a fear is that we have in our own mind are just sort of self-created and not actually what the world may perceive. Those are actually the moments that make us most relatable. So that's just one aspect that I love about your story. But I know, you know, when it comes to embracing fear, it's more than just your current content that you do now because you embracing fear actually started earlier in your journey as well. But being the daughter of immigrants, you know, growing up in this small town where there weren't a lot of people that look like you. And from what I know about your story, like you wanting to do, pursue entertainment, you know, something within media at a young age where you didn't find a lot of people that look like you on camera, to you leaving this small town, to ultimately you leaving a very stable job and not just the financial security aspect of it, but also the disappointment that you may have feared that your parents would have who really wanted a stable career for you. That seems like a through line in your entire life. And so if you think about all the challenges that you've faced and you've overcome, do you think the hardest one is one that you've done within your videos? Or do you think it's actually something that happened you earlier in life? I think the hardest challenge I continually face is that approach of fear as a whole. It's a muscle and the more you use it, the better you get at it, but it's hard to approach that every single day for my challenges, but then also in my personal life running my business. And I have found you just have to keep doing it over and over and over again and getting better at it. I feel honestly like the greatest risk I have seen is the one my parents took to move here. Flying on the side of the plane, holding my breath for three and a half minutes, like that is actually, in my opinion, nothing compared to that. So it's hard for me to like choose what has been my hardest challenge because I think I've actually experienced so much privilege off the back of others. Have you been back to India? I have. I've been once. I went after my grandfather passed away, so we spread his ashes in the Ganges and it was really impactful for me to see the home my dad grew up in and where he went to school and really get a better understanding of my roots. I mean, if you asked me today, hey, you want to move across the notion to a country where nobody speaks the language, you speak, and the culture is completely different, I don't know if I would be brave enough to do that. And they weren't. It's an incredible gift that I think about all the time. I mean, that's something that affects generations to come. So I can totally see that. Like when my parents came here, they had $7 in their bank account. They didn't speak any English, they didn't really know anybody here in America. So you're right. That is probably a fear that I've even taken for granted, just the struggles that our parents or our grandparents or our ancestors have overcome, just to give us the life that we have today. So I love how you're always just giving sort of respect to the history of what gave you this opportunity in the first place. So when you think about your childhood, what were some of the biggest pressures that you felt growing up? I think a lot of immigrant kids experience pressure from parents to choose a certain way of life. And that actually was not my experience. I had a self-imposed pressure because I was so aware of what my dad and my mom had sacrificed for me. And so that fueled my own internalized pressure to succeed at whatever was in front of me. Get good grades, do science fair. My summers were really fun. And this is all like me, just like I'm going to wake up at 5 in the morning and study for the SAT and then go to physics camp. Like that was my life. I've always been wanting to maximize what opportunities are in front of me. And that drive more so came out of like respect for your parents? Yeah, yeah. And again, even there were times when my parents were like, all right, you don't have to do this. But I need to, I have one shot, you know? So it's pretty funny. My parents were like, chill out and do something, go out, stay out late one night, you know. But you were like the perfect kid on paper. Like you didn't really. I think on paper, I was privileged to hit all of those marks and goals and get in the good college, get the great internships, build a nice resume. But what sacrifice did come with that? I was super anxious and I was living in a scarcity mindset. And those goals were like, I have to get straight A's, I have to get in, I have to have a certain SAT score. I have to get into the best college. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've got to, I've got to get a good job. I've got to have, you know, this, this salary 401k, whatever that means, you know, I'm in it. You were thinking about even salary in high school. I was thinking about my whole life ahead because. But not like marriage and children kind of a thing sort of like what you would expect to a lot of Indian girls to be thinking about, like. No, I was thinking more about career paths and goals and there's this, there's still that person within me. Like I'm extremely business driven. I'm extremely focused on doing the best for my team and pushing that envelope forward. I would never deny that I've 180 from that. And those are amazing things I'm grateful are still within me. Imagine setting your makeup then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Jelly mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plump, dewy, hydrated skin. still feels like your skin. Try new, grippy setting mist from Mavily, New York. Maybe it's Mavily. So while you were pursuing sort of this traditional path of getting great grades and getting into great school, you also had this creative side to you, right? I did. Yeah. I mean, I still did theater and I did like singing and dancing and performing. But in my head, like literally, I think there are like diaries I have at like in like middle school, I was like, you know, making my five and 10-year plan as a 11-year-old. That's when you'll find when you go on my diaries. And then it makes absolutely no sense, of course. But that was the mindset I was in. And theater was not on that list. It was like, this is fun, fun hobby, unrealistic for me. And I remember very distinctly, I got to go to this theater camp one summer that I was really excited to get into. And I remember just telling the professor there, I don't think I could actually do this for real. Because when I, you know, one of the assignments when you do like an acting class is you'll go to the bookstore and you'll find a scene in the playwright section that is right for you and you perform it for the class. And I would go and I would just sit in the bookstore and I could not find a play that would actually be a part I would get cast in. And then it became a big wake-up call of the reality of they're just aren't there's not a place. There's not a part for you to do this. And so I was very like again, business resource aware. I'm like, okay, there's no, there's no revenue stream here because there's no art for you to do it. And this was not coming from your parents saying because I think that's what people normally would think that a child has a certain creative passion. But then somebody else in adult would say, there's no pragmatic approaches. And I think that's important to be distinctive because yes, it's easy to look at this story exterior looking in immigrant parents, immigrant parents, set strict rules that actually wasn't my situation. In fact, they were like, all right, you can try. Yeah. But we need to know every single plan, ABCDEFG, like what's the backup plan? What's the backup plan? Like how are you actually going to support yourself? Gotcha. And that was frustrating. I think it's frustrating for any kid whose parents challenged their dream. But I really am so grateful for those conversations because they would cautiously encourage me. Like, all right, you can do this thing that's a little scary for us. And you can do whatever you want because you're an adult, but you should be thinking about this business in this. And I value that because that is the strategy I took to start my channel. Of, you know what, let me put myself in the headspace, do the Tim Ferris fear setting exercise of if everything goes wrong, what are the first 10 phone calls I'm going to make? How am I going to pick myself up off the floor? Really deeply sit in the visualization of failure and become comfortable with it and have a backup plan. I attribute that mindset they gave me to why the channel was successful quickly. Film, art, theater was also a part of your childhood because your dad would watch movies to learn English. Yes. So at a young age, tell me about that. My dad learned how to speak English, watching Rocky, watching Tom Cruise movies. His job has nothing to do with entertainment, but he loves entertainment. And so my childhood and trip were Louisiana where there's not much to do, at least wasn't back then when I was growing up there. One of the most entertaining things we could do on a Friday night was to go to the movies. So every week, our whole family would go to the movies and it didn't matter if it was a blockbuster coming out or, you know, a bad B side comedy coming out. We saw literally every movie that came out and that was such a fun education for me that my parents gave me because I learned why I liked this movie, why I didn't like this movie. I learned about retention when people walk out of theaters. And yeah, it was a gift they gave me of time as a family and escaping and enjoying entertainment together. So at that stage, did you know that you had a calling for the arts, but you had this need, this practicality for stability? Exactly. I think that those two parts of me were coming at odds with one another like, oh, it would be so fun to explore storytelling in a meaningful and high level way. But practically, how do you execute that? And I couldn't figure that out. And so I didn't want to pursue it until I could. For me, that's why I kind of resisted it for so long. But I think my employers admitted and everybody around me sort of knew. Yeah, your heart wasn't quite in it. And that ultimately took you to a big crossroads that you found yourself later in life where you had to make a really hard decision, which we're going to get to in just a second. Eventually, you get sort of the crown jewel at the time, which was Buzzfeed. Yeah. Yeah. And that's after your graduate. It was amazing. At the time, after I graduated, Buzzfeed was the, I believe, the fastest growing YouTube channel in the world. I saw the company or the Buzzfeed video team go from 15, 20 people to hundreds of people over the couple of years that while you were there. Yeah. When I started, we were working out of an old yoga studio in Hollywood. So we didn't have the prestige that that Buzzfeed, we know during the golden era of Buzzfeed. So why did you decide to apply to Buzzfeed? I mean, it was very well known at the time. So like, it was becoming popular. The listicles. Can you like list? I feel like I'm talking about an abacus instead of a calculator when I say listicle. I don't know anybody reads them anymore. But listicles were very popular on Facebook. So the brand recognition of Buzzfeed was, you know, they're this disruptor for journalism and written media. And they had just opened their video department to see if they could take the written media learnings and apply them to online video, which took off very quickly and very quickly they expanded into many channels, many Facebook pages, a cast of people. And so I saw these videos going viral. And I thought, man, that would be such a cool place to work. So I applied. I remember I got an interview and I like used the little amount of savings I had to buy a 24 hour plane ticket to come and do the interview. And thankfully, I got the job. This was in Los Angeles. It was like the coolest graduate school ever. I was there for two and a half years and I learned everything from how to turn on a camera to upload, edit, shoot, produce. Were you on camera? I was on camera too. And I sort of just found myself wanting to take on bigger and bigger projects, which I think is where a little bit of the heart of challenge accepted comes from. Gotcha. And so was there a certain point where you just started feeling boxed into your creative ambitions versus what you could actually do with the company? Well, you know, I think anyone who has a little bit of an entrepreneur heart within them reaches a moment when they're like, to move forward, I have to leave the nest. Yeah. And I wanted to have more upward movement. And I knew the only way to do that would be to take a few steps back and strike out on my own. Wow. And I think that's so relatable where there's so many people that might work for a company, but they have these other artistic passions. Maybe what they're passionate about doesn't align with their actual work. Or maybe they do have some sort of entrepreneurial calling. At what point do you think someone should pursue that passion of theirs? I think very practically speaking. Again, this is my parents. What gave me the listicle really practically speaking, listicle is attempt the passion on the weekends while you have the safety net of the job. Do it. Fail at it. Enjoy it. See how much you like it. Because if you're willing to spend the weekends doing it, that to me checks a box of commitment and passion. I mean, every entrepreneur is going to spend some time at least in the beginning working weekends and nights. So you have to be ready to do that. I don't think that's ever ended for you. You just told me that you're up till 2 a.m. Okay, listen, I saw Darl last week and he's like, I was up until 4 a.m. doing thumbnails last night. That's crazy, impressive, get more sleep, but a commitment to who you are as an entrepreneur and leader of your company. So yes, I think in the the baby step phase, you've got to try it out on the weekends because if you get bored of it or if you're like, you know, at the first sign of struggle, you want to give up. That might not be something you should quit your job to do. Yeah. And so what is that moment? Like, I always think of Jerry McGuire, right? Like that, that key moment. But what was your Jerry McGuire moment? Well, I guess for the younger audience, they might not understand that reference. So what was that moment that you just realized you have to go? Like, was there a moment that you remember where you made that decision and maybe put in your notice or walking through that? Okay. The very last big project I did for BuzzFeed was I did a video where I trained for my first marathon ever in only 10 weeks. I had 10 weeks from only having run a couple miles at a time to running a full marathon. I remember being on the start line of the LA marathon standing there and realizing that the marathon I was about to run was actually the completion of my time there. Like this was the victory lap. That this was the biggest and last story I wanted to tell with them and I felt like if I can get through a marathon, I'm going to ascend into a new version of myself and that version of myself is brave enough to take a risk to be an entrepreneur. And do you remember the moment you put in the notice? I do. Yeah, I ran the marathon. I finished the edit for the video and I put in my two weeks. And so some of the content you were doing was it challenged related or was it like endurance based? Some of the content I was making at BuzzFeed was physically taxing in various ways. So I did the marathon project, did a couple other adjacent things, but at the time in general online, like unscripted media was really having a breakout moment on YouTube. So everyone was doing taste tests and unscripted, trying things, ways of life. I think where challenge accepted came about wasn't after until I experimented on my own for quite a bit, were a few months of that to discover the tone and style of the show and what differentiates it from all the other unscripted content, even the other physically taxing unscripted content I had done previously. And it's that level of depth. Gotcha. So before we get into challenge accepted, you make this decision to put in your notice. This was a really big moment. I graduated in Ivy League school. My parents were happy. I had a stable job and I decided to risk it all. I knew grippy setting mist from Mavelin, New York. Maybe it's Mavelin. So while I was working at BuzzFeed, B plot, I was moonlighting as a professional cyclist, which is crazy. Essentially what happened was I started cycling while I was in LA on an internship and just really enjoyed it. And it was the first time I had allowed myself to just really have fun doing something that at that time was not about a career objective. It was just about enjoying being outside, exercising, getting better at something. And so I just from enjoying it started getting better at it. So I joined my school cycling team and we went to Nationals. And the year after I graduated, I went to U23 Nationals where I was kind of like an average to low ranked racer at that time. But I thought it'd be fun to go. And part of the strategy for cycling is you look at who's coming and what teams they're from. And you know, based on their ranking nationally, who to look out for and who the big threats are. I had had some good results, but not quite compared to some of the other women who were there. I had a moment during the Nationals criterion race where I just decided to take a risk and sprint ahead of the group off of the front. Now if you're familiar with cycling, 99% of the time because of wind, you fall back in line with the group because it's much easier to cycle in a group than by yourself. But because the meta was oh, she's she's not one of the top ranked racers here. It just let me go assuming that I would fall back in. And 20 minutes later to everyone's surprise, I and including my own, I ended up winning Nationals, which is crazy. There's actually like a photo of me after winning where I'm like, I guess I won Nationals, which was so silly. And genuinely like it was actually like I was laughing. A lot of other people weren't laughing, but I was laughing. And it it it was the first time I had like kind of succeeded in something by genuinely like I'm just doing this right. So then it actually led to me signing a pro contract. So now I'm working at Buzzfeed 9 to 5 and from 5 to 9, I am traveling the world cycling. I am training after work. I'm uploading a video on YouTube hoping it goes viral and then getting on a bike and writing for three hours. Like it was the most insane Hannah Montana whack lifestyle ever. And everyone constantly was like, what are you doing? And I didn't realize until eventually I stopped cycling. How much time I was using cycling? And what ended up happening is I put in my two weeks at Buzzfeed. I quit my job. I'm ready to go out on this entrepreneurial mission in the same week. All of my racing bikes got stolen. Someone broken to my apartment complex and stole all the bikes. And I was like man for for a female professional cyclist, the $10,000 bike you are given by the team in a way is a version of your salary. And at the end of every season you sell the bike to get cash. I lost $10,000 overnight because of that. And I was not enough financial position to buy a new bike, buy any means because I was going to put everything I had into trying this social media thing. And I knew it wouldn't be a smart thing to do. And so it was kind of a blessing in disguise because it really made me focus. And it gave me the ability to widen out on my channel and say, okay, if I can't bike, maybe I can learn how to do stunts. Maybe I can learn how to figure skate. Maybe I can learn these other things that are more within my reach and a way to express myself. So I lost some of my most prized positions. I lost the bikes that I won nationals on that were emotionally important to me, financially important to me. And I'm glad that it allowed that it gave me the gift of focus. Yeah, wow. That's incredible how sometimes our biggest burdens become our biggest blessings in unexpected ways. But it also gave you sort of the training for creating content that centered around you and getting your YouTube channel started. Exactly. Give me a lot more time on my hands. Yeah. And it is training you endurance and performance and competition. So when you decide to leave Buzzfeed at that time, did you tell your parents what was your financial situation like? Like if you're going to leave a stable job for something that is unpredictable, what was the circumstances? I did not tell anyone in my life really that I was deciding to do this until after it was done. And the purpose for that was I had allowed myself to anytime I needed to make a big decision. I was the person at that time that would call 10 friends, call everyone in my family, think about it, and then call everyone back and say, well, I thought about this other thing. And really that's just indecision and a lack of confidence. And I was like, I need to make a decision, I need to stick with it. And the last thing I wanted was someone else's emotional reaction to that, making me rethink it. I needed to have full, even famed confidence going into this decision. And I wanted to be able to fully own the failure. I didn't want anyone else to be blamed except for me. And so I put in my two weeks and then I called everyone and said, I've made a decision, I'm doing this. And from that point on, it was about buckling up and showing what I was made of. But because I had done the work, the fear-setting visualization, all of that, it gave me room to play. And it was really like the beginning of my first creative sandbox of expressing myself in a different way. And just knowing the way that you think, did you know how many days you had before you wouldn't be able to pay bills anymore? And I was like, well, we got to go around here. The summer I worked at Google, I put it all in a savings account that I never touched. So I had that. I was very fortunate that even the first month I got views on videos and got a check for whatever it was like a thousand bucks at the time. Which is significant when you're first starting out. So you had something in coming. So going back to earlier, I know we kind of touched upon the journey of how you stumbled upon Challenge Accepted. So you tried different formats. One of those formats being Challenge Accepted. So walk me through what your very first video was. Challenge Accepted just sort of came naturally as a progression and an evolution of what was already happening on the channel. And I think the first official episode of Challenge Accepted, it maybe even retroactively, I would say, I don't even know if it has Challenge Accepted branding on it. but episode One is an episode where I trained with the Victoria's secret model trainer for several weeks to see what it would be like as he's trained many of the models in the past to prepare for an event like that. In that video, it was intensive for me in the sense it was committing physically and then also filming for five weeks and then navigating all of that footage. It worked and it did well and it made me think more about what other things can I commit to with the fitness I had from cycling. It spun into training like an Olympic figure skater for months. It spun into training like a ballerina for a month. Was there a certain belief that you had to challenge yourself more and more in every video become more and more grand as you went on? I think I had that belief in the beginning, but what's cool about the internet is that it surprises you. Like a more recent example is one of our best performers over the past few years is an episode where I work at a 9-1-1 dispatch facility. That episode is technically me on the phone with someone answering their 9-1-1 call for 15 minutes. That's the premise. But it's grand, it's thrilling and it makes people think more critically about, oh yeah, when I call 9-1-1 in America, someone's going to answer and that is amazing. Who is the person who answers and how do they navigate that stress? I think YouTube teaches you to be humble. We were talking about before we were filming, there are circumstances when you have a passion project and it flops, but then something you spend a day on gets a million views instantly. I've always appreciated that humility that I actually don't think the future of challenge accepted is necessarily bigger, bigger, bigger every time. I think that would be narrow-minded. I think it challenge accepted will always have an error of highlighting everyday heroes. That's why our firefighter episode and police academy, FBI academy, these episodes highlighting the intricacies of professions and people we may not fully understand or appreciate is important and interesting. And sometimes people care more about learning about a 9-1-1-1 dispatch officer than they do about Tom Cruise's deliast and I love that. I love that with the power of the internet you never know what humble beginnings will reach a world stage and I hope that we get to tell even more stories like that. There are many ways to tackle fear. It doesn't always have to be in the sky. It is somewhat related question, I'm just curious about, you know, we're always told growing up to be successful, you have to really master one thing. And I think you're somewhat of an exception to that rule, right? Because they say there's a saying like Jack of all trades, King of Nothing, in your case, Jack of all trades, Queen of Time, but you are sort of a Jack of all trades. You've learned all of these skills. So what would you say to someone who says that you have to really focus on mastering one thing? I think there's actually a misconception with the poem that it's based off of. So most people know Jack of all trades is a master of none, but the full phrase is a Jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. Oh, wow. I did not even have that. Crazy. So I'm guessing you've heard this saying before. Yes. I really resonate with it because I really believe that the leaders that I look up to in business in anything are leaders who have done the jobs of the people they're now leading. I can empathetically lead from a place of, oh, okay, the person holding the boom pole has been holding for a long time. I know and I need to say my stuff faster because their arms are probably tired. I know what it's like to accidentally lead all the footage to have trouble in a soft wear. You know what I mean? It's a housing PTSD for me right now and it's a deleting footage. Exactly. And so once you have done all of those things and made those mistakes, I actually think like having the well-rounded is makes you a better leader because how often have we, in my case, at least, I've been on sets. I've worked for companies where the leadership has never actually taken out the trash themselves or has done the jobs of the people they're asking to do certain jobs. And the crew respect you more because you're thinking of them because you only know from experience. So I am, like, and man, when we started to buy ourself, was that so hard? This is such a privilege to have collaborators now, but like, I wish in those moments, and I set this at the Canon event. I went to last night where we, I judged a contest for Canon where we gave out $100,000 of funding for young filmmakers' projects and something I said to them was like, never forget being a one-man band because this is actually your education to be a leader. Yeah. Like, never forget what this feels like. Yeah. That's beautiful. Oh, man. Teach me a lot. Thanks for the show. So, you know, as you become more successful, right? As you accumulate more views, your audience gets bigger, the brand deals get bigger. It's also a lot of pressure. So do you ever experience burnout or anxiety like a lot of the creators talk about, you know, overperformance of videos or trying to keep up? Of course. I am guilty of and honest about when you, when you don't get a one out of 10 on the back end, it's annoying. Yeah. And there's an emotional component to the success, which is only a reflection of, I need to continually work on that. Right. And, you know, everybody does, who's a creator. It's difficult to separate that personal value from the value of the company or even the value of the work in the eyes of the audience. But I think what has helped me the most is saying no and having deep patients. We only really seven to ten episodes of Challenge Acceptant per year. It's a really low volume output compared to most big YouTube channels. And while that is super frustrating at times, when you go a month without uploading, that can be, you know, it makes you feel a little detached from what's going on online. It's frustrating. But at the same time, I'm proud of the quality of work we've built, the resume we've built so that when a brand or a collaborator comes to us, they know what they're going to get. We treated with respect, just out of our process, just the nature of how long our projects take has helped me avoid burnout as a whole. Also having that athlete background of like, all right, I know I need a rest period. I know I need this. That said, what were we both doing last night answering emails until two in the morning? But I think what has changed for me from the beginning of my career as a creator is I was staying up late, working weekends because I felt my back against the wall. Now I choose to do those things because I'm so excited about what we're doing, I'm passionate about what we're building, and I really believe in the work. I also feel a deep personal responsibility. Now that our company is supporting not only individuals, but families, I take that as a personal commitment to do what's needed to be done. I have learned that fear never ever goes away. There will always be aspects of every day that are a little bit fearful, a little bit anxiety and do say, and it's really about how you interpret what fear is because fear at its core is a biological response. When I look at a situation as simple as a social interaction of feeling fear, what does that tell me? Maybe I feel imposter syndrome in this situation, which tells me I don't need to feel that. You keep stripping away, ultimately, oftentimes you can get to the base of, oh, I don't actually need to feel the fear. I see fear as an opportunity, a learning experience, and information. It doesn't always mean push through and do it. I think my biggest fear, which has been persistent since I was a kid, is not really fully enjoying, maximizing, and taking ownership of every opportunity presented to me. And I don't even mean business wise, I mean life as a concept, time we have on earth. That's the big one. Why is that scary? It scares me because it goes back to the sacrifice that I've seen. To me, my life has been an immense gift given to me, and to waste any moment of it is wrong. Why waste a gift? So I think a lot of my other fears stem from that. I think critically about the responsibility that I have. have not just as a person who does daring things, but as a business leader, as a person who whom people and families rely on, a person whom kids and families watch and share videos within school, I think about the impact potential we have and what I can do with that. Those responsibilities incite fear in me, but they also incite joy and opportunity. Yeah, you started off by telling me that your mission for creating content was to give young people hope, to give them more confidence, especially young girls. Do you think, if you were to stop making videos tomorrow, that you have left such a legacy behind? I think I guess technically speaking, when I look at the sticky note and it says inspire one girl, hopefully we've exceeded that, but I think there's always going to be more work to do. And it expands into even work outside the technical part of the channel for me. I find myself really passionate about uplifting the next generation, doing what I can. I'm really proud that this year challenge accepted was immediately eligible, which was a huge long road for our show to go from me shooting on an iPhone to that. And yes, it would be incredible to be properly nominated and win something like that, but it's out of my control. However, I want to live in a world where that isn't crazy. I want it to be normalized that independent content creators are making content that can be at the award show and what I can control is making the best show I can. So those missions are exciting to me because they impact not just young people in their vision, but also the next generation of creators. Yeah. That's beautiful. We've done a lot of hard challenges, but one thing they'll throw out there, it's not easy to act in a film. Okay. So if you ever decide to take on that challenge, I know a guy. Okay. Okay. I've seen the sets. They're quite nice. They look even better in person than I've seen all the tours online. So I'm not sure if it'll be as hard as some of the stunts you've done, but I think it'll be entertaining for your audience to see you act in a film when we are dealing with the greatest critics in the world, which are the YouTube commenters. Yeah. Well, I'd love to make that happen. Maybe we'll be in touch with your team about this. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Thanks for showing. This was amazing. You're so inspiring in so many different ways. Yeah. Yeah. Meet new grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. Skeleton mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day-gum V-Grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. Maybe it's Mavily.