Angelo Bahu - Viral Video Creator | From Donut Shop to 6 Billion Views

I feel like I've found myself falling into the two things that I wanted to do my whole life, one business, and two being somewhere in the spotlight. When you have an entrepreneurial mindset, you're not thinking about what's in front of you but what it could be. He started behind the donut counter and ended up building a social media empire. Angelo Bahu, known online as Yo Angelo, turned his family's gourmet shop into a stage, crafting viral recipes and stories that sparked millions of views with a Gen Z mindset and a Gen Z audience. I was working in the shop one day. We were about to close. I just was like, okay, before we close I need to just make this video. I started cutting open the donut, start the video saying, I'm going to be making a flavor today. My boss said, if it goes viral, we're going to add this flavor to the menu. What made it so viral is the fact that everyone had their chance to participate. He fused humor, food, and brand strategy. Proving that influence isn't about age, it's about audacity. Today, he blends tastes, trends, and tradition into a movement others only try to copy. You need to take the comments as feedback. You need to take it more analytically than anything. You just have to learn how to source your confidence from within yourself because when you're constantly relying on positive comments to kind of keep you afloat, the second it goes away, you're lost. Anything can go viral. You just have to be able to train your eye and your brain to figure out how you can make that happen. A lot of people are under the impression that the only things that are viral are things that are viral. But when you train your eye, you can see the virality in just day to day things. You can see in anything. So think about an inflection point when you were just growing up that you think had a major pivotal role in who you are today. I have a few. It's interesting because I feel like I found myself falling into the two things that I wanted to do my whole life. One, business, into social media. Not exactly social media because it wasn't like as much of a thing when I was a kid, but whatever the results of social media are like being somewhere in the spotlight. And I would say when I was a kid, I always loved to watch my parents and how they ran their businesses and things like that. So when I was younger, I told my dad, I want to make money. I want to make money. So I put my head together. I went to Home Depot. I bought a bunch of car washing supplies and my little sister had a stroller because she was just a baby. So I put all the car washing supplies in the stroller and I rolled around to every single one of my neighbors and I was like, I can wash your car. I was like, you know, I'm not going to give a price, but just based on how I do, you can pay me accordingly. And I would end up getting like $20 or $50 some of them. And this when I realized I was like, wow, you know, this may have been a little bit harder than like other jobs, but I would love to continue to figure out how to make money on my own. I love it. It's like some people I think are just born entrepreneurial. Yeah. I think so. I truly believe that. Tell me about your parents. Tell me, were they always entrepreneurial? Yes. 100%. My mom's background, she always had family businesses. Like her family always had jewelry companies and she would run the entire show. So she's very business savvy. And my dad, he's been, he's had a candy shop like since I was a kid and he's had several things before I was even born, but he's always been really good into business. And I think that helped me a lot for sure. And obviously, I mean, I love the family dynamic because like your parents always wanted you to work with them. And I'm curious, did you always want to work with your parents or was there a point like even when you were super young, you were like, I want to go do my own thing. And the reason I ask is because you've actually built this beautiful family business, but I've seen so many kids not want to work with their parents. I want to go do other things. I think the thing is some, I think the thing is with my parents is they've always empowered me in whatever I wanted to do. There was a point where I wanted to be a musician and they were so supportive of that. And there were several other things I wanted to do. So I think the fact that no matter what I've wanted to do, they've supported me is really important and kept me close to them because even the conversations of, you know, me being involved in the business and not being involved in the business like they didn't force me, but it was my choice. And I think that's what makes it special and why I never wanted to kind of go another way. Tell me a little bit about like how your family even got involved in your nuts because they sort of saved this. It was I guess a failing business was like a one shop that they stepped in and I guess the founders who they took it over from. Yeah. So basically, you know, my family had businesses where we used to live in Michigan, but then eventually we moved our way to South Florida. We wanted to start something new and fresh and we saw this business called Jonas and it was like a rundown coffee shop and they had frozen yogurt, but there wasn't much hype to it. And where was it? This was in sunrise right in front of IKEA. Yeah, yeah. So if you're not in Florida, it's like Fort Lauderdale area, I guess you could say. And yeah, it was about to go out of business and we took that as an opportunity to try something new. So we ended up buying it from the old owners and we completely rebranded the concept. I would say about three times until we kind of found the right one. We took out the frozen yogurt, added donuts and ice cream like the combination, the smash donuts and stuff. Yeah. So that's like, that's kind of how it started. Was it like, was it called donuts? It was called donuts, but did they sell donuts? So it was the donuts was actually yogurt and donuts like frozen yogurt. So initially we were actually going to change the name and call it dinky donuts, which was the name of our initial franchise in Michigan. But I think we kind of fell in love with it. Like, no, it's a good name. It's a very good name, but I would have never thought like yogurt and donuts is a wild concept for a restaurant. Yeah, definitely. And look, like, I don't know, just we kind of took out the yogurt, but kept the name because we just realized it was really catchy and just people kept saying it. So what made your parents like, like, want to take a bet on this one? So you're just like, your parents are coming down from Michigan to Florida. Good choice because Michigan's cold as hell. I get it like also how long ago was that? I was nine when we moved. Okay. So it was a couple of years ago. They made the move. And they wanted to they wanted to just start fresh. And they're like, oh my god, this failing yogurt donut franchise is like, what we want to get into. Yeah, I mean, the thing is like, I think when you have an entrepreneurial mindset, you're not thinking about what's in front of you, but what it could be, you know, and I think that I think, especially, I give credit to my dad that he saw the potential. And thank God he did because being a visionary, you see things where other people don't. And clearly now where we're at is because he saw something in a failing yogurt donut brand, you know? Okay. So where did TikTok come into the picture? Like, what was the what was the idea? Obviously, you didn't even tell your parents when you first started posting, which is really funny. And, you know, like, I'm sure now they're very happy that you did. But obviously, you know, when you're putting yourself out there, you're putting your parents business out there. It's a little bit stressful, like, whatever. So what was the first, what was the first like post that you did? Or why did you even think that TikTok would work? Right. So it's actually very interesting because I used to just work in the shop just like, normally, two days behind the counter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just like, you know, working, helping customers. And, you know, I did have a social media background a little bit. Like I said before, I wanted to be a musician. So I had another social media account that I grew to almost a million followers at the time. Really? Do you play? I do piano for a bit of guitar singing. Oh, that's up. Yeah. So, but that's, but that's my past life. But, but anyways, like I had a little bit of a background. So that's important part of this story. But anyways, I was working in the shop one day. We were about to close. And I kind of premeditated this. I went to the dollar store. I bought some like sour candies. And I just was like, okay, before we close, I said to my cousin, I think, before we close, let me just make this video. So I start cutting open the doughnut. And then I start the video saying, I'm going to be making a flavor today. And my boss said, if it goes viral, we're going to add this flavor to the menu. But the funny part is I had no previous conversation about this with my dad. Who's your boss? Yeah, exactly. Like, yeah. I didn't talk to him about it. Because I mean, I don't know. I just posted it. I thought it was a fun idea. But when I woke up the next day with 10 million views, like, I didn't, I didn't envision that part happening, at least to that extent. That's what's crazy, dude. That's crazy. But I think that what you actually, what you're, what you're talking about, like when you didn't like tell your dad about it, like, listen, there's a dynamic between like, you know, your dad, this is your dad's business and now your business partners. But at the time was your dad's business. It doesn't matter like what the, what, what content you're putting out, you're always like worried. Right. But like, what are people going to think? That's true. And it's usually like, it's just going to be like stupid. It's going to, people are going to think it's dumb. Like, everybody goes through it. Doesn't matter if you're like, my first podcast, like, your first TikTok, like, everybody goes through this shit. And it's like, I think it's like, I think that it's so important for people to understand that this imposter syndrome, when you first start posting, it's, it's like a requirement. Yeah. It's just going to happen. Well, to the, to the point where I literally made the account on a Google voice phone number, that like, nobody could find in a new email that nobody could find. Because I'm like, if this doesn't get a million views, I don't want anyone in my circle to see it. Like, nobody. So, so you wake up with 10 million views. Right. So you have like a little bit of knowledge with social, but this is like beyond. Because the thing is, like, I've gotten these types of views before. For sure. But this was a new account. This was one of the first posts. Also, it was relating to my family's business, which my family's business was always like my best kept secret. You know, like it was something I did that brought me fulfillment joy, like to help improve the business. But it was never something I actually highlighted on any of my social medias. So to have this new account, it just was like this new opportunity to really open the doors to whatever came next. Well, yeah. Because now you see how like, okay. So now I can make a business, not just myself. I can make a business go viral. What do you think? I mean, we're going to talk a lot about virality and like what makes something viral. But when that first post went up, what do you think made it so well received? I think it plays into the psychology that I always tell people when they want to get into social media. It's one thing to take something that's interesting to some people. Like, for example, desserts is interesting to some people, but not everybody. But it's another thing to find a way to make it relatable to everybody. Instead of just saying, I'm going to be making this dessert, I said, if this goes viral, like if you give me the approval, then we're going to add it to the menu. So I think really what made it so viral is the fact that everyone kind of had their chance to participate. And they had, you know, something that would strike an interest more than just Adona, but like something like me doing something with it, you know, I get that. It's interesting like bringing the audience in. Exactly. And I don't want to, I want to still sort of tell your story, but just one thing that seems interesting is you probably see this a lot as opposed to bringing the audience in with social people are just like talking at the audience. Right here happens a lot. What happened with this first, did you tell your parents after this one viral or no? No. So I actually told someone on our team named Chloe. She has been doing a lot of the social media in the past and she's very talented. So I kind of was like, Hey, Chloe, like don't tell anyone, but here's the situation. And the next day we just went in to film more videos. We bounce video ideas off of each other. And I decided to continue the series of making more flavors. I was like, Oh, the last one didn't work because this happened. Let's try again. So I think I posted about four or five more of those videos and a few days later, I'm about half a million followers on TikTok. So we decided it was a good time to bring my dad in and tell him about it. The people like half a million people's a lot of people in four days do, that's insane. Yeah. No one gets that. That's why TikTok is wild because no one gets that kind of like organic. I don't care for starting a new Instagram account. Nobody gets that viral that quick. It's hard. Yeah. That's tough. I mean, even like forget it, like YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, like Snapchat, nobody goes that viral that quick. Where people like did somebody like walk in and recognize the store before you told your dad? So interestingly enough, it was really strange because I was getting all of these numbers. But at first, I was like, OK, so are these people real? Like what's happening? Yeah. And then I was like, I'm going to go into the work tomorrow and there's going to be like a crowd outside. Yeah. Yeah. Like I didn't know. And then I looked, I think it was about a week later when a kid came in and I was helping him. And then he asked me to sign his cast. He broke his arm. That was a first person on this account. He was like, I saw your video where you made a flavor. Can you sign my cast? Like I brought, I brought my grandma here. And you know, that was actually a moment I don't think I'll ever forget. That's beautiful. Yeah. Like it was really, you know, the numbers are awesome. But when you see it in person, real people, it just really hits you differently. So when did you, so you told your, your parents or dad and what was the reaction? Um, hey, I really have to take myself back here. I think he was just very, very impressed. And it comes back to the thing of, I know a lot of people when I tell them the story, they expect my dad to be like, why did you do this? Now I have to add a flavor to the menu. But no, my dad is always able to see, I guess the opportunities and things. So he was like, okay, well, what do we got to do to get this flavor on the menu? Like I'm just like, it's perfect. We worked. We branded it. Um, I made several posts announcing it and kind of a lot of sales, that flavor. So that's great. So this is like a weekend. And I think that even if you're getting this traction, like, there's only so many of these kinds of posts, like out of flavor posts that you can do, eventually you got to like, fuck out their concept. So how do you start to turn this and for you know, it's in particular, then we're going to pull out like ideas and wisdom for any kind of business. But how do you start to turn this into like a real strategy? Right. So you're not, you know, your dad's great and chill, but he's not adding like six flavors at the menu every week. Right. Of course. No. So I think well, so to pivot out of that, we first of all finish a series. Maybe I think there was about 15 videos or 20 videos in that series of making a flavor that you guys like. Yeah. So after that, we added it to the menu. But yeah, of course pivoting is important as a creator. You need to, you know, get as much juice as you can out of the squeeze. But then you have to figure out what's next. So for me, I think the first pivot I did was transitioning into making flavors for zodiac signs, which that's like another thing of making things that are relatable because I could have just been like, all right, that series is over. Let's just make flavors. But I don't think I would have held as much people as doing something so relatable zodiacs. I made three per video and I sometimes sprinkled little little controversial statements about each one. Like, oh, Gemini's have two personalities. Like, oh, Gemini's, I can see that. But like, I, that was like my next one. And that did really well actually. Some of those videos had over 20 million views within the first like few, few days. So how do you think through that's wild? How do you think through like something that's relatable enough and then, and then like cross it over to what you're doing? Like what's like the formula or like the thought process? I think you just have to pay attention to what people are talking about. And if you're going into every social circle and you don't stop hearing about something, you probably should pay attention. For example, the movie Encanto was coming out a few years ago. And my parents were talking about it at school they were talking about it. My little sister came home from school and was talking about it too. So for me, I was like, how can I do something that relates to this, that something that everyone's talking about? So my next series was actually making flavors for the Encanto characters. And I really personalized them to kind of fit their personalities. And that series did very well as well. It's very smart. So like there's like you tap into like cultural trends. But then it's a cultural trend plus your business. Exactly. Do you think through space for businesses to just do stuff that like for example, I'll use the podcast as an example. Like I don't tap into cultural trends, right? As much. Sometimes you talk about like stuff that's happening in the news, but even before we press record, I'm like, I don't want to talk politics. I don't want to talk things that like stress people out. Is this supposed to be educational? Right. So like do you think that I'm making it harder on myself by not tapping into those? And I think actually sometimes I am. But is there a place for that kind of content as well? Or do you think that most people, if you're going to give advice to me, maybe you should tap into like cultural stuff more often and bring bring on somebody. I don't know. I'm trying to think about other use cases. Somebody that doesn't have like, I guess, the creative liberty, or maybe everybody does have the creative liberty to tap into stuff like that. I think it's important to tap into things that you resonate with because at the end of the day, you have to say true to who you are and have authenticity. So I really like the Incanto series because I've always been like a Disney kid, always watch Disney and loved all of those things. So for me, it was easy because I was actually doing something that I like. So a tip that I give to creators is yes, it's important to do things that are relevant, but also things that are relevant to you and things that are important to you because if you're doing something that you're not really passionate about, people will kind of sniff that out a little bit. And also it won't be as enjoyable for you. So this has to be something sustainable. Social media, a lot of people consider it a one and done, but when you really figure out how to sustain is where you know, the fruits of your labor come. Yeah, I think that's smart. I think you have to stick with it long enough. I think people like again, either people have early success and then they don't reinvent themselves or they never have early success and they haven't put enough reps in to figure out what works. Okay, so you're scaling this bit. So now obviously social is like a heat part of Jonas. What are your numbers at now? I'm just curious because I have numbers, but I don't know if these are still relevant. I have 2.5 billion views and 10 million followers. Is that still relevant? That one too. That's insane numbers. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, that's on YouTube, on YouTube, 2.5 billion views. But I think with TikTok, it's over three and then and total following. It's 10 million. Yeah, that's amazing. And what has that meant for Jonas? Honestly, it's meant a lot of things. I mean, I think something that brands struggle with so much is brand awareness. You come to a new city and you're ready to open, but nobody knows who you are. But now we're opening thousands of miles away from where I live, entering cities and people know exactly who we are. They've seen it on TikTok. They've seen it on YouTube. They've seen it on Instagram. And people take for granted how powerful that can be. And it makes it so much easier to do certain initiatives because social media has such a broad audience, but at the same time, when you know how to manipulate the algorithm properly, you can hone in on exactly where you have your locations, where you have your stores, and you can make a big impact. If somebody wants to use social to open up a brick and mortar store in a certain city, and they just have a lot of people that follow them, how do you know where to open it or the strategy so that it's actually successful? Because I think that people can build followings, but you've done it in a way that you can actually say, in this city, we should open up a store. I think it comes down to actually listening to what your audience wants because, you know, they're always telling you. And when you're telling them, I have a store, I have this location, I'm making this awesome product. People are going to start commenting like crazy. I want this in Arizona. I want this in Texas and Houston. And you kind of get more insight out of them. So I would just say pay attention to your comments. Also, I asked the right questions. It's as simple as actually asking your audience, hey, where do you think we should open? If you make that that little post and then you start seeing out of all your 100 comments, 60 of them are from Houston, maybe you should start looking in Houston. So it's really just like you're looking at the information and the data that social is giving you. Exactly. Do you read all your comments? I read a lot of them. Yeah, I do. Do you not, do you not get like stressed out? Because I'm sure that when you have the audience size that you have, you get a lot of positive, a lot of negative too. Right. Um, I was just explaining this on another podcast I was in, but you need to take the comments as feedback and it's important. But like, and you need to take it more analytically than anything. For example, when people are saying certain things, even when it comes down to you as a person, I kind of look at more as marketing. And sometimes people, if I see something consistent enough, I'll be like, okay, wait. Where did this come from? But other times I'm just like, look, I'm here to do my thing. And when I feel like I want to do something, I'm going to, I guess, continue to do it. But when we look at it more of an analytical standpoint, I mean, you kind of just have to really see like, what are they? So there's, yeah, I get what you're saying. It's like, yes, there's assholes. But if enough people say the same thing, then maybe there's like a, like a lesson that you can incorporate into your content. Exactly. Yeah. You just have to take the comments as more as like, you know, feedback. You don't take them too personally because I see people quitting social media even because they're getting so many negative comments. And what I say to that is you just have to learn how to source your confidence from within yourself because when you're constantly relying on positive comments to kind of keep you afloat and to source your ego, then I mean, the second it goes away, you're lost. You have an ego death. And it's not very pretty. So because you're focusing on like that dopamine, exact hit of like all positive. Yeah. So I will say, I read my comments, but I can handle it. And I've been doing this for a while on it. Eventually, you build a thick skin to it. But again, I'm not going to take, I'm going to take the positive comments and I'm going to be appreciative, but I'm not going to allow it to, you know, be the reason I'm happy today. Okay. So as this is growing, like, I mean, opportunities start coming. So you've done like Fox business, you, you work with Kevin Harrington, who's a shark from Shark Tank. What as you, as you start to post more, obviously, it just comes like a huge part of your strategy. As one understand, like, where does this take the business? And then I want to talk about like, the actual content strategy and like the viral, where does this actually take the business? So fast forward to today, what is this actually meant for you? And you're not. So first of all, I mean, if we're going to go past just the brand awareness and go even further, I mean, we've noticed the sales as a whole across the entire country raising because people are just coming in. They're so interested. They've seen it all over Instagram, all over TikTok and YouTube. And what's interesting is, yes, my social media has played a big part in it, but also how we were able to tie that back into the brand. We actually, we wanted to launch a new product back. I think end of 2022 because we just wanted to bring something new, a different kind of taste to Yonuts. And what's interesting is I worked with my team and I made these ads that took posts on all of the local pages. And what's really interesting is when we posted these, we immediately saw sales shifts and different sales patterns with in several of our locations. It was crazy because I post on Instagram. And this is all organic, by the way, before we even put these on paid social, some of these on the local pages, introducing our new product, which we put ice cream in a donut hot press, say roll it in cinnamon sugar. That sounds absolutely delicious. But like these posts were getting millions of views organically on the local pages. And all of a sudden, we start seeing the month, like October 2023 was a completely different month than October 2022. And these videos directly contributed to it. We've never seen volumes as heavy. And it was my voice in the videos too. So there's an association with my social media and an ad in your local city. Quick question. What's your go to when you got 10 minutes before a meeting or a workout? For me, it just used to be whatever I could grab, which usually meant skipping meals entirely, or just grabbing something that left me crashing an hour later because it was just full of garbage. That's why I'm partnering with Hule. This black edition ready to drink is a complete meal. So it has 35 grams of protein, six grams of fiber, 35 essential vitamins and minerals. It is no sugar added, gluten free, under five bucks. I always keep a few of these in my fridge. And honestly, it solved the whole back-to-back meetings, go, go, go, non-stop, no time to eat problem. Super well. 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So what do you think made these pieces of content so good that even without putting paid behind them, they already generated like millions of impressions? I would say I honestly think I approached it differently because I posted these on Instagram, but I came into it with a mindset of a YouTube short, which the way I cut the videos, I felt like I was editing a YouTube short. And I think Instagram hasn't seen enough of that. And I think it sparked interest because you can tell in the analytics that something is different about this post because we've had these local pages for a while. But some reason these specific posts that I put my personal touch on absolutely blew up across several accounts, our Phoenix account, our Sunrise account, our Dallas account and several more. So I would say just taking a different approach on something that I already knew worked really helped it a lot. That's so interesting. I wanted to ask you this. I think this is actually a really good segue. So this content on one platform like work on others, but I guess the answer is yes. The answer is it's actually a great area because I was just explaining this yesterday for my course that's coming out soon. We'll get into that. But sometimes you're going to take a piece of content and post it on all platforms and you're going to see on one platform it completely flops and then on the other platform it does extremely well. And then there's going to be other pieces of content that do the exact opposite. I have some videos on Instagram that have 20 million views and on YouTube barely cracked a million. And my audience on Instagram is actually much smaller compared to YouTube. So clearly Instagram likes something out of me when I did that specific thing. But then I have the exact opposite happening where I'll post something on YouTube 40 million views. But on Instagram, I didn't even get to get like less than a few hundred thousand. But you realize these are still insane numbers. For sure. Like most people are trying to get like a thousand views. Like these are still wild numbers. So like something, do you think that it was all from like that first tip? Like I've always tried to figure this out too. It's like what platform should you build on where the audience like trickles over to all the other platforms? I would say to treat every platform as its own. Like when I started transitioning from TikTok to YouTube, I didn't even tell my TikTok that I was doing that because at the end of the day, I don't want an active followers. Because if you're on TikTok, you're probably not going to be scrolling as much on YouTube as you are on that platform. I wanted to figure out the next platform. And that's something I always say to creators, you need to know the platform you're posting on. Not before. Because initially, you should just be posting your content everywhere. Take 50 posts that you did on TikTok and turn it to 200 by posting on four different platforms. But after that, you kind of understand the tone of each one. You see out of those 50 videos, you know, A, B and C went viral here, D, E and F went viral here. And then you understand the tone much more. But no, I wouldn't really focus on the trickling as much as I'd focus on each platform as its own. Because you mentioned like you edited, you edited reels on Instagram like you would edit them on YouTube. So is there like one platform that you think if you can figure out that algorithm, then it'll go and work everywhere else or no. It's really a hit or miss. I'm going to be completely honest because you're going to do these videos. And sometimes it's going to hit everywhere. And I call those a golden videos. But then sometimes it's not. But what I will say is that once you understand each and every one of your platforms and how they respond to you, you can cater the same video differently to them. I have some videos I'll find on Instagram. And I'm like, I could do this on Instagram. But if I change these three variables, I can make it do well on YouTube as well. So it comes down to, yeah, there's going to be videos that go viral everywhere. But there's also going to be different things that you can do to make them go viral everywhere. Yeah, that makes sense. And then you start to, so you start to, step one is really just to start creating and posting 100% and then you start to pay attention and you start to see. So that same subject that kills it on TikTok, if you just copied and paste it and post it, it may not kill it, but if you tweak a couple things, then maybe I see. And like I said, I will always say to people, take what you have before you start switching it around and stuff. Because you don't know, like, yeah, you might have this idea that you might need to make these three changes on this post. So it does want Instagram. But I mean, maybe the post itself would have done well. That's why you need to just embrace the testing phase. It's a beautiful time where you get to figure out exactly who you're going to be on these platforms and set the tone. One thing that I've seen you do, and I think that you know, you ask me which videos that I first see you in. And I think one of the major viral videos is when people are hating on you when you're filming in one of your stores. Tell me that story. If you think that's actually interesting, but also tell me why you think that went so viral. What was the thing about people hating on you when you're trying to film that I guess went viral on social? Okay, for people who don't know the story, what happened was I was recording a video making flavors for minions, which the new movie came out. The flavors look pretty cool actually. But as I'm recording, these two customers kind of look over and they're like, that's so cringed. And it took me a minute to process what was going on. I was like, what? But yeah, in the video, I mean, the comments say it more than, like, more than anything. But yeah, my smile I was like, very happy, but it kind of like dulled and I kind of was like, oh, okay, I killed my vibe. Did they not know that you worked there? Or are you just being assholes? Navy, like, I don't know. Sometimes the thing about videos is you're really putting yourself out there. Like you're putting your neck out. So I mean, you're going to get stuff like that online and in person. So, you know, they said that. And, you know, immediately one of my co-workers at the time, like started defending me. And she was like, oh, you know, he actually has like two million followers. And then they then they just switch up and start asking me, oh, do you make money? You know, but, but I took that clip and I posted it on my social media and combined that video has 100 million views, which is crazy. And it's got me millions of followers too, which I mean, I'll take it. But in terms of why did it go viral? I think a lot of people just want to support the underdog. And at the end of the day, I was sitting on my chair. I wasn't bothering anybody. And the thing about social media is I think people are so used to disrupting people around them. But when I do it, I try to always kind of not, you know, involve other people that don't want to be involved. Of course, like when you're like filming in public, you don't want to let you try to like not put people in the background that like don't want to be on camera. I get exactly. Yeah. So I think the fact that I was mining my own business, like if I didn't talk to them, they wouldn't have talked to me. We would have been fine. But the fact that they kind of just like came to ruin the vibe. I think a lot of people, you know, suck up for me. And that definitely helped they go viral. Okay, so let's talk about let's talk about a little bit of strategy. Talk about like the blooper. And I know you have a course. This is actually what your course is about. So your course and we'll just we'll drop 21 days to viral. That's actually your social media challenge. And that's also a course attached to it where you're basically teaching people like the formula. Exactly. To go viral. Exactly. Because I mean, the thing about social media, the more people I talk to, I realize it's very untapped, especially what I've been able to do on YouTube shorts. Like last month, I got 300 million views like in in a month. And that's such a big number. But I it seems like there's not enough people who can replicate that strategy. So really, this course is honestly to just teach these lessons because YouTube shorts came out in 2022. Yeah. You know, and in the influence of culture of all of social media. So the course is really teaching those things. And I call it more a challenge, actually, because there's actionable tasks for you to be doing at the end of each lesson, like homework almost. And we have Q and A's, a lot of other things like that too. So we'll put links if people want to go check this out. And and I think they should because it doesn't matter if you're an influencer, business owner, obviously, like what you did with your own ads. You're right. Not a lot of people know how to do this myself included. And we'll definitely become a customer and sign up as a student. No, it's very difficult. Like I always say this to people like podcasting is probably the hardest thing that I've ever built. It's like, it's is very slow. Like up like, you know, it's like a very like linear like a growth. It's not like viral moments. And I think if people can figure this out, it's just like this not to say that like you shouldn't put the work in anyways, you have to. But it's just like it removes a lot of the friction and it removes a lot of the pain and like the just like the beating your head against the wall trying to figure out what content works when you have a playbook. But I don't think many people have a playbook for viral. That's true. The only person I know of ever who's ever spoken to about this is Brendan Kane. Brendan Kane wrote a book. It's something. Oh, I'm blank in the name. That's so bad. It's like I'm your first million followers or something along the lines. But basically he has like 20 different styles of content. He has like, you know, like on TikTok where like you like interview each like you interview yourself. He talked to yourself and then like another one. And it's not they're not his styles. He just teaches it basically not a lot of people teach it. And he does something where it's like man on the street interviews and like that's a viral viral style of content where you're interviewing somebody kind of like Daniel Mac. Or it's like, you know, like what do you do for a living kind of style? So I know that there's like some a little bit of a formula, but very few people really know how to go viral repeatedly. So I mean, we can talk about a couple different examples because you've done this with yourself with like your evil twin. You've done this with a youtuber named Nike wool. But before we even talk about those stories, what are the first things that people just think about? It doesn't matter what business you have if you want to start going viral. There's several different things. This is something I actually refer to a lot as taking your niche to the ocean or taking your niche to the ocean, which basically means that you're going to have, you know, something that you do. And it's going to be something that's interesting to you and whoever else is interested in it. But how can you make that not just a pool of people who might enjoy it, but an ocean of people who might enjoy it? How can you broaden out your audience so much? I did that with donuts and relating it back to other things. But you have to figure out how you can do it for your own thing. For example, let's just say you do real estate. My cousin was telling me that she does real estate every time she shows houses on Instagram. It's not really getting that many views. And I told her, I'm like, look, not that many people are interested in buying houses. I mean, there's a good amount of people for sure. But based on the general population, it might not be as many as you need to make your video go viral. It's only like at a certain point in their life too. It's not like all the time. Exactly. So I said, how can you make this thing that you do in your niche and make it viral? And I said, okay, change your hook. Instead of saying, I'm going to show you this house and it's so cool. How about you say this house just got put up for $600,000. Let's look through it and see if it's worth it. And like comment down below if it's worth it. You know, like that's how you can make it more relatable because people aren't going to be so interested in the small little thing you're doing, the little pool, you know, of audience that you're going to have versus the ocean of people you could bring in. Once you start asking them their opinions, once you start bringing relatable things like money, everyone wants to have an opinion about money. Somebody who lives in somewhere like Michigan might have a different housing market than someone who lives in South Florida. So it's going to be very opinionated and the more audiences your video gets, the more opinions you're going to be getting. People are going to be fighting in the comments. This is worth more than $600,000. This is worth less. So the main tip is just make your idea mainstream. Stop confining it to such a small box of people. Okay. What are you, I'm going to use me as an example. So I have a business podcast. So right now, I mean, most of our, most of our growth comes from the actual like long form podcast. Great. Reels do okay. Reels are not getting a hundred million. Or I say reels. I mean, like short form videos like TikTok, YouTube shorts, Instagram reels. So what would be a good strategy for if I, if I do business content and you can say it can include your guests or it can include just you like what would be something that could take an interview like this and make it more relatable. Like what would like a good hook be? It comes down to paying attention to what people are talking about and things are constantly happening in business. And that's your niche, right? So how can you make that more mainstream? Well, there's so many things happening in the world right now. Five planes crashed in two months. How about talk about how that's affecting the, you know, the aviation market? Like that could be a big thing. I mean, the, I believe the Chipotle CEO got swapped out and a lot of people were talking about it. Duelingo is dying. A lot of people are talking about it. You know, it's like how can you take your niche, which is business, which has a big appeal already, but make it even more mainstream. And so what everybody is talking about. Oh, and then I, you know, like based on your example, you just said you could say something like if somebody brings up a point about something like relevant, like right now, the hook could be so and so says this about the Duelingo marketing campaign. Do you agree? Like something like that? Yeah. So then the call to action is like prompting discussion. Exactly. Talk about things that people have a lot of opinions on and just really make that your point. I mean, I even did videos right when TikTok got banned. I just literally pulled on my camera, started recording guys. I heard that TikTok got banned. And then I showed it on my phone. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's crazy. Immediately the video goes viral. People are talking about it. Do they agree with in the comments? Do they not agree with in the comments? Like it was not even necessarily my content style, but it was just something so prevalent in pop culture and culture. And then just people like picked up on it. So if you think about that first step about just like broadening it, tapping into these like culturally relevant ideas, the hook is basically a call to action, whether or not people agree or disagree with the idea that you're going to talk about. What's next? I mean, like other things that people think about when you think about going viral, I guess like production quality, platform, timing of like the length of the video, the time of thumbnail, what does any of this stuff matter? Of course. I mean, there's a lot of variables into what makes a video go viral. You know, it's kind of like I always describe it as the perfect dish. You know, it's like, yeah, you might have a nice plate, but there's different ingredients that go into it to make it what it is. But before you even focus on the execution of your video, it's so important to have the right idea because when you don't have the right idea, you're going to be making something so pretty, but something that nobody really has interest in. That's what a lot of people do, I think. Exactly. And I would say a lot of the idea comes in the hook like I was explaining with you. I mean, it's the difference of your video going viral asking people if this is worth what it is, or I'm just going to be showing you something that you might not care about. You know what I mean? Like it really comes down to that. And it's so funny because when you have that hook, then yes, you are definitely tapping into a wider audience base, but you're still going to attract the people that you want to watch that video. And I think that that's what people get in their own head. They're like, oh, this is not like, I don't care if people have an opinion about whether or not this house is worth what it's listed at. I just want to attract buyers. The thing is, you're going to get a lot of people and you're going to get buyers, and you got to get out of your own head. You have to like, you have to kill your own ego. That's true. I mean, even me making flavors for things like Encanto, things like different, different things, it's resulted in hundreds of thousands, even more worth of franchises sold. It's actually, so it's like, I could have had that mindset of, oh, yeah, I'm making a flavor for Encanto, but it might not bring me customers and it might not bring franchise sales. But it's at the end of the day when you're getting yourself out there, it's so much more opportunities. Several of these opportunities, even from kids telling their parents about this brand, that's a franchise, and then them coming to us and saying, okay, we want to open five. You know, so it's like, I mean, you got to get out of your head and just do what works. I mean, you just got to try everything. It's to talk to me about your evil twin strategy, which is just wild. But I think that I'm going to just, before you tell everybody what you did, I think it's so important for people to understand, you can create the most ridiculous content. And at the end of the day, like, there's a chance it works. Like, this strategy, okay, explain the strategy, but it is absolutely ridiculous. But it is, it's a very good, it worked out. Anyways, go ahead. Basically, it all came down to one day when I was filming and I needed somebody to film with me, but my sisters were in school, my parents were busy. So I started thinking, okay, how can I get someone involved? And I decided to create a fake alter ego called devilow, my evil twin brother. And his objective is to absolutely ruin my day. Just he hates me. Everything I love he hates. If I love messy, he loves Ronaldo. If I love Donuts, if I love Yonuts, he loves Krispy Kreme. Like, he just wants to be my biggest hater. And I put him in a video where basically I was on a milkshake diet. And I didn't want to have any milkshakes for my whole shift. And all this sudden, behind my back, he starts making this milkshake. And right when I get back, I drink it. And I'm like, shoot, I filled my diet. Who made this milkshake? And it was him. And he was watching and laughing. I see this video get millions of views. And I'm like, okay, I need to make this something, right? So instead of just stopping at that one video, and you know, that's the end of his fate, I actually made him his own account. And in less than about 20 videos, or maybe a little more than 20 videos, actually, he had over 500,000 subscribers right off the bat. Is that on TikTok? This was on YouTube. It's on YouTube. So it doesn't matter. It's not like you can just go viral and TikTok. This was the YouTube account. This was YouTube. Yeah. YouTube is actually my main platform now for everything pretty much. Do you think that that's where the most opportunity is for me? I've seen other creators have different opportunities elsewhere. But I would go as far as to say that YouTube has more opportunities in any other social media platform. That's my experience with it. I mean, they really like when you start doing good, they really take care of you. Like they they want you to succeed. And I think that's different from a lot of platforms. I mean, I do have friends who do well on other platforms. So I'm not going to discredit it. YouTube is what works for me. But if I had to really give my opinion on which platform is the absolute best, it would be YouTube. What do the why do you think this this evil twin did so well? I think that it went so viral because people want to know if it's real. It peaked curiosity. People are like, okay, wait, is this real? Is this not real? Let me actually have a brother. Yeah. Exactly. Is he wearing the same earrings? Does he have the same freckles? What is different? So I think that definitely helps. And also, I mean, I just think that there's such a funny psychology and, you know, sibling relatability. So I kind of really embodied that through my evil twin brother, you know, again, like I said, anything I love, he hates. Like, there's a lot of people who have sibling haters and 100%. You just did what you said you should do. You made it more relatable to a bigger group. You take your niche and you take what is it? Neatially ocean. Exactly. Exactly. Everybody has like a not everybody. And enough people have a sibling. And enough people have rivalry with their siblings. Exactly. So what did you do with? Okay. So that's one great example. I mean, this is, this is what's so beautiful. And I just love, I love how you can take so many different ideas. Because you can succeed at one thing. And I can guarantee you there's going to be one asshole hater out there that's going to be like, you can't do it again. Right. 100%. 100%. That's it. And like, you know, like, fuck you asshole. But like, like, the point is you've done it like again and again and again and again. So the science to it. There really is a science to it. What did you do with Michael? Right. So actually, before I get into that, I just want to mention the again and again and again is something really important that I think not enough people take into account. When you have a video that goes viral, people will be like, wow, that was my viral moment. That was my time to shine. But what I say is that you should be able to figure out how to make 20 more viral videos from that concept because you're creating a new category of content within yourself. And I you really need to be able to think about how you can make that same video differently 20 times 30 times. Make a series out of it because you don't really become known for something out of one video. I mean, there's anomalies if you're the hot to a girl like, but in general, you don't really get known for one video as much as you will if you do the same thing seven times. And I want to take that in transition into what you just asked me about the Nikeville situation. There was this YouTuber that we got connected through through this guy named Lucky. He's he was Jack Dirty security guard at the time actually really really random. But he ended up becoming like Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he actually lucky ended up becoming a really close connection with us. He helped us with a lot of things. But he he was like, look, I have there's this kid. He has under 50,000 subscribers. But you know, he's he's talented. He's a boxer. So maybe see if you can do something with him. Okay. So I look at his account and he didn't get that many views per post. However, I did notice something. One of his biggest videos was he punched these youtubers in the stomach, the island boys. It was like it was consensual. But he was like, he was a boxer kid who's trying to fold youtubers in half by punching them. So he had about one video that he did like that that went viral. Not video was months ago, but you know, I didn't see anything else after that. So I was like, wow, you know, some people might find a kid who, wait a minute. So I said, you know, some people might find a kid who is a boxer pretty interesting. Okay. Some people, but a lot of people will find a kid who found youtubers and punched them in the stomach. So when he came into the shop, I was like, okay, this is your this is your rebrand. Yeah. You are the kid who finds youtubers and beats them up. You're the kid who folds youtubers like it's amazing. It's not a one and done. We're going to turn this into more. So I made a series with him. It just started off with one video initially where I hired him for a job. But then at the end of the video, I realized that he wanted to beat me up. Also, because my evil twin brother, devil, I hired him to do it. I love that. There's a lot of lore, but there's a lot of lore actually, but it's so good. Now you like now you're like merging all like again, like you're so creative. You're so so creative and you just see all these different opportunities. And I think that actually if you start going down this rabbit hole and you start to want to create content, I think you always have to be like creative and thinking. And I actually think that this is actually a really smart lesson. You can't be so busy in your life that you don't have time to be creative. Yeah. I agree. I think a lot of entrepreneurs suffer from that because they're like so in the weeds on all their shit. They can't think and but if they took a step back and they spent time like home for a walk or whatever, whatever you do to be creative. And I would just say like even even after that video, which was what was really interesting is like what was really interesting after that video is after I got over 20 million views, I was like, okay, let me do it again. I invited him back to the store. We did a part two and we did a part three and a part four. All of them got over 10 million views. And that's the lesson of what I was saying before. You cannot let your one viral video die at that because it's not worth it because you're going to be spending 90% of your time testing what works. But then when you find it, do not give up and leave it in the past. You need to spend 100% of your time figuring out how to make more content out of that one video. So we made a part two, part three, part four, even a part on devalos account where he hired that video got 15 million views, I believe. So like you can't, you know, after you've tested enough, your goal is to get out of the testing phase and execute on things you know that work. After you have this one idea, so for a guy like that, so he can do this video so many times, right? But do you have like a, do you like after you do it 20, 30 times, would you tell him like, oh, now you should go look at other creators and find like another series to do? Like what's the next thing? Right. That's not even have to have like a, no, it's great to have other things. So this is the advice I give to people. A lot of the times creators, when they find something that worked, they're going to be only doing that one thing until it dies. And then they have a midlife crisis. They don't know what to do. And they're freaking out because they're one piece of viral content that used to work isn't working anymore. But what I say to that is you should always be testing even when you're executing things that you know work. That's actually a better time to execute things that you know work. Because if I have this series blowing up and every post on posting is going viral in between there, I should be testing other pieces of content so I can segue after this doesn't work. You know, because if I wait for the hype to die, then it's a really hard six months or one month or however long it's going to take for me to find the next thing to work. It's really difficult. So the advice I give to those creators is while you have that thing that works, test things because a lot of them aren't going to work. But the pressure isn't as strong when you're already viral for your other things that are working, right? And then when you find one that works in between things that already work, it's beautiful because now you have another thing. And then you create these categories of content buckets. I like to call it that you can always fall back on whenever you need. Indeed is a success story partner. Now if you're hiring indeed is all you need. Let me give you an example. 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You know what I think people are stressed about. They're worried that if they're killing it with one kind of content, then another kind of content is going to like screw up. There's there's streak or it's going to screw with the algorithm. I know that like you know Graham Stefan. He's a big finance YouTuber and he does like ice coffee hour at the pocket. It doesn't matter who he is. The point is he's gone on record saying that he uses Instagram. I'm going to try and remember what he said but paraphrasing the strategy is to test on Instagram and to test on TikTok and only take the winners and then use them on YouTube because he's so stressed about YouTube about a video not performing on YouTube and it like for some reason, screwing up his whole YouTube channel. Do you think that there's any validity in that or is that wrong? I would say there was a point where that advice would be more beneficial to creators. But recently I've been noticing a shift in the algorithms where you know initially used to be like you should only post one time a day. You should post what you know works and post within these times but now social media has become a different game because if you notice when you're scrolling on your feed, you're not really seeing people that you follow anymore. You're seeing things that cater to your interests. So with that being said, I would say you shouldn't be scared to click the post button because a lot of the times it's not even going to be your audience seeing it unless it's a good enough video for them to see because YouTube and Instagram and TikTok, all these platforms are just trying to marry your piece of content with somebody who wants to see it. So there's not really as much pressure if your video goes viral or not. I mean, aesthetics wise, yeah, having a video that might not have as much views might stress you out, but you need to be comfortable doing that. Even one of my most viral series, it was a finding messy, the soccer player with donuts. But to be honest, before I posted it, I was a little hesitant. I was like, I just don't know if this video is viral. Like, I mean, for me, it was fun. And I feel like it's viral, but I don't know. And I don't want this to mess up my trajectory. Think, God, I posted it because these series each have 20 million views, 30 million views, 40 million views. This is it. Eight parts series. And by the end of the series, by the way, he actually got the donuts. That's very cool. It's like, imagine I didn't click the post button out of anxiety. And because I didn't do that, I didn't get probably like maybe 300 million views worth of content across all platforms. Millions of followers or hundreds of thousands of followers and what messy seeing my donuts. I mean, do you know how huge that was for my brand? Like, to have messy, like, eat the donuts, I've ate for him, like, you know, like, that's crazy. So you think that, and that's actually, I think that's actually like such a, a de-stressful, like, it's like a calming idea that like, each piece is kind of judged independently, exact from the others. And I think that this idea of if I post the wrong thing, it's going to screw up everything I've done over the past five years. Dude, that stops so many people from posting. Yeah. And it just kills it. It just kills people's like creativity. And I've had similar experiences. I don't get the views you get. But I've had similar experiences with, um, with like on Instagram, I put these, like, little, like, quote tweets, like these one line, like, one line or ideas. And I test them out on Twitter. And I usually take the one that performs the best and then like, go into Canva, put it in like a square and like, upload it to Instagram with a little caption. And some of them do well. Some of them don't. But some of them go like mega mega viral, like for me, at least at like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views on these little squares. But if one flops, it really doesn't impact me. Right. It doesn't impact me at all, which I love because that means I can test unlimited times. Exactly. And that's, that's the beautiful thing is that social media is shifting. Again, if I were to be on this podcast a year ago, maybe there's different advice I'd be giving you. But now they really just are going to, like you said, individually test your post one by one. They're not looking at you as a whole anymore. Of course, I mean, if you have, if you have a bunch of viral videos, maybe your initial pickup will be really good, you know, but regardless of how your video performs in the first 24 hours long term, it's not going to affect it. Yeah, that's so true. You put together a four part series, which series was because I'm just looking at one of the series that you put together that was like part one, 23 million views, part two, 13 million views, part three, 10 million views, part four, 10 million views. This was a NICOL one. This is NICOL. Yeah. These are what, but these are this particular example, like these are numbers that you've seen across almost all the series of content you put out. Those numbers were actually just YouTube. Those videos did perform well on other platforms too. I just didn't include them in there. Oh, shit. Yeah. Those numbers were good, but, you know, I threw those numbers in to show you the example, but really the numbers on my messy series were crazy. What's the best piece of content you've ever created? Actually, it was one I did with my two sisters. This piece of content got over 100 million views, by the way, where they just on YouTube, by the way, just on YouTube, over 100 million views. I think it's almost at 120, but on third of the US, it's crazy. It was a video where, you know, I was like, every time my sisters come into the store, they always ask me for something, and then they, you know, they ask me for milkshake for donuts. So today, I'm going to be telling them no and getting their reaction. And I said no to my older sister and she's like, what do you mean no? What do you mean? And then my younger sister comes in and then she asks me for some, I'm like, no. And then they both start freaking out. And they're like, yeah, if you don't give it to me, I'm going to tell mom and dad about the thing. I'm just like, I already told mom and dad about the thing and they're just mad. They're outraged. But that video did really well. And of course, like we can break down the psychology, just like I was saying before, it's the relatability, the sibling entitlement. Like, like little siblings, the amount of entitlement they have for the amount of time they've been on this earth is crazy. Like, what do you mean? Like, it's so relatable. I get so related. All the siblings can relate to this. So just the way she's yelling at me because she's not getting what she wants. That video did really good. So when you look at creators, you saw some opportunity with Nike. Well, do you think that every creator has every style of content or every topic in some way has a capacity to go viral? Absolutely. Anything can go viral. You just have to be able to train your eye and your brain to figure out how you can make that happen. Because a lot of people are under the impression that the only things that are viral are things that are viral. But when you train your eye, you can see the virality in just day-to-day things. You can see in anything. I even did a video on... It was so random. It was, um... Who is it? It was 12 ways to do a push-up. It was just like, I was doing push-ups one day. I was like, this is kind of interesting. I just made a video doing it. It's got millions of views. Like, you know, it's like... It's so interesting. It's something someone would say might be boring, but I was just like, I feel like I can make this viral. And I did. I feel like when you do stuff, it's so... Because everyone tries to copy everyone else. Right. And like, I think that just, for somebody who's just starting to create content, it just kind of feels safe to like copy. But like, some of the most viral stuff, it's like... It's like I've never seen it before. It's like almost like you're just like, what is this? I've never experienced it on social media. Like, 12 ways to do a push-up. I've never seen a post like that before on social, right? But I have seen like a million people like, again, just my, my example, like clipping out podcasts, talking points. And it's okay. It's good. Whatever. It does what it does. But it's not like new. It doesn't like, it doesn't stop them from scrolling unless they already know you. Which I think is really the goal. Viral is like tapping into people who have never heard of you before. And they're so busy, they're scrolling on social media for like 10 minutes on lunch break. Like, how do you get them to focus on you? And there's like like a pattern interruption there. Like you have to disrupt like their feed. You have to make it like new and different and interesting. Very, very interesting. I mean, I love how you can do this across like almost every creator. Out of all the different, we spoke in a different like a few different core pieces of what makes something viral. We spoke with the hook. We spoke about like just sort of taking the niche to the ocean. Is there any other ideas that you think would be important for people to take away? I would emphasize a lot. If it's interesting in real life, it's interesting online because a lot of the times people are like, okay, I don't really know what I want to make my content. Well, if you're driving one day and you see this one place that people are lined up around the building and there's so much interest in it, it's probably viral because when people have that amount of interest in something, it's going to translate. And that's a thing that a lot of people don't really realize, but you need to keep that into account. People, the psychology of people, doesn't change. I mean, on a screen, of course, people have a shorter attention span, of course, but at the end of the day, if it's interesting, you can find the interest elsewhere too. I love that. How many people do you have that work with you? You mentioned Chloe, who's like, you know, that's like social media person. I have a very, I guess you could call it smaller team. People always think I need so many resources and yeah. Yeah. So, honestly, I guess that's another piece of advice. Another round is you don't necessarily need a huge team. My team consists of Chloe, which she doesn't just do the young social media, but like a lot of the ideation, she helps me. Actually, she helps me from start to finish on a lot of these things. I would go as far as to consider her like my content partner, because really, I mean, a lot of these ideas, you know, they came through us talking, and you know, she's, she's brilliant at what she does. My dad is on my team for a lot of the business relations, helping me with the course, a lot of these things, like my dad's very business savvy. And you know, and yeah, I would say like that's like my main social media team. It's very tiny. Like I mean, for the for the reach, and it just, it's just like another reason, like we're just trying to like get rid of all the excuses for people to go create, right? Like you only have Chloe. You're dad. Wait, let me throw in one more. My mom, my mom, my mom, I'm sorry, I'm not there because she was the one who was doing the YouTube lives with me. And when we had millions of people watching us, and she did an amazing job. Like, okay, let me just, like two second, two second plug, but my mom is amazing because we did these YouTube lives where like we're trying to get subscribers and stuff. And yeah, she would just stay on there for like eight hours at a time with me to make, you know, yeah, damn dude. She does deserve a shout out. That's well. These lives, I, I walked off with 120,000 more subscribers than I did when I started, which actually, that's a whole other topic too, because YouTube live is completely untapped, especially vertical lives. And I've been able to get hundreds of thousands of subscribers within one small time period. What are you talking about on these lives? Doing blindfold challenges with my sister. Okay, so literally we would just put on blindfold, do a bunch of random things. I had the subscriber count in the back though. Like just kind of like, okay, so we're like, okay, everybody subscribe on three, one, two, three. And then we crack an egg on our head or something like, something ridiculous like that. But it's, it's, it's definitely a different market because yeah, videos are cool, but something about being live, it's just, it's so much more authentic. Like you're literally sitting down with me and my sister doing some crazy challenges. You're telling us what to do. Like we did, um, we did the rock paper scissor challenge, which, um, where you like do it, and then you have to eat the food while the other person is running around the house or doing, I actually got a pogo stick. And the other person was doing 10 pogo sticks, but the other person, eight, my mom got so mad at us. Oh, but whatever. But no, those were, those were really, really successful lives that we did. So I mean, like it's, it's a bit of everything. It's like understanding the right platform, right algorithm. What features is that platform pushing because obviously what does that mean? That means that YouTube wants people to be doing vertical life. 100%. Like, and I remember I was talking to people at YouTube and I was showing them my numbers and they're like, Angela, this is amazing. Like we haven't seen numbers like this on YouTube live. And they told me they're like, when we come up with things, we love when you do this, when you do this because we're making it for you. But when you're one of the first people to hop on it, like we want to show you that every single, every single podcast is streamed on YouTube live. Yeah, right. I mean, but it's really, it's really cool. And within that three month period, I believe I was about two million subscribers. Just like, I was going live a lot. But within three months, I got two million subscribers. It was honestly like, you have wild growth. These are not normal numbers. I know. I know. I know. I know people that grind it out on YouTube for years and they don't have numbers like this. It's really crazy. I think it's a mixture of, I think you have a great person now that you bring energy to it. It's like, it's like, you great content that's fun to watch. But also, you're like tapping into like what the platform wants to push 100% and then also the topics you discuss, they're not so niche. They're like, you bring the niche to the ocean. I think it's very, it's like, when you hear good advice, it's so simple, but like people also don't do it. Like when you're saying that, it's like, yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. Like bringing things that are relevant to more people and like tap into the features that a platform wants to do. It's like, it's not super complicated, but again, a lot of people don't do it. And I think it's because I get so stuck in their ways. Even people that have been creating content for a long time, they get so stuck in their ways, and they don't want to like change and they're just not as the way we've always done it, which is like the death of any business, right? The saying the way it's always been done is like the worst thing you can say in a business or in content or in entrepreneurship. You have to innovate and pioneer. I always have to innovate. And that's why I think you're successful because you keep trying new things. Like you started on TikTok and then you've tried every single platform under the sun. You probably, I mean, you probably experiment nonstop by assuming, yeah, that's why you're successful. I want to share something really interesting. And this is something I'm going to talk about more on my course a lot, but you know, you have, you get views on videos, right? And someone who's getting 10 million views on a video might be getting a different amount of following than they get on somebody else who gets the same amount of views. This is a really interesting case study. The video that got 100 million views, right? I'm going to show you how many subscribers it got me. Let me find it right over here. I didn't anticipate talking about this, but this is really interesting. So this is my most viral video ever. 110 on YouTube. How is it? Most viral video on YouTube. And it got me 300,000 subscribers, right? Yeah. So that's pretty cool. But let me show you something else. So this video is a video that got 10 times less views. Yeah. More than 10 times less views. It has 10.7 million views. 500,000. So do you know why? I know exactly why. See, the thing about when you're doing your videos is, yeah, it's like you can get a very big reach, but you're called to action of what you want them to do with your video is so important. The one video, you know, was a funny video with my sisters, very relatable, very viral, very cool. But there wasn't really a prompt for people to subscribe. Yeah. But the other video that went viral, but not as viral, but got more subscribers was with my little sister coming into the store and she had, she was like hiding something. I didn't know what it was. I'm like, Mariah, what is this? And she's like, nothing, none of your business. And she just walks away. And then I find her again on the couch and she's wearing a blanket. And I'm like, Mariah, it's like 90 degrees outside. Why are you wearing a blanket? And she's like, uh, nothing, it doesn't matter. And then all of a sudden, like, you know, I lift up the blanket and what's under it? A cute little puppy. And she's begging me to keep it. She's like, Angela, please, please, can we keep it? Can we keep it? I'm like, no, Mariah, we can't. Mom and dad aren't going to let us, we can't. And she's like, please, if everyone subscribes, can we keep them? I'm like, okay, fine. If everyone subscribes, we'll keep them. That literally got me 500,000 subscribers within that 30 second video, 30 seconds that got me 500,000. And that's why, yes, you can get a lot of views and it's good to make viral content always. But there's times where you can really focus on acquiring subscribers. And you have to look at it as a science, a psychology even because I have, I have several other videos that did this. I have a video that got less than 10 million views and over 300,000 subscribers, which is crazy because people think views and subscribers are proportionally aligned, but it's not. It all comes down to what you're saying, what you're telling the audience to do, you know, I mean, all it takes is them clicking one button, but I have to get their thumb to tap it, you know, how can I do that? But it's just asking. It's just asking. I think that's half of it. And you know what, that, that, that advice, I think that I used to hear that advice a lot, like, you know, like at the end of your video, like say, like, oh, if you like this, like, please like and subscribe. But first of all, unless your retention is amazing on the video, not 100% of the people are actually going to be staying till the end. So the opportunity with shorts, as you probably have close to like 100% retention on the 30 second video versus like a 10 minute or over 100% too. Oh, that's true. Yeah, that's true. Versus like a podcast where it's like three hours, you're not getting over 110% right? Yeah, of course, yeah. So that's the opportunity, though. So if you have that CTA in like a 30 second video, I mean, that's huge. Yeah, 100%. And it's like, it does come down to how engaging you can make it, you know, because if I have a boring 30 second video, no one's going to make it to the end, right? Which I know a lot of people take for granted, but it's, it's really hard to keep someone sitting for 30 seconds because their mind is so used to watching things that are like 10 seconds that entertain them, give them instant dopamine. So it's like, yeah, you could say, oh, that 30 seconds that that must not have been hard, but no, it's like, it's almost even it's I'm not going to call it harder, but like, it's really difficult. It's like you have to constantly be feeding their mind something like, you know, give them peak their curiosity, give them something to keep watching for like, it's it's a lot. It is a lot. And even like when I think about like retention on a podcast, it's a totally different listener as well, but I think that I think with podcasts, it's people aren't people listen to podcasts like as they're doing something like as they're in the gym or they're going for a walk or doing dishes like it's almost like like in the back of their head playing, whereas the people that are looking at the short stuff, they're like actively engaging watching very intentional. They're very intentional. They're like, when people listen to my show, it's not because like they're not at work, but for you, they're like, I have like 10 minutes on my lunch break and I want to consume the funniest, best, most entertaining content possible while I have 10 minutes. That's it. And then that's where you that's where you like tap into that. Like I think that that's where I think that that's where there's a huge opportunity. People should be finding ways to create the short, little viral pieces. I mean, you can talk about like, YouTubers that do 10 minute, 20 minute clips as well. And they do well. But I think the opportunity for most people is that they nail these super short with a CTA go subscribe. That's true. I mean, yeah, it's very important. I showed you an example with 100 million views, but like if we just look at like a random video that I've gotten 10 million views on, I think that's I think that's even more insightful. I know a lot of your stuff is short, but do you do like longer stuff as well? I do do longer stuff. I'm going to get more into it, but right now I've just been really focused on the business with the course. Like really I want to I like to do things to the best of my ability before I open more doors, you know? A lot of people like to do a little bit of everything. Some people works, but really like I just want to nail something perfectly. Then do it. So here's another video I posted. Okay, like a few weeks ago, it got 10.9 million views. The same amount of views is the other one, but only 10,000 subscribers. So the other one literally got 50 times more. Like, you know, to that video, there was no call to action to subscribe. Not as one as strong as the other one. Not nearly as well. What was this one about? This one I was with my friend Dan and we went to Gordon Ramsay to see if they treat me better if I was dressed casual and he was dressed, you know, in a suit. So yeah, but that's why it's important. Like, I have these two videos that both have 10 million views, but one of them got me 500,000 subscribers and the other one got me 10,000. Like really we can break down the differences and see. Like that the video with the puppy. I mean, everyone wants me to keep the puppy. It's so cute. There's like you've knocked into like their emotion. Exactly. Exactly. Cute puppy. I wanted to keep it. So cute. Oh my gosh, keep it. That's like five psychology right there. If people want to like take your course, like who's it for? What are they going to learn? What are they going to take away from it? This course is for people who envision themselves doing social media, but they don't know exactly what angle to hit it from. Also, this course is for people who have been posting on social media for so long, but they're not seeing the results that they want. And as funny as it sounds, a lot of it really comes down to mentality. And this isn't a mentality course. And I'm going to be teaching the actual blueprint, but I will be sprinkling in the right mindset that you need to have to be viral. I've had an account with almost a million followers before, but why was I not able to grow it to the multitude that I am now? Because now everything in my head is right. I figured out how to master that. And also I've learned several things, you know, and experimentation. I got past myself, you know, I spent so much time being worried, but once you just kind of get past that, you can achieve great things. So this course is for people who haven't started social media, but want to figure it out. And also people who are doing social media to their fullest extent, but just cannot figure it out. Like I want to be the reason you figure it out. I think that's a lot of people. People know that social media is important, but like I mean 99% of people just have no idea what they're doing. It's tough. It's very tough. Like I mean, like again, like to have like a formula, it's like game changing. I mean, even if you look at like your nuts and their success, I mean, we didn't even talk about the first time. So when when people think of social media, sometimes they think, well, how is this actually useful for my business? Is this just not like a waste of time? And I mean, outside of the fact that now you've franchised out, you increased sales, increased revenue, like even the first time that you actually asked your followers to come to a physical location. That was in Idaho. No, yeah. Yeah. And like you just like summoned followers and you had like lines wrapping around the building. I mean, like most restaurant owners with like dream of this, right? So there's real benefit. But I think that for a lot of people, the issue is I don't have the education or the expertise or and it's going to be so much time and energy and investment. And I don't know when I'm going to start to see a return on it. That's what I think most people think. Most business owners think that the thing is, I mean, you just you kind of have to realize that, you know, the fruits of social media are amazing. And the world is moving towards the place where you need to be on social media. A lot of people think of it as an afterthought. And it's also very funny how they always say in corporations, the first thing that goes is marketing, which is crazy because that shows you where people's priorities lie with this. But once you realize that marketing is just as important of the operations as your business, then you're really going to see success. Because yes, it's good to have operations. It's great. It's great to have something pretty, but something pretty that you can't see is not going to benefit anybody, right? So, you know, there was a point in our business where we, we, you know, our sales were like kind of going down a little bit. And we were like, we don't know what to do. You know, most businesses would have immediately cut the marketing budget. But no, that's where we said, let's ramp it up. Let's go. That's where we created the new product. The ones that I did with the ads posted on all the local pages repeatedly did it. Like probably eight parts. The sales were record highs that we've never seen before. Like we had the best years in several of our shops. So it's like, it's like, it's really for those people who think that they don't have enough time for social media or they'll figure it out later. There's no better time than right now. And if they need a sign, then it's right here. Like you're the sign. You're the sign. I think there's two, there's two views, right? One person thinks one, one view is I'll figure it out later. And then the other view is I'm already too late. You're always going to feel like there's not room for you, but there is. They might take a little bit of innovation. But honestly, you can find, when you can, when you learn to find morality and just day to day things, you can find it within your own life too. And there is room for you out the two. What do you think traditional marketing agencies get wrong about social media? Because it's so I've hired agencies. I know a lot of friends that, you know, they've run huge businesses. They hire agencies. And it just seems like they always miss the mark. They repeatedly miss the mark. And it's so hard to find good people agency or internal to run social for a brand. Because I find that the best people build their own brands and their own content creators. Think about brands that actually kill it on social. Like dual-lingual kills it. Wendy's is funny as hell on Twitter. Like stuff like that. Like there's not very many though. There's like a Ryanair, which is like the German like plain. They're really funny too. And they do some funny stuff. But most brands do not. So obviously if you have like a billion dollar brand and you're having a hard time hiring talent or hiring an agency, it's because there's not a lot of good out there. There's not a lot of good talent out there. Why do you think that they? I would almost say the opposite. Okay. I would say first of all, 90% of the agencies, now I would go as far as I say 99% of the agencies are going to absolutely rip you off. Because the beautiful thing about a lot of business owners who spend all of their time working in their shop, perfecting that one thing they're working on is ain't nothing about social media. So it is so easy for a marketing agency to come to you and just say, hey, we're going to be doing this, this store a bunch of numbers that you don't understand a bunch of terms you've never heard in your life and pay me $30,000 a month. Like this happens to business owners and they're taking advantage of them so much. So I wouldn't go as far as to say as that there's not talent available. But it's more there's a lack of education and what you actually need. And quick tip, I would give to a lot of business owners, when you have an agency telling you about how many impressions they're going to be getting your brand, that's an immediate red flag because I'm sorry, but impressions doesn't equal anything. And they're going to throw the biggest number possible. But impressions really isn't going to be people watching it. And now I'm going to get into explain that though. Yes, impressions on social media is when people, you know, might let's just say you're scrolling on your explorer feed, but you're not you're like, you're looking at all the little squares on Instagram. You're scrolling down, but you're not actually watching the post that's considered an impression. Like I'm sorry, but no, like make this make sense. You're going to tell me, okay, wait, like I don't even know, like you're going to tell me that I'm going to just try and make I know exactly what you're saying. It's all me like that scrolling on Instagram. This is an impression like me just like seeing this, like that's horrible. But but but they're going to trick him is saying that that's an impression. Yeah, a lot of platforms are and whether it's through Instagram or other things, which I think that recently they're updating their metrics because I think it's like not the best metric, but on YouTube that that's an important metric and it can help you a lot. So don't I'm not saying it's not important metric, but I'm saying they'll use that metric to trick you. And the reason why I said that I would go as far as to say that opposite of your initial statement of not as much talent is because once you stop looking at people that you need to pay $30,000 a month, look, like if you run a food business and you mostly employ teenagers, they are literally your demographic of people who are constantly scrolling on social media. You take for granted how much help those kids could give you on on your social media. Like I mean, don't look at the agency who's going to charge you and nickel and dime you for every single thing, but look at the look at the the teenager who's watching, you know, countless hours of TikTok every day. They know everything that's viral and every trend. Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, that's really the main point. I would say like the social media seems like a dead end for a lot of people because they lack the education and they're willing to give so much money to figure it out, but to the wrong people. And I'm telling you like if I had the wrong intentions, I could start a marketing agency and get a lot of people's money. And obviously I would do a good job, but like I would not want to do it under the tents of me misinforming people, so they can give me their money. But that's such a common thing that we see. Then I cringe at it. It makes me feel bad because I see people like my parents who have built a business from the ground up. And it's like, if somebody came to do that to them, like I'm just like, shame on you, you know. I see it a lot. I see it a lot. Out of all that you've learned about social and building an audience and just like building influence, what would be one of the hardest lessons that you've had to learn that you was useful, but maybe you hope that no one else has to go through this. I would say that the best piece of advice is, and it's ironic considering the field that's in, but to not compare yourself so much to other people because everybody's journey is different. And also when you're doing social media, you're only being shown the 1% of people. And there's a healthy comparison where you can look and say, this is where this person is. How did he get here? I want to figure that out. Sure. But once you start doing it to the point where you're looking at everybody around you and you're looking for deficiencies in yourself when you reflect, that's really when it gets unhealthy. And sometimes you really just need to like focus on what you're doing. I remember VidCon, we went and there was a bunch of creators, but you know, I saw some of them getting really thrown off when they're watching their friends get recognized and they're not getting recognized. And there was one specific person there who saw this happening and after VidCon, their content has never been the same because they were that because you get so focused on when everybody else has this person getting recognized, this person has a Lambo, this person has this, and you stop what you're doing, but you realize that like everybody's path is different. So if you're going to be comparing yourself to here, you're going to be going so far off your path, you're not getting anywhere with that, right? So don't be so hard on yourself with the comparisons, I would say. I mean, it's beautiful advice and not just in social, just in like, in life. Right. What would be one belief about social media that you used to have that's changed? That everything needs to be perfect. I am the absolute biggest perfectionist on planet Earth. And I say that as the fact that it's a blessing and a curse because it's helped me get to where I am in the sense that I'm able to really, you know, hone in on my craft and make it to the best as I can, but also that has almost hurt me a lot of ways. Like I said, I almost didn't post one of my most viral series because of my perfectionism. And you really just have to look at social media is just some, it's just like a playground for you to like really experiment and see what's good. And I would say if you're a perfectionist like me, like, don't think that social media is, is this place where you need to be perfect. If anything, it's almost better if you're not because perfection isn't relatable. Like I can't relate to somebody who's perfect. And most people can't because no one is, you know, it's not relatable. But that so I also know that there's been times where you do like 200 edits on like a single clip. Yeah. So how do you balance that, which is wild also wild. Right. So how do you balance perfectionism versus 200 edits? Like are some things you ship them right away and you post them right away, some things you do 200 edits on. Like walk me through how you think about perfectionism versus just posting. I was too good questions to have back to back because yes, it's a duality because of course, you know, there's a mindset of don't be a perfectionist. And I say this a lot to the people, to the majority of people who haven't made it to where I have made it right because the perfectionism now is more justified in the sense that I know exactly what works for me because I have tested a billion things and figured it out. So I know because I'm comparing it to things that I've done in the past. So I want it to be perfect, right. But in the beginning, if I was a perfectionist, my first video wouldn't have been posted. My second video wouldn't have been posted. So it's okay to be a perfectionist, but after you've done so much experimenting that you know what your standard of perfection is because my my standard of perfection is not a video that I think is perfect. But no, it's a video that I got 100 million views. That's my standard of perfection. You know what I mean? But if I never experimented with that one post that I thought might not go viral, then I wouldn't have had that standard. So work your way up to knowing what your perfect is if that makes sense. It does. What would be the biggest misconception about your success story? I think I've posted so many things and so many videos of me having a good time keeping a smile on my face because I think it's really important to put positivity forward and bring that into the world. But I also think I may have not shared how much it took to get to where we are. I mean, I even think about COVID sometimes where, you know, like we didn't have employees, we didn't have anything and we were a family. I was doing school. Yes, online, but I mean, I was still working very hard and stuff and the amount of work my family had to put to making this business work. Like it really almost broke my family. Like my mom had to, you know, keep the store open. Well, my dad was, you know, finding people to invest in our company. After school, I had to work the shop for the rest of the day. I mean, I didn't have to, but in my heart, that's what I wanted to do. And it came to the point where we almost closed. And you know, most of the businesses that closed in COVID, a lot of them at least didn't open back up. So there was a lot of heartache. And I mean, of course, like this is, it's hard work and there still is, but I think that's definitely the biggest thing. And it seems like I guess maybe I want to start focusing more on what it took to get to where I am because there were several times where we could have given up. But luckily we didn't because shortly after COVID, we got franchised by a shark from Shark Tank. But I mean, imagine, imagine all that work and we just stopped right there. You know, like, where would we be now? And people think that if you don't, if you're not making it right away, then you're doing something wrong. But if anything, I'll say you're doing something right. If the fact that yesterday didn't go so well, but you're still waking up the next day to make it happen. So, yeah, that's long story short, that's probably it. I think that's the thing. It's not. It's not. We've done, like, I mean, my family and I mean, me myself, I don't always give myself, like, that much credit, but like, really in this conversation, like, I mean, I did go a long way too. So I think you, I mean, I know you did. It's not a question, but I think it's also like, it's tough sometimes, especially like, listen, like, it's your whole family involved. It's not just like your business and your success. Like, I think it's sometimes tough to like really realize, like, how far you've come yourself. I believe that with me. I don't know if that's true with you, but I believe that. Like, sometimes, I mean, I'm sitting in like a studio that I built out and I'm like, this started like, in a second bedroom, like, it was like a two-bedroom condo and the second bedroom I just filming on Zoom. And then you look back and it's only been like six years and you're like, yeah, yeah, right? But that's what's showing up does. And the first time you post it, you just showed me a post where you got 10 million views of 500,000 subs. So one of your 30 second posts is bigger than my entire channel and it's bigger than a lot of people. And it's not like I've never, it's not like I have no audience, right? So it's like, you put in perspective. When you first started out, you think one post could give you 500,000 followers. No way. I'm not like that. And that's like, that's just a beautiful thing because you start to realize that when you're putting so much work in, you eventually realize that things happen in seasons, right? You're going to have a season where your head is down and you're working harder than you've ever worked in your entire life. And sometimes it feels endless, right? But then eventually, I don't know, like what the rhyme or reason or why it happens when it happens, but you wake up one day and you realize like, wow, like blessings are happening one day after another. And and you get caught up in it because you're always thinking when you're in that mindset of like, what's the next, what's the next big thing? What's the next big thing? But like sometimes you got to pause and just be like, whoa, make really the past three months, like, you know, like I've gone so much blessings, like so many, like beautiful things came out of my hard work. Like kind of like, like, this is a good season, you know? I love that. And I think that's actually very important. I think that most people that are like high performing like on this path and they're just like doing, doing, doing. I think they don't take a second and stop and pause and realize how good their life has become because you start because you move your own goalposts. And then you just keep looking at, okay, so what did you say now? Now your benchmarks are 100 million. Yeah, I was like, that's crazy. No, you're right. That's true. It's something that I think, listen, it's good to be ambitious, but it's also good to like just understand like how far you come. Because what's your next, what's your next level? Like, where do you want to go next? Are you like, you're trying to be Mr. Beast at this? Is that is that it? That's that's one of the goals for sure. I mean, just to be able to grow to that level is would would honestly be amazing because like, you know, I always say like the more the platform you get, the more you become of who you are. And like, I've always wanted to kind of use my voice for good and like to help people. And I feel like the more, the more I've been able to grow my platform, the more like abilities I've been able to do that. So I want to grow that. Of course, I always want to keep my head in business. Like, I don't, I would like, there will never be a day. And I just mark this now. Like, I'm going to say there will never be a day where I retire because not because I want to work so hard for the rest of my life. But no, more because like I always, I always want to be, you know, keeping in mind, I'm busy always contributing something good to the world and stuff like that. Did you have to sacrifice anything to get to where you are right now? Yeah. A lot. I mean, like, and I always have to make sure I tell this story, right? Because I always know that when I say this, like, people be like, why did your parents make you do this? But I just want to emphasize before I say this, like, everything I've ever done, my parents have never forced me to do anything. But like, I really, like, did it because I wanted to. But there's been a lot that I have sacrificed. I mean, like, I, I spent so much time, like building this, this business, like, to what it is. And there would be so many times my friends were going out, you know, doing things and, you know, these are like experiences that you remember for the rest of your life. But so many times I've said, no, I don't think I think I took for granted how many times I've had to say no to say yes to myself. And I would say I've sacrificed a lot of, like, maybe high school experiences, middle school experiences to get to where I am. I mean, I, yeah, like, I mean, I even, I would even go as far as to say I sacrificed a college experience because I made it, I was very intentional with the decision of not going to college because I know what I'm doing. And I know the path that I need to take to get to where I want to be. College is very fun. And I'm a very social person. But that for me was a sacrifice too, because I could go, go have fun, go make all these friends and this and that. But it's not really aligning with where I want to be in my life. Yeah, that's tough. Very, very wise. I think that a lot of people don't realize that so much later on in their life. But I think that everybody, you mentioned seasons before, everybody who's built anything meaningful, there'll be a season where they put in more work than most people are ever willing to put in. So that, I mean, it's very cliche. But like, so then, you know, you work now harder than anyone else. So like, you know, the rest, you know, your life, what's it? What's the saying? What's the quote? It's like, you like work, work harder than, what is it? You work harder than everyone else now. So like, later, you don't have to work harder. I know. No, no, that's not the quote. There is a real quote. But the point is the season of your life where you start to build, I don't think there's balance in that season. I think that for a period of your life, it's okay to not have balance so that you can't have balance later because I rather not be stressed about money and finances and career when I'm like 50. And I have kids. I don't want to wait till 50 to have kids. But you get the point. No, that's, that's like something my grandpa always said. It's like, you either pay an hour a pay later. Like, and you're like, oh, that's very beautiful set. Wait, wait, wait, wait, better than my stupid ass quote. No, but it's so true because like, I'm aware of like what I've had to give up. But I have zero regrets whatsoever. I mean, because like, there's comes a point in everybody's life where they decide they want to take themselves and their lives more seriously. And I feel like I've always had that drive. So like, if anything, I'm just going to continue to do that. But yeah, and I like what you said about balance. Or like, I remember I was watching an Alex from Ozzy video and he was explaining like, you know, people are so confused to think that balance is about balancing day to day balancing like throughout week to week. But like, no, like, balance is not like that at all. There's going to be a five year period where you're working the hardest you've ever worked in your life. But maybe later, you're going to be blessed with like a three year period where you're like going to be able to relax. But like, I think to really get somewhere, you need to put 100% of your energy into exactly where you want to go. If you're putting 50% here and 20% there and 10% there, where do you expect? Where do you think you're going to be? You're going to agree with that. Half-assing your entire half-assing everything. And then nothing gets done. I think that's even why like you were speaking about right now. I am not doing more long form. I did short form, built an audience, grew the business, put the course together. Like, you're very purposeful. But like, what you focus on one thing at a time. And I think that that's the way you succeed. Because I know that Hermosy talks about this as well. Like, entrepreneurs go through this cycle of they start something new and then it gets tough and they quit and they start something new and then it gets tough. Exactly. Or they start like five things and it's this perpetual cycle that can last for like 20 or 30 years. Whereas, if they just stuck to the thing that kept the main thing the main thing, yeah, it's going to suck at the beginning. But then you're going to learn and then it's going to be a compounding effect to all of your efforts that you put into it. And then over the course of 10, 15 years, you will find a way to make that thing successful. 100% if you don't quit. And I also say don't, like earlier you asked what's like the best piece of advice that I could give or something that I learned. And I would say almost that don't compare it. Not just because of what it can do to your mental health, but because it's not realistic. Like, if people compare themselves to me, and all the success that I've been able to see, like you're only seeing like the amazing things that have happened, the videos that have went viral, but like you didn't see the thousand videos that filled. You didn't see the days me and my family were up until 6 a.m. like coming up with a new strategy, you know, like you didn't like there's so much that goes into it that it's almost like comparison isn't fair because like you don't get the full picture of anybody's life. Okay, so where do you want people to connect with you? Website social, they don't follow you already. Where do you want people to go? I mean, YouTube for sure, that's where I'm going to be doing all the fun stuff. But Instagram is going to be more like where I'm going to start talking more about like business things about the course about different, I guess specific moves like, you know, YouTube, I might be posting the videos, but Instagram, you really get like the insider information. So I would say definitely Instagram. Pick one lesson in your opinion, the most important lesson that you've ever learned. And for context, this is the lesson that you'd want to pass on to your kids because it's that important. What do you think that lesson is and why? Yeah, I guess I would say look like especially doing something like social media, but I mean social media life, whatever it is you can go by putting on a face and being whoever you want people to think that you are because I mean at the end of the day like we can be actors in our own personal lives and be whatever person we want, but I think at the end of the day you need to make sure that like within yourself, you're measuring up to who you really want to be that you're being a good person. Yeah, I can smile at people, hold the door open. Yeah, that's cool. But who am I actually, you know, like at the end of the day. And I think it's so important to keep that in mind. And I learned that through social media because you know, there was times where I was doing very well on social media, but in real life, I wasn't doing very well. And I just really all like a think of is like wow, how easy is it just to fake and just pretend and like this and that. They're really like I had to go within and just ask myself like what's not working? What's not clicking? And I had to really, you know, do that. So I could come up with the best face on social media because at the end of the day, like I always, to me, I always want to be someone who's putting something positive out. So really just like that's tough though. That's so tough when like shit's not going right in your life and you're trying to show up and be a content creator. Yeah, it's very difficult. Do you think that there's sometimes where you should bring some of your personal shit into your content? If in my opinion, if you think that you can do it in a way that's constructive, that somebody who's going through something similar can kind of almost take advice from you and help. And you know, there's going to be some creators who really genuinely don't know what to do and might even go to social media to kind of seek that type of wisdom. Maybe from someone else in their comment section who's went through the same thing. So it's a different situation situation. Me personally, I like to figure out what is happening. So I can help somebody else who might be going through that if I bring it to them and stuff. I don't really bring too much like, I guess negative feelings towards like on the social media. I'll talk about the hardships and the lessons after, you know, right? But usually like within, I really just like to assess it and figure it out. I guess, Martha, but I think that whether or not you're sort of like talking about it in real time or you're talking about it after, I think it's important to like bring them up at some point. The lessons, I think are important. I think it's difficult for people when they're going through it to like, say it's like a breakup or like an argument or a business issue or whatever. It's hard to like talk about it. But I think that sometimes that makes the best content. Not that not through negative, but like because someone else is going through it. That's true. That's true. Someone else is always going through it. Even that thing that you, I mean like you say you don't bring up negative, but that 100 million view posts where the people are like kind of like critiquing you and like being like, oh, that's cringe in public. There's a lot of creators out there that have apprehension about filming in public. That's true. And a lot of creators don't know how to do it. And what happens if somebody talks shit about me in person and the comment. So even putting that out there, it's like you are helping a group of people. I think, yeah, when you bring it like that, that makes a lot of sense. It's like, I think just like for me, I just like to be like, I'm very constructive. And if something is wrong, like I like to figure it out right away and have like a bullet point of what's going on. You know, but like that's me. But yeah, no, at the end of the day, like vulnerability is something that I think should be shown. That video did very well, but I've had other videos where I've had like not the best customer interactions. I posted about it. I've talked about it. So no, I do think that's, I do think that's important. And just more just like, I think bigger picture is just important. Like I guess like, you know, put, yes, put your best face forward, but also make sure that like you are like authentically actually doing that, even when the cameras aren't on, even when no one's looking like that to me is very important.