SPEAKER_00 0:02

Once you get obsessed with the goal a little too much, the fruit is never as sweet as you thought it would be. I can assure you of that. But you know what? There's only one way to find out. Do it, and then you report back to us. But don't quit. That's not an option. Quitting is never an option.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Yeah. Falling in love with the process is what it's about, falling in love with the journey. I think when you're working towards something, you're always chasing for that breakthrough moment, and you never know when that moment's gonna come. And if you quit, you'll never reach that point of breakthrough. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

A fucking men. Failures podcast, episode 50. We made it. Today we're talking about failing in public and learning from it. That's how we got to episode 50. Failing in public is all about improving from reps, not books, not YouTube videos, actually learning in the arena, as me and Rich are doing with this platform that we created. Why in the fuck would two grown men in their late 30s, early 40s sign up for public shame, public embarrassment, judgment from coworkers, shit, judgment from our significant others. Both of our girlfriends have told us separately why are you doing this? Why are you dedicating your free time to talking to young men, these young guys that got these crazy personal issues? And you know what me and Rich said? Fuck it. We like an uphill battle. We want to create a platform, and we are gonna be so successful in 10 episodes. We thought we had to figure it out. But guess what? We're 50 episodes in, the podcast and the YouTube channel are nowhere near viral. But what happened is all the shit we learned along the way, failed reps, learning in public, getting in the arena, not just living through the textbooks, not just living through coursework, not just living through YouTube videos. Rich and I have slowly become what we preached, what we named the podcast, what we named the platform, failures. We knew when we signed up that failure will be up ahead. But the biggest risk that we took being one of the most valuable lessons we've learned in our late 30s and early 40s, and we're so happy we've done it, and we're celebrating episode 50. Rich, before I get to the opening question, I do want to celebrate 50 episodes properly with a good cheers. Cheers, my boy. Hell yeah. Damn, here's the 50 more. Yes, sir. Rich, episode 50. We have a lot to discuss today. In order for this not to be like us just fucking stroking our egos, going back and forth about how great we are, we wanted to kind of contextualize what 50 episodes has taught us about many things. What has taught us about our community, what we thought we knew when we started versus what we actually know now? What has taught us about media and creating content in the modern era, which is very difficult. There's a lot of competition out there. But probably more importantly, what it taught us about failing in public and the embarrassment that that comes with. I've shared things on this platform that I never thought I would say out loud, let alone be recorded for people to see that I don't even know. So let's start there, Rich. I know you've always been the silent partner with me and you. We've ran a few businesses together, we've made some money together, we've been successful together, we've failed together, but the whole time, I've always been the one to get in front of the camera. This is your first time stepping in front of the camera. Just so our listeners who want to try something new for the first time can understand that you can relate to them. What's something that you can share with them to let them know the adjustment you went from being behind the camera to being in front of the camera and basically exposing yourself for everyone to judge?

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah, man. Listen, I thought for a long time that I had a lot of information and knowledge to share with people. I would always read books and watch a lot of documentaries. And I've always felt the need to sort of provide something to humanity, sort of help build something that was above myself and for the greater good, and not just something that was money driven, right? And to me, the greatest risk for me was not working towards something that seemed hard, right? Like I have a full-time job, I have a family, and I have a career, and I just felt like things were becoming mundane. And I was asking myself, like, damn, like what's next? Like, is this it? Like, am I just gonna work for the next 40 years and retire? And this was the life of Rich Sanchez. When I reflected on that type of life, like I immediately knew that I had to make a change. Like I had to do something that felt hard. I had to create a new challenge for myself. I had to try to build a new business. So I love the fact that me and you came together for maybe what, a fifth time now to work on something that we both believe in. And this is something we're both passionate about, bro. We've been consuming self-help content since I've known you since we were 16, 17 years old. So when we both came together and realized that, man, there might be an opportunity to package everything that you and I have learned throughout the years in a way that's digestible for the future generations, right? The future young Justins of the world, the future young riches of the world. Let's be that voice for them and let's help educate the next generation of young men. And that's that's the journey that we're on.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yeah, Rich, uh, this episode is definitely dedicated to the guy that probably listened to a few episodes, discovered us through YouTube or Spotify podcasts, and he's been consuming a lot of our content and he's been seeing uh two grown men just kind of divulge all this personal information about how many times we've looked stupid, but we've learned from it, how many times we've failed and we learn from it. Essentially, we're showing everybody our scars and our body, and we're telling the stories behind each scar. But there's nothing ever gained if you don't go out there and earn your scars. You learn from your failures, you learn from failed reps, you fail in public. That's really the thesis behind the platform because I think what I was able to discover, given I work in music, I work in hip hop and RB, and essentially my core consumer, the person that I'm marketing to all the time, is a young man under the age of 25. And I was able to discover, like, damn, there's a lot of problems going on in this community just from trying to market to them from a music standpoint. And Rich, I came to you and was like, yo, there is an underserved problem that's happening. A lot of young men are going through a lot of pain, and I'm seeing this content, and this shit is not helpful. I would love you to speak on it, Rich, but the content was kind of destructive. And I think the one thing we both agreed on before we even named it failures was Rich, you have a son. I have a nephew. Both of them are under the age of 24. Is this the type of information that we want them consuming online, or would we rather become something that is an alternative option in this space that can be helpful, at least helpful in the way we see it?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, what exists out there, the Alpha Bro content, the Manosphere content, the Andrew Tate to the world, Jordan Peterson's, like all these different creators sharing information of young men. And not to say that any of these guys are right or wrong. It's just a different perspective on how to help young men. I think our angle is a bit more of like, man, accountability, self-reflection, understand that your circumstances and your setbacks are not who you are, not part of your identity. I think we take a lot of time crafting our topics and really pinpointing what pain a young man might be feeling. And a lot of that pain that we identify in these topics comes from our childhood. And so we're able to extract real lived experiences from some of these topics and hopes to help young men out. And I think it's been pretty receptive. I think the feedback has been great. We've been growing week over week. And I feel like more creators should take chances like this and just be vulnerable with their community, put themselves out there, share information, share pain, share their failures in their life. And really that builds a connection and a bond with our community that I think no other creators could say for themselves.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah, Rich, one phrase that came up in my research for this community that we're building and this platform we're building is fuck around and find out. That's a phrase that we hear a lot in our community, but I've never actually given it thought. And what's funny is in my research, trying to learn more about artificial intelligence and tech startups, and I've gone down a crazy rabbit hole trying to understand the SpaceX business model and engineers. What do engineers do? This is like a side quest. And what I've learned is the core principles to engineering or the core principles to building something like artificial intelligence is just scientists applying scientific theory to something in order to find a new result. If you want to invent something new, you got to try different things and you're gonna fail a lot. But in that failure may come the result of something that doesn't even exist, no one has ever done. So the most simplest way you could put it, a scientist's job, an engineer's job is to fuck around, try some different things, and then find out a new result or create something that is falsifiable. Like, can you put the world against this theory you have? And is it true no matter what you push against it? So it's crazy that I'm trying to understand what is an engineer, what is a scientist, what is artificial intelligence. And the result was the same as a young man just living his life, 14 years old, the first time he's ever been on a date with a girl, 15 years old. He's being bullied by one of his soccer teammates, and he doesn't know how to deal with it. Our platform was named failures before I even understood what scientific theory was. And essentially, for all my hood folks out there or my young guys that don't give a fuck about SpaceX, it's fucking around and finding out. And in the fucking around, you find out more new information. That's what failures was built around. This idea that Rich and I have always tested the boundaries and the limitations of what was put on us as two dudes that grew up in the hood. And we always fucked around and found out more. And I think just to tie a bow on the first section is that is the fun of life. And I think we recognize that. Though you're a six-figure guy, I'm a six-figure guy. We've done very well in our careers. I think we're entering the prime of our earning years. We could easily kick the recliner back, celebrate all the work we put in, and say, from here until 80, I'm gonna coast. Rich, you have a family. You don't need to be doing another job. I'm trying to build a family. I live in LA away from my family. I'm very dedicated to my career. I shouldn't be taking away time from those things. But why create failures? Because I think we're enjoying the process of fucking around and finding out.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah. And I think we both identified that the relationship that young men have with failure is a lot different than what we thought they should have, right? I think we grew up thinking that, man, uh a failure is something drastic. Like if you failed that life, you were a loser or you were incompetent, right? And the way we've been able to shift that using our platform is a failure is a setback. A failure is a teachable moment. A failure helps you learn how to adjust accordingly. We could honestly say that every mistake we've made in every episode, there's been a teachable moment. We've learned something about ourselves, about our community, about being content creators. Like there's no time wasted when you're out there in the arena failing, but then learning something along the way. And I think that's part of the takeaway that we hope every young man takes away when listening to our content. It's just sometimes we're a little aggressive, sometimes we're a little passive. Like you get a lot of different versions of us on any given topic, but the primary goal is for us to let you know that you are not a victim of your shortcomings. You're not a victim of your circumstances or where you grew up or the things that may have happened to you in the past. You can very much overcome and overachieve if you correct your mindset and view failure in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah. One thing I will say is just kind of looking back at the 49 episodes that we recorded in preparation for this episode. I was like, you know, let me look at some of the things that I shared in order to try to help out a young man. And this really weird thing happened, Rich. And I'm not sure if it happened for you. I'd love to hear your feedback. I've learned so much about myself and all the insecurities that I still have, all the vulnerabilities that I still have. A lot of these doors that are still open in my mind from my childhood that I never closed. And just going through the same eight principal issues that we keep kind of revolving around in this community, there's so many doors inside of that one door of each of these eight pillar issues that we keep seeing in our community: health, money, fitness, women, family, poverty, growing up poor. We're on a loop, right? But what I'm learning every time we go back to these episodes and we bring up a new layer of each of those subjects, I learn so much about myself. And there's two that come to mind, and I'll be curious to know what you think. In the Father Wounds episode, there were so many topics that I was afraid to ever discuss with anybody. That I had a friend in you and a business partner in you that I was able to just speak freely. And I blacked out when we did that first episode. I did not remember anything I said until I re-listened to that episode six months later. And it was almost like Justin from the past was giving Justin in that current moment free therapy. And I needed it. I needed it. So listen, we can amass millions and millions of views years from today. We can make hundreds of thousands of dollars from this platform. But what I'm already noticing 50 episodes in is while I'm trying to help other young men, somehow we've created a platform that is helping us, but the younger versions of ourselves. Literally. Something in young Justin is healing when 40-year-old Justin is speaking on an issue that's still a door that's open that I never closed. And I feel like I'm closing a lot of those doors. So it's this double benefit, triple benefit that I get from doing every episode, which it's insanely valuable. But I don't think we've ever discussed that value.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah, listen, I think perspective is everything. And we wouldn't be able to build this platform or do this type of content if we didn't have the maturity that we have today or the life experience that we've had up to this point, right? And we have the benefit of having hindsight and looking back and realizing, oh, these situations could have been handled different, or um, I wish that never happened, et cetera, et cetera. So I 100% agree with you. And I think for me, once I unpack a little bit in that father wound episode, I realized that, like, man, I still care to some degree that this man was absent in my life, right? And part of my identity and how I operate is with that mindset that I was abandoned, right? I carry that with me with everything that I do. Sure, I have a mom. She did absolutely the best she could. And I think she did a fantastic job. But there was always that resentment that um my father chose not to be part of my life. And um, something else that I shared that really made me open my eyes was like going to jail at like 11 years old. When I replayed that episode, I almost shed a tear because I forgot that the kid in that story was me. Crazy. And it made me self-reflect, like perspective, yeah. Yeah, like I really've been through a lot of things. But the core theme of everything that I've been through and all my bruises and all my failures was that I've never let anything that I've ever been through in life define me. I've built this resiliency that no matter how many times life punches me in the face, I'm going to get back up. And I learned that about myself through this platform and through unpacking a lot of what young guys are going through today.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Yeah, Rich, we should pivot away from ourselves. And I want to kind of take everything we've discussed so far and answer the question that we said on the top, which was man, what can I learn from what you guys have done so far, not just in building a media platform, but what have you learned about young men? What have 50 episodes revealed to Justin and Rich about young men today and these, bro, these insanely urgent pain points that they're going through. There's a lot of pain men under 30 are going through. And Rich and I have become so exposed to it that our algorithms are now primed on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. We see all these posts now, and it's a real issue. This is a very urgent issue. Whether it be 50% of men under the age of 35 are living with their parents, or what was it? 63% of men cannot handle a $2,000 emergency or a flat tire because they don't have any savings in their savings account. Graduation rates for young men are dropping in college and in high school. They're dropping out early. Half of Gen Z is not even having romantic relationships, let alone having sex. Suicide rates are damn near eight times more for men than they are for women under the age of 25. This is all off the dome. I'm reading these stats off the top of my head because these are the stats that Rich and I have learned 50 episodes in. If that framing for a certain group of people is not a big problem to you, the listener, then you don't have sensitivity inside of you. You're not empathetic to what these guys are going through. So, Rich, my question to you is what have you learned in the 50 episodes and what has it revealed about young men from episode one to episode 50?

SPEAKER_01 19:20

I never really anticipated how much these young men are seeking help. I think when we first started, we told ourselves, let's try a lot of things that are true to us and see what sticks.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

So we did episodes on AI, we did the hidden price of greatness, you know, we touched on relationships, we tried to do a money episode and spoke about cryptocurrencies and you know digital currency scams and things like that. You losing all that money with Tesla. With Tesla, yeah. Like we, you know, we hit finance and dating and what we realized was that the pain of these young men was really around suffering in silence and how men are going through depression and they're going through things like social isolation and they're distancing themselves from family and the people that love them and really not talking to anyone about their issues, right? So their best course of action to sort of remediate this pain is just to go on YouTube, go on Reddit, and maybe write a post, maybe watch a video to self-soothe, right? While other content creators are smacking them in the face with this alphabet content, like stop being a bitch, you need to do better, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Like we're coming in from the angle of like, hey, we see you, we hear you, we understand you, we felt the way you felt before. Here's how we've pivoted out of those negative head spaces. Here's how we've pivoted away from feeling like we've hit rock bottom. Here's what we did when we got laid off. Here's what we did after we went through a breakup, right? That perspective and that angle to me is a lot more digestible than having other content creators yelling in front of a camera to stop being a pussy, get up and do something about it. And listen, both approaches could work for any young man. You know what I mean? Like there's a lot of different ways to skin a cat, but we're taking the path that we feel is a little bit more helpful and more positive reinforcement for a young man.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, well said, Rich. And I mean, the way I would frame it is we thought we were building a platform that were gonna have all the answers in the beginning. When I go back and I listen to her and I watch our earlier episodes, I think everything was insanely prescriptive. Do this, do that. Top five steps to get your girl back, four red flags that you should run away from this girl. And I think there were two things we learned there that could be helpful to the young man listening right now. One, everyone has their own fingerprint. No two people are alike. And then when you bring two people together, like me and Rich, then it gets even more unique because now you're looking at two people that are definitely not alike, coming together to create one product. And I think the closer we got to being our everyday selves, who we are in person, if you were to run into me and Rich in the streets outside, you're probably gonna get more of a version that looks like episode 50 than a version that looked like episode one. And I think the teachable lesson there for a young man is man, you yourself are unique. And if you don't learn to embrace who you are, all the shit that makes you weird, all the shit that makes you funny, all the shit that makes some people move away from you, but makes other people move closer to you, then you're not exercising the one advantage you have in life, which is showing up as your unique, weird self and seeing what the world has to bring to you. And I think that was a little cheat code unlocked for us, Rich, because once we started getting into our specific interests and expressing more of our personality, and more importantly, we started sharing our own real life stories. We became the case studies in our own episodes. Once we made that pivot, I think that's when the floodgates opened up because I don't know, you would know better. I feel like you live in the data way more than I do. There was something about us becoming the case study in our material and sharing our most vulnerable moments that wound up bringing more comments in the comment sections and more subscribers and friends that would DM me about what we were talking about.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Yeah, certainly. I think initially we thought that the show needed to be very structured. We had to have top 10 actionable advice at the end of every episode, right? Like that was the key takeaway. And then, you know, what we realized was that we were leaving all the advice at the end, right? Rather than sprinkling it throughout the episode. So we made that pivot, which I thought was huge. And the other pivot that we made, which you just touched on, is we added our own lived experiences into the stories and the themes. So there's a a different level of relatability when you hear Justin sharing his lived experience and going through something, or hearing my lived experience of me going through something.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

You know what's funny, bro? I had an artist DM me and tell me I work in music. So a lot of my artists I used to work with or I work with now, they follow me. And this is funny as hell. One of the artists said, yo, I didn't realize how many times you've been fired and laid off in your life. I've shared so many getting fired and getting laid off stories from all these different companies. I forgot how many times that I've been led into disappointment and I've failed, and I've really felt like shit every time I got fired or laid off. And here I stand, a 40-year-old man in my career currently, the music business for 15 years, solid. I've worked at two companies for five plus years both. I've contributed incredible records to the world, songs, albums, gotten awards. Yet I shared every time I got fired, laid off, was in debt, was embarrassed with an ex-girlfriend, and I've learned so much more. And I think my friends and people that see me as this finished product, which I'm far from. And it's cool to share your vulnerabilities. And I think that's something I also learned. And I think it's something the young man watching this should understand. In the beginning, it never looks sexy, it never looks good, it always looks sloppy. Imagine somebody learning how to dance for the first time. Imagine somebody learning how to swim for the first time. Imagine somebody learning how to do parkour for the first time, jumping off the side of a fucking wall. It never looks good, but nobody ever shows you the beginning. And I think the 50 episodes are a testament to development and content and product, but our lives are more of an indicator of the first years from 15 all the way to 25, not a refined product, a very messy product. But I'm glad I went through all those things because I could tell the stories here that allow someone to learn from them.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Yeah, listen, I think there's something so liberating and you know, sharing your vulnerabilities and releasing that bottled up tension that you may have had about a previous experience. And once you get it out in words, once you put a lived experience into words and share it with the world, and you see a thousand, two thousand views and you know, dozens of likes, you're like, damn, I'm not crazy. There's other people out there in the world that are being receptive to something that I've gone through, and maybe they're going through something similar, or maybe I'm helping them navigate through something similar. So I think that's incredibly important and pivotal to what we're building today. And I'll add to that that I think part of our secret sauce initially was just like ugly execution. It's just like just starting, figuring it out, tinkering. And I think it's very important to share with our listeners that this show is probably 10% scripted, meaning we just write the segments that we want to talk about. And 90% of the show is Justin and I going off the cuff and going off of our 20-year friendship and just our natural chemistry. So early on, we identified that to be sort of a differentiator in what we're building and what other creators build. And what we have to offer to the content creation space we feel can't be duplicated. And that's sort of the bets that we're making early on.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Yeah, Rich, I do want to pivot quickly and discuss a single moment or comment, whether it be friends, family, or just someone who commented in our YouTube or social media, a single moment that you had where you were like, wow, this shit is way more impactful than I thought for the person who needs it. And I'll share mine while you think of yours. But I have a really close friend that was a roommate of mine in college. And I haven't spoken to this dude in probably 10 years, 15 years. Last time I saw him, he got married, he invited me to his wedding, and I saw him then, and not to put too much of his personal information in there, but the episode about becoming a dangerous man and understanding the difference between a man who accepts the world and lets the world mold them, or they push back and they mold the world that they live in. Was basically, you should check out the episode. It's one of our better episodes. But I'm talking about somebody that I broke bread with, I broke night with, I hung out with, I partied with, I studied with, I played basketball with. A close friend when I was in college, but we lost touch. DM'd me one day, Rich. I sent it to you. I want to get him on the show. I actually asked him if he wanted to be like our first like listener guest. And the message fucked me up because I could tell he was in a dark place. And he said, Man, I've been listening from the beginning, Justin, and I I just want to say thanks, man. I didn't know where to find this type of feedback, but I felt comfortable because I know you enough to know that you've always been sincere and you've always wanted to help like your friends. And I was too embarrassed to like let anybody know what I was going through in my personal life. And I'm on my fifth episode of the podcast, back to back to back. And you know, I just wanted to say, I hope you're doing good, man. And thanks for creating this because it's really helped me get to this moment in my life. And without saying too much about him, we kind of went back and forth in real life, and it hit me, damn. Though we may not be getting millions of views per episode, the 10,000 people that are checking in are people that we're impacting. And this shit is a really important category that we're discussing. So it reminded me of the power that we have and the level of honesty and sincerity that we should continue to create this content with because it's serving something that could save people's lives. And I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, one of the things that I love about the show and that we baked in early on into the identity of what the show is about is what's our tagline? We're not gods, we're not gurus, we're just guides, right? So we made a conscious decision not to sound like subject matter experts. Justin and I are not millionaires.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Listen, Rich and I, every time before we start the show, all we do is vent about our lives. Life is still whipping our ass. We don't have all the answers. Sorry to cut you off, but I just wanted to make that clear. We are still failing in public and also failing in private, but we're learning from it.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Yeah. And I think that's part of the identity of what we're trying to build with this brand. It's just we're sharing our lived experience, we're sharing our hopefully relatability in the stories that we share in hopes that it helps another young man out. And Justin, I had a friend who actually hit me up and was like, bro, I'm so glad you guys did the Toxic Comfort episode because I have a 20-year-old son who I feel is like leeching off of me and is lazy and is not um working to his true potential and is about to finish college and I'm worried about him. And he's like, that episode really made me think that everything that I'm doing for him might also be hindering his growth, right? Because I'm spoiling him to the point where he feels like he doesn't have to work hard for anything. And I love hearing that feedback, right? Because it's exactly what we wanted to let other parents know or let the young man know. It's just like, hey, taking all that help from mom and dad might feel cool, might feel comforting, but just know that once you hit the real world, once you create a family for yourself, once you have to hold down a household, you're not gonna have the crutches of your parents to help you out. And that entire dynamic is what makes it a toxic comfort, right? So that's just one story of like someone coming to me and being like, bro, I'm so glad you guys made that episode because like it really hit home and made me reframe how have you this relationship with my son.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Rich, I'm glad you brought that one up because if I had to give you a pop quiz and tell you young men today, dot dot dot, what would you have said a year ago when we did episode one versus what you know about young men today, given all the research and the amount of like I feel like we dive deep into our community. We read a lot of the comments, we get a lot of comments on our platform. What's one idea that you used to have about young men, maybe this time last year, that you know for sure now that you're way more understanding and way more um empathetic of?

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Yeah, I mean, I think early on I thought very simply that men felt that there was a void in a mentorship or male guidance, which is why they were resorting to the internet. You know, 50 episodes in, I think what I've identified is just there are things that have happened to this generation that haven't happened to any other generation, i.e. COVID and the pandemic. And no therapist, no scientist, no uh teacher or professor has really conceptualized psychologically what has happened mentally to this generation that had to endure forced social isolation, who missed graduations, who had relatives dying in beds that they couldn't go visit in the hospital, right? Who had to wear a mask to every function, even to funerals, right? Like there's this generation that has gone through something that no other generation has gone through. And because they've gone through this, they are suffering from depression, social isolation. They don't really know how to share their feelings or emotions. And that's something that I wasn't prepared for. And I think the social isolation episode that we did is probably one of our most successful videos on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah, yeah. And I honestly, Rich, you put me onto that one because thank God I was given the freedom and the skill set from my parents, and I guess genetics of being a bit more extroverted and being a social butterfly. But you were the one that told me just, bro, this working from home shit, this dual monitors all day, getting food delivering to yourself. I remember me and you getting into a disagreement where you were like, yo, trust me, this shit, it's a convenience, but the convenience can create a handicap for a lot of these young guys, and it's really hard to blame them. And I want you to just kind of build on that a little bit more because that was definitely a moment where I was able to do some of my homework and realize, damn, I'm over here attacking these guys, calling them lazy, saying they don't want to work. They got to snap out of it. You're in a funk. And it wasn't fair to young men today because a lot of young men are going through deeper issues. So I want you to address that, Rich, from your perspective, because I actually think you brought that perspective to the show.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Yeah, you know, to your point, there's a level of convenience when it comes to working from home, when it comes to having food delivery service, when you never have to leave the confounds of your household. And I shared my experience in that world, right? Because I worked from home for four and a half years and I built a gym in my house. I have a home office, and I worked from home and I watched TV from home and I slept at home. So Yeah, you weren't doing nothing wrong. Yeah, but I had no business to leave my house, but that came at a sacrifice, right? I saw my social skills diminish. Social circle. Social circle diminished. Anxiety whenever I had to do public speaking or do presentations because I wasn't used to really being around that many people in person. I I was used to seeing them on a screen, you know what I mean? And I knew that my lived experience was a lot of other young men's lived experience, right? We just had to create a show that spoke to that pain for that audience.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just enjoy the idea of changing my perspective so it at least allows me to go out into the world and really like get a better feel for what young men are going through. I used to think, bro, these young guys are just lazy. Young men, they don't want to work. Young men don't want to experience friction, they're hiding in their bedrooms. And 50 episodes in, what I've learned is no man, they're just under inspired. You can't convince them otherwise. Women are something that they feel is not even worth making money for, it's not even worth getting fit for, it's not even worth trying because what use is there in trying if I'm not even guaranteed anything out of anyone? And they have so much exposure to information, communities, negative feedback from the world that they can justify just staying at home and not trying anything. And before I used to think that was a sign of laziness, but what it is is it's a lack of aspirations. One has to have hope and belief that it can be success out there in order to even try. And once I kind of realigned my thoughts there, it was like, oh shit, I'm getting the core feeling of the person that's behind this screen wrong. What is going on is that they're not lazy. They're not someone who doesn't give a fuck. They don't believe that they can succeed. They've truly convinced themselves that there's no use in saving for a home because you can't even afford a home. There's no use in getting a college degree because there's not even any fucking jobs out there. There's no use in going out on dates because women only want to date rich men and I'm not rich. I don't agree with the framing on all of that, but it really took us peeling the layers back, understand the psychology of the young man that's going through that and helping them take one step instead of having them try to take an entire leap. I think that was a big breakthrough for me. And the other thing was I stopped shaming and blaming them and really tried to help understand where they were at and how they can move forward. Once I personally made that adjustment, it helped me a lot with how I communicate and how I understand a lot of the pain points that a lot of these young guys are going through.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Yeah, no, absolutely right. And you know what helped me out a lot, Jess? And I'd love for you to unpack this. As we've been building this business, we've been tickering a lot with topic ideas and show structure and titling and thumbnail and all these nuances of just building a media company. And one of the phrases you use often, and I think it'll be helpful for another young guy who's building something, is the market always decides. And you say that often because it's true. It's like it's my job. You can have the what you believe to be the best product, right? The most polished song, the best blog post, the best YouTube edit, the best shorts clip. Yeah. But when you put it out there to the world, when you click publish, you can't go into that action thinking that you know what the result is going to be. The market decides. You don't decide how good that piece of work is, the market decides. So I'd love for you to just for our future business professionals that are building something, unpack that concept for them.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Yeah, Rich, as some of our listeners know, and the ones that don't know, I do marketing for entertainment and music for a living. I've been doing that for the past 20 years. And marketing is a really vague term, but what it comes down to is the transaction of I've created a product. Are you willing to give me your attention or money for said product? That's it. It's not that complicated. It's an exchange. That's what businesses and then the marketing side and the sales side, which is one and the same, you realize oh, there is a lot of demand for product out there. So if the person that you're targeting doesn't want the product or has no desire to consume or pay for the product, then what's the use of putting out more product? Well, that goes back to the core premise of the whole show. Fuck around and find out. The fucking around is creating product and putting it out there to see what people do like and what they don't like. What happens a lot is young men and creative professionals get uninspired, myself included. Because when you give the world something that you think is good and your mom thinks is good, you made a little peanut butter and jelly sandwich, your mother says, Oh, oh, Brian, you make the best peanut butter jelly sandwiches in the world. Every woman is going to be so happy to eat your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That's cool when your mom tells you that and you're fucking 10 years old. But when you're 30 years old and you're living with your mom and you go out there and try to sell your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and not one woman wants it, let alone even taste it. By the way, peanut butter and jelly is a metaphor for something else. Then you have a problem because you're living in a lie, and the market has told you everything you need to know. You are 30 years old, you live with your mom, you're single, and nobody wants what you're serving. So you can go on the forum boards, you can go in a very dark community and vent. There's nothing wrong with that. I actually think you should do that. But what you can't forget, the most valuable piece is damn, the market decided. I spoke and the market spoke back. I shared my product and the world spoke back. If no one gives a fuck about your product and they voted with money and attention, and you have the numbers to prove, damn, I've been on this dating app for three years and I've only gotten two dates, the problem is not the dating app. The problem is the product that you're showing these people that you are or are not, and the market decides. So Rich and I are insanely humble when we put product out into the world and we don't get the numbers and the results we want because it's the number one indicator to us is we got to go back to the drawing board and maybe improve our product. And you don't have to scrap it, you don't have to quit because the silent quitting is a problem in our community. What you have to do is reevaluate, make a few changes, go back out there and give your product to the world again. This is the same way it is in dating, the same way it is in music, and Rich, you know better than anybody, the same way it is in YouTube packaging. It's humbling, but there is a lot to be learned every time you tinker and put the product back out in the market. I want to know from you is what is the win by quitting? Do you think there is a win in quitting versus trying again?

SPEAKER_01 43:18

I don't even see quitting as an option if you're working towards something that you really want to work towards. I think the pain point for young men that do venture into building something is that usually they want instant gratification. Oh, I put out five YouTube videos and only got 50 views and five subscribers. So this is not for me, right? We're 50 episodes in, and we just broke 100 subscribers, right? Like we understand that this is a game of consistency, this is a game of discipline, longevity. Like, we're going to be in this for years to come, so we're not worried about. Today's metrics. We're worried about the metrics 10 years from now when we look back at our catalog and see what we've built over time and how we've improved over time. But I think that's part of why young men feel like quitting is because they don't get the instant gratification that they're looking for when they're working towards something.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Yeah, Rich, I do have a question for you that I've seen in our community before, but it's worth mentioning now because I think it's more on topic. It's what is the value of trying something and failing in public if you know it's going to take a very long time before you even get a return on your investment? Shouldn't I put my time and energy into other things?

SPEAKER_01 44:44

There's no greater teacher in life than feedback, real-time feedback from the world, right? Human people, human beings coming back to you and saying, Hey, I really like that. Hey, I really uh respect what you did there. I can relate to what you said there. There's no greater teacher, right? I think we've spent a lot of time in previous ventures over um educating ourselves, doing too much research to the point where we would psych ourselves out into building something, right? And we made a whole episode about that because we felt like shit, if it happened to us, it could happen to another young man where they over-educate themselves, they invest too much time into the research and never take action on the thing that they want to take action with. So for us, I think the teachable lessons have been let's go through ugly execution, let's hit publish shit. We recorded almost 11 episodes that never saw the light of day.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Yeah, that deflated balloon should say six zero because we recorded 10 before we actually started publishing. You're right.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Yeah, and that was just getting into the cadence of being behind the camera, not cutting each other off.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

We've lost episodes, like deleted from the files, never to be heard from again.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Yeah, we did a whole episode on debt that we just lost.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Yeah, that was the debt that we had to pay for that episode.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

But I mean, listen, that's part of the ugly execution, right? It's just not everything is gonna be perfect, and you have to be okay with that. And I think when you're not so attached to like the result and the numbers of what you're working on, and you're really working towards the product and refining it and making it better and putting something out to the world that you hope would inspire or teach or guide. I think there's no losing in that equation, right? Because at some point, someone is going to relate, someone is going to listen to some of our words, some of our episodes, watch a YouTube video and make an adjustment that helps them navigate a difficult situation. And that was only because they had heard of us in the past.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Yeah. Yeah. Rich, I mean, I love that you keep bringing up the phrasing that you have, which is you have to rep out. And I think this is like, it's tough for someone that's never rep out in their life, that's never just done something a hundred times and ran into the wall and fell and got up and ran again. Because it almost feels pointless. I could see how a young person that's never broken through a wall may see this process as pointless. And there is a stat that I did want to share with our listeners about the reality that Rich and I have two full-time jobs where we make good money. We just started making good money in our mid-30s, so we we don't come from money. We could easily not be doing this thing that we're doing now and failing miserably. But this stat that I pulled and I told Rich when the show started, which gave us inspiration, was 12 uploaded episode is the mark where 50% of people on YouTube quit their channel. The threshold for quitting is 12 episodes. As of right now, Rich, how many uploads do we have on YouTube? Rough number. 200. 12 is where 50% of your competition quits. So what the fuck is the number for 200? It gotta be at least 75 of your competition, packed up, went home. They're not in the race no more. So just by sheer attrition, sheer throwing your body at the wall and learning every time, you can get rid of 75% of your competition. That's not like uh a vibey thing that Justin just cooked up. That is a fact. That is a fucking fact. So I just wanted to support what you just said, Rich. In the process of learning, failing and learning, failing in public and learning, embarrassing yourself in public and learning, uploading content. It's not just the learning. A lot of your competition is going home.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

Yeah. Listen, and when you're building something just, you have to have the belief, the core belief that it's going to work. You have to. There's no other option. I think that's the only reason why you and I work so hard is because we have the common knowledge together that we believe it's going to work, right? And the bet that we made very early on, even before we started building the company and crafting the show, was 10 years from now, 15, 20 years from now, the world will be overly consumed by AI-generated content. And everything is going to feel fake and artificial. And we're making the bet that human emotion, human information, human interaction, IRL is the new luxury, is what you've said before in other episodes, like raw stories, lived experiences, like humans making mistakes and feeling not perfect.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Yeah. Yeah. Like that's the bet that we're making is that this type of content will resonate with young men, you know, 10 or 15 years from now, when everything just feels fake and artificial and robotic and claw generated, Chat GPT generated. And we're sort of making the anti-bet that, bro, lived experiences, truth and stories, truth and failures, teachable moments, like all of this self-help, self-development for humans will be attractive to young men now and in the future. And most importantly, what we're building is evergreen, right? My son's 14 years old now, but you know, four years from now, there might be an episode that might resonate with him that can help him out.

SPEAKER_00 50:44

Absolutely. Now, Rich, I do want to put you in the headspace of the young man that may be listening to this right now. So I'm gonna end this with a question, but I I need to paint the picture. Think of a 40-year-old guy that just broke up with his 10-year girlfriend, and he was planning on marrying this woman, and they broke up, and he's at peace, and he just downloaded hinge, bumble, and he's back in the dating market. Think about the headspace that that guy's in. Think about the young man that has been cut from the varsity basketball team two times, but it's his senior year, and he's trying to decide should I, should I not sign up again? Think about the young man that's been denied by two colleges, three colleges, and he's already in his mid-20s and he's gained some debt, but he's gonna sign up for a trade school in a field that he has no idea what he's doing. Think about the young guy that just hit up two of his closest friends and said, I don't want to live with my mom no more. I want roommates, I want to take the first step out. What is it about what we've done so far in our lives? But 50 episodes kind of being a good metaphor that you can share with those three guys some practical advice, not content advice, but just some life advice about this episode one leap of faith that they're about to take in each of their respective life situations.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

My immediate feedback to them is that whatever fear and anxiety you're feeling in this moment making the transition is all working in your favor. It all will make sense after you cross the line, right? The anxiety that I felt on episode one when we hit record is not the same anxiety that I feel on episode 50. In fact, there's probably no anxiety anymore once I hit record, because I know that the 50 reps have hardened and evolved my feelings towards being behind the camera. I think that initially that transition towards anything, right? Like if you were in a committed relationship for 10 years and now you're downloading Hinge for the first time, bro, there is a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. You're stepping into the dating arena, you feel judgment, you feel vulnerable.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Uh, I remember uploading my first pictures and being like, I look like a fucking idiot.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Everything. There's so many different emotions that you feel making that transition, but it all makes sense once you find the match, right?

SPEAKER_00 53:13

Yeah, once you're knee deep in something, you're not even thinking about creating that a premium account. You got the goal.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

Yeah. So the fear and anxiety has a payoff. I would say to someone entering something or building something for the very first time is just have an understanding that there's going to be a mix of emotions. You're going to be fearful of failure, you're going to have anxiety, you're going to be feel embarrassed, you're going to be shameful, you're going to feel like, you know, people might make fun of you. There's a lot of different things, a lot of pressure that you're going to put on yourself to do well, right? Especially if it's something that you're doing or trying for the first time. My response to that person is just like, hey, it's okay. It's normal, right? Like, not every video we publish does well. Not every podcast recording that we do does well. But for the ones that do do well, they overshadow all the other ones that we didn't do so well, right? So just understand that what's the baseball analogy, right? Like you have up at bats, but every now and then you might hit a home run. And that's what we try to do every time we get on recordings.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

Batting over 300, which is 30% in baseball, can make you a Hall of Famer. That's the analogy in baseball. That means for every time these motherfuckers get up, hold that bat in their hands, and swing at that ball, they only got to get on base three times out of every 10 times they bat up. And that puts you in the top 1% in that sport. So life, just like baseball, a very good metaphor. Rich, I do have one more question for you that I thought you've never answered on air, but I think you would have a great response. We did get a community note about reaching 50 episodes, and the question was pretty simple. Hey guys, congratulations on 50. My question to you is how do you stay consistent? How do you continue to upload with excitement when you're not seeing early signs of progress? I've currently started losing weight. I'm on a diet journey, but I'm not seeing a lot of progress. I'm just hoping to stay inspired. Congratulations on 50.

SPEAKER_01 55:21

Yeah. First of all, thank you for the congratulations. Second of all, I think you have to find ways to remove the metrics and the results with the goal, right?

SPEAKER_00 55:33

Yeah, are you a little conflicted on that one, Rich? Because I sit with you during our research meeting. Like, go into it, get a little deeper there. Because I do know the metrics fuck with you sometimes. And how are you able to overcome that?

SPEAKER_01 55:44

No, no, no. The the metrics are certainly important.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Because imagine, I'm sorry, imagine imagine somebody getting on a scale and dieting two months, three months, and and the weight is not coming off. That's pretty much what we're experiencing every time we upload and we're not seeing what we want to see.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

Yeah, I think the issue when you're working towards something is looking up at the scoreboard every two seconds. That is going to reduce the acceleration that you have towards working towards something, right? So my feedback and response to this young man is just like keep grinding, right? Like stop looking at the scoreboard. For us, we stop looking at the metrics, right? The metrics are a useful indicator to let you know whether something is working or not. But we're 50 episodes in, right? You know when metrics really matter? When we have 500 episodes and we have this big, large data set that we could look back and say, wow, these 50 episodes work, these 200 didn't, right? And we have a large enough data set to make really important and informed decisions towards the direction that we want to go in, right? But someone who's working out every day and staying fit, they might not see the weight shed, but their body mass is reduced, right? Or they're thinning out in their face, right? Like, but they just don't see it because they don't see that the number is going down. And there's a lot of different reasons why that may be.

SPEAKER_00 57:09

Rich, my advice, my simple, simple advice to someone that's struggling with inconsistency and is asking us for our feedback on how to stay consistent, even when you're not getting the results you want, is focus on the things that you control. That's the easiest way you can look at this. The top of a mountain looks very, very far when you're standing at the bottom of a mountain. But what you do know is if you look down at your feet and you focus on each step with intentionality, it makes the climb a lot easier. Now, I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but it makes it a lot easier. And in my experience, whenever I get lost in my own obsession with working with an artist and I want to make sure they have the number one album in the world or they become the next superstar in their genre, all I think to myself is all I can really control is the reps. So I focus on execution of each rep. That is big for me. And outside of execution of the rep, what I also focus on is the iteration. How do I make adjustments after I've made a rep? After I've done one thing, how can I learn from that one step that I took? And how can I make that step better next time? How can I make it more clean? How can I make it more efficient? How can I have more strength when I do a rep? These are these little controllable minute-to-minute things that will allow you to be lost in the moment, lost in the work, lost in the process. When you do that and you get obsessed with the intentionality and the love and energy you put into one brushstroke, each brushstroke slowly making this beautiful portrait. If you're just doing one brushstroke, thinking, damn, the portrait's not done, every time you touch paint and put it on the canvas, you're not only just ruining the entire experience and you're stealing yourself for the moment, but you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to get to the top of the mountain or finish the portrait. I've always been really good at just looking down, brushstroke after brushstroke after brushstroke. And then every now and then you do it, Rich. You got to take a step back, see where you're at. Okay, cool, it's looking good. This is a little fucked up, but there is a beauty and there is a bliss that you can get lost in if you just kind of focus on the perfect rep, being intentional with every step versus getting overly consumed with the end goal. And this is the same shit for dating and making money. When you get the girl, or you get the money that you thought would make you happy, or you get the girl that you thought would make you happy, or you finally reach the top of the mountain and you look at the sunset, it's never as good as you thought it was gonna be. Yeah, it's never as good as you thought it was gonna be. So, my word of advice to the person that's struggling with consistency is enjoy the consistency because that's all that's there. It's the moment that you get lost in. Once you get obsessed with the goal a little too much, the fruit is never as sweet as you thought it would be. I can assure you of that. But you know what? There's only one way to find out. Do it and then you report back to us. But don't quit. That's not an option. Rich, I love that you said that earlier. Quitting is never an option.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:22

Yeah, I love that you said falling in love with the process is what it's about, falling in love with the journey. And you know what? To add to that point, just I think when you're working towards something, you're always chasing for that breakthrough moment. And you never know when that moment's gonna come. And if you quit, you'll never reach that point of breakthrough.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Amen. A fucking men. I feel like we have that conversation every week. We're like, yo, I don't know when it's gonna be the moment that makes us go viral, but we're not hoping for virality. What we're hoping for is the same 100 young men that fucked with episode 15 to come back for episode 16 and 17, because that's how you build real community. Listen, we're far from YouTube gurus, so I don't even feel comfortable giving that advice. But I do know if you're gonna build anything that's worthwhile, focus on the steady minimum that you can hit day over day. Don't try to go crazy one day, and then the next six days you take off because you went crazy one day. It's the same shit with virality. You're not guaranteed to get this crazy outlier fucking 100x moment, and then you could sustain that. It's impossible to sustain something like that for long.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:31

Before we close, I want both of us to quickly share what comes post 50 episodes, what we feel the next uh 50 episodes will look like.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

Oh man. More caffeine, more Celsius, more late nights editing, more early morning editing, but probably more importantly is I did prompt Claude, our failures, Claude bot, and I asked it what was the biggest difference from episode 1, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50. And you know what this motherfucker said? You guys are finally learning who you are. Damn. Meaning it's not about the audience. Your audience will be drawn to you once you guys settle on who you want to be. And I thought that was valuable, very wise from a fucking agentic robot that doesn't even have a spirit, but it knows enough to know from 50 transcripts of all of our podcasts, it's saying, Man, the focus in the eyeball of your lens is starting to get sharper and sharper. But it's not the fan or the community member that's getting clearer, it's the people who are creating the content. And that's me and you, Rich. And we're not just getting clearer, we're getting more comfortable with accepting who we are and what are the limits to what we feel comfortable talking about versus what we have no fucking business talking about, to what we feel good about having a conversation. And I think episode 50 is a great case in point. All the research tells us don't record an episode like this. But here we are, because I think we both agreed it was a fun celebration and it's something worth diving into because we are nothing but a work in progress, and we will continue to be a work in progress. And there's no final number in our minds. It's really about just making sure we crush every episode. We help some young men in every episode, hypothetically, and we just keep marching forward minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, on, on, and on. And I'll see you guys at 100, but we hope to serve you 49 great pieces of content from now until then. Damn, I love that. More caffeine.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Cheers, my boy, to another 50, to 100, cheers to a hundred. There you have it. Failures podcast. Yao.