#084 - Reid Olson - How Obsession, Pain, & 500M Views Built a Relentless Creator

Reid Olson dropped out, burned through his savings, and spiraled through failure and isolation. But instead of quitting, he got obsessed—with mastery, pain, and making something undeniable. We unpack the mindset behind 500 million views, why he sees creativity as a blend of science and business, and how tunnel vision turned rock bottom into leverage.

Timestamps:
00:00 How Reid & I Met 
01:53 Power Of Intensity 
03:31 More Driven By Not Losing Than By Winning
14:07 The Roots Of Reid’s Creativity
22:30 When Things Started To Click
26:05 Stress Of Growing A Massive Following
29:42 Navigating Factors You Can’t Control  
37:26 Life Feeling Like Tunnel Vision
43:13 Using Pain To Drive Yourself Forward
49:31 The Mindset Needed To Always Improve
54:25 Finding Work That Turns Your Head Off
56:59 Connect With Reid Olson

Thank you so much for listening. I truly appreciate your time and support. Let me know what you thought of the episode and what you would like to see in the future. Any feedback would be awesome. Don't forget to subscribe for more exciting content on YouTube, and leave a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever platform you are listening on.

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Chapters

• 0:00 How Reid & I Met
• 1:53 Power Of Intensity
• 3:31 More Driven By Not Losing Than By Winning
• 14:07 The Roots Of Reid’s Creativity
• 22:30 When Things Started To Click
• 26:05 Stress Of Growing A Massive Following
• 29:42 Navigating Factors You Can’t Control
• 37:26 Life Feeling Like Tunnel Vision
• 43:13 Using Pain To Drive Yourself Forward
• 49:31 The Mindset Needed To Always Improve
• 54:25 Finding Work That Turns Your Head Off
• 56:59 Connect With Reid Olson

Transcript

Reid Olson dropped out, burned through his savings, and spiraled through failure and isolation. But instead of quitting, he got obsessed—with mastery, pain, and making something undeniable. We unpack the mindset behind 500 million views, why he sees creativity as a blend of science and business, and how tunnel vision turned rock bottom into leverage.

Speaker 2 (00:01.095)

Reid welcome to the show, brother

Thank you very much Tim. I'm really stoked

I want to start with the story of how we met actually, because I think it's really interesting. So I didn't know you until your roommate, Josh, told me about you. Josh has become a good friend as well. He's been on the podcast a couple of times and showed me some of your work. was like, wow, this kid's got some good stuff going on. And then maybe for the first time at the gym at lift ATX. And Josh had told me, was like, yeah, this kid's different when it comes to his work. Like he's locked in.

I was like, okay, like respect. But then I saw for my own eyes at the gym when we first met where I'm on a machine. I finish up and I'm like, all I want to use the lap pull down and you're using the lap pull down and you finish up a set and waiting for you to get off. You weren't finished yet. And I would say what you were doing in between sets is a little different than what most, if not all do in between sets.

You had your laptop open, external hard drive, and you were editing and I'm like, all right, Josh is right. This kid is different. But where it really sunk in is when we actually started talking together when I came up to you and I was like, Hey, like actually, I think I know who you are. Like Josh Chuba was telling me about you and we got to talking. I was like, you're doing incredible work. And I saw this intensity.

Speaker 2 (01:33.814)

in your eyes. Like I just saw this look in your eyes when you were talking about the work that you were doing. I'm like, he's got a different look in his eyes. Where does that intensity come from?

Speaker 1 (01:50.072)

That's funny. Josh calls it my thousand yard stare because sometimes I'll just like, it's like the look will intensify and I'm not even aware of it. And he'll be like, he'll be like, you're doing a man. You're doing it. That look comes from.

Speaker 1 (02:11.114)

I just hate being mediocre at things and the pain of being mediocre at things is honestly the biggest, well, one of the biggest like driving factors for me.

And so when I'm thinking about my work, which is pretty much all I think about, think about work and getting a wife.

Speaker 1 (02:39.602)

I like to actually think about it, you know, and I like to use as close to 100 % of the horsepower as I can. And I think that just manifests into a physical intensity, not so much my body, but just like the vibe. So I've heard, just care. Like, I just want it to be really good. I want to be really good at what I'm doing, if not one of the best.

Speaker 2 (03:09.23)

Do you feel like you're more driven by not being a loser than it is by winning?

100%. It's not it's like winning is fine. I feel okay when I win. I don't feel bad when I win. When I do not win. It's just active so much pain. But when I win, it's totally fine.

When, when was the feeling where you felt that feeling of pain when he lost the most?

Speaker 1 (04:03.438)

I'm gonna say the beginning of 2024. 2024 was very, very, very difficult for me. I had just dropped out of junior college. I had pretty decent savings. I had like 50 grand saved up because I had a job for my whole childhood, which is very, very fortunate of me. And my parents are pretty frugal, so I raised pretty frugal. I saved like 90 % of what I made.

And so looking back on it, the risk wasn't actually that big. Like I was living for a thousand dollars a month. I was not doing well or really treating myself well, but you know, it was possible.

but I had just dropped out of college and I was living in LA. I moved in with one of my friends.

And I was spending pretty heavily on like education, just alternate education, just not school. But I bought a few social media courses. went to some sales courses, a decent amount of traveling for these courses and

just none of it was working. Like I had had a little bit of success before I moved out on social media. Like I got, you know, 30 million views on across like 20 videos, but nothing sustainable and nothing I could repeat because it was just luck. It was luck because I had posted 600 times or 400 probably a lot.

Speaker 1 (05:27.427)

and

through this social media course that I bought. It was like a boot camp and so it's very like done with you. It's a good course. And

Speaker 1 (05:42.806)

I was very much of the mindset like, is the thing I'm going to do. I'm just going to only do this and I'm going to put in the most reps possible. So it was just constant work, work, work, work, work, which I like. That's actually funny. My, my office was a closet that was about eight feet by four feet. And that's where I spent most of my waking hours in LA.

And just nothing was working. It was like hundreds of posts, nothing, just nothing was successful as getting no views. And I would get less views. So I'd get more desperate. So the content would get worse. So I get less views. So I, know, and just spiral, spiral, spiral. Finally, the boot camp closes, I did learn a lot, but I was not seeing results. And I kept posting, kept posting, kept posting, and the mental state kept going down.

Speaker 1 (06:33.72)

coupled with that, I just wasn't socializing at all, which I'm not demonizing. know, I, there's probably gonna, if you want to do something big, you probably are gonna have to have at least a period where you don't, if not many. But I would see my roommate for probably an hour a day, because he was just at school all the time. And he would sleep at school a lot. He was just as intense, if not more.

Speaker 1 (07:00.73)

I had failure after failure after failure with women probably, well, I would say very correlated with my professional failures and the desperation there certainly, because it's all the same life, it's going to bleed into itself.

So between those two things.

The spiral was just so intensified, you know what mean?

Speaker 1 (07:29.998)

That was definitely the most losing I've been. Because there was a time after that when I had like a big social thing go down and that was very, very, very difficult. It was incredibly difficult. The actual pain was probably comparable to the first one and this is all in 2024. It was like the second half. But I was not really having the same business troubles at that point.

You know, so the pain was maybe felt the same. was much more concentrated in this area where this one felt like the entire world was comfortable. You know, the first one was like, just not wanting it anything.

Did you feel complete conviction in yourself about dropping out of college or junior college? Like you felt like this is the right decision, you were all in on that?

When I did it, yeah. In high school, I had started to question the validity of college just for me, rather than necessity. Because personally, when I was in high school, I never had any idea. Well, I had a lot of ideas for what I was going to do, I suppose. That's better way to say it. I wanted to be a cook and then I wanted to be a politician. Not doing that. Maybe in 20 years, but not now.

And then I wanted to be, was thinking about finance. Of course, everybody has their crypto phase, all of the above. And my copy phase, of course, naturally. Of course, why would you not be a copywriter?

Speaker 2 (09:08.8)

I had that phase as well, actually. I was like, I like to write. I'll be a copywriter. And that went downhill.

But I realized that I actually did not care at all what I did. I just wanted to make money in the short term. Like I didn't care what I did in the short term. I just wanted to make money. So because if I had $100 million, it'd be a lot easier to choose what I wanted to do because you don't need to make money. You can just paint. Not that I've ever liked painting, but you could. And so around that time, I heard

Well, I was already falling out of love for college because it's like.

Speaker 1 (09:52.366)

is college gonna get you the highest ROI if you're only going to make money now. If you wanna be a doctor, you have to go to college. If you wanna be a lawyer, you have to go to college. If you really want the social experience, you could go to college. You could also do six months in Europe and probably do it a lot cheaper. Probably get more life experience is my thought. so based on the fact that I knew I did not wanna be a doctor or a lawyer, cause I hated reading.

And I hated, I just couldn't do school. I just fell asleep so often. It never felt meaningful to me, you know? It's just so.

boring and pointless to me.

Speaker 1 (10:35.0)

So yeah, when I dropped out, at that point, was like the only reason I had any inclination to say it was because my dad is a big school guy. He's like a chemical engineer. went to school for like nine years and he's incredibly brilliant in that field. But I just, it's just not for me. It was like so clearly I'm wasting my time here.

I find it so fascinating because going back to what we were talking at the start, I was like, this dude's got a different look in his eyes. He's got an intensity to him. Like he's got an energy that you can feel. And I feel like the people who are truest to their intensity, they don't force it in avenues that don't naturally fit into them. Like I feel like you can force intensity, but then it's just going to lead you down the wrong path.

where you'll burn out and you'll make mistakes and you'll have regrets. But like for you, you saying you fall asleep in class, it's like, okay, I'm not gonna force that type of intensity. Did you ever want to be an athlete in college or no, because I know you played a lot of volleyball.

Yeah, definitely. I, when I was growing up, I got really, really into baseball and for probably the, mean, like every kid, the first 15 years of my life was I'm to be in the MLB. and that's kind of one of the places the intensities started. Actually. I'm very grateful for sports.

Then in high school, I really didn't like the people I was on a team with definitely fell out of love with the sport, which is unfortunate. fortunate that I was weak-willed, but you have to learn. Um, Hey, it's 15 year old. are you going to do? Uh, and then. Yeah. When we started playing volleyball, it was always a consideration. The issue with that is it's like, I'm, six foot three, which is tall for regular people, but for volleyball players, were

Speaker 1 (12:24.15)

You're you have to be so unbelievably good at defense like passing and serving and you or or you have to have an insane vertical. And I had a pretty solid vertical for my size. It wasn't 45 inches. It wasn't for it wasn't 35, you know. And I was dog shit at passing. Okay, I swear. Yeah. As a terrible, terrible, terrible passer. I was only good at hitting. So

Speaker 1 (12:55.488)

Yeah, I definitely thought about it and I applied. I actually didn't apply to any colleges. I tried to apply to a few UC schools, but I got too lazy and didn't fill out the applications. So, but I did play volleyball in college. I played volleyball at the JC, at the junior college. So not like a JuCo athlete, but that counts. It's a college athlete. Yeah.

You've got a great recruiting page. You had a great run on your recruiting page. You did your research. The quality, and I mean you've already talked about it a lot here, the quality that most greatly separates me from other recruits is my willingness to work, grit, and addiction to improving. I've always found that the better I am, the more fun I have.

I love it.

Speaker 1 (13:42.722)

Wow.

Speaker 1 (13:46.122)

I didn't even know that existed.

college student athlete recruiting profile, Reid Olson. So you get that intensity and it's definitely like a lot of kids in their upbringing. Like they find their intensity through physical exertion, sports, physical activities. And obviously your creativity is really flourished within your young adult life. But I feel like that goes back even deeper than that intensity starting like.

when you're a really, really young kid. And what I mean by that is it comes through the form of food and especially like with your family. So like your mom with her ice cream shops, screaming memes and winning fourth best ice cream in the country, you know, 10 years ago. And so like growing up within that making something out of nothing mentality, like how do you think

Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:44.852)

And even maybe even like on a neurological type of level as a young kid, like getting wired into that maker type mentality. How do you think that's benefited you and like really come into fruition now?

I'm going to put a few abridgments on the question first, or on the the purpose to it.

Sports is actually not the first place the intensity came out. OK. It was actually math. It was multiplication tables. I got really into multiplication tables since like a six-year-old, like just so obsessed. I would ask for extra homework so I could go home and do the multiplication table. And now I don't really like that. Well, that math I'm fine with. But advanced math, I don't like it.

And as for

I think having an example that was my mom, which was she had built this completely successful ice cream business, like a food business.

Speaker 1 (15:53.307)

was really helpful for believing that you can just do things.

Speaker 1 (16:08.27)

My parents were always really really really good about letting me get obsessed into the things I was obsessed with

For example.

It started with math. And then it became baseball. Then it became ballroom dance. It ballroom dance for six years. And then it became choir.

Speaker 1 (16:37.326)

and then it became volleyball.

Speaker 1 (16:42.124)

And now this. Actually, board games. Board games are in there. I started making board games for a little.

Start making board games.

Well, I made one, but it's not packaged. The mechanics are there, but it needs a better name and better art. It just needs to be themed differently. I'm just going to get rich and pay someone else to do it.

So all creativity though. And that's kind of what I talked about with Josh as well. Creativity can be in many different forms. I feel like we have such a romanticized version of creativity. People think of themselves as not being creative, but I just see it as the act of taking something out of yourself. Almost taking that intensity out of yourself. Just releasing something from your body.

Speaker 1 (17:29.41)

This was the other thing I wanted to say about this thing for reminding me. I would actually not say I'm naturally that creative. I think I naturally do things and I naturally get really into things. Meat curing was a phase that was in there.

I've honestly, think I've only become creative because it's what was required to win at the job I'm doing.

Hmm.

Like I'm, I mean, if you scroll back, they're not creative. The videos are not creative. It was about 450 not creative videos. It was only when I realized that being somewhat creative, I don't need to label it as that was beneficial and was how I would win at this game that it became.

this is the skill I need to get. And even then it's incredibly constrained creativity. Cause like we're solving for one thing, we're solving for views. We're solving for other things too down the line, but it doesn't matter how good of a message you have. Again, it doesn't matter. So like that's where I spend all of my attention, which you do have to be creative and you have to make new things. You have to do things that haven't been done before to get views.

Speaker 1 (18:47.094)

I don't know how much it's really creating rather than.

Speaker 1 (18:56.888)

just like a bunch of math with a bunch of different known and unknown variables.

that I sometimes employ intentionally or unintentionally, if that makes sense.

yeah, does. I mean, so like, do you see your work as being largely more science and method rather than craft and intuition?

There's a quote from my best friend. His name is Nathaniel and he's my co-pilot, you know. And I'm sure he wasn't the first person to say this, but he says he believes nothing is truly random. It's entirely possible to get a hundred million views on every video. It's hard. There's a reason everybody doesn't do it, but it is possible. And when we have a video that absolutely rips, it's not.

random like there is a reason that works even if it came from my brain and it was just I think this metaphor goes together and these colors look good on it and these are the lines they should say there's a reason like there's a reason it hit harder for people than some other video because all of it comes from my brain and I think they should say those lines but it all doesn't work the same it all doesn't before the same you know and so

Speaker 1 (20:23.306)

I think it's totally more scientific. I think it's just science in a field that we don't entirely understand, which is most of them. But we like to act like it's this woo woo untouchable thing. Why do we like the things we do? No, there's a reason. There's reason for it. There's a quote from a book I really like called

Determined by Robert Sapolsky. He's a neuroscientist and he teaches at He's like a really old professor at one of the big schools. I don't remember which one Fantastic book it's about determinism and in the beginning of the book. He tells a story about This conversation I believe he had with some woman who was part of a cult and he's It's maybe not a cult. It's some religion that believes that we're actually not on a planet. We're on the back of a giant turtle

And he's like, talking to her, he's like, what is the turtle standing on? The turtle, the turtle must just be in space then you're just calling the planet a turtle. And she's like, no, no, no, it's on the back of another bigger turtle. And he's like, well, what is that turtle standing on? Surely one of the turtles has to be standing on something. She's like, no, no, it's turtles all the way down. And then his entire argument in the book is about how everything that happens inside our brains, outside of our brains and in the neodiverse is turtles all the way down.

Interesting. It's so crazy. It's a great one.

Sapolsky, great beard, great hair. So you said in 2024, you know, just the reputation of this isn't working, this isn't working, this isn't working. And then you say, you know, you have some videos that do well, but it was more so just getting lucky. When was the first inkling where I guess that you started to feel that science and that methodology and like had the thought

Speaker 2 (22:26.702)

to yourself of like, I know what I'm doing here. Like I know how to do this.

waiting on it. But the first time I had any kind of trackable breakthrough in my mind that I realized was trackable was honestly the first video I posted that actually did numbers. It did like 12 million on Instagram. It didn't really crush on the other platforms. But it was just two guys playing cards. And that was the first video I had done that was two characters as opposed to just me doing something. And it was literally like they just playing cards.

talking about Selbighorf and it ripped. And then that completely like opened up the door to me of oh, stories can have more than one character and they do not have to be me talking to the audience.

And I think those are the biggest breakthroughs.

because there's another one of those out there that's 10 times bigger than a character talking to another character. And I don't think it's just more characters. there's, I mean, it might be, but.

Speaker 1 (23:40.096)

It does exist and like finding those is so exciting.

You mean just like an overall new type of form and methodology that like really hasn't been discovered yet?

Well, yes, yes, like it has to be out there. mean.

Of course, I was not the guy who discovered dialogue.

I find it so fast. I find it so fascinating though. The way that you talk about it almost like you truly talk about it like a scientist who's like almost like working for NASA. It seems like the way I'm telling you like the would the energy of like how you said that just like it's got to be out there. Like it just like it's from a different framework. It seems then I would say most social media content creators.

Speaker 1 (24:28.44)

Thank you.

I yeah, I think.

There's a reason most people don't stand out and it's because they're most people. And that's kind of a stupid circular statement, but

It's like to actually stand out.

you probably are going to have to do something that's never been done. You don't have to do something that's never been done to make money. You can make a lot of money and just do something someone else does a little bit better than

Speaker 1 (25:05.186)

But not that I really want to be Zuckerberg level successful. That seems like a huge burden to me. But there was no Facebook before Zuckerberg. know, like he invented social media. And so I think if you want to be that big or if you want to have that much impact, it's unrealistic that you won't have to discover the next big thing. That being said, you really don't have to discover the next big thing to

totally crush and do it all for yourself.

Is there any stress? I mean, you've grown a sizable following. I mean, you're being seen by millions of people. I don't know if you, you know, noticed in public a lot, but like as you continue to grow, mean, is there any stress or fear, anxiety of being a public figure? Because like, you know, you talk about it from the standpoint of the work.

Like I'm obsessed with the work. Like that's what truly drives you. Like you're focused on the craft, but like obviously what comes with that is notoriety and eyes and people looking at you. Is that something you feel like you like that you've been able to navigate well, or is that something that is maybe a drawback?

I definitely enjoy anonymity.

Speaker 1 (26:37.26)

I tend to lose a little bit month over month, which is fine. It's like a necessary cost. That being said.

I get approached pretty regularly like a few times a week and

Speaker 1 (26:54.442)

I have kind of just chosen to say it's a good thing. Because it is really, like it's so it's really cool. People are genuinely like they're impacted and they say and mean really nice things. And it's it's so much cooler to see that you're like, actually affecting a real person except for because I mean, I know people on the internet are real people, but we're numbers on screen. Yeah, we are. And that's fine. It is way cooler to see in real person. So I like that aspect of it. As for

stress or anxiety about it. The actual number is like, have just accepted that that is a cost of the job, which is fine. It's worth it for the upside for me. I mean, you can impact a of people. can make a ton of Yeah. Nathaniel likes to joke that our videos are either super awesome hope core or for paranoid schizophrenics and um,

I am like, so I thread that. I'm not a paranoid schizophrenic. But I do definitely get paranoid. And so honestly, and this it's so paranoid, because this is not a real worry for me. I'm not relevant enough for this to matter. But honestly, my worry is at some point, you know, I'll piss the government off. And then

Mm.

I don't even want to speak it into existence. But I am just going to do me and if the government gets pissed off, I'll have to deal with that. But that's honestly my only stress about it. I do stress about it constantly. It's probably not healthy. And it's probably not even realistic. Yeah. Like you're one guy you're not, you know, anyway.

Speaker 2 (28:36.882)

I mean, I do think there's truth to it though. I mean, obviously our mind can blow things out of proportion, but I think there can be a lot of truth to it. And I think people will just assume that, it's so cool. It's all great. And of course it's, yeah, like it's coming from a place of like good thoughts and good ideas, but I feel like you can also just, you can have the thought in the back of your head of,

Well, like I got a lot of people like with their eyes on me and that can that can be stressful. mean, another big part of the. The stress of the job, and I like that you also see it like, hey, like this is my job, like this is my business, like yes, this is who I am. Like I treat my work like who I am, but it's also a job and a business. How do you deal with? mean, so you're like strictly.

a shorts creator with social media.

how do you navigate when there's videos that you think are really, really good and then on your type of level, wow, that did not do well? Because when you think of creativity or artwork, somebody's just doing it as a craft, it's like, okay, I don't have to focus on that as much. But we're talking about, hey, your business, it's kind of like...

you need to focus on the numbers of like, like, how are we doing this week? How are we doing this month? Like, what's the ROI on this? Especially when you know, you're making money off of it. How do you make sure that you're able to continue to execute while also not being, I guess, controlled by, you know, algorithms or things that are outside your control.

Speaker 1 (30:26.018)

So those are actually my favorite videos. The ones that I think are going to crush and then we execute it how I see it. So we're successful in the execution and it just waps because it like there's no clearer exposing of a hole in my knowledge. It's like we had this one video where I had two guys and they were surrounded by a ring of fire and the ring of fire was closing in.

And me and Nathaniel are filming this and like, this video is going to do numbers. We're so excited for this video. It's going to crush. Script is good. All of it's good. It's like we've done a bunch of tests and so far this is like, it hits every one of our tests really, really well. It's going to crush. Like it should crush. And we film it and it was our worst performing video of the last two months at the time. and it was like such a hard reset because it was like, okay, we both thought this was going to

Not just me. I'm always the helpful one, but Nathaniel thought it was gonna crush too and he's the realest Clearly we are not as smart as we think we are like, what are we not now and we're watching the video back We're like, well the special effects look pretty fake they're not as good as they need to be and even if the special effects were perfect the characters were coherent and having a conversation and if you were Surrounded by a giant ring of fire closing in on you. You would not be able to fucking form sentences

It's so stupid, it's so stupid, but it's stuff like that. And we only get that clear of confirmation when we're very confident that everything else about the video is really good, but it still didn't work. So those are my favorite videos. And remind me the second half of the question, or maybe the actual question.

It was more so, I guess, just of like making sure that like it is a business and I guess not being a prisoner to a social media algorithm. Like obviously you've developed it into a methodology and a science as much as you can, but at the end of the day, it's still, you know, outside your control.

Speaker 1 (32:34.178)

So there's, in my experience, there's two kind of distinct ends of creators.

And this, they're explained really well by two guys who are.

clients of the same management firm that I am. It's called Greenlight Management. guy's name is Doug. He's fantastic. I love Doug. One of the clients his name is Haffu Go. And he was one of the biggest YouTubers on YouTube last month. He's huge. The other guy's name is Jordan Howlett. If you know Jordan, the stallion, the black guy with the beard who talks into the mirror.

feel like the name sounds familiar, but I know.

You know Jordan's darling, everybody's right. Everyone has seen Jordan's darling. And they're super, super polar on this spectrum where Haffu, I've heard I have an extra bad Haffu, but is super, super, this is what the data says. If you come to him with an idea, he'll be well, the data says what? This. Whereas Jordan, if you come to him with an idea, he will be like much more.

Speaker 2 (33:33.453)

Hmm.

Speaker 1 (33:46.422)

Well, I think this and it seems like this. And what's interesting, like much less data driven, much more vibe driven in my experience, much more like socially tapped in driven. And they both crush. Like Jordan was number one on Instagram for some amount of time. And he might still be, huge. You know, he gets so many views. He's huge on TikTok. And Haffu was crazy up on YouTube. So it both, like they both were.

Speaker 1 (34:17.846)

And so we kind of use both of that. Nathaniel falls much more into the Hoffer side. I fall way more into the Jordan side.

And it's very, I honestly think that's why we're going to beat a lot of creators right now is because we have both me who I just flourish way more in the, think this is what people want. This is really true for me. I tend to be like a lot of people and then it works. And we have Nathaniel who's like, well, these things about the video sucks. So change that and change, you know, and so together, I think the combo is just lethal. It's absolutely deadly.

But as for things out of our control, I think we're just not good enough to control it.

I love that refrain. That's that intensity, dude. Thank you. No, I'm serious. that's that, no, I don't accept that. It's just a matter of time until I can control those factors.

Love that.

Speaker 1 (35:20.984)

Hell yeah. It's the turtles all the way down. It's like there's a reason the videos do well, you know? And some of that reason, like being able to make them do well for me came from being on the Jordan side, came from being on the, think this is gonna do well, this is probably gonna resonate with a lot of people. I have some understanding of myself and so I can understand people to some degree.

but we just get so much better with this. But it's only because we have some understanding of human psychology, you know? And I think there will probably be a point if we don't go extinct that we can completely understand human psychology. I don't know what it's gonna be. It might be hundreds and hundreds of years, but by completely, I mean, we can...

pinpoint the reason for why people do everything they do and accurately predict what they will do in their life based on what happens to them. I don't think we're close to that. But we have a taste. We have a tiny, tiny, tiny bit.

And so it's like, if we can make a video that we know will get everyone to watch something people literally cannot look away from, and we'll move all these people in this way. If we can do that repeatedly, we just, there's no losing, but we're just not even close to that yet. It's so I will probably die before we get there.

That's a good segue into, I think, what you say in a Reddit post of yours from a few months ago. The title of that post was, did 300 million views across platforms in 30 days by myself. You say, change lives, make it about them, the audience. And this is what I love. Anyway, I hope this helped someone. I likely won't be responding to comments, as I spend every waking minute making videos. Good luck.

Speaker 2 (37:28.492)

You got this. Compete.

Does life feel very tunnel vision for you right now?

That's a term that I've heard a lot in my life. My dad always tunnel vision. Yeah, yeah. He always tells me I like I always get tunnel vision and I put up the blinders and I'd like I miss out on a bunch of life opportunities because I get so focused on the thing I'm doing. And I've never said he's wrong. And it's funny because now when I'm working, I don't know if I probably wasn't wearing this in the gym. But yeah.

I've seen it though.

Now when I'm working I have this hat that has the like cardboard literal blinders on the side so I can only look at the work.

Speaker 2 (38:18.286)

You're gonna have to patent that.

Yeah, yeah, I have someone working on it.

I'm not surprised by that.

It's a good product and I just I'm so done with the carp over one. It's so shitty. I need a better one. I need a I need a nice hat

Does that tunnel vision, does it always feel good or does it ever feel like a lack of connection to the rest of the world?

Speaker 1 (38:44.908)

I have learned that I don't need that much socialization to feel okay.

Speaker 1 (38:52.29)

I'll get weird if I have none. But like two or three hours of like meaningful social connection throughout the week and I'm good. And I assume when I have a wife that number will go up like I'll take more don't get me wrong. But bare minimum, two or three hours is good. And so am I missing potential connection? Absolutely.

I'm sure I'm missing a ton of other things too. But something, something I, and I want those things all the time.

But often I tell myself, this is one of those times that I have to sacrifice the thing I want right now for the thing I want the most, is the leverage, the ability, the influence, the ability to make change.

Does it even feel like sacrifice? Like, it feel like, mm, I want to go do that, but I'm not because it feels like I to go over here or does it just feel like now like I'm doing what I want to be doing right now?

I know it is sacrifice, but it's not often painful. The only place that it's painful is when it comes to people. Like if it's doing things, there's generally no things I would rather do than.

Speaker 1 (40:12.13)

I like to play sports that that's a sacrifice that one like hurts a little bit. love my sports. When it comes to people and sacrificing relationships that is a little more painful.

Speaker 1 (40:26.594)

Because just for how little time we have and how much time I know I am going to have to devote this to this thing I care about, there's just so few people I can spend time with. And if I'm going to spend time with someone, I want them to be a meaningful person in my life.

Speaker 1 (40:44.999)

And so I'm very ruthless with my relationships.

Speaker 1 (40:53.326)

It doesn't mean it's easy for me to be real close, but it just doesn't have to be.

Is there ever any part of you that wishes that you weren't the way that you are when it comes to your work? Because I mean, I feel like I'm like this to a degree. you can't, you didn't choose this to a degree. This is just who you are. Like this isn't something that you can turn on and off. Like does it ever feel like a double edged sword at times where like, man, like I wish I could just have like some sense of balance across different avenues of my life.

I've never wished for balance. I have wished for relief.

Mm.

I have wished.

Speaker 1 (41:40.59)

for...

Speaker 1 (41:44.28)

being a little more okay not working. Because it's just like.

Speaker 1 (41:52.226)

have about 30 seconds of not working before I start judging myself. And then I get back to it. And there are times when I would.

I would take more. And I can get there sometimes, like I can really convince myself that it's okay to take few hours off. But if I do it too much, I did it just I know I'm lying to myself, I can do it.

I'm asking this like half jokingly, like half seriously. Like is it tough for you to be here right now?

No. Okay. Because this I totally see as a work activity. Gotcha. And this is one of those things that's really nice because it is both work and socializing. So it's like, like lifting and socializing is fantastic. Yeah. Because I just hate killing one bird at a time. I love killing hella birds. I don't kill birds, but I do like to be efficient.

So what you mentioned there, find really interesting. You said you wish for more relief building off of that with your work and your creativity. Like two questions off of that and looking at it from two different ways. Like how do you think pain drives your creativity and your work? And also how do you think, like, have you been able to in a way

Speaker 2 (43:15.19)

turn your work into

a way to find relief or like a way to find relief from pain.

Speaker 1 (43:27.764)

Answer to the second question, I don't really get any relief. I would if it was a hobby, probably if it was like I'm doing this to process my emotions. And every now and then when I'm when I'm going through something, and I put it into a video, or just like the lesson I learned from into the situation, then I move on from it generally pretty soon after that.

Speaker 1 (43:59.13)

I tend to just approach the work with so much intensity, like so much.

urgency, that it's just not a pain relief. It's just like, it is pain. But it's a pain that feels good. And it's less pain than not doing it, you know? Yeah. And so as for the how much of that, the first part of that question was like, how much of that is driven by pain?

It's a pen that feels good.

Speaker 2 (44:25.494)

I guess like how do you feel like pain drives your creativity or do you feel like like for me personally and like anecdotally I feel like

The most painful times of my life and for like largely for me it came in the form of like physical pain. It was when it like completely unlocked my mind. seemed like in creative ways. Have you ever felt like a sense of that whether like in real time or just like over the course of your life like either pains that you've gone through or just like using tough times as a way for

creativity or creative fulfillment.

100%. That's the only place I get my ideas from. And there's two, two pieces to that. One of them is that we know pain is really good in marketing. You're going to market, hit the pain point, you hit the dream outcome, you're going to sell something. And so I've gotten in my, as far as I know, pretty familiar with specific pains.

generally social ones, generally having to do with chicks. so.

Speaker 1 (45:49.216)

I think the reason I have the ability to be more on the Jordan side and kind of understand, or at least I think I understand myself so that maybe I can put something out that other people in thighs with the reason I'm able to be over there is because I think I went through all the pain or some amount of pain. And so now I have something to tell a story about, you know,

Speaker 1 (46:18.828)

And I think that's also why the creativity isn't relief for me because honestly, I'm trying to make it painful because I like I'm not going to make those social mistakes anymore. I already made them and I had the pain and I learned the lesson. So I need to find the pain somewhere else. Otherwise, my content is going to get bad.

Hmm.

I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna run out of things to say.

I mean, do you feel like you, not like physically or literally, but do you feel like you seek out pain in a way, like through your work? Like almost going back to the intensity of math and sports, do you feel like you've created something that's on the surface seen as artistic and creative? Do you think you've turned it into like sport in a

100 % it's like, for me, it's just too boring. If it's not pain. I was filming the other day and it was 103. This is one of my big shoot days. I filmed 11 videos this day. Oh my gosh, dude. And they're all like action videos, like outside action videos. And I was filming from 7am to 2am. And I remember it was, it was like 4pm. It's like peak heat is so unbelievably hot. The sun is like

Speaker 1 (47:33.132)

Something about Texas, I think when you're close to the equator, the sun at least feels brighter. So it's like so much harder to film for me, maybe just because I'm hot and stupid, you know, because I'm so unbelievably hot that my brain is just losing function. And I remember packing up my stuff, going out, setting up my camera, I realized I forgot something for my car like 300 feet away. And I'm so pressed for time. So I run everywhere when I film, like I'm always running. And so I'm running back to my car.

as I'm like, I remember having this moment of being pretty much full zombie, like not coherent, not even really aware of where I am or what I was doing. And it was horrible. It was so not fun. But it was the most enjoyment I've had in the last few weeks. I don't really want to do it again. It was pretty good. Like, it was not boring.

You know, was like, no one's forcing me to do this. I could just not do this. And for some reason, I'm still doing this.

Speaker 1 (48:39.746)

I just feel it feels like something, you know, not really good or bad.

I think when you find that type of work, can't be put into words. It's just something that you kind of feel on a intuitive, physiological, internal, energetic level that it's just like, I don't know what it is, but it feels right. It feels good. But on the flip side of that, yes, it feels good. But what I love about what you've said about your videos, you've also said it never feels that good. It just feels not bad.

And like, if we're just looking on the surface, like the numbers and the following that you've grown and like the videos that you make, like very successful, like you're you're doing very well for yourself, like stripping all of that away.

Speaker 2 (49:32.098)

Like, do you feel like you're good at what you do? Like, deep down, are you like, I'm good at what I do? Or do you feel like it's the opposite of that and that's why you've been able to continue to improve and sort of have this intensity for the work?

respond to this with a Jordan Peterson moment. The thing that's so hard to answer about that question is that it good has to be compared to something. Yeah, you know, it's subjective. And so if I'm comparing to people who do 10 million views a month, yeah, I'm kicking their ass. I'm fantastic. If I'm compared to Mr. B some dog shit, you know, and how I like to compare it is to all all the people in the world.

And not in terms of I'm comparing how good I am at doing this thing to how good everyone is at doing this thing, because then I would be good at it. But in terms of we get on average for the last few months, we've done 500 million views a right? Which sounds big. But it's just views. And let's say every single one of those is an individual person. They're not. But let's just say they are. There's 8 billion people in the world.

Back to me.

Speaker 1 (50:49.134)

500 million. Let's make it 800 million just for the hell of it. It's going to be easier math.

Were you the vision kid in school or just the multiplication? You can go to vision.

I like division two. Yeah, 10 % right that's 10 % say imagining that I did 1.4 times 1.6 times the amount of views I actually did. And saying that every single one of those views was an individual person that's still only 10 % that means 90 % of people have no idea who I am never even seen my face. You know, now let's talk realistic numbers, right? Let's how many of those are repeat viewers, I'm going to say

300 million of those. Well, we'll say about 100 million people, you know, they've seen my videos five times, that seems a little more realistic to me. And we'll take it down to the 500 million. I'm not going to do that math, but it seems like a waste of a number. It's probably about

Speaker 1 (51:47.086)

I guess it's 1.25 % or something. Yeah. I think I think it's 1.25 minuscule, like not even you wouldn't even see it. You know, and that's have seen my videos. That's not even follow that's not even got something from the videos that's not even have any recollection of me. And so when when I frame it like that, when I frame it like there's 98.75 % of the world who has never even seen me.

entire.

Speaker 1 (52:17.944)

I'm pretty not great at what I do, honestly, yet. Clearly, I don't understand the game well enough. If I understood the game well enough, that number would be quite a

Speaker 1 (52:29.44)

I also think it's helpful to think like that. Maybe not for feeling good, but definitely for being good.

Mm.

Do you think you're more driven by being good than feeling good?

Certainly. Yeah, I've only really felt good when I have been capable.

Speaker 1 (52:53.614)

It's like when we started when I started playing volleyball, I started with Nathaniel when we were in high school, like senior year or junior year, we're terrible, terrible at volleyball. And we got really, really into it because we watched Haikyuu, the volleyball anime. And we loved Haikyuu. You can see it in some of my videos. There's definitely Haikyuu influence. But we got super, super into volleyball. And then we started going on like independent studies. So we just wouldn't go to school. We do online school and we just play volleyball all day. And it was not fun.

for the first eight months. And then we started to get decent. And then we started to get, I would say, good for our high school level. And because we were also six foot three, and when you're playing high school volleyball, you're a giant. Then it was actually pretty fun. Because it was like we, I would go up to hit the ball. And I had been training my vertical and I was taller and I have long arms. So I would just be like a head's length above everybody else. And I would hit it so hard that no one could, it was just like,

Feeling unbeatable is always satisfying. Getting there was not, but those were the only times that it was enjoyable.

What I find so fascinating about your videos and your craft as a whole is obviously like you're driven by being good, being great, being the best, you know, that focused on being. From the consumer's perspective and the one watching, what I find really cool is because it seems like that is about making people feel good. So it's like,

I'm going to take the being like you're like, I'll take the being and I'm going to make you feel good. And that's like from the some of the videos that I've seen of yours. It kind of just makes my head turn off like when I'm watching it, which I think is a lot harder to do than people think, or I think that's why people would like it so much is because. I think that's why anybody likes anything nowadays, like being able to find something that

Speaker 2 (54:56.526)

turns your head off, whether it's like podcasting, like just like being in the moment like this, whether it's cooking, anything type of like create creative or like just being able to get into that flow state. Obviously, like when you're the one doing it. I think that can be. Maybe not easy, but easier to find, but like when you're able to do it from like a social media content consuming perspective, like and get somebody into that like flow state of just like being in that

feeling state and turning your head off. I think that's a lot harder. And it's probably going to, you know, your methodology of saying, like, you switch from like, like, I don't have to talk to the camera. Like, I can have two characters just talking. And like, as the consumer, like, okay, you're inviting people into that of just like, almost being a fly on the wall. And like, it turns their head off. Do you feel like the same thing happens for you? Like with the work? And maybe that's why you like it as much as well. It's like, it turns your head off to a degree.

Certainly. I think about other things. Yeah. I don't think about existentialism. I don't think about nihilism. If I don't work, I just think about existentialism and nihilism. So yeah, a hundred percent. yeah, I like that you said that. That's honestly, I think that's like the mark of a part of a fantastic story is when it's so good that you just are in it and it's not, you are not in your life anymore and you get to live this other one. I think that's what's so magical about great stories.

They just have to actually be really good, you know, but yeah, I really liked that. That's good.

Rid, it's been incredible having you on the show. Where can people go to see more of the work that you do? Obviously you said 98.5 % of the world hasn't seen what you do. So for those people who don't know who you are, where can they see all the work that you do, anything else you'd want to plug?

Speaker 1 (56:52.302)

I'm on every platform. is, my platform is just my name. R-E-I-D-O-L-S-O-N. Olson on everything.

Awesome, great having you on the show. Yeah, wow.