If you're not breaking stuff, it means like you're not really testing the limits.

And then when you fail, you don't internalize it like home a failure, it's like, oh great, we just learned one more way not to do a thing.

Hey, everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you come to become a happier, healthier and more healed.

My guest today is Mark Roba, engineer, YouTuber and one of the most creative minds online, whose experiments and inventions have inspired millions to fall in love with science and curiosity again.

In this episode, we explore how to stay creative, turn failure into fuel, and reconnect with the sense of wonder we often lose as adults.

Please Welcome to on Purpose, Mark Roba.

Mark, it is great to have you here.

Congratulations on your incredible success.

Thank you, and I'm excited to dive into your mind.

So good to be here.

Let's do it.

Are you going to make me cry?

Jay?

Are you a crier?

I can't get emotional.

I'm the crier in my relationship with you the crier in your real I am well, we both kind of.

How long have you been together now?

Yeah?

Over a year overy, but that feels like relationship wise, we it happened fast.

I mean as an adult you know what you want, right, and so it feels like seven years and dog years relationship.

It's been seven years for the one.

I love it.

I love it well.

If you're allowed to cry here, definitely, but no, no pressure.

No, we don't want any acting too.

I'm a terrible actor, So your luck.

I love it.

I want to start off just by like, the first question I have for you is what's the earliest childhood memory you have that you feel defines who you are today.

Is there a moment, a friend, an experience from school growing up that you're like, that is why I am the way I am.

I think it's a finding moment, one that sticks out.

I feel like, so my mom was was out of the gate.

You're gidding me talking about my mom.

My mom was like had the biggest influence on my life by a very comfortable margin.

And she was like a stay at home mom, Like she barely graduated high school.

But she was just so encouraging of us and like trying to turn us into like good humans.

And so she would encourage just being creative and like out of the box thinking and just I remember one time, you know, and we did chores like as to raise a good human, Like we had a list of chores from the time I was five years old, right, So I was helping prepare dinner and I was in charge of doing the salad.

I was cutting the onions and I was like crying because I was like, oh, this is a thing.

I don't like this.

So it's like, well, I should go.

I remember upstairs we had these swim goggles.

So I ran upstairs, got the goggles, not thinking anything of it, and just kept cutting with onions on.

And now I know that's like a hack, like people know about this, but I was like five years old.

This was like nineteen eighty six, and I just remember her react to that, just like she laughed and she's just like no way, and like the encouragement.

She took a picture.

We have a family picture of it, right, and that's twenty four pictures in those days, so if you're taking a picture, you mean it right, it's on film.

And it just felt really good to be in this environment where like that kind of thinking was encouraged that it is always stuck with me.

And then you know, just growing up, you know, if I took a part the remote control and I couldn't quite get it back together, and like I didn't get in trouble for that.

It was like, oh, what are you up to now?

Right, it's like what are you up to?

But it was more celebrated as opposed to something that was just overlooked.

Yeah, that's special.

And I feel today like that same feeling of like creating content and sharing people and like getting that reaction of other people being like, oh man, why did I think of that?

Like I love hearing that because that means it was kind of obvious and he took things, you know, things especially if I do a build, if I could do a junk you have line around your house, that's so much better than just like all these technical solution right.

Yeah.

And so that feeling of coming up with an idea of sharing with people and getting feedback on it is just like it's kind of addictive.

Yeah, that's beautiful and it's amazing when your parents encourage it.

When when was the last time you shared that story with your mom?

So interesting story on that Jay, which is that like like six months before I made my first YouTube video, she passed away from als, which I think is like kind of a beautiful thing in the sense that you know, we can all disagree on what happens when you die, right, but this idea that like you never know the true measure of your impact in this life, right you do?

You know, you interact with other people, even if it's just like what do you say when the guy opens the door for you, you know, or you open the door for someone like with her, You know, the channel now reaches you know, if seventy two million subscribers and like billions of views a month, and none of that was on her radar.

And like my mission is to get kids, you know, everyone, but especially the young folks stoked about science and education and curiosity because that's what she did to me.

And this is also how I feel about like teachers.

They're like seed planners, right, and just nobody knows the measure of the full measure of their impact.

And yeah, so I just think it's really sweet that, like, you know, when she passed away, I think she felt really good about like the kids she raised, but like she just didn't know like her direct like how she raised me and my siblings is now like impacting so many kids and people across the world.

So it's really beautiful, Like that's her version of living on and living forever regardless of what you think what happens after we die.

Yeah, no, thank you for sharing that, man, it's so it's so beautiful to hear that as someone who's my mom who's still with us, but the impact she had on me as well, Like I feel like my mom showed me how to love and if anyone ever feels loved by me or feels I can create a safe, loving space for other people, it's because my mom did that for me the most difficult of situations and always made me feel like I had a shield of love around me, and so I've never really had to question whether I'm lovable or not, which is just an insane superpower.

And then all that love that you were given just spills onto other people, and then I was like, oh, how are you so loving and thoughtful?

And I'm like, oh, it's my mom.

Like it was like my mom just gave me so much that it had to spill out and spill over into other people.

It's actually not me and it's something that I hold very deeply as well.

And I think moms, dads, teachers, mentors, guides, spiritual leaders, whoever your family turns to for support of such a big impact.

And now YouTubers like now you like there are so many kids and parents that turned to you for your content to inspire their children to think differently.

How do you get a job at NASA?

Like I just when I when I saw that, when I was looking, I was like, how do you get a job at NASA?

Like that sounds like made up stuff?

I mean, you get lucky first of all, like you know, my resume was just in a stack of resumes.

And yeah, the interview, What did you do at college?

So I studied mechanical engineering.

Okay, so you had that, yeah, yeah, so for sure you gotta with an engineering degree, I'll give you that.

Yeah, and from a good school, from a good school, yeah, I did undergrad a UYU grad school at USC.

Yeah, mechanical engineering.

Yeah.

I remember going in.

There's this old engineer there, Don Bickler, And when you interview there, you know, you go into his office, shut NASA, NASA.

This guy's a legend invented like the Rocker Bogy system on the rover.

And then you just you stay in that room for like an hour and he hands you a whiteboard, a whiteboard marker, and he just drills you on questions and at the end of that he comes and kind of offers the verdict.

And when I left, he's like, he's good.

Hire him.

So, you know, tell me what the questions are, like, like what is that?

How's that interview?

Because I imagine it's so different from any.

And yeah, I mean they're like technical questions, right, Like here's a good one.

If you have a fishing boat and you have an anchor, and then you take that anchor and you throw it overboard, and what happens to the water level on the rate lake?

Does it go up or down?

And so it's kind of like a riddle.

But the point is you write out the equations on the board, the buoyancy equation, you know, you solve for this, and then the answer is pretty obvious if you can do that.

So it's kind of like questions like this, technical questions, but they're just like rapid fire, one after another.

And so then yeah, so I worked at NASSA for a decade, ten of those or seven of those working on the Mars Curiosity rover.

So I have hardware that's like on the jetpack that lowers it the ground and then also on the top deck of the rover.

So you designed that, I designed, built, tested, integrated.

How many of you are working on something like that at the same time.

Yeah, Like it's like probably three thousand people all told, like have a hand in creating something like the Mars are over.

Wow.

Yeah, but it's cool like to you know, just be in the backyard, you know, and you see that one thought in the sky that has like the reddish tint, you know, so you know that one's Mars, and you're just like, I've like I've touched something that's like on that planet and built it and it's it's still working ninety million miles away.

And where are you based?

Do you?

This was in This is a jet propulsion laboratory, so out in Pasadena here, okay?

Yeah?

And how many people work out of there, like.

About five thousand give or take.

Oh.

Yeah, it was so cool.

It's like a college campus, just like a free exchange of ideas, you know, talk about creativity.

Just like everything is on the board and it's just this engineering mindset of like, you know, we don't know the right answer, but heck, we'll just run a ton of and figure out what it is.

What was the mindset you think you learned from working at NASA and the people there that you don't think most of us would come across in our daily life.

I think this concept of like thinking like an engineer, what does that mean?

Yeah, I had that before.

I've also had like think like a rocket scientist.

I'm like, what does that mean?

So me?

I, in fact, I have a toy company now, Crunch Labs, where you know, basically it's like a really fun toy you get every month and the kids can put it together and it teaches the engineering principles what makes them work.

And on this side of the box, it says think like an engineer, and the idea there is like it means that, like you're not afraid of failure, and you know you're resilient because you know the failure is part of the process, Like the point is to break stuff and test it.

If you're not breaking stuff, it means like you're not really testing the limits.

And then when you fail, it's you don't internalize it like oh I'm a failure.

It's like, oh great, we just learned one more way not to do a thing.

You're excited.

Right, it's like, let's try something different.

And so I think that philosophy applies to life and the challenge.

Like toddlers are like this, right, Like when they fall, they're not like, oh I look so dumb, I'm never going to try and walk again.

Right, It's like they just get up and try again, and they're excited to try again.

You know the kid who's just tinkering his garage and doesn't care and it's trying stuff like, that's the kid that's just like learning so much.

Right, and again, this is how you put a rover on Mars.

You just break stuff and test it and test it and test it so you know the limits and now you know exactly what will work when you go.

To Mars and what was the purpose of the robot.

So essentially it's just like to go to you know, we want it's good for humanity if we are a multiplanetary species.

And so it's like this is the precursor to like humans going and living on Mars.

So basically it goes there and says like what's the soil?

Like could you plant asparagus there?

It turns out you can.

Is there water there?

Yeah?

It turns out there is so all these things that we would want to have on Mars if we were living there, Like the rover, you know, how much radiation is there here, So it can do a bunch of let us learn the history of this planet so that a we can potentially live there someday, but b it helps us learn about ourselves.

Part of what we know about global warming is by studying Venus, which is basically like runaway global warming.

So by like studying other areas in the Solar System, we're able to learn like more about you know, how Earth even came about informed, which helps us to know how do we protect it in the future.

Wow, And so wait when you started to get this information and data back that you can grow asparagus, there's water there.

What was the big discovery that the rover felt like it achieved that you all walked away with and said, oh wow, this was mission accomplished.

I mean with science, like your objectives are always smaller than that of like we just want to go there and answer whether or not there's water.

You know, life is always the big one.

Like if you can find life on another planet, like that's pretty wild because if life came to exist twice in our own solar system.

You know, then like there must like the universe must just be teeming with other forms of life.

It's just like really fascinating question.

Right.

Sometimes you don't.

You just go there to gather the data and then you just look for something interesting to come from the data.

But you don't necessarily know ahead of time.

You can have objectives, right, but I think us just getting closer to live there and studying if life did exist there or like always some Andea's water they're currently flowing.

Those kinds of questions are like really interesting with Mars.

Yeah.

The reason I'm mining it is for two reasons.

These questions to you is one is I'm fascinated because it's so different from any world I've ever lived in, and so I'm like a kid in a candy shop right now, like this yeah cool.

And then the second side of it is because I think it's a mindset thing too, the idea that all of these really smart people are building something and there isn't this big goaler objective.

There's this idea of we're going to learn and we're going to grow, and we're going to figure it out and we'll discover something is such a beautiful mindset for life.

Like I think about even with what you were talking about with crunch Labs, teaching kids at early age to just experiment, play, break live without the goal of like, oh I have to build I'm sure they I'm sure crunch slubs.

Yeah, No, you're totally right.

Yeah.

It's like that's a great mindset because I feel like if you think about all the companies that we all use today, they didn't start off saying we're going to build a billion dollar company.

They just built something that helped people and figured it out and pivoted and gave us another option.

Then one day they were valued at billions of dollars.

But today there's a pressure I feel that people have where it's like if I build an app, it has to be a billion dollar app.

If I build a products company, it has to sell one hundred million the first year.

If I sell apparel brand, I have to make a million dollar Like I feel like we put these goals and objectives and you're actually saying, well, when we're going to Mas, we're not thinking about those things.

I mean, I completely agree with you, Like, I don't love when people expect you to know what you want to be when you grow up when you're like sixteen years old, Like, nobody ask any adult and if you ask them, you know what they're doing.

If they knew, they'd be doing what they're doing now.

If they say yes, they're totally blind.

You Like, nobody knows.

And that's just the way life is.

It's like a river that meanders right.

So it's like my advice if you don't know what you want to be and your you know, a teenager or something, is like, what do you love to do?

Do you love to draw?

Doesn't just dominate it?

Just draw like crazy and get so good at it.

Right, Maybe you love to write or to tell stories, like, just do that and then when you do that, like then more doors will be open to you.

So like this is kind of my philosophy with life too.

Like I've had a lot of left and right turns to get me sitting across from you right now.

And what I do just like whatever is in front of me, I just give it every single thing I have, and I just try and just crush it and learn as much as possible.

And then when you're done with that, it's like, all right, now, what are my next options?

Right, and it's usually pretty clear, to be honest, Like, it's never like I've honestly never had a moment in life, even quitting NASA to go do YouTube stuff where it's like is this the right decision?

Is it not?

It feels pretty clear if you've really committed yourself and then you have all the new facts in front of you, right.

Yeah, before we get to that what did you want to be when you were a kid, and when people ask you that question, that you I want it.

I want it to be.

My first job I wanted to do was to design play places at McDonald's, you.

Know, like thea I used to love that.

It's like an architect of those I remember, I have all these drawings.

All right, we're gonna start with the ball pit.

We're gonna go to the nets and now crunch slabs.

Which is this like actual place I have?

It's like this WILLI Wonka Factory for Engineering is sort of the embodiment of that dream because we have like secret passageways.

You know, a coke machine opens up into a claw machine that you gonna like take a Yeah, we have like fied like pistons that you slide down.

From basically center.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, Like I'm like Willy Wonka free engineering, Like it has that vibe.

Right, It's like a rock paper scissor machine that it's a robot that beats you every time.

A staircase that's an infinite slinky staircase.

The slinky just goes.

So it's like, you know, if you can dream it up, then you can build it.

Like that's the beauty of being an engineer.

Is like, if something doesn't exist and you want it to exist, you could just will it into an existence.

What is superpower?

Yeah, there's this, there's this amazing I mean, this is I'm going totally the opposite way, but you're reminding me of something beautiful.

There's this beautiful verse in Eastern spirituality that says the mind moves faster than the gods.

And the point of it is this idea that the mind can create and build and you can visualize.

And it's based off of this character in Vedic history called vishrak Karma who's the architect of the gods.

So he builds flying palaces and flying cities, but he visualizes it all in his head before it becomes manifest.

And it's that same idea of just like we but you know what so interesting is we're talking about that, but we all know that it's so natural as a parent to go, okay, but get a real job, right, So, like you, you have this dream of I want to design McDonald's playhouses or whatever, and then family, friends, expectations, school, everyone goes, yeah, but get a real job.

Like I remember, I was a kid who loved graphic design and I love art direction and I loved juxtaposition and imagery like that was always my I love that.

It's always been a passion of mine, and my family encouraged it was a good hobby.

Was like, get a real job though.

Yeah, I mean engineering is such a great skill and such a great job.

But how do you encourage young people and how do you think about when you're making content to encourage people to live their passion but be pragmatic and what does that look like?

Because you, yeah, you've kind of pursued so many things.

I mean, I think it's a yesam situation.

Right For example, for me, like I worked at NASA for a decade, then I worked at Apple for five years doing product design.

I didn't quit Apple till I had ten million YouTube subscribers.

So like this idea of like I had to choose one or the other.

Right, you can kind of do both.

You can moonlight as your passion and then when that becomes big enough, then it's like, oh, and that isn't always the case.

But I think there's a lot of situations there's a middle of that Venn diagram where it's like you do the passion and pursued as much as you possibly can while also having the real job, right.

I mean, that's like practical advice.

Sometimes it does come to a point, you know, you hear these great stories of actors or something where it's like I'm just gonna really go for it and then they land.

But that's also you know, the scientist of me wants to say, well, there's survivorship bias.

So you only hear the stories are the ones that worked, and for the one that does, there's a thousand that don't.

So you know, I think when parents say that they generally have their best interest in mind for the kid.

They want them to be happy and have a life that they can.

But at the same time, the kid knows what they're passionate.

So I think it's a very healthy a very healthy like you know, Yin and yang there.

I don't fault parents for saying that.

I think there's a lot of times you could still pursue the thing.

You can pursue both.

Yeah, i'd agree with you.

So my life's the same story, and I'm that to me is the to me, that is the best and most likely path for most people, which is you're going to have a steady job, You're going to figure out something on the side, and you're going to wait for the thing on the side to outpace the thing you're doing right now.

And then and it became and it actually proves to you as an individual, whether you really love it, if you're doing your evenings, you're doing your weekends, you're you're doing it when it makes no money, you're doing it when it's inconvenient, and you're like, oh, well, if I could do it when I was inconvenient, then when it's my full time thing, I'm the luckiest person in.

The world, one hundred percent.

And when I started YouTube, like in twenty eleven, no one you you could like make money off of it, you know what I mean, It was like you just did it.

Really, it's just a passion like I wanted to share these cool ideas with people.

Now it's like the game has changed so much.

What was the pivot from NASA to Apple?

Why did that come about?

Why leave NASA?

Well, actually, for two years I was at a halloween costume company Jay before then going to Apple.

So that's like halloween costume.

Yes, the wait, how do you get from NASA to a Halloween.

Okay, that's the better question, which is so my first ever YouTube video I went to like a Halloween party and I had an iPad on front, an iPad in back of me.

And if you cut a hole in the shirts and you do a FaceTime, gold looks like have a hole in your body.

So you win.

You wave your hand in the front and the camera in the back shows it and that's cool.

Again, it felt like being five years old cutting onions.

People at the party were like, this is such a cool costume.

What a cool idea?

How did I not think of that?

So I went home, I put it on YouTube.

And my life goal is to be on the Gizmoto, which is like an old tech blog.

Yeah yeah, I remember it.

And so I made it on the covering his Moto and then quickly realized I need more life goals, and so I was like, I have more ideas, Like I should just do one video a month, And for fourteen years now, I've basically uploaded one video a month about an engineering build or an idea, and the channel's just grown from there.

How did you get that outfit on the cover of Gizmodo, Well.

So the YouTube video went up and it went viral, so it was on the front page of CNN, like it was like on all these outlets covered it, including Gizmoto.

Got it from there.

The one complained was that cool idea, bro, But I don't have twelve hundred dollars for Halloween costing two iPads, right, And so I was like all right, So I came up with an idea for next year where it was like a design printed on the shirt, like a guy's face or something that was like kind of his eye was pulled open and then if you cut a hole out for the eyeball and then there's a free app an eyeball that moved around her or I would have worked great, Jay, then you had a really cool Halloween costume for like the price of a T shirt called digital DNS.

So I've launched that company nights and weekends, working all week while making YouTube videos and while working at NASA, and it did pretty well.

So then that did well enough that I sold it to some guys in the UK and I went and worked for them for two years.

Wow, And it's like, it's such a right.

This is my example.

I mean, this is this is exactly what I was talking about.

I have this idea.

I thought it was cool, so I moonlit nights and weekends, basically bootstrapped the company.

And then when I launched the video the next year to explain what it was that T shirt idea, you know, we made our money back in eight hours and then yeah, so very meandering.

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Did you always have the ability to turn an idea into action?

And how what have you learned about that?

Right?

Like, there's a big A lot of people have good ideas, and I'm sure you hear all hear them all the time.

I hear them all the time.

People come up to me and be like, Joe, I've had this incredible idea on build this thing, but then it stops there, it doesn't get somewhere.

What have you learned about turning ideas into action?

What's worked for you?

My superpower is my naive optimism.

Like I'm just an idiot that thinks I can do it and I don't see Like I just feel like, oh, this is so obvious, Like I can totally do this.

If I knew the amount of work it actually would end up being, i'd be very discouraged.

But I'm just like an idiot.

It's like, oh yeah, I could do this, Like I think this makes sense, Like I see the end goal and so then any pitfall that comes along the way, Like I'm so focused on this end goal and like that matters, right, Like the attitude you have and whether or not you believe you think you can do it.

So then if I think I can do it, then the next step is like, let me break this down into all the steps, and step one is this, and I'm just going to dominate that step and then you know, just kind of step through it.

It's literally the engineering design process.

But for ideas and businesses.

We'll go through the engineering design process.

For anyone who doesn't know what that is, is like, break that down for us, make it simple.

But I think the idea, it's just like you have an end goal, an objective, and break it down into the steps and know what you don't know and test what you don't know.

Is kind of like, you know, give your best shot at it.

You kind of in the engineering Let's say, if I'm designing a piece for the Mars Rover, I think, okay, I think it needs you know, maybe it's the wheel for the Mars Rover.

I think it needs to probably look like this.

I' when design it and CAD I analyze it analytically with computer programs, but that's not what I fly to Mars.

I take that and then I build it, and then I test it to see if it matches, and then sure enough, Oh it does match up.

All right, Now it's good enough.

I've tested it.

Now I can fly it to march.

So I think it's this idea of like building iteratively and breaking things like part of designing that is, I would make one and I would smash it with a bunch of stuff, so I know the limits of the wheel.

Right.

So again we call that a failure and others outside of engineering, but we embrace that and it's like great, now we know.

Now let's tweak it and we're gonna.

We're gonna now now we could build something better.

Right.

But I think a lot of times in life, if you get a bad grade on a test, then you internalize I'm not good at math.

Or a relationship fails.

You're like, I'm just not good at this love thing.

Or a business fails, you're like, I guess I'm not a good businessman.

But if you if you look at it like an engineer, or even like a video game, I think is like a good way to do it.

Like if you if you frame your challenges like a video game, no one no one picks up a controller to play a video game and falls in a pit let's say Super Mario Brothers or something, and thinks I'm a failure, Like I'm embarrassing, I'm terrible at video games.

No, You're immediately like, oh, shoot, what I just learned from that.

Now I'm gonna I'm gonna jump a little faster.

I'm gona run a little faster.

Jump at You're excited to try again, right, So just the framing of it, it turns from fear to curiosity where you're like, you want to get up and try it again.

So if it's like and you know you asked me like oh, when you have ideas like I'm thinking of it like a video game where it's like I want to rescue Princess from bowser.

So when I get the sliding green turtle shell, which could look like a lot of different things, I don't internalize that I'm a bad player.

I'm like, got it.

I know the shell comes right here.

I'm going to jump a little faster, right, And that is a life hack.

Like truly, this happens to me all the time on just whenever we want to do a big video.

We just filmed the video where I made a soccer goalie robot that goes back and forth at like eighty miles an hour, and then Christiano Ronaldo tried to score on it.

Right.

It took us like a year to bill so we tracked the ball and in the first six milliseconds, when the ball has gone from like here to here, I just moved it like maybe an eighth of an inch.

We know exactly where the goalie needs to be to stop that ball.

So it's hilarious to see, you know, he tries to do it and of course he misses.

No, there's no way he can score.

It's way too fast from the penalty kick area.

Yeah, I said eighty miles an hour, and the robots is like, what just goes.

And it's oh my gosh.

So the point is, though, with that video, I mean there was tons of sliding green shells and setbacks and you know, and and that doesn't mean it doesn't sting.

By the way, failure still can sting.

This isn't some fake Pollyanna attitude, right, but it's this idea of like, oh dang it, but I'm okay, here we go.

We're going at this again, right, yeah, And I think that can help you accomplish so much more in life.

And and just have honestly better relationships even right, because it's just like the way you approach it is like, Okay, what did I learn versus internalizing that it's something about me?

Yeah, well said, really well said.

I love the video game analogy because you're so right.

You die, and even though it says game over, you don't feel that way.

No, you're like next next player.

You know you want to get another life, you want to play again like you never ever.

And it's so crazy because I'm like, it actually says game over and you don't care.

And whereas if someone says game over and life where you get rejected or you don't get a job and you apply for one, that hurts much worse, and I guess because it feels like he has real stakes.

I think it's more like you internal you think that makes you, yes, unemployable, Yes, you internalize what that means about you, But you don't do that in video games.

You don't say I'm a bad video game player.

And I think the same is true in life.

Like anyone who's got to somewhere in life, they started out sucky at that, right, and then they just learned and iterated and overcame.

It's the same thing he said with companies like No Fortune one hundred company today started out doing what they do now they've pivoted fifteen times, right, And so I think it's this ability to just like not internalize what it says about you and just almost flip it.

Like I'm a person who who embraces failure and celebrates it, lets it sting.

Just like in a video, it sucks to miss that key jump on level eight one on Super Mario Brothers a little platform, but it's like, dang it, we're going back because you're focused on the end goal.

You're focus on what that would feel like, not the pits and the mistakes.

What's a failure that you ever experienced in life that you did internalize?

Did that ever happen?

I got married pretty young and then it's very amicable.

But like five years ago I split with my wife for you know, I'm pretty private with my private life for like reasons and stuff.

But and I was like really cautious to get out and like date again.

It just it took me a year to even like start And I don't know, it felt like I was just very protective, like I didn't I wanted if I was gonna find my person, like I wanted them to love me and not the thought of me, or you know, you just want it to be authentic, right, and so like I never I just wasn't.

I was being very very cautious about everything.

I did find someone that I thought was like this was this was it, and I'm for the first time, like really opened my heart, right, like being really really open, and like the worst possible situation happened where it was like it was it felt it was like a betrayal.

Something happened that it was like it was essentially this the worst case where it's like, Okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to really lean in, and then it happened, and it was absolutely the worst pain like I've experienced as adult.

It was like really really hard, and it was hard to feel like I would ever find this thing that I felt like other people have found and I'd never felt it my whole life, and so taking a beat after that was like I think it was hard.

That was like a really really difficult period for me.

But then I honestly, eventually I came around to this supermart thing and I'm like, you know, what like it's just a number.

Like I just got to put in the reps.

I gotta like put the work in and so I did that and then again failed.

I did like I was like, I'm gonna in thirty days, I'm going to like try and this.

I'm such an engineer.

I basically made a goal where it's like I'm going on thirty FaceTime dates in thirty days and just like twenty minutes just to get a feel because you know, in the first three minutes if there's a connection or not right.

And I did that and it was again Jay and these are like amazing, accomplished, attractive, lovely human beings, lovely women right, and I felt nothing, And I was like damn, like I think is this me?

So I was like, you know what, I'm going to do one more and then I did one more and that's my partner and she's my life partner.

It's like it and it was it was a matter of like it was like half hour in It's like yep, this is it, like and it feels like coming home.

It's like when you I'm the right person, it feels like home.

It's just like yeah, and it's just like no, reservations and like, we're both the same way, and she she's wondering, yeah, and you met her and she's had the same experience where she just never felt like she'd found it and immediately was just like this is it cool?

Done?

Close the spreadsheet.

I deleted it, So you did engineer your way to love.

Which because she's the opposite, she's more like you j and she just puts it out to the universe.

So she's the she's the dreamer and I'm the thinker.

And we try and take credit for us getting together, Like, look, I put it out to the years.

I'm like, no, I put in the worst.

Yeah, yeah, no, I love that.

I mean to me, I mean, I'm I'm actually people know less about I'm a bit of both as well.

There's a there's an engineer in me, not not in the way you are, but in that practical, pragmatic approach to what it really takes and getting the reps in and and I like that that it even applied to love, that doing thirty FaceTime calls and thirty dates, that is what it takes to figure out if you have a connection with someone and to speed it up.

I always I do what I call for myself immersion weekends, and so if I'm really fascinated by something, I will find a coach, find the book, find the ted talk, find the course, and do it all in one weekend to figure out whether I care or not.

And I do these immerging weekends all the time.

I'll literally obsess over something for forty eight hours, and if I really like it, then it becomes a part of my consistent schedule.

And if I hated it, I won't go back again.

And I'm okay, And I've loved doing that over time where I'm like, I'm fascinated by this.

I don't have time to go on a weekly course.

I don't know if I want to invest that time.

I don't want to commit to a retreat.

Who knows.

But I could do it for a whole weekend.

Yeah, it works, It works wonders for me.

And that goes back to kind of what I was saying before too, just like whatever's the step in front, dominate it dominated, and if you really immerse yourself like it will be very clear at the end of that weekend if this is something you want to do more versus.

Like just dabbling it dabbling.

Yeah, what's an example.

I'm going to turn the tables like you No, what's the last thing you did?

Like that?

Like an immersion weekend?

The immersion weekend?

Yeah, I'll be honest, I just did it this weekend.

It was acting.

Oh.

Now, I've been getting all these opportunities to like audition for like TV and film, and I've just been kind of going back and forth.

I've spent a lot of time on movie sets with actors that I coach, not in acting in my work, and I've spent a lot of time on movie sets, but I've never been the person doing it.

I've done a few cameos here and there.

And because I was getting all these opportunities, my question always is do I love the process I'm not interested in the result?

Or is it cool?

I'm like, do I actually love doing the thing?

And so this whole weekend had an acting coach.

I was with them for three hours a day who I was doing all the reading pre of the scripts that they sent me.

I was doing the reading of books outside of it, around acting and writing, just to see if I enjoy the process.

And I was like, worst case, I'm going to hate the process and learn some skills case, I'm going to love it and it's going to open up new opportunities.

I loved it at a great time.

Really yeah.

I was reading scripts, I was learning about characters.

We were doing scene study and analysis like it was.

It was almost like just reading material and discussing it with someone and then trying to figure out what the actors' objectives were and what their tactic is and what their motive is.

It was fascinating.

Really, yes, I love it.

So you're going to do more?

Then it was I'm going to do more coaching.

I'm going to take more classes because it was just so it was so fun and if it becomes something that I enjoy enough, I would pursue it professionally.

But even if I don't, it's just something that i'm currently immersed in.

I feel like you would be great.

It's like you have to, yeah, putting yourself in the shoes of the person, Like I don't even know what to do it, Like my face, it's like I'm supposed to be sad that I really was just like yeah about my life.

But it's like, apparently that's not what you're supposed to.

Do, but that's what was so that was what's so fascinating about it?

And I think we're both talking about this idea of learning something was when you're sitting down with a professional, the way they talk about it, and he was talking about like there's Stanislav method and the Chekhov method and there's all these there's there's systems of why the best of the best like they're not they're not just the best because they have it.

They've studied systems and they've worked at it.

And so to me, it was just like there's this method where it's called to act as if so you can't relate to what the character is going through, but you have something that happened in your life that makes you feel that way that the character is feeling and you channel that.

And so to me it was just I was just fascinated by the empathy that actors have to have, the compassion the connection to embody characters.

But that was my most reason.

I love that my thing right now again, like I'm kind of with you, I love mastery, Like finding mine's public speaking.

I hate public speaking, Yeah yeah, heat it, but my goal is just be really good at it in like a year.

So I'm currently working up I'm actually doing a TED talk in April.

Actually, this is cool to actually mention to you because I haven't really talked about this publicly much.

But we're doing so through the YouTube channel.

We've learned how to like hide the vegetables, right, basically teach science.

You don't even know what's happening, right, Yeah, So we're taking all the learnings we've taken from that, Like because kids can watch or people can just watch whatever they want to on YouTube, but they choose to watch this, and they're making a full science curriculum that's amazing, third to eighth grade.

It involved, you know, it has my fellow YouTube friends.

You know, I just got Christiano Ronaldo and we're feeling in he's part of it.

Just a bunch of people in it.

But then you know, resources for the teachers, really cool hands on activities.

They can class everything.

And then it's gonna costs about it's gonna cost us about like fifty five million dollars to make, and that would make it free forever for all the.

Way able to go online, so you don't have it won't be in your school.

No, it's like a it's like online teachers can use it it's a full It adheres to all of the standards, right, because teachers will tell you, like, they can't teach a kid if they don't have their attention.

And I've learned to do on YouTube is getting there to for example, the electricity and magnetism lesson.

We just filmed this.

There's an MRI machine.

I put a watermelon inside it.

I'm holding like a ten pound hammer and then you essentially flip on the MRI machine and but you know, the hammer just flies out of my hand destroys this watermelon.

And now, Jay, I've got your attention.

And now I could say, you know, there's some visible magnetic fields all around us that exist?

Yeah, right, And.

So teachers can use these in school.

They could play that video.

And it has you know, the whole lesson.

What they say back to the kids.

It will replace their science curriculum, right, Wow.

And it's gonna cost it's gonna take us like three years.

Why is it gonna cost you fifty five million dollars?

It's it's a huge undertaking.

There's like forty six different units.

Like it's science, it's all six through eighth grade science, and then also third grade through through fifth grade.

So and you're funding.

It yeah, and I mean yes, and there are already some generous people who are coming out and helping it fun.

But like regardless, I was weird started funding it myselves anyways with the profits we had from Crunch Lambs.

So we're gonna announce that at the Ted talk and like that.

I really want to nail that presentation, so.

I'm having to help.

Man, Okay, I was lucky my parents forced me to get a public speaking in drama school when I was eleven.

Oh really, so all my state speaking skills from having studied it for seven years, eight years.

And so, yeah, you're a man one of my favor Okay, Yeah, I'll record the rehearsal and I'll send it to you.

Yeah.

Happy.

I mean they have pros there obviously, Ted have such a great script they do and a great pro speaking team they're not that's going to be now, that's going to be amazing.

I'm excited to see it.

I'm pretty so I feel like it's the most important thing I'll do my whole life.

But I love that you're doing things that scare you, Like even at this point having had so much success and having you know, being you know, the spokesperson for science across the world.

It's incredible to see you say I'm still scared of this and I'm going to do it, not like I.

Crave it, Jay, Like I also like, uh, I started like going to the gym to your years ago, same thing where it's just like I just love an opportunity for mastery.

It is this video game thing, right, I think a lot if you say that I've seen success in my life, a lot of it comes down to this mentality.

It's like, I just love working on something and the feeling of incrementally getting better.

I mean, that's how our brains work, right, You're a lot of studies have showed if you get a huge raise and then and then your salary's flat for ten years versus incrementally go up to that ten years, like you're much happy.

You have way more dopamine your brain if you incrementally level up.

This is again how video games even work.

You start the video game with a wooden sword and three heart containers because they reverse engineer.

You love just like little levels up, so opportunities that life provides you to just find something like that and then get better.

At the end of a couple of years or months or whatever decades nothing better.

How do you keep the childlike fun energy, playful energy that you have that your work requires and at the same time run businesses Because to me, that's the balance that young entrepreneurs, seasoned entrepreneurs everyone runs into where it's like running the business is a serious business, yeah, but then the business is all about play, curiosity, fun, crazy experiments.

Right, and we'll get into some of the videos that that you love the most.

But how do you think about the curiosity creativity part of the business and then the running of a business?

Yeah, I think it's good.

There's been studies that look at like successful mid range companies are companies worth say fifty to five hundred million dollars or something, or even tended five hundred million dollars, And what all of them have in common is there's one person who is like has the swim lane of being the creative, the big thinker, you know, the ten next thinker, and then one person who's logistics.

Right, so you know, one person who can build the thing and one person who can run the thing.

And I was very lucky a buddy of mine, Jim, you know, we're to Google I knew he had a very anamical brain, and I said, hey, I'm thinking about starting this company, crunch Labs, you know, make me a model financial model to see if it works.

And he did and educating me on how they work.

It's still the model we use today and the company's doing very well.

Wow.

So he's been the one to, like, in my opinion, make all the all the boring stuff I don't want to look at.

J oh we have to have like a warehouse that ships out this stuff, like I don't just find a good one, you know, and he'll geek out over it, and he has them, you know what I mean.

And I'm thinking about like, oh this is we could do this, you know, but we could do this.

So I think truly, if you're starting a business and you're the creative one, just don't try and do the other thing.

Yeah.

And the good news is if you're the creative one, the other one's a lot easier to find.

Like the creative like the good that that's more of a rare talent.

Yeah, so just find someone help you.

Yeah, Okay, it's great advice.

Yeah.

At some point, if you're small, if you're doing something small like Halloween T shirt company, Like you can be both, but at some point it'll just get way too hard.

Yeah, no, I fully agree with you.

We did the same.

And I remember when I bought on one of my partners in the early days, everyone was like, you don't want to give away a percentage, Like, don't do that, you know it's all your creativity.

And I was like, you have no idea how much time?

Because I said, Tom, when I'm am, I said, all I want to do is think, study and teach and create, Like that's that's where I want to live, Like that's my strength, superpower, that's my fascination.

Like I love reading and studying and learning about psychology and ancient wisdom and science and behavioral science, and that's what I love reading, studying, learning, observing humans and then turning into stuff that people can use to make their lives better.

But I don't want to run any of the other stuff.

And there's something knowing that and owning that like as a key to staying happy and honestly fighting burnout.

I think a lot of times people feel burnt out and a creative endeavor, it's because they lost sight of what got them in it in the first place and they're managing fifteen people and they're a manager now they're not a creative and they're like, why am I doing this?

I'm not getting the satisfaction.

It's like, oh, because you're not doing what you started doing.

What did you learn at What did you learn at Apple that you didn't learn at NASA?

Apple?

I would say, like NASA, I feel like a lot of smart people at Apple.

You had to be pretty smart, but a very good communicator, which is like a I just keyed in on this and communication and sharing ideas and like telling stories matters a lot in you know, people think I'm a good engineer, you know, like I could build cool stuff.

But it's like I'm okay engineer, Jay, I'm a pretty damn good storyteller.

Like and in the videos you're telling stories right, like this video with Christiano Ronaldo, he said, with the goalie robot going back and forth, Like it starts out like, you know, this is my childhood dream.

I want to do this thing.

And I even Landon Donovan takes me out and he's like a coach and he's like, dude, you suck, you know, and so it's like, okay, well if I can't do with my athletic power.

It's not going to do with my brain.

So now I'm going to make this goal it right, you case the whole thing in a story, right, And I think at Apple I learned that there are some very very good engineers who are also incredible communicators of like explaining ideas.

And you know that's what really makes a special as a species ability to cooperate on large scale And we do that through telling stories.

Right, that's we've evolved to tell stories long before you could write stuff down.

We communicated through telling stories.

It makes somebody feel something, That's exactly that's how you make a viral video.

You just you have to evoke a visceral response.

And if you can do that, that helps you at work because it convinces everyone else like, hey, this is a good idea, let's all do this helps you in your relationships, Like if you can really create that visceral response by connecting with the human, then you know your partner will, your child or friend will accept your apology, right, Like, it'll help you.

Yeah, just personal life, business, anything tapping into the ability and owning the ability of Like I need to say this in a way that connects heart to heart, not brain to brain, whereas it you know, NASA was like, well, you know, our rover is twenty percent faster on the gigars, like nobody cares.

Right, Apple, I feel like is a very good example of this, right Like air pods is an example.

Like the advertisers for airport, they're just technically, there's better than any other head.

You know, yes, there any like you're in your product out there.

But the commercials are like the dance, It focuses on the feeling, right, like what does it feel like to have these things, not like here's the text back of why it's better.

Yeah, And as a result, I think they're like if they were a standalone company, it would be the market cap would be like, I don't know, it's something crazy, like just for the just for the air it's like fifty billion dollar market cap just for the AirPod.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

Yeah, it's such a hearing you say that is fascinating because yeah, I read it study years ago.

It was early days, but New York Times did a study on seven thousand pieces of viral content and the output was the seven thousand piece of viral content they made people feel five things one of five things.

The first was adventure, which yours your content does all the time.

Humor your content does that too, or comedy obviously.

Uh.

The other the third feeling was negativity, but the news anger rage Yours does not do that.

The fourth was inspiration, so you felt inspired after watching it, and the fifth was surprise.

And so those were the five emotions and they were all feelings.

And I always share that with people because I'm like, your content's trying to teach me something.

It's trying to tell me something, and you're talking about adding value.

But when you're trying to add value, you're not making me feel anything.

And what you were saying about hiding the vegetables, it's like, if you're making people feel entertained, then you're learning about engineering and process and designed and everything.

But if I'm like, I'm going to teach you engineering now, I'm feeling bored.

Yeah, and that's not on the top five list, And so I'm not feeling anything I wanted to ask you about.

I want to get tactical with you because you're also a YouTube creative genius.

It's like, what was the journey from zero to a thousand subscribers.

What does that look like for someone if someone's trying to do that as stage one.

There's a lot of really good reasons to start a YouTube channel or to be a creative.

There's only two bad ones tell us to get rich and to get famous.

And I think that's like the mistake a lot of people, especially now that you know you can get rich and famous.

And I think we both started in this game.

It just wasn't the same, Like you didn't realize that was it?

Right.

Our passion was like we love this, right.

I thought it was going to be I thought I was gonna because I was a consultant at the time.

Yeah, I was at Accentia rightly.

Yeah, I thought I was going to be a consultant by day and just to upload videos by night and weekends because I was like, this is a fun hobby.

It was.

It was just a creative outlet for me.

I was like I was doing live events, teaching wisdom and teaching classes and meditation, and I was teach at my local gym.

I would teach it in my local college or whatever.

And I loved it.

But I was like, oh, I'd like to share that with more people.

I would just upload some videos.

And yeah, I had no idea that any of this would ever happen.

So and yeah, we started.

I started twenty sixteen, you start twenty eleven.

Yeah, but ultimately twenty I mean, like to your point, like it takes forever to get a thousand subscribers.

So I think the trick is just to make content, just to do it, don't overthink it.

You know.

The temptation is you want to make the perfect thing.

And again, going back to an engineer, you build prototypes.

Like the biggest mistake when you want to make something is like I want to build the final thing.

Any object in this room was not built, Like this was not the final form.

This was not the initial version of this microphone.

Like it started very simply and then it iterated, iterated.

And so it's the same thing with like creating content or making things or trying anything like set a low bar.

You know.

I like to say, like make your goal to fail ten times, like flip it.

Make the goal, like I want to make ten videos and my goal is that they don't get more than one hundred views in a sense of like don't make your metric.

But I'm not rich yet, and I'm not famous yet, therefore I'm a failure.

Like make your like, destigmatize the failure and just go for it and make that.

So make the goal, you know, maybe a better way to say is make the goal to just upload ten videos in ten weeks.

That's my goal.

I don't care about metric, I don't care about views, and you will learn so much more through that by then and then iterating and seeing what worked.

Back to a video game.

Okay, I said this thing.

I started this way.

Aha, the algorithm seemed to really like that, you know, and that's what the audience wants.

And now I'm going to lean into that, right, So it's like just gamified in that sense and it will be great.

Don't do it to be your meritual famous.

Yeah, it's great advice.

I remember I got to I got my first thousand subscribers in a month on YouTube, and I was over the moon, Like I was so excited.

I couldn't believe it.

Like I was like, this is I'd never stood in front of a I'd maybe done one talk which was a work event which had a thousand people in the audience, but I'd never done my own event with a thousand people i'd mostly if I'd done my own event, maybe fifty was the most I'd ever had in my own live events.

So a thousand subscribers this is insane.

And I remember saying to my friends and they were like, yeah, it's probably cool, like you know, good for you, like you know, and it felt like a failure because to them, not to me, yeah, because they were just like, oh, that's a thousand, Like I guess it's gonna you know, now out here.

And it was just so interesting for me to see, like, oh, it was good.

I didn't feel that way because I would have stopped.

Yeah, but a thousand to me was a huge one.

What's the difference between getting from a thousand to one hundred thousand?

Like what is changing in skill set?

Mindset ability?

You start to get like a process down, You start to be able to figure out your own voice.

I think like from about ten thousand to one hundred thousand subscribers, you start to understand who you are, you know, and a good place to start, by the way, just copying other channels that you like, like don't be ashamed at the beginning just to copy someone else's style.

And you know, if you don't know where to start.

If you don't have something, and you'll start doing it.

You'll try something one time and it works and it sticks, and then you, you know, you start to find what your own voice is.

You've only ever you said, you've only ever made one video a month.

Yeah, how did you not get sucked in to the landscape when it was like people were making a video a day, people were making three videos a week.

People will make you know how did you stay true to Was it just that you'll create a vision so big that you could only ever do one a month?

Partly that and just like again, I wasn't doing it to chase the views.

And you're absolutely right.

There was a time in the YouTube algorithm were daily vlogs is how you got all the views.

And I said great, like great for everyone else, Like I am enjoying it this way.

This is what I like.

This is like the pace I'm comfortable with.

Like I'm very protective, I'm very good at saying no, like that's my superpower.

And just like I can have that restraint.

And you know, I've got a nice comfortable jogging pace on my treadmill and I'm going to stick with that.

So and even today you know good at saying no.

What was the hardest thing you ever said no to?

You know, early on there was some opportunities to do some like Discovery Channel shows that I would have loved as a kid.

But then it's like when I had everything else going on, Like I don't know, you just get opportunities that come by that you don't.

It's almost not hard to say no because it's like unless it's an absolute hell yes, I don't even consider it, right, And I think that is that can be a superpower, is like laser focus.

Like I don't often like pick something that I'm just like, I'm on it.

But like if I do choose something that it's like I want it, Like I can be like a pit on it where it's just like I will not fail, Like I don't know.

At some point, if it's not work, you need to pivot, and I do.

But it's like I just get so obsessed with accomplishing the thing that I can just exclude everything else, so I don't have this temptation of like and I try this, I don't try this.

I'm don't try this and I try this, and now you're just diluted across the board.

Right, because that applies not even for business, but in your relationships right in life.

If you are stretching yourself thin, you know, I'd much rather give like five people in my life, like very deep depth and have that richness of human connection then to spread that thin across fifty Yeah, right.

Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, it's yeah, there's almost like there's the experimenting phase where you're trying lots of things out.

Yeah, but then when you know who you are and you know your voice and you know what you're building, you've got to stick to that and it does make all the difference, and you've got to know when to let something go.

Like the videos I used to make on Facebook when I first started as a creator, I don't make them anymore.

And it's not because they weren't amazing and they didn't change my life.

It's just that's not who I wanted to be forever.

And they would have been really successful now if I carried on making them, but I wouldn't have felt happy, and so I chose what I wanted to do, which was this and telling stories in a certain way that's allowed my life to also be fulfilling as well as successful.

Rather than keep doing something because the algorithm wants it, that's right, and it doesn't.

That gets really dry, It gets really tiring, I think, and creators get burnt out chasing the algorithm, which I think we've both seen probably a lot of.

Yeah, I think that's right.

I think when you crank up that treadmill speed to a sprint paste, that's exciting at first and it's like, whow all these opportunities are coming, but you know, the dopamine wears off and you're still sprinting.

And to me, that's the definition of burnout when you're not getting like the positive feedback and you're like really really going for it so that you could just like keep your treadmill at a jogging speed.

In creating, in in life, I think like that's that's the power of saying no and being okay with saying no and not feeling guilty about it.

What was the I'm looking at your most popular videos and obviously world's largest jellopool?

Can you Swim in Jello?

Two hundred and three million views?

Six years ago?

That video?

What went wrong trying to get that video?

I lost ten pounds making that video.

I'm not kidding, because because we were making I get when I get stressed, I don't eat it.

We were making it in my brother's backyard because to make jello, no one's ever done this on the internet.

By the way, to this day, I'm the only person who've ever made like an actual jellopool because jello, as you know, you have to get it really cold.

You got to first of all boil it, and then it's got to put it in the refrigerator.

Right, So we had like six, you know, fifty five gallon drums that we boiled jello and basically drained it in this pool that we'd built.

And then he lived in Utah, so it was like the perfect temperature.

It didn't freeze over night, but cold enough.

And so it took a full week and it failed eight different ways, and we'd have to tweak and and change it.

A storm came, we're covering it with a tarp.

But eventually we got that money shot of like a kid belly flopping on this pool of jello and like me swimming in it, and it felt really good.

That's like, actually, it turns out a very technically difficult problem.

Again, my naive optimism was like, oh, I got this, I can do this right, Yeah, And it was very, very tricky, but we pulled it off.

What was the hidden vegetable in the egg drop from Space video one hundred and forty million views two years ago?

Like, what was the what was the hidden vegetable there?

Yeah?

There?

Again, that video had so many failures in it, Jay, Like, we tried originally to put a basically a model rocket on a hot air balloon or on a weather balloon and then guide it over a mattress and where it would let go and drop the egg on the mattress.

We tried that three different times and this was costing me like thirty thousand times a drop.

And eventually I called up one of my buddies at NASA.

He's the lead when we try and land something on the other planet, and I was like, Adam, how do we do this?

And he's like, Oh, what you're trying to do is create a guided missile.

And there's like one hundred people in the United States who know how to do that, and they've all signed a very large attack of papers saying they won't tell anyone.

So we're like, oh, we shouldn't try and guide this rocket down.

Then well, let's go one hundred thousand feet up you know, basically to space drop this thing and then we landed it like the Mars rover.

So in that video, we learned about terminal velocity, and we learned about like space environments.

But kids love I love how you bugging a NASA friend.

Yeah, he's dealing with like solving like discovery and.

It's literally the man who like invented how you land on Mars and it's like my phone a friend.

You're like, can you teach you how to drop an egg?

Yeah, on on a mattress and he was like, yeah, no, that's called a missile.

That's amazing.

Well, who have you met through doing all of this work that you've just been so like you've learned from what you've been inspired by, or someone that you met through this crazy journey that you've been on that has kind of left a mark on you, or someone that you always look forward to getting to know and you've got to meet.

Yeah, I would say, I don't know.

Weirdly, like a mentor for me actually has been Jimmy Kimmel, Like, you know, he saw one of my videos like a decade ago and said we should get this guy in the show and his staff was like, after like one or two times going on to show that he really likes you, and I'm like, you say that to everyone, but like the fourth time, I was like, I think he does really and so now he's like it was his idea even to start crunch Labs the company, because people will tell me all the time, like you need to do a podcast, you need to write a book, you need to go on tour, and when I double click on it, because again I'm good to saying no, it always came back to like, oh, so you can make more money.

That's like, oh, good, great news.

I don't spend a lot of money, so I've got enough money.

I don't need to do that, right, And his point was like, yeah, but you could reach more brains deeper, and that's the idea with crunch Labs.

It's like you're in the trenches.

You're not just passively watching a video.

It's a really fun toy and you're in the trenches and you get him every month.

And he was totally right.

Like the noun of letters we get from parents saying like this has changed the way my kids sees the world sees themselves.

Right.

They love it.

They go out to the mailbox every month waiting for it to come.

Makes a great Christmas present.

By the way, Jay, there we go Christmas pressure.

Yeah, I was about to say it's no, it sounds like the perfect gift.

I mean, I think I'll have to.

I'm gonna I'm gonna get something my niece and nephew.

Okay, yeah, I think I think they'll love it because I can see my nephew's like ten years old, and his brain's like that, like he wants to build stuff, he wants to break stuff, he wants to figure things out.

My niece is more into like Gabby's doll house.

Well, the good news, Jake, we just know have you got Gabby's doll house right more.

It's called Creative Kit.

So what I do is creative engineering.

The engineering part we've got covered billbox is the toys I was saying, And then we have like a robotics one.

But like the creative part we never so we like studied what creativity is.

And now there's a version called Creative Kit that it's like six years old, en up, and it's a little bit of a trojan horse to get more girls in STEM.

But also it's for boys as well, but they get a whirl every every month.

It's a different part of a little town they build.

And the important part is like it's within guide rails.

If you tell a kid give them a piece of paper and say come up, you know, draw something, they're like, uh.

But if you say, like drawn animal doing something, really doing their hobby, you know, in a place you wouldn't expect, Well, now they have like a seed.

Right, So it's this idea of like the first one is a treehouse, but then you name it's a little animal's friend that comes with it.

And then we're getting there within guidelines to think really creatively.

And what the research shows you could watch these alpha brain waves and you're in is the more time you spend in this space, the easier it is to do it.

So it's just like a muscle that you develop.

So it's basically giving kids time in this space to be more creative.

Do you always want your work and your products to help kids?

Like?

Was that the goal for the YouTube channel from day one?

Was it like I want to help young people figure out, young kids figure out?

I don't think so, to be completely honest, like I think it was more just like I love sharing ideas like I love the aha moment when you learn something new, and I love even more is like giving that to someone else, Like here's something I was just talking about with my partner the other day, which is such a cool thing to do.

I don't know if you've ever done this, If you ever laying underneath a tree, yeah, and you just look up or anything where there's like a bunch of little things and you close one eye and all the leaves feel like they're kind of our branches, kind of feel like they're at the same plane because with one eye you don't have three dimensional you know, three D.

But when you open both thighs and realize, like, oh, now I know which leaf is in front of me and which one is farther, Like if you've never done this, you should do it, and it's remarked and it's just it's immediately just like a teachable moment that shows like, oh, like our brain, because the right eye is a little bit different from the left, I sees the brain does all this incredible math to tell you how far and close something is, and just to get that moment and then now once you know that, you're like wait with animals, I have noticed like predators, you know, a hawk or a lion, they have eyes on the front of their face so that they could see three dimensional.

But if generally speaking, if you're a prey, a zebra or deer, your eyes are on the side.

They don't have the depth reception.

But now they can avoid the thing that has three dimensions that's trying to get them right.

So it's like idea, Like when you just learn something cool like that, just that nugget, and now you've updated your framework for the natural world around you, is so exciting and beautiful and addictive to me.

And I love to give that to other people.

And what I found, I especially love to give that to the to the young folks.

What are you doing to constantly learn things like that?

Like where are you coming across statistics, facts, human behavior, animal like where are you exposed to this?

Where are you finding it and discovering it in a way that's helping you feel like you're always on the cusp of something cool everywhere?

Truly, Like I think the answer to this question, I think what you're driving at is it kind of starts with a curiosity, right just and observing and being like even if there's like a weird on the side of a building or something.

It's like a pipe that comes out.

I'm like, why is that pipe there?

Like, I've never seen a build a pipe come out there on a billy, and it'll drive me crazy, to be honest, and I have to figure it out.

But the step one with the scientific method too, is just observation.

Right, the most interesting thing to hear in science isn't like Eureka, like I found it.

The most interesting thing in science to hear, Like the one thing you want to hear is like, that's interesting, Like hold on a second, right, Like that wasn't expected.

Let me double click on that and see what's going on there.

So I think part of learning a bunch is just having a curiosity mind just asking the question, yes, yeah, right, And I think that's what I try and do, is like I am a fire starter.

My videos are not going to teach you everything you need to know about the natural world.

But what I can do is I can like I can I'm a fire start.

I'll start that fire in their brain and then they get addicted to this feeling.

Right, I'm like the Gateway drug dealer, this aha feeling, and then they want to go out and learn more, right, and like that that's beautiful and that's a gift that you can give someone that will last their whole life long.

How do you come up with creative ideas?

Having made a video a month for ten years, how are you coming up with new ideas?

How what's your creative process?

Do you sit down in a room lock away?

Are you on your laptop?

Are you talking to people?

Are you with a team?

What's your process?

Can I tell you one that you bleep out on this, but you could play it, But then I want your reaction on camera.

That's so good, that's so good, that's so good.

I love that, that's so good.

Why do I have to believe that I love that?

Because I don't want someone to steal it?

Oh right, Oh yes, it's such a simple thing.

I could tell you what you're like, Bang, yeah, I love it.

I want to know what is right?

That is amazing, so good, it's so good.

So it's just like when I can get that reaction.

Like the ideas list is long.

I always thought you'd run out of ideas, but it's like always to be a hell yes, it has to be a hell yes.

But I always tend to have like a year and a half worth of idea, So like we have every single video we're making in twenty twenty six already like planned out and in process, so.

You're never trying to react to what's happening in that world or you're not.

Yours is evergreen content?

Evergreen?

Yeah?

Never, I want it to be ever.

You're not trying to react to Like, everyone loves AI right now, so we're going to do AI.

Everyone loves robotics, so we're doing right.

We can't, I mean all the videos now costs.

We don't do a video that costs less than half a million dollars.

Well every video is five yeah, because we're just like.

You know, we're doing stuff that's never been done before.

So there's like a lot of R and D that goes into making a soccer robot that moves it in an hour.

That's that's why we're the best goalkeeper that Ronaldo's ever faced.

Too, for sure.

It is.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I can't wait to see that video.

Funny, he's very competitive.

Of course, I'm obsessed with a Renaudo since I was fifteen years old because I was a United fan.

So when he came to United when he was seventeen.

Yeah, I've been a big fan for like twenty three years.

So watching I know how competitive he is, and I'm like watching him fail is going to be an interesting Uh.

His team warned us, They're like, he doesn't in the end, like there was a way we kind of had a built in weakness he could exploit.

Yeah, and he did a pretty good job finding it.

But between you and me, Ja, we might have like we made sure there's a weakness.

You should just you just now, what you have to do is create robots that look like humans, that are designed like your email pro goalkeeper and sell them to these that's the next thing.

And you pull off selling an AI computer to Barcelona Real Madrid or that's a bang, right, So what's the creative process then?

Now you planned out that far ahead.

I love the idea you just gave me that we'll bleep up.

But what how how does that?

Obviously that one makes sense, and you're like, the thing about good ideas is when you hear them, you go, of course, but coming up with it is not that easy.

Yeah, I would say, and I don't have a good answer for this, no, But except to say because I get asked this a lot.

Right, It's like, I think it goes back to just like my brain is always on right.

The inspiration for ideas can come, you know, and and it's just from a conversation I'm having with someone, or I just read something on Reddit, or I'm driving down the free when I'm like, or I did this, you know for I'll give you two examples.

One, I did this obstacle course for squirrels in my backyard that's kind of popular on the channel right around COVID, and I was, you know, they were stealing my bird seed or so it's like all right, but they were stealing my bird seed.

So it's like, you know what, I'm gonna make them earn it.

So I made an eight part in Ninja Warrior Ops of course, and put the bird seed at the end, and sure enough they solved it.

It was very entertaining, but like the idea for that came for me just laying in bed and hearing them on the roof and knowing this my birthday, I was like, hold on, I just do like man versus Animal, Engineer versus Animal or another one.

I made this glitter Bomb series where like someone legitimately stole a package from my porch.

I felt really sad.

It was a sliding green shelled Super Mario Brothers.

It's stung.

And then I was like, hold on a second, like if anyone could do something about these porch pirate punks, It's like, I hope put a rover on Mars.

I could design something.

So then it's like four phones, cup of glitter, we track it, there's fart spray.

It's like a whole thing, right, And eventually that one took us all the way to we shut down like three scam call centers in India by tracking them down and glitter bombing them and doing all these other pranks and then putting that video out in the world.

It gets one hundred million views with like a bright spotlight and we shut them down.

So it's like, again, I couldn't have predicted you would land there.

Ye, if you just follow the natural steps, it just happens.

Is there a video that you did?

Could you throw it?

But you did it because you just had to put something out on you Like it's a terrible idea, but then it turned out to be amazing.

Yeah.

I did a video on bedbugs because I just thought, they're fascinating, like, what is up with bedbugs?

They like suck human blood and if you if you see bedbugs, they have to be fed like every three days.

If you see a bed bug in your house, that means they fed on you.

All they can eat is blood.

And so it's like there's just a lot about them that's fascinating.

And my team was like, this is going to kill the channel.

No one's gonna watch this, And I was just so curious about it, right, so I just went down the rabbit hole deep and it turned out to be, like, I think, an interesting piece of content that has like I think eighty million views a something.

Wow, that's so I think if you just approach it with curiosity and legitimately, like you know, I don't pre write my videos.

If I have an idea, I go learn about it, and then once we have the footage, it's like, all right, what's the story here?

Yeah?

And I think if you have the right attitude, there's always a really cool story to find.

Yeah.

Absolutely absolutely.

What's a question that you still don't have the answer to but you can't stop thinking about.

Do you ever get into that loop of like I wish I understood how this worked.

I don't know.

There's like kind of unanswerable questions like where is all the life in the unit?

Like if life exists here?

Especially if so NASA's there's a moon call and sell it us in our in our solar system that has a molten lava core and the outside is ice, right, water water, frozen water.

So somewhere between the molten lava core and that and that surface, there's a seventy degree ocean.

It's warm, it's water, it's that's where life form.

We know that's where life form on this planet.

So NASA's building a probe to go out there.

Essentially, we're gonna drill through the ice.

We're gonna put a submarine down there and basically see what eats it, right, and if if something is there for life to exist twice in our own solar system kind of independently, then it's like, where is all the rest of life in this huge, huge, huge universe?

Right, there's I think something like there's a million times more stars.

Then there are grains of sand on the whole planet, the bottom of the ocean.

I mean, think about the net.

The last time you picked up a handful of sand.

Every one of those sand pieces represents a million stars.

I'm talking bottom of the ocean.

How unfastable, completely unfamal.

It's unfathomable.

So but then like it's called Fermi's paradox, but there's a few hypotheses of like, well, then why don't we see other signs of life in the universe?

And it's a very fat If you want a fascinating rabbit hole, look up Fermi's paradox.

What if you learn so far is it that life form looks different?

We can't see it?

Is it?

Well, we don't know.

But like some of the hypothets, some of the hypotheses on why we don't know is like it could be there's like super predator civilization.

There's super predator organisms out there that as soon as you get past a certain point, then like, okay, now this is a problem.

We're going to go take care of these people.

So they extinguish life if it gets too high, because it could be a threat.

It could be.

Another one is like intelligence is get to a glass ceiling where they destroy themselves.

When you have the energy that can take you to interstell or to another system, well you could probably use that energy on yourself.

And you know when we a lot of organisms fight each other, and you know, that could be a pretty darn good thing for us to be looking at as a as a civilization ourselves.

Right, Like where you just get too hard and then it just it collapses in on itself is another hypothesis.

One is like they know about us, but it's we're kind of like an endangered species, like an unconfident tribe in the Amazon.

So they're like, sh just like leave alone.

We're like so basically in a zoo over here.

Right.

So there's all these like really fun hypotheses on what could be the explanation as to why.

So that's good.

Yeah, that's what keeps you up and night.

Yeah, I think it's a fun Those kinds of things are like fun to think about.

Yeah.

Absolutely, But next time you are near sand, truly think of me, Jay, take a scoop of that sand and just look at how many grains of sand that each one of those is a star with planets, Like the potential.

I don't know, that's just such a it breaks your brain, but it's such a beautiful thought of like the potential of life.

You've been to space yet, right, not yet Yeah, okaya.

No, Yeah, there's some plans on the horizon.

You'll go to space too, Like I think it's gonna come pretty commonplace.

Like you can get to Australian like I think ninety minutes through space.

So that's there's there's a financial incentive to travel quickly.

Yeah, absolutely, nineteen minutes to Australia from La Yeah.

Wow.

You basically just go up, go over fast and the Earth also moves a little bit and you come back down.

That's crazy, that's crazy nineteen minutes.

Yeah, we had someone done that yet.

No, but like that that's the math, right, I mean we don't have the ability southwest for space hasn't been invented, but like essentially that wherever there's like a lot of financial incentive to do a thing like innovation will be placed towards that.

Yeah.

So what do you get excited about with what's happening with technology with AI with discuss is there anything that you get super excited about right now?

And what do you get scared about on the other end or things you get worried about.

There's a famous sort of one of the early thinkers and this in twenty fifteen, I was talking with all my buddies about this about AI.

Nick Bostrom wrote this book about superintelligence and his the beginning analogy to the book is like, imagine there's some sparrows and they find the egg of an owl.

Just so you know, owls eat sparrows, right, so we're all clear.

Then they're like, hey, we're going to raise this owl.

We're gonna put raise them in our nest, and it's gonna love us, and then we can use the owl to like go hunt for us.

We're going to use the owl to do you know, all these things that will be really useful.

And you know, of course if you just carry that, if that actually happens, the owl is born thanks to the sparrows for incubating it.

But it doesn't end well with a sparrow.

That's a real concern.

I share that concern with like a lot of people.

That could be an outcome of AI.

I do think it the best case scenario, though I think there are some upsides where it's like it solves a lot of the scarcity thing, a lot of the wars and terrible things that have happened in you know, our history of civilization is a scarcity thing.

So if unlimited energy and resources and stuff and something that helps allocate those resources, that could be good.

Right, It could reduce human suffering a lot.

So I mean, nobody really knows, Jay, Like I don't know.

I'm curious where you like where you land on this.

The question I get a lot is do I think AI will ever have a soul?

And my response is, I don't know if AI will ever have a soul.

I just hope that people building it have a soul because ultimately, to me, it's the Frankenstein piece of anything we make becomes us, and there's a part of us that's within it.

And so if we're scared of an ability that humans have, then we'll be scared of the more, bigger, powerful thing that we create that has more of it in it.

And so to me, it's more about again, I think we've I think there's that beautiful statement by Mark Dwain where he said that history never repeats itself, but it always rhymes.

And I think we've had enough experiences in history with technology, Like let's take social media for example.

It started, we didn't really care about how it was going to affect us.

Everyone had it, and now we're talking about mental health kids, phones, not just social media phones technology early on in life, right, and it's like, we know that that's how everything goes.

So scare mongering doesn't work because AI's here to stay.

It's not disappearing tomorrow.

So trying to scare everyone from it is not going to help because it's going to be here.

So I don't love the fear factor piece because it doesn't solve the problem.

But the fear factor piece should lead us to being more informed and prepared for what do we do about it when?

So, for example, hindsight is twenty twenty.

If we could go back to two thousand and four when Facebook was created, and YouTube in twenty ten or two thousand and nine.

Yeah, I think they acquired it or something.

Yeah Google, Yeah, so yeah, yeah, so you have all of that and then.

But my point's like, if you could go back then and go, okay, let's make some guardrails.

Kids shouldn't be allowed a phone by this age, social media should have verified access.

I'm making up things right now, but the point is, how do you prepare for the things that to come?

Rather than go all right, we'll just deal with the whole fact that generations have mental health issues now and now we're dealing with the reactive way I think humans are.

We kind of set ourselves up for failure every time.

Yeah, I mean it's just so hard without the evidence right to convince someone at Facebook when money's to be made, right, Like I completely agree with you.

Yeah, but like there's just so many unknowns, unknowns.

Yeah, yeah, it's like how do you not how it's not about reducing innovation or doing something, it's how do we protect the vulnerable?

And so if we're saying that kids under a certain age are vulnerable to X y Z in the same way as you know, like cigarettes or alcohol or you know, whatever it is, it's like we agree, we all agree that until this point your brain has not developed yet.

What should we allow and not allow?

You know, Like kids are watching you having the best time ever, Like it's amazing.

I wish more people watching you, And but how do you regulate the things that are not doing what you're doing?

I would say though, Like I think for people listening, I think it could feel very doomsday.

You hear really scary things, and it's like, at the end of the day, it's such a life hack to just control what's in your sphere of influence.

Yeah, of course.

And it's like I think, you know, when I get like that and I get nervous, like, well, what can I do to move the needle in my own sphere of influence?

And you know, I'm not creating an AI company, so it's like it's a little bit out of my hands in that sense.

But it's like, well, I think you I mean, I was going to bring this up anyway, and it connects to what you're saying right now.

I mean, I know you and Jimmy have partnered multiple times and doing incredible things for our planet.

Yeah, which thank.

You for being just such.

You know, whenever people are like we made the right people famous, I'm like, yeah, we did.

Like you know, it's it's amazing to see you guys using your platform to do the thing that inspiring all these kids and families and parents, and it's all young people that following you know, both of you, and for you to galvanize, whether it's Kai and you know, all the guys who are in the space and all the biggest creators and celebrities jumping in and you know, I think this year you raised what forty million.

Forty million, Yeah, so the first year we did this is mister BC, right, we did Team Tree, so we did twenty million dollars to plant twenty million trees.

And then a few years later we did Team Water thirty.

Million dollars to cleaning up the beaches.

Thirty million pounds of trash from the oceans.

And then this year the audacious goal of forty million dollars to give two million people clean drinking water for decades, and we did it.

But what's the cool thing about that, Jay is the median donation was like five dollars.

It's amazing.

So that's that's tooth fairy money, that's big sale money.

Right.

There were some big donors in there, but like on average it was five dollars.

And what's so cool about that is then you know they're thinking like global citizens now, Like they could have spent that on five dollars on candy on Pokemon cards, but they spent it on someone else to get clean drinking water for five years again kind of planting seeds.

It's like someone who now thinks that way, who you know, picks up trash now because they see it because they're on Team Ce's right, they don't they don't litter.

They take care of the environment because they're on team trees like that that kind of impact.

This is why I love working with young people.

It's like it's the same thing with like going to another planet, like the trajectory you have.

In fact, there's motors we have on these on these on these spacecraft were call the mouse fart motors where it's like it's the tiniest little poof because that difference in trajectory ninety million miles away is the difference of hitting a planet and missing by one hundred million miles, right, So it's like the same might be like a sort of with life.

And this is why I love young folks.

Like the clay isn't hardened yet and so they're impressionable.

And at that age, I think we've evolved to think our parents are dumb, like that's so you leave the tribe like that's in our brain.

So to be a voice that can be there, to be like hey, you know, to guide in a way that even parents can't because they're willing to listen and to me is kind of a big responsibility and one that you know, I love opportunities to flex that muscle.

I love that.

Man, it's amazing.

It's incredible watching you both do it, and the fact that you keep taking on a bigger challenge every year and killing it.

Yeah, it's saying such a beautiful example.

It's awesome to see you know, you guys could be doing anything as well, and to see you both focus on meaningful challenges in the world and issues in the world and helping galvanize so many.

Yeah, that's it, galvanize a bunch of other creators.

I mean, at the end of the day, it only works because so many y.

Yeah, I mean, but you guys heading, No, for sure.

I love that you get everyone involved, but you need a couple of people of Spearhead and you guys do an amazing job of that.

So Mark, it's been amazing getting to know you more to Yeah, it's been I feel like I've I've laughed, I've nearly cried, I've definitely you definitely got me thinking and you definitely got me even just it's It's what I love is when you meet someone in this format where they're not on screen in their world and you totally have an infectious energy about the world and curiosity and science and like you got me excited, like I'm like I need to be I need to be reading more of what you're doing.

And that's the best feeling for me where I'm like, oh no, you live, you breathe it, you sleep it, it's it's who you are.

And then when someone's around you, it's like I'm inspired by everything you're fascinated by and it's you know, let as spark as you were saying, like lighting a fire.

Like I love to hear it.

My favorite thing.

I love that feeling.

I love giving that feeling to others.

So thank you for the time.

Yeah, Mark.

I end every episode of On Purpose with the final five.

We ask these every guest.

The questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum, So Mark Robert, these are your final five.

Question Number one is what's the best advice you've ever heard or received?

This too shall pass like, which is like it's it, it will get easier, but also you're not as good as if things are awesome, like it will come back down as well.

So the regression to me, I have to answer in like a sentence you.

That's fine, that's why.

Sentence question number two, what's the worst advice you ever had?

Or receive, like.

Don't go to bed angry, like you're just the idea, like go to bed, just go to bed.

You're an emotional mind frame, like let it pass with anything, not even with the partner, just like let it pass and hit it when you're not thinking with your lizard brain.

Yeah, yeah it's true.

Actually yeah it's And also sleep is good for you, So if you're gonna stay up angry, it's like probably not gonna help.

Question number three, What's something you learned recently that blew your mind?

That spider's legs are hydraulic, which is why I didn't know that.

This is why when they die they're curled up.

It's because there's no more pressure in the system.

Basically they put fluid into it.

So you can actually take a syringe and put into a spider's back and put air into it and their legs will open and expand.

Wow.

No, no, what's something you've recently learned about yourself?

Question number four that like.

If I'm having a thought that's not productive, like rumination or like perseverating on a thing, I want to think it away and you aren't.

Your thoughts like your mind is the sky, not the weather.

And if you just don't give it life like it'll pass.

Yeah, and you don't have to think about it, right, that's hard to do.

But like I mean, you know this with meditation, Like you know this better than anyone as an engineer.

I had to learn this, you know, on my own.

Yeah.

No, it's a beautiful thing to remember though that don't believe everything you think and your thoughts are not true.

And absolutely you're the sky not the clouds.

And yeah, no, beautiful.

Fifth and final question, we asked this that every guest who's ever been on the show, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be, Apart from buy crunch Labs.

For christ, Before you can share a piece of social media information that makes you angry, you have to explain what a reasonable, thoughtful person on the other side of that argument.

Would say, Oh, that's good.

And if you can do that and put that into the prompt, then you're allowed to hit share.

That's good.

I think that would solve like ninety nine percent of the world's problems.

I love that.

I was giving a presentation recently.

Kerry Washington invite me to speak at her Day of Unreasonable conversations, which is all about sparking better conversation.

And I had to do a presentation on how do we have healthier conversations online?

And there was a statistic I did some research that found that when people had to read before they retweet, it dropped shares by up to seventy percent.

Wow, because people don't read what they share, so you're going even one step further to comprehend and to actually understand a different perspective.

But even read before retweet, like it just dropped shares, you know.

And so yeah, I love your lawyer.

It's a great one.

It's a really really great one because yeah, it would change so much.

Mark, it has been amazing talking to you today.

For the two people who have never seen a Mark Robot video, make sure you go subscribe to Box Channels.

I am definitely getting some of the gifts for my crunch Labs.

I am definitely getting some of the crunch Labs for my niece and nephew this Christmas.

I think they're going to love it.

I can't wait.

And Mark, thank you for so much for how you show up your creativity coming on the show today and sharing so openly and vulnerably and I look forward to getting to know you better.

Man.

Thank you so much.

If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more, I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success, and the secret to genuinely loving what you do.

If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin episode is the one for you.

Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value, Like as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value.

That's the success comes when you say I like this enough for other people to see it.