MARK ROBER: If you're creative but lazy, please watch this...

Key Takeaway

Start with naive optimism and break big ideas into small steps. As Mark Rober learned from engineering: when you fail, don't internalize it as 'I'm a failure' - think like a video game player who dies and immediately wants to try again. The key is framing challenges as learning opportunities rather than personal shortcomings.

Episode Overview

Former NASA engineer turned YouTube educator Mark Rober shares his journey from Mars rover design to inspiring millions through science content. He discusses the engineering mindset, creative process, building successful businesses, and his mission to make science education engaging for young people.

Full Transcript

Transcript of MARK ROBER: If you're creative but lazy, please watch this... from On Purpose. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

What's the earliest childhood memory you have that you feel defines who you are today? Is there a a moment, a friend, an experience from school growing up that you're like that is why I am the way I am? [sighs] I think a defining moment, one that sticks out I feel like so my mom was Oh, out of the gate, you're getting me talking about my mom. Uh uh my mom was like had the biggest influence of on my life by a very comfortable margin. And she was like a stay-at-home mom.

Like she barely graduated high school. Um but she was just um so encouraging of us and like trying to turn us into like good humans. And so she would very she would encourage just being creative and like out of the box thinking and just um I remember one time you know and and she we did chores like as to raise a good human like we had a list of chores from the time I was 5 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 cuz I was like oh this is a thing I don't like this. So I was like well I should go I remember upstairs we had these swim goggles. So, I 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 5 years old. This is like 1986. And I just remember her reaction to that just like she laughed and she's just like, "No way." And like the encourage, she took a picture.

We have a family picture of it, right? And that's 24 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. Um that it just always stuck with me. And then you know just growing up you know if I took apart the remote control and I couldn't quite get it back together again like I didn't get in trouble for that. It was like oh what 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 and I feel today like that same feeling of like creating content and sharing with people and like getting that reaction of other people being like, "Oh man, why didn't I think of that?" Like I love hearing that cuz that means it was kind of obvious and you took things, you know, things especially if I do a build, if I can do it with junk you have lying around your house, that's so much better than just like all these a technical solution, right?

Yeah. And so that feeling of coming up with an idea, sharing with people, and getting feedback on it, it's just like it's kind of addictive. Yeah. 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? Um, so interesting story on that, Jay, which is that like um uh like 6 months before I made my first YouTube video, she passed away from ALS. Um, 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 72 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 educ 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 planters, right? And just nobody knows the measure of the full measure of their impact. And yeah, so I just think it's it's 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 and people across the world. So it's it's really beautiful like that's her version of 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 as someone who's my mom [sighs] who's who's still with us. But 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. 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 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 have such a big impact. And now YouTubers, right? Like now you like there are so many kids and parents that turn 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 madeup 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 got to start with an engineering degree. I'll give you that. Um, yeah. And from a good school? From a good school. Yeah. I did undergrad at BYU, 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, he shuts the door. NASA, this guy's a legend, invented like the rocker bogey system on the rover, and then you're 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 many in Yeah. I mean, they're like technical questions, right? Like, um, here's a good one. If you have a 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 ra lake?

Does it go up or down? And so it's 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. Right. Right. Right. Um and so then yeah, so I worked at NASA for a decade. Uh 10 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 to the ground and then also on the top deck of the rover. that 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 3,000 people all told like have a hand in creating something like the Mars rover. Wow. Yeah. But it's cool like to, you know, just be in the backyard, you know, and you see that one dot in the sky that has like the reddish tint, you know, so you know that one's Mars.

And you're just like, well, I've like I've touched something that's like on that planet and built it and it's it's still working 90 million miles away. And where are you based? Are 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? Uh like about 5,000 give or take. Wow. It's huge. 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 tests 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? I've heard that before. I've also heard like think like a rocket scientist. I'm like what does that mean? So me I in fact I have a um a toy company now Crunch Labs where you know basically it's like a really fun toy you get every month and you could the kids could put it together and it teaches the engineering principles what makes them work and on the 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 you're resilient because you know that 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 [clears throat] that 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 in his garage and doesn't care and is 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 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 rover? So essentially it's just like to go to, you know, we want it's good for humanity if we are a multilanetary species.

Uh 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? Turns out you can. Uh is there water there? Yeah, 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 let us learn the history of this planet um 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 how Earth even came about and formed 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. Um 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?

Yeah. Yeah, 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 are like always some and is water there currently flowing. Those kinds of questions are like really interesting with Mars. Yeah. The reason I'm mining it is for two reason 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. I'm like this is so cool. And 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 goal or 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 an 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 Grle. 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 a hundred million the first year. If I sell a apparel brand I have to make a million. Like I feel like we put these goals and objectives and you're actually saying well when we're going to Mars 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 16 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 lying to 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 you're, you know, a teenager or something is like, what do you love to do? Do you love to draw? Then 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 is just like whatever's 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 wanted I wanted to be my first job I wanted to do was to design uh play places at McDonald's, you know, like the ball pit things. I used to love those. I was like an architect of those. I remember I'd have all these drawings. All right, we're going to start with a ball pit. We're going to go to the Nets. And now Crunch Labs, which is this like actual place I have. It's like this Willy 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 can like take a picture. It's like the North Pole. Yeah. We have like fire like pistons that you slide down from. You're basically Santa. Yeah, that's right. Um Yeah. Like I'm like Willy Wonka for 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 if if something doesn't exist and you want it to exist, you could just will it into an existence. And what a superpower. Yeah. There's this uh there's this amazing I mean, this is to I'm going totally the opposite way, but it you're reminding me of something beautiful. There's this uh 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 Vadic history called Vishra Karma who's the architect of the gods.

So he builds flying palaces and flying cities and but he visualizes it all in his head before it becomes manifest. Yeah. And it's that same idea of just like we But you know what's 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 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 juxosition and imagery. Like that was always my I loved that. It's always been a passion of mine and my family encouraged it. It was a good hobby, but it's 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 the when you're making content to encourage people to live their passion but be pragmatic and what does that look like?

Because you you've kind of pursued so many things. I mean, I think it's a yes and situation, right? For example, for me, like I worked at NASA for a decade, then I worked at Apple for 5 years doing product design. I didn't quit Apple till I had 10 million YouTube subscribers. So, like this idea of like I had to choose one or the other, right? Uh 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 and that isn't always the case but I think there's a lot of situations there's a middle of that ven diagram where it's like you do the passion and pursue it as much as you possibly can while also having the real job right um 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 going to really go for it and then they land but that's also you know The scientist in me wants to say, well, there's survivorship bias, so you only hear the stories of the ones that worked.

And for the one that does, there's a thousand that don't. So, um, 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 their passion is. So, I think it's a very healthy like, you know, yin and yang there. I I I I don't fault parents for saying that. I think there's a lot of times you could still pursue the thing.

You you pursue both. Yeah, I'd agree with you. So, my life's the same story and 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 and it become and it actually proves to you as an individual whether you really love it.

You're doing your evenings. You're doing it in 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." 100%. Like, and when I started YouTube, like in 2011, no one knew you could like make money off of it. You know what I mean? It was like you just did it really as 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? Um, 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. Wait, how do you go from NASA to a Halloween costume? 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 call, it looks like you have a hole in your body.

So, you w you wave your hand in the front and the camera in the back shows it and that's cool. Again, it felt like being 5 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 I my life goal was to be on the Gizmodo, which is like an old tech blog. Yeah. Yeah, I remember it. And so I made it on the cover of Gizmodo 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 14 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. Um, how did you get that outfit on the cover of Gizmodo? Well, the the 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 all these outlets covered, including Gizmodo.

Got it. From there, the the one complaint was that, "Cool idea, bro, but I don't have $1,200 for Halloween costume, two iPads, right?" And so, I was like, "All right." So, I came up with an idea for next year where there's like a a design printed on the shirt, like a 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 of an eyeball that moved around, your eye would have worked great, Jay.

Then all you had a really cool Halloween costume for like the price of a t-shirt. Yeah. Called Digital Dud. So, I launched that company nights and weekends working all week while making YouTube videos and uh while working at NASA and it 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 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 had 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 8 hours and then Yeah. So, very meandering. 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, "I've had this incredible idea. I want to 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 who'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 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 well 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. walk us through the engineering design process for anyone who doesn't know what that is. Like break that down for us. Make it simple. But I think the idea it's just like you you have an end goal, an objective and break it down into the steps and know what you don't know and and test what you don't know is kind of like, you know, g get your give your best shot at it. you kind of in 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 the the wheel for the Mars rover.

I think it needs to probably look like this. I'm going to design it in CAD. I'm going to 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 Mars. So I think it's this idea of like building iteratively and and 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 that we call that a failure in others outside of engineering but we embrace that and it's like great now we know now let's tweak it and we're going to 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 [snorts] 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 say Super Mario Brothers or something and thinks I'm I'm a failure like ah how embarrassing I'm terrible at video games no you're immediately like oh Shoot, what did I just learn from that?

Now I'm going to jump a little faster. I'm going to run a little faster. Jump a little. You're excited to try again, right? So just the framing of it, it turns from fear to curiosity where like you want to get up and try it again. So if it's like and you know you ask 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 a video where um I made a soccer goalie robot that goes back and forth at like 80 miles an hour and then Cristiano Ronaldo tried to score on it, right? It took us like a year to build. So, we track the ball and in the first 6 milliseconds when the ball has gone from like here to here, I 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, he's there's no way he can score. It's way too fast from the penalty kick area. He kicks at 80 miles an hour and the robots just like just goes and it stops. 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 polyiana 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. And I love the video game analogy because you're so right.

you you die and even though it says game over, you don't feel that way. No. You're like next next, 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. Yeah. And you don't care. No. And whereas if someone says game over in real life or 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 it 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. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And then they just learned and iterated and overcame. It's the same thing you said with companies. Like no Fortune 100 company today started out doing what they do now.

They've pivoted 15 times, right? Yeah. And I So I think it's this ability to just like not internalize what it says about you. Um, 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 game. It sucks to miss that key jump on level 81 on Super Mario Brothers with the little platform, but it's like, dang it, we're going back because you're focused on the end goal. You're focused on what that would feel like, not the pits and the mistakes.

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It's designed to boost your mood, support your focus, and give you natural energy all without the crush. Get your daily mood boost with Juny at Whole Foods Market or head to drinkjuny.com to find a store near you. What's [snorts] 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 with my wife um for you know I'm pretty private with my private life for like reasons and stuff but um and I was like really cautious to get out and like date again.

It just it took me a year to even like start. Um, and I don't know, it felt like I was just very protective. Like I didn't I wanted if I was going to 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? Um, and so like I never I I just wasn't I was being 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 um 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 an 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' I'd never felt it my whole life.

Um [snorts] and so taking a beat after that was like I think it was hard. That was like a really really difficult period for me. Um, but then I honestly eventually I came around to this Super Mario thing and I'm like, you know what? Like it's just a number. Like I just got to put in the reps. I got to like put the work in. And so I did that and then again failed. I did like I was like I'm going to in 30 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 gonna go on 30 FaceTime dates in 30 days and just like 20 minutes just to get a feel cuz 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 were like amazing, accomplished, attractive, lovely human beings, lovely women, right? And I felt nothing and I [clears throat] 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 a like half hour in like yep this is it like and it feels like coming home. It's like when you find the right person it feels like home. It's just like um Yeah. And it's just like no reservations and like we're both the same way and she had the same wonderful man. Yeah. and you met her and she's had the same experience where she just never felt like she had found it and immediately was just like this is it cool done close the spreadsheet delete it.

So you did engineer your way to love I did engineer my which is because she's the opposite. She's more like you Jay and she just puts it out to the universe. So she's the uh she's the dreamer and I'm the thinker. Yeah. And we each try and take credit for us getting together. She's like look I put it out to the univer. I'm like no I put in the work. even the work. Yeah. No, I love that. I mean, to me, I I mean, I'm I'm actually people know less about I'm I'm a bit of both as well.

There's a there's a 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 30 FaceTime calls and 30 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 immersion weekends all the time where I'll literally obsess over something for 48 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. Genius. 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. Dominate it. And if 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 in. Dabbling. Yeah. What's an example? I'm going to turn the tables on you. What's the last thing you did like that?

Like an immersion weekend. The immersion weekend. Yeah. Like I I'll be honest with I just did it this weekend. It was acting. So 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 in my work. And I've spent a lot of time on movie sets, but I've never been the person doing it. And 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 I had an acting coach. I was with them for 3 hours a day. 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.

Best case, I'm going to love it and it's going to open up new opportunities. I loved it. I had a great time. 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 actor's objectives were and what their tactic is and what their motive is. It was fascinating. Really. 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. I It's like you have to um Yeah. Putting yourself in the shoes of the person like I don't even know what to do with like my face. It's like if I'm supposed to be sad that I really want to just like Yeah.

You know, pout my lip and it's like apparently that's not what you're supposed to do. But that that's what was so that was what was so fascinating about it and I think we're both talking about this idea of learning something deeply was when you're sitting down with a professional the way they talk about it and he was talking about like the Stannislav method and the check off method and there's all these there's there's systems of why the best 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 he was just like there's this method where it's called to act as if so you can't relate to what character is going through, but you have something that happened in your life that makes you feel that way that the character's 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 recent. 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. Hate 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 and you don't even know what's happening, right? So, we're taking all the learnings we've taken from that like cuz kids can watch or people can just watch whatever they want to on YouTube if they choose to watch this and we're making a full science curriculum. That's amazing. Third to eighth grade. It involves, you know, it has my fellow YouTube friends. You know, I just got Cristiano Ronaldo and we're filming him. 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 do in class, everything. And then it's gonna cost about it's gonna cost us about like $55 million to make and they would make it free forever for all. Where will it 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 aderes 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 what I've learned to do on YouTube is getting their attention. So 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 10 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 invisible magnetic fields all around us that exist. Yeah. Right.

And now 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. Wow. And it's going to cost it's going to take us like 3 years. Why is it going to cost you $55 million? It's it's a huge undertaking. There's like 46 different units. Like it's science. It's it's all sixth through 8th grade science and then also third grade through through fifth grade.

So, and you were funding it. Yeah. And uh I mean Yes. And there are already some generous people who are coming out and helping it fund. But like regardless, I was we started funding its anyways with the profits we had from Crunch Labs. So we're going to announce that at the TED talk and like that I really want to nail that presentation. So I'm happy to help, man. If you need any help. I was lucky. My parents forced me to go to public speaking and drama school when I was 11.

Oh, really? So all all my stage speaking skills from having studied it for seven years, eight years. And so yeah, you're a master. One of my favorite. Okay. Yeah. I'll I'll record the rehearsal and I'll send it to you. Yeah. Yeah. happy. I mean, they have pros there. Obviously, Ted have such a great script and a great pro speaking team. They're not J Shetty, though. That's going to be No, that's going to be amazing, man. I'm excited to see that. I'm pretty stoked. I like 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." No, like I crave it, Jay. Like I also like uh I started like going to the gym two 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 of 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 I mean a lot of studies have showed if you get a huge raise and then and then your salary is flat for 10 years versus incrementally go up to that 10 year like you're much happier. You have way more dopamine to 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 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, 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. I I there's been studies that look at like successful mid-range companies or companies worth say 50 to $500 million or something or even 10 to $500 million. 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 10x 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 worked at Google I knew he had a very analyical brain and I said hey I'm thinking about starting this company Crunch Labs you know make me a model financial model to to see if it works and he did and educated 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 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 to help you. Yeah. 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, you it's all your creativity. I was like, "You have no idea how much time." Because I said to him when I met him, 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 I that's 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 so I think knowing that and owning that like is a key to staying happy and honestly fighting burnout. I think a lot of times when people feel burnt out in a creative endeavor, it's because they lost sight of what got them in it in the first place and they're managing 15 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, cuz you're not doing what you started doing." Yeah. Yeah. What did you learn at what did you learn at Apple that you didn't learn at NASA? Um Apple I would say like NASA I feel like had a very a lot of smart people. at Apple, you had to be pretty smart, but a very good communicator, which is like a I I just keyed in on this. And communication and 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 an okay engineer, Jay, but I'm a pretty damn good storyteller.

Like, and in the videos, you're telling stories, right? like this video with Cristiano Ronaldo he said with the goalie robot going back and forth like it starts out like you know this was 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 prowess I'm going to do with my brain so now I'm going to make this cool right you like 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 explaining ideas and you know that's what really makes us special as a species ability to cooperate on large scale and we do that through telling stories right that's we we've evolved to tell stories long before you could write stuff down we communicated through telling stories and making somebody feel something yes that's the exact 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 your your child or friend will accept your apology, right? Like like um it'll help you. Yeah. Just personal life, business, anything by tapping into the ability and owning the ability of like I need to say this in a way that connects heart to heart, not brainto brain. Whereas it, you know, NASA was like, well, you know, our rover is 20% faster on the gigahertz.

And it's like nobody cares, right? Apple, I feel like, is a very good example of this, right? Like AirPods is an example. Like the the advertisements for AirPod, they're just technically they're just better than any other head, you know? Yes. There any like ear in-ear 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 tech spec 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 AirPods. Just for the Air. It's like $50 billion. Wow. Market cap just for the AirPods. It's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. It's such a hearing you say that is is fascinating because Yeah. I read a study years ago. It was early days, but New York Times did a study on 7,000 piece of viral content. And the output was the 7,000 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. Yep. Anger. 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're all feelings like, and I always share that with people because I'm like, your content is 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 if and it's 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 design and everything. But if I'm like, I'm going to teach you engineering. Now, I'm not I'm feeling bored 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,000 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?

We can't our passion was like we love this, right? Um I thought it was going to be I thought I was going to because I was a consultant at the time. So I was at Accenture. Oh, really? Yeah. I thought I was going to be a consultant by day and just 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 would teach at my local gym.

I would teach at my local college. I'd whatever." And I loved it, but I was like, "Oh, I'd like to share that with more people. I'll just upload some videos." And yeah, I had no idea that any of this would ever happen. So, and yeah, we started I started 2016, you started 2011. Yeah. But ultimately 20 I mean like to your point like it takes forever to get a thousand subscribers. And so I think the 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. Yeah. 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 and iterated. And so it's the same thing with like creating content or making thing or trying anything like set a low bar.

You know, I like to say like make your goal to to fail 10 times. Like flip it. make the goal like I want to make 10 videos and my goal is that they don't get more than a 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 met like dstigmatize 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 10 videos in 10 weeks that's my goal I don't care about metrics I don't care about views and you will learned 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. So now I'm going to lean into that, right? So it's like just gify it in that sense and it it will be great. Don't do it to be merch or 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 50 was the most I'd ever had in my own live events. I thought a thousand subscribers this is insane. And I remember saying it 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 it to them not to me because they were just like oh it's a thousand like I guess it's going to you know net 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 but a thousand to me was a huge win. What's the difference between getting from a th000 to 100,000 like what is changing in skill set mindset ability? You start to get like a process down.

You start to be able to um figure out your own voice. I think like from about 10,000 to 100,000 subscribers, you start to understand who you are, you know. And a good place to start, by the way, is 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 were make, you know, how did you stay true to was it just that your creative vision was so big that you could only ever do one a month. Partly that and just like again I I wasn't doing it to chase the views and you're absolutely right.

There was a time in the YouTube algorithm where daily vlogs is how you got all the views. Totally. 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 I you know I've got a nice comfortable jogging pace on my treadmill and I'm going to stick with that.

Um, 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 cuz 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 I I will not fail. Like I don't know at some point if it's not working you need to pivot and I do but it's like I just get so obsessed with accomplishing the thing that um I can just exclude everything else.

So I I'm I don't have this temptation of like and I try this and I would try this and now you're just diluted across the board, right? Cuz that applies not even for business but in your relationships, right? In life if 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 than to spread that thin across 50. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's a 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 got to stick to that and and it and it does make all the difference. And you got to know when to let something go. Like the 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 keeping keep doing something because the algorithm wants it. That's right. And and it doesn't that that gets really dry to it. It it gets really tiring, I think, and creators get burned 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 pace, that's exciting at first and it's like, whoa, 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, to the extent that you could just like keep your treadmill at a jogging speed in creating and in life, I think like that's that's the power of saying no.

Yeah. And being okay with saying no and not feeling guilty about it. What was the uh I'm looking at your most popular videos and obviously world's largest jello pool. Can you swim in jello? 203 million views six years ago. That video, what went wrong trying to get that video? I lost 10 lbs 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 Jell-O No one's ever done this on the internet, by the way.

To this day, I'm the only person who ever made like an actual Jell-O pool because Jell-O, 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, 55gallon drums that we boiled Jell-O in, basically drained it in this pool that we we'd built and then he lived in Utah, so it was like the perfect temperature. It didn't freeze overnight, but got cold enough.

And so it took a full week and it failed eight different ways and we'd have to tweak and 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 jell-o and like me swimming in it. And uh it felt really good. That's like a actually a 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 What was the hidden vegetable in the egg drop from space video? 140 million views 2 years ago. Like 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 a a basically a model rocket on a 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 30,000 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 another 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 a hundred people in the United States who know how to do that, and they've all signed a very large stack 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 100,000 ft up, you know, basically to space, dropped this thing, and then we landed at like the Mars rover." So, in that video, we learned about terminal velocity, and we learned about like space environments, but kids know about I love how you were bugging a NASA friend who'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 of friend.

[clears throat] You're like, "Can you teach me how to drop an egg?" Yeah. On a 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 or 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 looked forward to getting to know and you've got to meet.

Yeah, I would say I don't know weirdly like a 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 on the show and his staff was like after like one or two times going on 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 like me and so now he's like uh he it was his idea even to start Crunch Labs the company cuz people would 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 kid of saying know, it always came back to like, oh, so you can make more money.

It'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 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 them every month. And he was totally right. like the amount 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. Great Christmas present. Yeah, I was about to say it's uh No, it sounds like the perfect gift. I mean, I' I think I'll have to I'm going to get some for my niece and nephew. Okay. Yeah, I think I think they'll love it because my my I can see my nephew's like 10 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. Uh my niece is more into like Gabby's dollhouse and stuff. Well, the good news, Jay, it's funny you mentioned that. We just No. Have you got a Gabby's dollhouse, man? More or less. We 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 [snorts] a version called creative kit that it's like six years old and 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 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, "Draw, draw an 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's a treehouse, but then you name it's a little animals friend that comes with it, and then we're getting them within guidelines to think really creatively. And and what this research shows, you could watch these alpha brain waves in your 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. Did 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.

Um 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 ever done this. Have 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 or branches kind of feel like they're at the same plane because with one eye you don't have three-dimensional you know 3D but when you open both eyes 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 remarkable and it's just it's immediately just like a a teachable moment that shows like oh like our brain because the right eye is a little bit different from what the left eye sees.

The brain does all this incredible math to tell you how far and close something is. And just to 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 can 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 perception but now they can avoid the thing that has three dimensions that's trying to get them right.

So this like idea like when you just learn something cool like that uh 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 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. [clears throat] Truly. Like I think the 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 what? Why? Why is that pipe there? Like I've never seen a build a pipe come out there on a building.

And it'll drive me crazy to be honest and I like have to figure it out. But the step one with the scientific method two 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. Yes. 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 like what I can do is I can like I can I'm a fire starter. I'll start that fire in their brain and then they get addicted to this feeling, right? I'm like the gateway drug dealer to 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 lifelong. How do you how do you come up with creative ideas having made a video a month for 10 years? Yeah. How are you coming up with new ideas? How 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. I love that. Is that not so good? Why do I have to believe that? I love that. No, because I don't want someone to steal it. Oh, right. Oh, yes. It's such a simple thing. I could tell you it. You're like, banger. Want to know what that is, right? That is amazing. This is so good. That's so good. So, it's just like when when I can get that reaction like I the ideas list is long. I always thought you'd run out of ideas, but it's like I always It has to be a hell yes.

And but I I always tend to have like a year and a half worth of ideas. So like we have every single video we're making in 2026 already like planned out and in process. So you're never trying to react to what's happening in the world or you're not yours is evergreen content. Evergreen never. I want it to be evergreen. Yeah. 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 now. We can't.

I mean, all the videos now cost We don't do a video that costs less than half a million dollars. Wow. Every video is $500. Yeah. Because we just like, you know, we're doing stuff that's never been done before. So, there's like a lot of R&D that goes into making a soccer robot that moves at 80 miles an hour. That's That's probably the best goalkeeper that Ronaldo's ever faced in. For sure it is. Yeah. That's crazy. I I can't wait to see that video. It's funny. He's very competitive.

Of course. I have obsessed over Ronaldo since I was 15 years old because I I was a United fan. So when he came to United when he was 17, I've been a big fan for like 23 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 that we kind of had a a built-in weakness he could exploit. Yeah. And he did a pretty good job finding it, but between you and me, Jay, we might have like we we made sure there was a weakness.

You should just you just now all you have to do is create robots that look like humans that are designed like your 80 mile per hour goalkeeper and sell them to these teams. That's the next thing. Can you pull off selling an AI computer to Barcelona or Real Madrid or That's a banger idea. That would be that would be amazing. So, but okay. So, what 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 out.

What? How? How does that obviously that one makes sense and you're like the 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 I don't have a good answer for this except ex No, but except to say because I get asked this a lot, right? Is like I think it goes back to just like my brain is always on, right? it. 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 freeway and I'm like, "Hold on." Or I did this, you know, for I'll give you two examples.

One, I did this um 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 seeder. So, it's like, all right. But they were stealing my bird seed. So, I was like, you know what? I'm going to make them earn it. So, I I made an eight-part Ninja Warrior obstacle course and put the bird seed at the end. And sure enough, like they solved it. It was very entertaining. But like the idea for that came from me just laying in bed.

Yeah. And hearing them on the roof and knowing there's still my birthday. I was like, "Hold on, I should do like man versus 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 shell in Super Mario Brothers. It 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'll 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? Yeah. 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 glitterbombing them and doing all these other pranks and then putting that video out in the world. It gets 100 million views with like a bright spotlight and and we shut them down. So it's like again I couldn't have predicted you would land there but if you just follow the natural steps it just happens.

Was there a video that you did cuz you thought but you did it because you just had to put something out and you're like it's a terrible idea but then it turned out to be amazing. Yeah I did a video on bed bugs cuz I just thought they're fascinating. Like what is up with bed bugs? They like suck human blood. And if you if you see bed bugs 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 going to 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 80 million views or 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 the 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 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 univer like if life exists here especially if so NASA's there's a moon called Enceladus in our in our solar system that has a a molten lava core and the outside is ice right water frozen water.

So somewhere between the molten lava core and that and that surface there's a 70° ocean. It's warm. It's water. It's that's where life formed. We know that's where life formed on this planet. So NASA's building a probe to go out there essentially. We're going to drill through the ice. We're going to 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 [clears throat] think something like there's a million times more stars than there are grains of sand on the whole planet. The bottom of the ocean. I mean, think about the next 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 unfathomable. That's bizarre. That is completely unfathomable. It's unfathomable. So, but then like it's called Ferm'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 f if if you want a fascinating rabbit hole, look up Ferm's paradox.

Yeah. What what have you learned so far? We just Is it that life form looks different? We can't see it. Is it Well, we don't know. But like some of the hypotheses on why we don't know is like it could be um there's like super predator civilization. There's super predator um 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 intelligences get to a glass ceiling where they destroy themselves. When you have the energy that can take you to interstellar 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 uncont tribe in the Amazon. So they're like sh just like leave them 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. That's what keeps you up at night. Yeah. I think it's a fun those kind of things are like fun to think about, right? Yeah. 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 of life. You've not been to space yet, right? Not yet. Not yet. Okay. Yeah. Not yet. There's some plans on the horizon. Yeah. Yeah. You'll go to space, too. Like I think it's going to come pretty common place. Like you can get to Australia in like I think 90 minutes through space. So then that's there's a there's a financial incentive to travel quickly.

To travel quickly. Yeah. Absolutely. 90 minutes to Australia from LA. Yeah. [clears throat] 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. 90 minutes. Yeah. Wow. Has someone done that yet? Uh, 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 southwest for essentially that right wherever there's like a lot of financial incentive to do a thing like innovation will be placed towards that so what do you get excited about with what's happening with technology with AI with disc 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 2015 I was talking with all my buddies about this about AI.

Nick Bostonramm wrote this book about super intelligence. And his 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? Just so we're all clear. And they're like, "Hey, we're going to raise this owl. We're going to put raise them in our nest and it's going to love us and then we'll 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 for the 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 the 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 if unlimited energy and resources and stuff and and something that helps allocate those resources that 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 where you land on this. I 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 the 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 Dwayne 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 scaremongering doesn't work because AI is 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 2020 if we could go back to 2004 when Facebook was created and YouTube in 2010 or 2009.

Yeah they acquired it in 2008 or something. Yeah. Google. Yeah. 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. Uh social media should have verified access. I don't know. 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 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 where money's to be made, right? Like I mean, I completely agree with you. Yeah. But like there's just so many unknowns unknowns. Um Yeah. Yeah. It's like how do you not how it's 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 XYZ 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 they're having the best time ever like it's amazing I wish more people were 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 day 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 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 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 to do incredible things for our planet, 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 young, it's all young people that are 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 40 million 40 million so the first year we did this is Mr. and I right. We did team trees. So we did 20 million dollars to plant 20 million trees and then a few years later we did team water $30 million to that was cleaning up the beaches. 30 million pounds of trash from the oceans and then this year we the audacious goal of $40 million to give 2 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 $5. That'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 $5. 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 $5 on candy on Pokemon cards, but they spent it on someone else to get clean drinking water for 5 years. Again, kind of planting seeds like someone who now thinks that way, who, you know, picks up trash now cuz they see it cuz they're on team C's, right?

They don't they don't litter. they 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. We call them mouse fart motors where it's like it's the tiniest little poof because that difference in trajectory 90 million miles away is the difference of hitting a planet and missing by 100 million miles.

Right? So it's like the same idea like is sort of with life. This is why I love young folks like the 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 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 is is amazing. And yeah, setting 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 cuz so many join, but I mean, but you guys No, for sure.

I love that you get everyone involved, but you need a couple of people to spearhead it, and you guys do an amazing job at that. So, Mark, it's been amazing getting to know you more, too. been it's been I feel like I've I've laughed. I've nearly cried. I've uh I've defin 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 re I need to be reading more of what you're doing and 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, lit a spark as you were saying like lighting a fire like it done for me.

That's my favorite thing. I love that feeling. I love giving that feeling to others. So, thank you for the time. Yeah, Mark, I I end every episode of OnPurpose with a final five. We ask these to every guest. The questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum. So, Mark Robber, 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 you're if things are awesome like it will come back down as well.

So, [snorts] the regression to the mean. I have to answer in like a sentence. You said that's fine. That's fine. That's Yeah. Sentence. Question number two. What's the worst advice you ever heard or received? [sighs and gasps] 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 like and and also sleep is good for you. So if you're going to stay up angry, it's like probably not going to 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. Yeah. 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 it into a spider's back and put air into it and their legs will open and expand.

Oh wow. Wow. More. You know, Jay, 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 proverating 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 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. Yeah. No, it's 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. Yeah. No. Beautiful. Uh fifth and final question. We ask this to 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? Um, apart from buy crunch labs for Christmas.

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 like I think that would solve like 99% of the world's problems. I love that. I I was giving a presentation recently. Um Kerry Washington invited 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 70%. Wow. [sighs] 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 law. It's a great one.

It's a really really great one because yeah, it would it would change so much. Mark, it has been amazing talking to you today. For the two people who have never seen a Mark Robber video, make sure you go subscribe to Mark's channels. Uh, I am definitely getting uh some of the gifts for my Crunch. Yeah, Crunch Labs. I'm 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 uh Mark, thank you for so much for how you show up, your creativity, uh coming on the show today and sharing so openly and vulnerably.

And uh I look forward to getting to know you better, man. Thank you so much for having me, J. This is awesome. Thank you. 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's 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