Yesterday was July 4th for me, America day, hooray.
My July 4th was fine, I mean Los Angeles fireworks
are super illegal, but nobody cares,
they just set them off all over the place anyways,
it's like a war zone.
We found these guys setting off huge fireworks
so we went and just filmed them for a little bit.
As soon as they started setting off fireworks,
this guy comes out of his house and he's yelling.
He's like, "My kid's trying to sleep and my wife is pissed.
"Can't you guys go somewhere else?
"I've already asked you guys."
And then the kids were like,
"Hey it's July 4th and why are you talking to us like this?"
I thought a fight was gonna break out so of course
I start pulling out my phone and getting ready
to say, "World star."
- No (bleep) you man.
- But after they yelled at each other for a few minutes
the guy goes back in his house and the kids
thought it would be funny to set off one more
firework before they leave.
So they light one off and it's one of those series
where it shoots off multiple mortars one after another.
One goes off in the air, and then the whole thing
tips over and it just starts shooting at everybody.
Oh my God.
That is going sideways!
Holy (bleep) watch out you guys!
Oh no, that's not good.
Holy (bleep).
(laughter)
Oh my God, that was not good.
Happy America day, I had a blast.
Little bit too much fun.
Today was a rough recovery day but I'm feeling better
now that it's seven PM.
So that's what we're talking about,
productivity and being a freelance filmmaker,
or freelance whatever you do.
I've been a freelance filmmaker for over 10 years
and there's a lot of pros and cons to it.
I think there's a lot of fantasization,
is that a word?
Fantasization.
I love freelance, but sometimes I hate it and it's
definitely not really cut out for everybody.
One thing people like about it is that you don't
have a boss.
But technically you don't have a boss in most cases,
but a lot of times you have clients,
and they're basically just like a boss.
They sign your check so you kind of have to do
whatever they say.
So it's not like everybody that's in freelance
just gets set free like a bird and just go fly
do your thing.
That is one thing I love about YouTube is that
there's just me, I edit the video, I post it,
and it goes straight to you guys,
so that's awesome.
But aside from YouTube I think pretty much every
one of my jobs there's a client or there's a brand
or there's somebody that we're trying to please.
Another thing that's attractive about it is that
you're on your own schedule, sort of.
You don't really have to wake up at a certain time,
be somewhere at a certain time,
you kind of design your own workdays.
And there's this pretty funny saying I heard which was
people work 80 hours a week so they don't have to
work 40 hours a week.
And it's actually kind of true.
It's pretty hard to disconnect because there's
always something to do.
There's no check in, check out time,
you just kind of go and work and if there's no work
then you're usually looking for work.
It could be never ending so it's really important
to be efficient with the time you put in and then
try to disconnect a little bit or else you're gonna
get swamped.
I think the thing that scares off most people from
freelance is the stability, you have none.
I rarely know what I'm doing more than two weeks
in advance.
I could pretty much be jobless in two weeks
and that's just the state of mind I've been living in.
If you're in a salary career you have a job
until you get fired.
In freelance you're always fired,
you just sometimes get jobs to last you
a little bit longer.
So that's a never ending hustle.
There's also a lot of bull (bleep) that comes
with freelance.
You're kind of at the bottom of the list on
who they pay first.
If you're an employee of a lot of labor laws
protecting you you generally know when you're
gonna get paid, how much you're gonna get paid,
and it's pretty consistent.
Companies will first pay their CEOs out,
pay all their employees, then they'll pay their electric
bill and their phone bills and the internet
and all that stuff and at the very end it's kind of
like the contractors.
I've worked with pretty big brands and you have
no idea how much I've struggled with constantly
following up, "Hey, it's been like four months,
"I haven't received my check yet."
It's kind of like an uncomfortable thing,
I don't like doing it, I don't really love negotiations,
I don't really love talking about money so much.
I'd rather just do the work and get paid for it
and then be like done, what's next.
I did a commercial job and they were supposed to pay
$6,500 for a series of videos.
We finished the job, they loved it,
we sent them the invoice, 60 days later we're like,
"Hey, so we still haven't gotten paid off this."
And they're like, "Oh we'll pay in 90 days."
90 days went by, we had to get lawyers and all this
stuff involved, we never got paid for it.
Which really sucks because we put in a lot of time,
effort, we hired people, we spent money out of our
own pockets to pay for this shoot and we were
supposed to recoup all of our expenses from the paycheck
which never came.
So not only did we waste a lot of time,
we also spent money doing a job for somebody else and
bull (bleep).
You've got to be ready to deal with that.
But I think one of the hardest parts that's often
overlooked is staying motivated.
I think if you have an office and a time to be
at that office it's a lot easier to wake up
in the morning, get ready, and show up.
But as freelance a lot of times I'll wake up and be like,
"I could get up and get my day started,
"or I can start watching YouTube videos."
And I'll spend like an hour and a half like that
before I'm like,
"Okay, now I guess I should really get started."
The only reason why you guys probably think I have
so much energy is because every time I go on camera
I just get jacked up off coffee right before I shoot.
The first few years was the hardest in terms of
the amount of work and the amount of hours I had to put in.
But it was the easiest to just be motivated
to go and do it.
I'm 11 years into being a freelance filmmaker,
the sparkles shininess of the whole freelance
filmmaker lifestyle, it kind of wears off a little bit.
It's kind of like a relationship, you know?
When you first get into any relationship it's like
the most exciting thing ever, and then after that
kind of shininess wears off,
then that's when a real relationship happens
and I feel like I'm in a relationship with my career.
Taking my camera, going out and filming and
talking to you guys,
I love doing it, but I also love taking naps.
And I think the biggest thing that keeps me focused
and motivated like that is setting clear goals.
And I know we've all heard that before and
we all have goals, right?
But I'm talking about taking a main goal
and then breaking it down into a bunch of little steps
and things that you can actually take action on
right away.
And this list I keep on my phone and I look at it
every single day and I kind of treat it like
it's my boss telling me what to do.
'Cause one thing I noticed is you can spend all day
generally doing things that you think are good
for your career and then at the end of the day
you'll be like, "I actually got very little progress done."
So I keep the list on my phone and I try to look at it
every day and I kind of use that as like my guide,
like if it was my boss telling me what to do
and just saying, "Let's focus on these things
"and get (bleep) done."
I think new years resolutions is a really awesome thing
but a lot of times they're kind of stupid.
Do you guys remember what your resolutions were
six months ago, I almost knocked over my laptop.
The problem with new years resolutions is that
they're too generic and they're too broad and they're
kind of like long term goals, but without enough focus.
Everyone comes up with these broad, generic goals
and then two months in they're like,
"I can't even remember what my goals were."
But hey we just entered July,
this is the half way mark, you've got six months left
so I'm gonna come up with six goals and I'm gonna
tell you guys what they are so you guys can hold
me accountable to it.
And you guys should do the same.
Come up with some goals and then figure out
the steps required to achieve those goals
and then put it out there.
Tell your friends, tell your family.
Six goals, one goal a month, put it in the comments below.
And in six months I'll probably show up at your door
and be like, "Hey so, about those goals."
Originally my goal at the beginning of the year
was to get 100,000 YouTube subscribers,
but that's not necessarily something that you have
a ton of control over.
But yeah, I mean every time you upload a video
you're kind of working towards that 100,000 subscriber mark,
but it's also tougher to control because sometimes
you think a video is gonna do really well, it doesn't.
Then sometime you'll upload a video like whatever,
and then they explode.
So I'm gonna set my goal at 100 uploads.
That is something that I have control over.
And if I don't hit 100 videos, then I am the only person
I can blame for it.
I currently have 69, that is a great number.
Please don't demonetize.
I have 31 more videos to upload and I have about
180 days to do it.
So I have to upload just over five videos a month.
Oh, that's more than one a week so I need to kind of
work hard on that.
It got dark so fast.
The sun literally just went like pew in the last
like three minutes.
Number two, get out of debt.
I have a lot of credit cards open.
I have a little list here that I look at to remind me
of how irresponsible I am with my finances,
I'm not gonna show you guys.
I'm gonna break that down by getting more work,
sell more LUTs, please buy my LUTs,
they're color grading, they're like filters.
Probably shoot a couple more commercials.
Hopefully by the end of the year I'll be debt free.
Get healthy, I mean that's kind of like a vague one
that everyone puts on their list, right?
But if you just leave it vague like that,
then no steps will really be taken so I'm gonna read
three more books on nutrition and health and just get
a better understanding of what goes on in our bodies.
So if you guys have any recommendations,
please let me know.
There's actually a really good book called How Not to Die.
I highly recommend everybody read it.
I also want to cut down on the amount of meat I'm eating.
I'm not going vegetarian, I love steak way too much.
But I'm just trying to take the amount I eat,
which is a lot, and just trim that way down.
I also want to setup a video course on Udemy,
that's something that you guys have been asking for
for a little while.
So I want to kind of put that on my list of
things to do.
Get better at boxing, I think that just means continuing
to go to my boxing training hopefully two times a week.
Some of you guys that have met me in person know
that I'm a pretty nice guy.
I think I'm pretty easy to get along with,
but that's entirely because I'm not a great fighter
and I secretly don't want to get my ass beat.
But as soon as I get really good at boxing and Muay Thai,
all that niceness, straight out the window.
And six is to just get out of the country
at some point this year.
I've got six months to do it, I don't know where
but I want to go somewhere that I haven't been before.
If you guys have any recommendations, I'd love to hear it.
I love traveling but one of the hardest parts about
traveling is to actually just set time aside
and just say, "Hey, I'm gonna do it."
Look at flights, look at hotels, book it,
then it's all easy.
So I want to go somewhere and I'm gonna make it
a goal so that it actually happens.
And every day I'll open up this list and look at
one, two, maybe three things and just work at those
throughout the day.
You don't want to focus on everything,
or else your brain is just gonna be split into
too many directions.
For example, today, even though I've been super
unproductive I'm working towards that 100 uploads,
so boom, that's what's happening today.
So there are my six goals for the rest of the year.
Now it's out there so now I feel more pressure
to do all this stuff.
I highly recommend you guys come up with a list like this
for yourself and write it down and put it out there.
Like if your goal is to be a better filmmaker,
don't just say, "I want to be a better filmmaker,"
'cause that is not really gonna get you anywhere.
What you need to do is stop and think about what
steps you can take to actively push you in that direction.
You could set yourself goals like watch 10 videos on editing
or start a channel, start a YouTube channel,
upload 20 videos to YouTube, something that you can
actively take steps towards.
I would love to see what kind of goals you guys have.
It will actually be a pretty good way for me to kind of
get to know some of you guys.
But yeah, that's all I got for you guys,
happy semi-new years.
Hope you had an awesome first half of 2018
and now we are onto the next.
Okay it is getting dark, that should be another goal
of mine is to be better at talking to the camera
'cause I repeat myself like 100 times.
And there's Dylan, what's up dude?
- Sup.
- This is the end of the video.
- Oh, cool.
- You want to be in the video?