- Someone who starts something and doesn't finish something
that is a loser.
If you commit all that you are and all of your
energy to one thing
you.
YouTube is in Hollywood.
I'm not Stanley Kubrick.
You can't succeed here if you're uploading
once a month.
- Are we rolling? - Yeah.
- It's really crazy. - Yeah, it's really crazy.
- What's up Believe Nation, it's Evan.
My one word is believe and I believe that
you have the ability to do something special
that can change the planet.
So to help you on your journey today we're
going to learn from YouTuber and filmmaker Casey Neistat
and my take on his top ten rules for success volume two.
Rule number one is my personal favorite
and I'd love to know which one you guys liked the best.
(gentle music)
- Keep your head down, follow the rules,
do as you're told. play it safe.
Wait your turn, ask permission,
learn to compromise.
This is terrible advice.
If I were writing an autobiography
a book about my life,
one title that would work would be,
do what you can't.
Because that idea can encapsulate everything I've ever done.
Like when I wanted to move to New York City
and my dad was like, you can't.
You don't have any money.
Or when I first said I wanted to make movies it was,
you can't, you didn't go to film school.
I want to have a TV show,
you can't Casey, you're not pretty enough.
And going even further
if I were to characterize what this new generation
of content creators and filmmakers,
what we all do on YouTube and everywhere else
is we do what we can.
You don't have to listen to anyone because
in this new world no one knows anything.
- Hi haters.
- The hater, the doubters are all pretty champagne
in the top deck of the Titanic and we are the
(mumbling) - Full steam ahead.
(mumbling)
- Do what you can't.
(gentle music)
That run this morning
that run in the freezing cold,
that was at six o'clock this morning.
That is 6:00 in the AM. I was up outside running
in the freezing cold.
It is currently 9 PM.
9 o'clock at night.
Tomorrow morning I also have to get up at 5:30
in the morning.
But I didn't shoot a vlog today
I didn't shoot a video, which is fine.
Taking days off is fine,
but I shot this morning which meant I started something
so if I didn't do a vlog today it would
have meant starting something and not finishing something.
And in my book that's not okay.
(gentle music)
Someone who starts something and doesn't finish something
that is a loser.
Someone who starts something and always finishes it
that is a closer.
One of my favorite movies is called Glengarry Glen Ross.
Here's a quick scene.
- A, B, C.
A they always BBC
closing, always be closing.
Always be closing.
Yeah I tested that on my arm.
Last week I talked about that Voltaire quote
perfection is the enemy of good.
And what that means is you can never let your
desire for perfection prevent you from finishing something
that's good.
Because to finish something even imperfectly
is to learn from it and then you can move on
and get closer to perfection.
- Now if you're an artist or a filmmaker
or content creator in general,
do you feel like you shouldn't even go
mainstream towards TV or towards film
or towards working with a music label?
Or should you focus on creating it all yourself?
Because it it still helps a lot of people
who don't know how to do the online.
- Yeah I mean look there's there's no answer
to that question I think.
That it's one thing that everybody but the
successful people fail to realize about
any creative industry
is that there is absolutely no defined path.
There is a point about paving your own path.
And now for me my path
meant mainstream just didn't work.
And new media did work and for other people
it's entirely antithetical to that where
mainstream is exactly the right place for them.
So there is no formula that's that's right or wrong
I'm just much better versed in my own.
- Sure.
- The trajectory that I found myself and that
includes really running away from the establishment.
- Right. - And into whatever
the most forward-thinking space is.
Other than hard work what advice would you give to
better yourself both in life and in your career field?
Focus, focus is super underrated.
Like if you commit all that you are
and all of your energy to one thing,
you'll.
Okay this like this diagram
this is, I took this from a book called
I don't know what it's called but it goes like this.
All right you can do ten things to like
the first degree like this right here.
And that's how well you'll do all ten things.
Or you can do one thing to the tenth degree
right there, and look how much better you do that.
So when it comes to focus to put all of your energy
into one thing is to do that one thing really well,
to the best of your abilities,
to take it all the way.
And to scatter yourself means you're never
actually accomplishing anything.
You're just sort of chipping away
at a bunch of nothingness.
And this is true for work, this is true for like
dating versus committing yourself to one person.
Friendship, everything.
Like really focusing and investing yourself into
something you're passionate about will always
yield better results then scattering yourself around,
then spreading yourself thin.
What's the best way to find time to make films while
in high school?
I don't need any sympathy for you,
I've got a full-time job, two kids,
a baby, wife, house bills, life, reality.
And if I can find time to make some videos
everyday then you can too I know what
high school was like, I did it for like a
very short amount of time.
If it's something you really want to do you will
find the time.
Let's talk about one year of vlogging.
Before I started vlogging at a YouTube channel
for five years.
And in those five years I had a whole bunch
of huge viral hits.
Movies that got like 15, 16 million views.
But my subscriber growth was anemic.
The channel growth is anemic, flat like that.
Five years, 500,000 subscribers.
Then I started uploading daily
and in five months I had 500,000 more subscribers.
That's one million subscribers
five years for the first 500,000,
five months for the second 500,000.
So I kept uploading
and two months later I had another
half a million subscribers.
Now here I am one year out after doing daily uploads
and I've got two and a half million subscribers.
YouTube isn't Hollywood.
I'm not Stanley Kubrick.
You can't succeed here if you're uploading
once a month.
If you want to succeed here
you've got to show up for work every single day.
That that took me five years to learn.
I didn't start daily vlogging to grow my
YouTube channel.
I did it as a way to kill all of those excuses
I used that kept me from making more movies.
Because of every single inflection point in my
life doing the work has always been the thing,
has always been the catalyst that took me from
where I am to where I wanted to be.
So like 10 o'clock last night
I was at the gym getting swole.
I was listening to a guy named Dan Ariely
who's a behavioral economist.
He was talking about why we worked
and his entire sort of thesis was predicated on
the idea that we work because we want to
not because we have to.
It made me think about my YouTube channel
and the fact that I've made like 600 videos
in the last couple of years.
And how much I and all the things I don't get to do in life
because I'm so focused on my work.
The vast majority of the work that I do
including here on YouTube I get paid for
but it definitely is not why I show up.
I get it out of this like longing or
hunger for accomplishment.
Or this idea of needing to complete something.
Professor I was listening to he equates it to
like climbing a mountain.
Which is a perfectly.
It's an appropriate analogy
because I love climbing mountains.
Look here is a picture of me and my homie Graham
at a nearly 23,000 feet
above sea level.
My brother Van put that note in there
right after we got back.
So why don't we climb mountains?
I don't get paid to climb mountains.
It's not fun, do I look happy there?
I'm not happy I'm close to death right there.
We climb mountains for the same reason that we work
it's because as human beings you have this
desire to do something.
To complete something.
How do you not give a (bleep) about what people
think of you?
Hmm I should preface this answer by saying
I definitely got made fun of a lot
for the way that I look when I was in school.
And all those bullies that picked on me
are all losers now.
So never forget that.
People who judge others
especially people who judge others based on things
like looks, on whether you're black or white,
whether you're Jewish or you're Muslim,
whether you are gay or straight
because of their body type, whether they're fat or skinny,
whether you have pimples or whether you have a big butt.
These judgmental people, their opinions don't matter
because they don't matter.
Judgmental people are of a lower moral authority
than those who don't judge.
And we, people who don't judge,
we have a responsibility to crush,
to destroy those mean judgmental bullies.
And we do that with an overwhelming positivity.
And we do that with our extreme open-mindedness.
And when you subscribe to those values
you really stop caring what other people think.
Because chances are if other people are judging you
they're wrong.
Hunger is a very very powerful
motivator. - [Man] Mm-hmm.
- And when I was living in that
trailer park with a kid, like we were on welfare
for a while. - [Man] Yeah.
- I was a dishwasher I worked in a crappy seafood
restaurant as a dishwasher.
Which now just sort of parenthetically my favorite
piece of advice to give a young people
saying I don't know what I want to do with my life.
I say get a job doing something you hate
is the fastest way to figure out what you love
and where you want to be in life
is by spending a lot of time doing something you hate.
- [Man] So it's miserable.
- Yeah so you know spending
50 hours a week scrubbing pots and pans
was like I was just in my head the whole
time fantasizing about what I want to do in life.
I was making enough to like feed my kid and pay
my, you know, 300 bucks.
300 bucks a month rather than mortgage on my trailer.
- [Man] Mm-hmm.
- But my biggest fear was not being broke
because like when you're at rock bottom
and you're on welfare you can still like afford food.
- To get by. - [Casey] To get by yeah.
Like I could afford food, I could afford my trailer.
It was like we weren't homeless and we weren't starving
so to me that was absolute destitution
wasn't really like that bad.
There's no dignity in it but still.
- [Man] It wasn't on the streets.
- That's right.
So with that like my it's like what is it.
Laszlo's hierarchy of needs.
Laszlo's Hierarchy of needs.
- Basic needs were met.
- [Casey] Basic needs were met.
Then I started to look around I realize like
the greatest fear for this like
beautiful little baby boy
was that he would grow up and see his dad as a loser.
And that is a once those basic needs are met
that's an incredibly powerful motivator.
- Yeah. - Because you know
my dad who's
absolutely not a loser.
But I watched my dad to provide for his
family of six, I watched him work 60 hours a week
hating every minute of it.
And he came home from work just hating his job.
And I'm. - Feeling trapped probably.
- I'm sure yeah he had a family to take care of,
he struggled.
Now he does really loves he has a coffee shop now
and he's never been happier.
- [Man] That's cool.
- But but I watched that and like I just saw myself going
down that trajectory and it wasn't just
a job that I hated it was a job that I hated that
that didn't provide.
It was a job that I hated that did nothing but
cover those basic needs.
And that was the motivator, that was when
that was the motivator,
the catalyst for me giving up
and moving to New York and going for it
was I still look back and I don't know
what that, what that was like.
Right they're only like twp times in my life
right genuinely they have no (bleep) idea
what I was thinking.
And I moved to New York City in June of 2001
with $800 and a place to stay for three months.
And that was it.
Are we rolling. - Yes.
- That is crazy high.
- Yeah it's really crazy.
- Make Account was a movie about seizing the moment,
grabbing life by the balls.
I made that movie for Nike because
that's an idea I believe in.
Now the Fuel Band, our motivation for the movie
keeps track of how you make it count.
But back when the movie was made
it hadn't been released yet.
I wasn't actually wearing a fuel band.
(scream)
But I have one now.
So I thought I'd revisit the idea.
(upbeat music)
So what this thing does is it provides you with a number
a number that keeps track of how active you are.
Active can mean a lot of things.
They'll give me a budget and asking you to be active
and I'm on the next flight out.
Air travel is the closest thing to time travel.
Start in Africa, always Africa.
We had an idea of what we were doing but
the idea was vague.
The only way I like to do anything.
You can see two oceans from up there
that counts.
The only flight we can find was to Amman, Jordan.
This guy keep out of trouble.
- You're in Amman, Jordan.
- [Casey] Motorcycles in Vietnam.
jJt-skiing in Soha.
So much wind in Amsterdam.
We missed the train but the adventure doesn't begin
until something goes wrong.
We were always moving always the stairs never the escalator.
(upbeat music)
Got a car in Israel played in the mud
1,300 feet below sea level
then went up, way up.
From 12,000 feet you fall for a full minute
that counts.
(pop music)
I had heard about this waterfall in Africa.
(upbeat music)
There's this great quote, and I don't know who said it,
but it goes, without a goal you can't score.
(upbeat music)
You see it's not a bungee cord
it's a static line, a rope.
(upbeat music)
We bought our tickets at the airport.
We planned nothing.
Because when nothing's for sure
anything can happen.
- Thank you guys so much for watching.
I made this video because Luke asked me to.
If there's someone you'd like to vote on for
the next top 10 check out the link in the description
and go and have your say.
Finally you want to give a quick shout out to
Tuan from dudebuddha.
Thank you so much man for picking up 10 copies of my book
and gifting them out to your friends.
I really appreciate the support
and I'm so glad that you enjoyed the book.
So thank you guys again for watching.
I believe in you.
I hope you continue to believe in yourself
and whatever your one word is.
Much love I'll see you soon.
- How I have confidence and who I am and the decisions
I make is that I have this moral compass in life
and it is like it is a summation
or an amalgam of everything that I believe in.
Everything that I think is right and fair and just.
And every decision that I make personal,
private, business every decision that I make
is made through the looking-glass and the perspective
of my moral compass, of what I believe is right
and what I believe is wrong.
And if it's wrong, I don't make that decision.
I only make decisions that I believe in.
And the aggregate of that you do that over enough time
and it gives you a sense of pride,
it gives you a sense of confidence
in in what you've done in life.
What do you think about the comfort zone?
I think it's the worst place you could ever be.
When you're hungry you want more,
when you're wildly successful,
you can embrace your hard work and be proud of it.
When you're in the comfort zone it's just blah.
- What's the key to
being successful on YouTube?
Or creating content online right now?
Is it having the nice fancy camera?
Is it's the production value?
Is it? - It's if I could
if I could define what it took I think a lot
more people would follow that trajectory.
That's the greatest job in the world but.
So I don't know what's right
but I can definitely tell you what it's not.
And what it's not is having the best gear, first of all.
You know if the vlog that I posted this morning
which is I posted only five hours ago
and it's really.
I'm looking at my cell phone right now
to figure out to tell you guys exactly
how many views it's done in the last couple of hours.
- Did you lose your cell phone?
- I don't know what I did.
- Is it on the ground?
- Is it on the ground, how could I lose a cell phone?
(laughing)
I'm sitting in one spot here.
But what the key is not is the gear.
And I think that's what's so.
- Limiting for people when they think
I've got to have the right gear, the right.
- Yeah, that's the wrong.
Like my HBO show was shot on a point-and-shoot
that we bought at Walmart. - [Man] Really?
- But I mean so much of my YouTube
one of my most watched videos on YouTube
called bike lanes, which has over 15 million views,
that was shot on the crappiest of point-and-shoot cameras.
- [Man] Really? - Yeah just.
So it's not it's ,it's what you do with the tools
not what the tools are themselves.
So I'm just looking at my stats right here
so my video that I posted this morning.
So I posted it 3 hours and 58 minutes ago
and it has 140,000 views.
- On YouTube. - [Casey] Yeah
in the last three hours.
This video primarily was shot on my cell phone.
- Wow. - [Casey] Because.
- iPhone 6. - Because
because MTV didn't allow any cameras at the VMAs.
But they did like allow cell phones.
So I'm like standing there being like you guys realize
that every cell phone has a video camera built in.
How ridiculously contrary.
All this means is that there's going to be
a million bad videos posted instead of a million videos.
But regardless like you know half that video was shot
on my cell phone. - [Man] Yeah.
- And it's just not it's like if you can do great things
with a terrible camera you can do
great things with a great camera.