331 - Building a $100M Dollar Media Team - With Caleb Ralston - The Futur with Chris Do

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I think what Alex does anincredible job of is understanding
that if he were to take theseconcepts at a third grade level,
he's making it accessible tothe masses and he's not making assumptions
about people understandingwhat CAC means.
So I think for anybodywatching or listening, it's really

(00:20):
important to be able to thinkthrough the lens not only of the
advanced viewer, but but thelay viewer.
My name is Caleb Raulston andyou are watching or listening to
the Future, the greatestpodcast for creatives pursuing business
in general.

(00:42):
My next guest is a person Idon't know that much about, but when
I met him in person, it's justlike this big.
I would call you like afriendly giant, a big man, a bearded
man.
It reminds me a lot of ourChief Operating Officer, Ben Burns,
and just the similarities there.
But the little bit that I knowabout you is you worked with some
amazing accomplished people.
And what I want to do is peelaway some of your lessons, what you've

(01:03):
learned, a view from theinside strategies that the regular
Joe or Jane person can learnfrom with the limited resources that
they have and what they canlearn from you.
So Caleb, for people who don'tknow who you are, can you please
just introduce yourself andtell us a little bit of your story?
Yeah, absolutely.
My name is Caleb Raulston.
I have been in the, I guessbrand building and digital media

(01:25):
space for about 16 years now.
I'll try and make it concise,but I think it's kind of cool to
share.
So a character who I think youare familiar with, Sean Cannell.
I had the wild opportunity tobe working or volunteering in the
same church that he was thedirector of Media app.
Now I think a lot of peopleare aware of him on YouTube and stuff,

(01:45):
but that was Sean Pre all ofThink and video ranking Academy and
everything that he's done now.
And at the time I remember Iwas interning and helping with not
only the church stuff but hisown production company and he gave
me a book and it was the onlybook and I hope that none of my teachers
are listening, but it was theonly book I actually read in high

(02:06):
school and it was Crush it byGary Vaynerchuk.
And I remember reading it andI honestly, I don't think I stopped
reading the moment that Iopened it.
I read all the way through andI remember him talking about people
are going to make money and afull time income online, talking
about the Smurfs and I didn'tknow anything about the Smurfs or
anything like that, but IRemember thinking, wow, I have some

(02:27):
passions that I'm interestedin, maybe I could do this.
I was the kid that did not payattention in school.
I just was always thinkingabout other things.
I was making skits on YouTubewith my friends.
I was filming videos all the time.
And so I read that book andimmediately realized I'm into powerlifting.
My dad at the time was abodybuilder and I realized all the

(02:51):
training videos at the time,fitness is huge now, but at the time
it wasn't.
And all the training videoskind of sucked shit.
And I thought that I couldmake better ones.
And so I started filming withmy dad, filming with local bodybuilders,
and then slowly startedgetting opportunities with some of
the biggest names in the industry.
Ronnie Coleman, Flex Lewis,Jay Cutler, Stan Efferdine, a lot

(03:14):
of different characters.
And I just would go up to thembackstage at bodybuilding shows because
the way it works is they comein guest pose and I'd walk up to
them, the boldness of a 15year old and say, like, I love your
shit, I'm a huge fan.
I don't think your videos arevery good and I think I could make
a better one.
Can I vlog you backstage here?
I'll make an edit, send, sendit to you and if you like it, maybe

(03:35):
we can work together.
And so that just keptsnowballing and I got a lot of cool
opportunities with that.
And then I hit the age of 18or 19 and realized freelancing is
brutal.
I have gigs and then I have amonth where I have to find the next
gig and I want to move out andso I need some consistent income.
And so I got a job at asoftware company, worked there for

(03:56):
about two and a half, three years.
And we were making a lot of inhouse creative for the marketing
department.
But we also created, it was afaith based organization, Logos Bible
Software.
We created our own OTT toserve that community.
And so we started creatingoriginal content, documentaries and
everything like that.
And I was the editor for that.

(04:17):
Learned a lot there.
And then from then I went intolike a year of freelancing and this
is kind of like the pivotalpoint in my career here.
I had stopped consuming Gary'scontent because if you follow him,
he says, you know, stopwatching my shit and go do execute.
And a friend of mine texted mea photo, like a screenshot of Gary's

(04:39):
story saying that he waslooking for creators and to reach
out to David Rock.
And this was a friend that hasnever in my life told me, you should
do Blake, he's not that kindof person.
And he was like, dude, you gotto apply for this.
And so I just, I felt it.
I immediately reached out toDavid through a sequence of follow
up emails and everything like that.

(05:00):
I kept sending videos to him,eventually got an interview and then
got offered an opportunity toeither work at Vayner Talent or PureWow.
Vayner Talent was kind oftaking Team Gary and those offers
to external clients.
The other option was PureWow,which was a women's lifestyle publisher
kind of targeted towards women30 to 45 in the Midwest.

(05:23):
I thought that was super interesting.
That's like the exact oppositeof who I am and what my experience
was.
Right.
Like previously I worked at asoftware company which is typically
bro dominated, right.
And this was an organizationthat was not only targeting and reaching
women, but also was like 90%women in the org.
So I thought, wow, that justsounds like an amazing opportunity

(05:43):
in a lot of different avenues.
I want to learn what it's like.
I want to have a female boss.
Like, I, I was very curiouswhat that was going to be like, you
know, and very excited about that.
And then also I know that someof the biggest decision makers in
CPG purchases in America arethat demo.
So I figured if I can learnhow to communicate effectively to

(06:04):
them, that will beadvantageous in my career.
Anyways, I do that for aboutnine months.
And then Gary pulled me ontohis team and I had the opportunity
to work for Gary Vaynerchukfor two and a half years as his videographer.
And that was, Chris, the mostinsane time of my life.
Like, it was absurd.
I'm talking like day three.
I was told the night before,hey, you need to purchase a flight.

(06:27):
You know, they were paying forit obviously, but you need to book
a flight to go to London.
We're going to go there for 24hours and you'll fly right back.
Like, I mean it was just likeright away thrown into the fire kind
of thing.
And that was incredible.
I got to run his TikTok.
We had a lot of growth there.
I was the editor of TrashTalk, kind of a hit series for him
and just got the opportunityto learn a lot.
And then from there heactually sold Empathy Wines, his

(06:51):
wine company, to a companycalled Constellation Brands.
And they were looking to buildout the direct to consumer function
of their organization.
They own like Svetka Modelo,Corona, Kim Crawford Prisoner, all
these different wine spiritand beer brands.
And so I went over there tohelp build out the direct to consumer
team that was Wild.

(07:11):
I've never worked in a Fortune500 before.
Like, that was a completelydifferent experience.
Learned a lot about how thoseorgs operate.
It was kind of a startupenvironment in a massive company,
but it was still a massivecompany, you know, so things don't
move as fast as I was used toand stuff like that.
This was during COVID and everything.
And so I was working remotely.
I was living in Portland,Oregon at the time.

(07:33):
Got obsessed with my HarleyDavidson, moved to Las Vegas so that
I could ride more because itwas sunnier and riding in the rain
isn't as enjoyable.
And then about a month aftermoving to Las Vegas, Alex and Layla
reached out and we startedtalking about how they wanted to
build their own team and buildsomething similar to what Gary had
done, but in their own way andkind of the rest is history.

(07:56):
It was an incredibleconversation that led to the biggest
point in my career, which wasbuilding out their team, helping
scale their brand.
We went from zero people inhouse to 18 at the end there, and
it was incredible.
We went from 1 millionfollowers to 11.5 million targeted
followers too.
I mean, we could have.
They're very prolific,charismatic individuals.

(08:18):
We could have hit 30 millionif we wanted.
But we were trying to makesure that it was all business owner
focused.
So.
Yeah, man, that's a little bitof the pithy statement on my journey.
Did you say you started, like,when you were like 15 years old or
younger?
Officially, my first paid gigwas when I was 15.
I've been making videos sinceI can.
I could fucking walk.
Like, I was grabbing my mom'scamera and using it with my sister

(08:39):
and making little random skitshere and there and stuff.
I'm that kid, you know?
Yeah.
So it seems like you have apassion for telling stories and using
technology, and you've usedthat passion to navigate, I think,
some pretty choice gigs andmoving from place to place.
And now I think you mentioned Portland.
Is that where you grew up?

(08:59):
Kind of, yeah.
So I grew up in actually atown called Arlington, Washington.
Then I lived in Bellinghamwhen I worked at the software company.
But I had family that wasalways down in Salem, Oregon, so
I frequented Portland.
So when I came back, that'swhy I moved to Portland, was friends
and family were in that area.
Okay, what I want to do isretrace a couple of steps here.
I was taking notes, but you'removing pretty quickly along the story.

(09:21):
What is it that compels Seanto say?
You need to read this book, man.
Something happened.
Oh, I'm forever indebted andgrateful to him for it.
I mean, I think he read it andrealized, wow, there's a mega opportunity
here that I can take advantage of.
And him and I were verysimilar in the fact that, like, we
weren't good students.
For example, in first grade,my teacher dumped over my desk halfway

(09:44):
through the year to all ofthese assignments that had just not
been done.
I was not a good student, andhe was the same way.
And I think we resonated notonly with what Gary was sharing as
an opportunity, but also thefact that he was the same.
He was not a good student.
He was able to be successfulvia this new world of the Internet

(10:05):
and social media that was coming.
And I think that it resonatedwith Sean, and I think he saw something
similar in me.
Okay, so you have similarpersonalities, similar ways of moving
about the world.
You're in the same church.
He sees that you're producingvideos, he's producing videos, and
he's like, you gotta check outthis thing.
And then you're like, you readit and it changes your life and it
sends you on a path.
I mean, I have to ask you this question.

(10:26):
When you're reading that book,could you have imagined at a point
that one day you're going tobe working with Gary, the guy who
wrote the book?
Oh, Chris.
Not really, to be honest with you.
I always, like, in my head,dreamed of meeting him.
And actually, ironicallyenough, Sean and the youth pastor
at the church built thisYouTube channel called Think International
at the time, and they wereinterviewing different leaders in,

(10:49):
you know, the church worldthat were being a little bit more
innovative with using onlinechurch shit.
Right.
And we actually.
Gary came through.
Through on the thank youEconomy tour, Bellingham, Washington.
And we went up and filmed aninterview with him in Bellingham,
Washington, where I theneventually moved and then eventually,
obviously went and worked for him.

(11:10):
But no, I never could have imagined.
It was very surreal.
And I remember I have it filmed.
I posted it on my Instagram.
My first meeting with Gary andbeing able to tell him about that,
that was fucking weird.
Like, that was Joe Waffled.
I'm gonna jump around here.
I mean, this is a unusual background.
You're into powerlifting, yourdad's a bodybuilder.

(11:31):
So you're like, there's not alot of fitness stuff now.
It's everywhere.
As you say, it is kind of oneof the most dominant types of content
that's on social.
But back then in the DarkAges, I guess everything was new.
And what gave you theconfidence to Approach these, like,
Ronnie Coleman is the name.
I know he's jacked.
You just walked up to himlike, you know, love what you do.
What you do sucks.
I think I can help.

(11:52):
Let me give you this offer.
And if I do it and you likeit, did any of that turn into, like,
money?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I mean, not much, right?
Like, we're talking like $200for, like, a training video or whatever.
But, I mean, for me at 15,living at home, I was like, I'm rich.
I think something that I wantto make sure that I do a good job

(12:12):
of.
I'm going to start makingcontent this year and stuff like
that.
And I think my parents did anincredible job of investing in me
and helping me understand that.
Like, I remember I read thatbook and I told my parents, I was
like, I'm dropping out of highschool and I'm going to work.
And they're like, well, okay,maybe not that.
But then we negotiated anddetermined we can do homeschooling.

(12:34):
So then I can, like, work myface off and, you know, barely do
any schooling and just work.
I think that they gave me somany opportunities to build confidence
in myself in that.
And when I showed interest inthis, they invested.
They were like, we'll get youa computer and a camera.
You'll earn the money to payit back, but we'll invest in you
kind of a thing.

(12:55):
So I think that's probablywhere it came.
Also, I think a lot of ignorance.
I think I just didn't know any better.
And so I think that's thebeauty of youth, is you're not really
aware of your vincibility.
You think you're invincible.
Right.
It's kind of like the wholething when you learn how to drive
that parents are so scared of.
I just.
I was audacious.

(13:16):
I think that's one of thegreat things about being young.
You're not aware.
You don't know enough aboutthe problems, the pitfalls and the
challenges that you're boldenough to go forward.
I think your parents did dosomething wonderful because this
is a rare thing.
And I want to talk aboutcultural differences a little bit
here.
Most Asian Americans or Asianswho are listening to this, like,
what?
I had to get my first degreeand my second degree before my parents

(13:38):
even entertained the idea ofme doing something weird.
And your parents are.
Not only are they going tosay, we'll let you drop by to school,
sort of technically, but we'llhomeschool you so that you can get
your, I think, high schooldiploma I think.
And then they fronted you themoney for your camera and your computer.
So that's not just like, we'lllet it go, but to actually put financial

(13:59):
support and allows you to doyour thing.
I also have to imagine, fromoverprotective parents point of view,
letting your kid hang aroundwith adult men like that are half
naked.
There's a scary thought there too.
But they're like, just go for it.
We trust you.
And what is it about you oryour parents that that's okay?
And I want to see if I canlisten for the distinct differences
between American cultureversus Asian American culture.

(14:23):
That's super interesting.
I love this, by the way.
This is super cool.
I think one, the fact that mydad was a bodybuilder for so long,
there was a deeperunderstanding of.
Of that culture.
I have this very vivid memory.
I was like 7 years old andbeing backstage at a show and my
parents introducing me to thiswoman named Molly.

(14:46):
And Molly was bigger than mostmen you've ever met.
And I remember her being like,hello, Caleb.
And I just, you know, and Iwas like, wow, you are incredible.
And so I like, that'ssomething that a lot of my friends
would make fun of or thoughtwas weird.
And I just.
That was normal to me.
Right.
Like, I never thought anythingof that.

(15:07):
And like, growing up, like,seeing like a spray tan leak onto
the sheets or whatever.
Right.
Like, I just.
I was so used to all of that.
And I think they were too now.
I mean, there was some freakywith that, like, Universal Nutrition.
They own, like, Animal Packand everything.
They used to host this eventat the Mr.
Olympia called the Animal Cage.
And they hired me when I waslike 16 or 17 to fly out to Las Vegas

(15:31):
and film that.
I went solo.
Now Sean at the time wasliving in Las Vegas, so I stayed
with him and stuff.
So I think they feltcomfortable with that.
But, yeah, I mean, they tooksome big risks.
I think maybe in the back oftheir heads they were like, well,
Caleb fucked up so much with school.
He's never going to go downthat path.
This is his only shot.
So, like, we got to help himwith it.

(15:51):
But yeah, I think that therewas a little bit of that, but I think
a lot of it was just.
They were more used to it.
So I think it would have beena completely different story if they
had never had experience with it.
And I just all of a suddenstarted going to the gym and met
these guys.
Did your mom or dad ever say,hey, we need to go with you, citizen?
Because you're a 16 year oldkid and we gotta look out for you.
Did they help you with themoney part or any?

(16:13):
Was there a safety orsecurity, financial concerns at all?
Like, you know, you're a bigguy, you go out for a while, then
you learn.
So I was also at the same timeworking at Adidas, just as like a
salesman.
And I have always had a beard.
I mean like, I basically wasborn with a beard.
I looked like I was 30 when Iwas 16.
So they didn't, this istechnically illegal, but I was working

(16:38):
more hours than I legallyshould have been able to.
So I was working like 38 hoursa week at Adidas, living at home.
So I had a lot of, at thetime, a lot of money.
So I would front the cost forthings if I felt like it was a good
opportunity for me.
Now the one with Vegas, forexample, they paid for everything.
So like that was a really goodgig that I got.
So I didn't ever really havetoo much concern on that.

(17:01):
And no, they never reallyneeded to accompany me.
I think probably I will say mydad did try to get to know like Stan
Efforting was like the best client.
He was my first real clientand unbelievable human.
And my dad definitely made aneffort to get to know him just to
make sure everything was good.
But like, I'll tell you withStan, I remember he was getting ready

(17:23):
for a powerlifting meet.
And we were in Sacramento atMark Bell's gym.
And if you're familiar withMark Bell at all, amazing, awesome
dude.
Bigger, stronger, fasterdocumentary, incredible character.
But we were at his gym and Iremember like, you know, this was
like my first traveling gigand I land and Stan picks me up and
he handed me a couple hundredbucks cash and was like, here's just

(17:45):
walking around money just totake care of yourself in case you
need anything while you're here.
I got lucky and very fortunatethat I had clients that were just
good people and I, I justseemed to get lucky with that, I
guess.
Okay, there's a couple ofdifferent things.
Number one, you're, you're apowerlifter, your dad's into bodybuilding.
So this is like familiarculture to you.
So there's, they know the insand outs, so to speak, the behind
the scenes stuff.

(18:06):
So they don't have a lot to bescared of.
And this is your world too.
It's not like you're beingthrust into some other world that
you're like, what's happening here?
I just out of curiosity,anything sketchy happened where like,
oh, Maybe this is the rightplace to be at right now.
Honestly, No, I mean, as faras, like safety wise, I was always
a big dude.
I mean, these were like huge guys.
But I never have had any fearson that, to be honest with you.

(18:29):
I think that's the privilegeof being a 6, 7 bearded guy that's
bald and looks kind of scary sometimes.
I'm not, but I think I givethat impression sometimes.
Oh, actually I will tell you astory, but I'm going to keep it very
anonymous because this is afun one though.
There was a time where I wastraveling for a client and when I

(18:50):
was out there, the client'sfriend loaned me their truck for
the trip.
And I had never driven a truckbefore and I was driving to a film
session and it was raining andI went through an intersection and
I completely spun out and gotin an accident.

(19:10):
Nobody got hurt, but I was terrified.
One that I never wanted theclient to find out.
There was no damage to the truck.
It was just damage to theother vehicle.
So I talked to the lady and Isaid, hey, my parents can't find
out about this.
They'll kill me.
I'm on their insurance still.
I want your information.
I will give you my information.

(19:31):
You tell me whatever the costis for the repair and I will send
you the cash in the mail.
For whatever reason, shetrusted me.
And at 16 years old, I havethis lady telling me exactly what
it is.
It was like $2,000 and I,being an ignorant kid, literally
in an envelope mailed $2,000cash to her pay for it.

(19:55):
I stayed in contact with themfor a while.
There was a really like, sweetold couple.
They were very nice and verylike sweet to me and stuff.
That was probably thesketchiest thing.
That's pretty sketchy.
I mean, it was wild.
How did you not damage thetruck but they got damaged?
I have no idea.
I have no idea.
You made contact, but justtrucks showed no damage?
Yeah.

(20:15):
Yeah, I mean, I guesssometimes that happens.
The value of trucks, right?
Yeah.
Okay, so no one's the wiser.
You pay it with cash.
And I guess the beautiful partto the story is as a young man, you're
already making enough moneythat you can pay down the $2,000
accident.
Where my 21 year old doesn'thave that kind of money.
He'd be freaking out.
It'd be a really big deal.
Yeah, I mean, don't get mewrong, that was all my money for

(20:37):
like that month.
Like it was.
Or probably a couple of months.
Like it was tough and it was.
I was scared shitless.
But, yeah, it worked out.
That's so cool.
Okay.
And I'm glad you threw inthere that you're six, seven, that
you look much older.
Like, if you don't know Caleb,if he walks down the street, you
might think this is a big dudefrom a Hell's angel kind of thing.

(20:57):
He's got that vibe.
But then you instantly talk tohim like, no, he's just a really
super friendly, sweet person.
Right.
So there are certain kind ofphysical advantages that you have
that allow you to move intothe world of adults without you having
to feel like, oh, my God, I'min danger.
Right.
They're gonna think twicetrying to mess around with you first.
Okay.
Okay, let's move on here.
So you get this opportunity towork with Gary.

(21:19):
Did you have to move to NewYork because he's in New Jersey,
right?
Well, he's in New York.
No, he's in New York.
Okay.
So did you move to New York towork with him?
I did.
I literally got the job offerfor Purewow, and two weeks later,
I was living in Brooklyn.
Okay.
How old are you?
I think I was 24, I believe.
Ever been in New York orBrooklyn before?

(21:40):
My family and I had gone on afamily trip out to New York when
I was in high school, and thenmy dad actually competed at a show
out in New York that I wentout with him maybe, like, two years
later.
So I had done, like, two tripsout there, but never had been out
in Brooklyn, especially notthe area that I ended up living in

(22:01):
and never really navigated the subway.
And that was insane.
Yeah.
It can be overwhelming after a while.
You're like, oh, this is not a thing.
But at first, it's total chaos.
Like, things are moving.
Like, where are you supposedto go on your right train?
All these kinds of things.
You got to get off here.
I would see more people in mycommute in the morning than I would

(22:21):
see in an entire month.
Back where I grew up, it wassensory overload.
Yeah.
So you're there.
You're making your way.
Many people know who DavidRock is by his other name, D.
Rock, who was, I think, animportant figure in Gary's evolution
as content creator,storyteller, because he was there
filming, and probably one ofthe first few entrepreneurs who were

(22:44):
successful at it had a crew ora guy at least, following around,
documenting those stories.
What was your role like whenyou were working with him?
David's the goat, and Ilearned a lot from him.
Basically, I was the numberTwo to David.
So I did a lot of thetraveling with Gary for a significant
portion of the time that I wasthere and helped with a lot of like

(23:04):
the technical lead stuff.
So when it came to any sort oftechnicalities on an edit, for example,
I would jump in and help withthat if we needed help.
I would always make sure tolend a hand to David with filming
and stuff like that.
But there was definitely aneffort to try and get David for his
season out of traveling somuch so that he could start working

(23:25):
more on the strategy andeverything like that kind.
Because there is nobody outthere that understands Gary and Gary's
brand more than David.
I'm talking, like you couldmention a random moment from any
dailyvee and he'll be like,oh, I remember what day it was.
I know where we were.
He's an encyclopedia.
And so our effort was like,let's give him more space to be able

(23:50):
to utilize that power that he has.
So that's when I started totransition more into the traveling
and stuff.
So Drock becomes like thishuman archivist who understands all
the stories because he wasthere and he has a brain to remember
it.
And then you start filling inthe role of like primary shooter.
You're out there shooting.
We're going to nerd out everybody.
So those of you guys are supernon technical, Go get a coffee or

(24:13):
something.
You'll be all right.
So I'm curious because to be afly on the wall to see how y'all
work would probably be athing, managing media, the equipment
that you're using.
What.
Tell me a little bit about thetools and the workflow, because it's
gotta be insane.
Well, I can't speak to howthey operate now, but I'll tell you,
when I was on the team and Iloved this, it was chaos.

(24:35):
But we got so much done in thechaos and I thrived in it.
So we didn't have like somecrazy system for ingesting footage,
right?
Like I started working ontowards the end where was building
out a dam for us to be able toutilize and tag footage, right?
Like he's got years worth,decade worth of footage, right?

(24:57):
That was a tough initiative toget off the ground for sure.
That was a lot of footage.
But basically we would film.
We used Sony's.
So at the time it was SonyA7s, IIS using whatever the equivalent
is now we did that.
We used the Sennheiser Labsand always zoom lenses and everything
like that for versatility.
And really the main prioritywas not the way that we filmed it,

(25:21):
but what we were capturing, right?
So like you can see there's somany times where the footage is like
super shaky, right?
And like the amount of timesthat I'm filming Gary and I'm like,
I know people are going toknow that I filmed this because he
mentioned my name or whatever.
And it's so embarrassing thatwe're going to put this footage out.
But what people don't realizeis the reason why it's so shaky is

(25:41):
because we're on the other end.
And he never asked us to dothis, but this is how I like to operate.
When we would be traveling, Iwould wheel his suitcase.
When somebody would come up tohim and give him a gift at the airport
because they're so grateful orat an event, I would then hold that
while I'm filming.
I would also hold his latteand his croissant in the morning.
I would also be texting on myfucking phone with the admins talking

(26:07):
about, okay, we're walking tothe event.
The event.
He's going on stage in 30 minutes.
He has a call in five minutes.
That's a five minute call.
And then right after that hehas a 10 minute call.
And then after that anotherfive minute, and then he has five
minutes to decompress beforehe goes on stage.
All of that occurring at thesame time while filming.
So there is a so much more.

(26:27):
Like David and I, Jason,Marina, Tyler, Babin, we all talk
about this.
Like one day I think it'd becool for us to all sit around and
kind of do like a roundtableand talk about it because nobody
realizes the level of effortthat a videographer.
And like Dustin Lee, who'sdoing it now, I love Dustin to death.
That's my boy.
People have no idea what he'sactually doing behind the scenes.

(26:48):
There's so much more than just filming.
Some trips there wouldn't bean EA that would join, right?
They'd be back at H y Hudson Yards.
And so like we were the EA ifGary is running late.
I remember there was one timewhere Gary was running late to a
meeting with the CEO of AT&TGlobal and I had to go in to the

(27:09):
room and speak to him to stallbasically and make sure that Gary
didn't look like he was beingbad or anything like that, right?
Like try and smooth it over orwhatever and entertain him for a
second.
Because Gary literally is likefive minute increments on his calendar,
all back to backs.
There's no buffer, no break, nothing.

(27:30):
And so like I Think the thingthat people can understand, maybe
from me sharing this is like,if you're a videographer for Gary,
you pick up so many ancillaryskills to the actual thing of filming.
And the priority wasn't the lensing.
Right.
The framing, the whitebalance, the lighting being proper.
It was like, are we makingsure that we're capturing the moment

(27:51):
where somebody at an airportwalks up to Gary and talks about
how this moment changed theirlife, asks him a question, blah,
blah, blah, kind of a thing.
I'm trying to visualize this.
So let's paint a picture,because this is the podcast and it's
a YouTube episode.
Here's six foot seven, Caleb,camera in hand.
Is there some kind of rig, ashoulder rig, or it's just all hand,
Just like this little cage.

(28:12):
I always used a strap so thatif I needed to, I could use my elbow
because my arms are longenough that I could extend the camera
out and hold it like thiswhile I was holding something else.
Literally.
Like, there'd be times where Iwas operating the camera like this.
Oh, I see.
Strap around your neck, push,stop with elbow hit record one hand
holding the luggage, the otherhand coffee and croissant.
And elbow propping the camera.

(28:33):
And that's why it is shaky.
It might not be framed correctly.
And phone in your ear,probably on your shoulder and your
neck, talking to acoordinator, producer, ea, saying,
he's late.
You gotta get him to here.
This is what's going on.
All the while shielding Garyfrom the nonsense that he can do
what he does and only he can do.
Sound about right?
Yeah.
And like, this was never anofficial thing, but I always also

(28:56):
thought of myself as like anunofficial bodyguard.
I love G.
I love him to death.
And, like, I would do anythingfor him.
Right.
And so I was always, like,cognizant of his safety too.
Right.
So that's like another element.
And you can ask all the othervideo, like, they were all thinking
the same thing too.
Like, there's so many things going.
Your head.
Yeah.
So you're like, multitasking avery high level and you're doing

(29:17):
your thing.
Okay.
So I'm also guessing thatbecause anything can happen anytime.
Memory cards galore.
System for new media and safe media.
So you can transfer at some point.
And fresh batteries charge allthe time.
What people don't know is.
I don't want to share this.
Maybe you have a workaround isafter the shooting.
That's just the beginning ofthe workday.

(29:38):
Because now it's offloadingthe media, double checking to See
if it's good because you wantto clear those memory cards.
Did you buy all new memorycards or did you repurpose memory
cards?
Because some people havedifferent systems for that.
Like they, like, they treat itlike film.
They don't use the cards.
Again, just in case, we would repurpose.
So we would ingest.
Chris, it was crazy.
I had a SSD with me.

(29:59):
I would ingest to the SSD andthat was it.
No other backups, nothing like that.
Like it was crazy.
And you're 100% right.
Like, we would film all day,and I'm talking like, Gary would
do late meetings, we'd be doneat 11 or midnight, go back to the
hotel, not only ingest, startcutting clips so that we can literally
post shit the next fucking day.

(30:20):
Because we were, especially atthat time, we were really big on
real time content.
Whatever was top.
And the reason why, and Ithink this is a cool insight actually
that I'll share is so manypeople would comment and be like,
you somehow read my mind inthe situation I'm in right now.
And the reality is, is he didbecause he was consuming all the

(30:42):
comments, the DMs, the tweets, everything.
So he actually knew whatpeople were thinking and wondering
at that moment.
And then he would talk aboutit during the day.
And so when we would clip it,the reason why we tried to do it
really fast is because we wereliterally reading the audience and
actually putting shit out inreal time that they were wondering,
right?
Like, he'd see five DMs aboutthe same thing and be like, all right,

(31:03):
that means that there's a lotof people that need this.
I'm going to hit on this right away.
Let's get it out tomorrow.
And so like the speed ofeverything was just on a completely
different level.
When I first bumped into apiece of Gary's content, I think
he was speaking at usc.
And the speed of which hismind works and his recall ability
was something that was to behold.

(31:24):
And I remember thinking tomyself before I made any content,
like, God, how does a persondo that?
Is the real life Gary like theone that I see on camera where he's
like, I'm ready, and goes andjust starts talking off the top of
his head.
And he knows how to hit hispoints, he knows the references,
and he's able to, withrelative accuracy, refer to very
specific things?
Chris, what I'll say is he'sway better off camera than on camera

(31:47):
in a lot of different ways.
So there was so many differentthings that he did that I just thought
were like, wow, you're areally good human.
That we would film.
And he would turn to me rightafter it happened, be like, no, never
put that out.
I'm talking if he was going tolet someone go, he'd have like five
opportunities lined up forthem already.
And I knew that was happening.
And he'd be like, we're nevergoing to put that out.

(32:08):
I don't need to do that.
His business acumen, peoplewho actually sit down for a business
meeting with him to talkabout, like private equity are like,
holy fuck, this dude knows way more.
We would always push more ofthe business content.
Please put out more of thebusiness content.
And he always would say, no.
He likes being underrated.

(32:28):
He likes people thinking thathe's just the happiness guy kind
of a thing.
That dude is 100% like thatall the time.
He literally, when he talksabout it, and you've probably heard
him say it, like he walks upon stage and he says, hey, what's
up?
I'm Gary Vaynerchuk and todayI'm going to talk about.
And that's the moment that hefigures out what he's going to talk
about on stage.
He's not preparing or anythinglike that.
He is looking at the tweets ofall the people that are at the event,

(32:49):
what they're talking about.
He, he's asking the personbackstage, hey, what is the buzz
bend at this conference orwhatever, right?
That is 100% how he operates.
I think he's one of thosepeople who is able to make ADHD his
superpower because the ADHbrain, as far as I know, works much
faster.
And if you can tame it, youcan literally do that.
I imagine a couple things.

(33:10):
Number one, he doesn't havetime because five minute meeting,
10 minute.
He only had five minutes toget there and then he's on to the
next thing, Right?
I remember one time hearingabout him in Las Vegas for Sean's
event.
He goes, I have to leave, Ihave another event.
And I'm doing another eventthe day after.
It's like three speakingengagements back to back to back.
It's like this guy never stops.
And a few people who have thisability, who can harness it are named

(33:33):
Gary Vaynerchuk.
I don't know who the otherpeople are.
So it's kind of veryimpressive to behold.
Okay.
And you're there and you'rewitnessing all this and you get to
see all the behind the scenes stuff.
I have to ask this question,why did he not Want to show his business
side in his human side,because it seems like he's very transparent
about everything.
Well, maybe not everything.
There's a couple things hekeeps private, but why wouldn't you

(33:55):
want to show that?
I genuinely think that helikes being underrated.
And I think that he alwayswants to kind of have a little bit
of an underdog ship on his shoulder.
I think that's the mainreason, honestly, because my favorite
content that I filmed with himwas, like, the 4Ds.
I don't know if you've everseen any of those.
That is Gary in peak form.

(34:15):
And then there'd be.
I mean, I filmed.
I won't name the companies,but, like, the biggest brands in
the world.
I'd be filming him breakingdown what their strategy was going
to be for the year and belike, no, you need to do this.
They go execute it.
And it would lead to the mostviral super bowl ads.
Right.
Like, I'm talking really crazy shit.

(34:36):
And, yeah, he always kept thata little bit more private.
And I think it's mainly justbecause he likes being underrated.
He would always say that hewants to have that chip on his shoulder.
And he would always talk abouthow, like, I remember him mentioning,
like, being almost concernedabout a day where he's viewed as
top and, like, not wanting that.
Always wanting to havesomething to kind of, like, build

(34:59):
up to almost.
That's an interesting perspective.
He does say that a lot.
But unless you know the otherside, you're never sure as to why
he says that and how much ofit is true.
It's like, I like to be underrated.
I like to be underestimated.
And I was thinking, that's anunusual position.
It's kind of.
I mean, Sun Tzu, right?
Like, appear strong when youare weak.
Appear weak when you are strong.

(35:20):
Right.
Like, I think there's a lot ofvalue to it.
That dude is a fuckingbusiness gangster.
And I'll tell you, I know alot of individuals who are also known
as business gangsters thathave met with him and walked away
speechless.
There's a guy I think is hisname Neiman who does the impersonations

(35:41):
of Gary that are just fricking hilarious.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he's like.
And blueberries.
And, you know, like, I don'thave time to spit on my gum, so I'll
swallow it.
I'm like, I didn't know thesethings about Gary.
I'm assuming it's true.
Does he just literally swallowgum and feast on blueberries all
the Time.
What are your favorite GaryIsms that people are like, some of
it's true and some is not true.

(36:02):
Yeah, well, the Blueberrything is 100% true.
That was actually one of my,like, favorite clips that I filmed
and made with him was theblueberry clip.
And after that, like, took off.
People would send pounds, likehuge boxes of blueberries to the
office.
It was worried gonna eat so many.
He genuinely.
He does love blueberries.
I think the funniest thingthat we would always joke about,
though, is like.

(36:23):
And I think that the team, ifthey haven't done it, they should
do it.
I think there could be a GaryVee ASMR channel because the amount
of times that we have clips ofhim with his mic right next to his
mouth where he's like eating,like, celery or something.
It's just he eats in the wayyou would imagine, very efficiently,
and he doesn't like to wastetime on it.

(36:45):
As funny as that sounds now.
I mean, if it's a really goodmeal or whatever, he'll savor it
and stuff.
He's not, you know, a robot oranything like that.
But, yeah, I think that is afunny thing.
I think a lot of hismannerisms and movements and stuff,
I always, like, I probablypicked up a few of them being around
him so much.
I think probably another oneis how much content we captured in

(37:09):
the process of him walkingfrom his office to the bathroom to
take a piss.
We would utilize every moment.
And I think that I always wasimpressed that he didn't get annoyed
with me for asking him for that.
And he was always just down.
So I think, like, that'sprobably one of the biggest takeaways
that I had from him was like,he always made me feel good about

(37:32):
asking him for content.
For example, even when he was,like, insanely busy.
30 seconds in between ameeting, the next person's walking
up to the office and I run in,hey, can you record this TikTok real
quick?
Yeah, sure.
Boom.
Does it.
Then into the next call.
Never was like, dude, are youkidding me?
I'm about to meet with the CMOof, you know, Abi or whatever.
Like, he just didn't operatethat way.
And I guess the last one thatI would say is, well, there's two.

(37:56):
He remembers everybody's name somehow.
I'm talking person that hemeets for 30 seconds at a conference.
He'd see three years later,they'd come up and he'd be like,
I don't know if you remember me.
He'd be Like Brian, I rememberyou, Brian.
And I mean, they would just belike, what on earth?
And I remember seeing that somany times and how much that meant
to people.

(38:16):
And another one that mightsound funny, but I just, I admired
it.
There's a clip actually on oneof the dailyvees where I called it
out.
Whenever he speaks aboutanother human without mentioning
them by name or a potentialrole, he always goes she or he.
And I just always thought thatwas so cool.
In a world where a lot ofcharacters like him only talk about

(38:38):
men and only make it aboutmen, he would always mention like
the potential of a role, beinga woman or something.
How crazy or novel of a concept.
But I don't think many peopleprobably pick up on that.
But it was one of the firstthings I started noticing when I
was filming with him and Iliterally called it out that I admired
it in him.
I think he is a.
He's an individual that seesmore than people realize.

(39:00):
Very cool.
Thanks for sharing that with us.
I want you to put on yourcontent strategist hat right now
and be as objective as you can.
Clearly you have a lot ofadmiration and affection for him,
but tell us what you think ishappening because there was a moment
when Gary was the only talk in town.
Everything he did wasexploding and popping on whatever

(39:21):
social platform.
I've noticed some strangephenomenon the last couple of years.
I barely see him on any of mysocial feeds anymore.
At his.
Despite his large following,some of his videos get less views
than ours and we only have 2.6million followers ourselves.
What is happening?
So why did it work?
And what do you think thechallenges are with your strategies
that like, you have norelationship with him.

(39:41):
It's totally objective.
What's your take?
It's a sequence of thingspeople don't realize.
Like, a lot of people knowGary as the content creator, but
he runs a massive agency, right?
They have, I think they're upto like 12, 12 locations worldwide,
a couple thousand employees.
They execute on multiple superbowl campaigns every year for clients.

(40:04):
They're working with thebiggest Fortune 1 hundreds.
They're the fastest growingindependent agency in the world.
So he has a massive companythat he's building.
He also has this brand calledVee Friends that is the culmination
of, I think, so many differentpassions and skills that he's had
over his whole life.
That all, I mean, let's justcall it what it is.

(40:26):
He got lucky that that came tobe like the NFT thing at the time,
gave him the ability to buildthis it's not about NFTs, in my opinion,
from my point of view, it'sabout the universe that he's trying
to build and everything.
And he was talking about thatshit way back in like 2012, 2013.
Like he's been talking aboutthis for a while.
So I think what you'reexperiencing is, and this is just

(40:48):
my point of view externally,this is not anything he's told.
I think that there's just beena shift in focus.
So his attention has gone Moreso towards VaynerMedia and Veefriends
than the Gary Vee brand inthis season.
And I remember when I was onthe team, there was different seasons
where there was different focuses.
There'd be times where it waslike, hey, I got to focus more on

(41:08):
vayner, so we're going to havea little bit less involvement from
me on stuff.
And then there'd be seasonswhere he's like, no, I have more
time to dedicate towards theGary Vee brand.
So I think it's a combinationof that and that I would apply more
to like the Instagrams, theTikToks, the short form content.
Right.
Then when you go to the longform, like on YouTube, for example,
I'm not saying anything thathe hasn't already acknowledged and

(41:31):
said way back when I was onthe team.
YouTube, as you know, is atough platform to package vlog style
content for.
Right.
If you have 10 differentthings that occur, how do you package
that in a way that YouTube prefers?
Right.
YouTube prefers you talk more,more narrowly about one theme for
the best practices.
Obviously there's podcasts andthat's a different story.

(41:52):
But in this world, I thinkthat the way that Gary created DailyVee,
I think it was very novel inthe beginning and I think that that
got a lot of traction.
We were able to capture someincredible moments.
But as the platforms evolved,that style of content became very
difficult to get any sort oftraction with because in an episode

(42:14):
he might be meeting with aCEO, then a rapper, then he's going
to an event and then he'sdoing, you know, maybe book signing
or something like that, andit's all over the place.
And so I think that the waythat YouTube has evolved is not super
conducive for the style ofcontent that he is able to produce.
Given the amount of time thathe has, he's not able to like sit

(42:36):
down and record.
Like there was never a timewhere we were like, let's sit down
and record a YouTube video.
That never happened, not once.
Because he's operating hisbusinesses and then he's building
Gary Vee as a documentation ofthat and he stayed consistent with
that.
Do I think that it'd beawesome one day for him to sit down
and do a direct to camera video?

(42:57):
Yes, I think it would fucking smash.
I think that really it's justa matter of priorities right now.
He's in that season where he'sfocusing on his business and not
so much on Gary Vaynerchuk or DailyVee.
And so that's kind of why itis what it is.
That's what I think.
But I'll be honest with you, Ifeel like I noticed around five months
ago, well maybe like three orfour months ago, I started noticing

(43:20):
the content was hitting againa little bit more.
There was a couple of imagesthat he did, image posts that went
like mega viral.
Hundreds of thousands of likesand stuff.
So I know that there's seasonswhere he, he puts a little bit more
emphasis on it.
It's time for a quick break,but we'll be right back.

(43:45):
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(44:10):
And Rebecc, welcome back toour conversation.
So I'm going to offer you theoutsider's perspective which is a
probably a good bridge for ournext part of the conversation.
So I think Gary is the firstmover in many different things things.
And being a professionalperson who was an entrepreneur who
was successful creatingcontent on YouTube before it was

(44:32):
kind of invoked to do so,created all the space and when there's
no competition, you can dominate.
And he was crushing like crazy.
But as he was speaking to avery specific, I think mostly male
oriented demographic likethese young hustlers who are going
to grind all the time becauseyou would see the audience and it's
mostly young men who is like,I'll swap me, I'll go and sell and
I'll flip this and I'll makesome money.

(44:53):
Him doing the garage sales, Idon't think he does that right now.
But seeing that, I'm like,okay, well your audience eventually
grows up and you grow out of it.
But him providing businessadvice was taken over by somebody
else.
So the space is dominated andthen someone else does it better
or different?
And then draws the audience in.

(45:13):
And that person is Alex Ramosi.
One of my criticisms of Gary,despite all, like, what we've just
been talking about is he wasgiving more or less similar advice
to someone who was kind of ata certain level in their life.
And it wasn't like I, as amultimillionaire business person,
am going to learn from, unlessmaybe I did the 4Ds with him.
But it was kind of veryrudimentary stuff, which is good

(45:33):
for a broad audience.
And then comes in this new guywith a crazy handlebar mustache,
the tank top with his plaidshirt and his cutoff jeans.
The craziest style comes inand really gives high level, really
good business stuff that'shighly actionable for people anywhere
from the a hundred thousand tomaybe $10 million range where they
can learn a lot from.

(45:54):
And so then he starts to dominate.
And I think maybe the universecan only have so many players in
one category.
And so now Alex is justcrushing and destroying.
And it's kind of wild thatyou're moving from person to person,
coincidentally, I think, butyou seem to have your finger on the
pulse, or maybe the pulsefinds you.
I don't know what the deal is,but what do you think about that

(46:15):
theory that there's space andsomebody else is going to take it
one day, somebody else willtake it from Alex.
The next version, the nextiteration of it.
I will give kind of aninteresting theory that I have on
this, which is if you were togo back to really early Gary content,
it is far more tactical.
And as he evolved, he got outof the tactics and more into the

(46:36):
mindset.
And I think what a lot ofpeople who create content and give
advice and all of that online,especially if they engage with a
lot of different people, isyou do start to realize that the
tactics are very important,but if the individual doesn't have
the correct mindset, they willnever actually put those tactics

(46:59):
into place.
So, like, you can talk all youwant about, like, social media strategy,
but if you're terrified aboutever showing up on video, it doesn't
fucking matter, right?
You got to get over that shit.
I wasn't with Gary in the verybeginning by any means, but I consumed
his content.
So the evolution I saw thereis he went from more in the dirt
tactical to more in the clouds mindset.

(47:20):
I think that's typically thejourney that these individuals go
on is they start more tactical.
Even if you look at Alex'searly videos, like the webcam days,
that shit is in the weeds.
And I think that as a sidenote for anybody watching that's
wanting to build their brand,that's where you should start.
You build your base off of that.

(47:41):
You build credibility and astrong foundation off of people going,
fuck, this dude knows what thefuck he's talking about.
She knows what she's talkingabout, right?
Like, that's what you want tobuild, in my opinion.
I totally hear what you'resaying, and I think you're right.
I would almost say it's likeGary occupied this space and then
moved to a different space,and Alex came in and thunderously

(48:04):
took over that space for sure.
And I think what you probablyhave maybe even observed in Alex's
content and maybe over thenext 10 years, we'll see is there
is a little bit more that hespeaks to the mindset, because that
is kind of the variable thatit comes down to.
Even with, like, CEOs, right?
Like, taking action, there's alot that comes with that, and a lot

(48:28):
of it comes down to helpingwalk them through some sort of mental
blockage that they have or whatever.
So I think right now we're inthat season with Hormozi, with Alex,
and I'm curious to see whatthe next five years look like on
that front.
I like your take on that, thatwe grow, we evolve, and we start
to understand, and I agreewith you and them, that you can talk

(48:51):
tactics into your blue intheir face, but if somebody doesn't
believe it's going to work,they'll never take action.
So the bigger place tounderstand what the mindset, the
limiting beliefs are, helpthem overcome that.
But then what happens is youstart to drift away from this core
audience of youngentrepreneurs who want more tactics
because they have the rightmindset, let's just say.
And so you have to choose.
And so Alex comes in, he doesthis, and then this is kind of interesting

(49:12):
because it's the crossoverpart, I guess.
They reach out to you.
They're in Vegas, you're inVegas and you're talking, and then
you wind up being theircontent director and you're managing
teams and you're building teams.
And what is that transitionlike for you?
Because now you're not like the.
The second to Drock, you'rethe first to Alex and Layla.
So different roles, different responsibilities.

(49:33):
Tell me a little bit of what.
What that's like, and I have alot more questions for you there.
Yeah, I kind of brushed overthe way that we got put in contact,
so I want to give credit whereCredit is due.
There's a character by thename of Ed Turney that worked at
Prestige Labs.
And Ed was really into theGary world.
Big fan of Gary, and heactually was one of my best friends.

(49:54):
Jason Marina, his first clientand kind of mentor.
Jason did kind of the Gary Veestuff with Ed.
Jason ended up coming overonto Team Gary and him and I became
like best homies.
When Alex and Layla, Ed hadfor years been like, Alex, you gotta
make content.
Like, you gotta do what Gary's doing.
Like, you got so much up here.

(50:15):
And the way that you are ableto distill high level concepts into
a way that like a lay personwould understand, you'll dominate
in content.
So he just kept pushing thatand stuff.
And Alex and Leila were like,yeah, we agree.
I think this makes sense.
We want to find our drock.
And Ed reached out to Jasonand was like, do you know anybody?

(50:37):
And Jason was like holding holy.
Caleb moved to Vegas a month ago.
This is insane.
So Jason reached out to me andhe was like, dude, there's this couple.
They are very interesting.
And I think that this is alegitimate opportunity.
And the reason why he saidthat is, and I'm sure you can imagine
as somebody on Team Gary, youget a ton of people that reach out.

(50:57):
Like, I mean, my inbox waslike flooded with people being like,
I want to do the Gary Vee thing.
But they never meant it.
They didn't realize what theactual investment was.
When I talked to Alex andLayla, I realized, oh, shit, they
get it.
Because our conversationimmediately went from being, let's
bring you on as our drock tolike, no, we need to build a team.
We need to build somethingthat is going to have the infrastructure

(51:20):
to be able to scale this thingthe way that we want.
They had a really big visionfor it right off the get.
And they were willing toinvest the time, the effort and the
money that it takes to build ateam like that, right?
That was just serendipity.
Like, that was just crazy andit was insane.
When I started, everything wasout of house.
It was all vendors that theywere working with.

(51:41):
And so my first task was tomeet with all the vendors and get
a deep understanding of whatthey were already doing and to work
with them, help get them moreammo, get them more media, right?
Like, be that bridge.
But then ultimately we wantedto bring everything in house.
And I'm a Lord of the Ringsnerd, so I like to use this analogy.

(52:03):
Like, I applied the Eye ofSauron approach.
One thing at a Time.
And so it would be like, cool,we're going to prioritize bringing
this platform in house.
So then we made our firsthire, then our second hire.
And Chris, the thing that wassuper interesting, and my fear going
into it, because you called itout, I had never built a team.

(52:23):
I had managed people before,but I had never built a team.
And I had never managed morethan like, two individuals at a time.
And I remember talking toLayla about that and being concerned
and just being honest withthem of like, I'm down.
And I have taken a lot ofnotes over the last.
At the time, like, 13, 14years of managers, creative directors.
I've worked for things thatthey did that I loved and things

(52:44):
that they did that I did notlove that I would do differently.
So I had my theories, but I was.
I was nervous about it.
And she.
I remember she was like, youhave all the right character traits.
You have all the hard skills.
I can train you on how to dothe team shit.
And I remember wondering, whatis it going to be like going from
being the doer to empoweringand overseeing the doers?

(53:08):
And I was scared.
But, Chris, that's the mostfulfilling thing I've ever done with
my life.
I realized I enjoy helpingeditors grow in their craft more
than I enjoyed editing.
And I thought when I was aneditor, I was like, this is peak
happiness.
There's nothing I could everdo that I'll enjoy more.
I would sit for 12 hoursstraight and edit, and it felt like

(53:31):
it was like two minutes.
Like, I loved editing.
And I realized I love thiseven more than editing.
It was a wild transition.
Lots to kind of figure out here.
When I saw Alex speak, andI've seen him speak at a couple different
events sometimes with Layla,and she did her thing and he did
his thing.
They speak very fondly andaffectionately of you.
And I feel like somewherealong the way, maybe I'm misreading

(53:52):
or reading too much into thisthat you guys transcended.
Just like, hey, he works for us.
He runs our team.
And, like, you're havingdinner together and it's not.
Not work related.
And so you're part of the fam.
So if that's true, I thoughtyou were a lifer.
And then I hear from ourmutual friend, like, oh, Caleb's
not there anymore.
I'm like, what?
No.

(54:13):
What?
Okay, so what's going on?
Yeah, absolutely.
You're 100% right.
Like, I think there was a muchdeeper connection than just like,
kind of like an employee dynamic.
I mean, we did.
We did holidays together andeverything like that.
And we were building andthey're still building something
absolutely incredible that Ibelieve in a hundred fucking percent,

(54:35):
to be honest with you.
It kind of just came to thispoint where I was ignoring too many
incredible opportunities overthe last two and a half years.
I haven't been super publicand done, like, content and stuff.
I've done like three podcastsand one of those podcasts kind of
blew up, or at least for me, right?
Like, I'm a nobody.
Nobody knows who Caleb is.
It had like 200,000 views.

(54:56):
And the characters that werereaching out to me were insane.
Brands that are, like, Imentioned my obsession around Harley,
like brands that I love werereaching out to me and I was ignoring
it all.
I really agree with what Alextalks about, about, like, extreme
focus on the opportunity at hand.

(55:17):
And I really believed andstill believe they're the most prolific
in business.
And it was an amazingopportunity that I had that I wanted
to kind of have.
I wanted to think of myselflike a.
A racehorse with blinders andnot take on anything.
So I just literally ignoredall of these inbound messages.

(55:37):
And it started getting to apoint where it was no longer making
sense to ignore those.
The opportunities were gettingtoo crazy.
And I just felt like this wasthe next natural step in my career.
And I would regret in five to10 years if I were to look back and
be like, I wonder what wouldhave happened if I would have tried

(56:00):
this idea of going out on my own.
I mean, since I was like alittle kid, I mean, like nine, eight,
nine, I always thought I wouldhave a business of my own.
Then I worked for Gary and Iwas like, there's no fucking way
I'm going to do that.
This is insane.
I worked for Alex and Layla.
I was like, there's no fuckingway I'm going to do this.
This is insane.
And then I realized I'm nottrying to build a billion dollar
company.

(56:20):
I don't need to operate theway that they have.
But I do have some things thatI really want to accomplish and different
sectors that I want to workin, not just with entrepreneurs.
Right.
I'm really passionate aboutmusicians and entertainers.
I think CPG is a veryinteresting space and I do have experience
in it.
And so I had just kind of beentesting the waters.

(56:41):
I reached out to a few peopleand opportunities started turning
into realities.
And so we just kind of had aconversation where it was like it
was the next natural step.
And what was so great was wewere building everything for this
to be able to happen.
Now I was moving up in the Organd so we were building in infrastructure

(57:03):
to come in behind me, right?
Like, I had hired creativedirectors that I was training to
be able to run.
Team Alex, Team Layla, theywere running the teams, right?
And Michael Lim, absolute gangster.
Like, now he's the director ofmedia there and he's overseeing the
team.
Like an absolute savage.
As a side note, like, totalbeast comes from the beast world,
actually.

(57:23):
But yeah, we had built thatout so that it wasn't like.
I just was like, deuces, runwith it kind of the thing.
There was already theinfrastructure in place for that.
And what's been crazy is sinceI've gone out on my own, I've been
blown away at how I can't putit in any other way.
Things have just fallen intoplace in absurd ways with brands

(57:45):
that I've dreamed of working with.
It's freaky.
I've always wondered if I hadthe chops.
And so I'm going to spend thisnext year seeing and documenting.
If I do have the chops to domy own thing, how do they take it?
Just information that you'regoing to go do your own thing.
You said the infrastructureset up, it was ready to go.
It wasn't.
You leave them in a weird bind.

(58:06):
So you have this conversationthat everybody, like, I'm talking
about from the employer'sperspective, like, oh, my God, I
love working with this person.
I can't see not working with them.
Then one day they come.
It's like, it's time for me togo, boss, I got my own thing.
How was that conversation?
How did it go?
It wasn't just oneconversation, it was a sequence of
conversations.
So I think we just over timestarted realizing that we were getting

(58:27):
to the point where this wasthe next step.
And the other thing that Iwould say is I think there's a lot
of individuals out there thatare running or on teams like this
that kind of have no judgment,but one foot in, one foot out.
I think the moment that thatoccurs, you gotta jump because all

(58:48):
of a sudden your focus is nolonger the same.
And so for me, I've chosen mywhole career, the 16 years I've been
doing this, I've alwaysfocused on the brand I'm working
for in house.
At the time, there was timesin New York, you know, it was fucking
expensive and I was broke as shit.
So I had to do side projectshere and there just to pay rent.
But other than that, like, Ireally believed in focusing solely

(59:09):
on this.
And when I started seeing thatmy focus was maybe starting to go
towards what could be next, Ithink that's when we started having
conversations around.
This is the next logical step.
So what I'm hearing from youis once you realize maybe your focus
is drifting ever so slightlyand you got wandering eyes, it was
time to have, like, a realconversation with yourself and your

(59:32):
bosses at that time to say,hey, at some point this may happen.
And so everybody's gettingprepared for that moment, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
And the thing is, is, like,the team again.
I didn't make a lot ofcontent, but I did some podcasts.
I got credit, but it's thefucking team.
Mozy Media was what built it.
Right.
I empowered the team, but,like, it wasn't me that was doing

(59:55):
it.
Right?
Like, I wasn't the one thatwas editing all these amazing hits.
That was my editors that weredoing that, you know, and so the
infrastructure was in place that.
That we could do somethinglike that.
And I think that's.
I think, you know, ultimately.
And I.
I don't mean this to soundlike a humble brag or something like
that, but I think that's thesign of building a good team, is
being able to have the abilityto do that.

(01:00:18):
Towards the end, I would take,like, a weekend where I would go
for a motorcycle trip and Iwould go on airplane mode.
And I wasn't having a panicattack about it, you know, whereas
at the beginning, I was right.
Like, I could never dosomething like that.
And so I think that that'ssomething that we can talk about
here, that I am verypassionate about, is building a team
that isn't dependent on justone individual.

(01:00:40):
You've had the opportunity towork with arguably the two biggest
content creators on the planetat the point of peak interest.
I think it gives you a veryrare position to see things that
no one can see.
I would love for you to do this.
And they're both, like, alsothoroughbred entrepreneurs.
I would love to hear your topfive or three or whatever strategies

(01:01:02):
from content, like what you'velearned if you want to establish
a media empire.
And then also your top fivebusiness lessons you glean from them.
Because it's like, there'sCaleb, the creator, and helping to
build media and empire, andthen there's like, they're saying
things that are just like,this is like a master's degree in

(01:01:23):
business.
Right.
Taking to business school.
I literally got paid to get mymba, basically.
Yeah.
Like, absurd.
Yes.
So I would love to hear yourtop three to five takeaways from
the content strategy side.
Pause and then switch tobusiness side.
Go ahead.
The first one is going to bearound Layla.
I think that vlogs are a veryinteresting medium to create content

(01:01:47):
around and to utilize online.
And I think that right nowwe're kind of in a weird spot with
vlogs where I think that a lotof people are operating in like a
2012, 2014 environment with them.
We brought, like, there's ashow that she does on YouTube called
the Hormozies, and it's.
It's a vlog.
We created that becauseunfortunately, the way our world

(01:02:10):
works is people assume thatit's only Alex running everything
and that Layla doesn't do shitbecause she's a woman.
The reality is quite the opposite.
She runs shit, right?
She's an.
I mean, you talk to her.
She's an absolute gangster,like a savage.
And so we wanted to create aseries and content that documented
her excellence and showed herexpertise in action.

(01:02:32):
Up to that point, there hadonly been videos where she was talking
about what she did or Alex wasreferencing what she had did, but
nobody had actually seen it in action.
So I think what we discoveredwith that, because that changed the
trajectory of her brand, in myopinion, massively is it.
It allowed people to see herexpertise in action.

(01:02:54):
And so I think for a lot ofpeople, they have an incorrect desire
in making a vlog.
It is not a wit play.
It is a depth play.
We built extreme depth withthe audience through her vlog, so
I think that's a big one.
On the content side that welearned was like, if you are an individual

(01:03:15):
who is sitting in front of acamera on a couch talking about what
you do, there is going to be anatural amount of skepticism.
And now more than ever,because there's a bunch of hucksters
that are talking mad onlinethat don't actually do anything and
don't know what the fuckthey're talking about, and they're
just regurgitating shit thatthey hear from you and they're, like,

(01:03:35):
trying to add their own spinonto it or some weird shit like that.
We wanted to show that she wasactually doing this day in and day
out.
So I think that is a goodutilization of, like, the vlog format.
I actually think that that'sgoing to be a big thing over the
next two years in content online.
I think YouTube, we're goingto see more of that.
I think another one is, andthis is really, I would say, a lesson

(01:03:57):
that I got from Alex, which isbeing able to Take really in depth
information and high levelconcepts and truly like people talk
about, think about youraudience, always make content for
your audience.
I think a lot of people sayit, don't actually do it.
He really fucking does it, right?
He is so, so passionate aboutfiguring out how to define terms

(01:04:25):
in a way that will make thingsoperational that you can actually
execute on.
I remember when he, you know,started defining like anxiety and
sadness in these ways that Ilooked at it and I was like, oh,
this gives me what I can doabout it.
So I think whatever industryyou're in, if you're making content,

(01:04:46):
taking the very in depthknowledge that you have and boiling
it down to, I mean, he wouldalways talk about trying to get things
down to a third grade level tobe able to communicate.
I'll dive deeper on that.
Actually.
When you make educationalcontent, like if you're a professor,
right, and you're teaching aclass or whatever, you're operating

(01:05:08):
under the assumption that allyour students are at a similar baseline
of knowledge.
There's gonna be outliers andstuff like that, but they're all
operating off of a similaramount of knowledge.
When you're a content creatoronline, you, it becomes very difficult
to do that, right?
Because you have no idea who'sgoing to fucking watch your videos,
right?
You might have somebody who isultra experienced in business and
has been in it for 11 yearsand somebody who has been into it

(01:05:31):
for 11 seconds, right?
Like the moment they clickedon the video they're like, oh, I
like business.
That becomes very difficult tocreate true educational content off
of because you're having tomake massive assumptions about where
the audience is operating off of.
I think what Alex does anincredible job of is understanding
that if he were to take theseconcepts at a third grade level,

(01:05:53):
he's making it accessible tothe masses and he's not making assumptions
about people understandingwhat CAC means, right?
What LTV is.
So I think for anybodywatching or listening, it's really
important to be able to thinkthrough the lens not only of the
advanced viewer, but, but thelay viewer.

(01:06:15):
And something that we did thatwe created, I think is super helpful
is we created two different avatars.
Nothing like complex, but wehad Advanced Adam and Simple Sam.
And if you're making really indepth content, you're making it for
Advanced Adam.
But when we're making the morewide content, you're thinking about
Simple Sam.
This is somebody who maybehasn't made even 100k in their business

(01:06:36):
yet, right?
I think that taking that andapplying it to your content is extremely
useful.
So that's a big one there.
I think another one is, ooh,this is a huge one.
Chris, utilizing customer winsas your source of content.
If you take a look at Alex andLayla's YouTube channel, 95% of the

(01:06:59):
content is just case studies.
It's just made in anentertaining way, platform native.
They're not the boring casestudy that exists on that one tab
on your website that nobodyfucking watches.
They're engaging, but they're.
All they are is just case studies.
So over and over and over,they are just hammering with the
audience, success aftersuccess after success that they've

(01:07:22):
had, right, or that theircustomers, partners have had.
And I think that if you dothat over time, I truly believe that
brand is just deliberatepairing of two different things,
multiple things togetherthrough repetition, and eventually
the audience starts to createthe association.
So if you over repetition,show success with your advice or

(01:07:46):
your tactics, over time, youraudience associates you with that
success, that businesssuccess, those outcomes.
And so I think some of whatthey're doing is training their audience
to trust them.
They're giving the tactic thatworked for, for a previous partner
or a business that they had.

(01:08:06):
Then they're sharing how youcan put it into place.
Then you put it into place,you find success with it, and then
you associate that successwith them, AKA scaling trust.
And so I think that issomething that they have done in
an excellent way that a lot ofpeople do struggle with.
I think Layla has the mostincredible interpretation of Gary's
document, Don't create.

(01:08:27):
I can't remember if you guystalked about this or not, but I,
when she said it, I was like,I can't believe I didn't think of
this.
Like, this kills me.
She was like, it doesn'tnecessarily mean that you have a
videographer follow you aroundall the time.
It means that you talk aboutthings that have occurred.
So you can look at yourcalendar for the last week or month
and talk about those items.
Success stories of like atough conversation she had with an

(01:08:49):
executive and then she canshare that and then five other stories
that she has.
So I think sharing wins andsuccess stories is something that
a lot more businesses shouldbe doing, but just not in a boring,
you know, customer testimonialbullshit way.
That would be a third one.
I think for a fourth one itwould probably be.
And this is something thatI've always believed, but we started

(01:09:11):
to see success with it and soit verified kind of a belief is the
best version of content in2025 is making it for each platform
specifically.
Now, in the beginning, wedidn't have the infrastructure in
place to do that, right?
Like, when it's just me andI'm editing everything, I can't make

(01:09:32):
unique content for Instagram,TikTok, you know, YouTube, LinkedIn,
et cetera.
But final form, I think thatis the best version of 2025 content,
right?
It's you have somebody who ismaybe clipping from a podcast.
Maybe you're still using that,you know, OG Gary Vee method, where
you have your pillar contentand you're clipping from it, but
you should have somebodythat's clipping with TikTok in mind,

(01:09:54):
with YouTube shorts in mind,with Instagram in mind.
Two years ago, you know this,Chris, like, if you had success with
a clip on TikTok, you knew itwas going to slap on Instagram and
YouTube shorts.
Now they're completely fragmented.
They behave completely differently.
And so I would say that wasmore of a learning of us as a team
operating in action andrealizing, like, okay, we now have

(01:10:15):
the bandwidth and the bodiesto be able to do this.
Let's start to assigndifferent platforms to different
individuals and have them own it.
Now, we didn't have a team oflike 50 people, so the way that we
would operate on that is youdefine your top four platforms that
you prioritize and you givethose out, and then the remaining
four, you give them as asecondary platform, right?

(01:10:36):
80% of their energy goestowards creating for the top priority,
and then 20% goes to thesecondary priority.
I think the other one is, andthis is so basic, and you say it
a lot, but I'll just hammer ithome again.
Be the same fucking person youare online offline.
Who you are in your content iswho you should be when people meet

(01:10:58):
you in person.
The discrepancy between thetwo is what creates a lot of brand
problems and trust issues.
And I think that right nowwe're in a season of culture where
everyone's showing up in acompletely different way online than
they actually are behaving inreal life.
And that creates a real issuewhen your audience, fans, whatever
you want to call them, meet you.

(01:11:19):
Like, I remember when we wereat that dinner and I met you, I was
like, oh, Chris is exactly whohe is online.
He's just a cool, thoughtful,kind human, very intelligent, very,
very knowledgeable.
There's no difference fromwhat I had seen.
And that for me was confirmingof your brand.
Right?
I Trusted you more in that moment.

(01:11:41):
So I think those would be acouple of different takeaways.
Okay, that's wonderful.
Let me quickly recap for everybody.
When it comes to long formcontent, you're making this call
that what you want to do is godeep, show the people versus talk
about what it is that you do.
That's how you build credibility.
Plus, it's way moreentertaining to watch because everyone
can talk about something.
And I think you call them hucksters.

(01:12:02):
There's a lot of them out there.
There's tons.
There's more of them out therethan there are the real ones who
are actually doing it.
You talked about how Alex, Iwish I had an opportunity to interview
him, but he has a gift.
Not everybody has this.
And some people throw thiskind of gift on me, but I'm like,
I've seen a master at workwhen he's able to take super complicated
concepts that you don't careabout and make them so digestible.

(01:12:24):
If you've not seen his bookbefore, and he says in his book,
I write this for like a gymrat who doesn't want to read books.
And it's using large pointtype phrases, things simply kind
of Sharpie marker cartoon kindof drawings so that you can read
it.
And there's a genius in that approach.
You talk about sharingcustomer success stories as just
a large driver of proof thatyou can do it.

(01:12:45):
And it kind of builds uponitself and connecting and associating
the success with the personwho brings it to you.
Then therefore that person issuccessful and you just keep doing
this over and over again.
You talk about doing nativecontent for specific platforms versus
the cop produce ones and pushout to all platforms wheel.
That doesn't work.
I'm not even sure it worked inthe beginning because they all behave

(01:13:06):
a little bit differently.
If that's the only thing youcan do, then do that.
But it's like if you want togrow on specific platforms and they're
important to you, you have tospend the time and energy to do it
in the way that the platformand the people who show up understand
it.
Last one is be the same person.
Be you.
Whether you like you or not,just be you.
Because eventually the worldwill find out.
And it's really weird.

(01:13:28):
It's super fractured of abrand experience.
And here's the sad part.
As I'm in more creativecircles, like, oh my God, that person
is nothing like how they appear.
They talk one game, they playa different game.
They have one personality.
They have a differentpersonality and it's really jarring.
Hence that phrase, be carefulof meeting your heroes because they're
bound to let you down.

(01:13:49):
I'm trying the best to be me.
And sometimes me on camera isnot somebody you like.
And I don't want you to comeup to me in real life.
It's like, no, you're a prick.
Well, I was a prick on camera, too.
So there you go.
I'm just going to beconsistent all the way through.
And like you said, when peopleconnect the dots, they're going to
make a decision about you andthey're going to tell other people.
Here's the thing, you think,oh, only one person.

(01:14:11):
I always tell my wife, it'slike, I got to be the best me, the
meest me I can be, becausesometimes I go out and it's like
I look like a scrub.
And somebody's like, oh, yeah,you didn't shower and shave today,
did you?
You know, like, you're right,I didn't.
And I'm gonna hide for alittle bit.
You know, it's even thoselittle things, like, people want
you to show up the way thatyou've been showing up.

(01:14:31):
Those are excellent.
I'm sure people can say youwant the rest of that, and that's
another conversation foranother day.
But I do want, before timeruns out, to talk about the business
insights.
Now you're in business for yourself.
I'm curious if you could dothe same thing.
Share with us what you thinkthe big business ideas are the top
five.
I think the biggest lesson Ilearned from Alex Formosi was the

(01:14:51):
level of effort that you needto put into making something great.
He's talked about it, but Ithink he maybe even underplays it
a little bit out of humility.
But he wrote leads 19 times.
19 times he spent 8 hoursminimum a day almost the whole time

(01:15:13):
I've known him working on that book.
Relentless focus and effort onmaking one single product.
Incredible.
And I think that's why Offersdid what it did without him promoting
it or having any sort ofcampaigns or anything, right?
Like, it's just an incredible product.
And so I witnessed firsthand adifferent level of effort that goes

(01:15:36):
into creating a high quality product.
And it really set the bar forme on how I view projects that I'm
going to work on for myselfand how I show up for partners of
mine.
I want to bring that level ofexcellence, you know, So I think
that's a big one.
Another one that I think isreally important, and I think this
will resonate with yourAudience hardcore is never discount.

(01:16:00):
I think I.
In my early days when I wasfreelancing, I would do anything
to get a gig.
Since I've made myannouncement, I've had a lot of different
discovery calls.
I've been blessed to have alot of different discovery calls.
That is an amazing thing.
And on some of them, you know,we discover that my rates are too
high for the individual at thecurrent place that they're at in

(01:16:21):
business.
And old Caleb would be like,all right, cool, I gotta figure out
a way to get them now.
I'm like, what an amazingbrand position to be in that they
can strive to eventually workwith me.
And that's what a lot of themare saying is like, okay, cool.
I now know what my goal is.
I need to be able to affordthis rate monthly.
I want to work with you next year.

(01:16:41):
That is the goal.
What an incredible brand position.
So I think that's kind of anoffshoot from it, but I also think
that it massively devalues theproduct that you have.
You talk about this so much, right?
Like, that's a big one for me.
So I.
I want to always, like, if I'mgoing to discount, I'm just going
to do it for free.
I'll just do it as a favor ifI'm going to do that.

(01:17:02):
Cool.
Otherwise, it's full price.
And I think that's a reallyimportant one especially.
And I know we as creatives allthink that we're so unique, but I
think we are.
I think we tend to strugglewith that hardcore for various reasons,
and you touched on all ofthem, but I really think that that's
a big one for creatives.
And so, like, if I could tellmy younger self that, fuck, I wish

(01:17:25):
I would have known thatearlier, but now I really do.
So I think that's a big one.
I think another one is theexperience you provide for customers.
Something that's really coolthat I learned from Layla is, I'm
going to give you four.
So this is number three.
I have one more from her after this.
But the level of attentionthat she put towards the experience

(01:17:48):
for people who came throughfor workshops that we were running,
I'm talking unbelievable.
Training the team to, like,memorize names and greet people by
their name following kind oflike the way that Ritz Carlton operates.
Like, when somebody says,thank you for doing this.
My pleasure, right?
Like, if you see somebodywalking around, maybe looking confused,

(01:18:11):
hey, do you need help finding something?
Hey, can I go grab you a water?
Do you need a snack?
Do you Need a coffee?
Literally there'd be timeswhere people maybe would have worn
heels or something like thatand they were super uncomfortable.
We would literally order themshoes and have the shoes show up
within an hour so that theycould be comfortable for the rest
of the event.
And that all came from Layla.

(01:18:32):
She really prioritized that.
So I think customerexperience, you know, and it kind
of ties into the first pointof like the level of effort for a
great product.
I think it's just like that'sthe back end, this is the front end
side of things.
They put a lot of attentiontowards that.
And so observing that andbeing a part of it was powerful for
me.
I think the fourth one and theone that I'm probably most passionate

(01:18:55):
about is it's all about the team.
It's all about who you bringon, how you bring them on and then
how you invest in them andtrain them and your honestly retention
strategy for top talent toretain them.
So one I had never ever been apart of such a robust hiring process.

(01:19:19):
Like, I mean it's incredible, right?
Like we would do a screeningcall, then it goes to a technical
interview, right?
Then a culture fit interview,then a final interview.
And in there somewhere,typically there was a technical assessment
that occurred.
Super in depth process inorder to weed out incorrect candidates
and find the right one.

(01:19:40):
Right.
Because we both know it'shighly expensive to hire somebody
that is not the right fit,that then you have to move, move
out within a couple of months, right?
I think so.
Seeing on the hiring side, theway that we operated on that changed
my view and my bar for how Imeasure a hiring process in an org
moving forward.
Also onboarding.
I remember I knew what wasexpected of me before I even started.

(01:20:04):
Right.
Like a novel concept that Ihad literally never experienced at
any org I've ever been at wasa 30, 60, 90.
She sent me a 30 day, 60 day,90 day plan of what I was going to
be prioritizing.
So like unlike previous roleswhere it's like the first week you're
twiddling your thumbs beinglike, what the fuck am I supposed
to do here?
Anxiety goes through the roof.
I knew day one exactly what mypriorities are and what I would execute

(01:20:27):
on.
And so then I was able to dothat for everybody that came into
the team.
I think that was incredible.
The training, investing in theteam, always pouring into improving
their skill sets.
Right.
Like if you improve the peopleon your team and invest in them,
they're going to grow your business.
I believed even with the mediateam In a similar way, I was getting

(01:20:48):
to the point where the teamwas so mature and powerful, I was
like, I don't want a top downstrategy, I want to invest in them
and have a bottom up strategy.
They can inform what we do onInstagram, not me.
Right.
And so I think just the levelof investment and trust being placed
in the the team, huge lessonfor me.

(01:21:10):
A lot of people skimp on hiring.
They don't pay well and sothey don't, they're not able to get
a players.
It's worth it, it's worth it.
I would trade 1A editor for10B minuses and Cs all day.
You will get so much morevalue out of it.
And so I think a real focusand emphasis on your team, who you

(01:21:32):
surround yourself with andthen ensuring that you build out
a strategy to retain them.
Now more than ever, creativesand people that understand social
have more opportunities than ever.
They can go off and work foranybody, they can go do their own
thing.
How are you going to retain talent?
And so I always wanted tothink about how do I ensure that
this is an opportunity for theteam, that they always see themselves

(01:21:55):
continually growing, gettingnew opportunities, learning, being
challenged and being trusted.
I gave Instagram, I gaveYouTube over to people that they
would run because I trusted them.
And I think that if you buildthat infrastructure, you can have
a team that grows your brand,grows your business for you, alongside

(01:22:17):
you, rather than you being thedriver of the ship.
You're right.
You could probably do a wholeepisode on just team building, management,
hiring, firing, onboarding.
That was a very high level andimpactful insight that you shared
with us.
So let me quickly recap for everybody.
To make something greatrequires a lot of effort.

(01:22:38):
It's a lot harder than youthink and a lot of us can get to
pretty good.
But to get it past thegreatness, it requires a level of
focus and dedication.
That's a thematic thing thatyou're seeing.
Both Hermosis number two isyou're like free or full price.
Don't discount yourself, don'tdiscount your value.
Set your bar and one day theclients will aspire to work with
you and they want to work with you.
I have always said this.

(01:22:59):
They will find the money somehow.
It's never about the price.
It's because they didn't wantto work with you.
You talked about the designinga beautiful customer experience from
beginning to end, looking outfor and planning for all the little
things to make sure the end toend the experience is sublime.
I think everybody understandsthe Ritz Carlton fication of your

(01:23:20):
business and how they're alltrained to like to put the customer
experience ahead of everythingelse and to look out for the wellness
and the well being of the customers.
He talked about team andwanting to hire for the very best,
investing in them because theywill make your company much, much
better.
There's too much to unpack inthat moment.
But I just like how you saidthis has been such a thorough process

(01:23:42):
that not everybody gets toenter in the kingdom.
And if you're good enough toenter in the kingdom, you'll be compensated
well, you'll be treated welland you can be assured that they'll
always invest in you.
Because like I thought youwere going to say this, like, if
your team improves by 20%,multiply it across every person that
works for you.
Those are gigantic numbers.
And it's not always linear.
Sometimes it's exponentialbecause there's some compounded effect

(01:24:04):
that's happening acrossmultiple teams.
Absolutely.
And I mean, to be honest withyou, you nailed it.
There's so much that I thinkabout and I think that this year
I'm going to be putting outcontent for myself for the first
time ever.
And what I'm going to talk alot about is training creatives.
I think I have some veryunique perspectives on training.

(01:24:25):
Giving feedback to editors, to designers.
That is not what a lot of mycounterparts do, but I think fast
tracks a lot of creatives togo from maybe a seven to a nine.
And I'll put it this way, I'vebeen managed by some incredible people,
but there's a lot of fucked upshit that creative directors and

(01:24:47):
managers do in leading acreative team that stifles creativity
and limits the amount ofgrowth that not only the individual
can have, but the teamcollectively can have together.
And it's really my hope to beable to share that with a lot of
people and hopefully shiftkind of how creative teams are run

(01:25:08):
because I think there's a muchbetter way to do it.
Well, I'm looking forward tohearing that.
I've managed a creativecompany for 20 some odd years doing
production services and it'sdifferent when you're dealing with
left brainers.
They understand rules and howto move forward.
It's a lot easier to deal withthem when you're dealing with individual
creative spirits and beings alot harder to manage.
You want to challenge them,you want to be clear, but you also

(01:25:30):
don't want to be draconian howyou manage them because.
Because then they stopfunctioning as creative people.
And they start turning in work instead.
Caleb, I want to ask you thisreally quickly before we run out
of time.
What is next for you before Iwish you well on your future endeavors.
Thanks, Chris.
Well, I am building out aconsulting firm called Ralston and

(01:25:51):
we are partnering with aselect few brands to help them scale
their brand online.
Half of our partners fall intothe camp of we have a team and infrastructure
in place.
We've gotten to 50, 60% and wejust, we've hit a ceiling that we
can't crack and we needsomebody to come in and help lead
the direction on how to getthrough that.
I've cracked that ceilingmultiple times.

(01:26:12):
So that's the one half.
The other half is there areindividuals who recognize that their
personal brand is the biggestadvantage they have in 2025 moving
forward, but they don't knowwhere to start and they want to do
it correct from the beginning.
And so they're bringing me onto help build out their team, recruit,
place, everything, train them.
And so that's what I'm doingand building this year.

(01:26:34):
And I think 2025 will kind ofbe the internal model I have is it's
my proving grounds.
Do I have what it takes to dothis for others at this scale?
So, yeah, partnering with somereally cool individuals.
I'll be talking about some ofthe brands that we've partnered with
here shortly.
I'm fucking amped, so I'm justtrying to do my own thing.
I'm going to try and documentit too and share it hopefully with

(01:26:55):
a slightly unique perspective.
I have a real passion for.
I hope this comes acrosscorrectly, like younger versions
of myself and wanting to helpguide them and maybe fast track and
avoid some of the waste oftime that I had, you know, coming
up and stuff.
It's awesome.
I can't wait to consume thatcontent and to share it with others.
So how do people track you down?

(01:27:16):
What are the contact info?
Yeah, my website is.
My name Caleb Raulston.com.
i'm on Instagram.
Caleb Raulston, LinkedIn.
Kilo Bralston.
I'm going to start makingYouTube content, which is going to
be wild.
So my YouTube channel, KiloBralston, if you go there right now,
it's like old interviews I didwith like hardcore bands because
I'm really into that world.
That's what's on there right now.
But eventually there will besome, some shit around this stuff.

(01:27:38):
So, yeah, I mean anywhere ifyou want to DM me, whatever.
I would love to chat.
I also real quick want to saythank You, Chris, for everything
that you've done, man.
Like the amount of creativesthat I know that mentioned, the direct
impact that you've had and howyou've paved the way.
Unbelievable, man.

(01:27:58):
Truly, you've done somethingreally impactful for a community
that has always been thrown inthe cage in the corner.
Right?
Like, the creatives don't feedthe wild animals.
And you've brought such anamazing light to us.
So thanks, man.
You, you're the goat man.
So thank you and thanks forhaving me on.
Caleb, thanks so much forsaying that.

(01:28:20):
That means a lot.
And we all do what we do andwe never know who it hits.
And so it's always wonderfulwhen we find someone in the wild
and are like, hey, you didthat thing and it helped me.
And to me, it's like the spiceof life.
You know, I'm a big Dune fan.
It's like the spice melange.
This is my spice.
It's what keeps me going.
It's what allows me to.
To jump and travel space and time.

(01:28:40):
And so it's always lovely tohear that.
So best of luck to you.
You've done so much for others.
Now I'm rooting for you to doso much for yourself.
And it's about darn time.
And we'll link all thewebsites and the socials in the show
notes, so make sure you guysall check that out.
It's been a real pleasuretalking to Caleb.
Thanks for sharing so openlyand honestly.
And like I'm saying, I'm goingto be looking forward to hearing

(01:29:03):
what you've learned, seeing itfrom the inside firm operations way,
way bigger than where we areat how they hire, how they do things
and, and the impact thatyou're going to make.
Awesome job.
I appreciate you, brother.
My name is Caleb Raulston andyou are watching or listening to
the Future, the greatestpodcast for creatives pursuing business

(01:29:23):
in general.
Thanks for joining us.
If you haven't already,subscribe to our show on your favorite
podcasting app and and get newinsightful episodes from us every
week.
The Future Podcast is hostedby Chris do and produced and edited
by Rich Cardona Media.

(01:29:45):
Thank you to Adam Sanborn forour intro music.
If you enjoyed this episode,then do us a favor by reviewing and
rating our show on Apple Podcasts.
It will help us grow the showand make future episodes that much
better.
If you'd like to support theshow and invest in yourself while
you're at it, visitthefuture.com and you'll find video

(01:30:06):
courses, digital products, anda bunch of helpful resources about
design and the creative business.
Thanks again for listening,and we'll see you next time.

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331 - Building a $100M Dollar Media Team - With Caleb Ralston

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}331 - Building a $100M Dollar Media Team - With Caleb Ralston