TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

They Lost Every Contract And Still Grew A Million-Subscriber Channel

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We sit down with Sandy and Jimmy from Trying Something New to trace how they went from Las Vegas hospitality jobs to wedding filmmakers and then full-time family travel creators living in an RV. We get real about slow YouTube growth, the COVID reset, why Shorts changed their income, and how simpler “grandpa style” videos can beat fancy edits. 
• quitting restaurant life by building a wedding film business with YouTube as the teacher 
• starting a travel YouTube channel for friends and family then learning consistency the hard way 
• getting wiped out by COVID cancellations and choosing social media as the new plan 
• downsizing from a house to full-time RV living and why the outdoors becomes the real space 
• dealing with slow long-form growth and the frustration of low ROI 
• using YouTube Shorts to drive viral reach and unlock new brand deal opportunities 
• how brand deals work in practice, rates, negotiation, and when a manager helps 
• raising kids on the road while letting them create, with guardrails and comment monitoring 
• what fans are like in real life, from remote islands to airports 
• shifting from heavy edits to “grandpa style” simple storytelling based on audience demand 
feel free to hit that subscribe button 


Las Vegas Work And Big Changes

SPEAKER_01

Lived in Las Vegas, so that was like the thing to do in like your 20s.

SPEAKER_03

Be a waiter and be a cock doey, just make you know six-figure. Your living situation's interesting. We went from 3,000 square feet to 300 square feet.

SPEAKER_01

You know, the whole thing with RV life is not your whole life is in the R V. It's where you're at is like your backyard.

SPEAKER_00

When did YouTube come along?

SPEAKER_01

He would make a few videos of like Nixon, our daughter, like crawling. We'd put it on Facebook at the time. There's like little shorts. And then as he started making the long form.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the only podcast that isn't afraid to try something new. I'm here, Travis, as always, helping you grow your YouTube channels. And today I got a really cool special guest, actually, guests with two S's, um, trying something new, which is a YouTube channel I know a little bit about, but why don't you guys introduce yourselves?

SPEAKER_01

Hello, Travis. Thank you for having us on here. Uh I'm Sandy and Jimmy. Jimmy. And yes, we are a travel, a family travel channel. We live in RV full-time uh for the last 10 years, as well as traveling the world with our three kids. We just love sharing our life on online.

SPEAKER_03

Been uh full-time content creators for about five years now, but been making videos for about 15 years.

Learning Wedding Filmmaking From Scratch

SPEAKER_00

So we're gonna dig into that because that is actually the reason why you guys are so good. But before we get into that, if you're new here, of course, we're here to help you grow a YouTube channel, sometimes by answering your questions, and other times by interviewing YouTubers that are doing the things that we know you want to be able to do. And we get a lot of people writing in that want to be able to like vlog their life. Like that's the that's the pinnacle of content creation. I don't have to do anything, but just live my life and then vlog it. That seems to be like the perfect thing. It's so amazing. I'm sure it's so easy, uh, which I'm sure we're gonna find out that's actually not the case. But if you're new here, just uh feel free to hit that subscribe button if you're listening on the uh the audio podcast, though. Of course, sit back, relax. You're probably driving to work and you're gonna learn some really cool stuff today. All right. Let's start before YouTube, even before uh we met, because we met years ago. Um, what were you guys doing before you started uploading YouTube?

SPEAKER_01

You want to start?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so we had a uh, you know, we did we did restaurant work, we did cocktail waitress work, we did all the all the stuff that everybody does. You were the cocktail waitress, right? I I think I've seen pictures of you in the end.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but we lived in Las Vegas, so that was like the thing to do in like your 20s, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, be a waiter and be a cocktail waitress, make you know, six figures. So that's what we did for a while, and then we got tired of that, and so we all of a sudden wanted to start a film company. And so we were like trying to figure out how to offset our income. If we stopped doing, you know, the job we didn't want to go to and start doing the job we wanted, what could we do? At that point in time, my cousin came into town and showed us his wedding video. It was when cinematic weddings first took off, 2010, 2011, somewhere in there, and we were just blown away. We're crying on the couch watching this three-minute highlight, you know, and we're like, how much how much did you pay for that? And he goes, like$4,000. I'm like, whoa, if we can do two or two or three of those a month, you know, that could like offset our income. So let's go buy a Canon 5D Mark II, a couple prime lenses, and all of a sudden we're filmmakers, then we're off to the races, you know. And so at that point in time, we uh we had no idea what we were doing. We stumbled across a lady that owned a venue place, and she's like, if you want to come film for free, like I don't care, like it doesn't matter to me. And so we showed up, we filmed this wedding, and they ended up being like the most popular kids at the local college, UNLV.

SPEAKER_01

UNLV, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And so uh once everybody saw their wedding video, it was it ended up being a great, a great couple, great family, great story, everything.

SPEAKER_01

Kudos to Jimmy because he was very passionate about learning how to edit, and he's very emotional. And so he was able to tap into some special skill um that really brought this wedding to life and this couple, and so knocked it out of the park.

SPEAKER_03

The dad's walking down the aisle, he's he's hysterical, he can't breathe, and I got him in the in my earpiece, you know. I'm like, oh my god, this is gonna be such a good video. It was almost like it was meant to be, yeah. So we we finished that one wedding, and then they ended up being really popular at UNOV, and the next year 40 of their friends got married. And so all this stuff. 40! Like, give or take, you know. So we had 40 weddings our first year, and so all of a sudden we're like, holy crap, I guess we're wedding filmmakers. Yeah. And so we we studied on YouTube and you know, got up to par, and then we became very successful doing wedding films.

SPEAKER_01

YouTube University came to the rescue. And really what that was was we had our first daughter in 2009. He was working at a restaurant at Nobu and was leaving at four o'clock every day until like one in the morning. And we knew that this wasn't this wasn't really the way we wanted to live our life, you know, starting a family. Um, and so that's why when his cousin, we were like, well, what could we do if you were to stop working in there, you know? We weren't born with any given talents, you know, where it was like, oh, we could do this. So it was kind of like figuring it out. And that's when we saw his cousin came to town, we're like, we should start a film company. And it actually worked out, and we couldn't believe it. And so uh soon enough he was able to quit the job and we were full-time filmmakers, and it was amazing. Yeah, we started our own business and hit the ground running.

Turning Family Travel Into YouTube

SPEAKER_00

That's incredible. Like, um, especially since you didn't go to school for any of that. Like I went to school for video production, which is wild. I think I wasted all that money. So, okay, so you guys have-the YouTube, yeah, of course. So you guys got that going, things are working good. Um, when did YouTube come along? Like, how did that part come?

SPEAKER_01

Uh so we always consumed YouTube, like we loved watching it. Um, and as we started making videos, actually he would make a few videos of like Nixon, our daughter, like crawling and whatnot, and we'd put it on Facebook at the time. It was like little shorts. Um, and then as he started making the long form, we were like, Oh, let's start a YouTube channel. And we'll and you know, we started traveling the world with our kids, so it was natural to just make those videos for our friends and family and throw it up on YouTube.

SPEAKER_03

We'd work a bunch of weddings, make a bunch of money, and then we're like, let's go travel the world and be these travel vloggers, right? And so we we had this skill set to make you know nice videos. Cool videos, yeah. And so we're in Thailand for a couple weeks. I'm like, oh, we'll make a couple videos here, we go over to Bali. You know, you can't go wrong, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we were inspired by other vloggers like Las LeBlanc, you know, all the OGs back then, you know, Casey Neistat. And so we were like, man, we could it mainly it was for friends and family, because of course your dreams and hopes were like, well, it's big. Right, right, right. And but what a it's like a shot in the dark, you know.

SPEAKER_03

Right so so we would we would do 10 jobs for them, one video for us, 10 jobs for them, one video for us. So it was so it was it was two or three months apart on YouTube. That's you know, not super scattered, highly edited, you know, cinematic videos of our family travels. And so we had we had a catalog of let's say 10 to 15 videos on YouTube, right? And and and then we started posting a little more consistent. We got up to 50,000 subscribers on long form, and this is back in like uh 2017.

SPEAKER_01

It might as well have felt it felt like a million. Yeah, like we're like 50,000 subscribers!

COVID Cancellations And Going All In

SPEAKER_03

And then uh, you know, COVID hit. We were we were working on a course at that time to teach other people how to be filmmakers at this point. And so COVID hit, and then within one week, she opened her emails, and every contract that we had canceled can't. We're in Vegas, Vegas Vegas was the second place it shut down. So then we we filmed a lot of venues, so every venue is like dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. So we're sitting here going, holy crap.

SPEAKER_01

We're like, what are we gonna do? Right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So so then we decided to go all in on the social media, right? That was our turning point because you know there was no more jobs at that point, so it gave us the space and the uh the ability to go.

SPEAKER_01

Well, you know, we kind of screwed up though, because during COVID, when everybody was putting videos on social media, uh we already had our our channels and everything, but we put that time into creating the course to help other people become content creators. So we should have not done that. We should have just started. Everybody blew up. Everybody blew up during the What's going on out here? You know?

SPEAKER_03

We were kind of on a course for like six months. Yeah. We're not coming out until this course is done, you know.

SPEAKER_01

And so, yeah, we did it a little backwards. But uh yeah, nonetheless, we continue to grow, and here we are today.

Selling Everything For Full-Time RV

SPEAKER_00

So before we let we're I'm gonna move on a little bit because uh I want to go to back to just before we met, and we'll talk about that in a minute. You guys also don't have well, I mean, your living situation's interesting, right? So when I met you guys, uh you already weren't really you were doing RV living. Let's talk about when you first started doing that, like how that came to be. How did you go from like, we're in an apartment or house, we're just not gonna do that anymore. We're just gonna be in an hour, like how can we talk about that for a minute, please? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That's another thing that YouTube made us do.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I'll just tell the the I would be up in the office editing. We had a house. I'm up there editing for 15 hours a day trying to get all these weddings caught up, you know. And uh on the on the side monitor, and I'm always playing, like I'm always like escaping on YouTube with all these travel bloggers. I was obsessed with Gone with the Winds back in the day. And they had uh RV traveling around the country and all that stuff, and I was just like, Sandy, we gotta do this, man. We gotta do this. But and then she's like, no, no, no. But she'll kick it off back to like how we got into that league.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so at the time, two of our kids were in just starting elementary school, and our youngest was like two at the time. Um, and the school that the kids went to was a great school. There was two schools side by side, which made it almost impossible to drop your kids off every single day. And so it was the it was the worst part of my day dropping the kids off and picking them up. Because it was just they made it so difficult, right? It was very stressful. And so a year, two years in, I'm like, there's gotta be something like this is miserable. Like every and it was just the rinse and repeat lifestyle that also was just not fun. There was no adventure. There were me Jimmy and I traveled a lot before kids. And once we settled into like this is life with kids, I'm like, this is miserable, you know. And is everybody come into the park at the school parking lot with these smiles on, like, like this is it, this is what we wanted for life, you know?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and then after that, you pick them up and you gotta do five hours of homework, and then we do all over.

SPEAKER_01

And then on the weekends, you gotta catch up on the shopping, the laundry, you know, all that stuff. So, you know, as time went on, I just felt like we were in this hamster wheel of this daily grind that was just miserable. And so when he started showing like the Gone with the Winds videos, and I'm like, man, so what what and we love traveling international at this point, we've done it multiple times, and so we're like, well, what if we sold it all and moved into the RV, started to travel full-time, we could still have our film business. Um, because this is back in 2015. And so we're like, we could still do the film business because we can travel to jobs now with our home. Like, it just started to make sense. And so, yeah, so we were like, we're all in, we're very ADHD, crazy, spontaneous. So it doesn't take much planning on our part. It's not like we have to get the ducks in the row. No, it's like throw the ducks out the window and let's just it could be eight in the morning.

SPEAKER_03

I'm like, Do you want to move into an RV and travel full time by three three three p.m. we got an RV and we're moving out, you know? Wow.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so the whole process actually was very quick. Like wow, we talked to the school, we're gonna be pulling the kids out of school. Um, we sold everything, we had a couple of garage sales, gave the rest away, had the RV, and I don't know, within like two months, I feel like it was like our whole life was uprooted. And then isn't that weird though?

SPEAKER_00

Like, how was the how was the the getting to I mean again, you you were kind of bored of that life, so I understand like you're excited to do something different, but like not having a house with like a separate bathroom that like you don't have to hear people like all the things that you get used to, all of a sudden you're all in the same little area. Like explain how that was because that has to have been weird.

SPEAKER_01

The kids were really small at the time, they were what seven, six, and three, let's say. I think that's all they're so they were super small, so that didn't that was just that wasn't an issue. Like there wasn't any like oh my space and all that because they were just little kids. Um and I don't know, it it just worked. We went from 3,000 square feet to 300 square feet, but we were we're trading uh sedentary life for a life of adventures, it actually opened our lives up, like to think of instead of the whole rat race of the school situation, we now had our kids with us and we were doing these fun adventures, and so you know the whole thing with out RV life is not your whole life is in the RV, it's you're the out, you know, where you're at is like your backyard. And so whether you're in the mountains, on the beach, like you're living outdoors for the most part. And so it's not like the the small space really gets to you. You're just in here to eat, to whatever, sleep, and then but basically you're outside a lot. So that that didn't bother us at all.

SPEAKER_03

Um Yeah, it is it is a weird transition though. Like when we were okay, so we had a garage sale, we sold everything, we're closing the garage for the last time as the RV setting in the driveway. And it's weird because I push the button, the garage closes, and I'm like, we stand there, we're like, this is it. Like we're walking away from everything we've ever known into a life of adventure into the unknown, you know?

SPEAKER_01

And honestly, we never looked back, yeah, never once regretted it. We actually went to Las Vegas last year and drove by the house we were living in. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03

It was a time war.

SPEAKER_01

And there's school, and I go, it's crazy because what, 10 years later, everything is exactly the same. Like it's exactly the same. And I'm going, oh my so then I'm like, guys, what would our life look like if we stayed here with all of the things that we've done over the last 10 years, or if we just stayed in this house? Like the it's so different. It's so different, you know? Like there's just it's it's you can't even like you can't even compare, you know. So that's uh yeah, so that's what happened.

Early Growth And The Million Prediction

SPEAKER_00

That's crazy. So I when I met you guys, it was um it was like a conversation or something. Yeah, 2019. Yes. Um, and we, you know, we also did some Zoom calls and stuff, and you guys had like, I remember seeing your channel. I I remember like the email came through, and I was like, let me check this channel out before I you know talk to you guys. And it just felt like I was watching a television show. I'm like, how is this so good? Like, what's going on here? So thank you. And I remember like getting on the Zoom, I don't remember anything from yesterday, but I remember getting on the Zoom call and uh you guys pop up and we start talking, and I I wasn't sure like what I was getting into. I'm like, what is like what is going on? Something weird's going on. You guys are like, are you guys working in television? Like something didn't feel right, but in a good way. Like, because you have to understand, I'm talking to people who were um doing videos in their basements and stuff with like a little webcam, and you guys have like drone shots and stuff. I'm like, what is happening here? What is going on? And um I just remember being like so uh intoxicated by your energy. Like, even now, I think if anyone watches this, you're like, holy crap, these guys sound so fun. Um and it I knew when we were talking, like it was just a matter of time. I just didn't know how long that time would be because YouTube's weird, and shorts didn't exist at that moment. Yeah, not really anyway. So we have to put it out that like we'll get to shorts later. We have to put it out that this is the long form only stuff. So you guys had I don't know, like 20, 30,000 subscribers, something like that. And um, your videos were doing okay, they looked beautiful, and then you had like one that popped off from uh the Philippines, I think it was. And I talked about that quite a bit. Like the Filipino content does very good on YouTube. I think it's because it's a very underserved community, but it was part of like you guys traveling and stuff. So after we talked and stuff, I I don't remember exactly um what kind of advice I gave you. I hope it was good. But do you remember like after VidCon and stuff, did that change anything about the way you approached content creation, or did it just reinforce what you guys were already doing?

SPEAKER_01

Well, you know, the funniest thing that I have to say, and I we never forgot that is this is such a crazy crazy when we because I I used VidIQ all the time, like before. And so when I saw that you guys were gonna be there, I'm like, we get to meet these guys like Travis and Rob, oh my god, you know?

SPEAKER_02

Celebrities.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, celebrities. And so I remember when we went up to your booth, I'm like, oh my god, there they are. Like um, but yes, I really wanted some insight on our channel because I think it's funny you said 23 because I think we had 32,000. Maybe it was 23,000. And Rob looked at the channel, looked at our channel, and he's like, okay.

SPEAKER_03

We're like, come on, Rob, tell us what's going on. I know.

SPEAKER_01

You know what he said? I don't know. He goes, I could see you guys hitting a million. And I went, what? We both tell that to everybody. No.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we're like, yeah, okay. No, yeah. But and then so you fast forward a couple years later, we hit a million, and we're like, we always remember that moment. Yeah, we always remember that moment with Robert. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

I'm like, Rob was right.

Why Great Videos Still Felt Unpaid

SPEAKER_00

I don't know if he tells everybody, but he he certainly doesn't, let me tell you. He certainly doesn't. But I saw that too. I mean, I definitely could, I mean, it wasn't, it was just like, why is it taking so long? It was the only question that was going through my head. And then and YouTube's just like that sometimes. For people, like you have to go through the process of growing. And I think the thing is, like, I love that you guys had kind of a slower growth at first because I think it just proves that even if you have really great content, sometimes that path is longer than than what you'll see. So a lot of people say, well, this channel blew up in like nine months. Well, A, there's YouTube Shorts now, B, the the platform is different than it ever has been. And C, you're only seeing the top of the top, right? There's a ton of channels, just like yours, that um not struggled, because that's the wrong word, but took a long time to get to where they are now. It wasn't this, it's the it's the iceberg thing where you just see the top of the iceberg out of the water and there's a whole bunch of stuff that happened underneath it. Um and you guys are absolutely like that thing. Tell us about a challenge during that time where either you second guessed things or you weren't sure, or was even was that even the thing? Or were you guys just always like, we're just pushing for it? It's working.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, it was frustrating as hell. It was so frustrating.

SPEAKER_03

The reason why we were always reverting back to the courses is because YouTube was not making us any money, right? And so we're like, I we we had a passion, a love, a desire to share our story, to to inspire other families to get out here and try something new.

SPEAKER_01

But after a year of like making$4,000 off YouTube and then another year of making like six thousand dollars, like not only that, him sitting at the laptop for hours and hours and days to make one video because he put so much love into it, yeah, was and there's no ROI, you know? It's like if you're putting that much time and effort into something, and there's like so that's why we stopped you like we stopped the long form multiple times throughout our time on YouTube, is because if it's not bringing in money, but it's a time sucker, we're like, you gotta get it, it's gotta get something's gotta give, right? Yeah, and so there's been multiple times where I'm like, we can't do it anymore, you know? And then and he's like, but I love it. And he he really loves it, you know.

SPEAKER_03

We've come this far. Like I can't stop, we can't stop now.

SPEAKER_00

Like, we didn't come this far to only come this far, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You never know.

SPEAKER_00

What happened that made things start to kind of work? Like what what happened?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think we hit a hundred. Did we hit a hundred thousand without shorts?

SPEAKER_00

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01

I'm not sure. So so when shorts came on the scene, we still were not posting shorts. Like we didn't even know how to make a short. It was like we weren't used to that.

SPEAKER_03

And then we just had this conception that it was just kids dancing, you know, on TikTok.

SPEAKER_01

And so one of our friends, who's another creator, she was blowing up on every platform. And she's like, guys.

SPEAKER_03

She hit two million like in like six months, you know.

SPEAKER_01

She's like, guys, you guys gotta start doing shorts. She's like, I love your long form, but you gotta start doing shorts. And so we're like, oh so we're like, all right. So we just took a bunch of our shorts that were on like TikTok and Instagram and started uploading them. And the RV content was just we started going viral on YouTube Shorts, and so we would make that like we'd have months where we made 120,000, we had 120,000 subscribers. I would post like crazy, like nine times a day. You know, I was I love testing, and so I'd post like one a day, twice a day. What is YouTube like? Then I just went crazy, so like a couple like for a couple of stints where I did literally nine a day.

SPEAKER_03

But that one you can only hold that up for three weeks to four weeks.

SPEAKER_01

But we do a lot of straight shots, you know, so it's not like a lot of heavy editing. It's like I talk to the camera with whatever, here we are, whatever. And the videos would go crazy and we would grow so fast. Like we literally had multiple months of like 120,000 subscribers.

SPEAKER_03

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

And so, you know, when you get those viral videos, it's yeah, it was ballistic.

SPEAKER_03

So imagine we spent five years trying to get to 50,000, and then all of a sudden in the next year you're like 100,000, 100,000, 100,000. Well, not only that, in the RV states, you know, there's an older demographic, and and that older gim demographic is the creator side, is like, we're not doing shorts. There was like a year and a half revolt.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, they're still stubborn. I'm not doing a stubborn.

SPEAKER_03

All right, I'll just take all your business, I'll do a multi shirt.

Brand Deals And Real Monetization

SPEAKER_00

So, how does that change the like financial aspect of content creation? Because shorts can can actually pay pretty decent if you get a lot of views. Did it help with like sponsorships or like opportunities? Like, what did it do besides just grow the channel?

SPEAKER_01

Well, for YouTube in particular, we're now getting brand deals for YouTube shorts. I think it took a while for brands to like think that it was a real thing or that it was like it was worth it. Um but now, yeah, we're getting the like we started doing long form again. Yeah and the the views are actually doing really well considering it there's such a huge gap. Um and then yeah, so we're getting brand deals on shorts.

SPEAKER_03

So so the the way we look at this is uh in the beginning nobody knew what to do with YouTube Shorts, like from a brand perspective. So we're like, hey, the algorithm's wide open. Yeah, I don't care. I'll I'll blow the doors off for a year until they figure out what to do with it, and then I'll be a year ahead of everybody else once the brands figure out what to do with this. So we we make about 80% of our money from brand deals. That's what we do now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_03

And so there was a transition point if we rewind back to a couple years ago when we were there's a transition between long form and short form. And she she had got an email to do a brand deal or a retainer for like, I don't know, five hundred bucks a month for like three months. And then we we this was our first exposure to like brand deals. And then from that, we're like, oh, wait a minute. If we're could do one a month, can we do five a month? Can we do ten a month? Can we do twenty a month? You know, like not realistically, but you can't jump on it. Yeah, and so that was a huge transition point for us. I would say, what did you say, 2020?

SPEAKER_01

2022, 21, 22, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Exposure to a brand wanted an integration in a YouTube video for you know five hundred bucks and they were like, holy crap, oh well this is a different game. And I don't know why we didn't know about that game back then.

SPEAKER_01

Well, we did our numbers weren't very big at the time. And so we didn't think like it was it was just hard to get brand deals. Um we had like sixteen thousand on Instagram, we weren't really doing TikTok, and then on YouTube we had I don't know fifty forty, fifty thousand or whatever. Um and so yeah, we weren't getting a lot of inbound, and I wasn't really pitching. We were just focusing on our R V course, or not the the creator course, and so but yeah, once we got that one email about the retainer, I'm like, let's go all in. And so, of course, being spontaneous, we went all in, and then that year just like blew up of you know, and then it just also inspired us to pro to create more, and so we posted more, and then Instagram grew, uh TikTok grew, like we grew TikTok for to like a hundred thousand in no time at all. We had so many viral videos, and then YouTube the same, and so all the platforms just started growing, and then all the the brand deals started coming in. Yeah, it was life-changing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and and now, like how what's the process? Does a brand just email you and then you guys talk about it and see if it's like a match for your vibe and match for what you believe in, and then try to figure out pricing and stuff. Like, how does that work? And who who's in charge of that, by the way? Me.

SPEAKER_02

I do all the business side, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I do all the business side. She's a New York ball buster over here. I love it. I love it. She's tough. She's a tough guy.

SPEAKER_01

Well, yeah, so either we reach out, DM them on Instagram if it's a veryone to work with, or they'll email us and be like, hey, we'd love to work with you. If it's obviously a good fit, we'd love to work with you. This is our rates. Um if they if they if they can match that rate, cool. If not, you know, can we compromise and we'll just negotiate to something? We have a manager now, so she handles a lot of that stuff. Um but for a long time I handled it all. Yeah, we're still out there. And I love actually I love it because I love talking to the brand and I love knowing what they want and what's their energy, you know, so we can deliver that, you know. Yeah. So I kind of miss that a little bit, not having a manager because I love to like, you know, chat with them and all that. But yeah, it also gets very busy, and so having a manager really, really helps.

SPEAKER_03

And the manager has access to things that we don't have access to bigger campaigns, bigger marketing budgets, yeah, like the big boy stuff. They go through managers.

SPEAKER_01

And they also know what the rates should be. You know, it's a while with us out here. You know, I'm like, throw this number out, throw spaghetti at the wall. He'll be like, you can't ask for that. I'm like, you can't just get the job, just get the three million followers across platforms. I think it's okay, you know.

SPEAKER_03

Just throw out some crazy number, and I'm like, all right, and then you know, maybe they say yes, and then we're like, all right. Like, all right.

Kids Creating Content With Safeguards

SPEAKER_00

Here's a bit of advice I've always told creators. If you because I I do have a a lot of times I've in my past, I would throw out a number that I think is crazy just because I don't want to do it. And if they say yes, I'll do it. Yeah, yeah. If if they say yes right away, you under you undersell yourself. Yeah, you know immediately because they're supposed to come back and say, oh yeah, immediately I did that once. I'm like, I'll give them this number, I'll they're never gonna say yes to. They said yes immediately, I'm like, oh man. I missed out on so much money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, okay. Now it's not just you two. You guys have kids. We talked a little bit briefly about that, but let's talk about their upbringing is different than most kids, uh, I think anywhere in the world, really. Not just because um, you know, they're they're on the move and traveling with you guys, and you guys, you know, their education is gonna be different. We can talk a little bit about that too. But the fact that they're also kind of YouTubers too. So talk about how as a parent you look at that. Are there safeguards in place? Like, do you how do you think about this whole situation?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so the kids obviously grew up with us filming, you know, and they and we didn't know if they were gonna want to do that too, if they that that's an outlet for them. But lo and behold, the two girls love making their own videos. They shoot, edit everything, their own. Wow, you know, they do it all, they come up with their own ideas. And so for us, I think that's awesome. They're getting their own brand deals, you know, and so yeah, there we do have like there there is like limitations as and uh they're good kids, so they're not trying to do anything that they shouldn't be doing.

SPEAKER_03

But yeah, we monitor their comments, make sure there's no creepers in there, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and so that kind of stuff. But it's it's really awesome to see them expressing themselves and their art and creating their own little communities. Like Skylar loves like she's loves traveling, she loves she's she's got the a great mindset, especially for teens. So she's always putting out positive stuff and she's getting her own little community of inspiring teens, and they it's awesome. Nixon loves beauty and fashion, so she's all into that, and these girls look up to her and they're like, Oh, I love your outfit, and you know, yeah, so they it's it's it's really cool to see.

SPEAKER_03

The the thing that I love about it is like, you know, I I love art, I love creating, I love, you know, I love making people feel something at the end of the day when they watch our videos. And to see the kids like kind of have that same passion, I'm like, oh man, that's freaking amazing. Like it's just like as a f I don't know, it's like I'm I'm handing down my sport, my uh my skill set, you know what I mean? I love it. As a cabinet maker, if they were making beautiful cabinets, I'll be like, my kids are making the best cabinets ever, you know. But but they're doing videos now, and the way we look at it too, like with this future of AI and who knows what the school system's gonna be around, and all this stuff, like you know, I would rather them find their passion, build it out, and have unlimited potential because really social media is unlimited potential. And so for us, that's just like there's no limit. You know what I mean? The harder you push, the more you grow, the more you grow, the more you charge, the harder you push, the more you grow. Like, there's no limit to this game.

SPEAKER_01

And the thought of them sitting in a pizza place and working for eight hours making 50 bucks, or the sky's the limit in how much you want to create and this and that. And so, you know, we didn't have that option when we were growing up. It's like I worked at Domino's Pizza, I worked at the bagel store, you know, and I I hated those jobs, but you have to do it, right? Yeah, and so I think times are changing so much that do they have to work at the supermarket, you know, to you know, and it's like I Sky wanted a job at one of the RV parks we're working at. And I go, Sky, well, you could do that, or you can just create and and then she got a brand deal with an e-motobike. Wow, a$1,500 bike, and I go, You can put your time into that. She's 15, and she doesn't have a huge following at all, you know.

SPEAKER_03

So it it does take time to get the ball rolling, right? It takes time. And it's funny, people I we always joke around, you're an overnight success that only took 10 years to get here. Exactly. That's uh that's always light up in the fucking. Well, it's sweat and tears, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Arguments we got into and fights and you know deadlines and can't get Wi-Fi and you know, right. Sitting outside the library at three in the morning.

SPEAKER_01

Those were the days, yeah. Sitting in front of a library after hours hoping the Wi-Fi was still on so you could upload your YouTube video.

SPEAKER_00

Or outside McDonald's or Starbucks now. Yeah, that that stuff happens. That's absolutely something. As a matter of fact, a couple of um I don't how often you guys make it to Japan at all?

SPEAKER_01

We went for our first time last year.

Meeting Viewers In Wild Places

SPEAKER_00

Last year. If you guys go again, there's a guy I interviewed here on the podcast channel who I'm a really big fan of and now friends with. Uh his channel is called Nomad Push. He's a homeless uh YouTuber in Japan. Uh, he lives out of his van now. He bought a van. He all the way up until this point, he was like on a moped and stuff. Like he was wild. His channel is amazing. I'll share it with you at the end. You guys are gonna love it. I want you guys to collab with him when you get back to Japan. You'll love him. He's a super wholesome guy, super fun. I think you guys would have so much fun. It would be so crazy because he's very kind of introverted, but really funny. And you guys are very outro. I would love that video. Like, I would watch the heck out of that video. Um let's do it. But what's cool is you guys kind of live similar lives. He was uh he's what they call like a corporate guy uh back in the day, and he was like, I'm not into that anymore. Like, I want to just go live my life, and that's what he's doing is um, you know, the first thing he did was he skateboarded across Japan and he live streamed the whole thing. Um then after he did that, he moped it uh to every prefecture in Japan over the course of like a year and put it all on YouTube. And now um he's gotten from the moped thing now he bought a van and now he's doing it in a van. Now, not as big as you guys, like you guys have like an actual looks like a home, basically. Um he's doing it like a little van. So it's really cool. I've been talking to him a lot and just kind of encouraging him. And he's such a great guy. Anyway, that if you're listening to the podcast, we actually have that podcast episode. Make sure you check it out. It's the Nomad Push One. I do want to talk about one thing that I I just spoke to uh spoke to me. I always ask um this for content creators, but I specifically remember this happening to you guys because you live streamed part of it. What was it like uh meeting people uh who watch your content? And I remember specifically you guys were like driving and someone was like driving next to you and like beep the horn or something. Can you tell us?

SPEAKER_01

And actually, we were not, we were our channel is really small at that point. I 10,000, 20,000, you know, and we've only had a handful of videos up. And yeah, we were in Las Vegas, we're out of light. But actually, no, we were driving, and this girl honks, and we look over and she's like waving, and we're like, and did you know what she was waiting about?

SPEAKER_00

Or did you didn't even keep it? No idea. No idea.

SPEAKER_01

And she we rolled the window down and we're like, hi, and she's like, I watch you on YouTube, and we're like, get the heck out of here. Like, what are the chances? First off, how did you even see us in the car? You know, like to know that. I guess my I don't know if it's part of my hair, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_03

Probably we'll do two funny scenarios real quick. Yeah, we were in uh Bali, Indonesia on a remote island called the Gilly Islands, Gilly T. Okay, we're standing there in the and it's horse horse-drawn carriages and bicycles only. So there's no electrified anything on the island. Remote, remote, remote. So we're standing there. This couple walks up and they're like, Oh my god, I recognize you guys from YouTube. And we're like, oh cool, you know, like how random was that? And then five seconds later, another two girls walk up.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god, and they were all from different countries. Really?

SPEAKER_03

And then about 30 seconds later, another two people came up. And so we had it, we had six people standing in front of us from different parts of the world as we're on a remote island in the middle of nowhere. And I'm like, this is the wildest.

SPEAKER_01

And we were not big. This was probably 2019, 18, 19. Wow, 30,000 subscribers.

SPEAKER_03

It was wild.

SPEAKER_01

And nothing, no other social media, just those long forms, right? And yeah, we're like, this is insane, you know.

SPEAKER_03

So I mean, it but now it's funny because she'll be like, oh, uh the girls always giggle. They're like, there she is, there she is. So I'm like, Sandy, come over and get a picture, you know.

SPEAKER_00

So what is that like? Like, what's the what's like more recently? Is that when you just go to the grocery store or something? Or how is that? It's everywhere, yeah. Really?

SPEAKER_03

We were just at the airport, we just went up to Pennsylvania two days ago, and uh, there's like, I don't know, 12 little boys.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, there was there was a group of boys, like 12 before. And then when we went to another level, there was like a bunch of girls. And so they were like, Is that her? Is that her? And they go, Do you have a YouTube channel? We go, you guys go, they all freak out.

SPEAKER_03

Then they all went, they would come over and get pictures and stuff like that. And we did we always do little videos for them and pictures because we know what it's like to like see people that we look up to. Like I remember when I was like gone with the winds. I'm like, oh my god, there they are.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we did that. We're like, oh my gosh, should we go say hi? And there was that's so funny.

Privacy And Safety With A Famous RV

SPEAKER_00

I've introduced other creators to bigger creators. So at Vid Summit a couple years ago, I was with um a person who is pretty big in the um lifestyle space, and we were hanging out and we were walking to Vid Summit, and she saw one of like her like major not crushes, but like someone she really loves on the top. I said, You should go over to her, you should just say hi. She's like, I don't think I should. I'm like, you have like 700,000 subscribers. What are you doing? Let's go over there. Like, what are you talking about? Um, so I mean, it's just a human nature, like it's kind of cool to see people that you you connect with. So let's talk about that. So the cool thing is sometimes you go around, people are like, oh my god, you guys are the best. You have to talk about both sides of this. So not every person is like amazing. So I talked to um Leah from C Jane Drill the other day, and she told us she told me about what fortunately was a good thing, a good experience, someone showing up to our house, which is a little bit extra. Um have there been kind of these bad situations and how have you dealt with them? And especially with kids, like you've got to be even extra protective. Like, how do you guys navigate that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So, you know, our situation is a little different. We live in an RV that is black and hot pink with our logo on the side.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, hello, look at us. Hello. We didn't think that went through.

SPEAKER_01

And it's custom paint. Because our old RV, it was a wrap. So we could eventually take it off if we if we needed to, right? But this one it's it's paint, so it's on there. Um but look, and and we do like so in an RV park, it's different from someone going to your house because that's like that's different. Yeah, yeah. We're in an R V park with a lot of RVers probably know our channel because we have a lot of RV content.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So they do come up and all the time and be like, oh my god, I love your channel.

SPEAKER_03

And but but it's it's acceptable in the RV space because everybody's just everybody talks. You're used to that. Like, oh my god, they'll see our door open. Hey, can I come say hi? And we're just like, yeah, cool, you know, what's up?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and honestly, we we love it. We love meeting everybody. And so, I mean, that's why we all that's why YouTubers do it, right? Yes, of course. If you don't want to meet people or have people know who you are, then you're not gonna put your face online. Right. And so for us, we think it's just a spider web of people that have seen us on one platform or another. And if they like us that much and they want to come say hi to us, like, oh my god, flattered, you know. Of course. Thank you, you know. And so we always look at it in such a positive way. And fortunately, we haven't had any negative issues, knock on wood. Um it's always been just love. I think we put good vibes out there. Yeah, at all. So we never do anything controversial, we never do anything crossing the line where people can like hate on that. It's like we're just a family having fun and we hope to inspire people, you know?

SPEAKER_03

And so I think with that, I wish we had a dirk dirty dirt dirty secret story or something like that. But we really I mean, we've stopped at like Walmart parking lots for like the night, and people are outside like kind of hooping and hollering, you know?

SPEAKER_01

Like they'll they stop and take pictures.

SPEAKER_03

If we do a long trap, if we're traveling from like Florida to, I don't know, Idaho, you know, it's like a five-day journey across the United States. And so we we drive till it gets dark, and then we just pull over into like Walmart parking lots because you're allowed to stay the night there. And then, you know, you got this giant RV with logos all over it, and people are like they'll look you up and then start, you know, hooping and hollering outside. That's that's yeah, that's pretty much the only thing. That's not bad.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's so what are the things that you kind of talked a little bit about this, but I do want to get deeper into this for your kids, because of course they're different. What are the ages of your kids now?

SPEAKER_01

Uh 12, 15, and just turned 17.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. So you have teeners, teenagers that uh really can have their own big following and stuff and can start to figure out life, and plus their their life experience is way different than the normal 15 or 17 years, like way different. So they probably are a little bit more well adjusted to social dynamics of things, and plus growing up on YouTube probably even more so. But like when you look at the the youngest, what are your uh, if any, concerns about kind of this environment for them? Because I just know that though people be watching going, yeah, I mean that sounds great, and it's great to have a positive environment, but there's just so many weird people online that like is it dangerous for do you do you worry about, or you just have so much faith in what uh you guys have built up that you're not as worried about it?

SPEAKER_01

Um I'm definitely not that worried about it. Obviously, you never know where we'd weird people are, you know. Right, of course. Um and so and the kids are well aware of like their surroundings, and you know, people do recognize us, and people will recognize you. Like they they recognize the kids without us around, and so they are recognizable, you know. And so we we just we have lots of talks with them, like if anything ever feels weird, or you know.

SPEAKER_03

We we install a lot of street smarts in them. Yeah, just even at last night we're at Walmart, it's 11 o'clock closing. Me and Nixon got separated. I seen these two like you know, questionable characters, and you know what? They tried to talk to her when she was by herself, of course. And she and she told them right away.

SPEAKER_01

That was just because she was a girl, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

They didn't know who she was or nothing, but it's like she right away, she goes, I don't want to talk to you. I don't know, I'm here with my dad, I'm going to find it. Boom. She was back to me for like 30 seconds. I'm like, damn, like that's crazy. Like, I saw these guys, I knew they were like You knew it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You figured it out. That's good.

SPEAKER_03

So so I the kids are very aware that even if they get a weird comment, they're like, Mom, dad, check out this comment. What do you think? We're like, eh. You know, before they they post their stuff, we're like, let's look at it, make sure it's not provocative, or make sure you guys aren't like, you know, selling the wrong message.

SPEAKER_00

All right, now let's get into a little bit of strategy because you guys have kind of taken an art form of vlogging and taking it to another level. But I'm gonna ask you guys from the perspective of like a new content creator. Because you have a lot of new content creators listening, and I'm sure a lot of them want to vlog at some point. And some of them want to travel. We do get emails from travel vloggers and stuff like that, uh, and people that are all over the world now around the country. Let's talk about some advice you want to give these people. Now, a lot of people are not gonna be able to edit the way you guys do and have like the cool drone shots and the amazing cinematography. Let's say you guys started today with your phone only, no drones, no, no, um, nothing that you guys have access to now. What would be your strategy starting a new channel, vlogging, um, with the occasional trip out, and what would your first couple of videos, what would they be about, and what would they kind of look like and that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_01

That's a really good question.

SPEAKER_03

So it's very interesting because I've actually like we have the trying something new mega channel, right? But I also have a passion for like I love I got a big jacked up truck, I love all the truck accessories, and all but that doesn't always necessarily fit on like our main channel. So I've actually I started a separate channel, so I'm starting at zero on this separate channel. So tell us how that's been. Tell us how that's been. I'm I'm right in the in the heat of that, you know, and just putting out I'm putting out stuff that I'm just passionate about. I love truck stuff. If if it was up to me, our channel would be like half truck stuff, and it's like that doesn't really resonate with what we're trying to do, you know. So yeah, I don't know. I just find something you really like, something you're passionate about, and uh just start posting stuff because other people that have that passion will be gravitated towards you. And so that's I think that's the easiest thing.

SPEAKER_01

Now, honestly, here's another totally like just like you said, take away all the the fancy editing and the drones and all the trick shots and whatnot. And we call it, it's like there's a new thing about the the grandpa style, right?

SPEAKER_03

Where literally say this?

SPEAKER_01

Like, okay.

SPEAKER_03

It's the super, super basic let me let me let me I'll just break it down real quick. I am uh I I consider myself a master editor, right? I can make anything, do anything. Absolutely, and and I put 15 to 20 hours into each video. Okay, believe it. And and they perform decently. And then I've got friends that are in our same space that are doing uh just a linear. I woke up, I walked outside, I got in my car, I went to this event, I came back, I kissed my kids goodnight, and we went to bed. Like that's all it is. And and they're 10xing our views, and I'm like, what's going on here?

SPEAKER_01

You would consider that very boring, right? Like, where's the climax? Where's the story, right?

SPEAKER_03

I consider that very boring, and it's almost like if I'm at a level eight, it's like playing at a level two, right? Sure. Yeah, yeah. But but these guys are outperforming me in my advanced editing. And so our friends, like, try it. It's called grandpa style. It's just your basic, simple, cut out the gaps. Like that's all it is. On your timeline, just go through, pop the clips together, yeah. Cut out the gap. Cut out the gaps. So we we started, I would say, um, not making such advanced edits, and our numbers are starting to go through the roof. And it is mind-boggling to me. Because I'm like, Are you upset by this? He hates all of that, yeah. I I'm upset at first, yeah, but I'm very happy that a 12-hour edit now takes me an hour and a half. Yeah, it's a lot quicker.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And and I it's almost like you gotta have a I don't give a crap attitude, and you just you're just slapping it together and throwing it up. I overthink everything, I complicate everything, I make everything way too. I don't know, maybe uh the viewer just wants to sit next to you. I feel like that's what the viewer just sky, our our middle daughter, put up a poll. She goes, Do you want highly edited music montage, drone shots, or do you want a basic edit? 87%. No music, yeah. No music, even. 87%. 87% said we want the basic edit with no music. Wow.

SPEAKER_01

What? Well, so obviously there's you got Mr. B style. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got there's so many different ranges. But if someone is starting brand new and you just have your phone, just start recording and learning as you go, you know? Like just start posting because you're gonna learn so much that way. Now, a lot of people are viewing long form on TV, and so you have a lot more real estate to work with. Because like the way we were used to be is like you don't miss a second. Like it's like every two seconds the clips have to change and this and that. And now it's like people just want to be like watching the journey, you know. And I'm I'm sitting on my couch and watching, and you know, we did a collab with FaZe Rug, right? And he really opened our eyes to something. He's because he's doing like three uh every three days a video, and we're like, obviously, he's got a team and all that.

SPEAKER_03

He's highly edited though, too.

SPEAKER_01

But he's not necessarily highly edited, you know. And he said most of his audience is watching him on TV.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so they're sitting on their couch, and so he has the thing where, hey, grab your meal, eat your meal with me, whatever, and and watch the video or something like that. And so I was like, oh.

SPEAKER_03

So it's it's been like it's very hard for me. It's like having a Lamborghini, and then you're just like, no, I'm gonna get a Kia Sol, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I understand.

SPEAKER_01

But changed, I think. I think I think shorts have like zapped people out with the uh, you know, the dopamine hits that it's almost like the pendulum is swinging back the other way, where it's like, I just want to watch something. I just want to sit back, zone out, and just enjoy whatever content this is.

SPEAKER_03

Here's what I think. Think it is. Uh cycles repeat themselves, and right now the kids love these big baggy pants and baggy sweatshirts and bell bottoms. You know what? That would pretty soon it'll come back again where everybody likes tight jeans and then it'll go back again to like big baggy pants and bell bottoms.

SPEAKER_01

Like so I think the biggest thing is experiment. You have to experiment. I mean, YouTube is is the one place where you know, check your analytics, what's working, what's not. We see that these grandpa style videos where you're slowly walking people through something compared to what we would used to do, what we used to do. And it's working. The views are going up higher.

SPEAKER_03

I can put out three grandpa's a week versus one highly edited. So you're not going to be able to do that. No, no, it just tripled our income because exactly.

SPEAKER_01

The AdSense is now coming in because we had, you know, we could have three to ten million views a month. Majority is shorts. Like 95% of that was shorts. Now it's starting to like where videos are starting to come up, you know, and our RPM could be$10 to$15.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus with like sponsorship deals on those. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, integrations and all that. So now we see it beneficial to do long form again. Because before the way we were doing it, it did not work. Didn't make sense, yeah, yeah. Didn't make sense. But now with this grandpa style, we're like, and people are loving it. They're commenting, they're like, oh my god, I love it. Thank you for putting more long form. Because before they're like, where's the long form? And we're like, dude, you don't even know how long it is. It's not worth it, you know. We don't like to do, you know.

SPEAKER_03

And so something my friend said that that's doing the grandpa style. He goes, These videos aren't for you. And so that was like hard for me. He's like, they're not for you, they're for they're for the audience, you know?

Consistency Systems And What’s Next

SPEAKER_00

And I'm like, uh but that's the thing. We have to remember that as creators, a lot of this isn't for us. Like it's such a weird thing to kind of like come to grips with. It's like I'm doing this content for me, but really you're doing it for the viewer, because if you want success, that's what it is. And sometimes you have to let go of certain aspects of content creation that are holding you back from like getting to where you want to be. And that's one of the things. It doesn't mean that you can't do that stuff. There are moments for it. As a matter of fact, I think you could have funny parts inside of your video where you do those highly edited things. Like if you're making breakfast, like a highly edited thing about scrambling eggs, and then it goes right back to the normal grandpa style would be funny. Like just the little parts would be kind of fun. People like, oh no, it's the highly like the bullet time of pouring milk into a glass and then go back to the hilarious. So I think you can always use your skills just about being creative. What do you guys think the next step is for you guys? Like, what is the next type of obviously doing shorts, trying to get more long form? What's the content strategy moving forward?

SPEAKER_01

Who what is the content strategy?

SPEAKER_03

We've always struggled with like systems and like consistency. Like uh we would like three shorts a day, three long forms a week, one podcast a week, three lives a week, you know what I mean? Like we're just like, geez, Louise, like it just fall off.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we always fall off the wagon. So I think the future would be being way more consistent. We'd love to put out more long form um and keep that consistent, but I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, right right now we're gonna have an idea. I actually have an idea for you guys. I'm not gonna tell it on the podcast. I'm gonna tell you guys uh after the podcast. Uh I'm gonna pitch you an idea.

SPEAKER_01

Ooh, the suspense.

SPEAKER_00

I think it might be kind of fun. But go ahead, keep going, keep going.

SPEAKER_03

I was gonna say right now we're in a season of catch-up because last year I I just did a report. We traveled 80% of last year. Wow.

SPEAKER_01

We traveled all over all over Southeast Asia.

SPEAKER_03

We went to Europe for a while, and just you know, out there creating, capturing a an ungodly amount of content, but then you've got to come home and process it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then while you're processing it, life still goes on, you get more jobs, you know, you still gotta create your daily content. It's just like yeah. So right now we're in a season of like sit still for a minute, catch up, get systems in place, and just get a little bit more uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so we're in a bit of a transition of focusing 100% on the business and growing that. And we're not sure where that leads. Um we would love to obviously grow bigger and have more opportunities and all of that, but yeah, our brains are so like our bandwidth is so small right now because we're focused on the catch-up that we haven't set our goals out yet. And so, yeah, that's I'm curious to hear what you have to say, Travis.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I got all types of ideas we're gonna talk about the podcast. Um, last thing, um, at some point, you guys will be old like me. And then you're not gonna want to do as much tra well. I mean, I shouldn't say that. Some people are even in this older age, are like, I want to do that. But I think a lot of people change with time, right? Like everything changes with time, your priorities change. Uh, obviously, uh, I'm sure you guys will eventually be grandparents, which may be a scary word to say, but I mean you probably will be, which is great. And then you might just want to chill. What does that look like to you now if there was a version of that that sounds palatable? Because before you guys left because the the everyday rigors of doing these things didn't sound great, and you didn't want to but at some point you might want to calm down and chill. Is there ever a moment where you're like, I know what retirement looks like for us? What would that look like?

SPEAKER_01

Retirement definitely would not be sitting still, like in a house or whatever, at all. It would be if the kids are out doing their own thing, we would probably be out exploring the world doing more like it's a different experience when it's just us versus, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Chugging along three kids that maybe aren't in the best mood or maybe are hungry or maybe didn't sleep. Yeah, a little crazy.

SPEAKER_01

But uh not to say that our kids have ever been like that.

SPEAKER_03

You guys know we're walking through the Coliseum right now. Can you not have a freak out just so we can enjoy this moment? You know? This is like epic history right here.

SPEAKER_01

Can we just like when I when I think about retirement for us, I just think adventure like out there doing like really cool stuff.

SPEAKER_03

We we've always toyed around with buying like, you know, uh 20 acres and building a barn dominion and you know, having like a compound as a home base to like maybe have 10 RV sites so people can come in and out of it. Oh, that would be cool. But I think after we got set up and we sat still for about six months, we would be bored out of our minds.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's like let's just go. All right, mom, can you go run that? We gotta go.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, that's awesome. We'd love to get a catamaran, a giant cataman and sail around the Bahamas for a year or two.

Retirement Dreams And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_00

I mean, just recreate your favorite places somewhere and just make it a big compound of like all the coolest things. And uh, I don't know how that would be possible, but that might be fun to try. If you're new here and you just found your new favorite channel, trying something new, uh, their links will be in the description and in the show notes if you listen to the audio podcast. They are everywhere, but don't worry, you'll be able to find them. And I can't thank you guys enough for coming to the podcast, it's so good. So if they want to interact with you in some way, obviously the YouTube channels are good. Do you guys actually read your comments? I think some people are questioning that. They're like, ah, they're so big, they don't read their comments.

SPEAKER_03

We try as hard as we can. That's another full-time job.

SPEAKER_01

That's another goal for this year, is to we get a lot of comments on, you know, we have we're on four different platforms.

SPEAKER_03

Three times a day. We average like a thousand comments a day, so it's just like we get to like the first, you know, 20 or 30. You know, we spend an hour answering all the comments, and then we gotta do the do the work.

SPEAKER_01

I get to probably more comments on Instagram and YouTube, or actually the long form YouTube, but Instagram, I try to get to as many comments as possible. So that would be an Instagram DM would be the easiest way to get a hold of us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01

I'm always in there.

SPEAKER_00

Well, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone else, we'll see y'all in the next one.

SPEAKER_01

Bye.