How Our Photographer Buddy "Nuch" Built an Ultimate Dream Career in 6 Years Artwork

The Photographer Mindset

The Photographer Mindset is a podcast specifically created for photographers, and those who believe their purpose is to create, inspire and develop into their full potential. The photographer mindset podcast was initiated to help creative individuals understand that their success depends on more than just skill and dedication. In this podcast we learn to develop a winning mindset based on attitude and out of the box thinking strategies so that we can grow our clients, brand recognition & confidence. We want to work smarter towards our goals, not harder.

All Episodes

The Photographer Mindset

How Our Photographer Buddy "Nuch" Built an Ultimate Dream Career in 6 Years

August 25, 2025 • Seth Macey & Aaron Mannes • Episode 287

Mike Nuchereno (@nuch10), affectionately known as "Nuch," is a talented wildlife photographer turned digital archivist for the renowned band Goose. A good friend of the show and now a four-time guest, Nuch’s journey is nothing short of inspiring.

Starting as a beginner wildlife photographer in 2019, he found his way into Goose’s orbit by photographing the band from his car at a COVID-era concert—a bold move that turned into a dream opportunity. Today, he’s living what many would call the ultimate dream: combining his passion for photography and storytelling with his love for music, all while helping to preserve and shape the future visual legacy of one of his favorite bands.

Expect to Learn:

How to Turn Your Passion into a Life-Changing Opportunity
How to Build a Strong Network That Fuels Your Growth
How to Take Back Control of Your Time and Focus
How to Stay Committed to Long-Term Success and Growth
How to Reflect, Adapt, and Evolve for Personal and Professional Growth

Sponsors:

Thanks to WhiteWall for being our lead sponsor this episode! They're the top choice for photographers who want high-quality prints, with a variety of material options, and who want their work delivered fast in 9 days or less! Use the code TPM2025 at checkout for 15% off: https://www.whitewall.com/

Thanks also to the National Park Foundation for sponsoring today’s episode. Enter the Share the Experience photo contest for a chance to win $10,000 and prizes from Celestron, Historic Hotels of America, and YETI. The grand prize winner’s photo could be featured on the America the Beautiful—the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Annual Pass.

Submit your best shots now at sharetheexperience.org/tpm

Our Links:

Join our subreddit where you can share stories and ask questions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/photographermindset/

Subscribe to TPM's Youtube page and watch full length episodes: https://www.youtube.com/thephotographermindset/

Make a donation via PayPal for any amount you feel is equal to the value you receive from our podcast episodes! Donations help with the fees related to hosting the show: https://paypal.me/podcasttpm?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US

Thanks for listening!
Go get shooting, go get editing, and stay focused.

@sethmacey
@mantis_photography
@thephotographermindset

Support the show

00:00:48.71
Seth Macey
Mike, welcome back for the fourth time.

00:00:55.70
Nuch
I don't know. Is it three or four?

00:00:56.64
Seth Macey
i think so. I believe it's four. i believe it's four.

00:00:58.91
Nuch
Four.

00:00:59.11
Aaron
guess four.

00:00:59.27
Nuch
Okay. right.

00:01:00.50
Seth Macey
Mike came on with these um amber hippie looking sunglasses and then Aaron said, let's all go get sunglasses and feel like we're at the World Poker Tour.

00:01:11.15
Seth Macey
Aaron looks like a lizard. um I look like my stepdad gave me a jet ski for the weekend and I'm going to go terrorize cottagers. ah So yeah, so if you're watching on YouTube, just bear with it.

00:01:24.05
Seth Macey
If you're not, go see Brad, Chad, and Mike's not really a Chad here. Mike's like Mike's in his element. Mike, what are you What is your element nowadays? You look the part, man.

00:01:36.77
Seth Macey
You look the parts.

00:01:36.94
Nuch
ah I don't know what I am. i guess i i guess I'm in the hippie sort of thing, but I don't really want to identify as a hippie.

00:01:45.91
Seth Macey
Well, you look like the art director, videographer, photographer for a fusion jam band. Yeah.

00:01:51.14
Nuch
Yeah, right?

00:01:53.00
Aaron
Yeah, that works pretty close on that track.

00:01:54.85
Seth Macey
pretty close uh that's what i'd say if i saw you on the street and i didn't know you ah aaron why did we have mike back today you had some thoughts for an episode today i think since we know mike so well we'll be able to just kind of riff and um maybe be less formal which is often a kind of more interesting format but it's always good to have some sort of structure

00:01:56.40
Aaron
Yeah.

00:01:59.53
Nuch
So...

00:02:15.79
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah, I need my happy glasses to deal with his cantankerous moods.

00:02:22.87
Seth Macey
can't take

00:02:23.04
Aaron
But good, good, good, good.

00:02:23.14
Nuch
Oh, I'm good today. Come on.

00:02:25.65
Aaron
good

00:02:25.83
Nuch
I'm feeling good.

00:02:27.04
Aaron
ah No, I just think it's always a good conversation. Mike, Seth, we used to wake up to 17 reels from Mike every morning. And then it just stopped cold turkey.

00:02:38.83
Seth Macey
What happened? I didn't even notice that that ended. and

00:02:41.10
Aaron
Yeah, it just ended one day. like Like he fell off the face of the earth. And it took a little while to realize like, oh, he's just not on here right now.

00:02:52.45
Aaron
Uh, he didn't answer maybe one of my DMS or a question or, uh, maybe one of my reels that I thought was hilarious.

00:02:58.33
Seth Macey
Maybe it wasn't funny or your question was stupid.

00:02:58.41
Aaron
nice And I sent his way. oh I just didn't even look at it. And also Mike would tell me that's stupid. So there's, yeah, yeah.

00:03:09.85
Nuch
You knew something was wrong.

00:03:12.47
Seth Macey
It got to the floor, Mike didn't even grace you with the scene by Newt 10.

00:03:12.87
Aaron
no,

00:03:15.96
Seth Macey
It's just...

00:03:16.83
Aaron
no, no, no. Irish goodbye. but

00:03:19.13
Seth Macey
Yes.

00:03:20.27
Aaron
We didn't bother him. Just next time we talked on the phone, i was like, Hey man, are you, uh, what's with, uh, are you off Instagram? And he's like, yeah, all set. I noticed some things. So I thought that was a good, uh, interesting talk off point. We, um, we chatted on that for a while.

00:03:34.93
Aaron
And then, uh, the other thing we chatted about was just like where photography is taking us. And it's crazy. And we were, we were both laughing, um, at where we are 2025 in August doing in 2019.

00:03:39.77
Seth Macey
don't know.

00:03:46.53
Aaron
compared to some of the things we were doing in two thousand and nineteen some of the Some of the deal brand or brand deals we were doing and little things we were trying to do to get into it.

00:03:50.79
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:03:57.09
Aaron
um Yeah, it's just been a ah crazy ride. So that's ah that's a nice little table setter right there.

00:04:04.57
Seth Macey
Mike, what would you tell 2019 you who's very new to photography? ah Where you're at now? Like what conversation would that even, what would that look like?

00:04:16.69
Seth Macey
Would you believe you were talking to your future self? I mean, you're, you're, for people who don't know, Mike is the, what's your, what's your role with goose goose, the band officially, do you have one? Are you just the guy?

00:04:25.85
Nuch
Yeah, no, my official role with them is archivist at this point. um And then i I do a lot of other things.

00:04:32.64
Seth Macey
That's,

00:04:36.28
Nuch
So I started as a photographer and then that kind of morphed into videographer. And at the same time, like, what do you guys do with all of your data?

00:04:48.70
Nuch
and

00:04:48.93
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:04:49.65
Nuch
um I was like, I can take that and duplicate it and make it pretty. And then also because of like the photography that I've done, i got, you know, really into drobos and backing things up in a raid system.

00:05:02.72
Nuch
So I was like, why don't you give me all of your photography as well? And I'll create a really nice catalog and have it all geotagged and keyworded and make it so that you can access this stuff quickly.

00:05:16.08
Aaron
Wow.

00:05:19.91
Nuch
because they had just folders on drives and no particular reason rhyme or reason. And so I pulled of, they handed me like 15, eight terabyte drives that were all full and in no particular, just sort of order.

00:05:31.41
Seth Macey
Bye.

00:05:36.93
Aaron
wow

00:05:41.37
Nuch
was, it kind of like progressed through the years, but like nothing was really labeled and in any order. So I took and and half those drives, like the the inputs were broken.

00:05:53.28
Nuch
so like sometimes they'd boot, sometimes they wouldn't. And I was just like, oh, my God, if you lost this drive right now, like this is all there is. if It's like a sketchy input.

00:06:02.71
Seth Macey
you

00:06:03.25
Nuch
I was like, holy shit. So I took everything, got it all off there, then started then backed it up, then started kind of like organizing, cleaning up, putting it in some sort of like nomenclature for the folders, um putting it into chronological order as best I could based on what I saw on the drive.

00:06:05.88
Aaron
Yeah.

00:06:24.58
Nuch
and then pulled every did like, you know, just a ah huge sweep of, of all image stills, got those off onto their own drive, created a catalog, did what I just said.

00:06:35.95
Nuch
And then, um, yeah, just then from that point on, I created like a ah standard format and, um, template for other people to follow when they give me the data. So we work with, you know,

00:06:48.97
Nuch
10 different photographers from time to time. It could be that many. And so there we have a, you know, I set up a, a, a Dropbox folder and everyone knows how to access that. And when you export your files, you know, have your last name in there, the date, the show, and there's all this like stuff that I kind of created to make it easier for me to ingest that into the master catalog. And then, you know, we just keep, uh, keep growing, but it's, uh, we're at 85,000 images now.

00:07:18.67
Nuch
which is pretty cool.

00:07:20.66
Seth Macey
wow

00:07:20.76
Nuch
And, and we're at ah between 400 and 500 terabytes of data. um Almost, you know, probably 800 terabytes backed up.

00:07:34.43
Seth Macey
Yeah, so you're the digital historian for this band.

00:07:38.05
Nuch
Yeah, yeah, that's my main, that's my main role at the moment.

00:07:40.09
Seth Macey
So...

00:07:43.15
Aaron
Now question does, is this a unique thing for goose in terms of their, their media sharing and their, their availability, I would say online compared to other bands.

00:07:53.72
Aaron
Cause I, mean, my, my deeper question is like 85,000 photos. Will they see the light of day ever?

00:08:01.15
Nuch
They would definitely not have had I not done what I done. I'm not patting myself on the back, but there is no freaking way that you would go through.

00:08:07.41
Aaron
Yeah.

00:08:11.77
Nuch
at 40, 40 some drives. No way. Are you going through 40 some drives looking for folders that may have images in a, most of them were music.

00:08:20.88
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:08:21.40
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:08:23.52
Nuch
Like they had music, audio, video, you know, and, and photos combined all in the thing and art, you know, there was like posters designs and like, it was just random stuff that wasn't really, there was not too much rhyme or reason to it.

00:08:29.13
Aaron
yeah

00:08:40.52
Nuch
Um, so I would say the likelihood of going back and finding an image that you maybe had in your mind of like, Oh, there was that one image, like you finding that would have just been so minimal.

00:08:49.86
Aaron
yeah

00:08:50.12
Nuch
And now I use, like, I have a very long list of keywords. um So, like, let's say if you wanted to find Rick in the green room in Madison Square Garden, you type those three words and, you know, you got all his images.

00:09:03.46
Seth Macey
wild.

00:09:03.65
Nuch
um And I have it all facial. you know, I use the facial recognition tool. And I have to, you know, for every show, think about it. and anyone Any face in the crowd needs to be deleted out so that that's not, like, a placeholder.

00:09:16.00
Aaron
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:09:17.48
Nuch
So, like, I'll get... you know, over a thousand hits for faces in one show. And I have to delete all the crowd and then, you know, assign, you know, Rick, Trevor, the crew I do, management I do, photographers, you know, anyone who's like part of the organization has a face in the catalog so that you can go back.

00:09:40.49
Nuch
it's someone's birthday, you know, you can give a shout out for their birthday. Hey, it's, you know, Getty's birthday, you know, happy birthday, Getty.

00:09:45.61
Aaron
Yeah.

00:09:47.80
Nuch
um

00:09:47.95
Aaron
so

00:09:49.45
Nuch
Yeah, it's it's a lot.

00:09:49.52
Aaron
It's crazy to ranch it it's the branches of photography and... and like where you can, I mean, this is a very specific from new to the wildlife photographer, you know, that we started to know and, and became friends with back in 2019 to now getting in like the nitty gritty of like metadata and organizing files.

00:10:00.84
Nuch
yeah

00:10:13.18
Seth Macey
Thank

00:10:13.26
Aaron
So it's like, it's a, it's a parallel step from photography to like, ah I'm the chemist or engineer behind every photo. Like, where does it go? I'm putting it on a shelf very specifically.

00:10:29.36
Nuch
Yeah.

00:10:29.38
Aaron
It's just such a, like when you think photographer, you don't think of that sort of leap and jump. And for that job, there must be 10 other things that you could potentially do with photography as well for someone.

00:10:39.95
Seth Macey
Well, and the missing link too, right?

00:10:40.03
Aaron
ah

00:10:41.63
Seth Macey
That started as wildlife photography, built a love for photography, brought this camera in just to recap.

00:10:42.42
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:10:47.22
Seth Macey
People have heard this story before since you've been on so many times, but just to recap, you brought your camera into a goose show, even though they told you they didn't need you, you did it anyways and, and ah built a connection from there at a concert, right?

00:10:59.83
Seth Macey
During COVID and now doing the things you just described, like,

00:11:00.96
Nuch
yeah i mean,

00:11:06.50
Seth Macey
Madness. I guess what question before you you jump in because i know you're excited to is like how far can you take something? How far can you take this? Have you thought of that are you just kind of going day by day?

00:11:18.41
Nuch
obviously You have to spend a lot of time planning certain things in the different subsets that you have available to you. um So for instance, if I'm going to go and I know that my role is going to be a photographer, and I've told this story on the thing, so I'll make it very brief, but like Radio City Music Hall was my first sort of big opportunity to like get my name on the itinerary for the day and, you know, photo shoot with new between noon and one.

00:11:50.32
Nuch
And I had them on the marquee of radio city music hall. And I had, you know, done a lot of research on how I wanted this shot to go. I literally drew it out before I got there and and showed it to him and convinced them that this was something we, you know should, should take a look at. And,

00:12:06.26
Nuch
um you know, it we we executed it. And if I wouldn't have put that prep in, it wouldn't have happened that way. um So there's a certain amount of thought that you want to put into something, but there's also go with the flow and just see what happens and where, what door is open.

00:12:28.29
Nuch
Cause that's the craziest part. And and that's sort of what Aaron and I were talking about too. And you alluded to it at the top of this, just like it's insane where we have gotten from 2019 to now we use 2019 just for anyone listening is because that's kind of when we met, we all met each other um through our community.

00:12:47.94
Nuch
that um you know a good crew of us started and and grew through covid so just that that time period of knowing one another and and what we've done and and how we've grown has been really wacky um that's why we kind of reference that but yeah yeah no that's it's available to anyone

00:13:04.51
Aaron
Yeah. And maybe,

00:13:05.57
Seth Macey
And that anyone can do, you know, i think.

00:13:07.22
Aaron
yeah and maybe, maybe the three of us could sort of reverse engineer that. Exactly. Like what, what are the, the dry steps of 2019 to now?

00:13:20.68
Nuch
Yeah.

00:13:20.76
Aaron
And I mean, I'll go, I'll go. The first one is like networking, right? Like finding your like-minded people. And there's a lot of filtering through that.

00:13:30.83
Aaron
Like not everyone sticks, but,

00:13:32.31
Seth Macey
Thank

00:13:33.44
Aaron
really trying to meet a lot of people and just do a lot of things together. I think that was the first one. And some of the crazy things we did were like set up editing contests, ah set up a East versus West photo thing and how much effort we put into that with like the scorecards and the baseball card sort of look and the voting and counting votes and spreadsheets.

00:13:59.82
Aaron
Like that was a full-time job for that. three months or two months, however long we did it. ah Things that some were one hit wonders, some were just like, let's do that. But we we have the relationships now from that initial step that I think is really a ah good first step.

00:14:19.56
Aaron
It's like, don't do don't go this alone. Find people and bounce off people and get involved with what other people are doing. Invite other people to get involved with what you're doing.

00:14:30.40
Aaron
It just makes that process much faster. Anything to add to that, guys?

00:14:34.92
Seth Macey
I do, but I'll let Mike go first if you please.

00:14:38.77
Nuch
um Yeah, it was I guess I was going to say, and rep putting a bow on the the last thing, which also ties into this, is recognizing that you know all of us have a different history prior to photography. We have...

00:14:56.14
Nuch
we all had a skill set that we brought, a unique skill set that we brought. And we were you know we we we started that little you know side hustle called Shutter Team Six, and there were six of us.

00:15:05.88
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:15:06.71
Nuch
and And each one of us had a skill set that was unique to the crew. you know like i i um you know, was sort of this wild man that would go do weird shit, whatever. But like, we all loved Aaron's, you know, aesthetic and, you know, Seth had a lot of, you know, he was the guy that made it the most, I would say.

00:15:31.83
Nuch
And, and we like reached out to him a lot for, you know, how should we approach a job or something like that? Cause you for sure had the most amount of experience.

00:15:41.93
Seth Macey
Christ, I'm slapped by both of you now.

00:15:43.78
Nuch
Yeah.

00:15:44.77
Aaron
yeah

00:15:45.25
Nuch
Um, but, uh, you know, every, everyone had like, Brett was really good people person. You know, we, we just, everyone had their own, you know, we had, uh, um, the, the one kid that was the, the, the drone pilot can't think of his name, but, um, you know, everyone had a unique, uh, spot in the, in the thing.

00:16:03.52
Nuch
And, uh, and I think, you know, I said that I, you know, started as a photographer with goose and then, and then made my way to archivist, but, that skillset existed from a prior life of like organizing photos and like I've organized music, of organized photos. i've I've done that for forever.

00:16:22.82
Nuch
So while photography opened the door, my skillset from the past, you know, don't always keep the blinders on and just think photography, like bring the other tools in your tool belt with you on these journeys.

00:16:23.08
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:16:37.67
Nuch
It's not just like, like if you quit your job tomorrow, as that you're in some corporate job and you're going to quit your job. make sure you bring all of that with you into your new endeavor.

00:16:48.58
Nuch
Like all of that is useful. I have very few things that I don't draw from in my past to now and to use now in the present.

00:16:56.75
Aaron
Yeah.

00:16:58.68
Nuch
So i would say that early now getting back to the, to the, to the community thing, We really leaned on everyone's skill set that they brought to the community. Everyone could take pictures.

00:17:13.76
Nuch
That wasn't what set everyone apart. It was the skill set that that each person had that really made us stronger. And that's how we made a really strong, unique team that shutter team six.

00:17:25.97
Aaron
And I will add to that from that skillset, you can look and then self-reflect and say, where the hell am I super weak? Where can I know?

00:17:33.73
Nuch
And then you grow because you see what the other person is doing and you get that firsthand experience.

00:17:35.05
Aaron
And then you, yeah.

00:17:38.37
Nuch
Like Tom, the the drone kid, you know, I, I, yeah, whatever.

00:17:41.18
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:17:41.19
Seth Macey
Oh, he did remember the name. Oh.

00:17:44.82
Nuch
um

00:17:44.92
Aaron
You got it.

00:17:47.00
Nuch
We got there.

00:17:47.05
Aaron
You got there.

00:17:47.79
Nuch
um So Tom, yeah, was the drone pilot and i I watched him and I saw what he did for us.

00:17:48.02
Aaron
Yeah.

00:17:52.55
Nuch
And, and, you know, there was a sense of like, I could do that. That looks like fun. I'd love to get into that. And then I, you know, went did it. um So in surrounding yourself with people that have a skill set that's different than you, pay attention, learn from them, soak up all of that stuff like a sponge and and and take that into your next ah project or endeavor whatever.

00:18:19.48
Seth Macey
Yeah, to add, um I think all three of us and many of the people that you know we try to surround ourselves with, I think one of the major common denominators is that no one is afraid to try things.

00:18:37.19
Seth Macey
I can't even count how many things we've tried or done that just didn't pan out or that were probably terrible ideas.

00:18:42.96
Aaron
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:18:46.17
Seth Macey
But

00:18:46.18
Nuch
I feel like we've we've parlayed them into other things, though, if they didn't work for us right off the bat.

00:18:49.47
Seth Macey
Sure.

00:18:50.74
Nuch
like I don't feel at any point like I've wasted time doing anything that I've done since 2019.

00:18:57.43
Seth Macey
You beat me to it because when things don't pan out, you still learn a lot the process. You learn what didn't work.

00:19:01.77
Aaron
yeah

00:19:02.63
Seth Macey
There's parts of it that went well that you can say, oh well, that went well during this thing. Let's, let's bring it over here. uh, you know, get a lot of questions, I think from, from people on listeners of the show, um, where, where,

00:19:20.06
Seth Macey
the question about how to start an idea, the idea is always different, but we there's messages about how do I begin this thing? And I kind of say the same thing. you just kind of Nobody knows what they're doing in the beginning. not Not one person. You just got kind of start doing stuff and accept the fact that you're not going to nail it off the bat. It's going to be three or four projects down the line where you've built up a lot of lessons from things that have both gone well and not gone well that you're going to nail the project or the um the, the idea or continuing on and rolling with a specific idea and knowing that there's going to be many, many speed bumps and just trying

00:19:56.77
Aaron
yeah yeah

00:20:00.78
Seth Macey
Pretty much anything that comes to your mind. Wouldn't it be cool if? Go do that. When you have that thought, go do it. Wouldn't it be cool if? Try it. I feel like a lot of people get hung up in this stage of, I don't know where to start.

00:20:07.14
Aaron
yeah

00:20:10.99
Seth Macey
And it sounds so cliche and so corny, but you just start. You just do stuff. And the real reality too is that if you do

00:20:22.08
Seth Macey
if you do a face plan or you you blow it or things don't, nobody's nobody cares. no one Everyone's so wrapped up in their own lives, man, that nobody gives a shit about what you are doing to like to an extent, of course.

00:20:33.08
Aaron
Yeah.

00:20:33.73
Seth Macey
I like to think of it when you're walking through an airport, Just everyone is so wrapped up in their own lives. Like you could probably pick your nose the whole way through the gate and no one would even notice, you know, it's just everyone's in their own bubble.

00:20:44.07
Nuch
I

00:20:49.06
Seth Macey
And I like to remember remind myself of that when I don't really get this anymore, but maybe I used to that worrying about what people are going to think. It's just doesn't matter.

00:21:01.06
Seth Macey
really doesn't, you know?

00:21:02.54
Aaron
Yeah. And understanding that you're going to make huge mistakes if you're trying to do huge things. Even if you're a photographer, you feel like, oh, I'm a 10 out of 10 photographer.

00:21:08.70
Seth Macey
Yes. Yep. Yep.

00:21:12.75
Aaron
i can handle any situation. Then you're going to get fried on the contract or some sort of ah email miscommunication ah that you're going to need to learn from as well.

00:21:17.36
Seth Macey
yep

00:21:23.61
Aaron
Like there are so many, again, just branches of this business or hobby or whatever you're doing that you're like, you can't know it all until you're doing it. And then you realize like, shit, I trusted that person. Like we had a good relationship, but I didn't write this thing down and now we're in trouble.

00:21:40.06
Aaron
And yeah, like Nuch and I have been there with clients where it's like, you've been there.

00:21:43.70
Seth Macey
I've been there, yeah.

00:21:45.61
Aaron
ah Yeah, I was thinking of something specifically, but where it's like, this was a huge miscommunication. Like we need to get money down front ahead of time. It was just like a trusting thing.

00:21:57.18
Aaron
And you learn like that was the wrong move on our parts. Like what idiots we are.

00:22:01.28
Nuch
Bye.

00:22:03.60
Aaron
Uh, and we put in so much work for certain things, but you, you learn all these little things, even if your photography is spot on, like we killed that assignment, killed it.

00:22:13.92
Seth Macey
Yeah. Yeah.

00:22:14.56
Aaron
That was perfect in my mind is perfect as it can be. But our, our background, our backend job of that project was ah an F like we did a bad job with that, but we,

00:22:27.37
Nuch
remember i remember the one where you you were like, I'm punting. like Do you want to give this a try, like getting money out of the client? And I like just like fire firebombed them and they paid up.

00:22:35.13
Aaron
Yeah.

00:22:38.99
Aaron
Yeah.

00:22:40.42
Nuch
That was pretty cool.

00:22:42.44
Aaron
Yeah, it's amazing.

00:22:42.55
Seth Macey
Well, there's a bit, there's, I don't know. There's less than that experience too.

00:22:45.76
Nuch
Yeah.

00:22:46.17
Aaron
Yeah.

00:22:46.83
Seth Macey
It's important to remember smart and talented people do dumb stuff all the time.

00:22:49.87
Nuch
Oh, yeah.

00:22:51.00
Aaron
Oh, yeah. All right. So connecting, trying things, making mistakes. Next step.

00:22:55.31
Seth Macey
Trying so many things, like so many things, not just things like a ridiculous amount.

00:23:01.71
Aaron
Next

00:23:01.76
Nuch
I've said this every podcast, but with with you guys for sure, you cannot let money get in the way of trying something and and and and figuring out what's important to you.

00:23:15.07
Nuch
you just you You got to do these projects sometimes and and just chalk it up to either it's a it's a thing that I...

00:23:15.10
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:23:23.58
Nuch
it's like a and

00:23:26.47
Nuch
a marketing investment, I guess is what I would say. You just have to like put your time in, do something and just don't think about money for it to get started at least.

00:23:38.02
Nuch
And then once you show them and maybe call it a sample or, you know you make something for a client and just do it for free and do it because you have passion for it.

00:23:47.17
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:23:47.34
Nuch
And, and it usually comes back with more work, but you know, that you get paid for, but yeah, If you're passionate about something, don't be discouraged by whether or not you get money. You should still treat it like it's a hobby all the time that you're passionate about. and like Maybe even more than a hobby. it's It's like you know that Ted Lasso show where football is life, kid. you know

00:24:12.04
Aaron
yeah

00:24:12.24
Nuch
It's like photography is life. You got really be all in no matter what. all in no matter what

00:24:19.56
Aaron
Yeah, Mike, that reminds me of the Eagle Rare whiskey that we shot on Christmas that you just learned.

00:24:26.60
Nuch
yeah

00:24:27.46
Seth Macey
I remember that.

00:24:28.80
Aaron
You just learned the drone. You wanted to do something. You got some people together.

00:24:31.49
Nuch
yeah

00:24:32.76
Aaron
That was not a ah paid gig, but that that one scene included engineering, a spinning ah ball bearing experience. table. ah It included drone catches and skateboards and trains and like a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff going through his house with a bunch of people in it.

00:24:53.22
Aaron
ah And that was just for sort of like a a blueprint or a just an ability to do that if they love it cool if they want to share it cool but now i can show anyone this sort of capability and use it as a le lever lever uh a leveraging chip going forward

00:25:05.91
Nuch
Yeah.

00:25:13.66
Nuch
And I used every one of those techniques and fixtures that I built in future projects. Like those, all of that stuff that I put time into for that video, the, the, the launcher for the drones that it could like take off from, um you know, this carousel that I made and the carousel thing, I reused all of that stuff in future projects that I got paid for.

00:25:38.18
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:25:40.08
Nuch
And because I did it up front and saved it all, it made it that I could make that next project quicker because I didn't have to remake those fixtures and things or, you know, engineer a thing.

00:25:50.58
Aaron
ye

00:25:51.87
Nuch
It was like, Oh, I have that. I can incorporate it into this and it'll be sick. And it didn't take any more time or money or energy. It was like, it was just there. So kind of, again, proving my,

00:26:04.90
Aaron
yeah

00:26:05.03
Nuch
previous statement of just like everything you do for me I've i've found everything I've done in my life has somehow made its way into where I'm at right now and it's in a really weird kind of spooky way yeah

00:26:20.11
Aaron
Yeah. And you're, you're a musician. It's, it's learning music.

00:26:22.25
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:26:23.89
Aaron
It's like you're, you're jamming and you're like, Oh, this sounds like that. Like, I remember this run like from that song, but I'm going to put it in this song and, and, or this technique or this feel or this sort of rhythm kind of grows and you get this repertoire of things as you're, as you're going.

00:26:29.33
Nuch
yeah yeah

00:26:41.26
Aaron
And And again, back to the networking, if you don't have something, you know who to reach out to and say like, Hey, can you help me with this? Hey, I'm in a bind.

00:26:52.78
Aaron
ah You did it once with a, with a goose video, you needed color grading like immediately. And you reached out to me and were like, what are you doing tomorrow? Like I need an eight hour day from you.

00:27:04.29
Aaron
And I was like, I, mm-hmm.

00:27:04.46
Nuch
Yeah, my my buddy who had the footage was like an hour from you. It was like it was perfect.

00:27:09.62
Aaron
Yeah.

00:27:09.80
Nuch
i was like he and he He was like, dude, I don't do color grading. like what what he What should I do here? And I was like, dude, my buddy's like an hour away. You guys could probably meet halfway and you know it's only 30 minutes and get her done.

00:27:21.38
Aaron
Yeah.

00:27:21.59
Nuch
and And that was perfect. Saved her ass. It was great.

00:27:24.25
Aaron
So I think in in my mind, a next step after you're meeting people, you're getting these skills, I think is we've all sort of branched off and done our own thing ah a bit and said like, this is what I'm liking. This is what I'm passionate on. Like, I'm going to try some of this on my own. I'm going to, I'm going to leave the nest.

00:27:42.54
Aaron
I'm going to fly and try to complete some projects on your own. And sometimes projects incorporate 10 people, three people, two whatever it may be. But there's a lot of projects out there that you can search and you can find and work on your timeline that it's like, I'm gonna i'm gonna take ah i'm gonna take on this big thing on my own.

00:28:01.23
Aaron
At least for me, ah working with a crew took a lot of the pressure off, a lot of the stress off. a lot a lot of the potential failures, not just going to be on me.

00:28:06.78
Nuch
Oh my god, yeah.

00:28:11.77
Aaron
It's another level and another step to be like, I'm going to take something on completely on my own and try to do it start to finish and have pride in that whole project and the passion behind it.

00:28:24.33
Aaron
So I think that is ah another next step of what's gotten us to where all three of us have been is saying like, this is, this is kind of my thing. I'm going to do it. And with your crew, if you have a good crew,

00:28:35.72
Aaron
There's only encouragement and help and no hard feelings. There's no jealousy. There's no like pulling each other down or bailing on each other. Like we're, we're all have been here to help in certain ways, whether it's a edit look or a video sort of proofing, whatever it may be.

00:28:54.60
Aaron
ah we,

00:28:54.83
Nuch
We've had Suth do sound design for some of our stuff. I mean, yeah.

00:28:57.50
Aaron
sound design, like they're, we're all helping each other, uh, in that sense.

00:28:59.39
Seth Macey
Oh, yeah.

00:29:01.75
Nuch
Yeah.

00:29:03.04
Aaron
And there's no sense of like, Oh, you're, you're doing that. Like, what the hell? Uh, why don't you, why don't you invite me?

00:29:07.82
Nuch
No.

00:29:09.99
Aaron
ah none of that crap.

00:29:11.65
Nuch
I hate that crap. I don't want to work with people who are like mine, you know, like anyone who's like me, mine, get away.

00:29:18.72
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:29:21.95
Nuch
Like, nah, I don't have time for that. it's um It's unnecessary. We all have our own style. we That's the thing I learned from landscape.

00:29:33.47
Nuch
That was a huge, huge lesson that I learned from landscape. And then when I got into music, I was like, whoa, that's like really different than what I'm used to. I'll reference um the Adirondack trip that um that we took, Aaron, that group.

00:29:48.61
Nuch
I think it was, I don't remember where it was, but we all went for that early morning 6 a.m. hike and we got to the top and there was like the vista, but we were all on that little tiny ledge.

00:29:56.49
Aaron
Yeah.

00:29:59.21
Nuch
And they're like, we're crossing tripods and it's like, we're all getting the same shot.

00:29:59.50
Aaron
Right.

00:30:01.93
Aaron
Yeah.

00:30:04.02
Nuch
It was the one Brett slept in on.

00:30:06.06
Aaron
Yeah.

00:30:06.69
Nuch
Yeah, Brett.

00:30:06.76
Seth Macey
Brett, if you're listening to

00:30:06.96
Aaron
Brett, sorry.

00:30:07.13
Nuch
but

00:30:07.95
Aaron
Brett, sorry if you're listening.

00:30:08.98
Nuch
Brett, sorry. Sorry again.

00:30:09.99
Aaron
Again. Yeah.

00:30:10.81
Nuch
that That epic sky. Remember how freaking amazing that was?

00:30:14.61
Aaron
He's rubbing it in. Yeah.

00:30:16.74
Nuch
But anyways, so yeah, we were all on the same little six foot ledge, right? Tripods locked. It's all the same shot.

00:30:23.96
Aaron
Yeah.

00:30:25.84
Nuch
Everyone's image, final image, looked completely different from... Everyone else's. And why is that? So why, why, you know, you use a different lens, you have a different color scheme, you have a different, um you you know, composition that you chose to select.

00:30:42.73
Nuch
Everyone's got their own flavor. And if you don't, that says something like if you're not secure enough in your aesthetic look ability,

00:30:54.77
Nuch
and you start to lash out at other people, that's insecurity. That is someone who just doesn't really, you're just not quite there yet. That's a good, you should like reflect a little bit and and, and, and think about like, why am I lashing out?

00:31:06.89
Aaron
Right.

00:31:10.50
Nuch
What is it about me? Why am I not helping? Why am I not, you know, there's no reason whatsoever to not be supporting people. the person next to you on something like that.

00:31:23.07
Nuch
It's not like, Hey, going to go here and then destroy the scene. So I'm the only one that has this, this image, you know, you're, you're just not doing a good enough job.

00:31:28.60
Aaron
right

00:31:31.79
Nuch
If you feel that insecure in your work,

00:31:34.74
Seth Macey
I like the kind the idea recently of if I'm threatened or offended, maybe I needed to hear it.

00:31:41.71
Aaron
Yeah.

00:31:42.09
Nuch
I'm sorry. In what way I'm,

00:31:44.08
Seth Macey
Just to your point that having an experience that makes me feel that way, insecure or threatened is one I needed to have.

00:31:52.50
Nuch
Oh yeah. It's a lesson that should be learned.

00:31:55.98
Aaron
Yeah.

00:31:56.21
Nuch
Analyze why, why am I acting this way?

00:31:56.51
Aaron
And it's,

00:31:58.09
Nuch
Why am I feeling this way? Because there really is no reason for that. You should definitely be able to support everyone in their, on their journey.

00:32:06.00
Aaron
as Peter Crone says, where you're triggered, is it just another space of where you're not free? Right?

00:32:10.94
Nuch
Yeah.

00:32:11.37
Aaron
Like you're, it's a good place to ask why, why is this bothering me so much? What, what has happened that I am, uh, I'm getting offended by something that has nothing to do with me personally.

00:32:15.80
Nuch
Yeah.

00:32:22.40
Aaron
It's like ah outside of it.

00:32:22.59
Nuch
Yeah.

00:32:24.71
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:32:24.99
Nuch
Yeah.

00:32:25.50
Seth Macey
When was the last time you were pissed off?

00:32:29.12
Nuch
Who are you asking that to?

00:32:30.92
Seth Macey
I'm leaving it ambiguous or open. Experiment in real time.

00:32:34.87
Nuch
um

00:32:38.51
Nuch
Yeah. Right. I, ah this is going be hard for you guys to believe, but i am in a different place now than I have been for a lot of years. And I don't,

00:32:52.41
Nuch
want to get pissed anymore i don't want to react negatively i don't want people to be able to control my mood i think that that's like that's for me to control like if someone's getting my goat i should breathe relax understand why this is happening and and diffuse the situation as opposed to

00:33:02.49
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:33:12.21
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:33:18.82
Nuch
propelling it forward and encouraging it. There's just nothing to be gained. And I don't, I don't want to be triggered like that anymore. I want control over my, body and mood and and stuff. I don't want some shithead to be able to control how I feel.

00:33:35.03
Nuch
So I, I've been spending a lot of time and and trying to be more patient, to be quite honest.

00:33:35.17
Aaron
Yeah, that's good.

00:33:36.02
Seth Macey
yeah

00:33:40.31
Nuch
I know that sounds ridiculous for who who I am, but um no, no, just for who who I was, I guess, when I first met you guys, I definitely was like a hothead that um had a short temper, but I recognize that's not really like how I want to be anymore.

00:33:42.58
Seth Macey
No, no, no, no. Why is this?

00:33:57.73
Seth Macey
Yeah, I mean, when you do what you just described, not allowing external factors to send you off the edge, you bring back an internal locus of control, right?

00:33:58.42
Aaron
that's good

00:34:05.49
Seth Macey
You bring back some more agency that I have more control over my life and how I feel than maybe I thought I did prior.

00:34:05.74
Nuch
Yeah.

00:34:11.38
Nuch
Yeah. Yeah.

00:34:13.02
Seth Macey
That's liberating. um

00:34:14.67
Aaron
Yeah.

00:34:15.79
Seth Macey
if you i I think for everybody, it's an all and ongoing practice in, don't even know what you want to call it, just stoicism or having a recognition.

00:34:15.80
Nuch
It's a mindset. I'm not, I'm not perfect. Obviously I still, you know, it, it takes a ah tremendous amount of work to keep it cool, but

00:34:23.30
Aaron
Yeah.

00:34:26.06
Nuch
yeah.

00:34:29.97
Aaron
think recognition. Yeah.

00:34:31.72
Nuch
Control control.

00:34:32.77
Aaron
Yeah.

00:34:33.67
Seth Macey
and Well, I don't want to ask you because, yeah, you I would agree you were somebody who maybe had a short temper and maybe if things weren't done the way you wanted them done, it would really affect your your mood or your day.

00:34:33.91
Aaron
Recognizing and seeing it.

00:34:45.06
Seth Macey
I don't know. I'm not inside your head, but just an external observation. I'm curious to know if there's like a moment or a series of moments where for you, you decided, hey, this is not how I want to feel anymore, if it was just kind of a gradual lifestyle change.

00:35:06.60
Seth Macey
Ray.

00:35:07.53
Nuch
I definitely got a lot of feedback about who I was as a person, who I still am as a person. I still get feedback. But, um you know, it was it was more like, yeah, you're right. And, like, a lot of it was, like, out at work, like, in my corporate gig.

00:35:21.33
Nuch
Like, I was bringing home a lot of baggage. And like, why? Like, this isn't...

00:35:24.95
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:35:24.96
Seth Macey
right

00:35:25.09
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:35:25.91
Nuch
like this isn't this is not worth getting cooked over. you know like Why am I doing this? like I need to chill out. And like people at work would like you know do stupid things or say stupid things that I didn't agree with.

00:35:37.93
Nuch
And and it's like, so what?

00:35:40.23
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:35:40.83
Nuch
like I don't own this company. It's not my thing. you know I work for these people. I could leave anytime I want. this is I'm not like tied to this thing. It's just like, I chose to be here. Why am I getting so boiled? you know and then And then I realized, you know it's kind of spilling over into other facets of my life, this sort of energy where I get like all like,

00:36:02.00
Nuch
juiced up when things aren't going right. I'm like, why am I doing that? Like, I ah don't like who I am when I'm in that, that mode. So it's just been an ongoing, you know, effort to change.

00:36:13.13
Nuch
And then, you know, live a little bit healthier. yeah it's ah you know, you want to keep your mind healthy. You want to keep your body healthy. That all goes in the good column for having longevity and being able to go up into Northern Canada and shoot polar bear, right?

00:36:24.12
Seth Macey
Right. Yep.

00:36:26.93
Nuch
Like,

00:36:27.44
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:36:27.78
Nuch
if you're not If you're sick and you don't have your health, you you don't have any of these fun things that we've all been doing.

00:36:28.03
Seth Macey
yep

00:36:33.81
Nuch
you know I can't go run around arenas. You know how cooked I am now and I'm in pretty decent shape at the end of the day of running around ah yeah Madison Square Garden?

00:36:42.42
Aaron
yeah

00:36:44.06
Nuch
It's insane. You got to be in good shape.

00:36:45.69
Aaron
And we've talked about this. Like this is a new new chapter in our lives and it came ah came a bit late for us ah relatively.

00:36:52.15
Nuch
Yeah.

00:36:53.21
Aaron
Like we didn't start in our 20s doing this and and getting into it by 25 and being as fit and jacked as we possibly could be and recovering the next day.

00:37:01.08
Nuch
No.

00:37:03.52
Aaron
ah

00:37:03.51
Nuch
No.

00:37:04.51
Aaron
We're

00:37:04.67
Seth Macey
Aaron walks around a rat walked around Alaska oil like all oiled up. He was squeezing his pecs in front of brown bears.

00:37:09.56
Aaron
always yeah wearing these glasses and that's it.

00:37:17.11
Aaron
Uh, but we've had this talk maybe a year ago, just saying like, dude, I want to, I want to get in shape. Like I want to, I want to maintain maintain shape because I want to be able to do this for a long time.

00:37:23.30
Nuch
Yeah.

00:37:27.70
Aaron
And I think you even referenced like other people in the biz or, or whatever that like huffing and puffing and just not doing well. And you're, yeah, I think, um, I think something hits in your, your midlife where it's like, whew,

00:37:34.36
Nuch
no

00:37:42.84
Aaron
Wow. Like, not that I can see the finish line, but it's over the hill right there. Like, i gotta to I want to keep it going.

00:37:52.69
Nuch
I'm done drinking.

00:37:54.22
Aaron
Yeah.

00:37:54.58
Nuch
Honestly, like I'm done drinking. i can't um The way I feel the next day

00:38:00.72
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:38:01.07
Nuch
yeah I just, I have to donate two days to drinking because like, it's the day of being drunk. And then the next day is just absolutely destroyed. Like i can't function at a high level anymore.

00:38:12.89
Nuch
It's not how I used to be, but it is just reality now.

00:38:16.34
Aaron
Yeah.

00:38:16.83
Nuch
And I, I, I you know't do other things now to replace that so I'm not hung over but and still ah you know still have outlets. But um yeah, I can't i had you know my bourbon collection.

00:38:28.85
Nuch
like i'm like

00:38:29.44
Aaron
Yeah.

00:38:30.29
Nuch
It's ridiculous. like I don't know what to do with it.

00:38:31.67
Aaron
Yeah.

00:38:32.73
Nuch
i have to I have to figure out how to unload it.

00:38:33.09
Aaron
You're buried in bourbon.

00:38:35.62
Nuch
Yeah, I have hundreds of bottles of bourbon.

00:38:38.17
Seth Macey
um one last one last member I guess and finish it all in a month I'm kidding I do not advocate for that I

00:38:38.51
Nuch
It's insane.

00:38:41.69
Nuch
Yeah, right? I'd be dead.

00:38:42.91
Aaron
Jeez.

00:38:45.15
Nuch
No. Yeah, it's it's crazy.

00:38:46.30
Aaron
Yeah.

00:38:47.22
Nuch
It's ah it's a weird um shift in my ah in my lifestyle. But um you know you got to recognize what's not working and what is working and and and rank your priorities.

00:38:57.73
Nuch
Because know but for me, I just I can't do that anymore.

00:38:58.65
Seth Macey
right

00:39:01.80
Seth Macey
Yeah, I feel like you get to a point where what you're working on currently or your your gig with Goose, the value that that brings artistically, financially, etc. ends up making the trade-off of a fun night with booze not make sense.

00:39:15.59
Nuch
Yeah, 100%.

00:39:15.86
Seth Macey
And jas makes putting your feet on the floor the next morning going, not hungover, so worth it.

00:39:16.17
Nuch
one hundred percent Yeah.

00:39:24.34
Aaron
Yeah.

00:39:24.76
Nuch
um yeah, yeah.

00:39:25.58
Aaron
Not hungover and still exhausted and tired. And like, if you just added that to it, he talk about two days, maybe three or four.

00:39:30.56
Nuch
Right.

00:39:33.79
Nuch
I'm still waking up feeling like shit and I'm probably in the best shape I've been in 30 years. thirty years

00:39:40.91
Aaron
Yeah.

00:39:42.30
Nuch
since like high school hockey.

00:39:42.65
Aaron
That's a good decision.

00:39:44.02
Nuch
It's ridiculous, but I still, you know, there's still so many factors going against you, you know?

00:39:45.04
Aaron
lot of good.

00:39:48.59
Aaron
Can i ask a question, a deep, maybe a deeper question?

00:39:51.84
Nuch
No, no questions here.

00:39:53.71
Aaron
I can, because it's my show. That was, that was rhetorical.

00:39:57.10
Seth Macey
That was a bad question.

00:39:58.86
Aaron
You know, when you're, know, when you're dating this girl and you're like, shit, like I am fucking, she's out of my league. I need, going to like shape up.

00:40:09.97
Aaron
and And you do. Sometimes you you like shift who you are to stick with something that's very good for you. has a lot of this...

00:40:21.18
Aaron
transformation been with the eyes. Like it has goose and this opportunity is, is she the prom queen that's like really made you look at how you're going about things.

00:40:28.15
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:40:36.37
Aaron
And again, five years ago, you're, you're touting all this look at this bourbon, look at this bourbon. I've, I've closets filled of this stuff. Like this is a big part of my life. This is something I'm really interested in and like really into ah getting pissed off here and there, you know, burning bridges, whatever it may be, ah taking a really good look in the mirror and being like, I i want to keep this girl in a sense, ah using like the the opportunities and everything that you've had ah and worked for, but making sure that it stays.

00:41:14.91
Nuch
I have invested heavily into,

00:41:23.10
Nuch
you know, my passion. I've invested in equipment. I've invested in myself in knowledge. I've invested in my health and I've invested in a lot of new relationships and

00:41:38.90
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:41:42.46
Nuch
It has 100% changed who I am as a person because the opportunity that I've been given to do what I'm doing right now is is pretty, it's a pretty rare thing.

00:42:01.99
Nuch
you know You don't get to hook up with one of your favorite rock bands and work for them. That doesn't really happen for most people. And I recognize that I'm in a good spot and I don't want to do anything to fuck that up for sure.

00:42:17.53
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:42:17.69
Nuch
And I've definitely grown as a human through this process. And it's been cool to grow with the band through this process because they're also, you know, I kind of caught the rocket just as it was, you know, it was kind of off the ground already, but like I was able to jump and grab it.

00:42:34.37
Nuch
So to ride the ride up into, you know, um, space has been pretty, ah impactful to me, especially someone who's you know been a musician their entire life and always like had that, like, ooh, I wonder what that would be like ah to to take music to the highest level.

00:42:55.31
Nuch
And while I don't get to be in a band playing music to do that, I am 100% adjacent to it with a a front row seat of what it would have been like had I been able to, um you know, make a push with music.

00:43:13.51
Nuch
So that's very special. And um there's nothing right now that I would do to compromise that.

00:43:15.24
Aaron
Yeah.

00:43:22.54
Nuch
And I'm constantly trying to grow and evolve to stay current and stay useful.

00:43:31.15
Aaron
Yeah.

00:43:31.57
Seth Macey
Yeah, I like that concept of I've invested too much time, you know, come too far.

00:43:32.47
Aaron
Well said.

00:43:39.93
Seth Macey
I've gotten myself in such a good position to allow myself to self-sabotage.

00:43:46.15
Nuch
Exactly. For sure. I could be complacent, right? I could be like, oh, i you know i'm I'm making videos for them. I'm managing their data. that's you know I did it. that i can just like stop learning. I don't have to invest any more money in equipment. I don't have to you know see what the new tech is out there anything.

00:44:08.47
Nuch
you know, I don't have to, you know, do anything above and beyond. I, I landed in the seat, but how long, and this is true for any, this is true for anything here. This isn't just like working for whoever, but every, literally every aspect in life, if you care about something, you need to constantly re and reinvest and, and evolve and, and stay at the top of your game or just,

00:44:34.63
Nuch
there's too many human beings out there.

00:44:34.84
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:44:36.14
Nuch
Like anyone can like step in and do the thing. It's like you built relationships, you've built, you know, a brand for yourself. You've built an arsenal of equipment.

00:44:48.55
Nuch
It's just like, you've done all these things. Why stop? You're passionate about it. Don't forget that you had this passion and become complacent. Keep going, keep driving, keep seeing where, what other doors can you open along the way?

00:45:02.43
Seth Macey
yeah so it sounds like just to clarify and i agree with this that complacency is a form of self-sabotage whether it takes to two weeks to implode or 20 years ah if you stop paying attention to things you get left behind or people other people outgrow you um it's like it's like lent to go ah aaron's example landing the girl and you say hi got her i'll stop we'll stop going on dates and having fun now like i'm

00:45:09.57
Nuch
For sure.

00:45:12.40
Nuch
For sure.

00:45:18.19
Nuch
Yeah, for sure.

00:45:27.39
Aaron
Right.

00:45:27.68
Nuch
no now I'm a slob.

00:45:27.96
Aaron
Good.

00:45:28.76
Nuch
Now I'm going to just start eating whatever I want and just turning into a total fucking slob.

00:45:29.49
Aaron
Yeah.

00:45:31.03
Seth Macey
i

00:45:32.85
Nuch
100%.

00:45:33.25
Aaron
Yeah.

00:45:33.36
Seth Macey
Right, right. So I would agree that complacency is a form of self-sabotage that could creep up fast or could maybe get you in the long run.

00:45:37.50
Nuch
one hundred percent

00:45:41.36
Nuch
Yeah.

00:45:41.48
Aaron
Yeah.

00:45:41.50
Nuch
Yeah.

00:45:42.10
Aaron
You have to decide.

00:45:42.62
Nuch
yeah

00:45:42.86
Aaron
I think it's active. like Like day to day, you have to decide what's important to you and put in the time, which I think you can look at it in an opposite way.

00:45:53.17
Aaron
And maybe this transitions to to Instagram is like, andm putting a lot of time into scrolling or sending reels or looking at stuff or opening up the app.

00:46:03.92
Aaron
Is this helping my career? Is this helping my passion? Is this helping my hobby? Honestly, some, some of it does. Sure. And there's a place for it. Sure. But there, the goal of the app is to just keep you on there.

00:46:19.38
Aaron
And if you're on there, you're not using your two hands to be doing the thing.

00:46:25.58
Nuch
Yeah, that's ah that's that's it exactly. that is that That little end portion is like, be honest with yourself, go in and look at the time that you spend on the app per day, per week.

00:46:39.56
Nuch
I guarantee for most people, it's over seven, eight hours. That's a full workday, right?

00:46:46.40
Seth Macey
Christ.

00:46:47.81
Nuch
It's a full workday. What could I have done with that eight hours? that's that literally just had this conversation the other day. I don't have enough time to do x y Z. I am sorry. i don't think there are many people that are that are working their ass off as hard as us.

00:47:09.47
Nuch
I'll just, I'll use us, you know? like yeah I have time to do so much shit. I'm a father. I'm a engineer.

00:47:18.05
Aaron
Thank you.

00:47:19.79
Nuch
I'm a archivist for goose. I make documentaries for goose. I work for, uh, legends doing marketing stuff. I, you know, go visit friends and hang out and still do things. I go out for dinner. I do all these things.

00:47:36.29
Nuch
How am I able to do that? I'm not on my phone that often. I'm not, you know, doing stupid shit. That's just a time suck.

00:47:47.27
Nuch
I don't watch TV at all. I'm in my living room. There isn't even a TV in my living room right now. Like I don't, it's just not something I place value on.

00:47:53.39
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:47:56.43
Nuch
And I'm not saying you can't watch TV. I'm just saying you have to prioritize what's important to you. And if being the best at something and working, striving to be the best at something is, is your goal, then you have to put a significant amount of time in that.

00:48:12.81
Nuch
and prioritize everything else based off of it.

00:48:16.55
Seth Macey
Yeah, I

00:48:16.75
Nuch
You know,

00:48:20.33
Seth Macey
think the other thing that happens too is obviously there is there's a very small portion percentage of creators in our photography community on Instagram, TikTok, whatever.

00:48:34.70
Seth Macey
Where yes, it is your full time job. You're required to be in there mingling, posting three times a day, etc. I think what happens is because those accounts and that content is so constantly pushed to the rest of the community, the 99.99% the remainder of the community.

00:48:53.48
Seth Macey
that large majority thinks that, hey, this is what's required. This is what being a successful creator looks like because they're consuming the life, the the routine of that small, you know, 0.1 percentage.

00:49:06.53
Seth Macey
Whereas if you just want to be a really successful photographer and and make, you know, have cool experiences with your camera, or maybe make money. It's really, that's just one path.

00:49:17.67
Seth Macey
That's not, there's no requirement that you post anything or view anything on your Instagram at all. I feel like there's just this image or this persona that gets just vi viciously put in front of the community that this is, this is what it means to be,

00:49:37.64
Seth Macey
um you know, a success. We've said it so many times on the show. I just, I routinely come back to this. Um, and so the other thing I like to ask myself too, is after five minutes of scrolling in the app is not, not what is this doing for me, but also how do I feel after to your point, Mike, how do I feel when you're angry all the time? I don't like how I felt.

00:50:02.06
Seth Macey
You ever take a minute and notice how, how do I feel when viewing four reels of rage bait or,

00:50:10.28
Seth Macey
I don't know, just whatever.

00:50:10.63
Aaron
Yep.

00:50:11.53
Seth Macey
like i don't feel good after this necessarily.

00:50:14.92
Nuch
I just watched ah i just watched a um an interview on this exact topic, and there is a yin and yang to dopamine release from scrolling Instagram or YouTube, and there's a counterpoint to that.

00:50:15.09
Seth Macey
so

00:50:29.43
Nuch
it's It's almost like a pendulum. you have to If you get all this dopamine, your body wants to stay the homeostasis. It wants to be an equilibrium to get there. It actually brings pain along with it. So you have great joy, great pleasure out of the dopamine fix, but then to balance the thing and it always overshoots and it overshoots for a prolonged amount of time is this pain factor.

00:50:54.79
Nuch
So you do feel like shit after a long time of scrolling and, and being kind of a zombie and your body stays in a depressed, angry,

00:50:55.02
Seth Macey
Thank

00:50:55.09
Aaron
Yeah.

00:51:04.83
Nuch
ornery agitated state for, for a long period of time. And the, the dryout period is, is longer than you think.

00:51:09.56
Aaron
Which

00:51:11.68
Nuch
i mean, they want you to go for like a month to detox.

00:51:14.38
Aaron
makes sense.

00:51:16.23
Nuch
It's not two weeks. It's like a month to detox Instagram.

00:51:17.85
Aaron
Oh.

00:51:20.83
Aaron
I've seen recently five times the effect of alcohol on the brain.

00:51:20.91
Nuch
and And that's what I did. i did that.

00:51:27.75
Aaron
I've and seen that study.

00:51:28.50
Nuch
Oh yeah. No, it's, it's an insane amount.

00:51:29.18
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:51:29.22
Seth Macey
mr This is why we liken it. We compare it to, to, to drinking. If, if I'm opening up a six pack every night and it's self inflicting physical harm and ruining my mentality and my mood, what is the difference between scrolling Instagram for two hours and feeling like a piece of garbage by the time I'm done? Tell me what the difference is.

00:51:48.86
Nuch
That's the hangover.

00:51:50.57
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:51:50.70
Nuch
You have the, you have the dopamine fix of the initial drinking and getting drunk.

00:51:50.76
Seth Macey
Exactly. this

00:51:55.10
Nuch
And then the body's way of tipping the balance properly is to give you a hangover and make you feel like shit. um That is, that is how you, you balance the, the, the mechanism, which is, it's, it's wild to think about.

00:52:09.41
Seth Macey
Right. So, i mean I mean, there's listeners who listen.

00:52:10.01
Nuch
if we,

00:52:11.51
Seth Macey
They feel like we demonize the app, and we do. But, I mean, this is just our experience. And i think Aaron and I, like we really and you, Mike, we did sure, I'll update you on my life, but I just don't really see the the time tradeoff making any sense for the bigger picture things that I, I'm saying I, me personally, want to do with my career and life.

00:52:29.40
Nuch
The real portion of it is a suck.

00:52:29.55
Seth Macey
And that's

00:52:32.29
Nuch
I think that that, you know, we were all on this app before Reels became a thing.

00:52:38.53
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:52:38.53
Nuch
When it was just, we were using it as

00:52:38.66
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:52:43.85
Nuch
as a website to showcase our work. And I think it was fine for that. I think when you were using it as a showcase of your work, like a webpage, just like a really simple webpage that you could, you know, direct people to, to look at what you're capable of doing, that was appropriate for what we do as content photographer creators.

00:53:09.43
Nuch
When the reels thing came in and people needed to so jump, you know there were all those memes about photographers needing to make videos now and and adapting. That was right. like If you wanted to still maintain the same sort of status that you had as a good photographer on this platform, you needed to jump over to video and make silly things.

00:53:32.31
Nuch
And if you want to play that game and still maintain it, more power to you. But for me personally, that distracted me from what my goals were, which was just to get my work in front of people to have like a high visible website to showcase my work.

00:53:38.36
Seth Macey
Thank

00:53:50.79
Aaron
Yeah.

00:53:51.81
Nuch
Right.

00:53:52.49
Aaron
And I jumped into that. I tested that water. I did. i i did funny things. I had funny ideas. I said, you know what? I'm going to take hours to go film this.

00:54:02.22
Nuch
right

00:54:02.27
Aaron
i And beyond that,

00:54:04.80
Nuch
which isn't it I'm sorry to interrupt, but that's an investment. Would you not agree? In in yourself, you were trying to make an investment in yourself, right?

00:54:11.90
Aaron
i I was. and

00:54:13.22
Nuch
And so did what was the return?

00:54:15.43
Aaron
Well, here's the thing. A couple of those videos went in that day and age went viral. Let's call it millions of views, 13 million views, ah like a couple in a row gained a lot of followers.

00:54:22.70
Nuch
Sure.

00:54:23.40
Seth Macey
insanely insanely

00:54:25.02
Nuch
Yeah.

00:54:28.11
Aaron
What i got from that, the investment was answering thousands, hundreds of comments and, or, or being flooded with DMS about like cool stuff, like, which is,

00:54:41.08
Aaron
nice, but nothing. when When there's a thousand cool stuffs, it now becomes now like, now a lot of negative feelings come in. Am I, am i a jerk for not responding to this? Am I ignoring these?

00:54:52.03
Aaron
Do I leave this on red? Do I have to respond to everything? That's been my thing in the past. When people comment on a photograph, I i appreciate it. I say, thank you. They say, you're welcome.

00:55:00.68
Seth Macey
It's your adding anxiety.

00:55:02.15
Nuch
No, yeah, yeah, but my point was, what was your return on your investment? Not answering comments. That's not why you got onto the platform as a photographer.

00:55:09.47
Aaron
No, no, no.

00:55:11.79
Nuch
What benefit did that have to you being a photographer?

00:55:14.19
Aaron
Right.

00:55:16.92
Aaron
Just about zero.

00:55:18.21
Nuch
Okay, that's what i was going for.

00:55:19.05
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:55:19.98
Seth Macey
Now to to go before backs to the start of our conversation where we had mentioned trying everything and not, I would say Aaron that there's no regret in that. I think you learn from that.

00:55:28.63
Nuch
no yeah, don't know.

00:55:29.72
Aaron
No, there's not. And I got a lot, I got a lot of followers from a couple of those videos, which I went, Oh, that's cool. Like that happened. But again, if that's the, we've talked about this before, if that's the only metric, there's no end to that game.

00:55:42.90
Nuch
No, there's no end. You're not going to get 500 million followers as a photographer.

00:55:44.71
Aaron
There's no end.

00:55:49.42
Nuch
So like, what, what, what do you actually care about?

00:55:52.14
Aaron
Or if you get to a, yeah.

00:55:52.43
Nuch
You're not going to monetize. You're not going to monetize at 13,000 followers. You know, it's like, what are you doing?

00:55:58.54
Aaron
If, if at a hundred thousand, it just said max, then there would be a game that you could, that you could end.

00:56:04.06
Nuch
yeah

00:56:05.62
Aaron
You have the max amount of followers.

00:56:05.99
Nuch
It just stays.

00:56:07.61
Aaron
Yeah.

00:56:07.68
Nuch
It's like Mario Brothers, like the original Mario Brothers.

00:56:09.52
Aaron
Yeah.

00:56:10.24
Nuch
Like when you get so many lives, it's just like 99 lives and it just never goes to 100 and you're just, you're just done.

00:56:13.20
Aaron
Yeah. and And then there's a there's a waiting there's a waiting line.

00:56:14.64
Seth Macey
oh Pokemon, little 99. Like a

00:56:17.82
Aaron
Like there's a line to get in. So someone's got to unfollow you before the next person gets in.

00:56:21.68
Nuch
Yeah, right.

00:56:22.32
Aaron
but you're You're at 100,000, you win the game and now you can focus on other things.

00:56:23.40
Seth Macey
a club.

00:56:26.92
Aaron
But I got tell you, there's so many people that were 50,000, now I want to get 75,000, now I want to get to 100,000, I want get 250,000, now I want to get to 300,000, would love to get to a half million.

00:56:28.53
Nuch
Oh.

00:56:35.74
Nuch
Yeah.

00:56:37.44
Aaron
That game never ends. And what's it returning to play that game?

00:56:39.15
Nuch
Now,

00:56:42.52
Aaron
You can't play the other games. You can't play life.

00:56:45.05
Nuch
yeah.

00:56:46.64
Seth Macey
Well, let me make one devil's advocate argument.

00:56:47.02
Aaron
yeah The important parts.

00:56:49.95
Seth Macey
So you're saying there's no end game to increasing follower count, which I agree with. That's, and you know, undisputable. The other things that we're enjoying doing, let's say the podcast or Mike is, you know, doing his, his thing with goose.

00:57:06.50
Seth Macey
There's no end to what you can achieve in that either.

00:57:11.68
Nuch
No, but it's a resource.

00:57:11.89
Aaron
Yeah.

00:57:12.03
Seth Macey
So,

00:57:13.00
Nuch
It's a time thing, right? What's more important?

00:57:14.84
Aaron
Yeah.

00:57:16.44
Seth Macey
i'm I'm not trying um trying to take a side.

00:57:16.85
Nuch
I'm saying...

00:57:18.55
Seth Macey
I'm just trying to show that neither something that we've dubbed as having minimal value and the other projects we're working on that we have that we see as having tremendous value both have no finite capacity.

00:57:32.44
Nuch
No, I'm sorry. This whole thing started with... with

00:57:38.28
Nuch
with time, right?

00:57:39.85
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:57:40.28
Nuch
Like I, I, how much time do I have to execute my, the things that I care about? Somebody saying, I don't have enough time in my life to do X, Y, and Z. And my argument is go back to your phone, go look at these apps and see how long you're on these apps for that.

00:57:56.41
Nuch
I don't think unless you're a, unless you're monetizing Instagram or whatever platform, um, Should you be spending that much time on it?

00:58:06.99
Nuch
Unless you can directly correlate the value of the time that you invest into the app to supporting what you're doing outside and it actually does move the needle for you.

00:58:13.12
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:58:17.77
Nuch
What are you doing? That's just like, to me, that is non-value added where you could be monetizing something else.

00:58:26.69
Seth Macey
Right.

00:58:26.89
Nuch
Like I, for instance, I can't take a vacation day anymore from my corporate job unless I'm making money. Cause that's what I care about in this moment in my life is like, just, I want to hit it as hard as I can.

00:58:41.47
Nuch
And I only have ah finite amount of time for a vacation for PTO. And I choose now the game, my game is to try and like get as many gigs and get my brand out there to as many people as I can and self support myself through creative endeavors.

00:59:00.96
Aaron
Yeah.

00:59:01.53
Nuch
That's my goal in life right now.

00:59:03.30
Seth Macey
Perhaps

00:59:03.55
Nuch
And I, I can't do that if I'm like scrolling mindlessly through reels, you know, i and then there's this hangover that I have and I'm cooked for the day, you know?

00:59:04.13
Seth Macey
or some

00:59:12.41
Seth Macey
perhaps there is a group of people where everything you've just described, your desire to hit it as hard as you can, to quote you, perhaps the desire is to be an internet personality.

00:59:24.81
Nuch
Sure. Yeah. And then i'm not i'm not I'm not making fun of those people or disparaging any of that. I'm just saying we are all content creators who like when we get jobs and make money, it's because we're like hitting the pavement, going and actually doing the thing.

00:59:41.66
Nuch
It really has little to do with Instagram. Maybe we initially like made a um ah contact through that or directed someone to our thing, but it had nothing to do with creating reels or or scrolling.

00:59:45.48
Aaron
Right.

00:59:51.26
Seth Macey
Sure.

01:00:00.70
Seth Macey
Yeah. And you know what to build off of what you're saying?

01:00:01.68
Aaron
right

01:00:03.29
Seth Macey
Cause I could see someone listening saying, well, it's not about the money for me. Okay.

01:00:08.55
Nuch
That's cool. That's cool. i'm just I set out my priority.

01:00:09.89
Seth Macey
and No, but I would still say that all three of us are still artistically fulfilled.

01:00:17.32
Nuch
I,

01:00:18.05
Seth Macey
Which is the point I'm trying to make. like You don't need to be artistically fulfilled. You don't have to be on Instagram to be artistically fulfilled. I think you need to be on Instagram to be egotistically fulfilled.

01:00:31.17
Nuch
i I only, I really only use Instagram anymore to put pictures out to just like continually update my website.

01:00:31.23
Aaron
Write that. and

01:00:39.32
Seth Macey
Right. And I'm not suggesting have an entire have an entire death of the ego.

01:00:40.06
Nuch
I don't. Yeah.

01:00:43.07
Seth Macey
I think it's important to share your work.

01:00:44.04
Nuch
Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

01:00:44.92
Seth Macey
and And going back to our sense of community, that's a lot of of, you know, a reason or a way of how people establish community.

01:00:45.00
Nuch
Sure.

01:00:45.29
Aaron
Yeah.

01:00:51.48
Seth Macey
And, you know, you get inspired by other people's work. You find like minded people, et cetera. That's all good. But at least you're speaking of utility in that sense. Like that serves a purpose.

01:01:00.25
Nuch
I would not say death of ego.

01:01:00.29
Aaron
Yeah. i think

01:01:02.13
Nuch
I'm sorry. ah i'm going to shut the hell up after this, but the death of ego comment, I would, I would argue that while death of egos, maybe not the the goal, but it should be a pretty empty tank, at least, at least a low tank.

01:01:03.35
Aaron
No, go ahead. No.

01:01:17.47
Nuch
um And if you're getting, if you're getting really boosted off of Instagram, I think,

01:01:18.25
Seth Macey
Same more. Bye.

01:01:23.54
Nuch
you know I think you should really take a step away and see how screwed up you feel. Cause like, I haven't gotten to this point yet. And I know we were going to talk about it but like when I, I gave up Instagram for like a month and a half, I literally just put my first reel out. I think it's been like a month and a half.

01:01:41.47
Nuch
um The first week, maybe two weeks, I was going subconsciously, like, like completely unconsciously into my phone to where the app is to tap the button. And I'm like, why the fuck am I doing this? I put it back in my pocket.

01:01:54.57
Nuch
And then next thing I know my phone is in my hand and I'm pushing the fucking button again. I'm like, why am I doing this? And so I had to literally, I took it and put it like four pages ah away on my phone from the homepage.

01:02:00.34
Aaron
know

01:02:06.95
Nuch
And then like, i'd I'd take my phone. Then it took a while just to like, stop taking my phone out of my pocket. Like I was addicted, like addicted.

01:02:13.85
Aaron
Yeah.

01:02:15.10
Nuch
And it was, it felt disgusting.

01:02:15.67
Aaron
Behaviorally addiction.

01:02:16.61
Nuch
I was behaviorally locked and it took a solid two weeks for me to finally be like,

01:02:17.20
Aaron
Yeah.

01:02:22.17
Nuch
ah I'm not constantly pulling my phone out of my pocket to like do nothing.

01:02:24.85
Aaron
Yeah.

01:02:28.36
Seth Macey
yeah i'm not a slave

01:02:29.85
Nuch
Yeah, I literally felt like slave and that felt gross and that felt that really opened my eyes. I would challenge everyone just for a day. See if you can make it a day without pulling your phone out of your pocket and tapping that button. I bet you can't do it.

01:02:44.95
Seth Macey
Or the other thing we've done is we've advised people to microdose Instagram in a sense where, um you know, like I have an app mentioned a bunch of times zen cat or um Zen screen where you can set the amount of times the app is allowed to open per day and you can set the duration before it kicks you out.

01:02:45.06
Aaron
Yeah.

01:03:01.98
Seth Macey
So mine is like five minutes, ah five times a day and I never max it out. Rarely do i um What do you think about that concept versus just cold turkey for a long time?

01:03:13.81
Nuch
i don't I don't like it. I was just about to say, I don't like that. like why am i What is going on in my brain that I actually have to push that button? I don't want to microdose.

01:03:25.07
Nuch
I want to be like, that to me scares me and and makes me kind of disgusted about myself, that I'm that much of a slave to my phone, like that I have to push that button.

01:03:33.01
Seth Macey
But perhaps perhaps it's bringing back a sense of control. Like, i'm choosing when to I'm choosing when to use my opens. I'm choosing to put a cap on the time spent in there.

01:03:44.47
Seth Macey
I see what you're saying. But at the same time, there are...

01:03:45.91
Nuch
it's For me, it doesn't work.

01:03:48.15
Seth Macey
That's fair. There still are features of the platform that I enjoy using.

01:03:48.88
Nuch
Yeah, that's all.

01:03:53.06
Seth Macey
I like sending reference work to people like Aaron and yourself, even though you won't answer me anymore.

01:03:59.62
Nuch
the

01:03:59.65
Seth Macey
I, uh, you know, I've, I've tried to rebrand myself as a Canadian and outdoor photographer, videographer. So anything to do with the outdoors, I'm interested in shooting or filming. It's like, I've been, every time I get an ad in my home feed for saunas,

01:04:15.98
Seth Macey
wakeboards, etc. You know how you get all the every other post as a freaking ad?

01:04:19.38
Aaron
Yeah.

01:04:21.39
Seth Macey
I follow those accounts because I think to myself, I have a body of work that lives on my website. These people clearly value putting advertising dollars behind their products.

01:04:35.20
Seth Macey
Perhaps I can reach out to them. So i'm all I'm honestly scraping ads on my home feed, following the accounts and cataloging them to reach out to them later. like That's another way I'm using Instagram as a utility tool now.

01:04:47.22
Seth Macey
haven't posted in like, God knows when I think I did a, I posted a meme to my story where my July, my Instagram gave me my July insights.

01:04:47.39
Aaron
yeah

01:04:55.27
Seth Macey
It's like, you shared one post in July. Like keep the momentum going. You're doing so great. was like, what the fuck you talking about?

01:05:04.06
Nuch
So I'm not...

01:05:04.50
Aaron
I think, think here, I was just going to say, mean, you're using it.

01:05:05.53
Nuch
Oh, go ahead, Aaron.

01:05:10.33
Aaron
You can use rubbing alcohol, but I don't suggest you drink it. Right.

01:05:13.24
Seth Macey
Sure.

01:05:13.35
Aaron
Like you are using it in a very tactical, smart, controlled way for a certain purpose.

01:05:18.08
Seth Macey
a little heroin.

01:05:21.94
Aaron
I, I do think it's, it's just like a drug where, what Mike saying is if you're on there too much, it'll get you, it'll get you where you're.

01:05:31.08
Seth Macey
little heroine

01:05:32.63
Aaron
Yeah. Just you're now behaviorally stuck to it. Now you're, you're scrolling, you wake up. It's the first thing your brain needs. I'm just going to go on reels and fire some things off and, and catch up on the 400 reels that other people have sent me.

01:05:47.28
Aaron
And it becomes this thing that can get away from you. I think also to touch back on a few other points where, as photographers, it's very muddy.

01:05:59.40
Aaron
Instagram became muddy in terms of like, is it your work that you're representing or is it your identity yourself?

01:06:07.77
Seth Macey
Right.

01:06:09.19
Aaron
And that got confused for ah especially with reels when it's like, and I've made fun of this where it's like, you have to be, I want to look really cool before I show you my photo.

01:06:22.35
Aaron
So like more of the work is the, the dress and makeup and hair before you film yourself in camo out in the woods, It had nothing to do with the shot that you're going to show, but to present yourself in a certain way.

01:06:36.30
Aaron
And then that got attention through reels and people had this, I think, false sense of, whoa, I'm pretty cool.

01:06:40.63
Seth Macey
Thank you.

01:06:45.27
Aaron
Like a lot of people are following me. I'm going to keep this going. And then to keep up with that sort of game. Now you're completely hooked to the sauce. Now it's like,

01:06:58.03
Aaron
you made the point of like, you should ask yourself if you're feeling really good about a certain engagement or whatnot. I think the question really is like, are you feeling really bad about a certain number of engagements or posting something and it doesn't go well? Is that, is that tanking your day?

01:07:15.00
Aaron
Because if that's the case,

01:07:19.04
Aaron
fakner

01:07:21.53
Seth Macey
Yeah. I mean, you ever, yeah ever, uh, you ever leave a conversation with somebody feeling really good and you're like, yeah, that was, I felt really good about that interaction.

01:07:31.74
Aaron
Yeah, right now with you two gents.

01:07:31.91
Seth Macey
And then, oh, nice.

01:07:33.56
Nuch
Yeah.

01:07:34.31
Seth Macey
And then other other times you're like, I don't want to ever see that person again in my life.

01:07:38.83
Aaron
Right now with you two gents.

01:07:38.87
Nuch
For sure.

01:07:40.24
Seth Macey
yeah I mean, I think I like to think about it that way. You know, how it I routinely check in on myself. How am I feeling about this? How am I feeling about this conversation with you two right now?

01:07:50.84
Seth Macey
You know, how am I feeling? Where am I feeling? it What's going on? Obviously, a lot of that is, you know, subconscious, but I really don't think we check in with how we're feeling enough in real time during experiences that could really use that analysis.

01:08:13.17
Seth Macey
I really don't. I think a lot of us walk around, and I used to be this way, just clueless to how we're feeling in constant states of arousal, constant states of stress, inflammation, and we don't realize how shit we actually feel until something you know breaks.

01:08:19.60
Aaron
yeah

01:08:29.78
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

01:08:30.64
Nuch
that is that That was more my point about walking away from Instagram. Because you said, you know I still use it for practical purposes, and I don't want to give that up. That is not what I'm saying.

01:08:41.77
Nuch
I don't know if this is like something that happens in Canada, but in the States, if you want to carry stun gun, a um ah so like a stun gun you have to get hit with it first.

01:08:56.87
Nuch
You have to understand how painful it is before you pull it out and use it on, on a civilian. And that's kind of what I'm saying about Instagram.

01:09:07.14
Nuch
I don't give a shit about ah like a, a drip mentality or a micro dosing mentality. I want you, or I, I'm, I implore you to,

01:09:19.17
Nuch
give it up cold Turkey and see what that feeling is like. Cause that is a, it's a really fucked up feeling to walk away from it. And I think that's really weird that I'm like addicted to like a phone and like a thing on a phone and having to push this button.

01:09:37.74
Nuch
And I don't think you have a full sense. You should know how weird you feel when you don't, you can't do that. And I think that will maybe guide some of your actions down the line.

01:09:49.93
Aaron
Yeah.

01:09:52.31
Nuch
Go cold turkey, see what withdrawal feels like, and see how ridiculous it is that you feel this way for your and what that effect has on your body.

01:09:52.70
Aaron
What's.

01:10:02.68
Aaron
Yeah.

01:10:02.70
Seth Macey
I can't wait for all these clips to end up on our reels on Instagram.

01:10:02.84
Aaron
but

01:10:06.43
Aaron
Yeah. yeah

01:10:10.28
Seth Macey
That we don't post though. Thank you, Hillary.

01:10:11.80
Aaron
Yeah.

01:10:12.41
Seth Macey
Thank you, Hillary, for navigating the minefield for us so we don't get suckered.

01:10:12.69
Aaron
Thanks Hillary for, and for taking the hit.

01:10:16.85
Aaron
Yeah. Uh, what's interesting, I think is, i mean, it's pretty clear if you're slamming leaders of alcohol, uh, that's not going to be good for you.

01:10:27.43
Aaron
I think studies are starting to come out, but I got to tell you, like I work in a school with young kids and they are on their phone on Tik TOK. Anytime they can, they're sneaking out of class to go check their phones. It's like, it is,

01:10:42.85
Aaron
and addiction. It is a problem. And if there are brain effects to it, it's only going to get worse and worse and worse. And it's, it's as if someone was like, like alcohol for kids. kids Like, I don't, I don't know. It's probably not, it's probably not that bad here, kid. Like parents are handing them the bottle, like they're handing them the bottle and being like, whatever, just, uh, you know, don't text mean things to people.

01:11:01.58
Nuch
Yep.

01:11:09.28
Aaron
Uh, like, I don't know if parents understand the rules. I don't know if they understand the games. I don't under, they, they did, they don't. And that that's the scary part. And there's no real, like PSAs.

01:11:22.35
Aaron
There's no real things out there unless you search for them.

01:11:24.17
Nuch
Yeah.

01:11:27.06
Aaron
Like where, where,

01:11:27.27
Nuch
Or unless you you try to like stop using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

01:11:31.92
Aaron
Yeah.

01:11:32.76
Nuch
Just give it a try. Just try and do it for a week.

01:11:35.67
Aaron
And like, I feel like.

01:11:36.03
Nuch
And that doesn't even that doesn't even cure you or make you better, getting rid of it for a week.

01:11:36.54
Aaron
Yeah. And

01:11:39.99
Nuch
It will just let you get the sensation of like, oh my God, I'm missing the thing.

01:11:43.55
Aaron
the.

01:11:43.95
Nuch
like This is fucked up. you know And now i'll project that onto your child.

01:11:46.39
Aaron
And the.

01:11:48.33
Nuch
Do you want your child to feel that way? you know Is that okay?

01:11:51.85
Aaron
look And my question is like, where's the, you know, alcohol is a clear rock bottom. We can picture it. We can see it. We've seen it for hundreds of years. Like we we get it.

01:12:02.52
Aaron
Like, where's the rock bottom? Is it, is it like, does it become mental illness?

01:12:04.80
Nuch
Yeah.

01:12:08.30
Aaron
Does it become crippling anxiety? Does it become depression? Like what's the rock bottom zero attention span medicated?

01:12:16.49
Seth Macey
yeah That's got to be one of them.

01:12:17.60
Aaron
Like where,

01:12:19.29
Seth Macey
I mean, how can you pay attention to anything when the most exciting thing possible in the world is on your phone?

01:12:25.12
Nuch
Yeah. ah

01:12:26.50
Aaron
yeah

01:12:27.64
Nuch
And we know what addiction, I mean, addiction's been around since since the beginning of time. I mean, whether it's gambling or alcohol or you know just there's, addiction's been with us since since the start of humans, but this is a new form of it.

01:12:32.04
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:12:40.63
Nuch
And what effects does it have long-term? Like each of those each of those addictions have come with their own set of consequences. And yeah, I think- you know The jury's still out. We've really only had you know the first Apple phone came out in 2008.

01:12:55.40
Nuch
So it really hasn't even been that much time um to have a full ah like a healthy healthy sample size of what the effects could be.

01:13:04.10
Seth Macey
yeah and for the first few years of that iPhone, it wasn't there wasn't the wide availability.

01:13:04.51
Aaron
yeah

01:13:08.80
Seth Macey
Yeah.

01:13:09.54
Nuch
no

01:13:10.09
Seth Macey
so yeah

01:13:10.65
Aaron
ah There's a, there's a huge spike in childhood anxiety and depression in 2013.

01:13:11.15
Seth Macey
a

01:13:15.45
Aaron
I want to say, i don't have it in front of me. And that coincides exactly with the self-facing camera and social media.

01:13:21.71
Nuch
Yeah, sure.

01:13:21.78
Seth Macey
yeah

01:13:24.15
Nuch
Yeah.

01:13:24.93
Seth Macey
I mean, so I think it's important to hear listen It's important that listeners hear that Mike, you know, you're not to embarrass you, but you're killing it.

01:13:35.38
Seth Macey
You're like one of the most successful photographers. I know you've, your arc has been crazy from, going to go in my backyard, lay here for a bit and try and get a Fox too.

01:13:40.45
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:13:43.27
Nuch
yeah

01:13:43.32
Seth Macey
I'm archiving my favorite bands, all their digital assets. Um, And I want people to hear that you've listened to my talk for the last 30 minutes about how I don't need to be on a platform.

01:13:58.29
Seth Macey
Like you just, you just don't need to be on it to, to have a, both an artistically and financially fulfilling career as an artist.

01:14:07.72
Nuch
And I hope I don't want people to think, oh, he's got a job already that he likes doing. and And that's it. I've had this attitude about this thing for a very long time, like well before I was with Goose.

01:14:18.54
Nuch
I've just not really dug any of it.

01:14:18.93
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:14:21.75
Nuch
I was definitely more engaged with it. And I like played around with it more. But eventually I like kind of saw it for its limitations for again, what I wanted to do for myself.

01:14:33.33
Nuch
I'm not saying that if you spend time on there, there's no value whatsoever. I'm sure people are working the system and doing the thing and they're making money and they're they're killing it.

01:14:37.64
Seth Macey
Right.

01:14:42.85
Nuch
I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about people that are more in line with me, you, you know, Brett, Adam, like the people that ah we know and engage with.

01:14:50.07
Seth Macey
right

01:14:55.54
Nuch
They're not really using it the way ah an influencer is using it and and actually monetizing through the app. They're using it indirectly to get jobs through the app and using it more as a website than as a tool to generate commerce.

01:15:10.26
Seth Macey
Right.

01:15:10.77
Nuch
Does that make sense? What i'm getting at?

01:15:11.89
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

01:15:11.99
Seth Macey
Yeah. I mean, if you use it as an influence influencer, that's a 40 hour work week and you're hitting it all day.

01:15:12.77
Aaron
Yeah.

01:15:17.45
Seth Macey
I think people.

01:15:17.57
Nuch
Oh, yeah. they're They're putting in mad hours. like They're not slouching.

01:15:20.29
Aaron
yeah

01:15:21.34
Nuch
They're not just scrolling reels. They're working the system and they're using multiple applications to like target this thing and like make it work for themselves.

01:15:28.52
Aaron
yeah

01:15:29.47
Nuch
And that's that's great. That's like a different thing. That's not what we're doing, though. That's not what I'm here talking about. For what I'm talking about and what I do, what we do,

01:15:35.56
Seth Macey
Right.

01:15:37.23
Aaron
yeah

01:15:39.37
Nuch
I don't see much value in it at all, other than it being a website.

01:15:42.58
Aaron
Yeah.

01:15:44.24
Nuch
And then I realized this fucking website, unlike a Squarespace website, is making me open the damn thing and click this button every day. And that to me is gross.

01:15:54.76
Nuch
And I don't want that to be a part of my life.

01:15:55.60
Aaron
yeah

01:15:56.80
Nuch
in the same way In the same way, I don't want to drink coffee to have to start my day.

01:15:57.14
Aaron
Love it.

01:16:02.26
Nuch
So I don't drink coffee because I don't want to have to be beholden to the substance to get my day started. It's like almost the same thing.

01:16:09.29
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:16:11.08
Seth Macey
Because...

01:16:11.20
Nuch
Not as obviously there's not as crippling effects, but it's still that, that like, I need this to do this.

01:16:11.41
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:16:16.28
Aaron
Yeah.

01:16:17.17
Nuch
I don't like those there. They feel more like speed bumps than actual like ah assets.

01:16:18.91
Seth Macey
Yeah. Yeah.

01:16:23.23
Nuch
Yeah.

01:16:23.77
Seth Macey
This all sounds like a giant quest for you to feel like you are in 100% control of the the action you take.

01:16:23.89
Aaron
Yeah.

01:16:32.19
Seth Macey
And when you feel that way, you feel you're most confident, you feel the best about yourself, et cetera.

01:16:34.13
Aaron
Oh, fireworks.

01:16:36.55
Nuch
yeah

01:16:39.63
Seth Macey
Is that fair to say? Just to clarify.

01:16:41.16
Nuch
That's yep. I think that's 100% accurate.

01:16:45.26
Seth Macey
Yeah. So, you know, and in control mic is a happy mic.

01:16:49.79
Nuch
Yeah.

01:16:51.08
Seth Macey
Right.

01:16:52.00
Aaron
Yeah.

01:16:52.74
Nuch
For sure.

01:16:53.46
Aaron
Speed bumps, optimizing, you know, trying to like, I want to be the best version of myself without going crazy, without going nuts, but understanding and looking like auditing.

01:16:55.31
Nuch
Yep.

01:17:03.48
Aaron
We talk about audit your system all the time, like audit what's going on.

01:17:07.17
Seth Macey
How do you suggest people do that, Aaron? Like, what do you tell kids when they're trying? Like, how do you get kids to feel how they're feeling?

01:17:13.78
Aaron
It's tough.

01:17:15.35
Seth Macey
Because we're all just big children, you know?

01:17:15.64
Aaron
It's tough. Yeah, no, it's really tough, but yeah you have to have a very truthful and sometimes painful honesty about what is going on and what sometimes are you distracting from? What are you not taking care of instead of this idea, this thing, I, I know i can admit there's a direct correlation with me doing unhealthy things and going through a hard time in life.

01:17:51.56
Aaron
Like everyone's going to have hard times in life, but listen, ah here's a little hint. If you see me start posting a lot on Instagram and stories and reels and whatever, I'm going through something.

01:18:04.60
Seth Macey
So we'll check in on you if you post a lot.

01:18:06.55
Aaron
Sure. Please, please do. But it is a tell. It is a tell when things are going well, I'm not reaching for the bottle. I'm not reaching for those things. I'm not reaching for the distraction. So I think that can be one clue.

01:18:21.74
Aaron
If you're going through a hard time, where are we going to distract from? Where are we going to, are we going to start hitting the gym? Maybe we could train for a 10 K instead. ah Maybe we could fill our time with that. Maybe we could walk the dog more, whatever it may be.

01:18:34.02
Aaron
Try to pick consciously certain things. I think the scary thing is the the barrier to entrance of Instagram. Like if I woke up and I'm depressed and I need to go make a drink, like I have to actually go do a bunch of shit to make a drink and and face that process to just distract for 40 minutes in bed.

01:18:57.20
Aaron
I could just press a button and then scroll with my, my thumb, you know, and

01:19:01.38
Seth Macey
Right.

01:19:02.93
Aaron
Now they're saying that's worse for your brain than alcohol. I'm not sure the science on that. I don't have the study in front of me, but it's that easy.

01:19:09.51
Seth Macey
We are not MDs.

01:19:11.26
Aaron
It reminds me of ah cigarettes. We all know, bad. ah Let's replace that with vaping. ah Okay, I'm going to get rid of cigarette smoke.

01:19:18.64
Seth Macey
Thank you.

01:19:19.59
Aaron
That's ah that's a better idea. I'm going to vape. But now this vape is available to keep under my pillowcase. I could wake up 3 a.m. and... and have a hit of nicotine versus where I used to have to go outside, get my lighter, put a coat on, light a cigarette.

01:19:36.29
Aaron
Like the, the barrier to entrance for these things is so minimal. It could really catch you where you're not even focused on the process of what's going on. So I think really looking at it, I think looking at, it tells you what time you're having on it.

01:19:51.66
Aaron
I talk to kids that are on that thing, eight hours a day. their phones eight hours a day. And I do math on the whiteboard eight hours a day, times 365.

01:20:03.89
Aaron
You would be the best pianist in the world. If you put half of that time into piano in the world,

01:20:09.38
Seth Macey
Promise the piano is not as exciting.

01:20:11.66
Aaron
No, of course not. But what do you like? Skateboarding? What do you like? Guitar? Art? ah What are the things that you really do like? Like, it is there.

01:20:22.03
Aaron
And it's going to grab people. Like, it's going to hook certain people. And they're going to get hooked. And they're going to... graduate as adults with like zero skills, zero abilities to really do anything unless you can put down that thing.

01:20:38.45
Aaron
It's just a time thing in this day and age. I've said before. I think it's so easy to raise savage kids, kids that can kick ass because if you have the rest of the world handicapped with sucking six to eight hours of their day out of their day,

01:20:59.39
Aaron
And I have my kid without that practicing soccer for two hours, just two hours, go practice soccer. You are going to be a savage. You're going to crush, go practice math, go read, practice viola violin.

01:21:12.13
Seth Macey
It applies to everybody, I think, not even just kids.

01:21:14.40
Aaron
No, but yeah, of course. Uh,

01:21:16.81
Nuch
That's China's TikTok strategy right there.

01:21:16.90
Aaron
i

01:21:19.38
Seth Macey
Yeah, it is.

01:21:19.71
Aaron
yeah, exactly. Explain for the people that are like, what, what strategy,

01:21:25.03
Nuch
ah China you know runs TikTok. Their algorithms for other countries promote mindless bullshit. And it it's to try and keep kids on there doing stupid things and not learning and um you know not doing anything of value.

01:21:33.16
Aaron
Right. Right.

01:21:41.35
Nuch
Whereas all of the kids in China, Their stuff gets promoted when it's math based, science based, STEM stuff, arts, whenever that that's the stuff that gets promoted.

01:21:52.02
Nuch
You think that the the kids in China are doing dances? Like that's not the shit that's catching fire. Like, you know, it's to try and undermine the quality of future generations.

01:21:58.53
Aaron
right

01:22:07.27
Aaron
yeah

01:22:07.55
Nuch
That's a that's a whole, ah it's a whole strategy. It's proven.

01:22:11.81
Seth Macey
wild Well,

01:22:13.49
Nuch
Yeah.

01:22:14.84
Aaron
We could go on forever.

01:22:17.83
Nuch
Oh yeah.

01:22:18.75
Seth Macey
you need a cap, I thought, right? We've got to have an end game.

01:22:22.73
Aaron
Yeah. We need an end game.

01:22:24.57
Seth Macey
like your concept of 100,000 and that's it. and then There's a way ah waiting line to get in the club.

01:22:29.10
Aaron
I feel like that was ah with, with money too, you, you got to a 1 billion. You're done.

01:22:35.15
Nuch
Yeah.

01:22:35.69
Aaron
You're done.

01:22:36.04
Seth Macey
You know what? That interesting parallel with that too is that I feel like People always say, ah you know if I had $50 million, or if I had a billion dollars, you know I'd be different from all the other billionaires. I wouldn't get sucked into all that kind of stuff. I would be so generous and all this stuff.

01:22:54.49
Seth Macey
I bet you it doesn't work out that way. Just like people saying, you know if I had a million, I'd be responsible. I'd still be to. feel like you could. My point is, there is, as you're saying, ah number that's enough.

01:23:09.25
Seth Macey
Where you maybe don't entirely lose the plot, money, followers, etc. And I think it's very naive to think that you can outsmart systems that are designed to keep you addicted or make you act a certain way.

01:23:32.42
Seth Macey
like There's no way you, in the example of the phone, there's no way you can beat the phone unless you get rid of the things on it entirely, unless you throw it away. You just can't. There are billions and billions of dollars in R&D that are entirely spent to, how do I keep you on here?

01:23:47.50
Aaron
Oh yeah.

01:23:52.66
Seth Macey
Are you that arrogant to think you can beat that?

01:23:52.98
Aaron
more

01:23:55.82
Aaron
Mike shared with me that we quit for a month and he started getting all these emails about Instagram and the, Hey, come check this out.

01:24:01.06
Seth Macey
Yeah. Yeah. I get that on Facebook. Friend suggestions.

01:24:05.12
Aaron
Your friend said this about you, or there's a comment on your thing that you haven't seen in a few days. Like the, uh, the automate automated, Drug dealer, that's the automated drug dealer.

01:24:16.22
Nuch
It was insane.

01:24:16.29
Seth Macey
Yeah.

01:24:17.87
Nuch
And then when you get back on, it's hilarious. Anything that you really did care about that, you know, like you didn't,

01:24:27.87
Nuch
Whatever it was that you were looking at ahead of time. So like I would check in on Goose's situation quite a bit, obviously, right? But you don't like when you're active, you're not getting like all of their feeds. Like they they'll literally post something and it doesn't show up in your timeline, right? Like that that happens all the time for us. Like things that we're interested in, we don't always get the posts.

01:24:47.08
Seth Macey
Oh, really?

01:24:47.71
Aaron
Thank you.

01:24:47.74
Nuch
It's like however the algorithm works. When you go away for a while and you come back, it's like all of the posts in a row from the thing that was like the most interesting to you.

01:24:59.11
Nuch
It's so, oh, it's so silly.

01:24:59.13
Seth Macey
ah really

01:25:01.19
Nuch
Like literally like 10 posts in a row were Goose just, oh, oh, look at are you interested in this. Oh my God, come back, come back. This is cool, right? This is what you liked. It's like, we have you for two seconds. right, check this out.

01:25:13.09
Nuch
Get you back in. it was so, it made me laugh out loud by myself. It was like, okay, this is really, I'm, I'm, I'm still not ready. I'm going to stay away for a little longer.

01:25:22.10
Aaron
Yeah.

01:25:23.09
Nuch
This is still too gross.

01:25:26.25
Seth Macey
o

01:25:26.66
Aaron
Yeah. Well, I'm inspired.

01:25:30.23
Nuch
I'm serious. Both of you try, try to do three days even.

01:25:35.02
Seth Macey
That's not hard for me.

01:25:35.22
Nuch
Just try, try three days.

01:25:36.59
Seth Macey
It's really not.

01:25:37.41
Nuch
Yeah. I still,

01:25:39.19
Seth Macey
All my addiction.

01:25:40.56
Nuch
And you don't go for the app you you've done it before and and don't like find yourself reaching in your pocket subconsciously and, and, you know, trying, trying to open it.

01:25:48.43
Seth Macey
all my

01:25:51.03
Seth Macey
Listen, I've done the the deletions before and when I first did them, they were hard. And now, um just to kind of reiterate what I was saying, like, I very much am finding little niche pockets of utility of how to use the app.

01:26:05.29
Seth Macey
And I only need maybe three minutes at a time to do that. So if I'm opening Instagram three times, you know, I have my restrictions in place three times in the day for three minutes, that's nine minutes of my day to add a little bit of utility.

01:26:09.90
Nuch
Yeah.

01:26:18.39
Seth Macey
I don't mind that. It's like,

01:26:20.00
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:26:20.19
Nuch
Oh, I don't either. Again, i don't either.

01:26:22.30
Seth Macey
What I'm saying is i don't think a full deletion would be as difficult for me because of that.

01:26:23.77
Nuch
Yeah.

01:26:27.07
Seth Macey
Every single, every single app on my phone that I have caught myself in compulsively reaching for some mail, Instagram, um, Binance, uh, what else?

01:26:27.21
Nuch
Copy.

01:26:35.10
Nuch
Yeah.

01:26:45.75
Seth Macey
Doesn't matter. i have i know i'm i am very aware of what grabs me and i i I have harsh restrictions on all of them using my apps.

01:26:51.14
Nuch
Yeah.

01:26:54.70
Nuch
That's good.

01:26:55.74
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:26:56.29
Seth Macey
So in that sense, I feel like I'm in control.

01:26:56.53
Nuch
That's cool.

01:26:59.79
Seth Macey
It's a balance for me where I can check in and do and and um limit my exposure and make sure that my my opens are for utility purposes without burning two, three hours of my day at a time, right?

01:27:14.14
Seth Macey
And still have time to do the things that I care about. Having these podcasts with you. Everyone knows I love running. um You know, all that stuff that's important to me. oh The Instagram stuff is so far down on the on the list, man. It's like, I have this weird dichotomy because I want to care about it. I want to feel like I want to share my work. But the real reality when I have this conversation with myself is like I just don't.

01:27:36.25
Seth Macey
I just, I'm not willing to sacrifice the other things for that.

01:27:40.46
Nuch
Exactly.

01:27:40.50
Seth Macey
I won't.

01:27:41.06
Nuch
Yeah. That's what we were talking about.

01:27:41.79
Seth Macey
I'm not willing.

01:27:42.39
Aaron
Yes.

01:27:42.54
Nuch
Yeah.

01:27:43.12
Seth Macey
Not willing.

01:27:43.30
Nuch
Right. Yeah.

01:27:45.35
Aaron
yeah

01:27:46.32
Seth Macey
And, you know, I.

01:27:46.64
Nuch
And you know, what while you're speaking, I was thinking to myself, oh yeah, that's right. Like addiction hits people differently.

01:27:54.07
Aaron
yes

01:27:54.66
Nuch
Right. Like there are people that can drink and not have any problem. Like I don't have a problem with drinking. Like i I don't take it too far. um i just don't like the way I feel when I do do it the next day.

01:28:05.56
Nuch
But like it doesn't it's not like something that grips me.

01:28:06.70
Seth Macey
um

01:28:08.43
Nuch
But maybe like for some reason, Instagram hit me a little harder than maybe it did you. And, you know, i maybe I had a harder time walking away for whatever reason. But I did i sure as hell didn't like it. And ah it kind of scared me.

01:28:20.22
Seth Macey
Yeah, and and maybe you're, a you know, to use the drinking analogy, there's one sip turns into 13 beers, right? Like there's no...

01:28:27.83
Nuch
Right. Yeah.

01:28:29.82
Aaron
And maybe it's the education behind it. Like, okay. Like I kind of have seen the ramifications of drinking too much, but there's like, there's again, none of that really with social media.

01:28:43.15
Aaron
It's a lot of new stuff and and guessing.

01:28:44.86
Nuch
Yeah.

01:28:45.51
Aaron
So you, if, if you came down from planet, whatever, as an alien and found alcohol and you had no information about it, you might be like, Oh, this is so fun.

01:28:59.09
Aaron
like, I feel crappy the next day, but i felt great the night before. That's, that's fun. I'm going keep doing that. I'm gonna do it more. gonna do it more and more.

01:29:05.76
Nuch
Yeah.

01:29:06.78
Aaron
If you don't know, think,

01:29:08.55
Nuch
Or maybe it kills you.

01:29:10.11
Aaron
Yeah, i think I think in a few years, many years, whatever it may be, there's going to, I mean, Australia is already starting. Like no kids under 16 with cell phones or social media.

01:29:22.19
Aaron
Like they just passed the law.

01:29:22.18
Nuch
Hmm.

01:29:23.80
Aaron
I think it's starting to happen that they're realizing like, this isn't good. Like my district's backing, backpedaling on their phone policy in school.

01:29:30.03
Nuch
yeah

01:29:34.27
Aaron
That was like a huge problem. freaking mistake to allow kids to have their cell phones. Uh, and yeah, I, I think, I think we'll get more education and more information about it, but right now it's kind of a free for all where it's like a lot of people just don't know what this is doing to me.

01:29:51.66
Nuch
Yeah.

01:29:54.24
Nuch
Yeah.

01:29:55.31
Seth Macey
Right. So I think that the one of the main messages i of today is to be aware of what's happening to you. Find a way to build some tools that allows you to check in and notice things.

01:30:08.15
Nuch
Yeah.

01:30:09.42
Seth Macey
Because then you can you can have some agency over the the substances or digital substances in your life that that have power over you.

01:30:09.59
Aaron
it,

01:30:18.42
Seth Macey
And then you can make decisions from there of how much do I want to allow?

01:30:18.44
Nuch
yeah

01:30:21.26
Seth Macey
At least yearre you're not a slave at that point.

01:30:25.04
Aaron
Yeah. And new Mike said it the the easiest way is time, uh, time. And ah it's ah our most valuable commodity. We can't get any more of it. It's, it's just what it is per day.

01:30:38.13
Aaron
That's our time. So the best way to let social media or, or, or Hitting balls at the driving range, like whatever it may be.

01:30:48.46
Aaron
If you're saying, dude, I'm doing eight hours of this thing a day, but it's its starting to creep into my other life. My bills are a little bit late.

01:30:58.72
Aaron
I haven't cleaned the house in a while. My relationships are...

01:31:01.89
Seth Macey
I'm in a damn shower.

01:31:03.75
Aaron
My relationships are suffering. I haven't done that thing that I thought I loved in a week. I haven't, you know, played keyboard in a week. Like you can look at time and there are tools.

01:31:15.07
Aaron
They're not hiding that, which I'm frankly surprised to be honest, that they're not hiding that statistic.

01:31:17.81
Nuch
Yeah. yeah

01:31:21.87
Aaron
That's like, how much time are you spending on social media stuff? You can look at that and say, wow. two hours a day, where could I invest? I I've been telling people i don't have enough time to work out, but I'm on Instagram for two hours.

01:31:35.74
Aaron
I'm going to trade that. I'm going trade those two things.

01:31:38.17
Seth Macey
Thank

01:31:38.85
Aaron
Like you could be honest with time.

01:31:39.27
Nuch
I've been wanting to try this project. I've been wanting to like, you know, write a book. I've been wanting to get out and try and get a Fox. I've been wanting to, you know, make a video, um you know, all these things um that you could do. I want to go just have dinner with some friends.

01:31:55.50
Nuch
I just, don't have time to have dinner. I can't come out. I'm too busy. Like I hear that shit all the time. i'm like, dude, how am I able to do it? And you're not like, what what is going on?

01:32:02.76
Aaron
Right. Yeah.

01:32:05.66
Seth Macey
Yeah, it says I'm busier than you, which is like...

01:32:07.92
Nuch
Yeah, I'm busier than you. And I don't like saying that, but I know you're not doing, like the people I'm talking to, are like you're not doing what I'm doing. like It's just no fucking way.

01:32:19.68
Aaron
yeah

01:32:19.71
Seth Macey
Yeah, I think of it that way when people say I don't have time. It's either one of...

01:32:23.02
Nuch
It sounds cocky, but it's just reality.

01:32:26.98
Seth Macey
Yeah. um I don't have time means one of two things. It means I don't manage my priorities well or...

01:32:34.06
Nuch
Yeah, exactly.

01:32:35.98
Seth Macey
Or you're not a priority.

01:32:39.74
Nuch
Sure, sure. But usually it's not about coming to see me. It's like, oh, I wish I had time to do X, Y, Z. And it's like, you have time to do those things for sure.

01:32:47.47
Seth Macey
Sure. And I'm saying, and I'm saying in that scenario as well, it's not a priority or your priority management is better.

01:32:52.16
Nuch
Yeah, they're both the same kind of is what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:32:56.75
Seth Macey
You know? ah

01:32:57.55
Nuch
Yes, totally.

01:32:58.31
Seth Macey
And that's always work in progress for people, you know? And and there's different systems that people give employ can put in place to to understand what is a priority, you know?

01:33:05.13
Nuch
And it's not easy. like it's not You don't really learn in school how to manage money. You don't learn in school how to manage time. Those things are very similar.

01:33:12.39
Seth Macey
Thank God I know chariometry though, you know?

01:33:12.81
Nuch
says there's this yeah right There's a very similar bind to those two things, I think. um

01:33:21.31
Aaron
Let me do that.

01:33:21.77
Nuch
Discipline. you know there's ah There's a discipline to both of those that I think is the common thread. And it's not taught. It's weird. It's like something you have to learn.

01:33:32.00
Seth Macey
i think, you know, curriculum that involved children seeing a project from semester start to semester end, like a long-term gratification would go so far.

01:33:44.77
Nuch
Yeah.

01:33:45.98
Seth Macey
You know, your entire grade is on this is on the process of this from start to finish.

01:33:46.52
Aaron
do that

01:33:52.80
Seth Macey
I don't know, like growing a health as an example, it's like growing a plant from seed to this where it's going to take you six months, you know,

01:33:53.34
Nuch
yeah

01:33:57.70
Aaron
Yeah.

01:34:00.83
Nuch
Yeah.

01:34:02.75
Seth Macey
That's why I always vouch for people on the show.

01:34:02.95
Nuch
yeah

01:34:04.83
Seth Macey
i vouch, like, pick a project that takes a long time, man.

01:34:07.74
Nuch
Yeah.

01:34:09.65
Seth Macey
Not like...

01:34:09.67
Nuch
A labor of love.

01:34:10.99
Seth Macey
Yeah. well Goose has been a labor of love for you. for Like, it still is. Well, there you go, right?

01:34:15.95
Nuch
It is the majority of the time that I put in my life right now, by far. it's there's no There's no close number two. It is far and away the most time that I put into anything that I do.

01:34:28.26
Nuch
And it's the most rewarding. um I work, I work, I work for a corporation where if I put in a certain amount of time and I feel um good about the work that I do, no one gives a fuck.

01:34:40.23
Nuch
Everyone is just as miserable about the the job is as I am or as the next person is.

01:34:43.70
Aaron
Yeah.

01:34:45.22
Nuch
So like no one's patting anyone on the back and saying good job and, and no one really, it doesn't actually, you don't see the fruits of your labor actually move the needle in any way, shape or form.

01:34:55.64
Nuch
It's just, too big of an animal, you know, whereas with goose, if you do something, you're, you're directly supporting someone else. Who's like a a brother, like ah someone in, you know, a family member that almost that you feel like, Oh, I, I helped him out or I helped her out.

01:35:14.45
Nuch
Um, And so you made that, you know, immediate connection and and support, or you did something like make a video and and went out there and, and, uh, you know, people appreciated it and you, you're telling and a larger narrative that helps, um, you know, support the community.

01:35:32.22
Nuch
And, and that, that feels very rewarding. Um,

01:35:35.19
Aaron
Yeah. Which I think is my...

01:35:36.21
Nuch
And I want to do, I want to do good. I want to do good, healthy stuff. You know, I want to, I want to be healthy mentally, physically. i want to do good work. That's creative that helps support other people and make other people feel happy and, and, and healthy and, and create positive stuff as opposed to like, you know, supporting some other bullshit.

01:35:51.50
Seth Macey
yeah one Yeah, I mean, the comparison between your corporate job and and Goose is you're talking about the the desire to see your contributions come to fruition and and be visualized or be real.

01:36:01.70
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:36:02.43
Nuch
Sure. And feel feel good about it. Feel like I'm actually doing something that's worth something to somebody, you know?

01:36:09.44
Seth Macey
So it's like a purpose in a sense.

01:36:10.02
Nuch
Not just a purpose. Having a purpose is really nice. And I definitely, you know, it'd be hilarious if like someone from corporate heard me speak like that. But that is a huge problem in that in that company is is feeling like the work I i do really matters and and moves the needle in some way, shape, or form. 100%.

01:36:29.00
Seth Macey
So that's like a culture issue, whereas as you know the people you're surrounding yourself potentially in the photography community and the goose community is the antithesis of that.

01:36:32.03
Nuch
one hundred percent

01:36:33.19
Aaron
Yeah.

01:36:36.88
Nuch
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You feel really good about the work that you do and and it makes you want to work harder. It makes you want to do more and do a better job and keep going and keep reinvesting yourself into the thing and in investing in equipment and investing in knowledge and all that.

01:36:51.24
Seth Macey
yeah Which is easy if you have an emotionally compelling reason for doing what you're doing.

01:36:53.88
Nuch
Exactly. Exactly.

01:36:55.52
Aaron
yeah

01:36:56.36
Nuch
yeah

01:36:57.13
Seth Macey
And if you don't, you're not going to do that.

01:36:59.10
Nuch
And then the dream is to write get get get paid for doing that and be able to support yourself for doing that kind of work, right? And doing putting in that kind of effort and being rewarded for it is is the ultimate goal for everyone. Forget about like working for X, Y, and Z. It's just like you want to do good work that is meaningful and and makes you feel whole, right?

01:37:19.93
Nuch
Whatever that is.

01:37:19.99
Seth Macey
Yeah.

01:37:20.73
Nuch
So go out and find that and then go do it. Right. And then just don't stop. just

01:37:25.12
Aaron
Right.

01:37:25.39
Nuch
Just hit it as hard as you possibly can. And and people will notice. you know You're going to help.

01:37:29.88
Aaron
And to me, that's the fourth pillar. So we had networking, we had develop your own skills. We had go out on your own and do stuff. And the fourth one to me is find something and keep going for years, for years, like keep going and building on it.

01:37:41.03
Nuch
Yeah. Yeah.

01:37:45.92
Aaron
And you you can only be beginner at a million different things and get nowhere. he yeah At some point you have to pick a lane and, and, and stay with it and stay with it through the hard times.

01:37:56.46
Nuch
And stay with it. Yeah.

01:38:00.18
Aaron
And it's not all just, you know, Cinderella stories and, and fairy tales. It takes some freaking fortitude to push through and stick with it.

01:38:12.70
Aaron
Do this podcast every single week, no matter what,

01:38:17.87
Seth Macey
I'm offended. Where am I not free? Oh, God.

01:38:22.25
Aaron
No, you feel it too, man. I know you do, but

01:38:25.08
Seth Macey
Yeah, but there's an emotionally compelling reason to show up, like Mike just said, to contribute to, you know, I'm getting to hang out with two friends right now. Like, how grateful am I for that, you know?

01:38:32.11
Aaron
yeah, of course.

01:38:33.96
Seth Macey
um

01:38:34.08
Aaron
But you're, you're doing it on repeat. You're not, you're not doing it for five months and then being like, ah, it didn't take off.

01:38:36.71
Seth Macey
Sure.

01:38:39.91
Aaron
What's next?

01:38:40.91
Seth Macey
Right.

01:38:40.94
Aaron
Like trying to find the next thing, like find something you love. That's what I'm saying. And do it all the time. Even when it's like tough to keep going. And then that's when you see the build.

01:38:51.29
Seth Macey
Yeah.

01:38:52.46
Aaron
That's when you invest like 10 years ago and you invest in a company, $10 every day. and then you realize like, holy shit, I have $500,000 that I just been investing 10 bucks a week, but you just keep going.

01:39:01.72
Seth Macey
Right.

01:39:07.30
Seth Macey
Yeah. What's the saying? Do so many reps that success is inevitable.

01:39:12.92
Aaron
Yeah.

01:39:13.17
Nuch
I believe that I i do unless you suck.

01:39:16.82
Aaron
Hmm.

01:39:18.96
Aaron
Then find something else.

01:39:18.98
Seth Macey
you You bring up a good point though. Like I think this can potentially be a fallacy.

01:39:20.80
Aaron
Yeah.

01:39:23.37
Seth Macey
Like some people, and every person in this conversation right now is not inclined to be able to do everything. There's just some things that you will not be good at.

01:39:34.71
Seth Macey
And I do think it is a tragedy when they're, God, I hope I don't get hate for this, but when it's just not your thing, like you,

01:39:38.08
Nuch
You can't see it.

01:39:42.63
Nuch
It's just not your thing. It's funny. I love to use the drummer as an an analogy. Like if you don't have rhythm, it really can't be taught. You kind of have to have that innate sense of rhythm to be a good drummer.

01:39:53.24
Nuch
If you can't do it, ah I'm sorry. I know you love the drums and it's like your identity and all that stuff. Maybe you need to maybe try a different instrument. You know, it's like, i don't know.

01:40:02.97
Seth Macey
right Or maybe it's about getting as good as you can be, your full potential, and realizing that may not be the level of success that's required to achieve this fantasy outcome you've built in your head.

01:40:03.14
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

01:40:03.98
Nuch
Yeah.

01:40:07.62
Aaron
yeah

01:40:16.30
Nuch
Yeah.

01:40:16.31
Seth Macey
right um I think it is tragic, the odd time where there's no inherent skill or there's a lack of ability to develop a skill just for whatever reason, but the passion is at level 100.

01:40:17.11
Aaron
right

01:40:32.35
Nuch
Yeah. It is sad.

01:40:34.33
Seth Macey
I don't, I'm not pitying.

01:40:34.38
Nuch
I've seen it.

01:40:37.19
Seth Macey
I'm just not sure like what you do in that scenario. Right.

01:40:41.63
Nuch
I think pity is definitely a thing.

01:40:41.69
Seth Macey
Right.

01:40:43.79
Nuch
I mean, you're, you're going to feel it as someone seeing it from the outside. If you're like, if you're, you know, fairly human, you're going to be like, Oh, you know, like, ah, that sucks. Like, I wish they could see it and like, or, you know, so move the needle enough to like get there.

01:40:57.62
Nuch
But like, it just doesn't happen all the time. You know, that is definitely a thing.

01:41:02.07
Seth Macey
Have you guys ever had a thing that you were just really you really enjoyed and you were just terrible at and you did notice that there was no way this would come to fruition? and For me, it was guitar.

01:41:10.46
Nuch
Yeah.

01:41:12.16
Seth Macey
For me, i will just I can strum chords, but like I will never play guitar like you two. I just won't.

01:41:17.35
Aaron
Yeah. And I'll never play guitar like but million other people, you know, like, it's just, it is what it is. but Singing definitely for me, like there's people with amazing vocal range or singing or like this intuition about their voice always blows me away.

01:41:35.76
Aaron
And it's just something that's, I don't know, it's just out of reach and that's okay. I'm not ah I'm not trying to be a lead singer.

01:41:40.97
Seth Macey
is it an intuition thing?

01:41:40.98
Nuch
it but

01:41:42.96
Seth Macey
you think people just know this will never happen? you know, like,

01:41:46.70
Nuch
I don't know if that has to be the case though. Cause like, and I know I could probably catch a huge beating for this, but like, just like a Bob Dylan versus like a Michael Buble, you know, like it's just, they're apples and oranges and there's a lane for both of those things, you know, like, and, and there's always like,

01:41:56.35
Aaron
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

01:41:59.24
Aaron
right

01:42:05.60
Nuch
there's shitty guitar players that have made it big. They're just strummers or whatever, you know? And it's just, it's, it's based on the people that they surround themselves with timing.

01:42:10.42
Aaron
yeah

01:42:15.84
Nuch
And maybe the songs are, you know, bigger than the parts, you know, the, some of the, some of the parts are the holes bigger, you know, it's just like, there's so many factors that you don't always have to be at the top of your game to be successful.

01:42:28.14
Nuch
It's right place, right time.

01:42:28.23
Aaron
Definitely. Yeah.

01:42:29.97
Nuch
you know, having a certain edge, like sometimes you can be shitty at something and that grit is actually what's interesting and grabs people.

01:42:35.13
Aaron
yeah

01:42:36.53
Nuch
I'm not saying give up on your dreams. I'm just saying sometimes there is an innate, like you have to recognize at least that you have a up uphill battle sometimes and like fight through that or, or accept it and lean into it.

01:42:48.68
Nuch
But it's, it's good to know that you have what what your blind spot is then either choose to exploit it or try and your damnedest to like bring it up higher, you know?

01:42:58.85
Aaron
Right. Yeah, I agree with that. I think a lot of drive and passion and work can bring you very far.

01:43:06.95
Nuch
Yeah.

01:43:07.03
Aaron
Very far.

01:43:07.97
Nuch
Or intentionally lean into the the bad parts because it's, it's something unique about it, you know?

01:43:14.21
Aaron
Yeah, or at least no, right? So they're not blind spots. At least no.

01:43:17.42
Nuch
Yeah. Yeah.

01:43:19.41
Aaron
But I don't know.

01:43:22.48
Seth Macey
We went long.

01:43:24.70
Aaron
Two-parter.

01:43:26.63
Seth Macey
Yeah. Thanks for the shame, guys.

01:43:27.51
Aaron
i think it's this I think it's the sunglasses.

01:43:27.72
Nuch
What's a, what's a, what's a one parter?

01:43:32.04
Aaron
of

01:43:32.50
Seth Macey
I don't want to do a one-parter or two-parter. i like oh Let's do a long. People are always screaming for long.

01:43:37.66
Nuch
What is a one-parter, though?

01:43:37.69
Aaron
Okay.

01:43:37.81
Seth Macey
I know. It makes more work for us.

01:43:38.74
Nuch
Oh, okay.

01:43:39.26
Aaron
No, usually we talk for like an hour. But we went long, which was good.

01:43:44.82
Nuch
I feel like all of mine have gone long.

01:43:45.08
Aaron
i think I think it was the glasses.

01:43:48.07
Seth Macey
it was the glasses.

01:43:48.34
Aaron
The blue.

01:43:49.27
Seth Macey
I'm holding aces.

01:43:49.30
Aaron
we can

01:43:49.67
Nuch
Definitely the glasses.

01:43:50.49
Seth Macey
please

01:43:50.93
Aaron
we We could look at the screen longer.

01:43:54.71
Seth Macey
ah

01:43:54.71
Nuch
Yeah, exactly.

01:43:56.09
Aaron
Yeah.

01:43:56.16
Nuch
Definitely look at the screen longer.

01:43:57.31
Seth Macey
I think that's what it is. I think my LED light has not seared my retinas and I've been able to hang in here for

01:44:01.67
Aaron
Yeah. I have the happy lenses on. Everything's just beautiful.

01:44:09.19
Nuch
Yeah.

01:44:09.80
Aaron
but Mike, always a pleasure. I mean, good conversation. We could have you on once a month, I think. Just talk about shit.

01:44:18.81
Nuch
I'm, I'm here for it. I like talking.

01:44:20.14
Aaron
Friend of a friend of the show.

01:44:20.65
Nuch
Nice.

01:44:22.75
Seth Macey
Oh, you've gotten the accolade. We have two friends of the show, Mike and Ian.

01:44:26.19
Aaron
Yeah.

01:44:27.14
Seth Macey
So we'll send you ah i like a YouTube style plaque since you love social so much.

01:44:27.42
Aaron
Yeah.

01:44:28.26
Nuch
nice

01:44:33.23
Nuch
Yeah, yeah,

01:44:34.13
Aaron
Yeah.

01:44:34.44
Nuch
It's like ah joining the the the hosts of Saturday Night Live that have you know they've always made a joke like, oh, I've i've hosted like six times or i'm in the seven I'm in the seven time repeat.

01:44:42.64
Aaron
yeah

01:44:45.46
Nuch
yeah

01:44:46.07
Aaron
Exactly.

01:44:46.84
Seth Macey
Yeah.

01:44:46.94
Nuch
I'm the photographer mindset.

01:44:47.93
Seth Macey
Your number?

01:44:49.34
Nuch
Let's let's fucking go

01:44:50.66
Seth Macey
Yeah. Big, big deal. um I think you need to hit four times on the show to be certified friend of the show.

01:44:58.45
Nuch
Sick.

01:44:59.35
Seth Macey
So it's like you're like double platinum, essentially.

01:44:59.75
Nuch
um I'm in.

01:45:06.46
Seth Macey
So when Goose goes double platinum, if they haven't already or whatever.

01:45:06.70
Nuch
take it next time next time i'm on i better have a little something here that signifies that i'm like double flat oh no yeah give me give me a little badge or something that i can wear so signifying that i'm i'm in the club

01:45:07.06
Aaron
Amazing. I'm going to take a picture.

01:45:10.31
Seth Macey
Exactly.

01:45:18.33
Seth Macey
We'll get like a little crest or something.

01:45:24.48
Aaron
Yeah.

01:45:26.69
Seth Macey
Incredible.

01:45:26.93
Aaron
Love it.

01:45:28.66
Seth Macey
All right. Till next time.

01:45:30.90
Nuch
yeah sounds good boys

01:45:31.02
Aaron
See you guys.