The Student Who Posts More Than Most Full-Time Creators

Ariele (aka Babi on the Run) walked into this episode fresh off 4.3 million views, a 31.5km run from Waterloo to Guelph in support of colon cancer awareness, and a news segment — all in the same month. But what's more interesting than the numbers is how he got there.

In this episode, he breaks down how a private Instagram with 31 followers turned into one of the most genuine content accounts we've seen locally. We talk about posting every single day, studying your analytics without letting them run your life, filming in public when every instinct tells you to put your phone away, and what it actually means to show up as yourself online.

We also get into the role community plays in staying consistent, how Ariele balances high-effort cinematic edits with Snapchat-quality iPhone clips, and why he thinks the best time to start was always right now.

If you've been overthinking your first post — or your 500th — this one's for you.

A podcast about what really goes on behind the scenes of building brands, businesses, and personal platforms. 

We talk marketing, content, branding, community, and the uncomfortable middle between idea and execution.
Built for founders, creators, and business owners who want honest conversations, not recycled advice.


Hosted by Matt and Olivia. Audio-only for now. New episodes regularly.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Some people say Bobby.

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:01

It is b more Bobby. It sounds like Bobby, like B-O-B-B-Y. Yeah. But okay, let me so in Russian it's Bobbychev. Like I'm a first like uh English is my second linear, Russian is my first second. Oh, three. Yeah, yeah. So because uh I mean Ukrainian we can talk about this on on air too, but it's rolling right now. Oh, we're rolling right now. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

Nice. This is how we start. We throw you right in.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

But uh Yeah, so it's like Bobbychev. And then in English, I guess I tell people like Bobbychev. So it's like Bobby, I guess, the second one that you said. Gotcha. I didn't even realize we were rolling, but hey, no, we're rolling.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

We just got your whole life story. No, I love it, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Anyways, let's get right into it. Yeah. Episode eight. This is last episode we had Jackie on, which is the CO of Dan 1880, and we talked about you in that podcast too. That's it. Just because I love everything you're up to, I love what you're doing, I love what you're creating, and it's working. And so I want to list off a few of your stats that you sent me yesterday. So between February 28th and March 29th, you've had over 4.3 million views, over 520,000 interactions, over 1.4,000 new followers, and you've shared this is the crazy part, 287 pieces of content.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

In a month.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

That's insane. And you just ran 30.2k from five? From Waterloo to Guelph in support of colon cancer. Colon cancer. Yeah. Amazing. And you were just on the news, too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

It's been a very crazy couple weeks for sure. Yeah. And yeah, with school and everything. So it's just it's pretty nuts.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

I I met you on a shoot with for Mondays, and our conversation just lit a fire under my ass, I'll be honest. Because the conversation we had was just about mindset, content, your approach to it. And I think the first day I met you, I was like, dude, I gotta get you on the podcast. And I don't think we even have recorded it. Nope. You guys haven't done anything yet. And I remember you saying that.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yeah, I talked to this guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

And so I'm pumped that you're here.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

No, I'm so happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

It's awesome. Yeah. Let's start from the beginning. Yeah. I know you brought a couple notebooks with you. Yeah. Let's start with how you got into just wanting to hear content.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Yeah. So I've always wanted to. I've had, I've always struggled with I have this drive, like I know I have this drive. And I know that I've had a pretty unique life experience growing up. And I wanted I always I've always seen kind of these kids who've done like sports since they were really young. I've always admired that. Damn, they've done that one thing for so long and they've gotten exceptional at it. I'm like, and I've always felt like I don't really have something like that. I'm just kind of like all around. And so content was definitely something that I've always felt like could be that. I'm always the guy in the Snapchat group chat who's always sending like the freaking spam videos. Like I just love recording myself and just filming and everything. And it really started, I'd say in 2023, I did a trip with my family to the Netherlands in Belgium. And I recently bought a DJI Mini 2, I think, like the drone. Yeah. And yeah, I just flew it around there during the trip, made some edits on the way back on Adobe Premiere. Actually, I'm like a Final Cut Pro. I love my Final Cut Pro now. But yeah, I remember editing it on the plane on the way back, posted it on my kind of regular, like my not the not Bobby on the run, my private Instagram.

SPEAKER_04 3:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

I guess that I would say that was my like first official piece of content.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Definitely had some skateboarding TikToks back in the day, like during COVID around.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

But I feel like that's where everyone kind of starts except me. TikToks never or skateboarding. Skateboarding. Yeah, did you used to skate? No. No. Except me.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

It's probably a good thing that you didn't do that.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

But yeah, and then from there I got that was end of August 2023. So that would have been my second year, starting my second year of university. I'm now finishing my fourth year. So super crazy. But yeah, and then didn't do any content for a while. And then that following summer, I remember I made one video that was a little bit of a little bit of content. It was like a running video. It's like my first ever running video. Okay. I don't even think it's on my Instagram anymore because a couple months later I watched it and I'm like, this is so cringe. And I deleted it because I was like, dude, this is so like weird. But I can try and show it to you. I think I have it somewhere in the archives. And then yeah, just nothing really from there. And then May last year, a couple months before May, I got this job, a lifeguarding job at a summer camp right near Yosemite, same place where I'm going to this summer. And so a couple weeks before leaving, I was like, let me make I actually had an Instagram account already, which had like 30 followers. Okay. It was a private one just to like share stuff with friends. Like a Insta. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I had 31 followers. Okay. I was like, let me delete everything, make it public. And so the f it's still the very first video on my account. And it's pretty much me saying, I'm about to go to Yosemite for 10 weeks, and this is my new private story. And so I really tried to say that, hey, this is my new private story, to then allow myself to just be able to post anything that one would on a private story and not feel weird about it.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

So I feel like I have a fairly similar story of how I got into shooting photos and videos. I was on a family trip to Jamaica, and my I convinced my mom to bring her little DSLR T-series camera, and I took that at one of the excursions we went to, and I was like running around the entire place taking photos of the sunset. And from from that moment, I was like, this is cool. I want to do more of this. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

But yeah, just to go further, like after that, got to summer camp, or I lived for a week at a friend's house, like 30 minutes out of San Francisco. It was in San Anselmo, it was called very cool, very nice place. Um, and just went to San Francisco for a day. I remember I made a video, vlogged that, went mountain biking with like my friend's dad, made a video about that, and then got into summer camp. And then pretty much that whole summer, not that much content because I was really busy and not really on my phone much at the camp. And just yeah, just made whatever I could, some running videos, some but it was like pretty low quality.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

More so just documenting everything you were doing.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Exactly, right? Like private story.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Was that kind of your approach to it? You didn't want to like feel like you were creating stuff, you just wanted to document your day your daily life, basically.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Exactly, yeah. I definitely had in the back of my head, like, oh, I want to make this consumable and I want it to get more views, but at the same time, it was more so for like that small amount of friends that I had following it and supporting it and just doing it for them because especially because at this summer camp, I didn't, I barely called anyone and talked to anyone because my screen time was like 30 minutes a day at the camp. Because you're working, then you're hanging out with friends at the summer camp, you're with the kids, you're you're going to the campfire, like you're not online at all. Yeah. So this is a good way to okay, every couple days I try and get a video out, and this is an update that way. I'm still sharing.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yeah. When did you get to a point where you saw the feedback you were getting and you were like, this is working?

SPEAKER_02 7:27

So there's two or three probably points where I would get it, and then I'd be like, okay, we're doing this, and then maybe I'd get another one. But the first one was definitely, I remember around the end of summer camp, whenever we'd have these days off that I'd do with my friends, we'd go like into the park. I remember we went to Tuami Meadows or like Half Dome, Clouds Rest. Those are pretty like famous hikes. Some people might know them that are listening. But I filmed it with my Z V E 10. I had the Z V E 10 at the time. Didn't really use it for most of my time at camp because I just thought, I don't know, I just didn't think it looked good.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

But then near the end of summer camp, I was looking through those videos, and there was this guy, Scuba Files. I don't know if you've ever seen him on Instagram. I feel like I have. But he's sick. I can show you him, but he makes these just cool like edits where it's just like these masks to the beat of the song. It's like doof doof doof and it's like cool transitions. And so I was like, let me take my footage. And I literally copied one of his videos almost, but except with my footage, and I did it manually. Yeah. Um, and then I remember I made a couple and got really good feedback on them. People are like, wow, these are sick. These are so good. And even now, when I look at them now, I'm like, dude, they're still good. I just I haven't made anything like that now because it just takes so long to make. Yeah. And I remember the first one I even did with manual like keyframe masking, like no, no magnetic like AI mask that I use now. And I remember end of camp, one of the videos that it hit a hundred likes, and that's where I was like, oh my god. I was I talking about my friends, I'm like, dude, it had a hundred likes. That's insane. That's crazy. Yeah. And so I think that was the first point where I was like, okay, it's maybe working a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

That was summer 2025. Okay. Cause I I feel like you've been blowing up a lot like quicker now.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah, we can get there. It's just there were so many stages, I feel like. And going to so the next kind of mini stage was got back from summer camp, went on a four or five-day Alberta trip or slash BC with my family. My family, like big travelers. I'm so grateful that that's where my mom and dad want to allocate their money and not like nice cars or stuff like that. Like we all have Honda's trips, like experiences. I'm so grateful to have been raised in that kind of way because now I'm like that, and I'm meeting people who are also like that. And it's just, I think it's the best way to do it. And when on that trip, I was literally just clip farming. I didn't know what videos I wanted to make. Scuba files was very much at the back of my mind, just videos of me like walking out into the cool scene with mountains, whatever. And then yeah, made a bunch of edits from that, and those did like all right. But where it really started was when Michi and I went on the first run. So that was definitely like the first time. I remember we got back to school. I've met Michi before, and the whole summer he was always like commenting on my stuff and telling me, like, hey, dude, like this is awesome. And like we DM'd a bunch, and then second week of school, I was he was like, or I saw he went on a run with his friend Alton. Yeah, and he posted a reel about it. I was like, dude, this I wanna because I didn't have any more content because I was like, I'm not in the mountains, I'm not, you know, I want to make I just need content. And so I said, Hey, can I come on around with you guys? And so literally that Wednesday, that was the Monday that he went on the run. That Wednesday, me, Michi, and Alton, and then our other mutual friend Matthew joined us on the run. Yeah. And so that was like the first like golden run group run sweet that we have today, which is evolved into this quonk and ceramic.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Yeah, that's where it all started. Yeah, that's insane. I I've seen you on TikTok before I even met you. And uh one, like your videos just were so engaging. Like I found myself just staring at the screen watching the video, but it also felt like your relationship with Michi and the other guys felt like you knew them for years, but you only started DMing like going into that school year, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. I've I'd known Michi, like we'd say hi to each other at the gym, but no, we're just acquaintances. I wouldn't even say we were friends or anything, like knew each other friendly and stuff, had a couple like conversations, but yeah. And then the rest is history, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah. Let's talk about higher up wellness. Because I feel like I followed him for a while. I talked about him on this podcast before, about his 30-day speaking challenge, just his approach to content and building a personal brand, basically. I know you mentioned you follow him pretty close and you follow the same kind of guidelines he has. Yeah. And I know you've mentioned him before too in your content.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

I think so, yeah. Yeah, Michael Smoke, the GOAT.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Um He for listeners, let's just explain who he is first in case no one knows who he is.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

So I'll try my best, but I'm not like exactly sure how his whole story started. But I know his whole kind of philosophy is that just post stuff, don't overthink it, and he would just post these videos. He was one of the first people to post these videos where no cuts, no nothing, for at least a minute or two and just explaining something, giving some value, explaining something that he knew about to other people. I think that's I don't know, what do you what would you say?

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I think it's the same thing. It's more so just documenting what he's doing and what has worked for him in all facets of his life, from like morning routine to working out to eating, getting healthier, his habits, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

And just his approach to showing up as authentic as possible, basically. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

No, and yeah, I I saw his I'm trying to hold on one sec, I want to find this. I guess you cut this out.

unknown 13:15

I can't find it.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

There's this one girl that I saw doing his challenge, and then that kind of inspired me. I think there was one point where I've I'd been following him already and seeing his challenge, but then his challenge started blowing up. And there was this one girl, oh, Reg Fit, I think. Okay. Regan is her name. And she was doing the Higher Up Wellness Challenge. And so she almost inspired me. So obviously Michael inspired Higher Up Wellness, inspired her, she inspired me. And I wanted to do it, but what I didn't found myself doing instead was just taking the bits that I liked and incorporating that, which was first of all, the main thing was posting every day. Around November, I think, 2025. I was I was already posting pretty consistently. Yeah. Then I was like, let me just post every day, like no matter what. And so what I started doing, which is completely different from what I do now, but what I started doing was like having a couple videos in reserve, always like having a couple videos, and then just being like, okay, I'm gonna post this tomorrow, that the next day, especially because I was really busy. So I just wanted to know, have that peace of mind. Yeah. And then also just pull out the phone, talk for a minute, try and do those to get out of my comfort zone.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

But those were the bits and pieces that I took from higher up bonus, which is just posting every day, doing some videos where there's no cuts for at least a minute or whatever. But for me, it's even if it's 50 seconds, like I don't care. I'm still getting the benefit of posting every day and doing these things.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Yeah. Is there anyone else that you take inspiration from?

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Yeah. This guy, he's from Toronto. I've never even, I don't think, spoken to him, but Jack Nutrition. I don't know if you heard him before. But he's also he's not like super big, he's like seven and a half, maybe like eight, eight thousand followers. He's awesome. He's got like this brand, Pump Ducks. He's he goes to UFT, I'm pretty sure. And so what he inspired me with was that he would just post videos on Snapchat, like he would take you can tell he takes them on Snapchat of just like he's about to hit a workout with his boys. We're here right now, we're locked in, like, we're here in a workout, whatever. And then look at James over here, like he's doing this, and then just boom, post. I was like, dude, that's genius. And so if you look at my content, I've been doing that. I literally did it yesterday. Your intros are the exact same. I've just been I've started doing that, and it was thanks to him, and he doesn't even know. I've been thinking of DMing him actually, and just telling him, like, yeah, like I've been doing a lot of these things because of you. Like, he doesn't know, but yeah, just posting those videos and getting comfortable. And I think what would happen to me sometimes is because I also post videos that I put like hours into filming and editing and yeah, making making them look good, like high quality stuff. And sometimes I'd post a lot of that, and then posting something like that would feel like uncomfortable. Yeah, and so I always make sure to be still be posting stuff like that because that's what got me here in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yeah, it's finding that balance between, especially as a photographer and videographer, you want to post all the high-quality stuff. And so it feels weird when you're posting just an iPhone clip of you talking to the camera. Yeah. I also want to talk about comparing yourself to other creatives and other people that shoot videos and create content. Do you ever look at that and feel discouraged or overwhelmed with what they might be doing? I know we talked about in the past how comparison is a thief of joy sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Yeah, definitely. If I I've seen some other creators just grow way faster, and I'm like, damn, what am I doing wrong? Because it took me quite a while to get to let's say a thousand followers. I'm not exactly sure when I got to a thousand followers exactly. Probably near the end of last year. I'm not exactly sure. But I don't know, it took me a while because from May, right? I started in May, but then I don't know, I think everyone's just on their own kind of journey, and you never really know. Like this guy, a Spencer's liquid, a Spencer, he goes to Laurier too. He you've definitely seen him. He does he just does like the crazy like eating not challenges, but he just like cooks really out of the ordinary food. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Let's say have you seen it before? I I think so. Yeah, they've probably popped up or something.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

But he was at like 300 followers for the longest time, and he had like good videos, and he had videos that did well and whatever. I was like, dude, like this guy, he's pushing out good content, and he's just out three, four hundred votes, which isn't like bad, but still, I was like, and now he's at 30 something K. Oh, seriously, yeah, he absolutely blew up, and I was like, What? That's insane. And so that just goes to show everyone's on their own journey. You never know, you know, those videos that you're posting and posting and getting one follower off of each video or even zero, those are leading to greater things. Like you really never know.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Yeah, I always say even though it's not performing that well, you're still creating some sort of opportunity in the future.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

And videos and like content always stay, they always stay there. There's videos of mine that I people are liking from three months ago. Yeah. And I'm like, people are still seeing stuff, and that's why archiving or deleting content is probably never like the best idea because you want to keep your content on there.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yeah, the algorithm finds its way to show stuff at the right time.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Oh, yeah, I wanted to say one thing that I was recently thinking about. And for anyone who might be thinking, like, oh, I should have started this earlier, I've had three conversations of a very similar conversation with people who asked me, do you wish you started earlier? Or somehow that just came up. So I was thinking, if let's say I started two, three years ago, who knows? Maybe I would have started making content, did it for five months straight, grind it, and then I was like, screw this, I'm not doing this, this is not working, and then boom. Forever after that, never did content. But because I started when I started, now I'm still doing it. So I like to think about it that way where it's I don't know, everyone, everything happens for a reason, I think.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Best time to start is now.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Yeah, that as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Best time to start now.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Your approach, because I know to be consistent and to post a video every single day, it can lead to burnout. Has it led to burnout for me? What is your approach? Because to do something like that takes a lot of thought and energy and time to make sure you're putting out 237 pieces of content in the last month.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

I guess that's stories included, right? When I saw that, I was like, there's no way, but then I realized it's a lot. I yeah, I like stories. But I wonder if it could show how many like reels.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Because that's stories are one thing, but I know usually at the end of the month Facebook, Instagram will give you a breakdown of how much reels you shared, like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

That's last week. That's not loading.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

But I've definitely posted at least one a day, if not sometimes two or three or four. Yesterday I think I posted five times. And yeah, this is the other thing with posting times, everything. I de I will definitely say videos on Friday nights, Sunday afternoons, and Saturdays perform way better, like all the time, pretty much always. But if you're thinking about, oh, should I post this at 12 p.m. or 5 p.m. Like something that's worked for me is definitely early afternoon, people are on lunch. Just think about when your friends are scrolling. Think about when your three different types of friends are scrolling, yeah. Just to get even more like breadth on that. Yeah, like evening, afternoon, but it really just doesn't matter. Yeah. Especially if you're posting a bunch of times a day.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

It's just we've had this conversation so many times about the best time to post. And Liv is very structured with her timing. I I take the approach of like when I have something ready, I'm gonna post it. But I think there's also there has to be intention behind it too, like you said, just having a general idea of when people are scrolling. Unless you're posting like five to ten times a day. Yeah, then it's a good thing. If you're doing that, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

No. Definitely I'll try to if I have a really good piece of content that I think might has the potential to perform pretty well, and I have the choice of either posting it if it's in the middle of the night, like maybe I'll wait till a day later if it's like the weekend or something. Yeah. Because it will do better. And I'm not saying don't put any thought into it, but I just think people overthink it a little bit. It's not like that deep.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

I was literally having this thought this morning. My sister has now sent in our like family group chat a carousel of something that she wants to post on Instagram. She sent us this five times and she has yet to post it on Instagram. And it's stop overthinking it and just post it. Like it's not that serious for the most part. And I think that's a good reminder. It's just like post when you want to post.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah, yeah. It's not serious because really. Realistically, you post a video or you post a photo or you post carousel, it's gonna live on the feed for six hours, and then it's gonna be washed away by all the other pieces of content being pushed out. And so it's gone. No one's gonna remember it after six hours.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah, nobody cares.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

No.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

That's the other thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

It really doesn't matter. No. And I think it comes down like even when you think about repurposing content too. You post the exact same video, and people who didn't see the first one is are most likely seeing this one now. Or you post the same video but in a different format. A little bit different, yeah. And let's say a couple days later or a couple weeks later, everyone forgets about the first video you posted talking about the exact same thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

And plus it's just the name of the game. And if somebody I remember I had one person, I've been we can talk about trial reels too. I'm curious if you've got trial reels. But there was a video that did well in the past, and I just changed the song on it, changed the positioning of the caption a little bit, and just posted as a trial reel, because why not? And some guy commented, like, oh like bro, you've posted this before, come up with some original. And so he doesn't follow me, and he saw the other one, and I was like, nice, that's funny. It's just because there's always gonna be people who say that, but they don't understand. You're trying to you're trying to build something, and yeah, that's just the name of the game. You gotta repurpose, you gotta stay consistent.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Yeah, what's your take on trial reels? Are you doing them actively?

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Yeah, I try to do that. I feel like at one point I got a little bit discouraged because I felt like if you post a trial reel that you would have still posted on your main feed, and then it doesn't perform as well as a trial reel, but then you still decide to actually post it, it doesn't like do as well. That's just my experience. Yeah, it is nice. I think my best use case for trial reels recently has been if I make a video and I'm like, okay, this is once you've posted a lot of content, you know how every video is gonna perform. Yeah, some videos just go crazy for no reason, yeah, or they exceed your expectations, or they flop, but typically you have a range, right? Yeah. And so if I have a video that I'm like, okay, this might do pretty well, and it's more of a video where it's a caption with music, like a little mini message, not so much like a vlog or something. I'll just make a little bit of a slightly different version of it, post it as a trial reel, and then post the regular one already. Yeah. And then the trial reel will maybe bring in a couple followers or yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

I haven't been too consistent with trial reels. I would go in stages where I'm posting five a day. Yeah. And then I'd post one a day, and then I'd go a week without posting anything. Yeah. I so I haven't really tapped into it too much. Have you lived?

SPEAKER_03 24:41

No, I try to. It was like every day that I was posting something on my Instagram, I would do like a if I posted a carousel of my workout, then I would post the video version of that on my trial reel. And I was doing that and I got into it, but it just it's the same as you, Matt. I just feel like I've been going through stages of it, and sometimes it just seems like it's just an added like exhaustion. I'm like, I don't need to do this, but then I feel that I don't know. I like I do see the value in it, but I also feel like I can create content and just continue to post a million times on my page if I want to, and not there.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

100%. I feel like when I go I don't know if this is the same with you. When I have, let's say, a topic in mind, ideally I want to take that topic and turn it into a photo with a caption. I want to turn it into a reel, I want to turn it into a carousel, I want to turn it into a newsletter, I want to turn it into a blog post on Substack or whatever. And so it's taking the same topic but repurposing it across different formats and then basically doing that over again but in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Or even the same event or the same run. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

I think when I think about doing a photo shoot or a brand shoot, it's doing okay, BTS would be cool, a voiceover would be cool, the showing the work is awesome. And then doing like a breakdown of like how we got that photo or video. And it's just like turning that photo shoot into various amounts of content.

unknown 26:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

It's just batching, right? At the end of the day. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

No, a hundred percent. I think even with just the golden run group runs, we get footage every run, and then we try and make one or two like main kind of hook going on a run, and then just fun vibes, everyone running around and just having fun. But yeah, I'll definitely try and use that footage for some kind of there was one that I posted which was just run tomorrow, coffee after question mark, like in quotations, yeah. And then it's like a seven-second clip.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

How far in advance are you planning these videos and pieces of content?

SPEAKER_02 26:55

So Michi and I, we have a shared note, and so sometimes we'll the night before or in the morning we'll come to the run like 10 minutes early and just think of like a hook that we want to make. There's also been some videos where I just edited the crap out of it with the masking as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Where there's like cool transitions where you're like, what the hell kind of factor.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

And then there's videos where we just say something crazy or do something crazy at the start that catches the viewer's eye with a funny caption, or like a caption that's the opposite of what the video actually is.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

It's all these things where you just want to You're playing into the different hooks.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Yeah. It's all about the emotion change that you want to inflict in the viewer. Which I don't know, that sounds kind of I don't know. It's like you let's say the video's happy, you make it like not sad at the start, but like angrier, and then it's oh no, the video's actually this, it's not what I thought it was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

The one video I can think of is the one of you starting in front of the pub. Or that was Michi's one, I think. That was Michi's.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Oh no, no, that one, yeah, yeah. We're like, let's go day drinking. Yeah, yeah, we beat it.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

You said psych we're going for a run instead or something. Yeah, that was funny. I think that was one of the first ones I've saw from you.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

So that was actually I did both things there. We did like a funny hook, and then I also did there was like a mask of Michi flying into the screen, which like just him like on the ice, and then oh, and then the ice drink appears. Like stuff like that. Yeah. And so I think that's a reason why that one performed well, because I did two things that make my videos do well into one, like the cool editing, and then also the cool like hook and just us being funny and talking.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Makes me want to talk about analytics, going over and seeing what works, what doesn't work. I think no one does it in a way that is useful. It'll they will just look at the views and see 200 views and be like, ah, damn, let me try the next one. Whereas I think the conversation we had was you're like really looking into that and seeing why that performed well. What about the three seconds in the beginning did well for you and how you can replicate that into other pieces of content?

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Yeah. Definitely retention graphs. Like if you ever look at those, they're very useful to see what it gets a little bit skewed if you have a really high-performing video, because then there's just so many. You'd think that, oh, there's more data, so it's better. But as you get more views, like you get more people that just like scroll by. Whereas let's say there's a video and it's like just doing well and it's started to blow up, that's a good time to look, in my experience, where it'll show you what percent of the total amount of viewers were there for each part of the video. There's also a graph that shows you at which point did viewers like the video. So, like my New York video that recently did really well. That was like that's one of my favorite like videos I think that I've ever posted that did well. Cause I think initially, like starting out, the only videos that did well were some just some edits with a caption. But then this video was my videography, my editing, my face. Yeah, and it did well. So that was that gave me a lot of like hopes, yeah. Because especially because the other types of videos that have done decent are like the running videos, right? But then I'm thinking I'm about to graduate. What am I gonna do? But then the New York video did like decent, and so I was like, okay, we're good, we're good. Like, and maybe that's a little bit of an unhealthy relationship with views because I'm almost letting views dictate my happiness a little bit, yeah. But I think more it's just I don't trying to analyze it and be objective about it and not influence you too much.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

But I can think of the second episode we had with Dallas because he talked about the opposite. He doesn't look at the views, he doesn't look at why performing well because he's tried that in the past, but it hasn't worked for him. So he just goes back to creating for himself and for his he's a softball coach and having that human interaction, yeah, the authenticity behind his content, having the girls in the content and being excited about it, yeah. And just like sharing that joy that and an excitement that his classes have.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

I get that. That's why I although I do hyperanalyze and really try and when I'm editing a piece of content, I'm like, how can I optimize this for consumability? I still make sure to post those videos where it's just Snapchat, save, download, captions, post. Still make those, and those also perform pretty well sometimes because it's just pretty it's authentic. And so I think if I'm still doing both, I think it's all right. You know what I mean? Totally. I agree. But if you're only posting, the other thing is, right? I make posts for followers and new followers, but then there's posts that I just make for followers. I know it's not gonna do that well, but again, I'm doing it for me. Yeah, I'm doing it for my friends and for people who watch my content.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah, it's I saw this summer, it's tofu, mofu, and bofu. Okay. Top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel. So top of funnel is basically getting as many eyes, new eyes on your content, just casting a wide net. Mofu, middle of funnel, is more niche with what you do, sharing the work, sharing the BTS, tailored to people who already follow you. And then bofu, bottom of follow, is the CTAs are in like very niche content that only followers? What is that? Call to actions. Oh, okay. Would see that recognize into like asking for work basically.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

That's definitely something that I've wanted to get towards slowly, which is monetizing. It's just I've been so busy with school and work that yeah, I'm just okay. Let me try and just make sure I'm consistent. Yeah, try and grow.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Yeah, which is the biggest struggle for critters in 2025 and 2026. 2026. Yeah. I thought it was 2025.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

It's pretty crazy. But no, but this New York video, see, it it shows you like when people liked your reel. And so it's it's interesting to see like what like which part do people like your reel? What did they Yeah? Because some reels there'll always be a thing at the start and at the end, yeah, which is just people liking real because they liked it. Yeah. But you really want to look at, okay, wait, uh two quarter, like a halfway into this reel, there's like a huge spike in the city. So like why did they like it?

SPEAKER_00 33:31

It's on YouTube. You can see the wave of who is most replayed. Most replaying those portions, which is cool as a viewer, and seeing w what's the kind of most engaging part or most informative.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

It is cool to see that as a viewer. I've always found that cool for sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Because sometimes I'll just skip to that part. Yeah. Honestly.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Yeah. I think that's the point a little bit. Yeah. But yeah, and then it's there's also just things like with the captions, include the word bro or like me and instead of when you let you say me and bro, because when somebody watches that, it's oh well, I guess I'll send this to my bro. Yeah. And it's true, the shares are way higher. It's just those little things that you need to realize, you need to put yourself in the perspective, like really put yourself in the shoes of a viewer.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Whenever we create scripts and create videos for clients and projects, we always need to remind them they have to talk to a second or third grade reading level because it is so easy to understand for someone new seeing their content and someone who already ha follows them or who might be in the space already. They already know what the fancy words mean and then what the big words mean. And it's just a lot easier for them to comprehend it too. Yeah. Yeah. I want to talk about monetizing a little bit though. Yeah. Because I feel like everyone struggles with like how. And when. Yeah. And I guess you're in that position now too.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

Yeah, because there's UGC, but also ultimately I'd like to my the idea is okay. I keep building this kind of personal brand, and then at the point when I want to start a business or sell a product, it's boom. I could probably safely say maybe two or three percent of my followers. That's like just a that's uh like those are customers, yeah. Just right off the bat. That's the idea. But when that is, how that is, we'll see. I also I've I really want to honestly do something similar to what you're doing, which is you're a videographer, but also you know how brands work, you know how content works. You're not just coming in to shoot videos and then sending them MP4s. Yeah. You're like, okay, like here's the type of videos that we should probably make that like work. Yeah. That's what I think I can have, and then my account can be like a 100% portfolio for almost.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

It's yes, pretty photos are nice, and they look great on our feed, but are they doing the things you wanted to do? Exactly. And so our approach is like very strategic. What works well, what doesn't work, why it's working, what's the goal? Do you want more lead? Do you want more customers? Do you want people through the door? Do you want more brand awareness? Do you want more trust, credibility? And then from that, you just unpack it all and create the pieces of content that would reflect that.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

I think Liv has some insight about monetizing and doing like UGC work. Because you've worked with brands in the past for collaborations and what's been your experience with making UGC?

SPEAKER_02 36:29

And has it been like, are there things like what are things that you liked about it? Maybe didn't really wouldn't recommend, recommend? Because you've done work for Poppy.

SPEAKER_03 36:37

Yeah, I've done like a lot of one-off projects with people. I was working with Flourish as one of their ambassadors for quite some time. And then I think at the time when I was doing it, I was working like a nine to five plus teaching plus creating content. So it just fell off. And that was totally on me. But it's one of those things where it's you get excited about it at the beginning, and then it's like, how can I be creative more with a pancake or like something like that? You know what I mean? Yeah. So yeah, I think especially with UGC, you want to make sure that you're selective and very specific with what you're saying yes to. I think that's really important. I think as any creator, you're really excited when someone reaches out and wants you to promote their brand. And even Matt has to remind me of that sometimes where it's like, you don't need to say yes to that. Because like it's say it's like a hat company or something, and it just doesn't make sense for my personal brand, which is 90% fitness.

SPEAKER_02 37:40

She's wearing a hat now. I had a nicotine pouch company reach out to me and I was like, no, no, not me.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

And that's the thing. It's like sorry. Okay, but like I appreciate it, but at the same time, it's it just doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Because that can reflect through your content too. If you're trying to promote something that you don't use, like that is so easy to see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Yeah. And that's the other thing. I think it's so easy to also see when you are actually being yourself. And I'm I'll I'll say like literally 99% of all my videos and all like the videos and the videos, they're all like I'm genuinely just being myself. That's always been my thing from the beginning, which was just to not overcomplicate it and just be myself and see what happens. Yeah. And of course, some of the hooks where we take like a it might be third take where we're saying like a specific thing, like, oh my god, we're acting like that's not authentic. But it's not, that's not what authenticity is or isn't. It's more so the overall kind of content and the messages you're pushing. Is that you?

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah, yeah. This podcast is basically the why behind creating content, behind the why behind building a brand, building a business. What's the why for you?

SPEAKER_03 38:54

I was gonna ask that. I'm so interested.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Like why I'm doing this. Yeah, why you why are you putting so much effort behind the content and into your personal brand?

SPEAKER_02 39:04

That's just a hard question.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

Putting you on the spot.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

I think I think there's a lot of things. I think honestly, and this I think some people might relate to this, and this is the honest truth. I'm in computer science, don't like coding at all. I'm I'm honorable, I have pretty good grades, but I I'm in fourth year now, I'm about to graduate. Like I've been getting by. Really don't like coding though. It's really just not for me. I really like being outdoors, I really like doing all these other things and video and skateboarding, just there's a lot of things I really like. And my why honestly was like, hey, I don't want to do this. Let me at least let me just try this. And so now I'm just trying it. And it's just now I've gone to a point that I didn't think I would get to, honestly. And so now I'm here, okay. We're I guess we're still trying, but maybe from from the side, it might look like I have some specific goal and I just know exactly what I'm doing, but that's not the case. Like I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't think I think most people know what they're doing, but there's always a little bit of vagueness in terms of exactly what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Nobody's actually got it fully figured out. We had this exact conversation a couple days ago, or was it yesterday? No one knows what I'm doing, no one knows what Liv's doing. I don't even know what I'm doing next year. So it's like I'm just I know why I'm doing it. I know where I want to be, but I don't know exactly what I'm gonna be doing in the day in, day out, basically. So why are you doing it? Putting me on the spot now. I feel like I I told Liv, I feel compelled to help people with like strategy and brand photo and video. And I like the idea of watching a business or I like building things. And so being able to go into a local business or a brand and help them create the pieces of content that they need in order to help them scale and build gives me so much like satisfaction.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Satisfaction? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

No, and you honestly just reminded me a similar thing, which is for me, it was I think earlier as well, and still now, is just I want to be as weird as possible. I don't know how I've touched on this yet, but just being weird. Hey, be weird, just be yourself, and just me being weird on camera will help people to just also be weird and be themselves and not act for other people. And I think that's a little bit of my why, which is helping people become themselves, yeah, find themselves and who they are. Because I think I've I'm still not there, but I think I've gone much, much closer to really being comfortable with who I am and being comfortable with being myself and more more more being obviously we change ourselves a little bit from situation to situation, depending if you're with your family or you're at work.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Every seven years you turn into a completely new person. Whoa, never heard of that. I've read that somewhere. Yeah. That's interesting. We broke it down, it it was pretty accurate.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

Yeah. Like I mean I think when we were talking about it, I was like, now I'm in like a new phase of life based on my age, which is like a really cool thing to think about.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

Yeah, because you just launched your business.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Yeah, I I quit my full-time job to launch a business and I've just fully jumped in two feet. And that's so awesome. It's yeah, I feel like I've come into my own, I dyed my hair. It's like I'm a new person.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Yeah, and then for me, that was when I was twenty one, I think. And that was around the time I started my business. I went full-time. I moved back home after living in Waterloo. I and now seven years would be twenty-seven. And I already feel like I'm at a different point now where I'm like completely turning out. It's like starting to start and transitioning into a new person.

SPEAKER_03 43:10

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Yeah.

unknown 43:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

It's always I think no matter how like big or small your why is, and like you've like even just like it came to fruition there, like you figured out your why, even just sitting here and talking about it. I think always coming back to that is so important, especially as any kind of content creator. It brings you back to like your authenticity and like your genuine personality. And I think it's really cool that a part of the reason why you're doing it is to get people to have find that confidence in themselves to become themselves online because that's such a hard thing to do. I am guilty of it. I'm not who I am online in person. I'm just I have this certain look that I want to portray, and that's how it's always been. And Matt's really tried to push me out of my comfort zone, even with showing up and talking on camera and not. Judging yourself for doing so. And I think that's a really cool thing that you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

No, thank you. And I guess it's also just helping people become themselves in person in real life. Obviously, it doesn't always like transition from online, from my online weirdness to their in-person weirdness and presence. But I just think I've definitely, I don't know, just growing up in a very Slavic family, not just feeling very like not Canadian a little bit and just feeling a pretty big disconnect with people in my earlier stages. Just having trouble having friends and when high school and elementary school. I think just really trying to show people like your unique experience means something. Like you're like it's good that you're weird. Yeah. People will see it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

I agree. I I was born with a speech impediment. Growing up super shy, couldn't talk, just did not want to be showing up for myself as myself. And so getting in front of the camera and creating a business and knowing that I have to be the face of that business too. Everyone goes through the same thing. It's such a struggle and so overwhelming and so daunting to do at the beginning. But when you keep doing and you keep showing up, it just becomes easier and easier. And so that's I think that's why I'm able to have a podcast and show up on camera the way I do. And I think my tip is if someone can take something from it, or if someone can relate to it, I think that's also my why too. If someone can feel get something out of it, I even if it's one person, it's worth it.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Yeah. There was something else I wanted to say, but I forgot. You have something if you want to.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Don't worry, this happens to me all the time. I just it leaves your brain. It's okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

If you want to prompt me on something, I don't know if it might come back.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Showing up cons on as yourself on camera.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

So around this time last year and earlier, like earlier March, February, I think I was at an all-time high of like just anxiety. Like I've always had anxiety, but I was really trying to push myself out of my comfort zone around this time last year. And so it increased my anxiety. But I think that's something you have to go through. And I think that content's helped me with that a lot. Yeah. I'm still not 100%, you know, I'm still not the most comf confident person ever, but I've definitely gotten a lot more confident with myself and who I am. And it's helped me be a better articulator and be a better speaker just by knowing more who I am and just caring less, caring a lot less. Another thing, people always say, don't care about what other people think. And I think that's I like that, and I used to always say that, but it's not it. I think it's less so about stop caring about what people think, and more so you like try not to care about what people think, but you still care, don't you? That's normal. Lean into it. If you're doing stuff that makes you feel that care about, oh, what does that person think? What does that person think? Good. Like that's what you need to do. And so I just started chasing that. I just started chasing the uncomfortableness and just being uncomfortable and the comfortable. Being uncomfortable. It's like I remember making content like earlier first semester, and I would just be in the gym, like having to put my phone up, or if it's while we're running, holding the camera up in front of my face or stuff like that. I'm like, oh, this is like this just from the inside. Like it's just it's a type of cringe pain that you can't understand unless you do it. Yeah. But I'm like, this is good. This is what I need to do.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

Just have to keep doing it and be overcome that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

One of my best friends, we grew up in through high school, like elementary school, high school. He's two years older than me, or a year older than me. But in high school, he wanted to do YouTube, he wanted to do all this fitness content, he wanted to be a trainer, he wanted to be an online trainer. And throughout grade 11, grade 12, his nickname was just Gymshark because he was trying to create content in the fitness space for so many years, and now it was so uncomfortable to record in the gym and record a YouTube video just out in public and like a personal brand and showing up consistently, creating content and having your face out there. But now he's an online trainer, crushing it, living anywhere he wants now. That's awesome. He's grown to over 500,000 followers on Facebook.

unknown 48:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

He's at over a hundred thousand on Instagram, killing it. But it's because he's been consistent posting a video every single day for the last four years.

SPEAKER_03 48:46

And he also loves the trial reel, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_00 48:48

Yes, he loves the trial reel. Yeah. But he just doesn't care. Yeah. Yeah. He just yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:53

And that's what I'm trying to. I remember when over reading week, that would have been like mid-October, I had that video where I was like, Am I gonna keep this game video PG? Hi, my name is Zariel, and I want to reintroduce myself. I don't know if you saw the video, but that was the video I literally gained 900 followers from that video in just a couple days. Wow. Even in just from 50,000 views. Yeah. And the next week I was like, oh, I don't know what to post. There's all these new and I was like, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing because that's what got me here in the first place. And so now I'm really just trying to with this whole colon cancer thing. I've also gained quite a bit of followers like the just this past month in general, with the New York video as well. It hit like a million views. And so I'm just like, you know what? Does not matter. I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing. Obviously, look back, reflect, and see where there's room to grow, but just keep doing the same thing and not really let that influence me.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

I think people will unfollow you, people will follow you. Just the people who unfollow you. Okay, okay. Yeah, it's crazy to look at this.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

There's quite a there's a lot of people who actually unfollow me. It's crazy to think. And you can see which days, so it's which video might have influenced that. Yeah. It's crazy. That's funny. Yeah, it's crazy to see. There was one one day I had 15 unfollows, I think, in one day.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 50:09

Yeah, I don't know why. It's just I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Yeah, it's crazy. You're just getting closer to having a closer follow like closer community. More, yeah, more aligned. That's a good word.

SPEAKER_02 50:20

And about community and people, I really don't think I would have done that, been where I'm at now, like without Michi, like at all. And I will say, obviously, just these all these weeks, just being together and working on content together and everything. Yeah, but I think the main the first part was when we went on that first run. I watched this guy, we're running, and he puts his phone, he puts 0.5 on his phone and he puts it in front of his face. And I was like, I was I literally remember in my head being like, huh? Bro, you what are you doing? And then I'm like, wait a minute. Like these guys with hundreds of thousands of followers, that's what they're this is it. This is it. Like it but it's just it just blew me away how like weird it is doing it in real life. Because you only see the content, you don't really see the behind the scenes. Yeah, and that's where I was like, this is what you just gotta do. And then from there we started doing it, and yeah, he has just he's one one of a kind person, like his energy and everything is just unreal.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

What's the saying? If you want to go far, go together. Yeah. And even on the same for me, whenever Liv and I have like big heavy work days, it doesn't feel like big heavy work days because we're doing what we love. Same thing when my buddy from Ohio, Noah, comes down and we spend the entire day working together. We'll be shooting content in the morning, we'll be editing at the cafe, yeah, we'll be shooting a project in the evening, and then we'll spend like 12 hours just shooting and editing. Yeah. But when you're doing it with someone, it doesn't feel like work. And some days you feel tired and groggy and you don't want to do it, but like those days when you're doing it with someone, you can do it forever. Yeah. And it doesn't feel like it's work.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

And also, I just people I told this someone recently, and they were like surprised. I was honestly surprised, they were surprised, but I was telling them, like, yeah, I find it really hard to film myself talking if there's like people around. What? Really? I'm like, yeah, like I genuinely I it's so hard for me to film myself talking if there's people around, especially somewhere like public. Like same to me. The most I'll do if I'm walking down a street. This is my favorite one. Like when if I'm walking down the street and there's at least when I start the video, if I know no one's looking at me, then I do it. And if I'm like almost done and there's someone, then I'm like, okay, like I just try to whatever. But I just it's so hard. But let's say I'm with Michael at the gym with Michi. Oh my god, I could do anything. It's so crazy how when there's somebody with you, and it's I do preach the I don't care about what people think, I'm comfortable, but it is so hard to yeah, but when there's somebody there who like knows, knows it, it's all okay, it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

We're just both being weird together. Yeah. I tried filming, I try to go on walks in the evening. Yeah, and so in those walks, I try to cr shoot a story, just recapping my day basically. And I'm the exact same way. If I know someone's behind me, you know, they're pretty, they have distance on me. Yeah, I still will put my phone away until I don't see anything. I know.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

It's and it's like you're posting it for thousands of people potentially to see.

SPEAKER_03 53:19

But one person in a car or walking will stop you from doing it. It's it's crazy. That's what the resistance is.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

And Matt, I just also wanted to mention, like the when you mentioned that thing of you editing and shooting with Noah all day, like you you almost gave me this is gonna sound weird, but almost not butterflies in my stomach, but like the just the oh my god, I want to do that. I've been thinking about just a lot of these days where I'll just grind school. Like I'm in CB414 right now, it's the hardest computer science course in our program. Like last year, 40% of the class failed that the final exam. It's absolutely brutal. It got curved and stuff, so it wasn't as bad. But it's just like brutal course, and I'm also in a couple other courses, and so I'll just be like grinding and then I'll sit down, edit, or like film, whatever, and I just it makes it that much more special, I guess. But also, I just I'm very nervous. I'm like, oh, school's about to end everything. But then the other part is wow, I'll actually just be able to do what I love, yeah, you know, yeah, which is filming, editing, everything. I love everything about it.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

The first time I met you, you literally said you had to keep your SSD at home because you couldn't stop editing.

SPEAKER_02 54:34

Yeah. That's it's so true. I have these two SSDs, the freaking sand discs. Even though one of them has been not treating me so nice, I'm looking into the Samsung T7, something like that. Might need to ask you for some advice on that later. But uh Yeah, I'll literally and the camera too. I'll leave the camera at home because I'll just want to film myself studying because I don't know. I might use that for something or yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

I we could go. I remember doing on a trip to Banff in California, and I brought my entire camera bag, two cameras, four lenses, my drone, everything. But I found myself just creating uh shooting on my one camera with the 50.

SPEAKER_04 55:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

And didn't touch a single thing afterwards for that entire trip. But now I still have that urge to want to bring everything because I don't want to miss something.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

We're maximizers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

And so we're doing a big Portugal trip in July, and like in my head, I want to bring everything because it's gonna be such a sick trip. Yeah. But I know that I have to condense it into like my Fuji camera and maybe a camera and like a lens.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

My mom asked me yesterday, she was like, Are you gonna bring like just your Fuji? I'm like, I don't know. I want to bring everything, but I know I can't.

SPEAKER_02 55:50

So that's the other thing, too. Like, most of my videos are shot on my phone. And that's something that Michael Smoke, higher up wellness, would talk about, which is like, all you need is this little brick glowing brick over here, put it up and just talk. That's uh what is it? Simple, don't overcomplicate it. It isn't easy, but it is simple. Don't overcomplicate it.

SPEAKER_00 56:09

This is what I told my tanner who's an online trainer. Yeah for the first three years of building his online business, he shot everything on his phone.

SPEAKER_04 56:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

And he finally got to a point where he just wanted the higher quality stuff with the mics. And I tell everyone, if they're just starting out, use your phone. It has a great camera.

SPEAKER_02 56:28

Great, great mic. Also, most people are watching it on a phone. So if you film it on a phone, it's probably gonna look pretty good. Yeah. When you start getting into this camera stuff, it's hard. You gotta think about export settings, everything. And then sorry, the whole like process is also longer. Whereas with your phone, it's a lot quicker. So honestly, even though it's a little bit lower quality, you might get it up.

SPEAKER_00 56:48

Just less refer less friction. Less friction. And I at least for me, whenever I want to create a talking head video, I'm trying to remove as much friction as possible. So at my desk, when I know I'm gonna be filming for a couple days in a row, I have my camera on my desktop tripod with my mics connected already. So all I have to do is turn on my light, press record, and I'm talking.

SPEAKER_04 57:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:11

But the second that thing goes away and it's packed up, I won't create content for two weeks at a time. Just because the act of taking it out of the bag, unzipping it, putting the batteries in, finding an SD card, turning it on, yeah. It's so frustrating. So I'm at a point where like I just want the most simplest thing. And sometimes that's my phone.

SPEAKER_02 57:30

And no mic even. I have a DJI mic. I literally I haven't used it in so long because it's I don't know, it's also just more authentic. It's uh I've also started using Snapchat a lot more. I remember I saw one of uh Higher Ulness's videos. You know how on Snapchat you can have like a whole screen glow or have the ring? Yeah, and I saw in the reflection of his glasses the ring, and I was like, oh my god, this guy's using Snapchat. That's genius. It's also genius because then you could do a couple takes and then it doesn't really fill up like your actual storage. Even though now with Snapchat you have to like uh don't even get me started.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

I have we both deleted Snapchat a couple days ago, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:06

Do you want to say something insane? I have over a hundred gigabytes of like memories. Damn. And that that really goes to show like I've always loved to just like film stuff. Yeah, like a hundred gigs of memory. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

But I used to be the exact same way though. It's I was the one going out and taking so much story, so many stories throughout the night, and I'd come home and be like, why did I do this?

SPEAKER_02 58:31

People have actually called me like annoying for filming so much and everything before any of this content stuff. Just and it is there is something to take from that, which is be in the moment and stuff like that. But nowadays, when I'm hiking and I have my tripod and my camera, and I want to run ahead, or I wanna, I'm always just trying to get the videos and stuff. Somebody might I've had somebody say, Hey dude, don't you just want to be in the moment at any point? And it's actually I'm more in the moment than you. Here's why. Because you're let's say you're just like looking at the mountains. I'm like analyzing like the position of the mountains and everything and seeing like how can I best capture this to show somebody who isn't here. And so I honestly think that at times I'm taking even more in. Yeah. Because I'm just really trying to see like how can I capture this the best way. I've never thought about it that way. Yeah, it's something I've been telling people because it's a good way to but also it is nice to just be just be in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 59:27

I think that's what you can really influence me to buy my first like Fuji, like a pocket cam. Yeah. Because I'll take it everywhere I go, I'll take it to a leaf game, I'll take it to a concert, I'll take it for a walk or anything we're doing. It's just so I have not my phone, but something a little bit higher quality that I can just snap photos as things are happening. And I'm still looking around and framing things and seeing what looked good and what doesn't look good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:54

It's that eye that you have. It's definitely I I honestly think filming all those just random videos throughout my like younger stages has helped me now to know what looks good. Yeah. I think it's something I also wanted to mention, which is just something that I do all the time with like with any type of video that I make. And it's what helps me, it's my own strategy of helping me put into the put myself into viewers' shoes. I'll edit and then I'll like re-well, you re-watch a video a bunch of times and you're editing. But then you put it away and then you come back to it later, and you really just first of all, you really try and put yourself in the shoes of a of somebody who hasn't seen this before, but also you're just naturally closer to that person because you haven't seen it in like a day. Yeah. And then you watch it and you really just try and absorb and see like what emotions you're feeling if it's doing it for you. Yeah. And at that point, you're like, okay, this is a good video. That's at the that's when you know when the video is gonna be good when you do that. Or you're okay, wait, maybe I need to make this part shorter. That was boring that first part.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

The opposite to that too is shooting something right away and being in the moment and feeling so excited to go back right away and start editing it because you know how you want it to look and you don't want to forget that feeling. But I also agree when I shoot projects, I'd like to go back and re-watch things because even for example, when I was shooting a video here, I went back the next day to look at it and I was like, I need to change the soundtrack, change the beats, I need to change the color grading. There's a few things I need to tweak for this to look good.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

But I'm seeing more so let's say you go right away, edit it, and then finish it. It's just like looking back at it the next day, like when it's already edited. And then but no, I totally agree with the whole like do editing right away because when you have like the vision, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:41

When things sit for too long, yeah, it makes it that much harder to get back into it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:46

Especially like a running video where there was a certain vibe during that run, editing right after, I find is a lot easier because I'm able to choose the song and edit it in the way and use the clips in a way that actually portray the vibe that was happening during that run. Yeah. Because obviously, with the power of editing, you can portray anything you want. Yeah. But when you're able to match those, the song and the editing style and which clips you choose to what was actually happening that day, it the video is just better, like it's more authentic.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:19

You're grabbing during that run, you're just getting so much inspiration from the music you're listening to, the people around you, the the weather. Yeah, like it changes the entire video.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

Oh, yeah, dude. Changes it completely 100%. Damn. We talked a lot. Yeah, this has been awesome. That's been great. Yeah, anything else you want to talk about? I had, I remember when I was like just starting. I was, I don't remember exactly how, but I was on I my my initial goal, this was like three videos in, was to post what I want to post and not think about it. And there's like this journal, I just wanted to read it. I think it's kind of cool. And this journal, it's very I brought it to like summer camp, which is why it's like all like this.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

But it's probably nice to look back at the things you've wrote.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

So actually, this is you can include this or not, but I have I started this. My friend Jonah, who I went to high school with, he started doing this, which is just like every hold on, let me get into every single day, like everything I've done every single day for the last two years is written out, and like color, whatever. Wow. See, like sometimes there's not much, but then yeah, and this is just shows you like my crazy life. This is this year, blue is work, red is school, and then like green is like whatever else. So, see, this is like when we were doing hire, like I work as an aquatic supervisor at the Laurier Pool, so I do all the hiring, the payroll. Yeah, honestly, very crazy job that's taught me a lot of what like why I'm able to do stuff now.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:52

Damn.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:53

But yeah, I just wanted to show you this. I feel like it's Do you do that every morning or every night, every evening, or just nowadays it's just life's just happening nowadays. It's very hectic. So it's just let's see, this week. There's not much. See, it's just I because when it gets towards the end of the year, you kind of just have the two files you need to study for it. There's not like a billion assignments, really. I'm actually driving to Yale this weekend. Oh, seriously? Just because why not? Sweet. Just literally is that why you went to New York? Yeah, we it was just spontaneous. We just went, I was went to see some friends in New Jersey and then we shoved to New York. Yeah. I just I love the spontaneity. It's great. Yeah. Liv, you journal quite a bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:31

Yeah. Oh, but wait, I wanted to really read the one journal.

unknown 1:04:34

Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:35

But Liv, you can go ahead and I want to hear about it. You just reminded me of uh why I opened this in the first place. You started making it your morning routine.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:42

Doing it for the last like ten years. I was actually going through my closet the other day and I had papers from like when I was still in college. Um, and just like going back and seeing like what was going on at that time in my life. And it's I think like recording like the good, the bad, the experiences, like what you're doing, big moments, events, and things like that. It's such a good thing to just have to look back on. And I think it's a really special thing to do, and I think it's one of those things that not a lot of people do anymore. But it's always good to get your thoughts and like emotions on paper and not only for like yourself, but for your future self. I think it's a really cool thing to refer back to.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:28

I think I had a recent moment where I was reading back at around this time of year last year, and I was just like, holy, I'm grateful for like my emotional state right now. Because I would just write about my anxiety and like how I was feeling. And I just there was a point last year where I just had a lot of anxiety, just not knowing what, just being like, damn, like I'm finishing my third year. I don't know what I want to do. I am going to the summer camp. I'm it's crazy. I'm going to a different country in California. No, I don't know. Anybody at the camp, zero people. But that's exactly why I was like, I want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And so reading back kind of exactly what you're saying. Reading back and of me like explaining how I felt just makes you just gives you so much gratitude. Like you're just so grateful for how you can do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:12

And I think it's like a lost art, like writing. And because like with things like Chat GPT and pod, it's like you're not doing much work anymore. And I think it actually takes work to sit down and articulate your thoughts and what you did today. And just because you have such the that short lifespan in your head now, it's just you it's nice to like just put it out there. It just makes it that much more real.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

I'm gonna journal after this.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

But here, but I just wanted to read this. So this is May 27th. My job was starting June 1st, and so I'd been in like San Anselmo at the friend's house for a couple days now. And I just talked about my day, like what we went, like we I said later we had dinner all together, and then Ella and I went to this play place called Scoop to get some ice cream. This is where like about Bobby on the run. Been editing vids. The account is up to 108 followers right now. I have three videos ready to go, but waiting, I guess, so that I have shit to post daily. Are we allowed to swear on this, by the way? Yeah, okay. We'll see where Bobby on the run goes, but I'm happy with where it's at now in terms of posting what I want to post and it being recognized at least to the extent that it can be.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:30

Wow. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:31

And just for me to read this, is wow, this guy didn't know, man. No, this guy did not know what we would have been doing nowadays. And like I remember hitting, I think there was one when I hit 200 something followers, maybe, but yeah. That's insane. I just wanted to read that because it's crazy to have this. Yeah, it makes me want to start journaling. It's great. Like you I remember the first time when I like read back at it like a couple weeks ago. I was like, whoa.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:55

It makes you emotional. I actually, it's interesting that's what you touched on. I there was one that I found in my closet, and it was from two years ago. And it was like, I want to have a large community of people within the fitness industry. I wanna own my own platform or start a YouTube channel, and I have my own online platform now. I need to start a YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

I was just about to mention you should 100%.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:24

It's just so much time to edit it and everything, but I think it would really be worth it. And I'm considering this would be really this would probably be the craziest thing I've done so far. But to drive to California, definitely something I've been thinking about. But we really like California.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

I've been twice for business retreats. Similar to what you did with California and I think your other trips you mentioned. I just went knowing no one. That's awesome. With for eight to twelve different creatives from all over, from California, from Chicago, Ohio, Canada, like everywhere. And I fell in love with California. I want to go back so much. And Live has been there before, and we always said that we want to go back every winter just to spend time there.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:13

It's just so expensive, but it's the best place geographically on earth because a little bit that way, boom, great snowboarding ski. A little bit that way, yeah, beaches. Yeah. That way, like mountains. You literally have everything you want. No matter if you're a mountain guy or a beach guy, it's hey, you got everything you need.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:31

My uh mentor, Joey Spears, he grew up just past Barrie. And so met his wife in an airport in California. A couple months later, moved to California. So now he's been in No Cal NoCal, Northern California. But literally, mountains, ocean, snow, the desert. He's within a radius of everywhere. It's insane. And it's crazy. I remember when the first time I went to Joshua Tree, we were driving in, and I was like, this is insane to be like just so close to everything, and wherever you point the camera, looks great. Oh, yeah. Then you come back to Kitchener Waterloo in the middle of winter in November or December, and it's like you have to put effort into what looks good. Whereas when you're there, everything looks good.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:20

Because yeah, really with the content, you wanna give somebody that wow factor of, whoa, that looks cool, right? So if it's something that they've seen in person, that's the other thing though, where I've taken videos of just University and King, but just made it cinematic. And I've had a video like that do because it's whoa, like I've never seen like it being like romanticized or whatever. But yeah, when you're there, it's there's people who haven't been there before, and you're capturing it, and they're like, whoa, you're actually there and you're actually capturing this. That's insane. Yeah. So I'm really excited. The reason why I bought this camera is for California. Yeah. I was supposed to buy it a lot later, but I was like, you know what? It's a pretty, it's a machine. And I want to know, I wanna, when I'm on Clouds Rest in Yosemite, I want to be able to pull it out and know exactly how to use it. How to use it. Yeah, I think I've definitely gone a lot further with that now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

That's awesome. I mean, even as a photographer and creative, going to just new spaces and new environments makes the biggest change. Yeah. Like whenever I went to California, it's like life feels so small here sometimes. But the second you travel, it's like there is so much more opportunity out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:25

The thing that shocked me was Ella, the girl's house that I stayed at. Her dad, like we're there, obviously, it's the start of the summer, and they have this crazy trail system behind their house, and they have this kind of garage, like storage space thing, and they got like surfboards, mountain bikes, road bikes, like all the running shoes. Like her parents are like the coolest parents I've probably ever met in my life. They have like their kitchen is full of all just like gels and like electrolytes, just everything. Like it's just so sick. I remember just thinking they do this in December when we're just here with no sun and snow. This is like a whole year thing for them. And I was that just that's just crazy to think about. There's people who just live like that the whole year.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:06

Like it's I went to Ohio for a wedding, both Liv and I did in February. When we were just getting dumped with snow. Yeah. And you go three hours south to Toledo, and it's like just a small area of snow. This this is like beginning of November weather or October weather. Yeah. And it just makes the the biggest difference. It does.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:31

Weather is so huge. Like as soon as it just gets sunny out, you're just so much happier. Yeah. So I definitely want to try and live somewhere that is pretty warm all around. But yeah. One thing, I don't know if we still have time, but yeah, one thing I wanted to ask you about what you think of is there's these guys. I feel like my content is a combination of other people's niches that inspire me. For example, there's the side of day in the life slash like running slash lifestyle, which is like Jack's Day in the Life, Chase's Day in the Life. I don't know if you've seen those guys or like higher up wellness, all that stuff. And then there's people like Scuba Files, Hudson Films, and then just all these guys who are just all their videos or I think uh Jack Taylor, like all these guys are their all their content is just mountains and cinematic kind of nature, yeah, forests, everything. And so I think I make like both. Yeah. And I also talk to the camera. Yeah. So do you think that at one point I might have to niche down to one thing, or do you think my niche could be that I just not do everything, but I think keep doing what you're doing because it's working.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:41

Thank you. No. There's I follow a lot of people who only post the work because the work speaks for themselves. It's just so good that people attach onto it. And then there's people that are more on camera talking about what goes on with the work and behind the scenes, but also sharing that side of the work too and promoting the projects that they're shooting too. I I personally I like the balance of both.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:11

Because I like to show people what went into a project, and I like to show the actual project itself too. And you said it numerous times this podcast, you're creating content for yourself, you're creating content what you want to be creating. Yeah. And so I would just lean into that even more.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:30

I really love just talking to the camera, I really love making these cinematic videos, and I really love making the running videos. So I think I'm just gonna keep.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:39

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:40

I think both complement each other very well. Cause it's it's pretty unique. I don't know, there's not a lot of people who make I don't know, most of the people that I've seen who make like really high quality like cinematic content, they don't really make that many like talking videos or stuff like that. I don't know if it's because the work speaks for themselves or just because that's all they're making and maybe they don't feel as comfortable making talking videos, but that'd be that could be a two.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:07

I think you never know. No, they either are just so deep into what they create, that's all they want to share. Yeah. And I respect that because that's their craft.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:20

Yeah. No, seriously. Anything else?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:24

Oh, thanks, and thanks so much for having me. It's such a pleasure. This has been our longest podcast. Yeah, that's crazy. I'm a yapper, so I could we could do this for another hour for all.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:32

I feel like every guest we have, it's like we could do this over and over again. Yeah. And it'd still be an hour long.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:38

Yeah. It'd be actually really cool to do this same thing like a year from now.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:42

Oh, I'm so to see where you are and we proceed.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:45

I'll bring my journal too. Yeah. Yeah, you'll be journaling by then. I'll also, I'm gonna write a journal.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:50

Today.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:50

Today. Yeah. Because you live, you inspire. No, because you know what? The last journal I wrote was probably like, let's see, I haven't really been journaling. Like, yeah, around earlier this month, like March 15th. So it's yeah, it's hard. It's really hard to journal when you're really busy.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:06

Yeah, yeah. I've made it a thing to carve out like a morning. Yeah, that's so good.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:12

I need to get back on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:13

Yeah. Anyways, thank you so much for coming to the podcast. This was a great conversation. So good. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:20

This has been awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:20

Any last words? Where can people find you and just what's next for Bobby on the run?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:26

Bobby on the run on Instagram. As you guys know, I try to post everything on TikTok as well, but sometimes I just forget, honestly. What's next? Going to Yale for a road trip. Just got this like suction cup for the car. Let's say. So hopefully gonna film some stuff from that road trip and just being in Yale on campus. And then after that, just gonna be exams and then a lot of Yosemite prep. I still need to buy like a proper backpack, like a pack. So getting that and just getting ready. And hopefully, I'm gonna either fly to California, probably fly to California, but who knows? Maybe I'll drive to California. That'd be really crazy. But yeah, expect a lot of that. And then we're gonna be in Yosemite for 11 weeks, taking kids on backpacking trips. So I can't wait to see the content from that. I'm so excited for that. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:14

Thank you.