Casey Neistat on Writing Your Own Rules - with Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes 0:00 [upbeat music]

Lewis Howes 0:04 Welcome, everyone, to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited today. We got Casey Neistat in the house. Good to see you, man.

Casey Neistat 0:10 Good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Lewis Howes 0:12 Yeah, we got introduced, I believe, through Ryan Holiday originally. Was that right?

Casey Neistat 0:15 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 0:16 Or Rich Roll maybe.

Casey Neistat 0:17 One of the two.

Lewis Howes 0:17 And then, um, I saw you at VidCon in the Instagram lounge, and I was like, "I gotta go say hi," 'cause we've been trying to meet and put a face to the face, and now we're here.

Casey Neistat 0:27 That Instagram lounge was like a-

Lewis Howes 0:30 It was amazing, right?

Casey Neistat 0:30 [laughs] Thank God for Instagram.

Lewis Howes 0:32 It was unreal, huh?

Casey Neistat 0:33 Yeah, VidCon was like this sort of mosh pit of an event-

Lewis Howes 0:37 [clears throat]

Casey Neistat 0:38 ... of just a weekend really.

Lewis Howes 0:39 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 0:39 And there were a few areas of refuge, and that Instagram lounge-

Lewis Howes 0:42 And that was it

Casey Neistat 0:42 ... was it, yeah.

Lewis Howes 0:43 Because you were, like, probably swamped everywhere you went, right?

Casey Neistat 0:45 It was tough.

Lewis Howes 0:46 'Cause it was-

Casey Neistat 0:46 It was tough, yeah

Lewis Howes 0:46 ... everyone wanted a selfie with you.

Casey Neistat 0:48 Uh, yeah, it's just, like, VidCon was an amazing experience. I'd never done it before, but it, it is just a concentration of all sort of YouTube f- fandom-

Lewis Howes 0:58 Crazy

Casey Neistat 0:58 ... kids that really love and have really great relationships with YouTube-

Lewis Howes 1:01 Yes

Casey Neistat 1:01 ... and they're all in one place. So when you would step outside there, it was really overwhelming.

Lewis Howes 1:05 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 1:06 Exciting at first, which quickly turned into overwhelming.

Lewis Howes 1:08 To, like, I needed some space and time to, like, just relax.

Casey Neistat 1:10 And all those delicious free cookies they have in the Instagram lounge.

Lewis Howes 1:12 Oh my gosh, it was amazing. Yeah, so that was tw- I met a lot of people in there. I was hanging out with iJustine and had her on the podcast, and a lot of other good people in there, so it's good times. Um, now for my audience probably doesn't even know who you are, to be honest. It's mostly entrepreneurs, mostly people doing online business, people trying to get to the next level in their life, but not a lot of big YouTube personalities that they follow. So I wanna let you tell your, share your story really quickly about how you got to where you are now. You just hit a million subscribers a week ago, and then you got 1.1 million in the last six days, right, on YouTube.

Casey Neistat 1:43 Yeah, really just tremendous, exciting growth on YouTube.

Lewis Howes 1:46 Yeah, it's amazing.

Casey Neistat 1:47 But yeah, the abbreviated bio, God, it's really s-

Lewis Howes 1:49 And you're also the founder of a new company called Beme.

Casey Neistat 1:51 Yeah, the technology company and-

Lewis Howes 1:52 Which Gary Vee's an investor in, right?

Casey Neistat 1:54 Yeah, Gary's a part of it.

Lewis Howes 1:55 Yeah, he's a good friend of mine as well. Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:56 Great guy.

Lewis Howes 1:56 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:57 Great guy.

Lewis Howes 1:57 That's cool. So sorry, go ahead on with the, uh, the little bit of backstory about-

Casey Neistat 2:00 Yeah, so, uh, you know, the abbreviated bio is, like, I started making movies when I was really young, like as a teenager.

Lewis Howes 2:07 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 2:08 Um, and sort of w- wove my way through the industry until, like, you know, late, late 2007, 2008 is when I really kind of h- found my stride in the mainstream space.

Lewis Howes 2:19 Okay.

Casey Neistat 2:19 So I had a television show on HBO that I wrote and directed and starred in, and, uh, made a couple of, produced a couple of feature films that were very successful.

Lewis Howes 2:27 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 2:28 Uh, and that main- that mainstream success kind of crescendoed, peaked-

Lewis Howes 2:31 [clears throat]

Casey Neistat 2:31 ... for me in, like, 2010-

Lewis Howes 2:33 Really

Casey Neistat 2:33 ... when I decided at that I just w- I wasn't so into it. It wasn't, it didn't really mesh well with what turned me on, what excited me about making movies, and that's when I really defected and I left the mainstream space, left t- left TV, left films, and shifted all of my focus to, to new media.

Lewis Howes 2:52 Creating your own content on YouTube and other places.

Casey Neistat 2:55 Yeah, just, um, really-

Lewis Howes 2:56 [clears throat]

Casey Neistat 2:56 ... embracing the channels in, of distribution-

Lewis Howes 2:59 Yeah

Casey Neistat 2:59 ... that I think young people were embracing. And moreover than, than just the numbers, but h- the relationship that young people were developing via these new distribution platforms-

Lewis Howes 3:10 Right

Casey Neistat 3:10 ... versus the relationships that historically people like you and me, old people like you and me-

Lewis Howes 3:15 Right, right

Casey Neistat 3:15 ... [laughs] have, have always had with television-

Lewis Howes 3:18 TV and film

Casey Neistat 3:18 ... and film. That's right.

Lewis Howes 3:19 Yeah, okay. So what was the relationship you had with it when you were on HBO? How long were you on HBO for? It was just one-

Casey Neistat 3:25 One season

Lewis Howes 3:25 ... one season.

Casey Neistat 3:25 Yeah, it was like a-

Lewis Howes 3:26 And you did some other movies. Were you just feeling like you weren't connecting with your audience that well? Were you feeling that the industry itself wasn't fun or 'cause there was all the politics or-

Casey Neistat 3:35 It was, it was, it's all of those things.

Lewis Howes 3:37 All of it.

Casey Neistat 3:37 But really it was... I mean, it w- it was all of those things very much. Like the political-

Lewis Howes 3:42 Yeah

Casey Neistat 3:42 ... aspects of mainstream media are really uninteresting to me. Um-

Lewis Howes 3:45 The time it takes to release something, yeah

Casey Neistat 3:47 ... just all of it. It was like, uh, I was such a... Last night I was at the VMAs and it was-

Lewis Howes 3:51 Ah

Casey Neistat 3:51 ... such a harsh reminder of just how stagnant and stodgy-

Lewis Howes 3:55 Mm

Casey Neistat 3:55 ... and uninteresting the bureaucratic process is-

Lewis Howes 3:58 Right

Casey Neistat 3:58 ... that is mainstream media.

Lewis Howes 3:59 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 4:00 Um, and I think it really mitigates, marginalizes what is sort of the artistic and creative spirit of-

Lewis Howes 4:05 Mm-hmm

Casey Neistat 4:05 ... of making movies, making videos.

Lewis Howes 4:08 Right. Or making music or anything creative online, right?

Casey Neistat 4:09 Anything creative.

Lewis Howes 4:11 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 4:11 You, you bureaucratize the spirit of the creativity, and what's left is the mush that you see on TV.

Lewis Howes 4:17 Now, if you're an artist or a filmmaker or a content creator in general, do you feel like you shouldn't even go mainstream towards TV or towards film or towards working with a music label, or should you focus on creating it all yourself? Because it, it still helps a lot of people who don't know how to do the online stuff.

Casey Neistat 4:33 Yeah, I mean, look, I, there, there's, there's no answer to that question.

Lewis Howes 4:36 Right, right, right. Yeah.

Casey Neistat 4:37 I think that it's one thing that everybody but the successful people fail to realize about any creative industry is that there is absolutely no defined path.

Lewis Howes 4:47 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 4:48 There isn't one, so it's about paving your own path.

Lewis Howes 4:50 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 4:50 And now for me, my path meant mainstream just didn't work, and new media did work. And for other people, it's entirely antithetical to that-

Lewis Howes 4:57 Yeah

Casey Neistat 4:58 ... where, where mainstream is, is exactly the right place for them.

Lewis Howes 5:00 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 5:01 So there is no formula that's, that's right or wrong. Um, I'm just much better versed in my own-

Lewis Howes 5:06 Sure

Casey Neistat 5:07 ... the trajectory that I followed myself.

Lewis Howes 5:08 Your path.

Casey Neistat 5:08 And, and that includes really r- running away from the establishment-

Lewis Howes 5:12 Right

Casey Neistat 5:12 ... into whatever the most forward-thinking, uh, uh, space is.

Lewis Howes 5:16 And when was that time, did you say you started moving online?

Casey Neistat 5:18 It was really t- it was, it was a pretty aggressive, uh, inflection point in my career. It was 2010, but it, it just happened at once.

Lewis Howes 5:25 Right. Gotcha, 2010. And when did you start to realize one- once you went online and followed your path that it, "Oh, I'm picking up traction, and it's actually doing something. It's giving me money. It's making me opportunities"? When, when was that?

Casey Neistat 5:36 It was slower, much slower than you'd think. Much slower.

Lewis Howes 5:39 It was, like, a year ago or something? [laughs]

Casey Neistat 5:40 Yeah, I mean, it manifested in a number of different ways.

Lewis Howes 5:43 Yes.

Casey Neistat 5:43 Like, my early, uh, career-wise, my early m- sort of means of income when I was online is by doing advertising.

Lewis Howes 5:52 YouTube ads?

Casey Neistat 5:53 Not YouTube ads.

Lewis Howes 5:54 Oh.

Casey Neistat 5:54 Just doing any kind of advertising.

Lewis Howes 5:55 Branded.

Casey Neistat 5:55 Branded content.

Lewis Howes 5:56 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 5:56 Because I would make the very best movies I could possibly make and put them on YouTube- And they wouldn't always get huge numbers, but I think important people, the people who made decisions in the branding space would see them and they, they had an appreciation for the style or the tone or the perspective, and they saw an opportunity to sort of partner with me for their companies.

Lewis Howes 6:13 Right.

Casey Neistat 6:14 And that's how, you know, early in, in those, those days, like 2011, 2012, I was doing big branded content deals with companies like Nike and, and, and Google. Um, huge companies, even though my reach and my audience wasn't that big, it was because, I think, of an appreciation-

Lewis Howes 6:29 The style

Casey Neistat 6:30 ... yeah, for what I was making. And again-

Lewis Howes 6:32 It was art and they liked it and it matched with their brand.

Casey Neistat 6:34 Yeah, I don't know about... Yeah. I, I would, I think-

Lewis Howes 6:37 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 6:38 ... calling it art is a determination that-

Lewis Howes 6:39 Well-

Casey Neistat 6:39 ... that you can make. I don't know that I would call it art.

Lewis Howes 6:41 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Casey Neistat 6:42 But I think they just saw something and were like, "Okay, w- we have an appreciation for what this is."

Lewis Howes 6:46 Sure.

Casey Neistat 6:46 "What could we do with, with this guy?"

Lewis Howes 6:48 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 6:49 And those branded deals were sort of the earliest, uh, w- w- I think-

Lewis Howes 6:53 Money makers for you.

Casey Neistat 6:54 Yeah, I think it's the first thing that really quantified what would be called success in that space, is showing that appreciation and then figuring out how to turn it into something that actually helped pay the bills.

Lewis Howes 7:02 What was that first branded deal that you're like, "Whoa, this is actually something," you know? Was it a couple grand? Was it 20 grand? Was it like, "Oh, okay. Now I can pay bills."

Casey Neistat 7:09 I mean, no, these were, these were real money deals.

Lewis Howes 7:12 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 7:12 And when I say real money, that's because prior to jumping into this space, I had historically worked in advertising.

Lewis Howes 7:19 Gotcha.

Casey Neistat 7:19 Um, I mean, literally since the early, like, 2005-ish, 2004, even before that, I was always doing ad deals because ads are how I paid the bills.

Lewis Howes 7:27 Mm.

Casey Neistat 7:28 And I was never successful work- doing TV commercials. I'd get a lot of them because people would like my work and I'd get the jobs, but I was a terrible TV commercial director.

Lewis Howes 7:37 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 7:37 And I just didn't know what to do. You show up on a union set-

Lewis Howes 7:40 Right, right

Casey Neistat 7:40 ... with a, with a half a million dollar budget-

Lewis Howes 7:42 Right

Casey Neistat 7:42 ... and you have everybody doing everything, and, like, I literally was like, "What do you need me here for?" You have a storyboard and a DP.

Lewis Howes 7:48 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 7:49 So you have, like, a drawing of what the picture should look like, and then a cinematographer to capture that picture.

Lewis Howes 7:53 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 7:53 Like, what do you need me here?

Lewis Howes 7:54 To direct it, yeah, yeah.

Casey Neistat 7:55 So I'd, yeah, do my best, but whether I, like, gave it everything I had or I just, like, slept in my trailer for the whole shoot-

Lewis Howes 8:00 It got done

Casey Neistat 8:00 ... at the end of it, it looks the same, which was something that was, like, m- the mushy in, in, the mushy, invisible commercials that your entire audience sees on TV every day-

Lewis Howes 8:11 Mm-hmm

Casey Neistat 8:11 ... and forgets them before they're over.

Lewis Howes 8:13 Right.

Casey Neistat 8:13 And that was frustrating for me. And when I, when I shifted to online, I remember saying to the, the TV production co- the commercial production company I worked with that represented me, that got me the jobs, I said, "I don't want to do this crappy-"

Lewis Howes 8:24 For the online stuff, yeah.

Casey Neistat 8:25 That... No, not for the online stuff.

Lewis Howes 8:26 They got you-

Casey Neistat 8:26 For mainstream television.

Lewis Howes 8:27 Okay, gotcha. Yep.

Casey Neistat 8:28 Um, I said, "I don't want to do this, like, crap. I don't want to make TV commercials anymore."

Lewis Howes 8:32 Mm.

Casey Neistat 8:32 "I'm gonna go make online content. Get me deals where I get to work directly with brands, no agencies, and I just put videos on the internet." And they said, like, "That will never happen."

Lewis Howes 8:42 Wow.

Casey Neistat 8:42 So I stopped working with them right then and there.

Lewis Howes 8:44 [laughs] Screw you.

Casey Neistat 8:45 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 8:46 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 8:46 And, and went in my own direction.

Lewis Howes 8:48 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 8:48 And that's when, like, that's when the real brand deals started to happen, you know.

Lewis Howes 8:52 Were they your relationships where people just came to you through that?

Casey Neistat 8:54 It was a combination of both. You know, like-

Lewis Howes 8:56 Referrals and whatever

Casey Neistat 8:57 ... Nike, for example, like, I, I look back and I did a tiny job for Nike that was like, Nike has some brilliant people working for them, and one of them is a good friend of mine named Julian. He was, like, a Special Forces guy, so he just had, like, a tiny tertiary budget-

Lewis Howes 9:12 Yeah

Casey Neistat 9:12 ... that he was able to do interesting things with.

Lewis Howes 9:14 Right.

Casey Neistat 9:14 And he asked me to make a bike video, and nobody that saw this video, and this is, like, really early on, way back in the day, and I made this video and I, I put it online and they loved it and I loved it and nobody saw it.

Lewis Howes 9:26 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 9:27 But about a year and a half later, Nike called me and they're like, "Let's do, we want to do something big."

Lewis Howes 9:31 Mm.

Casey Neistat 9:31 And it was a three video deal. Real money. Um, really big deal.

Lewis Howes 9:35 Six, multiple six figures.

Casey Neistat 9:36 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 9:37 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 9:37 Big time. And, uh, the kind of money that would be spent on a, on a typical TV commercial-

Lewis Howes 9:42 Right

Casey Neistat 9:42 ... except for it was a budget that was given to me entirely-

Lewis Howes 9:44 Wow

Casey Neistat 9:44 ... with full my, you know, full discretion on my end.

Lewis Howes 9:47 Amazing.

Casey Neistat 9:48 And we made three videos, and the first two were, were very successful. They starred their huge, you know, triple A $100 million athletes like Hope Solo-

Lewis Howes 9:57 Uh-huh

Casey Neistat 9:57 ... um, you know, just kicked ass in the World Cup.

Lewis Howes 9:59 Sure, sure.

Casey Neistat 9:59 And, and, and, and, um, Ndamukong Suh in the NFL and, like, really amazing.

Lewis Howes 10:05 Right.

Casey Neistat 10:05 And we made a fantastic movie together, and they were very successful. In the third video, three of three videos for Nike, was this video that I pitched to them that they were totally hip to, and at the ninth hour, I decided not to do that video at all. But to just take the whole budget and do something I've always wanted to do, which was, like, travel around the world until the budget evaporated, till I was out of money.

Lewis Howes 10:25 Mm.

Casey Neistat 10:26 And then I figured I would turn that into the Nike video. And Nike-

Lewis Howes 10:29 And how did that do?

Casey Neistat 10:31 It's the, I think, still the most watched video that Nike's ever put online-

Lewis Howes 10:36 What?

Casey Neistat 10:36 ... in the history of, of Nike.

Lewis Howes 10:37 No way.

Casey Neistat 10:38 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 10:38 And what did they think about it?

Casey Neistat 10:39 It might be number two. We might have been displaced, but I know I held that spot for, like, well over a year.

Lewis Howes 10:43 Wow.

Casey Neistat 10:44 They were nervous at first, you know.

Lewis Howes 10:45 More than any LeBron James video or any, you know-

Casey Neistat 10:47 I, you know, I have to check numbers, but it, it killed. It was like-

Lewis Howes 10:50 It killed, yeah

Casey Neistat 10:50 ... uh, between Nike's channel and my channel, it's t- like 20 million views.

Lewis Howes 10:53 Wow. Amazing.

Casey Neistat 10:54 Um, but not only that, but because of the narrative, which was very open-

Lewis Howes 10:57 Mm-hmm

Casey Neistat 10:57 ... and I discussed this with Nike ahead of time, so it's not quite as nefarious as it sounds, but, like, I took a budget that I was supposed to spend on making a commercial, and instead I spent it doing something that I personally wanted to do, which was, like, run around the world like a crazy person.

Lewis Howes 11:09 And have fun.

Casey Neistat 11:10 And have fun, but really, it, it didn't, it didn't diverge at all from the narrative, which is this idea of, like, make it count. Just do it.

Lewis Howes 11:17 Mm.

Casey Neistat 11:18 So even though it was a really indirect commercial, it was much more about a brand. It had nothing to do with the product. In fact, I was not wearing any Nike gear in the entire commercial. I'm wearing a Patagonia coat.

Lewis Howes 11:27 Sure.

Casey Neistat 11:28 And the product that it was supposed to be for, I didn't have in my possession for the entire shoot.

Lewis Howes 11:31 No way.

Casey Neistat 11:31 There was no Nike branding in it whatsoever. So when they-

Lewis Howes 11:35 But the story was Nike.

Casey Neistat 11:36 Sure, but when they saw it-

Lewis Howes 11:37 The essence, yeah

Casey Neistat 11:38 ... they were like, "We don't know what this is, but we think that people are gonna like it. So just put it on your YouTube channel and let's see what happens."

Lewis Howes 11:45 And we spent a few hundred thousand dollars, so let's see what happens [laughs] right?

Casey Neistat 11:48 Yeah, but you, you know, they, I, I think they didn't know, but it was wildly successful.

Lewis Howes 11:53 Wow.

Casey Neistat 11:53 It thrust me way out in the limelight. It had, it was all over the news. It was in newspapers. It was in, you know, f- homepage of yahoo.com.

Lewis Howes 12:00 Every blog, everywhere.

Casey Neistat 12:01 It was everywhere.

Lewis Howes 12:01 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 12:02 And it really was, uh, exciting for me and I think exciting for Nike. And I look at a company like Nike and you wonder why they are such a kickass brand. You wonder why there are so many people so loyal to that company. And it's not just the product. It's the ethos behind the brand.

Lewis Howes 12:17 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 12:18 And when I look back and I say, like, "Who's the maniac who wrote me this big fat check and then just let me do my thing?" Like, that's crazy. How do you get that approved? You realize that that is what makes Nike great.

Lewis Howes 12:28 Mm.

Casey Neistat 12:29 And, you know, like, being at the VMAs last night where I had both hands tied and both feet tied and, like, a babysitter and a minder-

Lewis Howes 12:36 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 12:36 ... and, like, all these leashes put on me by Viacom-

Lewis Howes 12:40 Of what you can do or you can't do or say

Casey Neistat 12:41 ... everything, everything.

Lewis Howes 12:42 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 12:42 You realize that, like, okay, this is why MTV is quickly getting more and more irrelevant-

Lewis Howes 12:47 Wow

Casey Neistat 12:48 ... is because it's like the stodgier and more bureaucratic you are when trying to apply, or appeal, rather, to today's youth, today's young people, the people that are this, this, that comprise this generation-

Lewis Howes 13:00 Mm-hmm

Casey Neistat 13:00 ... they only respond to honesty, integrity, and, like, a real sort of forward l- looking perspective on, on what's, what creativity is.

Lewis Howes 13:09 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 13:09 And I don't think you can bureaucratize that.

Lewis Howes 13:12 Wow.

Casey Neistat 13:12 And now there are more and more companies, Nike's certainly always been one of them, that realize that, and they know that they have to take chances.

Lewis Howes 13:19 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 13:19 And you're seeing more and more of that, and I think that that in itself is why online content is proliferating in the way that it is, and, and television and these sort of old media is depreciating at such a rapid, rapid pace.

Lewis Howes 13:33 If someone offered you a TV show, would you take it?

Casey Neistat 13:35 No chance.

Lewis Howes 13:35 Even if the biggest network-

Casey Neistat 13:36 No chance. No chance. I was on the biggest network.

Lewis Howes 13:39 Right.

Casey Neistat 13:40 Like, like, no chance.

Lewis Howes 13:42 It's not worth it, huh?

Casey Neistat 13:42 There's no way. The, the viewerships I do now, it's-

Lewis Howes 13:45 Crush it.

Casey Neistat 13:45 There's n- yeah. I mean, I-

Lewis Howes 13:46 And you put out a video, w- how many viewers in the first week?

Casey Neistat 13:49 I mean, right now, and this is, changes daily-

Lewis Howes 13:51 Yeah

Casey Neistat 13:51 ... but right now it's, like, a, a bad day for me on YouTube is about 700,000. A good day is about a million and a half, so that's about where I average.

Lewis Howes 13:58 And when you post a video every day, or?

Casey Neistat 14:00 I, in aggregate.

Lewis Howes 14:01 Gotcha.

Casey Neistat 14:01 So my YouTube channel does-

Lewis Howes 14:02 In aggregate

Casey Neistat 14:02 ... does, you know, anywhere close to around a million views a day.

Lewis Howes 14:07 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 14:07 And if you just appeal, like, raw numbers, apply that to television, that would be a hit show.

Lewis Howes 14:12 That's like the biggest show.

Casey Neistat 14:13 Yeah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 14:13 It's like The Biggest Loser or something, you know? It's getting that many-

Casey Neistat 14:16 Yeah, it, it would be considered a very-

Lewis Howes 14:17 Dancing with the Stars or something. Yeah

Casey Neistat 14:18 ... it would be a very, considered a very successful show.

Lewis Howes 14:21 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 14:21 But it's not just the numbers. It's the relationship that young people have with content that they see online that they choose to watch versus the content that they see on TV, which is fed to them.

Lewis Howes 14:33 Mm. Yeah. Interesting.

Casey Neistat 14:33 And that is a sort of a profound idea that I didn't understand until my show on HBO.

Lewis Howes 14:40 Uh-huh. Huh.

Casey Neistat 14:42 It w- it was the kind of thing where it's like, how old are you?

Lewis Howes 14:46 I'm 32.

Casey Neistat 14:46 Okay, I'm 34. So when we were kids, like, we watched ever, however much Nickelodeon or MTV-

Lewis Howes 14:51 Oh, so much, man

Casey Neistat 14:51 ... as we could possibly watch before-

Lewis Howes 14:52 TRL

Casey Neistat 14:53 ... yeah, before our parents yelled at us.

Lewis Howes 14:54 Oh, dude. Yeah.

Casey Neistat 14:55 But you have no control over that.

Lewis Howes 14:56 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 14:56 You turn on the TV and you're at the behest of whatever, whatever the channel is putting in front of you.

Lewis Howes 15:02 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 15:02 And if you liked it, you kept watching. If you hated it, you kept watching. And that was it. That was your relationship.

Lewis Howes 15:06 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 15:06 When it comes to online content, like, I look at the way my son consumes this stuff, and it's like if he's not interested, he doesn't watch it. There-

Lewis Howes 15:13 He goes to the next video

Casey Neistat 15:14 ... there's a billion channels on YouTube.

Lewis Howes 15:16 [laughs] It's crazy.

Casey Neistat 15:17 And, and the inverse of that is if you do watch it, it's because you genuinely wanna consume that stuff.

Lewis Howes 15:23 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 15:24 So the relationship that, that the people who, who choose, who, like, take their precious time to watch my stuff online versus the people that maybe passively consumed it on TV, that relationship is so different and so huge-

Lewis Howes 15:37 Yeah

Casey Neistat 15:38 ... that it makes, uh, it makes it very hard for someone like me to be attracted at all to something like TV.

Lewis Howes 15:43 Mm. Man, that's fascinating. And, you know, I see you running around with all the big, uh, YouTube and Instagram and Snapchat influencers, and you guys are constantly doing cross-promotion, and that's just building you even bigger than any TV show as well. When you get a group of you together shooting video, it's like no one can compete with that viewership.

Casey Neistat 16:02 Yeah, and I, I also think it's like, it's, this is so new, this space.

Lewis Howes 16:08 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 16:08 And it's so undefined.

Lewis Howes 16:10 Still.

Casey Neistat 16:10 Oh, of course.

Lewis Howes 16:11 Still new.

Casey Neistat 16:11 Still new.

Lewis Howes 16:11 Not even, you know, five years ago people feel like they're not in unless they were in five years ago, but you can still jump in today.

Casey Neistat 16:16 It's, it's in its infancy. It's more competitive. It's much harder to get to-

Lewis Howes 16:20 Right

Casey Neistat 16:20 ... to, to get anywhere in the space now, but it's so new that for me, what's most interesting about any overlap with other, other big YouTubers or big people in the space is that, like, we get to share our experiences and share our understanding because it's such an undefined space-

Lewis Howes 16:34 Yeah

Casey Neistat 16:34 ... that there's no other way to really learn about it, um, than by being in it.

Lewis Howes 16:39 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 16:39 There's no, it can't be taught. YouTube doesn't know. They're building the best tools they can, but it's, it, they're just providing us the tools. It's up to us to build the house.

Lewis Howes 16:46 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 16:47 So being around other YouTubers, um, you know, like at VidCon, for example, where we first met, is just a, a tremendous opportunity for me to really share my own understanding-

Lewis Howes 16:55 Yeah

Casey Neistat 16:55 ... and then to learn from other people.

Lewis Howes 16:57 Right.

Casey Neistat 16:57 And that's what's most exciting about, about the collaborations I do with other, other YouTubers.

Lewis Howes 17:02 Sure. How, how long, how long was that video shoot with Nike where you went around the world? How long did that take?

Casey Neistat 17:06 We did that shoot, we said 10 days. It was actually nine days, and then there was a huge battle on Reddit [laughs] because nobody believed that I did that in 10 days.

Lewis Howes 17:14 How many different countries did you go to?

Casey Neistat 17:15 It seemed impo- I mean, I don't know the number, but it's a, it was absurd.

Lewis Howes 17:18 You were flying everywhere.

Casey Neistat 17:19 Yeah. And the reality of it was, it was, like, much less rom- mm, it was incredible, but it was much less romantic than it looked in the-

Lewis Howes 17:26 You weren't sleeping. You were like, you know.

Casey Neistat 17:27 We went the first five days without laying vertically.

Lewis Howes 17:30 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 17:31 I'm sorry, without laying horizontally.

Lewis Howes 17:32 Horiz- yeah. [laughs]

Casey Neistat 17:33 So that meant we were sitting in, like-

Lewis Howes 17:34 Oh, trains and planes and-

Casey Neistat 17:36 ... you know, trains, planes, coach seats in the back piled in the middle.

Lewis Howes 17:38 Oh.

Casey Neistat 17:38 And these aren't coach seats on, like, British Airlines or something nice.

Lewis Howes 17:41 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 17:41 This is, like, Inter-African Airlines from, that are just, like-

Lewis Howes 17:44 Yes

Casey Neistat 17:44 ... really punishing day in and day out.

Lewis Howes 17:46 Wow.

Casey Neistat 17:46 And most of the hotels we were in, we were in for an hour or two.

Lewis Howes 17:49 Mm.

Casey Neistat 17:51 Um-

Lewis Howes 17:51 Just shooting and then it's on to the next.

Casey Neistat 17:52 That's exactly right.

Lewis Howes 17:53 Get the shot, go.

Casey Neistat 17:54 That's exactly right.

Lewis Howes 17:55 Grab a bite to eat, see ya.

Casey Neistat 17:56 Yeah. There was no sitting on that beach.

Lewis Howes 17:58 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 17:58 We literally got to the beach, ran through it, and then get, jumped on a plane to leave.

Lewis Howes 18:00 Shut up.

Casey Neistat 18:01 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 18:01 Wow. What's the key to being successful on YouTube or creating content online right now? Is it having the nice fancy camera? Is it the production value? Is it your personality?

Casey Neistat 18:13 And you know, I don't-

Lewis Howes 18:14 Is it-

Casey Neistat 18:14 ... it, look, if I could, if I could define what it took, I think a lot more people would follow that trajectory-

Lewis Howes 18:19 Right

Casey Neistat 18:19 ... 'cause it's the greatest job in the world. But- And so I don't know what's right, but I can definitely tell you what, what it's not.

Lewis Howes 18:24 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 18:25 And what it's not is having the best gear, first of all. Um, you know, like the vlog that I posted this morning, which is, I posted like five hours ago, and it's really, um... I'm looking at my cellphone right now to figure out to tell you guys exactly how many views it's done in the last couple of hours.

Lewis Howes 18:39 You lose your cellphone?

Casey Neistat 18:39 I don't know what I did. How did-

Lewis Howes 18:40 It's on the ground.

Casey Neistat 18:41 Is it on the ground?

Lewis Howes 18:42 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 18:42 How do I lose a cellphone? Like, I'm sitting in one spot. Here it is. Um, but what the key is not is, is the gear.

Lewis Howes 18:49 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 18:49 And I think that's what's, what's so-

Lewis Howes 18:51 Limiting for people, when they think, "I've gotta have the right gear, the right mics, the right everything."

Casey Neistat 18:54 Yeah, that's, that's wrong. Like, my HBO show was shot on a point and shoot that we bought at Walmart.

Lewis Howes 18:59 Really?

Casey Neistat 18:59 Um, but I mean, so much of my YouTube, one of my most watched videos on YouTube called, um, Bike Lanes, which has over 15 million views, that was shot on the crappiest of point and shoot cameras.

Lewis Howes 19:08 Really?

Casey Neistat 19:09 Yeah, just so... It, it's not. It's, it's, it's what you do with the tools, not what the tools are themselves. Um, so I'm just looking at my, my stats right here. So my video that I posted this morning, so I posted it three hours and 58 minutes ago, and it has 140,000 views.

Lewis Howes 19:24 On YouTube?

Casey Neistat 19:25 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 19:25 That many.

Casey Neistat 19:25 In the last three hours.

Lewis Howes 19:26 That's amazing.

Casey Neistat 19:26 Um, this video primarily was shot on my cellphone.

Lewis Howes 19:31 Wow.

Casey Neistat 19:31 Because-

Lewis Howes 19:32 iPhone 6?

Casey Neistat 19:32 ... because, um, MTV didn't allow any cameras at the VMAs. But they did, like, allow ca- cellphones. So and I'm, like, standing there being like, "You guys realize that every cellphone has a video camera built in, and how ridiculously con-

Lewis Howes 19:46 [laughs] Sucked

Casey Neistat 19:46 ... contradictory. All this means is that there's gonna be a million bad videos posted-

Lewis Howes 19:50 Right

Casey Neistat 19:50 ... instead of a million videos. But regardless, like, you know, half that video was sh- shot on my cellphone.

Lewis Howes 19:55 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 19:55 And it's just not. It's like if you can do great things with a terrible camera, you can do great things with a great camera.

Lewis Howes 20:01 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 20:01 So, uh, I really like to drive home that point, because my favorite aspect of, of o- creating online is how accessible, democratic-

Lewis Howes 20:08 Mm-hmm

Casey Neistat 20:08 ... egalitarian it is. Like, we all, um... You know, me selling a TV show for a couple million dollars to, to HBO, I believe that it was, like, primarily the merits of what we made, but I also know that we had Christine Vachon as our producer, who's tremendously influential.

Lewis Howes 20:25 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 20:25 She's a big-time producer. She's the one who got us the meeting with Carolyn Strauss, the former head of programming at HBO.

Lewis Howes 20:30 Right.

Casey Neistat 20:30 They had a relationship. There's nepotism involved. There are big Hollywood producers and agents and facilitators involved. And your average kid sitting in Ohio right now in front of his computer doesn't have that kind of access.

Lewis Howes 20:42 No.

Casey Neistat 20:42 What he has is an internet connection and a crappy camera from Walmart.

Lewis Howes 20:46 That's it.

Casey Neistat 20:46 And that should be enough. And I think right now, because of technology, for the first time ever, that is enough.

Lewis Howes 20:53 Mm.

Casey Neistat 20:53 And I love that. I love that. I love how fair that is.

Lewis Howes 20:57 Yeah. What about when editing comes into play, when people are like, "Well, I don't know how to use these editing tools, and I can't edit the way you do"? You've got incred- When I say you're an artist, it's like your editing is so stylistic and beautiful. In my mind, when I watch your videos, I'm like, "I love the way you edit it." And it's like that's an art form. And that takes time and energy.

Casey Neistat 21:14 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 21:14 And it's like how do you... If you're not Casey Neistat, who's been doing this for 15 years, and, uh, can whip it out and edit in a couple hours after he shoots it, or 10 minutes, how does someone get over that?

Casey Neistat 21:26 I mean, work.

Lewis Howes 21:27 Yeah, that's it.

Casey Neistat 21:28 You know? I watch LeBron James play basketball.

Lewis Howes 21:30 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 21:30 And I'm like, it's, it's bullshit that he's so much better than I am, but the guy's been, like, he's dedicated his life to something.

Lewis Howes 21:37 His whole life, yeah.

Casey Neistat 21:37 And of course he should be incredible at it.

Lewis Howes 21:39 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 21:39 And something like editing, like, there's only one way-

Lewis Howes 21:42 It just takes time

Casey Neistat 21:42 ... to get good at editing, and that's to put your 10,000 hours in.

Lewis Howes 21:44 Or outsource it.

Casey Neistat 21:46 You know, I don't know. I, I, I've never outsourced any of my vlogs. Like-

Lewis Howes 21:50 All your editing you do

Casey Neistat 21:50 ... soup to nuts, top to bottom-

Lewis Howes 21:52 Yeah

Casey Neistat 21:52 ... that was just me. And I have worked with collaborators. That Nike video, which I think is-

Lewis Howes 21:56 Yeah

Casey Neistat 21:56 ... one of the best videos I've ever made, my friend Max Joseph edited that, 'cause he's a better editor than I am. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 22:01 There you go.

Casey Neistat 22:02 But, you know, Max is a big, famous Hollywood director.

Lewis Howes 22:05 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 22:05 So he's not the kind of person to be able to edit my s- my stuff.

Lewis Howes 22:08 Sure.

Casey Neistat 22:08 But the truth is, like, my HBO show was edited in iMovie-

Lewis Howes 22:11 Mm

Casey Neistat 22:12 ... which is a free download.

Lewis Howes 22:13 There you go.

Casey Neistat 22:14 Um, so again, it's like-

Lewis Howes 22:15 Doesn't have to be this elaborate editing with text overlays and graphics or anything. It can be simple and still be effective.

Casey Neistat 22:22 Yeah. I, I don't, I don't, I don't even think it's that. I think it's less than that. I think it's that these tools are accessible by all. These tools are free, and we can all use them.

Lewis Howes 22:30 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 22:30 And it really doesn't matter what the tool is. It's what can you do with it?

Lewis Howes 22:33 Mm-hmm. What was the dream for you growing up? 'Cause I know you, uh, you lived in a trailer home I saw for a while, and you, you know, you had a kid when you were 16. Is that right?

Casey Neistat 22:42 Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, I was one of four kids, and we kind of, like, lower middle hos- ha, uh, lower middle-class household.

Lewis Howes 22:49 Uh-huh.

Casey Neistat 22:50 Um, and it was just tough, 'cause there was my older brother, who was the firstborn, and he's so incredibly good-looking.

Lewis Howes 22:56 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 22:56 And then my sister was the second born.

Lewis Howes 22:58 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 22:58 And then my little brother is the baby.

Lewis Howes 23:00 Yep.

Casey Neistat 23:00 And I was like this accident that happened 13 months after my sister was born. And I think, like, when you're in that position as a kid, you're just, you learn quickly you have to scream the loudest to get noticed.

Lewis Howes 23:10 Ah. I was the youngest of four, so I, I get it.

Casey Neistat 23:12 [laughs] Yeah.

Lewis Howes 23:13 I get it.

Casey Neistat 23:14 Uh, so I, I don't know. But yeah, I, you know, I was really, I got in a lot of trouble in school. I never did well.

Lewis Howes 23:18 Wow.

Casey Neistat 23:19 I did, never did well at all. Um, dropped out of high school in the 10th grade, ran away from home kind of thing.

Lewis Howes 23:23 Wow.

Casey Neistat 23:24 Um, never went back.

Lewis Howes 23:25 Never finished?

Casey Neistat 23:26 Uh, never finished, never went back to my parents' house. Like, never, uh, yeah, never looked back on either of those.

Lewis Howes 23:31 Have you talked to your parents since?

Casey Neistat 23:33 Yeah, I am.

Lewis Howes 23:34 Okay.

Casey Neistat 23:34 Very, very close relationship.

Lewis Howes 23:35 But you never went, you just never went back to them.

Casey Neistat 23:36 Just never went back, like, never moved back in with mom and dad.

Lewis Howes 23:38 So where'd you live?

Casey Neistat 23:39 Uh, I mean, like, bounced around to friends' apartments for a while. Um, like-

Lewis Howes 23:43 At 16?

Casey Neistat 23:44 Uh, no, I was at 15.

Lewis Howes 23:45 Wow. [laughs]

Casey Neistat 23:45 I was 15, yeah. Um, but yeah, no, then had a baby when, uh, my son was born, it was two weeks after my 17th birthday. So the whole pregnancy, I was 16 years old.

Lewis Howes 23:54 Oh, man. That's gotta be emotionally heavy, man. Were you okay with it?

Casey Neistat 23:58 [sighs] No, you know, it's, I say this with much reluctance, but honestly, looking back, and this is unique to me, this is not advice to any kids that might be listening to this great podcast, it was the greatest thing that could've ever happened to me.

Lewis Howes 24:12 Having a kid when you were 17?

Casey Neistat 24:13 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 24:14 Why is that?

Casey Neistat 24:15 I mean, you know, I have a, another daughter now, and, like, I really, like, believe I was put on this planet to be a dad.

Lewis Howes 24:21 Wow.

Casey Neistat 24:21 It's my fav- I've never not been a dad. I was a kid when I had a baby, so I was either a child or, or a parent.

Lewis Howes 24:26 [laughs] That's crazy.

Casey Neistat 24:27 And I never not wanna be... Like, it's, it's It's this, this, the profundity that is living for something bigger than yourself.

Lewis Howes 24:36 Mm.

Casey Neistat 24:36 And for me, that's what having a child was, and it seems a little bit absurd to say that at age 17 that it had that impact on me. And I, I don't know how cognizant of it I was then, but looking back at it, it was like that's, that was the inflection point. Um-

Lewis Howes 24:51 Wow

Casey Neistat 24:51 ... because prior to that, I was just, like, another selfish little punk-ass high school kid who-

Lewis Howes 24:57 Get in trouble and-

Casey Neistat 24:57 ... yeah, sold dime bags in the parking lot and, like-

Lewis Howes 25:00 Wow

Casey Neistat 25:00 ... just caused trouble. But immediately after Owen was born, it was like, "Okay, now if I screw around, it's not just me, but, like..."

Lewis Howes 25:07 Wow.

Casey Neistat 25:07 And that is a huge deal. And, like, everything that I've ever done, especially since then, in the really, really hard years right after he was born, was just like, you do it because you're, you're fighting for someone else.

Lewis Howes 25:18 Mm.

Casey Neistat 25:19 And the motivation that is that, I think, is so much stronger than anything else out there. Any of my other self, uh, uh, selfish sort of ego-driven ambitions-

Lewis Howes 25:28 Sure

Casey Neistat 25:28 ... pale in comparison to, to the ambitions that are, you know, wanting to succeed for someone else.

Lewis Howes 25:34 That's interesting. A couple things. One is, [clears throat] you know, some people would just go get a normal job to pay the bills so they could, you know, pay for their chi- their child at 17 or 18 and not go after their dream, but it seems like you went after your dream even more so. How were you able to handle that without... 'Cause I'm assuming you weren't making a lot of money when you were 17 to 23 doing film.

Casey Neistat 25:56 I mean, hunger is a very, very powerful motivator.

Lewis Howes 26:00 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 26:01 And when I was living in that trailer park with the kid, like, we were on welfare for a while.

Lewis Howes 26:06 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 26:06 Um, I was a dishwasher. I worked in a, a crappy seafood restaurant as a dishwasher, um, which now just sort of parenthetically, my favorite piece of advice to give to young people saying, "I don't know what I wanna do with my life," I say, "Get a job doing something you hate."

Lewis Howes 26:19 [laughs] Don't do that.

Casey Neistat 26:20 'Cause the fastest way to figure out what you love and where you wanna be in life is by spending a lot of time doing something you hate.

Lewis Howes 26:26 So it's miserable.

Casey Neistat 26:27 Yeah, so, you know, spending 50 hours a week scrubbing pots and pans was like, I was just in my head the whole time fantasizing about what I wanna do in life.

Lewis Howes 26:34 That's brilliant. I-

Casey Neistat 26:35 And-

Lewis Howes 26:35 I was a, I was a truck driver for three months-

Casey Neistat 26:37 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 26:38 ... driving from Columbus to Cincinnati and back every day, and it could only go 55 miles an hour, pedal to the metal, and it was so loud and obnoxious, and I couldn't do anything. It was just, like, the most draining time of my life.

Casey Neistat 26:49 But it got you thinking.

Lewis Howes 26:50 It got me thinking. I was like, "What do I need to do to get out of this?"

Casey Neistat 26:53 Yeah, and, and for me at that time in my life, it was sort of, I mean, I, I guess you could say I was making okay money. I was making enough to, like, feed my kid and pay my, I think it was 300 bucks in rent, uh, 300 bucks a month, rather, the mortgage on my trailer.

Lewis Howes 27:06 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 27:07 Um, but my biggest fear was not being broke because, like, when you're at rock bottom and you're on welfare, you can still, like, afford food.

Lewis Howes 27:18 Get by, yeah.

Casey Neistat 27:18 Yeah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 27:19 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 27:19 Get by might be a stretch. Like, I could afford food-

Lewis Howes 27:21 Food [laughs]

Casey Neistat 27:21 ... and I could afford my trailer.

Lewis Howes 27:23 Right.

Casey Neistat 27:23 So it was like we weren't homeless and we weren't starving, so to me, that was absolute destitution.

Lewis Howes 27:27 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 27:27 Wasn't really, like, that bad. There was no dignity in it, but still, it wasn't-

Lewis Howes 27:32 You weren't on the streets.

Casey Neistat 27:33 That's right. So with that, like, my, it's like, what is it? Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Lewis Howes 27:38 Maslow's hierarchy.

Casey Neistat 27:39 Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Lewis Howes 27:40 Yeah, yeah.

Casey Neistat 27:40 Like, so, like, once the-

Lewis Howes 27:41 Basic needs were met

Casey Neistat 27:42 ... basic needs were met, then I started to look around, and I realized, like, the greatest fear for this, like, beautiful little baby boy was that he would grow up and, and see his dad as a loser. And that is a, once those basic needs are met, that's an incredibly powerful motivator.

Lewis Howes 27:59 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 27:59 Because, you know, my dad, who's, who's, um, absolutely not a loser, um, but I watched my dad to provide for his family of six. I watched him work six- 60 hours a week, hating every minute of it, and he came home from work just hating his job. And, um-

Lewis Howes 28:18 Or feeling trapped probably.

Casey Neistat 28:19 I'm su- yeah, he had a family to take care of. He struggled. Um, now he does what he loves. He has a coffee shop now, and he's never been happier.

Lewis Howes 28:25 That's cool.

Casey Neistat 28:26 But, but I watched that, and, like, I, I just saw myself going down that trajectory, and it wasn't just a job that I hated. It was a job that I hated that, that didn't provide.

Lewis Howes 28:34 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 28:34 It was a job that I hated that did nothing but cover those basic needs, and that was the motivator. That was when, that was the motivator. Um, the catalyst for me giving up and moving to New York and going for it was, I still look back and I don't know what that, what that was. Like, I-

Lewis Howes 28:50 Right

Casey Neistat 28:50 ... I, there are only, like, two times in my life where I genuinely have no fucking idea what I was thinking, and I moved to New York City in June of 2001 with $800 and a three, a place to stay for three months, and that was it.

Lewis Howes 29:05 Where'd you move from?

Casey Neistat 29:06 Uh, Connecticut. Like-

Lewis Howes 29:07 Yeah

Casey Neistat 29:07 ... three hours outside the city.

Lewis Howes 29:08 Gotcha. So you've probably been in the city a number of times.

Casey Neistat 29:10 Sure, yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 29:11 Took the tr- take the train and-

Casey Neistat 29:12 But I knew one person there, and I had, uh-

Lewis Howes 29:15 And they let you stay for three months [laughs]

Casey Neistat 29:16 ... I stayed for, yeah, that's exactly right, three months and 800 bucks. No job, no prospects, no education, no, no skills.

Lewis Howes 29:23 And how old were you then?

Casey Neistat 29:24 Uh, 19.

Lewis Howes 29:25 19. And what was the dream to do?

Casey Neistat 29:28 I mean, I wanted to make movies.

Lewis Howes 29:30 But you didn't have the skills yet. You were kind of doing a little bit of-

Casey Neistat 29:32 I knew how to edit in iMovie.

Lewis Howes 29:34 Wow.

Casey Neistat 29:35 No, I didn't have any skills. [laughs] Nothing.

Lewis Howes 29:37 Okay.

Casey Neistat 29:38 Um-

Lewis Howes 29:38 So you wanted to make movies in New York City, but you had no clue, no connections.

Casey Neistat 29:43 I knew one thing, and I knew that I would never be able to do it in Connecticut.

Lewis Howes 29:46 Right. You knew you had to be there to see what was possible.

Casey Neistat 29:49 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 29:50 Okay. And what, what happened? What was the turning point?

Casey Neistat 29:53 Uh, I mean, it was tough. I bounced. I was a bike messenger. It's a horrible job.

Lewis Howes 29:56 [laughs] That'd be miserable.

Casey Neistat 29:58 I, I, I was a bike messenger, and this is back, this is 15 years ago, but it was back when you paid for your cellphone minutes. Remember those days?

Lewis Howes 30:03 Oh my gosh, yes.

Casey Neistat 30:04 And they would call me on my cellphone to let me know where I had to deliver and pick up packages. And at the end of the first week, my pay was $280, and my cellphone bill for that week was $350.

Lewis Howes 30:12 No. [laughs]

Casey Neistat 30:13 So it cost me $70 to be a bike messenger.

Lewis Howes 30:15 To work for a mon- a week.

Casey Neistat 30:16 That's right.

Lewis Howes 30:16 Oh my gosh.

Casey Neistat 30:17 Um, miserable. I also got hurt.

Lewis Howes 30:19 Shoot.

Casey Neistat 30:19 It was a nightmare.

Lewis Howes 30:20 By a taxi or a car?

Casey Neistat 30:21 Yeah. That got the words

Lewis Howes 30:22 So you're not making m- you're losing money-

Casey Neistat 30:24 I was-

Lewis Howes 30:24 ... working for people [laughs]

Casey Neistat 30:25 No health insurance, yeah. Um, but, you know, like, eventually, like, I, I met this artist guy, and I, I did some, like, grunt work for him. And when I say grunt work, I mean grunt work.

Lewis Howes 30:33 Right.

Casey Neistat 30:34 Um, and showed him some of my movies and kind of met some other people and showed my movies to anyone who would listen, anyone who would watch. And eventually, uh, uh, the first paid gig I got was I was hired by this guy who was an art collector, and he's like, "I want you to make a movie for my husband for his 50th birthday."

Lewis Howes 30:48 Mm.

Casey Neistat 30:49 And I was like, "Great, I would love to make a movie for [laughs] your husband for his 50th bir-

Lewis Howes 30:52 Sure.

Casey Neistat 30:52 Like, I would take any job.

Lewis Howes 30:53 Sure.

Casey Neistat 30:54 Had bar mitzvah videos, wedding videos. And, um, he was like, "Okay, here are a list of people that, that we, we're gonna want you to interview for his wedding, his-

Lewis Howes 31:02 Uh-huh

Casey Neistat 31:02 ... his birthday video." And it was, like, no joke, like, Hillary Clinton, Mario Cuomo, President Bill Clinton.

Lewis Howes 31:09 What?

Casey Neistat 31:09 And I was like, "Oh my God." Um-

Lewis Howes 31:11 Really? And they knew all these people.

Casey Neistat 31:13 Yeah, very. So they-

Lewis Howes 31:14 They were connected.

Casey Neistat 31:15 Yeah, so-

Lewis Howes 31:15 It wasn't like, "Go find them and interview them." [laughs]

Casey Neistat 31:16 So this man's husband-

Lewis Howes 31:17 Wow

Casey Neistat 31:18 ... uh, Fred Hochberg, he is the... I mean, I think he's currently, if they didn't just shut him down, I think they did just shut him down, the chairman of the Import-Export Bank. He's, you know, he's in the Obama administration.

Lewis Howes 31:28 Wow.

Casey Neistat 31:28 He is, um, he's a m- he was the dean of The New School. He's a major guy. He's a very dear friend of-

Lewis Howes 31:33 And you're, like, 20 at this time

Casey Neistat 31:33 ... as kid.

Lewis Howes 31:35 And the, the wife asked you to make this video?

Casey Neistat 31:37 Uh, no, his husband.

Lewis Howes 31:38 Oh, his... Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Casey Neistat 31:38 Yeah. But... And yeah, so we, we just kept showing up in places with our camera. We had no idea what to do.

Lewis Howes 31:44 [laughs] So, so you and a buddy, you hired a guy?

Casey Neistat 31:47 It was my brother Van and I.

Lewis Howes 31:49 Oh my gosh.

Casey Neistat 31:49 Um, but I just remember, like, when we went to interview Bill Clinton, which was terrifying.

Lewis Howes 31:53 And you're 20.

Casey Neistat 31:54 I'm 20. Uh-

Lewis Howes 31:55 What the heck?

Casey Neistat 31:56 And we, like, set up our camera and, like, hit record, and we're in this room. And we're like, "Here's what, what we're thinking of doing with the President." And Secret Service is like, "Uh, we have a teleprompter prerecorded message for him."

Lewis Howes 32:07 No way.

Casey Neistat 32:08 And we're like, "Okay." And we just sat there, and then they went to go get the President, and they leave us in this room with the teleprompter. And I grabbed the laptop-

Lewis Howes 32:16 If you can change it

Casey Neistat 32:16 ... and I did, like, Control, Alt, Delete, shut down the laptop. So the President walks in, and they sit him down. And he's looking at us, and he's like, "What's going on here?" And Secret Service is like, or his handlers were like, "We have a prerecorded message. I'm just having some trouble with my computer. I'm very sorry, Mr. President." And as we're waiting, I just, like, look at Secret Service, look at my brother, and I, like, gently walk up to the President, and I introduce myself. And I was like, "Here's my idea."

Lewis Howes 32:39 [laughs] No, you did not.

Casey Neistat 32:42 And he was like, he like... I remember him kicking back, clapping, and being like, "I love it, boys. Let's go."

Lewis Howes 32:46 Shut up.

Casey Neistat 32:47 Camera was already rolling. He said the joke we wanted him to say, and we, like, hit record. He was out of the room before she got the teleprompter back up.

Lewis Howes 32:54 Shut up. It was, like, a two-minute thing. It was r- it was like-

Casey Neistat 32:56 It was, like, 15-second thing.

Lewis Howes 32:57 What was the joke? Do you remember?

Casey Neistat 32:58 I do remember. So-

Lewis Howes 32:59 Can you say it?

Casey Neistat 33:00 Yeah. So Fred Hochberg was the guy whose, whose, uh, birthday it was. Fred Hochberg's mother is a woman named Lillian Vernon, who started the Lillian Vernon Catalog, which is, like, the first mail-order catalog ever.

Lewis Howes 33:11 Wow.

Casey Neistat 33:11 And she made a... She sold that company, I wanna say, for $500 million in, in 2000, 2002 or something like that. In any event, she is a big campaign donor. So we had, uh, we had, we made a T-shirt for the President that said, "Fred Hochberg had Lillian Vernon donate to my campaign, and all I got was this silly T-shirt," something like that.

Lewis Howes 33:33 [laughs] Right, right, right, right.

Casey Neistat 33:34 Something like... It was really crass and funny.

Lewis Howes 33:35 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Casey Neistat 33:36 And when, like, that video played at his birthday in front of the President and everyone else, like, it, everyone laughed and loved it, but-

Lewis Howes 33:42 Wow

Casey Neistat 33:42 ... you know, like, that video, people watch that, and they're like, "This is great. This is great. What else have you done?"

Lewis Howes 33:47 Wow, okay.

Casey Neistat 33:48 And then that little kernel just, like, slowly, slowly-

Lewis Howes 33:51 More and more things

Casey Neistat 33:51 ... rolled down the hill.

Lewis Howes 33:53 Amazing.

Casey Neistat 33:54 And it was, like, tough. Like, the paycheck for that, I think, just covered, maybe covered-

Lewis Howes 33:58 Expenses?

Casey Neistat 33:59 No, the computer and camera that we had to buy to actually shoot it.

Lewis Howes 34:01 Okay, to do it.

Casey Neistat 34:02 Yeah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 34:02 Right, right.

Casey Neistat 34:03 And, like, which was a crappy camera.

Lewis Howes 34:04 So you got a couple grand or something or-

Casey Neistat 34:05 It was, like, literally, like, I don't think we made any money on that.

Lewis Howes 34:08 Right, right. But you made the connections, the experience-

Casey Neistat 34:10 Sure

Lewis Howes 34:10 ... the storytelling.

Casey Neistat 34:10 I mean, like, li- it was, there was never a... We never said no.

Lewis Howes 34:13 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 34:13 Didn't matter what the job was.

Lewis Howes 34:14 You had to, at 20, when you-

Casey Neistat 34:15 You say yes to everything.

Lewis Howes 34:17 Wow.

Casey Neistat 34:18 And then, like, made a bunch of little silly videos and, um, yeah, and that, that sort of, that kept going.

Lewis Howes 34:23 And this is pre-YouTube?

Casey Neistat 34:24 Pre-YouTube.

Lewis Howes 34:25 Five, because YouTube was 2004, 2005.

Casey Neistat 34:27 Uh, yeah, 2000... It was either 2004 or 2006 is YouTube.

Lewis Howes 34:30 Yeah, somewhere in there, yeah.

Casey Neistat 34:32 Um, but yeah, in, uh, I think it was 2003 I made a movie called, uh, iPod's Dirty Secret. It's a movie I made with my brother where I had a gen one iPod, and the battery died, and Apple refused to replace it. Their policy was just to instruct you to buy a new one. So I made a video that spray-painted a disclaimer on every iPod advertisement in New York City that said, "iPod's unreplaceable battery lasts only 18 months." And I made a little three-minute video of that. Uh, my brother and I made it. And I posted that online, and it got, like-

Lewis Howes 34:59 Pre-YouTube.

Casey Neistat 34:59 Yeah, this is three years pre-YouTube, and it got 6 million views.

Lewis Howes 35:02 What? Where? Where did you even post it?

Casey Neistat 35:04 Y- it, this is pre-social media too.

Lewis Howes 35:06 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 35:06 So it was not posted. It was purely from email.

Lewis Howes 35:09 Oh my goodness.

Casey Neistat 35:09 If you can imagine. And that, um, uh, like, the term viral movie was coined talking about that film-

Lewis Howes 35:16 Wow

Casey Neistat 35:16 ... in The Washington Post. Uh, and that really put us on the map in a huge way. Like, that was a gigantic-

Lewis Howes 35:22 2003.

Casey Neistat 35:22 Yeah, a huge, huge leap forward.

Lewis Howes 35:24 What happened after that?

Casey Neistat 35:26 Uh, what happened after that is people looked and they said, "Have you done anything else?" And the answer was, "Yeah, here's 50 other movies I've made that nobody wants to see."

Lewis Howes 35:33 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 35:33 And that really, that started to pick up some traction. One of the movies was a, a movie series I shot in my apartment with my brother called Science Experiments, which was literally we bought Mr. Wizard's world book of little experiments you can do on a-

Lewis Howes 35:45 Uh-huh

Casey Neistat 35:45 ... on a kitchen table.

Lewis Howes 35:46 Sure, yeah.

Casey Neistat 35:47 And we just made films about them.

Lewis Howes 35:48 Uh-huh.

Casey Neistat 35:49 Uh, and that, like, did well in the fine art world. Like, that was introduced, that was, uh, invited rather to the São Paulo Biennial in Brazil, which was their national art show.

Lewis Howes 35:58 Sure.

Casey Neistat 35:59 I was 24 at the time. I was the youngest invited-

Lewis Howes 36:01 Wow

Casey Neistat 36:01 ... artist in the 52-year history of the institution. Um, and that was a big deal. Like, flown down there, and all of a sudden, like, I was, I was the big deal.

Lewis Howes 36:10 Wow.

Casey Neistat 36:10 It was a movie that we shot. And the reason why we shot a movie about science experiments is we couldn't afford to shoot anything else. All we had was my apartment.

Lewis Howes 36:17 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 36:17 And so we just would shoot things on the kitchen table 'cause we didn't have anything else to shoot.

Lewis Howes 36:21 [laughs] Wow. Um- And that all led into bigger, bigger mainstream stuff, eventually HBO, other movies, Nike campaigns, commercials, and then it brought you back to where we are now, what you're doing, which is just taking over the world with everything and your new app. I'm, I'm curious, what, what about your new app? Why did you come up with the idea with Beme, and why, you know-

Casey Neistat 36:43 Yeah. Well, it's, it's, it's actually a, it's a, it's a, it's a very organic transition r- from that story to leapfrogging all that mainstream stuff-

Lewis Howes 36:53 Uh-huh

Casey Neistat 36:54 ... from those early days. It was at the height of the mainstream success that I said, "Why am I so miserable right now?" And I realized that, like, the reason why I loved making those videos so much in the early days was they were a means of me sharing my ideas and perspectives with the world.

Lewis Howes 37:07 Interesting.

Casey Neistat 37:07 And then, uh, with success came all these other things, and I realized at the end of that, like, it's not about sharing perspectives and ideas. It's about all these other things like ego and money and all this stuff that I really don't care about. It's just not that interesting to me, and that's why I said, "The hell with it. Let me go to YouTube where I can just make whatever I want and then share it," where it's purely about ideas and perspectives.

Lewis Howes 37:28 Right.

Casey Neistat 37:28 Um, and Beme, my, my technology company, is a, is a product that... It's something I thought up while at MIT last year. Um, I was invited to, uh, to MIT as, as part of a, a fellowship with the Media Lab, MIT's Media Lab.

Lewis Howes 37:43 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 37:43 The Sundance Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation paid for it. Um, so I lived at MIT. I was, I lived on campus-

Lewis Howes 37:49 Wow

Casey Neistat 37:49 ... and, and I worked out of MIT for the first half of 2014. And while I was there, I was, I was incubating this idea. Um, MIT's not involved at all with, with the company, but it was an idea that, that had always existed in the back of my head. And while at MIT, m- my biggest takeaway when I, I looked around the people I was surrounded by is that with technology, anything is possible.

Lewis Howes 38:09 Mm.

Casey Neistat 38:09 So when I left MIT six months later with that understanding, I really set off on this mission to achieve this, this goal, this dream of mine, um, which is to figure out how to enable others to share their perspectives and ideas via video without, uh, without the burden of creation.

Lewis Howes 38:29 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 38:29 So the aspect of creation, I think, is the biggest barrier. You wanna share something that you think is amazing, but first you have to create something.

Lewis Howes 38:36 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 38:36 And creating something is not for everybody. We're not all artists. We don't all have the means that you and I have been discussing for the last 30 minutes. So, so what can you do? How can you enable everyone from, you know, my mom to a, a, a kid in junior high school to share-

Lewis Howes 38:52 Right

Casey Neistat 38:52 ... and share with, in the most dynamic, uh, medium ever to exist, which is moving imagery, which is video, but without having to create? How do you do that?

Lewis Howes 39:01 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 39:02 And that was the problem that I wanted to solve, and that's a problem that we did solve and have solved with Beme.

Lewis Howes 39:07 With Beme, yeah.

Casey Neistat 39:08 Um-

Lewis Howes 39:08 And what's the difference? So people know what Beme is. What's the difference-

Casey Neistat 39:10 Sure

Lewis Howes 39:10 ... between Beme and-

Casey Neistat 39:11 So-

Lewis Howes 39:12 ... Snapchat or anything else?

Casey Neistat 39:12 Yeah. So Beme is a, a social network. It's a platform that we launched, uh, five weeks ago now. Uh, my business partner in Beme is a guy named Matt Hackett. Matt was the, uh, he was the, the VP of engineering at Tumblr before he joined-

Lewis Howes 39:25 Wow

Casey Neistat 39:26 ... Beme, before he and I partnered up, very well-versed in the technical side. And the way Beme works is, uh, you're, it's an app. You download it, but when you're looking at the app, you see a feed, a feed that's not so dissimilar from maybe a Twitter feed or, or even your email feed.

Lewis Howes 39:41 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 39:41 Um, and it's everyone's name. So it'll say your name or my name, and when you hold down on my name, you get to see a short video, um, which is, that's fairly typical. There's nothing super, super progressive about that. But the way you capture is, is I think what, where we're headed when it comes to these sorts of platforms. And the way you capture is there's no interface for video recording. There's no big red button that you hold down. There's no cinematography. There are no effects. There's nothing. Um, you literally cover the proximity sensor. You cover that little sensor, and it's the ear hole-

Lewis Howes 40:13 Uh-huh

Casey Neistat 40:13 ... the ear speaker on your phone, on your iPhone, and the screen goes black, and it immediately starts recording four seconds of video.

Lewis Howes 40:19 Only four seconds.

Casey Neistat 40:20 Only four seconds, yeah. And the minute those four seconds are up, it makes a noise.

Lewis Howes 40:24 Or the second those four seconds are up. [laughs]

Casey Neistat 40:26 Thank you. It makes a noise, and it's immediately posted. It's sent out to everyone who follows you.

Lewis Howes 40:31 Wow.

Casey Neistat 40:31 And if you wanna share more than four seconds, you cover it again, and it'll capture another clip.

Lewis Howes 40:34 You just keep doing it over and over.

Casey Neistat 40:35 Sure, but, and what that manifests as, what that ends up being is sort of the anti-duck face selfie where people look into their phones the way they look at a mirror. And what it starts to look like is a true perspective on how people interact with the world around them. Um, and the sort of-

Lewis Howes 40:51 Hmm

Casey Neistat 40:51 ... wishy-washy way I like to phrase it is that social media has become, uh, about how, how to share with the world how you want to be seen.

Lewis Howes 41:00 Yes.

Casey Neistat 41:01 And Beme is about sharing with the world how you see it.

Lewis Howes 41:04 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 41:04 Um, and, you know, we're, like I said, we're a month out now. We have several hundred thousand users, so we're able to really get an understanding of, of how people-

Lewis Howes 41:13 How they're using it, yeah

Casey Neistat 41:13 ... use this beyond an anecdotal, like, beta group, and it really is just that. You go through the feed. I follow, like, a couple in Russia. I follow some teenager who lives in a hotel in Dubai. Like, I follow-

Lewis Howes 41:23 Wow

Casey Neistat 41:23 ... all these people that I just discovered on the platform beyond all my friends.

Lewis Howes 41:26 Right.

Casey Neistat 41:27 And yeah, every time I hold down that cell, I'm seeing the world through their perspective-

Lewis Howes 41:31 Wow

Casey Neistat 41:32 ... um, in these quick little clips.

Lewis Howes 41:34 Wow. Can you do a demonstration for the video real quick, or-

Casey Neistat 41:37 Yeah. [laughs] I don't know how, um, I don't know how interesting this is gonna be for, for everyone at home, but, so, you know, one of the ways that, um, I like to capture with this is you can cover that proximity sensor with your thumb. You can cover it by-

Lewis Howes 41:50 Mm

Casey Neistat 41:50 ... holding it up to your shoulder or up to your chest or something like that, and it initiates a record. But what I like to do, and it looks a little bit ridiculous, but I hold it up to my chin like this.

Lewis Howes 41:58 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 41:59 And while you're holding it at your chin, what's interesting about it is you know it's capturing what you're seeing.

Lewis Howes 42:03 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 42:04 And the other thing about holding it up to your chin, um, is that it's very close to your mouth, so you can sort of-

Lewis Howes 42:09 Right

Casey Neistat 42:09 ... narrate what you're seeing in a very natural way.

Lewis Howes 42:11 Hmm. Interesting.

Casey Neistat 42:12 Um, and when I say hold it up to your chin, what that accomplishes is that your chin actually covers the proximity sensor. So you see-

Lewis Howes 42:19 Sure

Casey Neistat 42:19 ... the proximity sensor. You cover it like that, and it shuts off-

Lewis Howes 42:22 It's recording

Casey Neistat 42:22 ... the screen. It's recording.

Lewis Howes 42:23 So you can't even see what you're recording.

Casey Neistat 42:24 No. There's no preview. There's no review.

Lewis Howes 42:27 Wow. So if you try to reverse it and do it to yourself, you wouldn't be able to see what you're looking at either.

Casey Neistat 42:32 That's exactly right. So when I say the anti-duck face selfie, it doesn't mean that there's no way to capture yourself on here. I film myself all the time.

Lewis Howes 42:39 But you can't see what you look like first-

Casey Neistat 42:40 That's exactly right

Lewis Howes 42:41 ... and censor it.

Casey Neistat 42:41 The, the difference, the way I like to describe it, is the difference is like when you're doing a selfie on any other platform, it's, it's the way you look when you're looking at yourself in the mirror.

Lewis Howes 42:50 Check yourself, yeah, yeah.

Casey Neistat 42:50 That's exactly right.

Lewis Howes 42:51 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 42:51 And when you do it on, on Beme, because you can't see yourself, you look the way you look when you're actually speaking to another person.

Lewis Howes 42:57 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 42:58 And that in itself is what we really tried to capture with Beme, is like how do we emulate the human interaction as much as possible?

Lewis Howes 43:05 Wow. Okay. And how are you feeling... How do you feel people are enjoying it compared to, I would say Snapchat's a competitor, I'm assuming, or-

Casey Neistat 43:13 You know, I, I don't know. Competitor, I think is a really strong word. Um-

Lewis Howes 43:16 Uh-huh. It's a similar area

Casey Neistat 43:16 ... I should say I'm a huge-

Lewis Howes 43:17 It's a cousin

Casey Neistat 43:18 ... I'm a huge SnapChatter.

Lewis Howes 43:19 Yeah, you're big on it.

Casey Neistat 43:20 I, I do like a quarter of a million views or something like that.

Lewis Howes 43:23 Wow.

Casey Neistat 43:23 200,000 views per Snap. Like I love-

Lewis Howes 43:25 Crazy

Casey Neistat 43:25 ... Snapchat.

Lewis Howes 43:26 Crazy.

Casey Neistat 43:26 It is such a great platform. Um, and I look at Beme to Snapchat as the same way that I look at maybe an Instagram to Facebook.

Lewis Howes 43:33 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 43:33 I use Facebook all the time. I check Facebook every day, just like-

Lewis Howes 43:36 Yeah

Casey Neistat 43:36 ... apparently a billion other people. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 43:37 Right, right.

Casey Neistat 43:38 Um, and I also love Instagram.

Lewis Howes 43:40 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 43:40 But Instagram for me is a place where I put one picture up.

Lewis Howes 43:43 Every few days or something, right?

Casey Neistat 43:44 Yeah, and that's it. And it does that really, really well.

Lewis Howes 43:47 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 43:48 And, and Facebook's this big thing, and when I look at Snapchat, I think Snapchat's this big thing. It's where I go to stories, for messaging, for, you know, all these other features that they have.

Lewis Howes 43:57 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 43:57 But it's not a singular sort of interaction.

Lewis Howes 44:00 Right. Right, right.

Casey Neistat 44:00 And that's why I think, like, I think there's a real place in this world for a product like Beme. I think a- again, comparing Facebook to Instagram is, is probably a fair comparison to, to where Snapchat has a relationship... To where Beme rather-

Lewis Howes 44:13 Yes

Casey Neistat 44:14 ... has a relationship to that, that cognitive space that is Snapchat.

Lewis Howes 44:17 Gotcha. What's the vision for it for you?

Casey Neistat 44:19 The vision for it for me is, uh, you know, obviously take it as big as it can. But what we're seeing right now, like I said, with hundreds of thousands of users on a beta product. We launched as a public beta. It's not finished.

Lewis Howes 44:29 Yes.

Casey Neistat 44:29 It's not even close to being-

Lewis Howes 44:30 So can people download it right now? Do they need a code?

Casey Neistat 44:31 Uh, people can download it right now.

Lewis Howes 44:32 It's available right now, no codes.

Casey Neistat 44:34 No code. You just download it off of-

Lewis Howes 44:35 Yeah

Casey Neistat 44:35 ... off of, uh, the Apple Store.

Lewis Howes 44:37 App Store, yeah.

Casey Neistat 44:38 The App Store, and it works. We had a code system up until literally last week, because it was such an early beta that w- we wanted to make sure we can control-

Lewis Howes 44:45 Yeah

Casey Neistat 44:46 ... capacity and onboarding and things like that. So, so you had to punch in a code, but now anybody can use it. But even so, you know, it's, I think it's-

Lewis Howes 44:53 It's still beta. It's still growing.

Casey Neistat 44:54 It's still beta. It's, it's also, you know, there are core functionalities that are, still aren't there.

Lewis Howes 44:58 Right.

Casey Neistat 44:58 People have expectations. They're not built yet. You know, we... Our team now of 13-

Lewis Howes 45:02 Wow

Casey Neistat 45:02 ... growing as fast as we can. We hired three people last month. Um, but it's gonna take some time until this product matures into a platform. Right now it's, it's a, the functionality's pretty narrow.

Lewis Howes 45:13 Yeah. Gotcha.

Casey Neistat 45:15 Um, but the-

Lewis Howes 45:15 It's cool, though

Casey Neistat 45:15 ... core functionality is there, and the vision that you asked me about is, like, what I want it to be and what it is right now, but in a, in a widespread adoption, it will be this in a much more, um, uh, I think impactful way, is that you scroll your finger down this list, and you hold down on any cell, and all of a sudden you're in that person's world, and you're seeing it-

Lewis Howes 45:35 Amazing

Casey Neistat 45:35 ... from their perspective.

Lewis Howes 45:36 Amazing.

Casey Neistat 45:36 And our, our company manifesto is to promote empathy by sharing perspective.

Lewis Howes 45:42 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 45:42 And if you think, like, you know, what that girl who lives in Nebraska who gets bullied every day, w- the power of her being able to share what it's like to live the world as her, that's a-

Lewis Howes 45:52 Hmm

Casey Neistat 45:52 ... that's a really big idea.

Lewis Howes 45:54 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 45:54 And look, I, I make no misconceptions. This is primarily used for teenagers and, and people who have a lot of fun with it and things like that.

Lewis Howes 46:00 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 46:00 But I do think in aggregate, at scale, uh, a product like this could have a meaningful social and cultural impact on people when it comes to the promotion of empathy, because you're able to-

Lewis Howes 46:11 Yeah. That's cool

Casey Neistat 46:11 ... to, to better really understand what it means to live as someone else.

Lewis Howes 46:14 Someone else's perspective. I like that. Um, why only four seconds?

Casey Neistat 46:19 Um, I think four seconds is the minimum amount of time that you can capture a moment, um, without it getting boring. So when I compare, uh-

Lewis Howes 46:29 Hmm

Casey Neistat 46:29 ... Beme to a product like Periscope-

Lewis Howes 46:32 Mm-hmm

Casey Neistat 46:32 ... um, I think the trouble with live broadcasting, with, with live, uh, live sharing apps, and the reason why-

Lewis Howes 46:37 You're on for a minute or two, and then it's like, "I'm off."

Casey Neistat 46:39 Well, I think the reason why they're utilities and not platforms is because live is by definition boring.

Lewis Howes 46:45 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 46:46 The only thing that's ever succeeded in media live is the news and is sports.

Lewis Howes 46:51 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 46:52 Um, and those are pretty, pretty narrow. They, they're not dynamic at all.

Lewis Howes 46:56 Yeah. Yeah.

Casey Neistat 46:57 Uh, and that doesn't mean that there's not interesting things around us all the time, but, like, you know, my daily videos are, are essentially a documentation of my life, but if they were 24 hours long, they would be incredibly boring to watch.

Lewis Howes 47:07 Boring, yeah.

Casey Neistat 47:07 Instead, I pluck what is 8 or 10 minutes of what's really interesting out of my life. So how do you emulate that in a way that removes that burden of creation from the user-

Lewis Howes 47:15 Yeah

Casey Neistat 47:15 ... but addresses what is the struggle or the battle for interestingness?

Lewis Howes 47:19 Yeah. It's-

Casey Neistat 47:19 And you're, you, there's a forced compartmentalization. So I see something like, like Jack, who, who works at Beme. He's our head of community. He's here with me. He's-

Lewis Howes 47:27 Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah

Casey Neistat 47:27 ... he was just here a minute ago. And when he saw your amazing view, I saw him immediately Beme it.

Lewis Howes 47:33 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 47:33 And after-

Lewis Howes 47:34 That he was holding the phone and then-

Casey Neistat 47:35 Yeah. And after four seconds, the phone went back in his pocket.

Lewis Howes 47:37 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 47:38 Now, if he were given an option to have 30 seconds or a minute and a half, he would have posted 30 seconds or a minute. But I can tell you as a storyteller and as a filmmaker, four seconds is enough-

Lewis Howes 47:47 Sure

Casey Neistat 47:47 ... to capture exactly what he wanted to share.

Lewis Howes 47:49 It's funny, 'cause, you know, I'm on Snapchat. I only get, like, 1,000 views every time I Snap or something, so it's not even a fraction of what you get. But I notice that even myself as a user, like, I will thumb through. Like, 15 seconds is too long.

Casey Neistat 48:01 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 48:02 You know what I mean? I get bored after, like, four or five, six seconds of watching someone else's perspective or whatever, and I'm constantly trying to get to the next thing. So it's kind of interesting that four seconds-

Casey Neistat 48:10 Yeah, look, I, the, 10 seconds, to me, 10 seconds is an eternity.

Lewis Howes 48:14 Yeah, it's a long time.

Casey Neistat 48:14 It's an eternity. And when you're consuming on mobile, like, I have no idea the numbers 'cause they're not public, but, uh, that thing you're describing where you just tap through, through, through-

Lewis Howes 48:22 Just, just, just

Casey Neistat 48:22 ... is, I think, is not a-

Lewis Howes 48:23 Everyone does that, right?

Casey Neistat 48:24 It's a, it's a common behavior because-

Lewis Howes 48:25 Yeah

Casey Neistat 48:25 ... 10 seconds is, is a really long time.

Lewis Howes 48:27 Yeah. Is that what it is, 10 seconds on Snapchat? Yeah, yeah.

Casey Neistat 48:29 10 seconds I think is the longest you can post a clip.

Lewis Howes 48:30 Yeah, yeah.

Casey Neistat 48:30 And look, on Beme, if you want it to be two minutes, you can.

Lewis Howes 48:33 You just hold it down again and again.

Casey Neistat 48:34 Yeah, you just have to... It forces you to stop every four seconds and say, "Did I just capture that?" And if the answer's no, keep going.

Lewis Howes 48:40 Wow.

Casey Neistat 48:40 But usually the answer is like, "Yeah, I captured that."

Lewis Howes 48:42 Yeah. Four seconds. That's powerful. Um, I'm curious now with your- You know, you're, you're married now, you've got two different children, but you're constantly on the go. You're constantly traveling, you're up to big things. You've got this technology company, you've got YouTube, your other content that you're creating, got sponsors paying you for things. How are you able to have a great family life and be this father that you say you were born to be while you're gone a lot? Do you bring your family with you? Is it more about the quality of time you have when you're with them? How do you manage that all?

Casey Neistat 49:12 Yeah, I mean, it's a daily struggle.

Lewis Howes 49:14 Really?

Casey Neistat 49:14 I mean, it's a battle. Um-

Lewis Howes 49:15 And with your wife, you know, 'cause you're gone constantly.

Casey Neistat 49:18 Yeah, I mean, you know-

Lewis Howes 49:18 I see you on the road all the time

Casey Neistat 49:19 ... I, I don't travel like I used to.

Lewis Howes 49:21 Uh-huh.

Casey Neistat 49:21 Um, that's for sure. I've almost stopped altogether. My speaking engagements and, and production is, is non, almost non-existent-

Lewis Howes 49:28 Sure

Casey Neistat 49:29 ... um, when it comes to, you know, going to produce big movies elsewhere. So primarily I am in New York City, and, you know, like we bought a house last year in, in the city that is across the street from my office.

Lewis Howes 49:42 Amazing.

Casey Neistat 49:43 I mean, literally like 120 feet from my office.

Lewis Howes 49:44 That's tough. What part of town are you in?

Casey Neistat 49:46 Tribeca.

Lewis Howes 49:46 Nice.

Casey Neistat 49:47 Um-

Lewis Howes 49:48 That's sweet

Casey Neistat 49:48 ... it, it's, so there's all these sort of shortcuts-

Lewis Howes 49:51 Yeah, yeah

Casey Neistat 49:51 ... to spending as much time with the family as humanly possible. Um, and then, you know, uh, the traveling, like i- it's not that frequent, but when there have been big trips, like yeah, the family comes with. And, um, you know, like we were all just in Texas a week ago, and we were on vacation earlier this year for my birthday-

Lewis Howes 50:09 Right

Casey Neistat 50:09 ... and the baby came and my son came, and-

Lewis Howes 50:11 Amazing

Casey Neistat 50:12 ... we brought baby to South Africa, my wife's South African, when she was a month old, um-

Lewis Howes 50:18 Wow

Casey Neistat 50:18 ... uh, two months old. So you just, you just do it. But the truth is, it's like on that grand scheme of, of priorities in life, like family's number one.

Lewis Howes 50:27 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 50:27 So everything, like any decision point is, requires like, "Is this what's best-

Lewis Howes 50:32 For the family

Casey Neistat 50:32 ... for the family or not?"

Lewis Howes 50:33 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 50:33 And if it's anything but yes, you don't do it.

Lewis Howes 50:37 If you didn't have the two children and the wife now, where would your life be?

Casey Neistat 50:40 You know, I have no idea. I really don't. And honestly, like, I don't know. I appreciate the question, but I don't know that that is a-

Lewis Howes 50:48 It's probably worth answering. [laughs]

Casey Neistat 50:49 No, I just like, I think that living in retrospect is a really bad idea.

Lewis Howes 50:54 Wow. Sure.

Casey Neistat 50:54 I say this about everything.

Lewis Howes 50:55 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 50:55 Like, I look forward with a laser focus-

Lewis Howes 50:59 Yeah

Casey Neistat 50:59 ... because, because to pay too much attention to the past and what could have been-

Lewis Howes 51:03 Mm-hmm

Casey Neistat 51:03 ... is, is, is a, just a tremendous exercise in futility.

Lewis Howes 51:08 Mm-hmm. Sure.

Casey Neistat 51:08 And instead looking forward and saying, "Where do I want to be?" And just having all the momentum be there, I think is, is what's the best practice is for me. I know that if given an opportunity to go back and change anything, I would change nothing because I'm incredibly happy right now.

Lewis Howes 51:23 That's great.

Casey Neistat 51:23 And, and I, I love it. And I think if it wasn't for those hardships, even really terrible things happening, um, I don't know that it would've added up to where I am right now.

Lewis Howes 51:33 Yeah. Yeah.

Casey Neistat 51:33 But, um, you know, I work as hard as I can every day to always make the best decisions I can to contribute to that.

Lewis Howes 51:39 Sure. What's the movie you've yet to shoot yet that you've always wanted to create?

Casey Neistat 51:43 You know, you'd be surprised how often I get asked that question, and the answer is I don't know.

Lewis Howes 51:47 Huh.

Casey Neistat 51:47 Um, and the answer why I don't know is a somewhat like, not somewhat, is an extremely egotistical answer, but it's true. And it's that in life I've only ever done exactly what I wanna do.

Lewis Howes 52:01 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 52:01 And if I'm not doing exactly what I wanna do, I shift focus and do everything I can until I realize that. So if there was something that I were dying to do, I mean really dying to do, especially-

Lewis Howes 52:11 You'd go do it

Casey Neistat 52:11 ... I would've done it.

Lewis Howes 52:12 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 52:13 And like right now, what I wanna do is, is I wanna see how far I can take this daily video thing, because it's been 159 days of posting every-

Lewis Howes 52:22 On your YouTube channel.

Casey Neistat 52:22 That's correct. Every day.

Lewis Howes 52:23 159 days.

Casey Neistat 52:24 That's right. And the impact has been greater than any other singular thing I've done-

Lewis Howes 52:29 Really?

Casey Neistat 52:29 ... in the previous 15 years of making movies.

Lewis Howes 52:32 Wow. So where were your subscriber and life at, wh- what is this, half a year ago, I guess? Or-

Casey Neistat 52:37 Yeah, I mean, well, somewhat ironically, uh, you know, at, when I started Beme, the technology company, I always knew that I'd be leaning on my social reach to promote it.

Lewis Howes 52:44 Of course.

Casey Neistat 52:45 Uh, and the irony comes from the place that as this company that I, that I run and day to day I'm, I'm in there, it's my company, um, demanded more and more from me. My social reach was in atrophy.

Lewis Howes 52:56 Really?

Casey Neistat 52:56 Well, I wasn't able to make movies.

Lewis Howes 52:58 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 52:58 So I made a decision in, in March that I would start making, doing daily vlogs, and my intention to daily vlog was to have it be almost a reality show about the technology company.

Lewis Howes 53:07 Smart.

Casey Neistat 53:08 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 53:08 So that they're all interested in when's it launching, what's happening?

Casey Neistat 53:10 That, that's, yeah, exactly. And then on like day two, I was like, "There's not enough content here." [laughs]

Lewis Howes 53:15 [laughs] I've already talked about it all.

Casey Neistat 53:16 I, I said it all in like half of the first episode, so what else do I have?

Lewis Howes 53:21 My life.

Casey Neistat 53:22 Sure. Um, and I realized that I think it's much more interesting to sort of be able to focus on a character, focus on me-

Lewis Howes 53:28 Oh

Casey Neistat 53:29 ... than it is on a company. Um, and I think that a lot of people's, at least intrigue in Beme, um, whether they like it or not, it's up to them, but certainly their intrigue enough to get them to step foot in the door first, has been because they understand the relationship that I have with this company.

Lewis Howes 53:44 Mm.

Casey Neistat 53:44 And I think that the problem with most technology companies or most technology companies face is that most people just see an app or see a, a, anything that's consumer facing, something that just exists. It's very hard to understand there are people and passions and, and missions and ambitions behind that, and real work. And that's something that the vlog enabled me to do, is like you see all of us in this space. You see us, you know, busting our ass. You see us working till the middle of the night to make this thing, and then you get to see the power of it.

Lewis Howes 54:14 Mm.

Casey Neistat 54:14 And all of that happened, um, via this vlog that I started under much more literal pretenses and has now become this incredibly dynamic thing that's giving me a platform to, to discuss almost anything.

Lewis Howes 54:29 Amazing.

Casey Neistat 54:29 Um, but no, I, I can't underscore enough the profound impact, the overwhelming impact that uploading daily has had on me-

Lewis Howes 54:37 Really

Casey Neistat 54:37 ... has had on my company, has had on, on everything I, my understanding of filmmaking, my understanding of the media-

Lewis Howes 54:43 Wow

Casey Neistat 54:43 ... and the space and everything.

Lewis Howes 54:45 What was your subscriber base at before you started that?

Casey Neistat 54:47 Um, it took me the first It took me five years to get to, let me see, I'm probably gonna butcher this, but I'm just gonna throw an approximately in front of this.

Lewis Howes 54:58 Sure.

Casey Neistat 54:58 So it's like line, line, score before I say this.

Lewis Howes 55:01 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 55:01 But th- but this is close. Um, five years to get to 100 million views and 500,000 subscribers, and three months to get to a million subscribers and 200 million views.

Lewis Howes 55:14 [exhales]

Casey Neistat 55:14 And now we're at, uh, I think closing in on 220 million views. Might have just passed 220 million views.

Lewis Howes 55:20 100,000 a day or a week it looks like right now subscribers.

Casey Neistat 55:22 I mean, the last week, but that was a particularly good week. I don't know what-

Lewis Howes 55:24 Sure

Casey Neistat 55:25 ... there's some sustainability issues here-

Lewis Howes 55:26 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 55:27 ... across the board. Also, I haven't slept since I started this vlog.

Lewis Howes 55:29 But you would say the daily posting of video, and it's not just random content. You're editing it. You're spending, you're up at night editing it for whatever, a half hour, maybe longer, and putting it up every day.

Casey Neistat 55:39 Did you say a half hour?

Lewis Howes 55:41 I don't know. How long are you editing for, an hour?

Casey Neistat 55:42 My fastest edit is four hours.

Lewis Howes 55:44 Holy cow.

Casey Neistat 55:45 The edit this morning was about nine hours. Yesterday's edit was 11 hours.

Lewis Howes 55:48 You spent nine hours yourself this morning?

Casey Neistat 55:49 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 55:50 What time did you get up?

Casey Neistat 55:52 Uh, well, I was up at 6:00-

Lewis Howes 55:53 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 55:53 ... but last night I got, I left the VMAs early. I was home by 8:45, edited till I passed out at about 1:00 in the morning, woke up at 6:00, got to post.

Lewis Howes 56:01 Edited more.

Casey Neistat 56:01 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 56:01 So you're spending most of your time editing every day.

Casey Neistat 56:04 Not most, but a, like, my routine in New York City is I, like, I leave the office what I would call early, like, at 7:00.

Lewis Howes 56:11 Mm.

Casey Neistat 56:11 6:30, get home, an hour with the baby. She goes down to bed. My wife, like, says good night. She goes into the bedroom, and I, like, hole myself up in the corner of the apartment.

Lewis Howes 56:20 Wow.

Casey Neistat 56:21 And I usually work until midnight or 1:00 in the morning, fall asleep.

Lewis Howes 56:23 Editing most-

Casey Neistat 56:24 That's correct, yeah

Lewis Howes 56:25 ... wow.

Casey Neistat 56:25 Exclusively. And then wake up at 4:30 in the morning to finish the edit by 8:00 AM.

Lewis Howes 56:29 Oh my goodness.

Casey Neistat 56:29 That's seven days a week.

Lewis Howes 56:31 And you've never thought about bringing on someone else to do editing for-

Casey Neistat 56:34 It doesn't work like that

Lewis Howes 56:34 ... it doesn't work.

Casey Neistat 56:34 It doesn't work like that.

Lewis Howes 56:35 They can't capture your voice, your story, your message.

Casey Neistat 56:37 Uh, there, there isn't a voice or a story in the message. The story is told in the edit. The edit is where it's written.

Lewis Howes 56:42 And they can't be you in the edit.

Casey Neistat 56:44 No, but how are they-

Lewis Howes 56:44 That's you

Casey Neistat 56:44 ... supposed to empathize with what my day was?

Lewis Howes 56:46 [exhales]

Casey Neistat 56:47 Because the, the sum of the vlog, the narrative of the vlog is not a collection of the parts. It's, like, me taking a step back and saying, "What did I actually experience today-

Lewis Howes 56:56 Mm

Casey Neistat 56:56 ... and what affected me?"

Lewis Howes 56:57 Wow. Man.

Casey Neistat 56:58 And you can't, you can't have a third party emulate-

Lewis Howes 57:01 This is intense

Casey Neistat 57:01 ... that emotional relationship.

Lewis Howes 57:03 Your life is editing. [laughs]

Casey Neistat 57:05 Yeah, it's a big part of my life.

Lewis Howes 57:07 Oh my goodness, man.

Casey Neistat 57:08 But I lo- I love every se- I mean, I don't love the fact that I don't get to sleep. I'm, like, permanently exhausted and just beaten up, but I, I l- like-

Lewis Howes 57:16 You love the process of editing and telling the story. [laughs]

Casey Neistat 57:18 There's a, there's, it's, like, you get the crap beaten out of you, and it takes everything that you are, and at 7:59 every morning, I'm a completely broken man.

Lewis Howes 57:27 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 57:27 And then at 8:00 AM, I have this, this rush of adrenaline, and that is when I click post.

Lewis Howes 57:32 And then everyone's like, they all know it's coming.

Casey Neistat 57:35 It's just, like, and that thrill, that rush is like, "I can't survive without this," and it drives me-

Lewis Howes 57:40 Wow

Casey Neistat 57:40 ... through the next 23 hours and 59 minutes-

Lewis Howes 57:42 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 57:42 ... until I'm a broken man at 7:59 the next morning, and then I click upload, and I get this rush.

Lewis Howes 57:47 Oh my goodness.

Casey Neistat 57:48 And that is the, that is the cycle. That is the virtuous cycle that is a daily upload.

Lewis Howes 57:53 Now, how s- how long can you sustain it for?

Casey Neistat 57:55 Well, that's the million-dollar question, isn't it? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 57:57 What, did you give yourself a year or six months?

Casey Neistat 57:59 I, I mean, I, I didn't think I would go this long.

Lewis Howes 58:01 Wow.

Casey Neistat 58:01 But I tell you, like, this is a quote from my, my very talented friend, Ben Brown, who's been daily vlogging for three or four years now. Um, he said, "You know what happens if you keep doing it, but you don't know what happens if you stop." And I'm sorry, I butchered that. "You, you know what happens when you stop, but you have no idea what happens when you keep going."

Lewis Howes 58:25 What's possible.

Casey Neistat 58:26 Yeah, something like that. Anyways, I'm, I'm either telling that backwards or I don't know.

Lewis Howes 58:29 [laughs] We get the idea.

Casey Neistat 58:30 But the, the point is, like, this, this, this impact-

Lewis Howes 58:34 I mean, you've doubled your subscribers. You've impacted the world.

Casey Neistat 58:36 I mean, yeah, forget about those numbers. All I know are, like, what's actually, what actually happens.

Lewis Howes 58:41 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 58:41 Like, I know what a- I know what, like, people say. I know, like, I can feel it, and I don't mean that in any sort of spiritual way. I mean, like, that's quantifiable based on the feedback, the-

Lewis Howes 58:50 Yeah

Casey Neistat 58:50 ... the comments, like, the things people say to me when they stop me in the street. It's-

Lewis Howes 58:53 You probably get stopped all the time, right?

Casey Neistat 58:55 It's, it's ridiculous.

Lewis Howes 58:55 In New York especially.

Casey Neistat 58:56 In New York City, there's a crowd outside my office all day, every day.

Lewis Howes 58:59 Waiting for you to Snapchat them, like-

Casey Neistat 59:01 It's a security issue. Uh, and waiting for me to come outside. Um, like-

Lewis Howes 59:04 But th- they see you Snapchatting from the window. I've seen a couple where you're like, "Here's what's happening in my back alley" or something, and-

Casey Neistat 59:09 It's, it's nuts. It's nuts.

Lewis Howes 59:11 Wow.

Casey Neistat 59:11 Um, but, like, anyways, like, that impact, the idea of, like, being able to build that by doing this thing that I do all by myself, and the idea of giving that up, to me, is just like...

Lewis Howes 59:23 What's the biggest fear? That, that those people will go away?

Casey Neistat 59:27 No, it's not about that. I just think it's, like, I think that as a filmmaker, anyone who's in the creative space is, is, to be an artist, and I hate that word artist, but to be an artist is sort of-

Lewis Howes 59:38 A creator.

Casey Neistat 59:38 Sure.

Lewis Howes 59:38 Yeah, yeah.

Casey Neistat 59:39 It's predicated on one thing, and that one thing in its most crass-

Lewis Howes 59:43 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 59:43 [laughs] In its most crass definition, it's that you are such a fucking egomaniac that you believe the world actually cares about your opinions enough to share them. Okay, so basing on that, based on that assumption, which I think is pretty accurate, then what is the greatest quantification of success? And it's how many people choose to hear your perspectives or ideas. Like, that, to me, that's the only quant- That's why, that's why, for me, like, somebody watching my YouTube video on their cellphone is not a bigger deal or a lesser deal than premiering a movie on, at the Cannes Film Festival, which I've done twice.

Lewis Howes 1:00:19 Mm.

Casey Neistat 1:00:20 Um, to me, it's one and the same.

Lewis Howes 1:00:22 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:00:22 It's like somebody chooses to watch your stuff or they don't.

Lewis Howes 1:00:25 Right.

Casey Neistat 1:00:25 And, and the fact that it's happening at such a crazy rate, and the relationship is so, so great with the content, to sort of give that up after working so hard to get there is something I just, I wouldn't wanna do.

Lewis Howes 1:00:38 Mm. Man, this is, uh, this hour has flown by. It's been an hour.

Casey Neistat 1:00:42 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:00:43 I said it was gonna be, like, 45 minutes.

Casey Neistat 1:00:44 No, it's been pretty great.

Lewis Howes 1:00:44 But this has been, like, flying by. I've got a few questions left for you. Uh, and I know Tim Ferriss said he said he needs, like, four hours with you when he did the recording.

Casey Neistat 1:00:53 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:00:54 Now I know why I would need more time, so hopefully we can do another session when I'm back in New York and get part two with you. But, um- A few final questions, and thanks for sharing so much that you've shared. I want to know, what are the tattoos you have, and what do they say?

Casey Neistat 1:01:06 You know, I'm covered in tattoos, and the only thing I like more than tattoos, 'cause I love tattoos-

Lewis Howes 1:01:11 It's crystals now [laughs]

Casey Neistat 1:01:12 ... no, is, is bad tattoos.

Lewis Howes 1:01:14 You love bad tattoos.

Casey Neistat 1:01:15 Oh my God, they're my favorite.

Lewis Howes 1:01:16 How many do you have? Bad tattoos.

Casey Neistat 1:01:18 I mean, I have no idea. I love all my tattoos. I can't tell you how many.

Lewis Howes 1:01:19 Yeah, how many do you have, period?

Casey Neistat 1:01:21 I, I... If I could, if I give you a number-

Lewis Howes 1:01:23 Just ball park

Casey Neistat 1:01:23 ... I have no idea.

Lewis Howes 1:01:24 Really?

Casey Neistat 1:01:24 But for me, like, a, what a tattoo is-

Lewis Howes 1:01:26 You have them all over you

Casey Neistat 1:01:27 ... and I should say, I don't like tattoo culture. I think it's really stupid.

Lewis Howes 1:01:30 Uh-huh.

Casey Neistat 1:01:30 But I think the idea of a tattoo is that something affects you so much in life that you want to preserve it forever. So the reason why I love bad tattoos is, like, that girl with the rose on her ankle, the dol-

Lewis Howes 1:01:40 The dolphin [laughs]

Casey Neistat 1:01:40 ... the butterfly on her shoulder from, like-

Lewis Howes 1:01:42 The tramp stamp

Casey Neistat 1:01:43 ... yeah, spring break, Daytona Beach, 1996.

Lewis Howes 1:01:47 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:01:47 Like, so she's, like, you know, she's a m- mom now-

Lewis Howes 1:01:50 Oh

Casey Neistat 1:01:50 ... in her 40s who has this faded butterfly on her shoulder. But when she looks at that, and I, I hope she has the same optimism that I imagine, she has to m- remember what it was like to be 21 years old-

Lewis Howes 1:02:00 Mm-hmm

Casey Neistat 1:02:00 ... at spring break, Daytona Beach in 1997, and that's awesome.

Lewis Howes 1:02:05 That's nice.

Casey Neistat 1:02:05 So all of my tattoos are, are literally just that idea. They're just notes written on me-

Lewis Howes 1:02:11 Hmm

Casey Neistat 1:02:11 ... so I will remember a specific moment in my life.

Lewis Howes 1:02:14 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 1:02:15 Um, you know, like that says, it says 30-

Lewis Howes 1:02:17 What's-

Casey Neistat 1:02:17 ... on my right, on-

Lewis Howes 1:02:18 Yeah

Casey Neistat 1:02:18 ... I'm sorry, on my left f- uh, forearm, the number 30. And it was just at, like, that means very little to me right now, but when I l- think back at when I got that tattoo, it's, like, the day I turned 30, and the idea of being 30 that day. And I was like, "Holy shit, I'm an adult." Like, it was the most-

Lewis Howes 1:02:36 It's scary, man

Casey Neistat 1:02:36 ... overwhelming feeling ever.

Lewis Howes 1:02:38 This happened a couple years ago for me. It was crazy.

Casey Neistat 1:02:39 Yeah, well, it happened four years ago for me. Now it seems like nothing. I was a kid back then, but in that moment, it was such an overwhelming feeling that I wanted to make sure I never lost that.

Lewis Howes 1:02:50 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 1:02:51 So I wrote it on my arm in a way that couldn't be erased.

Lewis Howes 1:02:55 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 1:02:55 And that's what that was for me.

Lewis Howes 1:02:56 Sure.

Casey Neistat 1:02:57 It was such a moment that I had to make sure I remembered it, and every one of my tattoos is just that. Like, I have a tattoo on my, my right calf, and it's literally teeth marks, and it's because, like, this is two years ago, I think. I was swimming across... Three years ago? Two years ago? I can just look at my... I'm literally just checking the date on my... 2013, two years ago. Whoa, August 26th, 2013.

Lewis Howes 1:03:21 Wow.

Casey Neistat 1:03:21 So exactly two years ago. Um, I was swimming across the Zambezi River from Zambia into Zimbabwe-

Lewis Howes 1:03:27 Hmm

Casey Neistat 1:03:27 ... with my son, who was 15 at the time.

Lewis Howes 1:03:30 Wow.

Casey Neistat 1:03:31 And I was bitten by a, a tiger fish, which is very dangerous-

Lewis Howes 1:03:36 Wow

Casey Neistat 1:03:36 ... but it was a small one. Um, I dare you viewers, listeners, to Google tiger fish. You're gonna see some gross images.

Lewis Howes 1:03:43 Oh my gosh.

Casey Neistat 1:03:44 Um, and it bit my leg, and my kid and I made it across the river safely. And when I got back, like, I was looking at this bloody bite wound on my, on my leg, and I was like, "My God, this is probably the last one of these trips that I get to take with my kid," 'cause he's, uh, he's gonna be 16 soon and not wanna hang out with Dad.

Lewis Howes 1:04:01 Right.

Casey Neistat 1:04:01 And it was such a special trip.

Lewis Howes 1:04:02 Mm-hmm.

Casey Neistat 1:04:02 And that moment in the trip was such a crazy thing to happen to you. Like, what a wild story.

Lewis Howes 1:04:07 Right.

Casey Neistat 1:04:07 And it was just such a big moment for me that was all, like, that, that this tiny little bite, fish bite mark represented, that I didn't want to let that go.

Lewis Howes 1:04:16 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:04:16 So I literally, like, got the bite mark tattooed onto my leg, like the exact bite mark.

Lewis Howes 1:04:19 Amazing.

Casey Neistat 1:04:20 I had to wait for it to heal, and then she, she traced-

Lewis Howes 1:04:21 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 1:04:21 ... where the teeth marks were. And then it says to it, you know, like, Zambezi River, and then it says the date. So it's like, no matter what, I look at my, my calf, and I just, like, I'm stuck with that moment.

Lewis Howes 1:04:32 Amazing.

Casey Neistat 1:04:32 And I could not be happier to be stuck with that moment.

Lewis Howes 1:04:34 Amazing. What's the next tattoo you wanna get?

Casey Neistat 1:04:37 And, uh, well, they're never premeditated.

Lewis Howes 1:04:38 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 1:04:38 Something has to hit me. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:04:40 Okay, so you'd already have the next one for you.

Casey Neistat 1:04:41 No, I hope I never get any more tattoos.

Lewis Howes 1:04:43 [laughs] Okay. Um, final two questions.

Casey Neistat 1:04:49 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:04:50 First off, where can we go and connect with you? What's the main place?

Casey Neistat 1:04:54 Beme.

Lewis Howes 1:04:54 Go download the app.

Casey Neistat 1:04:54 Yeah, you should download Beme, first of all.

Lewis Howes 1:04:56 Yep.

Casey Neistat 1:04:57 Download the app. Um, be patient with us. It's getting there, but you should download it right now. Um, follow your friends, follow some strangers. Uh, but my YouTube channel's it.

Lewis Howes 1:05:06 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:05:06 Like, just type my name into, into YouTube. Actually, I think if you just type in the word Casey now, it's the first-

Lewis Howes 1:05:12 It'll show up in the first thing, yeah

Casey Neistat 1:05:12 ... I was the first auto-populate.

Lewis Howes 1:05:14 Amazing.

Casey Neistat 1:05:14 Yeah, it's a pretty... [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:05:15 [laughs] It's pretty sweet.

Casey Neistat 1:05:16 It's funny how we judge success these days. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:05:17 Right. [laughs] I Google Lewis-

Casey Neistat 1:05:19 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:05:20 ... the first thing. Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Casey Neistat 1:05:21 Um, but that's it. YouTube is my main outlet-

Lewis Howes 1:05:24 That's the main thing

Casey Neistat 1:05:24 ... for that kind of thing.

Lewis Howes 1:05:25 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:05:25 And then Beme is the main focus of my-

Lewis Howes 1:05:27 Yeah

Casey Neistat 1:05:27 ... entire career right now.

Lewis Howes 1:05:28 Nice. We'll have everything linked up in the show notes, too, of where to follow you, so that's good to know. Daily videos every morning, 8:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. Check that out. I love it. Um, final two questions, and you're gonna wanna record this for yourself, too. Um, if there are three truths that you know to be true, so every video you've ever created has been deleted from time. It's your last day, and you get to write down three simple things on a piece of paper that'll leave with your family and the world. Three things you get to say. What would those truths be?

Casey Neistat 1:05:59 God, you know, I think I'm too-

Lewis Howes 1:06:01 Yeah

Casey Neistat 1:06:01 ... I think I'm too verbose to say this in, like-

Lewis Howes 1:06:03 That's all you got

Casey Neistat 1:06:04 ... three short terms. Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:06:05 Three truths.

Casey Neistat 1:06:06 Um, God-

Lewis Howes 1:06:08 You want me to hold that up for you or no?

Casey Neistat 1:06:09 ... you're gonna put me on the spot. No, this will be like a 77-hour vlog if I try to encapsulate-

Lewis Howes 1:06:14 Three truths. You get one piece of paper. It's your final day, 100 years from now, whatever it is.

Casey Neistat 1:06:18 Um-

Lewis Howes 1:06:18 You write down truth number one-

Casey Neistat 1:06:20 Truth number one-

Lewis Howes 1:06:21 ... about life

Casey Neistat 1:06:21 ... is that, uh, a life not shared is, is a life not lived, and I totally believe that. I think that if you-

Lewis Howes 1:06:30 Hmm

Casey Neistat 1:06:30 ... are the most successful pl- person ever, but you don't share your life, that it doesn't count.

Lewis Howes 1:06:34 Hmm.

Casey Neistat 1:06:35 Uh, and that's why family is everything to me. Friends are everything to me. Uh, that's one. Uh, okay, number two is I think the secret to success, and this is for anybody in any field, is, uh, working hard and being brave. If you work hard and, uh, work harder than everyone else, and you're brave, meaning that you take chances that no one else will take, you will succeed. It will be the scariest, [laughs] most arduous road that you could ever take, but you will succeed.

Lewis Howes 1:07:03 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:07:03 Um, 'cause those are two things that most people are just unwilling to do. Uh, and the third truth is that, uh, is that health is probably the best gift you could ever give yourself. And I think young people, and by young people I mean anybody who's, who is healthy by definition, take that for granted.

Lewis Howes 1:07:25 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:07:25 Because, like, everything you are is, is only facilitated by your physical being. So to not preserve that is to, is to cut everything short.

Lewis Howes 1:07:37 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:07:37 And I think that that's something that is so obvious, but every time I see somebody drinking a Dr. Pepper-

Lewis Howes 1:07:42 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 1:07:43 ... um, you realize that it's not obvious enough.

Lewis Howes 1:07:46 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:07:47 I'm not... I don't mean to shit on Dr. Pepper.

Lewis Howes 1:07:49 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 1:07:49 I just mean this idea that, like, people casually drink things like soda and you're like-

Lewis Howes 1:07:52 Constantly every day or... Yeah, yeah

Casey Neistat 1:07:54 ... just, like, don't look after themselves.

Lewis Howes 1:07:56 Yeah, yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:07:56 Because, like, the brain that you have is, is everything, and this body is just a, that's your-

Lewis Howes 1:08:01 Yeah

Casey Neistat 1:08:01 ... that's your shell.

Lewis Howes 1:08:02 That's it.

Casey Neistat 1:08:03 And once the shell goes away, like, the brain dies, and that's terrifying. So if you can prolong that or have it be better-

Lewis Howes 1:08:09 Mm-hmm

Casey Neistat 1:08:09 ... because of, because of fitness, because of taking care of yourself, you'll live a better life. Was that three?

Lewis Howes 1:08:13 That's three. I like it.

Casey Neistat 1:08:14 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:08:14 I like it.

Casey Neistat 1:08:15 You have to write those down for me, sir.

Lewis Howes 1:08:16 We will.

Casey Neistat 1:08:16 You forgot them.

Lewis Howes 1:08:17 Yeah, I'll write them down. Um, before I ask the final question, I acknowledge all my guests at the end. So I wanna acknowledge you, Casey, for a moment, and acknowledge you for your creativity and your consistent creativity. I think it's incredible what you're creating and putting out in the world, constantly evolving over the years, constantly evolving every day to put out something powerful, to share your story with the world, and inspire millions of people. It's in- incredibly inspiring for me to watch what you do, and constantly pushing the envelope, pushing your health even, to create something that's magical and creates possibilities for people. So I wanna acknowledge you for, for your service and what you're doing.

Casey Neistat 1:08:55 Well, thank you for those kind words.

Lewis Howes 1:08:57 Yeah.

Casey Neistat 1:08:57 I do appreciate it.

Lewis Howes 1:08:58 You're welcome. You're welcome.

Casey Neistat 1:08:58 Means a lot.

Lewis Howes 1:08:59 Yeah. Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

Casey Neistat 1:09:03 Oh, God.

Lewis Howes 1:09:03 [laughs]

Casey Neistat 1:09:04 Really? I thought we agreed you were gonna be lobbing me softballs today.

Lewis Howes 1:09:08 This is pretty easy.

Casey Neistat 1:09:09 Um, I think the definition of greatness is to, um, is to die broke and leaving the world a better place than it was when you were born.

Lewis Howes 1:09:23 Casey, thanks for coming on, man. Appreciate you.

Casey Neistat 1:09:25 Yeah, this is great. This is great.