Gabriel DeSanti: If You're Scared To Start, You're Not Behind, You're Just Early

0:00My mom in a moment of frustration said, "Gabe, you have the worst work ethic and you're going to get fired from every job you ever have." Gabriel Danti is a content creator on a mission to build the world's longest [music] resume. His grind has taken him across industries, and today he's known for turning jobs [music] into human stories of effort, ambition, and reality. You got arrested for filming in abandoned buildings. You know, in the moment, you're like panicking. You're like, "Is is this the worst thing that could ever happen?" So, I'm like standing in line at the courthouse and my friend Lucy, [music] she sends me an Instagram story. She's

0:34like, "Hey, like this guy Dan Mace is looking for help on some videos. What made you work as hard as you did?" Someone [music] gave me uh one of the early Gary Vee books. So, I got into like watching Gary Vee, understanding like the concept of like working for free, like get your foot in the door. I never [music] mentioned that I was commuting from Connecticut to New York City. He just assumed that I was in the

0:54area because I was just always there. I'll tell you, nobody cared about what the name of the show was, [music] and everyone cared that I was building the world's longest resume. Gabriel, before we get into your story, one things first. You're on a mission, a very cool mission to build the world's largest resume.

1:12Why do you believe this needs to exist? And why do you believe that you're the perfect person to build it? Absolutely. I think it needs to exist because I think we're facing a time where unfortunately people aren't feeling like they're living their true selves or finding themselves in a position of work that they're meant to do. And a lot of people are missing that in their lives. Very simply put, they they just I want to help them find their thing. And so that's uh why I think it needs to exist. And then I think I'm the perfect person to bring it to life just because of some of my past experiences

1:45in life in high school. So, I actually didn't go to my town high school. I went to trade school for high school. And in trade school, you try all the different jobs before you pick one. And as a content creator, like later in life, that thought kind of came back to me of like what if I could really like try everyone's job. And given my time at trade school and my experience through career exploration, I felt that I had, you know, the qualifications to talk about that topic. And then my expertise as a content creator allowed me to kind of bring that to life and bring that to

2:17an audience. I think you're phenomenal. I have been binge watching your content the last 48 hours. And I want to bring back us to the moment where you first stated the words the world's largest resume on one of your videos. Can you bring me back to that moment? Explain to the people watching. Honestly, it was an accident when Tik Tok had just released the one minute creator fund. So, like if you posted videos over a minute, then you were going to make a little bit more money or the CPM was better. And so, my videos at the time were like 45 seconds long. And I was just trying to get the video to a

2:51minute. And so, I was like just blabbing kind of at the end of the video. I was like, "Oh, this show is called Clocking In." And I'm on a mission to build the world's longest resume. And what I wanted people to know was that the show was called Clocking In. And the World's Longest Resume thing was really an afterthought for me. It was like it was just something I was saying just to make the sentence longer and I'll tell you nobody cared about what the name of the show was and everyone cared that I was building the world's longest resume. I think it comes down to like it has a

3:22clear mission. It's it's like a mission statement and it's something that people are familiar with. Everyone's familiar with a resume or a CV and the fact that like this guy is building the world's longest resume. Like what does that even mean? So it's like kind of like weird and mysterious at the same time. You're an opportunist. There's no doubt about it. And there are many of your stories

3:40that I keep repeating on my head. There's one in particular that I've been listening to the last 12 hours because I think it's so fascinating. It's the perfect combination of divine intervention, relentless pursuit, and a bit of comedy. Is it true, Gabriel, that you got arrested for filming in abandoned buildings? And if that is true, can you walk me through that

3:58moment? That's absolutely true. It's absolutely true. And it's in retrospect changed the course and trajectory of my whole life. I think I was like 19 or 20 years old or something like that. And I was into exploring abandoned buildings and I was like into photographing them and filming them. And I was in Rhode Island which is a state that I do not live in. I did not grow up in. And it was a Sunday. And so I looked out the window. So, I'm inside of this abandoned school and I look out the window and the

4:32cops are there and we're like, "Oh, no." Like, you know, like we're not trying to we're not trying to do any harm. Like, we're just trying to take photos inside of this building. So, we walk outside like and we're like, "Hey, like you know, we're not trying to do any harm. Like, we're just taking photos. Here's all of our camera gear." Like, all of us just have camera gear on us. And the cops like just weren't having it. And we all got arrested. There was like three or four of us. We all got arrested because it was a Sunday. There was no judge there to like let us out

5:01immediately. So, we had to stay there for a while. But long story short, because we couldn't get let go immediately, I missed out on a trip that I was supposed to take with uh a group of my friends. I was supposed to go to Toronto, I believe. And because I couldn't go on that trip, I got the biggest opportunity of my life. And it was the next day like the day after I got out of jail [laughter] and uh and and I got the biggest opportunity in my life and it and it's led me to to where I am today. So, you know, in the moment you're like

5:36panicking. You're like, is is this the worst thing that could ever happen? But if I went to Toronto, I would not have been available to be in New York the next day for this opportunity. So, in a in a weird way, like I'm grateful for it. Yeah. And the reason why I said divine intervention is because this opportunity

5:55that I want you to speak on is surreal. I want you to walk me through exactly what had happened for this. And it's fascinating how your content actually led to this or your willingness to even outreach. So, talk to us about what that opportunity was the day you got out of jail. [laughter] So, I'm like standing in line at the courthouse and my friend Lucy, she sends me an Instagram story. She's like, "Hey, like this guy Dan Mace is looking for help on some videos." And for anyone who doesn't know who Dan Mace is, he's a South African filmmaker who was living in New York City at the time, helping

6:28Casey Neistat with a bunch of his uh videos. Yeah, this is like 20 Yeah, like 2019, I I believe. I saw the story like right away. He had posted it within like the last 5 minutes. I had like a, you know, a mediocre, an amateur website produced for myself and so I just shot Dan a message. I said, "Hey, like would love to help you out in the film. Here's my website. Like chat soon." He responded like right away. I I would actually be so interested to see the the timestamps, but to my knowledge, I remember like putting my phone away like, you know, you shoot your shot,

7:03like you don't necessarily expect to hear back, but I like heard back pretty immediately. and he was like, "Can you be in New York City tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. or something?" And I was like, "Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely." But I didn't know at that time that I was going to be able to leave the state of Rhode Island because I had to get permission from the judge to be able to

7:21leave. And uh and yeah, so so I just said yes. And then the the the rest is kind of history from there. I actually don't know if I ever told Dan that story. Like when I met him the next day, like I definitely didn't tell him that the next day, you know, I was trying to make a good impression and we got pretty close over the years, but I still don't think

7:42I ever told him that story. I hope he watches this and he realizes because again, he is a superstar in his own right and the fact that you got this opportunity as hungry as you were. And that's why I actually set that up by saying divine inter intervention but also relentless pursuit on your end, right? Cuz most people wouldn't even shoot that DM. most people wouldn't even have that website even if it wasn't necessarily proper or optimized. And so the fact that you even did that was phenomenal. So I want to go back to then the younger version of you. I know that you've been creating content for a very

8:10long period of time. People see your success today and think, "Oh, he has it all figured out." But it took you a long time to get here. And I know that you've been creating content since you were about 13 years old, creating content about Call of Duty at that time. And the reason I want to go back to that moment is because even today, although we like to say a lot of people aspire to become creators, I would still argue that most people are afraid to say that aloud. I would actually say that most people think it's still cringey to call

8:36themselves a creator and influencer. Now, I know my circumstance 6 years ago when I started, I felt that. I was in a room filled with biomedical engineers. Everyone thought that this was cringey and that it was the weird thing to do. Imagine a decade ago when you first began. I can only imagine that type of response. So, walk me back to the younger version of you deciding to post your videos. What got into your psyche to be like, "All right, I'm going to make this decision, actually put myself

8:59out there." It was really just like genuine interest. So, when I started making Call of Duty videos at 13, I was like looking up tutorials for like how to do things in the game, like how to learn, how to play, stuff like that. And I was just fascinated that there were other people out there like making tutorials for that type of thing. And I was like, "Wow, like if they're doing it, like that's so cool that they're doing it. Like, why can't I?" And I didn't necessarily even think at the time of like, "Oh, I'm going to be a content creator. I'm going to be a YouTuber." Like, I just thought

9:32it was cool that they were like making videos with their friends and then like people might watch might watch, right? But it wasn't there was like no intention of like viewership or like career or anything like that. just kind of happened and uh and then I made some friends online and we were all into the same thing in our clan, you know, and we were like, "Hey, let's make videos together." And so we just started a little group and started posting those videos online. Had like 10,000 20,000 subscribers. And that was like the most incredible thing. like from like 13 to 15 16ish like it was my first experience of like

10:15growing an audience and then I think you know I had slowly outgrew my love of gaming or I was just I don't want to say maturing in a way but I was just you know there were new interests that were coming into my life and some more responsibilities actually and so I like slowly grew out of gaming and I was just always missing that like creation and that process that I had of like making a video by myself in my room or like with my friends and then putting it out there for the world to see and that was like there's something special about that. I was going to say there is

10:52a lot of similarities between you and I story and I think one of the more beautiful elements to your story is that you started without the level of pressure of vanity metrics. It was this thought of genuine pure curiosity and I believe that type of fire inside of you can be on for a very long period of time versus let's say that you do it for these metrics and you're like I just want to make my first dollar. I just want to do these things and if your why isn't strong, right? You start to get casted away throughout the the pressures of what social media brings to you. So

11:19that's a similarity. There's another similarity. You and I actually have similar education backgrounds. We come from engineering disciplines and we've studied that. Now, what's funny, too, is that we both don't use our engineering degrees. And I think what's fascinating is, especially when you're young, right? We never really know where we went ahead. We never know exactly what we want to do. But what I find fascinating is even knowing what not to do, what you don't prefer to do is actually just as powerful as knowing exactly the path you

11:50want to take from a career standpoint. Yep. So given the fact that you and I both don't use our engineering degrees today, I want to ask you what did your engineering experience do for you? How did it influence your work and experience? Absolutely. So I think um there's maybe two parts to that question. So, first I want to like talk about like my teachers because I think that engineering aside without my teachers that I had like I don't know if I'd be sitting here today because I think that they saw things

12:23within me that I didn't see myself yet. I got to live directly in a more corporate environment once I actually went into the field and I worked in the field for 2 years and my first year was so great. I got hired by the most amazing boss. His name was Brian. And working under Brian, he was a teacher and he like genuinely cared about my growth. And I like showed up to work

12:49and I learned. And sure, I messed up. And you know, sure I wasn't perfect at the job, but like he made sure that I was growing. He made sure that I was getting better, improving. Um, and he was really teaching me. At a certain point, Brian got a promotion and I got a new boss. and the learning kind of stopped. The environment became different. It became much more like cynical and it wasn't an environment that I thrived in. And so, kind of engineering aside, I was just starting to identify things that were important to me in terms of like how happy I was at work and who decided like who decides

13:27who how happy you are at work. Sure, it's up to you, but sometimes it's also circumstance. And the circumstances were becoming like very negative. And so that was a point in my life where I was like, I think like I need to make a change. And so I think those are the really important things that I took away from engineering. It was maybe less of the actual engineering work and more of the

13:48lessons that were like behind it. For my biomedical engineering background, when I went into working in corporate, so I had a job at Glasow Smith Klein. I also worked at Merc. So when I was there, I had a similar resonance where I had people that I really enjoyed working with and that made me gravitate towards it and that

14:06made me look forward to the next day. But there was multiple occurrences where I actually saw the people in that world and I thought to myself, okay, this person is 12 years older than me. Do I want to be in their shoes 12 years from now? Y and there were particular moments I remember even one of my mentors Sophia I love her and I think she's phenomenal and even her she would work her tail off. We would have these conversations and she was still not happy. And I thought I'm the type and you you screamed to me this type as well. We want to work our tails off and we want

14:41to make sure that we give it our best effort. But what good is that going to do if in 12 years from now going to be in the exact same spot as these individuals that look unhappy? Did you have an occurrence like that as well? Yes, absolutely. There's one distinct moment that stands out to me. Uh, so I'm a I'm a golfer and there was one of my co-workers that I would go golfing with, his name was Anson. And Anson was I think in his 50s and I remember Anson distinctly saying to me one time like he was so frustrated and he's like a high up engineer in this company. He was so

15:15frustrated. He was just like, "I wish I could just leave work at 400 pm on a Friday and go golfing." Like, go golf. You know, you earned it. You should have earned it at that point in your life. And that was like a huge moment for me because I was like, "This is a look into the future if this is the path that I go on and I don't want that to be me." And I think in a weird way like Anson like

15:42helped me make my decision. Do we know what Anson is doing today? He's still there. You got to get him into one of your contents. You got I do. I actually do. I know. I gotta go to work with him. You got to make sure you give back in that way. I I mean, there's again a lot of parallels between our stories. And one other parallel that I I keep finding in your own background is that you have this really great joy for the creative arts. And obviously at that period of time, you're thinking, okay, yes, I'm in my 20s. Yes, this is a big risk to take

16:11on. And yes, I'm gonna have to make a lot of sacrifices that probably a lot of kids my age aren't making. But what is the price of regret? So you're looking at that 32 year old, 35 year old and you're thinking, I don't want to be in that circumstance. But to make that decision is actually really difficult because when you actually go through it yourself, a lot of times you are by yourself. A lot of times it's late nights. A lot of times it's actually you doubting yourself and having these insecurities, but still having to persevere. And yes, you might have a few friends that get you, but a lot of

16:40people don't get you. Now, there's a fascinating moment that I recall. And for you, it was the idea that you always talk very highly about your mom. And I know she's your number one fan today, but there was a particular moment where as you were doing yard work, I believe, and you didn't really care for yard

16:56work. You're giving it your half effort. [laughter] There is something that your mom had said to you and it has stuck with you and changed you. Can you go back to that moment and explain to everyone watching what that was? Absolutely. So, I grew up in the middle of the woods in Connecticut and honestly, my parents just needed a little bit of help and but I was, you know, I'm a teenager. I didn't know like I didn't know. I thought they were just like giving me chores just for the sake of it. And so, whenever there was yard work, I I just really hated it. I I didn't feel like it

17:29was, you know, I didn't feel like I had ownership in it. I was doing yard work one day and I was just doing a really lousy job and my mom in a moment of frustration said, "Gabe, you have the worst work ethic and you're going to get fired from every job you ever have." And it was maybe one of the most impactful things anyone has ever said to me. And it was needed that I needed someone to say that to me. I don't know if I improved my yard work, but I definitely improved uh and worked so hard in everything else and in every job and in every role I

18:09ever found myself in from that point forward. Do you still find yourself recalling that moment? Are there any moments today where you're going through very difficult patches and you're thinking, I remember that moment when my mom yelled at me. I mean, all the time. Like all the time. But it it has a different ring to it now, you know? It's a little sweeter. It sweetens up over the years. And for you, when I think of you, the first word that comes into mind, not just really cool, but also this relentless pursuit that you carry. This idea of you reaching out to Dan Mace. It's one thing for someone

18:38to give you an opportunity. It's another for you to execute it to the point that you open up even more opportunities. Now, Dan at that time did not necessarily know your situation. He wasn't necessarily paying you even in that beginning for that work at all. Can you walk me through your perspective as a young person? and

18:56like I want to make this happen. Engineering doesn't seem to be my calling. What What made you work as hard as you did? Right around that time, I think it was probably just before that time of of working for Dan, someone gave me uh one of the early Gary Vee books. So, I got into like watching Gary Vee and just understanding like the concept of like working for free, like get your foot in the door, like you know that like that's how that's how you're going to get your opportunities. It was almost a no-brainer to me. I was like, if this is like what I want, I need to get my foot

19:27in the door. So, like, I'm going to do whatever I have to do in order to get that done. And and that's like I that's the only thing that was going through my head. Like I didn't see it any other way. I was like, I'm going to work for free. And granted, like I was able to do that because I still lived at home. I had very little expenses. Like I paid my phone bill. I paid my car cuz I still lived in Connecticut. And like and that was it, you know? I was 19 or 20. So I I was like fortunate that it all kind of

19:55happened at that point in my life where the responsibilities were low and I could just take the leap and and just try. But to be able to count your blessings the way you humbly do and you're always like this and that's why I love you. You're always so humble about your successes. But the honest truth is that you were commuting. This wasn't as if it was down the block and someone asked you to work and you're like, "Yes, I'm gonna make this work. Maybe it's a 20-minute commute." Can you tell everyone watching how long that commute was and what that

20:21work entailed? It wasn't easy work. No, it was like it's a 90minute train ride from Bridgeport, Connecticut to Grand Central Station. It's probably like a 2hour all-in like one way in one direction. So yeah, it was like taking the train in early in the morning, meeting Dan at whatever time he wanted to film, and then taking the train back when we were done, which was oftent times like late late, you know, well

20:47after the sun went down. And for the first, you know, however many days I was filming with him, ne I never mentioned that I was commuting from Connecticut to New York City. He just thought he just assumed that I was in the area because I was just always there when he needed me and and yeah, it was like really long filming days and but I didn't care. Like I I was like this is the best opportunity and I'm doing exactly what I need to be doing and there was no complaints. It was it was amazing. And then at some point like after we finished that first video I think he was

21:24like, "Oh, so like where in the city do you live?" And I was like, "Oh, no." Like, like I live in Connecticut. And I think the fact that I mean, you know, I don't know what Dan really thought, but I think that the fact that I like showed up like didn't complain, just did the work and like commuted, it added some level of like respect to the situation and like whoa, like this kid like this kid wants it. And that's what I would that's what I would think. And because after that he like let me sleep on his couch for like the entire summer and he

22:00lived in a little studio apartment and I slept on the couch. Of course I would like go home every once in a while. But like I would come in for like 4 days at a time I think and just like sleep on the couch, film, film film film film and then go home to Connecticut for a few days, come back, film film film film film and that was like that was my

22:18summer and it was the best summer ever. I love how you just finished that, by the way, because I was just about to ask that the idea of loving the grit, loving the work, loving the process when no one else out there tells you that you're doing the right thing. Everyone else probably today would think, how do I maximize that effort for a selfish perspective? Like, how do I make a bit of money? How do I leverage this

22:39relationship? What? But you're thinking it and you're thinking, this is the price I have to pay because I know I have to get good. Competency is so important for all of us in our worlds and we tend to try and skip that step. But it also opened you up doors to be working with Brett as well. Brett Ki and again another very successful person during that period of

22:57time. What do you think Brett and Dan saw in you during that period? Yes. The hard work and the resilience, but there's got to be more cuz obviously these two aren't just going to give their reigns to a random person just because they're hardwork. What did you display at that age for everyone watching right now? I think that I've always uh had like a sense of maturity to me and like you know I started working in restaurants when I was 15 years old and working in restaurants will like make you grow up and I so I think I just like had to grow up really quick. And so I think I

23:32brought that and and continue to bring that to every situation and conversation that I'm in. But then at the time when I'm like working for Dan and Brett, you know, they need help. they may not necessarily like have a ton of money for to to pay someone to help. And here I come like willing to help for like no pay. And and I brought like a level of skill that was enough, right? Of course I had things to learn. Of course I could improve. Of course, like I was going to get better, but it was like it was still hopefully elevating the things that they were working on. And I think that that's

24:06what I was able to bring. And I think that that's the value that we saw from each other. It's like, okay, here comes Gabe. Like, he can like help film and there's not really like that much money attached to it. And for them, they're like, I need help and I don't have that much money to like throw at this thing. And so, it was the perfect storm, I

24:24think, between both of them. And it paid off for everybody. You've been creating for a very long period of time, and you've done a phenomenal job. And actually, by the way, I've heard, is this true, by the way, that you were tattooing your leg as one of your experiments? But I want you to

24:39see this cuz this is hilarious. [laughter] Yeah, absolutely. Like during co I was just trying to figure out what was going to go viral. I you know like I still hadn't found my voice yet. I didn't know like what was going to work. I I was just experimenting. Like up until it worked. It was all just an experiment. And I decided I was like, "Oh, how like wouldn't it be funny if I tattooed Tik Tok on myself for a Tik Tok?" And then I ended up getting banned on Tik Tok

25:09[laughter] for doing this. And so then reals came out not too long after and I was like, how funny would it be if I crossed out Tik Tok and then like tattooed reals right next to it. And so I did for a real and uh needless to say, none of those worked and it wasn't going to be my thing, which is

25:29totally fine. Probably for the better. But yeah, my I I won't take my pants off, but my entire right thigh is covered in very silly tattoos uh both from videos and other various situations that that that is one of the funniest stories I've heard. I've even heard a few different experimentations that you had ran with your content. But again, it brings me down to this this this mindset where it's easy to look back and think like, of course he made it. Of course he

25:57had the success. He's he's so talented. He speaks well in front of the camera. But there are a lot of years where it doesn't work. And when you did find your voice, that is a special moment for every creator. And I talk about it to any single person. I don't care if they have a very large audience or if they're starting for the first time. This idea of finding your own voice and to be able to present that online because for so long you start to be an imitation of other people because you don't know how

26:23else to to start. Can you talk about what it means for you to find your voice? [sighs and gasps] I mean, it's a dream come true. Like, for any artist to be able to wake up and make the thing that's authentically you, like, what's better than that? What's cooler than that? That fires me up so much. Um, and I'm just grateful that after all those years, after more than a decade, like I was finally able to find the thing that I'm like, this is me and this is the story I want to tell and

26:52this is what I can bring to the world. And if we go to present day, the content that I've been binging for the last 48 hours, I think it's marvelous, by the way. I went through your dog once. I went through all [laughter] the cooking ones. I I I've done almost all of them and I was watching it. I think it's so cool what you get a chance to do. Can

27:08you talk about how this was inspired? Where this idea even came to interview people and to ask them how much they're making and to work with them. Where did this first start? really. It was just another thing that I was like gonna try just like the tattoo or some of the other silly ideas. But my friend Caleb Simpson, he does the New York City apartment tours and now it's global. At the time we were working out every day in the park together. And there was one day where he was like, "Hey, I think I'm going to like try to tour people's apartments." And we were like, "Oh, like

27:41cool. Like let's go film one." And so we were like filming those and at the same time we were having like conversations of like, okay, like this is working. What if we took this idea and this format and tried to adapt it to something else? Like what would that be? And between the both of us, we were

27:57like, what if like you did it for jobs? And so that's really like the inception of it, you know, and he was like, you should like try to go to work with people. And at first like I thought maybe it was more of like an office tour thing like he was doing houses like maybe I was going to like tour people's offices. But very quickly it like became about like highlighting these people and like telling their stories and like showcasing the work. And that's like where I came in and that's where like

28:25all my years of like experience. It all just like flowed and I was like this is me because I was then able to tell the stories that were important to me and present them in a way that I had the skill to do and the desire to do. And so that's like that's really how it

28:41started. Walk me through the production of those videos cuz again it sounds like actually a lot of work and I think also those people that are trying to emulate your format will probably notice that because the idea And and I know behind the scenes, right, cuz you're thinking about it from a creative perspective. You're

28:56thinking, "All right, who do I find?" And even if they're inbound or outbound, I'm going to have to have some form of conversation so that they don't kill me, right? I need to make sure that they're normal. And then secondly, it's the idea of well, I hope that this individual also is okay being on camera so that they're more, let's say, outgoing and that or do they have a personality that I want to tap into in addition, all right, now I'm thinking about the video

29:15itself. What is the hook for it? Obviously, you have your go-to intro, but it's the idea of the structure of the video. How do you ensure that it's angled so that again more people watch it? Can you walk me through that production? Cuz it's not as simple as you just walking by a random person and thinking, "I'm going to film this moment. It's going to take me 10 seconds for me to edit this because they only said really great things." No, it actually takes a

29:34lot of work. Walk me through that. It takes a lot of work. It takes days of work. And I think that that's why I'm not worried when I see people like copying the idea. When I see those pop up, one, I like comment on it. I just I comment on it. I'm like, "Can I come to work with you today?" You know, I'm like like I don't care. Like like imitation's the best form of flattery. Is that the saying? So I'm like, "I don't care." I think any great creator, and you know this, the secret of creating something great is taking something that's very hard to do and making it look seamless

30:11and easy. And that's how I present the videos. they might like come across and to the normal consumer just seem like, you know, they're just like a few iPhone clips like stitched together, but there's like hours of thought that goes into that edit and it's it's very complex. So, I'll I'll give you a

30:30picture of like what it looks like. Please do. I spend a day with someone. I usually have like two or three hours of raw footage. That raw footage is going to get cut down to like two a twominute video. And there's a reason for that. And I go back and forth with like my team all the time of like, is there a way to like streamline this? Is there a way to only have one hour of raw footage instead of

30:52three hours of raw footage? And the answer is no. Like there's not a way. And it comes down to what I call the art of the interview. There's going to be so many questions that you ask that aren't going to make the cut. And I know that when I am asking these questions, but the art of the interview is making someone comfortable with you

31:15so that they open up to you later. I have to have 3 hours of raw footage in order to get the 2 minutes of magic, you know? I mean, and realistically, it's 20 minutes of magic that then has to get consolidated into two minutes. And this what we're doing right now is music to my ears. Anytime we go tactical, anytime we really talk about the behind the scenes of what it takes to become incredible creators, that makes me so happy because one, we don't say this to scare people off, right? We want more people to become creators. But what we do say is that you should have

31:50the right expectation heading in it. It is actual work and you should treat it like that. you shouldn't have effort because hopefully you guys aren't in the situation where your mom's going to yell at you for putting in half effort saying that you'll never actually make it make it out. But [laughter] uh for all those people listening, it's this idea that, you know, content creation is so important and everyone wants the freedom, everyone wants the visibility, the opportunity, they want the brand deals, they want the travel, they want the ownership, they don't want the hard work and it actually is work, but when you do it, it's magical. Another part

32:20that I want to ask you because I'm genuinely curious and I study content. So when I was watching your content, I was like, "Oh my gosh, he's definitely doing that intentionally." When you're when you're making your videos, right, and you're actually the final uh two-minute version of it, the final one and a half minute versions of these. What are you trying to do in terms of a

32:35story arc standpoint? How do you know what to introduce with and how do you know how to tell that meat of the story and then ultimately conclude? You're so good at it. What is your perspective on that arc? So yeah, there's definitely a format to the videos. Act one is you getting introduced to this person, learning what their job is, and a little bit of insight into their process. Act two is a little more like maybe it's a little comedyish where it's like me trying the job. I'm either like kind of struggling with it or just have like a real, you

33:08know, experience like trying this job. My hope is that it's like a little lighter because then act three is like more emotional and I want to leave it on an emotional note and like make the viewer feel something cuz at the end of the day like if you don't leave the viewer like feeling any type of emotion

33:26then you've failed. Your job has failed. Like any video that anyone's like liking or sharing or any piece of content like someone either thinks it's funny or it's sad or it makes them so mad or they're like I have to send this to my mom right now. Like those are all emotions. And so that's exactly like what I'm thinking about with this arc. And the ending more importantly than anything else is it has to make someone feel some type of way so that they follow or they like or they share it. And that's yeah it's very it

33:59is very intentional. Now I have to do this because I was looking forward to our conversation and obviously you ask everyone else. You ask them how much do they earn doing X, Y, and Z. [laughter] Now, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because I really do believe content is is beautiful for the soul, and it's also really empowering for yourself from a personal development standpoint, but it actually can earn you quite a lot of money, but people don't really understand how that money comes into play. So, I'm just going to ask you, Gabriel, in your fashion, how much do you earn doing the work that

34:33you do? All right, this is the Creator Unplugged exclusive. No one's ever asked it. I'm like, how has no one ever asked it yet? Like, you know what I'm saying? I'm I'm going to have to say when someone asks. Um, all right. Before I give you the final like the number from last year, I'll like I just like to preface it um with like the years of grinding, you know, like my first year as a creator doing this show, I was a creator and I was freelancing and I probably made, you know, $60,000 from my freelance work and $15,000 from the videos. In year two, I think I had just

35:16crossed over $100,000 and I was still freelancing and I was still doing the show. The first year of doing the show full-time, I think I made $200,000 or I think it was a little it was between 200 and $250,000. And then last year, which is the fourth year, I doubled it and I made $500,000. Talking about that's

35:45insane. Which is insane. Like I'm like, little old me like like what? And you know there's business expenses that come into that. So I didn't profit $500,000, but that's what the business made last year. But the reason why I've prefaced it this entire interview of how hard you work and your relentless pursuit and your understanding of content because again I can see it from my perspective. I see the engineering. I see the repeatable format. I see the sequence, the cadences. I see all of that and that's why you're deserving of that, right? And that's why you're building something that goes beyond you. And you should be

36:20so proud of yourself. That's phenomenal. I mean, the younger version of myself could have never imagined probably the younger version of yourself think that we'd get to this this point in our lives. Now, I have a question. In terms of that 500,000, what percentage of that is brand deals? Almost all of it. Almost all of it. Um, I don't The videos don't gross all that much on their own. So, I would say 90%

36:45of it is brand deals. And the reason why I asked that is because again, I think a lot of people watching don't understand that. Me, too. Right? As in, I don't make much money from the platforms at all. In fact, in my brain, that money does not exist. And it hasn't existed. Even when I started, the moment [clears throat] that money comes in, even if I have a really good moment and there's a lot of a few thousand dollars in there, I'm thinking, "All right, go straight back into the business." I don't even think about that money. But brand deals though is an actual income stream that you own. And

37:13you do that by working with these brands that obviously feel your audience is in line. And with the work that you do and the content you curate, it's so beautiful. Of course, they're going to want your audience. Of course, they're going to want your shared trust. I trust you. and we've never met before today. So, uh there's a lot that you're doing that's beautiful, but there's another element

37:29to this where you're not stopping there. You actually are smarter than that and you're thinking to yourself, how can I build something that has longevity, right? You're thinking brand deals. Yes, one-offs, great. If I have a long-term brand deal here and there, phenomenal. But you've actually taken a step recently to go ahead and be a part of a business called Stage. I want you to talk about why you've even decided to pursue this when brand deals are

37:51actually working for you. Absolutely. Um, just like you said, for the longevity of a creator, I think it's important to have multiple revenue streams. And so, this thing that is called stage is, you know, my dive into that. Although it'll be years probably before I see a single dollar from it, it's still something that I'm really passionate about and I think it deserves to see the light of day in this world. As a creator and as just a person in general, like I'm very entrepreneurial. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. Although it's uh my family is more bluecollar entrepreneurs, I still have that like spirit within me,

38:33you know, and so I'm I'm just always thinking I'm like what else is out there and what's possible? And what's very important to me is everything that I do, like I really want to be intentional about it. And so as a creator, intentionality means like providing a service that's really valuable to my audience. And I don't want to ever take advantage of my audience in any way. So like when I think about some other revenue streams that like maybe other creators have, like a very like basic level one is merch. And I can't tell you like the amount of merch, and I'm sure you understand this as well, the amount of

39:06merch like you get from companies and from like other people, it's like unfathomable. For the most part, I just throw it away or like I donate it. I just put it in like the donate bin because I'm like, I I don't want this. Like, and so like I have no intention of like adding another revenue source that's like merch unless there's a very intentional version of it just to like make money off of my audience, right? So that's like my preface to like what I'll go into now. Stage is a company. The dream version of it is a job shadowing marketplace that allows you to book a

39:40job shadow in an industry that you're interested in. And my inspiration is kind of recreating my experience at trade school and in my exploratory program, but in a nonformal environment. How can you go and try and shadow 10 different jobs? Learn what you like, more importantly, what you don't like so that you can make a better informed decision around your own career. Whether you're young and need to figure out and be exposed to new new things or if you've maybe been working in your career for a decade or two decades and you need to pivot and you're like, where do I even go? Where do I

40:20even start? What do I even do? And so I hope like with what we're building next is to kind of create this little universe where people can come and learn about careers at all different levels. Whether it's watching simply watching one of my videos for free and being like, "Oh, wow. Like I didn't even know that job existed." or maybe taking a dive deeper into stage and actually, you know, going on site somewhere and shadowing a chef, an interior designer, a plumber, and like really learning for

40:50yourself. That's the universe that I want to create. And so, that's kind of how I think about my longevity as a creator. Gabriel, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your comparison to this idea of merch. I don't think I've ever heard anyone also state it like that. I've said it to my friends and family all the time. So, I can take you back when I first launched my product. I was still a student and that product was called the guide to academic success. It was a 62page PDF and I poured a lot of time and energy into it. But a lot of people in my audience didn't understand why I

41:23was developing that and they actually told me to develop merch. We are creators that are now becoming entrepreneurs. And I think in this world, it's actually one of the greatest assets to have an audience today is the differentiated factor especially in the information age where we got AI and you can develop an app in seconds. It's actually the audience that serves as the unfair advantage and I feel as though we

41:41both understand that. Now it is fascinating because you are choosing one of the harder models. You're choosing a a [laughter] marketplace that has uh and for those that are not uh familiar with the marketplace, you have two parts to a marketplace. You have the actual people that are signing up aka customers. But on the other side of it, you need actual workers or their industries or companies to then collab with you and then you're actually dividing your profit amongst the group, right? Like you have to obviously give them a percentage of it, but I I know that Sash is in this early phase and I believe in it so much. Can

42:11you talk to me about some of the challenges that you're experiencing as this early onset entrepreneur? Absolutely. So just what you were describing having a host and then someone to come shadow for a day it's a huge supply and demand issue and struggle and that's the area where we've struggled the most and there's a clear solve there's a clear thing that's being solved for the stage but there's not necessarily a clear solve for the host and so that's like the hard part has been like finding the value for the host and incentivizing them to want to host outside of like the money. When you get to a certain level

42:53of host, the host doesn't necessarily care about the money, but those are the hosts that we need on the platform because that's what people want. So, we're very much like building this in public and struggling in public and I'm not afraid to talk about it just because I'm gonna, you know, meet someone who maybe has this solve or can maybe like help in some way. But that is definitely like the hardest part and I think you are so impressive for overcoming this. I know you will. But the reason why I'm so familiar with this is because a lot of people will come and ask me to invest

43:28into their their products or their businesses or their marketplace apps. And that is the fundamental issue, right? As in you have two fronts that you're constantly competing with at all times, the supply and the demand. You actually will help a lot on both sides, especially the the demand portion. Um, but give me a specific example for the people listening right now that don't actually understand what we're talking about. when you say that you have to find let's say the host you know what host you need but those are the people that actually probably don't need the extra money they need something else so talk to me about that

43:57yeah so I mean you know when someone goes to shadow you're taking up that host's time you're taking up their energy like they have a job to do and so the idea is that like you can kind of come in and be a fly on the wall but the reality of it is is like that person's still like asking questions and intruding a little it and maybe trying the job too, you know? So, there's an element of like this person is now like teaching you their job while doing their job and that inevitably like is a is kind of a roadblock a little bit, but that's where the real value is for the

44:32stage. They pay a fee to go and shadow. We decided we're not going to take any money from anybody and we'll pay the host if they want to be paid just so that we can figure out like what's going to work and what's not going to work. Like we're going to figure it out on our on our own dime and we're going to figure it out way more efficiently that way because we're going to get more people in the door like doing this thing. And so it's it's just one big experiment. It's really it really is

44:59like one big experiment. And it's so fascinating because I think the product idea is is brilliant. And again, your fit is really brilliant. And when I think about it, I get so excited because I'm thinking, what are the next steps for this potentially? How is he visioning this? And I'm curious for you, right? As in you have stage and you have this idea of wanting to build this for longevity, say you also, you just mentioned that you're making a lot of money through brand deals with your current existing creator

45:23business. Yeah. That is actually a fork in the road that 90% of top creators will go through where this idea of do you sacrifice the immediate for something longterm knowing that both are going to require everything out of you right that was that exact same boat where I was making certain amounts of [clears throat] money I had my own private mentorship I had my own book and I did that and I thought all right that's great but then as I wanted to pivot let's say a business idea it's like when I wanted to launch creative college you know we had we actually sat down as as the team and this is an

45:54exclusive. I've never mentioned this out loud, but in in the spirit of us sharing things that are private to us, when I went ahead and made the decision to launch Creative College, at that time I was probably at about 5.3 million followers on Instagram. And my co-founder at that time, he made a statement across the team and said, if it takes June to get to 3.6 million

46:14followers, we have to be okay with that. Because the idea was, can we sacrifice the immediate engagement for something long-term? And obviously at that moment I'm like are you kidding me? Of course not. Like I'm not doing that. I'm like of I mean I built this for so long and when we went through the process of it it started to make a lot more sense where I'm thinking all right if I am going to go bigger with creative college and I know that there's there's an impact here that maybe there is an

46:36immediate sacrifice. So then we went from I believe around 5.3 million followers. Then we went down. Now we started to bottom out at I think 5.1 million followers. So I didn't have to go down to the 3.6 which but it is something that no one ever talks about where when you build something it's so personal to you but you do ultimately if you want something bigger what's gotten you to your first million dollars is probably not going to take you to that next eight figure marker right like how do you get there and I think you're interestingly in that fork where it's like what do you

47:06effectively do and I'm curious in regards to your content I actually believe from my perspective and having worked with a lot of companies similar to yours I actually believe that the content that you're curating now is wonderful as your base layer, but there probably requires an additional content strategy now if you're thinking about it from a stage perspective, right? You have to start becoming an educator for this as in not just telling stories, but becoming the main guy that people look

47:30at to educate because you should be you. You have all the experience in the world. You have the longest resume in the world. So, do you envision your content changing as in you're not stripping what has worked, but do you see an evolution of it coming up? Yeah, this year there will be an evolution coming up because of some things that we have in the works, but it's more so in addition to what we're already doing. So, we're currently working on like a new content strategy of like, okay, at the bare minimum, we need to keep making one episode a week of what we're currently doing, but on top of that, what else

48:02does it look like? How am I talking about stage and and ingraining stage into my brand and into me so that it like comes across natural and just in general like how am I having other conversations and creating other pieces of content online that amplify me as this expert? You get to experiment and try. Also kind of scary because like things aren't going to work, you know, [laughter] and and I'm going to be like, "Oh no, like that's not working." But then you you're just back to the experimentation phase which is like a really fun place

48:35to be. I believe in you as much as I believe in stage. I believe in you. And I have this one question, this final question to close us out because when I know that the people are watching this, they're going to have all these fears and doubts, right? So we can take it from different age dimensions. We can think about, let's say, the 19-year-old who is afraid of picking up the camera because they're afraid of being seen and judged by their friends and family. Then I think about the 35year-old who is an entrepreneur and they want to create content. They know they should be creating content, but they think that

49:04creating content is actually going to be very embarrassing. It's going to make their business look even smaller. If those people, those two people are watching this right now, Gabriel, with the successes that you've had, the the years and years of hard work and resilience that you've shown, what would you tell those two people? I would tell both of them like the biggest risk for me would have been not taking the risk at all. And of course at those different ages you have different levels of risk tolerance but regardless you can find ways to make a first step and to take the step towards the next part of your journey

49:41and you have to have a really real and honest conversation with yourself of do I need this for me and that's all it should be about it should be for you or your family you know is this is this to better us and if the answer is yes, then then you know you have a clear way forward and that's like something that I

50:02truly like deeply believe. Gabriel, thank you so much for your time. I know that everyone is coming out of this fired up as much as I am. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on.