The Idaho Painter interview at Tattooed & Successful

I mean, I have two videographers that work for me, a photographer that works for me. And they like full-time, or is it as needed? They have their desk, and I wish they were full-time. They do subcontract work too. They could be full-time. My photographer's full-time, two videographer's videographers could be full-time. I want them to be full-time, but they do other side jobs and stuff like that. So they're in at their desk quite a bit. Like, almost every day. What does it take to keep things running? Do you run out of ideas? Is there something you always pop up? We're just like kind of like your daughters help you out with different trends that are happening right now. I'm like, oh, hey, dad, what are they doing on that way? Yeah, I was in it because I'm an old man. And so what do I know about TikTok and all that stuff? I mean, we produce content every single day. Vertical content on TikTok. And we actually have multiple platforms that we have. Have you always done that, by the way? Have you always produced every day? I wouldn't say not every day on YouTube. YouTube, I produce two videos a week on YouTube. So, and it used to be one video a week. Sometimes it was a little bit sporadic. But if you want to have success, before I came here, I looked up how many YouTube channels there are. There's 114,000 YouTube channels. 114 million, not thousand. That would be easy. I was like, oh, yeah. I got a good shot, guys. Yeah. I mean, early on, I'm sure. 114 million is what I saw on Google as what it said. And it had, it said only 285 have made over a million dollars in ads, which is pretty interesting statistic, too. But, you know, with, are you in that category? You know, how do I, how do I categorize? I, you know, have I made a million dollars through media? I definitely made over a million dollars. Okay. Do you want to equate a number to that? So, you know, I've been a successful painter. I would say, you know, I was trying to, because I knew the question would come up. You know, you guys want to know, everybody wants to know how much money I make. And, and how do you define success? I don't define success by how much money I made. I think I, I kind of define success by, you know, my family, and how close my family is. But then if we want to get into, you know, like the money side of things, you know, I said earlier, I never thought I would own a house in my entire life, not a $100,000 house. I mean, I just never thought I'd own a house. And I think my house that I live in now is probably, you know, I think it's worth like $1.2, $1.3 million. I own my home, and that's a dream of a lot of people. I'm 56 years old and I own my home. I don't have a house payment. I mean, I have a cabin at Tamarack, and you know, it's probably $800,000, you know, cabin. And I own that free and clear. I don't have payments on it. And, you know, I'm building, I have a property, you know, that I'm building, you know, some houses where, you know, multiple family members are going to live. And I own that, I own some other property. And I think that's successful, you know, that's a lot of people's dream. I mean, a lot, I mean, my mother, the house she lives in, it's a reversed mortgage. So, you know, you know, she'll die in the bank, it's gonna take it. And so, you know, YouTube has been this amazing platform that put my three kids through college and pay for everything. They walked out of college, no debt. And so that's a feat in itself, you know. I'm so thankful for YouTube that it gave me that opportunity. I mean, my third daughter is getting married, you know, here soon, that's YouTube paid for that. YouTube paid for three weddings. Do you chase a dollar amount? Or do you chase the success in those things too, just like kind of coexist or like... It has not changed. Because when you first got that $75 paycheck, you're like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna friggin' make it money on that. Like is success first or is the money first? Like when you put a goal out there, is it like, I wanna solve a problem? I wanna create an impact. Or is it like, man, I can make a million dollars doing YouTube? Is it that simple? You know, I was raised, a thing that impacted my life, you know. I was raised and didn't have like anything. And my father didn't have a lot of money. I mean, we, you know, he was divorced. We lived with my father and I can remember eating TV dinners and top ramen. And, you know, and for Christmas, we would get a pair of Sears tough skins, you know. And that was my Christmas present. And, you know, we didn't go on vacations and we didn't do things. And I think the one thing like when my mother-in-law died, my motivation was to be obsessed with working and provide a life for my wife and my kids that I didn't have. And so, I got obsessed with working and buying toys. And, you know, we had quads, we had snowmobiles. We had, you know, we had like all these things. And I wanted to provide them with a life, you know, that was happy. I mean, that's not gonna bring happiness. It's what I got wrapped up into. And it's probably not the best thing, but, you know, it's what drove me. Like, is there always the next thing or you're always chasing the next thing? Does that ever end? Or is it ongoing? Or is it just like clockwork, like on to the next video, next video, next video? You don't put that much thought into it and you just keep going. Yes, it's like, man, my mind like, like, it's the same like, I was competing in CrossFit and having success doing that and I got injured. And now, you know, I'm like, I can't CrossFit now. I don't think I can compete. And so, now I'm on my bicycle riding and like, thinking I'm gonna race again someday. But I think I'm trying to change that mindset. And I told, like, my wife today, it's like, I'm obsessed with like, fishing and stuff. And I think one of the biggest mistakes I made in my life, you know, and I think when Matt texted me is like, would you change anything? And, you know, it's always been onto the next thing in my excessive compulsive behavior. But if I could change anything, it would be, you know, to just slow down and to, you know, not be so focused on myself and be focused on others. So is that the next ideal? Is just like a chance to like, slow down and like breathe and take things in? Yes. And so I have, I have a grandson now and he's a year old. And so I'm like, trying to tell myself, Chris, you gotta like, slow down because you got one grandson and you're probably gonna have, you know, more and you know, be more focused on, you know, spending time with them and my family. I've got, you know, two son-in-laws and another son-in-law coming, I really try to spend time, you know, with them now instead of doing, you know, things I wanna do. I'm trying to focus my life and habits on doing things with them. Do you feel like you're present when you're with them or has that been something you've had to figure out? Like, is your mind somewhere else or do you have to like direct your energy? I would say, I would say I'm learning that. That's like, you know, when I would be, you know, with people like my obsession is like the next race, the next event, the next video and trying to be present, you know, with the people that I'm with is probably a goal of mine. And I think my grandson is teaching me, you know, a lot of that and when he's around and he loves like being around me, he's named after me and so I'm like committed to like change in my life to be in a little bit different. What does that transition look like? Is there a time frame? As far as like moving into a slow pace life, like do you plan on doing the YouTube forever? Do you plan on like giving that up to somebody else or like maybe just putting a cessation to it? Or is that something your family will take on? Yeah, it's, I mean, I think the ultimate goal, I mean, the goal's been to sell the brand paint life. And you know, the Idaho painters, I mean, I sold my painting company did really well doing that. And if I could sell, you know, paint life, the brand paint life supply code, that would be the ultimate goal. My two daughters, you know, worked for the company and they want to be mothers. And so they would like to transition out of it and become moms, which is why my wife was a stay-home mom, you know, raised our kids and so I would like to just, you know, eventually sell the company, retire, spend time with my wife, my children, my grandchildren and enjoy them. And then if the company sells, then we just go to the kids that we're building the business.