From Viral Videos to the Big Screen: The Journey of Overcoming Bullying Through Creativity - Whoisbuskey.

everyone in the world when you think of acting and then you put Netflix behind it they're going to be like wo that's impressive so when I see Indians on there I just get motivated welcome to the podcast bro thanks for being here thank you bro so look I'm going to get you to quickly introduce yourself and then we're going to jump straight in awesome K guys my name is basy I'm 6'2 I'm Indian um I'd say I'm fair skinned um and I'm a content creator SL actor that's what I Des desire to be so nice that's me love it bro I love it I love it you stay true to character yes yeah yeah yeah yeah hey let's talk about that take me back to

these first days of content creation where did this all start you say you want to be an actor like tell me this journey bro bring me back so I've always wanted to be an actor y that was like like for me it's still inevitable like it's going to happen but my brother did a few TV shows for TV2 and the one thing he told me is for Indians New Zealand yeah to get any kind of exposure on TV you need to have a name for yourself and I didn't really think about that until I started watching New Zealand TV and I was like damn where where the Indians at where my people at yeah and then so I was like okay maybe he's right and

then so I don't know when I was going to start but then lockdown hit got it and I was home doing nothing yeah literally just drinking beer and eating eating frozen pizzas that was literally what I was doing yeah and then [ __ ] bro like how old are you ah how old are you now I'm 25 now a so you're young you're with the Snapper okay got it but I sorry I started making videos in 2018 when I was in acting school yeah and that was like to my friends I was getting like one follow every month yeah and I yeah I get 100 likes and I post on my story like thank you so much to these 100 people yeah and then I started posting

on Tik Tok yeah and my first video didn't do good and then I remember my second video hit like half a million views wow and that was cuz I was speaking from my personal experience yeah but I formed that into a skit yeah okay gotcha so that's that's where he gets it got you cuz Indian growing up in South Oakland having all his friends that are Polynesian yeah I got stories to tell bro bro I know exactly who you are yeah all my like my best mate's Indian yeah you know he hung out for all us Island Boys yeah yeah where abouts in Southland did you grow up uh mang mang nice I was from manad oh nice yeah re hard I actually had my

phone number growing up cuz we had to when we moved back to manado so manado my whole life moved away when I was like 14 for two years moved back and we had to get a new phone number and I managed to get 267 4273 which is 267 hard bro I had 267 hard as my phone number it was the best it's so stupid now but like yeah the time mom's like why do you want that just get it Mom just ask them for 26473 no one's got it anyway so growing up you did your first thing talking about your experiences half a mill on the second video yeah that was crazy I thought I thought I was like famous you know I was like

Mom Dad pack up you know quit your job I got us I got us half a mill you know I got girls outside the house already they want to get married to me like I don't know what's happening I was on top of the world bro and then my next video after that got like 500 views so I was like oh what is this yeah and then so I realized that kind of sharing personal experiences and skits yeah is what got the attention yeah and just kept doing that cool kept doing that finding other creators to collab with yep um one of my first collaborations was with rean yep and then us gang cool with two of my brothers yeah and then just content keep

getting better and better yeah and we're here now no love I I think it's getting better I hope hope it's getting better yeah I think like I think it's a pretty normal Journey for people um as content creators that your content just gets better yeah because it's also like as an actor like you get better because you do more it's like anything right like anything you do more of you just naturally get better at it because you just put in the rips it's very hard for you to do something like how many videos have you put out hundreds bro I have like probably 2,000 of my drafts that I've never that which I know that like a lot of them could be bangers yeah but

I'm just like I had short hair I got long hair now it doesn't I can't do it that's interesting are they in your draft on Tik Tok on your phone yeah um this is something I I've thought about with people before because I know people like a lot of content creators will have that they'll have their draft folder and um I like literally if I have draft folder it's because I've got like 12 videos I've going to post and they just I'm just waiting to post them because I do my reply to comment videos yeah but I like imagine if you could download those somehow cuz you can't well they in draft a until you post them now you can oh can you now there's

option you can ah see my thought thought is what if you just downloaded them start up some random profiles that aren't busky and just push them out I was think I have been posting them on um Facebook because um a lot of people were saying that's another way to yeah mon your work yeah so I posted on Facebook and the video got like 1.4 million views I was like what crazy it was like I was never going to post it no and I just posted it yeah and I'm like oh that earned me money yeah that's crazy from Facebook yeah really uh to like uh I'd say Facebook's a place everyone neglects yeah yeah for sure it's like they think like oh it's for the

older generation now it's born out like no get money everywhere oh there's heaps man I mean it's still the biggest social media platform right it's still got the most people on it yeah I agree I don't think Facebook should be ignored I think it should be done the right way depending on what you're trying to do um we talk about it here for a lot of the brands that we utilize on um Facebook is like from a Content perspective let's just repurpose Instagram stuff but what you can do really well on Facebook that you can't do anywhere else it's like scale unscalable stuff like you know like for instance like getting into Community groups or how do you use um uh Facebook Marketplace to grow

your brand you know like what can you do on there you know like imagine if like imagine if you wanted to do like uh a Meetup or something like yeah say like as an example we have um we often get uh with one New Zealand we get Warriors tickets and we're like What if I just like go onto the Facebook Marketplace and be like uh Warriors box tickets $0 like or like $1 and people like what is this [ __ ] and someone buys it and then you like go make some content with this person who got that dollar you know c00 you know what I mean like how do you scale those sorts of stuff I think it's like Facebook's still a community platform really well

okay so you built up this audience mhm is Tik Tok your biggest yeah yeah um how big's Facebook then if You' been pushing on that has that been growing yeah it's on it's pushing 177,000 now oh cool nice nice That's great so it was on like I think it was on 5,000 a month ago oh [ __ ] yeah yeah nice yeah crazy blw up Facebook's still Big G yeah and what platforms are you concentrating on then I'm concentrating on Instagram okay cuz for me Instagram's always been the hardest yeah but then now I'm gaining momentum on my reals mhm so with that I'm just cuz I feel like on Tik Tok you can always grow y like I've seen creators that had zero followers the first

post got like 10 million M boom they on like 40,000 followers yeah but Instagram kind of like if you don't if you're not consistent on Instagram yeah you're going to go down a tank yeah um and why do you think you need to grow both Instagram and Tik Tok it's a for me it's a better way to reach audiences okay but as of recently it's been a good platform where say if I want to work with Brands because I want to make this my career so if I want to work with Brands it's good to have good engagement good insights on two of the biggest platforms yeah instead of being like my insights on Instagram are really low yeah but really high on Tik Tok

yeah but instead I can be like hey look they're equally as good yep maybe we can do a video for both platforms got it yeah so really just about building that brand further and further right why not do the more if you can okay and do you do specific content for each platform or do you just repurpose cuz I to be honest I only really watched you on actually don't watch your Instagram I watch you on Tik Tok yeah so I actually don't know what you post the only thing I see you on Instagram is actually your stories now yeah yeah but do you post the same reals on okay cool and majority of the time they do B on Instagram yeah where I'm like

that's crazy yeah yeah we ever like we when we think of the differences these days between the three platforms being Tik Tok Instagram and shorts Al we we think of his meta um Tik Tok in in shorts is that um Instagram's by far the best platform right now from uh how good does the platform work yeah um Tik Tok is like having an identity crisis yeah at the stage right like they're trying a lot of [ __ ] and they're trying to figure it out Tik Tok uh Instagram did that a few years ago where like I like my whole business up until late last year I was like we're not doing M like oh Facebook maybe but like we don't do Instagram and people come in

my te oh it's the one I use I was like yeah but like it's a pay-to-play platform like do not we're not wasting our time and it wasn't until like well it was October last year and I said to Journey we in New York and I was like ig's on like we need to go right now and then that's when we did our rice strategy that we did and we just like blew up after that I saw that you know I saw that video cuz um I think before you guys were in New York yeah I saw Joanie at what I see her I saw like this um like an influencer thing yeah for Tik Tok yeah and I was talking to Joie and I

was telling her how just came back from New York yeah so I got it and then like I think like a few days later yeah I saw like her running around in the airport yeah yeah yeah and that was on like like millions of views yeah the one where she's running and on POV on my profile yeah that was like 16 million now that was huge yeah yeah we knew it would and actually like we like at that stage our story line was really good like we had the 700,000 for the tedo so that was already having everyone go and then started posting every hour on the hour as we left cuz we knew how close we were to 700k and that just built it

up and it just buil it up and everyone was like we were getting messages from people tracking our flight true yeah bro like LinkedIn was going off people on LinkedIn were like bro I'm tracking your flight like where are you at like are you getting to this point like we had all platforms going trying to make sure Joanie got the goal it was insane actually like we landed and I open our phones our phones were going off because that video that I'd done running we' post it before he jumped on the plane turned it off the people actually ran with her randoms we met and they sitting next to us and they like open up their phone and just people like hey I've seen you

on this Tik Tok like it's going off like can you check their phone are there at 700,000 like it was gone off and um so then that one on my video the algorithm just knew and it just showed everyone and then because it took a life of its own because I did the influences and the wild thing then I got all the hate comments too which then fueled it even more which was amazing and it just [ __ ] went everywhere but um it that's why like we also talk about like using multiple flat play platforms to tell one story yeah you know when you so which leads me nicely into like this collab stuff cuz you've done lots of collab you know you boys out South

it's like the way I think of it like there's all these boys of you out South who collab all the time how did that start and why did that start did you know them already or did you link up because of T sh Tik Tok experience so the first one was uh rean and his content's top tier like editing everything and he was he he just supported anyone who's like Co up and coming which was a blessing yeah I had like 500 followers yeah but he just supported anyone cool and then boom from that I got a little bit of juice M and then did it on my own yeah and then linked up with us for the first time yeah nice and that's where

me and him kind of had this relationship where it's like still have it but it's like it's just like boys hanging out yeah yeah and then when you make that a skit yeah and post it then it's like oh cool yeah cuz people can relate to it it's just yeah two mates hanging up yeah yeah yeah hanging out no but it's good like so when you think about that like as a strategy were you were you going in as it oh this is a great growth strategy or were you doing it to just like do some cool [ __ ] with people like how was what was the mentality going into that I wanted to hang out with them yeah yeah I I just wanted to hang

out with I and then with the other people that I collab with like um Tex Jimmy all that like obviously they have great followings yeah but it was never to grow my following yeah which would have like been the logical thing for a lot of people yeah but for me it was like these are people that I love watching yeah I want to get to know them I want to build a connection with them just like a personal connection yeah and then if I get views then I get views but I'm not really you know I'd go over to um I go over to like Hamilton make video with the boys yeah but I sometimes wouldn't even make videos I just go over there to

hang out cool yeah so it's just like creating Community right yeah which I find real interesting because like so you guys are like that community of creators that there are like of you guys like there's a bunch of you guys who will do stuff together which is cool I think it's like um something that you don't see a lot of especially in New Zealand like it's not a normal thing and I've met heaps of creators on this channel who just know no other creators might have met them at like um at events and stuff they don't really know it like even like Joanie right like Joan knows heaps of creators but like she really had two like proper creative friends B Luca and Nikita like

only real creative mates like she knew heaps people met all of you guys at different events and stuff but like they weren't really friends yeah and so like she kind of found it quite lonely as a Creator in that world and like she's not the only one like I mean heaps of creatives who just like find it quite lonely otherwise but I really what I really love about you guys and we've talked about this on the yet podcast with um with this guy and hey like about like doing those collabs like don't it's not just a way of growing it's a way of having a community in a pretty lonely world yeah like being a Creator is pretty lonely like cuz but you know it's

like you might just be like sitting in your room making Tik Tok videos yeah and like millions of people see it but you're like bro I sit in my room for 4 hours on my own bro literally the literally I think like two weeks ago I made a video and I was I was I woke up at midday stayed in my room till 8:00 p.m. yeah at 6:00 p.m. I was like ah this is depressing let's just do something pulled out my phone bro made a 10-second video it's on like near 2 million on Tik Tok 500k on Insta yeah more than um 1.5 on Facebook and I'm like that's like you guys didn't see what I just did before like nothing no and it's

lonely you just do this thing and everyone's like w this guy's so popular it's like yeah but I'm so popular sitting at home watching YouTube like doing what abdal did last weekend e 48 hours or nothing but it's um so I think it's like really cool I think for you for you guys as a team CU you guys are a team whether or not you like officially are or not you're a team the world sees it that way anyway like that's how I see it um to be honest when I didn't really understand who you guys all were I thought us gang because of his name was the the team name oh I didn't realize that it was just one it was a Sime I

didn't realize it was just his brand I actually thought oh this must be a crew of guys yeah right that's cool but like you're a team which is quite cool because like um there's a lot of like mental health issues in Creative World especially like comedic um creators and so like it must be huge for you guys to be able to have that shared thing right like do you guys ever talk like that like I know your young men so like young men are very good at talking about stuff but like how much do you think that that helps with you just with like your ability to keep performing having those guys around you it's good it's good and um I feel like the difference

is with us we do talk about stuff like that cool great so that's awesome like just hanging out with us like it's besides the camera and stuff yeah it's always a good time because so much like interest we have like UFC WWE we like since we kids we watch that so every time we hang out we just talk about that yeah and it's just it's just like a friendship that I've known for all these years cool and then I forget I'm like oh bro don't you have like millions of followers that's crazy that is a bit crazy yeah when you actually meet people like that or you meet people I mean even with us like as we've grown our following and stuff and the people

that see us like it's you forget that you don't it doesn't change you necessarily asn't like you don't realize it but then you meet these people with big followings and you sort of like like Dan will get a little little star trck when people walk in she's like oh my God Dan like you work for a company that does this you've made your clients like this like you know but like it's still like this weird feeling sometimes when you actually think oh [ __ ] that person's got a million followers or or whatever um but actually at the end of the day they're just real people right 100% And I can say this about all the I work with yeah is that the following doesn't get to

the head like no way at all n like I'll say for instance like us like he's gotten to a point where all his videos went International yeah and he was still he's getting like hundreds and thousands of views on his reals Millions on Tik Tok but he's still the same guy yeah and he doesn't change at all no which is awesome to see especially in New Zealand creators cuz I feel like everyone's just really humble yeah and they just they just like being themselves which is cool which I love yeah absolutely totally agree So Okay cool so you got to this point it's now 2024 you're 25 you got few hundred, followers following and all sort stuff and you're going wow the goal is to

be an actor though yeah so what what's the how do you do that what's the next test for you what's the road map look like I don't know yeah I don't know but I do know that I want to to try and move to the US one day cool why is that tell me I've always seen us as the place yeah and then when I went and visited New York last year it's like damn this is the place like it's awesome eh yeah and there's like a lot of like roles being given out to like different ethnicities yeah and I see like my people on Netflix and I'm like oh they got their own special yeah they got own TV show this is cool it's

adorable yeah like there's a Netflix show called Never Have I Ever yep Indian girl Indian parents yeah I'm like that's so cool yeah yeah so just going off there but for now taking acting classes yeah and I feel like cuz I believe in manifestation a lot y so whatever I want I will get just a matter of when I love that that's why you keep hitting me up you want the job yeah tell me about that like that everyone here needs to know but like we talked about script writing and things tell me a bit about that path like why that's that's uh not all actors go down that path but you studied it at school writing scripts and things like that so some of

the ideas weren't fully formed and for me looking at it in that perspective like there was a short film where there was a dude who was from South Oakland who was a drugie who drank codies M and they're like hm who should we cast bsky aren't you from South Oakland would you like to do it and at the time I was like yeah but then now that I think about it cuz I just watched the other day and I was like damn that was stupid yeah like everyone from South Oakland's not drinking Cody not drugged out like theyve got the most talented people yeah the most smartest people people are getting scholarships people are doing amazing things from South Oakland y so so there was

just like playing into a stereotype for for a gag right using negative stereotypes just to get a laugh but here's the thing yeah use stereotypes cuz it's funny yeah just don't use it in a wrong way yeah yeah like for me like I'll use being Indian as a stereotype and for anyone who comes at me I'll be like well I was born Indian I was literally born in India yeah I speak fluent Hindi at home yeah like I've been through everything yeah so for me to use those stereotypes I feel like I'm using those stereotypes because I've done those stereotypes yeah you know I've known people around me who have done those so for script writing I have a very good knowledge on the stereotypes

to you as of recently as well cuz I've been trying to monetize my work I have a good idea and knowledge of how to use stereotypes yeah in a good way yeah I think I always find that conversation quite interesting around stereotypes and how you use them and how you don't and I'm of a similar opinion that like if you uh this like if you're using the stereotype in the right way to it makes sense for the joke yeah as opposing to use it to like shoehorn in for a joke like just to use the stereotype to get the laugh is different because it's the right thing for the laugh yeah like if it's a thing that makes it super relatable because only this type

of person gets that then yeah it makes sense right it makes sense for that but if you're doing it just be like oh we need someone who looks like an acked like an idiot let's use this person from that thing that well let's use that stereotype to fit into the idiot thing or the druggy thing or the Hopeless person that's when it's different when you're making a joke about people who live in Southland and what's normal for people who live in South Oakland funny when you go oh we need to joke about someone who's a drugie Let's get someone for a character from South Oakland yeah that's not right which is crazy cuz I've like to this point I've never touched drugs and at that

point I had actually never drunk so I was like bro I'm like the complete opposite yeah I'm from South Oakland I'll tell you right now I'll tell you right now there is more people who live in a kilometer radius from here that don't do more drugs to all my neighbors that grew up around me in Mad yeah first of all we couldn't afford drugs I had no money I couldn't afford it at best you might smoke weed like not like I never smoked weed cuz I just drank like I never smoked or did drugs or I mean I have smoked but it wasn't a thing like I didn't like it but also like I couldn't afford it like I couldn't afford to smoke or anything

I could barely afford to drink I used to back when I was young we used to have $10 40 o like those like mad jaxs and like Kristoff which was like $10 bottles of spirits like they're literally like a 1.125 L bottle of spirits cost you 10 bucks it's kind of like kind of like Nitro I don't know what that one is do you know Nitro yeah I don't I don't drink you know oh yeah he's a good boy um it's like a it was back in the day before the the laws changed um you used to be able to just sell like really cheap alcohol okay is that like scrumpies yeah Scrump that's like scrumpies now this is 40% oh kind a bottle hard

liquor right it's no different to buying a bottle of vodka right it was vka yeah but independent liquor which is one of the biggest liquor producers in the world right out in hu they make pure ethanol and then they like Flavor it and they make you know like bicat made there right they just like put the thing in it what used to be made there so they used to make all this like cheap Al ethanol which is like good quality ethanol but then they just put flavorings in $10 and so that's why we what we drink cuz portal like um the double Brown 20 for 20 like double Browns that's double Browns are the thing bro you have to you have to when you got

no money bro that was a stap full [ __ ] drink so [ __ ] bro so [ __ ] it's so [ __ ] it's a quiet taste bro it's a quiet taste I I I've you know in the last like four or five years I've never heard anyone say double Brown oh yeah it's the first time I've heard it because who wants to drink it like unless you have to right yeah um yeah yeah yeah yeah now those those are back in my drinking days but I guess um so there's a few things I wanted to lead to right I think my phone keeps going off I think this is this my phone just vibrating the [ __ ] out of it y um there's a few things I see and and I

want to piece these puzzles together so you can make videos and put yourself out there and act that's just cool and you can edit and all the things that you need to do you might not be [ __ ] the best actor uh best editor in the world or whatever but like you can do all the things yeah you can write scripts which is not a normal thing for a lot of creators they just do like Jan's terrible at writing scripts I mean she's better now but like hey she's not a script writer right like she just does yeah she's a gen when it comes to content production but like like she's not a script writer that's not what she does um and you build a community

of people around you they all lifting each other up right so then you said to me so you've done this thing you've got this real good foundation and then you're like I want to be an actor now do you see those two things as like those two paths in life as like one leads to the other or they live side by side they live side by side because I've seen numerous of Tik talkers from America get super big and then get a Netflix show yeah get a Netflix series you know and it's bound to happen mhm and I feel like nowadays cuz social media cuz people watch like it's social media over TV yeah so when like casting agents they might just be on social

media looking say they go across someone like me and they're like oh check out more of my stuff Y and then oh cool he has an acting agency would you like to audition yeah cuz I've heard a lot of stories like that yeah oh for sure so it's I feel like so social media is the way whether it be business whether it be your life goals whatever you want to do yeah build a brand yeah social media will get you there yeah it'll help you get you there yeah it'll give you a better chance yeah that's probably a good way to put it right so why being an actor what is it about that that's you've always wanted to do oh begin deep yeah let's

go [ __ ] now we go no [ __ ] it I don't care um so I probably said this before but my whole like high school yeah intermediate I got bullied okay cliche thing everyone gets bullied yeah but it was more so cuz I had what's that word speech imp yeah speech impediment yeah yeah I had that yeah and I couldn't talk like I was too scared and I was just like whenever the teacher would ask me a question I'd be like got it like I didn't know what to say mhm going into school every day and my stomach would be like [ __ ] like what class do I have for do I have to talk and then just from that I I don't know what happened I joined

um I started doing taek kond do okay cool yeah and that helped a lot and then once I kind of got that confidence and finished school I was like no [ __ ] this [ __ ] like yeah I'm the man like like what like I'm the man I see cuz I like obviously had no friends until like year 12 yeah so I was watching Disney Channel Nickelodeon like being a kid even at that age but then I just loved how these actors were so cool yeah I idolized them looked up to them and I was like damn like if I want to be like that yeah then I started watching different kind of movies and I was like I want to do that M so that's where acting

kind of It kind of in the for the first time I thought about acting yeah it was to be seen got it cuz I want to be seen I don't want to be bullied yeah I want to be respected yeah that was my first initial thought of acting yeah but then now I just love the craft yeah I love the art I love what people do how they can just get their emotions out change from different characters M and become this whole different person go on this journey with themselves yeah and then it just shows cool yeah I love that um it is like often when you talk to like we do a lot of personal branding in our business and how people grow personal

accounts and often there reasons for it is always that there's always some like it's not always a trauma but some conflict when they're young they're like they're trying to a chip on the shoulder essentially it's always interesting to hear like where people's mindsets are now you know we've got like we got clients of like 40s and 50s who still have that chip on their shoulder yeah and they're only now starting to get rid of it by like solving for it because they just went and did other things and so it's quite cool to hear you say like you know like you're coming out of that moment of like no longer needing I mean you are seen now millions of people have seen you more than

the population of New Zealand have seen you before right is [ __ ] crazy when you think about it um but like you can't get into that point now it's like like I love the craft like I'm enough for the craft which is cool 100% so okay then um why is something like a Netflix special or a movie like why do you see that as like oh that would be cool like I want to do that like why that sort of acting because for me when whenever I see Indians on cuz everyone in the world when you think of acting and then you put Netflix behind it they're going to be like w that's impressive or like a movie whoa yeah so for me that's when I

see Indians on there yeah I just get motivated cool and I feel some sort of inspiration my parents when they see Indians on Netflix they're like look at him that can be you but you're just fed but you know and then when I see it that I'm like oh man that can be me like that's so awesome like that's such a milestone to accomplish Y and I feel like instead of like obviously like I'd be thrilled to even get a TV ad yeah a TV show but I'm going to aim for the Stars I'm going to go all in all out you know yeah go for the big shots yeah do you do you do it because like you think it's cool or do you

do it for the same reason that those actors did it for you like are you hoping that it inspires the next generation is like that on play on your mind at all it's both I want to inspire the Next Generation I want to kind of show people that it's okay to laugh at yourself and still get to where you want to be at Y and more so I just I just love the craft man like I just love everything about it the storytelling how everything plays out yeah like what happens at the start of the movie compared to the end yeah like the whole journey you've been through that's the actors obviously the director script arti everyone involved in it but you're seeing the actors

and their emotions is what makes the movie entertaining yeah and just takes you on that thrill which I love yeah which I'd love to reciprocate and do for everyone else yeah and is your favorite part of the creation of your content the talent piece the actor piece or is there other parts of it that you love just as much or writing I love writing really I love writing what do you love about writing cuz not many people do bro because I'll write it yeah and then I'll laugh and if I don't laugh yeah then it's [ __ ] so do you write out your videos yeah okay interesting tell me about that process real quick so I'll just go on notes Y and then I'll write out

like if I'm doing it by myself I'll just be like r video number one mhm and then I'll write buy write my lines other write that lines and just keep going and then I'll read it out to see if it matches like the 10 to 15 seconds yeah and if I don't find it funny it's got it yeah do it all over again yep interesting and that's where I usually find my gyms yeah where where does it start from how do you get the ideas I don't know just come I just literally like all of my videos that I've gone viral I've just picked up my phone and recorded got it but as of recently I've been writing them down and then I've just been

doing it and it's just that not sick and guessing it just writing it down I'm like [ __ ] crack up yeah hey and where does that inspiration come from just random thought just say comes across your mind you're like oh this would be funny yeah like if um I I just did a video and CU I had um I was watching TV and this it was I was watching with my parents and the it was a Bollywood movie and the dude was like he's like no shaking his head and then my dad's like H look shake his head and I'm like oh I'm like oh went to my room and then I'm like writing it down I'm like imagine if Indians were Boxers boom boom like

like that's crack off that's funny showed my dad he was pissing himself laughing yeah I was like that's actually funny like cuz I've seen myself do that I've seen all my family not their head so imagine them in a boxing ring hilarious yeah that's so good that's only a joke in Indian person can make gay that is me shoehorning is stereotyping I love it I'm scared to laugh for too long n it's funny it's funny cuz I've got Heats of good and D mates and it's just like it's cultural yeah like it's cultural it's just part of that um we all all cultures have their idiosyncrasies we all have them it's just that there's 1.7 billion or something Indians you see a lot of it

right like you see it so tell me tell me a little bit I'm just going to change check for a little bit tell me a bit about your parents like awesome tell me about their Journey like why did they bring you here why did you guys come here so my dad was a interior designer yeah and he we all living in India yeah and then he just wanted to have a better future for his kids so he went to Madrid m didn't like Madrid I went to Germany doesn't like Germany yeah was going to go to New York yeah but then he found New Zealand came to New Zealand and he had I think like 30 bucks cuz he paid for his flight he was

staying with like someone he just met at the airport he was like I'm Indian you're Indian can I stay with you yeah cuz my dad has this like Aura and this like like Just Energy where it's like you want be friends with him yeah and then he got a job as like I don't know he was working in a restaurant yeah and then when he finally settled down he moved all of us over got it and that's yeah yeah and so how old were you when you moved there four four yeah how old was your brother is it just you and your brother yeah yeah how old was he my brother's 31 now oh okay so he's a bit older than you when he came

over yeah and you said he's been doing some acting yeah so is that part of your like desire to like you know like little brother looking at the big brother going man the path for me yeah what's the stuff has he done where would I have seen him he was on um a TV2 show called super City with metan Samy yeah yeah yeah yeah y he was one of the main actors in there oh okay yeah yeah I haven't watched the I know the show yeah that show was on when I used to live abroad oh okay yeah yeah it was a few years ago now yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I wasn't living in the country at the time and then he did like

a short film called oh not short FM like a proper film it was called stars in the eyes it's like years ago but those are the two big things he's but just from that I was like damn he's cool like something I want to do yeah that is pretty cool yeah and okay I've learned he's about you mhm I want to know like being an actor and getting on there is like cool goals and all but like but why like I still don't really get why you know like why do you want to do it what does it do makes me happy yeah yeah I can't I I don't have like top three reasons why acting is the best role but I just know that

it's something that makes me happy yeah when I put a camera in front of my face and talk yeah or make a video makes me happy yeah write something down makes me happy and as of recently I've just wanted to do stuff that makes me happy yeah yeah because like now before yeah I used to care about what people think th the bullying affecting me that like that but now I'm just like [ __ ] it like if I want to do this I'm going to do it when I want to do this I'll do it like I'm not going to take no for an answer unless it's a no from me um what part excites you the most about being an actor the journey okay got

it yeah what does tell me about that Journey piece because there's so many different people on this planet right yeah everyone has different backgrounds upbringings yeah with acting if you get a role yeah where you have to portray this person and mhm uh background you've never experienced now you get to experience it now you get to see what that's like and you get to become that person for whatever months you're rehearsing yeah and I find that so cool yeah and I feel like that's that's a better connection to the world better connection to more people you meet yeah so I'm just going to ask you that so then so I like that that journey is the reason but then you didn't went and said that

like you get to experience these other people in these roles right and you get to learn and experience their lives what stops you from just like doing it yourself now like you could still get that feeling by creating their character yeah why can't you just do that now to get to that point because there must be something deeper right you see what I mean you know you could if I told you right now buy you have to go start a channel and play this character you could do it right yeah right could you yeah okay so then that's not the thing because you could do it now so what's the thing like why like what are you trying to do I think I have done

that though on my Tik toks I have became other characters exactly not the journey is it because you've already done it and you can do it now so you're already doing it so now you've but then that will get stale at some point right you know you're young so you're door for a b you be bor so like that's why I want to press you on this because like it's not deep enough you know because you're young so you don't really understand what it's like to live long yeah which means that you realize that like this idea that you've had for a few years is cool and deep but like you give it three more years and you'll [ __ ] want something else and then it

becomes empty and then people like journey is a great excuse there a great reason I want the journey cool but then you went on to say like I want to be able to do this thing and then in my head I was like the [ __ ] he's just he's been doing this thing for three years the [ __ ] is he on a b he's [ __ ] doing this thing right I've seen him do it I watched him play other characters right so then it's like well if you don't think like I think you have maybe the answer somewhere deep but like if you only look at that what ends up happening is like do you want to drink bro I'm you sure out way yeah you guys go

for it cough it out um if you only think of it as like this destination point of like I get to play these things and take these things off my bucket list it it becomes real shallow real quick because like it's like traveling right so let's say you grew up and you zaling your whole life and then technically you did right but I don't know how much you traveled as young but let's say you just grew up your whole life in New Zealand that's all you knew and then when you're like say like you're 18 or say you go first overseas holidays just pretend and you go to Australia when you first go Australia F this cool you go to theme parks you do beaches

yeah this is mean you come back and then you go to like the UK like [ __ ] this is epic and then you do a twoyear stunt there and then you might travel around Europe and then you travel around Asia and all stuff and then you end up like you're at your 35th country M that 35th country like I'll tell you right now people who go backpacking through southeast Asia and they do all the [ __ ] you know they'll go to Thailand and then Cambodia then LA and Vietnam and then they go to China and stuff like at some point they're like man like another Temple you know like another [ __ ] t-shirt from a beer company I got to buy and as you start ticking off these

things they get less cool yeah less fulfilling as you do them because it's just another version of the same thing like I could try heaps of sodas but like at the end of the day like they only get so much they get they get diminishing returns on that effort yeah so like you playing characters it's like you'll start to play more and more characters and you'll start to be like yeah okay cool like I mean what you'll find out is that there's like very little between humans actually and like we talk about it a lot like um do you know the the channel um we're not really strangers we aren't really strangers anyway it doesn't matter it's on YouTube the point of the title is

that we aren't really strangers we're not really strangers which is that humans aren't actually that different if you really break it down down yeah humans are all the same and so actually when you starts to play other characters there's like nuances and things that you do but like you play enough of them and you start to see patterns evolve and then so like if that was your goal and that's your journey of thing you'll you at one point you'll be like I'm [ __ ] I guess it might also be no I appre this was good cuz I wanted to get to the next piece go I guess it also might be to play characters that I'm too afraid to play Ah that's good yeah so obviously

there's characters where I'm going to be like there's no way in hell I'm going to make a video like that I'm gonna be this person yeah with acting you have to be this person if you don't want to be this person you don't get the role yeah and that excites me too why because it's out of my comfort zone and what does that do it grows me yeah there we go this is it bro this is what I was trying to get to right cuz that's the trick it's the growth that you're looking for in growth as opposed to experience you're looking for like this growth of character your not character actors like you're becoming a better person because you get to play these other

actor these other characters which allows you to learn more about humans which makes you a better person you know you're more approachable and all the sort of stuff and you understand cultures better but just everything about you grows your talent grows you'll do more acting gigs or you'll see how movies are made differently so you'll know all the different aspects of movie making you'll understand how directors work how writers work how this stuff works right so you'll grow yeah and that's kind of like what I was trying to get to is that like if the the goal is to play characters you'll hate it really soon yeah cuz I'm doing right now yeah and so you need something more and the more is usually simpler

and so for often for a lot of the guys in our team I'm like you don't want to be a like videographer you don't want to be an account manager you want to just constantly learn about something and there's different career paths that you can choose um Artistry is one so there a path of artistry of like being an actor and just like learning all the things and facets of being an actor yeah there's business like entrepreneurship there's um sales um there's leadership did I say leadership no I didn't leadership already so there's like a few there's only like a handful of careers you can actually take and there's jobs at the time that you can do while you're on that career path so like

my for me my career I'm naturally good at business and I've learned to be a leader and but at my job at the time so I often call myself a leader of people that's my job that's my career right now my job as CEO of the attention Zager yeah I used to be the general manager of hotels and I used to do all the stuff those are my jobs but if I wanted to chase GM sh yeah I'd get bored eventually right just like if you're chasing acting girls m but if I knew what my career was like if your career is to be the best artist in the world ever or just to be the best artist possibly you can be that's a lot

different to me like I'm going to play lots of characters yeah cuz Artistry is so much more right there's so many different ways to be an artist you know like a director is still an artist just like an actor is just like a music artist is just like a painter so there's lots of ways to be a career in Artistry or you might be like actually no I really want to be a businessman like I really want to grow a business or something who knows often like people have like two one or two streams of careers that they want to progress and so for a lot of my team what I'm trying to teach them is that like yeah don't pick the skill like there's

no point being picking a skill pick a career yeah like I'm not gonna like when even talking with this guy what I I haven't really had the full conversation with him but like here seeing what he's done and what he like most of his internship he edited and then I was like I'm not going to give you a video job like it's just not the right career path I just knew it wasn't right like understanding who he was the way his brain thinks i' I've gotten pretty good at like understanding people I was like now you're going to do this other role social media coordinator because I actually think you're better as like a holistic thinking project management person and actually that career path is

a leadership down the line and you can already see it's like quite good leadership skills like they're really like your leadership skills are real like um early stages of it but he's got good leadership skills because he's even been able to come in good leaders lead themselves first and so he was able to come in and go look this is what I need to do to get like to make the most of this role and do be my best and I'm going to show to these people that um I can lead myself with Integrity right and so by doing that it shows instantly that okay cool you've got the first rung on the ladder of the leadership climb covered the next thing is to go

how do you direct other people to get them to achieve the things you want right and then you keep moving on this lat so like my job as a person as a leader is to go what's the path for people and help you go on that one but I'll never go to someone like I'll never say to JY try to teach you how to make a better Tik Tok I'll never try to tell Nate how to do better strategy yeah or the account manager the project manager better like what I want people to understand on their career path is like what's the career you've got and so if we think about that a little bit for you m do you think it's Artistry like do

you think that's the thing or do you think there's something more there like do you have desires of business or leadership or like is there anything else that you think or you have natural skills in outside of artistry or Artistry do you think that's the one Artistry would be main y but also just with my social media that's my own business yeah I'm My Own brand yeah so I'm you be managing it right yeah I'm looking like every day on how to expand that yeah and how to capitalize monetize yeah and just grow it cool yeah so that's good so then um% on that battery so we'll start rapping it's already been an hour right yeah it's 4:30 yeah um so what I want you

to do to think about as a like I mean you don't have to do anything you don't know me from bar so but like if you think about like that career path like yeah think of artistry as the thing not being an actor because could be anything then then when you get B of playing different characters you go cool now move on to the next thing of artistry right you get what I mean so you don't get bored and um you don't have resentment in your role cuz you might spend like 10 years getting the best at becoming the best actor yeah and then you achieve some pinac like [ __ ] now what and then you see these people who hit those career paths and they

burn out cuz they're like what now I am the best yeah where do I go to now right and so you have to think like what more is it no I'm I'm going to be I want to be the greatest artist I can be yeah and then your secondary one of business is great because you should always have well I think most people should have sort of two concurrent career paths yeah and like using that like how big of a business can I grow what what are some of my goals there what are my purpose for growing a big business you know like do I want to provide for my family like you know for me it's like provide for CLA and be the richest

man in the world those are my two goals in business like what do I need to do to do that and being the richest man in the world is not about having the money it's about it's a scorecard money's a scorecard like it must mean I'm [ __ ] good at business if I became the richest man in the world right that must be why I did that you can't just lock your way into it like rich kids don't just become the richest people in the world right they're rich but they're not the richest person right so um if you think about that like it helps you with your own next like decisions around monetization when should I monetize like how do I monetize and where to

I go and what does monetization allow you to do so if you think about Artistry moving to the US like how do you make that happen save money really yeah save money just cuz I wouldn't want to work there when I'm there you know just want to go there and Chase do whatever I can why do you need a save money if you just make money ah you know what I mean like what if you just got paid to be there yeah that's yeah that's better oh yeah I mean like then you don't have to save you can speed up the time right she get paid to be there you know I mean it's like shy right she's about to move to New York is

she yeah with me are you moving New York yeah really the company's opening an office there bro oh [ __ ] yeah congratulations yeah we went there last year for 10 weeks right yeah and that was to do feasibility we got a big client over there and Jan and I go back in two months well that's epic [ __ ] yeah congrats yeah cheers bro we've been we've got Global clients since day one oh [ __ ] that's ganga so I mean she's just going to get paid to go yeah W that's that's better right that's so good yeah so like I guess like the reason this is called stance B is like just I don't know the answers for you but I don't know your situation I've just met you

today but like I know when people are young like they just don't know what's possible like what is out there what can we do and I guess like my challenge to you is like thinking maybe there is more than just the typical way of doing things of me saving giv me some money and moving there and trying to get my break like just go there with a plan get the plan to pay for you to go you know like I'm not going to tell you how to monetize like yeah there's heaps of ways to do that and I can if you've got direct questions for me on how you do it I'll answer them we might run out of battery but we'll do it off

camera um but like it just like expands your brain a little bit like I think that you got more to offer the world than be a great actor MH and I think that if you tried to be just a actor you would burn out or hate it yeah and I've seen it so many times if Janie thinks of herself as Tik tocker she hates it she hates it you know the reason Jan's still here is because she's realized what she's growing into you know her ability to lead others now is like phenomenal when she first started she was a lone wolf like hated working with other people and now she's like look she still gives people sideo thinking it was AB doll when she saw

you but like but she's real good at it now she's very good at working with others now and her ability to understand conceptually what she does and strategically what she does is phenomenal right like everyone Praises her now on the team like you wouldn't even have known her differently but she's a met right y just like knows how to like articulate her her talents and what she's doing in her strategic thinking so as long as she realized she's growing there in that career path of like strategic thinking she's okay soon as she's like I'm just a tick tocker it doesn't matter that she's one of of the best ticktockers in the country [ __ ] with her yeah hates it yeah she goes into a hole in

a bad place and that will that's what will happen because you'll be like well is that all I am I'm just an actor I can play all these roles yeah cool I played some white dude like you know like I did white face like you know like you know there's a character you might be scared of playing cool but at at some point it's enough yeah and then he lose it so like the thing is to be able to go okay what's that next like how do I keep this career going what's next and if you pair those two things business and Artistry together you start to build a real cool career you masch these two worlds together and then you you find fulfillment and

at 25 you don't really think it's a big problem because you let the world so big and there's so many things to do Jan's younger than you and she already hates Tik Tok how old is Johnny 23 what yeah she it turns 24 in June no way crazy eh were you shocked as well I'm shocked as I'm still shocked I still don't believe that cuz you hear Joanie talk and she articulates herself for a well but she never used to she never used to Janie has like come a long way since I first met her yeah because like I just don't accept anything from her unless she can talk to you know I'm like [ __ ] off Jenny figure it out tell me why yeah you

know like I just like a lot of people go how do I find my joury and I was like first of all you need to be an overbearing boss that pushes like to the Limit but also like Jan's like evolved into that like a lot she's [ __ ] awesome now it's the reason she's going to New York with me because I need her with me like I can't do it without her you know I need that support not just from making Tik toks yeah like I could take any of the guys now who know how to make Tik toks yeah but from a strategic speaking perspective I need her next to me you know so she's like invaluable and that's just from like a constant growth

learning understanding that Tik Tok doesn't Define her and every time we try to get that like that happens she goes into a dark place so I think that will happen to you eventually as well if you just think of yourself as an actor I know you're not just thinking that but like you know like if your goal is acting and all the acting it'll eventually tire at the moment you just haven't had those big moments of doing correcting [ __ ] yeah she was like a Tik tocker right she's done all the big [ __ ] you know she's had she's built two massive social media profil well three without Instagram as well right she built hers she built Al te's one and Al's Instagram one she's done it

what now you know and so she she loses it so I don't know if that helps at all or if I just talked a whole bunch of [ __ ] but like no it does help yeah may you just like let that think and s in okay what do you got for me we got like [ __ ] we got 3% H we got 3% what do you got any questions before you wrap up how would you say is the best way to monetize um the first step to mon izing successfully is trying to put it off for as long as possible the longer you can put off monetization the more money you'll make okay it's a hard thing to comprehend I don't have enough battery power to tell

you at all but um the longer you can hold off the better because the the place that you start at is where you build from okay and it's real hard to build from like someone who started off getting $10 an hour it's hard to get them to $10,000 an hour but someone who started but if you wait long enough and you start at a th000 it's way easier to get to 10,000 because there's just relativity and things both from people who paying you and yourself of accepting that value right so the longer you're going to hold off a monetization the better the second thing is if you just want to be a Creator and you want to make your money from creating just go to

YouTube Just Get YouTube working just get it working figure it out build YouTube get YouTube to pay you yeah the third thing is what value do you offer the world like what can you give them right and I often think for a lot of young creators they don't want to they want to do cool [ __ ] but like go get a career go like realize that you're young and that people like like [ __ ] Ryan Reynolds Ryan Reynolds was old when he first started acting properly right when he got his big break and two guys in a pizza or whatever two pizzas or whatever that [ __ ] show was two guys and a girl in a pizza shop that's what it was like you don't have to like

you've got lots of time like if you didn't get at your first Big Gig to your 30 what can you do in 5 years yeah you know yeah so like how long can you hold it off and hone the skills and build your brand um and then in building YouTube along the way to make money but get a career so you can learn all this [ __ ] like you know like you reaching out to us when we talked about it and things like maybe working with us or even if it wasn't with us like working with like just going doing an internship at a Film Production Studio like get into it like learn [ __ ] like people don't realize how much you learn once you're in the

grind yeah once you're actually doing the thing yeah and you learn shitloads right like a lot of people who come and do interns with us are like oh [ __ ] is that what it was like is that how it was like this kid man he learned shitloads watching him grow hey yeah like you just don't realize what it is so find a right environment and learn it that's monetization you're going to be able to get a job better than other people because you got a brand like you text me saying you want a job you already put to you higher than everyone else because I already know your brand right I already know I've seen you do the thing that's monetization oh isn't it we have

a chat off but but you know what I mean getting a job is monetization people say oh but I want to be rich it's like yeah but like you're [ __ ] 25 like just like build the foundations and be indispensable and the longer you can hold off by selling things to your audience even if it's a brand deal the longer you can hold off for that the better yeah and then you can go big and honestly where a lot of New Zealand um creators don't do is they don't think they can build their own business they just think I'm a business CU I'm a Creator and I can get brand deals [ __ ] that like go be these guys who build like go be the Mr Beast

and make Feast bills right like do the big things my thing like I'm a content creator I might not be as prolific as my own socials as you guys but like I went after a really Niche audience of business owners who could pay me money yeah and then um and I built it from that from selling a service I sold them something of more value and instead of selling someone else's business I sold my own and then I get to reap the the rewards so like you can monetize if you want but actually because you're such a person who loves the craft make YouTube work figure it out just figure out YouTube trust me if you can get 5 to 10 grand a month off

YouTube which is hard but it's not that hard like heaps of people do it I mean I was talking to ks the other day some months he'll make five grand off of YouTube right if you can get that that's enough to live on yeah and then you can keep honing your craft and doing more [ __ ] right and then one day you'll get such a big audience cuz you're doing it so hardcore that oh you can do anything you want just launch a product launch a service yeah and make millions instead of tens of thousands you know that's what I think I think a lot of people try to monetize too early and they monetize real like real shitty like oh I got this $1,200 brand

deal [ __ ] you $1,200 bro you know like it's cool but it's like when you're young it's like yeah it's money but like actually like just just like see how long you can hold off or if you've got some value you think you already can offer like when we talked you have some value you can offer give me the value sell me that value you might not be able to sell it for 400 an hour right now because you don't have the work behind you yeah one day you might so but you go start somewhere yeah so I would say get a job get a job in the field because you want to be an actor to learn the trade properly yeah does that help awesome

bro hey thanks so much for coming on the podcast I really appreciate awesome to meet you nice to meet you bro and uh we catch up soon yes cheers man