← The School of Greatness
The School of Greatness
How MrBeast Handles Endless Hate & Still Impacts Millions of Lives
01:44:19
MrBeast reveals the brutal reality behind building the world's largest YouTube channel and changing millions of lives through #TeamWater, ethical business practices, and masterminds that accelerated his success 20x faster. Discover why surrounding yourself with obsessed collaborators is the single most controllable factor in achieving greatness, plus his framework for balancing world-changing impact with mental health and family relationships.
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- [00:00]
Lewis Howes
There is one main thing that is blocking you from reaching your full potential. And it's all because you're trying to do everything alone. And that's a big problem because real growth happens when you build a community, when you're in a room full of people who want to see you thrive, who support you becoming your best self. And if that's something you're looking for, then make sure to join me at the summit of greatness live at the iconic Dolby Theatre in in Los Angeles down in Hollywood, September 12th and 13th. Because this year is a powerful lineup of incredible speakers and performers like gabby Bernstein, like Dr. Tara Swart, like Brenda Bouchard, Amy Purdy, and so many more inspiring surprise guests. You'll experience a couple days of transformation and inspiration and deep connection with a community that actually gets you and wants to see you thrive. And tickets are selling fast. So go to lewishouse.com tickets right now to get your seats, bring your friends and family, and I can't wait to see you there at the summit of greatness very soon. Welcome back, my friend. Today we have the largest creator in the world. His name is Jimmy Donaldson, but you know him as Mr. Beast. With over a half a billion subscribers on his YouTube channel alone, a billion subscribers on all of his platforms, hundreds of millions of views per video, Jimmy is using his platform to also plant trees, clean up oceans, feed millions, and now provide clean water to communities around the world. And that's one of the things that I appreciate the most about him, is he's not only building massive multi billion dollar companies on the back end of his media empire, he's also doing it for good and and serving communities around the world. And you can learn more about his current campaign@teamwater.org where he's raising $40 million to give 2 million people clean water for decades to come. We made a big donation here at the School of Greatness and I encourage you to make one as well over@teamwater.org and I sit down with Jimmy to go behind the scenes on what it really takes to build one of the most impactful brands on the planet. Also with the success that he has. And he has a lot of criticism and I've never heard him talk about what he shares in this episode, about how he deals with the criticism, to stay focused on his mission and also continue to give when people are constantly criticizing him at different levels in his career and his business. We go behind the scenes process of creating viral content with global impact and why philanthropy and business aren't mutually exclusive and how to do both. Well, that and so much more in a very in depth conversation here. If you're enjoying this, make sure to share this with a few friends that you think this would inspire as well. Subscribe to us over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and let me know what you think over on social media. We'll be sharing this out everywhere, so make sure to share this with a few friends. Also, our annual conference, Summit of Greatness is happening in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theater September 12th and 13th. Make sure you get your tickets because tickets are selling out fast, there is limited seating, we have an incredible lineup of speakers, and if you are looking to take your business and your life to the next level, if you're looking to unlock some untapped potential that's inside of you, then this is the year to show up to Summit of Greatness. Some incredible magical surprises will be happening on stage. Make sure you get your tickets summitofgreatness.com and I hope to see you very soon in Los Angeles. Okay, without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one and only Mr. Beast.
- [03:58]
Jimmy Donaldson
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- [05:01]
Lewis Howes
Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited for our guest, we have the inspiring Jimmy Donaldson. Mr. Beast is in the house.
- [05:09]
Jimmy Donaldson
Thank you for having me.
- [05:10]
Lewis Howes
That was a good.
- [05:11]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, that had good echo and everything.
- [05:14]
Lewis Howes
Great start, man. I want to share a few things that you've done to really change the world in a powerful way.
- [05:19]
Jimmy Donaldson
I'm going to just close my ears. I don't like hearing people talk positively about Me, Go for it.
- [05:22]
Lewis Howes
This is what has been done online that I've seen of you. This maybe is different by now, but this is the stats. Over 23 million trees planted with team trees with team seas. 33 million pounds of trash removed with beast philanthropy. Over 50 million pounds of food, 42 million meals, 7.7 million people fed. Many other things that you've done to help people. Through that, you have over 414 million subs. By the time this comes out, it's probably 450 million subs on YouTube. And with Team Water, you are aiming to raise $40 million to bring clean water access to 2 million people around the world for decades to come. And you do so much good in the world, and yet you get criticized so much as well.
- [06:08]
Jimmy Donaldson
Oh, you're just jumping right into that.
- [06:09]
Lewis Howes
And I read a tweet of yours, I think it was maybe a week or two ago, that said something along the lines of, there are tons of people that will never volunteer for anything, that will never donate a dollar, and yet they still criticize me for all the good that I do.
- [06:23]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [06:24]
Lewis Howes
How does it make you feel to know that you are literally changing the world through resources, time, money, attention, to serve humanity, and yet people still criticize you?
- [06:36]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, man, that's a fun one to start off on. I mean, the, the more I, I think about it, the. The thing is, my audience is so big. Like we get 150, 200 million views a main channel video, which, when you think in terms of humans alive, you know, there's 8 billion humans, 1% of that to 80 million. Like more than 1% of people on the earth, you know, are watching every single video we make. And so it's, it's impossible at this scale to make a piece of content that, you know, 100 million people will all conventionally be like, this is perfect because there's different cultures, different languages, people are raised differently. So it's more. What I look at is like, what of the. What is the percentage of that 100 million that are happy with what I do versus mad? And like, you know, if 99.5% are like, this is amazing. And they're on board and, you know, it inspires them to go do good. But in only half a percent are like, negative. Well, because my audience is so large that half a percent is larger than most people's online following, so it can seem really loud, but in the grand scheme of things, it's like, oh, when you look at a percentage wise, it's really not that big. Of a deal. So I think at the start, like, one of the big ones is we helped a thousand blind people see again through cataract surgeries. And we did all around the world. And people are very vocal about that. For whatever reason, they didn't like it. Well, they're just like, well, why don't you help them off camera? And I was like, well, we use the videos and the brand deals and ad revenue to do it. Like, I. If I didn't make a video on it, we just wouldn't be able to do it because that's, you know, over the course of our channel, we spent, you know, tens of millions of dollars on helping people. And so. And most people after I said that, they're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. And then you have some. So it's just looking at it from a percentage standpoint, that helps, but it's still, like, kind of funny at the same time. But I. I'm just gonna do it. I mean, even if 50% of people complained, I mean, it just like, you'd still do it. Yeah, why not? It's.
- [08:15]
Lewis Howes
Does it affect you in any way when you see it, or are you just, like, it's part of the game. I understand it, and I'm gonna keep doing my thing.
- [08:21]
Jimmy Donaldson
Well, to be fair, not all criticism is invalid. Like, sometimes people would be like, you know, you make these video on helping people, but you don't. This is what I used to get back in the day. But don't really give the viewers that. Act like, a way to go further on and do more. And, like, that is a valid criticism. So now we try to, you know, direct them towards, like, here's how you could actually do help. Like, we just recently did a video. We gave 2,000 people prosthetic legs that didn't have legs so they could walk again. And in the middle, we did a whole segment about how you. If you know someone who grew out of their prosthetic legs, which is pretty frequent, like, if you get one at a young age, you know, through puberty, you're going through multiple different ones, and then people just don't know what to do with the old ones. And there's a clinic who literally takes recycled prosthetic legs, fixes them up, which is, like, dirt cheap, and then gives them to the poorest of people who can't afford one. So something that would have cost someone $5,000, they can now get for, like, 100 bucks, because it was just something that someone was going to throw away. And so, like, that was an example of like, here we're helping people, and then we're also telling the 100 million people watching how they could help. And you know, I mean, it seems obvious in hindsight, but that, but that was a version of people saying things and I applied it and it was a net positive. So, you know, it's just, that's really. What you have to do is like, when you get a bunch of criticism, if you're at my scale, you just look at it. Majority of it is just going to be people hating because, you know, people are miserable in their own life, they're just going to complain. And so if someone leaves a comment like, you know, you should kill yourself. This sucks. Do you even put effort in? That's not an objective comment. That's like a thing that you should read and just be like, okay, like, delete. That was worthless. But if someone is like, hey, here's some ways I think you could improve, or some way you could have, you know, help people in this situation better, blah, blah, that's like an objective comment. Which of the bucket of hate comments is going to be a very small percentage? And those are the ones you look at and you're like, you know, is there truth to this? Yes. Okay, consider, if not, throw it out and then you just move on.
- [09:59]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. You know, so you, you look at some of the criticism or the feedback and you apply it if it's relevant.
- [10:05]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. I look at all of it with that angle and. Because, like, at the end of the day, I will never say my videos are perfect. You know what I mean? There's. None of us are perfect. Even your podcast probably has ways it could be better. So it's. There's no reason not to. 100%.
- [10:17]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. So you don't take it personally then.
- [10:18]
Jimmy Donaldson
I will. That's the. Back when I was younger. Yes. Cuz I've been doing this every comment.
- [10:23]
Lewis Howes
You were like, I work so hard.
- [10:24]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. When I was, Yeah, I started when I was 11. I'm 27 now. So in my teenage years, like, even if someone said something that wasn't objective, like, kill yourself, your videos suck. That would hurt. Like, it would hurt a lot. You know, I'd be like, man, I, I would think, like, I put, you know, 50 hours into this and no one else is doing things like this and it would hurt my feelings. But then, you know, after you get that millions of times, you, it's like a muscle, like your brain kind of gets used to that stuff and you, you just like, I'm like, so Numb to it. You could leave the nastiest comment on my YouTube video about me and it's like my brain's just, like it's not objective delete. And I just move on. Which part? Part of that is I've just been exposed to it for. Yeah, I've been doing this for more than half my life. So I've just been exposed to so, so much of it. And the other part is you just eventually realize like it just is pointless. Like it, like you know you're never going to make everyone happy and so you just figure out where the line is. And if you're content and happy with it and, and majority of people who watch it are happy with the piece of content you put out, what else can you do? You know what I mean? You'll go crazy and quit if you try to make everyone happy.
- [11:20]
Lewis Howes
For the younger creators who are, who look at you as an inspiration because millions of people do, probably billions of people do and who want to be like you or want to create their own YouTube channel, create content in some way. What advice would you give to them if they're getting lots of negative criticism or if they're getting personal attacks about the way they look or the way they speak? Maybe not just you're an idiot die, but like, oh, you look ugly.
- [11:42]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [11:42]
Lewis Howes
Or you sound like a dummy. Like, what advice do you.
- [11:44]
Jimmy Donaldson
I'm the perfect one for that because when I was a teenager I had horrible acne. I mean, I still have some acne scars on my forehead from it because no one told me not to pick my pimples. In hindsight, don't pick your pimples, it's obvious. But no one told me that I had horrible acne. I was so awkward I couldn't speak in coherent sentences. I mean, it's a miracle that I'm the number one YouTuber in the world. If you look at 50 year old me, no one on the planet would have ever guessed I'd even be one.
- [12:07]
Lewis Howes
That'S going to be the guy.
- [12:08]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, like it doesn't make any sense. So, um, I mean, truthfully, it's just, you just, you can't be someone you're not. But you also are who you hang around. And so as I've hung around more normal humans and less data nerds, I've learned how to form a sentence and not just speak in retention charts, which you know, because at that point in my life, everyone I was around was just hardcore studying YouTube and studying thumbnails. And now, yeah, because I have hundreds of employees. I have more exposure to people who actually go outside and live normal lives. And so I'm more up to date with certain things like that. So, um. But yeah, usually like do what you can, work out, get lean. You know, for me with the acne, I took Accutane. And then once you do what you can, I mean, it just is what it is, you know, like my teeth could be better or my hair, you know, like whatever. There are random things that could be, but at that point just ignore it because there's not nothing you can really do about it.
- [12:55]
Lewis Howes
Is there any, is there any strategies you had around navigating either the mental or emotional side of the critiques like that you would give to younger audience as opposed to just get jacked, get leaned?
- [13:05]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, no, it's, it's what I was saying earlier. It's just. Is it objective and is it something in your control? Then yeah, consider it. But you know, most criticism is not. And you just have to learn to filter it out and ignore it. Like that's just the big part. Like it was and it, it's easier said than done. It took me probably close to a decade to form that mental toughness. But like you should be able to read a non objective comment like I hate you, you suck and just feel nothing in a perfect world and move on. Because having an emotional reaction to that does nothing for you. You know what I mean? And like, fine, if you have, theoretically, you know, if you're getting 100,000 views a video and you're getting 300 negative comments. Right. Assuming you make a good video. Yeah. And then of that 300, filter out the 250 that are probably just bull and then the 50 that are actually objective, consider them because. Yeah, no, no video is perfect and there's lots of. You should take from both sides of the spectrum, your most hardcore fans that love you, you should see what they have, which is probably going to be something more like, hey, we want more personality. Things like that people who like you would say. And then you should also take feedback from the people who hate you the most because they still have pretty valid feedback quite a bit of times that, you know, people who don't watch you every single time might have a different viewpoint on your videos.
- [14:10]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. Speaking of criticism, again, you get a lot of it and I think it's something that a lot of people struggle with just in their personal lives, whether it's online or their friends or people.
- [14:19]
Jimmy Donaldson
It's funny because people, a lot of your audience isn't going to know who I am. They're going to think, like, everyone hates me. No.
- [14:25]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. It's a very small percentage. But I know you talk about it like, I do all this. Good, but people still criticize me. Right. So I just.
- [14:31]
Jimmy Donaldson
I just threw that tweet out on a whim.
- [14:32]
Lewis Howes
But, yeah, but I think it's valid, though, because you're calling out people that. Critics. No one ever built a statue for a critic. I think that's a quote or something. It's like, it's a good quote. And it's also. Critics usually aren't creators, because I remember when I wrote my first book ten years ago, I remember how hard it was, and I put it out there, and I got a few, like, negative reviews, and I was like, who are these people? And you go and research them, and you realize they're not doing the thing they want to do.
- [14:59]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [14:59]
Lewis Howes
So they're upset, frustrated. They want to do the thing you're doing, but they're not doing it. So most creators are not critics of other creators. You're usually like, okay, maybe you don't like the person or you have a rivalry or something, but you're not going to be negatively sending comments.
- [15:15]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [15:15]
Lewis Howes
You're going to be like, all right, he's working hard, or she's working hard.
- [15:17]
Jimmy Donaldson
I'm pretty critical of my creative friends.
- [15:19]
Lewis Howes
Okay.
- [15:19]
Jimmy Donaldson
Well, every time they upload a bad video, I call them. I'm like, bro, you're better than this. What are you doing?
- [15:23]
Lewis Howes
That's positive feedback. This is not like some troll, you know? Not a troll.
- [15:26]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. It's not. Hey, what the. You're lazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [15:29]
Lewis Howes
You're. You're. You're supportive in your criticism. Right. There's a lot of people that just won't show their face with a criticism.
- [15:36]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [15:36]
Lewis Howes
And they're not doing the thing they want to be doing. And my. My question for you is, what impacts you more? Other people criticizing you or your own criticism of yourself?
- [15:50]
Jimmy Donaldson
Other people, Chris. Well, I mean, at the end of the day, like, I'm. I am my biggest critic. Like, that's why the videos are where they are, because I hold them to the highest bar in the universe, higher than any other creator. And I think I. Like, I'm. Weirdly, I enjoy reading a bunch of criticism. Like, once I filter down the objective ones, I try to, you know, see if there's anything I derived from it. But at the end of the day, like, I'm not going to change anything just because I see one comment about it. I It's more. Is it. Is it inspiration of something I never thought before of before? And once I start thinking on it, do I actually think they'll make the content better or approve me as a person or whatever, and that's why I apply it. But even if you, you know, 10,000 people left the same exact complaint on a video, I wouldn't change anything unless I wholeheartedly agreed with it.
- [16:30]
Lewis Howes
Gotcha. Okay.
- [16:31]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yes.
- [16:31]
Lewis Howes
You're. You're a bigger critic than anyone else.
- [16:33]
Jimmy Donaldson
Oh, yeah.
- [16:33]
Lewis Howes
You're like, okay, gotcha.
- [16:34]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [16:35]
Lewis Howes
And do you feel like you've made it with 400 plus million subscribers and all the impact you've made?
- [16:40]
Jimmy Donaldson
No, but because I'm 27 and every year we're making better videos and stuff, so, I mean, there's no doubt in my mind when I'm 37 and 47 and 57 will be, you know, exponentially better than we are now.
- [16:52]
Lewis Howes
There's a video you have almost 10 years ago.
- [16:55]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [16:55]
Lewis Howes
When you were.
- [16:56]
Jimmy Donaldson
Oh, did you see my tweet about that? Yeah.
- [16:57]
Lewis Howes
When you.
- [16:58]
Jimmy Donaldson
Wait, can I explain this one?
- [16:59]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, yeah. So the video too.
- [17:01]
Jimmy Donaldson
Oh, well, you have, I think the one.
- [17:02]
Lewis Howes
Well, I have the video.
- [17:03]
Jimmy Donaldson
You have. Hi, me in five years. So. So when I was 17 years old, to everyone listening, I just, like, got home after history or I was studying for a history test, bored out of my mind. I. I hated school. I hate it with the passion. My mom's like, go in your room and study and lock me in there. And I just was like, you know what? I turned my phone on and I recorded a video and I said, hi, me in a year on this YouTube channel, in a year, I think I'll have blank subscribers. Then I hit stop recording. And I hit record. And I was like. And like, Hi, me in five years. And YouTube has a feature where you can upload a video and schedule what date it goes live. So I uploaded this video. Yeah, Private. And it's scheduled it for exactly five years from that day later. And in that video, I'm like, hi, me in five years. And I tried to predict how big the channel will be. And I was way off on that one.
- [17:47]
Lewis Howes
And then you had 8,000 subscribers at the time. You're like, I hope I have a million subs.
- [17:51]
Jimmy Donaldson
Exactly. Something like that is what I said in the high in five years. And so that. And I'm 27 now. I did this when I was 17. It's been nine years and 10 months.
- [18:00]
Lewis Howes
Almost. Almost 10 years.
- [18:02]
Jimmy Donaldson
So two months. And hi, me in 10 years. Will go live. So when I had eight.
- [18:05]
Lewis Howes
No way.
- [18:06]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. When I had 8,000 subscribers, I'm in my room talking to my phone. I look like a little child. I don't have a beer because my.
- [18:12]
Lewis Howes
Sitting down on the ground, it's like.
- [18:13]
Jimmy Donaldson
A desk behind me. Exactly. It's like a wooden shelf behind me. And I'm 17 years old, still in high school, 8,000 subscribers. And I'm like, when you see this video, it's 10 years in the future and here's how many subscribers I think I have. And that goes live in two months. And I have 420 million subscribers now. And I tried to predict when I had 8,000. You know what it'd be? Oh, I haven't watched it yet, but I know it's way off. Yeah. There's no way.
- [18:35]
Lewis Howes
You said, I hope I have a million in four years. You're like, I really hope I have a million or five years.
- [18:39]
Jimmy Donaldson
Right. Yeah.
- [18:40]
Lewis Howes
What did you have at in five years? Do you remember?
- [18:43]
Jimmy Donaldson
No, I have no clue. It was probably like 20 million five years ago. Yeah. Five years ago is when we did Team trees, which was 20 million trees to hit 20 million subscribers. So you have 20. Wow. Yeah.
- [18:52]
Lewis Howes
So you were like 20x what you thought you would get in five years? What do you think you said in 10 years, 5 million. You don't know?
- [18:59]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, I probably said something like, I hope I'm just doing it as a job, you know? Yeah.
- [19:04]
Lewis Howes
That in the first video.
- [19:05]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. That was like a big thing for me is like, you know, at 8,000 subscribers, you're just at that point, I was about to graduate high school and everyone's like, what are you doing? And I'm like a YouTuber. And they're like, you're crazy. What is wrong with you? My mom is like losing her mind, thinking she just wasted her life raising me. Everyone around me is like, what is this deranged pimple freak doing? Like, there's no shot he's going to be a YouTuber. And like, so it was more. I just wanted to be a YouTuber. That was at that time, that was all I wanted because I was like terrified. I get out of high school and then, wow. Not make money.
- [19:33]
Lewis Howes
You know, if you could go back to right before you shot that video 10 years ago and you could sit down in front of your 17 year old self.
- [19:43]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [19:43]
Lewis Howes
On the ground was like the, you know, little desk behind you and a history test the next day.
- [19:48]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [19:49]
Lewis Howes
And if you could give three pieces of advice to your 17 year old self.
- [19:53]
Jimmy Donaldson
I know what the first one would be.
- [19:54]
Lewis Howes
What would it be?
- [19:55]
Jimmy Donaldson
Buy Bitcoin and hold it up and have the wallet locked until 10 years later. Yeah, crazy making money right now. It was probably like a th bucks back then. Imagine. Well, I didn't have any money, so I wouldn't have been able to. But yeah, I would just. Well, I would take that time to give myself advice, which is just.
- [20:11]
Lewis Howes
That's what I'm saying. What would you say advice to your younger self?
- [20:13]
Jimmy Donaldson
It's, it'd be similar to what I tell a lot of younger creators and entrepreneurs is like whatever time frame you think it's going to take to achieve something, it's probably going to take three times longer, you know, and so if you think it's going to take two years to hit a million subscribers, it's probably going to take like 6, 7, 8, 9.
- [20:27]
Lewis Howes
Unless you're Mr. Beast.
- [20:28]
Jimmy Donaldson
No, even for me, I started at 11. It didn't happen until I was in my 20s or whatever. 19. And so it's just, that's why like Steve Jobs says, you got to love what you do. And that's like, yes, you can think of. Everyone always like points to a little outlier who did it in a year or whatever. But if statistically you're not going to be that outlier and so it's just going to take you a very long time. And if you're just not deeply in love with what you do, you're going to quit before you achieve it.
- [20:49]
Lewis Howes
Okay, that's the first thing I like that.
- [20:51]
Jimmy Donaldson
And that's, that would be the advice to give to people and for, I mean, it's what I ended up doing. But I would just be like, yo, just, you know, the only way to improve is just to keep doing it. So the more videos you upload, the smarter the people you surround yourself with, the better you'll be. I didn't meet other freaks that are obsessed with YouTube till I was like 19. So like when I was 17, 18 or 11 to 18, I was basically just like, I didn't have anyone to talk to about it. It was pretty brutal. And I like to tell this story because, you know, if parents are out there or younger kids hear this, it's like, yeah, when you love something deeply and you devote your life towards it and no one else around you does, you feel like a freak, you feel like an outcast and you, you know, it causes a lot of self doubt that's not really needed. And you know, and your parents telling you you're wasting time. Everyone's telling you waste your time. And it makes it, you know, very tempting to just quit and do other stuff. But nothing makes you as fulfilled with that. And like, it's just your environment. Like, because the second I got around, I ended up bumping into like these three other guys online that had similar subscriber counts as me when I was 18, 19. And I mean that was, that was it. Like I went from people literally asking me if I was mute because I talk so little and like them saying, shut up. All you do is talk about YouTube and what's wrong with you, Be realistic, blah, blah, to we literally had a Mastermind call every day for a thousand days in a row.
- [21:58]
Lewis Howes
That's cool.
- [21:59]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, I told this story on Joe Rogan. People don't believe me. I get tons of messages like, you didn't do that. But yeah, we, I met these other guys and for once in my life, like I could talk to them. We, no joke, like had a Skype call for 18 hours and I went from like not being able to hold a five minute conversation with a human to being able to talk with guys for 18 hours straight about, you know, studying retention charts and studying why certain videos did well and looking at, hey, These are the 50 best performing videos last week. What did well about them? Why do people click videos? And we, we could, the only bottleneck was sleep. Like, if it wasn't for sleep, we would probably talk for a thousand hours straight, you know, and so, and we did that every single day for a thousand days in a row. You know, we didn't drink, we didn't do drugs, we didn't talk to women. Sometimes not by our own choice, but we didn't.
- [22:39]
Lewis Howes
They didn't talk to you guys.
- [22:40]
Jimmy Donaldson
Maybe it was women didn't talk to us, but I, but yeah, and we were just like locked in every single day. And we all had around 10,000 subscribers, but then we all hit a million subscribers within the same month. So it's like the shows the power of like helping each other.
- [22:53]
Lewis Howes
The. I tell people all the time and I've been a part of Masterminds for over a decade that you can be around other like minded people. Especially when you feel like you're the outcast, whether it be in your family or in your community or like the industry you're in and no one understands you.
- [23:07]
Jimmy Donaldson
Exactly.
- [23:08]
Lewis Howes
Find 2, 5, 10 people that are doing a similar thing and grow together.
- [23:12]
Jimmy Donaldson
Your happiness levels will skyrocket. Everything will skyrocket in your life because it's like It's. It's just everything from your happiness to your fulfillment to your growth in that subject that you're obsessed over. It's just. It's way more fun to work with other people. I don't like working alone. I like to work with other people. But also, you know, if with us, you know, we had four or five. It depends on the time of the year, people in it, you know, and person C, you know, makes a breakthrough in their videos. He now teaches everyone else. And you're growing together, and you're growing exponentially. Like, one of the, like, more relatable stories is like, there was a month where a guy named Jay made $150,000. He had some videos blow up. And, you know, to us, like, 19. I'm a college dropout. I didn't even really go. I went for two weeks to a cheap community college because my mom said, go to college or move out the house and have money to move out. So I went for two weeks, and then I just lied. And I was making videos in the parking lot, and, you know, I just had to move out before she got my report card because it's all zeros. And so I'm a college dropout. Another guy was a high school dropout. Another guy was a college dropout. Another guy just graduated high school, and parent gave up on him. Another college dropouts. And we're all just, like, all in living and breathing this, you know, it's this, or we're working at McDonald's. You know what I mean? Like, that's the mindset. And, you know, and one of those guys makes $150,000 a month. And I was probably making 15 grand. The rest were making 10, 20 grand. And it's. It was just so inspiring to see, like, that's possible. And then, like, to work with them to figure out why did these videos do so well. Like, because you can see, like, how many people click on a video every minute. And he was getting what was. It was 2 million views in an hour. So it was like 30,000 people a minute. It was like 500 people a second were clicking on this one video, and we're just staring at it on, like, he's screen sharing on zoom. And we were so mind blown. But that opens your eyes to, like, what's possible. And I see that, and it's like, okay. I mean, he's no smarter than me. I actually literally know everything he knows. So, like, why can't I do that? And then everyone in the group starts to think, like, that and you think bigger, and then someone makes $250,000 in a month. And it, like, helps expand your mindset. It just in every way. But I also, I think masterminds are more effective when it's not like this scheduled thing that everyone has to show up for. It's just when it's just you meet a. Yeah. It's just like these are a bunch of freaks of nature that are just being freaks that work on something every day and they talk to you because they have no one else to talk to about it. You know what I mean? And I think those are the best kinds. Not a. Hey, It's Tuesday at 7pm all right. It's 8:30. We wrapping up the mastermind? Did everyone get a chance to speak? You know? Yeah, so.
- [25:23]
Lewis Howes
But you believe in the power of masterminds or having a shared group of people adding value to one another.
- [25:29]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [25:29]
Lewis Howes
Sharing your secrets.
- [25:30]
Jimmy Donaldson
I always go as far as saying, like, if I never met those guys and did that thousand days a row, like, instead of 420 million subscribers, I'd be on like, probably 20 million. Like, it's that marginal of a difference.
- [25:39]
Lewis Howes
Wow. Yeah, I'll take 20 million. But it's still like, yeah, you. You really had leaps and bounds.
- [25:47]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [25:47]
Lewis Howes
Because of the collaboration of the group, sharing ideas, learning from each other, being inspired. And I'm hearing you say without a shared mastermind, a collective mindset of helping one another, you wouldn't be as far as you are.
- [26:00]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [26:01]
Lewis Howes
And that takes a specific mindset from you because most people don't want to share what they're learning. They want to guard their secrets, and that's something you really would do. Well, when I want to acknowledge you, Jimmy, is you're talking about it, whether it's on podcasts, you're creating videos, content about it, you're sharing your secrets, but you can give it all away. But it's so hard to do, you know, I mean, it's like people, they still have to do the work. A lot of people aren't willing to do it.
- [26:25]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. What? I have a lot of opinions on that too. I. I mean, this works better in our industry as opposed to, like, if you're a software developing company and you gave away the secrets and now someone just copy your code. Like, obviously it's not as ideal, but in terms of creating content, I see other content creators as collaborators, not competitors. And I think the more you help other people in our specific industry, they'll also help you back. And the thing is, there's like, I think short YouTube shorts, just like the vertical videos are getting 200 billion views a day now. So that's whatever, 6 trillion views a month. And long forms getting trillions. A bunch of their. So many tens of trillions of views a year on YouTube that like me helping you improve your YouTube channel. And how many views do you get a year?
- [27:03]
Lewis Howes
Year, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 million a month.
- [27:05]
Jimmy Donaldson
So if you're getting 120 million a year, even if I. A thousand extra YouTube channel viewership, that has zero impact on me. Literally. There's 100 trillion views to go around. There's, there's, there, it doesn't matter. So that's like, once you, like, fully internalize that mindset and you're truly giving to other people. I find it like people usually, you know, if I ask them a question, they'll be kind of guarded and then I'll just go through and just give them like 10 years worth of advice and just help, help, help. And then, you know, now all of a sudden they're like, oh, okay, that's how it is. I'll help you too. It's like, great. And you develop that relationship with hundreds of people, and then you just constantly. You just always got to make sure you're giving more than you're taking. And as long as you do that, like, you're good. And you'll get so much more information just coming into you.
- [27:41]
Lewis Howes
I've always been of that mindset is how can I give first? How can I add value? How can I serve someone's pain or problem or help them solve something? And really don't ask for anything. If they want to give back, cool. But just try to give at first. So I love that mindset of you. I'm curious, do you. So you believe in masterminds or collaboration?
- [28:00]
Jimmy Donaldson
Of course.
- [28:01]
Lewis Howes
Do you visualize or believe in manifesting the results you want to create from videos in the future or the businesses you want to build? Do you believe in kind of the power of manifestation?
- [28:10]
Jimmy Donaldson
I would frame it differently. I would just say I'm so obsessed. It's all I think about. It's all I dream about. It is my life, it is my reason on the planet, is all I really care about. So I don't know. I don't really manifest. It's just who I am is. I'm just always.
- [28:24]
Lewis Howes
You are manifest.
- [28:24]
Jimmy Donaldson
I guess. I mean, I am always in my mind two to three years in the future. Like sometimes, like when we visualize in the future. Yeah, but I'm not doing it because I'm manifest. I'm just doing it because it's how my brain's wired and I can't like what else am I going to think about?
- [28:37]
Lewis Howes
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- [32:11]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [32:12]
Lewis Howes
And you're pre planning the production for it. Whether it be just an idea or actually mapping it all out or however you do this, are you visualizing the results of the people that you want to see watching it around the world? Are you visualizing the number? Are you visualizing how many people reaches or how much you you raise for donations? Are you visualizing that?
- [32:31]
Jimmy Donaldson
Well, and if it's not. Every video is a fundraiser obviously for Team Water. What we're about to do, yes like the donation conversion is very important because every dollar is literally a year of clean drink water for someone to need. But for the typical video, honestly the main thing here's the everything you just said there, like the amount of people have reached impact. All these things really comes down to do people enjoy the video? Because if, if people don't watch and enjoy the video then it just doesn't get served. And so YouTube's algorithm is actually very great at incentivizing you just to make the best content possible. So really all I do is I just look at how do I make the greatest videos possible? How do I make a video that people will watch and at the end they'll feel satisfied, they'll feel fulfilled, they'll want to watch another one of our videos and they'll be like that was a good investment of my time. Because the only way you get 200 million views a video is what our videos do on average of the first 365 days. But they go, they, they do more than that on average for the first three years. That's just the first year.
- [33:19]
Lewis Howes
Is that just the main channel or.
- [33:21]
Jimmy Donaldson
Just the main channel? Yeah, no, our, our philanthropy channel. It's like 7 million videos, but I.
- [33:25]
Lewis Howes
Mean like, guess all the different languages, all the other channels as well.
- [33:29]
Jimmy Donaldson
We now we do all the dubs on, on one. But to finish that train, I thought it's the only way you get 200 million views of video is if one day you're getting a million views a video. And you, you, you establish the habit in their mind that when I click on this channel, I always enjoy it. When I click on a Mr. V's video, it's a great experience. The under promise over deliver. It's always good, it's always high quality. There's always a lot of effort put into it. And then next thing you know, you're doing 10 million views video and those. But like, if you're constantly churning viewers, you're never going to get that exponential growth. So you just need people every single time they click on a video to have a great experience. And that only comes if you're making the greatest videos possible. So really it just comes down to make the greatest videos possible. And the people who have been watching will keep clicking every time because the last 20 experiences have been great. And you, you like people when you're considering what to watch, you factor all these things in. Whether you realize it or not, when you're hovering on it and you're like, do I want to watch it? Like, if your last 20 times you clicked on that channel, you were like, that was a great experience. You're going to click it on the 21st. And the more you, you reassure them that it's a great experience, the faster they'll do it. Like, they'll. There are obviously tons of people who have watched 100 Mr. Beast videos. They don't even think. They just see Mr. Beast click because they're always happy when they do. And like, all it takes is one bad video to destroy that trust. Now it's like, ooh, is this one of those bad videos or is it one of the good ones? Because I kind of like this other YouTuber. I don't know if I want to take the risk. So you just don't give them, like, there is no risk every time you enjoy it. And so, yeah, greatest video possible.
- [34:45]
Lewis Howes
Are you, when you're in the editing process, are you thinking to yourself, oh, this isn't good enough. We have to change it more? Or of course. Or do you pre edit and you're just like, I know this is going to be the result?
- [34:56]
Jimmy Donaldson
Well, I mean, when I yeah, when, when I was younger, more the pre edit stuff. But the thing is that's, that's interesting is as you know I've just become more of a business person because you know my teenage years I was just studying content creation but that doesn't really translate well into running a multi 100 person company. Obviously I, you know, I, I, it just clicked in my head and it's obvious now but in hindsight when you're 21 with no mentors, you just make it up as you go. It's not as obvious that you know an editor who spends 100% of their time editing and it's lived and breathe editing, their whole life is obviously going to run circles around me when I can only spend 15% of my time. Even if we were apples to apples, same skill level, he could still spend or she seven times more time than me. So yeah, it's more trusting in the great people we hired. And like we have editors that are just factually better storytelling than me. Like they just are because they study it all day. They watch a lot of movies that they study storytelling. They like. You know, my idols are, are more entrepreneurs, their idols. It's going to be Steven Spielberg, it's going to be Christopher Nolan, it's going to be directors. You know, they're going to list directors I've never even heard of, you know and so like obviously they run circles around me. So it's been like, it just depends what year in my life you're talking about. The younger I am, it's like yeah, micromanaging. I'm visualizing the edit and things and the older I get, it's like, you know, this is what I think is great, here you go. But you know, if you can put the footage better together, better like do your thing.
- [36:13]
Lewis Howes
So is it more of a, you know, because I've heard you talk about data and analyzing retention and charts and all these things.
- [36:18]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [36:19]
Lewis Howes
And obsessing on 18 hour Skype calls or zoom calls about retention with people.
- [36:22]
Jimmy Donaldson
This is, presume this is.
- [36:25]
Lewis Howes
So I've heard you talk about data and kind of the, the science of it.
- [36:29]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [36:29]
Lewis Howes
How much of your process now is around data and science versus art and creativity?
- [36:34]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. Well that's a great question. And this is what is crazy YouTube's algorithm. It does such a good job at just giving people what they want is like the more you study the data, the more it just tells you make videos people want to watch. And so you, it's, I've said this a bazillion times. So my fans are going to be like, oh, he's saying it again. But the more you study the YouTube algorithm, the more you realize I should be studying mass, you know, psychological behavior. Like I should be studying humans and what they like. The algorithm just rewards them what they want to watch or gives them what they want to watch. So it's like, it's more just looking at our past videos and seeing like what are the things people found funny? What are the people things people like, what are, what is the bright pacing where people enjoyed it and didn't think it was too fast or too slow and it's just like it's that and then. Cause you can. So you, you use the data to come up with what are the confinements that like people like and then you, the team and you know, it used to be me, now I have a lot of people who help, you know, the team experiments how do we be creative and like, you know, level up and do the storytelling within these confinements. Because we know like theoretically people don't want to watch a two hour long video. No one's coming to YouTube. Most people aren't coming to YouTube to watch a two hour long video. They also don't want to watch a five minute video. So you know, we know like, hey, the video is probably, especially right now over 50% of us watch time on, on YouTube is on television, people on television. So like we used to make 12, 13 minute videos when it was more phone heavy. But people on television, they don't want to just watch a 10 minute video. They want to commit. A lot of people are eating food like the sweet spots above 25 minutes. Like so now it's like 25 to 35 minute videos. So it's like that's not a creative art decision, that's a data decision. But you know what, the more granular you get, then it starts to become more creative, you know, so because it's making sure people like it.
- [38:07]
Lewis Howes
Is there ever a time where you want to create what you want to want different than what the algorithm wants? Where you're like, I really want to call some, do some cool, creative, different content.
- [38:17]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yep.
- [38:17]
Lewis Howes
But I know it's not going to get the views because it's not hitting well here.
- [38:20]
Jimmy Donaldson
Let me, let's change the question though. You said, do I want to create content that's different than what the algorithm wants? But the algorithm is a reflection of what people want. So what you're actually asking me is there every time you want to create content that's different than what people want to watch?
- [38:33]
Lewis Howes
Yes.
- [38:33]
Jimmy Donaldson
And the question is no, because I get joy out of entertaining people. Like, that's why I'm doing this. I don't want to make content people don't want to watch, you know, so like that seems like. And maybe, you know, artsy people might see this and be like, and want to throw up. But in my case, like, you know, I, I deeply enjoy entertaining people and going above and beyond. And so, you know, I love that the data will tell me what they enjoy, what they like, and then I can like actually give people what they like, you know, within my own creative ways. Yeah.
- [38:58]
Lewis Howes
So you don't feel like you're creative. Not creative enough to like do something different. You've like. I love doing what I'm doing and.
- [39:04]
Jimmy Donaldson
It'S like the, the next video we're about to upload is I bought a private jet and I told a pilot if he lived in it for 100 days, he could keep it like no one else. Yeah. I don't feel like we're being constrained creatively, to be honest. Like the kind of stuff we're doing is.
- [39:14]
Lewis Howes
That's pretty cool.
- [39:15]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, is pretty out there.
- [39:17]
Lewis Howes
Well, you talked about maybe Spielberg or Christopher Nolan and they may have a different perspective.
- [39:21]
Jimmy Donaldson
Of course.
- [39:21]
Lewis Howes
Say I want to make a two hour storytelling, you know, love story or whatever it might be, or sci fi movie or something.
- [39:27]
Jimmy Donaldson
And that's why a lot of people love them. And that's why my editors probably like him more than they like me. And so there's different styles. Like, and that's, you know, there's 8 billion people, some like, some content, others like others.
- [39:36]
Lewis Howes
Exactly. But yeah, I saw you say somewhere once that if my mental health was better, I wouldn't be as successful as I am.
- [39:44]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yep.
- [39:45]
Lewis Howes
I'm curious, on a scale of 1 to 10, how is your mental or emotional health? 10 being the best.
- [39:52]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [39:54]
Lewis Howes
And what is your definition of success then?
- [39:57]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, well, on the. It obviously oscillates. You're not the same every day Right now I'm coming off just some of the most intense shooting in my life. So it's, it's definitely something. It's down or it's hot, it's sub, like five. It's probably like a sub five. Yeah, well, it's just because, I mean, you know, we had a big project, you know what it is, but I don't know if I can release it yet. But you know, I was filming 15 hours a day for 40 days straight. I mean it was. And it was at night time. I was telling him before the podcast. For a lot of our projects, the visuals is much better if you shoot when it's dark out and you shine spotlights versus if you just shoot during the day. Because spotlights don't do anything when the sun's out. And then you're at the mercy of the angle of the sun and the sun, you know, if there's a cloud, it can be less intense. If there's no clouds, it's just beaming on you and you have these weird shadows. And so we like to do a lot of shooting at night. So I mean, we were filming from like, you know, 8, 9pm till 10, 11am every day just for this one project. And I still held all these other projects and I was averaging, you know, in June I was probably averaging six hours of sleep a night and I wasn't working out because I was filming so much. And so I'm coming off the back end of that project. And now what typically happens is when we do a big project because I have a lot of channels. We have one of the largest gaming channels in the world, our channel that revolves around our charity which donates all the money and feeds people in need. We have the main channel that I have to make TikTok content. We do a lot of short form. We do Instagram and blah, blah, blah. So when I like do something big on one of those platforms, everything else gets neglected. And like when I come back from finishing that project now it's like the other six little, you know, businesses are like fighting for my time.
- [41:21]
Lewis Howes
And so, yeah, festivals you got.
- [41:23]
Jimmy Donaldson
Exactly. So it's, that's, it's just interesting. Like when we finished a big project, like everyone's celebrating. I'm like, I don't know what it is, but I know like eight other people that are in charge of my eight other companies are about to ask for a ton of my time because I basically ignored them for the most part the last month. And it's so like when we do a video, when we go to Africa and build wells and I'm gone for like 10 days, you know, the, I know that 11th day when I'm back, like it's booked 20 hours and I know the 12th day 20 hours and then the third day 15 hours and then the fourth day is when I can like start to pre plan. But I already, I don't, I don't know what it is, but I just know like the gaming channel is going to be Shorts is going to need me to record Tik Tok's going to need me record Feastables, going to need me to do this and that and.
- [42:01]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, you're a machine man.
- [42:03]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. It's what's interesting because, like, normal companies, you know, it's like the CEO at the top and it's like a pyramid. But for this kind of company, it's like almost inverted because I am the product and it's like everyone depends on me, and if I don't show up in film, you know, we don't upload.
- [42:15]
Lewis Howes
So how do you navigate the next five, 10 years, then, as the product where everyone relies on you?
- [42:21]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [42:22]
Lewis Howes
How do you continue to scale your time, your energy, your talent to serve all the businesses and the billions of lives that you're impacting?
- [42:29]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, it's a great question. And that obviously my goal is to build one of the largest businesses in the world one day. And so. Because I just love building. And so that's why we stepped into Beast Games, which is a streaming show. We did. So we, for people who don't know, we have our YouTube channel, which is largest in the world. Then last year we dropped Beast Games, which is a reality show. Most contestants of any reality show in history with the largest sets in history, with the largest cash prize in history, someone won $10 million larger than like, the previous highest cash prize was Squig game 4.5. So 2. It was.
- [42:58]
Lewis Howes
It crushed.
- [42:58]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, dominated. And it. It became the most viewed unscripted show in prime video history. And so that was like stepping into streaming. And then now the next step is going to do shows like I want to. I think the easiest forte is like, like America's Got Talent or, or Shark Tank or whatever. And I'm one of the hosts for your first few seasons. And then we're, you know, I drive my audience. They get it, they see the format's really good, and then I could phase out over time. And they keep watching this because it's a very high quality, great show. And so obviously we need to start making way more content without me. And just because I can't live like I am now forever. I do think, like, we have other talent and people in the videos, like, you know, my friends and I think they should step up and which they know and we're working on and do some more things. So, you know, I could be there for 70% of the deal, maybe not 100%, you know, and things like that. So it's in the works because, yeah, ideally, you know, we're making 20, 30, 40 hit shows a year. We have dozens of YouTube channels, but, you know, I can't be in all of them, nor do I want to. That would be way too much work. I'm already, I'm already like filming way too much.
- [43:54]
Lewis Howes
But it's building the teams, the talent, the platforms to really help scale it then.
- [43:58]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, exactly. Which we. We have a lot of the teams and stuff now we just need more of the talent. Like we have a 300 person crew that just makes the most viral videos in the entire universe every two weeks. Yeah.
- [44:07]
Lewis Howes
Cranking.
- [44:07]
Jimmy Donaldson
So then we have tons of data and we have tons of ideas. So it's more just honestly just getting around to it.
- [44:13]
Lewis Howes
It's amazing, man. Before I get into the next question, actually, I wanted to do this earlier, but I want to make sure we talk about Team Water a few times throughout this video because I think, you know, we, a lot of people overlook the impact. And I'm going to keep coming back to this because even though you don't like talking about it, I do it because.
- [44:30]
Jimmy Donaldson
Just to do it. But.
- [44:31]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, but I think it's.
- [44:32]
Jimmy Donaldson
And I.
- [44:32]
Lewis Howes
And I know you get criticism sometimes for why do I talk about and make these videos? Why not just do it behind the scenes?
- [44:37]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [44:37]
Lewis Howes
I really believe that we should be. I've been donating and building schools for over 13, 14 years for kids around the world as well. Not at the level you've done, but I've been involved in the organizations that I support and some of the stuff I talk about because I want to inspire other people to do it and other stuff I don't talk about, I think there can be a balance. But what you're doing is you have a platform and you've made a decision to talk about it to inspire people. And if you don't talk about it, other people aren't going to do it unless they feel called to take action. So I want to. Before we go into the next questions again, you're aiming to raise $40 million to bring clean water to access to 2 million people around the world for decades to come. August 1 is the launch day.
- [45:17]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. Can I tell them about it?
- [45:19]
Lewis Howes
Tell me where to go. Tell me how to do it.
- [45:20]
Jimmy Donaldson
Well, so what he's referring to Team Water. So for context, because a lot of your viewers are probably older, haven't, don't know who I am, we five years ago we did this thing called Team Trees and we got all the biggest YouTubers in the world to make videos about trees and tell their audience that for every dollar they donated Arbor Day, which is a very large foundation that's planted an absurd amount of trees. Will plant a tree and that crushed. And we, like, basically took over the YouTube trending page. Every video know, it's like, imagine like back to your guys day with Oprah and Dr. Phil and all these other people just, like, talked about this one thing and made a show around it. It'd be, like, cool, you know, especially to younger kids who idolize a lot of creators. And so that went really well. And a lot of kids, like, then started to, like, go do community service and want to play trees, and it had a big impact on them when all your role models. So then a couple years later, we did Team SE. Same thing. $1 equals 1 pound of trash out of the ocean. And what's interesting is, like, you know, just because I'm very good at understanding how. How to speak to people at scale and. And so, like, you know, I don't. I don't really see any other charities who do these kinds of things where, like, normally it would be like $10 or $20, but if you really want, you know, millions of people to take action, like, the median donation of that 23. 3 million trees we planted. $23 million you raised was $5.
- [46:28]
Lewis Howes
Wow.
- [46:28]
Jimmy Donaldson
This is me. It was crazy. It's because, like, kids are donating their tooth fairy money. There we made it. Where no matter how little you donate, you still feel like you're having an impact. Even if you just, you know, donate a dollar, you can look at a tree and be like, wow, I just, you know, I just planted one of those. That's really cool. You know, you can visualize a pound of trash. And so it's like breaking these down, where people who even don't have that much money still can, like, visualize the impact in their mind and be very simple. And so I think that's why these are so successful. And so same thing. Now, Teamwater, you're going to upload this on August 1st, so when you see this, it'll be live. You know, our goal is the same as the other ones. Like, rather, right now, we have over 2000 creators lined up to post videos to help raise money. It's crazy. I mean, no. No one else in the world can get people to do this. I don't even know why they do one. The interesting thing on that, to give them credit is, like, you know, when I message these creators, like, hey, we're doing another fundraiser. We want to inspire kids. We want to, you know, get. Have these Younger people have role models they can look up to that inspire them to do good. Like every single creator's onboard. It's like 99% of the ones that call are text. They're like, yeah, let's do it. Yeah. They're not like, oh, what's in it for me? They're like, yeah, this is cool. So shout out to YouTube creators and TikTokers. Those are the most the ones I've been calling and they're just like, let's do it. When's the day?
- [47:31]
Lewis Howes
So August 1st.
- [47:32]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [47:33]
Lewis Howes
How can people donate? If they want to donate a dollar, what is the impact they're going to create?
- [47:38]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. So for you guys, just go to teamwater.org or if you're watching this on his YouTube channel, there should be a donate button below. I'll work with someone on your team. He doesn't know how to do that. I'll tell you how to do it. And yeah, every dollar that we raise will give someone a need clean drinking water for a year. Our goal is to raise $40 million because we did 20 million. 20 million trees, 30 million. 30 million pounds of trash to the ocean. Now it's $40 million to give 2 million people need clean drinking water. For decades. We're working with WaterAid. You know, they've been doing this for decades. Platinum seal of transparency, like you can look upon on charity navigator, like phenomenal charity. Obviously I don't know what I'm doing like in terms of that. At least at that you're partnering with the right people. Yeah. So it's. You can trust it'll go to a good use and at that scale they'll be able to officially deploy where every dollar is a year clean drinking water for someone in need. And I actually was just in Malawi, you know, because obviously you got to inspect what you expect and making sure it's like good. And I was looking at just one of the wells they were digging as you that team watery just naturally does. And I mean, yeah, we were just like land in Mali, drove like three hours in the most remote direction ever. There's like four villages in the middle and all these, you know, villages. I followed some people around us like to see where they get water. And they were literally just going up to like this little pond. They had like a well, it broke and so it just kind of like the pipe would just pump out water and. And it would just like in the surrounding area. And it was very muddy and full of dirt and people were constantly getting sick and there's bacteria in it. And I just, I was like, I don't believe this is where these four communities are getting the water from. I'm literally just like, I was like, show me what you do every day. And like just a woman just filled a bucket up out of this like muddy water, put it on her head. I don't even know how she put it on her head, it was so heavy. And then she just walked off. And I was like, for that's real. And they're like, yeah, this is where we get our water. Because we're so remote, they don't have cars or anything. And so then, you know, water ate right in the middle, built a giant well, dug down clean water, you know, because it's deep enough where it's filtered as the rain and stuff goes to the ground. And literally just that well, now all four communities have clean drinking water. They're not drinking this dirt, bacteria water. You know, the impact will have on their sickness, their health, even things that we overlook. Like it's not even just drinking. It's also being able to wash your hands with clean water. It's being able to, you know, just desanitize or sanitize yourself and all those other things without mud. Water that has bacteria. It's like life changing. And I've built over 100 wells and so I've seen this impact. And like another example is when I was in Kenya, we built a well. We did similar stuff before this fundraise. Like there's one village where we built a well where they were having to walk like it was an hour every morning to go to this little drip of water and then carry these heavy buckets an hour back. And so kids were, you know, missing out on two hours of school. Boom. We placed a well right in the middle of the village. Now all of a sudden these kids go to school more because they don't have to. They sleep two hours a morning and it's very hard labor. And it was just disgusting bacteria water and it's way cleaner. And I mean we take it for granted. But clean water changes every aspect of your life. And so yeah, it's just a no brainer. I think it's one of the way highest leverage ways we could like help change people's lives at scale. And if we actually achieve this and can give 2 million people access to clean water, I mean the impact that would have is unfathomable. You literally can't even explain it. And so I'm, I'm really excited. I hope we can hit the goal.
- [50:35]
Lewis Howes
It's amazing, man. I mean, I've. I've donated to charity, water, and different water organizations in the past, but not at this level. So I want to make sure people go there. To team water.org.
- [50:44]
Jimmy Donaldson
That'S it. Hey, you seem like you have a rich audience. We have a leaderboard. You know, you can also see who's donated the most. If you get that number one spot, I'll love you forever.
- [50:52]
Lewis Howes
We do have a rich audience. People have a lot of money.
- [50:54]
Jimmy Donaldson
If you're a billionaire, what's 100 grand?
- [50:56]
Lewis Howes
Throw it over there, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna start the donation to inspire others and give you 25,000.
- [51:01]
Jimmy Donaldson
Oh, let's go. I was. He didn't really.
- [51:04]
Lewis Howes
I really.
- [51:04]
Jimmy Donaldson
Thank you.
- [51:05]
Lewis Howes
Of course, man.
- [51:05]
Jimmy Donaldson
That's 25,000 years of clean water to people in need. Really? You know how crazy that is?
- [51:11]
Lewis Howes
It's incredible, man.
- [51:12]
Jimmy Donaldson
It's. Thank you. Thank you. And it's, like, insane because, like, when. Like, I was telling you, like, the stories when we were building. Well, it's like some of these wells would be only $15,000, and, you know, it would help over a thousand, two thousand people. And, you know, and then you set aside some money and maintain it and for, like, decades, you could literally just transform the entire lives, like communities. Yeah. Save their lives. You could stop people from dying. Stop people from being sick, though. They'll be stronger, healthier. They'll grow taller, like, every area, like.
- [51:35]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [51:36]
Jimmy Donaldson
Even just as 25 grand is crazy. Anyways, you guys get the point. I'm not going to show too much.
- [51:39]
Lewis Howes
Well, I want to. I want to make sure I talk about it. I want to make sure I remind.
- [51:42]
Jimmy Donaldson
You at the end. Let's go back to adding value to this.
- [51:45]
Lewis Howes
But I want to make sure, you know, I. I'm taking action on it as well. Not just by promoting this right here, exactly. But also, you know, taking action, because I want everyone else to take action, whether it's a dollar or $100,000 or whatever you want to do.
- [51:57]
Jimmy Donaldson
I'll take a dollar. I'll take anything. Beggars can't be choosers.
- [51:59]
Lewis Howes
Exactly. Donate a dollar. Donate something and share this video with someone that you want to see take action as well.
- [52:06]
Jimmy Donaldson
Is this like an actual check?
- [52:08]
Lewis Howes
That's a check for you to.
- [52:08]
Jimmy Donaldson
Okay, well, then you probably don't want people to know you're routing an account.
- [52:11]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, yeah.
- [52:11]
Jimmy Donaldson
Well, we'll blow it out. I'll put it behind the feast.
- [52:15]
Lewis Howes
Don't forget it, though.
- [52:16]
Jimmy Donaldson
Whoever's editing this. Like, if you don't, he's going to get his bank account hacked.
- [52:20]
Lewis Howes
It's a real check for you to actually put in and donate, so. And I'll make a donation online when this comes live.
- [52:25]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. Thank you. We'll figure it out.
- [52:27]
Lewis Howes
Exactly. Question about fears.
- [52:32]
Jimmy Donaldson
Okay.
- [52:33]
Lewis Howes
Do you have any fear right now in your life? You've got so much success. Yeah, so much, you know, so many people watching you. You've made so much money, you give a ton of it away. Season one of Beast Games is fricking the biggest show in the world ever.
- [52:48]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. We give away, like, $24 million. It's season one. Yeah.
- [52:50]
Lewis Howes
You've got, you know, you signed multiple of those seasons that you're working on, and there's so many other things you can't talk about that you're doing, but you're doing so much good. And what is your biggest fear, Jimmy?
- [53:01]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, I mean, obviously it. Fear of failure used to affect me a lot more years ago because I was. You know, I'm hiring all these people, especially when you're in your young 20s, and it's like, I see someone quit their job, relocate their family across America to come work for me, and I'm like, man, if I fail, like, he or she's like, loki kind of screwed. Like, I don't. I don't want to ever be in a spot where, you know, the people who bet everything on me and, you know, give their lives to my companies that I have to one day, like, be like, oh, sorry it didn't work out, you know, so that I would say is my biggest fear would be that, like, I would mess up in a way where I do have to get rid of people who gave up everything to help support my dream. But, you know, at the same time, it is what it is. Like, there is no guaranteed success, and so there is a non zero chance I fail. And that's just part of the game. I'll do everything in my power where I won't. I work every second I'm awake. I always try to do whatever I think will be in the best interest of the business long term. But at the end of the day, no matter what I do, you know, it could happen. And so you just kind of have to come to terms with that. And I'm confident that at least, like, I. If. If I were to fail now, I wouldn't look at it and be like, man, I wish I did more. I would have been. I would be like, okay, well, you know, I gave it My all and did the rest. Yeah, let's, let's start again. Let's go.
- [54:11]
Lewis Howes
And then what would you say is the downside then of being the most viewed human on the planet?
- [54:16]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, it's. Well, I can't go really out in public much or concerts or anything like that. Not that I care, but it is like one of the. So the, this is where it's hard because there's like levels to fame and I didn't really fully understand this. And this is why, like, you know, you see someone like, who's just world renowned famous, like Justin Bieber, like, yeah, like Justin Bieber, like, he would tweak out, you know, back in the day and you'd always, you know, be like, why? And I would see other famous people be like, it's not that bad. But the thing is that most people don't realize is like, and I'll try to explain it through my experience is like, when I had a million. So, right, I have 420 million on our main channel, but when you add, you know, we have one of the largest Tik Toks, blah, blah, blah, when you add up all our platforms, I'm closing in on a billion followers. And so it's. And like when I had a million followers across everything, no one would ever.
- [55:02]
Lewis Howes
Recognize me walking down the street.
- [55:04]
Jimmy Donaldson
Go, go into a CVS Walmart, no one knows, right? Then you hit 10 million and now all of a sudden, like people will recognize you, right? You walk into Walmart, you'll take a photo and it's so validating. It's like, look, these are real humans. You love it. You know, you're with your girlfriend and you're like the man. And maybe that's more around 5 million. But then like, you know, 20 million, 30 million, it starts to get pretty serious. Like you, every single time you walk in any place that's public, someone's going to know who you are. You're always going to take a photo. But it's still like the amount where it's fun. It's like, this is cool. Like I'm constantly getting validated. At least in my case, they didn't really do anything weird. They wouldn't follow my car or like, you know, try to figure out where I live. It was just like, it was chill. And you think like, that is what fame is. And I think that's, you know, that's where most people that you think of that are famous, right, that aren't like a Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber, they're probably around that level where it is kind of fun. It's like, yeah, you take these photos, people are telling you how much they love you, it's great. But then you hit like 100 million followers and it's hard to conceptualize, but it's five times bigger. But it's not just that. Five times more. People watch your videos a lot more people who don't want your content now know who you are because they just see it in passing or people talk about you or, or now you're at the place where the media is incentivized to write about you. So you get just exponentially bigger. You're more actually like 10, 20 times your reach, even though the number's only five times bigger. And that's where it starts to be like someone asks for a photo, everyone looks and they all recognize you. And now you have a line of photos and you're just like at a CVS to buy toothbrush, you know, and you got to these people trying to take photos. Yeah. And people, you know, you're walking around a store and people no longer just ask for photos. Like seeing you is so mind blowing to them that they film you and they're like, you know, they'll start live streaming or they'll just do the weirdest things. They'll follow you out to your car and they'll like try to follow you home because I don't know, people do weird things and they meet ultra famous people though, like they say a lot more crazier things. Blah blah, blah. You're not everyone's your core audience so they're not as polite and you know, people dox your house, people try to hack you way more. It's all these things and like even like, like little things like around that subscriber level. Every drive thru you go to, people will film you. It's like hilarious. I don't go to drive to's anymore.
- [57:02]
Lewis Howes
Because like people giving the order.
- [57:04]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. Which I always find very distasteful. But weird. Yeah. But it's also, it's not like they're the highest paid people in the world. So you know, you know, if they got fired, I don't think most of them carefully, but it's like one of my last experiences is like I was going through, I won't even name the restaurant, but I was just going through. I saw the phone and I was just like, hey ma'. Am. I really don't want people to know what car I drive because it's like a thing I constantly have to switch. Can we just talk, you know, like, not film it. She's like, that makes sense, okay. She puts her phone down, I give the order, you know, a minute later she's coming back with her phone out, but also like 20 other people behind her, you know, that work people. Hey, yeah, it's Mr. Beast. And I have to make like a split second decision. Like, I don't go now. You know, my car is going to be all over all the local Snapchats and Instagrams and people are gonna know what I'm drive. And it's just a lot of effort. I could go sub out my car. I kind of just did that. So I just like, drove off. Like, she completely just ignored what I asked and lied to me. And then you see it on Reddit and it's like, Mr. Beast is a dick. He just, you know, drove off rudely and stuff. And they never obviously put the full context. And there's so many stories of that. Like, someone else will pay for my bill at a restaurant, so I won't get like a receipt or anything. And I mean, I've learned my lesson on this. I always ask for a receipt, but one of the first times someone paid for my meal didn't get a receipt, I'm like, so I'm good to go. And then wait is like, yeah. And then you see it on like the front page right at the next day. No, Mr. Beast didn't tip. So. And obviously they conveniently leave out that someone else paid the bill. And it's like, oh, one of the largest philanthropists in the world can't afford to tip. And I'm like, I mean, I didn't get a bill. I don't carry cash on me. Like, how do you want me to tip? You want me to just wave my hand and spawn some money? And so now if, like, someone's like, pays for a meal, I'll just, I just won't leave. I'll just like, I'm not leaving until you give me a receipt so I can leave a tip. I just literally don't care. But, like, you have to learn that, like, no, there's no one teaching you these kinds of things that happen when you're famous. And so, like, you just kind of like, have to learn it all. And like, that's the kind of stuff that happens when you have 100 million subscribers and all this, and you have a billion subscribers or a billion followers across everything. And that's what I was about to say. And then there's a whole different level, which is A billion. Which very few people on the Internet.
- [58:59]
Lewis Howes
You know how many billion followers or subscribers?
- [59:02]
Jimmy Donaldson
Only Ronaldo. I'm not at a billion yet. I'm not probably like 930 million. But yeah, so be there in the next month. Yeah, Ronaldo is the most followed human on the planet and I'm number two, which is kind of crazy. Trust me, I know you guys watching are like, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to me either. But it is what it is.
- [59:19]
Lewis Howes
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- [61:39]
Jimmy Donaldson
Was gonna say it's like, you know, I mean, one of the worst experiences of my life that I actually made me, for like, a couple minutes, unironically want to quit was like, you know, I filmed all day internationally, like, didn't have much sleep, flew back into America, and you have to do customs. And like, the line is just like, zigzag super long. I'm like, hoodie up, staring at the ground, like, you know, no one talked to me. I haven't slept. I'm like, barely seeing straight, like, because I was so sleep deprived. And it's just like, one little kid looks up, it's like, that's Mr. Beast. And then all of a sudden, it starts going up and down the lines, and I'm stuck in the middle of the line. It's not like I can go anywhere. And everyone's just running up and down the lines and asking photos and tugging on my hoodie and being like, whoa, what's your next video? This and that. I'm just getting, like, 17 people are talking to me at once as I have, like, this one hour queue in a line. And I was just like, I don't. I can't stand this. And I got to, like, because it's zigzag. So I got the end of one of the zigzags and I called one of, like, TSA people over. I was like, can I please just, like, go stand over there? Like, a pilot's going by. Can I just go to the pilot lines, anything? And he's like, no, we can't do it. As, like, little kids are tugging on me. I'm like, if, man, it was a woman with blonde hair. I was like, please, anything. Like, I'm dying. Like, I. I really don't know what to do. And she's like, oh, well. And so then I just, like, went and hid in a janitor's closet. I just had my friend hold my spot online. He texted me when he got to the end, but, you know, I'm just sitting in this janitor's closet just hiding from a mob of people for, like, 45 minutes, sleep deprived. And I'm like, is this really what I want? Like, so it was pretty miserable. And there's a lot of things like that that that's happens at that level. And it's like everyone meeting you, you know, it is a big moment for them. It is like. It is. It is the most famous person they'll ever meet. And it sounds cocky for me to say that, but just statistically, obviously it's true. And so, yeah, it's a huge moment. They try to extract as much value out of it as possible. And it just makes. You know, I like meeting genuine, awesome fans who just take a photo, say they like the videos, and we talk for a minute, but most people want to talk for, like, 20, 30 minutes. And it's just the problem that no one understands. And I wish there was, like, training for the public on this is like, I have to always be moving when I'm in public. I stop moving, It's a death sentence. Crowds start forming the photos line, and I'm just screwed. Because the thing is, once a line of photos start, by the time you get through that line, a new line that's even longer. And I literally can't take photos with everyone. And then now I'm the head that ignored his fans. And so I can never let a scenario where a line of five or six people happen because. Because then it blinks. And so that's what I'm always explaining to him. When people talk to the airport, I'm like, you got to walk with me. I can't talk some people. Or, like, why? Or, like, my terminal's that way. I'm like, I don't know what to tell you, but I got to keep moving, man. I. I can't stop. And then they think I'm, like, being a. And, like, people don't really, because they've never been in our shoes, like, understand what that. What it's like. And so it's hard because, you know, I also, like, have to, like, the problem if you let someone else's parents take a photo. Oh, man, it'll take a minute and a half, two minutes.
- [64:20]
Lewis Howes
They don't know how to take photos.
- [64:21]
Jimmy Donaldson
What's definite. Because if you're standing there posing for a photo, everyone looks. And because, you know, percentages of human humans alive watch my videos. A lot of them recognize me. And then the line forms. So I can't let parents take photos. I can't let other people take photos. I have to walk and talk selfies. I have to do the selfie, because the selfie I can do in 30 seconds, and I can do while moving, and I can control the pacing and not. I mean, and this sounds like crazy, but this is. This is just the truth. Or if not, I'm going to be Called an online because I didn't take photos with the people online in the line form because I stopped moving. And I have to calculate all these variables when I'm in public to or if not if I just didn't care, like, I would every day there'd just be pieces on me about how I'm. And so it's just like all those things you got to worry about. Plus, like, everyone's trying to doxy. Like I'm always moving. Everyone's trying to dox your car. Everyone's trying to. Everyone will follow you. Like, you know, you take two right hand turns and a car's still going. Take a third one, take a fourth one. Oh, it's still following me. All right. They're, you know, like, so sometimes I'll have to just drive to the police station and then people are going to leave. Yeah. And then when people are following you in their car, they'll see you pull in the police station. They'll be like, okay, I'll stop. And so I know exactly where the police stations are. In most of the cities when I'm driving because I have to go there. Wait. And then the officers are like, what's going on? I'm like, ah, just don't worry about it. They're gone. And then it's like, so there's just so many things where it's just easier just to work all day and not go in public.
- [65:35]
Lewis Howes
Number one, we got to get you global entry so you can walk through security at TS at the.
- [65:39]
Jimmy Donaldson
I have that now. I've been needing it for so long, but I couldn't even find the time to go to our local airport to. To get it because they make me film so much. But I finally got it.
- [65:47]
Lewis Howes
Let's get. We got you Global Ed gets you through quickly. Number two, since you're the second most famous person in the world.
- [65:54]
Jimmy Donaldson
Not famous, but I'd say most followed on social media because obviously Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber. Yeah.
- [65:58]
Lewis Howes
I mean, since you're. Okay. The second most followed person in the world on social media. You did a collab video with Ronaldo.
- [66:05]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [66:06]
Lewis Howes
Did he give you any advice on fame, success, and how to manage all this stuff?
- [66:11]
Jimmy Donaldson
Honest? No, I would have. Well, first off, I. I want to say I was like to his team, I was like, bro, I just need three minutes. Like, I don't care if he's walking to the bathroom. Like, he literally is just like practicing. I'm sitting on the sideline. He goes to watch the bathroom. I film with him. And that's all I get. I'll be happy. I just, like, I know my fans like Ronaldo. I'd love to just say hi to him and just film a little bit. But he ended up giving us, like, two hours, which way more than I wanted. And then afterwards invited me to his home. He was very welcoming, very. Just awesome. Like, did way more than I ever expected. I don't. I still don't know why, you know, because he is obviously very busy. Great experience. But, no, we didn't really talk about that. It was just. There's a little bit of a language barrier. Sure. So you're super nice, but it's just more, you know, general, basic stuff. Talking about, like, football season, I was talk. Teaching him a lot and his team about YouTube and. Exactly that kind of stuff.
- [66:59]
Lewis Howes
That's cool. Is there anything you've learned from him just by observing him with this kind of the fame, success?
- [67:05]
Jimmy Donaldson
I. I would say him, the Rock, a couple other big celebrities. My big takeaway is, honestly, they. They made me feel just more like they. When I was talking to them, they made me feel like I was at the center of the earth. Like, the Rock, like, was ignoring everyone that was tapping on his shoulder. He was just really focused on me, and I was like, wow, this guy.
- [67:22]
Lewis Howes
You know, if you gave him a $100,000 donation.
- [67:24]
Jimmy Donaldson
We played rock paper, scissors, loser had donate 100k to charity. But it was like. It was. They're very attentive, and, I don't know, they just have an aura, and when they shine it on you, you definitely feel it. Like, you can tell if someone's, like, acting and, like, oh, this Guy's a big YouTuber. I need to be nice to him or you or, like, they're really, like, being genuine and present. Yeah, very present. And I think that's, like. I don't know. I think that was, like, a really nice skill that I'd like to develop because I'm not always present because I'm always thinking about the future and stuff like that, but people can really tell. And I. I left meeting both them, like, whoa, that was. That was cool. I feel really good. And, like, I imagine that's what they do with most people they interact with, which, you know, makes them like them a lot more.
- [68:01]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, absolutely. You recently got engaged.
- [68:03]
Jimmy Donaldson
I did.
- [68:04]
Lewis Howes
Congratulations.
- [68:05]
Jimmy Donaldson
Thank you.
- [68:05]
Lewis Howes
I recently got married earlier this year.
- [68:08]
Jimmy Donaldson
Wow.
- [68:09]
Lewis Howes
What is the biggest lesson you've learned from recently being engaged?
- [68:13]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [68:14]
Lewis Howes
What has opened up for you from this experience and, you know, letting love in your life and connecting in A relationship in a deeper way. How has that shifted your mindset, your heart, your vision, everything?
- [68:26]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, I mean, one of the. It changes you in so many ways. Like, it just. One of the ways I just never expected is like, it's very weird because we track a lot of data. I'm a data junkie. I sleep way better when I'm near my fiance. Like, if I'm on the road in a hotel or whatever, my sleep is way worse than when I'm around my fiancee. And I've thought about it a lot, and I think it's like just even 20, 30 minutes before bed where I have a little less serious conversations, help, you know, the activity level, my brain kind of go down. So it's a lot easier for me to just go to bed because obviously, if not, I lay in bed and I just think about videos and ideas. And so it's like countless things like that where I never would have expected it to be a net positive. But, you know, we're not built to be under stress 247 and constantly be working. Like, you're supposed to have downtime here and there, but I. That's like, you're not good at that.
- [69:10]
Lewis Howes
Like, you know, she allows you to do that.
- [69:12]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. So she really helps, which I thought was going to be a negative. And one of the reasons why I was. I was really afraid of, like, being super in love. Like, oh, is this going to take me away from work? But I actually think it does make you more productive if you have, you know, occasional downtime. It helps you just stay more sane. Helps you. Helps, at least in my case, sleep better and things like that. Like, it doesn't need to be like five hours a day, but just like an hour or two with her. It's like, this is a very beautiful woman. I don't need to think about work. And then you come out the other end, you feel much better. So that was a net positive, and.
- [69:41]
Lewis Howes
That was a good thing for the pie chart of life.
- [69:44]
Jimmy Donaldson
Well, it's just. It's hard, man, when you have 500 people that depend on you. I have. I really have to justify every single minute of my life. You know what I mean? Or.
- [69:50]
Lewis Howes
And every person in your life.
- [69:51]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, exactly. Because if not, like, what am I supposed to. Like, if we have to fire 12 people, am I just supposed to be like, oh, yeah, sorry, I didn't, you know, I didn't really care and sorry, screw your family. No, it's like, you know, if we have to fire people, like, I want to know Like I did everything I could and so I have to be very like on point with every little thing I'm doing. Like even in my relationship. But. But yeah, it's a lot of net positive like that. And I think she makes me a better person. And I like me. Obviously I'm marrying her. My fiance is great because she travels with me and she understands like I just have a very hectic life and you know, she revolves a lot of her schedule around mine. So we can actually like if she was just like, no, like I'm not going to work around your film schedule. It is what it is. Like work. Yeah. I would see her never.
- [70:29]
Lewis Howes
What's the biggest lesson she's taught you then?
- [70:31]
Jimmy Donaldson
Biggest lesson? She's taught me a lot about the brain because she's a neuroscientist. So she just.
- [70:36]
Lewis Howes
About life or anything like lesson she's taught you.
- [70:39]
Jimmy Donaldson
Um, less. It's. It's hard. I mean everything keeps coming to my brain because sometimes she'll just say something about the brain. I'm like, how do you even know that?
- [70:48]
Lewis Howes
What's the thing you love about your fiance the most?
- [70:52]
Jimmy Donaldson
I love that she always has. She's always reading a book. She has a very large like desire to learn, which I can't be around someone who's stagnant because of, you know, and so that's very. One of the hottest things she does is read a book. Like it's like weird to me. I'm sure like most guys don't relate to that and they would say something completely different like wear a bikini or this or that. But in my case like I don't remember what her last book was, but she's always learning, she's just always reading. It's usually like the most weirdest books ever. But it's cool cuz she just like likes learning. And then the other thing that is weirdly attractive is we like a lot of the same content. So it's like very frictionless. Like she watches the shows I watch and it's not because she's trying to impress me, it's just that's what she genuinely loves. So we watch the same stuff which is typically more documentary side. Like I don't. We watched something that Joe Rogan recommended like Planet of the Apes or not that there's like some documentary of chimpanzees deep in Africa. We loved it and it was so great. I know so much about them and how they form groups and how they're like, you know, mini versions of humans and how they operate in the hierarchy. I loved it and I could, you know, obviously she loves it too. And so just always learning stuff like that. I would say above anything else because I love learning. And if I was around someone who's like, no, we need to watch. What are those, like Drama of Housewives or whatever those shows are, I, I just couldn't. I, I literally could not. And so it's great because it's very frictionless, everything we do together. I would say it's just, I keep coming back to word frictionless because it's so important to me because in the limited downtime I have, I don't want to have to make trade offs and do things that I don't want to do. Everything we do together and everything we bond over, we both deeply enjoy, which is like what really makes me feel like I hit the lottery. Because obviously she's very beautiful. There's a lot of beautiful women in the world. But to have someone who is beautiful that has a lot of traits that make me a better person and is very frictionless. That's why I'm like, okay, this is like one in a trillion.
- [72:35]
Lewis Howes
That's beautiful, man. There's a great documentary about you on YouTube. I think it was like three or four years ago. And I encourage, I encourage everyone to go watch it because it was really cool sharing your backstory. And I know your mom's a big part of your life as well, and she really kind of raised you and helped nurture your development. What's the biggest lesson your mom has taught you?
- [72:55]
Jimmy Donaldson
Oh, boy. Well, I mean, a lot, especially early in the days, you know, I. It was me, my mom and two of my friends. So once I started making some money, she taught me about taxes, she taught me about this or that. It's funny because me and my mom just grew up with completely different worldviews. Like, obviously for her it's you go to college or you're poor. Right? That's what she was always taught. She went to college and she worked in the military for 20 plus years. And so she was very like, she was even the warden of a prison overseas. Like, she's like very successful, but very by the book, obviously, because she's decades. Follow the rules, follow the rules, this or that, you break all the rules. Exactly. And so we were polar opposites of, of just wavelengths and the way we see the world, I mean, it could have, especially when I was younger, couldn't be any more different. So trivially. There was a lot of friction between us constantly because, like Me not going to college was like basically saying to her, like, I just want to be homeless. Like, you know, you're going to be worried about me forever. And like me wanted to take all these risks is like crazy because they. My. She was over. My parents are over leveraged in 2008 and so they lost everything and she's been. They literally had to file for bankruptcy. So she's been through bankruptcy and she knows like, if freaking sucks and she's been at rock bottom. So seeing me, you know, when I start making tens of thousand dollars a month, spend it all every month and just keep going all in, she's like, no, no, you're going to end up like we did and you don't want to go there. So every step of the way for, you know, 10 years, I don't want to study, I don't want to do this. I want to chase this dream that your brain can't. Like, it's like the equivalent like of you saying you wanted to be or you having a kid and your kids, like, I want to be a profess, a professional lion. You'd be like, what the does that mean? But that was the equivalent of me telling my mom I want to be. She doesn't even know what YouTube is. Me being like, I want to be a YouTuber. Like, it's literally the equivalent of your son going, I want to be a lion. Like, it's like she. Her brain physically couldn't compute what I was saying. And so we were so far apart.
- [74:39]
Lewis Howes
She thought you'd be broke and pouring on the streets.
- [74:41]
Jimmy Donaldson
She just, she couldn't even under comprehend what I was thinking. Like, and then. And she didn't want me to go through a lot of the mistakes she learned and blah, blah. But eventually after, you know, many, many years of it, many, many years of me saying I'm gonna do this and then it happening and the. You know, eventually she just got to the point where it's like, you know what? I just trust you. And that's when our relationship got probably a hundred times better. And, and I don't, and I don't blame her for it. Like I think 99.9. I think every mom in the universe would have probably been handled things much worse than her, you know, because it's not like we had tons of money growing up and everything she was saying is because she wanted what was best for me. It's not because she was trying to hold me back. But there was some turning point where it went from like her basically crying because she was like, please, I don't want you to, like, go bankrupt. To, like, it just switched. And she was like. She would just start saying, I trust you. I think this is a little deranged, but I trust you. And I'd be like, let's go. Let's get it. Yeah. Like, there was one point where she was, like, so worried about it because, again, she went through bankruptcy that she, like, took $10,000 and hit it. It was in my name. It's actually stole it, but just in a bank account I didn't know about because I don't really have access to my bank accounts because it's too much time. I just, like. I just go, how much money do we have? And she just tells me, especially when I was younger, and she just did that as, like, a rainy day funds. My son's never actually homeless. And then I, like, eventually found out about it, and I was like, oh, that's perfect. I can, like, spend a little more on this next video. And, I mean, I've never seen her cry more than that. She's just like, you can't take this. Like, this is. I need this money so I can, like, sleep at night and know you're good. And, like, my brain didn't register any of that because, like, I'm just like, what do you mean? Money means to make videos. And I'm, like, 21. And, like, I don't. I'm like, why would we save money? We can make better videos. And I eventually convinced her to give me the money so I could go put it into videos. And it's like, it was crazy. I wish we had that kind of stuff on camera now that it's over and we have a great relationship to laugh at because it was, like. Sure it was. It was pretty crazy.
- [76:27]
Lewis Howes
So what would you say is the biggest lesson then she taught you through kind of your whole journey so far?
- [76:32]
Jimmy Donaldson
I mean, just that, you know, parents have different worldviews than their children. And, you know, just trust me, you know, Like, I guess, really, that. I mean, obviously, I don't know why. Like, I don't remember much when I'm younger. Like, my life in my head really started when I started making YouTube videos. Before that, I don't really remember much, so I'm sure there's a lot of stuff. Obviously, she's my mom. Tons of stuff she taught me. But I don't know. Like, all my memories are just making content, which is not a good thing. I think I might have Alzheimer's or something. Something's Wrong with my head. But it's like when I try to go before 11, it's like kind of nothing really exists.
- [77:06]
Lewis Howes
Well, you should say if you're mentally more healthy, you would be less successful, I think. Right.
- [77:12]
Jimmy Donaldson
I have a brain that I think is conducive to being more successful, but.
- [77:17]
Lewis Howes
It'S driven for success.
- [77:19]
Jimmy Donaldson
But. But I'm. I'm very weird compared to most people. I obviously, I hold. Hold it back. And he's also a very successful man, so it's a little easier. But. Yeah. When I searched when I was younger, if I tried to have a conversation with, you know, a typical average person my age, I mean, it would just fall apart.
- [77:32]
Lewis Howes
Right.
- [77:33]
Jimmy Donaldson
Like, very quick and just be like, South Park. Okay, can we talk about something important?
- [77:39]
Lewis Howes
Do you. Do you see yourself wanting to be a dad in the future sometimes?
- [77:42]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I love mentoring people and helping them, and it would be so awesome to have a boy or girl and just be able to mentor them into whatever they want to be successful. And that would be a lot of fun. Just not anytime soon because I don't. I don't have time. So I want to be a dad when I could.
- [77:57]
Lewis Howes
But you didn't think you had time.
- [77:58]
Jimmy Donaldson
For a girlfriend, a fiance. Yeah.
- [78:00]
Lewis Howes
You didn't think you had time for that.
- [78:01]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, but this is a bigger life.
- [78:03]
Lewis Howes
Better.
- [78:03]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, but this is a bigger bed because it's not like after a year from, like, oh, I don't have time. I can throw it away.
- [78:07]
Lewis Howes
Of course.
- [78:08]
Jimmy Donaldson
Of course. I want to be sure. So it'll probably be like at least another six or seven years because, yeah, like, I don't want to have a kid and then not be present, you know, because then what's the point? Why even have a kid if I'm.
- [78:18]
Lewis Howes
Not going to be well in six or seven years, I don't think you're going to slow down. I think you're going to have, like, this massive enterprise.
- [78:24]
Jimmy Donaldson
I do know for a fact I'm not having kids unless I think I could be a good father. And right now, factually, I don't even have enough time, some months to, like, sleep. So I just would not be a good father. So whenever that inflection point hits, I'm going to start popping them out. Yeah.
- [78:35]
Lewis Howes
Okay. And she's cool with that, waiting, 5, 6, 7?
- [78:38]
Jimmy Donaldson
As of now, yes. I'm sure as she gets older, she's going to be like, you know now. Yeah, let's go. You know, the first year, they're just.
- [78:44]
Lewis Howes
Figured they Just poop.
- [78:45]
Jimmy Donaldson
Who cares?
- [78:45]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, exactly. You'll figure it out either way. You know, you'll be ready either.
- [78:48]
Jimmy Donaldson
I want a lot, though. I think that'd be fun.
- [78:49]
Lewis Howes
Really?
- [78:50]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [78:50]
Lewis Howes
How many kids?
- [78:51]
Jimmy Donaldson
Like, as long as I'm having fun, I would crank out a bunch. Really? Yeah, because it'd be, like. It'd be fun. Hopefully they have my level of ambition. They want to be successful. It doesn't have to be in business, whether it's basketball, baseball, painting, bowling balls, or business. Like, I would just love to, you know, make them the. Or chess. I don't really give what it is, but I'd love to make them, like, the best version of that, because I would have, you know, basically spent 20 years of my life just obsessing over how to become the best in your craft and then to be able to just funnel that. Have you ever read the. The how to Raise a Genius? But that's like, there's this guy who had. I think it's three girls. And before they were born, he was like, how could I objectively measure whether or not, you know, I trained them to be good at something? And, you know, a lot of things, there's randomness, you know, basketball. Well, what if they're too short and that's out of their field? And so he landed on chess because it's a very objective game. And from a very young age, you know, he used all these theories. He was like a college professor. Professor. On how to, like, make someone exceptional at something. And he did it at a young age. And Mavon, one of them ended up being one of the only females to ever be, like, one of the top 10 chess players in the world. And they all became, like, I think all three grandmasters. Don't quote me on that. Very exceptional chess players. And the more important thing is they have a great relationship with their dad. And now, like, they're older, in their 20s, and they're like, yeah, our dad didn't make us do anything we didn't want to do. And he talks about how you make learning fun and all this other stuff. And he was like, three for three and making exceptional chess players, which proves there is a way you can raise someone to be very, very successful by putting your knowledge into them without it being torture and making them hate you. And so that was really cool for me to read, because I'm like, okay, good. Because I really want to. I really enjoy mentoring, but I don't want to, like. But you hear the stereotypes, like, yeah, well, dads force their kids to Be good at something they don't want to and they end up resenting them. But he clearly laid out a playbook where you could. And so that's what I'd also love to obsess over more because like, that would be the best version for me is like if I could find their passion at a young age that they want to do and then whatever the hell it is, make them the best in the world at it, you know, that that would be a dream come true.
- [80:45]
Lewis Howes
And them still appreciate and love you.
- [80:47]
Jimmy Donaldson
Exactly. While maintain a good relationship. Like I don't obviously want to push them. Do something I want to do.
- [80:51]
Lewis Howes
So a video online, I can't remember per is Noah Kagan, a buddy of mine. That's another YouTube guy. I think he was interviewing some billionaire. I think it was him interviewing some billionaire. And he asked this guy, what's your definition of success? Success like later in life and you're like 60s and 70s.
- [81:06]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [81:07]
Lewis Howes
And the guy said, you know, being able to be successful in your business and also have your kids want to be friends with you.
- [81:14]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [81:14]
Lewis Howes
That is success to him.
- [81:16]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [81:16]
Lewis Howes
And it sounds like you want to make sure that you start your family, start having kids when you can be more present, when you can pour into them.
- [81:22]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [81:23]
Lewis Howes
Time, talent.
- [81:24]
Jimmy Donaldson
And I would add one more layer because if you look at a billionaires who are very successful people, you know, yes, they're very successful, but how many of them are relatively fit, jacked while doing it, and then how many of them are relatively fit, slash jacked and have a good relationship with their family? It's actually like, that's real success is actually checking all three boxes, you know, and that's, you know, sometimes I will talk to someone who's very successful, but they're really fat and they're having heart issues and all these other things. And you know, it's your choice. But just obviously objectively, health wise, it's not, you know, good to be obese. It factually will shorten your lifespan and you know, and they don't have a good relationship with their kids. And you know, we'll be talking about money. And I'm like, that's cool. But I would respect you way more if you're in good health and your kids didn't hate you. Yeah. And it's something I can't not observe. And so when I do meet people who are fit and successful or I mean, I've only met like a couple who, you know.
- [82:13]
Lewis Howes
Hit all three.
- [82:14]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, hit all three. I'm like, that's what I'm like, wow, you, like, really figured it out. Because that's. That's not easy, you know, hard. Yeah. Like, anyone can throw 20, 30 years of their life out of business and eventually succeeded. Like, I don't think anything. I. I think the biggest reason why I am where I am now is, like, I would say factually, of the tens of millions of YouTubers in the world, none of them has spent more time thinking on their YouTube channel. None of them have spent more time working on their YouTube channel. And none of them are more obsessed about their YouTube channel than me. I would just say, factually, whatever the.
- [82:39]
Lewis Howes
Number is, and spent more money on this.
- [82:41]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, sure, but the money. You could remove that because other people can't control how much money they spent, but they can control those three variables. And I would just say out of. Let's just pick a number. It's tens of millions. Let's say it's 40 million. Of the 40 million creators on the planet, there's just, factually, not a single one that has put more time, more thought and more effort into their channel than me. Like, I will die on that hill. And so, you know, obviously, that would naturally be conducive to success. And so, like, you, anyone could do that in business. But to do that in business while also raising your kids well, where they like you and, you know, ideally they're becoming successful while also taking care of your health and body. Maybe not mental health, I don't value that one as much, but at least just physical health. So you can live to be 80, 90 years old. Like, that's where you would have my. Like, I would bow to you. I'd be like, man, yeah, you got it.
- [83:20]
Lewis Howes
You figured it out. Yeah, yeah, it's hard. Well, it's cool that you're really excited to obsess about your business success, about growth, but also you want to wait until you can make sure you also pour into your kids in a beautiful way.
- [83:30]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [83:30]
Lewis Howes
Because a lot of entrepreneurs don't think that way. I think they're just, like, focused on their business and, like, kids come second, I think.
- [83:36]
Jimmy Donaldson
Not all. Not all of them. Then I would just be like, why have kids? I mean, obviously the business will still be first, but that's. That's where I like what Jeff Bezos says. It's not work life balance. It's work life harmony and, you know.
- [83:46]
Lewis Howes
Integration, all that stuff.
- [83:47]
Jimmy Donaldson
Exactly. Ideally, they come along with filming trips, and we just figured out a way to, like, make it all harmonious. Where I don't have to choose either or. And they love what I'm doing and it just like works out.
- [83:56]
Lewis Howes
Yeah. I got a few final questions for you, Jimmy. This has been powerful and really inspiring. One of them is again, in about two months. In two months, there's going to be a video that comes out that October 4th.
- [84:09]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [84:09]
Lewis Howes
That you filmed 10 years ago.
- [84:11]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [84:12]
Lewis Howes
And maybe you know what it says, maybe you don't know what it says. Where you were speaking in the future to your future self saying, I hope you have this. I hope you're at a million subscribers in five years. I hope you're doing YouTube full time and making money in 10 years. And your younger self spoke into existence what you've created times a million. Right. If you were able to film a video right now.
- [84:34]
Jimmy Donaldson
Oh God.
- [84:34]
Lewis Howes
And, and maybe you've already done this, but if you haven't, this could be a video clip that you upload for.
- [84:40]
Jimmy Donaldson
10 years in the future from today.
- [84:41]
Lewis Howes
10 years self you're 37.
- [84:43]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [84:43]
Lewis Howes
It's October 4, 2035.
- [84:47]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [84:49]
Lewis Howes
What message would you say to yourself 10 years in the future that you hope about where you're at?
- [84:56]
Jimmy Donaldson
Oh, there's, there's a lot here. I mean, one thing for starters, it's funny, we haven't even talked about feastables. Like feastables. We do, you know, about the ethical sourcing and stuff we do with feastables. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I really hope by then it. So for our chocolate brand, I started selling chocolate usual snack. But then I looked under the hood and I realized there's a lot of child labor in West Africa, which is where a majority of the cocoa for chocolate comes from. It's like 70% of cocoa comes from Ghana, Cote d' Ivar and 46% of like households that have children. Those children work in child labor on cacao farms. It's like crazy. There's over 1.5 million kids in illegal child labor over there. And I was like hearing all that, I was like, okay, well surely there's like a supply chain where I just pay a little premium and I don't have a little kid working on my farm. Like, I'd rather not get rich on the back of a 12 year old working on a cacao farm. And everyone's like, no, it's not possible. And I'm talking to all the biggest suppliers and all the biggest child companies. They're like, no, it's just if you want to sell child, you use child labor. It's just kind of how it works. And I'm like, that seems everyone. Like, does that seem fair? Yeah. I was like, everyone, everyone in this boardroom, you're all just like, that's like a consensus and you just don't even care. And it's like, no one really cared. It's like crazy. They're all just like, it is what it is. Like it's. That's, you know, one of the laws of thermodynamics. I'm like, okay, so that sent me down a rabbit hole. And that's why we pay all our farmers a living income reference price and blah, blah. I mean, I, I could talk about this for hours, but we use fair trade certified beans and we have people routinely audit, remediate child labor on our farms, you know, blah, blah. And so it's. I mean, I, I don't know of any other chocolate company in America that's more ethically sourced than us. And so my big goal right now with feasibles to get it where it's doing a billion a year profitably while being ethically sourced. Because one of the things a lot of these bigger child companies fall back on is like, well, yeah, you can ethically source it when you're small, but you know, the scale of that. Yeah, we sell a billion chocolate bars a year. Like, bro, that's, that's different. So, you know, I need to get scale well, and then they'll be like, well, if you did it, scale wouldn't be profitable. We have fiduciary responsibility, blah, blah, all these excuses. So now we gotta be profitable and we gotta do obnoetically sourced and then it's more powerful because then I can go to and be like, no, this is factually possible. You just don't want to. Right? Right now they hide behind the complicated veil if it's not possible. It's not like, oh, if you guys just paid an extra 3 cents a bean or whatever a metric ton, whatever the conversion is, you know, these kids are. There's literally no option. So they're able to hide behind the MBU and you know, they're not incentivized to set it up and fix it themselves. So I really hope I could build that and build a way where, you know, if we really nail it on feastables, where one day we can help other companies source their cacao to us and just be like, yo, like, here it is. It's like a thing you're choosing not to, but just so we're on the same page. It's not because you can't you just actually are choosing to use child labor because you're a cheap, you know, and be able to like look a child exact in the eye and say that that would be awesome. But I mean, it's obviously a very complicated thing. And because you're talking about like there's hundreds of thousands of farms, right? It's not like, like some, a lot of these are family owned farms and smaller. It's not like there's like, you know, a thousand mega plantations. And so it's like very granular, very boots on the ground, very. And you have to trace it. And then there's all these other things. Like, so we, we work well. Like I did masterminds on YouTube when I got into this, I was like, okay, who are all the people in the world that are, you know, ethically sourcing cacao the most started doing masterminds with them. One of the top ones is Tony Ciccolloni. A lot of people in Europe have probably heard of them. They, that's where like the three things we do, like, that's what they do. And that's where I learned a lot from. Like, I wouldn't be anywhere near as far into ethically sourcing as I am if I didn't meet them. And like one thing they, they do, which we do because we have a joint supply chain with them. Because at the start it's much easier just to use their supply chain is they literally will scan the size of the farm because since we pay the premium for ethical source cacao, neighboring farms will go throw their cacao that does have child labor in like the bins and stuff to get the premium. And like people would pile it. So they literally track the radius of the farms they work with or we work with. And, and then if they submit theoretically more than the maximum yield is physically possible per hectare, then like that sets off a red flag. Like that's how in depth we're going. And it's like, yo, like you literally couldn't have grown this much. Like, just tell us like, who put cacao in here? Like, it's just like, we can't take this, you know, and so it's like going that far where no one in the world would even know. Like you could just turn a blind eye. A guy submits three times the theoretical yield of a farm, who's going to, who's even going to know that? You know what I mean? Who's going to go measure the farm, see what the output is and then know that this farm we could get away with it, but that's like how granular we're going. And so it's, it's no joke. It's a lot of work. But hopefully, you know, four or five years from now.
- [89:26]
Lewis Howes
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- [91:26]
Jimmy Donaldson
Well, yeah, that's where with Feastables, yeah, I hope we hit those three metrics. I hope other people are using or, you know, we're helping other people ethically source their cacao. But it's just not stopping there. I mean, there's so many things I want to do, like, obviously I want to. Hopefully. We have like dozens of hit shows that aren't just Mr. Beast, you know, like our own version of the Voice or Shark Tank and a bunch of other unscripted shows that eventually we move into scripted shows because yeah, our media division needs to keep growing year over year. Feast grows year over year. And another, I mean this would take me hours to answer. Another thing we've been working on recently is there's no way for like large brands in America to like deploy capital, like large sums of money into brand deals for creators. Everyone knows like instead of buying an ad, like a YouTube ad that's skippable or an ad in different platforms in the middle of the video, it would convert much better just to pay the creator directly to promote your product. But you know, if you're a big blue chip brand that deploys 100 million or whatever your budget through an agency. Yeah, but even then there's no agency that can do it at scale. Right. If you wanted to, you know, if you're one of the brands that spent a billion a year on advertising, you want to Deploy let's say 75 million of it in a single year into brand deals with creators, you literally can't do it right now, especially if you wanted to actually reach a certain target in demo. So you wanted to reach women between the age of 20 and 30. Right. You're not buying my video. Right. And once you get after the top 10 creators like brand deals start to fall down to like a hundred grand. And so like that would be whatever, 700 brand deals and that's. But most of them brand deals would end up being 20, $30,000 or whatever. And so you're talking about facilitating thousands of brand deals a year. There's no cmo, there's no agency that can handle that kind of throughput at scale, especially not even for one company now if you had multiple ones. And so that I think is a very important thing because it'll allow creators to make more money, which I'm very passionate about. It'll also allow big brands to do just get better ROI on advertising and reach this new frontier.
- [93:09]
Lewis Howes
Because are you going to build the platform?
- [93:10]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. So that's what we've been working on and already started. And so I think that will be one of the bigger things we do. Yeah, because it's, it's just a no brainer. Every CMO I talk to that has these giant nine figure budgets wants to deploy figures into creators.
- [93:20]
Lewis Howes
Can't do it.
- [93:21]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, they can't or they do. And it doesn't convert well because it's not data backed and so tracked. Yeah. And so we, um. Yeah.
- [93:27]
Lewis Howes
Exciting.
- [93:27]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. So it's multiple other stuff like that. Like, I. I love building businesses and I love making content. Those are the two things I exist on this planet for. And so hopefully the YouTube channel is doing better than it is now. We have a bunch of hit shows and, you know, we leverage that attention to, you know, start a job or get grow festivals, get kids out of child labor, you know, grow whatever our creator marketplace ends up being called. And we're helping creators make more money and brands deploy ads more efficiently. And just it's like, ideally, like four or five or six businesses that are, you know, hopefully doing over a billion a year each. And they're like, net positives and they're growing year over year.
- [93:57]
Lewis Howes
That's amazing, man. Okay, I have four final questions I'm going to try to get through fast for you. I know you gotta go for it. Sleep, man. All day.
- [94:05]
Jimmy Donaldson
Let's hit it.
- [94:07]
Lewis Howes
With all the impact you've had on all the lives over the last decade and the people you're serving specifically through Team Water and all these different things, is there a person or a moment or a memory that hit you the most? You mentioned, like, you saw a woman walking with water, like an hour. Was there, like, someone that you gave a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred, or you impacted in some way?
- [94:30]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [94:31]
Lewis Howes
That you're like, wow, this really. I remember this one because you can get kind of not numb.
- [94:36]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [94:37]
Lewis Howes
But you do so much good.
- [94:38]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. Very much dumb.
- [94:39]
Lewis Howes
That everyone's like, you're amazing. Like, oh, thank you. You changed my life. But is there one person or a family or a mom or someone that you're like, who was blind, who saw that? You're like, wow, this really touched me. Is there one of those memories you have?
- [94:52]
Jimmy Donaldson
It's definitely. Or not, bro. We've done so. We've helped so many, like, literally tens of thousands. But if I had to pick, which is very hard, it would probably be when we built wells in different countries in Africa, because those are like, water is just so essential. And like. And like I said before, like, if water has bacteria in it and stuff, it just affects their lives so much. And sometimes, like, building the wells really isn't even that hard. Like, you bring the machine out, you dig it down. It's like 15, 20 grand. You could just, like, if you've put it in the center of multiple communities, like, you can fundamentally change the entire future of thousands of people, especially if you set aside some money to maintain it. So if it starts to rust or go bad, there's like a thousand dollars there. Or what, you know, or what we do with some of our partners is like we will help them set up like a very, very, very. And I don't know if this is what water aid does, but just with the partners I worked with before, small tax where you know, every time you use it it's like, like less than a penny. But then that you put that money in a fund. So if there ever is repair issues, then the village can take care of itself and like you get it where self sustaining. So then if that well is actually there for 20 years, I mean that's like you just, it's. You literally can't state the kind of impact that would have. So yeah, I would, it would say when we build wells in Africa or honestly the stuff we're doing in Ghana with Febles, because it's just, you know, even like one of the things we're working on now, like, because I mean there's no stone we won't turn over is there's some data that shows like I was looking at school attendance data, you know, in Ghana and Kotavar. And when you make making sure I say these stuff accurately, like when you do a school feeding program, there's one school where every Monday, Wednesday and Friday they'd give the kids a free meal. And it's not like it's high quality, it's just like, you know, nourishment. Yeah. And like the attendance on Monday, Wednesday and Friday would be like 40% higher than Tuesday and Thursday because parents would know, hey, if I send my kid to school today, at least they'll be fed. And so you know, with some of these, because we're doing everything we can to get kids off the farms, we, we als, we set up feeding programs at certain schools near our farms where it actually lowers the child labor rate quite a bit because if the parent will way, way more higher probability of sending the kid to school, they know they're going to get at least one meal when they go there. And like one school, when they heard that we were going to start a school feeding program, like the weeks leading up to it, like over 100 kids enrolled just because they heard that there was going to be free food there. And because it's like a community that farms cacao, most of those people, kids are obviously if they weren't going to school, they were working in child labor on farms because that's just what the community does. And so that one also is pretty crazy because I see these kids in school and learning and it helps break, like, the cycle of. Well, if they never got an education, they're just going to do what their parents did, which is they're going to work on cacao farms. And if nothing changes, farmers make less than a dollar a day on average because big chocolate is very cheap and don't pay much. And so, you know, if they don't get this education, they're just doomed to making less than a dollar a day. And it's, like, pretty brutal. But then, you know, you. You know, you do the things we're doing for ethical sourcing, plus you start a school feeding program. And that fundamentally, like, will change their entire life. You know, if they have education, they can get a different job and something that, you know, pays more and blah, blah. Yeah. So I'd say it's a tie between those two things.
- [97:48]
Lewis Howes
Okay, cool, man. Change your lives, man. What is the thing about you, Jimmy, that most people don't understand about you?
- [97:57]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [97:57]
Lewis Howes
That you feel like you wish they knew more about you, Something maybe you feel misunderstood about, or wish they. Maybe something you don't talk about publicly that you wish people knew more about you.
- [98:08]
Jimmy Donaldson
That's a great question. I wish people knew more about. I mean, we talk about it a lot on this podcast, but not everyone watches the podcast. I do, obviously. 99% of my viewership just watches my videos. And I would say I don't think people realize just how hard it is to do what we do. I mean, it is non stop, all day, every day. Like, there's. There's a reason why no one else does what I do, and it's because it's hard. It's really, really hard. It's like, especially most people, once they make a couple million dollars, they're like, why would I work that hard? I'll just like, like, I'll keep working, but, like, I'll enjoy my weekends. I'll. I'll sleep nine hours every night. I'll, like, be happy. Like, and that's where you notice, like, an effect where, like, creators will go like this, like, exponential growth, and then they'll kind of teeter off because it's like, all right. Like, those are the people who are particularly money driven. And then once they start to come into that money and they hit their number, they're like, why am I going as hard? They're not. They weren't doing it because they loved it or because they wanted to win or blah, blah. And so it's like, yeah, it's just like getting here was just an unfathomable amount of work I gave. Like, I didn't do parties. I didn't. I mean, I just work. It's just what I do. And I think people, like. I mean, it's quite literally every second I'm awake, I'm thinking about. I mean, it's like Jensen said, I'm either working or I'm thinking about working. Like. Like, it's literally that. And it's that over a very long period and. But on. So, yeah, I don't, like, think people realize just how much effort it took to be here. Like, you don't just lock into it. Like, a lot of people will say it's locked, but it's like, was it luck that I spent a thousand days in a row analyzing my videos, perform better than others? You know what I mean? Like, because I feel like if anyone actually did that with, like, actual intensity and purpose, they would have.
- [99:44]
Lewis Howes
They'd be successful, too.
- [99:45]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, exactly. So a lot of things that people say are luck, because I get that all the time, especially from people who don't really know how I got here. I'm just like, well, I mean, point to one person who's put one tenth of the amount of time into this that I have and didn't become successful. Like, you can't. You know, I'm like. It's like the saying is, like, it takes 10,000 hours to master something. But I. I think the saying should be, it takes 100,000 hours to master something. Because, like, what is 10,000 hours? If you do 10 hours a day for 365 days, that's 3,600 hours in one year. So you're saying it just takes 10 hours a day for three years to max or something? No, you could do something 10 hours a day for three years come out the other end. I did. It took me seven years before anyone started watching my videos. It's not 10,000 hours. It's like. I mean, to be a little more reasonable, it's probably more like 30, 40,000 hours. You know, I mean, like, don't be. There's a world before I'm 40 where I'll be a hundred thousand hours deep into this, you know, and, like, no one else in the world will be able to say that about their YouTube channel and creating content. So. Yeah. But on the flip side, I think that's just how I'm wired. And I also don't think that kind of mindset works for everyone. Like, you know, there's, like, people who, for whatever reason, we're just like, our Brains are like, winning is the purpose of life and winning is fun and winning is why I'm here and I have a brain like that. But other people, obviously it's not. And you. It's fine. So don't. If that's not your natural mind state, you. You can't force it.
- [100:57]
Lewis Howes
But, yeah, is it, you know, when you say winning, is it more about winning and having the biggest channel and platform, or is it more about winning, making the most money? Is it about winning making the most impact on people? It's about all of it combined.
- [101:09]
Jimmy Donaldson
That's the thing. Everyone tries to. This is what you'll see, especially with public figures. Everyone tries to boil their motivations down to one single thing. But we're not simple creatures. You can be motivated by multiple things. And so. And when I say this, it's like, it's like weird to some people. I don't know why, like, this isn't said more. But everyone will be like, that person's motivated by money. But then if you dug deeper on the surface, you'd see, no, actually, they're motivated by money. Yes. But they also want money so they can take care of their family, they can spoil their kids. They're technically motivated by money and family. And they're motivated because, you know, this gives them purpose. Like, if not, they feel depressed when they're not working. And then you'd be like, well, actually, they're motivated by like six things. But no one ever goes, that person's motivated by six things. And we all like to simplify it like this. So for me, like, yeah, winning is obviously having one of the biggest channels ever. It's also being able to. A lot of my friends and family work for me. It's been able to take. For them, take care of them. It's being able to take care of all my employees. It's being able to. To do something that is mentally stimulating and challenging. I could go on and on and list 30 reasons why. But the thing is, all 30 of those things point back to winning. Winning allows all of them. So, yeah, but I'm sure some people will hear this and go, okay, he's just motivated by money. Oh, he just cares about numbers, you know.
- [102:11]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, that's a lot of things. Yeah, many things. There are something you said earlier that I know you're really passionate, excited about, which is Beast Games.
- [102:19]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [102:19]
Lewis Howes
And it was a massive hit. You know, it hit all these world records. Most viewed show ever on Amazon. All these different things. Biggest game show, cast, prize. All these different things.
- [102:29]
Jimmy Donaldson
Right.
- [102:31]
Lewis Howes
And you crushed it. And yet you lost money. Yeah, you lost money, but you learned so much.
- [102:37]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [102:37]
Lewis Howes
What was the biggest lesson you learned from season one that you're going to take into the next few seasons?
- [102:43]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. So, yeah, like he said, Beast Games is our reality show where we got a th000 contestants. Most contestants of any show in history. Double what anyone else had learned. Why it's a lot to manage that kind of people. Largest cash prize in history. Largest sets in history. We're just like, what if you make a reality show? But just every. Like, we broke almost 50 world records. So, like. But everything is a world record. People loved it resonated. But yeah, it's like for the show, we built a city. Like, we literally went to a field. Nothing. Built a city.
- [103:10]
Lewis Howes
It's crazy.
- [103:11]
Jimmy Donaldson
So I learned a lot about building cities. Obviously I never built a city before. So there's a lot of ways to do bathrooms.
- [103:15]
Lewis Howes
You need this.
- [103:16]
Jimmy Donaldson
Exactly. And even little things, like there are things that were out of our control. Like when we were filming Toronto, there was the worst rainstorm in seven years. And so that cost millions of dollars to fix because it was just like the sets were flooded. Even our ones inside the studios. The water level came up so much that it went in the studios and blah, blah. So there's stuff like that out of your control. But then there's stuff in your control that I'm just ignorant on. Like building a city. Some of these sets were, I mean, just monstrosity. Like we were like. One of our sets was over $10 million. You know, holy. Where we had the thousand trapdoors. At the intro.
- [103:46]
Lewis Howes
They all drop in.
- [103:47]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah. Because that's the world record for most trapdoors ever on a set. The world record for most towers on a set. It looks like world record for most.
- [103:52]
Lewis Howes
People eliminated in a show.
- [103:55]
Jimmy Donaldson
We gave away the most money in episode one ever. It was a bunch of. And so obviously learned a lot about building a thousand trap doors and things like that. So just because it was so many things that had never been done before, it's just kind of like you don't really know what could go wrong until you do it. So we learned a lot of lessons and I think hopefully season two, I. I don't know. Just cut it out. If they tell me, I think I'm allowed to talk about it now. We just wrapped. We just wrapped filming season two. Obviously did not lose money and did a lot better job because, you know, we learned our lesson and. Yeah, but it's, you know, if you're.
- [104:27]
Lewis Howes
What can people expect for season two without. Without giving away, bro, I can tell.
- [104:33]
Jimmy Donaldson
You right off the bat, in season one, we, there was a little too much randomness. Like there's some games where, you know, it's, it's not the best person moved on. It's like it was a little bit of luck. People didn't like that as most people were fine with it. But the people who complained were like, you know, I would want to see the person who wins the largest cash prize in history be the person who deserved it, not a person who got lucky in a couple of games. Um, so we made things way more skill based and then it took like four episodes where you really. Because we had a thousand people where you really got to know and get invested in people. Whereas most shows like, that's what they do, right? So, so instead of a we, we have less contestants and this time we're just way more focused on like having you get to know them and get attached to them earlier, which kind of obvious in hindsight. So I honestly like those are the two biggest things. We're just more skill based, getting to know the contestants more. And besides that, people loved it, you.
- [105:21]
Lewis Howes
Know, wow, season two is going to have more money. I'm assuming too. You can't probably, can't say. But there's probably going to be more money.
- [105:26]
Jimmy Donaldson
There's a lot of money given away.
- [105:28]
Lewis Howes
A lot of money given away. And did you learn some things for season hopefully 3, 4, 5.
- [105:32]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, exactly. I mean, just like our YouTube videos, you could go watch every. You could go back and watch all our videos in reverse order and you'll see every single video. Something improves every time you make a piece of content. Because there's no such thing as perfection. There's always stuff you can learn.
- [105:44]
Lewis Howes
This is a question we, we asked you what 10 year in the future self would tell. You know what you tell your tenure in the future self.
- [105:51]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [105:52]
Lewis Howes
But I'm curious if you get to, you know, be. If you get to win at every area of life for the rest of your life and you get to live as long as you want to live, but for whatever reason, it's the last day on earth and you've achieved everything, every dream that you've said you want to accomplish, it happens in the future, okay? Friends, family, love, kids, money, success, it all happens, okay? But for whatever reason, on the last day of your life way in the future, all of your content is erased.
- [106:22]
Jimmy Donaldson
Oh, God.
- [106:22]
Lewis Howes
Hypothetical. Oh, you're going to hypothetical.
- [106:25]
Jimmy Donaldson
Okay.
- [106:25]
Lewis Howes
And no One has access to your content anymore, but you get to leave one final message, one final video that they would have access to, and you get to share three lessons to the world of everything you've learned.
- [106:37]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yep.
- [106:37]
Lewis Howes
It could be about money, life, business, anything random or meaningful, whatever. What would that final video be with three lessons?
- [106:44]
Jimmy Donaldson
I wouldn't even make it three. I just make it one. Which I think most people need to prioritize more. And it's the reason why I am here. It's what we talked about earlier. You are who you surround yourself with. The five people you talk to the most are going to determine how successful you are, how unsuccessful you are. They're like, I went to a stand where I had a couple of friends who are into cars. I bought like a BMW. I hate cars. I ended up selling it. Like, why am I doing this? And I'm like, wow. It's just because people around would just talk about cars a lot. And then I ended up thinking that was cool. I was an 18 year old and you know that I'm 20. I'm like, why do I own this? Like, I don't care. And it just showed me, like, wow. Really? I'm very, very much influenced by the people around. Oh, we all are. I'm just very cognizant of it. And I notice when I'm around people more and more, I start to use some of the vocabulary. I start to, you know, people. If we're on like a really long shoot, it's like day eight, you know, we're 14 hours in and everyone around starts complaining. I start to complain. I start to get in a headspace where it's like, this isn't fair. This is what I want to do. But if I'm around people who are like, yo, let's get it. People are gonna love this stuff. We're filming great content. I'm like, let's go. Like, you're not gonna outwork me. Bring it on. And so it's just like, really pay attention to who you're around and, like, just accept that they will determine how successful you are. And if you know you're cool with being as successful as your five friends that you talk to the most, then you're good. But if you want to be an overachiever, it's just not gonna happen. Like, if I didn't do that Mastermind with five other obsessed freaks, and I just hung out with five people from my high school, I mean, I would have 5 million subscribers. I might be a fraction as successful as I AM. It's literally just as simple as that.
- [108:07]
Lewis Howes
Choose the people you surround yourself with wisely as a mastermind of trustful individuals that support you and elevate you.
- [108:15]
Jimmy Donaldson
That's support and elevate. But honestly, for me, the big thing is surround yourself with other freaks that are obsessed, obsessed, obsessed, obsessed. If what you want to be in life, this person thinks about it all day, dreams about it every night, talks about it non stop. Then you got like, they're helping you, but you're also helping them. It is a mutual beneficial thing. Like, and if you find the four most obsessed people in the world that you can get your hands on on that topic and you talk to them every day and you're around them constantly, there's just no world that the version of you that does that is not exponentially better and further along two years later, theoretically, than the version of you who isn't. I mean, it is a monster of a difference. And there's no doubt in my mind. And it's not a thing that requires money. It's not a thing that requires to have a rich father or anything. It is a thing that is fully in your control and you just got to make it happen. You control who you're friends with, you control who you hang around and you control if you're constantly leveling up that friend group or if you just stay content.
- [109:04]
Lewis Howes
That's it, man.
- [109:05]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [109:05]
Lewis Howes
I want to acknowledge you one more time before I ask the final question. And make sure everyone gets. I'm not going to show the number, but make sure you donate right now. Team water.
- [109:13]
Jimmy Donaldson
Teamwater.org let's go. One of this drops. I'm going to be refreshing the new donations. I better see your names.
- [109:18]
Lewis Howes
Let's go.
- [109:18]
Jimmy Donaldson
You guys are rich. I know you're rich.
- [109:20]
Lewis Howes
Exactly. So make sure you make a donation. Teamwater.org we'll have it linked up everywhere. Use the hashtag Team Water. Trying to raise $40 million to access for 2 million people to have clean water for decades to come. And again, I want to acknowledge you, Jimmy, for caring deeply about human beings. I know you get a lot of criticism. I know there's some people that are frustrated by your work style sometimes or your obsession for greatness and like your demands that you have on people. I know there's people that, you know, get frustrated with that sometimes, but you are doing so much good in the world and I want to acknowledge you for just constantly being driven to create content that serves people, constantly driven to elevate other creators and empower Them to get donations for causes as well. Because a lot of creators don't think that way.
- [110:11]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah.
- [110:12]
Lewis Howes
So I'm grateful for you leading the way.
- [110:14]
Jimmy Donaldson
I'm grateful for you using stuff makes me so uncomfortable. Thank you.
- [110:18]
Lewis Howes
I'm grateful for you donating your money and caring enough to give a lot of your money away to people. And it's really cool, man. I hope that you do more of this. And if I can support and School of Greatness and Team Greatness can support in any way reach out to us. We're a resource for you as well. Obviously, we're not donating as much as you are, but we are here to serve the best way we can for the rich people that watch us.
- [110:40]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yes. Yeah. You're donating, you know, more than you know by telling these guys.
- [110:44]
Lewis Howes
Exactly.
- [110:44]
Jimmy Donaldson
Oh, there's some billionaire watching this that's going to give a hundred thousand years of clean water to people in need.
- [110:49]
Lewis Howes
Let's go. I want to see who does it.
- [110:51]
Jimmy Donaldson
Okay.
- [110:51]
Lewis Howes
And. And with that, I have one final question for you.
- [110:54]
Jimmy Donaldson
All right, Final question.
- [110:55]
Lewis Howes
Final question is what is your definition of greatness?
- [110:59]
Jimmy Donaldson
What is my definition of greatness? I mean, it's. It's what we said before, like, can someone be successful while being fit and having a great relationship with their kids? I mean, if you have all three of those, really, what else is there, you know?
- [111:12]
Lewis Howes
Yeah, that's great.
- [111:13]
Jimmy Donaldson
Or I guess I would change it from kids to family. Great relationship with your family. I guess fit to just overall healthy. You know, it's more than just fitness, blah, blah, blah. And then, yeah, successful.
- [111:22]
Lewis Howes
Make sure to follow MrBeast on YouTube and everywhere. MrBeast is donate. Jimmy, thanks so much for being here.
- [111:28]
Jimmy Donaldson
Yeah, thank you for having me. Oh, it wasn't as good as the first one, but we'll take it. All right, I'm taking this check. No tasting vaccines.
- [111:35]
Lewis Howes
That's good, man.
- [111:35]
Jimmy Donaldson
I'm kidding.
- [111:37]
Lewis Howes
I have a brand new book called make money Easy. And if you are looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life. But you want to make it easier. You want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to make moneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.
- [113:04]
Jimmy Donaldson
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