In our fast-paced world, staying ahead creatively means rolling with the punches. This week on the podcast, host Scott Sourdough Power, founder of NOT REAL ART, talks with Mark Brickey, host of the acclaimed arts podcast Adventures in Design. Mark, who started as a musician, has made a name for himself as a content creator with a successful podcast and a YouTube channel, Hey Brickey, which focuses on Disney-themed content and boasts over four million views.

During the episode, Mark shares his story and talks about how important it is for artists to be resilient and adaptable in today’s ever-changing creative landscape. He also dives into the power of storytelling and explores the challenges artists face in staying true to themselves while also trying to make a living. With over a thousand interviews under his belt with artists, designers, and makers, Mark brings a ton of experience and insight to the table.

Scott and Mark go on to discuss how to balance the passion for art with the reality of making money, stressing just how vital it is to have a community of support among artists. Mark’s transition from music to podcasting and design is a powerful reminder of how we can embrace our creative roots while also welcoming new opportunities. This episode isn’t just an exploration of the creative process; it’s also a motivating nudge for our listeners who might be feeling stuck.

If that sounds like you, tune in and hear how Mark’s approach to creativity and community helps him navigate an ever-evolving world.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Adventures in Design

Arterial

ArtsvilleUSA

Crewest Studio

First Friday Exhibitions

Lincoln Design

Mark Brickey

Mark Brickey on Instagram

Mark Brickey on YouTube

NOT REAL ART

NOT REAL ART Podcast

Remote Video Series

Scott “Sourdough” Power

For more information, please visit https://notrealart.com/mark-brickey

The Not Real Art podcast is intended for creative audiences only.

The Not Real Art podcast celebrates creativity and creative culture worldwide.

It contains material that is fresh, fun and inspiring and is not suitable for boring old art snobs.

Now let's get started and enjoy the show.

Greetings and salutations, my creative brothers and sisters.

Welcome to Not Real Art, the podcast where we talk to the world's most creative people.

I am your host.

Faithful, trusty, loyal, tireless, relentless host.

Sourdough coming at you from Crew West Studio in Los Angeles.

Man, do we have a VIP in the house today.

The one and only Mark Brickey.

You know him from Adventures in Design.

You know him from seeing him at Disneyland in Anaheim hundreds of times.

Friend of the show, colleague, old pal in the house.

The one and only Mark Bricke is here today.

So stay tuned for that amazing conversation.

Want to get into that in just a moment, but first I want to thank you for tuning in.

We do this for you.

It's all about you.

If it wasn't for you, well, I'd just be talking into a microphone crazily like this and that would just be weird.

So thank you for being here.

We love you guys.

Appreciate your support as always.

I want to encourage you to go to notrealart.com and check out all the good, healthy, nutritious stuff we have for you there.

It's organic, it's free range, it's gluten free.

It's all there for you.

So check it out.

We've got first Friday's online gallery exhibitions that drop first Friday of every month.

We've got the exclusive remote series with Badir McCleary, second season dropping in June.

But if you haven't seen the first season, you got to check it out.

Of course, check out all the free educational videos we have for you under the not real art school.

Just click on the school tab.

Check out our sister publication, artsville USA.com where we celebrate American contemporary arts and crafts from Asheville, North Carolina and beyond.

We got a lot of stuff there for you people, so please go check it out.

I want to thank our sponsor, our fiscal sponsor, Arterial Arterial.org you might have heard, you might have known, you little birdie might have told, you might have heard through the grapevine.

But Arterial 501C3 arts organization, actually a media platform and we have a fiscal sponsorship with them which means that you, yes, you can support our work now and get a tax deduction for doing so.

You know, we try to keep our stuff free.

We do not charge to consume Our content.

We do not sell advertising.

And we want to keep it that way, people.

And so help us support our work.

Whether it's a dollar ten bucks, one hundred bucks, a billion dollars, make it a billion.

Anyway, you can support our work and get that tax deduction for your generosity.

And so thank you, thank you, thank you for your support.

And thank you to Arterial for taking us on and giving us their fiscal sponsorship so that good people such as yourself can support our work and get a tax deduction for doing so.

So thank you very much.

All right.

Boy, am I excited about this guest today.

The one and only Mark Brickey is in the house.

And man, this is a big get.

This is a big catch.

He's like shark, just swimming around and it's, it's hard to catch him.

And I finally caught him after years and years and years.

Finally caught him.

And actually, I'm just so grateful Mark and I met.

And just a fantastic podcast host.

Very entertaining, very smart, very quick on his feet.

And I've always loved what Mark stood for because Mark has always stood for turning our daydreams into a day job, turning our dreams for creativity and artistry into a full time gig, getting paid for creativity, getting paid for our artistry.

And so Adventures in Design has been a podcast that man, I think he's got, you know, thousands of episodes now, but he has been sitting down with artists and creatives for years and years to talk about how they turn their daydream into a day job.

Mark continues to evolve.

Like I said, he's a shark.

He keeps swimming, he keeps moving.

He has leaned into his passion for Disneyland, and he's now a very successful YouTube influencer.

And you've got to check out his YouTube channel, hey, Bricky.

And he'll take you to Disneyland.

And he gives you all kinds of incredible insights and insider knowledge because I think it's safe to say Bricky is a super fan.

Is there something greater than a super fan?

Maybe that's the highest level.

But whatever the highest level is, when it comes to Disneyland, Mark Brickey is that super fan.

So a little bit about Mark, and I'm just reading this from his LinkedIn page because the dude didn't upload his bio.

Hello, Mark.

Anyway, from his LinkedIn page, I want to point out that Mark has a lot of things going on, a lot of irons on the fire.

He's head of new business development over at Lincoln Design in Portland, Oregon.

So shout out to Lincoln Design.

Those guys are badass, and they're lucky to have Mark out there developing new business for them.

If you haven't heard of Lincoln Design, by all means go there.

Check them out at lincoln design company.

Com.

And, you know, the podcast really gave him the opportunity and the privilege of sitting across from some of the most talented artists, designers, and business leaders and entertainers.

You know, he has these honest, revealing conversations.

And, you know, Mark has developed a really unique skill of interpreting these different aspects of the creative landscape.

And.

And of course, Mark is not just a fan of artists and creatives, but he's also a artist and creative.

Everything from being a lead singer in a rock band years ago to making art prints for Disneyland in the art store at Disneyland, on and on and on.

But now he continues to make content and produce content.

He's leaned into his love for Disneyland, as I mentioned, and he's got over 4 million views on his YouTube channel.

Hey, Bricky, go check it out.

Be sure to support his work there on YouTube.

And whether you're a Disney fan or not, you're gonna love what he's doing at hey, Bricky, because he's so entertaining and funny and smart, and he's just giving us really interesting insights into the history, into the design of Disney and the experience of Disneyland.

And so Mark's an inspiration because he's showing us how to turn our passion for something into work that we love to do and get paid for doing it.

And so Mark really walks the talk, practices what he preaches, and he's a real inspiration, not just to me, but to thousands and thousands and thousands of people out there.

And, you know, but he's got a lot of expertise.

I mean, Mark.

I mean, he's talking about tools in the toolbox.

Skills, pay the bills.

I mean, he's an expert in brand design, identity design, illustration, licensing for consumer goods, brand management, brand creation, brand strategy.

Of course, he's a public speaker.

He's podcast producer, a YouTube optimization expert, on and on and on.

What doesn't he do?

I'm so grateful to have him here today.

We had so much fun catching up.

It's been a minute since he and I chatted, and we always enjoy hanging out and enjoy chatting.

We're both Midwesterners.

I'm an Indiana boy, he's a Kentucky boy.

So we sort of connect over our Midwestern roots as well.

So without further ado, let's get into this conversation with the one and only Mark Brickey.

Hey, friends, it's Mark Brickey from Adventures in Design, and I'm here to tell you about my friend, Scott Sourdough Power.

This man is passionate about helping out other artists, other designers, other people find their personal pursuits and creative happiness.

And you know why?

Because the guy can't draw a stick, man, to save his life.

I've seen him paint.

It's absolutely horrible.

And I'm talking about a wall in his beautiful home.

So do him a favor and let him help you, because God knows he can't help himself.

Now on to this episode of Not Real Art.

What's up, Scott?

How you doing, buddy?

It's good to be a guest and get to hang out with my homie again, man.

Dude, you're missed.

You know, it's so great to see you.

You know, forever friends.

We don't see each other enough, man.

It's great to have you here, and thank you for coming through.

Pleasure.

Let's jump in.

Let's jump in.

So, dude, I mean, listen, I mean, if I'm honest, I mean, every.

Basically, whatever I know about podcasting, I learned from you.

I mean, as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, how many?

Hundreds and.

Thousand episodes.

How many you got under your belt?

And get this, you know, I've done other series and other things, so probably all out, I've maybe done like 2,000 podcasts because I've started some other projects and stuff.

Well, I tell you what.

Yeah.

So, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you're og.

And so the fact that we're here today, here at Not Relard, is really just because of you and our friendship and our relationship and me discovering adventures in design.

Oh, shit.

I don't know.

When was that?

2018 or something?

20?

Shit, I don't even know.

17, bro.

What's up with the fucking time, man?

I don't get it.

He had just won the election And I'm sitting on the table with man one, and he's just like, welcome to being a Latino, man.

Everybody fucks you over.

I'm like, I just.

I just got here.

Like, I'm.

I'm.

I'm used to having the status quo fuck with me.

Like, what's going on?

And man one was like, shit, this just rolls off my back, brother.

Man, time flies when we're having fun.

I tell you, we've had a lot of fun over the years.

And politics aside, I mean, we're so lucky because, as you get to say, we.

We've turned our daydream into our day jobs.

I mean, we work, you know, we love what we do.

We do what we love being artists, creatives, working with artists and creatives.

And I just got to say, man, I mean, watching your journey as an artist has been such a inspiration.

I mean, we met really through the podcast, through Adventures in Design, but, I mean, your roots are in music and, you know, you know, God knows what else.

But, I mean, your evolution as an artist from frontman of a punk rock band all the way to podcaster to Disneyland influencer to just, you know, straight up producer, let alone head of business development for one of the, you know, coolest fucking design firms out there, Lincoln Design.

Yeah, it's.

It's been quite an adventure.

And it all stems from one thing, really have a lot of respect for my dad, and my dad was a very, very hard worker.

So I learned my hard work ethic from my dad, but I learned something from him that I don't know that he was teaching me.

My dad came home from driving a truck every day tired, frustrated, and pissed off.

And I said, I want to work as hard as the man, because I admire his.

His hard work ethic, which also comes from my.

My grandmother, his mom, my momo, as we say in the South.

But I definitely want to work that hard at something that makes me happy.

And so literally, my whole life has sort of been a pursuit of happiness, professional happiness, of, like, what feels like it will get the bills paid and satisfy me the most.

Because, you know, being from lower middle class in the south, you kind of know that the deck's already stacked up against you.

So being rich didn't seem like it was in the plans, so being happy felt obtainable.

Totally, man.

Well, you know, it's like, I don't know that you and I have really talked about this specifically, but it's like that's something actually you and I have in common.

Among other things, of course, being Straight up Midwesterners.

I'm at one from Gary, Indiana.

You're from Louisville, Kentucky, but a little bit different, but you call it Midwest.

But I mean, actually my dad is very similar.

You know, look, I'm a, I'm a blue collar, working class kid from Gary, Indiana.

You know, I watch my dad get up and go do to a job he hated at US Steel in Gary, Indiana every day for 30 years, you know, working as a electrician there in a very dangerous environment that he hated.

But he did it dutifully, he worked very hard and he was committed and he did it for the family.

And, and I learned that I got that ethic from him, that work ethic from him.

But I saw him not just be miserable really in his work, but also get.

Because every time the contract was up with the union, the union guys just got less and less and less and I just started realizing, wait a minute, there's no such thing as security.

You know, all this corporate, you know, like, you know what?

I want to be happy.

I want to follow my bliss.

And it was probably in high school that I heard that phrase.

I don't know if, you know, you probably do the work of Joseph Campbell.

He had this whole thing about follow.

It was the power of myth.

It was several video interviews that he did with Bill Moyers on PBS like back in the late 80s or something.

And I remember and he talked about the hero's journey and he talked about, you know, this phrase, you know, following your bliss.

And I heard that, I thought, that's me, that's what I want to do.

I want to follow my bliss.

And you know, and here we are.

Well, I think for many people that are, I think, blessed to be a part of Gen X, which I'm proudly a part of Gen X.

Originally when they labeled us that it was seen as the letter X.

But I think as time has gone on, it's actually become a horizontal position because we literally exist at the end of the old generation of the hard work ethic, but we're at the beginning of the new generation of modern technology.

So, you know, we have all these new tools that we understand how to make life easier and more efficient, but we are also blessed with that hard work ethic.

And I think that it's a really interesting moment to be in time to have a life that really exists between the old world and the new world.

And in Gen X you see a lot of people that were able to get out there and do things that make them happy and still chase the American dream, Buy homes, put kids in college.

But you also see another section of Gen X.

It's the first generation of people that like, man, I'm out here busting my ass and everything's just getting more expensive and the wages are going down and it's just, it's boxing me in.

And, you know, the generations below us are even more kind of screwed as the middle class has been erased.

So it's definitely a really interesting generation to be a part of.

And I think out of everything that I see on the menu, it's the one that I would pick again if I had the option to.

Dude, I couldn't agree more.

And I've said that I feel like we're so lucky because we grew up in a relative time of peace and prosperity, right?

We saw the explosion and the evolution from the analog to the digital world, so to speak.

You got to go.

We saw exciting shit like, like we get to, we get to.

We got to come home from school, call our cable companies and say, I want my mtv.

And then one day MTV was on, you know, like, yeah, tv.

So say nothing of the fact that, you know, the fact that many of us were latchkey kids, many of us were free range kids.

I mean, you know, like, be home.

Be home before dark.

Be home before dinner.

You're going to like, okay, don't drown this idea that we had this level of freedom and independence.

Um, you know, it, it speaks to maybe our grit and our perseverance and it just added a lot of attributes that, you know, I don't necessarily see in my kids.

I mean, I think that the reason why we became like the DIY generation is because we had a DIY upbringing.

You know, it's like most of parents that I knew when I was a child, they weren't as actively involved.

They didn't just shuttle kids from this practice to this sports or to this activity.

You know, like, fun fact about me, every time I ever tried out for a play at school, I always landed the leading role.

But a fun fact about me is I never got to be in a play because my parents would not pick me up after school and they would not deal with the hassle.

So, you know, I had the ability probably to do well in the perform that part of the performance world, but I just had absolutely no parental, you know, communication or want to be a partner in that endeavor.

You know, if it made their life hard, figure it out on your own.

So there was a lot of DIY of like, okay, well, what are we going to do we're going to go steal wood from the construction site and we're going to build skate ramps, you know, and then we're just going to kind of figure it out on our own.

And you're right.

It's like, you know, we didn't go to school worrying about getting shot up.

We came home and our neighborhood was, you know, an unlimited amount of adventure.

And you know, there was a lot of freedom that came with that.

I think a lot of us rolled that freedom into our 20s and 30s and kind of had a like, let's do it and find out later attitude.

Whereas I feel like the youth today, there's so much fear that's thrusted upon them that their world is bigger in many ways, but it's also smaller in other ways.

Totally.

Listen, I have a lot, I think I have a lot of grace and hopefully empathy for today's kids, so called kids coming up.

I couldn't wait to get out into the world and have adventures and see what, you know, what was going to happen.

And I was nothing but optimistic that the future would be brighter than the past.

And you know, if you're graduating high school today, or if you're 25 years old today, or you may be 30 years old today, you a, you probably weren't alive when the World Trade center towers fell, but you grew up in a time of terrorism, recession, active shooters in the building, climate change.

Of course you're pissed off at the boomers and the government.

I mean, you feel like they fucked it up.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely feel once again blessed on my timeline because I feel like it's just getting more complicated for everybody below us and, and that complication is compounding.

The faster that society moves, so do the complications.

And you know, when you look at somebody right now who's 16 or 18, you know, rounding up high school, they've been through a global pandemic.

They've been through some of the most divisive times in our history.

Like you.

And I remembered that after the World Trade Centers fell, somehow America would rallied together and they were able to get on the same page.

That might have been the last time that we were all on the same page.

And that's horrible because that's now 24 years ago.

Nuts.

I'm going to be 55 in May, brother.

Dude, I just, I just hit 50.

And welcome to the club.

Thank you.

And I'll say this, when I turned 40, I turned 40 with tears in my eyes.

I didn't want to be that old.

I didn't want to think that it was half over.

And then I talked to my friend Billy, who informed me, well, look at this way, it's probably two thirds over.

But I'll say this to anybody who's listening that's kind of, you know, trying to deal with what's my age and match with my ambition and my status level and all that stuff.

My 40s were absolutely the best decade of my life.

100% best decade of my life.

I met the most amount of people, I did the most amount of things, and it all started to kind of settle in.

So when I turned 50, there was no depression about it.

I'm like, I kind of feel like it just gets better from here because also, one of the graces that you get with age is you really learn about.

These are things that I care about and these are things that I give zero fucks about because you get better at.

Kind of like, I've done this before.

I've had people tell me, this is gonna be the next big project.

This is gonna change your life.

Life still hasn't changed.

Still haven't done the big project.

So, yeah, bro, I'll believe it when I see it.

Let's keep trucking on.

Totally.

And I think, for sure, and I think most of my life I've.

I've was convinced that, okay, yeah, I'm gonna hit that homer, maybe I'll even hit that grand slam.

But now at 54, about to be 55, I look back on all these years and I realize, you know what?

Actually, no homer yet, really.

No, certainly no grand slam yet.

But I'm a solid base hitter and I've been in the game and I've been playing, I've driven in runs, I've been on base, you know, and.

And I played well and playing well, and I'm having fun.

I'm enjoying it.

Well, I look at somebody like you, Scott, and.

And I think about this for myself, too, and maybe this will kind of give you a little bit of piece of things, but like, you, you live in a gnarly part of la and you have a lot of people around you that are, you know, top tier, most successful people, and it'd be easy to look at some of the people that are around you, and I can do the same thing and go, man, I'm a fucking loser compared to some of my friends.

But the one exercise that I like to do is I like to think about the starting line that I started on and then the starting line that they started on.

And so when I think about my comparables, like we do in real estate, and I think about, like, the neighborhood I'm from, the kids I'm around, the economic background, you and I have gone very, very far.

Now, do we know people that have gone farther?

Absolutely, yes.

But a lot of times when you dig around, it's like they were a product of great geography, they had better support systems, both financially and emotionally.

And it's like, not a lot of kids from Gary, Indiana, end up where you ended up in life.

And I think when you look at it that way, it's a little bit easier to be like, all right, am I as successful as this dickhead across the street?

No.

But is my dad as successful as his dad?

You know, did I get sent to an Ivy League school?

You know, did these things fall?

And it's not that it's making an excuse, but you really have to think about we're all running a different race.

And the one thing that makes, like, a race like, you know, legal by whatever board is, you know, going to award a winner is there's a definitive moment where that race starts.

And you and I started this race way behind a lot of our peers.

Well, that's true.

And quite frankly, I mean, speaking for myself, and I can't speak for you, but I'll speak for myself, which is when I, you know, I never said to myself in high school or college, like, oh, I want to be a multimillionaire.

I never said that.

What I said was, I want to do cool shit.

I just want to do cool shit.

I want to go.

I want to have fun.

I want to laugh a lot, whatever.

And turning, you know, about to be turning 55.

But.

But you talk about turning 40.

Like, I didn't give a shit when I turned 40.

You know, I do.

You know, it's interesting because I've often spent my birthdays alone just because, you know, it tends to be a horrible time for my wife to celebrate because she has to go, like, do work stuff, usually in New York or whatever during that time, May 15th.

So upfronts are happening and all that.

Horrible time to have a TV executive.

Wife.

Horrible time to have a television executive for a wife.

So.

But.

But what that meant was, of course, I get.

Then I got to go with my buddies on my birthday.

That was always fun.

But anyway, on my birthdays, I tend to get pretty introspective and spend some time alone and, you know, just think about Things take stock.

And I remember when I turned 40, I thought, okay, well, this is a good time to think about when I've been most happy, right?

And.

And I.

And then the answer came quickly.

You know, I said, what have I been most happy?

And the answer came quickly.

And the answer was, I've been most happy when I'm being creative, working with creative people, doing creative things.

And when I've been outdoors, it was sort of like.

It was sort of like that.

And.

And I was like, okay, if I.

If I'm lucky enough to spend the next four, you know, have another 40 years, I want to double down on being creative and working with creative people, doing creative things, and I want to spend a lot of time outside.

It's interesting you say that because, like, I always think about, for me personally, like, peak happiness when I knew that I felt happy.

It's that last summer before you get a job, it's like, you know, you're old enough to where you got a couple of friends who got a cars, so you're no longer, like, chained to the neighborhood.

You're kind of out there.

You got a little bit of walking around money, but no responsibility.

And many of the projects that I've been the most passionate about, when I'm in the.

In the moment of doing them, it feels like that summer of hanging with Buds, the podcast, my YouTube channel, you know, like, working on creative projects with people that I really enjoy.

Like, it's the plotting, the scheming, the hanging out, the companionship, and all of that was very much where that last summer is before adulthood kicks you in the ass.

Because it was just literally like every day getting up to an adventure, trying to figure out what you could get into.

And I've kind of kept that same mentality through my professional career of, like, if it feels like that, then it feels right.

If it feels too impressing and too stressful and the juice isn't worth the squeeze, it's probably time to get out of whatever that may be.

Totally, totally.

You know, I've said to people over the years, younger people in particular, it's like, look, you can measure happiness, you know, if you want, based on your bank account, but that's fine.

But I would.

I would challenge you to choose a different metric.

You know, measure your happiness and measure your success in life based on the time spent laughing.

Because for me, laughter is the ultimate metric.

It's a joy.

It's a flip side of joy.

You can't be unhappy when you're laughing.

And if you're laughing, you're probably enjoying life, and so do those things and maximize those opportunities to fucking have fun and laugh your ass off.

Because, you know, works for me.

Yeah, money's a weird thing because, you know, not enough of it definitely will affect how you're feeling, because the stress of not being able to cover a month is enormous, and it'll choke you out.

But after a certain threshold, more money has been proven that it doesn't equal more happiness.

It actually equals more complications.

So there is a sweet spot in the middle where you're like, okay, I don't have to worry about the month, which opens up enough mental power to focus on what it is that you want to do, not what you have to do.

And, man, oh, man, I don't regret the years where I was stressed about getting through the month because it definitely created resilience and it created some sort of, like, magical times.

Because when we push ourselves, it's when we realize what we're aware of.

But the last couple of decades have been like, I'm floating somewhere in the fucking middle.

It feels so much better when you know what it's like to not have, but just, like, you, like, you know, I often measure things like, yeah, I could do this and I could make more money, but when I work through, what's the amount of money that that could make?

And does that amount of money change my life?

For the amount of stress that it brings in, it's a really quick exercise to be like, yeah, I can make an extra $5,000 doing that.

$5,000 doesn't change my lot in life.

You know what I mean?

Like, $5,000 doesn't make homes in California more affordable.

So it's really easy to kind of figure out when you think about three steps ahead, what's worth your engagement and what's not, and what's going to get to the moment where that's the threshold where unhappiness, you know, worms its way into my life.

And I'm just not going to tolerate that, especially if the reward isn't, like, okay, it's going to be a stressful couple of years.

But on the other side of this, it unlocks endless opportunities.

You know, you just got to kind of look at everything more than, like, what does it change today?

How does it affect the long haul?

For sure.

And, you know, the phrase that I've, you know, embrace over the years or just thought about, which is this idea of, you know, the quality of life, you know, like, quality of life, like, and you have to have A vision, you know, at least for me.

And I've.

And I've told people this, too.

It's like.

It's like you can't.

If you.

Not to sound cliche, but if you can't see it, you can't be it.

You have to have a vision for where you're going and what.

What kind of life you want to live.

And I would encourage you and challenge people to think, like, imagine the kind of life you want to live, the quality of that life, and.

And kind of the things that that means.

And so, yeah, sure, money might be part of it, but, you know, what about friends?

What about family?

What about food?

What about travel?

What about art?

You know, like, those things that give a person a certain quality of richness, substance, you know, there's huge value in compensation.

Yeah, I think that.

And when you're not on that path, the act as if is a really good lesson.

Like, if things aren't doing really well and you're not really happy.

Let me just pose a question.

What if you act as if you are, everybody will then treat you like you're happy.

Everybody will treat you like you're successful, and at some moment, it will probably click that you will have transcended from not being happy to being a happy person in the sole principle that everybody just treated you like a happy person.

But there's a way that people treat people that are depressed, that are negative, they avoid them, they pity them, they don't include them.

And so by literally, like, rewiring the way that you treat everybody else, we'll trick everybody to treat you differently.

And at some point you're like, I don't think I'm acting anymore.

I think it's reality.

And one of the things I've talked about for years on my podcast and when I've been able to speak to people, is I kind of have this theory that if you're not doing it now, whatever it may be, whatever your dream is or your big challenge or your big project, like, if you're not doing it right now, there's a good chance you'll probably never do it.

So you got to put yourself on that path.

Even if it's like, you know, talking about the starting line, it's a really rough starting line.

But if you're not on the path to where you want to go, like, if you're not actively acting and auditioning, there's a really great chance you're never going to be in a fucking mood.

You know what I mean?

Like, you got to get out there and do it.

So if you're not drawing, not sculpting, you're probably not going to get that art show.

If you're not picking up your guitar, you're not going to write that record.

So it's just a big part of life is just actively putting yourself in it and start doing the thing that you want to do, you know.

And like all of my projects started out very rough, very weird, you know, I don't have this sort of.

I don't have.

I mean, I'm a self confident person, but I'm also kind of a realistic type person.

And coming from Louisville, I've always seen the entertainment industry and the arts industry is like this thing that has a firewall around it.

And I was on the other side of the firewall.

So I never had sort of the ambition, like I'm going to go right to where it's happening and go right to the company and be like, hire me today.

I always had the mindset of like, I'm going to do something big on the outskirts, get enough attention that I get invited to the party.

Because my life was that way, you know what I mean?

Like I got invited to the party eventually.

The cooler kids or whatever, you know, the bigger band or whatever I wanted to do.

Eventually I made enough waves that I got invited instead of just like going up and be like, let me in.

But I think it has a lot to do with just putting yourself in the game.

No matter how far out it may see, as long as you're moving forward with progress, you're going to end up getting somewhere.

And half the way still way better than not starting at all, you know?

You know, it sort of boils down to, and I'm no science expert, but it's almost like a lesson in physics and, or chemistry because I mean, on certain level, you know, it's like objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

Right, right.

Energy, you know, energy.

Positive energy, you know, you know, is attracted to.

People are attracted to positive energy.

Right.

Been proven.

If you're, if you're out there in the world and you're smiling, laughing, you know, doing something creative, putting yourself out there, people are going to be attracted to that and good things are going to happen.

Yeah.

And I think it's super important to be that person regardless of who you're around, because what it'll do, I think what I've learned is like just really focusing on who defines you as you will make sure that the people that you surround yourself with, like the Authentic version of you.

You don't have to be anybody that you're not.

You know, it's like, it's really weird talking about, you know, focusing on happiness.

I was once doing design work for a big name comedian.

I say his name right now, there's no chance anybody listening doesn't know who this guy is.

Yeah, I know who you're talking about.

I think you've told me the story before.

Please.

Yeah, me and you, we like to bust balls, we like to have fun.

And, you know, it's like making jokes and stuff is just a fun part of work.

And I was just working with this dude and, like, I would treat anybody else like.

I made like a little, like, quick one liner about the project we're working on.

And he just goes, I guess we have to have the talk now.

And I'm like, what the fuck is he talking about?

He goes, I'm the comedian.

You don't have to be a funny guy around me, you know, you don't have to try to, like, make me laugh, whatever.

Like, I get it.

And I was just like, dude, no offense, but this is just who I am, and if this is going to be a problem, we really shouldn't work together.

And it was literally the moment, like, I don't ever want to work for this guy again.

And huge name.

But he just, like.

Because I was being funny in front of him and he's funny for a living, I was somehow like, you know, crossing the professionalism between us.

And that was just a really quick moment for me to be like, this dude is miserable and I don't need him in my world.

And it's.

It's a very interesting story about, like, being yourself and being oddly, like, persecuted for it.

And that was just a great moment for me.

Like, we're not from the same tribe.

Good luck.

Right, Exactly.

Well, I'll tell you what, man.

I mean, talk about somebody that does exude joy and does exude happiness.

Somebody that seems to personify this idea of integrity and doing what they're meant to be doing, doing things that they feel called to do.

I mean, you are textbook example of this because, yeah, sure, you're an artist and you've leaned into the arts, whether it's music or visual arts, and, you know, with the podcast Adventures in Design, what have you.

But in recent years, pivoting into your personal passion and love of Disneyland and doubling down.

What a weird thing in such an amazing way, man.

I mean, zero to hero in like, what, three years now.

I don't know how long you've been doing this, but you've got, like, almost 70,000 followers on.

On your YouTube channel, basically.

And, I mean, you're.

You're prolific.

You've always been prolific.

You mean shit.

Adventures in Design was a daily podcast.

Is a daily podcast.

I mean, you're constantly on it.

You're.

You're.

You've got that work ethic happening all the time.

But the fact, again, that you said, you know, I love Disneyland and I'm going to create content.

The Disneyland thing was pretty interesting because I'd been doing the podcast for a long time, and I could.

I could fill up your hard drive.

Talking about sort of the pitfalls of podcasting, even though it's something that I truly love and I enjoy doing, and I'm having a great time doing it right now with you, I realized that if I'm betting my future on this, every time I saw the headline, podcasting's getting bigger, my show got smaller.

And I also was smart enough to realize that as celebrities slide backwards into podcasting, it's going to make it really hard for people that aren't celebrities, because it was really kind of messing up, like, you know, ad revenue and download numbers and stuff, because it's like, you know, Jason Bateman.

I am not.

And no, no shade.

Like, I've enjoyed Jason Bateman's work my entire life, but him and a crew of guys get around together.

It's a way different pedigree than me and my crew of guys get around each other, you know, like Dax Shepard.

How does he book his guests?

Well, because they're all his friends, and he's in that world, you know, So I quickly realized, and keep this in mind.

I've been going at it longer than Joe Rogan has, so I didn't just show up and go, I want to be like everybody else.

Like I was at the very beginning of it all.

And in the early years, it was easy to make your way, but it just got more complicated.

And when I started falling in love with YouTube, what I really liked about YouTube is it's the second biggest search engine in the world.

And fun fact, its parent company also owns the biggest search engine in the world.

So the level of discoverability on YouTube was vast.

I mean, it's.

You can.

It's just huge, you know, and the numbers that I can get over there, like, I can't get a half a million people to listen to a podcast, but I can't get a half a million people to watch a video.

And granted, it Took a long time to figure out how to make that work.

I'm not downplaying it because it is the hardest of all the social media platforms, but what arose for me was an interesting opportunity.

If I keep really focusing on talking about design to other designers, I'm preaching to the choir.

And after a while, you've kind of worked out a lot of what people know and what they know about you, and, you know, there could be a little bit of a stalemate.

But using Disneyland as sort of my, you know, my backdrop, and talking about design and how design works to people that maybe have never thought about design before, that became really appealing and intriguing to me.

So the way that I cover the park, kind of the catchphrase that I came up with is, I study Disneyland's past so we can better predict its future.

And what this does is it cleverly puts me in multiple timelines.

Some of my videos were just looking backwards, which is really cool because, you know, when you tell a story in reverse, you can tell the full story because you kind of know where it went.

Walt Disney is a really great icon.

You know, not a perfect man because none of us are, but he's a really great storytelling device for creativity.

Being from the Midwest, pulling yourself up, changing the world, working with an imagination.

And, you know, Walt wasn't a good illustrator.

He was a great art director.

He was a great curator of talent.

And so sometimes we're in the past, and then other times we use that knowledge from the past to either review something that's happened in the present or talk about something happened in the future.

And what this does is, is that if I'm being critical, people never doubt my love of the product.

But also if I'm being critical because I use it through a designer's eye, they're like, this guy really gets it and he really understands it.

So essentially, dropping, you know, my tent in their ecosystem was a smart play because it's such a big brand, it's a global brand.

Whether you've been there once or a hundred times, everybody has an awareness of it.

And it was just a really good way to talk about creativity.

But instead of putting up a thumbnail that goes, you know, how design changes your life.

It's the thumbnail of, like, how Disney hid a three story building in the middle of their theme park.

And people are like, how did they do that?

And then halfway through, like, I'm kind of watching like an educational video about architecture, environmental design, how people make decisions in crowded spaces.

You know, a lot of problem Solving.

And you know, one last thing about Disneyland that makes it so special is that it's so small.

Disneyland has so many problems because it was built in Anaheim and accidentally a city sprouted up around it.

Walt Disney World.

I love to go there, but it doesn't have the same complications.

So what makes Disneyland so special in storytelling is there's a lot of creative problem solving.

They had to do A and B so that it would equal C.

And a lot of times, you know, it wins, and sometimes it fails.

Either way, it's a good story to tell.

So it's not like I'm this Disney adult or, you know, that I think Stitch is a real dude.

It was like, this is a really good way to take what I've learned organically in the arts and in the business world.

But to make it applicable to something that doesn't sound like homework or education, it sounds like escapism or maybe learning the fun fact, like, you just took your family to the park and you're like, how much is the castle worth?

Well, I'm the guy who did an enormous amount of research to figure out how much the castle actually is worth and how much Walt paid for it and what an amazing investment it was.

So it's become a really good storytelling metaphor and a good way to use some of my talents in a kind of a not so obvious way.

And it started to really click in the last couple of years.

And I'll tell anybody this, if you're passionate about YouTube, get involved.

It is very rewarding.

I'll also give you a heads up, it will break you.

It is the hardest social media platform.

It's so tricky, it's so complicated.

But if you get in there and you just stay consistent with it, you can find your audience and there's a good reward in there for you if you stick to it.

Is it complicated because they keep.

Like Amazon does, like, so Amazon keeps moving the goal posts on its, you know, on its partners, right?

Like, they're always changing the terms and conditions.

And, you know, people that are sell on Amazon have to adjust and what have you.

Is YouTube difficult in part because it also acts like that.

It also sort of changes, you know, demands of its content creators.

And what makes YouTube so challenging?

So what makes YouTube so challenging are people, because the algorithm is actually kind of easy to beat once you figure out how it works.

But what makes YouTube very difficult is people's intentions and people's expectations.

And, you know, I make videos that can be anywhere from 10 minutes long to 30 minutes long, depending on the subject matter.

So what makes my job hard is people get to the point because they're used to watching 15 second videos on TikTok, right?

So one of the things that I do to make my video successful is I figure out what my overall story is and then I write a bunch of smaller stories in it.

So every minute in one of my videos, essentially I'm introducing an idea, I'm giving you supportive pieces of information to back that idea, and then there's a big sort of reveal.

And so to keep people's attention, you can't just tell like one long story.

You literally gotta think about it as 15 small stories.

So what makes YouTube so difficult is that people are difficult and their expectations and what they want and their engagement and how they want to be involved.

And so, you know, on Instagram, if you put up a reel, they judge you on your first three seconds.

On YouTube, you get judged by your first 30 seconds.

I typically can get 77% of my audience to watch the first 30 seconds.

That's pretty high when you think about how many people accidentally click on a video and instantly pop back out.

So it's a lot about learning the art of curiosity and learning about, like, if your story is how much is the castle worth?

You would never start out the video and go, I learned that the castle is worth X amount of dollars.

Let's figure out how you got there.

If you give it to people in the first, well, now I know what it's worth.

I don't need to watch the video.

It's more about, like, what could it be worth?

And if it fell apart and if it wasn't here tomorrow, could it be replaced?

Like, you ask so many questions and you flood the mind with so many things like, oh, shit, I got to figure out the answers to all of these things.

And then you just slowly keep building it time and time.

So it's, it's really, really difficult because you have to really dive into the psychology of your audience and constantly meet their expectations every 30 to 60 seconds.

Wow.

I mean, what an interesting structure for storytelling.

Like, you've, you had to decipher, like, okay, this is the formula, this is the, the structure of how you tell your story.

It's not a typical arc, you know, beginning, middle, end or whatever.

It has these peaks and valleys or what.

I don't know how, how you would describe it, but figuring out that model of storytelling and then leaning into that.

Yeah.

And it's, it's become a really fun challenge because one thing that you start to learn about when you get, you know, more successful on YouTube is that, you know, I'm always learning new things.

Oh, that's cool.

That's cool, that's cool.

But what goes on the list of a video is that's a cool piece of information, but is it clickable?

Is there a way to make a thumbnail and a headline for that idea?

Because what's more important than your video is your thumbnail and your headline.

Like YouTube literally is the place in your life where you have to learn how to judge a book by its cover, because that's what everybody else is doing.

And so when I talk to people and I do, like, YouTube consulting and stuff, I'm like, you know, you really have to think about, am I making a cover that stops the scroll?

If you can easily look at a title and a thumbnail and figure out what the video is about, there's no reason to watch it.

But if you look at the title and the thumbnail and you go, damn it, I really need to know it, you've sucked them in.

So that's a big part of the art of it, too, is to figure out, like, what's the hook to get them in there?

And.

And then does that story have enough juice where there's a lot of smaller stories that you can compartmentalize in your three acts?

And, you know, it's funny because I went and saw a lecture where they're talking about how they design the rides at Disneyland.

And Scott Trollbridge, who designed Star Wars Galaxy's Edge and also designed the Harry Potter lands, he showed this chart, and the chart had peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys.

And what you notice is, like, stairs, like, stepping up.

So every step would get higher, but then the drop on the backside would get lower.

He's like, this is how we create rides.

We give you a reward, we slow it back down.

We give you a reward, we slow it back down.

We give you a reward, we slow it the fuck down.

And it's essentially like playing with your human emotions.

Like, whoa, that was crazy.

But then you have to reset the palette so that the next crazy moment feels even crazier.

Okay, Disneyland, such a big topic, a complicated topic.

I mean, you clearly are subject matter expert compared to most, if not, you know, just period.

You know, how do you.

When.

When it comes to, I don't know, planning your.

Call it Planning your editorial, planning your content.

You know, developing your content.

I mean, and forgive me.

Cause I.

I'm not sure how often you're dropping new.

New vids but talk a little bit about your development process, plotting and planning, figuring out what stories you want to tell in going into production to talk about that workflow.

Yeah.

So what's really important is to always be a student and whatever it is that you're doing.

You know, I do the same thing with the design part of my life.

I do the same thing with the YouTube part of my life.

Like, you need to have like, your, your access to more information so that you're always can.

You know, if you're a podcaster, you should always be looking at the news to figure out what's happening out there.

So if anybody throws something at you, you're like, oh, yeah, I did, I did.

See when JD Vance broke the trophy.

You know what I mean?

Like, you need to just kind of know, like, what's happening out in the world.

So first act is to always be a student and to find interesting places where you can, like, you know, gain knowledge.

I watch a lot of lectures from old imagineers.

You know, I look at a lot of different books, there's different websites I go to.

So you're always taking in information, but then you have to be able to categorize that information.

And I categorize my information on, you know, an easy story to tell, complicated story to tell.

I also, one of the things that I've learned is like, it's really important to keep remaking your hits.

So one of the things that people are fascinated about are things that no longer exist.

So I just recently had a video that did really well.

It's two weeks old and it's getting ready to cross like the 90 something thousand views.

Mark one video has already garnished me, like 800 new subscribers.

I saw that there used to be a police department by name in the town square of Disneyland.

So I go, this idea gets elevated to the top because it, it's remaking one of my hits.

It's an abandoned location inside of Disneyland.

Check.

People are fascinated by law enforcement and security inside of Disneyland.

Check.

And as I looked at it, it was relatively an unknown story, and there was little micro stories inside of it.

So that gets greenlit to the top.

And then, you know, if you're like me and you, I put out one video every week.

You kind of have to have like a long list of all your ideas, but you also have to have a short list that you're working through.

And I think one of the things that's super important is to pick ideas off of your list that match the amount of bandwidth that you have so you can set yourself up for success.

So I've had a lot of very busy personal and professional weeks, like the last six week run that I've been on.

So I've been purposely picking smaller video topics, you know, something that'll be more like in the 10 to 15 minute range.

Also topics that require me to film in like one or two locations, not all over the place.

So you kind of got to match, you know, the bandwidth you have with the project that you have.

Pro tip for people, whatever it is that you do, if you start going into chat, GPT or whatever AI platform you use, and you explain to it what your projects are and how long they take you and how emotionally tough they are for you or how easy they are for you, you can get to a moment where you can be like, hey, this is what my week looks like.

Out of all of my ideas I have which ideas fit into this work week.

And so you can start to use that as a springboard mechanism to kind of figure out like what works best in the amount of availability that you have if you have a hard time making decisions on your own.

Wow, what a great thought partner chat GPT is.

I know, it really is.

It's fascinating.

Yeah, it's fascinating.

Like when I have an idea, I write out my outline for what the video is.

I put in all of my hard research.

Like basically I, I, I, when I work on a video script through ChatGPT, I say, this is my idea for the video.

So I give it like the elevator pitch.

Then below the elevator pitch I go, this is the story that I want to tell and the way that I want to tell it and the tone that I want to tell it in my different acts.

Then I actually give it the bullet point outline.

Like these are all the micro stories that we're telling.

And for every micro story, I give it the real world research that I found on my own and then I give it my unique thoughts and then it creates a video outline for me.

It doesn't tell me what to say, it just helps me put it in the order that I need to say it in.

So then when I'm filming, I have bullet points in front of me and I know to just stay in that one idea because the next idea will support it.

And when I'm not in front of the camera, I'm kind of figuring out what my curiosity gaps are, how the story all builds.

But then this is the most important thing, Scott, you go back to chat when you're done and go, hey, we created an outline for today's video.

I fully edit it.

Here's the transcript from the video.

Compare and contrast the final product to our original outline so you can better learn my storytelling, my unique voice, my humor, my personality so that the next outline we make is more efficient.

And that is the voyage that I'm on with the machine.

Amazing, man.

It's really interesting because it gives you feedback like, oh, you really improved it.

You leaned on curiosity, you know, you, you keep everything open ended by not claiming anything's definitely going to happen, but asking the audience do they think they get like, it just really picks up on lots of little like details and it almost kind of gives you like a review of what you did, which kind of helps you start to identify what your own personal strengths are.

So, I mean clearly you can hear.

We didn't even, we didn't pre interview.

Like I use AI more than anybody I know and I use it in such crazy and interesting ways because essentially it is the assistant and the business partner that I always dreamed of having.

Well, it, I mean there's using it, there's using AI, using ChatGPT, just generally speaking, you know, most people out there might go to chat GPT to do research or something.

But it sounds like what you're doing is you're training an AI for Mark Brickey.

Yes, specifically, yes.

So if you want to get into making a relationship with AI, you got to treat it like a friend.

And so when I first opened up my account, I'm like, this is me, this is what I do.

These are my values, these are my morals.

I kind of like just kind of hung out with it.

And it's really important to not tell it what to do, but go, I want to make a video today.

Zealand just bought a warehouse blocks from the park.

I want to make a video today where we're going to prove that this warehouse is very instrumental in the growth of the theme park.

So what we're going to do is we're going to show the audience how when they made Star Wars Galaxy's Edge and you know, the new Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, how they had to take backstage operations and move them off premises.

Because, you know, you can have a paint shop in Fullerton, but you can't have a ride up in Fullerton, you know, like anything that touches the park is the most precious real estate.

So instead of just being like, hey, they bought a new warehouse, park's probably going to get bigger.

We're going to kind of go through the history of the last decade of these are new things that we got.

But what did they have to give up and where did it go?

So we're building the case that this warehouse is sort of justified.

So you don't just say, I'm going to do this.

You go, this is the idea of the video.

Does this make sense?

Do you understand?

And then it'll hit back like, yeah, this does understand.

And this aligns with your goals.

This aligns with your storytelling.

Are you ready to get into doing the transcript?

Yes, I have my transcript ready.

Here's everything.

And then once we kind of figured out, I'm like, now let's go through section by section and fine tune it.

And, you know, like, I want to move this back here.

So if you look at AI as a tool and not as a crutch, if you look at it as a way for you to be more efficient and do whatever you do faster and stronger, it's a motherfucking marvelous invention.

If you're lazy and you're a piece of shit and you just let it do all the work, it will show.

Because I can watch a video and I can go, ChatGPT wrote that intro.

So just sit back, get your favorite drink, get ready to go.

Like, there's these things that they do, and like, I'm like Jimmy Kimmel.

You got that from AI.

I know the writing style if you don't put your personality in it.

So I can identify things that people do that are from it because it's really, really important to use it as a tool and not as a crutch.

But I'm an old punk rocker, and that's kind of how you see the whole world, you know?

Part of what I love about this story is that it reminds me of one of the things I've always appreciated about you and I just have enjoyed about our friendship and our collegiality over the years.

I really, I mean this sincerely.

I've always enjoyed watching how your mind works.

You know, your intellect.

You have such a great intellect.

And unlike a lot of artists who might be purely right brain, so to speak, you are one of these people that really have that left brain, right brain thing going on.

I mean, you have this obviously hugely creative side, but you love the analytical, the technical, the tedious.

I mean, you can do both.

Well, I sincerely appreciate that.

And it comes from being middle class and working class and realizing that dreams are great, but money make dreams happen.

And I never had money, so I had to figure out how to make that happen, to make the dream happen.

And I will say that it's a really fun skill set to have, but it also is kind of a weird spot to be because I haven't been super successful at the business part of my brain, and I haven't been super successful at the creative part of my brain.

So maybe it's best to be one and not the other, you know?

But it does work out really well with the content, because ultimately what I am now is I'm a storyteller.

And people like, like, man, you just don't tell me a story, but you.

You back it up.

And you're not blinded by the creativity because you understand the business, but you don't let the business get in the way of your love of the creativity.

So I think people really enjoy the balance because there's a lot of people in this world that are like, toxic positivity.

Everything's great, everything's perfect.

That's a lie.

And then there's a lot of people that learn that toxic negativity works because people love outrage.

That's also a manipulative lie.

So I think people enjoy the middle.

It just takes a little bit while for them to get there, because people react more to extremities.

Well, absolutely.

And so as a storyteller, and I think that's 100% right, even maybe before you considered yourself a storyteller, as long as I've known you, I've always thought of you as a storyteller.

Yeah, man, it's.

It's interesting times.

And so, like, my.

My natural instinct is, is that we're getting ready to see economic turmoil like we've never known before.

I just feel like everything's going in a really, really dark direction.

And so what I'm doing to prepare for that is I'm making as many friends as possible through YouTube.

I'm taking as many people as possible on a journey with me, because the bet that I'm hedging is that when shit gets really, really negative and dark and bleak, people are going to want escapism.

So I'm building that relationship right now.

I'm building that friendship right now.

So in the darkest days, I've already made it through one pandemic As a content creator.

I learned a lot about how you can tell stories from your bedroom.

I learned a lot about editing.

I've also been capturing B roll like a motherfucker for the last five years.

So I'm like stockpiled with hard drives full of stuff to tell stories from.

So I kind of feel like if the world gets happy, I'll celebrate happy and review all the new cool things that are happening.

But if the world goes dark, I have a content strategy that can take people away from right now.

And so one of the projects that I started, and I kind of had to scale it back a little bit because it was taking more time than the resources I had.

But it really resonated with people big time.

And this is kind of a good, like, case study for people that are kind of trying to figure out, like, how do you make a plan as a creative?

Because it's really easy to feel like I don't have a lot of money, I don't have a lot of opportunity.

Like, if clients start stop hiring me, like, where am I going to make money from?

It's when you hire yourself.

So I came up with this really cool idea.

I think it's cool.

And other people have as well, where I do a live stream every Thursday, and it's called Old News Tonight.

And what we do is we look at all the headlines around Disneyland, but 70 years ago.

And don't forget, Walt's going to open the park in seven months.

And nobody knows what this is.

And so every week we look at that week 70 years ago in the past.

And it's been really good for me because it's given me a greater appreciation of what they did and how they did it and how they beat all the odds.

And it also gives you an appreciation of how different the world was 70 years ago.

Like last week we just looked at these ads where it's like, hey, you want to own a home a mile and a half from Disney?

Imagine living out in the woods in quiet Anaheim, and you can get a three bedroom home, full kitchen, two car, garage, patio, big lot.

It's only going to set you back $11,000.

So I do it in black and white to make you feel more nostalgic, because at that time, Walt's in black and white.

But really what I'm talking about here is this is like a nostalgic product, whatever's happening in today's headlines, because I consume a lot of news, I consume a lot of economic stuff.

You know, I'm at that point in my life where you got to really start kind of thinking about how you're going to get rid of, you know, the third act.

But in this moment, none of that exists.

No matter what's happening today, it's not happening in this moment in time.

You know, and another reason why to pick Disneyland as my muse is even though it is a lot like small sports, there's people that are rooting for it to win, there's people that are rooting for it to fail.

There's people thinking it can do no right, people think it can do no wrong.

These are moments in my life where I don't let the outside world, like, you know, we'll talk about the bad things that are happening at Disney.

We don't talk about the bad things are happening anywhere else.

It's not toxic positivity.

It's just you're talking about a very select subject.

So I'm banking on, as the world gets darker, there's more of a need for escapism.

And I think also people like to learn.

They like to learn something new.

They like if they're going to hit play on a video, they want to walk away and feel educated and empowered, but they don't necessarily want to feel like they clicked on, like, a tutorial or a lesson.

So if you can kind of merge entertainment and education together and empower and educate and entertain somebody.

So that's kind of where I'm at.

That's where I see the future's at and what I'm banking it all on, if that makes sense.

So what's the final count as of today?

How many times have you been to Disneyland?

Well, I stopped counting at 750.

Stop counting at 750.

And that was before the pandemic, when I started going all the time for the YouTube channel.

So if I had to make a guess, I would probably say that I've been there over 2,000 times, if I had to guess.

What I'll say about this is every trip is uniquely its own experience, you know, because if I'm there with people, it's all about them.

And if I'm there solo working, the blessing of being there by myself is I'm working on my project and it's passionate and I enjoy it.

But also I'm there by myself, and I refuse to listen to headphones or any outside content when I'm in there.

So when I'm there by myself, I get to hear other people consume the product.

And that's really interesting.

It's really informative too, you know, because I'm not talking to anybody.

I'm just kind of walking to the park kind of thinking about what I'm doing next, but other people are talking.

And so I get to hear people like talk about like, you know, great times.

I get to, you know, I get, I had a moment at Walt Disney World last year that like I had to go sit on a bench and cry because what I witnessed was just so heavy.

You want me share this with you real quick?

You want to get a little dark?

That's intense.

Yeah, let's go for it.

All right.

So when you start off a vacation, because you're not a crier, sometimes when you, when you start off a vacation and you know, we're not talking about a Disney vacation, just vacation in general.

You know, you land in Mexico or you land in Europe, wherever it is that you go, friend, you just go, here it is, seven days, five days.

You know, that first day of vacation is awesome because it's nothing but potential.

Three or four days later, the walls are starting to cave in.

You're like, we're not going to be able to do that.

We're not going to get to eat there.

We're not getting that ice cream again.

Like, you know, you start to like run out of options.

But when you first start vacation, the world is your oyster.

So I always joke, I work at Disneyland, but I vacation at Disney World.

So I go to Disney World, walk into the park there by myself, and I'm kicking off a week and even though I'm out there to film and make videos, it just feels like vacation because I love it.

You know, I don't have any of my day to day responsibilities.

I'm out there by myself, you know, to make a bunch of content.

Of course I have lots of friends out there and I stay with friends and stuff.

But I'm walking through the park and I'm just starting my day.

And one of the things I always say in my videos is like, when you're at the park, be polite because you don't know who around you who, it's their first time, if it's their only time.

And I've always said, you know, you never know if it's somebody's last time.

And people are like, oh, I never really thought about it, somebody's last time.

So I'm walking into Magic Kingdom, probably about like 3:30, 4:00 in the afternoon.

So for some people the day is winding down.

And this woman was not being performative.

She was not being a drama queen or a Karen, as they like to say.

I just happened to walk past a family that was Having a moment, and it was a family, and they all had their T shirts on.

And then there was.

Who looked to be, you know, like, the mother or the grandmother of the family.

She was in a scooter.

She did not look healthy.

And with tears in her eyes, she just said, I'm not ready to say goodbye.

I don't want this to be the last time, and I'm not ready to say goodbye.

And her family was crying, and clearly this was a terminally ill person's last visit to the park.

And as she was walking out, just like kids do, I don't want to go home.

I'm not ready to leave.

You know, like, whenever I hear a kid throwing a shit fit, I'm like, you are my spirit animal.

I feel the same way, even though I know I'll be back tomorrow.

But, like, I literally witnessed somebody having their last moment in a place that they love, that brought them happiness, and they're there with their family, and just with the tears in her eyes, like, I'm not ready to say goodbye.

I don't want this to be the last time.

And it just.

It floored me because I theorized about that moment.

I got to witness a stranger's moment.

And so, like, out of all the Disney magic that I got to consume in a year, that was the moment that stuck with me the most, and that was from a complete stranger.

So, you know, sometimes it's not about all the things that are on the schedule.

It's about how life really happens around you and how that motivates you and moves you, you know?

So, yeah, that was pretty heavy.

Yeah, man, I got a tear in my eye.

I mean, that's.

That's.

That is heavy.

That is heavy.

But, yeah, because you just talk about a moment of intimacy and vulnerability that.

That.

That.

That, you know, nobody else was supposed to see, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And because I'm the weirdo that's, like, rolling in the tunnel at an awkward time of day and they're rolling out because they, you know, they got to catch a flight or whatever.

It just was like, you know, I don't want to say right place, right time, because obviously it's neither of those for her, but I just happened to accidentally share a moment with this family, and it's like, you know, I don't know if you believe in, like, fate or whatever, but it's kind of interesting that the one person that would walk past this moment is a person that has a relatively large audience that can share that moment with a lot of People that.

Maybe that's a fear of theirs or maybe that makes them appreciate things a little bit more, you know?

But for me, I was like, I went sit on that bench.

I had, like, tears in my eyes.

Like, all right, we're gonna make this one fucking count.

We're gonna make this one count.

For my bud that I just.

They didn't meet because you only get so many times.

Ah, that's a poignant story, man, and I'm so glad you shared it, and, you know, because hopefully people are.

What they're hearing in this story is that, you know, hate to say it, but we all got to go.

And one day, it's going to be the last day.

No matter if you're Disneyland or if you're at work or if you're with your family, whatever.

Make it count.

Yeah, make it count.

Make it count.

You know?

And if people made it this far, it's like, don't focus on the Disneyland part of my story, because that's a weird part of my story.

But focus on finding what you uniquely love, using that as your storytelling device, and trying to figure out, like, you know, is there a thing that I can really bring a lot of people on a journey with me?

You know?

And it's like, YouTube and social media is a wild thing.

Like, if a guy worked at a gas station, but really documented working at a gas station, it could be fucking absolutely fascinating.

Like, did Crazy Earl come in today?

I got to watch this guy's video because Crazy Earl's on the thumbnail.

And, like, what?

The Crazy Earl?

You know, like, we all have, like, think about the Office.

The Office is such a great TV show because it takes people exploring the most boring and bullshit part of your life.

Like a shitty job that's nobody's passion, nobody's career path.

But it showed the exploits of what it means to be in a bad situation.

But try to make the best of it with good folks.

We all have that in us, every single one of us as a character in our own TV show and our own movie.

Just find a way to hold up the camera and start telling that story, and I guarantee you there's a success for you there.

And then that could be the springboard to sell whatever you want to sell, whether it's more of that content, your art, your music, your screenplay, like, whatever it is.

Like, bands that get signed because I'm from the music world.

Bands that get signed, or bands that create an audience.

If you have an audience in this world, you've done the most difficult thing, and that is the thing that will open up all the doors for you.

So hopefully that advice is applicable.

But don't focus on the Disneyland part, because I know that part's fucking weird.

Hey, man.

Life is weird.

You know, that's just.

That's just a fact.

Life is fucking weird.

But I tell you what is awesome.

What is awesome is that you and I got to hang out today.

Yes.

And we.

I mean, one hour went by, like, five minutes for sure.

And, man, I just, you know, I so appreciate you, Mark.

I so appreciate our friendship, our collegiality, all the projects and things we've done in the past and I hopefully, you know, we'll do in the future.

And thanks for coming through today, buddy.

I really appreciate it, man.

I appreciate it.

You know, you reached out to me in a time when I was really trying to make some things happen, and just knowing that, like, one other person believed in me helped me believe in myself a lot.

So thank you for everything that you've done for me.

You and your wife are amazing people.

And, you know, anytime you want to bring me on to talk it up, like, we probably piqued some people's interest on, you know, the algorithm or making videos or content strategies or working with AI as an assistant.

Like, bring me back on, because whatever I can do to, like, share this dumb shit I figured out with other people would be awesome, man.

Well, be careful what you ask for.

You might get it, and I will definitely have you back sooner rather than later.

And in the meantime, brother, have a beautiful day.

You're like.

You're on fire.

You got so many things going on.

What's next for you today?

What's going on?

Actually running ahead, man.

I've got my.

I got my script all figured out for tomorrow's video shoot, and, you know, kind of knocked off some of my.

My responsibilities for Lincoln Design Company.

So, like, it's the rare moment where I'm kind of ahead, so I think maybe I'm just sitting around waiting for Bravo to air Summer House.

And by the way, I know this is.

This is a few months ahead, but are we going to see a designer con again this year?

That's the plan.

I mean, that's the plan.

It's been really great working with those folks and, you know, putting some entertainment and education into it.

Obviously, that's a relationship that you brought into my world and stuff.

And, you know, Las Vegas was interesting.

It was probably the biggest decon that we've ever had, but it was in a new location, so I Think this gear that's coming up, it'll maybe find a more natural balance.

You know, I don't think as many vendors will come out, but I also think more audience will show up.

So I think it's going to be a reward for those that decide to give it another chance.

And I think that, you know, people from Las Vegas that went there, that had a good time are going to bring more people.

And I also think that, you know, Las Vegas is such an easier place for people to travel to than Anaheim or la.

So think in the long term, their strategy of putting it someplace where it can become more of a national convention than a.

Than a regional convention.

Like, I think it's got some.

I think it's got its best years ahead of it, which is.

Which is to say a lot, because it's already had a lot of monumental years.

Yeah, no, I, you know, nothing wish Ben and the boys nothing but success.

I mean, definitely transition.

Transitions are difficult.

It was a transitional year going to Vegas.

But I agree with you.

I think that.

I know at first when the decision came out, it was.

People were like, wait, what?

What's.

What?

But long term, I think it was a smart play.

Yeah.

It'll just be interesting to see where the economy's at this fall, you know what I mean?

And how the collector economy and how the freelancer economy holds up.

You know, I do think that there's some.

Some stuff on the horizon that we should all be a little bit stressed about, or not necessarily stressed about, but just be prepared to do things differently than you've had to do before.

But we all made it through a pandemic.

We made it through terrorism.

We made it through being latchkey kids and mtv.

We'll make it through whatever comes next.

Indeed we will.

And we'll make it.

We'll make it through together.

Absolutely.

So embrace.

Embrace your friends, embrace your audience, lean in, and let's go and embrace your talents.

That's right.

All right, Mark Brickey.

Appreciate you, brother.

Same.

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