Welcome to Overland Weekly, the show that explores the heart of the overlanding and off-road community, capturing the people, friendships, and unique experiences that unite our adventures. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Overland Weekly. This is episode number 15. Looks a little bit different. There's no digital backdrop, no Zoom filters tonight. We are live and in person, as you may notice. Nate Pickle from Dirt Lifestyle, all the way from Tacoma, Washington, correct? Yeah. Has joined us here. We are in Nashville, Tennessee today, thanks to Renaissance Marketing Group for letting us use their space. We had to brand it a little bit our own. You guys can check them out online. I think you guys did great. I think we did good. Yeah. So I had been playing tag with Nate, trying to get this interview set up for a little while. And if you follow his channel, you know he is quite a busy man. I try to be. Try to be. And then decided to move and build a new shop in addition to all his projects and vehicle builds going on. So we didn't think it was going to work out. And then he messaged me a couple of weeks ago and was like, Hey, weren't you in Tennessee? I'm coming that way. Let's just meet up and do this. So thanks, man. Here we are. Thanks for the invite. I appreciate it. I've I've done a lot of off-road podcasts. I prefer to do them in person if I can. You know, there's like something lost over Zoom. 100 %. It's nice to be able to... And that's why I was like, Dude, I'm coming there. I should hit these guys up. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you did. If you haven't followed Nate's story as it's evolved over the past... Over four years now on YouTube, right? Yeah, five. Five, really. Yeah. But this man had a good job as a commercial plumber, right? Good union gig. I would assume a steady paycheck and just everything organized. And then you decided that you were going to walk away from that for this unpredictable lifestyle of being a content creator and YouTuber. Yeah. So here we are five years later. Yeah. Did you make the right call? I mean, my wife's very happy that I made that call. Construction is tough. You're out of your house a lot of hours every day, and long commutes, and all that stuff. So I'm a better dad when I'm at home than I am if I'm on the road, and a better husband. So she's happy, I'm happy, even my dog's happy. Was there a point... Did you have some type of goal or a point that you had to reach to say, Okay, I'm hanging that up, and we are 100 % hammering down on the YouTube thing? So the way it all played out is in 2017, I got in a very serious car accident. I was driven by a semi truck when I was at a standstill, and they were going 60 or 70. And I was in a work van, totaled the van, had a brain injury. It was brutal. I was going to a speech therapist for a couple of years. My body was messed. It sucked. And after that whole time, I mean, I was going to weekly doctor visits for that whole two years and massage and all the other speech therapy. And my primary doctor was like, you're done with construction. It's like, I know you don't think you are, but you're done with construction. He said, he'd seen this happen plenty of times to people my age, and You don't come back fully. And then 10 years later, you're limping as you're walking around. Sure. 15 years later, you're crouched down. He's like, you just can't do a physical job anymore. So he was trying to get me to become a plumbing inspector, which was very tempting. But it all just... Life is so interesting in the way that things happen. So I was, because of the brain injury, I took two weeks off. I went back to work, and then I had an issue, an incident at work, where I was just speaking gibberish, and I didn't even know it. And so they took me to... They thought I had a stroke. So they took me to Harborview, which is the big place in Seattle. I keep looking Joey over there. There's another person here, and I'm talking to them, and you guys. Anyway, so they put this like... It was pretty wild experience because I didn't even realize that, to me, it all just I was just talking, and to the people around me like, Dude, you sit down. Wow. It was crazy. It was just like- That's scary, though, right? Yeah. And then once they said that, I could hear what it sounded like. And so after that, I took like Three or four months off work, they were like, my doctor was like, Stay home. You have a serious brain injury. There's only so much they can measure. They were just like, You got to sleep in every day. You've got to relax. You can't go. I was running jobs. I was a foreman. It was really stressful. And so that's what I did. I stayed home. I was in the middle of doing a diesel swap on my Jeep TJ, and we had plans. I already had time off and everything to go down to Easter Jeep Safari in And so I ended up having enough time to finish the Jeep while I was relaxing and sleeping in and getting better. And so we took it down to Easter Jeep Safari, and a buddy of mine was watching this YouTube channel called BleepinJeep, and he was like, Dude, they're doing a fan ride down in Easter Jeep Safari. You should totally go down and meet those guys. And I just started watching YouTube. I had heard... I mean, we'd all had heard of YouTube. Where have you been 10 years prior to this? Dude, I know. But I wasn't really on social media. I was just a dude who built stuff in his garage. And my friends were... I had multiple people tell me because I would build different things. I'd be like, You got to start a YouTube channel. And I'd be like, I don't even watch YouTube. And so anyway, so I went down to Easter Jeep Safari. I had the Diesel Swap TJ. I did the fan ride with the Bleepin Jeep guys. And then Matt saw that I was filming myself, and he's like, Are you going to make a video out of that? And I was like, I mean, I've I've always filmed me and my buddies. I've got footage of us in 2005, 2006, just tearing it up, man. I had never edited anything. I didn't know what I was doing. I just always had a camera. I like to film us going through a mud hole or whatever we're doing or climbing big rocks. And then once a year, we drink beer and just watch all these clips, right? And so I told Matt, I was like, I don't have plans of making a video, but I film everything we do. And he's like, well, or I should say it in Matt voice, Well, if He said, If I could edit it and send it to him and he likes it, then he'll pay me for it, basically. I could bring you on as a content creator of the channel. I was like, In my head, I'm just like, Man, that'd be super cool. I had some friends that were going to start a YouTube channel called Muddy Beards, and we were all going to do it together. I called and told them, and they were like, Well, we'll still do Muddy Beards, but you should take this opportunity. I edited my first video and sent it to Matt, didn't get a whole lot of feedback from him. And then it was on Bleep and Jeep, and I was like, Oh, sweet. I'm making... So my goal was like, if I could make any income from this just to buy some of these expensive-ass parts you put on these things, then I win. You know what I mean? So what was that time span from Easter Jeep Safari to win your When was your first video is on Bleep and Jeeps channel? Oh, probably within a month. Wow. Yeah, I always... And then, I mean... And during that year, just a little under a year, that I was making content for Bleep and Jeeps. I was making a video a week, sometimes two videos a week, plus doing a full-time job as a plumber. I've just always been a hard worker, and I fell in love with it. I had no idea I was going to like video editing or video production or any of it, but it totally changed. I love building vehicles, but I fell in love with the storytelling aspect of it. And so then my YouTube feed just started being photography channels and all this other stuff that was super inspiring to me. I've always loved documentaries. And so a lot of that just started inspiring me. And I got to a point where I just had a conversation with Matt. I was like, dude, I think I just want to do my own thing. There was no drama behind the scenes. There's no big fight. There's nothing like that. I just called him. I was like, I've been thinking about it on my way home from work, and I just feel like I'm not a bleepin Jeep guy. I just want to be my own guy. And So you hear that, folks? There was no drama, so we could put that to bed. It felt weird afterwards. This is just life. When you terminate some form of relationship, it always feels like there's a breakup of some kind. But when we'd see each other, it was highs and handshakes. You know what I mean? And now it's been five years, so it's like, I don't think that there's any weirdness at all anymore. And I told him, I was working so hard to do a content. And the way it was structured is like, he would get 50 % of the revenue from your video, and you would get 50 % of the revenue, which is fair, because he's putting you on a big platform that's already established. And so Because he had, do you remember how many subscribers he had at that point? Yeah, when I started, it actually... People were into the stuff I was doing. So when I started there, is it 200,000 subscribers. And then by the time I left, it was really close to 300 or something like that. But it was so I'm doing so much work. And I told him, I don't like that I don't own any of them. I'm putting so much effort into these, and I don't own any of it, which was what the agreement was. I wasn't complaining. It was just I wanted to figure out a way to do this just for me, if I want to work this hard, even if I make less money, I at least want to own it. And so I told him, I'm not sure when we're going to do another channel, but this is what my goal is. And so I'm leaving, basically. And so my wife and I had a big talk, and she was like, You know. No. Camera off. It's plugged in. So I had a big talk with the wife, and she's like, we should definitely start another channel soon. And we came up with the first, actually, the first name that I I had to use for the channel was Off-Road Elements. I thought it was a cool name. And then, as I was... So I'd use periodic table things, and I'm a dork. And I looked it up online, and there's this big East Coast shop called Off-Road elements. And I was like, Oh, dang, it's already taken. And I was like, Well, this is like a whole lifestyle because I just thought about the whole progression. I graduate high school. I'm way into camping and rock climbing and all this stuff. So I get my first four by four, right when I graduate. I was always been a workaholic. So I was working two full or two part-time jobs in high school, plus going to school, 55 hours a week. And I was saving because I was driving a '78 Cut Supreme, which was pretty sweet, but not a great off-roader. So as soon As soon as I graduated high school- E6, 305, what was in the Cutlass? 305. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so as soon as I graduated, sold the Cutlass Supreme, bought a '87 S10 Blazer, and that was my first four by four. And so the reason that this love tales into the name of the channel was it was like, I got a four by four so I could start camping and rock climbing deeper. And what it ended up being is it just turned into a whole different lifestyle. I became so much more passionate about all the other stuff surrounding just the off-road culture and finding the best mod. I trade the S10 Blazer for a K5 Blazer because when I was a kid, my stepdad had a K5 Blazer, and I thought it was the most badass truck of all time. And at that point, they were still readily available and affordable. Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. Oh, dude. Now? Come on. Yeah, forget about it. I traded it straight across from my buddy who needed a commuter. So he got the little Blazer, and I got the big one. And my dad hated it. And he worked at a dealer. But he asked me, What do you really want? I know you like the K5, and I was like, I don't know. I love the K5, but I've always wanted a Jeep. If I was going to get a Wheeler, I would get a Jeep. And so then this Jeep rolls in, 2002 Jeep TJ. He hits me up, and I go down to the dealer and look at it, and he's like, We're going to make your trade in look like it's more than it is. I need to work the numbers. My dad totally swindled me into this Jeep, and that's the Jeep that I have still. But anyway, so it was like the whole dirt lifestyle name came from like, I got a Jeep once, and it completely transformed my life. Or really an S10 Blazer once. My whole lifestyle worked around that because I would just work. I'm like, All right, next paycheck, I'll be able to get sliders. And then the paycheck out. And then eventually, Okay, I'm going to save up and get a tow rig. And you're searching for tow rigs. And then I got a freaking RV, and then I get a shop. And it's all because... It's a whole different lifestyle, all because I got a four by four. So it all comes from the S10 Blazer, folks. It really does. That's where it really comes from. Totally. What was the specs on the Blazer? Because there's- The Mighty 2. 8. Was it the 2. 8? Oh, yeah. I'm laughing because Joey's here with us. Joey, what year was your- It was '95. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This was TBI 2. 8, five-speed manual. It was my first manual. Oh, the manual. Yeah. Yeah. I prefer. I love wheeling manual. I prefer manuals. Not very common these days. That's an interesting opinion nowadays. I know. It's crazy. When I first started wheeling, everybody knew wheeled a manual up there. It was all Samurais and CJs and Toyotas. They're all just little light manual vehicles. But now, once the JK came out, it just completely changed the car, like off-road culture completely. People started wanting comfort and all that other weird stuff whenever you go off-road. I am a guy that wheels LX 570 Lexus, so I get the- Was that yours out there? No, that was a Lexus. That was a 100 Series. That was a 100 series. That's right. Yeah, mine's at the house gutded right now from prior week's activities. I've had to do that. So anyway, that's a long way around. That's the whole origin story. And so then I started making my own videos. It grew really quickly. And within six months, my wife and I had a talk, and I was like, Do you think we could... Could I just do this? And my wife was all on board. She was like, I had all this doubt. She had zero doubt. She's like, If you were doing this full-time, we could make it work. And the reason being, I was making really good money as a foreman plumber for a lot of years, and we were always really conservative with our money. We didn't have... The goal isn't to max out your income. It's like, Oh, I make this much money. That means I need this much house. It's like, all my friends that I was working with were union, making the same amount of money, and they're asking me for money for lunch. It's like, Maybe you should get rid of the brand new tow truck and like it- And your $800 a month payment. Yeah. Everything I bought had 200 plus thousand miles on it, and we were really conservative. So because our bills were low and because we were responsible for all that time, we knew we had a buffer And because I have an established journeyman plumber with a license and a great resume, and it's still a union member, I still pay my dues. It was like, I have an amazing plan B. I've already got this whole other plan B established and proven. So let's take a leap of faith. I left my job before we even made a year on YouTube and just started working hard as hell for me instead of somebody else. And then here we are five years later. So it's Awesome. Yeah, you were talking about once you actually started watching YouTube, once you caught up with everybody else. Sorry, people. Mike. You said you like to watch a lot of documentaries, and that's interesting because I think Your videos, and you've talked about this in the past, have very much of a storytelling narrative to them, and I think that's intentional. It's almost like a little... Each build is like a little mini documentary. That's how it wanted to feel. Okay, good. Yeah. I go through phases. I love documentaries. I just love learning about different parts of the world. I love learning about the good, the bad. I'm a huge history buff. I listen to history podcasts. I mean, I just... So documentaries just so right up my alley. And then I would say that my influences are documentaries and then Ian's show, Extreme 4 by 4. Because when I was wheeling in the early days, there was not really anything that you could point to for like, tutorials other than like, magazines. So we'd buy a four by four magazine, and you'd get different ideas. And then when Extreme four by four came out, me and my roommates Sunday morning, Spike TV, we were all in. We're like, watching Stacey David and watching, you know. Trucks and gears. All of it, dude. Yeah. We all have, my whole crew, we all have Stacey David impressions. Just, I know what you're thinking. Anyway. So we... Yeah. And so Ian was a really big inspiration. And the fact that it was like, he was doing what I wanted to do, like all the FAB stuff. And I was able to watch stuff and get inspired. And then whenever I started this YouTube thing, it just came out. I realized one year in, I was like, I'm doing this like he does, which is a good thing. It's a proven model. Yeah, totally. Because when I first started making a YouTube video, it wasn't like... I didn't know I was going to teach in it. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was like, Do I just review? I mean, I don't know. I had no plan. I was just like, I'm just going to turn on the camera, which It was just so awkward at the beginning. You're just looking at a black hole in an empty shop, and you're just talking to nobody. But once you get over yourself, it's not a big deal. But I had no plan. And then it's just my inner Ian Johnson just came out, and I just started showing and talking about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Then it just, I think between that and me being a journeyman plumber, it was like the education side, like me teaching, became the direction. There is some overlap from your from your plumbing career, especially once you were a foreman, into what you're doing now from that education standpoint. Yeah. It was always important to me to educate apprentices. I constantly had apprentices thanking me because I was in plumbing early enough. It was I feel old. I doubt it's like this now, but it was really brutal. When you're an apprentice, you get treated like crap. So brutal. I had a side story to my side story, but I remember being in a crawl space when I was a first year apprentice, and my journeyman pouring a can of ABS glue at the entrance of the car, crawl space and lighting it on fire. And just being like, Load up, pickle. We got to go. We got to go. We got to go. It was just a lot of fat, just a lot of hazing. And a lot of journeymen just want to keep you on the shovel and on drill, doing all the grunt work. And so whenever I had apprentices, I didn't want to do that. I always wanted to show them why, talk about plumbing code. I'd even open up the book, I'd be like, See, and get them used to thinking like a plumber instead of laborer. And so that totally translated over to YouTube. Yeah. I think another thing, in addition to the education, one thing you've done, whether you've intentionally done it or not, is you show your mistakes along the way, right? Whatever it may be. And there's a particular episode, not just mistakes in the shop or when you're fabbing something, but you remember that episode where you're driving the Kodiak on your way to to SEMA and you're like, Oh, that's a sweet ass spot. I'm going to pull over here and get a picture of this. And you say it on camera like, This is a bad idea. Dude, tell people what happened. Trust your gut, man. I knew that there... Well, that's sad. It could have been worse. So on my way to SEMA, it was such a slog. We were pushing so hard in order to get the Samurai to a point where we could winch it onto the back of the Kodiak so I could have it at the Power Stop break booth. And We make the deadline. I'm on my way down. Truck's working fine. I mean, I'm just like, sweet. We're doing it. I stay the night in the back of the truck in Oregon, wake up cruising through Nevada, and maybe a third of the way down, Nevada. I literally just saw a sign that said, The loneliest highway in America. I mean, there's no one around, which I mean, foreshadowing. I mean, come on. It's just ridiculous. So I see this little job site on the side of the highway, and there's no one there. They were just moving dirt around and putting drains underneath the street and stuff. And so I was like, I want a big heavy duty Kodiak 4x4. And I need a thumbnail for this video that I'm in the middle of filming. I'm going to pull off real quick, and I wasn't going to flex it out, but I was just going to nose the front of the Kodiak up on a little dirt burn with the Samurai in the back and the mountains in the back. It was gorgeous. And as soon as I pull off and I put it in four-wheel drive, something told me. It was just like, Dude, you're so exposed. I mean, I had no service, and there's no one on the road. I mean, I'm just in the middle of nowhere by myself. And I'm like, Dude, it's the most heavy duty truck you've ever owned. It's ridiculous. Everything is so oversize. There's the whole point of buying a Kodiak. So put it in 4WD, go down the little bank, and then as soon as it starts to go up the dirt burn, I've got no rear... Oh, no, I hear a sound, like a grinding sound. And I was like, Oh, is that transfer case? What is that? I get underneath there and look, everything's fine. And then, long story short, the rear and front drive shafts were just like spinning in the pinions. And that's what, a Dana 110? Dana 110 rear. Now Dana 130. The front is a Dana Super 70. They're ridiculous. They're rare, too. They're crazy huge, crazy overbuilt. There's one gear set you can buy for the Dana Super 70. They only make it a 513. That's how rare it is. So it's like, they made it probably for just Kodiaks. They probably don't use it in anything else. So I'm kicking myself. And so I go walk around and I just find this little square that if I stand on it, I have enough service to make a phone call. And then I'd screenshot of my location and post it on social media. So the rear drive shaft, spinning into... I'm literally watching a drive shaft spin, going into a pinion, and nothing is happening. Like as if you sheared a pinion. And so I was like, it's the only thing that makes sense. What was so weird is I couldn't imagine shearing both front and rear pinions from idling. It's not like, oh, it's because of all that torque that you weren't even in. You know what I mean? And the front was totally my fault. Under the hub caps, it had selectable hubs in the front, so I had no idea. But this was how many hours later you figured that out? Oh, many, many, many hours. Yeah, because I was looking through so many forums and just trying to figure out, is anyone else have this problem? And then I saw a thing and like, F, no. I can't remember. I saw something that triggered in my head. I was like, maybe you should peel back those hubcaps and just see. And so I did. And sure enough, underneath the hubcaps, there were hub selectors. But that's not why it fell apart. The rear, all of the Ringer bolts had slowly been working out over time, and there was clearly only one or two holding it in place. And as soon as I got down in that dirt hole, it just broke the last two bolts. And then the rear, the carrier was not spinning because the ring gear was just spinning on the carrier. I mean, it's just crazy. I've seen this happen to people who get aftermarket Ring and pinions installed and by somebody who's not super professional. They don't use red lock tight and stuff. But I could not imagine a truck this big, that that would be a problem. It turns out, after a bunch of research, the Dana 110s, it's really common for those to back Really? Yeah. It was really hard to find the parts I needed. But I found a place that cannibalizes Kodiaks and all these medium duty diesels in California. After doing much research, the Dana 130 Center section drops into the Dana 110 housing. And so that's what I did. I bought a Dana 130 center section and dropped it in there and then had to upgrade to bigger... The new actual shafts that are in there are ridiculous. The old ones were huge. Now, the new ones are just laughable. So anyway, it's a Dana 130 now, just because the housing is the same across all of them, which is also very strange. So needless to say, those bolts are loctited in there this time. I have no idea. I looked at it, and I read online that it does not have the same problem. I was like, I'm not touching any of it. Okay. Yeah, I just cleaned it up. I made sure all the bearings look good, dropped it in, and it's been that way ever since. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So you ended up making it into SEMA on front wheel drive then, right? No. I called Matt for Matt's off for recovery. He came and got me a midnight from Utah, and then he drove me to his place in San Paulo. We drove all night.

30 in the morning, and we slept for just a couple hours. And then he had one of his employees haul me out to SEMA, dropped me off. And then in front wheel drive, I drove like two miles around the corner. And I just, I mean, I made the cut off to drop your vehicle off by like an hour. And otherwise, it'd been all that for nothing. So the The rest of the week was figuring out how to fix my truck and also just exhaling because it had been such a brutal, like six weeks before that. But I don't know if they say bad things happen in threes. I don't know what three things happened, but that did seem to be the last bad thing because then we made it home, no problem. It was all good, but it was just a brutal couple of days. Nate, you've done multiple types and brands of vehicles. I mean, you're I think, vehicle or brand agnostic, I should say. Definitely. Yeah. Is there anything that's been in the back of your mind, but you've always been hesitant to pull the trigger on building? There's not any projects that I'm hesitant for any other reason than just the amount of time I have. A lot of people have bucket list things they want to do. I have a personal build bucket list. It's not that I want to own everything. It's just I want to own everything once. The Land Cruiser 80 series, that was on a bucket. That was a bucket list vehicle for me. I wanted to build it. I wanted to use it. I wanted to enjoy it, and then decide if it was going to be permanent in the fleet. I loved it, but it just didn't need to be permanent. I didn't love it so much that I had to have it forever or anything like that. I was like, All right, I'll sell this one, move on to the next thing, and I'll try other vehicles. A lot of our Toyota guys, and there was a lot of talk when that was sold. Yeah, he hates Toyotas. It's an '80s series. It's perfect. Why would he sell that? I don't know why everybody has to. There's nothing to read into it. I just love the whole process of finding something cool for a good deal, building it out, using it, and then keeping it if I want to or not. And like right now, I've got this little Land Rover that I just started work on, and it's super cool, but I don't think it's going to be a permanent vehicle. My TJ, permanent. The Tacoma, probably not even permanent, but I could totally see myself owning it for 10 more years. I mean, it's really good at everything except for being comfortable and getting good gas mileage. But outside of that, it's good. Everything else. Do you pay attention to what other folks are building now, specifically on YouTube? Do you have time to even pay attention? Not really. To be honest, I don't watch a lot of off-road YouTube. I'm a YouTube junkie. I love YouTube, but it's my interest. Yeah, my interests are so all over the place, man. I mean, it's science, history, politics, just all the... I've got all this stuff that I'm way into. Outdoor, right now, I just became obsessed with this dude who's doing a homestead in Alaska, or sorry, up in Canada, and just watching him build the cabin. I go through hunting phases where I just get obsessed with watching people hunt or fish. There's this channel I was watching where this dude had this really small plane. I think he was in Canada, too, and he would just fly over all this land. It was like, there's no other way in. And then he'd land in. It was like a float plane, and he'd land in the middle of nowhere, and he just fished these like, rivers and streams and lakes that no one can. Wow. It's just so cool. So Excuse me. I'm sorry. Oh, you're fine. You're like, Honey, we need a float plane. Yeah. Luckily, I'm not that wild with it. But yeah, so I do see what other people are building because sometimes stuff will just pop into my feed, or I'll see it on Instagram or whatever, or I've got friends in the industry that I just keep tabs on to see what they're up to. But I'm in my own... I'm not near any other off-road channels like what I do. So I'm in my own little corner of the country. I keep to myself. If you were in San Paulo, you have access to all the biggest off-road. So they have their own thing going on. I have my own thing going on. And we see each other and hang out at events and stuff. But I'm real focused on being an outdoorsman and being a dad, being a husband, and all that stuff. Plus, I want to open up an off-road shop. So we've been talking about that forever. And now that we finally moved, we're going to hopefully do that sooner than later. So I'm very focused on that. So you want to do it like a full service shop? Yeah. So I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this because I'm not one that wants to borrow a bunch of money to do a new business. I want to use my own. And I don't like the idea of investors. I don't want to lose anybody else's money, too. So this is going to be a stepping stone thing. Sure. I think what we're going to do first is I want to do a local off-road repair company because I can do that without getting commercial space. So I want to build... Right now, I'm working on a Jeep truck that's going to be the first vehicle that we're going to try this with. And all winter throughout the Cascades, people are breaking in the snow. They're getting stuck in the snow, way up in the mountains. And it's like a whole thing for them to get unstuck. So what I think is we're going to... I think we're going to start the business in order to get the seed money for the off-road shop by doing off-road repair and off-road recovery. So I'm going to set this thing up with a a real welder, not like a stick welder, but I want to be able to go out there and reweld somebody's brackets back on and paint it. I mean, they're in a shop, but do it on the trail. So instead of me having to yard them all the way back out, We could potentially just drive out because we did a professional fix. So that's my little business idea. And I think that we're going to use that. And if that is successful enough, then we can use that as seed money to then open up Dirt Lifestyle and Performance Recovery. Sorry, Turnt Lifestyle Performance and Recovery, which is going to be a full service shop where I could start to hire more employees. I want to pay the highest in the area. We'll probably be the most expensive in the area. But I want to do high quality work for people who want to find it. Every week, I'm getting emails, I'm getting DMs, I'm getting tons of people like, Hey, I'll ship you my vehicle. I want you to build it for me, all that stuff. I'm just not set up to do that yet, but that's the long term goal is to have a shop where... I want to hire a videographer and people who could just film me and the crew just having fun, building cool shit, excuse me. And then people just tune in and see what we're up to every week. Yeah, or Nate did break all this stuff and learned how to not do that. He could help me not do that. Well, but that gives you, I'm assuming, especially the recovery aspect of it, gives you another for content creation. Yeah. I want to do more content. It's just right now, I'm like, skeleton crew, man. Sure. I'm doing it all. At least I have help. I've got nick, my coworker. But I say coworker now. It's weird when you call someone your employee. I don't think I'm above him or something. So I say co-worker. So my co-worker, nick, he helps a lot. But the ultimate goal is that I can hand off video, at least to someone else, to where I'm just doing I'm organizing everything in the shop. I'm building stuff in a commercial shop with a bunch of cool people to work with. And then maybe I do the editing still, or if someone do the rough edit. I don't know how it's going to work yet, but I just see the goal in my mind has been, I want to not just build my stuff, but I want to build other people's stuff and make cool video on it. Then especially longer builds, have them fly up when it's all done, and then we take them out, and you just can put a bow on the story of we got this old international scout. There was a POS, and here we are three months later, and we're tearing up trails with the owner. I just think that that would be really fun to do. And I know for sure, discovery in these different networks are always looking for guys like me to do a show like that for them. But I don't want producers. I want to be in charge of the whole thing. I want to make sure it's authentic content. You really see what's happening. I don't want someone to throw a wrench because they're fake mad. And so to me, the utopia innate future is being able to have my own shop, being able to go do recoveries when I want. If I think they're interesting, I'll film and just have this flexibility of making fun content with cool people and building cool rigs. No, totally. Yeah. We've all, over the last decade, we've seen enough fabricated Orange County chopper-style drama. That's the one everyone thinks of, too. I mean, how can you not? Yeah. But if you don't mind, let's unpack the economics of doing it yourself a little bit. Because one thing, So over the last, let's say, 10, 15 years, when you had these big networks and cable companies that were funding these productions, I just think about even the cost of getting the vehicle. Generally, that was on the production company to, Okay, you need to go buy this international. We're going to pay to buy it. Now, if you're starting a new project, that's out of Nate's pocket, presuming, right? Yeah. So it goes back like with that Land Cruiser. When you make a purchase on a new project, are you thinking about reselling or what the exit for that vehicle is? Do you have to factor all that in? You do. There's certain vehicles I couldn't buy and flip. Landrover Discovery, I love my Landrover Discovery, too. It's awesome, but it's not one you can make any money flipping. Whereas the Land Cruiser 80, I got it for a good deal. I got it. It was like, I'll get opportunities and the stars were aligned, and the Onyx build challenge was perfect. I wanted to do an '80s series build just because from a business standpoint, it's smart, I think, to be able to reach a new audience, people who maybe never heard of the channel that have '80s series, it'd be interested in seeing a build. It's one that I personally really wanted to do. Then when a company comes to you and said, Hey, we want you to do this build challenge, we'll give you the money to buy the vehicle. It's like, Oh, this works out perfect. I can get what I want. I can give people what they want, and the company is going to pay for it. Stars aligned? Yes, let's do it. That said, though, I chose an '80 series because it's one of those vehicles that if you get it for a good deal, you put a little bit of money, a little bit of elbow grease into it, you can get your money back out of it. There are certain vehicles you can never get your money back out of. He's got one. He's in the process of flipping right now. That's why I'm laughing. Yeah. And so this Land Rover, this little old-school Land Rover series that I just bought that I'm building out, that's one of those vehicles that I know I got cheap enough, and I see them for sale expensive enough that if I put the dirt lifestyle flair on this thing, go have a bunch of fun with it, make some good content. And if I decide one day that I want to let it go, I'll be able to get my money back out of it. Okay. I'm not trying to make... Like my '80s series, I could have sold that for way more money than I did. I sold it for- Yeah, you ask a very fair price. Exactly. And that was for a number of reasons. I already made... Because of the way that I did the business side, it was basically bought by somebody I built it. I got my use out of it. I got my personal enjoyment out of it. And so I don't have to make a bunch of money on it. And two, I don't ever want someone to think that I'm ripping them off, no matter what. So everything I sell in the future is going to be, unless it's at an auction, I have no control over it or something, let's just say, way down the road. I want to always have people think that they got a fair deal or good deal. And the guy that owns it loves it. I mean, I put all the money in all the right places in that thing. It's super reliable. He drives around the country. He wheels the crap out of it. Yeah, I follow him on Instagram or YouTube. One of them. Yeah. Yeah. And he loves that thing. So everybody's happy. But yeah. So as far as... There might be projects that I'll buy that I'm just so obsessed with. I know that I'll never sell it, and I don't care. But then your average project for me is not that way, though. Everything could be bought and sold. The only things that I'm going to keep forever right now is my TJ. It was my first real four by four. I learned so much. These projects are also like, it's an educator. It's like, it's a teacher. So I've learned so much and had so many great experiences in my TJ that it's just I don't know what the next incarnation. Incarnation? Incarnation. There you go. Thank you. So I'm a little tired. Incarnation of the TJ will be, but it'll always be in my fleet no matter what. My kids will inherit that Cool. Samurai, probably the same way. I've got a deep emotional attachment to that because it inspired me back in the day watching Ian build it. I see. And then I got it, and then I get to put my spin on it. And now it's just So once I start using that a lot, it's going to start becoming the face of the channel, I think. It's just such a unique build, and everybody who sees it just loses their mind in person. I had a guy walk up to me on the trail a couple of weeks ago, and he's like, I will give you $50,000 right now for that. And I'm That's really nice. But first off, that's way too low. It took me a year to build this, dude. But it's... Yeah, so what I'm saying is that people react to it. They're like, I've never seen anything like that. I want it. And so That's one that I think that I have the same reaction to every time I drive it, every time I see it. So that'll stay in the fleet forever, probably. Cool. Probably a long way to answer your question. No, I just find that very interesting because I thought about that as I'm watching you and other YouTubers, and every time there's a new vehicle introduced, it's like, man, they had to sit there on Facebook marketplace like the rest of us and waiting for the right one to come up and then spend their hard-earned dollars to get it. Sure. Whatever disease Jay Leno has, I've got it, too. But I just don't have the money. If I had warehouses and I had all that money, for sure, I would have... I'm also into more than just off-road. I'm Right now, I'm in a phase of my life where if I'm going to invest money in a vehicle, it has to be off road just because it's what I do for a living. Sure. But I want a '69 Dots' and roadster. I really love the late'70s, early '80s Porsche 911s. Sure. Even the '60s, the '60s Porsche 911s are incredible. So a Speedster. There's all these cars that I absolutely love, but I'm still many years of success away from being able to collect cars on top of the trucks that I buy. But we can all scroll through marketplace looking at them, even though we can't afford them. It's funny. The young guys don't understand that we used to do the same thing with the classified ads when I was 18 or 19, but there was no pictures. You just had to read the description and visualize. Absolutely. That's so funny. Right? Speaking of over the years, have you seen, especially in your part of the country, the evolution of builds and suspensions and the way things are being built today compared to 20 years ago. Around these parts, 20 years ago, I mean, put the biggest lease springs you can, jack it to Jesus, 44s on there, and enroll. Dude, that should be the name of your podcast, by the way. Jacket to Jesus is fantastic. But that was it. And nobody was thinking about center of gravity and lowering it down. And now we've gone full circle the other I think it's come back around, though. Dude, life is just full of pendulum moments. And we go from being way too tall to being way too short. And now I think things are... There is a benefit to being tall as all heck. I mean, the farther you stay away from rocks, the less you get hung up. My Samurai is a great example of that. If I'm building something like my Tacoma, we're like, not only can you not afford to flip it because it's totaled at that point, but it's just the last thing you want to flip in. I want to always keep that low. And even with the portals that I'm putting on it, I'm like, I'm going to do everything I can to keep it low, keep it squatty, low center of gravity. But for the Samurai, it was like, okay, I'll make it bottom heavy, but I'll make it tall so that I can get over all the rocks, because that's how everybody used to build everything. And so you could just work your way over just insane rock sections. And you'd probably see a lot more people flipping back then. But that was how everything was built. The evolution, I didn't cut you off on your question, did I? No, that was it. Okay. But yeah, the evolution over the last... I've just seen a lot of phases. But you think it's somewhat of a history repeats itself, that we go in cycles with it? I'm not the only one who's building things that are a little bit taller again. Okay. I'm starting to see other people doing the same thing because the more you rock, crawl, and then the more things you build, the more you start to just see there's not a one size fits all. If you have a specific off road you like to do the most, you should build it for that. If you live in San Paulo, and you like going up the steepest hills you can find, you should probably be low and squatty. But if you like going on the Rubicon or there's some killer rock gardeny stuff up where I live, like Reader foothills and all this, you want to be away from the rocks. When you keep yourself low, it looks really cool, and it works great on steep stuff, but it's just a slog to get through all of the big pointy rocks. So it's tough to build something that's good at everything, that is like both worlds. One thing, though, The sidebar that I've noticed on the last 20 years, the quality of builds. We're spoiled here in America when it comes to build quality. Do you know how many people have plasma tables in their garage? That's a great point. Dude, the technology we have access to now. When I first... There was no one who had press breaks, and then swag comes along. They make it affordable. You can put it in a hardware. And now, it's a very common tool to see in fabricator shops. It's a press break. And There's just so many examples of that. Plasma cutters. When I was in high school, I remember us talking about plasma cutters. It's just alien technology from the future. It was like, What did it cut your finger off? We just didn't know. It's just all this just weird stuff that we just talk about in a shop class. Now, you can get a plasma cutter for $400 on Amazon, probably cheaper. Well, even 20 something years ago, MIG welders were that way. Now, everybody had a MIG welder in their garage. There's still a lot of stick welders. We had a boxbox. So, yeah, now it's multi-process. And I mean, there's never been more TIG welders out there. And there's guys in their garage that don't even weld for a living, that are just laying down dimes. We have the most skilled hobbyists of all time here. There's so many people that are engineers or something, and they're doing a side hustle, being able to throw together chassees and stuff for their friends. It's It's really cool to watch all that. That's funny you said that. We were talking about that the other day. When you start looking at people that don't do this professionally, that it's a hobby, guys that you're in the woods with. When we're in the woods, we all just look like a bunch of old boys in the woods. But then when you start finding out what people do for a living, you're an engineer for what? You're a rocket scientist? Oh, dude. Yeah. It's cool. I've always been social. I make fast friends on the trail, and I always love to people's stories and where they're from. And the Overland space, especially, it's really tech-heavy, I feel like. Or people- I can see that. I've met people that work at NASA that are into Overland. It's crazy, the level of successful people. Oh, super douchey name dropped. So excuse me. My friend Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds, the baseball player, is way into Overlanding. What? Yeah. I ran into him at Expo, and he said hi to me. And I was like, I'm looking around like, no one knows this is Barry Bonds. And so me and him have lunch at Overland Expo. And while we're sitting there talking, we have like, for some reason, I am like, super popular at Overland events. It's just insane. And so as we're talking and having lunch, maybe seven or eight different groups of people come over to have their picture taken with me and that thing. Super flattering. And Barry's like, Dude, out here, nobody recognizes me, and you're the superstar. You know what I mean? It's so crazy. Maybe he enjoys that aspect. He does. He told me. So he goes to most of the expos because he could just blend in. It's not his people, so he can just be a normal person in a show. Wow. It's super cool. That's very cool. Yeah. So again, name drop. It's the only famous person I know. But he's such a great example of you never know who's watching. And just back to your point of it just looks like a bunch of regular people in the woods. But then when you start to hear people's back stories, it's like, if you saw him and you didn't know baseball, you'd never know that he's like, Hall of Fame level, one of the greatest of all time. And he's just out there in his Bronco Raptor having fun with everybody else. That's what I was going to ask. Bronco Rapter. Okay. Yeah. He had one of the new defenders first, and he liked it. But whenever they announced the Bronco Rapter, he's like, Hell, yeah. So he got rid of his defender and got the Bronco Rapter, and he loves that thing. The last two years, we've been talking about me taking him out on the Rubicon, but he just wants to ride with me just so he can see what it's like. And we'll see. I still want to try to talk him into taking that Bronco Rapter out there. I think he'd do pretty good on the Rubicon, but that It'd be cool. Who knows? It'd be cool. So, Nate, you're 200 something videos into this now on your channel. Jeez, am I really? Yeah. I've probably looked at the analytics more lately than you have. You probably have. Two 200 something videos closing in, if it's not happening today, maybe tomorrow, on 50 million combined views, total views. Dude, I didn't even know. No joke. I know how many subscribers-ish I have. Yeah. 50 million? Wow. It's wild, huh? That is wild. Do you feel like understanding YouTube, understanding which ones are going to be a hit with your fan base? I was talking to Mike Pfeiffer from Last Light in Defense earlier this week, and he said, I've got a pretty good gut feeling now when I make a video, which ones are going to take off. Do you feel like you're similar to that? Definitely. Yeah. There's multiple ways to go about YouTube. Some people are so lucky in the fact that they don't have to think about this. They film at all with their phone. They're just naturally super charismatic. They're not even worried about what people think, and they just blow up. But that is a rare story. Most people you watch on YouTube are looking at the analytics. They are trying to figure out what their audience wants, especially if you want to try to make a living at it or you want to make money at it, then you have to focus on that stuff sometimes. Most of the time, I'm always just trying to be better. And then I occasionally look back and I'm like, Okay, how did this video do? Where am I losing people? Because that audience retention graph that you get on our side is really important because it tells you what the viewers actually want to see. And with me, I put a lot of different elements into my videos. And if I'm seeing over and over, it's like, oh, when I do these slowmo sequences, I'm just losing a bunch of people. So I guess it's just for me. I think it's cool. So then I better cut that out and just see how much better things are. And so as you do that, and it'll show you the average age range of the people watching you and all this other stuff, and you start to visualize an avatar of who is watching you, you do start to get a lot better at You just know, Oh, this is a banger thumbnail, and this is a topic that I think is really popular right now. Sometimes you just know. Most of the time, I'm pretty close these days. I've got a pretty good idea of what people want to see. But there's also just the surprises. Sometimes you'll just, you'll put something together quick. You're like, I know some people are going to be interested in this, but whatever. The best example for me is when I quit my job, I made a YouTube video, and it was going to be a temporary YouTube video. I was like, this is going to be just for the people that have been following me since Bleep and Jeep, and I just wanted to make something personal. And so I made this video, and it exploded. And I couldn't believe it. And I would have never predicted that people would be... Well, first off, it's surprising that people want to watch what I'm up to in my garage. So it's like you start there. You start with zero subscribers. You start like, is anyone even going to be interested? And then you work your way up to like, all right, I'm going to put myself out there, and I'm going to show how crazy busy I am to try to do this, and me quitting my job, and me in my plumbing truck, and make this vulnerable thing. And again, I thought I was going to just have it up for a week or two and just delete it. It was just going to be for my people who really followed me. And that just I could not believe how big that video got. And it really resonated with people. That's the one that people bring up the most. If I'm on the trail and someone's like, dude, you really inspired me because I hated my job. And so I found another... They didn't quit and go do YouTube, but they were just like, seeing you take a gamble like that made me decide that I'm going to go pursue something better because I was just miserable. It's the story. It's the story. And that's what I'm focused on a lot more now. Before I moved to this new place that I live in now, I didn't share a lot of my personal life. And now that I'm in this new place in my life, I'm looking at 40 next year. I'm feeling... I know that there's just a certain level of negativity you're going to get no matter what you put on there. So that's what scares you about making yourself vulnerable. But I want to make myself more vulnerable. My last video, I shot a deer. I was going to originally show the hunt and everything, but I was like, I don't know what that would do. But I did show, I talked while I was out there hunting, looking for the deer. I showed a little clip of me and the kids processing. I want to start bringing people more in on my personal life while still doing all the same old stuff, building cool stuff in the garage and having fun. But that's got to be an interesting balance, bringing the personal life in, bringing the wife and kids in while maintaining some semblance of privacy in that, right? Yeah. It's hard to decide on when to film and when to not, because I'm not going to film everything. There's certain things in your life. Yeah. I know my dad had a stroke, and it's been really hard on us. I know that if I filmed some of that and what it's like to go through that, it It would probably really resonate with people, and it would probably get me a whole bunch of views. But there's certain things that I'm just keeping that. That's There's other stuff going on in the back burner of my life. But there's other things like me teaching my kids and me having my kids in the video, like riding in a vehicle for the first time. Or as I'm going to start bringing my kids into the shop, you're going to start seeing them, learning how to weld. There's other parts of my life that I'm comfortable with because it's an important part of my life. I want people to see that I'm a person just like they are. There you go. It's hard to figure out when to film and when to not. But right now, that's about my comfort. Yeah. Yeah. Yet, it's funny you're talking about the kids and the involvement. It's not, and it's lifestyle is in the name of your channel, obviously. But that's what this is, right? You are on 24/7 to an extent. I would assume every time you pick your phone up, it's buzzing with something. Definitely. It's worse for me than a lot of other Overland YouTubers, like my friends and stuff, because, of course, they have people reaching out to them, too. But when people see that you know stuff, and then they have problems, they want to reach out. At first, I was responding to everybody for a long time. Brad Trail Recon was this way, too. We felt so appreciative that people wanted our opinion on something. But then it gets to a point where it's insurmountable. I mean, I could spend all week just answering questions and just Technical questions. Just technical questions. Yeah. Just DMs, people want advice on their build, or people that have a problem with fill in the blank vehicle, or people trying to decide on what vehicle to buy. I mean, you name it, or people that want clarity on a video I did four years ago. And So at some point, you just have to... I'm at that. I'm at definitely, I'm beyond that point now, where it's like, people want more content. And so I have to trim the fat somewhere in order to get enough time to make more content. And so, yeah, I have a lot of folks reaching out, and I still spend a lot of time answering people's questions and trying to be in the comments and all that stuff, because it is, again, just like Brad O'Troh Recon. We're both so humbled that people want to interact with us and talk. But you're not going to go look up torque specs for somebody anymore? No. Google works for them, too. I'm just kidding. What about... You were talking about It's funny, you used the word avatar earlier when describing your demographic. So you've created maybe this image in your head of what your viewer looks like and what demographics they fit into. And you've I assume you're thinking about making content for that. Then you've got something like the Tacoma, where you're doing an RCLT kit and you're doing RCVs. And before you know it, you've got $20, 000 tied up in suspension before portals. Do you feel like you have to be cognizant of this balance between maybe what's affordable for most folks versus what you're sinking into something? Oh, definitely. Well, and also, I'm not rich. So just full disclosure, I mean, a channel my size, I make enough money that I can... I make enough money, and I've been good enough before YouTube that I don't have so many bills and whatnot, and I'm good enough on the business end of this, where I have enough income streams behind the scenes that I'm able to do what I do, buy good deals on vehicles whenever I need to, and all the other stuff. But I also use my audience, the numbers and all this stuff as leverage to try and get good deals on parts or work with brands in a way that it's actually a paid sponsorship. And so it's just this mess of trying to figure out how to put all those pieces together. And the balance for me is, honestly, I'm more interested in the old stuff. What happened was we started the channel. I was growing stuff, just building stuff that I wanted to build. But then I took some time and I started looking at what are people interested in? And there was a lot of people interested in gladiators and Tacomas and all this. And I've never bought a new vehicle in my life. But I was like, because of the way that tax laws and stuff are written right now, I mean, if you're in my shoes or in your shoes, anybody watching this, start a YouTube channel, get a business license. And if it's your hobby, make YouTube videos about your hobby and write off your hobby. It's completely legal. Save taxes because me being able to go out and buy these new vehicles made for giant write offs, right? Sure. And then I'm able to try to leverage everything I can to get the parts I need to build stuff and then make content that people are interested in. And so those two vehicles and those builds were out of... They were not normal for me. What happened with the Tacoma was I pre-ordered the Bronco, and it was going to take so long to get that I was like, well, I want to build. I've been wanting I'm not going to build an IFS, anything. And the Tacoma is like... The third-gen Tacoma, I have always... Since it came out, was like, This is one of the best-looking trucks I've ever seen. I love the looks of the third-gen Tacoma, personally. And so instead of just waiting to get the Bronco. I was like, I'm going to go build a Tacoma instead. So we went down, we found a good deal on a Tacoma, bought it. And then I just started reaching out to companies. I'm lucky in the fact that I have this rare Tacoma because most people would never put that money into a Toyota Tacoma. To get it to the level that my Tacoma is at takes an insane amount of money. But luckily, it's not a lot of my money. I'm able to do everything I can to leverage companies to where I can get the parts that I need to build something cool, one of a kind. And then I get to the point where I'm at now, where it's so good at everything. I don't even know if I can get rid of it. And now that I've got portals, which portals, that's something I bought, but I had to sell the Land Cruiser to afford them. So behind the scenes, I'm not rich. I'm just trying to juggle enough pieces around that I can afford to continue to build things out. So the long way around answering your question is, most of the time, I like to build stuff that's affordable and cool and something that's attainable. But sometimes, like with the Tacoma, my goal from the beginning was like, I want to build the best Tacoma. I'm in a position where I could do almost a no-limit budget, no budget build on it. And so I'm going to do everything I can over a few years to just build the most ridiculous, craziest Tacoma. And it'll be relatable to Tacoma owners just because they'll be able to see different things along the way that they might be able to incorporate into their own thing. Bits and pieces, right? They may not do everything. Totally. Yeah. Well, and I think it's also important, too, because when you see that I did so little to my wife's Gladiator, and it's so capable, and then I had how much it takes to make a Tacoma as capable, is a good lesson for people that are like me that aren't brand loyalists. Toyota people are always going to buy Toyotas. Jeep people are always going to buy Jeeps. But there's a bunch of us that could go either way. And that's one thing that I've gotten asked a lot, because I had a 2021 Toyota Tacoma and a 2021 Jeep Gladiator, and I had a lot of seat time in both. And if anybody who asked me, which one would you get? Gladiator all day long. I do like the Tacoma a lot. I think the IFS system, if you have the money to get it to where I have mine, the performance of the IFS is insane. It is so good off road. It is so good on road. It drives like a Camry on 40s. It's insane. It is remarkable. But the amount of time and effort and what it takes to get to that level is just bananas. If you want something that you can just buy, throw a set of 39 lines on with a three and a half inch lift. Nothing even comes close to the Gladiator. It's factory front and rear lockers. The stereo is amazing. It's so good out of the box. We just did the Rubicon on my wife's Gladiator. It was like a family trip. I didn't film it or anything. We just wanted to take the family to the Rubicon, and all my stuff's broken. It's either been hit by elks or whatever. And so we took her Gladiator, and it's not what I built it for, but I was like, on paper, it should do fine. And it did amazing. And it's not that modded. Right. Yeah, they're both great. But it's fun that I'm in a position where I can show people how much work it is to go either way. That's a good answer. You mentioned the portals, and portals are obviously a a hot topic, once again, in the off-road scene. And what is your opinion on over the next five years. So let's say I had Dimitri from Steller Built On, and we were talking about this, and he said it's really a cost perspective.$20,000, I mean, that's just not attainable for most folks to go out and buy a set of portals. But even if we could get it down to half of that, then you start doing the math and say, Well, maybe I don't have to buy a set of gears because there's already a reduction in the portals. It starts looking a lot more appealing. We've got the guys here in just a couple of weeks, tune in from Portal Pros that are trying to make portals for the people. Oh, yeah. I've had long conversations on the Lakebed with them at King of the Hammers. There you go. We met and hung They're good dudes. So do you think we're finally going to a point that the manufacturing technology is there that we can get these prices down and maybe... No? No. No. I think that I'm not trying to get political at all, so I'm not going to. But I think that when you look at the fact that we're at the end of the longest economic expansion in US history, we're about to go through some... We're currently going into some I don't want to say depression, but people are not going to be spending money the way they were the last 5 or 10 years. And the last 10 years is when the off-road scene has just absolutely exploded. Just massive, massive growth, and even more so since COVID. Yeah, the COVID bump was huge. This bubble is not going to last very long, and I would say we're already on the other side of it. So people dropping that coin, I do not think is going to be a thing. That said, what I have learned since doing this, and especially in the Overland space, you go to Overland Expo, you realize, wow, there is a lot of wealth in this country. So even if you're like me and you grew up, I mean, we were in a poor town in Oklahoma, did not have a lot of money. That's a lot of people's experience in this country. So it's hard to imagine that there's people that have 20 grand laying around to buy portals, but there are a lot of people with 20 grand laying around to buy portals. So I'm torn on this. I could see where on one side, I think that we're about to go through a period in this country. We're not going have that much money available to go spend like that. But at the same time, there's so much money off road that it didn't used to be. When I first started wheeling, it was beat up, raised in Toyota, like mini-trucks, and like CJ's, Samurai, and like a lot of square bodies. It was all like cheap stuff that you built yourself. Then the JK came out, and they made wheeling comfortable. Then after that, it all changed. Then once you got around like that, 2014, 2015, 2016 time period, manufacturers started saying, Hey, there's this emerging group of people with money that are getting it off road. And then they started marketing the Bronco towards us. They came out the Gladiator, these new products. I mean, even the Chevy Colorado has got front and rear lockers, low TKs gears, diesel options. I mean, we're officially a group with a little bit of weight. So what I'm saying is that I'm torn. On one hand, I definitely see where we're going to be spending less money as a group because we're all going to feel it. But I am surprised that the amount of wealth is in this country, even during some a depression, right? So it's hard to say. I think that the portal thing could take off because the performance gains are huge. But I just don't know how many average people could afford more than a used like a Volvo Portals or Hummer Portals or something like that. So my portal video that I'm going to do next month, well, not next In November sometime, I'm going to do a portal video, and I'm going to take a set of 74 weld. We're going to take them apart. We're going to compare them to Unimog portals. We're going to compare those to PortalPro portals. I'm going to talk about the costs involved. I'm going to talk about TRE Portals, which is like a Malaysian company. I'm going to talk about all the different portal options from the most expensive to the least expensive. And then people have the information all in one place where it's like, who doesn't I want portals? But then you can look at it and say, well, I have the skillset where I could do Hummer Portals with some of the tooling that I have. I could save a boatload of money, or it's like, well, I don't have the skillset for that, but if I save up long enough, I could just buy the 74 welds and be done with it. But either way, you'll have the information there. I'm looking forward to that. That's going to be a good video. Yeah, I'm hoping so. So right now, it's just finding more examples of portals that I can try to take apart in the shop. I'm trying to find somebody with some werewolf portals that will let me pull one apart in the shop so I can show exactly. Because there's a lot of questions that I can't get answers to. Like, what grade is the hardware holding together a wearable portal? Is it cast? It looks like it's cast, not billet. What bearings does it have? Are these European tenían specific branded stuff? Are these Timken bearings where I can go down and get them at O'Reilly? Because you basically are adding four transfer cases on your vehicle. There's going to be parts that are going to wear out, and there's things that you're going to have to think about. So You should think about it now instead of thinking about it when you're like a thousand miles from home on an off-road trip. Because if there's a rare part in these wearables portals, and you think wearables are the ones for you, you should buy two of whatever you're worried about so you have one on hand. All right. So James, so buddy James If you're watching and you want Nate to tear down your werewolf portal, reach out. Yeah. Or at least somebody who could give me some of those answers, I guess, then we could move forward on that. Nate, do you spend time in the comment section? And has that changed over time, especially with the negative stuff? Do you even sweat it anymore? It goes in waves. What I've noticed... I mean, dude, having a YouTube channel is a mental health exercise. There's no doubt about it. If you listen to big podcasts like Joe Rogans or any of that, you'll hear people come on like Neil deGrosse Tyson, and you'll hear people who are literally some of the smartest people in in the world, and the comments bother them. So it is a completely human thing to see people. Well, first off, it's a human thing to be outside of it, see someone get criticized online and be like, Why do they even care? That's a human thing because you're not in it. And then it's a very human thing that once you're in it, realize, oh, that's right. It sucks really bad when someone criticizes something you can't change, or it's easy to get frustrated. For me, it's one of those things you just always get better The first year, well, the first six months, I didn't even have negative comments. People were like, Hyped on the content they were finding and whatnot. And then it's like, once you cross a threshold where you get big enough, people want to shoot you down. People want to shoot you down because you're doing well. And there must be some innate human thing. I don't know where this comes from. It might be a jealousy thing. I have no idea. But I think that it might be a misery thing, too. In any case, the first couple of years, it was tough. I would comment back, shitty, because people were being shitty to me because it just couldn't help myself. It's like, I'm a grown man, especially when they were being unfair. But what I realized is there is nothing... You can dunk on someone and make them look terrible, and you look terrible, too. That's just the reality. I've talked to a lot of my YouTube friends. If I see them dunk on, I'll just be like, Hey, man, screenshot this. Calm down. Look at it a month later, and I promise you're going to look at it through a different... I know. Completely non-emotional lens. You're going to be like, Oh, I regret saying anything back. So what I do, usually, is I'll just hide them from the channel if someone is being really crappy. I take constructive criticism all the time, and I'll leave that up there. But there's a lot of criticism that's not constructive. It's like, dude, people... I don't want to bring the conversation down. I've literally had death threats. Are you serious? Where someone said, I wouldn't respond to this guy. Hopefully, you don't have to cut this. We'll see. I'm going to just say exactly what happened. I was about to go to Mexico, and the night before I leave, this guy had watched one of my videos and had commented six or seven times. And then the last one was like, you'll... This is so graphic. But he was basically, he said, You'll take me serious when I'm bashing your brains out of your skull. Basically, mad that I'm not responding. I'm like, I wake up to this. And so we click on his profile, his YouTube profile, and it was really wild videos on his channel where it was clearly someone who's mentally unstable. Sure. This was at a time when people were starting to find where I live and showing up in my house. We had a moment where it was like, Do I have to cancel this Mexico trip? Because Because I don't want someone to show up in my house and I'm not there. It's just my wife and kids. We reported it. We sent it to YouTube and all this stuff. That's the sad thing about this is if anybody's an Internet connection has access to you, right? But it doesn't really bother me anymore. I empathize with people that get online. I watch YouTube all the time. I've never left a negative comment on someone's YouTube channel. I can't even wrap my head around doing that. If it's something I don't like, I just don't watch it. So when I see someone who is saying, your kids are ugly or your eyes are too close together. At first, when I started YouTube, I was slurring my words still because I had that brain injury. I'd have people that would be like, this guy's pilled up, listen to him, that stuff. And now I look at it a complete... I don't take it that personal because it's like, dude, that person is so miserable. I think that the reason that I don't leave negative comments and stuff on other people's channels is because I'm pretty happy. I don't have pain that I have to just ooze out on to random people on the Internet. So the reason that I can't wrap my head around it is because I'm not in the same situation as them. It sounds douchey to say, but I really genuinely feel sorry for someone that is in that situation. I have a healthier way of looking at negative comments now than I used to, and you'll never see me respond to... Sometimes people be so ridiculous ridiculous that I'll respond in a funny way. I'm clearly like... They're trolling you and... Yes. It's not in a way that I'm done. It's just like, dude, you cannot be serious. I had a guy that was telling me how much better his Silverado would be in the snow than my Tacoma and all this stuff. The way he did, it was so ridiculous. I was like, You know what? I think this is a challenge. I screenshot it, put it on social media. I was like, Everybody go on my YouTube comments and tell this guy to meet meet up with me. Let's do a video. Because he's got these ciped Toyos on his Silverado, and it's just going to decimate. I have no idea what I'm talking about, or I don't know how to snow wheel. Let's do that. And so I reached out to the guy and was like, Listen, I would love to make a video with you. I promise you, you I'm going to have a fun time. The only thing that'll be uncomfortable is when we start the video, I have to read back what you said to you. And he kept saying he was going to meet up with me, and he never did. But it's like, that's one of the rare examples where I push back, but I totally did it in a fun way. People were way... They thought it was going to be awesome, and it just never really manifested itself. It's like people getting pumped for a fight after high school. Oh, dude. Yeah, exactly. It's just like, dude, I mean, I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I snow wheel a lot. And when I tell you that these are the best tires that I've used, it's not because I'm being brand specific or anything. I'm using what I think is the best, so I made a video about it, and then the guy just felt like he had to talk down to be like, Dude, let's do this. This would be so fun. I think also a lot of people make negative comments, not even realizing that they sound negative. Communication is really hard via text. Sure. There's no context. Some of us just come off abrasive, and you don't even know it. I try to give people a certain amount of wiggle room in the fact that they might not even realize that they might be the world's biggest fan of mine, and they just put a of words in the wrong place, and then you could read it completely wrong and out of context. So it's got to be room for that. What's your thoughts? You had your start with Bleep and Jeep. What's your thoughts nowadays on collaboration versus looking at it as competition with different YouTube channels? Because obviously, it's like two guys having gas stations across the street from each other. You're going after the same customers. But it seems like now we see more of a collaborative movement among different channels. Yeah. The reality is you are in competition, but there's no winner. There's some poisonous relationships between YouTubers behind the scenes, and there's jealousy, and especially if You might know more than the other guy and be a better authority, but they're better at marketing or whatever. But the reality is, even though you're in competition with them, it doesn't mean you don't have to be friends, or you can't be friends. You know what I mean? I think Matt, for Matt's Offer Recovery, has proved that it's so much more valuable to reach out to the other people around you and lift each other up and have fun together than it is to try and compete. Because I think you're technically competing, but you're not really competing because there's- Indirect. What does that mean? We're not quite to eight billion people in the world, but we're up there. When you look at the biggest off-road YouTube channels, nowhere near a billion. You know what I mean? It's like a subscriber. So it's like, there's plenty of eyeballs out there. And so it doesn't need to be as competitive as it feels. And another thing, too, is it takes a certain personality to even want to do this and put yourself out there. And so there's like, I have noticed a certain competitive part of people's personalities that are in this industry. And so it is natural to see people butt heads here and there, unfortunately. But sometimes that makes for good content. That's true, too. Everybody loves a rivalry, right? So looking back now, five years in, as we wrap this up, is there a lesson that if you could go back to 34-year-old Nate and tell him about this ride you're about to go on that you'd like to tell? Not really. I'm glad that everything happened the way it did. I'm glad I was scared. I think it was healthy to be concerned about it because now there's more people making money on YouTube, and it's becoming more acceptable to be a influencer, as much as I hate that term. In those days, it was like, you would hear big names doing it, but it didn't seem like it was something that was accessible to regular people. Like a viable profession. Yeah. So I had a plumbing retirement party whenever I quit plumbing, and I had all my friends go. And they're all close friends, but I know that they thought I was crazy for leaving such a great job. And we're one of the highest paid trades, and I worked so hard to get where I was. But I bet now they're looking at what I'm doing, and they're just like, Well, I don't bet. I know. It means a lot to have close friends of mine, people that I've known since high school. They're just tell you they're proud of you. That's cool. Like, really. And so if I go back and give myself any advice, I don't think I'd want. I wouldn't want to spoil the ride. It's super fun. The highs and lows, they're all important. I'm just glad that I have a supportive wife that had the faith, just unwavering faith. I can't believe how confident she was that I was going to pull it off. I was not that confident. I was like, Well, I got a good plan B. That was my attitude. I was like, We're going to give it a shot. But she, from the very... I've never seen her more confident about anything. But without her support, I wouldn't have tried. For sure. So maybe if I had to give myself some advice, it would be, Listen to your wife and thank her. I think that's advice we should all heed. Yeah, that normally works out pretty good. Yeah. All right, guys, we're going to wrap it up. Nate, thank you for being here, taking the time. You've had a busy week. I know he's been in the woods, filming some stuff and going nonstop. And we're hoping this weather pushes out, and you can go home tomorrow. This is the first podcast I've done on Hurricane, just for the record. Yeah, in Tennessee. Well, I wish you luck, especially with the new venture ideas, with the repair and recovery and shop. That's exciting. Yeah, hopefully we can do that sooner than later. I think people dig that content. All right. Thanks, man. Cool. Thank you.