 Hey everyone, Ryan O'Shea here with Lifespan News and welcome to Making Time, where we feature long-form interviews with interesting guests that are impacting the quest to help everyone live longer, healthier lives. Today we're speaking with the person behind Life Noggin and the voice of Blocko, Pat Graziosi. Pat is a photographer and content creator that has turned his interest in filmmaking, animation, and science into a massively popular education and entertainment YouTube channel with well over 3 million subscribers. Pat's Life Noggin videos have always explored how people can live better lives and more fully understand their mind, but through working with Lifespan.io, he's increasingly featuring scientific topics exploring how humans can live longer. We discussed Pat's background and path to filmmaking, how Life Noggin became a hit, and what you can expect for the future. Make sure to subscribe to Lifespan News so you don't miss out on more videos, such as this recent one in which I discussed decentralized science in the network state with Nicholas Ansinger. And now, my conversation with Pat Graziosi. Alright, Pat, thank you for joining us on Making Time. First question here, I gotta make sure you're bringing your A game and your head is in it. This is submitted by Kat, and she wants to know, what's your favorite Pokémon? My favorite Pokémon? That's easy. It's A-Pom, and I always feel really, really bad whenever I have to discuss what my favorite Pokémon is, because A-Pom's evolution looks like this. I could put that up on the screen. Not appealing whatsoever, but A-Pom's cute. Yeah, that's my favorite. I love the little monkey. A little switch on that, then, is like, if you had to be a Pokémon, which one would you be? I would be A-Pom. But you just never evolve, you would just like stay in an immature state forever? I would stay the same. I would keep an Everstone somewhere handy, although handy. I would probably keep it in the little palm that A-Pom has, because A-Pom's hands, actual hands are super clumsy. It's part of his whole thing. He isn't good at carrying things, so he has to use his tail. So I would keep the Everstone there and just never evolve. I don't know why I am so drawn to that Pokémon, but that was my favorite growing up when 1,000 years ago in 1998 was Ditto. I loved Ditto because I loved that it could just turn into anything. I could copy my brother's Charizard and feel like I was strong for a second, which probably says a lot personality-wise. Forget the Zodiac sign. What's your favorite Pokémon? That's going to say a lot about you. I don't know why, but then I gravitated towards A-Pom just because I think because I thought it was funny. I think like Ditto would be a very safe answer because then you could really be anything. It's a world of possibilities for you. Alright, completely switching gears then. Let's start with back at the basics at the very beginning of your journey. What made you start making videos? Is this something that you've always done? Did you start it when you discovered YouTube or where did this journey start for you? So this, I guarantee you, so many of these questions are going to make me feel so old. I started before YouTube. I was uploading to Google Video. This is before Google bought YouTube. I think I'm older than you, but I have no memories of Google Video. Not a lot of people do and it's why they purchased YouTube in the first place. So I started uploading there. I was uploading like these random, very unfunny skits that I did with my cousins. We were just messing around and I remember one video got a thousand views, which on Google Video was apparently a lot and it was enough to get like 10 or 15 comments. None of them were positive, but it was the potential for something that I think something clicked in me where I was like, oh, I need this. Whether or not that was healthy, we could talk about that another time in the next therapy session. But ever since then, it was just like, I need to do this. I need to record myself. I went through a whole, speaking of Pokemon, evolution of being a content creator. But then YouTube came along and that's when everything really took off. I've had so many channels throughout the years. Did Google Video have a community at that point or what was the online presence like? And then you discovered YouTube and what was YouTube like at that point in time? What stage of YouTube was that? When I joined, well, on Google Video, there was nothing. I wasn't plugged into it. There might have been. But then when YouTube came along, people still didn't know what this thing was. You were on the website. If you knew about the website, it was very niche. So it was filled with a lot of weirdos in the good way now, not so much. But back then it was filled with good weirdos. And then you could upload whatever you want. People were very understanding of the stuff that you were putting out there, for the most part. The comments got a lot better as I started developing my content more. Again, this was back in 2007. I started watching in 2006. I started uploading in 2007. Things were definitely different. But the landscape I feel like was just, it was the Wild West. So you couldn't get anything wrong. There really wasn't any algorithm. You could just upload whatever. And someone randomly would find it and inevitably leave a comment. Those early videos that you uploaded, what were they looking like? What was the content and format like? Those early videos were still skits. I wanted so desperately to be funny. And I think it definitely didn't work. I uploaded skits. It was me and my friends were just hanging around. And we each had our own little video camera that recorded the most potato quality you have ever seen. We probably could have gotten better video footage on an Easy Bake Oven than what we were recording on. But we didn't care. It didn't matter. There also were no standards back then. So you could just film on a potato. And everyone was just like, great. When they introduced 720p, it changed everything, dude. It was just skits at that point. But there was a shift that happened when I started watching a lot more daily vloggers and I started seeing how they were capturing their life. And I started seeing how they were capturing their life in a very artistic way. And I feel like I was at a crossroads where I could continue going this very unfunny but comedic route or this vlogger slash artsy slash inspirational kind of route. And I did a hard pivot away from comedy, which is very, very scary. But I lived a thousand lives on YouTube. We didn't even scratch the surface. Does that stuff still exist? Is it out there in the ether or did you bury that? It is. A lot of it is buried. You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. Maybe I'll put it on my tombstone for you to watch. But again, I have to be gone for that to even happen. There's some stuff that I am really proud of. I understand that it's cringy. It hurts when I go back and watch it. But it is cool, at least on my end, to just go see how I progressed as a creator. When you talk about that progression, it's also skill sets as well. It seems like you certainly know what you are doing now. Did you have a basic understanding of filmmaking and the technology and how to tell a story then? Or did you learn that as you went? Did you have any formal training there? Well, and no, back then I had nothing. I went to film school. Not a brag. I went to film school and I actually learned a thing or two. But prior to that, I had no training. It was just like you get the camera, you set it up, you see what looks cool. Copy what everyone else is doing and try to make it your own. I remember just sitting and watching daily vlogs constantly. I would just watch these YouTubers. They would set up a camera. This is like the classic. This is such a trope at this point. But they would set up the camera in the fridge and then you open the fridge door and you're in the fridge. Once I'm saying this now and now it's going to pop up and you're going to notice it more and more. Anyone's first like cool angle is always the fridge shot. Anyway, and I would see a bunch of creators. They would try to like up the ante. They would try to push themselves and inspired me to push myself to try to create something. And again, none of it was good. And this is maybe seven years into it. Like I'm still not how I feel like at my best. It was it was only through this like constant repetition and constant being bad that I actually learned how to be good at what I'm doing. So where did animation fit into this? You certainly work with animators with life noggin. Are you an animator yourself? How did that interest come about? Yeah, I'm actually I'm not an animator. A lot of people at the beginning thought that I was the one that was doing it. That that credit goes to Charlotte and old animator Kurt and Robert and the other ones that we've had on the channel. They they're the ones that made that thing tick and look amazing. I got into animation. The it's a really, really weird story. But the long story short is like I've always had a passion for animation. It's been something that I've that I've always loved. And me having me having ADHD, like it was a very, very hard. It was very hard for me to learn things growing up in school. And anytime there was any kind of visual aid, anything that said, direct your attention to this, pay attention to this, and then you will learn the thing, anything I can keep my eye on that that helped me tremendously. And there was one day this was a couple of years before Life Noggin. I was watching this explainer for a app on the App Store. I forget exactly what it was, but it was that very like it was 2D flat style. It had that ukulele music, you know, like in the background is like, this is this app and it does this. And I'm like, oh, this is really fun. And I'm like learning about the app and something like lit up in my brain. I was like, oh, this is this is a really fun way to learn. And there were other you know, there were channels on YouTube that were already kind of doing this crash course is one of them. And but I really liked I really like that style. I wanted to emulate it. But I think the issue that I ran into is like, well, I don't know how to do this, but I have the idea. And it wasn't until I went to film school to talk with my friend, Kurt, who was also going to the same school where he knew motion graphics and animation where where he goes like, OK, I can do that. Like I showed him the video and he's like, oh, I can do that. And then it was pretty much all up from there. So was this a business decision to enter Life Noggin was that a hobby for you? Where did the idea for Life Noggin come about and how did you get it off the ground? I had the I had the idea for Life Noggin in 2013. I didn't do anything about it until 2014, unfortunately. I sat on it for a year and that we can get into it later. But that's definitely something I regret doing. And no, but I I I felt like 2013, this was education was like just starting to form on YouTube. And I really wanted to make this thing. I just thought it would be really cool to have a channel that was that was helping people. You know, prior to the prior to Life Noggin, I was recording positivity videos. I was recording inspirational videos and I kind of grouped that in with education. I was trying to teach people how to be more positive and have a more positive outlook on life. And when I when I saw the opportunity to create something where I could, one, learn a bunch of stuff along the way to teach people also about those things. And then three, make art that things that like looked really, really fun. I thought, OK, this is a no brainer, no pun intended. And originally Life Noggin, not a lot of people know this. Originally Life Noggin was a philosophy and a psychology channel. We only covered the life and the brain and we would go over like we would go sociology, yeah, sociology and philosophy. We'd go over the brain and and like people's lives and how they lived. And that was going to be it. So it was all going to be about like it was going to be about that. And we got maybe three, four episodes in me and my friend who were creating these videos. And it was live action. So it was just it was my face. It was his face. And we got three episodes in and I'm editing these videos and I'm looking at my face and I'm seeing just acne everywhere. There's a reason Blocko has no facial features whatsoever. And I'm sure we'll get into that. But like I saw the acne and I went, I can't do this. I can't be on camera anymore. I am to I'm to pizza faced to be a YouTuber, I think, at this point. So I look to my friend who was already exhausted after the three videos. And I was like, you still want to do this? And he's like, nah. And then literally a year went by. And then things started taking off. Well, here you are a decade later, almost on camera. So I'm glad to see you on camera. And it's funny when I saw that you asked your audience for questions. Many of them said that was the first time they had seen you. We posted a picture of you there. And it's the first time they saw your face. So I'm glad your face is out there now. That's that's great to see. And another audience question we had was about the genesis of the name. Life Noggin, I think you explained it there with the life in psychology. So that's really interesting. And where did the shapes come from? You mentioned Blocko not having features. He is a block. There's also Sir Clea, Triangle Bob. Where did the shape theme come from? And talk a little bit about the characters. Yeah, the shape theme comes. I wanted to break it down on the most elementary level. If we if we were going to take concepts that were, you know, difficult to understand and try to make them just easier to grasp, then like the visuals also have to align with that. And so I said, OK, this is going to be all basic shapes. They're easier to animate. If if the animation is crude, it's OK because they're basic shapes. And I'm going to give Blocko no facial features, no one has facial features because it's easier to animate. That's it. That is the there is no other magical reason. And that's a good reason actually, one, because I didn't want to be the face of it because of my acne. And two, it's easier to animate just a head bobbing up and down. And yeah, the characters like Blocko, I didn't have a name for him. This is this is so embarrassing. I don't think I've ever actually talked about this. I didn't have a name for him. And I think one of my friends was just like, you need to like start this thing. And I'm like, oh, but I have to come up with this. This guy's name is going to be it's going to live on the channel forever. You know, it has to be it has to be so cool. And I wrote out like a list of 20 names. And Blocko was the last one because I was like, this is so simple and this this can't this can't be the name. This is a placeholder name. And I started deleting all the other names. I was like, I don't really like this one. I don't really like this one. And it was between. Oh, it was between Blocko and Squareman. I have never said this out loud is his name. Blocko's name was going to be not Squareman, Squareman. I like it. I like Squareman. Oh, man, that's so good. Yeah. And then after that, it was just like, oh, well, he should have other shape friends. So triangle Bob and Circlea. I'm not good with names, clearly, but Blocko stuck. So I guess I was good. So Moodle 3D asked, what's your favorite shape in your least favorite shape? OK, favorite shape is I. I should say square. That would make the most sense. I would make a favorite shape. It's probably going to be the circle. I like a circle crop. If I'm if I'm doing a like a fish eye lens, I really enjoy the circle crop. I think it it centers everything. And then so your attention is drawn to it. My least favorite shape. My least favorite shape is probably the triangle. Sorry, triangle Bob, because it's too pointy and it makes me nervous. It's pretty pointy. That's true. So you have well over three million subscribers now, a huge reach, a dedicated fan base. I think one of the best things is the community you have established. What are your thoughts on that? Did you expect this? Did you anticipate this? Was this the goal when you started Life Noggin or what are your reaction to what it grew into? It I'm not going to lie and say it wasn't the goal to reach a bunch of people. Like I wanted to reach as many people as possible. It Life Noggin. I truly did not think that it was going to be a situation where it got as big as it did. And I'm glad that it did. I'm glad that it reached this many people. I'm I'm so thankful for the community that that was built. But yeah, not not in my wildest dreams. Did I think it was going to be like this? And it's funny because when I was a YouTuber, way, way, way back, I'm like, I want I want a million subscribers. I saw all these channels hitting it. I want a million. I want to I want to have the revenue sharing program, the partner program. I I want to like be invited to these conventions. And I couldn't ever do it on my own. For some reason or another, my ADHD brain would just jump from project to project. It wasn't until I had a team, a focused concept and and other people to just kind of like yell in my ear and say, like, you need to keep going. It wasn't until I had all that where the thing worked. And I got to hit all of my dreams. I checked everything off of my bucket list on as far as YouTube is concerned. And it was because I had that team behind me. And I'm glad that I did it that way. I'm so thankful that I that I got the success that I did with people because I think if it was just me, we would be one, I don't think we'd be talking right now. And I think we would be if we were, we would be having a we would be having a very different conversation. It's it's extremely humbling to have a team and to have people that rely on you and to have people that you can rely on. It changes the way that you make content. I think it's the best way in my in my opinion to make content. And I'm I'm so glad that it reached the people that it did. I've gotten a lot of amazing messages from people that have learned some people that learn English through Life Noggin. They watch the videos to learn English. Some people they'll message me. And the one of the classic ones is always like, you know, my teacher showed this and like I learned so much or like I learned more on Life Noggin than I do in school, which please stay in school. You definitely learn way more in school. Pay attention to your teachers, kids. But those those comments just. They keep they kept me going at the lowest points where I really thought about quitting. They they really, really grounded me and allowed me to continue to create. So when Life Noggin was first starting, was this simultaneous with your other projects and other videos that you were doing? Did you eventually dive full in with Life Noggin? Were those other projects always going in the background? Or how has your plate been full with Life Noggin and other creative projects? My plate is always full all the time. And I'm thankful for that. But also it's it's sometimes it's a hindrance. I I know I've always been as I was saying of jumping from project to project. So even while Life Noggin was going, I still like would try to make vlogs. I would. I had a positivity channel. I had a vlogging channel. I had a photography channel. I had a drawing channel. I was going to start a Pokemon channel at one point. There was another animated Pokemon channel. Yeah, I really it's definitely something I still want to do. But I had I had so I have so many Google accounts. There there has been I really should be banned for like it is it is concerning. And I'm surprised that Google hasn't flagged just me as a person for going like this guy a bot. For the same note. No, I totally understand. Yeah, I I I was always doing other projects. And Life Noggin was the thing that really took off and kept working. And I was having the most fun with when I was out in LA, we had a studio, me and my business partner. And we would be constantly creating stuff there. We set up we set up backdrops, lights. We invited other creators over. It was just like this free for all anyone come in and make whatever they wanted. Like that is that was when I was truly like we're doing something here. Like we're we're creating something that's that's bigger than just the channel of Life Noggin. I was but I was having the most fun then when when yeah, when other people were involved at the studio. It wasn't until like twenty seventeen that I started actually paying myself. Before then, it was just pay the animators, pay the writers, figure it out later. I was I was in college. I was in film school and just broke out of my out of my mind. And but I'm like, I know this is going to work. Just keep doing it. And I already dropped out of school prior to me going back to film school. And I wanted I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was trying YouTube. I finally, you know, I couldn't get a job. So I just said, OK, I'm going to go back to to college. And then Life Noggin started taking off like a year. I had a year left of school. And my mom is like, don't you dare drop out. You are finishing that. So I got my degree to make my mom happy. I love you, mom, if you're watching. And I'm glad that I did, though, I am glad that I did. You mentioned earlier that you said when I used to be a YouTuber, I thought that was interesting. How do you identify now you used to identify as a YouTuber? And now are you a content creator? Are you a filmmaker? Are you an artist? How do you what labels do you assign to yourself? I would say first. I would I would call myself a photographer. I think that is my like my my passion as far as like a title I want to give myself with like art. It would be photographer. And I would say I'm a content creator. I make I still make content when I when I was a YouTuber. That's all I was doing. It was YouTube 24 seven. It was go to these conventions. It was make friends of other YouTubers who were just obsessed with the platform. And now I think you definitely need. To be on every platform that you possibly can be and you need to put your eggs in multiple baskets. But I think. Back then, it was you just existed on this platform and absorbed everything about the platform. You were a YouTuber. You made your money on YouTube. You built your friends on YouTube. You didn't get off of of that of that web page. But I don't I don't mean this in a negative way. Like I wouldn't call myself a YouTuber anymore because that's just not I'm not that person anymore. Still love YouTube, but it's not the end all be all. Another thing that you mentioned earlier was that the comments from your fans and supporters kept you going in some of the dark times when you thought about quitting. I think every content creator experiences times like that. Can you describe some of that? Like what what do you think started those swings and phases for you? How did you emerge from them? What kept you going during those times? Any any thoughts for how other people can deal with that situation? Yeah, when when things got really bad with with YouTube, where this is before Life Noggin, where just nothing I was doing was working and a lot of it did have to do with me pivoting to like other things and not giving something the chance to grow. But like when when I was working on stuff that I was really proud of and it wasn't working, I you think, oh, well, it must be me. Like I must be the problem that people definitely don't like what I am doing. And that is usually not the case. It is usually like you're playing to an algorithm that they purposely don't want you to understand. And but still to this day, I mean, you know, if a Life Noggin video underperforms or a video that I or, you know, a portrait, a portraits that I do, if they don't like get more likes than I want it. I'll still feel a little bad. I still definitely associate a lot of my value to these numbers. Unfortunately, it's just like a product of being raised on YouTube. But the thing that got me through it was. Picturing someone said this to me when they were they were frustrated because they did a film screening. And they said 50, you know, 50 people showed up and they were like, oh, it's like it was nothing. You know, I I thought I thought like I was going to get at least 100 people to the screening and like filling these seats. And I was like, well, 50 people, that's like that's a lot. That's that's great. You know, 50 people watched your thing. And I thought about well, looking at my channel and at the time, you know, like and say they were getting like 15,000 views. I went, OK, I'm thinking that this is a failure. I'm looking at this this video and and everyone else is getting millions and millions of views. I Googled a photo of what 15,000 people looked like. And it shows you stadiums. That is you are filling a stadium. You're you know, you're feeling like or a small concert venue. You're feeling a medium sized concert venue filled with people to watch your thing. And I just had to keep reminding myself that like. There are a lot of people that are watching you. And most of the time. It is a single person watching you. You know, when you see when you see 15,000, yes, 15,000. Most of the time, individual people to say that the video is a failure is to say that that person that watch that chose to watch the whole thing all the way through isn't worth your time. That person chose to support you in some kind of way. If they were impacted even the slightest by what you made. What you did was a success. What you did mattered. That's what I kept telling myself when things got really, really tough. I reminded myself of the emails that I would get. I would remind myself of the people that said, oh, I started YouTube because of you. I started. I started making content because you were making stuff. And. Yeah, maybe your thing doesn't get a million views, but you might have inspired the person that did get there. You might have been the sole reason. And to me, that's enough. To me, that's worth it. We talked about chasing the YouTube algorithm there a little bit, creating content specifically for that. And I think, you know, some people really go down that extreme, you know, counting the number of characters and their titles to make sure the preview cuts off at a certain point or how many cuts should you have in the first 15 seconds of the video to hook someone. There are people that really go down the math and science of trying to game the algorithm. And then there are others that really just create whatever they want to create for whatever purpose, regardless of whether the algorithm shows it to anyone or not. I think the answer to what you should do is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, but where do you fall on that spectrum? How does. Trying to appease the YouTube algorithm affect your content creation? How do you go back and forth on that at all? I struggle with this. And it's something I've always struggled with as YouTube has changed the algorithm. You don't, again, you don't know what they could tweak one thing and they've done this. Excuse me. They can tweak one thing and now all of a sudden animation on YouTube is not popular anymore. That's it. It was a group of people at YouTube and they're like, what's like, it's not animation anymore. Just like click a button and it's like, you know, and then it's, that's it. So like knowing that it's, it's a struggle to say like, yes, it thumbnails matter. Titles matter. You should be packaging your video to be the most visually appealing thing possible. It's what everybody has to do. Not just YouTubers, people that make candy also have to do this. And I think that it gets frustrating because you just want to make the thing and upload it and expect it to do well, but you need some of that polish. It's why movie studios will market a thing a certain way because if, if the poster was just like text that just said like Barbie movie, you might not want, you probably will want to see it, but like less people would want to see it. It's visually entertaining to have like the pinks and all the colors and the fun text. So you do have to unfortunately do a little bit of that to get people excited about it, but I do think that there's a level of unhealthiness to worrying so much about what it like maximizing the amount of, of clicks that this thing could get where you're just sitting there going like, unless you wrote the code, unless you wrote this algorithm, you truly, truly do not understand it and what it wants you to do. You can kind of make your best guesses, but you're playing a losing game unless you're sitting there ripping out your hair, trying to figure out like what's going to work. And if you want to do that, great, more power to you. I can't. I, I am not that person. I, I've never been able to, and I'm just lucky that the aesthetic that I chose for Life Noggin, the branding that I chose worked and I could just run with it. It was already colorful. The text was already blocky. So it already kind of fit like what worked. But I can't, I can't see myself like going back into the like going on a whiteboard and like trying to chart out like what the best course of action is for this, for the, this one in particular like video. I don't think I could ever go back to that. Well, I get the sense from watching your content that you've always done things that you are passionate about and interested in. And if you haven't been doing that, if you have been chasing the algorithm and what's popular, you at least have done it very well because it comes across as authentic. And speaking of that interest and such, you mentioned Life Noggin was originally about psychology and social sciences and it has emerged into more scientific interest in things like that. Do you have a, what's your interest in science and the brain? What's your personal passion for this? I just, I just think the stuff is fascinating. I wanted to make videos about the things that I thought were fascinating. Life Noggin wouldn't exist if it wasn't for my high school kitchen chemistry teacher. I think I've said this before on another podcast, but this Linda Wallbaum, Miss Wallbaum love you so much. She had this, she had this class called Kitchen Chemistry, which was your bad at chemistry, take this chemistry class if you have to take something. And she would do this, she would try to combine like science and just things that were like really fun and visually interesting. So Miss Wallbaum, she took Coke and Mentos, that was a really popular thing at the time on YouTube. Everyone was doing that. And so she, she was like, do you guys know actually what happens and why the Coke and Mentos has this reaction, the way that it does. And no one knew. And then she explained through science, she like broke it down and then she said, all right, now that you understand it, let's go outside. And I've gotten a whole thing of Coke, a whole thing of Mentos and just drop it in the soda and like see what happens. And then, you know, we learned that way. We made ice cream in like ziploc baggies like shaking up ice and what, and she was just so passionate. And I previously was like, well, learning is boring. So like, why am I doing this? And then she made it so fun. And when I had the idea for LifeNog and I thought back to what made that class so interesting and what made that class so fun, what made me want to learn. So I took components of that. And then I would be bored one day just Googling stuff. Like, what if all the cats on Earth died? You know, I'm sitting there just like trying to rack my brain of these questions to see like what people had the answer for. And if- That's so sad, by the way. That particular example is so sad. It is actually really sad. It's the example that I use when everyone's like, what do you make videos about? It's like, well, I make videos on why do we itch? And what if all the cats on Earth died? Because it's very like grabby. It's a very grabby title. Spoiler, not good. We would be very much not okay. But anything that I Googled that I really couldn't find an answer for, I wrote down and said like, I'll get back to it later. You know, I'll try to see. And then I actually found that list when I was thinking for LifeNog and video ideas. I found that list and went through it and said like, all right, well, these should be the first like 10 episodes we do for the channel. And yeah, I think that it worked out in the end that that curiosity for just learning and just just wanting to know things made it so that LifeNog and could be possible. I think some of my favorite channels do the same thing. So I think there's definitely an interest in that type of content. And I think LifeNog and does that quite well. But you gave a very interesting TEDx talk when you were at Long Island University called Break to Create. I would recommend that people check this out. I really enjoyed it. And in that you said normal is boring, it weighs you down. So I guess a direct question to you is like, how do you create novelty in your life today? What do you do? Do you have a conscious plan to make sure that you are, you know, alive and alert with things that are happening in your day-to-day life? Yes. So I don't, I don't regret that TEDx talk at all. But if I could go back, I would put some visuals maybe, you know, so it's not just me talking on stage. Beyond the spoiler alert giraffe in a top hat? That's quite visual. Yes. There is a giraffe in a top hat. But definitely when I was doing it, I was like, no, I don't need any visuals. It's just going to be me raw on stage. So I wish I had a PowerPoint. But anyway, I, I, I see that I stand by the things that I said in that, in that TEDx talk. And one of the things that I, one of the things that I said in that TEDx talk was, you know, you're on your way to school and you're taking a detour because there's signs up. The normal way you go about you're on the road to school, it's blocked. You got to go somewhere else. You take a, you take that turn. You end up in a part of town that you've never been in. Your brain is, is lighting up. Your brain goes, okay, well, hold on. This is nothing we've seen before. We need to be paying attention in case the saber tooth tiger comes out and jumps in and tries to murder us. That part of your brain is getting excited and is lighting up and it is, it is releasing dopamine. You are, you are excited. You want to learn and you want to see the, the new stuff that's around you. Your brain at the same time also does not want you to do anything that you don't have to do. It's why like getting up is so hard because it's like, well, you don't, I mean, you don't need to, but then you walk to the fridge and you like actually eat and then you're like, oh, okay, I feel, I feel good now. Or you actually start the, you know, the video that you really wanted to make even though before you were dreading it, like your brain really does want you to do this, this kind of stuff. It's just like really good at protecting you from uncomfortable, uncom, uncomfortableness. I stand by what I said though, if you're ever stuck, go the wrong way. If you're ever, and apply that to anything, if you are, if you are stuck creatively, walk to some, walk somewhere, go somewhere you've never been, take a class that you never even considered taking. If you are all in on photography and you are stuck, you are happy, you have this monster creative block, take a sewing class, go, go take a ghost tour, see the world differently and you will start to have an appreciation for the thing, for art in general, but maybe you learn, okay, I don't like this ghost tour, but I did find a new place in town that I really liked and want to photograph, or you got inspired to, to do a new portrait series. Get out of that comfortability and it unlocks something in your brain. It causes you to think differently and maybe there was that creative block, but it is totally removed when you go and expose yourself to a different part of town, a different thing that you're not used to. The title was like, break to create. Break the norm and you will get rewarded with a new perspective, which can cause you to make better things. I think that's really great advice and ghost tours are great. Everyone should go on them. You will find cool places. I fully support that. That was a good example there. We're going to get back to some more life noggin specific questions, but there was some exciting news recently when life noggin joined forces and became a part of the life span extension advocacy foundation or lifespan.io, a nonprofit organization that seeks to make sure that everyone can live longer, healthier, happier lives and lifespan.io really seeks to create media and content. I guess you and I seek to create media and content. We're both a part of this organization together. That spreads that message and also helps to support science and the scientists that are creating the work that will hopefully make the world a better place and help us live longer lives. I think that partnership and collaboration makes a lot of sense because you seem like someone who had an interest in longevity and health and science prior to this. How did you find and get involved with that community? Well, first of all, yes, before lifespan, it was even a part of the life noggin picture. We were making videos on longevity. We were making videos on how to live a better life, live a healthier life. We actually worked with Lifespan on a video a while ago. It wasn't until I just randomly I wanted to catch up with Keith from Lifespan. I just mentioned, hey, yeah, we're looking to partner with somebody that really just cares about education but doesn't want to to come in and just completely gut everything. Lifespan was so great when they came in and they said, just continue doing what you're doing. Continue making the things that you're making. We were just going to help you and give you more people to help you make the things. We were already planning on all of these longevity videos, these videos on Alzheimer's, these videos on heart disease we were doing. It really was the perfect fit. I think part of the thing that got me really excited was the thing that we were lacking was access to the professionals that truly understood the subjects that we wanted to discuss. It gave a completely different, valuable perspective and it's something that we were lacking. We didn't have the team. We didn't have the right team. When we came together we said, oh, we can make these videos on this brand new Alzheimer's research that potentially one day is going to save a lot of people's lives. Well, it's cool that it gets to be on Life Noggin. It's cool that we get to make that content and we can inspire other people to get involved. I think also part of the thing that Life Noggin was missing was we were really good at making the videos and sparking people's interest. It's great, but you're kind of just sent out into the internet and say, alright, go and learn more. Now we can kind of direct people to an actual place to go and get more information and really good information and up-to-date information. So, yeah, there's several reasons why it worked, but those are the big ones. Yeah, and as someone who is part of the LifeSpan.io team before the Life Noggin partnership came into being, I was really excited to see that happen. I had been a fan of Life Noggin years ago, so I was happy to see the content and knew it would be a good fit, so I was happy to see the Life Noggin team come aboard and you mentioned you could get your audience and point them to where they could learn more, but not only that, but Life Noggin has a very engaged audience, a very enthusiastic audience and that's exactly what the longevity community has as well, so I think there's a good fit there where the Life Noggin community is welcome to not only learn more and be involved, be an advocate, be a part of this community so that they don't only benefit from Life Extension Science and the healthier lives that arise because of that, but can be a part of making it a reality, so I think that's a great fit there as well. But where does longevity fit into your own life? Are you changing the way you eat or your habits? Are you trying to extend your own life? Do you foresee a place where you reach longevity escape velocity that in your own life? Let me tell you I already, before Life Span came into the picture, every video that we made on Life Noggin, I'm like oh my god I have to fix everything about my life, like we'll do one video where it's like don't waste water, and then it's like how wasteful are we actually being? And then you start doing the research, you're like okay I'm taking five second showers we're all not gonna make it, we need to conserve water. Life Span came on board and it was like well here are the things that you can actually do to live a longer and healthier life and it's like well now I know the information like now I have to do it. So I'm going on walks every single day I'm taking certain vitamins I'm really into turmeric now there's lots of things that I need to be doing more I need to be doing more things to help myself but yes I personally Alzheimer's runs in my family it's something that I'm consciously aware of it's something that I would like totally eradicated one day I think that it's definitely a possibility and there are people on the Life Span team that are literally if you don't know this actively working on trying to make it so that like Alzheimer's is a thing of the past and I think it is very very cool it's something that I never want to go through I have my grandma right now who's currently going through it and I have a stake in this I want no one to suffer from any disease but especially age related diseases it's one of those things where we don't have to and we can actively support the technology being developed right now that is trying to prevent these things from happening it's real the science is there and I know it seems like every single year we're really really close there's breakthroughs happening every single day where within our lifetime Ryan we might be okay but we're not going to get there unless we're actively supporting these things and creating awareness because if the public doesn't know that these things are being worked on then without that education on it if they don't know that it exists they're not going to be able to get helped by this thing or they're not going to be able to keep up with all the information that's coming out they need to be able to be aware of the science so I have a vested interest in this obviously I love educating people but also I don't want anyone to suffer from any of these age related diseases ever again so I figured if I can teach people and also contribute to making age related diseases a thing of the past then like great, that's a win-win so speaking of the inspiration that people can get from videos and films and movies who are the content creators that inspire you it doesn't even need to just be video but who do you look up to who are the people that you watch in the past or who are you engaging with now that you would recommend people check out so there's this YouTuber that I used to watch when I was in high school Anthony Padilla he was he is now back at Smosh he left Smosh back in 2006, he wasn't Smosh he's inspired me throughout my whole YouTube journey but he has this really really great series where he interviews people that have from all walks of life a variety of things going on with them and you get to hear and see firsthand how these things really impact people and it's one thing to just make a video and say like this is what ADHD is this is how people sometimes treat ADHD but it's another thing to sit down with somebody hear their personal experience and say like yeah ADHD is not all about just being creative and random it's actually debilitating sometimes your head feels like static and you can't operate and function as a proper human let alone just an adult you watch these videos and you get a different a different view into someone's life and on a different subject it's extremely inspiring and it's something so simple he's just interviewing but he also is editing it in a way that is super entertaining is very engaging he adds his own little humor to it he's doing what so many other people have done in the past but he's just doing it in a way that fits YouTube and fits a younger demographic so that they actually start caring about this stuff so he's been a huge inspiration love Anthony Padilla go check out his channel it's great so what can people expect to see from Life Noggin in the future are you experimenting with any other formats what's happening in the lore of the Life Noggin universe what can people expect I am personally super interested in doing more VR and AR projects with Life Noggin I know we've been working on that for a while my dream actually since the early days of Life Noggin was to have a little blocko on your table and start telling you stuff and let's say you went over to the Golden Gate Bridge if you moved your phone over and a little animated blocko can be standing on the grass and telling you some information about the bridge that's something I really wanted to do and we're getting kind of close to making that a reality with Life Noggin AR we've done some VR projects that we're really proud of I think the YouTube landscape currently actually just internet video in general it's always changing but the way people are learning is definitely different where I personally I want to make more videos on Life Noggin where blocko is learning with the audience and I think a lot of a lot of times you'll go to an education channel and you'll say like alright teach me something and then I'm on my way we're now I feel like this is just my opinion but I feel like you go to a channel and you want to get excited about a person learning and then you also are learning with them and maybe you don't know it maybe you're subconsciously learning but you're excited because it seems this person really truly cares about what they're talking about and they care about just learning in general answers in progress is another fantastic channel please please please check them out the team is amazing but they do a really good job of this where it's like yeah why does X happen I don't know but I'm going to find out at the end of this video we're both going to know and you feel like the playing field is leveled so I want to incorporate that in Life Noggin and you know it's tricky because Blocko knows so much all the time always is just completely connected to the internet but I don't know a lot of things so maybe I can start trying to learn some stuff and Blocko can be a little like clippy on my shoulder and start educating me that way we're working on a couple of things yeah I can say from having seen some of that stuff there is a lot of exciting things to come from Life Noggin so if you're not following along with that please do you won't be disappointed you mentioned also having a lot of projects in the works that seems to be still the case you are the creator of Headstatic Games to use a startup term I would say that you are in stealth mode but what can you tell us about that what can people look forward to well this would be an exclusive scoop I am working on a game and it is called Power Hydrons I won't give away anything else other than that I actually haven't said the name out loud to anybody so yeah it is called Power Hydrons it is a digital dice game the art right now is being worked on the actual game mechanics is fully done we're working right now on finding a developer in Unity to work on it yeah I'm really really excited for that project I wish that I could say more but it is it is going to be very very cool and I will send you the pitch deck after this Ryan so you can take a look at some of the stuff sounds good I would love to see that that sounds great I'd love to wrap up with some audience questions here some rapid fire stuff we can get through some of these so these are going to be random all over the place a lot of them are dealing with Life Noggin but they get it out of that subject too so with all the videos you've made on your channel Pay Tony wants to know what has been your favorite my favorite video it's really funny my favorite video actually doesn't teach anybody anything my favorite video on the channel is the Glitch Monsters episode that we did so throughout Life Noggin we did this series called Dear Blocko and at the end of Dear Blocko we did an audience question ask Blocko anything about his world and so we threw lore into the mix which I was very very fond of and throughout the Dear Blocko episodes we had these things called the Glitch Monsters who were infecting the Life Noggin world like a zombie movie and people were so I had no idea that people were going to be that invested I really really had no idea and as the months kept going by and it became like no one cared about what Blocko was doing it was just like where the Glitch Monsters where's Rhombus, why hasn't Triangle Bob been infected does he have the antidote and I'm going like I guess I'm actually using my film degree because I'm gonna have to start writing some stuff and writing like a movie anyway and that's what I did I literally wrote a script about what's happening with the Glitch Monsters and how they get defeated and how people so actively involved and caring about this lore so yeah, that's my all time favorite Life Noggin episode I wish it was longer I wish maybe one day we'll make a movie about it I think that'd be great Chili Boy 12 wants to know which video was the hardest to make now they could interpret that in two different ways could that be the hardest to animate and craft the story about the most impactful or emotional for you or are there any that stand out for either of those categories well, I mean any video that we do on depression any mental health video is always really really difficult you have to approach it a certain way and it's always difficult for me as someone who suffers from depression and anxiety like it's tough to make those videos but probably the hardest one that it actually took to make the hardest one that I've worked on and it took a whole team of people was the Life Noggin IRL episodes where Blocko entered the real world we had a whole film crew we had to make sure the lighting was all consistent and again I was using my film degree my dad would be so happy I was using my film degree finally and we were we had to consider things with like when you mix live action animation you have to consider so many things and so there was so much pre-production work that went into this and then also there is a episode of Life Noggin I'm so proud of this one too it was Life Noggin on stage we did a like a 5 minute not music, just a 5 minute play where we use real people and like actual paper assets on stage props, that's what they're called and I was in a Blocko suit like I was dressed up as Blocko on stage that video was very difficult we had to rehearse that for hours and hours and hours I'm so fond of those projects though looking back I'm really proud of them yeah I remember watching those videos they're definitely some of my favorites as well on the channel Brent Gibson and man I hate this user both want to know what other types of content you might explore doing you mentioned the other projects that you've done all the types of videos you did when you were first starting but are you looking to get into storytelling or gaming or reactions or any other types of content that interest you yeah well I'm definitely I mean this game has taken up so much of my life I don't even want to begin to start making videos on the gaming process like log some stuff maybe make a sub-stack but I I'm really really I've always been into photography it was my first love I really do want to do a portrait series I'm actually trying to craft a a portrait series on where I take a popular song and I try to craft a portrait series based off of that song so maybe a photography channel maybe I'll get back into that or just making reels or tiktoks that's been something that's really interesting me is just figuring out a way where I can like still do photography but not have to get heavily involved in the numbers game still so yeah that's to answer the question photography and maybe I'll make some videos on this process of making this game I like 414 asks what is your favorite scientific subject probably I'm gonna say biology the thing that always interests me was the fact that like just a decade ago the thought of 3D printing in Oregon was definitely science fiction and now we're getting there and we're gonna be able to 3D print like organs and I think we can already 3D print skin so we can 3D print a pizza okay it's all up from there biology is definitely my favorite we haven't even begun to understand everything about the human body so we should definitely invest more in that things are definitely ramping up in biology in fact I tell everyone and I'll say it here as well I think the digital revolution was huge but it was nothing we are at the start of a biological revolution that's gonna really change everything over the next few decades that's definitely the subject to watch I would say I can't wait until I'm like 70 years old and my liver starts giving me problems and I just like boop beep boop beep and a liver just prints and I still have to go to the doctor because I don't know what I'm doing but I will have my liver one day how a Christian I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly says how did Blocko find out he was a program could humans find out the same way well um maybe we are living in a simulation who knows if it is a simulation have so many social networks that are exactly the same I feel like there would be some variation um but Blocko knows that he is computer programmed he knows that he was born in um adobe illustrator um and he lives in after effects um yeah he's fully aware he loves it but he can do anything that he wants to in the digital world in his life so I don't know why he would ever want to be anywhere else alright two more little jammy says what is your favorite ice cream mine is mint Blocko chip with an emoji of a rabbit very very good um my favorite ice cream flavor anything like peanut butter I'm definitely on board with like peanut butter cup ice cream I love I just love ice cream with like a bunch of stuff thrown into it and then mixed so any like ice cream shop that has like a blizzard a concrete like cyclone count me in I'm all over that um I recently I recently was at um this uh this Italian ice place and they had something called the donado which is just cookie dough ice cream and more cookie dough piled on in a cup so that's my favorite flavor is just cookie dough uh covered with ice cream that sounds delicious I'm gonna need to go to that place and get that that sounds amazing alright Dillon Ulrich asks well Cham also wants to know we have two people asking this question it's a popular one pineapple on pizza yes or no yes and and I'll tell you why uh savory and sweet go very very well together okay as long as the pineapple is not so watery to the point where like it's making the pizza extremely soggy um the pizza is gonna taste great throw a little bit of ham on there um I have way too many pizza opinions so we might want to move on well that was the last question but we can do a whole episode on pizza next time you come on if you want to do that Pat do you have anything that any messages to wrap things up with here um please don't be afraid to create uh and know that you are going to be very bad at what you do in the beginning uh and then some years are gonna go by then you're gonna look back on what you did and you're like wow I was really bad at that but I'm really good now and then more years are gonna go by and then you're gonna look back on what you did then and you're gonna be like wow okay that was really really bad I'm like way better now and then cycle is gonna keep happening you're just gonna get progressively better but if there's anything that you want to work on any creative project anything start it do any little bit of it that you possibly can and progressively work on it um it's gonna be so rewarding when you look back I know I was joking about all of those YouTube channels that I made all those Google accounts that I had but I look back and see the hundreds of thousands of videos that I have made and at least I made them at least I made something and you're not gonna get there unless you start you're not gonna figure out the whatever the life noggin is unless you go through the positivity channel and the photography channel and the vlogging channel you're not gonna figure it out unless you go through all of that so just start and if you need any other help or any other advice you can at me on Twitter at Pat Graziosi put that in the description as well Pat I think that's a great parting message thank you for joining us on the show thank you so much for having me this was really really fun