Meet The Hoosier Food Influencer with 5 Million Followers

you have 5 Seconds treated as the hardest interview you've ever had in your life don't worry about negative comments from people you wouldn't take advice from show up every day for work be diligent be professional eventually your labor of love will pay off like what are these big moments where you're like wow this is crazy from South bin to Evansville and everywhere in between this is get in the show focused on the hooer state and the incredible stories happening here today I'm Nate spangle founder of G Indiana and I will be your host for today's conversation I want to give a huge shout out to our newest partner hope Plumbing now hope Plumbing serves Indianapolis in the surrounding areas when it comes to All Things Plumbing obviously that includes sewer and drain water heaters water softeners leak repairs stmp bump gas lines plumbing inspections reverse osmosis system installation router Services downspout installation and septic tanks what don't these guys do whenever I have trouble I make sure to call Hope Plumbing they always do a great job on my house they're going to do a great job on your house go to hoping.

com to check them out today I'm joined by Justin home a Bartholomew County native father of five and is best known for his online cooking program homes cooking a 2011 graduate of Columbus East High School he Blends who your roots culinary creativity and genuine Family Values to Captivate an audience of over 3. 6 million followers across social media platforms from grilling tutorials to Down Home recipes Justin's humble and personable style has turned him into a rising star in digital content creation we're going to talk about what got you into food and and the passion there how you transition into content and all the cool stuff that's on the uh on the road map for 2025 Justin welcome to get in hey man good to see you dude I am pumped about this one this is our first time meeting in person but we've probably uh bantered back and forth for six or eight months now and it's been cool to see like I've kind of been going through a period of like what I thought was pretty good growth and then I look at you and you're like dude hundreds of thousands millions of subscribers like it is insane what you've built if I sto looking at it for a minute I'm like what what happened you know it's kind of wild but I mean when you just get to busy doing something it gets kind of carried away yeah and you start building that momentum so I mean let's start from the beginning right of you know growing up in that that Columbus Bartholomew County area what got you into cooking uh so when I was in school they had like that deal with C4 where they're like hey you know you could build a house or you could do this or you could build you know rebuild a car and then at the bottom they were like hey you could learn how to cook and I was like sign me up big back activities right there you know big back activities yes sir so I took three years of culinary arts at McDow through the C4 program The Two Chefs that were there one of them you know she used to work at Disney as a culinary chef and she kind of got me interested in doing it and then growing up you know everybody watched Food Network Gordon Ramsey Alton Brown and it just led into that I mean it was one of those things where it just started carrying into it and then you get out on your your own and it's like oh now I got to learn how to cook for myself cuz I can't just go sit down and yeah but as a as a hobby right you graduate high school and it's not like okay I want to go be a Michelin star Chef or whatever it was oh I just enjoy this I have to eat and I get to get credit for school yeah okay so then you graduate high school and I mean what starts what what are the series of events that lead you to continue pursuing cooking and and then get us into contact from 2011 to about 2020 was just me working meeting my wife raising kids and then in 2020 we're all shut in right so I I had a friend a lot of people know the guy that yeah you know oh yeah cibs and Richard eats well I I've known Josh for years and he got into posting on Tik Tok like in person no from like Instagram we posted pictures of like video game stuff on Instagram like oh look at today's pickups you know like or today's finds or game of the day or whatever well it got to the point where uh he was posting on Tik Tok cuz he'd post on his stories every day and and uh it's like oh you could do this over here and actually you know make an account based on what you're doing over here just for a few people and you could grow it out so he started doing it and he oh dude he said they they have a Creator fund now we're getting paid it was only at the time like 30 50 bucks a month or something but it was it was cool I mean 2020 you're posting you know you're in the house doing stuff for free anyway so it's like might as well get paid for it somewhere he's like dude you got to try it so I'm in my kitchen in our little 800 foot house and I'm like all right let's make a crockpot recipe today we're making white chicken chili first video I posted had a part two which I don't believe in those now but first video I posted had like 800,000 views or something you're hooked there and I was like what it's crazy and you know I told my wife I was like I think this is going to be something she goes yeah but nobody likes Tick Tock you know and now it's like both of us are sold into it you know this is this is our life now were you were you sweating about the band uh no not really um a couple years ago or so I decided you know hey if this is going to go away I don't want to just be the guy that's like oh you know this was cool at the moment I'm sure everybody's heard of like all recipes.

com and you know if you get on any social media anywhere and you start looking up recipes you start looking up people that I'm associated with like cooking in the midwest what's Mom cooking they all have like established websites and other social medias Facebook Instagram YouTube Everything You diversify that really right you know start to get like so you're going on to post that first video 800,000 views on part one of white chicken chili and were they going crazy in the comments like we need part two yeah so the funny thing is is like they went through that whole deal where they demonetized a bunch of music so the video got taken down and I reposted it and like so if you go to look for it it's like 60 or 70,000 views but you can actually hear the audio but uh I was so excited that I did that one I was like all right we got to do more more and it started to bleed into other things I'm like oh I don't want to just make videos about food I want to make you know whatever so I was like outside filming myself mowing the lawn and I was outside you know doing whatever but food was just always easy cuz every single day I would have to cook something for dinner or make Lun what was the other content resonating as much yeah I mean there's quite a bit of it that was like you know I talk about video games sometimes I talk about just being a dad there was one video where uh I pulled up zzy Top Sharp Dressed Man and I got dressed for church trying to be all smooth with the editing even though go back and it's like that's pretty cringey you dude right like four years it's like what I thought was good four years ago and then you just like keep working you're like I can't believe I posted that you ever sit and watch like your old stuff I can't it's it's you're like it's like nails on a chalkboard like sometimes sometimes where I'm like man cuz it's kind of like an art form right and you're like man I really like there are a few that I would be on if I was making a highlight reel where I was like even if they didn't get the most views I'm like that was art and then there's other ones where I'm like bro you posted that like what were you thinking uh okay so you start you start posting different types of content from you know getting ready for church just like lifestyle right like but what was like the vibe where you just like hey this is like did you have like a personality like a lot of people like you almost you see them when they start to get this rise like I'm still wondering if like sketch is truly a character right is or that that guy actually acts they say he is have you ever seen like the clips where he talks normal like at Walmart no never I don't know if they're still out there on the internet but people were sending them around for a while where he's just like yeah he said I I didn't find this item or I was looking for this and he'd just have like a normal conversation he'd turn around and see the camera and he goes hey Brother that's funny right but it's like was that was it like did you have this personality or was it just like no I'm just going to be myself I'm just myself you know every day I wake up with the same dude it's like if I'm going to put something on the Internet that's fake I'd hate to meet somebody that's expecting one thing and then they meet another and they're like who's this dude it's like a slippery SL I'm sure like you know we talk about sketch right it's like I'm sure it's a slippery slope but now he has to like talk like he's like crazy like 99% of the time and like has no real probably friends like if he just started talking like normal people be like dude wait what you're normal yeah so so I think building that authentic brand early on but I guess one thing that I've noticed is like you know the riches are in the niches when it comes to content right and it's like before you act like you're you can post about anything and people are going to Care you have to post about something that people actually do care about right and cooking seems to be the one where if you are good at making cooking content you can you know start to build out a consistent Cadence there so whenever I started going into YouTube I mean the the Golden Goose has always been long form content right that's where everybody wants to go and move but going from short form to long form is a lot more difficult I mean if you ever sit and edit a video for just like let's say you're doing something for your friend or your sister or whatever if you're editing like a one minute video you can clip the highlights of it but you can sit and get bored on your own stuff going from one to the other and it's so long you have to think about how do I keep people's attention for like 9 10 minutes so I'm at the point now where my short form stuff I've kind of figured out the flow making sure you know things are good and I can pretty much make a video about anything and know it's going to be viewed by somebody but now that I'm going into long form I was afraid to put the cooking stuff into like 10-minute video segments because I'm like I wouldn't even watch a 10-minute cooking video yeah you know what I mean no and and it's like uh there's definitely an equation for the short form right and it's pretty like okay good intro here funny line lead them up lead them up build it up build it up and then give them what they stayed 90 seconds for like you know it's it's not ter it's not rocket science there for sure I'm like starting to dip into the long form like YouTube videos dude finding six seven nine minutes of content like it can be challenging and daunting and like doing the thumbnails and this that and the other thing well just take us through your journey then right you're posting on Tik Tok only and like how quick were you building up and like where was like your first Milestone you're like holy like I think I have something here I mean like from the MGO it was like I thought I had something you know what I mean like I believed in it before anybody else did like I'm sure there was people that made fun of me but I never heard it or paid attention to it but down the road it got to the point where after the first year or so so you're doing it for a year how many videos are you posting one a day one a day for a year yeah one a day for a year it's all like real simple easy stuff like hey today I made a sandwich or this is my lunch for tomorrow or here's my meal prep for oatmeal just whatever it was just content every day for something I got to the point where I was like right around that 40 50,000 and I'm like you know I was like I really need to like start doing recipe content because it seems like people go on there and they search for like you know how do I make this or how do I make this Crock-Pot meal or how do I do that so I was gotten more deliberate and specific about making sure that people had something that was searchable so I thought that was the big thing you know searchable stuff people get on YouTube or Google and look up recipes because people were using Tik Tok to search stuff yes and it's like the third biggest search engine in the world yeah so I started going on there and looking up like is there big videos under this this and this and if I didn't see one I was like well I make this recipe for my kid or my family you know I'm going to go ahead and do it for this you know deal and it got to the point where I was having a little bit of momentum whenever I transferred over to Facebook because it seemed like people responded better with like family related content better on Facebook than they did on Tik Tok they were more interested in you on Tik Tok but they were more interested in like wholesome content did better yeah on Facebook so like on Facebook you have 557 th000 followers on YouTube you have 3177 so I actually have a page and a profile on Facebook funny story so type in Holmes cooking on Facebook oh 1.

9 million yeah so you have two I'm 4,000 away from the two so yeah 4,000 so if you approach Facebook um as this so if you have a business and a celebrity like look at it so like if I have a profile I can turn on Creator mode or whatever professional mode uh it treats you as if you're the celebrity so treat that as your personal entity like these are my interest these are my you can post videos there if you want post reals or whatever but if you want to actually like dig in and make content as an like you know a whole you're going to do a lot better as a page because there's a lot more options for monetization there's a lot more options to like push yourself out there but I look at it like it's my either my business or myself so do you want to push yourself as the product or do you want to push like your cuz like the idea behind what I'm doing now is I want to make it where it's not exclusive to me I'm not going to be here forever and I can't do it all by myself so like homes cooking is inexclusive so like my kids will eventually be able to do it with me my wife will be able cuz they're all under the same umbrella of the last damn Holmes right you know you know they're free labor why not bring them in here and bring them to work yeah exact I mean oh a tough day cooking making videos with Dad like oh twist my arm you know well I mean I I did one with my daughter and we made Pop-Tarts and she took a bite she didn't even taste it she goes it's good she holds it th up to the camera and I'm like you're a natural girl there you go um okay so so you're growing on Tik Tok after a year are you are you posting at all the platforms immediately or just Tik Tok to start after a year after so one year just Tik Tok where were you at follower view count like I was like 40 42,000 like so there's that's enough to keep going there was this app that came out and they're like hey we're going to promote rpes we're going to have an app that's just a place for like recipe social media I thought I was like big stuff you know they wanted to have a brand deal because I've always heard about content creators getting brand deals and signed and they're like hey we're going to I don't care if people know this but they're like hey we'll pay you 40 bucks a month for for four videos and I'm like okay I'll do it at the time I was like I didn't realize how much of a scam 40 bucks but like when you're were you making what was the creator fund paying you in 2020 it was like 100 bucks a mon so it's like you're like hey I'm I'm getting an extra 40% of my Revenue it was our electric bill so I was like that's one thing I don't have to worry about and you're having fun yeah and it is if if Noone has seen your content well first off go watch it but like it's very evident that you're having fun and you have the inside jokes that carry on through the it's an aluminum pan or right like stuff like that the funny part of it is is I've always told my wife I wanted to keep it Disney humor so the adults can understand what I'm talking about like there's a lot of hidden things that are in the background but the kids can watch and don't really catch everything you know what I mean like there's a lot of things I'll say and allude to it's like I don't have to say it and you know exactly what I'm talking about exactly it's like dad's like it but like your a kid can watch over your shoulder and be like oh you're not going to see anything bad for sure I mean I get a lot of people that message me that are like hey every night me and my kids all get on and we binge watch all your videos and I'm just like that's great man I I can't watch it myself cuz I sit and watch it five or six times while I'm editing it but it's like if somebody else gets enjoyment and it betters their day that's what it's about I mean like honestly even if they didn't pay me a dime I'd still do it just cuz I enjoy en the process I enjoy connecting with people and it get somebody gets something out of it you know yeah and it's like I mean it it starts as um a hobby like a passionate hobby that you enjoy it's a critical hobby right where like you post it out there and I'm sure may you don't listen to him you don't hear him but like oh yeah man Justin's posting more cooking videos like cool like oh he's like Tik Tock famous or whatever and then and then it's like then it works and then people send you free and then they send you like this that the other thing and you're getting 40 bucks a month plus another $100 like you're not doing bad uh but what was the inflection point where you're like you know what I want I want to lean into this even more so the first year I donated all the money to our church building fund cuz we wanted to build a new church no I love that I think that's that's super super impactful so the idea was you can't outg give God right so if I gave God everything he would give me more than what I had so that was the premise of what I was doing was oh this is cool but it's not enough to like change my life so I want to make make sure that whatever this is at the time we were broke so it's like I had no extra money to give for this building fund that we were going to build a new building so I was like you know what I just want to enjoy making content I don't want to look at the money for the first year because I'm still figuring this out you can have the whole first year well it didn't end up to a whole bunch of money bucks, 1500 whatever yeah it didn't it was a little bit of money at the end of the year but whenever it got to like 40,000 I was like all right I got to expand and then I went to Facebook and then I know what you're asking is like down the road where things went so the beginning of last year I had a meeting and I I'm not going to so 2024 I had a meeting with a company and it was a huge Fortune 500 company like everybody's got this product I'm not going to tell everybody because I work with them now but uh there I had a meeting with this company and they're like hey this is what we want to do we want to pay you XYZ for this but we can't sign you because your face isn't in the video cuz before that I always did faceless content you you'd see my hands you'd never see me you know what I mean so up until 2024 you never saw Justin Holmes you just saw the front yeah are you serious so I worked with this company uh two times and they're like hey we'd love to send you a product or whatever but we're not going to pay you a dime or sponsor you or really do anything with you until you have the selling point whereafter which is the guy in the video that's the friend that's selling you the stuff you know what I mean cuz people don't if you if you're into sales people don't buy from companies they buy from their friends and that's why the rise of Creator you know like it's like oh you are a friend to 3.

9 million people online yeah so the the crazy part of it is is like I took it so hard at the time even though I knew exactly what they were talking about like I was so scared of because obviously I'm not you know the perfect image of Fitness you know and even though I've been doing a lot better than what I was doing so but I was always afraid of what people would say and I'm like I'm already posting to millions of people people online what do I care what these people think you know I'm never going to meet any of them and the people that really appreciate it they're not after that dude wait so you post from 2020 to 2023 3 years never show your face in a video just your hands well I did a little bit but not very often like I'd show me taking a bite but for the first 3ars of the video you would never see me my kids my face anything you hear my voice so I voiced over like 99% of the videos I was never like the ASMR type or anything there was a a point where I had like a really really bad day at work like I was working 12 hours a day six seven days a week and I just I like broke down sat in my car and I'm like you know what they were right I need to put all my big boy panties and I need to go and I need to film this so I walked in my wife had a bad day too and I was like I'm going to go out I'm going to fire the griddle up and I'm going to make you something for dinner so I go out and it's like 2° outside it's cold and I had the griddle in the garage where I was storing at the time I usually cuz we didn't have a back patio I just wheel it out around that little I mean I'm sure people have seen the video where I'm cooking on my front porch right yeah yeah and so I whe it out around the corner and there's a huge Mount of ice and snow so I'm like forget it I'll just open the garage door I'll stand right there at the end and I'll be like I had a bad day but and my wife doesn't deserve to have a bad day too so I'm going to make her dinner on the griddle that video I think has three or four million views it's one at the time it was like the second highest video or third highest video I've ever done and I was like you know what if I can do that with my face in the video it can't be that bad so I just started doing it and then the videos were terrible at first cuz I didn't have like a mic yeah there's some Logistics to cooking content right down the road where I started doing other stuff like I was not only just cooking on The Griddle but I'd get like a stand and I'd set it up and i' just like talk and I thought about back in the day we all used to watch Emerald legasi you know bam you know he'd stand in the kitchen and chat while he's having conversations well if you watched it he did all that live while he's cooking so I'm like well how about I treat this like somebody's here with me and they're just talking to a friend so I talked to the camera you know at the time it was my cell phone you know I talk to the camera like it's a human being standing there so everybody was and everyone like when you're you're you're sitting across the bar and someone's in the kitchen they're like making finishing up dinner and you're just like maybe you're you know just hitting there chitchatting with whoever's working that's fun that like feels normal and right and friendly and like that's what you do yeah so I went from 140,000 people on Tik Tok and then like maybe 20,000 people on Facebook and from the point of around March of last year it went from there and the next thing I know I'm getting notifications from people like texting me they're like hey bro you're almost to a million on Tik Tok and I was starting watching it it was like 600,000 one day the next day it was 700,000 and then 800,000 everybody wanted to plug in to watch this dude cooking for his wife you know and we just found out we were pregnant with our fifth child so every video was like Hey making dinner for my pregnant wife and that was a good series right like the the series of people keep coming back to like oh this is genius and I do think there is when I when I talk to people who want to get into content creation it's like like for me it's like i' I've found a lot of Attraction with the hidden gems like that was like my first one where people like wanted to discover these Small hidden Pockets throughout Indiana but like cooking this cooking for your pregnant wife series like that's so great like I Love It season two is postpartum right so I I didn't want to do that too long I just thought it was funny to throw that first video in there but yeah I mean like I told my wife I was like I I guess this is our our personality now is cooking for my pregnant yeah I mean but it's like it's crazy in one year less than a year 10 months n 11 months is you went from from what to what like 160,000 total a audience and then it went from that and then all of a sudden I'm looking at like three and five million man when when did you get into YouTube YouTube I started doing that in August so whenever I left my full-time job uh I don't know if it's a secret but I worked at Delta faucet for 11 years out of Greensburg IND I had no bad qualms or whatever I love the job there people are great there all Indiana based business you know they have a headquarters up here in Indie I'd still be there if that didn't work out the content online thing so did they think you were crazy at first you go in you're like yeah boss man I'm going to quit my job I'm going to go make videos online well they they kind of knew well into I so you ever do a Dave Ramsey program so my wife and I did like a pseudo is Dave Ramsey program so we paid off all of our debt uh we got everything but the house paid off we had our six months emergency month emergency fund and then I told my boss I'm like hey I'm just letting you know I know I'm in leadership I don't plan on staying here very much longer we did my onee review as a as a team lead or whatever and I just told him I was like look he's like what do you see yourself doing in five years and I just kind of was like I hate to break it to you but I don't plan on staying here and he kind of knew at the time like I think he kind of figured it out I said you might want to set up some things for me to not be here anymore so I started training you know somebody to take over for me and happened to be that and realized I had so much vacation that I had so I end up putting in like a month's notice instead of like two weeks I went in there and I'm like hey this is my last day and and they're like oh by the way you have like three or four weeks vacation left so I end up taking a month off coming back for a week and then being done and then we went on vacation to Texas this episode was brought to you by our friends at Greeks Pizza Greeks has been a great partner of mine if you remember zville owner Mike Cole broke the World Record for fastest marathon with a pizza guy was flying I love Greeks next time you're in the mood for pizza go to gree pizzeria.

com they have locations all across the state I frequent the location in South Broad Ripple great Tap Room there but they have locations everywhere they've been doing this since 1968 over 55 years in business go to greeka. com order pizza today and and as you're going through that like Greensburg Indiana you know smaller town I'm sure there's no May none that we know of creators in Greensburg right so it's not like this is a career path that people take no so what were they saying to your face like you're like hey I'm going to leave this to go make videos for the internet about cooking I'm kind of an introvert I know it sounds that's crazy right like I don't for the guy that's got this big social media account I don't talk to a whole lot of people outside of like my church and like some people I used to work with and things like that like my five kids keep me busy enough oh of course right you have enough enough conversation for a lifetime there I have a whole Army of tasks at hand you know I mean just there's things to do at all times the thing of it is like before I left to go do content creation I kind of put my feelers out there I reached out to like basically the people that run on the city social media iedc that I reached out to them and I was like hey if you ever need anything let me know or whatever people are so like busy with their own projects at the time I was just like ah you know cooking guy you know so I just was like all right I'm going to build my own thing so I didn't really get too involved with anybody else I just kind of did my own thing where I was at so I don't really know if like outside of cuz more recently people have discovered that I'm online and local cuz like I'll run into people at Walmart they're like you you live here and I'm like yeah man I've never it's it's in my thing I'm from Decor County but uh is that cool do you like that yeah to a degree I mean if I'm not with my kids it's kind of neat I mean but I always have to remember that like I'm might be that might be the only interaction I ever have with them ever so I always want to treat it fresh so even if I'm not interested in talking to somebody that might be the only chance that they ever get to interact with me so they deserve a good experience so I always try to like be extremely kind polite and be like be the person that they expect you know what I mean that is a piece that I don't know if people necessarily appreciate like man people who post on the internet have bad days too yeah people who post on the internet like imagine how many people come up to you and say oh my gosh I love your buffalo chicken recipe like heard that 10,000 times this week or whatever yeah well like a lot of times like I'll be with my wife and they're like oh she's still pregnant like and she'll be self-conscious kind of feeling herself she's like no but but people people were just excited you know they didn't think about what they were just excited to see you you know yeah and and it's like this is the life you sign up for right it's like you start doing this and and it's like part for the course and and I do believe that you want to be the same person online that you are in real life yeah like that's why the personality thing never work or I don't think it works for forever right it's because it's not authentic it's not you so I think it's fun when you meet and they're like oh my like I'll have people come up and they're like name that High School mascot and like they'll give me South you're a mascot have you ever have you seen those videos I put out oh dude I watched the ones I see the ones where you're like running marathons and stuff yeah yeah and then I see the small town breakdown but I've never seen I do uh I I'm on a journey to memorize every High School mascot in Indiana okay so like people give me high schools and I like like Greensburg Pirates and they'll come up and be like hey uh give me Batesville and I'll say let's go Bulldogs they're like oh my gosh he knew it like and every because no one talks about the south Ripley Raiders on uh on like a podcast or on Instagram or whatever and for a day they're like yeah let's go like that's so cool so that's the thing where like I'll be wherever and they're like y yeah I'm from newal I'm like let's go dragons oh my gosh you knew it so you might not know this one it's uh I only know it because we used to play basketball on Monday nights with the church people do you know the St Paul Indiana mascot are they a high school no it's probably not been a team for a long time I'm not really 100% sure help I offend anybody but it's like right between Walder and yeah the St ball Tavern or something don't they have a yeah they have a chicken place that's really popular yes was it the one featured on like in the New York Times or whatever I have no oh the one where the guy had all the stuff in his basement so there's a historian guy kind of like an Indiana Jones type but he would collect like artifacts like histo historical artifacts well it got went to I believe the FBI or something that he was doing this and some of the stuff wasn't obtained through legal means and he just collected cuz he was just interested in history he had a bigger collection than the Smithsonian thousands of artifacts removed from rural Indiana home he had likey yeah Justice for Don Miller was a Facebook page for the longest time what the world I don't know FBI rated a home on Rush County in Rush County looking for artifacts cuz they said originally the reason their reason for entering the home if I remember correctly I'm not trying to put out bad information you know I mean dude he's got an insane amount of stuff but they he had like parts of like uh there was like the pyramid pieces there was like a sarcophagus that was in there he had a portion of the bunker from Hitler's bunker like he had a lot of like really important stuff that's just kind of disappeared you know but it doesn't say like why but so originally the premise of why they rated it was because they said that uh there was a fire hazard because he had so much stuff in his house so the idea was um they went in there and then that's how they got their original permit and then once they got in there they're like oh this guy's got you know wow it's kind of like one of those FBI drug raids they're like there's a meth laap in here you know more than 40,000 artifacts over six decades the largest private stockpile that FBI's ever uncovered but like what I don't understand what's what's wrong with this guy having so much stuff uh they said that some of that stuff was at the time obtained through means that weren't legal by trade cuz he he wouldn't collect it here you know he'd go on trips all over the world and I'm just summarizing what I remember but he would like go to like Egypt for like 3 weeks or whatever on like a business trip for himself and he'd find random stuff or he'd buy stuff from a local or tactical require he had a metal detector would go to battlefields and like look stuff up there and and different things like that that's wild I I didn't see anything wrong with it per se but I mean obviously I don't know enough about it I just remember how big new like I remember them raiding his home and it was crazy yeah right like that's like got to be the biggest news in Shelby County for like years on end but what's nuts is people that I know that know him are like oh that dude he he'd tell you it was there it wasn't a secret he'd be like come over and see this come over and see this well nobody probably ever take him up on it you know what I mean come over and see all my stuff in my house yeah right like I got 40,000 art I don't know I got to look into it a little bit more and figure out like why it's illegal to have 40,000 artifacts and stuff like that I think that's interesting I don't know how we got on that topic but I love it sorry I have undiagnosed Justice for Don Miller there we go um okay so things start rolling you quit your job in August of 24 and at that point you had how many like what was the collective uh had like a million on almost either I had a million on Facebook and Tik Tok or I was close like how did you know how to monetize This and like make an actual like make money at first I didn't and then they had all the programs roll out and then they were out new information for creators like Hey we're going to do a Creator bonus based on real views and when you start talking I missed that on the Instagram one somehow I miss that and I don't get paid for Instagram and it takes me off you're not missing much oh really Zuck if you're watching this yeah I'm not saying anything negative at all I love your pro program but the Instagram one could be a lot better yeah Instagram get your bread up dude come on um okay so you're getting paid from all the platforms but like that is hard to make a living I feel like just with platform like Creator fund money but you I'm not even close to there have you ever watched like the Shannon sharp interview where he talks about like using his content or using videos that are cut up on Facebook that's kind of where I that's kind of where I learned a little bit about what they call instream ADS which is the older program you can make a living a pretty decent living on just that like I don't need to like big companies for money like that's one thing you'll never see on my page is a bunch of sponsored posts like you'll see me do sponsored branded posts for some things that I like you know that iy enjoy like I work with like hunger Jack I work with like kings aai companies that I've bought their products for years I don't mind working with them but I don't need to like so you go with all Creator fund money pretty much and you don't work with Partners as much if I don't have to wow and that's the move you think yeah I think a lot of it like whenever somebody else starts coming in and paying you um money Beyond creativity then you're limited to just that you know what I mean cuz like not only do they come in and they're like hey we're going to pay you XYZ for this many videos they'll ask you for exclusivity so then you can't use like let's say if it's a seasoning brand you can't use uh any seasonings that are a competitor for so many days so then you're limited on what recipes you can post rather than just be yourself and be a normal dude like if it's in the middle of winter you're going to make chili and you do like let's say a video with a seasoning company that makes chili seasoning you can't use any of the other seasoning brands for so many days so it's like forget that you know I don't mind working with some of them but I'm not going to limit myself based on what another company doesn't want to see on my page like it's my thing I built this which platform do you feel like is the best to grow on and which is the best that you could like make a living off of I I get asked this a lot so like if if you're going to start as a content creator definitely start which can't do it right now but Tik Tok yeah right you see there's selling phones with Tik Tok installed for like thousands of dollars yeah that's crazy there's a guy that I used to work with that he has an eBay listing for five grand and people are bidding on it shut up for his phone with Tik to it's a brand new iPhone Pro and he he kind of thought that it was going to happen that Tik Tok would get banned so it was kind of like Flappy Bird you know where everybody sold their phones of Flappy Bird so he he bought four or five iPhones not like the pro Max or whatever but he bought one pro Max and he had it downloaded to it and he had a bunch of these iPhone 16 or 15 whatever the newest one is downloaded with Tik Tok and downloaded with lemonade and cap cut and all that and he's like all right he said it's you know he he took a gamble it was a big investment and he put it out there and he's like all right he said I hope this works out he's made it pretty he bought a car I mean through iPhones with Tik Tok he bought a car that's crazy okay so so if you had to say to get started you'd say start on Tik Tok if when you can download it again uh so I would say Tik Tok or Facebook I mean like honestly Facebook if you post reals it's infinite audience like if you're a business and you want to have on a bunch of people see your stuff as soon as possible viral content can be viral easily on Facebook Tik Tok Shorts YouTube you know where I haven't cracked the code for Facebook do you like what advice do you have there like I post everything from our get Indiana page on Facebook and it doesn't do very well Facebook did this deal a while back where they were running out of content to feed to reals right and depending on how you look at that a lot of other platforms have done the same thing where they're like hey we don't have enough track traffic on or we don't have enough content on reals to keep up with the traffic on reels cuz we're running out of stuff we're having to show people the same video twice they would take things from other segments so they used to have Facebook watch which is all the long form content which I'm sure you remember they had like their own subsection of like almost like TV you could watch it on Facebook yeah yeah and then they're like hey from now on and they started with Instagram they're like hey from now on every single video that's on Instagram is a real everything so they created the reals feed and then they migrated to Facebook and they did it all as well on there so you'll get on your real speed you get long form video you'll get short form video so you can post it anywhere you want I always tell people to like really focus on the first three seconds yeah but it doesn't matter the length of the content you want to post if it's good enough to watch like all the way through so if if you were to ask me like what's the code for Facebook I would say you have 5 Seconds treated as the hardest interview you've ever had in your life every video has to be fresh so every video has to be viewable for a brand new person and it has to be welcome enough for somebody to come back so every time I post I always keep five things in mind I have onscreen text for 3 to five seconds briefly explaining kind of like a YouTube thumbnail you know what I mean so it's a brief explanation of what the video is without being descriptive you don't want to give away you your Golden Goose your secret you know what I mean like if I'm making something for dinner I don't want to be like hey this is pumpkin pie you know what I mean or whatever it's like dinner surprise or surprise dessert for dinner or whatever you want to be descriptive enough where you're not telling anybody anything but you're peing interest so it's what you know I'm sure you've heard of hook hook people and then you want to get instant animation in that first 5 seconds so like I'll slam something on the counter or I'll speak to you directly or I'll get your attention somehow within that first 3 seconds to lock you in also have really good lighting that's number three so number one was TT on screen number one is your hook then really good lighting for what it is cuz if something's really dark or Overexposed or too light people are going to see something they're like scroll on you know number four is you want to really hone in on format so it's got to be exactly what they want to see no bouns and Tik Tok logo or you downloaded it from another platform or whatever Y and then number five you want to make sure that people have a bit of familiarity with it for me it's me standing in my kitchen I mean like how many times like I got a friend do you guys know Malcolm Reed how to barbecue writes his YouTube he's huge barbecue guy a lot of people know him a lot of people know Heath RS but if you see his face in a video the first three seconds you'll stay just cuz it's him you know what I mean like he's a household name by himself a lot of times how to barbecue write is that him yeah Malcolm Reed he's if if you're into anything barbecue that's the guy to look up like I'm dab I dabble I'm more of a home cook I try things I exper experiment sometimes they work out sometimes they don't but I'm not going to lie to you if if the recipe is bad I'm not going to put it out there to the internet be like you should make this you know but that dude he's honed his craft if you give that familiarity concept to like the first five seconds I mean think about like when you go into an interview and you wear a nice tie you wear a suit you're coming in and you show professionalism it's a familiarity of professionalism so you're giving that impression of expectation you know I so if I if I start the video in my kitchen and my kitchen cabinets are a unique color like we mix that color my wife mixed that color by herself and it was more of like she didn't like the color of green that came with the can and she's like I'm G to make this a little different so I my kitchen is very unique colored in my background so like there's a lot of times where somebody will post a video or start with my kitchen and the video will do well because people recognize where I'm at or if I'm in the video so if you show the same thing every video in the first 5 seconds so like for instance like if you're here and they see your face a lot of people will know who you are so they'll stop and watch it just cuz they know you like how many millions versus if it was just like uh like a different thing and then I pop on the screen after 3 seconds it's like oh they didn't even make it that far yeah so I mean like if you show your face at the end of the video even though they hear your voice how many people sound like you you know what I mean there's only one dude that looks like Nate spangle yeah right you know what I'm saying interesting you have to be unique enough but familiar for instance like everybody knows what a whistle and diesel video looks like you know they're wild they're crazy there's an expectation and they all start off the same if you open up a whistling diesel video in the first 5 Seconds what do you see you see him him like saying we're going to do this crazy thing or whatever and then like a cut to like them like it's like I feel like they always do a little teaser where it's like we're going to test a cyber truck and it's like they're ramping it and it justs cuts away of like you're like oh man I have that to look forward to later on in this episode yeah but how many videos out there from other create or from other accounts uh do you see that go viral just cuz they see Mr Beast in the video you know what I mean like somebody be walking down the road and then you look at you're watching it and then all of a sudden you see Jimmy's face and then that video will go viral just because it's him who are the creators that you take inspiration from all kinds man I mean like honestly at this point in time like I just kind of want to do my own thing but I got friends that are you know they're invaluable like I can't put a a dollar amount like I wish I could pay him but I couldn't cuzz I wouldn't know what to do but like I got friends like Luke from cooking the Midwest him and his wife Kelly they do an awesome job I'm sure everybody's seen his website or one of his videos where he's cooking for his family and his kids they just two teachers from Missouri recently connected with Max the meat guy oh yes he's the jerky guy right yeah he's he's a super busy dude so it's him his sister and his brother that all do it together and they had hired an outside Editor to help out cuz they were so busy doing stuff so I don't really talk to him a whole bunch he he's one of those ones where so I recently switched from an iPhone to so back in October I switched from an iPhone to an actual s Cinema Camera like the one that's staring at me right now and I don't know anything about that camera I don't know anything about focal length I don't know anything about lighting whatever that dude Max has probably the best quality in my opinion of food videos on the internet yes cuz he gets the closeup and the sound and it's like he like squeezes some barbecue and it like you yeah it is and that makes you stop and scroll or stop and watch because it's like it's like cinematic almost it is cuz he's using you know he's using an fx3 so it's like if I got the same camera why doesn't my stuff look like that so I I take from them like man I need to be better you know and then people like Jose Cooks I don't know if you know Jose L cooks or Jose Cooks he has a a very large platform on YouTube and Tik Tok and Facebook I I think he's got a very large following on Instagram as as well um he talks to the camera like he's homies but he takes almost Cinema grade editing and he puts it into kind of like what I'm doing kind of like just the at home stuff and a lot of those people are the people I Look to like man if they're if they're out there just killing it I need to step up you know what I mean like they're doing vastly better at this and that's where I want to be if you had to think about like the five big inflection points on this timeline right from starting in 2020 to where you are today you know ripping almost over coming close to four million or almost or over four million getting on to five million almost five holy smoke like what are these big moments where you're like you had to just stop and say like wow this is crazy the point where I was like this is absolutely nuts was I have a guy that he he convinced me to do Snapchat and I don't care for that platform personally like I don't want it on my phone or anything so I I told him I was like all right I'll give you a folder of all my content you handle it just let me know how it goes like I don't know if he's monetized or what yet I don't think I don't think it's that far so in two weeks it's at like 70,000 people yeah just from like 12 videos so it's like people like the stuff that I put out I didn't even know that you could post videos on Snapchat it's called Spotlight yeah so it's a 70 it's like almost at 73,000 people and he's only posted like 12 things and it's all the newer stuff that I've posted so you know me being crazy throwing stuff you know on the grill what was the big one beef stroganov that's a lot of people have made that and loved it buffalo chicken uh pasta people really like that like I think that food content is not very controversial you know like there's it's not very it's food right what what do the haters say in your comments I mean obviously like the the overweight part of it is probably the biggest one I mean yeah you know I mean there's tons of the internet's a mean place and I'm sure there's like kids and other stuff out there that like see these and try to put post and want to be a content creator but think they post a video and then a bunch of freaking keyboard Warriors make fun of them honestly if you ever look into the people that are talking like that most of them are just unhappy miserable people so if you want to be unha unhappy and miserable like they are start listening if you want to be happy and focus on the good there's more people out there that just don't comment that love your stuff you know what I mean like you have to focus on things that bring you Joy bring you value um if you go there with the intention of being accepted wanted and loved you know you're going to read the comments and you're going to be really upset you know what I mean oh dude I posted a video without my hat on and I wear my hat everywhere I mean you know I'm the airline's getting a little thin up there and then the first comment see why always wears a hat I'm like oh come on but I'm just accepted it dude like you know what that is what it is but I do think like the biggest advice I got on haters was like don't worry about negative comments from people you wouldn't take advice from yeah and it's like like if you came and we're like hey Nate maybe not being a hater but like hey you should change this that or the other thing it's like oh like you know what you're doing I'm going to listen to that but if you're in there being like this suck like no one who's doing anything is like taking their time to go like hate on Instagram I don't think because they're busy they're they're busy with things that matter you know making something building something not somebody sitting on a toilet that just got fired from his job for not doing his job you know what I mean people that aren't bringing value to the system what uh what pieces of content are you the most proud of that you've made I was really happy with some of the ones that were with the camera cuz I was like I figured it out this is cool you know like whenever I first started messing with it I it was like a whole new world so if I figured out how to make a video that looks halfway decent and post it so anything from October to now I'm like I figured out how to use a l you know let's go um what has been the hardest platform to grow on probably YouTube I would say reason why is cuz like up until um they switched to 3 minute short which was like what October it was 60 seconds yeah it was 60 seconds well everybody else monetized for over a minute so it was almost like oh so if you want to make content under a minute you go to YouTube and you might make you know okay but if you want to get monetized for over a minute you can go anywhere yeah you know but so YouTube you to like go back and edit out like 7 seconds or whatever you know you could and then like we po I was doing that where it was like get it over 60 and then get it under 60 for YouTube and it's like this is so but I have I'm a slow person like I I tell a story over the period of two and a half to three minutes so all my videos are two and a half to three minutes I can't tell like a 60-second story and and have it be legible without feeling like it's you know what I mean what do you do for Instagram for Instagram same stuff do they have aren't they 90c Max it's 30 minutes now they just changed it so no way yeah so Adam assari came out uh a few weeks do you follow him on Instagram so he's like he he has a lot of like really solid informational stuff he posts about with his team like they do a really good job at communicating with people on Instagram he came out and said if your video is over three minutes long and you post it as a real or as a post or whatever he said you're not going to be pushed as content that's going to be seen by a lot of people but we're going to do three minutes now well before they said that if you had a video that was over 90 seconds you could just go where it says like real post picture live and hit post and then post whatever video you wanted and it would all go to the same feed cuz it was all real and then when they switched to the three minute thing now it's like it has to be between zero and 3 minutes you know 100 was it 190 160 seconds whatever it is you get you have to keep it within that parameter in order to be seen by everybody so my focus is just making the best two and a half to three minute video and then post it everywhere because now everything takes the three minute video there we go so 3 minutes is the new standard that's good to know I was actually in the middle of clipping one cuz I knew Tik Tok was up you can go up to 10 minutes on Tik Tok right go up to an hour an hour holy smokes so I I knew I was there so then I was like okay I'm just going to do part twos or whatever for Instagram but now I'm just 3 minutes everywhere sick quick pause in the action do you want to be able to submit questions to my future guests in advance do you want access to exclusive discounts with our ho your partners do you want to make sure you're invited to all of our private in-person events across the state if you answered yes to all or any of those questions you need to head to Instagram and And subscribe to our get in insiders channel for $4.

99 a month you're going to be able to ask our guests questions get great discounts and above all help us fund all this amazing Indiana content that we create head over to Instagram @nate spangle And subscribe now let's get back to the episode what's been your favorite recipes to explore like learn about lately I've been doing the omares thing I don't know if you saw where I was trying to make like the world's hardest omelet where they do like the where they swirl it and then it makes it real like goopy on the inside and then they lay it on top of rice and then cut it it I didn't see never see those no but dude I think our algorithms might be slightly different like I'm getting like history of like the milin Indians and hooers and and you're getting fancy French omelets or whatever it is no like this this is big Japanese thing omous omelets no dude but again like you're the food expert like I'm uh like I I get most of my Cuisine from like a Chipotle or a Chick-fil-A unfortunally I do need good recipes what okay here we go let's go there what are like two or three good recipes for2 7 year old who's busy honestly if you so like if you got a rice cooker at home I mean like high quality protein vegetable and rice so like a lot of times I don't show it on camera because it's not as exciting I'll just make like you know a bunch of like either steak or a bunch of chicken I'll cut it up into bits and I'll season it and all that I'll put it in with just rice and like broccoli or something and that's what I'll eat through lunches throughout the week like a stir fry if you can nail the stir fry where it's like a good fried rice kind of style thing you can get some pretty nutrient-dense food okay so talk like let's go through steak rice broccoli you're just like cooking up a medium rare steak season it all the stuff there like in a pan in a skillet you can or you can Grill it you know a lot of people like they don't like to use a bunch of propane up for just one steak so like they'll cook a whole you know a bunch of it at one time like go up to Costco and load it up and then go make it all you know just kind of playing your meals or meal preps that way whenever you're on your way home I don't have to worry about dinner cuz I've had a bad day or long day or whatever it's ready to go I don't have to worry about driving through the drive-thru and eating it cuz then you'll look like me or bigger right you know yeah dude that is Holy Smokes like I am trying to limit that's my 2025 resolution money dude you spend like last yesterday I I'll expose myself yesterday I went to Chick-fil-A and I got a salad did you get the new fries dude they're different they are different Chick-fil-A I noticed it I saw granted I didn't notice it well I noticed something was different and then I saw the video and I was like I knew I noticed something um but I got a salad a drink fries $17 I was like if I just get the normal meal like if I just get like a spicy chicken sandwich fries in a drink it's like nine the salad added like 20 bucks to it I was like this is crazy it's um it's expensive to eat to eat not only to eat out but to eat healthy eat out I mean it's not cheap all right date night I want to impress my girlfriend what should I be making date night date night oh man uh I want to like I want to wow a little bit but I'm also not that good of a cook what you like like so she likes a Mexican food tacos that kind of thing we do bowls salads pasta no literally okay it's funny you said that cuz I ask what she's like and she's like oh I like like the list is like on of like eight she likes everything like 90 different things you like beef stroganov I like the old Hamburger Helper beef strogen off you know what I'm talking about there that growing up as a kid that fire so make that homemade or you can do I have a recipe for homemade lasagna I make it where it makes two pans cuz I like to freeze one and then have it for later I learned that from Luke cooking the Midwest and cheat code always make more for later for always make more for later yeah and uh the lasagna is almost homemade because you're using a lot of like you know pasta sauce and things like that but that it seems like a very high quality meal you'd have to go out to bua De beo to get you know what I dude uh lasagna is a labor of love it's not that hard what I feel like it takes hours to make lasagna two hours caps two hours cuz don't you have to cook all the noodles right you like you cook all the noodles first and you put like a layer down and then you put a layer and then is that not how you do it you can buy noodles that are you don't have to cook prior I did it where you did and then I layered them but you can also buy the ones where you don't have to dude I just remember my mom was like yeah this this Sunday evening I'm making this onion start at like 2 and finish at like 8 but it was like she would also make like Seven Pans of it or whatever you know cuz it's like you freeze lasagna for later that was like what we do uh okay so so go on there find the beef strogov recipe make that next time either beef strog off for lasagna if you make that lasagna there we go all busy parents what's the recipe what your busy parents you know a lot of kids lot of I mean obviously you know about having multiple kids and being busy what do you what kind of uh recipes do you recommend there my kids really really like anything that has to do with mac and cheese so like I got the most basic eater like I got the Denny's eaters at my house you know what I mean like they like mac and cheese chicken nuggets so a lot of the meals that you see me make they're they'll try it and they're like nah but like chicken pot pie I'll make I make like this big Alum aluminum pan you know I make this big aluminum pan version of chicken pop pie it's just it's like cream of chicken it's um a box of peas and carot or a bag of peas and carrots frozen peas and carrots you just put like a pie crust over the top of it it's a pretty wholesome meal for I mean it's not hard to really put together you can put it together in 30 minutes you even do it in the crock poot if you really wanted to all right all right so serve it with biscuits Pope py and biscuits there we go that's a good on the- go family meal what's been your favorite like recipe like yours that you loved eating the most maybe not preparing the most but like wow this is the best thing I've ever made I'm a taco man Taco I like tacos what's the secret to your taco taco I mean I just I have an instant pot and then you just put the beef in there to make beef Barbacoa or I make carnitas in there so we have a local Mexican restaurant in what's it called Greensburg Al chil Pano everybody everybody talks about if you if you visit Greensburg Indiana and you go over to elaro it's good it's great don't get me wrong the food's great there but there's this little hole in the wall place called el pablano over there by the Dollar Tree behind Burger King that yes sir yes sir and I don't make it so busy I can't go there no more you know what I mean oh people love the El chili pablano and Greensburg baby we're ripping that yeah it it's good and uh so I asked the guy that cooks over there I'm like how do you guys season all your uh your your meat I was like I don't I'm not going to tell the internet how it's done I'll I'll alter it a little bit and he gave me a list that I couldn't read it was in Spanish so Google translated yeah so he gave me a list I couldn't read and he just kind of looked at me and he goes this doesn't go any further than this and I was like I brother yes sir yes sir so we're not revealing the recipe on here but just know there's a special way an altered version of their recipe that I use and then off camera I add two or three spices that they told me about oh yeah the secret spices you're not reveal you're you're gatekeeping the recipe I'm not I'm not the kind of guy to just tell stories outside is schol that's fair all right so I'm going to have to go to El chili pablano down in Greensburg and say hey I I heard from a secret place that this is where you come for the meat recipe uh just kidding you do what you want they'll probably just give you a look dude I uh I love we'll talk to me about what's coming down the pipeline what's on the future what can we expect from homes cooking uh so I've been working kind of like here two hours here and there on like a website for people to come get recipes so I don't have to just like Fork through a video or go through my comment section to look where I pinned comments um or if you just don't want to you know if you don't want to go through all my videos to find the specific one you can go on there and type it in and find it pretty easy yeah um I just signed up with a merch company to do shirts how do you feel about that shirts yeah it was weird at first but like is just going to be a homes Cooking logo or are you going to do like different sayings or what so there's three at first so the idea was you have fans that obviously want to support you yeah I mean how many people do you know that have get in shirts I haven't dropped any oh dude I'm like holding off on it cuz cuz so my big thing and this is controversial on merch right and you have a huge audience like you know 5 million people almost so like they're not paying you money necessarily but you're making money from them watching videos right and seeing the ads and things like that but they're also like oh I want to want to you know support you or whatever and I totally get that I just didn't want to go sell out and be the like slap just my logo on a shirt and rip it like if it's going to be uh I want it to be a brand that people are proud of and it's like quality and it's not just like a Vista Print t-shirt that's my personal opinion on it so I went to you know who Roman Atwood is I've heard the name big YouTuber yeah yeah so he he created his own merch company called bunker branding and you can't even talk to the these people without half a million followers on on a platform no way that they're they're very exclusive they only want to do work for certain for a certain type you know how if you go online you see groupings of people they kind of get labeled as oh those are the people that work with this company or whatever so if you think about like Black Rifle Coffee Company yeah the people that are all like military esque kind of you know the Joe Rogan ja Joo black Black Rifle joean yeah C you I mean like real heavy militares they're in that kind of wheelhouse so they're very pro-american Pro freedom things like that Pro you know but uh I told them I'm like look I don't really feel like I have to do merch but I'd love to do it if I worked with you guys he created his own company and then these other people run it and they do a really good job they work with like donut operator the fat electrician these big YouTubers that are all military based or people that are veterans so I was like look I I never served in the armed services and I respect anybody that does like I've got you know my grandpa served and he you know he was in the Air Force lieutenant colonal in the Air Force before you know he passed and then my other grandpa served as well and I have a lot of military in my family told him I wanted to work with them because I wanted to work with the American company because they do all their stuff here so whenever I get the sample shirts in if they're great then we'll have them I like that that is different than going on and hooking up to Vista Print and like you slap you know Cheapo on whatever and rip it out there that's where I get like oh I told the guy that works in their design department for their marketing I'm like look you guys do this professionally I'm not going to give a whole lot of input other than like possibly colors and stuff they brought me that and I'm like where do I sign yeah like I'm not looking at margins I'm not looking at how much I can that's not what I'm doing it builds Community around your community right it's like people will be like oh my gosh is that a home's cooking t-shirt like let's go so and they're all like in public like you know at the county fair you're wearing one that shirt and someone goes they're going to say the line and it'll be pumped up right yeah I mean like there's a certain expectation like if you have a shirt like that it needs to be wearable right so I wanted to make sure it was like decent quality good print and I wanted to make sure they can bring one that's in my size cuz I know a lot of people especially in America you know have varying sizes so they go all the way up to like four and 5x I think there you go so not a lot of companies offer Beyond two really so the big back Community is going to be really EXC ex about that the big back Community that's what they call it online there's a whole Facebook I know I've seen uh Marcus traveling foodie guide he's been talking about the big back Community lately and it's just it's so funny I'm just like not far enough down the foodie content that I totally get all the plays but I love it I think it's I mean it's I mean clearly it's been working for you I you know honestly I don't like to get it too far into it and make too many jokes because I know it's sensitive to a lot of people but honestly if you can't make fun of yourself you can't have fun you know what I mean like don't take yourself too serious if you take yourself too seriously it's a recipe for the internet to hurt you honestly you know and it's like you got to understand like when I go out there and I'm like my biggest one is energy like this dude just screams into the camera he's so loud H and I'm like that's me like I get right up in there and I scream and I yell and I like and I even like edit as tightly together so it's like I never even breathe and it's just it's great yeah I uh I made the mistake of like being like really wore out one day and tired and you can hear me in the camera heavy breathing they're like when did Darth Vader let himself go and I was like man I was like I got to edit this better yeah right it's like but then you see some of them and you're like sometimes I try to like you know comment back and I my rules like if it's really really bad like everyone gets one like I'm not going to get into an internet war with anybody but I'll just like let them know that there's a person behind the keyboard but sometimes like people just have good zingers and I'm just like damn game respects game dude like that's good you fried me I had one one time that it hit me I was like man that's creativity they told me my my hand look like pigs feet and I'm sitting there like like Waring my hand trying to figure it out and I'm like I hate you like you got me like you can't even clap back at that one it's like oh good uh dude this has been so fun thank you we're coming down to the final round of the or final segment of the show we had a few fun cooking questions in a few segments here and then our lightning round first question this is our younger year segment it's brought to you by our friends or Fellowship they're a great organization here in Indiana helping develop young Business Leaders across the state Justin what advice would you give to your 22-year-old self the internet is a wild place to make money um there's a lot of people that go on there for business things self-help look at it more of what can I add to this to make it more I would rather be a Creator than a consumer whenever you take yourself out of the consuming qu equation and put yourself in as the Creator you can literally look at anything what service is this being provided what where where can I put myself in here for instance how many of these podcasts are out there that focus on Indiana you're providing a service that nobody probably provided before that or wanted to try but you did diligently put into it long enough to where you're the the biggest Indiana podcast right that would it's that way with anything show up every day for work be diligent be professional and eventually your labor of love will pay off amen man I love that you know stay faithful I think it's really impactful for you in your journey especially on faith right you first year like you know what this is what I'm going to use to give back and hopefully down the road it's going to come back to you like it's speaking in volumes right that that's that's super cool man I don't know if I ever told the internet this but Church actually saved my life you know I was a depressed teenager that I tried to take myself three or four times you know oh man and uh I started going to a church in Greensburg Indiana and it's the apostolic Tru Tabernacle right there off the interstate and I One Night something just got a hold of me and told me life was worth living and ever since then I all the depression I it all went away and I finally had joy in my life so I owe the church and God everything you know I'm living on borrowed time because I wanted to take it away and he gave it back to me so what I'm saying so for me to give them a Year's worth of income it's nothing they they they can have my whole wife as far as I'm concerned cuz I wouldn't have had it if I would have invested it on my own man so sorry to take away from what you're no dude don't ever be sorry for that like that's a that's a powerful story uh and you never know like people listen to this might come for Content you know learning how to grow a YouTube channel or whatever but leave with like man like some you got to keep going and find those things that uh that are going to pour into your life and feed your soul so wow that's powerful we're going to take a minute and uh all right we're going to come back into the lightning round and we're going to talk talk about some fun food content here right so first question sweet or savory which one's for you Savory Savory Savory I will always take steak over a piece of cake if you if you told me all right it's either the best cheesecake you ever had which would be hard the best cheesecake you ever had or this nice beautiful riye steak with a perfect marbling I'm like stick me if it was one bite each I might choose one bite of cake over one bite of steak but like I feel like it is uh with desserts it's like first one is so good and then it just it's like D forsus Steak it's like yeah I don't even like overly sweet things like whenever you go to Dairy Queen or whatever and get a blizzard I'll always take a fruit flavor over like a chocolate or a caramel I I dude we have a similar palette on that okay dream celebrity chef to collaborate with I'd be the guy that would get cussed out on Gordon Ramsay show so I don't know if that'd be the stress that I would want in my life either Alton Brown can I just be real with you nowadays the internet people are the new Food Network yeah so I've be famous yeah anyone like that I've met most of them not in person but I've talked to a lot of them I have a lot of their numbers and I talk to them on a regular so it's like I'm already I'm Already There hell yeah so so if you were going to make a video with one other food Creator collaborative who would the Creator be I got a couple things in the works oh boy so we's just say that how about guier I'd love to see a little so Justin and guy his guy that works for him got a hold of my agency and when they found out we had our last baby they sent out a bottle of his tequila signed it's in my cabinet I'm not ever going to drink it cuz I don't drink alcohol but I do have some momentos of him and from Flav who's the uh guitar player he collaborated with for the tequila cuz I think he's on the other side of that bottle as well Santo Spirit Santo tequila yeah so he collaborated Sam Hagar with yeah Sammy Hagar so on one side of the bottle it's got guy Fier signature about that big like an actual signature or like a printed signature it's a is no way I'm assuming it's his I hope uh I didn't see him sign it so jer's out on that but on the one side it's got G Fier and on the other side it's got Sami Hagar and I'm sorry for anybody that watches this that like Sammi Hagar I didn't know who he was at the time no he was in Van Halen yeah we should know that we should know that yeah Sami Hagar he played in Van Halen that's pretty cool I mean yeah guy Fier that's dop other creators you have some collab collaborations coming down the works that's awesome man I mean you're you're making it all happen did you say you had an agency I do I work with Luma Media Group out of Canada it's a newer was that like an interesting like a weird thing getting signed like what did that how that go so a friend of mine uh I got connected to through a girl company uh he does content as well you know Richard eats he signed up with his agency and he goes oh man you you should probably do it too he said they could help us get all this because I don't like dealing with companies and stuff and all the jargon because I I talk to everybody exactly as I'm talking to you right now like I don't get on my email and the thou and all that I sophistication I hate that business professional PC has never been my work I've always been I came out of a factory man I mean that's how you know other than the profanity part of it that's how I talk I've never been good with communicating on a professional business level so I was like if they can handle that that'd be amazing so I got with them Bren and Kevin are two awesome dudes that run that agency they got a newer guy they just took on and they handle all my collaborations with Brands they handle all my inbound email like if you go go on there on any of my pages you see that Homes at media Aluma medag group.

com that is through them but they forward me any of the personal ones like a lot of people will be like hey I can't find this recipe send and then they'll like forward it over to me and then I'll deal with it from there that's guys like how long have you worked with them uh since March I think of last year so I'm coming up on a year man yeah the the agency that's so we had our year end meeting and I was talking to Braden and he goes all right I'm going to go over the numbers from last year and he was sitting there reading it off and it was like 1. 3 million people and something like that when I signed with him and he goes oh yeah now you're you know almost at four and a half it's like pretty insane qu wild T I know I know I don't deserve any of it it's it's crazy dude I you you work really hard and it's clear you have fun and passion and it's clear that the audience resonates with you I think people are just looking for normaly cuz their their life is so hectic and they got so much going on and like right now I mean if you go to the store with 30 bucks you could walk out with two things you know what I mean like back in the day you could get a whole week's worth of groceries for $30 to $50 nowadays people are just like I just want normal life are eight bucks that's wild what is the most nostalgic dish from your childhood uh chicken noodle soup uh so I grew up with a stepmom that was committed to cooking at home every single day we only went out to eat for like birthdays and special events or if she was sick so she made um a homemade dinner every single night and that was kind of where all this kind of just started I probably should have said that earlier but Joyce literally cooked the best chicken noodle soup ever when I got out on my own I told her I was like Hey I was like you should put together like a list of all these recipes and stuff like that I can use you know cuz I'm going to cook them and make them myself and that was the one that I really wanted was the homemade chicken noodle soup and it's just you know it's pretty easy to do once you look at it but the heavy cream makes the big difference in chicken noodle soup it's it's good there is well I lead us right into what's a secret ingredient you always keep stocked I guess butter but Pine style you know my wife eats a lot of popcorn so we go through a lot of butter but uh salt pepper garlic from Kinders I use a lot of that I don't work with Kinders though they make really good seasoning and it's just salt pepper garlic seasoning but it's got a little bit of other stuff in it like onion powder things like that but the way they mix it is just it's so easy just good to go I don't have to like sit and taste things and yeah who's your dream brand to work with honestly I'd rather just be myself wow like if someone like if Tyson Foods or I don't even know who the biggest like meat brand is when you start letting people in they start having a say oh and they can tell you what they want edited how they want it to look how they want their brand to look because I mean they're that's their interest you know they're putting money into you to make it look good for them so it's like nobody's going to tell me how I'm going to run my thing yeah unless it's specifically for them so like I already work with the two brands that I love you know and then um all the beef that you see on my page outside of the stuff that I pick up at the store every once in a while is all local farmer raised beef I get them from the guy I used to work with that raises cattle and I wouldn't have it any other way heck yeah you know all right so so there's some famous Indiana produce that's getting millions of views online yeah but I mean if it's in like a so if I go to the Butcher and get everything processed they put it in like individual vacuum seal bags so you'll never see like the logo yeah but like if I if you know if Sugar Creek Processing out of Westport ever wants to have a shout out Sugar Creek Processing out of Westport heck yeah cut down final question on here yeah right final question in this segment what's the biggest cooking fail you've had all right I'm going let the cat oute of the bag you want know some Secrets let's give me the secrets so there was this one time uh our freezer went out like we had a brand new freezer and we had on like an outside receptacle and they had the GFCI was in the other part of the garage where all of our stuff is and I'm like the packrat type where we got all our stuff in the garage trying to clear out the house you know cuz we we just moved a couple years ago we haven't really settled everything in quite yet we're going through stuff just moved a couple years ago haven't settled quite in yet respectable leave me alone that's just that's just how it goes you don't live there you know how it is but uh so the deal was is I'm outside cooking this brisket it's this wagu brisket that this company sent me and they're like oh we'd love to see feature it you know whatever and it wasn't going to go on my page it was all for their marketing so you'd never see my face it was all like ugc content which is a big thing also out there where you can make videos for other people and you don't have to post it yourself it's just for them not to have to pay a marketing person or whatever smaller Brands usually are the ones that do that well they had this big wag brisket the brisket is probably $3 $400 I had this Trier Grill hooked up and it was on the outside receptacle on the back of my house and I plugged it in I let it run I put the pellets in I'm like all right it's going to go for like 12 14 hours well the new freezer turned off my or flipped my GFCI and that receptacle or that GFCI is goes outside the entire perimeter of my home all the outlets outside my house so that Grill shut off and I didn't know I didn't have a probe in it or nothing cuz I didn't want a bunch of juices running out into the grill cuz them wagu meat I mean they're it's fatty so like a lot of that as soon as it gets hot it just liquefies so I had a pan for collection underneath and I was like I don't need a probe it'll be all right I'll just temp it in the morning I go out there and that brisket is only like 90° and it's been in there for like 12 hours nobody saw that video I'll just say that what did you tell them I told them I was like look I was like I had an accident this happened and they told me oh don't worry about it so uh I ended up making the video and then I told him I was like you know technically it's just not I don't know what the food restrictions on what edible I know you couldn't serve it to the public if you were a restaurant but it still looked good for the video and that was what they were after they just want to kind of like they wanted something they can post to make people interested in what they were selling so cats out of the bag there you go you one of the worst things that ever happened I don't even think I told my wife about that one so she's going to hear this and be like Justin no the $400 brisket no it they're not Che I don't I don't recomend anybody buy a wagu brisket and I'm not saying that against that company I'm just saying that you know I would much rather just go get a regular brisket you know they're and then you get two chances in case your grill turns off yeah you know you get 60 bucks you're into it I know you're pinched on time so I'm sorry for oh no I love it this is what we're here for I'm I'm all good to go all right these are the same questions we ask everyone who sits in the chair what's something the world needs to know about Indiana a lot of the places that we've been across the United States and visited people are like where you from oh Indiana Oh that's the that's where the motor speedway is at there's so much more here than just corn in the speedway man like I don't know if you're going to ask like what's the the hidden gym in Indiana that's the next question but uh if you ever want to visit a place in Indiana that's like the peak Pinnacle of places to be Brown County Indiana is beautiful they call it little Nashville for a reason like the color changes the seasons the only problem I got with it is like they shouldn't call it tour season unless you can you know deer you know what I mean like like deer hunting cuz then people will just walk out in front of your car I'm not advising hitting somebody with a vehicle I'm just saying don't step in front of my car no uh that leads us perfect into the next question right which is what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana definitely that Brown County Nashville Indiana Bean Blossom area right by Bloomington like there's so much there's a TC steel art Reserve like I grew up on Cricket Creek Road part of the time of my childhood like horse trails everywhere if you're a nature person at all you like the color of the leag or if you're a photographer there's so much out there to go out and see they have the really huge cabin like set up where you can go and pretty much get any cabin out in any location I I don't know when they have reservations open but they have so many beautiful places to be in that area like that's literally like if I had a vacation here that's where I would go yeah I know you're not a drinker but the food at the Hard truth Distillery dude they they have some good people in the kitchen working stuff up there we had some some super good stuff and there's like a ton of just new stuff and I think this is the interesting piece I bet over the next 5 to 10 years Brown County is going to get more commercialized which is good but then at some point you'll hit to the point where it's not good yeah so if you got kids though and you're just looking for a cool place to be with your kids locally the Columbus Commons Commons Mall cumins puts it on that is that's seriously like it's Peak I mean like for for a nice place for kids to be like if you're downtown in Columbus Indiana like there's so much there between the kids Commons and the regular Commons for kids so if you have like if you have younger kids need somewhere for them to go and play and release a bunch of energy like I do I got five of them you know and uh there there's a huge climbing structure within there and then there's all kinds of activities and stuff in the kids Commons the commons itself is free right the kids Commons I think there's a pay admission I'm not really sure I haven't been there in a long time but cumin I know they own half of Columbus but or 75% yeah maybe 90 yeah but you know but they they've really put a lot of money back into the city you know they there's Sarah land there's you know there's the commons the kids Commons all the park systems like between Brown County and Columbus Columbus is a good spot and a lot of cool architecture and art in that Community all right you want to hear a story yeah I want to hear the story so when I was in high school right they were putting like the you know how they have AOS the big statue that's over by the park it's the the goddess AOS I think is what her name so whenever you're leaving town like towards the Red Bridge when you're getting on 46 I think going towards Brown County on the right side there's all these little statues so I had a teacher that took a toilet put a toilet out upside down out there and like spray painted it gray and it looked like one of those statues and nobody really noticed it for a couple days so that's why just cuz some people were people love the art like it's like an architectural place a lot of people are well known but people that are local are like why is the city spending money on some of this stuff but yeah but it's a I get why they do it yeah I mean it's like I'm we're on a podcast in Indianapolis and we're talking about the art of Columbus Indiana you know that's pretty cool uh final question for it who is a hooer that we need to keep on our radar someone you know who's doing big things I really wish Miles Turner would stay in Indiana cuz I've been hearing a lot of rumors he's leaving but I mean like you talk about genuine people that are celebrities and I I'm sure I could name off 150 different people that are genuine real big business people and I don't know of any other athletes that like talk about their Lego collection yeah right and then like he'll like if you get on his Instagram you'll have like oh here's me in Paris here's me leaving the game with my Lou bag here's me building The Avengers Tower you know what I mean like he's just he's himself that's him you know what I mean like it'd be cool to meet him someday but obviously he's at a different place and a different level than I am well if you ever want miles if you ever want to do some cooking content hit us up that would be sick or build some Legos yeah he we uh my wife and I have a a Lego collection and I was supposed to start doing content about that but takes a lot of time to put together a Lego set so if you think about filming on one of these just a podcast imagine editing like a 9h hour build oh gosh and how would you remember the like oh this was a good line that I had during this thing oh I wouldn't talk it' just be you know good for you buddy all right Justin thank you so much for coming on it's been fun uh we went for an hour and a half this I feel like I could go for three we could do a full Rogan episode on this one right got all day if you want we are going to wrap it up but dude it's been fun thank you for spreading Joy with your content I think it is very very evident how passionate you are and your personality shows through and it makes it fun to watch you know and I think that's that's literally why we do this right it's by building entertaining creating entertaining content that hopefully brings a little bit of joy to people's lives thank you man I appreciate you having me on and thanks for the invite maybe I'll come back you never know yeah maybe we do a checkin and talk about I I've said that I wanted to do Indiana cooking recipe and Justin has firmly said no uh he's calling me out so he wants me to make like a like a size pork tenderloin and I told him I was like I'll tell you what no no like sugar sugar cream pie like I'm going to think of like other like essential hooer it's really just a pork tender line yeah we could do it it would be fun you could you should you should do it hence you right all right well hey man appreciate you coming on and we'll talk soon all right all right man thank you thank you for listening to this episode of get in if you like what you heard make sure you leave us a review wherever you live listen to podcast this show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level click the link in the description to see all of my gear recommendations at sweetwater.

com if you want to behind the scenes look at everything we're doing across the state make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tac at Nate spangle thank you so much for listening and being part of what makes the hooer steak great we'll see you next time here on get in