SPEAKER_05 0:00

You're listening to Angry Digital, the podcast show to help you build, manage, grow, and scale a thriving and successful brand powered by Angry Digital Inc. I'm your host, Ishawn Riveri. And I'm here today with our featured guest, Andreas. Andreas is the Peter McKinnon of Wedding Video. So I hear. Andreas, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Appreciate the invite, man. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_05 0:30

Of course. So tell me a little bit about what you do and what Andreas Lopez.com and your videography company, Andreas Lopez Films, does.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah. So I pretty much tell people that we are a media company that specializes in wedding, photo, and video. And yeah, that's pretty much what we do. We work in the wedding industry, we service mostly the Atlanta and Georgia area. Sometimes we do have out-of-state weddings, but we mostly focus on the Georgia space. And we pretty much do wedding documenting for photo, for video for all of our couples. Cool. So how long have you been doing this? Honestly, man, I've been doing this for almost a decade now. I think I started back in 2017. Those are like my earliest days of documenting weddings. So I'm a year shy from making a making it a decade long. Wow. Nine years. Yeah. It's been a journey, man. Like it's definitely evolved a lot over the last couple years as far as like systems, as far as style, as far as presentation. When I first started off, it was really more of like a hobby. Okay. I started when I was junior, senior in high school, and I pretty much figured that, hey, I have this set of skills that I can use. And one day it clicked to me, why don't I use these skills to make money essentially? Yeah. And I don't mean to sound like salesy or slimy or anything, but I was 17 at the time and I, you know, I came to that realization. I think those were kind of the first couple of days, first, you know, my my first couple of days of having an entrepreneurial mindset, having a business mindset.

SPEAKER_05 2:03

Yeah. So was it what was the first gateway? Like, what was the first point when you transitioned from doing this as a fun thing, a gig on the side? Was your first gig paid? Was it free? Like, what was that moment when you realized that Eureka moment where you're like, oh wait. You know, every entrepreneur has that moment where it's like you're addicted and there's no turning back.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

That's you know, to answer your first question, dang, that's a good question. I'm trying to, I'm trying to remember if there was a turning point. I think within my business there were a handful of turning points when I realized that this is something that can actually be, you know, done full-time and you know scaled. When I was in college, my freshman year, I didn't exactly know what I wanted to do. And I was doing a little bit of everything. I had just I had been doing videography for about three years, I had been doing photography for a couple months, and I had this business on the side, but my my vision was to go the traditional route of going through college, going through university, and then just getting a regular job. I actually didn't know what I wanted to major in or, you know, do for my life. I just knew that I had a hobby, I had school, and I went through so much internal battle, you know, carrying those two things. And I think the turning point for me, or at least one of the first ones, was when I started booking more people, you know, booking more clients and realizing that, hey, like what I do is scalable. And I realized that I don't have to go the traditional route. This is something that I can actually make into a full-time thing. This isn't just for fun. This isn't just a side thing. This is something that can replace, you know, a traditional nine-to-five. So I think my junior or senior year of college is when it finally I had another turning point when I had to make a decision between do I want to disappoint my clients in the wedding space or do I want to disappoint my university professors? Because I couldn't do both. I was either going to miss client deadlines and I didn't realize how detrimental that was, you know, keeping a good reputation, making sure you have great reviews online, or I was gonna miss class and miss assignments and you know, ultimately fail. So that was another, I would say that was probably my second or third turning point. I realized that, hey, you know, screw this, let me just focus on the wedding space. And I decided to just drop out, and yeah, I haven't turned back since.

SPEAKER_05 4:29

Amazing. So here's a question. So you said disappointing your professors, right? Now, is that was that really disappointing your professors or your parents?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

That's a that's a good question. I think it was definitely a combination of both.

SPEAKER_05 4:47

Yeah. So your professors were very supportive. Seems like they were encouraging.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

With professors, I didn't I don't think I had any strong connections with any of them. I don't think I can think of one that I had like a deep one-on-one connection with. And honestly, when I look back at it, I had more time in contact with my professors than with my parents. At the time, I wasn't living with my parents. I was, you know, living closer to university. Yeah. So I definitely had a lot more points of contact with my university professors. With my parents, it definitely, you know, there definitely was that degree of letting them down, disappointing them, having to live by their standards.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

And I think a big part of that too has to do with being a first gen here in the States. And I'm sure you can relate to, but yeah, man, like my parents, ever since I've grown up, they've always thought that education was going to be the key to everything. And if you don't have an education, then you don't you're not really gonna amount to anything. Absolutely. And I think there was also a lot of layers built in psychologically into both my parents. My my mom has a brother who's a doctor, and he was able to basically take himself out of poverty becoming you know a doctor and opening up his own practice and scaling that. And then my dad, he actually was a failed entrepreneur like two or three times. He's tried several times opening up a restaurant business, and it never worked for him. So he had that limiting belief that this doesn't work. It didn't work for me, so it's not gonna work for anyone. And I'm sure also the pressure of being a parent, I'm sure them looking, you know, down upon me. Yeah, he, you know, obviously casted that and and you know, of course, thought that if it didn't work for me, it's not gonna work for my site. So there was a little bit of the, you know, I'm sure a little bit of his ego in that regard that uh if he couldn't do it, then you know, how could I do it?

SPEAKER_05 6:30

Yeah, so it's a fear almost a fight or flight where it's like mirroring exactly you're projecting. Yeah, it's funny because my dad he came to this country with $4,000. And when I was born, at that time he had a business, it was a gas station, the two of them, which ended up there was a terrible issues with the landlord and went bankrupt. So during my entire childhood, like what I've seen and known, reflect back on it, is that I watched my dad go from nothing to having a kid, but never feeling like I I was missed out, you know. He they always made sure that I always maybe they couldn't afford things at the time, but they always got me what I what they could, right? And never made me feel like you know, I was like any less fortunate, right? But then turning that around and watching him, you know, have the ability to put me in a place like you've seen that that's like I think that played a big role on my mindset. So I completely relate to that. And from your experience of dropping out of college, I also dropped out of college as an entrepreneur. So, you know, it wasn't my intention to drop out of college. I was a straight A student, I was on the presidential honors list. I enjoyed it. I really did enjoy it. I took a break. That break has been seven years, you know, six years. So, like no regrets there, and more now. I mean, I could go back and finish my degree, but I feel like it would honestly take away from the flex of yeah, you know, I'm proud of it. I'm proud of it. That that's a big thing to do, you know, like especially when your peers are all going to finish school, start mastering money, you know. It's like, but there's a point that was for a Eureka moment for me, it was like with e-commerce, it was like one day I was just doing this thing I enjoyed, right? I'm just having fun. It's like if it works, it works, if it doesn't, it's there's nothing there's nothing to lose here. It was my secondary thing. That was the easiest time to make money. The easiest time was when it was not a chore, when there was no pressure and it was just for fun. It literally went from like making zero dollars being a couple thousand dollars in debt to run ads and that kind of stuff, to like surplus of ten thousand a day. But again, you have to learn a lot of things to learn in e-commerce. But was it like that for you too? Like when did you end up leaving school?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yeah. So I definitely feel like I had a safety net for a while. You know, because I started my industry very young, you know, from the ages of 17 to 21, I was still under like my parents' roof, under their paycheck. So I definitely had that safety net. So doing, you know, the wedding industry was something that came, you know, being in the wedding industry was something that was like, you know, trial or error, like if I failed, I failed oh well. And then as far as as far as when did I drop out? I think this was back in 2021. And actually, it's funny, I had dropped out of school twice. How old are you? 26. About I turned 27 next month.

SPEAKER_05 10:00

Okay. I'm I just turned 25, so that's crazy because oh, so you were a senior? Were you senior in Jersey?

SPEAKER_00 10:06

I was a I was a fourth year, but I definitely got mixed in with like the the wrong crowd, so I was definitely you know a few credits behind. I was a fourth year, but on paper, I think I was like a junior.

SPEAKER_05 10:19

Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah, that's crazy. Like I I left to I left school with like such a formidable amount of credits left that like my my advisors were like, dude, do you literally have to take like two electricity? Just graduate already graduate. And I was like, I don't have time right now. I'm like managing ops. Yeah. Did you have any like professors that knew about what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Hmm. I'm trying to think back about different relationships I had with professors. I think it was more so my counselor. I think with one of my counselors, she did know just because you know, we sat down, she looked at my credits, she looked at my grades, and she's like, what is going on? And she didn't quite understand. And you know, I explained it to her. And I think her she understood, and you know, she's she's kind of brainwashed by the university system. She works for you know the system. So for her, it was easy to be like, hey, like, forget about that crap, like, reel it back in. For me, it was easy, like, hey, like, I'm young. I'm I don't I like this, my heart's in this direction, like I don't know what I'm doing, you know, naive. I'm 20, 21. Uh so I was still, you know, very naive, but I knew my heart, I feel like my heart and my mind have always guided me in the right direction. The gut. Yeah, I've always had that gut feeling. Right. And to this day, it's like not let me down. So it will never let you down.

SPEAKER_05 11:44

Your gut's always right. You know, it's your second brain. If your gut's telling you something, listen to it. Seriously. Like your gut knows, like you know before you know. That is your brain telling you that feeling. Your gut is like, what like what's an emotion? An emotion's a chemical reaction in the body. That's all it is, right? But it's always in motion that comes before thought. So first the emotion fires, and then the response to the emotion is you realizing what that is, and it's a thought, right? So your gut will tell you first, you'll feel it first, and then you'll realize it. So if your gut tells you something, trust it.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

That's funny. You just reminded me of one of my high school professors, and she was actually the film professor that I had. And that was one thing that she really emphasized was you know, trusting your gut. And I get it's funny, like seeing certain themes, you know, play out in your life. When you're younger, you hear them and you don't quite understand them. And you know, you're in high school, you think you know everything. Your ego tells you, like, oh, like understand this, you don't have to tell me. And then you know, years later you it resonates with you. You really understand. You're like, oh shit, like you understand it to a deeper, deeper level.

SPEAKER_05 12:55

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And even with like, did you take any classes in college? What was your major?

SPEAKER_00 13:02

You know, funny enough, I knew I wanted to do something in business when I got to college.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

And I didn't know exactly what in business I wanted to do. So my second year, I said, you know, screw it, like, let me just do accounting. And uh that that was actually my major. It was accounting and yeah, that's funny. Yeah, see, mine was finance.

SPEAKER_05 13:19

So we were we were right there.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, huh? I see a lot of parallels between like your backstory and my backstory. So that's really funny.

SPEAKER_05 13:26

Yeah, that's really funny. Yeah, because I always I always like with look at the stock market, I started investing in penny stocks really young. Like I'm talking about like middle school, high school, like penny stock trading on fake cash, like paper money, think or swim. That was like my hobby. I would I it thought it was crazy that I could just take money. My uh uncle explained it to me like this if you take this five dollars and you put it in the drawer. Imagine you open the drawer in five days and there's ten dollars in there. That's that's what it's like when you put money in stocks. But I was like, yo, give me all these drawers, you know. But he also said, okay, but if you put it in the wrong drawer, there could be nothing in there. It all depends on how you make the decision.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

That's a good like comparison, that's a good metaphor. Like, I definitely need to teach that to my kids when you know get to raising them.

SPEAKER_05 14:20

Yeah, so then immediately I'm thinking, like, then why would you put money in the drawer? Period. He was like, but it's not like 50-50 when you like flip a coin, half the time it's heads, half the time it's tails. It's like you can make the right decision by looking at this crazy colorful chart, right? So that's all I understood. I was probably six or seven, yeah. Funny enough, that got me into Terry College. That was my that was my application essay. But in finance, me studying finance, it I always had a different mindset than my peers. My peers would be like regurgitate this information on a test. For me, I was like, yo, I can take this information and make money with it.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Hmm.

SPEAKER_05 15:04

That's how that's how that's another parallel.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Yeah, that's another parallel that I'm thinking about with my film, you know, background, taking film in high school. That's exactly the same realization I had, you know, one day realizing like shit, like these are skills. Why don't we put them to use? Why don't we actually do something with them?

SPEAKER_05 15:18

I always thought classes like that, you know, people would kind of just fuck around in school. Really?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

They they would just kind of like BS their way through things or like just kind of treat it like it's like I feel like there's with school, I feel like it's both parties' fault. I think the school system is very fucked up here in America.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Agree.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

And I think that the students also have a lack of account accountability. So I think it's definitely the fault of both people. I think with school, we don't really school teaches it backwards, if I'm being honest. School gives you the lesson and then gives you the test. Yeah. But real life gives you the test and then you learn the lesson. So that's one thing that I think the school system has completely inverted. I agree.

SPEAKER_05 16:02

Wow. That's that's very that's a good way to put it. Because we actually learn from experience. Exactly. We learn from failure. The brain's neuroplastic, right? The neuroplasticity of the brain, it actually changes when you fail. The most effective way for you to grow and learn a skill is to fail.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

So people school do it punishes failure. In reality, it should be rewarding it if you think about it.

SPEAKER_05 16:25

Absolutely. Because if you don't, if you fail at something, your brain changes. If your brain changes, you do it differently next time, whether you like it or not. So now that you're terrified of failing, we create this in what what happens with analysis paralysis. You know, the brain the thought of failing, the thought of future failure hurts two times more than actually failing. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

And I feel like with I realized that this is one thing that I realized early on is that we're more scared of the unknown than what's actually gonna play out.

SPEAKER_05 17:03

Absolutely. Yeah, it's a fear of the unknown. That's anxiety. We're creating this like our brain's trying to take the past, predict the future, and we're scared. Our brain's telling us okay, the thought of future failure quite literally hurts us more two and a half times more than if you were to actually go out and fail. But here's the here's the actual crazy part the thought of future success, we can't feel any of the pleasure. None. So we cannot think about future success and feel the pleasure of it, but we can feel two times actually failing. Yeah, and that's there to protect us, right? Right. It's survival, but we are not equipped today. Our biology is not equipped today to support the pressure of school, the pressure of I need to make it, and that's why we have professors like the one that would tell you, like come back to reality. Yeah, reel it back in. Yeah, reel it back in. Come on, stop stop dreaming. Literally, word for word, what she was saying too.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Yeah, but I mean maybe she should start dreaming, you know? Yeah, but honestly, you know, I I did hear that a lot growing up, whether it was in school, whether it was in peers, whether it was like my parents, like I've always had people doubt me, and I've always had people second-guess me, and I've always had people underestimate me. And I eventually learned to channel those things. So now the way my operating system works, anytime someone doesn't believe in me or someone has an ounce of negativity, right? Targeted towards me, I'm actually able to use that as energy. I'm able to use that as like, all right, motherfucker, I'm gonna prove you wrong. I'm gonna prove you wrong. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 18:49

That's how I am too, dude. Like, tell me I can't do something, and it just drives you. Yeah, it drives you. Yeah, I won't even say a word to you. You're gonna realize it on your own, and you're gonna come to me and be like, shit, dude. Like, you're right. Like, how did you do that? You know, they always this is always how it goes. First, they'll ask you why you're doing something, then they'll ask you how you did it. Exactly. Always ask, always doubt you first. They'll always ask you why. So I always like to move in silence. You know, whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it because I like doing it. But every single time somebody's told me I can't do something. It's like endless fuel. Yeah. Every time I prove them wrong. Tell me I can't do something. Like, that is the biggest fucking thing that you can do to make me do something.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

And you know it's crazy because 99% of people don't have that. Yeah. So I think I don't know, I don't even know what to call that. Like that that trait alone. I don't know what to call that, but if you have that, I think you are destined for success.

SPEAKER_05 19:47

Yeah. You set your mind to something, you're gonna get it. Do you have ADHD?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

You think I might have ADHD? No, I'm just I'm I'm just curious to be asking. I have I've never been diagnosed professionally with ADHD, but I've been told by other people that I might have ADHD. Yeah, and I've shown symptoms of ADHD, and I do have a very my my mind isn't easy to turn off. Like it tends to go on a rampage. So who knows? Like I've never been diagnosed, yeah, but I would see as like a superpower.

SPEAKER_05 20:23

Love it. I have I have diagnosed ADHD, and up to I didn't take medications until I was in my senior year of high school. So for me, I was always fighting myself. It was always like, I know that I can do something. I have everyone would tell me that I'm smart, but I'm not taking advantage of my potential. But with ADHD, it's like, bro, how the fuck like it do I do this? It's like, you know, it's like if there's something I want to do, I I could do it with such efficacy and with so much dedication that like it's unparalleled.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

I'm the exact same way.

SPEAKER_05 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

And I've been told, it's funny, my my fiance, she will call me out on things, she will notice things, she'll notice, she's very good at noticing patterns, and she's very good at like noticing like traits in people.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

And uh that's one thing that she says about me constantly is that when I focus on something, I don't just focus on something, I hyper focus and I hyperfixate and it to a degree where you would think I'm addicted to that thing. Right. So I my brain operates the the way my thoughts operate, it's it's like a machine gun, it just fires. But then once like I'm focused, I'm like a sniper rifle. Like I I get it.

SPEAKER_05 21:42

Yeah, yeah. It's like it's kind of like you know how in Dave and Busters are like those those little arcade games, there's like a water gun and then you start hitting it dead in the center, but you get so lasered into that where it's not gonna move no matter what. It's like when you're driving on the highway and like you miss an exit because you're Like, so it you're an autopilot basically. You're an autopilot? That's like it's like that, except extended periods of time doing some task like editing a video. It's like you're in that zone, you look up and it's like, wait, it's eight hours later.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah, dude. I I get that, man. And I'm very when it comes to me doing work, I am very religious about it. I like to do what I call work blocks. And it's funny, I started using this word like when I was like 17, 18. I would lock myself in a room and just work, grind out for like three, four hours. And uh people would think I'm crazy, you know, sitting in front of a computer just locking in. And I, you know, am very intentional with my environment as well when it comes to like where I'd like to work. I like to make it very work-centered, very easy to focus. And yeah, man, like I'm I'm no stranger to like, you know, kick people out or be religious about it. So I I definitely get that.

SPEAKER_05 22:54

That's fire. So, like, like my brother, he's he also has ADHD. You know, he was medicated at an earlier age. My parents, I mean, my teachers knew at a really young age that, hey, your kid is kind of like he's not here. He's somewhere else, and he's never he's not here. So my my parents like didn't want to put me on medication at a young age. I'm glad they didn't. But I learned how to grind for real, like how how to actually like pull it off every time, last minute, right? Everyone. Or you were a last minute kid for assignments, for project. I couldn't if I tried. I mean, I wanted to so bad. Immigrant parents, my mom's Indian, like, oh my god, it was terrifying. So, I mean, but yeah, I guess that's where like the not giving a shit came from, is because you know, I I realized that like no matter how hard I try, like I'm going to, I'm going, I'm not gonna be able to do this because I don't want to do it, but I know I can, so I never stopped believing in myself because I could apply myself in other areas. But then my senior year, it was like putting on glasses. I was like, this is the easiest shit ever, right? So I was like fucking straight a like it was like it was like a drug. I was like hyper focused on like not hyper focused, it's just the ability. I was addicted to it, like being able to like do what I wanted to do. Yeah, so that kind of carried through into college. I mean, I literally had a hundred percent average absurd for a college student. Now I look at it, I don't know why I needed to do that. I had to prove it to myself. So I never thought I'd drop out. So think about how big of a turn that would have taken, honestly, like COVID too. Like, but if I didn't have that equipment, like my brother, he was medicated young. Yes, he has social life, he doesn't take meds anymore. And he's a junior in high school, he does fine. That perseverance, do you think that has something to do with it too? Like you did you I feel like you have just the right amount to where you're able to teach yourself methods, like you have the systems in place to keep your mind focused and channel it. And now that you've taken out the what I don't want to do, and you have the stimulus of money to come into the picture and sustains you, that's your drug.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

I think my drug for me, man, is definitely I think it definitely is a little bit uh like pride. Yeah. I think that's what keeps me move keeps me moving. And I do have a very like fuck you mindset. Yeah. Where it's I hate to I hate to say like selfish, but I do have that switch where the things I want to, the things that I want to achieve are gonna be my priority.

SPEAKER_05 25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

And I want them bad enough where nothing else really matters.

SPEAKER_05 26:02

Absolutely. How does that work with your relationship?

SPEAKER_00 26:05

You know, it's it's not easy. Like it's it's not, it definitely is tough, man. And I think that's uh, you know, I've had to learn a lot of lessons in my relationship. And you know, it goes through cycles. Like I think I go through different seasons too. The best way I I describe, you know, my routines is it feels like a constant juggle. Yeah. And then even the internal battles I have within myself, it feels like a juggle. You know, sometimes I'm balancing, sometimes I'm balancing balancing diet, sometimes I'm balancing fitness, sometimes I'm balancing balancing like me doing boxing. I balance my business, the metrics I'm trying to hit, the revenue targets I'm trying to hit, and then you know, a relationship on top of that. And I realized that with everything I try to juggle, there's only so much that I can juggle. And there's always gonna be at least one or two things that slip.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

And you know, at times it has been my diet, at times it has been the gym, at times it has been the business or my relationship. But I realized that, you know, those those seasons, those cycles, that kind of is my normal.

SPEAKER_05 27:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

My normal is in balance.

SPEAKER_05 27:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

And a lot of people, they you know, you know, they talk about balance so much, but I feel like life, you know, life happens in waves. There's not necessarily like a steady, you know, line. There's not, you know, if there's a steady line, you're dead. Yeah. That's when you flatline. Absolutely. But as far as you know, day-to-day, you know, every year it's comes in seasons. It's gonna come as a wave.

SPEAKER_05 27:33

Absolutely. Yeah, no, that's a that's a great way to put it. For me, too, is like very good at multitasking. Well, not multitasking where I'm doing two things at once, like, but it's also a disease for me where I'm like, I'll try to I'll do multiple things at once. Like I have 50 tabs open on my computer, and I'll literally sit there like doing while this loads, I'll do this. While this loads, I'll do this. While this loads, I'll do this. That kind of sounds like you're just trying to break bottlenecks at the end of the day. Yeah, no, I mean I just hate, I'm impatient, but that's also like I have to force myself to create multiple profiles on my computer. I have a profile for because I have six companies. So I'm in wearing a lot of hats. It's like CEO of this, it's like, yo, tech support, hey, how can I help you? Like, or real quick, like, yo, did you get the finance reports in today? Did you cancel these subscriptions? Like, we're burning cash. We're literally pouring gas on plain cash right now. Pick up the phone. Hey, Ice Dazzle, how can I help you today? Oh, you want it your ring sized? Oh, you got a ring from us last year, and what's the matter? Oh, you want to get the rhodium plating back on it. Okay, give me just a second, let me put you on hold. Paris watch company. Right? So it's being able to do that is my stimulus. But I always, you know, up to just a couple of years ago, maybe two years ago, I thought I could just keep going, you know, with different things until I realized that you cannot be the master of all.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

I agree with that completely. I think uh early on, I early on as well for me. I realized that I I heard this phrase, and I think I think where we're gonna be on this, we might be on the same page. You can let me know if you disagree, but a jack of all traits is a master of none. Yeah. And I discovered that early on, because I've always had people, you know, approach me when they've seen like the the set of skills I've had. They've told me, you know, hey, like you should also diversify in like different fields. Like you do videography, you should you do photography, videography, like don't just do weddings, do real estate, do commercials, do this long laundry list of you know, different industries. And sometimes, you know, like it sounds like a good idea on paper, but it's hard, you know, it's it's you can burn yourself out very easily wearing so many different hats. And oh yeah, even you know, I've had that, you know, I've had that idea of like, hey, like why don't I start a second business? But for me, I've I've always been rewarded the most when I've just doubled down on what I'm already doing.

SPEAKER_05 30:08

Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Like for me, it's been like hard. It's hard to double down because the ideas, especially when I was young, like would come to me and they would work. Because when you hit that success early, you know how to make it work. I got lucky because I was able to see it work early. And that showed me that it's possible. Just seeing that it's possible is huge. Like for people listening, understanding that it is possible to make fifty, sixty, seventy thousand dollars in the span of 30 days at 18, 19 years old, that's something that seems impossible to achieve because of the society, the way parents have grown up, nine to five jobs, but it's not difficult to achieve. It's really not something that is outrageously difficult to achieve. But the second you realize that it is actually possible and you could you can obtain that everything changes in that moment. Like for me became an addiction because like I I got really I was good at it naturally, which is a blessing and a curse, like branding, coming up with brands, but developing a business is not something you just talent, doesn't come from that. Having creative talent is one thing, but developing thick skin, being able to operate a business, customer support, and the issues that arise over years, and being able to scale a team, take your passion and give it to your team, teach them to also feel the same way. Finding the right people, choosing the right partners, getting stabbed is the only way you learn that. So, like, I was if I'm looking at myself now, when I was 18 years old, I would look at myself dead in the eye and say, You're a fucking silly penguin. What would you say to your 18-year-old self?

SPEAKER_00 32:01

I'd say keep doing it, keep moving forward, you're on the right track.

SPEAKER_05 32:05

Yeah. Yeah. Like, there's nothing anyone could say to me when I was 18 that wouldn't jade anything I'm doing. I literally like, you could say anything to me, and I'd literally be like, Okay, cool. Go sit in my room and be like, I was a lone wolf. Like, that's how I thrive.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

It's funny that you say that because I was exactly the same way.

SPEAKER_05 32:27

Yeah, like for me, like socializing was something that it's not it's not that I was bad at socializing. I had a lot of friends across lots of different friend groups, but I couldn't care less to sit there with them for like several hours. Like, I'd be like, this is a waste of time.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah, I still kind of operate under that mindset, and sometimes I have to like train myself like, hey, like give a shit a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 32:52

Yeah, I would like to.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

But also, I feel like now I do have like the right people in my life. I don't think I have a huge circle, but I have the right circle. Good. So, what do you mean by like give a shit a little bit? What does give a shit mean? Be interactive, like, don't just zone out. Because, you know, I it kind of goes back to you know, treat people the way you want to be treated. Like if I'm explaining, you know, if I'm explaining my passions to someone, I'd expect them to, you know, entertain it, discuss, look like they care. And sometimes like I gotta, I kind of have to train myself, you know, because I'm not gonna lie, sometimes I'll be in mid-conversations with people and I'm probably thinking of like, oh shit, like I gotta do this task, you know, I still gotta do this with my business, whatever the hell. Yeah. And you don't realize that networking is something that's very important. Very important. Yeah. And I I feel like as humans, that definitely is a muscle.

SPEAKER_05 33:46

Networking, especially if in your industry, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And networking, definitely socializing. It's it's definitely a muscle. And for example, like during COVID, after the lockdown, I remember going back to college and I had to give a presentation on a project, and I felt so awkward, and I sounded like I had social anxiety. Why? Because we were locked up for for a year, yeah. And I definitely lost, you know, strength in that muscle, being able to talk and socialize and you know, move forward.

SPEAKER_05 34:16

Yeah. But in in well, presentations like in college, for example, like I never once like memorized a script. That's something that I always kind of just it can I it was so much easier for me to like just wing it. Yeah, just understand the concept. Because when I under when I learn a concept that interests me, I have to learn to the core. Like I will, without trying to, like, go to the core of it. And then I can just regurgitate the information. I spit it out, right? So I'm staying in front of a class, I'm just like, okay, I'm just gonna talk about this cool thing that I know. But if I have to memorize something, that's a chore. So I don't like memorizing scripts, I don't like doing that. I like to remember it and and memorize it in a way that I would write it out. And that's what made me like learn that I can write scripts well because I would just like write scripts impromptu in the moment, just kind of put it together in the moment, record it, then write the scripts from my recordings, and then it's not really a script. All I'm doing is explaining a concept the way I like it, then I'm just re-re-talking about it. I'm an auditory learner, so like when I say something out loud, I hear myself say it, and then it clicks. So I don't know if you're like that, but that's that's how I I like learn. But you know, with wet with wedding the wedding industry, I've seen this because I I went to a few events with Terence, and Terence, by the way, is a co-founder of Angry Digital, and he's multi-brand owner, so Burdeaux Weddings is one of his companies, and they specialize in wedding videography serving all across the United States. So with Ice Dazzle, I saw this opportunity to go to the bridal circle, which is a community in Atlanta of wedding planners and photographers and whatnot. Really cool. You should check them out if you're inside that scene, the wedding circle, super awesome. That was interesting to me because photography, videography, like there's people there that have made their entire career just from attending that one event because of the connections you make from there. And the Instagram followers I have from that event are like these are people that are very connected in the scene. You just have to go socialize.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Yeah, and that definitely is one thing about the wedding industry is that it's very tight, like everyone knows everyone. Yes, especially in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_05 37:12

So if if you're like a new face, people are like, Who are you? Right? So it doesn't take long for them to people think that it's like so big of a world. It's just not. I was just I was at Switchyards, I was explaining this concept, this is after you left, actually, the same day, yeah, to Terrence. I was just verbally talking through the flows of how our engine works, and we were gonna go to Colin's. I wanted to meet Colin. So I was like, I'll just come with you, hit it, drop something off, get up, about to leave. And this lady just like scooches over on the bench and she's like, yo, what are you guys talking about? I've been here listening to you for the last couple hours, like, sounds like really cool. What are you guys talking about? And I was like, Oh, yeah, we're building this product to help agencies fill this void of AI taking clients' traffic. Like, search is dying every day. Google SEO is becoming invisible with AI overviews, basically taking everything, all the answering all the questions off the top, and it's either the excites you or it doesn't. Most people it doesn't. So 30 to 40 percent of traffic to our websites is just gone, right? So now agencies are under the gun. They're like have to explain to their clients like why the thousands of dollars they're paying them every month is going downhill. Yeah, but it's come around to now where it's become a norm. You can bounce agency to agency, agency, the same issue. They are they're all aware of it. It's kind of like helpless.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

This is something I wasn't completely you know aware of, so that's interesting.

SPEAKER_05 39:02

Yeah, huge issue. There's not a solution to it. So, me being a brand owner, I have seen it like not from like an agency standpoint, firsthand, I've seen it. First hand, my companies have suffered in this last year and have taken hits from organic traffic that I've built over seven years. So, like, yeah, it sucks. And and being somebody who is technically inclined, I mean, for me, I don't look at something like that. It's just like you were saying before, it's like, tell me I can't do something. So I don't think about anything like, oh, it's like I'm doomed, or like that, just move on from that aspect. I'm like, okay, if if other people are showing up, there's a reason for that. So I basically studied the hell out of it, and it's very similar patterns to content creation. You show up for a reason, you have expertise, you have authority, the search engine citing you because of a certain reason. And then I was able to get our my citations back. I was able to get into the AI overviews for those topics. And what I realized is the traffic converts significantly higher. So not only was I able to recover the traffic, it converts higher than it did before. So that's when I started Angry Digital Inc. and pushed this entire movement forward just this last fall. Because I was like, okay, I'm able to do this rinse and repeat, and I just need to figure out a way to offer it to more verticals and test it. Because I really want to see if this works, right? And it is, and it's not perfect every time, but it can be. Like, as in if we do it enough times, we can absolutely get to the core. So that's why we built Nexio, our flagship product that we just pitched uh the application to YC for this spring. So do you have a website?

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_05 41:04

What happens when you search up Andres Lopez? Just Andres Lopez on Google.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Let's uh let's see what happens. That's a good question. I know there definitely are, and my phone's on SOS, funny enough. I know that there is a I know there's a comedian with the same name. I think there's a comedian, there's an actor. I'm not sure how much location also plays into that, but I should be in the that's impressive.

SPEAKER_05 41:35

What you get? Let's see. Andreas Lopez. Okay, so we have a Wikipedia overview. Are you Colombian? No, I'm Mexican. You're Mexican. Okay, Andreas Lopez Films comes up third. You're the third link here. So a quick feedback off the top. You don't have a Fabicon. You know what a Fabicon is? Yeah, I do. Yeah, so your Fabicon is missing. So I would definitely update that. That's amazing. Are you oh, there's somebody on IMDB. Okay. That's pretty impressive. So now if there was an AI overview here, I didn't get an AI overview.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

I've gotten an AI overview overview in the past, and it tends to be a little like sloppy. Yeah. What I mean by that is it kind of mixes in like the two, three things that come up. Right. Like I remember one time reading like a little bio it came up with, and it was like, oh, Anchezopa's films, you know, it's a service in Atlanta, and it mixes it up with someone else's description and saying that like I'm also like an actor. Like it kind of mixes in things that aren't, you know, things that I've actually done.

SPEAKER_05 42:56

Writer and ex-drug trafficker. That's that's one of the key figures that comes up here. So let's see. Okay, so you you're not coming up inside of the AI mode. So these are the things that we study, and then we look at why are they coming up and what is it about them that made them come up? And then we create those insights and we test them for you. So then we don't just tell you, okay, like, hey, you came up this many times, or like, hey, like, try this strategy. Good luck. No, we watch it. We watch it every single time somebody searches it up. We know, and we track it, and then we test it, and then we revise it and iterate it based off the intelligence. So for you, here's what I would do. On your website, what where do you host your website?

SPEAKER_00 43:47

I use a thing called show it. Show it. Okay. I uh it took me a second because I couldn't remember the because I know they have collaborations with WordPress, but that's only for like blog use. I use show it because this was back in like 2020. When I was going full time with this, there is another photographer that she was kind of like my mentor growing up for a couple years, and she used Show It, and Show It was very big with photographers because a lot of people were also using they were building templates. And I'm not talking about like Wix templates where it's like very generic, very shitty, but Mogertz. Right. What?

SPEAKER_05 44:22

Mogurts. Motion graphic templates.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 44:25

M O G R T. Do you edit in Premiere?

SPEAKER_00 44:28

I do edit in Premiere. No way. No. No way. But I ended up buying a really nice template that even to the day I use. And yeah, that was one deciding factor for me. I wanted to. I like do I like moving quick as well. So I wanted to find something professional, something clean, something that establishes authority. And uh I was able to find that compatible with Show It, bought it, modified it, still use it to this day.

SPEAKER_05 44:54

Yeah, power of influence. That's really powerful. Do you ever think about the fact that you have influence?

SPEAKER_00 45:01

It's weird because I, you know, I don't want to walk around with that, you know, mindset that, hey, like I have, you know, it's just cringy too. Like people that are too egotistical. But yeah, I guess yeah, I guess I it's weird to think that I do have a degree of influence.

SPEAKER_05 45:20

Yeah, but it's important to think about that. You know, I used to think about it like I used to feel like that too until I started working with influencers. They're humans. I agree. Yeah. Celebrities. Like, I'll tell you what every celebrity has in common. It's crazy because every human has this in common. They have a fucking butthole, eyes, and hair.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Yeah, I I agree with you completely. I am not the type of person to put other people like on a pedestal like that. And you know, it blows my mind when people go to like concerts and they're like losing their mind. Yeah. And like they see an artist or a creative or whatever the hell, and they're like fangirling and just going crazy when at the end of the day, it's another human being.

SPEAKER_05 46:03

They're just human.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Yeah. And I remember the first time I ever went to a concert, there's a there's a Latin artist that I'm a big fan of, and my fiance, who his name's Rao Alejandro. And uh, I remember that my fiance, you know, first year of us dating, she got me tickets to go see him live because I had never been to a concert, and she got us like floor tickets. So this man is like six feet away from us.

SPEAKER_05 46:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

And I remember feeling like excitement, you know, first time going to see one of my favorite artists. But I remember being there, and to a degree, I felt kind of disappointed, a little uninterested. Like I remember just seeing everyone going crazy.

SPEAKER_05 46:41

You see yourself from a third-person standpoint where you're like, I should be having more fun. I should be like, this is it. Kind of, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Like it was fun. Like, it felt like I was, you know, I couldn't, you know, I didn't feel like I was completely there.

SPEAKER_05 46:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Because I wasn't going crazy. Like, I saw him and I'm like, yo, this is just some regular dude. Like, I feel like I could just outside of this, I could be friends with him. Like, I didn't put him on a pedestal. I kind of, you know, even though he's like famous, rich, has money, all this stuff, I didn't put him on a pedestal. I felt like, hey, this is just another guy. Right. Like I could literally be friends with this guy. And and part of me too was like, damn, like, how much did this girl spend on these tickets? Like, we could have just listened to his music. We could have just listened to the exact same thing at the moment.

SPEAKER_05 47:21

That's the that's the foreign parents inside. That's the foreign parents inside. You could have just listened to it at home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like my mom would be like, Webkins, like webkins, and when they were the big thing, right? It's like, you have this pet online. My mom would be like, I can draw a dog on a piece of paper and you can fucking feed it. But mom is not the same thing. Immigrant parents. But I completely get what you're saying. That's like makes me think like I I didn't need to do more research on the term, but you know, have you ever heard of imposter syndrome?

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah, and I've definitely been in positions where I feel that.

SPEAKER_05 47:58

Yeah, because that's what I I've been in that same positions too. It's like not being able to let yourself go to enjoy the moment because you're trying to fill an expectation that I should be having fun, I should be feeling a certain way, but it's that expectation that overhyping, we almost like cause this dopamine drive ahead of time, thinking about it. And then what happens is when it happens, there's it's depletion, there's no dopamine left for you to actually enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

It's just like, oh you know, I feel that a lot actually. The I should be, right? I definitely feel that a lot. For example, my fiance and I, we actually went to Hawaii a month ago, and I remember it's my slow season, by the way. Like, I'm not all at January, I didn't have any, you know, wedding projects to film. It's technically our slow season, and all the photographers and videographers online, you know, post like, oh, like, you know, we're we're gonna be broke for the next few months because there's you know nothing going on. But in reality, there's so much to do still. There's still so much admin work, there's so much revamping to do. And then, two, in Q1, the amount of leads that come in is insane. Like the majority of your business can come from Q1 alone. So I remember us being in Hawaii, and you know, I don't have to worry about shooting weddings, but I do have to worry about inquiries. And so that was one thing. I was, you know, while we were out doing things, that was always in the back of my mind. It's always, you know, I should be doing this, I should be answering emails, I should be building systems, I should be automating things like this constant fire of, you know, I should be.

SPEAKER_05 49:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

But one thing I do like about vacations, I've kind of learned this about myself, is that when it comes to me doing, you know, vacations, and when it comes to me having experiences, when it comes to me doing things, sometimes I don't, you know, I don't enjoy them in the moment, but I do enjoy them after the moment. So a lot of the times too, like I'll look back and be like, oh, that was a great memory. Like I enjoy experiences more for the memories they produce, not for the actual moment itself.

SPEAKER_05 50:06

I like that.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Which I don't know if it's weird or or what, but yeah, like I when I I when I travel now, I know I'm not gonna enjoy being there in the moment. Like I think about it, like what trips do we have coming up, what places would we like to go. I'm not gonna completely enjoy when we're there, but I know when I look back at my camera role and I look back at that season of my life, I know I'm gonna enjoy it. Yeah, that's interesting. So I I I enjoy vacation for the feeling it gives me when I reflect on it.

SPEAKER_05 50:34

I I I I see what you're saying. Yeah, that's something that's been always hard for me, like consistently very difficult for me, is vacation. Like, I've very difficult for me to vacation. I've rarely vacation, but when I do, because I travel for business, I get to see things. It's always like I'm here for a reason. I've been to Germany, I've been to Saudi Arabia, I've been to Dubai, I've I mean Netherlands. It's like it's cool to experience it with business, and uh it's a completely different thing. But if I have to go and not do anything, like a Disney World or like actually go to the beach, I'm sitting there like tweaking.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

I'm like, and actually, to correct myself, I was still answering emails, I was still taking calls, I was still doing things. There were some days where I would wake up at like five or six in the morning.

SPEAKER_05 51:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

Because I knew, okay, like me and my fiance, we have a whole itinerary that we're gonna do. So let me get up early, do what needs to be done so that she has, you know, we have our time together, we have our time to enjoy the trip.

SPEAKER_05 51:31

It's important though, because yeah, like with uh being in a relationship, that's like a commitment where you have to you have to be able to balance. You know, balance is balance. People say balance, balance, balance, balance, but with the relationship, it's like it doesn't matter whether or not like work is here, you have to give your undivided attention for your significant other, right? And like for me, that's always been like a that was a hard thing. It's a very hard thing, but that was like the only thing that could get me to move away from working.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

Yeah. I'm hearing you, right? But I think there's one thing in there that I don't I don't completely agree with.

SPEAKER_05 52:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

So there was this that you just remind me of this book that I I read, and it's called The Way of the Superior Man. Oh my god. You read it? So it's interesting, like thinking about like psychology, and you know, at the end of the day, we we really want the things that we can't have.

SPEAKER_05 52:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:37

And for some reason, you just like reminded me of this concept, but I think as a as a man, right? And I'm just speaking for for men, like I'm not speaking, you know, for everyone, but this concept, you know, really this book and this concept really just applies to like a man, right? Right. I think that your purpose always needs to come number one. It does. And I've you know, the relationships I've been in, I've always had that mindset and I've always made it clear like to my partner early on, like, hey, by the way, like as mean as this sounds, you're not my number one priority. And uh I know hearing that, like a lot of people are probably gonna be like, damn, this dude's in it. Like, I'm not trying to be an asshole, but as a man, like your purpose definitely needs to be your number one priority. And I think in terms of relationships, that also builds the attraction side of things. I agree. Because, like I said, we want what we can't have. And if a if your partner knows that your time is valuable and she knows that she can't, you know, get all your time, it's gonna make your time more desirable. She can't get it all and it makes it more desirable.

SPEAKER_05 53:37

You're more you you are more in line with your core, like your purpose, you're more in line with your purpose, and like you know what you want, you know exactly what you want, and you know that it's it's charisma. That's the definition of charisma is knowing what you want and what comes next, and knowing what you're gonna do next, definitively. You know, with my past relationships, what he just said, by the way, for those of you that have no idea what we're talking about, The Way of the Superior Man is an incredible book, and I think all guys should read that book. 100%. If you're a man, you should read that book. It will change your life in the way that you view relationships and women, period. Listen to an audiobook. Honestly, like an audiobook version of that book is gold. But that's one thing I didn't do explicitly, but was very like, it's like, duh, I'm good, I'm like very driven, like it's my whole life. Yeah, but I didn't explicitly make it clear that that's my number one priority. I always would make her the number one priority, but verbally, just verbally, I wouldn't act upon it. Because she I wouldn't act upon her being my number one priority. That was the problem. Because I would act upon my businesses being my number one priority.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

I feel like there's so many layers too, as well. Like right now, what you're saying, what you're explaining, there's so many layers.

SPEAKER_05 55:06

Yeah. And I mean, I just got out of a not in a bad way, like seven, almost eight-year relationship, right? So yeah, so this that's like uh you grow together, and it's like with somebody who is driven by business so hard, it's also hard on the other person. 100%. So it's I respect that a lot, but they learn who you are and what makes you click. But from what you said though, that was the biggest disconnect. Yeah. Is clarity there. How can you say that that person is your number one priority when they're not?

SPEAKER_00 55:52

Yeah, and actually, man, when it comes to that, I think as a man, you should always be a man of your word.

SPEAKER_05 56:00

Exactly. And that's something that clicked for me. Like, that's something that always felt off for me, is like I'm lying to myself.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

Nothing like that. Every time I say that, lying to you. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 56:10

And that's what hurt me the most, like internally, is like that feeling in my gut where I'm like, I'm not like that. I have to say this because I have to say this. It's like imposter syndrome almost.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

But you have to say this. I have to say, okay, what you said. I have to say this because I have to say this because it's would you say that one more time? I have to say this because it's like what I'm supposed to say. It's what you're supposed to say. There you go. I think that mindset, right, comes from the pressure of like the social pressures. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 56:45

That's all it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:48

100%. Yeah. And what I was thinking right now, too, man, is what you were saying about how your word and your actions were disaligned.

SPEAKER_05 56:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

I think that if you tell your partner and establish that early on, like, hey, you're not going to be my number one priority. Yeah. It hurts, it stings. But it but they're gonna respect you so much more. And in a weird way, they're gonna be more attracted to you as well.

SPEAKER_05 57:15

Yeah, no, that's actually me. Like that clicked for me when you said that. I was like, for a second, I was like, really? But then I was like, oh my gosh, wait. That was literally like it was that. That's all it is. Because like inside of a relationship, trust is important. And now that I look at it, like that was the biggest thing that I was like, it felt weird for me to be like, I have to say this. It's like when a girl goes, like, would you still love me if I was an HDMI cable?

SPEAKER_00 57:45

Right, some dumb, just dumb shit.

SPEAKER_05 57:48

Like, you know, it's like sure. Yes. I'm not gonna fall in love with an HDMI cable. I mean, the USB-C came out, it's way better. I I'm currently in love with my USB-C cable until Thunderbolt upgrades, you know? Yeah, and then I'm gonna ditch that Thunderbolt, and then yeah. That that's how my brain thinks logically, right? But women don't think logically, they think emotionally. And the way the superior man, this is the biggest fucking thing. So listen up, listen up, man. Alright, women, when they go, oh my gosh, I can't believe you said that. I I literally want to fucking jump off a bridge right now or like shoot myself, like guys. I know it sounds crazy, but they don't actually want to shoot themselves. Like, our brains go, Oh my gosh, like, no, don't do that. But what she's doing is just verbally saying what she's feeling, she's describing what she's feeling. That's it. She's not trying to be like logically saying something, she's just describing the feeling. She's saying that she feels like that right now.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

And to kind of add to that, like, to add to that, it's also valid. Like what women say, what she like, for example, in that scenario, like what she feels and what she says is completely valid. And one of the things that the book talks about too is that I think I don't know if you remember this chapter, but it talks about how women never lie. And you know, going to back to that point, it's true. That's how she feels in the moment. So it's completely valid. And we don't understand it, like as a man, like it's a little bit harder to understand because we don't operate the same way. We operate a little bit more, you know, less emotion, a little bit more logic. So it doesn't always make sense to us.

SPEAKER_05 59:34

No, of course, it's not supposed to make sense because this is a big thing I've seen in business. Is that that book really did change me a lot? It gave me a lot of clarity that I didn't have. EQ and IQ. IQ, you're set with, right? That's how that's the intelligence level you have, which doesn't always correlate with success, by the way. Like high IQ, as IQ goes up, your actual income levels over time go down.

SPEAKER_00 59:59

It's funny that you say that. That's actually, I'm reading a book right now called uh I'm sure you've probably read it too. It's called Outliers. Outliers. No, I haven't read that one. One of the chapters actually talks about that. Basically, you know, to some sum this up, there's an organization, they take a bunch of you know high IQ people, they study them. They think, you know, their prediction is that because their IQs are high, they're gonna become successful, but they realize that too much IQ actually ends up hurting you. Yeah. Where there's uh there's a degree where if you're in that sweet spot of IQ, you're the way you operate is you're smart enough, but you're also creative enough. And you kind of need the combination of those two things for success.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:38

Right. Because IQ is your ability, I mean, to recognize patterns, right? When you start recognizing patterns that are very deep, you see all the patterns. It's very easy to see so many patterns that you're overwhelmed by it and you can't see the bigger picture. But from I I guess there's levels to this, right? You know, if you have a very high IQ to the point where you cannot socialize or see like the same picture that most people are seeing, that's a different story. But if you are somebody who is very academically successful, but you're like, how do I apply this in business? Meditate. Because that's how you can actually take advantage of everything else. You can slow those thoughts down to an extent, but you're never gonna stop them. You can never stop your thoughts. It's like saying, like, you know, saying I think is like saying I heartbeat. Duh. Duh, I heartbeat. Yeah, cool. I think, duh, I think. It's just something that happens, right? But becoming a victim to your thoughts and becoming your thoughts is a mistake because you're not your thoughts. You're the bystander. Their thoughts come, they go, they're in the foreground. You're experiencing it, but you are not your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:05

Yeah, I can wrap my head around that. One of the things that I've started doing in the last like year to two years is I started muting my thoughts before a certain time. So for example, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold up. You started muting your thoughts? I started muting my thoughts. Not you'll see what I mean. Like a remote controller. No, no, like they still come. I just ignore them. But what I realize is that so for example, I'm a I'm a morning person. I'm a morning person. A lot of the times I'd wake up at like 5-6, start my day, start my routine. And I noticed that I would have some of the most toxic thoughts early in the morning. I want to say from like 5 to 8 a.m., I'd have like the most toxic thoughts. You touch your phone when you wake up? I would experiment with that. There's sometimes I did, there's sometimes I didn't. And regardless if I did or didn't, the thoughts are there. But I've realized that, you know, me, whatever I'm thinking, like I'm not gonna make business decisions from five to eight. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna make any decisions that are gonna in the morning. In the morning. Yeah. That's when you have toxic thoughts. Interesting. And I know, I know not to trust those thoughts. So, for example, if I have one negative thought about myself or one negative thought about maybe a friend or a peer or whatever. I see. Yeah. I I have it, have that thought, and I know, like, hey, this is just your morning brain. Like, ignore it. Like, it's not valid, it's not true, it's not how you actually feel, it's not what you actually think. Like, yeah, it's there, observe it.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:38

But it sets your pattern for the rest of the day. So, like, if you start going in that loop, you're in that mood for the rest of the day. That's just like how the brain works. It starts in the morning. You know, when you first wake up, you have no thoughts for about two to three minutes. That's your most powerful moment to hypnotize yourself for the day. So if you wake up and you start looking at what you wrote down the day before, you hypnotize your brain. You literally will have, you know, you ever wake up and you're just like inside of this euphoric bliss of just like experiencing like I just woke up processing the dream. You have no thoughts there. That's your most influential part of the day. Every morning you'll have this period. You have one moment to exit REM. You wake up and you snooze, you're fucked. One time. Snooze once and you're fucked. So if you wake up and you get up, you just jump up, you just hijack your body. Because what happens when you hit snooze, you get stuck in REM. So you can snooze 10 minutes. Your body goes right back into REM and does not exit it again. Because that pulse of cortisol that hits in the morning only happens once. First time you wake up. So you're screwing yourself by snoozing. You're that guys? Sorry, I know you guys like snoozing, we all do, but you're gonna like what happens when you don't snooze so much more because you'll never be brain fogged ever. Like, I didn't believe, like, I I only way I could believe something is if I did it myself and I would not tell you guys anything that I didn't truly believe in. So wake up, just get up. It's gonna be hard the first couple times, but you'll see for yourself, you'll enter flow state. Like, you will enter flow state right when you wake up, and if you start working right away, you'll be in the most flow period that you'll maximize that. So that's a hack. But don't snooze in the morning, and whatever you ingest in your brain that first 10 minutes will dictate what your brain does for the next 12 hours and till the time you're asleep again. So that's powerful. Use that how you will. I'll write like notes to myself on the mirror, so I see it, and it goes into my brain whether I like it or not. Powerful stuff. Affirmations, those things work because you don't have a choice, your conscious mind's asleep. There's a gateway straight to the unconscious, and we have 60 to 70,000 thoughts per day. 60 to 70,000. Count them like if if you don't. Believe me, like it will wake you up. But if you don't think you have 60 to 70,000 thoughts per day, that just makes you that should make you realize like how unaware you are of what's actually going on. But if you have 60 to 70,000 thoughts per day, how many of those are the same as the day before? 95%. 95% of the thoughts are the same as the day before. How do you how do you change? Become aware of those thoughts. The more you become aware of them, they're no longer unconscious thoughts. They're conscious thoughts. Each and every thought that you become aware of, it's a conscious thought. No longer unconscious, and you process it. So if you if you have 80,000 or 50,000 or 40,000 thoughts because you're aware of them, they can be 40,000 intentional thoughts rather than unconscious, unintentional thoughts, toxicity, negativity, just becoming aware of the fact that you're having that thought. When it comes up, you just go, oh, there it is, and you watch it. Then you wait. Just like a guard dog. You just wait. You feel it. Like notice it's here. It's not hurting you. Feel it. Emotion, then thought. Always emotion and thought. Feel the emotion. Go. What emotion is this thought? What is causing it? Just backtrack it. Oh, that's self-doubt. Oh, that's anxiety. Oh, that's fear of something happening to this person. It's a fear. You'll notice there's something you can stem it back to. Then next thought comes up. Oh, here it is. Hold it. Pay attention to it. Say, okay, here's the first one, here's the second one, and then watch them. Notice how it comes back up again. You'll catch it a few times. But something amazing is gonna happen. You'll feel it before you think it. And that's when you win. You'll feel it before you think it. You'll always feel it first, and then the thought arises. So what will happen is you'll feel it coming, but you'll never end up thinking the thought because you can feel it all the way through. You're aware of it, and at that moment, you'll feel it like an energy release. Like it's a very euphoric, like you overcome the thought. You win. You just rewired that neural pathway. Congrats. That's how you overcome trauma. Easier said than done, but it is that awareness, having that awareness is step one. And just knowing that, like understanding this right here, it's changing your brain. Right? It's changing your brain because now you're not going to be able to undo that. But being able to understand this takes a lot of awareness, right? But that's the most powerful thing I could tell anybody. You can you can redo a thought pattern in your favor just by becoming aware of it. Because it's not unconscious, it's not that you don't have control over it. The more you resist it, what you resist persists. Push on it, it's not going anywhere. It's still there. It's taking up space, it's taking up real estate. You have a limited amount of it. But it's taking up more than you think. Because unconsciously, you're thinking it all day long. And it's taking up more energy than you possibly are using on anything else without you even realizing you're you're expending it. So when you become aware that you're doing it, count how many times it happens. Because every single time it happens, you'll start realizing it's right there. There it is. Oh, what is it? Oh, there it is. There it is. See how many you catch. That's how you win. Because you master the mind, you master everything. You can master anything, everything will start coming to you. You don't go get things, you just things will come to you. Now you're in control. You start to realize that the thoughts come, here they are, here they are. You are the puppeteer. Before you're the puppet. But you're the puppeteer. You can control it. That's your reality.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

It's interesting hearing your like perception and like how you go about these things. Because once again, I feel like there's that parallel again. Like, I almost feel like I'm like looking at a mirror here. Almost feel like I'm looking at a mirror here because it sounds like you're very intentional with your thoughts. And uh the way that I describe it, like the way I I talk about it, is I think about it like a like a computer. Like, what programming are you running? What operate operating system, you know, are you are you operating? Mac OS.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:33

Duh.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:34

But I I think about that because we really do set the intention, you know, of our day. We really do set the intention of our mind. And what one this concept, you know, blows my mind, but the people who do everything subconsciously, right? Imagine it, and it's crazy because this is the reality of things. A lot of people they're doom scrolling. Yes. And they're being their their thoughts and the reality are being affected by it. And at the end of the day, it's the algorithm. That's the puppeteer, like you said.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:05

A lot of these people are being controlled by the I call it the matrix. The matrix, yeah, absolutely. And um, yeah, man, imagine just doom scrolling, and you don't know what piece of content's coming next, right? You have no idea the algorithm is.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:17

Yeah, but a Zuck does. The way the ad algorithm works, the piece of content you're about to see in five minutes is already written out. It knows the order to present content to keep you engaged before you even do it. And it changes in real time. So as you're scrolling and how you're interacting, if you're getting less interested or more interested, it knows, oh, here, don't put an ad next. Put it after we bamboozle him a little bit. Let's let's let's give him a little puppy. Let's let's throw some puppies on the screen. Oh, maybe some profanity. That should capture his attention again. But what's happening? 15-second loop. I mean, on my end of the of the realm of agency ownership and brand ownership, we engineer content to go in loops. We start the track with the same loop that it ends with. So that when you end the video, you don't know when it starts again. It plays in a perpetual loop. You would literally sit there like, uh, people are sitting because what happens when they watch it five times over and over and over? It fucking hijacks the algorithm. The algorithm's thinking, oh, this person is like really watching this video, huh? They must be a great video. They watched it five times in a row. So that's what every single piece of content has been engineered to do now, especially TikTok. And what's happening is people's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Just a year ago, the average attention span, I don't know what it is now, but 1.7 seconds is the average attention span. So all my websites are optimized to load faster than 1.7 seconds. Because that's all you have. You have 1.7 seconds to capture someone's attention. So if you're writing a hook for a video, 1.7 seconds, get it across, or you lose. They're gone. They don't care. Whatever you say, you have 1.7 seconds. So if you're gonna start your video like, so I'm making this video because they're gone. Yeah, they're out. You gotta start your video something like this. Ah you will never believe what just happened to me. That should be the hook of this video, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:23

But it it's it's sad. It's sad that that's reality, but also I see it, I see it two ways, man. Part of me sees it as sad that that's reality, but then the second part is the second part of me is like, hell yeah, like I'm glad that's reality. Because if I can train my brain, I can out out compete everyone.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:46

Yes, you win. Absolutely, you win because people start creating reality inside of their world of their mind in this shallow, non-existent world. They fail to see what's what's real. And as an operator of e-commerce companies, I've been running ads for so long that I don't use social media. Like my Instagram, my personal Instagram, like my TikTok. It's kind of now I'm like, I'm building my own brand now with Angry Digital. This is the first time I'm doing it where fully focused on just my thing, right? It's not for my brand, it's for it's not for my other company, it's not for a client, it's not for another influencer or a YouTuber. This is for my own, right? Applying the skills I learned to myself. And it's like, wow. The way I approach it is like a systematic approach. It's not how like people would think. And I don't scroll on social media that like people do because for me, it's like I do it for a living.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:47

Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you say that because at the end of the day, social media is just a product. And most people, I feel like a lot of people don't really, a lot of people aren't gonna use their product, you know. You think people that sell cigarettes smoke cigarettes, right? It's kind of like one of those things where it's like, oh, you know, the product is addictive and harmful. So I'm gonna sell it. I'm not gonna use it, but I'm gonna sell it.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:10

Oh, that's kind of that's kind of a unique point, though. But cigarettes, alcohol, anything addictive. Are you familiar with what the market curves like with like elasticity? Are you familiar with the concept of elasticity in price? From it by me. Okay, so there's there's very few products that are non-elastic. Okay, elasticity is how much demand changes with price increase. So if price goes up, demand goes down. There's very few products that have a vertical line where doesn't matter how much price changes, it will constantly be the same demand.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:45

And it's the it's the uh addictive products, huh?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:49

Correct. So there's only a few products that do this. Alcohol is one, tobacco products, nicotine is another. Yeah, that's that's about it. Uh it get it's also for things that are necessities like commodities, gas. Even gas will people stop driving at a certain point. But the more addictive a substance is, the higher the price you can charge for it, and people will still buy it just as much because it's addictive. Coffee's another one. So that's always fascinated me because those are the legal ones. I could see where, well, I don't know what marijuana is like. I have to look at the curves for those, but I could see that being also something that could be. I don't know if it's gonna be the same, to be honest. But yeah, the concept of elasticity. It's a loophole. In what way? It does not matter how much you try to ban TikTok. You're gonna have the entire entire like a war raged against you when you take it away because you're that addicted to it. So now we have another inelastic product, which I could see as a I'm trying to compare this to nicotine. I'd say it's way more addictive than nicotine. Yeah. Because it it's quite literally like I don't know if the brain knows how to behave, how to see reality, how to reproduce dopamine when your Snapchat streaks are gone. Oh no. Oh no. I didn't send S plus R today. Think about that, right? I haven't had Snapchat in like five or six years, maybe longer. But when I did, shit. You were hooked? Oh, like yeah, I mean, like all these apps, right? I didn't realize it until I until I started becoming very into my businesses. Yeah. I didn't need it. I deleted them. Like I was so locked in.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:12

That's so funny. I've done the same thing. Anytime I'm entering like a season where it's like I have to lock down and do shit, yeah, I'll do that. I'll be quick to delete my apps. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:20

And it's never come back because I hit such a flow that it never came back. It just never did. And you know, really, people learned about my life from my ex posting, from my clients, my my other influencers, like people who are posting, and then I re-tag them, like I repost what they post. That's how my entire feed, if you look at even my stories, my save stories are all just were literally just reposts. Because I literally, when you're the person behind the camera, there's very few pictures of you, you know? So yeah, I mean, whatever I'm creating, I don't see like, oh, I'm gonna like boast myself on social media, right? I'm like, I want to capture this watch in a way that's gonna make fucking money. That's what I'm thinking. I want to sell this watch, I want to present it in a way because I think it's beautiful. But try taking a picture of a watch. If you've ever tried taking a picture of a watch, you understand like it's fucking hard, right? So for me, again, tell me I can't do something, it's like I will figure it out. It took me years to master shooting watches, and it takes a lot of skill to do it. But that's what made me a really fucking good photographer. I could apply it anywhere. But that's how my approach to social media has always been is for a purpose. If I'm running this creative, it's gonna see this ETR. More people click through from this creative, it's gonna bring more people to the website who will purchase the product. So you're using it as a tool rather than a product. It's just a tool. So that's how I see it. So when I see social media and people are like doom scrolling, they're looking at products, they're like, oh, this is so cool. I'm like, I cannot process that the same way. I'm like, wow, that's a good ad. That's not I'm literally thinking, I'm like, that's a good ad.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:14

Taking notes. Yeah, I kind of do the same. Like sometimes I'll see certain ads and I'll screenshot it because I'm like, oh shit, like I'd like the ad copy. I like the presentation, I like the XYZ. Burning questions of desire here.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:28

Robots.txt file, you need one on your website. So, what is a robots.txt file by default. Websites have a file at its root that tells crawlers whether or not they're allowed to crawl your site. By default, they say do not allow. Because do you want people to just crawl your site? Probably not, is what you would think. Up till now, you would don't want to like disallow all crawlers on your site. If you do that, you never show up in AI. Because how do they crawl your site and know what's on your site for them to cite? So on that robots.txt file, you need to add Chat GPT's bot, perplexities bot, claude, and Gemini Google. You need to allow those crawlers to be able to crawl your site and show that content on your website in the AI overviews. So just in general, having it disallow is no longer the move here. What you want to do is disallow only the stuff you don't want crawled. Because it's not allowed to crawl things, you're not allowed to crawl. But there's bots that do anyway. Yeah. They override it. But according to like data privacy and laws that are around that, the governance, it you should not you cannot do that. It's a violation of your own terms of service. So, a robots.txt file, you need to allow crawling for all the LLMs. Shoot me a text, I'll tell you what to put in there. And in that same file, you can add a reference to something called llms.txt, which we'll talk about in the next episode. But the llms.txt file quite literally is a map for AI to know what every page on your website does, where that information is and why it's meaningful. So by having that file, it tells the robot to go, okay, I'm allowed to crawl. Here is the index I need to go to. That file and the way it's structured tells AI overview, chat GPT, and all this stuff, okay, this is a quick, it grasps the information to know where can I find more about this? So two things you need to do. You need to add a robots.txt file to your root, and you need to add an LLMs.txt file to root. And because you're coming to the podcast, I'm going to put you on with Nexio, our product, and it will optimize both of those files for you so that when we look up Andres Lopez, you will be the AI overview. That comes up.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:26

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:27

Yeah. Or you can figure it out for yourself. Good luck. But I mean, yeah, shoot me a text, we'll optimize those for you, and that way we can see too how Next EO is doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:41

But not even just that. You should talk about like just the wedding industry as a whole. Like maybe they'll come up in AI overviews.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:49

Correct. So it's this is not just for looking up Andres Lopez. Somebody's looking up Atlanta wedding photographer, Georgia wedding photographer. Yeah, who are the best wedding wedding videographers in Georgia? I'm getting married on this date in Chat GPT. It's gonna be confused. And a lot of people think, like, oh, I will never show up in this because it's so competitive. Maybe they're selling a new shoe. Like, how am I gonna compete Nike? Right. But AI hallucinates. AI hallucinates. So it's not always right, but it does follow rules because it is a robot, it's not human. No, it's not gonna take over the world, but it will absolutely cite your brand. It just has to do it the right way, which nobody seems to know what to do. Neo does. I've done marketing the product. I'm not even joking. Like the reason I keep pushing this is because it really does make that much of an impact. And the reason why I even built the product in the first place is because I saw how much content marketing and SEO optimization changed my life and my businesses. So spending money on ads is how I started out my career. Running Facebook ads, running Google ads, doing that, like there's a high customer acquisition cost of that, and it's rising. Every day it goes up and it becomes more competitive. Ad cost goes up because social media, as we know, is becoming more and more prime, more and more addictive. So that ad space, harder and harder. Influencer marketing, more and more expensive. But what works without any of that? Organic search. It converts significantly higher just from showing up first, right? It is that important. That's why companies spend hundreds of thousands every year optimizing it. And people are fucked, getting fucked by AI overviews taking their traffic. But now we have a whole new player. Fuck AI overviews and Googling it. What happens when you ask ChatGPT? Like I how I see it is we're not gonna have an AGI as people. Whoa, AGI. It's not gonna be like that because we're not like that as humans. As humans, we're not wired to be like, okay, we're just gonna trust this one source. That'd be boring. Everybody has personalities, everybody has their preferences. We already have Claude, we have Gemini, we have Perplexity, we have OpenAI, we have Grok, we have Meta. Like, there's more merging, right? These are all flavors, they all do the same thing as in the essence, but there's preferences. People prefer this, people prefer that, and it's not gonna slow down. We're gonna have more and more of these. I have a feeling that that's what's gonna happen. We'll have more niche things that are catered to you, and it will be more lucrative than ever for you to be in its favor, right? So that's why I encourage brands and businesses to really invest in things that will benefit them in the long run because every ad you run will perform better because your organic results are already good. If you're gonna pay per click for ads, your PPC is gonna be significantly lower. I'm I mean like a fraction if you have great optimized SEO. Because Google's looking at your landing page to see how well your landing page is optimized. The first thing is site speed. If your site's not fast, Google literally deprioritizes you. Why? It's not because they're against you, it's because the average attention span is how long? 1.7 seconds. That's a blazing fast site. Google's doing their job. They're providing information to their user. And if you're providing them false information, that's not in their favor. So they're not going to show you. You're gonna have to pay a lot for those PPC. So highly encourage people to make authentic content. Don't use AI like a clutch, use it like the power tool is. It is. It's a super powerful tool. It'll augment your skill set. It'll augment what you know as an expert, but use it like a crutch, and you're going to hold yourself back in a horrible way. Input equals output. Never stop learning. Never stop reading. You're the expert. AI is not going to replace you. It's going to augment your abilities. The way that you apply what you what your expertise is. You're going to be able to do more with less. But that should be an empowering thing, not something that's scary. More scared we get of it, that's that's the problem. Period. It's not a scary thing. It should be a great thing. That's my take. Yep. Well, if you enjoyed today's episode and our conversation with Andreas, thank you, Andreas, for appreciate you having me on our conversation. Love to have you back in the future. And you can check out AndresLopez.com, Andres Lopez on Instagram. Any other tags I missed here?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:07

Andres Lopez Films.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:09

Andres Lopez Films. Top tier wedding videography. Are you booked for the season?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:16

Yeah, it's honestly, I have my first wedding the season this weekend, and then I don't see the light of day until like June or July.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:25

He's booked. But if you can squeeze in, squeeze in. And of course, we have to give a shout out to Burdo Weddings, Terrence's company, also a wedding videography company. You might catch both both of these guys, both of these gentlemen at your wedding. And if both these guys are at your wedding, trust me, people are going to watch that wedding video. Gals listening, these are the guys you want. Trust me. That's how you want your wedding captured. They're extremely good. I wouldn't just say that. And that's a wrap for today. Next week we're going to be having 808 Mafia Ash, producer with Sajod. But till next time, enjoy this sponsor video from Ice Dazzle.