You can be good at many things or the best at one thing and I was like okay, what are these things I'm kind of good at but I'm not the best at uh acting yeah Tik Tok I mean I'm not cabbie so like what can I be the number one best at and I was in the top 50 of shorts creaders I was like okay I can be the top shorts Creator Let's go for it. Most of this game is about self-awareness for such a young dude for you to be able to read that book, tap in, and then have the humility and self- awareness to say I'm not the best actor or I'm not sure I could be or maybe but or I'm not even the best at Tik Tok even though I've got some action, I can be the best at this YouTube shorts thing I Think that will work for a lot of people who are listening right now. Attention is the number one asset vayer Nation How are you excited for a fresh, new, uh, non- throwback non-edited from some sort of keynote episode here live in Hudson Yards at the Office? Uh, really? Dynamic individual here that I think is going to be able to give some insights and inspiration to a lot of people that are on their journey of really creating content around a passion or trying to achieve attention in a modern, uh, digital media landscape. And so when this opportunity arised I was like this.

This is actually the right time, especially as I'm writing a new book called Day Trading Attention that will come out next year. um I Think this uh, this fits well and will really help uh, add some color commentary and so with without further Ado My friend, why don't you tell the Boehner Nation who you are and uh and how you describe yourself and then I'll go into my series of questions yeah GRE to meet you Gary Great to meet you too my friend I Am Alan Chicken Chow I am a creator with the mission to unite a universal audience through laughter and storytelling and I am the number one YouTube shorts Creator uh in the world actually um I Got started making videos as a way to connect with my family. when I went to college my mom and dad they moved to a little town in West Virginia where they had no friends or family. So I started making videos just as a way to make my mom laugh.

gone from my mom to like 40 million followers across platforms, 30 billion views. We we crossed recently and a full you know business with full-time employees. So I'm really grateful for this journey and now I'm here talking to you. Let's take it back.

So you grew up where I grew up in Dallas Texas Okay and so when you went to school, your parents moved. Uh yes, yeah, when I went to college and so because of that that before that point you grew up consuming content at scale on the Internet or no yeah I did I I watched a lot of content especially Vine rip Vine miss the vine days and I remember you know I had a period when I was depressed in high school and I remember I did this challenge called 100 Days of Happiness challenge where I took a photo of something that made me happy every single day and 3 40% of those were just screenshots of vines cuz they were the only thing that made me happy during a depressed period. So that's something I think about a lot when creating like happy which which V creators stood out for you during that era. Do you remember during that era? um you know what? I actually still back in that day I liked uh uh I actually liked like the the top viners like King Batch and Amanda cery those types and they stuck around so um I think they were great but I really love like the the trends like.

the thing that was great about Vine was you couldn't really upload videos that were like taken from your phone. you had to like shoot it on your phone. It was like like the oh my gosh I'm trying to think like uh of of Vine Trends it'll come to me but like like just like the really anain like um yeah the stuff that Rudy and Jerome jar and all the mallis and all those guys were doing yeah exactly exactly. and the ones that are just like normal people I mean I Really Do think in a lot of ways that Vine was the preview to the Tik Tok world we live in today.

um and and really changed the landscape. Okay so you start making these videos for your mom? Yeah and what? what? What is the next step in the journey? What? From Mom to 40 million followers across platform? What was the first sign that this was going to be a little bit more than just Mom Yeah so um the So my video started to go viral like here and there as I was. so you made the video for Mom but you knew to post it everywhere with it giving maybe a chance of something happening. Is that how your mind thought about it? Yeah, well.

I I had a Tik Tok page and my mom was my only father and I would just post them so that she would watch them. but then. but you had a sense that maybe something would happen with them right? Sure. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

definitely. It's not like you made something that would be a video that you would only text your mom. you would make it with Mom as audience of mine with a conscious or subconscious understanding that maybe one would hit and you would take it from there. Yes, exactly Yeah.

and by the way, the reason I just brought that up and I apologize. This is where I'm trying to make it huge for the audience. like that is a really smart way to think about it. I Really do think too many people go into the game which is now the game Everyone's Living which is like let me get famous on social media exactly.

You know with the intent of I need to be famous I need to make money I Think if you go in with the intent of I'm G to make videos, that might go but I'm making it for this purpose. Whether it's for your mom or it's your favorite hobby or you're making it for a group of, you're like think about all the text message group threads right now with six or seven people in it where people just making each other laugh that that could in theory. obviously with a couple of tweaks and less inside jokes or maybe more inside jokes be something people could post on all platforms Now because we're living through the Tik Tock ification of every platform so that was your journey for Mom but comma, maybe it might hit exactly Yeah, yeah. and that way you can keep that genuine purpose around that.

I still have in creating my videos. my mom's still my target audience but um yeah, but but more people can see it. and um one big thing happened where I was like I was getting like traction online like you know get maybe I think like 10,000 20,000 followers and I went to volunteer at a school in Indonesia and I had done acting for film and TV and I was very proud of it. I was on like Gra anatomy and some shows and I went to these kids and I wanted them to watch my episodes and they had no idea what like ABC was or gra Anatomy but they were like so excitedly consuming my videos and I was like wow this is the future this is the future of media like like glob content is the future and at in one moment I can post a video right now and reach 40 million people that's actually crazy.

There's no barrier between me and those people all over the world. I I remember seeing that moment and being like wow okay I think that I should take this serious. This is not a platform to get me to TV this is TV yeah yeah exactly. Yep.

Mhm I I you know I I really genuinely I wrote the first book I wrote crush it ah yeah that came came out in 2009. Basically says that premise right and so like hearing you go. when was that moment? um this was around 2020 Great so like thinking about you going through that moment in 2020 around something that I've like really believed to be true in since 2005 Really? six since YouTube 2007 I It's really fun because I still like what when I just heard you say that I'm like man, my brain while you were telling that story was like man, we're still that early where that's not just common wisdom, right? Yeah, that you even though you were in acting paying attention to Vine for you even just three years ago, it's like whoa, wait a minute. This is the platform, not the stepping stone to the platform.

I think is a really important call out I Think a lot of people don't realize the podcast their YouTube show their Tik Tok account their LinkedIn for B2B like being huge on LinkedIn. Let's say a top 50 followed person on LinkedIn is a bigger platform than writing for the Wall Street Journal or being on CNBC and I think people continue to struggle with that knowledge and I think we're starting to get to that realization. Yeah, yeah, that's so true. like and there Now there's so many Platforms in it, it's so interesting you bring up that tiktock ification of the different platforms.

That's right. So the next step in my journey was, um, moving to YouTube and actually my brother who's here with me now. He created my YouTube channel and he uploaded all of my original Tik toks yeah onto YouTube because he heard from you that basically on Tik Tok at the time you couldn't search. So like if friends like wanted to search for your Tik toks, they couldn't find it.

but YouTube was powered by Google so they could search up Alan Chicken Chow Mom funny video and they could find it right? So we started uploading on there and then I read an article that shorts was being beta tested in India and I was like okay so I went and I hashtag all the videos shorts one of them went really viral uh and had like 100,000 views whereas all the other ones had like 10 and it came from 99% unknown source and I was like oh this is YouTube's way of telling me this is YouTube shorts before it even had a metric of how to tell me YouTube shorts this is going to be Huge! So I started to focus all in on shorts because um I like I think that YouTube has created some of the biggest businesses and the biggest St stars and has a very healthy economy with AdSense um and yeah so our we shifted our Focus over there and now we're the no one shorts Creator in the world and of course it took a lot of work Between that like a lot of like like what like I I read this book called essentialism which said you can be the best at one thing or I'm sorry yeah you can be good at many things or the best at one thing and I was like okay, what are these things I'm kind of good at but I'm not the best at uh acting yeah Tik Tok I mean I'm not cabbie so like what can I be the number one best at and it was in the top 50 of shorts creators I was like okay I can be the top shorts Creator let's go for it and so I just cut away it was actually about saying no to a lot of stuff. Cut away all these like distracting opportunities in order to focus all in and then you know the normal. Working hard like get up work every day, be consistent, get up early, post every day. doesn't matter like if you're tired or sick like do it.

let's go back to that I remember I Remember when my friend Travis decided to go fulltime as the CEO of Uber so he was a co-founder and they hired a CEO because it was actually Uber Cab which is the original name of Uber was a side project of Garrett Camp who was the founder of Stumble Upon which was a very early internet Discovery platform that was huge and Travis who was who had a Napster competitor as a kid at UCLA and later had a big company and was a really talented guy who was an investor. When I met him and we were investing in startups together they joined up. they did Uber Cab. They hired an incredibly talented young man named Ryan Graves to be CEO and then Travis kind of recognized wait, this might be big and decided to become full-time CEO and I remember in this like three-month period because we talked a lot during that time.

um I like hit him up about like two Investments and like one other thing and like a conference and like another thing and every time he was like and I didn't understand it actually at first he he said no no Gary like I only do Uber now I was like okay and then I hit him up again and he's like no no like I have to give 100% of my effort to Uber now and like I'm the other side of the pillow I've got 47 things like I'll do this with you right now which is content and the garyb of it all. My next meeting is a Vayer X meeting that really matters. The next one after that is a Vayner is a vriends meeting I'll call AJ on uh, my way to a nonprofit board that I'm a part of called pencil. Promise the Gallas tonight I have a call with AJ about Vayner Sports in between.

literally just my afternoon today yeah has five different things I'm involved in and that's what makes me tick and I enjoy that I think what's important about that is I want everybody to listen real quick. Most of this game is about self-awareness for such a young dude, For you to be able to read that book, tap in, and then have the humility and self-awareness to say I'm not the best actor or I'm not sure I could be or maybe but or I'm not even the best at Tik Tok even though got some action I can be the best at this YouTube shorts thing I Think that will work for a lot of people who are listening right now I Think on the flip side, you get inspired by that and you're not self-aware If 15-year-old me heard that, that would have either been a moment where I was like oh, I want to be like him and I would have tried to force myself into being something I wasn't or 15-year-old me would realize that's cool. There's different ways to do that I think for everybody who's listening I Do believe that in the extremes of success that I've at now 47 years old have looked at. I Think the two people on this podcast right now represent it all in chaos or all in one thing because the chaos keeps people like me happy which makes the whole thing go I Think sometimes people are caught in the middle.

They do two or three things and they don't realize they should do 17 or one. Yeah, and that's the one takeaway. I Hope that provided some people some value. So okay, so you go all in.

how long did you go into that? like in the cave. Crazy like saying no to everything Full full full full full. like you wouldn't even be here right now if you were in that zone. How long did that zone last until now? Okay I love that for like a year, year and a half? Yeah, um, do you feel like you're on the other side of that craziness and you're ready to like? Okay, I've hit that goal I've get The Branding of that Yes.

I built out more of a team? Um um, you know. So actually to that question, where are you at right now? like how are you thinking about that next step? Yeah. so I I love what you said and and I think you can bounce between being essentialist and an all inist or or Explorer curiosity framework? Uh, a business development, a tasting things by the way. I do that too.

Yeah, even for all. like even in my craziness of doing 100 things, there are moments I mean be friends I was gone for a year yeah and like to launch it. So I do think you can bounce? Yes, yeah. and so now I'm I'm in that bouncing stage where we're we got The Branding We we achieved our goal.

We are the number one shorts cre in the world. So like right now for me, it's all about elevation. Like how do we take the content? Elev is number one based on the way you're saying it. the most followed or the most views short.

View And do you feel attachment to that Like do you worry that now you'll go discover things that you'll quote unquote, get past um, or you feel like you've got that You're good. You recognize that if you're not in the lab 18 hours a day on it, Inevitably, somebody else is doing that right now and they will pass you. Yeah I think I'm I think I'm I I'm in the works. Is it a little bit both? Yeah, we'll see.

Yeah, No, it's an interesting question. I I Think where I'm going for the broader audience is I think sometimes we as humans attach to something without realizing that that could actually be your downfall. Yeah, like I'm so empathetic and I actually loved that you answered it the way you did, which is like it's hard to give that up. It's fun to you brought up four times in like five.

I Get it? Yeah. I do this stuff all the time times. Whatever it is. I Think it becomes a jail for a lot of creators or creatives.

Whether it's an arbitrary number, a blue check yeah, as high as you've gotten which is insane. That's an insane to think because I'm a very big believer in YouTube shorts. And what I love about shorts is I Think it's much more longtail than other platforms? Yeah, Like you achieving this level of Abew that has longtail value three years from now that Tik Tok doesn't that? Instagram doesn't? Yeah, because because YouTube is the second most searched platform in the world besides Google you will get that long tail whereas even though Tik Tok search is growing, it just it's just different and so that that's pretty powerful. But I do think it's interesting to think about like will you now go six months exploring? Yeah Will some kid in, you know in Argentina go six months in the lab and pass you and what does that feel like? you know Charlie Demilio had to go through that because she was so identified like that and I think many people have to go through that.

Yeah, Yeah. and thankfully I I I am I feel like a whole person that's not like super attached to my work in that I feel so identified by these things and so I think I'm okay whatever happens in the future. and I'm really passionate about what I'm doing next which is building a long form series out on on my YouTube channel. It's a it's a show called Allen's Universe Go watch it if you haven't seen it.

it's a high school love story um based on love, friendships, and growing up and it's a 9 10 minute series that's completely done without talking. So we're trying to take the Cabie concept that works on Tik Tok and prove that Global Content is a future and can work. and Reach people across the world when you're doing that, are you scratching your acting Yeah, Bug? Yeah, exactly. and to that out of pure curiosity, do you envision the Netflix of the world? Do you envision feature films like do you envision doubling down on your core acting skills? Sure I Think that's a definitely that you want that I Think that's definitely a possibility.

Are you getting distracted by the businesses that can be built by being an influencer at this scale? Call it the Mr Beast and the Logan Paul and K like are you thinking about consumer products? Yeah, um I think I think I'm really open to what is in store next. Like because we're just coming off of building to be at the top and so I'm in exploratory period where I'm not opposed to Consumer products I'm not opposed to say hosting a show or like creating a show with we just I just had a meeting with the CW yesterday. like just being really open to what's next, being in the mindset of maybe and then once going through that deciding what's yes and no yeah yeah yeah. Like like you said like be being being very open to all these different things because you don't know what's going to hit and I think I think it's brilliant I I I think the world is atrocious at maybe yeah people walk into everything.

So yes and noed doubt and I used to say like don't be a no person, be a yes person I realized wait a minute I'm not a yes person, I'm a Maybe person ah I go into everything with maybe and then I make a decision yeah I think if you're overtly no, you're cynical and you've already lost I think if you're blindly yes, you're often delusional and not practical. and I've come to realize it's actually maybe that is the powerful world for all of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. and and it it.

It can change with the different eras in your life as well. Well, that's inevitably the power of maybe. Yeah, Exactly right. Like if you know how old are you I'm 26 W So you know when it's as epic as being 26 and really having the world as your oyster, you know you're going to you're You're going to go through an incredible chapter here.

Ah yeah, 10 years from today, you're still going to be shockingly young and you'll be 10 years of learnings, experiences, success and failures both personally and professionally and to your point you'll be met with new opportunities that you might be met with today. that in 10 years maybe if you lean with maybe may end up being a no that today is a yes or vice versa. That is absolutely right. Yeah! and one thing that I am certain on is my Glo my mission.

Like what I want in general which is to unite a universal audience through laughter and story. that I think that is such a brilliant contemporary point of view in understanding how distribution works. Mhm? Yeah, that's achievable. Yeah, especially with what's coming next.

the fact that every one of your videos will have Ai voice and lipsyncing completely done in two to three years and you will have videos speaking everything from German to farsy to Russian to every other language like. That's the next step for all of us. Yeah, one of the remarkable advancements in AI already is is transcribing and dubbing. It's it's insane to me that I'm going to go to Turkey and go to Warsaw and go to Paris and tons of people are going to run up to me in five years and talk to me in a language I can't speak because I've been speaking to them in their native tongue.

that's bananas. that's crazy crazy. And then of course I start thinking about Okay, well then the ear pods are going to have translation and all the AI and just like we're all just going to be talking to each other. which is you know Wonderful because I think communication and dialogue is the only way we can fix a lot of our problems.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah. the the uh the changes that AI are going to make to content is going to be huge. I was go ahead no please. I was just going to say it was part of an announcement with YouTube where uh they're they announced alloud which allows you to dub with one click.

It's crazy crazy like and it's just the beginning so see how it's going exactly right before we get out of here knowing that you thought about like being on the podcast. what have we not touched on yet that we want to touch on? Obviously I want everybody to check out your channel and your handle so let's push that real quick. How do they people find you? Uh yes, it's Alan Chicken Chow on YouTube Tik Tok Instagram everything. Spell that out for everybody who's like me and can't spell a L A N C H I K I N C H O W and that's my full real legal name and and what else did we not touch on that? you think you want to touch on to this audience? Yeah, I just I Want to say again that I think Global content is the future like what you said about AI like what Cabie proved and if you look at the top most viewed like Tik tokers top all of them.

don't talk I think that the future is global content. The future is global in general, not just content. Yeah, the world is so connected and that's what I'm passionate about. That's what I think is the next step the the next stage of um, creators about.

What about while I've got you and no and I have a good sense of who's listening to this? What about the Fortune 500 CMOS and CEOs that listen to this? Literally the biggest brands in the world. You know, how should they be thinking about engaging with creators and influencers at your size? What do they get wrong? What do they underestimate? You know and kind of like what do you? you know, even giving you a second of who would you like to collab with or what kind of things are you looking to collab with if if you're even looking to collab, yeah, I think I Think still. to this day, a lot of the traditional Industries they still don't understand the level of influence that influencers have. uh I was part of a beta shopping program on YouTube where we would tag products and it was a beta test and I would tag these products I have this red flannel I wear all the time I'm not wearing it right now, but um, I we would.

we would tag it and um, it would suddenly go unavailable all the time and me and my assistant. We kept on giving feedback to the team like hey, there's something wrong with the button, it's unavailable but you probably also understood that it was selling. Yes, it's not like it's again. back to the book.

back then People like you might have been Cal and nice to YouTube or Google but you knew the was selling. No, that's what I was going to say. Their response was no, it's not unavailable because every button Works you're selling the product out but you knew that right? I didn't know really genuinely I didn't know I mean I saw the amount of clicks that we were getting but I didn't know that we were like selling out this flannel like this is crazy I mean to me, it's like to your point I get whether you're being self-deprecating or humble I get why Fortune 500 CEOs don't know To your point Yeah, but I think all of you in the trenches know yeah, we're living it, We know. Uhhuh yeah.

so I think that in influencers that the amount of influence that we have is. it's insane. Like the the amount of traffic that we draft to sell on the internet in that format to sell If there was a draft like a sports draft and there was 50 celebrities on television and movie and film Netflix included from Hollywood and 50 top creators from YouTube and Tik Tok and I was one of the teams drafting I wouldn't draft a single person from Hollywood until every Creator and influencer was off the board. True yeah, that's how big the Gap actually is and I'm talking any celebrity MH take your top 15 actresses yeah, you know now an actress or actor who's also killing it on social then I may you know you give me a keev a Ryan Reynolds a Kevin Hart then I'm then I Have to think it.

But even with those people I just Rihanna even with them, if we're really talking top 50 Creator influencer top 50 primary Hollywood I'm I'm taking the first 50 on the left side prior yeah, it's just it's just that big of a gap of influence at this point. Yes, the cat is out of the B yeah um but yeah I would love to work with Disney I want to build the next Disney that's like my my dream and Legacy and so and do you think about that the way I Think about it with be friends from uh, animation and character based or do you think it more like the Disney Channel stuff that content that we see more of like Hannah Montana yeah I think I think I'm I Think about it in terms of Storytelling I want to build the the strongest like characters and and um, stories on my channel that can build a legacy that surpasses me. Good for you my friend. Thank you for being on the show, Thank you for inspiring people and thank you for entertaining and I I Do believe that in a world of a lot of content that strikes fear into people and unhappiness I think it's incredibly important to people that are Shining Light on Love and Happiness smiling and positivity and I appreciate you being a contributor and that was a very primary reason why I wanted to have you on the podcast and I hope that everybody who's listening gets to discover this young man's content.

and uh, hope everybody has a wonderful day.