Uploaded and Unfiltered: Conversations about Personal Growth, Mindsets, and Advice with BIPOC Creators for Creators

Building a Brand in the Digital Age [Guest: Th33Network1]

• Jermaine Pulliam • Season 1 • Episode 55

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Discover the inspiring journey of Network, a former youth football coach who transformed into a prominent figure in the entertainment industry and a respected fantasy football league commissioner. What started as an unexpected offer to host a sports talk show on Blog Talk Radio has now evolved into a dynamic career in Twitch streaming, highlighted by an unforgettable interview with Mychal Thompson, the father of NBA star Klay Thompson. This episode takes you through Network's fascinating transition, offering invaluable insights on the nuances of content creation, the importance of self-investment, and the continuous learning curve in technology and podcasting.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome. Welcome back to another episode of uploaded and unfiltered, the podcast, of which I, your host, remain interviewed another content creator. In regards to the journey thus far, as always, today I have a special guest. Okay, I just lied at the beginning of the podcast. Not always, sometimes I do this by myself because we need to drop some. Anyways, tonight I have a special guest. I'm going to read his bio, get some information on him so we can start this awesome conversation. The Network is a former youth football coach with extensive experience in an entertainment industry, having worked as a stagehand and lighting technician for over 20 years. Currently, he is a part of a startup in Northern Cali. Network is a dedicated father of four and a passionate fantasy football enthusiast, serving as a commissioner over many leagues. And with that, I'd like to introduce my guest for the evening, the one, the only, network. Welcome to the podcast. How you?

Speaker 2:

doing I'm actually doing fantastic. That was an amazing introduction. I feel so honored to be on the show.

Speaker 1:

Yo, I appreciate you doing it. I'm glad we were able to finally link up, get this on wax, because I already know the conversation is going to be awesome. So appreciate you giving me some time to do this and without further ado. I am super excited to get this knowledge for myself. Again. These podcasts are usually me geeking out about the people that I find interesting and I enjoy their content. So how did you get started in content creation?

Speaker 2:

Well, it was in a roundabout way. I've always enjoyed the space. I've always been a gamer and I I I have a deep passion for sports like, uh, basketball, football, baseball. When I was younger and I like statistics and I got into this group on facebook that we used to get together and just talk about sports in a group and some of the members had their shows, that um, blog, talk, radio, okay. So one of the guys asked me like hey, you want, you want a show? And gave me a show. I did a show every monday, like nine o'clock eastern standard time, for about three years. Okay, and after about a year I was like this would be nice if I put it on Twitch. So I started doing it on Twitch live.

Speaker 2:

I used to have my phone and my little snowball and people would call and I would hold it up to the snowball, and I got a lot of experience doing that, met a lot of people and I enjoyed it. I even had the opportunity to interview Mike L Thompson, clay Thompson's father from the Golden State Warriors, former NBA number one overall pick, and I believe Mike L is a hall of famer. He's a color announcer for the Lakers. Okay, that was tremendous. Normally guests come on how did that come?

Speaker 2:

about. Oh, it was the, the guy who started me off with blog talk radio. Shout out to kevin dixon um at in the zone sports, I believe it was.

Speaker 2:

This was like over about 10 years ago okay and um, he gave me a show and after about a year and a half I had invested in myself. So my quality, I had camera. Once I was on twitch, I was doing my show weekly. He was like I need you to do me a favor, can you, you know, train this guy and teach him what you know? So I had a co-host for a little while and my co-host works, I think, at staples and has a relationship with michael thompson. But so when he say, hey, I'm going, you know I am he. Oh, shout out to laj, he's on instagram, y'all, and he's still doing his stuff, more so on TikTok and on Instagram reels, and he's amazing. I don't tell him that. I said I trained him. So that's just the blessing of everything, right he's amazing.

Speaker 2:

Shout out to LAJ. So he came on. It was about 15 minutes, usually that's what they do. He stayed for 45 minutes and when he told me he was coming, I was like, oh yeah, okay, yeah, okay. And then minutes, okay. And when he told me he was coming up, like oh yeah, okay, yeah, okay. And then the night of the show, he was like, okay, um, I'm gonna call him right now. I was like, oh, this is really happening. So I was. I was not even prepared. Yeah, I wasn't prepared. So it still went great, but I fanned out. I'm a huge fan, you know what I mean I I fanned out and it was just really nice.

Speaker 2:

We talked about he loves a avid boxing fan, he loves wrestling. He talked about everything under the sun, just not sports. And that's what I like in podcasts and guess yeah that's awesome, man.

Speaker 1:

So everything started from somebody just handing you a show and was like hey, we like you in a mic, you have a great conversation voice, you can lead a topic and you've been doing that ever since, like so right now I met you through twitch. That's where I came through and I saw you doing it. You had, of course, the awesome setup microphone was on point. This podcasting life is new to me. This is amazing.

Speaker 2:

I love this. We have taken very many sidetracks. I've had multiple shows in the last 10 years and opportunities given to me and along the journey I've learned so much on different parts of from the editing, uh, from changing it from mp3 mp4. I don't want to get technical, but I've been behind the scenes and even that part and people think that it's just pressing live and it isn't. There's so many intricate things and technology changes over the years and you have to keep up with it. So I've had shows back the Back Row Raiders show. I did that for about 12 episodes and information is key, I was told. Once I got up to what was it? A thousand downloads. I could start pitching for advertisement. Those who don't know monetize and that's how you get revenue. Once I reached that mark, another friend told me oh, you need a thousand per show. And it was just like somebody just hit the balloon with a pin and took all the air out of me and I should have kept doing it. But life be lifin' I hear you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, All right. Well, let's go ahead and slide into our next section, Current mindset. This is where I ask my guests how they feel in regards to their current output of content, what they're making, what they're pushing towards. Also, bonus points if you feel like talking about where you see yourself, where you see your content in, let's say, like three to six months from now.

Speaker 2:

Well, after everybody got ill, I'm not gonna say the year.

Speaker 2:

I had to take a step back, because I was given an enormous opportunity to put my time into content creation and from seeing and having that opportunity being that I, pretty much being out of work for 18 months, I put my all into content creation on Twitch and I learned a lot about myself. You know it wasn't the easiest of times and sometimes I felt, because I wasn't working as much and wasn't active, my brain was eating itself. That's a whole nother podcast possibly but I put my my heart and blood, sweat and tears and creating content.

Speaker 2:

and I monetary wise I was I was growing, the channel was growing but it wasn't. I couldn't depend on it and I realized I didn't want to do this for a living. I didn't want to depend on income from creating content. So I took a step back and I just stopped putting my all into it. People used to come into the channel and be like oh, you're the hype man, you're the hype man and you're the radio guy. And now I'm just, I'm a lot more. I'm changed because it's draining to be like that for so long and I have zero expectations at this point, so that content over time has changed.

Speaker 2:

But fast forward to this year and changing careers. I'm more so nine to five, not all over the place. We've had a hard time making a schedule but now I do it on my time I'm I'm having a lot more fun. I'm doing featuring on a lot of other podcasts, so it's less committal. I have a couple offers to do my own show, but until I can commit myself, like someone like yourself, to do it right, I just keep featuring, to just working on the craft and I enjoy it. There's no regrets, I'm having a blast that is awesome.

Speaker 1:

Like you don't hear many people talking about taking that break, like coming to turns with I've said it before like streaming, the way you have to stream to make it sustainable so you can depend on it is something I I'm not saying that all young people like. I think that's a young people's sport. I'm not trying to stream eight hours a day, seven days a week. That's not the type of content I want to make. And once you come to turns with that, that's when, oh, streaming is fun again, because I do it when I want, or I do it two days a week or whatever it is. I appreciate you dropping that knowledge because it's good to hear that. Hey, I still love creating content and now I'm making it work in the schedule that I have right now. So that's dope.

Speaker 2:

And at the same time I've had over the years I've had a couple of chances where, if I just would have digged in a little bit more, we might might not be having this conversation. Like um, there was a time I was playing no man's sky and I was averaging like 30 viewers, like consistently. I switched the game up three. I go back to the 30 viewers that come back. So I started playing it a lot and I was like I didn't want to, I'm going to be stuck playing no man's sky like, and then the fear of I don't know what this is called, but okay, I'm about to make it.

Speaker 2:

Things are turning around that making it scared me. People were being canceled, like I was, like I don't think I want to be viral, I don't want to be famous. Going through that process, through covid, made me reevaluate stuff, even with my family. All the time I was putting into creating content looked like I was just playing games. Over the years we have, you know, gotten past that. But it takes a toll on your children, on your partners, even on just physically getting outside and going to do and forgetting, you know, and family yeah family don't look at playing games, or I don't want to get too long-winded, it's just, it's different.

Speaker 2:

So mentally you have to be able to find your space where you're having fun.

Speaker 1:

No regrets, I think you nailed it. Uh, something that I just wanted to highlight real quick. You said that fear of, I think's there's fear of failure, but there's also fear of success, because with success there's that illusion that X, y and Z problems might come along with that. And, yeah, I totally hear that. There was a point where I am in the middle of becoming a content creation coach and teaching people mindset stuff and on the outside I was like, oh, this is gonna be great. As I was getting closer to it, I was starting to panic and I'm like, oh, can I do this? I don't want to mess anybody up. Those fears have gone, thankfully, but those come with lessons, those come with time. You learn those things that, yeah, your first initial reaction is to freak out, but you gotta sit back and, okay, is this real? Am I really? Is this thing that I am freaking out about even real? No, all right, let me calm the fuck out, yeah sometimes we're the biggest obstacle in our way.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we can be blocking our blessings, or we could just be in our freaking way yes, yes, I.

Speaker 1:

That's the type of content. So I have two tiktoks. One is just general game and me reviewing stuff. The other one, radiant reflection, is talking about stuff like that. Like, hey, you're probably standing in your way. You don't even realize it. Are you doing x, y and z? Then stop that shit, or? But yes, that's why this podcast exists to get that, that uh conversation going, get that dialogue out there. So I appreciate that. All right, man, we're going to go ahead and slide into the next lesson, or the slide into the next section lessons learned. This is where you drop some knowledge on a lesson that you learned specifically because you were creating content.

Speaker 2:

Like um stick. I would say advise everybody to stick to your, your strengths. Um, don't be all over the place. One thing that I I think I made as a mistake like that was detrimental. I didn't pay attention to the my brand and be hyper focused, even down to money wise. I advise everybody, before they attach a payment, how you receive payment, get your llc the most professional thing, like I don't want to speak for everybody.

Speaker 2:

It's a mistake that I did I made in the beginning and I think that was turned into more of a problem than anything. But over the years I call myself, my name is network, so I enjoyed networking and meeting people. I spent more time in other people's channels than my own. I think that was a mistake, too, for years just hanging time in other people's channels than my own. I think that was a mistake, too, for years just hanging out, meeting other people, networking and learning a lot about personalities, different communities. And I had to figure out stop expecting people to be me Like. I never felt entitled. I come with no strings, like if I enjoy your content, I'm going to spend time, I'm going to promote, I'm going to spend time, I'm going to promote, I'm going to retweet, I'm going to do all that. But over all this time I figure some people are not. Are we people not? I mean me people, not we people and once they get what?

Speaker 2:

they want they move on for good, bad or indifference. I used to do this thing called an audit, where I'll go and look through and the people that we network with and see if they were still following, and that would be depressing because not only would they unfollow twitch be twitching, but people haven't streamed in three years. Two years and I had made connections with these people and it just hurt my heart, like you're not even around, no more.

Speaker 2:

I spent two years kicking it with you like you don't pop in and say, hey, what's up? Network, I genuinely cared about people so I had to, for one, stop doing those audits. Stop caring about that, because it puts your mindset in a place like just just have fun if you're having fun you'll have no regrets, but don't don't spend all your time networking. It's still something I I love, but it got, I got to a point in life I can't network no more.

Speaker 2:

So I used to do these amazing shout outs because I had ammunition of your channel when you came through. I don't even do shout outs no more because I can't physically. I feel you. I can't give you a water. I can press a button for anybody, but can I tell somebody how, why they want to go to your channel?

Speaker 1:

because I'm near you, know so I've learned so much, so much about this I will say uh, back in the day I remember coming through um, when you were streaming your shout outs legendary, because like right now I don't know if you notice, there's like this ai shout out by, basically looks at all your videos and gives you a customized like that's cute and people like that. But when you were doing it personalized out of your mouth like hey, I know I've been to this person streams xyz mentioning shit, like you fucking saw that, what that shit was dope. So I don't want you to think that went unnoticed.

Speaker 2:

That was it very much appreciated. It was draining Like could you imagine doing that all stream and I used to go for it, man.

Speaker 1:

Ain't no way. Sometimes I look back at some of my old streams and I'm like who the fuck was that dude with all that energy? And like part of me thinks it's because I hated my corporate job so much, like that was time for me to like let loose and wild out. But I'm like I can't, I'm not, I'm not trying to be that dude right now like I gotta chill, like I'm yeah, I want to come just talk and hang out and drink some coffee. Come through, that is that's awesome, all right. Well, damn, you nailed that body, that question. Uh, words of advice. Any advice would you like to give to the peoples?

Speaker 2:

the best advice I can give anybody on content creation is stick to your strengths but, most importantly, appreciate what you have, not what you don't have. The people that pull up the connections you have with people. Appreciate them and it is easier to have fun. I know scheduling isn't my strengths, but the schedules I do make I keep and I put my all in it Best foot forward. Have fun. There was one other thing that slipped my mind. I asked the same question to you.

Speaker 1:

Same question Words of advice. You know what? My word of advice has always changed, but I think now it's solidifying into figure out what you want to do and do it unapologetically, like be you your authentic self and just enjoy what you do. Enjoy what you like, and those people who enjoy the same thing will show up Like. It took me a long time to realize that, but I like fidget toys so I just make random fidget toys on TikTok and I don't care like the end result. Like the end result is. I've made that, it was in my head. Now it's on the website and I feel good about that. That's it. I wasn't looking to blow up off it. I'm not looking to like have a deep conversation about it.

Speaker 2:

The expectation is is out and I think that's what we need to fall back to like figure out what you love and go with that and find the people that love that and the people who don't just ignore their ass. I I remember what I forget. Sticking to my strengths is what I. I went back to talking about sports. So I have a fantasy football community and I commissioned like 16 different leagues.

Speaker 2:

I'm in 30, I am entrenched in fantasy football uh, we have about 180 members of our fantasy football community on facebook, but I'm a part of many, many more and podcasts. I started just putting my time into that. That's what I'm having so much fun with, when I didn't value it for what I've been doing that for years. I mean putting all my energy into this, this, this, this, this, and I'm not focusing on my strength. So focus on what your strength is. Don't get caught up in what everybody else is doing, because, unapologetically, I'm having fun with my family. We're going to Vegas next year 12 of us. That's awesome To draft and meet in person. I've never drafted in person with anybody. That's the kind of community we've built over there. So am I ignoring that? We got something. We got something special.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome and to your point. You're enjoying yourself and you're still making content around it. You're hitting it, you're doing what you love and doing it in a way that you love. You can't get more better than that. That's crazy, man vegas. You know, like I'm not into sports like that, like I used to be, but like those fantasy football. Okay, I quit and tell me if I'm wrong. I don't know if you know anything about dnd a little bit, so I just I never played dnd ever in my life until I think, like two, three months ago. Shout out to the homie Ronan. Ronan on the sticks, he's my GM. And like that camaraderie you get with random people when you have a like-minded like subject matter, like you can't trade that for the world, like that's special and like you said you got to like cherish and hold on to that. That's dope.

Speaker 2:

We've been planning a Vegas trip for five years and we are now doing it. This has been a thing over years that has built up.

Speaker 1:

When you meet people that you've only seen on the internet for the first time, it's different. So I know you're going to have fun, All right. Well, Network we have reached the point of the podcast where you get to brag a little bit. Where do you want the people to go to check out your content? What are you doing nowadays? All that fun stuff? The floor is yours.

Speaker 2:

I find myself on a lot of other people's channel biweekly. You can find us on going for to the fantasy cheat sheet there on Twitter. Going for two is on YouTube. I was just on last week the couch scouts no space podcast. Um, they're also on twitter. I will be on their podcast in the future.

Speaker 2:

My instagram is the network one. All my social media is th33 the word network the number one. By time you get to the first end, I'm going to pop up somewhere. Just hit that follow. If you just want to check out the photos and learn more about me, you don't even have to follow instagram. It is a public domain, so hit your boy up. Oh, oh and and we also have a link we're doing a fundraiser for the alzheimer's association.

Speaker 2:

In last month we have raised $12,000 through our team campaign. Through my personal campaign, which I'm a part of this is my first charity event ever we have raised, through our portion of our community, $1,710. And this is my first time ever doing it, so we're going to be doing a lot more of that after we have some content that has never, ever, ever been talked about or made before. A great idea, it's going to be like a commissioner guy. I'm going to share my screen through a web series explaining how we have some of the best fantasy football leagues there is out there. Someone told me to wait to put this out and I'm supposed to stop talking about it because this don't exist. They said take your time. I have so much detail and I'm the product, so we got some stuff coming out. Oh yeah, moving forward, sorry.

Speaker 1:

That is exciting. No, no, you brag. This is what this is for. Oh, I love that. All right, well, as always, I guess I'll go ahead and shout out the podcast real quick, uploaded and unfiltered. We do this every week. This is week 54 in a row. I like streak, so 54 episodes in a row. I don't see no stoppage anytime soon. Go ahead and leave us a rating. You can send a text message to the show if you want to Share the podcast and if you know anybody who needs to be on this, let me know.

Speaker 1:

I have a guest list, but I don't have no problems increasing that guest list. I'm talking to everybody Other than that Network. Thank you so much for doing this. I had a great time. Like I said, I knew this was going to be a dope conversation, but here we are. We have reached the end of the road. But here we are, we have reached the end of the road. I appreciate you. Thank you. Other than that, I will talk to you in the next episode. I don't know what's going on next week. Maybe it's going to be an episode where I got a guest, maybe it's going to be me, but it's going to be fun, as always. Protect your mental, keep creating content and I will talk to you in the next one Peace.