My guest today is Marcelo Lewin who considers himself a serial “accidental entrepreneur.” What he means by that is that he creates websites around his passions, and in his own words, “somehow they turn into something other companies want.” He loves the intersection of business, productivity and creativity, and now, at the age of 56, he decided to switch careers to pursue his lifelong dream of filmmaking after 30+ years working in the tech industry. From an outside perspective, it might look like Marcelo can’t decide what he wants to do with his life, but in reality, he’s following passion and opportunity with great intention.
In our conversation, Marcelo reveals that his career shifts were driven by his active choice to pursue them. We talk about why he keeps switching careers and the mindsets and strategies he applies to pull them off. We also discuss his views on failure, why he seems to always expect it, and the strategies he uses to manage it.
This conversation is full of knowledge bombs that you can use on your own path whether you’re transitioning to a new career or looking to excel on your current career path.
Marcelo Lewin calls himself an “accidental entrepreneur” having created multiple websites around his passions, which later became small startups “by accident” and later were acquired, including My Internet Desktop, Pixel Heads Network, Filmmaking Webinars, How to Create VR and Headless Creator.
He’s been a Developer, Technical Architect, Project Manager, Podcaster, Blogger, Videographer, Designer, VP, and Director at many companies including NBC, Toyota, Walt Disney Imagineering and J.F. Shea Co, Inc.
Marcelo is making a midlife career transition at the age of 56 from 30+ years in the tech industry to filmmaking to fulfill his dream of working in Post-Production. He is currently enrolled at the UCLA Extension Filmmaking Program focused on Post-Production and Editing.
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Zack Arnold: I am here today with Marcelo Lewin, who considers himself a serial quote unquote, accidental entrepreneur. You've been a developer, a technical architect, a project manager, a podcaster, a blogger, a videographer, a designer, a VP and director at many companies, including NBC, Toyota, Walt Disney Imagineering, and JF Shea Company Incorporated. And for some reason of which we'll probably talk a lot more about it. 56 years old, you've decided time to switch careers again, and go from the tech industry to pursue your lifelong dream of filmmaking. And lastly, just like me, and I think this is what we're gonna dive a lot more deeply into, you're very passionate about the intersection of technology, creativity, and productivity, especially nowadays with artificial intelligence. That was a mouthful, I am already exhausted. And I haven't even started. But thank you so much for coming on to the podcast.
Marcelo Lewin: I'm happy to be here. I'm a big fan of yours and what you're doing, especially like with fitness, and this sitting around all the time, it's just amazing. And yeah, so I'm glad to be here.
Zack Arnold: Well, I'm fascinated by all the things that you and I are going to chat about this conversation actually began with my team and with my producer, Debby thinking, "Who are the people that we want to talk to that can help us better understand how to learn artificial intelligence, specifically for filmmakers?" you clearly are now at the epicenter of that, which as we're going to talk more about is no accident whatsoever. However, the deeper we get into this, the more we realized, AI is not the conversation here. The conversation is understanding the process of career invention, of which you are you basically built a career out of reinventing your career. So eventually, I think we're gonna get to the point of helping my audience navigate the abyss of learning artificial intelligence, and how to prioritize either their first or their next steps. But I'm now going to speak for everybody's impostor syndrome and ask the following question. Who do you think you are 56 years old that just start over your career as a filmmaker?
Marcelo Lewin: Wait a minute, you sound like my wife. Now, she said the same thing.
Zack Arnold: Okay, so speaking for everybody's impostor syndrome and your wife?
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah, there you go. It's, well, it's something I've always wanted to do. You know, I'm, I've come to the I came to the US in around 1976, from South America, sort of immigrant. And pretty, pretty dirt poor back then. And one of the things I always love movies and wanted to get into the movies, but, you know, being recent immigrants, you know, with debt, not having the money, of course, the technology back then, right? Nobody had an iPhone back then. So you could just go shoot a movie, you really have to pay a lot of money for that stuff. So there went that idea, right. And then, which I, you know, I'm grateful for because I ended up in a career in the tech industry in which was very fruitful for 30 plus years. So no complaints here whatsoever. But it got to a point where, you know, turn 56 Right, had my midlife crisis. Well, actually, my first midlife crisis was building a home theater out of the living room behind me, that was the first is that 50? That was a true one. And then this here, you know, there were some people that had passed away, and it kind of made me realize how short life is right? And and I'm also a, I don't like a what if scenario, I don't, I need to know. And I don't care if I fail? You know, I mean, it just, I need to know that I tried. And that's what I did is I said, you know, I literally had the conversation with my wife, and she's used to it now at the beginning 30 years ago, where, because I kept switching stuff. She was like, what's wrong? Why are you doing this? But now she knows that, you know, I'll make it work somehow. I mean, I'll just keep trying. But I just said, you know, fine, one, two, and now what am I going to do it right? And if figure 56 I'm semi Youngsville, quote, unquote, in quotes, and give it a shot. And I always figured, well, if it doesn't work out, then you know, go back to tech, you know, there's so much more you can do with everything I'm learning anyway, which is incorporate video right, if I can make scripted. So yeah, it was more of a you know, realizing Life is short. And I want to check it off my list. Even if I don't make it, I want to check it off my list and say I try. Plus, it's also kind of showing my kids even though they're older now and their 20s still showing that you know, you're never too old to try new things anyway.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I love it. There's at least 10 different mindsets already in there that we can unpack. The first one that I want to go into that I think is so interesting, is that if you do the math, midlife crisis at 56 means that in your mind, you're living life until at least 112. Right? Well, most people by their mid 50s They're thinking well, I mean, this is it getting ready for the golden years. I guess I'm gonna have to give up on all the things I thought I was going to do. And if I didn't have the video and I were just talking to a guy the audio and I take the age out of it, you You're coming at this with a mindset of like, you're in your mid 20s. Like, let's just go after this. Let's try this. Let's give it all we got. And if we fail, who cares? Right? There's a lot of mindset and psychology behind that.
Marcelo Lewin: Well, it so cuz it's interesting. It's it's kind of like taking the chance mentality, but it's also been planning for it. So let me explain what I mean by that. Because I don't I don't suggest that people should say, Screw it, I'm gonna quit my job or do whatever you want to do without without careful planning, right? So everything all the crazy, quote, unquote, changes I've done switching have have always been planned out. And what I mean by that, even though it looks chaotic, like I would never do that, right? Because there's certain things I wouldn't do. But quitting a job or moving switching careers, it doesn't like scare me for some reason. There are many other things that scare me. So I don't want to come out as like, hide scare me, like I cannot do heights, right, that scare the heck out of me. But there's careful planning, meaning like, for example, for me to make this this switch, I have to be I have to plan financially. Like if this happens, right? Well, I'm starting from scratch, basically, right? I'm starting like I did 30 years ago when I got into the tech industry. So. So even though it happened in June of this year, where I decided to do that switch, the thought has been happening for maybe a couple of years. And slowly, maybe, without really realizing I started planning for it by maybe saving some money. You know, aligning all the ducks in a row right and getting things to that point. So I don't know if that answered your question. To be honest with you, I guess.
Zack Arnold: It's definitely a good place to start. And there's, there's one area there's many areas, but there's one area, I specifically want to dig deeper into actually, now that think about a two now that I think about a 12. So you and I have we have so many things in common already. But going back to your introduction, and this is something you put in your bio on on your website, you have in quotes, accidental entrepreneur, if you stumble from one career into building a business, for whatever reason, sure, you're an accidental entrepreneur, with the amount of times that you have started a company, learn to technology, build a company, have that company acquired and done the next one. In my mind, there's no way this is an accident at this point. But what I want to do is I want to rewind back to when it maybe would have been because I would presume. And you can go a little bit deeper into this. And we're not going to go through beat by beat through all the transitions. But if we rewind to the part that I'm the most fascinated with, is that you were an accountant. And my assumption is that that was
Marcelo Lewin: I was in accounting, I was not an accountant.
Zack Arnold: So you're in accounting. And my assumption would be and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that back in those days, there was a lot of you just got to pick one thing and stick to it. Right? And you've probably heard that over and over. Why can't you just stay with one thing? So at what point do you feel you were an accidental entrepreneur? And then when was it no longer an accident?
Marcelo Lewin: It's funny, you said that? Because yeah, back then was like switching careers. This is in the early 90s. Right, switching careers that quick that much until the dot com. And then basically everything went crazy. And everybody's you know, if you were in a career for more than or in a job for more than a year, then, quote unquote, there was something wrong with you, right? Yeah. Why aren't you in? And I went through that right? Switch constantly, like a year and a half, boom, the next one and the next one. But what was your original question?
Zack Arnold: Talking about how it was the you were able to overcome this idea that you need to pick one thing, you're in accounting, and you became an accidental entrepreneur? Until it was no longer an accident?
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah. Well, the lucky thing, I guess was I had parents that really didn't care what I did. So in a good way. That was I just pick whatever I wanted to do, right? And accounting, I thought, well, like county would be something that, you know, pays the bills. And you know, I was your daddy. All right, I was right. He's the bill. That was my excitement about it. And then I started taking classes. I started working at Toyota in accounting, computer Corp and accounting and started taking classes at Cal Poly. And literally after the first semester, I said, there is no, you know, we can bleep it, but there's no way that I'm going to be doing this for a living. There's just no way nothing gets accountants, please. I love accounting, especially during tax time. I need the accountants, but personally, it wasn't for me, right? i You never heard of an accountant. Doing accounting for fun. Like let's say developers or filmmakers, I think do that stuff for fun anyway, right? And then they still do it for a living, right? Accountants go home and they're all like, Oh, let me do this, you know, a spreadsheet for fun then maybe some do. So yeah, I just and the Internet was also it was the the interesting part was that the internet was taken off too. So the internet came online, right? And I was big time into being a Child of the 80s gone through when computers came out like the Commodore VIC 20, the apple, two the or the apple. All of those, I was heavily into that. So I already started loving technology at an early age, right? I had an first computer at 1213 years old, and I was programming basic with it. So I was already into that stuff. When the internet came on, I literally just got excited about it i and I'm I'm a person that I see. I tend to be an early adopter. And I tend to not knowing not not because I'm annoyed or at all. It's not at that. But I tend to look at a technology and see the possibilities of where it could go. Right. So for me, I don't see. I don't see the negatives of it. Like what's happening today with AI, right? I talked to so many people, and they're like, oh, yeah, but they're gonna kill us all. And, and I don't ever see any of that. I'm not saying it's not going to happen. I just don't see it, I see only the positives in general. And that just allows me to get into whatever I want to get right. Maybe it's a naive way of looking at things. But I looked at the Internet and really got into it. And I started staying up literally to two in the morning just learning everything I could about in got into development. And what happened was at Toyota in accounting, they had we have green screens back then. But we were working on a mainframe with a green screen, right? But we could create a bulletin board. So I asked the admin at Toyota, hey, can you create a bulletin board about the internet and I just want to right there. So what happened is nobody knew the internet or what what happened is I started writing little posts on on this bulletin board. That's what they called it back then. And then people within Toyota started reading that. And then I started getting email from people within Toyota, about the internet. And then one thing led to another and I had a huge following inside of Toyota, one of the department heard about that, well, they actually were following that, too. I befriended them because I wanted to move into that it site because I wanted to work on the internet. And basically, I ended up moving literally, I got a job with them saying, hey, we need to do internet, you know everything about the internet, we know nothing. Do you want to come over? Be even before he finished a sentence? I was yeah, I'll be there. You know, and that's literally how it happened. So I wasn't afraid of the internet. To me, it was something completely new. Right? I remember being extremely excited. In fact, I remember being on the freeway with my wife, and there was a billboard and the billboard had a.com URL. And I pointed in the reason I remember this because you didn't see that back then. Right? And I remember pointing to my camera, look at that the internet, see, look, they're already advertising this stuff. And of course, my wife is like, a soy. But But I was all excited about it. Right? Kind of like I am with AI and all this and not just AI but everything that I've been through. So to me, technology always excites me, it always gets me going and seeing the possibilities of it. And yeah, I just do it and take a chance, basically, you know, but I take it's a careful chance because it wasn't like I was in accounting. And then overnight, I was in it doing internet, there were many months of me writing posts, right setting, setting some sort of base there that people now knew me right, which is what I'm trying to do now with filmmaking as well.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, so my guess is that we could take that entire story, removed the actual names of Toyota and or the internet or all of these specific pieces of information, we could fast forward to the last six months to a year, change internet to AI and change company names. My guess is that story's almost exactly the same, right?
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. So.
Zack Arnold: So to me, one of the really interesting things about this, and there are now essentially what I'm always trying to do is I'm looking for patterns, behavior patterns, to understand how people are able to achieve the things that they are. And it's immediately apparent to me that there's at least a minimum of two things to already dig into, and many more, but number one, it's the mindset of I'm an early adopter, and I'm not afraid to play with something while it's still new and unknown. And number two, I'm just not afraid to try something new, despite what other people may think.
Marcelo Lewin: Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, definitely, I'm an early adapter. In fact, whenever I see little updates on my phone, the little circle that you need to update, I gotta update, I can't see that I have to have the latest. Right, I just updated to the latest of of macOS. Um, so I'm definitely an early adopter. And for me that to me, it excites me. I mean, to me trying out things even if they break it. It's just super exciting. I love that that. In fact, I'm going through a class on Avid right, and we're getting into the technical tidbits of avid. And it's funny because the teacher said, Okay, guys, this is the boring part. And this is where I'm like, No, this is the cool part. Now I know I am doing this stuff. You know, now I'm getting into the nitty gritty of stuff and I I understand why. So I'm driven by that, that kind of stuff, you know, so
Zack Arnold: So like I said, I want to continue to to break down this idea of the mindsets, the psychology, their approach to this idea of career reinvention. Because without going through every beat in your entire career and all your business, as you essentially have a career based on career reinvention, and there's a theme, you have an article that I'm going to make sure that we link to that it's basically asking the question, is it time to reinvent yourself. And there's, there's a core theme, there's a, you literally repeat it over and over and over. And it's a word that I use all the time, you're there, the phrases that I got comfortable again, it was time to reinvent myself, I want you to talk about how this feeling of comfort factors in all these various transitions you've made?
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah, yeah. And maybe it's my upbringing, upbringing, that always you have to, you know, keep going and succeed. And I don't know if most likely it is to have coming from my mom and stuff. But whenever I get to a point that I literally feel comfortable, like, and I don't want to make it sound like Oh, this guy has to just suffer. It's not that but it's like, where I feel like, I'm not learning anymore. Right. And it happens in every time. And some because of the, the it's it's nobody's fault except my own, I reach whatever I reach now, because I've learned enough and I'm a genius. Now. It's just, it just doesn't excite me anymore. And I reached whatever I needed to learn in that point. Then I start saying, Okay, at this point, this, whatever XYZ I'm doing is no longer than you thing. Everybody's doing it. That means that I'm just like everybody else. Now, the other thing, this has been a mentality for me forever, right. But now as I get into my 5657, later, 58, you know, you've got to work harder to because you are competing against much younger people with a lot more energy than me, right? That are coming in at a lower cost than me just because I've been in the business for so long. Right? So how do you compete with that? So it's also kind of like, mentality of survival, right? If I want to continue working as much as I want to work, I don't know, why not stop working, right. I have to continue to learn and, and stay uncomfortable, right? So even though here I mean, look like I'm okay, talking to be honest with you. I might my normal way of being is not doing this. It's literally that's why I like editing, right? It's just shutting off everything on my on my own and stuff. I present a lot, but not because I love it. It's just because it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. And it pushes me, right. So I, you know, with with my last job, it got to the point to that had nothing to do with them. It was me it was like, Well, I'm comfortable. I'm really comfortable. And so I've never been driven by the money, right? We all need money. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely have to work and pay my mortgage. But I've never been driven by money. And that's if we went back a little bit. I don't want to divert from the questions, but go back to the accidental entrepreneur thing. I've never been driven by money. I've been driven by passion. So I gotta love what I do. And I always know that money comes after. Because if you portray the passion, people like passion, I love passionate people. I like people that have an opinion and are passionate, right and, and they know what they want. So I think if you portray that you will get the money. But you've got to first love what you're doing. Again, you've got to plan that out, right? Because when I was doing accounting of the beginning, I couldn't just quit overnight, right? Because I didn't plan out, find out everything. Unfortunately, it's financial, at the end of the day, to do crazy stuff, you've got to be financially, you've got to be kind of semi secure wishes not say totally secured or semi secure. Right. But I think you can bet and then it goes into I do talk about that in the article too, about sacrificing, which a lot of people don't want to do, or they call maybe not upgrading their iPhone to the 15 is sacrificing where, you know, I feel, you know, there's there's a lot more sacrificing you can do to get what you want, right? Unless the iPhone 15 is what you want, then that's fine, go for it.
Zack Arnold: So the next thing that I want to dig into before we continue to move forward, I actually want to move backwards. And I'm going to put a pin in this idea of making sure that you have a plan because this concept of plan B is something that you talk about quite a bit both in this article. And it's also a common theme that I see everywhere else. But I want to get a little bit bigger picture and I actually want to go backwards. So in a lot of the career development materials that I have, specifically in the latest workshop that I recently put together, there are so many different areas that people can focus but I've narrowed it down to three essential things. What is it that I do How do I do it? And why do I do it? Right? So what for you has changed 50 Different times over the course of your career, but from what I'm learning, both from the research for the show, and now that you and I are talking, the how and the why are identical, and what you're doing is just interchangeable. So I'm curious. And this is an area where so many people get stuck is really understanding why do I want to do the things that I do? You've mentioned kind of subliminally two or three times, well, it's probably my upbringing. I actually want to go all the way back to South America, the move to South America, I'm curious, what created the person you are today that isn't afraid to take risks that constantly wants to move forward, that as soon as you're comfortable and like everybody else? Nope. Now it's time to reinvent myself? What's the first memory that comes to mind that you feel personifies where this started to become your mindset towards life?
Marcelo Lewin: Wow, that is, Wow, you're really made me go way back when I was a kid. That is a really good question. That actually, that's a really good question. I think I would have to attribute probably both my parents one of them is my mom always pushed me. You know, you you, I just got to race. Oh, but why didn't you get more than that? You know, then so it's always been that kind of and that is both good and bad. Right?
Zack Arnold: I was gonna say that can be a superpower and your kryptonite very easily.
Marcelo Lewin: It's kind of like the whiplash thing, right? Not that my mom was weird. But you know, kind of like, sometimes you treat it like that is horrible. But at the same time, that person wouldn't be without that kind of treatment. Right? Which is horrible. Anyway, but so I don't want to say that about my mom is great. But so that's part of it. I think the fact that maybe I always have to keep upping myself or whatever, maybe, maybe that's part of it. The other thing is me. No, I just to tell you, my dad left at 48 came to America. Left, everything brought us all here. With 50 bucks in his pocket. He was 48. You know, you're from South America, Argentina. Argentina. We were living in Argentina. Yeah. And his dream was always to come to the US. Oh, as you know, the the American dream, right. And he did it in he did it at 48. And I'll be honest with you, would I have the guts to do that, because, you know, I jump jobs and create companies wherever, but I don't know, because he left the wife and the kids for a year to come over here and then brought us right. I don't know if I could do that knowing because I have two kids too, you know, and they're in their 20s. But I have two kids, that takes a lot of guts, number one, to leave the family number two, to be confident enough that the family will come. And then number three, to go to a country where you don't speak the language. And you're going there with like 50 bucks. You know, I mean, he had is my grandma, his mom, that helped out and you went to Miami actually first and stayed there and then moved to LA. So, I mean, I saw that. I mean, I saw the good and bad of that, right? Because there obviously it affected family. But there's also I always I'll be honest with you, I always every fourth of July, I write my dad passed away in 9897. And I always write a thing about on Fourth of July about America because that was his dream. And you know, I'm glad I'm here. You know, I think the movie did I always I always thank him, you know, when he was alive and after, for coming to America, because I think the US gave me so many opportunities that I know we wouldn't have had in Argentina, right. But I think that's part of what kind of like seeing my dad do that. My mom pushing me, I think a combination of that and love it. And then just loving technology and loving changes. I also love controlled chaos, to be honest with you. I'm not a good corporate structure guy. I don't like chaos. For the sake of chaos. I like to have sort of a structure around chaos. But I like chaos. I don't like if there's too much red tape or corporate BS. That's not my my thing, right? I just say I'm not good at that. So I think he combined all those things. I think that's probably if I were to say that and maybe we're where it comes from.
Zack Arnold: It's interesting, because in this idea of like, you're you're looking for controlled chaos, but you don't like the structure of the bureaucracy and the red tape. I feel like that's a very different way of saying the exact same thing that I mentioned about myself all the time that I've learned. That is a really big factor in what I would consider a very scattershot resume. And there, I would say that you're in the category of your resume is even more Scattershot and makes even less sense than mine. Were in the same conversation. But what I learned is that I love working with people, I am horrible at working for people. And that was the discovery that when they hit me, I'm like, Alright, this is going to really dictate the direction of my career because I know how miserable it makes me to be a part of that system, especially when I can see how much improvement the system needs. So I'll collaborate with people all day every day. As soon as I feel like I'm working for you. And I have to deal with a bureaucracy I'm out because it just makes me miserable.
Marcelo Lewin: Right, right. And I think where you're heading there, which is what I, what I've always done, whether I'm working for somebody, or working on my own, is having an I always tell people have an entrepreneurial mindset. And I think to me, that's really important, even if you're an employee, be an entrepreneur within your position. Because there are many, like, even when I were I was working at service Titan, I went in there as an elearning. Developer, became an elearning. Manager, then was over docs, but then I switched careers within service Titan, from literally elearning, completely to back to technical, leading a team and content and content management systems. I had nothing to do with elearning. But I thought entrepreneurially there. And when they had a problem, I suggested a solution. And they put me in charge of that. And that's how I went from being a elearning developer to being a content architect. Right. architecting content management solutions within service Titan Singh company, as an employee, this isn't my own thing, right? But the thing it was, it wasn't like, Oh, I'm an elearning, man, or elearning person, I'm just going to focus on this. I nothing else, I saw an opportunity. And I got excited. And that's what kicked off my other website that that I that I created, and learn that and then made a proposal on my own time, right? It wasn't like, Oh, can I do it? While I'm working in service? I did it outside and broadening. This always tell people think as like an entrepreneur, whether you are an entrepreneur, or you're working for somebody, it doesn't matter, because then you'll be recognizing, you will make your own path. I mean, I've made my own pursuit in most companies that I work for. I've made my own position, basically. But because I made it by providing value, not by because you know, what personality? It was providing value, right? It was like, I'll show this is why I think we should do it. Let me show you. And then it's proven basically, right?
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And this, this just hits into a point that I say, ad nauseam on my coaching program almost every single day, I literally said it to a student this morning during a session. And I say unapologetically, nobody cares about your hopes and dreams. They have problems. They're seeking solutions. And if you're there to provide value and solve somebody's problems, and make their lives easier, you will find your way. And it might be a little bit different and circuitous than you thought it was originally. But this really helps me understand and explain to others. Well, what do you mean by the entrepreneur mindset, it's that I'm going to chart my own path, but I'm seeking problems for which I can become the solution rather than promote me pay attention to me. I am awesome, right? Nobody cares.
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah. I never asked for a raise. Because I have an extra bill. Oh, you know, I just bought a car. And I really needed the race. Because that doesn't work. Because he does he or she doesn't care because they have the same issue. Right. But I have asked for raises. When I said I provided this much value I brought this on.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, you can you can do the math and say, Listen, I've created this amount of revenue or this amount, whatever it might be, it's really hard to argue with that. Because then you can say, all right, well, then I don't need to do that anymore.
Marcelo Lewin: Exactly. Well, not only that, but also if you stay ahead, and that's another argument for always staying ahead of everybody else. Right. Or, as long as you love it is that I've always stayed ahead of the curve. In fact, my my previous company was ahead of the curve media. But that's because I'll always stay ahead of the curve. Because I liked that. I just enjoyed that being an early adopter, right? But by staying ahead of the curve, now, you know, a lot of stuff and people don't understand whatever you're working on until they need to understand and know you're that person. Right? So if they don't want to give you a raise, there are plenty of other options in many other places. So and I never play that game, like, look, I'm gonna go over there. I try where I want to first if it doesn't work, I go to the next one and just move on. And that's it. There's no like, oh, look, they're paying me. Do you want to pay me? No, we don't play that game. It's like I'm providing value either going to you need, they're gonna take advantage of it and appreciate it. And in return, I'll give you as much value as I can. Or you go somewhere else where that's why I don't like complaining about jobs. Don't complain about it. Just look for the alternative. Just go somewhere else.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, and that seems simple enough. But there's a whole lot of fear underneath that. There's doubters can I afford it? Like there's so many other things that go into it, which I think is the perfect segue to digging deeper into this concept of having a plan B. But I'm still going to put a pin in this. I want to get to it next. But there's one other question that is so fascinating to me in your specific situation. Given your background given that your father decided we're going to move from another country like having kind of the quintessential immigrant story building the American dream in America, what you always hear tied with that is we want you To be safe and secure and comfortable. So you almost always hear the American Dream story with get a good, secure job. And I'm curious about this paradox between we are the quintessential American Dream immigrant story and do whatever you want and go after your dreams versus find something that's secure.
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah, that's a really, really good question. Because that's my mom, my mom is all about the security, right? My dad always said, the sky's the limit. That's what he always told me. You know, there's the sky's the limit tree, basically. Right? And so it's a mixture of both of those things, right? To this day, my mom doesn't understand what I do, you know, and why I move on from one thing to another, which is fine, but she knows that I'm doing okay, you know. So it's just finding that balance, but I think my personality tends to just because I've done it so many times that I know, I can make it work. Now, there may come a day where I'm like, because of age or whatever other thing, you know, who knows what, but it may come to a day where okay, this formula doesn't work anymore. And I can't do this anymore. That's it. But so far, I've been making it work, right. So I've done it 567 times already. And I know what the formula is, I know how to do it, how to make it work. It just takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work. That's what people don't see is right? They see in the article, they see those those points where Oh, look, he switched in a moment that I can't do that it must be so easy. But there was a lot of in between of failures, there was a lot of in between work staying up really late. For example, I'm going out to Saturday for 4848 Hour Film Festival from from 788 in the morning till midnight, we're going to be shooting and I'm going to be an assistant editor there. And I'm putting in the time for free. Right but hopefully one day I'll you'll see my credit and in one movie, and they're gonna go Oh, that was easy. Well, no, it wasn't it. And I see that everybody that right that that that that quote unquote, makes it whatever you call it, making it I know I never say in one thing that I bet I do hate is when people say is you're lucky and I'm like, Look at nothing to do with this. And I never tell anybody that's successful. You're lucky. I always try to find out their process. What did they do? Because I know it took a lot of work. I know it takes work. It's just not luck.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, well, you and I could easily do an entire podcast conversation about luck, because I say this all the time. And my audience will always misquote this. And they'll say Oh, well, Zack says that luck doesn't exist, or there's no luck. Luck does not even remotely true. There are certain certain circumstances where things just happen. And you can be lucky or unlucky. But there's zero of your control involved in that, right. Some things can or can't happen, good or bad. Luck is a thing. But the amount of luck that people ascribe to either their own successes and failures or other people's drives me crazy, because what you're doing is you're removing responsibility. It's all well, they got lucky and must be nice for them. I'm not a lucky person. That's an excuse, right? Yeah. But at the same time, so often, I will talk to somebody that has reached some level of success. And like, well, I got lucky in this happen. And I always interrupt them, like, I'm gonna interrupt you because you didn't get lucky. And let's talk about why this wasn't luck, then we break it down. And by the end of the conversation to like, Oh, you're right. I wasn't lucky. But it's so easy for us to give away that control on that responsibility. Right. So
Marcelo Lewin: I 100 percent agree.
Zack Arnold: What we're talking about this formula for career reinvention. And I want to walk away with a core steps of this career reinvention. And one of the key pieces that we've alluded to, that I want to dig deeper, deeper into is this concept of a plan B, because there are two very, very different ways to look at this. And as soon as I was reading your article, and it talked about always have a plan B, the first voice I heard in my head, and I'm going to do a horrible impression is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Because he is famous for saying you can't have a plan B, right? You gotta be all in you gotta you gotta go after this thing. And you can't have a safety net. And you're saying the exact opposite, but it's part of your formula every single time. Like you said, I didn't start the next thing until I really felt like I had some solid scaffolding underneath, then I could leave the previous. So what is your process as part of the formula to make sure you always have a plan B?
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah, so to me a Plan B means that your your side thing is your plan B. So you always have to have a side thing, or at least I always have to have a side thing. So every every single job position I held, I always got excited about something new that had nothing to do with that job. And I started doing it as a side thing. So do I like to go out and be with friends and family and watch Netflix? Yes, I do. But there are times where I do none of that because I want to move on to filmmaking or I want to move on to headless content management systems or podcast whatever it may be right put it put in there. So to do that, I started with a Plan B a side project. And the side project is most of the time going to be free in it. But that's why you have to be really passionate about it. Right? So you have to be really passionate, because the passion is what's going to keep you up late at night doing it. The passion is winning, what's going to keep you going at it. As everybody tells you, you're a dummy. No, that'll never work. Don't do that. A car that has wings and flies, are you crazy? That'll never happen, right? I mean, it's a silly example. But really, I mean, it's that so you have to have to me having a plan B is extremely important. Your Your Side Project, that's what to me a Plan B is a side project, right? So as I'm, as I'm working in a company, I start my side thing, and I started implementing the formulas slowly. Now I don't I don't get it doesn't get in the way of because I'm very about if you hired me, I'm gonna give you 100% I never say 150%. Because I don't know how you can give more than 100%. I mean, think 100% is the max, anybody can give on anything, right? Mathematically at least. And so I'll give you 100%. But then my time is my time. And I decide what I want to do with my time and usually in my time, because I also love what I do. It feels fun. So I started getting into AI or I started getting to filmmaking, or I started getting into programming Python, whatever it was back then, right? So that's my plan B is I started doing that. And then start building the audience, start building the community start, start moving it to the point where I can now say, Okay, I think I'm at a place where I can now say goodbye to this and move on to this. As soon as I move on to this, guess what happens? I started my plan B for that. Maybe it's not Plan B maybe it's a second plan, whatever you want to call it, you know, I mean, like, like, like you said, with Arnold, I'm all in on, on the thing. But but he was very focused. Also, he wanted to be, you know, an actor, right, a world famous actor. So for me, I keep switching. So.
Zack Arnold: So I'm curious, does not only did an answer my question brought up about 78. Other questions, I don't know how I'm gonna get this done in the next 45 minutes. Because as soon as I looked at just the kind of the basic breakdown of today's conversation, like I mentioned, in the beginning, I'm thinking, Oh, we're gonna talk about AI. Oh, we're not gonna even get to AI in 90 minutes. And now I think it's going to take me four hours to get there. Because I've got so many questions. I'm fascinated by this. But talking about this idea of a plan B, I think is really, really important. And I want to look a little bit more nuanced at this. Because one of the most common objections that I get from students that are in my program that come to me, they say, I really want to make a career transition, or I want to reinvent myself, but I can't, I can't afford it. And there's this myopic thinking that it's binary. Either I am this thing, or I'm this thing, one very specific example. I'm an unscripted editor. And now I'm moving to scripted editor, and they don't realize there's this giant spectrum of time where you're going to be both. I mean, when I finally decided that I was using your nomenclature, when I started the fitness and post podcast, first of all, that never had any plans of being monetized or turning into it, it wasn't even a Plan B, it was just an obsession that I had, it was I had this message that I want to get out into the world I love talking about, I'm still passionate about it to this day. It's funny, because I look back to 2014. And my fear was kind of, I'm gonna run out of things to talk about pretty soon, nine years later, I'm barely gotten started. So that hasn't been a problem. But there was a point where I realized I can turn this into something, I can monetize it, I can use it to provide value to others. And it can become my primary career where now like, literally, Cobra Kai, is my side hustle to the point where I said to the showrunners, thank you very much. I appreciate it. In the meeting to come back to season five, I said, we can talk about all the details. But the most important thing is you understand the Cobra Kai is my side hustle. And they laughed. And I said, No, I'm very serious. I have now made the transition where what I do with my coaching program, and my students, and the writing and podcasting, that's what I do. But God, I love this show. And God, I love working with you, as long as I can have on off enough autonomy, that I can treat this as my quote unquote, side hustle. Even if my side hustle is 50 hours a week, I want you to understand, that's my mindset. And they're like, whatever it takes, we just want to work with you for the next season. But it took me years of editing and podcasting and editing and creating a course and editing in this. So everybody thinks that it's just I flipped a switch, or other people just do this flip a switch. But there's this long spectrum where you have these multiple identities, which takes a tremendous amount of energy and attention. So I'm curious when you're constantly in the middle of I've got Plan A I've got my job and I've got Plan B and my guess is there's already something else simmering underneath being a podcast or on AI learning AI and being an editor there's probably something that you're at least picking away at the we're going to talk about in three years. But how do you just maintain the focus and the energy to constantly do all these things?
Marcelo Lewin: I do drugs. No. Kidding.
Zack Arnold: Wait a second, we'll cut that out. No, go ahead.
Marcelo Lewin: Oh, no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I don't know. I mean, the energy part is it's hard sometimes. I do tend to always sleep little, you know, and I always just funny because I always say that I hate sleeping, and I wish we didn't have to sleep because then we can get more stuff done. So it's kind of like that thing. But I think it that's why I go back to, because what you said about yourself is it's just awesome, right. And maybe it's not a plan B. And maybe it's just, it's my passion is something that I find passionate about. And it does become a Plan B kind of thing, right. But I think energy wise, is it's a passion, it's the same thing as like, Well, I'm not getting paid to be a filmmaker right now. But I'm just super passionate about it. I'll do it right now for free, right. So I think the passion thing is the most important part of everything, because that's the only thing that will keep you up. That will make you drink coffee when you're falling asleep. So you can stay up and continue editing, or continue doing your podcast about fitness, continue doing whatever, I think at the end of the day, if you're passionate, you'll be doing something you won't even notice it's lunchtime or dinner time already. And I think that's the key, honestly. And it's, you just have to find what what that passion I was told my kids, because I never, I never had any expectations of them being anything besides whatever they wanted to be. I just told them, just please be love what you do, just love what you do be passionate about it, the money will come later, you know. So to me, that's like, passion is the main thing to get the energy going, or to keep it going.
Zack Arnold: And it sounds like you and I, despite the geography largely lived in the same household. Because if there were one monitor over and over, it's I don't care what you do, but you have to love it. Otherwise, it will just eat you up inside and it will destroy you. And that's one of the things that really guides dislike the rudder for me, sometimes consciously, sometimes, sometimes subconsciously, is I'm just I don't enjoy doing this thing anymore. It doesn't it's not getting me out of bed. And I'm not obsessively thinking about it. And what I have found is that the the trick for me, and it's definitely not sacrificing sleep, that's an area where I cannot sacrifice sleep for the sake of work. I've made that mistake more than once. But the maximum amount of hours I can get myself into a flow state. Like you said, the time just disappears. Like I've been working on this blog post for how long or how long I've been doing the slide deck for this next workshop that to me says that I'm doing something right versus God, how many more hours don't have to work on this thing. And we've just stopped. We've all been there, right? So to me, that's a huge indicator, and is first of all, huge indicator that you're onto something right. But it also alleviates some of the burden of how am I going to find the energy to do all of this. Because if you're in a flow state and you're loving it and you're excited about the problems you're solving to time just kind of disappears, and it's not effortless. But sometimes it feels like it's effortless, right? So if so for breaking down, kind of this formula for career reinvention, this mindset of that I'm going to go after something that I enjoy that I'm passionate about, that's a big component, this idea that you know what I'm just going to, I'm going to become an early adopter, and I'm going to dive into something new, that's scary. And I'm going to be ahead of the curve. Another one is this idea that I want to have a plan B not necessarily as a safety net if I fail, but just something that I can always kind of balance the scales. The next piece that I think is so vitally important, and it's so relevant right now with what's going on with this massive transformation in technology, and specifically AI is learning how to learn, we were never actually taught how to learn, we were given information, we were taught how to regurgitate that information, and maybe retain it. We've never actually learned how to learn. So if I were to come at you and I were to say, AI is so overwhelming, I don't even know where to start. I don't know how to learn it. I don't know how to approach it. I'm scared, I'm going to learn the wrong things. You just said, I'm going to figure this out. So how did you just decide I'm going to figure out AI?
Marcelo Lewin: So before I answer that question, if you are okay with me, adding one more thing that I feel is extremely important, of course, that I feel that not a lot of people are willing to do is you're going to have to sacrifice. I think that to me, because all of the everything you mentioned that is important, I think before we talk about the learning, which is also important, wanting to learn is willing to sacrifice. You know, to me, it's it's you know, whenever I hear people, I don't have the money for education. Well, you have internet so you have YouTube and there's tons of good education there in whatever you want to learn right. And don't get me wrong. I know we all but when I started I was pretty broke with Mary with my wife. We're pretty broke, right? But we worked went to school full time and then I spent the rest of the time him learning more, that's what I did instead of going out or buying this or buying that, right. So I think it's really important when you put when you want to do something, you need to come to the realization that you will have to sacrifice, you're gonna have to sacrifice something, let's say you love to have Starbucks coffees every day or every week, you're gonna have to cut those off. So you didn't put that money towards education, let's say, or you like to go out every Friday night with your friends, that's great. But maybe you only be able to do that once a month and three times a month, on Fridays, you're gonna have to attend meetups, go to a conference attend. So I think it's really important that you put in your mind because many people are willing to say, oh, yeah, I'll learn this and that. But when it comes down to it, they'll pick the new iPhone, they'll pick that new shoe, they'll pick going out with friends. But that's you're going to have to choose pick and choose what's more important for you that you want to you want this new career, it's going to require a lot of attention, a lot of learning a lot of networking, conferences, you know, reading meetups, all those things that are going to cut into your other stuff. So I did want to mention that because I think it's extremely important to realize that as much as we want to have everything in life, which is count, you pick and choose, right. And you and if you choose the other, that's fine, too, because I mean, that's what's more important for you. So it's not a judgment thing here. If you want the iPhone, you want the Starbucks, go for it, that's what you want. That's fine. But I don't want that then hear oh, but I can't have been, you know, the this editor of scripted, because now I'm take spending time going out and partying all the time. You know what I mean? I just wanted to bring that up.
Zack Arnold: No, I think that's a really important point to hit. And as somebody that comes from a place that would be the opposite of privilege, literally coming from another country, you know, like you said, Being dirt poor, I think it would be very easy for somebody to look at it from the opposite end, and say, well, but you don't get it. I just I have to pay the bills. I'm barely making it to survive. I don't have the time to build a side hustle or learn things on YouTube, and I just have to pay the bills. How do you respond to that?
Marcelo Lewin: I was the same way. I mean, I'm still the same way still have to pay bills, right? I mean, we still have, you know, our kids, and we were single income with my wife, my wife stayed home when their kids were young. So it was it was me single income. And it's, it's called Saving, planning, sacrificing, those are things you've got to do, and you got to figure out and and I mean, I say this as a joke. Sacrificing doesn't mean like, I won't get the 14, I'll wait till the 15th the iPhone 15 You really have to really put down in a piece of paper, do pros and cons and go like, Okay, this is what stopped me. But what can I cross out here? Well, watching Netflix every night, going out partying every Friday having a going out for dinner every every week or every day, right? Some people have lunch out every day. What happens if I cross this out? In a year? What happens? How do I get more of the pros, right? That gets me there. But it takes a lot of really introspection and really being honest with yourself, right saying, well, I could make it happen if I stopped Facebooking so much, or Instagramming that much, and spend that time watching YouTube videos on how to be scripted, right? Scripted editor, or if I if I don't go out every Friday, and I do the meetups and the conferences, and hang out with the people that are doing that right? Or do free projects on scripted. And and see if I can get work out of that. So to me, when people tell me, it can't be done. See, I think that's the other thing is you got to remove the count out of out of and replace it with the honest truth, which is I won't very different account. Some sometimes it means Yeah. So I mean, sometimes things happen, right? You can't but really analyze it. Is it in an account? Or is it in a want? Because if it's in a warrant, you can change that and make it and do it. But you know, and I think you know when when we didn't have the money either with me and my wife, I still bought a book I wrote back then you have to buy books you couldn't get on YouTube, but about
Zack Arnold: I'll link to the audience so they know what a book is. We'll put a wiki Wikipedia picture of a book. So you can see. I prefer book I have stacks of them. I'm the same way.
Marcelo Lewin: I just prefer books. Yeah. But um, I bought a book in HTML. And I literally stayed up till two three in the morning Lane learning HTML, and I did a free website to show people that I could do this and then one thing led to another. So really, a lot of the times when people say I can't, they really mean they won't do it, because they don't want to sacrifice you. It's all tied together. Right?
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And I want to double down on this and just kind of re emphasize something that you mentioned. which is that you have to be honest about the language that you're using with yourself. And I have to do this with myself all the time. I'm not a to, and I'm not better than anybody else. But Dave, one of the one of the phrases that I catch myself using, and I always stop my students as well, is that, oh, I don't have the time, right? Or I can't find the time. No, what that really means is I'm choosing not to prioritize the time. There are there's certain constraints, like you said, where yes, there are circumstances where you probably literally don't have the time. But the amount of things that are in the you literally don't have versus you choose not to use it or prioritize it. Vast chasm of difference, right? And I find myself, Oh, go ahead.
Marcelo Lewin: No, no, I have a quick example on that. I don't have the time because I work full time. Do you take an hour lunch, views that hour lunch, eat your sandwich while you're studying, use the Eat the sandwich while you're editing. You know, whatever you're coding, whatever you want to do that you're not doing your work, take that one hour, and do it. While you while you're doing that, right? Instead of actually going out for lunch. And I'm sorry, yeah, you're gonna sacrifice going out with your buddies at work? I get it. Because I like doing that, too. But you want to switch? So? So sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. There's actually no, no, I think you put a concrete example, right? Where I don't have time because I work full time. Well, you do have time, you just have to figure out, when is your free time at work? And use it for whatever for that?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, exactly. And I find myself doing this all the time, even recently, especially with everything that's been going on in the news and the industry spending more time than I would like on social media. And at the end of the day, I'll think, Oh, I didn't have time to exercise. No, that's bullshit. Because my screen times as on Facebook for an hour and 15 minutes, you know, what I can accomplish? In an hour of exercising with the amount of knowledge and information and experience that I have with exercising, I can do a lot in 60 minutes. So it's not Oh, I didn't have the time today. It's I chose not to prioritize it. And I chose distractions instead. And again, it's not judgment. But we have to be honest about the language that we're using with ourselves.
Marcelo Lewin: And you know what, there are times where you're going to go and I do this, because I uninstalled Instagram, because I found myself after a while
Zack Arnold: I just did that last week. I'm like, Yeah, I'm done.
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah. And I was like, Oh, my God, this is horrible, right? But there are times when I go, I'm gonna get on Facebook right now. And I'm just gonna browse. But I used to do that. And then I don't feel bad about it, because I chose to either waste time, or most of the time, I'm on Facebook, on Facebook groups. And that's not wasting time, because it's all about filmmaking anyway. But but if you choose to, quote unquote, waste time, hey, I'm being facetious. It's, it's your enjoyment time. And that's fine. You can be It's okay. It's when you say Amen. I wish I had time as you're scrolling Facebook, and doing something else. Well, you do have time you have there. I even mentioned in my article, hey, do you go to the bathroom, in your in the bathroom, there, we're looking at Facebook, we'll look at YouTube, you know, with with whatever tutorial or stuff, I'm a huge YouTube fan as you can tell.
Zack Arnold: Just don't if you leave me a comment on my YouTube channel, just don't tell me that you did a while back. Because I don't need to know that right. So the what I want to dig into next is something that we touched on a little bit before but I want to get even deeper into this is that was the core part of this formula is the willingness to continuously learn. And if there are all these excuses, oh, I don't have the time or I don't know the money or whatever, we found ways to overcome some of those barriers, knowing some of them are real, a lot of them really aren't right. And I want to give the audience two different resources, a little bit of shameless self promotion. But it'll be a good addition to this conversation to podcast, one of which is with the author of atomic habits, James clear talking about the math of compounding little daily actions, like you said, if you read for an hour during lunch for a year, imagine how much further your can be. So I'm going to put a link to that episode. And then also, you mentioned this idea of if you're choosing it, it's not really a distraction, right. So I also want to link to a podcast episode I did with a productivity expert, his name is near AOL, specifically because he has a quote that to this day still rings in my head. It's only a distraction, if you know what it's distracting you from. So if you've constantly chosen, I'm going to scroll Facebook for 15 minutes. It's not a distraction. If it's God, I should really be working on my resume right now. But I'm afraid to put my resume together. So I'm gonna scroll Facebook. Now it's a distraction. So I'm gonna leave those resources. But I want to dig deeper into your approach to continuously learning. And specifically this, this latest phase, you're at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence. Right now we're at the very top of the hype cycle of the Gartner Hype Cycle. This is where all the hype is, but you were already into it before where you're at the top of the hype cycle. So I would love to know what was your approach and deciding here's how I'm going to learn it. Here's what I'm going to get into because so many people are frozen in place. They have no idea what to do about how to learn artificial intelligence.
Marcelo Lewin: Right. So I got into it when Chat GPT came out. Was it December? It feels like 20 years ago about a year ago. Yeah, a year ago, right? Yeah, about a year ago. And I'm always looking out for what's the next big thing because, you know, like, as we mentioned at the beginning, I love that kind of stuff, right? And I saw that and I thought to myself, Oh my gosh, I went through the computer, the PC revolution, I went through the internet revolution, I went through the mobile revolution, I'm gonna go through the AI revolution is probably the last AI unless something in another 2030 years have got 56 more years, you've got to I do, I'm gonna be 120 talking to you. And so how do I how do I do that? It's I mean, honestly, the internet, the internet, is it man? I mean, YouTube, Google, you start literally start with a simple it's funny, because sometimes people go look, how do you find this? And you know, that website, let me go live for you. You know, in LinkedIn, it's truly that you start with a simple the question you have, how do I learn AI, put that in Google, just put that in Google and start following links, just follow them, follow them. And then all of a sudden, you you now know a little bit about language models. So now you start searching language models. And then you learn something else. And then you see Oh, AI is being used for face replacement. So then you type search, face replacement, AI filmmaking? Now you're there. And it's, I mean, it's the World Wide Web, right? Why is it no like that? It's this web that you follow. But I think, but I think the key there is you have to be curious. You have to you have to be curious. And you have to want to learn. So if you don't care to learn, then you're not going to follow all that, right. I mean, it's like, I wish it was a lot more complicated than what I just said. But literally, it starts with a simple Google, put your question that you have on Google and go from there. And honestly, today, we chat up, you can literally ask the question on chat GBT. And it'll start giving you real amazing answers. But I think at the end of the day, when you synthesize it down, it's you have to be curious. I tend to get bored every two to three years on whatever I'm working on. So for me, it's natural to start looking at stuff. And honestly, I always I love to learn I think continuous learning lifelong learner. I've never been good in school originally when I was in high school and stuff. Now I'm back here. I think, you know, I'm back Ed. In school. I'm at UCLA Extension in the filming. I'm loving school right now as a 56 year old. Feel like Rodney Dangerfield back, you know, back to bite? Know, but I think you need to love to learn, and you have to be curious, and start with questions. And then when you get an answer, ask more questions. And when people give you an answer, even when people ask why I mean, all the you know, the five why's keep asking why until you really understand it. You know, I'm a person also that I like to get deep into the stuff. So like I said, with the AVID class example, right? Yeah, you can edit and do this, but why am I doing this? Because then then I have a better understanding of why I'm doing it. And then I can do things on my own right, that understanding the why and the how helps me be independent. That's the other thing. I think education, learning, not education, as in formal education, learning in general, gives you freedom. I think it provides freedom, right? Because then then you get to, to set your own path because of that, because now you have more knowledge to know where to go, or where not to go.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, and you I thoroughly agree with all of that. There's so much research and science that proves the one of the core tenets of both of the Blue Zones all over the world. But those that live longer lives is the fact that they're continuously learning. Because if you don't learn, your brain literally atrophies and dies. And that can shorten your lifespan. So the more curious you are, the more you want to learn, literally, the longer you're probably going to live. And I want to I want to dig a little bit deeper into something that you said, that's such a common excuse for people as I don't know where to start. I literally had artificial intelligence teach me about artificial intelligence, because I thought to myself, yeah, before we would do a Google search, and even before the internet, you would have to find somebody but you knew somebody probably had the answers. Now we have this ubiquitous access to all this information, which I would argue is largely becoming the problem and not the solution, because there's so much of it. And frankly, a lot of it's bad, but I thought who better to teach me about artificial intelligence than artificial intelligence? So I literally sat down for an afternoon and asked a bunch of questions of chat. GPT explained to me the basics of how you work and how you think talk to me like I'm a freshman in high school, right? Like I gave it all these directives to really help me understand how does this work and how do you think, you know, some of it was a little bit of gibberish. I'm like, I probably need to back that up by reading other sources. But in a couple of hours, I'm like, I get it now, which then gave me a sense of where do I go next? So I think that there's the deeper underlying fear here. And I think that there's two of them, because I hear this from a lot of people is, number one, there's so much information that I'm afraid I'm going to waste time learning the wrong things. But then the second one, and this is the much deeper one is what if I fail? So I'm curious for you, we can approach Oh, good for you. And I'm glad you said that. But if we were exactly. If we were to look at your entire career trajectory, and we look at all the companies that you acquired, right, you don't put the failures on your web zero, website or LinkedIn, I want to talk about what are those failures along the way, so that you, you learn those mistakes, and now you can learn and you can iterate faster now that you're learning AI?
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah, I mean, first of all, you're gonna fail. Guaranteed, we all fail. But I think that's that says that you've tried, you went for it, which is I automatically if you don't do it, then you failed, right? What was it what was the line from was it Wayne Gretzky that said,
Zack Arnold: Oh, you miss 100% of the shot of the shots you never take?
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah, exactly. I'm a huge believer of that, you know, I have no problem with failing. I've done many websites, in small companies that went nowhere. And, well, it is what it is. And I'll be honest with you, like my filmmaking, I don't know where it's gonna go. I think it's going to be okay, but maybe not. But, you know, all I know is I'm going to look back and either go, like, I did it, and I made it, or I did it, and I didn't make it. Now move on to the next thing. You know, you have to have that kind of mentality, you really do. Because we all fail. Look at the most whoever the most successful person is that you admire, guarantee that if you look into their lives, he or she failed.
Zack Arnold: probably more than everybody else, too, right? I always tell people that I see more as I fail faster than you do.
Marcelo Lewin: And they tried many more times, right. So the key is a and that's why that's why it's been incorporated for me doesn't work because I'm a person that I like to talk less, and do more. So to me, I prefer to do it quickly fail quickly and move on to the next thing, then to say it has to be perfect. Oh my god, wait, well, we can't do it until it's perfect. By that time, it's already old to you, of course, you're going to fail, because it's so we moved on to the next thing, right? So I think you have to have a mentality of not being afraid to fail. Now. That doesn't mean that you're not going to have people that that tell you how horrible it was that you fail, you're going to have people put you down. We all do in our lives. I mean, present past future, it's, it's the way it is. So you've got to kind of build up a tolerance. And don't get me wrong. There are many times now that I'm doing filmmaking one night, submit for something and I get rejected. I'm like, I'm doing the wrong thing. Forget it. And I allow this is the other thing that I allow myself, I'm on failure, which is really hard. Sometimes we all get depressed, it's a reality of life. And there are times when I'm down, because I'm like, I think I made the wrong move here. And I allow myself, I literally say it's okay for me to be like this one or two days. If it goes beyond that, then you have to seek help. But if it's like one or two days, I allow myself to literally watch Netflix, you know, do whatever I want to do that has nothing to do with I was doing because I'm down. And that's also something that you're going to go through all of us go through, it's a normal thing. If it goes beyond a couple of days, then obviously we need to seek out that's obvious, right? I mean, I'm not a doctor, or anything or psychologist. But you know, but that's something that don't be afraid to fail. And if you do and you're down, go through the motions, it's okay. You'll get over it and then try again and get up and try again. You know, that's that, to me is the mentality you need to have. It's not easy. It's not easy. It's a lot of work takes a lot of practice.
Zack Arnold: Of all the career reinvention stories. What's the biggest failure that comes to mind?
Marcelo Lewin: The time I said I didn't try is something that I wanted to try.
Zack Arnold: It's funny because you didn't bring up all this time I launched and my website crashed or I didn't make any money on this.
Marcelo Lewin: No, no, I mean, that stuff that happens, right? I mean, I did a website that I really, one time I got into it was called indie comics tracker. I was really into indie comics, and I actually I learned how to how to write a comic book and I wrote a comic book and published it and then created a website around tracking comic books on the indie side, and I put in money I put in time as it was a side project. And it went nowhere. It was a beautiful side. People liked it, but I couldn't make money with it. There's no way to make. That's the other thing. That's the other thing. That I think it's really important. Go for it, but also know when to get out. Don't keep throwing them good money after bad money don't. So I always give myself like for my filmmaking about a year to a year and a half I'm giving myself from when I decided and made the big move, right? That it has to work. If it doesn't work, then you got to move on to the next thing, because then all you're doing is you're just, you know, banging your head against the wall constantly. So it for me, it's a year and a half for you, it could be 10 years, whatever you set your limit, but know when to get out. Now know when to get out be realistic, too. Because there are times when things don't work and be realistic and go. Okay, I'll move on to the next thing.
Zack Arnold: Right. And I love all that. And though, once again, I want to put to kind of a link to another resource for people that I think is really important for them to understand that it is okay to quit. As long as you understand the criteria, like you said to not put good money after bad. I had an extensive conversation about this with a world champion poker player that knows when to hold them and knows when to fold them. We're gonna put a link to my Annie Duke episode. And this conversation is becoming like a massive Table of Contents. I know these are really good episodes and interviews.
Marcelo Lewin: I love your memory though. How you can pull that out of because I know you didn't script this. So it's amazing how you have that kind of memory. I wish I have that man.
Zack Arnold: Well, we'll get you there. But what I'm curious about now what I want to get into a little bit deeper, I will I still have you because again, I've barely scratched the surface. And I have a feeling that we've got another four or five hours. But I know you've got a car to pick up. So we got to make sure you can go pick up your car later. But having said that, if we go really much more to the present than your present and your future, you've decided I'm going to make it in the filmmaking industry. It sounds like editing. And it sounds like editing scripted entertainment. So there's a part of me that wonders if you actually have an advantage rather than a disadvantage, because you're coming at this fresh right at the period of time when AI is really starting to not necessarily take over yet. But I'm wondering how much you've learned about these are the tools that are just going to completely replace all the people in the industry or they're not. And you're also learning about storytelling, you're learning about technology. So you have a really unique and interesting perspective to see everything freshly whereas I've been doing the same thing in this industry for well over 20 years. What's your perspective on where the storytelling aspect of the industry specifically as an editor is going now that you're learning all these tools much more than the average person might be right now?
Marcelo Lewin: Well, first of all, nobody knows what the future is going to bring. Right? We can all kind of assume and I personally do not believe it. Because I'm an optimist, I do not believe that AI is going to take over the world kill us and no more jobs for everybody. To me AI is a tool, just the way a plugin is a tool that automates certain things. The way certain plugins generate content, right, you have plugins that generate content, without using AI, now you have aI doing that, I'm putting aside all the political stuff of AI and stuff i, which I completely agree with, people need to get paid. And people need to get permission to train the AI. So let's put that aside. Because I'm 100% behind that, right? If you need to use my content, ask me permission. And if I allow you pay me for it out of the way, now it's my choice, go go at it, you know, kind of thing. So putting that away, I personally don't think that at least on the editing side, because it's so emotionally driven. And it there's so many human emotions that you it's kind of like, you know, with Premiere, you can transcribe very easily. And then you edit using text, right? But I mean, who you can, you can edit using text, you can cut a text, and it'll move the clip over for you. But you're not seeing the emotion, the facial emotion of the person as they're speaking or the crime. And maybe in this scene, it's better than in that scene. So I don't think AI is going to take over that I think where AI is going going to help us a lot is in the automation of stuff. It's going to help us automate a lot. And then I think you're going to have this happens with every technology. So you can take out AI and put in whatever new technology in the future or older technology in the past, it'll lock jobs will be lost, jobs will be morphed and new jobs will appear. It happened with every technology and it will continue to happen. So what I recommend is Be curious and learn to be afraid Don't do this about AI because look, it's here to stay. And obviously the strikes are over. There was agreement. It's here to stay so go learning right. But then I think what's going to happen is in certain look at your tasks, are you very comfortable with your tasks, that means I could probably do them if you're very comfortable does it does it not require a lot of technical knowledge and special your human touch? Maybe I could do it. But then learn because I think what's going to happen is a lot of these you know easier tasks, let's say are going to could be automated but up. I think it's going to turn people into puppet pastures. So you're going to be controlling AI and pushing the levers to get to where you want to go. Right now as as to generic AI, let's assume we already fixed the issue of payment and permission. So let's put that aside. And now it's there. And we're all happy. To me, that may be a new form of creativity, just the way the camera quote unquote, destroyed art. And everybody in the art industry just said that the the photo camera is ungodly, and will kill everything it'll destroy, you know, art as we know it today. Well, we know it didn't, it became its own art form, right? And then the camera morphed into cinematography, right? Who knows that Jenai and creating art by using text prompts is not a new art form. I did a presentation about is Gen AI, the next are a new camera, not the next camera but a new camera. It may become a new a new form of art firm. Right? Which we're all arguing No, no, but there was this was the same argument in 2013. I think 1837 around there, when photography camera came out right about the photography camera. So I think that what's important is don't hide don't put your ahead you know, in the sand and go it doesn't exist because it exists. So become the puppet master of it, learn where your position is going to is going to change potentially be a you know your position. You know what is very easy and what is not do research to real you're an assistant do research on you know, everything you do as an assistant what what can I do today for assistance? While they may create a first assembly, perhaps it's still pretty bad? Is it going to automate a lot of the the the repetitive tasks that an assistant does? Possibly, but then how can you as an assistant assistant, learn that and control that and teach others and you become now the expert? Right? It was the same thing when people went from a movie Ola and said no, no, no, no, no, the NLP doesn't exist. cover myself, well, either lost the job or you morphed into this new position, right?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I'm fascinated at just a core human level about why we are incapable of learning from history. And I don't mean this just with AI and technology. I mean, with everything going on in the world, you step back for a second, you're like, how is it that we don't see that this is the same cycle that happens over and over and over? And we never learn? And it drives me crazy when everybody says that AI is unprecedented? No, it's not. It's just the next technology coming along. Like anything else. Is it more advanced than anything we've seen? Sure. Right. Is it moving faster? Because of Moore's law than any technology we've seen? Sure. But the way that we have this fear of artificial intelligence, probably very similar to the fear that people had of the photo camera that was magic, back then, right, like, couldn't even comprehend what it was capable of, then all of a sudden, there's a telephone and I can make a noise from my mouth from here. And somebody could hear it somewhere else, not in the same room like that's, that's witchcraft, right? We see AI the same way, but everybody thinks it's unprecedented. No, it's not. But if you think it's going to go away, if you think we're going to legislate it, or block it, in a sense that oh, well, it's going to be forbidden, it's never happening. So I've said over and over and over, I've said it on panels, I've said it on podcasts, I'm just going to put a punctuation on this, again, for everybody. AI is not going to replace you people using AI are going to replace you does not matter what the craft of the job is. But
Marcelo Lewin: But I also want to put out something out there because AI and technology in general has always touched and affected on non creatives. Always, AI has done stuff for non creatives. And non creatives were affected. And I think we're seeing this, this reaction to now because it's kind of affecting creatives, what creatives do, right? And that that's scary. But if you think about it, our big pop portion of the population that is not in the creative industry, we're always affected by technology, automation, things have always changed. So maybe what you want to do is talk to people that are in other industries that were affected by technology, how do they deal with it? How do they move forward with it? Because I don't feel that the creative industry has a special thing where we could lock it and say no, technology won't touch us. Because look, if we move forward, we move forward. Here are the facts. I mean, it's not just oh, all you guys are okay, but not me.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I've been saying multiple times over and over. There's nothing unprecedented about this. But now it's our turn. It's like oh my god, I can't believe this is happening. Well talk to auto workers on the factory line. 50 years ago, you have robots is nothing new. Yeah, exactly. But it's those that learn how to fix the robots and manage the technology, right? There's the ones that are able to morph and adapt and survive and the same thing is gonna happen to us. But there's nothing unprecedented about any of this. But now let's come to the Kree You'd have to just like you said, and we just we have to be honest about we need to proactively take the steps to move on to, you know, learning and adapting.
Marcelo Lewin: And then once you learn, you'll realize that it's not as bad as you think it is, again, going back to if you, you have to figure out what are you afraid of AI? Are you afraid of AI because of the permissions and compensation? I'm totally with you? And that has to be fixed.
Zack Arnold: The political side of things that terrifies me. So there are a lot of things to be scared of. I agree. But we're setting those aside.
Marcelo Lewin: Exactly. But but if you're afraid of AI, just because it's a technology that is coming after what you know, think about all the other people that have that happen to before that weren't in creative industry. How do I learn from that? And how do they deal with it? You know, but I think once you learn AI, and the tools, you'll understand the limitations that challenges. Chad GPT cannot write a script for you. Yes, it could write a script. But it's a pretty bad script. Okay. But you can use it as a companion, you can use it as a consultant where you ask questions, I did a whole presentation on where I wrote my script. But then I asked Chad GPT, to do a breakdown and give me its thoughts on the script, that I pay attention to everything that it said no, kind of like if I give you the scripts, how can you go? Well, I would do this, this and this, I'll look at it and go like, Well, yeah, I'll take this, but I won't take this. Right. But that doesn't mean I'm going to take exactly what you give me and copy and paste it and put it out there. I think you have to look at it like that think of AI as a tool. I think part of the problem too, is is sort of the the media hype that's happening and, and people talk about the AI like, it's like it's a person or I don't know, it's not the AI. It's an LLM that does predictions. I mean, it's just code out there. It's it's not gonna take over the world. Now. We're gonna look back five years at this podcast from now. And we're gonna go man, was he wrong?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna delete this from the entire library of Skynet doesn't do it for us. Right? So yeah, as you know, because you were in the audience in the when I did the panel I for editfast, I prefaced the entire thing by saying, I don't know shit about any of this, any prediction or thought I have could be completely irrelevant, because there's nobody so fast. But it's those that call themselves experts that do pontificate. Those are the ones I don't listen to. It's those that say, I don't know where it's going. Here are my thoughts. This is what could happen. Yeah, we all have our own ideas. But anybody that claims to know where it's going, or they're an expert, even the experts, the ones that literally designed the technology are now coming out and saying, I don't know what's going to happen next. Right. So really, nobody knows. But the most important thing that I say, and it doesn't matter, what we're looking at focus on the things you can control, ignore the ones you can't, we can focus on learning it and understanding how it works. And we're just going to see where it goes. All the rest of it, I don't have the time to deal with it. I can't control it not even going to be something I focus on or spend any time or energy toward. Right. So.
Marcelo Lewin: And could there be negative stuff? Yes, every technology bring? I mean, I could see your face replacement, right? I mean, we're talking all of a sudden, like, you could say something that you never said I could say something that I never said and get in trouble. I get that. I mean, I totally get that. But I think that's more about regulation and, and putting in place safety guards, kind of like we did with every technology, right? And saying is this is this a real video is is a fake video, you know, Adobe is trying to do that. Yeah, with with their AI generated content, right, that, you know, it was aI generated. It's gonna take some time. What's interesting is Nobody argues about photography anymore. But at the beginning, they did. And I think we're going through that phase where my point with that is that we're going through that phase where, you know, you're you're getting into the AI, and people are learning about it, they're becoming afraid we're not at the point where pretty much AI is just a normal part, from a creative point of view, AI has been a normal part forever, right, with Google Maps and everything. But from a creative point of view, it's not a normal part, right? I'm sure there was that argument within a lease at the beginning. Right. I know with digital, there was that argument rather than the almighty digital, that was huge. That was huge. And but nobody who taught us about that anymore. So I can guarantee you that in two years from now. I don't think there's going to be any of these arguments, hopefully, if they figured out the copyright issues, the payment compensation, all that.
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And assuming we survived the 2024 election, but that's a conversation we're not getting through at all different. So here's where here's where I want to leave it. I know that we're wrapping up here and I could go on for hours. I'm loving this conversation. But I I very much want to switch directions for a second. And given that you have become kind of a professional career re inventor, how do you define success for your filmmaking career for what you're going after next? What do you see as being the version of comfortable where I've made it?
Marcelo Lewin: Oh, um, so for me success is I'm doing what I love to do and I can make a living with it. I'm not talking about making a living like I'm super rich. I just like make a living. And I can continue the lifestyle that I have. But I'm doing what I wanted to do. Basically.
Zack Arnold: What does that mean as an editor and filmmaker, because this has been the childhood dream, you spent years and years going from one endeavor to the next. But there's more at stake with this one. So how do you define success?
Marcelo Lewin: Well, I mean, honestly, if if a year from now I'm able to make a living, and I'm editing scripted, and I, my I think what I'd love to do is like indie, and social awareness, kind of movies and documentaries, I like that kind of stuff. If I'm able to do that, and get paid for it, and be able to maintain my lifestyle. To me, that is success. Well, I'd like to get an Oscar hell, that would be extra success. Sure, why not. But I think at the end of the day is creating for me if I'm able to create content that is meaningful, meaningful to me, right, and then hopefully, there's an audience for that, but it's meaningful to me, whether it's me creating it, or working with other filmmakers and editing that, to me, that's going to be success. That's it. That's plain and simple. If there's no, it's not an X amount of dollars that I need are nothing to do with that. Yeah.
Zack Arnold: I love that you have a clear definition of what that success is, is not driven by money. It's not driven by extrinsic factors is driven by intrinsic ones. But I'm gonna throw one final wrench into the conversation before we wrap it up. What if it takes you longer than a year and a half, you've got a very arbitrary deadline, where you say every one and a half to two years I switch? This is a really tough industry to break into, especially given the timing. What if you're not there in a year and a half?
Marcelo Lewin: So, um, it depends on what you mean, by breaking into the industry? I'm not sure I need to be in the studio system. I'm not. So I think honestly, I don't think it's, it's extremely tough, I could be completely wrong, and people are gonna want to prove me wrong now, by not hiring me.
Zack Arnold: I would love to have seen the reaction to that if we were doing this live on stage, but continue.
Marcelo Lewin: Yeah. So I'll give you an example. I got to a point because I'm learning a lot but I'm like, but I'm not doing this stuff. And I won't get hired because I don't have my portfolio. So what I did is I posted out there and multiple Facebook's that are willing to do short edit short film edits for free right now up until I feel I have enough experience. And so I'm not trying to downgrade the value of editors got nothing to do with that. I don't have anything my portfolio, I want to do some stuff for free. I got a barrage of and some really good ones. Yeah, well, but I got some really good ones. What I mean is I got some people that I now don't want to put out the name yet. But there I'm doing some some, some some quote unquote, voluntary kind of things that I'm pretty sure could lead to potential more paid, right? I think you just have to be one of the things is I'm very technical. So that says, this is the thing that I think I can offer over your stereotypical filmmaker which is not very technical, right, rightly so more focused on the on the on the storytelling than the technical side. So that to me is an advantage on my end, I deliver in a mythical I, what do you call it deadline driven. So I think by providing all these things, and building that reputation, I think I can make it work. But what happens in a year and a half? Well, at that time, I'll reassess. Maybe I want to give maybe I'm so close, that I'll give it more time. So to me, it's not really arbitrary. It's more in a year and a half, I either have to be there or be pretty close to it. So from 25% from reaching the goal, it's not working. But if I'm 80%, from reaching the goal, a year and a half, well, then we'll go to two years, you know, or whatever it takes to get there. So it's not like a hard line. And it's like, either you made it or you didn't. And so how close am I, I have to be realistic to write because I don't want to drain my savings. I do want to have a nice retirement, I want to do other things, right. So it's more reassessing. But if you don't put a deadline or a goal or deadline to I want to reach it by then, then you'll go on forever, and you'll never reach and you'll never know when to get out. So that's why I put those kinds of deadlines for me.
Zack Arnold: Well, given your past history of career reinvention, I'd be stupid to bet against you. But I do know for a fact because I've been in the industry for over 20 years and I've coached people through many, many career transitions that year and a half is ambitious, but if I'm going to not bet against anybody, it's going to be you. And and I have a feeling that you and I are going to have many many off the record conversations to come because if you're looking for the support and guidance to navigate this, that's what I do now. So I would be more than happy to help you navigate all of this. Yeah, so I prefer I don't like the term expert because I'm always learning and growing but I appreciate it. I've developed a level of expertise in helping people navigate this far from being an expert. But yeah, if I'm, if I'm gonna bet on anybody that's going to make it happen and make it a habit in this timeline, it's probably going to be you
Marcelo Lewin: And I love that you said that if I can just add, you're not an expert, I always tell people, you don't have to be an expert, just be two chapters ahead of them. That's it. That's always ahead. That's it. Yeah.
Zack Arnold: And when you're reaching out to people in building your network, and building relationships, that doesn't need to be the best in the world at something, it's somebody that just solved the problem that you're trying to solve. Now, they just did in the last year or two, those are your experts.
Marcelo Lewin: And the other thing, the only thing is so simple. But I'm surprised by so how many people are not nice, be nice, nice. And also be a person of your word. If you say I'm going to deliver it this time, like I've literally before, and I know we're going to cut it. But before I took on some of these projects, I told them, let's have a meeting, because I want to tell you the truth about me. This is where I am today. This is what you're getting with me. Do you want me to do this project, even though it's volunteer, or it's not paid? It's important to them. It's an important project to them. And I want to make it important. And I feel like I'm getting paid because I'm getting paid with knowledge and experience and feedback. So I tell them, Look, this is who I am, this is what you're getting for me. Are you cool with that, but in return, I want to use it in my portfolio and I want your feedback, I want you to be honest with me about what I can improve on. So in a nutshell, that be nice. And I think if you're nice, you can make it in any industry. I think we can make it an endogenous tree. I think being nice is really underrated. I
Zack Arnold: I don't know of any other way to conclude this conversation then with that, other than navigating another four hours of talking about career reinvention, and the psychology of setting goals, all of which I could do. But I want to be respectful of your time. And you know, who knows this may end up being a part to either on my show, or dare I say on your show. Yes. But having said that, at least for now, this might be the hardest. You're the hardest person I've ever had, I have to ask this question to where do I send people to learn more about you? Because you've got 27 different websites? So what's the best place for people to go to right now?
Marcelo Lewin: Creativespark.ai creativespark.ai Yeah, not dot com.
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And the one thing that I'll say to close very, very quickly that I wanted to get into and we didn't have the time to is that I think another core part of this is really putting yourself out there. And I've been really impressed, and how just how bold and how honest you are in these Facebook groups saying, Here's what I'm learning next, who knows this thing, or here's me having this conversation on my podcast, anybody that's in this industry on social media, they know exactly where you are in your journey. And to me, that's brilliant. Because you're not afraid to just say this is where I am. I'm learning. I don't know this. I don't know that. I don't know the other thing. Who does? Who can I help? Who can help me like the way that you're doing? This is very, very smart. And it's clear, you've done this, like being transparent. So on that note, I just want to thank you. Yeah, I want to thank you for sharing all this with me today. We're gonna make sure that everybody can find you and all the show notes. But this has been a pleasure and I've learned a lot. So thank you so much for taking the time.
Marcelo Lewin: I appreciate it Zack. Thank you.
This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Debby Germino and published by Glen McNiel.
The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).
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