In this episode of Travis Makes Friends, Sean Millea shares the wild behind-the-scenes story of his time working for Gary Vee. While editing Gary’s TikToks—where Gary constantly preaches “Quit your job and chase your passion”—Sean realized the message was hitting way too deep in hi soul.
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Did you like work in that field?
I worked for a film producer for like 6
months who's like
very like a big guy like made like No
Country for Old Men, School of Rock,
like the Wes Anderson movies. So did
that for a little while. That was pretty
cool. Um and that I think was NYU really
got me that.
Um and then left there. um
and ended up be like working at Vayner
Media for four years. Well, now I'm
still I'm back at Vayner Media, but it
was like
it was my editing like I learned how to
edit and stuff and then I made Tik Toks
and went viral on TikTok and that kind
of got me in at Vayner Media.
Okay.
Um but yeah, I've been there for like
it'll be five years I guess in
September.
Okay.
Even though I left for a little short
period but uh
and you work on the content side. Yeah,
I
for companies or for Gary's personal
brand or
uh now for Pepsi, uh which is like a new
thing. Um but in the past it was like
for a media company like it was like a
sort of aspiring bar stool and then when
I first started there it was to edit
Gary's Tik Toks which I only did for
like 3 months.
Okay.
Yeah.
How was that? Uh, it was just like I
literally put in my two weeks because
I'm like editing videos where Gary's
like, "You need to quit your job and do
what you love and I'm like getting
inspired to like not be an employee by
editing his own content, right?"
And then I
seems like their culture kind of
promotes that kind of stuff.
Yeah, totally. People leave all the time
and go do their own thing and he's, you
know, excited by that. But, uh, he ended
up being like, "Well, if you want, you
should work for this media company and
you could do your own stuff for us
essentially." And so I did that for a
long time. Okay.
And then now I'm doing like content for
brands just because uh you know wanted
more of a career like a career like a a
man's salary I would say. So uh
well it definitely pays a little bit
better.
A little bit better. Yeah. And I can
like actually afford to live in the city
now which is like cool. Like at least in
my I live in an apartment that is above
my means. It's a onebedroom
uh in Manhattan. Um got it during co so
it's way cheaper than it should be.
Yeah. Like I know people that have
roommates in Brooklyn and are paying
what I'm paying. Oh gosh.
But still,
uh, it's still a lot, you know, like, so
I
took a a job for more money to, you
know, be be able to live there and and
and do so without like
racking up credit card debt, which I was
doing for a good good portion.
Yeah.
And I've since paid them off, so that's
cool.
Yeah. Well, it's like, you know, you
can't romanticize what you want to do to
the degree where you put yourself in a
terrible position. Yeah. you know, it's
like it's sometimes it's much better to
go that path. You know, it's like, well,
the whole like solve rich people
problems, they pay better. You know,
it's like, yeah, of course, like ideally
it would be great to do this other thing
and get paid what I get paid here to do
that thing, but in the meantime, like
I would rather not be in poverty when
I'm going and doing standup gigs, you
know?
Yeah, exactly. And just like literally
like every time I swiped a card being
like, "Please go through." Like I've
literally gone on dates with girls where
I'm like I don't know if I'm going to
like walk away from this a very
embarrassed man because of like you know
the card declining. Um but yeah
that's not a way to live.
No,
it's also not a way to date.
It is not. But you know you need to
sometimes uh you need to go you need a
date and so you you take what you can
get. But uh yeah.
So you got the podcast now?
Yeah. Yeah, it's like a a solo pod that
I just talk to the camera and tell like,
you know, stories about like my week or
whatever. Okay.
Um
I open for Tim Dylan sometimes and he
has a solo podcast. So, that kind of
inspired me to do it. And I would say
I'm nine episodes in. I just recorded
the 10th a few days ago and I haven't
posted it yet.
Um
I it's not I don't know sometimes when I
go when I'm like I should record this
today. I just don't feel like doing it.
So there is part of me that's like maybe
it's not for me. But there are comments
that where people enjoy it and that
makes me feel good and sometimes I like
listening back to them in a nar that's
kind of narcissistic like I'll enjoy it.
I'm like oh this was better than I
thought and I enjoy hearing it all but
like the fact that I don't always feel
like doing it is not a great sign I
guess.
Um
but I have the 10th one. and we'll see
if I keep going, you know. And I think
it's a good way to as a standup to get
like fans that will come to shows and
build sort of like a lasting uh base
that way
and and build and work through material.
Yeah, that too. That too for sure. Um
so, you know, I think I'll keep doing it
for a little while, but I'm not
positive. I I also kind of would like to
do guests because it's just been me. I
think that might help as well. Um and I
think the pretend I'm your friend title
still kind of works.
Oh, totally. I think it works perfectly
if you broadcast in. I don't think you
know, you live in the heart of New York
City. So, you know, the the
access to talent
totally you have here like it would be
it's much more difficult to do that if
you're in, you know, Oklahoma. Well,
good luck getting anybody to come to
Oklahoma
unless you just get like interesting
jobs and people that like do like, you
know, quirky people. But yeah, you're
not going to get like uh anybody that's
name will make people listen.
Yeah. I think I think you'd be surprised
too of like the people who would say yes
just cuz like you've built a great brand
already you know I mean so like the
people that you could bring on that show
like that they all they all lead to
opportunities and have more you know
opportunities to bring you um especially
if they just get introduced to your
stuff sometimes it just takes that it's
like this person doesn't know who I am
but if they did they probably would like
some of the stuff that I do right
you know that's for me
maybe I should start asking people I
just uh I got to post the 10th the 10th
episode I also I talk about the model
roommate video in
The only thing is sometimes when I do
the podcast I'm like I feel like I'm
complaining too much or like I almost
I'm like whining.
Not whining but I'm just like dude I'm
like all I've done is like think talk
about things that have annoyed me this
week,
right?
And I'm like I guess that's good fodder
for comedy but I'm like at what point
are people going to be like dude like
stop complaining. Uh so I have to like
listen back and see.
Yeah. If you're like annoying yourself
putting yourself in a bad mood.
Yeah. Or just I'm like I don't know. I
don't want to like come across as like
some like pessimistic I don't know.
nihilistic guy like
unless people enjoy it then I'm like you
know then I'm like sure but I just yeah
or like ungrateful or anything like that
but
like every every episode so far I've
I've brought up the fact that on every
cuz the podcast you know I have like I
think I'm like 840,000 subscribers on
YouTube but my long form videos won't
get view like the podcast I'll get like
anywhere from 600 views to like 2,000
views and I will get comments without a
fail on every one that's like bro fell
fell off or bro has 800,000 subs and
only gets this many views. What's going
on? And so every episode I record now
I'm like calling out. I'm like listen
like you know it's because of this I
said it every and I'm like at what point
are the people that actually listen to
this and know this already are they
going to be like all right stop we we
know you know
so there's that element of it as well.
Yeah. Those people suck. They're going
to follow you all the time. Like we've
never had a great following on YouTube.
All our stuff is done on audio cuz I I
didn't even record video for the first
like two and a half years of my show.
all audio platforms because at the time
it was like a it was like a you know
competition like podcast versus YouTube.
Now it's like it all is the same and to
say it makes it sound archaic to be like
you podcasts weren't on YouTube before
but they just they weren't you like
podcast was a podcast that was audio and
then YouTube is YouTube and that's video
right
and now it's all one and the same so it
makes a lot of sense but we just never
you know gotten much on YouTube. So, I
get those comments all the time. People
like,
"How how how are you talking to, you
know, Dane Cook or whatever, and you
only have I think we're at like 15,000
subs or something. Like, this video only
has like 3,000 views. Like, what do you
you know what I mean? It's like, okay,
well, at the end of the day, everybody
that I know that's extremely successful,
especially on YouTube, it came in like
year six,
right? You know what I mean? And all
those videos can go viral later. Like
even if you stop posting today,
it's evergreen. As long as it's
evergreen." Yeah.
Yeah. Um Yeah. Yeah, it could always go
viral like down the line. Like whether
it's just for some reason the algorithm
started pushing it for unknown reasons
or Dane Cook its out he's a serial
killer and it's like all of a sudden
everybody's like now searching him and
now that's you know
uh material. Hopefully that doesn't
happen but hopefully it just goes viral
for whatever other reason.
I didn't get any bad vibes from Dane. So
yeah. Okay, good. Good to know. Good to
know. Um but yeah, so like that's that.
Yeah, YouTube is like the Roth IRA of
like the content I feel like. Yeah,
people can, you know, just an
investment.
Absolutely.