Do you know how I've told you in the past about going to presentations or reading a book or seeing a movie or mostly just watching a video and picking up one teeny tiny little thing that I can just take off on? And I have done that over and over and over again. And I'm going to talk about a 45-minute video that I watched by a guy by the name of Jack Conte. It was all about the Internet, but that's not what I walked away from it with.
We'll talk about that. Oh, yes. So true. This, friends.
Well, this is The Daily Grateful. And I am Michael Kroos. And gratitude reminds us to pause and appreciate the beauty that surrounds us every day. Here's what I got out of that video.
It was a cool video, by the way. Jack Conte, if you don't know, him and his wife, Natalie, have a musical group that started making YouTube videos a long time ago. And they named their little group Pump Amuse. And I remember long ago buying a little memory stick from them with their music on it.
And they sent it to me and they signed it. I have it around here somewhere. They signed it and they had their music. And that was the beginning of them you know just building up an empire Well guess what they own now Guess you know they wanted to they wanted to get paid And so they started something that you have probably heard of I just bet that you have heard of it in the past.
It's called Patreon. And they started this out of their house. When they started their career on YouTube, their musical career that they started on YouTube and wanted to get paid, they wanted people that, you know, when I bought my little stick from them, I had to, you know, go to a, I think I went on PayPal and bought it through PayPal and they wanted to make things easier. So they came up with Patreon where you could be a patron of an artist.
And they started that in the living room. And now it's a giant corporation. It's a multimillion dollar corporation that Jack runs for the sole purpose, for the absolute sole purpose of helping creative people to get paid for their creations and just making it easier on them. And in the beginning, I mean, there were women on there trying to do porn.
He said, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. No, no, no. And he said this is for artists This is for artists who want to make videos This is for artists who want to do paintings And all of this Anyway I watched this 45 or 41 minute video Of him explaining the different directions That the internet's going in Compared to where it was when it started And he had a million good points But the thing that I walked away from This whole thing was a little sentence he said He said I want you to go out and create beautiful things Wow Create beautiful things Now as I have totally admitted a million times on this podcast and in radio I am not an artist who can draw or do graphic design. I can't.
I have, but I can't. I don't get inspired by it, but I do beautiful things. I write beautiful things. I sometimes come on here and talk about beautiful things.
And I just love beautiful things. I appreciate the beauty in art, music, and creativity. I just love all of that. I'm grateful for beautiful things that brings me into the present moment, that I just feel so damn good when I'm exposed to beautiful things.
And as I watched that video, and I picked up that one little sentence, create beautiful things, I just kind of decided, when you get to my age, when you're young, you have all these dreams. I wanted to work in radio, boom, goes to nine of my 35 years worth. Okay, I wanted to inspire people. I think I've inspired some people.
I know a gentleman who has a couple of bumper stickers on his car from words that I have said. Great guy, by the way. But I just have decided now that in my 70s that all I really want to do is create beautiful things. Now what does that mean I not going to become an artist I not going to be able to pick up a pen and paper and draw stuff Wish I could Oh man My daughter she an artist As a matter of fact in this very studio is a piece of her artwork And in my bedroom is a piece of her artwork.
My son, Tyler, is an artist. There is some of his art hanging up in the kitchen. There's a piece of his artwork that's right in here that just fell and landed on the floor. He's a wonderful artist.
I'm not. But I can create beautiful things. And I would encourage you to create beautiful things. and then I want you to embrace gratitude for the beautiful things that you create because if you are grateful for them, other people will be too won't that be spiffy?
I think that'll be spiffy that's all I got to say today it's Wednesday it's a day to think about creating the first thing I'm going to do the very first damn thing I'm going to do and this is going to involve graphic design and I'm going to do it today I'm going to create a t-shirt that says create beautiful things I'm going to have to get some help on that. Maybe my daughter will help me. Maybe, you know, I'm going to call her as soon as I'm done editing and getting this out on the interwebs. I love you all very much.
Go create beautiful things, okay? By the way, I have five kids and five grandkids. I did pretty good there.