Renting Breath of the Wild from Gamefly
My friends, we're here today playing The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild for the very first time. This game's been consistently requested. I rented it on Nintendo Switch today from Gamefly, and I'm so excited to try this for the first time. That was anticlimactic. Oh, I gotta hit the little R button to throw it. He just hit it, so I have no idea. I watched the tutorial, but I have very little idea what to do in this game. I've only played Zelda maybe three hours — I played the N64 Zelda. It looks like there's a lot of puzzle solving, a lot of open world exploring, which is pretty cool. Nothing like an old pair of pants and an old shirt to get us started. Oh, and my jump button is X, because that makes perfect sense.
Somebody said I should play duos with Luke. I'm like, yeah, I'm sure that'd be fun for Luke. I remember as a police officer, we did this training of dragging this 150 pound dummy down this thing — down however many yards we dragged it to get it to safety, and then you're shooting. And I picture, if I was gonna play with Luke, I'd be the 150 pound dummy he's gotta drag along. Like, alright, come on. Here, sit in this building and camp. I'll be back in 20 minutes.
My Police Officer Days
Yep, I used to be a police officer, and a corrections officer as well. That was a good time. My main priority when I graduated college is that I didn't want to have a boring office job. I hated boring office jobs. I had one of those right when I graduated. And I was thinking, the thing I really care about is fun. And I got fun. I definitely got fun.
I was a good cop. I was good when I was on duty. I was very fair. And the issue I had was off duty when I was drinking. That was a whole nother story. But yeah, I did great at work as a police officer. And I took people by surprise, too, because I don't come off as a typical confrontational cop. People would be surprised when I said, you're under arrest. And they often wouldn't even expect a fight from me. And I used to hit first, too. Nobody ever took a swing at me as a police officer. I used to hit first. My outlook was, if we're going to get in a fight, I want to hit first. I always hit first. If it looked like we were going to have a physical altercation, I figured, I'm going to take the first shot, and that'll give me a distinct advantage. And if it looked like — for example, if there were three of them and one of me — I'd just run my mouth until we could get some backup there.
They didn't let me do anything fun, though. Like, I tried to get in car chases and stuff, and my police department was very conservative. Which I guess is good now, because I might have died or something if I'd gotten in a car chase. Probably not, but still.
Damn, my woodcutter's axe broke already? What kind of weak shit is that? What, I need to use this branch? Oh, God. Now I broke a tree branch over this guy's head, too. Now what am I supposed to do? Can I pick something else up?
Matt says, at least it was involving a felony — his police department didn't pursue otherwise. Yeah, that was the same policy they had at mine. Which is kind of bullshit. Because, okay, I see somebody reckless drunk driving at 3 a.m., and they don't stop for police lights. And then my sergeant just tells me to come home, or come back to the station. I'm like, this is rude. I'm like, I wish when I got pulled over, I'd just step on the gas and go, and they let me go, too. I would not try that, though — your police department may not be like mine was. I literally had multiple people just drive off while I was trying to pull them over. I'm like, what is the point of even policing? If somebody can just drive off, why even bother? Why even do this? Basically, only the people who stop deserve it, right?
Getting Challenged Is Better Than Getting Comfortable
I played with Legendary and some of the other Legion Farm gamers. And it really challenged me, because their playstyle is a lot different than what I'm used to. Damn! They blew my ass up! But I think it's good to get challenged in life. I don't think a comfortable life should be our goal. We praise people for having all this money and having this comfortable existence. But really, is that what we're out to do? Is just to be as comfortable as possible? Is that what we're looking for? Is that accomplishment?
I was wondering — because I think everybody's life is about the same. I don't think anybody's life is that much better or that much worse. If you ask me, what's the bad part about your life? I'm like, my life is so kind of good and comfortable, you might say, that it is kind of bland. If you lived my life, you might think this is kind of bland. Like, he doesn't get in that good of moods, he doesn't get in that bad of moods. It's just kind of good all the time. I gotta tell you, there's something that is really amazing about when you've had your ass kicked and life has given you a shitty hand and then you actually have a good day. It's just like, oh, it's so nice.
Why I Refuse to Cheat: Secrets Keep Me Sick
Now, I don't cheat or do anything I wouldn't want to tell anybody about, because I realize, for me, that secrets keep me sick. So I don't use anything or do anything that I wouldn't want to tell everybody about, because that ends up just being toxic to my whole being. But if you didn't have that policy, if you hadn't been through that life lesson yet, hey, why not? Oh, I fucking — oh, I died. There we go, I'm dead.
I tell you, I was tempted. I was tempted to cheat. I'm looking at these guys and they're getting all these views by cheating, and I'm like, if I just had some wall hacks, I'd be almost unbeatable. If I just had some wall hacks. I thought about it. The only reason I refuse to do that is because I would not want to tell everybody about that, and I would not want to suffer from that. There's just something toxic you do to your whole being when you're doing something secret and you're presenting something out there like, oh yeah, I'm so good at this game — but then in the background, you're running some cheats. In my experience, it's just really toxic to do that.
What Udemy Taught Me About Poisonous Foundations
A lot of the motivational stuff and a lot of what we're taught is basically, do anything to get to the top. Work hard, sacrifice. But I've got to the top of a few things, like on Udemy, and I pushed to the limit on the policies. And they eventually just took my account down, even though I was not at the time breaking any policies. And I had been very careful to follow all the policies to the letter. They just basically found some arbitrary reason to kick me off. I was making $1,000 plus a day on Udemy. I was a top 10 instructor, and I was utterly devastated. But it taught me a good lesson. It's like, yeah, you might be able to build up a little empire by pushing for the top and by doing whatever it takes to get there. But at the same time, if you've got some kind of poisonous thing in your foundation — like for gaming, if you're cheating — if you make some kind of poisonous foundation, it's not going to work out good for you in the long term. But maybe it will. What the hell do I know?
The No-Shirt Strategy and the Real Cost of Streaming
And I realized, well, for better or worse, the no shirt really works well. I tried to dress it up, and I was thinking about playing around with my appearance more, but it just doesn't work. The no shirt just gets hella clicks. The no shirt just works. It works because some people have a very strong emotional reaction to it, and that's why it works. And it stands out. It's unusual. Although it was unusual — the more people that are streaming with no shirt, the more it'll become usual. So we've got to work that angle.
I got almost nothing for the first hundreds of streams I did. And I even quit streaming. I'm like, it's a waste of my time. Like, seriously, do I think I have any real chance of supporting my family by doing live streaming? I quit streaming twice because I was getting almost nothing. And I did hundreds of hours of live streams. For 2018 to 2019, I did probably 150 to 200 live streams for probably a total of 500 to 700, 800 hours. And I spent more money than I actually got — buying gaming systems, buying new games, and giving to other streamers. I probably spent 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 more than I got. And that was the second time I quit. I'm like, what a waste of time. But then I tried really hard to make money and start a website. And I've spent so much money, I got myself in debt. I tried so hard to make money that I realized I could have just kept playing games the whole time and came out farther ahead financially. And that was a big awakening for me. Sometimes in life, I'm like, I'm going to do this — when if you just focus on the things you can control and focus on loving and enjoying where you're at, things will work out over the long term almost effortlessly.
Down Cycles Are Part of the Deal
I think no matter where you're at, you're going to be down sometimes. And I'm glad I've been a little down lately. My stream comes and goes in waves. I get really up — up, up, I'm so high on my stream, everything's going so good, I'm on top of the world. And then I'm down sometimes. Down, down. And today I'm okay with that. I realize feeling down doesn't mean I'm doing anything wrong. It's just a natural cycle of life that sometimes you're going to feel really good, and you actually need the down cycles to fully appreciate where you're at. And I find the down cycles really encourage me to think, for example, oh, I need to let go. The down cycles really encourage me to think outside the box and try new things, which is really good.
Wayne Dyer is someone who's inspiring me a lot. And one of the first books I read, one of his best books, was called The Power of Intention. And he wrote that when he was at one of the lowest points in maybe the last 20 years of his life. At the time, him and his wife, who he'd had seven children with, were talking about getting divorced, and they were fighting with each other. Now, this is a guy who'd written books on parenting.
How Wayne Dyer Turned His Lowest Point Into a Book
This is a Mr. Positive, a guy who'd written all kinds of motivational books, been on all kinds of tonight shows and radio shows as an example, a leader, a role model for people. And you can imagine how personally painful it was to him that with his position in the world and all he's done and all he's given in his marriage, him and his wife are arguing and fighting and they're talking about getting attorneys and getting divorced. You can imagine how painful that was. That was one of the most painful times in his life, he said. And what to me was one of his best books was created out of that suffering, out of that understanding.
And the really cool thing is that him and his wife eventually decided, look, we can just continue to be married, we can continue to raise our children together, but we don't have to continue to have a romantic relationship together. We can each get a new partner, like a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and we don't have to fight over finances or get attorneys to tell us what to do. We can be friends, we can raise our kids together, we can each get our own boyfriend or girlfriend to have sex with, and we can still keep most of our relationship — we're just not gonna live together and we're not gonna be in a romantic relationship. And I just thought that was so beautiful. And that came out of one of the most difficult parts of his life.
My Biggest Ups Came Right After My Biggest Downs
One of the biggest ups I've had on my livestream was after my biggest downs. For example, I quit my stream for a year on a stretch of downs. Then I came back to streaming and had my biggest success ever streaming. And at one of my lowest points on the stream since I started again, people were commenting saying I was gonna quit again. I took a two and a half week vacation, which gave me some really good perspective. And I came back from that and I started playing these retro games, and the stream popped off the best it's ever popped off before. If it weren't for that down period, I don't think I would have been inspired to do those retro games and to make them a priority. So because of the down times, I went and made things a priority and I experimented and I tried new things, and I've got my streaming to a whole new level. And now we've got the best level of following ever.
Learning to Fight in Hyrule
Ah, here we go. Damn, let me hit this guy with his leaf. What is the attack button? Oh, you gotta whip this — oh, it just throws wind at him, and actually the leaf does work good. Oh, they just put themselves back together. Oh, but you can pick their spear up? You can take their spear. Nice. Let me equip that. All right, good. Let me get that spear out. All right, we're learning. Let me pick his head up. Can I pick his head up? Nice. He's whiffing all over the place. Let me use the spear. Yeah, let me hit you with the spear. Oh, I broke the spear. Dude, he needs to rip his arm off. Oh! All right, so can we get some of these out? Dude, I can beat him with his own arm now? That's funny. Hold up. I want to get this guy's arm and beat him with it. Yeah, let me beat him with this arm. Hey, how do I use that? Wait, all I can do is punch right now? All right.
That's how my very first session in Breath of the Wild went — broken axes, broken spears, and beating a monster with its own arm while I figured out which button even attacks. If you enjoyed watching me stumble through Hyrule and want more sessions like this one, you'll find plenty more gameplay in my Games playlist.