Jack Youngblood speaks during his and his brother Josh’s podcast. *Photos submitted*

By Tom Victoria

Jack Youngblood wants to create positive change for himself and his followers. The content creator tries to set others on the right path in life.

The podcaster and YouTuber explained why self-improvement is vital to him.

“It's always been important to me because you only live life once,” he said. “That's such a generic thing to say, but it really is true that every single day it might be your last. Why not try to spend every waking moment trying to improve yourself or improve others around you, just trying to have a lasting impact on the world? That's always been something really important to me.”

Part of Jack’s self-improvement was becoming fitter.

“I've been working out for a long time,” he said. “I'm 23 years old right now. I started working out when I was 15. I grew up very skinny. When I was a freshman in high school at 14 years old, I was a 120-pound kid, so I was extremely skinny. Started gaining a lot of weight around senior year of high school, a lot of muscle. Ever since then, I've just been maintaining muscle, trying to stay fit, doing cardio lifting, trying to stay in my best physical shape, but also staying healthy. Not just trying to look good, but also feel good.”

Jack, a Michigan native residing in Tennessee, works out throughout the week.

“Six to seven,” he said about how many days. “I know that's more than most people would recommend, but I don't do it extreme, excruciatingly hard every day. It's a lot of basic training stuff. People recommend rest days, but If you know your body and you know that you can do it, I feel like you can. I'm young still. I feel like I can pull it off and I haven't had any problems.”

Jack is working to deflate a trend among some folks.

“What I feel is sad to see is seeing people who genuinely feel like they don't have to care about their body or what they're doing or what they do to others,” he said. “That's something I've noticed a lot.”

Jack credits his upbringing for keeping the right mindset.

“I was raised with two loving parents, great brother,” he said. “We both moved down to Nashville together. Family values have always been extremely high. That's kept my morality of trying to figure out from right or wrong. My parents did a good job of guiding me and also not keeping as tight of a leash. Some parents can tend to overbear.”

Jack said that parenting style prevented him from feeling the need to rebel.

“My parents let me make my own decisions,” he said. “In high school, if drinking came up, they would just be like don't drive home drunk. That's it. I didn't feel like I had to rebel, so I didn't drink. I never really found the temptation. It's same thing with smoking, same thing with sex. I'm a virgin. I'm 23 years old, and I'm a virgin by choice. When I was growing up, I would hear from all of my friends that they regret their first time. I don't want to regret my first time.”

Jack wants his first time to be with someone he cares about on a deeper level.

“I would rather just wait until a long-term relationship or marriage anyways, not just for religious reason, but for personal reasons,” he said. “It's cool to keep that because not a lot of young people my age have that anymore. They just go off the rails or they have some crazy history. In the videos that I do, I'm able to set that example. I'm not perfect, but I'm able to try to relate to those who might not want to participate in that stuff, and that's who I try to speak to.”

One evening proved fateful for Jack, leading him on his current path.

“In March, I was on spring break with my cousin and his friends,” he said. “We were having a good week. I usually just go out sober. This one night, we bought juices and some Bacardi. I'm pretty good at mixing drinks. I made one, and then it turned into a couple more just because it tasted really good. I definitely got too carried away.”

Fortunately, Jack came to a realization without anything disastrous happening.

“I was at the bar, and I actually had a come-to-Jesus moment,” he said. “I was there and drunk. My eyes just started watering, and I couldn't hold myself together. I get out of the club and I run. I call my brother because he's pretty religious. I don't even remember a lot of what I said. I just remember it was a life-changing moment.”

Jack found enlightenment the next day.

“I wake up,” he said. “I did a 2-mile run on the beach because we were in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The whole world just seemed brighter. I realized this is the standard that I want to hold myself to being sober.”

Jack decided what the next step should be.

“I hold myself to that standard, so why don't I try to help some others that might feel out of place,” he said. “They might feel like I don't really want to drink, but everyone else is doing it, so I feel like I have to. I want to be that voice for people that is saying you don't have to be drunk with everybody else. You could be sober and still have fun with everybody else.”

Jack seeks like-minded individuals.

“To create a community of people who want to do that, too,” he said.

Jack said youth are continually tempted by vices.

“There's so many different things,” he said. “Drinking, smoking, vaping is a thing now. People are starting to get into Zyn, which are little nicotine pouches. There's so many different temptations in the world now. Everybody's on the Internet doing all this stuff. There's all these YouTubers, influencers that make drinking and smoking and having sex with all these girls or reverse having sex with guys as a normal thing.”

Jack said the influencers become bad influences.

“It used to be in school, you see your peers doing that,” he said. “Now you see these famous people on the Internet doing it and encouraging it, trying to create an audience from it. All their audience are the ones going out there and actually doing it. Social media has definitely not helped with all those temptations for the world.”

Jack keeps track of topics to cover in videos.

“I have it in my notes on my phone and on my computer,” he said. “I have a section for long-form video ideas and short-form video ideas. The long form is just the video titles. I just go to the title and then just go from there. I'll look at the notes and really feel this is what I want to talk about. I'll just go, nothing scripted beforehand or anything.”

Jack does the opposite for shorter content.

“The short-form videos that I do for YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, I will plan those out,” he said. “I'll write them out. I usually try to write out two each morning. Once I go out and record the content somewhere in nature or in the apartment or wherever, I'll remember what is in it, but try to say it in an authentic way. A lot of people, they'll say those quotes and stuff, but they'll seem very scripted. Even though mine are pre-planned, they are just coming from my mind.”

Jack has done something for the purpose of filming it and filmed things he was going to do anyway.

“I've done both,” he said. “But I like to stay organized. I like to have a little bit of structure because I do care a lot about what I put out on the Internet and social media. If I'm going to put anything out there, it should be valuable. I try to at least set myself up to get my brain going so then I can just be, okay, I'm ready to record.”

Jack hopes his followers get three major points if nothing else from his content.

“To live the best life that they can and be the best version of themselves,” he said. “That they can find some type of Christian religious structure in your life. Try to find a return on investment in your life. I've said that a lot in videos. Everything that you do in your life should have some benefit towards your life, towards your future. Those would be the three things I would take away from my videos.”

Jack doesn’t feel any trepidation about being open about his Christianity in the face of a segment of society’s backlash to it.

“Not at all,” he said. “I feel like I'm protected in a way, but also that it just needs to be put out there. If it comes to a point where I feel my life is in danger or my family's life is in danger, I won't necessarily cut back on it, but I will be more cautious about my life. The world is very against it. Jesus Himself was killed because He was too public about things, so that's just how it's always been. It's not even our new age. It's Christians have been persecuted forever.”

Jack started The Youngblood Squared Podcast with Josh nearly two years ago.

“We talk about religion,” he said. “We talk about good mindset. My brother, he was a Christian missionary. He went to Armenia for a mission trip. He's very into his faith. I'm into it, too, but he's a different level. We bring on all different types of people: athletes, entrepreneurs, music, artists, all different types of people. We brought a Secret Service member on one time.”

Jack said the guests all represent a positive model to follow.

“We like to talk about conspiracies sometimes, but mainly talking about people's lives, getting an insight into those,” he said. “They're always positive-minded people with a good life. Trying to lead by example of showing these people who have done great things or are doing great things and adding our religious mindset twist to it. Then a little bit of fun conspiracy stuff at the end.”

A pivotal moment in Jack’s brother’s life led to the podcast.

“I was living in the car for a month, traveling around the country,” he said. “Traveled to 18 different states over the course of a month. While my little brother was starting college, he called me and said I want to drop out. He was going for nuclear physics. He was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I was like, wow, okay, what should we do? We came up with the idea of starting a podcast together while he figures out what he wants to do in his life. He might get involved in the church, maybe something else. He's only 20, so he's still figuring his life out.”

Jack learned how to edit when he opted to produce content.

“The year before I dropped out, I realized that I wanted to drop out,” he said. “I basically didn't study for any tests. The entire time while I was getting ready to drop out, I studied editing, got a vlog camera. I just learned everything there is to know about Premiere Pro and Capcut. Capcut I use for my phone, Premiere Pro I use for my computer. I learned everything that I could, at least basic stuff, and built up the habits of being able to edit videos. Once I dropped out, I was ready. All my editing is self-taught from YouTube.”

Jack developed motivation from athletics.

“It stemmed from when I was playing basketball,” he said. “I've kept it ever since then, wanting to better myself, wanting to work hard in my life, keep the work ethic that I always have. I'd done that for so long that it flooded over into what I'm doing in life now.”

Jack’s motivation led to forming his own business, Youngblood Media.

“I own my own social media agency where I like content stuff for coaches, consultants, brands, stuff like that,” he said. “I also have a podcast service that anybody who has a podcast, I'll edit it for them, produce it for them, schedule it. That's actually how I make money. Any money from my videos or podcast thing, obviously, they're still very small.”

Jack offered advice to aspiring YouTubers.

“Find purpose in what you make,” he said. “Try to find a reason why people would watch your video. If you can't watch your content through and think of some value with it, then why would anybody else watch it or subscribe to it? That'd be my advice.”

Jack said podcasters should be distinct from the competition.

“Make it entertaining and valuable to watch,” he said. “There's a lot of podcasts in the world nowadays. If you want to try to make an impact, try to separate yourself from the others who have podcasts. Try to make it the highest quality you can. Do your research. Buy the right cameras. Use the right editing software. Make all different types of content for that podcast, not just the long-form full podcast, make the short clips, add a bunch of variety to it.”

Jack said podcasters should consider both the audio and visual impact.

“That way you can appeal to people who just want to listen in the car or people who actually want to sit down in their living room and watch it,” he said. “Try to spread it over YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn as much as you can. Value in both production and value in just watching. Try to get somebody's attention with how can it be valuable to them.”

Jack said those wanting to embark on self-improvement should pinpoint motivation to do so first.

“Find a reason why you want to be the best version of yourself first,” he said. “Don't try to force it. Try to find a viable reason why you should want the best for yourself. A lot of that comes from self-love.”

Jack’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jack_youngblood/

Jack’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@therealJackYoungblood

Jack’s website: https://www.youngblood-media.com/

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