Eujay Doe was a Minneapolis photographer, videographer, and aspiring director who had been building his creative work back up after returning from a stretch doing door-to-door sales across the country. His roommate was Luis Borja from episode 12, and he’d found his way into the Minneapolis creative circle through a group chat that connected him with Henry Smisek from episode 6 and Vlad Nikiforov. The episode covered how EJ got back to Minnesota and went all in, how the gym built the discipline that everything else runs on, what moves him creatively, and a shared conversation about whether polished production actually connects with people — or pushes them away.
How Eujay Doe Got Back to Minneapolis
EJ had been messing with cameras since high school — about seven years by the time they recorded. But it wasn’t a straight line. He’d spent a stretch doing door-to-door sales, moving around the country with a team. It paid well and it taught him things about himself — mostly what he did and didn’t want.
“It was livable and it was super fun — my thing like why I stopped doing it was just the life on the road was pretty tied down — you’re living minimalistic, you’re living with a lot of people.”
The pull to come back to Minneapolis wasn’t just personal. He’d been watching the creative scene there grow and knew he already had the network to do something with it.
“The scene in Minneapolis is getting bigger and I feel like I can leverage that — I know a lot of people already, I grew up here.”
Back in the city, he landed with Luis Borja from episode 12 as a roommate — whose YouTube channel he’d helped with early on, long before he had his own camera. The connection to Henry Smisek from episode 6 came through a group chat, and Vlad Nikiforov followed from there. That circle gave him people to actually make work with.
The end goal was directing — not necessarily feature films, but something with a narrative underneath it.
“I really like movies. I want to be like a director of some sort — a director in some way. Picture something more with the actual narrative, the genuine story.”
The Gym, Jiujitsu, and Building the Discipline
EJ started lifting consistently at the beginning of 2021. He’d played sports growing up but stopped after high school, and the gap showed.
“I was just unhappy with my body — after high school I stopped playing sports and stuff, you know, go to college, you just way less active, gain some weight — I was like, all right, let me get this lifting.”
What made it stick in those early months wasn’t willpower — it was the house he was living in. Seven people, and somebody was always heading to the gym.
“There’d be a few days I’m like nah I’m not going — and you have like four dudes like you gotta go, you gotta go — so that’s what really helped me a lot.”
From lifting he moved into calisthenics, trading size for mobility and longevity. He wanted to be flexible, to move well, to do flips — he’d been into acrobatics since he was a kid and wanted to get back to it. Jiujitsu came from spotting a gym right next to his apartment when he first moved back to Minnesota.
“It’s been a holy experience.”
The triathlon he ran in September had been filmed and was turning into a YouTube vlog. Running had snuck up on him — he lived near a lake with a loop around it, went out once, and somewhere along the way it became his baseline.
The discipline across all of it followed the same logic: start, show up, build from there.
“You get knocked down enough times you want it more — you want it more, you know, just more and more and more. There’s just obstacles in front of you and you just knock them down.”
Starting the Studio: Gear and Editing
The day they recorded, EJ had just picked up a $180 studio kit — two softboxes, two umbrella lights, a backdrop, and a reflector. He’d set it up that afternoon and spent the session testing positions with his roommate as a stand-in subject.
Isaac made the case for the cheap-start approach: get the Amazon lights, figure out what you actually need, and only upgrade when you hit a real ceiling. His own first light ran $600. EJ’s reasoning was similar — he needed to be able to shoot concepts at home without waiting for a scheduled shoot.
On the editing side, he was primarily on Premiere with Photoshop for text work — stretching fonts, pulling in color palettes from a generator, building things that didn’t look like default Premiere output. He’d avoided CapCut for a while before having a realization.
“I was scared to jump in, I kept procrastinating, pushing it off — and then I was like, dude, I’m doing the same thing, it’s the same thing on the computer.”
Both he and Isaac landed on the same conclusion: CapCut produces results faster than it has any right to, and for content-forward work it holds up better than people give it credit for.
What Moves Eujay Doe Creatively
When Isaac asked EJ to name something that moved him — a film, a photo, a piece of work — he went straight to Interstellar.
“I say my favorite movie — really beautiful — was like Interstellar.”
They’d both rewatched it recently. What made it land was composition and the willingness to visually interpret something abstract — the black hole, the wave planet, the bookshelf sequence. That same thing drew EJ to behind-the-scenes content more broadly. Watching the creation of something changed how you experienced the finished piece.
Isaac brought up a Jon Bellion behind-the-scenes video about the making of “Luxury” — something both of them had watched and carried. The video follows Bellion through the full creative process: bringing in a trumpet player, passing on a big-name feature because a lesser-known singer actually sounded right, making every call based on what the song needed.
“Just him going through the process of that beautiful song — it’s got a beautiful message about him finding success and then him kind of saying, I hope I don’t lose myself in this luxury.”
“He had a feature come in and usually when people think of features it’s like oh we want the big-name artist — and he was kind of like, no, screw that, I want it to sound the best. This chick sounds good and she comes in and sings like an angel.”
Cole Bennett’s second channel was in the same category — watching the Lyrical Lemonade 2 behind-the-scenes made the music videos themselves hit differently. The creation process was the part that stuck.
Music played a role in EJ’s creative work too, though he was honest about not quite knowing what that role was.
“I started video photo stuff because there was just a way for me to like portray emotion — I really move emotionally with this stuff.”
Authenticity Over Polish
The content philosophy EJ and Isaac shared was the same: make what you want to make and put it out. No format chasing.
“I look at life through my world and some learn from it and share it to you guys.”
Both of them had noticed the same tension in creative content — the more polished a video gets, the more it can start to feel like a content format rather than a person. EJ had watched it happen: creatives who nailed the ultra-produced aesthetic ended up followed mostly by other creatives who valued the craft, while the general audience connected more with the messier, more personal stuff.
“Everyone that is just kind of a regular old person that nails that stuff — I kind of notice all they’re following is just creatives that value that. If you really want to attack the general public — them just making their stuff and being personable and trying as best they can is the most relatable.”
They connected it to the long-form comeback — Sam Sulek-style videos and that whole mode of content where the appeal was watching someone’s actual perspective rather than a produced package. Isaac had just come back from an eight-hour drive to Michigan to shoot a black-and-white music video styled after The Lighthouse, and stepping back into purely creative work after months of business-focused content had reminded him what it felt like to just ask what looked coolest.
The through line was the same one EJ had figured out in the gym: the discipline to show up and put in the reps, without overthinking what it’s supposed to look like.
“When you teach yourself disciplines — which is why I like the gym more and more — you teach yourself how to put down more work. It takes a lot of work to specifically do what you want to do.”
Key Takeaways
- The people around you are your first accountability system. EJ didn’t build his gym consistency alone — a house full of people heading out every day made saying no feel wrong.
- Start cheap and upgrade when you hit a real problem. A $180 lighting kit is the right first move. Save the upgrade money for when you know exactly what’s failing.
- Behind-the-scenes content changes how you experience the finished work. Watching the creative decisions behind something — the tradeoffs, the moments of doubt — makes the final piece land differently.
- Over-production can push people away. Nailing the polished format wins with audiences who value craft. Showing up genuine and imperfect wins with everyone else.
- Discipline in one area compounds across all of them. The habits EJ built in the gym — showing up, putting in reps, not overthinking it — are exactly what creative consistency demands too.
- Post whatever you want. A community that follows you as a person is more durable than one built around a content format.
Follow Eujay on Instagram. Connect with Isaac at isaacjarnagin.com.
