How I Got My Job Working as a Creative Director for Ryan Serhant
The story of how I went from being a young kid with a GoPro to working as a Creative Director at the world’s most followed real estate brand in the world.
I got into filmmaking at a pretty early age. I got into it seriously in high school when I started making videos for my school’s communication technology program, then continued exploring my interest in storytelling when I went to film school at Chapman University in Southern California.
My freshman year of college I made a daily vlog (important detail for later: I made over 300 episodes in total) while I pursued a degree in Television Writing and Production, with a minor in Music Technology.
My sophomore year I became a Resident Advisor and worked for Resident Life as a videographer, alongside making more YouTube videos, getting into sketch comedy, etc.
When I was a Junior in college, I worked as a resident advisor again, did freelance directing/producing and had a couple other side jobs here and there. My main goals were outside of my major- these were the two main things I wanted:
Make great art and publish it
Move to NYC after graduating
My goals were set and I had a plan- which of course was going to change. As Drake probably said once, “the path may change but the vision stays the same”.
…
In December of 2019, I went to visit my parents in Mississippi, where they moved after my dad lost his job that summer. It was Christmas morning when I woke up to a YouTube video in my notifications- from one of my biggest inspirations at the time, Casey Neistat.
The video was about this real estate celebrity who was doing a little giveaway (watch Ryan’s video here). What was he giving away, you ask?
A FREE YEAR in New York City to chase your dreams- all expenses paid.
All you had to do was apply on the website, freeyearnyc.com.
As soon as I watched the video- I KNEW I was gonna win this thing. I was exactly who they were looking for, I just needed to show them.
So, I got to work. I whipped up a plan in my notebook (pics below), wrote and rewrote a script, made a shot list and got to filming. When I got back to school, I shot the video and edited it over a few days.
I watched every other application video that was submitted and I knew mine stood out from the rest. To this day it’s still a video I’m incredibly proud of- but the comments on the video are what makes me the most proud. I have some really incredible friends and family who believe in me more than anyone… that’s huge.
If you wanna watch it- here’s a link.
After I posted the video I needed to make sure I got Ryan and his team’s attention. I saw on Twitter (I refuse to call it X) that Ryan was responding to peoples tweets, so I tweeted it to him.
…
No response.
That didn’t stop me tho. The next morning I deleted it, then tweeted it again and guess what?
Ryan responded! Or… more likely, his team did.
I did some quick research and found Ryan’s media team at the time- three people who would go on to drastically change my life for the better.
First was Adrian Vazquez, Ryan’s incredible Creative Director and lead Videographer. Now one of my best friends in the entire world.
Then there was Jason Puma, a killer Photographer and Social Media Manager- now Brand Director at SERHANT.
And finally there was Angeline Fang, the kindest Marketing and Communications Strategist on the planet.
A week after I applied, Ryan released another vlog- the team pushed back the winner announcement to the next week… great.
So another week of waiting for the announcement goes by and guess what!
Out of the 28,000+ people who applied….
…
..
.
I didn’t win.
The Free Year NYC Winner
Was this guy who ran a marathon a day across the country from NY to LA to raise awareness about plastic pollution. Oh and his shoes were made of recycled plastic… how do you beat that? Thankfully, I didn’t.
I eventually met him- his name is Sam Bencheghib, and he is 100% changing the world for the better. Seriously, he is INSPIRING. If you don’t follow his work, subscribe/follow him everywhere you can.
Anyway, I lost and was crushed.
It’s almost the end of January 2020 at this point. Kobe Bryant had just died, I was almost fired twice from my RA job and I was eating sleep for dinner most nights, so life wasn’t exactly going according to the plan OR the vision.
I was also interning in Beverly Hills at a talent management company at the moment, waking up at 4 am to catch a train from Orange County to North Hollywood where my best friend Bailey would pick me up and drive us to the office to get there by 9am.
The internship was unpaid, of course.
At this point in my life I was so exhausted that I broke down crying on the Metrolink one day because my train was running late getting back to Chapman and I thought if I missed my RA Duty shift at 8pm that I’d be fired and have to drop out of college. Thankfully, I had a great friend named Kiley who covered for me until I got there.
Great friends make life a whole lot easier. Cherish them.
Anyway- one day I woke up to my increasingly depressive state and I had a DM from Adrian. Here’s what he said:
Little did I know, this man was about to change my life forever. But given how things had been going for me the last few months- I was SURE this chance was gonna get ripped out of my hands.
Then, of course, it did… kinda.
Another month or two went by and as y’all already know…
COVID started. School got shut down, my RA job was canceled because, well, there were no residents to advise anymore, and my hopes for this internship (paid!) were gone. I had no clue how I was gonna do anything- but I was fortunate that I didn’t have to. The only thing that mattered at that time was staying alive.
I lived alone on campus, so I spent a LOT of time by myself. I had class over zoom, only saw the friends who lived next to me (hi Tori and Chris, the gang), and soon enough my sleep schedule was HELLA screwed up. But for the first time in a little while, I could afford to eat thanks to some money my parents sent me.
Great friends are amazing, but great parents are a luxury. If that’s true- I’m the richest kid in the universe.
So, this internship with Adrian and the SERHANT. team wasn’t looking too good.
In May, I flew to Mississippi once again to see my family and when I was there I got a phone call from him.
“Here’s the deal I could get you- it’s not great, but we might be able to make it work”, Adrian said.
The offer was this: $300 a week to be an intern, for however long I can make it work. I’d work a lot, creating videos and doing social media work for Ryan and the team, but I’d be a creator in NYC.
It wasn’t a lot of money but hey, it’s better than the unpaid internships/jobs I’d been working in college. I just didn’t know how to live in NYC for $1200 a month.
Adrian continued, “I know it’s not a lot of money, but you can sleep on my couch if you want.”
Great! I thought.
“I have two roommates and we live in Bushwick, but they’re cool with it… Probably.”
Okay… maybe this is gonna be harder than I thought.
On a side note- I personally believe there comes a time in everyone’s life where to pursue your dreams you gotta make a drastically stupid decision. I already made one of these stupid decisions when I took out massive student loans to afford college- so this was nothing new to me… but what they don’t tell you about these decisions is that they never get easier.
Then as every protagonist must do on their hero’s journey- I made a choice.
This time, the drastically stupid choice I made was to spend the last $300 in my bank account on a one way plane ticket to NYC during a global pandemic.
If you’re gonna shoot your shot, you might as well yell “KOBE!”
My first day in New York City was June 4th, 2020.
I spent the next few months sleeping on Adrian’s couch, making videos and taking out the company trash. It was a WILD time of working on different projects, seeing luxury homes for the first time and exploring the city during the pandemic.
I met great friends, tried new food and became accustomed to a new world, literally. It was like the weirdest dream you never knew if it was real or not. Inception type shit.
I made a montage of my time there that captured that feeling very well to me- set to “passing out pieces” by Mac DeMarco. Soundtrack to my life at the time.
In August, 2020 I flew back to SoCal to finish college while working remotely with the SERHANT. team. It was a bittersweet goodbye, but only a temporary one.
In May of 2021, I graduated college and moved to NYC for the summer. I subletted a bedroom in Brooklyn for $1200 a month, officially working for SERHANT. full-time! I can’t mention my beginning salary, but I had another very real “how am I gonna do this” moment… as usual tho, God provided just enough to keep me going.
Over the next few years I bounced back and forth between LA and NYC, working for SERHANT.
Although I worked in NYC- I moved in with my best friend, Braden, in a two-bed apartment in Hollywood. I was lucky enough with work that I could do it remotely with the teams support- something I definitely cannot do now.
I’d fly to NYC every other month or so, work in-person for a few weeks, then head back to LA for another period of time. It was a weird point in my life, but I had some of the most fun I’ve ever had. This was probably another drastically stupid decision- more sleeping on couches and stretching myself thin- but I learned a lot and made a ton of connections across both cities.
In that time, I finished and released a feature length documentary/movie as a finale to The Jack Ruhl Show- my daily vlog from college. To this day it’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever made (if you haven’t clicked on any links throughout this article yet- check it out).
At work- I went on to create shows for LISTED, write/direct brand films for New Development buildings as well as for the top real estate agents at the company, and wrote/directed/produced the “What is SERHANT.?” brand film for the company. I even wrote a commercial for the company that aired on national television! Kinda cool for a job that most people in my life still don’t actually understand what I do.
Fast Forward to Today
I now ONLY live in NYC (as of May, 2023) and am now working as a Creative Director at SERHANT. Studios. I feel like I’ve been doing the job for a while now, but it’s nice to officially have the title.
It’s been a long journey but the key things I’ve learned so far are:
If you have an opportunity to change your life for the better but it’s scary- it’s okay to be afraid. Just be afraid and take the chance anyway.
Those drastically stupid decisions you are faced with? They’re character defining moments. Canon events, if you will. Show up like the hero of your journey that you are and make a choice. Life isn’t meant to be lived perfectly- so make the best choice you can with the information you have today.
What you do NOW sets you up for what you’ll do later.
I started making videos at eleven years old. That set me up for four years later when I got into the broadcast program at my high school. There, I made the things that set me up for Film School.
The daily vlogs I made in college set me up for the FreeYearNYC contest and my internship/job at SERHANT. three years later. Everything you do leads to the next thing eventually.
side note for the person reading this who needs to hear it: I told people in high school/college that those vlogs could lead to a job after graduation and I got RIPPED APART for it. Few people believed me until it happened. That doesn’t matter- what does matter is that YOU believe in it yourself. Who cares what anyone else has to say anyway?
It’s not the job/salary/city that matters. It’s the people you spend your life with that are the most important thing.
Because of this job, I get to see my family more than I did in college. I get paid enough now that I can afford to pay my ridiculously high student loan bills, my rent/utilities AND I can eat well. I even got a gym membership- that’s real wealth right there.
The best part of my job by far though, is the people I get to work with. I love the constant inspiration that comes from talking about what movies we’re watching, or the things I learn from collaborating with other great filmmakers. It’s not a perfect job, those don’t exist, but the people at every job I’ve ever had are what has made it special. I’m working on remembering that each day.
All of that goes to say…
I’m a ridiculously privileged human being. This story wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging that. Yeah yeah I still got my issues and hard things I gotta deal with for the rest of my life, but I am so fortunate to have the life I have, the family I have, the opportunities I’ve had.
That’s a bigger conversation than I’m willing to have over a newsletter- but I will leave it at this: Thank you.
If you’re reading this, you’ve likely impacted my life for the better and I’m thankful for you.
Reading this story back to myself, it’s hard not to think of the countless people who have lent me a couch to sleep on for a night, or been there for me in a hard time. I’m endlessly grateful to be alive. Grateful for the friends I’ve had, the family I’ve been given, and the stories I get to tell.
If this newsletter has encouraged or inspired you in any way, please do me a favor and share it with someone you know! I’d love to connect with more people who might like it.
Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter- and I’ll see you next week with more creativity tips and tricks, recs for your week and more!
Love,
Jek Rool
(this is a comment i got on one of my vlogs. One of my favorites of all time- it’s so freakin funny to me. The effort to do this, man…. lmao)
Proud of you, Jack