The Story of Jack Ruhl

As told by me at 25 years old.

Jan 29, 2024

Alright y’all… this one is a bit longer than usual and is a bit of a change in format, but it’s one I think y’all will find interesting.

A couple of people have asked about it, so here it is. This is my way of telling every one of y’all who i am, what my goals are and what i’m up against in this world. This is my story (so far), laid out as simply as i can in a 5 minute newsletter.

In college i learned one specific way to define a story. There are others, but I like this one a lot. I learned-

“a story is when a character wants something, has trouble getting it, and either gets it or they don’t”

So if you wanna know my story at the moment, lean in. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Here’s the basics of every story- more or less.

Character
Setting
Wants / Goals
Obstacles to the goal
What the character does to overcome those obstacles?
Does the character succeed?

Character

My name is Jack Ruhl- I’m a 25 year old storyteller from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I was born in North Carolina, lived in Georgia, Florida and then moved to PA when i was 10. I’m the 5th of 7 kids (yes, that means i have 6 siblings- 3 brothers and 3 sisters) and was homeschooled until the ninth grade. Stories were my main way of connecting with the world- thus a passion for storytelling was born early on.

Setting

There’s a variety of different people who subscribe to this newsletter. Some of y’all know me from when i was in high school doing the morning announcements, some of y’all know me from college when i was making daily vlogs, and some of y’all might not know me at all! Skip what you already know, or read it anyway to see how it might be different than what you thought.

…

I started making videos when i was ten years old. We had just moved to PA, i was lonely and my oldest sister Karis gave me her camera to make some videos with my creative partner/best friend/sister Olivia. Pretty soon i became obsessed with filmmaking- doing anything i could do to make cool videos or impress my friends (siblings/neighbors).

That camera eventually broke, but my love for storytelling kept on growing.

I left homeschooling in Ninth Grade to attend Hempfield High School, the local public school. I immediately got involved with the communications/broadcast program there call Comm Tech. It became my home away from home (besides work, church, etc) and is where i continued to develop my love for storytelling. I made a lot of videos there. Some won awards, most of them were just ok, but all that matters was that i was making things and learning (and having fun).

Four years and a lot of ups and downs later, i graduated from Hempfield and moved 3000 miles away to Southern California to study Television Writing and Production at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. That’s a really long way to say i took out MASSIVE student loans as a bet on myself to make my dreams come true.

Side note: If you ever need to introduce dramatic stakes into your life, debt is a VERY easy motivator to work hard and to make sure you know your back is up against a wall. Would highly not recommend.

My freshman year of college i made 274 daily vlogs in a row, then sophomore year i made more YouTube videos, started making music, wrote more short films/shows/movies. I also got jobs as an RA and as a videographer for Chapman’s Residence Life department- as a way to make the student loans burden less heavy (which kinda just made me more stressed, but in a different way).

Junior year i joined a sketch comedy group named Fathers Milk, was an RA again, almost lost the RA job- which would’ve meant i had to drop out of college… glad i avoided that. Then halfway through the school year (so January 2020) I was at the lowest point in my entire life- working an unpaid internship in LA, had no money, was burnt out from life, felt more anxiety than an episode of The Bear….

Then COVID shut down campus and all my classes went online. My RA burden duties were lifted off of me, I was living alone in a new building on campus called “The K”, and life drastically slowed down. Thankfully my friends were all around, and we never went anywhere so we could at least hang out sometimes.

All of a sudden I found myself without many of the responsibilities that were weighing me down the most.

That Summer, I got an internship in NYC working for a celebrity real estate agent named Ryan Serhant. It’s a good story how it happened- but i’ll save it for another newsletter/video ;)

That summer i slept on the couch of the guy who was the main reason i was in NYC. He would go on to become one of the best friends i’ll ever have in life- someone who has drastically changed my life for the better and continues to do so on a daily basis. His name is Adrian, and he’s my hero.

Fast forward to senior year of college (2020/2021)- i “graduated” in May and moved to NYC for the summer, now working full time for SERHANT.

In August i flew back to LA, had my official college graduation, cried, then moved into an apartment with another one of my best friends for life, Braden Joe.

(In case i don’t say it enough- I’m the luckiest person on the planet to know and be known by the people in my life. There was a looooong time where i prayed for friends like these- so praise God I found em, or they found me.)

Braden and I in the studio in Hollywood, CA

Anyway, back to the story.

In September, 2021- I finished and released a feature length movie covering the previous three years of my life. It’s probably the most ambitious and coolest thing I’ve ever made- check it out sometime.

For the next two years, I worked in person/remotely as a Story/Supervising Producer for SERHANT. Studios working on all sorts of things like LISTED, a media network similar to Arch Digest or HGTV, as well as making brand films for the company or its agents. It’s been a lot of different things and has been a rollercoaster… I like rollercoasters tho.

…

Summer of 2022 i met this girl named Olivia (yes, i have a sister named Olivia as well- it’s not weird, you’re weird) through work and we became really close friends. Then we started dating- and a month or two later she left SERHANT. to go work at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She’s the funniest person I’ve ever met and is my favorite person on the planet. We’re still dating and i’m madly in love with her. I’ll tell you why in the Valentines Day newsletter <3

my beautiful/amazing/funny girlfriend, Olivia

In 2022 I had a complicated housing situation, as I split my time between Los Angeles, New York City, and Tupelo, Mississippi where I stayed at my parents house for a month as I recovered from a meniscus surgery (I tore it in 2019 playing basketball, ultimate frisbee and dodgeball in one day at a CRU retreat).

In May of 2023 i officially moved from Los Angeles to New York City. No more bicoastal living, now finally planted at one place… kinda. I moved into an empty room at my coworker/friend Diego’s apartment that he shared with four other people. I lived there from June until now- I’m moving this week because my window got blocked by a building being constructed next door. Tell you that story another day.

Wants / Goals

That’s a lot of backstory- but where does that leave me now?

I’m about to live on my own in Queens, NY. I have a great job at SERHANT., now leading the team I joined as an intern 3.5 years ago and I’m back to making videos again- this time sharing what i am creating and what I’m learning in the process.

I’m not a master, but i’m not a beginner. I’m simply learning as i create and sharing what i make with the world.

So what do i want?

At this point in my life, I want to grow a community, build an audience and to make great work with great people- eventually expanding into feature length movies and television shows. I also want to release more music, through albums or mixtapes, as I’m doing now.

It’s all the same thing to me though- it’s storytelling but packaged in different ways.

The STAKES are still high- my back is extremely up against the wall. I still have massive student loan debt, rent/bills to pay and I’m figuring out how to make my dreams come true- or at least how to get to a point where i CAN make them come true.

The thing is- I’m enjoying my life now more than ever before. I’m more present, focused on living and appreciating the life i’ve been given. I’m surrounded by incredible people, friends and family who love me and i have learned (and am learning more each day) how to belong to myself. I love life, man, and I’m really grateful for the one i got.

Final Thoughts

I don’t know if I’ll achieve my dreams or not. I don’t know if I’ll be found dead in a ditch one day (I hope not)- but one thing I do know is I am on the right path and I’m never giving up.

Life is really great right now. I’m enjoying the process of becoming who I am meant to be, while loving who I have become right now. And if that’s not some form of success- I don’t know what is.

As Kurt Vonnegut says, “If this isn’t nice, what is?” (Great book- highly recommend)

Thanks for reading this- I know it’s a lot, but I hope it helps give context to my story and to why I’d love your support. If you read this whole thing- shoot me an email or comment “i made it”, i’d love to say thank you :)

Creating In Public

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