We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Izak a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Izak thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

I think becoming a YouTuber as a whole is always really hard to jumpstart due to constant negative feedback. Throughout my early days I was thrown a lot of discouragement from some of my friends and family, that a job like this is not sustainable. Some also found the whole concept cringe. During my early days with the channel before I was able to make somewhat of a living off of it, I didn’t like to showcase my work to others because I just assumed they wouldn’t have many nice things to say.

The truth is sure some of the content was cringe, but I think in this field everyone needs to start from somewhere, and you really learn as you go. I never gave up on becoming a YouTuber. Sometimes I got distracted from other obligations like university, or prioritizing my social life. But in the back of my head I always knew that this is what I wanted to do in life.

As things got better and better, the pressure to get a “normal job” faded away. And now, people find it so cool that I manage to make a living doing this. I really learned throughout that whole process that the creative/arts field as a whole doesn’t have a good look, until you’ve “made it.” I don’t resent anyone for the negativity, but I am proud of myself for staying true to myself and continuing to live life on my own terms. Sometimes the work isn’t easy, but now I’ll always be grateful that I love my job, and didn’t settle for something I did not want to do.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I make football content on YouTube. Mostly giving out crazy facts, analysis, predictions, or updating my viewers on some of the latest news happening. I do talk about the club season such as the Champions League, but my main focus and passion was always international football. That’s how the channel really kickstarted in the first place, and where I developed my love for the beautiful game.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The first thing that comes to mind is my mother passing away when I was 19, long before I made YouTube a full time job. Both of my parents being from Croatia and immigrating to the United States during the breakup of Yugoslavia, they both taught me what it means to work hard while living your life to the fullest. I of course was crushed the moment she passed, but I always have motivation to live my life with passion, as she would have wished.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The thing I love about YouTube is that there’s always room for growth. Of course some parts of the job get tedious from time to time, but it’s never stale. There’s always something to improve on, and always something new to learn to evolve your craft. If you’re not having fun creating a certain type of content, you can change up your topics or style, to make it more enjoyable for yourself or your viewers. So to answer the question, just always improving my craft and seeing the progress come to life, is always my main goal.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hrvizak?igsh=MW8yMmV6bHdqb3VveA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Twitter: https://x.com/hrvizak?s=21
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@hrvizak?si=8Ko_NDJUigwBRptW