How to find focus in your YouTube business

How to YouTube #44

Quick note - I’m looking to hire someone full-time, in person, in London to help me run my business. There’s no experience needed, but I want someone who loves YouTube, online education, learns fast and is fun to work with.

If you or anyone you know might be a good fit, you can read more about the role and apply here. To save us both time, please only apply if you’re in London!

---

Last week, I hosted a live workshop about building a $100,000+ business on YouTube.

Here’s a snapshot (ignore my ugly face):

I had some great feedback, but afterwards one thing was on my mind.

Overwhelm.

I shared a reasonably detailed roadmap (I’ll share with you soon too) of the journey ahead, but the problem with roadmaps is they highlight how far you have to go.

I could tell some people left feeling a bit deflated.

Now, in the online game, this is normal.

There’s information flying at us left, right and from that guy on X who claims he hacked the algorithm.

Somehow, we’re hoping to sift through it all, and find the thing we need to focus on.

The last thing you need is to hop onto a live workshop with your favourite online guru with a funny name and feel more overwhelmed.

Luckily for me, I have a normal name.

So, here’s my methodology for navigating overwhelm and finding focus.

First, focus on one thing at a time.

Every day, I learn this lesson more and more deeply.

My old boss Ali was a master of doing a thousand things and not feeling overwhelmed. He could film videos, review products, write a book, do a podcast and wake up the next day ready to do it again.

I don’t have that same capacity.

But I also don’t want to, I’d much rather do one thing, and do it as well as I can.

This month, I tested out a group coaching programme offer, and it’s been a great success.

But now I’m dropping everything else in my business to make sure I’m just doing one thing.

I was working on ways to grow Thumbnail Masterclass, but that’s now on the back burner (it’s still available and valuable though if you’d like a copy).

But before we can focus on one thing, we need to figure out what to focus on the first place.

And this starts with experimentation and exploration.

You try a bunch of things, and then narrow it down over time, until you’re doing as few things as possible. All of which you enjoy.

When I first started YouTube, I also started trying to make shorts, do a podcast and write a weekly newsletter.

I wish I could go back and say something like this:

“I know you want to do all the things, and that’s great, but you’ll make more progress focusing on one thing at a time, and that progress will feel SO much better than the satisfaction of doing all the things, and eventually burning out”

So:

1. Figure out what your biggest problem or desire is right now (e.g. growing the channel, making better thumbnails, getting email subscribers, driving sales)

2. Focus all your attention on that one thing.

3. Keep working on it until:

   1. you’ve solved it

   2. it’s not the main priority anymore

   3. you don’t want to continue doing it.

4. Repeat.

This is deliberately over-simplified, but our monkey brains, especially mine, like simple frameworks.

And it’s totally fine to stop doing something because you don’t want to continue.

There’s no need to overthink yourself into burnout.

Do less, better.

I promise you’ll be grateful you did.

Tintin 🫡

P.s.

Applications to my group coaching programme The $100k YouTuber have now closed.

There’s 16 YouTubers in the group, and I now need to dedicate my time to helping them as much as possible.

Thank you to everyone who applied. If all goes well (haha not stressful at all 😅), there will be a 2nd cohort in a few months, and I’ll let you all know more details about that nearer the time.

But if you want to make sure you hear about it, fill out this quick application form here.