🙌 The Hidden Benefits of Being a YouTuber

How to YouTube #11

Hey YouTubers,

2024 is upon us, but this first email of the year is going to be a bit different.

We’ll get back to sharing specific, actionable YouTube tips next week, but today I’m going to tell you a story about how YouTube changed my life. And not in ways you might expect. 

On the 14th October 2021, I came home after work with one thing on my mind. 

I have to start a YouTube channel.

I’d been listening to so many podcasts over the summer about how you have to actually do something different if you want to get different results in your life. 

People like Brene Brown, Gary Vee, Naval Ravikant and my now employer Ali Abdaal. They flooded my mind with the realisation that nothing changes, if nothing changes.

It was dawning on me that I had to start leaning into stuff that scared me if I wanted to go beyond my consulting job, which wasn’t the right career for me.

I’d started a personal newsletter back in February of that year, so I’d made some progress confronting the fear of “putting myself out there” but I was still riddled with anxiety about doing YouTube.

I arrived back home, and I had no idea where to begin. The idea of filming myself seemed so foreign.

But I knew I had to do it. I had this thought going through my head “I’m more scared of never trying than I am of failing” repeating over and over.

I projected myself forwards 5, 10, 20 years imagining myself thinking “I never took the leap”. But it was never really about YouTube, it was about having the courage to do something different and carve my own path. I knew I’d be so disappointed if I let the expectations and judgement of others stop me from doing that.

I also heard my Dad saying to me “Tintin, all those self-help books and online gurus are all saying the same thing. Dream and take action.”

I’d done the dreaming. So it was time to take action. And I knew that next step was YouTube.

I’d had this realisation whilst cycling to work that morning, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day. As a result, by the time I was home I was in a bit of a frenzy. 

I wanted to film myself just to see what it would feel like and look like. I didn’t have a camera or tripod for my phone, so I blue-tacked my phone to the wall. 

I had no idea what to say, but my mind was filled with all these ideas about “how to figure out what to do with your life” because that’s what I was thinking about at the time. 

So I started talking about that.

I had a rough time filming, but I’d made the first tiny step towards something. I didn’t know what, but I knew I had to keep following this energy and continue making videos. 

I felt delusional, but I couldn’t stop. At that time, nothing would’ve stopped me making videos. It was my way out of what felt like a prison of a job and a career I didn’t want. I knew there was more to my life than working in consulting. 

So I quit my consulting job and started educational tutoring again to earn money. For 8 months from when I posted my first video, YouTube was basically all I could think about. 

I even remember telling my housemate that I felt a little bit famous when I went to a party and one of my old friends said they’d watched some of my videos. I had 400 subscribers.

But I made over 50 videos in those 8 months.

And then I saw Ali post a job to work in his team. So I applied, and had I not started that YouTube channel 8 months before, not only would I have been a significantly worse candidate, I would’ve still had a consulting job that I’d never have quit so suddenly to work for a YouTuber.

But I did start the channel, and I did get the job.

I never could have predicted my life would take a turn like that. But that’s the point. You don’t know where YouTube will take you.

This newsletter is for YouTubers who are trying to treat their channel like a business and who do want to succeed, but I’m sharing a friendly reminder that that is not the only upside. When you post videos, and they’re useful to people, I can guarantee that something interesting will happen in your life.

But this story isn’t about YouTube. It’s about the powerful combination of knowing what you want, and taking action towards it.

Consistent, unrelenting, tangible action, in the face of fear and uncertainty, towards something that has meaning to you.

YouTube can bring serendipity and luck into your life in ways you could never expect when you get started. So wherever you are in your journey, be it 0, 100 or 100,000 subscribers, remember to dream and take action. 

But next week, I’ll return to sharing specific, actionable insights from working on Ali’s channel to help you grow yours.

Have an epic week making videos, and I hope you smash 2024 🚀

Tintin 🧑‍💻

The YouTube Tin

🐦 Tweet: Great breakdown from Dickie Bush on what to make content about.

🎥 Channel to Analyse: Fellow YouTube nerd Jay Alto is doing some interesting stuff on his channel. Definitely worth following.

🚀 My own channel: I have a low lift YouTube channel so I can share more interesting things that I’m learning about YouTube. This latest video is about Sam Sulek.