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Creating a Thriving Personal Brand w/ YouTube - A Journal & A Personal Guide.

Valier

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I think its a great move in broadening your reach and sounds like a compelling story as well!

Yup - the general idea was to expand into a whole new niche/market - but I think I went a bit TOO niche with this next one, mostly from my own liking towards Tyler and being a fan of his from years ago.

But we'll just have to see how things pan out!

I've recently started a channel and have two videos under my belt. One has 16.2% click-through and the other has 12.9%, but my watch time is hovering under 30%.

I'd actually say that's quite good to start off with! But this depends on how long the video is, and how much of a reach it's had.

A 30% watch time is great on a 20+ minute video, not so much on a 7 minute video.
 
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Tubs

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Yup - the general idea was to expand into a whole new niche/market - but I think I went a bit TOO niche with this next one, mostly from my own liking towards Tyler and being a fan of his from years ago.

But we'll just have to see how things pan out!



I'd actually say that's quite good to start off with! But this depends on how long the video is, and how much of a reach it's had.

A 30% watch time is great on a 20+ minute video, not so much on a 7 minute video.

I'm pretty bullish on this vid. With the audience you already have, it should be enough to get the algorithm to notice it pretty quickly, and T1 also has an extremely dedicated and loyal fan base, so I know they'd like to see a documentary video of this nature. There's currently 2 documentaries out on youtube about him, and both have over 3 million views.

At the very least, I know my friends and I will watch it ;)
 

Valier

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I'm pretty bullish on this vid. With the audience you already have, it should be enough to get the algorithm to notice it pretty quickly, and T1 also has an extremely dedicated and loyal fan base, so I know they'd like to see a documentary video of this nature. There's currently 2 documentaries out on youtube about him, and both have over 3 million views.

At the very least, I know my friends and I will watch it ;)

That was my thinking as well!!

I'm just so curious to see how this goes... either way, this is by far the best produced video of the channel yet.

Funnily enough, the trailer was on the front page of his subreddit when I released it, so that's a good sign :D
 

Valier

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James, have you watched the show 'Ozark' on Netflix? The opening 'money' monologue by Jason Bateman reminded me of your presenting style haha

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEK9HrQ9E4I

I've actually used Ozark scenes in my videos, but ironically, I've never watched it before!

But damn was that an amazing clip. It's a great example of a video that just gets me inspired and creative... the music, the narration, the suspense, the mystery, the script... ahhhh just brilliant - you've got me fired up LMAO.
 

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I've actually used Ozark scenes in my videos, but ironically, I've never watched it before!

But damn was that an amazing clip. It's a great example of a video that just gets me inspired and creative... the music, the narration, the suspense, the mystery, the script... ahhhh just brilliant - you've got me fired up LMAO.

Definitely check it out. It's put together so well.
 

Valier

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Update 9. Reflection, & My Complete Story [this one is going to be long...]

Well well well, look what came in the post today:
33819

Since I'm almost finished with everything for this next video, and it's been a fairly good day, I figured there's nothing better to do than to tune in to my favourite community, and give you guys another update on things, and reflect on all that's happened.

But I also realise I haven't given you guys a whole lot of context behind everything that I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what led me to here in the first place.

This one is going to be a long, and I apologise if it feels like I'm rambling, but here it is:

***

I mean it when I say this: without MJ's works, I doubt I would be here right now.


"I WANT TO BE THE WORLD'S BEST ACTOR"
I dreamed of being an actor. I don't know where this dream initially started out - I think it might have to do with my Mum taking me to theatre classes on a Saturday when I was young to keep me busy with something.

I also loved writing - I can vividly recall my Mum getting me blank notebooks when I was younger (before I even knew how to write properly) and I would just start scribbling lines, imagining what I would be writing about. When we got a computer for the family, I did the same thing on Word - just smashing away at the keyboard, not writing actual coherent sentences, just imagining the story that I was writing.

But by the time I was 11/12, my dreams of being an actor went to the forefront of my mind - I think the catalyst for this was being complimented on my acting ability in drama class, and constant comments like "you should be an actor" that convinced me that I really should be an actor, and that it shouldn't just be a dream.

By the time I was 15, I was taking it far more seriously. I started considering what Drama schools I would audition for, I started learning more about how the industry works, etc etc.

When I was 17 I failed that year to get into drama school, forcing me to take a "gap year". I knew that it was a tough game - the UK has some of the best drama schools in the world, and those were the ones I was going for, it wasn't going to be easy. Thankfully, I was accepted into a Gap Year Diploma course at a reputable Drama School (this would be a one year course designed to help me get into drama school, whilst teaching me more about the craft).


GOING BROKE IN PORTUGAL
That summer holiday (just before starting the course) I went on a trip with some friends to Portugal. I had around £400 cash, and £600 in my bank account. I came back to the UK with 0 cash, and 15p in my bank account, as well as a broken phone.

I needed money.

And just like that, a desire had sparked that I hadn't really thought about before: a desire to make money. When you want to be an actor, I guess you just accept you'll be broke, until you make it. But now I had lost all my savings in one holiday, and something needed to change.

I started searching online for help, came across people like Gary V who convinced me to sell/flip items on ebay. I first started by selling items in my own room: video games, consoles, etc etc. Then once that was done, I went down to a car boot sale (garage sales of the UK) with a friend and went about looking for items that I could flip for a good profit. After 2-3 months of this, I had about £1000 in my bank account. And suddenly I felt this weird feeling: something like... freedom?


THE FIRST TASTE OF MONEY
I didn't have to ask my parents for travel money, I didn't have to ask them to buy me clothing items, or any item for that matter. I felt independent. I was hooked to this feeling.

As I started my Drama course and began progressing with it, I grew more and more interest in money, personal finance, and entrepreneurship. Then two things happened: I started listening to what I consider to be bad advice from "fake guru's" who would bombard my YouTube recommendations with dreams of financial freedom, working on the beach, being my own boss, etc etc. I started hating the concept of having a job.

"Make your money work for you" I would often regurgitate, as Kiyoaski had told me. And I continued plowing through the typical personal finance books constantly reccomended to me.

Suddenly the desire to have money turned into desperation. My parents came to this country to give me huge opportunities, I needed to make money to give back to them all that they had given me.


LOSING MY PASSION
Then the second thing struck: I started to lose my passion for acting. Maybe it was the constant grind of non-stop rehearsing, or maybe the final straw was when I got into the final round of auditions for the Drama School I had so despereately wanted to get into, only to be told "thank you, that's all for now" after I was only JUST beginning to get into the scene for my monologues that I had to perform. Maybe it was realising that I only got into this industry from a childhood dream, and validation from when I was a young teen. That I was only doing this for the fame, and egotistical reasons...

Either way, a combination of these two things led me to desperately seeking the help from these "guru's" online. I couldn't afford their courses, so I pirated them, and it led me to wanting to create a Social Media Marketing Agency.

I called up a good friend of mine asking if he wanted to start this "venture" with me together, and he agreed. We had dreams of making so much money from it. "It'll be easy" is what I had told myself, "just 10 clients paying us £1,000 a month means a six-figure salary".


THE BOOK(s) THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Then I picked up a book that changed everything for me.

This "Millionaire Fastlane " book had been recommended a few times now, and although I didn't like the title and thought it sounded super cheesy and scammy, I decided to make the purchase.

I can still vividly recall being sat on a train where I was about to go and get my acting headshots done, and opening the first page and reading, then continuing to read, then realising that I had stumbled upon a gem.

I started realising the faults in my thinking, and how my mindset surrounding money was so foolishly deluded. And I also felt angry: angry at all the other personal finance books that never talked about something so simple as solving problems in a market, or that you are paid in proportion to your perceived value - why didn't these "business gurus" tell me this? Why did they make me think business is about catching the next fad/trend? Of course, later in the book I realised that they were the ones selling the shovels, MJ's words helped me see that.

Shortly after reading TMF I went on to Unscripted , and enjoyed it just as much.

Around this time I had finally grown to accept that I had lost my passion for acting, and as my drama course concluded for the year, and I said goodbye to my actor friends I went back to my friend who I had started this marketing business with and told him that we needed to take this seriously.

Despite MJ's advice, I felt like I had to try something. I knew that the premise for this business was built on a desire for money, not an attempt to solve anything. And yet I continued with the business because I had nothing else.

We didn't get far - although we tried. We made cold calls, cold emails, set up meetings, but never landed a single paying client in the end. Only a "free-trial" client that ended up ignoring us after we spent a month working on their socials.

It was time to call it quits. He knew it. I knew it. And so we did (this was around October 2019).


SWALLING PRIDE & GETTING A JOB
From there I swallowed my pride and got a job as a customer service assistant and at a call centre.

It felt good to be earning money again, and the jobs weren't that bad. I met some really nice people. But boy did I hate the idea of doing this for a living.

At the same time, I felt a sense of freedom. Leaving the marketing business allowed me to really start applying what MJ's books taught me and to start looking for an actual problem I could try to solve.

I remember coming to this forum so many times and reading some incredible threads to keep myself motivated during this period. I remember printing out @Envision's thread on how the forum changed his life, and reading it during my lunch breaks feeling inspired and motivated as hell to do something with myself.


NEW IDEAS & BEGINNINGS
One thing led to another and I found myself with the business idea for Quidemy - an online finnancial learning platform that taught finanncial related subjects in a clear, concise, and digestible way.

As I started progressing with the idea, arond Nov/Dec the idea of starting a YouTube channel popped into my head frequently.

I wanted to "build up my personal brand" I told myself, I wanted to also indirectly promote Quidemy, and I knew the entrepreneurship niche on YouTube was crowded with so much snake oil, bad/misleading advice, and ingenuine people [the problem] - I guess I kinda understood how MJ must have felt seeing all the books about money/finance regurgitating the same slowlane dogma, and feeling as though I wanted to give my own genuine voice into the mix [my solution].

And so, leading up to the creation of the channel I started learning how to edit videos - after finishing a course on Udemy I gathered the bare basics, and just figured I'll learn things as I go along.


STARTING YOUTUBE & GOING ALL IN
By the end of January I had started creating my first ever video, and was nervous as hell. All I could think about was what people were going to say behind my back ("James is starting a YouTube channel? Ahahaha, good luck wiht that..." etc etc) but I had to brush aside these thoughts and persevere.

Once I uploaded it I breathed a sigh of relief - I had finally gotten the first bit of content out of the way. I was too scared to post the video to my socials at the time, for fear of what people would say, I chose not to. I only sent it to a few friends. And then they started to share the video on their own socials, and overall people were supportive (contrary to my irrational fears of being mocked).

The story from here on has already been recorded in this thread.

I also had gotten a job as an estate agent after that first video was released, a job that I burnt out on within 2 weeks because I hated it so much. The people were fine, the job was fine, but I hated every working hour thinking "I could spend this time working on Quidemy, or a YouTube video".

My least favourite video on the channel is my Instagram video - just because of my mental state when filming it: I had come back from a day of work, it was late at night, I was feeling incredibly stressed, and yet I forced myself to make that video because I knew I couldn't make an excuse to delay it any longer.

Then I quit the estate agency job, lockdown happened, my focus turned to the channel and Quidemy - and shortly afterwards I dropped Quidemy and focused solely on the channel realising that it combined both my business side, and my creative side together almost perfectly.


IT ALL HAPPENED FOR A REASON?
Leaving us to the crazy events that transpired over the last month and a half, and just an overall realisation of "wow, there were so many seemingly unrelated events, hobbies, or 'faliures' that have brought me to where I am right now":

- Always loving to write.
- Practicing the craft of acting.
- Losing my money in Portugal.
- Going under the "fake guru" spell.
- Reading MJ's works.
- Getting rejected from drama school two years in a row.

Even now, I wonder how things would have been if I had gotten into drama school... a reality that I think would not have been as great as the one I am living in right now.

But without a doubt one of the biggest events was reading MJ's work and discovering this forum.

The values and principles taught in those works were what led me to where I am right now, not a single part of me doubts this.

I'm so grateful for the incredible people on this forum that have helped keep me motivated with their threads and their own journeys - to add my own journey to this forum is an honor, and to have had one of my videos dedicated to MJ's works go viral is little in comparison to how much your work has impacted me MJ.

I am also grateful to the many people who came to the channel and felt like what I had to say was worth their time. The last few months have been some of the best months of my life.

Not necessarily travelling around the world, living in a mansion, at a party...

...but sitting at my desk, in my room, during quarantine, editing these videos, and knowing that I have provided value into other people's lives, and that by first providing that value, I am now able to earn an amazing income from it.

I have so much more planned, but I think that I will always cherish these memories and remember them to be the start of something incredible.

***

CONCLUSION
Ah, and before I sign off this update, here are some of my personal goals that I've been writing down in my journal for the last few months and figured it was worth sharing:

- Become a Millionaire by 25.
- Become semi-retired by 30.
-Retire my parents.
- Travel around the world.
- Buy my first house by 22
- Own a Tesla by 25 (LMAO, yeah - I'm a Tesla fanboy, have to admit)
- Have my YT business generate £100k/mnth in the next 3-4 years (more on how I plan on doing this to come)
- Teach/promote entrepreneurial values to children/teens in the form of some sort of charitable work.

Much love to you all!

And with that, I'm off to bed (this post took me damn near 3 hours!!)
 
Last edited:

fastlanedoll

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I just checked out Quidemy. Looks good. You're abadoning the idea altogether?

This is my favorite thread. I always look forward to your updates. My goals are similar, except I'm older, have a rental property & I'm not exactly a fan of Tesla :p
 

Valier

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I just checked out Quidemy. Looks good. You're abadoning the idea altogether?

I still love the idea, and I think it has huge potential.

So many generations of people complain that they wish they were taught the subjects of personal finance, and money in general during school - and it's that sentiment/problem that led me to wanting to create Quidemy.

I would say it's more on a "pause" right now, but I don't have a plan to return to it at the moment, although who knows?

I actually had to remove the site just now because there was a small security breach where someone was attempting to access the back-end, which sucks. But yeah, it's not completely out of my mind, but definitely not my focus any more.

This is my favorite thread. I always look forward to your updates. My goals are similar, except I'm older, have a rental property & I'm not exactly a fan of Tesla :p

:D

So happy to hear that @fastlanedoll - and thank you for tuning into the thread and the journey as a whole, it's my absolute pleasure!

Here's to both of us achieving our goals sooner than we expect :beer:
 
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Fox

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Update 9. Reflection, & My Complete Story [this one is going to be long...]

Well well well, look what came in the post today:
View attachment 33819

Since I'm almost finished with everything for this next video, and it's been a fairly good day, I figured there's nothing better to do than to tune in to my favourite community, and give you guys another update on things, and reflect on all that's happened.

But I also realise I haven't given you guys a whole lot of context behind everything that I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what led me to here in the first place.

This one is going to be a long, and I apologise if it feels like I'm rambling, but here it is:

***

I mean it when I say this: without MJ's works, I doubt I would be here right now.


"I WANT TO BE THE WORLD'S BEST ACTOR"
I dreamed of being an actor. I don't know where this dream initially started out - I think it might have to do with my Mum taking me to theatre classes on a Saturday when I was young to keep me busy with something.

I also loved writing - I can vividly recall my Mum getting me blank notebooks when I was younger (before I even knew how to write properly) and I would just start scribbling lines, imagining what I would be writing about. When we got a computer for the family, I did the same thing on Word - just smashing away at the keyboard, not writing actual coherent sentences, just imagining the story that I was writing.

But by the time I was 11/12, my dreams of being an actor went to the forefront of my mind - I think the catalyst for this was being complimented on my acting ability in drama class, and constant comments like "you should be an actor" that convinced me that I really should be an actor, and that it shouldn't just be a dream.

By the time I was 15, I was taking it far more seriously. I started considering what Drama schools I would audition for, I started learning more about how the industry works, etc etc.

When I was 17 I failed that year to get into drama school, forcing me to take a "gap year". I knew that it was a tough game - the UK has some of the best drama schools in the world, and those were the ones I was going for, it wasn't going to be easy. Thankfully, I was accepted into a Gap Year Diploma course at a reputable Drama School (this would be a one year course designed to help me get into drama school, whilst teaching me more about the craft).


GOING BROKE IN PORTUGAL
That summer holiday (just before starting the course) I went on a trip with some friends to Portugal. I had around £400 cash, and £600 in my bank account. I came back to the UK with 0 cash, and 15p in my bank account, as well as a broken phone.

I needed money.

And just like that, a desire had sparked that I hadn't really thought about before: a desire to make money. When you want to be an actor, I guess you just accept you'll be broke, until you make it. But now I had lost all my savings in one holiday, and something needed to change.

I started searching online for help, came across people like Gary V who convinced me to sell/flip items on ebay. I first started by selling items in my own room: video games, consoles, etc etc. Then once that was done, I went down to a car boot sale (garage sales of the UK) with a friend and went about looking for items that I could flip for a good profit. After 2-3 months of this, I had about £1000 in my bank account. And suddenly I felt this weird feeling: something like... freedom?


THE FIRST TASTE OF MONEY
I didn't have to ask my parents for travel money, I didn't have to ask them to buy me clothing items, or any item for that matter. I felt independent. I was hooked to this feeling.

As I started my Drama course and began progressing with it, I grew more and more interest in money, personal finance, and entrepreneurship. Then two things happened: I started listening to what I consider to be bad advice from "fake guru's" who would bombard my YouTube recommendations with dreams of financial freedom, working on the beach, being my own boss, etc etc. I started hating the concept of having a job.

"Make your money work for you" I would often regurgitate, as Kiyoaski had told me. And I continued plowing through the typical personal finance books constantly reccomended to me.

Suddenly the desire to have money turned into desperation. My parents came to this country to give me huge opportunities, I needed to make money to give back to them all that they had given me.


LOSING MY PASSION
Then the second thing struck: I started to lose my passion for acting. Maybe it was the constant grind of non-stop rehearsing, or maybe the final straw was when I got into the final round of auditions for the Drama School I had so despereately wanted to get into, only to be told "thank you, that's all for now" after I was only JUST beginning to get into the scene for my monologues that I had to perform. Maybe it was realising that I only got into this industry from a childhood dream, and validation from when I was a young teen. That I was only doing this for the fame, and egotistical reasons...

Either way, a combination of these two things led me to desperately seeking the help from these "guru's" online. I couldn't afford their courses, so I pirated them, and it led me to wanting to create a Social Media Marketing Agency.

I called up a good friend of mine asking if he wanted to start this "venture" with me together, and he agreed. We had dreams of making so much money from it. "It'll be easy" is what I had told myself, "just 10 clients paying us £1,000 a month means a six-figure salary".


THE BOOK(s) THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Then I picked up a book that changed everything for me.

This "Millionaire Fastlane " book had been recommended a few times now, and although I didn't like the title and thought it sounded super cheesy and scammy, I decided to make the purchase.

I can still vividly recall being sat on a train where I was about to go and get my acting headshots done, and opening the first page and reading, then continuing to read, then realising that I had stumbled upon a gem.

I started realising the faults in my thinking, and how my mindset surrounding money was so foolishly deluded. And I also felt angry: angry at all the other personal finance books that never talked about something so simple as solving problems in a market, or that you are paid in proportion to your perceived value - why didn't these "business gurus" tell me this? Why did they make me think business is about catching the next fad/trend? Of course, later in the book I realised that they were the ones selling the shovels, MJ's words helped me see that.

Shortly after reading TMF I went on to Unscripted , and enjoyed it just as much.

Around this time I had finally grown to accept that I had lost my passion for acting, and as my drama course concluded for the year, and I said goodbye to my actor friends I went back to my friend who I had started this marketing business with and told him that we needed to take this seriously.

Despite MJ's advice, I felt like I had to try something. I knew that the premise for this business was built on a desire for money, not an attempt to solve anything. And yet I continued with the business because I had nothing else.

We didn't get far - although we tried. We made cold calls, cold emails, set up meetings, but never landed a single paying client in the end. Only a "free-trial" client that ended up ignoring us after we spent a month working on their socials.

It was time to call it quits. He knew it. I knew it. And so we did (this was around October 2019).


SWALLING PRIDE & GETTING A JOB
From there I swallowed my pride and got a job as a customer service assistant and at a call centre.

It felt good to be earning money again, and the jobs weren't that bad. I met some really nice people. But boy did I hate the idea of doing this for a living.

At the same time, I felt a sense of freedom. Leaving the marketing business allowed me to really start applying what MJ's books taught me and to start looking for an actual problem I could try to solve.

I remember coming to this forum so many times and reading some incredible threads to keep myself motivated during this period. I remember printing out @Envision's thread on how the forum changed his life, and reading it during my lunch breaks feeling inspired and motivated as hell to do something with myself.


NEW IDEAS & BEGINNINGS
One thing led to another and I found myself with the business idea for Quidemy - an online finnancial learning platform that taught finanncial related subjects in a clear, concise, and digestible way.

As I started progressing with the idea, arond Nov/Dec the idea of starting a YouTube channel popped into my head frequently.

I wanted to "build up my personal brand" I told myself, I wanted to also indirectly promote Quidemy, and I knew the entrepreneurship niche on YouTube was crowded with so much snake oil, bad/misleading advice, and ingenuine people [the problem] - I guess I kinda understood how MJ must have felt seeing all the books about money/finance regurgitating the same slowlane dogma, and feeling as though I wanted to give my own genuine voice into the mix [my solution].

And so, leading up to the creation of the channel I started learning how to edit videos - after finishing a course on Udemy I gathered the bare basics, and just figured I'll learn things as I go along.


STARTING YOUTUBE & GOING ALL IN
By the end of January I had started creating my first ever video, and was nervous as hell. All I could think about was what people were going to say behind my back ("James is starting a YouTube channel? Ahahaha, good luck wiht that..." etc etc) but I had to brush aside these thoughts and persevere.

Once I uploaded it I breathed a sigh of relief - I had finally gotten the first bit of content out of the way. I was too scared to post the video to my socials at the time, for fear of what people would say, I chose not to. I only sent it to a few friends. And then they started to share the video on their own socials, and overall people were supportive (contrary to my irrational fears of being mocked).

The story from here on has already been recorded in this thread.

I also had gotten a job as an estate agent after that first video was released, a job that I burnt out on within 2 weeks because I hated it so much. The people were fine, the job was fine, but I hated every working hour thinking "I could spend this time working on Quidemy, or a YouTube video".

My least favourite video on the channel is my Instagram video - just because of my mental state when filming it: I had come back from a day of work, it was late at night, I was feeling incredibly stressed, and yet I forced myself to make that video because I knew I couldn't make an excuse to delay it any longer.

Then I quit the estate agency job, lockdown happened, my focus turned to the channel and Quidemy - and shortly afterwards I dropped Quidemy and focused solely on the channel realising that it combined both my business side, and my creative side together almost perfectly.


IT ALL HAPPENED FOR A REASON?
Leaving us to the crazy events that transpired over the last month and a half, and just an overall realisation of "wow, there were so many seemingly unrelated events, hobbies, or 'faliures' that have brought me to where I am right now":

- Always loving to write.
- Practicing the craft of acting.
- Losing my money in Portugal.
- Going under the "fake guru" spell.
- Reading MJ's works.
- Getting rejected from drama school two years in a row.

Even now, I wonder how things would have been if I had gotten into drama school... a reality that I think would not have been as great as the one I am living in right now.

But without a doubt one of the biggest events was reading MJ's work and discovering this forum.

The values and principles taught in those works were what led me to where I am right now, not a single part of me doubts this.

I'm so grateful for the incredible people on this forum that have helped keep me motivated with their threads and their own journeys - to add my own journey to this forum is an honor, and to have had one of my videos dedicated to MJ's works go viral is little in comparison to how much your work has impacted me MJ.

I am also grateful to the many people who came to the channel and felt like what I had to say was worth their time. The last few months have been some of the best months of my life.

Not necessarily travelling around the world, living in a mansion, at a party...

...but sitting at my desk, in my room, during quarantine, editing these videos, and knowing that I have provided value into other people's lives, and that by first providing that value, I am now able to earn an amazing income from it.

I have so much more planned, but I think that I will always cherish these memories and remember them to be the start of something incredible.

***

CONCLUSION
Ah, and before I sign off this update, here are some of my personal goals that I've been writing down in my journal for the last few months and figured it was worth sharing:

- Become a Millionaire by 25.
- Become semi-retired by 30.
-Retire my parents.
- Travel around the world.
- Buy my first house by 22
- Own a Tesla by 25 (LMAO, yeah - I'm a Tesla fanboy, have to admit)
- Have my YT business generate £100k/mnth in the next 3-4 years (more on how I plan on doing this to come)
- Teach/promote entrepreneurial values to children/teens in the form of some sort of charitable work.

Much love to you all!

And with that, I'm off to bed (this post took me damn near 3 hours!!)

Excellent post.

Your goals seem very possible given the progress you are making.

Great work @Valier - really just feels like the beginning of a great success story.
 

Andy Black

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Agree with @Fox.

What I love is how you’re building on a lot of your skills and experience to create your “high ground” @Valier. You love writing, understand drama, and can act (even as a voice actor), and can now research, script, produce, and edit videos. You’ve also been through the guru mill. You’ve a message you can pass on, and you’ve the chops to do it.

By stacking your skills and experience on top of each other you create a higher and higher high ground. This is instead of what a lot of people do when they flit from one idea to another and effectively start from ground zero each time (albeit with learnings and skills from each “failure”, so I’m not knocking flitting about till you find something that helps the market *and* grabs you).
 

redshift

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Great post, love your story and congrats on the silver plaque! This thread is super inspiring and one of my favourites on the forum.

I can still vividly recall being sat on a train where I was about to go and get my acting headshots done, and opening the first page and reading, then continuing to read, then realising that I had stumbled upon a gem.

Yeah, its weird, I can recall this vividly as well. I was in the front seat of a double decker bus, headed to the job hungover from the previous night feeling disappointed with my life. The first few pages gripped me in and the rest of the book hit like a punch. In a way, its like you can feel your brain changing and know that things are going to be different from that moment on.

"I WANT TO BE THE WORLD'S BEST ACTOR"

Since you didn't mention this in your future plans, just thought I'd say this seems like a very real possibility to me if you still want to pursue it. You might be able to score a netflix deal or something similar after a few more of your videos and from there, its just a matter of going all in in the film world if that is what you still want. Money won't be an issue soon and you'll have all the time in the world to perfect your skills in that direction.

Silver Plaque or Golden Globe, it's same thing, just a matter of which direction you choose ;) and once you've made enough money you can even utilize the power of F.U - "I'll make my own film and star in it!".
 
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Vigilante

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Update 9. Reflection, & My Complete Story [this one is going to be long...]

Well well well, look what came in the post today:
View attachment 33819

Since I'm almost finished with everything for this next video, and it's been a fairly good day, I figured there's nothing better to do than to tune in to my favourite community, and give you guys another update on things, and reflect on all that's happened.

But I also realise I haven't given you guys a whole lot of context behind everything that I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what led me to here in the first place.

This one is going to be a long, and I apologise if it feels like I'm rambling, but here it is:

***

I mean it when I say this: without MJ's works, I doubt I would be here right now.


"I WANT TO BE THE WORLD'S BEST ACTOR"
I dreamed of being an actor. I don't know where this dream initially started out - I think it might have to do with my Mum taking me to theatre classes on a Saturday when I was young to keep me busy with something.

I also loved writing - I can vividly recall my Mum getting me blank notebooks when I was younger (before I even knew how to write properly) and I would just start scribbling lines, imagining what I would be writing about. When we got a computer for the family, I did the same thing on Word - just smashing away at the keyboard, not writing actual coherent sentences, just imagining the story that I was writing.

But by the time I was 11/12, my dreams of being an actor went to the forefront of my mind - I think the catalyst for this was being complimented on my acting ability in drama class, and constant comments like "you should be an actor" that convinced me that I really should be an actor, and that it shouldn't just be a dream.

By the time I was 15, I was taking it far more seriously. I started considering what Drama schools I would audition for, I started learning more about how the industry works, etc etc.

When I was 17 I failed that year to get into drama school, forcing me to take a "gap year". I knew that it was a tough game - the UK has some of the best drama schools in the world, and those were the ones I was going for, it wasn't going to be easy. Thankfully, I was accepted into a Gap Year Diploma course at a reputable Drama School (this would be a one year course designed to help me get into drama school, whilst teaching me more about the craft).


GOING BROKE IN PORTUGAL
That summer holiday (just before starting the course) I went on a trip with some friends to Portugal. I had around £400 cash, and £600 in my bank account. I came back to the UK with 0 cash, and 15p in my bank account, as well as a broken phone.

I needed money.

And just like that, a desire had sparked that I hadn't really thought about before: a desire to make money. When you want to be an actor, I guess you just accept you'll be broke, until you make it. But now I had lost all my savings in one holiday, and something needed to change.

I started searching online for help, came across people like Gary V who convinced me to sell/flip items on ebay. I first started by selling items in my own room: video games, consoles, etc etc. Then once that was done, I went down to a car boot sale (garage sales of the UK) with a friend and went about looking for items that I could flip for a good profit. After 2-3 months of this, I had about £1000 in my bank account. And suddenly I felt this weird feeling: something like... freedom?


THE FIRST TASTE OF MONEY
I didn't have to ask my parents for travel money, I didn't have to ask them to buy me clothing items, or any item for that matter. I felt independent. I was hooked to this feeling.

As I started my Drama course and began progressing with it, I grew more and more interest in money, personal finance, and entrepreneurship. Then two things happened: I started listening to what I consider to be bad advice from "fake guru's" who would bombard my YouTube recommendations with dreams of financial freedom, working on the beach, being my own boss, etc etc. I started hating the concept of having a job.

"Make your money work for you" I would often regurgitate, as Kiyoaski had told me. And I continued plowing through the typical personal finance books constantly reccomended to me.

Suddenly the desire to have money turned into desperation. My parents came to this country to give me huge opportunities, I needed to make money to give back to them all that they had given me.


LOSING MY PASSION
Then the second thing struck: I started to lose my passion for acting. Maybe it was the constant grind of non-stop rehearsing, or maybe the final straw was when I got into the final round of auditions for the Drama School I had so despereately wanted to get into, only to be told "thank you, that's all for now" after I was only JUST beginning to get into the scene for my monologues that I had to perform. Maybe it was realising that I only got into this industry from a childhood dream, and validation from when I was a young teen. That I was only doing this for the fame, and egotistical reasons...

Either way, a combination of these two things led me to desperately seeking the help from these "guru's" online. I couldn't afford their courses, so I pirated them, and it led me to wanting to create a Social Media Marketing Agency.

I called up a good friend of mine asking if he wanted to start this "venture" with me together, and he agreed. We had dreams of making so much money from it. "It'll be easy" is what I had told myself, "just 10 clients paying us £1,000 a month means a six-figure salary".


THE BOOK(s) THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Then I picked up a book that changed everything for me.

This "Millionaire Fastlane " book had been recommended a few times now, and although I didn't like the title and thought it sounded super cheesy and scammy, I decided to make the purchase.

I can still vividly recall being sat on a train where I was about to go and get my acting headshots done, and opening the first page and reading, then continuing to read, then realising that I had stumbled upon a gem.

I started realising the faults in my thinking, and how my mindset surrounding money was so foolishly deluded. And I also felt angry: angry at all the other personal finance books that never talked about something so simple as solving problems in a market, or that you are paid in proportion to your perceived value - why didn't these "business gurus" tell me this? Why did they make me think business is about catching the next fad/trend? Of course, later in the book I realised that they were the ones selling the shovels, MJ's words helped me see that.

Shortly after reading TMF I went on to Unscripted , and enjoyed it just as much.

Around this time I had finally grown to accept that I had lost my passion for acting, and as my drama course concluded for the year, and I said goodbye to my actor friends I went back to my friend who I had started this marketing business with and told him that we needed to take this seriously.

Despite MJ's advice, I felt like I had to try something. I knew that the premise for this business was built on a desire for money, not an attempt to solve anything. And yet I continued with the business because I had nothing else.

We didn't get far - although we tried. We made cold calls, cold emails, set up meetings, but never landed a single paying client in the end. Only a "free-trial" client that ended up ignoring us after we spent a month working on their socials.

It was time to call it quits. He knew it. I knew it. And so we did (this was around October 2019).


SWALLING PRIDE & GETTING A JOB
From there I swallowed my pride and got a job as a customer service assistant and at a call centre.

It felt good to be earning money again, and the jobs weren't that bad. I met some really nice people. But boy did I hate the idea of doing this for a living.

At the same time, I felt a sense of freedom. Leaving the marketing business allowed me to really start applying what MJ's books taught me and to start looking for an actual problem I could try to solve.

I remember coming to this forum so many times and reading some incredible threads to keep myself motivated during this period. I remember printing out @Envision's thread on how the forum changed his life, and reading it during my lunch breaks feeling inspired and motivated as hell to do something with myself.


NEW IDEAS & BEGINNINGS
One thing led to another and I found myself with the business idea for Quidemy - an online finnancial learning platform that taught finanncial related subjects in a clear, concise, and digestible way.

As I started progressing with the idea, arond Nov/Dec the idea of starting a YouTube channel popped into my head frequently.

I wanted to "build up my personal brand" I told myself, I wanted to also indirectly promote Quidemy, and I knew the entrepreneurship niche on YouTube was crowded with so much snake oil, bad/misleading advice, and ingenuine people [the problem] - I guess I kinda understood how MJ must have felt seeing all the books about money/finance regurgitating the same slowlane dogma, and feeling as though I wanted to give my own genuine voice into the mix [my solution].

And so, leading up to the creation of the channel I started learning how to edit videos - after finishing a course on Udemy I gathered the bare basics, and just figured I'll learn things as I go along.


STARTING YOUTUBE & GOING ALL IN
By the end of January I had started creating my first ever video, and was nervous as hell. All I could think about was what people were going to say behind my back ("James is starting a YouTube channel? Ahahaha, good luck wiht that..." etc etc) but I had to brush aside these thoughts and persevere.

Once I uploaded it I breathed a sigh of relief - I had finally gotten the first bit of content out of the way. I was too scared to post the video to my socials at the time, for fear of what people would say, I chose not to. I only sent it to a few friends. And then they started to share the video on their own socials, and overall people were supportive (contrary to my irrational fears of being mocked).

The story from here on has already been recorded in this thread.

I also had gotten a job as an estate agent after that first video was released, a job that I burnt out on within 2 weeks because I hated it so much. The people were fine, the job was fine, but I hated every working hour thinking "I could spend this time working on Quidemy, or a YouTube video".

My least favourite video on the channel is my Instagram video - just because of my mental state when filming it: I had come back from a day of work, it was late at night, I was feeling incredibly stressed, and yet I forced myself to make that video because I knew I couldn't make an excuse to delay it any longer.

Then I quit the estate agency job, lockdown happened, my focus turned to the channel and Quidemy - and shortly afterwards I dropped Quidemy and focused solely on the channel realising that it combined both my business side, and my creative side together almost perfectly.


IT ALL HAPPENED FOR A REASON?
Leaving us to the crazy events that transpired over the last month and a half, and just an overall realisation of "wow, there were so many seemingly unrelated events, hobbies, or 'faliures' that have brought me to where I am right now":

- Always loving to write.
- Practicing the craft of acting.
- Losing my money in Portugal.
- Going under the "fake guru" spell.
- Reading MJ's works.
- Getting rejected from drama school two years in a row.

Even now, I wonder how things would have been if I had gotten into drama school... a reality that I think would not have been as great as the one I am living in right now.

But without a doubt one of the biggest events was reading MJ's work and discovering this forum.

The values and principles taught in those works were what led me to where I am right now, not a single part of me doubts this.

I'm so grateful for the incredible people on this forum that have helped keep me motivated with their threads and their own journeys - to add my own journey to this forum is an honor, and to have had one of my videos dedicated to MJ's works go viral is little in comparison to how much your work has impacted me MJ.

I am also grateful to the many people who came to the channel and felt like what I had to say was worth their time. The last few months have been some of the best months of my life.

Not necessarily travelling around the world, living in a mansion, at a party...

...but sitting at my desk, in my room, during quarantine, editing these videos, and knowing that I have provided value into other people's lives, and that by first providing that value, I am now able to earn an amazing income from it.

I have so much more planned, but I think that I will always cherish these memories and remember them to be the start of something incredible.

***

CONCLUSION
Ah, and before I sign off this update, here are some of my personal goals that I've been writing down in my journal for the last few months and figured it was worth sharing:

- Become a Millionaire by 25.
- Become semi-retired by 30.
-Retire my parents.
- Travel around the world.
- Buy my first house by 22
- Own a Tesla by 25 (LMAO, yeah - I'm a Tesla fanboy, have to admit)
- Have my YT business generate £100k/mnth in the next 3-4 years (more on how I plan on doing this to come)
- Teach/promote entrepreneurial values to children/teens in the form of some sort of charitable work.

Much love to you all!

And with that, I'm off to bed (this post took me damn near 3 hours!!)

You are one of the biggest breaths of fresh air to come around here in a long time, my friend. I have enjoyed reading your entire story. You will achieve your goals. Thank you for being transparent, and sharing this amazing story with us.

In a climate that has become fearful of "personal branding" you're a perfect example of class, value, and contribution. Keep pressing. Looking forward to meeting you at the next Fast Lane Summit.
 

StarVoyager

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In a climate that has become fearful of "personal branding" you're a perfect example of class, value, and contribution. Keep pressing. Looking forward to meeting you at the next Fast Lane Summit.

@Vigilante please forgive my ignorance of this, but why has the climate become fearful of personal branding?
 

Vigilante

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@Vigilante please forgive my ignorance of this, but why has the climate become fearful of personal branding?

I don't want to derail this thread, but will address that topic some time in the next few weeks on a new thread.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Update 9. Reflection, & My Complete Story [this one is going to be long...]

Well well well, look what came in the post today:
View attachment 33819

Since I'm almost finished with everything for this next video, and it's been a fairly good day, I figured there's nothing better to do than to tune in to my favourite community, and give you guys another update on things, and reflect on all that's happened.

But I also realise I haven't given you guys a whole lot of context behind everything that I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what led me to here in the first place.

This one is going to be a long, and I apologise if it feels like I'm rambling, but here it is:

***

I mean it when I say this: without MJ's works, I doubt I would be here right now.


"I WANT TO BE THE WORLD'S BEST ACTOR"
I dreamed of being an actor. I don't know where this dream initially started out - I think it might have to do with my Mum taking me to theatre classes on a Saturday when I was young to keep me busy with something.

I also loved writing - I can vividly recall my Mum getting me blank notebooks when I was younger (before I even knew how to write properly) and I would just start scribbling lines, imagining what I would be writing about. When we got a computer for the family, I did the same thing on Word - just smashing away at the keyboard, not writing actual coherent sentences, just imagining the story that I was writing.

But by the time I was 11/12, my dreams of being an actor went to the forefront of my mind - I think the catalyst for this was being complimented on my acting ability in drama class, and constant comments like "you should be an actor" that convinced me that I really should be an actor, and that it shouldn't just be a dream.

By the time I was 15, I was taking it far more seriously. I started considering what Drama schools I would audition for, I started learning more about how the industry works, etc etc.

When I was 17 I failed that year to get into drama school, forcing me to take a "gap year". I knew that it was a tough game - the UK has some of the best drama schools in the world, and those were the ones I was going for, it wasn't going to be easy. Thankfully, I was accepted into a Gap Year Diploma course at a reputable Drama School (this would be a one year course designed to help me get into drama school, whilst teaching me more about the craft).


GOING BROKE IN PORTUGAL
That summer holiday (just before starting the course) I went on a trip with some friends to Portugal. I had around £400 cash, and £600 in my bank account. I came back to the UK with 0 cash, and 15p in my bank account, as well as a broken phone.

I needed money.

And just like that, a desire had sparked that I hadn't really thought about before: a desire to make money. When you want to be an actor, I guess you just accept you'll be broke, until you make it. But now I had lost all my savings in one holiday, and something needed to change.

I started searching online for help, came across people like Gary V who convinced me to sell/flip items on ebay. I first started by selling items in my own room: video games, consoles, etc etc. Then once that was done, I went down to a car boot sale (garage sales of the UK) with a friend and went about looking for items that I could flip for a good profit. After 2-3 months of this, I had about £1000 in my bank account. And suddenly I felt this weird feeling: something like... freedom?


THE FIRST TASTE OF MONEY
I didn't have to ask my parents for travel money, I didn't have to ask them to buy me clothing items, or any item for that matter. I felt independent. I was hooked to this feeling.

As I started my Drama course and began progressing with it, I grew more and more interest in money, personal finance, and entrepreneurship. Then two things happened: I started listening to what I consider to be bad advice from "fake guru's" who would bombard my YouTube recommendations with dreams of financial freedom, working on the beach, being my own boss, etc etc. I started hating the concept of having a job.

"Make your money work for you" I would often regurgitate, as Kiyoaski had told me. And I continued plowing through the typical personal finance books constantly reccomended to me.

Suddenly the desire to have money turned into desperation. My parents came to this country to give me huge opportunities, I needed to make money to give back to them all that they had given me.


LOSING MY PASSION
Then the second thing struck: I started to lose my passion for acting. Maybe it was the constant grind of non-stop rehearsing, or maybe the final straw was when I got into the final round of auditions for the Drama School I had so despereately wanted to get into, only to be told "thank you, that's all for now" after I was only JUST beginning to get into the scene for my monologues that I had to perform. Maybe it was realising that I only got into this industry from a childhood dream, and validation from when I was a young teen. That I was only doing this for the fame, and egotistical reasons...

Either way, a combination of these two things led me to desperately seeking the help from these "guru's" online. I couldn't afford their courses, so I pirated them, and it led me to wanting to create a Social Media Marketing Agency.

I called up a good friend of mine asking if he wanted to start this "venture" with me together, and he agreed. We had dreams of making so much money from it. "It'll be easy" is what I had told myself, "just 10 clients paying us £1,000 a month means a six-figure salary".


THE BOOK(s) THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Then I picked up a book that changed everything for me.

This "Millionaire Fastlane " book had been recommended a few times now, and although I didn't like the title and thought it sounded super cheesy and scammy, I decided to make the purchase.

I can still vividly recall being sat on a train where I was about to go and get my acting headshots done, and opening the first page and reading, then continuing to read, then realising that I had stumbled upon a gem.

I started realising the faults in my thinking, and how my mindset surrounding money was so foolishly deluded. And I also felt angry: angry at all the other personal finance books that never talked about something so simple as solving problems in a market, or that you are paid in proportion to your perceived value - why didn't these "business gurus" tell me this? Why did they make me think business is about catching the next fad/trend? Of course, later in the book I realised that they were the ones selling the shovels, MJ's words helped me see that.

Shortly after reading TMF I went on to Unscripted , and enjoyed it just as much.

Around this time I had finally grown to accept that I had lost my passion for acting, and as my drama course concluded for the year, and I said goodbye to my actor friends I went back to my friend who I had started this marketing business with and told him that we needed to take this seriously.

Despite MJ's advice, I felt like I had to try something. I knew that the premise for this business was built on a desire for money, not an attempt to solve anything. And yet I continued with the business because I had nothing else.

We didn't get far - although we tried. We made cold calls, cold emails, set up meetings, but never landed a single paying client in the end. Only a "free-trial" client that ended up ignoring us after we spent a month working on their socials.

It was time to call it quits. He knew it. I knew it. And so we did (this was around October 2019).


SWALLING PRIDE & GETTING A JOB
From there I swallowed my pride and got a job as a customer service assistant and at a call centre.

It felt good to be earning money again, and the jobs weren't that bad. I met some really nice people. But boy did I hate the idea of doing this for a living.

At the same time, I felt a sense of freedom. Leaving the marketing business allowed me to really start applying what MJ's books taught me and to start looking for an actual problem I could try to solve.

I remember coming to this forum so many times and reading some incredible threads to keep myself motivated during this period. I remember printing out @Envision's thread on how the forum changed his life, and reading it during my lunch breaks feeling inspired and motivated as hell to do something with myself.


NEW IDEAS & BEGINNINGS
One thing led to another and I found myself with the business idea for Quidemy - an online finnancial learning platform that taught finanncial related subjects in a clear, concise, and digestible way.

As I started progressing with the idea, arond Nov/Dec the idea of starting a YouTube channel popped into my head frequently.

I wanted to "build up my personal brand" I told myself, I wanted to also indirectly promote Quidemy, and I knew the entrepreneurship niche on YouTube was crowded with so much snake oil, bad/misleading advice, and ingenuine people [the problem] - I guess I kinda understood how MJ must have felt seeing all the books about money/finance regurgitating the same slowlane dogma, and feeling as though I wanted to give my own genuine voice into the mix [my solution].

And so, leading up to the creation of the channel I started learning how to edit videos - after finishing a course on Udemy I gathered the bare basics, and just figured I'll learn things as I go along.


STARTING YOUTUBE & GOING ALL IN
By the end of January I had started creating my first ever video, and was nervous as hell. All I could think about was what people were going to say behind my back ("James is starting a YouTube channel? Ahahaha, good luck wiht that..." etc etc) but I had to brush aside these thoughts and persevere.

Once I uploaded it I breathed a sigh of relief - I had finally gotten the first bit of content out of the way. I was too scared to post the video to my socials at the time, for fear of what people would say, I chose not to. I only sent it to a few friends. And then they started to share the video on their own socials, and overall people were supportive (contrary to my irrational fears of being mocked).

The story from here on has already been recorded in this thread.

I also had gotten a job as an estate agent after that first video was released, a job that I burnt out on within 2 weeks because I hated it so much. The people were fine, the job was fine, but I hated every working hour thinking "I could spend this time working on Quidemy, or a YouTube video".

My least favourite video on the channel is my Instagram video - just because of my mental state when filming it: I had come back from a day of work, it was late at night, I was feeling incredibly stressed, and yet I forced myself to make that video because I knew I couldn't make an excuse to delay it any longer.

Then I quit the estate agency job, lockdown happened, my focus turned to the channel and Quidemy - and shortly afterwards I dropped Quidemy and focused solely on the channel realising that it combined both my business side, and my creative side together almost perfectly.


IT ALL HAPPENED FOR A REASON?
Leaving us to the crazy events that transpired over the last month and a half, and just an overall realisation of "wow, there were so many seemingly unrelated events, hobbies, or 'faliures' that have brought me to where I am right now":

- Always loving to write.
- Practicing the craft of acting.
- Losing my money in Portugal.
- Going under the "fake guru" spell.
- Reading MJ's works.
- Getting rejected from drama school two years in a row.

Even now, I wonder how things would have been if I had gotten into drama school... a reality that I think would not have been as great as the one I am living in right now.

But without a doubt one of the biggest events was reading MJ's work and discovering this forum.

The values and principles taught in those works were what led me to where I am right now, not a single part of me doubts this.

I'm so grateful for the incredible people on this forum that have helped keep me motivated with their threads and their own journeys - to add my own journey to this forum is an honor, and to have had one of my videos dedicated to MJ's works go viral is little in comparison to how much your work has impacted me MJ.

I am also grateful to the many people who came to the channel and felt like what I had to say was worth their time. The last few months have been some of the best months of my life.

Not necessarily travelling around the world, living in a mansion, at a party...

...but sitting at my desk, in my room, during quarantine, editing these videos, and knowing that I have provided value into other people's lives, and that by first providing that value, I am now able to earn an amazing income from it.

I have so much more planned, but I think that I will always cherish these memories and remember them to be the start of something incredible.

***

CONCLUSION
Ah, and before I sign off this update, here are some of my personal goals that I've been writing down in my journal for the last few months and figured it was worth sharing:

- Become a Millionaire by 25.
- Become semi-retired by 30.
-Retire my parents.
- Travel around the world.
- Buy my first house by 22
- Own a Tesla by 25 (LMAO, yeah - I'm a Tesla fanboy, have to admit)
- Have my YT business generate £100k/mnth in the next 3-4 years (more on how I plan on doing this to come)
- Teach/promote entrepreneurial values to children/teens in the form of some sort of charitable work.

Much love to you all!

And with that, I'm off to bed (this post took me damn near 3 hours!!)

Thanks for keeping us "in the know" and helping me spread my message -- I think there is one person on this planet as happy as you, and it's me. You are showing me that my content and my underlying message is resonating with the masses. While I knew that already cuz I've sold truckloads of books, to see it confirmed via video is awesome.

As you become more famous and more valuable, I hope you continue to share with us your unfolding story, and dang, it is unfolding!
 

Valier

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Since you didn't mention this in your future plans, just thought I'd say this seems like a very real possibility to me if you still want to pursue it. You might be able to score a netflix deal or something similar after a few more of your videos and from there, its just a matter of going all in in the film world if that is what you still want. Money won't be an issue soon and you'll have all the time in the world to perfect your skills in that direction.

Y'know, I was thinking about this, and then I saw a great interview with Logan Paul where I realised: YouTube is actually the best place to be.

Everything is under my own brand on YouTube, I have full control over the content, there are no deadlines, no creative limits, it's all there for me.

Going to Netflix would be more of an ego boost than anything (assuming if that ever happened). Although, I will say that in the distant future I would love to take the role as a screenwriter and make some stuff for Hollywood, or the west end - but that's when I've settled down a little more and can do all of this without having to worry about money.

You are one of the biggest breaths of fresh air to come around here in a long time, my friend. I have enjoyed reading your entire story. You will achieve your goals. Thank you for being transparent, and sharing this amazing story with us.

Vigilante!! Thank you so much man, that really means a lot of coming from you :D

I'm actually so excited to attend the Fastlane Summit. Ever since I heard about it, I wanted to go, but couldn't afford to. But man am I pumped to go to the next one now.

Thanks for keeping us "in the know" and helping me spread my message -- I think there is one person on this planet as happy as you, and it's me. You are showing me that my content and my underlying message is resonating with the masses. While I knew that already cuz I've sold truckloads of books, to see it confirmed via video is awesome.

As you become more famous and more valuable, I hope you continue to share with us your unfolding story, and dang, it is unfolding!

My pleasure MJ - as I said, this forum provided a ton of value to me; having my journey documented here is an honour. I have no intentions of stopping :D
 

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Update 9. Reflection, & My Complete Story [this one is going to be long...]

Well well well, look what came in the post today:
View attachment 33819

Since I'm almost finished with everything for this next video, and it's been a fairly good day, I figured there's nothing better to do than to tune in to my favourite community, and give you guys another update on things, and reflect on all that's happened.

But I also realise I haven't given you guys a whole lot of context behind everything that I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what led me to here in the first place.

This one is going to be a long, and I apologise if it feels like I'm rambling, but here it is:

***

I mean it when I say this: without MJ's works, I doubt I would be here right now.


"I WANT TO BE THE WORLD'S BEST ACTOR"
I dreamed of being an actor. I don't know where this dream initially started out - I think it might have to do with my Mum taking me to theatre classes on a Saturday when I was young to keep me busy with something.

I also loved writing - I can vividly recall my Mum getting me blank notebooks when I was younger (before I even knew how to write properly) and I would just start scribbling lines, imagining what I would be writing about. When we got a computer for the family, I did the same thing on Word - just smashing away at the keyboard, not writing actual coherent sentences, just imagining the story that I was writing.

But by the time I was 11/12, my dreams of being an actor went to the forefront of my mind - I think the catalyst for this was being complimented on my acting ability in drama class, and constant comments like "you should be an actor" that convinced me that I really should be an actor, and that it shouldn't just be a dream.

By the time I was 15, I was taking it far more seriously. I started considering what Drama schools I would audition for, I started learning more about how the industry works, etc etc.

When I was 17 I failed that year to get into drama school, forcing me to take a "gap year". I knew that it was a tough game - the UK has some of the best drama schools in the world, and those were the ones I was going for, it wasn't going to be easy. Thankfully, I was accepted into a Gap Year Diploma course at a reputable Drama School (this would be a one year course designed to help me get into drama school, whilst teaching me more about the craft).


GOING BROKE IN PORTUGAL
That summer holiday (just before starting the course) I went on a trip with some friends to Portugal. I had around £400 cash, and £600 in my bank account. I came back to the UK with 0 cash, and 15p in my bank account, as well as a broken phone.

I needed money.

And just like that, a desire had sparked that I hadn't really thought about before: a desire to make money. When you want to be an actor, I guess you just accept you'll be broke, until you make it. But now I had lost all my savings in one holiday, and something needed to change.

I started searching online for help, came across people like Gary V who convinced me to sell/flip items on ebay. I first started by selling items in my own room: video games, consoles, etc etc. Then once that was done, I went down to a car boot sale (garage sales of the UK) with a friend and went about looking for items that I could flip for a good profit. After 2-3 months of this, I had about £1000 in my bank account. And suddenly I felt this weird feeling: something like... freedom?


THE FIRST TASTE OF MONEY
I didn't have to ask my parents for travel money, I didn't have to ask them to buy me clothing items, or any item for that matter. I felt independent. I was hooked to this feeling.

As I started my Drama course and began progressing with it, I grew more and more interest in money, personal finance, and entrepreneurship. Then two things happened: I started listening to what I consider to be bad advice from "fake guru's" who would bombard my YouTube recommendations with dreams of financial freedom, working on the beach, being my own boss, etc etc. I started hating the concept of having a job.

"Make your money work for you" I would often regurgitate, as Kiyoaski had told me. And I continued plowing through the typical personal finance books constantly reccomended to me.

Suddenly the desire to have money turned into desperation. My parents came to this country to give me huge opportunities, I needed to make money to give back to them all that they had given me.


LOSING MY PASSION
Then the second thing struck: I started to lose my passion for acting. Maybe it was the constant grind of non-stop rehearsing, or maybe the final straw was when I got into the final round of auditions for the Drama School I had so despereately wanted to get into, only to be told "thank you, that's all for now" after I was only JUST beginning to get into the scene for my monologues that I had to perform. Maybe it was realising that I only got into this industry from a childhood dream, and validation from when I was a young teen. That I was only doing this for the fame, and egotistical reasons...

Either way, a combination of these two things led me to desperately seeking the help from these "guru's" online. I couldn't afford their courses, so I pirated them, and it led me to wanting to create a Social Media Marketing Agency.

I called up a good friend of mine asking if he wanted to start this "venture" with me together, and he agreed. We had dreams of making so much money from it. "It'll be easy" is what I had told myself, "just 10 clients paying us £1,000 a month means a six-figure salary".


THE BOOK(s) THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Then I picked up a book that changed everything for me.

This "Millionaire Fastlane " book had been recommended a few times now, and although I didn't like the title and thought it sounded super cheesy and scammy, I decided to make the purchase.

I can still vividly recall being sat on a train where I was about to go and get my acting headshots done, and opening the first page and reading, then continuing to read, then realising that I had stumbled upon a gem.

I started realising the faults in my thinking, and how my mindset surrounding money was so foolishly deluded. And I also felt angry: angry at all the other personal finance books that never talked about something so simple as solving problems in a market, or that you are paid in proportion to your perceived value - why didn't these "business gurus" tell me this? Why did they make me think business is about catching the next fad/trend? Of course, later in the book I realised that they were the ones selling the shovels, MJ's words helped me see that.

Shortly after reading TMF I went on to Unscripted , and enjoyed it just as much.

Around this time I had finally grown to accept that I had lost my passion for acting, and as my drama course concluded for the year, and I said goodbye to my actor friends I went back to my friend who I had started this marketing business with and told him that we needed to take this seriously.

Despite MJ's advice, I felt like I had to try something. I knew that the premise for this business was built on a desire for money, not an attempt to solve anything. And yet I continued with the business because I had nothing else.

We didn't get far - although we tried. We made cold calls, cold emails, set up meetings, but never landed a single paying client in the end. Only a "free-trial" client that ended up ignoring us after we spent a month working on their socials.

It was time to call it quits. He knew it. I knew it. And so we did (this was around October 2019).


SWALLING PRIDE & GETTING A JOB
From there I swallowed my pride and got a job as a customer service assistant and at a call centre.

It felt good to be earning money again, and the jobs weren't that bad. I met some really nice people. But boy did I hate the idea of doing this for a living.

At the same time, I felt a sense of freedom. Leaving the marketing business allowed me to really start applying what MJ's books taught me and to start looking for an actual problem I could try to solve.

I remember coming to this forum so many times and reading some incredible threads to keep myself motivated during this period. I remember printing out @Envision's thread on how the forum changed his life, and reading it during my lunch breaks feeling inspired and motivated as hell to do something with myself.


NEW IDEAS & BEGINNINGS
One thing led to another and I found myself with the business idea for Quidemy - an online finnancial learning platform that taught finanncial related subjects in a clear, concise, and digestible way.

As I started progressing with the idea, arond Nov/Dec the idea of starting a YouTube channel popped into my head frequently.

I wanted to "build up my personal brand" I told myself, I wanted to also indirectly promote Quidemy, and I knew the entrepreneurship niche on YouTube was crowded with so much snake oil, bad/misleading advice, and ingenuine people [the problem] - I guess I kinda understood how MJ must have felt seeing all the books about money/finance regurgitating the same slowlane dogma, and feeling as though I wanted to give my own genuine voice into the mix [my solution].

And so, leading up to the creation of the channel I started learning how to edit videos - after finishing a course on Udemy I gathered the bare basics, and just figured I'll learn things as I go along.


STARTING YOUTUBE & GOING ALL IN
By the end of January I had started creating my first ever video, and was nervous as hell. All I could think about was what people were going to say behind my back ("James is starting a YouTube channel? Ahahaha, good luck wiht that..." etc etc) but I had to brush aside these thoughts and persevere.

Once I uploaded it I breathed a sigh of relief - I had finally gotten the first bit of content out of the way. I was too scared to post the video to my socials at the time, for fear of what people would say, I chose not to. I only sent it to a few friends. And then they started to share the video on their own socials, and overall people were supportive (contrary to my irrational fears of being mocked).

The story from here on has already been recorded in this thread.

I also had gotten a job as an estate agent after that first video was released, a job that I burnt out on within 2 weeks because I hated it so much. The people were fine, the job was fine, but I hated every working hour thinking "I could spend this time working on Quidemy, or a YouTube video".

My least favourite video on the channel is my Instagram video - just because of my mental state when filming it: I had come back from a day of work, it was late at night, I was feeling incredibly stressed, and yet I forced myself to make that video because I knew I couldn't make an excuse to delay it any longer.

Then I quit the estate agency job, lockdown happened, my focus turned to the channel and Quidemy - and shortly afterwards I dropped Quidemy and focused solely on the channel realising that it combined both my business side, and my creative side together almost perfectly.


IT ALL HAPPENED FOR A REASON?
Leaving us to the crazy events that transpired over the last month and a half, and just an overall realisation of "wow, there were so many seemingly unrelated events, hobbies, or 'faliures' that have brought me to where I am right now":

- Always loving to write.
- Practicing the craft of acting.
- Losing my money in Portugal.
- Going under the "fake guru" spell.
- Reading MJ's works.
- Getting rejected from drama school two years in a row.

Even now, I wonder how things would have been if I had gotten into drama school... a reality that I think would not have been as great as the one I am living in right now.

But without a doubt one of the biggest events was reading MJ's work and discovering this forum.

The values and principles taught in those works were what led me to where I am right now, not a single part of me doubts this.

I'm so grateful for the incredible people on this forum that have helped keep me motivated with their threads and their own journeys - to add my own journey to this forum is an honor, and to have had one of my videos dedicated to MJ's works go viral is little in comparison to how much your work has impacted me MJ.

I am also grateful to the many people who came to the channel and felt like what I had to say was worth their time. The last few months have been some of the best months of my life.

Not necessarily travelling around the world, living in a mansion, at a party...

...but sitting at my desk, in my room, during quarantine, editing these videos, and knowing that I have provided value into other people's lives, and that by first providing that value, I am now able to earn an amazing income from it.

I have so much more planned, but I think that I will always cherish these memories and remember them to be the start of something incredible.

***

CONCLUSION
Ah, and before I sign off this update, here are some of my personal goals that I've been writing down in my journal for the last few months and figured it was worth sharing:

- Become a Millionaire by 25.
- Become semi-retired by 30.
-Retire my parents.
- Travel around the world.
- Buy my first house by 22
- Own a Tesla by 25 (LMAO, yeah - I'm a Tesla fanboy, have to admit)
- Have my YT business generate £100k/mnth in the next 3-4 years (more on how I plan on doing this to come)
- Teach/promote entrepreneurial values to children/teens in the form of some sort of charitable work.

Much love to you all!

And with that, I'm off to bed (this post took me damn near 3 hours!!)

Amazing post mate. Love that you have 'retire your parents' near the top. That too is my drive for all of this. Seeing my folks settled in the house of their dreams would make me happier than any Lambo would.

On to 1 mill we go my friend.
 
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fastlanedoll

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Just curious: how much $$ do you guys think need to retire?

And does social blade underestimate YouTube earnings in general?
If so, by how much?
 
Last edited:

Valier

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And does social blade underestimate YouTube earnings in general?
If so, by how much?

For my channel, and I'm sure for many others, yeah - the earnings displayed on social blade are incorrect!
 
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Phestone

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Let's get this started with a basic introduction.

Hi, I'm James. 19 y/o from the UK, chose not to go university since there wasn't any subject I wanted to study that would suit my direction in life. The big goal is to be semi-retired by 30, but that's okay if I don't get there, I'm focusing on the process and journey above all else.

I recently started up my new business which if you are a FLF INSIDERS, you can find my thread here:

So then, what's this about a personal brand & a YouTube channel?
I came to a realisation that I wish I had come to a few years back: a personal brand is an incredibly powerful thing. Especially in business, and especially if you are trying to go fastlane.

With just 100 loyal fans you can do so much to promote your other side hustles, and/or monetise that audience.

This realisation drove me to conclude that I wanted to start building up my own personal brand - right now, with no hesitation, and do my absolute best to get this thing up and running because let's all be clear here: the odds are not in my favour. There are so many channels out there, that it's damn near impossible to be seen amongst the crowd...
or is it?

A Guide as well as Documentation

The purpose of this thread is to not only document my process and journey, but also provide a guide for what is working/isn't working and how you can learn from whatever mistakes I make.

Provide value above all else, as always.

Keeping it Honest and Real
Like in my INSIDERS thread, I want to be entirely transparent with everyone and keep it as real & as honest as I can.

If one day I decide to just quit the whole thing I will document it on here. I'm in this till I either succeed, pivot, or quit, and you'll have a clear picture on where this process will take me, and where I may have gone wrong/gone right.

What's Been Done So Far...
I already have my channel up and running, and as a matter of fact, you can check out my first video here:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg6CGNoynDI


How the First Video Went.
Keeping up with the theme of transparency: I was very nervous when recording and releasing this video.

I've done a lot of acting throughout my childhood - teenage years, and making this video was more nerve wrecking to me than any audition that I've done in the past. But this is the first barrier that people will face if you're trying to make it on this platform: THE FEAR OF POSTING YOUR FIRST VIDEO.

Once I posted that video, I felt a slight sense of relief. I sent a few messages out to some close friends who I had told I was starting this channel up, and they went on to watch it. And a few of them shared the video on their Instagram stories.

Let me be clear here: I was too nervous to post this video on my social media. That's why I just DM'd some friends, in the hopes that I can land maybe 80 views on the video to get me started off.

But once some of these friends posted it to their story something amazing happened: other people started sharing it on their story. Some of these people were friends, but there were also some that I hadn't spoken to or seen in a while that shared it. I even had some really kind messages about how they found the video really helpful and well done.

I really didn't think it was a great video at first. I thought it was bad, and kinda boring because the nerves really stopped me from bringing the energy to the screen that I usually could do with acting. My only intention was to post the first video no matter how nervous I felt about it.

After I felt that positive feedback, I finally made the leap and posted it to my own socials. In total the video sits at around 260 views, 32 likes, and 8 comments. I was more than impressed by that as a debut video - I genuinely didn't think it would surpass 100. I earned about 35 subscribers in total from that video, and a few new followers on my Instagram.

The Goals.
My goal isn't really to be 'internet famous' or anything like that. It's simply to get a personal brand started up, have my name put out there, share some genuine advice from someone who is passionate about entrepreneurship, and self development (no 'woo-woo' selling my $1500+ course shit), and see where it goes.

If you're looking for some specific targeted goals, here's my main objective for the year:
Reach 1,000 subscribers by 2021.

That's all. For now. The reason why I say this is that the subscriber count is really just a vanity metric. I'm more interested in improving things like watch time, and Click-Through-Rate (CTR) - y'know, the metrics that actually count. But until I have some data from my own videos to work off, I can't set those targets as of right now.

My aim is to post once a week. Although it may be once every two weeks every so often. Truth is, I'm balancing three things here: the channel is one thing, the full time job is another, and my other side hustle which I've been working super hard on is the third. Ideally, the latter two are working hand-in-hand, but that doesn't deviate from the fact that my full time job as an estate agent has some ungodly hours that can really eat into free time.

But again, all will be documented here.

Conclusion
That's about it for now.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me them.

And most importantly: ALL feedback is appreciated, the good, the bad, the ugly. All of it.

Have a wonderful weekend folks
Let's get this started with a basic introduction.

Hi, I'm James. 19 y/o from the UK, chose not to go university since there wasn't any subject I wanted to study that would suit my direction in life. The big goal is to be semi-retired by 30, but that's okay if I don't get there, I'm focusing on the process and journey above all else.

I recently started up my new business which if you are a FLF INSIDERS, you can find my thread here:

So then, what's this about a personal brand & a YouTube channel?
I came to a realisation that I wish I had come to a few years back: a personal brand is an incredibly powerful thing. Especially in business, and especially if you are trying to go fastlane.

With just 100 loyal fans you can do so much to promote your other side hustles, and/or monetise that audience.

This realisation drove me to conclude that I wanted to start building up my own personal brand - right now, with no hesitation, and do my absolute best to get this thing up and running because let's all be clear here: the odds are not in my favour. There are so many channels out there, that it's damn near impossible to be seen amongst the crowd...
or is it?

A Guide as well as Documentation

The purpose of this thread is to not only document my process and journey, but also provide a guide for what is working/isn't working and how you can learn from whatever mistakes I make.

Provide value above all else, as always.

Keeping it Honest and Real
Like in my INSIDERS thread, I want to be entirely transparent with everyone and keep it as real & as honest as I can.

If one day I decide to just quit the whole thing I will document it on here. I'm in this till I either succeed, pivot, or quit, and you'll have a clear picture on where this process will take me, and where I may have gone wrong/gone right.

What's Been Done So Far...
I already have my channel up and running, and as a matter of fact, you can check out my first video here:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg6CGNoynDI


How the First Video Went.
Keeping up with the theme of transparency: I was very nervous when recording and releasing this video.

I've done a lot of acting throughout my childhood - teenage years, and making this video was more nerve wrecking to me than any audition that I've done in the past. But this is the first barrier that people will face if you're trying to make it on this platform: THE FEAR OF POSTING YOUR FIRST VIDEO.

Once I posted that video, I felt a slight sense of relief. I sent a few messages out to some close friends who I had told I was starting this channel up, and they went on to watch it. And a few of them shared the video on their Instagram stories.

Let me be clear here: I was too nervous to post this video on my social media. That's why I just DM'd some friends, in the hopes that I can land maybe 80 views on the video to get me started off.

But once some of these friends posted it to their story something amazing happened: other people started sharing it on their story. Some of these people were friends, but there were also some that I hadn't spoken to or seen in a while that shared it. I even had some really kind messages about how they found the video really helpful and well done.

I really didn't think it was a great video at first. I thought it was bad, and kinda boring because the nerves really stopped me from bringing the energy to the screen that I usually could do with acting. My only intention was to post the first video no matter how nervous I felt about it.

After I felt that positive feedback, I finally made the leap and posted it to my own socials. In total the video sits at around 260 views, 32 likes, and 8 comments. I was more than impressed by that as a debut video - I genuinely didn't think it would surpass 100. I earned about 35 subscribers in total from that video, and a few new followers on my Instagram.

The Goals.
My goal isn't really to be 'internet famous' or anything like that. It's simply to get a personal brand started up, have my name put out there, share some genuine advice from someone who is passionate about entrepreneurship, and self development (no 'woo-woo' selling my $1500+ course shit), and see where it goes.

If you're looking for some specific targeted goals, here's my main objective for the year:
Reach 1,000 subscribers by 2021.

That's all. For now. The reason why I say this is that the subscriber count is really just a vanity metric. I'm more interested in improving things like watch time, and Click-Through-Rate (CTR) - y'know, the metrics that actually count. But until I have some data from my own videos to work off, I can't set those targets as of right now.

My aim is to post once a week. Although it may be once every two weeks every so often. Truth is, I'm balancing three things here: the channel is one thing, the full time job is another, and my other side hustle which I've been working super hard on is the third. Ideally, the latter two are working hand-in-hand, but that doesn't deviate from the fact that my full time job as an estate agent has some ungodly hours that can really eat into free time.

But again, all will be documented here.

Conclusion
That's about it for now.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me them.

And most importantly: ALL feedback is appreciated, the good, the bad, the ugly. All of it.

Have a wonderful weekend folks

First off I want to to start by thanking you for introducing me to TMF. A few weeks ago I watched a video on fake gurus on youtube after which your video "The Toxic World of Self Help" was recommended. After watching it I felt I had just watched a video about myself and something that I felt like I would never be able to share or discuss with others because they wouldn't understand. Because your video dealt with so many of the things I was facing I knew that if you recommended a book it must be something special. I went to amazon purchased the book and finished it yesterday joined the forum late last night and found your post today. I cant begin to tell you how much reading this book has done for me. Thank you and keep up the great work.
 

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Holly Sh!t, @Valier.

I clicked on this thread and it blew my mind that it was you! I found your content on youtube a while back I think I started watching the "fake guru's" one and subbed right there so, it was sort of mind blowing realizing you were the OP.

It's also weird stumbling upon this thread considering just this morning I was thinking about recording some content (Which I've never done before). I'm still figuring out the best way to set everything up and my business model but I feel it's going to be hard to sleep tonight.

Anyway, congrats on your journey man, I remember subbing to you because your content felt fresh and honest, no clickbaiting or anything like that.

Oh, I added you on Linkedin.

Congrats once again, VERY well done Sir.
 

Valier

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First off I want to to start by thanking you for introducing me to TMF. A few weeks ago I watched a video on fake gurus on youtube after which your video "The Toxic World of Self Help" was recommended. After watching it I felt I had just watched a video about myself and something that I felt like I would never be able to share or discuss with others because they wouldn't understand. Because your video dealt with so many of the things I was facing I knew that if you recommended a book it must be something special. I went to amazon purchased the book and finished it yesterday joined the forum late last night and found your post today. I cant begin to tell you how much reading this book has done for me. Thank you and keep up the great work.

Hey @Phestone,

I'm so glad you found the channel man, and I'm glad that my video on Self Help resonated with you on that level. In hindsight, I was worried that recommending those two books at the end of the video may have made me seem like a hypocrite - but that's why I prefaced it by saying that these books were genuinely books that helped me out alot, they didn't feed me motivation, and they weren't just trying to upsell me on some other product.

I'm glad you picked up on that, and decided to get MJ's book - trust me, I wouldn't have even started the channel if I hadn't read TMF. It is perhaps one of the countless amounts of self-help books I've read that I can truly say had a profound effect on my life, world view, and goals.

Also, welcome to the forum - just like the books, this place is a gem too, and there are some amazing GOLD threads on here that will aid you in your journey. All the best!

Holly Sh!t, @Valier.

I clicked on this thread and it blew my mind that it was you! I found your content on youtube a while back I think I started watching the "fake guru's" one and subbed right there so, it was sort of mind blowing realizing you were the OP.

It's also weird stumbling upon this thread considering just this morning I was thinking about recording some content (Which I've never done before). I'm still figuring out the best way to set everything up and my business model but I feel it's going to be hard to sleep tonight.

Anyway, congrats on your journey man, I remember subbing to you because your content felt fresh and honest, no clickbaiting or anything like that.

Oh, I added you on Linkedin.

Congrats once again, VERY well done Sir.

Ahaha, that's amazing to hear @Mr Cracker,

Yeah, I guess my username on the forum makes it hard to know that this is James from YouTube.

Fun fact: my username, "Valier" is the surname of a fictional character from a fantasy book/series that I've attempted to write in the past!

Best of luck with your own content! If you're going to be starting a YouTube channel, I highly recommend it. YouTube is still in its early phase, and it's only going to get bigger and bigger, that I can promise you!

Will add you on LinkedIn now as well :D
 
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Raja

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Hi
Valier I am a student from India in the last year of my college, I want to start my youtube channel in the coding domain. I want it to be my personal brand so I could get freelance clients.

I am following this thread from start, I have 2 questions from you.
1. How did you know your channel going to succeed and whats your planning process? (
frankly, I thought that It would not work but it's clear now that it was my bias and I am wrong)
2. I can communicate in English but my camera and mic skills are not great, please suggest something to learn and improve.

I love the way you narrate your videos would like to do something similar in the app development domain.

P.S. The Framework I work on is new so there is extremely low competition. waiting for your tylor1 video
 
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tonibob

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Well done James @Valier

Enjoy reading your story and luckily I watched your videos hence I am here. I believe you really got YouTube algorithm by the balls, your content is great and the videos are spot on.

Success is in your side at the moment, but make sure you don't get carried away as landing from the top is very painfull :rofl:.

Good luck on the premier tonight though.

Keep us updated and I hope to chat soon.

Best wishes,
Pete
 

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Also please tell about how you learned storytelling
 
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Update 10. The 8th Video.

Finally, after almost 3 months of craziness, the 8th video premiered yesterday and went live on the channel...

View: https://youtu.be/4bkk8oG9HRA


Now, let's talk about my strategy with this one...


INITIAL PLAN
When I scripted this video and began the early stages of editing, I didn't have the 99% of the audience that I have right now. It was my initial plan that this would be the video that could propel my channel forward.

My intentions with this video was to target a few different markets, Tyler1's fanbase, the Twitch community, and the League of Legends community.

My ideal hopes were that if the video was good enough, it would be watched by other live streamers on their streams and it would expose the video and the channel to thousands of other people. Of course, I was ideally hoping that someone like Tyler1 would react to it on stream himself.

It was a risky video, but my thinking at the time was: "hey, I don't have much of an audience built up, I'm fine to experiment and take some risks..."

That was the plan. But there are some clear faults with strategy, especially considering what happened to the channel after I began creating this video.


THE UNEXPECTED
During the creation of this video, the channel had started to blow up.

I went from someone with about 200 subscribers, to over 250k by the time this video was wrapping up.

Although it was amazing to see, there was a slight concern in the back of my mind: I initially started creating this Tyler1 video with the idea that I didn't have a huge audience, and could make that gamble. Now I had a massive audience, a lot of momentum, and it probably wasn't the best time to be taking risks with my content, it would be best to ride the wave of that momentum...

...but after writing a 24 page script, and already sinking in hours of work on editing, I felt like I was already beyond the point of return. And so I sucked it up and said "alright, we'll have to take this risk and see where it gets us".

Another flaw in the strategy here is fairly obvious from a marketing standpoint: would anyone from those communities I was targeting even be interested in subjects related to business, money, finance, etc?

Probably not.

Why I didn't emphasise this concern in my mind is beyond me... I think I was blinded by the idea of someone I've been a fan of (Tyler1) and a community that I had been fairly active in (Twitch) seeing my work, and enjoying it. In other words, I was thinking with passion and love, but not about the target market and the audience my other videos were collecting.

Yes, if this video blew up I could have expanded my audience into a whole new market, but if they're only there for one video - what's the point?

But once I had made that decision to continue with this video, and see how things go, I had to brush aside those thoughts and focus on creating the best video I could.


THE PREMIERE
I also wanted to test out using the premiere feature on YouTube. Once my audience grew, I figure it would be really amazing to turn this video's release into an actual event. I can hype it up, release a trailer (as I did), and get people pumped up for it...

So how did it go?

Pretty good! Leading up to the video's release, I stayed in the chat room and interacted with my audience, answering questions, etc.

And as the video was starting, I realised that another Twitch streamer was watching the video live on his own stream to an audience of about 3.8k - 4k viewers.

That combined with the notifications sent out to my subscribers gave the video a consistent 1k viewers at the premiere throughout (amazing!!). Overall the video seemed well-received. The streamer who was watching it live on his own stream enjoyed it a lot, and I'm sure some of his viewers came on to the channel and subscribed + liked the video afterwards.

We totalled about 4k views on the actual video itself in the first hour of its release, and by the time I woke up today we were at about 13k views on the video, and as I write this the video currently stands at 20k views.


PREDICTIONS
There's a few things that can happen here, it's just a matter of whether the algorithm finds the right audience to target the video to.

I think the video can definitely hit around 60 - 100k viewers in the next week or so.

However, this has potential to go even bigger than that if the algorithm starts pushing the video out to Tyler's audience (which I'm hoping the metadata of the video will be able to help with).

Right now, I am sure that the algorithm is pushing this video to my audience, and others who are similar to my audience. Although it could take a while for the algorithm to start testing it with Tyler1's audience.

But I believe once Tyler1's audience start picking up on the video, and more people from that community grow aware of the video, the algorithm will adjust and it will begin to be promoted across to that audience which I'm sure it will do well with.

Of course, if Tyler1 himself actually reacts to the video, that will be an immense boost.

But all I can do for now is play the waiting game with this video and just focus on the next project. The algorithm took 3 months after its release to start pushing my Fake Guru video to the right audience, so who knows? Some other YouTuber friends that I've made recently have had their own videos start getting pushed by the algorithm 5 days later. It really is just a matter of letting the algorithm do its thing and hopefully it adjusts and starts targetting the best audience for this video.

If not, then the video will sit comfortably at roughly 60 - 100k views.


REFLECTION
I definitely don't regret making this video, not at all. I learnt so much during the creation of this video, and all of these skills are going to translate through into my other videos!

However, would I have created this video if I had the audience I have right now? Definitely not.

But that's okay - I have to remind myself that I only have 8 videos-worth of experience on YouTube. Mistakes are bound to be made. And besides, we still haven't got enough data points on this new video to really determine whether it is successful or not.

Based on the comments, and likes, my core audience has enjoyed it for the most part (even those with no interest in gaming or Tyler1), which is something I'm quite proud about. I think it's proven to myself that I'm able to take something/someone fairly niche and be able to present that topic/person in a way that others who have never heard about it can enjoy. That's a really great achievement in my eye!

Also, in terms of watch time and average view duration, this video has done very well (which I expected due to its insane length). It's currently got an average view duration of 13:44. That's more than any of my other videos which gives me hope that the algorithm is going to keep pushing this thing out and will and on the right audience at some point in the next few days/weeks.


CONCLUSION
Now, it's time to rest my brain and imagination for 2/3 days and recuperate from this project, and then we're straight on to the next one!

This next one is something I'm pretty hyped about since I know my core audience has been asking for a video on it, and it's a fairly huge subject/industry with quite a lot of controversy. I'll give you a hint, it starts with an "M" and ends with a "Marketing" ;)

There's also a lot more I want to tell you all regarding my plans for the Patreon page, and the longer-term vision for the channel (boy is it exciting!!!).

Oh, and just to end with a bang, my pay check for the month of June came up to an insane £24,088.03.

Yeah... more than double last month. What the f*ck. But again... the majority of that is going right back into the business, nothing to do with me personally :D
 

Valier

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1. How did you know your channel going to succeed and whats your planning process? (frankly, I thought that It would not work but it's clear now that it was my bias and I am wrong)
2. I can communicate in English but my camera and mic skills are not great, please suggest something to learn and improve.

I love the way you narrate your videos would like to do something similar in the app development domain.

P.S. The Framework I work on is new so there is extremely low competition. waiting for your tylor1 video

Hey buddy! So here's my answers to your questions:

1. How did you know your channel going to succeed and whats your planning process?
I didn't. I mean, I didn't know for sure.

During the first few posts on this thread (before the channel blew up) you'll see that I spent a lot of time studying the algorithm whilst putting it into practice with my own videos.

Now, I knew that if I continued I could definitely gain a strong audience over time (as long as the content never stopped improving in quality, which is something I make sure to do each time).

I wanted the quality of the content to keep people hooked till the end (watch time), and I wanted that to spark a binge-watch of the channel (more watch time), but looking back I also see how important the topic of the content has played a huge role in my success so far. (This is something I'm going to again be talking about a lot more soon, it's a little too much to put in one answer here).

2. I can communicate in English but my camera and mic skills are not great, please suggest something to learn and improve.
Hmmm...

I can't give you much advice on communicating in English since that's my first language, although I can image that starting a YouTube channel is going to help you greatly.

As for camera and mic skills, if you mean your ability to narrate/be on camera, then my best advice is the following: practice, practice, practice. The fear with my YouTube channel is that it may send signals out to everyone that you have to start off "perfect". But that's very damaging and far from the truth.

I think my first video is terrible. The editing is decent, but my energy is incredibly low on camera, I don't talk loud enough, it's far too long and has a lot of fluff that could have been cut. Yet I still uploaded it because I knew I just had to start. And from there on I made adjustments and worked on things that I knew I wasn't too good at.

In that same regard, you just have to work on being on camera, and work on your narrating, and continue to adjust.

Here are two practical exercises:
1) For narrating: go grab a book/story/article online and record yourself reading some of it. Do the best you can with your voice to make the narration interesting/exciting. Once you've recorded yourself, play it back and take notes on what you think is good/bad (it may be worth sending this to friends that you trust will give an honest opinion as well). Once you have that feedback, do another recording the next day in an attempt to improve upon what you've been told, then make notes on that new recording, and repeat the cycle. Doing this every day is bound to help you. It's just like learning any new skill. Also, go and study up on narration and voice-acting to see what professionals do and how you can adapt that into your work.

2) For being on camera: at the end/beginning of your day, record a 10-minute video on camera, talking about what you did that day, or what your plans are for the rest of the day. Don't stop, even if you stutter or get too nervous, just keep recording. Repeat this every day, and I can promise you'll begin to get more and more comfortable being on camera.


Also please tell about how you learned storytelling

This one is tough because I never really "learned" story telling. It was just something I'd done through my writing and acting since I was a kid. Also, being an avid reader of fiction throughout my childhood to teenage years definitely helped.

Also, there's still a lot that I have to learn.

I think I've got a talent for it, but the problem with talent is that it's not structured, and so I'll have to put my answer on pause here because I don't have any more value to offer until I actually start studying storytelling myself and am able to pin-point real practical advice to give you!

Hope that helps :D
 

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