In September of last year, after quitting my job, I started publishing a video weekly on YouTube.
Why? I wanted to be more socially active on different platforms, and because I felt like that would be the hardest place to start, I went for it.
Goals
Publish a video a week - This goal seemed right at the beginning of my journey because creating a video end-to-end takes around 20-25 hours.
After hiring an editor, that range dropped down to 1-5, but I pay on average 150$ for each one of themImprove at least 1 thing between each video - What do they say? Improve 1% to see a significant change in 1 year? I’ll tell you how it went after my 52’s release!
Publish 100 videos - Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, repeats the fact that your first 100 videos are just to improve. I will elaborate more on that later.’
And is that hard? Physically, no. Mentally, yes.
Creating a video takes a lot of time, effort and money. It’s like sharing a piece of software you worked hours on and waiting for the crowd’s response. It makes you stress and, if it doesn’t get a decent amount of views, feel like a failure.
5 Lessons
1. Your background matters
In my first few videos, I used to have a white background. Just me and the wall. I received too much criticism on that because it was so hard to watch for a long time.
I am improving it little by little, one item at a time. And I already got a lot of great feedback about it!
Well, it’s exactly the same in any other platform you share your knowledge in. If you don’t share your background and personality, tell the stories and lessons from your perspective, and keep it behind a blank wall, you have nothing new to offer.
Everything is already out there.
Share your uniqueness. People will be drawn to that.
Or at least I hope so.. 😅
2. Act as if nobody cares. (Because nobody does)
As I said before, your first 100 videos are just meant to show that you’re dedicated and to improve your skills. People don’t care about you yet, and 99.9% of your watchers will not bother even to hit the like button (Excluding your family and friends, of course).
I believe that in any other social platform, it’s quite the same. To be known, you need to show that you want it.
As Randy Pausch said in his last lecture:
“The brick walls are not there to keep us out. They are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something and to stop the people who don't want it badly enough.”
3. It’s okay to copy from others
The thumbnail and title of my most popular video are copied from a bigger YouTuber (The idea as well). Why? Because it worked for him and made people click. Why did it blow up for me? Because people not only clicked, they were engaged with the video, which made (and still makes. 2,200 and counting) the algorithm promote it to more people.
Why my video is different? I shared my perspective on the topic. How I approach it and how I do things.
I suffered from the imposter syndrome for quite some time. But I understood something. We all mostly copy from other people’s ideas. It rarely happens that someone comes up with something novel. The difference is how we deliver it.
Mark Manson, the author of “The Subtle Art Of Not Giving a F*ck” said in one of his videos:
”…My job is to read stuff all day and then regurgitate it to people
with poop jokes and F-bombs…”
He has a funny personality and he turns self-help books into easy-to-swallow lessons.
4. One good bet can make up for nine bad ones.
Whenever you publish something out to the world, it will feel like a bet.
I mean, you might do your due diligence and learn from past experience, but it will probably still feel that way
Most of the time, it will just not work. No matter how much effort you put into it, it was just not right. Don’t let it deter you though.
Keep trying, keep learning and growing. They say that you can’t lose if you don’t quit.
For me, the 10th bet (And it’s funny because it’s my 10th video) is a video that exploded (in my terms) to 2,300 views (and counting) and is responsible for more than half of my watch time.
5. Treat it as a learning experience
I love how Alex Hormozi puts it:
“Investing in the S&Me 500 has been the highest return on investment that I have gotten.
Invest in you, and you’ll always beat the market.”
That's exactly how I treat my YouTube journey. I learned how to:
Use Photoshop professionally
Edit videos in Premiere Pro
Speak in front of a camera
Story-telling
Improvise
Learn from whatever you do, because everything is a learning opportunity.
Plus, it might be a good story to share 😉!
Conclusion
You be you. Share your stories, your hardships and your successes.
There are people out there who experience and go through the same journey as you are and it would be very beneficial for them to know that they’re not alone. Other people struggle too.
Orel, it's a grind, isn't it? An absolute grind. I got massive respect for anybody who makes the trek on Youtube and, most of all, sticks with it. Cheers man. Thanks for liking my Note the other day, by the way. I'm subscribing.
Impressive journey, I really love the progression and improvement during the videos :)
I think publishing videos of yourself is a very tough barrier most people don't crack, kudos for the guts.