Do I REGRET Becoming a Full-Time YouTuber?

this video is sponsored by found this month marks one year since I quit my decade long marketing career and became a full-time YouTuber many people have cheered me on for following my passion and chasing my dreams and why wouldn't they being a content creator is one of the most sought-after and idealized jobs in the world but is it really all it's cracked up to be well today I want to warn you about a few things that I wish I knew before I took this leap because a lot of these things aren't really talked about that often and it might be worth considering before you do the same and because I'm a pro YouTuber now I've saved the best for last let's get into it as someone who spent my entire working life as part of a large corporate team suddenly being an entrepreneur and working for myself and by myself has taken some heavy adjustment you see the thing that no one tells you about being a Creator is how lonely it is I don't just mean that sitting in your room recording videos like this and editing videos is a lonely experience because that's kind of obvious it's more than that if you want to make this work you're going to have to sacrifice some things the workday doesn't just end because the clock strikes 5 so while everyone else is getting together after work you're likely still going to be sitting in your room editing your next video because the algorithm never sleeps the best remedy I've found found is building relationships with others who are going through the same struggles you are other full-time or potential full-time creators bonus points if they make similar types of content because now social time spent with friends and Creator time can be combined one thing I've started doing to combat the loneliness is having a daily FaceTime check-in with my buddy Johnny sometimes it's about an in-depth discussion about color grading or asking advice on how to respond to a brand email other times we're helping one another off a ledge when we're spiraling because our video didn't do as well as we'd hoped but more on that in a minute going at this alone is near impossible and having someone to bounce ideas off of and get true constructive feedback from is essential but I don't know anyone else who makes content I hear this complaint a lot my advice here is to use social media for its originally intended purpose to be social outside of school and work almost every friend I've made is an adult has come either from Instagram or YouTube go into the comments and strike up a conversation with someone who's doing something similar to what you are slide into the DMS and then try to meet up in person it's actually easier than you think just don't be weird about it and if you're watching this video right now that means you're probably looking for new Creator friends as well so why don't you introduce yourself in the comments and go make a friend and while you're down there check to make sure you're already subscribed there's actually a shocking number of you who watch almost all of my videos videos but aren't subscribed to the channel so let's fix that if you're still having trouble attend an industry event or heck attend a workshop like the one I hosted in Monument Valley you'll come away with a group of friends with a shared interest the next thing you might not think about before making this jump into being a Creator is how much of your time you aren't actually being a Creator I think a lot of people assume oh I'm going to make content and get paid for it and in its simplest form that's true but there's actually a lot more to it yes you can make money by posting content on social media and I put out a video a few months ago breaking down all of my income sources in detail which I will link in the description and up here as well but the frustrating thing is that when you commit to being a full-time Creator it means you're also committing to being a full-time accountant a full-time tax expert lawyer project manager Administrative Assistant bookkeeper the amount of time that you have to spend trying to figure out things like taxes and sending out $199 to all your contractors don't even get me started on expense tracking and dealing with things like client invoicing that's why I'm super happy that this video is made possible by found it's a banking app designed specifically for solopreneurs and small business owners found is a game changer for any Creator who wants to streamline the administrative and financial work of running their business and something that I wish I knew about when I was starting out the app is super simple and easy to use and it combines finds all your business tools into one place so you can track expenses do your bookkeeping and autosave for your taxes all within the same place as your checking account I personally love that you can send unlimited invoices that look really sleek and you can categorize your income and expenses from right there in the same banking app trust me it can save you thousands of dollars over the years compared to using a bunch of separate complicated tools I think we can all agree the taxes are the worst with found you can create what they call pockets and put your money into them to help you save money for your taxes or budget for certain aspects of your business they give you a taxes pocket by default which will automatically set aside a portion of your income for quarterly taxes you can even pay your taxes directly through the app even if you're not currently full-time you still should be splitting out your business from your personal finances that will help you understand how your business is doing and will save you a huge headache come tax day by having your business income and expenses all in one place so regardless of where you are in the start of your creator journey I think found is a great option to run your business finances click the link in the description to sign up for found it's free to sign up and only takes a few minutes another harsh truth I need to warn you about is that this is mentally brutal no matter what you think going in things like the performance of your content will absolutely affect your mood with each upload YouTube gives you a ranking from 1 to 10 telling telling you how well your video performs and it can be very difficult for that not to quickly become a ranking of your worth as a human and you may think you have tough skin but that's going to come under Fire the more your content starts to get out there beyond your core audience once you start to see some success that's when the negative comments really start to flood in well actually you said this camera can record 24 frames per second it only records 23.976 idiot and like those things are one thing but the number of people Who start to viscerally assault you for your appearance how you wear your hat your intelligence the bags you have under your eyes from being up all night doing bookkeeping because you haven't signed up for found yet it's brutal now most of the time these are coming from people who have never come across you before they don't know you they don't understand your inside jokes and they don't understand why you keep making fun of them with your Cartman voice you can tell yourself you're not going to be affected by these types of things but we're still human and it still hurts and can absolutely ruin your day one way I've tried to combat this is by reading some of Ryan holiday's books on Modern applications of stoic philosophy if he were to pop into this video he would give some advice to say something like you know focus on the things you can control and disregard whatever you can't you can't control other people's comments but you can control how you respond to them click hide from Channel block them just move on along a similar vein of mental health there's this notion that if if you follow your passion you'll never work a day in your life my dad told me that once I'm sorry Dad but that's in reality it's the opposite if you go this route and you follow your passion you should be prepared to work every day there really are no breaks the need to remain consistent means that at minimum you're never not thinking about your next video even when you take a weekend off to spend some time with friends or family I'm constantly thinking about that next video the best way I've combed this is to create as much routine and batch tasks as much as possible so that less of my mental energy is focused on something else for example Mondays are dedicated to short form content I'll script all of my videos and then sit down to record them all at once and then edit them all at once Tuesdays are dedicated to planning and scripting the week's YouTube video and then finishing up any admin and editing from the day prior Wednesdays are YouTube filming days so today is Wednesday and Thursday and Friday are spent editing that YouTube video for me routine and schedule and getting enough sleep is easily the biggest contributing factor to avoiding burnout admittedly this is one area that I do still struggle with the most so if any of you have advice on managing burnout or avoiding it please let me know in the comments okay this last point is hands down the most important one so many aspiring creators get into this because of what they think it will give them they think they'll be famous or they think it'll make them happy or maybe they just want to get free stuff I'm willing to bet that the majority of you set off on this path because you watched someone else and thought I want what they have that'll make me happy but there's a huge difference between loving to watch the videos versus loving to make the videos you have to love the ladder there's a great Mark Manson quote from subtle art that says who you are is defined by what you're willing to struggle for you see every one wants to be happy and successful and get free stuff but that's what you see outwardly what you don't see is the struggle the agonizing over thumbnail options the frame by frame decision making in your editing software the bookkeeping if you haven't signed up for found that's all the stuff that you struggle with and you have to enjoy that for me the week- toe project basis of being a Creator works really well for my personality because I get bored but I really enjoy learning and teaching all of you so for me this particular struggle is something that I love before I started doing this photo video thing I was a DJ as a side gig I was pretty good at it and I thought that I wanted to quit my full-time job to do that but then I realized as much as I loved performing at shows I absolutely hated producing music as difficult as it was I decided to hang up the headphones and I picked up a camera instead because I knew if I wanted to do this full-time I was going to hate the thing that I I was doing full-time you see you have to be willing to do the unsexy stuff day in and day out like it's your job because it is you have to love the process of all of that because that's what's in your control the outcome and the followers and the free stuff that isn't this career path isn't going to make you happy that part you have to do all on your own hopefully none of this is too much of a downer I just wanted to be a little bit more open about some of the struggles that I've faced in the last year and I also want to say thank thank you to each and every one of you for watching my videos supporting me and giving me opportunity to enjoy this struggle so with all of that I'll see you in the next one peace

Channel: Kyle Meshna

Views: 1,127

Keywords: Kyle Meshna, Meshna, full time youtuber, how much do youtubers make, how to be a youtuber, ali abdal, content creator, how to, how to become a content creator, how to become a youtube creator, how to become a youtuber, how to grow a youtube channel, how to grow on youtube, how to grow on youtube in 2023, how to grow youtube channel, how to start a successful youtube channel, how to start a youtube channel, youtube, youtube advice, youtube channel, youtuber

Id: lpvQuydozZQ

Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Wed May 15 2024