do it for the money transcript

I had a friend ask me what my favorite part of being a YouTuber was and I told them it's the money. And there was like other people there and he's like, "Dude, you know, you can't you can't say that. Like what's the real answer here?" And so I kind of made something up about like, "Yeah, I love being able to travel. You can work from anywhere. I have a laptop, can work a couple hours a day and do stuff that I'm passionate about and connect with people and all that." But like in reality making money is fun.

And I don't think that's a bad thing. Like for most people, you literally go to work the majority of your life. And like when somebody asks you, "Hey, like why do you go to work?" you're mostly going to say to make money, right? That's the reason most people go to work. And I think people like to over-glorify YouTube as like, "Oh, it's this super creative, passionate thing and whatever." And to some aspect that's true, right?

Like I just had this thought earlier about this conversation I had. I was like, "I'm going to film a video about it and I can make money doing this." So like technically that's true and I love some of the more creative things that I do. Like all those things are true. But in the end, one of the most fun parts about YouTube is the business aspect of it. I love being an entrepreneur, I think more than I love being a creator.

There's books like The Million Dollar Weekend, which just happened to be sitting next to me. And like I really like coming up with an idea, starting something of a business. It's like a big problem that you have to solve, a big puzzle that you have to solve. And you're just working, working, working, working, try to figure it out. You're so excited and passionate and then like 3 weeks later I I lose a little bit of interest.

But I love that passion and that struggle of building something new. [music] And YouTube for me is kind of that. Every week I get a new puzzle to put together. I get to go from nothing. Maybe it's a book I'm reading and I end up making I made two videos after reading this book. Maybe a conversation that I had. Maybe it's a struggle I went through. And I'm trying to figure out, okay, I have this idea that I want to talk about.

And I don't have any friends so I can't talk talk talk talk to talk to anybody. Sad but it's true. So I have that. And like, okay, now I need to find a proven title and thumbnail format that's giving me a good chance to make money on this on YouTube or at least have success on the video on YouTube. Now the interesting part, which I think most people skip, how am I going to make money on this? And not every single video is just designed to make money.

Like this one's not going to make the most money. I could generally making videos on my main channel's going to make the most amount of money, but I enjoy this channel more. It's like more chill. I can just like kind of stream of consciousness. Regardless, YouTube's a lot more fun when you have monetization systems [music] in place. Videos are just one aspect of it. When you can turn a video into more money, that's much more fun.

And I think almost everybody just optimizes for the video itself. You just optimize for, you know, being creative, the title, the thumbnail, you're doing some type of challenge, you're working on the editing, the B-roll, the music, and whatever. But so many people just skip the making money side of things or they feel bad about talking about it. None of the big creators really talk about it. But like it's a lot of fun.

It's fun to be able to try to pay off your house in 2 years. Like that's a challenge that I have right now and YouTube's allowed me to do that. Nothing else could even come close to that. But that's really fun. That's a that's a real life thing where it gets freedom. It's fun to be able to like, you know what, if we need a new car, we'll just go buy a new car in cash. And we've done that. Whenever we need a new car, we just buy one.

And like that's not to brag or anything, but like that's really fun. And so I don't look at YouTube as just the fun sides. Like if I only did what was fun, I would only make videos on random things that I'm interested in. But ultimately when it comes to making money, like you should do it for the money. First of all, it's like this is your permission. Like do YouTube so that you can be filthy rich and travel the world and be able to just If you need a car, you buy yourself a car.

Like whatever. That's possible through YouTube and this is your permission to go do that. Okay? Don't feel bad about it. Don't feel guilty about like, you know, I enjoy making videos, but I want to make a lot of money cuz that also seems enjoyable. That's okay. And so I don't make things that I want to make for the most part. This one I wanted to make, but I make things that I want to make and will make me money. It's like this negative thing.

It's like, oh, they're chasing the money. But like ultimately this is a job. And so if I only did what I was interested in, I would just make like back-end Facebook funnel affiliate marketing videos. And like that I I enjoy that type of stuff, but like on my main channel, people need certain things. Like there's a a need for financial education in the world. There's a need for reviews on all the books on my shelf here.

So few people have actually made good reviews on them. There's a need for motivation. Some people need to be entertained. There's a need out there. And when I focus on serving people as much as possible. Like, "You know what? I have this series going right now of like the Buy Nothing Rebellion." Which I actually like. It's like this whole concept of like everybody's getting turned into a consumer and there's these people fighting back and like we can opt out by not buying a bunch of random crap that you don't need.

And that's generally what I how I live uh my life to be fair. Like stuff will not make you happy. Freedom, being able to not have a mortgage payment, that'll make you happy. More happy than having a giant mortgage payment, having to work somewhere. Regardless. And so I did like two videos on that. And I've said most of what I wanted to say. And they did really good. The last one's at 300,000 views in like a week or something like that.

And I'm working on a follow-up video. I'm doing research. I'm diving into stuff. And is that as fun as just sitting here talking, as going for a walk, as playing video games, as you know, doing some super elaborate creative project that nobody cares about? No, it's it's maybe not as fun, but I have this balance of Yes, I want to be able to make things that I'm passionate about and I like am interested in that. But like it it's now turned from something that like yeah, that that the first one was fun to make and now it's hard, right?

Now I have to put in work cuz I've already said the basic things. Now I have to put in structure. Now I have to research stuff. And that's not as fun for me. But when it comes to making a lot of money on YouTube, you have to serve people. And I think we over-romanticize this idea of like, "Oh, you just talk about whatever you want, people show up and pay you a bunch of money." Like no. If you want to make money, you have to give an incredible service.

You have to offer an amazing product. You have to directly help people's problems where it's like they don't know what sauna to get and I can tell them what sauna to get and that helps them with a specific problem and I make lots of money. And I don't really love doing sauna reviews videos, which is why I haven't made one in like 6 months or something. I don't love doing that, but that money I use to like that channel in particular, I use that money to fund some stuff that helps people or even myself.

But even that channel like that is very easy money. It makes well over a thousand dollars a video. And so while I don't love doing the the thing always, we have to move past this idea of just only doing what you're interested in, only doing what you love and treat YouTube like a business, like an entrepreneur, like an asset. And that's just kind of how I look at my entire channel. I have an inventory of videos where I have maybe five videos ahead at all times that are in different levels of production.

And then when I get a sponsorship, this is more of the main channel than the And then we're we're selling that to some of these brands and we're even like multiple weeks Like everything's systematized, everything is kind of businessy. And some people like Matt D'Avella for example maybe, he can just do elaborate month-long creative projects. Like I would get so incredibly bored. And so I love the business side of things, I love the making money side of things and I don't feel ashamed of that.

I think we should normalize this. If you want to learn how I make money on YouTube, how you can make a full-time income with like a thousand subscribers, which I literally do. I'm running a free workshop coming up, so feel free to join down below. But I think that's something that we should normalize more on YouTube. It's not all sunshine and roses. There's a lot a lot of hard work if you want to make money and it's generally not the things that you want to do the most that make the most money.

So you have to find that balance of yes, once a month I do one that's like just for the creativity or I started a second channel just for me, just for the creativity, but the overall making money things, those are generally hard and they're not always the most passionate fun projects where you're just out there. You like this whole idea of YouTubers just making random crap, whatever they want and they're just doing it for the love of the game.

That is gone. Everybody's like a a now. Everybody's a an entrepreneur now and I don't think that's a bad thing. Like, I think it's really cool that you can fund your lifestyle making videos. And a lot of work. It's not always the most passionate thing every single week. Way better than working at a freaking job doing something that you literally don't care about for no money. I don't know. If you enjoyed this like me sitting here talking type of style thing, drop a like like comment.

Let me know. I'd love to do more like this because this is fun. But if they perform horribly and they make me no money, I might not do them. So, subscribe.