The Dark Side Of Getting Rich On Youtube
AAli Abdaal
Small Business/StartupsManagementParentingMental Health
Transcript
00:00:00I think I've always had like a little bit of an insecurity around how much I put out.
00:00:05Like, not sexually, but like in terms of like, in terms of like videos.
00:00:08Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the channel.
00:00:10What you're about to hear is a conversation between me and the wonderful, inspirational Matt D'Avella.
00:00:14Matt D'Avella has been one of the primary inspirations in my own YouTube journey.
00:00:17A lot of people start on YouTube to try to get off the hamster wheel to not have a nine to five job,
00:00:23but then they become a prisoner to their own revenue, their own targets.
00:00:26And I'm like, what am I doing?
00:00:27He's one of the best filmmakers on the platform as a whole, but also specifically in the personal development space.
00:00:32I actually got to a place where I thought I was just going to quit YouTube and not go back to it.
00:00:36Both Matt and I started taking YouTube seriously at roughly the same time.
00:00:39So back in like 2017, we've both built YouTube channels.
00:00:42We've both built creative businesses.
00:00:43We've both launched online courses, including online courses on how to be a YouTuber, which is kind of interesting.
00:00:47When I launched my YouTube course, it did really well.
00:00:51And the next time we launched it, we made 50% revenue.
00:00:53And then the next time we launched it, we made 50% of that.
00:00:55And then 50% of that.
00:00:56Both of us have hired a bunch of people.
00:00:57Both of us have had to fire a bunch of people.
00:00:59I would have these panic attacks.
00:01:01I thought I was having a heart attack.
00:01:02We've both moved countries.
00:01:04We've both married half Chinese women.
00:01:05And now we are both new dads trying to figure things out about parenthood and fatherhood while also running a sort of YouTube creative business type thing.
00:01:12Now, Matt and I have been like Zoom and WhatsApp friends for the last like six or seven years.
00:01:16But this was the first time we actually met in real life.
00:01:18And so we decided to sit down and just shoot the breeze, as the kids say.
00:01:22I don't know if the kids say it, but we decided to shoot the breeze about all things business, creator, YouTube, productivity, all of this sort of stuff.
00:01:28If you have a million subscribers, you need to create like you have zero.
00:01:32You need to be able to have the freedom to express yourself because if you don't enjoy what you're making, then your audience is probably not going to enjoy it either.
00:01:39So if that sort of thing is up your street, I hope you enjoy this conversation between me and Matt Diabella.
00:01:45Okay, Matt, so you and I have both been on YouTube since around 2017.
00:01:50I wonder if you could talk us through the arc of your YouTube career over the last like nine years.
00:01:56I have been doing a lot of reflecting lately, just looking back over the past decade of creating on YouTube.
00:02:03I got started in 2017.
00:02:07That's when I published my first YouTube video and really started focusing on trying to make great videos and build an audience on YouTube.
00:02:14It was a matter of experimentation and just throwing a bunch of shit at the wall and seeing what worked.
00:02:20I spent a year and a half making videos on YouTube and getting maybe like a thousand views tops.
00:02:25That was like amazing.
00:02:27And then for me, I posted one video called My Minimalist Apartment.
00:02:31It was an apartment tour.
00:02:33It was less than three minutes.
00:02:35And within a week, it had 20,000 views.
00:02:38A month later, it had like 100,000 views.
00:02:40And then eventually it got a million views.
00:02:42And then from there, it was grow, grow, grow.
00:02:46It was growing my audience, my size, my team, 2019 to 2021 or so.
00:02:52And then from that point on, probably around like 2022, 2023, I started to seriously not like what I was doing in the business that I had created.
00:03:02And so I had scaled up this big team.
00:03:04I had eight, probably five employees for a large part of it.
00:03:08And then about 10 freelancers working for me and I had to look around and do a lot of soul searching.
00:03:14That was a period where I decided to start taking a step back.
00:03:17And so then kind of downsizing the team and then now for me, I actually got to a place where I thought I was just going to quit YouTube and not go back to it.
00:03:29But now I'm starting to come back and kind of find the joy in it again.
00:03:34That's like the big arc and there's obviously a lot that's gone down in between each of those points that I'd be happy to get into.
00:03:41You've got this creative business, you've got, you know, broadly financial freedom, location freedom, time freedom.
00:03:47You can kind of do what you want.
00:03:48This for a lot of people is the dream that a lot of people are aspiring towards.
00:03:53I think people on my channel broadly have full time jobs working in corporate or doctors or lawyers, you know, that kind of thing.
00:03:59And look towards building a creative business as like, whoa, you get to just make videos talking about whatever you want.
00:04:06And often when we do stuff within our like courses, a lot of people cite you as like an inspiration, including me, in terms of like, whoa, what Matt DiVella does is incredible.
00:04:17You get to just talk about minimalism, you can talk about this, you can talk about water bottles if you really feel like it, you can kind of like do anything.
00:04:22You get to experiment on yourself, you get to make videos about it, and you do it in like a classy and non-click-baity, non-like icky kind of way.
00:04:32This seems like the dream.
00:04:33Looking from the outside, how does it feel on the inside?
00:04:37I think that I had so much more freedom before I had kids.
00:04:41Like I just didn't, I didn't realize how free I was and how much time I had in my day.
00:04:47There's, there's trade-offs there.
00:04:48But I think for me, it's like my life used to be centered around work where like work was the most important thing to me and everything else came secondary and kind of like fit in.
00:04:58And then once I became a parent, it was more about my family is first and then creating is like filling in the gaps of when I can make time for videos.
00:05:09I feel like right now there are three main things in my life that I try to focus on my work, my family, and my health.
00:05:19And I can only pick two, like I like I pick two to do really well.
00:05:27Like I can focus on my family.
00:05:28I can focus on my work.
00:05:29I can focus on, you know, making the best videos that I can with the time that I have.
00:05:34And then my health is like, okay, I can patch that in whenever I can.
00:05:38But I think I just have so much less time than I used to.
00:05:41I don't know if that, I don't think that answers your question.
00:05:43No, it kind of does.
00:05:44It's so it's, it sounds like since having kids, you felt way more stretched.
00:05:49I mean, obviously, because you've got kids now, whereas before you had all this freedom that, do you feel like that was the freedom that like people in our audiences aspire to like where you can, you actually can kind of do anything.
00:06:00I think when you build a large audience, it does give you the leverage to be able to kind of like take them wherever you want to go.
00:06:09There's constraints to that too.
00:06:10Like, I think I named my channel, my name, Matt D'Avella, because I wanted to be able to talk whatever I wanted to talk about.
00:06:18But then you find a niche and you start creating in that niche, like minimalism, and then you find that, oh, like, this is what gets views.
00:06:27If I want to build my channel, if I want to grow my audience, I have to continue to talk about minimalism.
00:06:32I felt restricted in the very beginning, like when I first started to take off and grow my channel.
00:06:38And so then it was about experimenting and kind of taking risks.
00:06:44And so for me, that was like 30 day experiments, which like surprisingly ended up being my most successful series that I'd ever done.
00:06:51But the first one I did was I took cold showers for 30 days.
00:06:54And like, you know, even like the framing, the title, like I took cold showers for 30 days.
00:06:58At the time, it just seemed like such a boring way to like phrase a video, you know, because at the time, like Mr. Beast was starting to come out, like the extremification of YouTube and the like title maxing on YouTube was just really starting to take off and take hold.
00:07:14Even like the BuzzFeed era of like very extreme ideas being pushed out there.
00:07:19I was like, I took cold showers for 30 days, it's like sounds very boring in nature, but pushing myself to do these things that I, that I thought maybe wouldn't work ended up being my, my biggest successes and allowed me to have a little bit more freedom in terms of what I created.
00:07:35But still, like how, how far outside of self-development can I go and take my audience with me?
00:07:42Um, I think it comes at the, the, you know, views and subscribers and stuff like that.
00:07:49Like if you really start to go down weird niches when you've developed an audience who come for self-development, I think that's when it becomes a little bit tricky as a creator.
00:07:56Like how much freedom do you really have, um, in terms of what you create?
00:07:59Yeah.
00:08:00It's sort of like the double-edged sword of having a niche, like you could just make videos about anything and everything.
00:08:05And most people who try and do that find that it doesn't really work or, and then you find your way into a niche.
00:08:11And then you're like, well, if I make videos outside of that niche, I get less views.
00:08:15And the audience complains to some degree, they're like stay in your lane, bro, you know, kind of vibe.
00:08:19And then there's always like a small minority that like, oh, we'll follow you for anything you do.
00:08:21But it's like a minority rather than the majority.
00:08:23The numbers speak louder than those few comments because like when you start to experiment outside of what people expect from you, um, you're naturally going to get, uh, less views and less attention early on.
00:08:36But I think that's the, that's that thing where it's like, if you have a million subscribers, uh, you need to create, like you have zero.
00:08:43You need to be able to have the freedom to express yourself because if you don't enjoy what you're making, then your audience is probably not going to enjoy it either.
00:08:51By the way, if you are enjoying this conversation, then I'd love it if you could check out Whisperflow, who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
00:08:57Whisperflow is a wonderful voice to text tool that turns the way you talk into polished typed text in any app on your computer.
00:09:05And the easiest way for me to show you is to actually just use it.
00:09:07Okay.
00:09:07Help me outline a YouTube video about making your job optional.
00:09:10Frame the whole thing around the four Fs.
00:09:11And you know what?
00:09:11Let's work in Brandon Sanderson as an example of someone who'd do the work anyway, even if he didn't need the money.
00:09:15Okay.
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00:09:34It's not very good.
00:09:35So we're going to test this live.
00:09:36I'm going to say the same thing into my phone and also into Whisperflow and we'll see who wins.
00:09:40Hey, give me three hook options.
00:09:41No, wait, make it five for a video about Brandon Sanderson and the four Fs.
00:09:44So this is what my iPhone dictation says.
00:09:45And now if I do the same thing on Whisperflow, hey, give me three hook options.
00:09:49No, wait, make it five for a video about Brandon Sanderson and the four Fs.
00:09:52Boom.
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00:10:25and that will give you one month of Whisperflow Pro completely for free.
00:10:29So thank you, Whisperflow for sponsoring this video and let's get back to it.
00:10:34How have your attitudes towards money changed over the last like decade of being on YouTube?
00:10:38When I started on YouTube, I had $100,000 in student debt.
00:10:42It was a huge weight on my shoulders.
00:10:44Like getting out of debt was the one way that I was going to be able to achieve financial freedom.
00:10:49When I started on YouTube, it definitely wasn't for the money.
00:10:52I didn't think it was going to be a way to get rich and, you know, make millions of dollars.
00:10:55Once I got out of debt and started making money and like getting a positive net worth,
00:11:03like I think I got swept up in YouTube and the growth and trying to figure out ways to scale my business and make more money.
00:11:12For me, there was a part probably around like 2020, 2021 when I started doing it for the money and it wasn't for me.
00:11:21It wasn't so that I could make more money.
00:11:22It was because I had grown such a big team that I had to pay the payroll of like five, six, seven people.
00:11:29And I had to pay for all these freelancers.
00:11:31And I think that's the point when I started losing the joy of creating videos and had to figure out how do I reset and recalibrate to find the joy again and stop focusing on the money.
00:11:42Yeah.
00:11:42So I think you and I went through that journey around a similar time.
00:11:46We had a big like growth period in 2020 and did a big hiring spree in 2021.
00:11:52We'd have a month of loads of money and then like nothing.
00:11:54And then we'd like be making a loss in like March or April or whatever the thing is.
00:11:57And then it was like, okay, well, guys, we've got to make the next cohort of YouTuber Academy really do well.
00:12:03Revenue is going down.
00:12:04Expenses are going up.
00:12:05Like it started to feel really, really heavy.
00:12:08What was your experience like of that period?
00:12:10When I launched my YouTube course, it did really well.
00:12:13It's the most successful thing that I've ever done.
00:12:15Like the biggest revenue project I've ever had.
00:12:18We were doing like a launch cycle every six months to seven months.
00:12:23And the next time we launched it, we made 50% revenue.
00:12:26And then the next time we launched it, we made 50% of that and then 50% of that.
00:12:29Meanwhile, I'm like hiring employees.
00:12:31I'm growing my team.
00:12:32I'm like taking on way more expenses and payroll than I've ever done.
00:12:36And like in the background, like I'm prone for anxiety.
00:12:39And I got diagnosed with generalized anxiety in 2019 because of I want to say because of YouTube.
00:12:45I don't want to just push the blame on YouTube.
00:12:47I think like I should take some responsibility in terms of what I did.
00:12:50I did feel this pressure in the beginning because like you, me and like three others, we would get on these quarterly calls.
00:12:56We were the only self-development YouTubers at the time.
00:12:58There was like five of us, but I did feel this pressure to maintain and to continue to grow.
00:13:04I think it was like wrapped up in my identity.
00:13:07My identity was, I'm a minimalist, I'm a YouTuber, I'm a big like self-development YouTuber.
00:13:14Like I've got a big audience.
00:13:16And if I don't have YouTube, if my audience isn't growing, then who am I?
00:13:19We all know that we shouldn't seek validation through subscribers and views and whatnot, but it also is very easy to get swept up in all of it.
00:13:26To be in that position where my revenue is going down, my expenses are going up, and I'm, my YouTube channel is not thriving in the way that it once was.
00:13:36I would have these panic attacks where my chest felt like it was like tightening.
00:13:42I remember just like nights of like just sitting up in our bedroom and my like chest would like tight, I thought I was having a heart attack.
00:13:50My hands would start to like constrict and like my, the veins in my hands would like start like pulsing.
00:13:57And so that's when I was like, there was a moment, one, one of these nights where I was like, this is not sustainable.
00:14:01Like I can't keep maintaining this.
00:14:04And that's when I started to have some really difficult conversations about simplifying my team and kind of going, trying to find the joy again, like the reason why I started this to begin with.
00:14:12Yeah, because I guess even though revenue seems high and like views that seem high, the thing people don't appreciate is that when you do have the team behind it, you know, we have like these days, like 2 million in costs every year.
00:14:22And so like the first 2 million we make is literally on paying other people.
00:14:262 million in costs.
00:14:27Yeah.
00:14:28Holy shit.
00:14:29And so like, do you know, do you know what my monthly expenses are now?
00:14:34Guess, you can guess.
00:14:36Business or personal, like, I would say 2k a month.
00:14:42In terms of like freelancers occasionally.
00:14:44Just about.
00:14:44Yeah, well, actually, maybe, maybe closer to like 3, 4k now, because I do have an office space and that's like the biggest expense.
00:14:52I actually just hired your business coach.
00:14:53Oh, yeah.
00:14:55That's actually the biggest expense now that I have out of anything.
00:14:59But it's good ROI.
00:15:00Bro.
00:15:01Yeah.
00:15:01Yeah.
00:15:01Okay.
00:15:01Cool.
00:15:01Cool.
00:15:02Cool.
00:15:02Cool.
00:15:02Cool.
00:15:02Cool.
00:15:02Cool.
00:15:02Cool.
00:15:03Cool.
00:15:03Cool.
00:15:032 million.
00:15:04That's fucking crazy.
00:15:05Yeah.
00:15:05Each month we spend about 200,000 in costs.
00:15:07Have you had a point where you're just like, you have like deep anxiety or are you, are you not as affected by that kind of pressure?
00:15:14I don't get the physical symptoms of anxiety, but my mind is always reeling with something about the business. Almost every thought process related to the business ultimately, if I trace it back, ultimately goes to, but what if we run out of money kind of thing?
00:15:31Because even now with our like online business school, we've just hired four new people for it because the thing is growing and it's scaling, but like in the back of my mind, I've got like the low key PTSD from back when we were doing launches for cohorts and each time we'd make less than less money.
00:15:47I'm speaking to one of my one of my mentors and he was like, oh yeah, everyone who does cohorts find that about cohort four of the thing, like you're not making enough money for it.
00:15:55And usually they find that like, yeah, the, you know, they hired a team around cohort two because it was growing and they have to get rid of the team.
00:16:01So it's not just me. That actually makes me feel a lot better.
00:16:04Yeah, no, but apparently it's like, it's like a really common pattern because we were in our case, like cohort five was the one where we had the 50% revenue from cohort four.
00:16:12And that was like a big kind of reset moment around 2021, around a similar time for me.
00:16:17Like I know that this is the game that I want to play.
00:16:19And I think about it a lot of like, do I want to go down the Matt D Bella route of like downsizing the team, going solo, that sort of thing.
00:16:27And I've had my time, your team is watching.
00:16:30Yeah, I'm, I'm fairly public with them about it.
00:16:34There's also something exhilarating about like working with people and doing the thing.
00:16:37Like Hormozy says that the grass is greener on the other side because it's fertilized with shit, you know, that kind of thing.
00:16:42It's like the choose your heart situation.
00:16:44Oh, by the way, if you happen to be watching this before Saturday, the 4th of July, 2026, then I'm hosting a completely free workshop, the Mid-Year Reset.
00:16:52There'll be a link down below. Basically, it's free.
00:16:54I do these every three months and have been doing it for the last three years, me, you and a couple of thousand people from all around the world join on a Zoom workshop.
00:17:00And I guide you through various different reflection exercises to help you reflect on the first half of 2026, line to where your life and work are generally headed and then set goals for the next 90 days.
00:17:10It's a vibe. It's fun. It's totally free.
00:17:12There'll be a link down below and I will hopefully see you there.
00:17:17How do you think of your identity these days? And how has that evolved over time?
00:17:21Dude, like parenting just rocked me, dude, in terms of my worldview, my identity, how I schedule my life, my day to day.
00:17:30Like I thought it was going to change my life, but I just don't think I realize how significant of an impact having a child would be in the best ways, in the worst ways.
00:17:41In the worst ways, like the level of sleep deprivation that I experienced in that first year of having a kid was just like brutal.
00:17:53And in the best ways, like I had just so many moments like where I'm just like holding my son for the first time and I'm just like looking into his eyes and I'm just like crying because I'm like, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever experienced.
00:18:07And then like an hour later, he like throws up all over me. It's like, it's like that roller coaster, the up and down.
00:18:14I think my life used to be centered around work. Now my life is centered around family.
00:18:21I think I've struggled with that because my purpose and my identity was always around work and productivity and producing and making amazing videos.
00:18:33And when that was taken from me for a while, where like I'm not producing, I'm not getting any validation from anybody else and which obviously like wasn't healthy to begin with.
00:18:44But I think there is like a level of productivity that is really healthy and it feels good to like produce work that makes an impact on people's lives.
00:18:54And then having a family, I realized it actually took some of the pressure off of that, but it took me like a year and a half to come to that place.
00:19:03I saw a quote from James Clear where he said he was, when he became a parent, there were things that were easy to get rid of bad habits that he could let go of effortlessly, which were watching movies and doom scrolling and, you know, spending hours every day on his device.
00:19:19But there were things that were much harder to give up and he wasn't prepared to give up the things that were actually good for him, the good habits, the habits that, you know, meditating 30 minutes a day going into the cold plunge and sauna and, you know, spending weekends working on your business.
00:19:33And those are the things that I found really hard to let go of because my identity had been wrapped up in being a creator and making videos and being productive.
00:19:42And so then when that was taken away and then I'm like, I'm a dad. Can I just be a dad? Can I be a parent? Is that enough for me to be happy?
00:19:51And no, for me, it's not enough, but there's nothing that matters as much to me as being a parent. Other things matter, but it's just, it's so small in comparison.
00:20:05Well, one thing I worry about is like, if I stop grinding, then the business stops making this much money and therefore this sort of life that I want to create for my family, it becomes under threat.
00:20:16And then the narrative is very easy to go down to be like, OK, well, I guess we've got to make more money.
00:20:21It seems like you don't have that to the same degree. Like, well, yeah.
00:20:25Bro, like we made it. Don't you feel like you made it? Like, like, don't you have enough money?
00:20:32Because you were transparent. You're transparent about how much money you make. Like, we know that you've you've you're smashing it like you don't need more money, do you?
00:20:42Depends on like if you go with the 4% withdrawal rate and stuff, then in order to not work, we'd have to take a significant hit on the lifestyle.
00:20:50And I kind of want to maintain the lifestyle because it's like nice living in a nice place and having like household help and like being able, you know, flying business class and all that shit.
00:20:58So it's sort of like, I don't know if this is just my like, just like a dodgy way of justifying this habit that I have or just keep just keep working.
00:21:11And now I've got a convenient excuse of like, oh, it's for the family when really it's just for my own ego to try and make money or some shit like that.
00:21:17There was something that you said that I that I heard in a video that I actually I didn't resonate with.
00:21:23For me, I felt the opposite. I felt like having kids give me a reason not to hustle anymore, where I'm like, why am I working so hard, you know, if it comes at the sacrifice of time with family?
00:21:33I get I get the other side of it. And I think that's actually a huge motivating factor.
00:21:39I mean, and that's a factor for a lot of people, especially people who are trying to get themselves up from a place where like they don't have enough money.
00:21:45They don't have enough money to pay for child support and are taking care of their children.
00:21:51But then once you've made it to a certain point, I guess, at what point do you stop focusing on more?
00:21:57Yeah, those things are nice, right? I wish we could afford business class.
00:22:03God, I saw a video the other day of like people taking a business class flight.
00:22:06And I'm like, I was just because like, to me, like those are some of the darkest days of our years when we're like traveling with kids and flying 24 hours and needing to like toilet train our son, like 30,000 feet up.
00:22:19I'm like, would be so nice to have like a private bathroom and like a separate room inside of it.
00:22:24But I'm like, that's also just 24 hours and then it's gone.
00:22:27Yeah, I guess, like, how do you how do you look at that in terms of like hustle and work?
00:22:32And I don't know, this is the this has been the central question of like my life for the last five years around like
00:22:42expansion versus satisfaction, growth versus enough, more money versus more time on other things.
00:22:51Ah, and I always flip flop between those different states.
00:22:56And a few years ago, I would flip flop and then translate that into what we're doing as a business.
00:23:02I realized that that flip flopping can happen internally and with my coaches and Angus occasionally gets the flip flop.
00:23:06But like with with with enough layers of like separation, the business and the team doesn't feel the flip flop around.
00:23:13Like, do I want to strive for more versus do I feel like I have enough?
00:23:19But it's also like you need you need purpose, too.
00:23:20Yeah, that's the thing.
00:23:22Like, I'm not quitting.
00:23:23I'm not quitting work.
00:23:24Yeah.
00:23:24I mean, and Nat and I have talked about this.
00:23:25It's like he's like, Matt, would you do pat leave?
00:23:28Would you take like a month or two months off and just, you know, take care of both kids?
00:23:32And I'm like, I don't know if I can.
00:23:34I actually don't know if I can because I think one, it just be intensely hard.
00:23:38And two, like, I get a lot of purpose and joy from my work.
00:23:41And so it's like when you become a parent, family is the most important thing in your life.
00:23:46But other things still matter.
00:23:49And you still want to have a life separate to that.
00:23:51And I think that it's very easy.
00:23:53And often people lose themselves in their role as a parent, and they lose a sense of themselves.
00:23:59And some of them, they don't have a choice because they're just they have to take care of their
00:24:02kids full time.
00:24:02And that's the way it is.
00:24:04So you don't worry about running out of money.
00:24:05I feel like this is.
00:24:06Bro, I got so much money.
00:24:07No, like, actually, like, I really.
00:24:09You live in Sydney, high cost of living, high taxes.
00:24:11Like, yeah.
00:24:12I think I've also been quite frugal.
00:24:14So I've done a really good job at saving.
00:24:16I feel really good about, like, my investments and, you know, the house that we own.
00:24:21Because our expenses are so low, like we talked about it, like,
00:24:24my business expenses are a couple thousand dollars every month.
00:24:28Our personal expenses are really quite low.
00:24:30I mean, obviously, kids are very expensive, but when it's all said and done,
00:24:33it's, you know, we could live off of Natalie's salary.
00:24:37That alone, being able to survive just off of one person's salary, I think, helps alleviate
00:24:43the pressure.
00:24:43And also, like, yeah, I guess, like, the frugality comes in.
00:24:47Like, we don't fly business class.
00:24:50Again, I wish I could fly business class.
00:24:52Like, I wish I had that money.
00:24:53For me, I'm like, there's just no way.
00:24:55Like, we don't have the money to spend $30,000 on a flight across the Pacific back to the US.
00:25:02So we just like, okay, that's just not something that we can afford or
00:25:06probably ever will be able to afford.
00:25:08Yeah, it's sort of like in the,
00:25:11around the 2016 era when Tim Ferriss had Mr. Money Mustache on his podcast.
00:25:15And I got into this whole, like, fire thing.
00:25:17Like, financial independence, retire early movement.
00:25:19This whole idea around frugality.
00:25:21Everyone who has, like, low overheads, whether it's in a business or in personal life,
00:25:26feels more free because it gives you the freedom to not have to make as much money.
00:25:30I think this is the biggest downside of a business, like, on our end where
00:25:33we've got to make two and a half million a year just to break even.
00:25:36And so, like, you know, the first, it's a weird thing.
00:25:41But, like, every time January rolls over, it sort of feels like we're starting from zero again
00:25:47and have to claw our way up out of that.
00:25:49Which I was talking to, again, one of my coaches about.
00:25:51And he was like, yeah, that's just a really unhelpful way of looking at it.
00:25:53Like, no business thinks of it like that.
00:25:55Like, if anything, you can think about it quarterly.
00:25:56Like, how's the quarterly cash flow, you know,
00:25:58rather than thinking of, like, oh, my God, this year we've got to make three million
00:26:01to break even, you know, all that kind of shit.
00:26:03So, mate, it's inspiring.
00:26:09It's very strange.
00:26:10I think, like, having we've connected a ton and, like, have had a lot of calls over the years.
00:26:15But and obviously have, like, seen your face and, like,
00:26:18more and more YouTube thumbnails these days.
00:26:20Yeah, with the red eyes and toxic productivity.
00:26:24Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:25The rise and fall of Ali Abdaal, you know.
00:26:27Evil self-help gurus.
00:26:30What was it like on YouTube back then?
00:26:33And what was it like getting started with zero subscribers?
00:26:36So for me, I started off in a very, very, very narrow space of, like,
00:26:40helping kids get into med school.
00:26:42And so at the time in the UK, like, there was someone else in my university doing it.
00:26:47And she had 4,000 subscribers.
00:26:48And I was like, whoa, man, she's been doing it for a year.
00:26:51And she's got 4,000 subscribers.
00:26:53If I could one day get 4,000 subscribers, that would be incredible.
00:26:57And around that time, I wouldn't have considered myself a productivity guy at all.
00:27:01Like, that word only came about a few years later.
00:27:03And then it felt quite wholesome.
00:27:05It was like I'd be recording videos from my dorm room, giving people advice.
00:27:09And then there were a couple of other people I knew who were also doing the same thing,
00:27:12just sharing their notes and, like, how to study for exams.
00:27:15And so it was this, like, nerdy corner of the internet where a handful of us were just sharing
00:27:19advice for students.
00:27:20I never thought it would become a business or anything like that.
00:27:22It was initially a fun way for me to explore making videos, do teaching, which I enjoyed,
00:27:29and also drive leads to my physical courses business that I had at the time,
00:27:33where I was running courses helping kids get into med school.
00:27:35Do I look back on YouTube, like, with rose-colored glasses?
00:27:39And there's this nostalgia, I think.
00:27:42And I see it a lot in the comments, too, of like, oh, this feels like old YouTube.
00:27:46If a video is, like, maybe more stripped-backed and less polished.
00:27:48It feels like today, everybody knows about the tactics, about the hook,
00:27:53how to, like, have a nice setup and pay off in a video.
00:27:56Do you look back on that time, like, as a nostalgic period?
00:28:00Or are we, like, maybe over-romanticizing the past of, like, what it was like in YouTube
00:28:04in the beginning?
00:28:05The tactics around how to do well on YouTube were a lot less established back then.
00:28:10These days, especially with AI, especially with everyone and their dog having, like,
00:28:13a team behind them, there's, like, as soon as one person in a given niche publishes a video,
00:28:18that does well.
00:28:19Everyone knows that that title is doing well.
00:28:21And so they'll do a repackaging of the same title and the same thumbnail.
00:28:24And the meta has evolved so that, like, there's a lot of strategy behind it just to keep up.
00:28:31Give me eight minutes of your time and I'll save you 30 years of...
00:28:34Yeah, yeah.
00:28:35Or, like, in our case, like, 20 years of YouTube advice in 54 minutes.
00:28:39Or, you know, these chat GPT hacks will make you so productive it feels illegal.
00:28:42Like, Hormozy did that initially, that it feels illegal.
00:28:44And then everyone's been copying it, including us.
00:28:46I watched the film Moneyball the other day on an airplane.
00:28:49And it's like, you know, initially, you know, the whole thing around, like,
00:28:52baseball being about the craft and the talent.
00:28:55And then the numbers come into it and the maths comes into it.
00:28:58And now it's all about the numbers.
00:28:59I feel like back in the day on YouTube, I was looking at other channels for inspiration,
00:29:02but not from the sense of, like, ooh, that title did well for Matt D'Avelo.
00:29:05So let me do a My Minimalist Apartment tour as well.
00:29:07Like, that wasn't the vibe.
00:29:09We are certainly partly to blame having YouTube courses and teaching people how to build YouTube
00:29:15channels.
00:29:15And because it's like the tactics are helpful and important.
00:29:20But I do think that we're reaching a point now on YouTube where I like, at least for me,
00:29:24I don't know about you, but I'm just like, I get so much fatigue from seeing the same
00:29:29formulas copycatted over and over again, the same intros, the same style that I'm kind of craving
00:29:36somebody to do something different.
00:29:37And there are like YouTube's not just one thing.
00:29:39There's like tons of amazing creators doing like innovative stuff, I guess,
00:29:43because I come from it more of like the artist filmmaker side.
00:29:46I feel like a lot of like the beauty and the art of like creation and expression is lost
00:29:51when we focus too much on the tactics.
00:29:53Yeah, I mean, I completely agree.
00:29:55And also at the same time, I like our approach to YouTube is very much
00:29:59leaning into the tactics.
00:30:00And I really miss the artsy era of YouTube.
00:30:03But then even back in 2017, there was still a lot of profit motive behind it.
00:30:06Whereas people in 2017 had nostalgia for the 2012 era, like before the partner program came out,
00:30:11where literally the only reason people were making videos is because they enjoyed making videos.
00:30:15And then every year, the whole thing around monetization.
00:30:19And then I've spoken to so many YouTubers who watched a video I made in 2020 talking about
00:30:23how much money I earn on YouTube, where I was copycatting Graham Stephan and Pat Flynn,
00:30:27who were being sort of transparent about their income.
00:30:30And I think there was stuff like that, that made sort of the YouTube community as a whole realize
00:30:37that like, hang on, there's actually quite a lot of money here.
00:30:39And then especially during the pandemic, you had all these people that were like,
00:30:41taking our YouTube courses to try and make it on YouTube.
00:30:44Once the thing becomes a way you can make money, people are doing it for the money rather than for
00:30:48the artsiness or the vibes of it.
00:30:51Whereas I guess when you started with a ground up show, it probably wasn't to monetize as such.
00:30:55Oh, yeah, I didn't, I didn't, I don't think I had any expectation that I would be able
00:30:58to monetize or grow a large audience.
00:31:01I mean, that's obviously the goal.
00:31:03Like you want to be able to make enough money to survive until I continue to create videos.
00:31:08I don't think I realized the potential of how much you could actually generate.
00:31:12I think when it comes to the, those tactics,
00:31:16you very much have to walk on a tightrope of, you have to like,
00:31:22if just the, the way that you title a video and the way you create a thumbnail,
00:31:26what gets somebody to click on it.
00:31:28There are small changes I've made on videos and I'm certain you've had the same experience.
00:31:33You change a word and a title and then it gets 2 million views when it was,
00:31:37you know, maybe stuck at a hundred thousand views.
00:31:39And so why wouldn't you take that extra effort to, to try to figure out what is a good
00:31:45strategy to get this video seen?
00:31:47At least like if, if what you care about is creative expression is like, be true to yourself
00:31:52and not make the entire video be one big, like retention strategy to hold somebody for every
00:31:57second of the video.
00:31:58And I know you actually don't really do that a lot in, in your videos.
00:32:01I know, I think you once said to me that sometimes your, your team gets a little bit upset at you
00:32:05when you like, just go on too long or you make a video that's too long because obviously,
00:32:10you know, oftentimes an hour long video, it's just not going to be as tight as like a 15 minute
00:32:15video or a 20 minute video.
00:32:16How have you found that balance?
00:32:19Multiple competing goals when it comes to a YouTube channel, right?
00:32:21Like there are some people that do it purely as a hobby and I know for those people, like they
00:32:26don't need to care about retention or about like optimizing the title or optimizing the thumbnail.
00:32:29As soon as it starts to become a business, then as you say, like the, the returns you get
00:32:36from thinking about the thumbnail a little bit harder, thinking about the title a little bit harder,
00:32:41totally warrant doing, putting all that effort.
00:32:44Then if I think about it for me, like I don't enjoy thinking about the packaging of a video.
00:32:48I would love for titles to be turned and thumbnails to not be a thing on YouTube.
00:32:51That'll be so nice.
00:32:52It would be nice to just be able to make stuff and then not have to worry about the packaging behind it.
00:32:56But I mean, it's the attention economy, all this sort of stuff.
00:33:00If, if no one clicks on the video, then no one's going to watch the video.
00:33:02I like, I like how you described it as a tightrope between the soul of the craft and the, and the
00:33:07and the, and the creativity and like the commercial side of like creativity and commerce kind of.
00:33:12And then like in our case as well, every video has a sponsor on it.
00:33:16But in our case as well, we also have lead magnets and we drive traffic to our courses.
00:33:19And so there's that commercial, commercial intent behind videos as well.
00:33:24And then at the same time, sometimes I do want to just make a video because I feel like it,
00:33:27but all the effort that goes into making a video, you're like, ah, well, why would I make this video
00:33:31just because I feel like it?
00:33:32Like, you know, I really like your vlog channel.
00:33:33And I was like, oh, I should do vlogs, but my vlogs never get anywhere near the number of views
00:33:37as the main channel videos.
00:33:38And the OG fans would be like, oh, I prefer the vlogs to the main channel videos,
00:33:42but there's just not that many OG fans.
00:33:43And so it's like the, the commercial incentives outweigh the fact that I like the idea of making
00:33:49vlogs.
00:33:49There's this interview I saw with Graham Stephan and Mr. Beast and Graham Stephan was like,
00:33:54he makes like so much money on YouTube, but he was saying how he like just wasn't happy.
00:33:58He's like, I just, I'm just not finding the joy in it anymore.
00:34:01And it's like, at what point do you decide to shift up your strategy?
00:34:07Like there you have enough money at this point, right?
00:34:10When you're making millions of dollars a year, you don't have to keep feeding that funnel.
00:34:14You can start figuring out how do I enjoy this more?
00:34:17And so there could be a world where like you start a vlog channel,
00:34:21even if it gets 10% of the views, if you love that, and it's really exciting and fun and different.
00:34:27But again, I think that's that balance of trying to find the joy.
00:34:31A lot of people start on YouTube to try to get off the hamster wheel to not have a nine to five job,
00:34:36but then they become a prisoner to their own, their own revenue, their own like, you know,
00:34:40targets in terms of X amount of subscribers.
00:34:43And so I, I think that's the hardest thing.
00:34:45Once you get to a certain level is like, what if you were to step back, simplify and make it incredibly,
00:34:51um, I guess, uh, just more about the joy of creating.
00:34:55This is something I think about every week, pretty much like what's this balance between
00:35:00striving for more and playing that game, uh, versus stripping back.
00:35:03And so when you did the strip back thing, when you downsized and went, when it went solo,
00:35:08that was really, really interesting for me because at the time my team was growing and yours had shrunk.
00:35:13I still think about it to this day.
00:35:15I think about it, like, would I rather strip back, go solo, kind of be, feel like this thing around,
00:35:23I've got enough. And so at this point it's about optimizing for the joy of it.
00:35:26But then at the same time, I think for me, like there, there is also a joy in the growth
00:35:31behind it. Like we're like, oh, we've never hit 10 million in revenue.
00:35:34And like, it'll be cool. Just, just sort of like playing a video game on like a harder difficulty
00:35:40setting where it's like, there's something challenging and enjoyable about playing the
00:35:43video game on a harder difficulty setting. And then at the same time, because we're growing
00:35:47the business and the overheads, as you know, get like higher and higher.
00:35:51It does mean that there's even more of this hamster wheel where, you know,
00:35:54we've been in Sydney for the last week and every night because of the time zone,
00:35:58I've had meetings with various team members with about various things.
00:36:01We've had some HR issues. We've had some issues with our like online business school.
00:36:04And so I've been on calls until like 11:00 PM sorting these things out.
00:36:07And Izzy and I were talking about like, hang on, we're in Sydney for a week,
00:36:11supposedly to hang out with Izzy's family. And there's just calls happening on the calendar,
00:36:15which is, you know, you know, quit the nine to five. They said freedom. Freedom was the goal.
00:36:22But I guess it's that balance, right? It's like, there's always going to be things in your business
00:36:25that you're not going to like to do, but it's trying to optimize for, hey, if 90% of what I do,
00:36:31I love everybody has to do taxes, you know, and fill out paperwork and do ads.
00:36:35But also even the meetings are actually fun. And this is, this is the weird thing where I'm like,
00:36:38we're in Sydney. It'd be cool to just hang out and chill. But also it's actually quite fun being on the
00:36:42meetings and I'm talking about these new things that we're building. And it's like, this is so exciting.
00:36:45I guess it's a, it's a good problem to have, but this thing around when is enough enough? At what
00:36:49point am I sacrificing the more important things for the sake of growing the business versus can I just,
00:36:57am I just deluding myself into thinking that like growing revenue and profit is, is actually the
00:37:01video game I want to play. Like if I knew I was going to die a year from now, I certainly wouldn't
00:37:05be doing that. If I knew I was going to die two years from now, I certainly wouldn't be doing that.
00:37:08But if I knew I was going to die 10 years from now and like, it's a fun project to try and build an
00:37:12online business school and grow it, I probably would. And so I don't know how, how do you think
00:37:16about this? Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, it's funny that you even, it's funny that
00:37:20you say that you noticed when I scaled back and simplified my team, because I always looked at
00:37:27what you did on and have done on YouTube over the past 10 years and just like have been so impressed
00:37:32with the scale of things of how you've been able to expand and grow a business that has created this
00:37:40amazing content and product engine that is just like, bro, like the amount of stuff that you make
00:37:47is just, I think it's prolific. Like it's, it's crazy. Cause like, I know how much work goes into
00:37:53making really high quality videos. Um, and the team that you've been able to build and how you've been able
00:38:00to grow it has, has probably I'm sure allowed you to produce at that level. And so that's something
00:38:05that I always aspire to and wanted to do. I'm like, how can I take the quality and then just
00:38:11upscale it? How can I bring on a team to help make better things? But I just was so bad at it. Like
00:38:19it was a mismatch of my skills and my interests, um, to where I was like managing people a little bit
00:38:25too much. And I think I'm actually caught now at a place where I have scaled back, but I'm trying to
00:38:31like take baby steps to see like, what, how can I start to hire more people? I've got a couple of
00:38:37great filmmakers here helping me out today. Like, how can I start to bring people into the process a
00:38:41little bit more that I can produce a little bit higher level, but finding that balance of like,
00:38:46how much is enough? Can I continue to enjoy it while hiring out employees?
00:38:50It's such a, such an important balance. It's, it's funny to hear you say that. Cause I've always
00:38:54looked at your channel as like a major source of inspiration. I'm like, oh my God, it's so good.
00:38:57And like humor in the videos and like the, the shots, the editing, the color grading, even like back in
00:39:03the day with the grand up show, it was just like, so high production. I was like, it was, it was such a,
00:39:07such a big inspiration around like when, when my brother and I started our podcast, we basically just
00:39:11bought your entire gear set. Cause I was on your Patreon back in the day. I was like, oh great,
00:39:15we're going to use this light and this light and this microphone and the zoom H4 or whatever it is.
00:39:19Yeah. I think that's the thing with creative thing. And I suppose any kind of entrepreneurial
00:39:24endeavor as well, which is like a whole Hormuzi's thing is all about like choosing what you suffer
00:39:28for. But I don't know if you saw his interview with Tony Robbins recently where, yeah. So it was like,
00:39:32you know, fuck suffering. Like why not actually just do it in a way that's really enjoyable.
00:39:36And so I guess this is what we're all trying to do. We're trying to find a way to thread the needle
00:39:40around fun, fulfillment and freedom. There's like three F's like, yes, you get the freedom from like
00:39:46the financial part of it. But then there's a certain point where I think it's like, it's,
00:39:50it's almost like one of those, like, uh, those curves where more money leads to more freedom,
00:39:55but only up to a point. And then at a certain point, you actually get more freedom from leaving
00:39:59money on the table. And this is kind of what I found. And certainly what you seem to be doing
00:40:02where you are leaving money on the table by not having a team and doing the funnels and doing all the
00:40:06stuff, but that gives you the freedom to be able to make like one video a month and spend more time
00:40:11with your kids.
00:40:12Kind of because I think I was so bad at running a creator business at scale. I made less money.
00:40:18Like I wasn't making more revenue because my payroll was so high and I wasn't, my attention was pulled
00:40:24away from YouTube, which was my main source of driving revenue. I actually found that hiring people
00:40:30kind of backfired on me a little bit. Um, but I do have, I do want to get advice from you. Like,
00:40:36I feel like I should have just called you a while ago, but I'm like, now that we're like talking
00:40:39together in real life, I'm like, all right, let me just get all the advice that I want from Ali
00:40:43about like business and productivity and stuff, because I feel like I am at a point now where
00:40:48I'm taking a lot of lessons that I've learned over the years. And I want to try to figure out how
00:40:52I can start to scale and grow in a way that's going to help me get more freedom, um, spend less time
00:40:58editing and, um, maybe feel like I've, I have more control over my business rather than my business
00:41:05controlling me. Like you just, you just make, you just make so much content. It's like, I guess,
00:41:10what do you think are the big things, the big levers that you've pulled over the past few years
00:41:13in terms of having that high of a level of, of content output? Uh, yeah, I think a big part
00:41:21of it is I care less about every individual video than you do. Your production value is like insane.
00:41:28And the videos are really, really well done. Like your videos are way better than mine
00:41:31are. Um, when I watch your videos, I'm like, oh my God, this is incredible. Um, and even seeing
00:41:37the amount of effort you went into to making this shot look great and watching your like barista series,
00:41:42you're like all your 30 day experiments. It's just so much effort goes into every individual video.
00:41:47And I dabbled with 30 day experiments at one point during the pandemic. I was like,
00:41:50I did like, I learned freestyle rapping for goodness sake for like 30 days.
00:41:53I don't know how I didn't see that one. I'm going to actually look that up tonight.
00:41:57I was like, cause I've always been so inspired by your stuff. And so like, you know,
00:42:00you had the ground up show. My brother and I were like, oh, it'd be cool to start a podcast.
00:42:03We started a podcast. You started doing 30 day experiments. I was like, oh,
00:42:05let me experiment with 30 day experiments, but it was just so much effort. And I think the way that I do
00:42:12YouTube is that it's less about being a YouTuber and more about just being able to hit record
00:42:17on a camera and speak from the heart to teach something or document something that I, I enjoy
00:42:21talking about with that approach where prepping for a video takes for me, takes less than an hour.
00:42:25Filming the video takes about an hour. Editing is fully has been outsourced since 2019. I haven't
00:42:29touched final cut since then. It's a lot easier for me to pump out quantity, which also has its
00:42:35downsides. Like every single time I make a video, there are comments with dozens of upvotes being like,
00:42:39this is just recycled content. I'll have those fallen off, et cetera, et cetera.
00:42:43I never see those on your, on your, on your channel. Like every time you upload a video,
00:42:46it feels like, like I look forward to watching your videos. Cause I'm like, oh, it's something
00:42:49fresh. It's something new. Like the 30 day experiments, the barista thing, the weightlifting,
00:42:53minimalist thing. I bought your program. And so I'm like, it's just so well done. And you approach it
00:42:58with much more soul. I think than I do. What, what's the goal? Like, what do you want from this
00:43:03creative business? Honestly, even just hearing you, you say, this makes me realize that maybe I don't have a
00:43:09problem to solve for me, it's always been about kind of pursuing the joy and creation. And there were
00:43:14points when I lost sight of that. And I think even of late, I've been diving more into the documentary
00:43:21style explorative videos, which has been a lot of fun, but I've also started to not like the editing as
00:43:27much. Like parts of the editing process have become a drag, even though editing is one of my favorite
00:43:32things to dive into. Um, and so I think right now it's trying to figure out, can I start to find some
00:43:40help to like alleviate some of that time? Like right now I probably spend 20 to sometimes 50 hours on
00:43:49each individual video. Sometimes that's just editing. Like sometimes it's just like a full
00:43:54week where I'm doing 40 hours of editing and bloody hell. That's why the videos are so good.
00:44:01Yeah. No, but then like, sometimes it's like, but it, but it's such a huge investment of time and
00:44:08energy. Like it does seem like it's probably over indexed on that. Like, I don't want to get rid of that
00:44:13completely. But I think when we look at both of us, I think what's great is that like you and I both
00:44:19have different kind of formulas for what works for us. And I think it's largely based upon our
00:44:25skill sets. Like I could never do what you do. I could never turn on a camera, have a couple bullet
00:44:31points and talk for an hour. Like I, sometimes I see like, I'll upload an hour video. I'm like,
00:44:36do you know how long it would take me to make an hour video? Like, I can't do that just talking on
00:44:40camera. Cause it just wouldn't be as interesting and kind of like tightly told. Oh, it's not
00:44:44interesting or tightly told in my case either. It's just, it's just like rambly. I don't, I don't
00:44:49know if that's, that's the case. I think like, uh, I would seriously struggle to, to try to do that.
00:44:55I also, um, I think I would get quite burnt out by it. Like even just doing like one hour, like after
00:45:00we've filmed here today, I'm going to go home and just sleep for three hours. But I do think like my
00:45:05unique skill sets are not like going off the cuff, like talking at length on certain topics. It's
00:45:12about, you know, diving into the research, but really it's about the filming and the editing and
00:45:18finding that story in the edit and making it interesting and unique and original in a way that
00:45:23only I can do. That's your unfair advantage. It's so hard to compete with that. Like I've tried. It's
00:45:27just so hard to do. But that's, I think that's exactly it. Right. And this is something that you've
00:45:30talked about a lot, right? It's like, what's your unfair advantage. And it's like, I think if people look at
00:45:35both of us, they could try to replicate it and maybe that that suits them, but maybe they have
00:45:40another skill set that like gives them their own unique advantage. Yeah. That's the thing. I think
00:45:44like when I look at life of results stuff, it sort of reminds me of like you, it's like, she's sort of
00:45:49doing the Matty Bella style cinematic way better, dude. She's way like her, her cinematography is like
00:45:55so much better. Like her and creators like her are just producing at such a high cinematic, um,
00:46:02level that I'm envious of that. Where I'm like, I'm also like, but that's, I don't think that's
00:46:07actually my advantage. I don't think I can do what she does. I would put your and her videos
00:46:12at a similar kind of level of cinematic, but maybe I'm just not. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's it. Like when
00:46:17you like get really good at coffee, like you can taste the notes a little bit differently, but, uh,
00:46:21no, no, no, I, I truly think that like cinematically she can, she can, I mean, like, I like this
00:46:26doesn't look bad. It's not Chris Williamson now. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. There's levels, but for you,
00:46:32it doesn't, you don't actually, it doesn't matter. Like that, that difference is just a big part of
00:46:36it is as well is like, which aspects of the craft do you find enjoyable? And then what are the, it's
00:46:42sort of like, where does the fun come in and then where does the finance come in? So in our case,
00:46:47basically the more time people see me yapping on camera, just off the cuff, giving educational tips
00:46:53about productivity or YouTube or business. If someone just listens to me for long enough,
00:46:58then hopefully they'll think I'm legit enough that they'll want to buy my course or whatever the thing
00:47:02might be. And this has been my strategy from day one. I'd be yapping about how to get into med school
00:47:06and some percentage of the audience would think I'm legit. And therefore they would rock up to a
00:47:10classroom course to watch me teach, teach them how to ace one of the exams. And so that's just always
00:47:15been the business model. It's been like, teach something on YouTube, sell a course on the back end.
00:47:21And recently, like a year ago, we started doing some software as well. In your case,
00:47:24I don't think that's the business model. I think partly also your master YouTube course isn't really
00:47:29about how to build a business. It's more about the art of the arts and craft of creating a YouTube video.
00:47:35And then recently, I think you refilmed it with like, there's the whole YouTube strategy thing.
00:47:38Yeah. And that strategy stuff was in there. Right. But now it's two separate courses,
00:47:42it's strategy and then creating great videos. And there's some overlap there. But yeah,
00:47:46like, I think you have to cover the basics. I kind of want to come at it from the perspective of
00:47:51teaching a beginner, somebody who's just getting started out everything they need to know about
00:47:54YouTube, like everything I wish I knew in the first five years of starting on YouTube.
00:47:58So in a way, like your unfair advantage is the cinematic nature of the thing.
00:48:02And I think there would be kind of like your bonus Diabella channel, even though
00:48:07even that was like quite cinematic and well done with like, there was like,
00:48:10you know, there was some kind of montage of you dragging like furniture up the stairs.
00:48:13And I was like, this is a vlog channel with like 10,000 subscribers, the amount of effort that went
00:48:16into setting up the cameras, the thing with the coffee and the coffee going everywhere. I'm just like,
00:48:20these are the things. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. These are the things though, where dude,
00:48:23it's just like the sometimes I, the perfectionism like goes a little bit too far and I put a little
00:48:28bit too much effort. I think it's hard to find the balance. But again, I think I've come to a place
00:48:33having gone the scale route that now I'm just going the joy route. And I'm like, I've been lucky enough
00:48:39to make enough money from YouTube that I can make a lot less now by focusing on the joy of creating.
00:48:44I imagine people listening to this might hear like what you said about kind of the business
00:48:50objectives of making videos and not to put this the wrong way, but maybe get a little bit of like
00:48:55ick from that of the fact that it's like, you're just making videos to serve a business purpose.
00:49:02But I don't get that sense from you. I get the sense that you're like sharing things that you
00:49:05learn and you love learning and you. So I guess like, is that it? Like, is it really like if you
00:49:10didn't have to make YouTube videos, would you just stop now if it didn't actually serve a business?
00:49:14Good question. I think about this a lot. So the way I think about this is like, let's say I won
00:49:19the lottery and had 100 million in the bank. Would I still do YouTube videos? I'm like, yeah, I actually
00:49:23still would make YouTube videos and I would make them broadly the same as I'm currently doing them.
00:49:27Like I have a camera set up in my room. I hit record and I just sort of speak from the heart about
00:49:30whatever I want. I'd like to think that in that world, I would care less about the views.
00:49:36But then I was chatting with a friend recently who actually did sell a company for $110 million
00:49:41and started a YouTube channel and he cares about the views. And I'm like, bro, why do you care about
00:49:46the views? And he was like, well, when you're doing something, you want to do it well, right? And like,
00:49:51you know, all of these billionaires and multimillionaires who are starting YouTube channels,
00:49:55like celebrities, they all care about the views, even though they don't need the money.
00:49:59And so I think for me, I'm not wedded at all to the craft of making a video. I just really like
00:50:05teaching. And so right now, YouTube, long form YouTube videos are the medium with which I can
00:50:10just like teach about stuff that I enjoy talking about. So I would still do it. And at the same time,
00:50:16there is this business objective behind it. And I still want to make more money for various reasons.
00:50:23And so there's something Mr. B said in one of his interviews where it's very easy to look on someone
00:50:29like that and be like, oh, the only reason he made Feastables is because he wants to make more money.
00:50:33And he's like, no, everyone has multiple reasons for doing something. So in my case,
00:50:37there's multiple reasons for doing YouTube. Partly it's the fun, partly it's the fulfillment,
00:50:41partly it's the finances, partly it's the flexibility. Like it's all multifactorial in like a weird,
00:50:47messy kind of way. Sometimes a video has more of a commercial intent behind it.
00:50:52The video, this video that we're doing that we're going to do on my channel has no commercial incentive
00:50:57behind it. But this is for the fun and the fulfillment of like getting to talk to you
00:51:00and doing a long form podcast. That's just for the vibes. The way I think about it is like some
00:51:06videos are for vibes and some are for views and then some are for revenue. But like vibes,
00:51:11views and venue, nah, it doesn't quite work. I want like the three Vs.
00:51:13Do you struggle with finding the meaning of it? Like, I think I did an experiment last year where
00:51:22I was like, let me repurpose 30 of my biggest videos, all the 30 day experiments into short form
00:51:28content. Brian helped me edit them, who's right here. And we put together all these videos,
00:51:34started publishing them every day. It's like, let's just do this experiment where every day for 30 days,
00:51:38we publish a new short video. They started to get views, some of them did well, some of them hit a
00:51:42million views. And like halfway through, I was like, what's the point? Like, why am I doing this?
00:51:47Like it's yeah, cool views. Yeah, more followers on Instagram. It didn't drive any like business,
00:51:52you know, revenue or anything like that. And I didn't enjoy it because it was just recycling old
00:51:57content. So I was just like, I think we stopped at like 20 videos. And I was like, I can't keep doing this.
00:52:01And I don't, there's no point to do it. Do you ever like, I guess, like, do you ever run into that
00:52:07wall where you're like, why am I doing this short form content? Why am I, you know, posting more
00:52:13videos? Or does everything feel like it has a natural purpose or end goal? We have veered into
00:52:19territory where stuff has stopped feeling like it has a point. And then I get that feeling like, oh,
00:52:23it just feels kind of pointless. And then, and then pull it back. One of the one of the examples is
00:52:28like a vlog channel. I was like, oh, I enjoy doing vlogs. Let's do vlogs. I started for a while,
00:52:32you know, we, we did a 30 day experiment of trying to daily vlog for 30 days. And after about three,
00:52:37I was sick of it. I was like, okay, I thought this would be fun, but also like at the time I was
00:52:43writing my book. So each day I'd be in the office with the team, just on a laptop, writing my books.
00:52:47Like there wasn't anything interesting going on each day. I'd be trying to scramble something
00:52:52interesting to say the theory behind doing a 30 day vlog, it seemed more romanticized in my head
00:52:56than actually doing it in real life. And because it didn't have a point, like there was no,
00:53:01there was no business need for me to do a 30 day vlog other than I enjoy it. But then if I'm
00:53:06optimizing for my enjoyment, I'd rather read Harry Potter fan fiction or like play the guitar or like
00:53:10play video games, then film a vlog. Like I don't enjoy filming vlogs that much that I would choose
00:53:14to do that over other things I could be doing. So then why am I doing it? Similarly with a podcast,
00:53:19like both you and I started a podcast and shut down a podcast. I realized after three years that I
00:53:24should shut it down. I think you realized after like three months, you should shut it down. So
00:53:26you saved a lot of time because I was like, what's the point? What's the point of doing this? Being
00:53:30on this interview hamster wheel with like people publishing books and then doing remote interviews
00:53:34with them and not feeling like I'm able to have the conversation I want to have because like, well,
00:53:37the audience doesn't care because I've got to talk about stuff that the audience wants to know,
00:53:41but then, and then they have their own that your podcast guest has their own incentives to promote
00:53:45their book. So I should really just tee them up. And then I was like, I felt like an actor just teeing up
00:53:49softball questions that they knew the answers to rather than having an interesting conversation.
00:53:53It's like, what's the point?
00:53:54I've had, I've had that too, where I'm like interviewing people, uh, and that like, I saw
00:53:59an interview that they did with somebody else and Joe Rogan. And I'm like, I invite them in on my
00:54:03podcast. This was back when I was doing the ground up show. And then I would be shocked that I would
00:54:07hear the same answers verbatim, like scripted answers. And I'm like, oh, this is just kind of like a game.
00:54:13This is just like, they're using media to like help sell their books and like, whatever. That's,
00:54:17that's, that's fine. You know, and, and it doesn't take away from the fact that this is like really
00:54:21valuable message and content that they put out. But I found it's like, again, it's comes down to like,
00:54:25why, why am I, why am I doing this? Why am I, here's a microphone. You can just say everything
00:54:29that you want to say. Like, I'd rather, yeah, have more like authentic conversations with people,
00:54:35connect with people one-to-one rather than just trying to produce more content for the sake of
00:54:39producing content. There's too much content now. There's so much content. There's enough content.
00:54:43I think that's why I've really pulled back where I'm like, let me just focus on like, I'll do one,
00:54:47maybe two videos per month, but I'm going to be really intentional about how each one is created
00:54:52just because I find, if I find myself overwhelmed by the amount of content that's out there, other
00:54:56people do as well. Yeah. And I think also there's something about the economic incentives behind this
00:55:01as well. Like I would be shocked if Steven Bartlett and Chris Williamson enjoy every single podcast
00:55:06interview they do, but their entire business is based around continuing to shine out the content.
00:55:11I don't enjoy every YouTube video I put up, but my entire business is based around churning out the
00:55:14content. And because in my case, I suspect the overheads are way higher than they are for you,
00:55:20for you. I am more on a hamster wheel of having to turn out content than you are. Whereas because
00:55:24your overheads are so low, you have the luxury of being able to put out videos when you feel like you
00:55:29have something to say. And so this is a place that I'd love to get to where I would love it if like,
00:55:34the goal that we're trying to go for is where the business revenue and profit is completely
00:55:38decorrelated from how many YouTube videos I make. Because then I can have my cake and eat it too.
00:55:43I get to have a business doing millions in revenue and profit and also make videos whenever I feel
00:55:48like it. Whereas right now we have a business doing millions in revenue and profit, but I still have
00:55:53to show up and film a YouTube video because there is still a content calendar. There are still sponsors
00:55:57with deadlines and the whole shebang. Would you ever want to take a serious step back and a break from
00:56:02YouTube to like kind of reset or do you feel like, do you feel like you're on a hamster wheel now?
00:56:07Like you have to keep going even if you wanted to take like two months off from posting on YouTube?
00:56:13Also, by the way, how much runway do you have? Oh, so right now we actually, we're like
00:56:20for the first time ever, we're like 10 videos and we've got like a backlog of 10 videos. Yeah.
00:56:2410 full like like long form videos. Do you know the last time I've had runway was 2019. 2019. I've been
00:56:34just struggling to breathe and stay above water since 2019. It's been a good system. So Becky, our
00:56:39YouTube producer, we knew that I'd be in Australia for most of March. And so we were sort of like
00:56:44planning for at least not filming any videos in March. And so initially we were like two videos a week,
00:56:47but then we dropped it down to one video a week so that we could build up more of a buffer. Every time
00:56:51we do a podcast, it's kind of nice because we get a video out of it, even though it doesn't feel like
00:56:53having to having to make a YouTube video because it's just a fun conversation. Like podcasts are
00:56:56actually my favorite type of videos to make super easy because it's so fun. It's so nice. So we,
00:57:02so we do have a backlog and buffer. I would love to be able to only film videos when I really feel like
00:57:08it. But then at the same time, I don't know, it's like if I only went to the gym when I felt like it,
00:57:14I mean, I would look like me. Whereas I imagine you go to the gym even when you don't feel like it,
00:57:18which is why you're jacked. I mean, yeah, like I, I, yeah, like, I mean, these days I don't have as
00:57:23much time to go to the gym as I once did. Um, but yeah, like there, there certainly are days where
00:57:27you just don't want to go and you just, you force yourself to do it or you do a 30 day experiment and
00:57:31then you, you force yourself to do it in another way. And sometimes I don't feel like brushing my
00:57:33teeth, but I brush my teeth anyway. And so it's, it's sort of like, I don't know if only doing stuff
00:57:37when I feel like it is really the North star. Cause some, cause a lot of the time I have to push
00:57:42myself to hit record or to start working on the video. And then I'm super glad I've done it once
00:57:46it's over and I start to enjoy it maybe like 10, 15 minutes into the process. Uh, so I just, but
00:57:52sometimes it's the space. Sometimes you just, the space allows you to kind of realize what you were
00:57:57doing. Also, sometimes the space, uh, have throws you into an existential crisis where you're like,
00:58:04what am I like? Why? Like, cause you, cause when you have that momentum going, when you're making
00:58:08video after video, after video, the next one becomes so much easier. When you take a step away for a
00:58:13few months, that next video back is huge and it's, it's a huge lift. Yeah. Yeah. I had a existential
00:58:19crisis for about six months last year where I was like, ah, it's a content hamster wheel. Do I really
00:58:24want to be doing this? And it was like, our YouTube course was like doing well, but it needed some
00:58:27reshooting cause like AI and do I really want to reshoot the YouTube course? And for ages, I was trying
00:58:32to figure out like, how do I get the fire back? Like the motivation that I had back in like 2019,
00:58:37when I was like, I was excited to work on, on content and on the business. And then I was saying
00:58:42to one of my mentors, his name's Ollie Richards. Oh, you should connect with him. He's great. I'll,
00:58:45I'll hook you guys up. Um, and I was chatting to Ollie, uh, and he, you know, I found myself saying
00:58:51to him, man, I just really want to build my own business school. And he was like, that, that sounds
00:58:56like the thing. Like, why don't you just build your own business school? And so that was where this new
00:59:00thing that we're building, like this lifestyle business academy kind of came about. And that's
00:59:03been the thing that's really lit the fire of motivation under me. And then like through
00:59:07having that fire, we also then came up with a better idea for like our software. So that feels really
00:59:10motivating. And now that we have these two things, this business school and the software now making
00:59:14content has started to feel more motivating as well, because it has a point. It's like driving traffic to
00:59:19this business school that we're trying to build is driving traffic to the software that we're trying
00:59:21to build. And so it sort of feels like each video is now a brick in like a wider structure that we're building,
00:59:28which feels really exciting. Whereas for like, the first half of 2025, it felt like each video was
00:59:35just like shouting into the void. Yep, it'll be out there, it gets some views, maybe it doesn't get
00:59:39that many views, whatevs next one on to the next one. And so I think the hamster wheel is not enjoyable,
00:59:44unless it is building stuff or something. Yeah, and you're being challenged in a new way. Like if you're
00:59:49just doing the same thing, you know, and you know, different style, then it's going to feel like it's a bit of a drag.
00:59:57Yeah, so in our case, Angus takes on a huge mental load and physical load of the team management,
01:00:03which seems to be if I think of like other creators in the space who have big teams that
01:00:09they all land on that model where the creator is just is almost like the talent on camera,
01:00:13who is being a diva and just sort of showing up and asking for yellow M&Ms or whatever. And then the
01:00:18team is doing their best to sort out as much of it as possible so that the creator doesn't have to
01:00:21think about it. I guess I have a hard time understanding how that even works. Because
01:00:27is Angus like, does he like understand your mind and what you want and like your create the creative
01:00:31decisions that you would make? Because I feel like that would be the hardest thing is like, how do you
01:00:38like, how do you fit into the mix? Like, are you? You're not just like a pretty face. I think you're
01:00:42also right behind the scenes, like calling the shots about how the business is run and what are the
01:00:48creative decisions that you want to make? Yeah. So I guess in our business, there's sort of the
01:00:52creative stuff, the content stuff. And then there is the business side. And as you know, in the business
01:00:57side, there's like HR, legal finance operations, there's the marketing for the courses, there's the
01:01:01operations for the courses, all that kind of stuff. So Angus can basically run that whole side of the
01:01:06business without me really having to do anything at all. Where I input is, obviously on the content
01:01:13side, and also in like the product and curriculum design for the products for the for the courses.
01:01:18So I'm the one designing the curriculum for our Lifestyle Business Academy, or, you know, that kind
01:01:22of thing. But Angus is the one who is managing the coaches who are helping deliver on it, and building
01:01:27the operations with Alexa now, who is our upscale and making sure that like, the students who have
01:01:32bought for the latest cohort will have an onboarding call booked and that the payments are all working.
01:01:37And you know, that whole side of it, which would otherwise take so much focus from me, because
01:01:42it's like multiple full time, full time jobs to make that happen. I can just focus on really thinking
01:01:46about, okay, how do we make the curriculum as good as it can be? How can I play around with code code to
01:01:51build AI tools for our students to use? I'm really just focused on the student experience as much as
01:01:56possible. And you know, this is why our content team is in person, because Angus manages our YouTube
01:02:00producer and our social media gal. But I work with them every day in person to sort of shape the
01:02:06direction of the of the content. So you know, Becky, our YouTube producer will come to me with like a
01:02:11bunch of ideas. It's almost like, we think of it as like a menu at a restaurant of options. Like, hey,
01:02:17these are all the these are these are some of the videos we can do. And I'll glance through the menu
01:02:21and be like, Oh, that one sounds good. Let's do that one. Or I'll think I don't like any of these. But
01:02:25you know what? I've actually just been reading. She comes first next to Matt's recommendation.
01:02:30For example, let's do a video about that one. Yeah. Yeah. Have you done a video? No, we haven't.
01:02:37Would that feel a little bit out of your comfort zone? It probably would. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:02:42I don't I think that's out of my comfort zone. Yeah. I'm so glad you did. I touched on it in a
01:02:45video. Oh, did you like the book? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, dude, sometimes there's just
01:02:51certain videos that I don't make because I'm like, my family is going to see this. You know,
01:02:55my mother in law is going to see this like this is I can't make a video. Yeah, that's why I wouldn't
01:02:59make that one personally. But I'm so glad you did. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You got honestly, I do what I can,
01:03:03you know. So it sort of works nicely because Angus then deals with all of the business side,
01:03:09while I can just focus on the content. Yeah. But okay, let me ask you this.
01:03:14If Angus goes, are you just like, yeah, I don't want to say this, like, you're fucked,
01:03:18right? Totally screwed if Angus leaves. Yeah, right. Yeah, I did think of that where I'm like,
01:03:23well, if I find my Angus, that's amazing. But then I also like all my freedom is tied up in this one
01:03:27person if they decide to like, leave or go on, which like, I mean, we've seen the videos, a lot of
01:03:33people have left your left your business. And like, because you know, people want new challenges,
01:03:38and they want to start their own YouTube channels and stuff. Yeah, like, does that
01:03:43concern you at all? Or do you think like, you'd be able to figure out a way forward from it?
01:03:49So Angus is now an official partner in the business where he gets a slice of the profits and stuff. So
01:03:55I'm hoping that that plus the fact that we're growing is enough of a incentive to keep Angus
01:04:05happy and keep Angus on board. Because it would be a total fucking nightmare if Angus left. The main thing I'm
01:04:12worried about is because Angus never really takes a break. And so he's at serious risk of burnout and
01:04:16has been for the last like six years. And so when we do, you know, one of our coaches, Eric, he and I,
01:04:22we do like three ways with Angus and Eric each month. We call it a monthly same page meeting where
01:04:27Angus and I sort of rate the strength of our relationship out of 10. We talk about what's
01:04:31driving it and like what could be improved. And what I find myself often saying is that man,
01:04:36Angus, I wish he would take more of a break because I'm, I'm more worried that Angus will burn himself
01:04:41out compared to Angus will leave. Whenever anyone, any anyone in the team leaves, Angus sort of takes
01:04:47up the load. Whenever anything goes wrong, Angus takes up the load, which still which allows me to
01:04:52focus on just pumping out the content and making sure our curriculums are good, which is an amazing
01:04:55boon. And so a lot of creators that we've spoken to are like, man, I really want to find my own Angus.
01:04:59Honestly, honestly, like seeing, seeing what you've been able to do. It's like,
01:05:04fuck man. Like I, I, I really wish that like it had worked out as well with me. I don't know
01:05:11if it was ever destined to work out well for me with scaling a team. I feel like I just like the editing
01:05:16and the production too much to like, give that up.
01:05:24It's just like scary to like go back towards hiring again.
01:05:26I know what you mean. Because like I did it. I hired all these people. I thought it was going to work
01:05:31out. And now I like seriously have like a lot of self doubt around my perception of like what's
01:05:38possible and if I'm actually going to be able to make this work. So I'm like, if I hire somebody,
01:05:42if I like bring on full-time employees again, am I just going to make the same mistakes that I made
01:05:46last time and find myself hating the work that I do? You know, I worry about this all the time as well.
01:05:51And I would say two things. Number one, you probably won't make the same mistakes because you have now
01:05:55learn from them. And so it's like, I think like the first time we hired a bunch of people and had to
01:06:01let various people go, you know, it's really scary. It really sucks. Like, you know, I was in tears
01:06:06about it for like days and stuff. But then you kind of sort of, you learn the lesson in your body not
01:06:13to overhire because we made a major mistake of like overhiring in anticipation of revenue, but
01:06:19in anticipation of revenue growing. And then once you learn that lesson and you read business books
01:06:26and listen to podcasts and stuff, and people say that like hire slow, fire fast, and like only hire
01:06:31when it starts to hurt. You're like, oh, that's what they mean. Like only hire when it starts to hurt.
01:06:36Okay. Yeah, I understand what that means now. Whereas before I was like, yeah, I mean, yeah,
01:06:42it's just a theoretical lesson that you learn. And you're learning like, holy shit. I think the other
01:06:45big thing that you now have is you now have a business coach, someone who's been through the
01:06:50process before who has hired a team and knows how to manage people and has worked with other creators
01:06:54who have different kind of. And so I think a big part of why we've been able to make it work is because
01:07:00since like 2020, since actually 2019, I've had some kind of business coach or another, sometimes two,
01:07:06sometimes three, all kind of all at once and meeting with them every week or every other week
01:07:11and just bringing them the latest challenges. A lot of them offer like WhatsApp support in between.
01:07:15So you shoot them a voice note being like, Hey, I've just been up at night really thinking about
01:07:19this situation where like, you know, we're hiring all these coaches for a lifestyle business academy,
01:07:22but like, what if we don't get the sales for the next cohort? Like, and I know this is like,
01:07:27sort of like overthinking and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, you know, I just love to get
01:07:30your thoughts on it. And then hearing someone just like reply with a noise note being like,
01:07:33Hey, thanks for reaching out. This is totally normal. Don't worry about it. Here is, you know,
01:07:39in the next session, we're going to talk about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In the meantime,
01:07:41I want you to think about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just almost having an adult in the room
01:07:45that you can talk to who has been through the process and gets it is insanely valuable.
01:07:52The one person who's been my business coach for the past couple of years has been my wife.
01:07:57And I I'd hate to say it, but she's severely unqualified for the job. Like she doesn't have
01:08:01any experience in it. Um, and I think it was putting her in a really hard position where I'm
01:08:06like asking her about these like really nuanced things that I'm dealing with and struggles and
01:08:10challenges. And it's mostly just like a sounding board, but I found that I was outsourcing a lot of
01:08:18the decisions to people around me where I'm because I had grown this business. I like,
01:08:26you know, I did it on my own intuition and my own vision, but then you get to a place where then
01:08:30I think maybe doubt starts to creep in and the pressure of creating for a video, like this video
01:08:35might get a million views or 500,000 views. Like there's an audience waiting for you there. So this,
01:08:39this pressure is huge. And so then I start asking other people around me, like, what do you think about
01:08:43this? Like, what do you, do you think I should make a business like this? Do you think I should,
01:08:46you know, what do you think about this title for a video? And I just found myself desperately asking
01:08:52other people for permission. And I'm like, this is just, what am I doing? Like I, and I, I felt like,
01:08:59I found it annoying for myself. I'm like, why am I asking and relying on everybody else to give me
01:09:03permission to make whatever I want to make? This is the most recent kind of chapter of my life as a
01:09:08creator now where I'm like, forget about everybody else's opinion. Let me just make mistakes again.
01:09:14Let me just like put out videos that are terrible or like experiment with different styles of
01:09:19cinematography that I haven't experimented with before different formats of content.
01:09:24You know, doing the bonus channel was just such a stripped back thing that I didn't ask anybody
01:09:28about. I was, I was coming off of eight months of not making a single YouTube video. And I was like,
01:09:33I need to find the joy in it again. Let's start with just picking up a camera, pointing it at myself
01:09:38and just kind of vlogging like my behind the scenes creator business and what I was working on.
01:09:43And that allowed me to start to find the joy in creating again, for sure.
01:09:48Yeah. Those videos gave me a lot of permission to be experimental as well. I was just like super
01:09:51inspired. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. We were talking about this where it's like,
01:09:54this is the push pull. It's like, that was fun. I really enjoyed it. But then it's like,
01:10:00let's not make any money. And it's actually distracting me from making money in another way.
01:10:05And I think sometimes you just need to experiment in small ways. I mean, doing the podcast again was
01:10:11another little experiment. And then I realized, okay, like it's, I found joy in it. And it was fun to
01:10:17connect with a few people and do like a limited 10 episode podcast series. But then I found that
01:10:23the long term vision of that creating podcasts every week for an entire year for the next five years,
01:10:28I'm like, I don't think I would like that. I'm glad I experimented with it. But I'm also glad I quit
01:10:33fast.
01:10:36Yeah, I totally relate with this thing around ceding control to other people. For me, it was there was
01:10:42a period of like two plus years where I was looking to everyone around me for like guidance as to what
01:10:48we should do. I think partly it was like self doubt around like, what the hell do I know? I've just I
01:10:51feel like I've sort of lucked into this fucking thing. And partly it was also like, I don't want to be a
01:10:56micromanager. And so I've heard that like people want autonomy. And so of course, I should let them
01:11:01figure out what to do on the thing. And it took loads of feedback from my team, because we would do
01:11:06like feedback sessions every like six weeks or so, whatever for me to realize, wait a minute, like,
01:11:11they actually want me to set the vision and to set the direction and give them some level of
01:11:16constraints within which they can then have the autonomy to operate, rather than being like, hey, let's just
01:11:21go for it. Because I thought that if I were working for someone, I thought I would like that level of
01:11:26autonomy. But also, that's why I guess I became an entrepreneur. And people who work within a
01:11:33business actually like I've learned over time, prefer to be given a clear direction that doesn't change its
01:11:39mind every now and every five seconds. And then they can operate within that. And so for example, for years,
01:11:44I was anti targets and anti goals, because I was like, Oh, but like, you know, especially with content
01:11:48goals, like views are outside of our control. I certainly don't want to aim for a million views,
01:11:52because like, what the hell I mean, you know, that that would, that's paralyzing rather than inspiring.
01:11:56And then one of our other coaches, Eric, he was like, it's sort of like playing darts. But like,
01:12:01right now you're playing darts blindfolded, you can't even see the target. What I'm saying is just
01:12:05take the fucking blindfold off, and just set a target. And even if you don't hit it, you will at
01:12:09least guarantee be closer to the target than if you don't have a target at all. And so then that kind of made
01:12:13me realize that actually goals, goals, and, you know, KPIs and OKRs and all these things that
01:12:18corporations do, okay, there's a reason as to why they do them. It's just really helpful.
01:12:22That's a good point. I'm curious how you look at goals now, because I think,
01:12:27I think the common advice for creators early on and something that I would recommend is focus on the
01:12:32reps, not the rewards. Oh, that's a nice phrase. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, you focus on making your
01:12:39first 100 videos, you don't focus on making getting your first 100,000 subscribers.
01:12:43But I think that still carries through even if you've been creating for a while, or if you're
01:12:47you're trying to begin again, like I've been trying to do where I feel like I'm, you know,
01:12:51especially once I took my break from YouTube, I felt like I was starting over. And so
01:12:56these targets that are external that are about validation or about, you know, even revenue,
01:13:04they make a difference. They're important. I mean, if you if you were making videos for
01:13:09one year straight, two years straight, and you didn't see any difference in subscribers or views
01:13:14or anything like that, like you should take that signal and take that feedback. But I think just
01:13:19working towards let's get 100,000 subscribers, I think it's hollow. And it also is going to make
01:13:25people probably give up sooner than they would if they focused on let me make 100.
01:13:30Yeah, totally. The way I think about this is that when when it comes to the achievement of any kind
01:13:35of goal or vision, it's sort of like three things. There's the inputs, the outputs, and then the
01:13:39outcomes. I kind of need a sexier way of describing it. But like inputs would be, I'm just going to spend
01:13:44four hours a week on my YouTube channel. Outputs is I'm going to publish one video a week. Outcomes is
01:13:49I'm going to get 100,000 subscribers. And I agree when someone is starting out, for most people,
01:13:54just focusing on the inputs, I'm just going to put in the time. Once you've graduated from, you're like,
01:13:59okay, I can reliably put in the time, then focusing on the outputs, I'm just going to make the content.
01:14:03My goal was one video a week for the first like, five years of my channel. I know I never had goals
01:14:07for that, that kind of thing. But then at a certain point, sort of just doing the reps
01:14:14stops being the thing that gets you to where you want to go. And so at that point, you then start
01:14:19thinking, okay, I don't just want to make the videos. I also want the videos to, you know, I want to be
01:14:26making 100,000 in profit a year. Okay, cool. To reverse engineer 100,000 in profit, the videos need
01:14:31to get X many views, which would lead to X many sales of our course, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
01:14:35Okay, I now have a target to shoot for, in terms of like, monthly views, shall we say,
01:14:40or monthly website traffic, or whatever the thing is, based on what I want, based on the goal that I
01:14:45have. And at that point, that starts then being useful when, because it's really hard to grow a
01:14:51business without setting those kind of goals, especially when you start hiring a team and stuff.
01:14:54So in our case, we aim for like, 50 to 60% margins. And so in our case, we do like 2.7 million
01:15:00in costs. And so we have to, the goal is like, at least 5 million in revenue.
01:15:04And so knowing that that's the goal is like, all right, of that, a million will come from sponsors,
01:15:09fairly reliably. Okay, cool. That means we kind of need to do somewhere between 50 and 80 videos a
01:15:14year. Okay, sweet. Of that, the other 4 million-ish will come from our courses, which means we reverse
01:15:18engineer like, okay, number of sales needed, this sort of stuff. And that actually creates targets for
01:15:23everyone in the business. Be like sort of on YouTube, we have a sense of what we're aiming for. On
01:15:28Instagram, we have a sense of what we're aiming for. In terms of like our website hits and course
01:15:31marketing, we have a sense of what to aim for. And it's like all of these lessons now feel so much
01:15:36more 3D to me because, you know, in business books, they say, start with your North Star and start with
01:15:40your mission and your big, hairy, audacious goals and values and your vision and all that stuff.
01:15:44And I used to roll my eyes at that bullshit. And now I'm like, holy fuck. It's so true that you need
01:15:50to have a clear sense of where you're going. This is what they call about vision.
01:15:54It's hard to know what that is until you start making like, do you find that you're like constantly
01:15:58iterating on these big picture goals? Oh, I was at the start and now it's been
01:16:03fairly static for the last few years, but certainly when 2020 to 2023, 2024, I was flip-flopping so much
01:16:11between like whether I cared about revenue, whether I cared about profit, whether I was like, I want to
01:16:15have no goals. I want to be like Jason Fried and base camp guys like no goals goals, you know, that kind
01:16:19of vibe. I was flip-flopping so much. And that was creating what they call in the business books,
01:16:23organizational whiplash, where I'm changing my mind, but like, because the business is sort of behind
01:16:28me, it's sort of like everyone in the team is destabilized and feels like, ah, you know, we've
01:16:32been working on this thing. And like, we saw Matt DiVella doing this like slow growth thing. So we're
01:16:35going to make our own version called creatorpreneur. And we work on that for a year. And then we scrap it
01:16:39because I don't want it anymore. And like, then people's work goes down the drain and then they feel
01:16:42demotivated and they want to leave. And then the whole thing starts to be a total fucking shit show.
01:16:46I think what's amazing that from just this, this conversation, because like, you know,
01:16:50we've, we've spoken a bit off and on throughout the years. But I don't think like, I certainly
01:16:55haven't realized and I don't know if you've realized how much of an influence we've had on each other.
01:17:00We like literally like I see the stuff you're doing. And I'm like, I gotta hire employees. I gotta
01:17:05scale a team. I need an Angus. But I think that's what's good. It's like, it's good to get inspiration
01:17:13from other people. But like, while we've had similar trajectories with what we do, it's like the way
01:17:19that we go about each of our business is very different. And I think it is comes down to like
01:17:24our interests and our skills. And like, we needed to find a match for ourselves. And it's okay to experiment
01:17:30and like kind of take inspiration from each other. But at the end of the day, I feel like you just have
01:17:37to focus. I mean, this is one thing that I learned from you, right, which is focusing on what is
01:17:42something that only you can do. And when I thought about like, what is something that only I can provide
01:17:47that no other creator or YouTuber can provide, I was like, it's like documentary style, explorative
01:17:54videos where I'm learning about something and I'm discovering something for the first time, or
01:17:59I'm pushing and challenging myself to do something. And I'm just documenting that journey with like a
01:18:03touch of like lo-fi camera stuff, where it's just like grabbing a camera and going and then also
01:18:09some like high quality cinematography mixed in and interviews and all that stuff.
01:18:13The dry humor or the drugs.
01:18:14Yeah, that kind of stuff. I'm like, that's like me. Like, sometimes I'm like, I sometimes I find
01:18:19myself like trying to be Ali Abdaal, where I'm like, all right, right, I'm gonna block off three days,
01:18:25I'm gonna shoot a bunch of YouTube shorts. And I'm gonna just like, just like content,
01:18:30like I'm just gonna smash a bunch of content. And then I go about doing that. And then three days
01:18:34later, I have all this content, it's okay. It's not, it's not your level. But I'm like, I'm just,
01:18:40what's the point? I just look at it. And then I go, I didn't enjoy making that stuff.
01:18:44The content is kind of watered down and just blah. I would have been so much better off just focusing on
01:18:50what I enjoy making and what makes me unique. Same for me. I'm like, man, I should be more like
01:18:55Matt D'Avella. And so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do a 30 day experiment. I have all these notes
01:18:58around like, you know, I tried playing video games for 30 days. I'm like, oh, that would be a good
01:19:02anti productivity type video to do. And then I watched some of your stuff. And I started doing
01:19:07videos sitting on the floor because I saw you doing some videos on the floor. I was like, that's a great
01:19:10vibe. It is a great vibe. It's a vibe. Yeah. It feels very casual. Cozy. Yeah. And then I try doing
01:19:18videos with like high production value. And I'm like, holy shit, a whole day of filming for that.
01:19:22Oh my God. And I'm like, the edit. And then it's harder for the editors to edit. So I'm like, oh God,
01:19:27now I've got to get involved in the edit and give all this feedback on Frame.io. And I'm like, you know
01:19:30what? You did a guest workshop for our YouTuber Academy back in like 2021. And we were talking about your
01:19:34script writing process. And I was amazed. I was like, you word for word, all your scripts, what the
01:19:39fuck? And you were like, yeah. And I was like, why? And you said at the time in this like random Zoom
01:19:44workshop that we did like five years ago, you were like, you said that like, you don't have that
01:19:48superpower of just being able to riff on camera. Yeah. And that was the first time I'd ever heard
01:19:53that what I do is like unusual. I was like, oh shit. Matthew, even Matthew Vela, this guy who's like,
01:19:59you know, he's the king. Matthew Vela can't riff on camera. Maybe that's my thing. Maybe that's why I
01:20:03find riffing on camera so easy compared to like, I'm like, holy shit. So that kind of gave me a
01:20:08spotlight. Maybe I should just lean into that. I'm actually like, I'm an idiot. Like I dude,
01:20:13I have tried to do what you do. And like, I have early footage that I like have used and shared
01:20:18throughout the years of me trying to riff and you know, just I'll set up a camera. I've got a couple
01:20:25bullet points. And I even lately, I've like tried to do that a couple of times. And I'm like,
01:20:31this is not working. This is I am so bad at this. Like there's a part of me that wishes that I could just sit
01:20:36down and kind of riff. And like, to be fair, like what I try to do with my videos is like plan for
01:20:43the spontaneity. And so like, there are elements of my scripts that are word for word. There are parts
01:20:51that are a little bit more riffed and I kind of plan those sections out. The more vloggy stuff,
01:20:58say if I'm doing, I ran a mile every day for 30 days, I, the vlog stuff where I'm like reacting in
01:21:04the moment or I'm sharing, that's obviously not scripted, but everything that ties the video
01:21:08together has to be written. And that just takes a really long time. And so my writing process is like,
01:21:13it usually will take me two to three days to write a full video. But then when I go to start editing it,
01:21:20I'm also writing even more and I'm expanding on it. That's why I think I found it so hard to outsource
01:21:24editing. It's because my voice comes through the writing, but also through in the edit.
01:21:28And that's where I'm like, how do I not lose my voice in the edit if I'm outsourcing that part of it?
01:21:35Yeah, that's a really good point. Do you know James Jani? He's done like, he grew to like 2 million
01:21:41subscribers off the back of like 10 videos because they were all like insanely detailed documentary
01:21:47style, kind of like the, he did one on like the dark side of fake gurus. He did one on like,
01:21:52Was it your thumbnail? Thankfully I wasn't because we were friends at the time, so he didn't use me,
01:21:56he didn't use my face. But it would take him like six months to put out a video. And in that context,
01:22:02it's so hard to outsource the editing of it because the voice is so intrinsically tied up in it. I'm
01:22:07super inspired by how Johnny Harris does it because holy shit, the amount of effort that goes into the
01:22:12writing, the editing, the script, everything, and they're pumping out quantity. But then you find
01:22:17that it's his wife is behind the scenes and they've done this shit for like 30 years collectively and
01:22:21they have this whole team and I'm like, wow, that is phenomenal. It's really impressive. You know,
01:22:25one thing that I did a few years ago was, because I think I've always had like a little bit of an
01:22:30insecurity around how much I put out, like not sexually, but like in terms of like, in terms of
01:22:36like videos, in terms of like how many, oh yeah, I know you love some hot humor. I love it. So
01:22:44so in terms of the like the amount of videos that I put out, I mean, I think for me, for whatever
01:22:51reason, in my head, I'm like, I like my goal, my North Star is like, I need to make a video a week,
01:22:56because that's kind of how I started out. And I only probably ever did it for like three months.
01:23:01And then I just could not keep up at that pace with the quality level that I was trying to produce
01:23:06that. And so then I was like, I wonder how many videos other creators make, because my just expectation
01:23:12was everybody was producing at least one video a week. And then I went and I just calculated the
01:23:17amount of videos my favorite creators made, people that I follow made. And I saw such a wide spectrum,
01:23:22that gave me like a sense of like, oh, maybe this isn't a problem that I need to solve. Maybe I'm
01:23:29making the perfect amount of videos for me. But like from the low end, it's like Mark Rober,
01:23:34Mr. Beast. At the time when I when I did the calculation, they were making like 12 videos
01:23:38per year, maybe 15 videos per year. And then on the upper end, it was you, Peter McKinnon, Marques
01:23:46Brownlee, where you guys are making around 80 videos per year. And then there was a bunch of people in the
01:23:51middle that were making like 20 to 30 videos. And that's where I found myself. And so I think
01:23:57just seeing that there was so many different people making different amounts of content,
01:24:01different quality, different styles, just let me realize, oh, okay, I can actually produce less
01:24:08and still grow and make meaningful videos on YouTube.
01:24:14I'm curious, to what extent do you feel excited to make YouTube videos? These days?
01:24:21I was I was heavily influenced by I think it was a Colin and Samir interview that you did where you
01:24:25said, what if I'm just making videos for the joy of it? What if I was just making videos for fun? And
01:24:31I was like, yeah, yeah, why? Like, why am I? I really got into a place where I was like, I got to make a
01:24:36video like I have to fill the feed. I have to generate revenue to pay my employees. And that was just not
01:24:42a fun place for me to create from. And so once I was able to like scale back and become a solo creator
01:24:49again for the first time in like eight years, I was like, what if every video I made, I just love to
01:24:54make and I was just it was just a joy to explore. And so where I've come to with it is if I'm going to
01:25:02make a video, I need to either learn something new or push myself in some way. And so learning something
01:25:08new might be from like the documentary type videos where I'm like, you know, how the one percent stole
01:25:13minimalism or why the water bottle trend is insane. Like diving into those kind of ideas. There's like I
01:25:21have a hunch about what the video is going to be about and where I'm going to go with it. But I find
01:25:26myself just allowing myself to explore and learn in the process. I think this is something that you've done
01:25:31really well, where you just like consume so much content, and you're able to like, distill it and kind of
01:25:40share it in a way that's really succinct. For the longest time, I was always concerned about
01:25:46accidentally stealing other people's content and ideas, that I would just completely ignore what
01:25:50everybody else was doing. And so for instance, with the water bottle video, where I was like, you know,
01:25:55water bottles become these like trendy status symbols. And I was like, oh, I really want to explore it.
01:25:59Levi Hildebrandt had done three or four videos on the topic. And so part of me was like, my instinct was
01:26:05don't watch those videos. If I watch those videos, I'm going to accidentally steal one of his ideas.
01:26:10And the shift that I've had recently is not to steal his ideas, but to watch his videos and get
01:26:16inspiration from it, and then pull out bits that I thought were really interesting, and then say, oh,
01:26:20I learned this from Levi. And so that's been a shift for me is like, okay, I need to learn something
01:26:26from every video that I'm making. If I'm just kind of rehashing something that I've already learned, or I
01:26:32already know about, I think I'm going to get bored with the video itself. And then the other side of
01:26:36it is like, can I push and challenge myself to do something different? And so then I've brought the
01:26:4030 day experiments back. I have resisted doing 30 day experiments for a long time. I've done a couple
01:26:45experiments. I did power lifting for 100 days, and I learned how to be a world class barista. And that's
01:26:50just because those were things that I really wanted to do. I wanted to push myself, I wanted to learn about
01:26:54these things. So like, great, cool, I'll do a video on it. And they weren't, I wasn't thinking these
01:26:59videos are going to do really well. I was like, I just wanted to do them. And so now this year, I'm
01:27:04bringing the 30 day experiments back. And I'm doing a different form of cardio every day for 30 days,
01:27:11every month. And so starting out just doing zone two training for 30 days, and then doing running a mile
01:27:17a day, and then I'm going to get into biking and swimming and jump rope and rucksacking and all that
01:27:22stuff. And so I'm really excited about it. I'm not doing this because I think these videos are going
01:27:27to be bangers. I don't I think it's like contrary to a lot of content now and how extreme a lot of
01:27:31content is. It's like, if you want to do a video about running, you have to go from being a beginner
01:27:36to running a marathon in 30 days, or else it's just not an interesting video. But I'm like, I just don't
01:27:41care. I have enough now I have enough subscribers, like if the video gets 100,000 views, I'm sure it's
01:27:46gonna get more than that. But even if it gets 100,000, I'm like, that's fantastic. That's great.
01:27:49That's enough. I mean, maybe brands will start paying me less money for my videos. But it's
01:27:55going to be good for me, I'm going to be doing something healthy for myself. I get to document
01:27:59it, I get to enjoy that process of making a video. And for me, it's like, that's the thing for years
01:28:05that I had been ignoring or hadn't been able to like, accomplish, because I had built this
01:28:13infrastructure that was unsustainable and unenjoyable.
01:28:18Mate, that's so inspiring. I love it. Like, man, that's such a good way to approach videos.
01:28:23Dude, it's literally your advice.
01:28:24I know.
01:28:24I actually wondered, like, when you said that in that interview, I think it was Colin and Samir,
01:28:30like, did you like, how do you approach that then? I feel like if it's just your idea, just do it.
01:28:36Like, is there, I mean, is it like, how much are you being held back? Do you think by the team
01:28:44where you might be able to be a little bit more experimental if you didn't have to make X amount
01:28:53of videos, get X amount of views to sell X amount of courses?
01:28:55I don't know. This is something that is definitely worth thinking about because
01:29:01it's not really a relationship where it's X amount of videos, X amount of views, X amount of courses.
01:29:05Like, it's not quite that linear. It's more like a generalized sense of like,
01:29:10YouTube channel doing well, more videos generally translates somewhat generally into more stuff.
01:29:20It's sort of like there's two parts of me. There's the creative within me that wants to go with that
01:29:27approach of like, oh, this sounds really fun. I feel like this thing is exciting. It'll be a fun
01:29:33thing to explore. Let's go for it. But then there's the kind of, I guess, the entrepreneur within me
01:29:41that's like, okay, but, you know, our goal is 10 million revenue for the business because for various
01:29:47reasons. And so really like, you know, we've got this like one day block per week to like really
01:29:51focus on the YouTube channel. And this video is going to take X amount of time compared to that
01:29:55video. And we could just do that video instead, which is going to be a lower lift. So why are we
01:29:58screwing around trying to kind of do creative stuff when actually right now the bottleneck in the
01:30:07business and the priority is like a lifestyle business academy rather than the YouTube channel.
01:30:10And so there's always this sort of like, as you say, walking the tight rope between the creator and
01:30:16the commercial aspect.
01:30:18What I guess like, because you said that making the style of the experiment videos or any like
01:30:24the kind of style videos that I do, you didn't enjoy making them. So it doesn't make any sense to
01:30:28even focus on that. But I'm curious what, if you were just making videos just because you enjoy doing
01:30:33them, what would those videos look like?
01:30:35Hmm. Okay, here's the problem. The problem is, I don't intrinsically enjoy the making of a video,
01:30:42but I do enjoy the teaching and sharing of stuff. So the way that I think about it is
01:30:50it's like, I'm a tenured professor at a university, and I'm teaching a course called
01:30:55How to Build a Life You Love. And the university pays me a fuck ton of money every year. And all I
01:31:00have to do is teach two classes a week. I just rock up for an hour, twice a week, and I just teach a
01:31:05class on whatever I want. And as long as it's tangentially related to the goal of how to build a
01:31:08life you love, it's legit. And in my lecture theater, I've got like at least 100 people there
01:31:13who actually want to be there and who will stay for the for the full class. And they're just and
01:31:17they really want to hear my opinion on this thing. And so this is the sort of psychology with which I
01:31:22try and approach the content to be like, okay, what's today's lecture going to be on? You know,
01:31:27I have recently been reading a bunch of Harry Potter fan fiction. Could I weave that somehow into how to
01:31:32build a life you love? Oh, it's a stretch. It's a stretch. All right. What else is going through my
01:31:37mind? What's on this menu of video ideas that Becky's come up with? Like, ooh, something about
01:31:41success systems. You know, that's kind of interesting. I wonder if we could explore that. Let's draw it out
01:31:45on the page and figure out like what some angles are. All right, cool. Let's go for it. And so it's
01:31:49sort of like, I'm still enjoying that the creation of that video, but I'm not doing it just for fun.
01:31:54Because if I was doing something just for fun, I'd be reading another Harry Potter fan fiction.
01:31:58And so it's sort of like within the constraint of the current way I think about it is within the
01:32:04constraint of I know I want to teach these two classes each week. And I know the theme is building
01:32:08a life you love. How do I maximally enjoy the process within that like container? Maybe that's
01:32:13like a myth of being on YouTube is that you have to love making videos, or you have to love every part
01:32:19of the process of making a video. Because it's like for me that that that that is true. Because I'm a
01:32:25filmmaker and creator and you've edited a video since 2019. So it's like you don't have to love
01:32:32the part of creating an in person workshop way more than making a video. Really?
01:32:36Yeah, I love it. I would hate that. I love like live zoom stuff when there's
01:32:40people on the other end. Really? I hate speaking to a camera and in an object where I'm like,
01:32:45retention. Yeah, no, that's I think that's a really good point, though. Is that like, yeah, just
01:32:54you don't have to love making videos? If it does, I think like it. So does does making videos kind of
01:33:01fall into like the 10% of things that you kind of have to do?
01:33:05I guess like I always felt weird. Listen, I've actually never loved being on camera.
01:33:10Like being on camera is just very uncomfortable for me. I find it's the least enjoyable thing.
01:33:15But I've always felt weird saying that. Because then I'm like, are people watching my videos being
01:33:18like, oh, my God, Matt's just like in misery right now making this video. But it's like doing that part,
01:33:23being on camera, putting myself on camera, filming this B roll, a roll, whatever I need to do,
01:33:28allows me to get to do the parts that I really like to do, which is like the storytelling,
01:33:32the editing, the puzzle piece fitting of each part of the story.
01:33:38I think for me, the thing I really like is being in a classroom and teaching standing up at the front
01:33:41with a whiteboard. And so my YouTube videos are trying to mirror that as much as possible,
01:33:46to the point that I now film standing up, like I don't even have a sit down setup, because I'm like,
01:33:49I just find it more energizing to just be and we've got the overhead with like the markers and I can
01:33:53kind of draw stuff. Have you tried to do like the more hormosy thing where it's like you actually have
01:33:58people in a class? Or is that like too high effort?
01:34:00That's too high effort, especially being in Hong Kong, where it's like, we want to do some videos
01:34:04where it's sort of like, again, kind of like hormosy, like where someone comes in with a particular
01:34:09problem. And so we've experimented with that. But again, that just takes hours and hours and hours
01:34:12to set up everything. So at some point, we might play around with that. I'd love to have our own
01:34:19like physical event space in Hong Kong, where we can do like, you know, once or twice a month,
01:34:28I host a workshop for entrepreneurs or creators or something. And then we filmed that. We did that a
01:34:32couple of times. And some of the videos did really well, where we hired like a freelance videographer
01:34:36to film it properly in S log or D log, whatever the hell he was using. And it looked really good.
01:34:42And so I was like, this is really fun, especially because I can then take questions from the audience,
01:34:48construct the talk on the fly based on those, riff it, which feels exciting and energizing because I
01:34:52don't know what it's going to be going into it. It feels really fun. So I think that's the bit that I
01:34:57really enjoy. And YouTube is trying to capture as much of that joy through the creation of a video.
01:35:07It sounds like for you, you wouldn't enjoy that, but you do enjoy like the craft of filmmaking.
01:35:11A hundred percent. I could never do what you do.
01:35:13And the aspects of YouTube that you kind of have to do are like the talking on camera and
01:35:17thinking about the packaging, which you don't particularly enjoy.
01:35:19Yeah. You know, it's funny because you said we were talking before you said that you would love
01:35:25to live in a world where titles and thumbnails weren't necessary to like make videos. And I'm
01:35:29like, I actually don't know if I agree. And the only reason being is that I understand how it works.
01:35:36Like I understand the game and the system and kind of how to craft a title thumbnail. It's like very
01:35:40frustrating. And you walk that tightrope of, you know, fucking surprise. I'm gonna do a surprise face.
01:35:44You know what I mean? It's like some of the shit you're like, I can't believe I'm an adult and I'm
01:35:49doing a surprise face to a camera. But, um, so you walk that tightrope of like making something
01:35:54that's gonna get people's attention and get them to click on it while also being true to yourself
01:35:59and the kind of stuff you want to make. Um, I just think that like having done it so long, I've gotten
01:36:04pretty good at it. And so if you took that away from me, I'm like, I can still make good videos,
01:36:09but I don't know if I get, how would somebody else, how would somebody know how to, a reason to click
01:36:13on this video? I think that's part of the craft too. Um, yeah.
01:36:21Finally thing I want to talk to you about is that at one point you did this slow growth academy thing
01:36:26where you had like amazing branding, you had a website, you were sort of your simple habits
01:36:30course was sort of within that. Your YouTube course was sort of tendentially within that. And
01:36:34it seemed like you were going down this route of building a, shall we say organization that didn't
01:36:38rely on your face and your brand, but your face and brand were supporting it, but not like intrinsic to it.
01:36:44Um, and that seemed to be like the direction that a lot of creators were going. We were trying to go
01:36:50that direction as well. And then you kind of pulled it back. What was the, yeah, what was the rationale
01:36:55behind wanting to do it? And then behind pulling it back?
01:36:57I think you, you hit it right on the head. It's like, I wanted to build a business that didn't rely on me
01:37:02as a creator. Everybody was relying on me in the company to produce content for them to be able to
01:37:09edit, to, you know, turn into a newsletter or a blog or whatever it was. And so creating slow growth,
01:37:16this media company kind of like a buzzfeed, um, was my way of being like, all right, I can step away.
01:37:23I can create this media business. I know how media works. I'm like really good at making videos. I can
01:37:27create this company, um, that, that produces social content, blogs, podcasts that helps people grow on
01:37:32their self-development journey, but also is like kind of counter cultural to the typical growth hacks that
01:37:39were very popular at the time. And so slow growth was that, that push to try to hire these employees
01:37:46to, to produce this company. It just didn't, it worked in some ways. Like we got a hundred thousand
01:37:53followers on Instagram. Our newsletter had about 65, 70,000 and like with a really high open rate,
01:38:01all that stuff had worked out really well, but we weren't, I just didn't figure out a way to monetize
01:38:06it. I mean, my YouTube course was wrapped underneath of it. So obviously like we made money through the
01:38:10YouTube course, but that was, people were buying it because of me. Slow growth never became a brand
01:38:14that like separate from me, people like resonated and connected with. And so I think it, it just,
01:38:21it just wasn't as I think profitable for me. Um, and in the end ended up just being kind of a waste of time.
01:38:29Listen, like, I don't want to say it was a waste of time because slow growth was a lot of fun.
01:38:32Like I love the building of the thing. And this is kind of like Seth Godin's dip where it's like,
01:38:37in the beginning, it's very exciting to build a brand and a product and the social content. And
01:38:42even getting the at slow growth, Instagram handle was this like crazy thing where like,
01:38:47we ended up finding somebody like Nat ended up messaging somebody that knew somebody that followed
01:38:53that person. And then we ended up like brokering and exchanging a thousand bucks to buy the handle.
01:38:59And then they tried to extort us for more money after we'd already sent them the payment.
01:39:03And so then, uh, we're like, uh, no, sorry, we can't give you any more money.
01:39:05And then eventually they transfer, transfer it over. But, um, it, it just, it just wasn't,
01:39:11it was exciting to build. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed that process, but the maintaining it,
01:39:17generating it, turning it into revenue. I think one area that you've seemed to have done very well
01:39:21is like monetizing and turning it into a business where I feel like that's something I could definitely
01:39:27improve in terms of, I feel like if you were to make a slow growth, you would have like done a much
01:39:32better job at monetizing it. I don't know. So we tried it. And what we found was that it's just
01:39:39really, really hard to generate leads for anything that's not tied to a personal brand. Really?
01:39:43And we know a lot of other people who have done this experiment where they've tried to take the
01:39:46face of the brand away from the brand, because everyone goes through this thing of like,
01:39:50be a creator. And then you're like, but how do I make money without needing to put my face out there?
01:39:55And of the, let's say somewhere between five and 10 people that we know who have gone through this
01:40:00journey, no one has succeeded in building a brand that is outside of the creator. And they've all
01:40:06brought the creator's face back in.
01:40:07Yeah, it's hard. And it's also like, what's the, what's the point?
01:40:12But what about the other, you have like the other businesses that you're working on?
01:40:15The only business that is growing without a face behind it is we've got our software businesses,
01:40:22where one of the apps, VoicePal is sort of just growing on its own. I think software is special
01:40:26because software has virality built into it. There's like growth loops you can build within
01:40:31the software. People genuinely do recommend software to one another. Whereas you very rarely hear people
01:40:36recommending a course too. So like it's, it's less of a, oh my God, this course is incredible. And this
01:40:41platform is great. It's more like, yeah. So I think our software, if we do it well, can be this thing
01:40:46where we provide the initial push using like mine and Izzy's name and brand and face and stuff. And then
01:40:51fingers crossed, if the product is good enough, then people will spontaneously recommend it to their
01:40:54friends. Fingers crossed. It's worked on a small scale with one of our apps, VoicePal, but it remains to be seen
01:41:00whether it'll work on a bigger scale with the other ones we're building. Do you think you're going to be
01:41:0550, 60 years old making YouTube videos? Really? Yeah, I think about this a lot. Whether it's YouTube
01:41:12videos or whatever other medium for teaching there is out there, I think I will be a teacher in some
01:41:19capacity for the rest of my life. I just have absolutely no attachment to whether it's YouTube or whether
01:41:26it's something else, as long as I get to basically mirror the being in a classroom and like yapping
01:41:31about stuff. And I see sometimes like, you know, like Peter McKellen's dad, for example, his like
01:41:35guitar channel. Yeah, that's really cool. I'm like, when I'm like 75, I would love to be, I don't know,
01:41:42if I were a 75 year old now and YouTube were a thing, and I were able to just talk about books that
01:41:46I'm reading. That would be so fun. Even if the goal isn't to make money for me, it would just be
01:41:49exhilarating to do. And so that's why when I think, am I doing YouTube just for the money? It's like,
01:41:53no, I actually would do it. Even if I didn't care about money. And even if it was like super old.
01:42:00I couldn't imagine not creating, not making something. I, yeah, but if I'm going to be a
01:42:07YouTuber at six, I don't know. There are 60 year old YouTubers, like you said, but I just don't know.
01:42:12Like, I think the only way that I would be able to continue YouTube at 60 is if I just take it slow and
01:42:20steady, which is like counter to this energy inside of me that keeps telling me like, you got to make
01:42:26one a week. You got to make more videos. I'm like, I think I just need to slow down and just pace
01:42:33myself, uh, rather than trying to like maximize for like growth in the present. Like there's this thing
01:42:41I like, uh, I, I don't know who said it, but it was like, you know, the, the biggest risk to a creator
01:42:45business is the creator stopping enjoying it. And so that's like the most important thing to optimize
01:42:50for whatever it looks like. And so even if that comes at the hit of making less money or making
01:42:56less videos, like who cares? Um, but it is a hard line to walk in practice knowing that because there's
01:43:05always the incentive to be like, Oh, but I could crank out another video. Oh, but I could just work on a
01:43:09Saturday or I could just dot, dot, dot. I find that for me, I need, I find it really helpful to have
01:43:13very firm rules. Like I'm not allowed to work on weekends. Uh, and work is defined how a normal
01:43:18person would define it or how I define it, you know, that kind of thing. Or like it's helpful, um,
01:43:23with Izzy being like, Hey, you know, requesting that, Hey, can we stop work by 6:30 so that we can
01:43:28spend time with our baby and like spend the evening together? I'm like, great, let's do that. But also
01:43:33we have a global team. So like, how about Mondays and Fridays? And okay, that works, you know, that
01:43:37kind of thing. And so actually having the pushback from my wife to be like, don't work all the time
01:43:42is really helpful in creating those boundaries. Yeah, I found that too, as well. Like, it's just,
01:43:47for me, it's like, I do daycare drop off and pick up every day. And so it's like my, that's where my
01:43:53day is structured. Um, what I've started to, I started to wake up at 5am again, which was like
01:43:58something that I tried to do on the channel years ago. Yeah. And it failed miserably. I hated it.
01:44:03But now I find that it's the only way to shift my schedule to allow for me to get to the gym and
01:44:08actually have enough time for work. So I'll wake up at 5am and then I'll have two hours of like
01:44:13dedicated writing time. Frankie wakes up seven to nine. I'm with him, drop him off at daycare.
01:44:18I do the gym for an hour and then I work until five and then
01:44:22it's time to pick up Frankie. This is the perfect productivity bro routine, waking up at 5am.
01:44:26Yeah, literally it, except, uh, taking care of your kids for like seven hours a day is usually not
01:44:31adding to the bro routine. Um, but yeah, I found that like for this season, it's funny because people
01:44:38talk about it like, it's just a season. It's just a season of your life, like parenting. And I'm like,
01:44:42it's, it's like a decade. It's like a decade of the most intensive time consuming periods of your life.
01:44:47I'm like, it's, you, you actually have to just give in and accept and accept the trade-offs.
01:44:53I'm curious if you could wave a magic wand and hire whatever kind of help you needed, night nanny,
01:44:58day nanny, any of that kind of stuff, what would you choose to outsource versus what would you
01:45:02choose to just continue doing yourself? We did hire a night nanny the second time around because
01:45:07after having Frankie, we had 10 months of broken up sleep. We didn't have one day where each of us got
01:45:13eight hours of sleep, uh, over a 10 month period. And so that just broke us. And we were like,
01:45:18we need, like we're, we were, we regretted not hiring help. And so we brought on a night nanny to help us
01:45:24out for the first three months or so. Uh, in the beginning, it was like five nights a week and then
01:45:29eventually went down to three. Like that was huge. But now our second son is, he's sleeping through the
01:45:33night. He's doing really well. And so I don't think we'd have to outsource that. I do struggle a lot with
01:45:38knowing like how much suffering should you accept as a parent. Like, because it's, I think that the
01:45:47amount of parenting I want to do shouldn't just be correlated to how much I enjoy it. It should be
01:45:53correlated to how much my kids need me. And so there are really hard parts of parenting where like your
01:46:01kids are throwing tantrums and screaming and you have to be there to be that emotional support in their
01:46:06life. It's like, I want to be there for him, obviously, but it is painful and it is like
01:46:10suffering for both of us to have to like live through these moments, which happen every day,
01:46:15three times a day. And so I would have a really hard time outsourcing that and hiring for that
01:46:21in terms of my personal life. So it's almost like you, you do get the daycare during the day,
01:46:26five days a week. And that's enough for us to like, make sure that I get my work done. I need to get
01:46:30done. But outside of that, date night, hire a babysitter, I think that's like the most that I'd
01:46:37be willing to give up right now, just because my life is like literally all about family. It's less
01:46:43about my business. And I think I'm still in the throes of like adjusting to that.
01:46:49I love it. Yeah, that's the balance that I'm trying to find as well. Like there is a certain amount of
01:46:56baby stuff that I enjoy. And then there is probably a higher amount of baby stuff that is good for the
01:47:01baby in terms of like bonding and all that, all that sort of stuff. I haven't yet figured out like
01:47:05where that line is. And that line always changes as they grow older and stuff. There are some people
01:47:12who have been reading about stuff online that are even anti-daycare and anti any of this sort of stuff,
01:47:16because it's like, well, your parents should be spending 24/7 with the kid. Otherwise, the kids
01:47:19are gonna be fucked. And it's like, well, I don't think that's true. But also, the number is not
01:47:24zero hours out of the 24. So what's in a way, the optimal, optimal, minimal?
01:47:29Optimal, minimal, I can run flat out.
01:47:33Well, yeah, what's what is the Yeah, this is the thing. There's like a minimal amount of time,
01:47:36then there's the optimal amount of time. And then you get helicopter parenting of it becoming like,
01:47:41yeah, the thing is, like accepting the trade offs, I think, for me has been the biggest thing,
01:47:45where I cannot optimize for the 1% anymore. Like I can't do what's like, even drinking like eight
01:47:55glasses of water meditating, you know, 15 minutes a day, all these things now are a struggle for me.
01:48:00And so it's a hard pill to swallow to accept like, okay, I'm gonna be giving up a whole lot when it
01:48:07comes to my health, I'm giving up all these good habits that I know benefit me. Because my child
01:48:13needs me. And I think to your point, it's like, it's just, it's constantly changing. Like, in two
01:48:18years time, I'm gonna be thinking about this very differently than I am now with like, a two year old
01:48:22and a four month old. It's pretty great, though. Yeah, being a parent. Are you enjoying it?
01:48:30Uh, yes. I think like, am I enjoying it?
01:48:36I definitely enjoy it. But also, I don't, I mean, there are, there are lots of aspects of it that
01:48:42I don't particularly enjoy. I really enjoy like hanging out with a baby when she's like in a good
01:48:48mood. But if it comes to like, she was, she had like a urine infection like three days ago. And so
01:48:54we had to spend two hours trying to get her to wee into a little cup from like, fricking one in the
01:49:02morning to three in the morning, just holding a cup. Yeah, just holding a cup. I'm doing, you know,
01:49:06chatting to fricking Gemini and being like, what are all the strategies for like getting like putting
01:49:10a cold towel on like the underneath the tummy and like trying to make, and it took two hours and we
01:49:13got it in the end, it was very satisfying. Now, that's not a two hour use of my time that I
01:49:17found particularly enjoyable. It was interesting. It was memorable. It's a good story. There's all
01:49:20this sort of stuff. It's kind of funny, but it's also when it's like two in the morning and like,
01:49:23as you know, you're trying to get baby to pee in a cup just to make sure that the urines and then
01:49:27finding that they're having antibiotics and she hates the antibiotics, having to force feed her
01:49:31the antibiotics while she's crying and like putting, shoving a syringe into her mouth,
01:49:35not particularly enjoyable. And yet it was quite memorable. And so I, I don't know to what extent
01:49:41enjoyable is the right frame for stuff like that. It is enjoyable when she's like nice and happy and
01:49:45smiling and climbing on me and shit. Like that's really enjoyable. I think there's a lot of parts
01:49:49of parenting that are not that. And I don't know. Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out like what,
01:49:54how should I think about, cause I try and do everything in my life from a lens of, okay,
01:50:00how do I enjoy this as much as possible? Yeah. But that's, you just can't with parenting
01:50:05because you can't like, there are ways to dial up like the joy and having fun with your kids and
01:50:11making memorable experiences, getting out of the house, going to the zoo. Like that stuff,
01:50:14it's being able to see the joy in your kid's eyes is like, that stuff is really fun. It actually makes
01:50:18parenting a lot easier, but my God, just the, the amount of slog, I think like, but it is like when
01:50:24you go through it with your partner, that's like what I think I find a lot of joy in. It's like,
01:50:29cause we had that same experience where we were overnight in the emergency room in the doctor's office,
01:50:35and we were trying to get Frankie to go for a wee. And we knew we, we had done it before and we knew
01:50:42that the cup thing wasn't going to work cause it was going to take hours. So we're like,
01:50:44do you mind if we just like, let him go like full starkers, like naked. And then just, if he wees,
01:50:50we'll put the cup on it. We waited for about two, three hours. He starts weeing everywhere.
01:50:54Yeah. All over me. Like get the cup, get the cup. That's filling up the cup. He's like,
01:50:59the cup's full. The cup's full. And it's been pulled away. I'm like, it's fine. And like, I grab
01:51:03him and he's just pissing all over me. And I'm like, I just, I could, in that moment, because of how
01:51:09like difficult that past, like three, four hours were. And it was at that point now, two, three AM,
01:51:14I couldn't have been more happy to be covered in piss. Cause then we're like, now we get to go home.
01:51:19Also we, now we know that our, our son can urinate and there's not a problem with his bladder. It's like,
01:51:23there's a relief from that. Um, so I don't know. It's like, you, I don't think you can
01:51:28choose. You, you kind of like, you do have a choice. Like you can choose like, all right, how much
01:51:35support do I want to take on? But it's like, it needs, I think that the struggle is part of it.
01:51:41With parenting. I don't know. I get a lot of meaning from it. I think here's, here's one thing
01:51:45I've been thinking about a lot lately is I look back at videos that I made two, three years ago.
01:51:51I don't care about them. I don't. But like, when I look back two years ago, three years ago to when like,
01:51:57we had our, you know, first kid and just the moments that Nat and I built together with Frankie and now
01:52:02with our second son, Sonny, it's like, oh my God, those are like infinitely more important. And that's
01:52:08not to say that work's not important. Not everybody has kids, you know, people find purpose and meaning
01:52:12and joy in different ways. But for me in my life, I'm like, especially if you look at like 20, 30 years
01:52:18from now, you're gonna look back and you're gonna be like, those are the best, those are the best times
01:52:22of my life. And so I don't know, I think that that's actually what takes away the pressure of
01:52:28like needing to like make more money and, you know, build a larger, I don't care because this is the
01:52:33moment right now. It's, it's raising these young kids and it's a fucking nightmare sometimes. It's
01:52:37like, so it's the hardest thing I've ever done. But it's also, it's the most rewarding because I can look
01:52:42back on it and just be proud of the decisions that we made. There's a guy who I follow called Joe
01:52:47Hudson. I don't know if you've come across him. He's like this executive coach guy who also does
01:52:53a lot of like emotions work and things like that. And he's got two kids and they seem very well adjusted,
01:52:59like great vibes. He and his wife often talk about parenting in the sense of they try, the way he
01:53:04describes it is like, he feels no obligation, like he did towards his kids. He does the things because
01:53:10he wants to, not because he feels like he has to, or that he should. And I am trying to get to that
01:53:16level of enlightened perspective where even the- You're just like covered in piss. You're like,
01:53:21I get to do this. I'm like, surely like one, one way to approach that would be like, okay,
01:53:27I guess it's gotta be done. But like, I'm just always like, how, how, like what mindset tweak or
01:53:34whatever can I use to find the joy in this and like, not feel as if parenting is suffering kind of vibe.
01:53:43So, you know, it's funny. I mean, you and I have different YouTube journeys. There's a lot of
01:53:49similarities, but like in terms of what we brought to, you know, each of our channels is very different.
01:53:54And I think that's probably gonna be the same of like parenting and like raising kids. It's like, you
01:53:58don't want the same things and that's okay. And it's like, you look at anybody's family's situation and
01:54:04like everyone is gonna be wildly different. I think it's like the biggest priority is that
01:54:09you're giving your kids what they need. But outside of that, like, you still have to
01:54:14be able to create a life that you're fulfilled by.
01:54:17So if, yeah, in my case of the, you know, the central question for the last few years has been like
01:54:21growth versus enough. And now that question is morphed into the parenting thing to be like, basically,
01:54:26how much time do I want to be investing in family stuff versus in everything else?
01:54:31Do you suffer with any guilt around like maybe putting too much emphasis on work rather than
01:54:37family at this point? Or have you guys found a good balance and a good rhythm in terms of work?
01:54:43I think we have found a good rhythm. I don't feel much guilt around it. Well, what I do feel is like
01:54:49this uncertainty or of have I got the right balance? And I don't think it's in the direction of like,
01:54:54man, I'm spending too much time on the family stuff. I think it's on the, it's sort of, if anything,
01:54:58what I don't want to do is look back on this time and think, man, I wish I'd spend more time with the
01:55:02kids. Yeah, that's like, that to me is like a real failure mode. And I've, I've spoken to so many
01:55:07entrepreneurs who years to decades into their kids lives, realized too late that they were over
01:55:14investing in work and under investing in the relationships. And so I've got these examples.
01:55:20I've read the books about it. I know the theory, but in practice, I'm still trying to figure out like,
01:55:26what's the, what's the mental model? How do, how do we figure out the balance?
01:55:30I'm so glad that I hustled when I did, you know, like, like, I've talked a lot about hustle culture
01:55:35and how it's like, there's, there's a lot of negatives to it, obviously. But I also like from
01:55:39my twenties and thirties, I like really worked my ass off. Like I worked a lot of weekends. I worked a
01:55:43lot of nights and, you know, it was doing something that I love to do, but I don't have that in me
01:55:49anymore. Like I, I can't physically do it anymore. I also don't want to do it anymore because I want
01:55:56to be able to spend time with my kids. I think that I've got a lot more empathy now for people
01:56:00who were, who are in a situation now or benefits in a situation where they've had to sacrifice and
01:56:06they've had to make those decisions of like, I can't start a YouTube channel right now. I can't
01:56:09start a side hustle or business right now because my family is my priority. Like I have so much respect
01:56:14for people who've made those decisions. Uh, and I'm so lucky that I'm in a position now where
01:56:19I've hustled and I've worked hard and I've made enough money that I don't need to continue to
01:56:25hustle and grind to make a living. My big challenge is like, how do I continue to find purpose and
01:56:31fulfillment when I'm not producing at the level that I wish I could and not feeling the resentment
01:56:37from my kids? Like that's a big one, right? Where it's like, I could, I could look at it as my kids have
01:56:45stolen this time from me or I could feel resentful that I don't have the time to work on videos like
01:56:51I used to or work on my business like I used to. Um, but I made the decision to have kids and I love
01:56:59spending time with my kids. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. And so it's more about
01:57:03a mindset thing where you're like, again, it's like corny, but it's like, I get to do this. Like I get to
01:57:07spend time with my kids. Um, and I think it did take me a couple of years to really like, let a lot of that
01:57:13resentment go. Cause it was just completely unfair and misdirected. And like, you know, when you're 85
01:57:19years old, you're not going to be looking back at me like drat. I wish in 2026 I'd made another five
01:57:23YouTube videos. Like there's no world in which you're gonna be still working on YouTube videos when you're 85.
01:57:28I'm gonna make another one this week. Yeah. Before I die. Yeah.
01:57:33Oh, well, what's, what's interesting is just from this chat is like, it's like the challenges never go away. It's just different
01:57:39problems. And you know, it's just like, that's, that's part of the fun is just figuring out how to,
01:57:46you know, do this whole creator business thing while also being happy with what you're making and the
01:57:51life you're building for yourself. Hey, fun, freedom, fulfillment. And then there's a fourth F of family.
01:57:56I thought you were going to say something else.
01:58:00Maybe a fifth. Matt, thank you so much. Thank you for all the inspiration over the last decade.
01:58:05Likewise. Thank you so much. It's been fun. Cool. Thanks for having me.
01:58:08Thanks for the amazing setup. Yeah. So good. Hopefully it came out good.
01:58:11It came out good guys. Yep. Love it.