If You Want to Make Money From YouTube, Do This (Case Study)

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Small Business/StartupsAdvertising/MarketingManagementAdult Education

Transcript

00:00:00A few years ago, my friend Jeff Su decided while working at Google that he was going to start a

00:00:04YouTube channel. He made $98 in his first six months. And then a few years later, last year,

00:00:08he made $835,000 from his YouTube channel. The cool thing about Jeff's story is that he never

00:00:14planned to be an entrepreneur. He wasn't even intending to make money from YouTube.

00:00:17I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I'm extremely risk averse. I thought I was just

00:00:20going to like die at Google. And yet he was able to build such an incredible business,

00:00:24doing it on the side of his full-time demanding corporate job. So in this case study, we're going

00:00:28to break down Jeff's entire journey from like total noob on YouTube all the way to basically

00:00:32building a million dollar business and how he was able to do all of that while still being a high

00:00:36performer at his job. Along the way, as we go through the journey, I'm going to be interjecting

00:00:39with my own thoughts on Jeff's story. So hopefully this won't just feel like a podcast. It'll be a

00:00:42conversation with some actionable takeaways that you can apply to your life. Step one, find your itch

00:00:47and pick your vehicle. So before we get into all of this, I asked Jeff to talk us through his revenue

00:00:52trajectory so you can see how the numbers changed over time. I actually prepared a spreadsheet in

00:00:56the patient of this question, but I can walk you through the sort of high level first before we

00:01:00dive into the numbers. When I first started YouTube, I literally did not know what the

00:01:04monetization strategy was. I was just like, oh, there's advertising on YouTube. I could just switch

00:01:08that on. I'll make money, passive income for the rest of my life and not have to work

00:01:11like one minute longer than I have to, right? Turns out that wasn't the case. It wasn't that easy.

00:01:15So by the end of my first year, my first ever YouTube video was uploaded on June 3rd, 2020. I remember

00:01:21that. And by the end of that year, so six months later, I made a whopping $98 through advertising,

00:01:26which was actually pretty impressive considering I didn't think I was going to monetize in the first

00:01:31like two years or something. Fast forward though, I would say the first thing I ever like sold

00:01:34is my PDF version of my resume that got me to Google. And I use air quotes because I actually shared it

00:01:42for free. And a month later, after I shared it for free on Gumroad, I literally received an email

00:01:46saying I made a thousand US dollars. So I was like, must be a mistake or a scam. I log in and it's from

00:01:52donation. People have donated ranging from $1 to $20, even when they could have just downloaded it for

00:01:58free. And that broke my mind. That was the first time I understood, oh, if I shared massive value for

00:02:03free online, people notice and they sort of respect that and they reward you for it. So fast forward up to

00:02:09now, I have more than like 40 templates on Gumroad, 90% of which are free. And it's people are still

00:02:14donating. It's, it's, it's amazing. Yeah. So that's sort of the first taste of selling products that I

00:02:21experienced. Nice. In 2020, you made $98. In 2021, you made $52,000. 2023, we've got $449,000. And

00:02:292025, this year so far, $835,000. And you're on track to do about 900 by the end of the year.

00:02:35Something like that. Yeah. We'll see how this podcast goes. And then how much were you making at Google

00:02:38back when you worked there? I'm going to say the number, but I have to give a little bit of

00:02:41important context. I, I, I started off working at Google Hong Kong and I took a 60% pay cut to work

00:02:48in Google China, like mainland China. And not only, uh, is that region, the low, one of the lowest paid,

00:02:55I think globally for Google, but one of the highest tax brackets. So for example, at Hong Kong, the tax

00:03:01cap wrapped, um, maxed out at around like 15%, but like mainland China, that's like 35%. So I want to

00:03:07just set some important context. By the time I left, I was at L5 and I was making my base salary, I

00:03:12believe 60 something thousand RMB per month, but that's not taking into account. Number one, the

00:03:18equity that has sort of, um, aggregated over the past nine years and the annual bonus. So just for

00:03:28discussion sake, I'd say, let's say a hundred K RMB all in every month by the time I quit.

00:03:33So you're working, working at Google and you're making around about 150,000 us dollars a year,

00:03:38but you're in mainland China, which is like super low paid. If you were in like San Francisco,

00:03:44for example, how much would you have been earning in the equivalent job at Google?

00:03:48300 to 400,000 us dollars.

00:03:50Now quite a lot of people in my audience, certainly people who sign up to our lifestyle business

00:03:53academy, which is our online business school to help people start businesses. Lots of y'all are

00:03:56in a similar sort of position where you might have one of these high paying corporate jobs. And what I hear

00:04:01from y'all at my events and workshops and stuff is that you appreciate the fact that you have this stable

00:04:05and secure job, but really you get, you have this itch of like really wanting freedom. You want freedom

00:04:10from the shackles of full-time employment. You want the freedom to live life on your own terms. And so I was

00:04:15curious, and I asked Jeff, to what extent did he resonate with that particular idea of like freedom?

00:04:21So I'll be very honest with you, Ali. I wish I could follow up on that and tell you that's exactly how I felt.

00:04:25That's exactly what I resonate with a hundred percent, but I never had that plan. If I'm being

00:04:30very honest, I never wanted to be entrepreneur. I'm extremely risk averse. I thought I was just

00:04:34going to like die at Google with some, like a lot of, you know, stock options and, you know,

00:04:38having experienced free food and coffee for the last like 40 years. Right. I thought, I literally

00:04:41thought that was a plan because I really enjoyed my time. That really, I enjoyed working the people.

00:04:45I watched that interview with Sohel, right, where he was okay with dipping into one year savings.

00:04:49I was like, not about that Chinese mentality. You should never dip in your savings until,

00:04:53you know, you're married or, you know, you're, you're buying a house.

00:04:55And it honestly just sort of happened because I fell in love with teaching for context.

00:05:00I Google, we have something called, or they had something called G2G, Googler to Googler

00:05:04workshops, whereby anyone can raise their hand and be like, Hey, I have a topic I want to talk

00:05:08about and people sign up. I ran workshops for like, you know, inbox zero, like email management,

00:05:13productivity workflows, and even health and fitness. Although not many people came to that

00:05:16for some, for whatever reason. And I realized I really want to do that, like forever, basically.

00:05:22And I thought making videos would be a great way to scale that. And that's literally how I started

00:05:26making videos. I didn't think I was going to quit one day. It was more like, Oh, this is more scalable

00:05:30because people keep asking me for the same content. Okay. So you didn't set out to make money. No,

00:05:36you set out to simply give back. Well, okay. So that makes me sound really selfless. The selfish part

00:05:43of that is I like, I like the attention and I like the sound of my own voice. And I like,

00:05:48like being smarter than other people in that specific context. And I'm being very honest,

00:05:52but yes, I always liked, I also liked to teach. Yes.

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00:07:01Why did you decide YouTube was the way to go back in 2020 rather than, I mean, at the time TikTok was the

00:07:08thing that you could have done Instagram stuff. You could have started a blog. You could have started

00:07:12an email newsletter, Substack had just gotten started. Like you could have started a podcast or what was it

00:07:17about YouTube making YouTube videos that appealed at the time?

00:07:20So two reasons. The first one at the risk of sounding like a brown nosing, like Ali Abdel fan, your videos

00:07:26back then came at a perfect time whereby when I started thinking about making these sort of content

00:07:32online, a lot of your videos back then in 2020 was talking about exactly your experience making YouTube

00:07:38videos. So number one, I'm going to stop there because it just makes it sound like I'm like,

00:07:41I love the validation. I love it. It's great. Keep going.

00:07:44Yeah. So your videos basically had a step-by-step like blueprint and how to, how to succeed on YouTube.

00:07:49And number two, I would say is because inherently I didn't want to sell anything.

00:07:55And I knew from watching your videos that YouTube just paid you sort of like an advertising, like

00:08:01cut of their advertising revenue. So you didn't have to like hard pitch anything to make money.

00:08:06I knew I didn't have to be like, oh, you should come to my workshop, pay me,

00:08:10and then I'll deliver this. It was more like, okay, I'm going to make a video on this topic.

00:08:14If you want to watch, come watch. And I think I'll make some pocket change. And if you don't,

00:08:17that's totally cool. That was a vibe I was going for it.

00:08:19Nice. So you're going squarely with, this is just a side hustle. I'm just doing this for the vibes.

00:08:23Yeah. To be honest, that was kind of how I started as well. I had no intention of leaving medicine.

00:08:27I was like, oh, my dream would be if I could work three days a week. Right.

00:08:30I was like, cool. I need 3000 pounds a month. And then I thought like I was selling courses in,

00:08:35in like real life, teaching these workshops and like, oh, YouTube videos as a sort of lead generation

00:08:39mechanism. That seems kind of cool. And I remember like my first video that went viral was like how

00:08:44to study for exams. Yeah. And that was actually a workshop I did in real life, like five years prior

00:08:49at university. I held a workshop on how to study for exams and it was really fun. And loads of people

00:08:53showed up and they loved it. And it was like a Facebook event back in the day, back when people

00:08:56cared about Facebook events. And the, the, the response to that workshop stayed in my mind for like

00:09:02five years. Makes sense. And when I started my YouTube channel, I was like, at some point,

00:09:06I want to make that video about how to study for exams. Cause I think it's going to bang.

00:09:09Um, and so that was sort of like, sort of from a, from a similar place, I wasn't really expecting

00:09:14that it would become a full-time living. Right. It was more like, Hey, this is a vehicle for teaching.

00:09:18I'm already kind of selling these like classroom courses. Let me just sort of combine the love of

00:09:22teaching and then make some pocket money on the side. Right. Was it for med school? I'm just curious.

00:09:26Was it like for med school applications or just studying in general? I was studying in general.

00:09:30Yeah. Oh, studying in general. Yeah. So I ran a workshop at, at the university where, which

00:09:33anyone could attend. That was like evidence-based study tips on how to study for exams in general.

00:09:37And there were people from all sorts of subjects there. And so that was when I knew I had something,

00:09:41I guess, similar to you, like you would have loved the GDG workshop program at Google.

00:09:44Like you would have just definitely shared a lot of what you learned. Yeah.

00:09:48So all the OG YouTubers who started out 2000, in the early 2010s, if we think iJustine like Linus,

00:09:53if we think, uh, Marquez Brownlee, almost none of them started out because they wanted to make money.

00:09:58They started out because of the love for the craft. Yeah. Increasingly over time,

00:10:01um, people are starting YouTube channels and wanting to build these lifestyle businesses

00:10:06for the money. Um, do you have any friends and experiences, any, any data points you can point

00:10:12to of people who've sort of gone in with the money intention first, rather than the teaching

00:10:16intention first, if that makes sense. I'm trying to really hard to think. I can't think of anyone who

00:10:20has quote unquote succeeded so far. They're like doing it right now, but they haven't succeeded just yet.

00:10:26If that makes sense. Put simply, if you were to ask me today, which path I would choose,

00:10:30I would still go with a creator led or creative first sort of journey. The reason is because I

00:10:35feel it's more organic to give you a very specific example. I mentioned just now that my first product

00:10:41was a free PDF version of my resume, right? I uploaded that onto Gumroad to compliment my resume video.

00:10:50I wanted viewers to have something next to them so they can reference as they watch my

00:10:54video to optimize their resume. I didn't expect them to donate. And after they donated, I got

00:10:59questions like, Hey, do you mind if you share a Google docs version that I can edit myself? I'd

00:11:04actually pay you for it. I was like, okay, it's the same thing, but okay, sure. And I charged like $4.99

00:11:08$4.99 for it. And that was another incremental 1k a month in revenue, right? I think with my

00:11:15personality, I would have found it very, very difficult to start with a product idea and go

00:11:20with Suhello's path whereby he knew he was going to quit his job. He did user interviews. He did focus

00:11:25groups. He had alpha testing, had beta testing, gone through all those sort of challenges and roadblocks,

00:11:31right? Of people saying, Oh, this box sucks. How dare you ask me to try that? Right? Like I've thin skin,

00:11:35sort of, so that would have been difficult for me and him having to reach out. Like he sent what 50

00:11:40to a hundred cold emails a day, right? For three months and cold calls. Although I come from a

00:11:46sales background, I would, I still find it very, very difficult to ask for, for things. Um, when I,

00:11:51when I don't have like a lot of value to give. So that's, that's my sort of perspective there.

00:11:56Interesting. Yeah. So I think your perspective is what most people in my audience would actually want.

00:12:02Like almost no one listening to this would be comfortable sending 50 to a hundred DMs a day

00:12:07and facing, facing the rejection. We have people who've paid to be in our program that are uncomfortable

00:12:10making the first post on LinkedIn because they're worried about what their colleagues will think,

00:12:13you know, that kind of idea. So when people ask me for advice on this, like how to make money on

00:12:16the internet thing, I broadly sketch out these two different paths. Uh, there's the creator first

00:12:21approach and then there's the business first approach. The business first approach is what my friend

00:12:25Sahel took. Uh, he's the founder of a, an app called Firecut that made like a million dollars in annual

00:12:29recurring revenue within like 18 months. We have another case study with him on the channel that

00:12:32you might've seen. We'll link it down below if you want to check it out. But the business first

00:12:35approach is where you're like, I want to create a product first, a business first, and then I'll

00:12:39worry about building an audience second. So in my friend Sahel's case, he built this product called

00:12:43Firecut, which is a software that helps video editors save time using AI. He didn't particularly

00:12:48have a massive love for video editors or something. I mean, he dabbled with a little bit of video

00:12:51editing in his own time, but he built it because he saw a gap in the market and he recognized that actually

00:12:55he could build a product that could potentially add value to these people's lives and make a lot of

00:12:59money along the way. And then like two years into this journey, he and his wife have now started

00:13:03creating content on Instagram and on Twitter and stuff as a way of like getting leads to the business.

00:13:08This is sort of like the business first approach to making money on the internet. But then you have

00:13:11the creator first approach and the creator first approach is often taken by people who don't care

00:13:15that much about the, uh, the monetization side, at least not initially. So Jeff is an example of

00:13:20someone who took the creator first approach. He started doing content because he liked the idea

00:13:24of teaching and over time he managed to build an audience of people who knew, liked and trusted him.

00:13:28And over time he was able to then turn it into a business by selling his PDFs and selling his

00:13:32programs and selling his like, you know, speaking gigs and all that kind of stuff. That was not the

00:13:36intention from day one. So the homework would be, and I'd love to hear it in a comment if you feel

00:13:39like leaving a comment. If let's say a university hired you to teach a lecture course about whatever you

00:13:43wanted and you just knew that once a week you had to teach something around a certain theme,

00:13:47what would that theme be? What would you like the idea of teaching about?

00:13:50That might give you an idea. If you want to take this sort of educational,

00:13:53creative first approach, that might give you an idea as to what that thing might be.

00:13:56I actually just got reminded of one of my friends who's on the flip side,

00:13:59like the business first. Do you mind if I share that experience?

00:14:02So for context, a total of 37 Googlers reached out to me while I was doing YouTube over the course

00:14:06of five years. If you don't mind, Ali, can you guess how many of those Googlers who are all

00:14:10extremely smart and extremely intelligent, many of them much smarter and more competent than me,

00:14:14very ambitious? How many took action after scheduling a one-on-one with me asking for

00:14:20specific advice on how to start YouTube? Oh, okay. I would guess that seven of them

00:14:26made their first video and two of them made more than 10.

00:14:30Sorry, I'm just smirking because obviously I know the answer. One person took action.

00:14:33One person. 37 Googlers. And the reason, again,

00:14:36a reason I know because I just find them in the Gmail, right? So 37 Googlers reached out to me,

00:14:41one person took action. The first action I took, I told them to do was even simpler than what you

00:14:46expected, like making the first video. Your product has already been discontinued,

00:14:49but I told them your first step is to take Ali's $1 course. Do you remember that?

00:14:53Yeah, we had a $1 course. Ali had a $1 course. It was like four hours of content

00:14:57about how to make your first YouTube video or something. It was $1, literally a dollar.

00:15:01That's nothing to most people, especially if you knew you wanted to do something, right?

00:15:06One person took that course. One person took that course. One. I didn't hear from the other 36 again.

00:15:11And Hearn right now, he has a respectable newsletter of over 5,000 subscribers.

00:15:15The reason why he was business first is because, this might be TMI,

00:15:19he broke his leg and he couldn't do anything for six months. So in those six months, he wrote a book.

00:15:23It's called Taking This Offline. It's basically how to have an executive presence in the workplace

00:15:28and be tactical and smart about it, right? He wrote the book. He published himself,

00:15:34and he was selling it for like $10 or $15 on Gumroad. No sales. I wonder why, right? Because he

00:15:40had no distribution channel, no audience, none of that. So actually, he approached me after with the

00:15:44book. He was like, "Hey, I'm trying to sell this product. What should I do?" I'm like, "I'll be honest.

00:15:48I don't know, but I think it would be much easier if you had people to sell it to." He was like,

00:15:53"So what should I do?" I was like, "Since it's more professional-focused LinkedIn platform,

00:15:58you could start posting on there and add a link to the book in your description or something,

00:16:03and maybe start a newsletter because that's what I was doing. I'm trying to sell my products." He was

00:16:07like, "Cool." And that's what he did. And then after he started a newsletter, after I think two months,

00:16:12he made his first sale. Yeah. And then he turned that book, he chopped that book up into lead magnets,

00:16:18free lead magnets to get people to sign up for newsletter and so on and so forth. So yeah, it was a virtual

00:16:22cycle after that. Okay. I'm so glad you brought this up. So why do you think one out of 37 people took

00:16:29action? What was it about the other 36? These are smart people. They're very competent in the workplace.

00:16:37They're clearly succeeding in life. What is stopping them from doing the thing that they claimed to have

00:16:41wanted to stop? I'll say this upfront and then I'll share my thoughts. The short answer is I don't know,

00:16:47but I've thought about it a lot because I was pretty shocked that none of them got back to me.

00:16:52And one or two of them, when I ran into them, I was like, "Oh, how's it going?" They're like,

00:16:55"Oh, I haven't really started yet." I was pretty shocked because in my mind, I thought the only reason

00:17:02people would not do something if they wanted to is they don't know how to do it. For example, going back to

00:17:08your workshop on how to study, right? All students want to be, you know, want to get A's. They want

00:17:13to get good grades. Most of them probably don't know about specific tactics and that's why going to you,

00:17:19going to your workshop, they can learn it and they sort of execute. Theoretically, 100% of those

00:17:23students should execute and just follow your, you know, studying tips, right? Theoretically speaking.

00:17:28But I'm sure that I'm sure 100% did not follow those tactics. They went and they went back and

00:17:33they didn't change anything. So my hypothesis is that honestly, the motivation for them to start

00:17:42didn't align with what they had to do. I think it's about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation at

00:17:46the end of the day. And again, I learned this from you. So for those of you who've never come across

00:17:50this concept, extrinsic motivation comes from outcomes you cannot control, right? For example,

00:17:54views. That's controlled by YouTube algorithm on the audience and like say promotion at work because

00:17:59that's corporate politics and who likes who and all that fun stuff, headcount, budget, all that fun

00:18:03stuff. Extrinsic motivation versus intrinsic motivation whereby it comes from outcomes you do

00:18:08control, right? How many videos I upload a week or a month or a year, how many meetings I volunteer to

00:18:15share something about that as something I learned this week in the workplace, right? To establish

00:18:20presence, right? So I think the 36 people, they wanted more of that extrinsic validation like,

00:18:27oh, it'll be nice to make money. It'd be nice to have views. It'll be nice to have something on the

00:18:31side. It'd be nice to quit one day in the future. Versus I think the people who actually take action,

00:18:37they set the intrinsic goals. They're like, okay, not sure how this will turn out, but I'm going to commit

00:18:42to writing one newsletter a week for two years, which is what Hearn sort of did, right? So I think that,

00:18:47to me that that's the biggest difference between those two groups.

00:18:50Yeah. I think, yeah. I think there's also something around like everyone wants the outcome,

00:18:55right? Like if you asked anyone, Hey, would you like a multi six figure, seven figure business where

00:18:59you're just like able to talk about whatever you want and people will just buy your stuff and you

00:19:03would never have to be feel salesy. Like almost everyone would be like, oh, hell yeah. Sign me up.

00:19:08Um, but similarly, if you were, if you were to ask most people, Hey, would you like to be in like

00:19:13amazing health where you wake up every day, feeling energized and like, you know, people sort of give

00:19:17you compliments at the beach about your six pack abs. Most dudes at least be like, yeah, that sounds

00:19:21pretty good. Uh, I would say that sounds pretty good. And then I'm like, and then if you're like,

00:19:25okay, well, this is the process that involves to get there. Um, I, all of a sudden for the health

00:19:29example, I'm like, ah, yeah, uh, you know, the juice just doesn't seem worth the squeeze.

00:19:35Um, I don't care about this enough to go through what seems to be a painful process.

00:19:41And I think for people starting YouTube channels or starting online businesses and stuff in your

00:19:45case and in my case, I get the impression, like Sony for me, I actually enjoyed the process of

00:19:50making YouTube videos. Cause I enjoy teaching. Uh, if I didn't enjoy the process of making YouTube

00:19:54videos, there's no fricking way I'd have made 90 videos before anything took off or like, you know,

00:19:58grinded up for a whole year to make $8 of like, whatever the thing is. Um, and I think that's,

00:20:02I think a lot of people come in with that outcome in mind, but then realize the process is really

00:20:06painful and they don't want to do the process anymore, which I think is also fine. Like, yeah.

00:20:10Yeah. And there are parts of the process. Both of us don't like that much. Right. For example,

00:20:14let's say the video editing initially, especially in the beginning was, it was very tedious, but you

00:20:18know, it was part of the sharing and teaching process. So it was okay. Like overall it was a,

00:20:22it was, it was a win for us. Yeah. So of the 37 Googlers that asked Jeff about this thing,

00:20:26one of them took action. Would you like to be one of the one or would you like to be one of the 36 up to you?

00:20:32Anyway, let's now move on to step number two, which is to lock in and to pay the price.

00:20:36So at this point it's mid 2020. Jeff has uploaded his first couple of YouTube videos. He's doing

00:20:40this YouTube thing. And then I asked him what his life looked like for the next two years. And this

00:20:44is what he said because you've like actually held onto the job for the last like five years.

00:20:47Oh, okay. Yeah.

00:20:48A lot of people will say like, Oh, but like, I really want to do X, but I've got a full-time job. I've got

00:20:52like things. I don't have time. If I do have time, I don't have energy. If I do have energy, I don't have

00:20:57focus. Ah, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. And then people think, man, do I have to like quit my job

00:21:02to start something else? But you were sort of like maintaining the side hustle for years before you just

00:21:06recently quit. Yeah. So I think for context, I followed your premise of upload one video a week

00:21:11for two years and your life will change. So that was my goal from the outset. It was just going to be

00:21:17two years. It wasn't going to be five. It was going to be seven. It was going to be three. It was just

00:21:19two years. Right? So I quote unquote, what the young kids these days were called locked in for those two

00:21:24years, whereby every day I'd be the first person in the office. I'd arrive like 6:30, 7:00 AM in the

00:21:28morning. And the reason I arrived that early is because I knew no one else would be in the office to

00:21:32bother me with stuff. So from seven to eight, I would review like the upcoming day and the next

00:21:37few days of like workload and plan around that. And this is called my review session. I have three

00:21:42review sessions every day to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks. So seven to eight,

00:21:45like review what I have to do for the upcoming day, 8:00 to 8:30 breakfast, 8:30, 8:40 after like coffee

00:21:51to 11:45 would be work. The reason I say 11:45, because 11:30 is when lunch started in the office

00:21:58and I didn't want to waste time waiting in line. So if you went at 11:45,

00:22:02you could just get the food and go back to your desk or eat really quickly and get back to work,

00:22:06right? So 11:45 to 12:30 lunch, 12:30 all the way to five would be Google work. And I got to leave at five

00:22:12because I got there at 6:30, 7:00 AM, right? Five to six gym, because for me, actually the number one

00:22:17thing that matters in my life is health, for sure. Like my mom said, there's no point having money if

00:22:22you're sick. So five to six gym, six to 6:30 dinner, and then from 6:30 to 11:00,

00:22:27seven or sometimes 12:00 to 1:00, they'll just be working on YouTube.

00:22:29Nice.

00:22:30Weekends, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM YouTube.

00:22:33Nice. I love that. Yes. Fantastic. That is music to my ears. I love it.

00:22:39Well, it sucked back then though.

00:22:41I love it. That's so good. I think people really underestimate the amount of time you have to give

00:22:46to something for it to work. I was listening to James Clear on Diary Over CEO while I was on a run

00:22:51yesterday, and they were talking about this like four burners theory. There's like-

00:22:54Four burners. Oh, okay.

00:22:55Yeah. That's sort of like, you've got these four burners on the stove and one of them is career,

00:23:00one of them is health, one of them is family, one of them is friends. I think side hustle would be

00:23:05like a fifth burner and at the most only two of them can be burning at full blast at any given time.

00:23:12And if you want all of them to be burning, like you have to, you gotta like, it's just like life

00:23:16is a series of trade-offs. Yeah. I mean, Scott Galloway, right? Like you can have it all,

00:23:20but not the same, not everything at once basically. Yeah, exactly. And this is something that I've,

00:23:24I've heard from a lot of women in the workplace as well, that like this, the, this idea that like,

00:23:30yes, you can have the family and you can do the work thing. It's just difficult to do at the same

00:23:33time, unless you're going to give up other things in your life. And so it sounds like in your case,

00:23:37you were, you were taking care of your health with your one hour of gym a day, you were maintaining

00:23:41good progress at the corporate job, but then all of the rest of your time seemingly was focused on

00:23:45the YouTube thing. I want to be very mindful of how I describe this because in the end it pays off and

00:23:49I'm not trying to promote this lifestyle, if that makes sense, right? It really has to,

00:23:53everyone has their own personal preferences and choices. But for me, it was extremely painful.

00:23:59And we can talk about this later, but I, I used to party a lot. I used to go out a lot.

00:24:04I grew up in Hong Kong. I started going out when I was 14, Ali, 14 years old.

00:24:0614? Bloody hell. I was playing World of Warcraft when I was 14.

00:24:10I was gaming too. I was playing Warcraft, Warcraft Theater, Frozen Throne, but I was also going out.

00:24:15Funny story. One of the nights I literally couldn't go back home because after drinking,

00:24:18I didn't want my parents to know I was drinking. I slept in an internet cafe. I was,

00:24:22I was gaming until 6:00 a.m. and then went back home. Nice. Sorry, mom.

00:24:25Living the dream.

00:24:27Living the dream. I love it.

00:24:29Yeah. But I had to give all that up for two years. And that's why I started off saying I only,

00:24:34I always don't come in two years. For two years, I, I, I went out maybe once a quarter and

00:24:40there was never a moment where a friend was like, Hey, can we get dinner next Friday? I was like, no,

00:24:45we have to like, we have to, I have to schedule one month in advance because if I got dinner with

00:24:50you, then the video, you know, I upload one video a week, then I couldn't do the video,

00:24:54but then I committed to video. So, you know, I have to plan around that. There were literally times

00:24:58whereby to make a wedding or a big event, I had to front load two videos in a week and basically not

00:25:04sleep and then to go to the wedding. Right. It was, it was crazy, crazy like that. And the worst part

00:25:09was I would say, um, this might be TMI. I'm usually a very happy, optimistic person. I would say I lost

00:25:13like, I would say 70% of my friends during that time because people just stopped inviting me to

00:25:17stuff. And the worst part of that was that it was my problem, not theirs. Like, for example,

00:25:23if a girl rejected me, I'd be like, Oh, I don't like her anyways. It's not even pretty. Or like,

00:25:27if I didn't get the promotions, I was a manager's fault. Right. It's not me. You could also sort

00:25:30of blame someone, but, but not being invited to events because you yourself said no three to five

00:25:37times already. That's just on you. You, you cannot reasonably blame anyone because you,

00:25:43you wouldn't, I would not do it. If someone said no, but I bought it Ollie five times in a row.

00:25:47And I was like, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope. I'm not going to invite you the sixth time. Right.

00:25:50Well, maybe, but you get, you are, you get where I'm going with this. So it was particularly difficult

00:25:54because I knew it was, I had to live with the consequences of my decisions. Um, looking back,

00:25:59it worked out like a lot of them, a lot of my current friends would tell me they were like party

00:26:02friends anyways. It doesn't matter. But I would say at that moment, it was really, really hard. Um, on,

00:26:08on, on, on, on me. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Was it worth it?

00:26:12Oh yeah. Yes, for sure. I, of course it was worth it because at the end of the day,

00:26:17my motivation to do this for the past five years was, okay, do I want to trade my five years of

00:26:22utility, happy pleasure for 50 years of freedom? Right. Because we both have heard stories about

00:26:28parents who had to miss important milestones of their kids, um, because they had to work and

00:26:33provide for the family, right? It's like, oh, I'm so sorry. I can't make it to your soccer,

00:26:36football, sorry, football practice or football game rather, because daddy has to go, um, go to a

00:26:42conference or something along those lines. Right. I, I, I want the opportunity to ignore my kids

00:26:48myself. No, I want the opportunity to, to, to be there for them. If I, if I show, if I wanted to be. So

00:26:56the, looking back, it was obviously the right choice. Yeah. In that moment, it was difficult.

00:27:01So it's like you're, you're choosing to pay the cost right now rather than in the future.

00:27:05Because I think most people forget that it's a very virtuous flywheel and the growth comes

00:27:10exponentially, but it's not like, oh, you give a five years for like five years of good, good stuff

00:27:14and they have to give a five years again. That's not how it works. It's more like you give a five

00:27:16years and for the next like decade, two decades, three decades, it just keeps getting easier and

00:27:22easier because you already know what to expect. So that's how I think about it.

00:27:25Jeff traded two years of his social life for what will hopefully be, you know, a couple of decades

00:27:29worth of freedom. And along the way, he says he lost 70% of his friends and he had to say no to

00:27:33almost everything in his life. You might be interested to know what was the real deep,

00:27:37dark motivation underneath this that made him want to do this grind. And we talk about that

00:27:42a little bit later on in the video. So that will be coming up in step number seven, I think.

00:27:45Okay, so you're grinding it up for these two years, spending a ton of time. To what extent,

00:27:52like we talked about the friends piece, but to what extent did it feel like a grind versus feel like

00:27:59actually you were having fun because you're working on this thing that's like quite exhilarating and it's,

00:28:02yeah, I'm actually a very interesting perspective on this because it's happening to me recently.

00:28:07So during that period of time, I didn't even have time to think whether or not I was grinding because

00:28:12everything was so sort of set in stone, so to speak, because I knew what I had to do every single

00:28:17day. So for the first two years, that was my life. I didn't overthink it. So I would say actually,

00:28:21this is one of my unfair advantages. This is sort of how I'm built. Once I commit to something,

00:28:26I just don't renegotiate with myself and I don't follow basketball, but I saw this clip from Kobe

00:28:32Bryant where he was saying how, and I'm going to butcher the terminology. So people in the comments

00:28:37are probably going to call it out. But long story short for basketball players like him, during their

00:28:41off season or something, they have summer training sessions. So they have to like three months where

00:28:45they just train, right? And apparently what Kobe Bryant did was he would sign a contract with himself

00:28:50saying, I'm going to train 12 hours a day and this is going to be my training plan. And once that's

00:28:54signed, he cannot renegotiate with himself. He just can't change anything. So he just has to do it.

00:28:59So he doesn't think he just does it right. And so to answer the first part of your question,

00:29:03I would say for the first two years, that was like my mindset. I'm like, okay, I'm just going to do the

00:29:08thing and we'll figure it out after. Funnily enough, it's not until after I quit Google where I was

00:29:13like, oh, I've quote unquote made it. I quit and I have some sort of financial security. I can do what I want.

00:29:19When that question came into play, like, oh, what I, what I do now? Like, do I, do I,

00:29:24do I continue doing this? Like, how does my day look like suddenly at all these free hours,

00:29:29do I go out? Do I go clubbing? Do I, you know, do I go out and party and make up for those last time?

00:29:33That doesn't sound right. I should keep growing. So that was actually when I became a bit more confused

00:29:38and lost. It was after I quit, not during the time.

00:29:41Yeah. Yeah. Same for me. I remember distinctly, like sort of even from one day to the next, like,

00:29:46you know, the, my final week of working as a doctor, it was during the pandemic. I had shifts on all the

00:29:51time and we released and we filmed three videos that week. Oh, wow. The week I left medicine,

00:29:57because I was going to go to Australia for emergency medicine, et cetera, et cetera. And they closed their

00:30:00borders. But the week I was unemployed, I had filmed nothing. I was like, oh, I've got the whole day. Like,

00:30:05what do I do? And I found that for me, the negotiation, the renegotiation of the contract

00:30:10started when I quit the job. And when my only thing was like, okay, well, I can, I can do whatever I

00:30:15want. So like, what the hell do I want to do? Whereas when you've got a job and you're just sort

00:30:19of squeezing it in because you've got to pump out those one or two videos a week, like that it's a,

00:30:24it's an additional full-time job to figure out how to pump out these extra one or two videos a week

00:30:28consistently while juggling everything and everything else in life, which doesn't leave a lot of room for,

00:30:33hmm, am I really enjoying this? Is this really my purpose? Is this my mission? Like, do I really

00:30:37want to be doing this? It's like, no. And especially when you're on a wave and you're riding the wave

00:30:41of like, okay, things are working. Like, um, growth can mask a lot of kind of misalignment sometimes.

00:30:47For sure. Or it's like, when the numbers are going up, you just don't think too hard about it.

00:30:50Yeah. It's when the numbers stop going up or when you have a lot of free time that you start to

00:30:54think like, hmm, you know. What should I be doing? Yeah, what should I be doing? Yeah, what should I be doing right now?

00:30:59Like, what's going up? Yeah.

00:31:00So now we move on to step three, which is to suck less with each rep. But before we go there,

00:31:05I wanted to ask Jeff the thorny question that's in a lot of people's minds, which is,

00:31:09what if you try this and it doesn't work out? There was a lovely young lady who came to one

00:31:14of our events when I was in London a few months ago, and she had taken our YouTube course a few years ago

00:31:19and also swore by the, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to stay consistent for two years and

00:31:23it's going to change my life. Okay.

00:31:24And in those two years, she'd made 300 something videos. They were all vlogs of like her life in

00:31:29London and she had 700 subscribers and was not yet monetized. At what point do you cut your losses?

00:31:34At what point do you decide like things need to change? Like how? Yeah.

00:31:37Yeah. My answer is twofold. I would say first, one of my friends in China, because China has a

00:31:44different sort of creator ecosystem, like Little Red Book and Bilibili. And I've actually also seen

00:31:50creators who stayed consistent and might not gain traction on the Chinese sort of social media

00:31:55platforms. I used to tell them as long as you upload one video a week for two years, you're going to

00:32:00succeed. But after analyzing their performance, I realized I missed a crucial part. You have to upload

00:32:07a video every week for two years. That's a given, but you have to suck less with each video. You have

00:32:13to make at least a 1% improvement. And looking back, I did that, but I didn't really internalize. I didn't

00:32:19know what I was like. I was doing that. For example, my first video was absolute dog shit. I spent 40 hours

00:32:25on it. It was absolutely terrible. No one watched it. Makes sense. I was like, oh, it's because my lighting

00:32:29sucks. So I changed it. That's the only thing I changed in the second video. It still sucked. And

00:32:34then I was like, oh, actually the color scheme is kind of all over the place. Like it's orange, yellow,

00:32:38red, and blue. Let's stick with one. And then it made the color scheme change. And then I made,

00:32:43I got better audio, so on and so forth. And this leads to the second part of my answer, the student

00:32:47that who spoke with you and my creator friends, it seems like the student needed to find a painful

00:32:53problem to solve. Like at some point, yes, you get good at making videos, but you might not be making

00:32:59content and making videos people need or want. And I think that's going to be the crossroads in which

00:33:04you have to make a decision whether to cut your losses. Because let's say, let's say the student

00:33:09realizes, oh, my vlogs are not going to take off. I have to pivot to, let's say, how to be a better

00:33:13real estate agent. So I'm just making this up, right? At that point, she has to ask herself,

00:33:18do I really want to talk about this for like two, three years? Do I really want to go on?

00:33:21I was in my passion, but I'm good at this. Sure. But do I really want to do this? Right?

00:33:25If the answer is no, maybe, you know, sticking with a more full-time thing that

00:33:29brings you better utility is better. But if the answer is, yeah, it's like, not bad. I could see

00:33:33myself doing this, then you would just pivot. I think the pivot, I was missing the pivot part when

00:33:38I was telling people, hey, if you just upload one of your two years, you'll, you'll win at life.

00:33:42That was what I was missing. Yeah.

00:33:43Yeah. Yeah. I've seen this pattern play out quite a lot as well. Sometimes I'll see comments on my videos

00:33:49from someone with like a, like a username. That's like a jumble of characters. Right.

00:33:53And they'll say, Ali, I've been making YouTube videos for two years and nothing's happening.

00:33:57And I'm like, huh? I look at their channel and all of the videos for the last two years,

00:34:01there were random topics. They don't have their face. They're like three minutes long.

00:34:05They're throwing spaghetti at the wall using whiteboard animation software and now AI animation

00:34:10software voiceovers that are clearly AI generated and missing the crucial like strategy component of like,

00:34:17yeah, sure. You can, you can just make YouTube videos just like anyone can publish a book and

00:34:21stick it on Amazon. But like, ultimately people need to pay for your videos. If they're not paying

00:34:27with their money, they're paying with their time and attention, which is in many ways more valuable

00:34:29than their money. So like, what is the thing? And if you were starting YouTube today, would you think

00:34:34about niche from day one or would you throw spaghetti at the wall in terms of making some videos or like,

00:34:39yeah. So I like this question because I think I have a good answer. And it's, it's something I've told

00:34:44other people, other budding creators who've asked me is like, Hey Jeff, like, what would you literally,

00:34:48what would you do if you started today? Right? I'll be like, copy, find someone to copy. I've told you

00:34:54this a few times before. I tried my best to copy your style when I started. I tried my best. I couldn't

00:34:58do it because I'm not you, right? Like I could try to be like, okay, what's the font Ollie's using?

00:35:02What's the color? What are the packs that he's using in like Final Cut Pro? I took a Skillshare course.

00:35:07I'm going to use everything he said in that course. I'm just going to make the same video,

00:35:10not even close to being the same video. Right? And I have the saved in my Google photos albums.

00:35:16It wasn't until a year in someone was like, Oh, this guy is like the Asian Ali Abdaal. I have that

00:35:20like to this day. I was so happy to see that. But I was like, it took me, it took someone a year to

00:35:25figure that out. That was trying to like copy you. Like, wow, I did a terrible job in copying you.

00:35:29Right? So the point I'm trying to make here is if you're starting today, find someone you respect and

00:35:34copy the crap out of them. And people are like, Oh no, that's plagiarism. Well,

00:35:37no, unless you're literally taking the vid, downloading the videos and uploading onto your

00:35:40channel, there's no way you could possibly copy them. Well, because you're not, you don't have

00:35:46the experience you haven't put in the reps yet. Right? But you have an image of what good looks like.

00:35:51So, you know, you have like the, what the gap is. And if you allow me to be a nerd here, Ali,

00:35:56that's exactly why context engineering. So it's important for AI, right? It's so much better

00:36:00to give AI, like an example of a good output. For example, a YouTube video script, then say,

00:36:06write me a good YouTube video script and the tone of voice of Ali Abdul or Jeff Su. Right?

00:36:11If you could get the script, it's going to be much closer. Exact same way. So in a nutshell,

00:36:15what I would tell people is find someone you respect right now when whatever social media platform

00:36:19they're on, study them, copy them. At some point along your journey, you are going to find your own

00:36:24brand and your own voice. And it will just come naturally come out. You're not going to have to force

00:36:28it because you'll realize, oh, I disagree with Ali and Jeff here. This is, this is my point of view.

00:36:34It's just going to come naturally. Yeah, I completely agree. When I started in 2017,

00:36:38I was trying to be Peter McKinnon. So when I was doing like my, I would watch his Lightroom

00:36:43tutorials and I was like, man, I just love how the camera switches seamlessly between like the screen

00:36:48share and the thing. And so, and how he's like, so vibrant about it. So then when I was doing videos

00:36:52about like, this is how you prepare, how you prepare for BMAT section one. I was trying to channel

00:36:56Peter McKinnon and just clearly failing at it. And then similarly, when I started doing vlogs of

00:37:01life as a medical student, I was watching every single Peter McKinnon freaking video to be like,

00:37:04how does he do it? Okay. When he's uploading his SD card, he's like, he's like naming the cameras.

00:37:08So I only had one camera. So I was like, Sony a 6,400, whereas he's got like a 70 mark to blah,

00:37:15blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, etc. And I was like,

00:37:16I'm going to copy me to Peter McKinnon. I started editing in premiere because that's what he was using.

00:37:20Started, I downloaded all his color grades for Lightroom. That was my Instagram profile back in the day.

00:37:24And trying to be like, oh man, this lens is really expensive. Oh, but he uses like a 50 millimeter

00:37:28prime for his B roll. Oh, okay, fine. I'm going to save up and get that 50 millimeter because that's

00:37:33what's going to make my B roll. And I'll be carrying two lenses, one for the A roll,

00:37:36a 16 millimeter because that's what Peter McKinnon does. And then a freaking like 50 millimeter for

00:37:39the B roll, try to do the cinematic things. Back in the day, he was doing the thing where it changes

00:37:43the aspect ratio to 16 by nine by adding the black bars, like fading those in. Making a cinematic.

00:37:48Yeah, making a cinematic B roll. Never has anyone ever said, man, you're like Peter McKinnon,

00:37:53but for nerds or whatever. And I'm like, God damn it. That's what I was trying so hard to go for.

00:37:57This is the process of trying to do that. Like my own kind of voice emerged.

00:38:00This is going to be the first mean comment, Ali. And I say this with love, you know, I love you,

00:38:04but you were not even close. There was never a moment because I watched his videos too.

00:38:09I would, I would say I, there was no correlation or like, you know, connection.

00:38:12I tried. There was not a second when I watched your videos. I was like, Oh, that reminds me of Peter

00:38:16McKinnon's video. I love you. But yeah, no, I'd say that that would be one of your few failures.

00:38:22Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What can you do? There's still hope. There's still time. I can still try and

00:38:26be sure. Tell yourself that, but yeah. So all of this maps onto a framework that we teach our

00:38:30YouTuber Academy students a lot, which is step one is get going. Step two is get good. And then step

00:38:34three is get smart. And a lot of people get really stuck on like figuring out the question of like,

00:38:39what's my niche before they've even made a handful of videos. It's like a whole thing that we try and

00:38:43teach people is like, just make the videos first. It's okay that you will feel like you suck at them.

00:38:47You got to embrace the suck because you can't really learn any skills. You can't grow while also being

00:38:52afraid to suck at the thing, right? So you just make shitty videos. You try and imitate other people in

00:38:56the space. And in the process of imitating those other people in the space, your skills at making

00:38:59videos will improve naturally. You'll develop your own authentic voice. And then as Jeff worked out,

00:39:04you start to suck less with each rep and then in stage three, get smart. You'll hopefully if, if the

00:39:09content is resonating with people, you'll find that people are naturally asking you for the products

00:39:13that you can then create. You don't have to do it in a way that feels salesy. And so your action

00:39:16point from this, if you are interested in building a creative business like mine or Jeff's, for example,

00:39:20is figure out who are some of the creators that you look up to and how can you try your best to

00:39:25imitate their style. And regardless of whether you succeed or not, the point is you'll at least have a

00:39:29model to aim for. And each time you do a video or content or whatever, you'll get closer to that

00:39:33model. And then in the process, you'll develop your own authentic voice. So now we move on to step

00:39:38number four, which is to build the machine. Now this point it's 2023. Jeff has made like 150 YouTube

00:39:43videos and he's got a little bit of a machine, a system behind it. And in this segment of the video,

00:39:47we're going to dive deep into the system that Jeff built to try and systemize the production of

00:39:52YouTube videos. This is a fairly long aspect of the video. We were thinking of cutting it out,

00:39:56but then realized actually it's more valuable if we keep it in because so few people actually show you

00:39:59the behind the scenes of like what's literally happening on their computer screen as they're

00:40:02making the content. If you don't care, you can always get to the next timestamp, but we're going

00:40:05to dive deep into Jeff's machine for YouTube content creation. I think one of the biggest differences

00:40:10between us, Ali, you excel at like what I call off the cup improvisation, if that makes sense.

00:40:16Because if I remember correctly, if you haven't changed your workflow, you sort of have a rough

00:40:21structure of every video and you're able to sort of riff off that and speak extremely articulately.

00:40:26I am not that. So I would, I would, I would say even with this, with this episode where I have fully

00:40:33prepped, if viewers put a side by side, they're going to be like, Oh, Jeff sort of stutters a

00:40:37little bit. He's, he's, I sort of get what he's saying, but he's not very articulate or focused with

00:40:41his phrasing or words or whatever. That's one of my, I think biggest issues. The reason I'm saying

00:40:45this is because for all of my videos, I've like every word scripted out. Oh, wow.

00:40:50Every single word I could share some of the scripts with you, every single word. And I just, I just

00:40:55literally memorize it, say it, screw up, cut, memorize it again, say it and just keeps going. And so

00:41:01everyone thinks, Oh my God, Jeff speaks flawlessly, not even close. Can we have a look at one of your

00:41:06scripts? Like what does it pull it? Let me pull out the latest one. Great. Master Gemini 3.0. By the

00:41:10way, Gemini 3 is doing great. I'm not just saying that because I used to work good as a very solid,

00:41:14uh, solid, uh, solid, solid update. Do you see like everything on the left? This is every single word.

00:41:18For example, Gemini 3.0 is a fantastic model, but the sheer volume of updates is honestly

00:41:22overwhelming and not every new feature deserves your attention. That's literally how I sound in the

00:41:28video. Can you, so imagine you were talking to that camera or like, what does the process look

00:41:32like of you like reading? Oh yeah, sure. So let's say I'm looking at that camera. I'm like,

00:41:36Gemini 3.0 is a fantastic model, but the sheer volume is honestly, okay. Gemini 3.0. Okay.

00:41:40Gemini 3.0 is a fantastic model, but not every new,

00:41:44like that, that's how it looks. Yeah. And then I keep, I keep going. So it takes me roughly an hour to film

00:41:50every single video. And on the right, it's the instructions from my editor. Like that's how it

00:41:55looks. Yeah. And then I keep, I keep going. So it takes me roughly an hour to film every single video.

00:42:01And on the right, it's the instructions from my editor. Like that's how it looks. Yeah. And then I keep,

00:42:05I keep going. So it takes me roughly an hour to film every single video. And on the right,

00:42:11it's the instructions from my editor. Like I know it's, it's completely different than

00:42:15how you do it. Like, but that's, yeah, that's my workload. I think that's a lot.

00:42:20Mate, this is so interesting. This is why you're crushing it. And I'm not anymore.

00:42:22No, no. Trust me. The amount of effort that goes into this is insane.

00:42:26Because especially I think for AI content, if I don't use the right terminology or explain it in

00:42:32a visual way, it doesn't work. Another one of my unfair advantages is I'm really able to

00:42:38visualize complex topics in a very easy to understand way. Let me give you a very specific

00:42:42example. I mean, I'm preaching to a choir here, Ali, because I sort of learned this from you.

00:42:47If I told you right now Gemini 3 has a much larger context window than Claude, you'd be like,

00:42:52okay, I understand that intellectually. So what? But I'm like, oh, if you think about Gemini 3's context

00:42:58window as a big box to store information, it's a massive box in the store, your entire apartments

00:43:02of furniture in there. Claude can only store one chair. You'd be like, oh, okay, that makes sense.

00:43:09And I'm assuming the furniture is like information and data. Like, yeah, Gemini can process all that

00:43:13all at once. Whereas Claude can just process one chair. What does the process of writing one of

00:43:17these like word for word scripts look like? Ooh, this is really fun because now it's empowered by AI.

00:43:23I used to have to spend 10 hours writing a mediocre script. Now with AI,

00:43:27I use 10 hours and write, I think a much better script objectively speaking than my previous scripts.

00:43:32So I could just walk you through the workflow. Okay. So do you see on the right hand side here,

00:43:38my new video template is followed by 8.0. It means I've gone through eight iterations of

00:43:45a new video template notion over the past five years, like continuous iteration, right? Because

00:43:50previously it was not good, then it got better, it sucked less, blah, blah, blah. Now it's 8.0.

00:43:55All right. So the first thing I always do after filling in the properties up here, obviously,

00:43:59is to capture as much information as possible about the video. When I first had the idea, because again,

00:44:06you know, much better than me information that our brains are for having ideas, not storing them.

00:44:10Right. And I have ideas in the weirdest places running, working out, like in a team meeting,

00:44:15I Google, right. I have this idea. I capture it on, let's say, to-do list right away. And then I

00:44:19immediately move that over here so that it can be way to be processed. I don't forget about it.

00:44:24Right. So I might come back to this capturing information two, three, four weeks later. And I'll

00:44:28be like, oh, this is what I want. Now, here's what I think most people don't get wrong about

00:44:35making, in my opinion, the creative process of making consistently good YouTube videos.

00:44:3980% of my success, I would say comes from the checklist on the right here. Like, if you look

00:44:43another thing on the left, like don't look at the left, like if you just look at the checklist here,

00:44:48I would say that's 80% of my success because I follow this every single video for 195 videos.

00:44:55And people are like, no way. Aren't creatives supposed to have this viral idea and you just go

00:45:00with it, you publish it and you're like suddenly like famous. That might work once or twice,

00:45:04but to have consistently viral good ideas, it's literally checkbox by checkbox by checkbox.

00:45:10Yep. Nice.

00:45:10And the reason I'm bringing this in the first place, if you see this link right here, Ali,

00:45:14is my, it's a link to my pre-production prompts for YouTube, where I have a set of AI enabled

00:45:19workflows and prompts that help me draft better outlines, come up with a better hook, brainstorm

00:45:24better titles and thumbnails. And I literally just follow this every single time. So it says right

00:45:29here, use GPT articulate on rough thoughts. What does that mean? So remember how just now I said,

00:45:34I'm not very good at articulating some concepts. I'm like, oh, maybe like for example,

00:45:38different AI models are all getting better and they're like cashing up to each other.

00:45:42And so it doesn't really matter which AI model you pick. That sounds very vague, right? Okay.

00:45:46So, uh, GPT, uh, uh, GPT articulate. So once I type in that last, um, letter, it expands to a fully

00:45:54French articulation prompt, right? So I've optimized this over like last two years.

00:45:59And then I paste my raw thoughts here. Uh, AI models are all getting better. So it doesn't really matter

00:46:07which one you pick. We're going to let that run, but we'll come back to this in like a minute, but I

00:46:14repeat that process for every single stage of the YouTube production process. I have production prompts

00:46:22for YouTube. I have post production prompts, post production prompts for YouTube. So pretty production

00:46:29prompts, follow all this one, two, three, four, five production prompts. One, two, three, four, five

00:46:34post production prompts. One, two, three, four, five. And that helps me produce consistently clear and

00:46:40concise YouTube scripts.

00:46:42Hmm. Okay. Mate. I love this. This is sort of like what we do, but like on steroids because we've

00:46:48got like video template V4, which is V4 is really more like V16 because we've just been iterating over

00:46:53it through time. Right. And we have periods of time where I get very bullish on the checklist and like,

00:46:59okay, we're just following a series of actions and then stuff slips. And then I stop bothering with the

00:47:04checklist. The team stops bothering with the checklist. We've got the checklist, but no one like clicks on

00:47:07any of the items of the checklist. And I was looking at the checklist yesterday. I was like,

00:47:11huh, this is actually a pretty good checklist, man. We should go through this more often kind of thing.

00:47:16And seeing like your checklist, I'm like, ah, that's it.

00:47:19Being a management consultant for two years and being a Google for nine years really hammered that home

00:47:23in me. Don't get me wrong. I'll be the first person to list all the issues Google has as a company for

00:47:30sure. But they do a lot of things right. And one of which is, okay, we're going to give you a really,

00:47:35really structured process to follow in your job. You will have flexibility for sure,

00:47:41especially back then we had a lot more autonomy, but this is like what good looks like.

00:47:46Follow this framework and you'll achieve like this sort of outcome.

00:47:49So that I learned that from being a consultant and working.

00:47:52Yeah. It's the same in medicine, to be honest, like surgical safety checklists and all that kind

00:47:55of stuff that like, Hey, we follow the same checklist for every procedure. And yes, of course,

00:47:59then there's like the skill of the operator and stuff, but like, ideally you want to minimize the

00:48:02amount, the skill of the operator makes on the outcome of the patient, because then you're so

00:48:06dependent on that person having a good day. And so the more you can systemize an SOP, if I turn into

00:48:10a checklist, the more the healthcare system as a whole is delivering outcomes for sure, rather

00:48:14than any individual contributor. Oh yeah. I mean, let me be very specific here. I physically cannot

00:48:19move. Okay. Let me uncheck this so you can read it better. So the last task here is proceed after the

00:48:25title and thumbnail have been confirmed. That is as clear as it gets, right? You did the thumbnail,

00:48:30is the thumbnail, thumbnail confirmed? No, I cannot proceed. And this is the thumbnail and title sort of

00:48:35stage. So I have to be happy with how this looks first. Final thumbnail. I use the pre-production

00:48:40prompts to think through what the title should be like using creative hooks frameworks and then

00:48:45brainstorming thumbnail ideas. Okay. Proceed. Okay. Now, ah, I'm scripting. So I need to finance that

00:48:50hook first because hook is more important than the script outline. Oh, how do I write a great hook?

00:48:54These are the three things I need to remember. And then I have that in my pre-production prompts as well.

00:48:58And then it just goes from there. And literally, as you go all the way down, I've not published this

00:49:02video yet. It will be published on Tuesday, this upcoming Tuesday, but post-production hasn't

00:49:06happened. So none of this are checked. I want to be very clear. It's not that I forgot, but you

00:49:10know, it hasn't been published yet. Mate. I love it. How long does it take to prepare each video

00:49:17before you film it? I would say every video takes around 20 hours for me to produce from end to end.

00:49:22Great. And what's the split of that process in pre-production, filming production,

00:49:25post-production, post-production, eight to 10 hours of scripting. And when I say scripting,

00:49:29I'm talking about all the pre-production tasks from ideation to title thumbnail, to thinking through

00:49:35the outline of the script and like writing the script. Previously, while I was editing my videos,

00:49:39it took another eight to 10 hours to edit it. Now it takes around four to five hours. You might because

00:49:45about four to five hours, because especially for AI content, I need to explain to the editor or brief the

00:49:51editor how I want the motion graphics to look like, to make sure people really understand.

00:49:56Yeah. Right. So I need to leave a lot of instructions and guess, oh, I can even show you

00:50:01this. This is going to surprise you, I think, Ali, because I don't think this is normal, but

00:50:08in order to make it easier for me to explain to the video editor what I want, I literally have a

00:50:13camera design with a mock-up screenshots for them to create. And if you watch some of my videos,

00:50:20Oh, these seem very familiar. It's given that I've seen your videos. Yeah. Nice.

00:50:24Um, the idea is if you have a system, for example, this graph, right? With a system effort goes down

00:50:29over time with a system. It's like our YouTube process. You've got a system. So effort goes down

00:50:33over time. We don't have a system. So, or rather we have a system, but we don't follow it. And therefore,

00:50:37it stays difficult. Right. Yeah. And in this particular instance, if I didn't show the editor

00:50:43a screenshot, he or she may not understand exactly how to convey the concept or the topic. Yeah. So,

00:50:49yeah. So, so, so this is why it takes me four to five hours to still brief the editor. I still have

00:50:53to come up with instructions, uh, review the first draft, and then we're good to go. But I have a

00:50:57fantastic, uh, guy working with me. So it's just gotten easier and easier over time. And so if you're,

00:51:02so as you're going through the script, if you're adding in like B roll instructions, if so it's,

00:51:06you're thinking, okay, this would benefit from a visualization. Hmm. Okay. Let me just draw it

00:51:11out in Canva. Exactly. Okay. Or now I can use Excalidraw. I haven't really used this, uh, that much,

00:51:16as you can see, as I've only done a couple of things here, but now I realize maybe it's easier with

00:51:19Excalidraw. I'm just testing that out now too. Yeah. That's really cool. So you got eight to 10 hours

00:51:24actually writing the script, going through all the tasks, the pre-production tasks, et cetera. And then it

00:51:28takes you an hour to film the video because you're doing the back and forth, all of that kind of stuff.

00:51:31Then you send the footage to the editor. Four to five hours of, uh, briefing editor, uh, reviewing

00:51:36just one draft and like having it ready to be published. Nice. To what extent do you enjoy this

00:51:40process? I have to say getting started every little time is the hardest part, but once I get in the

00:51:46flow and zone, I find myself loving it. So the hardest part is always be like, okay, what's the

00:51:52angle for this video? Because that's the part you really need to like bunker down. I think, you know,

00:51:58it's like, what's my point of view on this? I can't, I, I don't think I agree with what everyone

00:52:02else is saying. Like, what is my point of view? And I'm just sitting there for like a good 30 to 60

00:52:05minutes, just like thinking doodling, like being distracted. That that's the hardest part. But once

00:52:10I have a like crystal concept, for example, this one Gemini theory has generally a lot of hype,

00:52:14but for good reason and for good reason, the update is significant, but there's a lot of noise. So

00:52:20can I answer the question? How can non-technical knowledge work as best you guys,

00:52:23Gemini 3.0, right? Like practical advice. Once I figure that out, that's the video. I really,

00:52:29really like testing out all the use cases and doing the thing. I'm like, oh, does this work?

00:52:34For example, oh, this is the proudest, uh, this is a proudest step from this video. Oh yeah. I'm

00:52:38leaking it to you first. Gemini theory has gotten so good that it can take everything in Google drive,

00:52:42Google calendar, Gmail to do stuff for you. If you were working at a company, what a corporate company,

00:52:49one of the most tedious things is performance reviews. It is boring. It is useless, but necessary

00:52:55to get promoted and get a raise and all that stuff. And usually it takes people weeks because they put it

00:53:00off. Now you can, and I'll do it in real time at workspace, go through my entire, uh, go through

00:53:09everything you know about me and write a performance review, uh, for the past six months, pay attention to

00:53:18targets and attainments and quantifiable attainments. And we'll come back to this. It's going to work for

00:53:24quite a few minutes. It will give, give you a finished performance review with all accurate information

00:53:29because it has access to everything. So, so, so, so when I found this out, when I tested, I found this

00:53:34out, the high I got was I was really, really, really happy because it's really practical and people can

00:53:40really use this. That's a lot of effort on every single video. Wow. Wow. It was reminding me when

00:53:47I had the conversation with Mr. Who's the boss and he was like, yeah, he spends 40 to 60 hours writing

00:53:52the script for every single video. Yeah. That's crazy. Holy shit. I saw, I watched that episode.

00:53:56That's a lot. Yeah. He's the sort of person who can't, who can not do that. Yeah. His personality

00:54:01is very like detail oriented and that's why the videos are so good. Yeah. So what I'm really taking

00:54:07away from this is that like, and you know, this has sort of been the whole thesis of our YouTuber

00:54:11Academy for the last five years as well, which is that, uh, it's really, really hard if you don't

00:54:15have a system. Um, like if you're having to think of one video idea every single time and then you publish

00:54:20the video and now you're thinking about the new video idea, then life becomes hard. But if you

00:54:23have a system for capturing ideas, if you have a system for like generating titles and thumbnails

00:54:27that are broadly in a house style, rather than having to reinvent the wheel for each one, if you

00:54:31have some sort of system that you're following to like script your hooks or script your videos and

00:54:34do the talking points of the video, some sort of post-production system, just some kind of system

00:54:38takes quite a lot of the heavy lifting off your plate. And it means that like your thing gets better

00:54:43over time, uh, even though you're still putting out the same amount of output. For sure. Yeah.

00:54:47Yeah. And again, I'm preaching to the choir here, but just for everyone

00:54:51it just takes the mental or decision fatigue out of the equation because you know exactly what we're

00:54:55doing next. Yeah. Sick. This is amazing stuff. Um, anything else you've given that this is a show

00:55:00and tell, um, any other thing? Oh yeah. So, so there we go. It's, it's done. And obviously this is for my

00:55:06business, but literally it's able to like, like pull everything out and write a very, very comprehensive

00:55:13and accurate, more importantly, accurate sort of report. Uh, the one other thing I'd bring up is for

00:55:18example, this is my command center, right? And in tune with not having to worry about decision fatigue,

00:55:23like my new, like it's all about systems. I've managed my life system. I click new day and this

00:55:29is literally everything I need to do today. Yeah. I don't think I just, I just do it right. Review

00:55:33the calendar, figure that out. I have to wish people happy birthday. It's on there. I read all the

00:55:37comments from social media. So social media down here, I read all the comments to reply, so on and so

00:55:41forth. Like today, my priority is, Oh, prepare for Ali's episode. Like, you know, before I do the

00:55:46other thing. So in line with sort of like having systems, I think that's, that's another thing I

00:55:50want. I wanted to share. Nice. What's the make time bit Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday? Oh, this is

00:55:55something silly. Uh, probably not relevant to you, but I read make time after you recommended it. One of

00:55:59my favorite books in the world. And one of their things, as you might recall is. Yeah. Highlight.

00:56:05Yeah. GHL is what I would put in my physical journal. There you go. Yeah. So like,

00:56:09I'm grateful for like Ali. I didn't plan this, by the way. I was like, Oh, it'd be nice to be

00:56:13grateful to be invited, you know, to film something. And then like, for example, let go. And what I

00:56:17mean by this is I was actually kind of worried because most of my content is very educational.

00:56:21And I don't have that much opportunity to share the personal side of myself. And I think a lot of

00:56:26people have a false impression like, Oh, Jeff is this really kind, generous, smart person when reality,

00:56:31not really, you know? Um, so I was a little bit anxious, I think, to share that side of myself.

00:56:38And I wrote here, I get to share side of myself. My viewers haven't really seen. So to,

00:56:43to position in a more positive, you know, light, I get to do this versus I have to do it.

00:56:48Do you have a system for like time blocking on your calendar? Like how do you, how do you organize

00:56:51your calendar? Oh yeah. Um, I prepared this in anticipation for this sort of interview.

00:56:57I mocked up something that would look like my schedule back when I was at Google.

00:57:01Yeah. Nice. Obviously there's not much, that much open space. I didn't want to like,

00:57:04just fill up with random stuff. But the key thing I want to highlight was like my,

00:57:08my, my review sessions, um, in blue. I think 99% of people don't do this. And this is probably the

00:57:15biggest reason why things slip through the cracks. It's all good and fine for us, me and you to tell

00:57:21people, you need to capture everything immediately. You have to store in, you have to make the capture

00:57:24process seamless, right? You have to assign due dates to tasks. You have to tag ideas and thoughts you

00:57:29have. If you don't review them, you might not, you might as well not have captured them. So my biggest

00:57:36sort of hack when I was at Google is as long as I can review all my inboxes, my Gmail inbox, Google

00:57:40Keep inbox, Drive inbox and Google Tasks inbox, nothing slips through the cracks. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

00:57:46Yeah. Right here. And I have a link straight to it. Like I could click into it and it goes to my

00:57:49Google Keep inbox. So this is my Google Keep inbox. And once it's processed, I'll click E and it's

00:57:54archived. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So I'm going to bring that back, but yeah, that, that's sort of like the,

00:57:58the review process right there. Sick. And to what extent do you still do that now that you're a

00:58:01full-time entrepreneur? Oh, I still do exactly this by Notion. So the reason I had to do this using,

00:58:06let's say Google Keep and Google Tasks, because when you're working on Google, you're not allowed to use

00:58:10any other platform to do any work stuff. I do the exact same thing by Notion. So this workflow,

00:58:14I would say is platform agnostic. As long as you capture, organize, review,

00:58:17engage core workflow, you can use any tour platform and get things, get things done.

00:58:23Hmm. How much do you procrastinate? Oh, I, I do. So the problem is now I procrastinate

00:58:30frequently throughout the day that breaks up my deep work. So let me explain. I still work quite

00:58:35a lot right now. I would say, but I don't see it as work because I have a lot of fun doing this.

00:58:39I would say I work from, let's say nine to eight every day, 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Not too bad. Right. But,

00:58:45but yeah, the problem with my procrastination right now is whenever I finish what I think to be a decent

00:58:52chunk of work, I reach for my phone. I open YouTube. I'm like, I reward myself. Yeah.

00:58:58And the reason why that's a problem is because even though I procrastinated, uh, when I was like

00:59:02grinding and hustling hard, I didn't have time to procrastinate like so frequently. There were like

00:59:06dedicated sessions. I'm like, okay, it's a write off day, right? Like what Ollie calls a write off day.

00:59:10Right. But now I'm like, oh, you know, I could get to this. I have time. And then it becomes,

00:59:15it becomes, it was like 30 minutes. I'm like, oh shit. And then I have to come back and stuff like

00:59:18that. So I, so the short answer is I do procrastinate. I still haven't really figured out a way to beat it

00:59:23completely. What other tips do you find helpful for staying focused when you're on task? Because a lot of

00:59:28people really struggle with focus, attention span, all of that stuff. For me, it's simple because I've

00:59:32internalized this basically is a two minute rule, five minute rule, right? It was a two or five minute

00:59:36rule. I can't remember exactly. Yeah. It depends on who you ask. So basically I turn on the, I turn

00:59:42on the timer in the app, super focused app. And I'm like, literally I'm like, okay, five minutes.

00:59:48I'm just going to sit there. And then I start thinking, studying, thinking, by the time it,

00:59:51by the time the alarm rings, I'm already thinking, I'm okay. I just stopped. And I'm like thinking

00:59:54about the next step. So that trick really works really well on me. So I don't really need to force

01:00:00myself to focus, to be very honest. And so let's say you have a day where you've got like, I don't

01:00:04know, eight different things you have to do, but like one of them is the priority. How are you

01:00:10scheduling in the eight different things? The one thing, is it that you're time blocking the one

01:00:14thing and just focusing on that? Is it that you don't need a time block because you just know it's

01:00:17the priority? How are you triaging stuff? Oh yeah. So going back to my Notion command center here.

01:00:22So the thing I forgot to mention just now is whatever the priority is, it goes right in the calendar.

01:00:27That's a non-negotiable. Everything else is like negotiable, if that makes sense. And I've gotten

01:00:33in a really good habit of not over committing because I've had sold like the last 11 years to

01:00:38sort of figure that out right from my first job in management consulting all the way till now.

01:00:42So I know for a fact, I have more than enough time during that day to get the one thing done.

01:00:47Everything else is sort of negotiable, but nice to have, if that makes sense. The beauty of having

01:00:52this in a list, instead of just having a task database here, which I also do have, is you can

01:00:58move this around. Like, okay, the highlight can be moved, but let's say I want to do this afterwards.

01:01:03I can move that. And that visually gives me permission to be like, ah, I will move this

01:01:07around is not set in stone except for the highlight. That makes sense. And I can throw some stuff to

01:01:11tomorrow as well if I don't have the time. So this just gives me permission to move tasks as things

01:01:19change throughout the day for flexibility. Nice. And then can you talk us through your

01:01:23project management thing? So let's say you have a project that's like a Japan trip with Jonathan

01:01:28or something like that. Oh, how would you, how do you keep that organized and the tasks and various

01:01:33things you have to do for that? So I have to give a bit of context here. I'm not, I promise I'm not

01:01:37trying to like, uh, uh, promote my, like, no, you can promote as much as you like. Okay, perfect.

01:01:41So I've been making one YouTube video a year on my Notion command center or life OS system since 2021.

01:01:50And I think I really cracked the code this past year. And I'm using that right now. It's called

01:01:54like Builder. I call it command center. And the course is called Builder command center in Notion.

01:01:58And I'm using Tiago Forte's para method project areas, resources, archived or version of it in this

01:02:04sort of Notion command center. So let me just go through a real project with you. Let's say I create a new

01:02:08project, right? Launch a high ticket AI product. All right. End date. I don't know a couple of months

01:02:16later. All right. I'll, I'll, I'll usually add the Google drive link here and related area. This is

01:02:20related to my products area. Why is that important? Well, because product strategy, well, because

01:02:26I want to be able to find this project at any point, right, to make sure I'm surfacing information as,

01:02:32as they come. So I'm just going to expand this. And again, I just go through sort of a

01:02:38mental checklist. I'm going to put the project overview here. When conditions,

01:02:41op center just simply means, are there any links or AI chats I want to throw on here so I can

01:02:46reference very easily? Related tasks, resources and notes. And the beauty of this is everything is,

01:02:51everything is related in a way that I could create a new task, do user research. And it's

01:02:57automatically related to this project. So even though I can find this in my master task database,

01:03:02the task is surfaced when the caught in a contextually relevant location.

01:03:07Sick. And we'll put a link to the notion course down below.

01:03:09Yeah.

01:03:10And by the way, all of this system stuff is exactly what we teach in our part-time

01:03:13YouTuber Academy. You get all the systems that I've been using for my channel for the last like

01:03:16eight years and all of the scripts, all the templates, all the notion stuff, if you want it,

01:03:19there's a link down below. So now we move on to step number five, which is to do all of this

01:03:23while navigating the day job. When you were at Google, to what extent were you worried about like,

01:03:28oh, what if my employer finds out that I'm doing stuff on the side? Like, how did you navigate?

01:03:34I mean, I guess it's YouTube, Google owns YouTube. So presumably they're okay with it,

01:03:37especially because you're saying nice things about Gemini and Google Keep and Google Mail and stuff.

01:03:40But like, yeah, how did you navigate the negotiating with your employer to allow you to do a side hustle?

01:03:45Are you talking about from a professional standpoint or from a compliance standpoint? Because

01:03:49those two, you might be surprised to know, are completely different. Oh, yeah. Tell me more.

01:03:54Because essentially we have a bunch of people in our Lifestyle Business Academy who are like,

01:03:57oh, I work at insert big company X here. I'm not sure I can really build a business on the side.

01:04:03Have you got any advice? In that case, let me start with the compliance side and I'll move on to the

01:04:07professional side. And you'll see why those two are completely different things, especially these large

01:04:11tech companies. So from a compliance standpoint, I'm a very risk averse person. I had emailed the ethics and

01:04:16compliance team. Even before I started, I uploaded my first video, they gave me a bunch of rules to

01:04:22follow. And I'm like, okay, cool. Eight months later, they audited my channel. And they were like,

01:04:28Jeff, overall, it's okay, but we found some problems. Number one, you are not allowed to talk

01:04:33about Google products. Oh, you're forbidden because it's surprising, right? You'd obviously want to talk

01:04:39about your own products. No, because there's a conflict of interest. Viewers or external people might think

01:04:45you had inside information that they did not have access to. For the record, I never had any insider

01:04:49information, right? And they were like, number two, you're not allowed to film the Google office.

01:04:53So I had to take some videos down. And then a year later, the audit again is fine, right? Yeah.

01:04:57And to Google's credit, again, I'll be the first person to say negative things about Google because

01:05:02they're not a perfect company, not even close. But to Google's credit, I sincerely believe the people

01:05:07they're always trying to do the right thing. Because I know people from Meta, from Apple,

01:05:13from Spotify, from these other companies who got fired basically immediately with no recourse

01:05:19for having some sort of social media presence. Obviously, their content might have been a bit more

01:05:22dodgy, to use the word you use, right? But they were just basically fired immediately, right?

01:05:28Whereas Google's like, look, Jeff, we see you're doing job search, you're doing your productivity,

01:05:31you're trying to help people, you're trying to teach people, just be careful, but you're good.

01:05:35You're good, right? So that's a compliance aspect.

01:05:38Just on that note, let's say if someone is watching this, and they're like, man,

01:05:41I really want to build a side business or a YouTube channel or stop posting on LinkedIn.

01:05:44But I do have one of these jobs where like, I'm kind of worried about what my employer is going

01:05:48to say, what advice would you have for that person who's worried about the compliance perspective,

01:05:53like, because they don't want to get fired?

01:05:54Oh, okay, then for sure, reach out to the compliance team first. I think that's what saved me,

01:05:58because I think they saw because the compliance team has like records of all these sort of like

01:06:03the communication, right? They saw I try to do the right thing by reaching out first,

01:06:07as opposed to asking for forgiveness later, right? And for the record, I'm usually someone who always

01:06:13does a thing first and ask for forgiveness. But in this specific case, ask for permission first,

01:06:17they gave me the benefit of doubt.

01:06:18Yeah.

01:06:18So I do generally think if you're worried about being like fired for compliance issues,

01:06:23you should definitely reach out to the compliance team first, and not your manager. Because in these

01:06:28big tech companies, the managers don't know, they love it. They're like, wow, my manager literally

01:06:32was like, Jeff, I love these videos, do more and do workshops for us. But she didn't know whether or

01:06:38not they were compliant. So when I had to take, let's say my Google videos down back in the day,

01:06:42she was like, wait, why? What? That's crazy. Why would they make you do that? Right? Like,

01:06:46our initial reaction as well. So my manager, she's fucking fantastic. The reason I actually didn't

01:06:52leave earlier is because of her. I want to stay longer for her. She was extremely supportive.

01:06:57And she was basically like, look, Jeff, I understand. I don't even need to say it,

01:07:00but you're not going to let this interfere with your full time job. As long as that's the case,

01:07:03keep going. Love it. That was a more professional side of things.

01:07:07The other thing people are worried about in this context is like, okay, technically it's compliant.

01:07:11But if like my manager finds out, if my colleagues find out, if my manager's manager finds out,

01:07:17like, technically I'm not breaking any rules, but will it look badly on me that like, I'm trying to

01:07:22do commercial activity on the side or something? Will they think, oh, she's got one foot in,

01:07:26one foot out, you know, all that kind of stuff. In my experience, and you've said this countless

01:07:29times, no one cares, really, no one cares. I initially, and I felt the same time, initially,

01:07:34I was like, oh, people are talking behind my back. Did you see Jeff Su's latest video? Like,

01:07:39he sounds so stupid. That's never happened, right? Maybe someone made a comment like,

01:07:43oh, I saw your video. I was like, how's that going? It's like, oh, interesting video. Cool.

01:07:47That was the extent. No one cares. Everyone has their own problems. Everyone thinking about the next

01:07:50paycheck. They think about the promotion, thinking about their next project, like complaining about

01:07:54other people. Like, no one cares about that. So as long as your content is, again, not dodgy,

01:08:00right? I think, I think we, it's a spotlight effect at play. We overestimate how much other

01:08:05people are thinking about us. We have a bunch of students right now in the academy who are,

01:08:09have been procrastinating for about three weeks on making their very first LinkedIn post. Oh,

01:08:13because they're like, I can't post on LinkedIn. Because like, all the previous colleagues I've

01:08:17had in my life are all on my LinkedIn. And like, like, am I, am I going to post on my LinkedIn saying,

01:08:23hey guys, I'm just going to just introducing myself. And all of the, all of the cringe associated

01:08:28with like being someone who posts on LinkedIn gets in the way. Any tips?

01:08:31There are so many content types and formats that are arbitrary, like objectively safe. We had offsite.

01:08:38These are top three learnings. No one's going to, no one could possibly judge that. And, and actually

01:08:43your current colleagues would advocate for that. Of course, the next worry might be, what if I butcher

01:08:48it or I sound like an idiot? That's, I think that's a whole nother thing, right?

01:08:51I think, I think there is another worry on that front. I think some people are like, oh no,

01:08:54I can't even post that because they're going to think I'm a try hard. They're going to say that

01:08:58like, oh, well, did you see Jane's posted about learning from the offsite? What a fucking like

01:09:02wetter that it's like, this is genuinely a worry that people have.

01:09:06The reason I'm smirking is like, wait, try hard is not a compliment. I was like, wait a minute.

01:09:10Like I would, that was, that was what I was trying to go for.

01:09:15I think for most people try hard is not a compliment. It's like an insult that they try very,

01:09:19very hard to avoid. Okay. Got it. Wow. Thanks for letting me know, Ollie. I'm 33. And thank you.

01:09:25I appreciate that. If I'm putting myself in professional shoes and I saw someone I disliked,

01:09:30right? Posting on LinkedIn, um, what my first reaction would be like, oh, this person is trying

01:09:34so hard. He or she, like, they have nothing to offer, nothing to say. I get, but then my argument,

01:09:39I forget about it. I judge maybe for a second or so. Then I forget about it. I don't think anyone in

01:09:43their right minds would take a screenshot of that, send it to a group chat and be like, ha ha,

01:09:47look at this guy. Like, I can't believe they're trying so hard. Yeah. I think this is like literally

01:09:50the thing people are scared of. They're like, what if, is it LinkedIn specific or like YouTube?

01:09:54Uh, LinkedIn specific in the sense of a, a lot of our students post on LinkedIn and B

01:09:58cause if you make a YouTube video, no one's going to see it ever. But if you post on LinkedIn,

01:10:03automatically all of your connections might see that because you have zero followers. And so the

01:10:07only people that will ever see, that will see initially are the people that you've already

01:10:10already connected to, which is your current colleagues and your former colleagues. And people try very,

01:10:15very hard to avoid judgment from current and former colleagues as like a, a sort of ego defense

01:10:20mechanism or something. Wow. Okay. I have to, I have to admit then I'm so far removed from that

01:10:26point. I, I can't really relate nor do I have that good. Cause now that you say it like that. Yes.

01:10:31If I, let's say back in the day, I had like 89 connections. And if I had to post something,

01:10:37yeah, I, I, I probably have the same concerns. I, I, I, I don't remember how I got through it.

01:10:41I got over it. I mean, the, the thing we're just trying to tell people is like, guys, you're going

01:10:44to have to post every day on LinkedIn. So the more you overthink your first post, the slower you're

01:10:48going to build your business. You can take as long as you want. I agree. It's just that like, you know,

01:10:51Ricardo over there, he's done his first post, he's got his first few sales already. Kelsey's got

01:10:54her first few sales. Um, these guys have got the first few sales and they just kind of did the thing.

01:10:59Yeah. And then LinkedIn sales navigator are like, guys, you're going to have to send 200

01:11:02connection requests a week on LinkedIn and just DM everyone who talks to you. You're going to do this

01:11:06every week for the next like five years. If you want to build your lifestyle business to like million

01:11:09dollars. Oh, for sure. So like, why are we overthinking the first message, bro? Like this is

01:11:13one message out of like 58,000 you're going to be sending over the course of the next like few years.

01:11:16Like, come on, let's go. And so eventually there's an enough of that, that like gets people over the

01:11:21edge to realize they can just do it. And then they realize no one gives a fuck. And then they're like,

01:11:24and then the whole thing becomes easier. Exactly. No one cares. Everyone has their own priorities.

01:11:28Yeah. Including people like Jeff, people like me, you know,

01:11:31like my hospital knew all about like my YouTube videos and stuff. My med school knew about them.

01:11:35I wasn't trying to do this stuff secretly on the side from what we've heard from our Lifestyle

01:11:38Business Academy students as well. If you are able to have a conversation with your manager,

01:11:42your boss, your HR, your compliance team about stuff, and they give you the green light with

01:11:45some restrictions or whatever, that takes an enormous burden off of your shoulders because

01:11:49you're not lying awake at night wondering, will they find out about this secret side hustle that

01:11:53I've got? Your mileage may vary. We also have some students who do it in secret on the

01:11:56side until it gets big enough. And then they decide to quit their job. But like generally,

01:11:59that's a more stressful way of running this hustle.

01:12:04So now we move on to step six of Jeff's journey, which is to let the products come to you. And there

01:12:08is a framework from our friend and mentor, Daniel Priestley, who's featured on the channel quite a lot,

01:12:12that Jeff discovered that helped him figure out what products to create.

01:12:15I mentioned just now that my first product was a free PDF version of my resume, right? I uploaded that

01:12:22onto Gumroad to complement my resume video. I wanted viewers to have something next to them so they can

01:12:29reference as they watch my video to optimize their resumes. I thought that just made sense, right? I

01:12:33didn't expect them to donate. And after they donated, I got questions like, hey, do you mind if you share

01:12:38a Google Docs version that I can edit myself? I'd actually pay you for it. I was like, okay,

01:12:43it's the same thing, but okay, sure. And I charged like $4.99 for it. And that was another incremental

01:12:49$1K a month in revenue, right? So that was my first experience with Daniel Priestley's sort of like

01:12:54product frameworks, like do it yourself, do it done with you, done for you or something along those

01:13:00lines, right? So do it yourself as a PDF version done with you sort of is like the Google Docs

01:13:04editable version. So the point I'm trying to make here, it came very naturally, like, oh, I thought

01:13:10this would be a useful resource. Here you go. Oh, you want an edible version? Huh? Okay, I guess I

01:13:16could charge for it. And that sort of is built from there. I know a lot of people who have like,

01:13:20um, elaborate notion systems and including me, and then we use them for like a week. And then

01:13:26we're like, ah, this is I don't know, you're on a flight or something notion offline kind of sucks

01:13:30still. And so then you're like, it goes out the window, you go on holiday for a week, and it goes

01:13:34out the window. And then like, the inertia of getting back to the system. It's just like, I'll just go

01:13:39back to Apple notes. Like, I've gone through this cycle of build a system, follow the system for a

01:13:45week. Uh huh. Life happens. Forget about it and go back to pen and paper every six months for the

01:13:51last like eight years. Um, how do you stick to the system? I'm trying to think of any sort of framework

01:13:58or principles I can bring up here. But if I'm being just very honest, it goes back to number one, I

01:14:03think with just my personality, I like Mr. Who's a boss, I have somewhat of an uptight anal personality,

01:14:09whereby I love structure. So this comes this makes me happy, like fault check, checking off things in

01:14:15checkboxes. And like following this makes me happy. If I were to say like a framework or a principle or

01:14:21something, I would say most people fail, especially in notion, when they don't build it themselves.

01:14:27Yeah. When they download someone else's template Thomas Frank's ultimate brain. It's like,

01:14:31Oh my God. Yeah. And I gave up in not even a week, three days. I gave up. I love Thomas Frank.

01:14:37He and you are the reason I use notion. I've watched many of his videos. I've commented on his videos

01:14:41and you've seen my comments, but it's also my brain 3.0 is crazy, right? There's no way I need 60

01:14:45properties for a task. That doesn't make any sense. So for my course to get over that. Oh, by the way,

01:14:50just a little bit more virtual signal. Here's the number one course on the PPA platform, the education

01:14:55platform that I'm working with in Taiwan. Link down below guys. Check it out. 2025. Yeah. I purposely

01:15:00gave them only the raw databases and the course walks them through exactly how to connect them using

01:15:07the relations property, how to add their own areas of life, how to manage their tasks. And that has,

01:15:15I think improved like student retention for the system. They're sort of building the furniture.

01:15:20Exactly. So I think that really helps. So you can't give someone like just a straight up template.

01:15:25And I'll be honest, Ali, it was really painful because you have no idea how hard it is to turn

01:15:31multiple raw databases to a externally friendly, shareable view without leaving like small pockets

01:15:38of random information inside, or they copy the wrong thing and stuff like that. So this,

01:15:43this setup took me, I think two to three months. And that's probably why a lot more creators don't do

01:15:48that. Cause it takes so much finessing. Um, but yeah, I think it's worth it. I think students need

01:15:52to build it themselves. Now there's this sort of product spectrum that has these three areas. There's

01:15:56do it yourself done with you and done for you. And there are actually different schools of thought

01:16:00around this. If you're going creative first, it is often easiest to start with a do it yourself

01:16:04product. For example, the templates that Jeff was selling on Gumroad, it's just a template.

01:16:09The user has to buy it, download it and use it themselves. It's a DIY product. Those generally

01:16:14tend to be the cheapest things. Then you might ascend to something that's done with you. Maybe

01:16:18this is sort of like a course with a community element added to it. It's sort of like you as

01:16:23the creator, you're live in there, you're doing workshops, or maybe it's like a sort of one-on-one

01:16:26coaching program where you might be helping someone improve their productivity or build the notion

01:16:30systems or start a business. They're doing the work and you're sort of helping them out alongside.

01:16:34This is sort of done with you. And then generally on the highest end of the spectrum, you have done

01:16:37for you where you sell a fully done for you service, where you are doing the work for your client. For

01:16:42example, our part-time YouTuber Academy is a sort of do it yourself course where we do a lot of coaching,

01:16:47me and my team and workshops and stuff with one-on-one support and everything that helps students build

01:16:51their own businesses. That's done with you. But then done for you would be if, for example,

01:16:54we started offering YouTube video production as a service to other businesses. It's like the business

01:16:59would film the content and we would do everything, the editing, the packaging, the titles,

01:17:02the thumbnails, the strategy, et cetera, et cetera. That's for example, a done for you service. So you

01:17:06could totally start DIY and then go done with you and then go done for you if you want to, or not,

01:17:10or you actually could start the other way around. This is actually the way that a lot of online

01:17:13businesses start. They start with a done for you service where they're doing the work for their

01:17:16clients. Once they've gotten enough results, they're able to then turn it into a done with you where

01:17:20they're coaching people through the process. And once they're sick of coaching people through the

01:17:23process and showing that they're able to get results and decent testimonials and stuff,

01:17:27they then graduate downstream into something like an online course, which becomes more scalable,

01:17:31but costs less money. And so you just have to sort of weigh up how scalable you want it versus how

01:17:36much you want to be charging. In Jeff's case, a lot of this emerged naturally. He built his first thing

01:17:40because the audience seemed to want it. And then he built the next thing because his audience seemed

01:17:43to want it. He didn't really have this sort of like grand vision of like becoming a millionaire.

01:17:47It just sort of happened sort of accidentally, but also, you know, accidental things like this

01:17:51take a lot of work, a lot of patience. As you've seen the amount of effort that goes into Jeff's

01:17:54videos, the way he does his content, the way he navigated his full-time job, the sacrifices he had to give up

01:17:58along the way. When you're putting in that level of work and you're able to build an audience of

01:18:02people who know, like, and trust you, then the monetization almost takes care of itself without

01:18:06you having to force it, which is what I love about Jeff's journey. Anyway, we now come to step seven,

01:18:11which is to figure out your real why. So let's say someone's listening to this, and they're vibing with

01:18:15your story. Let's say they've got a corporate job of some description, and they really want to do the

01:18:19thing on the side. And they are, they're looking at your story as an inspiration to be like, man,

01:18:23Jeff managed to do it. He managed to keep up his corporate career, did a great job, etc, etc,

01:18:28got promoted to a pretty, pretty good level. And then he was able to build his thing up to the point

01:18:32that at three extra salary, and now he's able to quit. Like, that's like the dream trajectory for a lot of

01:18:37people I know who are working in corporate. Do you have any other bits of advice, any advice you would give

01:18:42someone in that situation? I've thought about this. It's because inherently the question is asking,

01:18:46what piece of advice would you give someone who wants to go through the exact journey you did,

01:18:51right? Although I'm all about practical, actionable advice, like tactics, the tactics,

01:18:56it doesn't matter in this question. The only thing that matters if it boils down to is the motivation,

01:19:00the initial motivation, why you want to do the thing. The reason, and that sounds cliche,

01:19:04and that sounds so generic, right? Why, Jeff, would you say that that's weird? Because I sincerely

01:19:09believe the real motivation powering what you want is something very hidden and dark that very few

01:19:13people will ever get to know. I'm going to take a plunge and share something I've never really shared

01:19:17before. My motivation, to give you some context, I was a terrible student in high school. I, if you,

01:19:23out of a 4.0 GPA, I'm not sure how the UK does it, out of 4.0 GPA, my GPA was like 2.8, 2.9. It was

01:19:28terrible. I was lucky enough to go to, in my opinion, the best college in the world, Emory University,

01:19:34where I received a world-class education and, you know, got introduced to Akash who referred me to

01:19:38Google. I barely scraped by. I was on the waitlist and I got in. The reason I turned my life around

01:19:42in college and I graduated top 10 in my class is because I was angry. I was pissed off that people

01:19:48I didn't think were as capable were getting better grades. I was like, I'm going to show them. Fuck

01:19:54that. Like, I'm not, I'm not an idiot. I studied my ass off and I got good grades. The motivation is not

01:20:00noble. It's just like trying to prove people wrong. But in my opinion, for a lot of things in life,

01:20:07maybe the intent or the motivation doesn't matter as much as the outcome. Because if it got me to,

01:20:12let's say, good grades, a good job offer, who's to say the anger motivation or the anger sort of,

01:20:19you know, reason you sort of work your ass off, um, it is, was bad. You know what I mean?

01:20:26Yeah. I know I'm rambling a lot. I know I'm ranting a lot, but I think that does directly apply to sort

01:20:32of, um, how to like go through this journey and succeed in the end. You really need to be honest

01:20:39with yourself why you want to do it. If it's something surface level, like making money or

01:20:42freedom, I don't think that's a serious sustainable. That's just be really part of core of who you are.

01:20:47And it's so different for everyone. I don't even know how I would start explaining how to find it

01:20:51yourself. I can only share that in my case, especially for the college days. I was just

01:20:56angry because I didn't want to be seen as an idiot. And I want to prove people wrong. That sounds so

01:21:00terrible. We say it out loud. You're supposed to say, if I like, like I realized that in college,

01:21:05anything was possible. And I, in order to do that, I was going to have to put in the hard work. Like,

01:21:10no, it was, it was, it was part of who I am. I didn't want to, I didn't want to look bad.

01:21:15Yeah. So again, that's my honest answer. There's no framework or principle that derives from that.

01:21:20But if there's one person could sort of think about that and be like, okay,

01:21:22let's be honest with them. Why do I really want this? I want the fame. I really want to be liked.

01:21:26I want to like, like hook up with girls. That's okay. Like, you know, just channel that through.

01:21:30It sounds terrible to say loud, but yeah, whatever gets you there.

01:21:33So was it still like the anger, like I want to prove people wrong that caused you to start the

01:21:36YouTube channel and like build that up?

01:21:38Yeah. So, so I think there's two things. So number one, when I started, it was definitely for the love of

01:21:42teaching. For sure. The teaching thing definitely got me started. I think through like, at some point

01:21:47during the five years, I also did want to prove people wrong in that I didn't need the Google brand

01:21:55anymore because I, I'm still am. I'm a pretty vain person. Having the Google brand was great. Being

01:22:01like, oh, okay, we'll Google. I'm a Googler, right? Not a great look, but like, I'm trying to be

01:22:06honest, authentic here, right? Having that brand was great. And my, my ex-fiance, my ex-girlfriend,

01:22:12she's very smart, much smarter than me. She said, Jeff, one day you're going to leave Google,

01:22:17whether you like it or not, you can't, you have to divorce yourself from the brand to do anything.

01:22:21She's not talking about YouTube channel. She's like for anything, right? You, you can't see yourself

01:22:24as a Googler. And the wake up call for me, Ali, was when Google laid off a bunch of people back,

01:22:29you know, a couple of years ago. And it came in a shock to many Googlers who saw themselves as

01:22:34Googlers, right? Instead of just employees of a large corporate designed to maximize your whole value.

01:22:38And a lot of people had a really tough time sort of getting through that. That was a wake up call

01:22:43for me as well. I was like, okay, yeah, I can't, I can't see myself just Google anymore. So the

01:22:47YouTube thing was one way for me to get myself out of that. I was like, okay, I'm an educator. I'm a

01:22:51YouTuber. I'm an educator. I'm not just a Googler. Yeah. That was some of, that was the hidden

01:22:56motivation there as well. So it's like diversifying your identity away from putting all your eggs in the,

01:23:01I work at Google basket. I am a Googler and more into sort of, yeah, just like spread the eggs

01:23:06out a little bit. Exactly. But don't get me wrong right now. I think on my LinkedIn,

01:23:09my headline is still like Google turned educator. I still want to sort of leverage a Google brand.

01:23:12Yeah. I mean, I still have doctor turned entrepreneur. So it's like, you know,

01:23:14yeah, there you go. Yeah. You might as well lean into the thing.

01:23:18And so your homework from this action point is what is the real reason why you are continuing to

01:23:23watch this video? Why do you want, what's the real dark reason behind why you want financial

01:23:27freedom or you want to build a business or create a business or whatever? Like what's the thing?

01:23:30Being aware of that, um, it's generally a good idea. And then finally, we come to step number eight,

01:23:35which is to set the quit date. You quit the job recently. Yeah. April this year.

01:23:39Congratulations. Thank you. How did you decide to quit the job now? And I mean,

01:23:43looking at your revenue stats, you could have quit like three years ago. Uh, so why did you not?

01:23:47There are a couple of reasons I think. So number one, I'm so risk averse that I would not have been okay

01:23:52with anything less than three times my salary, like my three times my full-time salary. I say

01:23:58that's the first reason. And don't ask me why I reached, I arrived, how I arrived at the three

01:24:02times. It was literally, it just sounded good. I was like, okay, if I, it's one-on-one, it's one-to-one.

01:24:07Well, YouTube's volatile. I might not, I might not, I might make a lot less. Yeah. If it's two times,

01:24:13well, if it got halved, I'd be back to where I started. If it's three times, at least it'd be,

01:24:16if I got halved, it could be 1.5 times. That's literally how I thought about it. Not very scientific,

01:24:19but it is what it is like vibes basically. Right. Number two, for context, I had planned to quit

01:24:25a couple of quarters before the actual date, because I knew if I didn't sign that imaginary

01:24:31contract with myself, I'd just stay forever. I really liked the team. I really liked the work.

01:24:35Um, surprisingly enough, like people are smart. They're hardworking. My, like my director,

01:24:40Perska, she's, she's fantastic. I love her. Um, but I knew if I didn't set a date or a quarter to quit,

01:24:46I would just stay. So I was like, okay, Q2 of 2025, I have to leave. I have to leave in these 90 days.

01:24:53And so to make that happen, I literally like emailed or like brought it up with my manager back then in

01:25:00January to force it to happen. Cause I can't take it back anymore. To be very honest with you though,

01:25:04Ali, I, I should have quit a year sooner because over the last year work on both sides suffered.

01:25:10And I felt I looking, I, I still feel a little bit iffy about it because I care about my personal

01:25:15brand a lot. And I care about, you know, I care about, I care about the work. I care about doing

01:25:20a good job. And I realized over that year, there was no way I could go 110% in both. It just, it just

01:25:26didn't, it didn't, didn't make any sense. The YouTube videos suffered. They weren't great topics.

01:25:29Didn't do very well. Um, my work at Google suffered. People were like, are you okay? Are you sick?

01:25:33Like what's going on? Like, this is not usually the Jeff see standard. Right? So if I, if I,

01:25:38if I could, I, I would probably have quit a year earlier. Yeah. And why do you think you didn't?

01:25:43I was too greedy. I was way too greedy. I wanted to have that Google lifestyle, that Google brand,

01:25:50the free food. It's half jokingly. It's free food's great Ali for you in there. Yeah. You, you,

01:25:55you've had the free food. It was great to not have to cook or order out, right? The free food,

01:25:59the, the, the support system, the team, right? I was too greedy. I wanted everything I want. And

01:26:04that's not how it works. So you've got two full-time team members now. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Basically in

01:26:08person remote, like what's the setup remote, completely remote. So the one right now, the one has,

01:26:12who has been working with me for the past year or so, she actually joined, she actually quit Google

01:26:15first. And then she took a leap of faith and joined me. Uh, she's based in Guangzhou. So remote and the,

01:26:21uh, the, the newly hired one is based out of Taipei. What are your goals for your business these days?

01:26:26If I could share sort of the vision is to actually build the lifestyle business that Daniel Preece

01:26:32talked about and oversubscribed. So as I, Oh, I didn't tell you yet. I told Angus,

01:26:36um, I hired my second full-time hire. Oh, she's awesome. So Wharton recent grad,

01:26:41super enthusiastic about education, AI. And I could see her, you know, in the future joining the,

01:26:47being part of the core team, growing the business with me and building that up because at Google,

01:26:51I'll be very honest. One of the things I really disliked was managing people. I'm not a great

01:26:56manager. I'm impatient. I am short-tempered. I shout at people. I've made people cry. I hold

01:27:02people to unrealistically high standards. They're like, Jeff, we're not saving patients. You're not a

01:27:06doctor. I'm all those things. So that's one of the reasons I actually also left Google. I don't

01:27:10want to manage people, but having smart and motivated people working alongside with you,

01:27:16I think is a great feeling. I'm sure you agree. There's a lot of those two people here. Right.

01:27:21Um, so I think that's my next goal, you know, it's not to like sell, maybe not to sell another

01:27:24product or not to make like YouTube videos. I will keep doing those for sure. I'll keep writing my

01:27:28newsletter. I keep writing LinkedIn posts, but I think the goal for the next three or five years is

01:27:33build a team of people who are invested as invested in the mission as I am. There we go. As invested in

01:27:37the vision mission as I am. Yeah. To increase the world's productivity by 10%. That's sort of the mission.

01:27:43Jeff, thank you very much. This has been absolutely wonderful. Any final, any final words of wisdom,

01:27:47anything else you would like to share with people? Oh, well, no, people are going to think

01:27:52I'm just riffing here, but I've been recommending PTYA for a lot of my friends who are trying to start

01:27:57YouTube. For example, Austin Bellsack, he's massive LinkedIn, but he just started YouTube recently.

01:28:02And I was like, yo, Austin, if you want to just throw money at the problem, PTYA, because it sort of,

01:28:06it sort of cuts the trial and error out of the way. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Well, thank you very much

01:28:09for that plug. Love it. No problem. Thanks, Allie. High five. So as you just heard from Jeff,

01:28:15the part-time YouTuber Academy is very good. There's a link down below. But if you're interested

01:28:18in more free advice on how to start and grow a YouTube channel, there'd be a video right over

01:28:22here or something that talks about that. So if you're interested in potentially mirroring mine or Jeff's

01:28:26journey and becoming rich through creating content on the internet, check out that video over there.

01:28:29So thank you so much for watching. Thank you, Jeff, for being awesome. And I will catch you later. Bye-bye.

Key Takeaway

Building a seven-figure creator business while working a full-time job requires a two-year 'lock-in' period focused on consistent, weekly output and a disciplined, systemized production workflow that separates creation from administrative overhead.

Highlights

YouTube revenue grew from $98 in the first six months of 2020 to $835,000 in 2025.
A creator-first approach involves teaching topics publicly, allowing monetization to emerge organically through products like templates and workshops.
During a two-year commitment to upload one video per week, the creator worked from 6:30 AM to 1:00 AM, sacrificing 70% of their social life.
Success often follows the 'get going, get good, get smart' framework: start making content, improve with every repetition, then monetize.
A scripted, AI-assisted pre-production workflow, including detailed checklists and thumbnail mock-ups, reduces video production time to approximately 20 hours per episode.
Maintaining a full-time corporate role while side-hustling requires strict daily review sessions across all inboxes to prevent tasks from slipping through the cracks.

Timeline

Revenue Trajectory and Initial Motivation

The creator's YouTube income scaled from $98 in 2020 to a projected $900,000 in 2025.
Monetization began unexpectedly through voluntary donations for a free resume PDF, validating the 'share massive value for free' model.
Motivation originated from a desire to scale internal teaching workshops rather than a premeditated plan to leave a corporate job.

The transition from a high-performing Google employee to a full-time creator started without an entrepreneurship goal. Initial revenue was passive, but the shift occurred after realizing that sharing resources freely built trust, which then led to paid templates and programs. This period highlights the evolution from amateur experimentation to a scalable business model.

Choosing the Creator-First Path

Creator-first approaches focus on teaching and audience building, whereas business-first approaches prioritize identifying market gaps and developing specific products.
Copying established creators helps beginners identify the gap between their current skill level and high-quality benchmarks.
Intrinsic motivation—focusing on processes within one's control—is more sustainable than extrinsic motivation like view counts or promotion cycles.

Distinguishing between business-first and creator-first paths is vital for aspiring entrepreneurs. Business-first strategies often require aggressive cold outreach and market validation, whereas creator-first strategies leverage organic audience growth. The creator suggests that imitating respected figures naturally leads to the development of an authentic voice and brand identity over time.

Disciplined Time Allocation and Sacrifice

Success required a two-year commitment to a strict schedule, including gym sessions, full-time work, and evening/weekend video production.
The 'Four Burners' theory suggests that while one can have a career, health, family, and friends, it is impossible to run all at full capacity simultaneously.
Saying no to social events and renegotiating social obligations one month in advance was necessary to maintain a one-video-per-week cadence.

Deep focus requires significant tradeoffs. The creator operated under a rigid, non-negotiable contract with themselves to ensure production consistency. While social life and friendships were sacrificed to meet these demands, the creator views this as a two-year investment yielding long-term freedom.

Systematizing Content Production

Consistency improves when creators ensure they 'suck less' with every subsequent video through incremental 1% improvements.
A word-for-word scripted approach, supported by AI-enabled pre-production prompts and detailed editor briefings, standardizes output quality.
Daily review sessions across all digital inboxes (Gmail, Keep, Drive, Tasks) prevent administrative tasks from causing burnout or project slippage.

The production process is heavily reliant on a mature, 8.0-version Notion template. Pre-production accounts for the bulk of the 20-hour total production time per video, ensuring that ideas are captured and articulated clearly before filming. Systematization eliminates decision fatigue and allows for consistent high-quality output.

Professionalism, Compliance, and Future Vision

Informing compliance teams about side projects early prevents termination risk at large tech corporations.
Transitioning from a 'Googler' identity to an 'Educator' identity is a critical step in long-term professional development.
Real motivation is often driven by deeply personal, sometimes adversarial, drivers like the desire to prove skeptics wrong.

Navigating corporate environments requires proactive transparency. After reaching three times their corporate salary in YouTube revenue, the creator resigned to scale the business. The future objective is shifting away from individual management toward building an autonomous team that is as invested in the mission of increasing global productivity as the founder.

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