All right. So in the past couple of weeks and months, there's been a lot of YouTubers quitting a lot of YouTuber a lot of OG creators from people who been doing it 8, 9, 10, 12, 15 years Legends and people who we all are familiar with who've been around YouTube for a long time retiring or leaving or cutting back or whatever you want to call it and yeah, I've noticed and a lot of you guys have have asked me for my thoughts or to ch in. not that this isn't one of those videos I'm not I'm not doing that but I do have my own situation I've been at this a long time and uh so I figured I'd throw in my two cents figured I would chime in. So first of all, this thing that we're doing here, this is a dream job.

No question about it. like we cannot forget that I think there's a stat I've I've referenced it before. but what you ask children of the 2010s and 2020s what they want to be when they grow up and they the most popular answer is YouTuber they want to be YouTubers when they grow up. that and that didn't exist 20 years ago.

they all wanted to be other things firefighters, movie stars now I'm sure a lot of this is they just want to be famous or this is the new version of you know Hollywood famous and they don't really understand all that comes with this. That's totally normal, but the point is, it's a very sought-after job and that's something we all have to acknowledge. But as Tom Scott put it so eloquently, a dream job is still a job I can't keep this up. This is my dream job and I have a lot of fun doing it I know I'm incredibly lucky.

but a dream job is still a job and it's a job that keeps getting bigger and more complicated. and I am so tired. so I I've watched all these YouTubers uh videos of of talking about what they're doing. they're retiring and they're not all actually just straight up leaving.

If you actually watch their videos, let's be honest, a lot of them are cutting back a little bit or taking a break or changing things up in away, but it it feels like they're sort of retiring the main thing that we know them for. but pretty much all these videos have something in common. So I'm going to use an analogy to sort of I like analogies I've said this before. I'm going to use one to explain sort of how it feels in my head.

So the way I explain because I get asked all the time. what do you recommend for someone who wants to be a YouTuber and I liken it to being a professional athlete. Pick a sport, Pick whatever sport you want. basketball for example.

There's one thing to actually do the the sport just for fun. to go to the park to play basketball for free. to go to the gym with your friends to play basketball. You can do that as much as you want, but there is a certain level of hard work, dedication, strategy, and talent.

and let's be honest, luck that is involved in being able to turn that hobby that pass passion into a job to actually become a full-time professional basketball player. That that is a very sought-after job and a very small number of people who actually get to do that. And so if you really want to turn the passion into the job, you have to be willing to put in a ton of hours and to be and to be totally happy. playing a ton of basketball in the park for free, playing a ton of basketball in the gym, and working on the skills for free.

Not getting paid a dime, and that may possibly lead to you being able to turn it into a job, and you have to be able to be very comfortable doing it for free for a long time, even if you don't make a dime. That's that's the same thing as being a professional athlete. That's totally true about being a professional. Creator Now I Still think all that's true and I still like using that analogy.

but I think there's one thing wrong with that analogy or I guess one thing missing from that analogy, which is that creative jobs don't scale like regular jobs. It's just not quite the same. So what I mean by that is take the YouTube video creator career. For example, when you first start you are just being creative like that's the that's the whole job you are making stuff and that's the fun.

So you get to have all kinds of crazy creative ideas. You're getting better and better at making the thing. You get to have a a new idea. be inspired by something over here, trying new things, and just coming up with all these fun different ways to make something and that is what we fall in love with at the beginning.

Now what might happen is at a certain point you you get your first opportunity to do some larger new thing. and it's super cool that that door has been opened because of all the creative work you're putting in. and so it's very tempting and exciting. And so you you need to sort of scale up a little bit to be able to address said new opportunities.

And so you do that. and it's awesome. And it's a an advancement clearly. But now you're spending time on that, scaling up and less time on the being creative thing.

So like here's a a basic example, you're you're Let's say you're a video creator. You're doing your thing, You're getting creative, You're writing, editing, shooting, doing all the fun creative stuff. and uh, then you're making some AdSense Revenue as well. So it's a hobby that's making some money.

Great A brand comes along and they offer this super awesome, unique opportunity to go shoot a video that you would like to make in some crazy fun, unique location and they'll fly you out and give you that access to be able to make this awesome thing. Sick, Yeah, that's that's an advancement and that's something that's unlocked by the creative things you've been doing And so you do it. And but you know in that process, you now also have to manage the communications with the brand, that's the inbox stuff you're doing invoicing and then all. Now it's the accounting and the taxes that come with that and the negotiation in between.

and the travel. Just a little bit of extra work and it doesn't seem like a big deal, but that is some more time spent doing something that isn't being creative when the job is still supposed to be the being creative part. You see what I mean. Does that make sense there? There are all types of examples of this all over the creative world.

Pick any genre, whether it's working with a brand or doing some new opportunity, something somewhere that comes from you being creative. Another very common example is and I have Creator friends all the time that ask oh I'd like to hire a team to help with some of this stuff and that also feels like a natural progression. You're doing so much of this work that you should have some help. You should have a team to help you do that.

And you do get the help. but now a lot more of your time is actually spent managing those people and that team which is taking away from the actual being creative part. So the point is, creative jobs don't scale quite like regular jobs and this is the thing that I see in a lot of other channels and creators and a lot of the videos I'm watching. which is the more you scale up to address these awesome new opportunities and level up, the less of your job is the original thing that we fell in love with which is being creative.

So how do you avoid that I don't know I don't have the answers I don't think anybody has the answers. That's also part of the fun of this job is it is relatively new and it didn't exist that long ago, so there is no Playbook to step one. Step two, Step three. Here's how to become a professional.

Video Creator In said genre on YouTube that's you can try to find playbooks like that but they won't always work that you just there is no answer yet. Now I've been very lucky to I still enjoy I enjoy a lot of the other parts of the process as well. and and I I started again with the fun of making videos and learning to use a camera and use a lens and use lighting and microphones and all kinds of fun things like that. but also the rest of the proc process are intriguing to me as well.

So it's fun I got lucky in that way. um but I guess the only real advice that actually makes sense and I'm not good at giving advice to these Ogs but um I guess it's more like advice to my former self or another version of me. but it's just to to be very very deliberate about keeping the original goal and the the creativity part at the core of everything that you're doing. CU It gets really easy to get distracted and uh, kind of like that fourth grader who filled out the surve who said I want to be a YouTuber It's easy to get distracted by the thought of the scale and the money and the fame and the the fun that seems like it comes with this with no effort.

but um, if you do fall into the Trap of chasing ing algorithmic changes or chasing the views or the or the waves of things that happen on YouTube it it is definitely uh, it's like a carrot on a string. It's never ending like we've all seen the Mr beastify I love you Jimmy but there are a lot of other channels that that look at what Jimmy's doing as a end goal for themselves and so they figure okay if I do what Jimmy's doing, if I follow his blueprint I will be the Mr Beast of of insert genre here. and actually they're right, they will be. But they don't realize all the the other things that come with that.

it's like a treadmill. It's like a treadmill. That's that's another analogy for you and the skill of being a video creator. In this world where if you want it to be a job, you have to keep going and keep moving forward and keep making things and sharing things.

The skill is finding what speed on the treadmill actually works for you. Is it a slow walk? Is it a light jog? Is it a video Every this often? Is it scattered videos? Is it one video every month every six months? That is a real skill and a challenge to find what actually works that satisfies both the external goals of growing your thing and the internal goals of flexing the creative muscle. Sorry, I'm getting this is getting philosophical, but you've seen have you seen the The Da punk music video from I Guess after the last album. But for inity repeating where the AI character is like walking, walking, walking, it walks slowly.

a little bit faster, a little bit faster. and the whole time it's it's a fine Pace But the second it tries to start accelerating very quickly towards the end of the video, it just like falls apart. and it's it's too much. That's what burnout looks like.

So in my world if you've watched Tech YouTube videos for example which I guess if you're here you have that looks like you cannot make every Tech video at least I can't Maybe you can. but I can't review every single phone that comes out I Just recently we had the Galaxy S24 stuff come out and the OnePlus 12 is around the corner and the the The Find Seven Ultra is also I I can't review all three phones at once I'm only one person so I got to pick one I can't dive in and try to satisfy the algorithm every single time I just can't So even me today I am trying to pick the right speed on the treadmill that works for everything that I and my team want to do and it's challenging. and I'm not saying that the people who are retiring or cutting back haven't done that, but I do think we're all sort of realizing you can't run on the treadmill forever. as as viewers I'm watching Tom Scott and Matt Pat I'm like yep, I get it, they're getting off the treadmill but I'll leave you with one more analogy.

um and that is for those uh who are still in the camp of I would like to go all in on this I would like to to get help and scale up and have a team. So the last analogy I'll leave you with and I've I've told this on other people's channels but I don't think I've ever actually said it on this channel. Um, is the octopus analogy sorry my computer over here just went to sleep with my mic cable plugged in. The octopus analogy being a Creator on YouTube if that's what we want to talk about is just like being an octopus.

meaning you get creative and you start making videos and have all this fun with the platform. You are doing several different full-time jobs all at once. You are a full-time writer. You are also a full-time cinematographer.

You're behind the camera. You're a lot of times in front of the camera. You're a lot of times a full-time editor. You're also managing the inbox.

You're also doing the invoicing working with Brands There's taxes, the financial accounting, and also just the Pr, relationships and management. All that content strategy that's a bunch of different hats that's like an octopus with eight arms doing eight different things all at once. So my only advice is when getting help and this makes perfect fundamental sense. but sometimes you have to hear it out loud.

You want to get someone who's better at the thing that you're not good at than you, but also you want to find things that you specifically want to cut off. So if you're not good at graphic design and you want the thumbnails to be great, maybe that's a perfect arm to cut off and hand to someone else. And then they can do that task 500 times better than you ever could. I Certainly learn that.

I Recommend that just cut off the arms of the the taxes. Boom! You can hire an accountant, you can work with people who can help you with that, and that's cutting off an arm and handing to someone who can do much better. But you can't cut off every arm. And this is another weird part of the analogy.

but fun fact: A lot of octop octopi. octopuses. octopi. Anyway, they have three hearts.

Weird I know, uh, but they can't cut those out. They have some core functions that always stay with them. and if you are a Creator in some way, there is a part of the game. There is something that you fell in love with at the beginning.

It's really worth figuring out what that is and just keeping that. Just keeping that and it's going to be different for every. Creator Maybe For you, it's the cinematography or the editing or the writing, or the content strategy. Whatever it is, there's going to be parts of it and there may be several parts that you got to keep.

You don't cut that off and that's that's my octopus analogy for, uh, learning to be a Creator since there is no Playbook I'm just putting this out there. Learn what those three hearts are as early and deliberately as you can, and hopefully you can run on the treadmill with other people who control the other legs. This is a crazy analogy now, but I think you get the idea. Long story short: I Don't think we we've seen the end of Big YouTubers who've been doing it for a long time, retiring or cutting back or whatever I Just think we're seeing them finding their hearts I think they're you know Matt Pat's still doing behind the scenes stuff on his channel Tom Scott still doing his podcast.

Watch the other videos and you'll see them sort of delineating between the outside and the inside internal motivation and that's that's why I think it's important so that's that's my two cents and what just wanted. Wanted to get out there for this video. That's all that's all I wrote down. it's all I Want to say If you ever get to live the dream, be very deliberate about it.

This is a weird video. Okay, we'll see if I put this up. Thanks for watching. Catch you guys in the next one.

Peace.