YouTube has totally changed my life yes of course it changed my life when I had a video go viral in 2019 that eventually led to this becoming my full-time job but it changed my life long before that too posting on YouTube has changed my life in several significant ways even before I had any subscribers back when I was posting videos that very few people ever watch if you didn't know I started this channel back in 2011 when I was 15 years old but I had been on YouTube for years before that watching the Vlog brothers
and other nerdy creators that were talking about stuff that my friends at school just weren't YouTube gave me access to a community that I felt like just got me and in between starting my channel in 2011 and finally hitting 10,000 subscribers in 2019 I made hundreds of videos that never really got any views in that time I also learned a lot about how to grow on YouTube so I know that it doesn't have to take that long and a lot of what I share on my channel is about helping you move through that Journey more
efficiently and with less struggles but I also want you to know that there is so much to gain from that time in between don't let the time and experiences pass you by while you're waiting for that subscriber count to grow today I'm going to talk about five ways that YouTube changed my life before I gained any subscribers and how it can change yours now too P.S I have a little known secret about YouTube growth that I'm going to talk about at the end of this video so make sure you stick around for that the first
way that YouTube changed my life before I had any subscribers was that YouTube gave me the opportunity to document my life yes there are other ways to do this and home movies existed before YouTube but for me the Vlog format in particular really inspired me and motivated me to capture my own day-to-day life and turn it into these moving photo books that I can look back on later so since I started my channel back when I was in high school I have clips of all these special moments like moving away to University meeting my friends
there for the first time clips of my first ever trips abroad clips of my wedding day and everything in between and I'm so grateful to have these moments to look back on it's also meant that I can share these memories with others you might not know this but I actually have a second Channel where I share my van life Vlogs it's really just a hobby I don't post there that often but it's been a great outlet for me to document my travels in my van all the way to Mexico from Canada I think the number
one fans of that channel are definitely my parents and basically it's given me an opportunity to share my travels with them I feel like my Vlog channel is proof that I honestly really do YouTube For the Love of it that channel has not been something that's been a business focus of mine or something that I've really intentionally tried to grow but it's truly just such a joy to document your new experience and then turn them into a vlog that you can watch back later so even if you keep every single upload on private and never
get any views on them I still think it's so worthwhile making videos about your life cuz you're going to be so grateful for it when you can look back on them in the future YouTube has also helped me become a more confident person for one thing it's helped me become more confident with speaking not only on camera but like in front of other people making YouTube videos kind of means that you're forced to get all of this practice just speaking like unprompted to the camera even if you have a bit of an line or a
script or even just bullet point notes it means that you're going to become more articulate and just better at communicating you're basically just like forcing yourself into like elocution practice so you're going to come out on the other side um more well spoken I think I really believe it's helped me in my past job interviews with public speaking that I did during school and since then too and also with my confidence with meeting new people and talking to new people but it's not just about the public speaking skills either I really think that YouTube helps
improve your confidence in general this isn't necessarily specific to YouTube but whenever you try something new take on a new hobby or go of your comfort zone in some way you're proving to yourself that you're capable of that you can do new things you can learn new things you can do hard things it just really helps to level up that self assuredness that is so essential to being a more confident person like basically you're showing yourself you wanted to do that thing you tried doing that thing you are doing that thing and hey look you're
pretty good at it that's just going to make you feel really good about yourself having a YouTube channel has also really helped me learn learn a ton of new skills which can be incredibly lifechanging let me grab some okay so when I started my YouTube channel I was using this tiny little point and shoot camera that I bought with my babysitting money when I was like 12 or 13 I want to say I've kept it all this time even though I haven't used it in years because to me it's a really like special Keepsake of
the beginning of my journey down this path when I was so young since then I have learned so much about cameras exposure composition frame rates what 10bit video means and I keep learning more all the time and I've been motivated to learn all of this because of my YouTube channel I've also learned how to write an engaging script how to design thumbnails in Photoshop how to edit video and audio and different editing softwares you're going to learn these things by necessity when you get started on YouTube you'll find yourself watching something and seeing a certain
shot and thinking how could I recreate that for myself and then you go down the rabbit hole learning how and if you want a little bit help along the way when it comes to learning all of these new skills and i' really recommend checking out skillshare the sponsor of today's video skillshare is an online learning platform full of thousands of classes for Creative people you can learn about everything from video production to editing to graphic design to storytelling and so much more I've actually recently released a skillshare class of my own which I'm so excited
for you to check out it's called habits for Content creators build a system for consistency and growth and I cover all of the Practical side of really setting up your schedule so that you can become a full-time Creator it's really really focused on like the nitty-gritty of time management time blocking figuring out what your content calendar is going to look like so if you want a practical helping hand through those kind of tangible questions I'd really recommend checking out the class and the first 500 people that use the link in the description will get one
free month of skillshare which is more than enough time for you to take my class and start some others on the platform so make sure you check that out click the link in the description to sign up and thanks so much to skill for sponsoring today's video YouTube also changed my life by helping me make new friends as I mentioned at the start part of why I got into the YouTube world originally was because I was drawn into a community of people that shared the same interests as me I felt connected to this Niche community
that I just didn't really have access to in the small town where I grew up and depending on where you live there might not be a lot of people in your physical community that share that specific Niche thing that you're really into but I can pretty much guarantee you there are going to be people on YouTube who do you can definitely access these communities as a viewer for sure but I really think that to fully participate in them being a Creator is kind of your best way in that was the case for me anyway once
I became a Creator I started connecting with other creators who were just getting started at the same time as me we did collabs met over FaceTime and eventually I got to meet up with some of them in person when those opportunities arose I've also been really really fortunate to get to know and become friends with people that I've watched and admired as like a fan of their channel for many years and that's been a really really special part of my Journey on YouTube so let YouTube be your opportunity to get to know other people that
also really really care about the same stuff that you do and that care enough about it to create content on it for the world to see I know that starting a YouTube channel might seem like a really high effort way to go about making friends and to be honest it is but in my experience it's been really worth it YouTube also changed my life by kicking off my career as an entrepreneur and no I'm not talking about making money off of brand deals or AdSense or like affiliate marketing that all came much later I started
making money because I had my YouTube channel before I ever had subscribers and let me tell you why I started my YouTube channel when I was in high school like I mentioned and then when it was time for me to start applying for internships in University I had a lot of skills in the field that I was interested in which was kind of digital media and marketing and so when I applied for my first internship at Fashion Magazine in Toronto it's kind of like the Canadian Vogue sort of I had a lot of the skills
that they were looking for for their digital editorial intern because I had taught myself them through creating YouTube videos and I even had a little online portfolio to prove it from there I did a few more internships in the digital media and marketing space throughout my degree thankfully eventually ones that were paid and all of this experience led me to starting my freelance career as a videographer so I filmed weddings I filmed real estate tour videos I filmed like corporate promo videos for local businesses I even did a series of videos that I hosted for
a local thrift shop chain and they knew that I had a good on camera presence cuz they had seen my YouTube videos this was all before I had even like 3,000 subscribers so I definitely wasn't making money off of AD sensor brand deals but I was able to use the skills that I had developed through my journey as a YouTuber and put them in place as a freelancer and it was actually that freelancing work that kind of kicked off The Journey towards the agency that I have now Creator Le media where again we use the
skills that I learned through growing my own YouTube channel and Implement them for clients I know I just said that like YouTube can help you learn new skills which is valuable in its own right just for like you know personal development but these skills are also very marketable and profitable skills that you can put to use as a freelancer or in a corporate job the experience that you get from growing a YouTube channel can be super valuable financially even if your YouTube channel never ends up directly making you money even if you can't make a
full-time living off of your YouTube channel chances are you'll be able to make a living off of the skills that you develop through creating for YouTube okay so here's my little known secret about YouTube success that I promised you at the beginning of the video there is no such thing as failing on YouTube in my personal opinion the only way to fail on YouTube is to quit to give up and even that doesn't have to be defined as a failure for you if you try out creating for YouTube and realize that it's not for you
as long as you're still creating and growing and learning new things then you are succeeding as a YouTuber don't let the metrics convince you otherwise there is still so much to gain from creating videos that has nothing to do with metrics or money so I hope that that can help you stay encouraged and keep on creating and hey by the way welcome to the end of the video Club this officially means that you are like the coolest person who's watched the video today drop a little camera Emoji in the comments to let me know you
made it this far I always really really appreciate it and finally if I've officially convinced you to jump in and start your Channel with all of the benefits I've listed today then you might want to check out this video where I talk about everything everything that I would do if I was starting from scratch as a content creator as always thank you so much for watching I hope you're having adventures and following your dreams and I'll see you in the next video bye
