I woke up wanting to quit YouTube — Medium readers saved me again

Typically I’m pretty good at keeping my mind on the right track.

It takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of systems, but I like to think I’ve built up a ton of grit and consistency since launching my side business in the summer of 2022.

Eighteen months later (yikes, time flies!), I’d made multiple five figures as a writer, monetized a YouTube channel, and built a nice little passive income investment portfolio with my earnings.

I write a lot about how important it is to show up every day whether you want to or not.

But here’s a little secret that no guru wants to admit to you: *whispers* nobody’s perfect.

I guarantee you even the biggest creators on the planet have days when they get up and go, “Is this pointless? Why do I keep doing this?”

Typically this happens after you’ve had some success, but you’ve hit a plateau … or a gully.

The doubt creeps in and you wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to just call it a day.

Managing these emotions is a skill in and of itself, and in the weak moments, I lean on a bunch of different tools.

I listen to motivational audiobooks from the likes of David Goggins and Grant Cardone, I write Morning Pages, I do tapping meditations.

But you know what?

The universe is pretty good at delivering the right message at the right time, too, if you’re willing to listen.

This morning was a great example.

The daily grind of YouTube

The easy route would be for me to just write every day and forget about YouTube altogether.

You see, YouTube can be a grind.

I’ve always been a writer, and writing brings in the bulk of my business income.

Also, after 20 years of doing it professionally, it’s fairly easy for me.

The problem with always doing the easy thing, however, is that it’s self-limiting in a bunch of different ways:

• Personal development
• Professional development
• Income development

I know that there’s a cap on how much I can earn writing on platforms — especially in the new MPP world — and YouTube delivers some unique advantages:

• It lets me write content once and earn twice
• It’s an open platform, meaning my potential audience is much bigger than it is here
• It diversifies my earning type (ad vs. subscription)
• It gives me a presence in the audiovisual world
• It directs traffic to my written work and my written work directs traffic there

The problem is, whereas writing is easy, YouTube is hard.

While I’m OK on camera now and I can edit way faster than I could a year ago, there’s a ton of resistance.

I love writing, but I don’t love YouTube.

Also, the work intensity is higher and the payoff is lower.

I make close to CAD $1,500 a month writing … I make about $50 per month on YouTube with a small channel.

So you can see why some days — days like today — I want to throw my hands up and walk away.

But I can’t.

Not only would I be possibly surrendering big earnings in the future if it takes off, it would make me a total hypocrite (i.e. quitting something because it’s hard and/or before it has time to properly develop).

And, just as importantly, not everything has to be about money.

My Medium readers reminded me of that this morning.

My Medium readers save my YouTube channel again (and again)

So I lit up my YouTube stats while I was lying in bed trying to wake up this morning and my eyes almost rolled out of my head.

It was an unimpressive day to say the least, and it reminded me that I have some 8 scripts piled up that I’ve been putting off filming.

I ambled downstairs, fired up my computer, and started responding to comments here (this is always the first thing I do in the morning).

And lo and behold, there were two referring to my YouTube channel.

Here’s the first, from Sam Krämer:

Thanks James, I was reading this, went to your channel and have been binge watching it for 30 minutes lol, great job men keep going on your YouTube!

And the second, from Anthony English:

As someone with a YouTube channel in the tech space — mainly showing people the ins and outs of software like Zoom — I can tell you your strategy is spot on.

I’ve been in the game a lot longer — monetised my channel with the 1000 subscribers in 2020 — and I now have 6800 subscribers.

The good news is with those new videos of yours, your CPM will grow very well.

My channel has averaged me over $250 US per month over the last six months. Happy to share screenshots or a video showing my analytics or jump on a call, if you want.

I haven’t had any viral videos and many of my videos do poorly, but even my older videos from 2020 are still bringing in views and paying a very welcome side hustle revenue.

This was what I needed to hear today:

1. That people do actually appreciate my work
2. That YouTube is a long game that pays off in the end if you stick with it

There are a couple more lessons here, if you ask me.

The first lesson is that yes, your work will have a limited audience in the beginning and it’ll feel like you’re marching through muck, but I bet you there are at least a handful of people who really appreciate what you do.

I’ve received countless comments like the ones above with people saying appreciate my YouTube work.

And in fact, those comments are the only reason I pushed through long enough to get monetized in the first place.

The second lesson here is: If you like someone’s work — leave them a comment saying so.

Not only does it help people’s earnings in this new MPP world, it lifts their mood and keeps them going.

If (no, WHEN) my YouTube channel takes off, I’ll have this post as a record of another moment when I wanted to quit and I didn’t.

And it’ll have been thanks in large part to people like Sam, Anthony, and every other reader here who has left a kind or encouraging word over the years.

Thanks so much for reading today! If you enjoyed this piece, let me know in the comments and consider supporting my work directly for less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee a month (cancel any time)!

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