Do Difficult Things: Too OLD To Be A YouTuber?

Ever wondered how tackling challenges can transform your life, especially at midlife? Join me as I recount my personal journey into the world of YouTube content creation, a path I embarked on after a major career shift as I approached my 50th birthday. Inspired by Jordan Peterson’s insights on confronting difficult tasks, I open up about the ups and downs of learning new skills amidst the pressure of comparison to others who seem to achieve rapid success. This episode is a heartfelt reflection on perseverance, growth, and the determination to empower men, particularly those navigating life’s intricate challenges in their middle years.

Throughout this episode, I share the evolution of my YouTube channel over the past 20 months, a journey marked by over 70 videos and hundreds of shorts, yet a modest 532 subscribers. I grapple with the realization that only a minority surpass the 1,000-subscriber threshold, bringing perspective to my efforts. A pivotal moment was my decision to focus on empowering men, especially those feeling lost in today’s complex world. This episode unpacks the profound lessons of starting anew and embracing continual learning, emphasizing the significance of confronting challenges as opportunities for personal growth. Let’s explore how facing difficulties can carve out a legacy of support and empowerment for those we care about.

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Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:00

Maybe I'm just too old to be a YouTuber. The truth is, I actually don't know. I really don't know if I'm going to be able to succeed on YouTube, but I'm giving it my best, I'm learning as much as I can and I'm trying to grow, like so many other people. Recently on the channel, we've been talking about doing difficult things and, in particular, talking about men doing difficult things, and, in particular, talking about men doing difficult things and how important it is for men to do difficult things because it becomes the making of them, and we've been using for our foundation this quote from Jordan Peterson, who talks about that subject. Have a listen now. Find something difficult to do. You need that. You're not built for comfort or pleasure, like if that comes along good, you know, if you have a day where you're comfortable and there's some things around you that give pleasure. I think he's so right in what he's saying there that in life, of course, we want to enjoy pleasure and comfort, and those things do come along from time to time. However, it's best for people, especially men, especially younger men, to get their mind and their heart set for the truth that probably they need to get good at doing difficult things. You know, I want to tell you a story about something difficult that I'm doing in my life and I'd love you to hang around till the end of the story so that you can hear me share my motivation and my reason for why I'm doing it and, I guess, what I'm learning in the end of the story, so that you can hear me share my motivation and my reason for why I'm doing it. And I guess, what I'm learning in the process of doing difficult things. And that story, like you heard at the top, is the fact that I've started this journey of a YouTube channel and being a YouTuber, I guess you could say. And I do lots of other things in the space of content creation, like writing newsletters and all kinds of other things, but this deal of trying to succeed and grow on YouTube is actually a story that begins a few years ago when I went through a massive career change. Maybe, as you're watching, you're reflecting on a career change that you've gone through yourself and, if you have been, you know that they can be quite difficult because you become successful at one thing or one context or space, and then it's like you've got to start over again and it's really quite challenging and I'm going to share the fullness of the detail of that story on another episode of doing difficult things, having a major career change.

Speaker 0: 2:22

But a few years ago I started having to think about what am I going to do next? What is my next chapter? What am I going to focus on? Later this month I'm going to turn 50 years old. I'm being really honest, mentally and emotionally I'm not quite prepared for that. I don't feel like I'm that old, but probably those are the words that everybody says when they get to these milestones. But I will be 50 later this month and I'm getting into that stage where I'm running out of my prime productive years.

Speaker 0: 2:53

And so a few years ago, trying to decide what was next was actually a really big deal, and so I decided one of the things that I would do was to start a YouTube channel, start creating content, start trying to help people in that space. And the truth is it's been really hard. It's been really really challenging Trying to decode this Rubik's Cube of a platform, if you like, and watching other people's stories where people say you know, I just posted two videos and I blew up and I got 100,000 subscribers. And listening to that can be quite difficult because naturally, as a man, as a person, you then start to go into the dangerous comparison mode of how come they could do it and why couldn't I do it? And it's really quite challenging.

Speaker 0: 3:39

And I've gone through, you know, a lot of learning. I've spent thousands of hours learning about how to do YouTube, how to improve, how to succeed, and those of you who are people that have your own YouTube channels you know all the stuff we listen to about thumbnails and titles and SEO and hooks and intros and storytelling and all these things, and there's so much to learn. And so you go through all of this learning and you make so many mistakes. I think of so many of the mistakes I made in the early days of this channel, where microphones weren't turned on and I had interviews set up with important people and the platform I was using was glitching and it was just embarrassing to sit through through to the disappointments of days where you feel like you get it right, you get the ingredient mix, so to speak, right as far as what you've been learning and you put this video out there that you hope will help a lot of people and after weeks and weeks and weeks, it might only have 30 or 40 views. It's really quite challenging to your ego.

Speaker 0: 4:42

If I'm being honest, I thought that my journey of growth on this platform would have been a bit more successful by this stage, but I'm still continuing to learn and I've got the help of a great producer partner on the channel now who helps with a whole stack of things that we've got to do. But it's very, very challenging to my ego, having been successful in my previous career and very comfortable in what I was good at and now having to learn new skills all over from scratch and not quite nailing it just yet. But I'm going to keep going, I'm going to keep on learning, I'm going to keep on growing and trying to succeed because it feels important to me. And I guess that brings me to the question of you know why have I decided to take on this difficult challenge? Well, there's a couple of things.

Speaker 0: 5:30

As I said, a few years ago I went through a major career change and had to plan what my next chapter was going to be. And for the first time in my life, as that day approached, I felt this voice on the inside starting to talk to me and say I want to have a voice, which was a strange sentence for me to say, because in my previous career chapter I'd had a lot of say and a lot of opportunity to speak to people and all the rest of it. But I guess what I'm saying there is. The context of my previous career chapter was such that there was pressure against wanting to promote yourself. The vibe around that job was humble yourself, don't promote yourself, get into second place, not first place, and there was a lot of pressure around not putting yourself out there, and so it was quite liberating to hear my own voice on the inside saying to me I want to have a voice and I want to have reach. I've got things to say. I want to reach more people with the messages and the truths that I believe I'm carrying around, and so that was where it all started.

Speaker 0: 6:39

For me was this idea of I want to have a voice and I'm giving myself permission to have a voice, and so that started the YouTube channel, and it's not been as fast as I would like it to have been, as I mentioned a few moments ago. In fact, now, in January 2025, when this episode is being recorded, I'm into my 20th month, so coming up to the two-year anniversary of putting videos up consistently, and I've put over 70 videos up on the channel, as well as hundreds of shorts on the channel, and I'm only at 532 subscribers. Now please don't mishear me and don't get me wrong. I'm grateful for every person that has subscribed and everyone who watches. I really do appreciate it, but I guess I'm not quite having resonance yet with the vision in my spirit, in my soul, about wanting to reach thousands and maybe even tens of thousands of people.

Speaker 0: 7:32

And so the journey has been slow, the journey has been long and it's been challenging. It's been hard, but I've got to remind myself that the stats on YouTube are only 9% of all channels that ever get started will reach the milestone mark of 1,000 subscribers or more. So maybe I'm doing a little bit better than I thought I was, but it is challenging, it is hard, but I'm driven forward by this notion. I want to have a voice, I want to reach people and I want to grow and I want to help other people in their journey. And so in this particular journey of this YouTube channel, I had a major pivot about a year ago where I realized I couldn't help everybody, and so I made the change and thought. I'm going to focus in on trying to help men men of all ages, but particularly young men and middle-aged men who are going through all kinds of pressures and challenges and needing to navigate life and figure out problems, many of them on their own, without help or without a guide. And so I became passionate about this idea that I feel like I've got lessons and wisdom on the inside that can help men, and so I started pushing right into that space. Going well, I want to help men on this channel as much as I possibly can to be stronger, to find purpose, to live happy, fruitful family lives, to believe that what they do in the world actually counts and, hopefully, to do something about the epidemic of lost men that we've got. And so that continues to be my mission, driving me forward wanting to reach men and help them to get stronger and to not give up. And so I've got to ask myself the question, at this stage where I haven't yet reached my goals what have I learned and what am I learning? And I've identified two things.

Speaker 0: 9:24

In taking on this difficult task of trying to be a successful YouTuber, whatever that actually means, I'm learning two things. The first thing that I'm learning is that starting over is hard. As I said, I spent 24, almost 25 years in my previous career chapter, and what I'm doing now, career-wise, is very different to what I did then. And starting over is really hard. It takes a lot of energy, takes a lot of motivation. Maybe some of you have been through a similar experience in career or in family, or in health, in business, with your finances, something along those lines where, either by choice or by force, you've had to start over, and it really is. It's really difficult actually to keep on raising the energy and the motivation to stick at it and to be consistent, especially when you feel like you're not getting the results in the timeframe that you'd like to get them. So I'm learning all the time that starting over is hard, but I'm going to continue. I'm going to keep on going on this YouTube journey because I've got a passion on the inside to help as many men on the channel as I possibly can, so that keeps on driving me forward.

Speaker 0: 10:36

And the second thing that I'm learning I'm not very good at this, if I'm being honest, but the second thing I'm learning is that the process matters, and what I mean by that is maybe one day I'll be able to sit here and tell you I've got 100,000 subscribers and millions of views and comments from people saying thank you for helping me, and you know this lesson really helped me through my challenge, and I would love for that to be the case one day, but I'm not there yet. I'm a long way short of that just at the minute. But what I'm learning is the process still matters Learning how to get better at this, learning how to put out content that is as helpful as possible, and keeping my heart and my ego, I guess, but keeping my heart true to the original mission that I've got things to say that I think could be helpful, and I want to reach as many people as I possibly can with those messages. So I'm learning, just like you, and I guess it brings us back to the same conclusion all the time that life is a bit of a roller coaster journey. Sometimes you feel like you're winning, sometimes you feel like you're losing, and we do go through difficult things. My story today, of course, is in no way more difficult than a lot of the stories that are out there, but I guess I want to tell stories that are a little bit difficult and a lot difficult, but all of them that are relatively difficult to me, because I don't think we need to compare our difficult story to someone else's difficult story in order to validate it.

Speaker 0: 12:05

I'd rather advocate for the idea that if you're in a difficult story moment in your life, then it's difficult for you and that's valid enough, because we can all learn from each other about what to do in difficulty, how to get through it, how to be better and stronger as a result.

Speaker 0: 12:21

And so I'm here to encourage all men especially, to do difficult things. Don't shy away from it. Don't set your mind and your heart and your soul in a position where you only want pleasure and comfort, because, unfortunately, life will wildly disappoint you on that front. And even if you could achieve it, it's very hard to exercise purpose and meaning and legacy for your family and friends if life is just about pleasure and comfort. So I think, collectively, we can make an agreement that we can encourage one another to not fear difficult, but rather embrace it and get better at it. At least, that's the goal that I'm aiming for. So if you've enjoyed hearing this story today and want to hear more stories like that, I'd love you to click on this video right here, where the original video of doing difficult things from the Jordan Peterson quote exists, and you can hear me break down that idea at an even deeper level. Thanks for watching and I hope to see you in another video real soon. Thank you.