 There's really just two types of people in this world. The people who continuously whine, and then there's the other type who take action. What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. So what I try to do is take different topics going on in the YouTube community or from my personal experience and try to see what lessons we can learn to improve our own mental and emotional well-being. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And if you're not yet, follow me over on Instagram and Twitter at the Rewired Soul, and I'm gonna tell you why. So this video, this video right here is the first of a series. I know you're like freaking out, you're like, but Chris, you just started a series yesterday. What? Well, yes, this series is YouTuber Tuesdays. All right, and over on Instagram, I had a little contest, if you will. And I was like, hey, give me ideas for what I can call this series. I don't really know. And by the way, like five of you won. All right, you get a free copy of any of my books. So make sure you follow me on Instagram. I'm doing like polls and contests and everything like that. But yeah, it's like one of those things where like, I can't believe I didn't even think about it. Like some people said like, Tuber Tuesdays. And I was like, oh yeah, YouTuber Tuesdays, yeah. So anyways, a bunch of you won a free copy of any of my books. I'll send you a coupon code. I'll be DMing you on Instagram. But yeah, I want to dedicate one day a week to helping out my fellow YouTube creators. I've been through a lot here on this platform over the last couple of years. The good, the bad, the ugly, all of that stuff. And yeah, like something I was taught a long time ago is use your experience to help others. But if you're not a YouTuber, stay tuned because the lessons I try to teach are universal. This might apply to you and your own job, all right? So anyways, yeah, we're gonna be talking about how I quit being a little bitch, all right? So those of you who don't know the full story, I'm not gonna dive all the way into it. But man, things were going good for me. They were going so, so good for me for a very long time. I started on this platform a couple of years ago and nothing really happened the first year. I just, you know, did whatever. And yeah, last year was my second year on the platform and it started taking off. I did my, I did a series on the show 13 Reasons Why, started getting a ton of views. I'm like, okay, cool. Then it was this time last year, October of 2018, I started covering the Shane Dawson series inside the mind of Jake Paul and I was on this, like just meteoric rise, you know what I mean? And then after that, things just got better and better. So this time last year, I was about 18,000 subscribers, all right? And I jumped from like 5,000 to 18,000. By the end of the year, like my goal was like 60,000, which was crazy. And I ended up hitting like 70,000, all right? Like every video I was putting out was just views, subscribers, views, subscribers. January and February of this year, 2019, things were going amazing. And then March, I got canceled. A lot of it was my own fault. 90% of it was my own fault, right? But since then, I've been still pushing forward and doing work and everything like that. And oh my God, I'm so sorry. My beautiful girlfriend Tristan's sitting right there. Tristan, I'm sorry that you had to listen to me whine and bitch for six months, all right? So for the last six months, like my views have tanked, not only have the subscribers tanked, but like the views, all right? Like losing subscribers, that's cool. But the fact that YouTube is not promoting my videos, I'm just sitting there just whining and bitching and moaning about them, oh, the YouTube algorithm, why, why are you doing this, right? Because like I said, for a long time, every video I dropped was just taking off and reaching so many people. I was getting tens of thousands of views. Now I got people coming to my channel talking shit because I could barely hit 1,000 and I'm just here blaming YouTube. So as many of you know, I got to go to Vid Summit, all right? So Vid Summit, it's like VidCon, but specifically for creators, all right? So I went to VidCon this year, loved meeting so many of you, but Vid Summit, that's where you go and you put in the work, all right? That's where you go and you're around other creators and all the talks are just about the YouTube algorithm and growing your channel. You learn from other people's experiences. And anyways, when I went there, like it was just that metaphorical pop of your head coming out of your own ass, right? I have spent six months just sitting here bitching about YouTube and the algorithm and how things are so unfair. I make daily videos and I work so hard, I work harder than so many other people and I put in these tags for SEO and I type descriptions and I work so hard on these thumbnails. Well, when I sat there in those panels, I saw that I wasn't. I was not working nearly as hard as I thought I was, all right? I went to so many panels and they were talking about all of these little things, all of these little things that I did without question when I started on YouTube, when I started on YouTube, I was building a community. I was being very thoughtful of how I linked my videos and engaged with people on my channel and I grew and I grew and I grew. But when things got easy for me, I stopped doing all of the small little details, all right? And I finally realized like, wait, YouTube's not the problem. I'm the problem, all right? And finally, like the people in my life, the people aside from Tristan and, but others in my life, like in the YouTube community who I've been just sitting here and crying to, like I'm just like, you know what? It's time to put in the real work. You know what I mean? And that's another reason why I'm being more active on Instagram and Twitter and all these other things. Whether or not I'll get more views or whether or not I'll get more subscribers, I don't know, but the thing that was beating into my head at Vid Summit is something that I knew for a long time and I forgot was that this isn't about me. I come here to give you value. This is about you, not me, all right? So as long as I do that and I try to provide you with mental health tips or education or whatever it is, if I can do that and I get one view, beautiful, all right? So why am I making this video? Well, I did pull my head out of my ass, but there is something going on in the YouTube community and a lot of it has popped off since the McJugger Nuggets video and trust me, YouTube definitely has issues. But like again, this series is to help out my fellow creators and I see so much entitled, whining and complaining. And yeah, you thought this video was just about me, but no, no, no, it's about a lot of other creators in the YouTube community. Just like my girl, Missy Elliott, I just put my thing down, flipped it and reversed it. It's your thing to be the flan, yeah, that's right. So I want everybody to look around and quit whining about this platform, like think about it, like I had to sit here and realize the audacity, the audacity I have to come to a platform who hosts my videos for free, who's paying me for my content which no other platform is doing really, right? Unless you're getting brand deals which you can do on YouTube. Like you guys, like let's put this in perspective real quick. If you make videos on Facebook, they play non-skippable ads on your videos and you don't see a dime of it. And everybody is complaining about demonetization. So there's a few things. One of them, for all of you in the audience, don't be fooled. Just because you get that yellow icon does not mean that you are fully demonetized. There are plenty of videos that a lot of us have that are showing yellow but we still get ads on them. Now one of the issues is I wish they had three colors because there's green, you're totally good. Yellow can either mean some ads or no ads. It doesn't tell you which one it is. So yeah, that's kind of a pain in the ass. But it does not mean that you're not getting paid at all. I have plenty of videos with that little yellow sign where I'm getting paid. But anyways, I'm sitting here and I'm not gonna name names but I just saw a bunch of creators and like I said, it's been going on since the McJugger Nuggets video. And like somebody said, YouTube's holding us hostage. Like after I upload a video, I have to sit here and refresh and wait for monetization. Like what? What, no you don't. Like here's the thing. Like do you know how many shitty jobs I've worked at? I've worked at a lot of shitty jobs, all right? First off, YouTube is not my employer. It's none of our employers unless you work at YouTube headquarters. So when I see my fellow creators equating this to that job and employer relationship, it's not. It just isn't. We didn't meet with HR. There's no benefits or anything like that. Like YouTube is doing so much more for us than so many other platforms. And like I'm not here to kiss ass or anything. Susan Wojcicki is never gonna see this video. But I've worked at so many jobs that were so much worse. And let me tell you the beautiful thing. Let me tell you the beautiful thing and this is for everybody watching this video. If you don't like your situation, change it, all right? Like how long are we gonna sit here and whine and complain? Now I'm not saying like don't work for a better environment and everything like that. But like when I see people who are just doing this on a day to day basis, I'm sitting there and I'm like, leave, like just go. Like we're not being held hostage. I can shut this camera off and never come back here again. You know what I mean? Like we have that freedom. Like if I have friends who are working at a crappy job and they're complaining about that crappy job every single day, you know what I'm gonna tell them? Start looking for a new job. Sorry, quick little edit in here. Something that I forgot to mention in the video is one of the reasons why I'm kind of given that tough love is this. And many people don't realize this and this is not a blanket statement about all creators. But there are many creators who are not even working five days a week or 40 hours a week. You know what I mean? And like I just, I feel that many other creators don't really have like a normal nine to five job to really compare this to. But we also have to take a look at the given take of this whole thing, right? We make our own schedule. We decide when we upload and everything like that. So I don't necessarily agree that when we upload we have to sit there and keep refreshing because we can leave, we can upload whenever we want. Like that's kind of the awesome thing about being a YouTuber is the freedom that you get. You know what I mean? Like there's two different types of control. And it's the internal locus of control or external locus of control. External locus of control are people who think that they have no control over their outcomes. It has been proven time and time again that these people are more depressed and more anxious. Then there's the internal locus of control. If you can work on that, this means that you believe that your actions get certain results, right? You are in control of what happens. And I see far too many people acting like they're in no control at all. Here's what's fascinating to me. Like I said, VidSummit is an event where YouTubers go to learn, right? To learn how to grow their channels and do better on other social media platforms. I'll tell you this. All of the people I see complaining, I didn't see any of them at VidSummit. At VidSummit, I saw a lot of big creators and I don't see them complaining nearly as much. Do they have some gripes here and there? Yes, but those are the ones who I respect a lot more because they're putting in the work. And like me, maybe they're trying to keep their head out of their ass and figure out what they have control over. So the last thing I'll talk about is anchors, all right? So there's this amazing author, Dr. Dan Ariely. He is a social economist. He tries to study why we do what we do, why we behave the way that we behave, why we think the way that we think, and all these other things. And he talks about different anchor points. So, you know, here, I'm old, I'm 34 now. Let's talk about me. So gas prices, when I first turned 16, they were like, what, like a buck 25? All right, so that was my anchor. That's where it was at. So now with gas prices at like four bucks here in Las Vegas, I'm like, well, back in my day, there used to be a dollar 25. And then people older than me, they're like, I used to get 50 gallons for a nickel because that was their anchor point. And what we see with a lot of YouTubers, and what my problem was too, I reached such a good stride of success that my brain has latched onto that as the anchor. All right? So what you see, a lot of other creators, they were in this time where the YouTube ad revenue was so good, demonetization was not even a thing. They were living the dream, right? And now that there's more restrictions and it's a little bit tighter here on the platform, they're comparing it to back what it used to be. But we have to be flexible because nothing, nothing stays the same, right? The only thing that is inevitable is change. You know what I mean? But like I said, like we need to come in here and be grateful or we gotta take off. And not saying that we shouldn't make change or like work for changes, but there's a difference between putting together like well thought out arguments or videos to have a debate, to have a discussion and just whining. Here's a good example of that. Someone who put together a very well thought out structured video was Nerd City. Amazing video. It was detailed, it was calm, it was cool, it was collected, it had a bunch of different points that it touched on, beautiful. Is YouTube doing anything about it? I don't know, but I'll tell you what. That video has more of a chance to incite change than people whining on Twitter, all right? But anyways, the moral of this story, the solution of this story is take a look at your life, acknowledge what you can and cannot control, all right, something I had to realize is I have absolutely no control over the YouTube algorithm. What I have control over is my work ethic. What I have control over is how much I stay engaged with the audience. What I have control over is whether or not I stay on this platform. These are all things that I have control over. So, if you're somebody who's stuck at a job that you absolutely hate, look at what you can or cannot control. Anybody who's been to therapy, you've probably had a therapist say this to you. You either accept it, change it, or eliminate it, all right? If you can't accept it, and if you can't change it, guess what you gotta do, okay? But anyways, again, I will be DMing everybody on Instagram who won the contest. Like I said, I think there's like five of you, all right? But if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon or buys my merch or my mental health books. All of you help when YouTube is demonetizing video. See, there's other ways to go about these things, all right? Anyways, thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.