 If you're interested to learn where the journey YouTube channel suddenly disappeared, where from Critical Thinker suddenly appeared and what's been happening with my life lately, then stay tuned for this video. Hey Critical Thinkers, that is actually how I am planning to start to refer to you guys and willing everyone in between as my audience because that's the direction I decided to focus on and obviously there's a story with that but if you're interested in that story I'm inviting you to grab a cup of coffee whatever is your preferred drink whiskey and sit down with me and let's dig into the story. So energize ourselves and continue. So some of you reached out to me and asked me with concern so where did the journey YouTube channel disappeared and I'm thinking maybe some of you don't even know that the channel was there to begin with. So I'll quickly recap what's been happening lately this this pretty much last year at the end of previous year so that's 2019. After I came back from training at SBG Ireland the mixed martial arts gym I trained there for three months trained and then maybe four. Pretty much I trained a lot martial arts a lot and as most of you know I trained martial arts for more than 15 years in general in total and as after I came back to my country Lithuania where I'm at right now I realized that I started to lose passion for martial arts which is such a big part of my life and you know there's there's many reasons why that happened and I made a bunch of videos on this channel about that but short long story short I just you know eventually decided that martial arts are not as intriguing to me anymore as much as it used to be and funny enough that's where my source of income was that was the martial arts journey YouTube channel which was about basically about applying critical thinking into martial arts and documenting my journey how I do that as I realized that I lost my passion for martial arts at least at the moment that I realized also that it's not something that works with me or to explain it in other words I am kind of a driven passion driven person I feel like it's important for me to have a passion a bigger goal to pursue and beforehand it was spreading critical thinking through martial arts sharing my journey learning you know learning from the mistakes I did documenting them all of that meant very much to me and I think I managed to create sort of a global impact with my journey with my story in martial arts journey but then when I realized that my passion for martial arts is decreasing I had to ask myself so damn so what do I do next because one option was to just keep pumping footage about martial arts into martial arts journey and just kind of pretending that it's fine but as I said it's not really something that I would be okay with so that let me turn it down okay I need to find what I'm passionate about besides martial arts and as I mentioned it's so important for me it's kind of my one of the core aspects of my life is trying to create significant value in the lives of others and so I went on this journey to ask myself what that could be that led me to create a new channel The Journey which some of you were following and it was kind of a lot of experimenting there I made a lot of vlogs recapping various stories and it was a lot of things like this like sitting down and just talking to you and just exploring my stories and exploring what what I am passionate about and what's valuable to you like kind of that synthesis of my passion and the the offering of value so what where my passion could provide more value to you so I made a lot of videos like about yoga and about some about aikido again and and I tried so many different things and eventually I started to realize that some of those got like they got a fair amount of attention like a bunch of people watch them and appreciate them and and I think some of the people started to like the the channel The Journey but there was a feeling in me all the time that that was nagging me that that the channel did not have a clear direction it was more kind of my personal aspiration of trying to discover what value I could provide to others it was kind of a process documented but but there was no clear direction aside from that which is also like a vast searching for your kind of clinical purpose is just such a vast you know thing to look for eventually I came to this significant moment which is again recorded in a video which is called I realized I lack education as I was exploring what I could give to people or what I want to give I came to a conclusion that holy crap I am not a master I'm a master of none you know beforehand I was like an instructor of aikido for many years and I was a yoga instructor and and then I moved to becoming martial arts journey guy you know the youtuber who's documenting his journey but that's that's like not really mastery but that was my field and suddenly I'm I you know I dropped aikido entirely I dropped yoga I dropped my spiritual teacher status and now I'm and I put aside the martial arts journey youtube channel and then suddenly there's that question of okay so so what's left what can I offer and and there was kind of a little bit of a crisis like wasn't like a significant crisis where I was like emotionally shaken but there was that consideration so crap okay I don't really have a strong base to offer something to others so so my first instinct was okay I need to just go wild and become mad about learning actually one of the books I read at that moment was a book written by Cal Newport so good you can't be ignored which promotes that it's a mistake to try to give something that you don't have basically like kind of like a simple notion right a mistake I used I did many times in my life uh and I'm still you know kind of capable of doing that mistake but I really read that book really resonated with me which said people will value by how much value you will create for them actually that's my phrase but that's kind of what the guy said as well it's one of my favorite phrases but then he promoted that you need to invest as much as you can into becoming the expert of your field and then and then you share that thing so also uh at the beginning of this year as I was just starting the journey of the youtube channel I read a bunch of books and one of them was Seth Godin's a famous marketing expert which actually made a couple of videos about him on this channel so he he writes a book he wrote a book famous book known as purple cow where he states that a great way to go is to choose a very narrow field and become a super expert at that and I really like that idea like like like I'll give a blunt example it's not like a legit example but you understand what I'm talking about so he said you know don't be a doctor and don't even be doctor of the ears but become the best in the world doctor for the right ear and you know that that whenever somebody would say oh my right ear has an inflammation or has some trouble everybody would suddenly think about you and they would say oh go to this person that person is really good with right ears they won't think about anyone else because you're so specific about what you do and all of that started to make me think okay so where do I want to because I am kind of still on very much so on a journey I asked myself so where can I devote myself in a specific area where I could thrive and and collect value and offer that value to others to you so that was kind of a period as well which I think that's why I started to also back away from documenting much about it I started a coaching course like going on a court or coaching course which I'm still on and I enjoy it but I don't think I'm as passionate about coaching as I expect it to be but that's a whole different video but but I'm going on that court coaching course and then also I I start asking myself so so what am I so passionate about that I could invest dozens upon dozens upon hundreds upon thousands of hours into that specific area I wouldn't get tired of it I wouldn't get bored of it and I would learn so much about it that I could actually create value for others and initially my guess was talent or the debunking of talent I realized I was always interested about what makes people exceptional what what makes people great and because I I became so enthusiastic about critical thinking I I looked at it for a critical thinking perspective I didn't read books just like fluffy books about you know become the greatest but I I sought out books which were talking about the science behind talent proving that talent doesn't really matter that much that it's so much about hard work in 10 000 hours all these theories which were scientifically proven and I was like I was hooked I was like I enjoyed collecting science-based knowledge about that field and I created the strategy which I haven't shared with you yet which I called mad learning sip of coffee so mad learning as I mentioned my my concept was my my approach was to become as good as I can be at a nearer field which I'm driven about and which is valuable to others as quick as I can so I started becoming mad with learning aka thus mad learning so this is actually why I'm wearing these earphones and you can you can see them in the past couple months you can see them in my videos in my photos photos wearing them because I started downloading audiobooks like really really like like really investigating the best of the best books because my philosophy is if you learn you should learn from the best that you can that you can from and so I downloaded those audiobooks and I started listening to them like mad like you know I wake up and these days I do that too I'll get to that soon enough but but the strategy is the same so I go to the shower I place my phone where I can hear it and I I start playing in an audiobook and so as I'm showering I'm listening to the audiobook I go to take out my doctor walk I'm listening to an audiobook now I go to the store to buy stuff I listen to my audiobook so I listen to everywhere and all the time and then when I can't listen to it I also download is another book on my phone on on Kindle so that whenever I cannot listen to it let's say you know I'm in a crowded place or just for any reason I I take out the phone or like I'm in my toilet I do that too when I'm sitting on the toilet I don't have my earphones for example or if I got them I take my phone and I start reading the book so I'm like reading and investigating all the time my notion was also that if I make videos about that I discovered through that skill learning that the talent phase let's call it that was actually suggested in those books that one way to develop yourself is to share the information you learn to to recap it to take out the main information and I thought you know what making videos is such a great way to do that and that's where if you look at the channel at this channel you'll see there's a bunch of videos about more or less like talent or mastery as I like to call it and that's that's actually that was the gist behind it I just didn't share the process with you yet that I came to decision when I'll read the book whatever I like most about it I'll make a video about it like you know quoting the data quoting the the the person who said that idea so I wouldn't present myself as the master you know because I'm not but but I would quote information which which is really good and I would also you know I would also test it I would look at different sources to make sure that it's it's correct information I would put some effort into it but that would make me go for a process of really digging deeper into that information and making it my own and so I did that for like a couple months and then let me tell let me tell you I did become exhausted by doing all that reading so actually that's before I continue let's have a sip of coffee or drink and I'll check if the microphone's okay if you film videos you probably know that one of the worst things that can happen is when your mic doesn't work or doesn't record and then you record like a passionate 20 minute video and then you realize crap I didn't record it and to repeat the whole thing it's the worst happened to me too many times so I always you know stop sometimes like let's check the microphone so anyway let's let's continue so yeah I was telling you that it was exhausting you know listening to those books so many hours especially when my girlfriend is away for like a weekend she's a professional singer so she goes and sings in concerts and makes these tours singing tours and so I'm on my own and I'm like oh this is a great chance to do some mad learning and especially the first few weeks you know I was like at the end of the day I was like oh my god my brain is melting because I would think about it and would listen to those to that information for so much time that as I was by like I'm a late person you know I'm Batman jokes joke I wake up late but I go to bed late so like at one or two am at night I would be walking my dog and I would feel like my brain is like barely taking more but then the interesting part was that I went to bed and I was hyped I was like that this day was so good because I feel like I got so much and then I would sleep well I would wake the next day up and I would be fresh again and I was like I'm ready to do more and what I noticed too is that with time over the past after like a month or so doing that I started to become comfortable that I guess I became I developed a skill for that I became comfortable at doing that my brain probably adjusted itself to it and I'm a bit like a machine doing that so I'm not saying do this I'm not saying it's for everyone I'm concerned that maybe it's it is it may fry the brains of others and burn them out so be careful you know this is not a scientific trick it's just something I tried but you know I just felt inspired to share with you like that's what happened and then the next stage the final stage which we are at right now so actually one of the things I did because I want to make this youtube thing do well I decided you know what I I should really look at the knowledge I have about youtube I spend a lot of time a lot of a lot of hours learning about how youtube works back a couple years ago a few years ago making the martial arts journey but I thought you know what let's revise the information and I got this great course by video creators I love it I'm not you know they're not paying me but you should just go check it out if you're into youtube stuff it was like something mind-blowing and new but I looked at it and it reminded me of some important aspects and one of them was questioning you know who am I specifically making my video too which is kind of a basic marketing question but that really ignited my process to ask that like so what's who's my audience who am I making this video for and I went through this long and intensive process like just like writing and writing answering questions who am I making these videos for and suddenly I realized you know there are actually a couple of themes which keep reoccurring and one of them is it was mastery at the time but the other one was critical thinking critical I realized critical thinking is still important to me and then that's the moment when everything started to connect because you know critical thinking was important for me and it's already something I'm in touch with through the martial arts journey that's kind of a bridge between my my work and it's something I love and I it's something also because I do want to create that significant impact on a global scale a positive impact obviously I asked myself you know so so is that useful to others and I realized you know what critical thinking is absolutely useful it could be such a game changer for so many people so many people lack critical thinking I lack critical thinking like a decade ago like like badly I was I believed in spiritual stuff and you know in 20 years ago even worse you know I believed in in superpowers and ghosts and stuff and now you know I'm a much better critical thinker than I was and critical thinking changed my life it made my life much much better you know how I perceive the world how I perceive information and I thought this could be such a worthwhile goal to promote critical thinking and to not run around the place everywhere and that would that also answered me a question which I posed to myself asked myself what's my connective tissue that was my question I realized I'm interested in many different things I'm passionate about quite a few subjects but I thought what's the uniting connecting tissue which unites it all and and the answer came to me is all critical thinking is is is that you know critical thinking can applies to so many subjects which I'm interested in and it kind of connects them and I started thinking about it more and more and I actually wrote a question to to Matt Fortin who you might know you know she's a she's a great critical thinker I wrote a message asked do you think because that's the question I posed myself or do you think that critical thinking makes people better like you know more caring less biased and we had a discussion you know we don't have the data to support it but it seems to both seem to both of us that it does and that and for me that was like a sign like holy crap this could be it you know this subject promoting critical thinking making critical thinking more accessible and more popular could have that global positive impact with years and obviously a lot of work and a lot of thought put into it it could lead to that result that I'm searching for and that's when I that's when I hit you know I was like holy crap I have to do this you know this is it and so that's a bit of my character that's a bit of my flaw sometimes when I when I come to a big realization I just go and do it and I know it's not the best way but I thought about it for like a few hours and then everything clicks me I was like I'm doing it and then I just renamed the channel the the channel the journey I just renamed it the practical critical thinkers now getting your heads up I got a bunch of feedback that that I agree with that practical critical thinkers is is not the best name it's it's a bit too difficult on the tongue that critical thinkers is enough it just rolls off the tongue and I noticed people saying to me the channel was initially practical critical thinkers but then I noticed people would tell me oh I saw you started the channel critical thinkers and I was like oh they left out the word critical and and then I got the feedback and I realized you know what you're right I made a vote and I realized yeah everyone's saying critical thinkers is better than practical critical thinkers so thus I renamed the channel the the idea behind it is I'm a believer that it's better to make mistakes and learn from them early on than later you know if this is going to become big and then I changed the name at the end of the day at a later stage if they have much greater impact than you know now so so I just went out went on and improved it and that makes me say if you ever have feedback for me I love good feedback hit me write me a comment let me know what you think what's missing what could be added yeah just tell me everything I really appreciate hearing feedback so yeah and that feedback made me read the name the channel critical thinkers and and now we're here I am so basically recapping I'm going through that same process of mad learning so I'm listening to lectures about critical thinking you know for hours upon hours every day I'm reading about it I'm thinking about it and I decided to do the same process which worked for me with mastery with the subject of mastery so I take critical thinking I find subjects which are fascinating and then I start to recap them and make them with videos so so it would so other people would get to know the information that I'm learning and that I would also become better at that information that I would I would you know it would sink into me better so it's kind of still a journey it's kind of a practical sorry practical I got used to saying that it's kind of a critical thinking journey so so yeah so it's still a journey and the very last point I'll make today in the video there's going to be more I got also feedback that uh because I became so focused on making those videos about you know just about uh that subject quoting others some of my viewers started to miss my sorry to miss me surprisingly I was like oh really you miss me you didn't see that coming uh and then yeah so some of the viewers said so where will we see you still talking to the camera and will we see still your journey and I was also encouraged by my coach the coach these days by a great great coach she said you know that the same thing like people you know people are following your journey they're interested in your journey so why would you stop showing your journey as much as you show the stuff you learned and so so I do commit I realize that's a good point so that's why I'm making this video and that's why we'll need more videos maybe less not as long but but yeah videos where I just talk to you and let you know you know how's this journey going how am I how am I developing and what I'm learning about critical thinking what what's what are the challenges I'm facing along the way what are the realizations and what's the progress you're just like everything you know share the depths of my soul and heart and life so that's kind of the story that's that's how the journey disappeared and critical thinkers appeared I hope that gives that you know includes you better now and you'll see what this is about I wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who followed the journey and supported me for the way it means the world to me it was kind of a difficult process for me to to you know question the hell out of everything that I believed in and allowing myself to be in that space of unknown and some of the support I had from some of you really helped that journey and I hope that this journey of practical thinking practical thinkers is exciting to you as well and you'll go together on this journey as well with me and as I like to say the the slogan I created for this channel is you know and we'll create a culture of critical thinking together so let me know in the comments what you think about this all oh yeah check this video you know check the playlist here there's there's some some of the videos are here where you can learn about the critical thinkers like what videos are out there and I'll connect up with you soon and again let's keep on creating a culture of critical thinking together thank you