 What's up guys? Thought I'd do a few things differently for this video Mostly because I really need to get around to making more YouTube videos I've got so much footage. I've got so many ideas. I just need to actually produce But yeah, I'm gonna be completely honest with you like I have been forever I hope Right now I am almost finished actually and I'm editing a wedding shoot that I did a Couple of weekends ago, and I told the couple I Told this couple That I was gonna finish it by Sunday It's Friday night and I've got about maybe a hundred photos to go. So easy I've Culled them. I've cropped them. I just need to tinker a little bit of color grading a light fixing So it's pretty much done, but There was a hundred photos about an hour and a half ago So realistically I should be done and finished and I should be asleep but no my heads getting distracted by something and And I'm just gonna really express exactly every single thought that I'm feeling right now. I'm thinking I'm gonna wind it back six months ago Yeah, about six months ago I was at school and I was starting to really make a little bit of a Movement with my photography with my tours Nick Buchanan and myself started a portrait walk thing and I had a couple of weddings under my belt and those weddings There's a bit of movement from that as well momentum and I started to get bookings. I Was posting every day on my Instagram. I Had a goal that I needed to have 999 posts By the 1st of October Because the 1st of October Where's when I was going to be in America in New York City in Central Park on one knee Proposing to the love of my life and that video was going to be my thousandth post That was probably the biggest Accountability I've ever put on myself thus far and You know like there's been other moments throughout my life that I needed to pull my head in and do things But that was probably the longest kind of throughout a period of time now I Achieved that The first six months of the year I was $16,000 in debt Because in 2018 I decided to take about five overseas holidays I decided to upgrade my camera. I Decided to get a lot of camera equipment because I had the money to finally do it But then I overextended and then got into debt got into interest-free loans Cards credit cards and stuff. I wasn't silly. I kept an eye on it But I was still in debt So I went to Japan in 2019. Yeah, January last year and At the end of January at the end of the trip. I was 16,000 dollars in debt and I was really driven to take photos. I was really excited to have a job a permanent job Every fortnight a good chunk of money is coming into my account But I also wanted to go to America and Proposed to Sabine. I Knew that at the end of January. I knew that well before January, but very very cement concrete sort of stuff for At the end of January after Japan I was like I'm gonna ask her to marry me. So anyway Then what happened was I was like, right? There are gonna be a few conditions Where I'm going to need to I'm gonna need to fulfill a few things in order for us to be Able to get by in America and actually have a good time. Firstly, I need to get rid of debt I didn't want to go to America with still some debt and probably more debt at the end of the trip So that was the first thing I wanted to do. I failed But I only failed by one month. I gave myself until mid-year to pay it off and I had done it by The end of July 30th of July. I remember paying off my final piece What I also did was I sold my car My car was a probably probably one of the biggest regrets that I ever had When I grew was growing up. I bought a Commodore V8 VSS Back then it was flexing Not gonna BS you guys. It was to flex and Then I soon realized that no one cared So then I was just like damn. All right. I've got this The microphones there by I've got this debt I've got this car debt It's big and it's getting interest So what I did was I paid it off on time every month Sometimes my mum would help me when I first moved out of home, but I had debt and I had debt for about eight years and I Could have been using that money for so many better things However, the one big positive I took out of it was it taught me how to save and it taught me not to buy dumb things because I had a debt Now there are some people in this world Actually a lot of people who have debt and still buy dumb things so they're getting into more debt and they're not Achieving their goals Because they're stuck they have debt to pay So anyway, I paid off my car last year. I got rid of a big $16,000 debt and Then it was the end of July End of July August September October so I had three months to save up for America Now my biggest achievement last year apart from obviously getting engaged to my lovely Beyonce Was the fact that when I still had that debt I started saving anyway So it was like a Money comes in Here's to some debt Here's to some bills and food to get by not not a lot. I stopped buying sneakers I have over 60 pairs of sneakers and I didn't buy a single pair last year not one and Prior to that I probably bought about maybe Who 8 to 12 per year Give or take Not one. I changed my priorities. I changed my mindset and So then October came around and I think we managed to collectively save about $15,000 Majority of that was me Because Sabine was also getting rid of debt and she was motivated from me To get rid of her debt And we both got rid of our debts together And now we're debt-free We had an amazing holiday and We weren't poor people we weren't like scrounging for lose change towards the end of our trip and you know Couldn't wait to get on the plane to get home because we had no money left About halfway through the trip and this is where my maths teaching comes in handy, I guess Thinking in my head projecting like the way we're going about things where we're Soon going to run out of money and I'm predicting probably earlier than the end of the trip, which is not where you want to be and We did have a payment coming in we'll get both on salaries, so we're gonna get payments in and I said to Sabine I was like hey Go for gold However, we need to chill out for a little bit. We need to turn the turn it down on the spending every day My savings for that trip was to pay for the ring to put on her finger Now the ring to put on her finger didn't actually cost that much the physical ring Didn't cost me that much it cost me less than 300 Australian dollars, and you're thinking save your cheapskate a Ring for under 300 dollars an engagement Are you kidding are you crazy? Firstly before you start punch passing judgment firstly Sabine doesn't wear jewelry No Secondly she told me talked about it. She goes safe. Don't waste your money on a ring whenever you Whenever the time comes to propose a bit cheeky on her and Thirdly We'd rather use that money for holidays, so I kept that Kept that and then I used that and then sent that off and To the universe and said to the universe. Hey, this is what's gonna happen 2019 I'm gonna get rid of my debt I'm gonna save up for America and have an amazing time in America. I'm gonna propose to her at the end of the trip Now the advice one of my good mates from school shoutouts to Todd And I told him about my idea and he was one of the only people I told Another guy called Dan shoutouts to Dan if you're watching mate, let me know Todd told me So don't you dare propose to at the end of the trip. You're gonna be tired You're gonna be groggy. You're gonna be annoyed. You're both gonna be just a little bit Do it on day one Do it on day one So rock up Obviously, we rocked up the night before got to the hotel room fell asleep sweet. We're in America. We're in New York. Whoo Then morning came Went down the Central Park Did our thing I proposed she said yes, we're engaged. Good. Thanks And that's my 2019 Tick now. Why am I telling this such such a thorough story? Why am I telling going such depths? Probably getting bored right now. Cool story, bro and the reason is I Wanted to go real real deep into it because I wanted to tell you that It takes it takes time To achieve your goals If you really want to achieve them, you're gonna have to work for him. I Got rid of my debt Sabine got rid of her debt. We saved up 15 grand for America and going back to that time when we were a little bit Worryed well, I was a little bit like oh, we might run out of money on this trip here. I said to Sabine, let's turn it down and Let's aim to have a thousand dollars left over by the time we get on the plane Long story short. Oh, thank God. They said we failed We failed by three hundred dollars. So we got on the plane with seven hundred dollars still in our savings for America Bank account Is it really a loss? No Other times and many people this this happens to many people they get to zero and Then they get their credit cards out Days before the trip ends and they're like us stuff it YOLO Now I'm not demonizing that you'd live your best life if you can afford it cool But it's that mindset change that I'm mentioning and I'm talking about that mindset change that You really want to make a difference. You really got to stick to it. You got a really Be be critical and you got to be rough. You get not rough. You're gonna be strict on yourself so now we're in 2020 I I don't have a clear goal by the end of the year I realized and The goals that I've set out so far in 2020 today Today's the 24th of January. So We're three and a bit weeks in to the new year one of my goals for the end of January was to have a $500 retainer. So make $500 per week from my clients ongoing Now I told that to the universe because I wrote it down and I put a specific date in there Why I say this is a lot of you guys, especially you young young people You want I don't know popularity you want let's say you want to be famous on tiktok When do you want to be famous by? How many followers do you want by? How many people do you want messaging you daily saying how much of a difference you make to their lives because of the content you create? Have you ever thought about like that? Well, if you haven't then why are you making tiktok videos? What's the reason you want to be popular? What's the reason you want to be famous? Is it to spread a good message? That's my message I want to I want to give value out I want to share the my experiences with you guys And tell you what I've learned from them like I am in this video I want to lead by example I'm not going to shove anything down your throat and force you to be like you need to do this You need to do this. You need to do this I'll always try To deliver it to you in a suggestive manner, which means hey, have you thought about doing it like this? Maybe you can try like this This is how I did it. Maybe you can think about doing it in a similar fashion That's not up to me to decide though. It's up to you Now if you want something to happen to you In a good way obviously Like say you want to get better at football. Maybe you want to um get in the colt squad You're 15 years old or 16 years old and you want to get in the development squad at footy Or whatever sport you play you want to get into a professional league Or maybe you're a student you want to get into the academic class Or maybe you're a student and you want to get better grades Maybe you're a uh, not so good student and you want to figure out the best pathway to get out of school To be able to get a trade something you're actually going to enjoy because you're more hands on Has society and environment Science it's not your thing. You want to go and you wish every day was woodwork day and you can make things But how do you get to that spot? Well, you got to tell the universe You got to tell the universe what you want But here's the kicker and here's the point to this whole video Now, I apologize it took this long, but if you're still here with me, let me know in the comments Message me tell me that you got this far But here's the big kicker of the video If you tell the universe what you want Write it down Set a date it may be realistic. It may be unrealistic You may not reach it. Don't get it disappointed if you don't maybe you've uh overextended But if you tell the universe what you want and also you tell everybody else That's how I do it. Keep yourself accountable You're going to start doing things that will move you towards Achieving those things that you told the universe that you wanted or you wanted to achieve So let's let's paint a picture. I love painting pictures. I love taking photos You're in year eight And by the end of year eight You want to get good grades. You want to get better grades? You Low C grade student, right? Now why I say year eight is because I one of my Main classes last year was a year eight class shout outs to my year eight class last year by the way You know who you are We did some goal setting at the start of this the year and some of them would be saying Oh, this is dumb Oh, why are we goal setting? But these guys still did it they still did it A lot of their answers a lot of their things that they would write were very similar to do with school One of the questions was what's something you want to achieve in school? That's my dog snoring And majority of them said they want to get better grades So cliche I know But then it's like what do you do? To get those good grades you tell the universe Then you've got to set a pathway you get to set stepping stones How do you get from a c to a b? What subject do you need to work on? What do you need to do to be able to move forward? And this this is across all grades by the way, so this could be my first Video for surviving high school surviving any year group that you may be worried about shoutouts to any year 12s listening Do not complain That the grades aren't happening for you make yourself happen Towards the grades does that make sense? So be realistic Don't assume that the teacher's just going to fail you because you don't get along Research Ask them Don't be stubborn just because you don't get along with the teacher Don't just automatically disregard yourself thinking that they're not going to help you they will It's because you don't go to them And ask for their help that they may be a little bit more quiet towards you Especially when you get older now. Here's why here's my theory anyway As you get older You'll find that you're more and more alone Now it's not a bad thing Because a lot of introverts out there that are very successful And i'm not demonizing any introverts by the way just in case you get the wrong idea because you know This is all just coming out of my head right now the best way to Succeed in anything Is to learn How to do it Learn how to do it in a way that you understand Now this this this applies to every bit of school work you can do So what's the best way that you can do it now as a student? You may not know because you're young you haven't experienced enough life to be able to know that As a teacher it is my job to Stimulate your mind To throw out different ways that you can be like, oh I understand Pythagoras now. Well, when am I going to use it? I don't know but I get it. I get that a a squared plus b squared equals c squared. Hey Cool, you move on But um, you need to figure out the best way you learn now Don't start complaining that your school sucks. Don't start complaining that your teacher sucks Don't start complaining that you're in a poor area and that your parents don't care and that um You're at a disadvantage Well, guess what? If you're complaining you're always at a disadvantage because You're complaining that you're not actually moving You've you maybe you've spoken to the universe and said I want to get better grades But i'm just going to sit here and i'm going to wait for the universe to come to me That's not how the universe works No, sir The universe works for you if you start to move Towards what you said you wanted to do And then we'll start working for you. It's as simple as that It takes time. It takes patience. It takes grit. Look up grit Look up the word grit G R I T And if it sounds like it's a too hard work then Find something that you're passionate about Let's go back to me for a second Let's go back to where we're at So last year Finished my holiday So this is end of october now Went back and had a few weddings to do Went back and had a few photo shoots Had to finish school off And I made the decision to say Yep This is it. I'm calling it quits on my teaching for now Going on hiatus So don't know when I'm going to come back But I'm going to take 12 months to do my photography videography Wedding stuff business stuff development Maybe get somewhere with tiktok. Maybe maybe this video will go viral and maybe everybody will want me to make a book and whatever You know what I'm enjoying the journey but for me I'm I've said to the universe. Hey, I want to Make five hundred dollars a week Which is a thousand dollars every two weeks Which is only half of what I make as a school teacher Now do I need to make as much as I did as a school teacher? to get by the answer is no because Last year I managed to save money I managed to put away money Just to get rid of debt I managed to save money to put into America And I still had money to left over to pay the bills. So clearly a thousand dollars of fortnight is fine enough for me But here's my next big accountability step And I love it. I love it And it's the same thing that was last year Sabine She comes into the picture again So we both decided to call it quits indefinitely on our careers Sabine didn't want to be a manager anymore in her retail job. So she became casual so she can study psychology full time She's starting this year And that means she's going to get less shifts. That means she's going to make less money than last year So that means my thousand dollars a fortnight that I was Always going to just get by on means That may not be enough Is that scary? Man Maybe I should have waited. Maybe I should have just kept being a school teacher this year and we would have been sweet But the thing is when you have distractions And I mean serious distractions not just your phone's vibrating in your pocket. You're wondering who's your snapchat buddy the thing is When you get distracted by something all the time that you love that you love to do It's your passion And again, I'm not talking about answering your phone. It doesn't count If you want to do something it's itching you and it's distracting you from something that you're already doing And all you can think about is that other thing you go chase it You go chase it And if you set a goal to complete something before the end of the year But you're getting distracted by this new thing that you love so much more It's okay to switch It's okay to switch Now bringing you guys back in as a student as a young person And this technically applies to everybody, but I'll go into that later As a young person you're living at home still. You're not paying the bills. You're not paying tax You have all this time to try everything as many things as you can I want to play sport. Oh, I suck. Did I give up my best shot? Nah, am I really that interested? Nah, I like to do this. I want to do this. I want to code I want to make apps I want to learn how to make apps for example You study you go on the computer. You go on youtube all the books And you find that you're obsessed with it Obsessed it's a good word in my books. It's a good word You're obsessed with it You want to do it every day. You just enjoy it all of a sudden You're good at it. You're getting better at it. That's all you want to do Make an aim. What can you do with it? Go to uni study more with it or Start coding asking if anyone wants your services You find yourself at 16 years of age and you're coding for some um, some local company that is finding you absolutely gifted You finish your school days You know, you get through year 12. You're not going to be the best at school. That's fine You're so interested in coding You've got a gift Whatever it may be You finish school and you start coding for that company and they pay you so much money because you're so good at it And they they see value in you. It could happen At the same time though, it may not happen If you didn't try enough things Now i'm not saying that channeling your energy into one idea is bad I'm not saying that you should leave school or whatever I'm saying that you need to make sure that you taste everything that you can To to know what you're into. I've been tasting for the last 29 years The most amount of tasting I've done was in my 20s this last decade. I mean, excuse me I mean my final year of my 20s And I've gone from being a lifeguard To now being a full-time photographer And in the middle I did uni And then towards the end. I've got to finally got a job I'm a teacher full-time qualified teacher And I've got my Permanency I'm sorted But my distraction came through last year photography I couldn't get enough of it at school at recess and lunchtime. I was thinking about Shooting models and how I was going to edit the photos Doing a wedding shoot now. I'm going to edit the wedding photos videography Andrew Murphy shout outs to you Tim shout outs to you, mate. Nick shout outs to you, mate you three boys Didn't tell you Made me and chris chris from down south shout outs to you man. You guys Got me into video and I'm just like man. I love this. This is my thing Now I think I've gone on a tangent a few times now and I hope you're getting something out of this So the whole point of this is it's unscripted. I don't have anything written down This is just coming out of my head right now. It's going to be a podcast too. So have a listen if you want um These wedding photos right now. I love it. I love it But the thing that's distracting me is making tiktok videos On the phone on the phone And now I'm thinking and this is me telling the universe for the first time Because it's been in my head for a last few weeks now And shout out to Andrew Murphy again because recently he's announced that he wants to be doing youtube full time I've always thought That being on youtube being on tv Being on something Where if someone else can watch you was the coolest thing in the world I think going back to when I was like 12 or 13 we played this game on uh on webs on online And it had uh like a dj like a radio station thing where where you can where people Could set up their computers to play music and talk And I was like that's the coolest thing ever Me and my friend luke my childhood friend luke shout outs to luke We both listened He we figured out how to make a radio station. We made our own radio station. We had like two listeners. It was the coolest thing I think one point. I had 14 listeners That was the coolest thing best thing in the world And now I have an average of 80 to 100 people streaming into my lives every time I host a game show quiz show on sunday mondays Man my 12 year old self would be like dude. That's so cool That's so cool And someone you 12 year olds out there shout outs to you guys up. I was like man. He's so cool. He's doing that man I wish I want to do that and my 12 year old self He was absolutely is in the same boat and you know what one of my other biggest regrets I realized now is I didn't let that 12 year old flourish I went into the school system and focused at school not saying school's bad not saying school's bad But I focused more on school And I'm saying a hundred percent of the time Give or take with a bit of footy because that was my thing But I stopped with the the radio stuff I was taking photos well before 2015 I was making videos as well. I had the crappiest little camera back then it looked like you're filming on a calculator and I made the videos Back then and I remember putting on youtube. I don't know if they exist on I think I deleted them I wish I didn't because they're pretty Hey, I might find them anyway that was like 2006 and I wasn't 12 in 2006. I was like 15 16. I think maths anyway um When I did that It was the funnest thing Put a little music behind it. It was the coolest but I didn't progress Because no one pushed me And I didn't push myself I'm not saying you need someone to push you you need to push yourself Now if you find this video valuable and you get something out of it And this is motivation for you I've had so many people who already messaged me on instagram and all the social media channels saying you motivate me so much I'm drawing because of you. I'm taking photos because of you I'm wanting to do better at school because of you. That's That's amazing The thing is You need to actually do it now If you're motivated fantastic, you're welcome. You need to do it now prove to me Prove to me that you can do it. I'm going to draw a picture of you chef Okay, do it I'm keen to see I'm looking forward to seeing it You want to make a montage video of me? Absolutely keen to see I'm keen to see the next 20 montage videos you make of or whoever you want to make do it though All right, you want to make music you want to be a producer you want to be a rapper you want to be a singer Make some music Do it every day show me that you've done 20 different tracks over the next 20 to 25 days Or however many days you can possibly do it in Show me I want to see it prove it Prove to me that you have the obsession to Tell to the universe. I want this but also say I want this and I'm going to get it Because at the end of the day, it's not you asking for the universe What you want It's you telling the universe what you're going to get And that's I feel the difference If you tell the universe hey I'm going to be a famous tiktoker and I'm going to get sponsors and I'm going to get The deals and signings or whatever be the next Jojo Siwa or whatever name is shout outs to Demi Show the universe That's all I'm saying For me. What am I going to show the universe this year? Well My weddings I have failed This month With my goal Now here's is where the universe Excuse me Sit properly now Here's where the universe Comes into play for me And teaches me something. This is what I've learned over the last few days from the Inspiring words of Cameron branch. Yeah, that's the Cameron branch I told the universe at the start of the year that I wanted to make $500 a week as a retainer I failed because the retainers aren't there. I don't have someone or some people paying me collectively $500 a week However, I had another goal For my weddings My goal was to book two weddings a month Two weddings now how weddings work is Let's say a wedding is about $2,000. I charge a bit more than that, but $2,000 some weddings are booked months from now some weddings are booked even next year I have one next year as late as I think September But my policy is 50% And I give them a little bit of leeway, but minimum of $500 deposit per booking Nice to do myself my minimum is two a month So that gets me to $1,000 per month, which is half if you let's pretend every month is February and they all have 28 days And it's not a leap year Two weddings a month will get me halfway to my goal technically Now in the last Six days I've booked eight weddings So that's Four months I've ticked off Fantastic now here's the best bit Because it's eight weddings And on average All of them are over $500. Um deposit each Eight weddings Into $500 is Four grand? Yeah, four grand $4,000 I wanted $500 a week retainer by the end of January I've made $4,000 From the deposits so far $4,000 divided into Four weeks is a thousand dollars per week all of a sudden All of a sudden I am pretty much on par with my school teaching salary And it hasn't even finished January yet So what is the universe telling me the universe is telling me that You're not going to succeed Exactly the way you want to sometimes And that's what I feel like I've done I'm not getting retainers because maybe the retainers aren't for me Maybe that's the universe helping me saying hey That's not the way that you're going to go about it because that's not you See what happens see if the universe is right Maybe they are forever it is So Technically my goals are sorted for the next two months I've met my quota personal quota And I've also matched my salary for the month of January Which I'm still getting paid for because I'm on technically on holiday still from school So I'm going into February and March all sorted I can just sit there and be like sweet sort of for two months But here's the next bit Do I just sit there and let it roll and let it happen and just relax God no This is when I work harder It's still day one for me Tomorrow will be day one The next day will be day one It will be forever day one for me because I don't want to ever be Um listening to all the applause all the accolades serve you did it. Oh my god. You're so awesome. You got such drive It's nice to hear that and please feel free to message me that every day but I'm already looking at the next thing I'm that's me five minutes ago sweet Fantastic. So let's move on And that's the drive Now Going back to these weddings. I've still got a hundred photos to go. I've still been talking to you for almost 40 minutes non-stop These photos I need to do Why haven't I done them yet? Maybe that's me figuring out my next obsession And then going back to Andrew Murphy. Maybe I Want to make more TikTok videos and really hit it and really strike a chord and Get famous from that but because I'm saying maybe It's because I don't know yet and There is a bit of uncertainty as well. I don't want to just jump into that world yet because I'm still enjoying this wedding world YouTube could be a thing. I love making videos. I do But I need to channel my energy into one specific thing at a time and for now that's weddings Because I still enjoy a lot so much I love to engage with the bride to be get to know the husband get to know the family Um talk about their day and how it's going to pan out Most of the time they're getting married for the first time. So I'm like, hey, did you know this? Oh my god? That's a great idea. Let's do it I get to be part of the day The editing part is a bit more tricky. Obviously that's in my own time and that's the bit that I have to do But today was a good day because I edited these photos and I'm very happy with them These are some of my best photos I've ever edited and I still stopped halfway And decided to make TikTok videos instead and talk to my fans and message message reply to their messages So Why what am I doing? What am I into? What's my thing? What's my aim? The only thing I'm going to tell you about that though for now as it's coming to me is I'm just enjoying enjoying the journey. I'm enjoying the roller coaster So we'll see what happens in the next few weeks days months years decades but We're going to see what happens next because that's really The thing that's I'm most focused on not in five years time. TikTok may not be around in five years time. I might have Zero interest in weddings in five years time What happens next is what matters the most So, I hope you enjoyed my little rant story analogies Bringing it into your context of the world And I hope you got something out of it And if you did I'd love to hear a message from you on instagram, you know where to reach me at sevespix This has been a really good session because There's been no There's been no script. I'm not reading out of anything. I'm not pausing I'm not even stuttering that much. I feel I'm not saying um as much either So I'm pretty proud of that. I'm getting better And I hope you're enjoying it too Okay Looking forward to hearing from you guys and as always Good. Thanks And have a nice day