I ruined my youtube channel (don't do this)

When shortcuts turn out to be the long way round.

I started a YouTube channel years ago.

I’ve had more aborted starts than I can count.

Hired videographers, did a series of videos, stopped publishing.

Did DIY videos on my phone. Stop publishing.

Did Studio edit videos at great expense? Stop publishing.

Did selfie videos, screen recordings, badly drawn iPad videos stopped publishing.

Silly and kind of frustrating, considering I’ve consistently written every day for half of my life.

Not the same with making videos and publishing them.

All the while I was looking for the way.

The Shortcut.

I’m a professional shortcut noticer.

I’m very, very good at finding the quickest way somewhere.

That’s been extremely lucrative for me over the years.

It’s also occasionally taken me off track.

YouTube being one of them

I was looking for the shortcut.

I’ve spoken to Ryan Deiss and Ali Abdaal in the last year, all with conversations, looking for the shortcut for me to where they were.

One is generating a ton of clients from YouTube.

The other has millions of viewers.

Despite having proximity to both of those people and calling them friends, I wasn’t getting the benefit of that closeness because I was looking for the wrong thing and not looking at what they were really doing.

Blinded by the shortcut.

Only yesterday I realised that the short cut was taking me the long way around.

By using ads to try and grow my YouTube channel, YouTube didn’t want to give me any organic reach.

By sending you to my YouTube videos successfully, YouTube didn’t want to give me any organic.

So the very goal and benefit of YouTube is finding new people and delivering them a message that resonates with them, which was being thwarted for my search for a shortcut.

So I stopped.

Yesterday I published a video on how I ruined my YouTube channel.

I’m not posting it here

I’m not running ads today.

It’s just there.

Go and search for my name

Today I’ll make another video, and it will be uploaded sometime in the next few days, and it will just be there

Working away for me slowly and surely

Sometimes there isn’t a shortcut.

Many times there is.

Every mentor or coach that I’ve engaged over the years has in some way given me a shortcut.

I can afford to play the long game

I have consistent leads, customers, and clients coming to me, and when customers and clients join, they tend to stay.

I don’t need to rush.

In this case, it’s cost me time, money and energy.

Sometimes the shortcut takes you the long way around.