The Struggle is Real: How Creators Find Balance and Success on YouTube

Recently, we had the Galaxy S24 stuff come out and the OnePlus 12 is around the corner, and the Find Seven Ultra is also on the horizon. As much as I'd love to dive into reviewing all three phones at once, I'm only one person, and it's not feasible for me to satisfy the algorithm every single time. I've been in this situation before, where I had to pick just one phone to review, and it was challenging. It's like trying to find the right speed on a treadmill that works for everything my team wants to do.

I remember when Tom Scott and Matt Pat started their YouTube channels, they were both full-time creators, and they were doing multiple things at once. They were writing videos, cinematography, editing, and managing their inboxes. It was like they had eight arms, each doing a different job. As I looked at their channels, I realized that being a Creator on YouTube is just like being an octopus. You get creative, and you start making videos, but it's also several full-time jobs all at once.

You're a writer, a cinematographer, behind the camera, and sometimes in front of the camera. You're managing your inbox, doing invoicing, working with brands, dealing with taxes, financial accounting, and pr relationships. It's a lot to handle, but it's also what makes YouTube so exciting. As an octopus, you have eight arms that can do different things at once, and that's what makes it so appealing.

But as time goes on, Creators start to realize that they can't run on the treadmill forever. They need to find a way to scale up their business and hire help. It's not easy, but it's necessary. I've seen many Creators who have been doing this for years suddenly decide to retire or cut back on their content creation. But I think we're just starting to see them finding their hearts. Matt Pat is still doing behind-the-scenes work on his channel, Tom Scott is still working on his podcast and videos, and you'll notice that they're delineating between the outside world and their internal motivation.

This is something that I want to emphasize: it's essential for Creators to find what makes them tick. What are those three hearts that keep driving them? For some, it might be cinematography or editing. For others, it might be writing or content strategy. Whatever it is, they need to hold onto it and not cut off any arms in the process. It's like Matt Pat said, "You can hire someone who's better at taxes than you." That's exactly what Creators need to do.

The key is to find that delicate balance between creating content and scaling up your business. It's not easy, but it's necessary. As I look back on my own journey as a Creator, I realize that I've had to make some tough decisions about what arms to cut off and which ones to keep. And that's something that I hope other Creators can learn from.

So, if you ever get to live the dream of being a successful YouTuber, be very deliberate about it. Take your time, figure out what makes you tick, and don't be afraid to let go of things that are holding you back. It's okay to ask for help and find someone who can do things better than you. And remember, as an octopus, you have eight arms that can do different things at once. You just need to figure out what those arms are and hold onto them tightly.

In the end, it's not about being a perfect Creator; it's about being true to yourself and your audience. So, let this be a lesson to all the Creators out there: don't try to do everything at once. Focus on what makes you tick, and then scale up from there. And always remember, as an octopus, you have three hearts that will stay with you forever.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enall right so in the past couple of weeks and months there's been a lot of YouTubers quitting a lot of YouTuber a lot of OG creators from people who been doing it 8 9 10 12 15 years Legends and people who we all are familiar with who've been around YouTube for a long time retiring or leaving or cutting back or whatever you want to call it and yeah I've noticed and a lot of you guys have have asked me for my thoughts or to ch in not that this isn't one of those videos I'm not I'm not doing that but I do have my own situation I've been at this a long time and uh so I figured I'd throw in my two cents figured I would chime in so first of all this thing that we're doing here this is a dream job no question about it like we cannot forget that I think there's a stat I've I've referenced it before but what you ask children of the 2010s and 2020s what they want to be when they grow up and they the most popular answer is YouTuber they want to be YouTubers when they grow up that and that didn't exist 20 years ago they all wanted to be other things firefighters movie stars now I'm sure a lot of this is they just want to be famous or this is the new version of you know Hollywood famous and they don't really understand all that comes with this that's totally normal but the point is it's a very sought-after job and that's something we all have to acknowledge but as Tom Scott put it so eloquently a dream job is still a job I can't keep this up this is my dream job and I have a lot of fun doing it I know I'm incredibly lucky but a dream job is still a job and it's a job that keeps getting bigger and more complicated and I am so tired so I I've watched all these YouTubers uh videos of of talking about what they're doing they're retiring and they're not all actually just straight up leaving if you actually watch their videos let's be honest a lot of them are cutting back a little bit or taking a break or changing things up in away but it it feels like they're sort of retiring the main thing that we know them for but pretty much all these videos have something in common so I'm going to use an analogy to sort of I like analogies I've said this before I'm going to use one to explain sort of how it feels in my head so the way I explain because I get asked all the time what do you recommend for someone who wants to be a YouTuber and I liken it to being a professional athlete pick a sport pick whatever sport you want basketball for example there's one thing to actually do the the sport just for fun to go to the park to play basketball for free to go to the gym with your friends to play basketball you can do that as much as you want but there is a certain level of hard work dedication strategy and talent and let's be honest luck that is involved in being able to turn that hobby that pass passion into a job to actually become a full-time professional basketball player that that is a very sought-after job and a very small number of people who actually get to do that and so if you really want to turn the passion into the job you have to be willing to put in a ton of hours and to be and to be totally happy playing a ton of basketball in the park for free playing a ton of basketball in the gym and working on the skills for free not getting paid a dime and that may possibly lead to you being able to turn it into a job and you have to be able to be very comfortable doing it for free for a long time even if you don't make a dime that's that's the same thing as being a professional athlete that's totally true about being a professional Creator now I still think all that's true and I still like using that analogy but I think there's one thing wrong with that analogy or I guess one thing missing from that analogy which is that creative jobs don't scale like regular jobs it's just not quite the same so what I mean by that is take the YouTube video creator career for example when you first start you are just being creative like that's the that's the whole job you are making stuff and that's the fun so you get to have all kinds of crazy creative ideas you're getting better and better at making the thing you get to have a a new idea be inspired by something over here trying new things and just coming up with all these fun different ways to make something and that is what we fall in love with at the beginning now what might happen is at a certain point you you get your first opportunity to do some larger new thing and it's super cool that that door has been opened because of all the creative work you're putting in and so it's very tempting and exciting and so you you need to sort of scale up a little bit to be able to address said new opportunities and so you do that and it's awesome and it's a an advancement clearly but now you're spending time on that scaling up and less time on the being creative thing so like here's a a basic example you're you're let's say you're a video creator you're doing your thing you're getting creative you're writing editing shooting doing all the fun creative stuff and uh then you're making some AdSense Revenue as well so it's a hobby that's making some money great a brand comes along and they offer this super awesome unique opportunity to go shoot a video that you would like to make in some crazy fun unique location and they'll fly you out and give you that access to be able to make this awesome thing sick yeah that's that's an advancement and that's something that's unlocked by the creative things you've been doing and so you do it and but you know in that process you now also have to manage the communications with the brand that's the inbox stuff you're doing invoicing and then all now it's the accounting and the taxes that come with that and the negotiation in between and the travel just a little bit of extra work and it doesn't seem like a big deal but that is some more time spent doing something that isn't being creative when the job is still supposed to be the being creative part you see what I mean does that make sense there there are all types of examples of this all over the creative world pick any genre whether it's working with a brand or doing some new opportunity something somewhere that comes from you being creative another very common example is and I have Creator friends all the time that ask oh I'd like to hire a team to help with some of this stuff and that also feels like a natural progression you're doing so much of this work that you should have some help you should have a team to help you do that and you do get the help but now a lot more of your time is actually spent managing those people and that team which is taking away from the actual being creative part so the point is creative jobs don't scale quite like regular jobs and this is the thing that I see in a lot of other channels and creators and a lot of the videos I'm watching which is the more you scale up to address these awesome new opportunities and level up the less of your job is the original thing that we fell in love with which is being creative so how do you avoid that I don't know I don't have the answers I don't think anybody has the answers that's also part of the fun of this job is it is relatively new and it didn't exist that long ago so there is no Playbook to step one step two step three here's how to become a professional Video Creator in said genre on YouTube that's you can try to find playbooks like that but they won't always work that you just there is no answer yet now I've been very lucky to I still enjoy I enjoy a lot of the other parts of the process as well and and I I started again with the fun of making videos and learning to use a camera and use a lens and use lighting and microphones and all kinds of fun things like that but also the rest of the proc process are intriguing to me as well so it's fun I got lucky in that way um but I guess the only real advice that actually makes sense and I'm not good at giving advice to these ogs but um I guess it's more like advice to my former self or another version of me but it's just to to be very very deliberate about keeping the original goal and the the creativity part at the core of everything that you're doing CU it gets really easy to get distracted and uh kind of like that fourth grader who filled out the surve who said I want to be a YouTuber it's easy to get distracted by the thought of the scale and the money and the fame and the the fun that seems like it comes with this with no effort but um if you do fall into the Trap of chasing ing algorithmic changes or chasing the views or the or the waves of things that happen on YouTube it it is definitely uh it's like a carrot on a string it's never ending like we've all seen the Mr beastify I love you Jimmy but there are a lot of other channels that that look at what Jimmy's doing as a end goal for themselves and so they figure okay if I do what Jimmy's doing if I follow his blueprint I will be the Mr Beast of of insert genre here and actually they're right they will be but they don't realize all the the other things that come with that it's like a treadmill it's like a treadmill that's that's another analogy for you and the skill of being a video creator in this world where if you want it to be a job you have to keep going and keep moving forward and keep making things and sharing things the skill is finding what speed on the treadmill actually works for you is it a slow walk is it a light jog is it a video every this often is it scattered videos is it one video every month every six months that is a real skill and a challenge to find what actually works that satisfies both the external goals of growing your thing and the internal goals of flexing the creative muscle sorry I'm getting this is getting philosophical but you've seen have you seen the The Da punk music video from I guess after the last album but for inity repeating where the AI character is like walking walking walking it walks slowly a little bit faster a little bit faster and the whole time it's it's a fine Pace but the second it tries to start accelerating very quickly towards the end of the video it just like falls apart and it's it's too much that's what burnout looks like so in my world if you've watched Tech YouTube videos for example which I guess if you're here you have that looks like you cannot make every Tech video at least I can't maybe you can but I can't review every single phone that comes out I just recently we had the Galaxy s24 stuff come out and the OnePlus 12 is around the corner and the the the find seven Ultra is also I I can't review all three phones at once I'm only one person so I got to pick one I can't dive in and try to satisfy the algorithm every single time I just can't so even me today I am trying to pick the right speed on the treadmill that works for everything that I and my team want to do and it's challenging and I'm not saying that the people who are retiring or cutting back haven't done that but I do think we're all sort of realizing you can't run on the treadmill forever as as viewers I'm watching Tom Scott and Matt Pat I'm like yep I get it they're getting off the treadmill but I'll leave you with one more analogy um and that is for those uh who are still in the camp of I would like to go all in on this I would like to to get help and scale up and have a team so the last analogy I'll leave you with and I've I've told this on other people's channels but I don't think I've ever actually said it on this channel um is the octopus analogy sorry my computer over here just went to sleep with my mic cable plugged in the octopus analogy being a Creator on YouTube if that's what we want to talk about is just like being an octopus meaning you get creative and you start making videos and have all this fun with the platform you are doing several different full-time jobs all at once you are a full-time writer you are also a full-time cinematographer you're behind the camera you're a lot of times in front of the camera you're a lot of times a full-time editor you're also managing the inbox you're also doing the invoicing working with Brands there's taxes the financial accounting and also just the pr relationships and management all that content strategy that's a bunch of different hats that's like an octopus with eight arms doing eight different things all at once so my only advice is when getting help and this makes perfect fundamental sense but sometimes you have to hear it out loud you want to get someone who's better at the thing that you're not good at than you but also you want to find things that you specifically want to cut off so if you're not good at graphic design and you want the thumbnails to be great maybe that's a perfect arm to cut off and hand to someone else and then they can do that task 500 times better than you ever could I certainly learn that I recommend that just cut off the arms of the the taxes boom you can hire an accountant you can work with people who can help you with that and that's cutting off an arm and handing to someone who can do much better but you can't cut off every arm and this is another weird part of the analogy but fun fact a lot of octop octopi octopuses octopi anyway they have three hearts weird I know uh but they can't cut those out they have some core functions that always stay with them and if you are a Creator in some way there is a part of the game there is something that you fell in love with at the beginning it's really worth figuring out what that is and just keeping that just keeping that and it's going to be different for every Creator maybe for you it's the cinematography or the editing or the writing or the content strategy whatever it is there's going to be parts of it and there may be several parts that you got to keep you don't cut that off and that's that's my octopus analogy for uh learning to be a Creator since there is no Playbook I'm just putting this out there learn what those three hearts are as early and deliberately as you can and hopefully you can run on the treadmill with other people who control the other legs this is a crazy analogy now but I think you get the idea long story short I don't think we we've seen the end of big YouTubers who've been doing it for a long time retiring or cutting back or whatever I just think we're seeing them finding their hearts I think they're you know Matt Pat's still doing behind the scenes stuff on his channel Tom Scott still doing his podcast watch the other videos and you'll see them sort of delineating between the outside and the inside internal motivation and that's that's why I think it's important so that's that's my two cents and what just wanted wanted to get out there for this video that's all that's all I wrote down it's all I want to say if you ever get to live the dream be very deliberate about it this is a weird video okay we'll see if I put this up thanks for watching catch you guys in the next one peaceall right so in the past couple of weeks and months there's been a lot of YouTubers quitting a lot of YouTuber a lot of OG creators from people who been doing it 8 9 10 12 15 years Legends and people who we all are familiar with who've been around YouTube for a long time retiring or leaving or cutting back or whatever you want to call it and yeah I've noticed and a lot of you guys have have asked me for my thoughts or to ch in not that this isn't one of those videos I'm not I'm not doing that but I do have my own situation I've been at this a long time and uh so I figured I'd throw in my two cents figured I would chime in so first of all this thing that we're doing here this is a dream job no question about it like we cannot forget that I think there's a stat I've I've referenced it before but what you ask children of the 2010s and 2020s what they want to be when they grow up and they the most popular answer is YouTuber they want to be YouTubers when they grow up that and that didn't exist 20 years ago they all wanted to be other things firefighters movie stars now I'm sure a lot of this is they just want to be famous or this is the new version of you know Hollywood famous and they don't really understand all that comes with this that's totally normal but the point is it's a very sought-after job and that's something we all have to acknowledge but as Tom Scott put it so eloquently a dream job is still a job I can't keep this up this is my dream job and I have a lot of fun doing it I know I'm incredibly lucky but a dream job is still a job and it's a job that keeps getting bigger and more complicated and I am so tired so I I've watched all these YouTubers uh videos of of talking about what they're doing they're retiring and they're not all actually just straight up leaving if you actually watch their videos let's be honest a lot of them are cutting back a little bit or taking a break or changing things up in away but it it feels like they're sort of retiring the main thing that we know them for but pretty much all these videos have something in common so I'm going to use an analogy to sort of I like analogies I've said this before I'm going to use one to explain sort of how it feels in my head so the way I explain because I get asked all the time what do you recommend for someone who wants to be a YouTuber and I liken it to being a professional athlete pick a sport pick whatever sport you want basketball for example there's one thing to actually do the the sport just for fun to go to the park to play basketball for free to go to the gym with your friends to play basketball you can do that as much as you want but there is a certain level of hard work dedication strategy and talent and let's be honest luck that is involved in being able to turn that hobby that pass passion into a job to actually become a full-time professional basketball player that that is a very sought-after job and a very small number of people who actually get to do that and so if you really want to turn the passion into the job you have to be willing to put in a ton of hours and to be and to be totally happy playing a ton of basketball in the park for free playing a ton of basketball in the gym and working on the skills for free not getting paid a dime and that may possibly lead to you being able to turn it into a job and you have to be able to be very comfortable doing it for free for a long time even if you don't make a dime that's that's the same thing as being a professional athlete that's totally true about being a professional Creator now I still think all that's true and I still like using that analogy but I think there's one thing wrong with that analogy or I guess one thing missing from that analogy which is that creative jobs don't scale like regular jobs it's just not quite the same so what I mean by that is take the YouTube video creator career for example when you first start you are just being creative like that's the that's the whole job you are making stuff and that's the fun so you get to have all kinds of crazy creative ideas you're getting better and better at making the thing you get to have a a new idea be inspired by something over here trying new things and just coming up with all these fun different ways to make something and that is what we fall in love with at the beginning now what might happen is at a certain point you you get your first opportunity to do some larger new thing and it's super cool that that door has been opened because of all the creative work you're putting in and so it's very tempting and exciting and so you you need to sort of scale up a little bit to be able to address said new opportunities and so you do that and it's awesome and it's a an advancement clearly but now you're spending time on that scaling up and less time on the being creative thing so like here's a a basic example you're you're let's say you're a video creator you're doing your thing you're getting creative you're writing editing shooting doing all the fun creative stuff and uh then you're making some AdSense Revenue as well so it's a hobby that's making some money great a brand comes along and they offer this super awesome unique opportunity to go shoot a video that you would like to make in some crazy fun unique location and they'll fly you out and give you that access to be able to make this awesome thing sick yeah that's that's an advancement and that's something that's unlocked by the creative things you've been doing and so you do it and but you know in that process you now also have to manage the communications with the brand that's the inbox stuff you're doing invoicing and then all now it's the accounting and the taxes that come with that and the negotiation in between and the travel just a little bit of extra work and it doesn't seem like a big deal but that is some more time spent doing something that isn't being creative when the job is still supposed to be the being creative part you see what I mean does that make sense there there are all types of examples of this all over the creative world pick any genre whether it's working with a brand or doing some new opportunity something somewhere that comes from you being creative another very common example is and I have Creator friends all the time that ask oh I'd like to hire a team to help with some of this stuff and that also feels like a natural progression you're doing so much of this work that you should have some help you should have a team to help you do that and you do get the help but now a lot more of your time is actually spent managing those people and that team which is taking away from the actual being creative part so the point is creative jobs don't scale quite like regular jobs and this is the thing that I see in a lot of other channels and creators and a lot of the videos I'm watching which is the more you scale up to address these awesome new opportunities and level up the less of your job is the original thing that we fell in love with which is being creative so how do you avoid that I don't know I don't have the answers I don't think anybody has the answers that's also part of the fun of this job is it is relatively new and it didn't exist that long ago so there is no Playbook to step one step two step three here's how to become a professional Video Creator in said genre on YouTube that's you can try to find playbooks like that but they won't always work that you just there is no answer yet now I've been very lucky to I still enjoy I enjoy a lot of the other parts of the process as well and and I I started again with the fun of making videos and learning to use a camera and use a lens and use lighting and microphones and all kinds of fun things like that but also the rest of the proc process are intriguing to me as well so it's fun I got lucky in that way um but I guess the only real advice that actually makes sense and I'm not good at giving advice to these ogs but um I guess it's more like advice to my former self or another version of me but it's just to to be very very deliberate about keeping the original goal and the the creativity part at the core of everything that you're doing CU it gets really easy to get distracted and uh kind of like that fourth grader who filled out the surve who said I want to be a YouTuber it's easy to get distracted by the thought of the scale and the money and the fame and the the fun that seems like it comes with this with no effort but um if you do fall into the Trap of chasing ing algorithmic changes or chasing the views or the or the waves of things that happen on YouTube it it is definitely uh it's like a carrot on a string it's never ending like we've all seen the Mr beastify I love you Jimmy but there are a lot of other channels that that look at what Jimmy's doing as a end goal for themselves and so they figure okay if I do what Jimmy's doing if I follow his blueprint I will be the Mr Beast of of insert genre here and actually they're right they will be but they don't realize all the the other things that come with that it's like a treadmill it's like a treadmill that's that's another analogy for you and the skill of being a video creator in this world where if you want it to be a job you have to keep going and keep moving forward and keep making things and sharing things the skill is finding what speed on the treadmill actually works for you is it a slow walk is it a light jog is it a video every this often is it scattered videos is it one video every month every six months that is a real skill and a challenge to find what actually works that satisfies both the external goals of growing your thing and the internal goals of flexing the creative muscle sorry I'm getting this is getting philosophical but you've seen have you seen the The Da punk music video from I guess after the last album but for inity repeating where the AI character is like walking walking walking it walks slowly a little bit faster a little bit faster and the whole time it's it's a fine Pace but the second it tries to start accelerating very quickly towards the end of the video it just like falls apart and it's it's too much that's what burnout looks like so in my world if you've watched Tech YouTube videos for example which I guess if you're here you have that looks like you cannot make every Tech video at least I can't maybe you can but I can't review every single phone that comes out I just recently we had the Galaxy s24 stuff come out and the OnePlus 12 is around the corner and the the the find seven Ultra is also I I can't review all three phones at once I'm only one person so I got to pick one I can't dive in and try to satisfy the algorithm every single time I just can't so even me today I am trying to pick the right speed on the treadmill that works for everything that I and my team want to do and it's challenging and I'm not saying that the people who are retiring or cutting back haven't done that but I do think we're all sort of realizing you can't run on the treadmill forever as as viewers I'm watching Tom Scott and Matt Pat I'm like yep I get it they're getting off the treadmill but I'll leave you with one more analogy um and that is for those uh who are still in the camp of I would like to go all in on this I would like to to get help and scale up and have a team so the last analogy I'll leave you with and I've I've told this on other people's channels but I don't think I've ever actually said it on this channel um is the octopus analogy sorry my computer over here just went to sleep with my mic cable plugged in the octopus analogy being a Creator on YouTube if that's what we want to talk about is just like being an octopus meaning you get creative and you start making videos and have all this fun with the platform you are doing several different full-time jobs all at once you are a full-time writer you are also a full-time cinematographer you're behind the camera you're a lot of times in front of the camera you're a lot of times a full-time editor you're also managing the inbox you're also doing the invoicing working with Brands there's taxes the financial accounting and also just the pr relationships and management all that content strategy that's a bunch of different hats that's like an octopus with eight arms doing eight different things all at once so my only advice is when getting help and this makes perfect fundamental sense but sometimes you have to hear it out loud you want to get someone who's better at the thing that you're not good at than you but also you want to find things that you specifically want to cut off so if you're not good at graphic design and you want the thumbnails to be great maybe that's a perfect arm to cut off and hand to someone else and then they can do that task 500 times better than you ever could I certainly learn that I recommend that just cut off the arms of the the taxes boom you can hire an accountant you can work with people who can help you with that and that's cutting off an arm and handing to someone who can do much better but you can't cut off every arm and this is another weird part of the analogy but fun fact a lot of octop octopi octopuses octopi anyway they have three hearts weird I know uh but they can't cut those out they have some core functions that always stay with them and if you are a Creator in some way there is a part of the game there is something that you fell in love with at the beginning it's really worth figuring out what that is and just keeping that just keeping that and it's going to be different for every Creator maybe for you it's the cinematography or the editing or the writing or the content strategy whatever it is there's going to be parts of it and there may be several parts that you got to keep you don't cut that off and that's that's my octopus analogy for uh learning to be a Creator since there is no Playbook I'm just putting this out there learn what those three hearts are as early and deliberately as you can and hopefully you can run on the treadmill with other people who control the other legs this is a crazy analogy now but I think you get the idea long story short I don't think we we've seen the end of big YouTubers who've been doing it for a long time retiring or cutting back or whatever I just think we're seeing them finding their hearts I think they're you know Matt Pat's still doing behind the scenes stuff on his channel Tom Scott still doing his podcast watch the other videos and you'll see them sort of delineating between the outside and the inside internal motivation and that's that's why I think it's important so that's that's my two cents and what just wanted wanted to get out there for this video that's all that's all I wrote down it's all I want to say if you ever get to live the dream be very deliberate about it this is a weird video okay we'll see if I put this up thanks for watching catch you guys in the next one peace\n"