Advice to Young Men in Gen Z (and millennial men) bookmark this…

This is the best overall advice I think I can offer that is if any real value in life around: mindset, money, mental and physical health, and life overall..

MINDSET

Do not be seduced by modernity and do not become overly committed to technology, consumerism or to status/success.

Build the foundations of your life on purpose, practicality, passion and prosperity.

Tools to help you achieve this lie in a combination of:

Eastern Philosophy, such as the practice of meditation.

The code of Bushido.

Taoism: simplicity, patience and compassion.

Opportunity in the West:

Focus on education, skills, trades.

Monetize what technology offers while not being addicted to it.

Traditionalism as it pertains to the Cardinal Values:
(Prudence/Judgement, Discipline/Temperance, Resolve/Fortitude, Justice/Honor ).

HEALTH

Take a holistic approach to health daily:

Sculpt your body as a dedicated artisan would toil at a work of art or as a Forman would build a temple. Both are meant to withstand time, endure the elements, and be treated with respect.

Eat healthy and it terms of affording that, do the research to coupon and to source locally for your needs. Build a community of likeminded people who share information and resources.

Always consistently do things for your bodies benefit. Consider challenging yourself to the standard of the Military PT requirements to be in peak condition for your age. The benefits can last for years and preserve your youth and vitality.

Never allow your mind to stagnate, feed it with fruit from the tree of knowledge and the wisdom of elders. Do not feed it trash, vices, distractions or degeneracy.

What you sow in the mind, you will reap in your life. Plant wisely.

When you have a mental health crisis, be open to sharing it with those who have proven reliable and empathetic.

You’re not a burden or a bother.
If you can, turn to family first as they are most likely to keep your confidences and forgive you at your worst.

Do not neglect your spiritual needs and be consumed by modernity.

Find something beyond yourself to believe in. If for whatever reason you haven’t found a faith, connect with nature and explore the world and remain open to letting faith find you.

WEALTH

Having started in the bottom 2 quartiles (poverty line by income and family size) I can offer realistic advice and a realistic frame for money, income, career and “wealth”.

This advice when applied can build a 6 figure skillset and income, and will serve when it comes to financial literacy overall.

Prioritize SKILLS and NETWORK, not Credentials or Status.

Learn Soft Skills:

- how to research
- how to memorize and recall
- how to negotiate
- how to sell to anyone
- active listening
- observation skills and retention
- pattern recognition
- how to convey charisma
- public speaking
- how to remember names and faces
- how to elevate others
- how to control or hide your emotions
- how to read expressions/emotions

Hard Skills/ Technical Skills:

- touch typing
- master a software suite
- speed reading
- project management
- learn a trade
- marketing
- copywriting & creative writing
- problem solving
- a foreign language

Finanicial Literacy: spend 30 days studying each of the following:

- Credit Score Algorithm and get the MyFICO App

- Study Indeed and Glassdoor job descriptions and Salaries

- Requirements for homeownership, down payments, earnest money, the average price of homes in the county you want to live in.

- Learn the basics of Investing in Stocks and building a diversified portfolio, and learn about 10-15 year annualized returns.

- Learn about retirement accounts specifically Roth IRA, Solo 401K, Roth 401K, SEP IRA, HSA.

- Learn about Taxes, and specifically learn about deductions and exceptions and the benefits of homeownership, small businesses (LLC & S Corp), marriage, dependents. Learn about capital gains tax, etc.

1/3 The Reality of building a 6 figure income:

It is not sole being realistic to speed run before you’re 25-30 if you don’t come from a privileged background, are not tech savvy, or have a combination of high IQ, ambition and discipline.

But if you only have discipline out of all of these it is achievable with hard work alone focused in the right areas:

- BUILDING A HIGH INCOME SKILL
- BUILDING A HIGH VALUE NETWORK
- BUILDING A BODY OF WORK
- BUILDING SOCIAL PROOF

If you focus 5-10 years across these 4 areas you can build a 6 figure income without needing a high degree credential.

High income skills are problems you are able to solve of those already making 6-7 figure incomes, that require specialization, or would just be unproductive for them to do themselves:

Examples:
- graphic design
- coding/development
- trades - electrical work and GC
- project management & admin
- copywriting
- motion graphics and animation
- video and photography
- specialized software
- marketing/ social media

The skills are what you offer but you need a network to make yourself truly valuable and to put those skills to work and to earn.

College is actually not the best place to network, and the alumni aren’t as receptive if you’re not from the right background…

Instead look for networking events locally, nationally and abroad. If you can’t afford to go, volunteer.

With an average job if you live frugally and save your money for your “WAR CHEST” to build your ideal life, you will have the means to access your desired network.

You should be using your skills to build a body of work and offering your skills for free to people who CAN AFFORD someone more expensive than you is a hack to build the foundation of your network if you can swallow your pride.

This can either get you the job/career you want, because your network can walk you through the back door.

This is how you benefit from nepotism without being born to privilege and is the secret to people having the same job or income without a degree as someone with a degree… NETWORKING.

To climb higher, start acquiring varying forms of social proof that matter to people in your network or just outside of it, that earn 6-8 figure incomes or have 7-8 figure net worth. Not social proof that matters to the average person.

This is of course ONLY if you are very ambitious.

If you’re more modest, focus on a career based on the average lifespan of that career, it’s flexibility and it’s overall economic mobility in terms of promotions.

For wealth building try to save up to 10% of your overall gross income but try to live in less than 50% of your net income if possible. Invest another 10% of your overall gross income if possible or at least work your way to maxing out your retirement accounts.

If this is too overwhelming or hurts quality of life.

Save your first $1000 in a year ($3/Day) or get a $30/day side hustle to shave your first $10,000.

Have a minimum goal of saving a $10,000 emergency fund within 3 years as a minimum.

Within 5-12 years you can have a house down payment while single, and definitely do it as a couple. (5% down payment).

**RELATIONSHIPS:
Take this with several grains of salt…

- Avoid arguing with people, disagree respectfully or walk away

- Avoid people who constantly complain or are “unlucky”

- Try not to “keep score” with people

- Be someone that others enjoy being around and think well of

- Be known as someone who is reliable and considered responsible

- It’s better to be respected than to be liked

- You don’t need to be friends with everyone…

It’s important to have 3-5 good reliable friends in life. People who will be loyal, trustworthy, will protect your reputation and their own, will seek to better themselves and to see you genuinely do better in life.

With regard to romantic relationships, let’s start with some of the negative aspects…

Always try to end romantic relationships on good terms (on your part) and with little or not conflict.

2/4

Focus on these 4 foundations as a content Creator. Embrace KAIZEN and make small improvements in these Core 4 areas.

If the value is CLEAR the views will be consistent.

For viewers tbd value is made clear based on: Topic/Trend, Timing, Title, Thumbnail.

It starts with what… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… If I were to pick an area of improvement for myself I would say that I don’t write punchy enough titles that FORCE someone to click my triggering the emotions, and I rely too much on the viewer’s intelligence…

My BEST performing videos in terms of videos that get 100,000… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Do YouTube Live Streams hurt your channel? No… not if you position them for REPLAY value.

This 4 HR stream got 100K views in the last 100 days… with a 1HR avg view duration… and 1% CTR on 2M impressions.

87% of its traffic comes from suggested videos.
(Thread) I have another video, the stream before this… without about 70K views… 1.4M Impressions… 76% of traffic from suggested videos.

The TITLE thumbnail, and automatic chapters and video transcript do the heavy lifting for extreme long form content.

Unpopular opinion:

Quality > Quantity isn’t realistic for most working class creators and many in the Creator Middle Class.

An inexperienced under resourced creator likely WON’T get further putting 100 hours of their scraps of energy left after 50 hours a week, into 1 video… When you’re not a full-time creator… or you have a lifestyle where you can’t put YouTube first as your main or only priority for energy, money and time…

Chasing the Quality Unicorn makes you Don Quixote or Captain Ahab.

The realistic alternative is this…

Last year was my highest earning year $400,000, for 2022 I went back to my previous all-time high of $300,000 a year.

Here are some lessons I have learned in the last 3 years that earned me $1,000,000 in that time…

(Not to brag, but this information is rarely shared) 🧵 Something I got wrong was not spending enough in paid advertising for my products and services and I didn’t track the conversions properly.

It turns out $5000 in Google Ad spending generated over $45,000 in revenue for coaching and digital downloads this year alone.

Luke Skywalker was 23 in ROTJ and 53 in TLJ

At 38 I often think of my 18 year old self and now naive and optimistic that kid was… and there are days when I want to hit the road, become a monk and leave everything behind.

As unpopular as it is, I get how the character got there You get older… you lose friends, family, a few pieces of yourself along the way… you just get so bloody tired… and it gets harder to be sure that you got it right enough…

People may not want to see that happen to hero… bc they know it might very well be themselves one day

It took me 800 videos to get to 100,000 subscribers.

It took me 1600 videos to get to 500,000.

It will most likely take me 2000* to get to 1M.

I could lie and tell you how “lucky” I am so I can sound humble and be liked. Instead I’ll share what I learned… 🧵 My largest growth happened when I became comfortable and confident on camera. This happened from uploading 2-3 times a week.

When I went daily I grew from 20K-100K in about 14 months.

3 years of consistent uploads to get to 100K.

So what did I post?

Twitter Can Be Made Better fairly simply:

1. Have all current verified accounts REAPPLY with Valid ID and appropriate media credentials or business credentials and PAY a $200 application fee.

Allow brands, businesses, influencers and press to APPLY w/ ID credentials and the fee 2. Have a HUMAN authentication for people not affiliated with companies or media for accountability purposes.

Authenticate with ID.

Platforms should know who their users are for safety and to avoid scams, bots & fraud.

Non- Authenticated accounts are throttled, never go viral

Doing the green screen effect, audio processing and the rough cut of taking out all mistakes and doing the color correction, takes me a little less than 45 minutes to an hour on most videos.

Because I shoot in one take, and I use the same camera, lighting audio settings. I only make 1-3 mistake for every 5 minutes of video. 20 minutes of filming is a 16 minute video, with most of my additional takes being the hook, sponsored plug, or outro.

Audio and color correction are all custom presets now.

What does it take to be a full-time content creator on YouTube?

Well for most ppl a decent 6-12 min video takes 4-10 hours to edit.

Optimizing thumbnails, titles and upload data 1-2 hours.

Research and scripting 2-6 hours.

And you’d need to upload 1-3x a week. (Thread) On an average if a creator is making high value (attention getting, interest driven), high quality (well produced and well performed) content, consistently (1-3 videos a week, ever week), and they do this for 3-5 years, they COULD get to a position to go full-time.

Wrote another 1000 words for the second book today!

Progress is being made!

I’m already about 5000 words into it!

Been using many of your questions for the book and the appendix!

I think people will really understand what it means and what it takes to be a full-time creator! The entire thesis of the 2nd book is inspired by “Millionaire Next Door”. Most people don’t understand how anyone can be a FullTime content creator.

Yet in the next few years everyone in America will know someone or be related to someone who is.

If you want be a better storyteller, read great storytelling with physical books.

You can do this for free by supporting your local library.

Or buying books locally or gently used if you can’t buy from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

It doesn’t have to be epic fantasy either: Old Classics like

Where the Red Fern Grows
The Outsiders
To Kill a Mockingbird

Are great reads.

For fantasy if LOTR isn’t your think, read the Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks.

Or the Mistborn Saga by Brandon Sanderson.

Rhapsody by Elizabeth Hayden.

Some of you know in your heart of heads that you didn’t make the best thumbnail or even in the top 20 for everyone talking about the same topic.

You know you didn’t make the best first impression in the first 8-30 seconds.

And you know you haven’t been consistent (thread) You can’t say you’re not hearing or learning anything new and complain about a lack of results when you are not doing the fundamentals well.

When I was in martial arts, my sensei wouldn’t let me move on until I had my form right and had the fundamentals so I wouldn’t get hurt.

My Biz Model

Level 0 - My Free Content & Newsletter

Level 1- $5-$50 Products: Stickers, Books and Merchandise

Level 2- $99 Products: Digital Download Bundles (Starter Kits)

Level 3 -???

Level 4 - $500+ Coaching with Me

Level 5- $5K+ Public Speaking, Sponsored Content For Level 3 the gap there is most likely going to become courses that are just under $500

Level 4 will likely increase since I have to set a bigger boundary on my time if I want to start a family (which I do).

Level 1 & 2 need newer products in them at the moment too.

Measured the 3 years of my channel at its peak July 2016-2019

Gained 300,000 Subscribers, published 598 Videos

2019-2022 140,000 Subscribers, 196 videos published.

This is a clear illustration of the value of VOLUME/Consistency right here.

Imagine if I had marinated the pace. The quality did improve and quantity didn't interfere.

By Quality I mean that the performance on camera, my personality, and my production quality all improved.

Quantity doesn't interfere with that.

Quality over Quantity is only specific to certain niches. Not education.

10 Things I Got WRONG in my last 10 Years of Being a Creator.

(Thread)

1. Not collaborating often or intentionally with other Creators.

Collaboration, becomes a way for people to discover your content without relying on the algorithm.

Intentionally collab consistently. 2. Taking long breaks (more than 2 months) in between uploads in 2019-2022.

Between moving and mental health I had long gaps and it details momentum. I stopped growing by 10K-15K subs a month when I stopped uploading multiple times a week without missing.

Consistency is KING.

YOUTUBER PSA: Stop Trying to CHEAT to get your channel monetized or look "LEGIT" on YouTube.

Fiverr did a halfway decent job of cracking down on buying subscribers as a gig outright. But the scammers moved to "Monetization" as their search term.

There are NO SHORTCUTS. And I'm FULLY AWARE there are videos from people with large subscriber counts promoting doing this and making tutorials around it.

They are instructing you on how to BREAK TERMS OF SERVICE and COMMUNITY GUIDELINES.

And they are WRONG for doing that under the guides of "HELP"

Let me save you THOUSANDS of Dollars and help you figure out whether you should buy Coaching or Course from ANYONE, whether it’s me or anyone else.

Yes I think many of them have value, but you may not be qualified or prepared for them and shouldn’t invest in them.
(Thread) 1. Have you read 1-3 books on the subject cover to cover yet?

If the answer is NO. Do not buy coaching or courses yet.

Read a book that introduces you to the basic principles and jargon associated with the subject.

This will make you “coachable”.

You should know basic terms.

The more educated you become not only about money but also how you’ve neglected your health and nutrition…

You’ll start to realize that just because XYZ Amount sounds like a lot compared to what you live off of now… may not be enough to be as healthy as you could be… For example. If you’ve been living without GOOD insurance or any at all… once you get multiple policies…

Health insurance
Life insurance
Renters/Owners
Car insurance

You could be in thousands of dollars a month just to protect what you have.

If you want to become successful (financially… yeah I know how you all do on Twitter…) without being lucky become INTENTIONAL about some very specific things. (Thread)

- Skills/Trade
- Communication
- Time/Energy
- Networking
- Negotiating
- Confidence
- Appearance Some people are “born with unfair advantages”, harsh advice?

Get over it and build an “unfair advantage” in fact build more than one if possible.

If you learn another language you have an unfair advantage.

Same for learning technical skills and software. It’s very rare.

Imagine celebrating cyber crime and theft, lionizing criminals because “NFTs bad”.

It’s not that surprising that people aren’t sympathetic when someone they don’t agree with, or they see as privileged? gets robbed and their happy about it.

While adopting a virtuous aesthetic. That is one of the big problem with a lot of the current culture actually, it’s mostly aesthetic.

There is no consistency, no substance based value system, or rational thought.

Emotion driven, reactionary, and self righteous.

All wrapped in virtuous aesthetics.