Everyone should start a YouTube channel because even if nobody watches, one of the best self-development things you can do is to start talking on YouTube. I have a guy who scheduled a one-on-one call with me. He's just started a YouTube channel — he gave me a call right when he was within his first 50 subscribers — and he told me, "Jerry, what's been so good about starting this YouTube channel is that I've had to face my own fears. I've had to look at how I'm public speaking. I've had to face my anxiety about making videos, my perfectionism, and it's been fantastic character building." That's why I suggest it's worth everybody trying a YouTube channel, even if almost none of you are actually going to make money off it.
Fifteen Years of Facing Myself
I've had huge value over the last 15 years doing my YouTube videos because I constantly have to face myself. I watch my own videos back, so I end up listening to the things I'm saying, and sometimes I'm like, ew, I don't like how that sounded — and then I'm motivated to make some changes. I have grown fantastically as a person over 15 years because of doing YouTube. I've grown fantastically strong after reading tens of thousands of critical comments on my own content — feedback from every single possible crazy point of view you could imagine. Often the most effective ones are from people who've known me for like a decade and pull back three or four things they call out in their critical comment. That has helped me get really strong and secure in who I am.
Now, most of the YouTube videos that you'll see from gurus are all talking about monetizing your channel, but I don't think most people doing YouTube should even bother thinking about monetizing. Just think about how you get better in the process of creating videos.
The Trap of Making Videos Just to Get Views
The problem with creating YouTube videos is that if you put some of the worst sides of yourself out there, the craziest sides of yourself, you may actually get that reinforced, and it may encourage you to be whoever you need to be just to get views on YouTube. That's why if you do YouTube with the goal to share, to help people, and to become the best version of yourself, you won't get sucked into the trap of saying anything to get views. That's one of the worst places I got sucked into over the last 15 years: feeling like I need to make whatever videos I can just to get clicks, just to make money. When you lose the focus of "I'm here to do YouTube so I get better and I share what I'm learning with others," it becomes hard to say no. Keeping that focus allows you to say no to making stuff just to get views. I could make all kinds of videos if I wanted to make a million dollars a month on YouTube. I could do that. I know how to do that. I know what to say. It just would be dishonest, so I don't do it. And I have such a great time doing YouTube.
What My Dating Channel Taught Me
One of the biggest ways I've seen this: I deleted all of my channels in 2025. I wrote 10 books and I tried doing a local business, and that sucked. Then when I started back on YouTube, I found some of the things I was struggling with — areas where, if I really wanted to do better, I could accelerate my own learning. For example, my Jerry Banfield dating channel. Putting this channel up was massively helpful for me to go through and be accountable to the public on exactly how I'm doing my dating. I'm grateful some of the videos I've created recently have been getting some nice organic traffic. But when I first started, I was like, I don't know how to do this. When I first put up the videos on my dating channel, I didn't get much traffic. Hardly anybody watched them, but they were really good. Actually, most of these have now gotten hundreds of views just organically.
What I found is that doing my dating videos helped me take inventory. They say the best way to learn something is to teach it, and I absolutely agree. The best thing is you don't have to be some expert. With my dating videos, I'm not some dating expert. I've had a decent amount of experience dating in my 20s, I've had a 15-year relationship, and now I've been through divorce. In my experience, this makes my dating videos a lot better than some of these quote-unquote dating experts on YouTube who all they do is hook up, teach guys to looksmax, be completely superficial, and put down women in the process. My videos are more authentic and real and genuinely helpful, which is why YouTube is doing a good job putting them out to people who are tired of the same stuff everybody else is giving them. And the best part is I have grown along the way, because when you take the time to talk out the things you're obsessed about and thinking about, and then share that publicly with others, it'll help you grow so much faster.
Facing Your Fears in Public
That's exactly what Scouse Will has experienced. He's finding this on YouTube and it's working so well for him. He's talking about how he's been able to grow so much faster while sharing what he's passionate about. He's doing livestreams, and he's finding that even people locally are just jumping into his livestreams — people who found him on Google. He doesn't even understand how they got there. But then he's saying, "Well, I don't want to be recognized out in public." I'm like, why? Why don't you want to be recognized out in public? Don't you want to help people? You're doing YouTube videos — clearly part of you would like some attention and some recognition. So it forces him to face his fear. Why are you afraid of being seen by somebody who's watched your videos and probably liked them? Because if they didn't like your videos, they're probably not going to say hi to you in public. Most of the people who've said hi to me in public over the last 15 years have been people who really enjoyed my videos. The haters just walk by and don't say anything. Or sometimes the haters will come up and be all positive to your face and then post something negative online, which is fine.
It helps him see: look, why do you have these irrational fears? If you're going to do YouTube, be happy with connecting with people. Be happy with anything good that comes with that. Be happy chatting with anyone that wants to show up — which is why I've said this in some of my previous videos. He started a brand new channel and he's getting a great number of minutes watched and a nice number of views, especially for a brand new channel. I would have loved to have gotten 54 views 15 years ago when I started YouTube in 2011.
Do It for Character Development, Not Views
So I invite you today to stop taking actions on YouTube trying to get something. Don't try to just get views. Don't try to get money. Do it for your own character development. This is why I encourage against niching down: almost everyone trying to sell you a program tries to cut off all your creativity and stick you in a little tiny box, and that will stop you from getting better. Lots of times it turns YouTube into a job, and YouTube shouldn't be a job unless you have already done it for fun, for joy, and already have some good momentum on there.
After all, it wouldn't make sense, for example, if you went to a painting class a couple of times and painted a little bit to then try and be a professional painter right after that. You're not going to be a professional painter. But that's what a lot of these people on YouTube are teaching you to do. It's like, great, you made 20 videos — now you should try and be professional? No. I am a professional because I have done tens of thousands of videos, thousands of hours of livestreams, and billions of views all over online. In painting terms, I've been painting for 15 years and I've painted tens of thousands of paintings. So I'm a professional, and it makes sense for me to be a professional. But even just doing a few paintings is also good for character building. Almost anything new you do will encourage some character building.
Humbled at a Dance Class
For example, I went to a dance class a week ago and it was humbling, because when I get on YouTube, I'm like, damn, I'm good at this. If you look at some of my other videos, I've got four and a half million impressions starting from scratch on six new channels within the last 104 days — and that was five days ago, so I've probably got four to six million impressions in 109 days now. I'm pretty good at YouTube, even though if you just look at views on the surface, you might not see it. But do a one-on-one call with me and you'll see the depth of experience I have — and the fact that people are paying for one-on-one calls with me when I've just started six new channels and I've got a grand total on my YouTube coach channel of 23,000 views and 69 videos (giggity) is a pretty good sign.
But I went to that dance class a week ago and I was just like, damn, I suck so much at dancing. Dancing is hard. I play tennis, so I know how to move my body. I do yoga. I'm active. I'm used to moving my body. And I'm like, my God, why is a simple two-step and three-step so hard? Just moving my feet is ridiculously difficult. It shouldn't be this hard. But just going to that dance class helped me get better, and I enjoyed dancing. It's humbling to try something new and suck at it and then face yourself. That's where some of the biggest character development comes from. Often we try to put ourselves in bubbles where we feel so smart and like we know everything — and I'm as guilty of that as anyone. We go around feeling like, man, I'm so smart. Okay, you're smart on YouTube. You're pretty good at video games. Maybe there's another thing or two you're good at. But go to a dance class and you don't feel smart in a dance class, do you? My brain hurt in a dance class just trying to do simple things like move my feet around.
How to Know If You Should Go Professional
So I want you to look at YouTube like it's just something you're trying. It's just something fun. There's no need to be a professional. There's no need to even try and make money on YouTube. It would be insane for me to think I'm going to make money dancing after I've been to one dance class, right? That's crazy. Even if I'd been to 20 dance classes, that would still be crazy. So differentiate: are you doing YouTube for character development, fun, and to try and help people? That's going to be the case for 99% of people.
If you're going to be a professional, the main thing you need to be able to do is be available to talk to others. The easiest way to see if you can be a professional on YouTube is to just offer one-on-one calls and have a simple website with your name, or you can put your calendar scheduling straight on YouTube. If people pay to talk to you — and you can set the price at whatever to start — then maybe you can be a professional. That's the easiest way to monetize on YouTube. Whether it's gaming, dating, health, life, AI, or crypto, you can schedule one-on-one calls on any subject. You don't have to be an expert in any of them. You just have to know a little bit more than somebody else does. If you want help with that, I can walk you through setting up all the details on a one-on-one call, just like I've done with Scouse Will.
If you found this helpful and want to go deeper on building your channel, you can also watch more of these lessons in my YouTube Coaching playlist. Whatever you do, start talking on camera — even if nobody watches — because the person who benefits most from your channel is you.