The one non-negotiable: put fun first
If you're a YouTuber or a content creator, the one non-negotiable for me is putting fun first. Where almost all of us go wrong as content creators, and where I've consistently gone most wrong in 14 years, is putting views and money first. I know you'll tell yourself, "Well, Jerry, if I don't have views, then I can't have money, and I'll have to work a real job or something." My answer is this: if you want money, then don't depend on YouTube or content creation to give it to you.
I talked to my brother about this. He has a real job. It pays well. He looks at what I do and says it sucks. You don't get a regular paycheck. Sure, you have some great months and make way more than he does, but a lot of months you don't make much at all. You don't have benefits. You can get canceled or fall off the algorithm. You have no job security. Being a content creator is something that, in my experience, you should do as a labor of love, because there's nothing you'd rather do. And if you want to do it as an amateur or a hobby, then don't even worry about your views.
The way I look at it is that I want to make videos that are good for me to make, that are fun for me to make, that I'm a better person for having made. Right now I'm playing Call of Duty Warzone. This is fun. I'm trying to get my first win. This is my 25th game. I've gotten second. I've gotten third several times. I've gotten fourth. I finally figured out a setting so I don't have to deal with cheaters, but now I'm getting sweats in these games who are actually playing instead of all bots. To me, though, I can't go wrong if I'm having fun. Because if I'm having fun, at least I didn't waste my day. At least if I'm having fun, I'm not losing anything.
The dumbest thing I've seen in content
The dumbest thing I've seen in my time creating content is when you take all this time to make something you didn't even enjoy, because you were just trying to get views and money, and then you didn't get the views and you didn't get the money. Or you take something that was fun and you make it not fun. That's what I've done really consistently. Yeah, I'll have fun playing a little Call of Duty Warzone, but after I win one solo Warzone game, I probably won't be having fun anymore. I'll be like, whatever, I'll go do something else.
But what I've done most often is start off having fun doing something, like on Udemy. I was having fun creating online courses. It was a great learning experience. I was having a good time. Then I started making a little money, and I said, "Alright, I'm going to create Udemy courses full-time now, and I'm going to be the top Udemy instructor in the world." And then I stopped having fun. It was just a grind. It was a grind every day. I've got to get more views. I've got to get more money. And I ended up getting banned. I believe that if I had just had fun on Udemy, focused on making a course once a month, not sweated how much money I was making, just taken the money and been thankful for it, then things would have gone great.
What happens when you prioritize views and money is that a lot of you are going to lie to yourself, too. You're going to say, "I'm not about the views. I'm not about the money. I'm all about my community." That's nonsense if you look at your views and feel bad when you have a down month, or if you feel validation based on how many views you got. If that's happening, then you are about the views and you are about the money. This has been the hardest thing for me to learn.
Fun is a guaranteed win
So show up and have fun first and foremost, because if you have fun, it's a guaranteed win. It doesn't matter if anybody watches the video. If nobody watches a video, if nobody reads your post, but it was fun, then it's worth doing. It's worth doing for free, and it's worth doing for no views. But my challenge has been that I'll do something for fun, then I start getting paid, and then the thing I was doing for fun stops being fun once I try to optimize it.
There are a lot of things you'll be able to do that are fun to do a little bit. Playing Call of Duty Warzone is fun for a little bit. But you know what? I don't want to do this full-time. I do not want to play Warzone every single day. Yet I kept putting myself in positions where I felt like I had to. I kept boxing myself in, telling myself, "Well, all I do is make Udemy courses," or "All I do is play Warzone," or "All I do is make crypto videos." Over and over again as a content creator, I've repeatedly made things not fun. To me, that's the worst thing you can do with something that has no job security and doesn't give you the benefits of a regular job: make it not fun.
Most of the people giving you advice aren't having fun
Here's the problem: a lot of the people giving you advice aren't having fun either. A lot of the people with the most views and the most money aren't having fun. That's where you go wrong trying to emulate people who aren't having fun, who tell you that you should do this and you should do that because they're so "successful." To me, if you're not having fun, you're not successful. If you're out here making videos, just grinding out views, and you're not having fun, then you're not successful in my book. Anyone who is just out here stressed out making videos, feeling like they have to show up every day, with no room to grow or learn, has lost it. A lot of the content creators with the most views and money are not having fun. The fun has left their videos. It's been a long time since some of them had fun.
You can tell when somebody is having fun versus when they're not. In my experience, you'll consistently get really good results when you're actually having fun, because having fun has this amazing energy that really attracts people. If you start refusing to watch content creators who aren't having fun, you'll notice that a lot of the people you watch aren't having fun. They may get views. They may be making money. But they stopped having fun a long time ago.
How do you know if you're having fun?
How do you tell if you're having fun? To me, the test is: would you do it for free if nobody watched? If you'd do it for free with nobody watching, you're having fun. But if you're only doing it because you feel like you have to, then you're not having fun anymore. You have a job, but your job has no job security. In that sense, you're a complete failure. You're out here doing content, and for me, where I've consistently gone wrong is that I stopped having fun and became all about the money and the views. So I really am making this primarily for myself today.
That's another way you can check whether you're having fun: are you making videos for yourself? Are you making videos because there's something you want to remember? Or are you making videos because you feel you need to tell somebody else something? The online environment isn't a great place to even communicate with other people. There's so much crap. There are so many people out here cheating. There are bots pushing content. There are narratives getting pushed by platforms. This is not a good environment to be in if you're naive enough to think, "Well, I'm just helping other people, I'm making the world a better place." From another point of view, you're just being a slave to the AI tech god. That's all you're doing.
But if you have fun being in here, in this environment, if this brings you joy, that changes everything. And how do you know you have joy? You know it because you want to keep showing up no matter how many people watch, no matter how much people criticize you, no matter how irrelevant you've become. You'll know you're having fun when you keep showing up no matter what. You may need to get tested on this. But for me, I never want to forget what I've learned about how important it is to have fun. I never want to stop having fun doing this, because I've spent so much of my time creating content and not having fun.
Fun is a moving target
Back in 2021, I was having fun playing Call of Duty Warzone. The fun I was having attracted people to watch me. But once I won a few games, I stopped having fun. Because what's really fun for me is often learning something new, going after a new challenge. Trying to win that first game of Warzone, which is exactly what I'm doing right now, is fun. But once I win that first game, the fun will often go out of it. "Alright, whatever, I won my first game of Warzone. I'm good now. On to the next thing."
What's tricky with fun is that it's a moving target. What's fun today may not be fun tomorrow. What's fun tomorrow may not be fun the next day. You may not even realize ahead of time what's going to be fun for you on a given day. That's why it's hard. For me, I'll be having so much fun doing something one day, and the next day I'm like, "I can't stand this boring stuff anymore." It's frustrating, because you can't set up your business as a content creator assuming that what's fun is, say, making Warzone videos. What happens when that stops being fun? Almost everybody creating content these days has set it up so they have to niche down. And in my experience, niching, in most cases, guarantees that you stop having fun.
Why we grow when we chase something new
Most of us, at a soul level, want to expand and want to grow. And usually, trying something new and chasing a new challenge is how you grow and how you expand. Doing the same thing every single day is how you get bored and burnt out. So many of us as content creators only want to maximize our views and our money, and what happens is we end up just doing content all the time, only for the views and the money. And no surprise, we get burnt out.
The other day I got so down about content creation and everything. I caught myself thinking, man, I'm such a terrible creator, I'm so unsuccessful. But then I asked myself: why do you think you're not successful? It's because I was judging my success off of views and money instead of fun. And here's the thing I've come to believe: other people are always going to control the views and the money. That's a simple but powerful realization.
You only really control whether you're having fun
The deeper problem is that other people control the money and the views. You don't control the algorithm. You don't control the platform. You don't control other people. All you can really control is whether or not you're having fun. And the way to have fun is to control what you do and what environment you put yourself into.
When I keep doing things just because I'm afraid of falling off, or because I tell myself I need to pay these bills, that's when it stops being fun. In my experience, the ideal setup as a creator is to partner with somebody who has a real job in real life. The reason that helps so much is it allows you to actually have fun. What's hard is when you're trying to make it on your own as a creator, because most of the time the money is poor. I've said it enough times now: the money is poor most of the time. So you almost need to stop thinking about it entirely.
Set your life up so you don't need it to pay
My wife has a real job. Because of that, we can be a team. She makes the steady money, she has the benefits, and then I'm out here creating content. So if you can, just partner up. What worked for me is leaning into the idea that this might not make any money at all. If this makes no money, how can I set my life up to account for that? How can I arrange my life so that I don't have to make any money from it? Because then you can really focus on the fun.
It's hard, because you often need to constantly pivot. I'm amazed at how fast what is fun for me changes. I'm all into Warzone today, and I wouldn't be surprised if I win one game today and then tomorrow I'm completely done with Warzone, or I'm playing even more of it. That's the kind of flexibility you have to be thinking with. If you want to go deeper on this approach to creating and building a life around it, I share more of it in my YouTube Coaching playlist.
I'm really grateful to have this to share with you today. Take it easy.