GROWNUP PAINS

document the journey

July 10th, 2023

Where is this blog coming from? What is its purpose? Why this? Why now?

These are some questions I am literally asking myself right now, though I know at least part of the answer. The other part, well I think it’s supposed to flesh itself out in some sort of revelation of discovery as I add words to the page.

I recently decided to start a YouTube channel, or rather pick up where I left off with one I started many years ago. At the beginning it was just a sporadic upload of a couple random videos, me goofing off with my friends and the like. Then years went by. After college, I was playing drums in a New Orleans jazz/funk band called The Crooked Vines, and at that time I was practicing more consistently than I ever did whilst in school (and I majored in music performance). At some point it hit me that I had access to everything I needed to record and upload videos of me playing the drums to YouTube. A smart phone, an iPad, and the practice studio was right there in my house. So I made one instructional video intended to teach a multi-part paradiddle exercise around the drum set. I completed the video and managed to upload it, and that’s how I learned that I hated video editing.

I went on to create a few more videos, but these were shorter. Not so much instructional, but just little clips of me playing a groove or beat I had been working on. Almost zero editing went into these, they were uploaded, and then forgotten about.

Well, I’ve caught the YouTube bug again. Sometime in the last few weeks, I decided I really wanted to do this and I was going to do it right this time. I was watching a video on passive income streams, which led to another video about different ways of making money online, which led to a particular video that actually got me excited about YouTube again. Ali Abdaal is one of my favorite YouTubers, and I saw his annual video talking about the income he makes through his YouTube business. It covers the most recent year’s income generated through various facets of his channel via things like ad revenue, affiliate marketing, paid sponsorships, email lists, and more. What really caught my attention though was the story he told about how he got there. He started his journey about 6 years ago in 2017 with the goal of teaching people his study methods that were getting him through med school. He wasn’t sure where to start, but he started. He didn’t expect to make money from this when he started, but it began to trickle in and then grow over time. He seems to love what he does. He seems to help a lot of people. His words were encouraging and relatable to me, and for the first time, I truly felt like I could emulate that.

So, why the blog? Well, as eager as I am to start making videos, I needed something a little more accessible to begin. I have clocked many hours in the last few weeks watching videos and listening to podcasts on the subject of starting a YouTube channel. I have delved intl the world of titles and thumbnails, scripting and editing. “Niching down” is something I understand, yet don’t know where to start.

So I start with this.

Putting my thoughts down. Saying what I’m thinking. Talking about what I’m learning. Exclaiming what I’m excited about. Announcing what I fear may happen. But most importantly…

…documenting the journey.

-woodrow
getting started

July 10th, 2023

This isn’t the first time I’ve considered starting something online, whether it be a blog, a YouTube channel, an online business, or anything really. I’ve had the urge many times, and something always seemed to stop me early in the process. I have uploaded a few videos in the past, but never stuck with it long. Built a website, then got busy. Didn’t see rapid results, became disinterested. One could argue that getting started wasn’t the issue here. Maybe my problem was with staying consistent. Maybe the problem was not staying passionate. Whatever the underlying problem was, I tend to think of it like I never actually “got started” because I didn’t “stay started.” Getting started seems to be the hardest part of any journey, doesn’t it?

Well I decided to get started again, because that seems to be the best way to build momentum. Here I am, putting thoughts down on digital paper, setting out to build something I haven’t yet totally conceived. It may seem frivolous given my track record, but I think this time will be different. In fact I don’t just think it. I believe it.

My sister was a writer. A really good writer, too. She isn’t around any longer, but that’s a story for another day. She taught me so much over the years. When I was much younger and just starting to write papers in school, she always helped me when I felt stuck. I think she and both of my parents really bailed me out on school projects more times than I can remember. You see, I was not the best student. I hated reading for years, and suffered in class because of it. Yet my sister helped to teach me the structure behind an essay or a story, and later in life she gave me an opportunity to utilize those skills in a work environment and actually earn some money doing it. I was around 18-19 at the time. That job taught me that about ninety percent of search engine optimization was just creating new written content (the other 10% being tags and meta data). The entire job was basically writing various themed party planning guides for children’s birthday parties. The company sold products for these themed parties, I would write about ways to decorate and games to play that fit the theme, and the natural SEO from the written content boosted the direct sales for the company. A simple, yet effective strategy.

That’s maybe just the tip of the iceberg of my writing journey thus far. I feel like I have much more to tell, but at some point we have to put a button on it, hit “publish,” and pick things up in the next chapter. This is just a blurb, but it is the first blurb of this particular journey, so I can say that I have now officially “gotten started.”

-woodrow

document the journey

getting started