YouTube changed my life (Started exactly one year ago today)

So you usually want to make a video. I'll plan it out a little bit ahead of time, and I'll make it like a format of what I'm gonna say and in what order, so don't miss any points.

Put a video like this, I figured it's probably just best I just make a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing. I talked for a little bit, and that way it's just, you know, whatever I say is what I say.

It's Christmas Eve, and tomorrow is going to be Christmas. This actually marks one year since I started my channel on Christmas Day of 2016, so it's officially been now one year that I've been on YouTube. I don't know. For me, it's kind of like a sentimental moment. It sounds weird to say that, but you know, really starting a channel on YouTube has really been something I've wanted to do for such a long time.

I've been watching YouTube since like 2010 or 2011, a lot like that. It became my new TV, pretty much. Instead of going home and watching TV, I would watch YouTube, and I really enjoyed it. I just saw the potential in it, and I saw what people were doing on it, you know? Something I wanted to be a part of.

What inspired me to start a YouTube channel was actually a YouTuber named Rob Dom, who had a yellow Lamborghini Diablo. I saw his video about how he bought the Lamborghini Diablo, and that to me was just like, "Wow. That's so cool!" Then I started watching him, and he started making some like business videos and motivational videos, and I was just like, "That inspired me."

Like, ever since that point of watching Rob Dom, I had wanted to make a YouTube channel. I actually remember, and this is partially the reason why I respond to so many of you guys, and you know I go out of my way to respond to as many people as possible. I remember this must have been in like 2014 or 2013 or something like that.

I had sent Rob a message on Facebook, just like, "Hey dude, great channel! What camera equipment do you use?" Just something stupid like that. He actually got back to me, and I remember just being like, "Whoa, that's so cool! He actually got back to me! This is amazing!" I was kind of blown away.

Ever since then, I had wanted to start a YouTube channel, but I was way too self-conscious to start a YouTube channel. I figured, first of all, who would watch me? I really didn't think anyone would ever want to watch me. I remember I actually made a post on Reddit about wanting to invest in a YouTube channel because I saw the potential in a lot of these channels. I really felt like this was gonna be the future and that this is where things were leading—was on YouTube.

I really felt that way, but in that post, I said like, "You know what? I don't have the personality or the charisma or like anything interesting to talk about. Nobody would watch me, but I want to invest in all these other channels instead." That's really what I believed.

In the back of my mind, I wanted to start a YouTube channel for like, I guess it's been almost like four years ago is how long I've wanted to do this for, and I just, I've always just postponed it. I figured like anytime I'd gain like the slightest amount of confidence to go and make a video, I would talk myself out of it. I'd say something like, "Well, I don't have the professional camera; I don't have the right audio equipment; I don't have anything good to talk about. I'm just going to embarrass myself." That's really how I felt.

You know, I talked to a few close friends, and no one was really encouraging me to start a channel. Some people were even telling me, "You can't do it unless you have all the right camera equipment, and it's gonna look bad, and nobody's gonna take you seriously." I didn't upload a YouTube channel for years.

I don't know what happened, but it was a year ago—must have been December 20th, December 21st or something. I made a spur-of-the-moment video, and I had nothing planned, but I was in between showings, and I had maybe a half-hour to kill. I made a video, and I didn't think anything of it. That video was, "How I Became a Millionaire in Real Estate by 26," and I'm sure many of you guys have seen that video already.

I ended up making it private for, you know, random reasons I don't want to get into, but I made some, you know, a lot of swearing in that video and didn't realize many people would watch it. But I made that video, and I made a YouTube channel on Christmas Day. I edited that video on iMovie from my iPhone, by the way. Literally, it was just me and my iPhone like this, and I talked for almost 20 minutes.

When I got home, I was just like, "Okay, I had no plans of posting it, but I figured, okay, I got a video. Let me at least edit it now." I had no idea how to edit anything, so I went on YouTube and learned how to use iMovie. I edited the video, and then I made a YouTube account on like Christmas Eve and posted the video on Christmas Day of 2016.

I didn't think anything of it, and I remember thinking like this was a big step for me at this point. Some of you guys might be watching this and thinking I'm like, "I can't believe he was ever self-conscious by making a YouTube channel." Like, you know, I watch him, but I really felt like I'm going to embarrass myself.

So I posted this video, and I remember uploading it and just being like, "Nobody's gonna watch it." I posted the video, and nobody watched. I think it maybe got like a view or something like that, if that. But just posting it, just doing that really gave me the confidence to post another one. Like, just by doing it once, you get that momentum; it's a lot easier just to keep going with it.

What I did is I made another one a few days later, and I posted the other one, and that was "How You Could Succeed at a Young Age in Real Estate."

[Music]

What I did is I started getting a few views, and this might sound crazy, but like I remember like it would be—let's call it nine views—and I wake up the next day, and it was like 13 views or something like that. I remember thinking, "Oh my God! Four people just watched me! This is crazy! What? This is nuts!"

Literally, like a few views got me so amped up. Then I started watching other YouTube videos, like Derral Eves, about how to grow a YouTube channel, and I started commenting on other YouTubers' channels—like Alex Becker was one of them. There have been a few other people that I've just commented on their channels and said like, "Hey, I just started a YouTube channel! If anyone is interested in checking it out, this is it!"

I remember like I ended up getting a few subscribers from that, and I continued making videos because I would make a video and know that like, "Okay, I could get like a few views from this thing. A few people are gonna watch this," and to me at the time, that was a really, really big deal.

I kept posting videos, and the more videos I posted, like the more confident I got about it. By the way, like at this time, I didn't tell anybody that I was doing YouTube. Even my closest friends, I didn't tell them. Essentially, nobody knew I was doing YouTube because I was too embarrassed. I was just like, "They're gonna see I'm posting videos on YouTube that get no views, and maybe someone disliked it, and that's gonna be super embarrassing."

So I didn't tell a soul about this. I kept posting videos, and I remember I would check my subscribers every single day. I remember like I got like a few new subscribers one day, and that like made my day.

I remember one Sunday morning, I woke up, I kid you not, and I had five new subscribers. I will never forget that day because that was the first day that I was just like, "I have never been so excited in my life to get five subscribers."

Even now, I can get a thousand subscribers in a day, and it still doesn't have that same excitement as when I first started and got five subscribers in a day. I remember I would check like all the time my YouTube analytics and just like, "Oh my God! Like, you know, 80 people watched me today on YouTube." That to me meant the world.

What I had at the time—I had email notifications set up so like any time someone would subscribe to me, I would get an email notification. Anytime someone would comment, I'd get an email notification. I was so excited any time I would see like YouTube come up with my email that I got a notification because that meant it's like somebody commented or subscribed. Like, that meant the world to me.

But I continued making videos, and now I was starting to feel like a little bit more confident about it. I wasn't getting like any crazy hate or anything like that, and I honestly just ended up falling in love with it.

It really became a part of my life after that, and I remember one day—I ended up getting 45 subscribers. So it was a Saturday; I remember this like so vividly. It was a Saturday, I was at the beach, and I got 45 subscribers that day. I remember thinking, "Oh my God! I can't believe it! 45 people have subscribed to me! This is like, I'm a big deal! This is crazy!" I was blown away at this.

It just continued from there, and then I remember one morning I woke up, and this is where it kind of got real for a second, but the first video I posted, I woke up one morning, and I saw I was getting like 5,000 views an hour on that video. I was just like, "Oh my God!"

Then I woke up, and like all of a sudden, I had hundreds of new subscribers. Apparently, what YouTube did is recommend my first video on the home page of YouTube for a lot of people that were interested in real estate and stuff like that, and I went from basically—I think I was at like 600 subscribers to 30,000 subscribers in a matter of like a month and a half.

It was at that point that I realized like this is seriously life-changing stuff. And then, you know, fast forward a year later, and you—I wouldn't have believed it if you would have told me a year ago that I would be here today. I would have had no idea.

My goal at the time—like I made a goal at the end of 2016 that I wanted a thousand subscribers by the end of this year—a thousand. At the time to me, that seemed like a lot. I'm like, "Wow! I had to average three subscribers every single day to be able to hit that," and that sounded like a lot, but I did it in about a month, and I was blown away.

This has really just been probably one of the—I don't want to make it sound cheesy, but like it's truly been such an eye-opening experience for me, and it's just such a growing experience in every single way possible that it's like, "No, all of a sudden I feel like I can never go back. Like, I've seen the matrix, and I can't go back after this."

But this channel really means more to me than I would say probably almost anything else. And that's a big statement to say, but I feel like with this, I've really just, like I've ended up pouring my heart and soul and like everything—who I am as a person and all my insecurities and my vulnerabilities and everything I think, my opinions and my thoughts to make them public and have people listen to them and have people comment and be a part of, you know, my life and everything I'm doing.

Hearing everyone else's stories has just been absolutely incredible for me, and that is probably one of the best parts about YouTube. It's not so much me just getting to talk to a camera and then edit it and upload it—as fun as that is—but it's really seeing the impact that one person is able to make on other people.

I really didn't think that I was anything significant or that I would have been able to help other people or that really anybody would care to even watch. But, I mean, all 90—almost 2,000 of you have proved me wrong at this point, and it was really just such an eye-opening, humbling experience.

That's one of the things that really just is eye-opening is that if you—you know, you'd be surprised, I think, what you can accomplish if you just do something. And you'd be surprised how many people care about what you have to say, even if you don't think you have anything to say. I think there are many people in the world that care.

I guess one of the biggest aspects for me is just seeing the impact that one person is able to have on other people. It's easy for me to say that like, "Oh, you know, this person has made an impact on my life, and this person has, you know, helped me out, and I'm grateful for them." But to see that firsthand—to actually know you're making a positive influence on people—I think is truly one of the best feelings in the world.

Just seeing people realize that it's actually possible is one of these things. It's really amazing, to be honest with you. I've heard these stories of just people who have sent me these messages that are absolutely amazing—that they've grown up in these terrible families and have come from poverty, but like all of a sudden, they believe that like, "You know, if you can do it, I can do it too, and I believe in myself now."

It's stuff like that; I feel like doesn't even seem real. But even on like brighter notes, where it doesn't have to be so depressing, I've had people get into real estate and have asked for my help. I've given them my advice, and to see them then actually do something with that and succeed and actually make sales—there have been so many people that have hit me up with these amazing stories.

They're teens that are all of a sudden making hundreds of dollars per day because they liked my passive income video and decided to do something with that. I guess what it comes down to is really just making a difference in some way or another—whether it's through YouTube or just helping someone out or really anything.

I think that is one of the biggest parts for me of this channel is just being able to have an outreach and have a positive impact and really being able to do something and have a voice. You know, just I guess just be able to help—that's really what it comes down to.

That's what this channel has been, and it's really—I poured everything I have into this. This channel has really taken priority over a lot of other things. I make this a priority; I love it. But, it's also just, you know, I like everything about it, and I like, you know, everyone—the comments and the friendships that I've made from YouTube.

As weird as it sounds, I've met some really good friends from YouTube that I never would have been able to meet otherwise. Building connections with a lot of you guys that have reached out to me, I hear your stories, and I see what you're doing. Then all of a sudden, I feel like I am a part of your life too, in a way.

To see people come up and really make something of themselves and do something and inspire people to invest and believe in themselves and do better—it sounds so cheesy, but that's the truth. For everyone, by the way, I've never had such loyal—like, just the people that comment, like, "B.Ly, dude!" Like, here's a shoutout, man! But like every single video, you're like the first comment almost always.

Yovani, dude! Yovani is probably one of my first subscribers ever on the channel, and he has watched every single video and commented on every single video. Now there's like a hundred and something videos, I think—like a hundred and two hundred three videos—and posted. Every single one of them Yovani has watched.

There are so many other people that have been early subscribers that have supported me as well through this entire journey of YouTube. I am grateful for each and every one of you that decides to watch and, you know, comment and like and share and subscribe and all that other sort of YouTube stuff.

But now we're a year in, and I never could have imagined any of this. The whole thing sounds surreal. Really, I guess if I'm to sum things up, it's some sort of, you know, lesson here—something you can actually take away from it is just if you're thinking about doing something, just give it a shot. You know, you really got nothing to lose, and it's not gonna be embarrassing.

I started with my iPhone, having nothing planned out, nothing to say. It's spur-of-the-moment. I mean, that's how I did it. That video got almost 400,000 views from an iPhone with nothing professional. I had never made a video before. I learned iMovie from YouTube. No experience doing any of this, and I just posted it.

I posted another one all from my iPhone. The first few months of YouTube were really just all from my iPhone. I didn't invest a single dollar into any of this. So even if you have no money, even if you think you have nothing to say, even if you don't believe you've got the personality for it or that anyone would watch you, I think you'd be pleasantly surprised to know that no matter what, there's gonna be someone interested in what you have to say.

Also, I guess just don't please be self-conscious about it like I was and put it off for so long. You know, everything happens for a reason, but you know, if I could have gone back and started earlier, I would have. I wouldn't have listened to all the other people that were telling me I needed, you know, XYZ to get started on YouTube. I would have just done it.

So anyway, this is one of the very few videos I'm going to upload without any editing whatsoever. They say you get the whole video raw and without any cuts or any editing or anything planned, so enjoy that. This is probably one of the very few videos you'll ever get where I'm just gonna bloop upload it, and you get it, you know, this raw, unedited. This is it!

So anyway, you guys, what a wild year! It's not even amazing, and I don't intend to go anywhere. If anything, I just want to like keep going. I want to take it like to the next level, 2018! Make it even better, and I just like, it's fun! So I just want it, as long as I continue having fun with it, that's all that matters to me.

You know, I thank you guys for being along with this. I really, really, really appreciate it. Thank you all of you for watching this. Happy, happy holidays to everybody, and until next time!