August 18, 2025 • 36 mins
Tim Schmoyer has been a YouTube educator for well over a decade as well as a family vlogger and he takes us through the ups and downs of creator mental healthy, the impact to families, and how pulling back from YouTube and business saved his marriage.
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- Awesome Creator Academy
- 1of10.com
- Brand Deal Starter Kit
Sponsors of the Podcast:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey everybody, this is Roberta Blake help you create something
awesome today with the amazing and talented Tim Schmoyer, my
good friend. How are you doing?
Today I'm all right. I preferred your first intro
though, no? Maybe that'll be in a blooper.
Reel of some kind, but we're here at social media marketing
world, hanging out, catching up.After the last conference we
were at, Tim, I wanted to talk with you about something a
little bit more serious that theaudience might enjoy and
(00:21):
everything like that. You've been a content creator
for how long, Tim? I started 2006.
So OG original YouTube. Right after YouTube launched a
few months later. Yeah, so that would be about
like 17, almost 18 years now. Really.
Yeah, it's been that long, dude.We're coming up on like. 2006
yeah, 16 to 23. Wow.
(00:42):
Yeah, it's been a while, dude. That's I did not realize that.
No, right. And you've seen like you've seen
like 3 different YouTube CEO changes.
You've been there, you've seen it all, largely done it all.
I would say at the point, tell me something, Tim, like in terms
of like creators and having a long lasting career as a content
creator, what are like some of the ups and downs and like
(01:02):
what's the real stuff that most people don't talk about or don't
see behind the scenes? That's a load of.
Question. See, there's the.
There's a lot to that. There's a lot.
So there's a lot of good stuff. You know, I've, I'll say this
humbly, made more money than I ever thought I would ever make
in my entire life. You know, same ever when I first
(01:24):
started on YouTube, I was making$14,600 a year full time.
You know, just got married. So my wife had the work and but
and I thought, you know, as a career wise.
Literally like college kids slave wages my friends I was.
Doing I was a youth pastor at the time in the church and they
offered that's what they paid and for some reason I should not
(01:45):
have said yes, but I did, you know, so that's a whole other
issue. But, and so there's there's
certainly that which sounds likeit's a huge perk and it is in
some ways, but there's the the same more, more money, more
problems. More money, different problems
is like what it really comes down to.
Most people do not realize that.Is very much true as well.
(02:07):
So there's, there's a so that's,that's a plus side of it.
Another plus side is I get to meet and hang out with amazing
other people and a lot of my friends and my relational
network is wrapped up in this. Niche or same?
I've met creators, the best people in my life, because of
this, yeah. Yeah.
And I also really like that I get to serve people with content
(02:29):
at scale in some way of creatingcontent that really helps
people. And my mission is reach people
and change their lives and try to make content and train other
people to do that too with theircontent so that we can all make
the world a better place than itwas before with through this
medium. So there's certainly a lot of
perks to it and I don't. So I want to start there before
the rest of this goes, you know,so there's a well, most people I
(02:54):
feel like are looking at being afull time YouTube creator and,
and things like they have a lot of stars in their eyes.
And, and, and it's kind of like when you're a native kid, you're
native kid. Yeah, 8484, OK.
Don't worry about the same age, right?
80 yeah, yeah, yeah. So I it was like when we were
growing up it was like being a rock star, yeah.
And and then it was like being amovie star, you know, And then I
(03:17):
was like being a YouTube star. And on the outside like that
stuff looks awesome. And there is a lot of good good
you could. But it's like, you can do it the
world, but it's like being a Disney kid and everything like
that. It's like, oh man, gotta go
crazy afterward. Yeah.
So I guess kind of jump into thethe weeds of this and part of my
story is that after making about4500 videos across 9 channels
(03:41):
over the course of thirteen years, this is a few years ago
now. I woke up in the middle of the
night just with a like it felt like my stomach was just
clamping down on this double edged knife.
I looked like it was like 3 in the morning and I expected to
see like something poking out ofboth sides of my body.
Right. You expected some gruesomeness
to be like. I've never felt anything like
(04:03):
before. Yeah, no.
It was like I swallowed it and it was like, anyway.
And like when someone was constricting, it was terrible.
And I couldn't stand up. I got out of the bed, I rolled
out of the bed and I literally crawl across our bedroom floor
going to the bathroom thinking like, yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, it wasn't that. And then it was getting worse.
And so I was like, ended up likearmy crawling across our
(04:23):
bathroom floor, across our, our bedroom trying to wake up my
wife. And she's like, what are you
doing? Like I'm on the floor, like
pulling on the sheets, you know,trying to wake her up and she's
like, what are you doing? I'm like, I got out of the
hospital. I'm not.
And I'm not like, I'm pretty high pain tellers.
I in fact at that point hadn't seen a doctor in like 6 years,
you know, so. Go see a doctor, everybody.
Well, yeah. And that turned out to be a
(04:44):
problem because I couldn't go see the doctor later because I
had to start over like the new patient survey and.
Like all that stuff all. Over again before I could get.
Yeah, this. See, This is why you got to go
and do the physical every year and everything like that,
Roberto says. As he hasn't actually done it.
And like, easy to preach, yes, so.
So anyway, call the doctor and call and by the time they, they
(05:06):
called back about half hour later and the pain was
subsiding, thankfully. So I didn't go to the emergency
room, but I did go see a doctor and I did see a therapist also
because I was like, I don't know.
And, and both of them were like,do you have any stress in your
life? And I'm like, no, not, not
really. Like I feel fine.
And they're like, well, tell me what's going on.
And so I started telling them like, you don't have any stress
(05:28):
in your life. I'm like, no, they're like, you
are in denial. Like, OK, what are you talking
about? I was so good at burying that
stuff and not feeling that stuff, but my body was feeling
that stuff. Do you feel like, do you feel
like a lot of us as like entrepreneurs and content
creators that like our, our delusional like mindset allows
(05:48):
us to like achieve like all these great things, but then we
also self delude and we don't have a certain level of
self-awareness sometimes. I don't know.
That's hard to say at like a categorical level for me.
Yeah, probably. Yeah, I was, I was very much
like put your head down and justwork and drive and go bigger and
(06:09):
further, faster and. Yeah, all the things.
That's fine for a period or a season of life, like if you're
just launched out as a new content creator and 1st and you
just now became full time, whatever, there's there's a.
Like the season of hustle season?
Shouldn't like not making a whole life 13 years of it.
No, no, I would recommend just kind of parenthetically here
(06:30):
that that's your situation. You put a date on the calendar
that you and if you're married your spouse think is appropriate
of like you can hustle for this long at this pace.
But if this date comes and you're not full time yet, or
that date comes and we haven't, you just go out like it doesn't
matter. We're backing off because
sacrificing your life and your health for this is totally.
So now we're. Yeah.
(06:51):
So I ended up doing mostly therapy and the physical stuff
was stress related. Person Therapy.
And yeah, and so I meet with theguy I used was vocal so but some
it was sometimes over zoomed, not all the time, but yeah.
So depending on schedules and things and travel and such.
And the, the short story is thatI have been driving so hard for
(07:17):
so long to sacrificing so many other things that I didn't, my
body just collapsed and something had to give.
Something had to like, I can't keep going at that at that pace.
And for me, the thing I gave up,honestly, was content creation,
you know, and thankfully, by that time, I had a good
(07:37):
sustainable business around the channel.
I wasn't the only host or personality on it anymore.
And right. And I stepped away for six weeks
pretty quickly at that point. And the thing kept growing even
without me. And I came back after completely
like I didn't even check in on Slack or anything.
I was like completely gone. I had to decompress and, and
came back and things were still going great, which as a business
(08:00):
owner, you're like, great, that's awesome.
Yeah. I got to that point.
For me, though, I was more like,they don't need me, you know?
And then there's another class that I had to deal like, yeah.
It's essential. Crisis, lack of purpose,
subconsciously sabotaging thingsin the business so that you
would feel needed. Yeah.
So these are the types of thingsthat you don't really think
about as a content creator. And I think being a content
(08:22):
creator reveals so many unhealthy beliefs we hold about
ourselves. Let me say this It can.
It doesn't necessarily have to. I think it generally has and.
If you're open to it and open tothose, those conversations
risking vulnerability, you know,whether it's like, hey, I'm
really doing this because I feelinsecure and I need the Internet
to make me feel good about myself, or I'm, I'm ultimately
(08:45):
doing this not because I care about people, because I care
about money and I heard I could get rich quick doing this or I'm
ultimately doing this like why like, and for me, I had a pretty
good why I think your. Motives and your like, you know
what? You reveal some of your motives,
but also what drives you and where your priorities might be
in life. Yeah, for whatever reason.
I think it's important to be gutlevel honest with yourself about
(09:09):
what's really driving you, What's, why are you actually
doing this? And if, if the thing that you're
really chasing after went away, like would you still be doing
this? What would you be chasing
instead? And it's, I think it's easy to
look at the, at the numbers, at the popularity, at the, at the
money, at the, all the fame and the fortune and stuff and be
like, I want that. And I get that, but that does
(09:31):
come with a cost. And this is maybe another story,
but honestly part of the story is I was away the trip a few
years ago at a convention and I came home.
I wasn't sure if my wife and kids would still be there.
You know what made you have thatthought?
What made you have that first thought That when I get home, my
family's going? To it was it's a history.
(09:52):
There's a history, a longer story there, but my wife and I
were going through as a lot of junk was coming up for me.
A lot of junk was coming up for her too, and things that weren't
unhealthy. And me, we're impacting our
family in ways I didn't, I I couldn't have known before and
couldn't have seen before going through.
A Was it just like you couldn't know because you weren't present
(10:12):
or because you weren't in the mindset before therapy gave you
like some tools? It's because we all have wounds.
We are all wounded somewhere by someone or something at some
time into like emotionally. Yeah, especially as as kids when
we're growing up, whether it's ateacher or a parent or an uncle
or a friend or whatever. And we don't realize, Yeah, even
(10:35):
if it's not like huge trauma, like just like a, a series of
lots of little hurts can add up over.
Time. Oh, yeah, no, that's called
like, yeah, you can fragment things and everything like that.
Things chip away at you, add up.It like weakens the structure of
anything. Sure, there could be like an
instance of child abuse or neglect.
That would certainly be trauma, but it could also be lots of
little things. So those things add up and we
(10:57):
and we Start learning how to cope and deal with the world
around us based on those lenses that we develop.
And and when we're younger or going through the pain, like
those lenses serve us really well.
Sometimes they keep us alive. Yeah, because we actually need
those in order to cope with the pain or cope with the.
Be functional. Yeah.
And, and, and so those, those addictions, those things that
(11:19):
come up are actually really, really they serve a purpose.
Like they all come up for no reason.
But over time those things switch.
And because what we used to actually keep us alive in some
cases actually becomes the things that starts killing us in
our relationships and our ability to connect with others
something. That serves you ends up.
You end up serving it. Later, it ends.
(11:41):
Up enslaving you in a way and some of those things.
I had a lot of those things and and there's no way to know what
they are until you start seeing the consequences your work.
And your career can serve you. It gives you this money, it
gives you the security, gives you the safety and everything
like that. But then it's like instead of
you owning it, it starts to own you.
It starts to possess you insteadof it serving you.
And it's like, oh, it's serving me.
(12:01):
It's helping me. It's making my life easier.
It's giving me health insurance.It's doing all these things for
me now. It's like, Oh no, no, no.
Now I'm beholden to it. I'm serving the thing instead of
it's serving. Me, I, I feel fairly confident
in saying no one has the self-awareness at a deep enough
level to know if they're in thatsituation or not existing.
You know, it takes a third partywho is trained and can listen
(12:24):
and knows what to look for and knows the right questions to ask
that can bring you to a point you're like, oh, shoot, you
know, whoa, what do I, what do Ido now?
It's not fun. It's not, it's not easy, but
it's good. And, and so wow.
So my wife has those things. All of us have those things.
You have those things. I don't know what yours are.
I don't need to know, but but all of us, like I don't know,
(12:47):
you can get through life withoutbeing wounded in some way.
And those wounds and the things you have to protect yourself
eventually impact, usually negatively your, your
relationships and how you perceive the world, why you
work, what drives you. It doesn't.
And there can be a lot of good stuff in there, like reaching
people and changing lives, but there also could be a lot of
stuff in that's that's not. And so when I, to answer your
(13:09):
question, when I, I came home, because my wife and I were both
in the middle of, of working through some stuff individually,
separately, she has her wounds, I have mine that we're working
on healing and, and those were impacting our relationship
together too. We've been married 17 years, 7
kids. Wow, that period of time, 7 kids
in eight years. That was an intense season of
(13:29):
life. It's a lot.
So you have. A couple of twins, though.
One set of. Twins.
One set of twins. OK.
Twins. Yeah, so and so is in the middle
of that. I came back and I was just like,
I don't know. And we had some pretty rough
phone calls and conversations while I was gone to and, and she
was very hurt by me and others in the past that I was like
(13:49):
digging a knife into those wounds unknowingly, not
intentionally. It's just like, that's just,
it's just you lived with someonefor 17 years.
You know, there's no wonder the divorce rate is so high and
people who don't get divorced are so unhappy and are having
affairs and things outside of itis because they don't, they're
not working through these issues.
Would would you say that like content creation took you away
(14:10):
from being present in your marriage and in your family as
your career escalated? I would not say that.
I would say it it made me feel valid outside of where I should
have been getting my main validation from, which is family
inside. Yeah, the people who actually
know and care about the real me,not the person I was delivering
(14:33):
to the people. Around the utility that you.
Provide like, yeah, the usefulness.
Like what? We're, we're men, We're
validated by our utility. We want to be useful.
We want to be helpful because what's the point of us being
around is how we think what we don't, we're not validated by
just being present or existing. We have to be functional.
That's just how men develop psychologically.
(14:53):
And so when that source of your validation, a lot of people,
they get it from their work and their employee.
If they're an entrepreneur, theyget it from running the
business. Content creators, we're getting
it from, yes, the business we built, but the fact that we also
have this collective mass audience.
Sometimes we're full time containers, this massive
audience, the if we're speakers,these cheering crowds.
And there is something addictiveand seductive about that because
(15:15):
there is a dopamine here. We all want that.
And needed and special and that is that's why.
Everyone wants to be a musician and a rock star.
And I think because you want youwant that.
Everyone wants that. Like secretly everyone wants
that. And then there are some of us
who publicly actually achieve it.
But there is a cost. Everything's equipment exchange.
There's a price that you pay, Yeah, some people go a little
too far. Some people sell their souls.
Some of the creators I know are most successful are actually the
(15:38):
most lonely people in the world.Oh, yeah.
Because they don't know. Do people like me because of me
or because I have these cool toys or because I have this
audience or. Yeah, because I'm popular and,
and, and they're just hanging out with me because I make them
feel special, correct. And, and and so it's a very,
it's a big tangled web, But so there is a dark side to all
(15:58):
this. But I do think it can be this.
Episode The Dark Side of YouTube.
It can be addressed by embracinghumility personally, by
embracing A teachable spirits and attitude.
And I think one of the best investments you can make in your
career, just whether it's on or off YouTube is, is becoming a
healthy individual by letting like giving someone else access
(16:22):
to poke at the things that you don't want to address, you know,
and the things that you deep down.
And even if you don't like, I didn't even know what all my
issues were. My therapist was playing out,
but I knew what the what the symptoms were.
And even just poking at the symptoms with someone with
someone else was like helpful enough to like, yeah, get me to
a place where I want to start addressing this.
I'll start dealing with this stuff.
And so anyway, I'll have to Fastforward.
(16:44):
I kind of want to end it on darknote.
No, no. And I think we've still got some
time, but this is fascinating. Yeah.
So I guess to kind of continue that story before we get to the
light at the end of the tunnel is that I stopped making content
and team kept going and I start focusing on the things that we
(17:04):
all say actually matter, but we don't live our lives typically
as they actually do matter. Yeah.
Like we would say health and fitness matters.
And, and, and honestly, part of my, my journey is like, I'm
almost the heaviest I've ever been right now and I'm getting
it. But I'm just last week started
to be able to get to an emotional place where I can
address that because part of my story is like, I gave up some of
(17:28):
the things that I was coping with, which is great, but I took
on instead, like food. And comfort food, that was a big
thing for a lot of people in thelast three years during the
pandemic like. Yeah, it's food is emotional,
yeah, matter what you say. So not that you personally, but
I mean. You know, Well, no, I mean,
yeah, but I mean, I gained like like 1215 lbs during COVID 15.
(17:50):
Like I gained a weight during COVID that I was unhappy with.
I've like since been starting tofinally shed a lot of that
weight. I've turned in the muscle.
I've started working out becauseand my mental health improved
dramatically from from doing that.
Then I feel a lot better. I was depressed for the three
years of the pandemic, Tim, likea lot of people, I've been
talking more about that, being alittle bit more open about that.
But everybody copes and it seemsand everyone struggles.
(18:11):
And in this industry, a lot of people, the reality is the
audience gets the best of us andsometimes the people in our life
don't. And that's something that I
think a lot of creators don't realize that they're doing like
subconsciously is that they're giving their best to these this
audience, these people who essentially like, you know,
quote UN quote, help them becomehelp, quote UN quote, make them,
so to speak. But then the family that
(18:33):
supported them through that, thepeople in their life that
support through that, the relationships and everything
like that, those get neglected without people even realizing
and noticing. And then the people around you,
they don't want to be a burden. They don't want to be a bother.
They don't want to distract you from your goals and your dreams.
So they sacrifice things that you don't even know about unless
you really, you know, create a scenario where they can open up
(18:53):
to you. Yeah, my, my, my weight wasn't
due to COVID. Mine was due to not as a kid,
not learning how to appropriately handle emotions.
And so I learned not to have any.
And that was, I mean, I didn't think that at the time.
I was like, I can be happy, I can be angry and there's like
superficial levels of that, but like to actually appropriately
(19:16):
be able to handle my emotions, which made it difficult for me
to appropriately handle like my wife's emotions and kids and
stuff too. So, but so anyway, so I ended up
doing is like do do the doctor or the therapist.
It wasn't his recommendation, but I had to give something up.
So give a content creation. And at that time we had a pretty
solid YouTube growth agency. We're working with about 600 ish
(19:41):
clients a year doing a lot of really cool stuff.
And so it's pretty we, we, we were, I was able to coast, you
know, interesting. So I did pull way way the heck
back. On how big was your team that
was supporting that? I was 11 at that time. 11 at 11.
11 yeah. So we put, we had some good
systems and processes together which a whole other conversation
for biz dev like you need like SOP, standard operating
(20:04):
procedures, all that kind of stuff to make it sustainable.
So yeah, we did all that. So it was good.
It was. It was.
And that lets you step away. That let me back off a lot and
focus on things that I to and and then going into 2020 what to
(20:26):
try to figure it out. Yeah, no, so it was yeah, a
little over a year ago now she has 2022.
I had a company reach out and they're like, hey, we'd like to
acquire you guys, here's what we're doing.
And the CEO of that company A. Good friend of ours.
No, not not who you're thinking of.
(20:47):
Yeah, yeah. Different company.
Different company. Yeah.
As a tech startup. Not not in the YouTube space.
I see. Yeah.
Flew out to my house and put some numbers on the white board.
And I like, I never thought about an exit before.
I mean, I had thought about it, but I wasn't like not pursuing.
And I was like, I don't know, like, brought my wife out to the
(21:10):
whiteboard kind of like. So what would look like?
What do you think? And this is not exactly what she
said, but this is how it impacted me.
In my words, is she said she's like, Tim, is this going to take
you away from our family more? And I was like, yeah, I think
so. And she's like, well, more money
doesn't change our lives, but not having you around as much.
Well, wow. And that's my summary of it.
(21:32):
Yeah. And I was like, shoot.
You're hearing that make you feel.
Not protected. Yeah.
Like if by that time, my wife and I like now my my wife and I
are spot where we're doing better than we were on our
honeymoon. Like, wow, it was it's it's like
it's been so good, so fruitful. It's hard work, but it's good
work, right? And usually I have a bunch of
(21:52):
options in front of me. Like what do I do with this
situation? I look at like, which is the
hardest option? And that's usually the right
one, you know, Right. So.
That's a good way. To look so yeah so I was like,
well, I don't know. So I told the guy let me put
this on hold for a second and let me think about this.
So I started reaching out to other friends of mine who are,
you know, are more familiar withmergers and acquisitions,
including the friend of ours that yes that we have.
(22:14):
And before long I had five companies that were interested.
YouTube even reached out as well, but they were they were
they move way too slow for me. So that can be like I was like I
already have offers from this other like if you're gonna do
something, you gotta do something like.
Tube likes us. And they do slow for us.
Well that was an acquisitions department and that would look
(22:37):
very different. But anyway, so three offers for
three different companies beforelong.
So this is the part about the part is when I when I was
processing all this, should I sell or not sell?
What I didn't realize was just how much I wanted it.
I wanted a new challenge. I wanted to do something
different. And and one of the downsides you
(23:00):
could call it out of being a creator is like it's your full
time gig. And especially when you start
hiring A-Team. I got.
I had. People rely on you.
Yeah, and there's eleven other families that depend on this for
their livelihood, you know. And then we get the itch to go
crazy. Or do something else like.
I just. I can't do that anymore just
because I want, because it impacts more people than just
our family. And I can't just go get a new
(23:23):
job because I felt stuck, and I didn't realize how stuck I felt
until I had an opportunity to get.
Out the golden handcuffs. Yes, that's a good way of
putting it. Yeah.
It was like on the outside I'm living the dream we have we had
at the time we still have today.It's like it's a nine bedroom
house with the in ground pool, 7bathrooms, 5 car garage is.
(23:45):
Now envisioned. My brain is not envisioning
golden handcuffs with like diamond encrusted YouTube play.
Buttons it's yeah, and I'm not saying that to like brag, no,
I'm saying that just to kind of paint the picture of where we're
at. Like that's really hard to give
up. And, and so the, the, the
(24:06):
journey of going through these negotiations and, and
entertaining this idea of I got 3 offers on the table from three
different companies and, and that was an emotional thing to
me. I didn't know was there was.
I'm just tired and I am part of me being a creator in the
beginning is a lot of fun and even perpetually it can be, but
(24:28):
there does need at some point. It's not sustainable
perpetually. If you get into it because you
really like new challenges and you like, like creating, you
like expressing yourself. At some point, that's no longer
how you want to express yourself.
That's not really what does it for you.
That's not really a challenge, you know, and, and the thing
that you used to be really passionate about in terms of
(24:49):
what that did for you, no longerdoing that for you, but you
can't say no to it anymore if you've got 11 other people whose
jobs depend on that. And and so I didn't realize how
stuck I felt until going throughthis this process.
And so September of last year I chose to sell.
To vid IQ. Yep, which is awesome.
It's a good friend, Rob. Yeah.
(25:10):
Oh my gosh, like. He's a really OG in the space
and everything like that. I've been known Rob, for over a
decade. Yeah.
And that's probably what made the process for this acquisition
really, really helpful. Is that you know I I know his
wife and his. Kids, someone who genuinely used
like, you know, that you know, and he cares about you and trust
and everything and you know, hasyour best interest at heart
outside of business, yeah. And has a really good match for
(25:33):
like what we were able to accomplish with with scalable
YouTube coaching in our agency and what they are moving into
with scalable coaching. Yeah, the the vision at bit IQ.
Now we just nailed this. This is the first time we gotta
say it publicly. Oh yeah, hey, exclusive and I do
I can say it publicly. It's fine.
Now our the vision is to be ableto supply a human.
(25:57):
Let me refer it the exact way wewrote we wrote it is to be is a
coach for every creator. So, and that includes human
coaches, you know, so every creator not only is getting
access to like suite of tools and things that they used to go
to their channel, but a coach towork with you through
curriculum, working through material, working through the
tools to work on you with your content strategy and everything.
(26:20):
So making that more accessible to a large group of people, I
mean, working with us, you know,at a certain point got wildly
expensive for some people, but making it more accessible to
people that have that. I don't want to have somebody
have somebody that's like invested in you, somebody who's
looking at your stuff, give you perspective.
It's very. Valuable it's going to be
extremely affordable and and so my task is to figure out how to
(26:44):
do that for 2 million weekly active users creators you know
it's one thing to do that for 635 clients we work with in 20
so that's what. You mean when you talk about
scalability? Yeah.
It's like if the ratios that we figured out there, I think it
will translate, especially with that IQ now building some tech
around some of the stuff. Yeah, the AI stuff I think is
very fascinating. Yeah, that's gonna be a huge,
(27:05):
huge part of it too. But but anyway, So what that did
for me is like, that's a new mountain to climb.
And that that honors all the intellectual property that we've
developed all the years that that honors.
Like what my team I've hired with their zones of geniuses are
what they love doing. They get to do this at a bigger
scale. And, and so now I'm in a place
(27:27):
after, you know, several dark, tough, challenging years where
personally I'm healthier, which made me make better decisions
and be able to find a way to just to get out while still
honoring everything that I, thatI invested into in, well, for
what you say, 16 years of my life or something.
Like that 17 years, So almost 2 decades, my friend.
(27:51):
Yeah, I didn't even think I was that old, but here we are.
All right. And for 42, so yeah.
So yeah, it's it's a pretty hardpivot, but I feel more alive.
I love what I'm doing for creators and I love what we're
looking forward to hiring potentially 500 to 1000 YouTube
(28:12):
coaches here in the next few years.
No, that sounds excellent. That sounds work.
OK. So that makes sense in terms of
like some of the scalability forthat meant the many people
you're talking about. That makes sense, yeah.
Yeah. So it's it's going to be a fun
ride. And yeah, so I'm doing much
better and I only have to be on camera when I want to and when I
get to hang out with cool peoplelike Roberto.
(28:32):
I did. I do have my own personal
podcasts now, but I only do thatwhen I want.
To and I think that's more that one talks more about family and
about this kind of stuff. Yeah, it's tentatively titled
Business Family Marriage with Tim Schmoyer, but Pat Flynn gave
me a really good idea for you. I registered domain on the spot.
It's it's, it's a family centered business.
I love that. I love you do Okay, I gotta run
(28:55):
that by a few people first. I'm like, that's a much better
way of saying it than basically I'm talking about the lessons
I've learned from growing a fruitful and profitable
business. Those lessons also translate to
growing a fruitful family. What about?
Even just calling it the family business with Tim.
Schmoyer well, because family business to most people means
(29:15):
like your family works in business together and you hate
it OK, that's fair. So it's not a family business.
It's like doing business for thesake of serving your family
rather than sacrificing your family for the sake of pursuing
the so dream the. Family centered business with
Tim Schmoyer is like that sounds.
Yeah, I, I just registered the domain last night on my phone
while I was standing there with him.
So that's the man, see? That's why, like, yeah, he.
(29:38):
Just said it in passing and I was like, yeah no dude, that was
way better than what I've come up with.
Pat Pat has like genius just oozing out of him to where he
can just like just start slanging it everywhere.
It's like, it's great, like. So anyway, there's like the
tunnel, but it is a process, it is a journey.
And if you're going into this creator endeavor as a career and
(29:59):
as a life journey, it's absolutely worth it.
But just keep your, your motivesin check as much as you can and
make sure you have someone else speaking into it.
Even if you don't think like youneed it, even if you don't
notice the consequences of certain beliefs and behaviors
that we have, I think it's absolutely worth it in order to
have a fulfilling, sustainable career on this platform.
(30:22):
What's your best advice to creators starting out that feel
demotivated? Well, if you feel demotivated, I
don't think there's any. Like what do you mean demotivate
because it's not working or devoted made it because I don't
know if I want to do this or what.
Because they feel it's not working, they're not seeing
results as fast as they would like.
They're feeling discouraged, so to speak, because that seems to
be one of the biggest. Like I've all the like
challenges. I've done so many polls, so many
(30:43):
surveys. That seems to be one of the top
three every single time. That's a good question.
I would say without having any additional time to think about
it while I delay answering, Yeah, I don't know.
Here's what comes from same. Stalls for lightning round
questions. Here's what comes to mind for
me. One, there's no, there's no like
you don't have to do it like youcan give it up and there's no
(31:04):
shame in that. There's no dishonor in that.
You gave it your best attempt. You gave it your best shot and
these are the results you got. I think the way they feel
discouraged is like, maybe I'm not saying it's true for
everyone, but it's like, I if ithurts worse if you're trying to
put yourself out there and people are saying nothing, like
that's worse. And that becomes a like really
(31:26):
deep discouragement. And for some people, I think it
makes you try harder because youcan't take that rejection and
you wouldn't want to, right? So you try harder and you push
harder. Like, no, please, this isn't.
And maybe I'm reading into it a little.
Bit what's worse, being rejectedor being ignored I.
Don't know. For me, well I'm really good at
turning off emotions so I could deal with either one, but I'm
(31:48):
not saying that's the healthy thing to do.
She's a spoiler. That's not that's not the
healthy thing to do. I'm really good at telling
people where they can shove it and move on, but I rejected.
For me I think I would rather feel rejected because at least
then I know where I stand. If I'm ignored, then I don't.
If I'm ignored, I don't even rank with you.
I don't even have any gravity. I'm like, I'm, you know, I don't
(32:11):
like if I'm ignored, like rejection.
You could just say that value isnot for me or I don't like
think, but at least you're acknowledged.
If you're rejected. If you're ignored, you're not
even acknowledged. You're not even like worth
anything or present is how it feels, how you internalize.
I would say that's how I think. That's how small that's.
Going to be a different answer for different people.
Though I think so, but I think that's why a lot of smaller
content creators feel is they feel like I'm not even worth
(32:34):
nagging. I'm not even worth dunking on.
Like it's like. Yeah.
And I think that's what leads tothe the demotivation.
And so that's why if that if youfeel like that's true for you
and then not and the lack of motivation is coming from a
place of not feeling noticed enough or recognized enough for
your efforts, then I think that would be a good place to maybe
(32:54):
stop creating on purpose and address some of those issues
first. So that when you come back and
create, you're doing it from a place like Ryan Trahan says,
like as a gift to you, Not as like, I feel pressure to make
this perform well, but like, I'mjust here's here's what I made.
It's a gift. No pressure on me, no pressure
on you. It's just like freely given.
Put this out in the world. Freely given without
(33:17):
expectation. Exactly.
I think that deep down a lot of people they've given themselves
such unreasonable expectations and they're being hard on
themselves. And The thing is, but if you
like, cuz a lot of people say, when we say, Oh, give what I
expected, like they, they think there's some gimmick or some
trick to that. But what it really is is it's a
gift to yourself. Because you're saying, I don't
have the pressure to perform. That's a big anxiety trigger.
(33:40):
The pressure to perform when I turn on a camera, I always feel,
I always feel it and there is ananxiety trigger.
I get over it. Obviously it's like, but I think
that a lot of creators would feel better if they just did
something because it is interesting enough to do by
itself to feel rewarded by doingit.
Yes, that is a hard place to getto.
(34:01):
It's. Extremely hard place to get to.
That is, that would be. What you say isn't like
sometimes choosing the hardest option.
Is the best often, Not always, but as a general principle is
usually the right place to go. The way I think about it now is
my job isn't to make a viewer feel a certain way or like me or
whatever. My job, and I can say this more
(34:22):
genuinely now that I used to be able to, yeah, is to, at a high
level, the best way to have it is like restoring order from
chaos. So in other words, there's
something in your life that's not quite right.
There's something in your life that could be better.
How do I make content that helpsaddress that and makes it right,
makes it better in some way? Not that's my responsibility to
(34:43):
do that, but at least equips youin some way.
Or to be helpful, yeah. Something in some way to do
that. And and so when I think about
making content now, like in my personal podcasts for like I'm
thinking about it like, here's here's a listener or a viewer
who has like this thing is not right in their life.
How can I help speak into that and provide something tools or
(35:05):
something to help them make thatbetter.
And so now it's like it comes back to Ryan's gift analogies
like how can I just help and serve with without it needing to
reflect on me in any way. And like I said, that's a hard
place to get to. But I think I am more genuinely
at a place where I can say that comply and.
Well, I'm happy that you managedto get there and everything like
(35:27):
that. I know it was not an easy
journey. Yeah.
Speaking of journeys, the journey on this episode has come
to. And Tim, where can they find?
You can go to timshmoyer.com forpretty much everything.
And I say that because Business Family marriage.com might not be
a thing by the time you see this.
I don't know. Yeah, but if you search for the
(35:48):
Business Family Marriage Podcastor the Family Centered Business,
I'm not sure whose name I'll go with yet.
Yeah, but Tim swarry.com will have it all right there.
So just. Go there and you can probably
just type his name into any platform and you'll probably be
taken care of and everything like that.
Yeah, he might find me other places.
Yeah. So, yeah, but that's it for this
one. Stay awesome.
We'll catch you next time. Thanks guys.
Hey everybody, this is Roberta Blake help you create something
awesome today with the amazing and talented Tim Schmoyer, my
good friend. How are you doing?
Today I'm all right. I preferred your first intro
though, no? Maybe that'll be in a blooper.
Reel of some kind, but we're here at social media marketing
world, hanging out, catching up.After the last conference we
were at, Tim, I wanted to talk with you about something a
little bit more serious that theaudience might enjoy and
(00:21):
everything like that. You've been a content creator
for how long, Tim? I started 2006.
So OG original YouTube. Right after YouTube launched a
few months later. Yeah, so that would be about
like 17, almost 18 years now. Really.
Yeah, it's been that long, dude.We're coming up on like. 2006
yeah, 16 to 23. Wow.
(00:42):
Yeah, it's been a while, dude. That's I did not realize that.
No, right. And you've seen like you've seen
like 3 different YouTube CEO changes.
You've been there, you've seen it all, largely done it all.
I would say at the point, tell me something, Tim, like in terms
of like creators and having a long lasting career as a content
creator, what are like some of the ups and downs and like
(01:02):
what's the real stuff that most people don't talk about or don't
see behind the scenes? That's a load of.
Question. See, there's the.
There's a lot to that. There's a lot.
So there's a lot of good stuff. You know, I've, I'll say this
humbly, made more money than I ever thought I would ever make
in my entire life. You know, same ever when I first
(01:24):
started on YouTube, I was making$14,600 a year full time.
You know, just got married. So my wife had the work and but
and I thought, you know, as a career wise.
Literally like college kids slave wages my friends I was.
Doing I was a youth pastor at the time in the church and they
offered that's what they paid and for some reason I should not
(01:45):
have said yes, but I did, you know, so that's a whole other
issue. But, and so there's there's
certainly that which sounds likeit's a huge perk and it is in
some ways, but there's the the same more, more money, more
problems. More money, different problems
is like what it really comes down to.
Most people do not realize that.Is very much true as well.
(02:07):
So there's, there's a so that's,that's a plus side of it.
Another plus side is I get to meet and hang out with amazing
other people and a lot of my friends and my relational
network is wrapped up in this. Niche or same?
I've met creators, the best people in my life, because of
this, yeah. Yeah.
And I also really like that I get to serve people with content
(02:29):
at scale in some way of creatingcontent that really helps
people. And my mission is reach people
and change their lives and try to make content and train other
people to do that too with theircontent so that we can all make
the world a better place than itwas before with through this
medium. So there's certainly a lot of
perks to it and I don't. So I want to start there before
the rest of this goes, you know,so there's a well, most people I
(02:54):
feel like are looking at being afull time YouTube creator and,
and things like they have a lot of stars in their eyes.
And, and, and it's kind of like when you're a native kid, you're
native kid. Yeah, 8484, OK.
Don't worry about the same age, right?
80 yeah, yeah, yeah. So I it was like when we were
growing up it was like being a rock star, yeah.
And and then it was like being amovie star, you know, And then I
(03:17):
was like being a YouTube star. And on the outside like that
stuff looks awesome. And there is a lot of good good
you could. But it's like, you can do it the
world, but it's like being a Disney kid and everything like
that. It's like, oh man, gotta go
crazy afterward. Yeah.
So I guess kind of jump into thethe weeds of this and part of my
story is that after making about4500 videos across 9 channels
(03:41):
over the course of thirteen years, this is a few years ago
now. I woke up in the middle of the
night just with a like it felt like my stomach was just
clamping down on this double edged knife.
I looked like it was like 3 in the morning and I expected to
see like something poking out ofboth sides of my body.
Right. You expected some gruesomeness
to be like. I've never felt anything like
(04:03):
before. Yeah, no.
It was like I swallowed it and it was like, anyway.
And like when someone was constricting, it was terrible.
And I couldn't stand up. I got out of the bed, I rolled
out of the bed and I literally crawl across our bedroom floor
going to the bathroom thinking like, yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, it wasn't that. And then it was getting worse.
And so I was like, ended up likearmy crawling across our
(04:23):
bathroom floor, across our, our bedroom trying to wake up my
wife. And she's like, what are you
doing? Like I'm on the floor, like
pulling on the sheets, you know,trying to wake her up and she's
like, what are you doing? I'm like, I got out of the
hospital. I'm not.
And I'm not like, I'm pretty high pain tellers.
I in fact at that point hadn't seen a doctor in like 6 years,
you know, so. Go see a doctor, everybody.
Well, yeah. And that turned out to be a
(04:44):
problem because I couldn't go see the doctor later because I
had to start over like the new patient survey and.
Like all that stuff all. Over again before I could get.
Yeah, this. See, This is why you got to go
and do the physical every year and everything like that,
Roberto says. As he hasn't actually done it.
And like, easy to preach, yes, so.
So anyway, call the doctor and call and by the time they, they
(05:06):
called back about half hour later and the pain was
subsiding, thankfully. So I didn't go to the emergency
room, but I did go see a doctor and I did see a therapist also
because I was like, I don't know.
And, and both of them were like,do you have any stress in your
life? And I'm like, no, not, not
really. Like I feel fine.
And they're like, well, tell me what's going on.
And so I started telling them like, you don't have any stress
(05:28):
in your life. I'm like, no, they're like, you
are in denial. Like, OK, what are you talking
about? I was so good at burying that
stuff and not feeling that stuff, but my body was feeling
that stuff. Do you feel like, do you feel
like a lot of us as like entrepreneurs and content
creators that like our, our delusional like mindset allows
(05:48):
us to like achieve like all these great things, but then we
also self delude and we don't have a certain level of
self-awareness sometimes. I don't know.
That's hard to say at like a categorical level for me.
Yeah, probably. Yeah, I was, I was very much
like put your head down and justwork and drive and go bigger and
(06:09):
further, faster and. Yeah, all the things.
That's fine for a period or a season of life, like if you're
just launched out as a new content creator and 1st and you
just now became full time, whatever, there's there's a.
Like the season of hustle season?
Shouldn't like not making a whole life 13 years of it.
No, no, I would recommend just kind of parenthetically here
(06:30):
that that's your situation. You put a date on the calendar
that you and if you're married your spouse think is appropriate
of like you can hustle for this long at this pace.
But if this date comes and you're not full time yet, or
that date comes and we haven't, you just go out like it doesn't
matter. We're backing off because
sacrificing your life and your health for this is totally.
So now we're. Yeah.
(06:51):
So I ended up doing mostly therapy and the physical stuff
was stress related. Person Therapy.
And yeah, and so I meet with theguy I used was vocal so but some
it was sometimes over zoomed, not all the time, but yeah.
So depending on schedules and things and travel and such.
And the, the short story is thatI have been driving so hard for
(07:17):
so long to sacrificing so many other things that I didn't, my
body just collapsed and something had to give.
Something had to like, I can't keep going at that at that pace.
And for me, the thing I gave up,honestly, was content creation,
you know, and thankfully, by that time, I had a good
(07:37):
sustainable business around the channel.
I wasn't the only host or personality on it anymore.
And right. And I stepped away for six weeks
pretty quickly at that point. And the thing kept growing even
without me. And I came back after completely
like I didn't even check in on Slack or anything.
I was like completely gone. I had to decompress and, and
came back and things were still going great, which as a business
(08:00):
owner, you're like, great, that's awesome.
Yeah. I got to that point.
For me, though, I was more like,they don't need me, you know?
And then there's another class that I had to deal like, yeah.
It's essential. Crisis, lack of purpose,
subconsciously sabotaging thingsin the business so that you
would feel needed. Yeah.
So these are the types of thingsthat you don't really think
about as a content creator. And I think being a content
(08:22):
creator reveals so many unhealthy beliefs we hold about
ourselves. Let me say this It can.
It doesn't necessarily have to. I think it generally has and.
If you're open to it and open tothose, those conversations
risking vulnerability, you know,whether it's like, hey, I'm
really doing this because I feelinsecure and I need the Internet
to make me feel good about myself, or I'm, I'm ultimately
(08:45):
doing this not because I care about people, because I care
about money and I heard I could get rich quick doing this or I'm
ultimately doing this like why like, and for me, I had a pretty
good why I think your. Motives and your like, you know
what? You reveal some of your motives,
but also what drives you and where your priorities might be
in life. Yeah, for whatever reason.
I think it's important to be gutlevel honest with yourself about
(09:09):
what's really driving you, What's, why are you actually
doing this? And if, if the thing that you're
really chasing after went away, like would you still be doing
this? What would you be chasing
instead? And it's, I think it's easy to
look at the, at the numbers, at the popularity, at the, at the
money, at the, all the fame and the fortune and stuff and be
like, I want that. And I get that, but that does
(09:31):
come with a cost. And this is maybe another story,
but honestly part of the story is I was away the trip a few
years ago at a convention and I came home.
I wasn't sure if my wife and kids would still be there.
You know what made you have thatthought?
What made you have that first thought That when I get home, my
family's going? To it was it's a history.
(09:52):
There's a history, a longer story there, but my wife and I
were going through as a lot of junk was coming up for me.
A lot of junk was coming up for her too, and things that weren't
unhealthy. And me, we're impacting our
family in ways I didn't, I I couldn't have known before and
couldn't have seen before going through.
A Was it just like you couldn't know because you weren't present
(10:12):
or because you weren't in the mindset before therapy gave you
like some tools? It's because we all have wounds.
We are all wounded somewhere by someone or something at some
time into like emotionally. Yeah, especially as as kids when
we're growing up, whether it's ateacher or a parent or an uncle
or a friend or whatever. And we don't realize, Yeah, even
(10:35):
if it's not like huge trauma, like just like a, a series of
lots of little hurts can add up over.
Time. Oh, yeah, no, that's called
like, yeah, you can fragment things and everything like that.
Things chip away at you, add up.It like weakens the structure of
anything. Sure, there could be like an
instance of child abuse or neglect.
That would certainly be trauma, but it could also be lots of
little things. So those things add up and we
(10:57):
and we Start learning how to cope and deal with the world
around us based on those lenses that we develop.
And and when we're younger or going through the pain, like
those lenses serve us really well.
Sometimes they keep us alive. Yeah, because we actually need
those in order to cope with the pain or cope with the.
Be functional. Yeah.
And, and, and so those, those addictions, those things that
(11:19):
come up are actually really, really they serve a purpose.
Like they all come up for no reason.
But over time those things switch.
And because what we used to actually keep us alive in some
cases actually becomes the things that starts killing us in
our relationships and our ability to connect with others
something. That serves you ends up.
You end up serving it. Later, it ends.
(11:41):
Up enslaving you in a way and some of those things.
I had a lot of those things and and there's no way to know what
they are until you start seeing the consequences your work.
And your career can serve you. It gives you this money, it
gives you the security, gives you the safety and everything
like that. But then it's like instead of
you owning it, it starts to own you.
It starts to possess you insteadof it serving you.
And it's like, oh, it's serving me.
(12:01):
It's helping me. It's making my life easier.
It's giving me health insurance.It's doing all these things for
me now. It's like, Oh no, no, no.
Now I'm beholden to it. I'm serving the thing instead of
it's serving. Me, I, I feel fairly confident
in saying no one has the self-awareness at a deep enough
level to know if they're in thatsituation or not existing.
You know, it takes a third partywho is trained and can listen
(12:24):
and knows what to look for and knows the right questions to ask
that can bring you to a point you're like, oh, shoot, you
know, whoa, what do I, what do Ido now?
It's not fun. It's not, it's not easy, but
it's good. And, and so wow.
So my wife has those things. All of us have those things.
You have those things. I don't know what yours are.
I don't need to know, but but all of us, like I don't know,
(12:47):
you can get through life withoutbeing wounded in some way.
And those wounds and the things you have to protect yourself
eventually impact, usually negatively your, your
relationships and how you perceive the world, why you
work, what drives you. It doesn't.
And there can be a lot of good stuff in there, like reaching
people and changing lives, but there also could be a lot of
stuff in that's that's not. And so when I, to answer your
(13:09):
question, when I, I came home, because my wife and I were both
in the middle of, of working through some stuff individually,
separately, she has her wounds, I have mine that we're working
on healing and, and those were impacting our relationship
together too. We've been married 17 years, 7
kids. Wow, that period of time, 7 kids
in eight years. That was an intense season of
(13:29):
life. It's a lot.
So you have. A couple of twins, though.
One set of. Twins.
One set of twins. OK.
Twins. Yeah, so and so is in the middle
of that. I came back and I was just like,
I don't know. And we had some pretty rough
phone calls and conversations while I was gone to and, and she
was very hurt by me and others in the past that I was like
(13:49):
digging a knife into those wounds unknowingly, not
intentionally. It's just like, that's just,
it's just you lived with someonefor 17 years.
You know, there's no wonder the divorce rate is so high and
people who don't get divorced are so unhappy and are having
affairs and things outside of itis because they don't, they're
not working through these issues.
Would would you say that like content creation took you away
(14:10):
from being present in your marriage and in your family as
your career escalated? I would not say that.
I would say it it made me feel valid outside of where I should
have been getting my main validation from, which is family
inside. Yeah, the people who actually
know and care about the real me,not the person I was delivering
(14:33):
to the people. Around the utility that you.
Provide like, yeah, the usefulness.
Like what? We're, we're men, We're
validated by our utility. We want to be useful.
We want to be helpful because what's the point of us being
around is how we think what we don't, we're not validated by
just being present or existing. We have to be functional.
That's just how men develop psychologically.
(14:53):
And so when that source of your validation, a lot of people,
they get it from their work and their employee.
If they're an entrepreneur, theyget it from running the
business. Content creators, we're getting
it from, yes, the business we built, but the fact that we also
have this collective mass audience.
Sometimes we're full time containers, this massive
audience, the if we're speakers,these cheering crowds.
And there is something addictiveand seductive about that because
(15:15):
there is a dopamine here. We all want that.
And needed and special and that is that's why.
Everyone wants to be a musician and a rock star.
And I think because you want youwant that.
Everyone wants that. Like secretly everyone wants
that. And then there are some of us
who publicly actually achieve it.
But there is a cost. Everything's equipment exchange.
There's a price that you pay, Yeah, some people go a little
too far. Some people sell their souls.
Some of the creators I know are most successful are actually the
(15:38):
most lonely people in the world.Oh, yeah.
Because they don't know. Do people like me because of me
or because I have these cool toys or because I have this
audience or. Yeah, because I'm popular and,
and, and they're just hanging out with me because I make them
feel special, correct. And, and and so it's a very,
it's a big tangled web, But so there is a dark side to all
(15:58):
this. But I do think it can be this.
Episode The Dark Side of YouTube.
It can be addressed by embracinghumility personally, by
embracing A teachable spirits and attitude.
And I think one of the best investments you can make in your
career, just whether it's on or off YouTube is, is becoming a
healthy individual by letting like giving someone else access
(16:22):
to poke at the things that you don't want to address, you know,
and the things that you deep down.
And even if you don't like, I didn't even know what all my
issues were. My therapist was playing out,
but I knew what the what the symptoms were.
And even just poking at the symptoms with someone with
someone else was like helpful enough to like, yeah, get me to
a place where I want to start addressing this.
I'll start dealing with this stuff.
And so anyway, I'll have to Fastforward.
(16:44):
I kind of want to end it on darknote.
No, no. And I think we've still got some
time, but this is fascinating. Yeah.
So I guess to kind of continue that story before we get to the
light at the end of the tunnel is that I stopped making content
and team kept going and I start focusing on the things that we
(17:04):
all say actually matter, but we don't live our lives typically
as they actually do matter. Yeah.
Like we would say health and fitness matters.
And, and, and honestly, part of my, my journey is like, I'm
almost the heaviest I've ever been right now and I'm getting
it. But I'm just last week started
to be able to get to an emotional place where I can
address that because part of my story is like, I gave up some of
(17:28):
the things that I was coping with, which is great, but I took
on instead, like food. And comfort food, that was a big
thing for a lot of people in thelast three years during the
pandemic like. Yeah, it's food is emotional,
yeah, matter what you say. So not that you personally, but
I mean. You know, Well, no, I mean,
yeah, but I mean, I gained like like 1215 lbs during COVID 15.
(17:50):
Like I gained a weight during COVID that I was unhappy with.
I've like since been starting tofinally shed a lot of that
weight. I've turned in the muscle.
I've started working out becauseand my mental health improved
dramatically from from doing that.
Then I feel a lot better. I was depressed for the three
years of the pandemic, Tim, likea lot of people, I've been
talking more about that, being alittle bit more open about that.
But everybody copes and it seemsand everyone struggles.
(18:11):
And in this industry, a lot of people, the reality is the
audience gets the best of us andsometimes the people in our life
don't. And that's something that I
think a lot of creators don't realize that they're doing like
subconsciously is that they're giving their best to these this
audience, these people who essentially like, you know,
quote UN quote, help them becomehelp, quote UN quote, make them,
so to speak. But then the family that
(18:33):
supported them through that, thepeople in their life that
support through that, the relationships and everything
like that, those get neglected without people even realizing
and noticing. And then the people around you,
they don't want to be a burden. They don't want to be a bother.
They don't want to distract you from your goals and your dreams.
So they sacrifice things that you don't even know about unless
you really, you know, create a scenario where they can open up
(18:53):
to you. Yeah, my, my, my weight wasn't
due to COVID. Mine was due to not as a kid,
not learning how to appropriately handle emotions.
And so I learned not to have any.
And that was, I mean, I didn't think that at the time.
I was like, I can be happy, I can be angry and there's like
superficial levels of that, but like to actually appropriately
(19:16):
be able to handle my emotions, which made it difficult for me
to appropriately handle like my wife's emotions and kids and
stuff too. So, but so anyway, so I ended up
doing is like do do the doctor or the therapist.
It wasn't his recommendation, but I had to give something up.
So give a content creation. And at that time we had a pretty
solid YouTube growth agency. We're working with about 600 ish
(19:41):
clients a year doing a lot of really cool stuff.
And so it's pretty we, we, we were, I was able to coast, you
know, interesting. So I did pull way way the heck
back. On how big was your team that
was supporting that? I was 11 at that time. 11 at 11.
11 yeah. So we put, we had some good
systems and processes together which a whole other conversation
for biz dev like you need like SOP, standard operating
(20:04):
procedures, all that kind of stuff to make it sustainable.
So yeah, we did all that. So it was good.
It was. It was.
And that lets you step away. That let me back off a lot and
focus on things that I to and and then going into 2020 what to
(20:26):
try to figure it out. Yeah, no, so it was yeah, a
little over a year ago now she has 2022.
I had a company reach out and they're like, hey, we'd like to
acquire you guys, here's what we're doing.
And the CEO of that company A. Good friend of ours.
No, not not who you're thinking of.
(20:47):
Yeah, yeah. Different company.
Different company. Yeah.
As a tech startup. Not not in the YouTube space.
I see. Yeah.
Flew out to my house and put some numbers on the white board.
And I like, I never thought about an exit before.
I mean, I had thought about it, but I wasn't like not pursuing.
And I was like, I don't know, like, brought my wife out to the
(21:10):
whiteboard kind of like. So what would look like?
What do you think? And this is not exactly what she
said, but this is how it impacted me.
In my words, is she said she's like, Tim, is this going to take
you away from our family more? And I was like, yeah, I think
so. And she's like, well, more money
doesn't change our lives, but not having you around as much.
Well, wow. And that's my summary of it.
(21:32):
Yeah. And I was like, shoot.
You're hearing that make you feel.
Not protected. Yeah.
Like if by that time, my wife and I like now my my wife and I
are spot where we're doing better than we were on our
honeymoon. Like, wow, it was it's it's like
it's been so good, so fruitful. It's hard work, but it's good
work, right? And usually I have a bunch of
(21:52):
options in front of me. Like what do I do with this
situation? I look at like, which is the
hardest option? And that's usually the right
one, you know, Right. So.
That's a good way. To look so yeah so I was like,
well, I don't know. So I told the guy let me put
this on hold for a second and let me think about this.
So I started reaching out to other friends of mine who are,
you know, are more familiar withmergers and acquisitions,
including the friend of ours that yes that we have.
(22:14):
And before long I had five companies that were interested.
YouTube even reached out as well, but they were they were
they move way too slow for me. So that can be like I was like I
already have offers from this other like if you're gonna do
something, you gotta do something like.
Tube likes us. And they do slow for us.
Well that was an acquisitions department and that would look
(22:37):
very different. But anyway, so three offers for
three different companies beforelong.
So this is the part about the part is when I when I was
processing all this, should I sell or not sell?
What I didn't realize was just how much I wanted it.
I wanted a new challenge. I wanted to do something
different. And and one of the downsides you
(23:00):
could call it out of being a creator is like it's your full
time gig. And especially when you start
hiring A-Team. I got.
I had. People rely on you.
Yeah, and there's eleven other families that depend on this for
their livelihood, you know. And then we get the itch to go
crazy. Or do something else like.
I just. I can't do that anymore just
because I want, because it impacts more people than just
our family. And I can't just go get a new
(23:23):
job because I felt stuck, and I didn't realize how stuck I felt
until I had an opportunity to get.
Out the golden handcuffs. Yes, that's a good way of
putting it. Yeah.
It was like on the outside I'm living the dream we have we had
at the time we still have today.It's like it's a nine bedroom
house with the in ground pool, 7bathrooms, 5 car garage is.
(23:45):
Now envisioned. My brain is not envisioning
golden handcuffs with like diamond encrusted YouTube play.
Buttons it's yeah, and I'm not saying that to like brag, no,
I'm saying that just to kind of paint the picture of where we're
at. Like that's really hard to give
up. And, and so the, the, the
(24:06):
journey of going through these negotiations and, and
entertaining this idea of I got 3 offers on the table from three
different companies and, and that was an emotional thing to
me. I didn't know was there was.
I'm just tired and I am part of me being a creator in the
beginning is a lot of fun and even perpetually it can be, but
(24:28):
there does need at some point. It's not sustainable
perpetually. If you get into it because you
really like new challenges and you like, like creating, you
like expressing yourself. At some point, that's no longer
how you want to express yourself.
That's not really what does it for you.
That's not really a challenge, you know, and, and the thing
that you used to be really passionate about in terms of
(24:49):
what that did for you, no longerdoing that for you, but you
can't say no to it anymore if you've got 11 other people whose
jobs depend on that. And and so I didn't realize how
stuck I felt until going throughthis this process.
And so September of last year I chose to sell.
To vid IQ. Yep, which is awesome.
It's a good friend, Rob. Yeah.
(25:10):
Oh my gosh, like. He's a really OG in the space
and everything like that. I've been known Rob, for over a
decade. Yeah.
And that's probably what made the process for this acquisition
really, really helpful. Is that you know I I know his
wife and his. Kids, someone who genuinely used
like, you know, that you know, and he cares about you and trust
and everything and you know, hasyour best interest at heart
outside of business, yeah. And has a really good match for
(25:33):
like what we were able to accomplish with with scalable
YouTube coaching in our agency and what they are moving into
with scalable coaching. Yeah, the the vision at bit IQ.
Now we just nailed this. This is the first time we gotta
say it publicly. Oh yeah, hey, exclusive and I do
I can say it publicly. It's fine.
Now our the vision is to be ableto supply a human.
(25:57):
Let me refer it the exact way wewrote we wrote it is to be is a
coach for every creator. So, and that includes human
coaches, you know, so every creator not only is getting
access to like suite of tools and things that they used to go
to their channel, but a coach towork with you through
curriculum, working through material, working through the
tools to work on you with your content strategy and everything.
(26:20):
So making that more accessible to a large group of people, I
mean, working with us, you know,at a certain point got wildly
expensive for some people, but making it more accessible to
people that have that. I don't want to have somebody
have somebody that's like invested in you, somebody who's
looking at your stuff, give you perspective.
It's very. Valuable it's going to be
extremely affordable and and so my task is to figure out how to
(26:44):
do that for 2 million weekly active users creators you know
it's one thing to do that for 635 clients we work with in 20
so that's what. You mean when you talk about
scalability? Yeah.
It's like if the ratios that we figured out there, I think it
will translate, especially with that IQ now building some tech
around some of the stuff. Yeah, the AI stuff I think is
very fascinating. Yeah, that's gonna be a huge,
(27:05):
huge part of it too. But but anyway, So what that did
for me is like, that's a new mountain to climb.
And that that honors all the intellectual property that we've
developed all the years that that honors.
Like what my team I've hired with their zones of geniuses are
what they love doing. They get to do this at a bigger
scale. And, and so now I'm in a place
(27:27):
after, you know, several dark, tough, challenging years where
personally I'm healthier, which made me make better decisions
and be able to find a way to just to get out while still
honoring everything that I, thatI invested into in, well, for
what you say, 16 years of my life or something.
Like that 17 years, So almost 2 decades, my friend.
(27:51):
Yeah, I didn't even think I was that old, but here we are.
All right. And for 42, so yeah.
So yeah, it's it's a pretty hardpivot, but I feel more alive.
I love what I'm doing for creators and I love what we're
looking forward to hiring potentially 500 to 1000 YouTube
(28:12):
coaches here in the next few years.
No, that sounds excellent. That sounds work.
OK. So that makes sense in terms of
like some of the scalability forthat meant the many people
you're talking about. That makes sense, yeah.
Yeah. So it's it's going to be a fun
ride. And yeah, so I'm doing much
better and I only have to be on camera when I want to and when I
get to hang out with cool peoplelike Roberto.
(28:32):
I did. I do have my own personal
podcasts now, but I only do thatwhen I want.
To and I think that's more that one talks more about family and
about this kind of stuff. Yeah, it's tentatively titled
Business Family Marriage with Tim Schmoyer, but Pat Flynn gave
me a really good idea for you. I registered domain on the spot.
It's it's, it's a family centered business.
I love that. I love you do Okay, I gotta run
(28:55):
that by a few people first. I'm like, that's a much better
way of saying it than basically I'm talking about the lessons
I've learned from growing a fruitful and profitable
business. Those lessons also translate to
growing a fruitful family. What about?
Even just calling it the family business with Tim.
Schmoyer well, because family business to most people means
(29:15):
like your family works in business together and you hate
it OK, that's fair. So it's not a family business.
It's like doing business for thesake of serving your family
rather than sacrificing your family for the sake of pursuing
the so dream the. Family centered business with
Tim Schmoyer is like that sounds.
Yeah, I, I just registered the domain last night on my phone
while I was standing there with him.
So that's the man, see? That's why, like, yeah, he.
(29:38):
Just said it in passing and I was like, yeah no dude, that was
way better than what I've come up with.
Pat Pat has like genius just oozing out of him to where he
can just like just start slanging it everywhere.
It's like, it's great, like. So anyway, there's like the
tunnel, but it is a process, it is a journey.
And if you're going into this creator endeavor as a career and
(29:59):
as a life journey, it's absolutely worth it.
But just keep your, your motivesin check as much as you can and
make sure you have someone else speaking into it.
Even if you don't think like youneed it, even if you don't
notice the consequences of certain beliefs and behaviors
that we have, I think it's absolutely worth it in order to
have a fulfilling, sustainable career on this platform.
(30:22):
What's your best advice to creators starting out that feel
demotivated? Well, if you feel demotivated, I
don't think there's any. Like what do you mean demotivate
because it's not working or devoted made it because I don't
know if I want to do this or what.
Because they feel it's not working, they're not seeing
results as fast as they would like.
They're feeling discouraged, so to speak, because that seems to
be one of the biggest. Like I've all the like
challenges. I've done so many polls, so many
(30:43):
surveys. That seems to be one of the top
three every single time. That's a good question.
I would say without having any additional time to think about
it while I delay answering, Yeah, I don't know.
Here's what comes from same. Stalls for lightning round
questions. Here's what comes to mind for
me. One, there's no, there's no like
you don't have to do it like youcan give it up and there's no
(31:04):
shame in that. There's no dishonor in that.
You gave it your best attempt. You gave it your best shot and
these are the results you got. I think the way they feel
discouraged is like, maybe I'm not saying it's true for
everyone, but it's like, I if ithurts worse if you're trying to
put yourself out there and people are saying nothing, like
that's worse. And that becomes a like really
(31:26):
deep discouragement. And for some people, I think it
makes you try harder because youcan't take that rejection and
you wouldn't want to, right? So you try harder and you push
harder. Like, no, please, this isn't.
And maybe I'm reading into it a little.
Bit what's worse, being rejectedor being ignored I.
Don't know. For me, well I'm really good at
turning off emotions so I could deal with either one, but I'm
(31:48):
not saying that's the healthy thing to do.
She's a spoiler. That's not that's not the
healthy thing to do. I'm really good at telling
people where they can shove it and move on, but I rejected.
For me I think I would rather feel rejected because at least
then I know where I stand. If I'm ignored, then I don't.
If I'm ignored, I don't even rank with you.
I don't even have any gravity. I'm like, I'm, you know, I don't
(32:11):
like if I'm ignored, like rejection.
You could just say that value isnot for me or I don't like
think, but at least you're acknowledged.
If you're rejected. If you're ignored, you're not
even acknowledged. You're not even like worth
anything or present is how it feels, how you internalize.
I would say that's how I think. That's how small that's.
Going to be a different answer for different people.
Though I think so, but I think that's why a lot of smaller
content creators feel is they feel like I'm not even worth
(32:34):
nagging. I'm not even worth dunking on.
Like it's like. Yeah.
And I think that's what leads tothe the demotivation.
And so that's why if that if youfeel like that's true for you
and then not and the lack of motivation is coming from a
place of not feeling noticed enough or recognized enough for
your efforts, then I think that would be a good place to maybe
(32:54):
stop creating on purpose and address some of those issues
first. So that when you come back and
create, you're doing it from a place like Ryan Trahan says,
like as a gift to you, Not as like, I feel pressure to make
this perform well, but like, I'mjust here's here's what I made.
It's a gift. No pressure on me, no pressure
on you. It's just like freely given.
Put this out in the world. Freely given without
(33:17):
expectation. Exactly.
I think that deep down a lot of people they've given themselves
such unreasonable expectations and they're being hard on
themselves. And The thing is, but if you
like, cuz a lot of people say, when we say, Oh, give what I
expected, like they, they think there's some gimmick or some
trick to that. But what it really is is it's a
gift to yourself. Because you're saying, I don't
have the pressure to perform. That's a big anxiety trigger.
(33:40):
The pressure to perform when I turn on a camera, I always feel,
I always feel it and there is ananxiety trigger.
I get over it. Obviously it's like, but I think
that a lot of creators would feel better if they just did
something because it is interesting enough to do by
itself to feel rewarded by doingit.
Yes, that is a hard place to getto.
(34:01):
It's. Extremely hard place to get to.
That is, that would be. What you say isn't like
sometimes choosing the hardest option.
Is the best often, Not always, but as a general principle is
usually the right place to go. The way I think about it now is
my job isn't to make a viewer feel a certain way or like me or
whatever. My job, and I can say this more
(34:22):
genuinely now that I used to be able to, yeah, is to, at a high
level, the best way to have it is like restoring order from
chaos. So in other words, there's
something in your life that's not quite right.
There's something in your life that could be better.
How do I make content that helpsaddress that and makes it right,
makes it better in some way? Not that's my responsibility to
(34:43):
do that, but at least equips youin some way.
Or to be helpful, yeah. Something in some way to do
that. And and so when I think about
making content now, like in my personal podcasts for like I'm
thinking about it like, here's here's a listener or a viewer
who has like this thing is not right in their life.
How can I help speak into that and provide something tools or
(35:05):
something to help them make thatbetter.
And so now it's like it comes back to Ryan's gift analogies
like how can I just help and serve with without it needing to
reflect on me in any way. And like I said, that's a hard
place to get to. But I think I am more genuinely
at a place where I can say that comply and.
Well, I'm happy that you managedto get there and everything like
(35:27):
that. I know it was not an easy
journey. Yeah.
Speaking of journeys, the journey on this episode has come
to. And Tim, where can they find?
You can go to timshmoyer.com forpretty much everything.
And I say that because Business Family marriage.com might not be
a thing by the time you see this.
I don't know. Yeah, but if you search for the
(35:48):
Business Family Marriage Podcastor the Family Centered Business,
I'm not sure whose name I'll go with yet.
Yeah, but Tim swarry.com will have it all right there.
So just. Go there and you can probably
just type his name into any platform and you'll probably be
taken care of and everything like that.
Yeah, he might find me other places.
Yeah. So, yeah, but that's it for this
one. Stay awesome.
We'll catch you next time. Thanks guys.
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