Quitting My Job To Be A Content Creator: 3 Years Later

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I left my full time teaching job just over 3 years ago to be a full time content creator. My wife Heather joins the show this week to take a look back on lessons learned and some of the lesser known aspect of this job.

Check out Heather's Channel:
https://youtube.com/heatherjustcreate

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•Rode NT1 Signature Series
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•Blue Sona
https://geni.us/sonamic (Amazon)

•Shure Sm7B
https://geni.us/tepsm7b (Amazon)

•The NT1SS was running through the Rodecaster Duo on the NT1 preset.

•The SM7B and Sona were sunning through the Mackie DLZ Creator XS.

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S12E6 | Series Episode 170

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Podcast Artwork by Kevin Ramirez
Original theme music written by Patrick Boberg and performed by Mike Alvarez

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Hello and welcome.
My name is Tom.
This is the Enthusiasm Project,season 12, episode 6.
Thanks for sticking with me allthese seasons and all these
episodes.
We have a fun topic today, avery different one, because I
actually am not going to bealone for most of this episode.
Yay, and it's going to be arecap of the past three years of

(00:54):
full-time YouTube contentcreation, employment and what
that's like, so we'll talk aboutthat in a second.
For now, though, we'll talkabout some gear, got a couple
listener messages and then we'lldive into the episode.
So, first and foremost, rightnow I am recording on the again
the Rode NT1 Signature Seriesinto the Rodecaster Duo on the

(01:14):
NT1 preset.
So that is, that's my recordingright there, and nothing has
changed basically from last weekin that regard.
Nothing has changed basicallyfrom last week in that regard,
but there will be some changesfor most of the episode because
I so this whole episode topicwas actually my wife Heather's
idea, which I think was a greatidea, better than any ideas I

(01:36):
normally have.
Last March, or March of 2024,marked my three year anniversary
of leaving my job and becominga full-time content creator.
Three years is a pretty longdarn time and the world of
anything online.
It's like dog years, so it'squite a long time.
And she decided like, hey, whatif we kind of talked about that
and that experience and whatyou've learned and what it's

(01:57):
been like and all that sort ofstuff.
So I said, absolutely thatsounds awesome and that's what
we're talking about today.
And so we already recorded thatand now I'm doing the intro for
it, and so most of this episodewill be that interview.
But we use some different gear.
So that's what I'm talkingabout, it right near right now.
The gear now nearly anywayBecause I have my new studio

(02:21):
setup.
I was able to use a new twoperson podcasting setup, which
was a lot more comfortable thanit had been in the past and
that's awesome.
So instead of using what I'musing now, we recorded with the
Mackie DLZ Creator XS.
Heather was on the Shure SM7Band I was on the Blue Sona and I
gotta admit I had kind of ahard time dialing in the Sona

(02:43):
exactly how I liked it on the xs, whereas the sm7b was much
easier.
But a cool thing or at least Ihope it's a cool thing it was.
It was my first time reallyusing for an extended period the
auto mix feature of the dlzcreator, which is basically like
you can kind of set it how,even if some levels are a little
different, there's differentspeakers it can sort of do

(03:03):
exactly what it sounds like andauto mix everything together.
So hopefully that kind of helpssome of that dynamic range that
can take place when you havetwo different people with
different voices talking on mics.
But that's what Heather and Iare using for most of this
episode.
But speaking of microphones,we're going to listen to someone
else right now on a differentmicrophone because we have a

(03:23):
voice message from Gil.
Take it away, gil.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Hey Tom, this is Gil.
I hope all is well.
You're now listening to me onthe Fafine K688 microphone and I
have it plugged in via USB-Cinto my brand new MacBook Pro M3
Pro brand new MacBook Pro M3Pro and it sounds great.

(03:50):
But this message is not aboutthe microphone.
It's more so about myexperience with this new laptop.
Every time I get a new laptop,desktop, ipad I always like to
stress test it, and not in theway that you might think.
Yeah, of course I do the wholedisk reading and writing speeds
and see how it fares to my lastcomputer, but I like to stress

(04:13):
test my new devices to see ifthey can handle gaming.
Yes, so I've been playingBaldur's Gate and a few other
video games on this M3 Pro andit has been able to handle it
like a champ.
But I've also have been playingNintendo Switch games allegedly
and games like Legend of Zelda,tears of the Kingdom and Mario

(04:37):
Strikers or some other RPGtitles from the Nintendo Switch,
and I'm able to play it on myMacBook Pro M3 Pro allegedly and
have fun.
All right, just wanted to sharethat with you.
I might send another messagebecause this is going to be a
really fun episode.
I already know it, all right.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
All right, gil, yes.
So a couple things to addressthere.
First, congrats on the newcomputer.
The Fafine mic sounds more thanFafine.
I'm pretty impressed with theirstuff.
Congrats on the new computer.
I do them too when I get one,just to sort of see, but it's
like I don't know.
It doesn't really mean anythinguntil I can actually use

(05:21):
something like going from myprevious Intel computer where I
could not run Photoshop andFinal Cut at the same time, or I
could not use something likezoom without the fan sounding
like it was in a blast off intospace, and then getting an M one
computer where I could do allthose things at once and the

(05:41):
computer's dead silent.
I don't even know what thebenchmark score would say, but I
know that my quality of lifeand my actual now computing
abilities are so different thatit makes a huge difference.
So I like that.
Your stress test involvesthings that you actually use and
matter, and video games are sogood, especially on a Mac.
Obviously, macs are not alwaysknown for their gaming

(06:02):
performance, but you know, usingthat on a Mac is pretty good
and the thing you alluded towith this being a fun episode.
Astute listeners might noticethat the topic changed a little
bit Because typically episodesix would be the community
episode, but kind of had thisawesome, awesome conversation
with Heather.
That I thought was sort of acool way to reflect on that.
But I will say I will just sortof jump into that.

(06:24):
We're talking about video games.
Heather and I are deep.
We're actually at the very,very end of Yakuza Infinite
Wealth or I guess it's like adragon Infinite Wealth.
I, as you may or may not know,because I mentioned this I've
always liked games, but Heatherhas been like the gamer in our
relationship.
For Christmas her brother gaveme an analog pocket which is

(06:46):
like a retro gaming handhelddevice.
You can play all of the oldGame Boy cartridges on it but
you can also load, you know,roms and virtual things.
And so I played my first everRPGs.
It was like baby's first RPG.
I did Chrono Trigger, which wasfantastic, and then I did
Earthbound and Mother 3, whichis the sequel to Earthbound, and

(07:07):
those games are phenomenal.
And Chrono Trigger is Heather'sall-time favorite game and it
was the thing that got her intoRPG gaming as a kid and so I
wanted to play that becauseshe's only talked about it
forever and it's so, so good.
It still holds up so well.
And Earthbound is my Chrono Trotrigger.
It's the one that like it, the,I just like the world, like I

(07:31):
really love the world and thewriting and the, the gameplay
and now that I've played othergames since then I have seen how
, like, how these tropes andthese things evolve a lot and
it's kind of cool and you caneven see like there's references
that I wouldn't have gotten inother games.
But Heather has been playingthrough the entire Yakuza series

(07:52):
for a long time now, becauseInfinite Wealth just came out I
think it came out in February,maybe March, I don't remember.
But basically I had seen herstart to play the series a
couple of years ago and it'sjust kind of always on in the
background and so I always likethe music, I like some of the
characters, but I don't knowmuch about it or how to play it
or anything like that.

(08:12):
And especially I just did notunderstand how RPGs worked when
she played, uh, like a dragonwhen that came out a couple
years ago, because it's justlike there's so much stuff on
the screen.
I didn't, i't understand it.
And it's crazy because afterplaying even something old like
Chrono Trigger, earthbound, Ican jump into now PS5 game and
understand how it works andwhat's happening.

(08:33):
It's like it's so cool.
I feel like I learned a newlanguage, which is very exciting
.
So Heather's been playingthrough these, which is cool,
and I sort of had an idea ofwhat it's about.
But before playing InfiniteWealth, she wanted to replay
Like a Dragon from 2019.
And I remember that game beingreally fun to like, listen to
and watch her play.
But she's like, oh, we'll doNew Game Plus because she had

(08:55):
already beaten it.
So you can basically start thegame with all of your like, your
weapons and your money and yourleveled up stats and everything
and kind of like essentiallyjust replay the story really
fast and I we ended up she waskind of just doing that quickly,
but we ended up playing ittogether.
And then I ended up playing alot of it and it was so good.
Like the main character in thatone, ichiban, is like my, like

(09:18):
my favorite video game character.
He's just the best.
And then we played the man whoErased His his name, which came
out in november, and that wasnew to both of us.
So we played that from scratch.
It was really cool.
And then infinite wealth, whichcame out, I guess like a month
ago.
It has both characters, um, themain character from man who

(09:38):
erased his name, kiryu andichiban.
Then they're together and weare like 150 hours into this
game and finally at like thefinal, the final boss segment
here, the point of no return.
So we're kind of delaying thatit is just been.
It's so phenomenally good inevery way.
I can't even I can't evenexplain it.

(09:59):
So if this were going to be thetraditional community episode,
most of it would be me justtalking about Yakuza, and it's
fun too.
It's been fun to go from, like,playing a game on the analog
pocket you know, playing a SuperNintendo game on the analog
pocket to playing a brand newPS5 game.
It's so different, but it'sbeen really, really fun.

(10:20):
Now, gil was not lying.
There is another message fun.
Now, gil was not lying.
There is another message and itstarts off with an amazing pun
that I never would have thoughtof.
But Gil is tired of, so take itaway again, gil.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Hey Tom, this is Gil again, gil again's island.
Not like I haven't heard that abillion times growing up, but I
really wanted to say I'm reallyexcited for you and I just
re-listened to your most recentpodcast episode and the part
where you said you're going tobe working with an after school
program really got me excited.

(10:57):
I know you're going to.
You're going to enjoy it.
I got to work with a programcalled Handy.
I got to work with a programcalled Handy.

(11:27):
They deal with at-risk youthand you, I mean in this program
I was teaching these kids how topodcast.
The last time I think the mostrecent time I was we did a
YouTube video.
I taught them how to film avideo.
Everybody had their own cameras.
It was amazing and I just gotword last week that I might be
up to be working with my localYMCA and teaching kids how to
podcast.
I just love teaching.
Back in the day I was theunofficial, actually, I was an
art teacher for my church and ityou know it was great.
I got to teach kids how to draw, paint, do creative writing you

(11:47):
know, you know not not the bestwriting, but you know write
poems and difference betweendifferent types of poems.
It was great.
I love teaching.
Maybe in another life I was ateacher, but I just wanted to
say I'm really really excitedfor you and I can't wait to hear
how it goes.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
All right, thanks, gil.
Yeah, last week I mentionedtrying to put together a
podcasting course for theupcoming school year.
For a local it's going to be amiddle school but it's all.
It's a very much an at-riskstudent population, but
fortunately it's a.
It's an elective afterschoolprogram, so the students all
want to be there.
I'm trying not to get my hopesup too high because I know, you
know, when somebody says in thespring, yeah, we're going to do
this for the fall, and so manyplanning, budgetary,

(12:32):
administrative changes happenthat you know it might be like,
oh, we can't do that now.
So I'm trying not to get myhopes up, but it is something
that I'm very excited about andvery much looking forward to and
Gil's done so many cool.
You know teaching things.
It's been interesting to melearning that there are so many
different ways to teach withoutbeing the traditional classroom
teacher.

(12:52):
That was my career for so long,which I kind of thought was
like the only way to do it.
And you know I'll tell Gil thesame thing.
A lot of people tell me throughyour channel and stuff you're
teaching a lot.
So it's like you say, in a pastlife maybe I was a teacher.
In this current life.
You definitely are.
In addition to all the you knowthe programs and things that
you've been able to work with,which are super, super awesome.
So I might yeah, I might needsome guidance from how you

(13:17):
approach these sorts of things.
I've never done non-compulsory,you know like kids have to be
there and you're the teacher ontheir schedule giving them a
grade.
So it's like I've been theteacher that invites people in
to teach stuff, but I've neverbeen the person invited in to
teach anything before.
So it's definitely a verydifferent role.
But something I'm super excitedabout and one of my favorite
things working with you know,like high school students in the

(13:40):
past was, like you said,teaching them podcasts and video
.
Is they're so not jaded?
I mean some, you know teenagershave hormones and things and
they can be, you know, a littlebit jaded.
But it's a little differentthan how you know a 36 year old
might be jaded.
A teenager, like when they'regenuinely become interested in

(14:02):
something they kind of can'thide it.
It's like how you know when adog is excited, its tail they
kind of can't hide it.
It's like how you know when adog is excited, its tail wags
and it can't hide that it's sortof the same thing and you know
and teenagers don't always haveto look at everything as like,
well, how is this gonna make memoney?
How it's just sort of I likethis and I want to do this and
learn more about it, and it'sjust the pure joy of it is what
drives them and that beingaround that again would be would

(14:25):
be super fun.
So I'm looking forward to that.
Hopefully that's a thing thathappens.
Thanks so much, gil, for thevoice messages.
I appreciate them very, verymuch and, of course, if you want
to send voice messages, you cando what Gil did.
You could email themtomandenthusiasmprojectcom, but
Gil used SpeakPipe, so you cango to hi, my name is Tomcom, and
just right there on the frontpage of the website is a thing

(14:46):
that says record a message forthe podcast.
You can just use your phone,whatever device you want, and
record an episode right there.
So, all that being said, let'sdive into Heather and I talking
about three years of full timecontent creation.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
Full-time content creation Hi Tom.
Hi how are you today?

Speaker 1 (15:07):
I'm good we're recording for the first time in
my new little like dual personsetup over here.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
I know Tom's very excited that he can look at me
as he's talking.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, you could have done that before, but I had to
turn my neck to the left.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
You have to do that on the couple's table.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
I know, but now I don't have to, I can just gaze
into your eyes.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
All right, so today we are going to talk about was
this my idea?
This was your idea, yeah, so itwas tom's three-year
workiversary anniversary ofbeing a full-time content
creator in march yeah officiallywhich is crazy.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, march 19th was my last day officially teaching.
March 20th was my first dayfull-time employment and that
was a day I went on.
Kevin basic filmmakers livestream with like six other
people and it was.
It was the best live streamever, but it also had the most
technical difficulties of anylive stream ever, and it was a
great way to kick off like a newjob well, three years is a long

(16:09):
time.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
Uh, I think you have now graduated into no longer a
newbie you know how we werecalled newlyweds for like the
first two years.
Yeah, you're, you're.
I think you've moved intointermediate experience under
your belt all right, all right,I'll take it so that's what I
wanted to talk to you about yeah, I'm curious where you're gonna
take this me too, okay it'sgonna be a journey.

(16:35):
So, uh, I think that this phasewould have been the most helpful
for you before you quit,because I feel like there's a
lot of stuff out there for, likethe, you know the first time
period about quitting.
And then there's people who arejust have been doing it forever
and sometimes you wonder likehow the heck did you even get
there?

(16:55):
But this period is like, okay,you've worked out the kinks, you
figured out the workflow,you've had ups and downs, you've
tested all the things and nowyou're you're chugging along
yeah, pretty much yeah.
So first question what is itreally like being a full-time
content creator?

Speaker 1 (17:15):
you laughed in the middle of your own question what
is it really like?

Speaker 3 (17:18):
because I think the first, I feel like the first
couple, I guess first, two,three years, right, so much of
it is just like.
What am I doing?
It's like survival mode.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
It's just like at least it was for me.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
I mean, I think for you you had built a foundation
before you made the leap, somaybe it was a little bit
different.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
For me.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
I was just like I don't even know what I'm doing
every day.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
That was like existential crisis every day.
By the time I quit, I wasworking like two full-time jobs,
and so I had been doing thisfull-time, but just with also a
full-time job.
But the difference was thepressure of like there's no
safety net of you know, if thisall fell apart or something
weird happened or it didn't makeenough money to pay the bills,
there was a job to pay the bills, so it was a very different.

(18:07):
Even though nothing changed,everything changed, kind of
thing.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
So what is it really like?
What is it?

Speaker 1 (18:12):
actually like it's great, Like it's great.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
So if you can tell the mom, who is like you know,
I'm not doing that, I'm not.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Or I'll do that when I turn 45 or whatever the hell
he said.
That's not what I said.
I said, give, I need like twoor three years to get things
where I want it, over somethingwhich would be basically just
right now.
Um, yeah, no, I'm really gladhe was forced in a way to take
the leap earlier because it's,it's great, like it.
I I don't.
Okay, I think when people hearcontent creator, they, they,
they, they have like theinstagram influencer kind of

(18:50):
it's not that glamorous, right,it's so not glamorous.
Yeah, it's very much more kindof like a regular job.
But the the part that's greatabout it, which doesn't even
necessarily have to be a contentcreator, but is the
self-employment part, and Ithink that's a personality thing
.
I think some people arepredisposed to being better at

(19:10):
self-employed or likefunctioning better when they're
self-employed, and other peopleare better when they're employed
and they have, you know, theysort of have a direction, a
guideline to follow.
Both are fine.
I think it's just different andI learned that a lot of the
problems I had when I was anemployee, a lot of like my
frustrations and a lot of mystress, came from not being the

(19:31):
one in charge where it's likethere's so many better ways to
approach this thing, but we haveto do it the dumbest way
possible, because somebody needsto impress their boss, because
that person needs to impresstheir boss, and now I have to do
something stupid because of it.
That's really frustrating, andnow it's like especially public
education, which is like theslowest behemoth of a so much so

(19:54):
much red tape.
I mean literally like you'replanning stuff.
One school year starts, so it'slike august and you're
literally now we have to planfor the next school year, not
because we're being so efficientin getting ahead, but because
things are so slow.
It's like okay, is theresomething I think I need now
that we will have to implementin a year, and anything you come

(20:18):
up with in the middle of theyear is like, oh, that's a
torture, because it was like Iwas looking at students going
like, okay, half the marketwouldn't even be here then
because they'll graduate like I.
I didn't like that and so now,self-employed, I can make the
rules.
If I wanted to have a massivebureaucracy like that, I could,
but I don't.
So if I want to changesomething or try something or we
decide to do something, it canhappen today which actually

(20:41):
yesterday was a perfect exampleyes, it was yes, because I had a
crappy morning.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
I was not feeling good, I like physically,
mentally, the whole thing.
I took two naps.
It was kind of just a day.
It's just a weird day, but thenI don't even know what time, it
was like 2, 30 or 3 p, I thinkit was 3 pm it was getting late
in the afternoon there I waslike tom, I have an itch to make
a video, but I need your help.
And I was like here's what I.

(21:07):
Here was what I was thinking.
I need you to be the one who'slike holding the camera.
And then tom put on thecreative director hat out of
nowhere.
I just I actually wasn'texpecting that, but it was so
much fun and we crunched out aninstagram reel in an hour yeah,
I mean the filming part was 20minutes and then you edited it

(21:27):
and posted.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
You know you took care of all that.
I just recorded.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
If there's no way that would have happened of like
idea to publish right in aanywhere, nowhere no, you'd have
to run through meetings and getapprovals, and what about a
revision?

Speaker 1 (21:42):
and maybe this and it's like, uh, and by the time,
yeah, it was done before youcould even think about doing it,
almost.
Yeah, which you know, like Iguess, to be fair, also could
have downsides.
That's where sometimes you seepeople do things that are really
dumb and get them in troublebecause they didn't take time to
think about it.
But I don't think either of usare predisposed to that type of

(22:04):
thing.
So it's I think it's.
Ok.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, so I think the thing that a lot of people worry
about when they're trying tostart their own business whether
it's content creation or not isall the stuff like taxes and
health insurance.
Yeah, and my sole.
What is it called?

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Sole proprietor.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
There you go Sole proprietor, do LLC, just all the
fees and permits and blah, blahblah.
Now you've done this a coupleof years, so how was it?

Speaker 1 (22:45):
So I did a couple of podcast episodes about this in
the beginning, and then I kindof stopped, because the more
experience I gained, the more Irealized I knew just so little.
I didn't want to, I didn't wantto do anything that was going
to be a guidebook to anybody,sure.
So that's my disclaimer.

Speaker 3 (23:01):
Okay, so taxes.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yes, those are tricky .
They can be tricky.
The tricky part is that as anemployee I always just had my
W-2 and that would come at theend of January and then I could
go online in 10 minutes for free, file my taxes, be done,
usually get a return of somekind.
And that's not how it works nowBecause you know you have to

(23:25):
pay.
At least in the US you have topay quarterly taxes, which is
estimated based on how muchmoney you think you're gonna
make that year, and then thatcould cover your end of your
taxes or you could have to paymore.
And then when you actually doyour taxes you don't just have
your W-2, you have probably abunch of 1099s, probably a bunch
of other things, and then youessentially it's like you have

(23:47):
to explain where this money yougot came from and what it was
used for and how much of it wasused to run your business.
And in in our world that can betricky where the business and
the personal are so interwoven.
There there's not like a superclear delineation all the time,
so navigating that is tricky.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Yeah, and I think what was hard for Tom and I is
that you know, obviously wejoined in more ways than legally
.
You know where we got married,but we also created the LLC
together.
So, like us merging all of thatbecause I had my own system,
yeah, and you had never donethis before.
So creating and merging oursystems together where it just

(24:34):
makes sense was a definitelearning as we're going.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, every every year it feels like there's been
some other new big lesson, andone of them is like when you
probably need to work with anaccountant to get this done,
because it's too complicated tonavigate otherwise on your own

(25:00):
and finding an accountant whounderstands what it.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
What a content creator?

Speaker 1 (25:05):
yeah, as a job is, or at least is willing to learn
with you and figure it out.
That can be tricky, and sofinding the right person and
even finding the right personmight not be the right person
because we started off with anaccountant who was terrific, but
they were in a different stateand so it just turned out they
just weren't as familiar withour state's tax laws and rules
and things, and so we ended uphaving to switch to someone in

(25:26):
our same state because they weremore familiar with things, and
so it's like it's not evenfinding someone good, but it's
finding someone good whounderstands the industry you're
in and the rules for yourcountry or your state or both,
and that that part can be umtricky.
But the I was having dreams of,like going to jail for tax
fraud, which I had to learnprobably isn't a thing.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
we're not committing tax fraud like tom, always
thinks he's in trouble so that'sjust even when state of being.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
we're not, yeah, doing anything remotely wrong,
but I just want everything I'mso used to in the world of tax
and things it just beingbuttoned up and done in like
January early.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
February.
Tom also has like an 800 creditscore.
What is it?
850?
I don't know what.
The highest?

Speaker 1 (26:11):
I think that's the highest.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
Yeah, that's what Tom has.
So I mean, when it comes tonumbers and finances, well, the
first time I met Tom, he he hada budget sheet in his kitchen
where he would like.
I feel like most people don'tdo this, so I wasn't showing it
to visitors.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
It was just a thing that was hanging out on the
counter.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
People are listening to this and be like Heather.
Of course, like everyone hasone of these.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
I'm like I don't know , tom.
I feel like takes it up a notchwhen it comes to well, I was
used to things being verystructured orderly and clear
financially and when you're whenyour career becomes something
new and emerging and unclear,you find out that even the
systems and the professionalsinvolved don't always have an
answer or process and you haveto figure it out together or
with your partner or whatever,and that just sort of getting

(27:01):
comfortable with the discomfortis yes, exactly like that's a.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
That's been a surprising amount of time, yeah,
spent in the past three yearsis figuring that whole thing out
.
Yeah, so I think it'ssignificant.
I think it's worth talkingabout, because it's not like
being a full-time contentcreator.
You just it's significant.
I think it's worth talkingabout, because it's not like
being a full-time contentcreator.
You just it's just the fun part, like, yeah, there's a business
.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
There's whole days that are just like calling the
irs and going to the bank andlike you're like.
This is not super the glamorousworld of like content creation
that people think, but it'sworth it because ultimately, if
you look at the number of daysin the year, the number of hours
or days you spend doing thataren't nearly as many as the
ones you spend doing the stuffthat you want to do on your own

(27:42):
terms Right.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
What has been the hardest part.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Oh, there's a lot of difficult, difficult parts,
because, even though it's greatlike it's the best, but there's,
and some of them.
I don't know if it's great likeit's the best, but there's, and
some of them.
I don't know if it's contentcreation or self-employment, but
you know, like being your ownboss is hard.
You know that because, as greatas it is because you can make
the decisions, it's very hard todraw boundaries, like your boss
is always, but always botheringyou 24 7, like you can't escape

(28:12):
them because you are them.
And I think something that canbe difficult, which I think I've
done an okay job with but needto get back, is kind of keeping
perspective of you know whenit's when to call it a day when
something is done, when you youdon't need to worry about this
because you can kind of feelsometimes like like you're not

(28:33):
doing enough.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
And so the to-do list is never ending.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, the to-do list never ends.
But sometimes you can also feellike, oh, it's almost.
Like busy work is satisfying,like if I just go on and I just
feel like I've been working onsomething all day, I'm going to
get you know, I'm going to makeprogress and get some kind of
return on that, and no, likethis just doesn't work.
That way.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
The tricky part about being self-employed is that
your effort does not necessarilycorrelate with how much you get
paid.
So you can spend all day or,you know, forever on a video,
for example, and it could beyour worst performing video or
your, you know, it's just foryour creative expression yeah,

(29:14):
and you can, there's no which isvalid.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Like that's a great thing, but like, yeah, learning
all of that is yeah, those areall things that that don't
necessarily matter as much whenit's not your full-time thing
and that you know, like they're.
The thing for me has been tryingto find the balance of like I
want to do things my way andkeep up my like, my integrity

(29:38):
and my process and my creativefulfillment and, you know, keep
it sustainable so that I cankeep doing it and want to keep
doing it for a long time.
But there is a fundamental shiftwhen it becomes also this is
how you're paying bills and likefeeding yourself and stuff and
your family and you're like andproviding for your future Like
it.

(29:58):
It's hard not to look at thenumbers a little differently and
I understand why people fallinto the traps of like taking
crappy sponsorships and being,you know, frustrated what
they're making and like Iunderstand why that happens to
people and I've been wanting toavoid those things.

(30:19):
But I think the benefit ofmaybe taking longer than I
needed to or should have tostart doing this is that I was
kind of able to be a little moreanalytical about seeing other
people doing it in a way Ithought was really cool and that
I liked how I would like to doit and seeing how people were
doing in a way that I didn'tlike and trying to learn from

(30:40):
the mistakes of others.
You're going to make your ownmistakes but like trying as best
I could to learn from others'mistakes first, and I think that
really did help.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah, uh, what were things you didn't expect, like
just completely either good orbad.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Yeah, I mean the Hmm, there's a lot.
There's a lot of good that Ididn't expect, which which just
happens with content creation ingeneral, but when you can focus
on it more time, full time, thethe like little paths and
networks and things that canform that you don't expect, like
is you never know wheresomething is gonna go like,

(31:20):
regardless of a videoperformance or whatever one
person sees it, it leads here.
It leads here.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
it leads here yeah, we just watched, uh, one of my
early videos recently like twodays ago.
There's a video where I got myboosted board for the first time
, and that was the second videothat Tom watched on my channel.
We hadn't even talked yet, andthen that led you to watch the
next video, where you finallyleft a comment, gave me your

(31:46):
email and now we've been marriedalmost four years yeah, so, and
and that I mean that's probablythe ultimate example of this
but even even just other.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
You know the messages and the emails you can get and
like that kind of stuff, likethe I don't know what you would
call it, the community, not thetypical way you would think of,
like a viewer audience community, but like your I don't know if
it's a professional community.
That you can grow is crazy andyou know, I mean like even

(32:19):
getting into hockey over thepast.
You know year and a half nowyear, year and a half finding as
I go into like now I want tolisten to hockey podcasts,
finding out that people whoproduce some of the ones that
like they learned from you whichI didn't know.
Like they.
They watched my channel andreached out and like that kind
of thing is is super cool tothen realize, like wait, like

(32:42):
there was one of them there,there's a um, it's called.
In goal magazine, they have apodcast and a youtube channel
and the podcast is great.
I only got into that recently.
I didn't realize the channel.
The podcasts were connected thesame yeah, and finally one of
the guys from the podcast hadreached out and was just saying,
just touching base andintroducing and cool, learned a
lot from the channel andeverything.
And I was like oh my God, onceI made the connection I was like

(33:04):
I've watched every video onYouTube.
If you go to my YouTube account,you go to your channel and
videos they all have the red barunder them because I like
watched all of them and that'slike I would never have expected
to make.
I wouldn't have even knownwhere to begin making a
connection with someone likethat and now we already have
like so much in common becauseof that and you know, like that

(33:25):
that sort of thing is is reallycool.
Like you just got to spend moretime on it, obviously because
it's full-time, than you couldwhen it's part time.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
Well, I think that.
I think the thing is likebecause, because you are sharing
stuff about things that you'reexcited about, people who are
also excited about that samething might be excited about
another thing that you'reexcited about.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Right.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
You can, you know, I mean like it kind of overlaps.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
And that's surprising , because it's like you don't
realize that you have made animpact on what they've been
creating for years.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
I think that also comes from setting the tone
specifically, like I don't thinkthat's necessarily true for
everyone, but I know on mychannel I try to be fun and
positive and upbeat, and soRight, channel, I try to be fun
and positive and upbeat and soright, like that sets a tone.
I don't know if that's gonna bethe case for someone who does
like negative call out videos oryou know, like they could have
a very different experience withtheir types of connections and

(34:26):
things.
I've just been fortunate that,like a lot of the, a lot of the
people that I encounter in likethat professional community are
people that I would want to likebe friends with and spend time
with anyway, and that's that'sbeen shocking uh, what do you
think?

Speaker 3 (34:45):
I don't know how to ask this.
What do you think is the mostmisunderstood thing about being
a full-time content creator?
Or like what do you wish peopleunderstood more, if that makes
sense?

Speaker 1 (34:57):
I mean, it's the, it's the, the version of a
content creator on like csi,versus what it's really like.
Okay, so like meaning when,when, when a show like csi, who
who like appeals to like a verybroad audience and typically a
slightly older audience.
When they show a profession,it's the most stereotypical

(35:21):
version of that profession andso like the cop is eating donuts
or something.
Yeah, if they show a contentcreator, it's going to be like
the 19 year old Instagraminfluencer who's just taking
photos of herself and locationand somehow she's rich, which is
very small number of peopleLike that's not most people and

(35:43):
understanding what it actuallyis, which I think it's slowly
becoming as it's becoming a jobfor longer.
But you know, even on Reddit,like maybe like three or four
weeks ago, I was reading athread that was oh, it was in
the teacher subreddit, because Istill, I don't know I still
read some of the things in there.

(36:04):
Helps me make sure that I madethe right choice.
There was something about likeyou know what kids want to be
and kids don't have likeambition for the future.
Someone was venting aboutsomething and a person replied
saying, like there can only beso many like you know, youtubers
and influencers or whatever.
And I was happy because anotherperson joined in and said, like
well, actually, what theinfluencers don't show you are

(36:27):
all the soft skills that arerequired and the kids don't pick
up on that, on thecommunication and the writing
and the planning and theorganization and you know the
technical skills and thecritical thinking, problem
solving all of which are part ofit.
For yourself, advocating foryourself You're.
Those are things nobody usuallythinks of, typically when they
think of like an influencer.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Right, cause it just looks like they're having fun
yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
And, and so what I, what I wish were different, more
people understood is is the ifyou were to make a video
unplanned right now you can dothat.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
That is not the same as someone who has never made a
video right making a videounplanned, like yeah, that's
what we did when I did thatvideo.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
That was unedited.
It's like, yes, I pressedrecord and talked for 35 minutes
and it was a decent video.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Like the video we made yesterday.
We can crunch it out in an hourbecause we've had years of
experience.
Like we, you know how to framethe video.
I know.
I know, like, how far to standaway from the wall.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Like we also have our , our individual thing where,
like you say something and Iknow I, you tell me you want
something to look a certain wayand I, I know what you mean,
even if it's not exact.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
Like yeah, we have like our.
I don't know to use the wideangle lens, but Tom does.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Right yeah, Like I, like we.
We have our communication.
All that takes time to build upand takes repetition, and the
genuine skillset that comes withit is often overlooked.
The biggest thing becausebiggest thing because it's a

(38:03):
phone, everyone's like, oh,especially if you're using a
phone, yeah, like I have a phone, yeah, and that's.
That's one of the biggestthings I've realized is
overlooked, like in the pastyear the.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
The way people undervalue the on camera or on
microphone skills is massivewell, you can even say that
about podcasts too, because itjust looks like two people are
talking well, that's why I saidor on microphone, because I was
like you know the number ofpeople like my friends are funny
.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
We should have a podcast.
No, you shouldn't.
Yeah, maybe, yeah, you couldyeah.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
But it's different when you're creating content for
an audience.
You know, this is totallytotally different.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
It's a very different skill set, especially as
someone who never intended to beon camera like I can tell you
it's a very different yeah it's,which is why, even like, my
workflow has evolved, and Ithink I've talked about this in
last week's podcast, but I nowtypically like set everything up
to film on one day and thenfilm the next day, so that

(38:54):
you've been doing that, yeah.
So on the filming day, the thingI focus on is the presenting
part of it.
I don't have to think aboutlike wait, where does this cable
go?
And I need to push this.
Should this angle be over hereand should that be like?
I want everything set up sothat I can come in and then not
think about that stuff andinstead think about
communicating and like being oncamera, because that's what

(39:17):
people are going to see in there, because that's a whole
separate skill set.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
That is very undervalued.
And a lot of times too, in thecomment section, you hear people
you know who will give thefeedback.
You should do this, you need todo this.
Why do you do this?
Blah, blah, blah, and it's likeI would wager quite a bit that
those people cannot present oncamera most of the time, even if
they have the very specificpiece of technical knowledge

(39:45):
that they're sharing and even ifthey're correct.
Doing all of this at once andthen being the person who is
whose face, is the thing peoplesee very, very different, and
that's I.
I do feel confident that mostpeople could learn to do it yeah
totally.
But it's like playing aninstrument, riding a bike, doing
whatever, like you have to putin the hours to doing it and

(40:07):
very few people will do thatyeah, uh, is there a tool you've
used this whole time?

Speaker 3 (40:13):
I'm sure there's a couple, but like tried and true,
three years full time, this isa the roadcaster actually you're
not using the roadcast rightnow, that's not it but yeah, um,
I mean the notes app.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, like, truthfully, if you want
something that like does, youdon't have to spend a ton of
money, I guess, other thanbuying a mac or an iphone or
something all like multiplenotes a day yeah, it's constant.
Yeah, personal and professional,and I've tried other things,
but I always end up going backto the notes I was talking about
last week because someone hadasked a question about um, like
productivity and all this kindof stuff, and it's like I don't

(40:51):
have anything cool, fancy orgroundbreaking.
It's the notes app.
You know, I mean when I thinkof the core tools, like a good
roadcaster, like mixer doesn'thave to be a roadcaster,
something like that's pretty key.
A good microphone is key.
A camera with good autofocus iskey.
Um, those kinds of things aresuper.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
Ecam live is important we use it for
everything.
Yeah, uh, let's see.
Um, if someone, well so say,you were listening to this, sure
, five years ago, is thereanything that you would say to
yourself to cut to, kind of justlike here's what to expect,
here's, here's how you can startpreparing to make the leap like

(41:36):
is there anything that you wereeither blindsided about or you
just didn't you know?
Is there something you couldhave prepped ahead?
To kind of prepare, I think?

Speaker 1 (41:48):
if someone wanted to like transition, I think if you
genuinely wanted to try it whichI did try to do for the past,
not for the last, like I don'tknow, six to eight months at
least was try doing it full-time, like mock full-time yeah, like
while you're working so whatthat?
yeah, so what that meant waslike, even though I was still
getting a paycheck, which is anice safety net, what if I

(42:09):
didn't use any of that money topay our bills?
Like, can we pay our bills?
And that, you know that kindlike that helped to to figure
like, well, is this a real thing?
It's not exactly the same.
Keeping track of your stuff andlooking at it, you know,
realistically, because if youhave a good month, something
happens.
You have a viral video, yourelease your first course and

(42:29):
you know you've been building up, so you sell a whole bunch of
them one month, whatever happens, and suddenly you're at the
point where you made like fivefigures in a month.
You made $10,000, $15,000 in amonth and you're like, oh my God
, I can.
This is way more than full-timeincome for me, that's true, but
will you now make $2,000 nextmonth?
Is a version of that, or alevel of that, sustainable?

(42:50):
So if you do keep track of yourincome and your revenue and all
those types of things, you canlook back on that and see is it
really?
Is this one good thing, sort ofa fluke, or is there a trend?
And for me, in my case, thegrowth of the channel over now
seven years has been very like,just kind of moderate.

(43:11):
There's been little bumps andthings along the way, but for
the most part incline, for themost part it's it's a very okay
I.
I think it's probably actuallythe most exciting graph to look
at, where it's just a very slowincline slow one, but it's not
one that anyone's going to useon like their keynote
presentation of like look at thepower of this.
Where it's just like a straightup, you know, exponential

(43:32):
growth thing.
It's not that exciting.
It's just sort of like slow andsteady growth and kind of
looking at that.
That's, that's something thatyou want yeah that's a really
valuable thing.
That is, that is hard to.
I don't know how to make thathappen, but you know, if you
look at those types of cueswhich I know, it's not like that

(43:54):
doesn't even go for like thefun creating part, but even the
creating part too.
I remember people saying nowthat it's full you can just make
a whole ton of videos.
And it's like, well, yeah, butI don't want to get tired of
making videos.
I don't want to run through allmy ideas right away.
I don't want to just take theyou know 80 or 90 hours a week
that I'm putting into my twofull-time jobs now and just put

(44:14):
those into one full-time job.
Like I want to be able to likebreathe yeah I want to be able
to maybe not get up at 5 am withan alarm every day and maybe be
able to take a break and, like,have more time to myself to be
refreshed as a human well see,that's what I didn't expect from

(44:35):
is like it.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
The unglamorousness of it is the glamour to me.
Yeah, like that, I love that.
It's like if someone told methat this is how it's gonna be
like how awesome, like it'sperfect yeah, I mean that that
depends on the person.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
There are some people who will constantly work on
five, five projects of some kindat the same.
They're never not makingsomething, and that's what they
love For you and I both, whichit's good that our like goals
align.
Yeah, we really.
We love to make stuff, but wealso love to then be able to sit
and go like whew okay, yeah,let's play some video games.
Yeah, and that that, I think, iswhat keeps it sustainable,

(45:19):
because the making thingsomething is always new and
exciting and fun and different,and you know, that's what keeps
it going.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
Are you happy?

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yes, I couldn't be happier.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
My biggest fear is losing it all.
You sound sarcastic.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
Oh no, I'm not.
I'm not being sarcastic, I likeI'm not being sarcastic.
My biggest fear is losing this.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
I can see your face so I know you're not being
sarcastic, but the way thatyou're saying it, the guy who
tells jokes all the time.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
It's not a joke.
My biggest fear is losing it,because that's how much I care
about it and that I don't likethat.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
But everyone is scared about losing their job.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah, but I mean, like this is different.
I could go get another teachingjob.
It might not be as cool as theone I had, but you know, like if
I need to be in a classroomgetting a paycheck, whatever,
like you, you know, a lot oftimes you can kind of get
another job.
This is a thing that's veryhard to replace or replicate or

(46:21):
whatever, and and, and you knowas much as we can control it and
try to be as effective, there'sa lot of it that's out of our
hands and that's that is scary,yeah, which is also, though
maybe that's a thing you want togo back to.
What I would tell someone.
I think the stability of havingyour traditional job is kind of

(46:41):
a lie, because the number ofpeople I've known who get fired.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
I've gotten laid off fired, laid off I needed.
I've told the story on yourpodcast, but this is how much I
had no idea.
I bought a new creamer for thefor and, you know, for everyone
to share that day, oh my God,and I put it in the fridge and
the the chair of the board wasthere with the executive
director in the meeting room,and I had to walk by the meeting

(47:07):
room to go put the freakingcreamer in the fridge and they
both looked at me and said oh,heather, when you're, when
you're done, can you come in?

Speaker 1 (47:13):
here, when you're done giving us this thing you
paid for.
Come in here so we're gonnafire.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
I was so excited because it was like some special
flavor or whatever and I was soexcited to share.
You never got to use it.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
No, dude I went straight into the office and it
was.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
They were sitting on the other side and they were
like you know it was whatever,we're so thankful for your work.
But blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah and I just I was so I
no idea.
I went back to my office andjust started crying.
Yeah, I was like, how am Igoing to tell my parents?
I just got laid off.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
I got laid off once.
I don't think I ever even.
I think I told the first of it,but it wasn't as serious as
that because I was like 17.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
Oh, yeah, this is like my.
You know, my first adult job,yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
You need you.
It was the job you needed.
I was working at a tv stationwhen I was 17.
I had been an intern, I wasbouncing around all these
different positions and finallyI got hired as a floor director,
which was like my kind of, mydream position, because you
operate all the cameras duringthe broadcast, you take care of
the studio it's, you just livein the studio, take care of the
studio.
There were five cameras during abroadcast, so it was like I got
to operate so many differentthings.

(48:20):
It was basically a dream job.
But when I got hired for itthey told me like oh, in the
next year sometime we're gonnaupdate all these cameras there
from like the early 90s, we'regonna update all these cameras
to robotic cameras and then wewon't have a floor director
anymore.
I was like, okay, so I knew itwas temporary.
It wasn't really a surprise.
But eventually, um, it kind ofwent on a little longer than

(48:43):
they had planned and I was justloving the job.
It was the coolest every day.
I just was like I can't believe, like I go from my high school
class to this, like this is socool.
And I remember the night mylike boss took me aside and he
was like well, you know,remember we talked that this was
a temporary thing.
There's, you know, there's newcameras coming in.
It's like the new cameras arehere and I remember being in the
hallway and and like, yep, Iunderstand, I didn't.

(49:04):
I couldn't hide the tears thatwere like coming, how cute.
And I knew he could tell and Iwas just like it's I mean, you
know, that was the terms of thejob like and it's also from
their point of view like, justhire the high school kid to like
ride this thing out till we'redone with it and then he can go
because he doesn't matter, butlike that.
But the point is like stabilitystability is much more of an

(49:28):
illusion than you think, andeven I.
I've talked about this beforebut I think it's worth
reiterating, as a public school,as a tenured public school
teacher, that that's morestability than most jobs have
Like.
For the most part, unless I dosomething absolutely horrific or
illegal, I have a job and andto give that up seems crazy, but

(49:51):
even that I'm I'm tenured, soI'm guaranteed a job.
I'm not guaranteed a certainjob, so I could be, I could be
transferred to give them theworst assignment ever, which is
a thing that people do when theywant to drive someone out.
They just ruin their daily life, make you miserable and then
you leave, which is illegal butvery difficult to prove.
So that can happen.

(50:11):
But also, it doesn't take muchfor there to be an
administrative change at aschool site to change everything
.
Take much for there to be anadministrative change at a
school site to change everything.
A legislative change, adistrict change, like economic,
like there's so many othervariables that are just.
It doesn't even have to do withyou or your performance someone
uh joined the team of coursewho is so toxic, and I that I

(50:34):
mean.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
That was like one of the contributing factors for me
finally quitting you're not thejob you get laid off from, but
you're the last job I had.
Yeah, I just it was.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
So.
Just one person, one shift yeah, can change everything.
That's definitely happened tome at previous jobs too, and so
there's I would say that there'smore stability in a traditional
job than you know being a fulltime content creator job than
you know being a full-timecontent creator have to there.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
But yeah, so the difference is that it is
someone's full-time position toworry about taxes and accounting
and law like hr laws and likeall of that stuff that we had to
kind of figure out on our ownand have to make time for.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Yeah so there's more stability there, but there's not
as much as I thought yeah and Idon't think there's as much as
a lot of people think.
I think a lot of people.
The thing that that sometimesbaffles me is when someone I
understand if someone has like a5 000 subscriber channel
they're barely starting to makerevenue and they're like how do
I do this full-time?
That's hard.

(51:36):
Like you have a, you have aways to go before it can
probably be full time unlessyou're, you know, young and
living at home and single andstuff, um, but you know, if
you're an adult with a familyand expenses and things, that
can be difficult.
The flip side of that is thenumber of people I know who have
quite large channels hundredsof thousands, maybe even into

(51:58):
the millions and still don't doit full time.
In some cases, I know it'sbecause they don't want to.
They really like their jobRight and that's awesome.
In other cases I almost feellike they're tortured.
And a lot, a number of timesI've seen people use stability
as the excuse and I'm likeyou're one.
You've been using this as anexcuse for years now.
All of those years you couldhave been doing this full time.

(52:19):
So okay.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
And two, it is more of an illusion than you think
like is that me and you are soadaptable and we have a skill
set that nobody can take away,right?
So if we need to restructure,if we need to, you need to start

(52:47):
doing consulting.
I need to start teachingclasses in person again, or you
know, I need.
You know, I start working withlocal businesses to make content
for their social media.
Like, there's so many ways thatwe can figure out how to make
money if, for some reason,youtube disappeared yeah and so,
like I I'm just it's almostlike I feel like there's more
security on banking, on usregardless of your industry,

(53:08):
investing in yourself is alwaysthe best thing, for sure no, no
business is ever gonna be ableto to pivot that quickly no you.
You know for us we could start.
You can schedule consultingthings on your calendar right
now.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
Right, and that when I worked at the at Trader Joe's
the grocery store, which at thetime when I started working
there they were one of thehigher paying stores, you got
insurance.
It was a good place to work.
That kind of changed at thetime I was there, but the thing
that they did was they paidespecially their managers are
really well.
So like, even like their storemanagers could make, I think,
upwards of one 51, 60,000 a year.

(53:41):
This is back in like 2007, 2008.
So, ballers, that's prettyfreaking good, yeah, um, and
they're like lower levelmanagers.
Their entry level managerscould start at like 80,000 or
something.
You automatically a full timeweek was 50 hours, so you didn't
work less than 50 hours a week,but most of them hadn't gone to
school because a lot of themthey started working at the

(54:03):
store kind of straight out ofhigh school or maybe even in
like community college, yeah.
And then it was like well, youkeep going to school, or you get
this job, or you make an 80grand a year and you're 21 years
old, 22 years old.
The number of people that justtook that like why wouldn't you?
And I even was like I'm workinglike multiple jobs and going to
school and broke like I couldjust work one job and have more

(54:25):
money and like what?
Um?
But the thing I saw happen againand again was they were
investing in this company andall it took time and time again
was one management change andsuddenly they would either get
fired or they would literallylike it really did happen, where
people like they had workedyears at a store that's five

(54:45):
minutes from their home and now,oh, starting on Monday, you
work at the store that's 90miles away, but you still work
50 hours a week.
But now you just have a, youknow, a two hour commute on top
of that each way, and obviouslythe whole point of that is to
get them to quit, yeah, mute ontop of that each way, and
obviously the whole point ofthat is to get them to quit,
yeah, yeah.
and then people would quit andwhen they quit they aren't gonna
go make eighty thousand dollarsa year anywhere else.
Most of the time I saw themjust being like a regular kind

(55:08):
of clerk at another grocerystore for probably you know, 14
15 bucks an hour at the time,which was decent ish pay, but
not nearly what they were doing,and they were just kind of
screwed because they hadinvested so much time in one
specific company, not inthemselves, and that was kind of
thing I told myself was likeI'm going to school.
I know English degrees kind ofmade fun of as the useless

(55:32):
degree, but it's something noone can take away from me and
the skills that come with it.
And then you know every job Ihad the experience like trying
to to learn things that can't betaken away.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
So that goes for not just content creation.
But investing in yourself is athing, but content creation
forces you to invest in yourselfso hard that you end up
building such a diverse skillsset yeah, yeah, because you're
you're doing r&d constantly,yeah, well, anyway, I just want

(56:06):
to say I'm really proud of youthank you.
I could not have done thiswithout you.
So thank you, I mean the daywe're lucky that we're a team
you know, we are very.
The day we met years I mean, mychannel had four subscribers or
something.
You were like you should dothis.
You just do this full time.

Speaker 3 (56:23):
It's like it's costing me money.
I don't.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
This makes negative dollars like how could I do this
?
I just always knew I was likedude man so it was very nice
because I also know for a lot ofpeople, you know, getting their
partner on the page with themis hard.
I know, I know we're so lucky.
It is difficult and the factthat we're able to just sort of
be on the same page and havethat support is a really, really

(56:47):
lucky thing, and you alsohelped me, you know, going from
a more structured existence toan unstructured one.
You've helped me to becomfortable with being
uncomfortable and understandthings can be figured out and
you know it's all okay, it'sgonna be okay.
Well, yay, congrats yay, well,thank you for doing this episode

(57:13):
and having this idea.
This is really fun yeah it's funto take time and reflect and
sometimes sometimes you kind oflike it's hard to do that by
yourself.
You kind of need the otherperson in the room to do it.
Yeah, cool.
Well, thank you for listeningto this.
I appreciate that.
If you have any thoughts,comments, feedback, as usual,
you can send them to tom andenthusiasm projectcom, or you

(57:34):
can go to hi, my name is tomcomand leave a voice message for
the show if you want to checkout Heather.
Where should people go?

Speaker 3 (57:40):
youtubecom slash heatherjustcreate and you'll
find the couples table, which isthe live stream podcast that
Tom and I host pretty much everyFriday at 1pm, pacific standard
time.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Alright, thank you for listening.
Hope you have a safe, happy,healthy, fun rest of your week
and and we'll see you next time.