Sam describes how chasing views and grinding for growth damaged his creativity and mental health, even pressuring his family into content. A psychiatrist helped him realize his fear of not providing was unfounded. He argues authenticity and process beat relentless hustle.
So I've spent over two years working on a YouTube channel that I really wanted to work. And while it was growing, it just never fully clicked. Everything I made, I really wanted to be found. You know, I like, I was thinking about what are people looking for? I started to get worried about things like having my family involved in videos, like putting my kids and my wife in videos, because I didn't know if that's what people wanted. I felt like if I wanted to make it, this is what I was gonna have to do. And that was absolutely a terrible feeling.
If you sleep for eight hours, it'll never happen. It'll never ever happen.
Work like hell. I mean, you just have to put in, you know, 80 hour, 80 to 100 hour weeks every week.
These are some tips that I find. Help me get in 75, 80, even more work hours.
I have a disease, I'm a workaholic and it's like being an alcoholic. I just can't give it up.
See, the truth is I had really fallen prey to this idea of the hustle and grind culture where, you know, you just have to work non stop. So much so that on this channel I was promoting similar mindsets to creative people. My goal, my vision is to help creative people change the way they see their worth so that they can start to do meaningful work.
I had to talk with a psychiatrist and she said, what is it that you're afraid of? And I said, honestly, I'm afraid of not supporting my family. And she said, what does it look like if you realize that that thing that you're afraid of, you're already doing that thing, what does that do to change your relationship with who you are, you and what you're trying to achieve? I said, ultimately it changes a lot. Cuz now this thing that I felt like I wanted, which was to support my family, is something I'm already doing.
I mean, as people, we need food, we need rest, you know, we need all like sleep. And for me, I need to create. Like it's just part of who I am. If I'm not doing that, I find myself getting depressed. I've been making my living as a creative for almost 20 years now. I just think I lost my way as I started to grow my own business. I think what I'm starting to realize is that when we talk about this idea of sacrificing things to get what we want, you know, that sacrifice is a lot of times just in our mind, like that thing that we want may not be the thing that we actually need. So if we got that thing that we wanted, we just constantly feel like we wanted the next thing. We don't actually enjoy the process along the way.
And I think really, the need is the process. Process, Right. Like, that's the thing that we're trying to fulfill here. The need is becoming more authentically ourselves. And the hard part, rather than, like, just grinding it out all the time, is really just becoming more and more comfortable with who we are and becoming less and less afraid of what people think, less and less afraid of success, less and less afraid of failure.
Getting rid of a want in order to have a need is not a sacrifice, it's a necessity. Often the thing that we need could be sitting right in front of us, but it's just hiding behind something that we want.
Sam.
