How To Think About Turning Your Social Media Content Into $$$ That Actually Works

Okay, so talking about monetizing, and so you monetize off of those calls, right?

Yes.

So what are all the different ways that you can monetize online as a creator? Okay, when you say monetize, break it down. Monetize is making money off of your product or service. Okay.

Yeah. Um, so the first thing I did, everybody wanted— so the first thing I wanted to commoditize or monetize on was attention. Attention is the biggest thing you can monetize on now. People want All the news outlets, all the shows, they want all of your attention now. Bo Burnham talks about this. He has a great monologue. So I was like, let me monetize on the attention. That's why I started the YouTube channel. The next layer was monetize on information, ebooks. So I came out with like 5 or 6 ebooks. Those all did really well. And then people were like, well, we want merch. We want pictures of your dog on a t-shirt. Cool. Slapping my dog on t-shirts and pillows and coffee mugs and stickers. And people bought that. And then the next thing I did was calls. People were like, "Leva, I wanna talk to you one-on-one." And I'm like, "This is weird, why you wanna talk to me one-on-one?" And so at first I started charging like $60 an hour and I was getting like 4 calls a week and I was like, "These are an hour long, this is a lot of time." [Speaker] That's 4 hours of your life. [Speaker] So I doubled my pricing and then I was still getting booked as much and so I was like, I just, it came to a point where I was like, I don't have the time to do this anymore 'cause you know, my wife's pregnant, I'm already recording a ton and making thumbnails. So I was like, I'm just taking a break from it for now. So, but when I come back, I'm probably gonna double my prices again because $240 for an hour, I can justify that. But it's getting to the point where I was talking to my barber about this. Like, you have to start doing entrepreneur math. Like, I stopped mowing my own yard because it takes me 2 hours. If I work for 2 hours, I'll make so much more. And I hired a house cleaner because if I clean my house, I'm going to lose all this time. So it's like now my time is worth more than, you know, so valuable. It's so valuable. So I'm like, I'll spend the money for somebody to clean my house so I can work.

Yeah, absolutely. So what would be like the number one piece of advice that you would give yourself 5 years ago before starting this whole journey? Like, if you knew what you knew now, what would be the one thing that you would tell?

You're never gonna know enough. You're never gonna know enough. You always— I see a lot of people that are perfectionists. They want it perfect, and then they never post anything. You're never gonna know enough. Even right now, I'm learning every day, like getting online, seeing what stuff is trending on YouTube. Like, the titles always change, the thumbnails that people click always change. Like, everything's evergreen and like so change— it's changing constantly. And so you're never going to know enough. So that would be the big thing for me.

Yeah, always evolving, everything's evolving, and you're always having to learn. Always have, because every single day I have to learn something new. Yeah, because some new tool comes out, some new platform releases a new rule. YouTube just put out recently that they aren't allowing certain AI content anymore. Like, they're not monetizing. You can't make money off of it.

Yeah.

And so that's like a huge deal. A lot of AI for these people who have been using AI to just make a lot of money. And I honestly respect that of YouTube for doing that because it allows the actual creators who are being original and like putting their face on camera to get more of the audience and the views. Yeah, 100%. And so the last thing I wanted to touch on, you mentioned the Atheist. To kind of deep diving into your faith a little bit more. Yeah, I want to know a little bit more about that. So you were atheist for how long?

Probably from the time I was 18 to 32. It was a very long time. Okay, so as soon as I got to college, I was around a bunch of musicians that were, you know, you know what musicians do, and this guy approached me. He's like, have you ever heard of, you know, Richard Dawkins? Have you ever heard of You know, Carl Sagan, have you ever heard of Christopher Hitchens? I was like, never heard of these guys. 'Cause they were questioning me on my faith. And I was born in a really small town in Paris, Texas. Everybody's Christian, it's just known. Hey, you're a Christian, cool. You pray, cool. Pray before meals, it is what it is. But then I started getting all these questions. I was like, I don't know, why do I believe this? And I was just a, you know, I guess rebellious, wanted to be different. And so I dove into it and I was like, you know what, I am anti-theist. I don't like theology, I don't like religion because of all these things. But then as I got older, I became— I was super liberal. And then as I got older, I was just more and more conservative. And now I got a kid, I'm like, I'm traditional conservative, like very to the book. So it took to a point where I isolated myself. I used Abilene as like my hyperbolic chamber. For anybody that watches Super— or Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball Z, yeah. So anybody watches that, it's like this hyperbolic chamber concept was like, in Abilene, I can get so far ahead because I'm away from everything. I'm away from family, I'm away from friends. It kind of hurt my heart to do that. But I felt like I needed to isolate to like better myself, and so I started doing a lot of internal work, and then my wife's very Christian, and then I met you, I met some other people here that are like really in their faith, and I think being around people that are in it, I was like, I like these people, I like this more than what I was around, and so I started reading more into it, and then I just one day I was like, I'm gonna start praying. It was that simple. I'm gonna start praying, and then kept doing it day after day, and then things in my life started going really well. I was getting in better shape. My YouTube channel is doing well. My, my connection with my wife is doing better. And I just felt better like this. This, this level of gratitude I'd never had, I started having every day. And so I just kept doing it and now I'm still doing it and it's, it's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's something that you have to experience in order to kind of really know.

Oh yeah.

How that feeling is. And so like one example, being a business owner, there's a lot of pressure that is on your shoulders at times.

Oh yeah.

And so especially whenever you're married, you have a kid. Yeah. Being the provider.

Yeah. Yeah.

I honestly, I mean, I can see it, but I don't know how people could do this and not be stressed. Like if you're not in your faith and like giving those burdens to the Lord every single day, honestly, it would be a lot heavier. Like I probably would be bald or have gray hair.

Yeah.

Like I would probably be 400 pounds because I would stress eat every single night. I'd probably honestly be an alcoholic.

Like, yeah.

And so I think it's important if you've never thought about that or dove into that, if you're listening to this, I mean, consider it. Reach out to me, reach out to Katie, reach out to Levi. Like, let's talk about it. But I think that's a cool story. And so what are the things like, is there any specific moments that you were like maybe hit like a rock bottom or was like, what, like, what made you decide to pray?

Okay, so this is a good one. So I'm in like month 4 or 5 of my content journey posting every day. And then I— they do a bunch of like layoffs at the company I'm at and I just get laid off one day, just boom, out of nowhere. Luckily, I had a guy I could kind of work for on the side, do freelance. I was doing that. And so but then that allowed me that month. I felt like I was like, wow, this really sucks. Like, I got no job. My wife is working at the time, but it's just me kind of cold calling for this guy making $50 an hour, which was great, but then I was like, I'm gonna just double down on YouTube, and then I started posting even more. That's when I started the 2 videos a day. And so that was like March of last year, and that was a pretty rock bottom. It's like, I wasn't making a lot of money, my wife's making more than me, and that never, I mean, I love my wife, that never feels good. You wanna be the provider guy, 'cause now I pay 100% of everything, and I'm like, you don't work. If you work, we're paying too many taxes. So that last March was like, I would— it was rough. It was really rough because I'm still trying to post every day and then I'm working for this guy and not really making any money. And then I'm also applying for new jobs, but I don't want a new job. I want to do this. And then I end up getting a new job and then I work there for maybe 6 months. And then I remember month 6, I was making more on YouTube than I was at my job. And I talked to my CEO, I was like, yeah, I'm quitting. And he's like, what? You just got here. Like, you've been here 6 months, you're ramping. And this was a cush gig. It was an Australian company. They flew me out to Australia. They flew me out to Philly, Fort Lauderdale. I was flying all over the states, traveling all the time, food comp. It was awesome. But I just remember looking at him and be like, I'm making more online sitting in my office and I don't have to travel. I don't have to be away from my wife. I don't have to be away from my dog. So I was like, man, I'm out.

Yeah.