In this personal monologue, Marcel Fernandes recounts how growing up in a poor Brazilian family, he leveraged YouTube as a free, global knowledge hub to transform his mindset, acquire business skills, and become a self‑made millionaire in his twenties living in Dubai. He credits his innate traits—grit, work ethic, conscientiousness—but emphasizes that without YouTube’s accessible content he would not have reshaped his philosophy or belief system. Key turning points include a 2015/2016 Tai Lopez ad that sparked his interest in self‑development, a Jim Rohn seminar recommended by Lopez that altered his worldview, and subsequent exposure to YouTube tutorials on dropshipping, SMMA, affiliate marketing, Amazon FBA, crypto, and day trading. While he achieved modest success with dropshipping and SMMA, he warns against “shiny object syndrome,” urging focus on a single model and disciplined execution. He also critiques the proliferation of paid courses, urging viewers to apply existing free resources instead of buying more. Throughout, he stresses that the internet and YouTube democratize knowledge—making centuries of wisdom freely available—so anyone, regardless of background, can pursue wealth, skills, health, and personal growth. The video ends with a typical call‑to‑action for likes, subscriptions, and encouragement to use free knowledge.
Chapters
I think YouTube made me a millionaire in my 20s, coming from a poor third world country, born to poor parents, and now living this life in Dubai, driving a Porsche, whatever, whatever. I think YouTube made me a millionaire. What do I mean by that? I was just in the shower doing some reflection, and I was thinking, and then I, you know, had this idea to shoot this video. I think YouTube was a great— was the great— was greatly responsible for my success. And I'm explaining to you why. Of course, I have grit, I have work ethic, I have, you know, all the traits, the personality traits that I have. I'm conscientious. And but If it were 100 years ago, I may have had all those traits, but I might not have had the knowledge and wisdom available out there that's available on YouTube to be able to put my traits into action and be able to change my philosophy and change my beliefs. Because I did have all the traits, but I had wrong beliefs and a wrong philosophy. You know, I used to think that if it's not going well, It's because of the taxes, the inflation, the, the jobs, the, the, the country I lived in, you know, poor third world country. I lived in Brazil. Um, it was all those explanations instead of the only real explanation, which was me and my personal philosophy, right? Um, so I, I did have— I didn't have a perfect philosophy and I didn't have perfect belief systems, but I did have the traits. But if it weren't for YouTube, I don't think I would have been able to change my belief system and my traits and my philosophy and to be able to live the life that I live today. Because I was thinking, like, the first ever contact that I had with somebody that planted a seed in my mind that it's possible to change was in 2016 or 2015. I think it was Tai Lopez, where I saw an ad where he was like, here in my garage, just got this new Lamborghini here. But you know what I like more than materialistic things? Knowledge. And then he opened my mind to reading books and accumulating knowledge and developing yourself to the max to be able to achieve your goals, right? And so I started doing that. And then also Tai Lopez introduced me— I was watching one of Tai Lopez's live streams where he talked about this guy named Jim Rohn that has a 4-hour-long seminar on YouTube You know, from the 1990s or whatever, talking about, you know, self-development, learning, you know. And Tai Lopez recommended that video and said it was very good, whatever. And so I decided to watch that, and that video turned me every way but loose, right? That video— and after I watched that video, 5 years later, I became a millionaire. And that video was a big impact on my success today, right? And it was a video on YouTube. And the video that I watched by Tai was a video on YouTube. And, and then a couple months later, after watching that Jim Rohn seminar, I stumbled upon a video of a guy talking about how to make money with dropshipping. This was in 2017, okay? This was in 2017. Then I started to study this dropshipping thing, and then I started doing the dropshipping thing. I made a little bit of money, had a little bit of success with dropshipping. That was my first online business. Again, a video from YouTube. And then I tried— I tried so many different things. I started learning so many different things on YouTube, like affiliate marketing, Amazon FBA, crypto, day trading, forex. I started just learning all these different business models, SMMA, and I tried a bunch of different things, and I didn't really have much success in any of them except dropshipping. I did have a little bit of success in dropshipping. That was first— my first little bit of success. And then SMMA, when I started doing SMMA, selling marketing services to local businesses like gyms, hair salons, you know, restaurants, whatever. I started doing that. I had a little bit of success with that as well. And, and I was just reflecting here how all these opportunities were— wouldn't have been presented to me had I not had YouTube not existed, right? It's crazy to think how YouTube is the big equalizer, is the big opportunity generator. Like, you're watching this video right now on YouTube, right? And you have the opportunity to watch my videos, watch maybe some other people's videos, you know, these guys that teach, teach you how to make money online. You know, I'm one of these guys that teach you how to make money online. You don't have to buy my course though, right? I By the way, I get a bunch of people, you know, that say, hey, I watched your video on YouTube, or I watch your advertising on Facebook or Instagram, whatever. I've already bought a bunch of courses, and I want to know why I should buy your course. You know, if you're— if your course works, you know, I bought all these courses, none of them worked. And I always tell them, dude, don't buy my course. Please do not buy my course. I do not need your money. You just said me you have a bunch of other courses. So go study those and make those work, right? You don't need another business model, right? It's called the shiny object syndrome. We like to, you know, we see something else afar that looks really good, looks really easy. Oh, you know what? Let me switch to that business model. You know, I was trying to do this business model, but let me go to that one because this one is hard. Yeah, let me try that one. I think that one's easier. Then you go to that one, then you see another one. Oh, you know what? I think that's the thing that I need to do. That's called the shiny object syndrome. You're jumping from thing to thing instead of focusing on one thing. So to everybody that asks me, by the way, why should I buy your course? You know, I bought a bunch of other courses and they didn't work. I'll say, don't buy my course. Like, please do not buy my course. I do not need your money. Go study the courses that you do have and apply them. You know what I mean? Like, you can get success with any course, like, and By the way, when people say it doesn't work, it's not the course that doesn't work, it's you that doesn't work, you know, because it's not hard. Businesses— there's a reason 95% of businesses fail in the first 5 years. But anyways, you know, I'm— I yap a lot. So yeah, YouTube, man, YouTube is so crazy how you're able to— how you're able to like, just like all the knowledge of the world is available. On the internet, on YouTube, on Google. Like, the whole wisdom of the world is available. The last 6,500 years of written history and all the books we've ever written in history are available on the internet, and most of the times for absolutely free. And you ask most people, you know, how many books have you read the past, you know, 12 months? What do they say? Zero. Does that tell you something about somebody's philosophy, about somebody's beliefs, about somebody's, you know, work ethic? And the answer is of course. So, you know, it's like the, um, author of the book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker, said, the way you do one thing is the way you do absolutely everything else in your life. So if you have a lack of discipline in, you know, taking all the knowledge and wisdom that's— that has ever been written and recorded over the past 6,500 years of written history, like, and you don't take that knowledge and wisdom and use it for yourself and accumulate that knowledge and, and learn that knowledge and use it to create equity, to create value, to create a business, to create money, to create the lifestyle you want, you know, learn any skill you want, develop any skill you want, have the kind of body you want, make the kind of money you want, drive the kind of car you want, have the kind of relationship with your family that you want. Anything you want is available in books, on YouTube, on Google, and people don't read it. So anyways, I just found it super interesting. I hope this video can inspire you in any way, shape, or form to, you know, take life seriously. Like, we have all the knowledge available. Like, everything is available on the internet. All the knowledge you need, all the wisdom you need, all the courses you need, all the programs you need, all the seminars you need. All the, you know, and everything is available in the world, you know, all the capital you need, all the, you know, market you need. Like, the internet is the great equalizer. And 100 years ago, you wouldn't have been able to become a millionaire if you came from a poor family in a poor third-world country like I did. 100 years ago, this would have been something absolutely batshit crazy impossible. You, you didn't hear 100 years ago of somebody coming from a poor third-world country to poor parents and becoming a self-made millionaire in their 20s. It's just unfathomable. Okay, so use what you have at your fingertips, literally, and for free. Come on, it's free. I mean, you can't get any better than free, right? You can't get— Jim Rohn has such a good story where he says, you You know, and this was at the time that there wasn't any internet, right? Jim Rohn would be crazy nowadays learning about the internet, like, oh my God, all the information is available for free. So Jim Rohn used to say, most towns have what? A library. And how much is a library card? You know, and people would answer, it's free. Yeah, a library card is free. So you have no excuse to go to the library and read some books. It's free. You can't get any better than free. And then Jim Rohn would say, Jim Rohn would say, well, could you at least bring it by? Well, no, at least you gotta go get it, right? It's free. And now you have— you don't even need to go get the physical book at your local library. You can literally find all the information you need online. It's free. Come on, there's no reason for you not to use this information available online, man. Anyways, hope you like this video. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please leave a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel, and I'll see you in the next video.
