- Oh geez, it's happened again.
I'm sure you know this feeling.
I need to try something new.
- The people who have mastered the art
of telling stories win in almost everything they do.
- All right then, challenge accepted.
This video is brought to you by vidIQ Max,
where creators just like you
are learning everything there is to know
about how to grow on YouTube.
Check out the link below in the description
for a massive discount.
10 years ago, I was a teacher,
but I didn't want to be.
Long hours, hard work, terrible pay,
uncertain future.
Helping the students though,
that was awesome.
It gave me a sense of purpose.
But inevitable happened,
I was out of a job.
I didn't know what I was gonna do next.
And then just like everybody watching this,
I discovered YouTube.
With this, I could help anyone with anything anywhere,
and I could talk about stuff
I was really passionate about.
But I was rubbish at making videos.
Some would say I still am.
So naturally, I went onto YouTube to find out
how to YouTube properly,
and that's when I discovered Tim Schmoyer.
- Telling a good story creates an experience,
and an experience is just very critical
to changing someone's behavior,
giving them a different viewpoint.
If they can't be there in the moment
to experience the story firsthand themselves,
with all the emotions
and all the adrenaline that might go along with it,
hearing a well told story impacts the brain,
the heart, the emotions, very similarly
to as if they actually experienced it themselves.
- Tim is one of the original YouTube educators.
Almost everything you learn from me
is a byproduct of what I learned
from Tim a decade ago.
He has worked with some of the biggest brands
on the planet and now he works with vidIQ.
Tim's very simple mission is to reach people
and change their lives,
and this is how he does it.
- Stories are persuasive, right?
They build relationships.
We like hanging out with people
who can tell good stories, right?
It earns trust.
It makes people feel something.
People who feel guarded are now feeling
a little disarmed, right?
They're a little bit more open to new ideas.
It teaches principles and lessons
in very engaging ways.
And it's kind of what we all
just naturally do with each other as humans,
when you meet someone for the first time.
- I first started watching Tim's videos
when I had less than 10,000 views.
Back then, that's all you needed to get monetize.
Yep, I realize that might be quite annoying right now.
But I was making all of the classic rookie mistakes.
I was making whatever videos I wanted,
spending five minutes on my thumbnails.
And not for one second was I thinking
about the value proposition
or the target audience of my content.
Yes, Tim, those two things are seared
into my brain thanks to you.
But what does storytelling have to do with all of this?
Well, I think Tim's better qualified
to answer that than me.
- But when I stop and like share this type of story,
what happens is people's whole demeanor change.
They put down their pencil and their paper,
or their notebook or whatever it is they're writing on,
and they lean back, they cross their arms,
and they start smiling.
They started enjoying themselves, right?
And then when I start getting the content,
then they pick it up again,
but now they're listening more intently,
'cause I created an emotional connection with them.
I've captured their attention,
maybe even their hearts a little bit.
It's people, like they click,
but they start telling a story
and they're like, oh.
Like they shut down the part
of their brains like give me information,
and they switch into this like,
I wanna enjoy myself right now.
- With Tim's help, I got monetized.
I found my audience, which back then
was how to record your iPhone screen
because it was really hard to do.
I started to gain momentum, build a community,
earn enough money to reinvest back in the channel.
But I wanted more, more skills,
more knowledge, more confidence,
and I didn't know how to do that myself.
So have a guess where some of that YouTube money went,
on Tim Schmoyer's courses,
because even though I'd never met or spoken to him,
I'd built a connection through his videos.
- So for a YouTube audience, there's primarily
three main benefits we see happening
consistently on videos that tell stories well.
First one, first benefit we see is audience engagement,
like it's holding their attention.
And then two, it's creating an emotional connection,
which then leads to more watch time.
- 10,000 subscribers, a million views,
$100 a month in ad revenue.
All of these things,
huge passion fueling milestones
that made me want to create more, reach more people,
maybe turn this YouTube channel into a real business.
And then life got in the way.
- [Tim] Hearing a well told story
impacts the brain, the heart,
the emotions, very similarly
to as if they actually experienced it themselves.
That's why people can cry when watching movies.
They know it's on a screen.
- My relationship at the time fell apart
and that crushed me creatively.
On top of that, I was offered a job
I couldn't refuse, taking me on the adventure
of a lifetime to Canada, but also away from YouTube.
For more than two years,
my channel simply stagnated.
I made the occasional video here and there,
but my heart and my soul just wasn't in it.
Quite frankly, I was going through the motions,
and the motions were telling me
it's just not worth it anymore.
- We have a couple of excuses I know,
you know, I often hear these from creators,
like, well, it's just a gift.
Like some people got it, some people don't.
But it's not a gift.
You can learn it.
It's a skill.
It takes work, it takes time.
You're not gonna master it
right by the time we're done talking here.
But as you practice this and move forward with it,
like it's a skill that can be learned by anyone.
Just like music or even editing a video,
people can learn it, but your first video
you edited, was it as good
as you can probably do now a few years later?
Absolutely not.
Same with storytelling.
- Fortunately, I did have the time of my life in Canada,
and I met the one and I married her.
I became whole, content, happy,
and that was enough to convince me
to start making videos again,
and that melting pot of creativity boiled once again.
And once more, I went to Tim for help this time for real.
I managed to book a session
with him for just $79, which was an absolute bargain.
Tim probably can't believe he ever did such an offer.
I chatted with him, I learned from him.
I applied everything back into my YouTube efforts.
I was motivated, I was creating,
I was growing.
And then once again,
life had a major plot twist.
- Sometimes we think storytelling's magic and it's not.
It's actually very predictable.
We confuse a series of events for a story.
We think that a good story is this happened,
and then this happened, and then this happened,
and then this happened, the end.
And that doesn't engage anyone.
- This tweet changed everything.
It was for a video that to this day
has a round about 4,000 views.
But one of those views was vidIQ.
By the end of that day, we had a conversation.
By the end of the month, I made my first video
on their channel, which had 1500 subscribers at the time.
Within 18 months, we had 100,000 subscribers,
millions of views, and I was the face of a company.
But I had a decision to make.
- I think it's easy to maybe point
to people like Casey Neistat,
and we think, "Oh, it needs to look like that."
Or we point to Pixar and say,
"Oh, it needs to look like that,"
but it doesn't need to look in a certain way.
There's a lot of flexibility to the system,
and I'll show you some examples here in a second.
But story can manifest itself
in a lot of different forms,
in a variety of different ways.
- vidIQ wanted me to become their full-time educator,
but to do that I would have to leave my career,
and put aside my personal YouTube channel and aspirations.
I agonized over this decision
for all of five seconds,
because I knew this was another opportunity of a lifetime.
So I said, yes, but was it the right decision?
- Stories go places.
They have forward momentum.
That's why people, we often say things like,
"Ah, this story just isn't going anywhere,"
and we're bored of the story.
So the job of any proper,
of any storyteller who's gonna tell a good story
is to communicate proper motion.
You need to create that motion
and communicate that motion to any story.
- Well, here's the thing.
The people I help today
are awesome, brave, incredible.
These people come from wildly diverse backgrounds,
and they are highly motivated
to achieve what they set out to do.
And it is so rewarding for me
to witness those people,
those creators gain confidence
and discover creative freedom.
So you're damn right, it was, it still is,
and will be well into the future the right choice.
- This is what Casey Neistat said about his vlogs.
He's like, "This is not a journal.
But instead, could I find every day
in my life a three act narrative to share?"
That's what he was doing so well with his videos.
That's why people love his content.
It's not because of the drone footage,
or the fancy music, or whatever else, right?
So let me equip you with something practical
that I think I hope you can use and take
to start implementing on your very next video.
- (groans) How's that for a cliffhanger?
In the full conversation about storytelling,
Tim covers the narrative arc.
Seven character elements that can be told
in a story as short as 15 seconds with no audio,
and how even education channels can succeed
with storytelling on YouTube.
It's available right now on vidIQ Max,
along with 40 more conversations
with people all across the YouTube spectrum.
From copyright lawyers, to marketing experts,
to the world's leading YouTube educators,
like Tim Schmoyer.
You know, it's why I've been wearing this T-shirt
for the entire video and you've not been able to see it.
So that's my story.
What's yours?
Let us know in the comments below.
(gentle music)