(bright music)
♫ Sometimes I make
♫ This life thing harder than it needs
- Testing one, two, three, lookin' at the levels.
That looks good right about,
right about there, lock that down.
Perfect.
Zoom this in so you guys don't see it.
It's all part of the process here.
All the little things you guys don't see.
Here we go.
Pretty much set.
Straighten this hat out,
got a little monitor right here that I can see myself in.
Hopefully you guys never see me actually looking at it
and adjusting.
Perfect.
What.
♫ So many lights lights lights
♫ With us tonight night night
♫ Don't let them go to waste
♫ Look into my eyes eyes eyes
♫ It's gonna be alright right right
♫ Tomorrow's gonna be okay
♫ One moment one shot
(upbeat music)
Shooting waterfalls with my friend Jesse.
This is a very small plane.
Wide shot.
Quick change up.
Headed back down to the reception now.
Okay we are going to eat.
I haven't had food since yesterday,
so I'm pretty excited.
- We had this best friend thing yesterday.
I didn't eat any food, today he hasn't eaten any food.
- Peter has a bicep that big on his right arm
and his left arm bicep is like that.
- A noodle.
It's like a pencil or crayon.
Does it bother you that I ride a booster board?
- No, but can you plug that into the charger
when you're done with it?
- [Peter] Yeah.
♫ But tonight I got the cool
♫ And I wanna go dance with you
♫ So if you are in the mood
♫ It's worth it
♫ We don't belong with masks on
♫ Leave them here and don't look back
♫ So many lights lights lights
♫ With us tonight night night
♫ Don't let them go to waste
♫ Look into my
I'm literally the only one out here.
I couldn't be around anymore coffee if I tried.
♫ It's gonna be alright right right
♫ Tomorrow's gonna be okay
- I could just chill out here.
No one would ever know.
- I don't know if I'm gonna make it back.
I taste blood,
and other things.
♫ That's all we got
Oh, I just gotta get down.
Right here.
Ugh.
Okay.
Uh.
Like this video.
Subscribe if you aren't already.
And, and,
I'll see you guys in the next video.
♫ Look into my eyes eyes eyes
♫ It's gonna be alright right right
♫ Tomorrow's gonna be okay
♫ One moment one shot
(upbeat music)
♫ Oh that's all we got
(upbeat music)
♫ One moment one shot
(upbeat music)
This is Wimbleton.
Wembles.
Wembley, Wem, Wembleton.
Wembleton Falls.
Yeah how far did you park the tour bus from here?
- How far, pretty far actually, thank you.
(upbeat music)
♫ One moment one shot
♫ One shot one shot
- I want to show you a photo.
It's not an amazing photo, it's not a landscape photo.
It's something I took with a fancy camera.
It's just from a phone,
but it's a snapshot that represents
my life and my time pre-YouTube,
specifically two days before I posted my first video.
There's my friend Chris, my friend Mike,
and myself, and the hat,
but more on that hat later.
But this photo represents a time
before all of our lives changed completely.
Now the thing that we all have in common
and all had in common at the point when this photo was taken
was we were all working for the same company,
and we were all searching for something more.
We all wanted to be doing other things.
We felt that passion, that desire to,
"I feel like I need to change,
"I feel like it's in front of me.
"I want to do it, but is it safe?
"Should I do it?
"Do I have the means to do it?
"That's a big leap of faith, it's scary."
All of those things that everybody thinks.
Everyone has those fears and hesitations,
that's called being human.
We were in L.A. for a wedding, we got flown in,
we were all super pumped,
we sat down to have some tacos,
which were horrible by the way, which is unfortunate,
but despite that, the story goes on,
and you'll see that I'm holding a camera
that's actually Chris's camera,
and this is one of the first days I started vlogging.
Now rewind about a year ago,
I put up like five vlogs as a test,
to see if it was something that I would enjoy doing,
and for whatever reason, I stopped, I quit.
(garage door opening)
So it's 7:15.
I'm running a little behind.
I need some coffee.
I thought,
"I can't do this everyday.
"I can't do this every other day.
"I don't really have that much of an interesting life.
"I don't really go anywhere.
"I don't really travel.
"I'm not doing anything
"like a lot of the other YouTubers that I see.
"I think I'm just gonna hang this up for now."
That's the decision I made.
It might surprise some of you watching this video
as I'm celebrating my one millionth subscriber milestone,
but I'd essentially quit for a whole year.
Now what was interesting was during that year,
I had tons of friends and family
constantly come up to me and say,
"When's the next vlog coming?
"Why haven't you uploaded in a while?"
And that got me thinking like,
"Why are these people expecting to see,
"I haven't vlogged in like five months
"and I only did four.
"What makes you think I'm gonna keep going
"or do anything else?"
It was really interesting to me,
and when I look back now,
those were just all signs
pointing towards my future,
things that I should have been doing earlier,
like I always knew this was something I wanted to do
and all these people were encouraging me
and asking where the next vlog was,
but I was just ignoring it.
I was just putting it to the side
because I didn't want to deal with it,
maybe because I was scared to make that leap of faith
and put myself out there,
but I just, I put it to the side.
So back to this photo,
I started vlogging again during this wedding.
(upbeat music)
♫ Ready
(upbeat music)
I realized that I had been with this company
for seven years,
I'd been working for other people my whole life.
I'd been trying to work for myself,
but I haven't made that final step over the edge yet,
and Chris really helped me to realize that
I haven't made anything for myself in a while,
and I thought,
"You know what, I haven't made a video for myself
"in the longest time."
So I decided to make something for me for once
instead of making a video for my work or my job
or my boss or other employees and people out there.
I just wanted to make something for me,
so I made a video called eight camera hacks in 90 seconds.
You guys may be familiar with that.
It's currently my most viewed video.
Just some fun things that I used to mess around with
with cameras,
and I put it out there and put it online.
(upbeat music)
I had no idea what was gonna happen.
I came home and it hadn't exploded.
There's maybe 2,000 views.
That kept going up, 5,000 views, 10,000,
20,000, 100,000, 200,000 views.
I started sending it to different websites
and every site started posting it.
I saw it on Uncrate, Digg,
Cool Material, Engadget,
all these sites that I used to frequent
were posting my video,
the first video that I made,
and that's when it hit me and I realized,
"Why haven't I done this earlier?"
And that realization almost upset me a little bit
because why didn't I start that earlier
is not something I wanted to be in my phrasebook.
So when I rewind and think to myself,
back when I was sitting in my bed a year ago
watching YouTubers on my phone,
thinking to myself,
"That would be great."
I didn't want that to be the case next year.
So I decided to keep making videos.
I decided to put out another video,
and another video, and I decided to start vlogging
more and more and taking my camera with me,
forgetting the outcome,
be that that's positive or negative,
I just put that aside.
I just needed to start doing something.
Now Chris runs his own successful channel
and makes a living from YouTube.
I run my own channel and make a living
from making these videos.
Mike runs his own little custom wood shop on Etsy,
works for himself and has employees,
and runs his own company and works for himself.
We all had that realization
within days of that photo being taken.
That's why I wanted to start with this picture.
(upbeat music)
Since the beginning of this channel
to one million subscribers,
I have seen hundreds of questions
about where to get this hat,
why do I wear this hat,
what is this hat,
why is this hat so dirty,
so on and so forth.
I'm gonna answer all of those right now.
This hat has been with me since the beginning.
This logo is not my logo.
This is the logo of a coffee company
run by a good friend of mine named David Kennedy.
He runs a company called James Coffee Co.
My favorite type of coffee to this date,
not just because he's a friend,
and not 'cause I'm bias,
legitimately some of the best coffee I've ever had.
This guy is a beast.
Incredible individual.
You can look him up.
He's got quite the resume.
But this is his company.
I started wearing this hat long ago
because I like to support friends
and I like this logo,
and I like coffee, as you guys may have come to realize.
You may have also started seeing that logo
in different places.
So why do I wear this hat all the time?
You guys are always saying,
"Get a new hat, that's so dirty."
But this hat, the sweat stains on this hat,
the sun bleached front of this hat
that used to be black,
but it's now brown.
The back of this hat that my dog has chewed up
because I left it on the floor once.
This hat right here symbolizes my journey
through the beginning of this YouTube channel
to one million subscribers now, where I am today.
This hat's been to the top of mountains
in Zermatt, Switzerland.
This hat has been to the peaks of northern Ireland.
It's been to the plains of Africa,
to the ice caves of Whistler.
This hat has gone with me everywhere.
It's been in almost every tutorial.
It's been in vlogs.
It's been with me the whole way.
The fact that the patch is fraying on the front,
the fact that there are sweat stains here,
this represents hard work.
This represents the blood, sweat and tears
that I put into making content on a weekly basis,
and I love every single minute of it.
When I wear this hat, I'm proud to wear this hat.
This hat is a testament to doing what I love,
to taking my future into my own hands
and just saying,
"I'm gonna go for it."
This hat is a leap of faith.
This hat is taking risks.
This hat is chance.
This hat is the future, this hat is the past.
It's become almost an identity for me online
when people see this hat.
When I don't wear this hat in videos, you guys comment,
"Where's your hat?"
I used to end a lot of my videos that way,
and if I didn't do that,
you guys would comment that I forgot to end the video
with my hat, and I love
that this has become almost a character in and of itself
within these vlogs and tutorials,
and that is also something I'm super proud of.
This hasn't even been opened.
I mean Canon opened it to put C-Log on it,
but this is a fresh, brand new setup.
You can be making beautiful videos,
taking incredible photos with this.
You can start a full-on business with a camera
with this caliber.
So I am extremely excited to be able to give this away
to somebody, so thank you to Canon Canada
for hooking us up.
I love you guys.
Oh, I'm amped.
On top of that, I'm also gonna be giving away
my favorite light.
Now, I use this light right here
with this little remote,
boosh,
to light all of my videos.
It's the Aperture 120D.
It's absolutely phenomenal, hang on.
Ugh.
And I have a brand new one right here
that's never been opened.
I just took it out of the box
so that I could show you guys what it looks like,
but I'm gonna be giving this away
to a second place prize winner,
so that is also up for grabs
in the epic one million giveaway contest video.
And last but not least,
I'm gonna pick five more winners
to win a little custom package that I've put together
with my friends at James Coffee Co.,
featuring the new James Coffee slash Peter McKinnon hat,
my favorite bag of coffee,
and a pack of the new PM Presets 2017,
so five people will be gettin' that.
And I'll be throwin' in a custom pack
of James Coffee Co. playing cards,
so you guys can get the whole little PM package.
That's going out to five people,
so I'm super excited about that.
To be eligible to enter into this contest,
you have to be subscribed
and follow the link below.
It's in the description, I'll leave it on the top line.
Click on that link, all the details are there,
the pictures and stuff,
how to get extra submissions to help bump your chance,
but you gotta be subscribed.
Hit that like button.
I love you guys, I'm super pumped on this.
I'm gonna leave this contest running for about two weeks,
'cause I want enough people to be able to get a chance
to see this in case they don't get to watch this video
for a few days, that kind of thing.
I don't want them to miss out,
so I'm gonna leave it running for two weeks.
All the details of when it starts, it ends,
and everything else are in that link below,
so go ahead and check that out.
And good luck.
So a sincere heartfelt thanks
to each and every single one of you guys
who has given me your time
and subscribed to this channel.
I love you, thank you so much.
I can promise that we are only getting started.
Thank you for participating, for trusting in me.
Thank you for watching these videos
and applying some of the stuff that I'm teaching
into your own work.
I hope it inspires you.
I hope that you are getting something from this.
I hope you enjoy the vlogs
and continue to enjoy the content
that I plan on putting out until I can't put it out anymore.
So,
with that being said,
hit that like button if you like this video.
Subscribe if you aren't already,
and, and we've got lots of work to do.
I'll see you guys tomorrow.
(upbeat music)