- Oh, hey guys.
All right, so real quick,
what you will if you're gonna, if you subscribe.
So it started with a few.
You know, it was very, you know.
That was the beginning,
and like most beginnings, it was messy.
So I remember the months leading up to shooting that video.
I was sitting in the kitchen of my Brooklyn apartment.
I had my face in my hands and without looking up
I told my partner, Natalie, I don't think I can do it.
You see, for months I'd been talking about
starting my YouTube channel,
about making original videos
and putting myself on camera for the first time.
But even after years as a freelance filmmaker,
I still felt so unprepared to make that leap.
The self doubt was crippling
but Natalie took her credit, looked at me
without even flinching and said, you have to do it.
What have you got to lose?
So with no clear plan or direction,
one day I pulled out my camera,
set up my tripod, assembled my light and hit record.
And after filming and editing my first video
I somehow summoned the courage to click upload.
Hey guys, what's going on?
My name's Matt D'Avella.
I'm a documentary filmmaker
and this is my new YouTube channel.
The result of that video wasn't special.
It got me a whole eight subscribers,
but at the same time, it was completely life changing.
You see this video kicked the wheels in emotion
and it got me started.
Finally, I'm pretty sure that in the very beginning
this is gonna be one of the worst things
that anybody's ever heard
but it's gonna get really good.
It's gonna get better.
The mindset that changed my life was this,
start before you think you're ready
because you'll never really think that you're ready,
but trust me, you are.
I look back at so many times
throughout my life where I didn't feel like I was qualified
to make the leap.
I think back to when I was in college
and I wanted to start my freelance filmmaking business,
I didn't think I had any right to get paid
to make videos, but I eventually found somebody
to pay me a hundred bucks
to spend 40 hours working on a video.
And I was able to build upon that.
It wasn't the greatest video in the world
but it was a step in the right direction.
I also think back to the years of dating anxiety
that I had.
I had five years of really crippling social anxiety.
And I kept flaking on dates.
I kept pushing it back week after week after week,
but eventually I had to come to terms with the fact
that I would never feel truly confident and comfortable
to go out on that first date.
And I remember I was nervous as hell.
I was literally shaking in the shower before that first date
and that person wasn't the love of my life.
I didn't go on a second date with them,
but it was the step in the right direction.
And that's exactly what happened
when I started my YouTube channel.
The first video wasn't amazing.
The next few weren't great either.
But that first step, just pushing through that fear,
anxiety and doubt got me to move forward.
There are so many forms of procrastination.
We bury our heads in self-help books,
watch endless YouTube videos.
We tell people that we're eventually gonna get started
once we've gotten enough experience,
built the skills we need or made the right connections.
The truth is that we put it off because we're afraid.
We're worried that people will make fun of us.
That we'll fail.
That we'll try and it will never work out.
And won't that really get people talking.
But if you don't get started now,
you're missing out on all the lessons
that come from the actual process of creating.
Worst of all, if you never start,
you'll only be left with regret.
And that's exactly what I felt
after I started to make my first video.
You know what?
I might crash and burn, but there are a lot worse things
in life than trying something and failing.
Once I got going, I found that in the first few months,
it was actually really exciting.
I mean, since I had broken through
that initial phase of doubt,
I felt like I could build momentum.
I felt like I was working towards something.
I was facing new challenges and problems
that I'd never experienced before.
And just because it was exciting
didn't mean that it wasn't difficult.
Some of these questions that I faced
were truly difficult to overcome.
Among the many questions I asked myself,
will I ever be able to make this work?
How do I get people interested in what I have to say?
Oh, and also, what do I do with my hands?
I'm not sure where to look.
I'm not sure what to do with my hands.
Check, check, check.
How does that look?
- Hot!
- But I pushed my doubts to the side and I kept going.
I was just having too much fun to give up.
I faced an entire year of stagnant growth.
My bank account was drying up,
my subscriber account stalled
and it didn't seem like I was ever gonna be able
to make a living on YouTube,
but I knew that I wasn't ready to give up.
And so I pushed forward.
I continued to experiment
with different styles of filmmaking.
I focused on the craft and made the best possible content
I could.
Some of the videos I made sucked and some were pretty good.
Understand that things
aren't always gonna go according to plan.
And if they did, that would be boring.
I used whatever resources I could find to get the job done.
And I didn't let excuses get in my way.
Oh my God.
These shots, this has been a whole day thing.
Success is never guaranteed.
And anybody who tells you that it is, is lying
because there are so many things
that are outside of our control.
If we continue to work really hard though,
if we experiment and try new things along the way,
we might just find that we actually do get lucky.
And we've actually given ourselves a chance to get lucky
because we've gotten started and we've given it a shot.
So we're looking at I went from about 120
to 130 YouTube subscribers today literally overnight.
I have 475, which is incredible.
I got hundreds of subscribers
and then eventually grew that to a couple thousand.
I got 50,000 subscribers here on YouTube.
Oh yeah.
And the Rock tweeted at me.
When you look back at my early videos,
those early outtakes that I showed you
at the beginning of this video,
you might wonder how the hell someone like that
was able to build a YouTube channel
with millions of subscribers.
And it's because I got started before I thought I was ready.
So if you're in the same position that I was
when I was living back in Brooklyn
and I was filled with so much doubt,
wondering whether I should make that leap or not,
whether that's a YouTube channel for you
or it's writing your first book,
or it's quitting your job and going to move into a van.
The one thing I'd recommend is that you need to start
before you think that you're ready.
And once you take that leap,
you'll realize that it's not nearly as scary
as you're making it out to be.
You'll learn so much along the way.
And yes, you might fail
but I'd so much rather you fail spectacularly
than never give it a shot to begin with.
And so just like Natalie gave me that advice so long ago,
I'd also like to give that advice to you right now.
If you want to do something in this life,
this one life that you have, you have to do it.
What have you got to lose?
So one of the reasons that I've been looking back
at my old YouTube videos and my YouTube journey
is because over the past year
I've actually been working on my next course.
And that course is actually launching today!
And I'm so excited to share it with you.
If you happen to be somebody who's looking
to build a YouTube channel for themselves
or you've been struggling to build your YouTube channel
for months now, I'm really excited to introduce to you
my new course "Master YouTube".
Introducing Master YouTube,
your roadmap for creating a successful channel
with integrity.
In this course, you won't find any clickbait tactics
or gimmicks that don't actually teach you
how to make great videos.
You'll learn how to come up with original ideas.
I'll show you exactly how to turn those ideas
into a compelling script.
So this is part of the writing process, right?
This is like, this is really what happens.
Even if you're starting out with a smartphone,
you'll learn the foundational elements
of how to film yourself on camera.
I'll introduce you to a process
for how to edit your videos twice as fast,
making amazing videos is just one part of the puzzle.
How do you make a compelling thumbnail?
How do you workshop titles?
How do you break through the noise?
You'll learn how to develop the right mindset to succeed.
And I'll share a model for growing your first 1000 true fans
and beyond.
For the first time ever,
I'm showing you each and every step you need to take
to build a successful YouTube channel for yourself
because you don't need to make all the same mistakes
that I did.
So if you wanna learn more about this course
or if you wanna enroll today,
you can go to slowgrowth.com/MasterYouTube.
You can click the link down in the description below,
so much more info on the website.
You can really dive in and see exactly what comes
with the course.
Now regardless of whether you wanna join the course or not,
I just wanna say it's more important to me
that you get started.
I just want you to pursue the things in life
that are scaring the shit out of you.
If my course helps you, that's great.
But if not, don't let this stop you
from getting started today.
That's so important and trust me you will not regret it.
So one quick housekeeping item with this course,
it's different than Simple Habits, my first course.
The enrollment is actually gonna only be open
for the next two weeks.
And so it's gonna close on May 19th.
So if you wanna sign up, go to the site, check it all out.
The reason that we've done this
is because we wanna make sure that we can onboard students
and answer all the questions that they have right away
in the very beginnings,
make that process nice and smooth for all of us.
And I'm also gonna be doing a couple live AMAs
to welcome students, to answer any questions they have
about filmmaking, creativity
and building their own YouTube channel.
And also because I'm doing this short term enrollment,
it means that I'm only gonna be talking about this
for the next couple weeks.
And then after that,
you're not gonna hear me talk about this for the next year.
And so this just allows me to focus more time
on creating new courses,
creating more YouTube videos here for free,
and other fun stuff that I like to share with you guys.
And so you can go to that link again in the description.
Thank you so much for your support.