- I'm back in my computer lab part of my classroom
which I've been talking about
quite a bit lately, if you haven't seen it.
It's pretty cool.
I'm a high school digital media production teacher
and we're a couple of weeks away
from the start of a new school year,
and this year, what I'd really like to focus on
is motivating students to make stuff,
not just to fulfill a project requirement,
or a grade requirement,
but to use the crazy tools that they have access to
to create something for themselves
to genuinely help them achieve whatever purpose or goal
they set for themselves, and to help them
find a purpose or a goal.
I'm definitely gonna need some help with this one
and luckily I think I know exactly the right person.
(slap)
There we go!
(energetic electronic music)
- But first, if you don't know Cody Wanner, but Cody started
daily vlogging on January first and hasn't missed a day.
In the process, he's also spread a clear message
about the importance of being motivated,
and created a thriving community
of quote unquote small creators.
He's also gotten a lot of attention,
after being featured on Peter McKinnon's channel
in early summer, Cody's own channel exploded.
He's used this growing audience
to connect and share with others
who are working to create cool stuff every day.
Basically, if you need to get some motivating advice,
he's the perfect guy.
- You might think like what do I really have to offer,
you've got stuff to offer, look around you.
What are your friends talking about,
what are the problems, make stuff about that.
I love vlog style stuff, but you can do creative stuff,
you do whatever you want to do,
what you have in your brain,
get it out there, because you can.
Look, here's the thing,
you have this amazing amount of potential inside of you,
you've got amazing ideas, you've got something inside of you
that I want the world to have, like on your behalf.
When I was a kid, I didn't have the internet!
You have the internet, alright,
it's huge, it's big, it's massive,
you can reach anywhere in the world,
(echo)
world, world, world
(energetic music)
- [Tom] This is good advice for everyone,
not just high school students.
Once you realize that you have something of value
to contribute to the world, everything else disappears,
and, to take it one step further, once you realize
that everyone else has something to contribute too,
then you have found the real value
in sharing what you make.
(upbeat rhythmic electronic music)
(upbeat rhythmic electronic music continues)
Like Oswaldo, who changed his life
through sharing on YouTube.
- My channel's rockentry, and it's about rock climbing.
- Okay, and that rocks.
- Thank you
(laughs)
- That feeling that I get when I watch a YouTuber,
and it motivates me and it changes my life,
I wanted that impact to continue.
- One, let me see, focus here,
even if one person is watching,
that's still a whole, entire human.
- See, this is what I love watching Tom and Heather.
'cause, that one impact, that's me.
They impacted me.
When people come up to me and tell me that,
man, you've helped me so much,
like, they talk to me like they know me.
It's so lonely as a creator,
like nobody understands your struggles,
Nobody understands like, it's so hard,
YouTube is so, so hard.
You get to know a person when they do YouTube,
'cause it takes a lot of work.
- Yeah
- Time, work, effort, commitment.
When we meet, what we see, we don't just see each other,
but we see the hard work that we put in to this.
- So we take our cameras out into the world,
and make something to share with others.
Ben is also a teacher in London. And I'm a teacher.
- I feel like we're the next level down,
and we're tryin' to get the people to want to be doers.
- Yeah
- And then we'll just hand them on to Cody.
- Once the curiosity is sparked it's no problem, but,
- Yeah, I try and foster that in them
it's more about the process than the end result, always.
It's okay to fail, and I always say how you do anything
is how you do everything, so it doesn't matter
if you're doing a lesson you don't like,
you've got to give it your all,
- How did you end up here today in Los Angeles,
at this No Small Creator meet-up.
- Okay, serendipity is how I ended up here.
I haven't been to LA for eight years,
and the last time I came was for two days.
I'm here for one day, which is today,
I've started following Cody maybe a month ago
when the Peter McKinnon video came out,
so I joined the No Small Creator group.
The odds are, I worked it out if you're interested,
zero point zero one seven percent chance of this happening,
of me being on, here on the day
that these guys are here, and Cody's here.
- My names Brandon, I have a YouTube channel
called This is Tech Today, where you have
honest tech reviews, how-to's and the news.
You know what, it's something that I love.
I'm talking about tech, and I've always been
kind of a geek, so I'm just having fun
in front of everybody else.
And so that journey of learning something new
even if it seems hard, or I stink at it at first,
is so much fun, so if you enjoy the journey
of growing, you should totally do this.
- That's good, I love that,
if you enjoy the journey of growing.
- And if you're stressing about, about every single thing,
like the numbers and things like that, just stop it.
(laughs)
- Allow your personality to shine, let yourself out.
I mean if you're having fun, other people will feel it too.
- [Woman] Okay
- Just to wrap up with my favorite colabber in the world.
- First of all, every single creator, no matter
the size of your channel, how many videos,
how long you've been doing this,
everyone goes through the same exact struggle.
You feel very excited when you first come on the platform.
You feel re-energized, and you're discovering
your creativity, and all these things,
and then you're going to hit that like, oh my gosh,
no one's watching the videos, you know,
I'm trying to daily upload, and your hit anxiety
and everything just gets crazy, but,
the one thing that everyone had in common,
was that they just keep going.
They just keep creating, and that opens up opportunities.
That will eventually build your audience,
you're able to make an impact
- Yeah.
- It is so personal, the fact that we can connect
with such like-minded people like this, it's amazing.
- If your videos get twelve views, that's twelve individuals
who can walk away from that phone, and change the world.
Even if you only have one view,
who knows what that one person is doing,
and who they effect and what they're doing,
it's extremely important that you understand
the power of one, the power that you have to effect
and change the world, it's, it's real!
This is the real, we're not kidding.
- [Tom] As Cody says, there's nothing small
about the act of creation. So no matter what size
creator you are, never forget the power of one.
(upbeat electronic music)