Hank and John Green of the vlogbrothers
are some of the most influential people on YouTube.
Collectively, they're responsible for multiple huge channels
including vlogbrothers and CrashCourse,
best-selling books and movies like The Fault in Our Stars,
Harry-Potter-inspired music, and the biggest YouTube conference, VidCon.
So it's not surprised when amazing cool things seem to fall into their laps like this —
...I have no idea where this happened
but someone at Google called me a couple days ago and was like,
"Do you want to hang out with the President?" and I was like,
"Meh, it depends. The president of what?"
but then they were like, "Yeah, the president of the United States, Barack Obama.
Do you want to be in a Google Hangout and ask him a few questions?" and I was like,
"Mmm, okay."
And that's not just a one-time thing.
Hank was one of three Youtubers selected to interview President Obama in person.
So in this video, we're going to cover how to create that amazing kind of luck in your own life,
how to build a community that wields unimaginable levels of influence
and how to be the hub of that community
even if, to you, that just means being the center of a group of friends
and the person who gets the call to every cool event.
But first, let's start with the charisma basics —
the way that the vlogbrothers present their material.
I'm scared of the dark.
Yeah, as well as you should be — it's terrifying.
Just be grateful you're not a vampire.
My biggest problem is my sister.
She is annoying and a vampire.
Yeah. Well, to be fair, she's probably annoying because she's a vampire.
I hate it when you're about to sit on the one last seat left on the bus
and then someone takes the seat.
Right. So the thing to do in that situation is to assume,
even if it's improbable, that that person needs the seat more than you do.
It may not be true but it would be very helpful to you
in terms of keeping sane particularly, like, in parking lots around Christmas.
What you saw there is from a Q&A series
that's back-to-back questions — one answered jokingly and the other, seriously.
Now this might seem like a weird quirk of the vlogbrothers
but it's actually how almost all good education occurs these days.
It's spliced in with entertainment
kind of like mixing your veggies in with sweets.
This goes back to a very common theme that we cover in a lot of videos
which is that if you want to communicate any message,
you first need attention.
Bouncing back and forth between facts and jokes keeps that attention tight.
Check out here how John does just that with the visuals in CrashCourse history.
...one of the reasons that Franz Ferdinand's uncle didn't like him that much
is that the Emperor was really hardcore
whereas Franz Ferdinand, you know, he was kind of a moderate.
Another interesting thing about the vlogbrothers
is that they don't necessarily lead with the most important stuff
but with the the most interesting or most practical stuff.
This flies in the face of normal educational practice.
For instance, when I studied philosophy as an undergraduate,
the first thing we did was read a bunch of old Greek guys
who had crazy theories about the shape of fire, and wind, and water particles.
The whole point was to understand and explain their crazy theories
even though modern science proved them to be wrong.
It was tedious and to this date, I have not found a useful use for that in my own life.
But when Hank taught philosophy in CrashCourse,
he'd open, instead, with questions that spark curiosity like this one.
...it's your funeral. No, um, actually you're dead.
Your loved ones are all sitting around reminiscing about your life.
What are they saying? How will you be remembered?
Did you have a good life? How would we know?
What constitutes a good life?
The first thing to consider is whether the value of a life is determined by the liver of that life or by other people.
By making us sometimes abstract topic like philosophy interesting and relatable,
Hank is able to connect with a much bigger audience than my university was
but of course, it's not just about being interesting —
you've also got to be a teacher that your students can trust
and both Hank and John create massive amounts of trust
by sharing vulnerable stories from their own lives.
You can check out the whole story in the description but for now,
here's a quick excerpt of John discussing his experience with depression
and it's an experience that many people have had but few talk so openly about.
So here's a story — I was 24 and my longtime girlfriend had just broken up with me
and I was living in Chicago in what had been our apartment with what had been our cat.
And I was pretty depressed — I thought the depression was a result of having been dumped
but in retrospect, getting dumped was probably at least partly a result of the depression.
Normally, I would dive deeper into the presentation but in the case of vlogbrothers,
the presentation is the smaller part of what makes them so successful.
Their real genius is that they are absolute masters
of bringing people together for a common cause.
They can marshal enough forces to push a book out five months early,
raise money for charity, kickstart a performing career,
or make the largest video conference out of thin air
and they do it by creating engaged communities.
So I want to break down now how they created theirs.
It started with bi-weekly vlogs back and forth to one another on Youtube
and despite having spent several months making those types of videos
their first big break came when this video went viral —
#Because I need Harry Potter#
#Like a Grindylow needs water#
#And as Saturday approaches my need grows#
#Oh… Accio, Deathly Hallows#
#Incendio, book sales embargoes#
#It’ll feel like phoenix tears on a broken nose#
Yes, it was the Harry Potter fan song that broke through all the noise
and got the vlogbrothers their biggest traction
which demonstrates the first rule of building a community —
you're usually better off starting within a pre-existing community that you're a part of.
Now this rule isn't hard and fast but it was certainly the case with Charisma on Command.
The first people who joined way back in the day
came almost exclusively from reddit where I would share my early articles and videos
and this same piece of advice applies to a community of friends as well
so if you're looking for friends attending meetups, sporting events, and co-working spaces
is a great place to start.
Once you've got your first followers though, you need to differentiate yourself
and one of the best ways to do that is by talking about what you believe.
What matters to me most is how much I love people
and how much the people that I love love me.
...most importantly, try to surround yourself with people you like and make cool stuff with them.
In the end, at least in my experience,
what you do isn't going to be nearly as interesting or important as who you do it with.
...no matter your circumstances, you are valuable, and rare, and worthy of love.
Simon Sinek highlights this point in his book in Ted Talk, Start With Why
but it bears repeating here —
people want to be around others who believe what they believe.
So if you want to make your community really passionate,
you can't just entertain or teach or tell jokes —
you need to let people know what you think life is about.
John and Hank make it clear that to them, life is about giving
and growing and being unashamedly passionate about the things that you love.
This ethos comes through in nearly everything John and Hank do
and it attracts people who feel similarly.
In terms of making friends, it means that when you meet people that you might like,
you've got to find a way to let them know what you're passionate about.
Otherwise, all those introductions
turn into Facebook friends that you'll probably never meet again.
So once you've got your group of people who believe the same thing,
you need to create ways for them to identify and signal their affiliation.
This could be secret handshakes or signs like this —
...nerd life is just so much better than regular life.
(makes a gun-cocking sound)
Nerd lifers.
Or it could be unique words and inside jokes like
doobly-doo, dftba, and puppy-sized elephants.
But what you absolutely we need is a name for people to call themselves.
Think of how strongly people feel when they say they're Republicans,
Democrats, New Yorkers, or even believers.
In the case of the vlogbrothers, you've got nerdfighters.
...nerdfighter is basically just a community that sprung up around our videos
and basically we just get together and try to do awesome things
and have a good time and fight against
Much to my shame, I never did this with Charisma on Command
despite the fact that 800,000 people have subscribed to the channel
and thousands more have joined our online courses.
So I want to correct that with a proper name for anyone who follows our stuff
or practices the type of things that we teach.
Now, we joke around in my house often but
cock commanders might give people the wrong idea
so if you have any good suggestions, please write them in the comments —
I'm looking for a good name.
But all of this — the beliefs, the signals, the name —
only lays the groundwork because what is made the vlogbrothers so special
is that they aren't content to let their community exist solely in the comments section.
Once they have this group and that group is passionate and they care about the same things
and they have a name, they invite them to the same physical location.
This is where the magic happens.
Internet friends are great but to get the most potential out of any group,
there needs to be a physical space where they can mix,
bump into one another, hug, dance, and really connect.
When you think about building your own communities or friend group,
focus on finding a common interest whether it's board games, or soccer, or sci-fi book discussion
and then invite people to the same place to participate and mingle.
Again, I have not done a great job with this with our channel
but it's something that I'm going to be working on more this summer.
Anyway, there's one other thing that I should mention
and it's that despite all of the efforts that both Hank and John put into their thousands of videos,
the events they hold, the books, and the albums that they've created —
they are insistent on crediting their community for their success.
...trying to find something that they believe is important
and I'm so grateful, changing topics here really fast,
that nerdfighteria has provided that for me.
People talk about all the things that I've been able to do
but it is only because I found something here that I can believe in.
...in congratulating me after they see The Fault in Our Stars movie as if I did anything
but all I did was get lucky —
lucky to the book publisher, lucky to have a great cover,
lucky to the people I sold the movie rights to happen to be brilliant,
lucky that the wonderful cast and crew and director came together to make a great movie.
I mean, heck, I didn't make savvy decisions in this process or anything but just got lucky.
And this is the most counterintuitive piece of community-building.
The more that it's about you, the less vibrant community and the less influence it has
but the more you make it about other people — their interest, the more you empower them,
the more you get to participate in all of the amazing things that come out of that community
that you never could have dreamed up yourself.
So whether you're trying to make a 20,000 person conference or a group of five great friends,
keep the focus on other people.
That means that you don't sit at home on Friday night
and wait for someone to invite you to a supercool party,
you organize something fun like a scavenger hunt, or laser tag, or even a game night.
Make it about other people having an amazing time,
about them meeting cool new friends and improve their lives.
If you do that, you will have what the vlogbrothers have — you will be the hub.
You'll be one of the people that everyone calls on a Friday night to find out what to do,
the one that knows about every party before it happens
and maybe even the one that gets to talk to the president
when he makes his official YouTube debut.
There you have it — some of the most basic steps to building a community and friend group.
If you're curious about some of the fundamentals
of how to handle some of those first interactions with that new group,
we set up another video that discusses the four emotions that lead to a great first impression
every time and if you want to see that video, just click the button here,
submit your email on the next page, and you'll be taken to see it right away.
If you like this video and want to join our community
of whatever the heck it is that we decide to call ourselves in the next few weeks,
go ahead and click Subscribe now.
If you do that, you'll be more likely to see our new videos in the sidebar
and the home page plus you'll hear about any in-person events that we set up
based on the inspiration from the vlogbrothers.
So if that sounds like something that you're interested in,
go ahead and click Subscribe now.
If you've got any cool names for us and topics to cover,
please write those in the comments.
I'm very curious to see what you come up with —
please, please though, keep it PG.
Of course, I hope that you've enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next one.