There are hundreds — maybe thousands — of YouTube videos with strategies to succeed using the website.
That is because there are thousands — maybe millions — of YouTube users competing to succeed.
Among those hopefuls are a handful who fail to understand that success on YouTube is not a given. One must plan, use strategies, and tools (such as TubeBuddy) to propel forward. Even then success is not guaranteed.
For every Stefan Molyneux and Paul Joseph Watson who seem to effortlessly click on their cameras and garner millions of views, there are countless wannabees struggling to get a tiny following.
That reality is apparently lost on some.
One of those disillusioned souls appears to be — or was — the now infamous YouTube shooter.
No one is entitled to success.
Some seem to believe there are two steps to high achievement. Step one: Show up on American soil. Step two: Become a millionaire by virtue of your brilliance.
Actually, there are countless steps between one and two — and those are contingent upon one’s aptitudes, intelligence, and personality.
My guess is the YouTube shooter lacked all three.
This frustration is based on unwarranted expectations. This, in turn, is fueled by cultural Marxism’s emphasis on white privilege.
When I was 35-years-old I was sitting on the floor in a grocery store at five in the morning scraping bubble gum.
That was part of my job — or one of my five jobs.
I recall rising with the sun one summer Sunday morning, chucking my lawnmower in the trunk, and heading out to mow grass for a real estate agent. That was the second of my five jobs; a fledgling lawn care business. I returned home, showered, donned by wrinkled suit and arrived at church in time to deliver the Sunday sermon where I worked my third job as a part-time Baptist preacher.
Monday morning I was back at the grocery and, after two hours of pushing a Honda buffer through the aisles, I drove to the cable company where I worked in the office full time; job number four. Pay? Seven-dollars per hour. Experience? Invaluable.
During that time I had this laughable notion of launching a direct mail business marketing information to churches and small businesses. That was job number five.
The first year in business was invested developing a foundation. By year’s end I had netted twenty-five dollars which I spent at Wendy’s treating my parents to cheeseburgers. Best meal I’ve ever eaten.
The second year produced a part-time income that was sufficient to cover my $400 mortgage. The third year provided a full-time income and relieved the church of providing a meager paycheck.
About ten years later the local post office informed me I was their second largest customer. Holding first place was an insurance claims processor.
The advent of the Internet — and Google in particular — rendered direct mail efforts fruitless. A dollar invested returned a dollar in sales. Why bother?
The next few years I coasted living on residual income as the customer base steadily declined. I figured I would channel excess cash flow into the stock market. Recall the Internet bubble? Oops! I’ve come to refer to negative income as “tuition.”
Finally, in January of this year, a letter was fired off to my remaining clients: I was retiring.
The interesting thing about the direct mail business is this: My clients knew nothing about me. They did not know my race, religion, gender, height, weight (thank goodness), marital status, or addiction to 1960s beach music.
Privilege had nothing to do with it.
So how did I make it work?
In the 1980s I approached an evangelist friend and offered to design his new newsletter in exchange for advertising in it. I approached a printer and offered to provide design services in exchange for order forms and stationary. I visited the library (a virtual “Google” prior to the Internet) and found a supplier.
Boom. I was in business.
No privilege. No entitlement. Just common sense and willingness to surrender immediate gratification for eventual success.
Image: photo credit: Excerpted from: marcoverch Several Wounded in Shooting at YouTube Headquarters; Police Say Female Suspect Is Dead via photopin (license)
