I remember reading an apocryphal tale of a gold prospector buying a ton of mining machinery and land and after years and years of digging, he finally gives up and sells the land and the machinery for scrap.
And then another guy comes along and buys all the machinery for pennies, heads over to where the previous owner had been digging with a gold engineer, and low and behold, finds a huge gold vein three feet from where they last dug.
It’s from the book “Think And Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and, despite having absolutely no historical evidence or proof it happens, still remains one of my favourite illustrations for success.
I’ve got my own example of this.
Since 2022 I decided to dedicate my entire business to 3 things.
- Growing on YouTube
- Selling HighLevel to marketers
- Creating daily content like this for marketers
And I’ve been on YouTube for years. Since 2016.
I’d never really seen massive success with it.
I saw younger, stupider people take off and generate hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of subscribers.
Yet, my channel, with what I thought was superior content, got hardly any views.
So we doubled down on coaches, consultants, freelancers, designers, editors, software, programs, memberships, forums, books, courses and training ALL to improve our YouTube channel.
And after tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of work.
What did we see?
Our views had gone DOWN.
I’ve actually got screenshots here showing that I was getting more views before I tried to take YouTube seriously.
You’ve probably experienced this yourself.
Trying harder than ever, doing everything “right”, and somehow you’re worse off than before.
For two years in a row, things got worse before they got better.
And more than anyone, it broke my wife’s heart.
Something you should know about my wife, Olivia, is that she has never ever ever given up on me.
Even when I’ve given up on myself.
Even when I’ve given up on her (I’m ashamed to admit).
She’s kept her belief in me.
When we’ve had “final notice” letters through the door.
When she had to pay the hotel bill because a customer we travelled to see, never paid me.
Through all that.
Not once has she ever said “you need to quit and get a job”.
And so in September 2024, I had booked a shepherds hut for us for our anniversary.
I decided I wasn’t going to even bring my phone, and definitely not my laptop.
And we enjoyed a beautiful late summer holiday break.
With dark cool evenings with rain, in a wood fired hot tub.
We went to beaches and gardens and tiny seaside fishing towns.
I was working up the courage to tell her “I’m done” (with YouTube).
I was literally on the verge of shutting the whole thing down. Maybe even quitting the business.
But I loved every second of our shepherd hut holiday.
And when we drove home, I had DOZENS of missed calls and texts.
At first, I thought someone had died or there was an emergency.
I was way wrong.
One of our videos was going BONKERS.
Like 100x more than any other video I’ve ever made.
In some cases, it was getting more views than my entire CHANNEL was getting.
That pink line is our average video.
In the time our average video would get 300 views.
This was did 54,000.
And it didn’t stop there.
It kept climbing.
To date its our most popular video of all time.
And it wasn’t just views.
We got leads. Lots of leads.
The calls and texts?
It was from my affiliate manager (shout out to Travis) who was asking me “What happened?”
It was from my team telling me we’ve had dozens of new signups and customers.
I was shocked.
I was basically going to tell my wife I was done when we got home.
It was so validating to have all my beliefs and thoughts and ideas finally start to pay off.
And, I’m glad to say, it wasn’t a one off.
My point, is that you are closer than you think.
It could be your next post, your next video, your next client.
Keep tweaking and testing and aiming.
