Four months ago, I was very close to quitting. Sleepless nights. Low views. Constant doubt. I kept asking myself if this was worth it. What saved me wasn’t motivation, it was clarity. Alexa’s @Alexa Saarenoja wisdom reminded me that progress starts quietly and that serving the audience matters more than chasing numbers. So I stayed. I focused on value and retention, not vanity metrics and everything changed. The roadmap that took me to $20K in 4 months: - Draftly for scripts, titles, tags, and descriptions - https://www.draftly.to - CapCut for fast, clean edits - https://www.capcut.com - ChatGPT (paid) for thumbnail ideas and hooks Once my AVD improved, the algorithm did the rest. This wasn’t luck. It was consistency and not quitting when quitting felt easy. If you’re tired, stuck, or doubting—stay.I recommend this roadmap to anyone starting out. Don’t quit. Your breakthrough is closer than you think.

Nothing compared to you all but it feels great to have these milestones completed. I started last week to start a new challenge (30 days), I am following a book by Russell Brunson and documenting my journey on YouTube. After a long time I finally started seeing new subs on my 6 year old almost dormant channel. So definitely feeling encouraged and energized. Keeping it totally raw, very little editing. I found that I do better where I am demonstrating something, I don't struggle with words and feels very natural. I have a whiteboard so I have started doodling on it and talking to the camera. Came out quite natural, now hope that my audience likes it. Wishing everyone happy holidays.

I made a commitment to myself that I would do my best to post one video a week when I started my channel 5 weeks ago. Last week I was exhausted from a bunch of stuff, but I took that as an opportunity to create my first short, which was fairly easy and led to me learning how to use CapCut. 👏 This week threw me so many hurdles like my computer majorly overheating! (Apple said to leave it off until I can bring it in but it was Xmas week so unlikely to be a quick fix, ugh). Plus there were epically loud storms here for several days, which isn’t conducive to recording and also caused major connectivity issues. But I managed to persevere (and computer didn’t melt)! I’m realizing that YT is really a long game/ongoing journey kind of thing so I really try and celebrate all the little wins along the way. I got a couple new subscribes these past two weeks too. It’s humble beginnings (as expected), but it inspires me to keep going. A YT teacher I watch said if you just keep creating there’s no way you can’t succeed, it’s only a question of when. So, I’m approaching it with that attitude and enjoying the process of creating. I try to Improve one thing each week and next I want to learn audacity because I think improving my sound would help a lot. Oh, another recent big win was that I finally found a remote that works with my teleprompter app, which will be a huge help! Happy Holidays and happy creating! https://youtu.be/GmkEFuXViL0?si=8ByWh5EAwSdvQohp

Feel free to check it out and all feedback is appreciated. I know I left all the ums and filler words in but I literally couldn't figure out how to take them out except manually, and that wasn't happening. Done over perfection. SOOOOOOOOOO Excited to re-start my Youtube journey again. https://youtu.be/lAW-RVZagrU

Since I joined this group the day before I actually launched my channel it seems appropriate to share this here and to thank @Alexa Saarenoja for all of her encouragement and insights in the early days of my channel. Subscribers are only one metric of a channel, but I am pretty excited at hitting 30,000 subscribers. Especially since I started my channel at 80 years old and I only do this part time, with a total of 61 videos and six of them are shorts. Actually, I am more excited about the comments and the shares. The shares, especially indicate word-of-mouth which there is no way you could buy this advertising. It is the secret sauce of a channel’s growth.