From Quitting to $1500+ per vid | Martin's journey 📸

May '25 (edited) • 🏆 Wins

I’ve been editing for two years now. Most of my clients were low-paying, or the jobs were just plain bad. That’s why I quit editing in August 2024, thinking I’d never get paid more than $150 per video or work fewer than 4 hours a day—if I was lucky. So, I spent the entire summer just playing video games and doing nothing with my life. I felt this void inside me, like I had no purpose. Life felt static, like I was on repeat, chasing quick dopamine hits, doing meaningless stuff.

One night, I tried something different—I stayed away from all devices, didn’t talk to anyone, and just sat in my bedroom thinking about the last few months. I got angry, realizing I had wasted almost three months doing absolutely nothing. The next day, I sat down at my Windows PC, deleted every game, removed every friend on Discord who played games, deleted my YouTube account (because I kept watching gaming content), and got rid of everything else that was holding me back.

For a few days, I was bored and didn’t know what to do. But then, I decided to open After Effects and Premiere one more time. The feeling I got was like freedom—like I broke out of the jail that had been holding me back mentally and physically.

By the end of October, I had made my first video in months. It was something I’d never done before—I didn’t take inspiration from another editor like I used to. I just created a clean 3D animation and motion graphic from scratch. I uploaded it to Twitter, and it got double the likes, double the comments, and almost double the views. That was the moment that flipped the switch in me.

I got hooked. I started reading books, watching videos, creating crazy “CEO” routines—waking up at 5 AM to work before school, grinding after school until my eyes couldn’t stay open. I was doing everything I could to improve my editing and make more money.

Since then, I’ve become a bit more chill about the whole grind mindset. Artem really helped me—not just with editing, but also with realizing that I’m human too. One of the biggest things he helped me understand is that having a work-life separation will actually help me in the long term.

And honestly, it helped me instantly. After just one week of trying it, I felt the weight on my shoulders lift. I stopped worrying about becoming a millionaire by 21. (Yes, I was really that 16-year-old stressing about hitting millionaire status by age 21.)

Maybe I was chasing the status of being a millionaire so hard because my family always struggled with bills, and deep down, I just wanted to make sure we’d never have to worry about money again.

I also stopped watching those toxic “grind mode” videos and rich lifestyle content that only talk about money and materialism.

Today, I’m not the richest guy out there, but I’m working with two of my dream clients and just closed a third. I’m making over $1,500 per video—yeah, more per video than I was making per month just half a year ago. I’m way happier now. I work as much or as little as I want each day, I’m no longer obsessed with material things, and I’ve built a really strong connection with God.

I might not be super rich yet, but if I had two pieces of advice to give, they would be:

Don’t stress about things you can’t control. For example, stop obsessing over “becoming a millionaire in one year.” Instead, focus on the inputs—the small, consistent actions you take every day.
Keep it simple. A lot of people think there’s some secret to editing or business. But there isn’t. It’s really just about not giving up, being willing to drop your ego, and realizing that you’re probably not doing some of the basics as well as you could—and that’s okay. Learn them. Improve. Keep going.

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