does Jesus watch YouTube is it possible to get more leads clients in sales with YouTube as a business owner or entrepreneur and what ultimately is the root of all success my name is Sean Cannell rhymes with YouTube channel I'm the best-selling author of the book YouTube secrets and I'm so excited for my conversation today with the real Jason Duncan on the root of all success podcast welcome to the root of all success with the real Jason Duncan a podcast that explores how the world's most powerful entrepreneurs unlocked success and how their stories can help you do the same a successful educator turned entrepreneur Jason has built multi-million dollar businesses that have been featured in Inc magazine and Entrepreneur magazine his life's Mission now is helping entrepreneurs live what he calls hashtag the exit lifestyle introducing tedx speaker mastermind leader author entrepreneur Cigar Aficionado motorcycle Enthusiast and host of the root of all success the real Jason Duncan the real Jason Duncan hey there welcome back to another episode of the root of all success I am the real Jason Duncan and as you saw at the very beginning of the show if you watch the very beginning uh the title of this show is the Jesus does Jesus watch YouTube and it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing not to meant to be sacrilegious it actually has a legitimate question uh well as legitimate as that question can be did I ask my guest today Sean Cannell let me tell you about Sean if you don't know this guy you're going to be glad that you listen to the show because if you're in business and you aren't are interested in YouTube at all this is your guy he is the CEO of think media and the host of the think media podcast he's one of today's leading online experts and the world's most watched YouTube strategist this guy is the most watched YouTube strategist nobody else this guy is him if you want to know the YouTube strategy you've tuned in to the right show today to get introduced to that guy so that you can figure out how to play YouTube to the biggest chance the biggest audience in the world he's been featured at forbes.com CNBC social media examiner entrepreneur.com and success.com he uh has grown an eight-figure income as a Tech Two to as a tech YouTuber uh we're going to talk about how you got to start 20 years ago and what it did what it took for him to actually hit that hockey stick growth up and to the right that we all want as entrepreneurs um he is a great dude we talk a lot about his faith and about his key to success and as you know as a listener to the show you know I'm a follower of Jesus and what I found out after meeting Sean and then following him online found out that he was a follower too and that part of his story is going to be included in today's episode so please help me welcome Sean Cannell to the podcast hey Sean welcome to the root of all success Jason I'm so fired up to be hanging out with you in your community today well it's an honor to have the world's foremost YouTube guy the expert on my show and one of the things I would like to talk to you maybe maybe post show is about doing and this show is today's show is about your story kind of what you do how you got here but I also do this live webinar where we do tactical stuff and so maybe we could talk about that at some point I don't I don't put you on the spot and commit to anything but I I meant to tell you that pre-show's like we should do this because I know you have so much because YouTube is this weird thing that has just made so many people a lot of money a lot of impact a lot of influence and you're right at the Forefront in the center of all that the the foremost guy doing it how let's start there how did you introduce yourself into YouTube to become Sean Cannell the YouTube guy yeah well first of all thanks so much for having me and you know the story has been kind of wild because today I'm a small town kid College Dropout trying to run a team trying to you know learn how to exit without exiting and we've got about 20 W-2 employees 10 contractors multi-millions in Revenue a year and I have no idea what I'm doing I'm a CEO today and I'm really just kind of like a Creator turned CEO maybe even an accidental entrepreneur because I actually got started with video back in 2003 and all I did was actually volunteer at my local church an hour north of Seattle and there's like eight kids in the youth ministry and the youth pastor handed me a camera an Adobe Premiere video editing software and said hey start making videos and so I made videos every Wednesday night for youth group like announcements and they were terrible I mean they're so bad but what's amazing is a lot of people today are wanting to create consistent content before that really even social media existed I was creating consistent content in that local church con context and uh fast forward a couple years we actually started a YouTube channel for that church in 2007 only two years after YouTube started and so I've been doing video now for 20 years YouTube for 16 and I just kept doubling down and it's literally like I mean I really believe in uh you know kind of divine favor that God directs our steps you know and so I really feel like video chose me I didn't choose video but then I just wanted to keep learning more about it and that ten thousand hour rule I'm probably at 50 000 hours when it comes to video and on camera and scripting or shooting or filming or the strategy side and uh have really fallen in love with it and now my passion is helping helping other entrepreneurs Leverage The Power of YouTube and online video to get more leads client sales and build their brands well isn't it interesting because I think that um one of the things I've discovered in doing all these interviews on my show plus I've done dozens and maybe hundreds before that just casual interviews over a glass of bourbon and a cigar with friends who were also entrepreneurs and I discovered that one of the keys to success is this preparation and sometimes this preparation comes in unexpected ways so when that youth pastor said here's a camera and here's here's a Adobe Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro like go do this you had no idea that that was preparing you for Success 20 20 something years later so you guys started pretty early out College Dropout 20 something years old doing videos and now the foremost YouTube expert killing it I mean you got three channels with over a hundred thousand uh subscribers one of them has millions what does it uh think media has got what two and a half million subscribers on YouTube that is insane so when did it when did it flip for you did it you did it did it did it did it did it and all of a sudden bam this actually is something did that happen or was it more gradual yeah well it was definitely gradual in the sense of I started to kind of get a passion for YouTube I saw the possibility there and think media the channel today that has over two and a half million subscribers I started it the first video ever uploaded was I think 2010. so it's 13 years old and growth at the start was incredibly slow and this is I think a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to this from 2010 to 2015 it looks like a flat line before it really starts to take off and I think there was two factors that led to it taking off one was when I was in that side Hustle season I actually eventually moved to Vegas with my family and I took a director of communications role at a church this was still preparation too because I was able able to help the pastor launch Books and we were doing Facebook and social media for him and the church and we started dabbling in Facebook ads growing YouTube so I was getting all these different case studies and experience to learn it and I was just working on my side project chipping away at it so my skills were building but I wasn't devoting that much time to it or I just had minimal time to devote to it and I was in 2015 that Not only was it kind of like a Crossroads of all the lessons and the learnings and the experience and the mistakes and the failures but also it was when I went all in and eventually I transitioned into being a freelancer with a couple clients and I'll never forget October of 2015. I actually got a phone call of one of the clients in the first week and he said hey we got to let you go and I was like that's a bummer but I could always replace them second week I got another call we gotta let you go we're like hiring a full-time it's like oh miss we only got three clients it's two of them and then God is my witness the third week now I have all this like anxiety from the phone ringing sure enough got fired by the third client so actually I was fired by all three clients as a I was helping people with video production and managing their YouTube channels and so I was bummed out for a second but I called mentors like we all value here my friend David who is seasoned he'd actually exited a real estate education business for multiple millions and whatnot so he's kind of like sitting in that like he had already exited Peace of Mind from having kind of being anti-fragile when it comes to his wealth and he's like I'm not worried and I remember being like well I know you're not worried David like literally of course you're not worried you're not worried about anything but the last time I checked you've never like sent me a check like we just lost 90 of our income in a month bro and he's like no I'm not worried because ultimately in entrepreneurship at some point you have to jump off the cliff it sounds like God just kicked you off the cliff and now it's your time to fly and at first I was like what are you like a leprechaun is this what is like some you know it's sort of like like a parable or something you know but then I was like I'm so grateful that David shared that with me because it just it instantly clicked in my mind and to your point of preparation I go yeah now for the first time ever in over a decade I had no clients no job nothing else to do except for actually build now as a solopreneur um uh company and that's when I went all in and it's been no turning back from there and it's grown pretty fast but that's one of those things like if the skyscraper is visibly going higher it's because the roots and the foundation are so deep and that you could then see in the curve it shot up from there partly because of all the lessons and learnings and then partly because For the First Time instead of working on it every couple of weeks for a few hours I was for early on I was 40 50 60 70 hours to really get the thing going the early years of Entrepreneurship hiring and stuff total chaos and just going all in and now I'm grateful that we have regained a lot of peace of mind and health and built to last culture in terms of our team and so yeah that was 2015 was when everything changed so 2015 um the only thing you were doing to to protect potentially potentially earn income for you and your family was YouTube in 2015 is that correct Yeah by by so the freelance clients were paying me two thousand two thousand and one thousand sixty thousand dollars a year as just kind of a my social security number like a sole proprietor and then YouTube was bringing in a couple hundred bucks around the holidays because of a lot of people clicking affiliate links it was about around a thousand and so when they all fired me that was the bulk of our income but what I also had a lot of confidence once I got out of the immediate fear of oh I know how to do this like I knew that how to rank videos meaning YouTube's a search engine I understood even how to monetize videos it was just a matter of doing it more so I especially at first out of like motivated by let's not go bankrupt you know my wife and I let's not like actually be homeless and we fight for my family I was really hustling uh November December of 2015 and by January 2016 Amazon sent me a check for almost five thousand dollars from affiliate marketing which it completely replaced online income only um the money I was the freelance clients were paying me YouTube sent me a check for around a thousand dollars so now it's you know 6K a month just me just making videos from a home bedroom um and then immediately started to invest in scale thinking about okay I probably need to get some help I was and I was doing everything you know shooting editing uploading my wife runs our finances she's our CFO today um and other than that though it was just complete kind of solo founder she's the co-owner of our business but I'd be like the sole founder of it but then started to immediately add and I'm grateful for all the wisdom I'm learned over the years that teamwork really makes the dream work so I just would reinvest every profit back into scale or team um and things like that so yeah 2016 January was like the Baseline of replacing our income and then in that first year of business we did like 190 Top Line in Revenue 190 000 um and uh it just started to scale up from there so so you had five years of kind of prep work of of just doing The Daily Grind doing videos editing videos posting stuff out there and then at 15 16 you say okay I'm all in I've jumped off the cliff as my friend Yoda told me to do you know we were the leprechaun we're like we're we're in and then you can do 190k in rev which I get there are expenses against that but you got 190k in rev but you're eight figures now like significantly much more than 190 000. is that is that a prop is that yeah I'm actually I'm grateful to answer this question I heard Alex from Ozzy breaking it down like there's like six different ways you can track how much revenue you're doing some people say how much they've done lifetime sometimes they say how much they've done annually in some cases you could be doing eightfig and going negative like depending on how much you know ad spend expenses are so we've uh when I say eight fig it's we crossed 10 million a couple years ago uh lifetime we did like 6.7 last year so annually right now we're right around seven and this year we've been reinvesting and actually slowing down a little bit just to speak to I think that um we're on track to do about the same but Q3 and 4 could get interesting and I think we'll actually be eight figure a year but you know for complete honest transparency yeah I don't even know what we've done lifetime maybe 25 or 30 million but but it's been spread out over a couple years well that's still uh listen it doesn't even require qualification I appreciate you doing that but it's still it's still a lot of money on YouTube like and and so these all these people I want to be a YouTuber I want to be a YouTuber most never accomplish that just like most people say I want to start a business they might start but what 96 fell in the first decade 80 in the first five years so and who I want to be in the NBA I want to be in the NFL who they don't get in you did it you got in you made it and so congratulations on your success I I want to ask you before I start asking success questions because this is the root of all success by the way I want to ask you those first videos those first videos you did on your channel I know you used to do for churches and stuff like that which obviously is appreciated but what were you videoing about what was the content like I know we can probably go back and watch it but what were you talking about well actually the first videos are are super embarrassing and they're they're really random and Scattered you know and I think that as entrepreneurs and when you're maybe just having ideas but you don't fully haven't formulized a business the other thing that's interesting about the crater economy is people are turning their passion into profit talking about whatever or anything so you're trying to figure it out some people are just vlogging they're like sharing their life they're sharing their lunch they're sharing their stuff and some people have made a full-time living doing that so early on I was just kind of testing a lot of things first couple hundred videos um super random I do like a cooking video because my dad taught me a recipe of bacon salmon in a tinfoil boat I would do an Amazing Spider-Man review I would do a little Vlog on a day trip with my wife horseback riding in Las Vegas and what was interesting is some of the videos could get 2 000 views some could get like 80 000. so I was actually like learning different things and testing different things but you know how can anybody follow you if you don't know where you're going it was scattered it was random this is one of the biggest things I help a lot of our students we kind of have two tracks some are entrepreneurs and business owners and they know what their business is and their target client and customer but on the Creator side it's these aspiring creators that just want to take what they know their passion and a lot of times they were exactly like me they've got like seven passions they just smash them all on a YouTube channel and maybe they experienced some success but they don't know wonder why they don't get why they can't get momentum is because they're going in a bunch of different directions you know they're a Wandering generality instead of a meaningful specific and so I also realize that as being multi-passionate it took me a while although when I look back it seems totally clear that teaching video itself was the thing that I had the most experience at it was also the thing I'd already spent thousands of dollars on back in 2009 when I started a freelance video business um you know before we moved to Vegas doing wedding videos and Hip-hop music videos I took out a loan from prosper.com for Seven Grand just because I was waiting tables at a Rob and I knew I could pay it back if things didn't work out so I could buy a camera buy lenses buy a video at any computer and like kind of start a media business not a ton of money and um I realized that I could start reviewing Tech I could review the cameras teach people how to use the cameras I've been doing video so it was taking my skill like my core competency the thing that I invested time in and we teach the three PS and others have taught the same thing passion proficiency and profit not only or what are you passionate about what are you also good at why the time and the experience and I had results and I had done the wedding videos and got the clients and actually used the gear and then also how can you profit well people are shopping online for cameras gear lighting they want to learn these skill sets and so it's at the intersection of the three PS so I was I was in the passion P talking about movies or cooking or wondering can I be a famous vlogger and all this other stuff but it wasn't until I locked into passion proficiency and profit got clear that think media our company still today uh really helping people now we would say with the best tips and tools for building your influence with video so the tools has been a big thing for us the camera as the live streaming software the software that helps you optimate keyword research like it's a lot and the long tail of how much there is to teach about review talk about Brands pay us to do videos the Creator economy is massive and we're essentially Creator economy Educators now um the tools part and then the tips how do you actually get views what are the best practices of YouTube so today it might seem clear and obviously your brand should evolve but I was a mess I mean I was everywhere and and even though this may have seemed obvious it took me a long time to kind of hone in that Clarity sharpen our branding figure out what we were doing and uh Clarity is power once you you get clear things also grow a lot faster well you know I wanted to ask you about that too so I'm glad you I'm glad you've kind of finished that with that idea of clarity because you said something earlier wandering generality versus something specific what do you remember what you said yeah Zig Ziglar quote it's better to be a you want to be a meaningful specific not a wandering generality yeah so that that quote so when you were talking about the way yours began that was the question that bubbled at the top of my mind challenge was okay so my my channel just used my own reference my channel the real Jason Duncan is all about it's entrepreneurship 100 entrepreneurship specifically around the exit without eggs anything which I talk about delegation and systems and that type of stuff so I don't do anything on my channel that is not related to that so I don't I don't do cooking videos I don't do hiking videos I don't show me now in my shorts shorts are different like shorts I think I might show myself riding motorcycles that type of thing because I like to do it but my YouTube videos am I doing the right thing because it sounds like I am but I know that when you started you were doing cooking videos horseback riding videos you're doing a little bit of everything so but you shifted to one thing am I doing it right based on what I'm telling you yeah you are and and where I was doing all the random stuff that's actually another Channel that I don't even upload on it was the channel of experimentation and everything else yeah your goal is to have a clear promise who is your Channel 4 what problem does it solve and then here's the quote you never want to upload videos that's your subscribers didn't subscribe for so you're doing it exactly right I click subscribe on your channel and I want to learn about delegation I want to get my time back I want to learn about team and systems I I mean uh checking out your social media for like four seconds the clarity is 10 10 across the board so that's that's really strong I think what can be hard and it is interesting that you talk about shorts I think even those should be focused I think what's interesting is if you were to say A Day in the Life and it showed you hanging out at one of your masterminds and some motorcycles and having some Bourbon and all that stuff I actually would argue that okay maybe this you maybe the subscriber doesn't want to watch that particular video but it would be on brand because it's still what entrepreneurship has had helped you achieve but if you were to just start saying I also like you know playing Minecraft and I'm just going to start playing Minecraft tutorials like it's that'd be so radically off base so you just want to be in the mindset and it's of course serving the viewer what value would that add and that value some might call it flexing but the value would add like like inspiring because it would be like you're you're maybe showing that or showing them what they could expect if they were part of you know something with you so it's just you never want to upload videos your subscribers didn't subscribe for to this day I may break the rule but you want to know the rule and that would be it's kind of like if you're watching comedy central you're also there for a reason I want to watch Comedy even if it's multiple different shows into multiple different comedians it's Comedy Central if all of a sudden a news broadcast came in that was just super serious I would be offended because I would have changed the channel if that's what I wanted and so the same is true on YouTube it's like just becoming a destination that why did someone subscribe it's like almost like a dartboard I think you you if you were throwing a dart Bulls I there's probably a certain topic that everyone in your channel loves like if you're right on the edge of the dartboard it's relevant but they could skip over it it may not be like whatever if it's off the dartboard and you're hitting the wall like don't upload that there that should be somewhere else some people's other social media platforms are just personal they're not for their business but I would argue for everybody listening to this like all your business accounts you do you definitely want to be known for one thing and this isn't just my opinion the one thing book Gary Keller I believe um you know talking about the power Seth Godin always I mean it's just something it's so powerful to be known for one thing in a really busy world and uh that's definitely the strategy you want to apply on YouTube yeah well it's it's Focus which stands for follow one course until successful you know we've gotta we gotta stay focused as entrepreneurs and we can't be random and Scattered and wandering generalities as zigg said well let me uh let me ask you this question one more question on this kind of technical stuff and then I'm going to go into the kind of success stuff how much overlap is there between doing reels which are like shorts on Instagram versus what you're doing on YouTube and let me let me tell you why I'm asking that question um I spend a ton of time producing content for Instagram reels like I haven't posted a static image on Instagram in probably a year like everything I post is video it's all short form a minute minute and a half sometimes shorter and then if it's under a minute I put it on YouTube shorts as well the only thing I'm posting on YouTube right now on a consistent basis are these shows I do three or four shows a week and these are constantly being posted that type of thing is the same concept for YouTube which you're telling what you're the expert in does it also apply for Instagram reels if so that's great if not is there a little bit of tweaking that you could teach us to do differently short answer yes so long as the reason people follow you on any of these platforms is consistent If You're just showing up with a consistent value and a consistent promise and a consistent brand then vertical video is one of the biggest opportunities right now on social media media period if possible um if your content could be less than 60 seconds it is the most leveraged vertical video because it can then go on Instagram reels Facebook reels Pinterest vertical video LinkedIn if you want YouTube shorts and then Tick Tock of course at the various lengths Tick Tock now allows up to 10 minutes depending on your account um Instagram you can go longer but a lot of times I think there's something powerful about just trying to keep it under a minute so that's exactly what we do people follow me on social media whatever platform because they want to learn about video and they want to learn about YouTube even if they're not on YouTube so we take our vertical video assets and we paste them at all the platforms that I post them at all the platforms I just mentioned as a result we're posting 350 pieces of content right now a week in our brand and that is a let's take a quick break to thank our amazing sponsors for making this podcast possible [Applause] 40 years ago you weren't in business unless you had your business in the Yellow Pages you remember those things and 30 years ago you weren't in business unless you had a door-to-door Salesman 20 years ago you weren't in business unless you had a website and today you're not in business unless you're doing social media content am I right social media content social media content in the form of like micro content which is 30 to 60 second spots on Instagram reels or Tick Tock or YouTube shorts that's the way business is done as a matter of fact that may be how you found out about this podcaster me as a business coach this medium that we're using today to communicate what we do is vitally important and just recording yourself isn't enough you've got to do it right and my friends over at story do it right and one of the problems with doing it wrong is that you sit around thinking well what the heck am I going to record what am I going to say how am I going to say it like I don't know what to talk about Well story takes all of that away from you stop wasting time trying to come up with content because story will send you a video prompt on what to record you can pick the categories you want to record in whether it's real estate entrepreneurship Finance relationship leadership life insurance it could be anything don't waste time on that and by the way if you're not confident and talking on video or if the video editing portion takes up way too much of your time story will edit the videos to perform well on social media they add the subtitles the pop-ups the zoom Cuts they remove all the filler words like uh and um and uh they remove the awkward pauses and then they take that video and post it for you they write the captions they add the relevant hashtags and they post it on the platforms that you care about the most it's exactly what you need to be in business today and to be successful at it so if you want to learn how to do social media the way the influencers do you need to go to the real Jason duncan.com story and that story with two eyes why because they're awesome go to the real jasondunkin.com story that's s-t-o-r-y-y for ten percent off your first three months to try story out you're gonna thank me later I love talking about this sponsor because it's oftentimes a lot of people talk about sponsors on their shows they have sponsors and they either don't use them or they might have used them once and they're not really in love with it they just take their money it certainly is not wrong with that but this sponsor this one of my sponsors of the podcast is story s-t-o-r-y-y two wise why because they're awesome if you've ever wondered how these influencers do their Instagram reels and their tick tocks and our YouTube shorts to look so amazing where they've got the zoom cuts and the pop-ups and the on-screen illustrations whether it's cartoons or actual images or videos that get responses that people go oh I want to talk to that if you want to know how people do that that is exactly what story does they take your videos and they make you look like an influencer they make you become an influencer and they will post it for you they'll write the captions they'll add the relevant hashtags they put it on the platforms that you care about the most and after that content's posted they take it even one step further to boost it to your past clients your leads or anyone that you want to Target and they even have someone log into your social media profile to engage with other people's posts to drive engagement on your profile story truly takes the headache away from doing social media content from start to finish and they have a mission to help people nurture and cultivate their relationships by sharing your message digitally and they even have an app that makes it easy to upload your content and track everywhere your video is at and I've been using them for a long time and I told them I said look guys I love what you're doing I want to recommend you to everybody you need to be a sponsor of my podcast and so they're a co-sponsor of this podcast and they're also the exclusive sponsor of my live webinar series entrepreneur Master Series because they're that good I tell everybody about them so go to the real Jason duncan.com story to learn more and that's the real jasonduncan.com story s-t-o-r-y-y why are there two y's because they're awesome you'll get 10 off your first three months if you go to that link the real jasonduncan.com story thanks for listening to our sponsors now back to the show it is a trackable Roi positive Endeavor it's also it's an intense Endeavor team systems um and and not trying to just have it be a bunch of white noise but to do both quality and quantity and vertical videos the way that we're able to do that and video podcasting is the way we're able to do that because as you mentioned we would count out of those 350 the fact that the podcast goes on Spotify and Google and apple and YouTube um and the other 22 sites you would just use like buzz Sprout and um but the vertical video assets we we do two a day we do two vertical video posts a day um but then they're DJ'd out on the other platforms and then the other opportunity is reposting I mean you could post uh you should every three to six months you should repost your winners so like our bank of videos is pretty insane like there's and I know that that maybe half the people listening to this are like stressed they're like I'm not even like posting in like 350 a week but what's Wild is it kind of makes me think like Rich Dad Poor Dad he had you know he said his Poor Dad would say we can't afford it and his Rich Dad would say how can we afford it I think the mentality is to say oh man I'm so busy there's no way I could even do one video let alone many as opposed to saying how could I consistently create content because when you understand that it leads to more opportunity and more doors and more revenue and more things you know opening up to you and more impact and not just Revenue today but insurance by building a brand for tomorrow um and getting an edge over your competitors okay it's going to be difficult but how could I create a machine of content like this so yeah it sounds like you're doing it exactly right and uh my encouragement would be to Triple down and do it more and are you also doing Tick Tock in um Pinterest vertical video and stuff like that uh no to tick tock I got off Tick Tock for long reasons that you probably would imagine uh Pinterest I had no idea they did videos and I've never been on Pinterest in my life so I don't know anything about that so really I'm posting Instagram is where I play yeah uh I also repost everything on LinkedIn because LinkedIn allows me to do it I've got a good following on LinkedIn and then if my videos are under a minute I post them on YouTube shorts however posting a YouTube short from your phone is insane when are they going to figure that out I can't there's too much I can't do from this device so I have to load it and then go into my computer and do it it's dumb maybe I'm missing something but that's why I don't post more YouTube shorts is because it's so hard to do and add the music and I don't know am I missing something there yeah I mean who not how I would get someone to just help and Bank them all on uh Dropbox and let somebody else deal with all those details but your phone is actually the best yeah well I mean I'm not doing it but like we no nobody can do everything from this device that you can do like you can post a full video reel on Instagram using a phone and then also do the same thing LinkedIn you can add the music you can do the subtitle you can do everything but on YouTube shorts no you can none of us yeah I mean I think it's it's maybe then that's just like a skill Gap because no phone is actually the best because you can select custom thumbnails from your phone now so you could drag your finger throughout the uh the video to pick the thumbnail um you could do your title you could do your description descriptions don't really matter on YouTube shorts um and then um you could schedule upload from your phone as well and I would say you probably don't need to attach popular music but that is best practice so if you upload you just talking head no music and natively attach music on the different platforms you know just make it 10 or something and do a trending song that could give you a little extra juice and um and yeah so phone would be actually the best I think it would just be a matter of maybe making sure the app's updated and cycling your team member through fresh education to just use best practice when doing that who do you know that educates people on YouTube and how to do that I don't know maybe we should maybe we should get my my team to take a look at your stuff maybe we should do that well let me ask you let me ask you some success success man I can't even talk sex questions no that's a different tip let me ask you some success questions um so let's talk first about your key so after all the success that you've had building a multi-million dollar and a multi-million subscriber YouTube channel and channels um and by the way the first to learn how to say your last name Sean Cannell when you said Candlelight Channel never forget that that mnemonic helped tremendously so good job on telling me that that first time we met um when you were able to achieve this success if you had to look back now over these 10 20 years what's that one thing like if you had to narrow it down to this thing allowed me to be successful what is that one thing yeah I mean the honest answer for me is Jesus Christ um on Christ this Solid Rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand and the reason I say that is obviously I had to learn skills um to generate money um you don't pray in law of attraction money shows up at your house but you do pray and have an encounter with God that transforms who you are as a person and I was actually expelled from Christian High School um going right before my senior year for extreme partying I mean I was living crazy I actually was in a pornographic film with three girls that's it that's why they expel you too that's not it was against school terms um and uh partying super hard then I got even harder into Rave drugs I had no vision I didn't really have a purpose I didn't I didn't see really a reason for living I didn't want the American dream um and then eventually like the prodigal just I had kind of squandered everything and I sort of hit rock bottom um and it was eventually going to Bible College uh really discovering the truth of God's word and then ultimately having a powerful encounter with God that changed my life forever and the reason I would say that's also the key of success is there's even been many bumps and challenges on the road since then but there's so much burnout happening in the crater economy people's um they're they're breaking down mentally uh over the years now some of the years on YouTube I've known and got to interview and talked to a lot of family vloggers people who got famous for just vlogging and filming their family life some that had extreme High values and many who are now divorced who ended up cheating on their spouse having leaked things going on with you know someone in the DMS many top YouTubers have talked about their struggles with alcoholism I've had similar struggles because of the level of pressure um it's weird you're a small town kid all of a sudden millions of people are you know following you and they're commenting and they're speaking about they're in you know you're getting all this feedback and I know for some they could look at the YouTuber lifestyle and say I mean it's ridiculous how much money or all the stuff that you're doing for the type of work you're doing how could you ever you know you should just be grateful and I think I'm actually probably everybody is but then they also don't see actually the pressures that come with it and the Unseen challenges that come with it and so I've just watched so many people get stuck into greed and blow up their families or just they're not happy they lose Joy even on the other side of success so so when I think about the one key to success what good is it to gain the world but lose your soul and so and and I want to be here but I want to be happy healthy have peace like a river Joy like a fountain and build a business at a pace that is not I'm not chasing and I've struggled with this of course as an ambitious entrepreneur you could compare yourself to somebody else they're growing faster but at the end of the day I'm not chasing money I'm chasing God at the end of the day I'm not chasing Fame I'm chasing God and I just want to live up to my god-given potential so I know this uh if it wasn't for Jesus I would have blown up my life I would have blown up my marriage if it wasn't for Jesus this I would be probably a tyrant I would also I I have a proclivity towards selfishness how as a lot of people do and if it wasn't for Jesus though that selfishness would be to the extreme so the only the rock that keeps me solid you know Matthew 7 24 anyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise Builder who builds their house on the rock not like the fool built his house on the sand and so I think a successful life business marriage inner life inner game Soul life uh for me Jesus is everything and he is the anchor to my soul and I know for sure that this world would have crushed me this YouTube world and whatnot or that I would just be you know I I'd I'd be like I was gonna share some funny things like I don't know I'd be somewhere in Vegas live doing Vegas things um you know with with money and whatnot and probably be super sad and be absolutely desolate in my soul if it wasn't for actually having um God and honestly the fear of God to keep me grounded um because I want to give an account to the one who uh loved me and showed me Grace as the most undeserving um compared to the stuff I've done and come out of so that's my key well I I love it and of course listeners who listen to me a lot know that I end every show with uh Jesus is King and and I you and I share the same faith and uh I I you're the first person in a hundred and whatever in many episodes 70 episodes or whatever this is uh to say that is the key now I I think a lot of people given the opportunity to think more deeply about it would also agree but I appreciate your appreciate your boldness in saying that because in a world where you're living in the YouTube world there's not very many people that are standing on that and saying he is King and this is this is what I stand for I wouldn't be anything without him so I applaud you as a brother in Christ for saying that and uh thank you for sharing that so let me ask you another question how do you define this word success everybody's got different definitions with the Sean Cannell say success is uh to me success is being faithful and living up to my god-given potential
um as a disciple of Jesus
um my life is not my own now I try to take it back about every four seconds you know and I try to you know do what I want or follow but what I'm aiming for is God I just want to be faithful with what you've called and created me to do and you know I'm just speaking for myself and not trying to project anything for anybody else but at the end of the day we all have different you know spheres of influence different you know some people are married some people will never get married some people will not have kids you know and I think that we all what potentially have differing differing paths but for me I just want to be faithful with what God's put in my hand so my definition of success is um fatherhood um is marriage um is stewarding my business well is being generous with my finances is using my influence and the people that I can't you know have the opportunity of impacting to just do it for God's glory just in in my little tiny whatever impact I can make and trying to spend my years is what drives me would be living up to my god-given potential and trying to live in the tension of not having anxiety for anything that's outside of that but also having urgency for being faithful with whatever God has put in my hands I also stole my articulated definition of success success from John Maxwell and um happily stole it and it's at the end of my life I want the people closest to me to love and respect me the most and so if I succeed in business but fail with my family then I actually believe I've failed and if I get the Applause of the crowds but lose the love of my children I believe that would be failure as well um have been blessed to be in Ministry for so many years with absolute empathy and love for churches and pastors um it's kind of almost a sad stereotype of what it can be like to be a pastor's kid and how much the grueling Ministry of serving everybody else can mean that your family gets um not the best part but the the worst part and again that's also one of the things that I know my ambition taken to an unhealthy extreme would would end up being separated from my ultimate priorities so that's why that's a stated definition of success for me to say that man you know a lot of people most of my YouTube subscribers probably all of them wouldn't care to come to my funeral but when I'm uh needed someone to take care of me at 89 um my wife will probably outlive me and she'll she'll be there and my kids you know will be there so I want the people closest to me to love and respect me the most and the people who see me off stage and backstage so that would be my team and it would be our executive team and it would be friends and all that kind of stuff and I am falling short of this every day but this would be the vision I aspire to because I can again being a type A driven entrepreneur like you could just get it to the day-to-day the tactics the scale of everything else um I think that's why it's nice to write down your values so you can get re-anchored in what success really is for you and I and I love that the question because I do think that the definition of success is a personalized question it's just the reaching of a definite goal it's like it's like the achievement of a stated aim and that aim could be different and so I just want to be faithful with God's called me to do and not blow up any of the relationships that matter most with my time here on the Earth all right I love it so big question does Jesus watch YouTube for sure um I'm sure he would have had a YouTube channel you know um there's a lot of marketing verses where it says word spread about him he might not have had a YouTube channel but he would have been all over YouTube because people's smartphones would have been out posting reels and shorts of Miracles he was doing and clips of his teaching um he probably wouldn't even need a channel it just would spread um and I always think about that like if you know when it's a good verse for business owners or there's multiple verses that say that it's like if what you're doing is good and gets results for people makes it different in their life then word about what you're doing will spread and so word and I was like oh that's that's kind of Mark it's word of mouth is the best form of it's virality actually it'd be virality on the internet and so uh anyways yeah I absolutely think um I mean Jesus also his eyes range to and fro throughout the whole earth look at seeking a heart that's completely his so I mean his eyes are going over all the platforms actually as you were talking about and you're being so bold and and honest and transparent about your faith and how Jesus has been a part of part of that growth and your success and you it's the key to success us I'm thinking about okay I'm as a podcaster when I'm going through the show because I don't title the show until the show's over and think about how do we title the show and I was thinking that's the title of the show does Jesus watch YouTube because we got the you know the world's foremost guy here on this show talking about how he built an amazing YouTube channel started with doing Church videos then was doing horseback riding and all this other crap that didn't matter and then you decided what am I proficient what am I passionate about what kind of profit at and you did that in this in these review videos and boom and then you look back and go Jesus did this and so yeah he's watching his kids he's watching you and me he's he's like hey this is awesome keep going guys you're making a difference in the world so that's why I asked the question I thought that was kind of a clever clever at least I thought it was clever no I love that question I also think that Jesus loves YouTube and he loves YouTubers I feel like if there's nobody else that feels like they're kind of uh if you will a pastor of YouTube like I think there's something that's kind of Niche reference but you know the fivefold ministry mentioned in Ephesians was perhaps less about what those Mega roles are in the church it's the fact that uh pastors equip you and I to do all of those things to evangelize to like start to be an apostle and start like a group of Believers or share the gospel in our local business or um and to uh uh ultimately Pastor as well that we should we should Pastor our local communities so I sometimes think I got invited to a Meetup of YouTubers in Vegas there's over 100 people and I was just kind of going into that environment thinking uh God you love this community and you long for them to know you and I'm also wondering I don't know where everybody here stands with you or if they've ever heard about you or ever had a chance to meet you or any of those things but perhaps I'm I don't know what other pastors might be stepping on here and I'm not in a pastor officially but uh trying to pick up that role that's when I think about like my domain I think about like what's my sphere and I'm like YouTube would be the world I know that God loves YouTube he loves the people on YouTube ultimately there were some only fans people at this Gathering and whatnot and God loves uh only fans creators as well don't take that out of context but he absolutely does because that's what scripture would teach and so um that's I definitely want to share that message of uh ultimately for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whosoever everybody has this opportunity to believe in him and experience that radical love and so I I hope that's what I aspire to as well is saying like man YouTube's my is my uh Community like this is that's my community that's my world and I just want to do my best to represent Jesus in that world I love it I love it man well let's let's break it down so if the people listening this show are entrepreneurs and they want to know how like what's that one piece of advice that Sean Cannell would say this is what I need to do out of all the things that you could give advice on is there One Singular thing you would say do this what is that one thing I would say commit to creating consistent video content that adds value to your potential customers your target audience and for entrepreneurs commit to the idea of not just dabbling in video but the idea of actually starting a company within your company treat it like a small business start up within your company that you're going to start a mini media company that is a media and marketing company for your bigger company that I believe is the modern opportunity and I love YouTube but the long tail of what that could mean is a lot of things but I think who not how great book by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy would be like who could I put over this and so many entrepreneurs um when they start YouTube they start it with kind of the wrong mindset I had a real estate professional who's got you know all kinds of money and he has doing all these deals and some flips and stuff and he starts YouTube and he starts trying to teach himself how to do video editing learn all the skills about it learn all this stuff and now depending on where you are in your journey that might be the move for you but if you're more established and you got money coming in your problem is Dan Sullivan said this if you have money and you have a problem you don't have a problem and ultimately I would think about no who not how how am I going to start a little media no who could I hire to actually help me figure out the content strategy the distribution of content strategy so that we can not just generate more business and impact today but also so that we have insurance for the future the businesses that think like media companies start media companies when you look at some things like Barstool Sports and I think they were acquired by like a online gambling site you look at some of the companies that they might Red Bull is a great example like it's a consumer package good um but they create they've grown to be the biggest because of a Content strategy of connected to athletes and whatnot and so that's the thinking so easy to say it's hard to do but that's what I'll do I would start a media company inside of your company and build that thing up for the next five to ten years and then you'll look back your competitors will be invisible they won't even be close to where you are the ones that do this dude I am so glad to to know you and I'm so glad for that last piece of advice because here's what I've been thinking about and I've been been toying with this idea is is I I am committed to the video thing I I shoot on average a short form video every single day of the week but Monday through Friday on weekends depending on how things are going but Monday through Friday I'm shooting video and I've got it planned out 90 days in advance what my topics are what I do so I'm committed to that and I've been trying all year to get more consistent with the long form videos but what I've decided to do with that is um when I do solo shows like this every once while I do solo episodes I'm thinking okay this is going to be a YouTube video oh yes it's a podcast but it's also going to be a YouTube video so I think about it in terms of that but here's here's what I've been thinking about and I'm glad you said that Sean because I'm a huge fan of Bob Proctor I don't know you know who I'm talking about I'm sure but um I I watched all his videos on the um uh what is it think into wealth whatever it is that he did back in the 90s whatever it was I've watched all those and he talks about in one of those um no actually it wasn't in that it was in one of his other videos nevertheless he talks about creating a studio 2 000 square foot studio in the backyard of his house you know what I'm talking about where it's an independent building built within a building so it's sound proof and he does he did in his 80s 70s and 80s he was doing all his videos from his house and as I was listening I think I I want to do that I want to have a professional studio in my house and fully commit to this but I don't know how to start I actually I'm living in a rental house now we sold her house last year and we're we don't know what we're going to do next but so we're renting but we build the next house I want a professional podcast and video Studio because I love what you said and I'd never thought about it that way about creating a company in the company to be the you know the the real Jason Duncan Media company for example and I'm just going to do teaching I love that so thank you that gives me Solace and encouragement at the same time to know that I'm heading the right direction I just gotta I gotta double down on it and take action that's the move I'm I'm grateful that was valuable and I think it's a huge opportunity for everybody listening to this well Sean it's been fantastic having this conversation with you today and uh we've been talking quite some time now so I'm going to kind of bring the conversation in for landing you have obviously this is what you do you're the World's foremost person teaching how to you how to strategize and monetize YouTube you've got uh you've got an offer that you want to make my listeners today on some of the stuff that you're doing so I will shut up and turn it over to you to tell everybody what they can do to become better at YouTube well thank you so much Jason I appreciate you yeah for anybody who would say I want to kind of explore this world and actually learn the one strategy that continues to work that I've been using for the last really 10 years that's now generated millions of dollars and it's generating around 350 000 views every single day whether we upload new videos or not I have a free class it's at tubemasterclass.com that's t-u-b-e-masterclass.com and entirely free at the end of it you will learn about some of the other uh you know our our complete group coaching program and online course but whether that's right for you or not I encourage everyone that would say they want to explore this YouTube World maybe you've already started a YouTube channel or you want to get back to it or just see what's possible with YouTube and I know 350 000 views a day for me is sounds insane for maybe somebody just starting but imagine just getting 10 of that that'd be 35 000 views a day imagine just getting one percent of that that'd be 3 500 views a day and so the reason I love YouTube the most is it's the only platform where your content lives forever you can post a video today if you do it right it'll keep getting you views sales awareness for weeks months and years to come and so it's kind of like duplicating yourself it actually is perfect for what you teach because how do you exit without exiting how do you get away from having to constantly go out and ultimately try to promote your business cold call knock on doors it's like once you have a video that's working for you then you could be taking a vacation but people are talking to you they're building no like and trust with you because your videos are being watched 24 7 365 when you do it according to the strategy that we teach on this class so tubemasterclass.com you can get access to that free class and uh really really grateful to you and your community for the chance to hang out today yeah so for those of you watching this on YouTube hopefully you're at the real Jason Duncan on YouTube right now watching this and maybe Sean posted it later on his channel but I've done a screen share right now you can see what this is the free YouTube strategy class at tube masterclass.com I'm sharing that right now on the screen and as you can take a look at that Bichon it's such an honor to know you and to have you at in my network and to know that that you're such a great dude and you're doing great things and making a big impact in the world so it's an honor to know you congratulations on all your success and uh hopefully our paths will cross again in the very near future likewise Jason appreciates you thank you so much for having me man what a great conversation with Sean um I love I love meeting new people and and we didn't talk about this in the show but Sean was a speaker at a mastermind event that I was a part of and then subsequently I ended up being a speaker at I guess about a year ago a little over a year ago and was impressed with him and said hey man I would love for you to come on the show and he was his wife was pregnant and they were having a having another baby said hey I'm not doing anything until after the baby's born so now he the baby is now eight months old so it's been a while he finally was able to come on the show with me today and man such a lucky guy I am to meet and know somebody like Sean and I want you to to know him too go check him out on all his YouTube locations as we talked about in the show he's got youtube.com think media so go to think media on YouTube two and a half million subscribers I'm one of those uh he also has the think the think pod the think media podcast which is that think media podcast on YouTube and he has his own channel just Sean thinks at Sean thinks and that's s-e-a-n my brother's name is Sean we didn't talk about this he's spelled seam my brother's s-h-a-w-n so there's so many ways to spell that name but uh as he offered you've got a free one hour master class on YouTube you can go to tubemasterclass.com and check that out so thank you for listening to the show today if you've not picked up a copy of my book Exit without exiting I want to encourage you to do that Sean and I didn't talk about this at all but he mentioned it two or three times in the show that this is what he's attempting to do and this is what I teach I teach how to exit without exiting in this book here that you can get for 16 bucks on my website at thrilljasondunkin.com book we'll show you exactly how to do it and tell you the story of three different entrepreneurs and how they went through the process of trying to exit their business and how they were successful and how they failed at it so go check it out at the real Jason duncan.com book Thank you for tuning in thank you for listening please tune in again next time when I talk with yet another very successful entrepreneur about his or her journey to success until then I am the real Jason Duncan and as always Jesus is key
attention business owners attention business owners feeling burnt out from running your business uncertain if you're nearing burnout take our free 10 question business burnout test at businessburnoudtest.com to discover where you stand with just 10 quick questions you'll learn how to immediately begin making changes to regain freedom and success cut your daily operations time in half improve your quality of life and prepare your business for your future exit without losing revenue or profit visit businessburnouttest.com now and take the test thank you for listening to another edition of the root of all success with the real Jason Duncan if you've enjoyed this week's episode visit the root of allsuccess.com to access the show notes and other helpful resources follow Jason on social media at the real Jason Duncan see you again next time here on the route of all success
