← The Think Media Podcast
The Think Media Podcast
364: From Fired to Freedom: How I Turned Passion into a YouTube Career...
00:32:02
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, before we jump into the show, I wanted to give you a heads up that my free YouTube strategy class is available right now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com on the class, I reveal the one YouTube strategy we use at Think Media to generate over 330,000 views every single day. So if you're new to YouTube, this will help you start right and avoid mistakes. And if you're a YouTube pro, this training will help you multiply your growth. This class is 100% free, and you can watch it now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com now let's jump into today's show.
- [00:38]
B
Welcome to the making of Sean Cannell. Welcome. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:45]
A
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
- [00:47]
B
Same. So, you know, when I went to the archives of your life, which most of are on the Internet, I learned a lot, a lot about who you were. Like, early days, teenager, early 20s. I want to go back to young Sean. Tell me what he was like. Was he always creative? Like, what was he into whenever you were young?
- [01:07]
A
Man, take me back. That is. Young Sean was born in Seattle, Washington, so kind of grew up in the Pacific Northwest culture and mainly lived in a rural small town called Arlington, Washington, which everybody at the time at my high school pretty much wore a Carhartt, not because it was cool. Now, like, hipsters are wearing, you know, Carhartt beanies, and women have got their pumpkin spice fall latte. Like Carhartt. It's a fashion statement. It's because I grew up around farmers, you know, and, like, actual. Grew up on six acres. But then I also had this pull to skate culture, snowball, snowboard culture. So snowboarded ski bus for, like 10 years and was trying to skateboard, even though it rains so much in the Northwest. And grew up kind of in that mindset of the Pacific Northwest, meaning Pearl Jam, Nirvana, kind of counterculture, and was influenced by kind of indie rock and underground hip hop and all that kind of stuff. And so that was my high school years and quite the ride. And. And. And here's a picture. I also, I. There's a picture of me somewhere with shaved head, bleached hair. Because. Because Eminem, because of the real Slim Shady. So that was probably like my sophomore year in high school. And I was kind of into, you know, all the different fast and furious. So I don't know, kind of like young, you know, love it. Music, cars, and, you know, ultimately too, I got expelled from high school. So what Was I was definitely sort of influenced by maybe the real hip hop life messaging, which to this day, or you know, fast forward to today is it would not really be my value system. And you know, there's been a whole transformation of I think, my faith and my character over the years. But as far as high school goes, that's the Sean that you would meet at my. Well, there was two years in a row and this is, this is a contradiction. At my sophomore year with my friend Chad at the talent show, we did Bye bye, bye bye NSYNC dance with four of us because we didn't have five. So there's that. And that was awkward. And then I think the next year for the talent show, I wrote a rap and I did a freestyle rap. And so it was that I wanted to be a white rapper and faced a lot of ridicule and shame from my peers because I wasn't very good. But, you know, ultimately, there you go, there's high school Sean.
- [03:50]
B
Wow, I love. I thank you for painting that very vivid picture. I pulling on the Carhartt thread also from the Midwest farm country. So I think it's very interesting that Carhartt is now very fashionable and then, you know, the nod to Fast and Furious, the nod to Eminem and did this influence your career as a DJ because you were DJing as well, which you did not mention?
- [04:13]
A
Yes. So, yeah. So I love music, still do listen to a lot of diverse music and. And I wanted to get into DJing and I actually got, I got Gemini vinyl decks, record players and a new mark mixer and was actually would be DJing Vinyl as a hobby, like so underground hip hop and break beats and then a little bit of techno as well. So pretty diverse. You know, there was. I even spent some time in rave culture, so sort of, you know, loved EDM and my license plate of my 1994 teal with yellow trim Fast and Furious Honda Civic, that was not very fast, but definitely still, you know, had a cool air intake and headers and then of course the system and everything else. It was a short shifter that I didn't even need. But ultimately that my license plate was DJ Blaze. So there's that, you know, a little nod to cannabis and Wu Tang and Method man, who was Johnny Blaze. So there's, there's the niche references, you know, ultimately that was the DJing side of things. And what got you into video, when.
- [05:32]
B
Did video like that side of your creativity start to craft itself?
- [05:38]
A
So I actually ended up getting into video in 2003 in my local church. So we just took a giant leap from DJ Blaze to, you know, local church serving in the youth ministry. But that was kind of a process of getting expelled from high school and then kind of going just deeper into like party life and culture and kind of driving eventually to kind of a rock bottom because of how extreme I took things. This episode is brought to you by Streamyard. Streamyard is our go to platform here at Think Media for live streaming to Facebook and YouTube and for recording our video podcast. It has an incredibly easy to use interface for built in branding, transitions, text, lower thirds and seamlessly bringing on guests. And they just added an awesome new feature called Local Recording. This allows you to take the quality to another level by separating out your audio and video from your guests, giving you more control over your content for later use. This feature is perfect for video and podcast creators. And so to get a special deal on Streamyard right now and to see all the features that are included, just go to streamwiththink.com that is streamwiththink.com and so as I started to gain perspective, my life took a couple of turns and I wanted to be on a better path. So I started volunteering at a small church an hour north of Seattle and a small youth ministry. Like, small meaning like eight kids coming on a Wednesday night. And I, my parents just started going to that church. And so I talked to the youth pastor and I was like, I'd love to help out and serve. And this guy, his name's Jeff, is been such an incredible mentor and influence in my life. And he said, well, okay, cool, how about we start making some video announcements for Wednesday night at youth group? And he saw we had kind of an affinity. He kind of had that California culture where he had grown up as a surfer and was born and was also kind of into that similar mindset. And especially in the church, the mindset of. He was into the similar mindset of kind of like music, creativity, art. And I think one of the big overlaps, creativity wise, is actually kind of that counterculture skateboard culture, snowboard culture itself, more specifically. You know, I was watching all these different skateboard and snowboard videos, and this is some of the best stuff, creativity wise that there is meaning. At the time I was getting like toy machine VHS videos and the different skate brands and snowboard brands. And what you would see in these, in this content is a lot of creative video editing, a lot of creative and bleeding edge and niche unique music, a lot of kind of that spirit of like, freedom and thinking different and Thinking outside of the box and the way that edits were put together and all of that stuff was. It's kind of its own style. But of course, creativity is. Art is in the eye of the beholder. But in my opinion, it's. It's like a better style. Like, a lot of traditional media can be very boring or it could be very canon. You just had this. You just. It was a canvas. And I think that's what skate culture and counterculture in general, you do have a lot of you. You see the intersection between art, creativity, fashion, the way the artwork would be done on skateboard decks from Volcom and these different places. You would see this eclectic. And then the music ties into all of that. So with all of those influences, Jeff had similar. So not only did he want me to videos for the youth ministry, but this, you know, young guy, 19 at the time, I come in and I just want to volunteer, you know, in hindsight. Not that I like had any particular set of skills at the time, but I had potential. He's like, man, it's kind of cool that this guy's kind of cool. Like, he's, you know, he's sort of. You wouldn't expect. I didn't expect him to come through our doors. Maybe he could start, you know, making some videos for us. And I think is those influences influenced my immediate style and later style in my pursuit of video editing. And. And so I picked those things up quickly. And a little. A few seeds of that. That's so funny is one my brother Phil Jr. S wedding. I became the videographer as a. As a pretty young kid. I might have been like 13 or something. And he didn't have. Nobody was going to make a wedding video for like, hey, Sean, get some shots. They handed me the video camera and it was terrible. But you saw like, it was also already. I think I was a little bit older. I might have been like 15 or 16. So I already. Probably because I was watching some skateboard, you know, and snowboard videos. The angles, the creativity, the edits, some humor, some different stuff that was happening that. That you saw some seeds of that. And then also in high school, the. The high school I got expelled from is actually a Christian high school called Kings in Shoreline, Washington. But they had a radio station, an Internet radio station called Crossrock Radio. And that was my favorite class. And my responsibility was using Adobe Audition to cut up ads, like promotions for different events that were happening at the school. And I was mixing. So I'm laying down the music beds and the voiceover and bringing in some sound effects. And then I would be blending the ad that I would create with the content that would have been maybe the play by play from the high school basketball game or football game or even music. And so I'd mix up music tracks, blend them together, and then you see the intersection between the DJing. Yeah, radio. And I wasn't doing video at the time, but I already had learned I had an edited video yet by the time I was volunteering at the. In the youth group. But I had been editing audio, filming a little. And I was also actually super into photography. I had this old Sony, you know, might have been like a half a megapixel. And in my car, I had one of the CD deck. Absolutely. Like, it was like the thing to show off my. My deck. I spent a lot of money on it that I was cutting grass during summers to save up to put like, systems and upgrade my car. It just had a tiny LCD screen that also probably was, you know, 30 by 30 pixels. But I could put my s. The. The. It wasn't even an SD card, but some kind of memory card in there and play like a slideshow of my 40 pictures or something. And so I. I was in. My other favorite class in high school was photography, and I actually did black and white photography and actually was developing film. And so you saw a lot of those seeds. Like, I gravitated, I think, towards that arena, but I also didn't like, chase down video. Like I. And sometimes I look back and I think I didn't choose video. Video chose me. Because he just said, hey, do you want to start filming videos for the youth ministry? I'm like, sure. And then as a result, you know, here we are today. Now I've been to a video for 20 years and YouTube for 17 years. And that was sort of the genesis of all of it.
- [12:56]
B
It's crazy how you really can go back and look at all the indicators and like, connect the dots that lead you to where you are now. I want to jump forward a couple of years. You're in your early 20s, you end up not pursuing college and you go into, like, building a career. You're doing social media management and like social media consulting, and you're doing some director of communications at different churches. When did this kind of turn into a career? Because you've got the creative side. You obviously have skills that people are like, okay, Sean knows how to do this. I want to hire him, I want to work with him. When did that turn for you? Like, mindset wise? To turn this into a career. And kind of a sub question, what's your views on college now? I mean, we, you and I both know you can be very successful without college. What was your view then on college and then maybe your view now and like how that then dictated or influenced the path your career took.
- [13:52]
A
Yeah. So in 2011, I moved to Vegas with my wife to take a director of communications role at a church. And at that time, I had now started two YouTube channels, three YouTube channels, and was fully committed to them, but just committed to them on the side. So a few years previous, my first YouTube channel was personally was just a portfolio of my freelance video business. So that's called Clear Vision Media. And it wasn't like trying to grow. I would just upload, you know, whatever portfolio. So the second YouTube channel was called Think International. And it was an interview show with pastors, church leaders, authors did about 250 videos, grew to 10,000 subscribers. That channel has since been renamed to Jeff Moores. And the guy I started it with is, you know, taking it over. And then I had started my purse. I had started Think Media as well and Think International, which was more leadership and interviews with leadership. I started getting questions in the church world about what camera are you using, what microphone are you using? Because again, up until that point now I've been doing video for about seven years. And because I had started my freelance business all with sort of this mindset, you know, even if you look at some of those early videos, we had some vlogging in there. I had a fisheye lens that I screwed on my Canon Vixia camera. And we would go film, not skate or sports content, but we would film it with like a rig that was again, like a snowboard, skateboard setup. And then the editing and the music of all the Think International stuff was just. It was all my dream was just to do things different. And because of that, we actually got quite a bit of attention in a sub niche, the church world. And so different pastors and church media teams and all those people be like, hey, what mic are you using? How you guys are doing that? What camera are you using? And so that's why I started Think Media. And it was called Think Media at the time. We eventually xed out the TV just called Think Media. Now what it is today, Think I'm a hat. You know, and so. But in hindsight, it seems like it was all pretty clear. And like, Sean, did you plan out everything that's happening today with how big it's grown and, you know, the team and everything else. And it's like, no, not really. Because I even actually got distracted from I think my core strength. I started to a personal channel where I was like vlogging and doing like gift ideas, videos and we did vlogmas and some different stuff. So just went down a lot of detours. But I think what happened was in saying all of this is I read the book Crush it from Gary Vee right when it came out around 2009, 2010 and I fully committed to my side hustle. And my mindset was as long as it takes, like I'm going to do this period, whether it takes one year or five years. And at the same time I'm going to stay anchored in my, in something that is secure. Especially because I for my family, for my wife, no kids at the time. And there was some, I mean in 2009 my wife almost died and so there was some different health challenges and some chronic illness stuff. So it was very important for me as to not put my family at risk. So moving to Vegas, having a salary, health insurance, it was sort of that idea of being anchored in something stable but always chipping away at the side hustle. So I was all in. And sometimes that meant I didn't post because I was too busy with my other responsibilities. But it meant if I had a little bit of extra time or like lighter workload at church because summer is a lot lighter, Easter and Christmas is crazy, summer's a lot lighter, then I would also, I would hustle really hard on my side hustle. And if you look at the trajectory of our main channel now, Think Media, it was, it's pretty flat, especially compared to the views now from 2010 to 2015. But in answer to your question, like when was the transition? At the end of 2015, October 2015, I went all in. And we're actually coming up, we're a year out from our 10 year anniversary of Think Media as defined not by the first upload, but as defined by 10 years of START essentially starting the company. Although the S Corp did not start for a few more of the years, I was still, it was scrappy, like I'm just technically just my Social Security number. I'm a contractor. Other contractors, you know, probably would have been smart to even have an llc. Didn't at first, but you know, just messy like figuring it all out but. But it was basically all in in October 2015 and really because I was in essentially full time ministry, I mean working for a church and I eventually had the clarity but also was essentially let go from that church. And in a positive way, they brought me back on as a freelancer and a contractor. So my transition period was kind of like three main freelance clients. And then, interestingly enough, October 2015, all three fired me in three consecutive weeks. Do you want to get your first or next 1,000 subscribers on YouTube faster? For the first time ever, we are hosting a free one day event@vogrowthday.com during this one day online event, you will learn our step by step YouTube success system for getting views, subscribers and making money. You'll get to connect with the Think Media team and be a part of community conversation and a bunch of cool giveaways. And you'll leave with your personalized YouTube game plan for success. So to register, just go to videogrowthday.com or click the link in the show notes. Now let's jump back into the episode. So really quick. Less.
- [19:29]
B
Let's stop. Let's stop there. What? So you lose all three freelance clients in the span of three weeks in that moment, like, what was that telling you? How. How did you. How did you make meaning from that?
- [19:44]
A
Well, the original meaning was, am I a failure? Are we. Is the ship sinking? We hit an iceberg. We're going down. Because in the first week, the church let me go. And it was, you know, I generally try to always see, like, possibilities and problems. Like sometimes on Instagram stories, I'm like, rise and grind. It's a new day of new opportunities and new possibilities. Like, I always want to, like, see opportunities and possibilities. So they said, like, listen, you know, it's been great having you freelance social media, YouTube and video stuff for us, but we're just going a different direction. We want to bring it in house. They let me go. That was like a $2,000 a month kind of retainer. So I was like, man, that's discouraging. But it's only one out of three. Simple enough. Just replace them, you know, like, it's a bummer to get let go by one of your contracts. No big deal. But then the second week, it was a little bit more brutal because a social media influencer author that I was doing the same thing for said the same thing. We're bringing it in house. You're awesome. But we're. You're fired. Thanks. So, okay. And that was another $2,000 retainer. And so now I'm like, okay, now we're down 4,000. There's a little. I'm a little bit nervous. And then the Last one was 1000, and I saw this one coming because I already knew this guy was kind of making some pivots. His name's Dr. Dave Martin, author, speaker. Now he's a church planner. And he. Same thing. Hey, we gotta let you go again. We're bringing our stuff in house. So three weeks consecutive, we lose $5,000, $60,000 a year, which was our bread and butter. And YouTube was bringing in about 300 to $500 a month in affiliate marketing with franked videos, and then about a hundred dollars in ad revenue or so. And I'd been growing up think media at the time, so I want to say around 10,000 subscribers at this time, maybe a little bit more. So. So there. So it was cool. Like, there was proof of concept, and I really knew how to do YouTube. I was mainly doing it for three other clients and doing it as much as I could on the side. But my initial mindset was panic. Like, my initial mindset was to be a little bit freaked out. I actually called a friend, kind of business mentor named David, and I was like, david, I am super worried. You know, I'm losing all my clients. What are we going to do? We're actually about six months away from zero in our bank account. If we just whittle down any savings that we have, like, this is not looking good. And David tells me, he goes, you know, Sean, I'm. I'm not worried. Now, for context, David had sold a education, real estate business for multiple millions. And him and his wife, or whenever I call him, he happens to be on the beach in, like, Cabo. Like, yeah, how's it going? Like, how can I. Can I help you with? And so I'm like, david, I know you're not worried. Like, I don't know if you heard me. I'm, like, offended. I'm not worried, bro. What? This is the worst advice. Like, do you. Have you ever heard of the definition of the word empathy? Like, cool. Like, I just want you to know I'm comfortable right now, Sean, but. But ultimately, that's not what he was saying, because he knew me, and he knew the context. He was like, I'll never forget. Because he said, essentially, you know, listen, in entrepreneurship, Sean, there comes a point when you've got to jump off the cliff. It sounds like God just kicked you off the cliff. Now it's your time to fly. And those words kind of hit me, because at first I was like, what do you. Like, a leprechaun? There's like a this. That's. That's pretty powerful. Like, that's wow, what an. What is insightful. But as I kind of process it and took a breath and got, you know, centered, I was like, okay, that's a good reframe. Yes. Financially, that's a scary three weeks, but also, it's time to go all in. And so I know some people might plan out their transition and plan out their steps and then actually look at their finances and make a decision to be like, hey, they go to their boss or something. Here's my two weeks notice. But a lot of what I was doing was just sort of reacting in each season. Like, it was sort of like the lead pastor's idea that was like, hey, what do you think about how do you really feel about what you're doing right now? I'm like, I feel all right, but, you know, I'd probably do something else. He's like, I kind of feel that, too. So, hey, let's have you transition. And so all that to say was sort of initiated around me and me just reacting and trying to steward the moment. And so as soon as. At the end of October, going into November 2015, once I kind of got my wits about me, I got really excited, nervous financially. But for the first moment in my life, I had no clients, no job, no kids, nothing else to do. And I felt at that moment, before the result happened, because it clicked for me. I was like. I felt like it has been Christmas every day since. Not that it hasn't been hard, and there hasn't been pain and scars along the way. And people say, if you do what you love, you'll never work another day in your life. And I'm like, what are you talking about? That is. That's false. I work a lot of days in my life. I love what I do, and it's freaking hard what I do, too. And, like, there's a lot of days I want to quit, like, if you do what you love, like, all right, relax, you know, Hallmark, you know, mug. But ultimately, I did feel. I was like, whoa, I now get to focus. And that's. And then as I kept talking to David, he goes, you know, you've been doing all this stuff for other people. Everything you've learned, all the different jobs you've had, all the different people you've worked with, all the different people you've helped, all the results you've gotten, they've really all come up to this point, like, you know what to do. And he was right. I actually just started implementing and just started going for it. And what was cool was by January 2016. So three months later I earned right around $4,500 from the Amazon affiliate program. Now for anybody who also knows the details, that's just how much I was promised. It's always a three month delay in getting paid, but that's how much. And that had come out of essentially that was, I want to say actually just December. Because what I knew how to rank videos, I knew how to make videos, I knew about tech, I knew about video, I knew about microphones and all the stuff, lighting and stuff we do. And I just went crazy. Previously my energy was split between trying to do a side hustle, serve clients and it was all focused on one thing. And with no kids and my wife bought in, I was working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, loving every minute of it. And during the holidays it was also very strategic time. So for anybody that does any kind of affiliate marketing, they know that online sales 4 to 10x during those few months. So the fact that now November, I'm like wait, I'm waking up and this is the only thing I'm doing. I was just hustling every week, November, December and then going into January and then because of all the ingredients from my past, getting to work at churches on teams leadership and always actually being very interested in not just if you will, content creation, but thinking about what are the lessons of legacy building a real business. From day one I was thinking about that meaning before I was ready, thinking about I need to hire help and hire an editor like before I'm ready. How could we scale this so it's sustainable? And so in relatively short order, think media grows in 2016, 2017, it gets crazier. 2018, I can't remember all the milestones but like we hit 100,000 subscribers relatively fast and, and then start, start, you know, scaling. And I, if we look back today, it's like over 30 W2 employees and probably 10 more contractors and have, have done a lot of stuff. I think it's. You could in the eight years we're coming up, eight, nine years coming up on our 10 year anniversary in a year it's been a wild ride. But it's. I like, I like the analogy of sometimes as like the tree is growing upward and you start seeing the expanse, the height, the leaves and the fruit, that early season is actually growing much more downward. First the roots are, you don't see it but it's that underground development of your character and your skill set and all of that kind of stuff. And for me that was like a whole Decade leading up to this point we're discussing right now. And then, you know, what's my opinion on college? I mean, I think college is a scam. I think that it's overpriced. I think it's mostly a broken model. I think that it's not necessary for most people. I agree with those listening that are offended and say, what about doctors and lawyers? And like, of course, like, no, that's, you totally should do that. But for in the modern era and, and then let me isolate it for creatives. I mean film school, by the way, some even Ivy League colleges offer content creation classes now. This is a real thing. Google it like people. And it's, that just seems ludicrous to me because why pay that kind of money? And there's just so many other opportunities in the modern world. And I've got examples. I think in the modern world education has changed. You can buy an online course or join, join a cohort or something like that to learn the same thing you would learn in the Ivy League. I'm, you know, probably better. But like in the Ivy League content creation class, at a fraction of the price you can, you can invest. Well, what about the networking and this experience of people you meet? Well, you can buy a ticket and get on a plane and go to events. And again, there's just other ways. In fact, there's a really good book by Chris Jillabaloo. I don't know how you say it. He wrote like the Chris Gillibo and did he write like a hundred dollar startup? Yeah, and I don't, I don't remember what the early book was, but his, his whole point too was like you could actually like go to college without going to college by buying tickets overseas and reading the textbook still and then going to the Louvre and looking at the actual art instead of seeing and, and you could still invite, just take the total dollars you're going to spend and invest them differently. So I think. But the other big philosophy for me would be the proximity principle. And Ken Coleman wrote a book as such. And it's just the big idea of identifying what it is you want to do in your life and then getting in proximity to the people that are doing it. So I was very thoughtful when I had the opportunity to go to Vegas in 2011 and work for Benny Perez at this church. I knew I wanted to speak and do social media of some kind and teach and have that kind of be a communicator in different formats. So having the opportunity do video to get paid. So I think there's the intern opportunity, which was the first season of my life. There could be a paid internship opportunity, but then there also could be who could you go work for? Why not actually go work for a YouTube influencer or a YouTube media company or some other media company or a SaaS company and be a part of their content department or whatever. Get in proximity and get your hands on and do the work voraciously. Consume podcasts, books and online courses. And that would be a pathway that is an alternative to going to college to try to figure out how to do this. But in my opinion, it's far superior because you're actually in the trenches doing hands on work. Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor dad, talks about not even from like a faith based Christian perspective, but he's like the number one thing almost anybody that wants to be like an entrepreneur in business should do is like intern. And so I happen to intern at a church, but he's like, go, go intern for a successful real estate investor. Go work for them or go get on their staff somehow and just get in the game. Like get in proximity. That's a hundred times more valuable than going to college. And so I also think it's a side quest to talk. You could go to trade schools and do a lot of other things, but not to be controversial or anything, but yeah, I think college is a scam and I think there's better paths to reaching your goals this year and beyond.