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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 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.
B
I started YouTube without having any sense of what I was doing and without having a clear plan going at everything super random for the first six months.
C
Your YouTube channel right now is sitting at 46,000 subscribers. What literally changed that? You, like, had a ridiculous amount of growth in such a short period of time. What'd you do different?
B
Yeah, I did a lot different. So one of the main things was that.
C
Welcome to the Think Media podcast, the number one show bringing you unfiltered YouTube tips for building a profitable channel. I'm Nathan Esswine, co host of the podcast and today I'm hanging out with Dr. Anna. How are you doing? Welcome, welcome.
B
Hey, thanks for having me. This is awesome.
C
I am so stoked that you're here. Real quick, just so we're off to speed, could you just explain your channel and your niche?
B
Yeah. So I'm Dr. Anna online. Dr. Anna Pleat. In the real world, I'm a medical doctor and I have a YouTube channel where I teach people healthy ways to lose weight and just maintain their health for the long term. Mostly reaching viewers who are in their 50s and above, but absolutely, I share information for any age.
C
Let's go. I Love it. Your YouTube channel right now is sitting at 46,000 subscribers. How long have you been doing YouTube?
B
I just passed my three year and five months mark. So we can call it three years. Basically three and some change.
C
Let's go real quick. Do you remember how long it took you to get monetized on YouTube? So not anything else you've developed since then, but just when you started. How long did it take for you to get into the partner program?
B
Yeah, with the AdSense. So that's actually a key point. I started YouTube without having any sense of what I was doing and without having a clear plan even for what kind of content I wanted to make. So I was kind of just going at everything super random for the first six months and I didn't have any results, which I think is what a lot of people experience. They kind of start out and they don't really know what they're getting into. It's something brand new. There's so many skills that you have to build. And so I was just kind of testing the waters. And then I actually joined your VRA program, which is. I'm about to hit my, like, three year anniversary of that, so. Yeah. Which is exciting. And it was the turning point for me where I started to understand kind of the whole. The whole shebang, like, all of the things that are required to go from start to finish to keep YouTube as a smooth process, to actually get results and get monetized. And so from. I think from the time I did vra, it was basically three months later I got monetized. So I almost don't count those first six months because I. I remember it was like, I did VRA, and at the time I started VRA, I had 62 subscribers, and it took six months to get 62 subscribers. So you can appreciate how frustrating that probably was. And then I did VRA, and, like, honestly, I think it was like, three weeks later I hit 100 subs, and then it was a couple of videos that really took off that led me to kind of get that ball rolling. And then all of a sudden, we hit a thousand subs, and then we hit 2,000, then 3,000. And I don't exactly remember how many subs I had, but I know it was three months into the program that I got monetized, so I hit all those metrics needed to join the YouTube partner program.
C
Okay, that is epic, number one. And I kind of just want to park here for a second. That's cool. Because, like, okay, if you were going at it for six months to yield 62 subscribers, and then you, like, fill the gap between there and, like, a thousand subscribers getting monetized in a few months after this coaching program, can we just go and spill the beans? Like, what. What's. What are those insights as you think back now?
B
Like, what.
C
What literally changed that you, like, had a ridiculous amount of growth in such a short period of time? What'd you do different?
B
Yeah, I did a lot different. So one of the main things was that I remember you guys have, like, a sub program inside of VRA called Niche Finder, and it's. It's not that many videos or hours of content to get through. And I remember I blew through it in, like, a day and a half, and it was the unlock for me, where I realized, okay, my number one issue is that I am not talking about one topic. And that means the algorithm doesn't know who to show my videos to, because every other video, it's different. I was talking about, like, healthy ways to stay active, and then I was talking about, like, healthy diet tips, and then I was talking about, like, risks of dementia, and, like, it was just all over the place. And it. It was a huge insight for me to start thinking about making content not from what I want people to know, but what are they looking for, and then realizing the channels that grow are speaking to the same audience over and over. And, like, when your audience grows, you're just reaching more people who are into that thing. And so I had to completely flip my vantage point and be like, okay, I need to get out of my own head. Instead of trying to make stuff that I want people to know, I need to make stuff that they want to know. And as a doctor, that can be kind of hard because patients come in to see me and. And I need to tell them things they need to know. And YouTube and content creation and media in general is such a. Such a flipped script in that way. I have to speak to where people's thinking is and where their knowledge base is currently, and then kind of meet them in the middle. So I just had to relearn the whole process over from the beginning, if you know, quite honestly.
C
So, real quick, a little behind the scenes from this exact episode. When Dr. Anna and I finished recording, I looked at the dashboard and her footage had not finished uploading yet. This is usually the moment where your stomach drops as a content creator, but thankfully, we use Riverside, the partner of today's episode in. Riverside records everything locally on each person's device and up to 4K clean, separate audio and video tracks. So every frame on Dr. Ana's side was saved and just finished uploading on its own in the background. No reshoot, no lost interview, thank goodness. I mean, you're literally watching and listening to the proof right right now. But it's not just the recording features that are cool. Once the conversation's captured, Riverside gets you from raw footage to finished episode way faster. You can edit from the transcript, just edit the text and the video updates itself. AI even can remove the filler words, clean up the awkward pauses, and even generate captions automatically. And their magic clips feature can even turn the best moments from the conversation into shorts, reels, and TikToks, all from the same dashboard. And for podcasters, Riverside actually can host and distribute Your show on, on Spotify, Apple Music, even publish directly to YouTube. So the whole pipeline, again, lives in one place. So if interviews or podcasts are part of your content plan, especially if your calendar is anything like Dr. Anna's, Riverside keeps the whole system simple. You plan it, record it, edit it, publish it. Use Code Think Media at checkout to get one month free of Riverside's pro plan. Again, that's Code Think Media at checkout link is in the description or show notes down below. All right, back to Dr. Anna. Okay, so two things I heard there. What changed? First one is you got a greater sense of clarity. It sounds like by niching down, like, getting more clear on who you're actually trying to reach. What was that process like? You know, as you think back and you look, you know, going through that kind of a course, that it does guide you through that process. Do you remember if there's one or two moments where you were like, oh, like, that's where I missed the mark. Oh, I was trying to reach this person. Like, what's something that kind of, you know, a light bulb moment you had there that still guides you today?
B
That's such a good question. I mean, there are a lot of things. I think what would be important for viewers of this podcast to realize is that trying to think about stuff from where other people's knowledge base and awareness is at and then expanding on those things is going to help you reach more people. Right. So one of the things that's really important to me is teaching people how to eat a healthy diet and eat a healthy diet specifically for weight loss. Because I, you know, it's no surprise, and it's no secret at this point that obesity is sort of a pandemic around the whole world. And a lot of people struggle. And of course, we're in this era of medical solutions like GLP1 ozempic drugs, but that's not the whole conversation. And so what I spend a lot of time doing is teaching people how to eat healthy foods and healthy diet, and I teach the Mediterranean diet specifically. So what I realized is I can't just say, okay, I'm gonna have my whole channel just about, like, being healthy. That's too broad.
C
And.
B
And it's also overwhelming for people to think about all the different things that they would need to do to kind of get their health in check. And instead I was like, let me just pick one thing. I'll pick my favorite thing, which is the nutrition, the diet part. And then I realized within that whole world of nutrition and Diet, it's massive. I mean, there's so many types of YouTube channels already just about that stuff, and there are so many diets out there. I was like, I want to teach the one I know really well that I know the science supports. And that is the kind of thing I would tell people to do in my clinical practice, like in my office visits.
C
I loved how you said you, you. It sound like passion was a part of this, because, you know, as I'm hearing you, I mean, just like, full disclosure, right? Like, I mean, you're a doctor, so, like, I'll say it for you, Anna. Like, you know a lot. You know a lot. And I think you could speak to a lot of different things. And so I can only imagine. And I think this is a lot of people, actually, you don't have to be a doctor to feel this way. A lot of people want to create something. And this, the. The initial instinct is, okay, I want to try to reach everybody with almost everything that I could do. But the. But it's more strategic approach is actually trying to get clear on, like, where your sweet spot is. Right. And so is that what this is, like, weight loss, Mediterranean diet? How. What's the thread there, if you don't mind asking? Is that something that you'd experienced yourself or, like, why was that the passionate choice for you?
B
Yeah, like, why was that? Why is that my thing? So I am from the United States, but I did my medical training in Italy, and before I went to medical school, I got my undergraduate degree in nutrition. So nutrition was always my passion. And then I had this real life experience living in the Mediterranean region and experiencing their culture and seeing what the Mediterranean diet and lifestyle really means in the real world. I had learned about it in my nutrition studies back in the States, and there's all this research about it. It's been kind of the number one recommended diet from the medical standpoint for most conditions, like including fatty liver disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, decreasing the risks of dementia and Alzheimer's. I mean, you name the condition, it's recommended. But beyond that, there's this, like, life component that I had that I was like, I have to talk about this. I knew I wanted to just talk about it in general, but I didn't really know how to reach people within teaching. And I think you said this, Nathan. It's. It's really hard to almost hold yourself back when you have a passion. Like, even if I don't know, your. Your YouTube channel's about gardening or it's about, you're a Mechanic and you just want to teach people how to fix their own truck. Or it could be any topic. You have so much knowledge and insight and experience in that thing, it can be overwhelming to share it all with people. And one of the things I've had to learn to do is you have to almost like pick a few points, like your teaching points and your learning points, and just repeat them over and over, repeat them in creative ways, repeat them in multiple, from multiple angles. And I think it was from Gary Vee, when I first heard this concept, like, there's a lot of big media people that talk about it all the time. Like, you want to repeat yourself more than just say new stuff. So it's like people need to be reminded more than they need to be taught as the concept.
C
That's huge. Okay, so you hit that, hit the nail on the head there. And inside of Niche Finder too. Like, there's these three P's that Sean walks people through, right? Like, hey, like, you're going to find the best YouTube channel thing you should do at the intersection of these three things. One of them is passion, which we've talked about. The other was proficiency. And there's two things here that you have that I think really helped you nail this proficiency piece when it came to choosing your YouTube channel and like, what kind of content to create. And it was this combination of book smarts and if I can phrase it this way, street smarts. Like book smarts and street smarts. And because you said obviously you studied goodness, you're a doctor. Book smarts. But then street smarts, you actually, you were in Italy. Italy, that's where you trained. You lived this lifestyle. You were immersed in the culture. It's like, those are street smarts. And I'm thinking about like someone who could be listening, who's still struggling to narrow it down. I would encourage you to think about, like, in the street smarts is almost like your unique edge. Like, what's the cool thing that you could say in a video? And by the way, cool. I'm even hesitant to say that word because you could feel like I'm not cool. You know, it's like the imposter center stuff. And for you it's like I've noticed in your videos as I was preparing for our interview, you know, you say like, I was trained in Italy and it's just like a one liner, you know, and sometimes we go further, sometimes you won't. But it's just like, it's a point of intrigue that's like oh, wow. Oh, like you were trained in Italy and you're telling me about this Mediterranean diet thing. It's just a differentiating factor. And so I think it's cool that you, you leaned into that and you still lean into that to this day. Do you mind if I ask, like, how long did you, I guess, wait to monetize or how long was it where you were just audience building, connecting with people, building an email list and then when you actually charged for the first time and what was your first product?
B
Since I like my area is education as opposed to entertainment, I was like, I have to create, I want to create digital products. It's obviously what we're, a lot of people are doing now, especially in the education space. And so I knew I wanted to create some kind of like a, a group learning experience and as opposed to just like an individual course or an individual paid piece of learning material, if you will, like a book or something or like an ebook or something like that. I started collecting emails. I guess it was a year and a half ago from now at the time of this recording. So that would have been February of 2025. And then my husband and I, we hunkered down and we hustled. We were like, we are going to get our first product launched by this summer. So that was like four months later. And actually, let me think, February. Yeah, it was like four months later we launched my first version of my online like learning program. And it's really kind of like group coaching, if you will. And it wasn't called this at the time. I originally called it the take back your life program on Skool, the community website Skool for those unfamiliar. And so the original version of it launched May of 2025 and it was like a learning platform where I had pre recorded video modules. So it's kind of like a course. And then we were doing online group kind of like zoom calls that are built into it. And so it was like a group learning thing. And I had a monthly subscription pricing for that original program. And then I sort of recognized that I was dedicating a lot of my time to it. And I love doing it, but it was exhausting me. And I was like, I need to make sure something is sustainable. And I also at the time became pregnant with my daughter. And so I was like, okay, life is happening to me. I need to find something that's going to fit everything going on. And so I just restructured it and turned it into a challenge and then launched that a couple months later. So it was October of last year. And then I started promoting it with a live webinar which was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. And now I have it set up where I have kind of two programs like a low tier and a high tier. So low ticket and higher ticket. And one is like an introductory group coaching course and the other one is like more of an immersive experience where you can go deeper in your learning. So both of those things are on my school website now. It's called the Healthy After 50 Academy.
C
I'd love to have to talk about that time thing for a second because you, you've. There's been a couple things that have slipped out in our conversation and I just want to make it very plain for someone who's listening because I think we have a lot to learn from you. You are still a full time practicing physician and your average, what are your, what's, what are your hours? Like a week? Like what do you average?
B
I mean it, it depends. If I'm on my outpatient setting, I'm like 50, 60 hours a week. When I'm working in the hospital, it can be close to 80 hours a week.
C
Wow, okay, so that's already just happening. I also heard you say, so YouTube is the side hustle and is, is your aim right now to keep it side hustle?
B
Yeah. Yes, correct. I love what I do. Like, I love seeing patients in real life. I'm not going to stop doing that anytime soon. And so I wanted to be able to reach more people yet still have that one on one experience with a patient because they're, they're completely different things. And what's amazing is in, in the old days, meaning literally as recently as 15 years ago, there was not this opportunity to reach this many people. Once like doctors, if they wanted to reach more people, they wrote a book that was about it. Maybe they would get on like primetime TV for a little bit of a five minute interview and then a lot of doctors would get involved in research. But the audience of that whole thing are other doctors. And I was like, I specifically want to reach common people like, you know, the public, like regular folks who are just trying to figure this out. And so this is a tool that never existed before.
C
Hey, quick pause on the conversation with Dr. Anna because you probably picked up on this pattern. Nothing about Dr. Anna's growth is an accident. Remember when she started six months posting on her own, she had 62 subscribers to show for it. And then she got a strategy in inside of video ranking academy and just Three months later, she was monetized. Fast forward to Today, we're at 46,000 subscribers in a real business that she's even choosing to keep as a side hustle. So if you're at all in that guessing stage right now, posting and nothing's moving, it's not about working harder, it's just about finally having a system. We put the core of the strategy that Dr. Anna used into a free class. You can watch it@thinkmasterclass.com Again, think masterclass. We'll leave that in the show notes in the description down below. But for now, back to Dr. Anna.
B
And what's amazing about video specifically is like it's kind of fast. I can just talk and share and express and capture all of the, the nuances that sometimes they fall through the cracks of written word. And you know, there are benefits to both. But like I specifically, I like to talk. Other people are maybe are more shy and they don't feel comfortable on camera and something like just an audio only or written form of media is better suited for them. But this is something so fast and like I can fit it around my schedule so it's very convenient in that
C
way you're someone who is kind of erasing all excuses. We've talked about your insane, you know, full time job, the hours that are required there and not just the hours, but the kind of work required. I'm sure it's like, requires you to show up, you're dealing with real people. It's a lot of bandwidth. You also have a baby, you have a family.
B
I do. I have a four month old daughter. So here we go. I'm in it. I'm in the thick of it.
C
We have a six month old right now, so respect.
B
Congrats. Okay, let's go. Yeah, that's exciting.
C
So family going on, full time, job going on. You just said. Yeah, I kind of like to keep it a side hustle. How do you do this? Like, can you walk me through a typical week in your YouTubing, momming, professionaling life? How does YouTube still happen, Nathan?
B
Sometimes I ask myself the same thing, like, how am I doing this? But I gotta say, and this brings us back to a point from the beginning, like the passion piece is what drives me. Like I love talking about these topics. I'm so passionate about helping people lose weight and be as healthy as possible and you know, optimize their health, especially when they get into those older age brackets. And you know, not a lot of people are supportive of that. And so like it's Literally the. The topic that's keeping me going. It gives me energy. But that being said, I think in order for us to understand, like, how am I pulling this off? Is not to look at what a typical week is, but a typical month, because it is. It is not something that I can actually actively do every single week. And that partly is benefited by the fact that my husband helps me out. So I don't have that many days a month that I record. I do. What I think a lot of people tend to do when they're committed to YouTube long term is I kind of batch record. I. I batch all the. The workflow. So I have, let's say, a period of time, maybe it's a few days or even a week and a half where I'm just focusing on making scripts, and I'm somebody who really needs to write out my whole script. Some of it is that I like to talk about technical things and science and medicine, and I don't really wing it. I know other people's channels, especially if they're talking, if they're more of an entertainment channel or they're more lifestyle focused, like, they just flip that camera on, they go on a walk in the park. Like, that's not the kind of content I make. So I really need to, like, dedicate time to writing out my video ideas and scripting. Although, I'll be honest, if you do that, no matter what your niche is, like, you're probably gonna get better results. I, like, take the time to just try to make as many scripts as I can. Let's say anywhere from four to eight at a time. And then I kind of go into batch recording them. I try to record, like, between three and four videos in a day. I have done something insane, and, like, people are gonna hear this and be like, that, she's lying. I'm not lying. When I was 38 weeks pregnant, I was like, okay, I'm gonna be out of commission until my daughter's, like, eight weeks old. Because that's gonna be not a time when I can film. I need to just bang out a bunch of videos so that my YouTube channel doesn't have, like, a lull. And so I had one day where I recorded 10 videos, and I was like, at the end of my third trimester. And, like, I mean, looking back, that was kind of neurotic. But at the same time, I had fun with it, and it allowed my YouTube channel just keep rolling in the background while I was, like, with my daughter and, like, having quiet family time. So the Cool thing is, if you're really dedicated and organized, you can work ahead as much as you want to, and then you can. I don't know, in my mind, it's like an accordion style. Like, you can have times where you're, like, compressing the accordion. You're, like, really banging out a bunch of hours. And then you can expand it and be like, I haven't thought about my YouTube channel for the last two weeks. And videos are just being posted because I scheduled them in advance. So you have to figure out what fits for your life. Okay, I know we need to just take a second and breathe there because that's.
C
It really is. It's amazing. But I love this stuff because it's just. Okay. There's just real people out here doing real stuff. And I appreciate you walking us through that part of your workflow. Are there any tools that you or your husband find yourself reaching for on a weekly or monthly basis? Like, what are some tools that enable us to work, that enable this workflow to be this smooth and consistent?
B
Yeah, I mean, look, AI is something that we should be using because otherwise we're just putting ourselves behind where we could otherwise be. So if I try to come up with my video ideas, like on my own, like from. From my raw thoughts, if you will, and then I'm using AI to really expand on those things and talk to it and ask, like, am I missing something about this topic that people really need to know about, or am I over doing it? Maybe we need to scale this back. Should this actually be three videos instead of one? Like, I go back and forth with AI to talk to it. I'm using Claude a lot right now. Yeah. And I think a lot of people are. But there, there are so many AI chats. Like, sometimes we talk to Grok, which is the. The X1, because I find that it's a little bit more honest and real. Like, there's a certain sense of filteredness that you get from some of these other AI chatbots. And I find that GROK will just kind of like, tell you the real deal, even if it's offensive. And. And sometimes I need that feedback. And so we, we do both. We talk to, like, Claude and Grok to like, flesh out the video ideas and then the actual script. So that saves a lot of time. I used to write my scripts by hand, like three years ago, two years ago. You know, we haven't really had these tools for that long.
C
That's the thing.
B
Yeah, I mean, it's for those in the content creation Game, like right now, if you've been doing this over the last two years, three years, five years, it is something that, like, for all of human history, like, I don't think anybody's ever going to appreciate like the massive leap that has just happened for those of us doing this stuff. And so that also lends me to talk about how we do our editing. So I used to, I started my channel with my iPhone, a ring light that held the phone inside the, the whole part of the ring. I had a string microphone and then I was editing it myself on Cap Cut. And I was, I put that on my desktop because like, you know, for short form video it's easy to edit it from your phone. But like, I'm mostly doing long form YouTube videos. And so Capcut was it, it was pretty cheap, but after a while it was cumbersome. And then the AI tools started coming out and so I think we got a subscription at first to. Oh gosh, I always forget the name of it. It's not Adobe, but it's the other big one that people like.
C
And it's not still Cap Cut. You're not going.
B
No, no, no. We stopped using capcut for the time being. And anyway, now we're using descript. Descript has a lot of AI built into it that makes it really nice. And whenever you put your video inside. And I think some of the other softwares are now doing this too, but it puts your written script right next to it and then you can edit from the written text part as opposed to the video and the timeline at the bottom. Game changer for me. And one of the other things that was game changing was now my, I didn't, I don't edit the videos anymore. My husband does it. So in the beginning it was me, I had to learn it. And then he learned it and he was like, okay, I'm going to give you some time back. I'll be the editor. And we actually hired an editor from Fiverr for a little bit of time and they were, they were great. But then when the AI tools got better, it was like way cheaper and faster to just do it ourselves with the AI software. And so that's just the nature of technology right now. So that has really helped the workflow. Quite honestly, that's the. Everybody knows, like the thing that eats up your time the most is the editing by far.
C
I love hearing you say though that, okay, you are going to outsource, you know, the editing, be it AI tools. You got your husband rocking as well. But I love Hearing you say at the beginning, it was refreshing to hear you say you start with yourself. Like when it comes to the idea, like just the initial spark of like, what to talk about, what to create. And not that you. I'm sure you couldn't brainstorm with AI or anything. I just see a lot of creators who want to get into this game and into this space, or even business owners who aren't new to business but are new to YouTube and are like, oh, I'll just like talk it out. I'll just like have AI do whatever.
B
Do it for me.
C
Yeah, yeah, do it for me. And I, I just think that's rough, man. I think that we can suss it out. And so I think something that's at least helpful to hear from you is like, oh, no, like starting with yourself and then bringing in AI to help refine things, having it be battle tested, you know, like what? Yeah, challenge. Asking the AI to challenge your script. You know, it's like, what would. One of my favorite prompts lately has been act like a hater in the comments and call out, like, poke holes in what I'm saying so you know what I mean? And like, you can go back at it. So anyway, I love that approach to these tools that you're using. So you. So we covered your tools that you're, that you're using. You're batching. You're batching in by headspace is what it sounds like. We will script out a whole bunch of stuff. Is that what I heard?
B
You just said something that makes me want to share another really key point when it comes to using AI, you have to remind yourself, like, what are you trying to accomplish with your content? So for me, I'm trying to literally help people get a result. And of course that includes helping my business grow. But my business growing means I'm helping more people lose weight and eat healthily and, you know, have fewer health problems. So you have to remind yourself, like, what am I trying to do this for? If you're just trying to maximize the number of videos you can put out and you're not really thinking about the person on the other side of the screen who's trying to watch it, I guarantee you you're going to struggle in the business side of things because anybody can now go to AI and just ask IT questions. So if all your content is, is regurgitated, you talking out that what the AI said, like any. Nobody needs to watch your video, they can just ask AI the same question. What are you adding to the equation and what value are you bringing that they're not going to get just from talking to AI themselves? And so that's like the human aspect of it. People listening to this. If you're a content creator thinking about going into it, like, it's a little bit of a blend of both. You want to be practical and save time where it's obviously a better choice to do things on AI now.
C
Yeah.
B
But at the same time, don't do it 100%. Like, oh, now I don't have to. I can just like, you know, drink a martini while my thing, my channel is getting created for me. Like, that's not exactly better for you.
C
I'd love to hear Dr. Anna go ahead and shout your stuff out. Like, it's just been so awesome. What's your channel? So that if anyone wants to spy on what you're doing, they could copy and take taste and learn from someone who's really doing it. But then also any like, just where people could connect with you.
B
So my channel is just my name, not that creative. Dr. Anna Pleat. And the my tag is @annapletemd. That's like my tag across all of my social media. I have a website too, anapletemd.com where I link a lot of my lead magnets, my freebies, how you can watch my free webinar that's all about Mediterranean diet and weight loss. And then if you want to join my academy, where it's really more dedicated learning for people who are motivated to lose weight and kind of ready to take the action, that's my school academy. So it's the Healthy After 50 Academy on the school website.
C
Let's go. Thank you so much, Dr. Anna. Come on. Podcast. There's no way you didn't get value from this episode. Like rate, share, review wherever you're watching or listening. This is the Think Media podcast. I'm Nathan Eswine and I can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.
This episode showcases Dr. Anna Pleat, a full-time physician and successful YouTube creator, who reveals how she transformed her slow channel growth (62 subscribers in six months) to over 46,000 subscribers and a thriving business—primarily by changing one fundamental strategy. The conversation centers on niche clarity, content systemization, the practical side of balancing a demanding career with YouTube, leveraging AI for efficiency, and building authentic connections with viewers.
| Time | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|-------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:06 | Dr. Anna | “I started YouTube without having any sense of what I was doing and without having a clear plan...” | | 04:22 | Dr. Anna | “My number one issue is that I am not talking about one topic. And that means the algorithm doesn’t know who to show my videos to...” | | 10:15 | Dr. Anna | “Nutrition was always my passion...I actually got to experience the real Mediterranean diet and lifestyle during my medical training in Italy.” | | 11:45 | Dr. Anna | “People need to be reminded more than they need to be taught.” | | 16:58 | Dr. Anna | “YouTube is the side hustle...I love what I do...I’m not going to stop doing that anytime soon.” | | 22:21 | Dr. Anna | “You can compress the accordion...record a bunch at once...and then expand it and not think about your YouTube channel for two weeks.” | | 23:27 | Dr. Anna | “I’m using AI to really expand on those things and talk to it and ask, like, am I missing something about this topic...?” | | 25:55 | Dr. Anna | “Descript has a lot of AI built into it that makes it really nice...you can edit from the written text.” | | 28:48 | Dr. Anna | “If all your content is regurgitated...nobody needs to watch your video. They can just ask AI the same question.” |
This episode delivers a tactical, inspiring playbook for creators balancing real-life commitments with building an impactful channel and business. Dr. Anna’s journey highlights the necessity of clarity, the power of repeatable systems, and bringing the irreplaceable value of lived experience and practical expertise—as both a creator and a business owner.