Quitting your job and starting a YouTube channel at the age of 39 is a pretty terrifying thing.
The first response from my teenage son: ”No way! You are not doing that!” (reading between the lines “do not embarrass me Mom”)
First response from most of my 39-year old friends: “Erm Youtube!? Isn’t that just for kids?”
First response from basically anyone: “Youtuber, is that even a real job!? How will you earn any money?”
The first two were easy to address! First, I promised my son that I was not going to be a “Vlogger” and that my content wouldn’t embarrass him in any way and then I told all my friends that YouTube is for all ages and that amazing and meaningful content is uploaded every second.
The 3rd point was a bit trickier! To be honest I am still working on the “earning money” part. For now, I see it as a passion project, but I am certain I will figure out how to monetize it along the way. And I can tell you that it definitely feels like “a real job”! I started BigIdeasGrowingMinds because I want to bring Big Ideas and Inspiring Learning to people all over the world; to ensure inclusive and quality learning opportunities and promote lifelong learning for everyone who wants to learn, grow and be the best they can be! And if that isn’t a real and meaningful job, I don’t know what is!!
I am proud of myself for taking the leap, and I am proud of the Channel and the work I have done so far but the truth is that is has been a challenging and vulnerable journey getting here! Every time I post a new “video”, “linked-in post” or “Instagram story” it makes me feel vulnerable. I worry how many “likes” I will get, I feel shame if people dislike my videos and I am scared if the “internet trolls” will be mean to me.
A good friend recently suggested that I made “Daring Greatly” by Brené Brown the topic of my next video. In the book Brown explores how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead.
She does this by challenging everything we think we know about vulnerability and dispels the widely accepted myth that it is equal to weakness. Instead she argues that vulnerability is strength and a prerequisite for true connection with others.
She emphasizes that we have to engage fully and openly with the world around us and realize that this is the only way to live life to the fullest and develop real, honest and loving relationships. We must learn to be kind to ourselves and others and believe that what makes us vulnerable also makes us beautiful. This is vulnerability. This is daring greatly.
I hope you will check out the video and be inspired by Brené’s wise words. It definitely inspired me to keep going, to embrace my vulnerability and to dare greatly.
I will leave you with this bonus information: Before I even officially launched the BigIdeasGrowingMinds channel, my teenage son showed it to his friends and made them subscribe. Definitely one of my proudest moments, and a good reminder that with great risk comes great reward.
You can check out the video here.
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Take care and see you soon.
This is our Bouillon Cube summary of the book. As always we highly recommend reading the whole book. You can buy it by clicking this link.
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