The School of Greatness - 779 Using YouTube to Bring Your Dream to Life

Episode Date: April 3, 2019

IT' ALL ABOUT THE HUSTLE. What gatekeepers are holding you back from doing what you love? I’m inspired by the creators on YouTube. They are people who have forged their own path. They didn’t wait for someone to allow them to make videos- they just went out and did it. They’ve dealt with negative comments. They’ve had failed videos. They’ve faced countless setbacks. And they still continued to create. You have to give yourself permission to find and express your true self. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I created a mashup of all my favorite interviews with the women of YouTube: Lilly Singh, iJustine, Bethany Mota, and Lindsey Sterling. Lilly Singh (aka iiSuperwomanii) is a multi-faceted comedian, entertainer, actress and the founder of #GirlLove. She has found worldwide fame through her comedic and inspirational YouTube videos, amassing 12 million subscribers. In March 2017, she released her debut book HOW TO BE A BAWSE: A Guide to Surviving Conquering Life, which became a #1 New York Times Best Seller. As a role model to women and girls around the globe, Singh created her #GirlLove initiative to break the cycle of girl-on-girl hate and encourage women to build each other up. Justine Ezarik, the YouTube personality better known as iJustine, took the internet by storm. She's been around for more than a decade, first popping up on YouTube in 2006 where she has accumulated millions of subscribers and fans. The vlogger still remains beloved and has since branched out with a bustling Instagram account and a memoir. Bethany Mota started with her channel, Macbarbie07 in 2009. She rose to fame for her haul videos, in which she shows her fashion and style purchases via the internet. She uploads videos of outfit ideas, makeup and hair tutorials, recipes, and do it yourself ideas. She has since expanded into her own fashion line at Aéropostale. She has gone on multiple tours, which she calls her "Motavatours" to meet and interact with fans. She also appeared on Season 19 of Dancing with the Stars. Lindsey Sterling is a violinist with 10 million YouTube subscribers, over 1.9 billion views on her YouTube channel, 2 Billboard Music Awards, Billboard chart-topping hits and sold-out tours worldwide. All of these women share a common drive that forces them to keep putting themselves out there and keep being better each day. So get ready to learn how to find creativity and inspiration on Episode 779. Some Questions I Ask: Where does your hustle come from? (4:00) Who do you want to be? (6:00) What’s your vision for what you’re creating? (8:00) What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned about yourself? (9:00) If you could put up one final video, what would you post? (11:00) What is your biggest fear? (14:00) What’s the feeling you get when you’re on stage? (17:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: Why Lilly Singh dedicated her book to the person she was three years ago (5:00) Why it’s ok to constantly change your goals (7:00) Why you should surround yourself with people with different skills than you (10:00) How to drop your ego and do things out of love (16:00) How to find your sense of true self (18:00) Plus much more...

This is episode number 779 with the powerhouse women of YouTube. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to this episode. We've got some inspirational powerhouse females who are taking over the world with their creativity, with their passion, making their dreams a reality.

And they all started in one place, and that was YouTube. They built this massive following on YouTube, which has allowed them to create a passionate following, an audience to take their dreams to the next level. We've got Lilly Singh, who just got a late night talk show, who has gained a massive following on YouTube and done so many other creative projects from TV to movies. We've got iJustine, who's a huge YouTube personality, one of the first vloggers that really became famous. We talked about her and how she's built her channels. Bethany Moda, who was also on Dancing with the Stars and taking over the world in fashion and beauty and styling and makeup and hair tutorials and recipes. We've got Lindsey Stirling, one of my favorite people who has

turned the violin into one of the coolest things in the world with her music and her dancing and her choreography doing massive sold-out shows around the world. She also spoke at the Summit of Greatness last year and performed and blew everyone away. And this is all about how to really take your dreams that people think might be a little weird or quirky or different. And these women have turned this creative thing that most people think you can never make money doing, and they've built massive businesses, massive brands, and led inspirational lives that have impacted and changed millions of people's lives around the world. And in this interview, we talk about how to sustain this level of intensity.

All these women have done something unique with their hustle. But how do you sustain the hustle? How do you reinvent yourself through burnout? How do you continually grow when you feel like you might be getting capped out? We talk about how to surround yourself with people who lift you up because there's a lot of negative haters that can say mean things about you on YouTube when you start to grow on any platform. And how do you really surround yourself with the right people and not worry about that? Talk about how to overcome the fear of failing. The fear of failing when you launch something that you think maybe other people don't believe in, but you launch it anyways because you love it.

How to overcome the fear of failing once you become successful and you have that pressure to stay successful, and also how to find your true self through all of this. I'm so excited for you to listen to these women who are on this mashup episode about their YouTube dreams and how they built their brands. I'm super pumped about this. And make sure to share this with your friends. Tag a friend, text a friend, spread the message of greatness, help other people become dream makers like yourself by taking action on the wisdom they learn from this episode. Big thank you again for everyone who is here. And let's dive into this episode with the powerhouse women of YouTube.

One of the things that our mutual friend Humble told me about, I was like, what's something that really inspires you about Lily? He goes, her level of work ethic and hustle, whether she's working fast food or some job she hates or putting together furniture is like the same level of energy and passion and hustle across everything you do in life. He said he's really like inspired by that. Why? Where does that come from and why do you do that? Yeah, honestly, I don't know where it comes from. Part of me thinks that, and this is me being really honest, I think it's a great pro and a strength, but often at times it's also a really big con

in my life. I'll give you a prime example. The other day we threw a barbecue for once. Someone on my team got engaged. He's sitting right over there. And I threw a barbecue and I was like, all right, pretty good. Simple barbecue and get some stuff for the barbecue. Great. Then I'm like, I should do a fruit plate. And I was FaceTiming humble. And this is why I know he said this because I was FaceTiming humble and I was cutting strawberries into stars and balling melons to make them look like flowers and he was just looking at me and he's like what are you doing he's like why are you putting this much effort into this fruit bowl and it did not even occur to me I was like why wouldn't I spend five hours on this what What do you mean?

And I think it's just that I like to challenge myself. And when I do anything, I treat it as if it is the most important thing. And that's great because then I get to do amazing things like this that I'm really, really proud of. But then also I spent five hours making a fruit bowl. So it's kind of problematic. I're making your bed for two hours. I haven't gotten there yet. But it's, yeah, I don't know. There's something in me that's just obsessed with improving and productivity all the time. And when people ask me, how do you do that?

Don't you get tired? The answer is I don't know. I don't get tired. I get tired of doing a lot of things. I don't get tired of making this one thing the best it could be. You obsess over it. I obsess. Do you think there's something underneath it?

Like, what if you didn't have the perfect fruit bowl? I mean, it wasn't perfect. The kiwis were kind of whack. I'll say that. I think it's just we have X amount of energy in a day. And if I'm going to spend that energy anyways, why not just spend it on doing something really well? It really bothers me if I just do...

Here's an example. If I take a break, I usually watch a TV show. And in my brain, it's not just me, oh, I'm going to do nothing and watch a TV show. In my brain, it is, no, no. You are going to get inspired, but you have to proactively watch this TV show now so you can get inspired.

It's like homework. It's not relaxing. And I'm obsessed with with that i'm obsessed with productivity at every level and being the best i can be and extracting the best i can out of everything and it's obsessive who do you want to be who do i want to be? I want to be... I don't want to fill anyone's void. I think Humble and I learned this when we were in Italy with the honor of talking to Pharrell and he said something

that really, really impacted me when Humble was asking him... Humble said something like, I want to fill the Andre 3000 void. That's what I want my music to be. And Pharrell was like, you should fill the Humble the Poet void. And I was like, ooh!

I mean, Humble talked about that all the time and that got me thinking where I don't want to fill the I don't want people to be like oh yeah you could be the next Mindy Kaling you know and they're just saying that because I'm also a brown girl I don't want people to be like yeah you could be no I want to fill the Lilly Singh void I want to be the best version of myself um that gives me goosebumps. I want to make little Lily get goosebumps when she looks at my success. That's what I want to be. I love the dedication that you had. I'm just going to read it. Dedicated to the person I was six years ago.

I told you to keep going. Thanks for listening. It kind of reminds me of the Matthew McConaughey speech. Did you remember seeing his speech? Was it the Oscar or the Oscar where he was like, my inspiration is myself three years from now and chasing that guy who's going to achieve those things that I want to achieve. And it's like, what do I need to do now

that's going to make that happen? And always chasing that myself, not someone else. So I think it's cool that you kind of dedicated to that. Yeah. I was thinking long and hard about the dedication. I'm like, of course, I want to dedicate to my mom. Of course think it's cool that you kind of dedicated to that. Yeah. I was thinking long and hard about the dedication. I'm like of course I want to dedicate to my mom.

Of course it's all these people. I put them all in the acknowledgements and I'm like cut the BS. The person that's actually dedicated to that actually got me here is the person

that was like I feel like crap. I'm still going to get up tomorrow. That person. That inspires me. I just finished my book. My next book. And I might have to change my tomorrow. That person. That inspires me. I just finished my book, my next book, and I might have to change my dedication.

Really? And give you the props for the inspiration. Not saying the same thing, but do it in my own way. You don't got to give me any props for the inspiration. I'm just letting you know. Thank you.

I think it's really cool because I dedicated my family in the last book, and I'm like, okay. Which is great. Families are great. But they're in the acknowledgements as well, so maybe I'll change it up.

But I think sometimes as humans, we need to be like, we feel pressured to always be giving people credit and always be. And that's very, very important. But sometimes we don't give enough credit to ourselves. Absolutely. You know? Yeah, I agree. At the end of the day, it's still you that did the thing. So what's your vision then for your growth strategy or just for your strategy in general for what you're creating? Is it just to have fun or do you have a vision of like, I want to hit 10 million subscribers or I want to make this much a year or do you not even think about that?

I don't really. As long as you make enough money that comes in, you're happy. You're not like focused on a big dream or a big goal with that. No. And the weird thing for me is like setting goals is I always set these goals. I'm like, I'm bored. I don't want to do that anymore. And I find something else that's even cooler than that. And I've talked to a lot of people who have set these goals that they will do nothing until they achieve that. And they're so pigeonholed in getting to

that goal that there's other things that you could have been doing that are so much better than that. So what are the things you want to be doing? And what's the, what's the dream for you then? Wow. I don't, that's, I don't know. I mean are the things you want to be doing? And what's the dream for you then? Wow. I don't know. I mean, I have so many things. Like every day there's something else I want to do. And it's like, if I don't want to do that the next day, then I change.

You don't do it. Yeah. So, I mean, I could be working on a movie, which is really fun. Really? Yeah. And I think another reason I started writing the book too is because I wanted to pitch sort of a web series idea

based around my life, but nobody could really grasp their head around the crazy things that have happened. So I was like, I'm just going to put sort of a web series idea based around my life, but nobody could really grasp their head around the crazy things that have happened. So I was like, I'm just going to put it in a book and then we'll talk. What do you think is the biggest thing that's opened up for you since doing your first YouTube video till now? The biggest thing you've learned about yourself? Learned about myself.

It's been a journey. I am not good at staying on task. I am a procrastinator and no matter how much I try not to be, I am. So that's why it's very helpful that I was like, I need to have people surrounding me that are able to sort of compensate for the things that I know I'm not good at. Even like my sister. I know if we hang out, we're probably not going to get any projects done, so I need to make sure she's at her house telling me what to do. So your FaceTiming is a big person. Yeah. Cause then we'll just play video games. So, you know, I think just surrounding yourself with people that are able to sort of, um, you know, lift you up for the things that you're not good at. It's just super important.

So I think that was kind of the stepping stone for me is learning what I wasn't good at and finding people to help fix that. Got you. Got you. I'm curious if you, you know, with all the content you put out there, every video out there, if it all got erased, what I'm curious is if you could put up one final video,

that would be the only video people see for the rest of time from you. And in this video, well, first off, I'll ask you two things. One, what would you post in that video if it was the only video people would ever see and just say it was under five minutes? What would you post? Under five minutes, which that's a good average YouTube length.

Right, yeah. I don't know. I don't ever plan my videos either. So if all my videos got deleted today, I would probably just turn on the camera and just start talking. And I have no, I don't know what I would say though is the problem. Okay. Well, I'll give you a better question. Okay. If you had one video left, everything was deleted. All your social network was deleted. The internet was done, but you got to put one video out there that the

world can see and you can never record again. can never have any other message go out there and you got to share three things that you know to be true about the world and your experience and what you've learned what would those three things be um nothing is as big of a deal as you probably think it is um nobody actually really cares as much as you think they do. Um, and yeah, just have fun and be nice. Be nice. Yeah. Do you feel like you've been pretty nice? Definitely. Okay.

I think I'm sometimes too nice. Too nice. Yeah. Does it hurt you sometimes? I think so. What would you say is the biggest fear for you then? Again, you've gone through a lot of the bullying, the cyberbullying. You've had other people criticize you for things you've done.

You've had failures, like you said. But what's the big fear for you moving forward? Biggest fear? I think it's funny because my fears have changed. My biggest fear used to be failing and I failed. We've all failed, but I used to be very affected by failure. I used to take it so personally. I let it stop me for months. And what did failure look like for you? Was it just not achieving something that you set out to achieve or what was the failure? I think it's when you have expectation, when you expect something to happen and then you feel entitled, you allow yourself to

feel entitled to that happening because, oh, I put the work in, why didn't I get the results? And then you start, you know, it affects your ego. And I think I used to let my ego have too much control because I simply, I just wasn't aware of it. I wasn't aware of the ego and when my ego was in control. And when my ego was in control, that's when I would focus on numbers and, oh, I didn't get this many views. Oh my gosh, what am I doing? Take it really personally. And I wasn't happy because I wasn't focusing again on the passion, on just loving it and doing it out of love. Because when you do things out of love, there is no ego there.

You don't take it personally if you don't get the views that you wanted. You just love the fact that you're able to create something. And so failure was my biggest fear. And now I embrace failure because any time, I don't even consider it. That's cheesy, but like I don't even consider it, that's cheesy, but like, I really don't consider it failure anymore. Anytime I've experienced failure or pain, somehow something beautiful always comes out of it. It's really strange, but cyber bullying. When I went through that experience, I started YouTube. If that didn't happen,

if I wasn't cyber bullied, 100% would not have started YouTube. Where would you be now? And there's so many other experiences like that in my life that have happened even, you know, maybe yesterday, like little things where it's like, if I didn't go through that challenge, I wouldn't have known that I was this strong. I'm excited. Like what's the next challenge going to be? Because I know that I'm going to learn from it. That's amazing. Because the stronger that I can get, the more wise I can become. What I'm working on, what I'm creating, hopefully can be more helpful to the people around me. And if I can be more helpful to the world, then I have purpose.

So now I no longer fear failure. I think I fear losing passion. And as long as I'm aware of, I think awareness is so powerful. I believe that as long as I stay aware of why I'm feeling things, because obviously I'm still going to feel insecure. I'm still going to feel doubtful at times. But if I can be aware of the fact that this is just a reaction, it's possibly just an illusion, it might not even be real, then I can keep the passion alive.

Amen to that. I always talk about, for me, failure is feedback. It's information that's telling me what's working and what's not working. And when I figure out, okay, this isn't working, it's not allowing me to achieve or create what I want to create. So it's feedback. What's the information I need to learn to help me get there? And so I think, again, you're doing a great job of saying it's just something that's going to challenge me, that's going to bring something beautiful to life and it's going to make me stronger. So I think if we reframe failure or fear or any of these things as really opportunities to grow, that's pretty powerful. Yeah.

What do you see yourself creating now? You're like this phenomenon, fans all over the world, number one songs in all these different countries. You're touring everywhere, sold out. Where do you see yourself going? Who are you trying to become? That's such a good question. I've been asking myself that since I was five years old. I would say, I mean, I love what I do.

My favorite part of, I think, the whole thing is I love touring. And that's kind of why I started originally was the YouTube channel, the music, everything was a mode so that I could then go out and share it. Perform. Perform. I love being on a stage and seeing people smile. There's nothing that gets me alive like that does. So I definitely want to keep touring, and I'm working on my next album right now. Sometime this year.

Yeah. That's what we're allowed to say. Sometime this year. I have my goal date, but who knows when I'm going to make it. I'm hoping for the summer. But yeah, so I'm working on new music and I hope to produce a film someday with my dad, actually. Oh, that'd be cool. You know, that's something. We're actually working on a script lightly right now. But yeah, that's part of the goal. It's been amazing to live my dream, but also bring the people I love along with me, whether it's like now my, my tour family getting to bring them along on the journey has been, you know, amazing.

Um, and then also like, you know, writing a book with my sister and, you know, I work with my other sister, Jennifer and, you know,

right. Hoping to write a script with my dad. That's kind of what makes it so exciting is to do the thing you love with the people you want to be with. Sure. What's the feeling you get when you're on stage? What's explain it to us. Oh, how do you explain it? Um, when I'm on stage and when I'm performing and dancing and, you know, doing the whole thing, I honestly feel like that's what I was created to

do. Like this sense of true self of just like, just empowerment. And, you know, and I look into the faces and, you know, you can always see there's lots of people that are excited to be there, but you can usually find like one or two people in the front row that you can tell they are so happy and that they've been waiting for this for months and being able to look into their eyes and just, I mean, it's, it's so selfishly validating, you know, it's just like, you know, I mean, I hope it's not too selfish, but it's amazing to have that moment of connection where you realize that you're connecting with someone that you've never even met.

And you have these moments with people that are just amazing. There you have it, my friends. You are the dream makers in this world. You are the ones who are taking on your dreams in a massive way, and you're making them happen. You're manifesting your dreams each and every day when you consume this information and you take action on it. Spread the dream-making ability for other people as well. Send this to a friend.

Text your friends. Post it on your social Instagram stories, your Twitter, Facebook. Spread the message of greatness and the ability for other people to dream and make those dreams come true as well. That's what this is all about. Paying it forward.

And the ladies of YouTube Mashup, lewishouse.com slash 779. Share this with your friends. Spread the message of greatness. We're taking over the world one day at a time, one person at a time, helping people live their dreams and live greater. That's what this is all about, baby.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Bye.