Hey there!
My name is Tolik and I'm an Israeli content creator. I'm 25 years old.
All my life I knew that I wanted to be financially independent and not tied to a location and a 'normal' lifestyle.
I learned a bunch of skills without realizing it:
English by looking up tutorials, which at the time were only available in English. Learned photoshop, animation and website coding. From html to php, built websites, forums and designed them. After that I started coding and making video games, and then creating hacks for some of the video games I played.
At the age of 15 I started washing cars to fund my projects, most of them failed, or succeeded in a way I couldn't predict so I choked.
At the age of 17 I already was working in sales for about a year in a local shopping mall selling phones and mobile accessories, while also realizing that I spend a lot of time playing FIFA (soccer video game). So, I decided to make a YouTube channel for the local audience, at the time, I was the first.
It took years until I was making more then a few dollars, but at the age of 21 I was able to quit my job and focus only on YouTube.
It wasn't a lot of money, but 2-3.5k usd were pretty great for my age, while the minim wages here are about 1.5k.
One of the problems I had was that I was not investing any money or time to understand and grow my channel, I just did my thing and it was enough, spent the money traveling the world while living with my parents. No regrets, had a great time.
At the age of 22 I met a girl abroad, and decided that was the perfect opportunity to use the fact that I could work from anywhere in the world. I took a loan, signed a contract for an apartment way more expensive than I needed, and spent too much money decorating it, most of it was for show, for her.
The relationship didn't last long, a month later I was alone in that apartment, depressed and lost. Luckily, I was fascinated by the fact that something like a breakup could mess me up like that, I was interested in the ways it made me feel and think, and I tried to learn from it.
Because it was a new country, I didn't have any people to hang out with, so I just worked on my YouTube channel, but for the first time in my life I was treating it like a business, no soul, just how to make the most of it, financially. That was a huge mistake. 6 months in I was making my lowest income I ever was, and I was so burned out. So I stopped.
The good thing about being in a difficult state of mind, is that it's the perfect time to reflect on your life, and see if the core things you believe in are the right things to believe in and do.
I picked up a book, which had morning habits in it. Some of them I didn't understand, but I said that I'm going to power trough. One of the habits was reading every day, so I did. I read a bunch. Started to find good podcasts, good people, and people that try to take your money claiming to have value.
One of the core things that I understood was the fact I was ashamed to ask for help, acting like I know everything and can handle it all myself. I didn't accept people that had different perception of life, and I realized that I was just going only with my gut on everything.
So fast forward to reality, I feel like I changed so much abroad, I look at life at a different perspective, I'm greatful and adding value to everyone around me. I work out, maditate, improved the relationships with my family and friends, gained so much confidence, in a great relationship and so much more.
But, I got in dept(25k usd), took loans to pay bills until I moved back to Israel with my parents and started working in service jobs for minumum wages and tips. No complaints there, I was learning a lot and in every job that I felt I have nothing else to learn from - I left and moved on.
I realized that even though I can make a living playing video games, that's not what I want to do, however I'm currently working at a local vr arcade for minimum wage and doing YouTube whenever I don't.
I work at the arcade for 2 months, but already I am treated like a partner here, they trust me with everything and I started working on the marketing and social media aspect of the company, as well as creating content for them. I feel like I'm giving them a lot of value, and learning at the same time.
So first of all, that's the first time I sum up my life story, and I appreciate you taking the time to read it. Second, I wanted to ask you if I should do something different. My plan is to get out of my dept, which at the current pace will take me 4-6 months and start doing e-commerce. I have a bunch of ideas and the area is fascinating to me.
After reading about some of the side hussles discussed in this forum I was thinking maybe I should utilize my skills to make money faster. I speak 3 languages, design and code, I have a studio audio equipment and a lot of knowledge in the content creating industry. Also, my YouTube channels have more than 60k subscribers combined, which I can also use as an asset.
If you have any suggestions, feel free to share, and even if you don't, I would love for you to say hello
My name is Tolik and I'm an Israeli content creator. I'm 25 years old.
All my life I knew that I wanted to be financially independent and not tied to a location and a 'normal' lifestyle.
I learned a bunch of skills without realizing it:
English by looking up tutorials, which at the time were only available in English. Learned photoshop, animation and website coding. From html to php, built websites, forums and designed them. After that I started coding and making video games, and then creating hacks for some of the video games I played.
At the age of 15 I started washing cars to fund my projects, most of them failed, or succeeded in a way I couldn't predict so I choked.
At the age of 17 I already was working in sales for about a year in a local shopping mall selling phones and mobile accessories, while also realizing that I spend a lot of time playing FIFA (soccer video game). So, I decided to make a YouTube channel for the local audience, at the time, I was the first.
It took years until I was making more then a few dollars, but at the age of 21 I was able to quit my job and focus only on YouTube.
It wasn't a lot of money, but 2-3.5k usd were pretty great for my age, while the minim wages here are about 1.5k.
One of the problems I had was that I was not investing any money or time to understand and grow my channel, I just did my thing and it was enough, spent the money traveling the world while living with my parents. No regrets, had a great time.
At the age of 22 I met a girl abroad, and decided that was the perfect opportunity to use the fact that I could work from anywhere in the world. I took a loan, signed a contract for an apartment way more expensive than I needed, and spent too much money decorating it, most of it was for show, for her.
The relationship didn't last long, a month later I was alone in that apartment, depressed and lost. Luckily, I was fascinated by the fact that something like a breakup could mess me up like that, I was interested in the ways it made me feel and think, and I tried to learn from it.
Because it was a new country, I didn't have any people to hang out with, so I just worked on my YouTube channel, but for the first time in my life I was treating it like a business, no soul, just how to make the most of it, financially. That was a huge mistake. 6 months in I was making my lowest income I ever was, and I was so burned out. So I stopped.
The good thing about being in a difficult state of mind, is that it's the perfect time to reflect on your life, and see if the core things you believe in are the right things to believe in and do.
I picked up a book, which had morning habits in it. Some of them I didn't understand, but I said that I'm going to power trough. One of the habits was reading every day, so I did. I read a bunch. Started to find good podcasts, good people, and people that try to take your money claiming to have value.
One of the core things that I understood was the fact I was ashamed to ask for help, acting like I know everything and can handle it all myself. I didn't accept people that had different perception of life, and I realized that I was just going only with my gut on everything.
So fast forward to reality, I feel like I changed so much abroad, I look at life at a different perspective, I'm greatful and adding value to everyone around me. I work out, maditate, improved the relationships with my family and friends, gained so much confidence, in a great relationship and so much more.
But, I got in dept(25k usd), took loans to pay bills until I moved back to Israel with my parents and started working in service jobs for minumum wages and tips. No complaints there, I was learning a lot and in every job that I felt I have nothing else to learn from - I left and moved on.
I realized that even though I can make a living playing video games, that's not what I want to do, however I'm currently working at a local vr arcade for minimum wage and doing YouTube whenever I don't.
I work at the arcade for 2 months, but already I am treated like a partner here, they trust me with everything and I started working on the marketing and social media aspect of the company, as well as creating content for them. I feel like I'm giving them a lot of value, and learning at the same time.
So first of all, that's the first time I sum up my life story, and I appreciate you taking the time to read it. Second, I wanted to ask you if I should do something different. My plan is to get out of my dept, which at the current pace will take me 4-6 months and start doing e-commerce. I have a bunch of ideas and the area is fascinating to me.
After reading about some of the side hussles discussed in this forum I was thinking maybe I should utilize my skills to make money faster. I speak 3 languages, design and code, I have a studio audio equipment and a lot of knowledge in the content creating industry. Also, my YouTube channels have more than 60k subscribers combined, which I can also use as an asset.
If you have any suggestions, feel free to share, and even if you don't, I would love for you to say hello
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