how I accidentally monetized on YouTube in 8 weeks (and my best tips you can use right now) | Ep. 108

God has been nudging you to press record. And you are still waiting.

You are going to love today's episode because I am sharing the push you did not know you needed to finally stop negotiating with your destiny and start using your voice on camera. I monetized my YouTube channel within two months of starting, I had no experience, no fancy setup, and no idea what I was doing. And the most viral video I have ever posted was one where I just pressed record and started talking. This one is your permission slip to do the same.

I pray this blesses you! xoxo

In this episode you will learn:

• Why YouTube is doubling its monetization requirements and why you still have more than enough time to get started
• How to remove the constraints that are keeping you from showing up consistently on camera
• Why God does not require you to know the entire how before you take the first step
• What to talk about when you feel like you have nothing to say
• Why the identity required to show up is more important than the strategy and how to build it

Mentioned in this video:
🎤 Join the YouTube challenge here → mikaelainspires.org/vocyoutube
📈 My in-person event this October → mikaelainspires.org/mdi
📝 5-Day use your voice series on SubStack → https://milliondollarimpact.substack.com/p/god-is-calling-you-to-use-your-voice
📷 Camera used in this video: https://amzn.to/4yTzz3E

Want to scale your business and personal brand? Work with me inside my Inner Circle Mastermind →  https://mikaelainspires.org/inner-circle

Partnerships/collaborations:
mikaela@madebytheword.com 

My faith-based wellness journals are now available🤍😭 → go to: https://madebytheword.com/pages/shop to grab one for you and a friend

♡ Let's connect:
🤍 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@mikaelainspires
🎧 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikaelainspires
📝 Substack: https://substack.com/@businessredefined
🎙️ Podcast: Business Redefined

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I don't have much time to share this message with you, but I want you to know that YouTube is doubling their monetization requirements. Now, what does that mean for you? That means if you know that God has called you to use your voice online, He's called you to start yapping on camera, and yet you still haven't done it, like now is the time. You have more than enough time to monetize your YouTube channel and to get started. When I first started about a year and a half ago, I monetized within two months, and now I am almost at 10,000 subscribers, which is insane. I've had so many amazing people that I've met just through this platform, so many amazing opportunities. And if you're a business owner, you need to be on this platform. Not only can you make money directly from YouTube, but you get to promote your business and it gets to grow as a byproduct. And there's so many different ways that you can implement, so many different strategies. But the thing is, you think that you need all these fancy edits, but in reality, my most viral video on YouTube was a video where I just pulled up my camera and I just started talking. There was no text on screen, there was no editing, I didn't edit out any pauses. Like I genuinely pressed record and I uploaded the video, and it got to over 138,000 people, and it impacted so much more. And so this is just your reminder and your push to just say yes. Like, think about it. What is stopping you? And how can you combat that constraint? Is it time? If it's time, implement a system that you can consistently utilize so that you can make the time genuinely in order to even make money from a video. It's just eight minutes. You can yap for eight minutes. And if you're like, okay, well, the constraint is I don't know what to talk about. Talk about your story. What has God brought you through? What is something that you've overcome? What's a lesson that you've learned? What's a mistake that you've made recently? What's something that has happened just this morning and you had to make a decision to do a certain act versus respond how you used to respond? There are so many things that you can talk about to yap for eight minutes long. But I don't want you to just think about the monetization of what happens when you get to monetize and you know, you get to grow on this platform. It's about the person on the other side listening to you speak. Like God has purposely intended for you to be on YouTube for a reason. That's why you have the nudge in your heart. It's why He's continuously nudged you and yet you still haven't moved. And this is why I'm showing up right now is because I am a living testimony of what it looks like to be insanely terrified of this platform. And also, I have been having people tell me since I was in high school to get on YouTube, and I never did. In fact, when I first started my YouTube, I had never been on this platform watching videos. Like I didn't know how to vlog like the people who have amazing platforms vlog. Like I didn't know how to do any of those things. Now I've learned how to create aesthetic content because I was on short form content, but other than that, like I had no idea what the long form game was like. So I'm telling you, when when God said you're gonna go talk on YouTube, insanely scared and terrified. I was like, I'm not doing that. But then he kept pushing me and he was like, you need to plant the seed before the end of the year. So I really believe that God is calling you to plant the seed before the end of this month. And this month for me, right now, is August. But it doesn't matter when you're tuning in, you need to make the decision. And really pushing it off until the end of this month is just wasting time, it's just delay. Plant the seed now. Like as soon as this video ends, set up your camera and you don't need fancy equipment. You can start with your phone. You can start with your phone and turn it sideways, horizontal, and just start filming and just start yapping. And you don't need a script, and you don't need a fancy background or an aesthetic home. That's not where I started. Start with what you have in your hands. That's all that you need. I didn't know how to show up on here and not be afraid of what people were gonna think of me. I didn't know how to speak in my natural tone of voice. Like I had to learn through so much trial and error what it looked like to be authentically me. But in order for me to get to this point, I had to remove the fear of looking silly. I had to remove the fear of needing to know every single step, every single moment of this journey. God doesn't require you to know the entire how. So by the way, if you are a business owner, a woman of faith who is scaling and like knows God has called you to something so amazing, this is for you, the entrepreneur, the creator, the founder who's ready to get inside of a room of women who just get it, you need to be there. Like, we're gonna be talking all about personal branding, YouTube, like using your story, using your voice, and putting it in front of people who God has called you to serve, allowing it to not just bless you, but bless those people. And even with this, I didn't know the how. I didn't know what I was doing, and I honestly still don't. Like, I still don't know what I'm doing. I'm just saying yes to the call and I'm listening and I'm making sure that I'm getting in the quiet place, listening to what he's saying, asking him to show me, asking him to give me the discernment, asking him to put people in my pathway to give me the direction and for him to release divine strategy. So it's like when it comes to this YouTube thing, I see people get so discouraged and so hard on themselves for not starting. But it's like you get to decide right now, in this moment, to just show up and do it, to just say, I'm choosing today to not waste any more time. I'm done negotiating with my destiny, I'm done negotiating with what God has called me to do. I'm done. And this has to be something that you are standing 10 toes down on because what good is it to continue living in your current reality, living in this like false sense of comfortability? Like you're not comfortable, but it's like choose the uncomfortable that you really want. Are you gonna be uncomfortable just choosing to yap on camera, choosing to look silly, choosing to allow people to say what they want to say, choosing to do the hard thing, choosing to move encouraged, choosing to put confidence into practice, doing something that most people aren't even willing to do themselves? Are you gonna choose that uncomfortability so that one day you can become comfortable? Or are you gonna choose the uncomfortability of staying where you are and allowing the mask of comfort block your eyes? What are you gonna choose? I'm gonna choose every single day to go after everything that God has for me. And so, yes, it requires me to do things that make absolutely no sense. Yes, it requires me to yap and talk and use my voice online, even when I don't like the way that I sound, even when I don't like the way that I look, even when I don't like that I may not have the right clothes that I want to wear, or my house doesn't look the way that I want it to look. When I first started, I had a really unesthetic home. Had a really dark brown leather couch, and the counters were like dark marble, and it just was like not cute. And like it just wasn't my vibe. But now I have a cute white ivory couch and some white countertops, and this is I'm living in a dream, something that I prayed for, and I took the action for. Like you have the possibility to live your dream life, but it's going to take your willingness to look silly, it's gonna take your willingness to have courage. So this is your push to use your voice. This is your push to do whatever it takes to get all of what God has for you. And so, while yes, this started off as a conversation about YouTube doubling its monetization requirements, it's really so much deeper than that. Like, yeah, that's cool. You want to monetize, but God has so much more for you than just to monetize on YouTube. Like your, your, your purpose and your mission is so much bigger than this platform. Like, he's called you to speak on stages, he's called you to turn your story into a best-selling book, he's called you to launch a podcast, he's called you to pray over the person at the grocery store to speak a mighty word to someone you walk past paths with. So it's like YouTube is just the building block for God to develop you and mold you. And if you can look at it from that perspective versus the perspective of, I need to get it right, I need to monetize right this second. Everything is gonna feel less pressure, you're gonna flow, you're gonna feel more authentic, you're gonna be able to share and be more vulnerable with your stories and what you're saying. And it's just totally possible for you. When I first started and I monetized within two months, I had a goal of monetizing, but it wasn't the only thing that I thought about. Like, yes, the first part of monetization is the identity required to make it happen. It's who you need to become to make it happen. And then it's the strategy that you add to it that makes what's already there amplified. You don't want to grow and monetize a platform out of lack or a scarcity mindset. You want to move from purpose, from a grounded place, from a knowing that this is what you're called to. YouTube is the platform that God said, This is your platform. You're gonna show up, you're gonna share your business, you're gonna share your faith, and you're gonna give me the glory for it. So that's what I do. He's like, This is your platform. So I'm standing in it and I'm owning it. I may mess up some words, I may forget what I'm saying halfway through the video, and I may remember later and bring it back. But what it's worth is that I'm here showing up, and even if I just impact one person, that's what matters. Even if I've impacted only one of you to just start speaking on YouTube, I've done my job. So I would love to know if you're still here. Comment, amen in the comments, or drop any kind of blue emoji so I can know that you're here. And I'm so excited. Let me know if you have any questions about YouTube so that I can make some content on that for you. I have a video that I'll pop up on the screen where I walk through my systems and like what I learned in my first year of showing up, which I know is gonna bless you. You still have time. The requirement to monetize it doubles in February 2027. So that's seven months away. That's more than enough time. You made it a mission to use your voice. Just watch how everything changes. If you make it a mission to show up and post one video every single week, over time, it's gonna get so much easier. Like, I wanted to prop up my camera and like have my nice little background, but I knew like today, I just wasn't feeling that setup. And I knew that if I had to set all of that up, it was gonna be a constraint that prevented me from showing up. So instead of allowing that to be my excuse, what I did is I just grabbed a different camera and I just started filming. And I'll drop the link in the description to this camera because honestly, it's amazing and I'm so happy I bought it. But remove the constraint. What is the thing that is keeping you from showing up? Solve for that problem. For me, when I first started, it was just plainly the fear, and then over time it was, oh, how am I gonna keep up with this? Now I gotta put in some systems, now I gotta do trial and error, and I've already learned all this, so you don't have to. So just let me know. What is it that you need support with? What is it that you need to be successful? And if it's just plainly like, I just need help showing up on camera because I forget everything that I want to say when I'm talking, just scan this QR code or go to Michaelainspires.org forward slash voice of conviction because I walk you through exactly that. And I also link my sub stack below because I have a five-day series that walks you through like God has called you to use your voice, like this is how you're gonna do it. This is how you can become aware of the constraints, and this is how you can be consistent. Like, I could talk about this for hours, and I will at Million Dollar Impact Live. Live it in October. So I pray that this blessed you. Please know that you are not alone in this. There are the people you see at the top, the people you see who are successful, they first started exactly where you are, and so did I. Okay, I love you. Bye.