I Just Hit 1000 Videos—Here's What I Learned

Reaching 1,000 videos on YouTube isn't about luck; it is about thirteen years of showing up even when nobody was watching. Today I am celebrating this massive milestone by sharing the hard-earned lessons I have learned as an actor with over fifty years in the industry.

Success in the creative world doesn't happen overnight. For the first several years of my journey, I saw very little growth and received almost no feedback, but I refused to quit. By getting intentional, hiring mentors, and finally niching down to serve the acting community, I was able to scale my channel from 2,500 to 100,000 subscribers in just six months.

In this video, I dive deep into why discipline is more important than motivation and why you must view yourself as the CEO of your own career. We discuss the importance of investing in coaches, understanding your specific brand, and moving beyond just being busy to actually moving up the ladder in your acting career. Whether you are a member of SAG-AFTRA or just starting out, these insights will help you stop playing small and start taking professional action.

I also share the importance of the Alexander Technique for actors and how working with the right mentors can change your entire trajectory. This celebration is about more than just numbers; it is about the community we have built together and the commitment to helping every creative find their voice.

Chapters
0:00 Celebrating 1,000 Videos on YouTube
3:15 The Reality of the Early Years and Slow Growth
6:45 Strategic Shifts and Reaching 100k Subscribers
9:30 Why Niching Down Matters for Your Brand
12:15 Lessons from 50 Years in the Entertainment Industry
15:00 Discipline vs Motivation: The Key to Consistency
18:30 Why You Must Invest in Yourself and Your Craft
21:15 Understanding Your Brand and What You Sell
24:00 Building Professional Relationships and Networking
26:17 Final Challenge and Closing Thoughts

Ready to get clear on your brand and start booking more roles? Visit actingsmarternow.com to check out my Ready to Book program and other resources designed to help you succeed in the business of acting. Don't forget to explore the curated playlists on my channel for more specialized tools and industry interviews.

#actingtips #careeradvice #creativeentrepreneur #actorlife #brandingforactors

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hello, I am so excited. I am so excited. I am celebrating a hundred. No, that's not right. I'm celebrating a thousand videos on my YouTube channel today. So I just wanted to come on and do a little um a little celebration talk with you. You know, because I know that most artists and most actors may never make it to a hundred auditions, most creators won't make it to a hundred videos, but today I just uploaded my thousandth video on YouTube. And I have to tell you, this is not luck and it is not overnight success. This is 13 years of showing up when I didn't feel like it. And if you're watching right now, you're not here by accident. You're here because there's something in you that knows you are capable of more, you are tired of playing small, and you are ready to actually move your career forward. So let me tell you what this really looked like in the beginning. When I started, I didn't have an audience, I didn't have feedback, it was crickets, nothing, nobody for the first four years. So for the first 10 years, I just um kept doing my videos. I kept doing it. I I got to the point where I want to say in year eight, I got to a thousand subscribers. Year eight, it took me eight years to get to a thousand, and then it took me another year and a half to get to 2,500. So here I was doing it for 10 years, and I only had 2,500. Most people would have quit right here, but I didn't. I just kept going. I kept getting uh people to help me, I kept paying for uh mentors and being in groups to learn how, you know, what else did I need to do? Then something shifted. Not just on YouTube, but in me. I got more intentional, I got more focused, and I got more strategic in about who I was serving and who I was getting served by. Then within six months, the breakthrough came. I grew my channel from 2,500 to 100,000 subscribers because one of my mentors, David Shans, my man, uh told me what I could do to grow my channel. And I listened to him because I was paying, so I was gonna listen to what he says. And literally six months after doing what David told me, I grew my channel to a hundred thousand subscribers. If you don't believe me, you can see my um actually let me pull it out for you. So you know the proof is in the pudding. I got my um silver button from YouTube. So it came because I got more intentional. I was still showing up all those years. I was still showing up. I was still doing my videos. I every week a new video went on on the site. So it wasn't like I stopped, I took a break, no, I kept going. But it came from me being intentional, niching down on who I was serving, because I realized that even though I was doing it for the artistic community, because I was doing it for actors, I was doing it for comedians, I was doing it for film uh makers, I was doing it for other creatives, that what I learned was I needed to niche down and just pick one group of people that I was going to really hone in on, and that became actors because that is what I am, an actor. So I started to serve actors consistently, I started to get real clear on what it was that I wanted to help actors with, and I started committing to helping actors no matter what. In these thousand videos, I have helped hundreds of creatives. I've inspired actors to take action, I've interviewed some incredible people in the industry: actors, writers, directors, casting directors, agents, acting teachers, coaches, um, business people, I have uh gone deep, deep, deep to get some of the best people in the industry to help other actors to give you information so that you could come out on the winning end. Why did I do this? Well, because as an actor who's been in the business for 50 years, I know I don't look at, but I've been in the business 50 years. I've had my union card for over 45 years. Thank you very much. Proud member of SAGAFTRA. And um I saw a lot of actors losing their way. Um, you know, you get in the business, you work on your craft, you're told if you're good, you'll get jobs. But that's just the bit of it. You you don't always get jobs being talented. You have to know the business, you have to know what it is that you sell, and that's something I always talk about in my videos is that you have to know how you're branding yourself. And if you're interested, I have a program. I can help you get clear on what it is that you sell. You can go to actingsmarternow.com and check it out. Um, but what I I saw actors doing was getting frustrated, taking classes and classes and nothing happening for them, not understanding relationships with agents and and that they needed to do their part as far as the business. So that is part of why I do what I do because I love my fellow actors, I love my creative community. How can I give back? What can I do to serve? So I want to share some core lessons that I have learned over my 40 years and that I've implemented in my YouTube channel for the last 13 years. And the first thing was discipline. I didn't feel like showing up every week, I didn't feel like doing a video every week, I didn't feel motivated every week, but I did it anyway. I also um practice being consistent. You know, consistency creates visibility. If you keep showing up and showing up and showing up, people are going to know who you are. You don't get seen because you're talented, you go, you don't get seen because you showed up a long time ago. You get seen because you keep showing up, and after a while, people go, oh, they're so-and-so. Oh, and that and and you start to create community in that way because you keep showing up, you keep investing in other people, and so um one of the things for me in my career, and I I've also put it in um my channel, is that I have always invested in myself as an artist, always from the time I first came to Los Angeles, I've always invested uh in myself. I understand the rewards that come with you investing in yourself because you are the CEO of your of your career. Nobody else is, not your agents, not your managers, not your acting teachers. You are the CEO of your of your career. So in investing in myself as an actor, I was always taking classes, I was always uh, you know, getting in in courses and learning about the business. I've hired mentors many over the years. I've hired coaches whenever I was doing auditions. I always made sure that I got coached. Even if I didn't have much money and I had to borrow some money to get coached, I did that because I understood and understand the value of having someone else work with you on your material so that you can bring your best to the game. I don't know if you uh if you think about this, but when you're auditioning or doing a self-tape and it's just you, you you get nervous, there's all this stuff going on in your head, and if you have somebody else you can run it by, you can work with, it just opens you up a little bit more, it makes you a little bit better. It it gives you more intention because it's not just you in your head second guessing, well, are they gonna like this? Do they like this? You are making clearer choices. I made the decision to invest in myself because I didn't want to stay the same. And when you invest in yourself and you get coaches and you get teachers, and you're you're pursuing it in a professional way, improvement happens. You're not going to stay the same. And if you're paying coaches and teachers and mentors, and you are the same, something is wrong. Um, I'm just saying that as a side note, you you know, you're always growing. The more people you have helping you, the right people, I should say, you have helping you, the more you grow. Um, and for me, it has always been about me getting better on purpose. You know, not just uh is that better? Is that not? When I was doing stand-up, I was always seeking help. Okay, how can I write a better joke? How can I, you know, put my material better in in a in a better uh sequence? What is it that I need to do to get better on stage? So I I'm not um in my videos, if you go to my early videos, you will see the growth. And I made sure, and I make sure that every season when I'm putting out contact, I'm always thinking, how can I improve what I did uh from what I did before to what I'm doing now? How can I serve uh my community better? How can I grow my voice and how can I help other people move up the ladder better with what I'm giving? So I'm always asking questions that make me stretch and grow. And let me tell you something. When you're stretching and growing, it is painful sometimes. Well, a lot of times it's painful, but the more you keep niching down, the more you keep working on your stuff, the better you get. And I believe that if you don't niche down, you can get lost. And that has to do with you as an actor selling what you sell. Most actors don't know what they sell. They're they think, well, I act, so I can do everything. No, you can't. You if you're if you're a professional actor, especially if you're doing commercials, television, film, you got to be clear on what it is that you're selling. Who are you serving? Uh who are the people you're working with. The clearer you are, the more successful you can be. It will change everything for you. And I want to say this: if you've ever watched a video, if you've ever shared one, if you've ever taken action because of something I said, I thank you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart because you are part of making this thousand video happen. You know, I and it it's funny. I I mentioned earlier that, you know, the first four or five years, uh nobody gave me feedback, not at all. It wasn't until um I did an event with uh for Belle Hernandez in Latin Heat downtown um Los Angeles, where she had some filmmakers showing clips of their work, and she asked me if I wanted to show some of my videos. And I remember sitting in the audience, and and the audience was watching four of my videos, and all of a sudden they started laughing, they started enjoying. I I was looking at their faces, I was like, oh my God. That was the first time I felt some kind of feedback coming back at me that, oh wow, what you're doing is making a difference. These people are interested, they're laughing, they're they're getting stuff from it. I had I have people from the audience coming up to me afterwards and asking me questions, but it took four years before I actually got that feedback. I am so grateful to you for participating, for watching, for uh sharing. I've had so many people, especially in the last two years, tell me how effective the videos have been for them, how they've helped them um grow. And some of the people who have given me feedback, I've actually interviewed them so they could tell their own story. But I just want to say to you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And now I want to challenge you. I want to know what is going on with you. Where are you not showing up? Where are you not being consistent? Where are you waiting instead of working? Because what I've learned is breakthrough doesn't come from talent, breakthrough in your career comes from discipline and taking action. So today, thank you for celebrating with me, but that's not enough. I want you to take one action step toward your career today. Post something online, submit something, you know, go through breakdowns and and and in in backstage or um casting um network and submit yourself for something or practice uh a scene or monologue and record it. Do something that can help move you and your career forward today. I have learned more how to be more disciplined, committed, more intentional, more specific, more um artistic these 13 years with this channel. And what I know is that it hasn't been easy. I've had days where I cried because I was not getting any love. I'm telling you the truth. I mean, I was like, why am I doing this? But even with that conversation going on, something inside of me kept saying, You gotta you gotta keep doing it, you gotta keep doing it. And ideas would keep flooding in my head. I invested time, money, sweat, tears, um, in my YouTube channel. Um, and I posted sometimes when it wasn't the best or I didn't look the best, you know, as an actor, you always want to look your best, and sometimes I didn't look my best, but I was committed that I was gonna get a video up every week. That what was most important was to put out the content to um help other artists and not just be about, well, how do I look? Well, if I don't look good, I'm not gonna use that video. Let me tell you, there's some videos up there that I don't look good at all. It is not flattering, but that wasn't my commitment. My commitment was to get content up every week. So I've learned that there it's not perfect, it's not easy, there are no shortcuts, but if you keep doing it, what it looks like is growth, what it looks like is you uh becoming more confident in what it is that you do, how it is that you show up. I can tell you that I am much more confident today than I was when I first started these videos because I realized um whether anybody was looking at it or not, it really was helping me grow as an artist. Um, thank God it's helping people grow. I've I've been able to work with hundreds of artists because of it, help other actors uh niche down on their stuff and and know what it is that their brand is and help them with their headshots, help them um on their journey with agents, learning how to manage their time, manage their um organization, how to set your goals. I you know, I work on that all the time with actors. Um, so I've learned a lot from doing my YouTube channel, and I want you to know that if you put the work in it, if you are focused, not just busy. I know a lot of actors who are busy, but they're busy going in a circle or in the hamster wheel, and you don't get anywhere like that. You just exert a lot of energy, but you don't move forward. You know, I I've worked with actors who've been doing it 10-15 years, and they may get bookings, but they're random bookings. The bookings don't help them move up the ladder. As actors, it's not just about getting jobs, it's about getting jobs that move you up the ladder, that that you go from doing under fives to doing co-stars, guest stars, and leads. We want to move up the ladder, and we can only do that when we know what it is that we sell. What is our brand? What is it about us that makes us different? I'm not talking about type, you know, types are one thing, and and a lot of actors don't even know what type they are. They're just, oh, I'm an actor. So what I've learned is it takes hard work, it takes commitment, it takes you being disciplined, not waiting till you're motivated, but doing it because you said you would. Having intention, setting your goals, working on your goals, um, creating community, um, networking with with people in in the community, you know, entertainment is a small community. As quiet as it's kept, it's a small community. The acting community is a small community. If you're in Los Angeles, if you're in New York, if you're in Chicago, if you're in London, it's a small community. Once you get in and you start meeting people, everybody kind of knows everybody. And if you are in uh let's say you're Asian or you're Latin or you're black, that community is even smaller. So it's about you networking and getting connected with people and understanding that this is your job, and it's important for you to have a relationship with your agent, not sign with an agent and then wait for the agent and you never talk to them, they don't talk to you, and and you're waiting. No, you got to build relationships, you got to let them know what you're doing, how you're doing. You know, are you taking a class? What are you doing? You're getting new headshots. Maybe they can uh maybe they can have input in what headshots you need to get, but it's about having relationship with all types of people in the industry, it's about letting people know who you are. You know, you again you could be the most talented person in your class, but that's not gonna help you if nobody knows who you are. You want to get um get clear on on the business end of it. Talent is the first part, business is a major part, showing up. Consistently is huge. Doing your best is huge. Investing in yourself is huge. Getting coached is huge. Giving back is huge. All of it works together. I am so grateful to this community. I'm so grateful to you for watching, uh, liking, sharing, uh, subscribing. I thank you for all you um contribute to me. I want to continue to contribute to you. Please, if you have if this is your first time uh checking out my YouTube channel or my social media pages, I ask you to go to my YouTube channel, Lydia Nicole Live, and just look at the playlists that I have curated for you. There's stuff for actors who are just starting out, there's stuff for people who want to get into acting, there's stuff for actors who want to write their own stuff, there's uh tools for actors for the business of acting. I mean, there's so many great playlists that I have put together from these thousand videos that I've done. As a matter of fact, today the video that has gone up, I am so excited about it because I got to interview Michael Oh God, please don't let me forget his name. Um uh well Michael is a top Alexander Technique coach, and he was connected to Alexander FM, who started the Alexander Technique. And so the interview with him, it Frederick, Michael Frederick, the interview with him is amazing. As actors, we all should be uh taking regular Alexander Technique classes because it helps you become freer, it it allows you to be more connected with your body so that you can move and do what you have to do. And I've taken Alexander Technique classes over the years, but working with Michael and and his assistant Julie, oh my god, it's it's uh changed me in a whole nother way. So I hope you watched today's video. I hope you've watched some of our other videos. Um, and it's not just acting. I like I said, when I started, I was hitting everybody in the industry. So I've got great videos on the music industry because that is where I lived for many, many years. I have great videos on comedians because that's where I've lived. As a as an actor, I've lived in a lot of different spaces, and so I've I've created videos in all those spaces because we're creatives. So as an actor, I feel I get to tap in all of that, and again, if you're an actor who is unclear of your brand and what you sell, check out my website, Acting Smarter Now, and and um look up uh Ready to Book. It is a program that I offer actors to help them uh get clear on their branding and their headshots and and just their package of how to um be castable, not just any job, but jobs that are right for you, that fit you the best. So thank you so much. Let's move on to another thousand videos. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Have an amazing, amazing uh rest of your day, and thank you so much for checking me out.