"how I studied for 12 hours a day for over a year" revisited

hey everyone hope you're doing well I'm currently in hoim Min City which is about an hour and a half away from where my mom's family is from We're from this town called uh benun but uh as you can see it's extremely beautiful here I haven't been back to Vietnam in like 15 years so um yeah I've been here for like a week now and I'll be here for about five more weeks and then I'll be in Japan for 6 weeks so it's kind of a weird period of my life where still working full-time but uh

just based out of Asia so it's a lot different than La that's for sure but I thought I'd go ahead and make a podcast a one-off podcast talking about my how I studied video because of a few reasons that I'll get into but yeah so I think this will mainly be a listening video there'll probably be some clips and like images that I put up just to give context to certain things but um yeah hopefully this is pretty chill going to go ahead and put you guys onto this camera now yeah so I hope everyone's

doing well like I said I thought it'd be a good time to make this video because it's coming up into 2025 here pretty soon oh and um it's been three or four years since I made that how I studied for 12 hours a day video and you know that was a a pretty popular video and it seems to have been pretty important to a lot of people and I still get letters about it which is pretty crazy so yeah this is going to be more of like a bit longer I think I'm not super well

spoken or anything but I have a few notes Here in My little notebook that I'll be referencing throughout but I thought it'd be a good time there was a lot of drama and like people talking about things that they didn't like about me that they did like about me a lot has happened since then and I thought this be a good opportunity to kind of reflect on it now I'm not really someone who enjoys like getting into drama and like arguing with people so at the time I didn't really engage or debate anyone and I

feel like enough time has now P where I can kind of talk about everything that happened freely and I've learned a lot since then I'm a different person now but uh I thought it' be helpful to share my perspective and in case anyone is like coming down a similar path to me so uh yeah to be honest like I'm a little bit nervous to make this video uh thought I've gotten over that now but um yeah we'll see how this goes I don't really know what's going to happen so I thought I'd give you guys

a quick uh recap here of everything that has happened happened since I made that video and then I'll kind of talk about my life up until making that video and then the surrounding context of my YouTube channels and kind of my perspective on YouTube and then life and then I'll probably end up talking about some of my relationships and kind of the why I am the way that I am cuz I realize that a lot of people think I'm kind of weird so maybe I'll explain myself a little bit and then um kind of like

Reflections what I did right what I did wrong how I can grow and how I did maybe do some stuff like not fully right I don't even know what I'm saying um honestly don't think what I did was that crazy yeah answering some questions that you guys have given me and then kind of moving forward what I think I want to do with the rest of my life and uh yeah so that sounds cool to you we'll start our recap what has happened since then uh Co ended so went back to University graduated uh degree

which is awesome uh afterwards went on a really big road trip with my girlfriend at the time for like three months Across America and it was super amazing I look back on that trip extremely fondly uh uh you know we started off as really good friends we came back boyfriend and girlfriend um so we left Utah and went up north Wyoming and then East so all the way over cross up into New York sit in New York went down back around and then over back uh to Utah hit a bunch of really amazing places and

uh yeah I'll kind of share more about that later but after that I was in uh England filming a movie like while I was in university I was auditioning I actually managed to get into a movie which was pretty crazy and uh so afterwards was in London it was a pretty interesting place honestly I was kind of traveled out by then and my acting is a lot better now so we'll see how this movie turns out should be coming out in 2025 here um and yeah I moved to LA about six six months ago to

start a company with my homie Eric and uh we actually met on YouTube he asked me to do his podcast like few years ago and I really don't like doing podcasts very much but I just like the the topic was really interesting to me cuz it was about Japanese learning which is something that I don't really talk about much on my channel and it's like something that I really enjoy so I thought I would just do it and yeah so just been sitting next to Eric for like 12 hours a day for like six months

and then um went to Vietnam a week ago and uh got a marathon coming up here in a month so I'm feeling pretty good um it's pretty crazy I am now 24 I started to study with me thing when I was 19 so all this kind of happened when I was 19 20 21 and then you know 22 I'm done and uh I just kind of left YouTube for a while and there are some things that I'll talk about that happened around like the sod with me stuff later but that's kind of like macroscopically what

has happened since then um so nothing like too crazy or anything but yeah um why am I making this video I didn't really want to milk all that publicity that was coming my way um I've been fairly vocal about this on stream but I don't think I ever expressed this extremely well honestly my my communication at that time was rather poor and like I didn't really make an effort to show the exact values that I was trying to stand for and I got a lot of criticism for like Cloud chasing and yeah so at that

time I just didn't want to like milk milk it just for views and it was like I don't like getting into drama so yeah and I feel like I've had enough time to kind of reflect on that period And I feel like I'm in a a new chapter now where I can kind of look back and talk to my my former self right and give myself peace and just let me rest pretty much you know I can move on so like I said I usually am talking to a younger version of myself uh in these

videos but I think in today's video it's going to be talking to a younger version of myself but also to you guys cuz I like uh like I said I still get letters from you guys about that video it's crazy uh yeah it's like I promised myself I was going to cry in this video uh I've like I've made like 500 YouTube videos now five 5 600 YouTube videos I've cried like three of them but people seem to really remember when I cry and like I'll get comments about it uh I just feel really passionate

about it you guys and like when I feel really passionate about something I just like feel it extremely deep and it's like really hard for me to to talk about it without getting like worked up um and I think there's like a I don't I like have never cried out of pain in my life like from getting punched or something I've always only cried when I feel extremely strongly about something and like the stuff I talk about on my my channel it's like stuff that means a lot to me so it's really hard for me

not to cry but I I'll try not to in this video um and yeah so this is TR talking to you guys because I really do owe each and every one of you like a really big thank you uh my goodness I get a lot of people trying to Gaslight me to tell me that I'm like depressed and really sad but it's really hard for me to convey it's really hard for me to convey like how much you guys mean to me okay that's it for this video I promise so uh yeah who have I

been my whole life um I've kind of talked about it in I've kind of talked about it in my previous videos but pretty much like um I don't have any siblings like I was raised by my mom and like I don't have any grandpas it's just like me and my mom my cats and yeah so pretty much my whole life I just been like a loser you know just like a skinny pimple face loser like my dad really loves me and uh he's like a good dude but he just like cannot be a father I

guess like I'll share two memories from my child hood and uh I think they paint a pretty good picture of like the environment that I was raised in but like pretty much at the time like in elementary school me and my mom were living in like her friend's basement and my dad would pick me up to drive him or drive us to his condo cuz like my mom didn't have a kitchen like an hour away from my school and he of course he lived on a in a condo like on top of a mountain that

was far as heck and like me being like an elementary schooler I didn't really think about it too much but uh yeah my my mom is like extremely hardworking she paints nails for a living uh so I didn't really see her a lot so like there's this um there's just like one memory that's I don't really remember a lot about my childhood but I just like really remember going to school and I was having to wake up super early like 4:30 or 5 to wake up my dad cuz he'd always get extremely drunk like the

night before like every night right and uh it's like an hour away so school starts like 7:30 so I have to leave at 6:30 so it has to be up at 6:00 so I have to try to like get ready and then wake him up and it takes like this whole it's like this whole thing every day right waking him up and uh it was like the first day at fifth grade and like he just like would not wake up and then when I finally managed to wake him up like he couldn't get the stupid

breath lier thing in the car to pass so I was like 2 hours late on the first day of fifth grade oh and like walked in bro and like this girl that had this crush on for like up up until that point four years was like just staring at me I was like dang I don't remember like how I felt but I just remember thinking like I'm pretty different than all these people that I'm like growing up around you know uh they're all like have parents who are like engineers and doctors professors and it's like

I think it made me really quiet cuz honestly I'm not a super quiet person by nature but I think I just couldn't really relate to a lot of them most of my life I've only had like a couple of friends in elementary school I had two friends and one of them I still talk to like to this day actually uh so we've been friends for like 20 years it's pretty crazy what was I getting yet but yeah so that's like the first memory and then the second memory he's like my my dad drove like a'

04 IS300 5speed uh which is like a roll Drive Sports sedan and it like snows a lot where I'm from so I remember one day it was like extremely snowy and we live on top of the mountain and the PLS the plows hadn't came by yet and I woke him up I managed to finally wake him up and we finally got the car started after like passing the test and then uh it was like a common thing for me to sit there in the car while my dad was like flying down a mountain in a

rear whe Drive Sports in on a snowy day like sipping on a Go-Gurt and like I just like remember uh disconnecting I guess I don't know if I I kind of would use the word flow to describe it I realize it's often described in terms of like working and like doing athletic stuff but in this case it's more like getting punched in the face where you're just like hyper aware of your body I guess and Sensations around you but I never really understood how to I never really understood that was like a different thing when

I was a kid and I think it's a lot easier when you're a kid to hit flow to be honest with you there's just like not many processes going on in your head right so that was like a pretty common experience for me and then we somehow made it to school like I was late pretty often but for some reason we'd always make it when it was like if we could get the car started on time even if it was super snowy and uh yeah that's like pretty much how I was raised was in that

environment I mean my mom pushed me pretty hard uh I don't really have too many like I've never really had like a solid father figure my dad's like a good guy but he's super hedonistic um but I still have a lot of Hope for him my childhood best friend his dad was a is extremely talented artist my childhood best friend he's also extremely talented artist and uh I remember like wanting to be a dentist when I was a kid but like after hanging out with them for like so many years like uh that's what really

made me want to pursue art and like wanted to be an artist uh I can't really imagine myself as a dentist that would be really funny but um yeah he was super into MCM Furniture so his house right now is like a mid-century 1970s butterfly roof with a bunch of em Furniture like the no Gucci table or chair thing or whatever so I was kind of exposed to a lot of that as like a young kid and then I guess I was like as a kid I did a lot of martial arts so I got

a black belt and Kung Fu like my mom forced me too and uh my Shifu I think he always went extremely hard on me cuz I was like the only Asian kid and he's also half fat so he'll like sit on my back while I was doing the butterfly stretch I'm still super flexible but I think that kind of like gave me the discipline gene or activate it in some capacity cuz uh yeah to me he's like pretty much a physical embodiment of discipline and then I guess the last guy that's like a father figure

for me is my grandpa but uh he like died when I was super young I was like eight um he's a really good guy super compassionate like my dad really or my mom really loves him and uh I just really remember his facial hair like he's a very big dude my whole dad side they're extremely large people so uh yeah really good guy I think like living in that environment uh I don't know if it really gave me any sort of like trauma or anything but I think I kind of learned how to adapt to

it I guess it was kind of like a sinker swim type of situation and I think I learned how to swim because I mean I wasn't like a bad kid or anything I still did well in school like I've always done well enough in school without having to study or anything that it wasn't really a big thing for me and I just like kept to myself and I was you know playing video games Roblox like Pokemon um I just like never really talked to many people I'm sure a lot of people and teachers don't really

remember me and in elementary school I only had like two friends like I said like in between Elementary and Middle School uh like there's a period there where like I didn't talk to anyone cuz my homie went to a different middle school so I was like silent for like a few weeks which is pretty crazy when you're like under 15 and you don't talk to anyone for that long but wasn't until like later on that I met my friend group that I still hang out with or I like I've only had one friend group for

like most of my life so we've been all friends for like 15 years now which is crazy right and uh they're all really great guys um they're like super loyal yeah we've never gone in into any fights in 15 years so uh extremely grateful for them Middle School's pretty chill you know my friend showed me anime so then I kind of got more into that that subculture and like uh I think it was really helpful for me cuz without that kind of stuff I don't think I would have like um ever found my people you

know I'm kind of like a social reject and just being being to like be a nerd and uh be myself with people was really nice and then in high school we all did um my mom forced me to do this thing called IB which is like kind of like AP and it's you take classes with like the same group of people right and uh I think that kind of kind of effed me socially because I was like got placed in the bottom of like the social cast for like four years cuz it's like the same

people so it's like I never changed uh so it's like they're they're at the bottom uh so I've like point is I've just been like a just like a random dude like all my life right like I never talked to anyone uh uh never really went out of my way to be good at anything so I think that's like kind of was like the the trajectory that I was on you know at the time I was extremely addicted to everything you know I was like my dad just like constantly needing stuff um but I think

my kind of crutch was just like YouTube video games um my dad put out like porn on the table when I was really young so I kind of got exposed to it when I was like 10 or something and uh you know I was like online shopping constantly need music playing like everything I think that was just kind of how I operated for like most of my life you know I think there's always like a yearning for something pretty much bigger than me but it wasn't really until later which was Co that I finally found

it so in between high school and uni like I really didn't want to go to school I wanted to be a mechanic actually but my mom forced me to to do uni so I came in as an electrial engineer and uh at the time I really didn't like computer science because uh my friend who's like extremely gifted programmer was trying to teach me and I think he was just so far ahead that he couldn't teach me so I just like kind of resented it and it wasn't until later that I found myself really like enjoying

it so I finally switch to like Computer Engineering and then Co hit and up until then like like I've always been like a a crappy student right procrastinating cheating just like doing the absolute bare minimum I don't know how I got good grades like how I like passed all my AP [ __ ] got the IB diploma but I like really do not did not deserve it like for the amount of effort that I put in and uh I think I became more self-accountable like in University because um I just feel more passionate about like

the stuff that I was learning like for once like stuff kind of interested me more like in high school I wasn't really into I was interested in European history Chinese and math but I didn't really like any of the other subjects maybe English a little bit but I think the books we read weren't really something I was into so it wasn't until like uni that I found like classes that I found interesting and then I kind of got more into it and uh I kind of started taking it more seriously like I got more EXP

exposed to the self-help productivity type books uh this girl that I liked in high school gave me like how to win friends and influence people but it wasn't until like 3 years later that I read deep work and then like Atomic habits kind of hurt me like the whole thing and I kind of like understood more about why I should care about my work and like how I'm working and how to work better and like this is like a few months before before Co right and I was like went from someone who could barely I

literally like was unable to focus enough to write a to-do list and I could study for maybe 35 seconds like I like got pretty good at studying in like those few months where I was actually caring about it so I got up to like 2 hours where I could sit down and study Japanese and like a little bit of cating and like it wasn't super high effort right and I wasn't feeling a constant poking trying to get some sort of simulation and then as I was like slowly ramping it up Co hit and it was

pretty crazy I remember like sitting there I was working as an undergraduate researcher at the time like I was able to pay my like rent and stuff but like up until then what I've like worked as like a waiter worked at a call center to like collect people's credit card debt like I wasn't really sure what I had wanted to do like I don't think that I was ever going to do 9 to5 but I was probably destined for it and I remember like Co hitting and thinking I just really want to help people right

now know uh this is like my environment I know exactly what's going to happen to most people like I've just been locked up in my room like my entire life and I've seen how destructive that can be you know and I know exactly how to get out of that and how to prevent catastrophe and I was like sitting there at 3:00 a.m. on my couch just like going on YouTube for the first time that day and randomly one of Helen's videos got recommended to me like by the algorithm Helena study Vibes she's like the OG

study with me YouTuber and it honestly took like a nanc for everything to click I could probably see like years out in advance I don't know what happened but it was like everything instantly made sense and I understood exactly what I had to do which was like the study with me thing and it made sense for me because you know I could work on the YouTube thing which I don't really view myself as a YouTuber but I've been uploading videos since like 2008 so I kind of had like a understanding of how powerful YouTube could

be and to me that made the most sense to reach people during Co because you know everyone's on their computer or whatever and then I could work like I could make videos and so work at the same time and then I could build a community and hopefully help people still be able to get their work done while there's so much crap around them and so much chaos in the world so I took like pretty much everything I knew like my video making skills all the books I read my knack for you know making stuff look

pretty good and kind of use that to start my YouTube channel for real um I just took like a old camcorder that I had from high school put it up on a tripod on my bed and then it's like hit record that is like an extremely big thing for me right um my biggest fear by far is public speaking like if I could make a YouTube video or just a video instead of public speaking I always would like I'd offer to the teacher can I just make a video instead and like when I was unable

to and I I had to do it like my hands are like visibly shaking and uh it was like extremely like I'm not an anxious person it gave me a lot of anxiety uh yeah so like when I like press record I remember not being able to like focus it was like I was constantly second guessing everything like thinking that I look stupid and uh this is not going to work like I believed this was the future but I like was thinking this is not going to work so yeah it was like such a massive

step and it like took took place in like the span of six hours or something and um like it became super clear to me this is how I'm going to contribute to the World while there's so many people who need it and like this is my Arena and I know that I'm like the right person for this so I was like all right get over my fear bro let's do it um and yeah I think my perception of YouTubers at the time was a bit disappointed like I think a lot of people who do YouTube

are not great humans and uh they have like such large platforms that they should be using it for great things but instead they're using it to serve themselves which is I guess it makes sense but I think you can use it for both and like try to help as much people as possible you know and uh I was like trying to be better like it became really clear to me that people would think that I'm trying to do like Cloud chasing or whatever so I like Tred to do as little clout chasing as possible like

I don't know how else to describe it other than once my channel got really big like I made a new one because I didn't want so many followers and uh it's like kind of something that hurts me still to hear that but um yeah and I like didn't even do like video ads on my videos so at the time you could do like banner ads and video ads and everything right and U I always turn off the video ads so I have like the minimum advertisement level because YouTube won't promote your videos if there's no

ads on them right cuz why would they they don't make money on it so I like put on the the minimum amount of ads and uh got called a cloud chaser and then someone on okay so let me skip a ahead a few steps here uh my my goal from the start is to do 12 hours a day for a year right I think that in order to make make something really sick like that I had to do something a bit grand um Co was a pretty crazy time right so it's like how do you

stick out amongst all this chaos and that's through extreme strength and uh so I knew I had to do that I did it and then there was like a fair amount of like support and then I think I'm really bad at this but I was like criticism I always like listen to it way more than compliments I'm just like extremely bad at receiving compliments so someone took my video which was kind of like my magnum opus and then they posted it on Reddit like the r/ next eing level sub right there's like so much hate

and negativity there's people saying that I was just like Ty Lopez that I was part of the hustle culture I was doing it for clout I was just chasing like promoting workaholism and doing like a horrible thing for the world and like I'm just like a Wallflower right I really don't like [Music] being in the center of attention to be honest uh so it was like the first time that I really like met people who actively dislike me uh and I like hurt a lot I kind of like saw it coming right but it's like

a difference between knowing it's coming and actually reading it and it's extremely hurtful people really don't realize how much it meant to me my love my like life up until that point right was something like it's like not living it's just existing and then like I finally live for a year you know break out of my shell and I just got so much hate for it but yeah that was like the first punch to the face and then some uh French girl I'm not going to say her Channel but she like made a video called

uh the problem with like study with me YouTubers and then it's like about me it's like talking about all this stuff that like I'm not politically interested so I'm like not really up to dat but I guess there's this like massive conversation at the time about like hustle culture and uh how much time we should be working and for some reason she used my face and not someone like Tylo Lopez or like you know people who just like work in order to collect vapid material things like mansions and lamborghinis that's like not who I am

and then for some reason she makes a video about me putting me in the same group as these people and uh I like remember distinctly feeling that I'm very angry right now but I cannot do the easy thing or just lash out like you know I got to be the bigger person in this and I'm just not going to say anything and not respond to it and if people start to hate me even more you know it is what it is uh yeah and it felt super like lonely there was like a lot of support

for me at the time but I think most of my life I've been emotionally suppressed and I didn't know what stoicism was and they're like they're like two different things right being suppressed is like botling everything up and St ISM uh it's about like observing your feelings and letting them run their course right but not acting on them it's about how you respond to them and uh I just like lost so much faith in humanity to be honest with you like I really want to help people so this just like frustrating you know frustrating frustrating

uh so that was like the second punch that one's like a one two then there's like a third gut punch that's Cal Newport he like talks about me in a video like this is what hustle culture looks like in Cal Newport he's like someone have so much respect for you know I'm just like a big fan of his his books of course listen to his podcast uh yeah and he's like been a super positive voice in my head so I just really thought I just really thought he would understand what I stood for that some

skinny face skinny body pimple ass looking dude you know could help people when they really needed it and yeah that was a pretty dark period uh for me Cal actually Cal actually responded uh and you know he apologized recently like thanks Cal uh Professor Newport it really meant a lot dude like every time I cry it's on camera I don't know why uh I don't know if I'm cut out to be a YouTuber so yeah it was extremely uh Bleak I like read a lot of um stuff about what to do but I just lost

my way I guess and I uh you know at the time I was really mad at myself for not being able to stand strong against all these people but I look back now and uh it was pretty hard next time I knew I know know what I would do differently uh but yeah so I managed to become a YouTuber I guess um I made that video right all that stuff came out I just went back to University I didn't think I really wanted to do YouTube very much uh my identity is not really like a

YouTuber right my identity is is someone who posts videos to YouTube and uh you know if my identity is not a YouTuber and it's just causing me so much grief like why would I continue to do it but I guess I just made a new channel the one that you're watching this on I just didn't want people to watch me who don't understand me which there like so much to ask right and it's literally impossible but I just didn't know what else to do uh I didn't feel at home on my own YouTube channel anymore

and uh just sits there right now you know empty pretty crazy uh I think like my moves look really bizarre to people who are YouTubers but to me that they like made all the sense to be honest with you so it kind of gave me a bit of a different perspective because now that I all of a sudden I have like internet following uh I guess it's like people treat you differently you know these people who were a-holes to me and like Middle School and High School are like now dming me and like girls who

would never talk to me for anything want to talk to me out of nowhere and uh dang I think I just really didn't like humans like I like Humanity but uh just like so disappointed and then I kind of resented it you know YouTube uh which sucks because I really like YouTube and yeah that's how my life changed how people reacted what did I do right um I don't think I ever did anything extremely wrong I think as a YouTube video video maker like the premise of my videos was easy enough to understand and uh

consistent like I think my videos made a lot of sense if you knew where I was coming from but I never really did a great job of explaining to new people why I am the way that I am and I think in order to genuinely change people you have to live what you're preaching and then the people around you will become a little bit closer right it's not like I was telling people to study for 12 hours a day My Hope was that people would hop in study for one or two hours and then you

know go do their own thing at their house or whatever and uh I hope it helped some people um I think I did that right um I guess it's like what I did wrong was it's extremely naive to to never think you're going to meet deran you know amongst people amongst yourself know it's like just naive to so many things like I didn't know how to react um I didn't really know how to talk to people very well like I definitely should have responded differently when I was meeting so much criticism and um I think

I should have done more YouTube but it's all in the past now uh yeah I rot down I honestly didn't think what I did was that crazy my perspective on things is that you know my mom's been working two do like two jobs for a while I was like a kid like always working two jobs I rarely saw her and I guess I'm just like have been to Vietnam and I've like seen how hard people work here and uh I was like talking to some girl here recently like she works 12 hours a day seven

days a week like doing manual labor like I don't I don't think I can do that so it's like I think people from you know America and whatnot are extremely blind to how crappy some people have it and you know I've been to like my family's house and I've like seen how crappy it can be like here in Vietnam and I think I just thought that's how everyone thought and at least for me like 12 hours a day for a year was extremely significant but I didn't even think it was like that crazy like I

guess I'm going to be told in the comments now that perpetuating hustle culture but I don't know like this just like the people around me my grandma still works she's like 90 so I think it's just like that's what happens when you're around a bunch of immigrants who you know constantly working this is my perspective is that's how much it takes uh so for me was like significant right because I finally reached the level where I felt like I was like had finally started to play the game I guess and uh yeah you know a

lot of people got kind of pissed off at me but um am I missing anything answering some questions you know what I am missing something I don't know if I wanted to talk about this so while I was leaving London like I randomly ran into this YouTuber who was one of my main sources of inspiration for this channel right uh I'm not going to say his channel but U I like walked up to him and I said hi and I've just like never seen such hatred and anger and resentment man and like he said he

didn't know who I was and I don't know I thought it was being like cordial and like I just like wanted to say hi and like you know I'm a fan of his so I wanted to get a selfie but I remember thinking that I really don't like a lot of YouTubers and uh I remember thinking they're so fake and I want to be like the genuine article and I was like was just thinking back like if I've ever met [Music] anyone who knew me from YouTube and I acted like that like I don't want

anyone to feel like that and I was just like so disappointed right and I think like all of that stuff that happened before I could have a lot of hatred in my heart over what conspired and I think the advice for like hate comments is commonly to just use them as like ammunition or whatever it's like read them out use them as fuel and there are some people who are extremely Cal to them and they don't mean anything but I think those are all really non-human answers I think like the hardest thing and the most

noble thing to do is to uh I guess pray for them I'm not like religious but I think it helps me bring a sense of compassion to it when I wish for the best for those people right so I just remember like meeting this dude and his girlfriend at the time and and the girlfriend was really nice to me but the the dude right uh I just remember thinking I really don't want to be like this person ever so I really don't want to ever have hatred like him so I'm just going to be compassionate

and let it go and you know help he was just like an off day for him or something you know and I think that's like the The Virtuous thing to do right it's extremely difficult it's be a lot easier to be mad at him but yeah I'm I'm glad I kind of like learned that from from everything that conspired and that's say I've always been like that and I still am I like that but I think in that moment I did that well um yeah why did I stop so so I've touched like I've been

talking about it throughout this video right there's like so many reasons uh I just like don't want to always be making stud with me videos and as pretentious as it sounds I kind of view myself as like an artist and like I feel like I've moved on to a new thing and I feel like extremely trapped on the James Schultz channel and I feel like a lot more creatively free on the J skulls Channel where I can talk with lot less reservation and you know the people here tend to kind of understand what has transpired

and yeah so in a way I kind of acted out of fear you know making this channel just running away from on those people but it's kind of weird uh would I do it again so I think I'm going to go ahead and kind of talk about like burnout because I I hear about this concept A lot and I'll talk about it more later right um I got a lot questions about like could you have kept on going um do you still study for 10 hours 12 hours a day and would I do it again

so during Co I honestly think it was uh the right thing to do right and yeah of course I would do it again like I don't know what else I would have done during that time um what I do it right now I think it's just like um the way I work is differently where I kind of do like more focused blocks and it's like a lot different to stream like 4 hours of straight work and then what like talk for 10 minutes after it doesn't make sense and then yeah I kind of want to

like make new sorts of videos you know uh I've kind of like got everything from me personally from the study with me things so uh would I do it again maybe just like for funsies but I don't think it' be any sort of serious thing um and then I'll kind of talk about burnout later but yeah I'll talk about it more cuz I still have questions about whether I still work that much and the answer is I still work a good amount but but uh it looks different and that nowadays like I usually sit down

in the morning and work for a block and then sit down in the afternoon and work for a block and there's like I usually train in between that and like recover and meditate and pray and stuff so uh yeah what's your current Paradigm and my current way of thinking so I think it's really easy to put YouTubers on a pedestal and it's like a kind of vicious cycle where YouTubers feel trapped to keep on saying the most high CPM thing right and uh yeah I think that for me at least um my perspective is changing

not like I'm I feel like I'm the same person but my perspectives on things have matured over time I like I still read a fair amount of books so I'm like you know thinking changing the way that I think and uh so I might might say something differently than I would have said like four years ago which makes sense and uh I feel like really grateful for my YouTube audience for being kind of receptive from where my when my recept like when I feel very grateful for my YouTube audience when my perspective on something shifts

and uh here's like the way I currently think pretty much I Amo like most people chase the wrong things uh so I think like a lot of people kind of Chase happiness which uh to me isn't fruit Endeavor because happiness is shortlived like what people really want I think is joy and eternal contentedness right they want to feel fulfilled and uh that's kind of like what I want in the end and at least from my perspective that is a lag measure meaning it is the byproduct of other stuff that you do right so I think

you could Chase Happiness by doing a bunch of really high dopaminergic actions like smoking crack but if you want Eternal I guess Solace I don't know I don't really like talk to anyone about these these things you guys to be honest with you uh like anyone so I don't really know how to to vocalize it sometimes but I think if you want to achieve that you have to do stuff that's pays off in the long run and it's like the the easy stuff is like smoking crack right the stuff that really matters is extremely rare

and it's not very beautiful and it's often covered in a lot of tribulation and it's like I think most people nowadays are just doing like the high dopamine thing like the porn the video games the constant videos constant music it's like so much online shopping you know and uh I'll talk about it more when I'm talking about my moving forward section but my current way of thinking is how can I maximize the lead measures the things that produce Eternal Joy right um so it's like more about not chasing Joy but chasing the things that produce

it after doing it for a while and I don't really want to talk about like religion in this uh I'll talk about spirituality though which is how connected you are to a greater purpose right and I kind of have like something that I wrote down about this in just my private Discord um okay so here's my current way of thinking in the heart of a warrior lies the spirit of a farmer powerlessly tilling the mind which is the soil to prepare it for growth a tree representing the body grows from the soil reflecting the fruits

of inner cultivation these fruits like art are expressions of creativity and purpose gifts that nourish the spirit of others bring joy and make life more meaningful the tree reaches towards the Sun a higher purpose drawing energy and direction from it Society like pollution can obscure the Sun or poison the soil making the growth challenging yes Society can also be a source of nourishment when aligned with virtuous principles as a tree grow stronger can filter and reduce pollution purifying the air and making it easier for other trees to grow with current effort the tree thrives providing

shelter and substance for a family and a community which in turn enrich the soil this is the essence of a Rous existence a cycle of mutual nurturing connection and transformation where the Warrior's strength serves as shield and substance for the world and their fruits like art become enduring legacies that Inspire and sustain others uh and yeah I kind of like like this metaphor I don't really know if it's from anything it just I thought of it if it's from something I'm sorry if I stole it but I kind of like this metaphor for a few

reasons I think that it's extremely humbling uh because you can't make a tree grow overnight right it's like uh it's a long process and uh it's like not beautiful work cultivating a tree but it becomes something beautiful right so that's just kind of like how I view it right now and I think like for me the idea of burnout is when you can't really see the sun like there are periods where it's like summer and everything's gravy right or it's spring and the trees growing but there Al there's also winter where it's a lot harder

and you don't feel connected yet you still have to endure and I think sometimes people will mistake winter for Burnout where it's just really hard or either that or they just can't see the sun like the work isn't meaningful to them so there is no sun like there's nothing nourishing their existence which sucks uh because I've been there you know so I think I could have gone more if I wanted to the work was so meaningful to me but yeah I kind of view uh I kind of view these videos as a piece of fruit

you know they're supposed to be like the culmination of my personal uh existence for you guys to get something from so yeah I think that's like my idea right now and uh like I I still pray I don't know to what um I meditate and I think it like helps helps me see the sun super clearly so yeah and I think it like I really like the idea of uh the warrior just being a farmer so yeah moving forward uh what am I going to do I think for me like the stuff that I enjoy

talking about on this channel are always about how to live a virtuous life like it's about how to study better or how to be less addicted to your phone you know everything trying to distract us nowadays um I think I'll always be doing that I think that for me what really made stuff clear was your life is your message right and uh I think like the way people on YouTube view Their audience is as a number and like I never want to do that but I think it's really easy to get caught up and think

that way because it's so abstract so I keep I like want to continue to talk talk to everyone like there are channels who will exclude certain like demographics because they don't pay you as much and that's like something that I personally never want to do cuz I I feel like the people who I want to talk to are just like everyday people so I think that my fruit like the stuff that I produce in my life will always uh cater towards that so no no $800 courses guys sorry um yeah I honestly do not enjoy

being in the spot light uh it's kind of weird like I view YouTube as like a distribution channel right but in order for it to be a distribution Channel I have kind of have to like put my face on it and like yeah it's like I don't know I think I'm not cut out for it sometimes but uh am I extreme maybe I should have talked about this in my answering some questions section I got a lot of comments about am I extreme I think that if we were living 200 years ago I would not

be extreme but of course stuff changes I personally am conscientious that the stuff I do can be a bit out there am I extreme um I really try to make myself not be like I never want to be so out of touch that I can like charge people $5,000 for a course or something uh that's just like not who I am right so I don't view myself as extreme um I think I understand why people do do that and I understand how you can get that impression I don't think I am extreme and if someone

that I know told me that I was extreme I I would listen to them so uh why I'll never be a YouTuber this is a bit redundant at this point but I just like do not identify as a YouTuber I call myself as a YouTuber because it's easier that way like to explain to people what I do but uh I'm going to say the pretentious thing again I mainly view myself as like an artist and how that manifests is as like an engineer and as someone who likes to do creative stuff uh and YouTube is

just like a distribution channel for me so yeah it's not like I like my YouTube play buttons they're like sitting they're propping up a light in my office like I've never opened them I don't really care that much about it and I feel like there's more to life oh you know I got a lot of questions about whether or not I'm always productive and like I think it's easy to get that perception but I'm like honestly just like a normal dude like I enjoy anime and stuff and I like play video games with my friends

and we watch like Cobra Kai together you know um I don't hate the idea of just being a regular guy I just like want to talk about how to just live a a great life you know and I think it's really easy to get the perception that I'm like hyper productive which I think I can enter Seasons where I'm hyperproductive but it's like not the entirety of who I am you know and yeah I think that in my life one thing I've done pretty well is that I generally play to win and I I'm not

playing to not lose so I'll like take pretty big risks and like put myself out there and stuff and it's usually worked for me and even if it doesn't work I'm fairly good at reflecting and evaluating and learning from it so it's like not a big L and like I think I'll continue to do that and yeah I think it I'll end this with this so in our lives right we can make decisions we have a free will and uh it's really up to you about how you're going to choose to do it use it

um I used to be in a pretty crappy place uh you know I like broke up with my girlfriend who's like I wanted to marry her you know it was extremely rough and things haven't always been super great but I think you have to really figure out your perspective on suffering and how you're going to react to it there's always the easy path and that's to let it win and then there's the hard path which is The Virtuous one right strength and it's about how you respond to crappy stuff and I can say that it's

like not easy to do and when it matters the most no one's going to be watching but you can apply it only when it's convenience right that's not the heart of a warrior we just do the hard stuff because we care and uh we take so accountability right so it's about the microscopic changes we're constantly making decisions and uh it's all about the trajectory right where we head in so yeah um I don't really know how to end this so bye