Photographers, don’t listen to others: go and chase your dream

Chasing your dream sounds wonderful and romantic. But in real life, there will be plenty of people who will tell you not to do it, no matter if you want to become a freelance photographer, filmmaker, YouTuber or do any other creative job. In this video, Peter McKinnon visits Gary Vee who will tell you why you shouldn’t listen to those people, and why you should follow your dream instead.

Peter McKinnon had this experience when he wanted to start creating content for YouTube. The majority of his friends told him not to bother: “YouTube is too saturated,” “You’ve missed the train,” “You’re nearly thirty; you should focus on something ‘practical.’” As you probably already know, Peter didn’t listen to these comments and his YouTube channel currently counts over two million subscribers. But many people with a dream have listened to discouraging comments like these. So in the video, Peter asks Gary how he would advise those people. And Gary gives a short, sobering and brutally honest answer.

The key is in this: pay attention to who is giving you the advice. And this can mean two things:

First, Gary’s guess is that these are often friends who gave up on their own ambitions. “Misery loves company,” he says. It’s not that these friends want to do you harm or that they’re evil; their motives are purely subconscious.

Another thing is the area of expertise of anyone advising you to give up. Gary believes that, nowadays, being a content creator or an influencer on social media is more practical than people realize. The thing is: people who advise you to give up are usually not experts in this field. They may be brilliant at math, science, foreign languages or whatever it is they do and love – but they just don’t know this area very well, yet they give an advice what you should (not) do.

In the end, Gary adds a pretty straightforward message: “If you live your life where you’re comfortable taking somebody else’s point of view on how you live your life, you deserve to lose.” He adds that you shouldn’t listen to the outside voices because you will regret it.

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows when you decide to quit your nine-to-five job and become a freelancer in a creative field. You’ll face many challenges and it will get tough. But, Gary asks: would you rather appease the inconvenience right now, in the short-term, or do you want to get old and regret how you lived your life?

I can relate with this up to a point. I’m not a pro photographer or a YouTuber, but I do a creative job, and a very unusual one for where I live. Here it’s considered ideal to graduate from college and work in any area of public service until you retire. Yet, I’m almost 30, I work from home, and I write about photography for a living. And I freakin’ love it!

So, if you’re on the verge of deciding if you want to do a “normal job” or chase your dream and do something creative for a living, I hope that this video has given you a boost. It won’t be easy: but if you’re determined, it will be worth it.

[YOU DESERVE TO LOSE | Peter McKinnon]