Transcript 0:00 Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Honey and Hustle. I took a couple days off, but we are back. We are on day 12 of 28 of our daily podcast challenge. This year's theme is Book Club. 0:15 Today, I'm reading a few chapters from Binge by Tyler Oakley. I'm reading the chapters titled Editor in Grief, Story of My Life, yes, it's really written like that, and Dream Job. 0:30 [upbeat music] If you're a creator or entrepreneur who's been thinking about starting a newsletter or building a community around your work, I've got something for you. 0:42 I created a course called Community OS, and OS stands for operating system. It's my full system for writing consistently, growing your audience, and turning your community into revenue online and in real life. 0:57 And right now, you can preview a free lesson to see if it's right for you. No credit card, no catch, just a real look at what's inside. Head to communityox.xyz and grab your free lesson. 1:12 That's communityos.xyz, and I'll put the link in the show notes. All right, let's get into it. [upbeat music] Let's dive in. Going into my senior year of high school, I felt the need for a change. 1:27 Discussing options with my guidance counselor, I found two great ones, yearbook and journalism. Both classes set out to do the same thing, document the happenings of Okemos High School, one weekly, one annually. 1:41 The two classes had some type of weird, historical, ongoing feud. 1:46 With my need to fill two class slots, I decided to enroll in both, and as with a royal marriage to secure peace between two countries, I would end the war. I would bring harmony to my high school once again. 1:59 Both classes met separately before the school year started so we could familiarize ourselves with the other staff members. I soon realized that the classes couldn't have been more different. 2:09 Journalism was full of hard workers and ambitious writers, all aggressively competing for stories to report on. 2:16 Yearbook had a roster of uninspired dilettantes who picked straws to see who would be forced to work on the sports pages. The choice was obvious. I had found my tribe. 2:27 I promptly dropped journalism before the first day of school. 2:30 As one of the unlucky few who had drawn the short straw, I was assigned the page for varsity football, and I was paired with Rachel Crouch, our editor-in-chief. 2:40 To get ahead of our deadlines, yearbook staff took advantage of the fall sports teams having summer workout schedules, and we went to practices to take pictures before the school year even started. 2:50 On a hot summer day, weeks before the start of school, I waited on my porch for Rachel to pick me up. 2:56 I stepped into her car and shyly made small talk, having never spoken to her before in the past three years of high school together. 3:04 In one afternoon of photographing hot and sweaty seniors in jerseys, we became best friends, and we were inseparable for the rest of the year. 3:12 I had no clue that a year later, going our separate ways for college would inspire me to make my YouTube channel to keep in touch. Yearbook had a new advisor that year, a Snow White lookalike with a high, squeaky voice. 3:26 Still getting her bearings, she looked to the existing editor-in-chief for guidance. Displeased with having to teach the teacher, Rachel gave the school an ultimatum, either the teacher goes or Rachel goes. 3:38 Unfortunately for Rachel, they called her bluff, because obviously. 3:43 With insider information about her impending departure, I applied for Rachel's position early, and I was appointed before anyone else on the staff even knew she was leaving. 3:52 I had successfully executed the swiftest coup d'état the yearbook class had ever seen. History is written by the victors, and my pen and notepad were poised. As the new editor-in-chief, I became obsessed with my role. 4:06 I spent most of my free time editing layouts, writing copy, interviewing students and faculty, and attending events to document the 2006 to 2007 school year properly. 4:17 My most brilliant moments were when I abused my position of power to game the system, and by that I mean to get closer to boys. 4:25 It was pretty common knowledge at my school that I had an undying thirst for a tall, tan, muscular guy named Nick, who had the thickest caterpillar eyebrows. He was on the lacrosse team, and I was on cloud nine. 4:37 I flirted with him playfully over the years, and while all of his bros thought I was hilarious, he took it in stride and laughed along the way, always kind and smiling. 4:47 My adoration for Nick came to a culmination at the senior barbecue, an annual cookout in the school's courtyard. 4:54 The intention was for the senior class to relax, unwind, and say their goodbyes in their final week before graduation. 5:01 As this event was one of my pages to cover for the yearbook, I circled the barbecue, snapping pictures of people who had yet to be featured much throughout the year. 5:10 When I saw Nick across the courtyard, I knew what I had to do. It was time to abuse my power and ask him for a picture. 5:18 In recent years, I've mustered up the courage to walk up and ask people such as Harry Styles, Channing Tatum, and Joe Jonas for selfies. But back in high school, this was uncharted territory. 5:28 We didn't even call them selfies. That word didn't even exist yet. While the event was full of my classmates embracing and posing for pictures all around us, I didn't have the balls to be so bold. 5:39 Instead, I made up the most ridiculous lie. "Hey Nick, so as you know, I'm editor of the yearbook, and it's really important to us that we get enough pictures of everyone. 5:50 And this year, both of us have yet to be featured. So I'm sorry to ask, but we kind of have to do it." He looked at me, puzzled. "My advisor is making us. We have to take a picture together." Right now, I'm afraid. 6:03 There it was, not even a request, a mandate. Without waiting for a response, I awkwardly handed off the camera to another yearbook staff member who looked at me wide-eyed. 6:13 She shook her head slightly while gripping the camera, shooting a look that said both, "You know damn well you've put both of you in this fucking yearbook more than anyone else in the school," and, "Say cheese." 6:25 Sorry, Nick, I'm also the reason why in the back of the yearbook where parents buy ad space to write dedications for their graduating senior children, our dedications are placed next to each other. 6:34 Listen, I was 18 and a little crazy. I swear I won't do anything weird at our 10-year anniversary. You are coming, right? My favorite staff member in yearbook class had to be Crystal Lynn. 6:46 She would sign out the class' DSLR camera to go take new Myspace pictures in the closest bathroom. 6:52 Her most iconic moment was while we were all frantically scrambling to meet a deadline, she broke the silence by screaming, "Nobody move. I've lost something." 7:01 All eyes darted her way as she slid forward off of her swivel desk chair and onto the floor. The yearbook advisor looked at me in shock, and I rolled my eyes, unfazed by Crystal's antics. 7:12 After a moment of crawling on the carpet beneath the table, she poked her head back up and groaned, "Has anyone seen my tongue ring?" This girl was in charge of preserving my generation's high school memories. 7:23 Sorry, Okemos High School, class of 2007. 7:26 One of my favorite things about being yearbook editor-in-chief was being able to use excuses like, "Sorry, I have to go take pictures of custodians," if I ever had to get out of something or go hook up with a guy. 7:37 In the second semester of senior year, it was mostly the latter, with a straight guy I had known since middle school. 7:44 Not until that year did we run into each other at a party, refilling our drinks upstairs alone in the kitchen, and end up making out in the backyard underneath the porch. 7:53 From then on, I was over at his place every day after school until finally we decided we couldn't wait until after school, and we began to meet during sixth hour, which was when I had yearbook class. 8:04 We'd text each other 10-minute warnings, excuse ourselves from our respective classrooms, approach the fine arts wing from different hallways, and meet furtively in front of the choir room door. 8:14 After lunch, the choir room was empty, and I knew the trick to opening it without a key. A small wiggle and quick thrust. 8:21 In the privacy of the choir room, I repeated the same maneuver on him, which kept him coming back most days for the rest of the school year. 8:28 I'd then scurry back to the yearbook computer lab and oversell just how great the shots I got were. A little too pleased with my own pun. 8:35 In between the glorified scrapbooking we staff did during yearbook class, we spent most of our time browsing the internet. 8:41 These were the days before Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram, but I remember a life-changing event that happened one day in February during that sixth-hour class. 8:50 I was nearing a deadline, working hard to finalize a page, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the entire staff huddled around one computer. 8:58 Before I could insist that they get back to work, they burst into laughter, and I had to see what all the fuss was about. "What is happening?" 9:07 I asked, peeking over shoulders at a video of a man in a wig screaming, "Fuck you," with interludes of a woman dancing with a flaming hula hoop. 9:15 "Wait, wait, don't look yet," my classmates insisted, saying I had to watch it from the beginning. I did, and thus was my first viewing of one of the first viral videos of the internet, Shoes. "What TV show was this on?" 9:29 I asked, bewildered after watching it in full. "None. This guy just uploaded it to YouTube," my classmate replied. "He's got other videos too." 9:38 Prior to this, I had always thought of YouTube as a place for people to upload class projects or family videos with the occasional fail or cat video. But this guy uploaded his work? 9:49 And people subscribed to find out what he'd upload next? It was so foreign to me. I went back to my desk to continue with the yearbook, but couldn't get the beat of Shoes out of my head. 9:59 Over the next few months, I wrapped up the documentation of our life in high school through yearbook class, and then I slowly fell down the rabbit hole of finding other content creators on YouTube. 10:09 I had no clue that this was about to become my life. Side note, while writing this book, a high school yearbook editor-in-chief emailed me asking if I wanted to buy an ad for their yearbook. 10:20 Knowing just how hard it is to sell to sponsors, I decided to pay it forward and purchase a full page. Check it out below. Maybe it'll speak to you if you're approaching your own graduation. Hi, Utica High School. 10:32 My name is Tyler Oakley, and when I first got the email from Vita Simmons about buying an ad in the yearbook, I was like, "Yes, slay me." Mainly because I used to be the editor-in-chief of my own high school yearbook. 10:44 Shout out to Okemos High, so I know how hard it is to sell ads. Plus, an opportunity to shamelessly self-promote? Why not? So I figured we'd have a little heart-to-heart, just us girls. Here's the thing. 10:57 Back in high school, I thought every audition, every test, every interaction was the end of the world. Chill. It will be okay. 11:07 Yes, do your best, but know that a college rejection is not the end of the world, or your voice cracking during a solo will not kill you. 11:15 I spent so much time worried about what everyone else thought about me that I didn't realize nobody cares. Everybody around me was freaking out too. Sure, there will be some rude people. Bad spoiler alert. 11:29 But spoiler alert, they're probably going to peak in high school. You will soon look back at your time at Utica High and wonder how it all went by so quick. So take it all in now. Try out for the play. 11:41 Say hello to the people you want to be friends with. Enjoy yourself. Have fun. This is all just a little reminder. Okay, I'ma go see you on the... Okay, I'ma go. I'll see you on the internet. Love, Tyler Oakley. 11:55 Story of my life. Even at a young age, I had a profound distaste for offensive stereotypes. This quality inadvertently led me to an obsession with a kids' book series called The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids. 12:09 In the fifty-one book series, the four main characters navigate their world and find mythical creatures breaking the mold and defying harmful stereotypes. 12:17 With such titles as Bigfoot Doesn't Square Dance, Witches Don't Do Backflips, Angels Don't Know Karate, and Wolfmen Don't Hula Dance, I was exposed to progressive, socially conscious literature that finally exposed humans for what I suspected they were, offensive and prejudiced, even when it came to creatures that didn't exist. 12:37 I was appalled. 12:38 Growing up gay, I too was subjected to endless stereotyping, and like the titles of the books I read as a child, I was ready to break the mold and teach my classmates a thing or two about what it meant to be queer. 12:51 You think all gays have a great sense of style? Ha. I'll show you. Introducing the Bailey School Kids' latest, Gays Don't Have Bad Style. 13:02 The unexpected tale of a twelve-year-old me with a bowl cut parted down the middle, sporting an Old Navy tech vest paired with socks and sandals, single-handedly proving the cliché wrong. 13:13 Figuring out who I was in the world wasn't the easiest, although I had plenty of representation when it came to being white, male, and cisgender, the opposite of transgender. 13:22 My sexuality as reflected in pop culture usually boiled down to stereotypical gay characters. Typically sidekicks or the gay best friend, and for whom being gay was their defining attribute. 13:33 They styled hair, gave makeovers, lips, and were generally prissy and whimsical. 13:40 And though being gay, I felt underrepresented, I can't imagine what it would have been like identifying as lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. 13:47 I may have gotten the bare minimum of a poor representation, but those groups had virtually none at all. 13:53 When I did see those gay characters, I also saw the ridicule they received, both in the shows themselves and from the people in my own life making comments. 14:01 I learned quickly that a lot of the world was bothered by their very existence as homosexuals, and that displaying the stereotypical attributes of a gay person was not something to be celebrated. 14:12 Minimization and blending in seemed to be a gay person's safest route. Luckily, my close friends, family, and the majority of my high school couldn't care less about gender identity or sexual orientation. 14:24 I was taught that being myself was not only okay, but encouraged. And by being unapologetically yourself, you thrive and inspire others to thrive. 14:33 I guess that was why I created my own YouTube channel, as a place for me to be unapologetically genuine and to express myself despite how anyone else might view me or what people might say about me. 14:45 Being on YouTube, though, exposed me to a much larger population, and I was subjected to opinions outside the circle of my close friends, family, and community. 14:54 By now, I've read every nasty thing a person can say about someone else, all directed at me. One of the strangest things I read was that I embellish my stereotypically gay mannerisms for more views and attention. 15:07 While I do enjoy a good marketing strategy, this couldn't be any further from the truth. One day, I read a criticism of myself aloud to my friend Corey. I went through a list of all the faults this person found in me. 15:21 Arrogant, self-centered, blah, blah, blah. The usual, normal complaints. Hey, if I weren't self-centered, I wouldn't have a YouTube channel. 15:31 Do you think any well-adjusted person would ever think to self-produce a broadcast of his own face to the entire world? Who does that? But then, I saw it. The final criticism, an accusation that simply went too far. 15:46 For views, I faked having a lisp. Can you believe that? Let's start with the fact that I don't even have a lisp. Corey's brow furrowed as he glanced in my direction. With a tilt of the head, 15:59 with a tilt of the head, he asked, Are you being serious? What do you mean? Of course I'm being serious. Are you being serious? Don't tell me you don't know that you have a lisp. Wait, this was dire. 16:12 It's not that I have a problem with lisps. It's just that I never thought I had one. It's like when I was in sixth grade and this kid told me in the hot lunch line that I had a hook head. 16:23 When I asked what that even meant, he said that the back of my head jutted out like a pirate's hook, like I've got a big brain or at least a sizable tumor going on. 16:31 I had no clue whether it was true, but he had planted the seed of doubt in my big hook head. To this day, you will never catch me profiling my silhouette. But back to the alleged lisp. 16:43 I couldn't believe that with years of filming myself and editing my own videos, I could have even subconsciously chosen to ignore the defect in my voice. 16:50 Even before I made videos, I had spent much of my childhood calling our local radio station, K105.3 FM, every morning on the way to school to request songs just to hear myself on the radio. 17:03 Could I have been so repressed that I ignored every broadcast of my own voice? Then again, Tubthumping by Chumbawamba doesn't have an S in it, so who knows. 17:14 Maybe if I'd been requesting the Spice Girls, I would have heard it. Or consider the time when I spent an entire five-hour drive on a family trip to a theme park in Ohio memorizing Alanis Morissette's classic Ironic. 17:27 This laid the groundwork to record my own cover on a cassette tape in the sound booth for five dollars. Surely, if I was developing a lisp back in 1996, I would have heard it in my own vocal stylings of Alanis' lyrics. 17:40 Yet, despite my own flawless pitch-perfect vocals in my headphones, I don't recall ever detecting any hint of a speech impediment in the recording. Isn't that ironic? 17:51 I've heard it said that if you were to run into yourself on the street, you wouldn't even recognize that it's you because your self-perception is so distorted from what others see. 18:00 Maybe the same is to be said about our own voices. Fearing the worst, I did what any level-headed, potentially self-loathing gay would do. 18:09 I sent an emergency text to my friend Millie, who was a speech pathology major, telling her I needed to see her immediately in Perthon. 18:17 Millie and I had been friends for a while, and she never once brought up my alleged issue. In hindsight, maybe she was just being polite? 18:24 In the same way that if you've got a friend with a lazy eye, you don't mention it because they must know already. Actually, I'll be right back. Let me find a mirror. Okay, I'm back. 18:33 I don't think I have a lazy eye, which is good, because I sat down with Millie on that fateful day and forced her to look me dead in the eyes, both of them at the same time, and tell me the truth. So, 18:45 is it true what they say about me? I prompted dramatically. Do I have a lisp? Millie looked at me long and hard. Yes. 18:55 She began to explain the mechanics of the condition, but my mind wandered and her words became muffled in the background. My worst fears that I'd never considered had suddenly been realized. Was this it? 19:06 I thoroughly was not a pathether of a lisp. I would have known by now. Someone would have told me. Do I have no real friends? Has my entire life been a lie? I cut her off. Maybe it's just an extended S? 19:21 Yeah, no, Millie said bluntly, as if to shut down my bargaining stage of grief. Are you self-conscious about it? No, obviously not. Why would I be? I snapped. But was I? 19:35 Days went by, and it was the only thing I could think about. When asked if I wanted milk with my grande iced coffee, my request for a little bit of Thor milk became an issue. 19:45 Requesting Lady Gaga's aploth at the local gay bar was a whammy as well. I slowly began to realize that maybe I was self-conscious about it. Sure, I was obviously openly gay, and I had been for over a decade. 19:59 But was my refusal to accept my speech impediment something deeper than a lack of self-awareness? 20:05 A hint of some type of self-loathing, internalized homophobia caused by a culture that taught minorities that if they wanted to be accepted, they had to blend in. 20:14 That they must be straight-acting, normal-sounding, not wearing anything that makes them stand out too much. 20:20 Was my refusal to acknowledge my lisp, even when brought to my attention, a conscious, last-ditch effort to tell myself that I had been blending in all along? So what if I did have a lisp? 20:31 Some people do fit some stereotypes. Is that going to be the end of the world? In every community, some people will fit every stereotype, and some people will fit no stereotypes. 20:41 And both are valid representations for that community. 20:45 No one person can be the end-all representation, and expecting any one person to represent a huge group of people puts them on a dubious pedestal and likely to be toppled. 20:55 So maybe the moral of witches don't do backflips only applies to some witches, and that's okay. Maybe finding examples of people who break stereotypes doesn't erase the existence of those who fit them. 21:12 Because obviously, some gays have lisps, and some don't. And fitting that stereotype isn't good or bad, it just is. 21:20 Being a part of a community isn't about being or even avoiding being society's preconception of that community. It's about trying to be your best self, whoever you are. 21:31 I, in no way, think I am the voice of any community. All I can do is try to be a voice and show people that they can also be a voice. I fit some stereotypes. I don't fit others. And that's okay. 21:44 I'll never be a gay that every other gay can relate to. 21:47 But if by being myself, lisp included, I'm a gay that one lonely 12-year-old gay in the middle of nowhere with his parted bowl cut and an invisible zip-up vest can identify with and thus feel less alone, then I've done my job. 22:01 And that makes me feel fantastic. Dream job. Hi, you probably don't remember me, but five years ago, I ruined your life. 22:11 This was the conversational opener of a man who approached me at the YouTube Creator Summit in April 2015. 22:18 It was YouTube's 10th birthday, and they invited top creators from around the world to celebrate in New York City with parties, presentations, and intimate chats with Google executives. 22:29 I looked at the guy in front of me puzzled, trying to figure out what he did to me. Thinking back, the only thing I could recall to be devastating in 2010 was the Oprah Winfrey Show going into its final season. 22:41 Was this his doing? He did look a bit familiar, and I tried to remember what went wrong at the start of my final year of college, and then suddenly it hit me. 22:49 In 2010, I was 21, about to graduate from Michigan State University, and couldn't secure a 9-to-5 job for the life of me. I was applying for every opening and attending every job fair, but nothing seemed to stick. 23:02 The furthest I got with any of my applications was with Google. Having just been declared one of the best companies to work for, it was every graduate's dream job, and the competition was tough. 23:13 Getting hired at Google is daunting. First, I applied with a set of referrals from other employees. Next, I had multiple phone screens, in which I was asked just about every typical interview question. 23:25 Google was famous for inserting a few creative, googly questions into interviews, and one that stuck out was how would I handle a needle in a haystack. 23:34 I knew the expected answers, like using a magnet, or throwing the pile into a pool and watching the needle sink, or burning the haystack and finding the needle in the ashes. But my answer had to be a little more me. 23:46 I declared that I'd throw a party and invite everyone I knew. At the end of the night, I'd have each attendee take one straw as they departed. 23:53 In the morning, while nursing my hangover, I'd find my needle sitting there, exposed and untouched. My answer got me through to the next round of interviews. 24:02 I was then brought in for a mixer with dozens of other candidates. All the confidence I'd built up from my phone screening came crumbling down when I saw just how talented my peers were. 24:11 But in the same way a drag queen wins RuPaul's Drag Race, I used my charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent to outshine the other prospective employees, and I advanced to the next stage. 24:22 I was more than three months into the hiring process when I came in for the final round of intense full-day interviews at Google headquarters. 24:29 I performed as best I could, gave honest, thoughtful answers, and demonstrated my unparalleled enthusiasm for the position. Nothing was going to stand between me and my dream job, 24:41 and my ability to finally pay my bills week to week without paralyzing fear. After the interviews, I went home to stay with my parents over Christmas break. 24:49 Knowing that a decision was coming within the week, I refreshed my email compulsively and checked my phone every second. 24:55 When I finally got the call, my crystal clear vision of a perfect future at Google vanished into thin air. It was a simple no with no reason attached. 25:05 The caller thanked me for my time and wished me the best in my future endeavors. I sat confused, feeling crushed and lost. 25:13 I was buried deep in debt, so close to graduation, and so clueless about my career path that I started to panic. I spent the next few months scrambling to find a job, but I had no luck. 25:25 Graduating college with zero prospects is simultaneously terrifying and freeing. On the one hand, I was embarrassed and poor and dreading my impending student loan payments. 25:36 And on the other hand, the possibilities of what I could do were endless. So after donning my cap and gown to collect my diploma, I flew to San Francisco with my best friend Corey for a weekend getaway. 25:48 On Saturday, we explored the city recklessly. We fell in love with the idea of leaving Michigan for a brand new adventure. That afternoon, we saw an apartment for rent that was open to the public for viewing. 25:59 We giggled as we stepped into the building near 16th and Castro as if we were actually prospective renters, but we were soon quiet. We fell in convincing love with the listing and realized that the cost was doable. 26:10 While browsing the empty rooms, we exchanged glances that communicated a shared madness. As thrilling as an elopement without telling anyone, we signed the lease the next day. 26:20 After our return flight to Michigan, we broke the news to our friends and family and we packed our bags. I trusted that even though I had no job lined up, I had already exhausted the possibilities in Michigan. 26:31 Why not try California? After applying for literally every position posted on Craigslist San Francisco, I scored an internship running social media and community management for a startup. 26:42 I had been doing it for years as a personal hobby on YouTube, so it felt like a good career fit as a young professional. Eventually, my position ca- became full time and I began to carve my path in the digital workspace. 26:54 It wasn't the perfect job, but I was able to pay my bills and explore a new city with new possibilities. Leaving Michigan for San Francisco introduced me to myself. 27:04 I met new people, tried new things, and I was inspired to live and create like never before. My passion for YouTube became all-consuming. As my online presence grew, so did my impatience at work. 27:17 During the day, I'd struggle to influence my teams over the basics of social media management, how connections online happened in real time and relied on instinct. Every day was a new battle to get them to trust me. 27:30 With so many hoops to jump through with campaigns and social posts, by the time they were approved, it was already too late. 27:36 Then I'd come home to a life on YouTube where I was my own boss and able to create my own content without anyone restricting me. 27:43 I was so inspired to create and so frustrated in the workplace that I started to consider the possibility of pursuing YouTube as a full-time career. 27:52 I was getting more views than ever before, and I was finally bringing in a tiny income through my YouTube channel that I could, if maintained, pay my rent. 28:01 So trusting the same instincts that brought me to San Francisco in the first place, I quit my office job to pursue a full-time job as a YouTuber, and it worked. 28:10 Getting rejected by the dream job at Google gave me the freedom to pursue something I never thought was even possible. 28:16 I'd wanted to work at Google in the first place, not because I had a passion for sales or because I furiously hated Bing or Ask Jeeves. Rather, I was told that that's what my aspiration should be. 28:28 Only when I failed to get the dream job was I able to figure out my dream job. For years, I never knew why I didn't get that position at Google back in 2010, and the question was always in the back of my head. 28:41 Fast-forward to 2015 at the YouTube Creator Summit, a man came up to me to remind me of that time when he destroyed all of my hopes and dreams. This guy wasn't responsible for taking Oprah off the air. 28:52 He was my final interviewer during my three-month-long pursuit of the dream job. "When everyone at Google wanted to hire you, I was the one guy who said, 'Absolutely not.' 29:03 You were too creative, and as much as you were the perfect fit for Google, Google wasn't the perfect fit for you." My jaw dropped, and I couldn't help but laugh out loud at his story and the serendipity of the situation. 29:16 There I was, having just met with Google executives on the day that I was officially offered a national marketing campaign in which my face would be plastered all over subways and billboards across the country as an ambassador for YouTube, and I was talking to the man responsible for sending me down the path that got me to there in the first place. 29:35 Finding my dream job was like finding a needle in a haystack. It was a crazy party in which every failed path I followed was like an attendee required to take away a single straw of hay as they departed one by one. 29:47 It took a while, and I eventually found that needle, but I couldn't have done it without failing over and over. 29:53 The Google employee who saved me from an entirely different life pointed across the party to a gigantic portrait of my face that a squad of teens were taking selfies with. "I think it all worked out," he said. 30:05 [upbeat music] One quick thing before we continue. 30:10 If you're enjoying this conversation and you want more stories like this, more insights from creators and entrepreneurs who are building something real, then you need to check out my newsletter, Please Hustle Responsibly. 30:23 It goes out two to three times a week, and it's where I share creator profiles, business strategies from a bootstrap perspective, and practical advice for building community without burning out. 30:34 We've got over 1,600 subscribers, creators, entrepreneurs, and marketers who care about sustainable growth. You can sign up at pleasehustleresponsibly.com, and I'll drop the link in the show notes. 30:48 If this episode resonated with you, the newsletter will too. All right, let's get back to it. I wanted to read this book for a number of reasons. 31:02 One is that Tyler Oakley is almost like the millennial face of YouTube. He's queer. 31:11 He got onto YouTube early when being an online creator was still this kind of mythical, magical thing that not a lot of people were doing, and he took a leap when there wasn't a lot of competition on YouTube. 31:25 I grew up watching a lot of creators in the 2010 to 2012 era before camera YouTube was a thing or, like, YouTube as a business was a thing, when it was really personality-driven, it was really humor-driven, and it was, like, entertainment at its purest form. 31:44 And so reading his story was really important to me for a couple of reasons, and I hope that some parts of his story are relatable to you, one of which is that there is no way around doing the work. 31:58 I thought his story of choosing between journalism and creating a yearbook was really interesting. 32:04 You would think that because he has written a book, Binge, that he would be all for this, like, hard-hitting writing and the seriousness of reporting. 32:12 But he went towards this, like, whimsical, um, character-driven, long form and long time-consuming project of creating a yearbook in which he was kind of in charge and he got to know all facets of creativity in that way, in a very unserious way, even though what they worked on was very serious. 32:32 I really enjoyed his perspective on, like, why he moved to San Francisco. I wasn't 100% as reckless as he was when I moved to Durham, North Carolina, but it was very similar. I had been applying for jobs. 32:48 I wasn't really getting anywhere. 32:50 I finally got a job and they asked me to come in for an interview, and I'm assuming it's because they didn't read that I was living in Alabama and I didn't wanna have to go back to them and say, "Hey, I live in Alabama. 33:00 Can this be virtual?" I just hopped in my car and drove eight hours and got a hotel at the last minute, stayed at that hotel and drove to the interview the next day. And the next day I went and looked at apartments. 33:11 And so when I got the call that I got the job, I knew which apartments to reach out to to see if they had anything available. And yeah, I moved to North Carolina maybe about two weeks later. 33:22 So I think there's something to just packing up and going and trying something. Even if that job isn't, like, a forever job, it's a job that allows you financial stability to try different things. 33:34 Like, he-- a lot of the things that he was doing on social media were what he reflected on his YouTube channel, he was implementing for himself. 33:42 Um, and that financial stability of knowing, "Okay, this is how much I need to be happy, to pay my bills, to live well, and if I can do all of this as a side hustle on YouTube, imagine what I could do if I had even more time to dedicate to being a full-time YouTuber." 33:59 And that was kind of a similar situation for me. 34:01 It was getting to the point where I was like, "Okay, my network is solid enough, my income is solid enough where I know I can pay my bills, and if I have even more time to dedicate to growing a business, I know that I can make it work." 34:12 And that's ultimately what happened. I'm not the face of YouTube, however, but I had a freelance business that paid the bills pretty well, and that allowed me to be my own boss for a little while. So that was great. 34:25 Um, that is great. I don't know why I'm talking in past tense. Um, but I think there was also this very cutting piece in The Dream Job where the guy was telling Tyler that, you know, "You were just too creative. 34:42 You were the perfect fit for us, but we weren't the perfect fit for you." And I distinctly remember getting a call right before I ended up moving to North Carolina from a job. 34:52 It was from an interviewer, and they were like, "Hey, I just wanna reach out to you before you get this automated email from HR and let you know that we decided not to hire you because we felt like you were overqualified and that you weren't gonna stay at the job for more than a year because you would soon find something that was more your speed and more qualified for you and better pay and all these types of things." 35:14 And that hit me like a ton of bricks. I mean, it sucked to hear it at the time. I mean, it was rough, especially when I'd been searching for a job for a couple months at that point. Um, 35:26 but sometimes what doesn't work out for you really works out for you in a way that even you couldn't have imagined. 35:34 So I think it's important to realize and even embrace the fact that finding that needle in a haystack of a dream job and a dream situation and circumstance and lifestyle that is uniquely tailored to you involves tiny failures and big failures, one by one, to get you there. 35:56 And you really have to rewrite your perception of what failure is and what failure means because it's so essential to your journey towards success. 36:07 So I appreciate Tyler's, um, self-reflection on his stereotypical gayness and queerness as a white man, but also his journey in finding his way into creativity and towards YouTube that paved the way for 36:26 a lot of millennials who are now bisexual and openly queer and Black and women, um, who are now in this space and doing really well. He paved the way for a lot of those people. 36:36 He was part of that first wave of people who took a chance on the platform and took a chance in putting ourselves out there, and that, again, has manifested itself in different ways, not just on YouTube, but across different social media platforms and what it means to create a personal brand nowadays. 36:51 So shout out to Tyler, shout out to this book, and shout out to you guys for making it to the end of this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll catch you guys in the next one. 37:03 If you've been getting value from Honey and Hustle, I need a quick favor. Would you take 30 seconds right now to leave a review? 37:10 Reviews help other people discover the show, and honestly, they help me know what's landing with you. Whether it's this episode or one from a few months ago that stuck with you, just share what made it worth your time. 37:23 You can leave a review wherever you're listening right now, and I appreciate it in advance. See you in the next episode. [upbeat music]
