Check out my brother’s Bucket Hat business here https://buckethats.co.nz/
One thing you might have noticed as a millennial over the years is this kind of baffling trend of really young Generation Z people making a lot of money doing really strange things, like creating YouTube channels or selling weird merchandise or streaming themselves playing video games online. And your brain can’t comprehend how that might be a career or you might make a living doing something like that.
Well, you got to understand as these young guys don’t have the limits that we have: That jobs have to be safe. That you need one permanent job as a career. That you must go into an office and can’t just work online. That art and enjoyable creative activities don’t make money.
In this video, I show you the counter-argument to these outdated ideas so you as a millennial can protect your career and make a decent income in the future just like any Gen Z youtuber… rather than get left behind!
Timestamps:
- 00:00 Intro
- 02:42 “Safe” jobs
- 06:34 Need one permanent job
- 10:51 Need to work in the “real world”
- 13:26 Art can’t make money
- 19:51 Solution to these limiting beliefs
Dan’s Top Resources
Books
Dan has 3 bestselling non-fiction books available in both written and audio form:
- The Naked Truth, his latest release, shows you how radical honesty builds self-confidence and relationships
- Nothing to Lose explores how to build confidence from the inside by correcting the programming in your brain
- The Legendary Life is a very practical, action-focused guide on how to plan and execute a life plan that brings you your ideal lifestyle
Online courses
Dan continues to put out high quality online self-paced courses through the Udemy platform
- Nice Guy Recovery: how to transform from a people pleaser into a confident beast.
- Shamelessness: how to relieve yourself of the “not good enough” story
- Powerful Honesty: takes you through step-by-step development of your communication skills to be more charismatic and powerful in your honesty
- The 3X Confidence and Authenticity Masterclass program: use the famous 3X Model to build confidence in all areas of life
- Financial Freedom for Beginners: includes everything from budgeting, to getting a raise, to investing in the stock market, to starting a side-business and more
- Overcoming Your Fear of Rejection… Permanently!: covers the psychology of “rejection” and what actions to take to make yourself immune to the fear of it
Full transcript
I’m the oldest of three
brothers. And way back in the
day, I used to play the old Sega
Master System, that’s when the
first kind of gaming consoles
came out. And this weird thing
would happen, which was my
younger brothers would like to
watch me play. Now there was
often another controller
available, they could join in.
There’s two player games, but
they actually prefered to watch me.
In fact, sometimes they would
hide around the corner and watch
me play. And I always thought
was the most bizarre thing like,
why would you want to watch
someone else play? Nowadays, you
can make five or even six
figures per month, having 1000s
of people go online and watch
you play video games. When I was
a kid, I was being shown
information about a potential
career path that never would
have ever occurred to me.
In a recent video, I put it out
there that millennials are
limited in their beliefs around
careers, in a way that
Generation Z are not. And because
of this, millennials are missing
out. Millennials are kind of bitter
and scornful of the weird new
careers and jobs that the
younger generation have. And
because of this, they’re not
keeping up to date, in a very
critical way for how to manage
your income for the future.
Millennials believe that
something like being a YouTuber
is not a real job – that it’s somehow
unsafe, that even if you are
making money, it’s a temporary
phase that’s going to end
perhaps, and the recent waves of
YouTubers and streamers and
freelancing copywriters, and
drop shippers and all that
stuff, it’s an entirely
different idea of what a career
might be. And yet, my
generation, and of course those
older than us, are resistant to
this new idea. And I think it’s
costing us. See, millennials seem
to fight against the data that
proves that new career horizons
have opened up, that a new way of
working and making an income – in
fact, a whole new lifestyle – is
now available to us. And
instead, we insist on boring
nine to fives with the one hour
commute either way, and the
office and the desk and the boss
and paying taxes and doing what
other people tell you… we insist
on sticking to that model, on
doing a job we don’t like often.
And yet the younger generation
are enjoying what they’re doing
and getting paid more than us to
do it. So let’s talk about the
limiting beliefs that people
over 30 have these days that are
holding their careers back.
There’s four in particular I’m
going to tackle today. One is
that you need a safe job,
whatever that means, and that
the Generation Z jobs I’m
talking about are somehow unsafe.
Two is that you need to have one
job permanently, that a career
is essentially a static
position, you might move up the
ladder, but it’s in the same
place. Thirdly, that you have to
work offline, that a real job
has a place you go to, an office
to sit in perhaps, and that you
can’t just sit at your computer
or on your laptop in your bed.
Fourthly, that being creative
and being artistic doesn’t make
money. Those are the four top
limiting beliefs that my
generation have that I hope to
try and tackle a little bit
today. Let’s talk about so
called Safe jobs. My last safe
job was working in the
Department of Corrections. So
this is public sector; a government
position, working for
Corrections. It doesn’t get more
guaranteed than that.
And yet, due to some changes,
they had what was called a
restructure, a shuffling as they
started outsourcing certain
parts of Corrections to private
companies and so on. Now, I
remember there was this old lady
at my office, I didn’t like her
much. And she’d been
there for like 20 years, a real
sort of stalwart of the place.
But one day I heard her
shrieking in the office…
shrieking! – and when I went to go
investigate, found out she had
had a minor heart attack. Why?
Because she had just been told
that there was no longer a
position available for her, that
she had been restructured. She
actually had to get an
ambulance. She was so sure that
she was in a career for life,
that the shock of being told
that she’s one of the people on
the list whose jobs just don’t
matter anymore, almost killed her.
And I think she’s a great model
of what I’m talking about. The
idea that you have a safe job is
ridiculous. This kind of
restructuring and outsourcing
and losing jobs is happening a
lot now in the private sector
as everyone tries to get leaner.
Everyone tries to make more
profit for less cost, the
biggest cost of course, being
staff and now it’s even
happening in the
Public Sector a lot more. And
even when it’s not, the public
sector is disintegrating all
over the world. The quality of
the work is becoming incredibly
unsatisfying, as people are
being asked to do longer hours
and achieve more with less
resources, as a career-politician
based governments try
to make as much money for
themselves as possible. And this
is even in the non corrupt
countries like New Zealand. I’m
intimately connected to many
people in public services, and
they’re all reporting that it’s
going downhill, that it sucks to
work there now, even when they
get paid. Well, you’ve got to
remember that employees are the
biggest cost to any company. So
when they’re looking to make
more profits by reducing their
costs, where do you think
they’re going to go? Do you
think they care as much about
your career as you do? You think
they care about you as much as
they care about profits? How
naive are you? If you end up
becoming more of a liability
than an asset, there’s no leeway
for that. They’re not going to
wait around to see if things
turn around, they’re going to
get rid of you. And you’re going
to be unprepared. When we look
at the rise in technology, I
predict that nearly all jobs
as we currently know them – basic
nine to fives – can be replaced
by artificial intelligence or
robotics. So look at what you’re
doing, your classic job, and ask
yourself, Is it really not
possible for a computer to do
this job? A well programmed
computer? Or a well placed robot?
And if so, is that going to be
less expensive than I am? The
next limiting belief: we need one
permanent job. You ask any
millennial: Why don’t they start
their own business? So why don’t
they go try something else? And
they’ll say “I need this job”,
especially once they’ve got kids.
So what you’re saying when you
say I need this one permanent
job is I’m going to put all my
eggs in one basket. When has that
ever been a good fucking idea?
When has it ever been a good
idea to have all of your income
dependent on a single thing?
That’s never been a good idea.
And yet people are still doing
it. You ask any highly
successful investor: Do you have
all your stock in one company?
You will never hear the answer
Yes. Everybody diversifies. All
the smart people do anyway. So
why don’t we diversify income?
If you look at your job? and you
think: What would need to
happen for me to lose this job?
Like I can’t do it. Let’s say my
job for example: if you cut my
vocal cords, I can’t coach
anymore. Essentially, it’s that
simple to have all your eggs
taken away.
Does your job need you to be
able to see? Does it need you to
be able to walk? Does it need
you to be able to think clearly?
What is it that could be taken
away that ruins your entire
income. Now see, if you cut my
vocal cords, I become a writer.
Well I dial up the writing. I’m
already doing right now. I get
paid a little bit to do blog
writing. And if you take away my
coaching, I’m just going to do all
blog writing. So I can adjust
quite easily if something
happens to me. Can you adjust?
Right now my auntie whom I love
is having to do shit work at a
new job, in her 60s, after a
number of new jobs over the last
couple of years, because her old
job, that looked like a good
permanent fixture became a toxic
workplace environment and she
had to leave. Do you really want
to be scrambling around, sending
out resumes and CVs and your
Do you really want to be put on the
back foot like that. Because
it’s going to happen. There is
nothing that is guaranteed for a
long time anymore. Technology is
changing rapidly. Global
corporations are constantly
taking over each other,
we’re getting these
monopolies happening now where
one entity owns everything, and
constantly tries to own more.
And every time they do that they
restructure and they change
things, and sometimes they just
gut the company completely. It’s
only a matter of time until
wherever you work, even in
public sector, is going to be
consumed by another company. How
are you going to survive that?
You don’t know. You just don’t
know. They might be coming with
someone who’s going to do your
role better than you!
Are you prepared for that? Well,
if you’re a millennial, the
answer is probably not. You’ve
got all your money on this one
bet. All your eggs in this one
basket. Do you really think
that’s a good idea? Do you
really think that that’s what’s
best for your family? We’re
living in an age now where you
can learn through online courses
better than you can learn at
university. I could probably
send you about 10 hours worth of
psychology material that would
make you better at clinical
psychology than a degree would.
We’re living in an age now where
you can rapidly restructure,
upskill, or re-skill yourself
for very little cost and in the flick
of a moment. Look how easy it is
now to prepare yourself for a
pivot, for a
change. You can find your dream
job, reverse engineer the
education you need, go get that
education online within about
six weeks and then go apply for
that job. And you could do this
with multiple jobs so that you
could have a range of income.
You know, my younger brother,
one of the ones that used to
watch me play the old Master
System, he currently is editing
at a sort of formal company.
Then he does freelance
copywriting on the side. And he
runs a very popular, highly
successful Bucket Hat business
online where he sells these really
hard to find really cool hats.
He’s got three things going at once.
Once you can’t upset his career. If
you take away one of them, he’s
got two more, and he can just
dial them up to fill the space.
That’s a smart career. By the
way, you can check out his
Bucket Har business in the link
in the description. There’s some
awesome shit there. Third
limiting belief: You have to work
in the real world, so to speak.
You have to get in a car or get
on a train and sit in traffic
and go to an office and wear a
suit and have your breaks at set
times and then go home again. Of
course in the trades, this is
much more real thing. Like you
can’t fix a car with your
computer, though one day you
will.
But for most people, their job
really doesn’t need to be in the
real world as they see it. I
mean, COVID taught us that if
nothing else. All of us were
forced to stay home. Most of us
just kept working. How’s that
possible if you have to go into
the office? Well, truth is you
don’t have to go in.
I had my world rocked a couple of
years ago, when I took on a new
client. He was only 17 years
old I think at the time, one of
my youngest ever clients, making
more money than I was, on
YouTube. There’s two things he
did on YouTube. One is that he
just filmed his dog doing random
things. He had like a million
subscribers for that channel.
And other one was he streamed
himself playing video games and
people paid and sponsored him to
watch plus he had advertising
revenue. This guy never left his
house. He didn’t even need to
hire the dog. It was literally
his dog.
This guy has been raised in a
different generation, he doesn’t
even understand the concept of a
boring nine to five, it’s never
going to be a path that he’ll
pursue. He sees the world
differently. That doesn’t mean
he’s going to be a YouTuber
forever. There’s some downsides
to being a YouTuber,
particularly the toxic community
that can exist there. But
this guy just sees things
differently. He looked at his
dog and just went like, Okay,
that’s a job. And that is a more
accurate way of seeing the world
than the millennials who say,
Only this very limited list of
activities can be paid and
everything else you can just do
for fun. You know, all my work
is online now. Everything I do
is online. I used to worry that
if people couldn’t see me
in person it wouldn’t work.
Well, it turns out a lot of people
actually prefer doing online
video calls, and it means I can
access the entire world. So
there’s no limits to my market,
so to speak. There are literally
seven, almost 8 billion people
available for coaching, I’m
never going to get through all
of my potential leads. Even my
psychologist mum was using Zoom
during COVID and still uses it
quite often. So she’s doing full
on psychology work, qualified,
following the conditions
of the government and
everything, and she can still do it
online. She doesn’t have to
commute if she doesn’t want to.
So the last limiting belief I’m
going to address is creative art
doesn’t make money, right? So
most millennials will take their
creativity, whether it’s
painting or dancing, or
building little robots for
fun, or writing, or sculpture or
whatever it is they enjoy doing.
They treat that as what they
call a hobby that can’t make
money. It’s either not allowed
because money will ruin it
somehow, which I don’t know how
getting paid for something ruins
it but let’s just say it does.
Or nobody’s gonna pay you, which
is the more likely belief like, I
have to actually pay to do this
thing. I have to pay to do rock
climbing. I have to pay to play
video games. The idea
that I could get paid to do it?
Ridiculous. Absolutely
ludicrous. I work with a lot of
artists – or wannabe artists –
and they can’t make money
because they believe they can’t
make money. And yet I’ve met so
many who can. I know one dude
who was making board games on
the side while he worked at
McDonald’s. He now makes seven
figures a year selling board
games to the very extensive,
very exclusive board game
community who absolutely loves
them. I know another girl who likes
to play drums, so she started
posting videos of herself
playing drums and now she plays
drums online as a job. All
entertainment is paid for. You
pay for everything that you
enjoy, and yet you’re not
thinking who’s getting that
money? The entertainers! Not all
money, of course, but the
entertainment community, the
entertainment industry,
everyone’s getting paid there.
Why can’t that be you?
Literally millions of people
getting paid to be involved in
the entertainment. And yet you
can’t? Why? It makes no sense. There
are more people in entertainment
than there are mechanics. There’s a
thing I learned about called a
journeyman actor. You know
those actors you see in just
about everything and you
recognize their face, but you
couldn’t name them if you tried?
They’re never the star of the
show. They’re always a
background character with a few
lines or whatever. Or they’re a
staple and a kind of typecast in a
TV series, that kind of thing. They’re
always the lawyer or whatever,
you never know who they are. But
those guys are making six or
seven figures a year just doing
steady acting work.
The journeyman style of creativity:
like I have a DJ client, and
when he’s not making his own
music, he does background music
for fashion shows or ads, and he
makes really good money doing
that. You know, there’s really
great money to be made as a
skilled artist. You don’t have
to be Beyonce. There’s this
whole huge range in the middle
of everybody who contributes to
most of the entertainment you
watch, in the background
especially. Why can’t you be a
part of that? Why can’t you be
selling your paintings to hang
up in cafes and hotels? I mean,
you’re using YouTube right now, and even though my channel
purposefully doesn’t have ads,
you’re used to seeing ads on all
the channels. Do you know where
that advertising revenue is
going? A lot of it’s going to
the person who made the video.
I know of a guy who literally
stares at people for a living.
All he does is make eye contact.
He does this in huge venues,
people pay him 1000s of dollars
to just stare at them. He’s
tapped on to an idea that
millennials are resistant to:
anything can make money! There’s
an audience for any service.
Almost anything is valuable to
somebody.
And if you can figure out how to
get in touch with the people who
find what you do valuable, you
can make it into a career – a
really lucrative one. Whatever
your art is, whatever your
creative, enjoyable activity is,
somewhere out there is someone
who will pay you just to watch
you, or they’ll pay you for the
product, or they’ll pay you to
teach them how to do it.
Put it this way:
Let’s say you’re an artist. You
could be doing online courses,
teaching people how to paint.
You could be doing live classes,
teaching people how to paint.
You could be selling your
paintings to hotel chains and
cafes, as well as featuring them
in galleries. You could be
sponsored by paint
manufacturers. I mean, I’m
making this up off the top of my
head right now, I haven’t even
put any thought into it. Can you
imagine what you could come up
with if you put a week’s worth
of planning into it? Your real
fear is marketing and selling.
The so called safe job of the
millennial has one particular
theme. And that is: you’re not
the one whose job it is to find
the money. So those people who
work in offices, and so on and
so forth, one of the main things
you’ll notice that they have in
common is they’re not the ones
going out there selling the
thing.
And this is why people are
afraid of art, because art,
especially if you want to be a
self employed artist, you got to
go find the clients. You got to
go pitch what you do and sell
it. You got to go put it in the
galleries or post it online or
whatever it is. And that’s what
you’re really afraid of: having
to go hunt for your food. But
the beauty here is there’s only
one skill, you really need to
learn: marketing. Call it
marketing and sales. If you’re a
person who can build an audience
who loves what you do and sell
that thing to them, you can make
money doing anything. You don’t
even need to be slippery or
sneaky. I’m completely authentic
in my marketing. So don’t use
that excuse, like all marketing
is scammy and bullshit and that
you just want to be this
honorable person, as if that’s
your real reason. No, you can be
totally honorable, totally
authentic, totally honest. But
you have to be very bold and
brave and face rejection. See
what Generation Z are not as
afraid of as us: rejection,
failure, humiliation, getting it
wrong. They go out and do all
that stuff and that’s why they
succeed. It’s not because the
younger. It’s not because they’re
up to date with technology. It’s
because they’re not as cowardly
as we are. That’s it. That is it.
By the way, if you’re currently
doing client acquisition,
marketing, sales or whatever for
a big company, then you’ve
already got the skills. Leave
immediately and do it for yourself.
Right now. Go on! Pause the
video, go do it. So look, times
have changed, right? Technology
is accelerating. Old school
beliefs are simply barriers.
Now, don’t be a dinosaur. Don’t
stay out of date, out of some
sort of grim, stubborn need to
keep things the same, because
that’s just going to cost you
and your family. You don’t win
from that perspective, you’re
definitely going to lose sooner
rather than later. If you want
to catch up, you can contact me.
Tell you what, here is an offer to
anyone who’s made it this far in
the video. I will have a free
session with you
to pull apart your current
skills and strengths and
experience and talents and
especially your passions, and
help you figure out how that
could translate into better work
that gives you more freedom, that
gives you better income, that
makes you more flexible and able
to pivot to changes and opens up
a new lifestyle that isn’t the
classic nine to five stuck at a
desk. Get in touch with me
dan@brojo.org If you want to
take advantage of that offer, it
will be for a limited time.
I just don’t know how limited.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope that helped. Cheers.