"i was just this lanky asian nerd who played chess aaron maney he's one of the uk's most successful ever youtubers i was getting some sort of sick thrill out of seeing the numbers go up so i made one v..."

"aaron tens of millions of followers and subscribers later um when i read through your story and your journey i could see this real sort of fundamental obsessive um ambitious guy under there and it mad..."

"probably yeah and and the school you went to what was the what was the what was the typically people get bullied because what you're leading to right i've heard you talk about being bullied i think in..."

"wow so you were okay you're trying to pitch your tesco at 16 years old um your family in terms of monies how were they were they reasonable yeah you know when i was growing up like it's not like we ha..."

"was the sign you had a good phone and so it led me to to just customize it in ways that people probably wouldn't have gone like extreme lengths and that just through that i just gained knowledge i jus..."

"and when was the first time you made a video was when you were 14 and you first got that phone pretty much yeah take me through that growth journey then so you start what was the first video oh gosh u..."

"your youtube journey has given you because you said now that you feel like you're a confident person do you think youtube has done that yes but only if only because i've been quite proactive about it ..."

"but they can see it in others and i i can't like there's no person on this planet who i would look at and couldn't see good in them and couldn't see something great if you were that young kid again th..."

"the rest is life so on that point of having a good or bad nose this is me just going with the wind now because i find it super intriguing um something i've thought a lot about um who who who was to sa..."

"but but there's also an element of like if something bothers you to the extent where you're having to have this whole other layer in your mindset of like oh i can have a conversation with this person ..."

"i think i think actually gratitude plays a big role in it um i've spent a lot of time recently trying to wake up each morning and just remind myself i feel like we are we are hardwired to focus on the..."

"i think is diff increasingly difficult especially in a world where everybody's like status signaling every time you open your phone you know how do you how do you go about doing it then yeah it's real..."

"naturally um you get this a lot on youtube like because of how numerical the platform is like i i distinctly remember moments where i'd look at my sort of like statistics and be like oh imagine a hund..."

"um and so that that reminds me why were you crying it was uh a lot of things that sort of come to the fore it was it was exhaustion in the moment because it was it was really hot and i was just kind o..."

"i've never been depressed i would say i think i've i'm quite resilient as well as being quite lucky um but i got to a stage where emotionally physically just exhaustion i think is how i'd put it very ..."

"you i guess you set yourself this plan of just being making a video every single day in the i guess the thought that that would lead to your your dream and i guess you you you realized at some point t..."

"to be the the best tech influencer on the planet i want to be synonymous with the word tech but it will be mindful growth it like one of the factors in that growth will be not just monetary but it wil..."

"then hard work a lot of people say that hard work is um it's toxic etc what do you say to that oh the whole uh wake up at 4am that that kind of attitude yeah yeah i don't think that's the way forward ..."

"corner and that for me is like oh god that's my idea of a nightmare hard work hard meaningless work for me is being is the definition of like lose your [ __ ] marbles insanity i think i'm very lucky i..."

"finding out which like what these paths actually look like um and the system as you say set up at 16 years old they give you like brochures and they're like pick yeah pick which subjects you're going ..."

"do you ever reflect on what might have happened if you didn't have the conviction to go for i think i think i would have become a consultant which is terrifying i i wish i could say i wasn't but you k..."

"or apparently yeah and i think there is an element of gratefulness with the job you do have because not everyone is going to find their dream job and maybe the job you're doing is your dream job becau..."

"must have genius just that's not me i'm a muggle and i hate that because i'm you know and yeah yeah everyone starts from zero every youtube channel had zero subscribers at one point and you know was w..."

"whether that's a board game with my family or a night out with my friends that there's very little down time but in a good way do you have to be somewhat of a contradiction in who you are to have qual..."

"i have i'd say like good friends like brothers like you know what i mean six sisters six six years and that's pretty much my entire circle i think the only friends i have are good friends the rest of ..."

"is the really the thing that really makes me want to put in the work to make it work is all of my friends even the ones that have had the most successful relationships have been through hell in chaos ..."

"right person or was it an internal thing it was definitely both but i'd actually say it was more the internal thing it was the this is why i asked you the question earlier on about you what you valued..."

"friends is often healthier than the relationship people have with their families because the level of expectation is removed like i think with families people find that they fall into certain roles wh..."

"what about romantic relationships have you found forming romantic relationships as a on-screen mega youtuber ambitious guy entrepreneur nuanced is what i would say like when you when you have this who..."

"metrics are looking up and so many people and opportunities are presenting themselves i want i want to do them all so how would you balance it how do you balance it well quality time in person time an..."

"many conversations with very ambitious entrepreneurs um and they tend to go one of two ways they they typically tend to believe that they also need someone who is sidetracked with their own dreams and..."

"at with it is a little different i think fundamentally the person you end up with has to see eye to eye with you they have to be on your wavelength and i think for people like us who are just so incre..."

"wind down you know yeah um now you're right yeah it doesn't matter what they're passionate about but they have to be passionate yeah but what if they are what if they what if they're flying 50 weeks a..."

"because you then try and quantify the value the relationship has as a return and you say well if i'm probably going to lose i reckon i'd lose like five million a year by having a romantic relationship..."

"of person actually buys this where would you have to be in your life to purchase this particular phone miserable bastard you've got to be miserable yeah right you've got to be miserable i can't imagin..."

"um so when i first started getting income from youtube i was very happy with it you know i would buy things off amazon and like make myself short-term happy just fill those little gaps that i had in m..."

"first and then maybe get an a-class mercedes and then maybe get a a nice nissan i don't know work your way up even even if you could get a nice car now like what's the rush just enjoy the journey it's..."

"it's like nice i feel the same way when i look at like the lamborghinis and the rolls-royces which i always come back to i'm going to buy one it's like the insecure kid shows up and then i get that li..."

"expense of something else yeah these apps are are custom built every decision made with these applications that we use is built to use us to to extract from us um every chime that goes on is custom bu..."

"used to really get it when i was at social chain because especially when i was living in new york city um i would wake up after guessing that's right yeah i'd wake up after the uk so i would know the ..."

"like i wouldn't want to open my emails and i wouldn't want to open my whatsapps it was just because you knew it was bad news your body's conditioned it gets the signal it's like if you press this butt..."

"so what do you do about that how do you how do you how are you able to enjoy and you don't have to have the answer we're all works in progress you'll be 25. but how are you able to enjoy other parts o..."

"and how long are these periods of dopamine detox it's whenever i i can afford to do them i mean i think in a best case scenario you do it regularly but for me it's more like if i finish a big stint of..."

"um i guess side effects of this that are probably reversible now that you irreversal yeah like irreversible consequences of this meteoric success on youtube that are negative in your view i mean that ..."

"for it and leave um i used to do that at university because what would happen is you know you go out your room you're living with your friends you talk to someone and before you know it there's seven ..."

"right lane focus on the things that matter you don't have that long do you think you're lonely now no i don't i did a few years ago but i i feel really good now i feel like i i know what i want and i'..."

"percentage growth on my channel is really high like one of the highest on youtube um and i've only actually got a team of two people in total to be honest so i'm at a stage now where i'm thinking okay..."

"so that there's there's definitely been a sort of you know a curve hockey stick yeah but but i think people they kind of misplace where that comes from i think people have this idea that if you're big..."

"these are actually algorithms changing i think right from the start the algorithms have had a very simple goal and i think they've been able to achieve that i think that's the creator's losing touch i..."

"and it's a privilege to be able to create for them but you can't be complacent about that they're not going to come to you just because i'm making stuff i like making there's too many people who are d..."

"most of it it's what percentage of people who watch this video put a like on it it's what how like how many minutes of this 20 minute video did they watch and at what point did they drop off that's an..."

"usually telling you what they want or don't want but we lead with our hypothesis yes and with and our hypothesis is ego uh attached to our egos it's sometimes overly romantic so we can spend years as ..."

"every now and again people don't know what they want you know like if you think about the first iphone that came out right people at the time if you'd asked them what they wanted they would have said ..."

"uh there's a big thing with tech youtube where like if you say a good thing about a product or a company the assumption is immediately that you're paid to say that and i think it's an element of like ..."

"i always like the idea of just getting people on board with that idea and so becoming synonymous with the word tech and becoming someone who's like a teacher of tech and who who's a a fun place to lea..."

"it's going to ask if you still have that you've got to send it back i actually do still have it you still have it okay they they asked me to send it back initially but then communications got mixed ye..."

"that's all i need but then going back to a professional goal about being sometimes synonymous with tech if you were to achieve that goal what would it do for you put a smile on my face probably not mu..."

"secret to professional happiness i guess isn't it it sounds like a it sounds nuts it sounds crazy to have a goal you can't complete and that doesn't matter yeah it does i can see it could you imagine ..."

"[Music] goals or desires so i think that's remarkable and i think the reason why i wrote my book and a lot of the reason why i do this podcast is to share stories like yours so thank you for your time..."

"this i think i think i speak for the team because like meeting people like you and doing this is fun i'll give you one little nugget now more than one if you have them i would try and add some structu..."

"i'm going to speak to jack who's behind me we're going to figure out a way to conduct that experiment yeah any other tips before i go like i know you've looked at my youtube channel and you thought wh..."

"you have to yeah that's really interesting but listen thank you for your time i've had so much of it and it's um it's a huge honor i don't know how busy you are so it's a huge honor that you've given ..."