Around 4 years ago I started my YouTube channel Cooper Codes. Starting a YouTube channel is lonely, confusing, and massively difficult. Throughout this process I found myself constantly turning towards online content creators as part of my daily life, even getting to the point where I would watch self improvement content during my lunches and dinners.
In the moment I thought I was doing the right thing, I was learning, I was “figuring it out”, when in the end I was more lost and broke than I had ever been in my life.
This is a personal failing in some parts, but I do think that the allure of self improvement culture results in spectators who stay stuck in careers they hate, businesses they hate, a financial situation they hate. When I was a YouTuber, I felt that I couldn’t have a normal job and that I needed to become this entrepreneurial idea of myself that did not exist yet. I just needed to “lock in”.
Some Things You Can’t “Improve” Out Of
Let’s use the example of a business you own. You hate the business, you hate working on it, you hate the people, and it stresses you out. If you “improve” the business by working on it, you are building more of what you hate. It’s an improvement… an improvement of hate.
For most of us who feel stuck, we don’t need improvement; we need change.
The change you need might go against what you want to hear. You might need to start working at McDonalds, living in a shitty apartment, delete the chicks phone number, and get rid of your leased Honda Civic.
The danger of self improvement culture is that it sells young men on the idea of a change that looks cool, that gets them the hot chick trophy with the italian two door vehicle. This change isn’t realistic; the hot chick has BPD and the italian car has been at the mechanic for weeks.
If you get anything out of this, know that changing for the better sometimes looks like losing yourself, giving up some of your time, or focusing on a new passion for just an hour each week. Don’t obsess over it, and definitely don’t watch bullshit content on improving yourself that ignores the roots of your problems. The ability to change generally comes from increased personal awareness. You need to view the patterns of your life for sometimes years at a time. It’s OK, when you’re young you have time to learn. Italian cars are beautiful, even they are in the shop sometimes.
To anyone who has a regret: Don’t judge yourself so harshly because you made a wrong decision, because that same judgement is going to force you to keep on making that wrong decision until it completely breaks you. Sometimes change can mean living the exact same life, but becoming more aware of that judgement.
Take a step back, right now. Look at the things in your life, and look at what needs to change. Write it down, and don’t obssess over fixing it instantly. Just become aware of it, chill out, and don’t let stupid podcasts get in the way of your understanding.
Don’t improve it, change it.
Money Matters (What Self Improvers Ignore)
Self improvement conveniently ignores the topic of money, except when they tell you how “easy” it is to make money once you just get the right “mindset”. I’m here to tell you that this is bullshit. We all come from different monetary backgrounds, some of us have broke parents, and homelessness or worse could genuinely happen if we take too significant of a risk.
Money matters. Money super fucking matters. For 99% of people, taking risks in business generally stems from being able to have enough cushion to make sure that you survive the fall. Burning the boats is a great mindset to have in general, and working hard should be your priority, but giving yourself ZERO cushion just results in a crash landing. Take risks, and if you need to then zero out, but don’t zero out in a way that causes massive debts, massive collapse, or massive poverty.
Part of the idea of Refined is discussing the idea of abundance alonside creative and financial success. I disagree with the idea of the broke entrepreneur. Money is an incredibly valuable thing, and even a small safety net of 6 months of expenses can allow you to pursue business in a more meaningful, unique, and financially rewarding way. Playing it safe isn’t fun, but I think more people getting into the game of life need to hear that YOU NEED MONEY. Venture capitalists, your parents, your friends, your brokerage account, your Pokemon collection…. you need to get money from somewhere.
Going to zero in your bank account sucks, let’s call it zeroing out. Zeroing out is not fun, zeroing out does not result in good business, zeroing out means that you will destroy industry connections. I’ve been there, I’ve been the guy with the connects and I betrayed their trust by asking for side gigs and other work during my rock bottom. My neediness only resulted in them thinking “what the hell happened to this guy?”. People can be a ruthless bunch, once they see your weakness they will quickly capitlize on it. If you’re getting in this game and this happens to you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Time Matters Too
Just gonna put this as a little aside: Time matters. It’s not that self improvement content has a bad message, it’s just that it takes time.
I’m not gonna ramble forever on this, but these self improvement dipshits take so much of your time it’s fucking ridiculous. 1 hour guides, join my Discord, 1:1 call, even a “Self Improvment Clips” channel for boring slop content, live streams, short form, email pipelines, dogshit SAAS products. They build entire content machines to take your TIME.
Side note: Reading books is a great way of not just getting information, but processing information. I honestly wish I read more books. So many people waste 2 hours per day on various media, but won’t pick up a book. Books let you sit with ideas, that’s important for humans. Reading books I think can be a good use of your time.
Realistic Expectations
Setting goals works, our brains are goal machines. Setting a goal won’t make you rich overnight, but it can give you a baseline to judge yourself fairly.
My personal lack of goals resulted in a constant inaccurate self judgement. I knew I was fucking up, and I knew I was probably a little distracted, but I didn’t know exactly where I was failing. Goals help us get a better idea of our progress in a realistic and healthy frame. Did I upload a video each week or did I not? There is no shame, just a yes or a no.
Goals point us to the present. True enlightment is knowing that the present is the only thing that exists. We are biological computers with a constant movie being shown to us, that’s it. All that really exists is you, your mind, your goals, your fears, your hopes, your memories, your insecurity, your dreams. It’s all right here. Goals are cool but their main benefit is to keep us present and give us good data to work with.
Realistic expectations could be defined as the average change in our outputs over time. If I make an extra $500 per month on average, and I’m currently at 10k per month, then I might be able to get to $16k per month in a year (an extra $500pm * 12 mo). That’s a realistic expectation. Most self improvement bros will just throw random numbers out of their ass, it’s not a good way to live.
Side note: exponential growth is possible, just don’t bet the house on it.
That’s all I really gotta say. Ngl this is a period in my life from a bit ago so I thought I’d write on it for anyone going through something similar. Long story short fuck these self improvment grifters, make your own money, your own dreams, and gtfo. Peace my guys.
– Cooper