0 to 22K YouTube Subscribers and $0 to Earning $100K Online with Essetino Artists

Are you interested in learning how Essetino Artists went from 0 to 22K subscribers and $0 to earning $100K+ online?


I’m here with two beautiful ladies who have done this on their Essetino Artists Youtube channel and with their business online. We’re here today to hear their stories and get to know Jewel and Auret.

Jerry: Jewell & Auret, thank you for being here today for this live interview.

Jewel & Auret: Thanks, Jerry. How awesome to be here. Thanks for having us.

Jerry: So, for those who don’t know you yet, will you help us get to know you a little bit like what you’re doing right now as Essetino Artists and how they can interact with you?


Auret: Yeah absolutely. So, we are digital designers. We’re YouTube coaches at Essetino Artists. We basically help other creative entrepreneurs grow their businesses online through beautiful content, helping them teach how to share that content online.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Our YouTube channel Essetino Artists has over 22,000 subscribers right now. That’s where we live. We release daily content there.

If you want to come hang out with us and engage with us then that would be the place and you just go to iamdreamdriven.com and it’ll take you straight to Essetino Artists.


Jerry: Thank you. I’ll show you the YouTube channel. So, this is Essetino Artists YouTube channel with 22 thousand subscribers and 4 million views. I encourage you to join them and as you just heard there are different days. So,

Monday: Make that money.
Tuesday: Social Media + Biz Tips
Wednesday: Video Studio
Thursday: Mine Thrive
Friday: Dream Driven

So, how did you end up getting into YouTube? How did you start your channel Essetino Artists?

Jewel: So I signed up for the channel Essetino Artists back in 2010 but we haven’t done anything about it for many, many years. I just sort of signed up because I watched a lot of funny videos.


At that time, it was mainly just funny videos that were on YouTube but when we started Essetino Artists to get into more of our entrepreneurial journey.

In 2015, I was trying to do some stuff on our Facebook. So, back when Facebook still had like a vertical banner on the left hand side. I was trying to watch a tutorial video on something like that and I ran into a horrible tutorial.

It was awful in my opinion because the tutorial didn’t have any speaking or words in it. It had really loud, crazy rock music like a really intense kind where the beat was crazy and it was blasting.

All they did was pull up a notepad and start typing out the instructions of what to do now. I did get the information and I was able to do that but it was a horrible way to learn in my opinion because I was really annoyed.


It was loud. I didn’t want to hear the music. So, I said that I could create a better tutorial than this. I felt like I could do a better job and make this more engaging and just get straight to the point for people.

So, I mustered up the courage to create the first tutorial on Essetino Artists. It took me the entire day because I was so scared and worried about being on camera. I had to write every single thing down.

Now, I can film many videos in a day on Essetino Artists but at that time, it did take like 8+ hours for me to just because I just kept making mistakes and was very self-conscious about how I was speaking.

That’s kind of how Essetino Artists was initially born was doing these tutorials randomly. We didn’t start getting into a schedule until early 2016.


Jerry: So, you turned that negative motivation of seeing something you didn’t like into a positive action like “Well, I don’t like this. I’m gonna do something better than that”. It’s outstanding.

How did you get into making money online?

Auret: Let me back up. So Jewel kind of always had this aura about her wanting to be an entrepreneur. I want to have her own business. I was not in that state at all. I was going to school for medicine like I was taking all these schools to get into medical school.

I was just completely on a different path and it wasn’t until you know I graduated from the University of British Columbia here that I started just working a 9-to-5 job. My marks weren’t competitive enough to get into med school.


So, I am super grateful for that because my God, it gave me a year to really think about what I wanted to do and to realize that that’s not something that I want to do. I’m quite creative. I love creating. I love music. Music is another passion of mine. I love design and all that kind of stuff.

I didn’t know if I wanted to create my own business or anything like that, but I just kind of followed that gut feeling of just being open to new opportunities.

So, I had a co-worker who asked me to come along to a networking event and I was like “Oh yeah, Jewel likes that business kind of stuff. All right, we’ll go to that” and that’s really where it all started.


Within that networking event, we were exposed to new ideas from other entrepreneurs, self-employed people who are doing what they love and being you know living free like they’re not tied to a boss. They’re not tied to like submitting vacation requests and all that kind of thing.

We both love traveling a lot and it was just like living your life by design basically. You say what goes and you do it like you walk your talk and it was really cool to just be exposed to those new ideas.

So, that’s kind of how the seed germinated but once we were at that stage, we were just like we absorbed everything, every different kind of business, every like book, every like meeting we went to.

We became part of different MLM, network marketing companies and all that kind of stuff. We really just tried and did a whole bunch of stuff.


We started doing web designs for other businesses as well. We learned everything on our own and I just kind of molded it from there cuz you really don’t know what you want to do right off the bat.

From high school, you’re expected to know exactly what you want to do like take this course and all that kind of thing but it really doesn’t work like that. It’s really just kind of an attribute to just being open to new opportunities and just realizing how you feel once you’re in those experiences.

If you feel joy, happiness and you’re just having an amazing wonderful time then that is something you should follow and if it’s the opposite, get rid of it. Doesn’t have a place in your life.


Jerry: Yes, thank you. You’ve reminded me and I’m like “Wow, I take for granted now. I don’t have to ask for a vacation like I don’t wake up to an alarm like that’s normal and at one point that seemed fantasy.

Jewel: Oh yeah. For the majority of people, that’s like their everyday life and I specifically remember when I would need to get vacation time, you had to fill out this form and say like why you were going, where you were going, and the dates etc.

Many other people were working in the company as well. So, there are a lot of people booking time and you can’t have too many people go at the same time.


I would take this paper and put it in their tray for approval and sometimes it would sit there until the end of the week like 3, 4 days and I would just be sitting there all nervous day after day waiting for this approval.

Sometimes, it didn’t get approved and I remember that feeling and now if we want to book something, we just go on.

Jerry: Okay. How did you make the transition? You went to a networking event and then you started absorbing. How did you get to the point where you looked at it and said: “I think we can do this? “

Jewel: So in 2010-11, Auret brought up that meeting and then from that meeting we started going to every single networking thing that was happening in Vancouver. The ones at the hotels, at the casinos, on the boats, in coffee shops, and restaurants.


Every day after work, we went to a new type of meeting whether it was paid or free. We were shown many different things and one of the first things that we started doing was a website design with Wix.

So, Wix is very prominent now and you probably see the ads all the time on YouTube but back in 2010 and 2011, they weren’t as big as they are now and we would do something different with Wix.

Wix had a primitive website editor and we did something where we would get the domain and then redirect it through WordPress and do some sort of redirecting thing but then you can still do it under Wix or something. I can’t even remember exactly how we did.


It was like Wix, WordPress and buying your own domain off of GoDaddy and we would make these websites for people in the beginning and we just started off doing that.

Then we realized, we didn’t like designing. It’s a ton of work and there is a lot involved with it. You really need to enjoy the design and the whole building process of doing website. Hence, we’re getting another company to do our current website Essetino Artists right now.

They’re doing a much better job with our needs but yeah we just started doing websites from there and just being really open to honestly whatever idea came up because people would always suggest, read that book, read this article and read that.

We did it all. We absorbed everything and I believe it has led us to the path that we are now.


How I was able to leave my job initially was not my choice. It’s not the way I wanted it to go and it was a surprise. So I had read a book “The secret” and I believe you know it as well Jerry.

After I read the book, I wanted to be an entrepreneur with my full body and energy. I did not want a 9-to-5 job anymore. I had decided that I don’t think that I’m gonna live a very happy life if I have like a 9-to-5 job.

I have a boss. I’m not in control and I’m not creating what I want to create. I don’t think I’m going to be happy and I can’t picture myself doing this, you know, until I retire, which is what a lot of people do.

They work at the same as my parents who worked at the same job for like 30+ years. I couldn’t imagine doing that at the current company that I was at.


So, on 23 Febuary, 2011 I was working at an insurance company in downtown Vancouver and I was called into the HR office. They brought me into the room and I knew right away that okay, this was the end here.

This was going to be the end because I was not doing work at 9-to-5. I was a claims clerk/adjuster and I’m supposed to take calls when someone gets into a car accident or something floods in their home.

So, anything that happens to their home, I’m supposed to take calls, create these claims, pay these invoices and bills that would come from auto body shops and things like that.


That was my job. So, I wasn’t doing my job and so they called me to the HR office. I was working for Essetino Artists in its infancy stage as it was a little baby company at the time. I was building the website and trying to do blogs and just trying to do these things in the beginning.

I was called into HR and they fired me on the spot. They presented some things like you did not answer the calls. You don’t do the work that you know you’re supposed to be doing.

I didn’t lie. I said, “This is true” and they said, “Why did you do this”?

I told him the truth and said that this job is no longer fulfilling. I don’t like this job anymore. He heard my response and I said, “I feel like a robot in this”.


After I finished my statement, they said “Okay then you’re terminated. You’re fired”.

I did not even get to go back to my desk to say goodbye to anyone like I had friends there. They brought all my stuff to the HR and I was escorted out of the building and downstairs and that was it. That was the end of my 9-to-5.

I had this whole dream and plan that I was gonna walk into HR with this letter and be like “I’m already making enough of this money that I don’t need this job anymore”. I had all this smooth plan laid out.

What’s funny is that Auret worked in a building on the same street but two buildings down. What was that?

Auret: They provide counseling services to employees of other companies. It’s like an employee’s mental health.


Jewel: Yeah, and it was literally 2 or 3 buildings down the same street. So, I called her. I had composure at that moment and then I called her and then I heard her. She was like “Hey, what’s up jewel” and then all of a sudden I just burst into tears.

I was crying, totally upset and then I managed to say the words like I got fired and she was in shock because we weren’t expecting this.

I was parked across the street in this underground parking area in the Marriott Hotel as I would park when I was late because it’s right across the street but you have to pay like $25 parking for the day.


So, I managed to get to the car and I was just gonna lay in the car and cry there until Auret had her lunch break so she could come visit me. When I got to the car, I had a parking ticket because even though I paid for parking, I missed the letter of the license plate and so they still gave me a ticket.

So, I just got fired, I went to my car. I have this parking ticket for like 120 dollars and I already paid $25 for parking and I’m just laying there thinking my life is over. I was really down like I was so embarrassed.

Now, it’s more acceptable that you do your own thing now and everyone wants to be an entrepreneur but in 2011, it wasn’t that hot and it wasn’t that popular yet.


So, being fired like I was really embarrassed and ashamed that I managed to do that and when Auret got to the car, she was like, I know you didn’t want to go this way but I think that this is from the universe from “The Secret” and this is a good thing which is gonna help Essetino Artists grow.

She managed to calm me down by saying things like that and then later that day we had a meeting with a potential website sale.

So, this lady had wanted to book a meeting for her to inquire about the Wix websites. So at 5:00 p.m, I managed to get ice and put it on my face. We’ve all seen it when you cry so hard, your face gets all puffy and your eyes are all red and you just look horrible.


So, I managed to clean myself up and get to this coffee shop at 5:00 p.m. I’ve just been fired, got this parking ticket and we met this lady to show her the Wix website plan and by the end of it, she’s like, Yeah I like the website and she gave us a check for $500.

It was our first ever Essetino Artists business sale the same day I got fired. I went from being fired to getting this parking ticket and then making our first ever business sale as Essetino Artists.

Even though it was so horrible that I had lost my job, that same day sale literally hours after reassured me that everything was going to be okay. That was the right move even though it wasn’t my move officially.


Auret: We now know when it’s happened so many times but you know things just happen in life and you may not understand them when they’re happening. You’re just full of emotion and you’re upset but they happen for a reason.

There’s a bigger design that we are not necessarily aware of. I felt that when that happened to her. I think this is good just as Jewel was saying but in a weird way. I think this is good and it was confirmed later that evening when we made our first sale as Essetino Artists.

Jewel: Even so, it was like, yeah, we made her first sale. It wasn’t totally uphill and everything went great after that. A week later, I got into a car accident and I had to get rid of my SUV because it wasn’t drivable anymore.


Auret: So, the the stuff kept happening and it will continue to do so on the entrepreneur’s journey. I will continue to do so but I think the one thing that you were asking, how did you know that what you’re doing now is something that you’re gonna be pursuing?

You just kind of look for close clues when they happen. You kind of follow those clues like we followed the web design path, providing web design services because it was in demand and it was fun at first.

It worked well but the thing is you have to kind of learn to let go and some things are not for you or you’re just not enjoying it anymore because if you continue to stay in that space, it’s just like being employed and you’re kind of boxing yourself in a job that you don’t like.


So, it’s okay to move on to something else and it’s just about following those clues. So, the way that we were able to grow those YouTube channels is because it’s something that we really enjoy doing and it’s different. We film a different video every single day for Essetino Artists channel.

We never run out of ideas like it’s really surprising. It continues to come and it’s fun and rewarding too because we get to see people watching, following, subscribing and commenting on our Essetino Artists channel videos.

Jewel: The people’s stories that we hear who have messaged us like, for example, yesterday. I did like a cashback video on our Essetino Artists youtube channel for a website called Ebates which is now Rakuten and it’s a cashback site.


I was just announcing it saying like don’t worry, it’s the same kind of site. It’s just a different name and then someone messaged me and said that the video that I created about cashback with gas gift cards on our Essetino Artists Youtube channel, they now do that all the time and they’ve managed to get a couple of hundred dollars in cashback through these gas gift cards.

I always encourage our fans and people who watch to let me know like a story or whatever because I love hearing how our Essetino Artists videos were able to help you through something or just help you do something easier that day.

Jerry: I love hearing that.

For 2020, starting with 0 experience, what new marketing trends would be important?

Auret: Live streaming. I mean, it’s just starting, it’s scary. If you’re not someone who goes on video live-streaming, it may seem like an intimidating step.

If you can’t really get to that right away then just be at a recorded video or something. It really depends on where you’re at but I would say, make one small step towards your goal.


It could be starting an online business, a channel or whatever it is. Maybe you could let us know what it is that you’re thinking. I was going to say things like, you can’t just be making money online because there are a ton of ways to make money online.

There is no one way anymore. There are a ton of different ways. So, you really have to find some things that you are in it because you absolutely love the journey of it.

We love the journey of creating videos, speaking, engaging with our viewers and all that kind of stuff on our Essetino Artists YouTube channel. We love the journey of it because it’s a long-term game, like being an entrepreneur is a long-term game.

You have to enjoy every single day of it because it’s difficult to get up and tell yourself what time you’re gonna start, roll out in your PJs and you just want to like go back to bed or just like peace out and go for a walk.

You have to eventually put a structure on that because that’s the way you systemize things and that’s what’s going to help grow whatever it is that you’re working on.

Jewel: I would recommend trying out a bunch of different things if you’re ever green, you’re new and you’ve never really done any online stuff. Try a bunch of different things out because you’ll know whether you can see yourself doing something long-term.

There are a bunch of things that we let go that could have made us money still now but we don’t enjoy doing the process.

For a couple of examples, like Amazon FBA’s private labeling, it’s a totally hot topic. You basically find a product on Alibaba, brand it yourself, order a bunch of units, send it into Amazon and then you sell it.

Obviously there’s a lot more research and stuff involved and I did it but I didn’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy the whole process of it and the way that the world is with private labeling, people are pretty crazy out there.

If you have another product that’s similar to someone else’s product, they’ll try to tear you down and another thing merged with Amazon which I was like creating designs and putting it on t-shirts onto the merchants platform, that was a very simple thing and an easy thing.

If you think of designs, you upload them onto merch but for us, it ends at the upload. We don’t have any connection with the customers. We can’t talk to the customer. We don’t know the customer. The sales still happen every day but I’m not connected to it.

Some people like that. That’s what I’m saying, you’ve got to try out different things and find out what’s good for you because it’s the same thing that I’m saying is not necessarily gonna be good for you. People are killing it with private labeling. People kill it in merch bands.

You can literally make money doing anything but you have to be connected to it and for us, it’s like Essetino Artists videos on YouTube. We like working with customers and clients on a personal basis. We like that connection.

What do you prefer? Blogger or WordPress?

Auret: WordPress.

Jewel: I don’t use Blogger but WordPress was like our initial starting point.

Auret: I feel like you have more control. For me, I am more comfortable in WordPress and I feel like I can create anything within that platform. Whereas Blogger has a little bit more limitations. That’s just my opinion.

Jerry: Yeah, same here with me.

How do you differentiate yourself from other channels?

Jewel: All right, yeah. That’s a good question because there are a ton of people probably doing what you’re doing already. It’s your personality and your authenticity that’s going to stand out because there are people already teaching about how to make money online with amazon and how to do sort of Facebook tutorials and how to do camtasia tutorials.

These are the kinds of videos we create on Essetino Artists Youtube channel but it’s our personality and it’s my little quirks that I say in the videos. That’s the way I act. That’s what makes you stand out.

If I’m trying to be someone else and trying to be fake then the viewers can feel and see that. So don’t try and be fake in your videos unless you’re doing like an acting thing and it’s like a show and skit, then yes, that’s fine.

If you’re doing things like tutorials, don’t be fake or anything. Just be yourself and that will sell yourself.

Auret: Yeah. Your own personal style, whether that is the way you speak, the way you edit your videos, the way you communicate, the structure of the videos you’re releasing, it all comes down to like Jewel saying personality and style.

Jewel: Everyone connects with different people. So, even though that person’s already talking about that and that one’s already talking with that, they might connect better with you. Everyone’s got these energies that they are connected to and attracted to.

Even though, I like certain motivational speakers. I really like Gary Vaynerchuk. Auret likes him too but not as much because he’s a little crazy and intense sometimes. So, not everybody will like him but like everyone’s attracted to the different energies.

Auret: I was going to say a good example is Casey Neistat. He’s a vlogger. So there are a ton of vloggers on YouTube but what really made him stand out was his style. His style of vlogging.

The way that he told a story in a very unique way. His storytelling is very unique. So, just think about what makes you unique and just bring that up.

If you are just doing a tutorial channel like we are at Essetino Artists, it’s just gonna come out naturally just by you being yourself.

Jerry: For me, I do mine. My style just hasn’t been edited. You’ve reminded me about this one guy who loved a tutorial I did on Facebook ads cuz I dropped a Tupac line with the MF bomb in it. No one expects that in the middle of a Facebook Ads tutorial. So yes, be yourself and maybe the call-to-action is minimized by what you’re editing. Just put yourself out there even if it is low-quality.

How to earn a lot of money?

Jewel: There are a lot of ways to earn money online.

Auret: Provide value. That’s how you earn a lot of money. Period.

The vehicle, the system is like there are a ton of different ways but at the end of the day it’s just providing value because that’s what makes someone give you their hard-earned dollars.

Jerry: It’s funny talking with you too because everyone has some secrets and like everyone that is doing well is in on it. Like, how do you make money online? Provide a lot of value.

To me, that’s super obvious. It didn’t used to be. Maybe some extra definition would be better like what do you mean by value? For somebody who’s like, “Well, provide value? What does that mean?

Auret: There could be many different forms. So, it depends what your thing is. Do you have something that you’re really good at? A skill that you can teach to someone?

If you don’t even like teaching, don’t even go that route. It’s like, go with something that you enjoy doing because again it’s going to matter in the long-term. You’re sticking with that and you’re making a lot of money out of it, it’s going to matter in the long-term that you enjoy what you’re doing.

So, maybe you like doing skits right. You’re in comedy. It’s a form of providing value. You’re providing entertainment. You’re making someone laugh. You’re making someone smile at the end of a hard day’s work when they come home.

Make a list of all of your strengths and this is where I would tell you to start. Also, make a list of things that you enjoy and also make a list of things that you would like to get better at, that you want to work on and do 2 things.

So, look at your strengths and what you enjoy and find something that has common ground amongst those 2 lists and just do something about it. Think about how you can provide value in that specific niche and then the things that you want to get better at, create your own little personal curriculum.

You don’t need a university or a school to tell you what you need to learn. You can create it yourself. You have Google at your fingertips. You have online courses. You have a wealth of information at your fingertips.

So, if you decide the skills that you want to get better at, these things will help you in the long run. Maybe it’s communication, the way you talk. It’s maybe video editing in which case Jewel can help you with that if you need to.

Decide what it is and every morning 30-minutes to an hour is all you need at the very least. Just sit down, learn a little bit and just keep doing that because providing value, it’s not like you learned something once or you already know a skill, you just teach it and there you go.

You need to grow as you help other people grow. What you’re learning will matter and will come out as you help other people and provide value to them.

Jewel: I always recommend people like to start a channel because you can literally start a channel about anything these days.

To give you some personal examples of people that we know, we have a follower who has their own rabbits channel. They are taking care of rabbits as their pet.

She has a channel on how to have the cage, change it, feed it and it’s all about rabbits. I think she has over a hundred thousand subscribers. So there’s that, a channel about rabbits.

Then a couple of one-on-one coaching YouTube clients that we have. We have a client who went through an eating disorder. He would do things like binging and purging. He wanted to create a channel to help people who are going through binging and purging.

He puts out I think videos daily now about strategies to get over that kind of thing because he went through that for many years.

We have another lady who has a business to protect your business assets when a natural disaster happens. So, like earthquake floods, fire and she created a channel about how to protect your documents and things like that during that kind of natural disaster.

So, like those aren’t normal channels. Those aren’t like typical channels. You can create something like really anything and start with what you know and what you’re passionate about first. What you like doing in general and then working off of that.

Auret: Another thing too, if you’re not necessarily like you can’t think of anything that you know a lot about but you know, you want to teach or help other people learn more about this subject, then interview other people who are experts on that subject.

If you’re really passionate about Space and you just love the Stars but you don’t know much about the subject yourself, interview other people who are experts and you will naturally learn yourself and also share that value and information with your audience.

Jerry: Yes, interviews are a very good format. You can literally know almost nothing and as long as you can be a good listener, you can interview people and help other people bring out their talents. That’s another form of value. Just be someone who helps others do their best.

I love hearing your answers. It helps me to never get away from the basics.

Umar says: I’m a senior software developer by profession. Whenever I decide to make video lectures to teach others, I always go back because there are too many tutorials already on the internet. What’s your suggestion?

Jewel: I would still create them. I mean, if you want to teach people through your method of teaching, even though there are a ton of videos, still put out your version because it’s different.

It’s different from everybody else and like we were saying before, everyone has different personalities and energies that people are attracted to like the Facebook tutorial that I do on how to change your Facebook URL like.

There are a million of those but I create that video on Essetino Artists Youtube channel every year and I update it. People tend to like it. People like the way that I get straight to the point and teach it. So, I would still create the tutorial and it leads to many opportunities.

Creating a YouTube channel creates a lot of opportunities.

Auret: You can also take a look at all of those channels that are out there and just ask yourself, how can you be different from what’s already out there?

Yes, absolutely. You’re already naturally going to be different like your speaking style and your personality is going to be different from other channels out there but if you want to take it a step further, then maybe be the channel that does live streams on that topic because that already weeds out a lot of people.

A lot of people don’t do live streams or go and create like a digital product on it. There are just so many things that you could do.

Jewel: Go through the comments of those people’s videos that they already created videos on and see what they didn’t answer. See what questions people were asking that weren’t answered. There’s a common question or create videos on all those other questions. You can do that too.

Jerry: So, it sounds like we’re talking a lot about mindset here that you see a world of opportunity, you’ll always be guided into an opportunity that’s just right for you to just create where it’s needed regardless of how others are doing it.

Auret: Yeah, just create the space that you want to be in.

Jewel: You’re not going to be the first person to do whatever you’re doing guaranteed anything. There are going to be hundreds or millions of other people already doing it but you can still do it.

Auret: Unless you’re Elon Musk. Unless you invent something crazy but just decide where you want to be. Create that space around it, just go all-in with it, just see what happens and like I said, if you figure that out later on that it’s not really for you, you’re not enjoying it then pivot and do something slightly different.

You don’t have to stay boxed for the rest of your life.

Jerry: I remember when I went to an MLM program in 2004 and I didn’t think I could make money. I tried a couple of scams and the MLM thing kind of ripped me off. I found out that guy like 2 levels above me in the MLM.

He was hardly making any money and he wouldn’t even talk about how little it was. I remember thinking what a fantasy it was to not wake up to an alarm to have the freedom to do whatever you want to.

Your YouTube channel Essetino Artists looks very outwardly successful and established with hundreds of thousands of dollars earned online. What are the things that stink about it that you don’t deal with when you have a 9-to-5 job?

For people who think they want to be an entrepreneur but don’t realize you know what it’s going to be like doing it?

Jewel: You can get burnt out pretty easily because you’re doing everything when you’re first starting out. We have to film, edit, upload, and do SEO for Essetino Artists Youtube channel. We’re the only 2 employees in Essetino Artists. We’re doing everything and it’s all up to you.

So, if in the beginning you don’t have anything established, you don’t have any passive income and you don’t have multiple streams then you work your ass off and you work a lot and you can get burnt out really easily.

After 9-to-5, you will still be tired but you go 9-to-5 and you end for that day. When you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t really end at 5. You kind of just continue until the night and it doesn’t really stop and even then when you’re sleeping, you’re still thinking about what you need to do the next day.

So, for me, burnout happens. That’s a very real thing that happens. Sometimes, I do miss even though there’s a politics of everything. I do miss having coworkers. I’m used to doing things like fun parties and games.

It’s lonelier being an entrepreneur. That’s why you know, we joined the Partners Group where we have the weekly call with you Jerry and we talk with a lot of other entrepreneurs because it can get lonely.

It’s just you, me and Auret. We don’t really have many people to talk to about it.

Auret: You have to make an active effort to be social whereas in an office environment, it’s by default that you’re just around other people and you don’t realize that it meant something to you until it’s gone.

That would definitely be one that I would list. You have to make that active effort to talk to other people. There are a ton of entrepreneurs and support groups online.

Another thing that I would say is that it’s all up to you whether or not you make money. You’re not gonna get a stable check coming in every month whether you do a little bit of work or a lot of work.

As an entrepreneur, financial pressure can get rough. It definitely was like that in the beginning and it’s always going to be there because you know it’s all up to you to put that effort into play.

I feel like being an entrepreneur has really toughened up our skins. It gives you that kind of grit and strength to push through no matter what and just to find new ways if something’s not working.

Again, come back pivoting. You have to be like decisive. If you’re pivoting, you stick to that decision. You go all-in with that. You can focus and see if you can make it work. So it’s very much a mindset game and you kind of have to have that mental toughness because it’s a rollercoaster.

There are a lot of highs but there are really low lows as well.

Jewel: If you don’t have a strong mindset in the beginning then when stuff happens, when stuff explodes, it becomes very difficult to get through and potentially you give up and go back and that type of thing.

So, in the first early years, we spent a lot of our time working on the mental side of things, toughening up our brain, reading, watching like every day watching videos, reading books, and listening to audios.

We stopped listening to the radio for a certain point in time because it was all like the audiobooks, podcasts and YouTube videos of motivational positive strengths growing stuff. We did not want anything that was going to deteriorate our brain because you really need a thick skin cuz it’s tough out there.

Stuff happens as you know Jerry like it’s not stable. It’s not stable like in the 9-to-5 where you pretty much know what your dates are gonna go like. Every day, I knew exactly how it was gonna go and that’s what was making me so depressed at that job.

I knew how it was going to go every day for years and years and I didn’t want that. That was making me so sad. But you don’t know what’s going to happen in the entrepreneurial world. It’s very exciting. A lot of good things can happen but then also bad things.

You gotta be able to bounce back real quick.

Auret: For example, getting a ban on platforms.

Jewel: Yeah. Let me share a story about how we got banned on Fiverr and then that was a big blow to us earlier this year in February but we bounced back and even better. So yeah, many unexpected things can happen.

Auret: So, when things like that happen like the rug is just swept out from under you, you have to be ready mentally to deal with that because you can easily just go back to a 9-to-5 job because of that stability but you have to brainwash yourself with all of the positivity.

It’s going to come in handy along this entire journey because by default, you know, there’s a doubt that creeps in like there’s negative self-talk like can we do this? Are we good enough? Like, look at that person over there, how much money they’re making and how successful they are and there’s like a whole bunch of mind games that happen when you’re on this journey.

So the key is really to stay focused and to just continue brainwashing yourself with positivity like tapping into videos, books and how your other role models think like how other positive people think.

Jewel: That’s why it’s really important to find something that you really love and enjoy like our YouTube channel Essetino Artists because when the shit hits the fan and when things go wrong, that original love for what you like doing the YouTube channel will pull you through because things will crumble.

Things will go bad and if it’s something that you don’t really like doing and then the stuff goes bad, you’ll likely leave it. That’s what happened for us with different ventures with a website. I didn’t like doing that so we just left it.

After doing so many things, we’ve realized that we like this and like that. So we’re just going to continue with that.

Jerry: Very powerful answers. They’re matching my experience the same. So the uncertainty and lack of security as an entrepreneur online is if you are just fantasizing about it when you get into that uncertainty and lack of security, it’s tough and it’s lonely a lot of times but you’ve got to keep up with the mental strength of it.

How do you know when to chill out? I’ve struggled a lot with this because an entrepreneur like you said, you start out, you’re hustling, you’re working so hard.

How do you know when to relax a little bit, stop sprinting and prepare for the marathon?

Jewel: mm-hmm good question.

Auret: That’s when you identify your primary quality output. It’s the main output piece that gives you the most backing. For example, putting out videos is something that you’re doing in addition to blogging, posting on social media, all of these tasks that we have as entrepreneurs but you’re really seeing more come out of your channel, more out of your videos, pay more attention to that, put more time into that without extending the number of hours of work in a day.

So just kind of make it more concentrated. You can decide for yourself how many hours in the day you want to work. Everyone says you know just go like, hustle, hustle, work, work, work but you gotta remember it.

You’re living this entrepreneurial journey because you want to design your life in a certain way and if you don’t want to be, you don’t want a life of like 20 hours a day of work you know just hustle like that then you gotta at some point decide okay I only want to work like 6 hours a day.

To do that, you have to first have tested a lot of things and tried out exactly what is outputting. What is really outputting the most for you is because the more that you focus on it, it will grow. It’ll give you more. It’s that 80/20 rule, you know. 20% of things are giving you 80% of results that you want.

So focus more and spend more time on those 20% of things without extending the number of hours in your day.

Jewel: When we first started doing entrepreneurship, we were really strict with ourselves and we went from not being an entrepreneur. So, we would like to go clubbing all the time and just like be whatever and just like all fun only.

We said, okay, we’re going to be entrepreneurs now and we were like zero fun and we literally just cut it out completely. I remember distinctly it being the 2010 Winter Olympics here in Vancouver and the city was on fire like everyone else was here.

The whole world was watching it and we were up in the office just working away for that entire year. We didn’t have fun and it turned out to be really bad as it made for some pretty bad emotional breakouts.

So now, we don’t do that. Now, we are very focused but we also implement like a lot of adventures and fun now. We like doing a lot of our live Vlog videos that we do. I mean, it’s all up to you because, for instance, Gary Vaynerchuk. He doesn’t have any fun at all like he’s just his fun is just doing all the work but that’s him.

A lot of people think like, Oh I need to be like him and just work 24/7 and not have any fun and just do what he does but you need to like to see how you react to that because I can’t be like that. I need to have travel vacations and have fun for me.

You need to understand what it’s going to be like. Everyone’s schedule is different. Everyone’s the way they do it is different. If you need to play around with that yourself and if you know that you need to have some fun otherwise, you’re going to go crazy and get upset, then you need to implement that into your schedule.

Jerry: It’s amazing how many similar experiences we’ve had, you know. Let’s go crazy and work as hard as I can and then oh now I’m really not feeling good because of all this.

Auret: Yeah.

Jewel: Yeah, it sucks.

Jerry: Well, loved your answer on there.

How to create long and strong relationships with people?

Auret: So, I’d be interested in knowing, do you mean like friends, business, business partners, that kind of thing? I can give a more general answer but just to let you know that we’re working together and stuff, it’s not always fun, it’s high fives and that kind of thing is right.

When you have relationships with business partners, with friends, with your partner’s, your spell’s, that kind of thing, you have differences. Each person has different opinions.

So, I think it’s really important to be able to listen to each other’s opinions. So, listening is really important rather than being stuck in your own mind because it’s really easy to do that.

If we both have strong personalities in our own ways, this is something where we’re learning right. You really have to be able to listen to the other person and come up with a compromise because if you want it one way, they want another way, there’s only going to be middle ground so that both of you can be happy with a certain decision.

You have to kind of be willing to compromise in terms of like long relationships. Again, I don’t know if we’re talking like dating and that kind of stuff but that’s how I would answer in terms of like a business partner relationship because we were best friends since high school.

Jewel: But we’ve known each other since grade 8. Since, we were like 12 and 13 years old.

Auret: But that kind of like friend relationship is different. It’s a different kind of tone from working together. We’re both so passionate about this business and we share common goals. I think that’s another important thing is to realize that you share a common goal and that you’re on the same team.

Once you get into a fight or an argument, it feels like you’re on a different team and we don’t want the same things but you do and it’s the fact that you care about it so much and you’re so passionate about it that it causes this turmoil.

You have to realize you’re on the same team and you have to realize how we can show each other that we’re on the same team like what I need to show and bring to the table for them to feel supported and vice versa. It has to work both ways.

Jewel: In the beginning, when we first started this whole entrepreneurial journey, we just wanted to make as much money as possible as fast possible. That’s what we wanted. We just wanted to be entrepreneurs.

The internet world and social media weren’t that popping yet and now it’s evolved into where we want to help as many people as we can. Specifically, we want to help people with their YouTube channels. People want to start channels and get their message out.

We want people to feel what we feel, you know, going from a 9-to-5 to not having a 9-to-5 to being more to having that freedom. We don’t want people to experience that. We’re focused on helping people. That’s why our videos, they’re all free on our channel Essetino Artists and they just get straight to the point and they just teach you whatever we’re talking about in the video.

We don’t hold any information back. That’s our focus now, but in the beginning it was like, let’s just make money.

Auret: I think a lot of people start there when they know they want to be an entrepreneur, they just start with like I want how to make a lot of money online right. You know a lot of people don’t necessarily know right off the bat that they want to help someone or have this dream to help other people.

I wanted to make money and become an entrepreneur so that I can do music full-time. That’s how it started. I was like okay, we’re going to like breaking out of this 9-to-5 mold. I’m going to have this business which is going to make money and then I can go off and spend time on music and touring and that kind of thing.

But it evolved into something like, I love helping other creative entrepreneurs. It’s so rewarding for me to see that I’ve helped someone start a YouTube channel or create their first piece of content or get a message. They’re getting a message from someone telling them that they helped them because I’m the one who inspired them to just get started online.

It evolves into that. So don’t feel like you’re right off the bat. You have to have this dream to help a whole bunch of people. It starts with knowing what you want and what you’re attracted to and just following that guidance system of joy and passion, whatever makes you happy.

Jerry: I love your answers. I’m going to need to listen back to this again so I remember all of it myself.

So, to summarize, you said, the importance of a focus on helping others instead of making money. Instead of thinking how do I get YouTube subscribers, I think how I’ll help people on YouTube and then you’ll get subscribers. Instead of thinking, how do I make twenty thousand a month or whatever, like how do I help other people make money?

Then it all just seems to materialize. That’s a big shift.

Auret: Yeah, and to give you aside from our Essetino artist YouTube channel, that’s what I’m doing on my music channel. I’m not just going to push my music. I’m also helping other musicians learn more as I’m learning more because I’m on my own journey with my music learning lots on Spotify and have it roll up following on Spotify.

So, wherever I’m learning something, I create a tutorial on it and release it on my music channel to help other artists.

Jewel: Yeah, that’s our tactic on her channel as well because I was saying that most artists, most musicians are just gonna pump their music out and they’re just gonna do music videos, lyric videos, vlogs, that kind of thing.

I said, we should do tutorials for music artists and then sprinkle in your music videos or whatever comes out and so far, it’s working. I did a tutorial on how to promote your music video with YouTube ads and that video got like a twenty two thousand views or something.

It helps a lot. There’s a lot of engagement in that.

Auret: It’s getting more subscribers. So it’s like the more you focus on helping other people, the more people are so grateful that we created this tutorial. They are now subscribed to Auret’s channel. So when she puts out a music thing, they’re more likely to watch and more likely to be engaged with it.

Jerry: I am excited to hear what you think of my newest video promotion idea. I’m hiring girls on Fiverr to dance to my music videos and I’m gonna put those out.

Can we target different things on one channel? For example, let’s consider one domain is tourism and another is IT stuff. What do you think is it good or bad?

Auret: Our channel Essetino Artists covers various topics. It’s not only on social media, only on making money online or only you know on one thing. We did it that way on purpose so we’re not kind of boxing ourselves into a specific topic because again YouTube is a long-term game.

You need to be able to do it day in and day out on and you need to be passionate about what it is that you’re talking about. So, we often encourage if someone wants to do a channel on different things to put it in one channel. However, if it’s an entirely different audience then it might be better to separate them and have two different channels.

For example, like I said, we really do social media mindset stuff, money-making, video editing, all of these little topics and things, they’re all kind of for the entrepreneur. It can be for one type of audience. For someone who’s starting a small business.

With something like tourism and IT, you know for IT, if you’re teaching like tech stuff then that might be kind of like an audience. I see it as a different audience from someone who is learning more about tourism. That’s my take. I don’t know if you have a different opinion on that.

Jewel: Well, I don’t know if it’s different like if you are just doing travel vlogs then I would say it’s fine to incorporate to show your personality and because people like to be connected. So, it totally depends on how you’re doing these tourism videos.

If it’s like you’re showing people around because you’re making a living doing IT, that I think can go together. Obviously, these videos would go on different days. You would have segregated days on your channel where you would release these kinds of videos.

So, it does depend on what kind of tourism.

Auret: Yeah, I guess, I was assuming that a tourism channel would be like you teaching other people how to be good tour guides or something like that. If that is the case then it’s quite different but yeah if you’re just doing vlogs, you’re just wanting to show people your travel adventures which is something we do on our channel too, it’s just a way for people to connect with you and see your personality, then it can go on one channel.

If you are doing it like Jewel said. If you are doing those topics to have them on different days, for example, like my music. I don’t release my cover songs, my Spotify tutorials and stuff on our Essetino Artists channel. It’s a separate channel because that’s a different audience.

So, it kind of depends on what type of videos you’re planning on doing.

Jewel: If you are doing multiple channels, I would recommend that you build one channel first before you start creating another one and start doing two because one channel on its own is its own beast and machine. You’ve got to master that first before you create another one.

Jerry: I love this interview with you guys. This is so much fun. I love your advice. I’ve just thrown everything into one channel and that it can help to focus but it can also help to split it. I love how you two have it set up. You’ve got your music channel specifically for Auret and then everything else is in your main channel Essetino Artists.

Auret: To speak to that Instagram question, making money on Instagram, that’s not something that we’re experts in or anything but I do know that ecommerce is doing really well like selling. Whether it’s fashion, art or anything like that.

If you have an e-commerce business, Instagram is really good and really helps with monetizing that. They have integrations with like, for example, Etsy where if someone clicks on a post from Instagram, it’ll take them directly to that listing where they can purchase it and they can see the prices on Instagram and everything.

In general, it all comes down to thinking about if you are someone who wants to get into entrepreneurship and start making money online. Like I said, make a list of your strengths and what you love doing. Start there and figure out a way to provide value to someone and you’re not really going to know ahead of time that it will provide value to someone, you just have to jump.

You have to test it. You have to do it. That’s the only way you’re really going to learn because I know there are like a lot of perfectionists out there and myself included or you want to know all of the information upfront and then you will make a move but it doesn’t work like that.

You learn the most by doing and figuring it out from there.

Jewel: It’s definitely a long-term journey like we started this in 2010 and 11. It’s 2019 right now. We have had so many ups and downs, so many experiences and one thing that we both knew when we went into the entrepreneurial world was that we were never gonna give up. It doesn’t matter how many times we fall. We were just like nope, we’re going to make this work.

There were too many people succeeding in online entrepreneurship and I was like, they’re not much different than us. Why can’t we do it as well? I like to think of failure as when something fails and it doesn’t work, okay you’ve now known that it doesn’t work. So you move on to something else.

So now it’s like, one less thing that you need to worry about you, just move on to the next thing until it does work and even though I got fired initially and that wasn’t the plan. That was a blessing in disguise.

A lot of bad things that happen are blessings in disguise because it allowed me to work on it full-time while Auret still had her full-time job and it allowed me to move Essetino forward and then she was able to join later on.

Once you feel that freedom that on Monday morning you do not need to have to get on the Sky train, get on a bus, and drive in traffic. We would always be stuck in traffic for like an hour as a car crash or something. You were stuck in traffic and I remember taking the bus and it was raining here and it smelled so bad on the bus.

I always think about those moments when I don’t have to do that anymore and when you have that taste of freedom, I was like, I don’t care how long this takes and you know there were times where financially it was getting scary and I was like I’m never going back like I can’t.

I’ve already made the decision that I’m never going back and I think because we did that and it’s 2019 now like this being a long journey and there were people like in 2014 and 15 that were saying to us like “Hey, you’ve been doing this for a couple of hours. Now you should have things going or you go back to a job to something else”.

People were saying that to us and I was like you just have to tune it out cuz there’s gonna be naysayers. There are going to be haters all over the place online and in the physical world and you just have to ignore it.

If you honestly want it bad enough then you are going to push through all that crap and we did. Now, we continue to do so.

Auret: It’s not gonna end. It’s been a whole journey. It’s an ongoing thing. It’s a way of life. Entrepreneurship is a way of life. It’s not necessarily a career that you choose so if you know you want to try it, jump in, see if it’s for you and be willing to deal with the bad as well as enjoying and celebrating the good.

Jerry: Well that was just beautiful. I loved doing this. You’ve provided so much value here that I want to go back and listen to this again myself.

I appreciate you both being here today. Thank you very much for reading. I trust that when you want some more from these two amazing ladies, you’ll go to the Essetino Artists YouTube channel, look them up, hit that subscribe button and start watching their videos.

Auret: Yeah, thank you for having us, Jerry and thanks to everyone who’s reading definitely. Come hang out with us on our Channel Essetino Artists and if you really want to quickly track your learning by starting a YouTube channel yourself, we do offer one-on-one YouTube coaching and also do design work if you’re ready to release some content on social media and start your own social media marketing campaign.

So definitely get in touch with us. We’d be happy to help.

Jerry: All right. Well, thank you very much for doing the interview.

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