Why I Am Leaving ElkShape.

I got into it. I just decided like my life is filled with so much pressure and stress of a different variety. It's odd. Hey there, what can I do for you? Can I get a 16 ounce americano with a little bit of almond milk? Yeah, we don't have that right this day. A hot please. It's hot for you. Be careful, it's super hot. Okay, thank you. Another four-fletch here. Last one. I got something for you here. Josh is not proud of me for this. Three-fletch, three degrees to the right. Three-fletch, helical to the right. Four-fletch, three degrees to the right. Fletched on the bits. Yeah, anyway, that escalated quickly, didn't it? I guess I wanted to make a video today to talk to you about the future of my channel. I left the Elk Shape YouTube channel basically just to be here to pursue my own thing. I want to talk to you about the future and give a little context of where I was at, where I'm going, and what's good for 2023. If we were to roll back the clock, make that a little noise, roll back the clock, Dan and I started doing Elk Shape YouTube together about three years ago. Basically, we just had a handshake agreement saying that we were going do YouTube together 50-50 and just make videos. That's where we went. We got to work. We did a lot of work and I was really proud of what we were able to accomplish over our time together. We took the YouTube channel from about 10,000 subscribers to 80,000 subscribers. Our best months had over a million views. It was a great experience. Worked with a lot of cool people, had a lot of great memories. As it got down the road and it just got to a point that we should formalize our agreement. Started with a handshake and that's cool. I think that's how a lot of small businesses or ideas start together. We had a lot of conversations about what having a more formal agreement would look like. Basically, after some really long respectful conversations, we just came to the conclusion or I came to the conclusion that there wasn't really a good path forward together with a true 50-50 YouTube agreement partnership. It was a really hard decision to make. Those things aren't easy. It took a lot of thought and just led me to a place that I just didn't see a good clear way we could do that together. I decided to break off on my own and here I am today. I'm looking forward to the future. I am excited to continue to make fun videos that you have fun watching but also I have fun making to expand on what I know about storytelling and YouTube and to really pour some gas on the coals of this YouTube channel. Starting over from about 2,000 subscribers, it feels like I'm way back down on the totem pole but it's definitely better than zero. Thank you all for already being here and it looks like we're starting the road to 100k back over and that's fine. So if you want to be a part of that, subscribe to the channel. I've got a lot to share. A lot of it will be archery related. I'll continue to make fun videos, collaborate with peers, do archery, have little competitions, stuff like that and also start to backfill with some of the stuff that's you know important to me that I'm doing that. Maybe I have a weekend adventure in the northwest somewhere or maybe that's another adventure hunt or adventure fishing trip. The long term is wide open for me. The near term is definitely to continue to make archery videos because I freaking love it. I love shooting my bow. I have a great group of friends that I love shooting bows with. It's fun. It's fun. It's very meditative. I enjoy the flight of the arrow. The mystical flight of the arrow as I think it was Ted who said that. It's like my therapy. I love having a bow in my hands and shooting my bow. One thing I would like you to take away from this is there's no hard feelings towards Dan. I think we were both respectful as we had conversations and stuff like that and really it came down to to me really making the decision that what I wanted and what I thought was best for my future was to make sure I was just doing this on my own, investing in my own channel and investing in having making fun creative stories for you guys. I think we'll still collaborate as peers. Dan, myself, MFJJ, all the guys that you've seen me on the other channel collaborate with in the past. I hold no hard feelings. I just came to a decision where we had a fork in the road and that's where I ended up. I briefly explained what was happening on an Instagram story and I had some of you submit your questions to me so I want to answer a few of those questions to kind of give you some perspective as to to where this thing's going. One question is you probably can't see that. Can you make more Aeroflight YouTube videos and the answer is yes, hell yes. I love watching arrows fly. I don't see that changing in the near future. Yes to more Aeroflight videos and if you have any ideas for stuff you specifically want to see drop drop me a comment on what you would like to see specifically but I'll definitely be shooting with friends, shooting against friends, going a little 3D stuff with friends, talking smack and making some of those Aeroflight videos for sure. I got two questions here. I'll combine them into one. One says are you still training for takedown Dan and are you still going to takedown Dan at TAC? A running thing we had going was I was always practicing to takedown Dan. All that simply meant was I'm trying to get better with my bow so I would win at one of our local 3D archery events so what I would say for that is I'm going to keep shooting my bow. The ball is definitely in his court if he wants to go to TAC and do that. It would be cool to do that though and cap it off man. I'm practicing hard this year. Goals for the rest of... so I got a question what are your goals for the rest of 2023? My goals are just to really hit my stride making regular content on this channel. I want to ramp back up the road to 100k. I really feel that I can do that in a year's time. I would love to have it done by the end of this year, get to 100,000 subscribers. I think it's possible. I'm going to try really hard. I'm going to try really hard. I love YouTube. I love the community that we have formed already and I do want to do nothing but pour gas on that fire and just make awesome content that reaches more and more of you. So if we could get there this year that would be amazing, amazing. That would be something that I'll shoot for but in one year from when this video goes live that's really what I want to shoot for is to get to that 100,000 subscriber mark and just continue to reach more awesome hard-working peers. The coolest thing about all the people I've met through this avenue is all of you have been so cool. So cool to meet in real life at events and different stuff like just the most like-minded fun peers that you see someone you can crack jokes with them right off the bat. You kind of you get what's going on so that's what I'm shooting for. Regular content, get to that 100,000 subscriber mark, make content that I'm super proud of. I want to really look at the long in the long run here and when I watch a video watching back a year or two or three down the road I want to be proud of what I've made and the track I've laid. I rhyme. Maybe rapping? No not rapping. But I want to be proud of the stuff I make. Just continue to evolve and grow and invest in learning storytelling and getting better with the camera. I really enjoy getting to know the camera and production stuff and making things that are cinematic and making things that are also fun and entertaining so I hope that describes it pretty well. Make regular content, get to 100,000 subscribers and be proud of what I do. I think that's good y'all. I didn't want to keep this too long-winded. I wanted to hit the real talking points that I thought were important. I hope that answers everything. I really don't want to circle back to this. I don't want it to drag on. I just want a clean path forward and just to make awesome stuff for for this YouTube channel. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. That would mean a lot to me. I look forward to making more videos in 2023. I look forward to seeing you back here. It's going to be a great year friends. I appreciate you. I appreciate your support. Remember every time a door closes another door opens. I know that sounds cheesy but it is true. Stay positive. Work hard. Stay on your grind. I will catch you back here for the next one.