Update, Channel Opportunities and Other Stuff.....

Oh no it's got a bit of paper out that must mean that this video is going to be exceptionally boring. Well to some people the video might be quite boring but I've got quite a lot of important information to give out in this video. As you may or may not realize this particular channel is closing in on a hundred thousand subscribers. Most of those people don't watch the videos but it's a stat that's kind of a benchmark if you wish. It's been one that I'm not really too bothered about, but it's going to mark a point in the channel's history where I'm going to have to make some changes. And the first of those changes is that I'm going to have to stop answering the comments. Now don't get me wrong, I do love answering comments, solving problems, that's basically what the channel exists for. There's about, I don't know, 900 and odd videos on here now. A lot of them are educational videos. And if you click on some of the more popular videos and scroll down the comments, you'll see that I've answered sometimes hundreds of comments on each video. Now times that by how many of those videos there are out there, and you'll see that I've spent the last, I don't know, 9 or 10 years replying to tens of thousands of comments. Which is something that I know most channels don't bother doing once they get above, I don't know, 5 or 10,000 subs and they just don't want to devote that time to it. I have devoted that time to it, in addition to all the other stuff I've got going on, which I'll mention later in the video. And it's got to the point where I cannot physically do everything. And I can't mentally do everything as well. There's so much going on that... I cannot give 100% to everything that I've got going on, unfortunately. And really, a huge part of the problem, well, it's not really a problem. If you look at it from a financial point of view, 99.9% of people in the world would kill to be in my situation, but it's a problem. I don't really know how to explain it. Basically my business which is not YouTube but is supplying filter materials basically all around the world has snowballed over the last few years and since last year it's more than doubled with not only its turnover but also the amount of orders that I'm physically sending out and processing. Um... That has meant that I haven't put many videos out, certainly not as many as I would like to on the channel. And in the Pimp My Filter video series, I've actually got well over 20 videos shot that I just don't have the time to edit. And that's mostly because the first two to three hours of each day is spent answering emails, but also answering all the comments that come in on the videos. Even if I could only free up an hour or two extra a day, I could get all those videos edited, get them out, I could help so many more people, you know? Instead of helping, like, individual people with individual comments, I could make videos about things that were being asked about quite a lot and help so many more people. It makes sense to me because I've kind of painted myself into a corner with all of these things that I've got going on. And at the production site where we make the filter media that I sell, we're actually going to install a big dryer unit which should increase the production by at least 100%. That will help and at that point when that's running, I'll be making the trade website, the trade bio home website live. That will allow you trade customers to just buy the media on there and sell it to your customers. through shops and so on you know hopefully that will reduce some of the pressure on me because at the minute it's just it's crazy i mean it's a seven day a week job anywhere between 8 12 hours a day plus all the emails plus all the comments plus taking my son to two or three lots of football training and two football matches plus going down to the match on a saturday down newcastle There just isn't enough hours in each day. We really need an eight day week and then maybe it's a 30 hour working day to make things good you know. Basically if I continue going like I'm going I will work myself to death. Some people would love to see that happen. On the subject of a bio home on my website on the Filter Pro website there is links to other distributors all around the world. On the top of every page, there's actually flags from different nations. There's a Singapore flag, an American flag, a German flag, a Dutch flag. Thank you very much. Oh, man, there's probably about a dozen or more flags on there. If you click on the flag from your country, you'll go to the distributor in your country. So please do that. Go through them, you know. And if you've got any specific questions about the BioHome, ask your local distributor. Because at the moment, I'm getting all the questions for everybody else's trade around the world which is just crazy and it takes up a hell of a lot of time. If I could put a lot of the answers in the videos that would help a lot of people. Also on the FilterPro website I'm working on a page called Which will have a lot of the useful information that I've got from the Pimp My Filter series in a more easily digestible form. There's a lot of important stuff there which I'm adding to whenever I can. So check that out as well, that will have a hell of a lot of useful information and I imagine that when I get it more developed it'll be a very good one for people to link to on forums and Facebook groups and basically all the places where people ask for advice about things, they could just click on that, boom, go there, see all the information laid out, pick which filter would be suitable for their tank etc etc, see how it should be set up, there's also links there to various videos on them. It's going to be a good page. And just jumping back to the 100,000 subs sort of scenario that will be coming up soon. When the channel hits 100,000 subs, I will be doing a lot of giveaway videos. And they'll be basically to reward people who have genuinely watched the videos. I won't announce which videos will have the giveaways included in them, but some will. And you'll basically have to watch each specific video to be considered for the giveaway. So if there's a video you're not particularly interested in, say, I don't know, it might be an outdoor video, that video will have something outdoor related to win. If there's a video about pond filters, you might have something to do with ponds to win. Obviously, the people with outdoor stuff might not be interested in the pond, so they wouldn't watch that particular video, they wouldn't win. Previously. I've announced giveaway videos and I've just been besieged by people who've never watched the videos before. They simply want stuff because it's free and that's not a good situation. I want to reward genuine people who have supported the channel just simply by watching the videos, sharing them and enjoying them. Now the YouTube channel for me is and always has been a hobby. It's not a business. It's basically just a hobby all about the free sharing of information and education as well. I'm not a teacher. I don't have a teaching background but I love to share information and I love it when that information is taken up by people and they find benefit from it because that gives the channel real value. If I'd gone to vlog or vlog or... What do you call it? Vlogging, where people basically just film themselves doing everyday stuff. It all becomes about them. Very egocentric. I've done loads of live streams just to claw money in. It would be god awful. It would be no different to the channels that have got hundreds of thousands of subs and basically exist for money. Money is the root of all evil. It is. Greed causes suffering. I don't want money, I'm not concerned with materialistic things, I like quality gear, don't get me wrong, but I'm not going to go out and buy a Rolex watch or, you know, Ray-Ban sunglasses, designer gear, I mean, look at me, I'm sitting in my muck that I work in, it's, that stuff is so fake, you know, and I don't want the channel to become fake, so, when it gets to 100,000 subscribers, I want to give some of the channel's success to you guys. Part of it will help me because it will bring people on board who will help other people when I am unable to, when I'm unable to make specific videos because of my time constraints. But the main thing is it will benefit the viewers and it will benefit specific channels that are genuine and exist to help others. Basically what I'm proposing is... That if you've got a channel, and you like to make educational videos that help people, your channel exists for the right reasons, then get in touch. Because if you've got a video or two that you want to upload onto my channel, put out on here to a wider audience, then by all means, I will do that for you. No problem. Because there's so many channels out there that are just buried under an ocean of crap. I mean, every time I watch somebody else's video, the related videos that come up are just just nonsense just just materialistic crap i have to search for information i want this channel to be an information hub and i want to share that with you guys you know this is probably just sounding like gibberish i should really plan what i'm going to say but basically i want to help some of the smaller channels to be exposed to a wider audience and i'm really lucky because my channel hasn't exploded because i haven't gone that crappy awful route i've got a really really good subscriber base of intelligent people who are looking for information so i think the marrying of this bringing other people in and having a good subscriber base will work very very well So please, if you yourself have a channel and you want specific videos that will help people put out to a wider audience, get in touch. I'll obviously put video links to your websites or YouTube channels, Facebook groups, whatever else you've got going on in the video description and pin comment. I'll put it out on my channel and I'll just basically step back and let you explain what it is you want to explain in your video. I think that's pretty important because The majority of the time with like social media, YouTube included, when you get to a certain level, it becomes about the self. It becomes, again, very egocentric. It becomes very shallow. I want to make this have more substance, you know. I'm starting to sound like an old hippie now. I'll start going on about karma and spirit and development of the self and all this sort of thing. I'm not going to, I may go into that in future videos if I get time to make them, but no, this one, to be honest, I don't even know what the hell this video is about. I just wrote a few notes on here, and I think I've got through them all. Just give me a second. Yeah, pond filter and garden. Basically, I'm going to show you what projects I've got going on around the place that I basically can't get on with because of my time constraints. Against my pond filter. Has actually been under construction for about four months. Like half an hour here, half an hour there. From beginning to end, it should have taken me no more than two days to build it. Which is highly embarrassing for somebody who calls himself Pond Guru. You know. And I've got written down here, Gay Frogs. I don't know what I was going to relate that into. But it was probably something to do with Alex Jones or some sort of censorship or something like that. I don't know what the hell that was about. The tale of the gay frogs will just have to wait for another day. I will try and edit this down into something that's watchable. And I apologise if it ends up just being a total mess. But I do appreciate everybody that watches the videos. Everybody that hits the thumbs up. Everybody that shares the videos. And basically everybody who takes something useful from the content that are in the videos. Because that's the most important thing. If I've helped two people. From a video that I've put out that makes me happy. In fact if I've helped one person from a video that I've put out that's taken two hours to shoot and four hours to edit that makes me happy because that's what it's all about. Right before I wrap this video up, which is probably three times longer than it should be, I'll just have a quick spin around the place with the camera. I'm going to show you what projects I've got going on around the place and I'll also show you how and where I relax because that is an important place for me and without that I think I probably would have had a stroke or a heart attack or something, you know, so this is a really private place that I'm going to show you in a minute and it's something that I would advise everybody get. So without any further ado, let's take a look around. Oh, and I've got to apologize for the people who I did mention this video share an idea to many months ago and I never did anything about it. A couple of people did send me links to their videos, I did download them, and I thought I'm gonna wait until it gets to 100,000 subs because at that point your channel gets like verified or something by Google or YouTube and it seems to get promoted more. I didn't want to start that series before it was really ready, because if the channel's going to be promoted, I would like to bring other people in on that. I don't want to just have myself promoted, you know? I want people who help people promoted. Um, Eve? And I'm going the wrong way here. Crap. Let's spin around. Oh, yeah, we'll go down this way. I mean, God damn, man, look at this. Look at the colours in here. This is pretty much the end of my autumn colour on the damn wall. And I'll show you the view that I get out of my kitchen window. There you go. That is just, well, it's zen. It's absolute zen. You know how can you get stressed and worked up about anything when you're looking on to that first thing in the morning? It's unreal. You know, it's been 20 years in the making. Don't get me wrong, you know, it's been a long time coming, but that is beauty. Natural beauty. Talking of natural beauty. You might just notice something here. Actually, you might notice that the fence has gone here. And we're going to get a lot of work done over the side of this hill, and I'll show you what's gone on over there. And I'll also show you what's missing from here. Now, there was a huge tree just here, approximately 140 feet tall. That's been taken out because it's on the west side of the house, and we didn't want any parts of it to blow into the house. So that's left a reasonably big stump. That's how big my shoe is compared to that. It was gigantic. And unfortunately most of it's still lying over this bank side which is a total mess. There you go that's the tops of the tree and that's the trunk which was basically just dragged down. I mean that is just a monstrous piece of wood. So what we're going to do is clear all of this bank side off, kill off all the weeds, basically clear all that off, plant it up, Aces, heathers, conifers, hebes, that sort of thing, and create a beautiful bankside of total colour. All these are coming out the way, we're going to burn all that off. This big log's getting dragged down there and basically left. These are the remnants of trees that were here, and that's opened up our view quite beautifully. And that's where we burnt a lot of the stuff in the field, that's what that scar is there. So I'll just reverse you back and show you what I see out of the front of the house. Obviously this mess is going to be cleared up. That's the view out the front of my house. Again, how can you ever get worked up when you're looking onto that, man? And in the bottom of here, it's reasonably flat. So I'm going to build some sort of shelter in here and shoot outdoor videos down here. We're within Wi-Fi signal, so you never know. There may be live streams at some point, but I doubt it. I'm not really into that. I've had a little road put in along here, the end of the garden. It bends down, and that goes down to the bottom of the wood there. I mean, you can just imagine this bankside just all planted up. It's going to be absolutely tremendous. The only thing is, we're not really going to see it from the house, but anybody walking about in the field will see it. Not that anybody should be walking around in the field, because there's no footpaths over there, but there you go. There's another bit of autumn colour. Look at that. That's like a field maple hybrid sort of a tree. Absolutely unreal, so going back to the pond filter. I've got some more crates so now I can finish off the The... Well this part in here where the showers are. It's gonna be Hold on, hold on, hold on, let's put a light on here. There we go man, we've got light now didn't have those in some of the earlier videos so in here It's gonna be packed out with media. We've got a huge stainless shower We've got a big plastic shower both of those are gonna be fed by a pump in here as the last stage And we've got a moving bed, which isn't moving at the moment because there's not much water coming in. And I've got the air pump switched off. We've got static beds in here, believe it or not. These two contain 750 kilos of media, which is pretty mad. Another 200 or 300 in there and we'll have a ton, literally a ton of filter media. And this big... This outdoor aquarium is going to get used for something really, really unusual that I haven't seen before. So you'll have to stay tuned for that because that's going to be a pretty strange project. Yeah, so that's still a bit of a mess under there, but it is almost finished. Or at least it's pretty much getting there. And sitting above that... I've got my log cabin which is where I used to work from and if anybody's watched any really old videos you'll realize that this was an absolute disaster zone. It was absolutely awful. But now it's all been cleaned out, put a light on and in here we have the source of my power. This used to be an infrared sauna but I put a proper fire in there and it's now an extremely Normally hot sauna, I normally sit up there, top shelf, head on the roof. And I can normally sit in there about three quarters of an hour at 100 degrees. And that really, really energises me. Everybody should have a sauna. The exercise equipment, I got that off Andy from Dramatic Aquatics when he moved house. And I've never used it. But my wife swears that she's going to be using it at some point. So there you go. And when I've had that extreme sauna, that's where I crash out. Believe it or not, it is very, very good for you. Basically, all I would do is, as I'm getting towards the end of the working day, turn that on, make sure the temperature's set pretty high. That's what I have it normally set at, 104 degrees, and that is Celsius, not Fahrenheit. And then I climb in there. The only sounds that I hear are the running water from underneath the cabin, where the filter is, and it's almost like a white noise sort of a scenario. And then I stand here. With my aura looking like somebody off Fist of the North Star with all the steam coming off me, overlooking this lot in the light of the moon, under the stars and I smile heartily. Okay so that is just a little brief insight into parts of my life and a little overview of parts of my garden. I don't normally do videos like that because I like to stick to the educational stuff. But sometimes I need to explain why I can't put videos out every day. Believe me, if I had time, I would put an educational video out every single day. But I can't because of a nation of things which I've run through in this video. So if you've liked it, give it a thumbs up. Please keep watching. As I say, when I get to 100,000 subs, there will be giveaways to reward you guys. There will be the opportunity for other channels to promote yourself on my channel. And I just wish you all happiness and good health. Thanks very much for watching. I shall see you next time. Here we go, guys. Here's something cool. Put your hand on there and a hand on the other side of this thing. You'll notice that your pulse will come up here. Mine, 72. That's about average for a 40-something-year-old fat man. But watch this. Zoom in so you can see that more clearly. And let's see, without doing any sort of physical exercise or any movement, how far we can take it up. Just with the power of the mind, it's 130 and then I'll bring it back down and go up.