Aardvark Daily

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A career change for me?

When I was a kid, I was the quintessential geek.

While most boys my age were playing rugby or cricket, I could be found in the library or tinkering with wires, batteries and test-tubes in my bedroom -- learning all about the secrets of electronics and science.

Most males my age aspired to get on the first-fifteen or win some kind of accolade for running, jumping or some other type of physical prowess -- I was not the least bit interested in that kind of stuff.

As a result, my frame was not in the least bit athletic.

I was the wimp that would have gotten sand kicked in his face if I'd ever dared to set foot on a beach. Fortunately, you'd never find me out in the sunlight, I was far to busy learning about the physics behind that sort of fusion reaction.

Well now its well over half a century later and...

I'm still heavily interested in the sciences and have retained my passion for learning.

I spend inordinate amounts of time soaking up knowledge which, thanks to the internet, is no more than a click or two away at any time.

However, although to date I've made my living as the result of the technical and scientific knowledge I've acquired over the decades, things may be about to change, at least a little.

The platform on which I've been very active for nearly 20 years now and which has provided a comfortable but not excessive income (YouTube) is changing and I need to change with it.

Although RC model aircraft, drones and other such things were once "all the rage" and commanded lots of views, clicks and ad-impressions, that's no longer the case. Where there was once a plethora of content on these topics and advertisers were more than happy to pitch their wares on such videos, this is no longer the case.

With the militarisation of drones, there's now a bit of a stigma associated with any content that may be in any way linked to these "weapons of war" so CPM (cost per thousand ad views) has tanked. Also, while drones were once new and exciting, they're now old and boring so the videos that were once highly sought-after now lack much in the way of an audience.

Even the core of other drone and RC model flyers that would once flock to view any new videos has attrophied and many creators in this area have thrown in the towel because they can no longer make a living from their work.

The other option is to pivot.

Pivoting means changing the focus of your content-creation activities. Quite a few YT creators that were once focused on drones and RC models are now trying to earn a crust by covering topics such as 3D printing, eBikes and other "newer and trendier" topics.

Unfortunately, this almost always fails and even those channels are seeing falling viewcounts and earnings.

So what am I going to do?

Well my predicament has been significantly made worse by the local council's diktat that I may not fly my drones or RC model aircraft without some ridiculously overbearing conditions that (unsurprisingly) are not applied to anyone else in the district. It's pretty hard to run RC-related channels when you're prevented from flying anything by your local branch of the Stazi who are annoyed that you would dare to point out their deficiencies or predict their errors well in advance.

As a side-effect of the council's decisions, Tokoroa has effectively dropped off the map in terms of social media and gone from being seen millions of times a year on YT resulting in a constant stream of tourists -- to virtually nothing. Meanwhile, they continue to spend public money like water on utterly ineffective attempts to "promote" the district.

Idiots!

Rest assured however, that I will still be writing Aardvark Daily (yes, that is a threat) and will also be publishing videos about RC and drones on my YouTube channels -- however, this alone is not enough to pay the bills so...

Every day I now get emails from people around the world wanting me to become "a fitness influencer".

WTF is a "fitness influencer"?

Well, if you watch a few YouTube videos you'll see that it's usually someone who's juiced up to the gills on steroids and whose sole reason for existing is to sell their own brand of training and nutritional supplements.

These people get millions of subscribers and tens of millions of views per month for their videos with high CPMs so that their annual earnings from the platform are measured in millions of dollars. Add to this, the massive profits made from the supplements they flog and it becomes obvious why so many of them live in mansions with their own private gyms and drive Lambos or McLarens.

Whilst the trappings of wealth may hold some attraction... being a traditional "fitness influencer" is not for me I'm afraid.

However, as someone who's in pretty good shape for his age (which is why so many keep emailing me for advice) I'm seriously thinking about starting a channel designed to share my experiences and successes with similarly aging people who may have never done an exercise in their life before.

The fact that I'm now fitter and stronger than I've ever been in my entire life, despite my advancing years, could be the kind of inspiration that some folk need to get off the sofa and spend 10 minutes a day engaging in the sort of activities that may well provide significant increases to the quality and length of their lives.

If it helped me sustain my income, that'd be a great bonus for me.

So, right now I'm doing the homework to see if it would be worth the time and effort to create such a resource.

Based on the number of emails I've received there's definitely a demand -- now it's a case of quantifying that demand and trying to work out if there's a big enough niche to warrant the investment of time, money and effort that would be required to adequately service that demand.

Change, as they say, is as good as a holiday and I think that while other content creators end up suffering burnout, I may spend a day a week simply creating content that is totally different to everything else I do. The upside will be a new revenue stream, a boost to my mental health and hopefully I'll help a bunch of people at the same time.

Nothing is set in concrete at this stage because I'm also having to consider how much time I'd have available for all my many and varied activities. As I'm constantly reminded (by about 6pm every day), I'm no longer a teenager so my energy is not limitless.

However... I do love a challenge.

Carpe Diem folks!

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