wasn’t growing anymore. Collabing started to be less effective because all the creators I knew were already in the same circles, sharing the same following.
Something needed to change. For some reason, I felt like the change had to come from within me.
I grew up with the mindset that there was never enough, life was hard, and you took what you could get. That mindset stayed with me, and I had been so negatively focused for a long time. I constantly thought about losing what I had. What ifs filled my mind. What if I lost my job? What if no one watched this video? What if I wasn’t funny? I’d had positive goals in the past, but they were so mundane: I hope that I can make rent this month. I hope that I can book at least a commercial this week. Whatever I focused on I could achieve, but I was consistently focusing on the bare minimum I needed to survive. What if I thought bigger?
I started getting into the Law of Attraction. All the aspects of the Law of Attraction are pretty far out there, but what I took from it is this: rather than focusing on what you don’t want, focus on what you do want. Don’t be afraid to dream as big as you want. What you are thinking, what you tell yourself, can manifest. The concept was so mind-blowing to me, I started saying affirmations to myself every morning:
I am going to make millions of people laugh around the world on a consistent basis. I am going to have a successful career.
Then I took it further. I wasn’t “going” to have these things. I wanted them to exist in the present:
I am so happy and grateful that I am making millions of people laugh with my videos.
I tried to shift my perception of myself as well:
I am smart. I am perfect as I am. I am enough. I am worthy.
It sounds cheesy, I know, but I had to do it. I had been depressed and thinking negatively of myself for as long as I could remember. Before this, I was writing in my journal, “I’m nothing. I should die. I don’t deserve to live.” These were the things that I thought about myself enough to actually write them down repeatedly in the yellow spiral notebook. Why the hell was I putting energy into that? Before I didn’t know how to stop, but now I had figured it out. I spoke to myself every day to retrain my brain:
I am no better and no worse than anyone else. I am worthy. I am happy.
With a new sense of self underway, I honed in on my goal. I wanted to make millions of people laugh all around the world. That was my new affirmation:
I’m making millions of people laugh all around the world.
I would picture people from all over the world watching my videos and laughing and feeling good because of something I did. It started to change the way I looked at my purpose, because I could give something to people. They might be anxious or depressed, and I could give them some goofy videos and make them laugh for a minute. For that one minute, they could forget their problems. I think that is amazing!
My affirmation was the first thing I would say in the morning, every single day. On the tenth day of saying that . . . I had my first viral video. The view count went up and up and up . . . until it was getting millions of views . . . being shared all over the world! I was literally making millions of people laugh all around the world. The video was of my Ivy character speaking to the camera in a breathy voice:
“Hey guys, it’s me. Just wanted to remind you to never give up on your dreams. Like even if you want to. Just don’t.”
I thought it was so funny to have this out-of-touch character be the one trying to motivate people. The only problem was that in my affirmation, I didn’t specify that the world would know who I was. The video was disconnected from me, reposted, and shared by millions of people who thought this character was a real person. I was honored! My performance was believable!
One morning I sprang out of bed with an idea. I nudged Stephen awake.
“Stephen. I have an idea. Will you film me cooking breakfast?”
Stephen was barely awake. “Who? What?”
I