Hey everyone! I hope you are all well and thriving wherever you are and whatever you are doing. I appreciate you taking the time to check this blog out and see what’s new with me and ShutYerGob. I have no overarching theme for this post. I want to give you all an update on me and the channel and outline in more detail the phase that ShutYerGob is entering.
As I outlined in my last update and for people that have been around the channel for the past three years will know that my initial wish for the channel was a place where I could make friends and hangout while gaming, much like I used to do with my friends as a teenager. Now I am a grown man with children and responsibilities its not really a good look to have between 4 and 8 men in an upstairs bedroom eating takeaway, gaming and smoking loads of weed. I started the channel to recapture that magic of gaming, bringing people together and escaping to parts unknown in video games. I achieved that very early on by meeting such great people in the small youtuber community and building a core group of friends that I can rely on for support, comfort and understanding. Which is great! The channel grew nicely, and people stuck around and became a continuing part of this journey with me.
As some of you know I used to write articles related to F1 and publish them through a website. I made contacts there and realised I very much enjoyed writing, balancing an article and getting the opportunity to work some of my opinions and knowledge into something that I’ve been obsessed about for some time. I got the writing bug but wanted to do something more personal to me and have that alongside the new YT channel, at the time called Goblin Gaming. I started this buy me a coffee page around the 500-subscriber mark and I started earning through here, creating content on both platforms and trying to give my followers a larger and more unique experience. I’ve written about my life here, my mental health journey and past struggles. I love being open and honest in this way. I find it cathartic and therapeutic; it helps me to put it down and work it through.
At this time, I decided to really pursue this YT/Blogging thing as a small business and side Hussle and I came up with the idea to break the journey down into phases, taking my inspiration from the Marvel cinematic universe and call them phases. I know I’m a nerd, its fine. I am ok with this. Phase 1 became the evolution of the channel from DadRacing through Goblin Gaming and finally into ShutYerGob. When I started this YT journey, I had no hardware nor any idea what I was doing so phase 1 was a learning process and a development process. Phase 1 was always about finding the channels feet, learning what worked for me, the fans and my family. The other key factor in Phase 1 was monetising the YT channel. I was earning through this page and making small upgrades to the channel here and there but getting monetized was the game changer. I moved onto Phase 2.
Phase 2 was always going to be about becoming more professional in my setup, using the channel proceeds to improve the channel. I made some huge upgrades to my setup, buying second hand parts and some new bits here and there to give me the tools to perhaps take the next steps to actually being able to provide for my family from this full time. So I grabbed an SSD and added that to my rig, a new monitor to give me two screens on my PC and a 32” TV to have my PS system on alongside. I added RAM to my rig, a new (for me) processor and then most recently a new (for me) graphics card to really give me the freedom to explore PC based gaming alongside the PS gaming. The first two months’ worth of monetization came at once and I used some personal investment alongside that to add the PS5 to the setup. I have gone from a time where I used to record myself and stream myself over the gameplay using my phone and the droid Cam App. Essentially using the front facing camera on my phone connected to my very underdeveloped PC via a USB C cable. Through this community’s generosity and my hard work, I have upgraded and saved, upgraded and saved my way through to the setup I have now. All bar 1 last piece of hardware (a new capture card) my setup is complete. I am declaring Phase 2 complete. Now that brings me onto Phase 3, this phase was always going to be tricky for me as what’s next on the YTer journey? Get Good? Get bigger? Get Better? All these things are right but its so open ended that I was a bit lost. In the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park “Life… er. Finds a Way” Life found a way to give me the circumstances to adapt to, life forced the change and in a weird way I couldn’t be more grateful.
So as you know before Christmas I found out that my semi-estranged father was in hospital with kidney failure and I eagerly dropped everything, called in some huge monetary favours to get myself up there by train and booked into a hotel for four days to be with him while he was in hospital. My father is 83 years old, lives on an old narrow boat which is moored by his 5 acres of land that he uses as a poultry farm. His lifestyle is shall we say rustic. Yes, rustic is polite but makes my point. He has means believe me to improve these conditions, but this lifestyle is his chosen one. He lives very humbly, without electricity or a phone and he has always been happy like this. He lives quite far up north in comparison to me, around 200 miles away. Now I was very close with my Dad as a child, we had a great relationship but my life has always been in London. I’ve had children here, they go to school here. That’s just the facts on the ground right now. We didn’t fall out but we drifted apart bar two family occasions I didn’t see my father for 15 years. When I saw him in hospital I remembered how much he meant to me. It seems obvious but I have put my everything into trying to be the best partner and father I can be to my family. I struggle with a raft of mental health issues that I’ve talked about in the past and I have to really work on it at all times and so I became isolated from him. Anyway, I decided to myself that I wouldn’t let him die by himself. He hasn’t been the best dad to me and my siblings but he’s the best one I’ve had. You only get one set of parents and I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t do everything in my power to support him. While I was there, he was discharged from hospital and we took him home. I spent the day on the farm with him and it became very clear to me that he wasn’t able to support himself and his livestock in the state of health that he had been in for a couple of years (unknown to me at the time). So I asked him that if I improved the conditions for the birds and him back up to par, would he be able to sustain it? And he answered yes. So I started planning when I could go back and get working
I recently went up for a week, I camped on the land in my bivvy, and I set to work, I cleaned the hen houses out, completely cleaned out his portacabin that he operates the business from, and it serves as his workshop too. I spent 6 days working and only just about did over half of everything that needs doing. I need to go back and I need to be able to go back whenever I need to and for that I need to drive, I cannot take the camping equipment that I need to stay on the property on the train and its not sustainable for my friend to drop me off and pick me up a week later after he has worked a full week. Its just too much. I need to drive. I am returning to the farm in the Autumn to get the rest of the jobs done. He needs my help installing a new fireplace in the boat as his one has cracked leaving him without heating. That’s job 1, then I will be looking at restoring his lean to and getting an apex roof on his cabin to stop it leaking in the heavy rain.
This brings me nicely back to phase 3 of the ShutYerGob journey. So the vehicle situation will help me in all areas of my life. I’ve often thought about and explored the options open to me going forward into the middle portion of my life. I cannot mentally sustain working the 9-5 life that I did before my mental health became unsustainable. I have often thought about gardening or furniture restoration/carpentry as a side line, another couple of small businesses to make a bit of money to become self-sustainable again. Phase 3 of this journey is now! I want you all to know exactly what your donations, memberships and coffees bought are actually going toward. I need to drive, and I need to drive quickly. Using my YT money, I have booked 10 hours’ worth of driving lessons which start on Wednesday 25th March. I need to learn, pass the theory and then the practical exams to drive. I then need to finance and insure a vehicle. I think this dream is very achievable. After running the numbers this is very achievable with what I take as a minimum on YT. What makes this Phase so special is that it opens up the opportunity to do the other two things that have been on my radar. With a vehicle I can start taking gardening jobs and I can actively look further afield for wooden furniture that I can restore; a vehicle allows me to drive to auction houses, second hand shops and house clearances. So, phase 3 is actually me opening up for business. ShutYerGobs restorations and Gardening services has a nice ring to it, I think 😉.
So my friends I say thank you for helping me get Phase 1 and 2 of ShutYerGob finished and I thank you for being with me moving into phase 3 which will change the lives of my family and myself. I will be posting updates and photos through this platform and in my discord server to keep you there with me through the driving lessons, exams and hopefully onto the road in as quick a time as possible. So, as I plan to return in the Autumn will I be driving myself? Or will my friend be taking me again. I’m aiming for it to be me but who knows? I will keep you all updated. Have a lovely week my friends! Much, much love xxx/hugs