5 OUTDATED YouTube Tips You Need to STOP in 2026

So I was just talking to one of my students who initially had a massive amount of success. He basically started posting videos and he blew up right away and he got to tens of thousands of dollars a month listening to my advice. But then he started watching other YouTubers' advice and he started doing all this other stuff outside of what I recommend and his views dropped tremendously to the point where he's only making a few thousand dollars a month. And he came to me and he's like, Shane, what am I doing? Well, in this video, I'm gonna be telling you five outdated YouTube tips that you absolutely need to stop in 2026 and he was doing pretty much all of these. And it's not just him. I see this all the time. These are some of the most common mistakes that I see people making. I'm gonna be giving a bunch of examples of that. And so you're gonna understand what not to do because oftentimes what not to do is even more important than what you should do because your time, your effort, your money is valuable and you need to make sure that you're putting your time, your effort and your money into the right place to get the best ROI from it. And so by the end of this video, you're gonna understand what not to do that almost all YouTubers out there are doing that's stopping them from having success. So if you appreciate me doing this type of video, let me know by gently tapping that like button and let's jump into it right now. Now, quick disclaimer before we jump in, most YouTubers do not have success on YouTube. Most YouTubers do not make a full-time income on YouTube. And that is just the reality of YouTube or any other type of business that you start. So I just wanna give you realistic expectations and there are no guarantees with anything. So always make sure that you do your own research. With that being said, the main reason that people don't get results is because they don't use the right strategies and they don't get the right information. And so not only do I give you a bunch of amazing information on this channel, but I'm also doing completely free live workshops. And the next one is this Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Check the link in the description and the pinned comment below to sign up and definitely don't miss out on it. If you've ever been thinking you want to talk directly to a YouTube expert, but you don't have the money to do it, well, it's a Zoom call. We'll be on the same Zoom call and you will get to ask me any questions you have completely free. So don't miss out on it. And let's jump into it right now with number one, which is thinking that you need to be an expert before starting. So this is one of the outdated YouTube tips and the things that I see people do that are wrong. So many people think that they have to be an expert before they start on YouTube. Now, I'm gonna show you an absolutely ridiculous example of someone who is clearly not an expert and they just started on YouTube. Now, I'm not telling you that you should do this example, but I'm just gonna show you this as an illustration, right? So here's Benjamin Bennett. He made videos called Sitting and Smiling and he also made some videos called Walking and Talking. And his Sitting and Smiling number five got 8.6 million views. And in this video, he sits and he smiles for four hours. That's it. He literally sits and smiles for four hours and it got millions of views. Oh, and that video also made over $12,000 and he's still doing it. He's doing streams that are getting hundreds of thousands of views. So is he an expert on anything? Do you need to be an expert to sit and smile? No, you don't, obviously. Now, guys, this is an extreme example. Am I telling you you should start a channel sitting and smiling? No, that's not what I'm trying to say at all. The whole point that I'm trying to make is you absolutely do not need to be an expert in order to start a YouTube channel. You also don't need to make content like this, but what typically people make content on that actually makes a lot of money is solving other people's problems. That is the easiest way to make money on YouTube is to figure out a problem and then solve it for other people. And oftentimes, these are problems that you've already had in your life and you figured out how to overcome them. And what you wanna do is give as much value on your channel as possible. Now, you probably had hundreds of problems that you've been able to overcome in your life. For some of them, you were able to figure them out relatively quickly. For others, it might've taken you months to figure them out and maybe you spent dozens or even hundreds of hours trying to figure out the problem until finally you were able to solve it. In many cases, you can make a 15-minute video that can solve that problem for somebody else in a fraction of the time. And that is incredible value because they don't have to grind for months and spend hundreds of hours to solve the problem. And so that's what I highly recommend that you do. Now, you might be thinking, but Shane, I need to pick my niche. I don't know what types of video ideas to make videos on, et cetera, et cetera. And that's why you need to attend my training this Tuesday, 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. What's up, guys? In the editing process right now, and I just wanted to mention that if you're struggling to grow on YouTube, you're having trouble getting views, subscribers, making money, or even picking a niche, et cetera, I'm hosting a free one-time live workshop that goes over how to help with that called Why YouTube is the Greatest Business to Start in 2026. And it's happening on February 3rd, 2026 at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, so make sure to mark that down. And make sure to click the link in the description now or the pinned comment below in order to lock your spot in. If you attend live, you'll also have a chance to be the one person I pick for a real-time channel audit once we move into the interactive portion of the workshop. So if you're not sure what niche to choose, or you feel like the niche you're currently in may not be profitable or targeted enough, then this is gonna be for you, because at this workshop, I'll be giving away the 60-second Niche Validator 2.2 completely free. This is the newest version of my GPT-powered niche validation tool that helps you instantly test and uncover profitable YouTube niches before you waste time creating content that doesn't convert. It's been refined and updated based on real channel data, and I'll be giving it away completely free, but only during this live workshop. And just a quick heads up, I'll be turning this into a full software product soon, so this version may not be available free for much longer. So if you've been waiting to get it, this is a good time to do it now. Now, during this workshop, there's a full presentation on how to grow on YouTube, followed by a Q&A where you can ask me literally any question you want directly on Zoom. And people ask a lot of questions. The majority of the time, it's about stuff like how to pick your niche, and many people walk away with clarity on their niche during the session. And the same strategies I teach in these sessions are the ones that help clients such as Josh, who scaled from 1K a month to 186K per month, Alex, who built up to 15K per month, and Sean, who went from 30K a month all the way up to a high of over $500,000 a month. And even people who weren't clients like Isaiah were able to make $20,000 in a single month just from attending my live and applying what I taught there. So do not miss this live workshop. Click the link in the description of the pinned comment to register, and then add it to your calendar so you don't miss the chance to grab the 60-second Niche Validator 2.2. If you missed this date, check the link to see the next scheduled workshop if we're gonna do another one, and I'll see you Tuesday, 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Now back to the video. But that brings me to my next point, which is people think that you need to pick the perfect niche before starting. Guys, YouTube started off as a video dating app, and there's tons of other stories of companies that are just like that. And to be honest with you, it's actually unusual if a business starts with some sort of plan and they just stick to the plan and they never change at all. Almost all businesses change or have some kind of variation from their original plan, and the same exact thing happens with YouTube. Most YouTube channels don't end up being what they started the YouTube channel on. It might be relatively similar to what they started the YouTube channel about, but a lot of the time, in fact, I'd say the vast majority of the time, it's not exactly the same as their original plan, and same thing goes for the YouTube niche. So a piece of advice that will get people stuck absolutely forever is you have to pick the perfect niche before you start. And I think I was looking at Reddit the other day, and there was somebody who literally said they spent 20 years picking their niche. I've worked with students before that have told me that it's taken them over 10 years to pick their niche. Very routinely, I've seen people that have taken between one and five years before they actually pick their niche, and they were spending that whole time in analysis paralysis when they should have just been taking action. Now, there's two things that I want you to understand. As much as you pick your niche, oftentimes, your niche will pick you. That's the first thing. And the second thing is that you are the niche. The niche is very likely inside of you already. It's something where you already solved a problem, or you've already had certain experiences, or you already spent a lot of time doing something, or you are naturally good at doing something. And that is gonna end up being your niche. Now, there's a little bit more to it when it comes to the process of discovering that. But a lot of the times, you just want to get started, try out different types of content, and it will become very clear what your niche should be. So just as an example, when I first started on YouTube, I made videos about how to write grants because I had a little bit of grant writing experience. I also made videos where I covered random personal finance-related topics and posts that I found on Reddit. I made videos about how to save money for college. And it became very clear early on after I'd made one or maybe a few videos on those other subjects that it just wasn't for me, even if it could have worked. Even if I got a lot of views from it, I just didn't want to continue going in that direction. But I would have never known that if I hadn't just started doing it. Now, you might be thinking, but Shane, I don't really have any skills. I don't really have that much life experience. In fact, I'm in a really bad place right now. Well, that's exactly where VarB333 was as well. In fact, he was like that just a few months ago. And he posted a video called, I'm 26 and I live in a storage unit. It got well over a million views and absolutely blew up his channel. Then he posted follow-up videos that have also gotten a lot of views. Oh, in that video, I'm 26 and I live in a storage unit made thousands and thousands of dollars. Plus a bunch of people donated money to him to buy his dream van so that he could live in a van instead of a storage unit. And it's really helped him get back on his feet. So even if you're in a terrible situation, you can use YouTube and just document your situation. And people are going to relate to that and they're gonna respect you for putting yourself out there. Now, the third thing that I see people do all the time that's a huge mistake is trying to reinvent the wheel. So actually people make opposite mistakes. So some people will literally just try to copy big YouTubers. That's a huge mistake because those big YouTubers have massive channels and massive followings. And so they can kind of make whatever content they want and it's gonna work out relatively well. In other words, they are market makers. They don't have to follow the market because they can actually make the market. So that's the first mistake that people make. But then the second mistake that people make is they try to make something completely unique that's just totally out of left field. That's totally different than anything that anyone has ever seen before. And that is also usually a mistake. So what do you wanna do instead? You wanna find videos that have done extremely well that are from a small channel, despite the fact that they're either mediocre or preferably bad. Now this is called the icon method. I sometimes also call it the hot dog method just because nobody knows who Carl Icon is who's kind of the one that I got the method from. And here's an example of one of my students, Tracy. And she basically just started using this method and immediately her views doubled. She didn't change anything else about her channel and her views immediately doubled and she's gonna start crushing it even more from here. And to be honest with you, the idea is the single most important thing that will make or break your video. If you have a good idea, everything else about your video can be mediocre. The thumbnail, the title, the intro, the video itself, the production quality of the video, et cetera. It can all be mediocre if you nail the idea. But if your idea is bad, you could make a perfect video that has incredible editing, incredible thumbnail, title, intro. You spent so much time writing the script and making the video and researching everything. And chances are your video is still just gonna fail. So make sure that you find the right ideas and you can do that with the Icon Method or I call it the Hot Dog Method. And we go into great detail on this in the live training this Tuesday, 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time if you have any questions on how that works because there is a little bit more to it. So click that link in the description to make sure to attend. All right, the fourth mistake that I see people making all the time is thinking that they need fancy equipment to start a YouTube channel. So when I was talking to this particular student who initially had great success and then they started to actually go down, one thing I noticed is after the student had some initial success, they started buying fancier and better equipment. And they thought, well, if I was able to have great success with my simple equipment, then if I have better equipment, I'll have even better success. And that is just simply not the case, guys. And you might be thinking, well, Shane, that's easy to say when you have a super nice camera, right? You've got that nice camera, this nice camera, and you've got a studio set up. So it's easy to say, like, why are you being a hypocrite? Why are you telling us that you need a simple setup when you have a really nice one? To be completely honest with you guys, I don't think this studio really makes much of a difference. It's more for branding than anything. When I had a simple studio with a gray background and a light behind my head and I was recording with a potato camera, my channel was doing just fine. I had a very simple setup and the channel was crushing it. The quality of your videos does not matter nearly as much as you think. And any phone within the last three years is more than enough to start and grow a channel. In fact, honestly, any phone, even within the last five years, is probably more than enough. Basically, all the cameras on all the phones are really good now. So here's an example. Salaryman Tokyo. He's blown up his channel recently. He's making tens of thousands of dollars a month, including this video right here, the price of progress, what Tokyo looks like at 8 a.m. And it made tens of thousands of dollars and got millions of views. Or this one, the day in the life, a salaryman at a black company also got millions of views and made tens of thousands of dollars. And all of the videos are filmed on his phone. That's it. No voice, no face, no fancy studio, just filmed on his phone. So why do you think the video did well? Was it because he had unbelievably good thumbnails or unbelievably good production quality? No, it's because people were genuinely interested in the idea. So it's not about having a 4K camera. It's about having a clear perspective. Viewers crave authenticity. In the age of crazy amounts of dopamine on almost every single platform out there, including YouTube, and in the age of AI, people are wanting authenticity and realness more than ever. And what is more authentic than just recording with your phone and then not doing a ton of edits, basically making it relatively raw? That's extremely authentic. And that is what's doing super, super well on YouTube right now. All right. The fifth thing that I see over and over again is people thinking that they're too old to start a YouTube channel. And this could not be further from the truth. This particular client, for instance, is over 60 years old and he had initial success starting his channel. And then he started thinking that maybe he's shadow banned or maybe it's because he's too old or something when his views started going down. And the truth is that is just simply not the case. In fact, I would say that it is easier than ever for older channels to grow and YouTube is likely promoting older channels. So let me give you an example. Rob, so far, so good. He's over 60 years old. He's an artist living with chronic illness and he documents his day-to-day life, art and reflections. In his video, it took me 40 years to realize hit over 400,000 views. And that video alone gave him over 51,000 subscribers. And he's had some other videos that have taken off since then as well. But let me give you another example. The new retired me. He retired and then decided to start a YouTube channel and he shares stories about aging, gratitude, cooking, et cetera. And two years later, he's sitting at 77,000 subs. Not because he tried to act young, but because he leaned into what he knows best. And this video, for instance, decluttering 35 years of stuff got well over a million views. And then there's Zach of all trades. He is over 50 years old and he basically makes videos about how to get into trades. And oh, he happens to be my brother as well. And we basically started his channel and literally one month after we posted his first video, it blew up and he was making $214 in a single day. And a few months later down the line, he had a $520 date. Now I'm gonna be giving you updates on Zach. He's actually coming to visit me very soon and it's possibility he might even show up on my Tuesday live stream. So click that link in the description in the pin comment below. But at the very least, I'll be giving you updates on him and I'll be telling you exactly how we grew his channel and how we're gonna continue growing his channel into the future. And basically he was literally just creating content for the younger version of himself, showing the younger version of himself how he would have gotten into the trades right now in the quickest and most efficient ways possible. So if you're having excuses like this or even other types of excuses, you need to attend the live training. Click that link in the description in the pin comment below. And also check out this client testimonial where I actually interview them. We go over the things they did right, the things they did wrong and how they were able to have a massive amount of success by clicking right here.