Why I'm Not Proud of My 170,000 YouTube Subscribers

Success is an output you can't control. Here's what to focus on instead.

I have over 170,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel, but if I'm being honest, I’m not proud of that number. It’s an impressive-sounding metric.

But it’s an output. I don’t control it.

I can’t directly influence how many people click the subscribe button.

I am, however, extremely proud that I have created and published over 100 videos.

This is one of the biggest category errors we make in our careers. We become obsessed with outputs. The promotion, the bonus, the headcount, the public recognition, success.

Give me that sweet, sweet feeling of success. Just hook it up to my veins.

We spend countless hours trying to manage these outcomes, but it’s a trap. Focusing on outputs ties your sense of self-worth to things you don’t actually control, which is the exact recipe for frustration and burnout.

The secret to engineering success is simple. You have to fall in love with the inputs. You have to identify the work that leads to success and then build a system to do that work with quality an…