Get a Personal Guru, Mentor and Coach for a Paltry Sum

One of my fellow trainer was telling me about attending a certification course in Coaching for 15 days which cost him about $4000. What if I told you that you have a guru, mentor, guide, trainer, coach available to you 24/7 for as little as $18 per month who can teach you any subject that you wish to learn. And the best part is most of us have this coach right in our own house, you must be wondering who is this person. It is YouTube. Let me explain, today you can learn anything you wish from YouTube whether it is - how to apply make-up, making candles, photography, meditation, yoga, psychology, management or programming. It is a good example of "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." You can access the 'YouTube" site if you have an internet connection with a minimum speed of 1Mbps, in Mumbai where I live the monthly expense for such a connection works out to Rupees 1000.00 (One thousand) which if converted is approximately $18. YouTube is available to you 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, so you can learn from this Guru, Mentor and Coach at your own convenience for a paltry sum. In October, 2011, I saw a video and wanted to make my own video which I could post on my website for promoting my services. I approached a guy who was a professional in making videos for corporates. I wanted a video of under 3 minutes for my site and wanted a pretty ordinary talking head video, no fancy Hollywood quality. When I was given the quotation, I almost fell out of my chair! It was $3000, yes for a 3 minute video, that was light years away from my budget. I had no difficulty in rejecting the idea. The question in my mind was, how can I make my own videos from a scratch. I went on to YouTube and searched, 'how to make a video?' I must have watched over 500 videos on the subject and as I watched, I kept a journal besides me, whenever I got a good idea I kept noting down. I learnt about what equipment I should have, background, sound, microphones, lighting, camera angles, green screen, editing, colours, script writing, body language, rendering a video, uploading a video, combining PowerPoint with video, how to make a teleprompter, annotations. Using this powerful resource, I could make about 70 videos in a couple of months, all you need to do is follow these simple steps that I followed. 1. Decide what you want to learn, 2. Search for the right videos using the right key words 3. Make notes in your journal 4. Discard what is not required 5. Practice, apply the lessons you have learnt 6. Check the results 7. Keep improving by doing it over and over again. 8. If you get stuck, search again, till you find the answer to your problem, for example, I didn't know how to combine a PowerPoint and my video together. I kept searching and finally I found my answer. I think the time you invest is really worth it. Don't use YouTube to just entertain yourself but use it more to educate yourself. See YouTube as your Guru and mentor who can help you understand, perform and master anything that you wish to become competent at. If you want to grow in your life you need to develop competencies in the areas of your life that you feel are important. Which skill do you think could take your life to the next level? Starting today go to YouTube to educate yourself and to master the new skill.