One of our boys turns 7 in a few days. He's very into YouTube, particularly YouTube Shorts.

He knows a surprisingly large amount of information, not only a victim of the general trivia gene that runs in the family, but he is diving into the mechanics of what a proper YouTube Channel should look like.

So, guess what? He wants to start his own YouTube channel. As a parent, it's a problem.

But, if he wants to do it, I can't hold him back. He better succeed, as far as I'm concerned. I want to provide him with the tools.

Even though he's 6, at the same time he's not much different from a 36-year old or a 66-year old who is just starting out in what he calls, "content creation."

He knows what he wants. He knows where he wants to get to. However,

That's where I come in. This is my first and only client that I'm doing this type of stuff for on a pro bono basis. For obvious reasons. One could call it "parenting" or something like that.

But, I'm asking the same questions and providing the same type of guidance that I would with someone decades older than him. For instance, I have a fellow I'm working with who wants to write a book and publish it. All well and good. Ambitious project.

First thing he asks me is what size the book should be, what kind of paper to use, and how to design a cover or dust jacket (affordably). All valid questions. No doubt.

I then asked what the book was about.

"Well, it is going to be about a guy who lives in a mystical land called Eldergrove, which is a land of ancient forests and the trees all harbor secrets and are the home of tree-dwelling folk and I'll probably include centaurs or something like that and then there's a queen that he's trying to save…"

"So, a novel?"

"Well, kind of. Like a fantasy sci-fi, it's called The Quest for the Verdant Crown. But we're going to touch on natural history and evidence for the existence of dragons and there's this group of people… well, not people really, but a race of creatures called the Fungal Menace. They live in a mushroom forest."

"Are they blue and get menaced by a cat named Azrael who is owned by a wizard named Gargamel?"

"Whoa. Good idea, but no… They are the bad guys. They manipulate the forest creating all sorts of traps using their magic. They're called Myconids."

"Big project. How many words or pages is your book?"

"Oh, I haven't written any of it. Right now, it's just swimming around between my ears."

"So, X, I love the idea. I love the ambition. Writing it, or at least part of it, is the best first step. Then we can worry about what the book is going to look like or what book stores will sell it and so forth."

"Yeah, but…"

"No. First things first. Start writing."

So you see, my son has almost the exact same challenges as an adult several times his age might have. Ambitious idea, but no plan, path, or framework to speak of to get it going.

But we're moving forward.

The Quest for the Verdant Crown, the fantasy sci-fi epic now at least has an outline. Later this week, we're building a checklist for what a child's YouTube channel will look like.

"Papa, I really want to do it to get a lot of views and viewers and subscribers so they go to your channel and subscribe for your videos."

"Wow, pal, that's awfully nice. So your mission and purpose for starting a channel is to get me more subscribers?"

"Yeah. Pretty much. You only have 8 subscribers right now. We need to get that number up."

He's not lying. He checked my page. A grand total of 8 subscribers for my YouTube channel as I write this.

Maybe you can make a boy's day and subscribe to his father's youtube channel?

As that subscriber base develops, so will the scope and frequency of our "content" over there. Thanks in advance.

As always,

Brian