Latest / Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza / Ep.111 - Cameron Riecker on How the Rosary Transforms Feckless Men into Virtuous Fathers | Catholic Manhood | Daily Thomist | Corda
Transcript
- 0:00The number one problem I'm dealing with, young men, they
- 0:02complain about lust. That's the symptom.
- 0:05But the number one problem that's even deeper than that is
- 0:07men have no idea what they're for or where they're headed.
- 0:11They have absolutely no understanding of what a human
- 0:13person is and what a human person is for.
- 0:16Even the men who are Catholic and attending church regularly.
- 0:19This is Virtuous Leaders, the podcast for based Catholics who
- 0:22will speak truth. Do.
- 0:23Good or die trying, here's the show.
- 0:26Did you have a successful YouTube channel where you form
- 0:28virtuous husbands and fathers? But what do you do to foster
- 0:32that mission on the channel? Yeah, a lot of it is helping
- 0:37young men to recognize their potential.
- 0:40One of the things I like to talk about a lot is the devotion of
- 0:44the rosary. And most men don't understand
- 0:47the spiritual element of what's going on and they don't
- 0:50understand how much power that God has placed into their hands
- 0:56when it comes to doing good and doing evil.
- 0:58So I think a lot of of what I'm trying to do is just open young
- 1:01men's eyes to this idea that their lives matter, their lives
- 1:05have purpose, their lives have a set end.
- 1:08And there are steps that we can take to accomplish that.
- 1:11Because the number one problem I'm dealing with, with young
- 1:14men, they complain about lust. That's the symptom.
- 1:18But the number one problem that's even deeper than that is
- 1:20men have no idea what they're for or where they're headed.
- 1:24They have absolutely no understanding of what a human
- 1:26person is and what a human person is for.
- 1:28Even the men who are Catholic and attending church regularly,
- 1:31it's a pandemic in and out of the church.
- 1:34So the first thing is just opening up men's eyes to the
- 1:37purpose, the dignity that God has given them, the power that
- 1:40God has given them. He's made them to be warriors,
- 1:43to be soldiers in His Kingdom, not to be passive, not to be
- 1:48afraid, not to be fickle or feckless, but to be grown men in
- 1:53the Kingdom of God. So the first thing is just
- 1:55identifying that purpose. Once you do that, and once you
- 1:58understand your purpose as a human being and as a man
- 2:00particularly, then all the other aspects of your life start to
- 2:04fall into place, right? And the way that you kind of
- 2:07have your eyes opened most efficaciously, I think, is
- 2:10through the recitation of the Holy Rosary.
- 2:12Nobody who turns to Our Lady ever falls away from the faith.
- 2:15Nobody who turns to Our Lady ever comes away without help,
- 2:19without guidance, or without direction.
- 2:21So that's kind of the main focus of what I'm doing on my channel.
- 2:23That manifests in different ways.
- 2:25Some apologetics, because you got to know stuff.
- 2:27You can't be a man of faith if you don't know the faith.
- 2:29Some practical stuff, some devotional stuff, but it's all
- 2:32aimed at helping young men to realize their purpose and their
- 2:36power in this life, in the next. What's the number one way to do?
- 2:41The number one way of that, I think the rosary is the most
- 2:44powerful way, right? And I've talked about this in
- 2:47several of my videos, But through recitation of the
- 2:49rosary, Sister Lucia, one of the visionaries of Fatima, she said
- 2:53that no problem on earth cannot be solved by the recitation of
- 2:56the rosary. And that's been true my own
- 2:58experience, and that's been true for many of the men who I've
- 3:00recommended the rosary to as well.
- 3:03The rosary is Saint Padre Pio says, the weapon for our times.
- 3:07They passed, I don't know, 2025 popes have all made a point to
- 3:13recommend the rosary in their encyclicals.
- 3:16The rosary is the most indulgent prayer of all time.
- 3:20Now, obviously there's a lot of natural self help tips that
- 3:24people can use. They're very helpful.
- 3:26There's a lot of hacks, tricks that people can use.
- 3:30They're very helpful. But fundamentally, if you're not
- 3:33fixing the core issue, which is your relationship with God the
- 3:37Father, your understanding of God the Father and the church in
- 3:40Mary is your mother. If you're not fixing that and
- 3:42ameliorating that issue, then all the hacks, the self help
- 3:45stuff, it just falls flat. So through the recitation of the
- 3:48rosary and now in these times, but since the 16th century, I
- 3:52would say we're living in a time where the rosary has been given
- 3:55a special amount of efficacy. So that's the fundamental thing.
- 3:58If people get nothing else out of my channel, nothing else out
- 4:01of this video, nothing else out of any of the work that I do, I
- 4:04want people to know that no matter what your problem is, it
- 4:09is not so difficult that it cannot be solved by the faith or
- 4:12recitation of the rosary. And also, the rosary is not a
- 4:15magic trick. If you're praying the rosary
- 4:17daily, then Our Lady is going to start to put the right things in
- 4:22your life at the right time, direct you where she wants you
- 4:25to go, direct even your heart and your desires.
- 4:28So somebody starts praying the rosary daily, they're going to
- 4:30want to go to daily Mass, go to confession more frequently.
- 4:34They're going to want to pray and be kind.
- 4:36They're going to notice that their heart is changing and that
- 4:39these opportunities are going to open themselves up for them to
- 4:41find the right community for them to find the right person to
- 4:45marry, etcetera, etcetera. So the rosary is the most
- 4:48powerful weapon that we have. And that is, that's what I want
- 4:52to spend my life doing, is spreading devotion to the
- 4:54rosary, especially among young men, because I've seen it work
- 4:57in my own life and in the lives of everyone I've recommended it
- 5:00to. So let's say you have some
- 5:02feckless guy listening to this. Let's call him Joe Feckenburg.
- 5:07He's definitely taking notes right now.
- 5:09And what does Mr. Riker have to say about, OK, pray the rosary.
- 5:13All right, so he's been praying the rosary now.
- 5:14Now what's Step 2 for Mr. Beckenburg?
- 5:18The rosary is a process, right? Praying the rosary is the first
- 5:22thing, and what you'll notice after that is you start to see
- 5:26the world differently. Saint Thomas Aquinas defines
- 5:29wisdom more or less as being able to see things from a divine
- 5:33perspective, being able to see things through the eyes of God.
- 5:36That's what wisdom is in the theological sense.
- 5:39And so whenever somebody's praying the rosary daily, their
- 5:41entire perspective on the universe is going to start to
- 5:45change. And ordinarily, whenever people
- 5:47make decisions, they're weighing pros and cons, and they'll say
- 5:50this is a good part, this is a bad part.
- 5:52And then they'll make the decision based on what seems
- 5:54best to them at the time. If somebody's praying the rosary
- 5:57faithfully. And well, I'll add that the
- 5:59rosary is not a magic spell. You just say the words.
- 6:01That's not what a prayer is, right?
- 6:03You have to pray the rosary, not just say the rosary, in order
- 6:06for it to be fully efficacious. But you'll notice that your
- 6:09perspective starts to change and a lot of things just iron
- 6:12themselves out naturally. But you'll know what the next
- 6:15step is because Our Lady is going to show you exactly where
- 6:18your principal fault is and how to overcome it, right?
- 6:21Not to be like over spiritual here, but just take me at my
- 6:25word. And if you don't believe me, I
- 6:27have dozens of testimonials of people who I've recommended this
- 6:30to and they start to solve their problems.
- 6:33Our Lady is going to show you what your problem is because
- 6:35honestly, most people don't even know what their principal fault
- 6:38is. Most people don't even know what
- 6:39their weak point is. And Our Lady will reveal that to
- 6:42them. And then once you know what that
- 6:44is, you can figure out what the next step is.
- 6:47But until you know what your principal fault is and you know
- 6:49the state of your own soul to a certain degree, I don't know
- 6:52what the next step is. It's different for everybody to
- 6:54a certain extent. How'd you grow your channel so
- 6:57successfully? Was it just through praying the
- 6:59rosary or was there someone something else they did as well?
- 7:03So whenever I started my YouTube channel, I started it with the
- 7:07goal of using my channel to support my family.
- 7:11So I was working as a teacher prior to doing the YouTube
- 7:15thing, and my wife and I always wanted to have a big family.
- 7:18We had one kid, one on the way. And living in Phoenix, houses
- 7:23are expensive. Everything's expensive.
- 7:26Teacher salary just wasn't what I wanted for my family.
- 7:28I want to be able to provide for my family in a better way.
- 7:31We didn't have to live paycheck to paycheck.
- 7:33So I went into YouTube anticipating that I was going to
- 7:36use it to make money. Somehow.
- 7:38I didn't know how. I actually decided to quit my
- 7:41job at the school that I was working at on Saint Joseph's Day
- 7:45and I had 89 subscribers on my YouTube channel at that time.
- 7:48Yeah, you have a lot of sick. Yeah, something like that.
- 7:51But I just decided that this was what was going to be best for my
- 7:54family through praying the rosary, through a lot of prayer
- 7:56to Saint Joseph, and I took the plunge.
- 7:59So the first few months after, obviously, I stayed at the
- 8:03school till the school year ended.
- 8:05But after that, we weren't making any money for a few
- 8:07months and it was pretty rough. We were not exactly sure where
- 8:11the next mortgage payment was going to come from at certain
- 8:13points, but Our Lord and Our Lady kept guiding me along the
- 8:17way and I kept just making videos over and over again.
- 8:20And the thing with social media is that if you make 1000 videos,
- 8:25about 10% of them are going to do well.
- 8:28That's just the way that it works.
- 8:29Assuming your lighting isn't horrible, your audio isn't
- 8:32horrible, your content isn't horrible, right?
- 8:35Things have to be good enough. But if everything's good enough
- 8:37and you just make 1000 videos, 100 of them are going to pop
- 8:40off. And if a hundred of them do
- 8:42well, then you're set. You've got a YouTube channel
- 8:44that is established and respected.
- 8:46So that was my approach as I just made a ton of videos, and I
- 8:50probably made a ton of bad videos.
- 8:53But GK Chesterton has a quote. He says everything is worth
- 8:56doing. It's worth doing poorly.
- 8:58Why does he say that? Because perfection is often the
- 9:01enemy of progress. So sometimes you have to do
- 9:04something, subjecting yourself to possible ridicule, knowing
- 9:07that it's not a polished and finished and refined product,
- 9:10but you need to put it out there in order to get the reps in.
- 9:12So I did that. I made a ton of videos.
- 9:14I still make a lot of videos and sometimes they do well and
- 9:17sometimes they don't. Through growing the audience,
- 9:20then that's whatever the business opportunities and all
- 9:21these things started to open up for me.
- 9:24What is your current business model and what advice would you
- 9:28give yourself looking back on it?
- 9:32Yeah, I think it would depend on what my goals were.
- 9:34If my goal was to just grow an audience and hit a 50,000
- 9:38subscribers, I would give different advice than if my goal
- 9:41was to make $20,000 a month or to make a business out of it.
- 9:46So it would depend on what my goals were before I would give
- 9:49any advice because you just want to grow an audience.
- 9:51To have an audience, then it's a very different strategy than if
- 9:54you want to grow an audience in order to create a business.
- 9:59OK, gotcha. What is your goal?
- 10:02My goal, My goal is through my channel to like I said, help
- 10:09young men to become virtuous husbands and fathers,
- 10:11specifically through devotion to Our Lady and devotion to the
- 10:15rosary. As far as business goals go, I
- 10:18don't know. I don't really have hard set
- 10:21like I want to be a millionaire by 35 or I, I don't know.
- 10:24I don't care if I money doesn't vote motivate me.
- 10:27If I can make enough money to support my family, if I can make
- 10:30enough money to pay for the things that I need, then I'm
- 10:34pretty happy. So I guess that would be my goal
- 10:36is just sustainability and yeah, being able to help people with
- 10:40my money. But I'm not, I don't have
- 10:42expensive tastes. Food is the exception.
- 10:44We buy like organic food and all that, but.
- 10:47Get free. Other than that, I do not have
- 10:49expensive tastes really. I'm very easily pleased to the
- 10:52point where it might be a fault actually.
- 10:54What you spend on organic food, you save on cancer.
- 10:57So I think it's worth it, even economically.
- 11:00Yeah, said yeah, yeah. Organic food in the gym
- 11:04membership saves you a lot of money in the long run.
- 11:07So in addition to this channel, you also are contributing to the
- 11:10Daily Tow Mist. What inspires you to do?
- 11:15Yeah. So for me, a lot of my
- 11:19intellectual formation and the large part of my conversion is
- 11:22due to Saint Thomas Aquinas. So what the Daily Tomist is,
- 11:25it's a sub stack that I contribute to where we take
- 11:29certain articles from Saint Thomas Aquinas's writing and try
- 11:32to break it down. So it's understandable for just
- 11:34about anybody because the riches of the faith are meant to be for
- 11:38everybody. Perhaps not in the same level of
- 11:41clarity and focus. Some people can view things with
- 11:44a lot more depth than your average Catholic.
- 11:47But even average Catholics need to have an intellectual
- 11:50formation that prevents them from being swept away by the
- 11:53heirs of the world. And so that's what the Daily
- 11:55Tomist is. It's a YEAH sub sect that I
- 11:58contribute to and that indulges my my more intellectual side
- 12:01where I get a chance to interact with Saint Thomas.
- 12:05The reason we got connected was through your friend Joseph, who
- 12:09I understand, and the two of you are working on a mental health
- 12:12startup. I don't know anything about it,
- 12:15but I'm in the mental health field and I wanted to hear what
- 12:17y'all's vision for that is. Yeah.
- 12:21So with Corda, what our plan is to reach as many people as
- 12:26possible who need help and guidance.
- 12:29I personally run a coaching program and I have more people
- 12:33who apply to it than I can possibly care for.
- 12:36There's just a huge supply and demand imbalance.
- 12:39And So what the goal of Korda is, it's to take people like
- 12:42that who wants to develop themselves spiritually, want to
- 12:46grow in virtue, want to grow in leadership, want to become good
- 12:49and virtuous husbands and fathers and plug them into
- 12:53communities where they can do that with a coach as a guide.
- 12:57So this is a really interesting thing that I think is probably
- 13:00the direction that a lot of the mental health care is going to
- 13:02go in the future because the group coaching has been shown to
- 13:06be quite effective, as effective as individual therapy in certain
- 13:11cases. And you're plugged into a
- 13:13community of like minded people. And this is huge, just from my
- 13:17own experience as a coach, I'm working with a lot of guys who
- 13:20are trying to quit lust. That's a major problem that I
- 13:22run into for young guys. And some guy I'll open up and be
- 13:27like, yeah, I struggle with this.
- 13:28I was exposed to stuff when I was 12 years old, and I've just
- 13:31struggled with it ever since. And then basically every other
- 13:34guy in the group is me too, Exact same story.
- 13:37And so there's that accountability that's built in.
- 13:40But even more than that, there's a natural brotherhood and
- 13:42there's a natural, there's a beauty in seeing yourself and
- 13:45other people, seeing your struggles and other people and
- 13:47being given an opportunity to help people that are struggling
- 13:51with your same issues. And so I think that's a really
- 13:53beautiful part of the group coaching that we're trying to
- 13:56start here on Corda. Yeah, that's a little bit of
- 13:58what it is. Taking men, men for now, women
- 14:01in the future maybe, but men for now.
- 14:04And then getting them in touch with people and communities who
- 14:06are going to be able to help them.
- 14:08Because I say it's a lot of my channel, but Our Lady of Fatima,
- 14:11one of the things that she said is that the final battle between
- 14:13the Kingdom of heaven and Satan is over marriage and the family.
- 14:17And if you want to win marriage in the family, you got to win
- 14:19fatherhood. There's absolutely no other way
- 14:21to do it. If fathers are strong, families
- 14:23will be strong, the faith will be strong.
- 14:25And if fathers are weak, everything else falls apart.
- 14:29Absolutely. Said, So where are you all in
- 14:31the in terms of the production timeline of this starter?
- 14:36Yeah. We are hoping to launch our
- 14:39first group here within the next month or so.
- 14:41There's a lot on the back end. There's a massive amount of work
- 14:45that needs to be done, just like with any startup.
- 14:47We're hoping to launch our first group here in the next month.
- 14:50And then I have my own coaching business that will be running
- 14:53through Corda largely, and I'll be doing a couple of those this
- 14:57month, running guys through my program that I've put together
- 14:59and my program specifically for young men who wants to be
- 15:03virtuous husbands and fathers, generally not married yet.
- 15:06Some engaged guys go through it, but most of the guys are single
- 15:10young men, engaged young men who want to have all the pieces that
- 15:14they need, all the knowledge and equipment that they need to be
- 15:17good and virtuous husbands and fathers.
- 15:20Gotcha. So what is your road map for
- 15:22helping them do that? And I understand that the first
- 15:24step is going to be praying the rosary.
- 15:26And what would be the subsequent steps?
- 15:31Yeah. So a lot of the step, I have a
- 15:3310 week program, some of it is simply steps, a lot of it is
- 15:37perspective and focus change. So the first couple weeks of my
- 15:43program are based on giving people a good solid foundation
- 15:48of understanding what God is, what creation is, and
- 15:52understanding how they fit into that.
- 15:54So at the beginning of this, I talked about how a lack of
- 15:57purpose and a lack of vision is what most men are struggling
- 16:00with foundationally. And then a consequence of that
- 16:04is that most men try to fill that void, that lack of purpose
- 16:07and vision with lust filled on the Internet, all that garbage.
- 16:11So the first couple weeks are aimed at helping people to see
- 16:15themselves as they are so that they can make decisions
- 16:19correctly, helping them to see themselves as they are, so they
- 16:22can understand their temptations and overcome them.
- 16:26Right? Yeah, there are certainly some
- 16:27steps, some things that you have to do, praying, the rosary,
- 16:31minimum, things like that. But generally the first couple
- 16:33weeks are oriented towards vision, towards seeing things
- 16:38correctly. One of the spiritual authors, I
- 16:40think it's in the book The Spiritual Combat, but he says in
- 16:43spiritual warfare eyes are more important than weapons, and
- 16:47that's the case. The devil is not very powerful
- 16:51in a certain sense. His hand is mightily restrained
- 16:53by Our Lord and Our Lady, but he is very clever and so if he can
- 16:58blind you, then it's an easy fight.
- 17:00But if you can see clearly, all you have to do is avoid him, and
- 17:04it's really not that difficult. So the first few weeks all aimed
- 17:07at perspective. Yeah.
- 17:09Yeah. Well, a point.
- 17:11You have really admirable goals here.
- 17:14There is a massive need, as he said, for mental health
- 17:17coaching. What is yours current biggest
- 17:20challenge in executing this vision?
- 17:26In a certain sense, right now is just getting things logistically
- 17:29set up and streamlined so that we can accommodate a lot of
- 17:33people we have. I have hundreds of guys who have
- 17:37filled out my survey who want this kind of help.
- 17:40Now it's just a matter of getting those guys that want
- 17:43help, getting them to recognize that they need the help, and
- 17:46then getting them into the coaching program.
- 17:48So right now it's just logistical setup, right?
- 17:51Emails, behind the scenes, websites, just the logistics,
- 17:55all the stuff that comes with the startup.
- 17:57Yeah, yeah, sure. How successful are you in
- 18:00helping men break out of lust? And my experience is very
- 18:04difficult. And I think I may have found one
- 18:06program I interviewed the founder of on this.
- 18:08It's called the Freedom Group or the Freedom Project or yeah,
- 18:10which, But in general, I just find that people have talked to,
- 18:15they don't have a great track record of actually helping
- 18:16people break out of the diction. Yeah.
- 18:20So whenever you're trying to break lust specifically, a lot
- 18:24of the guys who I work with, I don't know if it would be
- 18:28classified as a full blown addiction.
- 18:30It's more like periodic falls. Some of the guys I work with are
- 18:33a little more extreme and they're really struggling on a
- 18:36daily basis. But the majority of the guys
- 18:38that I work with are occasional falls, go to confession, that
- 18:42kind of thing. And with my program, it does two
- 18:46things. Once it puts an emphasis on the
- 18:48rosary and on certain other devotionals that are really
- 18:51powerful for breaking out of her lust.
- 18:53And what that does ultimately is I don't cure people.
- 18:57I don't fix people. I show people some information
- 19:00that they can apply to themselves to fix themselves.
- 19:03And more importantly than that, I show them how to have a
- 19:06relationship with Our Lady, the source of all purity.
- 19:10And then from there, Our Lady just takes care of it.
- 19:13So my program specifically, one of the things that I think it
- 19:16does really strongly is not just give some people some mental
- 19:21hacks or some temptation device to help them cope whenever
- 19:25things are bad. It does all that's all good and
- 19:27necessary stuff, but what it does ultimately is help people
- 19:30to develop a lifelong relationship with the Blessed
- 19:33Virgin Mary. And once that happens, it's
- 19:36over. That's it.
- 19:37If something belongs to the devil or if someone belongs to
- 19:40Mary, they don't belong to the devil and vice versa.
- 19:43So it has to do a lot with just teaching people to have that
- 19:46relationship with Our Lady and showing her how she's
- 19:49instrumental in their daily lives, even if they don't
- 19:51recognize it right away. That's really valuable word man.
- 19:55I'm glad you're doing that. So let's switch over into some
- 19:58laser coaching. So I have a YouTube channel too.
- 20:00I interview people publishing about 3 episodes a week.
- 20:03What do I need to do to have a greater reach?
- 20:08A greater reach on your YouTube channel.
- 20:10Yeah. So if you want to increase your
- 20:12reach on your YouTube channel, I would once again ask it, is it
- 20:15like for business purposes or is it for the sake of just having
- 20:19an audience to be able to reach a lot of people because they're
- 20:22different strategies, I would say.
- 20:25What do you mean by for business purposes?
- 20:28So for example, if I were going to start a channel tomorrow that
- 20:33was specifically designed to help, let's just say I want to
- 20:38start a YouTube channel for the coaching program I already have.
- 20:40Let's say I want to do that. So I want to start a YouTube
- 20:42channel that's specifically designed to help Catholic men to
- 20:45break free from lust. That's what my YouTube channel
- 20:48does. It's for Catholic men who
- 20:49struggle with lust and want to beat it.
- 20:51What I would do is create a schedule of if I had time, 3
- 20:56videos a week. If I didn't have time, a minimum
- 20:58of one video week, and I would create a 7 to 12 minute video
- 21:04once a week to three times a week where I help Catholic men
- 21:08who are struggling with lust to overcome lust with practical
- 21:11information. And then at the end of the
- 21:13video, I would say, and if you want to chat with me, click on
- 21:15the link in the description, fill out my survey, we'll be in
- 21:17touch. And then that way if I have 700
- 21:20subscribers, I can create a business with 700 subscribers if
- 21:24those people want specifically what that Channel offers.
- 21:27I don't have to get 70,000 subscribers. 7000 is more than
- 21:31enough to run a successful business if you're laser focused
- 21:35in that way. OK, So that's what I would do if
- 21:37I was trying to start a business because YouTube Adsense is, it's
- 21:41nice. It's not nothing, but unless
- 21:43you're getting a million views, 2 million views, three, you got
- 21:46to get a lot of views in order for it to be something that
- 21:48supports your family. If I were just trying to grow an
- 21:51audience to help people, then I would pick problems that were a
- 21:54little more general. I would.
- 21:55So for example, anxiety, I don't know, everybody struggles with
- 22:00anxiety. I don't know what the exact
- 22:01statistics are, but I would pick something like anxiety
- 22:04specifically and then I would create a problem that's, or I
- 22:08would create a YouTube video that's maybe once again, that 15
- 22:12minute range. You have to do experiments with
- 22:14the length of the video. Some problems people tend to
- 22:18click and watch a video that's 30 minutes.
- 22:20Some problems people tend to click and watch a video that's 4
- 22:23minutes. So you have to play around with
- 22:25the length, right? But you create a video that
- 22:27solves a problem that everybody has with practical stuff that
- 22:31doesn't get too nitty gritty and you simplify things so that
- 22:34everybody can understand it. Then you're solving a problem
- 22:37for a massive audience and you're not going to have leads,
- 22:41so to speak, business contacts out of that video so much.
- 22:45But you're going to be able to solve a problem for a lot of
- 22:47people. And ultimately that's what makes
- 22:48people subscribe to a channel is did you solve my problem or not?
- 22:52If you solve my problem, I'll subscribe because I think in the
- 22:55future you'll be able to help me solve all the other problems.
- 22:57If you didn't solve my problem, well, nice try, but didn't work.
- 23:01So that's what I would say depending on if you want to go
- 23:03broad and just grow your channel or if you want to go laser focus
- 23:06and have more of a business mind about it.
- 23:09OK. So it sounds like the main
- 23:11differences are if you have a specific business offering,
- 23:14you're basically orienting every everything towards that call to
- 23:18action versus you can jump around different topics if you
- 23:21don't have a specific business offering.
- 23:24Yeah, you can jump around to different topics.
- 23:26The way the algorithm is working on YouTube, it does a pretty
- 23:30good job of putting your videos in front of the people that
- 23:34might watch your videos. So I do some apologetics on my
- 23:37channel and then I do some stuff that helps young men to overcome
- 23:40lust. And so those are two rather
- 23:43different audiences. There's a decent amount of
- 23:45overlap, but there's two different audiences.
- 23:47And YouTube typically does a good job of putting the
- 23:49apologetics videos in front of people that like apologetics and
- 23:52the other videos in front of the other people.
- 23:54So you can do both on the same channel.
- 23:56The laser focus does help though if you're just trying to support
- 24:01your family off of your YouTube channel or something like that.
- 24:04OK, that's a great point. Yeah.
- 24:05So I think what I'm missing, I think what I'm doing well so far
- 24:07is I have the variety through the Virtuous Leaders podcast, I
- 24:11interviewed different people from.
- 24:14They have similar views being truth, doing good or dying
- 24:18trying, but it's a lot of different ways of approaching
- 24:21that. Yeah.
- 24:22So I'm thinking what maybe what I need to do is have more
- 24:24focused, shorter videos where it's just me explaining how to
- 24:29save your team from toxics. Then in my call to action would
- 24:32be speaking, because I really enjoy speaking on the topic.
- 24:35I do so nationally and that would be a call to action for
- 24:37those videos. Yeah, yeah.
- 24:41So if you were going to do it, podcasts are great, but until
- 24:45you're famous or talking to somebody that's famous, they're
- 24:49very difficult to get off the ground.
- 24:51You either have to, because think about if you're scrolling
- 24:53through YouTube and you see a 4 minute video or somebody's do
- 24:56this to get your kids off their screens or something like that.
- 24:59I don't know. Well, I might click a 4 minute
- 25:01video and watch it and they go, OK, that's a good point.
- 25:04He makes sense. And then the next time I see you
- 25:06have a 16 minute video, which is like how to get teenagers
- 25:09unaddicted to their phone. Oh interesting.
- 25:12I would click on that and watch a 16 minute video.
- 25:14So it's like whenever I click on a video, the length of the
- 25:16video, if I'll click on it or not is determined by how much
- 25:20trust you've earned from me. I'm not going to click on an
- 25:22hour and a half long video of some guy that I've never seen
- 25:25before. I'm just personally I'm not, but
- 25:28I might watch a 4 minute video or if I'm scrolling through the
- 25:30shorts feed, I might watch a quick short where he explains a
- 25:33point really well in 90 seconds. And then next time I see his
- 25:36face like, oh OK, this guy. So podcasts are great.
- 25:39They do the most problem solving actually, because you have the
- 25:42time to flesh out a thought. So they're actually the best at
- 25:45problem solving. But in order to get people in
- 25:47the door, it's very difficult to get them to watch a 4590 minute
- 25:51podcast if they have no idea who they who you are.
- 25:54So yeah, that would be what I would say is make a 6 minute
- 25:57video, a 12 minute video, an 18 minute video, kind of testing
- 26:00what works for you, showing your expertise, showing you know how
- 26:03to solve these problems. Provide as much value to them as
- 26:06you can in the shortest amount of time possible.
- 26:09Give them clear action steps. Teach them exactly what you know
- 26:13as best as you can. And then at the end of the
- 26:15video, say, and also I do Speaking of this, if you have a
- 26:18parent group and you'd like to have me speak there, then click
- 26:21on the thing and blah, blah, blah, you can get in contact
- 26:23with my guy, whatever you can figure out the call to action.
- 26:26But that would be what I would do.
- 26:27And then maybe as you get better at that, you grow an audience.
- 26:31So you get up to 10/15/20 thousand people start to know
- 26:34who you are in the space. Then it's pretty easy to do
- 26:38something that's a little bit different, like a podcast or
- 26:41reach out to different groups and you'll still get views on
- 26:43the video because you've done the work to build your core
- 26:45audience. So yeah, that's my thoughts.
- 26:48That's the strategy that I have behind it.
- 26:49If you just are posting on YouTube to just throw stuff out
- 26:52there, it doesn't get traction anymore.
- 26:54There's just a ton of competition.
- 26:55So you have to go in with a little bit of strategy in order
- 26:58for it to work. Is there any danger of being
- 27:02repetitive? I'm just saying, let's say
- 27:04there's maybe 3 hours of high quality content from doing 3
- 27:08episodes a week for I don't know.
- 27:10Who knows how long I'm going to run to that three hours.
- 27:12Is there any danger of that? There's very little danger of
- 27:16being too repetitive, and here's the reason why.
- 27:20If you're providing high value information, then it's probably
- 27:25going to take somebody listening to a video 3 or 4 times before
- 27:28that information really sinks in.
- 27:30That's just human nature, right? I used to teach middle school
- 27:34and high school, and I think one of the reasons that I was
- 27:36successful in communicating my ideas into their brains and
- 27:39their minds is because I would figure out ways to emphasize the
- 27:43same .3 different ways. And so I would tell a story,
- 27:47give an example, and then after that I would lay it out in
- 27:50principle. So I'm presenting the same
- 27:51information three different ways, but they don't realize
- 27:55that I'm repeating myself, right?
- 27:56Cuz if you just say it over and over again, they're zoned out.
- 27:59But if you say a story, say an analogy, and then go to the
- 28:02principles, or you can mix up the order depending on what
- 28:05works best for your style, then people are having that
- 28:07information actually sink in. Because even intelligent people
- 28:10actually aren't that intelligent.
- 28:12Most people, even if they're intelligent, they need something
- 28:15that if it's deep, if it's profound in any way, they need
- 28:18it explained a couple times before it really starts to sink
- 28:20into their mind and then hopefully into their hearts so
- 28:23that it changes their actions. But if you're no, you really
- 28:27don't need to worry too much about being repetitive.
- 28:29I have four or five videos about how to beat lust, and I go
- 28:33through the same 2 steps to start the video basically every
- 28:36time. And then I switch up the thing
- 28:38that I use at the end, but I'm repeating myself over and over
- 28:41again. And even the word religion,
- 28:43right? You go to the etymology of the
- 28:45word religion, re legere, right, Which means re again.
- 28:49And then legere is Latin for to read.
- 28:52So what does religion mean? It means read again.
- 28:54Why is the liturgical calendar repetitive?
- 28:57It's intentionally repetitive. You're supposed to read it
- 28:59again. You're supposed to go through
- 29:00the same gospel readings over and over again.
- 29:02So it sinks into your head and then into your heart.
- 29:04So, yeah, there is a point at which you can be too repetitive,
- 29:07but I find that it's much often it's much more likely that
- 29:11people on social media have a really great point.
- 29:14Like, it's fantastic and it does really well and it reaches a ton
- 29:17of people and they're like, OK, I've already said that point.
- 29:20I can never say it again. No, make another video, make the
- 29:23same point and then build on it. People are going to love it.
- 29:26Make another video with the same point, but say it a different
- 29:29way with a different analogy. People are going to love it.
- 29:31Right. Yeah, repetitive is something
- 29:33that you probably can fall into, but I think most people do way
- 29:37too little repeating themselves and not way too much because
- 29:40generally people need information presented multiple
- 29:43times before it has an impact on them.
- 29:45It's OK, boyman. Do you think there's any benefit
- 29:48to doing it daily? Let's say you're going to batch
- 29:51create 20 videos. Do you post it in three times a
- 29:55week or just post like all 20 at the same time?
- 29:58Yeah, I would space it out because if you post all 20 at
- 30:02the same time, then you're posting all twenty of those
- 30:05videos without growing your audience at all.
- 30:07So for example, for me, a really bad video now, like just doesn't
- 30:12work at all. A really bad video, we'll get
- 30:141500 views. Maybe used to be the case where
- 30:171500 views was a good number for me on a video.
- 30:20Yeah, I got over 1000. Let's go.
- 30:22And so as your audience, every video that you drop, hopefully
- 30:25you're gaining subscribers, not losing subscribers, which has to
- 30:27be a pretty bad or insensitive video for you to lose
- 30:31subscribers. It just really doesn't happen.
- 30:33But every video that you drop, hopefully you're gaining a few
- 30:35subscribers, and that increases your reach for all the other
- 30:38videos down the road. So spacing it out about once
- 30:42every two days, three videos a week is a good way to do it.
- 30:45But yeah, you got to play around with your audience and see what
- 30:48works. And also, it depends on your
- 30:50production value. If you have an editor, if you're
- 30:52doing the editing yourself, how much time do you have to
- 30:54accommodate that to your own situation?
- 30:56That was super helpful. Is there anything else you want
- 30:58to share on that topic? Yeah, make it the fruit of
- 31:01prayer. One of the other things that's
- 31:03really important, I think, is consecration of exterior goods
- 31:08to the Blessed Virgin Mary. So my entire social media
- 31:11endeavor, all my business endeavors are, are, or will be
- 31:15consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
- 31:18And consecration is different than entrustment in a lot of
- 31:20ways. Consecration is where you
- 31:22surrender the rights to make decisions to the Blessed Virgin
- 31:26Mary. So entrustments, I'm loaning
- 31:28this to you. You can have it for now, but if
- 31:30I need it back, better give it back.
- 31:32Consecration is different. Consecration is where you
- 31:34totally surrender all of your present and future rights over
- 31:39whatever the object consecrated is.
- 31:41So the best Virgin Mary is in charge of my YouTube channel.
- 31:44She can do what she wants with it.
- 31:45If she wants to burn it down tomorrow, that's great.
- 31:47It's up to her, not me. Best Virgin Mary is in charge of
- 31:50all of my business, as ever, is my Instagram, everything that
- 31:53I'm doing, my house, my family. She's in charge.
- 31:55It's her family more than in this mine in the very real
- 31:57sense. And so once you do that and you
- 31:59hand that over to the best Virgin Mary, you say you take
- 32:01care of it, things just tend to go right.
- 32:05She's never outdone in generosity.
- 32:06And if you're giving everything you own to her, she's going to
- 32:09give you back much more in return.
- 32:10So that'd be the other thing. More of a spiritual piece of
- 32:13advice here, but consecration of exterior goods to the Blessed
- 32:16Virgin Mary is imperative. I think the other thing I would
- 32:19add to that is the demons have a certain amount of influence that
- 32:24they can exercise over individuals, yes, but also over
- 32:27businesses, corporations, governments, states, etcetera.
- 32:30And so if you consecrate something to the Blessed Virgin
- 32:32Mary, once again, this principle of if it belongs to Mary, it
- 32:35doesn't belong to Satan, then you're protecting yourself and
- 32:38guiding yourself from a lot of influence that you may not want
- 32:40down the road. So that'd be another thing is
- 32:42the consecration of exterior goods is imperative, I think,
- 32:45when it comes to business dealings.
- 32:47Wow. God bless you man.
- 32:49How can people follow you, Cameron?
- 32:52Yeah, if people want to follow me, YouTube, Instagram, it's
- 32:55just Cameron Riker on YouTube, Cameron under score, Riker on
- 32:58Instagram, and Riker on X So yeah, you're smart.
- 33:02People. If you want to find me, I'm sure
- 33:04you can. But if anybody wants to check
- 33:06out my channel, God bless you. I hope it blesses you.
- 33:09Thanks for listening. Please like, subscribe and share
- 33:11with your friends. See you next time.