YouTube Star Helps Struggling Parents Pay off Mortgage — His Secret to Success is Surprisingly Simple
“My family never had a lot of money growing up. My parents were always working multiple jobs and I was that kid that was only allowed one pair of shoes every year. That’s probably why I spend so much money on shoes now. But, I just always told them I was going to be famous. My main motivations for really doing what I do, aside from wanting to get known and I wanting to be successful, was that I could take care of [my parents].”
“They’ve known from the beginning that I always wanted to pursue a career in the entertainment business. I’ve always been a performer and a class clown. They knew from when I was young that I wanted to be on stage and doing that type of thing. But they would always tell me, “do whatever you want, as long as you get your degree.” So I went to [college] for them. But, my heart was never really in it. So when YouTube stuff starting taking off a little bit, I was kind of just doing decent at both and I realized if I was going to finish school or if I was going to be successful doing the YouTube stuff, I needed to pick one so can commit my time to one thing. So one day, I took a semester off because I had some opportunities and I told my parents that I would go back next semester. Then I ended up taking another semester off and then I ended up taking the year off and then I took a couple years off, and then I just kind of never went back. That’s when the YouTube stuff really kind of started to pay off for me.”
“…I alway knew what I wanted to do and I knew that I was here to do it. I’ve always felt that I was going to be known and successful. Even when I was little, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say “famous.” I just knew it. I never had any doubt. When people say “it sounds unrealistic,” I just feel like if you work hard enough towards anything, it’s attainable. A lot of people know they want to be a doctor, so you go to school to be a doctor, you go to premed, you go to med school, you’re a nurse or whatever, and then you’re a doctor. For me, I knew that if I kept going on auditions or finding someway to get my name out there, and networking and working, shooting, I knew that I would only just keep progressing. I always say that you should look at success as a destination and not a dream, because a dream is something that’s unattainable, but a destination is something that if you keep on working towards it and you keep on going in that direction, you’ll get there eventually. No matter what gets in your way or how long it will take you, if you keep working towards it, you’ll get there. So I just never looked at the fame shit as a dream that was unrealistic. I just thought I’m going to be famous, I know I’m going to be an entertainer and that’s what it was.”
“No, I never let it get to me just because I knew they were wrong (laughs). If anybody ever had any doubt, I was like “No! You’re wrong! I know I’m going to be successful. You’re wrong.”
“No. I’ve never had a doubt. Where people go wrong is that, they’ll get discouraged after they get rejected a few times and I’ve heard “no” a billion times. I’ve gone to auditions plenty of times that I didn’t get the part for. I’ve had a bunch of potential deals that I got excited about that just fell through. A lot of stuff will happen that make people want to quit and I feel like the people who are successful are the ones that don’t quit. You’re going to hear “no” like a thousand times, so when you hear “yes,” It’s that one yes that’s really all you need.”
“It feels good man! My parents could tell that this entertainment stuff was becoming something real when I was actually making money off of it and living off of it. That’s when they really started taking it seriously. At first it was like “Okay, he’s going to school, but he’s doing his entertainment thing on the side.” Then when they saw that the money was real and that I could actually help them out financially, then it was like “Wow! Okay, this isn’t just a fantasy.” I told them early on that “I know this seems silly, I’m going on all these late night shoots, and I’m doing all these silly videos. But I’m telling you, I’m doing this for your guys.” Because I knew it was going to pay off. I used to tell my dad all the time, “Watch. I’m going to pay off the house. Just wait like a year or two, I’m going to pay off the house.” When I finally did it, my mom, when the camera was off, she was like “Now I can finally relax,” and that felt good because she’s been telling me ever since I was a little kid that she worked so hard and she never get a chance to relax and take a break and she was like “I can finally take a break,” and that just kind of made me feel like it was all worth it.”
“My parents have always just showed me a lot of love, they’ve always let me do what I wanted creatively with who I am as a person. It was always all about “as long as you are a good person, the world will be good to you.”
“I’m just waiting on the new episodes of Wild ‘n Out to keep coming out over the summer. I got some good episodes in there. I’m finally working on some new music. I haven’t worked on new music in a long time. I got some independent film stuff coming out after the summer, so I’ll finally get to break into film a little bit. That’s basically it man, just keeping busy.”
Even with being a triple-threat and all, Tim stresses that when given the choice, he really wouldn’t be able to strictly pursue one of his talents fully.
“I mean, at the end of the day man, I just like when people can watch my videos and forget about their problems. Whenever somebody hits me up and they’re like “Yo! I was depressed or I was having a bad day, and I watched your videos and they cheered me up,” like that’s what it’s all about, you know?”
