How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life(30)

People often ask me what my secret to success is, and I think they expect me to give them some sort of spell to cast. It would make them feel at ease if I told them how wizardry and a drop of lion’s blood got me where I am. That way they could stop having to work hard and instead focus on getting a lion. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, so leave Simba alone (hasn’t he been through enough?!). My secret to success is exactly what most people don’t want to hear: it’s a ton of hard work.

There is no escalator to success. You have to take the stairs. (I know, I know, the last chapter was about a ladder, but hear me out.) I am not the product of a viral video. I didn’t have a massive hit that got me a ton of subscribers and views that I based my career on (not that anything is wrong with that). Instead, over the course of my career, every single video has given me recognition and subscribers. If I ask fans how they discovered me, their answers will all be different. With each video I put out, I take a step upward on the staircase to success, leaving a strong foundation of content below me. I don’t care if it’s a small or big step, as long as the movement is upward.

Having said that, an escalator definitely does exist, especially in my industry. Creating content that puts other people down, using clickbait thumbnails, and promoting misleading video titles are all ways people choose to take an escalator. You’ll likely get a lot of views and become really popular, but for how long? Your foundation isn’t solid because it was built too quickly or dishonestly. Would you rather travel on a bridge constructed over the course of a year or one that was thrown together in forty-eight hours? An escalator can go out of service at any time, but the stairs are always there. How many times have you heard a hit song from someone and then never heard of them again? How many times have you seen a viral video of someone doing something absolutely disgusting and then never seen their face again? Escalators exist in every industry, but a Bawse will always take the stairs and prioritize the longevity of their career. Gimmicks and shortcuts aren’t the best materials to build with. All it takes is one strong wind to knock it all down.

It’s absolutely exhausting to climb the stairs, especially because you can’t always see the top of the staircase. It just seems like a never-ending ascent. As a result, even when people are told that stairs are THE ONLY WAY TO SUCCESS, they will still try to create a shortcut. What if I hire Optimus Prime to carry me up the stairs? What if I buy the staircase? What if I tell people that receiving piggybacks is part of my religion? Or what if this map is inaccurate to begin with and there’s a faster path through the mountains?

Hear me when I say you MUST start climbing and do the work. No ifs, ands, or buts. Remember all those times you had a major project to finish and you just stared at it, thinking, “What if I get a doctor’s note?” All right, great, you faked a stomachache and got a note. Now what? You still have to do the assignment. Then you think, “Maybe I’ll just copy off a friend.” Your teacher caught you and now you have to do the assignment again. No matter how many times you stare at this project, it’s not going anywhere. Why? Because you just need to buckle down and do the work. There is no other way, so stop wasting time convincing yourself there is.

I know that deep down inside you know this. It’s just like how I know that Googling “how to get nice abs without working out” is never going to be productive. The answer is to eat right and work out. No matter how many juices I drink or electronic devices I strap to my stomach, I will not get nice abs. Similarly, no matter how many gimmicks or shortcuts you try, you won’t succeed unless you do the work.





It’s important to note that there is a huge difference between taking the stairs and being inefficient. While climbing the stairs, I do many things that save me time. Let me give you an example:

TASK: I have an amazing video idea that is going to require a lot of work.

TAKING AN ESCALATOR: I’ll just do an easier video and make it look cool in the thumbnail.

TAKING THE STAIRS WITH EFFICIENCY: Let me put time and effort into assembling a team that will help me execute this great idea. That way I can focus on being in the video while all the paperwork and other details are handled by someone else.

You might be yelling right now, saying, “WELL, LILLY, not everyone has an assistant and a team to help them!” Yeah, well, I didn’t have an assistant or team at the bottom of the staircase either. I was only able to hire a team after climbing the stairs solo for years.

“DOING WORK ELIMINATES THE NEED FOR LUCK.

Working hard feels good. Of course it’s exhausting and stressful and causes you to miss a party or two, but at the end of the day it is so rewarding. One of the best feelings in the world is when you know that luck didn’t play a role in your success. Doing work eliminates the need for luck. I’m not lucky, I just took the stairs. And you should too.

I told you this wasn’t going to be a fairy tale. There is no magic carpet or genie. There’s just you and a staircase, so start stretching and take the first step.

With everything else, feel free to use shortcuts. K, G2G, plz keep reading for more LOLs, ILY.





REMEMBER THAT SCENE from 300 where Leonidas is getting pierced with arrows from every direction, but he continues attacking his enemy until his last breath? It’s stressful and painful to watch as he swings his sword with aggression and purpose. Deep down you know that it’s the end, but his persistence gives you a little shred of hope. That’s what I looked like in high school the night before a major project was due. I had three weeks to get this twenty-page essay done, but lo and behold there I was at eleven o’clock on a Sunday night guzzling down my third can of Coke. I’d tried to write the essay the previous Sunday, but I couldn’t find a comfortable enough pen to create an outline, so I had to go supply shopping. A few days later I’d tried again, but it turned out my desk was too messy to work on, so I had to clean my room. And the basement. And mow the lawn. And, for the first time in my life, do my laundry. The day before, I had been committed to doing this essay but I sneezed a few times and decided to take it easy and watch some medicinal TV instead.