The Necessary Mindset with Hayden Pedersen
With me being only at the beginning of my YouTube career, I find myself daydreaming about expanding my audience and bringing more value to growing photographers alike. With that being said, my curiosity is sparked at understanding the mental hurdles that accompany one’s growing success on social platforms. For that, I talked to Hayden Pedersen.
First and foremost, I want to acknowledge how excited I am to publish a content-piece in collaboration with Hayden. I truly believe that collaborating with other creators and sharing one’s experiences in the creative space that we occupy can have such a lasting impact. To preface, Hayden Pedersen is an exploding YouTuber, with a whopping growing average of over 450 subscribers a day! His creativity, positive mentality, and child-like excitement for the art form is extremely contagious and must be credited towards his success on the platform.
Q: Your video titled, "The Mindset you Need to Succeed" is arguably one of the most valuable pieces on your channel. How much of your success would you credit to just cutting out the external feedback (both negative and positive)?
Q: Its hard to narrow you down to one form of photography. We’ve seen a lot from you including street, portraits and urban photography. Is there one that really has your heart, or do you prefer to stay away from 'the label'?
Q: As I continue to watch your content, I notice that you are a bubble of positive energy. One thing that I tend to bring up often is the importance of staying positive through difficult clients, making mistakes, relationships lost, etc. Do you have an example of when staying positive benefited you?
Q: Something that you've been vocal about on your channel is your passion for fitness. Could you ever see yourself creating a segment or new channel all together focused on fitness and nutrition?
Q: Its no secret that your channel's following has grown significantly since starting only a couple of years ago. Now, you don't strike me as the person who cares to follow a number, but It does resemble the amount of value you bring you others on the platform. What has been your favourite thing about building an audience on YouTube?
Q: On that topic. When building an audience/fandom, this usually translates to becoming a role model for many. You seem to have embraced the opportunity in how you spread the message of positivity and self worth. What is the most important message that you look to leave with your audience?
Q: With you hitting a level of success on YouTube that is greater than most, what would you say has been the greatest positive and negative thus far?
I try my best to work with creators from different sides of the spectrum that I feel bring something unique to the creators series.
Chris Hau brought a strong client portfolio with him and talked to prioritizing client needs.
Jamal Burger discussed building organic and real working relationships.
Tom Peters invited us into his passion for landscape photography.
Andrew Kearns expressed his approach towards neglecting modularity and the idea behind having a "style"
With Hayden, I wanted to explore the mindset of a YouTuber that has recently found success. With a subscriber base 700,000 strong, and content speaking specifically to the mental state of a photographer/content creator, I knew that Hayden would be a perfect fit for this piece.
I want to thank Hayden for participating in this creator series and of course YOU, the readers. By far the highest source of traffic to my site is this creator series and it warms my heart. Like Hayden, I want to bring the greatest amount of value to a growing photographer as possible. When I was getting started, I didn't care what was in a photographer's camera bag. I wanted to get into the mind set of some of my idols to better understand how to handle my own mental hurdles. I look to continue answering those questions here and on my YouTube channel, so keep tuned!