Hey guys, welcome back to The Growth Curve.

My personal growth as an individual and as an artist and creator has been shaped by a variety of different forces and sources, and the Internet has played a tremendous role in doing so.

In this article, I’ll be listing down just a few of these Internet sources, mostly YouTube channels, that have helped me grow personally a lot. This is by no means an exhaustive list. This is just the list that’s on the top of my mind for this week.

Every now and then I will build and publish another list like this one.

The Creators That Inspire Me

The Art of Manliness Blog

I think this was probably the first personal growth content source I followed online. I remember discovering this blog back in 2014 when I was in high school, by searching on Google for “how to be more manly” — yeah, you can tell what was going on in my mind at the time, I had a bit of a complex about not being manly enough.

This was the article I found. They’ve got a variety of articles on building strength, social skills, other skills, and even men’s style. It’s really quite interesting.

Rowena Tsai on YouTube

I discovered Rowena in 2020 during the pandemic, and I was taken by her calm voice and loving demeanor — She starts all her videos with “Hello, sweetest potatoes!” — isn’t that so cute?

She’s got a variety of content on Notion planning, feeling better, anxiety, and productivity. I remember going on a binge of her videos at one point when I was feeling a bit unmotivated, and many of her points resonated with me and made me feel heard and listened to.

Her content also inspired my own YouTube channel in a few ways.

Matt D’Avella on YouTube

I discovered Matt D’Avella a really really long time ago, perhaps 4 or so years back. What I love about him the most is that he’s so relatable — watching his videos feels like listening to a big bro talk to you.

He’s definitely contributed in a huge way to my personal growth. He’s got content on minimalism, productivity, and growth. He’s also a filmmaker, and he’s inspired me a lot in the way I make my YouTube videos as well.

muchellb on YouTube

I found her through her Notion video, which I must say is one of the best ones I’ve seen so far. I found her demeanor to be really calming as well, which is again something I really like to listen to.

She’s got content on being more motivated, planning your life, and growing personally. It’s kind of like Rowena Tsai.

Captain Sinbad on YouTube

I discovered him a few years ago as well. He’s an Indian-American making videos about personal growth and productivity, from his unique perspective of being an Indian-American.

I again love his super authentic vibe, and his ability to be completely vulnerable and raw in his content.

Generally I’ve found that the YouTubers that I resonate with the most are the ones that come off as raw and vulnerable rather than the ones that put out a perfect image of themselves. And that’s what I aspire to achieve as well.

Ali Abdaal on YouTube

I don’t think I could complete this list without Ali Abdaal.

I discovered him in 2020, right before I started regularly producing YouTube videos. And I do believe that he probably had the biggest contribution, inspiration-wise, to my YouTube content.

Ali does a fantastic job of bringing in psychological and social concepts from a variety of different sources and curating them into concise videos that are easy to watch and binge.

He now also speaks about business, finance and technology — which is again what I like about him, he’s always experimenting with new topics and new ways of telling stories.

Van Neistat on YouTube

Van is Casey Neistat’s brother. He has what I would call the most unique style of telling stories on YouTube, and he’s a true example of an artist who does what he wants and somehow is able to capture attention without using traditional YouTuber storytelling tactics.

I highly recommend watching his channel.

Wrapping Up —

I hope you were able to derive inspiration from some of the sources that I’ve listed in this article. What have been your sources of inspiration and motivation on the Internet? Let me know by hitting “reply”.

Cheers,

— M

The Growth Curve

My top creators for inspiration and growth ✨