Meet Charles Cornell

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Charles Cornell. Charles was introduced to us by the brilliant and talented Alexandre Carneiro.

Hi Charles , we’re so thrilled to have you sharing your story with us today. Maybe we can kick things off by having you introduce yourself to our readers? We’d love to have you go into your story and how you got to where you are today.
After graduating from Purchase College with a degree in Jazz Studies, I didn’t have a very clear picture of what to do next. The obvious thing was to play gigs and teach lessons. So that’s what I did. I had moved back upstate to northern New York with my girlfriend Leanne. We found a place near my hometown of Hartford, NY and we were just trying to make enough to pay our rent. This was the story for the next 4 years. All the while, I knew I wanted to try and build something, I just didn’t know what or how.

I floundered around from idea to idea, creating content online here and there. Not knowing anything about what makes good content, however, nothing ever took off. YouTube had long been a dream of mine and I had always told my friends and family that if I could do anything, I’d make content I loved for an audience that found value in it.

Eventually, after trying many different things that never really went anywhere, I thought “well, if I’m not having any luck creating content for myself, what about creating it for other people?” So I launched a small social media content agency and hired a couple of my close friends to help me make videos for local businesses. We had a small list of clients going but it quickly became clear that we were in the wrong industry, or in the wrong area. We were technically “right” about what we wanted to make for clients, but nobody could or wanted to pay for it. So we thought “why not move to somewhere where there might be more opportunity?”

One day we jokingly suggested moving to Denver, CO as it was a good size city that had access to skiing, which I’m passionate about to this day. Within a few weeks, we actually solidified a plan to move, I think much to everyone’s surprise. Leanne and I plus two of our close friends moved to a state we’d never been to before, signed a 16 month lease on an apartment we’d never seen for twice the rent than we’d ever paid all with no jobs, no money saved and no plan. Just a lot of trust in the process.

Three weeks later with a used Guitar Center piano I bought with the last $300 I had left, I made a video called “Cardi B’s Uggs.” I made it on a whim for no other reason than I thought it was hilarious. It was me playing along to the notes of Cardi B’s voice as she yelled at the camera, complete with chords to go with it. Apparently, a lot of people also thought it was hilarious, because that video quickly got millions of views including a retweet from Cardi B herself and even an Instagram post from Snoop Dogg.

The followers started rolling in faster than I could’ve ever possibly imagined.

I kept making these “meme” videos. Sometimes they were of Cardi B, but often, they were just of funny, popular videos. I quickly gained a six-figure following on five different social platforms and the videos were often going viral in multiple places at once. One day, I decided to record a video discussing my musical process for how I went about making these videos. I was shocked when even THAT video got a million views on YouTube. This opened the door to the music education space.

Since then, I have been building an educational YouTube channel where people can come to “hang out” and talk about cool music. All the while, learning something about music theory, harmony, composition and piano playing. With the same reunited team of close friends that I started with those few years ago, we built an online education business, promoting in-depth highly-produced music education courses through our video content and have helped tens of thousands of students all over the world progress through their journey in music.

Currently, we have just shy of 1.4 million subscribers on YouTube and over a million more followers across various other social media platforms.

Let’s talk about your work and career – what else should we know?
As an online content creator, it’s easy to fall into the cycle of endlessly creating the next piece of content. When you build your business on that repetitive process, you can very easily get burned out. It’s common for creators to start phoning it in after a while. Especially once the money from ad revenue and sponsorships starts coming in, you start building your life around this newfound income. This is a great first step, but it’s also a dangerous one. You can sometimes wind up putting out endless amounts of half-hearted content because you’re required to get a video published for a sponsor by the end of the month. Then, if that video doesn’t perform as well as the sponsor expects (which, you’ll never know because they don’t give you any data on how well it actually did for them) your rate goes down, which affects your bottom line. When you’re taking on employees to help you out and maybe even trying to do normal adult things like buy or even just rent a house, this fluctuation can be devastating. I was in this endless cycle for nearly the first two years of my journey as a YouTuber. Eventually, I realized I wasn’t putting the effort into my content that I once was, and something had to change. Working with sponsors might as well be the same as having a job of sorts. You’re still beholden to some outside source who decides whether or not you performed well enough to get paid whatever they say you’re worth. Your success isn’t always tied directly to your dedication as a creator. That’s why we ended up launching our own education business. By creating our own products, we could directly control the quality that we were delivering to our audience. On top of that, we could deliver an offer and a product that was perfectly built for what they were likely to be interested in. And above all else, they felt much more excited about supporting a creator like me directly, rather than buying from some random company that may not have been relevant to them. This changed everything for our business. Our main priority now is to create the highest possible value for our customers and viewers that they are unlikely to find anywhere else. Whether it’s in the quality of product, the support we offer with it and/or the community we’re building around it, we spend most of our time ensuring that we offer our customers an inspiring educational environment and the opportunity to make more progress in their piano/musical journey than they ever thought they’d be able to. Our students are often adults, returning to music after a long hiatus. Because of one of my videos, they felt inspired enough to make the decision to get back into it. They pick up a keyboard, buy a course or a bundle of courses, and start hacking away at the piano, sometimes after decades away from it. This is one of the things I’m always most excited to hear about- People who felt inspiration from one thing or another deciding that they CAN tackle this thing called “music” that so many feel is beyond them. If I can do anything for my viewers and customers, I want to help people see that music is for everyone. And as hard as music can be at higher levels, it’s probably way easier than you thought to get started and accomplish all you’ve ever wanted to be able to play.

Alexandre Carneiro and AC Driven Personal Training have been great to us and I know you’ve got a great relationship with them as well. Maybe you can tell our audience a bit about Alexandre Carneiro and AC Driven Personal Training and your experience with them.
Near the end of 2022, I was the heaviest I had ever been. I had gained an uncomfortable amount of weight over a long period of time of struggling to manage my habits or put in the time to take care of my body properly. I knew it was time to do something about it. Not only for my own personal health, but for the effect that my physical and mental well-being has on my business.

I went searching for personal trainers near me. Alex came up on Instagram, where he is extremely active and has built a substantial following. I felt like I understood his approach and I liked his attitude that he put out online, so I reached out.

Being an online content creator and business owner himself, I felt that he would have a unique understanding and perspective on who I am and how my business works. Being a content creator for a living often leaves you without many people to connect with who understand your day-to-day life as a business owner.

Within 3 minutes of my first meeting with Alex, I was completely sure that he was the type of person I wanted to work with and improve my life with. He spoke with such clarity and authority about physical fitness, nutrition and all the other things that are important when taking care of oneself. He had a very healthy attitude towards all the different aspects of “making gains” and very clearly frowned upon the many unhealthy and unsustainable practices that you might expect other successful trainers to embrace.

I knew that he would be a great fit for me, so I jumped in.

In the 9 months since starting with Alex, I have made an incredible amount of progress. Losing weight was a goal of mine, and I am now lighter than I have been in years as a result of Alex’s nutritional expertise and guidance. He made me understand that nutrition is not as complicated as it is often made to seem, and that I can make easy adjustments to my habits that will generate slow, steady and most importantly, healthy results.

I’ve also built more muscle than I ever had in my life in a balanced and sustainable way. Where I might have over-trained specific muscle groups if left to my own devices, Alex has guided me every step of the way and ensured that I have a balanced, well-structured approach to exercise that generates healthy results. Often, we lose track of how much progress we’ve made. But every time we take photos to document my progress, he shows me the side by side and I am consistently blown away by the differences I see in myself.

Above all, Alex has become a great friend and somebody I know I can rely on. Our training sessions feel like I’m just going to work out with a buddy, because that’s basically what they are. The only difference is, this particular buddy doesn’t let you slack off and will push you beyond what you thought you were capable of every time. I find new limits in myself both physically and mentally. I work so much harder, lift more and put in those extra 3 reps that I wouldn’t have if I was on my own.

Website: https://cornellmusicacademy.com/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/charlescornellstudios

Youtube: https://youtube.com/charlescornellstudios