The NEW Way to Win On YouTube in 2026 | The Dept. #98
The Dept. w/ Omar El-Takrori
Omar El-Takrori
4.9 • 820 Ratings
🗓️ 28 November 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of The Dept. Omar sits down with creator and host of The Calum Johnson Show, Calum Johnson one of the fastest-growing interviewers on YouTube. Together they break down why YouTube is the platform creators should go all-in on this year, the psychology behind packaging videos for massive reach, and the mindset required to stay consistent long before anything goes viral. Calum shares how one simple title and thumbnail change took his video from 60 views to over 900,000, why every creator is just one experiment away from a breakthrough, and how he turned three years of grinding into a thriving media business. If you want to grow on YouTube, master titles and thumbnails, land brand deals (even with a small audience), and fall in love with the platform again, this conversation is a masterclass.
💸 Take The Content To Cash Challenge 💸
https://go.thevideodept.co/content-to-cash
✅ Follow Calum:
https://www.instagram.com/calumjohnson1/
https://www.youtube.com/@UCuvjQYKukKjVyhSVxQibgOw
✅ Follow Omar:
https://www.instagram.com/omareltakrori
🔴 Access to All of Omar's Gear:
https://go.tvdhq.com/omarsgear
🚀 Join The Video Dept. Community 🚀
https://www.skool.com/tvd
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | For the person that's or the entrepreneur, the creator, that's like posting right now, |
| 0:04.4 | and it's like not going and they're like frustrated and just over the whole process. |
| 0:08.8 | When you do make it, because it will happen, if you just keep putting videos out, you're going to have one hit. |
| 0:15.1 | I literally had a video go from 60 views to over 900,000 people. |
| 0:20.7 | How long was it until you got your first brand deal and what did that |
| 0:23.7 | look like? My audience got me my first brand deal. You can go from being like down and out to like the |
| 0:31.3 | biggest thing around really fast. I went from living in like Manhattan to like living with my mom, |
| 0:40.3 | like making no money and just grinding it out. The first 18 months of doing the show, we got about 30,000 downloads total. The last kind of 18, nearly two years, we've gotten nearly 12 million downloads. |
| 0:49.3 | Why should people go all in on YouTube this year? |
| 0:52.3 | I've never actually shared this public |
| 0:54.2 | really. Welcome to the department where we interview people who are killing it in their |
| 1:01.7 | department. I'm Omar al-Ticori and I have with me Callum Johnson. Welcome to the department. |
| 1:07.8 | What's up? This is like surreal to be like on the department. |
| 1:11.4 | I've seen so many of your videos. |
| 1:12.7 | This, well, thank you for having me. |
| 1:14.6 | I'm in New York. |
| 1:16.1 | The, the vibes are, the vibes are viving. |
| 1:18.6 | And we're shooting this on iPhones and, uh, a lot of firsts right now. |
| 1:22.9 | I think the another one first I have right now is I think I'm the first you're the first guest that I |
| 1:29.2 | guessed it on first okay yeah but when we got chatting it's without a doubt you are a |
| 1:37.0 | YouTube connoisseur expert you understand the platform and it's very rare to relate like to people |
| 1:43.9 | that understand how the platform works it's very rare to relate to people that understand how the platform |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Omar El-Takrori, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Omar El-Takrori and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.