Welcome to streamer school, here's how to do your audio
Based on having watched too many streams with sound FAR too quiet, and seen too many guides and articles that are wrong, here is where your audio should be.
(This shitty MS paint graph assumes a logarithmic audio scale, like OBS uses.)
Keep your voice within the red section on OBS without smashing the top end. Use a compressor to keep it there.
Don't let your game go into the amber section (or if it does, not often). If you use music instead of a game, put that a little lower than you would a game.
The audio meter is a representation of the full range of data you can send. Use it. Red != bad.
If the whole meter flashes red, compress your audio down a bit or lower the volume, that's peaking and sounds awful. Compression reduces the volume variance of a sound source. So if your voice fluctuates in volume a lot, a compressor brings that into a tighter range, making it easier to position on the meter.
Do NOT lower your volume because you're worried you sound loud. Trust your audience to use the multiple volume controls they have available. Turning audio down is way easier than boosting it past 100%
YouTube is automatically compressing up its videos to hit these levels. If you're quieter than the YT videos people watch all the time, you're forcing them to try to boost your audio when they watch your stream or, more likely, not bother with you at all.
DO worry about peaking, though. Once peaking happens, it can't be undone, so give yourself as clean a feed as you can.
If you're peaking but the audio is within the range on OBS, turn off all effects (including compressors) and make sure you're not peaking before your effect chain starts, and therefore dragging that peaking through all your effects.
if you know more than this and are about to comment about how loudness != volume, then this thread wasn't for you.
If you've done this and want to know more, I caution you to turn back! Sound tech is forbidden knowledge that changes a person once they know of it. Like kerning.