How to Stay HAPPY as a Content Creator

Content is HARD, and staying happy and motivated is TOUGH.

Followers won't keep you going - you've got to find that happiness in yourself FIRST - but how do you do it?

Key techniques for staying happy with your marketing and content long term today, let's dive in.

Listen to the Episode

Transcript

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. Great to see you today. I'm talking about something that I haven't talked about before, but I think is really, really crucial. And that is how to stay happy as a creator, how to actually enjoy the process, enjoy the content that you're making, manage your mental health.

Continue to create content in the long run, and love the journey as you go through. There's a lot of good stuff in here, and particularly towards the end, I talk about a concept that I know a lot of you are going to resonate with, a lot of you are going to be able to picture, and I think it's going to be really, really insightful for a lot of you, and, you know, if you are currently Not enjoying the process or you're finding the process of being a creator Difficult stressful then it's really gonna resonate with you So I encourage you to listen all the way to the end on this one lots of good stuff coming.

Here we go today I thought we'd talk about something a little bit different and I thought we'd talk about saying that's very important that not enough people talk About which is how to stay happy As a creator. Which is something that I haven't really talked about a lot, but I do think it's something that's really affects a lot of people.

And, you know, frustration, worry, jealousy, all of these things can affect people on a regular basis when it comes to content creation. I've seen people that have come up with me gain 200, 300, 000 followers and walk away. Literally just walk away and go, say, guys, I'm done. Can't make any content anymore. I'm done.

Vanessa Lau had, I don't know how many it was, half a million subscribers on YouTube, just walks away. Wasn't happy anymore. Um, you know, I've seen so many people come and go in my industry, making content and just burning out, burning out, getting unhappy, no longer enjoying what they're doing anymore. Um, Tired of talking about the same shit over and over again for, you know, every single day for years and years and years.

And it doesn't matter. There is no signs or following that will keep you Doing shit you hate. Okay. Or at least, you know, do shit you don't like anymore. And so a lot of people think, Oh, you know, maybe once you get to a hundred thousand followers, suddenly you're locked in, suddenly you love this thing forever, and it's like, you really don't, you know, my passion for content creation, you know, if anything has diminished.

As I continue to make content over time, you know, and the fact that I have a hundred plus thousand followers on Instagram makes absolutely zero difference to that. And so, you know, there are some things that everyone needs to do in order to be able to, I think, firstly, enjoy the process. And then secondly, protect themselves in order to be able to continue to enjoy the process and not put, you know, everything you've built at risk.

And I think it's a really important conversation to have because. Not a lot of people talk about it. So I'm going to share some of my experiences today. Um, and maybe probably some things you haven't heard before. Um, and some of my personal feelings towards some things and some things that I've been through, um, over this time as well, um, as well as some tips and tricks on how you can ensure that you can continue to be consistent in your content.

Now, the first thing. of course, has to be the choice of what you're actually talking about. Like, the thing that you're actually talking about has to be something that you're interested in and are interested in continuing to learn. So sometimes I see people choosing stuff that they're currently interested in, but they don't really want to do it long term.

Or they do stuff that they're interested in, in the sense that they've, but they've learned everything they want to learn within that topic. So oftentimes I see people wanting to quit their nine to five. Let's say they've worked in financial services for the last 10 years, and then they're like, Dan, I'm going to start a new business and talk about, well, or the thing I have experience in, which is financial services.

The very thing that I'm trying to escape from. In my nine to five. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna just recreate everything I hate, but now I'm running my own business. So on top of all this, doing stuff that I hate, I also have all the stress of being a business owner on top of it. It's crazy, right? You know, if you're trying to escape your nine to 5, 99 times out of a hundred.

What you should be talking about should be different than what your nine to five was, okay? Because you've been talking about that for fucking every single day for however many years you've been doing it, okay? It's obviously not that, okay? It's gonna be something else. That doesn't mean you can't bring over capabilities, and we've talked a lot about capabilities in the past, about bringing over capabilities from things that you've done, but you know, talk about the stuff that you're actually passionate about.

Of course, that brings up the question, Well, Dan, I'm not really sure what I am passionate about. What you're passionate about is what you're innately good at. I really believe that. If you're innately good at something, you're going to be passionate about talking about it. Because, if you find something really difficult, it's hard to be passionate about it.

Whereas, if you're innately good at it, You see progress. And if you see progress, you're more motivated to learn. And if you're more motivated to learn, then you'll improve faster. And if you improve faster, that then creates a positive loop in your life. Where it's like, I love this. It's fun. I, you know, I learn, I apply, I get results.

They're positive. I should do more of this, right? It's a positive loop. And I think when so many people, I roll in content, but in life in general, They keep doing stuff that they're not good at or they keep doing stuff that creates a negative loop where each time they do it, they, you know, are punished or, you know, something happens to them in a way that doesn't make them happy.

Okay. And they keep doing that over and over again. So the first thing is you need to make sure you're actually talking about something that you actually enjoy. And that's why we often talk about broadening out as your content, because if you're super, super duper, uber narrow, sure, you might be passionate about it for a time, but it's going to eventually hit a wall where you're like, Oh, I've kind of talked about every single thing I could possibly talk about within this topic.

And now I'm kind of like, I'm kind of done. Right. So it's important to broaden out. As far as you can. So instead of talking about, you know, gold dog collars for female Pomeranians with a bad left foot. Okay. Just talk about dogs. Okay. Dogs. It's fine. Yeah. But you're Dan, but I sell dog collars. Yeah. So create a tribe of dog lovers and you'll sell more dog collars.

Yeah. So just talk about dogs. You love dogs. There's only so long you can talk about dog collar one specific dog collar for, right. So broaden out first, make sure you've got the scope to be happy. Right? If you don't have the scope to be happy, then you're going to get yourself stuck in a corner. And that's going to be difficult for you.

Now I say that with much, you know, empathy, because I do currently feel like I've kind of cornered myself. And I've kind of like shared this on previous episodes in terms of, you know, there's other things that I want to talk about. Other than, you know, having fun telling jokes and making marketing content, which is fun, you know, having fun telling jokes and making marketing content is fun, but there's also serious stuff like what I'm talking about right now that I feel like I don't have scope within my current following in order to be able to talk about.

And when I have tried to talk about it, it's not been received well algorithmically and, you know, in general. Okay. No, it's not been negatively received. It's just sort of ghost town received, you know, it just doesn't really tend to perform very well. So I do think in a way, you know, this is something that I've brought on myself and I'm having to go through this particular thing, but to be fair, I did start as broad as possible, um, at the start, you know, so that's okay, you know, but that's something else that I'm looking into, but firstly, make sure it's broad as possible.

Make sure you have the scope to be. To learn, right? You know, if you're so narrow that there is no opportunity to learn, because all you talk about is gold dog collars, I'm like, well I know everything about dog collars and there's really not a lot to know about dog collars. Okay, you know, you're gonna hit a road block very quickly, all right?

So make sure firstly that there's scope to actually learn. The second thing is, Within your content, you need to make sure you're actually enjoying the content. And I know that sounds flippant, but most of the students that I make don't seem to enjoy what they do, you know? And so our thing is really trying to bring out the personality and the style and the persona of the person.

And that's how you enjoy content. You don't enjoy content by just finding an amazing topic to talk about, because you're going to talk about that topic. Every day, all day, every fucking day. Okay, so sure, you might enjoy it initially, but the topic is not the thing that's gonna keep you really, you know, passionate about something.

It's the way in which you deliver that that's gonna keep you passionate about it. You know, it's making content that you actually enjoy making. You know, if you like telling jokes, tell jokes. If you like being funny, be funny, you know. If you like being deep and meaningful, be deep and meaningful. But like, bring your personality to the table.

And particularly bring your authentic personality to the table. Like don't talk like you think you should talk like that is the number one way to be unhappy with content is to make content in ways that you think you should rather than in ways that come naturally to you is the number one way to be unhappy.

With your content. And again, I've seen this. I've, you know, most people will start from that point, you know, like if they're, if they came from a corporate background, they'll make content. They'll come in wearing their suit and tie and they'll, everything's really scripted and they think everything's got to be absolutely word perfect.

And they never share an opinion about anything because they don't want to ruffle any feathers, you know, and they don't want to stand out in And everything they do is just. You know, gray and marginal and boring and, and it's not unique. And, you know, there's nothing to differentiate that person from anyone else, you know, and it's just, they don't stand for anything.

You know, they don't have any opinions about anything. They don't stand for anything. And so they get burnt out because they always feel like their content is there to serve other people instead of serving themselves. And ultimately, sure, other people are the consumers of your content, but your content has to serve you first, you're the one that's making it.

It has to serve you first. If you hate making what you're doing, but your audience loves what you're doing, that's a problem. Okay, that's a problem, you know, because just because they love it, if you hate it, that's a deal breaker. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you're getting loads of views.

It doesn't matter whether people are enjoying it. If you hate making what you're making, that is a deal breaker. It's unsustainable. It's bad for your mental health. You're going to end up being inconsistent and quitting. And so it's just a deal breaker. So you've got to enjoy what you're actually doing.

Okay? You've got to enjoy that. If you don't enjoy it Then this thing is not going to last. Okay, so how do you enjoy it? How do you enjoy it? Firstly, and we talk about this a lot on the podcast, remove the fear. Right, do something that's meaningful to you. And take that fearless step, you know, make fearless content, make content that really gets to the nub of who you are.

And ultimately that's what we all need to be able to do. You've got to be able to like say what you re your real opinion is and have fun doing stuff. You know, more recently, as I've, Uh, alluded to at the beginning, though, I have found that I'm enjoying content less and less. Sometimes, though, you know, even though you kind of make things funny and different, the, like, the absence of talking about those other things that I want to talk about for me is getting, you know, bigger and bigger.

And I had, even right from the start, said to myself, Look, I don't actually intend to make my own content, in inverted commas, in the long term. You know, my intention was to kind of like document of what I did more rather than, you know, make my own content forever. And it's not that I don't enjoy making content.

It's not that I'm not good at making content. I do enjoy it and I am good at it. It's just, there are other things that I want to do and I don't see. You know, I don't feel the need to have to make my own content this much, you know, because I think, I hope I say interesting things in my everyday without having to make content.

So I want to get into documenting. All right. So the absence of being able to do that right now is diminishing my sort of enjoyment for the content that I am making, because at the moment I'm kind of feeling like, Oh, I've got to go and make content today. You know, when I know I, that's not really my master plan, but that's okay.

You know, you push through it with good discipline, but again, tapping into well, what do you want to do long term? And how can we start with that? From the beginning is an important thing. Like what's what style of content, what kind of content do you want to make? I've seen people start making content.

That's like really, really elaborate. Like I made one real, like there's a lot of content right now from videographers who, um, you know, are making this crazy complex content, you know, it's like a shot every two seconds, B roll. You know, cameras attached to cars driving around, drone shots, b roll, you know, like, massive scripting, loads of log effects, lighting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's just getting crazy. I mean, you've all seen it. Some of the production values of content right now are just getting way out of hand. Way, way out of hand. And don't get me wrong, these guys are making great content, you know, and I love them for it. It's great content. You know. For someone like me, who's much more of a rough and ready kind of guy, like getting to that production level, it's just not enjoyable for me.

I can actually do it. I have the capability to do it. Having shot weddings for, you know, 10 years, I'm good. Very good with the camera. I'm very good on video. I know a lot about lighting, camera, editing, production, everything. I know a lot about it, but when I make content like that, it's just not fun for me anymore.

It's just not fun for me anymore. Like I get fucked off trying to like get the camera tripod in exactly the right position and get the exact right framing. And, you know, like sticking suckers on the side of a car and fucking around with these suckers on the side of my car until they get in the right place.

And, you know, cameras dropping on tripods and things being out of focus. All of that stuff fucks me off. Like I just, it really does bug me and it really does diminish my enjoyment for the process. You know, I just want to stick a camera in front of me and talk and have fun. That's it. So the next thing is make sure that the content you are creating is in a style that you actually enjoy creating in, you know, so not only is it about topics that you enjoy talking about, is it in a style that you enjoy creating it, right?

Have you bitten off more than you can chew? Or perhaps this is the opposite. Are you making stuff that's way too basic? And actually you want to make stuff that looks really, really awesome. But, you know, you're just making basic stuff because you're cutting corners, you know, you're like, well, Dan, actually, I really want to make really good lighting.

I want to, you know, I want a video that looks like that guy. I want my video to look awesome and I want it to be good lighting, good editing and stuff. But I'm not putting in any of the work to make that happen. And so I'm always disappointed with the videos I am making because I just, you know, I can't be bothered to put the effort in to make my videos look good.

Good. So all the videos I make use my front facing camera with which looks shit, you know, and so I'm always disappointed. I'm always disappointed in the result, no matter how hard I tried, the result never looks like what I wanted it to look like, you know, and so again, make sure that the format of content that you're making is fits your lifestyle and fits your workflow and fits.

What makes you happy? You know, there are so many creators that I know, they, their time starved, you know, they might be stay at home moms. They don't have time to make all this crazy, fancy content. They love making five second reels. They love it. They love being able to just sit down at their desk, put some text on the screen, sit down, and then that's their content done for the day.

They absolutely love that. And it takes some seconds to be able to do. For me, creatively, that feels like shooting myself in the head. Because, you know, it's like, It's the least creative thing you could ever do. And I'm like, Oh my God, that is so boring. I hate it, you know, but they love it. It fits their workflow.

So again, find, you know, make the types of content that fit your workflow. You know, my content, whilst it's not high production, I do feel it's high quality in the sense that I use good sound, good camera gear. It's high quality. It's not necessarily high production, but it's high quality. Um, you know, and it's, there's always a surprise in it and there's always something, you know, interesting coming out of it and I like that, you know, generally speaking, it's pretty creative and I like to have that creativity.

I don't like making uncreative content. I've made one five second reel ever. One five second reel and. I don't like it. So, you know, make the kind of stuff that, make the kind of content that you actually enjoy. You know, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try a bunch of different things, but you know, go after the kind of content formats that you actually enjoy.

And again, you know, for me, I've done, I've made one and a half thousand posts. In styles that I enjoy, whether it be singles, carousels, reels, I've made one and a half thousand posts in styles that I enjoy, but I'm starting to get to the point now where I don't enjoy those styles as much as I did, you know, so now I'm adapting.

I started a new series where it's like day one, day two, when it's kind of like following my life as an entrepreneur. And I, I quite like it, you know, it doesn't require me to do a whole bunch of research hunting, you know, going around, I can just talk about whatever I'm up to. You know, it's less high demand on me.

It's less high pressure, less energy. And I like it. So these things change, but try and go after things that you actually like, you actually like. Uh, the next thing is of course, views. If you allow all of your motivation to be based on the number of views that your content gets, you're going to generally speaking, be an unhappy person.

Okay. You know, obviously there are times when your content is doing great. And you know, you'll feel on top of the world, but it can never last. And content performance goes up and down. It ebbs and flows, you know, it's just like an economy goes up and down. Your content will go up and down. You need to try and shield yourself and distance yourself.

From bad performing content, you know, celebrate good performing content as much as you can, but also understand that the algorithm is the algorithm. It's not linear. It's not always something that you control. There are a million different factors. Sometimes those factors have nothing to do with the algorithm.

Sometimes those factors, you know, are just Instagram testing stuff. I mean, there's so many times this year that Instagram have tested a new thing and everyone's had an algorithm hit. As a result, you know, cause they're testing a new thing. That's just so much to the algorithm. So much of the algorithm.

Look, I, I know it sounds somewhat trite to say, don't worry about views because obviously you do. And if I were to try, if anyone says to you, oh, I don't really care about views. They're lying. They're apps, you know, it's just not true. Obviously you're going to care about views. If I spend an hour making a reel, I want it to do well.

Obviously, I want it to do well. I've invested a lot of time and energy into that reel. I want it to do well, you know, and if it doesn't do well, that does affect me. You know, I'm not bulletproof. Of course it affects me. It affects everybody, right? And it sucks. And right now, my content is not performing well, and that sucks, right?

And it bugs me. It bugs the shit out of me. Something that I talk about, I think about a lot, you know? It bugs the shit out of me. But I also know, at the same time, I'm just not at that peak. Moment at the time, right? You know, and I'll get back to the peak. I know I'll get back to the peak. I know I'll get, you know, get it back online and get it crunching away.

And I also know that the reason why it's not performing very well is because, you know, I've been doing a lot of different stuff, you know, I'm kind of like shifting my niche a little bit. I'm the one who's changing stuff around and I'm the one that's creating, you know, the lower views by my decisions.

You know, so I, I know that and I manage my own expectations around that and therefore I'm in control of that, right? And so it's not that I'm like, I don't feel victimized by the whole thing, you know, I would, but I would obviously like my content to be doing better, but I don't feel victimized by the whole thing because I know these are choices that I've made, you know, so I don't get too upset about it, but, you know, it's not like it doesn't bug me.

And periodically, it's not like it doesn't then affect me. you know, outside of work, you know, when you're not growing on social, it bugs you, you know, and that bug can reach out beyond nine to five, you know, and it can be, it can manifest in emotionally different ways at home with your family and through other things, you know, and so again, you need to be mindful of how these things are You know, affecting your mental health and mental state, you know, and when that happens, you do need to address that.

We've talked about the two voices in your head in previous podcasts, where we talked about how, you know, you have two voices in your head, you have the positive and you have the protector, I like to call it, you know, and the positive is they're celebrating and the protector is like saying, oh, wait, wait, wait, you know, that's a good balance.

But when your protector starts turning into, you know, a bad person and saying negative things about you and dissing you and bringing you down and saying horrible things to you, then suddenly now those two voices are out of balance and you need to be able to address that and bring that back. Okay, so if you have a lot of negative self talk, that's something that you need to hold that negative self talker in your head to account.

So I, I think of those people, those two people in your head as literal people. And if one of them starts trash talking me, I hold that person to account and I don't allow them to talk to me in that way. I do literally think of those people as literal people. I have two people, literal people in my head, as far as I'm concerned.

And so if you're, if your negative talk is like bringing you, you know, bringing you down and it's not making you appreciate all the wins you are doing and how hard you're working and how far you've come. You know, that's something you need to hold to account. Now, one way to do that to stay, remain happy as well is to, you should always be celebrating the wins that you do get.

Every single time someone says something nice to me in the DM, I take a screenshot and I put it in a little Google drive folder, or what I do, if it's, you know, a team based is in our Microsoft teams instance, which is where we, um, You know, operate our company through, we have a separate channel called testimonials.

And I say to people every single week in our team meeting, I'm saying, anytime you see anything good said about us, screenshot it, put it in that testimonials channel and we'll use it later. Like whether you, whether you intend to use it or not is irrelevant. Okay. I want you to capture every single good thing that people say about you.

Capture it and then ideally put it in your stories. If you go to my social you'll see there's a highlight called love and that's just like hundreds of nice things people have said to me. And things that people said they appreciate about me, right? You'll also see like client wins with like hundreds and hundreds of client wins in there as well.

So, you know, you'll see loads of stuff in there. Of nice things that people have said and good things that people said, you know, and when I'm feeling down or, you know, negative, or I know that self talk is out of balance, I go back and I look through all those things and I just remind myself about, you know, my impact, you know, and it's really important that you have that, you know, whether you want to call it like a rainy day box or whatever, but it, you know, you need.

You need to capture the good things because the negatives will always outweigh the positives. I could, I could say a hundred nice things to you today. I could tell you how amazing you are and how great you are and how good a job you've done. I could, I could spend two hours telling, constantly telling you a hundred things that really tell you about how awesome you are.

All it takes is one person to say something negative about you to undo all of that. And we know, you know, you all know that that's the case. Negative talk is far, far louder than positive talk, right? And it will literally strip away and ruin everything you've done. And, you know, like I get negative comments on my ads all the time.

So I'm running an ad now and there's quite a lot of money behind that ad. So, you know, I get spammy stuff like that, you know, on these ads. All the time. You know, and, there are times when those comments go through, and they affect me. Right? And I don't want them to, but sometimes they do. And, It doesn't matter how far I've come or what I've achieved, it's entirely possible for someone to say one negative thing about you and for it to completely undo everything you've done in your head, okay?

And so you need to make sure that, you know, you're always celebrating how far you've come. Equally, if you do get something negative, and that's natural, you need to be under the You know, you need to be under the impression that you will receive negative comments in your content, particularly if you're making fearless content, which you should do, you will receive negative comments.

So don't be under the impression that you never will. You should prepare yourself for that. Okay. Cause it will happen, you know, but when that does happen, you do need to make sure you're shielding yourself as well. Okay, whether that be through resilience, I always talk about the importance of resilience and how you should be building up resilience in your life and, you know, making sure you don't go to pieces the second you receive a negative, a negative thing, you know, you should be building a resilience and you should also shield yourself from that, you know, how are some ways that you can shield yourself from that one way, which is a great way is you get your VA to do it, right?

So I get my VA to like audit my ad comments. each day and then she deletes any shit things people have said and then I go in and just talk to all the positive people, right? So I never see it, right? Likewise, block those people, okay? If there's someone in your life that is not serving you positively, block them.

Or mute them at the very least. And when I say not serving you positively, there are other people that came up with me that have far, far outrun me, you know, they've gotten hundreds of thousands, like half a million followers, and I'm still on the a hundred K and you might say, well, I would, I know that sounds like, you know, some spoiled brat thing.

I was like, oh yeah, but you still have a hundred K dad. I know I still have a hundred K, but in comparison to my peers, I am very far behind. I'm probably last in comparison to my peers who started at the same time as me and came up with me and people I used to collaborate with and connect with. Okay, I'm still way, way behind.

Now, I don't feel behind in the sense that My con, I still feel my content outranks their content a lot in the sense that it's more fun, more personal, different. Whereas theirs is more generic and boring. Okay. So, you know, the content is different and that's one of the reasons why I haven't grown as fast and why I'm not in a million is because I insist on making my content different.

And I get that. Okay. I get that. But still though, you know, growth is something that I specialize in. Growth is important to me. And when I see other people growing faster than me, it gets to me. It gets to me. Okay. I can't not let it get to me. You know, I grew up with an older brother. I'm competitive. It gets to me.

Okay. And more recently in the last year or so, I've just been muting those people. Right. And it's not that I don't want to support them, but I know it triggers negative emotions in me that don't serve me and that aren't, I don't like and aren't actually reflective of who I am. Okay. So if I see someone and I get jealous about that person, it's like, I'm not a jealous person.

I don't, I'm not going around being jealous and you know, I'm not that guy, but it does, you know, innately trigger things in me that I can't control that are, you know, me. Deeper than, you know, who I am as a person kind of thing. And that's true for everybody, right? There are always certain situations that trigger certain emotions in you that you can't really just out think you can't just say, well, don't think like that.

You know, it's like, it's not that simple, you know? And so. I mute those people. You know, if anyone says anything bad to me, I instantaneously block them. If people spam me, trying to sell to me, you know, shit, I instantly block them. I'm very, very aggressive on who is allowed in my house, uh, which is my Instagram, very, very aggressive on that.

I don't stand for it. I instantly block people by also, and again, this is another part of being Ensuring and being happy is I control that need for obligation. Now we talked about obligation in previous podcasts, about the need to have to justify yourself and defend yourself to people. Just because someone says something bad to you.

I've, I'm really working on shedding all obligation at this point. I absolutely do not need to justify myself to you or respond to you. If you say something shit to me, I don't need to defend myself to you. I don't need to tell you why you're wrong. I don't need to get into an argument with you. You know, I don't need to try and convince you of anything.

I'm just going to block you. You can fuck right off. You know, it's like, I'm just going to block you. Okay. So I'm really, for me, shedding that sense of obligation, you know, is another key part of, of being happy. It's like. You're not obligated to explain yourself to people, you know, this really does affect your happiness as a creator because if you feel like you have to defend yourself all the time, then what's going to happen is, one of two things, A, you're always, the negative comments are always going to get through, and they're going to make you unhappy, or B, because you feel obligated to defend yourself all the time, the content that you make is going to be boring and shit, because it's just going to be, you know, vanilla stuff you don't even like, And so now, because you're so worried about other people's opinion, you spend the whole time making content you don't even like, or that you know you actually have stronger opinions on, that you won't share because you're worried that other people will have an opinion on it.

Right? So ridding yourself of obligation is an important part. The next one is Your workflow, your workflow will make or break you. It will be the absolute deciding factor as to whether you are happy as a creator or you fucking hate content. Okay. If you have a work, no workflow where you just make content on the day and that content is always last minute and nothing is ever scheduled and there's absolutely no room for error.

then eventually that content will drop and it will always be stressful for you. If you've got no fucking clue what you're going to talk about today, okay, and you look at your watch, there's only an hour left, okay, that is stressful. And if you go through that every day, then the way you see content won't be in a controlled manner that serves you.

You'll see it as a chore that stresses you out. And so the way you see content. And what it represents will be completely different to what it can represent. And so your workflow will break you. You know, you just won't be able to keep up with that. You just won't, you know? And so whenever I say to people like, post daily, they always think to me, Oh, that means I have to make a new post every single day.

And I say, no, posting daily, isn't posting every day. Posting daily is seven scheduled posts per week. Okay. Posting daily is seven scheduled posts per week because posting daily isn't about what you actually do. It's about what you appear to do. So if I have seven scheduled posts per week, I appear to be daily posting to my audience, but actually I've batched it all at the weekend.

Okay. And so I made a post a while back called the consistency illusion, which is all about how it's not about being consistent. It's about creating the illusion of being consistent. IE, if I batch my content, the whole week's worth of content, then schedule it out. I'm not consistent because I'm not posting every single day, right?

I just appear to be consistent because I've spread that content out. And that's different. Okay. So you must, must, must get a workflow in place that actually works for you. Otherwise the workflow will break you and it will make you unhappy every day. Oh shit. I haven't done a post today. Oh God. What am I going to do?

Oh God. I haven't got any ideas. Oh God. I haven't got time. I've got all this stuff going on with time. I've got time. I've got calls all day. There's no time for this. I've got calls all day. Yeah. It's not going to work for you. It's going to stress you out and it's going to make you resent. The process of being a creator, you'll resent it.

And that comes full circle into my last thing, which is the importance of remembering what I call the inception moment, which is the seed, the seed of doubt. The seed of stress, the seed, all it takes, all it takes to derail you from your passion and the thing that you want to pursue and the life that you want.

All it takes is one inception moment, one small seed planted in your head that grows into a worldview. That is all it takes. And for those of you that have seen the movie Inception, you'll know what that looks like. Um, it's an incredible movie. If you haven't watched it, go and watch it. But in the movie Inception, they plant a seed of doubt in his wife's mind.

head that she doesn't know where it's come from but suddenly she starts doubting the world in which she's in and i won't tell you how that works out but it's very very you know incredible script an incredible story about it but the point is like it all it takes is one little seed just one little bit of doubt that then each day You revisit that seed and then suddenly that seed gets a little bigger and suddenly it sprouts a leaf and then suddenly it starts growing into a little twig and then suddenly it starts growing into a tree and then suddenly it starts turning into this massive tree that looms over you and makes you think differently.

So, for example, worry. We've all been there where we've worried too much or we've been an over worrier. Maybe you are an over worrier right now. Over worrying starts with that one seed. You know, it's that, oh, what will people think of me? That's it. That's all it takes. And if that seed is allowed to grow, it can turn into anxiety.

It can turn into you never leaving your house ever again. But it all started with that one tiny seed of doubt. What would people think of me? Isn't that crazy? I mean, let's think about it for a minute. Isn't that crazy that that one sentence can grow into you never leaving your house ever again. Just think about how powerful that is.

And that's what happens a lot with people is I can tell they have a seed in them that's growing or they've allowed it to grow. And over time it's completely changed their worldview. And suddenly now they're paralyzed, or they're incapable, or they're constantly unhappy, and they can't convince themselves to think differently.

They're like, oh Dan, you know, everyone hates my content, and I'm like, what are you talking about? There's like, all these people saying how awesome you are, you have all these DMs of people saying that they really appreciate you. You've got all this stuff around you that contradicts that, but they can't, they just can't believe it.

Oh Dan, all my content's doing so badly. What are you talking about? You're getting thousands and thousands of views with like, you've got 500 followers and you're getting 3, 000 views. What are you talking about? That's massive. You know, you've got, you're getting like 8 times more views than you have followers.

That's amazing. But they can't believe it. No matter what evidence is put in front of them, no matter what you say, they cannot change their worldview. Because they have this one seed, and until that seed is dug up, they cannot change. And you all listening now, probably have a seed, maybe you have multiple seeds.

growing at the moment, and I strongly encourage you to say, dig down into the roots of where this stuff is coming from. You know, if you're unhappy, like, dig down. What are you really unhappy about? You know, dig down, try and find the seed. You know, and it can be as simple as just one sentence. A great way to dig down into seeds, and to do a little bit of a thought experiment with yourself.

Is to do the five whys. Okay, so I want you to write down why you're unhappy. Okay, and then underneath that Write why do you think that is and then answer it and then underneath that put why do you think that is and then do That five times. Okay, at least if not more but a time you get you've asked yourself Why five times you're gonna find that the answer to that question is gonna be something quite profound But once you understand what that is, once you understand what the seed really is you are then empowered to be able to do something about it.

Small steps to, you know, tear down the tree and change your worldview, you know, and change your perspective. Equally though, if you're happy right now, that's awesome. But you need to be very mindful of the potential for those seeds and those inception moments to change your worldview. Okay. Which is why you've got, you've got to manage the people around you.

And you've got to block people and you can't allow people into there. You can't allow someone to plant that seed in your head and potentially derail your life. You know, you talk to people that are manic depressants, right? They have a seed that they cannot shake. They cannot shake it. And so what they do instead of being able to, you know, tear up that seed and pull down that tree, what they do is they're trying to forget about that tree by drinking and taking drugs.

Because it makes them forget about the seed. It doesn't actually remove it. Right? And so it's really important that we protect ourselves, which is why I talk about things like resilience, which is why I talk about things like ensuring that we do things that we're happy with, which is why I talk about, you know, ensuring that you block people and you mute people and you remove those negative things in your life that either, you know, are trying to plant seeds in your head or have the potential to plant those seeds in your head.

You have to cut those things out, you know. as soon as possible. You cannot let those things sit in the ground and start sprouting. You cannot let that happen. You must cut them out or resolve them. Okay. Resolve them because once they start growing in your head, you'll find them incredibly difficult to remove again.

Okay. So you always be mindful of that. And you know, I have a little bit of a seed in my head that I'm doing some internal work on to try and like grow that out of saying, you know, Hey, You know, I am a bit frustrated with my content and I'm not really feeling particularly happy about the way that my content is performing and that's making me feel like, you know, I'm not doing a very good job and that's a bit of a seed in my head and I have had that seed in my head over the last six months or so.

And I'm having to do some internal work in order to be able to come back around. So what does that look like? Firstly, the five whys, do the identification, work out what that is. I know what that is now, so that's good. The second one is, you need to take action in order to be able to remove that. Okay, what do I mean by action?

Whatever the seed is preventing, you need to be doing that thing. Okay. Or whatever the seed is telling you is wrong. You need to actually do that thing anyway. You know? So if it's like that, you know, I feel bad. I feel like my content, no one likes my content. My content is shit and everyone hates my content.

How do you solve that? You don't solve it by never making content again, right? You solve it by going out there and just making whatever the hell you want, but you can't stop making content. Okay. And stopping doing what you're doing as a result from that seed is the worst thing that you can do. Because then what happens is all you're doing is validating that that seed was right all along and then that seed grows and grows bigger and bigger and suddenly becomes this looming tree that You know, you can't escape the shade of, you know, so you need to like take action.

You need to kind of go, well, okay. If I'm starting to feel that doubt and fear, like now's not the time to stop making content. Now's the time to make more content. You know, that's the time to actually do more. Okay. If I'm worried, if I, if I'm starting to get anxious about being around people in real life, the worst thing you could possibly do is to stop meeting new people.

That's the worst thing you could possibly do, because all that it's going to do is going to validate that. And it's going to let that seed grow. Well, I'm starting to feel anxious about being around people. So I need to get myself in front of more people now before this turns into something that's really uncontrollable for me.

You know, right now I'm feeling a little bit of anxiety. Okay. I need to just get myself out there a little bit. Okay. But don't let that turn into, you know, uncontrollable anxiety where you never leave the house again. And it's really. You know, it's really insidious. It really is. It starts with these tiny little roots that then grow out into these sort of tendrils that completely affect your life, you know, and if you haven't felt it already, I think most people who listen to this podcast will have felt that at some point in their life, but if not, you'll know someone that has been impacted by something like, you know, and so, um, Like, make sure that you're taking action.

Don't stop taking action. Action is the way to overcome these things. You must take action upon that. You must recognize it, and then take action upon it to revert it. Not shield yourself away from it, and then, you know, become this sort of shell of what you once were. So put all those things together. I know that sounds like a lot to deal with when it comes to staying happy as a content creator, but, um, you know, just as a sidebar, obviously today's conversation has been about how to stay happy as a content creator.

But all of the things that I've discussed here, you know, these are all in general happiness. Okay. This is going to be your nine to five. It could be anything that you're doing in general, all of the stuff that I've talked about, you know, effects. Whatever you're doing, whether you're a content creator or not.

When I talk about workflow, right? Let's say you're doing a nine to five and you haven't got your shit together than a nine to five and all your projects are going to shit. That's a bad workflow. You're going to feel unhappy, right? When I talk about blocking people, if you have a manager, there's a total dick and you can't resolve that and that person's, you know, like real, really negative energy in your life, you need to get a new manager.

You know, so it all has parallels in everyday life. I'm just putting it through the lens of, you know, content creation. But, you know, these are just general life skills that you should be looking at in order to be able to be happy. Like you should always, always push your happiness over, you know, everything else, you know, that's not to say that you should be shying away from hard work and say, Oh, well, you know, I'm tired.

I want to work. It's like, no, that's a discipline issue, not a happiness issue. Okay, so you should work hard, play hard. Okay, that's my, that's all I say. Look, work hard, play hard. Okay, get what you need to get done, work hard, and then go play and enjoy the fruits of your success. Celebrate your wins.

Celebrate all the positive things that people say about you. Celebrate your impact. Celebrate your progress. Look back on where you came from and look to where you are now and really appreciate just how far you've come. And instead of, like, worrying about, you know, how far you have to go, celebrate how far you have to go, you know?

I'm a long way off a million followers, but, you know, I like the thought of getting there. You know, I don't go, Oh shit, you know, it's been two years. I'm still not there. You know, I like the thought of getting there, you know, I'm going to figure it out just like everyone else is going to figure it out. So, you know, enjoy the journey.

Ultimately, you know, you only get one ride in this life. Okay. So just make sure you have. As much fun as possible. So there you go. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast today. I hope you've gotten value out of this one. And if I've said things that resonate with you and you think you would want to pass those things on to other people to help other people also enjoy the process that is this wonderful world of content and social media, then please go ahead and pass on this podcast to your friends.

You can send them a link to it. You can share it on your stories. You could talk about it on a live. However, you want to pass it on I'd really appreciate it if you shared it with your friends And let us reach as many people as possible. Another way you can do that, which only takes a second, is by rating and reviewing the podcast.

Go into your podcast catcher and drop me five stars and let us know what you thought of the show. If there was a big aha moment, if there was a big breakthrough moment, talk about it in the comment and let other people see what's waiting for them should they tune into the show. All of your ratings and reviews go such a long way to moving us up the charts and getting us in front of as many people as possible.

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