If you struggle with making content, please watch this.

My last team produced over 350 pieces of content every single week. And over the course of my career, I've made well over 5,000 different videos just myself. But then when it came time to make content for myself, I hesitated.

Not because I didn't know how, but because I actually knew exactly what it would take. the pressure, the mental noise, the fear of being misunderstood, or the fear of being cringe, or becoming someone the algorithm loves, but I don't want to be. We have all the reasons in the world to not make content.

In this video, I am going to do my best to share how I'm going to go about making content despite all of those reasons. [Music] Content isn't hard because you don't know how to do it. It's hard because people build it in a way that they can't sustain.

And I think this happens for a couple of different reasons. I mean, first off, people start creating content with the most insane expectations, especially within the first 6 months. They look at the top dogs in the space and think they're going to get the same exact results as them from the get.

And what's even crazier about this is that the majority of people that are wanting these results, these crazy results, they're not doing the actions that are necessary to get those results. I can't tell you how many different people over the years have reached out asking me to help them build what Gary Vaynerchuk has with Team Gary Vee. And to be completely honest with you, I ignore the majority of those requests because I know they're not willing to make the investment necessary, the investment in money, in time, in attention, and the sacrifice they'll have to make with their privacy.

These are really, really big commitments for somebody to be making. Another thing I've seen is people creating process that they end up hating, dreading. They film in formats that they absolutely hate or feel extremely uncomfortable in like vlog style, direct to camera, or video essay.

I mean, the reality is is a lot of people are not comfortable filming direct to camera shorts, for example. What they would actually prefer is somebody off camera asking them questions, more of an interview style. And so, I see so many people doing this and trying to uh play this game that they know works, but it won't work for them.

or even worse, they talk about things that make them want to bump it. I've seen it time after time. You work with a team that wants you to film your best networking hacks.

Thank you so much. Kind of gross, right? I mean, as a CEO of a $600 million a year direct to consumer team, that's probably the last thing you want to talk about.

So, for me, I'm actually trying to build this in an extremely intentional way, right? I want this to be something that I enjoy, not something that I absolutely dread and hate doing. And I'm doing this by making film sessions something that I enjoy, something that is additive, not subtractive to my life, right?

And one of the ways that I'm doing that is actually trying to pick cool locations and cool Airbnbs, uh, for example, to film these videos in, right? And so we travel to some cool location. Now, the benefit to this is not only does that add to my life, we get to film those videos in the middle of the week and then my girlfriend and my dog can come out and visit me during the weekend.

And so it becomes something that isn't detracting from my life and my family's life. It's actually making it better. Or in this example where we're actually filming this video while I'm on a motorcycle ride.

this is something that I love doing and so I'm pairing making content with something that's enjoyable. So that way I associate making content with the things that I love. [Music] Thank you so much.

You're welcome. Appreciate it. You got it.

When I was 16 years old, I had a show on YouTube called Mass Muscle TV. And this was a show where I would interview different professional bodybuilders and powerlifters. But I was 16 years old when I did this.

I was in high school. And because of that, I was a little bit more on the awkward side, let's say. And that awkwardness unfortunately got picked up on by the trolls in the comment section on YouTube.

Um, and I don't blame him honestly. It was pretty awkward. And that was really tough.

But this was kind of the beginning of me as a young lad building the thick skin that is necessary in order to put yourself out there online. But ultimately, I actually found that I started shying further and further away from being in front of the camera and started gaining more and more comfort being behind it. And not only have I encountered it myself, I've actually seen the people that I've worked for get completely rad through the coals in their comment section for the content they're putting out there as well.

I found the internet to be an absolutely brutal place. [Music] As you can imagine, this is a really tough one for me. Like, is this something that you can overcome or is it too big of a hurdle to jump?

Well, first off, I plan on not putting a whole lot of weight or stock into the more positive comments that I receive in the content. It's the easiest way to make yourself vulnerable to the negative comments is getting too high on the positive because it leaves you with only one option when you receive negative comments. You go low.

I also want to take a page out of Eminem's book. His character in 8 Mile lists off all the different things, all the different disses, reasons why his opponent could talk [ __ ] This essentially takes all the power out of anyone else's hands to talk [ __ ] because you already called it out. It no longer has power.

So, as I get more comfortable, I'd like to do this more and more in my own context. [Music] This is honestly the most insane thing for me to be concerned about out of all people. But I've had moments where I've been concerned about giving away too much free value in my own content.

I of all people should know that this is [ __ ] right? Like I've been a part of this system, the content machine that provides insane levels of value multiple times in my career and I've seen the kind of results that it produces and yet I've been debating it. I'm actually almost embarrassed to say this, but [ __ ] it.

I will share it. Uh day two after filming our 6h hour and 22minute course that we dropped completely for free on YouTube. Uh, we had just finished day two of filming.

It was like 12, 13 hours of filming. And I look over at Trevor and I was like, "Dude, I know we want to put this out for free, but we could put this out and probably make over a million dollars. I feel pretty confident in that.

" And the reality is, for those of you watching that may not know me, turning down a million dollars is a lot. Like, that's a huge number for me. It's not like I'm some multi-millionaire that uh, you know, can easily turn something like that down.

That is not an easy thing for me to turn down, right? All of this work, 30 hours worth of filming, plus hundreds of hours in post-prouction for what? Actually, the opposite ended up happening.

Within 7 days, I met with three brands that are a dream of mine to work with. And so, I'm clearly being reinforced and I'm being told by the content that the value we're putting out is producing the outcomes that I want. And so, I actually have a goal now of trying to push the boundaries.

Trevor and I have been talking about how how do we push the boundaries on what is acceptable to release to the public for free, right? And it's all following the big principle of share the knowledge, sell the personalization. [Music] I think I've been concerned or worried about coming across as a little cringe or not myself in the content that we're making.

And there's the obvious extreme examples of what you want to avoid. uh the dancing real estate agent pointing at different copy on screen or the grindset mindset entra bro or the motivational lip syncer on Tik Tok. Is there anything inherently wrong with creating in this way?

Absolutely not. In fact, I think it's great. But for me, it would be a problem because it wouldn't be in line with who I am as a human.

[Music] Hey, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Have a good one. I think there's this huge temptation that exists when making content to portray a character that isn't who we really are, right? I think uh for a lot of people, this comes out of insecurity.

Now, some of you watching, maybe this is your sticktick. Maybe you your whole content game and brand is built around this madeup character. Okay, cool.

Keep doing you. But for the majority of us, we're portraying somebody who we aren't because we're insecure about who we really are. And I think that this is something that if we continue to do, it's not sustainable.

We won't be able to stick with it for a long time. And ultimately, this content thing is something that I think would be cool to do for more than a year. But realistically, if I'm not being myself, I'm not going to do it for more than 6 months.

[Music] One of the biggest vulnerabilities in making educational content online is that I don't have any control over the audience application. And actually through this whole process, mislication by the audience has been one of my biggest concerns in making content in general. But that's something that we actually have to somewhat relinquish in creating educational content.

Control. We don't have any control on how the audience interprets what we're sharing or how they end up taking action. The only things that we do have control over, however, are the clarity of our message.

How easy do we make it to understand what the action steps are that people are supposed to take on the other side of viewing this content? This is the area that we do have control in and that we can put all of our effort into to increase the clarity for our audience. You can actually take this a step further and pair a download with your video to hopefully increase the odds that your audience actually takes action on everything that you're sharing in your video.

I did this exact same thing on the next video. Click here to watch. If you're still here, you should probably click.

I mean, this is [ __ ] ridiculous. I've been laying here forever. Bye now.