E078 - I Grew My Audience From 0 to 6.1 Million Followers With This Four-Step Framework

25:55And then that's what I've done personally and I've seen success with. And do you prepare them for obviously the inevitability of nobody watching? Yes. And like how to deal with that? So this is something I always tell every, I love the fact that you asked that question because I think I never posted content for the immediate time. I always say that even today, I always think about posting content for the future. And what I mean by that is people get so worked up on, I need to get this video to have a million views, right? But in reality, the matter is one day your time will come. One day, if you post every single day, luck will show up at your door and you'll be able to take advantage of it.

26:35How? Because that viewer will then see your repository, your library of videos that you've been creating, and they'll know that you have established credibility in the sense where, and you probably feel the exact same way. When somebody blows up on the scene, right? You look at what they've done prior. And if they're just somebody that got lucky or they've gotten successful for X, Y, and Z reason, that seems a bit trivial, it's one thing. But if you see their account and you're like, wow, they've been at it for two, three years and they've been helping people all throughout that entire process, amazing.

27:01And then you start to recognize, and you've probably had this too, where your video goes viral and then it bleeds into your other content pieces, right? So I remember when I first posted, I probably got a few hundred views, few thousand views at most. And the one video had gotten really viral at that period of time, probably, well, I shouldn't say really, to me at that time, it was really fun. It was like tens of thousands of views. But then that trickled into all the content pieces that I was posting for my last three, four, five months daily. That's what I post content for. So I tell every single creator that is first starting, you're not posting for today.

27:33You're posting for that day when luck meets the great opportunity of you getting good at creating content. Once that happens, they will look at all of your library of content and you will have established credibility and you will blossom. And this has happened like time and time again. And I would look at so many creators. I'm like, no, you're getting it wrong. Don't worry so much about the views right now. Just focus on what you can create content consistently on. Once we do that and establish that with everything I just talked about, then something usually hits in three, four, five months. And once that does, it's like, boom, then they really escalate.

28:01I think that's the secret to it. Yeah, I think I experienced something like that. It was, well, first of all, I just thought that because I had a couple hundred thousand followers on Instagram, everyone would just convert, watch the videos on YouTube, which they didn't. you know i would i would struggle if i would even just to get a thousand views yeah to begin with which wasn't very good so i was i didn't know what people wanted to see because the videos which i watched were kind of more vloggy like uh lifestyle stuff and i was not i don't think i'd built up that charisma and personality on camera yet so i couldn't get away with it so i tried loads of different things and i think it was probably like it must have been like between the 15th or 20th video it popped yes and for whatever reason maybe it was a good thumbnail but the content was good as well got like a hundred thousand views that's insane and i was like okay so this this is what people want yes so then that was when i shifted everything and i for me it became very clear that education was what people wanted like just straight to the point no just sharing experience and talk to the camera like I was talking to one of my clients.

29:11And that obviously did very well for the first couple of years when I was doing it. I love it. And you were talking about too, when you were studying other vlogs per se, when you're trying to figure out what type of content will perform well, how do you handle and manage inspirations, right? Because I think people, when they think about studying someone else's content, they think that you weren't completely ripping off their content or they're stealing it away. But I've learned over time that when you're researching what's working, it's so important, right? Because you start to understand the format and structure of somebody's video that had performed well.

29:43And then you combine it with what I just said, my creator vision. And so you combine it with your own messaging. And I think that's when you make a unique piece of content and enable it to have its highest chance of success. But I wanna hear about your perspective on how you - So with me, when I was on YouTube too, it was either entertainment or education. And I think back then, this is 2016, there was not as many people doing the educating, but there were some people doing it my biggest problem was i never thought i was good enough i was like these guys i mean they were like 10 years older 20 years older than me so they had more experience studied it for longer and i just thought like i'm not at that level yet like i'm not in a position where i have the credibility to be talking about this kind of thing and then i thought hang on a second like i don't necessarily have to say like this is how it works or you know this is right this is wrong because when it comes to fitness and nutrition you know sometimes there really isn't a right or wrong answer it's more of a personal journey which you you know you kind of figure out for yourself so then i i changed my approach to it and just shared my experience so it was always like in my opinion this is what i do this is what works for me these are the mistakes which i made and then nobody could really give me any shit because i was like i was not saying it who's right or wrong, I was just saying, this is what I do.

31:03And then people are like, oh, okay, this is what Mike does. So maybe I'll give it a try. And obviously it works for Mike. So it's probably gonna work for other people. No, I love that so much because usually the other question that I get from beginning creators or even creators have been doing for so long is imposter syndrome, right? The thought of, yeah, am I actually qualified to teach on this topic? But I love the way you've just phrased that because in my creative vision, it's that uniqueness. It's your truth. Nobody can take that away. And I think so many people try to speak through a lens that they shouldn't speak through, right?

31:33It's not black or white. It is your opinion on the matter. And because you obviously look the way that you do when you say something, it holds value. And I think people get away from that too early. They think I have to speak of it like, oh, I've done it for so long and I'm so experienced. But if you could take that ego away and just speak about like, to be honest, I really don't know this is what I would do in that situation and it's allowed me to have success. Yeah, and obviously don't talk about things you don't understand. Yes. Because that, what people will see through that. And I always made it my point to not try and, you know, be the expert about everything.

32:05You know, people would ask me to make a video on a particular topic. I'm like, I don't have a clue about that. Like, I'm not even going to try and pretend I know about that. So I'm just not going to do it. The funny thing is, I mean, even to this day, the people who know the most, like the experts, usually do a very terrible job at actually creating content. Yes. and those people who really they don't really know that much like they've not done the studying they haven't got the certification but they just mastered the art of creating content they're the ones that have built like millions of followers i think it's changed a little bit now because you know podcasts are popular so like somebody can actually build a big audience because you know either they have a podcast they go other people's podcasts people like okay this guy knows his stuff but especially with short form content it's usually there's a lot of very popular creators who who actually don't really know that much, but they're just good at it.

33:00Yeah, it's a good point. There's the other flip of that too, where there's something called the curse of knowledge, where if you're too experienced in something, it's hard for you to understand how somebody had started with it. So you're just too far removed from it. So I think who are really excellent short form creators are ones that are not the completely experts at that side, but also somebody that can go through the journey, but speak through it in a manner that's eloquent or is educational. It's the communication skill. Yeah, because you can know as much as you want in the entire world, but if nobody could hear it from your mouth, it doesn't matter, right?

33:33So I found that too, where it does annoy me sometimes though, where there are creators that you can tell that they don't know what they're talking about and they'll speak on it just to build an audience. Like for example, me and Sean talk about this all the time. We will see people teach on how to create content, but they've never built an audience themselves or they haven't been doing it for long enough or they haven't made money aside from the fact that teaching people on how to build an audience. And it just blows my mind because they'll say things. And I'm like, a creator would never say that because it's so much more nuanced than that, right?

34:06And so I think it's important also for me as a viewer, because I like to consume content, to be very, very mindful of that and not to take every piece of information for what it is. But if you can find creators, I think that there are out there, right? Like for you, for example, other creators who are in different fields that do a really good job of communicating, not making it overly complicated because it doesn't need to be, but at the same time they have the credibility established. That's like the right type of creator to listen to. Yeah, because I know there's people who I follow in the fitness industry and they really do know their stuff, but they do a terrible job of communicating.

34:40Like they use the most scientific terms possible and will either make a video which is so complex or using words which nobody's gonna understand. and the majority of people who are consuming it, they just don't know what the hell they're talking about. So there is like, there's definitely a skill to break a complex topic down and simplify it so that everybody can digest it. I totally agree. Even when I was starting to create my products on evidence-based learning strategies, that was the forefront of my mind, right? When I was writing those guides or that book, I knew for a fact, if I spoke about it from too scientific of a terminology, it wasn't gonna help anybody, right?

35:25So to know that information, to have that credibility, but also break it down, I think that those are like the golden creators that I have found myself really, really liking to watch their content too. Yeah. If you are a creator or let's say for example, people who are thinking about being creators, they wanna start their own thing. Would you get them to sit down and list their strengths and weaknesses? and if they do have weaknesses, would you say to them, you need to work upon this or is it simply just a case of trying to hire someone to do the thing you're not good at? Because I know sometimes if you are bad at something and you understand you're bad at something, sometimes you need to get good at it.

36:08And then in some cases, you don't need to be the one that's good at that. You can just get somebody else to do that and you focus on the thing that you're doing. It's such a good question. And I think in most cases, you should start it on your own, just because you need the experience before you even bring somebody on, so you know what they're talking about, right? The worst thing that happened is you bring somebody on that is really good at their job. And then when they leave, you have no idea how to continue on that success. But it also matters as to who your audience is, right? So I know my audience comes from a lot of my background where they're not necessarily quote unquote, people who have money to then start creating content.

36:43If you have the money and the resources, of course it makes sense for you to bring on a team. But a lot of my friends that want to start creating content are people that don't have any money that are trying to start it out like I did. And I think in that capacity, you can just try to simplify it as much as possible. So this has happened probably like thousands and thousands of times at this point. I would just sit down and create her and it depends on the personality, right? If you're somebody that comes to me and says, I want to start creating content, but I can tell from your personality that you're just wanting to get started, I'm like, cool, just post.

37:09Like we'll post and then we'll speak on how to improve upon it. But there are a lot of creators who come from my background that are very, very nervous, right? That need a level of structure to their content to make them feel comfortable producing it. Like I was similar to that. So in that case, I would sit them down and say, this is your creator vision in a very comfortable conversation. Here are all the different video ideas. Here's my 100 video rules for the first 20 videos we'll post on this set of interests and we'll just keep doing it like that. And that structure is enough usually for a creator to have that start and the confidence that they'll figure it out.

37:39Because I think also the issue with content creation is you have no idea if the effort that you're putting in today will actually pay off. For the first three, four years of me creating content, I wasn't making any money, right? Any considerable amounts of money, right? I was maybe getting like$100 off of the TikTok creator fund. Well, yeah, TikTok's probably like, well, back then at least, it was not. The worst, right? And even Instagram paid me maybe at most like a few thousand per like three months of creating content. So it didn't necessarily feel that abundant. But you start to recognize that, you know what?

38:10if you can show up and focus on the levers that really matter. And I think that that's what a good teacher is supposed to do, right? There's somebody that's supposed to say, this is the roadmap, do this. And I promise you it'll pay off if you just focus on what matters. I think when somebody starts creating content, like I got to make money right away. Oh, I got to do X, Y, and Z right away. And then it kind of takes their attention away from what really does matter. Yeah, people don't let me be sold to all the time as well. I agree. It's very hard to build an audience if you're already from the very start.

38:37From the get-go, right? I've seen that though. Like people will try and sell something on their like second post. They'll say something like, oh, you should listen to me because you know, blah, blah, blah. And they'll sell like a$5 ,000 program. Like bro, who like, at least establish some credibility before you just sell something to somebody. So I think a creator, it depends on the personality. If there's somebody like you maybe that are ambitious and just wants to go for it, great. But if somebody needs a little bit more structure, that's usually how I do it. And I usually find them to have success.

39:04I think the, one of the biggest excuse that people will have is if they're let's say they already have a job yeah they're getting some money but it's taken up a lot of their time yeah and they don't want to be there anymore and this the there is this other option of creating content but it's finding the time so is there any tips that you could give people to really try and optimize any time which they do have available because you know sometimes the process of filming is one thing yeah getting it right having to do the same freaking thing like 50 times to get it out the way you want to say it but then you got to edit it yeah then you've got to distribute it and then there's like multiple platforms to distribute it on so like what is the the quickest most effective way to do it for somebody who originally is like short on time that's a great question and when i was creating content with with both my degrees, I had probably 70 hours dedicated to my schoolwork and I was finding little pockets of time from either the morning or during my breaks, during school, during lunchtime to produce and make my content and post it.

40:11And what happens often is when somebody thinks about content creation, they think about exactly what you're talking about in terms of the filming, the editing and the posting. Those are the three, what I call production elements. But I actually think people don't realize how important pre-production is. And I'm so heavy on the planning side. if you look at any of my content mike you would probably be like how does this crater have eight million that's my weakest yeah in terms of the pre-planning yeah because i just the amount of times i'll just you know i'll say to chris like hey we're gonna film a video today yeah and then i just go out yeah and just hope that something happens yeah and i get a vlog from it sometimes it goes off but because of the lack of planning like i'll have a video and i'll have no title Right.

40:52I'm like, what am I supposed to call this? No, seriously. I think that that's where I hope more people can realize that if you can plan properly, it just makes everything so quick. So I'm so serious about this. If you look at my content, you would see, and probably if you took one piece of content, somebody would ask the question, how does this person have - Are we talking about a TikTok video or YouTube video? Literally, you can pick any of them. Yeah. Even if you, I mean, my YouTube most recent one is much more highly produced because it It was a big project that we were at for a Tokyo trip, et cetera.

41:22So yes, there are certain videos I do take more time on. But if you were to pick up any YouTube video, if you were to pick up perhaps any of my reels or my TikTok, somebody would say, I don't know how this guy has 8 million followers, right? They would be like, that's crazy. But what people don't realize is I spend probably 80 % of my time studying my audience and 20 % of the time actually producing the content. And why does that work? Because if you can speak to your audience directly and you understand them in and out, And that's not something where you do one time and that's it. You know, people change and they evolve too.

41:54So I studied them like nonstop. So I would spend so much time in DMs, comments, in lives, in story posts, in their polls. And I would literally study for hours. And when I did that, I'm like, cool. People that are watching my content are just like me. They're ambitious. They're probably from an underprivileged background. They also have this type of level of confusion and chaos because a lot of hardworking people, when they're younger feel this level of guilt and anxiety because they know they should be doing more, but they're not doing more. So it was exactly what I was going through. So there was like these small pain points I would recognize over and over and over again.

42:28So when I sit here and literally, Mike, I bet if we sat down and I recorded us literally just talking this podcast, I could do a text above us and we'd get a million, two million views. And it did really well even when I was starting out. It wasn't a million, but it was probably like 10 ,000 views or 15 ,000 views. Why? Because I could put in that, just came from my biomedical engineering background, was in a classroom with my lab coat on, and now I'm sitting next to Mike Thurston doing this podcast in Dubai. Like that type of experience where somebody can recognize, wow, I also was in that position, right?

43:00And now I'm trying to look at you to get somewhere, right? And that speaks to your audience. So to your point, I think there's a lot of practical things that I can tell somebody. There's batching, there's repurposing, there's reposting, there's my three-take rule where I will do something. If I can't get it in three takes, I'll just move on, right? There are small practical things like that. That's interesting. It's retake. Yeah, yeah. So there's small practical things. But what if it's like a really good idea? In terms of? It could be a great video idea, but you just mess it up. Then I'll just go back.

43:26I think it's so much easier for me to move on and then come back and refilm the parts that I was weak on. Because I get so in my head and I get so - I get angry with myself. There's times, Mike, when I'm recording a YouTube video, my editors know this. I'm like so frustrated. I'm like pissed off. And I think that people don't realize that if you do that, it sucks the joy out of it. So if it really is bad, I'll just do three times. And if it's bad, move on, keep going for the rest. That's happened a lot with me. And I feel bad sometimes because I get myself worked up and then I just kill the energy in the room.

43:56And people can feel it, right? And like all my team are like, Mike is not happy right now. But it happens. And I think too, it's so normal for creators that people don't realize it because they only see the polished view of it. They don't see like 35 takes that went into it. But yeah, the three take was saving so much time. So yeah, 80 % planning, getting it right, understanding my audience, 20 % getting out my phone, recording it, understanding the angles, et cetera, and then just posting it. So what about, especially at this stage, what's your process for coming up with ideas? Same thing. The exact same thing since year two or year one when I really understood my creator vision.

44:32I literally go back every single month and will iterate on my creator vision. And I will say, all right, my creator vision, the what, the who, uniqueness, monetization. Let me figure out all the different things that I can create content on and let me continuously experiment. So I literally do like the hundred video rules still to this day, because I don't know what will perform well if I don't experiment with the new styles. And that's all it is. And so I don't necessarily have this like fancy way of like always knowing what content to produce, but that's how I think about idea generation. But then the other aspect to your point is like, how do you package it so that it's engaged with?

45:04And that's when I look at inspiration. I'm like, all right, this format and style is really good. Let me combine that with all these different ideas. So it's the exact same process. And now I have the resources and the capital to invest into a videographer. I have somebody to invest into editing. And so I take and delegate the work that I don't feel like is the higher leverage points for me. And then I focus on my short form content. I focus on like YouTube ideas because I think that is really where my attention is best served. You probably feel the same way, right? Well, the thing I like about YouTube is just like, the videos seem to be around for a lot longer.

45:34Like I'll just get some views that'll pile up on a video that's like a year old. The problem with a lot of short form content is maybe it's around for a few days and then it kind of gets lost in the noise unless for whatever reason the algorithm wants to push it. It's a lot more hit and miss. And it's, I think with my experience, luckily I placed a lot of my attention on YouTube and that's worked out for me. But when short form content was on the rise, I was like, nah, like I'm not getting involved with that. like i thought it was stupid because it originally it was like all the tick tock dancing yeah yeah and then i feel as though that damaged my rate of growth and maybe where you know i could have exponentially being a lot more well known if i had put more emphasis on the short form content and i think now i'm starting to realize that and i've also got a team to you know help me with it but i just i feel like i don't like making really short videos especially if the any question i get asked about fitness or whatever these are quite complex topics that cannot be fully discussed in 30 seconds yeah i can summarize it but i'm missing out a lot yeah and i'm overly simplifying it and annoys me because i'm overly simplifying it i would prefer to have an open discussion about a particular topic for however long it needs to be discussed for and then that go out but problem is people don't have the patience for listening, you know, for 10 minutes or more, they want answers and they want it quick.

47:10So, um, I guess that's something which I'm, I'm trying to do now. It's like, how do I just convey advice or information in a short period of time, which people can kind of, well, first of all, watch it all the way to the end and then, you know, help them and take something away from it. I love hearing your perspective. Cause you obviously started with long form. Now you go into short form. I went short form then into long form. And I've really thought about it from a funnels perspective, right? Where your short form content is your overarching exposure to an audience, a larger audience, because we all know short form content is now being prioritized as the main discovery channel.

47:45And so once you can focus upon it in that light, you know that, yeah, there's a very complex topic, even with learning strategies. I hate the fact that I have to sit there in like 30 seconds, figure out exactly what to produce it because I don't get the complexity down. However, I've started recognizing, yeah, that's not the point of short form content, that I can start to really nurture that audience and have them be funneled into long form content and they can learn more of the details. But sometimes people just want practical tips. People just want something a little bit quicker and you should be able to give it to them.

48:14And so when I started to think about it from that perspective, I'm like, cool, short form is where I drive a lot of my traffic because discovery is huge there, right? Once you can understand short form content, your page blossoms like crazy. Even it's not just long form content from a content perspective, it's monetary, right? So even when I do a product launch for the Learning System book, for example, when I would do a reel for it, the traffic was insane onto Shopify. So that's what I'm saying. There's still great power in it, but you're absolutely right. You still do need long form to have that depth of information.

48:47But now that perspective has helped. Also, another perspective that has helped is that there's just always an argument where somebody would say long form content is better because you're sitting with them for a longer period of time. So let's say that you have a 20 minute video and somebody is watching it for 25 % retention rates. Like you have five minutes with that viewer. But the way I think about short form content is like, if I can post every single day, a minute long video, seven times a week, that audience member is seeing it for seven minutes throughout a week, right? And they're seeing my face every single time.

49:19So there's great power in that. So now when somebody goes through an explore page and they stick around my content for, and I've seen this, it's so cool. Like somebody would go to my content and then view it on their explore page. that will stick around for maybe 10 seconds of it. Literally all of my posts start showcasing in the week following because all of the engagement, somebody's realized, oh, June's created content for that period of time. The algorithm continuously pushes out and that builds so much credibility. So then when you go into my long form content, they're like, oh yeah, I will listen to him because I've seen his face for so long.

49:46We'll get back to the podcast in a second. But first of all, I wanna say a massive shout out to Bionic. I have been using their supplements for the past four years. I never knew what supplements I needed to take. I'd always go into the pharmacy and buy a load of random bottles and end up popping pills all day, every day, not having a clue if I was consuming the vitamins, which I should be consuming at all. But Bionic came to save the day. They are a tailor-made supplement company that will put together your own specific formula based on your activity, your gender. I have Bionic Pro, where I get the blood test done every three to four months.

50:22And based on that blood test, I get my own personalized formula. For those people who don't want to do a blood test or don't have access to that, then you can go with Bionic Go, where you just have to fill in a short questionnaire. And based on that questionnaire, you will get your tailored supplements with a surprisingly high degree of accuracy. So stop the guesswork, sign up to Bionic, and ensure that you remove those deficiencies and build up your immune system. And that definitely helps if someone does come onto your profile from the explore page and you already have this bank of content which is relating to this video which they've seen and they're like, oh, I like that one.

51:03Then they go onto the next one, then the next one. All these videos which are really good now. Hey, I like this guy. I'm gonna follow him. Exactly. Spot on. Because that's my, the issue I've had is because I was so against making reels that if you went onto like the reel section i probably got like i had at one point like six videos over you know a four-year period so if anybody was coming to my page they'd be like why do i want to follow this guy you would smash it on reels too and i'm sure that you're probably doing that well that's that's one of the the goals i have this year yeah because it's i've not even tried so i'm thinking hey what if i actually try this you would kill it because um i feel like i'd i think there's quite a few people who know who i am but there's a lot of the younger generation who probably never heard of me and it's actually crazy to think about like how many people there are in the world and how many people still know who the hell you are yeah so um that's pretty mad and i think there's one thing which I wanted to ask you about.

52:03Do you think there's an issue when it comes to age? Because I feel like if you're a young creator, maybe you're in your teens, early twenties, it's harder for you to build an audience of people who are older than you because they either, you know, older guys or girls might not want to follow younger guys or girls, or they're just not in in a position to educate because they haven't really lived much of life at this point. And they're still very early on in terms of their education. So what would you advise for those people? I think you're right in the sense where a majority of the time you usually are attracting people that are like you, right?

52:53So either they're a year younger than you or two years younger than you and they're following on that path or whatever you're teaching upon, they're a little bit earlier you're on in the journey and they're trying to learn from you. But it's interesting because I have this passion project of mine called the Discipline Mentorship. And inside of it, we do this thing where I call it my four wins. And I've talked about it now for the last four or five years of my content. And it's simply a mental win, a physical win, a spiritual win, and an honest accountability win. So every single day they're doing that, right?

53:20And it boggles my mind because that's something akin to me that I found like thousands of people do the same. So every Wednesday, I literally have thousands of story reposts where people are constantly doing and I just reshare their stories. And then now in this discipline mentorship, people are on these calls and it's the coolest thing ever. You see their faces and they're literally doing their wins together all throughout the day. The reason why I bring that up is you would be surprised who's in that, right? So there's people from all across the world, from Asia to Europe, to people that are in Philadelphia, to people that are in LA, like there's so many different people in there and different ages as well.

53:52So we have people that are my age, that are in probably their senior year of high school, all throughout college years, people that are older than me, and then people that are 40 plus and even 50 plus, right? That are still on this call doing that. So I also think it's about if you can teach upon something that you know, right? And not make it sound like you're an expert on something that you don't know. People actually gravitate towards that no matter what age or demographic that they are. And so I think majority of the time, yes, people that are probably sharing a lot of your demographic will follow you.

54:24But if you can find something that you can teach upon, because the four wins I don't care what age you are. I don't care what career you're in. We have like lawyers in there. We have like people that could be doctors in there. We have people that are studying for engineering. Like they're just all there. There are people like that are literally creators that are just in there. And I think what's powerful about that is I chose the right thing to talk about and then people kind of gravitated towards it. Yeah, because I've seen this before where, you know, people in the fitness industry, maybe they try and replicate what I've done.

54:52But the problem is maybe they're only like 17, 18, 19 years old, right? So I see them and they're like literally making these videos, like trying to educate people. Oh, this is how you build your biceps. And it's just like, oh my God, life. Okay. So first of all, they've only been going to the gym for six months. So like, how can somebody pay attention and want to listen to what you're going to say? Because first of all, your arms are terrible. So that's one problem. And then second of all, they're just not in a position where they have, maybe they have a bit of education, but they certainly don't have the experience.

55:26And I say to them, I'm like, look, this right now, this probably isn't the type of content you should be making. Like if I was you and I was in your shoes, I would make more videos where it would be just like sharing the journey. And also I'll probably just make it more fun. Just do like more funny things with your friends. I guess when you're younger as well, you can get away with doing more silly things. Yeah. And you just - More fun content, challenges, things like that. You lead it perfectly because you're right, that somebody that is just starting out in the gym shouldn't copy your content because they cannot replicate this, but if they said, let's say, Mike, if you posted a content on your best leg workouts, right?

56:06And you're teaching people how to build their legs properly. Someone could, in the very beginning of the stage, completely flip that and say, I have no legs and I'm trying to get legs. This is what I'm attempting to do. That's a completely different shift that actually you can speak to. I tried my Thurston's leg approach. And my legs are shaking. You know what I'm saying? Like that I think completely changes the perspective because people feel that that's genuine. So I think what really good creators who are 18, 17, 16, but also 20, 21, 22, that are less experienced, that do a good job of is doing it that way.

56:39It's not speaking about like I'm the expert. Those people I really don't think will have long-term success because you're not convincing anybody that actually has like quote unquote buying power, right? But you're talking about creators who are honest. I'm trying to get like Mike, but I'm doing Mike's program and man, I am doing everything wrong perhaps because I haven't grown a single inch of my arms, right? Like Mike, I can't get to Mike. Even that video would be interesting because yours is like the success, but that person's the failures and all the things that he did wrong. I'd still watch that content, right?

57:10Because it's the value perception that's completely different from your POV, like the experience versus journey POV. So I love the way that you put that. You can read through somebody that is producing content in a position that they should be making. You know what works really well back in the day? This is when Andrew Tate was trending, like peak trend. And people were just using his name in titles to get views. So like literally anybody can do this. Somebody could just say, I signed up to Andrew Tate's war room. And then everybody would watch because everyone was like genuinely curious to know what the experience was like.

57:47but someone like them didn't have necessarily any experience or you know a channel that had a particular topic that they were just thinking of something that would pull in the views yeah and there's a lot of i've seen a lot of creators do this where they their whole channel is just name dropping and reviewing and gossiping and that's not something which i would recommend because it's kind of a bit i'm not a big fan of people bitching and you know hate and all that kind of thing but But if you really wanted to grow, if all you cared about was just getting as many views as possible, then you could just make videos like that just using other people's name and trending news and topics, things like that.

58:29I mean, you made two good points. I think that is a structure where you will get views, but you've also mentioned how maybe there's not too much longevity associated with that style of content. But you're absolutely right. If you can view content from the lens that you're not the quote unquote expert in it, but you can review somebody else's opinion on things, that could even be an effective piece of content. So Andrew Tate is one, but you see like movie reviews all the time, right? People will just say, hey, you know, the Squid Game that just came out, here's what I think about it, right? And even that will be engaging.

58:55So I think if you could strategically, and I always talk about this, your content should have different quote, quote, missions, right, like certain content pieces are meant for exposure. But you've also mentioned in the very beginning, some pieces of content aren't necessarily going to get a lot of views, but they're very in depth. And the people that do watch it are going to love you or really champion what you have to say. So I think just being very cognizant of the fact that, yeah, some pieces of content will perform well, and then maybe that's when you use somebody else's name. You can kind of bring that type of attention to you, but you should complement it with, I think, content that feels more akin to you and a little bit more in-depth to you.

59:28But you make a good point. I think it's about the perspective in which you create the content. Do you have like a playbook or an approach when it comes to the monetization process? Yes, I do. What's that like? And this is directly from my experience. And so for the fourth in my creator vision, which is that monetization, I think about an ecosystem. I think about how can you make money so you mitigate risk at all levels, right? I think what happens for creators, they immediately jump into brand deals, right? They're like, I want to do brand deals because that's what I see a lot of other creators do.

1:00:00But brand deals are very seasonal, right? And especially if you don't have that large of an audience, it's hard for you to have sustained income. So I think about my very first monetization pillar to be your one-off product. And this could be an extremely simple MVP, your minimal viable product. So I literally did a digital PDF and made tens of thousands of dollars on it. Why? Not because anything in that was particularly designed specially, but because I understood my pain points in my audience and I wanted to see if I could deliver something that my audience would purchase. It did really well.

1:00:31What was that for you? What was the product? So it was a guide to academic success. So I talked to my audience about what do you need help with? And they said they need help with studying productivity tips and early career building. I created a 60 plus page guide on it. And I was very fortunate. I mean, I made, I think$30 ,000 in my first week of it launching, right? And I've never made that type of money in my entire life. And that was life-changing. And I continuously doubled down on it. But one-off products is where I think everyone should start. How much was that when you were selling it? It was, I believe,$39 to start.

1:00:59Yep. And then we did promotional stuff on it. So if you imagine like$30 ,000, that's a lot of sales that you're still getting to try and make that much money. And then I think from that point on, it's what I call ongoing content products, which is basically something that requires much more investment, right? So a lot of courses and communities require this type of effort. And if you are going to do it properly, you need resources, you need capital to make it work and a lot more new content. So that's like my second realm of content. So it's like, or second realm of monetization. The first one is your one-off product, get and understand and test to see if you can sell something to your audience, then do something where it requires more effort, but you have an MMR, you have like subscription-based model.

1:01:37Then you do that. Originally, going back to the first product you released, does it matter if it's an expensive one or a cheap one? I think it depends on how well you know your audience, right? If you know your audience has buying power, then great. You can put a$100,$200,$300 product tag on it, and that'll be fine. I guess students, in your case, they're not going to fork out thousands of dollars. Exactly. And so I was, exactly, that's exactly what it was. but I think it works based on what creator and your audience is. And so then I had the one-off, the ongoing content, and then I think about like high value partnerships, right?

1:02:12So partnerships that actually elevate your brand and not just doing any partnership that comes your way. So the third aspect to that is like when I just did the Red Bull Basement World Finals, and I was a global judge for that, like that was huge for my branding. The Red Bull what? So Red Bull Basement World Finals. So Red Bull Basement itself is a title in which they do national competition. So based on what country you're in, they will host these sessions where entrepreneurs from that region will compete. It's like Shark Tank, basically. I don't even know Red Bull did that. Yeah, it's sick. Like they literally built a Shark Tank and then they'll keep doing it per region and country.

1:02:47And then Tokyo was the global final. So then 40 countries, 40 teams from them came to that competition. And I was the judge for it for like a four or five day period. Like that elevated my brand, right? Because I was teaching upon entrepreneurship. I was teaching about content. I was an expert in something, and I was sitting on a panel with some really, really cool people. So that's what I think about a high-value partner, something that will actually elevate your brand. And then my fourth pillar that I think about in terms of monetization is reinvestment. I barely use a lot of the money that I've been able to generate.

1:03:15It just gone straight back into the businesses. It's like, what can I do? Yeah, and I'm sure you think about that exact same thing. And I think if you can do those four things, one-off, ongoing content alongside high-value partners, and then reinvestments, you will do well as a creator. Yeah, I always think it's funny, those people who are trying to sell a luxurious lifestyle but they have to spend so much money flashing and like just doing these things it's like a cycle i see so much particularly in dubai it's like right when you go to dubai i need to show people i'm living this crazy life doing like all these mad things and i have so much money and i'm going to teach other people how to also yeah you know live this life but they're not really living that life they're pretending to live the life so they can teach other people to have that life and it's just like uh it's a crazy I think a lot of people, I guess that's the difficult thing for young people who, you know, they don't know any better.

1:04:07They can often get misled and spend a lot of money for courses or follow people and, you know, buy things which actually doesn't really have a huge amount of substance to it. I mean, that's who I feel bad for, right? It's the young consumers that are impressionable, that are watching these types of content of people faking their lifestyle. Because Mike, I know for a fact that if you saw somebody's content like that, you'd be like, yeah, you can immediately read through that, right? Yeah, yeah. But it just sucks because you try and do your very best to make people a little bit more knowledgeable when they're looking at content so you can read it and decipher what is actually like real or not.

1:04:41But it is hard. I'm curious, what is your opinion on that? Because you see so many people that get scammed from the process of like, let's say, even courses, right? But I'm sure you know, too, that there's so many great courses, right? Yeah, that's the problem. because if you have a course or you promote I had this experience when I was promoting my course I got so much shit from people they were like oh my cell the course you fucking sell out I was like no it's like I've really genuinely put all of my heart and effort into this and all my experience I've literally laid out the fucking playbook of what I've done to get to where I am today it's called the digital playbook but I got a lot of heat from that because of the stigma that is attached from selling courses and I think with the current state of the education system like if somebody wanted to replicate what i did you know don't you're not gonna you're not gonna learn that at school like you're better off just you know investing a little bit of money and just listening to what i have to say in the process that i went through in order to to get there but i think that that is the tough thing and i don't necessarily know what advice to give people when it comes to you know whether or not you should invest in a course i think it's just a matter of looking at their track record and then also seeing reviews.

1:06:01Reviews can obviously be helpful, but then you're always going to get the people that are just going to hate on you. But I still think there's a lot of people who do create really good courses. And I think if you do invest and you do actually digest it, it's going to fast track your process massively. I think if If you look at someone and you're like, I want that lifestyle. Oh, I want to know like what they know and I want to absorb that information as fast as possible. Probably the best way to get there is a course. Absolutely. And I think that it just sucks, right? Because you had so much value in that and then people immediately jump to say it's a scam, right?

1:06:41Or you're a sellout. But it's because of what we see on the other side of it where people are literally scamming young kids. And that is very, very disappointing to watch, like from a general consumer standpoint. And I think you're absolutely right. It's the credibility that's established. So anybody watching this right now, I'm sure that you have people in your audience that may be a little bit more impressionable that you kind of want to help guide. It's that. It's like looking at exactly what they've really done, see how long they've been doing it for, and not just looking at the reviews and testimonies, just look at them, be like, oh, cool, it's a good product.

1:07:10Like, what's the substance of their reviews, et cetera? And I think when you do your due diligence, you end up finding some really, really successful creators or just successful people in general that can teach upon a topic. But you know what's interesting? Courses have become such a huge thing. Even in the traditional education space, you have Harvard that is constantly doing programs that are courses on particular topics, right? Courses are a huge business because it's effective. Who else would you listen to for a particular topic that Harvard is good at teaching at than Harvard? Who would you listen to in terms of workout programs if you want to look like Mike?

1:07:43Mike, right? So I think when people can look at from that lens and don't go and say, oh, this guy has a fancy car. I should listen to him, but say like, all right, what is the substance of what they're talking about? There's actually so much value in, I think, courses. I think I look back and I knew there was a mistake which I made because I hadn't put out enough free content that was relating to the course. So it was very random for people. They were like, hang on, this has kind of just come out of nowhere. It doesn't make any sense. Whereas if I had brought out a course that was relating to fitness or something which I was kind of more well known for people have been like okay yeah it makes sense so in hindsight going back what I should have done is either create a separate channel or start to pump out more content free content relating to the course and then being like oh by the way if you want to know more I'll have this and then people are like oh okay yeah that kind of makes a little bit more sense have you thought about releasing another course then perhaps with everything that you've been able to yeah I've got a lot of ideas for this year but I I think it would involve me creating a separate channel.

1:08:48I think what I miss and what I used to do back in the day, I just used to sit down and talk to the camera. And that was, I actually enjoyed doing it. And I think that's how I connected with a lot of people. And then there was this trend where people wanted to consume more, very highly edited. It was the edited overload with the visuals that I was like, I just want to sit down, talk, upload. And I think we've kind of gone to in a cycle where people actually just would prefer that now instead of being like very visually overloaded with these edits and like motion graphics and everything. things so i think um the one thing which i've been trying to decide is do i put out those types of content on the main channel or do a separate channel because to begin with i see it's like it's too different it's like oh mike you know i'm this channel is more about the vlogs and the training and collaborations like it would be something very different yeah which the existing audience might not like.

1:09:54Some of them will, some of them won't. So there's the debate as to whether I should do a separate channel or to keep it on the existing one. I'm curious to know what you'd think about that. Yeah, I think you'd have success either way, because no matter what, it would work if you just stayed consistent with it in the long run, right? Because the truth of the matter is, you're absolutely right. If you were to post it on your currently existing account, the viewership just won't be there. The engagement just won't be there, but it tends to even out in the long run. So if you were to even double up, like maybe twice a week, where one week is your normal content that's highly produced, but one maybe on a Tuesday, Wednesday, you're just doing a check-in, you're just speaking to yourself.

1:10:29There's been this rise of casual comfort creators, which are creators that are what you're talking about, just speaking to the camera. And obviously you have this charisma, so when you're speaking on it, it comes away at a different level. So I think either way would work. I also do think that people underestimate how, not for you, because you actually have the resources to invest into it, but a lot of people underestimate how hard it is to have a second channel. So people when they're first starting out are like, I'm just gonna create two, three channels. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's so hard to even do one channel.

1:10:56You know what I'm saying? So I think when you got to your stage, it does make a lot of sense where you're talking about, can I actually open up a second channel? I need to invest into it and it still works. But for a lot of beginner creators, I always just say, just stick to that first platform. It's really hard to actually deviate. Yeah, because even obviously I've got this channel, which is the podcast channel, which is very separate, but i know some creators actually they have some of their podcasts on their main channel it gets a little bit messy yeah so this i mean if i was to try and manage this channel like i would lose my mind so thankfully i've got the right team in place who are looking after this channel yeah and it actually to have the right team it makes so much of a difference because i know like this channel just runs itself like i think one of the the problems i had to begin with was the fact that I knew I wanted to do a podcast, but I knew that all these things had to be in place in order for it to happen.

1:11:50Because so many people are like, oh yeah, I want to start a podcast. Everybody wants to start a podcast. And I'm like, are you sure you really want to start a podcast? Because first of all, it's not like this casual thing you do. Like if you want it to be successful, it's a serious thing. Absolutely. Like it takes a lot of time planning an investment and you're probably gonna need to have a good team or at least two or three key players to begin with to make this work. And then once you've exhausted, you know, you're in a circle of friends. Now you're going to have to start reaching out to people you don't know.

1:12:22So that's why most podcasts will fizzle out after, you know, maybe even five episodes. There was, I think it was the statistics. Chris Williamson told me where less than 1 % of all podcasts make it past the 20th episode. That's crazy. And this actually happened with me. I think there was, I'd managed to do, 20 episodes yeah and then i went traveling in the summer and i just stopped and i was like fucking hell i've become i have become the statistic like my channel has stopped so i was like i can't let that happen again like there's there's things that need to be it's mainly just the planning and the consistency you can't expect to grow anything if you don't do it every single week so you're right if as long as i was sticking to the schedule of being like oh yeah well mike is known for uploading this type of video on a particular day exactly that can help and people would be like okay you know i'm not bothered about one i'd rather just stay for the sunday vlog or whatever it might be yeah that the scheduling can uh can be a big thing but then it's for me which what i found is it i would get very stressed i see when it would come to okay on this day this type of video is supposed to go out and it's like one day before and i have nothing and i'm like oh my god so i'm like scrambling to put a video together yeah and i'm like on my editor's neck being like you need to freaking edit this video now and he's like i'm trying my best and then just because that's when it became um very unpleasant sure so i kind of moved i did have a schedule it worked i moved away from it and posted when i wanted to and when the video was ready sure like i would rather my editor work on it for an extra day if it meant that the video was going to be better.

1:14:07But then the problem behind that is when you never have a deadline, things just drag on. So I think you definitely do need that deadline. I think it's definitely a fine balance. And for you, because you've gotten to this stage and people do know you, you producing something that is a bit higher in quality and that takes a little bit long, people are much more understanding of that versus somebody that's first starting out. They'll get into this habit of getting really delayed on their schedules. They're like, oh, I need to make this thing really, really perfect. When in reality, the matter is that person just needs to start posting.

1:14:38So it's at a completely different level. Like you're at this stage where you can produce the content, know exactly what you want out of it, know exactly that your audience wants this and still have success with it, even if it's a week late or a week and a half late, right? And I think that also comes down to like the personal feedback too, where you feel comfortable in that. But yeah, I also think that if you had your team really double down on maybe bashing content a lot earlier in time, you'd probably save yourself a ton of headache and to have massive success. Because if you start, I'm telling you right now, if you started posting shorts and reels and you were able to repurpose that across while doing like those two YouTube videos that you're talking about, people, you would like even blow up another level, right?

1:15:16Just because you have such good value to provide people. Now it's just like, how can you package that so you can have people see it more? And so, yeah, I think, are you taking advantage of shorts right now? That's the plan for this year. Okay, good. I mean, I am on the, I have other pages. Yeah. which I have my team manage those pages and they pump out the short form. But on my main channel, I don't. And it's like, why do I not? Like, there needs to be a thing. I think the problem I had was I was known for one thing, the fitness thing. And then I branched out into doing all these different things where it's like lifestyle, travel, fitness, entrepreneurship.

1:15:55And then I was like, what the hell should I create? Like, actually, what type of content should I make? because I didn't want my main channel to be too heavy with the fitness. Then I think like, well, what? Like that was my problem because I had branched out so much. I didn't even know what my audience wanted to consume anymore. And like who I was. Yeah. And I think that's exactly the answer, short form content, because right now it's probably so many ideas. And I actually think that's what makes you, you. So that's the good thing. Like you shouldn't get away from that. But to try and get that many ideas is packaged to one long form content that you might be posting once every two weeks is really difficult.

1:16:34If you had your team properly understand, all right, these are the different parts of my life. Let me create shorts that are on a particular schedule. You would blow up just because you have so many opportunities to do research. It's like you post a video on your lifestyle, great. You post a video on your entrepreneurship, great. Short form, short form, short form, short form. The discoverability is crazy. So then in two months time, you would have so much data. It'd be like, actually, I know what to do my long form content on. I'm gonna do it on entrepreneurship because all of my entrepreneurship video had gotten better engagement.

1:17:01I think that's where short form plays a really powerful role to a creator. It's that initial funnel to get a good understanding of what content works. So how long would an average short video take for you? To make, it depends on the context. So if I'm just sitting there and you told me, hey, Jim, we gotta get a reel up right now, it would probably take me 30 minutes or so to think about it and then actually produce it. If it was something a little - 30 minutes, so the majority of that 30 minutes would be thinking the idea, scripting it a little bit, and then the actual doing it would be probably, we won't take that long.

1:17:36Yeah, like five, 10 minutes of it. So I think exactly what you're saying. Now, if it was something that was probably, let's say a series of promo videos that we needed for a launch, right? Then I think it requires a bit more time and effort. But because you are the person, like you, nobody can take away your credibility, right? That's it. It's like, all right, you got to just get your team to say, this is the type of short form content and if I could ever help you, I would love to. It's simply how you package that style of content. Because the thing that people get wrong is they think it's just repurposing.

1:18:05And that's where I think long form creators who are so accustomed to that world don't realize. Short form is a different world. And having that helps, like having somebody on a team or somebody that can help and say, no, it's not just recording something long form, taking a short clip of that and then clipping it into your short form. It's not that. Yeah, I got my team to, I said, oh, just do that. Look, all my YouTube videos. Just get something from that. And then like, it doesn't really work like that. Like there's no, a short form clip from a vlog, it doesn't make any sense. There's no context to it, right?

1:18:37Yeah. I think though, because like Mike, you have that experience, that credibility, it'd be so easy to get somebody that knows what they're doing to just package it into short form content. You could sit there. I think Cormozzi even said this too. He would sit there and just batch a ton of content in short form, maybe like 10, 20, 30 at one time. and you could do that in a series of days. So you can go in different locations, et cetera. And that you could have for literally a month's worth of content that has so much good testing value for you. And then every single week, you just produce a long form piece of content that has some form of resemblance of it.

1:19:07In like six months, you would blow out because you're right. Like the exposure to the younger audience, like my people, like the 24 year olds or 23 year olds, we're all on short form content, right? And we're constantly consuming. If I saw your face every single day for seven days straight, I'm gonna go to your long form content and watch like an hour long vlog if you had it, right? So I think that's the power of it. Yeah. What does like a typical week look like for you? Now it's - This week probably is not a typical week. But when you're doing everything you're doing usually, do you have like a set routine which you follow?

1:19:38Do you have days where you're like, oh, these are the scripting days, these are the filming days. Do you have a routine like that? It definitely depends on what season of life I'm in. So you're right on a particular time like this, it's completely different. but on a regular cadence, it's usually, if I can batch videos in terms of the filming side, I will. But usually what I batch is like the 80 % where I'm constantly planning. And that is so easy because I'm so good at sitting at my computer and just working. Like Sean always tells me this. He's like, you should probably live a little bit more and like, you should probably spend your money a little bit more.

1:20:11But I'm so good at sitting behind a computer and just researching. That's a slippery slope, that one. Maybe you start enjoying life too much. Too much, right? But yeah, so I think because I'm so okay with sitting behind a computer and just researching, I will do that for like Monday through Wednesday or Monday through Thursday and get a really good understanding. I'll do even more lives or more stories or more reels and just get a feel for what they need and want in that particular time of their lives. And then I would take that. And then for like a day or two, I would batch a ton of like short form content.

1:20:39And then let's say like I'm going on a particular trip. Then I'll just plan, all right, these are the clips that I need. But you know what's really great, Mike? Because you have long form content, you'll have b-roll like nobody else right well i'm annoyed i didn't start sooner because you know someone like imangazi for example he started filming so early so he has the footage of him yes when he was this spotty face teenager with no money you know completely different person and you can see the transition which gives him so much credibility and i like i i was trying to I remember the earlier piece of content, I was trying to piece together clips for a transformation video.

1:21:18And like before a certain point, there was no video. Because I didn't, phones couldn't film video. The only thing that could film video was like an old school digital camera, which even back then I didn't really use for, I'd take photos with it, but I never taken it. So there was like years of me being in the gym, none of it was captured. I see. So it's like, it's annoying, but that's just the generation which I was brought up in. Yeah, and I also think though, the power of short form content is, you have B-roll of like your current lifestyle, which will always be helpful, because people like to see it.

1:21:54But even photos too, or even like particular situations that you can speak on, does so well with short form. So there's this video that I have in my short form content right now, my Reels tab, I think it has about like 22 million views on it, right? And it is literally just a series of photos telling my transformation story. So those photos, I had no idea obviously that they were gonna be used for this reel, but I would combine that with current day B-roll that's video and people like that a lot. So that's even just like a particular strategy. If you have any photos of you being younger, if you can put any texts associated to give them the context of it and just do series of that and tell a story through it.

1:22:27And then your current lifestyle, do the videos because it does feel like that. Now you have the equipment, now you have this lifestyle to showcase and it does tremendously well. Like I'm sure if we like sat down, looked at your content, just found one, a few set of photos, we could easily construct a video in which tells your story that would perform really well in short form content. And then think about it. If you did that and you got 100 ,000 views on it, 50 ,000 views on it, and you kept that on your pinned post, every single time someone would come to a reel, they would know your story and they'll go into your YouTube.

1:22:52I guarantee it. You've done that on your Instagram, haven't you? Yeah. So I've pinned that 22 million view on, and then every single time I would get DMs all, like literally every day of like, your story captivated me because I resonated with it. We could totally do something like that for you too. Yeah. What direction do you think we're heading in in terms of social media and creators? Because I mean, it seems to be the case where more than ever, there's been an abundance of creators. Like, do you think it gets to the point where it just becomes too saturated or is there enough room for everyone to be a creator of some sort?

1:23:27It's a good question. I think Sean and I were just talking about this too. I think from our perspective, it seems overly saturated. Even when I think about it too often, I'm like, geez, there's so many creators all the time. but then you think about the fact that there are billions of users on content all the time but they're just viewing it right so there's like a crazy statistic i believe it's like 90 of them are just watching and like 10 of them actually are creating the content but what i found and i would love to hear your perspective on this mike because you've been doing this longer than me isn't it crazy how people always say something's oversaturated and they're just the ones that have failed to do it it's like i remember tiktok the first two months after he came out people were like, oh, don't do TikTok, it's oversaturated.

1:24:07Everyone's doing it right now. And then year two, it's like, oh, don't do TikTok, it's oversaturated. And same thing with Instagram, same thing with YouTube. I'm sure they're like, oh, don't do it, it's oversaturated. But it's not overly saturated. Actually, there's a huge need for creators with good value. A lot of these quote unquote creators just, you know, do trends, et cetera. So I'm curious to hear your perspective, because I bet you probably in the beginning heard people say podcasting is overly saturated, but you still did it. I bet you heard people say, oh, don't do YouTube because it's overly saturated.

1:24:32How did you view that? yeah i think because i've just seen i've seen people come out of nowhere yeah and literally take over there was one example of uh this guy in the uk eddie abu i don't know if you've heard of him maybe he used to his instagram grew from like nothing to like three million in like a very short period of time i was like what the hell is he doing and then obviously you got people like Tate and other creators who've kind of just, they really have just blown up and literally taken over. So it's often the case that maybe there is a little bit of a gap in the market or just a matter of somebody just being genuinely good at what they do and providing useful information, but maybe just presenting it in a little bit of a different way.

1:25:23I think there's, it's definitely not overly saturated. It just means, I think there's more competition. But if you're good, then there's no reason why you can't make it to the top. Absolutely, and I actually think it's not too difficult to be good. And you've probably seen that. There's such an enormous amount of bad content where it's simply so unintentional. It's so people that just don't care and they're very egotistical about their content. It's like all about me, me, me, me, me, me, me. That if you just flip your perspective on like, all right, how can I help my audience? You're usually already like the top 10 % cohort.

1:25:55So I have seen this over and over again. And people that say something's oversaturated, just tried it only for a short period of time, failed at it. And now they're telling everyone not to do it because they want to feel validated in it. We were talking about this before, about the actual process of consuming content. The only downside of the current state of the way things are is this, for me, I've found there's too much good content and I don't have the time to absorb it anymore. Like back in the day, I would maybe listen to two podcasts. now i have like 10 of my favorite podcasts which i i don't have the time to keep up with and on youtube in particular like there's these really cool either full length or mini documentaries which are like better than things you would see on netflix and it's just yeah it's it's difficult to keep up with everything now because there's so much good stuff out there yeah and i think now too like even with podcasts there's so many podcast listeners now too right so it's like you have more and more good podcasts, but there's also more and more listeners.

1:26:55So it does play a role in which now people just have options of like really good content to consume. I remember when I was first watching YouTube, I would only fixate on like one, two creators because there wasn't necessarily other good content. I think it's cool that there's a lot of great creators, but perhaps maybe we will get to a point in which there is an inflection point and it becomes too many creators, but I think we're very far away from it. Yeah. What is your thoughts on the TikTok ban? Is that gonna affect you? For sure it would, but it seems like it got reinstated. So last night my TikTok was completely gone.

1:27:27It said basically we are not able to have our servers online. And I had this little pop-up, I'm like, oh man, like that sucks. I did a little goodbye video right up before that. But then 17 hours later, then we got another pop-up that said, thanks to Trump, likely we are going to be able to be reinstated. And so Trump on today, later today, cause it's such different time zones now compared to where I'm used to. He's gonna do an announcement as to what's going to happen with TikTok. And I believe what's going to happen is that there's going to be a 90-day extension where they'll have an opportunity to divest.

1:27:57And if that happens, then great, then TikTok will stay around forever. But I really do think that there's going to be some form of compromise that allows TikTok to stay. At least that's my hope in English. And, okay, so if it doesn't stay, what do you think happens? Where do those creators who are primarily big on TikTok, what do you think they'll do? I think the natural move would be migrate into either Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts, right? Just generally. And I often hear this debate where Reels and YouTube Shorts are just bad, but I think any algorithm just needs a lot of data, right? So in order for something to be good, and the reason why TikTok is so good is because there's so many creators on it.

1:28:37If those creators on TikTok flooded into Reels and YouTube Shorts, I guarantee that those algorithms would be a lot better. But moreover, usually what happens like when there's such a large gap, somebody's gonna come and try to fill it. So I bet that there's gonna be different competition to do another short form content medium. But I really like reels. I really like shorts. And I think that if we have more creators on there, it will do better. I'm curious now as well to see what the landscape is gonna be like. I don't know if you watched the podcast with Zuckerberg and Joe Rogan, and obviously the announcement which he made that they're no longer gonna have the fact checkers.

1:29:11So it's gonna be more, or basically less regulated. So I'd be curious to see how that changes the environment. One thing which I remember it was peak COVID time, and it was so ridiculous because I feel like that, from my experience being a creator, that was the most sensitive time in existence. Like you had to be so careful of what you would say. And like, you couldn't have certain words in the title. If you spoke about certain topics, you would get shadow banned or you'd get like a flag or whatever. And then even like the Black Lives Matter thing, like that was like a big thing. And if you weren't showing yourself to be like, I am not racist, like then people would give you a load of shit for it.

1:29:54It was like, it was a very weird time. But I think now it seems to be improving. It's weird. Free speech is, that's why X has become so popular. Because Elon Musk just wants a platform where people can express themselves freely. And that's because the popularity has risen. Mark is like, oh shit, maybe I need to do that with like Instagram and Facebook as well. I'm curious actually, because I definitely want to hear your perspective on this. That's such an important point that a lot of creators don't recognize. The amount of scrutiny that you end up getting if you start becoming a larger creator is enormous.

1:30:31Oh yeah. Even though I feel like I'm creating content that feels very much normal, like it doesn't feel like there should be any controversy associated with it. I get DMs all the time, people hating me, right? So from your perspective, how do you manage that in terms of that hate comments, sure, but also in terms of like, how do you be careful enough where you do have your personal brand and everyone knows you for X, Y, and Z thing? Like, how do you not stray away from that when you do have so much, quote unquote, pushback from the outside? I think there was always a rule which I followed where I would never get into politics.

1:31:05So that was just something which I would never speak upon. And even if it was trending massively, I'd still be like, I'm stick to my guns. I'm just not getting involved. Where some people will complain because they're like, oh, I'm so disappointed you haven't expressed your views. But the problem is if you speak upon a particular topic or subject, which is like in the news or there's a war going on, whatever it might be, then everybody is going to want to hear your opinion on everything. And if you don't speak out on something else, they'll be like, well, why did you speak out about this but you've said nothing on this?

1:31:38and then all of a sudden it just becomes very problematic for you so the best thing for me to do is i just don't get involved at all and the same thing there's been a lot of people who've made uh videos about me usually negative videos about me you know debating whether i'm natural or not right and that that would back then it pissed me off because these these channels had a lot of credibility and then they were literally saying like oh yeah there's no way he's natural but there's no evidence, they're not showing any evidence of me taking steroids. So it's like, you don't know anything. You don't do anything, which I do.

1:32:13Yeah, because you're speaking about this and you're speaking in a way where you're trying to convince people that this is an actual fact, then I have all of their views, like hundreds of thousands of people who were like, oh shit, Mike takes steroids. And then that would be massively damaging for my brand and my reputation. so there's been times where i would want to bite and i'd want to react and you know do a response video but again i would i would just wait i would leave it and again it was another rule which i had where i would not get into drama i would not get into online uh fights or debates or anything like that because first of all you give them loads of exposure free exposure it's Because most people who watch you, they probably haven't even seen this video.

1:33:01But if you bring it to everyone's attention, then they're like, oh, okay, so this is a thing. And oh, so I'm going to go and watch this other guy's video. So I didn't want to give that other person exposure. And then I just didn't want it to get into a process of backwards and forwards. And it just looks like you're sensitive and you can't handle criticism. criticism it's usually a sign that if people are making videos about you you're relevant in some ways maybe not relevant in a good way but people are talking about you so you're you're doing something right in terms of like the relevance sure i'm curious because i know my audience is going to be listening in on this and you provide such a different perspective because you've been doing for so long what would you tell people that are afraid of creating content because they feel like people are going to judge them or people are going to hate on them and how would you practically tell them that they could get over it or do you ever get over it tell me well i think there's there's some creators and people in the industry who they they literally do no wrong they're like you can't hate on them in my opinion yet they still get hated on yeah the people who literally don't deserve any hate will still get some form of hate or negativity so it is just a price you have to pay anybody who is going to create content and put themselves out there you are going to get some negative feedback and that is just the way it is it's a process of you having to develop thick skin right if you become famous or well known you just have to be able to handle it and it is the beginnings it's difficult because what i would always do is i would always like to look at the comments i'd like to see what people are doing and i remember when i started i made it my mission to reply to everybody's question and then i just got overwhelmingly out of hand and i couldn't reply to everyone and then you know there would be some people who would say something negative or pick something out about you which was it would be an insecurity or you wouldn't even think it was a thing.

1:35:11Yeah, it's a good point. Because I remember there was one point when I was balding, I was losing my hair pretty badly. I think this was like 2018. I mean, yeah, 2018, I was really clinging on to nothing. And that was all, like literally all the comments was like, oh, Mike's losing his hair, like blah, blah, blah, shave it off, whatever. And I was just like, I can't even make a video to try and help people. People are literally commenting on the way I look. right so um yeah it's just it's it people are always waiting to get you for something and for like for me as well like i've been i think i'm one of the few who's managed to be around for a long time and i haven't really stepped out of line or had to go through a period of adversity for fucking up or doing something wrong like i've been very consistent and i've done i'm not screwed people over i've not done anything bad so i think in that sense i'm quite fortunate but usually if you look at people's timelines if they'd be making content for you know a long period of time usually people mess up at some point they either say something they do something to get involved with something or get into like some scammy crypto projects and they just destroy their reputation So it's, I think if you're genuinely a good person, then you will be okay.

1:36:36But if you are a scumbag, then people, eventually you will show your true colors, you'll reveal your mask and then people get you for it. It's such a good point. I remember people would ask me all the time, like, how do you deal with the hate comment? I think with the hate comment, you've put it perfectly, which is the idea that you will never be judged by somebody doing more than you. it will always be those that do the best in you. So when those people were commenting about you balding, perhaps like those individuals were definitely not creating content, right? Like those individuals weren't actually doing something that was a leap of faith like you were and trying to help people.

1:37:09It happens across the board in every capacity, right? And I also had done a survey now about like once every three months for the last three years. And I've always asked people, how many of you guys wanna start creating content? And I would do these polls, right? And the average has come out to be like 80 % of people want to create content, 20 % don't. That means that those hate comments, 80 % of them likely have wanted to create content. They just don't want to see you succeed because if you do, it validates that they're doing something wrong. I think it's such a good point here also to the aspect, if you are a good human being, don't worry so much, right?

1:37:44People are only going to get you if you are a bad human being and then that gets exposed. But if you're somebody that can stay aligned with what your values are over the long term you'll be fine yeah and usually you don't you never see a hater doing better than you ever yeah ever so it's um it's just one of those things like you you put it you put it very well heck yeah um where can people find you j-u-n underscore y-u-h so just my first name and last name on instagram tiktok and youtube and with Creative College coming out, I hope that a lot of people that want to start creating content will be able to join the program that we have.

1:38:23Are you going to do some more traveling this year as well? Probably. I mean, I'll be here until I think a few more days and then I think I'm going to perhaps London to help with some of the other creators for Creative College and then also going to Texas as well. So a lot of traveling in the next month or so. Nice. Yeah. Good stuff, man. I appreciate your time and I hope this has helped everybody who's either creating content or thinking about doing it. Thank you so much, Mike, for having me. Cheers. Thank you.