YAPCreator: How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip

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0:00:58 (upbeat music)
0:01:08 – Hello, young and profitors.
0:01:11 Welcome to episode three of the Yap Creator series
0:01:13 presented by Opus Clip.
0:01:14 In this series, we’re diving deep
0:01:17 into the art and science of content creation,
0:01:20 how to create, connect, and thrive as a modern day creator.
0:01:21 It’s the start of the year
0:01:23 and it’s time for goal setting for everyone.
0:01:26 And in order to achieve our goals in 2025,
0:01:29 we need to stay motivated and consistent
0:01:30 while not burning ourselves out.
0:01:34 And that’s exactly what today’s episode is all about.
0:01:36 While this episode is tailored toward content creators,
0:01:39 it’s actually relevant for all entrepreneurs
0:01:42 because it’s really just about mindset, motivation,
0:01:43 and building up momentum,
0:01:47 whether you’re building an online platform or your company.
0:01:48 We’ll feature past Yap guests,
0:01:51 Jenna Kutcher, Jeff Hayden, James Clear,
0:01:54 Dr. Editi Norokar, Jasmine Star, Benjamin Hardy,
0:01:56 and Case Kenny.
0:01:58 Guys, this one is gonna get pretty deep.
0:02:00 We’re gonna cover everything from motivation loops
0:02:03 to habit building and gap and gain thinking.
0:02:05 There’s so much content to get to,
0:02:06 so let’s jump right into it.
0:02:13 Starting out as a content creator is no small feat.
0:02:15 You’re juggling everything, coming up with ideas,
0:02:17 filming, editing, and promoting,
0:02:20 all while trying to grow an audience.
0:02:21 In the beginning, it can feel like you’re shouting
0:02:25 into a void, and that can be incredibly discouraging.
0:02:28 The truth is, consistency builds credibility.
0:02:31 Every post, video, or podcast you put out
0:02:34 is another brick in the foundation of your personal brand.
0:02:36 But in order to be consistent,
0:02:38 you first need to get started.
0:02:40 Here’s Jenna Kutcher, one of the most successful podcasters
0:02:44 in the world, who is also in my Yap Media podcast network
0:02:46 on letting go of perfection and taking action
0:02:49 when it comes to getting started as a content creator.
0:02:55 At the beginning, my show was interview only,
0:02:57 which did not work out well for me.
0:02:59 I recorded it from the front seat of my parked car
0:03:02 in my garage, ’cause I was afraid my dogs were gonna bark.
0:03:03 I didn’t even own a microphone.
0:03:05 I had iPhone headphones, and I was like,
0:03:06 “All right, let’s just do this.”
0:03:09 And so I committed to doing it for 90 days,
0:03:11 and I was like, “Let’s just see how it feels.
0:03:13 “I can always quit it if it doesn’t work,
0:03:15 “if I run out of things to say.”
0:03:17 And here we are years and years and years later,
0:03:20 and it’s evolved, and I think one lesson from this
0:03:22 is that so often when we start a new project,
0:03:25 we overthink all the things that don’t really matter.
0:03:29 I remember worrying about like the cover art, the title,
0:03:31 how am I gonna sign in and sign off of every episode?
0:03:32 How long is it gonna be?
0:03:33 What is the format?
0:03:35 When is it gonna be published?
0:03:37 All of those things have changed and evolved
0:03:38 over the last seven years,
0:03:41 and my show has stayed consistent, right?
0:03:43 And so one thing that you brought up
0:03:46 is like so many people don’t actually dive in
0:03:47 and do the thing.
0:03:49 We think about all the things around the thing,
0:03:51 whether you’re writing a book or starting a podcast
0:03:52 or starting a business,
0:03:55 you fixate on all the decisions you have to make
0:03:57 instead of doing the actual thing,
0:04:00 which in my case was sitting down and hitting record.
0:04:02 Once I did that, the rest is history,
0:04:05 but it was so easy for us to overthink all those things.
0:04:07 So my podcast started as an experiment,
0:04:10 and we’re still going strong 100 million downloads later.
0:04:14 (whooshing)
0:04:15 Like Jenna said,
0:04:17 when it comes to getting started as a content creator,
0:04:20 whether it’s on social media or podcasts,
0:04:23 you really need to just get started and experiment.
0:04:27 It’s okay to evolve over time and get better as you go.
0:04:28 To be a content creator,
0:04:30 you must create content consistently.
0:04:33 I find that if I’m having trouble getting started
0:04:34 on something, I just tell myself,
0:04:36 I’ll do it for 10 minutes.
0:04:37 Before I know it,
0:04:40 that initial ick and anxiety of getting started
0:04:43 just melts away and the task seems more manageable
0:04:46 once I actually dig into it for 10 minutes.
0:04:47 It’s not as scary anymore,
0:04:51 and I end up working on it for longer and getting it done.
0:04:53 So just start for 10 minutes,
0:04:57 tell yourself I’ll just do it for 10 minutes.
0:04:59 Now, getting started is easier said than done
0:05:00 for a lot of people.
0:05:03 So many people feel that they can’t get the motivation
0:05:04 to get started.
0:05:06 They need to find the motivation
0:05:08 to kick themselves into high gear,
0:05:10 but this is the wrong way to go about it.
0:05:12 I learned from Jeff Hayden,
0:05:14 one of the world’s top ghost writers,
0:05:16 that getting started is the thing
0:05:19 that will actually give you the motivation to keep going.
0:05:21 Contrary to popular belief,
0:05:24 motivation doesn’t come first, effort does.
0:05:27 Let’s hear Jeff’s perspective on creating motivation.
0:05:34 So talk to us about how you can actually create motivation
0:05:38 by starting and being consistent at something.
0:05:40 Probably the biggest gap,
0:05:42 or the biggest hurdle that people have to cross
0:05:44 when you wanna start something new
0:05:49 is you are starting at a place of no experience,
0:05:50 no expertise.
0:05:53 You’re kind of at the zero spot in most cases.
0:05:55 And so if you look ahead to where you want to go,
0:05:58 that bridge that you have to cross is incredibly daunting
0:06:01 because it’s like, okay, I’m just this.
0:06:02 How am I going to get all the way over there?
0:06:07 And so if you’re constantly focused on that end place,
0:06:10 then even little successes that you make early on,
0:06:11 which you tend to do because you’re new,
0:06:15 so you learn quickly and you gain some skill fairly fast,
0:06:17 they’re meaningless to you
0:06:20 because compared to what you think you wanna be someday,
0:06:21 well, it’s nothing.
0:06:25 And so the biggest thing for me is,
0:06:27 ’cause I struggled with the first few things I wrote,
0:06:30 but then I thought, and I would think to myself,
0:06:32 how am I ever going to be able to do this?
0:06:34 Because it takes me way too long.
0:06:37 I’m creating decent things, but gosh, it takes forever.
0:06:39 And there’s no way for me to make this work.
0:06:42 And I thought, well, okay, but I can’t sit down
0:06:44 and think, okay, I’m going to be Malcolm Gladwell tomorrow
0:06:46 or something like that.
0:06:48 But what I can do is just work really hard
0:06:50 on whatever is in front of me.
0:06:53 And so I switched over and just said,
0:06:56 my goal, every time I do something is,
0:06:57 all right, I have this to do.
0:06:59 I need to do it as well as I can.
0:07:01 I need to finish it.
0:07:02 I need to get good feedback from it,
0:07:04 which means I did a good job.
0:07:07 ‘Cause whether I thought I did a good job didn’t really matter.
0:07:09 It’s what the client thought.
0:07:12 And that’s all I can do right now, but that’s enough.
0:07:16 And so if I stack enough of those experiences up,
0:07:18 then the experience kind of comes.
0:07:21 And so by keeping a short time horizon
0:07:24 in terms of my inner feedback loop,
0:07:26 then if I worked on a project one night
0:07:29 and it was a short one and I got it done,
0:07:31 that felt really good because I set out to do
0:07:32 what I wanted to do.
0:07:34 I completed a task.
0:07:35 It went well.
0:07:38 That was enough to get me to the next one.
0:07:40 And so I just fell into this place
0:07:43 of all I need is enough motivation to get to the next one.
0:07:46 And if I get to the next one and I get to the next one,
0:07:49 then suddenly you can look back and go,
0:07:51 wow, I’m starting to come a long way.
0:07:54 ‘Cause you pop your head up every once in a while
0:07:56 and sort of look at where you are and go, wow,
0:07:57 that is really cool.
0:07:59 And then you need to put your head right back down again
0:08:02 and just focused on next and next and next.
0:08:06 And so, and then the other part of it is that
0:08:08 I’m not particularly smart.
0:08:11 I have a college degree, but I’m not particularly educated.
0:08:12 It’ll have anything.
0:08:14 There’s nothing, I’m decidedly average.
0:08:15 Let’s just say that.
0:08:16 So I don’t have anything.
0:08:17 – I don’t think that’s true, but okay.
0:08:19 – Well, I don’t have anything special going for me
0:08:22 except for the fact that I realize that
0:08:24 if I put in enough effort,
0:08:25 there are a lot of things I can do.
0:08:29 And so I’m very much an effort kind of a person.
0:08:32 And so that actually works really well
0:08:36 because I don’t think you get motivation from like this.
0:08:37 I’m sitting around one day
0:08:39 and suddenly I have the lightning bolt that says,
0:08:42 I want to be a famous writer or something,
0:08:43 whatever it is you want to be.
0:08:45 I don’t, that doesn’t work.
0:08:47 I don’t think that kind of motivation.
0:08:49 I don’t know anybody that has that.
0:08:52 All you really need is to say, I’m interested in writing.
0:08:55 Let me get started in some fashion
0:08:58 and through effort, if you work hard at it,
0:09:01 you improve because we always get better
0:09:02 at things we work hard at.
0:09:04 It is a natural thing.
0:09:05 It’s just like taxes.
0:09:07 It’s a law of the universe.
0:09:10 And whenever you get a little better, that feels good.
0:09:14 And so effort equals a little bit of achievement,
0:09:18 which feels good, which creates motivation
0:09:20 for you to take a little more effort,
0:09:22 which means you’ll improve a little more,
0:09:23 which feels good.
0:09:26 And so there’s this really cool virtuous cycle
0:09:29 of effort, achievement, fulfillment, happiness,
0:09:33 motivation that you can spend forever and ever and ever
0:09:35 if you focus on doing it that way.
0:09:39 All you care about is this big end result.
0:09:40 It’s demoralizing and defeating
0:09:43 and you have to rely on willpower alone.
0:09:46 And none of us have enough willpower to do that.
0:09:49 But if you just get that cycle started, there it is.
0:09:52 So to be a motivation, does it come first?
0:09:53 Effort comes first.
0:09:54 – I love that.
0:09:56 So let me pause you right there because I wanna make sure
0:09:57 that my listeners really understand this.
0:10:01 So what Jeff is saying is that you don’t wanna focus
0:10:05 on some big goal because you’ll keep comparing yourself
0:10:06 to that goal.
0:10:07 You’re gonna think about where you are now,
0:10:10 how far away that goal is, you’re gonna feel bad.
0:10:12 And you don’t wanna feel bad if you wanna be motivated.
0:10:13 You wanna feel good.
0:10:16 So you wanna focus on these small wins.
0:10:19 So how can we better focus on these small wins?
0:10:21 Is there a trick that we need to do?
0:10:23 Is it something we need to reflect on every day?
0:10:26 How do we make sure that we’re constantly looking
0:10:27 at these small goals and making sure
0:10:30 that we’re making progress toward our bigger goal?
0:10:33 – So process really is everything
0:10:35 with anything that you want to do.
0:10:38 So you do need a big goal, I think.
0:10:41 But your goal, your big goal is just there
0:10:45 to help you design the process that you would use
0:10:46 in order to get there.
0:10:49 So if I, this is a terrible,
0:10:52 it’s not a terrible example, but it’s an easy example.
0:10:55 Say you wanna run a marathon and you’ve never run before.
0:10:58 So running the marathon is your big goal.
0:11:00 But as you said, if that’s all you focus on
0:11:03 is being able to run 26 miles and you can only run one,
0:11:05 you’re gonna quit because it’s too far.
0:11:07 And you feel bad after that one mile,
0:11:08 you’re never gonna get there.
0:11:12 So running a marathon, though, you can back it up
0:11:15 and say, okay, what are the steps and stages
0:11:17 that I’m going to have to go through
0:11:20 in order to build up the endurance and stamina
0:11:21 and speed and all that other stuff
0:11:22 that will allow me to get there.
0:11:25 And there are plenty of people in the world
0:11:27 who can lay that program out for you.
0:11:29 So you know what to do.
0:11:33 So the goal informs the process.
0:11:35 Then you just say, okay, I’ve got a whatever it is,
0:11:38 six month plan, what’s tomorrow?
0:11:42 Tomorrow is I’m gonna go run a mile and a half.
0:11:44 Cool, when you run the mile and a half,
0:11:46 you can check it off, you get to feel good about yourself
0:11:49 because you did what you set out to do that day,
0:11:51 which if you think about it at the end of the day,
0:11:52 the days you feel best about yourself
0:11:55 or when you got done the things that you said you wanted to do,
0:11:57 where you feel bad is when you didn’t.
0:12:01 So you get to feel good about it, you checked it off,
0:12:02 you had a successful day,
0:12:05 that will give you enough motivation to tomorrow go,
0:12:07 okay, what’s tomorrow?
0:12:10 Whatever it is, that’s all you have to do.
0:12:12 You just have to do whatever it is
0:12:13 that you have to do today.
0:12:17 And if you focus on that, you get to be successful every day,
0:12:19 you get to feel good about yourself every day,
0:12:22 and you will stack up enough of those days
0:12:24 that every once in a while, you will pop your head up
0:12:27 and say, wow, I just did a 10 mile run.
0:12:29 Who thought I could do that?
0:12:31 But before you get too excited and go,
0:12:34 oh, what about the 26, you gotta put your head back down.
0:12:36 ‘Cause you’re not there yet.
0:12:39 And then you say, cool, I can run 10 miles, that’s awesome.
0:12:40 What’s tomorrow?
0:12:41 Tomorrow may only be a three mile run
0:12:43 because that’s part of your process of recovery
0:12:45 and whatever else it may be.
0:12:48 Whatever it is, if you’re doing what you set out
0:12:50 to do that day, and if that goal is,
0:12:52 or if that process is designed
0:12:55 so that it will basically guarantee
0:12:58 that if you put in the effort, you will succeed,
0:12:59 you’re good to go.
0:13:01 So the goal informs the process,
0:13:03 and then all you worry about is am I doing
0:13:05 what I need to do each step of the way?
0:13:07 You didn’t start a side hustle
0:13:10 and end up with 35 people working for you
0:13:13 by one day just saying, you know, that’s what I wanna do.
0:13:15 You knew you wanted to create a marketing agency
0:13:18 and you knew what you wanted to do,
0:13:20 but you broke it down into, okay,
0:13:21 but what can I do right now?
0:13:24 What am I doing each day to get there?
0:13:28 And then all of those wins stacked up on themselves
0:13:29 and probably made it a little bit easier
0:13:31 for you to keep working that hard
0:13:34 because you saw a path to where you were going to go.
0:13:40 – What Jeff told me that day about motivation,
0:13:41 really stuck with me.
0:13:43 The conventional view of motivation
0:13:45 is if you fire somebody up enough,
0:13:46 they’re gonna go out and achieve
0:13:48 whatever their target is.
0:13:50 Traditionally, they say achieving success
0:13:53 is all about generating the right mindset
0:13:57 and that motivation will trigger you to succeed basically.
0:13:58 But Jeff overturns this idea
0:14:01 that motivation leads to success.
0:14:03 Instead, he tells us that small successes
0:14:05 lead to constant motivation.
0:14:08 Jeff believes that motivation is a result.
0:14:10 It’s not the spark or trigger
0:14:12 that gets you started on your next project.
0:14:15 Real motivation comes after you start.
0:14:17 Motivation is the pride you take
0:14:18 in the work you’ve already done,
0:14:20 which fuels you to do even more.
0:14:24 Motivation stems from success and fuels more success.
0:14:26 So the only thing you need to do to succeed
0:14:29 is to have one small victory to get ahead start.
0:14:31 Then you just follow that loop.
0:14:33 Jeff calls this the motivation cycle
0:14:35 or the motivation feedback loop.
0:14:37 The cycle goes something like this.
0:14:39 A small success leads to some motivation,
0:14:42 which leads to another success and even more motivation,
0:14:45 which leads to another success and even more motivation
0:14:47 and you get the idea.
0:14:50 That’s why motivation isn’t something you have.
0:14:52 Motivation is something you get from yourself
0:14:54 after you take action.
0:14:57 Okay, so to be a successful content creator,
0:14:59 you need to create content consistently.
0:15:01 You need to take action.
0:15:03 And that means you need to get into the habit
0:15:05 of creating content.
0:15:07 The keyword here is habit.
0:15:10 And many of you know that I’m one of the top LinkedIn creators
0:15:12 and I’ve been an influencer on that platform
0:15:14 for over five years now.
0:15:16 And I remember when I first started
0:15:18 my content creator journey on LinkedIn,
0:15:20 I was working a full-time job
0:15:23 and I also started this podcast as a side hustle.
0:15:25 So I basically had two jobs,
0:15:27 a full-time job and a part-time job with this side hustle.
0:15:31 And now I was taking on LinkedIn as a third part-time job.
0:15:34 So I really didn’t have a lot of free time.
0:15:36 And I decided that I would make it a habit
0:15:38 to create my LinkedIn post on the train
0:15:40 on my commute to work.
0:15:42 So I had a 45-minute commute to work
0:15:44 and that was my only job on the train.
0:15:46 I didn’t do anything else.
0:15:48 My job was to post on LinkedIn,
0:15:50 to decide what I was gonna post,
0:15:52 to write up the caption, to pick out my image,
0:15:55 to post the content up before I stepped into the office.
0:15:59 Sometimes it also required me to film a video
0:16:01 while I was waiting for the train.
0:16:03 And then during lunch and on my commute home,
0:16:06 I would do all my comment and DM engagement.
0:16:10 And then I did the same routine five times a week
0:16:13 as a habit every single weekday.
0:16:16 And within a year, I acquired 60,000 followers on LinkedIn
0:16:18 and I became an influencer.
0:16:20 And fast forward to today, I still post daily
0:16:22 while my habits are different.
0:16:26 I have over 260,000 followers on LinkedIn
0:16:29 and I’m recognized as a top voice on that platform.
0:16:32 So small habits can make a big difference.
0:16:34 And nobody aligns to this more than James Clear,
0:16:37 author of the bestselling book, Atomic Habits.
0:16:43 So the heart of your book, Atomic Habits,
0:16:48 is that the idea that small habits can make a big difference.
0:16:49 Why don’t we start there?
0:16:50 Why do you believe that’s true?
0:16:53 – Time will magnify whatever you feed it.
0:16:55 So if you have good habits,
0:16:58 even if they’re little and seem relatively minor
0:16:59 on any given day,
0:17:01 you’ll continue to put yourself
0:17:03 in a stronger position day after day.
0:17:04 In many ways, if you have good habits,
0:17:05 you’re on the right trajectory.
0:17:08 And so all you need is time, you just need some patience.
0:17:11 But if you have bad habits, time becomes your enemy.
0:17:12 And every day that goes by,
0:17:14 you kind of dig the hole a little bit deeper.
0:17:17 And so this idea that small habits
0:17:18 can make an enormous difference,
0:17:20 what it really is about,
0:17:25 is about emphasizing trajectory rather than position.
0:17:28 There’s a lot of discussion about position in life,
0:17:30 how much money’s in your bank account?
0:17:32 What’s the current number on the scale?
0:17:33 What’s the stock price?
0:17:34 What are the quarterly earnings?
0:17:35 We have like all these ways
0:17:38 of measuring your current position.
0:17:41 And then if the measurement isn’t what you wanted it to be,
0:17:43 or you haven’t achieved what you set out to achieve,
0:17:45 you kind of start judging yourself
0:17:48 or feeling guilty for it, or you feel bad about it.
0:17:50 And what I’m encouraging is to say,
0:17:51 listen, just for a minute,
0:17:55 let’s stop worrying so much about our current position,
0:17:56 and instead focus a little bit more
0:17:58 on our current trajectory.
0:18:00 And this is why one of the key things I talk about
0:18:02 in atomic habits is getting 1% better each day.
0:18:05 Are you getting 1% better or 1% worse?
0:18:07 Is the arrow pointed up and to the right,
0:18:08 or have you flatlined?
0:18:10 ‘Cause if you’re on a good trajectory,
0:18:13 even if it’s a very modest gain on any given day,
0:18:15 all you need is time.
0:18:16 And if you’re on a bad trajectory,
0:18:18 even if you’re in a pretty strong position right now,
0:18:20 it’s not gonna end well.
0:18:23 And so building better habits,
0:18:24 making these small improvements,
0:18:27 it’s really about getting you on a path
0:18:29 that can lead to where you wanna go.
0:18:30 I really like that question of,
0:18:34 can my current habits carry me to my desired future?
0:18:36 You know, and if they can, then great,
0:18:37 maybe you just need to be patient
0:18:38 and let the days work for you.
0:18:41 But if they can’t, then something needs to change
0:18:42 about your trajectory.
0:18:44 And so your habits are one of the things
0:18:46 that kind of set you on that path
0:18:49 and determine how far you’re gonna go
0:18:51 and whether you’re improving day in and day out.
0:18:53 And so for all of those reasons,
0:18:54 I like to refer to habits
0:18:56 as the compound interest of self-improvement.
0:18:58 You know, the same way that money multiplies
0:18:59 with compound interest,
0:19:01 the effects of your habits multiply
0:19:03 as you repeat them across time.
0:19:05 Many of your outcomes in life,
0:19:07 many of the results that we also badly want to have,
0:19:10 they’re kind of like a lagging measure
0:19:12 of the habits that precede them.
0:19:14 So your bank account is a lagging measure
0:19:16 of your financial habits.
0:19:18 Your knowledge is a lagging measure
0:19:19 of your reading and learning habits.
0:19:22 Even little stuff like the amount of clutter
0:19:23 in your living room is a lagging measure
0:19:25 of your cleaning habits.
0:19:29 And so we also badly want better results in life,
0:19:31 but the somewhat ironic thing
0:19:33 is that the results are not actually
0:19:35 the thing that needs to change.
0:19:36 You know, it’s like fix the inputs
0:19:38 and the outputs will fix themselves.
0:19:41 Adjust the habits and you’ll be set on a different path
0:19:44 and carried to a different destination naturally.
0:19:47 So this concept of getting 1% better each day,
0:19:50 it’s really a philosophy and attitude and approach
0:19:53 of showing up, trying to make some small improvement
0:19:55 and trusting that that little improvement
0:19:57 can compound something much greater
0:19:59 over a broad span of time.
0:20:04 – Well, you heard it from James.
0:20:07 Just like exercising, showing up regularly
0:20:09 and putting in the effort in your content creation,
0:20:13 even on tough days, builds long-term results.
0:20:15 So think about it, yeah, fam.
0:20:17 What habits are you gonna do to build in your daily,
0:20:20 weekly or monthly routine to accomplish your goals
0:20:21 as a content creator?
0:20:23 Okay, so we spoke about getting started
0:20:26 and staying motivated and building habits.
0:20:28 Now let’s talk a little bit more
0:20:30 about the flip side of content creation,
0:20:33 the dark side, I should say, which is burnout.
0:20:35 It’s easy to feel overwhelmed
0:20:38 when you’re consistently in creation mode.
0:20:40 And that’s why it’s so important to set boundaries
0:20:42 and find ways to recharge.
0:20:46 As entrepreneurs, we tend to be proud of our energy levels
0:20:49 and we often even boast about our own resilience
0:20:50 and hustle culture.
0:20:53 But Dr. Aditi Neurocar, a stress expert
0:20:56 at Harvard Medical School, told me
0:20:59 that you can be resilient and still be much more burned out
0:21:00 than you think you are.
0:21:07 – Resilience and stress go hand in hand.
0:21:10 When you think about what is resilience,
0:21:13 the scientific definition is that it’s your innate
0:21:16 biological ability, so we all have it.
0:21:19 And it’s that ability that you have to adapt, recover
0:21:22 and grow when life throws you a curve ball
0:21:24 or you have a challenge.
0:21:27 Now, resilience doesn’t function in a vacuum.
0:21:28 You need a little bit of stress,
0:21:32 that healthy positive stress for resilience to show itself.
0:21:35 What happens though, is that that word resilience,
0:21:37 you and I hear it and others who are listening
0:21:39 to this conversation may hear the word
0:21:41 and have a visceral response
0:21:43 because it’s gotten a really bad rap
0:21:44 over the past several years.
0:21:47 The word resilience is a positive connotation,
0:21:49 but it feels very negative when you hear it.
0:21:51 And the reason it feels negative now,
0:21:53 you’re like, “Oh, don’t tell me to be resilient.”
0:21:57 It’s because that definition has changed and morphed.
0:22:01 Societally, we’ve moved away from true resilience
0:22:02 towards toxic resilience.
0:22:04 And so what is true resilience?
0:22:05 True resilience, it’s like, like I said,
0:22:07 it’s your innate biology.
0:22:10 We all have that ability to be resilient.
0:22:12 It honors boundaries.
0:22:15 It honors your human limitations for rest and recovery.
0:22:17 And it really focuses on self-compassion
0:22:21 and leaning into that versus toxic resilience.
0:22:24 Toxic resilience is when you and I hear the word resilience,
0:22:27 immediately you cringe, that’s toxic resilience.
0:22:29 It’s a mind over a matter mindset.
0:22:31 It’s productivity at all costs.
0:22:34 It’s like all systems go all the time.
0:22:36 It’s the energizer bunny here in the US.
0:22:40 Just keep going in the UK, keep calm and carry on.
0:22:46 Every single society has some concept of toxic resilience
0:22:48 because it’s a manifestation of hustle culture.
0:22:51 And so I hope that the entrepreneurs listening,
0:22:54 what they take away from our conversation
0:22:57 is that you can be resilient and you can still get burnt out.
0:23:00 That’s called the resilience myth that people think,
0:23:02 “Oh, I can’t be burned out, I’m so resilient.”
0:23:06 Those two things, because what you’re likely living through
0:23:08 is this idea of toxic resilience,
0:23:11 because we’ve been taught from a really young age
0:23:14 that resilience is about tolerating a lot of discomfort,
0:23:16 but that’s not actually true resilience.
0:23:20 And so I want to dismantle that idea of resilience
0:23:23 as being toxic and rather lean into your true resilience,
0:23:27 which really honors your need for rest and recovery.
0:23:29 Because then that is how your brain,
0:23:32 newsflash that your brain really needs rest and recovery
0:23:35 to be productive and to really be functioning
0:23:36 at its optimal level.
0:23:40 (air whooshing)
0:23:43 Recovery is essential to avoiding burnout,
0:23:45 but you can also do a lot for yourself by planning ahead.
0:23:48 That’s why one of the best techniques to avoid burnout
0:23:50 is batching your content.
0:23:53 By setting aside dedicated time to plan and create in bulk,
0:23:55 you reduce the stress of having to come up
0:23:57 with content on the fly.
0:23:59 Jasmine Starr, a business strategist
0:24:02 who helps entrepreneurs build their businesses,
0:24:04 shared with me a powerful system she uses
0:24:07 to batch her reels and TikToks efficiently.
0:24:10 (air whooshing)
0:24:14 So what are your top tips for batching content?
0:24:19 – So I am producing three to four reels a week,
0:24:22 and I’m posting also on TikTok in the same frequency.
0:24:25 And what I tried to do is batch all of the content
0:24:26 two days out of the month.
0:24:30 And so I’ll set aside five hours every other Friday.
0:24:34 And what is so important is to have a plan going in.
0:24:37 I know the reels that I want to create.
0:24:40 I also write down the copy for the reel.
0:24:42 So it’s like, instead of is wasting time like,
0:24:44 “Oh, what are my three tips for this reel?”
0:24:45 So everything’s laid out,
0:24:48 including am I gonna do an outfit change?
0:24:49 ‘Cause if I need to do an outfit change,
0:24:51 I need to have a total count for the outfits
0:24:53 that I need for that specific time.
0:24:56 And so I go in and I have a document,
0:24:57 the reel I wanna create,
0:24:59 how long I think it’s gonna take me to create it,
0:25:02 what props that I need, and the copy for that reel.
0:25:04 Sit down, create them in real time,
0:25:06 save them as drafts or just save to the video,
0:25:08 and then upload when I’m ready.
0:25:14 – Jasmine’s approach shows how a solid plan and process
0:25:16 can save you time and energy.
0:25:19 If you prepare ahead and you prepare your scripts
0:25:22 and your outfits, you can then streamline your workflow
0:25:25 and focus on your creativity during your batch sessions.
0:25:27 Batching also helps you stay in the zone
0:25:29 because you’re not task switching,
0:25:31 which can actually really disrupt your flow.
0:25:33 When you’re focusing all your energy
0:25:35 on content creation for a set period,
0:25:38 that will maximize your productivity.
0:25:41 So in short, try establishing a production routine
0:25:43 that you follow for each video, podcast,
0:25:46 blog posts, or social media posts.
0:25:48 When you follow the same exact process
0:25:50 for every piece of content that you do,
0:25:53 it becomes second nature and gets easier over time.
0:25:56 The routine not only helps you produce content faster,
0:25:59 but also reduces the mental load of constantly
0:26:01 having to start from scratch.
0:26:03 If you’re feeling a bit of creator’s block,
0:26:05 give OpusClip a try.
0:26:07 You can use their all-in-one editor
0:26:09 to jumpstart your ideas for your videos.
0:26:12 It’s especially useful if you have long-form videos
0:26:14 that you wanna chop up into viral content.
0:26:18 Their AI identifies the most compelling hooks,
0:26:20 extracts highlights from different parts of your video
0:26:22 to create short viral reels.
0:26:25 They also have a social post scheduler
0:26:27 to auto-post your clips to YouTube, TikTok,
0:26:29 Instagram, LinkedIn, and X,
0:26:32 so you don’t have any excuse not to be consistent
0:26:33 in the new year.
0:26:36 You can try it out at opus.pro/clipanything,
0:26:39 that’s opus.pro/clipanything.
0:26:41 And yeah, bam, every good thing takes time,
0:26:43 sacrifice, and consistency.
0:26:46 You are not going to become a top content creator
0:26:49 without putting in the time and effort.
0:26:51 However, it does get easier.
0:26:52 And once you put in the reps,
0:26:54 and once you achieve some success,
0:26:56 it’s okay to then slow down.
0:26:58 It’s okay to start saying no to opportunities
0:27:00 and not burn yourself out.
0:27:04 So for myself, I hustled so hard for four years straight.
0:27:07 I worked every weekend, I worked till past midnight,
0:27:09 I hustled, I hustled, I hustled,
0:27:12 and I built up my platforms and my companies.
0:27:14 But then I realized at a certain point
0:27:16 that in order to become my best self,
0:27:18 I needed more rest and more balance.
0:27:19 I needed to work on my relationships.
0:27:21 I needed to work on my own health.
0:27:24 And I put in so much work that my business
0:27:26 and my platforms were compounding
0:27:29 where I didn’t really need to hustle as hard anymore
0:27:30 and everything would still grow
0:27:32 without me working so hard.
0:27:33 I basically hustled enough
0:27:35 where I grew everything to a point
0:27:37 where I earned the right to slow down.
0:27:39 Here’s Jenna Kutcher again for a second time
0:27:41 to drill this point home.
0:27:42 Jenna is in my podcast network,
0:27:45 and I’ve seen firsthand her turn down huge opportunities,
0:27:47 thousands and thousands of dollars
0:27:49 for the sake of her mental health and joy.
0:27:52 She takes it very seriously.
0:27:57 – So something else to know about Jenna
0:28:00 is that she only does stuff that brings her joy.
0:28:02 You only do things that you wanna do.
0:28:04 I bring Jenna opportunities all the time.
0:28:05 She’s in my podcast network
0:28:07 where I’ll be giving her like,
0:28:09 I booked sponsorships for her
0:28:11 and she’ll be like, I don’t wanna do that.
0:28:12 I’m burnt out.
0:28:13 I’m burnt out on IG Reels.
0:28:15 And I’m like, but it’s thousands of dollars.
0:28:16 Are you sure?
0:28:17 And she’s like, yeah, I don’t care.
0:28:18 I’m burnt out.
0:28:19 I’m not doing that.
0:28:20 You can do it.
0:28:22 You can book it in two months or whatever.
0:28:23 So talk to me about that.
0:28:25 Like, how are you able to sort of just put your foot down?
0:28:29 A lot of people couldn’t just turn down money like that.
0:28:30 – Yeah.
0:28:32 I mean, first off, it is such a privilege
0:28:33 to be in a position.
0:28:34 – Yeah, it wasn’t always like that.
0:28:35 – No.
0:28:36 – You’ve got to sacrifice.
0:28:39 – But I’ve realized, and here’s what I’ve really realized,
0:28:41 is if you have listened to this whole episode,
0:28:43 you recognize the power of trust.
0:28:46 And I want my community to trust me.
0:28:48 And if something isn’t in alignment,
0:28:50 not only do I feel it, but they feel it.
0:28:53 And so I have had to get so good at discerning,
0:28:54 what are the right partners?
0:28:56 What are the right opportunities?
0:28:59 What are the right like sponsorships to take on?
0:29:01 Like, is this in alignment?
0:29:03 And I feel that way with every opportunity,
0:29:05 whether it is getting asked to speak on stages
0:29:07 that I would have once dreamt of being on,
0:29:09 but now I’m saying no to,
0:29:11 or whether it is, you know, hosting a mastermind
0:29:12 or all these things.
0:29:13 I could do a million things.
0:29:14 I don’t want to.
0:29:17 And I think that I’m just at this place in my life
0:29:21 where I just recognize that like peace is,
0:29:22 needs to be protected.
0:29:25 And right now in this stage of my life,
0:29:27 like my priority is my family.
0:29:30 And anything that I’m saying yes to is a no to them.
0:29:32 And what is the most important thing to me?
0:29:35 And so, you know, turning down things like,
0:29:37 recording another social media reel,
0:29:39 it’s, to me, it’s like,
0:29:40 but this is more time with my kids
0:29:42 or this is protecting and preserving
0:29:45 the integrity of my followers.
0:29:47 – She’ll even turn down things that are a good fit.
0:29:48 – Totally, totally.
0:29:51 – She’ll turn down things that are a great fit for her
0:29:52 because she’s like, no,
0:29:54 my time with my family is more important.
0:29:57 – Yeah, and I think that like boundaries
0:29:59 protect what’s sacred to you.
0:30:02 And I’ve just had to relearn this lesson
0:30:05 over and over and over again of like boundaries aren’t bad
0:30:09 and boundaries like keep what I say most important to me
0:30:11 and they exemplify that.
0:30:12 Like what I am saying is most important to me
0:30:14 is reflected in my calendar.
0:30:16 It is reflected in my bank account,
0:30:18 is reflected in the way I show up every single day.
0:30:22 And so it’s, it’s a muscle that you have to learn to flex
0:30:25 and it takes time because I think that, you know,
0:30:27 there was a time in my life where I got paid $50,
0:30:29 take pictures of a cat and I couldn’t believe it.
0:30:31 Like somebody is paying me to do something.
0:30:33 I love, this is amazing.
0:30:35 And what a blessing that is.
0:30:37 And the better that you get out listening to your gut
0:30:40 and discerning like, well, this is a great opportunity
0:30:42 but is it the right opportunity for me?
0:30:45 It keeps you in alignment so that you are not passing up
0:30:47 things that you should be saying yes to
0:30:48 and that you are not saying yes to things
0:30:50 that you should be saying no to.
0:30:54 And so I feel like I just have like a really strong intuition
0:30:57 and a gut game and I don’t apologize for saying no any longer
0:31:00 because my no is literally just a reflection
0:31:02 of like what is mattering the most to me right now.
0:31:04 – Yeah, but let’s stick on this mindset
0:31:06 because yesterday I was talking to Jenna,
0:31:08 I had been working on this crazy presentation
0:31:10 for like three months and I was like,
0:31:12 guys, I killed myself on this.
0:31:16 I worked so hard and we were with our other friend,
0:31:19 Amy Porterfield and she was saying, you know,
0:31:20 I’m the same way.
0:31:23 Like I work really hard sometimes and burn myself out.
0:31:25 And Jenna was like, I don’t know how you guys do that.
0:31:27 Like I would never do that.
0:31:31 I would never choose to kill myself on anything.
0:31:35 And I always, a lot of the times take the hard route.
0:31:37 I don’t know why it’s my personality.
0:31:39 Why are you like this?
0:31:40 Like how did this come about?
0:31:41 Were you always like this?
0:31:42 Where you’re just like, no,
0:31:45 I’d rather just have my joy than the money.
0:31:48 – I feel like I’ve realized that like our piece
0:31:51 is so expensive and life is so short.
0:31:54 And I definitely am not anti-hustle culture
0:31:56 because I do believe hustle is required
0:31:57 to get the dream off the ground.
0:31:59 No matter what the dream is,
0:32:00 there have been so many points in my career
0:32:03 where I get an idea or I have a project or something like,
0:32:05 yeah, I can hustle.
0:32:07 But if hustle is the only way that you can operate
0:32:09 and sustain what you’re building,
0:32:10 that is not a business.
0:32:13 Like you are building a prison for yourself.
0:32:15 And I’ve watched so many people
0:32:19 who have really successful businesses and really lousy lives.
0:32:21 Like they are rich in their bank accounts
0:32:22 and empty in relationships.
0:32:25 And like to me, that’s just not worth it.
0:32:27 That is such a high cost.
0:32:30 And I feel like I have had to learn how to discern
0:32:34 like what are my best yeses and like what can I say no to
0:32:37 without having FOMO, without having guilt.
0:32:40 And it’s interesting because I think becoming a mom
0:32:43 really shifted that for me of like,
0:32:47 anytime I’m away from my kids, I want it to be worth it.
0:32:50 And the only way for me to alleviate mom guilt
0:32:54 was to know that like I was doing work that I love,
0:32:56 work that I enjoy, work that gives me peace,
0:33:00 that excites me, so that whenever I’m working,
0:33:02 I’m not there thinking I should be with my kids.
0:33:04 And whenever I’m with my kids, I’m thinking I should be working.
0:33:06 It’s like the only way to get past that
0:33:09 was to just be in total alignment of like,
0:33:10 what do I want for my life?
0:33:14 And I think we focus so much on like leaving a legacy,
0:33:18 but I think in reality, we have to focus on living a legacy.
0:33:21 And I’m like, I want my kids to see the joy.
0:33:22 I want them to see the peace.
0:33:26 And you know, I’ve had so many turning points in my business
0:33:29 where like I’ve just realized that like money isn’t the answer.
0:33:33 Like at times in my business where I’ve earned the most money,
0:33:35 I’ve been the most miserable.
0:33:38 And I just feel like there’s this threshold of like,
0:33:39 where do I get more joy?
0:33:40 How do I derive joy?
0:33:42 Like what does peace look like?
0:33:43 Like when I go to bed at the end of the night,
0:33:45 how do I truly rest?
0:33:48 And it’s just been a huge shift.
0:33:49 And it’s not easy.
0:33:52 And it doesn’t come naturally because I am an achiever
0:33:55 and I am a hard worker and I am driven,
0:33:58 but I’m just at a place in my life where I’m like,
0:34:00 I just want to enjoy it.
0:34:00 – Yeah.
0:34:02 I love the way that you and your team handle it.
0:34:04 You guys take Fridays off.
0:34:05 – Yeah.
0:34:06 – You don’t work on Fridays,
0:34:09 but you’re still crushing it and getting so much done.
0:34:12 Like you don’t have to overwork yourself to be successful
0:34:14 and you were such a great example of that.
0:34:15 – Yeah.
0:34:16 There’s this quote that I heard
0:34:19 that totally changed my mentality.
0:34:21 And it was instead of asking yourself,
0:34:24 if you’ve worked hard enough to earn your rest,
0:34:26 ask yourself if you’ve rested well enough
0:34:27 to do your best work.
0:34:30 It was by a girl, Nikola Hobbs, I think is her name,
0:34:31 or Nikola Dobbs.
0:34:34 And I heard that and I was like, whoa,
0:34:36 like I have been wired of like,
0:34:38 I just need to get this done and then I can rest.
0:34:40 And I was like, what if we like flip this on its head?
0:34:42 And it’s just been so transformative for me
0:34:45 because I’m like, no, I need to like come into this
0:34:48 feeling rested and well to do my best work.
0:34:49 And that is like totally shifted things.
0:34:50 – I love that.
0:34:56 – I really love that mantra that Jenna mentioned.
0:34:59 Have you rested well enough to do your best work?
0:35:02 Remember, you’re running a marathon, not a sprint.
0:35:04 And that marathon is long.
0:35:08 You will most likely not become an overnight success.
0:35:10 It will take you years before you make money
0:35:13 because being a content creator is not easy.
0:35:16 And it’s easy to be down on yourself and give up
0:35:18 when you feel like you didn’t become an influencer
0:35:20 or you haven’t gone viral yet
0:35:22 or reached a point to monetize your content.
0:35:25 Benjamin Hardy, an organizational psychologist,
0:35:27 taught me that when you think that way,
0:35:28 you are in the gap.
0:35:30 You are practicing gap thinking,
0:35:33 which is a really unhealthy place to be.
0:35:37 Instead, you really wanna practice gain thinking.
0:35:39 Now here’s Ben to explain gap and gain thinking.
0:35:46 – I heard you say on another podcast
0:35:48 that when you released that book in 2018
0:35:49 that you came on my podcast to talk about
0:35:51 willpower doesn’t work.
0:35:54 You actually considered it a failure
0:35:57 because it didn’t reach New York Times bestsellers list.
0:35:59 And that’s like every author’s dream.
0:36:01 But nonetheless, when you came on my podcast,
0:36:03 I remember thinking it was such a big deal.
0:36:04 You were such a big blogger.
0:36:08 And we had scored Benjamin Hardy episode number seven.
0:36:13 And so you were a big deal to us and to the outside world,
0:36:14 but inside you felt like a failure.
0:36:16 So I wanna talk about that.
0:36:19 I think it will give us some color on your journey
0:36:22 and help us understand the gap in the gain concept as well.
0:36:27 – So I served a church mission from 2008 to 2010.
0:36:29 And like going on that experience
0:36:30 was very transformational for me.
0:36:32 I grew up in a really intense environment.
0:36:35 But ever since I came home from that experience in 2010,
0:36:37 I wanted to be a professional author.
0:36:41 Over the from 2015 to 2017, I grew enormously
0:36:44 as a blogger and was able to get a book deal
0:36:45 and be able to start providing for my family.
0:36:48 So essentially I got a multi six figure book deal
0:36:49 to write a book.
0:36:50 I’m living my dreams.
0:36:53 It all happens way faster than I thought in early 2018.
0:36:56 Honestly, it was March of 2018, the book comes out.
0:36:58 And I did have way in my head.
0:37:00 Like I had built everything up in my head
0:37:02 that it needed to be a certain level.
0:37:03 It needed to be a New York Times best seller.
0:37:07 And I admittedly as well, threw so much money at it.
0:37:10 And so yeah, it didn’t hit the goal.
0:37:12 And for probably four or five months,
0:37:14 I was in a very deep depression, very deep slump.
0:37:19 And kind of back to the idea of the gap in the gain now.
0:37:22 I guess I’ve learned to measure my own self differently.
0:37:24 So the gap in the gain is something I learned
0:37:25 from Dan Sullivan.
0:37:27 I read his little book on the subject.
0:37:29 Maybe actually it was in 2018.
0:37:32 I read his little book and I was still blogging back then.
0:37:34 And it was just an idea I loved.
0:37:38 And I thought if I ever get a chance to write books
0:37:40 with Dan Sullivan, I’m going to make this a major book.
0:37:42 And the idea is very simple.
0:37:45 I mean, it’s basically the idea that as a person,
0:37:49 we all feel happy or sad based on how we measure ourselves
0:37:51 and how we measure our experiences.
0:37:53 The reason I went into a deep depression
0:37:56 after I had made a monumental achievement.
0:37:58 I mean, I’d never done that before.
0:37:59 It was totally new.
0:38:01 And yet I felt like a loser ’cause I was in the gap.
0:38:04 I was measuring what was against what I thought it should be,
0:38:05 which is an ideal.
0:38:06 When you’re in the gap,
0:38:07 you’re measuring yourself against your ideals,
0:38:09 which you’re always changing, always moving.
0:38:11 Whereas the gain is the opposite.
0:38:12 You measure yourself backward
0:38:14 against where you were before.
0:38:16 Truth was is I was way further than I’d ever been.
0:38:18 And if I was just measuring myself backward
0:38:22 against my past self, competing only against my past self,
0:38:24 I was radically further than I ever was
0:38:26 and I just did something huge.
0:38:29 And so I’m learning and I’ve learned over the years
0:38:30 to be more in the game.
0:38:35 And it’s a far more enjoyable, far happier experience.
0:38:37 – Yeah.
0:38:39 And I’d love to kind of dig deeper on this.
0:38:41 If you can help us understand the difference
0:38:43 between ideals and goals
0:38:45 and why that matters with all this.
0:38:50 – So ideals are very, they’re very ephemeral.
0:38:53 Like they’re not actually tangible.
0:38:55 And so like how I learned it from Dan
0:38:58 is ideals are like the horizon in the desert.
0:39:01 Like you can see them out there and like,
0:39:04 but every time you take a few steps forward,
0:39:05 the horizon keeps going.
0:39:07 And in America,
0:39:10 we’re actually trained to always be pursuing happiness.
0:39:11 That’s even in the Declaration of Independence,
0:39:13 life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
0:39:16 And so we’re very big on ideals in America,
0:39:16 which is good.
0:39:17 Like it’s good to have ideals.
0:39:18 It’s good to be idealistic.
0:39:20 There’s nothing wrong with ideals.
0:39:23 The problem is, is that they’re immaterial.
0:39:24 Like I think a definition of ideal
0:39:27 is whatever you believe is perfection.
0:39:28 So when you’re in the gap,
0:39:30 you’re literally measuring yourself
0:39:32 against your view of perfection.
0:39:34 But back to the idea of the horizon,
0:39:36 that view is never endingly changing.
0:39:39 Like my former self would have felt
0:39:42 like it was perfection just to get a book deal.
0:39:44 But then once I got there, the ideal changed.
0:39:45 The horizon moved.
0:39:47 And now, and so if you’re always measuring yourself
0:39:49 against a moving target,
0:39:53 and also a moving target that by definition is unreachable,
0:39:55 you can’t actually reach an ideal.
0:39:56 It’s an ideal.
0:39:58 But if you’re always measuring yourself against it,
0:40:00 then you never feel like you’ve moved anywhere.
0:40:02 And that’s actually why we wrote the book,
0:40:05 is because high achievers by nature have huge ideals,
0:40:08 but they also usually measure themselves against them.
0:40:10 And our culture is trained that way.
0:40:12 Social media trains us to have ideals
0:40:14 and to always be comparing ourselves externally.
0:40:15 And sometimes ideals are other people.
0:40:18 But if you’re always measuring yourself
0:40:19 against something that’s way up ahead
0:40:22 and also something that you can never actually reach,
0:40:24 then what that does for you internally
0:40:26 is it feels like you’ve never made any progress at all.
0:40:30 It also devalues everything you’ve done to that point.
0:40:32 And so whenever you’re in the gap,
0:40:34 it does not matter how much you’ve achieved.
0:40:36 It doesn’t matter if you’re living way, way, way
0:40:39 beyond the dreams of anything you ever thought you would do,
0:40:41 you actually feel like you’ve made no progress at all.
0:40:43 And you feel like a loser
0:40:45 and you’ve devalued not only your current self,
0:40:47 you’ve devalued everything that got you here.
0:40:48 And so ideals are beautiful.
0:40:51 They’re just not useful as a measurement tool.
0:40:54 They’re useful as a direction tool.
0:40:56 Goals are far more concrete.
0:40:59 Obviously, you can have goals that you set
0:41:01 that move you toward your ideals.
0:41:04 And so goals are specific.
0:41:08 They’re concrete, they’re mile markers on a journey.
0:41:11 And then the useful thing to do with your goals
0:41:14 is to obviously become increasingly
0:41:16 intrinsically motivated towards the goals you set
0:41:18 and even the standards you set for yourself
0:41:21 that they’re less about what anyone else thinks,
0:41:23 what anyone else wants.
0:41:24 And you actually get better at doing that
0:41:26 when you just start measuring your progress backwards.
0:41:28 So like I’ll set a goal for myself.
0:41:31 I’ve got huge goals for 2023.
0:41:33 But in terms of where I’m measuring myself
0:41:35 and in terms of my benchmark,
0:41:36 like my benchmark for 2023
0:41:38 is what I accomplished in 2022.
0:41:40 Like I accomplished some cool things,
0:41:43 but I’m using that since it’s tangible.
0:41:44 Ideals are not tangible.
0:41:47 Like I have concrete evidence of what I did in 2022.
0:41:50 And I can use that not only to propel me forward,
0:41:51 but I can also use that to say,
0:41:53 what do I wanna do that’s even gonna be bigger
0:41:54 and more exciting?
0:41:56 So you can just measure yourself backwards
0:41:59 and use that as the baseline for what you can do.
0:42:02 – Yeah, so I hear you saying a couple big ideas here.
0:42:06 The first one is ideals are a moving target.
0:42:07 You’re never gonna get there.
0:42:09 So you’re never gonna be happy
0:42:12 trying to go towards those ideals
0:42:13 because you’re never gonna actually achieve that.
0:42:15 You can’t actually achieve your ideal.
0:42:16 And it’s always moving further and further
0:42:19 as you become more successful, right?
0:42:21 Second is comparing yourselves to other people
0:42:25 that never helps in terms of our mindset or happiness.
0:42:28 And then I hear you saying that goals can be tangible
0:42:30 and you can have mile markers.
0:42:32 And it’s okay to have goals,
0:42:35 but you need to make sure that you’re judging
0:42:38 your progress on those goals based on your past,
0:42:43 not necessarily how far you are from your ideal place, right?
0:42:44 I know I probably didn’t say it as good as you,
0:42:46 but that’s basically what I’m getting at.
0:42:48 – You actually broke it down beautifully.
0:42:50 I think that this is one of the main problems
0:42:51 with the narratives.
0:42:52 Like there’s a lot of narratives
0:42:54 about how you shouldn’t have goals.
0:42:57 Obviously, I think it’s impossible to not have goals.
0:43:01 I think human beings are, we can’t not have a goal.
0:43:05 That’s part of being intentional,
0:43:08 but the problem is the measurement.
0:43:10 I mean, even if I had hit my goal,
0:43:12 I would have gone into the gap.
0:43:13 I would have moved the target.
0:43:17 So even if I had hit the New York Times bestseller list
0:43:18 from a gap perspective,
0:43:20 I still would have felt terrible about myself
0:43:22 because I would have moved the target.
0:43:23 The target would have been,
0:43:25 well, why wasn’t I on it for four weeks?
0:43:26 – Or why wasn’t I number one
0:43:27 like New York Times bestseller yet?
0:43:29 – Yeah, or why didn’t I hit number one?
0:43:30 So it doesn’t even,
0:43:32 whether you hit the goal or not doesn’t even matter.
0:43:34 If you’re in the gap, it will never have been enough
0:43:36 because the target will keep changing
0:43:37 and you’re measuring yourself
0:43:39 against something that’s immeasurable
0:43:42 and something that’s external and always changing.
0:43:44 And so, yeah, whether it’s other people
0:43:45 that you’re measuring yourself against
0:43:48 or whether it’s just your inflated ideals,
0:43:52 that’s the point is that you won’t be happy
0:43:55 hitting or not hitting your goals if you stay in the gap.
0:43:57 And that’s just the key.
0:43:59 – Yeah, so then on the flip side,
0:44:00 let’s talk about gain thinking.
0:44:03 What does it look like to have gain thinking
0:44:05 or to practice gain thinking?
0:44:08 – So I look at gain thinking two ways.
0:44:10 One is, it’s a way of measuring your progress
0:44:11 and measuring your experiences.
0:44:13 So for me, for example,
0:44:17 like I’ve had a number of experiences already today,
0:44:18 like even just to this point.
0:44:20 And some of them went to plans
0:44:22 and some of them didn’t go to plans.
0:44:23 But if I’m in the game,
0:44:24 I’m measuring what actually did happen.
0:44:26 And I’m measuring myself backwards.
0:44:28 I’m only measuring myself against where I was before.
0:44:31 And the truth is I’m always ahead of my past self.
0:44:34 Even if things go backwards seemingly,
0:44:37 like even if I lose my leg in a car accident, right?
0:44:40 Like a lot of bad things can seemingly happen.
0:44:42 But if you’re in the game,
0:44:45 you’re finding the gains and you’re creating gains
0:44:46 from your experiences.
0:44:48 And so I consider it your squeezing
0:44:51 as much juice out of your experiences as possible.
0:44:54 You’re also always choosing to become better as a result.
0:44:58 No matter what happens to you, you’re in the game.
0:45:00 So everything ultimately happens for you.
0:45:01 So I guess it’s really two big ideas.
0:45:03 One is is it’s measuring yourself backward
0:45:04 against where you were before
0:45:08 and always realizing that you’re further than you were before.
0:45:10 And that the only thing I’m actually measuring myself
0:45:13 against is myself, which is where I was before.
0:45:15 So that’s number one is just measuring yourself backwards.
0:45:17 The second one is literally turning everything
0:45:20 that happens to you into something that happens for you.
0:45:23 So anything, no matter what it was,
0:45:25 you can actually gain and grow from it.
0:45:27 And if you do, then you’re always getting better.
0:45:30 You’re always learning from every experience.
0:45:32 Whereas if you’re in the gap,
0:45:34 then your past becomes a problem.
0:45:37 Like that’s from like a psychology standpoint,
0:45:38 what you need to be happy in the present
0:45:41 is you need a happy past and an exciting future.
0:45:44 And the past is literally a meaning.
0:45:48 And so the gain is just a lens of using your,
0:45:51 or of transforming your past into more gains, more learning,
0:45:53 even from your most extreme traumas,
0:45:55 you can learn to turn those into gains
0:45:56 so that you’re constantly better
0:45:58 and even grateful for them,
0:46:01 which is what psychologists would call post-traumatic growth.
0:46:02 So it’s really just those two things.
0:46:04 I’m only measuring myself against myself backward
0:46:07 and I’m literally turning every experience into my gain.
0:46:13 – Yeah, BAM, I have to say, for some reason,
0:46:16 this second interview that I had with Benjamin Hardy
0:46:19 a couple of years ago just really hit different from me.
0:46:21 I’ve thought about this conversation so much
0:46:23 since we had it that I honestly can’t believe
0:46:25 this conversation was two years ago
0:46:27 because it feels so fresh in my mind.
0:46:30 The first time Ben was on my show was episode seven,
0:46:32 which is six years ago now.
0:46:35 And I was literally just starting out as a podcaster.
0:46:38 Now, if I look at the progress from then until now,
0:46:41 it is beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
0:46:44 Cover of podcast magazine, Webby Award honorary,
0:46:45 dubbed as a podcast princess,
0:46:48 now running the number one business podcast network
0:46:51 with $6.5 million in revenue last year,
0:46:54 representing huge legends that I used to look up to
0:46:57 and thought I’d never even meet Jenna Kutcher,
0:46:59 Amy Porterfield, Neil Patel, Russell Brunson.
0:47:02 I mean, my past self six years ago
0:47:05 would have never imagined my future self.
0:47:07 But even with all this progress,
0:47:09 I don’t always feel accomplished.
0:47:11 Sometimes I’ve fallen to the trap
0:47:13 of comparing myself with others,
0:47:15 with other podcasters who were early adopters
0:47:18 and captured more market share on Apple,
0:47:20 with podcasters who seem to get more traffic than me
0:47:22 but don’t try nearly as hard
0:47:24 or don’t have as good as content.
0:47:26 People who feel like overnight successes
0:47:30 like Steven Barlett or Alex Ramosy who came out of nowhere.
0:47:33 And even though I’m a top podcaster,
0:47:36 a top 100 podcaster, I wanna be a top 10 podcaster.
0:47:40 I want everybody in the world to know my name.
0:47:41 And that was always my goal
0:47:43 when I set out on starting the podcast.
0:47:47 And I fall into what Ben calls the gap.
0:47:50 But really, I shouldn’t measure myself this way.
0:47:53 I should be measuring my progress, the game.
0:47:56 I should be measuring my current self against my past self
0:47:58 and not my future self.
0:48:00 And although it’s healthy to measure progress
0:48:01 looking backwards,
0:48:03 it’s actually not healthy to always stay there.
0:48:07 It’s better to think about who you want to be in the future.
0:48:09 And Ben told me the best thing to do
0:48:13 is to get really clear and connected with your future self.
0:48:14 You’ve gotta hear this.
0:48:21 – This is a really interesting concept in psychology.
0:48:22 Typically the way we look at time
0:48:25 is we look at it as past, present and future.
0:48:27 And we kind of look at it sequentially.
0:48:29 So, and we also look at it chronologically.
0:48:31 Like my past is behind me.
0:48:33 There’s no way I can get back there.
0:48:35 My present is now and the future’s up ahead of me.
0:48:37 I’ll never actually be able to go into the future.
0:48:39 All there is is really now.
0:48:40 From a psychology standpoint,
0:48:42 that’s not how psychologists view time.
0:48:44 Psychologists don’t view time sequentially.
0:48:45 We actually view it holistically.
0:48:48 So what I mean by that is that the past
0:48:50 is currently existing in my life.
0:48:54 Like who I’m being right now is a complete amalgamation
0:48:57 of my views of my past, my experiences of my past.
0:48:59 We even today were talking about
0:49:02 us having a conversation four years ago, right?
0:49:05 And so like my past is of course influencing me right now.
0:49:08 And my narration of the past, my story of the past,
0:49:09 the feelings I have toward my past,
0:49:11 the anchors I may have in my past
0:49:15 that are unresolved, call it trauma or whatever.
0:49:17 But also my goals are heavily influencing me.
0:49:20 I mean, anyone who’s listening to this
0:49:21 is listening to it for a reason.
0:49:22 They’re listening to it because they feel like
0:49:24 this is gonna help them contribute to their goals
0:49:25 or help them move forward in their lives.
0:49:28 And so everything about my life right now
0:49:31 is a combination of my feelings and my perspectives
0:49:33 of my past and also my excitements
0:49:35 or my feelings towards the future.
0:49:40 And so they’re certainly not mutually exclusive
0:49:41 in terms of being in the game,
0:49:43 but also having a future oriented mindset.
0:49:46 Most people who read the gap in the game
0:49:48 are very future oriented people.
0:49:52 The game doesn’t stop you I guess from having a future.
0:49:55 Actually in my perspective, whenever I’m living in the game,
0:49:58 it actually helps me to be more,
0:50:00 it helps me to have a future that’s more genuinely
0:50:02 coming from my own self,
0:50:04 rather than something that’s coming from the outside.
0:50:07 Usually people’s goals and they’re called,
0:50:08 their standards or their ideals,
0:50:11 actually were fed to them by culture, by society.
0:50:13 They don’t even, you know, the future that they want
0:50:17 actually isn’t genuinely intrinsically motivated.
0:50:19 And so for me, tapping into the game
0:50:20 just helps me to stop worrying
0:50:22 about the outside world as much,
0:50:24 stop competing with other people.
0:50:27 And so in terms of future self,
0:50:31 I guess I would say in simple terms,
0:50:33 we all have a future self.
0:50:36 What the research shows is that most people,
0:50:37 especially the older they get,
0:50:41 they stop thinking about their future self very much.
0:50:44 Most people probably 30 and above
0:50:47 assume that even their future self,
0:50:48 10, 20 or 30 years from now
0:50:51 is mostly gonna be the same person they are today.
0:50:53 So most people don’t have huge imagination
0:50:54 towards their future self.
0:50:57 What the research does show is that your future self
0:50:59 is gonna be a wildly different person than you think.
0:51:01 Even in five or 10 years from now,
0:51:03 it’s gonna be hard to fully predict
0:51:04 who your future self will be.
0:51:06 But if you start imagining it, start thinking about it,
0:51:08 and importantly getting really connected
0:51:11 to your future self, who you want to be in the future.
0:51:13 You can then start using, obviously,
0:51:15 your vision of your future self
0:51:16 to guide and direct who you’re gonna be today,
0:51:18 and you can be extremely intentional about it.
0:51:22 And so from my standpoint, the best thing to do
0:51:25 is get really clear and connected to your future self,
0:51:27 who you wanna be, get very specific about that,
0:51:30 and then use that as, I guess you could say,
0:51:32 the North Star for directing everything
0:51:33 you’re doing here and now,
0:51:35 and each and every day as you’re moving forward,
0:51:38 you’re measuring yourself against where you were before.
0:51:39 You’re measuring yourself backwards,
0:51:42 and you’re always seeing that by increasingly living
0:51:44 intentionally as your future self,
0:51:47 you’re always outgrowing your past self.
0:51:48 And I do this daily.
0:51:53 I mean, if I even look at where I was a week ago,
0:51:58 I am not the same person I was last week.
0:51:58 I’ve changed a lot.
0:51:59 I’ve grown a lot.
0:52:03 I know a ton of things my past self didn’t know.
0:52:05 And so I’m never my past self,
0:52:07 and I’m always growing into my future self.
0:52:09 And that’s kind of how I see it.
0:52:14 – So yeah, bam, who is your future self
0:52:16 as a content creator?
0:52:18 What goals will your future self achieve?
0:52:20 And how can you make these concrete goals
0:52:23 rather than chasing an ideal that has a goalpost
0:52:26 that is ever moving and leaving you feeling unfulfilled
0:52:28 in a gap mindset?
0:52:29 Write these goals down.
0:52:31 What is your future self as a content creator look like
0:52:34 in one year, in five years, in 10 years?
0:52:38 Imagine with limitless boundaries and write these goals down.
0:52:41 Then use these goals to prioritize and plan your actions.
0:52:43 Understand who you want to be
0:52:45 and then make your decisions from that lens.
0:52:46 It’s your North Star for directing
0:52:49 what you do day in and day out.
0:52:50 It’s the start of the new year
0:52:53 and there’s no better timing to set out on new goals.
0:52:55 Finally, I wanted to touch on a concept
0:52:57 that might seem a little abstract,
0:52:59 but which is actually deeply connected
0:53:01 to staying motivated as a creator.
0:53:04 Luck, have you ever felt like certain people
0:53:05 seem to get all the lucky breaks
0:53:07 while you’re stuck spinning your wheels?
0:53:10 Well, what if I told you that luck isn’t just random?
0:53:13 It’s something that you can actively cultivate.
0:53:15 Case Kenny, a writer and mindfulness expert,
0:53:17 broke down this idea beautifully for me
0:53:19 when he shared how luck is intertwined
0:53:22 with patience, action and authenticity.
0:53:28 I was listening to an interview with you
0:53:31 and James Altichur a couple of days ago
0:53:35 and you guys were talking about how luck is similar to faith,
0:53:38 which I thought was just a really cool way to think about it,
0:53:41 that luck is very similar to how you would think of faith.
0:53:43 How can we make ourselves more lucky?
0:53:47 What are some ways that we can break the rut that we’re in,
0:53:48 the routine that we’re in
0:53:51 to try to bring more luck into our lives?
0:53:53 I like the idea of luck as faith
0:53:56 and I like the idea of luck and faith and patience
0:53:58 being intertwined.
0:54:01 When you give yourself patience,
0:54:03 that is saying I have faith in myself.
0:54:05 When you’re saying I don’t need to rush to do this,
0:54:07 I don’t need to conform to someone else’s timeline,
0:54:08 I just need to keep doing what I’m doing.
0:54:11 That is faith in yourself and that is what creates luck.
0:54:13 There’s a book that I referenced quite a bit
0:54:15 that has been passed around a little bit
0:54:17 about the talks about luck.
0:54:18 I’m blanking on the author of it,
0:54:20 but it’s called “Chase Chance and Creativity,
0:54:22 the Lucky Art of Novelty”
0:54:25 and it’s basically written by this scientist professor
0:54:28 who was talking about the role that luck has played
0:54:31 in some great scientific breakthroughs, right?
0:54:32 Specifically luck in the lab,
0:54:35 like the invention of pasteurization and Louis Pasteur
0:54:36 and the invention of penicillin.
0:54:39 These were technically mistakes that were made in the lab
0:54:41 when they just randomly did things,
0:54:43 not scientists that don’t know the exacts,
0:54:45 but they randomly mixed things together
0:54:46 and something great happened, right?
0:54:46 It was luck.
0:54:48 It wasn’t part of the plan, it was luck.
0:54:52 And basically the scientist looked over the years,
0:54:55 over the many decades and centuries of luck in the lab
0:54:59 and he said luck is actually categorizable.
0:55:00 It’s something we could break down
0:55:01 and it’s something we can’t control.
0:55:03 And he said there’s four kinds of luck.
0:55:05 And one luck is the kind of luck
0:55:08 that I think we’re all so apt to identify by.
0:55:10 And for me, I used to think,
0:55:11 well, I’m an unlucky person, right?
0:55:12 I’m number one in the lottery.
0:55:13 I always hit red lights.
0:55:15 Like if something bad can happen,
0:55:16 it tends to happen to me.
0:55:18 That’s the kind of luck that we need to ignore.
0:55:19 That’s random luck.
0:55:21 Like we don’t really care about random luck.
0:55:23 We can’t control it, it is what it is.
0:55:24 But there’s three other kinds of luck
0:55:26 that he identified in the lab
0:55:29 that I think is very immediately transferable to life.
0:55:32 The first was luck that comes from experience
0:55:33 and association.
0:55:35 Basically the more you do something,
0:55:37 the wiser you get about it,
0:55:40 such that in the future you make better decisions.
0:55:43 You’re able to quickly form more mental associations
0:55:46 of if this, then that, and you just have better results.
0:55:48 It’s luck that comes from wisdom, right?
0:55:50 So for me, it’s like with writing quotes.
0:55:53 I’ve written, I don’t know, a thousand on Instagram.
0:55:56 I kind of know what people want.
0:55:59 I know what makes people feel seen.
0:56:01 So people are like, I posted something yesterday.
0:56:02 Today it’s got like 90,000 likes.
0:56:04 That’s a lot of likes.
0:56:04 That’s a little bit lucky.
0:56:07 The algorithm lucked me today.
0:56:08 Well, kind of.
0:56:10 It was just a little bit of association.
0:56:11 So that was luck one.
0:56:13 The other luck was luck that comes from motion.
0:56:14 Can’t deny that, right?
0:56:16 The more you do, the luckier you get.
0:56:17 Objects in motion, stay in motion.
0:56:20 Objects in motion, bump into other objects in motion.
0:56:22 The more you do, the more podcasts you release,
0:56:23 the more music you release,
0:56:25 the more cold calls you make.
0:56:27 Literally the luckier you get.
0:56:29 People, for some reason, we conflate luck
0:56:32 with being irregardless of effort,
0:56:34 but luck is truly effort.
0:56:35 And then the last luck that he broke down
0:56:38 was luck that comes from uniqueness, originality,
0:56:41 authenticity, just the fact that the more real you are,
0:56:45 the luckier you get in the sense that people can detect that.
0:56:47 Like some of the examples would like,
0:56:48 if you have blue hair, right?
0:56:51 And that’s like authentic to you and your expression.
0:56:52 It strikes up a conversation with someone.
0:56:54 Oh, and they’re an editor for Vogue
0:56:55 and you want to be a fashion model.
0:56:58 Things like that, luck that comes from originality
0:57:01 and authenticity, that in very practical ways,
0:57:02 whether it’s a conversation in an elevator
0:57:04 or something you post that shines through
0:57:06 to attract the right people and you get lucky.
0:57:08 But it comes from that level of realness.
0:57:11 So yeah, I like thinking about luck in that sense
0:57:14 because I used to really victimize myself
0:57:16 as an unlucky person.
0:57:17 And of course that’s not true.
0:57:18 And that’s unfair.
0:57:20 Back to the idea of that’s bold of you and vulnerability.
0:57:23 It’s an unfair thing to say I’m an unlucky person.
0:57:25 You could break yourself free of being unlucky
0:57:28 by being real, by leaning on your past
0:57:29 for those associations.
0:57:31 And then for doing more, of course.
0:57:38 – Cases breakdown of luck is such a powerful reminder
0:57:40 that you don’t have to sit around
0:57:42 waiting for opportunities to come to you.
0:57:45 Instead, take action, stay true to yourself
0:57:47 and trust that your consistent efforts
0:57:48 will eventually pay off.
0:57:50 And that’s a wrap for episode three
0:57:52 of the app creator series.
0:57:54 Today we explore the journey of staying motivated
0:57:56 as a content creator from starting small
0:57:59 and staying consistent to avoiding burnout
0:58:01 and gap thinking while practicing game thinking
0:58:05 and focusing on transforming into your future self.
0:58:08 And remember, content creation is a marathon, not a sprint.
0:58:10 The keys to find systems and tools
0:58:12 that support your creativity
0:58:14 and make the process sustainable.
0:58:15 Whether that’s batching content,
0:58:16 automating your workflows
0:58:19 or using tools like OpusClip to save time
0:58:21 while making awesome content.
0:58:24 I wanna thank OpusClip for sponsoring this series.
0:58:26 OpusClip’s AI-powered clip anything
0:58:28 can transform how you create.
0:58:30 Effortlessly discover hidden moments
0:58:33 in your long form videos and turn videos
0:58:34 into shareable viral content
0:58:36 that resonates with your audience.
0:58:38 They also have a social post scheduler
0:58:40 to auto post your clips to YouTube,
0:58:42 TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and X
0:58:44 so you can save your precious time
0:58:47 and stay consistent with your posting in 2025.
0:58:50 If you’re ready to take your content to the next level,
0:58:52 try OpusClip today for free
0:58:54 at opus.pro/clipanything
0:58:57 that’s opus.pro/clipanything.
0:58:58 Thanks for tuning in
0:59:00 and I can’t wait to see you in episode four
0:59:03 of the Yap Creator series presented by OpusClip.
0:59:05 This is Hala Taha signing off.
0:59:08 (upbeat music)
0:59:11 (upbeat music)
0:59:14 (upbeat music)
0:59:17 (upbeat music)
0:59:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]