Expect to Suck: The Ultimate Content Creation Mindset

You know, my first video, I had 3 comments on it. My mom, my older sister, and one random guy. I'm like, let's go! Somebody saw my video. This is great. In a full year, right? It looks like a complete failure. And I felt like a failure, but I just kept going. Just expect to suck at the beginning. At least that's what I tell myself. I just expect to suck. You release all of the expectations of doing anything great at the beginning, and that relieves the burden. It's like, just floss one tooth. You know, you'll keep going. I love the idea of waking up every day and having a success story in my ear, 'cause I don't wake up every day like, let's go win. How do you keep that? At least for me, it's consuming content.

Lower your standards.

Lower your standards, but it helps. You know, it's like if you're— what did I learn from Evan? Lower your standards. Perfect. That's the takeaway from this weekend. You suck. Great. That's what I learned. Evan is not speaking next year. Yeah, exactly.

That's it.

I'm done.

I cannot wait for this because, as all of you probably know, Mr. Evan Carmichael has been one of my biggest influences and mentors over the last 5 or 6 years. Evan is the reason that I started my podcast. Evan is the reason that I doubled the size of this event. And so, quick round of applause for Mr. Carmichael. Thank you.

He's being very charitable. Nick would have done a lot of this without me, but he's great.

I always ask Evan, would you like to go out and speak solo? And he's like, no, man, let's go chop it up in front of everybody. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to chat a little bit. I'm going to ask him a couple of questions, and then we're going to look for some audience questions. Something that Evan does very well is he can answer a question, give you an action, and move on to the next person, and it's very inspirational. So start thinking about with somebody like Evan who has 4.6 million subscribers on YouTube and he's built this year over year over year over year and it's very large, how can I ask Evan something that I can use to grow my own YouTube channel or turn viewers into business? So here's my first question for you. What are some of the mistakes that this room is making? They've written a book. That book is a lead mechanism or credibility builder for something else in the backend, but they're not really selling that thing, whether it's coaching, consulting, speaking, courses, communities. They're not leveraging social media enough. What are some of the mistakes that people are making?

Book is a piece of content, right? And it takes a ton of time to make the content. And ideally you have something else. I'm always trying to figure out how do you get more money to fund the mission? Because you guys are mission-driven, I'm thinking, right? Like, if you're hanging around Nick, he attracts good people. And so if you're here, it's because you're on a big mission, you're trying to change the world. What are we looking at? Oh, this is the year-over-year growth. Yeah, Nick loves this slide.

I love this slide.

So I started my first year, I had 25 subscribers. Let's go. Right? First 25 is the hardest 25. No matter what you're at, that's my default line. Like, you have 2,000 subscribers, hey, first 2,000 is the hardest 2,000. Just keep going. And people say, what made the difference? And 2014 was a pretty big year. 2 things happened. I married my wife, Nina. So that's great. She's somewhere here and she's not into YouTube and was not a content creator. Didn't tell me how to make content. Just— but just I did not realize how valuable it was to have somebody who was like actively supporting you on what you're doing. And so, for those of you who had those people in your life, like, keep them. It doesn't have to be your spouse, but just people who wanna see you win, like, keep them in your life, 'cause it makes a huge difference. And for those of you who are looking at relationships still, like, that's a pretty big win.

So— Let's pause on that real quick. One of the reasons that I wanted to build this event is because the personal development space and authoring business books can be pretty lonely. Oftentimes you are the most motivated person in your local friend group. You're the only one in your family that thinks this is cool. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with that. Where's Chandler? He's, uh, he thinks it's cool. He's my brother.

Let's go.

And so an event like this gives you an opportunity to meet like-minded people, and it's sort of that idea of 1 1 3. There's this extra form of intelligence and momentum that forms in a room like this. So for you, you know, who are some of the most important people?

Well, I mean, my wife, obviously. She joined the business. We did a 23-city tour, 90 days, and she left her job, her 9-to-5, to join me on the tour, and she managed the whole thing. And ever since then, she's been in the business. So yeah, shout out to Nina. It's great. And then the easy answer, like my parents and just the foundation growing up. But I've actually learned a lot from what I call aspirational mentors. So if you guys are familiar with my channel, I profile famous entrepreneurs, break down rules for success. And I love the idea of waking up every day and having a success story in my ear because I don't wake up every day like, let's go win, you know? So how do you keep that? At least for me, it's consuming content. And I like video content the best, but it could be reading a book a day. It could be or sections of a book. It could be listening to podcasts, but whatever gets you going every morning. For me, it's having the famous entrepreneur content that just makes me want to play a bigger game. Steve is my agent who's on that graph, 2014, and that was the first time I asked for help. Anybody here have a hard time asking for help? Right? I really struggle. I mean, I still do. It's still probably the biggest challenge is asking for help. I would never come to an event like this. I'm too introverted and shy. I would never come to this, and I would just think, I'm not going to talk to anybody. It's going to be hard. So you guys here are already ahead of me when I was getting started, and so that's awesome. But 2014 was the first time I started asking for help, and I started saying, hey, I can't do this by myself. When Rory came up and said, there's no New York Times bestselling author, it's a bestselling team, right? Like, I needed to start asking for help. And so those, like Nina and Steve, were hugely instrumental to my growth. But to your first question, like, what are the biggest mistakes? We spend so much time making books. So I've done 4 books. We've done 2 with like Penguin Random House, big publishers, and then 2 on my own. And we just think there's so much work to make a book happen, right? Like, it's not easy writing a book. But then to think I have to make more content afterwards, you know, and I'm not good on camera and I don't want to turn on the video. And I'm introverted and shy, right? All of the things that are in our head of why we're not doing a thing. And maybe you've made some— like, you guys have probably all made some kind of content, right? You've tried Instagram or YouTube or something and maybe not seen the results that you wanted. You can look at this and maybe get inspired a little bit. You're probably ahead of me in year 1 or year 2 or year 5. The thing that made the difference for me and why Steve was on that board is I never wanted to be famous. It's not a huge, like, it's not for ego. And I think for a lot of people here, if you're in Nick's world, it's just finally I heard the message from Steve was, hey, the more people know you, the more people hear the message. And so you have a responsibility almost to share. And yes, that helps you sell more books and sell more coaching. And I'm all for making money. I love making money. It's fantastic. I'm not like, hey, just give everything away. But you won't do as much for yourself as you will for other people. And so if you can genuinely connect, like, you guys wrote a book for a reason, right? And if you can connect to that and just say, hey, I also need to continue that mission forward, because the worst thing is you just have a book that just sits there and nobody ever sees it. And you have a lot of wisdom in what you created, and there's a responsibility to share it, at least I think. Like, if you're mission-driven, there's a responsibility. It's not just about you and how scared you are. It's about who you're trying to serve and who you're trying to help. So my book is called Built to Serve, right? I think humans are built to serve. If you're not happy in life, it's because you're not serving enough people or at a deep enough level. And if you can get out of the making content is I don't get enough views or, you know, my first video, I had 3 comments on it. My mom, my older sister, and one random guy. I'm like, let's go. Somebody saw my video. This is great. In a full year, right? It looks like a complete failure. And I felt like a failure, but I just kept going. And the mission was the thing that kept me going. And so there's a duty or there's a responsibility not just to promote the book and get it to more people, but like that you wrote this for a reason and you're trying to make an impact and you're here for a reason. And yes, we're trying to grow our companies. And the most important thing I think in a business is a deep sense of purpose of what you're trying to accomplish. And we forget that. Right? Like, we lose sight of that. And for the days when you wake up and it's like you're having a bad hair day or like a no hair day, you have a pimple on your nose or like whatever, you know, you're not feeling it today. And then you just don't want to do the thing when you can connect back to the mission of why you're doing this in the first place. At least that's what gets me going a little bit more. And so we think about like strategy and tact and we can dive into as much of that as you guys want to. And I love doing kind of Q&A with the audience. But first is the reason why you're doing it, the reason why you're here, the reason why you wrote the book is 'cause you're trying to make an impact, and you have a message that can change somebody's life. And if you're not getting up and doing something on a consistent basis, then you're cheating the mission.

Rory has that lesson that he teaches. He says, you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. And I believe there is an opportunity cost To not getting out there and sharing that message consistently because you struggled for decades. You overcame that struggle. You have the solution. You documented it inside of a book. Sometimes it takes you years to do that, and then you won't get on camera and try to talk to people because of a fear of judgment. How do you help people overcome that fear the first time they start creating content?

Expect to suck at the start. Just expect to suck. It doesn't mean that you suck as a human. It just means you don't have the skill set yet. And the problem is we have taste. So like, you know what looks good. You see other people do it, so you know what looks good. And then you think, okay, if, if a Rory, if a Nick, if, uh, you know, Jim Quick, if that's like A, A+ standard, I'm not going to be them, but I could be like a B-, right? Like, I'm not that— I know my stuff. I'm a B- at least. And then you go and you make your first video and it's like, I'm not a B— this is terrible. This is F. Like, nobody can see this. This has to be buried somewhere, right? And so you never post it. And so it's like, because you have good taste, but you can't produce at that level yet. And that's okay because we have this expectation gap. So just expect to suck at the beginning. At least that's what I tell myself. I just expect to suck. So you release all of the expectations of doing anything great at the beginning. And that relieves the burden. It's like, just floss one tooth, you know, you'll keep going, right? Probably. So just expect to suck at the beginning. And then back to the motivation, I've got a framework I call Big Y, Little y. So the Big Y is the mission. And like, some days the mission is awesome. Some days the mission really motivates you. Some days, like, I'm going to change the world. You come here, you're meeting awesome people, you're having great connections. You go home, it's like, this is awesome. I'm going to do all this stuff, right? You have notebooks full And the other days you wake up, it's like it just feels too big. You ever have that? Like the mission just feels too big. Like, who am I? Imposter syndrome, like all of this stuff. So that's where the little why comes in. And for me, the little why is just, can you help one person? Because you can help one person, right? Even if it's the younger version of you.

Mm-hmm.

Like one of the main themes of Built to Serve is your purpose comes from your pain, right? Whatever you struggled with the most is what you want to help other people overcome so they don't have to struggle as much as you did. Your story gives them the hope that they can get through it as well. You're an inspiration, even just to former you. Could you help former you? Could you help one person? Can you believe that making a video or sending out a newsletter, doing some promotion for the book, like, can you believe that it can help one person? And if it's like, yes, okay, then do that. So in the days where the big why is motivating, I'm gonna go change the world, awesome, go do that. And for the days where that just feels too big and you've got massive imposter syndrome, then it's a little y. Like, okay, but I can help one person. Like, if I make one video or respond to one comment, I can help one person. That's meaningful because we all want to wake up and feel like the work that we do matters, right? I think if you're in this room.

Yeah, it's incredibly important. I use that big Y, little y this morning, actually. I mean, I woke up today. It's super early in the morning. This is my first time hosting an event this size. I'm like, I kind of wonder if this is going to suck. But then I remembered there are individual people that have reached out to me and they were super excited and I knew that I could positively impact them. So I kind of shrunk down and I thought, I can help a couple of individual people this weekend get connected to something that will move their book or their business forward. And now I can do at least that. And that kind of relieves the anxiety a little bit.

If you're going to make video, Great. Just expect to suck. Talk about stuff you know. But again, it's like just because you produce something bad, it doesn't mean you are bad, right? It's like the first time you get on a skateboard, you're going to fall off, right? It's like, why do you expect to be good just because you know what good looks like? Like, if you actually thought through it, it doesn't make sense that you would just get on camera and just crush it out of the gate, right? So that's okay. So just expect to suck. Like, that's actually the best.

Yeah, it's a skill. Earning money is a skill. Video content is a skill. Selling books is a skill, and we can acquire them. Now, because we're limited on time, and I love this part where Evan answers questions, we're going to run a mic around. And Evan, I'm going to have you try to keep your answers to like 1 to 2 minutes so that we can fit a bunch of these in. All right, Donnie first, right here.

All right, so strategically, how do you overcome this? So a lot of, I think a lot of people, you make a book, you do the post, and it's not that you expected it to be bad, You actually thought it was pretty dang good. You put it out in the world and it's in the void.

Yeah.

Nothing burger. What do you do about the void of when it meant so much to you, but it just fell flat? How do you come back and create art again?

So I expect to suck. So I never— I don't love anything that I do. Like, we've made a video Every day for, I don't know when the last time we missed a video, like every day for a decade plus. We've had the channel since—

That is consistency.

But it's never as good as I want it to be, right? And so maybe I just have lower expectations.

Lower your standards.

Lower your standards. But it helps. It's like if you're— what did I learn from Evan? Lower your standards. Perfect. That's the takeaway from this weekend. You suck. Great. That's what I learned.

Evan is not speaking next year.

Yeah, exactly. That's it. I'm done. But I don't know. I find it helpful. It's like, one, I don't have a ton of pressure on this having to be the thing. And 2, I'm going to make another one tomorrow anyway. So if it works, awesome. And if it doesn't, I'm making another one anyway. And then 3, if you can just tie it to something, like if you can tie it to a reader question, if you can tie it to an Instagram comment you got, if you can tie it to helping like one person, it'll feel like if I make a video for you, I'm answering— if I'm answering this question, hopefully it's helpful for you and whoever else watches it. But if it tanks, I still feel like I helped you. So it's just an emotional battle every day to feel like you're helping at least one person, and then tomorrow you're just going to do it again.

When you look at the mission, you talk so much about mission. And we look at what the algorithms reward today, how do you balance mission versus what the platforms are chasing?

I think if you are just chasing the algorithm, you're going to burn out. So as an example, I've done 8,000 videos since 2009. It's a lot of videos. And if anybody's familiar with my content, it's always like the main message is believe. I would turn around, but my ankle's kind of busted.

His sweatshirt says believe in big letters on the back.

Like, how do you make 8,000 videos around believe? I don't know, every day wake up, make a new video around belief. It's always positive. It's always highlighting the good. And if you went negative and said, here are the 10 worst things about blank, or here's why I hate blank, it would do better. I would be bigger. I might have 40 million subscribers instead of, you know, 4.6 or whatever. But I would quit. I would feel gross. Like, it just— I think you burn out. chasing negativity. And so I think that's just an ethical thing. When people ask me about work-life balance, I don't know, what's work? Is this work? Like, this is fun. On my calendar, it's not work. I'm going to go work at the Book Thinkers event. Like, this is cool. I get to hang out with awesome people. Like, what's more fun than that?

We worked out a deal where he's actually paying to speak at the next one.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. Thank you. That's great. It's heart first and then strategy right underneath, right? Just like a business has to make money, but money is secondary to mission. But money is not— like, I think money— I wrote about it in Built to Serve too. Like, money has to be in your top 5, but it's not number 1. But it's not number 1,000 either. Like, if money is number 1,000, you're never going to make money. And then you're also cheating the mission because you're just doing this thing on your own part-time on the side. But if you made money, you could hire a team of 50 people to help you go accomplish your big mission, right? Just mission has to be above everything else. Your purpose is above everything else. And then the strategy of how to make money, how to work the algorithm, I love that too. I love the science. Like, we're deep into it, but never sacrificing mission against it. So I think that will lead to a path of burnout and just you stop because you feel like you have to be negative or you have to attack something. And then it'll work for a short amount of time, and then you'll quit.

First of all, I want to say thank you so much. I've been watching you for years, and your content literally changed my life, so I really appreciate that.

Thank you.

The question I have for you is, I feel like a lot of us come to conferences like this, and we have a lot of energy, and we get really excited while we're here, and then we go home and feel really overwhelmed. or can't pinpoint what it is that we need to focus on. And so my question is, if you were still at the very beginning of your career and you did come to a conference like this, what is the number one thing or most important thing that you would do as soon as you got home?

I'll give you one and a little bonus, but the one is collect good people. So whoever you've met that kind of filled your cup, find a way to stay in touch. Follow them on Instagram, connect with them. If you want to do a monthly check-in or call, like, I go out of my way to try to connect with people. Like, when I first connected with Nick was years ago when he was like still on the, on the come up for everything he's doing.

That's generous. I was a nobody. I had no following. And I get a DM on Instagram from Evan Carmichael, verified profile, back when you couldn't buy it. And it was a video. And you said, hey, I have a new book. I'd like to send you a copy of it. I like what you're doing. I had like Hundreds of followers.

Yeah, so I mean, I don't know, there's something like people say, why do I do that? I mean, there's something about the vibe. Like, he's got a good vibe, right?

Thank you.

So, I mean, logically it may not make sense. I didn't know Nick was going to go and do this and all the great things he's about to do, but I just like the vibe. And so I try to collect good people. So if there's somebody that, like people here that you've met, like just find a way to stay in touch, even if you're awkward and introverted and everything else, right? Like I am. Just so that you have those people, because you're the one, to Nick's point, pouring in the people when you go home, but having people— it's sometimes hard for givers to receive, right? So stay in touch with those people, even if just once a month. Tactically, I'd say just on the plane ride home, you have a giant notebook, you've heard some amazing speakers, and there's more coming tomorrow, and it can be information overwhelm. On the plane ride home, what I like to do is just figure out what are my next steps. You don't need to do everything that has been talked about. Like, you can't. So what are the 1 to 3 things that's actually going to change between now and like 3 months later? And just focus on that. And everything else is super cool, but like, here's what's going to help me move the needle. To watch my awesome interview with Lisa Bilyeu from my YouTube Mastermind, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

People who knew my Quest background, they're like, but Lisa, you just built a billion-dollar company. Why aren't you teaching women to build a billion-dollar company? And I'm like, because the money didn't change my life. My confidence changed my life.