A Surprising Antidote to Content Perfectionism...

This is one of the earliest thoughts that came to me when it comes to content creation years ago that allowed me to be liberated, to actually become the person you're seeing before you today, someone who is creating on a consistent basis and known for content. So the thought was, I don't think that anyone is going to remember pretty much most of my content except for the very few pieces that actually made a, an impact on them. And most of the things I create are not going to make that deep of an impact on people that they're going to remember it. Because, listen, after something I share, you're going to see 10 more things. You know, whether it's on this platform or somewhere else or on your email or you're just inundated with content information every day. So every piece of content makes a tiny, tiny impact, if any memory at all, except for a few things every now and then that really deeply resonate in such a way that you're going to remember it for, you know, more than five minutes. Okay, so in other words, the. In other words, I became totally liberated to start creating, publishing consistently because I realize most of it won't make a difference. Now. This is, this might be, well, interesting to you because many of you watching this are. Have some kind of perfectionism within you or procrastination when it comes to creating. And I think oftentimes the procrastination about creating content is one you realize you think you have to spend so much time doing it. Well, why do you have to spend so much time doing it? Because you're trying to get it right. Well, why are you trying to get it right? Well, because if I don't get it right, then the person watching it or the person reading it is going to have. Is not going to like me. Essentially, it's not going to like me. And I'm not going to be accepted or respected or have a career, have a livelihood, you know, have followers, whatever. So bottom line is, it's the fear of making the wrong impact that makes you take so damn long to write something or record something or two, not show up consistently because, well, today I don't feel like I can get it right. Today I'm not feeling creative or brilliant or beautiful or, you know, confident or authentic as it may be. But the thing about authentic is, however you show up today, if you show up today and be yourself with a heart open to connecting with your ideal audience member, that is authentic, however it shows up. I mean, for example, before this video, before I, I started recording, I was having a Heck of a time with technology. I couldn't get Zoom to stream to my Facebook business page, so I'm ended up streaming to my Facebook profile, which is kind of embarrassing for me because I. My Facebook profile isn't really meant for business type stuff. Not. I mean, sometimes I do post stuff, but it's like a lot of like friends, family, and random people following me there. And anyway, so despite the tech, so I'm not like in the most grounded and confident state right now. But I'm showing up because it's my commitment, my dedication to showing up, knowing that if I wait until I feel totally grounded, totally ready, you won't be seeing me except once every couple of months on online. Because I never, I never. I mean, I can't remember the last time. No, that's not true. Okay. The only times I feel ready to go is when I've stuck, when I've started, after I've started. So right now, I'm. However many minutes into this recording, what, like five minutes into the recording, I'm starting to feel ready. I'm starting to feel ready and grounded for being here. But no, before I started, no, I. I never feel ready before I start. And that's like a secret that a lot of people don't realize about. Well, I could say performers, but even just people who show up, I mean, it's always a performance. Your entire life, I think, is a performance of some kind. George, what about authentic? You know, I thought trying to be authentic here, even authenticity, is a performance. It's. It's trying to sense into what's most real and true and being that and sharing that in the moment, while the rest of your life, you may be wearing masks of one kind or another when you're with other people and even with yourself. But long story short, let me go back to the original message here. I'm a little all over the place today because of the tech issue and feeling ungrounded. But thank you for, for being here anyway, and I hope this message makes a difference for you. But the message, again, is most of your content will not be remembered. Only a few of your pieces of content will be remembered. Those are the few that made a. Probably made a positive, deep impact on other people, and they will remember you for that, those few pieces of content you make. So, for example, you make a hundred videos, you'll be remembered for what, maybe two or three of them, maybe 10 if you're lucky. Honestly, if you write, you know, 300 blog posts, you'll be remembered for 10 of them. Out of the 300, something like that, if you're lucky. I mean, think about it this way. Think about your. Think about your favorite song or just whatever song comes to your head. Okay. Do you have that song? Pick one. A thin air, old song, new song, doesn't matter. Pick a song that you. That you can think of. Okay, you got it. Do you know all the other songs that that artist created and published? Do you remember even five more of them? Usually not. I mean, sure, you might have a favorite artist that you like. You love, like 20 of their songs, but that's pretty rare. Most of the music you remember is from some. Some musician, some band, some artist that you don't even know most of their songs, or maybe you've heard some of their other songs, but you just don't even remember them. In fact, some of their. Maybe even many of their songs. I can think of a song right away. I mean, it's like. It's like I could think of several artists where, like, I loved that one song. And then I listened and I. You know, back. Back in the. Back in the 90s, we would have to. We had to buy their. The entire album, right? Like, maybe you could buy the single. We got so excited, oh, that's a really good single. And then you bought the entire album. You're like, what is, what is this stuff? Like most of the album you don't like, guess what? Same thing with your content. Someone gets really deeply impacted by one of your hundred pieces of content, and then they go to your other stuff. They're like, ah, it's okay. Right? It's okay. And then. But if you stop there with that one hit song, well, you won't ever get to your second hit song. And by the way, if you've never. If you've never even gotten to your one hit song, are you going to stop? Well, I hope not, because how will you get better? How will you get better at creating unless you create more? The practice of creativity, the practice of consistent creating is essential to create the momentum for the practice of mastery. Let me say that again in a different way. How can you change your direction so that you can go in a better direction? Unless you're moving, Unless you're in motion. Like, I could stand here and go, I'm gonna go in this direction, I'm gonna go in that direction. But then I'm not actually moving anywhere. I'm just going like this, and I'm going like this. Once I'm moving in motion, then I can actually direct myself in a Better direction or the way that I actually want to go, my North Star or whatever it is my vision is. But without being in motion, you're just going like this, like this, and you're never moving anywhere. You have to get on the road of consistent creating before you can reasonably on be on the road to mastery of creating. To become more skillful at creating, it takes reps, it takes practice, it takes repetitions, reps in order to become strong in your expression of your energy signature, to find your voice. Actually, it takes multiple practices of speaking, of writing, of creating, of taking photos, of recording various kinds of pieces of art. For example, before you can find your voice, before you can find your genuine style. And it's like once you. The more you discover your genuine style, the more you can then master that style so that you become uniquely known for that style. Now, of course, not that no one else in the world has your style. The other people, we. And we all emulate other people, okay, so we all emulate. We're all this amalgamation of all the videos we've watched, the things we've read, the things we've listened to, the people we've hung around. We're an amalgamation of all that. But still you can't find that unique combination that creates the most brilliant style unless, I mean the most brilliant style for you unless you're in motion, you're creating consistently, you're experimenting. And so in other words, when I. Thankfully this idea came to me years ago that, oh my God, most of my content is mediocre. Not. And by the way, it's not for me to judge it, and it's not for you to judge your content either. You're. You're not allowed to judge your content. You're not allowed to evaluate whether your content is good or not. By definition, if your content is good, it's good in the eyes of the people who are consuming your content. I mean, if you're judging your own content, problem is, you will rarely get out there on a consistent basis or you always find yourself being blocked because you have the subconscious judgments of yourself. But so the act of creating actually is, I think, a beautiful act of learning to stop judging yourself. Learning to set aside the inner critic and put the inner critic in us in a. In a safe place. Well, they, you know, the inner credit can, can do its wonderful job, you know, while you are experimenting with creating the. I mean, sorry, the inner critic can do its wonderful job later. Okay, later in other situations where it's actually helpful. But when it comes to creating Content. When it comes to making videos, writing, recording podcasts, creating art, whatever it is, you have to be experimenting consistently in order to find your voice. And. And most of that experimentation will be mediocre in the eyes of the audience. You cannot expect that most of your pieces are going to be liked. Did you expect that? Sorry, did someone tell you. Okay, I'll tell you why you expected that. Because every time you go on social media, you scroll and you're just seeing the best. Did you know this? On social media, you're not seeing, like, the 90% of what's been posted today. The 90% are hidden from you because it was mediocre in the eyes of the audience. And so will your 90 to 95 be mediocre in the eyes of your audience? Not. Nothing's wrong with you. Mine is also mediocre 95% of the time. Nothing's wrong with me either. Nothing's wrong with any of us. It's just that we are experimenting and we need. We experiment. Finding your authentic energy signature and your best voice and your best style is like a fog. You're walking through the fog because you don't really know what treasures are in the fog. Most of the time, there's nothing in the fog. Okay, now let's set aside monsters in the fog, okay, for this analogy. Sorry. This is a mediocre video. I already know it. But that's okay. I'm going to keep going because I'm practicing and I dedicated myself to practice. Most of the time, you are like, looking for treasure. And most of the time, you won't find treasure, but you have to keep looking, otherwise you won't find it. If you knew exactly where the treasure was, well, that then everybody would know where their treasure is. And everyone will be successful by now. But by definition, success or remarkability being. Being this thing, being remarkable means it's above average. Because the thing is, everyone is average. By definition, everyone is. Most people are basically average. I'm average. You're probably average. No, George, I'm brilliant. I'm beautiful. I'm. Okay, fine, Fine. Everyone thinks that. Okay, or not everyone. Those of us with. With. With too much ego loving ourself think that. No, most of us, whatever we create out there, by definition, is pretty much average. And so it's not remarkable. So people are not going to remember. It's not going to make an impact. Very little of an impact. Sometimes you chance upon when you're creating something that just comes out of you, okay. Whether you're writing or speaking or recording and creating art, something comes out of you that was unexpected that you didn't expect or, or the, the irony. Sometimes something comes out of you that's totally obvious, but whatever, once you put it out there, the audience goes, that's remarkable. That's different and better than most of the stuff I've seen today. And you're like, really? Oh, sometimes you, you have a sense of it, but a lot of times I have a sense, oh, this is going to be a brilliant. And then none of you find it brilliant. Okay. So much, so much that I have trained myself after all of these experiences to be agnostic about what the response is going to be like. So liberate yourself to say, well, if I have to keep trying a lot to find the gym, I better start trying today and I better start trying every day, or whatever rhythm you're going to dedicate yourself to creating. Could be twice a week, could be three times a week, it could be five times a week. But you need to experiment so much to find those few gems that make your career. And that's the point. That's. That's what happened to me. I've. I've made. Go to my YouTube channel. I've made almost 2,000 videos. Like a handful of them, maybe less than 200 of them, made maybe more like 20 of them out of the 2,000. Made my career. It set me up for life. I mean, basically, it set me up for life. Those. Keep those videos, keep bringing new people all the time. You know, search engine optimization people know this too. Of all your blog posts, a few of them are suddenly going to go viral. Like, what happened? Oh, really? Okay. You know, you have to put out so much content to find those few gems. You can't be in this fantasy of, I'm going to work really hard on this one thing that's going to go viral. Well, good luck. Have you tried it? Did it, did it work? Well, if it worked great, if you can duplicate that, wonderful. Most of us are in the. The reality that we have to create so much for one of those things to go viral. And the other, everything else not going to be remembered. No one's going to care. No one's going to think badly of you. You're the only one thinking badly of yourself. So you got to practice. Stop thinking badly of yourself. Stop. Stop fearing your imperfection and put your. Put as much out there as possible, knowing that one of those hundred is going to make your career. It's worth it. If I told you, if you made a hundred things, one of those things would set you up for life. Would you do it? I hope so. Now, I'm not promising that of you. For some of us, maybe myself, it's one out of a thousand things set me up for life. But I've made 2,000 now, and probably two of those thousand things did set me up for life. Keeps bringing me new clients keep springing me. Inquiries about my courses and my services and everything. So get going. Yeah, okay. I hope this is helpful. Thanks for watching.