Dear content creators: Good ideas aren't enough anymore...
20 Jan 2025 · 12 min
George Kao argues that good ideas and charisma alone won't build an audience anymore. He points to a viral neurosurgeon who quit his job and became famous, then says creators need to mine their own experiences, including failures, for authentic content that stands out.
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I've just been thinking recently how, and let me know if you agree with this. It seems to me more and more that ideas, good ideas alone or even charisma, you know, are not. Are can build an audience, but it's extremely slow, which makes it tough to build a business from. It used to be that ideas worth spreading, right? It used to, used to be that ideas themselves are worth spreading or charisma itself is worth spreading. If you're well spoken, then people will watch. If you're, if you have good ideas, people will watch. But it seems like it's, it's not enough anymore because, well, I, it might, it might even be the whole AI thing that has shifted things because certainly I've noticed a shift very much in the last couple years where it's like no matter how smart someone is or what, what kind of good ideas or even how entertaining they speak, it's hard to build an audience. It's really hard. Maybe when I mentioned the AI thing, it's because ideas are now commodity. ChatGPT can give you ideas all day long. Smart ideas, well spoken ideas all day long. We're not even there at the, at the stage of, you know, instant video avatars yet. It's like imagine if, you know, probably in the next year we'll have a chat GPT that will speak to you like a normal human face, whatever face you want to look at, whatever voice you want to look at, whatever celebrity you want to talk to, right? Like just be instant and re. It looks real and they, they're entertaining to talk to brilliant ideas forever. And then, then, then what happens to us YouTubers, you know. And so I recently came across a viral video that further confirmed this or emphasizing this, this thought I've had been having. And I'll link to the viral video below, which is the one about the neurosurgeon who quit his job and is now hanging out in nature a lot without, without a clear career path. Of course. Now he's famous with YouTube, so he can probably monetize his channel and make enough money. But, but he, he made the decision way before, well, at least, at least a year before the whole YouTube, his YouTube thing took off. So it was a courageous decision and it went. That video got 7 million views in less than one week, less than seven days. Seven million views. And I, and I've been kind of lightly following his channel. Every video he comes out where he just, it's another several hundred thousand views. And the reason why it's remarkable is that he's really Boring to listen to. He's not, he's not, he's not. He's not good looking. I mean, you know, I always say I'm not good looking. So he and I are probably similar level, similar score from 0 to 10. He's not good looking. He's not. His voice is not particularly. My voice probably sounds better than his. Right. All this stuff matters. Right. We're both Asian. He and I are both Asian. He's more boring than me. I'm comparing myself to him. Right. But you know what the difference is? No. Sure he has a beautiful background, but any of us can put up a virtual beautiful background now. So it's not the, it's not the gorgeous scenery that he's talking in front of. No, it's because of his life story is so unique and the choices he's made is so courageous and yearned for by everybody. Not everybody, but a lot of people. Enough people that it went viral that that's why it doesn't matter how uncharismatic he is. And the ideas he's speaking are not that interesting, to be honest with you. What is he saying? He's saying the, the mainstream medical, you know, cartel, basically the mainstream medical industry and medical industrial complex is just trying to, you know, bring more people into the hospital because. For more surgeries, because it's profitable for everybody. Give more pills because it's profitable for everybody. Whereas he noticed as a neurosurgeon, so, so he's, he has life background that most people cannot achieve. And anyway, I talk more about this in the video, but because of who he, because of his unique work that he's done in this life, he has the credibility that no one else has or not no one. But very few people in the world have to be able to say the most banal things. I mean, the most duh any of us are, are thinking already beyond that. Right. Like, well, of course mainstream medical, not every, not everybody, but a lot of us are of course holistic. Healing and taking care of yourself and self care, of course that will heal someone. Even as someone who needs back surgery. I don't know, I didn't know that by the way. But that's what he says. A neurosurgeon spine surgeon says when they slept well and ate well and you know, spend time with friends, their spine healed. My God, what the. You know, but, but a lot of us will probably have believe that without much persuasion, like, well, yeah, of course the body heals itself if you, you take care of the body, you know, you don't have to have surgeries necessarily. Anyway, he's not. And then he's saying, like, I wasn't happy in my job anymore because it didn't feel ethical, so I quit and I'm spending time in nature. There's nothing remarkable about that except the fact that he did it, number one. But he did it from such a high career, you know, that. That many people couldn't even achieve, you know, so it's, it's this. So it's like, so in other words, I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm realizing my strategy has to change. Like, I can't just be saying, well, I've got a good ideas now. Like, well, this. That's a really good idea. I got to make a video about that. No one cares anymore, or so few people care. It's not going to build you an audience. No. I've got to mine my life. I've got to mine my life's experiences for, like, what's really unusual, what's really difficult in my life that I've achieved, whether it's achieving something positive or whether it's overcoming something difficult. But, like, something where people go, kudos to you. That is remarkable. Rather than, I'm really smart, I've got some idea. It doesn't matter anymore. AI is way smarter than us. Like, other people are way smarter than us. There are more YouTubers coming out every day that are going to be smarter than us. Can't do that anymore. Can't compete on that level. It's going to be impossible. But what, what AI can't do and what other humans can't do is live your life. AI doesn't have the embodied in the world experience of however many years you've been alive. You always will have that advantage. And so the question is, how will you mine your life's experiences for what is really special? What do you think? I really welcome you to comment below. What is unique and praiseworthy, if I may say, about the life you've lived or some capability you've developed that other people don't have, that most people don't have, that people would like to have? What projects have you accomplished? What trauma have you overcome? What challenges, adult or childhood have you overcome? What, you know, Mount Everest experiences have you had, you know, things that people would recognize. Now it doesn't have, you don't have to climb Mount Everest, but that kind of praiseworthy type of life experience, all of us have it. It's just. It's funny, I haven't yet taught a course on how you can mine your life experiences for the Mount Everest type experiences that all of us have. And if we, if we, if we mind those experiences and then talk about it, we Too might get 7 million views in a week. Do you see what I mean? Like, or at least thousands of views on that video rather than seven, seven views on the video. So anyway, that's what I've been thinking about and I really welcome the discussion. If you want to chat below, comment below on any examples from your life now. You, you, you, you haven't been a neurosurgeon, neither have I. And it might, it might, with that extreme example, we might feel so ordinary. But no, that's not true. We all, all of us have had really unique life experiences and praiseworthy life experiences. So I look forward to seeing your comments below. And by the way, it doesn't have to be like oh, I spent 10 years doing this. No, it doesn't have to be like it could be something that happened to you in one afternoon. Do you see what I mean? But it happened to you. And it's not just an idea that came to you. It's not just I was journaling on something and thought of an interesting idea. No, it's something happened to me. Could be, it could be in passing something happened that was like, you know, and yes, you, you, your take on it was interesting for sure. But, but the, but the, but the happening of it. The happening, the life experience. So, so in other words, I'm calling all of us just to start observing our life a lot more and go what's really. And, and if once you start observing it like what's really interesting about my life, you'll probably start living a more interesting life too, by the way. Like, like, you know, it's kind of like you may have heard like people, people joke about the know 17 year old life coach or the, anyone in their 20s or 30s life coach. It's like come on, you haven't really lived yet with life coach. What are you talking about? Life coach? Especially someone in their, in their teens or twenties. What are you talking about life coach? You haven't even, you barely lived now. Of course they could, they could still talk from their unique experiences if they're really good at mining it. But, but that's what I mean. Like you have already lived along. Most of us are, are older than 17. Who's watching this? You wish you were 17 again. No, most of us are, have lived decades of lots of experiences we can mine and that's what I'm asking you to think about. I'll even say stories of failure are just as valuable, if not more valuable, more interesting than stories of success. So it's like, you know, I spent five years as a life coach and I failed. And that'd be a great video. Like really, you know what I mean? Like I've spent, I should make a video. I've spent 15 years as a business coach and I feel like I'm just starting over. I feel like I'm starting over or I feel like I failed. Like that would be a great video, you know, and then I could be really honest about my experiences and what I've learned and what I wish I didn't do and which I regret. Regret people, people love videos. I regret my life and don't make the same mistake I did. Like people like gobble that up stuff up and you could say it authentically and of course you don't really regret it because you had to live it in order to learn. But yeah, so, so think about not just your praiseworthy experiences, but your so called failures too. That you wish you knew, right? You wish you knew earlier.
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