Nathan BarryFounder and CEO, Kit · Founder and CEO at Kit

"I'm a business, man."

24 Jul 2024 · 1 min

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In this excerpt from Nathan Barry's YouTube video, the speaker invokes Jay‑Z’s quote “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business man” to illustrate the mindset creators need: treat themselves as a sustainable business rather than a hobbyist. He observes that many creators brag about hands‑on control (e.g., editing every frame) yet simultaneously complain of burnout, highlighting a contradictory pattern. To counter this, he recommends a reflective practice: write down achievements you’re proud of, then assess which of those still serve your current goals, discarding or delegating tasks that no longer add value. This approach aims to shift creators from over‑working to strategic, business‑oriented operations.

Chapters

There's this great Jay-Z quote that's like, "I'm not a businessman, I'm a business man." That, I think, is the mindset you need to have when you're a creator. I'm starting a business that I know can be sustainable. So I think a lot of creators I would meet at YouTube and Instagram, they'd be big and they'd be beating their chest like, "I still edit every single frame in my videos!" And I'm like, "What?" And then 5 seconds later, they're like, "Creator burnout is just the worst," you know? Like, that's interesting correlation. Yeah, yeah. What is going on here? One thing that's helped me is to write down a list of like, what am I really proud of? And then then look at that list and say, which of those are serving me? That may have served you for first few years, but does that still serve you today? Well said.