KAIZEN CH.89 - Inconsistently consistent

Thoughts on consistency, how to get a million subs and investing

Mar 17, 2021

Hey friend 👋,

Welcome to the 89th edition of the Kaizen Newsletter ⛩, a weekly newsletter where I share my thoughts, new ideas I learn, and make weird connections between self-improvement, productivity, product, tech, sports, anime.

No video this week. While I was editing my video, I realized that I was missing 30 min of footage, which meant that I would have to re-film that whole portion again. So instead, I decided to just push the video to next week, give me more time to re-film it properly, and produce a quality video instead of rushing it.

However, I re-started writing and did write a small essay for this newsletter (and feel good about it too)!

Now, on to the newsletter.

I've always struggled with working on the same project for a long period of time.

I pick one project, get super excited by it, and then get excited for a new one the next week.

One thing that I tried recently was to rotate between multiple projects, instead of only working on one project at a time.

The theory was that when I would be tired working on one project, I would be able to move it aside and work on the project that I was excited about instead. And eventually, I would cycle back to the first project.

I ended up choosing writing essays, my newsletter and my YT videos as my three different projects that I would rotate through.

In practice, it did not go as well as I thought it would. Instead of having daily swings in projects, I would have weekly swings instead.

Let me explain.

Last week, I was super hyped about working on my YouTube videos, so I spent pretty much the whole week writing scripts and filming (until I realized that 30 min of footage was missing RIP). And since I was still on my YouTube high on Sunday, I structured my week to also be filled with YouTube stuff.

But on Monday, something changed. I suddenly had a lot of new ideas popping up for my writing and not for YouTube.

However since I had already planned to work on my YouTube content, I tried to push out my writing thoughts to concentrate on YouTube.

This resulted in me procrastinating for the whole day instead. I got abolustely nothing done.

And when I woke up this morning? Same thing. All I was thinking about was my writing and had no ounce of energy to dedicate towards YouTube.

So this got me thinking.

Instead of trying to fight against what I really wanted to do, why don't I just give in?

Whenever I would want to write, I would write.

Whenever I would want to do YT videos, I would do YT videos.

But this is where my dilemma comes in.

We've been told time and time again that to succeed at anything, you have to be consistent and you have to ship once a week.

What I'd be doing is basically telling my audience: "Euh so I kinda upload whenever I want and I kinda write whenever I want, so glhf?"

Which in the creator world is a big no no (unless you're David Dobrik and you're already super big).

This is something that I've thought about for a long time, but every time this idea popped into my head, I always dismissed it.

But for the first time, I tried to entertain the idea in my head.

One thing that I've recently learned is to experiment more.

At best, it would mean that I would always be motivated to be working on my content, which means an overall increase of quality (and maybe quantity).

And at worst? Well I realize that I made a mistake, I maybe lose some subscribers here and there and would be able to try another experiment in the future.

So what does this mean concretely?

My goal is to still continue ship my newsletter every week, but I'm going to try and be more aware of where my energy is pulling me and put in more work towards that.

This means that some weeks, I might have an essay (like this) and some weeks, I might have a video instead.

Honestly, this is super scary because it really pushes me out of my comfort zone.

At the same time, I'm excited to just go with what I'm feeling, yet I feel that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do and that I'm not as good as other creators that can push themselves regardless of how they feel.

But this reminds me of this great quote from Moly, another YouTuber:

To me this is what creativity is all about. It's having the courage to listen to what your intuition is telling you to do despite all the perfectly logical advice that everyone else is telling you. - Moly

So I think it’s time that I have the courage to listen to this intuition and go against pretty much everyone’s advice on consistency.

*deep breath*

Let’s get it!

🤔 Thoughts

🧠 Thoughts on Investing

Yesterday, Gumroad became the first company to crowdfund raise 5M from the public. Meaning that (almost) anybody was able to invest (up to 1K) in Gumroad even if you weren't an accredited investor.

Think of it as a Kickstarter, but for investing into companies.

In some way, as Robinhood democratized investing into stocks, I feel that Republic (the platform behind the Gumroad crowdfunding) is democratizing investing into companies.

Slowly, people will be given more opportunities to have access to capital.

Personally, I’ve never thought of becoming an investor, but since I had the opportunity, why not?

And if you read between the lines, yes, ya boi is officially an angel investor!

I only put the minimum of 100$ required, because I just want to use this as a learning experience. I’m not even expecting to make any money off of it (although I wouldn’t mind obviously).

I really just want to dip my toes into the investment world and I feel that the best way to do this is actually put some real money on the line.

🎨 Thoughts on Getting 1 Million Subsribers

I've been following Hampton since last year when I first discovered him on TikTok.

Fast forward one year later and he has 1.2M subscribers on TikTok and 1.5M subscribers on YT 🤯.

So how did he do it?

Here were some of his lessons:

Get deeper connection with your current viewers instead of thinking how to get more viewers.
Go on a platform that has organic reach (such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram Reels).
Don't get bogged down on brand image.

But honestly? I truly believe that the main reason why he's doing so well is because he's authentic.

As my friend James once said (and I'm paraphrasing): "People will watch amazing content, but will subscribe for your personality."

And I truly believe this. The more I dive into YouTube, the more I realize that people really like watching you because of who you are and less about your content.

Hampton is unafraid of being himself and doesn't try to be like anyone else. He just stays true to himself and that's why people love him so much and that's why he got to 1M subscribers.

Now, am I saying that the only thing you need to do is be authentic? No of course not. I still think that you need to provide value to others in some way or another and be consistent with your craft, BUT I think that remaining authentic is a key that you need to succeed.

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