Why Creatives Struggle To Create Content That Performs

After growing our YouTube channel to almost three million followers, here's what I told my content team recently. If you're using social media as a scorecard, you're playing the wrong game. Let that settle in for a second. Because if you felt the pressure to post, perform, or chase some arbitrary metric, this video you're going to want to replay 10 times over because I will break down what not to do and what to do and save you my 10 years doing it. And why should you be listening to me? I've been creating content online for over a decade, built a multi-million dollar brand, millions of followers, millions in revenue, and in all that time, I've never cared about the algorithm, never studied best posting times, never followed formulas. Why? I create because it feels right. So, if you've lost your way in content, I want to help you find it again. I'm going to cover why chasing metrics is a trap. what I focus on instead when I create and provide you with an anchor for the new way of creating, especially if you're a creator who feels like you've lost your way.

Okay, let's get right into it. First off, content is not a scorecard. Social media makes it easy to tie your worth to numbers, impressions, comments, growth. But when you start measuring every post by performance, you stop creating with intention. The reason why I create content is not to hit a certain number of likes, subscribes, follows, or even engagement or reactions. For me, creating on social media is just to learn about who I am and what my thoughts and ideas are. It's not about any other performance metric. So, when you start looking at the metrics that everyone talks about and how the algorithm changes, you're missing the whole point. We want to figure out what our ideas are. And I can usually gauge that just by how the questions and sometimes the negative feedback comes. It's not about, oh my gosh, you don't like me. You don't like these ideas. It's just the way I interpret that is I'm not being clear or I should have been more careful with the words and the way I frame the conversation because my intention is not to make you upset. I'm trying to help. And clearly in this instance for that person, it wasn't helpful. So, this allows me to process the feedback, as negative as it might be, to be able to better myself and articulate something because the whole point of communication is to make sure transmission and receiver are in alignment. If you obsess, and I know that's a really strong word because I know most people would not describe themselves as being obsessed on the numbers and the performance of a piece of content you create, you're at the whims of the highs and lows of whatever the world, the algorithm serves you. And we don't want to have our emotional regulation be exported or to be in control by someone other than us. It makes no sense. So your esteem, your sense of worth and your confidence can ride high or can crash down below. And these are things you want to avoid. If you wake up one morning and you look at the performance of your post and you feel a high or conversely, if you feel like this bottomless amount of depression and anxiety, it's a sign that so much of your self- value and your self-worth is placed in the hands of strangers. So if metrics don't guide the work, what does? The answer is to create because it feels

right. You don't create because it's strategic. You create because it feels like the most honest thing to do. This is where clarity lives. You gain clarity through articulation. Quote by David C. Baker. So for me, I create to understand my thinking, see what I actually believe, process what I'm experiencing, and to stay in conversation with myself while bringing others along for the journey. Sorry to interrupt the episode. I want to let you know that I'm starting this community where we're going to help people just like you, experts, authors, and coaches to develop your personal brand. It's called Content Lab. So, for more information on that, just check out the links in the description. Now, back to our show. Let me tell you something about the power of creating content. You don't exactly know who it's going to reach and how it's going to hit them. So sometimes you'll make something that feel relatively insignificant, obvious to you, but you hear days, weeks, months, years later that has hit someone and it's changed their lives for the better. And this is the best feeling in the world because what you've done as a act of self-expression has actually lifted someone else, has given them a path forward and given them tools so that they can change their lives. This is incredible. And you can't quite accurately predict what you say is going to hit. So the best thing you can do is just keep expressing yourself. So having said that, how do you know when something you create is true and authentic to yourself? This is a very difficult question to answer because only you know the truth and it starts with your intention. Why did you write this post? So for example, if you're feeling low and you need a pickme up, you might write something to get the attention and praise of other people. You might talk about something charitable that you've done or how you took the high road and you know in your heart you wrote it for that reason. This is when possibly you may be out of alignment because you wrote with an agenda other than to express yourself. Now there's a solution for this. If you have the clarity and self-awareness, what I would do is say, "Hey y'all, I'm feeling really down right now and I'm asking for your help because I'm a little lost in the sea right now and I would love it if we could have a conversation so that I just feel like I'm not alone in this pursuit. " That would be much more genuine and honest reflection of where you're at in your emotional state versus talking about something that you know is going to hype you up. Now, people do this all the time, and you can see right through it most of the times, which is when they'll say, "Okay, here it is, and this is very true, and I'm guilty of this, too. So, let's just be real with this, okay? Let's just say you're trying to launch a course, you want to get people to attend an event that you're doing or to vote you up, but instead of just coming out and asking for it and being super transparent about it, you don't feel good about that. So what you do is you try and write a post about an idea that just conveniently ends with the ass that you're about to have. What happens is when people read the first part when people watch the first part, they'll get this feeling like, yeah, I want to support you. This is amazing. Or you see me, I feel so understood right now. I feel so seen. And then you ask for something like, oh, I see why you said all those things. It's cuz you want me to do something. And then it starts to have that scent of being disingenuous. And this is what you want to try to avoid. For example, if you say, you know, uh you're really attractive, uh you're really smart. By the way, can you drive me to the airport? See what happens there? You negate everything that you said before because the ask is really clear. There's a simple solution for this. Load the ask up front and then give the compliment or tell the story. So, if you said, "You know what? Uh, I hate to do this, but can you drive me to the airport? And by the way, I know I haven't said this enough, but you're really attractive and really intelligent. So, this way they kind of know already what the ask is, and then you can hit them with the compliment if that's the case. The order does matter. Sequence does matter. If you've enjoyed this video, let me know what you found to be valuable in the comments, and I'll do more of the content just like this. Which brings me

to my next point. You don't need a call to action every time you post. Not everything you publish has to teach, convert, or call someone to action. You can post without a takeaway. Yeah, I know. You can write without packaging the insight. And what I mean is, sometimes I create to be transparent. share something funny. Sometimes I create because I need to get it out of my system. You don't need to optimize everything for utility. We don't expect every conversation with a friend to end with advice. So why do we treat content that way? Not everything you create has to have a big takeaway or lesson. It's too much pressure for you to do so. It's more important that in between those stories with the lesson that you can just share openly without a catchphrase or a CTA. And that allows people to know there's a real human out there that I relate to. And that's more important than takeaways and lessons every single time you post. On a personal brand note, I just want to emphasize something that a lot of people miss, which is sometimes in your zeal to create content that always teaches. You create an air of craftsmanship of control that keeps you and your audience from really connecting. People just sometimes want to see you unfiltered and unplugged. And those in between takes are what allows them to see that side of you. Okay, Chris. So, if we're not creating to teach or perform or jam somebody down our funnel, what are we actually doing? Well, you may already missed it, but I've already said it. You

create to connect with people through your content. Content is about connection, and sometimes polish gets in the way of that. So, create because you want to connect. You want to share. You believe diverse perspectives makes the world better. You know, someone like you is waiting for permission to speak up. So when they see you doing that, it gives them the courage to do the same. Because here's what I've learned. You never know who needed to hear it. And most of the time, neither do they until they experience it. There's a form of cognitive bias called the curse of knowledge. That we forget that there was a time in which we struggled with something. And if you're 5, 10, 25 years into doing something, you have to work really hard remembering it how difficult it was for you when it was year one. So when you share something that you've learned, you're basically giving someone the express past to move past the trials and tribulations of what you had to go through and you expedite the outcome a little bit faster for them. You're not saying, "I'm going to eliminate the pain, but I'm going to reduce the time in which you feel that pain. " I like to use this as a guiding principle. When I start to write and create content, I think about what it's like to be a beginner again. Now, what I just explained to you is what has served me throughout my career and especially in the growth of my personal brand across social media. So, if you're resonating with this, I do need to warn you of the one thing that'll get in the way of you being able to be successful with this

kind of philosophy. Don't create from insecurity. If you're creating because you need to feel seen, liked, or affirmed by strangers, you're setting yourself up for a painful cycle. Here's what I mean. No amount of likes will fix insecurity. The internet can't validate what you haven't accepted in yourself. If you're chasing attention to fill a gap, you'll keep chasing even when you succeed. So, fair warning, don't let social media become a mirror for self-worth. It will lie to you. So, how do you check yourself when that pattern shows up in your life and you're noticing this about yourself that you're feeling the highs and lows, the push and pull of the engagement and the algorithm? I want you to think about something and ask yourself this question. What is it about myself that I don't like or need affirmed by strangers? And usually what happens here is we start to recognize a pattern which is the internet social media following the algorithm is a surrogate for someone else in your life. A parent usually an older sibling a mentor teacher who at one point withheld love respect or affirmation from you that you can't get. But we don't have the power when we're young. And so now we're adults trapped with this unresolved childhood trauma. And now we're seeking strangers to fill that void. So what I would do is start getting in touch with myself by asking what is it that I need to know about myself? Whose approval do I need to get? Who needs to give me permission so that I can show up for myself and not have to rely on the whims of strangers and the algorithm for my own self-worth and validation. And if possible, what I would do is to start working with a therapist. Have these conversations in open, honest, and transparent ways and really be vulnerable here. Tell your

truth so that you can work through this problem. I leave you with this. Ignore the rules. Focus on the feelings. For over 10 years of creating content across multiple platforms, it's strange for me to tell you this, but I've never optimized for the time of day, hashtags, trending sounds, or algorithms. And yet, I built a loyal audience, strong inbound leads, and lasting brand equity. Why? Because people, believe it or not, can feel when you're being real. There's a tone of voice that you share. There's a sense that you care about them and that you're being genuinely vulnerable and not performing for an outcome. Believe it or not, people are way smarter than you think. That your body, your words, and your tonality betray the true intention behind it all. So, get right with yourself and the audience will get right with you. If you've enjoyed this video, I wanted to remind you about Content Lab, something that I've launched and it's designed to help coaches, content creators, and authors just like you create content that consistently cuts through the clutter.