Transcription
I am leaving Instagram. Why did that happen? I thought about it for a year, and a few things went into that.
Did you find any benefit once you finally made the decision to stop? The biggest thing so far that's impacted me is realizing that like, I've already made it. And I don't mean business-wise, I just mean as a human being. You know, when I was going to Instagram, when I first deleted the app, I would go to open the app and then I'm like, it's not here. Why was I opening it up? There was no reason for me to open it up. Why was I just going to go and compare myself to people? You know, there was just like, why was I opening this? And I just realized I was on there constantly looking at other people's lives, day-to-day lives, in their stories. I'm, oh, they would get an ice coffee, I need to get an ice coffee. They did this, I need to do this. They're running, oh, now I feel guilty because I didn't go on a run today. I didn't work out today. And when I got rid of all of that, and when I stopped consuming all of that, I realized like, I am fine. I can, I can be happy. I love my life. I can be in my house. I have, I'm renting a house, that's fine. Like, I don't have a big fancy schmancy car. And it just, I just became so okay with where I'm at in my life. And I'm like, I've already made it. Like, a lot of people would be so blessed to have my life. And that's, that's good enough for me.
Do you think other people should delete Instagram right now? Oh, yeah. Why not? I mean, make sure you save your Reels drafts because they'll be deleted. But I definitely would challenge somebody to delete it for at least seven days and see how it impacts their lives.
The biggest mistake that I made in my content creator career is trying to do everything on my own. I think the first sign you're ready to hire out is when you've hit a wall.
Who do you want to be to your audience? I think that's a question that creators need to ask themselves. There's really four different personas that you can step into as a content creator.
Listen, YouTube is changing. You're seeing social media headlines right now of big content creators that are quitting. They're quitting YouTube, they're quitting Instagram. So what's really working right now? And what are the future trends on YouTube in 2024, so that you can adapt and pivot your brand to have maximum influence, income, and ultimately make a greater impact? Well, today on the Think Media podcast, we have Modern Millie back. Now, if you're just meeting her, she teaches content creation across YouTube and TikTok, specifically latest trends, tools, all of that stuff. 425,000 subscribers on YouTube. And we're here at Social Media Marketing World this year, chopping it up, getting ready for crushing on YouTube going forward. Modern Millie, welcome back to the show.
Thank you so much for having me. Third year in a row. I always love it. I look for, I only come here for this, truly, truly. It is our annual meetup. And I'm excited to, uh, dive into this conversation. But I want to actually just start right off with the headline of creators quitting. You made a video on it. I made a joke that to get the most views on YouTube in the beginning of 2024, just make a video about creators quitting. Cuz like, not only is there all the videos of the creators doing it, people reacting to it, but that's kind of very true. But it actually opens up a deeper conversation about burnout. So we had Matt Pat, um, who announced that he was quitting. Tom Scott. And we're talking about, I mean, Game Theorist, 18 million subscribers. Tom Scott, 6.3 million subscribers. Joe Javar, 1.9 million subscribers. Meet Canyon, almost 7 million subscribers. And the list goes on and on. So what do you think's happening? Why are people quitting YouTube?
I believe that a lot of these creators, most of them, are passing on the torch, if you will. They are ready to step into the next chapter of their lives. And on YouTube, YouTube is probably the oldest platform when you compare it to Instagram and TikTok. And a lot of these creators have been creating since the very beginning. So I think it makes sense for them to be like, okay, I'm retiring now. You know, we all have, we have the retirement age in America. We everybody has their moment to retire from their career. And I think we're just getting into that first age of retirement for a lot of these YouTube creators. And secondly to that, cuz I, you mentioned I did a video of this on my channel, I made a spreadsheet and I ran numbers and I just studied. I was like, what, what are these reasons that people are actually leaving? And a lot of another reason was also burnout, just taking back how frequently they're posting and just not posting as much because it's a lot to keep up with social media. And so I think those are really the reasons that people are retiring, taking a step back, and quitting.
That's interesting. And do you think, what do you think the lessons are from this from your observation for those that are actively wanting to create content right now? I think one thing that hasn't really been said is for everybody that maybe catastrophized it's like, wait, why is everybody quitting? Well, one, that's an exaggeration. Everybody, there's millions of creators and like maybe 20 or 30, of course, they're prominent, uh, you know, are quitting. But whenever I think that too, it's like, man, that could be an opportunity. Like it's opening up space for the new wave, the next generation. Totally. But what are the lessons? Because I mean, we even have even done past episodes on burnout. If you're listening to this right now, what are just some maybe questions you could ask yourself in terms of your routine, your pace, to maybe look ahead a few years and to avoid potential pain or burnout?
Yeah, I think the first most important question to ask yourself is, the current schedule that you have for yourself right now as a creator, is that something that you can realistically keep up with for the next five years? The frequency of filming and editing and posting, just how often you're showing up, is that something that you can realistically keep up with? And if it's not, something needs to change. Maybe we dial it back a little bit. But what sort of cadence can you keep up with posting-wise that that will last one year, two years, five years? You could be the one in your industry to stand the test of time.
You're married. I sure am. How many years? Four. What do you think the pressures are on a relationship that you've experienced being you're the face, you're the content creator? You guys do collab and work together, but what are the untold pressures that couples face in a career like yours?
Hm, that's a good question. Untold pressures that we face. I think it's going to look a little bit different for every couple depending on like where each person is at in their career. I think a pressure for me is, and this is one that I give to myself, it's just in my head, is guilt for creating. Like sometimes I'll be filming and I'm like, should I be spending time with my husband? Because like, I work from home and he works from home. Should I be doing this? Do I need to be with him? And so there's like, in the back of my mind, am I spending too much time on my business? Because that was a habit that I had had in the past, which led me to burnout. I think we talked about that first time. How much time before? Yeah, like hours per week versus what's sustainable? Oh, in the beginning, because I started during COVID, it was all the time. It was all, I wake up, eight, yeah, 80 hours a week, probably. It was wake up, eat, breathe, sleep, content creation, Monday through Monday. So it was all the time. And I just got in the habit of doing that because it's COVID, there's nothing else to do. Um, so now I just have to set better boundaries for myself. And I've gotten really great at that. Now, in the mornings, I'm working 8:00 AM, sometimes or 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. 2:00 PM is a hard cutoff. No content creation on the weekends, making sure I'm spending quality time with my husband. And I think what helps is like, he's not part of my content, he's not part of my business. A lot of people are couples that create together and so they're in business together and they're living together, building a relationship. I think it helps that I have a business that's separate from my relationship because I'm able to kind of step into the business when it's time and then leave my office and really spend quality time with John.
You guys ever fight? Um, never. Okay. You've never fought? Listen, I'm not going to say no, but like, our fighting is not traditional. We, when we first got together, we actually went to couples counseling. And so we learned how to argue and how to behave during an argument and when there's a disagreement. So when we fight, it's not like this big blown out fight. We've gone through lessons and trainings together to know how to communicate to, okay, I'm going to listen to what he's experiencing. Let me step into his world. When he's ready and he feels like I fully understand where he's coming from, we switch. Let me talk, explain what's going on in my world. And then we come to an agreement. So we do have arguments and we do fight occasionally, but like, it's not a fight. It's like, okay, we're going to figure this out.
And about other stuff, or has have you found that the business that you're running has that ever created conflict where it's going, what's happening? Of course, it could be about meeting up with a family or in-laws or something and stuff like that. But, but it's just as far as maybe pressures from content creation or not? A little bit of both. About the business, sometimes it'll be more of like a financial decision of like, should we hire this person? Let's talk about that. But there hasn't really been anything for me that has come up. I can't speak for him of like, okay, actually, there was this one time that we had to have this conversation. But I, I don't want to speak for him.
Quality versus quantity. YouTube is changing. You are focusing more on quality. You were telling me. What do you think though for maybe the seasons of content creation and what would you give advice to maybe someone just starting out? You're established in your career, so you're at a different stage. Or I mean, which, which is it? Is it quality or is it quantity?
Yeah, this is a fun question. Quality or quantity? The answer will change depending on like, you said, where you're at in your career as a content creator. In the beginning, for me, it was quantity. There was a hustle phase. And I'm grateful for my hustle phase. I, I don't want to label anything as good or bad. You know, hustle is bad, hustle culture. But I wouldn't be here if I didn't hustle in the beginning. And I'm proud of how hard I worked. So there was a time where it was quantity. Let's just post videos, get used to being on camera, get used to scripting, figure out my editing style. So I don't care if it was perfect. I'm just going to create. I'm going to post. I'm going to figure out my own creative styles of filming and editing. And then as I continued to create and post and post and post, I think over time, naturally, quantity evolves to quality. And when you figure out what you really love to do, like where I'm at in my season, I really love just like, okay, let's slow down. Let's focus one video at a time. And how can we make this video the best video quality-wise?
So what is your ideal schedule now for posting? I post loosely once a week on YouTube. And by loosely, I mean, ideally, in a perfect world, I post once a week. But this next upcoming Wednesday, I don't have anything scheduled. And I'm not stressed about it, or I'm trying not to be stressed about it. I'm trying to let go of that pressure that I put on myself. Like, no, you have to post or else. I'm like, okay, it's okay. We don't have a video for next week. But that's because we're taking time with the next video. And that video is going to be really good. And just trying to find peace with that and being okay with that.
That's a big nugget right there because I think sometimes we become, in a way, almost like overly committed to our schedule. Meaning we just force it. I, because I, because I have to upload every Thursday and I will upload every Thursday. But have you found too that if you spend a little bit of extra time on quality and revisions, that net net, when it comes to the views, it could be superior because you put out a better video that did better?
Yeah, there was a time where I was posting eight videos a month, just like me, just be me by myself. And then I had my video editors, but I was turning out eight videos a month, two videos a week. And the views were kind of spread throughout all eight of those. There were none that performed extraordinarily well. When I take it back and I post maybe once a week or a little less, I think the video has more opportunity to perform better. Not because like, oh, there's more time for it to perform better, but it's more quality views because the video was better. And so because the video is better, my audience is happier because they got better results. And because they got better results, they engage more with my community. So like, because that video was more quality, the views end up being a lot more quality instead of like a quick vlog, messy, throw it up there. And then like, I don't remember what I'm titling this. Let me just slap a title on it. And just like my audience, I noticed for me, they didn't connect as much with those videos.
In 2023, the most searched word on Merriam Webster was the word authentic. Authenticity is this massive trend buzzword right now. It probably has been, but specifically on YouTube with creators like Sam Sizer, that was like stripped-down thumbnails, raw vlogs that are long, maybe seemingly not kind of boring to most people, but as a bodybuilder, he's pulling 200,000, 250, 500,000 views on videos. And you could apply this to different creators when it comes to like YouTube trends and YouTube changing. Game Theorist called this previous era, which I would say is still here, the era of excess. Meaning, how do I go from $1 to a billion dollar hotel? How do I destroy five private jets? How do I crash a train into 10 Ferraris? You know, and it was always kind of like one up or go big. I went to every Disneyland in 24 hours around the world. And it was kind of the world's largest water slide, whatever. But the era of excess was kind of an interesting language that they used. And then you have this kind of new wave too of some creators that are kind of bringing this slowed down energy, not shouting, not yelling, this idea of just also being themselves. When you think about this trend, what do you think is happening macro? And then how are you applying maybe what you see in terms of where audiences are, maybe they feel burnt out by certain forms of content, or what is your thoughts on all this authentic stuff?
I mean, authenticity is strong. You know, if you can lean into authenticity within your content, it's only going to resonate even more. With what is authenticity in your opinion?
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It means something different for everybody. I think for me, a lot of it is like my tone of voice. In my very first like YouTube videos, it was very much like, hi, this is how to grow on Instagram, you know, like the, the call center voice vibes. And so authenticity can look like, okay, what's like my real talking voice? Or throwing in like my real jokes, or leaving in bloopers when I mess up and actually accidentally say something wrong. Like, it's just leaving in little elements of myself that I, most people might try to cut out or hide. And so asking yourself, where can you be authentic with every step of the way, whether it's the editing, the filming, the scripting, it, it bleeds into a little bit of everywhere in your business. And then where I see like social media going with this, I don't think we'll see an end of like that excess era yet. There's still like, Mr. Beast is still doing a lot of those big, I did this, I survived on an island for X amount of days, you know, there's still a lot of creators that are doing the big stuff. And for me, what it, what it tells me is, who, who do you want to be to your audience? I think that's a question that creators need to ask themselves. This is something that I just outlined in another one of my videos. And there's really four different personas that you could step into as a content creator. And so when you know who you want to be to your audience, you could really lean into that. You could be what I like to call the host. And that's very much Mr. Beast. You know, he's like, oh, wow, look at this big thing. Look at this. He's the host, you know? And if you want to do that, that's, there's nothing wrong with that. You can lean into it. You can be the resource. And that's the educational person. That's you, that's me, that's giving tips, tricks. You could be the best friend. And that's, I think what Sam does really, really well. He's just like, I'm just here. I'm working out. Let's hang out together. And then you could also be the role model. And that's like, now look at this cool life, you know, like, look at what I could do. Or like, I trained for an Ironman and look at these results that we got. Like, you can do it too. So I think those are the four personas that somebody could step into. I don't think there's a right or wrong. It's just who do you want to be online and become that with your content? Who do you want to be online? And if you listen to the Think Media podcast on YouTube, where you're able to comment, I would love to hear which of the four personas do you think already fits your content, or do you want to be? Break them down again. You have the host, the resource, the best friend, and the role model. Which one are you? Which one do you want to be?
What a great framework. Um, you quit Instagram. Yeah. What does that mean? I mean, you didn't delete your account, right? But you haven't posted. Right. This is countercultural right now. I know a lot of people focus on YouTube, but Instagram seems like that supportive place. And you were an Instagram teacher. Mhm. This is shocking. Controversial. This is headline, Modern Millie quits Instagram. Yeah. What's going on? What's happening here? Why did that happen?
There's a lot of reasons that went into it. And it wasn't just an overnight, oh, I'm going to leave Instagram, okay, goodbye. You know, I thought about it for a year. It was so, just this past December, that's when I announced like, okay, I'm leaving, taking an extended break. I don't know for how long. I don't have plans to return yet. I could see myself returning, but I'm not going to think about it. I thought about it for a year. So December 2022? No, it was October 2022 when I was like, should I leave Instagram? And I wanted to chew on it. So I chewed on it for quite a some time. And a few things went into that. One, my brand and my business goals. I want to teach content creators everything Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, filming, making money, brand collaborations, UGC, affiliates. Like, I want to help content creators every step of the way. And Instagram didn't feel like that platform anymore. Because when I would try to teach YouTube and TikTok, I was, my content was suppressed. You were shadow banned. I was basically shadow banned for lack of a better term. And, and what happened if you used a YouTube logo? You got a notification that your reach was reduced? Yes. That's shocking. I would get a real notification from Instagram in my notifications tab that said, this Reel will not have, it said like, will have decreased reach because of the logo used. Instagram was suppressing you. Instagram told me. Yeah. And I feel like YouTube, I'm not silenced. I can teach whatever I want. I could teach Instagram on YouTube. And YouTube's like, that's fine. You're bringing us views, you know? So I felt like this was the place that I could be the most free. And people like to argue is like, well, why are you teaching Instagram if you're not on Instagram? Now, I have two great reasons for that. One, I still have plenty of students that I work with every single day. So by leaving Instagram, I have more time to be with them and be in the dirt. But also, I have more time to do experiments for myself and start secret Instagram accounts from zero and figure it out from the ground up. How do you grow a faceless Instagram account? How do you can you grow an Instagram account using just AI? So I have so much more freedom to play with the platform and test. Whereas if me and my team were just creating Instagram content every single day, we wouldn't have the freedom to do those things. I think that everybody in 2024 is adding. I think that like in business, in social media, it's endless. You have to add another platform, add another AI tool, add another thing to do, add more, more, more. It's pretty rare for people to be removing and quitting.
What other benefits? I mean, you're doing some feature accounts or faceless Instagram accounts, but did you find any benefit once you finally made the decision to stop that maybe freed up your mind or your peace or any other benefit extensions to your life?
Yeah, I started actually a list on my phone anytime I noticed a benefit from leaving Instagram. And I think the biggest thing so far that's impacted me is realizing that like, I've already made it. And I don't mean business-wise, I just mean as a human being. You know, when I was going to Instagram, when I first deleted the app, I would go to open the app and then I'm like, it's not here. Why was I opening it up? There was no reason for me to open it up. Why was I just going to go and compare myself to people? You know, there was just like, why was I opening this? And I just realized I was on there constantly looking at other people's lives, day-to-day lives, in their stories. I'm, oh, they would get an ice coffee, I need to get an ice coffee. They did this, I need to do this. They're running, oh, now I feel guilty because I didn't go on a run today. I didn't work out today. And when I got rid of all of that, and when I stopped consuming all of that, I realized like, I am fine. I can, I can be happy. I love my life. I can be in my house. I have, I'm renting a house, that's fine. Like, I don't have a big fancy schmancy car. And it just, I just became so okay with where I'm at in my life. And I'm like, I've already made it. Like, a lot of people would be so blessed to have my life. And that's, that's good enough for me.
Do you think other people should delete Instagram right now? Oh, yeah. Why not? I mean, make sure you save your Reels drafts because they'll be deleted. But I definitely would challenge somebody to delete it for at least seven days and see how it impacts their lives.
You started by yourself. Now you have a team. How big's your team? Over 10 people now. Sheesh. Do you have any W2s or they're all contractors? All contractors. Me and my husband are W2 and we have another W2 on the way. Of your entity in California? Yes. And so you have gone from Creator to CEO. What has that journey been like? And what has been some of the challenges of maybe trying to become a leader or trying to grow as being a boss?
Yeah, my biggest challenge, I feel like guilt keeps coming up today, but hiring out people to take over the jobs that I didn't want to do and the tasks I didn't want to do was really hard for me. You know, like, I didn't want to do Instagram engagement anymore, but I, I needed to be doing it. I needed to hire out, but I felt guilty trying to ask somebody else to do that for me because if I didn't like it, why would they like it? So there was a lot of guilt with delegating tasks and feeling bad that people are doing work for me. I think that was the hardest thing for me to mentally overcome.
What do you think the hardest thing about having you as a boss is? H, like, are you self-aware of maybe like something you do that you're like, shoot, maybe they told you, but maybe they're scared. Are you a tyrant? I know, I think I'm actually too hands-off. I have a digital business manager, and she is hands-on for me. She manages the team. If somebody's not doing something they're supposed to, she's the one to tell them, hey, you need to be doing this. If there's feedback on something, she's the one. So she's like, she kind of put herself into the, hey, I can be the bad guy when you need me to be the bad guy. And I think I, I could step into the bad guy role more. So you're good cop and she's bad cop? Yeah, good cop, bad cop. So you guys see yourself as law enforcement? I mean, we may have some badges, but I'm just giving you a hard time.
Do you think when now that you, you help others and you mentor others, are you seeing people struggle with trying to hire editors or delegate that first role? And what is maybe some advice, whether it could be mindset or practical for people that want to kind of step it up to another level, even if that just means an admin assistant or an editor?
Yeah, I think the first sign you're ready to hire out is when you've hit a wall. And I think that's kind of with every time you're ready to hire out, it's usually because you've hit a wall somewhere and you like, can't grow anymore, you can't make more money, you've reached your tipping point, your maximum output. And then I would evaluate what your week looks like, your day-to-day looks like, analyze what sort of tasks you're spending the most time on and if you should be spending your time there. I like to focus on like my areas of expertise. I think we kind of talked about like, what's it been like transitioning from like, oh, creator to CEO? My one of my team members had to tell me, she's like, Millie, would a CEO do that? Like, would the CEO be replying to emails every day? Like, what would the CEO do? And so that's helped me a lot with analyzing, okay, am I spending my time where I need to be spending my time? No, I need to be in my courses. I need to be updating my courses. I'm the only one that could do that. I'm the only one that could film YouTube videos. Um, and everything else that I don't need to do hands-on can be delegated.
You've been transforming from Modern Millie to Future Millie, obviously. Yeah. Truth be told, do you believe people listening to this, one of the biggest things we have is a lack of self-belief, and we have self-doubt. How much of you transformed as a person, as a human, your heart, your skills, your tactics? And what words would you say for people's belief that they can become the next version of themselves from the today version to the future version?
I have definitely evolved a lot and changed a lot. I mean, from Modern Millie to Future Millie, it's crazy. That was my idea, by the way. I, it was my J and idea that I wove perfectly into this podcast. But, anyways, you're still Modern Millie, but future version, the CEO version of yourself. So anyways, transformation and the, the fact that it's possible for people, but sometimes they, we have a lack of self-belief. Yes. I did not really have any self-belief in the beginning. And I unintentionally followed advice from a book called The Alter Ego Effect. I don't even know if that book existed when I started this. Yes, yes, I believe so. Um, but I created an alter ego. You follow the advice, but you didn't even read the book? I didn't read the book, but you found out about it later. I found out about it later. Yeah. So there's like this advice of to create an alter ego for yourself. If you're having trouble being consistent or showing up in a specific way, create an alter ego for yourself. And then step into that alter ego when ready. Alter ego, do. Yeah. What would that ideal version of yourself be doing? Yes. And then step into those shoes. Yes. Or heels in this case for you. Here at Social Media Marketing World. But back to you. For 12, this is 12 years ago, I created Millie as a persona. Believe it or not, Millie is not my real name. Millie is the persona that I was like, I want somebody that's like confident in who she is and free to speak her mind. And yeah, just confident, free to speak my mind, speak up, and stand up for myself. And so I, I made up Millie. I stepped into that. And anytime I was struggling, I was like, what would Millie do? And I just like, it's not really me, it's Millie that's doing it. And that helped me show up and have more confidence in what I thought was a different person. You know, I thought it was a persona, but over time, it was like, no, this is confidence in myself. Yeah. Yeah. And it really is like becoming the real you. I think people might struggle with it. Like they think it's fake. It's like, well, no, I mean, is the next level of your life fake? No, it's, it's the next level of your life. It's that, I mean, I also, I believe that it's, it's like chipping away a statue where you're actually removing parts to reveal what's actually there. And having that, you know, the way God made you, the gifts he gave you, what does it mean to actually unpack those as opposed to they were already there? They're latent abilities that you're uncovering. Yeah. It's like, if you want to do a marathon, you want to train for a marathon, and you have zero experience, you just create this like alter ego of like, okay, well, what would, what would Sean do? What if my alter ego was Sean? Okay, I'm going to go on a one-mile run today. And then like, you just show up as that. And then over time, you show up, you do the marathon, you're like, wait, that was me the whole time.
That's why you stopped Instagram? Cuz you saw me running? I was flexing my runs. I was so jealous. I was like, are you kidding me? This guy. Oh man. Actually, I've, I've, I've been, I fell off. But Mark on our team is in Miami and he's, uh, super into running. So he just challenged me. He's like, hey, how many, how many miles can we commit to this year? And we agreed on 500. So that's about 10 a week with two weeks off. And I love a challenge though. Somebody, you know, and then especially if it's a team member, cuz I'm like, hey, maybe this will lift the level for just everybody. Like, yeah, I mean, bro, I can find a way to do that even though I have a three-year-old and a one-year-old. And you don't, Mark. I'll put them in a, I've got a Thule jogger. So bro, are you pushing two kids? That's bonus points for that. I should, I'll get stronger glutes too. Mark, maybe I should have kids.
Yeah, I mean, okay, so, uh, listen, as we land the plane, we're going to do our lightning round, but we'll do like a roll call of your stuff first. So we'll have a couple repeat after me questions. But for anybody that wants to follow you, check you out, what's happening? This is 2024, Future Millie. Links in the show notes down below. We'll link up Todd Herman, it's a good book. Alto, Alter Ego Effect, of course, any other books that we talk about in a second. As always, Think Media podcast. But how can people connect with you, follow you?
My main platform is YouTube. So go to Modern Millie or Millie Adrien. Both will pop up. My YouTube channel.
Do you have you ever shared your real name? Um, not in like an interview setting like this. I try to keep it private so people don't stalk me. So before we do that, that's actually like a great tip, honestly. It's, it's a question that a lot of people have. Some people are afraid of their name. Some people have W2 jobs. I just did an interview with somebody that it wasn't, it wasn't like against his agreement, but it was kind of frowned upon. So he just created a different name and a different brand for his YouTube channel that he did for three years. He just retired his W2 two days ago, actually. But he created a different name. So you've obviously found that for someone listening to this that is maybe afraid of, or not even afraid, but being wise? Yeah, that you can make a different brand, a different name? Yes, yes. I wanted to create something, my personal life be my personal life, and then my business be my business. And so, Millie, your brand. So you just didn't put your first name out there anywhere? Yeah. But you put your last name out there? Yes, because I got married. Got you. So my maiden name? Not public. Real name? Not really. I mean, people could easily find it, but I don't say it. Got you. Amazing. Well, I mean, that's a practical tip for those listening that I think they could do the same. Okay, let's just get married, change your name. There's a practical tip. Just get married. Smash like if that was valuable. If you have not seen our free masterclass yet, you're going to love it. If you're serious about growing your YouTube channel, just go to thinkmasterclass.com for a one-hour deep dive, on-demand YouTube strategy class.
Repeat after me. I'll say the sentence, but you'll, you'll say the sentence and then give your answer. My favorite tool for content creation right now is. My favorite tool for content creation right now is YouTube Studio. I just use YouTube Studio analytics to study what content is performing well for me, where my audience currently is, what videos they're watching, and videos they're being suggested. That's where I do a bulk of my content research. And YouTube Studio is on mobile and desktop. Do you use both? I use both. I really like the mobile. When you have, I'm pretty sure most people have this, mobile swipe left cuz there's overview, but to the left of it is research. Research. I love that place. It's so fun. Nobody knows about that. That's a secret YouTube tool that nobody knows about. There you go. No secret anymore.
The best way to grow your confidence is. The best way to grow your confidence is to fake it till you make it. Create an alter ego for yourself and then show up like Clark Kent.
The biggest mistake I've made in my content creator career is. The biggest mistake that I made in my content creator career is trying to do everything on my own.
One tip I have for content creators that are in a relationship is. One tip that I have for content creators that are in a relationship is, oooh, spending creating intentional time to be with your person, your partner. And it doesn't have to be fancy schmancy. It could just be binging your favorite shows together on the couch with your dog. And yeah, just doing that as often as you can.
One habit that serves me daily as a content creator is. Ooh, one habit that serves me daily as a content creator is saving my daily tasks for the end of day. So I have my big priority items, which are like the big pressing projects, whether it's updating my course, filming a YouTube video, getting content over to a brand for approval, the big tasks, start it first, do it first. And then reply to inbox messages later, reply to Slack messages after. I want my energy for those big items.
This is who I've decided to vote for in the 2024 election and they are. This is who I've decided to vote for. That's a joke. I know. Um, I want to do the book one. Well, let's hit it this way, but I think there's more than one that I want to ask you as we land the plane, but let's hit the, let's hit the repeat after me.
One book every content creator should read is. One book every content creator should read is The Mountain Is You. And as we land the plane, you mentioned pre-show to me that you read, you still read. Are you an audiobook person, a physical book person, all the above? Audiobook, physical book, and Kindle. And so what are maybe as a business owner, marketer, content creator, leader, kind of in those categories, has there been any books that have been profound for you?
Profit First was really, really impactful for how we distributed our income. I think that's Michael Mallwitz. Yeah, it's like, Michael, Mike Mallwitz, I believe. Okay. Profit First. Um, that one completely changed the game for how we're managing our finances for sure.
Give me one more self-development, maybe mindset. I mean, The Mountain Is You, but it's not like, it's not a business book. Ooh, for, I mean, anybody could read it. It's called The Secrets to Unlock, Unlocking the Stress Cycle, Burnout. It's a burnout book, honestly. You could just read the first 10% and have, and it's great. It's geared towards women. So the rest of the book is like more so for women, but the first chunk of that book was like, oh, this is why I'm stressed and burnt out all the time. And it's, I feel like ever since I've read it, I've had much more of a grasp on managing my burnout. I wish I would have learned that earlier.
Stress is a killer. Yeah. And I, if you ask me, do you have like a plan and routine and intentional things you do to deal with your stress? I'd be like, what? What do you mean? I thought, I thought stress was just, this is just life. I mean, isn't, and I've been, as I'm trying to get wiser, more thoughtful about active recovery, about trying to be aware of what levels people use. Oura rings, they like tell you your level of stress throughout the day. My sister and my dad have one. Are you going to get one? Probably. I'm easily influenced. Yeah, you're an influencer that's influenced. I get it. I see other, man, I mean, but you could see to then, cuz you see if your stress is high, then you should be intentional about rest or active recovery.
Well, we'll link up all those books. And, Millie, I want to thank you so much for coming back on the show. Yeah. And Think Media podcast, like, rate, share, review wherever you listen. Um, my name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel. And we can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.