I miss being blind. I miss being naive.

I miss being blind to the fact that what I do has an effect. And that effect could be negative just as easily as it could be positive.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about right now.

Ten years ago, I began really honing in on content creation. Shooting videos, editing, spending hours editing footage. That was one of my favorite parts of the entire process. I could sit down and curate exactly what I was trying to say through a video.

It was fun.

It was fun uploading a video and just putting it out there. I wasn’t too concerned about views. I genuinely believed it was only a matter of time before a video took off. I just had to keep grinding. Keep grinding. We have to keep grinding.

And that entire process was fun.

Until it wasn’t.

When Having a Strategy Changed Everything

Eventually, I began putting more strategy behind what I was doing.

After all that time uploading videos and waiting for something to happen, things weren’t happening the way I thought they would. But I will say that a lot of good things happened that I wasn’t expecting. I don’t want to make it seem like the experience was all negative.

Once I began strategizing and established an actual end goal, things changed. They changed for the better.

I started tailoring my content to reflect the type of clientele I wanted to attract. My goal was to increase my clientele in my personal training business.

That meant I had to think differently.

I had to identify my ideal client, understand their pain points, and demonstrate that I had a solution to the problems they were experiencing.

And it worked.

My personal training clientele began to increase, and everything was working well.

Until it wasn’t.

We love telling stories about pain. We love telling stories about redemption. And this is one of those stories.

It’s the redemption part that we’re still waiting on the final draft to come in so I can share it.

The Cost of Knowing Too Much

Now that ten years have passed since I started taking content creation seriously, I’ve realized there are a lot of changes happening that sometimes make me want to stop doing it altogether.

And when I say stop, I’m not necessarily talking about creating content.

I’m talking about being so strategic about everything I create.

That’s why I said I miss being blind. I miss being naive.

I miss being able to say, “Let me record this workout, upload it, and put it out there.”

No strategy. No end goal. No deliberate plan behind it.

It was just pure fun.

But there comes a point in time when you have to grow up. You have to start being smarter about what you do.

I had to start thinking about my content ahead of time. And it made sense. It still makes sense to this very day.

Things have changed, and I’m enjoying the journey. I’m understanding that this is all part of the process.

But I do miss being naive. I miss being blind to certain things because life was a little more fun when I thought less.

Recording was fun. Creating content was fun when I wasn’t thinking so much about everything surrounding it.

Finding Inspiration in Other Creators

Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of Jack Funny’s YouTube videos and skits. And it’s really making me miss creating content.

I’ve never created skits, jokes, or that type of entertainment. That was never my strong point, and honestly, I never really tried.

But I catch myself deconstructing his videos.

I’m looking at things from a cinematography standpoint, examining the shots, and thinking about the writing.

I’m asking myself questions like:

How did they put this together?

Did they come up with an actual script or just a general theme that allowed everybody to freestyle and go with it?

I’m appreciating the authenticity of it. I’m appreciating the evolution, the rawness, and the fact that everything doesn’t have to be perfect before it’s posted.

I’ve heard the saying, “Publish better than perfect,” from Sean Cannell’s YouTube channel.

And that’s something I’ve had to remind myself of.

There are times when I can be such a perfectionist that I end up spending all this time working on something, only to produce a mediocre result.

Maybe I was being too mechanical. Maybe I wasn’t being as authentic as I could have been.

Those are things I can only recognize sometimes in hindsight.

What I appreciate about Jack Funny’s content is that it makes me think about creating more content. Not necessarily content like his, but just creating content, period.

Seeing the backlog of content he’s produced and the different things he’s put out makes me appreciate the process.

I’m admittedly late to a lot of his content. He’s been around for a while, and I’m just now getting into a lot of it.

But the thought process behind having fun with your content is what stands out to me.

The end result is that I’m laughing. I’m smiling. I’m enjoying what I’m watching.

And I think that’s an adult payoff, even if he never sees me or knows that I’m watching.

That’s not the point.

My point is that there’s something to be said about having fun creating content, recording it, and putting it out there for people to enjoy.

My Audience Is Changing Because I’m Changing

There have been times when I’ve created content thinking it was intended for a particular audience, only to discover that it wasn’t.

I’m still learning how to identify my audience.

And it seems like that audience has changed because I’ve changed.

Ten years ago, I was in my 30s. Ten years later, I’m in my mid-40s.

My outlook has changed. My perspective has changed. And naturally, what I put out into the world changes as well.

I think that’s part of the journey of being a content creator. We’re constantly evolving.

I believe I’m evolving into something better, something greater.

I just have to find the fun in doing what I do again.

I have to find the fun in recording. I have to find the fun in posting. And I have to learn how to enjoy putting something out there without necessarily having a desired end result.

That’s tough for me.

For years, I’ve been creating and posting content with a deliberate objective. I wanted to generate sales. I wanted to sell training packages. I wanted to promote my personal training services.

But before I became an official personal trainer, and even during some of my earlier years as a trainer, I wasn’t thinking so deeply about every result attached to every piece of content.

As you get older, you start thinking differently.

I don’t want to say there is no more fun and games, but you do have to become smarter about how you approach things.

Hence, why I said I miss being naive.

I miss being blind.

I miss being dumb.

Because the reality is that I have to make it make sense.

Make it make sense. Make it make sense. Make it make sense.

And I want things to make sense while still having fun doing them.

The Desire to Create Without Being in the Spotlight

I’ve been posting workout videos here and there, and they’ve been a little more raw.

I’m enjoying that part.

I’m getting back into the rawness of simply recording something and putting it out there.

But I still have to think about the end goal.

Because, to be honest, I don’t necessarily desire to be in the public eye.

Yet, here you are reading about my experiences, and I’m sharing a personal part of my life with you.

That almost contradicts what I just said.

It’s one of those things that makes me understand why some artists choose to wear masks or remain faceless.

I’m not sure if I ever want to become a faceless channel or anything like that. I just know that I don’t have a desire to see my face on billboards or become the center of attention.

And that’s a difficult thing to navigate.

Because you have to understand what comes with putting yourself out there publicly.

People are going to talk about you. People are going to ask about you. People are going to inquire about you.

But that was never my original goal when I started creating content.

I was simply finding something I enjoyed doing, recording it, and posting it.

Nothing more complicated than that.

When Knowing Too Much Takes the Fun Away

Here’s a perfect example.

As I’m writing this, I just finished making some homemade chicken soup.

In the middle of making it, I started thinking about why I didn’t turn on a camera and record the process.

Why didn’t I record myself making this dish?

Because I know too much.

I know that if I decided to record it, I would have to start planning everything out.

I’d have to think about the shots. I’d have to think about how I was going to lay everything out. I’d have to think about the hook, the introduction, and how I was going to structure the video.

All the things I know about content creation would suddenly come into play.

And it would have taken the fun out of making the dish.

I probably wouldn’t have finished making that soup the way I wanted to because I’d be too busy thinking about the content.

On one side of the coin, I miss creating content just for the sake of creating it.

On the other side, I don’t necessarily want to deal with all the hooks, planning, and preparation that come with it.

It’s almost like I’m going back and forth with something I used to love.

And I still love it.

But I know I can’t spend that much time doing it because there are so many other things I have to take care of.

That’s another version of growing up.

Maturing.

Understanding that I don’t have all the time in the world to do exactly what I want to do. Everything has to be allocated for.

But I also miss the very opposite of that.

I miss having fewer responsibilities. Fewer things to account for. Fewer things that require my attention.

And that also means fewer expectations and less accountability.

Because sometimes, not having accountability can be fun.

Remember when you were a kid? You could just do stuff.

You could just do things without thinking about everything that came with them.

Of course, even childhood had its own rules and regulations. Everything has some type of structure. There are rules to follow, and time has to be allocated for certain things.

We all have to grow up. We have to become more mature in how we walk, what we do, what we say, and how we approach life.

But I miss the part where I could just have more fun doing what I do.

I miss creating content, putting it out there, and being excited about the results.

And I think I was more proud of myself for simply making a video than I was concerned about how well that video performed.

Learning to Enjoy the Process Again

There are a lot of mixed emotions going into this post.

I just wanted to share with you what I’ve been thinking about.

I’m working on feeling good about the content I’m creating. I’m learning that part of getting back to that place is allowing myself to be more authentic.

Maybe I need to stop thinking so much about what every video is supposed to accomplish.

Maybe I need to allow myself to record something simply because I enjoy recording it.

Maybe I need to remember what it felt like to create something, upload it, and walk away feeling good about the fact that I made it.

I don’t have a definitive conclusion to this.

I’m still figuring things out.

I’m still evolving.

And maybe that’s exactly where I’m supposed to be right now.

So I’ll end this right here, with no real conclusion.

I’m simply expressing how I feel.

I’m learning how to feel good about the content I’m making, and I’m learning that sometimes the only way forward is to be more authentic.

So here’s authenticity for you.

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