Unlock Your Potential and Thrive as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator

When Hala started podcasting, everyone told her it was too late to enter the market. But today, she is known as the Podcast Princess. With creativity and great content, anyone can build a powerful brand and make an impact. While the endless opportunities to create and connect can feel overwhelming, there are proven strategies to help you get started and stand out from the crowd. In episode four of the YAPCreator Series presented by OpusClip, Hala shares inspiring stories and bold strategies from top creators like Gary Vaynerchuk, Jenna Kutcher, and Kelly Roach to help you navigate the creator economy and unlock your true potential as a content creator. In this episode, Hala will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:34) Getting Started with YouTube with Sean Cannell (05:09) Self-Discovery and Personal Branding (09:16) Jenna Kutcher on Experimentation and Authenticity (14:11) James Altucher’s “Idea Sex” for Creativity (22:13) Energy and Magnetism in Content Creation (26:48) The Impact of Content on Your Vibration (27:20) Finding Your Unique Value (27:41) Mastery and the 10,000 Hour Rule (32:17) The 10,000 Experiments Rule (34:42) Kelly Roach’s Conviction Marketing Pyramid (45:40) Streamlining Content Creation with OpusClip (47:02) GaryVee on The Best Time to Be a Content Creator (49:07) Closing Thoughts and Future Episodes Try OpusClip for FREE: Visit https://www.opus.pro/clipanything Resources Mentioned: YAP E278 with Sean Cannell: https://youngandprofiting.co/40GYZCy YAP E316 with Kat Norton: https://youngandprofiting.co/40I34q4 YAP E291 with Gary Vee: https://youngandprofiting.co/41DRxcd YAP E295 with Jenna Kutcher: https://youngandprofiting.co/40FzNw6 YAP E275 with James Altucher: https://youngandprofiting.co/4h2d2bG YAP E155 with Kelly Roach: https://youngandprofiting.co/4h1LfrD More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Leave a Review - ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala Learn more about YAP Media's Services - yapmedia.com

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hala Taha?

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• 0:45Hala Taha?

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• 1:35Hala Taha?

  Hello, young and profiteers. Welcome to episode four of the Yap Creator Series presented by Opus Clip. In this series, we're diving deep into the art and science of content creation, how to create, connect, and thrive as a modern-day creator. These days, the opportunities to express yourself and connect with others through online content seems truly limitless. But it can also be incredibly overwhelming. Where do you begin? How do you identify the unique skills and insights that will set you apart from the crowd and resonate with others? Today, with an assist from some all-time great Yap guests, Like Gary Vaynerchuk, Jenna Kutcher, Kelly Roach, and James Altucher, I'm going to help you get started. Amongst other things, we'll cover the importance of experimentation

• 2:18Hala Taha?

  in your creative process. Content creation is not just about finding a formula that works. It's about exploring new ideas, learning from your experiences, and evolving along the way. All right, let's dive in.

• 2:34Hala Taha?

  Content creation is truly at the heart of being an entrepreneur today. You may not have ever imagined yourself as a content creator, but to succeed in today's online marketplace, you need to be willing and able to market yourself and your business. Compelling content is a powerful tool to demonstrate value, connect with target audiences, and differentiate yourself from competitors. And it's no longer an option, quite frankly. It's a must have. Here's Sean Cannell, who built his massive YouTube channel from scratch, explaining why it's so important to be in the content game and why getting started is easier than you might expect.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Why is Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone and Leila Hormozzi and Noah Kagan and Alex Hormozi investing so heavily in content? Why, when they have other businesses and other things to do? I think it's because they understand that personal brand is the most valuable asset you can possibly have. Kevin O'Leary, you know, the Sharks, all of these different personal brand. And, and by building out in content, the wave of the creator economy itself, you tapping into being a creator, publishing content, basically the next three years are going to be the best three years in the creator economy. And Mr. Beast himself, the biggest independent YouTuber, also mentioned that, that YouTube's algorithm is one of the most generous algorithms as we speak.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  That new creators are being suggested on people's homepages and getting a shot in people's suggested feeds, that if you start a brand new channel right now, and you make the right video around the right topics with the right content, you can grow from scratch right now in 2024. So I think that when you think, oh, the platform has aged out or whatever, or it's just already saturated. It's actually impossible by the dictionary definition if it's still increasing. If the total addressable market's increasing, if consumption of content is increasing, which it is, if more users are appearing there, which they are, and if these users are more individual and unique, speaking to you finding your niche and your 1,000 true fans, it's not saturated.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  It's not too late and the next three years are actually going to be double of what's happened in the last 17. So we're actually in a crazy strategic time for YouTube. And so I think that's actually data-backed good news for business owners listening to this right now for really tapping into the power and the wave that's happening.

• 4:58Hala Taha?

  Oh my God, you're getting me so excited because I feel it too. Like I feel like YouTube is just like not primed for disruption, but it doesn't seem as competitive as I once thought it was. Like I just see this opportunity where I can kind of like stand out, have in-person interviews, like just understand the platform a little bit better. So it's really good news that you're saying that we can all still grow on YouTube. And I know for myself, when I started podcasting six years ago, everyone told me that it's too late. Look at me now. I'm top of the charts podcast princess. So it's never too late to start on your dreams. So if somebody is looking to start a YouTube channel and you know, they're an entrepreneur,

• 5:39Hala Taha?

  which is most of my listeners, and they've got to ask themselves some key questions, even before they start creating videos. What are the key questions and considerations people should think through before they actually start a YouTube channel for their business?

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think number one is why do you want to start a YouTube channel?

• 5:59Speaker 01

  And that answer to that might not be super obvious. It's a general good problem or a good question to ask is what are we solving for? We're solving for X. Do we need more revenue? Are we using it as lead gen? Are we using it?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  And we could get into some granular questions. What is the potential of YouTube for my particular business? Is there a good alignment there? And then also, how much time do I have to invest and what am I trying to achieve? Another interesting question is to say, do you have any desire to create content that you're in yourself? Or that, or how committed do you think you could be to creating content? Because sometimes we get ahead of ourselves.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  I think you could, we've seen brands, this is an interesting opportunity where you could hire talent. It happens. Moment Lenses did it. To this day, Kensington Memory has Tersha Hirschberger, who is a solo influencer that also is like talent hired for the channel. So at the early stage, do you want to build your personal brand? Do you want to have your own show? Are you interested in creating content? Who are five to 10 YouTube channels that you maybe watch and inspire you? And would you like to have a YouTube channel like theirs? If you haven't spent some time on YouTube, I would encourage that to be a first step. Do some reconnaissance and research to see what else is out there in your niche.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Because if you would say, and then, yeah, do you want to build your business, leads and clients? Or do you want to build your next business, AKA maybe your personal brand? Because what you've already accomplished and built, you're thinking about speaking, writing, getting your name out there, creating, getting your intellectual property, your frameworks, your processes, your teachings captured, so you can make an impact and a difference in people's lives, as well as get booked to speak in invited places. And I'm, I could get granular on case studies and use cases for how you could use YouTube for all kinds of different niches. A friend of mine just acquired a like real estate education business, and then he bought

• 8:12Speaker 01

  a YouTube channel, which was owned by like a, an exam YouTube channel, 35,000 subscribers. So he can start putting like these real estate exams and lead Jen over to his real estate education business. He won't be in videos. He can outsource these. They could be AI, they could be voice. So, so I would say that YouTube is an asset, no matter what we're talking about. And there's a way to do it, whether you're on camera, whether it's faceless, whether it's another talent. But these self-awareness questions are some really good foundational questions. And usually the people who like come to our event and watch our stuff, a lot of times say, okay, I want to create content. I want to create a video podcast. I want to

• 8:55Speaker 01

  be a talking head on video. I maybe want to teach or do cooking. We get into creator side, DIY or cooking, or we have auto repair shops, all kinds of business owners too that use it. But where a lot of times clicks best, Is even thinking through, do you see yourself as a personality and do you want to put yourself out there? So like the auto repair and modification shop, the owner has got a big YouTube channel, part of our podcast community, but like he's discovered that he loves it. Now, listening to this, you're not going to know if you could discover that yet. And I would encourage you why you probably don't love it yet. And you probably are intimidated a little and you're probably a little bit nervous to get on camera. But I would challenge

• 9:40Speaker 01

  you, one of the best experiments you could ever do is start before you're ready, start messy, make 50 to 100 videos. That might sound like a lot, but the reason, because it's going to transform you. I promise you, it will improve your life. It'll just make you a better communicator. It'll help you grow. But what you might uncover is you might uncover, like, I love this and I'm actually good at this. And it would be the wrong signal to think that day one, oh, I'm not good on this. This must not be for them. No, we're all terrible day one. So sometimes it's like an uncovering and appealing a way, the layers of the onion, if you will, to kind of discover that.

• 10:15Hala Taha?

  Like Sean said, we're all terrible on day one. You have to let go of the idea that you're going to be perfect or even good. Jenna Kutcher, one of the most successful podcasters in the world, was once a wedding photographer who had no idea how to present herself or her brand on social media. So she started experimenting and she quickly learned that sometimes what connects with other people is not at all what you expected.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  It all grew super organically until it didn't. So when I was a wedding photographer, I realized really quickly that there were a million wedding photographers in my area that were really talented. And the only thing that made me different was me, because we were all delivering a very similar finished product. And so even in the early days, and I mean, this is like OG Instagram we're talking here, like when we used to use those weird, like Valencia filters, I would just share my life, like, and I would just share who I was and what I was struggling with. I would share working from home with no makeup on, like, this is the reality of it. And it was so interesting because when I first began wedding photographer, I just hid behind my work.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  It was like the safe spot. I figured surely everyone only wants to see my work. And I remember years and years and years ago, polling my audience of like, what are your favorite posts? And it was all personal. And I was like, what is this? And so, fast forward a few years, we went to Hawaii and I wanted to do an experiment and I love experimenting. I am like a huge experimenter. And so I said, for thirty days, I'm gonna only post me. And this is at a time when I've been hiding behind my work for years. And my engagement skyrocketed. My confidence in myself grew. My connection to my audience grew. And I was like so fascinated by it because I was like,

• 12:07Speaker 02

  this seems like the least interesting thing of like what I'm doing. I was just sharing my life. And it really made me realize like, people need to connect with people. And I never set out to be an influencer. I really wanted to just like continue to grow and share. And I really have realized over the last few years of like, my dream is to like help women build businesses they don't hate and build lives that they love. And I have been taking people on this journey, not as like, I have figured this all out, but like, I am still learning. I am still growing. I'm still figuring this out. And so, when I started doing like social media collaborations and social media promotions and different things like that,

• 12:47Speaker 02

  it just felt so natural because I am the kind of person where I'm like, oh my God, have you tried this new lip gloss? Or like, this skin like cleanser is life changing. Like, I am naturally like, when I go on a girl's date with my girlfriends, by the end of the day, I've dropped like ten links of things that I'm just telling them about. Because I'm like, if this works for me, this could work for you. Like, I just love not gatekeeping, whether it's business or like beauty products or whatever that is. And so that was just such an interesting like facet for me to realize like, people care about the business, yes, but they also care about like what's happening behind the business and like what's fueling it. And so that was interesting. We did have a viral moment. So I grew very organically. I, I felt like I knew every single follower. Like, I just, it felt that way. And we had a moment go viral.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  And it was a photo of me and my husband on the beach in Hawaii. And I was talking about body image. And it was the funniest post because I just, I never expected it to go viral. I think that's what happens with viral posts. And I was clapping back at someone who had said, how can a woman like you get a man like him? And my husband is very fit. He's very in shape. At the time, I was curvier. I had been going through miscarriages and loss. My body had been through so much. And I was just angry and I was like, who are you to say this? Like, we have been together for a decade. He has loved me through every pound, every pimple, like everything. And that post like blew up and overnight we got hundreds of thousands of followers. And blessing and a curse, right? Double edged sword because wow, this is amazing.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  But also like, who are these people and why are they here?

• 14:21Hala Taha?

  Jenna is now one of the top female business influencers in the world. And to this day, she still shares details of her personal life as well as her business tips with her devoted audience. There are many ways to experiment when it comes to content creation. One of my favorites is a practice that was shared with me by James Altucher, a prolific writer and serial entrepreneur. And well, it's a little sexual in nature.

• 14:47Hala Taha?

  So let's, let's dig into this. Coming up with good ideas or bad ideas, I guess, just like this idea creativity. We talked about intersections a bit, but we didn't talk about something related, which you call purpose sex. Can you talk to us about that?

• 15:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, um, you know, and, and, and I also call it ideas X. I call it a couple of things. And the idea is, it's sort of like that sports and business example is that you want to come up with two things that you're either interested in or know about and explore what the intersection of those things are. So, you know, um, for instance,

• 15:30Speaker 03

  Apple does this quite a bit. So they were a computer company for 30 years. And then suddenly they wanted to combine, uh, let's combine the radio with computers. And the idea sex that resulted was the iPod, the first iPod. Oh, let's combine the iPod with phones. And the result was the smartphone, the iPhone. Oh, let's combine computers with this flat surface we've been doing with our phones. Oh, so now they have the iPad. So ideas X could create completely new industries. You know, let's say you're making a restaurant. Okay, there's a million Mexican restaurants on this street.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  But there's people who might, in the next town over, there's a lot of sushi restaurants. So let's make the sushi Rito restaurant. We're gonna make burritos of raw fish or whatever. This might be a bad idea, but, uh, you know, you, you, you always can combine two concepts to find something creative. Let's say you love guitars and you love history. Well, how about looking at the history of the world in terms of the evolution of guitars? Because obviously they went from very primitive guitars to all the way up to electric guitars. And in a weird way, that describes the history of technology, the history of music, the history of civilization as we know it. So ideas X is a very powerful tool when coming up with ideas.

• 16:56Hala Taha?

  Yeah, and, and something else that you have a whole chapter about is called idea calculus. And apparently you can, you know, subtract, divide, multiply ideas. I'd love to get an overview of that.

• 17:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, so for instance, let's say,

• 17:12Speaker 03

  you know, let's say you're, you're, well, let's say you have a podcast. And now you wanna, let's, what are ways to multiply this podcast? Well, by multiplying, it means kind of taking the podcast and scaling it in ways that you wouldn't be able to do individually. So you could start a podcast network, for instance, and you bring on other podcasts and your job is now to place the ads and you get a cut of all those ads. So now you not only have the business of your podcast, but you have this network where you already were placing ads on your podcast. But now you get to spread around to more podcasts and place those ads. You've now multiplied your podcast. Or here's another way.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  You do your podcast and you release it on all the platforms like Spotify, Apple, iHeartRadio, Sirius, and on and on. But what about putting your podcast on TikTok or YouTube? Or guess what? If you upload your podcast to Amazon Prime, your video version of your podcast to Amazon Prime, it would actually become an Apple Prime TV show. And it'll be right next to all the other Apple Prime TV shows when you search for your podcast. Most people don't realize that. So there's all sorts of things you can do. A with experimenting and B with this idea of manipulating, you know, the math of ideas. So idea subtraction, I'm forgetting some of the examples I had in the book there.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  But you know, basically, what if you had your podcast? And oh, for TikTok, they only allow 60 seconds. So let's take the concept of a podcast, figure out how to do an episode with what's the most important thing in this episode with James? Okay, we're going to make a TikTok 60 second podcast with James. So that's like idea subtraction. So if you take one concept, a podcast, and apply all these different ideas to it, then you'll suddenly be everywhere. And and you'll have lots of different formats. One of them might hit and be super popular. But you know, in order to have luck, and earlier I said, success requires luck.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  In order to have luck, you need to basically expand the area of luck in your life. So yes, your podcast on Spotify could get lucky and go viral. But imagine if you also had a 60 second podcast on TikTok and a show on Amazon Prime that you uploaded yourself. And a podcast network where you're just trying to make money, but one of the other podcasts becomes huge and viral. And suddenly you're making like great money now with with the podcast concept by having a podcast network. You've expanded basically the surface area of your luck and that often results in in great success.

• 20:04Hala Taha?

  So good. And so let's say we come up with, you know, an idea that we think is great. How do we stress test it to make sure that there's actually people who would want this idea from us?

• 20:15Speaker 03

  Very important question because people often say ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is everything. And this is just totally not true because in order execution, execution doesn't mean one thing. You have to have execution ideas on how to execute. There are good execution ideas and bad execution ideas. So let's say you and I came up with a business idea and we said, oh, this is so good. We're going to make, you know, an AI that figures out what everybody should order in a restaurant. I don't know, whatever it is. We're going to raise $2 million. We're going to hire a bunch of programmers. We're going to program this up over the next year and then we're going to start selling it to

• 20:55Speaker 03

  restaurants, our new software package to restaurants. Well, that's a horrible execution idea. How about instead you go, a friend of yours has a restaurant. We go to that friend and say, listen, can we go from table to table this night and see if we can help everybody with their orders? And we'll see, oh, everybody already had their preferences even before they got to the restaurant. They knew what they wanted to order. So this is a bad idea. So we shouldn't waste a year of our lives and $2 million of people's money and trying to raise the money to do this idea. It's a bad idea. So often when you try to break things down and do things manually as quick as,

• 21:37Speaker 03

  maybe it might not be the exact product, but you could usually test, do people even want this? Do people even even remotely want this? You know, people already, the hard thing about businesses, people already know, they've already filled up their 24 hours a day. You and I and everybody listening, we already have things to do all 24 hours of the day. When you start a new business, that means you're saying some people are going to do something new in in part of those 24 hours. And that new includes a product that I create or service I invent or whatever. And Most people don't want anything new. They're fine with their 24 hours a day. I'm fine mostly with my 24 hours a day.

• 22:20Speaker 03

  Do I really want the Apple Vision Pro to change my 24 hours? Maybe it's gotta be great, though. And so, most ideas are pretty bad. That's why most ideas are pretty bad and won't work. So it's good to execute as cheaply and quickly as possible.

• 22:37Hala Taha?

  It's not enough, though, just to have a good approach and good ideas when it comes to content creation. You need to have the energy to execute them. When it comes to growing on social media and getting attention online, you've got to be ready to receive it and you've got to bring the right energy. First off, you need to believe in yourself as a person who is worthy of a following. And second, you need to be consistent in the vibes that you put off and what people can expect from your account. Nobody knows this better than TikTok and Instagram influencer Kat Norton, AKA Miss XL.

• 23:12Hala Taha?

  So, how soon did things take off for you? Like, did you go viral right away? Did it take months, years? Like, what was it like for you?

• 23:20Speaker 04

  So, the whole thing happened pretty quickly. And I do attribute a lot of that to the energetics that happened behind the scene, where I was able to actually show up fully authentically in what I wanted to create and was ready to receive the attention back. Where normally, I grew up with an anxiety disorder. I hated having any attention on me. Like, I had to do a lot of overhauling to get to a spot where I wasn't going to subconsciously limit what was able to come into my field. So, it was by the fourth video to that DMX song, "X Gon' Give It To Ya", I did the X lookup function. And that one, it was so good. That one got 100,000 views right away. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Because this, at the time, was my secret TikTok account,

• 24:04Speaker 04

  because I still had a corporate job. I wasn't really sure what I was allowed to do. So, for me, I wasn't like, hey, everybody, you know, like my video. I just, only my mother and my boyfriend knew about this secret account, Miss XL. So, for me, when that video hit, it got shown to all these people I work with. It got shown to all... All these people I know, I'm getting all these messages like, is this you? And I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe it's me. And then, within three weeks of that, I had my first video go viral on TikTok. And next thing you know, I looked down at my phone and within a couple of days, I had a hundred thousand followers. And that's where I was like, whoa, now what do I do? Because everything was going on in the news too at this time.

• 24:47Speaker 04

  This was like June, July of 2020, that TikTok's getting banned, you know, all the things. So I was like, wow, I gotta hedge my risk out here. I'm gonna create an Instagram account. So I created an Instagram, started posting on there. And then, within a few months, both accounts had gone viral various times. And we had a few hundred thousand followers across the different platforms.

• 25:08Hala Taha?

  That's so amazing. Like, it's so rare to have somebody who just kind of skyrockets on social media right away. Why don't we stick on why you think that happened? You just alluded to the fact that you came on with really good energy. And energy is really magnetic. So can you talk to us about the importance of ensuring that you have the right type of energy when you go film your videos?

• 25:31Speaker 04

  Absolutely, because it's one of those things where I view content as simply an energy exchange. My energy is coming through to you on your phone or vice versa. And you are the recipient of that energy, right? So my job as a creator is I want my energy through the roof. I want it in its heightened, most heightened sparkly magnetic state. Because one, that's what's going to stop someone, right? Like, think about a bunch of people walking down the street. If there is someone that is magnetic and like, fully just, you know, pure joy and like happiness. And that was something I worked on myself too, to get myself to that place. Where like, that's the type of person and that's the type of energy where you're gonna stop and be like, whoa. What's that person doing? Like, oh, why do I feel like attracted to them?

• 26:13Speaker 04

  Not in like a sexual way, but in like a, you know, like an energetic way. It's magnetism. And that's something I was learning early on, is practices I can do behind the scenes. And a lot of that was where the Kundalini Yoga came into play. Doing like different yogic technologies and breathwork and things where my aura would become bigger. My energy would become bigger. And that way, it would kind of stop you on the phone. So whether it was like the polarity of the video, like I'm looking at Excel and a girl dancing at once, what is this? Or just the energy behind it, right? Like if I looked really bored or like I was having a bad time, I wouldn't want to hang out. It's kind of like creating a little room with someone when you're watching a piece of content and you're like entering their room. It's like, do I want to go in that person's room? Like, you know, you want to make sure the energy is there.

• 26:56Speaker 04

  You're inviting and you're actually providing value. So that was something too, where I'd spend a lot of time researching the tips and tricks, making sure that one, people were learning, but two, also that we were having that entertainment factor because each video too, can bring someone's energy up or down. So if you're watching dark things that are going to bring down your frequency, bring down your vibration, that's something that's, you know, going to create more negative feelings in the body. My job is I'm trying to lift that up on the planet, right? Like I want to make you smile. I want to make you laugh. I want to brighten your day in any possible way that I can. So that's where with my content, I need to make sure that I'm in a good spot before I go and actually make that piece because that energy translates every single time.

• 27:44Hala Taha?

  Of course, the tricky thing is figuring out the areas where you can add the most value. Somebody like Kat Norton had a clear expertise that she could share, her knowledge of Excel. But what if you don't already have such a large storehouse of knowledge on a particular topic or subject area? How much time and effort are actually required to develop meaningful competence in a field? Well, the road to mastery is not as long and hard as you may think, and it certainly doesn't take 10,000 hours. Here's James Altucher again, explaining why.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  I wanted to describe like, what does it mean to master something and to get good at something? Well, a lot of people think you have to be the best in the world, or you have to be rich and famous at what you're doing to say that you've mastered it. So yes, I'm not a top 10. Comedian or a top 10 writer, maybe I like to think I'm a top 10 writer. Yeah. A top 10 chess player, but I do think, and I think that's very hard to do. That's where the whole 10,000 hours or whatever comes in. But I do think I am, whatever I like to pursue, I like to think that I get into the top 1%. So I'll just use chess as an example. There's 600 million people around the world who know the rules to chess. Arguably, the top 1% means you have to be in the top 6 million of those.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Arguably, I'm in the top 1 million of those or even better. So, but I consider myself not so good because looking at it from my perspective, there's a lot of people I know who are much better. Same things with, with business, with investing, with everything that I've pursued. But I do think it's relatively easy to get into the top 1% of what you pursue. And there's a lot of benefits to that. One is every area of life worth pursuing has a strong and fun subculture. So you get to experiment being in all these different subcultures. There's like a comedy subculture, a writing subculture, a TV subculture, investing subculture. You get to kind of communicate with different people across the spectrum of all your various interests.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  And, and you get some status in those subcultures if you're in the top 1%. So I think it is relatively easy, and this is what I wrote the book Skip the Line about, is that it's not like cheating, but there are learning techniques you can use to be in the top 1%. Let's say you're interested in cooking. To be in the top 1% of cooking, I mean, a billion people around the world or more know how to cook. To be in the top 1% means to be in the top 10 million of those. That's very easy to do. It's not trivial, you have to work at it, but there, if you just use these methods, you can do it. Just as an example, though. So this is a photo I have and I'll put the mic down a little bit, but uh so this was a comedy,

• 30:31Speaker 03

  this was inside a comedy club I owned where I also had my podcast studio and just going around. This is me. This is uh, I invited a bunch of friends to see a podcast I was doing. This is Jim Norden, who's a famous comedian. He uh just had a Netflix special. This is the Jizza from the Wu-Tang Clan. So I did all the Wu-Tang Clan's websites in the 90s and he also does chess. Here's Garry Kasparov, who's the greatest chess player who ever lived. Here's Maria Konikova, who's written a bunch of books about being a professional poker player. So in general, you meet lots of interesting people when you get in the top 1% of lots of different interests.

• 31:12Hala Taha?

  Totally. And like I said, this book, Skip the Line, gives so many great gems for entrepreneurs of how they can, you know, skip this line and get to the top 1% of their field. And one of the first things that you talk about is you debunk the 10,000-hour rule. Now, all of us listening to this podcast, you've probably heard this rule a million times. It's from Malcolm Gladwell, but for those of us who maybe don't know about it, what is the 10,000-hour rule and why don't you like it?

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Sure. 10,000-hour rule is this idea, it originally comes from this guy Anders Ericsson, who was a professor who did all the research for it. And basically, he says with 10,000 hours of what he calls deliberate practice, you could be the best, among the best in the world at anything. And he describes like how the Beatles had their 10,000 hours and he describes various experiments. You know, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this afterwards. And Anders Ericsson wrote a book called Peak that I highly recommend. But my view is, is that he's just, so deliberate practice means do something, then study it, like what did you do wrong? And then repeat. Do, study, repeat. Do, study, repeat. And you just do that for 10,000 hours. So that's really good for repetitive tasks, like maybe a golf swing

• 32:25Speaker 03

  or memorizing lists of numbers or, you know, very repetitive, to some extent, music, musical performance, not that you Perform the same way every time, but if you're playing the piano, you play the same notes for the Moonlight Sonata every single time. You don't change. So that's the 10,000-hour rule. But I much prefer what I call the 10,000 experiments rule, but it's really more like 100 or 200 experiments. And the whole point is, is that you should try to think of ways, almost every day, to experiment in your life.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  You know, I mentioned one, which was the, you know, running for president. Can anyone, the question was, can anyone run for president? The theory was yes, and the proof is that I was able to do it. So that's like a scientific experiment. You have, you're curious about something, you come up with a theory, and then you test that theory. So another, you know, all the time I'm doing experiments. When I was doing comedy, I would, I would experiment all the time on the stage, different things I can do to get people to laugh. In, in business, you want to be able to experiment. Well, you know, a lot of times you go into business, you think you're going to make money a certain way. But what if we, you know, charged as a service instead of as a product, or as a product instead of a service?

• 33:45Speaker 03

  There's all sorts of things you can do to experiment in business to find the right combination of things that will make you a lot of money. So, so I, I view experiments as a really valuable, a quick and valuable way to learn incredible amounts of information relatively quickly.

• 34:06Hala Taha?

  It's so true what James had to say about mastery, and again, the importance of experimentation. You may not have to spend 10,000 hours to become a content expert, but you do need to spend some serious time experimenting with different ideas to figure out what actually works. Of course, it's one thing to be an expert, and it's a whole other thing to know how to deliver that expertise to your potential audience. Kat Norton went viral, not just because she could provide useful Excel tips, but also because she figured out how to get her audience's attention and keep it. And this is where good marketing comes in. Kelly Roach, the world-class performance coach, changed my whole approach to marketing when she shared with me her framework for building a conviction-based content brand.

• 34:52Hala Taha?

  Let's move into your pyramid, if you wouldn't mind, because I feel like it's a good place to talk about it. So your pyramid is made up of three levels. The first level is how to marketing, and then it's hope marketing and conviction marketing. So from my understanding, the how to marketing is really the foundational piece that you got to start with to command credibility and authority. Talk to us about this how to marketing and how to do it effectively.

• 35:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. So how to marketing is the most basic element of marketing, and it's typically the way that people enter your ecosystem. It's simple, it's easy to do, anyone can do it, costs you nothing. Record a quick video on your iPhone, pop it on your stories, pop it on your page, share it across different profiles. You're doing how to marketing. This is literally a transfer of knowledge. It's where I'm showing you, hey, Hala, I know how to do something that I know you're interested in doing. I'm going to be your teacher. So all of a sudden, Hala watches my video. She spent two minutes with me. She's like, damn, I like this girl. She just taught me how to do something I didn't know how to do. All of a sudden, she's like, cool, okay, this is someone that I like, this is someone I trust, you know, whatever the case. So how to marketing serves a really important purpose,

• 36:00Speaker 05

  because when people are scanning the airwaves and when they're looking for new accounts to follow, and they're looking for new people to learn from, they want quick, digestible incentives. Right? Okay. The problem is that's where most people stop.

• 36:16Speaker 05

  Now, the problem with this is, just like people are scanning the airwaves, looking for a quick, easy, actionable tip, they're doing that all day, every day. It's called escapism, right? As we people go online and scroll and scroll and scroll, it's escapism. So it's kind of like, you got the girl, she said yes to the date, and now you're like, cool, I already had a date with that girl. Let me see, oh, she's really cute over there, right? And then someone, right? So the problem with how to marketing is, it's a great way to get people in your ecosystem. It's not a great way to keep that in your ego. Hmm. And we have to remember, what's the purpose of marketing? The purpose of marketing is to attract so that you can nurture and finally convert people into paying customers.

• 37:00Speaker 05

  Well, if you miss this middle section of nurture, they never make it over here to conversion. And that's what's happening to a lot of marketers. They pump out this how to marketing. And this is, you know, a lot of people are doing their pointing and their dancing and, you know, their lip syncing and all of those things. And that's fine. Do you have a way to then bring them through that process and finally get them to convert? Okay, so how to get some in? It doesn't keep them there. We want you to not just do how to, but we want to elevate from, okay, I see you as a credible teacher. I see you as an authority. Wonderful. Now let's elevate. Let's figure out how are we going to get people to keep coming back?

• 37:41Speaker 05

  Well, if you notice in the conversation that we're having here today, Hala, we talked a lot about stories. Right? We talked a lot about experiences that I had experiences that you had ways that we resonate with each other. We talked about failure. We talked about setbacks. We talked about patience and sacrifice. What did we just do?

• 38:02Speaker 05

  Bring out emotions. Exactly. So the people that are experiencing this show are going to say, you know what? I've only been working at that goal for a year. I think I can keep going. Kelly kept going. Paula kept going. They both won these wildly successful companies now. Maybe there's nothing wrong with me that I wasn't an overnight success in six months. Maybe if I stick with it, I am going to achieve my goals after all. Okay, now we're on to something. Right? And this is why, of course, podcasting is so powerful. It's such an amazing medium for home marketing. So home marketing is the biggest chunk of your parent. And this is where you really connect with your audience in an emotional and a sensitive way where people are like,

• 38:46Speaker 05

  you're not just a teacher, you're not just an authority figure, you are my friend. You are my confidant. You are my cheerleader. You are the person that has been in my shoes. You understand everything that I've gone through. You understand everything I'm going through now. And you cross the bridge to the other side. So hope marketing is really about reaching down, grabbing your audience and like wrapping your arms around them and saying like, no, you're not quitting. You're coming with me on this journey. I'm going to support you every step of the way. I've been there. You can get there too. And hope marketing is really what's going to keep people coming. I call it like the needness factor of your brand. It's the thing that really makes people feel deeply connected to you as a person, not just as a marketer that can give instruction,

• 39:30Speaker 05

  but as a human being that has feelings, that has emotion, that's been through something. Right? Does that make sense?

• 39:38Hala Taha?

  Oh my gosh, totally makes sense. And I can attest to this. I mean, when I go on a podcast, for example, and share my story, that's when I get all these people like, you know, hitting me up, asking to do business with me and things like that because they feel so emotionally connected. They could see any sort of PowerPoint slides about my results or whatever, but that wouldn't seal the deal. It's about liking the person and feeling connected with the person that you want to work with, which is so key. So what are some other actionable ways that we can bring this emotion to our branding, aside from the obvious ones, which is like social media posts and, you know, having a podcast where you tell your personal stories?

• 40:14Speaker 05

  Literally, you can do it with anything. I mean, you can tell stories. I mean, for me, a lot of times, even when I do like Instagram stories or Facebook stories, like I'm literally just giving like encouragement. It's encouragement. It's, it's, you know, it's sharing mistakes. It's sharing setbacks that you worked through. I think one of the things that's most endearing when you're a teacher that, you know, wants people to want to work with you is not when you just show your highlight reel of all of your greatness and all of your wonderful accomplishments, but instead when you say, listen, I failed at this, and I failed at this, and I failed at this, and this is what I learned from it, and this is who I became, and this is why I'm successful today. And these are all the things that you can skip over that you don't have to go through because I did, and I'm going to tell you what to

• 40:57Speaker 05

  do instead. So I think it can be in podcasts, it can be in live streams, it can be in videos, it can be in emails, it can be in posts on social media stories, right? It can be from the stage, it can be from behind the microphone, anywhere. Where that you connect with your audience, it can be in a, in a book, right? And, and you know, in the book, any way you want. But the bottom line is it's going from transaction, which is not emotional and it doesn't have staying power, to relational, which now is what once creates that desire, that stickiness factor in the brand for people to want to stay with you. Yeah. And then I think there's another mistake that people make in all this is

• 41:40Speaker 05

  just focusing on hope marketing alone and not doing any of the informational how to stuff. So talk to us about. Amen. And I'll, yeah, yeah, all the time. And well, and that's why I wanted to actually give the illustration and the exercises in the book about the pyramid, because it's not about swinging the pendulum from one side to the other. It's about understanding how these things work together. Right? There's so many people that it's like their entire brand is just fluff. And it's like, what do you even do? Like, why are we even like, get out of my feet? Like, why are you even here? Like, what is this? I don't understand what the context of this soft, like, just fluff is all the time.

• 42:24Speaker 05

  So I agree with you. Like, there has to be an intelligence to your brand. Like, what is it that you teach? What is it that you do? There's a lot of people that go so deep in the, in the wrong direction that literally you don't even know what their business is. Right? If I go to your social media and I, and I don't even understand what your offer is, what your business is, what it is that you do, like, that's a problem. Right? So again, the pyramid is about, you know, think about it like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right? Like you work your way through the pyramid. You don't say, oh, I'm going to pull out this one piece of the pyramid and, and that's going to make me happy and fulfilled. No. Right? Each of the pieces of the pyramid go together. So I'm really happy.

• 43:08Speaker 05

  Totally. Uh, one more thing about how to marketing that I think is important. If you're gonna do how to marketing, isn't it true that you should really focus on a couple things and not just do like how to's about everything in your industry because then nobody's gonna know what you're really about? Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. I mean, this goes back to what we were talking about, you know, at the beginning of the show, where this lack of patience is the number one saboteur for small business owners. I mean, I see so many businesses that one day they're marketing this, and then the next day you see them marketing something that has nothing to do with that other thing and you're like,

• 43:47Speaker 05

  you're now you're expert of nothing. You're literally expert of nothing. The more that you keep changing your messaging over and over and over, and I will talk about this also with the conviction, the top of the pyramid, but you keep changing what you're talking about all the time and you're doing how to marketing on things that have nothing to do with the core anchors of your brand, of course that's gonna create a confused mind and a confused mind always says, no. Right, yes, that's a great point.

• 44:16Speaker 05

  I totally agree. She is dropping bombs right now. I would advise everybody to go rewind that part back. And now we're gonna move to the top level of the pyramid, which is like the elite level. You can't get to it until you finish steps one and two, how to and hope, and then you can be, you know, top of your field if you can get conviction marketing right.

• 44:38Hala Taha?

  Kelly Roach emphasized the importance of emotion when it comes to creating content that resonates with an audience. Now, not every part of your content is gonna evoke an emotional reaction, and that's totally okay. The key is to find those moments that naturally hold an emotional pull. This might be a story about a challenge you faced, a moment of vulnerability, or even a small victory. At Yap, some of our best performing clips are the ones that highlight these emotionally charged moments, whether I share or my guests share something deeply personal. These are moments that stick with people and prompt them to engage. So how can we get better at identifying these key emotional moments in our content? Well, You can start by looking for universal human experiences within your content.

• 45:22Hala Taha?

  The challenges, the personal victories, the authentic struggles. Sometimes it's not even the words themselves, but the way that these words are expressed. A genuine laugh, a reflective pause, a sigh, a tear. These seemingly small cues can carry a lot of emotional weight. They're signals to your audience that they're witnessing something real. One exercise to help identify these moments is to watch your content without sound or read the transcript without any preconceived notions. Look for parts that convey genuine emotion. Pay attention to body language, facial expressions, or tone shifts. These are often the unscripted, real moments that connect most deeply with your audience.

• 46:04Hala Taha?

  At Yap, emotional moments are at the heart of our content. And Opus Clip helps us bring these moments to life. It's like having a smart assistant that finds the parts of our episodes that truly stand out. Using AI, Opus Clip analyzes our podcast episodes, detects shifts in tone, language, and expression that signal high emotional impact. This allows us to uncover these golden clips without spending hours and hours scrubbing through our footage. For example, when a guest is sharing a story about a tough time or a major win, Opus Clip helps us capture that moment in a way that translates immediately. This has saved us so much time and allows us to focus on what we do best: creating meaningful content. If you've got lots of footage but limited time,

• 46:48Hala Taha?

  consider using Opus Clip or similar tools to help identify and share these emotionally resonant moments. Instead of manually combing through hours of footage, you'll let AI do all the heavy lifting, ensuring that your most impactful moments get the attention they deserve.

• 47:06Hala Taha?

  All right, guys, we're almost at the end of another Yap Creator episode. So far, we've talked about how experimentation, energy, and the right tools can help you establish your expertise and launch yourself as a content creator and online presence. But I wanted to leave you on an even higher note, which I hope will light a fire under you to get started. And here it is. You're living at one of the best moments in history to be an entrepreneur and a content creator. New technologies and platforms have completely democratized content creation and distribution as never before, allowing individuals and small businesses to build powerful online presences and without a massive corporate budget. Well, I'll get off my soapbox and let Gary Vee take it from here.

• 47:51Hala Taha?

  So a short question before we close this out. In terms of entrepreneurs and your marketing advertising framework, your day trading attention, how can they use this to compete with the big dogs, the Fortune 500 companies?

• 48:05Speaker 06

  It's the first time we can. You know, because for the first time ever, the creative is the variable of the reach. And that's marketing jargon. So let me say it again. For the first time ever, how good your picture or video is can lead to millions of people seeing it that never existed before in the history of time.

• 48:24Speaker 06

  You'd have to be on television or on the biggest magazine or newspaper to ever get a million people in America or the world to know anything. And you'd have to spend millions of dollars for that. Now, every day, we all know, every day that happens to somebody. Now, what we've also learned is just because you go viral once, doesn't mean you're going to be a billionaire. It usually means that you're going to have this moment that you refer to your whole life and you're actually actually be sad six months later because you weren't able to capitalize it. That goes into being a real entrepreneur. But for the first time ever, entrepreneurs, you have a fighting chance. Amber Chamberlain's coffee can compete with Folgers. Charlie D'Amelio's popcorn can compete. Logan Paul and KSI's energy drink is really competing.

• 49:06Speaker 06

  Mr. Beast's chocolate is really competing and they're the preview, not the anomaly. I started a wine brand and sold it to Constellation for tens and tens of millions of dollars because I made organic content on the internet about wine and then started a wine brand. That will be a very normal occurrence for a long time.

• 49:26Hala Taha?

  Now, if that doesn't get you fired up about content creation, I don't know what will. Thanks for joining me for episode four of the Yap Creator Series, and I hope you found some useful tips to apply to your own content journey. Are you ready to take your content to the next level? Opus Clip helped me drastically increase efficiency and video output at Yap Media. Finding the best clips for our videos used to be so time consuming and draining, but now we leverage Opus Clip and use its AI magic to find all the best clips, piece the storyline together, add in the relevant B-roll automatically, and Opus Clip does all the hard work for us. In fact, we only use Opus Clip for all the short YouTube videos and Instagram reels that you see on my page now.

• 50:09Hala Taha?

  You can let Opus Clip help you create awesome videos that will drive engagement, too. Try Opus Clip today at opus.pro/clipanything. And thanks to Opus Clip for sponsoring this series. Yap fam, thanks for tuning in to episode four of the Yap Creator Series, and I can't wait for episode five, where we continue to unlock the secrets of content creation.

• 50:47Hala Taha?

  Hey Yap fam, if you're growing an audience on social media but struggling to turn those followers into actual customers, I've got a podcast recommendation for you. It's called Build Your Tribe, hosted by social media expert and entrepreneur Brock Johnson, right here on the Yap Media Podcast Network. Brock shares practical strategies to help entrepreneurs and creators grow their online presence and turn engagement into revenue. Whether you're trying to create content that gets noticed, grow your email list, launch a digital product, or figure out how to monetize your audience, Brock breaks it all down into simple, actionable steps you can start using right away. Because growing a following is one thing, building a profitable business around it? That's a whole different game. If you're ready to grow your audience and turn that attention into something bigger,

• 51:31Hala Taha?

  check out Build Your Tribe. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen or watch podcasts.