Hello. I fully understand the irony before you even think it of me posting this on my YouTube
channel. I get it. So let's just get that out of the way. Having said that, this is so
important because I want to show you why you don't need a YouTube channel. You don't need
Instagram Reels. You don't need to dance on TikTok. You don't need a webinar. You don't
even need a funnel. You don't need to know how to invest in crypto. I sure as hell don't
in order to be successful and to achieve what you're looking to achieve.
And the intention behind this video to make it very clear for you is to allow you to achieve the
freedom you're seeking, which I think ultimately comes down to freedom of choice. Of course, you
want financial freedom. You want location freedom. You want time freedom. But I think all of that is
encompassed by freedom of choice and being able to create something that fuels the kind of life
you want to live. Correct me if I'm wrong. And for me, it's been a seven year journey
start to finish of having this channel. And it's been longer than that, but started doing
videos intentionally, not just like random family videos and blogs and stuff like that.
I started doing them intentionally seven years ago. So this is my seven year anniversary.
And in that time, I had done a lot of things that I thought I needed to do and I should do to grow
my business and to build a brand. And so much of it was unnecessary. And I've explained this
in recent videos that my business model and how I approach my business has never been simpler.
I've never had more free time and I've never been more peaceful or profitable in my business. And
so if I can relay that to you earlier in your journey, that's why I'm making this video. So
let me just give a little bit of context. I started this channel
in this way seven years ago, but prior to that, I had a business for about four years
working behind the scenes, never having a brand and working with all different
kinds of clients and really studying social media marketing before Instagram existed,
before all these different platforms existed. And I built my business to a place where I was so
full with clients that I had no time and I couldn't take on any more clients. And so
I kind of accidentally fell into YouTube and the intention when I started this channel was not to
build a big audience. It was to free up time for myself, and to be able to pretty much duplicate
myself so that I didn't have to keep answering the same questions for my clients. So I just
started making tutorials, answering questions I was getting from my clients, sending them to them.
And all of a sudden I was getting all these eyeballs on my content because not just my
clients had those questions, but all these people from all over the world were seeking
out those same answers. And they were finding me on YouTube and they were finding me on Google.
So in that first year, I went from little old me here in Vancouver to having 3 million people
view my content. Take a second to take that in. First and foremost,
I don't need 3 million people to view my content. I'm super grateful. But the point of me saying
that is that we get so caught up in thinking we need these massive audiences and all of the vanity
metrics, and we need to do all of the things to be seen and to be visibly when in reality,
my business was trucking along just fine. And I had built a very solid, incredible
business that grew by word of mouth without ever being on social media. And I think the thing to
understand is that there are a lot... I know this might sound weird, but there are a lots
of businesses out there that don't even touch the online space. They don't touch social media
and they are very wildly successful without it. Now, am I saying don't use social media? No,
because I think it's an incredible tool to make the impact that you're here to make. That's why
I use it. Having said that I think that there are so many options now, and there's so much pressure
and there's so much advice about what you need to be doing and the newest thing that you need to try
and what makes a business work. And at the very core basics of it, all you need
is a clear message. One clear message, one clear offer,
one ideal client, and one reliable traffic source to get consistent clients in the door.
Prior to ever being online for me,
I grew my business by doing good work and my clients telling other people about that good work.
And I kind of took that. And when I came online, all of a sudden that same thing applied,
but now I was open to the world. I can't possibly serve everybody who sees my content,
but it's been an incredible way for me to help a lot of more people through my free content. And
then it's been an incredible way for me to deeply impact the people who are in my program. But I
think it often works in reverse. And we focus so much on I need a YouTube channel. I need to be on
TikTok. I need to do all of these things in order to grow my business when that is not the truth.
And actually if you do it in that order, it can hurt you. And I say this from my experience. If
I were to go back in time, I would've waited a little longer to start a YouTube channel. And
this is how I work with the people that we serve inside my program. And the biggest
thing that we harp on is let's get really clear on your message and who you serve and what you
need to have a successful business on your terms. How much revenue do you want to make? What does
your profitability look like? How many clients does that actually look like on a yearly basis?
Sometimes it's like two, three clients a month. Therefore, why are you shaking your
butt on Instagram Reels trying to go viral? You don't need those. You don't need that. Of course,
you can do things to build your credibility and you can do things to reach bigger audience.
But one of the things that's happened over the years when it comes to social media, people
have these incredible ideas and oftentimes they come from having space, taking a pause, taking a
breather, and actually having a whole life, not just putting a pressure cooker on yourself to
create content. I know for me, I make my worst content and I don't really do this anymore,
when I'm under pressure, when I feel like I have to, or I need to. And the best content comes from
space to actually think it through and make it unique to you and specifically for the person that
you're trying to serve. Not for the whole world, but for the person that you deeply want to impact.
And when that happens, when this amazing piece of content comes out,
now all of these people start to copy it because nobody has the time or space to actually sit
down and think through their content. So creating content is killing creativity.
And I found myself in that trap a few times over the years. And that's why today I don't force
myself to create content. I make content that feels really aligned with my values, my intent,
and the mission behind my business. And it's business first, impact first. Content feeds that.
If you go content first and then try and figure out what your business is, it makes it a little
bit more challenging, because you're putting the cart before the horse. Now am I saying that's not
doable? Absolutely not. It's totally doable. It's how you want to live your life though.
And there are so many things that I've done on this channel and on social media that
when I look back, I go, what was I even thinking? And what was that for? And who was that for? And
so when you don't have an idea of who you're speaking to and what you want to be known for,
which ultimately is what the algorithms across platforms need to know. If you can't answer those
two questions, who am I serving and who is this content for? And what do I want to be known for?
You're kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall and it's keeping you busy. And
I will just this and plant this seed for you. Have you ever considered that maybe
creating a bunch of content and being on all the platforms
is coming from a place of deep rooted scarcity and layer this on top,
a deep rooted feeling that you're actually not worthy of success because if all you're doing
and all you're spending your time on is creating content that's throwing spaghetti at the wall,
on a subconscious level, you're sabotaging your own success because you're not taking the time
to think through the kind of content you want to make to really build the legacy
and impact that you want to have in the world. And so a lens to think through the content
that you create and why you're creating it is this unique to me?
Do I have a clear intent behind this? Why am I making this content? Is this actually necessary?
And asking yourself, what do I want to do? What is my purpose? And what works?
There's a lot of testing involved in business when you're getting started. And there's a
lot of testing involved in the online space. You got to test things to see if they work,
but prior to trying to do all of the things, you have to know if your messaging is clear
and if that works. So it's better to test it on a kind of a smaller scale and with less
ramifications than something like a YouTube channel, because I have a bunch of content that
I made over the years that isn't really relevant to who I am speaking to, now that I'm hyper clear
on who my ideal viewer is and who my ideal client is in my business. And so it doesn't land for
them. And that hurts engagement overall. So it's almost like I've had to rebuild
over the last couple of years. And if I had just done that from day one,
the trajectory would've been a lot more smooth and I never would've sat there going, hmm,
I wonder what I should make a video on this week, which I've done many times. But at this point I
don't. At this point, it's very easy to create content because I know who I'm talking to and I
know exactly what they need and I know exactly what my purpose is and what my mission is. So
I just think it's important to understand businesses are built
without all of those things. Businesses are built without the fancy tech, without the funnels,
and proving your messaging and validating your messaging and getting clients in the
door before you create all of those assets will make all of those assets work so much better.
And it's actually very easy to validate your messaging
and to get clients in the door simply through doing good work, talking about the work you do
with the people around you, starting to get some traffic and momentum organically through that, and
continuing to build your credibility by doing good work for more people.
And the simple basics of business, it comes down to relationships. Relationships lead to revenue.
So the more people on a daily basis that you can tell what you do and why you do it,
the more people all of a sudden are going to know that's what you do. And they're going to tell
everyone that they know you're the go-to. That's how you build a brand. It's not about
how great you look online, how fancy things are, how phenomenal your sales page is.
It's about doing good work, having credibility, having great client results,
and really understanding what your north star is, which means what is your mission
and working backwards from there. And what do you actually need?
What do you actually need for your business to be quote unquote successful? Because that is
personal to every single person. What does a successful business look like for you?
What does a successful life look like for you? Defining that is going to help you decide
if something is a yes or a no, and if you need to be all the places. So anyways, I hope this landed
and I hope that it provided some light bulbs. I think it's kind of a full circle
moment for me. And part of why I wanted to share this is that seven years ago,
when I'm sitting in my little apartment with a window on a webcam, not too opposite from this,
I didn't know what to expect. And I went into everything in as an experiment,
but I knew that part of the reason I was doing this was to create time for the
things that really mattered in my life. And as I've gotten older and as I have
more life experience, all that matters to me is feeling at peace and seeing the people that I
love as much as possible and taking good care of myself and being the healthiest version of myself.
And so with those being a part of the outcome I'm trying to create for myself,
pairing that with my mission of elevating experts so that they can create their own success ripples
in the world and make their own impact. If things don't align with those two factors, they're
a no for me. And it makes it real easy to make decisions. It makes it really easy to decide that
certain things just aren't for me and that's okay. And it also makes it very easy to live in a place
of abundance and know that I don't need to be everywhere and I don't need everybody's attention
in order to feel whole and fulfilled. I just need to focus on the things that
actually matter to me and to the business. Think through what matters to you. Think
through what you want to do. Think through the legacy and the impact you want to create.
Think through what's important to you. And then really look at what you're currently doing right
now. And if that's serving that purpose and what it's actually doing for you in your business
and cut and subtract the things that aren't supporting that mission,
because the more you do that, the more you have the space and time to support the mission.
Hopefully, this helps. Are you with me? Deep breath. I'll see you in the next one. Bye.