- One of the hardest things about doing creative work
is when no one is watching, or no one is giving you
feedback, or you're not getting views or likes or comments
or anything like that online to keep pushing through.
I was recently having a conversation with Matt D'Avella,
over on his podcast, The Ground Up Show.
And we talked all about what it's like
to try to make anything creatively when no one's watching.
- How do you put effort and passion
into a project when nobody is watching,
noticing, or buying?
- That's the best time to put effort and passion into it,
because then it doesn't matter.
You do it for you, and then when you have an audience,
when you have people paying attention,
then maybe you'll keep doing it for you,
and you won't do it for them.
And everyone starts somewhere,
everyone uploads their first video,
to takes their first photo and posts it on the internet,
or gets their first follower,
or writes their first blog post,
or book, or what have you.
And so, you should start
whatever it is you want to do
because you want to do it, not because
other people are going to like it,
or favorite it, or share it.
So, I think that's a strong place to be in mentally.
It's a frustrating place to be in
when you post something and it gets five views
or gets 10 readers, but
the goal is that you'll look back at that time and be like,
"I still made what I wanted to make,
"and I am still doing that,
"even if I have way more people paying attention."
- Yeah, you have, it's just, it's part of the process.
If you wanna be able to be successful in a given field,
you have to keep doing it, and you have to get
through that part, that painful experience
of creating without
people watching
or giving you feedback, and it's a little bit
numbing, I would say, in the beginning.
But you get used to that feeling very quickly,
and you're just like, "Well, I decided I'm gonna do
"an episode a week, or a video a week,
"and that's what I'm committed to doing,
"and I'm gonna keep doing that."
And then if you have that kind of consistency,
not only are you getting better,
you're starting to build up a little bit
of an audience, people start coming back,
and then you create something.
And also, you don't need an audience
of a million people, you know?
You just need an audience of the right people.
- Yeah.
In the history of the world, except for the last 10 years,
let's say, whatever you made creatively was really hard
to get anyone to pay attention to.
'Cause there, okay, even if there was the internet,
there weren't platforms like YouTube, like Instagram.
No one would have seen it anyway.
I was just watching, have you seen
the Spielberg documentary on HBO?
- [Matt] No, not yet.
- He used to make movies when he was a kid,
reel-to-reel film movies, just for fun,
and no one watched those, he watched 'em.
He made 'em when he was a kid
because he wanted to make them.
And then eventually, now, millions
of people watch his stuff.
And I think that's a problem now
with the expectation of, "I can't make something
"if all these people aren't going to watch it."
- Yeah, dude, that's so true.
I feel the same way.
That's when I started.
I started making my parents VHS tape,
and we'd make stop-motion videos,
or we'd make horror films,
and it wasn't (laughs) 'cause we wanted
to put it on YouTube to get a bunch of views.
There was no YouTube.
We just thought it was fun.
It was just fun to create something.
And you have to find that love in the beginning,
and if you don't have that, maybe you're in it
for the wrong reason.
- And like we were talking about with Jason,
the number always is moving.
So, you can be excited about 10 views,
but you're gonna want 100, you're gonna want 1,000,
you're gonna want 10 million.
So, you never should be doing it for the number.
'Cause it's just gonna keep moving further away from you.
- So, if you are trying to make something online,
and you're worried about the numbers,
you're worried about the likes, the followers,
the view count, the traffic to your website,
your email list, compared to other people,
it's fine to compare it to something else
that you made recently.
This video is doing better than the previous video.
Why is that?
Researching what it is about something you made
against another thing that you made, that's okay.
Comparing yourself to others, comparing yourself
to whatever that next milestone's going to be,
it's just not a healthy way to live.
And going back to the first thing we talked about,
I think it's really important to treat your content,
treat whatever you're making online
like you have millions of followers already.
If you put that kind of energy,
if you put that kind of intensity
into what it is you're making,
then eventually, when you do have a million followers
hopefully someday, you'll be used to it.
You'll already be putting in the hard work,
and people will notice that,
even if you have 10 subscribers, 100 subscribers,
1,000 subscribers.
People will notice the difference.
If you enjoyed that little segment of our conversation,
definitely go to Matt's YouTube channel here, and subscribe.
He puts out great stuff.
Or listen to our full interview right here.
(calm music)