Hala Taha: [00:00:00] Hello, young and profiters. Welcome to episode four of the YAP Creator Series presented by OpusClip. 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.

Hala Taha: 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.

Hala Taha: Amongst other things, we'll cover the importance of experimentation in your creative process. Content creation is not just about finding a formula that works. [00:01:00] It's about exploring new ideas, learning from your experiences, and evolving along the way. All right, let's dive in. 

Hala 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.

Hala Taha: 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 easy. Easier than you might expect.

Sean Cannell (2): Why is Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Hermozi and Noah Kagan and Alex Hermozi 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 [00:02:00] brand is the most valuable asset you can possibly have. Kevin O'Leary, you know, um, 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.

Sean Cannell (2): 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, that homepages and getting a shot and people suggested feeds that if you start a brand new channel right now.

Sean Cannell (2): 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, or it's just already saturated. Saturation is actually impossible by the dictionary definition, if it's still [00:03:00] increasing.

Sean Cannell (2): 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 you're a thousand true fans. It's not saturated. It's not too late.

Sean Cannell (2): 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.

Hala 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.

Hala Taha: So it's really good news that you're saying that we can all still grow on YouTube. I know for myself, when I started podcasting [00:04:00] 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, to start on your dreams. So if somebody is looking to start a YouTube channel and you know, they're an entrepreneur, which is most of my listeners.

Hala Taha: 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? 

Sean Cannell (2): Yeah, I think number one is why do you want to start a YouTube channel?

Sean Cannell (2): 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, um, and we could get into some granular questions. What is the potential of YouTube for my particular business?

Sean Cannell (2): [00:05:00] 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.

Sean Cannell (2): I think you get, we've seen brands. This is an interesting opportunity where you could hire talent. It happens moment lenses did it. Um, to this day, Kensington, uh, memory, uh, has Tersha Hershberger, 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?

Sean Cannell (2): 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 [00:06:00] some reconnaissance and research to see what else is out there in your niche.

Sean Cannell (2): 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.

Sean Cannell (2): So you can make an impact and a difference in people's lives, as well as get booked to speak and 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 of a friend of mine just acquired a like real estate education business.

Sean Cannell (2): And then he bought 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 [00:07:00] his Uh, real estate education business, he won't be in videos. He can outsource these, they could be AI, they could be voice.

Sean Cannell (2): 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.

Sean Cannell (2): I want to create a video podcast. I want to talk, be a talking head on video. I maybe want to teach or do cooking. We get into the 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?

Sean Cannell (2): Um, so like the, uh, uh, a auto repair. And modification shop, the owner has got a big YouTube channel, [00:08:00] 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.

Sean Cannell (2): And you probably are intimidated a little, and you're probably a little bit nervous to get on camera, but I would challenge 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.

Sean Cannell (2): 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, I'm not good on this, this must not be for that. No, we're all terrible day one. So I sometimes it's like an uncovering and appealing away the layers of the onion, if you will, to kind of discover that. 

Hala 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, [00:09:00] 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.

Jenna Kutcher: It all grew super organically until it didn't. So, um, 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.

Jenna Kutcher: And so even in the early days, and I, I mean, this is like, Oh gee, Instagram, we're talking here. Like when we used to use those weird, like Valencia filters, um, 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.

Jenna Kutcher: And it was so interesting because [00:10:00] When I first became a wedding photographer, I just hid behind my work. 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.

Jenna Kutcher: 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 30 days, I'm going to only post me. And this is at a time when I've been hiding behind my work for years. And my engagement Skyrocketed.

Jenna Kutcher: My confidence in myself grew, my connection to my audience grew. And I was like, so fascinated by it because I was like, this seems like the least interesting thing of like what I'm doing. It 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.

Jenna Kutcher: I really wanted to just like continue to grow and share. And I really have [00:11:00] 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.

Jenna Kutcher: 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, 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.

Jenna Kutcher: 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 10 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.

Jenna Kutcher: 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 [00:12:00] viral moment. So I grew very organically. I felt like I knew every single follower.

Jenna Kutcher: Like I just, it felt that way. And we had a moment go viral and it was a photo of me and my husband on the beach in Hawaii. And I was talking about body image. And, um, I, 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?

Jenna Kutcher: And my husband is very fit. He's very in shape. At the time I was curvier, I had been going through miscarriages and lost my body had been through so much. Yeah. 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.

Jenna Kutcher: 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. But also like, who are these people and why are they here?

Hala Taha: Jenna is now one of the top female [00:13:00] 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. 

Hala Taha: There are many ways to experiment when it comes to content creation.

Hala Taha: 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.

Hala Taha: So let's, let's dig into this, uh, coming up with good ideas or bad ideas, I guess, just like this idea, creativity. Uh, 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? 

James Altucher: Yeah. So, um, you know, and, and, and I, I also call it idea sex.

James Altucher: I call it a couple of things. And the idea is it's sort of like that sports and business example is that you come up with two con, two things that you're. Either interested in or know about and explore what the [00:14:00] intersection of those things are. So. You know, um, for instance, Apple does this quite a bit. So they were a computer company for 30 years.

James Altucher: 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 

Hala Taha: iPhone, 

James Altucher: Oh, let's combine computers with this flat surface we've been doing with our phones.

James Altucher: Oh, so now they have the iPad. So idea sex could create completely new industries. Uh, you know, let's say you're making a restaurant. Okay. There's a million Mex, Mexican restaurants on this street, but there's people who might in the next town over, there's a lot of sushi restaurants. So let's make, uh, the sushi Rito restaurant.

James Altucher: We're going to make burritos of raw fish or [00:15:00] whatever. This might be a bad idea, but, uh, 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 to, you know, Guitars to all the way up to electric guitars.

James Altucher: And in a, in a weird way that describes the history of technology, the history of music, the history of civilization, as we know it. So idea sex is a very powerful tool when coming up with ideas. 

Hala 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.

Hala Taha: I'd love to get an overview of that. 

James Altucher: Yeah. So for instance. Let's say, you know, let's say you're, you're, well, let's say you have a podcast and now you want to, let's, what are ways to multiply this [00:16:00] 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.

James Altucher: So you can 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.

James Altucher: You've now multiplied your podcast, or here's another way 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 Tik TOK or YouTube, or guess what? If you upload your podcast to Amazon prime, your video version of your pockets to Amazon prime, you get.

James Altucher: 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 [00:17:00] all sorts of things you can do a with experimenting and B with this idea of manipulating, you know, the math of ideas.

James Altucher: So, uh, idea subtraction, I'm forgetting some of the examples I had in the book there, but you know, basically, what podcast and. Oh, for Tik Tok, they only allow 60 seconds. So let's take the concept of a podcast, figure out how to do, uh, an episode with what's the most important thing in this episode with James.

James Altucher: Okay. We're going to make a Tik Tok 60 second podcast, uh, with James. So that's like idea subtraction. So if you take one concept of podcast and apply all these different ideas to it, then you'll suddenly be everywhere. And, uh, uh, 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.

James Altucher: And earlier I said, success requires luck in order to have [00:18:00] luck. You need to basically expand the, the, the, 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 Tik TOK 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 that you've expanded your podcast Basically the surface area of your luck.

James Altucher: And that often results in great success. 

Hala 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? 

James Altucher: Very important question, because people often say ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything.

James Altucher: And this is just totally not [00:19:00] 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.

James Altucher: 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 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.

James Altucher: 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 [00:20:00] our lives and 2 million of people's money and trying to raise the money.

James Altucher: Um, 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, as 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.

James Altucher: 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 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.

James Altucher: They're fine with their 24 hours a day. I'm fine. Mostly with my 24 hours a day. Do I really want the Apple vision pro to change my 24 hours? [00:21:00] Maybe, uh, 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.

Hala Taha: 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.

Hala Taha: 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.

Hala 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? 

Kat Norton: So the whole thing happened pretty quickly. And I do [00:22:00] 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.

Kat Norton: 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 gone give it to you. I did the X lookup function.

Kat Norton: 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 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.

Kat Norton: Secret account, Miss Excel. So for me, when that video hit, it got shown to all these people I work with. It got shown to all these people I know. [00:23:00] 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.

Kat Norton: And next thing you know, I looked down at my phone, and within a couple days, I had 100, 000 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. This was like June, July of 2020 that TikTok's getting banned, you know, all the things. So I was like, well, I gotta hedge my risk out here.

Kat Norton: I'm going to 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. 

Hala Taha: That's so amazing. Like it's It's so rare to have somebody who just kind of skyrockets on social media right away.

Hala Taha: Um, 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, [00:24:00] 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? 

Kat Norton: Absolutely, because it's one of those things where I view content as simply an energy exchange.

Kat Norton: 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.

Kat Norton: 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 going to stop and be like, whoa, what's that person doing? Like, oh, why do I feel like attracted to them? Not in like a sexual way, but in like a, You know, like an energetic way.

Kat Norton: It's it's magnetism and that's something I was learning early on is practices I can do behind the scenes. [00:25:00] And a lot of that was where the Kundalini yoga came into play, doing like different yogic technologies and breath work and things where my aura would become bigger, my energy would become bigger.

Kat Norton: And that way it would kind 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.

Kat Norton: 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 you're inviting, and you're actually providing value. So that was something to where I spent a lot of time researching the tips and tricks, making sure that one people were learning, but to also that we were having that entertainment factor, because each video to can bring someone's energy up or down.

Kat Norton: 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 [00:26:00] on the planet, right? Like I want to make you smile. I want to make you laugh.

Kat Norton: 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. 

Hala 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 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?

Hala Taha: 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.

James Altucher: I want 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 [00:27:00] 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 ten comedian, or a top ten writer.

James Altucher: Maybe, I like to think I'm a top ten writer. Yeah! Uh, top ten chess player. But, I do think, and I think that's very hard to do. That's where the whole ten thousand 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.

James Altucher: There's 600 million people around the world who know the rules to chess. Arguably the top 1 percent means you have to be in the top 6 million of those. 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.

James Altucher: But I do think it's relatively easy to get into the top 1 percent [00:28:00] 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 or writing subculture, uh, TV subculture, investing subculture.

James Altucher: You get to kind of communicate with different people across the spectrum of all your various interests. 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%.

James Altucher: Let's say you're interested in cooking. To be in the top 1 percent of cooking, I mean a billion people around the world or more know how to cook. To be in the top 1 percent 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 if you just use these methods, you can do it.

James Altucher: Just as an example though, [00:29:00] so this is a photo I have, and um, I'll put the mic down a little bit. Uh, this was a comedy, this was inside a comedy club I owned, where I also had my podcast studio. I'll 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 Norton, who's a famous comedian.

James Altucher: 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 nineties. And he also does chess. Here's Garry Kasparov, who's the greatest chess player who ever lived. Here's Maria Konnikova, who's written a bunch of books about chess. Being a professional poker player.

James Altucher: So in general, you meet lots of interesting people when you get in the top 1%. of lots of different interests. 

Hala 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 percent of their field. And one of the [00:30:00] first things that you talk about is you debunk the 10, 000 hour rule.

Hala Taha: 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? 

James Altucher: 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.

James Altucher: 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, and Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this afterwards. And, um, 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.

James Altucher: 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 [00:31:00] tasks, like maybe a golf swing 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.

James Altucher: But if you're playing the piano. You play the same notes for the Moonlight Sonata every single time. You don't change. So, uh, that's the 10, 000 hour rule, but I much prefer what, what I, I call the 10, 000 experiments rule, but it's really more like a hundred 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.

James Altucher: Uh, you know, I mentioned one, which was the, uh, You know, running for president, I can anyone, the, the, the question was, can anyone run for president? The theory was yes. And the proof is, 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.

James Altucher: So another, uh, you know, all the [00:32:00] time I'm doing experience 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.

James Altucher: But what if we, you know, charged as a service instead of as a product or as a product, instead of a service, 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 view as experiments is a really valuable to a quick and valuable way to learn incredible amounts of information relatively quickly.

Hala Taha: It's so true what James had to say about mastery and again, the importance of experimentation. You may not have to speak. 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 [00:33:00] an expert, and it's a whole other thing to know how to deliver that expertise to your potential audience.

Hala Taha: 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.

Hala Taha: Let's move into your, uh, 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.

Hala Taha: Talk to us about this how to marketing and how to do it effectively. Yeah, 

Kelly Roach: 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 [00:34:00] 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, boom, you're doing how to marketing.

Kelly Roach: 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 that 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.

Kelly Roach: 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 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 digestible instant.

Kelly Roach: Yeah. Mm hmm. Okay. The problem is that's where most people stop. Now, the problem with this is, just like people are scanning the airwaves looking for a quick, easy, actionable tip, they're doing [00:35:00] that all day, every day. It's called escapism, right? That's why people go online and scroll and scroll and scroll.

Kelly Roach: 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 tuned 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.

Kelly Roach: It's not a great way to keep that in your ecosystem. 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. Well, if you miss this middle section of nurture, they never make it over here to conversion.

Kelly Roach: 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 singing and all of those things. And that's fine. Do you have a way to then bring them through that process and finally get [00:36:00] them to convert?

Kelly Roach: 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? Well, if you notice in the conversation that we're having here today, Hala, we talked a lot about stories.

Kelly Roach: 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? Bring out emotions. Exactly. So the people that are experiencing this show are going to say, you know what?

Kelly Roach: 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 [00:37:00] going to achieve my goals after all.

Kelly Roach: Okay. Now we're on to something. Hey, and this is why of course, podcasting is so powerful. It's, it's such an amazing medium for hope marketing. So hope marketing is the biggest chunk of your pyramid. And this is where you really connect with your auto answer. In an emotional and a sensitive way where people are like, you're not just a teacher.

Kelly Roach: You're not just an authority figure. You are my friend. You are my combatant. 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 and grabbing your audience and like wrapping your arms around them and saying like, no, you're not quitting.

Kelly Roach: 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 I hope marketing is really what's going to keep people coming. I call it like the neatness factor of your brand. It's the thing that really makes [00:38:00] people feel deeply connected to you as a person, not just as a marketer that can give instruction, but as a human being that has feelings, that has emotion, that's been through some things, right?

Kelly Roach: Does that make 

Hala Taha: sense? 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.

Hala Taha: 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 I 

Kelly Roach: mean you 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 [00:39:00] just giving, like, encouragement.

Kelly Roach: It's encouragement. It's, it's, you know, it's sharing mistakes. It's sharing setbacks that you work through. Um, 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.

Kelly Roach: But instead, when you say, listen, I failed at this and I felt at this and I felt 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 do instead.

Kelly Roach: So I think. It can be in podcasts, it can be in, 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 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 [00:40:00] non emotional and it doesn't have staying power to relational.

Kelly Roach: Which now is what wants, creates that desire, that stickiness factor and the brand for people to want to stay with you. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, and then I think there's another mistake that people make in all this is Just focusing on Hope Marketing alone and not doing any of the informational how to stuff. So talk to us about that.

Hala Taha: Amen. And I'll, yeah, 

Kelly Roach: yeah. All the time. And it, 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.

Kelly Roach: And it's like, what do you even do? Like, why are we even like, get out of my feet? Like, what, 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. [00:41:00] So I completely agree with you. Like, there has to be an intelligence to your brand. Like, what is it that you teach?

Kelly Roach: 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, 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?

Kelly Roach: 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.

Kelly Roach: So I'm really happy. 

Hala Taha: Totally. Uh, one more thing about how to marketing that I think is important. If you're going to 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 going to know what you're really [00:42:00] about?

Hala Taha: Yeah. Thank you for 

Kelly Roach: 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 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, you're now you're expert of nothing.

Kelly Roach: You're literally expert of nothing. The more that you keep changing your messaging over and over and over again, we'll 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.

Kelly Roach: Of course, that's going to create a confused mind Right. Yeah. So that's a great point. 

Hala Taha: I totally agree. She is dropping bombs right now. I would advise everybody to go rewind that part back. And now we're going to move to the top [00:43:00] 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 rights. 

Hala 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 going to 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 face.

Hala Taha: 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 guest shares 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. The challenges, the personal [00:44:00] victories, the authentic struggles. Sometimes it's not even the words themselves, but the way that these words are expressed.

Hala Taha: 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. Transcribed One exercise to help identify these moments is to watch your content without sound or read the transcript without any preconceived notions.

Hala Taha: 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. 

Hala Taha: At Yap, emotional moments are at the heart of our content, and OpusClip 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, OpusClip analyzes our podcast episodes, detects shifts in tone, language, and expression that signal high [00:45:00] emotional impact.

Hala Taha: 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.

Hala Taha: If you've got lots of footage but limited time, 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.

Hala Taha: Alright 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 [00:46:00] under you to get started.

Hala Taha: 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.

Hala Taha: Well, I'll get off my soapbox and let Gary Vee take it from here.

Hala Taha: So, 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? 

GaryVee: 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.[00:47:00] 

GaryVee: 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.

GaryVee: 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. For the first time ever, entrepreneurs, you have a fighting chance. Amber Chamberlain's coffee can compete with Folger's.

GaryVee: Charlie D'Amelio's popcorn can compete. Logan Paul and KSI's energy drink is really competing. 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.

GaryVee: That will be a very normal occurrence for a long time.

[00:48:00] 

Hala 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 4 of the Yap Creator Series, and I hope you found some useful tips to apply to your own content journey.

Hala Taha: Are you ready to take your content to the next level? OpusClip helped me drastically increase efficiency and video output at YAP Media.

Hala Taha: Finding the best clips for our videos used to be so time consuming and draining. But now we leverage OpusClip and use its AI magic to find all the best clips, piece the storyline together, add in the relevant B roll automatically, and OpusClip does all the hard work for us. In fact, we only use OpusClip for all the short YouTube videos and Instagram reels that you see on my page now.

Hala Taha: You can let OpusClip help you create awesome videos that will drive engagement too. Try OpusClip today at opus. pro slash clip anything. And thanks to OpusClip for sponsoring this series. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, fam. Thanks for tuning into episode four of the app creator [00:49:00] series. And I can't wait for episode five, where we continue to unlock the secrets of content creation.