I think the "anti" grind culture can do people a disservice. You don't have to grind if you don't want to. But, you know, you have to sacrifice something to make your dreams come true. (I think thats why following your passions can make things a little easier because its more fun) I'm working today on a Saturday on a YouTube video. I don't want to (probably why I'm writing this post instead). But to achieve my goals, I need to do it, today, not tomorrow, not next week. TODAY. It's not a bad thing to grind, to work hard for your dreams. And it's a lot easier when you work hard on the right things and see some results. That's why I feel its so important to work on the right things. It's very overwhelming and depressing to grind away and see nothing for your work. So make sure to pick the right problem to work on. Don't listen to all the social media gurus telling you that your only problem to success is x, y or z. If you just listened to them and did this ONE thing you'd have success.... right? Naw. Not true. - What do you want? - What is the SINGLE thing right now, keeping you from that? - Double check yourself, if you solve that, will things really change? Example, you want to start a business. So you need a website, right? Well... probably not! Let's pretend you finish that website, it's beautiful. Who's going to see it? NO ONE. Your true problem is attention. My point is, being able to assess your own business, honestly, is a true business skill. Pick items that will REALLY move the needle. Play it out, when I finish this, what will happen? how will life be different? Getting 10K views on a video will move the needle. Trust me. Especially if you get those 10K views everyday. Have you noticed I don't have a website? I'll make well over $100K this month with NO WEBSITE. Take a second right now and answer this question. What is my TRUE SINGLE BIGGEST ROADBLOCK right now. Think on it for a bit. Ask yourself what changes after you're done? How is your life or business really all that different once you're done?

One important lesson I learned in the Skool games was that consistent growth requires a consistent high quality traffic source. If you're trying to win the games your growth has to be consistent day after day. And you only have 30 days to lock in your win, so focus is a must. The games force you to think about those daily tasks that can drive traffic to your community. For me, there was really only one lever I could pull to make that happen, YouTube. It's the only platform where when I put in more time on the video I know I get better results. My channel was growing before the Games, but everything changed for the better when I changed my YouTube strategy. And it's simple. - Make the best video on YouTube about that topic - Make a video ONLY you could think up and execute - Give away every detail and step (don't hide anything) I started spending 2-3 days on each video, instead of a few hours and my channel has grown 999x compared to the year before. I also personally make each YouTube thumbnail 1-2 hours. It changed everything for my channel, and frankly my business, and helped me get to #12 on the all time leaderboard for the Skool games. I don't do any channel research, keyword research, competitor analysis, none of it. I'm not saying that stuff doesn't work, I don't really know. But I do know what has been working for me. I just try and make the best video on YouTube. Take a look at the YouTube graph below. The first big spike is when Hormozi announced he was investing in Skool (this made all my existing Skool YT videos blow up!). The next big spike happened June 1st when I entered the Skool games and decided to give everything away on YouTube. I tell you this now because you could wait 1-2 years to do this like I did, or you can start right now and get there a WHOLE LOT FASTER. You don't need a YouTube strategist, you don't need "consistency", you just need to put in the energy to make a great video without fear that no one will hire you (they will).

Prepping for Sunday's Automated FACELESS video took 2 FULL days, all day Thursday and Friday! And 8+ hours of recording all day Saturday and I almost quit multiple times. It was extremely difficult to get through, and I made a last minute change Friday night that would spell disaster for the recording session. I made a technical choice that came back to haunt me! When Saturday came, I got prepped, I got one of my 3 YouTube shirts lol and started to get all the browser windows set up for the big recording. I felt ready, I knew it was going to be a lot of recording, but I was ready. - Then it came.... my neighbor decided today was the day to bring in the gardeners for a huge clean up... The hedge clippers turn on right outside my window lol That killed 2 hours and really put me on edge. I was already way behind. - Then finally I got going, my gut felt horrible. I had such a long and technical video ahead of me. I have to be so careful doing these videos. - But I got going, got through the first couple videos sections (I record in short batches then pass them to my video editor). - Then I realized I made a serious error. The way I had built the automation (with a last minute change the previous night) left the automation with a serious bug. There was potential it wouldn't work at all. I spent 1.5 hours recording that session and it was a complete waste. It's like 2 PM now. - The night before I had decided to give people the option of using still images, or animated videos (built from those still images) for their Faceless video generator. But I realized the way I was building it wouldn't work, or might throw people off. - I thought about scrapping the feature all together and moving forward with only the animated videos, but I remembered 1) I already mentioned it in the intro, and two, it wouldn't be as good. And several people actually asked me if I could do it with static and animated videos so they could choose.

Waiting for Stephen to send me materials to edit. Sends me this instead

I get this question a lot, "Hey Stephen, how can I add $X /month to my business". It's a fairly generic question -- so my answer is a little generic too: 1) Pick something you love to talk about and do it day to day 2) Then find a problem in that niche that people really suffer from 3) Then solve it a million different ways in daily and weekly content Now, realistically there are so many little details to work out right? but most of them can only be discovered through action. And honestly, if you just tried and pushed forward, all the details and problems would surface pretty quick and you could start to knock them down. One by one. But that unclear path prevents a lot of people from moving forward. That exact thing that keeps people from moving forward is always a little different for everyone. But it's that unknown they face that keeps them stuck. I've stumbled my way around quite a bit in the last few years, but I did keep pushing, on my own without anyone pushing me forward, fear kept me going. I hired a lot of people to help but honestly a lot of it was a waste money. 95% of my coaching investments didn't work out. My niche, the people I serve, my video quality, my products, my ability to articulate myself, my recording studio, my equipment, it all evolved through trial and error. I mean, checkout this ridiculous video (attached) that I posted to LinkedIn a few years back. I show this to prove a point. We evolve, you will evolve, so start now because you have to go through it one way or another. Sometimes I get this question, the one above... "Hey Stephen, how can I add $X /month to my business", from the same people, every year or so. And I start to think, dang, if this person had just actually started a year ago -- things would be so much different NOW. Where would they be? I'm not sure, but further along, I do know that. Yes, the path is not clear, but if you go forward now, in a year things will be so much different. Then a year after that, and so on. But if you don't the future will just look cloudy, ALWAYS.