When you're starting your creator journey, nothing is more important than finding your 'tribe'. Remember this quote "To go fast, go alone. To go far, go together"
Today's episode is different. It's the first solo episode I've recorded. Over the past four weeks I've participated in Creator Now, a creator cohort to help jumpstart my own YouTube journey. It's been fantastic and has forced me to reflect on what's important as a new creator.
Creator Now was co-founded by Airrack, a creator that went from 0 to one million subscribers in 2020. What he's building is special. This episode isn't sponsored. Rather, it's a reflection on my time there and what I've come to learn about finding a creative 'tribe'.
Hopefully it inspires you or sparks interest to think about your tribe as a creator. Maybe, it encourages you to sign up for the next cohort of Creator Now.
Danny Desatnik:
The creator culture by hashtag paid, hey, I'm Danny d static and this is a podcast all about creators, but not just any creators.
Danny Desatnik:
I'm talking about captivating storytellers, Masterful Videographers and generational writers.
Each conversation explores the impact creators have on people around them and what you'll find is not only astonishing but inspiring.
So today is going to start with the question why creators.
And that question is for me, why am I so passionate about creators and why is it that I want to learn more and more about them and get inspired by them every single day.
I see it in a way of something called Mimetic Desire.
It's I desire what other people have.
I think it is some of that, but I also think that there's an element of me where I've always wanted to create, it's just been buried so deep underneath the sand, but there hasn't even been an opportunity for me to understand that this is something that I really want to do or that this is a part of me and it's only surfaced of recent because I made a move from sales into social media and so naturally I've had to start creating a lot more for work and I think that's unlocked a couple doors in my system that's helped me show, hang on, this is actually something I really enjoy doing and there is this internal passion for it.
So again, the question why creators, but I've come to this understanding of why I think I really want to be a creator and I want to take you back 2 2019 And in 2019 I remember going to Australia to visit family and speaking with my uncle and when I was speaking with him, we were talking about goals and he was speaking about the importance of setting goals every single year.
I said I had never set goals.
It was never really something that was part of my life, but he gave me an insight and he said, okay, we'll take a look at an element of your life that you feel is missing, create a goal for that slice of life and just make that one goal your focus for that whole year.
I thought about it and that led me to believe and led me to realize that it was the people around me that was really important.
I really wanted to foster more really deep relationships and continue to nurture those deep relationships that I already had.
I coined it, Finding my tribe.
So every year the goal has always been to find one more person for my tribe to do that.
I almost thought about it in terms of maximizing serendipity, How do you maximize the ability to find people that are like minded that you would connect with that ideally would become part of your tribe?
Well, I think you naturally have to do it through serendipitous means because of a simple fact, we just don't know what we don't know.
And so if we can put ourselves into situations where there's more serendipity where more things happen in our life that we would have never even expected.
That will continue to open up more and more doors and those doors will naturally lead to finding my own tribe.
Okay, well this is just what I thought, whether it's smart, stupid or ignorant, this is just what I thought.
My first step towards that was actually watching and engrossing myself in more of a creator community, but it wasn't the creator community we think of today as I'm a creator, I want to find other creators.
I was just looking to watch other creators.
So I went on Youtube and I started to watch tons and tons of creators.
Tiktok became a thing.
I fell in love with watching Tiktok but I realized something, there was a cap to that relationship because it was my relationship with the screen.
It wasn't my relationship with an individual and it definitely wasn't my relationship with individuals around me where it's reciprocated, it was all entertainment.
There was no potential to extend my serendipity factor.
So how do I do that easy?
Well, easy.
In terms of what I need to do hard in terms of actually doing it.
The answer was to create, to find something I was passionate about and just start creating and for me it's video.
But it brought me back to two quotes that I hold near and dear.
One is by a writer named Patrick Rufus and the other is by a guy named Ed Catmull, You might not know his name, but you definitely know the company that he is the president of and co founded Pixar Roth says when we are Children, we seldomly think of the future.
This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can.
The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
Why is that so important?
Because when we're Children, there's really no inner critic, right?
We just create or we do whatever we want to do.
You know the feeling of walking down the hall and randomly you just find yourself throwing your arm out and wanting to feel the texture on the lockers and then on the wall and then on the wooden doors, you're not doing that, thinking, oh what someone else going to think, that's just instinctual.
You just want to figure that out.
There's no inner critic.
And so Ed Catmull says, if fear hinders even in grade school, no wonder it takes such discipline to turn off that inner critic in adulthood and return to a place of openness.
So to take it back a few steps again, I really want to extend my serendipity factor and I think it's super, super important to get back to that element of being a child in a sandbox where you can throw around any sand grains.
There's not really that many parameters, There's just a lot of tools and buckets and shovels and maybe other people within that sandbox, but you're just focused on the now and this all comes back to being a creator.
How do you harness that inner child who's in that sandbox while increasing your serendipity factor?
Well, you harness what's inside and following that curiosity and following what you enjoy and you foster that serendipity factor or you grow that serendipity factor by putting things out into the world for other people to connect with.
And that is exactly the way that I've been thinking about things for the last couple of months.
So again, the goal strengthen my tribe every year has been something I've been thinking about for a while and to find those like minded tribesmen and tribes women.
I need to extend my serendipity factor and I can extend my serendipity factor by putting things out into the world, but what do I put out into the world?
Well, I have to look a little bit deeper and find, okay, who is Danny d sat nick when he was in grade school sitting in a sandbox, what would he have done and just thought of innately and what would have just gotten him so interested.
So I had my answer again, creating and this isn't a chore, this is something that I've slowly month over month become really connected to and really, really enjoyed, especially as I mentioned creating videos, but I needed to find that tribe and so there's two ways to go about it.
I could just start creating and slowly see if people come right, it's the build it and they will come mentality, but I don't know how long that would take and then I'd have to get on certain platforms that have an algorithmic discovery element.
Are those the platforms I want to be on?
I don't know, So there had to be another plan to find that tribe especially initially and that plan came in the form of a creator cohort, that creator cohort, it's called creator.
Now, creator now is a business, their vision is to be the film school reimagined and it was started by someone named Eric Decker, who you might know is Iraq the creator who went from zero to a million subs in 2020 and I think now has something near like three mil And two people from his management team.
The founder of his management company, Zakho Navarre and Zach's right hand kate Ward, what creator now is, represents everything that eric didn't have during that journey of going zero to a million, that community of people around him to reference and talk with and strategize on the accountability level every single week to say, are you doing your video, did you shoot, did you write, did you script?
Are you thinking of ideas, leadership and workshops to really think about that next level before you even get a chance to experience it?
So, creator and I was a six week cohort where you get put into groups to start, You have to post a YouTube video by 1159 every single week for those six weeks.
You have workshops and video roasts and community connections that are centered but also dispersed around those weeks.
And then you have your own groups where you talk with and you connect with other creators and there's many other channels within the group that again, you can connect with and get feedback from other people.
It makes me think of the quote to go fast, you can go alone, but to go far you want to go together.
And it's that idea again, that together that tribe, that community, that people that are surrounding you.
And I know the word community has such weight today and might even wait.
Probably not even the right word because I don't even think it holds as much weight as it used to.
Everyone's talking about community now as it relates to and crypto and brands are all speaking about community.
We have to build community, We have to build community.
But there's two things I want to focus on as it relates to community that I think about, there's many other elements, there's so many other facets to discuss, but when looking for a community, there are two things that I find so important.
One finding a community where there are people at the same stage as you, And it's important for two reasons.
One relatability, you want to be going through trials tribulations together, where you can bounce ideas, you can bounce a tear, but you can also bounce a laugh off of someone else.
They can sympathize, they can empathize, send that feeling back to you, you can feel that you're supported and you can move forward, not only that they can inspire you, encourage you to keep going, they can fill that void that you may not know how to fill at the moment because they're around you, they're on their own journey, but you guys are on a journey together, so you're seeing them as a point of reference as a point of inspiration.
So, again, that one element that I find really crucial when looking for a community are people who are at the same stage as you, but the other side is looking for a community as well, that has people that have already succeeded in what you're looking to do.
This may sound obvious.
Another way of saying those that have already succeeded our mentors and a lot of us look for mentors and a lot of us may even have mentors, but the reason it's so important to me is this idea that they are your binoculars into the future, they've already done what you're looking to do.
So they can tell you what not to do what you should look out for, where you should put emphasis on what you shouldn't.
And it almost allows you to taste the future without the risk of actually putting in the effort.
Let me explain.
So in 2020, I was still in the music industry and I was really fascinated with the artist from Toronto, Jesse Reyes more than herself as an artist, which is a whole other discussion.
She's unbelievable, highly recommend you go check her out.
Both her artistry and her writing is incredible.
Her management team really supported her and had built a very, very strong plan to allow her to be the best she could be.
And there's one element of there and there was one element that really stood out to me which was allowing Jesse to experience the next stage without any risk before it happens for her.
And why that's so important is because when you then get to that next stage, you're not surprised, you're not shocked.
Instead you're kind of prepared.
You've already been thinking about this, it's been marinating in your head.
So when you get there, you are ready to take off.
And what this looks like.
For example, with Jessie is she would always experience the larger rooms maybe if she was playing amphitheaters, she'd go on a tour where she'd open in arenas or she'd get to collab with artists that were at a higher level than her.
So the conversations and the exposure was there, she could see what was coming before it actually happened.
And so coming back to this, those that have already succeeded are so important because they allow you to taste the future without the risk of taking that step initially and losing everything.
So if I look at what creator now is doing, they are giving you exactly that they're giving you a whole lot more.
But on these two points of again, when you're looking for a community, they are giving you people who are at the same stage as you by putting you into groups at the beginning, these accountability groups where you connect with each other, give each other feedback, you encourage each other, you guys are all at a very similar stage in the creator journey, no matter the view counts, no matter the follower counts.
The other side is they give you so much access to the people that have already succeeded.
They put on workshops with incredible creator, someone like a Samir Choudhry from Colin and Samir or Zach Ramblin or someone on the brand side, like an Adam hottie who's VP at current and current works with Mr Beast and they work with Iraq.
They're probably one of the most innovative companies when it comes to influencer marketing.
So, you come out of this program in six weeks with a community of people that are at the same stage as you, plus exposure to those that have already succeeded, and you stay in that community, and you continue to grow in that community, and that community is always there, but the team is doing at creator now is so, so important.
Think of it as artist or creator development there, really allowing you to be a better creator without the superficial element of let's help you increase view counts.
No, they're helping you become a better creator today, because they understand that everything else will follow once you become a better creator and build habits to continuously become a better creator, I'm really excited about this.
I'm on week four in the program, I couldn't say enough great things about this, but again, it comes back to the need to find your tribe wherever you are in your career, in your hobbies.
If you can find your tribe and continue to reinforce that tribe values that you really enjoy.
It's a massive unlock, you're going to open doors to life that you've never experienced before.
So, again, think about building your serendipity factor, such that you can find more like minded people, i. E your tribe by finding more people that are like minded, you're going to be supported, buy a bigger and better community, then there's a greater chance that you get supported by, again, people at your stage, but also people that have already succeeded and the flywheel just keeps happening and you hopefully become more of a fulfilled and interested person in life, and that's specifically why I'm looking to become a creator and I'm not going to go full time, nowhere close, I just love the idea of creating videos and what this is going to allow me to do is again, gain the skills and the understanding of a creator of the world, of being a creator, not just being on the brand side.
Like I am right now working at hashtag paid as a social media manager and having worked in sales before the idea of being in the trenches.
So when I'm delivering this podcast and I'm speaking to more creators, I can be there right there with them and the stuff they're talking about is stuff that I can relate to.
So the conversations can be better and you as listeners can get so much more value out of it.
Well, that's been my first solo episode.
It was actually kind of fun putting some thoughts together and just seeing where stuff flows and trying to get a little passionate about it as always be amazing if you could like and subscribe, not joking, that is a Youtuber thing.
It'd be amazing if you could leave five stars on apple podcasts and as always, it would be awesome to hear from you reach out at D A T K E D, I'm dad keyed on all social profiles.
Maybe this gets you thinking about your tribe, why creators, how to build your serendipity factor, but if it doesn't and you're still listening, thank you anyway, have an awesome weekend and we'll see you next week back with another amazing creator interview.