#26 – Getting excited about social media

Transcript

[00:00:00] Did you want to become an expert at social media? Well, we have no idea how to help you, but we do know that if you want to become an expert at anything in life, the most important thing, a key ingredients is to have fun doing it. Because the biggest obstacle, the biggest reason for you failing is that you stop you. So just quit doing whatever you want to become an expert.

[00:00:28] So in this episode, me and my good friend and the founder of great Eric Burgmann, we’re gonna explore the emotions we feel about social media and putting ourselves out there.

[00:00:40] What is causing this to be fun and what is causing the feeling of resistance and overwhelm? Eric Berman, how are you this morning?

[00:00:51] I’m feeling like a happy little puppy. I’m excited about this. So anyone wondering what I think about social media? I think it’s fun.

[00:01:01] Eric thinks it’s fun. And because of that, I have a very specific emotion in my body. And I’m also happy in general. I’m here at our summer house in the middle of nowhere. I have sheeps behind me. I mean, the forest. I heard birds sing. Maybe if you’re one of the four people watching this on YouTube, you can see that I have a forest in the background.

[00:01:23] But my emotion in my body right now is a feeling of celebration. I’m feeling. I’m so impressed by Eric over the last six months because he had been trying everything to find a way to do social media, to post things online. To put himself out there that is actually fun for him that he can’t keep up. And I guess you’re excited about this episode because you have found something where you actually enjoy this. Is that true?

[00:01:55] Well, it’s kind of true. So as you mentioned, I started just doing a bunch of stuff and I keep quitting, so I do something on social media. I post a video every day for a week or for two weeks. And there’s like. And this wasn’t fun. I tried Twitter for a week, two weeks. And it’s really exciting at first and then and it doesn’t work out. And I didn’t keep doing this for the past six months or so. And as you mentioned, my my key question has been here. How can I find a way to enjoy this? What is the key metrics that makes this fun? And I started out with like what would be my kind of niche because everyone talks about find your niche, do your thing. That’s the best way to get an audience. And quite honestly, I believe that the best way to get an audience is to have a niche. But it sucks to have a niche when you don’t like to have a niche. So if I were only to talk about business, for example, which would make sense, I would stop enjoying the process. So what I’m doing now is I’m talking about all the topics that are close to my head had heart. So one of them is business. But I’m also talking about charity or personal development or emotions or sex. And that’s been one of the key ways of making this fun and exciting for me and just not going with the general advice, not sticking with the nation. I’m trying to show. Yoga posters or whatever, but a bit of everything. And yeah, I’m getting more and more excited about this. And the longer I go, which to me feels amazing place to be. I’m gonna figure it out. That’s for sure. I haven’t figured out that I’m going to.

[00:03:33] Well, I guess it’s easier to find things that you actually want to post than if you don’t have locked yourself in a certain. This is what I’m doing and nothing else. Yeah. If you’re only to do business, it would be less easy to find inspiration. But I guess now you can sort of do whatever and you feel more free doing that.

[00:03:53] Yeah, exactly. And it become less work in a sense that let’s say I wanted to do an account about my business. I have a certain number of stories I can tell to start with. I have a certain amount of experience which would limit me to how much I could put out there. And if I’m not in the mood for it, I didn’t. I haven’t been focusing on that lately. I’m limiting myself. And I think that consistency is by far the most important book, succeeding with anything. If it’s social media or anything in life, if you just keep going, you will either die or succeed. That’s kind of the only two alternative if you never give up. And I don’t intend on dying anytime soon. So that means that I have a very, very long time to accomplish this.

[00:04:41] That makes a lot of sense to me. And I think also, if you want to find your niece, I think a really strong way to do that is to just try.

[00:04:49] Many, many, many different things. And maybe you see, oh, I want to do all of them. Or you find, well, it’s this exact angle that I do enjoy the most. I remember my backgrounders. I used to play poker professionally. And when I started, I was super excited and all of the games were incredibly fun. And I played everything. I played, you know, two man poker. I played nine man poker. I played five five card poker. Seven card poker. Omaha, hold them.

[00:05:19] I played limit no limit everything and just did whatever I thought was fun that day. And then after two, three years in, I realized, well, I find myself only playing exactly heads up, no limit, told them no other games. So I found my niece just by trying everything.

[00:05:39] Know, I think that’s a very valid metaphor. And I think that that’s pretty much what I’m doing right now. I’m excited about everything and I might end up doing a specific niche six months from now, two years from now, five years from now. Maybe I end up focusing only on one very, very narrow thing because it becomes my expertise or what I enjoy the most. Down the line. But right now I feel like I’m going around with this big shot gun and I’m just shooting at things everywhere and I’m just seeing if I hit something. And I really enjoy the shotgun at this time. So I think that I really like the poker analogy for this. It makes makes perfect sense and. It brings back an advice I heard from was Gary Vaynerchuk the other day and he was talking about what to do after school. And he said that, yeah, but just go out and try everything. Say yes to everything, because that’s the way you’ll find what you will enjoy and what you’re good at. But if you’re trying to understand what you will enjoy, what you’re good at before you even tried it. You’re gonna be screwed. And so I think that this this applies to poker, applies to social media. But more than anything, it applies to life. And I haven’t been thinking about it this way because it’s. Yeah, I really like how it turns out. I think that’s what I’m doing right now with social media.

[00:06:56] Well, you can kind of imagine imagine living life in a way. Let’s say that you were out you went out backpacking three months, just traveling somewhere. If your way of approaching that journey would be. I would suggest to every opportunity that comes my way. Some things are gonna suck, but you are also gonna have a lot of fun. In some ways, for sure, you really need to be better muting your mic when you do it. Sorry about that. It’s a superpower. It’s a superpower.

[00:07:27] Yeah, I agree. It’s just to do all the things there is.

[00:07:31] So what is different now than that is allowing you to keep up the consistency.

[00:07:38] So one thing that I think is a big difference is I’ve found ways that don’t give that much resistance. So to start to put out content in the first place on on YouTube, where I did the first things a couple years ago, that’s among the scariest things I’ve done in my life, which meant that it was a huge resistance to put that out there and to press that publish bottom.

[00:08:05] And good company. Can I ask us, did you post that also on your Instagram and on your Facebook and stuff like that?

[00:08:12] Yes. To start with, I posted it everywhere. So the first thing I did was, well, the first thing I did in this time was like two years ago and publishing a video on YouTube about just begin, just do things. And to put that out there and kind of say, hey, I have something important to say, you should listen to me. I was among the scariest things that I’ve done. But over time now, especially the last six months, I’ve been publishing all kinds of crap. And I kind of feel like I don’t need to deliver anymore because. Yeah. Well, dude, when people see my stuff, it can be brilliant and it can also be quite shitty. And I don’t I don’t feel the expectations in the same way. Now, like, if you’re if you’re putting something out there for the first time. My my feeling was that now it has to be really good because people will expect it to be really good. It’s the first time you put something out there. You just need to show off or whatever. But if it’s the 1000 thing you put out there, people are not gonna be surprised that you put something out there. People not going to think either or they’re already formed an opinion. If you do good things about things. So regardless if it’s good or bad, it’s not going to change their impression very much. It’s my belief. So it’s it’s been quite easy to just put it out there now, which means that I don’t think I’ve come up with a lot more fun things to do. But in the negative column, the pressure, all the heartache, all the challenges, that’s been slowly decreasing with time. So it’s it’s not that it’s more fun, it’s just that it’s less painful, which makes the whole experience more fun.

[00:09:51] That makes a lot of sense. So there’s less stuff on the break, there’s less things slowing you down.

[00:09:57] Exactly. So I imagine it’s a car, there’s less things pushing the brake right now and it’s the same amount of things pushing the gas pedal.

[00:10:08] For me personally, that is an inspiring story because I’m kind of at the in my journey. I want to do what you do, and I’m the place you were at before posting those first YouTube videos, and I feel like. That resistance is so high that it’s making it, there’s so much on the break that it doesn’t matter how much gas I put on it. If that makes sense. So the most important thing for me at my where I’m at is to take stuff away from the break and I imagine out that a lot of people. Are going to the same emotions that. Well, I have some stuff to put out there, but I don’t know how good it is. I don’t know if if it’s worth the pain that I will feel publishing. So how can someone lower how what did you do to lower the pressure on the brake?

[00:11:05] So I think that my strategy was quite horrible in that sense. I just went for it and started publishing things and more or less sat crying in my bathtub because it was so scary.

[00:11:17] I think that’s a good approach. But I like the question. I think there are plenty of better. I don’t know how would you do it?

[00:11:31] But right now I feel like. The most I can put on the gas is a pen. And right now there’s like a twelve on the brake.

[00:11:44] So so what is it that is causing that fear? You think what? What are you afraid of?

[00:12:01] I think I imagined that. A lot.

[00:12:10] That a lot of people would form an opinion of who I am and I don’t feel confident enough. What I want to stand for. So I don’t want to begin by putting something out there that isn’t quite what I want to be. If that makes sense.

[00:12:27] So Kaser, if we take this back to the poker analogy, then you’re currently in an early stage of your experience or your journey and you don’t know which game you really want to promote to which game you really want to talk about. Which means that it’s more scared to go out there because you might change your mind or you might wanna talk about something else later on.

[00:12:47] Well. If we were to take the poker analogy here, then I’m not so confident about my game yet. And if so, if I were to play in poker, you can play for real money. And it feels too scared to play with real money at this point, because I just want to play around. I want to try different things, see what works, see what doesn’t work. So a place for me to start would be like I did in the beginning of my poker journey to play for either play money or free tournament or just 4 cents instead of trying to play at the highest stakes right away.

[00:13:24] Again, highest stakes here would be in front of your friends because that’s who you carry the most about.

[00:13:30] Yeah, like.

[00:13:32] Let’s say I were to use my own Facebook or my own Instagram like you did. Yeah.

[00:13:37] So basically the people who are the scariest to do things in front of his friends and family and maybe even old friends, people who don’t really know you yet can’t do it anymore, but could still form a big opinion on you and you’re not in contact with them enough to talk about it.

[00:13:53] Yeah. And you know, my rational mind knows that this is completely. Like a weird fear because it doesn’t make it doesn’t matter. I know that it doesn’t matter what other people think. And Denham’s in some kind of I’m not sure if it’s like in my biology or in my genes. That we as human beings are a social species. And if something is threatening our. Role in our society as a social species. That feels like that feels very scary and I can totally relate to that. So but if I were to ask you, for example, the question. If you could record a one minute video and show it to the entire world. I guess now that you have a pretty good idea what you would want to say in that one minute video. Yeah, I will.

[00:14:49] I would have a very hard time deciding that I have a lot of things that I would like to share.

[00:14:53] Yeah, I feel like before I could make that decision, I would need to try a lot of things like you have done over the last two years and.

[00:15:05] Somehow. It feels like a food like this. Just try do a lot of different things. But in a setting where there’s less on the break, OK?

[00:15:21] I think I think if I were to create a YouTube channel, for example, I would.

[00:15:26] I wouldn’t start publishing those videos on all of my channels like you did, cause that would be too much break. I would do it for me so I can practice. But at the same time, I know that that is an avoidance strategy as well. So I don’t even know if. If it makes sense to think like that or if I just should just jump into the cold water like you did.

[00:15:51] I think that if if the right strategy would have been to jump into the cold water, you would already have jumped into the cold water. Now, it’s to me, it sounds clear. OK. There is too much things on the break that there needs to be another strategy. Otherwise, you would already have started. I like that. I like the approach of making it. How can I make social media as easy as possible to get started with? I set up an Instagram account with zero followers. Don’t even tell anyone about it. Martin, now you can use your own name if you don’t want to do the same things for YouTube just to get started putting things out there. And maybe in three months time, I realize I don’t enjoy this at all. Or you realize, hey, I’m really getting good at this. And then you can take it from there. But it’s actually so one thing I’ve learned when I’ve been practicing to do speeches on stage is that the second I start talking loud, even if I’m at home, even if my right in my bedroom. I get nervous because it becomes so much more real. Just talking loudly. It’s no problem, right? The speech, no problem reading the speech or pressing. But the second I talk loudly to no one to complete silence, then I get nervous in my stomach and I feel this tension and my voice is crumbling up a little bit. So one place to start could be not even to have a social media can’t even do this thing just OK. This is what I would like to say or write or do and just write it on your computer. That’s gonna be a lot scarier than having it in your head.

[00:17:24] I think that is really solid advice. And I liked what you said about if there wouldn’t have been too much of a break, I would have already done it. So doing anything is better than doing nothing. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, I really liked that strategy.

[00:17:45] And I think different people need different things, like you are on an introvert, extrovert spectrum. You are right up on the extrovert. Pretty much 100 percent extroverted. So. It makes sense that you are going to benefit from a different strategy than someone like me that is more of a natural introvert. Well, I’m kind of both, but I’m more towards going towards spectrum.

[00:18:12] Yeah. And that’s why I don’t recommend my strategy. I don’t even recommended to myself. I would definitely benefit from taking it a bit slower. It’s a horrible strategy. Don’t try this at home.

[00:18:25] It’s efficient, but it’s painful for sure.

[00:18:28] Mm hmm. And I think that’s an important point, is that I actually feel bad about myself when I see other people doing putting themself out there with seemingly a lot of these. Yeah, and I just see that. And I don’t take into account that everyone has a different history. Everyone has a different personality. Everyone has a different kind of role. They need to carve out to get to that place.

[00:18:59] And I think the key word in that sentence is seemingly as well. It looks like it’s easy. Yeah, probably very rarely. It is easy. I think that at least most people that I have spoken to that have started doing things on social media where it’s not just what you’re expected to do. So it’s easy to put out the picture on a beautiful beach and write, oh, I’m on Bay came out. That’s easy. But to put something out there which is actually open and vulnerable. I haven’t spoken to anyone who has not been scared of doing that the first time, even though it might not show. But it’s obviously they’ve probably done a lot of retakes, fought over it a hundred times before they publish it. And it’s it’s scary. So I think that very few do this at ease the first times.

[00:19:51] So one challenge I find myself in and I think I guess now that many people’s charities is the balance between.

[00:20:00] Because one part of me, when I’m thinking about this is a very compassionate strategy towards myself. I want to take this in a pace that is challenging but not overwhelming for my nervous system. And that feels very self loving and compassionate. On the other hand.

[00:20:21] There is a lot of bullshit in my mind. There’s a lot of avoidance. There is a lot of a lot of very convincing reasons for not trying my wings. And all of these both of these aspects of me are pretty smart fellas. They got very compelling arguments and it can be tricky to navigate. What is what should I listen to my mind that is saying this is too much or when should I listen to the one that say, you know what? The nice thing to do is actually to respect my nervous system right now.

[00:20:55] Yeah, yeah. So basically it’s hard to differentiate. Is it the compassionate part of yourself that is saying you should chill or is that afraid part of yourself that is using the compassionate voice because it’s a good excuse if you don’t. You think that I’m just being compassionate about myself. But it’s actually the fear talking. It’s the same voice. You know, basically seeing this angel devil thing that you have on your shoulders and angel saying something beautiful and loving, and then the devil is using the angel’s voice in this thread, the same ear. It’s a kind of trick you.

[00:21:31] Yeah, exactly. I mean, this goes to everything in life, right? I mean, my sofa now I feel like one voice in my head wants to go to the gym. One wants to stay home. And how do I know that that voice is compassion or is it laziness?

[00:21:47] And that’s it. So why do you want to do these things on social media if there’s so many things on the break? What is it that makes it so exciting in general that it’s actually still want to pursue it?

[00:21:58] Well. I do generally feel like I have ideas and perspectives and habits in the way that I live my life that really could benefit other people. And if I listen to my fear, I’d deprive other people of an opportunity to grow. And that feels horrible for me. I want to give that. And secondly, I see that if I do this, that will force me to become a personality.

[00:22:29] That would be really enjoy.

[00:22:31] It would be real enjoyable living that we talk about fear. And you have sheep in the background. It’s a bad rap.

[00:22:43] Sheeps like two meters from my bedroom. It’s so nice to wake up.

[00:22:49] Yeah. Do you genuinely feel that you would add a lot of value during this? And I truly believe that you do. I’ve gotten so much value from you over the years and you want to give that to the world. That’s the main kind of thing. And you want to challenge yourself.

[00:23:05] Yeah, for sure. I think.

[00:23:12] The person I would need to become to do that. The end result of that person. It would be so fun to be in the head of that character if that’s the main character of my life. That would be that would be really fun. Main character.

[00:23:28] Okay. It’s partly about giving and partly about developing into that character that you would like to be in a that step into more freedom.

[00:23:36] Yeah, yeah.

[00:23:37] Yeah. So let’s say let’s say it’s fear that is holding your back. Fear is a person in his. And to be able to this point, you need to break free from that and come to more freedom in general.

[00:23:49] Yeah. Yeah. And my personality is someone that has gone from very little freedom in the sense that being very restricted by social conditioning to a point where I want to be a person that has, I say, access to a lot of freedom and very little blocks. And this would be a very direct path to pursue that.

[00:24:10] It’s interesting. So looking at myself, yeah, we have one thing in common when it comes to this. And that’s I I really believe that I have something to give and I really want to give that to the world or whoever is listening. I think that that will have a huge impact. I haven’t even considered the personal development aspect of this. I could change my personality or become anything or whatever. That’s that’s not part of it at all. On the other hand, I can see how it would benefit great business that if if I’m putting myself out there, I’m pushing myself. If I’m getting a big audience for the name of Eric, that will very much benefit the name of great. That will benefit everything we want to accomplish with great in terms of helping and changing the world as well. So for me. That’s the kind of main thing, and there’s definitely the part of me that’s extroverted, attention seeking and these kind of less pure energies in this that I really enjoy getting the attention I. I love the importance I feel when someone is writing an e-mail to me saying, wow, you changed my life and this or that way I dare to start a company thanks to you. I opened up to my parents and told me about my pain. Thanks to what you said, those things are definitely in there where it’s a more ego driven aspect. But I believe that it’s more about the giving. And I don’t see at all that it’s about me growing as a person and at least I haven’t been in touch with that emotion or thought about it that way.

[00:25:47] Well, this is very interesting, I think, because this is a. Big difference that I see in our personalities that you really enjoy being in the limelight like that. Yeah. And my instinct as a person is that I. One part of me is excited about it when it happens, but I have a. Don’t have that much drive towards it. Either that or I’m blocked.

[00:26:16] I like that last part. Either that or or you’re blocked because I’ve seen this in you when you’ve been onstage, as in. And speaking in like when we did this, we did a speech here in Malta six months ago. And I don’t think I’ve seen you as excited as you’ve heard that speech ever.

[00:26:36] So it was clear.

[00:26:38] Well, it is clear to me, looking back, that there’s definitely a part of you that enjoys being in five nights and in that way. But as you mentioned, it might be a block from you actually feeling that experience. More than that as much as you could.

[00:26:53] Mm hmm. I think so, too. I mean, this is this is a fun episode because we can definitely do a follow up on this in one year’s time. I see kind of what happened. And ah, I guess I know a listening. Please hold me responsible.

[00:27:08] Something, man, do something bad.

[00:27:16] So you mentioned great and social media. Right now you are doing it personally. But when will great start having kind of a social media presence?

[00:27:26] So I would love great for having a social media presence. And at the same time, someone would need to do it. And we don’t have that person in the team as of now. And we’re not in a place where that’s a big priority. So it takes a lot of time to do social media. I could do it, but every time I’m doing that now, that would be something I’m not doing for myself. And. At this very stage, I think that great benefits more from me trying to figure out this than from trying to grow an audience on its own. So we’re doing a very small thing on social media. And the main thing we’re doing is this podcast, I would say to you. This is part of social media in many ways, and that will get the voice out there. But hopefully a year from now, maybe we’re in a position where we are doing a lot more verity in various charity projects where we’re involved with where there is a lot to talk about. We have a product out there that’s much more complete and there’s a lot more to talk about. And we could already now start talking about the journey towards that. And it’s just the fact that it would take a lot of time to do that and someone would do it and I wouldn’t do it. And at the moment, I don’t see who else would do it in the team either. So it’s more of a staffing issue than anything else.

[00:28:44] So stay tuned. We are growing. It’s become. Definitely. I thought this was I enjoyed talking about this. It was intense. I felt like I was speaking from how I actually feel. I feel like you have done that, too. So I would like to start wrapping this up to make this kind of short and concise. Just something you want to add on the topic of emotions on social media before we do.

[00:29:12] I just like to repeat what we said on on the importance of fun. Because I think that’s a message that’s being missed out when people talk about succeeding with social media. People talk about at least the messages I read, as do a Netsch, do this, do that. I haven’t seen anyone mentioning. Enjoy it. Yes. I think that enjoying is key. I mean, if you’d never stopping, then you will either die or you will succeed. That’s the only two alternatives. And if you love what you’re doing, there is no reason to stop. But if you if you hate what you’re doing, if you’re not enjoying it, you are going stop. So I’m really looking for that way of finding a joy in everything, even if it’s not the most efficient strategy, because it’s not. It would be far more efficient if I just focus in one direction. But finding that joy, I think is the key in here and in everything else in life.

[00:30:04] I think that is one key insight, and I think that is gold.

[00:30:09] And I would like to stop this episode on that note. Thank you, Eric. Thank you for putting your attention on me. I felt like this was personally helpful for me and you listening. If you have any ideas, advice, if you want to hear us talk about something else like this, like, please send us an e-mail to podcast, and we will see you next week. Cheerio. Bye. Bye bye.