Do you hate making content?

Last week I sent you an email about how when you make more content, you make more money.

"But Theo," you might say, "I hate making content!"

Making content feels like a never-ending hamster wheel. It feels like working on your business, not in your business.

I get that.

It feels like you're not making any progress... you're just doing the same thing over and over again.

I get that.

It feels like a chore.

I get that.

It feels boring.

I get that.

On the other hand... your content probably got you to where you are today.

The whole "run your business on your terms and live the life you want" thing is a lie invented by marketers. 

In real life, business is never on your terms. If you want to make money, you have to do stuff you'd rather not do.

(This is a universal law of nature: every job has boring, unfun parts — even jobs you enjoy. Stand-up comedians spend hours writing jokes and rehearsing. Baseball players spend 5+ hours per day working out and taking batting practice. Teachers spend 2-3 hours per day grading assignments. Compared to that, 1 hour a day making content isn't so bad!)

Look at it this way: spending 1 hour per day making content is the price you pay to not have to spend 8 hours a day at a real job.

So you have 3 options:

1) Deny that you have to make good content, and look for "shortcuts".

The problem is, these shortcuts can kill your business. A YouTuber I liked in 2022 hired a bunch of people to make his videos for him. The quality of his channel went down and he lost half his viewers, including me.

Some people are trying to make their content with AI. That can work for some businesses — but as I've said before, if you do it wrong, it kills your brand. Once your content stops feeling genuine and authentic, you're toast.

2) Accept it, and grudgingly make content by hand. This is better than option 1, but still not fun.

3) Accept it, and learn to love making content. MrBeast has dedicated his whole life to making the best YouTube videos possible. He LOVES making YouTube videos. So do a lot of other people. 

Why can't you?

This is one of the mindset shifts that's helped me the most this year. I have to do a lot of things I "didn't like" to grow my business, like submitting UpWork proposals and sending cold emails. I've always looked for a way not to do that stuff. This year I chose to just accept that I do have to do that stuff, and taught myself to look at them as fun challenges, not chores or threats.

If you can make that mindset shift — that making content is part of your business adventure, not a chore you have to do before you get to the "fun stuff" — you'll be happier, you'll be more productive, and your business will grow.

-Theo