Maximizing Impact: Tips for Creating Powerful Video Content with Diana Gladney,

Welcome to amplify the personal brand entrepreneur show. Today on the show, Bob is speaking with Diana lady. If you have a video that you can refer them to or even better, they find you by way of that video. You jump through so many hurdles very quickly and now you start to see, which is one of the things I initially started to see early on when I started to do YouTube the right way was people come to your inbox now or they now send that email saying, I've been binge watching your videos. I've learned X, Y and Z from you. I'm ready to start X, so I need to do X. And we've skipped all of that stuff because you did the work one time and it paid off for you. Hi there and welcome back to the Personal Brand Business Show. My name is Bob Gentle and every week I speak with incredible people who share their secrets to building, marketing and monetizing your expertise, intentionally growing a unique personal brand and the mindset you need for your business to grow and thrive. If you're new here, then while you still have your device in your hand, take a second to subscribe. That way you won't miss a single thing. If you're a regular listener, then consider sharing this show with just one person. It's the very best way you can help the show grow and help me reach more people. If you're watching on YouTube. Hi, thank you for coming. YouTube is kind of new. Diane, Diana, we're going to be talking about this a bit today, but, yeah, while you're here, consider subscribing now audio, like podcasts, things like that, they're great for going deep with people and for me, if I'm honest, they're a great way to meet new people, I'm not going to lie. But when it comes to moving people towards taking action, there is nothing beats video. My video journey has been long and hard and anyone who knows me knows I'm not big on stepping out in front or being on stage or being visible in any form. It's not natural for me. And this week's guest has been a role model and a distant mentor for years now. So it's my pleasure to finally meet and also share with you Diane Gladney. Diane, welcome to the show. Diana, not Diane. No, it's my pleasure to be here. So I have been watching your YouTube stuff for a long time. I think your YouTube channel is probably one of those where people, they go there when they need something. I think that's been my experience, but over the years, it's kind of changed a little bit. But before I start racing into all my questions, because, trust me, for the listener, I'm holding up a page of paper with all my notes on it for you on YouTube, that's all my notes. I have so many questions. But for the listener who's meeting you today, for the first time. Can you maybe just start by telling us a little bit about who you are, where you are and the kind of work that you do? Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Dinah Gladden. As you stated, I'm native out of St. Louis, Missouri, on to 22 incredible nieces and nephews and the youngest of six. So I come from a very large family. So being an introvert, you have to learn those extroverted tendencies. So needless to say, starting out video was not my go to thing. I would much rather pick a book, go find an empty part of the house and just go and read. And that never really changed as I got older. So to do all of this with video is very interesting and different. But my journey with video actually got started with a mentor of mine doing like I usually do with a lot of my clients. And probably you are familiar with this well Bob, which is say that you have to actually get started doing video. And for me that was probably like the worst news ever. And so doing that and transitioning into video later on was again, it's just a complete world difference. Now, what I actually wanted to get started with was helping entrepreneurs just get started. A lot of people find it difficult to take that initial step. But what I uncovered was the more that I started creating videos, the more I ran into issues that at the time I couldn't find good dedicated answers that weren't trying to turn you into a filmmaker or some photographer of some sort. I just wanted to make videos for my business and brand. And so the more I started producing those videos of like, hey, here's what I found to be helpful and here's what I'm using or what I'm doing, then my audience really started to grow and obviously the brand and I honestly just uncovered a whole new passion around helping entrepreneurs simplify and learn the video creation process. So that's what I've been able to do and been able to quit my full time job, to go full time in my business and now running a team and we do a lot of amazing things still with that core focus of helping entrepreneurs simplify the video creation process. So, like I said, I have a lot of questions. Before we started recording today, before we were speaking, I went back and I scrolled back to the very beginning of your YouTube channel because I wanted to see what was there. And I was delighted to see that it wasn't amazing because if you look at your videos now, they are amazing. And I think this is probably a great place to start because it's very easy to judge other people's content output or maybe to compare your own poor efforts to somebody else's efforts where they've maybe been doing it for a long time and think, well, what's the point if they're doing that? I can't do that right now, so maybe I should just no bother, I guess. What would be your message to yourself, looking back at those very first videos? I could pick a lot of stuff for her to do. So if I had to give a message though, for myself, I would say, really just be encouraged. I think a lot of time that's what anybody needs, just to be encouraged that what you're doing is right. The path that you are on is right. The direction you're taking is right. Most of the time, it's like where you are in that moment, it doesn't feel like what you're doing is the right thing. Because of the right now circumstances. Maybe the right now gear that you're using isn't the best. Or I say you're editing or just the presentation of the videos may not be the best, but it's the consistent focus, effort and knowing that you're actually on the right path. You're just at a different spot than where you will be. It literally would be that just be encouraged. I think one of the things watching your YouTube channel is I hear a lot of people saying, I'll tell you, the biggest barrier for me for a long time was not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. And because I didn't know exactly what to do, I did nothing. And I think this is what a lot of people struggle with. And what I love about your channel, when you do go back, you can see you started making content, you learned as you went, and then you course corrected. You discovered your passion and your niche, or niche through the action, through the doing. And for me, that's a really important thing to see. Did it feel like that that was what you were doing? Or were we looking back on it now? Do you remember that that was a conscious process or an unconscious process? So if I look back to where I got started at and the mindset of myself at that time, I would love to say, like, I always knew, or I really believed or what have you, but honestly, the truth is I didn't know. I had hope. That's the most I can say that I had at that time. I had hope that what I was doing would be it would uncover passion. I didn't know that that was I was in the process of doing that. All I was doing was being obedient to what my coach told me to do. I knew that when I met with him. And from that initial conversation of him saying, you need to do video, at like a split second of a thought of, this guy doesn't know who I am, he's crazy. I don't even take pictures. Like, I recycle the same seven photos on Facebook profile every few years. Like like nobody's ever seen the other six. And so at the time when he said, like, do video I'm just like, you're crazy. But at the same time, I also knew that I didn't hire this coach for me to remain the same and so I just leaned into that of to get to a different stage of life, to get to what I'm saying that I want, my actions have to be different. And so I wasn't looking for necessarily like comfort and so I just kind of leaned into the discomfort and the unknown and the only thing, like I said I did have was hope that what I was doing would be right. I didn't know that it would completely change or I would get into video content marketing and creation and stuff like that. I just I just had hope that's it. So from my perspective, looking into your business, it's very easy to just pitch and you pigeonhole you as a YouTuber, but your business is a lot broader than that. You do have a successful YouTube channel, 20,000 subscribers, which to some people to look at and think, oh my God, that's amazing, that's so big. Other people might think that's kind of small, but it's what works for you. What do you need in order to have a viable business? You have a successful business and I mentioned the numbers simply in order that people can have some context, but that isn't the totality of Diana Gladney's world for the listener. Can you maybe just give a bit of orientation as to what your business actually looks like in the broader sense, in order that we can have a good conversation about the whole rather than the parts? Yeah, so I think a lot of people's perspectives, especially if they find you through YouTube, like I said, they assume that's all that you do, YouTube sometimes is the very least of what we do. It's not the main thing, it's a thing in the business. And so most of what I've been doing, like I quit my job, it wasn't like when I got like at 15 or like I said, closer now to 20, had way before it even made sense because the videos are a part of the business, it's not the only thing. And so what we do in the company, what I do in the company myself, my team focus again, always helping entrepreneurs simplify the video creation process so that does presentations like Speaking again this year, the social media marketing world. And so we're doing trainings for organisations, teams, individuals. So it may be one on one coaching or like I said, on the broader perspective of working with a brand or organisation or the like, doing different talks where there's especially like especially like in 2020, all of that was digital. So all the talks at that time was digital stages and so now it's a hybrid mix of digital and physical stages of the places that I'm talking and things that I'm doing and the like, which is nice to not always be indoors and stuff all the time. The other aspect of that is like I said, now we're getting into the content side of things is producing videos that will number one, again serve the business but also help meet people where they are so that they can start solving some of these problems that they're running into. Now you keep showing up every time somebody has an issue and I'd learned this from honestly from Roberto Blake who's another great example where every time I had a problem I went to YouTube and I started searching. This guy kept coming up and I'm like dad, this dude must really know some stuff like he always has an answer or something about what I'm asking a question about and so I recognise that if I want to have that kind of presence to where it's like you cannot escape me no matter where you go. When it comes to certain things around video I wanted to make sure that I kept coming up. So that leads and feeds the other parts of the business and obviously that's podcasting that's the social media content that we put out on TikTok or Instagram or LinkedIn even. And then of course the main hub of that content is over on YouTube which is always a personal joy and love for me and that leads into like a Friday live streams and stuff like that. So looking at the cross section of your revenue streams again, when we think YouTube and YouTuber, we think monetization and things like that, and you probably have an element of that. And because you're talking about tech and gear, there's also affiliate revenue and things like that. And then there's you mentioned speaking, but what does your typical revenue breakdown look like? Nothing confidential. Yeah, sure. So the bulk of the money or any of the things that I've done, YouTube has always been like the least or some of the least amount of money that we make. Most people, they think like money from YouTube and they're thinking the ads that run so that YouTube adsense, they're thinking like oh how can I get YouTube to pay me more money? That's honestly pennies on the dollar for the amount of effort. Like you're starting all videos out in the negative because you're again working towards that financial goal or working to hit the black or the green or what have you but a lot of times creators, they're staying in the red, they're only paying attention to YouTube. So a lot of that comes from coaching, consulting and speaking. Those are the primary income sources in the business and then underneath that you start to get into that associative and related stuff whether that be creating courses or doing business videos for a company. We're not necessarily coaching them per se but maybe we're doing like some kind of product based thing. So like for example, a great example would be Ecam Live. We did the YouTube simplified not. YouTube simplified the Ecam simplified Course and so that course was something that was like a paid service or whatever. Okay, you can do that for a lot of different companies, whatever the niche is and stuff like that. And then, of course, you have like, Amazon Affiliates and then other programme services that you may use. And then it comes to the YouTube like adsense and revenue that comes directly or only off of what those videos produce on the platform, which at times can be nice, but again, it's sometimes like the lowest amount of income that we may make in a quarter and obviously across for the year. There's something I encounter quite often is people who have become great content creators but you get to know them a little bit and you realise under the surface there's almost no business because they focus so heavily on the content creation and the assumed monetization that would come with that. For me that's really exciting because there's so many additional revenue streams that you can bring into that and you kind of covered that so nicely. There one thing you mentioned was the coaching and the consulting side of things. How easy was that for you to get into? Because for some people they find it very, very natural and for some others they find it quite unnatural and there's a lot of mindset issues around being the coach. That was really difficult for me, honestly. I think a lot of people look at maybe the way I present or how they meet me in person or what I appear as online or what have you underneath. A lot of that is sometimes it's like for certain days I may need to pump myself up so I'm listening to some Earthwind and Fire music or whatever the case is to get yourself really snap yourself out of whatever that negative train of thinking is, okay, that doesn't happen as much these days. It's still a factor obviously, to maintain a positive mental attitude and not just quote unquote positive mental attitude because it sounds cute, but literally always be in a maintenance mode of your mind and your emotions and how you're feeling and thinking because that dictates your actions. Well, day one, first client I ever took came by way of a podcast and then you see it in those different calls to actions or whatever. So getting on a call with a client, when I got off that call, you would have thought I was running for an hour nonstop. I was literally sweating and just from nervousness like am I going is she going to ask a question and I don't know what to say? Or is it going to be where this person finds out after they paid me this surplus of money they're going to find out? Like I don't know what I should know or whatever the case is. So it is a lot of confusingness, if you will, around who you are or what you have to offer and stuff. My thing is, in the beginning it wasn't easy, but again, I was just solely committed that if I wanted to get to where I'm imagining in my mind at the time, it has to go through some level of discomfort. Because obviously my best thinking has got me to where I am today in that moment, and that's always true, your best thinking has gotten you to where you are today. It's only that external influence, like whether that's from coaching, whether that's from courses or information or what have you, listening to podcasts like this, it's going to come from that external information that now leads you into leaning into the discomfort. So I was completely nervous. I think my voice sounded quaky the whole time. If I had that recording still, you probably hear all of that. No, it wasn't an easy transition. But the one thing that helped me personally, I don't think a lot of people realise how introverted I am and how much that's been a constant work. What I did that really, really worked for me was I started imagining that everybody I talk to is a good friend that I've had for years. Because at that point, now I can calm down, now I can think clearly, not stumble over my words every time. It's like I get off a call or something. It's like, dad, I should have said this, or I wish I had said that, so I would start listening. I recorded myself. I would start listening to where I stumbled, and then I just would imagine on that next attempt, next time I talk to somebody now it's like, okay, I'm talking to a friend that I've been talking to for a long time. Even with podcasts, my voice didn't sound like how it is now. I didn't sound like myself. I sounded like a shell version of myself, like somebody hiding in the back of a corner. Whereas now it's like I'm able to fully present and produce who I am and show up as who I truly am on camera back then, and not so much so it's been a difficult transition, but again, it's just constantly leaning into those moments of discomfort. But for me, the great trick that worked for me, just pretend everybody's a good friend. I think these tricks are really, really important. I think listening to you always reminded by one of my podcast guests did something amazing. Doesn't really matter what they did, but I asked her about it and again, to get to the to the quick, she said something to me which has always stuck with me, which was, your business will change when you change, or Your business will grow when you grow. There is no business growth without personal growth. And a lot of people just are quite arrogant. I am who I am. And they just go through life saying, I can do everything I don't need to change. I don't need to grow. And that's fine. You might get lucky, but the truth is, if you were to parachute me into the body of any incredibly successful business owner, I would destroy that business within a week because I'm not the person that I would need to be in order to be successful in that role. I have to grow into that. And you grow through catalyst of experience. And that's where you're talking about discomfort is so important. Most people avoid discomfort while you're just going to remain the same. If you want to be lucky and if you want to be successful, discomfort is the price. It's so important to remember. Yeah, the leaning into discomfort is like, it sounds good when you listen to it. It's extremely hard when those moments present themselves. And I think it's extremely valuable. What you mentioned is like, who do I need to become in order to get to this next level or the where it is that I'm saying I want to be? And I think one of the most dangerous things that people profess and keep saying over and over just the way that I am or I've always been like that, or I've always had these issues. If that was the case, I absolutely wouldn't have the opportunities to work with some of the individuals that I have now because I would have been okay with who I was. And it's not to say like, hate yourself or whatever, but I think people in this audience understand that it is about knowing that who you are is good enough, but at the same time, who you are is also not enough. So it requires you to lean into that discomfort. Yeah, absolutely. So I have the Diana gladney on my podcast. It would be ridiculous if we didn't speak about actually making videos. So let's get into this a little bit. I know what you're talking about is social media marketing world. I checked and I'm excited. And I'm probably going to try and get you to let the cat out of the bag a little bit today, but you don't have to. That's okay. But where I'd like to start, because you work with lots of people through your online group coaching academy, but also one to one. And if you're like anybody who works with lots of people in a coaching capacity, you know that in the first week, you're probably going to cover the same things with the same people again and again and again. And I guess that's where I would like to start this section of the conversation is, okay, people, I know you do these things. These are the things that you need to fix first. So what do those things typically look like? To be honest? And it's very interesting that you ask that because most people do not trust that sometimes the best Practises on YouTube that you hear about are actually the best practises. It's the wildest thing. I literally was addressing an email about an individual. If I said the person's name, everybody would know who I'm talking about. But I replied to that email expressing how I get how frustrating it is that you can dump big personality, brand name, major TV networks, all that stuff, still not abide by the best Practises. But that's honestly where it is. The way I always present it is the same way that I think most of our audience, if you listen into this, you probably are old enough. When you used to go into the mall and it could be like Christmas time, whatever, just the mall is bustling. When you walk in, the first thing that they would have that would present to you is the you are Here map. Like it give you the whole map of the upstairs, downstairs, food court, Sears, Macy's, whatever, all these different brands. But it would tell you like, you are here. And so that's always like the number one thing. Like with any client that I'm working with or whatever organisation is looking at the map. Okay, where are you trying to go? And then let's find out that you are here. Mark, like, where are you actually at? Not where you feel like you're at, not where you think, no. Where are we at? Actually? Because a lot of people make the mistake of cushioning and refining and making it look pretty to say, well, I'm in a season of growing, I'm in a season of transition. That's great. Where are you actually at? What are the real numbers? Let's factually look at things, take the emotion out of it and let's actually look at where we truly are so we can figure out where we need to go in the necessary steps. So that's like usually where it is and most of the time best Practises. Where are your thumbnails? Where are your titles? Are you really too much in the frame of your speaking? So much jargon for your industry and your niche? People have no idea what the hell you're talking about when you actually speak on the video. Feels like you need to be a psychiatrist or something. So that's usually like that first starting point. I got carried away listening. There was mesmerising. One of the things that people often say is that YouTube rewards consistency. And I hear that and my brain is saying YouTube sometimes rewards consistency. And there's this seed of doubt in my head which makes me wonder, oh, is it worth the investment of time? Because there's this big anxiety of what if YouTube doesn't reward consistency? As somebody who works with lots of YouTubers, has lots of YouTuber connections, how true is that? YouTube rewards consistency idea to you. So the truth of the matter is that is a statement that gets passed around a lot, but it has a truth and a lie about it. The truth side of it is the statement is true, but not for the reasons that people think. The lie portion of it is when people say YouTube rewards consistency. You can replace YouTube with your clients, your niche, your knowledge, your personal growth, your business growth. Those things reward consistency. Like, you know what I'm saying? It's not YouTube is going to give you anything. YouTube presents you with an opportunity. And so to not get into the opportunity of YouTube, that's not the point. Being consistent on YouTube matters because you are growing as a person. You're exchanging the platform. As far as the algorithm is concerned, YouTube does care about you showing up because they care about the people. That's where a lot of people they confuse, like algorithm and people. The people are the algorithm. When we sign in, you sign into your account, I sign into my account, we're going to see totally different things because YouTube is catering to us. And so when you're creating content and you're sitting in the creator seat or the entrepreneur seat or that content creating entrepreneurs who I primarily speak with, you are not creating and speaking to make yourself sound great, to be wonderful or whatever you're serving, it's always being in a seat of service. When you cease to do that, when YouTube can't say and it doesn't know if it wants to recommend the channel because we don't know if you're coming back, you can stay in your videos all day long. We post new videos every week. The YouTube banner can say we post new videos every week and then we look at the channel you see two years ago, one year ago, six months ago, two weeks ago and then seven videos in a row for the last week. We don't know what you're doing. So YouTube is like, I don't know if I can send somebody there because who I'm trying to recommend, I want to make sure they keep coming back. And so the algorithm is based on people and I think a lot of people miss that bit. That's why YouTube rewards consistency, that's why it's true, is because they know that we have these many users that sign on which that number just continues to increase. We have these many users that sign on, we have these many overall active account. We know that the person that you're specifically looking for signs in about 17 times in the first three days of the week. But in those 17 opportunities that we have to keep them on the platform, we don't know if we can take a chance recommending your stuff because maybe you made one great video and we haven't seen you since. So that's why it's like YouTube rewards consistency, is because the algorithm is constantly in the ongoing search to look for content that's relevant to what your ideal target audience that you're trying to reach out to is looking for. But make sure it presents people and channels and organisations that actually. Number one, serve in relevancy, but number two, actually serve by actually showing up. And this person has a reason to keep wanting to sign on and click because they're waiting to see your stuff. So I think listening to that, there's essentially two answers to the question. One is, YouTube rewards consistency. It does. But at the same time, if you're consistently bad, it's not going to reward that long term, which is where the other journey really matters, which is if you are consistent, then you will consistently improve if you're making an effort. And that consistently improving is an important element of your long term success and your longevity, because it's going to get easier and you're going to get better. So it's going to feel like it's less work. Well, maybe not, because as you get better, you probably put more into it. So there is a balance. Yeah, I was just going to say it doesn't quite work. It's like that's the thought and it sounds great, but the better you get, the more work in your systems. If you got great systems, then sure, it may be more efficient, but I think we probably put in more work. The better you get down the road. Yeah. The better you get, the higher the standards have become. That's probably the way to put it. I guess another question for me is a lot of people will tell me, I'm not really very creative. I don't know what to make a video about. Well, I want to shake them and say, yes, you do. However, there is the question of ROI. How am I going to get the best return on investment for my time? So I think the mistake a lot of people make when they're coming to make a video is, I'm going to make a video about something I want to make a video about, especially in a new channel. This is my perspective and I'm happy to be told I'm wrong. Bob, I was certainly guilty this in the beginning, and to be honest, it's not far off the beginning where I think I'm going to make a video about this because I think it's a really good idea. And then you wonder why you get no views, because nobody was ever searching for that. So when you're advising people, how do you advise them to decide how are they going to spend their precious time making the videos that are actually going to give them the best chance of attracting a viewer that's relevant? I would definitely say if somebody wants to start getting that traction that they want for their channel, they're just getting started. 1000% agree like it should make good business sense to make content, but without a system, without a process, without knowing how to make great videos, ROI is negative all day long. The best way to start that, especially for entrepreneurs, I've always suggest looking at your frequently asked questions. There is something that you your assistant, your team, whomever is constantly having to answer the same questions via email or DMs on social media or what have you, always say go there first and make especially like you just starting the channel. Make two, three videos that are around those frequently asked questions because number one, you instantly can turn those emails into the same three, four paragraphs that you may have to address. And it may be two or three parts of a thread in before now you get to the point to maybe where you can present a service or you can present a product that you offer or better, answer questions, get them, be a client, what have you. If you have a video that you can refer them to or even better, they find you by way of that video. You jump through so many hurdles very quickly and now you start to see, which is one of the things I initially started to be early on, when I started to do YouTube the right way, was people come to your inbox now, or they now send that email saying, I've been binge watching your videos. I've learned X, Y and Z from you. I'm ready to start X or I need to do X and we've skipped all of that stuff because you did the work one time and it paid off for you. Now this person again, they're ready to do business with you instead of you having to fight through the email chain and all of that. So Frequently Asked Questions is a great place to start and it instantly gets you your time back. Imagine if your assistant didn't have to spend 3 hours of his or her day in the inbox now. What does that make possible for what they can do or now? How many maybe goals that you had for the quarter can start to move up at least a few weeks because you have more of that time back. So that's an instant like ROI positive in time, which time is money, I believe so money is simply an exchange for value. The value at that point is time. Now that can turn into clients and it just becomes a cycle that feeds itself, especially when you're just getting started. Something you mentioned a minute ago was, I think initially when people start making videos, it's a little bit like shoot from the hip, what am I going to do today? It's maybe one week or something, a couple of weeks, nothing. But once you develop the appetite for consistency, systems become really important and my systems are kind of weak, but I get through it. What is an optimal system for a YouTube newbie will say look like from your perspective, where do you see the most common gaps? Where do you see the most common. Opportunities, the number one mistake? Especially when you're looking at time and you're trying to especially for somebody that's already busy. I think most people already can qualify themselves as busy for what you're doing for the week. So you're looking for those gaps of time that makes sense. This is something that I teach you to call the content quadrant, where you're able to break out content creation in time blocks. And so in that first 1 may be something that you can do within ten or 15 minutes. That's a good Instagram story. That could be a recording of like a YouTube short or a TikTok video. They quantify as the same thing, essentially the vertical video. You can record that in that same amount of time. Problem becomes you take those 1530 minutes, even 1 hour time blocks, and you say, okay, I'm going to make content creation in this hour. Most people mess up because you're expecting yourself to come up with the idea, research the idea, quantify the idea, plan it out, see how much time you have left, and then try to run through a recording and then wonder why the video doesn't work. You can condense time frames, but not like that. There needs to be a separation between your planning time and your execution time. The planning time is for me, especially when I work full time breaks. I stop spending breaks with other people at the company that I worked for. I spend those breaks at my desk so I can just log out. I put a sign up, they don't disturb me. And then I would just be executing on going through my ideas, quantifying idea. How is this valuable to the person that I'm trying to attract or my ideal client? What's attractive to them? What would be most helpful for them, for where they're at and where you're meeting them in their journey? Okay, that's 15 minutes. You got a 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes lunch break. Everybody takes. I started to condense time frames again. I'm not spending those with other people. I'm going through trainings or whatever the case is. So you got to separate that planning time to the execution time. So now we get off work, and this could be the same thing. If you're an entrepreneur, you still have those same time blocks. It's just a matter of how you're spending them. What time are you investing on your phone? Because it'll definitely tell on you towards just aimlessly scrolling social media, which can be a joy at times, but mostly it's the worst way we waste time is just by that unassumed amount of time of consumption, of just scrolling through social. And that's fine, but not when you're trying to do something to refine that time and cut it down. So now when you have time available, have you talked to your family and committed with them? Like, I need the next 30 days. And like, if you got a spouse or something, talk to them and eat the next 30 days, I may only be available for dinner time. And then the movie times I need to go back in the office or I need to go set some time aside and figure this stuff out. Now, once you begin the planning time aside, if all you have was the 215 minutes breaks and a 30 45 minutes lunch or an hour when you get off work, the next 2 hours should be execution. And so now you're looking, for example, that content quadrant of the shorter amount of times to the greater amount of times that you have. What videos can you create in that time frame? So that's what I would suggest. It's like separating the planning and the execution time into two different segments because some people will say I have an hour 30 minutes. You can't go through all of the stages of trying to make a good video and like the planning and thinking about it too all in the same gap. You have to separate that stuff out. I agree 100%. And I think this when I unlock this for myself, it really freed up so much because you only have so much mental energy and it makes so much sense to just silo off your creativity and say, okay, now I'm going to bucket 20 ideas and I'm maybe going to outline one or two. And then the next time when you've got an hour to make a video, you just dip into the bucket and pick out an idea. Say I'm going to execute on this and everything is easier. I think something else you mentioned what you do and what I do in terms of content creation, it's never going to be the most urgent thing we do. And I think this is the challenge a lot of people have is there are so many things that appear to be on fire that to spend time doing things that like this is actually important. These are the things that will move the needle on your business. They require a great effort of will to address. And I think this is where systems become really important. Because if you can build systems around the important things like because they're not going to happen by themselves, they just won't. Because all those things that are on fire, they're still going to be on fire tomorrow and the next day and the next day. So you need to be extremely disciplined to do the things that aren't on fire. Now another place I want to go, there's two more things I want to talk about. The first one is I want to come back to discomfort because I'm kind of okay with the talking head video now I can improve the quality of it. Like we're talking just now. My lighting is kind of weird, I'm not going to go fix it, I don't worry about that. But I know if I want to really level things up, then it's all about the environment and probably being in places where I'm not comfortable making videos. So out on the streets doing the traditional Vlogging style stuff. For me, that's a complete, oh, my God, I'm going to collapse into a pile on the floor. So what advice would you have for anybody that's maybe thinking about being a little bit more public in the creation and not simply putting the stuff they make in private? Out in public? Yeah, that's a great question because the idea of leaving what you've now created as a comfort zone, space of creating and just simply going someplace else to do that exact same thing, it's like went from 100% comfort level or even close up there to now it's like at 7%. So what I would suggest is just start moving around in your space. A lot of times, just simply switching that up could be monumental for a lot of people. The reason why is just simply the change of environment. When you get into a space, like if it's sitting in this chair, sitting right here with this specific angle at the desk, it becomes a comfort zone. It becomes a pattern that your brain recognises. Your muscle memory kicks in for everything on your desk and X, Y and Z. But what happens if you go sit back there? I have a little sofa. Now, what your brain is like, this is different. So it's like just introducing those small elements of separating from what I'm doing at my desk. Maybe I'm finding a different angle. My office is deceptively small for a lot of people having this conversation with Franny came to town and so got a chance to meet them in person. And it's like, Me, your office is so big. I'm like, no, it's not. I'm like, I created angles simply just by switching it up to, okay, not this one at the desk. Let's sit on the other side of the desk. Let's sit at the other desk up against the wall. Let's sit on the sofa. Let's change the angle. Just simply doing that one introduces something different for your viewers to look at, but at the same time, just get your mind out of the this is the only way to make it. This is the best way to do it. Because subconsciously that's what you're telling yourself this is the ideal position to create content in. The other thing is when you start going outside, or you start literally maybe go in the backyard, go to a friend or relative's house and go in their backyard. So it's not completely different, but it is different now. If you're talking about getting in public scenes, like, where it may be sometimes, like, I've done videos and blogs and stuff, I'm in the airport, walked through a terminal. There's all kind of people around. That is a death defying moment. At that point, you might as well ask me to do some Mission Impossible movie type stuff. But the one thing was that internal dialogue had to be corrected. I will never see these people again in life. And what other people think about you is none of your business. If you can adopt that and just repetitively tell, it doesn't matter that they looked at you, you will never see this person again. And even if you did see them again, you wouldn't recognise them. How many times have you been to anywhere? You go to the mall or something and you'll see people, you don't recognise those people, let's say, work there. You'll never see these people again in life, so why do you care what they think? What other people think about you is none of your business. And then the last tip on that, I would say, without the camera, start putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. One of the greatest things that my aunt, who's been a great mentor to me when I was in my early twenty s I think at the time I was like maybe 19 or something. She made me go to the mall and she would make me go and talk to people. And I'm like, why do I need to talk to these people? This is weird. It's uncomfortable. Now she's like, you need to learn to communicate with people. And so I start setting a goal every day. Ten people just say, like, oh, your hair looks nice. I really like that shirt, or Those suits are really sharp. Just something like that. Those weird interactions that us introverts, we fight as all hell to never have to just start having them. You start doing that and just like, again, ten a day, five a day, whatever, just talk to strangers. Now. You'll be a little bit more comfortable when you start getting out there around people, because you'll never see these people again in life. I think for me, that's a really important reminder. I spent about just over ten years in a search and rescue team and I was quite comfortable doing some ridiculously scary things. And I remember the first day I was thinking, why am I scared of taking a selfie and putting that on Instagram? Why are you scared of that, Bob? All these things you're not scared of. And that's what's scaring you. And I got to thinking, well, how do we train people to do really, really scary things? And it's exactly what you described. It's a process of gradually desensitising people to things that they're sensitive to. And so for me, that's really valuable to hear because I can apply and anybody listening or watching can apply exactly the same process to whatever is the barrier to date. Just walk up close, move away again, walk up close, move away again. It'll be okay the next time you come close. So, for me, I know what you're talking about, social media, marketing world, and I'm looking at things like Chat, GPT, and I'm thinking, oh my God, it's going to write a whole YouTube script for me. I can be so lazy. Now, obviously, in the time we have left. You can't give away your whole talk, but you've been playing with AI. What are the big mistakes that you see people making? And if people were looking for one seed as to how they could use it appropriately, what would you want them to think about? So first half of the question of mistake is Chat GPT, other AI tools that are going to either reference it and use it or they're developing their own. Now that these algorithms and systems are known to people and it becomes more of a public thing, the one thing that I think people need to realise is that everybody's stuff is going to start to look the same. Because the bar has been raised with what it's going to kick out now as it learns more different things from different people, different inputs or whatever the baseline of content, like, we're going to think it's great. Everybody else is going to think it's great. And then when everybody hits published, why do my stuff look like everybody else stuff? There's no difference. You have to remember like you are still a seed. You can't not water, not plant, not cultivate that seed. Chat GPT can help with a lot of things or AI technology can help with a lot of things, but don't forget to water yourself, grow yourself and still learn things. If it gave you a script, that's great, what if that's not going to be great for your ideal audience and viewers. So still keep in mind who you're actually serving, who's the person on the keyboard? Is this applicable to them, is this applicable to where they are? And is this something that's actually going to resonate with them? You have to know when to tell the AI systems that it's wrong or when to say that wouldn't resonate. And so I think especially as these systems are learnable, you can train it on your own systems and processes in your business. You still need to consciously be aware of and know and have your hand, I will say have your hand on the pulse of your people. Be like a great doctor. Chad GPT is going to make not it specifically about say, generically AI is going to make a lot of bad doctors. Everybody has a degree, a white coat and a stethoscope around their neck saying with somebody walking in there with a bleeding patient and say, oh, those nails look great on you today. So my arm is missing, do some surgery. It's like 1 second while I put in Chat GPT to figure this out. Like no. So you still have to know the symptoms, the frustrations, the angst, all of the things that your people need and let some of the systemize things yet pass that off. It's absolutely going to amplify how we work, but be careful of that and then he restate your second question for me so I can make sure I answer it properly. Well, how can we effectively leverage AI? I mean, you've talked about the danger of simply blending in with AI because there's more content, it's kind of generic. How can we use it, like you mentioned, as a seed in order that we can stand out rather than blend in. I think as these programmes again continue to advance with AI technology, have your dedicated systems, the things that you know to work, embedded in those things, so that if it becomes something like one of the clients I work with, his name is Ray Edwards, they have an AI system. It's like having Ray inside of your computer all the time. However, it's like you need to know how it should reply and how it should be. So I think the best way we can start leveraging it have your own systems of what you teach or what you do or how you would respond, your tonality, your voice. I think developing like a brand voice guide would be extremely helpful for different business owners so that you can input that information and so it knows and it retains what's on brand and what's not. Because now, again, like say you're assistant. Everybody basically got a free virtual assistant in a minute here. Everybody will have for the most part like a free video editor. So now what would take one editor all day to do? It may take an hour for an AI system to generate based on certain scripts and stuff. So know what are some of those time wasters? If you don't know and you have like a team or maybe you're doing all the stuff yourself, just start tracking your time. I started using like a toggle track or something like that. Just simple system. You can use it for free, no biggie on that, but just so you can see where is your time going each day. Some of those base level systems like say when it comes to emails, when it comes to maybe pulling gaps in scripts and all this stuff, it sounds really technical right now, but I think it'll be something extremely simple. Give it a year's time, even all the stuff that you're doing, that's consumption of your time or even consumption of your team's time. How can we invest that into a system, a script or a programme that would run and automatically do two or three different things for us now, where your team starts off and even where you start off for the day might be where it took you to 11:00 in the morning and you've been working since 06:00. A.m. All those hours now can maybe be condensed down into 30 minutes. Letting an AI system take care of it. So that's what I will look through is like look through where the time wasters, where the gaps, what services and businesses are leveraging AI now that you can say this is worth a $10 month prescription or whatever subscription so that can take care of it and our time is reinvested back in the company. And it knows us, it knows the brand, it knows our voice, it knows the tonality. All those different elements are extremely important. So there's a lot to unpack there. And I'm not going to attempt to do that right now, because I want to ask you about your book, because there is a book coming imminently in the next, probably if you're listening or watching this a few days, or if not, then it's probably out already. But can you maybe tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, I'm extremely happy to talk about the book. It's called the one right video. Now, the One Right Video, like, it may sound like making the perfect viral video or making the perfect video. It's not about that. It's about knowing the things, like I said, we talked about kind of in this episode, which is, what are the things that's going to be attractive to your ideal target audience? And how do you start to take the knowledge that, you know, invest this into the systems, the formats and the layouts that we have, so you can grow your brand, grow your business and amplify it using video. Using the one right video system. It sounds awesome. There are plenty of YouTube video books, but this one takes a very particular approach. I'm excited by that. We should bring things to a close, Diana, and my head is melting with so many ideas. I've made so many notes. This podcast is a self indulgent venture. You can probably tell. I'm not shy. It is what it is. But we should bring it to a close because I know you have something going on, probably in another minute for the listener who maybe wants to connect with you. If they want to go deeper with you, how can they do that? Yeah, absolutely. You can always reach me@dianagladney.com, which is my website, and then obviously on YouTube, if you just type in at Diana Gladdy, it literally will bring up my channel and tonnes of content for me as well. Usually on any social platform that you can think of, from TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, doesn't matter. You are super easy to find. Yeah. And I guess my last question is, what's one thing you do now that you wish it started five years ago? I would definitely say I wish that I saw the limitations that we have, whether it comes from time or maybe a mental or physical illness or what have you. I wish that I didn't look at it as like a limitation, but rather sometimes a gift, because all you need to ask yourself is, what does this make possible? And so if I literally said, I can't do this because or I'm not able to do this because, instead of reframing of, what does this make possible? I wish if I had done it five years ago, I truly believe I would be at a different level in my mind and at the same time, if not, and let's say everything else stayed the same internally, I would be a completely different person. Just instead of looking at the limitations of what you can't do, just looking at it and asking what does this make possible? Because now you look at a closed door instead of now just an open door. Possibilities. That is an awesome answer, Diana. Gladney I have had a lot of fun with you. For the listener, there will be a link to where you can pre order the book in the show notes and all Diana's bits and pieces. That does bring us to the end of another episode. Thanks to you at home for listening. If you did enjoy the show, then I would gently encourage you to leave a five star review that's five like the fingers on your hands, not two or one, none of that. And to share the show with just one person. If you did enjoy the show, then you will probably also really enjoy the personal brand business roadmap. It's 100% free as a gift from me and it's 50 pages of everything you will need to start, scale or just fix your expert business. You can click the link in the show notes or the description below this video. Wherever you are, it'll be there for you. Diana, thank you so much for your time. I can't wait to meet you in person in San Diego next month and for your home listening. Thank you very much and I'll see you next time you.