Declutter Your Way to Clarity // Ground Up 067

welcome back to the podcast my name is Matt dia Vela and you're listening to the ground-up show today I'm sitting down to chat with a very creative youtuber lifestyle blogger an artist her name is Eileen Xu and online she goes by the name Lavin dare we discuss minimalism and how it might apply to your life how she got into it and really break down the benefits of minimalism we talked about building a brand and business outside of YouTube how to make a sustainable living and income online and how to organize your weeks to be more productive lots and lots of actionable steps to help you on your journey like I mentioned last week I am in the middle of creating a course it's about habit change it's gonna be a three week course really diving deep and breaking down what it takes to build successful habits the plan is that you will take this course with a habit in mind that you want to stick with and the course will help guide you along that process so if you want to find out about when that course is available just go to Matt Diavel accom slash newsletter that's matt Diavel accom slash newsletter if you already signed up for the newsletter you will get an update for when that becomes available enjoy this week's podcast [Music] our pads kind of crossed a little bit a couple years ago when I reached out to you to use a clip in minimalism and you were super generous to let us use that yeah so it's really cool to kind of come full circle and have you on the podcast here yeah the chat a little bit about your journey yeah so you've been into minimalism for a while like when did you first hear about it when did you first start taking interest in minimalism and simple living probably around 2014 so that was the first place I read about this term minimalism was from Blake Mackowski the founder of Tom's and his book start I think start something that matters I'm not sure if that's the name anyway he talks about how he even though he's like the founder of this big company he's actually a minimalist and he sold all his things and lives on a boat so as reading that story it was like a new concept to me because growing up I was just I think in my household my mom loved to like shop for sales and discounts and we're the type of people that would just buy things if they were on sale and and because my mom's an immigrant she went through the Vietnam War came here as a refugee I think because they lost everything back then once she came here they would keep everything it you have a tendency to hoard because they're like oh like what if something bad happens again or but I was born in that kind of household where you would buy a lot of things take a lot of free unnecessary things and then just hoard it and like honestly it was so the Blake Mackowski book got me thinking like whom that's an interesting way to live why would anyone want to live like that and then after that I found out about the book the life-changing magic of tidying up buymoria condo and that book after reading it it's really convincing I'm sure you've read it right I actually have a minimalist note I said once you get once you get into the topic like I've read a ton of books on minimalism how does he devoured blog post so you're probably like oh like over it by the time that book came out yeah like at that point I had been maybe four or five years into it although man I said got it I should I should do it just kinda been such an influential book such an influential book and it defined minimalism in a very specific way so I think I go with her definition of it her definition is keep only what sparks joy and she has a very specific way of like how to declutter your life in my category so anyway I read the book and I actually like went through decluttering my life in all of her categories from like clothes papers and books and miscellaneous stuff and after decluttering this was around 2015 I documented my journey on YouTube and I really felt like before decluttering I felt like I was very lost in life I was cluttered and then after the decluttering like whole journey I really felt more clear and I think that's what minimalism does you feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders and for some reason I was more motivated in life and it might have been synonymous with some other things but I feel like after minimalism and all that journey I feel like that's how my channel started taking off mm-hmm it helps to kind of clarify your vision and like you have to in order to say no to certain things or to get rid of things you have to realize what you're saying yes to which was like the spark joy element yeah so so that just resonated with you right away you kind of hear this and you're like oh okay how can I start to apply this to my own yeah because the book is just very encouraging and it she literally convinces you like this will change your life and after you go through my process like you don't have to tidy again but so it was very convincing and after I did it like it just it changed my mindset because I started to it because once you start decluttering your things it really applies to all the other areas in life because you learn to like keep only what sparks joy or makes you happy and then push out what's not so you can do that with your relationships with how you like manage your time so I started to I think just subconsciously apply that into all other areas of my life to the point where you're literally like filtering through all the negativity filtering through all the unnecessary like clutter of your life mental clutter or spiritual emotional clutter like doing that so I think that's really what we cleanse and get a real restart right well there's so much noise there whether it's you know TV or social media or the actual physical stuff in your house there's so many influences on our lives that I think for a lot of people they get they gravitate towards minimalism to find some sense of control because their lives feel like oh I'm not even making decisions anymore true and what how did your decision-making change once you started - I don't call yourself a minimalist or once you started living more of a minimalist lifestyle yeah I do I do consider myself having a minimal mindset and when you talk about decision making I think that's a key because before this whole mindset I would listen to what other people had to say I would take everyone's opinions I'm originally like I'm a Libra so I consider myself an indecisive person so every life decision I would ask all my friends and family like what do you think what should I do and obviously like now that you're more mature like no one can answer those questions for you only you can and I didn't know that I didn't realize that before but going like kind of adopting that mindset the minimalism mindset I started to realize like no I am in control of what I want in my life and what I don't have to listen to what this person says or I don't have to take your opinion into consideration so it's like really learning to separate your voice because so during kumari the first category you declutter is clothes and you know you you separate your clothes like do I want to keep this this is spark joy and in the beginning it's really hard to decide whether you want to keep it or not and then after a while your your intuition grows stronger right you you kind of know yourself more like okay this feels right or this doesn't feel right so in the beginning I was very like indecisive my intuition wasn't strong and then after the whole like you know decluttering everything that I physically had I felt like it helped my intuition grow okay yeah so so the intuition that's an important word because that's kind of almost the underlying decision-making processes that we make because you know you get 10 you wake up and then you check your email and you've got 10 20 emails they have to go through you probably get way more than that on a daily basis and then you have to realize and decide okay do I respond to this one is this something you know that I can respond to quickly is this a task that's gonna take 30 minutes or is this a decision that if I make the wrong decision it's going to be 20 hours of my life yeah so at intuition it teaches you how to prioritize things in your life now I don't feel as guilty for not replying to this email I think before you would there was a people-pleaser part of me that wanted to you know listen to other people and please them or answer their email immediately so now I there's less of that because I I control my time yeah I think setting filters is a pretty good way to do that as well like I'll try to do that specifically with email on my contact page of my website or even through YouTube on the contact page usually that's where a lot of emails come through and then just let people know hey get a lot of email is probably not gonna respond to everyone because I'm making this stuff that you guys are messaging me about to begin with and I think that helps and I think people truly understand that you need to set those boundaries and you need to make sure that you're you know creating and designing a life that that you're happy and passionate about yeah and that's what like a big part of what you do as well is this lifestyle design which has become like hugely popular and probably since around 2010 or so it started to grow what drew you to it originally so I was I think around 2010 that was when I was about a junior in college and growing up I've always been like a good student I've been good at school because I think I'm good at following rules if you give me a syllabus or give me homework like you know there's steps like I know how to get it done I'll do a good job and I've always been like been proud of myself I've taken pride in like being ambitious and achieving and I went to USC I was studying business because I thought that was like a generic major where I could get a job that paid a lot of money that's really what I thought and it was around I think junior year where you have to start thinking about what career you want to go into after you graduate and then that was I I was just so stumped because throughout college I was really ambitious at getting internships so I had internships different like advertising agencies entertainment companies and I felt like with every experience in the corporate world I just hated it to be honest I didn't feel like I fit and I felt like I wasn't using my full potential in that scenario I would fast-forward like okay if I do this job and I fast forward like five years where will I be and I'll look at the person who has worked there for like five years and be like I don't want that like that that's not really the life I want it's not it didn't excite me so I was just so frustrated and I went through this whole life life confused soul-searching period junior and senior year of college and I that was around 2010-2011 and I felt like every conversation with my friends was so dramatic it was like this is the time where everyone's lost and we're just like oh my god what are we gonna do let's let's just start a company or let's do that like we're just dreaming but having no idea about our lives so that was about the time rights I think I suddenly discovered all these okay I'll tell you how I discovered my first self-help book it was this book store change board bookstore chain borders they were having a closing sale in my hometown because all these books stores were going out of business so I remember being there and like the dollar section because everything looks like super cheap the dollar section there was a book called caught between a life and a know caught between a job and a dream something like that where it was a book for people who are in a corporate job that they hate and teaching them how to get out of it so me being like in college I'm like that's my future I might as well read that book now right get ahead of the game and figure it out so that book really taught me all these terms that were I don't wear now probably more mainstream like how to find your purpose in life that was something that was completely new to me back then so it is kind of crazy to think about it cuz that that really you see it everywhere and now it almost feels a little cheesy exactly and it's actually kind of challenging I would say for the both of us and what we do to try to connect with those people who maybe feel lost who maybe feel not inspired by what they're doing because you have so much as we talked before noise and now we have noise about people that are trying to sell you something you know Facebook you'll see a lot of workshops so it so it is pretty like noisy now but I mean just thinking back then I yeah as a young confused college grad I was like wow this is life-changing cuz I think most people I'm not I'm not sure if you feel this but I had an innate feeling that I was meant to do bigger things or I was meant for something like I'm I didn't have the word for it like I just wanted my life to matter in a way and so when now when I was in college the only way that I thought I could do that was like oh I guess work for a non-profit or something like because I wanted to help people and do something that was meaningful and mattered which is why I also like started reading that book about the Tom's founder cuz I like that like business plus social giving model but anyway so that that book got me into personal growth and from there I started reading all these other books and I think over time it just added up to like all this knowledge and eventually I was like I have so much knowledge and it really helped me in my life I was like I have to share it somewhere yeah and that's kind of what inspired lavender it's kind of crazy to think that you were at one point pursuing a degree in business and Wow like I mean technically business probably helped you a lot with with where you are now and now you're an entrepreneur and you're doing your own thing but at the same time a business degree to me is very black and white it's it's a almost like it's very mundane I took a couple business classes in college and they're making you do you know create your business plan and it's all regimented and it's like that's not really how it works in the real world and now you look at what part of it if not every it's part of it yeah and I think that everybody's path is so individualistic and it's hard to say you know as you know it's like five years from now what is your business gonna look like where's your revenue stream gonna be it's like that's great easy questions to even be asking but what I love is that like I mean it couldn't be any more different from what you're doing now from like how your your brand and what you put out in the world is it's so colorful it's so bright it's so creative it's such the opposite of what I would think about as a business degree yeah thank you I was totally like I even considered going into finance and being like a banker just cuz back I think I back then you had your parents that's voice in your head right like get a job where you're gonna you know make a lot of money and that was that so yeah you said you said what a C+ is an F in Asian family there's a lot of pressure that your parents put on you there is early on is that does that pressure still come into play now would they prefer you to be a lawyer or a doctor more of a traditional path I think up until like this these past couple years yes I think now I'm finally in a place where my parents understand what I do and they're like wow you're making money doing this like okay I guess as long as you're happy so I think it goes with like parents also maturing like when your parents get older they kind of care a little bit less maybe worry a little bit less yeah that's just naturally what happens but yeah really like throughout college or just throughout my life my parents were really they had high expectations for me I think a lot of it is like oh we sacrificed a lot in our lives for you to you for us to pay for you to go to college and all of this and there's a lot of pressure to succeed and do well to make your parents proud because you you really do appreciate their efforts success meant something very specifically when our parents were younger and they were starting to kind of create their lives and you know for a lot of parents of our generation I would say they were working jobs that they weren't passionate about they didn't really love they have to sacrifice a lot and and now we definitely are privileged to be at a place where we can kind of push the needle a little bit further and say you know what like I just don't want to work a job that yeah doesn't really fulfill me like when I'm spending eight to ten hours a day working I want to actually like the work I'm doing and feel like I'm making a difference so I think it's gonna slowly change I think we're getting to a point yes changing like I I think our generation is so blessed that we have the choice to like follow our passions and I think we had to kind of there was like a friction between our parents generation cuz they were like so about like sacrifice but but now I I don't know I the trend is going towards like letting we'll love their lives and love what they do yeah is there is there another aspect that we kind of touched on that is negative where maybe it's there's almost like there's two paths that you can take when going this untraditional route or creating your own thing whether you're going to be an author or a filmmaker some people can go the route that feels a little bit shallow and it almost feels like they're doing it just to prove that they're doing something cool and they're doing something exciting and maybe it's you know there's not an underlying but if that's your reason you're not going to make it very far right to be in the arts you have to really come in and love it yeah I think I don't think you can fake that kind of success right I think I guess it would only work out if they got lucky early on and sometimes you see that where certain people just they blow up whether on Instagram or otherwise and they get a huge audience and then maybe that continues to validate it but you're totally right that's why you have so many blogs and I'm probably the creator of seven of them that are hey sorry I haven't posted in a while you know like you start a blog and then you stop it and that's part of being creative right yeah it's why in your experience I'm sure you've started a lot of things that did not go they do yeah why do those things fail why do you think those things didn't go that's Jenny but okay so a lot of things one is like my music career so I I started posting music like singing and playing piano videos on YouTube since high school and throughout college I was posting just as a hobby like posting very sporadically and deep down I really wanted to make it work obviously deep down you want it to grow and there was like this is the first wave of like YouTube stars back then and I remember being really into it but I I think the reason why that didn't take off is because I was not consistent with it I was not consistent with posting I would post like once a month or once every other month it's just you can't sustain something that way so that's a big one when I started lavend dare I made a promise to myself that I'll post once a week like very strict schedule and and that's really how you develop like the commitment because it it takes work you can't just be like lazy like oh I feel like posting today or I'd feel like posting today you really have to like schedule it in so that's like one of the reasons why that thing didn't work out I mean there's a few other things that I failed or didn't work out in life for example like I I went into acting for a little bit and I I think that one I just didn't have the hustle in me I didn't have the hustle to like drive to auditions every day and get rejected just I felt like I was wasting my time it's hard the acting because the the reward is so sporadic it's so sporadic and there's also in the it's not the same way as like starting YouTube filmmaking whatever where you can continually work on that craft and you can get consistent feedback and then you can build upon that and grow acting is you have to have others you don't mean like how much can you be for someone exactly you're waiting for someone else to validate you and give you a job so you can practice but then I mean it was just slow in my head too slow for me yeah that is something I'm interested in the to is like how can actors how can they make a name for themselves in a way that's not tied to the traditional forms of making it as an actor like going in through auditions every day it's like maybe it is you know starting a YouTube channel you know you think you have to use social media now yeah it's better for you as a personal brand well because that's actually one of the reasons why I started my youtube channel was it was because I didn't want to be beholden to anybody else to make decisions for me I wanted to be like well if I want to make a film about this if I have an audience then I can create it and now it's becoming less like you don't have to be on Netflix oh you don't have to be on Hulu or any platform you can just release stuff directly to YouTube and you can make a living oh yeah that's the power of it I thought about that too it's like I I wasn't sure what kind of channel I wanted to create in the beginning but I'm like I just knew I wanted to start a YouTube channel because I was like you know whatever I do in the future like if I have an audience it's gonna help it no matter what so it doesn't matter what industry you're doing I think having social media helps right and you were saying that the consistency is one of the most important things consistency is really about for me it's about building the habit of like putting something putting something out there consistently meaning like because artists tend to really be perfectionist over their work or we tend to procrastinate and if you don't have that strict schedule you're going to give yourself too much time and you know what I mean you're just never gonna put things out you're gonna continue like working on it or perfecting it so for me it was learning to just work on something until it's good enough and then put it out there it doesn't have to be perfect doesn't have to be amazingly it was about like just finish it and then put it I think that's so important if you want to grow as an artist because if you take too long working on something like the time is just gonna pass by and you're not gonna have anything done so with music I think I took too long I was like oh I want to make a song so good or you know there's just too many barriers yeah we get a little bit too romantic about our creations that they have to be absolutely perfect and it's funny though because now you you know with it with the game with YouTube you could put a video out there that you spent weeks on and you're like ah like I'm this is amazing it's gonna do really well and like it you know just has a perfect tone and pace and I really perfected it and then that video gets nobody watches that video and in the video that's got a good thumbnail or title this goes bonkers crazy and you like easier to produce thing yeah yeah so I you know and that maybe says something a little bit about playing the game and when to know when to play it and also knowing when to create for yourself but I think that the key there is just not overdoing your perfection and just making sure that you you keep putting out there I remember when I started freelancing one of the earliest jobs I think it took me like a month to edit it it was a basketball event and it was kind of timely it's like hey we want to get this out there pretty quickly and I did a really good job on it I thought I'd knocked it out of the park but for me I'm like as I grew and as I started to get more work I realized I would get a lot better if I worked on ten videos over that period of time versus that one video one video or one month yeah you learn as with each project that you do so if you're creating weekly videos for a year like that's like 52 videos already so so I have about like 300 something videos on my channel so just the sheer amount of like work that you do compared to like I have other director friends that they don't do YouTube but they're like working on one short film a year or one you know what I mean it's it's slower yeah it's harder to see that feedback loop because the feedback is important if we were putting stuff out there and nobody ever resonated with us we wouldn't keep doing it or we'd at least change something and figure out okay how can I get this message heard when you started to create on YouTube you start to get a little bit of feedback you you have this YouTube channel that starts to do a little bit well do you feel a pressure like an urgency to keep going and is that a good thing or a bad thing I think it could be both the pressure to keep going because now you have people who are expecting you to post and they the pressure part is they're expecting you to put out a specific type of video maybe they really like during the minimalism ways people loved minimalism but I didn't want to be just a channel about minimalism because I I like other topics within lifestyle design so I felt the pressure people are like always asking for minimalism videos but then me I'm like that makes me not want to do minimal videos because I want to do I want to do so there's kind of like a battle going on within me like I I don't I want to continue creating what I want to create versus what other people want to see but I know that you know sometimes there's got to be a balance there there is where I mean even right now for me I try to throw in because I do enjoy talking about minimalism and simple living obviously it's a big part of my life so but there's a balance there where maybe every other week I'll release a video on minimalism or on simple living and then the other videos would be podcast related or creative related I feel like you do a very similar thing to where it's very heavily focus credit creativity yeah and then you kind of have to be mindful of like if I enjoy it and my audience enjoys it then that's probably a good use of my time to be able to give them what they want but yeah do you what's the longest you've gone without you said you have this consistency of uploading a video every week what so long as you've gone without posting a video in like the four years that I've ran this channel probably the longest is like two weeks of not Hosting and maybe it's because I'm on vacation or something but but then all yeah quacker that is that's a very short period of time right yeah I've never gone longer than two weeks of not posting yeah and at some point it just becomes normal I mean this is how long did it take for it to become your job where you made a little ears into it two years into it two and a half yeah and when did you start 2014 mm mm end of 2016 and beginning of 2017 that's where I was like oh this is this is good and I feel confident confident in it and the new year right I think what's interesting about you're coming from your perspective is a lot of people see themselves as just youtubers and that's it but you've branched out outside of YouTube and you're more of like a creative entrepreneur than you are just an uber ya know no shame on anybody who is a youtuber I think it works but I think that like it's kind of it limits how much you can grow both as an artist and as an entrepreneur and somebody who is trying to make a living off of their craft what have you learned about kind of stepping off of YouTube a little bit and then creating your own platform creating you've got like a Facebook community and a podcast and all this other stuff yeah I think it's important to kind of not put all your eggs in one basket because when you're just focusing like if everything that you have is just on YouTube like the algorithms always changing and I've had I haven't seen channels like like the algorithm changes on them and then they're no one just watches their videos anymore they could have a million subscribers but like no views and so it is a scary thing and I think that's why I like to have other platforms just is it's like a you know diversify your your career a little bit finance it is like finance because you learn to diversify your portfolio so it's it's the same idea also like something like building an email list it's not as popular with younger social media people but that's what's something I've started to do because you own your email lists like you own the communication between you and that person like the platform can't take that away from you like what Facebook and Instagram or YouTube will do because those platforms they're just trying to make money from like ads right so eventually like I don't know it's well ya know control that yeah I think that for the younger generation they're not as attractive to the mail list mailing list because it doesn't provide the vanity metrics that I think a lot of people are drawn to it's because and I mean dude I totally get it and we all fall prey to this a little bit where it's nice to know that you have an audience and a following and you want that almost as a validation for what you're doing especially if you're following something that's untraditional especially if your parents are like are you sure you want to go down this path yeah so I could see people being drawn to that but if you're a business minded then it doesn't matter what the metrics are it doesn't matter if you're a thousand followers or a hundred thousand because that does not mean you're gonna be making a living off of it just because you have followers so you have this this email list how when did you start it and kind of how do you go about creating content for them it's not I'm not super great at running it yeah I might have started it like over a year ago but I I think last year was where I really started to UM kind of do things to drive people to the list like I'll give out free worksheets where people sign up the email is to get the worksheet but that's just been helpful for selling things as like with my workbook I have an artist of life workbook which is like this year the end-of-the-year planner where you review the past year plan your goals for the next year and it goes really detailed so that's like that it's it's nice when you're pushing something like that that you have like an email list to tell people in advance like for a pre-sale and stuff so for the list I think I email them bi-weekly so every other week mm-hmm and but at the same time I'm not super like that's where I'm a little slacking off because my focus is like on YouTube yeah yeah no I hate to do it all no I completely agree that's that's a challenge and I'd love that's where for me minimalism comes into work and productivity and trying to be very specific about what you do yeah because you know there are five to ten social media apps that are popular to use for me I'm like I can't keep up on everyone even if I'm like pushing to these other ones for me I'm like it's not worth it it's still an attention don't have to just prioritize which ones are most important to you and just focus on like the one or two platforms that you want yeah and email is is the one that's like on the periphery where I'm like for me what I do is like if I make a video that I think would resonate with that audience then I will just write some copy for that video and you know a lot of times we need copy for the video's description anyway so I kinda just expand on that yeah and then just put a link to the video to check it out it's a way to like let them know I'm still alive that's totally fine because it really is just kind of like you sending a email to your friends and family like hey by the way like check out this is what I'm doing this is what you might like to see mm-hm so I I like it because it feels personal and people can reply and they email me back and it goes straight to my inbox I don't think people realize that that they can reply to me and then I'll reply back so it feels very like one-on-one right and I think that's where you can start to develop a little bit of a community as much as like that's overused like building a community you can really start to develop relationships with audience members and you can actually give back in a more intimate way and I think an email and newsletter is probably the best way to do it because that feels exclusive yeah and that person like you is is it's an ongoing relationship and it's like they want to hear from you if they trust you enough to give you their email address it says a lot yeah because I know that I don't like getting I don't I don't subscribe them every I bear I may be one or two people I follow their names letters yeah it's a but it's a very finite list and you know that's just extra noise in your inbox it's like kind of meaning like the people who are in your email list they really want to hear from you yeah absolutely are there best practices of like building an audience because they're there's a lot of people that do some shady things like if you email them once about something they'll add you they'll take your name put it on your email list like what have you learned about that and like communicating and with an audience I think you just have to be transparent and let that now there's more like recently there's like a new EU regulation called gdpr it's really boring but there but now there's like legal rules where you have to have people like opt-in and specifically tell them how you're going to use their information so I think it's yeah you do have to be transparent about that stuff it's kind of like this new privacy policy how many emails you get a day or it's like we changed our privacy policy if you've noticed that it's because there's a new law that literally just happened like this month so what does that mean for for us is that have you change anything because if I have it you have to like change all your forms and you have to like have everyone on your list reconfirm again that they want to be on your list oh really yeah so it's been a really light that's why everyone's like updating you and stuff and I might have to do I guess I got to do that what happens if you don't you just get in trouble well this is for its focused on the people in the EU so if you have audiences in the EU they don't have to get them to reconfirm yeah I got a lot of German into it I mean I don't know if it's a big day how are they gonna catch you this is it sounds to me like the same conversations I have about taxes which is an even more interesting topic to talk about all I'm gonna say well we just want to ask you a question mm-hmm so do are you good with your taxes or are you and now you're on the record like you know I'm really lucky because my mom is a tax accountant so she i literally just like but I think it's important though for for people who are trying to start something on their own so like really take that seriously yeah because you can't go back and fake it later you can't do some Breaking Bad [ __ ] where you're faking receipts and stuff yeah you got to actually make sure you're on top of your finances collecting receipts like start off on the right foot yeah that's my PSA I got to do one tax PSA every podcast episode and I'm glad we fit it in yeah so when you're looking back is there something that you would do differently at the start of your channel at the start of growing your audience there's two answers because on one hand like you can never wish anything was different cuz I like where I am now so no regrets on that end but if I were to look like practically things that I could have done better is I wish I started my channel earlier I think that's something a lot of people wish they started earlier because for so many years I was just doubting myself so even as I was doing the music YouTube that music channel wasn't working out but I would watch all of these other vloggers like fashion vloggers Beauty vloggers and I would really envy their life and I just felt like that was me being like a fan and just envying them but I think deep down it was because I wanted that life I wanted to be a creator and you know travel and do what they're doing so I had to get honest with myself to like be like okay yes I admit I want to be a youtuber it sounded cheesy because I graduated from college it was like two years after I graduated and all my friends are like in big corporate finance jobs and yeah I mean I maybe it's more mainstream now but back then it sounded like such a corny thing to say I want to be a youtuber mm-hmm back then yeah it's especially if you're older if you're like 18 sure fine but if you're like 23 24 I don't know if but I still think the comparison to even today is pretty challenging when people are going off and getting real-world salaries and you're pursuing a career that is so uncaring think it can be looked down upon I did feel like I was looked down upon especially because in school I was like smart I was prideful on like how smart and capable I was and yet like I didn't get a real job and I was I decided to do YouTube it just seemed like like why did I go to college why did I you know I felt really unconfident about myself but anyway my my wish is like that I got over that like self-doubt earlier on and just started earlier and also like um I think in the beginning my video topics were just not good but maybe I just had to learn how to how to make better videos well I think that's part of it I think it's like you know pretty young when you originally started and even they think that first YouTube channel yeah and there's like I think it takes some life experience and like going through some difficult and challenging times to be able to talk about that later on but I think that's it's probably the hardest thing to do for a lot of people today is that they're growing up online and a lot of people are going through like 13 to 16 years old putting everything on the internet and I feel terrible for them because if I had my thoughts going out into the world at 13 No I don't think I'd ever get a job I never got a client I was so melodramatic like things that you were thinking back then yeah yeah kind of hard you have to that people have to go through that but but yeah I don't think you're ever you're always gonna feel like you're starting too late I think anything that you start you're like our podcast 2018 if you're gonna start it then it's too late the way we're always saying that's the wave is over like don't start YouTube now the wave is over but you just have to not listen to that and just start yeah and I play I've keeping that advice doer I would say all blogging like the waves over why would you even blog then it's like of course you can make it or you can make it only YouTube today I think YouTube is just as pop I mean it's way more popular today than it's ever been yeah so these platforms just continue to grow no what I think people just underestimated these platforms they thought that it peaked and that it's over now but I don't think social media has peaked I mean it's gonna keep growing right yeah and it's not gonna be easy so maybe if you were hoping that if you got in early you know like at myspace they're ready and really early and then it they they were able to leverage that but it's like you know what it's gonna take a lot of work to be able to make it you're gonna have to put in the time when nobody is listening or nobody's watching to be able to make it yeah and you know what my challenge and my question now is how do you keep it like how do you have longevity with the internet how do you keep it going because like with the first wave of YouTube or whatever you've seen channels blow up and then kind of like drop off and I think back then you would think that they would be successful forever but now I'm seeing that's not the case and right there because there's so many new people coming onto the scene and they kind of push the old people whatever it's like back then maybe their viewers were in college and then maybe now their viewers have families and don't have time to watch YouTube and so people your audience changes so yeah right they're always changing yeah and I think that it means that we should be changing ourselves yeah and like I'm totally evolving right because if you if you just keep speaking to that same audience that you would start it out with your audience is changing over time and eventually you're gonna you're gonna lose them yeah yes like who did you use to watch 10 years ago like do you still watch them now years ago oh good thousand e 2008 YouTube was 2 years was 2 years out I was in college I don't know if I was watching many YouTube were you always a fan of watching youtubers let's yeah so who was big around that time like Michelle Phan like The Beauty youtubers back then right is she still going she stopped making videos but she's more of a businesswoman she has a makeup brand ok let's get her back into it so you can always like transition out of it I mean there's people like casein I said obviously oh yeah and he kind of he just restarted up his Schlag after a while I mean I've always seen him as like solid he's kind of eight right it's kind of hard to set to you know picture KC and I said cuz he's so big but I think he does prove that you can kind of take a little step away from it and then you can come back and then your audience will likely still be there yeah yeah because I think every once in a while we because he's so authentic and he's doing so many things right yeah I love him let's actually we touched on a couple topics here that were in some of these Instagram questions that I pulled so let's get into these and then we can just we can go from there okay so Nicole direct she's a graphic designer how do you start a channel and keep yourself motivated even if the subscriber count' doesn't go up so this is kind of like what we were just talking about it's like how how do you keep that momentum going when nobody's watching and nobody's listening yeah I remember when I started like I mean for a whole year I was making weekly videos and no one was really watching her comments it was it was growing so slow so I understand you have to find a topic that you're so so passionate about like you something that you have like a million ideas about you have to love this topic or this niche so much that you feel like you'll never run out of ideas and I think you you really have to do it for the fun of it you have to enjoy making videos and enjoy editing because that's what takes up most of your time and if you don't enjoy the process you're not gonna make it very far you have to enjoy like it's kind of a game you play with yourself kind of like can I this video better than the last like how can I do things differently this video it has to be your own personal project rather than like oh I'm putting this out there for other people to see it it really is like this is just my project to practice and my project to like you're doing it for yourself that really resonates with me when I first started I started making videos in like 2000 and well it's kind of like it was in high school this is probably 2004 or so and even before that was like making these horror movies and with my parents VHS cool and like you think about what was my audience then it was my parents it was my friends and in school when I started in high school you know shooting on a Sony Handycam there YouTube was there but nobody was uploading videos at least like me and my friends we were just making videos for ourselves and like they were all inside jokes nothing would have been you know it's like so fun for you guys yeah and like that's its if it's an audience of five or ten people but like I just remember loving the craft and loving stitching together videos and creating a story that didn't exist before and it didn't have to get a million views and I think now we get a little bit too caught up and it's maybe cliche advice but I think we do get caught too caught up in the views the likes and all that stuff and we need to just focus on do I actually really love this thing because it is sexy now to be a filmmaker or a youtuber or to have a large following on Instagram but if you don't actually love what you're doing you're you know you're just like the person that's following a nine-to-five job for money you're just doing it for the money you're not doing because you really like it right is there advice there for people to help find their passion because you know is that is that a straightforward pursuit is this something everybody's built everyone thing it's not obvious for everyone some people are born and they they know they really like this thing but most people even myself like you're just kind of wishy-washy about all these different things so I I think to find your passion is to pay attention to the things that you're curious about and it could be as you're scrolling like the social media like what kind of post are you curious about what gets your interest and then kind of dig deeper into those interests because say like you you notice that you care like environmental issues you know dig deep into that so I think it's about like like discovering what you're curious about and then just like dig deep and see if you genuinely love it yeah what are your passions and are there some of those that do not fit under the umbrella of your blog and your YouTube channel like there's something there like oh well then I'm never gonna make money talking about rock climbing I mean I'm passionate about like I love music singing dancing and I guess I'm passionate about like I guess being a good person like being kind and and I I think most of the things I'm passionate about like making videos and writing it does fit under the umbrella of my youtube but some things are just like outside but I honestly I think everything is creative so even if I like singing but I don't really sing on this channel anymore it's still like you know everything overlaps in a way yeah it's kind of hard to almost define when work begins and ends yeah do you you put in many hours you know like if you have a set schedule where you're like alright Monday Fridays work or do you shoot videos on the weekends you know so try to work on the weekday and have the weekends free sometimes I do work on like one weekend day but so I I set like locked days where like Mondays and Tuesdays will be my shooting and editing days and then Wednesdays is more like admin and catching up with stuff I record podcasts on Friday or on Thursdays like that Thursday's are like my meetings with other people and podcast days and the Fridays just open for random miscellaneous activity so I try to like group tasks together like that cuz I feel like that makes me more productive right so how does that make you more productive in terms of setting your schedule in that way where I need to me that sounds like a dream oh yeah I have like it's such structure and actually an expectation of knowing what your weeks usually look like and you can kind of get into a rhythm and especially with the creativity we're talking about you have to sit down and do this work every single week so how did how has that helped you be more productive yeah I think it's just more productive to focus on like one type of task at a time so like taking this day just to like edit videos or something because if you're switching between different tasks there's something called context switching you actually lose like 20% productivity or 20% of your attention span during that switching time because it takes time to like like once you start a task you're not fully immersed it takes time to immerse yourself and get in that flow so it's better to like switch less and also I consider myself more of an introvert so if I have to meet with people it's kind of exhausting like after a meeting I have to like I don't know relax for an hour or something so it's fors me once I'm meeting with someone it's easier to like have multiple meetings that day since I'm already in that like socializing mood yeah actually I'm a hundred percent agree and I'm definitely an introverted creator like when I'm making something and I'm writing and I'm editing a video all these acts for me I don't do as well when other people are even in the same room yeah I don't you feel a little like pressure yeah and we get out of here even if they're not working the same thing I'm working I'm like I just need to be totally by myself over here but then yet it's certainly a mindset shift when you know the first conference I'm sure you've had this to where like we work independently by ourselves and then like oh I didn't go outside today oh this is my first time speaking to another human today yes and like your brain isn't ready for those kinds of interactions as silly as that sounds but yeah when I if I can schedule interviews back-to-back on the same day you get yourself that's better yeah you get yourself into a talkative mood yeah you your brain kind of switches on in a way we got okay this is what we're gonna be doing today which some people can be just turned on from you know the early morning and they're extroverted and they can get right into it but I feel like for people like us that maybe our nature is to be solo creators it helps to kind of match but I think for anyone it's hard to like be on for an hour and then turn off and focus on like something quiet and then turn on again haven't you know it's it's not productive that way do you batch a lot of your tasks like email and social media mm-hmm yeah I tried to just like not check email or not answer emails in the morning and just kind of like finish the most important work and then like have like you know a few hours later in the day to tackle email sometimes I'm really bad at answering email it's all just like not like wait a week and then maybe like on Friday I'll answer all my emails you know yeah and then so you're scrolling through your email inbox how do you know how is it is it kind of second nature to you now to know like what even emails you should be opening up or do you tend to go through all of them well I tend to let go through them and I like you know I archive the ones that are just spam and I don't have to answer if there's something really important that I just star it and maybe I'll I know I have to get to that later that day but yeah I do that like if I open an email and I'm like oh this is really important I'll mark it as unread so I'll it'll be there that I have to open it again oh I like that yeah yeah because once that email is read I forget about it I do the same thing if I start it because I just you know it's so variable there the visual is different is that going on click yeah that's actually a really good tip because if a lot of times I'll use my inbox as a separate to-do list yeah you know because there's certain things that would be in your inbox that take a little bit of while to create and then I have and I'm sure I'm curious if you have this separately as well like a to-do list of creative tasks how do you organize those tasks and know what you should be working on usually I have a big to-do list like I have an app on my phone that has like to do is separated by a category kind of like website to dues or YouTube to dues and then but what I do is I have like a today section I kind of like I move what's the most important thing I want to do today and then I focus on the Today list okay and then is this I'm also interested in morning slash nighttime routine do you have either of those or is it generally privately yeah routines that are everyday morning routine if I have time I do have a routine where I like wake up make tea and then I I love doing morning pages which is like journaling three pages of like the stream of consciousness meaning you don't filter yourself so I that will I'll do that and then I'll meditate for like 15 to 20 minutes and then go on with my day but sometimes I don't have time and I just skip those or I maybe I'll journal at night journaling is a pretty big part of I love journaling so much yeah that was it helped you in so many ways it's my way of talking to myself and like digging deep to see I'm really feeling what I'm really thinking and I I think I tend to be like because the way that I am with on my channels like I'm like a life coach type of person and and that's how I am in real life I always like to give advice to my friends so when I journal I'm giving advice to myself so I'm just coaching myself like you know you can really change your mindset it doesn't always come natural to people to ask really difficult questions to think about where they want their life to go you know a lot of times it takes a significantly negative thing to happen in your life to bring about a change say a loved one dies you realize that life is short like a lot of times that's what it takes but if you can consistently journal or keep down your thoughts and try to really consistently work on yourself and improve yourself then I feel like you're gonna be able to get to that point before you ever have one of these you're right like you don't have to wait for a crisis to start changing your life you can really do it anytime I think most people in their normal life they're scared to face like there's a fear there you don't want to face the ugly parts of you or you don't want to admit that this you have this weakness or this flower or something but when you're journaling nobody else is reading it so for me that's where I could be the most honest with myself because no one's judging me so I could really just let it all out and then that's how it like you have to reveal yourself and be aware of what's going on - in order to work through it first most people they don't even want to look at it right so so journaling is like a safe way to look at that and then work through it that's great I have a question that's kind of relates to that but moreso is like how we bring our voice to the world Kyle fallens be from Instagram asks hi Matt and Eileen my question to either of you concerns creativity and how you created your own voice I found that I have these great ideas on what I'd like to accomplish but I realized that branding or creating a clear vision is almost necessary to sustain an audience can you explain how the initial steps of creating your voice came about and how you sustained it over time yeah well your voice is just like your true personality I think it's easier to create a voice for like a person versus like a brand that's anyway but um I think to start out you're gonna have to just experiment right and there's no other way than to like experiment and see what feels right and do do what's fun for you and then a little tip is try not to like watch other people's stuff too much because when you read or watch other people's stuff it it kind of becomes part of you mm-hmm I mean that's that's how we are aren't we just like a mix of all the sources that we absorb yeah I think that that's definitely that happens yeah I think that's definitely conversation there whether how much we should be consuming versus creating I think that you can definitely gather inspiration from people and I know early on I certainly did copy other filmmakers styles but it was like my stuff wasn't being seen by anybody and you can learn from doing that too you can learn how they create and stuff yeah I think it's okay to it's okay to be inspired by other people it's even okay to like like copy their work in order to learn but not not say that it's yours obviously it's like inspired like when people make parodies or something like that but I think eventually as you continue creating also with the consistency thing like the more you create the more you're gonna learn what it's your voice the more you're going to develop that voice too yeah there there is a instinct in a lot of people that wants the record you know button gets pressed you have this personality that you then like almost change who you are to be more hey I'm talking to a camera now hey I'm talking to an audience or like if you're getting interviewed on TV there's definitely a certain tone that you have in that conversation that you might not have with your friend normal life and I think what most of us are trying to get to is a point where we can just be ourselves and feel comfortable in our own skin and I think it takes doing it a lot it's consistency it takes every you know every time you hit that record button trying to just let go and trying to let go of this kind of character that you're creating to be yourself and one way that I've actually I've also realized that it's about focusing on your strengths and not everybody has the same style and you know Russell Brand can turn on a camera I sound like a genius for an hour's great but for me I might need to prepare a little bit I might need to write down some notes and say all right if I'm gonna do an AMA podcast that's gonna be an hour long I'm gonna have all these questions prepared maybe I'll take a couple notes for each one to see like okay that okay that's a good idea oh I could tell that story I could do that and I'm more prepared and I feel like I can have a better podcast or a better discussion then if I were to just freestyles so you gotta know yourself mm-hmm and it takes some time it just takes practice yeah because nobody's super confident and amazing on their first try it really just takes practice yeah and like you said a lot of times we're faced with doubt in the very beginning yeah and even if you go back and watch my original videos like I would you know I'm talking to the camera but my eyes would always be like looking off screen because I was shy or something and then now I'm more comfortable just like looking directly at the camera and talking so I've got a question here from Thomas Rock Iike what are the downsides of being a minimalist what thing do you miss the most since you've become a minimalist mm-hmm I am not sure if there is a downside because you can define what minimalism means for you because I think people have the they think that being a minimalist means you have to cut out things from your life but but if that thing is something that makes you happy you don't have to cut it out you know what I mean so you can be a minimalist in most of your life but if you really love like shoes or something I think you're still allowed to have a lot of shoes right if you love if you genuinely love each one I think the point of it is not to have anything extra yeah I feel like if there's downsides then you're probably not doing minimalism right yeah like there is I think people just think that it's like cutting yourself off but it's not right and it is hilarious though because I'm not sure if you've gotten these comments but like I certainly get get nothing all the time but it's like oh well that's not minimalist yes all the time you don't love to judge right yeah where is that nothing will make people happy mm-hmm well I think because the term minimalist I think people have this image in their mind that you have to live in a all white black and white space and have like you know t-shirts in just one color I really don't know but there's always like I think with every movement with like veganism or zero ways like people are very just more judgey there they don't realize that it's a journey and everybody's life looks different everybody's version of minimalism looks different yeah I think at its core it's about intentionality so if you're being very intentional with the decision decisions that you make whether it's the things you bring into your life or your friends or family then that's gonna be the that's what you should be focusing on you shouldn't be focusing on like well should I get rid of this cup or keep this cup and then made like maybe do that in the beginning maybe the the condo Marie method is that what it's called kind of Marie yeah okay but like yeah so like you can go through that go through your stuff and then you know at the end of the day if you're focusing too much on your stuff you're probably also missing the point because it's really about moving past it to be able to focus on your really important your like really important exactly I got a question from Josh them from Canada at what point is another creator worthy of collaborating with it's an interesting question well that is an interesting question um I think if you're trying to collaborate with a creator that you admire I think the point that it is worth it doesn't have to be about numbers it really just has to be about like whether they respect your work and whether you could help them in some way I think if like if you can give them value in some way something that helps them then they're because a collaboration is a win-win scenario it should be win-win so you should offer something and then they should offer something I think as long as you can find that medium then then it's possible right I found early on that was my biggest hurdle when starting the podcast was that I didn't have an audience so and I did have all these self-limiting downside a while I could never get somebody to come on my podcast because nobody listens to it so and I had to figure out re what are other ways that I might be able to influence or inspire somebody to come on my podcast when I don't have any episodes or what did you do so for me that's where video was very helpful and creating a really professional website and these are the things that stand out to me if somebody asked me to come on their podcast isn't that what I said to you and your email I'm like your website look videos and like even if you know you don't even have to share audience numbers or anything like that and I rarely do and then for me it was like alright I create a really beautiful website and like the video side of things helped out a lot because then I could visually show I knew that my video chops were I've been working on thank you so much but I've been doing it for so long that I knew that I was good and that like I could set myself apart just by doing video a bit okay he's actually investing time and energy into this craft right they see the work I've put in so then they would be more likely to give ya an hour 2 hours of their time to come over and check that's a great point you have to show that you are professional and you create high quality work in some way I think though people when you just reach out to someone they don't know who you are like you have to have things to show for it it doesn't have to be exactly what you're asking for it but like you said like you had videos that you could show you just have to show something that is of like a higher quality you just can't be like here's an iPhone video like let's make a video together you know right I think it's and I think what it really comes down to is respect and when I respect somebody's work work if they're designer or if they're just you know they have an Instagram account that's really beautiful if I can look at MIT wow that's like I don't care how many followers they have if they got five followers it doesn't matter if I love if their work is good yeah I'm like wow they put in the time and interchange this thing like yeah I'll do a photo shoot with you yeah whatever that said time is still important so you can't do every collaboration Under the Sun you have to be a little bit choosy sometimes there are certain busy times like right now I'm working on another documentary so I can only do like two or three big things whether it's podcast YouTube channel and then the main side project and like that is a majority of my timeline now so during those since I unfortunately have to say no to a lot of podcast interviews or time commitment in that case like don't ever feel bad if someone says no to you it's it's just how it is people are busy and you know just try again try it try with the next one it's like dating in so many ways like don't take it personally just on to the next time yeah yeah like I know some friends like it would get so upset and they would get drunk and like tell somebody off because they didn't respond after two days and the person's like I was gonna respond I was on vacation yes I look bad maybe just relax and like you can't you don't you have no idea what somebody's going through you have no idea what's going on in their life and you know sure they could be an [ __ ] or they could be a jerk but maybe just look on the bright side and be like well maybe I was gonna say look on the bright side maybe somebody they know died but look on the bright side as in maybe it's not personal it's probably not you know most of the time it's not about you it's just people get busy people get busy and you can't do everything yeah all right let's see here so we talked a little bit about like money and entrepreneurship and and how to make a living online what have you specifically learned about making money online and making a living as a creator I learned a lot of things one is it's not like don't expect it to stay stable because it fluctuates and that's the reality of like being online having your own business but one thing I learned is we mentioned it earlier is really you have to diversify your income you can't just depend on say YouTube Adsense you cannot depend on that to bring you your income you have to be creative and think of other ways to make money other ways to like bring value to people and make money whether it's like selling something like a digital product or like I don't know just you have to be creative like for me I make money through like YouTube ads also like branded videos I have podcast ads I have affiliate I do affiliate marketing so whenever I recommend like audible or something on Amazon you get a commission so there's got to be different ways that you make money and then you have it all add up to your income because if you just depend on one thing you're gonna be kind of like you're you're successful to the changes that platform with that income stream so create your own income stream it's what I'm saying right do you think that people there there's a certain time or at least a size of your audience that you should wait for it before you try to monetize or do you think that you it's something you should try to learn and figure out as you're creating yeah I don't think you should ever focus on the idea of monetizing when you're creating even whether you're starting out or whether it's like further along in the game you have to focus on creating the things that you like creating you know like focus on the work and then the money will come later but it is hard so that's why I never recommend anyone to like immediately quit their job and start a YouTube like definitely start your online business while you're doing something else cuz it's not gonna be stable for the first couple years how can people make that transition that that to me it seems like the tough part because and I've certainly had people say well I've got a full-time job kids I got this I can't there's no way I could do a video a week and for me I'm like well if you can't do a video week I know it's tough I know it's not going to be easy but if you just you can't do one a week you're probably not gonna be able to do it period so what advice would you give people that are trying to find the time to that's usually the number one excuses like I don't have enough time but isn't that everyone's excuse for everything in life like but we all have the same amount of time we all have 24 hours in a day so it's the question is how bad do you want it and are you willing to sacrifice something else in order to make time to to start this online thing because we do have time we do have time that we're browsing on social media and time I I don't know people have more time than they think it's just a matter of like carving out that time maybe carve out 2 hours in your night or 2 hours a week to work on it whatever you can carve out like put dedicate that time to it so maybe you can't make one video a week yet but you can work slowly to create video library of videos and maybe you could start later and like post them slowly do you know anything yeah you'd start posting now but you can start working towards as long as you're taking some action towards it then you're fine yeah especially with the YouTube and I think now with pretty much every social media application you can schedule posts so that's been helpful to me is to be like you know what I'm going on vacation in two weeks so and I'm gonna be gone for ten days and I want to make sure I have videos queued up and podcast queued up and everything's scheduled and ready to go so if you're thoughtful you got to be ahead of the game and you got to really set yourself up to succeed because that's the one thing is that like you said if you just wait until the wait until inspiration comes it won't come it's not gonna cook forever yeah so you have to just make sure that you keep going has there been advice that you've received early on that really stuck with you or advice it that continues to you continue to go back to yeah so many but the one that sticks out the most is um and I learned it in like a business class - it was take the biggest risks when you're young and and the youngest you'll ever be is right now tomorrow will be a day older right so you're right because as you get older there's just more and more responsibilities and burdens and so I like I heard this when I was in college and that's one of the sayings that motivated me to just like start the channel just just go for the life I wanted even though it was a big risk but if I'm not gonna do it now like what am I gonna wait till I'm 32 started like you know like you might as well just start now it's it's I think riskier to not go after it way yeah you know what I mean imagine living a life that you are not just fully inspired by yeah how many days can you put in a job that you just hate but you have to because now you have real life responsibilities yeah it's not gonna be easy I feel you're gonna be you're gonna work way harder in the beginning then you will at the end I know early on it was I would be taking the subway late at night train stations through really bad areas to film weddings and bar mitzvahs and all the stuff that wasn't right now like I'm glad I did it then and there was a part to it that I loved but it was certainly a grind you're not making any money and when you're young you have you're more able to find and you're willing to do those shady jobs here and there like we've all done like things that I don't know I just you wouldn't do now but you did it because you were young and yeah that was the time for it right and I think that's just another reason why you should start as soon as possible and if you're listening to this and you're forty years old it's not too late young get started now if people want to connect with you online what where's the best place to go okay so you can probably check me out on youtube so my name is lavender i also have a website lavender calm so you can see my youtube and my podcast there as well as follow on my other social media cool thank you so much for doing the podcast thank you she is for listening to the ground up sure for more info mosey on over to ground-up show calm and as always stay true blue your selfie

Channel: Matt D'Avella

Views: 233,472

Rating: 4.9055858 out of 5

Keywords: behind the scenes, creative, creator, creators, documentary, film, filmmaker, filmmaking, freelance, freelance life, freelancer, hustle, declutter, lifestyle, lifestyle design, minimalism, minimalist, simple living, simplicity, create, get started, ground up, make, matt davella, matt d'avella, podcast, podcasting, start, the ground up show

Id: xen_Kx4sFlI

Length: 68min 37sec (4117 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 04 2018