Streamers and Creators - Beware of the Rise and Grind Mentality, Part 1

A "grind mentality" can be positive if its the mindset of working hard, consistently, and persevering through obstacles and setbacks. This can be a positive approach to content creation if it drives you to produce high-quality and engaging content on a regular basis.

However, if you adopt a "grind mentality" that prioritizes quantity over quality, or if you become so focused on consistently producing content that you burn out or neglect other aspects of your life, it can have negative consequences. It's important to maintain a healthy balance and not let your content creation goals consume you.

In general, it's better to focus on creating meaningful and valuable content that your audience will appreciate, rather than just churning out a high volume of content for the sake of it. Your audience is more likely to engage with and return to your content if they perceive it as high-quality and enjoyable, rather than just a grind.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

How you grow, how do you get to levels of success in content creation are very similar to how you grow in every in anything else, where you need to have consistency and patience, and you have to put in hard work and you have to have a plan to grow here. You have to do all of those things to be successful in just about any other aspect of life, any other thing that you want to do. Welcome to Down the Rabbit Hole, a podcast for creators, where we stream live every Wednesday, 8 p.m. on Twitter Spaces. This is a big problem that plagues a lot of streamers. You get a little bit of taste for what you're doing, you have an idea where you want to go, and you start to have a little bit of a success. Maybe you make affiliate within a couple weeks, and you can start to see that light. You start to get more and more people, but then you find you hit a little lull. So you kind of double down and you stream five times as much as you were. Everything you can do to try to grow. And before you know it, you are starting to get burnt out because you can see that light at the end of the tunnel, but it doesn't seem to get any closer no matter how hard you work, so you keep working. And now you find yourself in a grind. And that's what we're gonna talk about tonight. How to change the narrative of the grind mindset to an elevated mindset. There's a little intro. Tyflerin, how are you doing tonight, sir?

SPEAKER_01: 1:22

I'm feeling very productive and accomplished.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25

This topic is a pretty good one, and I want to get your your take on it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31

Yeah, absolutely. And I remember bringing this up to you last week, and in reference to one of your previous TikToks that really struck a chord with me. In that TikTok, uh, you said uh to any uh experienced or aspiring streamers and content creators out there to be patient and trust the process, and that this is really a long journey that you have to be 100% uh in on. And uh essentially what you said there with especially with patience, that's the thing uh that I want to highlight over the whole grind uh mindset as well. And I think that's that what you said in that TikTok is all part of having an elevated mindset rather than the grind mindset of like banging your head against the wall. Oh, this topic was brought up because I was thinking about what you said in a previous uh TikTok that you posted about trusting the process and being patient. And the emphasis that I want to focus on is patience. And that's the thing too, is uh with the grind mindset, it's essentially kind of like banging your head against the wall while you and your previous TikTok were was preaching like uh taking breaks uh when necessary and uh not to feel down on yourself when uh you aren't making the gains or traction uh in streaming and content creation.

SPEAKER_00: 3:02

The streaming journey, the content creation journey, right? We can talk about both because there is there's a lot of work to do to get suc levels of success. I think people get a little bit uh they focus a little bit too much on the those quick success stories. People that were able to or the people that were able to grow without uh going through all the steps that myself and and uh other people that do what I do preach. Um and they think that that's all they have to do. And when they realize that there's a lot more that goes into it for the other 99.99% of people um they uh become very impatient. They try a few things, and when they don't work out immediately, uh they go ahead and either declare that it it was BS, that it's not gonna work, and they just stop doing it. Um but this is a journey, just like anything else. It takes time to be good. Um, I have done some very good things in my my life, um, at a job, in in various other activities, but they all took practice. They all took practice on a you know, a lot of activities that you do, they say that you have to do them for like what 10,000 hours. That was a big thing when I was a developer, software developer, is you had to do it for 10,000 hours, so essentially five years before you could be considered not municipal an expert, but you know, um very proficient. Five years to be very good at writing code. Um, and there's a lot of activities like that. But if you're not patient, if you don't teach yourself how to be patient and to trust what you're reading, trust the proven advice that you read or that you hear, you're going to find that nothing's gonna work out for you, and you're probably just gonna end up quitting.

SPEAKER_01: 4:52

Right. And I think that's the issue I have with the grind mindset, especially on your very last point when you mentioned that you run the risk of potentially quitting. Um that's the thing, is like you're you're like kind of like uh pounding your head against the wall, like uh I define the grind mindset. And it's sent uh I'll even uh pull up uh this quote here too. Um the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the exact expecting a different outcome and result. And that's uh that's something that ties into the grind mindset. And instead, we should be using the an elevated mindset to innovate ourselves as creators if something isn't working, experiment and branch out and try something new. The worst that could happen is uh you get uh the same or less result, and it's back to the drawing board.

SPEAKER_00: 5:48

You're talking about the elevated mindset, and I think one thing that I've learned in my time doing content creation is when I first got into it and it seemed like a black box, like I mean, I don't understand all this stuff, there's a lot to learn. Um, how do you grow? Da-da-da-da. There are some specific things to this um industry, to content creation, that are are unique to it. But how you how you grow, how you get to levels of success in content creation are very similar to how you grow in ever and anything else, where you need to have consistency and patience, and you have to put in hard work and you have to have a plan to grow here, you have to do all of those things to be successful in just about any other aspect of life, any other thing that you want to do. So, really, this this elevated mindset is uh understanding that there is no shortcut and that you have to put in the work, but it doesn't have to be a grind. If you know the playbook, if you understand the process that you need to follow, it's not a grind. You're just going through the steps that you need to do and you're being patient, understanding that sometimes things are not gonna go your way, and that you have to readjust, or your your interest might change a bit, and you have to readjust. But it doesn't have to be a grind, it's only a grind when you don't know what you're doing and you're impatient.

SPEAKER_01: 7:09

100%. And I think that's the thing too, is having that balance between optimism and saying, I know I can I have the capabilities of doing this, but also setting yourself realistic circumstances of uh looking uh at the environment around and saying, like, oh hey, like I have to commit some time to my full-time job while also doing streaming and content creation on the side. Maybe there's gonna be some days where work will uh inevitably get in the way, unfortunately, uh, but that's uh just the reality of it. But still keeping in the back of your mind that uh this is uh something that I'm passionate about, and maybe like I can't dedicate it as much time uh today uh as I would like to, but in the long run, I'll still have this in my vision.

SPEAKER_00: 8:03

You know, one thing that has always always worked for me, um, and it took me a long time to get to this point, and that's why honestly, on the side note, that's why I love doing this so much, why I love coaching, why I love uh mentoring, why I love being uh, you know, a related note, why I love being a father, because I have learned so many things in my life. I have been through a lot of failures to get to various successes, and I love being able to share with people the things that I've learned, so hopefully they don't have to go through the same struggles that I did. And whether that is streaming content creation, whether or being an adult and teaching my kids how to do stuff, there's an advantage that I feel I have that I can help people. And on this particular one, understanding that I know that I can be successful because I want to be successful and because I know the steps that it's going to take. I don't wake up every morning wondering if I can be successful. I wake up every morning saying, When am I gonna be successful? It's not a matter of if. Because I know the steps and I know the process, and I and I'm trusting that process, but I'm not trusting it blindly, and you shouldn't either. The same as I tell everybody, don't just listen to every word that I say, don't just listen to every word that Ty Flo says, don't just listen to any word, every word that Harris Heller says, take them in, evaluate, see if they fit for your situation, and then try to apply them. And if you find at some point after you've you've given it, you know, a sufficient amount of time and you know how much effort you're putting into waiting, and you find it's not quite what you thought, then you tweak it. You don't throw it away, you don't have to start over, you tweak it.

SPEAKER_01: 9:49

Absolutely. I like how on that point when you said adjusting and tweaking it to your personal schedule and your personal life too. I'll that's I'll even reference what Stribe said in a previous down the rabbit hole episode with you. Um, that there's no real cookie-cutter solution or one size fits all to content creation, because if there was, everyone uh would be doing uh exactly what Harris Heller or Devin Nash or like even Ninja. I I'm uh looking at some of the notes that I have right now uh to define what hustle culture is, it means putting work in or a career above everything else, any second spent resting is wasted time. And my question for you is what is your thought on that definition of hustle culture and especially how the second point that any time spent uh outside of that work or career is uh considered wasted time, how that could uh be harmful, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:51

It absolutely can be harmful because that puts somebody in a mentality of you know that they can't stop, that they have to constantly be pushing themselves, and anything less than 100% is essentially zero. It's a very binary mindset, and that is not going to be helpful to you mentally or growth-wise in the long run. You need to be patient with yourself, you need to understand your limits mentally and physically as you're trying to go through this. Do not try to do subathons every single week, do not try to do 24-hour streams every single week. You will burn yourself out. Understand what you have to do and understand your limits.

SPEAKER_01: 11:34

And uh to add on to your points, I'm looking at some of the other um notes here from the article. And quote uh, to quote it as well, you might be on a mission to break the glass ceiling, feel like you're in a competition with your peers, um, and that you might uh feel like you have to rush to get a deadline uh done when really there's not necessarily any deadlines to streaming and content creation, because it does come down to subjectiveness, like uh eventually we'll achieve like uh our goals or similar goals to our peers and uh streamers that we look up to. It's just a matter of when we achieve them, uh, get like like you we talked about before, with given our current circumstances or the environment around us. So I think one of my main issues with hustle culture and the grind mentality is that it paints the picture of content creation as a competition when it should be almost like a collaborative storytelling, which is essentially what we're doing right now with this podcast.

SPEAKER_00: 12:43

And when we say patience, you know, obviously we've been saying that all night here, what's gonna determine when you're gonna be successful in is yes, your patience, but also the level of of effort that goes into it. Now, that doesn't mean you need to grind, it means you need to understand that you know it's not going to I we can't tell you if it's gonna be uh a week, a month, a year, ten years. You don't really know. Every circumstance is different. The level of success that everybody is going to achieve is going to be different. And for me to say otherwise, for me to say that every single content creator is going to be as popular as ninja or make as much money as XQC would be absolutely disingenuous. It is not possible for that to happen. But the way that you can continue on doing this without feeling like you're in a grind is to, as we said before, set a realistic goal for yourself. And I don't just mean I want to hit you know uh 50 C C V this year. I mean a long a realistic long-term goal. What would you consider to be something that would what would you consider to be a success for you? Right? What would you consider to be a success for you? And then you want to set your goals to that, and then you want to get a process, a strat my thing just go out, a process, a strategy behind that, and start working towards it. Now, you don't need to be impatient because now you know where you want to go. And now, because you have your process and a strategy set up and you have a realistic longer-term goal that you want to achieve, it's not necessarily a grind, you're just going through your steps, you're going through your process. So how it all really just comes full circle.

SPEAKER_01: 14:22

Uh, to really go down the rabbit hole on uh this being like a part of the process and to set realistic goals for yourself. That's the thing that we talked about in previous episodes of Down the Rabbit Hole is that growth as a content creator is not going to be linear or constantly like gaining uh viewers every single day or like uh gaining a follow every day. But understanding and accepting that setbacks or even plateaus uh are simply a part of the process, uh, and that I'll even uh give this as like a hot take for streamers and content creators out there that stagnation should be embraced and maybe use that as something to learn from.

SPEAKER_00: 15:06

Um, and you are going to hit stagnation, and you are going to hit that in everything. Content creation, whether you're streaming or whatever you're doing, isn't unique from that standpoint. Every path, every growth, everyone's journey of growth is going to be different, and your pace of growth is not going to be the same. It's not going to be the same. You're going to have some really great periods of time where you're growing fast, and then you're going to have periods of time where it may feel like you're going backwards. But as long as you're doing what you need to do, you need to trust that process that you're going to get there. You need to trust that. Don't be blind if you see yourself going backwards for a long period of time, but trust the process you're going to get there. You have to have belief, you have to have faith in yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 15:49

I believe so too. Okay. Um, there was one question I wanted to ask of yourself and also um our listeners here in chat. What what would your reaction be if some or how would you respond if someone said I respected your grind or I respected your hustle? While we know that they mean that um in good nature and that they that a lot of the time they genuinely mean it. The fact that we're talking about grind and hustle culture and how it's harmful, how would you react to it, or how would you educate them on saying, like, hey, thank you for the kind words, but also here's uh like the reality of it, or instead of saying this, let's have a discussion about an elevated mindset.

SPEAKER_00: 16:34

Thanks so much for hanging out, everybody. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to like and share the podcast. Don't forget we are here every Wednesday on Twitter Spaces at 8 p.m. If you have a comment or an idea for a future episode, make sure to drop us an email at downtherabbithole at elevated.media. Thanks, have a great day.