Streamers and Creators - Beware of the Rise and Grind Mentality, Part 2

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

Most people out there want the prize, but they don't want the process. So that's something that I hope our listeners can take home and think through tonight.

SPEAKER_01: 0:10

Welcome to Down the Rabbit Hole, a podcast for creators, where we stream live every Wednesday, 8 p.m. on Twitter Spaces. Yeah, I've I've heard that uh far too often where people have said that to me, that they they respect the grind, they expect that they respect the work that uh I put in. I often tell them, well, don't try to do what I'm doing. Because what tolerance level I have for the amount of work that I put in is not necessarily the tolerance level that you have to put the work in. The things that I sacrifice to get done what I do are not necessarily things that you should sacrifice to get done what you want to see. While I appreciate the sentiment, and you should also appreciate the sentiment if people say it to you, you need to caution them that again, this is a very individual thing, and what works for some people is not going to work for another person. And when you're saying that to someone, you're basically, I feel like the person is saying to themselves, Wow, that person is really pushing a lot harder than me. I suck in comparison, and I need to do more. I need to be more like them. No, you need to be who you are, you need to work within whatever time frame available you have. You need to work at the pace that is comfortable for you. You need to stay within your physical and mental boundaries because otherwise you're going to be setting yourself up for failure.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34

Um, and since uh there's like a couple of new people who joined too, I would wanted to bring up this question again on like how they would define grind mentality or hustle culture. Um, and to also bring up the question like, do they see that as harmful as we are saying right now? But uh this other um speaker or uh this these other points are referenced by uh April Wilson, um chair of the preventative medicine department um at Loma Linda University, and uh to quote her, she said, hustle culture is about being human rather about being human doing rather than actually being a human being, which is dangerous in many ways. And to decipher that, quote, um the whole hustle culture and grind culture is like keep uh like just you have to just do it to uh as much uh as silly as it seems to like quote Shia LaBeouf on that, you're doing rather than actually like taking uh steps back and uh like understanding and uh appreciating like how far you've come uh as a creator.

SPEAKER_01: 2:47

Yeah, I saw um Cody Cody Riffs had a a TikTok today, but one of his resolutions it was that you know essentially it's okay to take a break, it's okay to take time, and he's absolutely right. You know, myself, you know, I preach consistency. I tell people all the time that they need to be consistent with their schedule, be consistent with their posting and all this stuff. And if that's the only part of my message you hear, then you could start working yourself to death. If you listen to the entire message, it's you need to be consistent unless you're not capable of doing it, unless you're just going through a rough patch. And then it's quite alright to take a break for however long you need to take a break. And uh the common uh pushback against taking breaks is that it's gonna take you longer to uh recover, you're going to lose some momentum, you're gonna lose some followers, you're gonna lose some this and that. And I don't like to sugarcoat things, and you might, but that's okay. Because when you started with this journey, you had zero followers, and now you're at wherever you are, you had zero people watching you stream, and now you're at wherever you are. You can work your way back to whatever point you're at, no matter how long of a break you take. I, if I stop streaming and stop creating content tomorrow, and I did not pick it up again for three years, and I came back, and every single follower that is on every single platform is no longer around, right? I could work my way back from that because two and a half two plus years ago when I started, I had no TikTok account, I had no Twitter account, I had no Twitch account, and then I were but I worked my way up, right? So it doesn't matter how long you take, it doesn't matter how much momentum you lose, when you need to take a break, you can get it back.

SPEAKER_00: 4:48

And you made a tweet uh previously that I would like to reference uh to support everything that you just said too. Um I think it was in response to someone who said uh that uh that was in support of grind culture and hustle mentality. You specifically said that um uh you may uh be uh can constantly and consistently like doing it like the next few streams or like posting the next videos, but we don't want to lose you in the long run. And I think that's the thing too with an elevated mindset, is that having that over the grind mentality, knowing when to take breaks, being self-aware and understanding uh your needs, your individualistic needs uh will keep you creating and keep you streaming in the long run rather than just saying, like, oh, I have to do this uh stream today, or I have to post uh like uh this video by tomorrow, um, because uh those uh those things will lead to burnout and will make you want to like uh quit uh like potentially quit in the long run.

SPEAKER_01: 5:57

People aren't meant to put in the some of the level of work that they do. So they're they're simply not. It is not feasible to work yourself to death. To work and just work and just work, push and then push and push. You will you know, but once again, people will see those examples of people that they do work constantly. And I in and some people they see what I do as somebody that puts in all this work, and if he can do it, I can do it.

SPEAKER_00: 6:24

It really is. And also, I noticed a comment from Bullet Club here. Um, 100% breaks are easier and less damaging to your accounts, your follows, and goals due to what is known as goldfish attention practice. They will forget and move on, but like a goldfish, it becomes new again, and you can regain that attention back. And that is incredibly accurate. And I'll even open up and uh uh briefly talk about some personal stories with uh um several viewers who found me uh through TikTok or Insta Reels too. Um that well, let's uh be honest uh that most TikTok users like Bullet Club uh mentioned have goldfish or hamster attention spans. Um and maybe like they don't uh come back for like a stream or two, but then uh they'll they will come back eventually. It's like, oh hey, uh I'm I'm glad that you're still doing this in the long run. Um I've had I've had multiple instances of that too, where um people uh that found me through TikTok, maybe they miss a stream or two, but uh um knowing myself as a creator when I do take breaks, even if it means canceling a stream, and then it's a great feeling when they come back and say, like, oh hey, sorry I haven't been here for a while, or like I'm glad to see that you're still like streaming and posting the videos too.

SPEAKER_01: 7:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:53

Um that that ties into like what you and I are striving for to keep doing this for for the long run.

SPEAKER_01: 8:01

Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes you can you need to change things up, you know, you don't have to stop, but you need to slow down, right? You can sometimes you can get that mental break without even stopping. So, for instance, you know, I've got tired of streaming three, four days a week for as long as I've been doing it. I used to stream when I first started, I've been doing this, I've been streaming for a little just over two years. When I first started doing it for the first six months, I streamed five days a week, and then I cut that down to four because I was tired. And then I had like I don't I had a very bad experience uh at s at one point, and I decided I have to cut down to three days. I cannot do four days anymore, and that worked out really well. I got to the point um a couple months ago where I realized with the way that things are going for me and things that I'm trying to do, even three days was going to be too much because it was I can't possibly add um allocate any more of my personal time to growing, so I had to make changes. So I cut down to one day a week streaming. And I there was I had a lot of apprehension doing that, a lot of anxiety doing I'm like, oh my god, people are gonna forget that I exist because it's only one day a week. Um, there were other people well well-intentioned saying, you know, you're going to limit your financial growth because you're cutting out so much of your uh time that you're visible. But it was necessary, it was a necessary thing to do. Um, I've only a couple weeks into it. Um well it remains to be seen how how it's going to go, but you know, it was something I needed to do in order to grow other other areas. So I'm slowing, I've slowed down and I don't regret it. I do not regret it. I feel a lot better about it.

SPEAKER_00: 9:42

To uh support your decision too, you're still uh you're still visible on pretty much all platforms, so no one is necessarily forgetting about uh you as well. And I think that's the thing too, is as a streamer, it's um important, it's just as important, if not even more so, to be present on uh um every platform out there than Twitch itself. It is one thing, and I'll even um reference uh what Dom from Evil Media said uh to really question yourself on where you're putting and allocating your time into. It's uh it's easy to be flexible to be present on like Twitter or even TikTok, like uh posting uh and uh editing a video like uh given like the amount of time throughout the day. When you're live streaming, you are essentially locked in and strapped into Twitch for like a solid three, four hours, depending on uh your stream schedule.

SPEAKER_01: 10:47

Um yeah, it's it's it's it's a lot, you know. Um in fact, I mean if we're just if I'm just gonna talk strictly about the you know the time, you know, there was um I had uh Dom the Exploder Coles on the podcast a couple weeks, a couple months ago, and he said that as a streamer you need to stream less and create more. You should limit yourself to a couple days a week a few days a week streaming, um, or when more importantly, don't stream more than a few hours at a time. Now I know there are probably people on here that stream more, or anyone listening to the stream more than that, and they stream five, six, seven, eight hours every single time that they're that they're live, and that is not necessarily good. Even people who are partners and they're full-time streamers, so they're on there all of the time. There's a lot more to growth than streaming. There's a lot more to your growth as streaming, whether or not you want to be someone who's a YouTuber or not, there's a lot more that you need to do, and you can't possibly stream for six hours a day and still get everything else you do and expect it to be of good quality. You have to understand uh you need to understand everything you need to do and the amount of time that that takes, how much time you have available, and then allocate your time in a way that allows you to get the best quality for each part of that without sacrificing you know your your health in the interim.

SPEAKER_00: 12:18

Absolutely. And especially now that you mentioned that you don't want to sacrifice your well-being as not just a streamer, but as an individual, that segues into you know our next point here rest as hard as you work. And to quote the article, self-care isn't a commodity to be earned, but because hustle hulch uh hustle culture treats it as such, we're burning out an alarming rate. Um, what are your thoughts about that? Is that something that uh you agree with? Because uh at least from from my personal perspective, when I'm scrolling through streamer Twitter, streamer TikTok, and I've lately been coming across people saying, like, oh hey, I'm you know like taking a pretty long break from streaming or like uh quitting altogether. I do agree with that point, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01: 13:08

Yeah, so I can and I can tell you it's it's I took uh about two weeks off right around the holidays. Um it was not intentioned. Exactly. I was gonna stream less, but I ended up streaming nothing, and I didn't post much on Twitter, and I didn't post many TikToks. Um I wasn't invisible, but I didn't post much. And I had a point, if you're in my Discord, you know this, um, where I was posting the Discord a little more often, kind of just when opening up to people. And there was a point about a week and a half into after I'd missed like four streams where I'm like, guys, I don't miss it. And that was scary to me. Right? I don't I don't miss it. Um and what that told me was I'm freaking tired. I'm freaking tired. Um and uh I knew that I wasn't ready to come back. I think I announced I was gonna come back two or three times before I actually did. And it wasn't until you know I woke up one morning and I'm like, I really want to stream that I realized okay, now I'm ready. Now I'm ready to do it. And I work very hard. I I am someone who is very competitive and I am determined to be successful doing this. And sometimes to to my detriment, but I needed that time off to realize where I needed to prioritize myself. I don't need to be the best at everything. I just need to do what I can within my own limits and accept that you know um where I'm going to find that spot where I'm comfortable, I feel successful, and I'm not burnt out.

SPEAKER_00: 14:47

Right. I really like that you took the time to give yourself self-care and to also essentially re-energize. I know you and I have spoken about how we like both of us have social batteries that there's only so much that we can give as streamers. Yeah. And to also bring up another point that supports your decision morph. Instead, look at self-care as a long and overdue debt that you owe to yourself, and more importantly, use it as a reminder that you're worth being cared for, and that sometimes you do have to quote unquote slow down to keep up.

SPEAKER_01: 15:21

One of the hardest pieces of when you're when you're in a grind, when you're ever when you're or even something like when you're uh dealing with anxiety or you're you're feeling depressed, is we don't always realize it. We don't realize that we're in those modes. So there's a it takes a lot to s to understand how you feel when you're when you're in those kind of states. And you need to train yourself to recognize that. And if you can do that, then you're halfway there to getting past it. Um and I'm I'm speaking from experience, you know, I was um I've been pretty open that. I have seen therapists on and off over the years, and I was working with one recently within the last year who finally taught me how to recognize when I'm really feeling anxious. And for me, it was I feel something physiologically. I like I can now recognize when um I'm having trouble concentrating, when I feel my heart rate increasing, um that I'm probably starting to generate an awful lot of anxiety, and uh when that happens, I need to re I need to sort of pause think about what it is I'm feeling anxious about, and then uh determine whether or not it's a real thing that I need to work on and uh kind of go from there. But getting past these these moments of how you're feeling is definitely important, and I would strongly encourage you if you have constant issues to to reach out to a professional. This should be fun. No matter how hard you're working at it, no matter how bad you want it or whatever it is you're going for, if you're not having fun, if you're not enjoying what you're doing, then you should not be doing it because you won't be able to maintain it for long. Yeah, we want a lot of people want to do the content creation for a career because they don't like their nine to five. If you start noting not to like content creation, uh where does that leave you? Where does it leave you? And given how hard it is to grow, if you start disliking it, that's when you're gonna quit. So get if you start getting to a point where it's just not fun, find some way to change up what you're doing. Because it won't be long before you quit if you don't.

SPEAKER_00: 17:49

Absolutely. And one of my final words for tonight's session is that most people out there want the prize, but they don't want the process. So that's something that I hope our listeners can take home and think through tonight.

SPEAKER_01: 18:05

The last thing I'll I will mention is trust the process, understand what you want to achieve, understand how you can get there, start on that path, be patient, and trust the process. Don't move faster than you need to, and don't put yourself in the position where you feel like you're unsuccessful because it's not happening as fast as you want it to. It's happening as fast as it's supposed to. 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 downtherabbit hole at elevated.media. Thanks. Have a great day.