How Small Creators Actually Start Making Money

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Hey team, welcome to Small Creator Big World. I'm Bav. And I'm Becky. And this is a space for us to chat about everything about being a small creator on the internet. And in this episode, we're going to dive a little bit into why we all started putting ourselves online in the first place, and that is money. Just kidding. It's not just that. It is also an avenue for creative expression. But in order to do this for the long run and make this sustainable, we do need a little bit of cash coming in. Yes, completely agree. Okay.
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And in very exciting news and very linked news, today's episode is sponsored by Good Work, which is over here, but very blurred. But we will be pulling books out so you can see for those who are watching on YouTube. But basically, Good Work is one of our favorite books, I think, by one of our favorite people, Paul Millard, who is phenomenal. Actually, I was just recommending both of his books the other day.
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But yeah, I think this is very apt for this conversation. But we will come back to that in a bit. And I will unblur the books because what's the point of a sponsorship when you can't see them? But I promise you they are both proudly displayed. Paul's first book, The Pathless Path, and his second, Good Work. And they will continue to stay displayed because they are phenomenal.
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But yes, more on that in a bit. Let's kick off. Becky, tell us what you've been up to since last time. Oh my gosh. Since last time, I believe we were talking about me about to do this crazy fitness thing called High Rocks, which is not new anymore. I believe like half the world is aware of it or knows someone who has done it. And I was just in a
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actually in my gym the other day and they're trying to get tickets for Singapore and it's like lining up for a concert where you are actually placed in a queue which is madness so I'm so glad that I did it it's out of my system I did my third women's doubles with a time of one hour 40 minutes which is not great but um I'm sorry sorry sorry hang on hang on yes yes yes it is
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Oh no! You know, third time hybrid rockstar. Yeah, three time hybrid rockstar. Yeah, an hour and 40 minutes where I think an hour of it was running. And it's just my weakest, weakest thing. I do not enjoy running. But my high-risk partner and I decided that we were going to take it at a real slow running pace. So actually the stations felt so much easier for us to whiz through. We were not panting, we were not
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like super tired or wanted to give up halfway which is what we experienced in bangkok where we i literally wanted to give up like a third into the race so this one was real easy super fun um and ended up with the same time so it's like one of those things where as long as you take it easy and chill it does end up being okay okay
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Agreed. That's a lesson for life. Oh, yeah. There's always, I think, was it Derek Sivers that wrote that piece about when you enjoy the bike ride, you end up only being like 4% slower or something? It's crazy, right? It's like, take the scenic route. Yeah, take the scenic route. Enjoy.
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Yeah, enjoy the journey. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No, I agree. I agree. What have you been reading? Oh, yeah. I have been reading Ocean Vuong's book, The Emperor of Gladness. And it's very calm.
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compared to his first book, On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous, which was heavy, gripping, and a story that still stays with me quite a lot. And this one is just very calm, very serene, but it is very, very poetic and very Ocean style. Ocean has just such a gentle way of using words and
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just his lexicon and just everything in general i think he's brilliant um but i've been doing it as a bedtime read and currently my brain power is a little bit too slow to process all of the poetic descriptions i mean it comes in waves sometimes i'm in the mood for it uh but lately i've just been in the mood for like something super straightforward so i switched over um to some non-fiction
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What the hell? Who goes? I'm going to bed. I need something really simple. Oh, let me pick up non-fiction. Yeah. It makes no sense. Okay. So non-fiction, right? It's always segmented off into different sections. It's always usually little tiny frameworks. So you can read it chunk by chunk, whereas a novel or fiction is just continuous. So you miss a little bit. You're just like, well, I just kind of lost the plot. And it's like...
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Okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah. I disagree. But I see what you're saying. Yeah. Or at least that's how my brain works. Your brain works. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I need really easy fiction before bed. Low stakes. Not because like the nonfiction gets the brain whirring and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, ping, ping, ping idea. Yeah. Oh, but that's also the thing. We read very different fiction books. I tend to read the ones that are a little bit too poetic.
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A bit more sophisticated. No. Yes. Yes. Let's be very clear. I read crap and I'm okay with that. To be fair, this is why I split my fiction reading up though. So if I am reading something heavy or something a bit more like blah, blah, blah. That was a good description. Can you tell I read simple books? Then I will read that in like the morning or the afternoon or like the daytime. Pre-bed, I do not want to think. I do have two subsections of fiction book very specifically.
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Yeah, you are one of the most systematic people I know when it comes to reading. And then you have a particular criteria for whatever. So I only have two books open at one time, always. One fiction, one nonfiction, and that's it. And I just switch. So basically, if I'm switching from one nonfiction to another, I'm not parallel reading. I'm closing that one book. So I'm always only having two ongoing. Whereas you have, what, four books?
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Yes, potentially. Yes. But they're different genres. So it feels very different. So I'll have a light fiction and a bit more of a serious fiction. And then autobiographies or biographies are kind of in a different bucket. And then there's also a couple of different types of fiction. And then history is a different bucket. So there's lots of different...
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genres and they because i'm i'm a you're also a mood reader but like i'm a very like mood reader like i need to not just be in but i'm in the mood for a very specific type of book in even like throughout the day like when i wake up i'm like i want to learn not all the time but like that's that's when my brain is sharpest and it's like yeah that's when i want to pick up a because again there's different types of non-fiction but like the learning non-fiction um like that makes sense and then
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Like maybe at lunchtime I'm like, I don't want to learn, learn, but I also don't need to dip into a fiction because I don't want to get sucked into a story like in the middle of the day. But that's where like a biography or autobiography, like or memoir, I don't know the difference, but like that's where they come in or just like, so anyway...
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It depends. And I like the split between like the formats as well. This is so nerdy. But yeah, sometimes I just want an audio book. Sometimes I don't want to read myself because I'm just a little lazy. But at the same time, if I'm sitting on the sofa, then in the evening, I can't put on an audio book because then I'll just like fall asleep. So that's fair.
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Lots of things to think about in the world of reading. So whereas you're like, I actually love the simplicity of like, it's fiction or nonfiction, pick it up and read or don't. And you probably read about the same amount as me.
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We can pull our reading stats maybe at the end of the year. Because this wasn't nerdy enough. Yeah, to find. Because I also read in waves. Some months I can go through five or eight, and then some months I go through zero. Currently, I think... Well, you recommended me to read Robin Waite's Take Your Shot, which is a really short book. And I think I only took two days, two nights to finish it. And it's only reading before bed. So it's not even that I was actively...
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spending time to read the whole thing and then the second book that i'm currently reading is the youtube formula by daryl eves and this is a work hazard read um but we're always learning so that's what that's what i was reading that's what i would try to read um on the plane because i just came back from a 10-day trip to jakarta to visit my parents um
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And this is just something I try to do, a hard emphasis on try, I'm not trying very hard.
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Ideally, I would like to go back once a quarter and spend at least like a week, 10 days with them. I think this is like my new goal is to do that every single quarter, try to hit their birthdays, try to hit their anniversaries, try to hit like big family events. I think before it was a little bit harder when I was working in corporate and it was a little bit harder to take time off. But now that the working situation is a little bit more flexible, I'm sure I can make more trips back to see my parents.
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how it's it's gonna go because I moved here alone um 11 years ago and Jakarta's like a five-hour flight so I tried to do that I didn't take time off I don't know if that was the right decision or not I still think it's the right decision um because I feel like my parents just wanted me to be in their space but it's extremely hard to do work because like every five minutes they're just like Becky can I show you a video Becky do you want to try this food Becky we need to meet your grandma Becky we need to go see your aunt um
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But don't you love being at home? Oh, my God. But I, so my dad roast coffee and I get to have coffee on demand multiple times a day. So makes up for it completely. Yep. Yep. That's how they bribe you. They bribe you with coffee and with food. Uh-huh. Yeah, it's pretty good. So like swings and roundabouts, pros and cons. Pros and cons. Exactly. Kind of everything. But I, yeah. Yeah.
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And I do think it's the right balance to be working at the same time because it gives you that little bit of break because families can be intense, especially when you're going back once a quarter because then they need to fill all of the three months in one go. Yes, it's so overwhelming as if we don't call and we don't text.
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And they're just like, oh my god, we need to give you everything. I want to go. Yeah, so it's always really overwhelming, always really intense. And I would imagine me being there also really disrupts their routine because they're just trying to get me to do everything. Whereas ideally, I would love it if I could just exist for a week in calmness. Not that that is ever going to happen, but I don't know.
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Asian households, that doesn't exist. Asian households. Yeah. Not a thing. Not a thing. But one thing that I did enjoy doing, though, was I was doing this photography mentorship. And then one of my missions was to go and take portraits of different members of my family. So I think I might have done that. I specifically wanted one of my grandmother because she's a seamstress. And I sort of grew up seeing her.
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And sadly, this is not the house anymore that she was in because my family and I, I was born in a town called Sumarang and it's in central Java. But we have since relocated my grandparents closer to Jakarta to be closer to my parents and all of their families.
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daughters and sons because it's just easier to take them to doctor appointments and stuff but i did grow up like seeing her and her staff kind of just sewing clothes and using all these like really um old vintage looking sewing machines so um i was really happy to get some portraits of her doing that because i don't know if she has a photo with her sewing machine ever what yeah i i didn't think about it because it's not like
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Yeah, I don't know. Probably not. Damn. Yeah, because when I went back, it was like smartphones weren't really a thing. And you don't really take photos. Oh, man. Well, now she does. Now she does. And they were really good photos.
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I do not doubt that. You are an incredible photographer. I think that's actually so cool. So like good assignment. But also how nice is it to have all these pictures of your family? Oh, my God. It's so nice. It's so nice. Just to see them. I think there's like the thing where when you take a photograph or someone, I think the saying is like, it's as if you're seeing that person through the photographer's eyes. And I feel like I just really get to.
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capture my family through my eyes. Oh, and what was also cool was like, my trip overlapped with both my mom and dad participating in like a local craft fair. So it's like,
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It's like local artisan fair, local craft fair. But basically, they only allow the craftspeople themselves to showcase their products. So even if you're like a retailer and you're showcasing local artists, you're not allowed to participate. You need to actually have made the product. So my mom showcased her bags.
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And her sort of purses and goods. And my dad showcased his coffee. And it was just really cool to see those two in action. Because, oh my God. Yeah, they are both. They're both entrepreneurs. That's just the household I grew up in. That's very, very cool. Yeah, I like that. And then you got to take more pictures.
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Yes, I did. I got to be all annoying and take super pictures with my super loud film camera. So the whole world knows that I'm taking a shot. Nice. As it should. No, that's cool. I guess that kind of
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It sneakily leads me on to like, so I read, so I hope blooms the five types of wealth. And I guess that whole, was that one of the prompts? I feel like I remember you saying of like going back a bit more often because he's, he's, he, so I think it's, I think it's at the beginning of the book, but I've heard it a times thing.
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The 15 times? Yeah, I've heard it before. So basically, it's like, so, okay, forget the context. But the gist of it is, is basically how many more times will you see your parents in your life? And if you're only seeing them once a year, and you know, based on how old they are, it's just like, he realized that actually, because they lived on opposite sides of the country, that he was only going to see them 15 more times. Like, that must really bloody hit. Because...
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Oh, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. And then so he moved closer to them. And I guess I'm pretty lucky at the mind of like 30 minutes away. So I've probably seen him 15 times in the next couple of months. But well, touch wood. So...
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cool that you get to go back. And yes, but that doesn't mean there isn't this fine balance of like, like families are still in tents and you still want to show up for them and you still want to see them, but you also don't want to leave. Yeah. So it's a very hard thing. I know. I've just kind of accepted that I'm just going to be in this limbo forever. Like every time I go back to see them, I will both want to be there and also get annoyed that my routine gets disrupted. And then when I come back here, um,
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I will both be sad that I'm leaving and also like relieved that I get to go back to my routine. And I think it's just going to like, it's not one or the other. I think before I used to like pendulum swing between the two. Now I'm just like, you know what? These two feelings are just going to coexist. And that's just what it's going to be every single time.
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Yeah, I like that. Actually, I think even accepting that will make it easier over time. Yeah. Because I think when you resist, it's just like, oh, but it's like, hang on, I'm, I'm just going to and you can still do things like, hey, I'm still going to work or, you know, I'm just going to shut the door for like four hours. Like, just give me give me a little bit. When you resist, it's going to be hard. Someone's going to therapy.
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It's such therapy speak. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's working. I don't like it. Make it stop. Make it stop. I don't want to be one of those people. Oh, God. But yeah, what did you think of the Sahil book, though? So because I, after I read that, that's when I bought tickets to see my parents in March. Literally, after I read that story.
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But I think, you know something, I think that could be the biggest takeaway for a lot of people. And I think if that's all they get from that book or this clip or whatever, wherever they see it, that's actually huge. I think there is the book I thought was, no, sorry. The book I thought was very average, three kind of five stars vibe. I think the first, so he has these five pitas.
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And I'm not going to remember all of them, but like time... Social time, wealth, financial, health. Beautiful. Thank you. It's not like I've just read the book. And I think, yeah, there's the first kind of half or the first 30% to 40% of the book is good and then it kind of tails off. Not that saying it's not good points, but it's kind of a little bit weaker. But...
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Is it worth a read? I don't know. Right. It's a really easy read. It's a very straightforward read. And which, I don't know if this is like what the average 2025 reader would want. Because it reads like 20 blog posts is how I see it. Which is also a way that like,
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Psychology of Money is written like that. Same as Ever, also by Morgan Housel, is written like that. And I feel like that's the new nonfiction way of reading. It's a compilation of blog posts that kind of has a thorough line. That's actually a very good point, which I don't actually mind, because I like it when it's broken down and simple and all of that jazz. I just felt the second half of the book was weaker in terms of the points. I was kind of like...
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But also I could not be the target audience, right? Like if I look at some areas, I could be like, cool, you're telling me stuff that I already know. But maybe I'm getting, I wonder if you're the same. Maybe we're getting to that point because we've been in this world for so long that we are just, it is the, whereas somebody coming to that fresh is, so maybe, yeah, maybe I'm a little jaded in this world. So I accept that.
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In that case, I think everyone should read a thing. Even if you take one thing away from a book, I think it's still worth reading a book. Oh, yeah. 100%. Audiobook it if you just don't want to listen to it.
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Anyway, we digress. Yeah. So you've been having a completely different month compared to last month, like tempo wise, intensity wise. You're not exactly working a full time job, but you're doing a lot more than a full time job. So where, what has been going on?
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Yes, I will caveat all of the above by saying that I probably make it sound like I'm doing a lot more because I just complain a lot. This is false. She's been doing a lot, guys. A lot. This is, this is, this is, I don't think this is true, but okay. I'll let you guys be the judge of this. So you're right. Yes, last month I was still, I think when we recorded, I was coming to the end of this.
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the three-month sabbatical, which people are probably bored of hearing about. So don't worry. We're not talking about that anymore. We're done. So we got back into work about three weeks ago, in fact, as of recording. So at the beginning of the month, we were like, okay, it's time to figure some stuff out. And I was still going to use August to figure stuff out, which I am clearly doing. So it's not like I needed to make money this month.
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So what I needed to do was at least have a plan. And then basically, I kind of, I didn't quite say yes to everything, but I was almost saying yes to everything because I was like, yeah, lots of things I could do here. And there's only one way to find out if I can do them.
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Yeah. And this is not even like, even like pre-August, you've been talking to people and helping a bunch of people doing a bunch of things. I've lost track personally on like what you've been doing. Can you talk a little bit about that? Wow. How rude. How are you not keeping on top of this? Girl, you're doing so much. Okay. I do not think I do a lot. You're right. In sabbatical, I was still talking to people because A, I like yapping and talking to cool people.
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No, that was it. There is no bait. It's nice to talk to cool people. You like yapping and you like setting systems up for people. I think you talk to people and you're like, oh my God, I can build a notion for you. Or like, oh my God, I can build a spreadsheet for you and automation for you. This is like your reflex almost.
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It's true. It's true. I think the thing is, if I can help someone, I'm just like, why the hell not? Yeah, you just can't help it. I can't help but helping people. Yeah. OK. OK. I have a weakness. OK. I just maybe there's some some kind of thing in there. I'll talk about it in therapy. I'll bring that one up. What is what is wrong with me?
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But no, I just like, you know, when you know you have the skills or that makes it sound so douchey, but you know, when you actually have something to offer and like someone's like, I don't know this. I think there is an element of actually like, I also see that in other people. Like I wouldn't hesitate to ask anybody if I, if I could have their help on it. And whilst I'm not expecting anything, it's like amazing when someone's like, yeah, of course I'll help you. Like I got you. And I just, I think that's just such a nice thing to do. Um...
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I think if everyone did a little bit more of that, then the world would be a happier place and a nicer place. But like I've come to you with my writing stuff. I'm like, can you help me? And you're like, yeah, of course. Yeah. So I think we all just need to do a little bit more of that. So, yes. Sorry. The gist of that is I was, yeah, doing what I could. Important follow up question. Please. Have you been helping people for free? Yeah. Yeah.
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Yes. Okay. Because I can't help it. I just, I don't, I don't like charting people if I don't have to. Okay. So here's, okay. Let's just take them one by one. So yes, fundamentally. The thing is, it's having conversations just feels like,
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Something you don't charge for. But I know there's the world of consulting and coaching and all of this. So I think what the difference is, you know, when people have money and...
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It's almost a little Robin Hood, really. Not that I've ever seen that. But it's like, I don't mind charging the businesses or the people that are making, you know, six figures or whatever. But I don't want to help. I don't want to charge the people that are just starting out or don't have it or like that kind of thing. It just seems like, okay, basically, I don't believe in gatekeeping education.
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Yes, I stand by that too. Yes. So that's... And that's why I have this little back and forth. And I'm still like... And I also hate asking for money. I don't do the sales thing and I hate pitching and all of that stuff. But I am aware that I do need to make money. So there is an element of that. But okay, so one of the things I started this month is creator coaching. Because again, it just... Yes. So basically, I...
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kind of got what i so many things okay what i had this realization um that okay more context let's take it back a little bit in the world of content creation and in the world of self-development and personal development and um the ali abdahl world that i've lived in for that you know for four years or more than that because i was following his stuff for longer um
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There's a lot of hustle bro, side hustle narrative out in the world. And it's very easy to get swept up in it when you're somebody like me. And basically, I have struggled with this whole, do I want a job? Do I want my own thing? Do I want to build a side hustle for like the longest time? Because when I have a job, I'm like, I'm perfectly content.
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But then side hustles and all this other stuff happening over here. And then you speak to like the Ali Abdaals of the world and the entrepreneurs and they're like, oh, well, you know, freedom and start your own business and you can do that by side hustling. But at the flip side, I've never really stuck to a side hustle. And I've always been like, why? Like, this is what I want to do. So anyway, the realization I think I had, I didn't think I have, I did have in the last month or however long it's been, is...
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The reason I like to side hustle is not money. It's not monetizing things. It's not optimizing things to the nth degree. It's not about building up this side income to eventually take over my full-time job because I'm actually very happy working for somebody. Actually, the reason for doing all of the side hustles is to learn and to grow as a human being. And just because I'm a curious person and I am kind of a generalist, but that's because I want to know a little bit about everything and dive into things and try things out.
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So I realized that I don't need to side hustle. I need to have, although I keep saying passion projects and I actually don't think I like that phrase either anymore. But basically, I just like to, so I was talking to someone the other day and they said it's a portfolio career, but actually that's linked to monetization. So maybe that's not it either. Sorry, I'm rambling. But basically...
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I want to do things for the joy of doing things is the gist of it. Money is, I think in an ideal world, maybe I'm having another realization, maybe in an ideal world, working for somebody is what keeps the lights on. Right. That keeps you comfortable not worrying about money. And then.
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your free time then becomes time to explore. And I think the difference is, is when I was side hustling, in quotes, I was...
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feeling like I had to turn up week in, week out, be disciplined and put in the effort and graft and grind. And, you know, you need to put in like 10 to 15 hours every week, blah, blah, blah. And then I'd feel bad about things or like I couldn't maintain them or I'd burn myself out. Like I only do things in extremes. This was during your employment or? Yes. Okay. Yes. So this was like whether it was, because I was doing Creators Campfire as a podcast way back when I was just chilling. And the second I tried to optimize it, it all fell apart. Oh.
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um the second I tried to go I want to grow or whatever the whole system broke YouTube I when I started that I took the reverse view and was like cool I'm just going to pump out a video every single week but then I burned out because it was on top of a job so anyway the gist is I love learning I love trying new things um and
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I just don't need to optimize things is the bottom line. I could slow growth, the kind of Matt D'Avella thing, but not even necessarily with a view to monetize. I think that was the, again, that was the difference because I was like, I don't mind building it up over like three years, but I still want it to be. I don't. I never have. I do not care. And I think day job, pay me. And caveat, and I do want to.
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I want my day job to be in something that I enjoy. So I still want to go to my job and really enjoy it. But at the end of the day, it is still a job. And I'm okay with that. And that's where good work comes in. The blurry good work in that you still can love what you do. And I think I'm in a very privileged position, as you are, that we are able to both work,
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in jobs that we actually genuinely enjoy. That was my ramble. Sorry, that went on for a long time. That's all right. That's all right. I mean, these are all things that I feel like would cross a lot of creators' minds at one point. It's like, first, do we need our jobs to align with what we like to do? Second, do we try to align it? And if money doesn't come, then what? And third, like, how hard should we go monetizing? Like our online creation stuff, these are all strands of thoughts that I've,
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personally like um thought of so just i mean just hearing you and how you uh because you've navigated sort of like this this world for like four or five years ahead of me i think it was just really interesting how to see um that yeah you also swing back and forth a little bit all the time
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All the time. Can I make up my mind? No. How do you view things? Because I'm curious. Because yes, you are. You're kind of newer to the world, but you're also way more focused than I am. And when you want to do something, you will do it. Yeah, so how do you... Ooh. What are your thoughts?
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Um, okay. So previously when I was working in a bank, I was really happy to have that, like the demarcation from like working in a day job and then like coming home and doing like all these creator stuff. Um, so I actually did not ever expect to go full into the creator economy. Um, so this job was like completely unexpected and I was like, okay, it's a fun, um, experience. Like, let's just try it out. Let's just see if my work and my personal lives are,
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um collide what's going to happen um and the result of that is immense stress but it's oh no it's it's it's one of the things where i'm glad i'm finally being pushed for the things that i want to be pushed off because it's like okay i have a i i was writing a newsletter every single well i still am writing a newsletter every single week i was publishing a youtube video every single week but because there were no stakes um
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I was growing, but I was not being pushed to grow. So now in a way, I get to hone these as like actual skills as well. I really just like can really rapidly learn about these things. And I didn't realize this until today. I was having lunch with my former colleagues and they were just asking me what I was doing. And I was just able to explain everything that I did. And I was like, oh my God, I just picked all of these things up in like the last three months.
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And these are all skills, all knowledge, all relevant, which might go back to what you were saying about being like a generalist. It's just like you're just collecting skills, collecting knowledge. And then maybe one day all of this will align into something great that could be like your own unique full stack skill or combination of skills.
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a job or a sort of good work that is like very uniquely yours. Maybe. I don't know. That sounded a lot smarter than what it was in my head. Yeah, I know. I completely agree with all the above. Okay, so where are you with side hustles? Because you're right. You're now working in a creative job, which does take some of your creative juice. It's not like corporate where it's like you go in, you do corporate stuff and then you're like,
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I've got all this creative energy and I can spend my evening doing it. It's kind of being zapped at work a little bit. So where are you with side hustles? What are you doing? And what are you up to? Oh, my God. So, yeah, I got really carried away by the peer pressure of everybody in the Ali Abdaal team. I think it's everybody. Everybody has a side hustle. This is absurd. This is not a normal work situation. Yeah.
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It's everybody, right? Like, actually, that's a really good point. Sorry, I'm just going to interrupt. I think that is something I didn't quite realize is that, yeah, the environment you're in. Okay, so obviously the environment you're in makes such a big difference. And I think it's so easy to get caught up in this bubble. And I...
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Exactly that. Basically, everyone around me was doing things. It was so easy to get caught up in the thing. And then you step away from it. You're like, oh, that's actually just a really, really tiny bubble. Sorry, please continue. Yeah, no, that is so true. Because like, okay, my previous job, I was side hustling a little bit in a sense where I was building YouTube slash newsletter. I was also editing for Rite of Passage for about two years. So that was kind of a side hustle. But like...
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I think people at the Ali team just take it to an extreme. And I think a lot of it is like, is contagion from Ali himself because he like does 10,000 things and he does all of them really well. So, and he's also a really good enabler, by the way. So he, like, I think like one of my first meetings with him, he was just like, okay, what business are you going to start? And I was like...
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bro, I haven't even quit my job. Like what is going on? Um, but yeah, I started trying cause, cause Ali's currently running this thing called a 1k challenge. It's like a six week, um, sort of bootcamp challenge situation where everybody who's enrolled is trying to make their first thousand dollars online. Um, yeah.
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So I tried watching a little bit of material, try to take action. But at the end, what I ended up doing was I was like, okay, if I only have six weeks, I looked at, I did like an audit of like, well, a mental audit of my social media platforms. And I found like, actually my LinkedIn has like the most following. I think I have about like 5,000-ish followers on LinkedIn. And then if I-
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Thank you. That's what you get for being a journalist. Everybody just wants to be friends with you because everyone just wants to be mentioned in the press. And doing that for seven years just naturally gave me a lot of network in specifically the financial services and banking sectors in Asia.
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So I was like, okay, that's where a lot of my network exists. And so I think like the time limit of six weeks immediately like narrowed it down to be like, okay, my highest chance of success is to tap into my existing network. And so I wrote a little post. I put a little photo of me and I was just like, oh my gosh, I am now in digital media. But actually what I realized is a lot of people that I used to talk to are really smart, but they don't really have an online presence. Is this actually a problem? I don't know. Here's a Calendly link. Book a call.
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And that's basically what the LinkedIn post said. And then I just started getting like messages from people, random people booking calls, also like old connections reaching out. So I'm having lunch with like a bunch of people and I'm just asking them, or they're just asking me a bunch of questions. I'm asking them a bunch of questions. But yeah, magically I have...
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one person that I'm doing writing coaching for because this guy is writing about financial articles and trying to put it on subsec. And I was like, great. Love it. I could do that. Seven years of that. Done. Let's go. Let's talk about fintech and all of that fun stuff. Oh, my God. I just fell asleep. Oh, wow. That is so rude. What do you mean interest rates and GDP and tariffs don't keep you up at night?
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Kill me. And I'm an accountant. That is bad, isn't it? Supply chain challenge. Yeah, yeah. All that fun stuff. That just confirms I don't think I could ever, ever, ever go back to corporate.
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Fair enough. Yeah, I was talking with my colleagues today and I was just like, oh my God, your guys' world did not move. Yeah. Or maybe we're just moving a little bit too much. But yeah, it's them. Yeah, because we're never the problem. Exactly.
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Yeah. But yeah, so I have no idea what I'm doing with my side hustling stuff. But I actually got this idea of having a calendar from Tintin, who I think he put in like a really, I don't know, maybe like many, many months, or maybe even like a couple years ago, he was saying like, oh, the best thing you could do is start getting to know your audience, just put a calendar link there. So I just started putting a calendar link. And now I guess I'm in the phase where I'm not actively trying to sell people stuff.
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But I'm also just like, oh, you booked a call. Why? How did you find me? What's up? What are you hoping to gain? Yeah, and I'm just talking to people and I realize my network is a lot more
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um, vast than I realized. Like, people don't fall into, like, buckets. I have, like, journalists who are thinking of going independent, journalists who are thinking of going in-house into comms, um, like, hedge fund people who are looking to build their brand on LinkedIn. It's just all over the place, but now I'm just trying to take it one step at a time, um, get really uncomfortable with putting together an offer, whatever that means, um,
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I have, I need to figure out like pricing, which is like, this is like a question that I bug everybody in the Ali team, like at least two times a week to be like, I have this, how in the world do I price this? Because everything is like basically a tailored service.
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for now um i don't really have like a digital product that i'm selling but what i what i can do is like help people with their online branding linkedin help people with their writing um i think maybe one day content producing i goodness knows all of the all of the above yeah so where does it start where does it end where do you start pricing stuff uh but yeah it's it's kind of like a rapid situation because i would say in the last maybe like
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two months i've put together at least like three to five proposals that are like kind of properly crafted well i don't know if it's properly crafted but like i would never have done this um before so so it's it's it's interesting because it's like you get to learn and you get to make mistakes for free at no cost isn't that crazy it's it's very cool like i think okay yeah
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Walk us through this because I imagine there are lots of people listening to this. Yeah. As if there are lots of people listening to this. Yeah, there are. Tell us who you are. Yeah, let's pretend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's pretend there are lots of people listening to this. But these are... Okay, so if I think back to myself, like... Yeah. Pre-Ali Abdal, I would also be having these questions of like, but I don't understand how people do the doing and get started. So...
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post on LinkedIn, tell people what you're doing even if you're not sure, just put something out introduce yourself, talk about yourself even if you're not pitching something and yes, I love the Canada Link idea just hop on a call at the beginning it doesn't matter how many calls you do you can start to reduce that over time as you figure stuff out and you don't want to be sitting on calls all day, but to begin with speak to people, understand what their problems are understand if you can where you could potentially help um
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I also, this is actually, I think this is something that Paul Millard says, which I think I also back is, well, a lot of people say do stuff for free. And I don't think there's any question about that one. Like, especially when you're learning do stuff for free, because actually you're effectively, that's just, that's free education. You don't need to be paid for that. Just go and figure stuff out. But yeah, I think pools very much are like free or high ticket or like be expensive. And I actually kind of like that vibe of just...
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do stuff for free if you can. And you don't need to charge. Again, there are varying views. Do whatever feels right. Actually, at the beginning, like with Ali's challenge, it's very much getting over that hump of making your first dollar, $10, $100, $1,000. And, yeah, maybe that's not a great example because I am bad at asking for money, but figure that out. But, yeah, I like that approach of just –
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And it doesn't have to be LinkedIn. Like pick your platform of choice. I'm sure everyone's got a social media account. Actually, maybe not everyone does, but the majority of people do. And if you want to start going down this road, I think you kind of need something. But pick your poison. Yeah. But this is something interesting that I've realized after talking to a lot of people is a lot of people don't use social media the way us creators do.
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I think we come in, we have this concept, like we know what a niche is. I think this is just like sort of like a rite of passage for people who go into online content creation. It's like you kind of have a niche, you kind of have a value proposition, you kind of have something that you want to share educationally or either education or entertainment. Yeah.
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with like the world. But there's also a lot of people who use social media purely for social media, like to just connect with their friends. And they are a completely different shock horror. I know. And it actually blew my mind when I realized this yesterday, because these are the people that were coming to me and were like, how do you use social media? And I was like, wait, what do you mean? Like, you just talk about what you do. And they're like,
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No, I just use it to keep up to date with my friends. And I was like, what? It's so mind-blowing. But it is like, I think it's something that we have uniquely, something that's uniquely ours as creators. Is we know how important social media can be as like a very organic marketing tool. And I know this sounds very salesy, sounds very icky, sounds very networky. But it is like, the way I see it is like the way you put yourself out on your platform. It's like the modern day way of networking.
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the non-icky way of networking because you're just sharing and then you're just showing up and then this way you're not annoying people and people's inboxes and try to get calls but it's a little bit like just putting yourself out there i think you sound like you've drunk ali's cool kool-aid for a long time because really yeah whilst i completely agree with what you're saying like social media is effectively so you just keep up with your friends
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Like that is the point of it. And I think we're very much in this world. So yes. That's so interesting. Because I've never been comfortable doing that. Like my Instagram page has always been my photography portfolio, quote unquote, page. Yes.
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I don't think I have pictures of myself there. Like maybe a handful. I post like one photo of myself a year on it because I was like, yeah. Yes. But you use stories. Oh, yeah. I do use stories. So. That's my shit post thing. Yes. But I think, but even if people don't post, a lot of people do use stories for that. And I think that, yeah. So, yeah.
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I get what you're saying and I think, yes, we can and should. Well, no, we shouldn't. Do whatever the hell you want. Do whatever you want. But if you want to do this thing, then social media is a very easy way to make that switch and start doing things. The other things you've been learning now that you're selling your services is things like, how the hell do I charge somebody? Yeah.
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Oh, yeah. Bob told me the other day that I should send people an invoice at the beginning. And I was like, what? I thought you charged people at the end. These are little learnings that I never thought I needed to do. Yeah. It's okay. It is. Yeah. It's all a lot. I mean, I had to learn how to send somebody an invoice for the first time. Because, yeah, I've always had a full-time job. I've never had to invoice anybody. So I also had to figure out how to raise an invoice. Yeah.
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And then we're both kind of semi-working on a personal website, which is another way you can get your word out. But obviously that's very different. Social media is a better place. But then you want them to land somewhere. So building websites, we'll keep you updated on that because I think there might be some cool things to share. But actually just on websites, if I have a tip, if anyone has Notion or...
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Actually, I was talking to somebody the other day and they said, actually, Paul might do this. Sorry, Paul, if this is not you, but like you can just have like with things like Google Docs or Notion, you can just make pages public. Yes. The lowest lift version of your personal website is just a public Google Doc or Notion page. Yes. Just write it. Like just throw a couple of pictures of yourself, introduce yourself, what you do and write
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That's the most basic form of a public website. So if anybody asks for a little bit more information about yourself, I think CVs are a bit dead unless you're applying for a corporate job. But like your personal website is your CV these days. So that's the most basic. And then you have the copy when you're ready to go and, you know, do all this. So if you do that, you don't even need to go and buy a domain. You don't need to buy any hosting stuff. Just make the page public. That is step one for anyone on the fence. Write up your copy. Yeah.
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And push it out. And then at least, even if it's just an about you page, if anything comes up and you're like a photographer or an editor or blah, blah, blah, then it's just there's a page here that just says who you are and what you do that you can send to people when they're like, oh, give me some more information. Insane. It's actually insane how easy. I just, oh, this is dating me. But I do remember putting a website together in Dreamweaver. Yeah.
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Wow. Does that even exist anymore? But yeah, learning how to do CSS and trying to host it somewhere via FileZilla or something. I believe it does exist. What a nightmare. I've so got no shit. No, but that's how you gain skills. Yeah. But for those like me who just like, oh, friction.
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Mine's just in Notion right now while I build this thing out. Amazing. Because at least I can point somebody somewhere. MVP, people. MVP. Minimum viable product. Yeah. And if you don't want to write it yourself, just get somebody to write it for you. Not going to lie. I was just floating this idea to my friend Michelle. Shout out to Michelle. Michelle just immediately wrote the whole copy of my, like, Bite Size Creativity Consulting page. And I was, like, gorgeous. Immediately put it up on website.
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I'm on Squarespace, which cost me a lot of money, but it was a very simple plug and play. Yeah. Yeah. Like total what you see, what you get kind of editor. And then it went live like on the same day. And then now people can kind of like refer to it as well. They can land there basically when I. Yeah. Yeah.
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It's a link I include at the bottom of my newsletter every single time. Nice. Yeah. But do I know what I'm doing? Do we know? Do any of us know what we're doing? No. No. Have we made enough money from side hustles on the internet? No. No. No.
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It's all part of like the learning. And I think it's just really top of mind for us right now. And this is probably like 90% of our conversation. Yes. Yes. 10% being like the pod...
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Yes. Pretty much. Yeah, basically. I think the most important thing is movement, right? Just start doing things. It doesn't matter what they are, but get in motion because things will happen. And I'm calling myself out here that you could spend so long in your head thinking of all the things and overthinking all the things, but it's not worth it. Get out there, talk to people, create things.
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Because you also don't want to spend something like a year creating this thing and then you're like, oh, nobody wants it. We don't need to do that. So you'll figure stuff as you go along. There are lots of people out there to help you. We, slightly longer term, would love to build a community of you people so we can connect you all and you have your own little group of people to do this with. So, yeah, if you're listening, drop comments in the comments because then you can comment with each other's comments.
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Um, yeah, there we go. Um, I mean, yeah, Baph has like big dreams. I'm just here to help her build it and follow her vision and follow her instructions. But do you want to tell us a little bit more about your vision? About my dreams? Yeah. Um, probably not about the dreams, but, um, about small creative, big world. Yes. Yes. Um, okay. I, this makes me happy.
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This is going back to what we were talking about of like side hustles and stuff. This is what I would call like a passion project or come up with a better name for it at some point. Like this to me is, I don't care about the monetization. Obviously, like some of it will come naturally. But that's not the aim. That's not the goal. If we make no money from it, like we're doing this for pure joy. I mean, at the moment, it's only a podcast, but like. Yeah, the models are bleeding money.
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Yeah, basically. Basically. But it's fine because this is what we enjoy. Yeah. And this is why we work. Well, I don't just yet, but this is why you work to sustain this. And yeah, I want to build, and I keep calling it a mini empire, because it's going to be an empire, but it's going to be a mini one. They'll start as a mini one. That's an oxymoron. Yeah. No, no. It's like...
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There's so much cool stuff we could do with this, guys. And actually, one of the realizations... I've had a lot of realizations yesterday. Let's change the wording. One of the things I was thinking about the other day. So, I can't remember when I messaged you about this, but it was in the last couple of days, basically. So, you know... All right, so there's Mo Gowda, who is, I think, fairly well-known. He did... Google Guy. Google Guy. Talks about AI and scary AI or not scary AI. And...
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He has this goal, I believe, so sorry, correct me if I'm wrong, to make one billion people. No. Yeah. One billion people happy. Is that a thing? Oh, wow. I should have actually fact checked this. No, you didn't text me about this. So could you tell me a bit more? Oh.
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Yeah. Of course I can. Yes. Okay. Mo Gaudat. Yeah. One billion happy. Mo Gaudat's vision mission is to bring happiness to one billion people. A movement he calls one billion happy. And there is a backstory to this. He had a son called Ali and he very sadly passed away. And...
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I won't go into the detail, but there was knock-on consequences. We'll leave a link to something or a webpage or something in the show notes. But now he has this very, very clear mission. And he has something driving him. And who knows if he's ever going to hit it. That's a huge goal. That was that one-seventh of the planet. That is...
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big, but I like big goals. Yeah. And we should aim high. So anyway, through this and I think Ali's talked about something as well about a mission within the business. I don't know where they landed. So that's also in the back of my head. But anyway. Yeah. His mission is to help 100 people achieve financial freedom, by the way, which is
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That's a number he's using before it changes. Love it. Okay. Okay. So I'm aiming high here. I'm aiming high. Let's go. I'm going down the MoGoudout route. So, I mean, not that high, but in the grand scheme of things. Okay. So our goal.
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Sorry, Becky, this is our goal. I was here for the ride. Yeah, yeah. But the goal is, and I need to change, I need to tweak the wording to really make this land. But fundamentally, the mission statement of Small Creative Big World is to help kickstart the creative careers of 10,000 people.
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Oh, that was better than what I wrote on Substance yesterday. Amazing. Okay. Someone clipped that. Yeah. To help kickstart the creative careers of 10,000 people. I think the thought I had was like, I want them to be consistent. Yeah. I don't mean consistent of like discipline. You need to turn up every week. Whatever consistency means to them, whatever brings them joy. There are all these people that I've spoken to.
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Myself included. Not that I speak to myself. I do speak to myself, actually. Anyway, sorry. Yeah, you do. I do. I do. I just go off on one. Anyway, sorry. There are people that want to do the creative thing. Okay, so there's Ali.
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Right. Ali has this thing, like when we were doing part-time YouTuber Academy, Ali Abdaal, and he would always ask at the beginning of the session or the beginning of the cohort, you know, on a scale of hobbyists to business, where do you sit on the YouTube scale? Like, what are you doing this for? And a lot of people were, understandably, given that they'd spent, you know, $1,000, $1,500, $2,000 on a course, were very much in the mid to busy, businessy half of the bucket. And I would have put myself there as well back in the day while I was drinking the Kool-Aid.
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But there are also a lot of people, and for the record, I'm not discriminating across this line, but there are also a lot of people that just want to do it as a hobby or hobby to middle, which is, I think, where we kind of sit now, maybe, in that we love this world. We have...
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We want a creative outlet that could be YouTube, podcasting. They're one and the same. But like making videos, creating podcasts, writing, drawing. I'm sure there are many. Painting. There are other things. But broadly, creative things. Yeah. Yeah.
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And, I mean, we'll probably stick to the social media platforms. So, like, YouTube and, you know, Substacks and LinkedIn, but whatever that might look like. But, yeah, sorry. The gist of it is there's lots of people that want to do it. They don't know how to start. They don't...
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know how to stay consistent and turn up, whether that's for making money or just pure joy. And we are both in a position where we can help those people. I can't help anyone with writing, but I can help them stay consistent and you can definitely help with the writing. So
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And the whole point of this podcast, Small Creator Big World, is to create this community for specifically small creators because it's lonely out there. And not all of us want to be the Yeli Abdals of the world or the Stephen Bartlets and have millions of followers and subscribers. That's not what we need or want. We just want to have our own little mini empires. Yeah. Because that's fine, too. So that's the mission statement.
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And we're going to make this happen. And the way we're going to track this is we're going to have some kind of type form or Google form. And if anybody that comes across, whether they're working with us on coaching, which we'll talk about in a second, or, you know, they follow us and have got inspired or like through the podcast or whatever. If anyone has felt like we have made a difference to their creative careers, then they fill in this form.
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And then the little ticker goes up. And that's how we keep Frag. And I'll build something in the background that basically tracks this. That's amazing. This is news to me, by the way. This is real great. I love it. That's what I'm doing, Becky, by the way. Yeah. Good to know. I know I sent you the 10,000 number, but this is the background to it.
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And this is the vision. And we're going to do that through the podcast. We're going to start doing clips because we had a really good conversation with our very good friend, Melina, who also works for Ali. She's the social media queen. Oh, total queen. Amongst many other things. But we will start to do this. But again, we're slow building this. This is a slow build. We don't care if this happens over three, four or five years. What we want is we want it to make it sustainable. We're both doing other things. We want it to remain joyful. Joyful.
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Yeah. And, yeah, we want to just help people. So –
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We do. I think we feel really strongly about how, alluding to what we said in, I think, maybe episode one or something, is that both of us are small. We would consider ourselves to be small creators. And we feel like our lives have been completely changed because of it, without having to have a large number attached to our follower count. And I think there's just something so empowering about that, that I would love for other people to be able to experience
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Either they get income through it, they get creative expression around it, either they get like some sort of autonomy over their lives around it. But it's just like it's not going to lie. I think the big creator era is over. I think it's I think it's really just time for like the small creators of the world to really just be able to take a little bit of their life back and build something for themselves through something that's fun and enjoyable.
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I love it. Yes. So with that in mind, like you've already alluded to, we both have little creative coaching things ongoing so we can help people. And one thing I've realized, going back to the conversation around money and it not being around money is actually people have told me that they need to pay so they keep themselves accountable. So as much as how both of us try to actively refuse money.
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People are just like, no, take my money. Shut up and take my money. Basically. Yeah. That. So don't be afraid. Well, I guess what I'm saying is don't be afraid to charge something. So I know that slightly goes against what I said earlier, where I was talking about do things for free. I've tried. And like Becky said, and people are like, no.
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Because I understand where there's something on the line and there's accountability. Yeah. It does make sense. So whoever you are, it doesn't have to be us. Maybe if you haven't started yet, you need to put something on the line to do that. Whatever that is for you. It could be money. It could be something else. But yeah.
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It's a thing, but don't be afraid to charge people for things, I guess was the gist of that. Yeah. What else is a part of your grand vision to build this into a mini empire? What other tasks are you putting on my plate, basically? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's coming your way? Okay. Cool. Cool. Right. We've got a podcast. We need to start doing clips. Yeah. Yes. You will have...
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Your coaching stuff, I will have mine. So that will also fall under the umbrella. And what I think we could also start doing in the future is like maybe workshops. I really want to do in-person events, meetups. You've got Hong Kong covered. I've got the UK covered. So honestly, further down the line, even like mini retreats. I think that would be really, really cool.
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Um, we'll be running, um, we'll definitely be running live events soon. I wonder if I can bring book club over or start a new one, um, like nonfiction, but create, then it's very specific, like creator books. Um, yeah.
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So, yeah, a book club potentially falls under the umbrella. And then I also want to start a program, literally the Create a Kickstart program, but is probably aimed a bit more at people that kind of want to throw money at the problem in a way. Like, you don't need to do this. But, like, and maybe it's even actually, like, to small businesses or, you know, that kind of vibe of just, like, actually what we'll do is...
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give it like 30 days, we're going to, we're going to have a career kickstart program. Basically through it, I will guide you through it. We will guide you through it. And we will like over the four weeks, we'll have a weekly call. We'll make sure your strategy is set. We know what we're doing. We'll get you to, we'll help you hire the right people. So basically it's an editor. Yeah. But we'll, we'll teach you how to train that editor and work with that editor. And I think maybe the value proposition is the,
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Like we'll have a video posted or two videos posted by the end of that month, right? Like done and dusted. You obviously have to do all the work. This is not a done for you service. This is done with you. So, but we'll also, because I love a system and everything is systemized in my head, we'll implement the system for you. So a lot of these people, especially if they're a small business, they have, they don't know what they're doing. And they just want someone to come in and say, this is exactly what you need. I don't, I don't have the time to go and figure it out.
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Here's my money. Tell me what to do. Implement the system. I have a team or I can get the team or I can pay the editor or whatever. Just help me. And then maybe over time, we also build our own backlog of editors. Or we work with somebody that has their own podcast agency or something.
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So that we can, because again, one of the big problems of small creators is finding that editor. It's going from editing their own stuff to offloading it. And then maybe we have short editors and stuff, but that's further down the line. But I think we can do a creator kickstart, like almost now. Well, we can, because like I'm speaking to people about like getting it set up.
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So there's the create a kickstart for the people that just want to throw money at it. There's create a coaching for the people that just need a little bit of help, but do have to put money on the line to turn up each week. And then obviously we will start sharing more and more education and we will also be sharing our journey as we go along. There's probably a couple of things I've missed, but yeah, that is, that is in a nutshell, broadly, the vision for Small Creator Big World and the mini empire. Oh my God. How does that sound to you?
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Yeah, I hear all this for the first time. I'm digesting. Okay. Yep, please, please do. Yeah, this sounds great. I think Bob just gave me a second full-time job. Yep, I did. You're welcome. Thank you. Yeah, honestly, this sounds really fun. I think this is something that we both sort of wanted, or this is something that we both kind of envisioned, and Bob just put a lot of steps and systems and roadmaps in place, which is great. Yeah.
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yeah, we'll go back and have a think and process and digest this properly. But, um, if this sounds exciting to you, um, dear listener, it sounds exciting to you. Yeah. Dear listener, dear audience member, if this is exciting, this thing is, you think this is something that you'd be interested in? Um, let us know. Cause, um, if you have a creator specific problem too, where you're trying to figure out, um, something and you, you can't quite, yeah, you can't quite put a finger on it. Um,
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yeah, this is maybe something we could explore together even. Could be fun. Guys, please share your problems, like in the, your creator problems. I don't think we're going to help with other problems, but share your creator problems in the chat, in the chat, in the comments. A, so we can start building a nice little community. Oh, and there is a community. Sorry, I missed the main thing. There is absolutely a community. All of these things fall within the community.
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So we will be launching, hopefully touch wood, a community within 12 months. We need to build a little bit, obviously, and have an audience and have that. But if you're interested, let us know somehow. We'll absolutely have a community because we want to bring people together. And that's where we'll run the events and the book club and all of that stuff. It will all be part of that. And then we can run things because what we want to do is we want to run challenges, 30 day challenges and all sorts of stuff. And we can have themed things. And then I think maybe what we do now that I'm spitballing, is that the right word?
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Um, then we, we run little like two hour sessions, maybe once a month or something, um, where we get everyone on that hasn't started something and wants to start and we actually get them started on the call. Ooh, yes. I love that because, oh my God, I just remember this. Um, there was a period of time, I think in the beginning of the year where, you know how like every sub stack has an about page and we just, nobody ever touches it ever and
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And I literally ran a, like, like a co-working session where, like, I presented what makes it a good about page in, like, the first 15 minutes. And then the next 45 minutes was literally all of us just, like, in front of our laptops trying to build our about page together. So at the end of the call, we have a new about page. Yeah.
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Love. Yes. Actually, within the community, lots of ideas for workshops. A, because we have a lot of cool people that we know in our network that we can get on, that would happily come on and do talks for us and stuff. Although we'll probably get some people on the pod as well over time. And also, yeah, co-working sessions. So like an editing club. Yeah. Or a scripting club. Again, this is further down the line, but this is the vision for the community. I'm going to say. Okay.
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Unfortunately, actually, in theory, I was going to say unfortunately, time zones. But between us, we might be able to we could potentially run one each every week. And I'm signing us up for things that we might not have time for. So bear with. But we could, you know, because then we're covering both time zones. Amazing. So you've just given me a third full time job. Absolutely. Run all the sessions, please. Is basically it. But no, we can we can figure that out. That's a longer term thing.
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For now, actually, we just, oh, the other news that I think we can share is that in theory, we are planning on moving from monthly to bimonthly. Woo! Yeah. Before it might be. Yeah, I don't know what the word is. I was going to say biweekly. No, but biweekly is confusing because it both means every two weeks and twice a week. It's a very confusing word. Yes.
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Which is the same for bimonthly, I think. So fortnightly. Fortnightly. Fortnightly. So every two weeks, we are planning on recording. Now, don't hold us to that. We are still our MVP. Guys, we're all about the MVP here. Yes. Bare minimum. Minimum viable product.
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That is it. And actually, I want to, nobody cares, but I want to start a minimal viable squad. Because I know grownups don't think squad is cool, but I think it's cool. And there'll be much. So basically, it's all about starting. I used to love the little just start hashtag, but I like minimum viable squad. That's what we're going to be. It's all about getting stuff out there.
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the absolute bare minimum to begin with and then we build so um if you want to be part of minimum viable squad and i haven't put you off come say hi um but why did i start all that yes we are committed to once a month for sure but if we don't turn up for the second time in a month because life got in the way that's okay but we are we're going to aim for every two weeks because also we forget what we're talking about at the end of the month
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yeah um it's too long and um yeah we want to just increase the content and we feel like now we've built slowly um that we're in a position to kind of do that now amazing would you say the small creator big world stuff is your good work
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Oh, what a great little segue in question. Check you out. Yes. Actually, I think I would be lucky enough to say that both is my good work. My day job has been, and this is. But I, this makes me so happy. I'm just like, this is what I want to do. And it's been in my head for a long, long time. And I think when I was working for Ali, because I was working on part-time YouTuber Academy for so long, uh-huh.
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I was kind of doing this, but for him. And now I can do it for us. That's amazing. Which is kind of really cool. For all 10,000 new creators out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You might not even know it yet, but we got you. So, yes. Good to... Becky, take us back. What is good work? Good work.
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Yeah, good work is, my understanding, is the work that keeps, at least my takeaway of it, is the work that keeps calling me back and back and back again. And it's kind of like the work that I was meant to put on this earth to do in a very philosophical sense or the work that I just can't seem to ignore anymore.
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And for me, that is writing. It's something that I've tried to drift away multiple times and I just keep getting dragged back into it. I mean, the fact that I went to business school and then ended up working as a journalist is like basically like a prime example of that just being something that keeps yanking me back in. But yeah, that's my good work. What it is, if there's any narrower scope of it, I don't know. At the moment, I feel like it's writing. Yeah.
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But yeah, what's yours? Yeah, no, sorry. Good explanation. And I would agree yours is writing. Oh, now off to that.
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That definition, I'm not sure. I was going to say helping people, but that's a bit broad. He's doing a book placement here. Oh, nice, nice, because mine's too goddamn blurry. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, Paul actually very kindly did ship me like 10 copies. But me being the great corporate ally, I gave them all to my banking colleagues before I left. How many of them have quit?
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um so far zero so i don't know i know okay i know they've been questioning though i did i did message i did meet um some of them today and they're um and they're all like i'm gonna meet two today actually that i paid copies to and i know both of them are thinking of doing something on the side so yeah you're doing something it's died yeah you are okay i'm gonna okay let's do this for a second
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for anyone watching on YouTube. Paul has two fantastic books. Oh, my goodness. One is called The Path of Path. That was his first one. Yeah. And the second is called Good Work. Both incredible. Quit my job after reading Good Work, as many people have. But I'll get up in a second and I'll show you them. But what is my good work? I think...
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If I took the same thing as if I took the same approach as you, I think it would be something like systems or efficiencies. Like just I think. Yeah, it sounds really lame and really nerdy, so I need to think of a better way of doing it. But I guess fundamentally it is. I think it fundamentally comes back to this is a bit Olly coded, but it's like. How do you free up the time to do the stuff that you want to do? And the vehicle to doing that is like tweaking your systems. Yeah.
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Um, and I know systems, um, and that is my jam. And, but I don't know, does, is that, is that good work? Okay. The answer is I actually don't know, but it's something about helping people with, with my specific skillset. I think, I think I remember Paul saying, um, somewhere I can't believe, I don't know if it's in this book or like in a podcast to be like, okay, knowing that there is like a good work out there.
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for you that everybody has their own good work wouldn't you isn't there something itching for you to kind of like even want to figure out what that is and i think that was what like drove me for such a long time where i wasn't writing um but i i just felt like or like when i was like for example like writing for um
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a bank or like my financial news publications. Like there was just this like drive where I was like, I meant to write something more than this. And it's not this. And it was just like, like, how do you how do you know that there's somewhere something out there that your good work is out there waiting for you and you don't go pursue it? I think it's it was one of my biggest questions that led to many existential crisis in my life. Yeah.
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But it's good because you had them and now you're here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That should be the tagline. If you want to have an existential crisis, read Good Work. That's the book for you. Actually, no, that's... Okay, right. I think I just talked about my good work and then got confused at the definition. Basically, my good work is helping people...
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figure out what their good work is. I love it. Yeah. Which is kind of what, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess it's what Paul is doing. So maybe I've stolen his. But it's like, but it's like helping them actually do the doing, right? It's having the conversation and going, what is it? And how can I help you get there? What do you need? So whether that's pointing them into, like, because I love, like, connecting people as well. So whether it's pointing them to the right person or implementing a system or, like, just having a conversation or giving them clarity, yeah.
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That makes me feel good. So obviously all very selfish. But yeah, that is my good work somehow. Yeah. So shout out, Paul. We love you. And your books. And I'll see you very soon. Like in a month. Sharp. Make me jealous.
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yeah paul's paul's coming to hong kong because paul is publishing the traditional chinese version of the paddler's path um hosting a book talk with ali um if you guys are around hong kong it's september 27th 3 p.m at esleet eslight kwa zui bay um and then i'm going to be hosting a little bit of a drinks and chill session with paul right after same beautiful look at you like plugging your work on your pod yeah it's as if that's what creators do oh my
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Yeah, but it's your ully work. Look, you're actually working on your non-working time. Oh, well, I think as you've established, they're now one and the same. Yes. Yeah, that's true. They've just merged. Okay, nice. I think that's a nice note to end on. Hopefully, Above and I share about sort of our very long, winding and confusing conversation.
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and just really mishmash of a journey of trying to build side hustles and trying to make money and doing this whole online internet thing might be helpful. If you've got any questions, as usual, please do drop it below in the comments. Rate us on podcast apps. I think that's a thing. Or drop us a like and subscribe. Follow us in your favorite podcast platform. And we'll catch you guys in two weeks because that's where we're going to be recording again.
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Nice. No, Becky, you are only allowed one CTA. That's what we've learned. So we can't confuse them. Okay, so what do we do? Okay, guys, that's your tip. If you're doing content, you're only one CTA. So I don't know. What do we want you to do? I don't know. It doesn't really matter. How about we just like roll through them each week or each two weeks? Okay. That's not a sentence. All right. So this week's mission, which one? Yes, please. Yes. Yes.
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What is the mission? This is fantastic. Can you tell this is all off the cuff, guys? Okay, what do we want you to do? We want you to like and subscribe. Oh, no, that's three things. Okay. Subscribe. Disubscribe. We're good with a subscription so you know when the episode is coming in two weeks.
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Beautiful. All right. All right, team. Subscribe. And we'll see you in the next one. Bye. Stay tuned for more rambles. Bye.