I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew. Let me provide some context.
Coaching, Content, and Ali Abdaal
In December 2021, I signed up for Evercoach, an online training platform for coaches by Mindvalley, in order to start my High-Performance Coaching journey.
I knew before starting the course that creating valuable, engaging, and informative content would be one of the keys to creating transformations for future clients.
The only problem? I’m not great at creating content.
However, I had been consuming plenty of content from someone who was good at creating content, had amassed 2million + subscribers on Youtube, and had an online and interactive course where budding Youtubers can learn how to utilize YouTube as a business and for your business.
That person was Ali Abdaal. I first came across Ali after listening to his interview with Ryan Holiday on The Daily Stoic podcast in November 2021 and was interested in his story - Junior Doctor, Content Creator, Entrepreneur.
I’d consumed quite a bit of his content since the start of the year and found it really useful - everything from productivity tips to using Notion.
So, at the beginning of March I signed up to Ali Abdaal’s Part-Time Youtuber Academy (PTYA), Cohort 5 and we are currently entering the second week of the course.
The 47 Video Challenge
After signing up for PTYA, I binged on all of the introductory modules in a day and two things stuck out to me:
- Starting a YouTube channel is easy. But, if you want to create a channel with valuable and engaging content, that requires a lot of learning and work.
- Your first 50 or so videos are all about getting out of your head and getting comfortable in front of the camera. The next 50 videos are all about improving your content and production.
Once these two points sunk in, I thought fuck it, the best way I’m going to learn the basics of content creation - that’s everything from generating an idea, to writing a script, filming, editing, production, etc - was to chuck myself into the deep end, and so the 47 Video challenge was born.
Why 47 videos?
I’d counted 47 days from the day I came up with the idea to the end of the course. At the time, I didn’t take into account how difficult it is to produce just one video, so in hindsight, I’d set myself a lofty stretch goal.
To paraphrase Elon Musk, how do I accomplish a 1-year plan in 2 months? By creating a year’s worth of content in 7 weeks.
The 47 videos I’ve challenged myself to create do not include the 6 videos that we are required to produce as part of the course as well, so at the end of April, I should theoretically have recorded, edited, and published 53 videos on my YouTube channel.
Final Thought
As I write this post, I’ve published 6 videos and have another 8 in my editing queue, which means I’m currently on track.
BUT - editing and production is time-consuming, and I have to record another 7 videos this week, as well as complete the course content and deal with life and other commitments in general.
That’s a big ask.
However, I’ve already learned so much over the last couple of weeks, in terms of lighting, B-roll, editing, sound, scripting, thumbnails, titles, research, and idea-generating that I can see the improvements in my videos already, so the challenge is definitely worth it.
Let’s see if I can keep it up....