Transcript

0:00

Talk about content creation and clarity about the work that you're doing in the world. I call it your framework. Which is the organized collection of your big ideas that you just keep coming back to to create content and to create offers. Maybe it's a you can look up my blog post about what is a framework or I think yeah. If you want us Google, what is a framework, George Cow.

0:30

You'll find my blog post about what is a framework, George Cow. So a great question here. You know? And I I sometimes say, before I go into the question, I sometimes tell people tell my clients and I I teach about this like, hey. You know what?

0:42

In the beginning of your business, If you solidify a framework too quickly, you might become ossified with that framework where you're like, well, you know, it's like you you you need something to hold on to and it becomes ossified and you don't give yourself the the freedom to explore as much as you would if you didn't have that initial structure. And my recommendation has usually been to, hey, listen, create content and offers. On anything, everything that you're truly passionate about and that you can see yourself doing for life. And if if that's the case, then you might discover my gosh. I thought I was gonna go into this route, but really this is working really well for my audience and I had not known that was a possibility for me to have a true livelihood doing this thing.

1:33

Thank you, George, for letting me Simplero. Instead of niche myself down to this framework so early on, which is too early because you haven't yet you haven't yet trained your intuition on what the market really wants. This is most of us. Right? We we go in our closet and we dream up what our career or our business is supposed to be, and then we, like, try to force it down people's throats because now we're, like, fully formed.

1:58

And it's like, no. You haven't interacted with other human beings and the current cultural context and see what the reactions are coming back to know. Which direction you should go. So therefore, in the beginning stages, it's like content exploration. We'll then inform the eventual framework.

2:13

Which then once the framework is adequately informed by the market response, you then, of course, the framework gets clear and clear over the years, and then that re that informs your content. Now, of course, it's now it's you're more organized with what I'm gonna create on these 3 topics, these 5 topics, etcetera. Having said that, a a very insightful question, thanks to Heather Licados for this, which is George, in the beginning of your journey, you said that you were creating daily videos. And you created daily videos. Did they have any framework to it?

2:50

Did you have specific topics you picked. And so, Heather caught me because, yes, I actually I didn't do what I I I didn't know about what I was what I just taught you the last 3 minutes in the beginning. I thought I had to be fully formed to go out into the world. So what what I did do was in the beginning just like everyone taught me, come up with your niche, come up with your topics, and then go out into the world. I lucked out on the topics that I chose.

3:21

So in the beginning, I said, well, I think I wanna do joyful productivity. That was really my first niche, my first framework. I said since 2008, 2009 officially when I started, like, joyful productivity. That's gonna I'm gonna become a joyful productivity coach for life. I think back then, it was called sustainable productivity, which kinda think of it might have been a better name, but whatever.

3:45

I went with joyful productivity at some point. Alright. So then I made content about that. I did stuff about that. And gratefully, nobody cared.

3:55

Not gratefully. Actually, it would have been joyful, joyfully, a joyful productivity coach. But nobody care. That's that's the truth of the matter. So then I said, okay.

4:03

Authentic marketing is another thing that I that would enjoy talking about because people asked me for some help on those matters. And they taught me for marketing help, and I always found marketing to be gross and, like, this devoid of deeper values that I that I enjoy. So I'm I'm gonna do authentic marketing. I'm gonna do value based marketing. And so I started doing that and different ways, and that that didn't work.

4:27

I looked I chanced in on ChatGPT a time when very few people in 2009 were talking about authentic marketing. Right? Because everyone was still talking about mainstream marketing. Now it's now it's like, you throw a rock and you hit another authentic marketing coach. Sorry.

4:41

But but back then, it was rare. So because supply demand, there was demand for very little supply. I was able to make a career out of it early on. 1st year, I was able to start making hurt almost full time income, 1st year, 2nd year, full time income for sure. So supply demand.

4:58

Okay? Now if you try to be an authentic marketing coach, do you have a much harder time because there's way more supply than yeah. There's some there's some some demand still, but it's hard to to to, you know, come out come out of the noise nowadays. Now, the a third topic that I chose, so I'm I I think I I would love doing this for life is healthy money. Like, I also I have always enjoyed talking being too opinionated with my friends and family about money financial management and things like, oh, you should invest in here.

5:29

Don't do that. Don't spend money this way. And you save money this way. And I was always the opinion about that. So I said I I'd love to be a coach or a consultant or a teacher on those things, and I I that creative content and offers about healthy money as well.

5:43

And that also didn't work. Why? Supply demand. There was already plenty of supply for healthy money stuff. Demand people don't wanna talk about money here.

5:53

Right? So the man wasn't as high. So I couldn't make a career out of it. I couldn't couldn't sell stuff from So out of the 3 that I talked about in the beginning, one of them worked. And so you could you could see that I still did some experimentation.

6:05

I just happened to luck on one of my 3. People wanted to pay me for it. And so and still to this day, I guess I was lazy. Again, see what happened? Ossification.

6:18

Right? I got I got classified. I got attached to the first framework, the the first meta framework that I that I created. I had a joyful productivity framework. I had authentic marketing ideas.

6:30

I had healthy money ideas. I tested these 3. And I said, well, hey. That sounds like a nice trio. Why don't I This is now my meta framework.

6:37

And so 2009, I was already had had this 3, had these 3 as my framework. And still to this day, It's on my website. You look at the knowledge, it's like these three items. It's like but no no longer am I doing healthy money stuff? No one wants to pay me for.

6:52

My my conscious money courses when when we're selling courses of 21 courses. Nobody wants to buy it. Nobody wants to work with money on me. Too much supply, not enough demand, and I'm not unique enough with healthy money. People like the so what?

7:04

GeorgeKao. So but it's still on my website, but, again, I'm too attached to it. It's hard for me to let it go. So I still have a like a like a whole bevy of articles on healthy money that nobody's like, oh, that's kind of interesting, but not gonna hire you for it, GeorgeKao joyful productivity, however, what's interesting? So joyful productivity, nobody wanted to buy anything from me for like 7 years.

7:28

I kept talking about it because I couldn't help myself. It's kind of a little bit of how you know your your vocation, alright, at least your what's it what's the word? More like my my hobby, really. It's like it's it's my it's my calling, but it's it was basically being a monk. You know, in in that in that regard, that topic 7 years.

7:46

No one no one paid me a dime for joyful productivity. I don't care joyful productivity. Whatever whatever that means. Okay? And then somehow, year 8, year 9, People started to be interested because I talked about it.

7:57

I I trained them on it for 7 years without pay. Okay? Because I couldn't help it. I had to talk about it. But, see, with you, I mean, not just Heather, but everybody here watching this.

8:09

And it's like, you you gotta pick enough things where it's like one of them is gonna people pay you for it, but you can still talk about everything else for 7 to 10 years if you're willing to. With no payment. You could still keep making offers. I kept making offers within those years, but people didn't wanna pay for it. So I had to put it as a bonus.

8:27

But, hey, bonus class, yoga productivity, they were happy to receive it as a bonus. They wouldn't buy it as the main program. So for 7 years, was always a bonus. It's always a bonus even though I tried offering it, nobody cared. And then suddenly, not suddenly, I was an overnight success with Joville productivity.

8:45

After 7 years of constant educating my audience about it. Now, joyful productivity is like, rolls off the tongue for a lot of people. Because it took 7 years of so I've literally set that phrase. I mean, I can't I've lost count. Right?

8:60

Probably, I I wouldn't I wouldn't say millions of times. But at least tens of 1000 of times, not 100 of 1000 of times. I set that phrase. I've talked about it in so much content. I had I mean, out of my probably 3000 pieces of content I've created at 4000.

9:16

Probably a third of it is joyful productivity. Right? And yet, it took that long. And so that's what I need by allow yourself to Simplero, notice what people want to pay you for based on supply and demand. You can be you can you can think you're brilliant about talking about relationships.

9:36

But what's the supply There's everybody wants a good relationship coach. Are you that brilliant? Are you that funny or that entertaining? You know, are you somehow that have that much credential or credibility for the demand to be reached, it's like this is the testing we do. It's like you're, of course, you're brilliant.

9:56

But you're it can be brilliant in 25 different areas. You can't. Really, each of you watching this. You're brilliant in 25 different areas. You could be.

10:05

In your passionate about 25 different areas, if you really looked at yourself and looked at the things that you do naturally and things that come natural for you and things that you love to study and things that you love to talk to people about, That's kind of freedom I wish I allowed myself. I mean, looking back, it's like, if I had allowed myself the freedom to, for example, early on. Even early on, I noticed that whenever I did a tech tutorial, it it would get way more views on YouTube than any of my other videos about even authentic marketing or JFO productivity or or money or whatever. My my little tech oh, yeah. Hey.

10:41

Here are Google Drive. I noticed this little thing didn't work, and I figured this out. And then we just go viral. I but I but I kept on avoiding that. Like I said, I don't I don't wanna do that.

10:53

Well, you know, teenager. I don't wanna do that stuff for people. I should have leaned into my joyful productivity and did way more tech tutorials because today, by now, I would have been making 10000, 20000 a month on YouTube doing tech tutorials, which comes so naturally for me. I'm just, like, natch I'm, like, I'm, like, dude, this is so easy for me. It's, like, I did any client can ask me.

11:14

I'm, like, Come on. This is obvious to me, amazing to other people. Right? That, like, that's always a clue where it's like, that's one of your strengths. So anyway, this is what I mean.

11:24

It's like, be really open minded to what the universe is what the market is what the universe is telling you through the market, for what your true livelihood is, what your authentic business is, and you're like, if you're like, wow. But I don't wanna talk about that that's too easy for me, too boring for me or whatever, like tech tutorials, then it's well, then you have a choice. You can either talk about what you love and wait 7 years metaphorically. I mean, for some of you, it's like 7 days and maybe you get it to work, and some of you had 7 weeks, some of you had 7 months. For some of us, myself included at 7 years.

11:59

So you can either talk about what you love, that there's too much supply in the market, not enough demand, and you just have to talk about until you have truly skilled mastery of skill in entertainment value and and insights that are really unique, that rare, and are really meeting people where they're at. 7 years of practice. Not surprisingly. Right? 7 years.

12:19

There's every every 7 years, you are a different person, literally physically. Right? And so something about 7 years. Anyway, you can either talk about what you love for 7 years and and don't worry about money. No.

12:29

You don't worry about Midjourney. Rather for 7 years or you can notice people. So how does this come so easy for me and people seem to love it? And I and when I'm like, it's It's not that's fun for me to talk about that stuff. That's where joyful productivity comes in.

12:46

It's like, you get you have to you either love what you do that the market wants, or you do what you love that the market doesn't want. But you you do it long enough where the market comes around. So I hope this is helpful when thank you so much for for asking it. And even though I said, obviously, the eitheror, Obviously, real life is more complex than that, and there's always more of a spectrum in in between that. So and at the same time, It's not it's never either or you can always do multiple things at the same time as you continue testing.

13:17

So I hope this helps. Thanks.