Hi Friends 👋

As the year draws to a close I collected my thoughts around what I learned in this time.
I hope this is helpful to you in some way.

I. Creative Life

1. Live an interesting life to have something interesting to say.​
   Luc Forsyth said that to me and I saw that if all I do is centered around YouTube I end having nothing to say.
2. I’m a creator not a business — so build an audience, not revenue streams. ​
   Probably the biggest realization I had this year. Because the Incubators and Coaches that helped me grow also made me focus on business and I missed an opportunity to build an audience)
3. Stop chasing outcomes; start following systems.
   Everything gets easier once you follow a system
4. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
5. Reflection is essential to growth.
   ​Matthew Bliss pointed out that how reflective I am and it made more intentional about it.

II. Creative Craft

1. Externalize your thinking on paper.
   Writing stuff down on paper is the best way for me to get shit done.
2. The hard part isn’t having ideas — it’s picking the right ones at the right time. ​
   Most creators I know have more ideas than they can execute.
   To help me with that I now ask myself: Will someone who watched the last video watch the next
3. Just do one thing.
4. Be clear, not clever. ​
   Just tell people what the video is about.
   Don’t think too hard about it.
5. Repetition isn’t boring, it’s a format. ​
   Formats are what give a channel longevity
6. Research isn’t about learning; it’s about connecting the dots. ​
   ​Mia Zimonjic made me understand the value of research
7. The guest’s story is just the A.
   The thesis of the conversation gets viewers to Z. One of the key lessons I took away from the Press Publish NYC Event

III. Content Strategy

1. Don’t edit and publish on the same day. ​
   Every time I did I felt exhausted and creatively burnt out.
   Putting a good night sleep between made a huge difference.
2. Long-form is an investment; short-form is marketing.​
   That is one of the core lessons I learned from Charles Haynes​
3. The metrics are meaningless. ​
   a video with 11% CTR and 10 min AVD can still get stuck at 350 views
4. Either host events or create video content — don’t do both.
5. Bring people to YouTube, don’t pull them away.
   From day 1 I tried to get people to sign up to a newsletter.
   Instead of putting all my efforts into getting more people to the channel.
6. Curate your feed. ​
   I probably unsubscribed from 90% of newsletters, the only place I have real control over what I see and now my inbox feels much calmer.
7. Share your ideas with as many people as possible before making them to refine them. ​
   James Whomsley of Project Air tells his non engineering, non YouTube friends about his project to test if they are good or not.
8. AI moves at an incomprehensible speed — don’t let it steer your ship.
9. The channel is about success and what that looks like. ​
   It took me 3 years to articulate this seemingly simple explanation of the channel.

V. Life Lessons

1. Running a community doesn’t take time, but it takes a lot of emotional energy. ​
   I launched the Orbit Creator Community in March and then stopped talking about it, because it was emotionally too taxing. Next year we’ll restart with a simpler approach.
2. Daily movement is essential.
   ​This year I ran my first 5K and picked up skateboarding again.
3. Playing pretend can feel more real than the real world. ​
   I attended my first LARP and it was an amazing experince
4. Forget the algorithm. Create with friends!​
   Straight from my conversation with Mel​

Let me know how your year was.

For me the whole time felt like being on a roller coaster that is going down more than it's going up.
But in review I saw that the channel is actually trending up. That made me actually a lot more optimistic for next year.

Thank you for reading and engaging.
I truly appreciate you

💛 Valentin

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