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The initial milestone could have been at the time I was 15, about 5 years ago from now. My father, who indeed might be the one that cares the most about me—my vision, potential, goals, and success—raged out because of my daily 8-hour phone usage on social media, mobile games, etc., and shouted these visionary words to me: “Instead of consuming so much and wasting hours and hours on these screens, CREATE SOMETHING. Be a Creator, not a Consumer!”
Well, as a rebellious teenager at 15, you never think about any sort of advice or learning that you should take from your parents’ sayings. Instead, you let it go in one ear and out the other, just like the majority of your parents’ opinions, and do things your own way as the most wise human being on planet Earth.
So, it didn’t change anything back then. I kept wasting countless hours—the most crucial and singular limited commodity—on irrelevant videos and games, and those words from my father meant nothing to me at the time. (I even remember saying, “Do you want me to become a YouTuber or what? Haha.”)
But as you grow up, you see the reality that your parents know much more than you thought—in your teenage years—they do, and accept your dumbness and perhaps even regret your behavior and decisions. I sure did.
Reason No. 1 that Convinced Me to Get Started
That phrase my father told me about five years ago comes up in all the productivity, self-growth, or business-related content I consume: in the books I read, the podcasts I listen to, the videos I watch, and even the courses I attend: “Create more than you consume.” Even the origin of productivity means to produce, from the Latin producere. So, one has to produce/ create something in order to be productive.
As an individual who values personal growth and productivity that much, this was indeed one of the two reasons why I started such personal projects like my insta page or my personal blog: To be productive, to improve my OWN skills, to share my OWN experiences and my OWN learnings with people who might possess the same thoughts or goals as me.
Don’t get me wrong! It’s not about being so f*cking good at something and giving people instructions about “do’s” and “don’ts” or guiding them. On the opposite, providing value with my—again—OWN knowledge about topics I am interested and experienced in, so people who also have interest for the same topic can take mine as reference and decide for themselves what to do. This is the first reason that got me into the concept of creating; to improve myself, develop my skills while being productive through providing value as much as my own experiences and knowledge allow me to.
Reason No. 2—Leaving a Mark
On the other hand, besides improving yourself and potentialy helping, inspiring, motivating, entertaining others you also leave something tangible behind you. It doesn’t have to be as sensational and impactful as the Mona Lisa, Symphony No. 9 or the Theory of Relativity that shape the society—but actually something that you have created yourself and can review it after years and learn from, be proud of or even show to your children.
But from a spiritual point of view: if you’ve watched the animation Inside Out, you’ll know what I mean; I genuinely believe there’s a similar memory mechanism, and most of our memories are forgotten due to a lack of recalling and reviewing them. As someone who deeply values experiences and memories—especially with loved ones—I want to archive every bit of data in my life.
So, you document your journey mainly for yourself—the journey you might consider as starting a business, your personal growth, process of hitting the gym consistently, graduating from university, raising your children as a father, completing a personal project, or the journey as a whole: your life, because it is human nature not to want to forget or be forgotten.
The Major Concern: Self-Doubt
There is one major concern that holds people back from making that first step: “Who tf am I to do this?” I also was thinking the same way and was telling this to myself, until I have read this paragraph in the book “Building A Second Brain” by Tiago Forte: “I’ve spoken with so many people about their stories, and I’ve noticed time and again how many of them have beautiful, moving, powerful things to share. They have unique experiences that have revealed to them deep wisdom, yet they almost always undervalue those stories and experiences.” (p. 236)
Not because I claim to have attained any “deep wisdom”, but because I genuinely believe that everyone has a unique story, a personal perspective, and something valuable to share with the world. We’ll get into the detailed book review later, but this paragraph basically changed the way I view the idea of sharing one’s ideas, experiences, perspective—their story.
Here’s a fact: even if you’re a 4/10 at any topic in terms of skills, understanding, or capability, you can still provide value to those at 1/10, 2/10 or 3/10, and contribute to their growth, while learning from those at 5/10 and above. You can’t wait until you’re a 10/10 to share your experiences—waiting for perfection only delays progress.
Another Issue: “Living someone else’s Life”
There might be also a second concern: “What will people say; what will parents and peers think?” I won’t dive deep into clichés like ”don’t give a flying f what others say” or “your opinion about you counts the most” at all. These statements are—again—too stereotypical that we always come across in toxic motivational reels and are pretty much bored of. They are in fact right, but not that convincing.
There is a great speech of—to me one of the most inspiring and visionary figures of history—Steve Jobs about this topic that truly inspired me and got me into thinking; in fact so intense that I even made an inspirational reel of that speech. I highly recommend you to watch or at least listen to the full speech of Steve Jobs at Stanford in 2005. If you have a problem with your attention span, start watching at 12:30:00. I won’t give any spoiler so you actually watch it.
Why I will—Why you should too?
All in all, my two reasons for starting to create content were to improve my skills while sharing them and to document my journey along the way. After five years since that first spark, I also finally figured out the how, just like the why: with the most effortless yet effective methods possible, so that it becomes a habit and remains continuous—through blogging and short-form video creation—while overcoming the doubts in my mind that once held me back from pursuing my dreams. I encourage everyone to document their journey and share their story, regardless of how they choose to do it.
You can watch the whole speech of Steve Jobs here and the reel here.
