If you need help leveling up your YouTube content this is the BEST and MOST FOCUSED challenge I’ve seen yet to kickstart your YouTube growth! Thanks to @Irfan Delic for setting us up for success! Visit him in the Creator’s Forge community or click the link below to go to the 30 day challenge post! Today 9/1 is day 1, don’t miss out! https://www.skool.com/creatorsforge/30-day-lvlup-challenge?p=06c69de9

All good things take time. Stories are no different. “Stock, sometimes called bone broth, is a savory cooking liquid that forms the basis of many dishes – particularly soups, stews, and sauces” - Wiki Your story is the stock of your dish. It’s the base you’ll use to assemble every story and it needs time and consistent attention before it’s ready to be incorporated into a project. A great looking video with an underdeveloped story is an example of a dish made with some flashy ingredients but lacks flavor. Stock starts as unincorporated ingredients - water, salt and onion for example. Time and heat bring the water to boil and break down the salt and onion until all the ingredients become 1. Through the simmering process, heat cooks off the excess water leaving only the broken down ingredients and their distilled flavors. Repeating this process over and over creates layered, bold, and deep flavors that cannot be obtained through faster or easier techniques. The time and consistent attention (heat) cannot be replaced or sped through if you want to make a story or dish that full with flavor and meaning. Take your time simmering your ideas. Your story has been simmering in your mind long before you read this post. You’ve been adding ingredients, boiling down the excess, tasting and trying to get it just right. Stock is often a prep step for other dishes, the same way creating your story is necessary before you can make it. At some point you have to take the stock you have and move to the next step in the recipe, a dish can’t be made of pure stock. If you feel like your story has simmered long enough, taste it. Is the flavor making your mouth and brain burst with joy? How will you use this base to assemble a dish that will make your audience feel the same way? If you can see the path forward, then move on to the next step and write it down, make that video, get the pottery wheel out, tell your story! However if the flavor isn’t right yet, if you haven’t gotten the puzzle pieces of ingredients to fit together into a path forward - then it’s not ready to serve. And it’s good you know that. Nobody wants to eat food that hasn’t been cooked through.

“Marketing is about Values.” “We have to be really clear about what we want [people] to know about us.” My Main takeaway: Times change, values don’t. This inspires me because it challenges me to think deeper. “What are my values?” “How am I communicating my values through my story?” These are questions I’m constantly reasoning the answers to - drilling down with every piece of work I create. Because I’m constantly having to evaluate if what I just wrote matches up with my values. And how effectively I used storytelling techniques to communicate my values to the audience. What do you think? Share your thoughts below! 💡 https://www.instagram.com/reel/DN4cmrI5M3F/?igsh=MTNrbHlpanlwcTFjaQ==

Lawrence Scher ASC is an award winning Cinematographer and Director. He is best known for for his work on “The Hangover” Series and “Joker” for which he won the BAFTA for Best Cinematography. Link to iMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003394/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk Link to Video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNqic0CP2JM/?igsh=MXgzdWNkZmU2ZmVqdg== Things I took away from this video 1. Want it 2. Hang in there - nothing happens as fast as you want it to 3. Find ways to be creative - I don’t need more permission, I need to make more opportunities During the execution of the opportunity is when Lawrence felt like he was being creative and learning and moving towards his goal of being a Cinematographer. When he was sitting at home waiting for someone to call him for a job is when he felt the most anxiety or lack of agency. What speak to me today: nothing happens as fast as you want it to. If I’m already doing everything I can to produce opportunities for displaying my creativity, then I gotta hang in there and keep pressing - especially when things look uncertain. Hang in there everybody - if this spoke to you share why and where you’re at on your creative journey today :)