This is the podcast for digital creators by digital creators with me, your host, Dylan Schmidt. Let's dive into insights on content entrepreneurship, creator strategies, and the occasional random topic because why not? Whether you're on day 1 or 1,000 of being a digital creator, Let's learn and grow together. You're listening to digital creator. It's 2024. Can you believe it? I can believe it. Actually, I was looking forward to it because I saw I was coming up with a calendar. I'm happy you're here today listening to Digital Creator. My name is Dylan Schmidt. And today, I wanna talk with you about your goals and a little high level stuff for 2024. Wanna be shaking it up this year quite a bit for the podcast. In terms of, like, topics and in terms of approach to recording the show, Gonna be trying different things out and really just experimenting and seeing what feels most comfortable to me and feels most engaging to you, because that's ultimately, what it's all about. Me kinda stepping out of my comfort zone a bit, so I guess not feeling totally comfortable. But comfortable in the sense that I feel like I'm pushing the boundaries of podcasting and pushing the boundaries of what I'm making. And So in terms for me, that means, like, just shaking things up a little bit. And then, you know, what I wanna bring you this year is all sorts of different topics, not just related to content, topics, that I might know very little about, topics that, You know, if you were looking at a mind map of creating content, they would be connected. Maybe they're 2 to 3 degrees apart 2 to 3 circles on the mind map, but they'd be connected. But we're gonna start it out with goals talking about that today, and I hope you had a good Christmas. I hope you had a good New Year's, and you were safe. Your family was safe. And, you got things going off on the right foot already. We're only a couple days in here. So goals. I saw a TikTok video last week that has stuck in my mind, not related to goals, but related to goals. And that's what prompted me recording what I'm sharing with you right now, and I think it's a lesson that we could learn. So this girl was drawing on the side of this building, It's brick wall. And she was like, you know, this is like a silly tip that I'm just gonna share with you. But do you know how to draw a straight line without a ruler? And, You know what she did is she basically taught in, like, 25 seconds how to draw a straight line without a ruler. And what she did was she said focus on the point where you want to end the line that you're drawing. Don't look at the pencil or the marker or the paint pen that she had that she was doing this mural on. She said, just look at where you wanted to finish. So she drew the straight line. I've been drawing straight lines since in my notebook. On my mirror, I have, like, these neon markers that'll draw, like, my goals or important reminders for myself. Just as, it's kinda like a whiteboard, but because my closet door is a mirror. I'll just put that on there. And it works. It works. And if you Sully focus on where you want the line to end. You draw a fantastic straight line without a ruler. It's amazing. And how is that related to goals. It's all related to goals because it's the same concept. You look at where you wanna go, and you'll arrive there. If you have no vision for where you wanna end up, You're gonna end up there. You're gonna end up somewhere either way. And I think most of us stepping into this year, We have an idea of where we wanna go. If we were drawing a line, maybe we don't even have, like, a clear destination of where we're gonna end up. But I'm saying we should make a clear endpoint and Dream big. Why not? Because how often do we just set out to do something, implement a new strategy, You know, scroll on social media. Get inspired by I'm guilty of it. I'm sure you're guilty of it too. We'll come across some strategy. I'm like, that sounds fantastic. I'll implement that, especially if I don't have a clear direction of where I wanna head with maybe my business or my content or I'm like, you know what? I'm not feeling inspired. There's no straight line to where I wanna go, so therefore, I'm letting someone else draw my line. I'm letting someone else kind of guide the pen. And that doesn't feel right. You know what I mean? It doesn't feel right when you are letting someone else take What you're working on, what you're doing, take the wheel. And so I think when it comes to goals, it's Super important to have a clear destination. When you're drawing that line, where do you want the line to end up so that you can intensely focus on that. Now there's gonna be a bunch of stuff in the way of drawing that line to your goals. There's gonna be steps. It's gonna be hard work. There's gonna be setbacks. But you can fill that stuff in with the strategies and things like that if it helps you get to where you wanna go. Now when I've been drawing these straight lines and I sound like a crazy person because I'm talking about drawing straight lines so much, but it it's really just, like, blown my mind on how you can just draw a straight line like this. I don't pay attention to how my hand is holding the marker. I don't pay attention to my the position of my arm. I don't pay attention to so much of what's going on. I'm only focused on the endpoint that I wanna get to. And I think it's such a useful analogy for me. I hope it's a useful analogy for you too, is we so wanna focus on all of the other things before that endpoint. Like, okay. I'm gonna think about the endpoint that I want, the goal that I want. But first, let's think about how we would get there. Doesn't really matter if you have the endpoint there. Now that's to say, you know, you have values and morals and things like that. For example, if I'm like, I wanna make $500,000 this year with content clips, you know, it matters how I make that money, but does it matter if$400,000 Of that is through 3 clients, and $100,000 of that is through 60 clients or something. It doesn't really matter to me, actually, if you ask me now because my goal, say it was, and it's not. I'm just using an arbitrary number. $500,000 of being the goal, then that's the goal. Like, I don't really care where the money comes from, in terms of, like, ethically, of course. I'm not saying I'm, like, taking blood money or something like that. I do care about where the money comes from, and I do want it to be, like, you know, legal and all that, of course. Wouldn't do it any other way, but I'm saying it doesn't matter in terms of, like, oh, it has to be this much exactly per month. What if it was, like, $500,000 in January and nothing for the rest of the year? Now that would be kind of scary and whatnot, but If I was making $500,000 in January and then, like, the next 11 months busy fulfilling what was paid for me or something like that, that's different. But you get my point? Like, it doesn't really matter. Like, the strategy supports the vision to get to the goal, but we often try to get the strategy going before we even have the goal in mind. So super important, and I don't think it's talked about enough when it comes to setting goals, and we don't really give ourselves I'll speak for myself. I don't give myself a lot of time to reflect and set goals because it takes sitting still. It takes kind of like putting into practice. Like, what? Where are we? It's kind of like budgeting in a way. To me, like, I I love budgeting because I'm used to it, and I'm, like, good at it. And it's like a routine. It's habit. But setting goals isn't really a habit for a lot of us, and I think it's hard for a lot of us. I know I'm not alone here because I know through conversations, other people kind of feel similar of, like, I wanna do this, and the goal is not solidified of, like, Exactly. Now it might be, and it's just not being shared with me as far as, like, numbers and, specifics of, like maybe it's this this I don't know. Like, you know, whatever the goal is. Maybe there is something that's not being shared with me. I'll just say that. But for myself, I I mean, I'm guilty of not making it crystal clear. And so when I saw that diagram of the the Lady with a marker just drawing a straight line. Like, it all makes sense. It all makes sense why things aren't as clear as they could be and how I could do a better job at making them clear my own life. Get so clear. I think back. Like, it's one of those where I'm like, my hand is on my face. Like, I think back to 12, 13, 14 years ago, 14 years ago, I think it was. My life was, like, in just a a strange spot. I had moved back. I was living in Colorado. I had moved back temporarily before I was looking, for places to work at, like recording studios in Los Angeles area. I was just like it's totally sidetrack, side quest, you know, moved back to my hometown, which is not Los Angeles area, by Southern California. And I'm like, you know, it just kinda hit, like, a spot of, like, I don't really know. I've been broken up with my ex girlfriend. Wasn't sure where I was gonna be, you know, living in terms of, like, with my career, and it wasn't gonna be, you know, at home with my dad. Even though he wasn't really there, he had gotten, like, he had met my stepmom, and so he was with her, because she had a bigger house than we had had at that time. And so it was basically like I had a house to myself, and, and that was really cool. And it was, like, awesome. And it was comfortable in some way because I was in a comfortable environment, but, like, there wasn't any recording studios that I possibly wanted to work at, in the area that wasn't, like, over an hour and a half driving. And so I'm like, this isn't gonna work for me, but I don't know how to get out of this because, like, my dad moved. He didn't really give me the house, but, like, He is he had some clothes still there. It wasn't like he had totally moved out. He just met my stepmom. I'm like, I don't know what exactly to do because This is awesome, and this is a rare situation. And I'm completely grateful for it because I come from an extremely small family. My dad's worked really hard. You know, 12 plus hours days, a very physical job, retired, but Just a hard, hard worker. He would drive. He would commute, sometimes 2 hours or more each way to go to work so we could live in this area. And so, like, to go home and then to see all that, I'm like, wow. Yeah. I don't wanna just, like, throw this away because I feel grateful to even have this opportunity. The same time, like, I didn't I don't wanna live in this area. This isn't, like, supporting my vision of what I want to live, but I had no clear goal or no idea on what to do to get out of that situation because I was completely felt like I was just in a stuck in a spot. Like, I'm stuck here in this semi good situation, semi confusing situation because Maybe I can make this work somehow even though I'm in, like, this kind of semi retired state of living, like making enough. It doesn't really matter because I could just have this house. I got the groceries. I felt like I felt like I'd lived backwards, actually, and it It feels like I have, like sounds like I have an old soul. It's probably why because a lot of my life felt like it was reversed in some way because I had this house. I was, like, single, not really sure what to do, but, like, in a golf cart community. So I was like, I feel like I'm retired at, like, 21 years old. And it was like that for a couple years. And I'm like, this is comfortable, but I don't know how to get out of it. So what did I do? Number 1, I got a mentor, a coach who I found online through Twitter, coincidentally. This was 2000 ten, I think it was. And what did he help me do? He helped me get extremely clear on what it is that I wanted to get out of my life through just asking me questions, and then kind of like nudging me and, like, You don't wanna do that. This is why. Because he had a background in, the music industry. And so if I was like, oh, maybe wanna do this with a band, he was like, Okay. But just, like, kind of a heads up. This is how, like, the reality of that part of the industry is. And it was great timing. I don't know where my life would have been without Having met him, totally changes direct trajectory of my life, but it was scary because He was also kinda my only lifeline to, like, figure this thing out. I didn't know who else to ask, because my dad is like, yeah. Stay at the house. You know? You don't need to leave. You know, take take the house. You know? Because what was he didn't wanna, like, be a landlord. He didn't wanna get, like, renters in there. That's not his thing. He's just becoming newly retired, and he's just like, you know, live there. Live there. Why not? And so, but I'm like, I don't I don't want this. And so my mentor helped me get extremely clear on the direction I wanted to go with my life. And it was just a like a a repetition of asking me over and over again what it is that I want. And it created this accountability of, like, why am I not there and what do I need to do to get there. And it's okay to not be where you wanna go. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a reality of the situation, and we can be honest with someone else. I think that sometimes, you know, as powerful or more powerful than just, you know, being honest to yourself because of the accountability that it creates, because of just, like, the feeling of being heard and understood and connecting with someone else, who really hears, like, you're feeling stuck and really Here's that, you know, you have a direction that you wanna go. And so yeah. You know, he didn't help me financially in any way of, like, getting out of that situation. But through me getting clear just by him asking me of, like, what it is, like, what it what it is what is it that you wanna do? Where is it that you wanna go? That was able That was that was how I was able to just get clear on that and had written it out. It was like I I took it so seriously because I was so tired of being stuck in that situation. And it's funny how, like, we you know, things come around just like corduroy jackets or bell bottoms, which, I guess they're called flare pants. They're making a comeback. Similar thing, you know, with with This goals for me, I'm having a realization in 2024, here we are now, that it's important to get crystal clear on that and not care so much about the strategy as it is about what it is that I want to create. So Having said all that, I thought it would be at least beneficial to share some goals that I do have and, kind of explain it. And these are publishing goals, not necessarily, like, personal goals. I haven't, you know yes. It's the 1st week of January. I am, like, you know, type of guy that just wants to go gung ho on everything, but I'm gonna give myself to, like, make it does there's no rush. Right? There's no, like, finish line. I'm enjoying the journey. I don't need to create everything on January 1st and, you know, wake up at 5 AM every day and then no. Just, like, giving myself the essence of time to start to create some of these goals that I want for the year, and I think that's a great thing to do, in terms of, like, you know, the next couple weeks. So in terms of publishing goals, this is what I plan on doing. When it comes to short form videos, I'm gonna publish One short form video every single day. And notice how I'm saying my publishing goals because I was deep into the goal setting process and research, and I published a short form video on this yesterday. Today is when I'm recording this. Published a short form video on this. Basically, research shows that if you have an action oriented goal, you're 70% more successful with that goal, or 70 yeah. 70% more successful with that goal than if you have an avoidance oriented goal, which means in the terms of, like, spending money or finances. If you had an avoidance oriented goal, it would be like, I'm gonna spend less money on close. That wouldn't be as successful as I am going to allocate every dollar that I take in to a specific item in my budget that is action oriented. It is not avoiding something. Another one, probably a better analogy, is, like, I'm gonna publish, 1 podcast every week, and the avoidant is, like, I'm gonna not only do short form content because podcast would be long form content. So instead of avoiding something, you have, like, an action oriented approach it, which I really like. So, yeah, that's how I'm also saying these goals too because it's action oriented. So that first one was I'm gonna publish 1 short form video every day. It's not that different than what I normally do in terms of, like, publishing videos. I'm just doing it all under my personal or, I guess, business account personal business account, at the Dylan Schmidt. And so I'll do 1 short form video a day, which might be like, that sounds like nothing. It's actually kinda challenging for me because, even though I definitely published more than 365 videos in 2023, Consciously choosing to publish every day despite having done it as many times as I've done it, still not always easy, for some reason. And that is just, like, imposter syndrome still comes up or, you know, maybe I'm not totally restructured, and, you know, next thing you know, I'm like, we gotta get this thing out. Maybe. Or maybe I'm not feeling any ideas come. I don't know. For whatever reason, just consciously choosing to publish 1 short form video every day at this point in time feels just like, feels like a a good healthy challenge for me. Number 2, I'm gonna publish 1 podcast every week. I've already been doing that. I think maybe earlier this or 2023, I was doing 2 podcasts a week at one point. But 1 podcast every week feels really good to me because, like I mentioned at the top of the episode, I'm gonna be changing up the style, which I do these, as you can already tell as I'm going so deep over here, chain sharing what life was like when I was 21, and personal stories and whatnot. And so just changing up the format and experimenting with different things, I still feel really good about publishing 1 podcast every week. I might do more than, you know, in 1 week, but 1 will be the minimum. Same with publishing 1 short form video every day, might do more, and the platforms that these will go on. So for short form videos, I'll publish to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube shorts, Pinterest, Facebook, and then occasionally LinkedIn. Probably, ideally, like, at least 3 times a week on LinkedIn. The podcast will just be audio only for the most part with special video episodes every now and then, but I kinda like the Rick Rubin approach to podcasting right now, and I feel like if there's video on, It it's amazing. And you know me. I love video podcasts, but, like, this episode, particularly, in certain episodes, I don't think I can do video, which is weird for me to say. Weird for me to admit after doing so much video the last couple years. So I feel like there's something a little special about not doing video, and I don't know. I kinda wanna preserve that special feeling. So I'll say, you know, for now, most of these will be audio only. And I'll keep it that way, and I'm gonna have fun with that. Might include video because I really will miss the repurposing aspect of not doing video, but I've in my gut, it's like, do audio. Just stick with audio. So we're gonna stick with audio. At least I mean, not stick with audio, like but we'll keep it audio only for for now. And then third thing here is publishing 2 newsletters every week, which I already do, and I have done for many months, but it just, again, consciously, like, re upping that, internal contract I have going with myself because nobody said, hey. You need to do Tuesday Fridays. I consciously chose, hey. I'm gonna publish a newsletter every Tuesday Friday, and I really feel good about that. If you're ever wondering why don't you just do, like, Monday Friday, Well, it's because I can spend Monday doing the newsletter for Tuesday, and, and I don't have to do the, you know, newsletter Sunday night. That's really honest to god reason why I chose Tuesdays. And I know some people do Mondays, but, like, I like to have my Saturdays Sundays completely off if possible. At the very, like, least, You know, not not think like, oh, I'm publishing tomorrow something big. Also, Mondays feel like a lot is going on. I don't know if people feel a little busier. Mondays, I don't know. I'm just not doing it because Sundays, I just wanna have, like, family just kinda be offline. I'm pretty skilled at being all online or all offline. I'm kind of all in or all out. I something tied to my obsessive personality, and so I'm all off. It's probably a similar thing to why I don't drink alcohol because I'm all off. Like, I've never had a problem with alcohol. I just forget it exists. And so on the weekend, I like to forget things exist, and oftentimes, that is forgetting I publish completely. Honest god truth there. So, yeah, those are my 3 big publishing goals for 20 Excited. I feel like there's gonna be some good growth happening. And when I look back, I was organizing my footage earlier, in my external hard drives. Just kind of like clearing up space for my Dropbox, which is where I normally keep everything. I was, like, transferring files over and just like, you know what? Let's just organize this real quick. I have, like, 800 of these short form videos in one of the, folders, which is called digital creator even though it's for my, like, Dylan Schmidt account, but that's just how I label things. And I was looking at it. I'm like, man, I've really come a long ways with From, like, what I started with these short form videos, just in terms of production quality, comfort, the way I script things, the way I feel. Like, when I just watch the videos, I can tell that I'm, like, doing good, and, like, the videos are great, I think, like, For someone that did not have any background in, like, video editing before that, like, very, very, very little Background in video editing. Like, I probably don't talk about that enough. I do not come from a background of video whatsoever. Like, that started When I created Digital Podcaster in June of 2021, so I'm just getting the reps in. My business coach says, like, you're just going, like, 10000 hours faster than most, and that's kinda what I felt like I did. But, yeah, I've come a long ways, and I know that I still have a ways to go. And it's not also like a destination, but I'm excited to see what this next year brings. I shared this on the last call live call in the creator club. But I had done I think it was in 2015, around then. I did a photo a day challenge, inspired by a friend, John, who ended up becoming a photographer. He was in high school at the time. He ended up becoming a photographer for SpaceX, and he does these amazing photos. And I think he even went to, like, high up. Yeah. He has Crazy cool photos these days, but he inspired me to do a photo of the day challenge. And it was fun sometimes, and it was really hard the other days because I would travel a bunch. And those times, it was always so easy to take a photo. And I could just grab a photo in, like, a couple minutes and then put a little caption, and then post it. And then other days when I was home for a long time, and I felt like, I I don't know. Like, I'm home for a month. Maybe I don't wanna travel much because I just had traveled the world multiple times over. Maybe jet lag's hitting me or whatever. I and I still gotta find an interesting thing to post. It really helped me, especially because I wanted to be seen on a certain way on Instagram at that time. It really forced me to, like, find moments in the day To highlight and be grateful for, it's kind of what I do with my one line a day journal that I have that I got on Amazon. But, yeah, It was an amazing challenge. My wife says to me at least once a month, she wishes I would bring it back, and that was, like, Again, like, 2015, 2016. And, just because it pushed me creatively, and it was fun, and it was, like, Simple. And then other times, it was, like, really hard, and I was like, I don't know what to do today. But I think The short form videos will feel like that. It already feels like that, and it's literally the 1st day of January as I'm recording this. Like, what do I talk about? I don't know. What if I run out of things to talk about? I love that type of challenge because I've seen that I could succeed it before with the photo a day challenge, and, you know, I look forward to challenging myself again. And I really just like that thing of challenging oneself and seeing when you succeed, it's like such a good feeling. And then you see how you grew and you're like, I don't know if I could have grown without that challenge. That's the type of stuff I live for. I really, really, really love that. So to tie it all back in to where my straight line is going, I don't know yet. I'm getting clearer on that. But it will be, you know, specific to different areas in business and personal life. Like, but I'll go through, and I'll make that straight line for my goals, and I'll be crystal clear on them. And I wrote about how I like vision board, which I do. And I create a vision board, but I'm like, I think I need to create another new vision board. I do it in Canva. I look up the images. I just add it to a Canva board, 24 by 18 or 18 by 24 or whatever. And then I get it, printed right through Canva. It's, like, $10 or something like that. Get a frame from Target or something or wherever and hang it up for you to see. I think it's a solid way for, 1, you could use it for, like, goals oriented things or 2 just, like, big vision that you have for, your own content, your own online business, what you're creating. Could be really, really useful. But, yeah, I I'm, you know, not gonna share the deeper goals because I gotta go through there. I gotta take some time and really list those out and get crystal clear on them. But I look forward to it, and I'm looking forward to seeing where that line ends up, at the end of 2024. So for you, what I should say, how are you giving yourself time to create and list out your crystal clear goals for 2024? Is it, like, taking an hour out of your day and just listing them out? Because, again, I don't think this is something that you could just breeze through because it's important. It's kinda like if you're driving a car and you didn't put in the GPS where you're going and you're like, and say you were driving from LA to New York, and you're like, I'm gonna go to the East Coast. And you end up in Florida, but you, like, actually wanted to go to New York. Well, you're gonna wish that you would have planned back days before that you would have put in your GPS, and you would have just made it to New York in less time. I think the same thing is true for your goals. And, Yeah. Just give yourself an hour to map out, like, what it is, where it is that you wanna go. Maybe it takes less time for you. Maybe it's already so clear, but, like, list it out. Don't just let it live in your brain. List it out in your notes app, in a Notion page, in a journal, in a notebook, whatever, but do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Alright. Let me know about this new episode format. It's a little different. I know. But creative expression. Right? Sometimes you just gotta get it out. And I hope you're experimenting too with your content in 2024. That's my hope for you is that you don't feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again. If you want nudge or, like, a community of support behind what you're doing too and you are a creator and you're not feeling like you have that community, Well, come join us in the creator club because great minds think alike. We should also stick together. Just go to The link in the episode description or the creator club.com to learn more about that, and I'm grateful you're here. I'm grateful you stuck around this long in the episode. Yeah. If you have an idea for a future topic too, let me know. I would love to hear it. You can just send me a message on social media, or via my website. Alright. I'll catch you in the next one.