The Perfectionism Trap: Why Your “Low-Fi” Message Matters More Than Gear

0:00President Barack Obama. Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years. But you can stop them by voting yes by April 21st. Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let voters decide not politicians. Vote yes by April 21st. Paid for by Virginians for fair elections. One of the advantages that I found with my workflow and the whole process I give an umbrella of a lot of the things I do an umbrella label or category of being low five which is you know almost it's the way that I use it is indicating a bridge between using technology

1:02but in a way that is stripped down and a lot of that stemmed from the fact that there were a lot of times in my life when I didn't have access to the tools that I needed to get certain things done and so I've been very good at improvising. I've learned to improvise and hack and repurpose a lot of things. And this is really good because oftentimes when I'm driving and traveling and doing making deliveries and doing things like that I look at I watch lots of I mean I'm basically full-time just learning all the time while I'm while I'm moving about so I'm either learning something or producing something that's it and it's because this is my

2:08obsession and it's something that you'll hear it's spoken about mindset and that's really ultimately what mindset means is it's to find basically to get yourself to a place where where you're doing what you're passionate about and maybe not all the time you're not going to love it but to get to that point where it feels like you're not working and so and so and I know that's difficult a lot of people hear that I'm not taking that to the extreme it's just that I think a little probably the better way to explain it would be to say to be obsessed and so I'm obsessed with producing so I'm obsessed with being an author composer and producer those are my obsessions and I'm keeping things in threes to keep it simple but I'm an author composer and producer of metaphysical musical and martial publications and martial multimedia right so that's

3:16that's really what I'm what I'm doing and but so I think that the mindset to find yourself in is that you're just obsessed that's really what it comes down to so stripping away everything about mindset it's really finding a way that you can be obsessed with basically offering composing or producing just creating and creator mode and then of course you want to publish those things some for some people if you're building something with it so the reason why I feel like and I understand that it's an advantage for me to do things in this very low-fi way is because oh my gosh just bottles rattling in the back clink because like as I was saying

4:19I'm constantly in you know the hypnoathletics university I'm always learning something in the time between everything that I'm doing if I'm not creating something or actively on something if I'm traveling I'm learning if there's some place where the one thing that I can do is listen or watch that's what I'm doing so that I can I'm constantly upgrading now one of the things that happens is of course I see or I consume a lot of content and a lot of it is high production value meaning there are people there who have really nice studio setups or at least they they make it look that way because you know nowadays you can you can get things to look really good with minimal equipment I mean you can do a lot of stuff with mobile devices and ring lights

5:23and stuff like that and cool backdrops and just some very simple you know high-end looking furniture you know even gamer chairs and tables and stuff like that there's so many things that you can do that you don't have to spend a whole lot of money on there's some investment but not in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions that some big studios are you can get very similar quality you know if you look if you look at for example the studios of a lot of some some news channels you especially independent ones or even like I forget with what these guys were called it'll probably come to me in a little bit but the point is that you can get really high quality high-production value of videos and and even an audio of course doing podcasts with minimal amounts of equipment and environment the problem the only problem with that and there this is not a huge problem at all it's it's a problem for people who are

6:29wanting to get into the space of creating and sharing and people who have great ideas because it can be discouraging because people look at those things and they think oh I you know look at that like how am I ever going to get my videos to look like that and it's it's okay to maybe have those reservations because it's what you're exposed to and so if you don't really know any better or don't have a lot of exposure to the stuff and that's a lot of what you're seeing and that's what you're conditioned to then you think that you have to do that in order to get your message out especially if you're looking at somebody's stats and you see that they have a lot of followers or the video has a lot of views and you think that that's what you have to do in order to to match that which there is a problem with comparing yourself with others in that sense especially if it's going to discourage you from actually taking action and that's where the

7:33comparison and and you know placing yourself in sort of this kind of competition with other people that's where the problem comes in is if it discourages you from taking action that's really what I'm addressing is that these kind of comparisons and looking at what other people are doing and thinking that you have to make your your activity match theirs that if it's going to discourage you from taking action that's where the problem comes in and so the advantage of my creation of my my low five productions like I'm doing right now like you I don't you probably can hear in the recording the bottles of my game and back my car I have literally have 24 bottles of wine in my back seat I should have put them in the trunk they're stacked and neatly though and you know and I'm driving and so you can probably hear the car like air wind and I actually that one of the things is that that that's an aesthetic that I also enjoy though as well is having

8:36the environmental noise of different kinds and I've actually even seen after you know and I'm not saying I inspired this but I've seen after it's and it's the reason is because of how the interest graph algorithms work but after I started talking about low five audio book podcasts and low five podcasting then I started to see ads for companies that create podcasting microphones that are designed to pick up the ambient noise to make it sound natural like NPR-ish you know public radio and stuff like that and so but I actually like that aesthetic besides that but the whole low five thing in audio recording like a lot of times you have people make recordings and there's these super clean sounding studios and you know it's soundproof and all this other stuff like that and again the problem only comes in if it discourages you from creating so which brings to the next phase right I want to segue to this really quickly now is what you probably already know

9:40and should but should really emphasize what's important is the content what you're actually getting from it or what you're actually sharing with other people is what matters as long as your signal is greater than the noise and I'm even talking very specifically now literally in terms of what those things mean like the signal here in what you're listening to is my voice and the noise is the ambient sound and ambient literally noise of the environment as for my car driving the bottles clicking what what is most important is that if your signal is clear enough to break to the noise and the noise is not too distracting then you've accomplished your goal especially if what your signal is carrying the message that you're carrying on that signal is something that's going to benefit people and it's going to help them like this message for example this is a way to encourage and help people reset their mindset to understand that you need to be confident and steadfast and continue to do what you're doing especially if you have a message that's going to

10:43help other people get things done is like you you would sometimes some people would usually be discouraged will let this be the encouragement especially if here's the thing this is this is the proof of it this is a very meta proof of it if you when you hear this and you are encouraged and motivated inspired to go ahead and create anyway regardless even if all you have to record on is an old cassette player that you can then try I don't know what I'm talking about that but but you know even if you just have the the rinkiest thinkiest oldest mobile device and the sound is not the best but your message right the message that's carried on that signal what you're broadcasting to people when it's a good thing and it's going to be helpful to them that is what matters and so that is one of the great advantages that I have in creating low five podcasts and low five videos because it shows people that well you know there's a great message here I

11:48don't have to have high production value in order to get my message message across or even to build something whatever it is that you want to build but I was just showing someone I met today there's this event that's coming up in Virginia Beach it's a healthy living expo and I was showing her the stats about my over a quarter million downloads for my podcast and then I showed her the follower account there's only 20 followers how does that happen so it's a message that's important and it's that's really where my content shines is that it shows people that you can have a great message and you can deliver that message and I've experimented a lot but it doesn't have to have a high production value in order to accomplish the goals I'm Hakim Ali Bokis Alexander at Amika Insurance we know you'll always find ways to look out for the people you love

12:59and with Amika Life Insurance we'll help build a plan to make sure you always can we're here to help protect the life you've built Amika Empathy is our best policy visit Amika.com and get a quote today you know what it sucks to be bored but when I get up my phone and play real casino games on spinquest.com the time flies by that two hour wait at the DMV seems like 10 minutes play your favorite spots live black check live preps with a live dealer new players 30 dollar coin packs are on sale for 10 bucks play spinquest.com and you'll never be bored again spinquest is a free to play social casino boy we're prohibited visit spinquest.com for more details hi this is Alex Cantrowitz I'm the host of big technology podcast a long time reporter and an on air contributor to CNBC and if you're like me you're trying to figure out how artificial

13:59intelligence is changing the business world and our lives so each week on big technology I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it asking where this is all going they come from places like Nvidia Microsoft Amazon and plenty more so if you want to be smart with your wallet your career choices and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties listen to big technology podcast wherever you get your podcasts