The Three Skill System
Why Content Creation?
In the infinitely many ways of spending your time, why bother with content creation? It is estimated that 90% of internet users are consumers of content. In the remaining 10%, 9% are people who re-post preexisting content, and only 1% actually create content.
Part of why I'm interested in cultivating content creators is because we have a need for a bigger community of conscious content creators. People who create content for a net positive for humanity. Many of the inspirations that guided my life are other people's content.
The Problem: Blocked Output
When you can't convert your ideas into an output, the idea goes into your brain's backlog. Unfortunately this isn't going to be a one time incident, and you will likely be backlogging ideas over and over.
What happens when ideas get tangled is, even if you are able to output something it will feel incomplete. You can feel that there's a lot more in there. Even worse, the tangled ideas will make it difficult for you to be clear about your own thoughts.
The Koreans have an answer to this: hwa-byeong (화병), or fire disease. When you catch this the symptoms are not just psychological; you actually physically feel so blocked in your chest it feels like there is a fire burning inside of it. This saps away motivation in other areas of life and eventually the things you love end up being something you resent.
The Problem: Expired Inspiration
At first you will feel inspired and you'll open your app of choice. You'll take your videos, write your writings, and start polishing things up. But pretty soon hour 1, hour 2, hour 3 will pass by... and that original inspiration will be far gone by then.
At this point you look at your work in progress and it looks so amateurish. Without the inspiration to get you continuing, this work in progress will sit in the drafts or you will abandon the idea altogether. After multiple instances of this happening, you will soon run out of any inspiration to create anything.
Something about the creative process needs to fundamentally be rethought. The 3 Skill System is a diet plan keeping in mind the human tendency to desire delicious sweets.
A Foundation of Happy Creation
Most people approach content creation from one of two places:
- "I'm interested in this, so I'll make content about it." (following personal interest only)
- "This is what people want, so I'll make content about it." (chasing demand only)
Neither works alone. The middle path: do what you genuinely want, but stay in conversation with the people. Over time, the two converge.
Skill 1: Microposting
Anytime you have an idea you want to talk about, say it. That is it.
If you want to talk a little bit more, go ahead. If you don't want to, good. You're already done creating.
A micropost can be: "I feel like a boba today." Or "I want to take a nap." It is the lowest-effort, highest-frequency form of content.
Practically speaking: as you go about your day, you will have a moment where you feel the spark of inspiration. At that moment, get your phone out and create that piece of content in its most basic form. No editing, no re-recording, just a simple expression and press submit. Then you're done.
A difficulty with microposting will be perfectionism. You will not be creating good, well-polished outputs. You will likely be creating short bursts of unorganized thoughts and that is precisely the point. If you can't even output those, how do you expect to output organized and well-produced thoughts?
Skill 2: Skill Microdosing
Help one person per day. Not a grand gesture, just one comment, one response, one piece of genuine assistance.
When people say, "I don't know what I can help people on," I just think you're not looking hard enough.
Your expertise doesn't have to match the topic. Teresa is a nanny, chef, and psychic. Kevin is a dentist. Amanda is a brewer. You have more knowledge than you think.
Skill 3: Locking In
Taking your daily micro-interactions and turning them into intentional content. Find a question you answered, bring it to Instagram, YouTube, or wherever your audience lives.
Reddit becomes a way for you to get content and it becomes a way for you to help other people in other communities.
This is where Buddhist practices come in. Buddhist practices foster exactly focus and stamina. By constantly challenging yourself with voluntary, humanly possible activities you will be able to consistently bring your focus back to your work for a prolonged amount of time. What would have taken old you three months would be done in two days, because you're that focused and not drained.
These are the three skills that are the basic requirements of content creation. You will continuously be exercising skill 1 while you're doing skill 2. You will be doing skill 1 and 2 while doing skill 3. You're constantly going to either ride the wave of inspiration or have something developed far enough to sit down and complete.
Followers Don't Matter
Whether they subscribed or not has no impact on whether your content gets shown to them. Whether they follow you or not has nothing to do with them getting access to your coaching content. Non-subscribers have no problem finding and watching your content; subscribers can be completely oblivious to your uploaded content.
What IS a useful sink of energy is to align with your intentions around WHY you want to create and WHY it's important that others see your work. The more time you spend thinking about this, the more the followers/subscribers issue will automatically resolve itself.
For the full deep-dive on content creation, navigating doubt, and format-specific guides, ask Billy for the Content Creator Companion guidebook.
Skill Balance Check
In the past week, how many times did you... (0 times / 1-2 times / 3-5 times / Daily)
- Micropost (share a quick thought/feeling publicly)?
- Help someone online without expecting anything back?
- Create intentional content from your interactions?
For whichever is weakest:
- Microposting: You might be overthinking before you share. Try: post one sentence right now about how you feel. As you type it, notice the resistance; the urge to edit, to qualify, to delete. Watch yourself go through it.
- Skill Microdosing: You might be waiting for the "right" person to help. Try: find any post and respond with genuine care. Notice yourself as you do it; the impulse to make it perfect, the fear that it won't land. That observation is the real practice.
- Locking In: You might be keeping your best insights private. Try: take one response you gave this week and turn it into a post. Pay attention to what comes up as you hit publish; that feeling is where the growth lives.