Creating content and being cringe
will lead to your success. I promise you because I am living and breathing it. I want to inspire every single one of you to start creating videos
and hit that publish button without worrying about what other people may or may not think. The judgment that is inevitable from some people, the gossiping, the talking behind your back, the pointing the finger and laughing, all of this happens
when you step outside your comfort zone and you create content. I've been through the good, the bad, the ugly, but what I want to say to all of you is when you make it to the other side where you start seeing success,
the opportunities
that are awaiting you are incredible and very lucrative.
For example,
my personal brand off of content creation is Aaron Knightley, which is my face and my voice. I have turned that into a multi 6 figure business, and if I can do it, you can do it too. You've got to have confidence, you've got to back yourself, and you've got to be consistent in what you do. And even when I started in the early days,
yeah I found it a bit cringey. I actually did some videos in this cabin
and was I embarrassed?
Maybe a little bit because I was stepping outside a comfort zone that I wasn't used to, but I found my feet, I remembered my why. I wanted to change my family's life. I realized that Aaron you got two options, you can stay in a job and things are gonna get difficult, or you can build something for yourself and you have to learn sales and you have to learn marketing,
and the modern age of marketing is social media.
So I had to embrace it. It wasn't a case of did I want to do it? I had to do it. And that's probably very similar for a lot of you is that you have to make that decision, but again a lot of the fear is holding you back. But you know the the really crazy thing about creating content? This is probably one of the
toughest pills to swallow is that it is the fastest
way
to reveal your true supporters
against people who will hate on you, and unfortunately when you create content, well, there's actually one of two ways you can do this. You start a business or you create content, it will reveal those who will support you and those who actually don't want you to do very well, and certainly not better than them is by creating content. For me personally,
and it is somewhat of a shame, but I had to cut off an immediate family member of mine who was very toxic to me going through this journey of personal development, content creation and business. They didn't want to see me do well, I later found out they would gossip behind my back, they would laugh at me with their friends,
they spoke about me over text, and,
you know, it hurt at the time, but I made the decision to cut those ties off between me and that family member, and I don't ever see them ever again. But you know what also happens, and it's ironic really, because the people that laugh at you in the beginning, when you actually become successful and you start earning money, you built something sustainable,
and life starts to improve
because of your content creation and your personal brand, a lot of these people actually will come back into the the mix. Well, they'll try
as they have done with me. I don't let them. I have a zero tolerance policy. But a lot of them will come knocking on the door going, oh, you know, it's been been a while since I've seen you. You know, you look like you're doing really well. You know, how? How did you do it? They'll ask how. In the early days when it's hard graft and it's cringe and it's awkward and you've got a film in public and you feel embarrassed and you've got impostor syndrome and all you want is support and people to tell you that it's gonna work and encourage you, they're not there,
but when things start to work,
they rear their heads again. And then obviously it's your choice whether you let them back in or not, but if you want my advice, I wouldn't give them the time of day. So many great things though can come from content creation. You can increase business sales if you already have a business. So I was building a business whilst I was in my nine to five, which is how I replaced and escaped it. I was able to increase revenue
off of the back of content creation. I'm able to record these incredible YouTube videos, which are evergreen. They are passive income. I've made a lot of money through content creation, which I've been able to invest into assets and other vehicles,
which make me more money. You know, I've had a fantastic start to the day. I went to the gym. I came back, spent time with my family in the garden. I've come down here to record this video in the cabin. I'm gonna go back out into the garden after this video in the sun with my family, chill out. We'll have a bonfire tonight and a barbecue cause it's that time of year. Thankfully, the sun's coming out. But you have to go through the tough times of feeling a bit stupid.
In fact, let me give you a bit of encouragement and a reminder that I have been there. So like some of my first YouTube videos were in this very cabin. It was set up differently. Let me put these on screen now for you to see the difference between the style of videos that I create now, and really how far I've come to, you know, to these first few videos. They'll pop up on screen now. Good morning, YouTube. Welcome back to another video. Thanks for joining me. So in today's video, we're gonna be talking about circle of five, being around positive people,
the impact that that has, and also the impact of being around negative people. Today, I'm gonna be talking about how to manage money in your twenties and ultimately increase the chances of you becoming wealthy long term. So let's get into it. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to my channel. Today, I'm gonna be talking about how we could invest £5,000,
what we can do to increase our returns, maximize growth,
and hold security all at the same time, typically between six to eighteen months. So just remember to have a realistic expectation,
but peer to peer overall is a great platform. So as you can see, they're totally different. I actually look older
in those videos. I look tired,
the audio was bad,
the visuals were bad, the aspect ratio of the video,
one of the videos that you would have seen was really off, but you know it's great to look back and see how far you've come as well. I also think it's, you know, you're doing yourself
an injustice
if you have God given talents and gifts
that you should be sharing.
Because I feel some of the best content that you can create, whether that's in comedy,
education,
whatever it's in, if you can positively
impact other people's lives and build a loyal community
where people thoroughly enjoy your videos and get a lot of value from it, it's such a great feeling, like I love
reading
my YouTube comments, you know, and if you've ever left a comment I would like to think that I've replied to you, it does take me longer now as I've said before to get back to all the comments because you know, a lot come through now, but every day I work my way through twenty, thirty comments a day, so, you know, there is a backlog, but when I'm reading them, it really puts a smile on my face. And look, don't get me wrong, you'll have haters, you'll have trolls, you'll have people go against you and try and pull you down because it's inevitable. Again, it is what it is, and I always look at it and think of it as that saying, and I don't want to butcher this saying, but it's, you know, if you had a $100,000
in your bank and someone robbed $20,
would you throw away the remaining
999,900
or whatever it is, I'm so bad at maths, whatever it is you you get where I'm going with that, I don't even want to try and work that out, but what I'm saying is if someone took $20
out would you go and throw the rest away? No of course you wouldn't. You know like for example there will probably be someone in the comments that will say something about the
me on the maths there. It just is what it is like it's you're never going to escape people hating on you, and I think that's when you come to accept that the the best way to be in content in my opinion is Marmite, and just have that split where people really love your content, and then there's just gonna be a portion of people that just do not like you, and that's okay. The key to winning when it comes to content creation is always try to improve every video. However that improvement comes, just try to improve. Try to add as much value as possible, and the key is always consistency,
showing up.
Because when you build an audience,
if you want to work with brands, you want to work with sponsors, you want to build a business, you really want to make this a full time thing where
the money gets really good. You have to treat it like a business. You have to show up. You have to have structure. You have to listen to your audience. You have to do research, you have to take on board the analytics.
But the great thing about content is you can structure
all of it in a way that's very
you know, you can you can build autonomy, and you can work towards more of a passive lifestyle. Like one of the benefits is when you start earning good money through content, it allows you to travel a lot more. So for example, when I go on holiday,
I will batch record two or three videos, send them off to my editor, get them scheduled, and then I can go away for a week, two weeks,
and I can also do this with my businesses because my businesses are very passive as well and there's a lot of autonomy within them as well. I'm actually going to be doing another video, heads up by the way, on
if I was to start again in business, what I would be looking at and what I would do, and I would always focus on
lean
operating businesses that maximum has one or two founders and that is it with
zero employees,
but maybe two three freelance
workers
or people who are who have a small amount of equity in the business that work on a commission base or certain targets. Other than that, I would not look at any business model that was logistically heavy,
had physical products involved. Anyway, I'm totally going off on one. That's for another video. But the great thing about personal branding and content creation is it is
super super lean and super scalable,
which in turn allows you to live life more. And and that really, as you can probably tell by most of my videos, is what I have come to realize.
My entire life
is has been designed around me and my family, and that's the way that I wanted it. The most important thing to me is time.
So, you know, this video at the moment, what we've probably been filming around ten minutes, probably do another few minutes of talking,
gonna wrap this up and then go back and spend time with my family. That is what's so important. And the brilliant thing is when you get over the fear of what other people think, the judgment, the talking behind your back, all of that, and you start producing more because you no longer care what other people think, your productivity
goes through the roof because you're no longer wasting time and procrastinating,
over thinking,
you start producing more, you start growing more, the overthinking
wears thin and that disappears because now
where you've been producing so much, your results are starting to show, therefore the people that were hating on you and the ones you were overthinking about, they're disappearing because your results are now speaking for themselves,
if you follow along with that. And therefore you start finding momentum,
start finding rhythm,
and you start growing more. And in turn, you'll start earning more money. When your brand is of a sufficient size,
maybe you take someone on in PR, public relations, as I did Lindsay Reid, where they start outbounding to podcasts,
companies. You start getting b to b proposals,
sponsorships that pay you monthly. It's never ending, really. The the possibilities are never ending in terms of how lucrative it can become. You can like there's, I won't say the company at the moment, but we are putting a proposal together for a company that I really like, where I am having a proposal sent off,
where I'm asking for equity in the business to go down as an ambassador for that company. Kim Kardashian did that recently with a big company.
You know, a lot of brands now, when you've developed yourself,
you can go to big companies and ask for equity to be an ambassador. Because if you've got the leverage,
you've got the audience, you've got the sway, you've got the engagement, there's nothing stopping you from putting proposals together. It's like if you want free travel, get a brand that's big enough, ensure that you've got engagement,
and then you can start outreaching to big companies and saying, hey, I'll do a branded video for you if I can get four first class tickets to whatever country you want to go to. It's a great deal for an airline, they're gaining all of your audience
for them giving away four
first class or business class tickets. It's a no brainer. It's a great exchange.
These are all the benefits from when you start creating content and you start being successful at it. But hopping back to
the very beginning of feeling cringe, a little bit of embarrassment,
wondering what people are thinking of you,
yeah they're going to talk about you, cut them off,
you don't ever need to see them again, and yeah you might be the talk of the town, or the talk of the office or the talk of the canteen for a day,
but people move on. You know, you won't be the talk
of whatever for a week, a month, they'll get over it, and then they'll be on to the next thing. Again, people shine their insecurities
when you're doing something that they know they couldn't do. As we finally wrap up, I can only encourage all of you just to start because if I look back at my
starting days where
I remember producing the first couple of Tik Toks in here, obviously my first couple of YouTube videos,
would I think that three four five years later
I'd be able to do this as a full time living alongside my businesses,
have
made the money that I've made,
and then structure it in a way that is so lean,
scalable, but also still fits around my entire life, not just me, but my my actual immediate family, like, you know, my family as whole as a whole with my partner,
you know, our son, being able to see my parents every single day. For example, like, my partner had to go to the hospital the other day, and I was able to go with her and work from the hospital and have that flexibility. I needed to do emails, just admin work, boring stuff, and scheduling, and I was able to do that. In fact, I just have a photo pop up. I took took a photo because I'm doing a short a piece of short form content about it, so that that would have popped up on screen because that's the difference is when I was in a job you have to ask permission, oh I've got to go to the hospital you know because my family members been taken in or whatever and everything's reporting to someone and asking someone and or letting someone know that you've got to go, and yeah it's just that's what it allows you to do is is the structure
around the life that you want. And I've said this in other videos and not to bore you with it, but for me it was never about being the richest.
Like I'm actually not bothered about how many zeros I've got in the bank. It's about ensuring that every day I get to spend it with loved ones because like even with my parents, and my parents will watch this video, so mom and dad will love you, but you know my parents aren't always going to be here, and I really want to make sure that I spend as much time with them as I can, and content creation has ensured that I'm able to do that now,
so it is a blessing. So look, I hope what you've taken from this is life is just too short to be worrying about what other people
may or may not think. Again, not what they'll do, but what they're thinking.
Who cares?
Who cares? Start creating.
Start living your life. Go and impact other people's
with your message. Again, things that you've been through. Share it with the world. You do not need to seek validation from someone saying to you,
okay, now you can create content. I'll allow you to create content. I validate you. You don't need to seek validation, believe me, I don't seek validation from any man or woman. I just do exactly as I want, always have done to be honest with you, which is half the reason I actually don't think I've ever suffered with any mental health issues
in or out the workplace,
ever had a panic attack,
I've never woken up with a life crisis,
I've never had anxiety, and I've never obviously suffered with any type of depression, and I solely believe
it is because I just am not bothered about what other people think. Not that I'm not considerate, that's not what I'm saying, but I'm too bothered about the life that my family and I want to live
to to spend any time worrying about what someone may or may not think about what I do. So anyway,
look,
thanks for sticking around if you're still here. This was just
again, I don't script. I just hit record. I talk about what I want to talk about. I hope you get some value from it, you stick with it, and you follow. But yeah, look, create create create create, because it will be one of the best things you ever do. Until next time, my good people. Let me know in the comments if you did enjoy. What were your key takeaways?
And, uh, like and subscribe if you want to, and I'll see you on the next video. Peace out.