SPI 896: If I Had to Start Over Again

SPI 896: If I Had to Start Over Again

Pat Flynn: All right, quick update. Just got back from Seattle and hosted a major event there for the Pokemon community. We had about 6,000 people show up from vendors, attendees, sponsors, everything. And it was a massive success. Just super grateful for the experience to be able to do this.

And if you don’t know what this is, there’s a number of episodes in the backlog that talk about how, in 2021, I started a Pokemon channel on YouTube and it grew to a hundred thousand subs within a year. We are now approaching 2 million subscribers after five and a half years, and it’s turned into this large event called Card Party. It’s turned into an additional income stream. It’s turned into opportunities.

I even have a relationship with Pokemon now and they invite me to events and fly me out, and I didn’t know anything about Pokemon five years ago. And I recently received a question. It was a, actually, at this event card party where I was doing a meet and greet, and there was somebody who was trying to get into business, they came up to me, had me sign their Diglett card, and also took a picture and said, pat, if you can gimme one quick piece of advice, if you were starting over, what would you do? Like right now? How would you begin to build an audience and to build a business today? And I said, that’s a great question and I don’t have enough time with this line of people behind you to answer that question, but let me record a podcast episode for you.

And to Jim, who I remember there, Jim, this episode is for you and for everybody else who wants to know how to get started today. Or what, what I would do. You know, I’ve started many different things across the last two decades, and every time I start, it’s a little bit different, right? It’s not the same formula every single time.

So I think it’s important to have episodes like this every once in a while to reevaluate what is working, what’s not. You might remember the last several episodes were about what is working right now within the world of YouTube, what’s working right now within the world of publishing, public speaking, podcasting, all those sorts of things.

And yes, all of those things can work. That’s the other interesting thing. It’s like, Pat, if you were to choose, this is a very common question, Pat, if you were to choose one medium or one platform, which one would work the best? And it’s like, well, it’s gonna be different for everybody. Different platforms led themselves to different people’s talents.

For example, if you are a photographer, then an audio only podcast might not be the one that works. However, if you love to talk about the business side of photography and you wanna talk about all these stories and things that happened, when this photographer went to shoot a wedding and everything went wrong.

I mean, a podcast could be great for that because podcast is great for storytelling. However, you could tell that story in many different ways, in many different fashions. For example, short form video, long form video. You could write a story. You could write a book. There are a million different ways to succeed.

The most important thing, before I actually answer this question, what I would do today if I were to start over. Would be to just know that I’m just gonna pick one thing and then go with it. Right? They all work, but if you do all of them at the same time, none of them will work. That’s the sort of big lesson here.

So again, Jim asked if I were to start over today. From scratch and wanted to build a following and then therefore a business. What would I do? And I like the way this question is framed, right? Because this idea of building a following is really important. Yes, you could start a business and then build a following and force people into that, or not hopefully force people, but attract people into that.

I should say. It’s so much easier to build off of a following that you might already have. And so moving forward, I wanna say that that’s probably the best way. To go. It is the best way to go. And so what’s really cool is there’s a lot of different platforms out there for you to build your following on.

And in my opinion right now, today, October of 2025, and I think for the foreseeable future, the number one way to start and grow a following is to create short form video. Long form videos work too. However, short form videos can get you started sooner, and that’s why I gravitate toward short form video.

You can build a following by continually showing up. You’ll need to have clarity. You’ll need to have consistency, and you’ll need to have confidence. So those are the three things you need to build authority. I’ve talked about that here on the show before. Clarity, confidence, but most importantly, consistency.

And it’s very hard to show up on these longer form platforms in a more consistent manner. And when you think about it, especially in the beginning, quality is important. You shouldn’t sacrifice value, but there’s different levels of quality that can be offering the same kind of value, meaning in the beginning days of your following, building career, your audience building career, as you tap into a space.

And again, I’ll. Go over ways to discover different markets and where to begin and all that kind of stuff. But in general, quantity is more important than quality. More important because the more reps you get, the better you get. The more reps you get, the better and faster you’ll get, or the faster you’ll get better, whatever the phrase might be.

I tried to come up with something catchy on the fly there, but it didn’t work. But you get what I’m saying? If you compare two people, one person creating long form videos. And another creating daily short form videos. The person creating long form videos, if they’re coming out with a weekly video, that’s 52 opportunities of learning.

You have to kinda wait an entire week before you get the next chance to iterate and to learn for a person who’s creating daily video content. They have a new lesson every single day. You get immediate feedback and can implement and try new things. There’s also more room for what feels like experimentation, right?

If you’re creating a video every day, if a video doesn’t hit, that’s okay. You still have tomorrow. But if a video doesn’t hit and you’re going weekly, well then you have another entire week before you get to quote unquote make up for that. Although I still think in long form world, it’s still important to keep going no matter what.

And it’s just those harder moments when the video doesn’t work like you thought it was going to. They just hurt a little bit more, but. Control what you can control, right? Control what you can control. What can you control? You can control how you hit record. You can control hitting, publish. You can’t control always how the algorithm feels or how people will respond.

Yes, you do wanna get better at that. Understand the psychology of your viewer and tap into that of course. And that’s how you get better. That’s how you get higher click-through rates. That’s how you get longer watch time, but you can’t always control that per se. So make the win what you can control. You getting up, hitting record and hitting polish and seeing what happens, and this is why I’m gonna lean into creating a daily video series as much as I can, whether it lasts for a year or 30 days, or somewhere in between.

Maybe it goes on forever. Maybe it’s for a season of your life. Creating daily videos is exactly what I would do to start, yes, it’s gonna be messy. You’re in your head probably like, what would I even create a video about, let alone one every single day. Well, I’m happy to say that we at SPR are working toward building a framework for you to be able to do this, to be able to kind of work with us, even if you’re not inside the community, more on that later.

But there’s gonna be ways for you, the listener, to be able to participate and actually see results. In a way that we have never really given before. And again, it’s this idea of creating something every day, and that’s where you learn faster. And if you could do this together with other people, wouldn’t that be amazing to get inspiration and motivation from others, not just from us here at SPI, but your other fellow community members.

Absolutely. I’ve micro tested this with groups of friends and colleagues, and this has worked every single time, so I’m excited about that for you and more on that later. But. What I do wanna talk about is that question. Okay. Well, if short form video is, which you would do, pat to build a following and to get started, if you had to start all over again, well, where within that would you even start?

Would you just hit record and start talking? No. A lot of people think that’s what I did with the Pokemon Channel that I just decided one day to when I got into Pokemon, thanks to my kids to just start a YouTube channel and go. I got involved in the community, I started to explore the different pockets of the Pokemon space to determine what parts of it I liked and disliked.

What parts did I feel I could add value, and what parts did I not really feel like I could add value? What kind of service could I bring to this space? And that’s where a lot of these stories and challenges and other things inside of my Pokemon YouTube channel came from. And then with the Shorts channel, the series, the Should I Open it or should I Keep It?

Series came about as a result of just wanting to create something that was repeatable, that opened up a question, but that could get people to subscribe to see what happens tomorrow. By having these short form videos come out every day, I’m able to build a relationship with my audience and build a following and then turn that into a business.

And yes, the short Form Video channel separate from the long form Deep Pocket Monster Channel. Has in and of itself become its own little microenvironment of a business and a five figure revenue and an upcoming merch line and business opportunities, relationships, brand sponsorships, all within just the short form platform alone.

Now, if you look at my channel, short Pocket Monster, you might notice that those videos are also republished on Instagram. They are republished on TikTok, Facebook, and even now Snapchat. Five different places. You don’t need to do that in the beginning. And I didn’t do that from the beginning. I just started on YouTube and Instagram, and I really do believe YouTube is the place to start.

You have the most growth opportunity there. It’s the most opportunity for just easy publishing. And you can repurpose these videos that you might create on Instagram as well. And I would just stick to two just so it’s not feeling like there’s so much stuff. Leave the other platforms for later. You can always take this library of stuff that you’ve created and post them later, and build your audience and move your audience from one platform to the next.

Easier when you already build a following on one. ’cause many people will absorb content on many platforms. So where would you even begin? Like I said, you don’t wanna just hit record, you don’t even wanna start setting up your channel yet. I would do some exploration on which spaces you might have interest in, where within your world.

Do you have interest? Where might you be able to talk about something every day? Where might you be able to explore and have curiosity that you could use your short form videos for every single day? What would you talk about? Even if it didn’t require you to film a video? That’s where you want to begin.

And for me at the time it was Pokemon because I was into it and still am and my kids were getting me into it. And so I used that as sort of a, a seedling to explore a niche and a space and to see if there was anything I could do there. I’ve seen a lot of people become very successful with short form, with creating a series.

So here is what I would do, a series being something that builds upon the video before it. You might have heard me talk about these examples before, but I’ll share them again in the context of what we’re talking about. Number one, sailing with Phoenix. The gentleman from Oregon who quit his day job to liquidate his 401k, to then buy a sailboat and sail from Oregon.

To Hawaii. Now, you don’t have to go that drastic to create something, but what that did is, is it created interest. It made the news, but it created a series by which you then need to follow along to see what happened. He would take you on his journey day one of sailing, day two of sailing, day three of sailing, right?

So this day, one of blank series kind of structure works very, very well because you can see improvement. I’ve seen people recently try to get better at freestyle wrapping. Day one of freestyle wrapping. And what it does is it creates an opportunity for people to go, well, I wonder how far he is gonna get.

I wonder how much improvement she’s gonna make. I wonder how far this will actually go. Can they actually do it? Will this person reach their destination? So what I would do would find a world that I’d wanna live in, a market or niche that I have curiosity in a goal perhaps even. And create a video series about trying to get that goal.

If I was in the world of wanting to help people with fitness, I would find a fitness goal that I might have that I haven’t achieved yet. Maybe it might be trying to stretch. You know, it could be that simple. You don’t have to overcomplicate this day one of trying to touch the floor. Day. One of the most inflexible or unflexible person trying to touch the floor without bending his knees.

Day two, day three. And again, just showing up allows you to start building that following. Now, you might ask yourself, and this is the common question that comes around at this point, it’s like, okay, pat, that example of like stretching every day, like where is this gonna go? What’s the plan? The plan is to just see if you have the ability to create daily videos.

I mean, part of the exercise is just doing without worrying. And I know some of you might already be pushing back, oh, pat, well, like what’s the whole purpose of this? A few things. Number one, getting into the rhythm of creating daily video content. Number two, getting rid of those worries of what happens next.

And just doing it in an environment, a little Petri dish that you can experiment with and play and have curiosity and get those muscles going. Those editing muscles going, those recording muscles going. Because even if this were to be, for example, a 30 day experiment, a 60 day experiment like my Pokemon one, that is of course still kept going ’cause we are on day 440.

Now, even if it were to quote unquote not be a winner because you’re not maybe getting a lot of views, but at the end you’d still have something, you’d have the new skills that you’ve gained as an editor, as a storyteller. When I ran my Pokemon experiment, I went from spending 45 minutes a day creating a video to then only now spending 12 minutes a day recording the same video.

The same video is even better. You create these structures and systems and folders and all these things. Only by doing can you then optimize. You can’t optimize what you don’t start. Lemme say that again. You can’t optimize what you don’t start. And so you can take these skills that you have from this daily experiment of learning how to stretch and then take it somewhere else, and maybe there’s gonna be some subset of that following who finds you for that inspiration.

And then you can learn to help others with that, you can create a program. You could sell a small PDF file, a lead magnet can be created to start building an email list to then dive deeper into this audience that you and only you were able to build. Because you are the one that showed up, and that’s the beauty of this.

You don’t have to know how it connects. It will eventually find a way to do so, whether it’s the skills that you gain from it or the actual audience that you build to. Now, of course, if you have somewhat of an audience already, you’ve built some sort of following, then great. Have your challenge be somewhere in and around that.

I mean, it’s kind of meta how we are coming up with a 30 day video challenge for people who are in this space learning to become an entrepreneur, because that in and of itself is a challenge. But for you, it could be something related to cooking. It could be something related to 30 days straight of cooking a meal under $5.

And now you are into frugal opportunities for your audience who might wanna learn and try a different challenge. Or maybe it’s all cooking based. Who knows? You’re gonna find an audience that finds you for that and you are then able to make a decision on where you wanna take them. Maybe it still lives within the realm of food.

Maybe it lives within the realm of frugality. Maybe it lives within the realm of being a parent and how to get some time back. I don’t know. And you don’t know either, but that’s the whole thing here. This is lean learning in motion, and I love it. And every time I’ve done this, people don’t expect to go where they end up and you have to let go a little bit.

But there is so much ripe opportunity out there right now.

So where would I specifically begin if I didn’t have the Pokemon thing right now? If I didn’t have the connections that I have today, if I didn’t have the brand deals and the sponsorship partnerships and those, those connections and relationships already, where would I. Begin. Well, I would ask myself, well, what again am I most interested in right now?

Right now it would be fishing. I love fishing. I’m learning a lot about fishing, and there are so many things that I’m picking up as I go that I would love to share them. However, I know that just sharing tips every day is not going to be good enough because there, what is the series? What is the structure?

It’s one tip a day. Well, that’s not very different than what everybody else is creating already. What if. It was a 30 day daily video series of me unlocking a new species of fish every single day. Every day I was within a challenge of catching a new species of fish every day. That’s just a challenge, but Pat, where does this go?

How do, I don’t know? But through the ability to story tell and try to capture these fish, I am then able to understand who’s following me for that opportunity. And maybe at the end, who knows, let’s just dream. I now am an affiliate for a particular rod and reel that people can take on the go, because maybe some of these challenges going into different lakes or parts of the ocean here in San Diego allow me to, you know, fish, but I need to take something that’s more compact. So then I start building a relationship with a brand that has a really transportable fishing gear brand. Maybe this is now an opportunity for me to create a map of just San Diego and where all these different species exist.

Something that. Anybody who’s here in San Diego might be curious about. Maybe I can take people on a San Diego fishing excursion and take people along with me for the next 30 day ride and say, Hey, for $1,000 I’m gonna take 10 people. So that’s $10,000 in a month. On a daily fishing excursion where for one hour every day we’ll meet up in a different place.

I’m gonna map it out. We meet and we just catch that fish and you can come on the next 30 days with me. And then in the next 30 days after the first, I now have these guests in this video with me who have paid to come with me. Again, I’m just making this up, who knows? But after I build this following. I get to see what people want and what they’re asking about.

They might ask, Hey, pat, what beta are you using? What rod are you using? What reels are you using? They might ask, how can I do the same thing in my area? We create a little movement, a fishing movement, a movement away from ai, a movement away from the craziness of the world, and a way to quickly escape every day during lunch to try to unlock a new species.

So you see how this video series makes it easier to understand now, from my point of view? What my next steps are. The struggle with a lot of people when it’s like I’m gonna create a video every day, is just like, you don’t have a framework or a structure to work within. So you’re actually all over the place.

You are thinking about way too many things. How might you narrow down the freedoms that you have to create more? What world within would you wanna stay so that you can create and have freedom in there, but not the freedom to create any video. For example, my, should I open it or should I keep it sealed? series really defines what my daily actions are. Well, I have to open a pack of Pokemon. Well, I don’t have to, sometimes I do keep it sealed, but I. I’m not teaching about Pokemon, I’m not talking about the investing opportunity within Pokemon. I’m not doing any of that stuff. Those are things within Pokemon.

But I found my little niche here. Now, I would come up with sort of a brand name to this, this daily fishing series. I think it’s less, you know? So just some quick little tips for you if you’re doing short form daily videos. And again, we’re gonna teach all this stuff inside of our upcoming challenges at the start of the new year.

I really want to help you come 2026. Land on something that will become yours, that you can start to build an audience behind that is relatively simple, that gives you the best opportunity. And again, short form video is the way to do that. So I’d come up with some sort of tagline or name for this. It wouldn’t start with me looking at the camera and say, Hey, my name’s Pat Flynn.

I’m on this journey to find, I would already be there. I would even start the video with my pole sort of bent. It’s like, I got it. It’s a new species today. Or, oh my gosh, please don’t get off my line. Something that would draw people in, right? The hook at the very first second of your video is gonna be really important, and then it can go into the explanation.

Earn the right to tell people what this is about, and you need to do that. In a very quick manner with your hooks. So I would do that. Some little teaser or some explanation after I bring people in on, you know, we’ve unlocked, you know, it’s day seven of my 30 day series of catching a new species of fish every single day.

Here’s where we’re at, and here is who I’m on the hunt for today. This is the kind of fish I’m looking to catch today. And you know what? Sometimes I might catch that one or sometimes I might not, right? And I can unlock a new one that maybe I didn’t think I’d get. And it might be a halibut. And you go and, and I can even teach the things that I’m learning, okay, halibut are in the ocean, but they love to live in these flats and these lagoons in San Diego.

So that’s what I’m using today. And I was told that these three baits might work and I’m gonna choose this one. So let’s see what happens. And again, in a minute and a half, I’m going to tell this story. Hopefully at the end, have this outcome and maybe I might not get it. I hope I do, but maybe it’s a fail.

Who knows? But that’s why you stick around. So this is again, a series. The series is sort of like an arc within a larger story. If you’ve ever watched an anime, like something like one piece, you know, there’s over a thousand episodes of that thing, which is kind of ridiculous. But within that, there’s these arcs.

Each arc has its own mini storyline within the larger story. The larger story is our main protagonist, Louie, trying to find the one piece, the gold that was left behind by another pirate. But within that, there’s Fishman Island, there is Marine Ford. These are all names of different storylines within that each have their own boss and characters within the larger arc.

So that’s where I would start. What I would do in that case is take my camera with me or my phone. Just film as much as I can and do the editing after. Right? The editing and the voiceover is the secret. You capture whatever parts of whatever it is that you’re doing, the story that you’re telling, but the story is created in the editing process, right?

Let me find that quick little hook. Let me then voiceover what the purpose of this is and why people need to stick around to the end. I don’t say this is why you need to stick around to the end. I set it up that way. We’re gonna see if we can actually catch this fish or not. It is said to be here, but I don’t know.

And then using storytelling elements like, oh my gosh, I got a bite. Then something happens. Then something dreadful happens maybe, and maybe not again, I don’t know. But these things get edited afterwards. And through doing this daily, maybe during my lunch hour, spending a little bit of time at night, just for 30 days, I get to start to begin to see this process.

I get to start to insert my own little habits and my own little things and sayings into this. Jokes or just little less key life lessons. It could be as easy as that. Now, if I was in more of the world of of teaching something, I would get inspiration from a guy named Jefferson Fisher who has somebody who has been able to quickly find a formula that works for teaching.

And it’s by asking a question or by pre presenting a scenario and basically saying, here’s what to say when somebody is being rude to you. Here’s what to say when blank. Here’s what to say when somebody is condescending. Here’s what to say when somebody’s just not listening to you. Here’s what to say when blank.

And that series, his, here’s what to say, series when it comes to communication, when somebody’s being mean to you and somebody’s being rude, or trying to put you down, has taken off and it’s helped him in his business. And what does he do? He’s an attorney. He gets clients for his law firm, but he’s using a wide net, something that is relevant to more people.

And that’s really the secret of winning on short form video. You create these wide questions. You create these things that would be relevant to more people, and then you can siphon them into something specific and bring that wider audience, any bit of them who might be interested in that more specific thing you have to offer and go from there.

I would also recommend after this experiment, thinking about how to bring those people who have been watching your videos into. An email list, and this is where I think a lot of us can shine here at SPI because we know the marketing tactics that work and a lot of people who are successful on short form just don’t even have that muscle.

So I think this is why this is a great opportunity. Start with a short form daily series and see if you can build some momentum there. Get your editing chops and storytelling chops your hook, understanding chops going, and from there, start to find that audience who will find you on these platforms that give you free impressions.

When you create videos that work and through that, you’re also gonna get a number of pieces of data. I mean, you have 30 pieces of data after 30 days instead of just four if you’re going weekly. Right? And that’s the hard part about things like long form video and podcasting and even writing blog posts, is you’re not getting this constant feedback loop of what’s working and what’s not, to be able to iterate and create something that will.

So that’s what I would do. And like I said earlier, we’re going to be in early 2026, in fact, you’re gonna hear about this before the end of the year. A way to get involved and start to actually do that exact same thing that I just said. I would start with yourself, and if you’re just starting from scratch, great.

This is gonna be perfect. If you already have a business and you feel like you want to unlock short form video and unlock new audiences doing so. Great. Doesn’t matter where you’re at. You can use a boost for sure, and we’re gonna give that boost to you in a structured challenge that gets you to get instruction.

It gets you to have this sort of cadence and rhythm for a 30 day period. So look out for that. We are even in the process of still naming this thing. It’s that early, but we, we wanna build it quickly for you, and so look out for that. By the end of the year, we’ll be promoting it. It’ll be free for you to join, and if you’re a member of SPI, awesome.

That’ll be just an extension of what you already have. And if you’re not, this will be a great way to introduce yourself to the way we teach here. We teach with the power of community. Not by just giving you information, but giving you the people and the resources and the motivation around that information to help you find success.

So make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss out on those announcements. And you can even join the Unstuck newsletter, SmartPassiveIncome.com/unstuck to get access to more direct communication for when that’s gonna happen. But it’s coming soon, so don’t miss out. It’s gonna be big. So thank you so much.

I hope this helps you and gives you some inspiration and maybe gets your gears going for what you can do, especially coming into the new year. And I wanna wish you all the best on the last sort of couple months here of 2025. Hopefully it’s been a good year for you and I wanna make your 2026 even better.

So hit subscribe. Thank you so much and I’ll see you the next one. Cheers.