Focus on Side Hustles # 7

Advice from Casey Neistat.

music selection: “Turn Me Loose” — Loverboy

One of the ways you can earn a decent income is to produce original content for YouTube. Casey Neistat has millions of YouTube views and is frequently hired by large corporations to produce content they hope will go viral. He offers some advice.

Persistence

Casey has been doing videos for over 15 years. His first was his sister’s wedding (he thinks it was horrible.) Keep at it. Not every video will be good. But some will be fantastic.

Authenticity

There is a lot of cherry picking out there. People posting videos that are basically highlight reels. They don’t necessarily resonate. If you are authentic, everyone can relate. Casey created the BeMe app to help people shoot authentic video. Chest level position for camera and post without editing. The idea raised millions of dollars.

The Brain

Casey keeps a painting of the Facebook homepage in his office. Not a screen shot. A painting. We are in front of our screens all the time and might think Facebook will be forever (It won’t). Putting in a different medium gets different parts of the brain working. It is the same with speaking and singing. Both vocal but different parts of the brain get engaged. Many of the great discoveries of history were made when scientists were on a walk or engaged in something outside their lab. Archimedes first declared “Eureka!” in his bathtub. Get many parts of you brain engaged by experimenting with different media.

Story

Casey makes sure every video has a beginning, middle, and end. He says that is often the difference between a good video and a bad one. You want to communicate something. A good way to do it is to tell a story.

Details

If you watch a Casey video, you’ll note that something changes every two or three seconds to get the pace moving emotionally. He reveals he actually looks at his videos on a 1/24th of second basis to ensure every frame advances the narrative. One five minute video once took him three months to edit.

No Tips

If you ask him for tips he’ll tell you he doesn’t have any. He doesn’t believe in them and thinks people just “need to do the work”. You can’t go to Tony Hawk and ask him how to be a better skateboarded. It isn’t something he can verbalize. But if you practice with the same intensity as Hawk, you will get better.

Every Day

Casey creates a video and posts EVERY SINGLE DAY. This in a way goes back to persistence. You have to practice to hone your craft.

Devour your prey raptors!

In this series:

Focus on Side Hustles

Focus on Side Hustles # 2

Focus on Side Hustles # 3

Focus on Side Hustles # 4

Focus on Side Hustles # 5

Focus on Side Hustles # 6

Focus on Side Hustles # 7

Focus on Side Hustles # 8