Expert’s Curse And How It Affects New YouTubers
Ever feel overwhelmed by your own expertise when planning YouTube content? You're not alone. In today's episode, I talk about a common struggle many experts face - a challenge that often makes starting a YouTube channel feel impossible.
If you're struggling with where to start, feeling bogged down by too many ideas, or just need a clearer path forward, this episode is for you. Tune in to learn how to get those videos made without getting overwhelmed.
Ever felt stuck because you know too much? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Transcript
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Speaker:I don't think I mentioned this, that it's recorded like this
Speaker:often and I'm in my living room today because it's so hot in July.
Speaker:Today we're talking about Expert's Curse, and this really comes up, I
Speaker:mentioned the YouTube For Business membership and YouTube Accelerator.
Speaker:And with the accelerator calls that we have.
Speaker:We have them every Friday, 12-1pm.
Speaker:And people bring their challenges to that.
Speaker:And what I've noticed is this expert's curse.
Speaker:So if you are not aware of the expert's curse, I thought it was
Speaker:something I created, and I was like, Oh, Matt, you're such a genius
Speaker:coming up with this amazing concept.
Speaker:But in, in my mind, and in my heart, I knew I'd heard it somewhere else.
Speaker:I'd probably read it in a book or something.
Speaker:So I Googled it, and I found out it was a real thing called the Expert's Curse.
Speaker:And it basically is, when you become an expert at something, your knowledge
Speaker:is so deep that you kind of forget what it's like to start at that thing.
Speaker:You forget about the questions that you have when you get started.
Speaker:You forget how difficult it was.
Speaker:And actually whatever your expertise is and you're listening to this and thinking,
Speaker:I want to start a YouTube channel on this thing, you'll know that that's the case
Speaker:because one of the first things I get people to do in the planning session is,
Speaker:I say write down the 10 to 20 questions that your Ideal clients ask you when
Speaker:they first come into contact with you.
Speaker:So I'll give you an example of that.
Speaker:One of the questions I get asked is, Matt, what's the best webcam to use for YouTube?
Speaker:And the answer is, none, they're all crap.
Speaker:Now that's the truth.
Speaker:I say something worse, but I'm not going to say that on YouTube.
Speaker:Maybe you'll have to come to a live workshop to hear
Speaker:what I really say about that.
Speaker:But something like this DJI Osmo, DJI Osmo Pocket that I'm using
Speaker:now is a great example of that.
Speaker:Anyway, that's not the point answering the question.
Speaker:The point is that these common questions get asked of you all the time.
Speaker:So I ask you to write those questions down, and then we answer
Speaker:those as our first YouTube videos.
Speaker:That's how we get started.
Speaker:But what happens with this expert's curse when we're coming into that planning
Speaker:session is, you start to write down those questions and then you consider
Speaker:how you're going to answer the question.
Speaker:So you'll see that I told you about the webcam question and I answered it
Speaker:and I went into a little bit of detail, but it was like 30 second answer.
Speaker:Now I could spend 10 minutes answering that question and I could go into all
Speaker:detail about the different things.
Speaker:but actually, a lot of the time, I really need to stay focused on what it
Speaker:is that I'm talking about, like if I was to answer the webcam question, I might
Speaker:go into the hardware of why, or the ISO exposure triangle, and why that's not
Speaker:good for webcams, and how a mirrorless camera with the hardware in it is better,
Speaker:and how, like the sensor size is this and that and you know, like you can go
Speaker:into so much detail of all the different things and in your expert knowledge, of
Speaker:course it's in there and of course you want to tell people about it and you want
Speaker:to show that you're the professional, that you're the expert, that you know
Speaker:all there is to know about these topics.
Speaker:But the problem is you forget the starting point of the people, even when I talked
Speaker:about exposure triangle and sensors and lenses and all that kind of stuff, there's
Speaker:people that listening to this podcast now that go, Matt, what are you talking about?
Speaker:You're just blowing me away here.
Speaker:I'm overwhelmed with the things that you're talking about.
Speaker:Can we just go back to the original question?
Speaker:What webcam do I need?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So how this affects YouTubers or potential YouTubers or experts is, they go into
Speaker:this planning phase and then, they don't know which thing to start with.
Speaker:They get overwhelmed.
Speaker:And on my call this week, those are the exact words that
Speaker:one of my members said to me.
Speaker:She's a crystal expert, and she does crystal jewelry, jewelry, jewelry.
Speaker:You know, there's some words you just can't say very well.
Speaker:Jewelry is one of those words.
Speaker:And she does crystal jewelry and amongst other things around crystals.
Speaker:And she said, Matt, I want to get started, but I don't know like should I do some
Speaker:how-to videos and then like I'm thinking about how-to videos and then when I
Speaker:do the how-to videos like I'm thinking about the membership that I've got like
Speaker:how do I get people into the membership and then when I've got the membership
Speaker:I need to think about the platform that I've got that I need to do and then how
Speaker:often do I get guest experts in there and I'm sitting there I'm thinking
Speaker:oh my god we've made no videos yet.
Speaker:We've not made a single video for a YouTube channel yet but of
Speaker:course the rabbit hole that she goes down as an expert and is
Speaker:a quite a logical rabbit hole.
Speaker:It's hard to be planning these things and not think about all of the other the
Speaker:big picture, you know, the big goals that you've got, the reason why you're doing
Speaker:it, your passion related to that topic.
Speaker:So instead, when we, talk about this expert's curse, and when we're
Speaker:trying to resolve this problem, we have to go back to basics.
Speaker:We have to have a strategy that allows us to catch all of those ideas, all of
Speaker:that passion, all of that excitement, distill it into some kind of list.
Speaker:I know most people love a list.
Speaker:On another episode, I'll show you our planning list and how we deal with that.
Speaker:So you want to distill those ideas onto some kind of list.
Speaker:And then you need to have a strategy in which you can take that list,
Speaker:break it down into a manageable chunk, videos that you want to
Speaker:create, and then go and create them.
Speaker:And when more ideas come in, accept that your brain wants to create them, accept
Speaker:that you're going to go and put them on your list, and you're going to park
Speaker:them for now, but you're just going to focus on those small amount of videos.
Speaker:And to give you some numbers and to make it really specific what I'm talking
Speaker:about here, what I ask people to do is create those 10 to 20 video ideas.
Speaker:And if you come on the YouTube Planning Workshop, you'll see that actually we
Speaker:end up creating sort of 50 or 100 ideas.
Speaker:Put them on an ideas list and then choose four.
Speaker:Four's not a made up number.
Speaker:Four are like, because, for a couple of reasons.
Speaker:The first one is most months have four weeks.
Speaker:There's a couple of mumps where there's five.
Speaker:But most mumps have four weeks, which means you can publish a
Speaker:video once a week for four weeks, right, four's a good number.
Speaker:Also because when you're looking at the list, if you've got a neurodivergent brain
Speaker:like I have, when you're looking at a huge list, it's quite overwhelming to look at
Speaker:that list and make a decision on them.
Speaker:So I just go through it, one at a time, and I decide which one I'm gonna go
Speaker:and film, and I continue down the list.
Speaker:And eventually I'll end up with a much smaller list.
Speaker:Hopefully I'm looking for four on there.
Speaker:Maybe you'll even just do the four that you come across first.
Speaker:Maybe that's a good idea.
Speaker:Either way, you want to end up with somewhere, somewhere in the region of 4.
Speaker:The videos that you're going to create, those 4 videos that you're going to create
Speaker:are going to be between 5 and 15 minutes.
Speaker:A lot of people ask me the question, how long should my YouTube videos be?
Speaker:The answer is, if you're making no YouTube videos, why do you even
Speaker:care about the length of the videos?
Speaker:It doesn't matter, there's no rules, there's no video length police
Speaker:that are going to come along and tell you that your video is not
Speaker:long enough, or it's too short.
Speaker:An answer that I was given a long time ago, which is helpful, but I always
Speaker:add this caveat that I don't want this to stop you creating the video.
Speaker:But the answer was, your videos can't be too long, only too boring.
Speaker:And if you're a waffler like I am, you might think, well
Speaker:maybe my videos are boring.
Speaker:Maybe the, um, your mindset, um, gremlins will come in and say, Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker:know, maybe no one will listen to you.
Speaker:Maybe no one cares about what you have to say.
Speaker:All of those things.
Speaker:One of the commitments we have in our membership is to know you're an expert,
Speaker:so know you're an expert and when you're doing those 5 to 15 minutes videos,
Speaker:the way we stop them being too boring is, by having a post it note with
Speaker:three to five bullet points on them.
Speaker:So let me just run through that strategy again.
Speaker:So it's four videos.
Speaker:You come up with all on your list that you're planning.
Speaker:You come up with the four videos that you're going to film.
Speaker:You decide that they're going to be 5 to 15 minutes long.
Speaker:That's enough time to go fairly deep on a specific topic, but not too deep.
Speaker:And you're going to have 3 to 5 bullet points in there.
Speaker:So how I do that specifically is I have my post it note.
Speaker:I write down the topic title at the top.
Speaker:Because I always forget what I'm supposed to be talking about.
Speaker:So the title is important.
Speaker:And then I have three to five bullet points.
Speaker:And I say three to five because I found that that is kind of the sweet
Speaker:spot for five to 15 minutes and five to 15 minutes is a lot of time.
Speaker:It doesn't feel like a lot of time, but it is a lot of time when you're starting to
Speaker:talk about these subjects in some detail.
Speaker:And so if you just started there, if you're sitting there right now and you
Speaker:don't have a YouTube channel, you've not created some videos, you've got this
Speaker:expert's curse where you're looking at all the videos that you could cover,
Speaker:why not start from the beginner's point of view and start with a plan and a
Speaker:strategy to actually get the videos done?
Speaker:The people in my Accelerator, one of them, Rachel, she's come to me yesterday.
Speaker:She sent me her intro video, and we were reviewing her video yesterday, and we
Speaker:were talking about the experts curse.
Speaker:We didn't call it that at the time.
Speaker:She was just talking about being overwhelmed with choice and so
Speaker:I just said look, like make a commitment and an intention with
Speaker:me of what you're going to do.
Speaker:She sent me her intro video.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:You know, there's loads of improvements we can make and we're
Speaker:going to make them in the future.
Speaker:But I said, let's make a commitment between now and next week.
Speaker:What are you going to do?
Speaker:What are you going to film?
Speaker:She said she's going to do the four videos.
Speaker:I think it's a lot to do four videos, from nothing to four in a week.
Speaker:But we'll see how we get on, maybe I'll let you know in the
Speaker:next episode how she got on.
Speaker:But it's not really the point actually about Rachel, it's about the
Speaker:fact that she's being intentional.
Speaker:She's made a commitment to herself that she's gonna go and do those things.
Speaker:This video I'm creating now, this podcast that I'm creating now is
Speaker:my intention to myself that we were going to restart this podcast.
Speaker:And so we've said, I said that I would do it at the weekend,
Speaker:it's Saturday, I'm doing it.
Speaker:I really want to go and play some Xbox right now, just so you know.
Speaker:But I'm here because I've committed and I've been intentional about the podcast.
Speaker:So I just want you to think about the same thing.
Speaker:So if you've got the Expert's Curse, I'd love to know.
Speaker:I'd love you to head over to my YouTube channel, find this episode,
Speaker:leave me a comment and let me know about the Expert's Curse.
Speaker:More importantly, I'd love to know what your intentions are.
Speaker:If you've been intentional, if this helped you, if this has helped you decide
Speaker:that, yes, I'm going to be intentional.
Speaker:I'm going to go and create a plan, a strategy, and then I'm
Speaker:going to go and do the thing.
Speaker:And when you do the thing, the four videos that you've got, that you've
Speaker:decided on, focus on getting those done.
Speaker:This means that when the thoughts come in, that there's other videos you can create.
Speaker:Yes, I'm just going to make a list of those.
Speaker:Thank you so much brain for giving me these extra ideas.
Speaker:When you're in the shower and you get another idea because you're
Speaker:creative juices is flowing now.
Speaker:You've started to think about this.
Speaker:As soon as you start to think creatively, your brain starts to
Speaker:give you more creative thoughts.
Speaker:So the more ideas are going to keep coming and you're just going to go.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:I love that idea.
Speaker:Thank you so much I'm going to park it right now I've got to get these videos
Speaker:done and then even with those four videos the last thing I'll say about this.
Speaker:Even with those four videos focus on number one.
Speaker:Rachel's commitment to making four is just an example.
Speaker:I often say I'm going to do four videos.
Speaker:I've done filming sessions where I've said I'm going to do 12.
Speaker:I don't get that far in, because my energy depletes.
Speaker:It might be too hot, might be too cold.
Speaker:There's loads of reasons, loads of excuses why I don't, but the point
Speaker:is that we can often plan to do too much and then do nothing at all.
Speaker:So focus on getting that one done.
Speaker:What if you filmed that one, got to the end of it and just accepted in that
Speaker:moment that that's enough for today.
Speaker:And then you come back the next day to do the next thing.
Speaker:Don't put yourself under too much pressure is what I'm saying,
Speaker:really in terms of the fall.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So that is YouTube Success, I think we're on episode 27.
Speaker:How amazing, we are back in the game, we're back in my living room,
Speaker:hopefully back in my office very soon, and I'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker:This is Matt Hughes, King of Video for the YouTube Success Podcast.
Speaker:See you next time!
