11:32Ronny Mitchell · Talking Head
how to make people give a f*ck about your content
A creative director who has generated 10M+ followers for clients reveals the two-step framework for building a personal brand that actually grows.
June 26thThe argument in one line.
Building a personal brand is not a matter of talent or original ideas — it is a repeatable system of studying what already performs, separating the underlying demand from its packaging, and reassembling both into your own content.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A creator with a small-to-mid following who is guessing at what to post instead of researching what already works in their niche.
- Someone building a personal brand who keeps writing scripts from a blank page instead of modeling proven hooks and formats.
- A creative director, editor, or team lead who preps interview-style shoots and wants a repeatable question framework for pulling material out of an expert.
- A creator who has had one video perform well but doesn't have a system for repeating it.
SKIP IF…
- You already have a documented content research and production system and are looking for platform-specific algorithm mechanics instead.
- You want a fill-in-the-blank script template — this covers research and production philosophy, not word-for-word scripts.
The full version, fast.
This creator breaks personal-brand growth into eleven repeatable 'cheat codes.' The throughline: none of it requires natural talent or original ideas — it requires systematically studying what already performs and adapting it. He opens by showing how to reprogram Instagram's For You page in ninety seconds to surface a niche's top-performing content, then explains the difference between demand (why people care) and packaging (how it's presented), so a creator knows what to copy versus what to invent. Later cheat codes cover hook theft, writing from a consumer headspace instead of a creator headspace, defining jargon so nothing creates friction, treating production as five separable skills, and a two-axis test for whether an idea is actually creative or just manufactured.
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00:00 – 02:40
01 · Reprogram the Algorithm
Live demo: search a niche keyword on Instagram, copy the links of a dozen videos in that topic without posting them anywhere, then refresh the For You page — the algorithm reads the copied links as an interest signal and starts feeding that niche's top-performing content.
02:40 – 05:05
02 · Be a Good Thief
A video that performs splits into demand (the topic people already want) and packaging (how it's worded and presented). Only demand has to match your niche — packaging can be stolen from any niche and reworded.
05:05 – 07:50
03 · Hook Hijacking
Keep a proven hook's structure and keywords but swap the specific wording for your own content. Contrasts vague curiosity-gap hooks (which need a compelling face) against keyword-driven hooks (which sell themselves).
07:50 – 10:00
04 · Create From Consumer Mode
Shut off the creator brain and consume content on something you're genuinely curious about — then notice what actually captures your attention. The frame for every video: would a stranger who's never seen your face watch this?
10:00 – 11:43
05 · Think Outside the Platform
Don't limit research to one app's algorithm. Reddit threads and casual conversations (like a partner's real reactions while starting a diet) surface real audience problems a curated feed never shows.
11:43 – 12:52
06 · Every Word Is a Rubik's Cube
Treat every unfamiliar term as a puzzle for the viewer: define it and explain why it matters before using the jargon. Worked example: explaining ROAS as 'return on ad spend' before naming it.
12:52 – 15:49
07 · The Skill Chain
Content creation is five separable skills — ideation, shooting, editing, testing, iterating — each improvable on its own. Also covers testing multiple video variations and deliberately repeating what already worked.
15:49 – 17:23
08 · Statement-First Shooting
Introduces the BEST framework: Bait (a strong out-of-context statement), Elaborate, Story, Takeaway — a replacement for writing a script from scratch.
17:23 – 18:35
09 · Answer the Questions Before They're Asked
A good video is a domino chain where each line answers the question the last one raised. Gives a five-question interview rolodex for extracting material from a subject-matter expert.
18:35 – 19:34
10 · Bread Crumbing
Break one broad topic into single-variable videos (one on the wheels, one on the engine) instead of cramming everything into one piece — an unlimited backlog that keeps each video focused.
19:34 – 21:08
11 · What Creative Actually Means
A two-axis test — originality and utility — for whether an idea is manufactured, art, garbage, or genuinely creative. Closes with a soft CTA to a follow-up video on scripting.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Reprogramming Instagram's For You page to surface a specific niche's top content takes about ninety seconds and requires nothing but copying video links without posting them anywhere.
- A video that performs breaks into two separable variables: demand, the topic people already want, and packaging, the specific way it's presented — and only demand has to come from inside your own niche.
- Good packaging is nicheless: a tax creator's write-off hook can be reworded into a fitness hook about workout length without losing what made it work.
- The most effective way to steal a hook is to keep its structure and keywords while changing the specific wording to fit your own niche.
- Curiosity-gap hooks with no keywords, like 'I don't know who needs to hear this,' only work if the person saying them is already visually compelling; hooks built around concrete keywords like money, weight loss, or relationships work on their own.
- The fastest way to write content that lands with strangers is to temporarily stop being a creator, go consume something you're genuinely curious about, and notice exactly what captures your own attention.
- Studying only one platform's algorithm is a mistake — Reddit threads and casual conversations reveal real audience problems that a curated feed never surfaces.
- Every unfamiliar term a viewer hears is friction; defining it on the spot, such as explaining ROAS as 'return on ad spend' before using the acronym, removes that friction and keeps them watching.
- Content creation isn't one skill — it's five separable ones: ideation, shooting, editing, testing, and iterating — and each can be practiced and improved independently of the others.
- The BEST framework for opening a video is bait (a strong out-of-context statement), elaborate on why you believe it, tell a short story of where you learned it, and end with a concrete takeaway.
- A five-question interview rolodex — do you agree or disagree, what does that mean, invert it, what do most people do instead, and say more — is enough to extract a full video's worth of material from any subject-matter expert.
- Breaking one broad topic into single-variable videos, one on the wheels, one on the engine, one on aerodynamics, gives a channel an unlimited backlog of content while keeping every individual video tightly focused.
- Creativity sits on two axes, originality and utility: useful-but-unoriginal content is manufactured, original-but-not-useful content is art, and only content that is both is actually creative.
Replace creative guesswork with a repeatable research system.
RESEARCH BEFORE CREATE
Nothing here requires talent or original ideas — it requires systematically studying what already performs, inside your niche and out, then reassembling proven demand and packaging into your own take.
01Reprogram the Algorithm
- You can reprogram Instagram's For You page toward any niche in about ninety seconds: search a niche keyword, copy the links of about a dozen videos that come up without posting them anywhere, then refresh.
- This research method beats AI ideation tools because it uses the actual algorithm you're trying to perform on, not a proxy for it.
- The goal isn't to find videos to copy outright — it's to see which topics and formats are already winning in a niche before you create anything.
02Be a Good Thief
- A video that performs breaks into two separable ingredients: demand, the topic people already want, and packaging, how that topic is worded and presented — only demand needs to come from your specific niche.
- Good packaging is nicheless: a hook like 'you can write off 90% of what you spend' can be re-skinned into a fitness hook about cutting workout time without losing what made it work.
- Model formats and structure from proven videos rather than starting from a blank page, but change the wording and specifics enough that no one could point to the source.
03Hook Hijacking
- Keep a proven hook's structure and keywords, but change the specific wording so it fits your own content — that's hook hijacking, distinct from copying the video itself.
- Generic curiosity-gap hooks only work if the person saying them is already visually compelling; hooks built around concrete keywords like money, weight loss, or relationships work on their own merit.
- Always build at least one or two clear topic keywords into a hook so a scrolling viewer instantly knows what the video is about.
04Create From Consumer Mode
- The fastest way to write content that lands is to temporarily stop being a creator: go consume something you're genuinely curious about, then notice exactly what captures your attention.
- Expertise makes information feel obvious, which is why creators lose track of what's actually valuable to a beginner — the fix is deliberately re-entering a consumer headspace before writing a hook or intro.
- The test for any piece of content: would someone who has never heard of you actually watch this — not your existing audience, a total stranger.
05Think Outside the Platform
- Don't limit content research to one platform's algorithm — Reddit threads, casual conversations, and everyday complaints reveal real audience problems a curated feed never surfaces.
- Content underperforms most often because it addresses a problem the creator assumes is relevant, not one the audience has actually confirmed it cares about.
06Every Word Is a Rubik's Cube
- Treat every unfamiliar term you use as an unsolved puzzle for the viewer — define it and explain why it matters before dropping the acronym or jargon.
- Concretely: instead of saying 'your ROAS should be 2x,' explain that ad spend is meant to come back as revenue, that a two-times return means $2 back per $1 spent, and only then name it ROAS.
- Any concept a viewer has to stop and mentally decode is friction, and friction is what sends people to easier content elsewhere.
07The Skill Chain
- Content creation isn't one skill — it's five separable ones: ideation, shooting, editing, testing, and iterating — each of which can be diagnosed and improved on its own.
- Within 'shooting' alone there are sub-skills like lighting, camera position, and delivery, so a creator who feels stuck should isolate which specific sub-skill is actually the bottleneck.
- On short-form, produce multiple variations of the same idea and test them over time rather than betting everything on a single take.
- Iterating means deliberately repeating what already worked — a video that hits well is a signal to make another one on the same topic, not a one-off to move past.
08Statement-First Shooting
- Open with a strong, out-of-context statement that gets a reaction even from someone who knows nothing about you — that's the bait step of the BEST framework.
- BEST stands for Bait (a strong statement), Elaborate (why you believe it), Story (where you learned it), Takeaway (what the viewer should do with it) — a replacement for writing a full script from scratch.
- Instead of starting with 'what should I script,' start with 'what do I believe about my industry that I could condense into one sentence a stranger would react to.'
09Answer the Questions Before They're Asked
- A video that performs is a domino chain: the opening statement should knock over the next question in the viewer's head, which knocks over the next, all the way to the end.
- A five-question rolodex extracts a full video from any subject-matter expert: do you agree or disagree, what does that mean, invert it, what do most people do instead, and say more.
- Prep interviews by finding the overlap between what the audience is curious about and what the expert actually knows — that overlap is the topic worth shooting.
10Bread Crumbing
- Don't try to cram an entire topic into one video — break it into single-variable pieces and let the account's full body of content be the complete picture.
- This compartmentalizing approach gives a channel a near-unlimited backlog of ideas, since every sub-component of a topic becomes its own video.
11What Creative Actually Means
- Creativity sits on two axes: originality and utility. Useful-but-unoriginal content is manufactured, original-but-not-useful content is art, and content that's neither is garbage.
- The goal is the fourth quadrant, highly useful and highly original — not just imitating a proven format, but finding a genuinely distinct way to deliver it.
- Consuming other people's content is how you find what's useful; making it your own by changing the angle, delivery, and specifics is what makes it original instead of manufactured.
Terms worth knowing.
- ROAS
- Return on ad spend — the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising. A 2x ROAS means $2 comes back for every $1 spent.
- Demand vs. packaging
- Demand is the underlying topic people already want, like weight loss or making money; packaging is the specific hook, format, and wording used to present that topic.
- Hook hijacking
- Reusing the structure and keywords of a hook that has already proven itself, while changing the wording and subject matter to fit your own content, rather than copying the hook verbatim.
- BEST framework
- An opening structure for a video: Bait (a strong statement), Elaborate on it, tell a Story of where it was learned, and give a Takeaway.
- Bread crumbing
- A content strategy where each video covers one narrow piece of a broader topic, so viewers have to watch the whole body of content to get the complete picture.
Lines you could clip.
02:35
“You know that a thief is good when you didn't even know that they were there. Didn't even know what they stole.”
09:07
“You can't read the label from inside the bottle.”
12:52
“Content isn't one skill. It is a chain of multiple skills.”
20:32
“The way to be creative is to, when everyone zigs, just zag.”
Word for word.
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metaphoranalogy
Check this out. I've generated over 12,000,000 followers and 10,000,000,000 views, and despite what anyone says online, there are absolutely cheat codes to building a personal brand. And this is cheat code number one that works for any niche.
I can reprogram any Instagram algorithm to send me viral videos in any niche, and it takes about ninety seconds. So this is my current For You page. I'm a 21 year old girl.
As you can see, a lot of it has to do with real estate, talking heads, business. Let's say I wanna switch this, and I wanna start getting fed fitness videos. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna search fitness.
I'm gonna see what videos come up, and I'm gonna copy the links of the videos that come up. All of these videos about fitness, and I'm just gonna keep spamming links.
You don't have to paste these links anywhere. You don't have to send them to anyone. You just have to copy the links, and I'll tell you why in a second.
So after I've copied the links to about a dozen videos, I'm gonna go back to my For You page. I'm gonna refresh, and now I'm gonna scroll again. Immediately, I got a fitness video, so I'm gonna copy the link of that video now that I'm scrolling.
I'm gonna keep scrolling. Not fitness, scroll. Fitness, Copy the link.
Just keep copying the links of all the fitness videos. So now that I've copied the links when I started scrolling, I'm gonna refresh the for you page one more time, and now the majority of the videos that are on my for you page will be about fitness. Fitness.
Fitness. Fitness. Fitness.
Fitness. Fitness. This is how I get access to the highest viewed videos within any niche, and it literally took ninety seconds.
Social media algorithms send videos to people that are easy to consume and that are about topics that they wanna hear about. So what I'm doing is I'm going to Instagram, programming my For You page to see what topics are performing and what ways of creating that content in that topic are performing.
Not so that I can steal the videos, but so that I can model variables of the videos. So if this video performed in a ranking format, I can take this format, and then I can create a video ranking something. I can go to this video and see, well, maybe this video performed with this guy in his kitchen eating food, talking to the camera.
Well, I'm gonna sit down, eat food, and talk to the camera. You don't need AI to do research. You don't need third party ideation tools.
I think that ideation on social media is a bell curve. Is the best place to find videos that have performed is on social media, which is the playing field that you're trying to get better at. Which brings us to the next cheat code, be a good thief.
I just talked about going to your Instagram algorithm and programming it to send you videos that have performed. But that doesn't mean find these videos and then steal them and create content on them verbatim because that's plagiarism. The reason that you should go find videos that are performed is so that you can steal them like a good thief.
You know that . Didn't You even know what they stole. But one of the most important things that has allowed me to generate the amount of followers and views that I have for the people that I've worked with is that I have never raw dogged it.
I have never thought, let's just create content and just see how it goes. We've never thrown spaghetti at the wall. When I didn't know what to do, there was always some sort of template that I was following.
And that template, found on videos that won on social media. So I would find videos that had millions of views on small accounts, and I would take elements of them.
I wouldn't take the whole video. A video that performs is demand and packaging. So demand is like the factor that people were interested in.
It's like, you know, fat loss. It's money. It's like this is how you get rich.
It's the thing that they want to learn, and the packaging is the way that that demand was formatted, worded, and said, and presented in a video.
And they don't actually have to be within your niche. To find good packaging, all you need is a viral video. To find demand, you need to find a viral video in your industry.
That's the difference. So to find proof of demand, go to your Instagram algorithm and program it to send you videos in your niche. But then to find good packaging, it can be nicheless.
It can be in any niche. Let's say a video goes viral in the tax niche, and the person says, you can write off 90% of what you spend.
You could take that, and you could do it in fitness and say, you can reduce 90% of your workout length.
Look at the hooks that have performed and steal those as templates, and then exchange the keywords. Look at the format that a video follows and track that and create content in a similar format. Look at the way that people are filming their content and model that.
I was talking with a buddy yesterday, and he was telling me he was doing FaceTime videos. And I told him that he should go onto his Instagram algorithm and copy the links of only FaceTime videos so that the algorithm knows that he wants to see videos like that. But the reason why I told him to copy the links of FaceTime videos is so that he can see the way that people were holding their camera and the visuals behind the person when they were talking to their camera.
A lot of the time, it's just someone in their office, and there's, like, bookshelves behind them, or it's someone on a walk, or it's someone in their car. And so instead of trying to shoot a FaceTime video in a studio like this, shoot a FaceTime video on a walk or in your car. Model what is working for other people.
That's just one example. When you don't have a skill, I think the only way to learn that skill is by modeling other people doing it. Like, if you look at a toddler and they don't know how to walk, they just look at the adults, and then they try and do that.
They don't know how to say words. Like, they literally cannot comprehend it, and so they just try and copy the adults. When you are a beginner and you don't know anything about something, you copy.
That's just how it works. But make sure you copy tastefully, steal like a good thief. Make sure no one knows that you were there.
Which leads us to cheat code number three, hook hijacking. Hook hijacking is the concept of literally hijacking, stealing a hook, but not copying the rest of the video.
Take the video in a different direction. Hooks are really fucking important because when people are in search mode, they're they're looking for something to entertain themselves. You have literally like a second to capture their attention.
So instead of trying to guess what a good hook is, just steal hooks. I think that hook hijacking, if you agree with the hook, is something that you can do to get your account off the ground. It's not that you have to take the hook, take the video, video, and just steal it.
It's just take the video as a concept that's performed, as packaging that's performed, and then change it up and make it your own. Let's do this live. So I'm gonna go to my Instagram, go to my For You page, and I'm gonna start scrolling.
I wouldn't steal that because this video has a 140 likes. Is a price where Dave Ramsey acquires you and will pay You can't really steal that hook. I'm gonna say what your therapist can't.
Some people are just fucked. There you go. Literally, take that video.
You don't even have to say the next line. Just say, I'm gonna say what your therapist can't, and then whatever you think a therapist can't say, just say that. That's if you're within this niche.
Also, another thing that came up just watching this is you can take a hook and exchange words that you would actually use. So if this guy said If the scale's not changing, but your clothes are fitting better. Instead of saying if the scale's not changing, but your clothes are fitting better, you change absolutely nothing.
I think that was a little bit vague. You could say if the scale isn't going down, but you look better naked, then don't change anything about what you're doing.
I took this hook that performed. I took the the concept, the meat and potatoes, but I made it different. And then I'm not gonna watch the rest of the video because I don't wanna know what he said.
I want to take the video and then get the person that I'm working with to share what they think should be done from this frame. What's just as important as knowing what hooks to steal is knowing what hooks to not steal. If you've been on Instagram in the last two years, you've probably seen people say things like, comment hooks for my 100 viral hooks.
The reason why I think that those hooks are bullshit is because those hooks are nicheless in a way. They're like, I don't know who needs to hear this but, or you're never gonna believe me when I tell you this, or, you know, I'm gonna hold your hand while I say this.
It's like, those have worked for people in the past, but they don't give me any indication of what the video is gonna be about, which means that if you want to still hook me, you're gonna have to probably be attractive, probably be interesting, or catch me with a visual. So what you need to do instead is steal hooks that have keywordage.
So keyword is like money, tax, write off, savings, women, men, relationship, fitness, health, weight loss.
These are keywords where I know what the topic of the video is gonna be about. You all like, I always make sure that there's at least one to two keywords within a hook. Don't guess with your hooks.
Steal like an artist. Which brings me to cheat code number four, you need to create from consumer mode. I think the best creatives in the world understand how consumers consume, and the only way to really understand something something is to do it.
And so look at the things right now that you are interested in or that you are curious about or that you don't know. I was doing a YouTube session with one of my team members, and he was having a blocker putting together the thumbnail title and intro of a video. And so what I asked him was, what is something that you want to learn right now?
And he said, I'd love to learn how to get AI to automate 50 of my work. And so I said, I want you to create a title and a thumbnail and an intro that would catch your attention about that topic. And so we started putting together the variables.
And so he ended up putting together a thumbnail, a title, and an intro of a mock video that he would want to consume. And so we took the title, the thumbnail, and the intro, and we exchanged the information about AI and creative with the information about the niche that he was creating original video in. And after he did that, the video was pretty damn good.
And the reason why is because he wasn't a creator in that moment. He was meeting the need of his consumer mind. So go consume content about topics that you're actually interested in.
What do you want to learn? Go learn about it and look at what videos capture your attention. I want you to shut off your creator brain, and I want you to enter monkey mode.
Just that's a good that's a good thumbnail. Monkey mode. And then see what captures your attention and steal the elements of those videos that work.
Overused quote. . Sometimes when you're creating videos day in, day out, and you're just doing it over and over again, you get numb to it.
Like, let me make some assumptions. You're creating videos to get views and followers so that you can then get customers from those, which means you're creating content for consumers. But you're creating content for consumers, and you don't know how consumers consume because you create like a creator for creators.
So instead, go consume to understand what it's like to be on the receiving end, what it's like to need information on something, what it's like to be curious, and then learn from that experience. It's the most valuable thing you can do.
The number one frame that you can take as a content creator is would a consumer that has never seen my face like this video? Would they understand this video? Because that's who you're creating content for.
Not your mom, not the people who know you, the people who don't know you. Which brings me to cheat code number five, think outside the platform that you're creating content for. I have created the outcomes I have on social media because I don't study platforms or algorithms.
I study humans. Because platforms and algorithms categorize information and send it to humans based off of what humans prefer to consume. And so now that we understand this and we're trying to create content that's useful for people on needs that they have, let's go look at what their needs are.
And to look at their needs, you don't have to, like, just look at Instagram or just look at YouTube. You can go a lot of different places. You can find great Instagram video inspo on because Reddit is a place where people look to solve their problems.
You can find content ideas talking with your girlfriend. There's a buddy I work with who's a creative director for fitness creators, and his girlfriend just started a fitness journey.
And as she started her fitness journey, she started saying things like, holy fuck. I didn't realize that avocados had this many calories. Or, like, wow.
I can't eat peanut butter anymore because there's way too many calories in it. And so he just looked at this consumer of fitness information, which is his girlfriend, and he was like, let me take what she's learning right now.
Let me take this moment and then put it on display for the whole world whole world to see. As an expert, the knowledge that you have loses novelty, and so you think that everybody knows it.
But to majority of people, they have no fucking clue, even 1% of the information that you have on that topic, which is why it's important to not just stick to one Instagram platform to do research. Create content on real problems. I the reason why most content doesn't perform is because it doesn't actually solve a a relevant problem for people.
Like, you think it's a relevant problem for people. Like, right now, this is carbs don't make you fat. Like, fitness creators are creating video after video on carbs that make you fat, but the videos don't perform.
Like, problems. And the way to solve real problems is by doing research where the consumers that you're trying to reach are.
Which brings me to cheat code number six. . In your content, you're gonna say words that people don't understand.
And so think of those words that they don't understand as unsolved Rubik's cubes. You, as the creator, need to define the terms that you use, share why that term is even used in the video, why people should give a fuck about it. And when you do that, you're solving the Rubik's cube for people, and you're just handing people easy to consume information that they don't have to think to understand.
I was working with the creator, and he said the term ROAS, and that is a Rubik's Cube that is unsolved because 90% of the people on this planet don't know what ROAS means. It means return on ad spend. And so instead of saying even return on ad spend, say when you spend money on ads, you are hoping to get a return.
Hopefully, you're getting this much of a return. That is called ROAS, which stands for return on ad spend, and you want a two x ROAS or whatever. Like, that's a better way to describe ROAS than just saying your ROAS should be x y z, because people don't fucking know what that means.
So define the term and simplify it so that people will understand it. Every single thing you say in a video must be a solved Rubik's cube so that people don't have to solve it on their own. When they have to solve it on their own, that is a friction full process.
And so make your content frictionless, because if there's friction, people will go consume something else where there is where there is no friction. Which leads me to cheat code number seven.
Content isn't one skill. It is a chain of multiple skills. There are five phases as I define them.
There is research or ideation. There is shooting, what you ideate. There is editing, what you shoot.
And then there is testing, what you edit. And then there is iterating on what you test.
So instead of just being like, I need to be a good content creator and just looking at it as one thing, look at it as multiple things. You need to get good at research. You need to get good at finding videos that perform.
You need to get good at shooting those videos, being interesting, being funny, like making sense, like not being dull in your content, not looking angry, having good lighting, having a good camera setup, knowing what formats to try.
Like, that is a skill in and of itself because there's so many different ways to shoot content. And then editing, like, the way that this video is shot is not the way this video is gonna get edited and posted. And so that isn't something that you have to learn, but it's something that you have to understand is important so you can hire an editor to do it for you.
So on short form, I believe that you should create multiple variations per video so that you can test them. We test them on TikTok trial reels, or we just take v one, post it one week, and then take v two and post it in a month, and then see which one performed better. And then you get two shots at bat for one video.
And then iterating is the process of looking at what content performs and doing more of what worked. I'm gonna give a YouTube example. I have a YouTube video that did a 150 k views, and because that worked, we're gonna iterate on it, mean meaning do it again, and we just posted a video the other day, which is about the same topic.
It's the how to get rich as fucking in '21. People wanna see that, and so I'm giving the audience what they want. Novel concept.
Give the audience what they want. So on short form, though, just look at your top performing pieces of content. You do this by going onto Instagram, going into professional dashboard, going into content you've shared, and then going into highest viewed videos.
And then you can see the content that has performed well, and then you can do more of what has performed well. That is a skill. Most people get a viral video or they get a video performs better than their average, and then they don't do anything with it.
So iterate. I spent five years learning these phases, so you don't have to. Content creation is not one skill.
It is many. And even all of these five phases have little chains in and of themselves. They can be broken down into even smaller things.
Like, for example, shooting videos. Like, where to set up lights. That's a skill.
Where to position the camera. That's a skill. What mics to use.
That's a skill. Learning how to talk. That's a skill.
Learning how to recall the information that you've learned from your experience, that's a skill. So decouple each of these skills into even smaller skills and then practice these skills. And then when you suck at one of these skills, that's not an identity thing.
It's not like you suck and you will suck forever. You can get good at anything so long as you practice. But if you suck and then you stop doing because you suck, then you'll never get good.
Which brings me to cheat code number eight, statement first shooting. A lot of the best content that I've seen often begins with a strong statement that triggers people with zero context. You need to .
That's what I imagine. It's just like, oh, let me grab you. You know?
And if you wanna grab them, you gotta say something that triggers them. And this doesn't mean you have to be polar or you you don't have to be controversial. But just say what you think and condense what you think into a strong statement.
And then when you say that statement, elaborate on it. And then after you elaborate, share a story about where you learned it, and then after you share the story, provide a takeaway. What do you think the viewer should do with this information?
That's a framework. It's called the best framework. It's bait, elaborate, story, takeaway.
You want to say a strong statement that grabs people. It makes sense to people who have no context of who you are. There's keywords within it.
You then elaborate on that statement. Why do you believe this? And then a story is like, when I was fixing trucks when I was 13, my dad taught me that the catalytic converter is easy to steal, and so you wanna park your vehicle in a garage.
I shared a story just now, and then the takeaway could be park your video in a garage. So instead of spending time writing scripts, spend time asking yourself, what do I believe about my industry?
What What do I dislike? What do I see people talking about that I disagree with? And then condense that statement into a short statement that makes sense to someone who has no idea who you are, and then say it, and then just elaborate on it, share a story, give a takeaway, you're good to go.
Which brings me to cheat code number nine. You need to answer the questions that viewers are going to ask before they even ask them. A good video that performs is just a domino chain.
It's the first statement, which knocked over the second, which knocked over the third, and that kept going until the very end. So when you say a video and you open up with a hook, the rest of the video should be validating and elaborating on that hook.
I'm a creative director. I shoot content with people. They are the subject matter expert, and I'm the person that doesn't know anything that's gonna ask the questions that the viewers are going to ask so that the expert creates useful content for people.
And there are five questions that are like a Rolodex that I'll roll through depending on what question I need to ask at a time. The prep that I'll do before a real shoot is I'll find topics that overlap audience's interests with the creator's expertise, and then when I find those topics, I'll bring those to the shoot. And then I'll open up the shoot with statement, do you agree or disagree?
So for example, you should fire lazy employees. Do you agree or do you disagree? And then they'll say that they agree or disagree, whatever.
And then I'll be like, okay. Say the statement, and then they'll say the statement, and then I'll say why, which is the first question. And then they'll elaborate.
If they say something that I don't understand, I'll then ask, what does that mean? And then they'll elaborate further. The third question is I'll get them to invert it.
What happens if you don't fire lazy employees? The fourth question is what do most people do instead? So in this case, what do most employers do instead of firing their lazy employees?
And then the fifth question is say more if I need them to say more. I'm asking these questions so that we get all of the footage required to create a good sequence in post production. Post production just means the editing process.
After the video has been shot, it's going to be chopped up and edited. But you don't need a creative director to ask yourself these questions. This is 50% of the best framework that I mentioned earlier.
Which brings me to cheat code number 10, bread crumbing. I was working with a content strategist years ago, and he taught me the concept of compartmentalizing information.
So he gave the example of, let's say you create content on race cars. Every single video isn't gonna be about the whole race car. One video is gonna be about the wheels and how how the wheels are the reason that this car is able to go 300 miles an hour.
And then the next video is gonna be about the engine. And then the next video is gonna be about the aerodynamics. And then you're gonna keep going through each element of the race car, which keeps the main account about one thing, about race cars, but each individual video is just a breadcrumb.
It's just a piece of the puzzle. And then people have to consume all of your content in its entirety to get the entire picture and get the outcome that they want. A lot of creators think that every single video should include all of information relevant to achieving an outcome.
But the better way to do it is to create one piece of content on one little piece of the puzzle at a time, teach all of the minute detailed variables about that one thing and why it's important, and then in the next video, move to the next puzzle piece, and then keep going. This will give you endless pieces of content to create, which brings me to cheat code number 11.
You are a content creator, which means you need to understand what creative actually means. I spent two hours the other day with my buddy Sam trying to just define the term creative.
And I was stumped for a while, but then we put together a definition. I think that creativity isn't one thing.
It is a spectrum, and it exists on an x and a y axis. The x axis is originality, and the y axis is utility.
So if something is highly useful and highly original, it's creative. If something is unoriginal but highly useful, it's manufactured. So think, like, apartment buildings in North America.
They all look pretty much the same. There's nothing creative about them, but people live in them. If something is not useful but highly original, that is art.
So think about going to an art gallery and you just see those, like, paintings with just paint splattered on them. And then you have, like, those art snobs that go in there and they're like, they wonder what this means. And then something that is not useful and not original is garbage.
That's where shit dies. That's where things that are created that are not useful or original die. So when you're creating content, your goal is to be original and useful.
In order to find out what is useful, go find what problems need to be solved. And you can do this by ironically consuming content that other people have created, but then make it yours. Make it original.
Make it unique to you. A lot of content today is manufactured. It's useful, but it's unoriginal because they're just doing what everyone else is doing.
The way to be creative is to, when everyone zigs, just zag. You will build a massive personal brand when you are able to create content that is highly useful, but it is created in a highly original way. That's why these are literal cheat codes.
But if you want something a little bit more tactical, watch this video next where I talk about how to script million viewed videos. Peace.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Twelve million followers and ten billion views buy this creator the standing to make a claim a lot of people online will argue against: growing a personal brand isn't a mystery of talent or luck, it's a set of repeatable moves. He proves it live, hacking his own Instagram feed toward a new niche in about ninety seconds, then spends the next twenty minutes walking through ten more.
Named ideas worth stealing.
00:19model
Reprogram the Algorithm
- Search a niche keyword on Instagram
- Copy the links of ~10-12 videos that come up (don't paste them anywhere)
- Refresh the For You page
- Repeat until the majority of the feed matches the target niche
A live method for forcing Instagram's algorithm to surface a specific niche's top-performing content in about ninety seconds, used as a research step before creating anything.
Steal forcontent research before scripting any new topic or niche
03:00concept
Demand vs. Packaging
- Demand — the topic people already want
- Packaging — the wording, format, and presentation used to deliver it
Splits a performing video into two variables. Demand has to be proven within your niche; packaging can be borrowed from any niche and reworded.
Steal fordeciding what to research inside your niche versus what to steal from outside it
13:13list
The Skill Chain
- Ideation
- Shooting
- Editing
- Testing
- Iterating
Reframes 'being good at content' as five separable, independently practicable skills instead of one blob of talent.
Steal fordiagnosing which specific stage is actually the bottleneck in your content
16:08acronym
BEST Framework
- Bait — a strong out-of-context statement
- Elaborate — why you believe it
- Story — where you learned it
- Takeaway — what the viewer should do with it
A four-step structure for opening and building a video around one belief instead of writing a full script.
Steal forvideo hooks/openers and any short-form scripting
17:43list
Five-Question Interview Rolodex
- Do you agree or disagree?
- What does that mean?
- Invert it — what happens if you don't?
- What do most people do instead?
- Say more
A repeatable set of follow-up questions for pulling a full video's worth of material out of a subject-matter expert during a shoot.
Steal forinterviewing clients, guests, or experts before or during a shoot
19:48model
Creativity Quadrant
- Manufactured — useful, unoriginal
- Art — original, not useful
- Garbage — neither useful nor original
- Creative — useful AND original
A two-axis test (originality x utility) for whether a piece of content is genuinely creative or just a copy of something that already works.
Steal forevaluating a content idea before spending time producing it
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
20:58next-video
“If you want something a little bit more tactical, watch this video next where I talk about how to script million viewed videos.”
Soft CTA that compounds on the education just delivered by pointing to a follow-up video rather than pitching a product — keeps the viewer inside the content flywheel.
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