18:32Taki Moore · Talking Head
I'm begging you to fire your worst clients
Taki Moore's case for sorting clients into negative, neutral and positive, writing entry standards for both logistics and vibe, and letting the bad ones go.
October 16thThe argument in one line.
Consistent video comes from removing friction from the idea, the shoot and the edit so publishing is the easy path, not from willpower or better gear.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A coach or consultant who answers client questions easily on calls but freezes when a camera is turned on.
- Someone who owns the camera, mic and lights but has published far fewer videos than they planned to.
- A creator who wants to post daily and needs a workflow that doesn't depend on a crew or a script.
SKIP IF…
- You want a polished, scripted, heavily edited production workflow with motion graphics.
- You already publish daily without effort and want advanced editing or distribution tactics.
The full version, fast.
Taki Moore argues that video stalls when the task is too hard for your skill, which creates anxiety and quitting. The fix is to push the workflow into the flow zone by making it easy, not by relying on discipline. He shows three levers. For ideas, let them be delivered from a journal, yesterday's comments, a dashboard or a weekly five-minute review of your calendar and chats. For the shoot, pick one place, one device and one improvised take. For the edit, do almost nothing, and let AI handle small fixes. He commits to a daily video.
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- If a video workflow requires willpower or brute force, you will not stick with it, so design it to be the easy path downstream.
- Anxiety comes from a task that is too hard for your skill and boredom from one that is too easy, and flow sits between them.
- Dean Jackson films a video a day by reading his own 30 years of handwritten journals until he finds something interesting.
- Fred Pahus gets a daily show from three sources he already has: yesterday's comments, his dashboard and his calendar.
- Ideas are already around you every day like a sushi train, and the skill is noticing them rather than inventing them.
- Shrink the gap between seeing something and saying something, because the closer the two are the easier the video is.
- A five-minute Friday review of your calendar, communities, client chats and what you consumed can produce five ideas for the week.
- Dean shoots eight to ten minutes off the cuff on an iPhone right after ordering breakfast, and the video is live by 11am.
- Shorten the physical distance between where you live and where you shoot, as Regis Philbin did by living across the road from his studio.
- Aim for one take, one piece of gear and no editing, so the only fix is trimming the start and end.
- Sending a transcript to an AI assistant can turn one morning video into a backlog of email ideas, so you end up many emails ahead.
- An AI agent connected to editing software can fix small problems like an upside-down phone clip in about 90 seconds.
Make publishing the easy path
WHAT TO LEARN
Daily video sticks when ideas arrive on their own, the shoot is one take on a phone, and the edit is nearly nothing.
- Tasks that are too hard for your skill create anxiety and quitting, so lower the difficulty instead of trying to summon more discipline.
- Treat ideas as delivered, not invented: pull them from old journals, yesterday's comments, your dashboard, your calendar or a weekly five-minute review.
- Build a trap where ideas fall in, such as a photo or screenshot when something interesting happens, so choosing a topic takes seconds.
- Pick one place, one device and one habit to shoot, and tie recording to something you already do each morning like breakfast.
- Shoot a single improvised take of eight to ten minutes and keep the edit to trimming the start and end.
- Feed the transcript to an AI assistant to generate email ideas, and use AI to fix small edit problems instead of learning new software.
Terms worth knowing.
- Flow zone
- The state where a task's difficulty is balanced against your skill, so it feels engaging instead of stressful or boring.
- Idea Goldmine
- A GPT-based tool the host links that asks questions about your last week and helps surface interesting things to talk about in a video.
- Off the cuff
- Recording without a script or outline, improvising around a single topic in one take.
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Why is it so bloody hard just to sit down and shoot a video? It should be easy. When you're with your clients, it's effortless.
They ask you a question, you know the answers, and you just tell them. It's simple. But when it comes to something like turning on a camera or having somebody come over and shoot for you, I don't know about you, I get it all in my head, and it trips us up.
I just got back from three weeks away in Europe, in Italy, in Copenhagen, and while I was there, I saw what two of my friends were doing, publishing a video every single day. And it was effortless. And so what I want to do today is show you the three things I learned about how to make the whole process easy.
Coming up with the ideas, how to do the shoot, how to do the edit, or don't. So the whole process can be simpler. Is that cool?
So we'll talk idea, shoot, edit.
I got really inspired by these two people, Fred and Dean. I'll introduce you to them as we go. I'm going to implement some of what I learned here with you today.
Here's the first thing. The problem we have is there's so many steps to make the perfect video. You're coming up with a great idea, figuring out how to shoot it and when to shoot it and what gear to use and all the stuff.
Like I've bought all the toys, all the gear, no idea. I wanted to make videos for 15 years. And I have, but usually with somebody else holding the camera, I've never had the guts to like just do it myself.
But having somebody else do it means I can't do it as frequently as I'd like. I'd love to have an idea and just share it. And that's really hard.
when all of the steps in the process get in the way. And so what we want to do is we want to take a bunch of the friction out of the process and put a bunch more flow back in. There's a model that a smart dude with a completely unpronounceable name, Mikhail Chizetmikhaili or something.
He wrote a book called Flow. Flow is way easier than his name. He should have just gone with the Flow guy.
And in his book, Flow, he introduced us to a really simple model. And the model goes like this. For any task that we want to do, there's kind of two factors, right?
There's the difficulty and there's your skill.
And it gives us kind of like three zones. Up here, when a task is really difficult, it's too hard or too complex or there's too much friction. And it creates anxiety, we stress out, we overthink, and we quit too early.
This is a problem. It's not where we want to be. And left to my own devices when it comes to video, that's where I end up.
At the other end of the spectrum is when the difficulty is too low. It's like too easy compared to your skill. Oops.
I'll see if I can squeeze that in. There we go. Too easy compared to your skill.
And that's bad too because you just get bored. So here you quit, here you're bored, and you quit. And what we want instead...
is the flow zone. Flow is when it's, you know, when there's like a perfect tension between how tricky the thing is and how much skill there is. And there's probably a bunch of, sorry about the weird camera thing, I'm figuring this out as I go.
There's probably a bunch of tricks we try to do and skills we wanna learn, but the easiest thing to do is just to make it way less difficult for you to shoot videos. And that's what a couple of my friends did when it came to the, the idea of what do I talk about and the shoot itself and the edit.
They've made them all really, really easy. So the whole thing is something they can do daily by themselves with almost no gear, really, really simply. So here's the big idea we want to do.
We want to not rely on discipline. We don't want this thing to be hard.
I think the key to... you know, your video workflow is to make the workflow. Think about it like water.
Water always finds a way downstream because downstream is easy. The gravity's working for it. Instead of pushing uphill, if it requires effort or discipline, or you have to like force yourself to do it, if you have to brute force it, dude, you're never going to do it.
Never going to be able to stick to it. For me, if it's fun, it'll be sustainable. And if it's sustainable, I can do it for long enough that I can improve.
If I do it for a long time and I get better each time, I end up getting really good at stuff. That's what I want for you. Secretly, it's what I want for me as well.
So I think willpower is completely overrated. There's this old phrase that says, no pain, no gain. I'm like, no pain.
Great. So that's what we're going to do. Let's talk about these two friends of mine, Dean Jackson and Fred Pahus.
I'm going to pronounce his name wrong. He's a Danish guy, nice guy. They're both shooting daily videos and the way they come up with the ideas and the way they shoot the vids.
and what happens in post -production is kind of magical. So let's start with the idea.
There's a big difference when it comes to the idea of creating an idea, inventing something to talk about, or just picking an idea that's right in front of you. Both of these guys have a workflow that looks like this. This is my first one of these vids by myself drawing, so we're going to figure this shit out as we go.
I think the old way is if you think about a video like a meal that you want to eat, we have to cook it ourselves from scratch.
And that's really hard. What am I going to eat? And then do I have the right ingredients?
And then build the whole thing out. That's tricky. But what these guys both have is they've got a model where the meals are almost like delivered to them.
So Dean, this is my buddy Dean. He shot a hundred videos in a hundred days.
And it's amazing. His process is really easy. The way he comes up with the video ideas is he's been keeping a handwritten journal for 30 years.
So he's got like hundreds of these journals, hundreds. This is where he gets his ideas. He just looks back in his old journals, starting from journal number one, and he looks through until he finds something interesting to talk about.
He's not inventing an idea. The journals of the great ideas he's thought about over the years are the source. For Fred, he's doing a daily video where he does three things.
Piece number one is he does, in fact, I'll draw it because I think it's kind of interesting.
That'll do. His daily videos kind of look like this. It's a three -part episode.
You don't have to do three. I'm not going to do three. The first thing he does is he answers questions from yesterday.
His show is basically, he shoots a video and then people ask questions in the comments. And the next day he... logs in and he looks at the questions and he answers them.
So questions from yesterday, love that. Then he does like a business update because he's got some goals. If this is where he wants to be up here and this is where he started, point A and point B, he just does an update.
Like, okay, today this is what we're up to. I want to get to this much revenue and this is what I'm doing today. And then part three is he shows his activities.
Like, what am I doing to hit that goal?
And if you think about this idea of having the ideas delivered to you, here's what's cool. Where does he get the questions from yesterday? Well, in the comments.
Where does he get the update? Well, in his dashboard, right? It's right there.
He just has to show it and talk about it. And where does he get his daily activities? Well, from his calendar.
He's already decided this is what I'm going to do today. These are the top three things I'm going to do. So the content is already there.
He doesn't need to invent it. So you don't have to do that format. You find one that suits you.
But I love this idea that the food is getting delivered to us. The ideas are getting delivered. The truth is that there's already heaps of ideas around you every single day.
We're just not noticing them. And so every week on a Friday, I sit down and I go, what's happened in the last week that is kind of interesting? And I've got a few categories.
This feels a bit Blair Witch. I didn't really think the multiple, we're going to do the fucking thing.
There's like seven categories that I think through. So I just grab a sheet of paper and we've got a GPT that you can use that does it. I'll put a link below if that's helpful.
But we look at, I look at the calendar, like look in my calendar for the last seven days and see what's happened that's interesting. Then I'll have a look at my community. whether it's in Black Belt or in Boardroom.
There might be some cool stuff there. Then I'll have a look in individual clients who I've worked with either on calls or async in Boardroom.
My chats, like the group chat with mates.
What am I creating?
What am I consuming content -wise? What have I watched or seen that's interesting lately? what's going on in my life, like circumstances.
And then I just go, what are my top five? One, two, three, four, five ideas. And so on a page like this, I'll have tons of different things.
It takes like five minutes. And I just pick, hey, that sounds kind of fun. Oh, I'm interested in that one.
Anything that gives me some... Juice, whether it's work -related or not, doesn't really matter because you can always make a connection and they become my five ideas for the week.
There's great content all around you. You don't need to make it. We just need to catch it.
It's getting delivered. It's like a sushi train. It's like always going past you.
You just have to pick the ones that you want. And so for me, the secret to the idea is instead of Having a content calendar that I have to follow rigidly.
I just See something That's like a skill of noticing when an interesting thing happens and like taking a photo of it or remembering it a week later I'm not very good at remembering so it's usually like Take a photo or a screenshot. I see something and then I make something like make a connection Huh, that's how Like that was that was cool.
How does that relate to something that might be useful for you? And then finally I say something And what we want to do is we want to shrink the gap between seeing something and saying something.
That's why I kind of love these daily vids. They're not as polished as you can tell. It's a complete mess.
But they're real and they're useful. And I think that's totally worthwhile. So that's where the ideas come from.
Whether it's Dean with his journals, or it's like Fred looking at his questions or his whatever, or it's me looking through the calendar, there's stuff all around you. Just find a place where we're going to... you know, like a news trap, a trap where ideas fall into and you got them.
So when it comes time to make a video, just go, oh, I'm going to do that one. So then let's talk about the shoot.
For the last, like, I don't know, 12 years, dude, I've been, it's probably longer, maybe it's almost 20 years. The most watched category of videos that I watch personally on YouTube is videos about how to make videos. Starting with, you know, watching Casey Neistat and being super inspired.
down to Peter McKinnon, his buddy, who's just ridiculously good lately. There's these British guys who I love called Mike Casual and Woodstock, who are just fun. But video is about making videos.
So I've watched all this stuff, but I haven't made that many videos by myself ever. This is like one of the first in longer than I'd prepare to admit, to be super honest.
And that's because the shoot itself is like... There's like so many steps. You've got to like outline the video and then, you know, script it.
I never script it or outline it and then shoot it. But there's also the tech, like what camera am I going to use? This is shot on a phone.
This is like an iPhone.
And so the questions I guess we want to answer is like, when am I going to make the videos? Where am I going to make the videos? And with what am I going to make the videos?
The thing that I love more than anything else from Dean is his workflow. It just blows my mind how great this is. So I want to walk you through a day in the life of Dean Jackson, a morning in the life of Dean Jackson is probably how it really works.
So let's sketch it out and then I'll show you where the inspiration came from.
So let's just do a timeline of the day. So this is like sun comes up and this is like sun goes, does the sun go down? I'm going to do it.
You get the idea. It's gone.
There we go. That's what I'm trying to say. Dean wakes up and his morning routine goes like this.
He goes to this cafe.
And he orders his coffee and he orders his breakfast. And while he's waiting for the breakfast to arrive, he looks in his journal.
And he just goes to where the next journal is and goes to the next couple of pages. And he's looking through until he finds something interesting.
It's like, cool, that's going to be my video for the day. As soon as he has brekkie, he hits record on the camera. That makes it look way fancier than it really is.
It's an iPhone. I think sometimes he shoots with one of these Osmo things that I still don't know how to use. But he shoots the video and it's like eight or 10 minutes off the cuff, completely improv about the topic.
He hits stop. It's got a young guy called Josh who's with him most of the time. I think Josh is away right now, so he's doing it by himself on his phone.
He said it's just as useful, but it's not as fun. So you want to, if you're better like me with a person, do it with a person.
Shoots the video and sends the video to someone on the team with a title and the video. And that's the workflow. That finishes at like 10 a .m.
By 11, the video is up live on YouTube and he watches the premiere. That's pretty cool. This is the part I really like.
Afterwards, I'm not going to do, but I admire it because it's efficient. He sends the transcript to Charlotte. Oops, transcript.
Who's Charlotte? Charlotte is, you might know her by her other name, GPT. GTP, GPT, who looks through it and finds ideas for emails.
Oh, look, there's five great ideas. Cool. I like number one and three and four.
And then it'll extract from the video he's just shot emails that he can look at and polish. I like to write my own stuff, but I think that's cool. The point is it comes from his ideas in the morning.
By 11 o 'clock, it's already on YouTube, so there's no friction. And then later on, there's emails. He's like 22 emails ahead.
I have never been 22 emails ahead. I have been hours or days late many, many times. But I love that idea.
Here's where he got this idea of a daily video. That's Dean on his way to the coffee shop. He got the idea from this dude called Regis.
I'm an Aussie, so I had to Google who Regis was when he told me about this this morning. Regis Philbin. Every morning, he's on this show.
And the shooting was a live show. It started at 9 a .m. So this was the workflow.
Step one, he lived across the road on Central Park West. Literally, he'd wake up in the morning and he'd cross the street into the studio. He'd leave home at 8 .28 and by 8 .30 he's in the studio and by 9 o 'clock they've hit record.
So that's part one. Just like Dean, the closeness between where he is and where he wants to shoot is tiny. Thing number two, every evening, him and his wife...
I think her name might've been Joy. Anyway, him and his wife used to go out for dinners, social stuff, go see a show and then have a chat. And that would be the content of his like 15 minute opening monologue the next day.
He'd talk about what happened yesterday, what he saw, what's going on. So he sees something and he says something and he shrank the gap between those two. Like he literally walked across the street.
What I love about Dean's approach is he's just like wakes up in the morning, he goes to this coffee shop and that's where he shoots the stuff. It will be really easy for me to shoot this stuff over at my desk. I wanted a little setup that I can take with me on the road or to a cafe because I don't like being home that much.
I like being out and about. But I think this is a super, super great idea. So what do you do with a shoot?
As little, as close to like one take with one piece of gear if it's just you. This is just my phone. I've got a little microphone on.
Hopefully that comes out okay. In one take with no editing if I humanly can. So that takes us through the...
the idea and the shoot.
Let's talk about the edit and all the rest. Cause like once you've got a video, you've got to like get it into a computer, edit into the right little bits, get it onto the internet and share it with the world. And that's a whole lot of steps, but they're kind of optional steps.
I'm shooting this on my phone. And the only part of this that needs an edit is probably I need to cut off a second or two when I hit record over there and came around, and then a second or two when at the end I get up and I turn it off again. That's kind of all it really needs.
I hope. I haven't seen it. Maybe it needs a lot.
But the least amount of touch we can do, the better. And so we want to find a format and a topic that lets you just flow. The only thing I figured out that I am going to need to edit is when I grab my camera, my phone, and...
pull it down, it's going to be upside down. So this morning, my buddy Ross, shout out to Ross O 'Loughlin, it took him half an hour to teach me how to teach AI to talk to some video editing software called DaVinci Resolve. I don't even know.
I've never used it. But the robot knew how to use it. And I just said, hey, I've got this video.
My thing's upside down. Can you... spin the book so the book's the right way around and people don't have to like stand on their head to watch my YouTube video.
And I was like, yep, cool. And like 90 seconds later, it did it. It was amazing.
Anyway, so that's my plan. I got really inspired by Fred and by Dean. I want to give both of them a shout out.
If you want some help with coming up with the idea part of your video, there's a GPT that I've linked below or an AI tool that I linked below called the Interestingness Goldmine, which is the same little review I do to find, you know, so I can... See something and say something. It's this thing.
It just asks you some questions about last week and helps you find the fun ideas to talk about. I got really inspired and I think I'm this close to committing to doing a video every day. I'm still going to shoot the polished ones once a week because they're fun and there's some things I want to do that are a little bit fancier than Taki talks to his phone.
But in the other days, I think I'm going to shoot a daily vid. Fuck it. I'm on camera.
Let me make a public commitment. I'm going to shoot a daily vid. And that's the deal.
If you want to grow your business, watch this video next. It'll show you the magic. This has been fun.
I'm going to shoot a daily video. This was the first one. Yay me, go you.
I'll talk to you soon.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Coaches can answer any client question without thinking, then freeze the moment a camera turns on. Taki Moore says the problem is friction in the process, and he borrows two friends' daily-video workflows to show how to take it out.
