How Do I Bring Value to Others? A Reflection
Host: Eric Chow · February 26, 2020 · Episode 27 · 71 minutes
Transcribed from the episode audio and edited for names and terms. Wording can differ slightly from what was said; the episode itself is the record.
What is up everybody welcome to episode 27 of the Eric Chow Empowers Podcast This episode was recorded about one to one and a half months ago to solo episode that I haven't shared because I wanted to upload all the episodes with my guests first and I've been really consistent by the way, I really want to like I really want to say this because like I don't know in 2019. I wasn't super consistent with releasing episodes but So far this year two months have missed a single week. I'm feeling pretty good every Wednesday guys every Wednesday. I've been doing pretty good so far Although I was thinking about taking a break in March For one or two weeks, but we'll see if that I need to do that and that's just me needing to focus on a few other things going on in my life and not wanting to have to worry about making sure I can get an episode out.
But I don't know. I do have one episode already pre-recorded that's a spare, so maybe I'll just upload that one if I need to. I don't really know what I'm going to do with that. But anyways, this is a solo episode. I haven't listened.
to the entire episode. In fact, I've barely listened to it at all. So I'm kind of just letting past Eric take it from take the episode wherever he did. But what I do know about this episode that you're about to listen to is that it's a powerful story, I think, because in a sense, it's a reflection of my 2019. But far more importantly, I realized as I was reflecting on my year, was that it was more of a story of me trying to figure out how I can bring value to other people. And I think in starting to go through that journey, the story is hopefully going to help you guys figure out how you can bring value to others in your life.
Because you know, One person doesn't impact the world. I can't change the world. But what all of us can do is we can impact the lives of those around us and they can impact the lives of those around them and those around them and those around them and those around them and eventually reach the entire world. And that's really what humanity, I think, is meant to do. If we can have a some people who just positively impacted the lives of those around them. And that sort of intention keeps spreading. The world will always, always get better. And I love that sort of idea. So, you know, as I make episodes and I try to empower, you know, my guests and the listeners, you guys.
to positively impact you guys so that you guys can positively impact those around you. I hope that's that's sort of the mission I suppose and That's what this this story is about. That's what that's what the story is about. It's me figuring out how I can start to do that and That was a journey of a whole year and I hope that in listening to this journey you figure out how you can start to positively impact those around you and recognize some of the signs that that's what you're doing. So enjoy. So on December 24th, 2019, I uploaded or published rather an article called How Do I Bring Value to Others on LinkedIn? And then I published a very similar article, pretty much the same article on Medium as well.
I don't know how many of you guys read it, but I wanted to talk about it here because this is something that I, it's, the article is part reflection of, I guess, a journey that I went through over the course of 2019. And even a little bit of late 2018 as well, I suppose. It's part reflection of that. But as I was reflecting, I also realized This was also a journey of me trying to figure out How can I bring value to somebody? How can I bring value to an audience? What is it that I know that I? Feel like I should be sharing What is it that I'm doing that I could be sharing that could hopefully be bringing value to somebody and You know, I think all of us have that ability to serve others to to provide value to others.
You know, I've had this belief that is absolutely core to who I am, which is I believe I can learn something from everybody. And that's just by virtue of every single one of us being so unique. I mean, you know, we are the unique combination of our life experiences and the people we've met and the content we've consumed whether through books, video, audio or whatever, you know, we are a unique combination of so many different variables that no one has lived the same life as us. No one grows up with the same people. You know, I'll even say this, right? My sister, right? My sister.
We're related by blood. We've grown up with the same parents our entire lives, but we're still different. And you know, even twins, they're still different because my sister, she might have the same parents, but she has a brother and me and I have a sister. So that's all automatically something different. She's growing up with different friends than I am. Or you think about your own friends, you know, friends that you've known for a long time, friends that you're really, really close to. You've grown up with different families, and maybe you know their families, but you've still grown up with different families. You've still got different friend groups that the other friend is not a part of, for example, right? There are so many variables or you've had different teachers or even if you've been some by some crazy coincidence, synchronicity, whatever.
You've had all the same teachers you still have different relationships with those teachers so or with those mentors so we're all so different and I believe that we can all. provide something of value to the world, whether it's entertainment, whether it's just like laughs, whether it's some kind of lesson or whether it's some kind of moment of joy, of happiness, of gratitude, of peace, of wonder, even. There's so many different ways we can do things for other people, right? When we consume something, we might say, oh my gosh, this meal is delicious or or wow that's that that's performed so well and beautifully and amazing.
That's that's so awesome or or we learned something from something right there. There's so many different ways we can we can bring value to other people and that's what I I've realized that my journey this journey that I was describing this article as I was writing it.
was a journey of figuring out how I could bring value to others and a journey that I'm going to be continuing for probably the rest of my life. So I wanted to talk about it in an article and I published it, like I said, December 24th, 2019. And I also wanted to turn it into a clip for the podcast. So that's what we're talking about today. And I think the I'm going to start with the story, the journey that I went through and describing it. And then we'll talk about, I guess what can be taken, what I took away from that, how the process actually worked, rather than just like the material of the story itself.
So let's just get right into it. And hopefully you guys from listening to this will start to realize that what you can bring to the world, what you can bring to people, and maybe not just like the whole world. We don't all have to impact the entire world. But by impacting people, like one person, two people, right? My mentors impacted me and now I am able to impact someone else, right? Little by little person by person. So hopefully by listening to this, you will Start to gain an understanding if you haven't already of what you can bring to the world or if you've already begun that process, maybe this will create some clarity and if there's something that, if there's some clarity that you have that I'm not talking about here, please, please, please let me know. This is something I'm still learning, right? This is...
This is not something that I'm sharing a piece of wisdom that I know is amazing. It's just a reflection off of my experience and a reflection off of also what I've observed from other people's stories and from other people's stories that I've heard or I've been a part of or whatever else. So, yeah. Let's just get right into it. So the journey I was describing in these articles and on Medium and LinkedIn was the evolution of my content on social media. You know, in 2018, well, no, let's go even further back than I did in the article. I got Instagram, which was the first social media platform I really had.
I got Instagram in early 2017 and it was 100% because I knew I was going to be going on an incredible vacation to Japan later that year. And so I wanted to have an Instagram because I wanted to be able to take these photos that I was going to take in Japan and then post them.
That was 100% the entire reason I got an Instagram because I wanted a place to put photos and I wanted a place to share them with you know my friends and I wanted to be a part of that and I thought that was a great I thought Instagram was the perfect place to do it with photos and so for 2017 and also the majority of 2018 that's what my Instagram feed was it was just pictures from my travels. I would take my vacations, whether it was to somewhere like amazing like Japan or somewhere more local like Monterey or whatever else I was doing. I remember we went to my family likes to go to watch the Cirque du Soleil shows if you guys know what that is. So whatever photos I would share sort of these amazing highlights that I was having a blast with.
And that's kind of what it was. And also my captions would often just be something brief about me missing a trip or how a photo was funny or something. Super brief captions. And the articles actually gave two examples. So one example is from December 2018. Actually, both examples are from December 2018. And one of them, this one's in, I'm looking at it right now. I obviously can't show it to you guys because this is on audio. But I was in, it's a place called Point Lobos State Reserve. It's close to like Carmel Monterey here in California. And it's just me chilling on a. Just lying on a tree.
Just like lying down. Super comfortable. It's great. And the caption is just about to be my mood for this weekend. And then I have another one. This one was me in Iceland. And there was this like little hut slash looks like really small hut thing that was just made up of a bunch of rocks just piled on top of each other.
like not in like any like sort of real like Realistic way of like making a home. It was literally just like a bunch of rocks put together and it's it's pretty tall considering like like you know, it's probably like Four or five times my height maybe just by looking at this photo how maybe I'm guessing here but like it was just like a bunch of rocks piled on top of each other making into this little like Viking house hut thing. And my caption was quote, this is how well I hope I threw my shit together from the UC application. Also, let me just point out my posture is good AF in this photo.
So like, it was just me kind of like joking around and having a little fun and sharing these cool things that I thought were kind of cool or kind of funnier, you know, just good photos, right?
And these brief captions and then these amazing places and people would often say to me like in the caption or like mentioned to me, man, dude, Eric, you're so lucky to travel the whole world. And I often had to explain like, okay, first of all, I'm not actually traveling every time I post these photos. I'm literally like the photo from Iceland, for example, I posted it in December. The vacation was in July. And I do that all the time. I post photos from the past. I don't post photos when I'm actually on the vacation oftentimes. And so, you know, not only am I not showing what I'm actually doing at the time, I'm also showing.
only specific highlights because that's why I made an Instagram, right? I made an Instagram because I wanted to share these amazing places and I thought I would have cool photos and I did and I thought I would have a good time and I did so I shared that but I shared so little of what was actually happening in my life and I eventually like it took a long time for me to realize that people were starting to people on social media felt like This was my life or they look at other people and they see all these amazing photos, you know like the people who flying private jets or they have all this bling or these fancy watches, fancy cars, fancy clothes, they're traveling all the time and they're actually traveling.
Like they'll post stories of their actual travels or videos of them actually traveling, not like me posting photos whenever the hell I feel like it, you know, they were actually traveling. And I realized people were comparing their lives with the best with the highlights of somebody else's. But that was a realization I had way, way, way, way, way, way later and probably like definitely like later 2019. But anyways, towards the end of 2018, I wrote a couple of Instagram posts where the captions were thoughtful. They were lengthy. And they were only because I was thinking about something or I was in a weird spot or I was just like feeling really like I was just in a zone where I was just really like reflective or really thoughtful about something. I remember like one of the posts was just me like expressing a lot of gratitude for something. I think um...
All right, I just cut the clip just because I needed to I wanted to go look for this actually so I just found it on November 2nd 2018 I posted a photo of me on top of this gorgeous island called Capri in Italy and The caption was a little lengthier than normal. It was this I quote Just a friendly reminder to you as well as me to be grateful for what you have instead of always focusing on what you don't have. It'll make you happier even if it's just a little. Once you do that, then you can go after the rest. This photo always reminds me of that and it was a reminder I needed so I wanted to share it.
By the way, speaking of being grateful, I'll start the chain with this. I'm grateful for all of you being in my life. And When I posted this photo and I want to post in some of the other photos that Got up went up over the last two or three months after Towards the end of 2018 I realized these thoughtful and and and you know that's not a super thoughtful post but It was more thoughtful than I was used to and more thoughtful than I was doing and it was also lengthier than I was doing I noticed that not only did these posts get more engagement through likes, but also way more comments that were positive about the posts.
I mean, I had so many people in the comments of that post that I just read to you guys from November 2nd. I had so many comments that I was responding to, people were expressing gratitude, and it was absolutely phenomenal. And those, all those Instagram posts that I made more thoughtful were all like that. And it was amazing. And I really enjoyed those posts. And so when I realized that being thoughtful and saying something that more than, hey, my posture is good or this is my mood, when I realized that in January of 2019, I decided to start testing the waters. So February 1st, 2019, I put out a really thoughtful post. Like it was pretty goddamn thoughtful.
And at the end of the copy, at the end of the caption, I asked the audience, did you like this kind of posts? I kind of want to try doing this sort of thing. And I got tons of amazing positive reactions from people. And so I continued to do it. And that's what my Instagram has kind of evolved into now. So I might as well read this caption that I posted February 1st, 2019. The first time I tried this. And it's like I said, it's a little lengthier. So it's a looks like a lot of sentences here, but I'll read it anyway. The photo is me in Venice, Italy, from the same trip that I from the capri trip that I had in November 2nd.
And this photo, February 1st, 2019, these both came from June of 2019, like both of these photos. So I'm still not posting like the photos that are current, right?
But yeah, it's me and Venice, Italy on a I guess looking at one of the like rivers and I'm on a bridge and it's like a canal and the water's pretty murky It's not you know pretty pretty water anyway, so yeah Here's the caption quote Venice, Italy isn't a city with clean and beautiful waters It isn't perfect But what makes it such a unique travel destination is its rich history preserved architecture, its uniqueness in being built on water, its lack of roads and cars replaced by rivers for private and commercial boats and water taxis. Like Venice, we don't have to have everything. We don't have to be perfect. We have our own unique positive characteristics.
focus on those positive traits, people flock to Venice to see not its waters but to experience the city itself. Let me know if you like this type of post and caption. I would love some feedback. Also share some characteristics you love about yourself down below. Would love to see it. So I posted this and I tested it with several other posts. I think at least four more posts that I, until I realized like, Hey, this is something that I want to be doing. Finding these, just being more thoughtful about these posts instead of just putting them out there, having a message behind these posts. And I realized, Hey, not only are people liking this, not only are people engaging with this.
but I'm enjoying writing these posts. I'm enjoying finding this sort of value in things. I'm enjoying being more thoughtful and I loved engaging in the comments and seeing how people were reacting. And so I continued to do that on Instagram. In April of 2019, I started my Friendship Appreciation Post series, which is a series in which I share a photos of myself and one or two of my friends and in the caption I talk about what I admire and what I appreciate about these friends and the interesting thing about when I started this series was I was actually on a a week social media detox so I was not allowed to access any of my social media at all but I had already been using this third party platform called Buffer, not a brand deal, called Buffer to schedule posts.
And so I would have the photo and I would write the copy and then it would be scheduled to go out at a certain time. And so I was able to still post while not checking social media. And so...
Through this week, I just had a random thought as I was like getting started with the detox. I was like, hey, why don't I try this? And I decided to call it a friendship appreciation post. And so I did it. And I posted I want to say four that week or five that week. And then I continued to do it throughout the year. But from that very first post, when I when I got back, when I got back on social media at the end of the week. And as I got texts and I talked to people, some people texted me about it. Some people talked to me in person about it.
And then when I came back to my Instagram and I saw the comments, people reacted really well to these posts. And so I continued to do them.
And what really was amazing was like these messages I would get from my friends who were featured. They were incredible. In many cases, I was told, Hey, Eric, you made my day with this or or people, other people would, you know, who knew these friends that I was featuring would. Go in the comments. I love this person or like thank you for this. And my goal with the series was to do exactly that, to remind these friends how amazing they are and to show them off to the world and hopefully inspire others to appreciate and admire some of the amazing people in their lives. After all, I believe that most of us, including myself, don't share a gratitude for each other enough. So that's what I wanted to do.
And, you know, I'll, I'll, I've been sharing all these posts and I share a lot of examples in the article. So I'm going to keep reading these captions. So the very first friendship appreciation post I did, it was posted April 9th, 2019. I think this was probably the second day of my social media detox. And it's a. Picture of me with my friend Joanne Joanne if you're listening. I love you. You're awesome. We were at UC Davis and We took selfie So the caption is this Quote, honestly, I was really happy to see Joanne at UC Davis on Saturday a pleasant surprise We didn't know each other were there one thing to note about Joanne is that she really lives up to her name She is a bundle of joyous spirit Sometimes simply happy other times choosing to believe that things can and will be better.
Her joyous self has a tendency to bring a smile to my face and she also tends to both inspire me and teach me things I didn't even know about myself. Joyan is friendly and kind to others certainly to me ever since we met in the summer after freshman year. She is smart as a student and learner but perhaps more importantly wise as a human being.
Joanne is also incredibly courageous and strong. As research professor and author, Breen Brown once said, vulnerability is not weakness. It is our greatest measure of courage. I admire Joanne for that strength and I'm blessed to call her a friend." End quote. Now I actually just realized as I was reading that there was actually a paragraph or whatever you want to call that first bit. in the Instagram copy that I didn't put on the article, but that paragraph was just saying, hey, I'm still on my detox, but I wanted to try out friendship appreciation posts, explained what it is, blah, blah, blah. But the point is like, I became more thoughtful and I had this random idea while off social media that I wanted to try.
And ever since this shift to becoming more thoughtful and ever since having these random thoughts like, Hey, I really enjoy making this more thoughtful. I really enjoy engaging in the comments. People seem to be commenting more. Or there's this random idea. I want to express some gratitude for my friends and I need to and I don't really know how to. You know, I was thinking about like since I'm making all these posts thoughtful. How do I take these photos with my friends and make them thoughtful and what better than to Talk about why I appreciate and admire these incredible people and so ever since that my then my Instagram has become so much more about providing value and listening to people and less of me posting the highlights of my life, which I do but more of me providing value and I found it to be incredibly fun and creative as well, creative challenge and fulfilling to find value and the photos I take which is the requirement I hold for myself to share anything now. So, eventually, I realized my Instagram captions were actually fairly limited. See, they were getting pretty long.
You know, I had some posts going up that were five quote unquote paragraphs, you know, not really paragraphs on like a page but on Instagram you look at them and they look like paragraphs, right? So like I would have like Captions with like five paragraphs or something like that and I realized I was getting kind of I was limited because I didn't want them to be too long and they were already like pushing like this idea of being too long And although it was like a great creative challenge to be concise with my words, which I really enjoyed, I had to really like, I would write it out and then I would have to make it really like concise.
Every word was, was well, maybe not every word, but it was like really carefully written. And the truth is, most of the time I knew people reading these captions wouldn't get everything.
they wouldn't know what was going on in my head because I just had to make it too concise. But the sentences were so meaningful to me. And they had so much meaning to me. And, you know, especially for my friendship appreciation posts, like it was so hard. to be concise and to explain how amazing this person was without going into like a shit ton of stories or like examples or like whatever it was, right? I had to be so concise and I just kind of had to cross my fingers and hope that my friends would read them and Understand like hey this guy is not just saying these nice words.
He means it so much And I just kind of had to hope that But with that being said, like I was being concise with my words and was a great creative challenge But I knew that it being limited by this length meant that I was sacrificing on some of the value that I felt like I could bring some of the insight I felt like I could bring some of the things that I wanted to say So in early June I've recalled that I had once written two articles on medium to just a story from one of my travels in Japan which is a great story, by the way.
It's basically I got a lot like, I kind of got, I was basically stranded alone, like completely no family, no cell service in Japan. Yeah, it's a great story, but I won't tell it now. That's a story for another time. But yeah, I've recalled once writing these, these articles on medium sharing this amazing story and realized, Hey, why don't I take some of these Instagram captions?
and expand on those ideas and turn them into articles. And so in June, early June 2019, I took some of my favorite captions that I felt like I could turn into a more lengthy article and I published a couple and it was fun for me. And then in early July, I published the first article that I actually wrote from scratch, not based on any posts from Instagram. which was called, quote, finding your purpose, which was a brief summary of my life motto and my answer at the time to the question of how do I find my life purpose, which has somewhat changed since then. But the the article is still solid.
The ideas I present are still solid, but there's there's definitely more to my answer to that question now. And I continue to write articles for from July, August, September.
And in July later, a couple weeks later, I also started making a couple videos for IGTV, longer form video content was pretty weird for me, but some people preferred video over articles and I was willing to do them. So I continued. And then August, early August, I decided to start what you're listening to right now, the Eric Chow Empowers Podcast, which I mean, It's just incredible to do so the day I'm recording this is January 10th, 2020. And I've uploaded 20 episodes. I have one unreleased episode that I've already recorded, not this one. So I mean, this journey has been incredible. But like in the beginning, I remember when I first had the idea, hey, maybe, you know, what if I did a podcast in the beginning, I was.
So uncertain. Like I cannot explain how uncertain I was, how much doubt there was, how much hesitation there was. I wasn't sure like, what am I going to talk about? Am I going to have guests or not? Are people even going to care? Are people going to listen to me talk for an hour or two hours or like, like what is this? Like. I didn't know how I would do such a thing. Like longer form video content was already weird, but an hour or half an hour or however long I would make these episodes, I didn't even know that. Like I knew so little of what the fuck I was doing.
And honestly, like I was debating for like a week, week and a half, two weeks, three weeks maybe. And I literally, I literally woke up one day.
It was August 9th, 2019. I remember it. I woke up and I was somehow like really motivated to do it. And so that was the day I recorded my intro episode and I launched the podcast. Super spontaneous. And I had a lot of doubts of like, is making my podcast a good idea. And I fully, fully expected to stop within the first several episodes. But that first day, of uploading that first episode and then that was a Friday and then Saturday and then Sunday those three days I received so much positive feedback people were excited people were like dude I love podcasts I'm totally gonna listen and I was like I didn't even know you liked podcasts I didn't even know anyone liked podcasts What the fuck?
And like no one talked about podcasts that, you know, when I was talking to people, nobody talked about podcasts. I just had a random ass idea and people were like, dude, I love them. I love podcasts. I'm so excited. I'm going to totally listen to it. Or people were like, dude, seeing you do this is so crazy. This is awesome. Like I'm so excited for you. I'm so happy for you. This is such a cool thing that you're doing.
Like, I got so many responses. It was mind-blowing. And I started to upload episodes. And you know, the truth is, all that debating and trying to figure out, come up with answers to how long are my episodes going to be? What am I going to talk about? Am I going to have guests or not? Are people even going to listen or not? All that debating was fucking useless. Useless. None of it mattered. None of it. Because the truth is I was still figuring out all that shit until maybe episode eight I kind of knew what I was doing. No, not even that episode eight. I was still figuring out shit.
Like, I had no idea. I was figuring it out as I went. You know, it's kind of funny. Like, when I think about episode one, episode two, like the content in them is great, honestly. Like episode one, I wrote the content. It's pretty good. I like it.
episode two, a fantastic conversation with two of my friends. It was absolutely, it was so much fun for us. It was such a great conversation. But at the same time, I'm also, when I think about it, I'm like, yo, like, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. And so like, I don't even want to go back and listen to them, because as great as like the content is, like, I didn't know how to edit audio. I didn't know how to structure shit. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. And like that debating was just useless. So useless. I was still figuring shit out episode eight.
And you know, like when I was episode, well, English, when I was editing episode 19, I literally learned something about editing. I was like, man, this shit would have been real useful back in episode like two.
If I know how to do this like I'm still learning so You know I guess that's that's another theme that I really want to I want to stress today is like Just do debating a lot of the time is so fucking useless and I think I'm gonna record another clip later about that but yeah like I just did it and people reacted incredibly well And that kind of gets into this next thing that I want to start talking about transitioning away from the story because that's the end of the story, right? I started the podcast and I've been rolling with all these things like thoughtful Instagram, French appreciation, podcast, IGTV articles.
I also have Twitter. I'm also on LinkedIn. I also, you know, I got LinkedIn in December. I got TikTok in December. I'm not doing too much on TikTok yet, but like I'm.
Like that's kind of where the story ends and or not ends, but that's where I'm at now and it's just gonna continue from now and and starting to get into like What I'm sorry what I realized is I reflect on this journey like the evolution each step in my content creation journey has been the result of the same three actions in the same order every time I have a random idea To try something new, I decided to try it, and then I received feedback from the audience from you guys. And depending on the feedback, I continue or not continue to make it. With my thoughtful Instagram posts, I tested the waters.
I had the random idea, hey, maybe I should be more thoughtful. This was kind of fun when I did it. Maybe I should try it again. I'm gonna try it. Okay, I tried it.
I got amazing feedback. Okay, I'm gonna keep going. Do people really like this or was that a one-time deal? No, people really like this. Okay, I'm gonna continue. Friendship Appreciation Post. I did one, two, three, four, didn't check any comments, but my friends who had featured, all of them loved it. So I was like, okay, this can't be that bad. At least my friends, the people in the photo, like the posts. So that's at least a good thing. Even if I'm... Even if like other people don't like it at least my friends are liking it So that's good. So I posted those and I come back and I people love the Friendship Appreciation post series.
I'm like oh shit. Okay people actually like it It's not just my friends who are featured in it. Okay cool. I'm gonna keep going So I've kept going same thing for the articles for the videos and and then for for the podcast now like I've gotten feedback and I've It was literally just so random, like so random. Random idea. Decided to try it. Despite doubt, despite hesitation, despite fear, in some cases, some of them were very like I was not afraid at all. Like, but the podcast especially, I was fucking scared out of my mind, but I just did it and people liked it. With the start on Instagram, I mean, it was, it was an Observation of like people like this.
I like this. I'm gonna test it. I'm gonna wade into the pool With the articles the videos I decided to try it out because I want to make longer form content the friendship appreciation posts Those are pretty weird. I was on a detox That's pretty weird circumstance to be caught in but I just felt like I wanted to do it. And it solved my problem of what I said earlier, like having these photos, but not knowing how to bring value to the audience with them. Like what could be better than sharing what these people mean to me and what they've taught me. And I keep saying this, like I was so scared of the podcast.
It was maybe it was the idea of like a whole new platform since most of my work had been done on Instagram or medium at least like I kind of knew like I'd done before. I didn't know how maybe was that I didn't know how people would respond. Maybe I just was like I expecting people to not listen or not care. And you know, I mean, the idea was just like it was a new way for me to bring value in long form content that let's you guys, the audience, do other things while listening. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it worked out.
So, you know, that's the journey and that's kind of what I've realized. And, you know, I share this for a few reasons, right? Part of it is like, this is the recognition and the reflection of the growth that I've undergone in the past 12 months. Like I went from About to be my mood for the weekend laying on a tree to Talking about it on a podcast episode like what the fuck in like a year, right? It's it's also an acknowledgement like What I do now is because the audience as a whole You guys your positive feedback to what I'm doing like it's not One person said hey, this is a great idea.
It's not one person said hey, maybe you should try this It's I tried it and then a lot of people were like, hey, this is awesome. It's not that I'm such a great person. It's not that I'm smart or talented or good looking or wise or anything. It's I did something and the audience you guys decided you guys wanted to see more of it and I recognize that and so I continue to execute on what you guys seem to be enjoying and what I enjoyed making and then I tested more and more ideas to see, hey, do you guys want this too? Does this seem like a good idea?
And you guys said, yes. And so I kept going with those two. So in fact, in fact, before I keep going to anyone who consumes any of my content to all of you who are listening to the podcast right now, whether it is through Instagram or Twitter, which I did fail to mention Twitter in this article and And but it continues to be a platform for me to tweet thoughts and ideas and you guys might know like I screenshot Some of my tweets and I put them on Instagram as well So it's Twitter has been a great platform for me as well or whether you're reading articles on medium or whether you're listening to my podcast Thank you for giving me a reason to create I say it all the time like I'm so so so grateful It means the world to me that you guys are listening and that's why I really try to like encourage you guys to let me know that you're listening because it's my oxygen.
It means so much to me. It's totally selfish. Why I ask you guys to let me know that you guys are listening. It's totally selfish because it just means so much to me. And it is you guys' messages that literally is what keeps me going. I mean, I started Instagram.
The thoughtfulness because of messages I started friendship appreciation posts and kept them going because of messages articles because of messages videos because of messages everything because of messages so that's why I keep asking and For those of you who do it. Thank you so much for doing so for those of you who don't message me about it all the time, but you do listen Thank you so much. It really means so much to me even if you're not messaging me about it Just the fact that you guys are giving me a reason to create and have fun this way. It's been fun. It's been fulfilling.
It's also been challenging. There have been some bumps in the road, but like podcast editing. Podcast editing has been a journey, but honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. It's been a blast. So I said in the beginning, like of this clip, that...
This story isn't just a story. It's about all of us. It's about my journey of figuring out how I can serve, how I can bring some kind of value to other people. And the question becomes, how do we find out what we should do? And you know, when it comes to like a career, when it comes to a job, when it comes to a major, I have no fucking clue. I'm an undecided major. I go to community college, like, I don't know what I'm doing. But what I do know is that with my content, I'm doing something and this whole reflecting on this journey has helped me realize there's a method to the madness, I suppose, like if you ask the question, how does one find out what one should do? How does one find out how one can serve others? How can one can bring value to others? My answer is this.
Don't overthink. Don't ponder ideas. If you think something can possibly bring some kind of value, whether it is entertainment, whether it is wonder, whether it is an emotional reaction, whether it is a new idea, whether it is challenging something, whether it is providing some kind of wisdom or lesson, whatever random idea you have, if you think that it's positive in nature, Try something, do something, say something, whatever you think is interesting and potentially valuable. Just do it. Please just do it. Put it out into the world. Let the market, let the audience tell you what they like, what they don't like. Don't take it personal.
Don't let one person be the judge, right? I said, it's not about one person saying, Hey, this is a good idea. It's not about one person saying, Hey, you should do this.
This is interesting. Let the audience let a group of people let the audience as a whole let the target market. If you're in some sort of business, let the group let the audience be the judge execute against what they want or need. And that was something too like it's not about just doing something it was also like. People become successful. This is something that I've observed. People become successful, and I'm not saying I'm successful by any means, but, um, like looking at other people who have become in some way successful, it's because they filled a need or a want that people had. Most of the time, a need or want that they didn't know they had. So find something that you think.
you have that maybe people are missing. For me, it was I've spent years focused on personal growth. I've spent years on learning outside of school, outside of education, because I realized that the educational system wasn't doing everything for me. I knew that I had to do more and Just by my life experience and how I've grown up I suppose I decided to focus on developing myself into the person I really want to be and so that was my focus and I realized not a lot of people my age are doing that and so I execute against that I Happened to execute against that rather I didn't do that consciously Executing against what people want, what people need, serving however you can.
Because again, like I said in the beginning, you have your own uniqueness. You have your own unique value that you can bring. And you know what? I want to say this too, and I didn't talk about this in the article. You don't have to be the fucking genius who comes up with the light bulb, who comes up with the car.
who comes up with the plane, who comes up with like E equals MC squared. You don't have to be the damn genius that comes up with the brand new crazy idea. The truth is a lot of what I say and what I preach isn't brand new. People say it. I'm not the only one saying all this stuff. You can find everything I've said today, except obviously the story. You can find all this stuff if you want it. It's about putting it in your own unique voice. It's about putting it in your own unique story and the context of your life and and talking to a specific audience.
I'm sure there are people who do kind of the same thing that I do that, you know, maybe they focus more on older people as as their target audience, right? And, you know, I think I read this.
I want to say it was Marie Forleo's Everything is Figured Outable. That was the book. A great book, by the way. Highly recommend a Reddit last year, maybe October, November, something like that. But I think it was that book where she was saying like, how many times does it happen? Where you are trying to tell someone something or maybe someone's trying to tell you something and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then this other person comes along and tells them the same thing you were saying and they go, oh, yeah That's a great idea. I should totally do that right or or on Twitter that like this likes to happen like people say something and then someone retweets it in all caps and then they get more likes and retweets than the other original joke creator like Sometimes it's just about the voice sometimes it's just about coming at it from a different angle.
Sometimes it's just about who's saying it rather than what is being said, because the truth is what is being said is often said. What is being done is often done. It's about doing it your way that often can make an impact. And you don't know whether you are the one to make the impact or the other or someone else is the one to make an impact. All you can do is just keep on putting it out. That's all you can do.
You can put out your gift. You can say, Hey, here's my gift to you. But you don't know if that person is going to enjoy or use your gift. That person might take a gift from somebody else and use that gift instead. You don't know until you put it out. You have to put it out. Please, because you have your value that you can bring and you don't know who it's going to serve. So put it out. So knowing what to do. is about noticing what people want to see. It's not just about the likes. It's by listening to what people are saying about it and encouraging an atmosphere of communication from the audience to you, looking at the comments, DM's private conversations, if it's on social media, that is, is key. But also I do want to say a subtle but important distinction.
Letting the audience tell you what they like and don't like is not about letting your value as a human being rest in the eyes of another. It's only an indication of how you at this moment can bring value to that person. If you believe what you're doing is genuinely great, if you think it is valuable in some way, it probably is. And even if it isn't, That's fine. It is not an indication of who you are. It is an indication of what people want. That is all. So my friends, the summary of all of this, if you have an idea that you think is good, do it, do it, and then see what people want.
And if you can do that, While executing against what people want or need You will be just fine. It's kind of funny So the last clip theme kind of was just go do instead of debate and Looking at another article that I'm working on that's basically like I mean this isn't I don't think I've published this article yet But like the Google Doc is literally titled go do is greater than debating. And so like you see where my head is at. Like I wrote these maybe within a week or two weeks of each other. So like you can see where my head was at the end of 2019 and start of 2020. Like this is something I've really been thinking about. Just this idea of doing instead of debating. And.
Obviously like I don't really have to go over the idea all over again But I do want to share a little bit of what I was writing in here because I think it's a different explanation of of this idea so it was it was this random thought that Like good like doing stuff being better than debating I had this random hypothetical but often real scenario that I was, I was, I had imagined as I was thinking about this idea of doing instead of debating. So the hypothetical, but often real example that I came up with was this. Imagine a team of soldiers squad goes down a narrow alleyway in single file line entering enemy territory in a, in a war zone, up ahead of this.
of where they are, they're going down this narrow alleyway and single file up ahead is an open street perpendicular to the alley. So it's going across. And the point man, AKA the guy in front chooses to point his gun angled to the right so that when he reaches the end of the alleyway, he's going to turn right pointing his gun to the right. So he does that. And the enemy opens fire from the soldiers left wounding the guy behind him. So If the soldier had chosen to point his gun to the angled left, when he exited the alleyway, his gun would have been pointed at the enemy he could have shot, and he might have been able to take the shot and save his fellow soldier.
But as he's going down that alleyway, there is no way for him to know which direction to point the gun. Or worse, what if the team is going down a hallway in the enemy occupied building?
and there's an intersecting hallway. If the point man turns right and the enemy is on the other end, he would have been shot from behind and died. The soldier has to pick a direction to turn to. If he chooses wrong, someone could get hurt, someone could die, he might even die. Or she. The truth is the soldier can't know which way to turn. They don't have all that information. So spending time debating, oh, should I turn left? Should I turn right? When I reach the end of the hallway, would only leave the enemy more time to set up an ambush, would only get them more time to be prepared. Would only leave the team as well in enemy territory, even longer resulting in more casualties. My friends.
Like this hypothetical soldier, even though this scenario undoubtedly occurs on war all the time, soldier points in the wrong direction gets shot. For the most part, we can't know the results of our actions or decisions before it happens. All we can do is act on the limited knowledge and information that we currently have. It's fortunate that most of us don't have to make decisions dealing with life and death. I talked about in the last clip, when I came up with the idea of creating my podcast, I debated a lot of different questions. What am I going to talk about? Guests or no guests, episode length, episode structure.
Are people going to listen? What are people going to think? Is this even a good idea? I had no answers to any of these questions. I debated and I debated and I debated and when I did it, I thought I had answers. And then over the next eight episodes, I realized all my debating.
All those answers I thought I may have come up with were fucking useless. All of them were nothing. Nothing. I had no idea what I was doing. I winged everything. So we don't know the results of our actions or decisions before it happens. We just have to act on the limited knowledge we have. And as soon as we get more information, we can alter course. The soldier exits, turns right, his buddy. Gets shot by a gun. He turns his gun to the left, takes out the guy. Move on, done. Did the best you could. Hopefully the guy survives. Fortunately, like I said, most of us don't have to deal with decisions of life and death.
For those of you who do, if you happen to be listening, I don't know if anyone listening to this does props to you. I have a lot of respect for that. Whatever it is you do.
Like that's, yeah, I don't know, that's crazy. But like, we just have to make the best decisions that we can with the limited knowledge we have. And then as soon as we get more information, we can alter course. The soldier points gun and takes out the guy, takes out the enemy. I started to learn what I was doing for the podcast. So I altered course, I changed a little bit. Okay, I'm not going to just upload straight after recording. I'm going to wait a little bit space out the episodes some more so that maybe when I don't have an episode ready, I can just upload the pre-recorded episode.
Oh, that's a good idea. Oh, maybe I should edit episodes. Maybe I should try doing this. Maybe I should try doing that. Maybe I can try this tool in the editing software. Maybe I can try this tool. Maybe I should.
invite two guests at a time. Maybe I should have one guest at a time. Maybe I should have a stranger that maybe I should invite someone I don't really know. Maybe I should try someone with a different, totally different experience. Maybe I should, you know, I can do all these different things as I get more and more information, as I learn more and more what the hell I'm doing, I can alter course a little bit. That is my point. Take action and figure it out. as you get more and more information. If you have something to say, if there's something you want to do, if there's something you want to try, unless of course it is illegal, immoral, rude, inconsiderate blah, blah, blah, unless it's bad, unless it hurts somebody, unless it's, you know, something like that.
If it, please don't harm anybody. But if you have something to say, if there is something you want to do, if there is something you want to try, do it.
Just do it and you know what I'm also gonna say this don't worry about You know, I mean we live in such a culture of like okay. There's democrat versus republican. There is All this all this talk. There's so much controversy Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about I Don't know my opinion on controversy is pretty I don't know. I don't really I don't really know You know what try not to harm anybody, but if you piss off someone it's gonna suck but Sometimes I wouldn't sometimes in some ways I feel like it's kind of better to not worry about pissing someone off and better to just put yourself out there But yeah, that's kind of a decision for you to make depending on the situation.
I don't really know But you know definitely don't be illegal Don't do something illegal. Don't be a moral and don't be fucking rude and inconsiderate. You can do anything respectfully. I think. Yeah. Anyway, if you have something, do it. It's good to think about it for a bit. We should definitely think before we speak or do something, but don't spend too much time debating. Time is a precious commodity. We can't get back. Don't waste debating whether something is a good idea.
or how you're going to do something when you read, when you can simply not know the outcome of how it's going to be until you actually do it. And the truth is most decisions that we make are pretty easy to go back on. Enemies on the left, point man gun is on the right, what happens? The soldier turns to the left. It's a pretty easy switch. If my podcast didn't work out for whatever reason, I could have just stopped. If you ask somebody out, And they say no. You go on with your life just as you were before. So whether it's starting something, whether it's going through an idea, whether it's posting differently than you normally do, whether it's asking somebody out, just do it, please.
You'll find that the risk isn't as big as someone dying. And for the most part, you're either going to be pleasantly surprised or you're just going to go on.
with your life. learned a lot about number one my process of reflection the way I Reflect on things and the way I try to figure out what's valuable and what's interesting and that allows me to share that process with you guys and also allows me to Apply them continually, you know if I'm conscious about how I've done things and how a journey is progressed, I can start to apply that more and more in the future. So number one, it's the process of reflection and number two, how you can start to recognize signs of how you can bring your own unique value to the world and to the people around you and how you can recognize those signs.
Number three, sort of the attitude and and the permission that you give to yourself to try and to do things and to experiment and to have fun with it, you know, I think curiosity is a very powerful feeling and it's been the motivation for me in terms of a lot of different things that I've done in my lifetime that I've enjoyed. So be curious, be open and try things and have fun with it.
And if it leads you down a cool path, awesome. If it doesn't, you just stop. It's pretty simple, you know? And I would encourage you guys to just start doing and experimenting and take it with an attitude of curiosity and open-mindedness and fun. I think that would be... the three big summary lessons I suppose in my eyes, but you know if you have any other ones or if you really like something from this episode I would love if you could tell me about it and if you could share the episode with your friends and and and your circle as well so everyone can start bringing value in their own unique way because you know the more people that Positively impact the people around them the better And that's really what the podcast and that's really what this whole journey I think was all about.
So thank you for listening. If you want to message me about something around this episode and I hope you guys do. I hope you guys let me know what you enjoyed from this episode or what you're thinking about or questions that you may have.
message me at underscore chow eric on instagram and twitter and if you're going to share the episodes tag me at underscore chow eric thank you guys so much for listening i will see you in the next episode until then my friends have a fantastic rest of the day