Close Your Eyes For 5 Years:

Gary Vee has a saying that I got to see firsthand the other night: Close Your Eyes For 5 Years.

Last Friday, I was streaming on my Twitch Channel. I had a viewer come into my chat that was a new streamer.

He started telling me about how he had started his own channel and that he wasn’t getting much traction on it. Friday was also his birthday…

I wished him a Happy Birthday and asked him if he minded telling me his age. He replied that he turned 24 years old that day.

I responded by telling him if it makes him feel any better, that I was 32.

I started to explain to him that any form of content creation is a long game. If you want to be big in something to have to have:

• Patience

• Some sort of talent

• Execute with practicality

• Network

• Self Awareness

I explained to him to look at this in a different light. He could do this Twitch thing for 5 years and have 1 viewer that entire time. When he wakes up 5 years from now he will only be 29 years old.

Now, I explained the likeliness of this happening is small. As long as you are decent at what you are doing and consistent, viewers will show up. Especially if you are networking the right way.

Being a small streamer myself, I understand the long game of the content creation realm.

If any form of content creation was easy then everybody would be doing it. Everyone would be quitting their day job to pursue their passion without question.

The fact of the matter is that we are trying to make a passion into a career. Whether that be Twitch, YouTube, or a blog – you need to understand the audacity of what we are trying to do.

People work their asses off day in and day out doing things that they hate. We, as content creators, are trying to turn passion into our careers. Reading that sentence should show us that this is going to take a shit ton of work.

No one has turned their dream into a reality without working their asses off.

When I see people come into my chat on Twitch and complain about bullshit metrics, I get a little-pissed off. Especially if they are brand new to the platform they are creating on.

All the top people who made it say the same thing, If you are in this for a get rich scheme, you might as well quit now.

Everyone needs to understand that this isn’t close your eyes for 6 months, wake up, and reap the rewards. It is close your eyes for 5 years AT LEAST and then analyze your progress. Not to mention, that if you have the talent and are consistent you will develop some sort of following.

The people that are creating every day are in it because of the love for it. If you combine passion with consistency, you are bound to have something happen.

How big or small that success is not up to us but to the market – the audience.

If you have spent 5 years doing something you love but haven’t made the progress you envisioned, all is not lost.  You have created something you love for 5 years. When you wake up, not only are you that much better at whatever you are doing, but you have 5 years of content to reference. Not to mention, I bet there is some sort of audience that you have built up doing something for that long.

I have days on Twitch when I go live that there are 20 people hanging out and we all have a great time. There are also days when I have 2 viewers.

Whether you have 2 or 2000 people that support you, you need to cherish those people.

One night last week after I went offline, I had a viewer whisper me on Twitch. She said, Thank you for building a community that I can call home.

That statement right there is the reason I go live as much as I can. Not only am I doing something I love, I am helping and building a community for others. When all is said and done, that’s the name of the game.  

The best advice I can give to somebody that wants to start creating their own content is this:

• Be passionate about whatever you decide to do

• Do not give a fuck what anyone other than yourself thinks about what you are creating

• Network with the community of your platform

  • This means making genuine relationships with people

• Know your strengths and go all in on them

• Make sure you take time to learn and educate yourself

  • This will improve your craft that you are working on overtime

• Keep your head down, produce, and don’t open your eyes for 5 years at the least

Thank you, everyone, for reading! If you want to follow me on any of the platforms I create on, you can find them here:

• MEDIUM ➜ http://medium.com/@seftimor
• TWITTER ➜ https://twitter.com/seftimor
• INSTAGRAM ➜ https://www.instagram.com/seftimor/
• YOUTUBE ➜ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHgrM70t7it4orZUrD7Cv-w
• MIXER ➜ https://mixer.com/seftimor
• TWITCH ➜ https://www.twitch.tv/seftimor