Dad's Log - A Glimpse Into The Mind Of A Broadcaster

I'm back from GuardianCon 2018, and all I think is wow. What a conference, and what an amazing experience. Convention attendance is an important opportunity to solidify relationships you've built with other creators, with industry professionals, and is an opportunity to meet new people across the spectrum. It can be challenging financially to get to a convention, so I understand the apprehension. But the potential relationships you can bolster and the opportunity to meet new people is well worth it. My encouragement for you, is to identify a convention you could attend that has people you know confirmed as attending, and plan ahead. Message creators you want to meet, understand which lines of communication you'll use to meet up (Twitter or Discord DMs, exchange phone numbers, etc....) and then schedule your travel and make the most of your experience! God bless!

Day one of GuardianCon and I can see people aren't comfortable introducing themselves to others. The anxiety is flaring up, and it can be a little uncomfortable, even for an extrovert like me. But you will regret not introducing yourself to the person you are fangirling over, I promise you that. I had the opportunity to meet the drummer of Fall Out Boy outside of a Noodles & Co at one point, someone whom I very much admired. To this day it's still one of my biggest regrets. My encouragement to you, is to go in for the introduction. At the end of the day, these folks are just people too. We all eat, sleep and poop. We all have feelings, and we all crave social interaction. Don't let worry stop you and worst of all, don't let your own anxiety get in the way of a potentially life-altering introduction. God bless!

Watching the GuardianCon stream reminds of me of the fact that, as content creators, you have social influence. Whether you're big or small, you have social influence. It's up to you what you use that social influence for. There are a lot of folks out there that use their social influence for nefarious things, toxic things. We have an opportunity to use that influence to make the world a better place. I use what little influence I have to give people a place to belong. My encouragement for you today is to consider your social influence and how you're using it. As you grow that influence, you have a choice to make. Are you going to use your social influence for good? Or will you use it for the alternative? Choose wisely Legion, the world is counting on you! God bless!

It's really hard sometimes to admit to needing help and then asking for it. But as people, and especially as content creators, it's vital to being successful. We are often times one-man armies, we have to wear every hat in our production and outside of our production to grow. It's absolutely OK to admit when you're in over your head, and to ask people for help! My encouragement for you, is to reach out to someone who has the expertise you need to get something done, or to get you the help you need. This applies even outside of content creation, and in some of the most extreme circumstances even. If you find yourself in over your head, please seek help from someone. It's a sign of strength, not of weakness. Admitting your flaws takes courage, and in the right situations, can be the difference between winning and losing. God bless!

Today I want to talk about taking chances and calculating risks. As content creators (and people), we always have opportunities to evaluate, both big and small. Usually, small opportunities represent the smallest risks, and big opportunities represent the biggest risks. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but generally ends up being the case. Regardless of the opportunity, it's up to you to decide what opportunities have the lowest risk and the biggest payoff. My encouragement for you today, is to take a look at your opportunities, and determine what the risk to you, your community, and your content actually is. Determine whether the reward outweighs the risk, and then either get after it or politely decline. Either way, opportunities abound, and for those willing to take the risk, the payoff can be huge. God bless!

Today I want to talk about saying 'No'. It's important, especially as content creators, to be able to say no. As you grow, more and more people will ask you for things. Collaborations, information and time. As much as I do my best to help everyone who asks me for things, sometimes you just have to say no. It's always a balance between helping others, and growing your brand / channel or whatever you're working on. My encouragement for you is to identify when it makes sense to say 'No', and to actually say no. Stick to your guns, because people are persistent. Help others, of course, but when it makes sense, say no. Your time is just as valuable as anyone else's time, so make sure you are well balanced and confident in what is worth your time. God bless!

Today I want to talk about diversifying your network. As you begin broadcasting, you always hear from experienced folks that networking is CRUCIAL to your growth and success. I echo that sentiment. But I feel like many people start off strong by networking with 2 or 3 other broadcasters and then spend ALL their time in those channels. I would encourage you to think a little more broadly. Instead of spending 10 hours a week in 3 channels, explore and spend 10 hours in 10 different channels. My encouragement for you, is to not put all your eggs in two or three baskets, but to instead put them in 2 to 3 NEW baskets a week. It's important to make friends with as many people as possible, both other broadcasters and people in their communities. When it comes down to it, it's just like investing with your money, if one of those channels takes a dive, you have 10 others to back it up. God bless!

In a previous Dad Log, I talked about being patient. Which still applies to this topic, but was a little more broad and high level. Today I wanted to chat about being patient with other people. As broadcasters, we have a tendency to need things from others. Advice, commissioned art, responses from support in various capacities, collaboration responses, etc... the list goes on and on. The key here, is to balance persistence with patience. My encouragement for you (and myself) today, is to be patient with others and give them a chance to respond. They are likely just as busy (if not more) than you, so while it's important to be persistent, give them time to respond as well. Eleven hours is not enough time, give them a few days. It will pay off in the end. God bless!

It's really easy as a creator to blame our hardware for the lack of quality we produce. I've done it far more often than I care to admit. "Oh, if I just had 'X' then my content would be so much better." It's something I learned the hard way, and this time around, I'm pretty proud to say that I've spent the time maximizing the potential of my gear before upgrading. It's a balance of identifying, once you've maximized the potential of an asset, to determine if an upgrade will provide enough value to justify the cost. My encouragement to you today, is to make sure you are maximizing the value of your existing investment before considering an upgrade. Spend the time to make sure you are absolutely getting the most out of your gear before you determine that you need an upgrade. We all want the best, but sometimes you have to learn to use the worst to it's full potential before having the best makes sense. God bless!

Today I wanted to talk about minimizing distractions. When you're creating live content, you're already taking in so much information. Playing your game, people following, chat interaction, multimedia information, etc.... I've had multiple people tell me that they also watch shows / anime, or are browsing the web, or interacting in other people's chat. This is taking away from the focus you are putting on your own chat. I know some of you might think, "but there isn't anyone in chat to interact with". That's a subject for a different day, but there are a lot of resources out there for the subject "networking". My encouragement for you is to consider turning off all distractions you might have while creating content. Turn off the show, get out of the chat room of others, turn off notifications on your phone / browser, and focus on the content you're creating. Viewers aren't dumb, they can tell when you're distracted. So make sure you minimize that as much as possible. God bless!

Today I wanted to talk just a little about time management. We all wish we had more time in the day, to get done what we want to get done. But unfortunately, we all have 24 hours in a day, so let's talk about opportunity to maximize those hours. When you look at your day, you have choices, every minute of every hour. We all also have times when we're not as busy as others, 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there. It's how you use those small chunks of time that can benefit you the most. My encouragement for you is to determine when you have those moments, to consider hopping on Twitter and getting involved in a conversation. Or post a picture to Instagram. If you have 15 or 20 minutes, write a blog post if that's what you do. We can be creating small, but valuable pieces of content all day, and they can be just as impactful as the primary content you create. Start identifying and executing on those content opportunities today. God bless!

The most successful people on the planet aren't immune to having apprehensions and insecurities. It's how you move past them that matters. Even the most confident people deal with doubt, fear, uncertaintly, myself included. As we apply for the second time to become a Mixer partner, I still have my doubts and fears. The support and love that I've gotten from the fam, from my friends on the platform, from my wife and immediate family, have been humbling. I'm encouraged for the future! My encouragement for you, is to make sure that you have the support structure (supernatural or otherwise) to help you cope with and move past your insecurities, doubts and fears. At the end of the day, we all need help to deal with these things, and the more support you have, the better off and more successful you'll be. God bless!

We all have frustrations. Days when nothing goes right, everything breaks down from a technical or other standpoint. But don't let technical or other isues discourage you from creating content. It's important every day, to be creating content, even if it's just a thoughtful Twitter post or a quick Instragram photo showing your frustration. All of that is content, whether it's your primary form of content or not. My encouragement, outside of taking care of yourself for mental or physical reasons, is to push through technical difficulties or frustrations and continue to make content. You never know when that one piece of content could be something that goes "viral" for you, whether actually going viral or just some of your most well viewed content. Don't stop, can't stop. Create content! God bless!

I want to talk about something that is a bit of a tough subject for me, but I've noticed an increase in the occurrence and wanted to address it. When you're streaming, you should be focused on creating the best content you possibly can. It's ok if you have another broadcasters stream up and are lurking for them, that's called support. But if you're active in there chat, WHILE YOU ARE STREAMING, then you're not putting your all into your own content. It also doesn't look good if you queue up to play games with another streamer, while you are streaming. This isn't a "hack" to co-stream with another streamer, and if you aren't telling them you're streaming and you include their voice in your stream, you are actually being extremely deceptive. Always remember proper streamer etiquette fam, it will get you much further ahead. God bless!

I want to talk a little bit about misplaced ownership. A few weeks back Skyan covered a topic like this, and I've noticed recently a bunch of posts about this on Twitter as well, so I figured I'd address it from my perspective. Misplaced ownership can take a few different forms, but most often I find it taking place when financial contributions are made. It seems SOME viewers get a sense that they can have certain controls when they tip or sub. This is NOT every viewer. But what usually happens is that they feel they should have special control over the stream, whether that's determining games played, or priority play time, etc.. My encouragement for you as a content creator, is to be mindful of exactly how much weight you give to financial contributions, and be very clear about the lines you draw. Sub-only games and special Discord access are normal, but be careful when you start putting more weight on "money changes" versus others, it's a slippery slope to losing control. God bless!

I've noticed an increase on Twitter in the use of irrelevant hashtags and the mass mentioning of large broadcasters as a tactic to gain exposure for smaller broadcasters. I wanted to address this head on, and to encourage you as content creators to look past the numbers for a second and see what's actually resulting from the use of hashtags such as "#supportsmallstreamers". It's not helping your cause, and may actually be hurting your brand. My encouragement for you, is to change tactics and start bringing value to your Twitter interactions in a few different ways. One, in your go live tweet, consider using the hashtag relevant to the game your playing, and mention the developer. Those will have a much further reaching effect. Also, if the only content on your timeline is your going live tweets, then consider getting more involved in other influencer's conversations. This a great way to add to the conversation, and to see positive exposure to those communities. God bless!

As broadcasters and as people, we are always strapped for time. So it's important that you identify a few things when it comes to time investment. First, identify the items that you're going to spend the time on that will yield the most value for your time. People like to focus on things that add polish to your stream (hardware research, graphics & overlays, etc...) instead of core content items (distributing content everywhere, video game research, etc..). Determine what adds the most value to your content, and spend your time there. The 2nd part of this is to determine what you're capable of delivering versus what should be commissioned. If you've never touched a graphic design program, you may want to consider commissioning work for that, or using pre-mades from places like nerdordie.com. Figure out what is worth investing time to learn, versus what you should "outsource". At the end of the day, your time is the most valuable thing you have. Use it wisely. God bless!

Today I want to talk about making first impressions and giving people second chances on THEIR first impressions. As content creators, we all have bad days. I challenge any content creator that has been in the game for more than a few days to tell me they've never had an off day. The tough thing about those off days, is that those first impressions to people brand new to your content are now stuck with that impression of you. That leads to point number two, be empathetic of first impressions! If you stop by someone's channel and it feels like they're having an off day, consider turning on your notifications and coming back a different day to check out their content. We all have bad days, give someone a second chance! God bless!

Sometimes we end up in a situation where we are unbelievably overwhelmed by everything going on in our world. Take me for instance, now not only was I lacking sleep because of my stream schedule, but now we have a 3 week, adorable little boy that we are looking after for the foreseeable future. Which means bottles, middle of night feedings, and even less sleep. Sometimes we're handed a lot of things to deal with at once. My encouragement for you is to make sure that if you're in a situation where you're just overwhelmed with everything, take a moment (or maybe a day) to evaluate where everything is at and adjust. It's important to take stock every once in awhile, and to know when too much is unmanageable. Know what's important, adjust where necessary, and overcommunicate change to whomever needs to know. God bless!

Today I want to talk about sharing information and expertise. Every single person on the planet has some expertise in something. As we grow up and get into the working world, we develop relevance and expertise in the fields we participate in. As content creators, we have an opportunity to share that expertise with others on a regular basis. And we should be sharing that information to push each other to be better, and to push the content creator space forward. My encouragement for you today is to share the knowledge you've been building up with another content creator. Even if it's just a one on one conversation, getting the information out there and helping a fellow content creator is important. My second encouragement is to always be learning. Make sure you do your best to stay up to date with the latest streaming trends and to continue to share that information as well. God bless!