In this episode, I’m on my way to give a guest lecture at the Faculty of Economics, and I’m using this time to share my key lesson with you—document, don’t create. I’ve been thinking a lot about how people approach social media, and I realized that instead of constantly trying to create fresh content, it’s much easier and more impactful to document what’s already happening. That’s exactly what I do with this podcast; I document my journey, and it becomes my content.
By documenting your journey, you bring your audience along for the ride. It takes the pressure off trying to be creative all the time, and it builds long-term engagement because people want to follow your story. Whether you’re building a personal brand or growing a business, documenting your process gives you an endless source of content while helping you stay authentic and relatable.
Transcript:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Sweet Buzz! I’m pretty excited this morning as I’m driving to the Faculty of Economics where I’ll be giving a lecture. The road isn’t great, so apologies in advance, but I thought it would be fun to share the topic I’m presenting. In fact, I haven’t fully rehearsed it yet, so this is like a trial run with you as my audience!
The Faculty of Economics, where I got my bachelor’s degree in eBusiness, invited me to speak to about 50 to 100 students. I’m going to be talking about social media, specifically personal branding and business branding. I saw that other guest speakers talked about things like data and statistics, but I wanted to do something more engaging and relevant to the students. Instead of just talking about business departments like HR or marketing, I’m focusing on how they can become influencers. It’s a hook to grab their attention, but I’ll also apply the same principles to business branding to make it practical for them.
My presentation is divided into two main lessons, and I’ll share the first one with you today. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while as I see how people behave on social media. Here’s the main idea: instead of constantly trying to create new content, document your journey. That’s right—document, don’t create. As a business owner, this podcast is an example of how I’m documenting my journey. I’m telling you that I’m about to give a lecture at the Faculty of Economics, and that’s content! Documenting your journey makes content creation much easier because you’re simply sharing what’s happening in your life or business.
Too many people struggle to come up with creative content consistently. They feel like they need a high-production team, fancy cameras, and complex ideas. But documenting your journey doesn’t need all that. It’s natural, raw, and engaging. When you take people on your journey, they want to follow along and see what happens next. And unlike a typical social media post that disappears in a day or two, documenting a journey keeps people coming back to see how the story unfolds. It gives you long-term content that can build an engaged audience over time.
That’s how I approach all of my content—from podcasts to books to summits. I document the things I’m already doing in my business, and it takes the pressure off having to constantly invent new ideas. For instance, Sweet Leads documents everything that worked in our B2B appointment-setting service, and my Financial Freedom book is essentially a decade-long journey from skill development to financial independence. Whether you want to become an influencer or build your brand, documenting your journey gives you both content and purpose.
So, that’s lesson number one: document, don’t create. It applies to personal branding, business branding, and everything in between. Start documenting what’s happening in your life or company, and you’ll be surprised at how much easier social media
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.