The Importance of Staying in Your Lane
As mentioned in a previous article, with everything you see online nowadays it can be easy to lose sight of what’s important. When it comes to entrepreneurship, when you start doing things for the wrong reasons, that’s usually where it’s time to readjust. Doing things to gain popularity, look “cool”, become associated with a certain crowd, or get a certain group of people to like you. When you start going down these paths, that’s usually where you start to get yourself into trouble.
Twitch Streamers
Over the past few weeks I’ve had the privilege of watching some very talented and interesting people on Twitch. I don’t normally watch Twitch, and I don’t normally play video games, but I happened to hop on the site to do some browsing for a change.
What blows me away about the Twitch streamers is just how focused and professional they are. Despite the fact that these folks have millions of viewers, rake in large sums of money, and are at the top of what they do, they still display a ton of humility. They give thanks to their followers and subscribers. They continue to put out content consistently. And they behave as though they are regular human beings. It’s as though they are still the same people at the core despite their success.
As I was watching, there was almost a part of me that found myself wantint to start streaming on Twitch myself. To be honest, I really just found myself wanting to be associated with such an interesting group of people.
As a young teen I actually was into producing gaming content myself, but I didn’t stick with it. Twitch wasn’t around back then, but if it was I might have been into it.
Popularity
It’s great to experiment and try new things when it comes to entrepreneurship. Afterall, it’s better not to have all your eggs in just one basket. But, at the core it’s not so much what you do as much as it is how and why you do it.
When you start finding yourself envisioning the fame, popularity, and recognition that your actions will bring rather than just focusing on the actual doing, that’s where things start to shift. The truth is that the people that truly rock with you will rock with you regardless of whether you have 20 followers or 200,000.
The relevance of pursuing wealth rather than status is a pivotal topic among successful entrepreneurs. “Wealth is what you really want” they say. With that in mind, when you find yourself getting overly concerned about how your actions appear to others, or whether or not the things you’re doing will make you popular, that’s where it’s necessary to refocus.
Hip Hop
In the rap game, this is a heavy topic. Guys crafting singles specifically to get radio play. Artists dressing or acting a certain way to gain attention. It’s something that the core artists frown on frequently.
The guys that become the most successful and the most satisfied are the ones that are able to navigate these challenges authentically. As I was watching a Curren$y interview recently, he summed it up about the best I’ve heard. “I just want to be rich and go to the store” he said.
Curren$y is a guy that a lot of DIYers look up to in the rap game. A guy that has managed to build a strong following, make great money, and maintain an independent brand without having to take on all the nonsense associated with the mainstream.
Curren$y raps because he enjoys making music. He doesn’t compromise who he is to gain sales or recognition. He stays true to who is he, and people embrace him for it. These are big components when it comes to how successful he is.
Back To The Basics
When you start feeling an increased amount of pressure to try to look a certain way or be associated with a certain crowd, that’s where it becomes important to strip things back down and get in touch with why you do what you do. Are you more concerned with “getting” or “growing”? Is it popularity that you’re after, or good health and financial independence? Are you staying true to what you truly want to be doing, or do you find yourself shifting to appease the viewpoints of others?
As a fan of stand up comedy, this is something that I’ve seen come up a few times. Guys will criticize other comedians for doing things like stealing jokes, putting out hacky material just to get cheap laughs, or sometimes even sticking with the same material way longer than necessary just to keep getting laughs. In some cases, comedians will even criticize guys for using their platform built in another industry just to sell tickets in standup when the other gig is up.
At the end of the day what it comes down to is just staying in your lane and staying true to what you do. Not trying to be “one of them” or trying to be with the in-crowd. And not doing things for the wrong reasons or because you want to “get” something out of what you’re doing.
Thank You For Reading
As always, thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope that it has served you well, and I look forward to seeing you on the next one.
