[0:54] He's also an Adobe certified professional and at Music Radio Creative, he innovates as creative director, blending AI with creativity. You can tune into his channel for more up to date AI insights. Welcome back, Mike. How are you doing?
[1:09] Mike: It's cool to be back in the hot seat. I don't know if this will be harder or easier than talking about equipment for content creation. Cause you can ask me a lot of questions about how I got started, right?
[1:18] Ian: Exactly. Yeah, that's what we're talking about because I think, we talked about gear and your studio last time, but I think often what stops people is it's getting in front of the camera. It's pressing that go live button or whether it's live or whether it's just Pressing record.
[1:33] It's that kind of scary side of things. And yeah. So for people who didn't listen to you last time, just a brief introduction about you, highlighting your background and your content creation journey.
[1:45] Mike: Yeah, so I'm Mike. I started out working in radio as an on air host, as a producer, pretty much doing every job that was available. And then probably just over a decade ago now, I discovered podcasts. I started as a listener and thought they were amazing. Then I got into podcasting in a big way started Music Radio Creative, a company still here today that's serving content creators, podcasters, YouTubers, radio stations, DJs, you name it, with making what they need for audio. And my huge, step into content creation was 2009, 2010, when I started my YouTube channel. And I have not looked back. YouTube has been very good to me. And in fact as you rightly mentioned in the intro I've just recently started a brand new channel. And I am surprised and impressed that how kind YouTube are to brand new creators. Obviously I built my main channel up to over 300, 000 subscribers, but the new one just has a few thousand at the moment. But it's incredible the encouragement that YouTube studio gives you all along the way, celebrating your milestones. It's nice after content creating for over a decade to get back in the seat of being a brand new creator. And hopefully I can learn from my mistakes. I'm not coming in brand new and fresh, but I can say that didn't quite work on my old channel. Let's do it this way on my new one.
[3:04] Ian: Definitely. Yeah, just to say the intro and outro of the show are done by Music Radio Creative. So thank you for that. So mike so you did you set up your youtube channel a long time ago.
[3:15] I think you said 2010 ish. And So can you remember back in those days, like what was it like getting in front of the camera before that you did a lot of radio work? So getting in front of the microphone is was maybe a scary experience. But there's something about putting your face in front of the camera that can be Problematic.
[3:34] And I know that you mentioned about remembering things and you had to do lots and lots of takes and put them all together because you're finding it difficult to remember everything that you want to say. And I'm exactly like that. What was it like in those early days back to back in 2010?
[3:50] Mike: It was really interesting. Yeah. Like you said, I had. In terms of confidence in front of the microphone, I had a bit of practice at it. That came fairly naturally. Now, there is a little piece of the puzzle that's missing from this story. From day one, I did not go live with my face on YouTube.
[4:05] In fact, I was, a lot of people talk about this today. I was a faceless YouTube channel. So it was me speaking into the microphone, showing only what was on my screen. And my very first tutorial, which you'll see if you go and see my channel and sort by oldest videos were my favorite effects for creating radio idents in Adobe audition. And I just started out. I did a, it must've been a five minute video where I was showing two or three different cool effects. And I was just very Hey guys, go easy on me. It's my first video, but I quite like this effect. I like this effect and this effect. And it took me about maybe two or three years to actually put my face on camera. Now thinking about it, I like, I'd never really thought to do that. I just wanted to teach the information. So it just felt natural. I'm going to share my screen. And talk about it on microphone. And it wasn't until I went to an event in America. It was actually in Las Vegas called New Media Expo. And that was just incredible. So this was my first time as a content creator meeting loads of other content creators. And I remember it was at that event. It must've been about 2013 when I went to this event and I met a load of cool content creators. And, some of them took a look at my YouTube channel and they said, this is good stuff.
[5:21] But like, why are you not on the camera? You build a better connection with your audience. Why don't you try it? And I was encouraged at that event to go ahead and do that. Because I just never thought about it. It didn't come to my mind. And so I switched the camera on and I started trying with it. And yeah, it was awful at first because like I wasn't very used to it. And in fact, actually, here's the story. Here's how it all begun. I didn't have the fancy cameras that I have now. Part of my setup. Now, I literally used a very early model iPhone. I know now in a sense, we've gone full circle because a lot of creators without cameras are encouraged to use their iPhones to get high 4k video because they're very good quality cameras on the iPhone, but I would just get a little mini tripod and put the iPhone at the end of my desk and talk into the iPhone and then, and then go back to the screen share. It was all very janky, but it got me used to being. In a sense on the screen. And then I found it really weird that people would stop commenting on the content in my videos, such as, Oh, that's a cool effect to why have you got a can of red bull on your desk? And, what's that thing in the background? And I'm like, I'm trying to teach audio here. It's quite overwhelming, but.
[6:30] The one benefit to make this a really positive story is the, people then made the connection with me and then when I would go to conferences in the future, and these would be relevant conferences. People who were in that space and they're your Mike, you're the guy that teaches this on YouTube.
[6:45] And it was like, that was an aha moment for me. I was like, wow, this is a way to really build your presence and your brand so that, you can just make connections when you go to conferences. And also I think it's good for you. If. As a creator, you want to be a speaker as well. You want to go to conferences and events.
[7:04] I think being on the camera is a must because then, these event organizers can see what your presence is like and, opportunities like that and other opportunities will come up. Who knows what might happen, but if you don't, put your face out there and show who you are as a human being. And I feel that's even more important now in the age of ai. I think that's a real big strength as content creators we all have left in us, is yes, you can create the deep fake face and you can make the deep fake of a voice. But if you can be real and be a human in front of the camera and share your thoughts, like I think. At the moment where we are in reality, that's still an
[7:46] essential and helpful skill. I don't know, maybe AI will fully replace that. When I listened to music generated by the latest AI models and it started giving me emotions, that was my like, this is getting freaky moment. Cause I was like, I'm getting emotions from a computer generated piece of music. So I'm not going to say it's our unique thing forever. But right now
[8:08] being on the camera as a real life human, I know we'll all have to do something in the future to prove that we're human in a video, right? It's maybe we can only maybe AI can't do that symbol, the live long and prosper symbol cause it gets fingers wrong, doesn't it?
[8:22] So it's look, I'm a human, here you go. And here's what I've got to say, so that humans know that we're talking to a fellow
[8:28] human. Sorry, I put all AI on
[8:30] Ian: no that's, it's, no, it's really interesting. And I, I think we've seen a, we saw the rise of live video in 2016 up to 20 20, 20 21, and then there's been a full a drop in using that. People are still using it. Don't get me wrong. I actually think we're going to start to see a rise again with live video because it, you can't, AI can't fake that.
[8:54] Or if it does, it's not going to do as good a job. And people I think are really crying out for that human connection. AI is never going to fully replace that because ultimately as human beings, We want to connect with other human beings. And yes, there are AI tools out there that can, replace some aspects of human interaction, but not to the same extent as the actual, but what we're doing at the moment, we're having, would it be the same if you, if this was AI Mike, I was talking with, I don't think so, but that's a whole other interesting.
[9:27] Mike: Yeah. I don't know that. Yeah. We could go down and AI rabbit
[9:30] Ian: I wouldn't be happy. Cause because want to talk. With the real Mike, it's not just I don't just want to get information from you. I want to have interactions with you, but maybe that, yeah, I think I've already decided what we're going to do for season three, which is to go down this rabbit hole.
[9:45] I want to talk about those moments. So you were encouraged going to these events, by the way, are amazing, meeting other content creators and it changed my life. I know it's changed your life, but the most must have been moments of fear or nervousness or like those negative voices that we all tend to have in our heads, like saying, Oh, Mike, you're no good at this.
[10:06] You're a complete idiot. I'm not trying to put words into your mouth. These are the things that I say to myself, or I used to say to myself. So how did you get through that? Because you have you've Kept going your YouTube channel is amazing. It's very successful. You created this new one So anything that you can share with listeners to encourage them in that when they're in those very difficult moments
[10:27] Mike: I know it sounds cliche, but you've just got to create and put the stuff out there, done is better than idea in your head. And I have to keep telling myself that because I get ideas on a daily basis. And I know we've spoken about this before offline, try to organize them all in a nice notion board or something like that.
[10:42] Or I even still use my own. physical, like I've got like a look, a pen and paper here. How traditional is that? And I write stuff down. I find that really helps me. But like for years I would struggle with we spoke about in the other podcast episode about gear with lighting and, people would call me old red face in videos, get the white balance off and I'd be all magenta. And then, you get the odd troll who would be like, Oh, look at you, beetroot face. It's It's terrible. I used to get trolled a lot on that thing, I got the content out there and I learned over time. And do you know what? Some old Mike videos with the old beetroot face, they've got tens of thousands of views.
[11:19] So was it a good idea to make that video and put it out there? Yeah. Some people are a little bit distracted by the fact that I didn't get the lighting right on my fact on my face. Yes. It's cool. It helps you to develop and you will learn over time. what works. It's not going to be perfect.
[11:34] You're not going to be great at everything. But again, in the age of AI, we can get a lot better quicker at things that we never learned at school or in college or at university. So that's a cool thing. So just create and put stuff out there. And I'm a firm believer in, I do have the propensity to procrastinate, especially if I haven't got things to do or things that excite me.
[11:56] So I like to put myself under pressure and I like to say, I'm going to, I'm going to do this now. I'm going to start this. I'm going to have a new podcast or whatever like that. And just start things going because that's where you get the feedback, where you see if an idea is working or not.
[12:09] And if something doesn't work, then, just let it go. Be as quick to let it go as you were to start it. But if something starts working, double down on it. So you mentioned I started a new YouTube channel after over 10 years creating on YouTube. I didn't know if it was going to work.
[12:23] It is in the AI space. I know that's a very competitive space. I know there's a lot of voices out there already. And talking about confidence on this show, I questioned myself for a long time. So this channel started in March, 2024. It could easily have started back in 2023. But I kept having that fear of She's already talking about it over here, and he's already doing such a great job.
[12:44] I'm not needed in this space. And the one thing actually my wife, Isabella, kept telling me is she said, you're, she said, you're a unique voice. You might be talking about the same or similar things, but you are going to bring your own unique perspective to it. And that is going to, some people will vibe with that. I was like, all right I'll just, I'll start it. Look, listen, I've done enough times, watching Think Media telling me just start a YouTube channel. I was like, binging on Think Media is epic. I love Think Media Sean Cannell's channel. And I was like, all right. And then I was watching Mr.
[13:14] Beast videos thinking he's an amazing creator. I wish I could be like him. I was like, okay. I'm just going to do it. And so I just fired some videos out there. And the channel started in what I felt to be a good direction. I was like okay, it's time to start doing more. And I think you've also got to be quite strict on the content you're creating. So if you find something that works, double down on it and try and template it and make it a regular thing. And if something's not working just ditch it. Hopefully there's some wisdom in this somewhere. Okay.
[14:06] Ian: struggle with you. And it's a problem for so many of us content creators. We let, we compare ourselves to others and we say, Oh I couldn't, I can't possibly do that because I'm not Mr.
[14:15] Beast. And, but that very thing that you're not Mr. Beast is exactly what's going to make you successful because you're being Mike Russell, you're bringing your own take to it. And Yeah, definitely check out Mike's new channel. It is so cool. Going down these kind of really geeky rabbit holes.
[14:30] But yeah, just be warned because you will probably go down those geeky rabbit holes yourself. I want to talk about personality and especially this is more kind of psychological because we're all different and some people are very shy, like the idea of getting in front of the camera fills them with dread.
[14:46] Have you thought about like your, how your personality. Plays a part in terms of how you turn up on camera. Would you describe yourself as, extroverted, introverted, shy or bold or do these things matter? How does that affect you turning in front, turning up in front of the camera?
[15:02] Mike: That's a really interesting question. That when I come into my space the space that I've designed to create content, once I have an idea and I'm ready to roll with it, I find it pretty easy to just switch the camera on now after so many years of doing it and deliver because I know what I've got to do, how I've got to say it and all the rest of that. And yeah, it's some days it's harder than others, but I think you've just got to remember, I think the key wisdom that you just mentioned there, Ian, is like, No one's going to deliver it like Mike Russell and, or whoever's listening to the show right now. No one's going to deliver it like you will. Get out there and make something and enjoy the opportunities and the connections that will bring you. I also very much enjoy connecting with people offline. And and chatting about things. I find that's actually essential connecting with people offline out of this world, because you can get stuck in a bubble of delivering from one room and wondering if these subscribers are actually real.
[16:01] Ian: Yeah, definitely. And I suppose that the reason I asked that is because I found like in my delivery I'm, I suppose I'm more of an introvert, like we don't particularly like boxes, but I know some content creators who are just so Extrovert and bubbly in front of the camera. And I've mistakenly thought in the past.
[16:18] I need to be more like that. And no, that's not the case. I can just be me. I can be, I can try and become more me and lean into that. But so often that is a problem. And I hear that from like audience members. your people listening and clients that they think they can't get in front of the camera because they're too shy or introverted.
[16:38] And I don't think that's the case. What's your, what are your thoughts on that?
[16:42] Mike: Yeah, so I think on that, you've got to find the kind of content that you're comfortable making. So everyone's comfortable in different environments. For me, the easiest kind of content to make is literally sitting here in front of a camera with something ready to go. I can do that. I've also done stuff where, you know, where I'm traveling, I'm at an event and I'll film things. But I find it a little bit more forced to walk around, Casey Neistat style with a camera like, hey, I do it from time to time. And I don't find it too bad, but I'm definitely not strong in that area as I am sitting in front of the desk. And I heard another creator, I really respect a guy called Tom Buck, who's another audio guy on YouTube. And he recently went, I think, to NAB in Las Vegas. And in one of his videos, he said, I went round and I did this creation thing. And, I found it really hard, going around and filming things and just walking up to booths and like holding a camera and stuff. So just find what you're confident with and roll with that. And, if it is initially a faceless channel, where it's just your voice start that way and get feedback. That's better. So find your style, you will find that certain types of content are easier and a better fit for you than other types and double down on that.
[17:51] And if you don't feel comfortable rolling around with a camera and a microphone and sticking it in people's faces, don't do it. Or don't do it often.
[17:57] Ian: That is so good. Thank you for sharing that, Mike, because some people, they just feel they have to do it the way other people do it. And you don't just have to find a way that works for you. And I just had a bit of an epiphany moment there, Mike, because I've thought there's been something wrong with me because I don't like to do that.
[18:14] I like, and I've seen all these content creators at events like social media marketing world or whatever. And I'm going to a big event later this year. And I'm thinking, Oh, I need to bring my camera. I need to interview people. And that just fills me with anxiety. I'm thinking, ah, I don't have to do that.
[18:27] You don't have to. There's probably ways to help that and make it better, but to make it more easy. But yeah, that's really helpful information. So just before we finish, what would, what's your word of encouragement to listeners aiming to improve their confidence and communication skills? Cause they've got a message.
[18:45] They just want to get in front of the camera, but there's something stopping them. What would you say?
[18:49] Mike: Yeah, just get it done. Do it in your style. So this is a brilliant point to end on because you're saying about. Going around shoving a microphone in people's faces. If you're not confident with that, sign up to Ecamm or StreamYard or Riverside and blast out five emails to your mates who are in the space that you want to cover and say, will you come on my. new little podcast and do it remotely. That's far better than shoving a mic in someone's face. And you can sit with your cup of tea in the comfort of your own studio and talk to that person and create something. So find your style and do it and take action. And in terms of starting Again, I recently grateful to have had you on my new podcast for my new YouTube channel. And again, I was questioning, I was like anyone want to be on this podcast? Is there, am I going to do anything different to the rest of them? But I was just like, I'm going to find five people that I know I like them. I hope they like me too. And I'm going to send that email and say, please come on my show.
[19:48] And do you know what? I got five yeses back. So happy days, right?
[19:52] Ian: Yeah, and it wasn't just a yes. As soon as you told me about this podcast and would I be, would you like to be on it, I thought, Oh, yeah, that was what I was thinking. This sounds amazing. And yeah, just, we just recorded that. I'm very excited about listening to this. So is that out now? Can people find out, can listen to this new podcast?
[20:13] Mike: Yeah, I'm sure by the time this show goes live, it will be. And you just need to find the creator magic YouTube channel. It'd be on there and everywhere else, Spotify. So just subscribe in your favorite podcast show. Yeah.
[20:25] Ian: Yeah, this we're recording this a few months before this comes out. So I'm sure it will be out thank you. Mike. It's been awesome to have you back on the show How can people find out more about you and connect with you? Are you on the socials? Tell us how they can find out more about you.
[20:38] Mike: Thanks Ian. It's been a pleasure to be on the show. At iMikeRussell That's Mike Russell with the letter I in front of it on most social media. I'm on X, Instagram, all those places. And then just type my name into YouTube, Mike Russell or creator magic if you want to find the new YouTube channel and I'll see you there.
[20:56] Ian: Sounds great. Thanks Mike. It's been awesome. Great conversation today we are out of time again. My goodness. It goes so quickly Thank you so much for plugging us into your ears Or watching us on YouTube. It's been great. Until next time I encourage you to level up your impact authority and profits through the power of confident live video.
[21:14] See you soon. Bye
[21:15] Thanks for watching the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson Gray. Make sure you subscribe at iag.me/podcast, so you can continue to level up your impact, authority and profits through the power of live video. And until next time. Toodaloo!
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