The Obstacle is the Way
Welcome to the first edition of Vital Insights
You've heard the news.
I’m starting a newsletter (and a Youtube channel).
This is a bit random.
Why am I writing?
Why am I starting a YouTube channel?
Why now?
What is the actual point in this?
To put it simply, it started off with a problem I had, which lead to a question and then, I found the answer.
I’ll give you the run down on my thought process, what influenced my decision, what anxieties I had and why you’re reading this today.
So what was the problem?
Like many of you, I spend a fair bit of time scrolling through YouTube and consuming content, watching different creators make cool stuff.
As a result I’ve taken a lot of value over the years and learnt loads of useful things along the way.
I genuinely thought to myself; how can I be more of a positive impact?
In stead of just watching. What can I share that might help others?
Here’s what happened.
So to start with, I sat down and did some proverbial digging and I thought about what topics I’m passionate or interested in and… There’s quite a few.
The main overarching areas that stood out to me were, self-improvement, nutrition, health, entrepreneurship and medicine.
Now, whilst theres some overlap, you’ll hear most people tell you to “niche down” and only talk about one subject area if you want to build an audience.
But if I’m interested in say health, reading and running a business, then I’m pretty sure that that there are other people with similar interests to mine.
Most people obviously have more than one interest or hobby, right?
I didn’t really want to confine myself into a box where there is one topic that I only talk about and for that reason, you’ll notice that my content will probably change over time.
I then thought about another one of my passions which is learning.
It’s one of the key reasons that drove me to study medicine in the first place - we'll talk about that another time.
I love learning new things and trying new skills, like writing or editing videos for example, it’s super complicated but I’ve started and I actually really enjoy the process.
It’s technical and rewarding when you get it right.
It hasn’t quite clicked for me yet - you can probably tell if you watch my first video (it will arrive later this week - subscribe so you get notified)
At the start I mentioned about my anxieties.
The dreaded “first post anxiety”
Now I’m relatively rational and extroverted but there is that underlying fear of “what if my content sucks and nobody likes it?”
Or what if my video editing is rubbish (which it probably is)?
Or what if I’m not interesting?
I then came to my senses and realised that my videos at least are probably going to be rubbish at the start until I learn more about the creative process and then hopefully progress over time.
It’s not going to happen overnight.
I knew that the best way to getting over this type of fear was just to get on with it and do it.
I actually read a book recently called Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday - a good read, and the basic premise is: WHAT STANDS IN THE WAY, BECOMES THE WAY.
Holiday describes a framework that helps you to reframe obstacles into opportunities.
That quote was pretty relevant and stuck with me and it actually encouraged me to write this newsletter.
So what do I hope to gain with all this?
Besides learning new skills and trying something completely different outside of my comfort zone; in a way, this is the start of a journey for me where I’m hoping to talk about my experiences and lessons I’ve learned in business, in fitness and ones from the books I’ve read and hopefully, I can learn something from you too. I explain more about this in the about me section.
The goal of the this content journey is not for me to reach a million subscribers or get x number of views etc, although that would be a nice to have.
It would be much cooler for me to try build a community of like-minded individuals and reach people who want to take the leap of faith and try something new like start a business or ingrain a new habit and hopefully, we can help each other develop into the people we want to become.
If you're in for the ride - hit the button & sub below.
Have a good one. See you soon.
Z
Connect with me on socials:
https://www.youtube.com/@doctorzobir
https://twitter.com/DoctorZobir/