Should you give yourself time as a creator?
Insights from one of India's '25 under 25' Instagrammers- Nirmal Pillai
For those of you who don’t know, Nirmal Pillai is a content creator and standup comedian with 386K followers and millions of views. He started making reels for fun on Instagram and is now a full-time creator working on live shows and high-ticket brand partnerships.
I watched Nirmal’s TED talk today for the third time. I’ll probably watch it again soon because the contents of this 10-minute talk are pure gold.
Nirmal Pillai calls his talk the dummy’s guide to being a creator and then jokes that he himself is the dummy. However, everything he said in this TED talk is insanely valuable to any content creator.
He started by talking about what special “influence” social media stars wield—social capital, which could be followers, subscribers, or great engagement rates.
And his job as a content creator is, as he puts it—
maintaining, growing and leveraging his social capital.
To create things he is proud of.
To live a monetarily comfortable life.
And to grow his social capital, he tried different things and experimented with comedy reels and funny content until he leveraged his social capital enough to allow for more—to finally focus more on his initial passions of filmmaking and more.
And at this stage, Nirmal voiced the question that keeps most of us middle-class folk up at night—
Isn’t it risky?
Well, yeah. It is risky. But then, what about other risky things that we dive headfirst into?
What about the years we spend on competitive exams that may or may not land us good jobs ultimately? What about packing up and spending tens of lakhs on a degree abroad that you don’t even know if you like? All in the hopes of a job that—when you really think about it—could be risky in itself.
Risks are everywhere. The risk of failing, the risk of getting fired, the risk of burning out, the risk of realizing halfway through your life that you don’t like your job. All of it is pretty damn risky.
But if you really want to be a creator, step up and take a chance on yourself.
Nirmal also points out that you can combat the monetary risk by being financially independent before you quit your 9-to-5 and go full-time with your content creation.
To learn more about his own journey and his smart tips(not at all a dummy’s) on how to make it as a creator, here’s the link to the video—
About the state of my own journey—
In my last newsletter issue, I had a schedule, a plan, and a content calendar ready for my newsletter.
I waited months before starting my newsletter just so that it doesn’t seem like I’m flaking out on this with inconsistency. However, the past month has been hard for me, and I’m honestly still figuring out how to proceed with my freelancing and personal content creation.
I thought I would be writing, publishing a lot and growing my newsletter, but I realized that my love for writing wasn’t all there anymore because I was severely burnt out.
I could push through and keep writing, but that’s not the answer to burnout. I’m going to try rejuvenating my creative muscles and come back better, actually ready to run this newsletter.
I might make this a monthly newsletter too, but for now, I’m just pausing and taking the advice above.
Thank you so much for understanding and still being a part of my newsletter family! I’m sincerely grateful to have you here. :)
In the meantime, here’s a look at my recent creator-focused guide—
Get Paid to Write: 26+ Ways to Make Money Writing Online [2022]
And this is my Instagram blog(er, vlog?) if you’d like to take a look.
What would you like to read more of from me? Personal updates or creator resources or creator economy news, or creator spotlight pieces? Please let me know in the comments or just email me; I’d love to know.
I hope you have a great weekend!
Much love,
Bertilla