A Different Approach to Creating Content

If marketing feels overwhelming, you’re probably doing it backwards.

I hear the same thing from founders all the time: “I know I need to post more content, but I don’t have time to create all that stuff.”

I used to say the same thing. For years, actually. I wanted to get into video work. I had the ideas, the general sense that it would be good for my business, the vague intention to start soon. But I kept hesitating. There was always something more pressing, something that felt more like real work.

Then last August, I started a 100-day challenge. One minute. One reel. Every single day on Instagram.

It sounds simple. It wasn’t. The first few weeks were a grind. I didn’t have a system. I didn’t know where the ideas would come from. I just knew I had committed, so I had to figure it out.

What surprised me is that the figuring out happened through the doing. Not before it.

Somewhere around week three, I noticed something shift. I started reviewing my week differently. What had I learned? What conversations stood out? What kept showing up in my thinking? And I realized that my content wasn’t separate from that reflection. It was part of it.

The reels became a place where I processed what I was learning in real time. Not a performance. Not a broadcast. Just a quiet record of what felt true that week.

That reframe changed everything for me. I stopped thinking of content as something I had to produce and started seeing it as something that emerged from paying attention to my own life.

But here’s the thing. Even with that shift, my content wasn’t sparking much conversation. I was putting things out, but I wasn’t really engaging. I’d post and move on, because I still didn’t feel like I had time to do more than that.

Content without connection just sits there.

At the beginning of this year, I stumbled onto something that changed the equation. I realized I could take the transcripts from my video work and use them as rough drafts for LinkedIn posts. I’d rewrite them in my own voice, tighten them up, and suddenly I had a bridge between the reflection I was already doing and a platform where people actually read the kind of things I was writing.

And then I did something I’d been avoiding. I started engaging with other people’s posts.

It sounds obvious when I say it out loud. But I think a lot of us skip this part. We want the engagement without offering it first. We want the conversations without joining other people’s conversations. We treat content like a megaphone when it works better as a table.

When I started commenting on things that genuinely interested me, something shifted. People started showing up on my posts too. Not because I’d cracked some algorithm, but because I’d finally entered the room instead of just shouting through the window.

I’m still learning. This is hard for me. I don’t naturally gravitate toward social platforms, and the time pressure hasn’t gone away. But I’m getting better at noticing what resonates. I’m paying attention to patterns. I’m building systems, slowly, that make the work sustainable instead of exhausting.

What I’m learning is that the goal should never be to post content for the sake of it.

The best content doesn’t come from grinding out posts. It comes from paying attention to what sparks real discussion. What makes someone stop and respond. What question keeps coming up in conversations.

Content becomes a place to explore what people actually care about, not just a box to check.

And maybe that’s the inversion that makes all the difference. Instead of asking “what should I post?” you ask “what am I already noticing?” Instead of performing expertise, you share the questions you’re sitting with. Instead of broadcasting, you join.

The content follows. The conversations come first.