Uploaded and Unfiltered: Real Talk on Healing, Creativity, and Mindset for Black Creators

Repetition Beats Perfection: Why Black Creators Need to Keep Shooting Their Shot

• Jermaine Pulliam • Season 1 • Episode 112

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Ever notice how life's mundane tasks can become perfect metaphors for the creative journey? While squeegeeing my shower doors—something I was terrible at initially—I realized that through daily repetition, I'd naturally become skilled at it over time. This simple observation perfectly mirrors the content creation process.

As creators, especially Black creators navigating unique challenges in digital spaces, we often let fear disguised as perfectionism prevent us from publishing consistently. We wait for motivation, inspiration, or the perfect moment while our skills remain undeveloped. The truth? Repetition is what transforms beginners into experts. Every video you edit, every blog you write, every podcast you record builds competence and confidence—regardless of initial quality.

Your brain registers unfamiliar activities as potential threats, triggering resistance. Understanding this psychological mechanism allows you to acknowledge fears while moving forward anyway. The worry about appearing "cringe" is perhaps the most powerful creativity killer, but authentic expression is precisely what connects creators with their ideal audience. The winning formula combines consistency with authenticity: create content around subjects you genuinely love, infuse your personality, and keep showing up regularly.

Don't wait for motivation. Don't obsess over numbers. Get your reps in and watch your abilities and audience grow. I've experienced this transformation personally—when I finally committed to consistent YouTube content, the growth became evident. Ready to overcome procrastination, imposter syndrome, or fear of creating? 


Connect with me through the podcast link or visit radiantreflection.best to discover how to make your content truly reflect who you are.


https://stan.store/CoachJermaine

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Speaker 1:

Welcome. Welcome back to another episode of Uploaded and Unfiltered. If this is your first time listening, I appreciate the download, I appreciate the stream. Welcome to a podcast for Black creators to give a space to speak on the mental health, the mindset that comes with being a creator, especially a Black creator, in today's content creation world. I have been thinking for a long time about changing up the format, which I think I'm going to do starting today. My goal is to relate weird concepts as far as our mind goes, or just things that we should be doing as content creators, in a way that sounds more relatable, if that makes sense. And I don't know how long this episode is going to be, but, as I was now, this can sound crazy, but bear with me.

Speaker 1:

I do my best thinking when I'm in the shower. I don't know why I just do. And for you, for those who are new, I recently just moved to North Carolina. I guess it hasn't been recent, it's almost been a year at this point but with that came new routines. One routine that I do every day, because I shower every day, is we have a glass enclosure for our shower, like there's no bathtub. I miss. I miss having a bathtub, but it's cool.

Speaker 1:

I love my shower. It's huge, it can fit more than one person. Just saying, if you're married, that's a bonus. Also, it has these glass doors. So as you take a shower, as one does, it starts to get fogged up and if you don't clean that fog off the condensation, whatever it may be called If you don't clean that off, it becomes a problem to clean later. So a new habit of mine is soon almost every time I think I maybe miss once or twice due to some partying. We'll just say that.

Speaker 1:

But other than that, every time I take a shower I got to squeegee off the water, the excess water that built up during the shower. So as I'm doing this, the first few times, I was garbage at it and I know it sounds easy, but I'm kind of tall. So at the beginning like top to about the middle easy cake I'm just wow, wiping down. And then when it gets towards the bottom, it's like my hands start shaking and I don't. It's not a straight line. At first I was like this is crazy.

Speaker 1:

And then I started thinking about all of those squeegee videos. I don't know if they even still do them, but it'd be people cleaning windows with like an excessive amount of soap. I don't even know if you need that much soap to clean a window. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, I don't know. They're professionals. Anyways, they're professionals anyways. They're cleaning this thing like the swipes, like it's looking artistic and look they're spot on, they're killing it. No, slow down is everything is like perfection. And I was like when I first saw those videos years ago I was like man, I could never, because I know that takes talent, I know that takes like practice and hours trying to do that.

Speaker 1:

The the only like close assimilation I've had of that is that game in mario party where you have to switch to the switch controller, the joy-con. What the fuck is that thing called? Yeah, I think it's called a joy-con. Well, you got to move it back and forth to wipe the windows, wipe the suds off, that's it. That's all I know. Um, and, of course, like you go to the gas station, you wipe that down with, uh, the the dirty ass water.

Speaker 1:

I used to okay, side tangent, quick, side tangent. I used to work at a gas station and I had I wasn't well for like six months. Then I became like a lead or a manager and but I was responsible for changing that water? Did you clean your windshields with at the gas station pumps? That shit is disgusting. Never again. Sometimes that shit would go two or three weeks without getting cleaned and people would still be.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, what was I talking about? Yeah, cleaning the goddamn shower. So I thought to myself I was like man, I'm probably going to clean this shower for at least like 20 years or like for a long, long time. I'm naturally going to get good at this, like I'm going to be an expert at this. And how long has it been? Eight, seven, six. I can't do math right now. I'm not an expert, but I'm way better than I used to used to be.

Speaker 1:

So, like just a simple thought today in the shower, I was like man, I'm going to be an expert at this and all it takes is repetition. I need to get the reps in, I need to build up that muscle memory and along the way I'll learn new techniques. I mean, if I wasn't stubborn, I'd probably look up a video to learn how to do it. But I mean, it's not that serious, it takes not that long, but I just want to do some cool shit when I clean. But it's going to get to a point where it's going to become second nature. But just from the sheer fact that I keep doing it over and over and over and over again, you see where I'm going with this. Do I need to? Does it need to come out and say it? Okay, when it comes to your content. Come out and say it. Okay, when it comes to your content.

Speaker 1:

Let's just say that you have no qualms about posting your content. The only thing that you have is you're a little lazy about it. You don't really see the reason why you should be consistent. You don't really see the reason why you should just keep creating content and, like you, just don't see it. So, my, this is what I'm saying the more you do something, the better you get at it. The more videos you edit if that's something that you want to do to put out your content the better you're going to get at editing. The more blogs that you create nervous and shitty and like mics off and the lighting's all shitty and you don't know what you're saying. You say I'm a bunch. The more you do those, the better you're going to get at it. There is no doubt in my mind, like it's impossible, unless you just actively are trying not to get better. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

Speaker 1:

Now, there's a few things that hold people up from going through that regimen, because that's exactly what it is. It's a process. It's something that you need I wouldn't. You don't need to enjoy it, but I would highly recommend enjoying that process, enjoying the things that are getting you to the goal that you want to be at, because the more you enjoy it, the easier it becomes. It no longer needs this thing that we call motivation. It's just muscle memory at that point, it's just repetition. It's just this is what I do. Like I'm excited, I expect myself to do this X amount of times, x amount of times a day, x million times a month, whatever it is. That's what this podcast has become.

Speaker 1:

To me is repetition, like I love doing it, and that makes like carving out time to do an episode that much easier. And there's no motivation. Like my motivation I wouldn't say is I'm motivated to do this, I'm enjoying it, is I do it because it's fun. Like I don't need motivation to do this. I don't need motivation to edit the audio. I don't need the motivation to reach out to people to see if they want to be on. I'm already enjoying this. This is great, and as I continue to do it, I get better at editing, I get better at coming up with topics, I get better at just talking in general, like I'm getting those reps in and that's what we need to do, especially as I stumble over my words. If you were making short content on TikTok or YouTube or Instagram, get those reps up.

Speaker 1:

Like I think, saturday I was just not bored, but I was like I just feel like shooting a bunch of stuff. So I think I shot like six or seven videos. I just posted all of them, like there was no reason for me to like sit on them and schedule them out Specifically with TikTok. I've learned on TikTok that it feels like you just got to be consistent. So, like I would say, go for a video a day or go for five videos a week. Give yourself a little break Sunday, saturday, if that's what you want to do, but continue to do it. And then when random stuff pops up, do it like the thing I think that's going to grow more people than not it's creating.

Speaker 1:

Whatever your niche is, don't worry about it being a popular one, just worry about it being something that you're into something that you can talk about forever Not forever but that you're passionate about talking about Interest price some of your personality in there. Maybe there was some. Get ready with me, or we're going shopping at Costco or whatever. Show a little of your personality and continue to be consistent. That's the winning formula. That's what you need to do to get to a point where you're like oh man, my little community has grown. I'm starting to see some ducats from this. This is crazy.

Speaker 1:

But the repetition is, it becomes natural, it becomes part of your routine. So, yeah, I think repetition also assists in getting rid of that fear of oh man, I've never done this before. Keep doing it a number of times and you will get rid of that fear. Not doing it is not going to get rid of the fear. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Like you may be able to talk you down, but until you are going through, until you are living it like you don't have no firsthand, no first world, first hands on experience, so you're not going to know what to do with it. But yeah, that was it. I just want to convince more people to get in the habit of just shooting up shots. Get your shot down, get your form down. Along the way. You're going to figure out better ways to do things. You're going to figure out better ways to tell your story.

Speaker 1:

But if you just sit there and are scared to push forward with it, if you're letting procrastination stop you, if you're letting imposter syndrome stop you, then you are doing it wrong. I promise you, that fear that you have, everybody has it. It's not necessary for you to have that fear in order to move forward and get what you need to do done. But the quicker that you realize that. Just your brain saying hey man, you never did this before, all right, I think this is dangerous, dangerous, means death. So I don't want, I don't, I don't want to go forward with this. Let's make you procrastinate a lot as long as you realize that's what your brain's doing. Just be like hey brain, no, we good, I really want to do this. This is going to be amazing, enriching, fun as hell. Let's go and watch your brain be like oh shit, all right, my bad, you know, I just turn on alarm system. I thought I heard somebody breaking in and you just dropped the glass in the kitchen. All right, my bad, oops. But yeah, we need to get a handle on our subconscious mind. That's exactly what I do with my program.

Speaker 1:

The company is called Radiant Reflection because I want our content that we are putting out in the world to be a reflection of who we are inside. No need to be fake. Show up authentically, be joyful and excited about the things that you are excited about, and your people will find you. As simple as that. But first you got to get that content up. Stop worrying about the numbers. Get your reps in and just watch your shit grow. I promise you I'm seeing it right now, like I was not putting my reps in, like I should be on my YouTube channel. I'm doing it now and I'm reaping the benefits. So get ahead of it before it's too late. That sounded ominous as hell, but anyways, if you made it this far, thank you again for listening. We're going to wrap this one up. We're going to. It's going to be a shorty, but it's going to be important.

Speaker 1:

The message of today is get your reps in. Don't be scared to go to the gym and start lifting weights. Don't be scared to post those cringy videos. Like if you look at your videos and think, cringe. That is the biggest lock on people's going forward with their content that exists, exists like. So I this is a crazy part, okay, but crazy part of my brain thinks there is somebody, some entities, somebody out there just like, hey, the more people that think this is cringe, the less it would be creating, and we don't want them to create, why, I don't know. But that's enough motivation for me to be like nah, I'm showing up, cringy baby, it's happening. So, yeah, do that.

Speaker 1:

But anyways, if you need assistance with any stucknesses that you may have procrastination imposter syndrome what else is out there? There's so many. You know what they are. If you are afraid to go live on YouTube, on any live platform, if you're afraid to show your face, if you want to get in the habit of being more consistent I got you. I'm an expert at shit like that Hit me up. Either the link in the podcast you can go ahead and hit that, it goes directly to me or you can go to radiantreflectionbess, or you can go to stanstore slash coachjermaine and see everything that I offer there as well. Thank you again for listening. I appreciate you. I am going to wrap this up, edit it and move on to the next project and, as always, protect your mental. Keep creating content and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.