136 Videos Flopped. Here's What I'm Changing This Time
I’ve posted 136 videos over the course of four or five years.
They all flopped.
Not because the camera was bad or the editing was off. They flopped because there was no consistency and no direction. A video here, a few weeks off, a random topic there. Nobody knew what the channel was for, including me.
This week I hit restart on the channel with a video that says exactly that:
Watch “136 Videos Flopped. Here’s What Changes Now” on YouTube
Restarting something you already “failed” at is uncomfortable. Everybody can scroll back and see the old stuff. But I’ve learned that the restart is where the real lesson lives, so here are the five things I’m doing differently this time. They apply to a channel, a side project, a fitness plan, or anything else you keep starting over.
1. Pick a direction before you pick a topic
My old videos were whatever I felt like posting that day. That’s not a strategy. That’s a mood.
This time the channel has three lanes, and every video has to fit one of them:
- Build: building teams, leading people, and sales lessons, especially from working with a lot of people between 17 and 25.
- Money: how money works, using it as a tool, and building simple systems so you can live below your means and still have great experiences.
- Life: the day-to-day of running a business, travel, and yes, the fun stuff like food reviews, still under the Baker Bites name.
Three lanes sounds limiting. It’s the opposite. When you know the lanes, you stop staring at a blank page wondering what to make. You just ask which lane needs something this week.
Your version: before you restart anything, write down the two or three lanes it lives in. If an idea doesn’t fit a lane, it waits.
2. Consistency beats volume
136 videos is a lot of volume. It didn’t matter, because it came in bursts.
This is the same thing I tell new people on a team: the person who makes a few calls every single day beats the person who makes a hundred calls once and then disappears for two weeks. Consistency is what builds trust, with an audience, with a team, and with yourself.
So the goal isn’t “post a ton.” The goal is to show up on a schedule I can actually keep, and keep it.
Your version: pick a pace you could hold during your worst week, not your best one. You can always go up from there.
3. Stop faking the highlight reel
One reason I kept stalling is that it’s tempting to only post when things look good.
This time I want to show the chaos and the challenges along with the wins, without faking anything. Some seasons are a rebuild. My team is in one right now, and I’d rather document how we work through it than pretend it isn’t happening.
The honest version is also the more useful one. People don’t learn much from a highlight reel. They learn from watching someone work a problem in real time.
Your version: share the lesson while you’re still in it. “Here’s what I’m fixing” is more valuable than “here’s how perfect it went.”
4. Build the system, not just the content
A lot of my old uploads died because every video was a fresh scramble. Idea, film, edit, post, all from scratch, every time.
Now I’m treating content like any other part of the business: it needs a system. I’m sourcing ideas from what people actually say to me on X and Instagram, keeping the three lanes as a filter, and using tools to take the busywork off my plate. Earlier this week I asked other builders on X what system gave them the most time back this year. Mine is meeting recaps: transcript in, recap out, follow-ups on the calendar. The same thinking applies here. Anything I do more than twice should have a process.
Your version: look at the thing you keep restarting and find the step that always stalls you. Build a simple system for that one step first.
5. Ask for accountability out loud
The biggest change is that I’m not doing this quietly anymore.
In the video I asked people to hold me accountable: comment, push back, tell me when you disagree. I’ve always done my best work on teams and in communities of people working toward the same thing. Doing this alone is exactly how the first 136 videos happened.
Here’s something I’ve noticed too: the further you go, the smaller the group of people thinking the way you do gets. That’s a reason to go find them, not a reason to go it alone.
Your version: tell people what you’re restarting and when they should expect to see progress. Then give them permission to call you out.
The short version
- Direction first. Pick two or three lanes and make everything fit one.
- Consistency over volume. Choose a pace you can hold in a bad week.
- No highlight reel. Share the lesson while you’re still fixing it.
- Systematize the stall point. Fix the step that always stops you.
- Ask for accountability. Out loud, with a timeline.
Flopping 136 times isn’t the end of the story. It’s the data. Now I know exactly what not to do.
What are you restarting before the year ends? Tell me on X or in the comments on the video, and subscribe on YouTube if you want to hold me to it.
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