Welcome back to another edition of Unthreaded.

This week I want to talk about something I’ve struggled with myself, and honestly, still am: It’s how creating content started to feel like such a chore and the change I made to help me look at this in a completely new way.

Let's get into it.

You ever think about how creating content is really just explaining what you already know?

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I believe your best content should come from what you’ve actually lived.

The things you’ve learned, mistakes you’ve made and all the conversations had with customers from the work you’ve done.  Not to mention, what you know now that you probably would’ve done differently five years ago, is all the good stuff.

It’s the stuff that we’re hesitant to share though, but we should because it allows people to see how you operate and what it might be like to work with you.

But I think a lot of us have made the process way more complicated than that.

And I get it.

When you're running a business, trying to be present with your family, dealing with your team, customers, and everything else that comes with life, the idea of also needing to "create content" can feel like one more thing you're supposed to somehow find time for.

I've definitely felt that.

But the irony is, your content should be doing some of the heavy lifting for you.

It should be working when you're not. Helping people understand what you do. Giving them a feel for how you think. Building familiarity before you ever sit across from them on a call.

The problem starts when we forget that and start creating for the sake of creating.

Now you're worried about the algorithm. Looking at whatever everybody else is doing. You're thinking about hooks, trends, fancy edits, how often you're supposed to post, and a hundred other things before you've even figured out what you actually want to say.

I've fallen into that trap too.

And eventually, you make the whole thing so complicated that you don't create anything at all.

Not because you don't have anything worth saying.

You're just paying attention to the wrong things.

For me, things have started to shift when I made a pretty simple decision: I was only going to create around things I actually cared about, had experienced myself, or had something real to say about.

And almost immediately, the idea of creating instantly felt different.

Instead of sitting down trying to figure out what to post, I started pulling from things that had already happened. Stories from building the business.  Places where I’ve messed up and the and the countless conversations I've had over the years. Even the things I've changed my mind about and also the stuff I'm still trying to figure out in real time.  

Although it’s been a recent shift, I can say the content I’ve worked on lately has felt a lot easier.  

I still spend time figuring out how to package the idea and make sure I’m still intentional about the message I want someone to walk away with. But I'm not starting from scratch every time I sit down to create something.

Instead I’m coming from a place I’m already familiar with. 

And if you've been doing this for a while, you probably have way more of that than you realize.

You’ve had to learn a ton of lessons the hard way and those are all the things that you can use.  

So don’t hide that.

Because people see themselves in your experiences and it really gives them something to connect with along the way.

And now, since you’ve removed the layer of feeling like you have to perform, the entire process becomes a lot more straightforward because you’re operating from an authentic place.

This week, you're going to build a story inventory: the raw material for your next three months of content, pulled from experiences you've already had.

Copy the prompt below and paste it into Claude (or ChatGPT, or whatever AI tool you use).

Thirty minutes of this puts you months ahead, and none of it asks you to perform. You already lived every piece of it. From there, content is just translation.

We'll keep building on this next week.

Hear the conversations behind the lessons. Heavy on Brand is the podcast hosted by Brian Fitch where he sits down with founders, operators, and people building incredible brands to talk about what it actually takes to grow a business people remember.

Ready to build a brand that works as hard as you do? Carbon Thread is the agency behind Unthreaded. We help companies in the $1M–$50M range build brands, authority, and growth systems that actually move the needle. If you're tired of guessing and ready for a partner, let's talk.