---
title: 'Everything You Know About Content Is (Probably) Wrong'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=acEJRhZBSVk'
video_id: 'acEJRhZBSVk'
date: 2026-08-05
duration_sec: 740
---

# Everything You Know About Content Is (Probably) Wrong

> Source: [Everything You Know About Content Is (Probably) Wrong](https://youtube.com/watch?v=acEJRhZBSVk)

## Summary

The video challenges common assumptions about content creation, arguing that conventional wisdom often leads to stagnation. It presents five critical mistakes that hold creators back, offering actionable frameworks and tools to overcome them, emphasizing speed to value, proven idea remixing, understanding algorithms, iterative improvement, and mindset.

### Key Points

- **Mistake 1: Speed vs. Size** [00:01] — More information does not equal more value. Overloading viewers leads to information overload and bounce. Optimize for speed of delivering value, not quantity. Cut fluff so value appears within first 7-10 seconds (short form) or 45-60 seconds (YouTube).
- **Mistake 2: Idea Generation** [02:27] — You don't need original ideas. Humans are creatures of habit, so proven content will work again. Use Sandcastles.ai to build a watch list of top channels, filter by views/engagement, and remix winning ideas (Virgil Abloh's 3% philosophy).
- **Mistake 3: Misunderstanding the Algorithm** [05:08] — The algorithm only cares about watch time and shares. Drive emotional transfer (shock, awe, etc.) to spark comments and shares. Increase Commentary Value Score (CVS) by taking strong stances, using emotional words, and seeding discussions.
- **Mistake 4: Lack of Iteration System** [08:14] — Use 'Content Legos' framework: break videos into 7 components (topic, angle, hook format, storytelling style, visual format, key visuals, audio) plus title/thumbnail for YouTube. Isolate and improve one block at a time using scientific method.
- **Mistake 5: Mindset of Being Too Late** [10:27] — The content game is always open. Since 2022, algorithms allow anyone to get millions of views. Quality bar is higher, but it's the golden era. Don't let the 'too late' narrative block you.

### Conclusion

To grow faster, avoid these five mistakes: prioritize speed to value, remix proven ideas, understand the algorithm's focus on emotional engagement, iterate systematically with Content Legos, and adopt a mindset that it's never too late. Implementing these will make content creation much easier and more effective.

## Transcript

better, you have to avoid a few critical mistakes. And it sounds so simple, but the hard part is these mistakes are not obvious to the average creator or brand. making them. So, in this video, I'm going to walk through the five biggest
content traps that are holding people back from growing faster. And once you solve for these, the content game will be much, much easier. Now, I know this works because I spend all my time at the cutting edge of content and marketing. I
billions of views. So, if you feel like you should be growing faster, this will first massive content mistake is speed versus size. Most people assume that when they make content, more information equals more value for the viewer. In
more stuff, they will learn more and trust me faster. And it makes sense that turns out this approach is actually a massive mistake and one of the reasons why your content isn't working. If you give the viewer too much information,
even if it's all valuable independently on its own, they'll get overwhelmed, absorb nothing, and bounce. Because the truth is, humans only have so much capacity to consume new knowledge in one sitting. This is why school classes
usually aren't 4 hours long. The human brain likes to learn in bursts, let that it later. So, when you make content trying to slam 10 different concepts into one compressed video, most people just can't absorb it. When this happens,
they get information overload and they leave on a bad note. So, here's what you should do instead. Instead of optimizing your content for pure quantity of information, you should optimize for the speed of how fast you can lock in one
when you make content, you're really in a race to see if you can transfer some value into the viewer's brain before they get bored and churned. If you can any value at all, they will trust you and keep watching. So, if you want
their friends, and follow you, you need to compress the time it takes for them to get that initial hit of value. And this means really focusing on cutting the fluff at the beginning of your content to bring the value closer to the
with this. When you read your script back, highlight the first line where you actually introduce something novel of value. If that line is not in the first 7 to 10 seconds of a short form video or 45 to 60 seconds of a YouTube video,
it's taking way too long to get to the value. You want to cut any fluff above that highlighted line to bring the value closer to the top. Once I started doing this, every single content metric that I measured was off the charts immediately.
So, if you can only work on one thing to improve your content, it should be speed number two has to do with your approach to finding new ideas. And when I say ideas, I'm talking about the topic and angle that you make your content about.
This is the most important and most underrated aspect of the content workflow. There's a reason why you hear Mr. Beast talk adnauseium about how important ideas are. It is the difference between good and great on any
common assumption for most creators and brands is that they have to come up with super unique and original ideas every single time. And this is one of the stressful as a beginner. Because let's face it, it's really hard to come up
day. Well, the reality is you don't actually need original ideas to win with creatures of habit. This means they tend to behave the same way over and over. So, if you find content that is already outperformed for a given audience,
chances are that same content will outperform again. And we know this is true because the top creators literally repost their exact same videos word for word, frame for frame every four to six months. and they work over and over. So,
want a way to generate a hundred new proven ideas in just 20 minutes, follow this exact process. Go to sandcastles.ai and build a watch list of the top you don't know who the best channels are, just find one, go to who they're
there. Once you have that watch list built in Sandcastles, go to the videos tab, filter by that watch list, and you'll see all the videos from just those channels aggregated in one feed. You can then filter and sort those
most views, the most engagement, the highest outlier score across literally any metric you want for any post date range you can think of. When you do for what has already worked from the top channels in your space. You can take
those ideas, use those hooks, find those visual formats, and remix the winning ideas for yourself. Now, here's why this works so well. Virgil Abau was a famous He said, "All you have to do to make something your own is take something
that already works, change it 3%, and then you've got something new." What I just described is the 3% philosophy for content ideation. Except for you, you content ideation. Except for you, you can remix 20, 30, even 50% still using
that same content idea. And it will work because humans behave the same way over and over. I promise you, if you approach your idea generation like this, your hit rate for winners, how often you have a viral video, will go way up. And this is
the process that all the top creators, the top brands, and the top agencies are single day that outperforms. So, if you're not approaching ideation in this harder on yourself. All right, content mistake number three is misunderstanding
how the algorithm actually works. Now, I made a ton of videos breaking down the science, math, and psychology for how social algorithms are built. But let's just simplify it here. Most people think that if they try really hard, the
content by pushing it. and when it doesn't that there's somebody in the just hates what they're doing. Here's the truth. The algorithm does not care about you. It doesn't have feelings. It doesn't care where you went to high
like. All it wants is for users on the platform to spend time watching and That's it. If you can get people to watch and share, the algorithm will push your content to everybody. I guarantee it. Now, if you want to make lots of
watch time and shares happen, you need your content to create an emotional transfer in the viewer that ends up sparking a discussion in the comments or When it comes to algorithms, emotional transfers in the viewer are the key.
That's the one thing that matters most. Now, emotional transfers are things like shock, sadness, fear, awe, or inspiration. So, the million-dollar algorithms really is this. How do I ratchet up the emotional transfer in my
videos without coming off as cringey or over sensationalized? And here's the best exercise for increasing the emotional response that you drive in back, ask yourself one question. What are the top three comments that I expect
to see from this video? One from a super fan, one from a neutral observer, and one from a super hater. If there's not a clear diving board into a discussion for script is not emotionally charged enough. And I call this emotional charge
your commentary value score. The best videos have an extremely high commentary value in that when they're posted, the comment sections go crazy. So, if you others, you need to increase the commentary value score. Now, there's
three ways you can improve your CBS. One is to take a stronger point of view on either side of the issue. The people that believe you will back you, and the people that don't will argue. Two is to use more words that lead the viewer into
drive them to. So if you want them to feel scared, saying the words, "This is scary," will help push them there. And the third way is to seed the discussion, not with a question, but a subtle reference for how the target group will
example, let's say you're making a video on the future of AI and its impact on children's ability to learn. Now, that topic is already default pretty large, which is good. So to further increase the CBS on this topic, you could include
a few examples talking specifically about how children will succeed or fail in AI. You could use words like scary, uncertain, or unknown. Or you could plant a stake in the ground on one side or the other for where your point of
view lies. And by doing any of these things or all three, that will spark the watch time and shares will go up, and the algorithm will push your video. The takeaway is this. The secret to activating the algorithm to really
ratchet it up is by driving an intense emotional transfer in the viewer. All about the process of making each piece of content. specifically figuring out how to build a system for improving from rep to rep. Most people can see a great
there's a pretty big gap there, but then not know what to do to close that gap. different things from rep to rep, it still won't work, and they won't know exactly where to go next. So, here's a non-obvious framework that really helped
me improve my intentionality when it came to iteration. And this helped me close the gap from bad to good to great much faster. The framework is called content Legos. Every video can be broken down into a series of independent Legos.
different colored and shaped blocks that makes up the video. For short form video, there are seven different content Legos. The topic, the angle, the hook format, the storytelling style, the visual format, the key visuals, and the
audio. Those seven pieces stacked together in colors and shapes to make the individual video. For YouTube, it's those seven plus title thumbnail. So, why it's so helpful is that when you're trying to figure out what to improve in
your video, all you have to do is key in on an individual Lego block and focus on solving that first. You fix that, find a new piece, swap those out, and then you incrementally like this, it's way easier to find the problem and improve each
aspect. So, for example, you might feel like your hooks are the reason why your good sense for picking which topics you like. you have a visual format that you you execute the hooks, and you know, it could be better. What you can do is
isolate the fact that the hook format is what's wrong. Go to sand castles and look at the hooks from all the top performing videos in your niche. This allows you to put blinders on, and focus on the one element that you want to
find one that's working from someone else, take that block, and swap it in. are the same, but the hook has changed. And you can run that a few times to test
kind of like using the scientific method to experiment on individual pieces instead of changing everything from rep to rep. And what I found is the process of breaking down videos into individual components makes it way easier to focus
tip. When it comes to building a signature style, most creators use the same hook format, storytelling style, visual format, and audio over and over. video, all they change is the topic angle and the visuals. So I'm telling
you, thinking about the video in terms of components, content Legos, makes it mistake number five is about mindset. And this is really important for beginners. The common assumption from creators, entrepreneurs, and brands is
that they're just too late to enter the content game. That every content niche creators that are already so good, and the gap to close is just too far. That's the common excuse pattern. Let me dispel this for you. once and for all. The
content game is always open, especially now that followers and subscribers are no longer the gatekeepers to getting views. When for you algorithms became the prominent way to rank content in 2022, this shifted everything where
literally anyone could get a million views on their first video. And this really means that every content category is wide open every single day. In fact, social media and YouTube are now more up for grabs than in any era previously.
So, if you're overthinking and getting blocked about starting making content because of this narrative, take it from me. We are in the golden era if you want admit it's not all roses and rainbows. The problem if you're starting out in
this era is that the quality bar required to hit a home run with content is much, much higher than it was 10 years ago. And so, while the walls of the garden have come down, the distance between the entrance and the throne is
this is the best time in history to be playing the content game because you can beat anybody, no matter how big their following is. All right, guys. That is reminder, if you're a business owner and you're focused on improving your content
over the next 6 to 12 months, I've got a free community that I built just for you. It's called Wavy World. We have 65 free trainings and over 33,000 help each other get better with their content. It's a really great community
and it has everything you need to really take the next step forward with social invite link in the description if you want to join. All right, that's all I've got here. We will see you guys on the next one. Peace.