an honest creator vlog (being “rich," pivoting niche, new house tour!)

0:00So, I've been a full-time content creator for seven years now. And I think because of that, a lot of people assume that I would have a really flexible schedule because obviously I'm self-employed. Technically, I can work whenever I want to. But actually, I tend to be very regimented about my work schedule. I usually work 9 to5, take an hour for lunch at noon. Like, I basically give myself the schedule of having an office job. However, that has not been the case for the past like 3 weeks, almost a month now. and I feel very out of sorts, especially [music] as someone who is goal oriented and

0:34projectoriented. I feel like getting my work done really adds to my like I don't know self-esteem like just feeling good about how my day went. Obviously, I have been very busy with a lot of other things. Primarily moving to this new house, new background unlocked. Honestly, it is still such a work in progress. I feel a little insecure even about like filming right now because I don't have like a good background setup, but I feel like this is like me taking a dose of my own medicine. Like I need to take my own advice cuz I'm always talking about how you don't need a perfect background, you don't need the

1:08perfect camera, you just need to start filming. That's what I need to do. I guess what I'm saying is between moving into this house and all of the work that we've put in so far, plus hosting my 30th birthday party here, which was so fun, I have just been completely out of my work routine in a way that feels like irretrievable at this point, but I know it's not. I've got to get back into things. And so, I guess I'm just here trying to remember how to talk to the camera again. And it's just making me realize how much I had designed my space to work so well for creation. Even

1:40though it was a tiny space and even though I was working around Dan and his schedule, I knew my angles. I knew my different filming spots. And now I'm kind of at a loss for that. I don't know. It's humbling. It's humbling for sure. I'm used to having such a like curated and optimized space that to be fair, I took 7 years to design. Now I

1:58got to figure that [music] out again. And I also need to figure out what angles to shoot so that I don't dox myself. So, sorry if there's randomly blurred stuff, but I used to just have one wall of windows. And I knew if I didn't film the view out the freaking window, then I would be fine. But there's so many windows here. So, [music] hello. Happy Monday. It's only in the last week or so that I feel like I've been able to settle into something resembling a routine. Having a consistent morning routine is so important to me. And I'll be honest, for the past month or so, my morning routine

2:31has just been like scroll on phone, look at breakfast, start project for the day. So, I'm really glad that as of recently, I've been able to settle into something that includes a little bit of stretching, making a yummy and healthy breakfast, doing my skin care routine, and then coming to my desk to settle into work. I feel like on some level, I knew that this move was going to be a lot of work, especially because we had so many projects in mind. But on the other hand, I did not anticipate that this was going to like take over my life. So, my recent like money video is

3:00doing well right now, which honestly isn't a huge surprise. Videos that talk about income tend to do well on YouTube. But I always find the comments so funny. Like there will be some people claiming that I'm lying, like almost implying, "Oh, there's no possible way you could be making that much money." And at the same time, there will be people saying

3:17that I'm not actually making that much. Like this person commented, "That's just $182,000 a year on average. I wouldn't describe that as rich. That's like what every 25-year-old senior consultant at the big four make in the US, and their salaries only continue to rise." I'm like, "Okay, share your tax returns on the internet then. Like, I'd love to see how much money you're making." And honestly, I don't even care. It's just like shows how perceptions around this stuff vary wildly because in my mind, making like 200k a year is like definitely rich, okay? [laughter] Like I don't know what kind of families y'all grew up in, but like that is not

3:53the kind of money [music] my parents were making or make now. You know what I'm saying? So I think it's a lot. Whatever. People are always going to have their opinions, but at the end of the day, the reason that I share this stuff is because I think it's informative for creators who are on the same path as me. And I talk about stuff that like I wish I would have known [music] four or 5 years ago when I didn't understand business finance as much as I do now. And if that means that I have to catch a few strays from judging people in the comment section,

4:21I'm fine with that. I think people online are just so used to people talking about million-dollar launches and making multiple millions a year. And like, yeah, that's very possible, but that's not what I'm doing. And honestly, like I feel so good where I am right now. Like I don't need to make much more. And what a privileged position to be in, right? Like I would so much rather spend the time that I could be spending trying to develop a million-doll launch and instead just go, you know, vibe out in my van in Europe for a couple of months. That's more desirable to me. So, a struggle I know

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5:55guys an exclusive 15% off any annual plan when you use my link. So, go to storyblocks.com/katie or click the link in the description to check it out. And as always, thanks so much to Story Blocks for supporting the channel. There's nothing quite like filming a vlog to instantly make you self-conscious and worry that you are the most boring person that's ever lived. Or maybe it's just a Monday. I have been struggling to motivate myself today. So, let's go ahead and work

6:18[music] from a coffee shop for a bit. Also, I've heard you guys. I know you're interested in the house [music] tour. Stay tuned. I'm going to tidy some stuff up and I'll show you around a little bit later in the video.

6:37All righty. Yeah, I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Doing well. Can I get an iced latte, please? Um, and I'll do that with oat milk and caramel syrup. Okay, sure. That was actually such a productive time. I don't know what it is with me lately, but I just like haven't been feeling like I can be productive in the house yet. Like I used to be like this in the condo years ago that I always had to like get out of the house, go to a

7:02coffee shop, go to the library to work. [music] And that was always a good hack for me to like lock in for a couple of hours, but then I had such a great setup, especially with my like Mac studio and everything at the condo that that ended [music] up being like my productive space and I like went out for coffee less and less because it was just so well set up for me [music] to get work done. I have that same setup at the new house, but just for whatever reason, I don't know, the space doesn't feel productive to me yet. Dan and I hopped on our scooters and we headed over to

7:29our local pickle ball courts to play pickle ball with my friend Katie. [music] Yes, one of my best friends is also called Katie. It's confusing all the time. I meant to film that and I would have except for we just so happened to show up there at the same time as this other group of people. And so we ended up having this lovely time playing pickle ball with this group of like random older folks which is just so wholesome. After all that, we headed out to do a Facebook marketplace pickup. The Facebook Marketplace pickup was for this adorable rug, which is a [music] very bluey green color, but because of how

8:03warm tone the green on the walls in our living room is, I think it comes across as blue on camera, [music] which I still think looks good. Honestly, I'm new to like multicolor interior design cuz I mean, you remember my condo? It basically looked like this bathroom, okay? But I really want to bring more color into my life. So, we're experimenting. We're experimenting. Now, let's go to bed and do it all over again

8:26tomorrow.

8:46[music] Okay, we're heading out to my studio. I'm going to be honest, I've not spent a lot of time out there. You'll see why in a second. Welcome to the studio, guys. This is kind of a big deal. This is the first official video I'm filming out here. I hate blinds like this. I Does anybody understand how they work? I don't think I do. Oh god. I'll be honest. Ever since we moved in, I've kind of been neglecting this space because I just haven't unpacked any of my gear [music] or work stuff other than the few cameras I've been using to film. Eventually, this is going to be my like dream

9:24perfected YouTube filming space, but we've got a long way to go. This wall over here is going to have two really big windows. That is why there's a hole in the wall because there used to be electrical running to there. Got that removed. So, it's all ready for the window installer guys to come and put in

9:42my big almost like square windows. They're going to come down to like probably about hereish. That should really help with the natural light situation, though. I'm feeling like I don't know. It's not terrible. I'm I'm shooting at f1.8 right now, which is always going to help. But so the task for right now um is not only to give you a little studio preview, but I need to shoot some short form content because my goal right now is to share like one piece of house related content on Instagram per week. I'm already feeling overwhelmed. Honestly, at this point, things are not going to be put away in

10:15their final resting place. I just need to get things off the counter so that this space is a little bit more like tidy and when they put the windows in later, it doesn't all get covered in drywall dust. So, why do I keep so many boxes? Well, it was optimistic of me to [music] think that I could get all of this put away and filmed in like the half an hour that I have cuz I need to go back into the house now and shoot the rest of my short form content for the week or else I'll just like I'll I could work on this for like another hour I think. As you

10:47saw, the studio is not yet a space for shooting content that's not just about unpacking the studio. So, I'm in the house and I have been kind of struggling to find good filming spots. I'm just like still learning the lighting in here. I'm used to like first of all living in a small box. And one of four of the walls is just windows. That's that's what I had before. Yeah, we're going to see what framing looks good for

11:10this first reel. Shooting on my phone. And I always look at my notes on notion on my laptop, but I also can mirror my [music] phone to my MacBook so I can like check the framing. Everybody is using the tiny mic in their yapping video these days. But which one actually has the best audio quality? Well, I have tried a bunch. So, let's compare them from cheapest to most expensive. Okay, for this next one, I want to like hold my [music] phone in the shot just cuz it

11:37makes sense with what I'm talking about. So, I'm switching over the Luna Ultra, which is what I've been filming the majority of this vlog on, by the way, but I just switched over to the [music] Sony cuz this needed to charge. That's the one thing I am feeling a little like uh the battery life is not amazing on [music] this guy. But I think I'm going to go into this room to shoot this next

11:58one just for some variety. And there's pretty good lighting here, too. This like bay window. One of my favorite spots in the whole house. Take a look at this reel for example. Just a random silly little dance video. It got 122K views, which is really quite good for me. I just saw Dan get home from the office, so I have approximately 30 seconds to finish filming before we need to have lunch. So, it is in fact Tuesday afternoon. But today, we're doing something that we don't often do, and that is take off a random weekday afternoon. It's funny because I think a lot of people assume that because I'm a

12:31content creator, I have an extremely flexible schedule, which technically [music] I do, but the problem is I have this really strict boss and she like hardly gives me vacation days. But today, somehow I managed to convince her [music] to let me uh sneak off for the afternoon. We are headed up to my grandparents farm because I've been told that there is an absolutely bumper crop of raspberries this year and they just cannot get them off the bushes fast enough. I love raspberries. So, uh we're going to go and pick some. And since it is like an hour and a half away, we're going to make a bit of an afternoon out

13:02of it. So, come along. You haven't got near enough containers to live all week.

13:14This this sorts the berry pickers from the amateurs. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm afraid we're amateurs.

13:27Good morning. [music] My first task today is editing the content that I shot yesterday. I feel like I'm currently working through the process of integrating a new content pillar into my Instagram strategy. And I think this is something that a lot of creators can struggle with. I feel like I've heard time and time again of creators who feel trapped in their niche. Maybe they like went viral for a certain video and now feel like all they can post about is that stuff. Or maybe you've been posting for a long time and you just feel like your audience expects something specific from you and you'd like to experiment

13:57and branch out, but you feel like it's not going to land. I have definitely been [music] through this before as someone who has now been doing this full-time for like seven years, six or seven years. And I've also struggled with branching out and trying to get out of my niche. And I feel [music] like the experience of this is first of all different on different platforms. I'll just say from the outset, I think it's way harder to change your niche on YouTube than it is on Instagram. Or at least it takes longer or you can't make as big of leaps. I definitely think my YouTube content has evolved over time. I first

14:32grew talking about social media strategy and growing on Instagram in particular and like hacks for creating fun content for Instagram. And over time, I've been able to pivot to talking more about YouTube vlogging, storytelling, camera reviews, editing tutorials, but ultimately we're still in the same kind of area of talking about stuff for creators, right? That's not a huge pivot, but even changing that much took many years and a lot of intention and strategy. Instagram is a bit easier. And I think the thing about short form content is that the whole strategy is just like on fast forward compared to YouTube because on YouTube when it comes

15:08to long form anyway, you're posting like maybe once a week. It's going to be difficult to post more frequently than that. And so then that's like 52 videos a year, right? And you can only pivot so much over the course of 52 videos. Well, [music] on Instagram, you could feasibly post 52 videos in a month if you were like really pushing it. And so, I think that just allows your evolution as a creator to go faster because every piece of content is [music] like shorter, takes less time to make, and you can push it out faster because over on Instagram, I feel like I've been able

15:38[music] to incorporate more lifestyle elements to greater success than here on YouTube. Even now, when I make a vlog like this, it's still very creator ccentric. And you'll notice like it doesn't necessarily pop off like my other content, right? Like it's not going to perform as well on Instagram. I have had some moments where my van life or travel content performs [music] just as well or better than my creator tips stuff. So, I wanted to tell you how I've done that and how I'm applying the same principle to my house content now. I

16:07think it all starts with a soft launch. shock. When I was doing this for my van life trips, I would make little life update videos where I would talk about the fact that I'm about to go on a van trip and where I'm going and all that stuff. Then I would actually start to

16:19incorporate the van life content itself. Some of that van life content would tie back into the themes of my like original niche. So like having a creator focus and some of that content would just be simply creator focused stuff but from my van. stories is the place where you can really get personal and I feel like that's your spot to just share the lifestyle stuff and not worry about tying it back into your niche. All of that combined will get your audience used to whatever new topic you're posting about, whether it's lifestyle related or or just a new subject that you want to incorporate. The real thing

16:52is though, consistency. Because when I first started posting about van life, that stuff was kind of flopping. Like people didn't really care. But now that I'm like four or five years into posting about van life stuff now there are some people that connect with me because of van life. I think it just takes a really long time to make that transition the way that I'm approaching it with my house because honestly like I was intimidated by this because I thought people recognize my background. I'm known for like this really light and bright small space where I shoot all of my content and I'm still kind of nervous

17:25of like how that transition is going to be felt on YouTube because I think it might be a little bit tougher than Instagram. But starting months ago already, I created a short limited run series, The House Hunting Diaries, where I talked through my process of seeking out my dream home and the ups and downs of all of that. So that started to get my audience onto the idea that I would be moving and to take them along with me on that journey. So we started off with the house hunting diaries. That was like the introduction into this new transition. And now that I've actually moved and I'm in my new house, my goal

17:59is to post one piece of house related content every week among my other creator focused stuff because I truly believe it's just about hitting it consistently, like coming back to this new content pillar again and again. So, in order for everybody to like get the memo that this new content pillar is a part of your strategy, you've just got to be super consistent with it. And as time goes on, I think it'll become just like another natural part of your content, just like I feel like van life is for me now. So that's my philosophy about pivoting or branching out or incorporating a new content pillar. You

18:33got to ease your way into it and be super consistent about it, but also recognize that if you want to bring your existing audience along for this new iteration of yourself, you can't pivot cold turkey.

19:02I should have got up earlier. So, it's a meeting and then I'm going to shower after. Though, just now I realized I thought that I just had my 9:00 a.m. meeting with Shelby, which I'm like, cool, showing up sweaty and gross, too. But I also have a meeting at 10:30 [music] with a brand partner. So, we'll quickly try to make ourselves look presentable in between meeting number two. I thought throwing a t-shirt on top improve the situation. I don't know that it does. All righty. Thanks so much for your time. Okay, bye. It's like almost 11:00 a.m. and I still need to shower

19:33and like actually get ready for the day. But now that I'm kind of in work mode, I'm going to at least finish up editing the short form content that I was doing yesterday and didn't quite get done. So, we're going to do that and then maybe I'll be ready. I swear I need to start getting up at like 6:00 a.m., but I just cannot [laughter] I cannot get myself to do it. I mean, it's hard cuz I like go to bed at midnight every night. [music] So, anyway, I finally finished my editing for the week, which feels good. It's just about lunchtime, but uh I still

20:04haven't showered post-workout. So, let's go do that and then we'll have lunch together.

20:19So, my bean salad is [music] all gone. I finished that yesterday. I had batched that for like the last couple of weeks and it was serving me well. Honestly though, I'm kind of ready for [music] something different. Like I don't know about you, but for me, if I eat the same lunch [music] like too many days in a row, even if it's something that I really like, I will start to hate it. I got to figure out what [music] the next lunch batch is going to be. But in the meantime, I'm making eggs. Got some sourdough still from [music] the local bakery. And actually, the eggs I have

20:50are from my cousin's chickens we just saw on uh Wednesday. Aren't they pretty? Multicolored, very local, and fresh. So that's lunch today. [music]

21:24[music] Happy Friday. I know I promised you guys a house tour earlier in this video and I still haven't come through on that. I don't know why I feel self-conscious about it. Not cuz of the house, like [music] I love it and I feel like it's coming together so well, but more that I find it difficult to believe that y'all really care. However, I have gotten, you know, a few messages and comments about it. So, I want to show you. I also want to say like if there really is interest in the house content at large, I feel like it deserves its own video. However,

21:55I'll give you a really quick overview. And if you let me know in the comments that you're actually interested in, not just humoring me, then maybe we'll do more long form house content. Just let me know. So, welcome to the kitchen. Obviously, this is a big switch up from the condo, but you know what? I felt like I'd had my time with a white kitchen. I really wanted that when we moved in in 2019, and now I'm kind of

22:16liking the more like warm wood tones. This kitchen actually has the original flooring from when this house was built in 1857. and [music] it looks like it. We want to get a flooring restoration company to come in and take a look at it and let us know if it is salvageable. I'm really big on historical homes and I love preserving the character. So, like ideally, we could keep them, but they are pretty [music] rough in a lot of places. Overall though, I love this

22:38kitchen. It feels spacious, functional. There you have it. This is the sun room. It's also become our plant room cuz this is just where I put the mall when we moved in. This was once an exterior porch that's been closed in. You can tell because there's a window into the kitchen, which is kind of a funky feature. And obviously, you can see the brick wall here that would have been on the outside at one point. And like the name implies, it's the sunniest room in the house. This is the dining room and living room, and it is a work in progress. We're hopefully going to pick

23:05up a dining room table from Facebook Marketplace this weekend, but I do have a collection of a couch, two chairs, and a rug. All marketplace finds that I'm very proud of. We painted this room half white, half green. The plan is to do a faux like [music] Wayne Scotting look with picture framing on the bottom third. But I love the color. I love having a green room. And yeah, I think it's just going to take us time to like fully style this space cuz it feels massive. There is like a powder room like water closet down here. I'm grateful to have a bathroom on the main

23:33floor. That's not always a given in houses this old cuz obviously all the plumbing was retrofitted, but it is very ugly and so this is high on my like renovation project to-do list. This is definitely the room you've seen the most of. This is what we're calling the family room or the TV room. I love the built-ins in here. That has been so

23:51nice. Also, this like window bench. Probably my [music] favorite spot in the house. This isn't the final furniture configuration. I'm not going to have my desk in here longterm, but I'm using this as my office while I'm working on the studio rena. Well, friends, it's been an absolute pleasure bringing you along for a realistic week in my life as a full-time content creator. In this moment, I still have no idea what the

24:13thumbnail for this video is going to be. So, if you clicked on this video and made it this far, I truly appreciate you. We're basically besties. I mean, if you watch any of my vlogs, then truly shout out to you. Hopefully, you could find some interesting tidbits of wisdom through all of my rambling, and hopefully this video was just like a little comfy watch for you. So, as always, I hope you're having adventures and following your dreams, and I will

24:36see you in my next video. Bye.