In July 2021 I was standing in a penthouse suite at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, right before a mastermind. The pool was 60-some floors below us. I turned the camera around and said this:
The content you don't make is the content you'll never be able to use. So just press that dang red button.
Almost four years later, in February 2025, I was at a trailhead in Red Rock Canyon saying the same thing. Different year, same rule.
You always have one minute
Think about the moments you lose when you don't share them. Your hair isn't right. You feel like you don't have time. But you've always got one minute to turn around and say something, to interview your friend, to show people a cool experience.
Think about all the magic moments in your life you could have captured if you'd just turned the camera on, and the regret of not being able to share them. I want to capture these moments so that when I'm old and senile, I can remember them and share them with friends. You'll be able to see who your people are and kindle those memories. You'll use that footage in your B-roll, in your books, on your website.
None of that happens if you didn't hit record.
Rule number one, at Red Rock
In February 2025 I was about to hike Red Rock Canyon outside Las Vegas with my friend Marko. If you want red rock in the background of your video, that's the place to go. Somebody asked whether we should turn the camera on. Refer to rule number one. Yes. Always video.
Earlier that day we'd had some great conversations, and we didn't record them. So nobody gets to see them, and the AI has no raw content to work from. They're just gone.
Why it matters more now that we have AI
Whoever you are, what you're trying to capture is real experience. That's the first E in Google's E-E-A-T: real experience with real people and real knowledge, and the connections between them. That's what the AI can't do. Until Elon Musk ships his Optimus robot or Westworld becomes real, the only advantage we have over the AI and the humanoid robots is that we have real experiences with real people.
That's why I say the date, the place and who I'm with out loud on camera. I'm establishing the real context. It works for whatever kind of business you have. If you build retaining walls in West Virginia, show the real work and the real people doing it.
What one recording turns into
The day before that hike, I recorded a podcast over Zoom with Greg Beebe. He said no fewer than five times how much he liked working with Marko. Because it was recorded, we have lots of little pieces of Greg saying it. We turn those into snippets and articles, publish them on sites with real SEO power, and use our AI tools and our VAs to put them in front of the other concrete coating companies who should see them.
That's the whole game. AI concentrates the power of your raw assets. But the raw asset has to exist first.
So press the dang red button. Here's what happens to my phone video after I do, and how I used the same habit at the 10 most popular places on Google.