We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shawn Michels. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shawn below.
Hi Shawn , thanks for joining us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.
When I started my buissiness, which is in content creation I was honestly just doing it for fun. For context, my first content was a podcast with my cousin we recorded on our phones when I was 22! It had a viewership of just our friends and no one took it seriously. Not even myself, however as a kid I had experience in Social Media. I ran a sports graphics page, where I took high quality photos of popular NBA, NFL, MLB players and made my own graphic posters on Photoshop! Id collect cans all day, to cash in at the recycle, just to afford adobe each month, and grew my instagram @ESOD13 (Its still there) to around 5,000 followers. Then at 18 I left for the military, gave the page to a friend and he honestly ruined it but it’s ok! Flash forward to when I came home after 4 years overseas, this podcast really just came from one Cousin who is into producing beats/music, and another who is really creative and social media savvy. It clicked! We grew to about a 1,000 viewer following when he decided he didnt want to do the podcast anymore. But I kept going alone! As NFLmike. So if i could go back, I would go to myslef when I left and told myself I’d have plenty of time to make posters on the ship. And keep my page because really it was all about REPETITION. You have to figure out what HOOKS for you and works for your page specifically, and fine tune your content from there more and more. Always evolving. And my only regret is WHAT IF at 13, 14 , 15 years old I just kept going? When it comes to content creation and algorithm stradegy in general I know so much more now as well. My storytelling is on levels that the first podcast I did, I wouldnt belive its me talking if i showed myself my videos today. It took 1,000s of videos working everyday to perfect however! I also think key editing skills I have developed could have been very useful to have day 1. It took me at least 2 years to really learn how to produce HIGH QUALITY videos along with great content entertainment wise. I got the lights, cameras, editing softwares, all that down the line. If you give me these tools/skills day 1 I am sure my process would’ve been ahead of my schedule I took. Overall, my mindset to become BETTER at anything I put my mind to was really developed in the military, and you give me that at 17 years old instead, I would’ve kept that oage going! Which was at 5,000 in 2013, I started over at 0 in 2020, and am now at 300,000 total followers. Just imagine thats a 4.5yr run we are talking another 7 years of perfecting it!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am Shawn Michels, aka NFLMike. I am a Social Media
influencer/marketer in the football niche with over 300,000 followers combined across all major
platforms! After leaving the military in 2020, I chased a childhood dream of cWORKING IN SPORTS and
contributing positively to the game I grew up playing. I got into the sport of football through playing in high school and then going overseas to Japan to play for their semi pro league on the Yokosuka Seahawks. 10 years total as a player then 2 as a coach! When I came home, started a sports podcast for fun, then got hooked in entertaining NFL fans! I dedicated myself to developing skills in
algorithm strategy, editing, marketing, and content creation along the way through pure TRIAL AND ERROR. 1,000s of posts over the last few years. My page’s are all
about FOOTBALL FANDOM, and the @NFLMike following is a collection of the biggest football
fans online today. I cover every football league, event, story, highlight and news possible with
compelling, fast paced, and attention grabbing content! Even getting out and attending events in
person such as HOF weekend, NFL training camps, Athlete Meet and Greets, NFL games, XFL games, the Pro Bowl, NFL Draft, and even the Super Bowl. Followers and supporters of my content know they
will get the most interesting topic in the football world daily through my posts. Twisted in a way they never thought of! Or posts following my travels to various football events across the country. As far as services I provide, I call it BRAND AMPLIFICATION in the NFL niche, but in its core its Influencer Marketing, Adsense acquisition, merch sales, and more! But really I have hacked/monetized what I want to do, or what my viewers want to see! If its training camp season I go to Cowboys training camp, where a sports fan wants to be, and I livestream, make videos about whats most interesting going on, viewers cant get out to see! These views genrate adsense, or brand deals and my “clients” but I always have the viewer at the front of my mind. It’s not even the “FOLLOWER” because alot of viewers dont even follow. They see me one time and I am gone, but they got some FOOTBALL UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL from my video, and that’s really the client I serve. The rest comes naturally and serve as income avenues for my business! I also am really passionate about helping brands get to the consumers that are offering to support my cause with sponorship/align with my audience’s needs!
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
The term “NON-CREATIVE” already to me should be removed from your mind. Aside from my specific story in content creation, in life, the key is to pursue happiness. Its been the core meaning all along and not to get to deep this term goes back 100s of years. I just understood that as a kid, thank you to Roman Atwood, Kobe Bryant, others, some of the most RANDOM people who said things that rang so true, I understood this as a kid. Thanks to internet access, truly I am where I am! The most powerful tool no one even uses for making money, its a shame. Anyways, once you identify the pursuit, and what you’re chasing? GO FOR IT, and life will handle itself if you truly love it. Not even just become a content creator, that really isn’t my advice this is hard and 99% will fail unless you have an unstoppable passion like I do for it. I mean start that coffee bizz idea, start that podcast about the super niche topic you love, get a job doing somehting related to the buissness you want to start along side it AT ALL COSTS. Even if you got to go across the world, like i did! It’s going to take sacrifice in the begining for a life of bliss, for me I wanted to develop personally before making a commitment to a college degree, so I left for the military, still wanting and dreaming to work in sports, while stationed on a DESTORYER! I tried out and played tackle football in Japans Pro League the “X League”, I volonteered as the teams social media manager, stayed the dream, it wasn’t gone this was always a luanching pad for me! I excersized, learned more, thought alot, and I put myself through a challenge to become unstoppable! It worked.
THATS APPLICABLE TO ANYTHING. Then when I came back logistically I also had money saved, I had courage like no other, and was able to immediatly start on my buissness. So look for your launching pad, GO FOR IT, that’s my advice.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Two things are most rewarding,
For one, I still am figuring out EXACTLY WHAT I AM CONTRIBUTING, but as a kid my dream was to contribute to the game of football. I knew this at 15 years old. I joke with my wife but there are love letters I would write to football, up until I was 19 years old. The game was my first love and I get emotional thinking about how many times its been the BACKBONE to my entire life. So its so rewarding to contribute, if it ended tomorrow I already lived my dream. I went to the Super Bowl IN PERSON. I walked the halls of the hall of fame. Ive been to international NFL games. Pro Bowls, everything and some. And some more.
the second is really even deeper. My family fought in the American Revolutionary War, Civil War, World Wars, VIetnam, and even myself to this day the War on Terrorisom. Most lived, some died, but all so I could DO THIS! They wanted exactly what I am doing today to be possible, thats what we all fought for. So to truly captilize on that opportunity at a level unlike my dad did who was a cable guy chasing a 30 year retirement pitch. Or my grandpa who live with his parents till they died. But more like my 3rd great grandfather who was a Marine turned Farmer for his local area. My 10th Grandfather who was a Doctor with his own practice. Or my 14th Grandfather who got tired of the high tax rates in Britian and sailed across an ocean with his family to start a new life, I started my own thing! I LIVE MY LIFE! My life isnt slowly killing me. And I really feel that when I talk to my peers, my friends, my family, 99% of people are miserable with their work, which is 80% of their lives. And I have made my greatest joys in life also my work. Very Rewarding
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nflmike.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thenflmike/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MikeontheMicpod/reels/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkfZxnWpuuoZVF87gRYKFcA
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@nflmike
BIGGEST ON TIK TOK
