Forgive me. I am going to share something with you, that is going to sound like I am being self-serving. It is going to sound like a brag or a humble brag as people like to call it now. So if someone writes in to me and says “TJ, you are my role model. I want to sound as comfortable as you speaking. It seems impossible. how can I ever do this.” And this is one of my online students. I share this with you because I do get this from time to time. And sure It is nice for my ego but that is not what is Important here. The key thing is anybody can do that.
Now for most people even if they are comfortable, confident speakers when they are speaking on video, the first time, the second time, the thirtieth time It feels awkward. You feel contrived. You feel like “oh what do I say? I need to get It just right. So where is the director? Uh where is my script? What am I going to say five seconds from now?” So what happens is you start to sound artificial. Your natural speech patterns do not come out the way they normally do. It is either choppier. It is faster. your head, your body does not move as much. And that is what makes you seem unnatural. So why am I so good at? Well It is not that I am so good at It. It is simply a function of how many times I have done It. Now I make anywhere from a hundred to sometimes more than a thousand videos a year. Now I do not watch every minute of all of them but I typically watch at least a couple of seconds. To make sure the audios on and things are okay.
So I get used to hearing myself and seeing myself, what happens is when you do something so often and I have been doing that for 15 or so years that, that YouTube has been around I guess 13 years but I have been doing it for a lot longer than that. And really ever since the 1980s. So what that has done is simply made It Impossible for me to be nervous. Because I do It so often. It is hard for anyone to be nervous when they are doing something regularly and over time once you lose that nervousness, you can just talk to the camera as if you are talking to one friend. You do not just script It all out and memorize you can just talk. That is what I am doing now. I have a general sense of what I want to convey to you in this video but I did not write It all down word-for-word. I am not following some other set script I am sharing an Insight with you. Exactly as you would do if a client or customer came to you after a meeting one-on-one. And asked you a more specific question about your area of expertise. You would just talk to them. You would not say “oh I need 20 minutes to create a PowerPoints.” No! I know you would just talk to them.
So the way to get better at this is to just do It frequently. That is the thing you will see that is remarkably consistent among all YouTube stars and I am not a YouTube star with billions of followers, but the YouTube stars does not matter if they are 10 years old, 30, 40, 50, or 80. The ones who have been at It and have huge audiences. They are all the same in that. They sound like they are just talking to someone. They do not sound artificial or contrived at all unless It is a specific act they are doing. But for most people on YouTube who come across really well, it is that they are so relaxed and natural because they have done so many. It is a sheer function of the number of times you do It. So if you want to get better my advice is of course, I would love for you to take more of my online courses and hire me for in-person training but the reality is you do not need that. if you just produce videos regularly. if you do want to hear you are probably not going to get any better. You do one a month well that is better than nothing but do one a week or certainly a couple of week. And you are going to be completely relaxed, comfortable, conversational and exude confidence you can do It. I am telling you if you have ever had one good conversation with any friend in the world. You already have every skill you need to come across really well with great confidence on camera.
