How To Overcome Stage Fright On Video

Hello and welcome to Great Business Videos. It is episode 5. Can you imagine? It was a very, pretty busy season last a little while, so we've taken a little bit of a respite, but now we're back with episode 5 and we're going to jump into our content for the day. Jason is going to be here in just a few minutes' time. I'm Cheryl Plouffe. We've got Karina here as well. Karina, this is going to be a really interesting episode, isn't it? We're really gonna dive into stage fright and what, and really some strategies on how to help people with that.

Yeah, this is a huge roadblock for people that's keeping them from moving their businesses forward with video. So I think this is going to bring a lot of good, useful action tips for people.

All right, well, let's jump into our episode 5, How to Overcome Stage Fright and be powerful and authentic on camera. So like I said, my name is Sheryl Plouffe. I'm a video marketing strategist. I have 25, more than 25 years experience as a broadcaster, trainer, college professor even, and as a news director. We also have Jason Reed. Jason's just having a few technical issues, but he's going to be jumping on with us hopefully in just the next couple of minutes. He is a professional speaker and Speak to Sell expert. He has more than 25 years of experience as a news writer, TV producer, storytelling trainer, and news director as well. And he's the winner of 3 international awards for writing and story editing for network TV news. And Karina Sinclair is a freelance video producer. She is amazing. Manuscript editor. And she has worked behind the scenes in television and documentary productions since the age of 13, I'll have you know. So this is going to be a really interesting topic, I think, Karina, in terms of— and I hope you can see that. Can you just confirm, Karina, that you're seeing the screen?

No, we're seeing photos of us.

Oh, okay, let's hang on. Let me just— can you see it?

Ta-da!

There it is.

Okay, beautiful. Thank you. Thanks for confirming. That's how that works sometimes. So what we're going to talk about today is, is really stage fright. You know, what is stage fright? Stage fright is nervousness before or or during an appearance before an audience. Now, for the purpose of our conversation today, we're going to focus on camera and on video. Since this is great business videos, that makes sense, right? Stage fright is something that, and Karina, feel free to jump in, but I feel that pretty much everyone, whether they have experience like we do or not, we all experience stage fright at some point or another, correct?

Well, sure. I mean, even the most seasoned people that I've worked with in production, they still have a momentary flutter of nerves before the, that red light comes on the camera. And I don't know whether it's because they fear that any mistake will be recorded for all of eternity. But really, it's something common to everybody. So whether you're experienced or not, this is a common feeling.

Yeah. And I think that the fear, well, I mean, there's a lot of different fear. But I think that if I just kind of try to mine it down to what is the basis of the fear. I think that largely, it's the fear of getting it wrong. You know, the fear of saying the wrong thing. It could be the fear of being ridiculed or laughed at or somebody saying, "Oh my gosh, like who are they to speak on that?" And it's also, I think, this fear of not being liked. You know, so many of us are so afraid of not being liked. That we, we, it holds us back from wanting to appear in front of an audience and get our message out to more people because we want so desperately to be liked. And I think that, you know, when it comes to entrepreneurship and building a business, in many ways, you actually really don't want to be liked by everyone. That's what we talk about when we talk about building a targeted audience. It's someone, your tribe. Your tribe are the people who dig you. Not everyone's gonna dig you. And I think that we need as entrepreneurs to understand that it's actually not a bad thing. Do you agree?

Oh, absolutely. And one of my favorite recent quotes that I've seen is, "Fear doesn't make you special." So if you're using that as an excuse to hold back, like I'm too nervous to do this, I'm afraid to put it out there. Well, that doesn't do anything for you. It doesn't make you special. What makes you special is having a little more nerve than the next guy and going for it. Because I genuinely believe most people want to see you succeed. They want to see you on camera feeling like you're confident and comfortable and they're happy to see you succeed.

Yeah, I think that is true. You know, we have a tendency to focus on the haters because that's more painful. But most people really are rooting for you. Most people want you to do well. Most people are actually cheering for you. And I think until we start to understand that there may be a small, small percentage of people who are haters. And listen, haters, haters gonna hate, right? Like, you know, this is my, this is my face when people hate. And, and I believe that when people, when you start to have people who disagree with you or hate, so to speak. I hate that strong word. Um, you know, I look at that as a sign of growth. I look at that as a really good sign that you are building an audience of targeted people. Not everyone is in your audience. So I think that, you know, haters gonna hate, and that's totally fine. We have to understand that the majority of people are actually rooting for us.

And haters, I don't know, they have the biggest voices sometimes. And so It blows their importance out of proportion. So you may have, you know, say, you know, 1,000 fans and 2 haters, but it's really easy for haters to clog up the airwaves with their big voices.

Yeah, I agree. So I wanted to jump in and really give some ideas on how to eliminate stage fright. And one of the things, this is largely going to be a mindset-related episode. And it really does start in your head. And it starts with vision. Visualizing a new reality is the foundation to embodying the qualities of maybe your favorite gurus, your favorite mentors, people that you look up to, various speakers. You know, we see these people on stage and we say, "Oh, I could never do that." You can do it, but it starts by visualizing that new reality of you up there. And envision what it would be like to be that ideal confident speaker. Because if you're not in that place right now, which again, you may not be a speaker right now, you may not be confident on camera, so you're not at that level. That's fine. But you need to start by training your brain to think of what it would be at least like. What would it feel like? What would be the emotions that you would feel if you were a confident speaker. You know, you've heard this in Proverbs. They talk about, you know, where there is no vision, the people perish. Right? It starts with vision. It has to start in your head. So, I want to give you a couple of strategies on how to create a self-image vision board. And this is something that I've actually been talking with my clients about recently and very well received because I think a lot of people suffer from this. Let me, let me show you the strategies. And this one's a little bit more like, a little bit more techie. If you're on Pinterest, one thing that you can do, and I think it's an underutilized way of using the boards within Pinterest. If you're on Pinterest, what you can do is create a secret board. And I've just named this one here. This is just a screenshot of my own Pinterest. I call it here self-image vision board. You can call it whatever you want. It could be Cheryl is the best speaker ever to have lived on, on earth. Like, whatever it's going to take, you can call this whatever you want that's going to build up your confidence. And what you can do— and so, for instance, I really look up to Marie Forleo, so I can go into Pinterest and I can look at images of Marie Forleo and then save them into the, into the board. Now, this is private, so only I can see this, but it can serve as a digital vision board so that you can go back there and really use it as inspiration. I put a screenshot here of a couple of pictures of Marie Forleo, just to kind of give you an example. You may, you may really look up to, I don't know, Frank Kern or Gary Vaynerchuk or someone like that. You could put pictures of them in here just to remind you of what's possible. Actually, what would be even better would be pictures of them on stage or pictures of them on video so that you can visualize yourself in their spot. I put a picture here of a beautiful setting for an office. Trust me, my office does not look like that. But I envision it. But I'm envisioning it. And it starts by having these visual cues and these visual reminders that you can— so this is really a digital version of this. Karina, you're on Pinterest. You know what I'm talking about, right?

Oh, for sure. I can spend many hours down that rabbit hole. The whole idea, I love the idea of a vision board or at least finding references of where you want to go, where you want to be. Because if you can't see it, you can't put yourself there. And it really does give you a direction. It helps narrow your focus. And give you direction to move towards.

Yes, and actually, I was on a really great webinar not too long ago from this young man, Sam Ovens from Australia. And he is a very successful entrepreneur. He really, in a very short period of time, has built a multi-million dollar empire. He owns consulting.com. And I really loved his webinar, but one particular piece of it where he talks about what he calls the alchemy of self. And what it is, is basically a vision board. Now, it doesn't look like this. This is just a little screen capture I picked out. But what he does and what he did to envision himself being in the position where he is right there, sitting in his Manhattan apartment and office, was that he created a vision board. And he called it the Alchemy of Self. And it was a document, basically a little book. And he put pictures of people he aspires to be like in there, and also very detailed descriptions of qualities that he wanted to have. He went so far as to talk about and document how he wanted his haircut, what he would dress like when he's successful and once he's reached his goal, to great, great lengths to really fully describe what that would be like, and also, you know, how he would be perceived by others. So, I think it was really fantastic to see an example of that. But you could create again, scrapbook. You know, you can actually create a vision board to, to help you with those, um, with that vision, because I think that's really where it starts. And so, so vision is really important. I think it's the foundation, um, but when it comes to— and let me actually just go into the chat just for a second here, Karina. I just wanna— Karina, okay, so I think, I'm not sure we're gonna have Jason. And also, you know what, we have a poll question here. And I put the poll question here, Karina, is do you have stage fright when it comes to speaking on camera? And 50% say yes, 50% say no, and no sometimes. So that's interesting. Now when it comes to how to be powerful on camera, I wanted to really, you know, help you to see that although on the surface, and you know, listen, video's gotten a bad rap for being, you know, difficult and unattainable and all of that. But the truth is that if you want to be powerful on camera and be powerful on video, it's so interesting, you actually have more control over the production with video than you do without. You know, when you're speaking on stage, you don't actually get to control the production as much as you do on video. So I really wanted to help you to see that video actually is an opportunity to control the production, the video production. It's actually a way to control the perception. You can control the perception more readily through video And you can also control the market through video production. And I think a lot of people— I'm just reading some chat there. We don't hear you, Jason. No.

Can you hear me now?

Oh yes, we do. Fantastic. Hi, Jason.

Hello. Sorry, the webinar jam for some reason did not like my microphone today.

Oh no. Well, we're glad you're here. Grateful is grateful. Glad you could join us. We were actually just talking, Jason, about how most of this is largely a mindset episode and that vision and visualizing yourself in the place you want to be is one of the crucial pieces of this. And you know, as a Speak to Sell expert, how important it is to have people to look up to and to envision yourself in that position. And we also just gave a couple of strategies on how to do that with vision boards, be it a digital vision board on Pinterest or also even just like an actual scrapbook-type vision board. Do you want to speak to that before we move on, like the idea of vision and visualizing yourself in a different place?

Yeah, so this is— this will be interesting because I think that not all our brains are wired the same way. So for instance, for me, still images do not do anything for me. They don't excite my emotions. They just don't seem to have the same impact on me as they do for other people. However, when I actually watch other people speak, and particularly when I'm listening to them speak, I find that that's what my brain really picks up on. So what I did was obviously listen to a whole bunch of speakers, watch a whole bunch of TED Talks and Speak to Sell speakers on YouTube, everywhere I could go. And what I did was I was really trying to figure out who it was that I could connect with and just the type of person that I, that I was. And I realized for me it was Seth Godin because he has a very particular way of speaking. He takes really complex things and he makes them like really, really simple. So that's kind of how I worked it. I do know that other people, I mean, love vision boards, but for me, for some reason, it's more about the words of the language and the sounds.

There you go. And so, but you make a really good point. You have to do what's going to work for you, and you know yourself better than we do. So you need to be able to figure out what is the thing that's going to inspire me and motivate me to, um, I guess really it really is about seeing a new identity for yourself. Like, it's a new vision, it's a new self-identity. And whether that's, again, through photos or a vision board, or like you said, you know, through actual like clips and really, you know, listening to people's words or seeing them on video and hearing their actual voice.

And it's worth noting too that sometimes you will find speakers that you really like, but if you try to emulate them, it's not going to work because it's not that personality. Like for instance, Cheryl, I know you know who Larry Winget is. I'm not sure, Karina, if you've seen Larry Winget, he's very much comes out in big fancy cowboy boots and cowboy shirts and tells it like it is and drops a lot of F-bombs and just stands there insulting the audience for basically half an hour. It's brilliant for what he does. But it's not my personality. It's not my way of communicating. So much now as I may like that style, I just wouldn't be successful if I went out there and I tried to emulate that.

Well, you know, I'm glad you brought that up, which is going to lead us into the next section here. So let me bring up the slides again, uh, because we're going to move into, again, being powerful.

So, Cheryl, there we go.

There, do you see it now? Yes. Okay, so, um, so let me just move forward. So, uh, this is what we talked about here, Jason, about the vision boards and that sort of thing. But how to be powerful on camera, um, one of the ways is to wrap your head around the fact that video is not as scary as you've been led to believe. You also have a lot more control with video in that you can control the production, you can control the perception, and you can control the market when you're using video as the format in which you get your message across. So video allows you to control the environment where you're speaking. Now, Jason, you're, you know, and Karina, You both know that when it comes to speaking on stage, there are a lot of variables. And a lot of those variables you don't really have as much control of. But the beauty of video is you do have the ability to control the environment where you're speaking, where you choose to do your video. Video allows you to do a do-over. It allows you to reshoot should you need to. It also allows you to edit. And then, video also allows you to craft your message. In a very particular way. And so I think that it's important to understand that video allows you more opportunity to do these things than in other aspects of speaking. But when it comes to being authentic on camera, and this is really what Jason was talking about with Larry Winget, you have to live in truth and you have to live in integrity with who you are now. What happens is sometimes, and I'd love for you guys to jump in on this, that we, you know, we— okay, let's say we have vision. We're seeing ourselves in the future 4 years ahead. We're doing all the things that we talked about before about visioning. But what we're trying to do is live in a place 4 years from now when we're not there. We don't have that expertise. We don't have that experience yet. And a lot of people are posing. Um, they're trying— they're really phony in the sense of trying to be something that they're not, right? And I believe that the trick of it, to be authentic on camera, is you have to stick to what you believe, but you also have to be yourself, just like Larry Winget is.

I agree with that. There's— you definitely— you can't fake being somebody else entirely. That said, when you're on camera, you do have to be willing to maybe push yourself just a little bit more, especially when it comes to energy. And we've talked about this before, is boosting your energy, imagining that you're not just talking to an inanimate, you know, recording device, but to live people on the other side. And remember that gestures and facial expressions and moderation in your voice, those are all really important. Important things in your delivery that will help you still be yourself, but just a little more dynamic on camera.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I mean, you know, we've often heard the term fake it till you make it, and I actually really disagree with that. I don't know what you guys think of it. I just don't love that term. I would rather see people envision it till you make it. You know what I mean? Like, I, I don't, believe that faking it is really going to work. But what's your point, Karina? It's really more about presenting an elevated version of your own authentic self. Yeah, through the delivery of what you're doing. So energy, again, smiling— those things don't make you fake. No, no, those things are just— those are presentation, video presentation strategies to be able to engage with people more because energy falls on camera. So, I think there's a real big distinction and difference between being fake and phony, especially when it comes to messaging and that kind of thing than it is to actually be performing well for the camera so that you can truly engage and connect with an audience member. But I think those are two separate things. Jason, what do you think?

Yeah, Cheryl, if I could add to this. When you're talking about vision, I think, you know, one of the things that I go through sometimes with my clients is looking at the persona, right? So having a persona is not the same as being fake. It's figuring out which one of my natural personality traits am I going to highlight.

That's right.

So, you know, if you do look at people with strong personalities, Larry Winget, or if you're in Canada, say Don Cherry is a perfect example, right? Yeah. So he's like really far out there. He knows exactly who his audience is. He's loud, he's abrasive. But it's interesting, as somebody who's old enough to remember Don Cherry when he first started, he didn't just instantly become Don Cherry.

Right.

It took him a number of years. Every year he realized, oh, people like it when I do this. Oh, it's more in my natural personality to do that. And every year that sort of built up his persona to a certain level. And I think we all have to realize that, that regardless of what our vision is, that every year we get out speaking, we get a little bit more comfortable. We're a little bit more able to pull things from our own personalities. And I think our persona is really a constant project. It's just not something we can do like that, but we have to sort of build.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's an evolution. You know, I'm sure we can all agree that when we started off, you know, maybe speaking on stage or being on camera and TV or even behind the scenes, what have you. You know, you're learning things as you go and you're building that persona and building up that, that muscle, so to speak, over the span of years. And that it doesn't just happen like this. I mean, I know for me, especially over the last few years, there's certain aspects of my personality that I feel much more confident putting forth now than I did even 3 or 4 years ago. And so it just continues to evolve as we go. And I think that's a really important thing to note because it isn't instant, that it is a growth pattern and an evolution.

And a lot of it just is growing comfortable with what you're doing. So, you know, if we're talking about video, the more you do video, the more you get comfortable with the basics of it. You're going to reach the point where you're not going to be thinking about all the stuff you're probably thinking about now when you first start. You can just be totally yourself and figure out what energy do I want to give to the audience? I know you talked about stage fright earlier, and I think one of the reasons why people get stage fright is they get this excitement, which they view as nervousness, and then it sort of goes around and around in their head. So the energy is basically in here. What you want to do when you're speaking, whether it's on video or on stage, is get the energy out and towards the audience. So that might be something you want to visualize a little bit more too when you do videos.

I love that.

Yeah, yeah, I can totally picture carrying that energy around you and letting it disperse among the audience so that you're engaging them and not just containing it all within that sense of, you know, that self-talk, that internal monologue that you've got going on, but you can share that energy with everybody else and have a bigger effect.

Yeah, exactly. And also, you know, when it comes to authenticity, and by all means, you know, questions, feel free to ask questions in the chat. But I think as far as authenticity is concerned, again, it is a confidence question, right? It's more about, you know, do you have the confidence to be able to say what you want to say and how you want to say it and what is your message and all of that. But you know, back to what we talked about earlier, it's not— I think one of the things, you know, don't take yourself too seriously. And just to be able to relax. And that may take practice. That may not be something that can be instantly fixed.. But to understand that a lot of people are really rooting for you. If you're standing, sitting in front of a group of people and you're speaking, the majority of people really are rooting for you and want you to do well. So sometimes I think, you know, it's like picture the audience naked, right? I think that a lot of people really want you to do well. So happy to answer any questions. The other thing that we want to tell you and let you know about is, is we would love for you to take action on what we've taught today. And you may want to create a self-image vision board, or as Jason also described, he doesn't really react as well to the, to the idea of the pictures. So you may want to create a vision board of your own and whatever that looks like. It could be a multimedia type of thing. We'd love for you to share a snapshot or share that with us on social media, and you can use the hashtag great business videos to do that. So tag us on social media. We'd love to be able to see how you've taken action on what we've taught today. And the other thing I would mention is that if you want to contact us, we reply to all emails. Jason's email is jason@powerstorymaster.com. I am Cheryl@cherylplouffe.com. And Karina can be reached at karina@linebystudiostudio.com. So let me just bring us out here. Just one second. There we go. All right, oops, this on. There we go. Okay, we're back. So really great discussion, guys. I think this is an important piece of it because being powerful and authentic on camera is You know, it's tied to engagement, and, and engagement is tied to audience building. And without an audience, it's really impossible to build an online business. You have to have an audience.

And I think, and, and, and, too, when you're selling, I mean, selling is all about know, like, and trust, right? So obviously your content is part of that, but your delivery is also a huge part of it as well.

Yes, absolutely.

And consider all of these building blocks. You don't get a house right away. You have to put down the foundation. You have to put in the first layer of bricks and you build piece by piece until you have something really big and impressive, but it's all practice, all experience along the way.

And I will end this webcast by saying that the three of us, and I know I can speak on behalf of the three of us, we care so deeply about your success with video and with speaking. And so if any of this resonated with you and you'd love to reach out to any of us, we're here to help. We really are. And we care deeply about this, this world because we know from experience what kind of life-changing material and life-changing strategies these are because we're— we've experienced it. So we know that this is the stuff that can take your life and your business to the next level. And we would be happy to answer any questions that you have about that. So thank you so much for being here for Great Business Videos. And we wish you all the best as you head out and explore the world of video and speaking and storytelling. And we're here to answer any questions you may have. You guys have any parting words?

Let us know how you're, how you're doing. If you've got our contact information as you go out and you do these things, let us know. We want to hear about your successes. We want to hear your questions. As well. You know, we really do care about how you're taking this information and putting it out to the universe because you— we want you to be your best self on camera.

And this is just the beginning. I mean, we have these past 5 seminars full of great information, but we have so much more to share too. So I think if you're looking to grow in this area, keep your eyes on this group here.

All right, thank you guys so much. Have a fantastic day. And thank you so much for watching Great Business Videos. We'll see you soon. Bye for now.

Bye. Bye.