at a cocktail party with someone who is constantly looking around the room for someone “better” to talk to? It makes you feel like you are not valued, right? That's the effect Barbara unwittingly gave her audience by not focusing on them. The “People Pleaser” turned people off.
Your Own Worst Critic
Do you remember when you first heard your voice on your voice mail or answering machine greeting? You probably thought, “I don't sound like that!”
Chances are, what you heard was exactly how your voice sounds – you just didn't like it.
The idea of having to listen to yourself or watch yourself on video can be a painful prospect for many. This is true even for those who do it for a living. When I meet the editors of any of my on-camera jobs, I always offer my sympathy because I know they've had to spend hours upon hours watching and listening to all of my many takes. That's enough to make me nauseous.
I always express my appreciation and admiration for those who take my on-camera performance workshops, because I consider it an act of courage. They are stepping outside of their comfort zones and subjecting themselves to criticism – the sharpest of which comes from within.
Analyzing baseline and post-training performances is an important part of any of my classes, yet it is always met with a cringe. The performers always notice things about themselves that no one else does.
For example, everyone in the class might be applauding your flawless delivery, but you may be totally fixated and irritated by the way your left eyebrow turns slightly downward. While the entire audience is mesmerized by your powerful presentation, you are thinking about how soon you can get in to see the brow lady. A camera lens can sometimes feel like a microscope, but in this case, it usually makes imperfections only we can see loom large.
Recorded for Posterity
Most on-camera performances will or at least can be recorded, and the shelf life of that video, good or bad, will likely be longer than you want it to be. And if your video is going to be hanging out on YouTube for who knows how long, you want it to be perfect.
That desire for perfection usually serves as the biggest barrier to performance success. We get incredibly self-conscious, which leads to a tremendous amount of pressure and stress.
For my classes, participants have the option of creating a video asset, which they can use beyond training. It's a valuable opportunity to make the training immediately applicable, but there is a downside.
CASE STUDY
Rob was well ahead of his peers in terms of his comfort and confidence as a presenter, so when he heard he could create a video blog entry as part of the class, he was all for it.
Rob prepared a script in advance of the training and decided to run through it on the first day as his baseline performance. It was a bit bumpy, but he attributed it to problems with his script. Undeterred, he wordsmithed it and practiced it at home before the final record on day two.
When it was his turn to step in front of the camera, Rob felt optimistic and thought he would be able to nail it within one or two takes – a good thing because he was the last of his classmates to perform before their lunch break.
His first run was pretty solid, but he tripped over a couple of words. Take number two started off well, but he stopped in midsentence because he thought he had mispronounced something. (He had not.) Take three turned into four, five, and six in rapid succession, and each failed attempt chipped away at his confidence. Embarrassed by his poor performance, Rob asked if he could come back after lunch to try it again, not wanting to keep his classmates from satiating their appetites.
Although Rob was one of the most skilled of the performers coming into training, his colleagues in the class finished their on-camera presentations in about a third of the time he had spent. The reason for this is that none of Rob's colleagues had exercised the video asset option – whatever they recorded was for training purposes only, so they were willing to cut themselves a little slack. Conversely, Rob was in pursuit of perfection, and the more he pursued it, the more elusive it became.
Unfamiliar Territory
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