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As an out-of-work actor in Australia many moons ago my agent asked me to help her develop her TV Presenter Training workshops. I’d never done that before, I was petrified, overwhelmed, but I knew I knew how to present TV and she had the basis of the course we grew to fit all kinds of presenters, so my 20-something “fake it till you make it” guts ‘n’ glory gusto said yes! That was the kick start to loving training and coaching others how to love sharing their stories, their own way, via that glowing silver screen, big or small, that led to a global speaking, training and mentoring career that’s now #GlobaLIVE!
Having spent 30+ years “performing” in theatres, TV screens, on speaking stages & corporate boardrooms around the world - UK to NZ, AUS to HK, around Asia & Australia and back again to IE, UK and EU (Phew!)... that powerful knowledge of how screens can both entertain, educate, inspire and connect us all, has led me to choose to share the why, what, how’s of #ConfidenceOnCamera to the best of my ability today, and leaning towards a rethink of exactly how... But one learning from years ago still stays the same - the real keys to overcoming camera fears & learning to love sharing why, what, how you support others in your world via video, is in always being grounded, honest and open about what you share. From Core Content to Emotional Connection, being willing to accept both positive perceptions & negative knock-backs, and to be ready to get over viewer or tech-issues and yourself when it all falls apart.
Because frankly, it will.
And more than likely, you’ll never know when, so be ready to laugh at yourself at those times!
There’s nothing quite more satisfying than stating the obvious issue a social troll might be desperate to point out went wrong, while you simply cope with any perceived disaster with your own style of #ConfidenceOnCamera, which helps others laugh, smile, feel relieved & that your sense of fun could help them cope through the same... It’s basically the secret behind professional speaking and training - being the most confident, approachable expert, while guiding others through obvious disasters!
My own “expertise”, crazy concepts & learnings gathered over the years, thanks to so many other coaches, mentors and expert guides, helped me create the first ever Guidebook to “Confidence On Camera - 7 Steps to Present Your Power on Any Size Screen” between my bowel cancer survival fun from 2013-15.
How Did #ConfidenceOnCamera Start?
It all grew from my first 1998 TV Presenter Mentor job, gained after losing out on too many Australian TV auditions due to “your non-Aussie accent”, but having had loads of experience creating & presenting TV shows in Hong Kong in my 20s. I was a professionally trained & paid actor, TV presenter & producer, but untrained trainer, training other TV presenters, simply from years as a performer, drama training and with plenty of insight into the fears of having to create, manage & present HK kids and life-style TV shows to a Chinese & international audience! I’d even fallen into that, after 4 years stage-acting “successes” & tours over 4 countries. I’d also been versatile and good enough to become one of HK’s 1990s in-demand Voice-Over artists, starring for international brand ads into China, Jet Li & Jackie Chan movies and Chinese Government promos going out, Longman Publishing English learning tapes, Tom & Jerry doll voices, and voicing a multitude of foreign films and crazy (at the time!) Japanese cartoons, like Pokemon.
Seat-of-my-pants-personal-experience teaching of students from all walks of life, learning to be entrepreneur on-screen presenters for all sorts of output reasons, from biz to stardom, taught me a lot! I taught and learned with World Champions sports stars, millionaire execs, international radio hosts, teens to grannies wanting TV auditions some of whom became global TV stars. Then there was the early corporate business video and global video conferencing needs, with basic TV equipment - I learned the studio & tech-gear may change, but connected, interactive, interested & interesting presenting doesn’t! I confirmed my kids TV experiences that the only Point Of View (POV) that matters is ultimately the viewer POV, so connect to them and get out of presenter-EGO! The only reasons we are on screen in any form is because someone else thinks you have the knowledge and skills to help others overcome and achieve, and to help viewers watching make their lives, better, richer, warmer, kinder, easier, easy, easiest.
And most of all - I knew that you could NEVER please all viewers all of the time, so aim to talk & connect through to them ONE at a time - like an intimate conversation. By making that one person someone you know would support, love & laugh with you through anything you said on screen = your greatest fan - you’ve got your self-supportive confidence-team!
How to Confidently Assess Your Presenting Skills?
Once you know who you want to be talking to, aka your ideal viewer, your real-life #StageToScreen presenting can simply be broken into three key questions to ask yourself. Your core-confidence, self-knowledge learning questions, to answer in this order are:
What works for you on screen? (what do you like about you on screen?)
What distracts your viewer? (what could be even better than now?)
Overall, what positive words would best describe you? (in a truly supportive way!)
AND IF YOU LEAP TO WHAT YOU DON’T LIKE FIRST - START AGAIN!!!
Now Get Specific for Greater Confidence...
To give yourself specific viewing points for greater clarity, you can break those three self-assessment feedback questions into the 3Vs Key Impact Areas, I first learned about via another ‘90s Australian acting super-power agency, when hired for their Train The Trainer (TTT) & corporate training courses...
Any presentation can be subconsciously broken down to these 3Vs:
1. The Visual Impact = what we see: physical movements, stance & facial expressions
2. The Vocal Impact = what we hear: the power, clarity, warmth, tone, etc. of your voice
3. The Verbal Impact = the words you choose to use: the story & message you care to share
...or those you don’t use yet, which could make you present even better right now!
Why Watch Objectively - as if it’s not really you...?
When you force yourself to objectively rewatch what you do, thinking “Yes, be kind. Judgement, let go!” - you can start to find what you like & want to see, the appropriate tone of voice your story needs to have, and therefore the most powerful content you want to share and need to include for the viewers’ POV in every video you do.
Once you have found at least one item you like under each of the 3Vs (in this order, rather than leap to word content first!), write them down. Only then are you allowed to rewatch to notice any 3Vs habits you may have, which could potentially distract a viewer and cause them to want to hit the Stop button. Your aim is to present in a way they want to Press Play!
Having adapted & refined these from #StageToScreen on-camera presenting over the years, I always see the hardships presenters have when asked to find what they LIKE about themselves first! So avoid the self-troll pitfalls and BE KIND!
Can you simply notice your repetitive “crutch” habits, moves, vocal notes, noises or phrases, or something you’ve yet to do? (SMILE?!?!?!)
Notice those potential distractions, then one-by-one let them go!
They may irritate you, but others may find something endearing, or think it’s just like them...
Your aim is to help them Like you, want to listen & take action with you.
So make it easy to watch & smile/ cry / scream/ laugh with you - simply help them feel it!
And the often forgotten, BEST thing about TV?
If it didn’t work we filmed it again, but to a time frame limit, and so can you.
And if it’s LIVE - you laugh your way out of the horrors and learn, as I’ve said since the ‘90s: “Stuff up with Confidence, and Get Over It!” right then, right there, laugh & let it goooo!
Get it? Got it? GOOD!
What Can You Achieve?
Once you can spot what helps you come across as confident, look like you’re loving what you say, that you truly care and are aware of certain habits you may do, you can subconsciously connect/ disconnect/ reconnect your viewer with you. That will be a series of small habits that can be broken in to small achievable chunks leading to an even better perception and more natural style of your own.
During that formal TTT in 2000 (repeated again after 2010 Coca Cola Ireland marketing team redundancy), I discovered that the way I’d naturally “trained & marketed” others was how pro trainers & big business actually did it!
I realised I was allowed to mix experience & knowledge with my own theories, adapting training to be easily demonstrated Live on stage, to turn that learning action into helpful videos, to create my own TV shows, but this time online, without a formal TV station! Coaching volunteers on the stage & screen enabled us to immediately put learnings into practice for business growth, to confirm the confidence gained & to verify each presenter is truly different, because their life and biz is different too! It’s always great, if not imperative, to get verification of epiphanies, and they often take time to actually sink in. But when you put something you’ve been afraid of for years into practice and have fun doing it, you allow yourself to recognise how simple it can really be... So I got people having fun with #ConfidenceOnCamera with me!
That’s why I moved into live stream only in 2016, and created #LIVEStylePresenting ethos for pro-speakers, entrepreneurs, biz-video presenters and via creating online LIVE community summits, like @LadiesGoLIVE full day conferences and more interview shows. It’s why I encourage clients to #GoLIVE without edits only these days - business is not just about those who “know, like & trust you” any more - I’ve been saying since 2017, they have to want to work with you too. Consciously ethical business presenters are sharing & growing!
If you can’t speak or present from start to finish for 3-10+mins about your core field of expertise, then are you truly an expert?
If doing an hour long interview or training - if you’re more focused on your own questions than your guest, or what the viewer might want/ need to see, are you delivering a service?
Watching trainees grow from their own #LIVEStylePresenting light-bulb moments, to feel instantaneously confident enough to join in and take action via video, to appearing on TV shows and ultimately creating their own LIVE shows has filled me with joy over the years.
It’s why I deliver so many of my own shows Free to Fee + the book to fit all budgets. LOADS of trainers are doing similar, I’ve even been meaning to adapt & publish my online training programmes for years, but health has got in the way... and now, there’s so much on the market, I’d rather recommend others and know those who come to me, do so for very specific reasons, with the investment to do so. I also feel things are shifting to a bigger consciousness arena, having worked with our local TEDx as a Speaker Mentor & been invited back again this year. So cross-generational #NeXtGenPresenting & across the ages #NeXtGenLearning is growing more important to me - looking ahead to future-proof, as I always like to do ;)!
What’s Next for Videos & #LIVEWithLottie?
We’re in the new decade where nearly 200 years ago the 1st photograph was taken in 1826 (the first moving pictures in 1888) and nearly 100 years after the 1st “sound movie” in 1927... So what will happen to Network TV, business videos and LIVE stream shows in the 2020s?
As I write, poor eyes & MS health “schtuff” might have held me back from regular #StageToScreen performances this last year, but I still KNOW...
These core learnings & 3Vs specifics can be all you need to raise self-awareness-facts, to get out of screen-presenter fears, and to say no to the acceptance of negativity as truth sadly consuming so many in this world of social-media-judgement world today. You simply need to know what works for you, what makes you smile and have the confidence to speak up, speak out. LIVE & video tools give you the quickest, easiest way to present your mission/ purpose/ community value stories you want to share with positivity across the world today. If your body really can’t do it, your voice+images still can!
The type & purpose of content doesn’t really matter at the start, so start!
Again, have been saying for years - now is the time to stop telling & selling, Start Sharing & Caring and give yourself the courtesy and kindness of knowing... whatever your story is - you’re sharing it, because it is important to you...
So know - it could be life-changing to someone else out there too.
#ConfidenceOnCamera that works for YOU simply comes from knowing:
You may not change a million lives at the start,
so build one by one, with fun,
shift perception with kindness & heart.