Transcription
There's a way of speaking on YouTube that gives you an unfair advantage over other creators because it builds way more trust and connection with your viewers. And if you learn how to speak like this, it not only makes creating content way more fun because it's easier to make and it feels good, but it also drives more sales to your business because of that extra trust that it builds.
So, if you imagine this, a stranger comes up to you, they make you feel super at ease, right? We've all had this experience, somebody making us feel really comfortable as soon as we meet them. Was it what they said that made you feel at ease? So, if somebody came up to me and said literally, "Hey man, I'm not here to harm you. I'm a super safe person. Would you be interested in a chat cuz I'm really interested in talking to you?" If somebody said that to me, I'd probably head to the supermarket, grab some water, grab some carbohydrate bars, because I'd be running an ultramarathon for the next 24, 48 hours in the opposite direction. Right? It's not what they say, it's how they say things. I'm talking about body language, tone, vibe, their energy.
This is the mistake that so many entrepreneurs make when they talk to camera and they speak on YouTube because they focus everything, all of their energy on what they say. They tightly script everything, read it word for word, and then it actually comes across as a little bit awkward and disconnected, which does the opposite of building trust.
So, I want to help you out. I've already helped hundreds of business owners talk to camera more naturally. And these are three steps that I found that work every time in helping people really talk with authenticity that builds trust and makes making content way easier.
When trying to understand why you might be perceived as inauthentic or why you might feel inauthentic when you talk to camera is as simple as this. It boils down to inauthenticity is feeling one way and then presenting yourself in another way. Why does this happen to almost everyone when they talk to camera? Well, it's because they're feeling anxious, uncomfortable, and strange doing this, talking to a camera, and they're trying to present themselves like a typical creator, which is super positive, upbeat, and inspiring. So, there's this massive disconnect between how they feel and what they're actually saying.
So, how do we bridge this gap? Well, there's a couple of things to do. One is bring down that presenter tone a little bit. So it's pretty rare that people feel so fired up that they're like, "Hey guys, how's it going?" Like everyone tries to be on camera, right? So bring that down a little, but you don't need to be like that. And the other thing is getting super comfortable on camera.
So how do you build that comfort on camera? A technique that's been working really well for the members of the natural speaking system is something called releasing the recording pressure. So, they get a certain amount of anxiety when setting up the camera and thinking about talking to camera, but they they might sort of be calm themselves down doing a couple of breathing exercises and feeling pretty good, being able to handle it. But when they actually press record and try and talk, they might choke up, right? So, instead, what we've got to do is press record a couple of minutes early. And in this time, we're just going to be sitting there with the camera running through a couple of lines, but with a focus on releasing that pressure. And this involves scanning your body. The reason why you scan your body with your awareness is because you'll often find certain pressure points build up. So a lot of people will start feeling a tightness in their shoulders or a pressure in their chest or a certain feeling of anxiety that might build in their belly. So within these two minutes whilst you're still recording, obviously not going to put this bit on YouTube. You're just feeling into your body whilst saying stuff. So, you're just warming up. Maybe you run through a couple of lines, but really just keeping your awareness on your body. This also has this amazing side effect of relaxing you. It also helps your voice become more resonant because by focusing your energy and your awareness in on your body, it can start dissolving and relaxing certain pent up emotions or tension that you had, which allows your voice to come across much more resonantly.
So, the aim of this is to really feel no difference between pressing record and stopping record. What happens to so many people is they sort of have this tension that builds up more and more as they're talking and then they'll press stop and be like like I'm done now. I can be a normal person again. Sweet. I can relax. Like that's the opposite of what we want. We want to be flowing throughout the setup, flowing through our lines, getting ready to record, press record, feeling the same, ready to chat, ready to have a conversation. All right. We talk. We talk to our points, feel good whilst doing it, stop record. That's it. We feel the same. We might feel a bit of achievement, but there's no like, oh, now I can relax. All right.
Once you've released that recording pressure, you're feeling a little bit more relaxed. Next thing you got to do is focus on your emotional center. So, I used to tell people focusing on your emotions. But what that meant was like 50% of people sort of checked out and they're like, what do you mean focus on my emotions? you know, if I'm talking about real estate opportunities, like am I going to be like really sad or vulnerable or something? I'm like, okay, there's a new way of saying this, there's a new way of actually feeling this, which is much more intuitive and kind of works for everyone, which is your emotional center. So, it's focusing on where you feel emotions. So, you could by doing that body scan exercise, you can feel right now more or less where you might feel emotions. Even if you're not feeling emotions, you're almost feeling into a potential for emotion. Now I have this personally usually in my chest but sometimes in my belly as well and by focusing on this center whilst I talk I always notice it gives me more authenticity and the reason for this is because I'm connecting and expressing from my body. So when you completely cut that off as most people do on camera especially it looks like you're just presenting sort of with your face and with your hands. And so a lot of people start doing these hand gestures and try and grabs people's attention and do this classic like, "Hey guys," kind of thing and it just doesn't hit home for some reason. People just feel like something's off. But when you have a certain percentage of awareness in your body, so right now I'm talking to you guys, but like a 30 40 50% of my awareness is actually in my emotional center. What that means is a couple of things. One, I have that slightly more authentic tone. And two, you completely get out of your own way. So, what I mean by this is you avoid this overthinking, right? You do you do the thinking before you make the video. You plan out what you're going to say. You go through your points a few times. You go through your intro a few times. You map out how the points link together. But then once you've rehearsed and you've planned out and you've got that in your brain, then you just get out of your own way. And by connecting with your emotional center here, connecting with your body, your words are just going to be flowing. This is what a flow state feels like is being present and connected with the camera and with what you say rather than being up in your head thinking about every single sentence that you're going to say next. This helps build that congruency that we're looking for between our body, how we feel, our thoughts and our words because we don't actually have too many thoughts whilst we're talking. You know, our thoughts just are our words and you're expressing yourself from your body.
Step number three is whilst you're talking, maybe it's making a practice video, maybe it's in the actual video, you got to try and attune to that feeling of feeling good whilst you're talking. So right now it feels quite good as the words come out of my mouth. There's something it it feels connected, feels present. That's the feeling you got to look for. Now, if you're super far away from that feeling, you got to try steps one and two by really taking a moment to relax your nervous system, connect with your body. It's going to help with this a lot. But then once you're there, once you've really settled a bit, just make a few videos where you're really practicing. You're really looking for that feeling of, "Yeah, this feels pretty good when I talk."
Now, you might be asking the question, "Okay, Thomas, I could maybe feel good when I talk, but I'm just going to be rambling, going down rabbit holes." Like don't you really need to like focus to figure out what you're going to say next and figure out how the points are going to perfectly land. The solution is two things. One is know your plan. As I said, it's having that plan that not only if teaches effectively, but also is persuasive. You know, it guides your prospects through a buyer's journey. It might mention info about how you can help them if they choose to work with you. You might send them to another video. You might send them to a lead magnet. And the information that you present and teach should ideally funnel them down that road. But along with having that plan, it's just practice. I mean, if you've only ever scripted videos and read them out to the camera, memorizing line by line or using a teleprompter, this process will feel a little bit alien when you get started, but make a few practice videos.
If you'd like support in your journey, you can check out the natural speaking system. Currently, we're sold out, but there is a waiting list in the description below. And also, I've got a free PDF that's a talk to camera cheat sheet that will give you some impactful reminders that you can print out, stick on your wall to help you next time you're talking to camera.
Now, you also need to know that there's five really bad mistakes that people often make when talking to camera that completely kill viewer trust. If you want to know what those are, click here.