I’ve decided to start a Youtube channel talking about my experiences on my journey to financial independence so far. Here are some of my main thoughts reflecting on my experience so far:
· Starting something new such as being in front of the camera and speaking felt A LOT more awkward and unnatural to me than I had originally anticipated. For my script, I had rehearsed it for quite a while every day for over a week so I thought when it came to record day that I’d be able to speak fluently. (I usually do when I have a presentation at work). But there was a different element to this which made me feel strange and unusual for some reason? I’m not sure what it is.
· I had always wanted to be a good speaker, and thought I was relatively good. However, this experience has actually showed me how much I have to learn and grow to become the good speaker which I aspire to be.
· Wes Watson: “If you want to be jacked, go to the gym everyday. If you want to be a good speaker, then speak in front of a camera everyday.” This reminds me of a story Brendan Burchard was saying in one of his videos: he was saying that there was his friend who was saying “once I finish studying and save up enough money, imgonna pursue my dream of becoming a chef”. Brendan replied “do you even cook?” and his friend said “no no no, not yet, I said that I’m saving enough money to then allow me to pursue my dream so I can then cook.” This was a very weird observation Brendan had made, which I believe is a reflection of 95% of the population, and also myself. I say I want to be this or that in the future, and if I really meant it, then why can’t I do it everyday? His friend can live the dream NOW. Similarly, I want to be a speaker, but am I speaking everyday? I want to be an author, but am I writing everyday? These are some aspirations I have for the future, and the truth of my words should be reflected in my actions. I need to pause and reflect and allow myself to understand that like Brendan’s friend, I can ‘live the dream’ now.
· The solution seems so obvious, that I just need to practice speaking infront of a camera everyday. However I get this very strange feeling that I do. The ‘unnatural’ feeling again. It is so absurd haha. I have a suspicion that it may be due to my ‘imposter syndrome’. I think that I feel unusual because doing something which is not aligned to the character which your ego believes to have constructed for you causes a lot of mental resistance, because the ego wants you to stay the same, where everything is predictable and comfortable. So being something that you wish to be but ‘are not quite yet’ can be very difficult. Just like when I started lifting weights, it felt unnatural and I felt like a skinny fraud and not like the bodybuilders I see online. However, I need to push through this phase and force myself to be that which I choose to be.
· “All great men are play actors of their own ideal” – Nietzsche
· I have a better understanding now of what it takes to make a Youtube video. So things like lighting, camera settings and audio. This was a big hurdle which took me a while and I took longer than I would have liked to get acquainted with all these. I think this is because I was at the bottom of the exponential curve as described by James Clear in “Atomic Habits”. Being at the bottom and starting new, where there’s an enormous learning curve, is quite disheartening. However, I need to understand this phenomenon and accept it, and then create a goal, then have discipline and persistence towards this goal. That’s the only way to get past the valley of disappointment.
· I made my video too long. I realised that there are soooooo many times I just babbled on about useless BS. This is one of the biggest areas of improvements for me currently which I am pinpointing. I need to be more precise on the message I am trying to deliver to the audience and be aware of which sharings/things I talk about actually provide value for the topic I am presenting.
· I keep looking back at my laptop for notes and start speaking before I look back up. This sorta ruins the ‘flow’ of the video if it constantly shows my head moving from facing my laptop to the side and to the camera when it cuts to a new clip.
· I need a better lighting setup, as what I had currently done was not the best. Maybe the purple/orange background isn’t that valuable right now, since sometimes it has some weird static wave look to it which is extremely distracting.
