Ep 49. Finding your version of camera confidence as an Introvert

The word authentic has been coming up a lot in conversations this week.

You think you’re being authentic, but are you really?

I say that because what tends to happen is that we go onto Instagram or LinkedIn, or wherever you like to scroll for inspiration…what scrolling for inspiration actually does is it can make you feel like you’re one of thousands of people doing the same thing as you.

So what naturally happens is that you start comparing yourself to their style, and then you start questioning your expertise, your setup, the way you look, the way you sound, you get the gist.

Without really realising you end up performing a version of their style, which means it’s not really your style because you’re trying to be like them!

I get it, right? I do the same. I’m not saying don’t follow people to learn from. There are people I genuinely love and learn from all the time.

But I want you to notice when you’re going into that, because what a lot of advice tells you to do is, “Just post, just do it, and the confidence will come.”

But actually, for most of my clients and for a lot of us introverts, it’s something more specific than that, because if you’re in my generation, a lot of us have probably spent a good amount of years trying to blend in and staying in the background and not really drawing attention to ourselves, and that’s fine when you’re in a corporate role and you don’t need to be the face of your business.

So when it comes to showing up online, the default isn’t just nerves, it’s that deeply ingrained habit of making ourselves smaller or just wanting to be in the background.

Which means that when someone says, “Oh, just show up,” it’s almost offensive, right? Because it completely ignores the years of, I don’t wanna say our conditioning, but the environment that we’ve been used to.

On the flip side of that, and this is the bit I really want you to sit with, is that introverts are actually really, really brilliant at developing a distinctive voice and perspective.

And you know this, right? Because we spend so much time inside our own heads and processing things deeply and looking at all of the lovely nuances.

All of that thoughtfulness might feel like a disadvantage, but that’s actually what makes your content magnetic when you finally let it out.

The irony is that introverts have the most authentic voice to offer, but we’re also the ones that are most likely to suppress it. I think one of the biggest ways this happens is by consuming too much of everyone else’s content, and then trying to perform our version of that instead of just being ourselves.

 To be honest, we can fix that because it’s not a you problem, it’s most likely what you’re looking at in your scrolls, and that’s completely fixable.

So how do you do that?

The thing I say most to clients is to post before you scroll. Before you even open an app to see what everyone else is doing, put your thing out first – that could be a post, a blog, a podcast, whatever it is.

Because once you’ve spent 20 minutes, maybe an hour, I don’t know, you do you, in the scroll, you’re already getting influenced by other people’s thoughts, and you’re gonna subconsciously start comparing.

You’re already second-guessing what you thought you were gonna post because you’re gonna be like, “Oh, they’ve already posted that. My thing’s not gonna matter.” Or, “Oh, they’ve said it in a better way than I can.” Or, “I’m not gonna post today.” Or, “Oh my God, look at their carousel. It looks so fancy. Mine looks boring compared to that. I’m not gonna post it.” You get where I’m going. You’re already talking yourself out of posting.

If you create first, not only are you working from your own thoughts and your own take on things, you’re gonna have that, “Yeah, this is good enough energy,” because you haven’t got all of those negative things filling your brain.

Alongside that, try and create more than you consume anyway. Imagine how many pieces of content you could have created in the time that you spent scrolling,

I’m not saying this because volume matters, I’m saying this from a consistency and data point of view, because you can use that time to treat your content like an experiment.

Every time you post from a different messaging angle or try a different type of carousel or a video or whatever it is, you’re gathering lots of different bits of data about what your audience is responding to.

What kind of things are stopping the scroll? What’s making them send you a DM? What’s getting website clicks? What messaging angle is resonating with them. It’s all a big experiment, right?

The more pieces of content you put out, the quicker you’re gonna get an idea of the kind of messaging angles your audience is responding to. So you can do more of that then less of what’s not working, right?

But you’re not gonna get that data by sitting on everything and waiting for it to be perfect. You’ve gotta give yourself permission to treat content and marketing in general as a big experiment because genuinely that is what it is. No one’s got it figured out.

Also, the more angles you try, the clearer your message becomes, and then you naturally become confident at sharing that and being known for that thing.

 So that’s how to protect your voice and your content.

There’s obviously loads of different ways you can share your voice, but I also wanna share a bit about video today because that’s come up a lot this week. And honestly, it’s something I’m still figuring out for myself.

If you’re on Instagram, there’s a massive push on talking to camera content on the moment. I am not gonna call them yapping videos, by the way, because I think it sounds so dismissive, and like, “Yap, yap, yap.” Why would you want someone to yap in your ear? It makes me feel like I’m an inconvenience, and they just wanna like shoo me away, like, “Stop yapping.”

Let’s just call them talk to camera because, you know, I’m old school.

The reason I want to crack this for myself and also why my clients want to is because video is the quickest way to form trust with your audience.

Yeah, you can listen to me on the podcast, but when you see me talking, that adds another layer. You can see my facial gestures, my hand movements and things like that.

It’s the quickest way to form trust because it’s the next best thing to being in the room, right?

Like it or not, visibility is currency in this day and age, so we do have to show up and build trust in some shape or form if we can’t physically be in the room with someone.

I’ll be honest, a while back I tried to start my own talking to camera challenge. I started it, did about three, and then stopped it.

So I’m very much in the same boat as you guys, but like I said, this podcast started as an experiment to give myself permission to suck and be a beginner. So I’m gonna do the same thing with video as well.

I’m not professional. I just wanna get confident with being on camera and seeing myself on camera.

The standard advice is to just get over how you look on camera and get on with it, right? I mean, yeah, if it was that easy, like, everyone would be doing it. But for introverts, that doesn’t really work, right?

Because what do you mean? How do I distill all of my depth into, a 60-second video? And also, I’ve been a pro at hiding all my life.

That’s genuinely how it feels, right? We’re so used to doing the deep work quietly in the background, and then suddenly we’re supposed to talk on camera naturally, confidently in one take? Hmm.

I think part of why it feels so unnatural, especially if you’re a similar age to me, is that talking to camera was something that we only ever saw, TV presenters do growing up, and also Zoom calls weren’t really a thing.

And I tried everything to stay out the limelight. So filming myself definitely wasn’t a thing.

So of course it’s gonna feel uncomfortable if you’re similar to me, but that’s not a personal failing, it’s just something I’m not familiar with. And like everything, the more you do something, the more natural it becomes.

Give yourself permission to experiment with different things. There’s no one right way to do anything.

So when it comes to videos, you’ve probably seen people filming in their car or people who look like they’ve just whipped their phone out their pocket. I really like the ones where they’re sitting cross-legged on the sofa or on their bed and they’re just talking to you. It just feels like you’re in the room with them.

That style feels real, more like it’s coming from a person rather than like a big production studio. I’d love to get confident doing that myself one day, but as soon as the camera goes in my face, I don’t know what happens. I just turn into a more formal version of myself . That’s probably from my corporate days when I had to record more formal videos. and I know that about me, so I’m just gonna try different things to try and find out what my unique style of talking to camera is.

It happened with a client as well actually on a content day where I was asking her questions so I could batch lots of videos and B-roll.

As we always do, we were having a really natural conversation, to warm up, and then the moment I turned the camera on, she went completely blank because I guess your brain does something when it knows it’s being filmed.

We had loads of footage by the end, but it still reminded me and her that this stuff takes practice, and it also takes the right environment. So try different things and see what feels comfortable to you.

Maybe start with a voiceover on Reels first, so you get comfortable sharing your voice. And then talk to stories because they’re gone in 24 hours. Then you can do a shorter Reel, and then try different places and see what you like doing.

I guess my message is, find your way of doing things, rather than forcing yourself into a format that you like in other people, but doesn’t feel natural to you, because that’s really what all of this comes back to.

You know you wanna show up. That part’s not the problem. The problem is that you’ve got all of these, I need to be doing it like this’ is in your head.

That is really clouding what is it that YOU wanna do? Give yourself permission to just do what you want to do. Your voice is in there.

I’m not saying don’t follow people who inspire you. Obviously follow people, but don’t let them quieten that deep-rooted intuition you’ve got inside you because that’s telling you something.

So post before you scroll, create more than you consume, and also get yourself a person who’s gonna be in your corner. That could be a coach, if accountability works for you, then get someone to be your cheerleader.

Just try things out, see what lands, see what doesn’t, and treat the whole thing like an experiment rather than a performance, because that’s how you protect your voice and start showing up as you and not someone that you think you should be.

If you feel buried in all of the, “I should be doing like this is,” get my Own Your Voice journal – you can spend a bit of time just with you to work out, what you stand for, what you really wanna do, and then go and do it.

As always, thank you so much for listening, leaving your lovely reviews, and sharing with your audience. I genuinely appreciate it.

Keep showing up with quiet confidence so you can make that loud impact in the world, and I shall see you next time. Speak soon.