Afraid of Using Video?

written by Maggie Sale Ostara, PhD

White Iphone 5S With Site Youtube On The Screen And Headphones L You have probably heard by now that YouTube is either #1 or #2 in search engines. That’s incredible! Just as many people or more go first to YouTube to search for information today as go to Google. Clearly the time of video has arrived.

Are you using video to build your business?

I know so many people – including my clients – who are afraid of using video. They understand the importance, and even get how much video warms up the web. Yet they cringe at the idea of shooting video of themselves.

Maybe you can relate?

I get that, too, because I used to feel that way. And truth be told, my early videos were pretty bad. I didn’t know what I needed to do in terms of make up so I usually either had “pancake face” (not enough make up so my features didn’t stand out) or the wrong kind of make up so that the wrong things stood out!

Plus it was scary to stare into the lens of a camera and talk. I was certain that I looked stupid and I often stumbled over what I said. I had to redo them over and over again.

And Geej and I bought different cameras over the years, and every time we got a new one we had to figure out how to use it the best way. And my anxiety about doing the video made me irritable when he was working on the technical part of it. Not a pretty picture!

Fortunately creating video is now easier than ever before. If you’ve got a smart phone, you have a video camera right there in your pocket! I have a favorite exercise I do at my retreats during which my clients rehearse one minute videos over and over and then shoot them. They are always amazed at how well they come out!

My suggestion to you is to practice. Write a short script – like 100 words – and then practice saying it out loud over and over. Time it with your smart phone and make sure it’s no longer than 2 minutes. One is even better. Then either have someone hold your phone for you (stabilized against a table or wall), or just do it yourself. No one else has to even see your videos until you are ready to show them.

Now I know that visibility scares a lot of us. Still scares me even as I reach out for more each day. So if you feel that, that’s normal. And the best way to “get over it” is to practice shooting video in a safe environment until you can relax doing it.

Then you can start to post them on YouTube – so you, too, can be found!

Here’s an example of one I shot in my office not too long ago.

Maggie Sale Ostara, PhD left her prestigious job as the Director of Women’s a Gender Studies at Columbia University when she realized she’s not built to work for anyone else. Since then, Dr. Ostara has become a Certified Human Design Specialist (Level 4), a Certified Clarity Breathwork Practitioner, a highly sought after teacher-mentor, who teaches high-achieving women how to develop their personal sovereignty, to activate their super powers, and to unleash themselves from society’s prescription of success.

She’s the creator of the Soul Signature Self Awareness Project, the Wheel of Power of the Visionary Entrepreneur, and over 20 educational programs focused building soul-inspired businesses that positively impact the world and taking command of your life through personal sovereignty. She’s hosted 5 multi-speaker online conferences, and spoken on over 15 such conferences reaching audiences of over 200,000 participants.

With two decades of experience supporting 20,000+ students and hundreds of clients through her online programs and conferences, Dr. Ostara teaches how to avoid overwhelm and burnout, how to make reliable decisions, how to create a bigger impact with less effort, and how to transform inner liabilities into powerful assets and allies.