Improve Your Technique by Practicing on Video

• 00:04 Okay folks, now it's time for a really big test.
• 00:07 It's a test for me, I could flunk, and it's also a test for you, you could flunk.
• 00:13 Here's the part that you've not been waiting for,
• 00:15 that you really don't want to hear, but I'm going to just tell it to you straight.
• 00:19 Now you've gotta practice your speech and you've got to record it.
• 00:25 You've got to record it on video.
• 00:28 I don't like looking at myself, I don't like my voice, too bad.
• 00:34 I'm very serious about this, you can watch all my videos,
• 00:38 you can give me five stars and top rated.
• 00:41 All of that is completely meaningless if I don't motivate you
• 00:46 to record your speeches and practice on video again and again and again.
• 00:52 It's the absolute only way to really get dramatic improvement and
• 00:58 to get consistent improvement.
• 01:01 You can't do it by looking at a mirror.
• 01:06 If you practice in a mirror, then if you're a normal human being, you'll think,
• 01:09 uh-oh, is was my nose crooked, uh-oh, did more of my hair fall out?
• 01:12 Am I getting Jeff?
• 01:13 You're not focused on giving the speech, you're looking at your face.
• 01:18 That's not the speech.
• 01:21 When I was starting in this business 30 years ago, I maybe had an excuse,
• 01:26 video cameras were relatively rare, relatively expensive.
• 01:30 Nowadays, you want a video camera, reach in your pocket, pull out your cell phone.
• 01:36 It captures video most likely, if not a tablet,
• 01:41 an iPad, a webcam, a laptop.
• 01:44 I mean we are all completely surrounded by video
• 01:49 cameras these days, so you have no excuse.
• 01:53 Here's the thing, by my estimation, far fewer than 1% of people ever do this.
• 01:58 If you want to automatically leap to the top 1% of public speakers,
• 02:04 all you have to do is this one thing, practice on video.
• 02:08 But you have to do it in a very, very specific way.
• 02:13 Because if you practice your speech on video and you never look at it,
• 02:18 it didn't do any good, complete waste of time.
• 02:21 If you practice your speech on video and then you look at it once, and
• 02:26 then you're like, I hate my voice, this is awful.
• 02:31 At least I looked at it.
• 02:32 Again, complete, utter waste of time.
• 02:36 In fact, that's often worse than wasting time, because it likely so
• 02:41 reduces your self-confidence, makes you feel so awful, you hate your voice.
• 02:46 You hated the fact that your eyes are beady like mine or
• 02:50 that you were twitching with a ring on your finger.
• 02:54 Just watching once doesn't help, and in fact it hurts.
• 02:59 You have to go about this in an extraordinarily systematic way,
• 03:03 give your presentation.
• 03:05 Ideally have a family member, a friend, and a colleague holding the camera.
• 03:08 But even if it's just you in a hotel room or
• 03:11 in your bedroom recording yourself speaking, that's fine too.
• 03:16 You've got to record yourself, then you have to watch it.
• 03:20 Then what you need is a clean sheet of paper.
• 03:23 Put a line down the middle and write down everything you like,
• 03:28 write down everything you don't like about any aspect of style or substance.
• 03:34 If you notice, for example, you're doing this every three seconds,
• 03:38 it's going to strike you as weird, odd, a nervous gesture.
• 03:42 Make a note of that.
• 03:43 However, if you think well, my speaking voice is pretty good or
• 03:48 at least I'm not rushing,
• 03:50 I like the fact that my head is moving, give yourself praise.
• 03:55 Everybody does something well in the sense that they're not making blunders other
• 04:00 people make, maybe you're not saying, give yourself credit for that.
• 04:05 But systematically go through the whole presentation,
• 04:09 write things you like, write things you don't like, and then look at it.
• 04:14 Then you gotta give the speech again.
• 04:18 This time, it's clean sheet of paper, look at it again.
• 04:23 Did you play with your nose fewer times this time?
• 04:26 If you made any progress whatsoever, write it down.
• 04:31 So if you started off and the negatives were this high and the strengths were this
• 04:35 high, you want to do it again so the negatives come down, the strengths go up.
• 04:39 Do it again, negatives come down, strengths come up.
• 04:43 Keep doing it as many times as it
• 04:47 takes until you like what you see.
• 04:52 That's the ultimate way of getting better.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.