At my job, I work with people to create online courses. One realization has been how hard-won of a skill it is to appear both natural and comfortable on video. I’ve cultivated this skill to a decent degree over many years of video chats with strangers, podcast and live interviews, and creating my own videos and courses. Most people in most companies, meanwhile, never have to produce video material at all, and so when you ask them to, it shows.
It doesn’t matter if I make slides and speaker notes and ask people to record themselves as if they’re giving a presentation, or if I write a word-by-word script for them to read out loud with a teleprompter. The starting point is almost always the same: As soon as we hit “Record,” people go stiff and robotically rattle off whatever text is on the screen or in their minds. It’s as if the thought “This will be on video” is the equivalent of the “Petrificus Totalus” spell from Harry Potter. Then, the real work begins: melting the ice so we can get a result that’ll land well with other humans.
People love belittling influencers. “Pffff, anyone can put on a dress, make a duck face, and take selfies 24/7.” Actually, most people can’t, and that’s why we have not just influencers in general but many influencers who fail and only a few who are successful. It’s easy to try being an influencer but tough to crank out multiple posts a day that show creativity, novelty, and smarts.
Seeing others struggle in front of the camera has given me more appreciation for how far I’ve come. I’m no Brad Pitt, but I can record myself standing center frame while presenting slides on screen, reading my script yet still making it sound conversational in real-time. That, like most events you only bear witness to as an observer, is harder than it looks, and it’s worth considering—no matter whether it’s a trapeze show, an online course, or kindness under pressure that’s playing out in front of our eyes.
