How my dog saved my career

Wow, what a week it has been. With the government announcing another lockdown, I really needed a win. Lockdown means that we pretty much can not film, so any projects I still had in the pipeline for this year, now got postponed to the other side of Christmas.

In the past six months, I tried to be flexible, creative, and positive. I maintained visibility and kept building my brand. I did not give up. A lot of the time it felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall, as quite a few new ideas turned out to be dead ends.

Don't get me wrong, some worked really well too, this is how I still had a few interesting projects in the pipeline (which now got postponed). Also, our YouTube course for business owners has been very well received. Luckily it is pre-recorded and automated now, so my team can manage it on my behalf. But a lot of ideas, such as taking our high-end event live streaming services into the private events sector (funerals and weddings) did not get anywhere.

I did get one massive win though! And it was somewhere I least expected it. 3 months ago I set up a YouTube channel called Kat and Dog (https://www.youtube.com/c/katanddogs), mainly to share our travel videos and cute dog footage. I also used it to experiment with the techniques I included in the course - it would have been silly not to put this knowledge into practice.

And it was nice to focus on something positive for a change too, so I probably have put a bit more time and energy than a private side project deserved in the pandemic, into it. It was slow to start with and very frustrating.

But it has really paid off. This week we hit critical mass and have gone up to 5K subscribers and 1.3 million views. And the numbers keep on growing every minute.

Rocky is the star of the channel and I am at peace with the fact that he is simply cuter than me. I am happy to stay in the shadows. But there are a lot of cute dogs out there that don't get past 100 subs and their views only hit double digits each month, so I will take credit for being the mastermind behind his success.

It makes me feel good to know that I am good at what I do, even if temporarily I can not use those skills to forward my business. This madness will be over one day and I will be there waiting. In the meantime, I am content with staying behind the scenes.

And to be honest, even though Rocky is the beauty in the videos, I get to practice speaking on the camera, which only half a year ago was terrifying.

I love video and what I do, and I really believe in its power, but don't forget that until recently it meant hiding behind the lens! In recent years my work spoke for itself and the business was growing by recommendations, so I did not have to actually practice what I preach and use videos to advertise my business. When I suddenly tried that at the beginning of the lockdown it was terrifying.

Looking into a lens was like looking down a smoking barrel. I would forget the simplest words, to the point that I could hardly put a sentence together. The first lessons I recorded for my course were delivered in a manner that made me cringe. I was really stiff and boring. I kept looking at them and thinking to myself - this can not be what I am like. How would I have any friends if that was the case?! It was mortifying. But the content was good and I got a lot of positive feedback, which was encouraging.

I practiced and practiced... And this is why my private side project was so important to me. I could feel that the more I let go of the embarrassment and forced myself to talk about dog-friendly walks, the easier it was getting. When I re-recorded the videos for the next YouTube course, the result was no longer cringy - I could actually look back at them with a sense of pride.

Don't get me wrong, I am still not entertaining in my Kat and Dog videos. It will take a while before I feel natural. And my course lessons needed a lot of takes to shape up. But that's ok, on Kat and Dog, Rocky's charm makes up for my shortcomings. And in my course videos, I could just use the power of editing to cover any errors. Feeling at ease on video is still a long way away, but I am committed to it and I am enjoying the process now. I have also just joined toastmasters to help me with that journey.

What I am trying to say here is that there is always a window. Sometimes it takes a lot of brick-banging to find it, but as long as you just keep going, eventually, you will find the way out. I think the lockdown would have depressed me much more if it was not for this massive achievement.

Of course, it is not a solution for my business. I am not planning to change a career now and become a youtube superstar, and to live off advertising and promo deals. A friend of mine was laughing at Rocky as he run up to strangers in the park asking for scratches - if I did not know he was always like that, I could have agreed with her that the fame got to his head. It did almost look like he was asking 'Don't you know who I am? Don't you recognize me? But he has always been a confident little pup, and I am not one seeking fame either. I am not hoping to travel the world like a 20 something blonde goddess whose sheer presence the brands pay for.

But it is a massive win, considering that only 6 months ago I hated talking on video. This newfound skill will help me massively in my business in the coming years. It will help me to launch other online courses and unlock more opportunities in the future, even if I still need to work on it a lot! The worst hurdle is behind me in that regard, I no longer care to be embarrassed.

And most of all, let's be honest, finding any kind of win in current times and in the sector I am in, is a huge success.