I Cringed Watching This Video… But I’m Sharing It Anyway ;)

I talked about the importance of Authenticity and Congruency in Personal branding in the previous article.

Have you gotten more clarity about your next steps in building your personal brand?

For many people... The hardest part is getting in touch with themselves.

Because their childhood experiences may not be that great.

Part of them may want to bury the past and not think about it anymore.

But the thing is... The emotions do linger around when unresolved... Even in adulthood!

When building a personal brand... It's necessary to acknowledge past experiences...

Both the good and the bad.

That's what makes you, YOU.

There's a need to accept the past and heal from it.

Ever since I embarked on building my personal brand...

I discovered my fear of speaking up is due to a childhood trauma.

When I was a kid, someone scolded me for speaking in the bus.

I was just communicating with my mum. I wasn't doing anything "funny".

During my schooling days... Teachers punished us and labelled us as "talkative".

All these repeated programming caused many people the inability to express themselves clearly.

Many people don't know what to say when asked to speak...

They don't know how to manage their tonality...

They don't know how to use body language and hand gestures.

Those are essential skills to speak with authority and influence.

I'm determined to continue improving my speaking skills this year.

So I spent some time recording videos of myself speaking on the first day of Chinese New Year.

I didn't visit my relatives. I stayed home and practiced my speaking in front of the camera.

Here's a "blooper" video of me speaking: (I previously only shared with audience in my email list)

I also cringed when I look at it...

But I'm sharing with you because there's some critical lessons to takeaway here:

1) Whenever you start something unfamiliar... It will suck.

You'll lack confidence. It's normal. Everyone goes through the same thing.

I still find it weird to talk to a camera when there's no LIVE audience. I'm more in the zone when there's LIVE audience to talk to. The energy level is very different. The more interactions, the more alive I feel.

The above video was filmed without a LIVE audience.

2) Practice is needed for achieving competency and mastery.

To be a great basketball player, you practice dribbling, shooting and passing daily.

To be a great copywriter, you write everyday.

To be a great speaker, you speak everyday.

You want to be great at something, you got to be obsessed and immerse in it.

Competence is achieved from consistent practice.

3) It's ok to be bad at first.

Have you heard before: "Every master is once a disaster"?

Repetition, frequency, and constant refinement in skills will get you good.

I'm willing to put in the work to improve.

So I'm damn excited when my client is also willing to put in the work.

We want to achieve great things together.

Every coaching, consulting or mentoring is a teamwork.

It takes two hands to clap.

I hope this sharing motivates you not to give up on whatever you're working on.

We're all facing challenges no matter what stage of our business or personal life is in.

Problems will always be there.

They just appear in different nature, forms and magnitude.

Keep up the spirits and move forward strongly.

I'll do more sharing with you in my next post / article :)