Every single time somebody watches one of your YouTube videos, they decide. Keep watching or click off. The script writing gurus will tell you the differences in the specific words that you choose. But what most people miss is the power of how you speak. Because if you can't speak confidently and authentically in a way that builds connection with your audience, no one's gonna stick around even if you have the perfect script. So in this video, I wanna show you the five mistakes that are quietly destroying your speaking and what to do instead. So the first mistake is breaking the coffee shop rule. And when my clients make this simple shift, it transforms the way they show up on camera. So imagine that you're in a cafe. You've just sat down, you got your coffee in front of you, and you're sitting opposite one of your good friends, and he starts talking.
Hi. I've discovered three really important things that you need to know. Your eyes are looking left and right and you're hatching an escape plan to get away from this person. And that's because no one would ever speak like this in a coffee shop. Now imagine this exact same moment. Same friend, same coffee in hand, and instead he starts talking to you and says, hey, mate. I've discovered three really important things that you need to know. Immediately, you're listening. You feel connected. It feels like a conversation. You're interested in what he has to say. And that is the coffee shop rule. If it feels weird to say it to a friend like that who's sitting across the table from you, it's gonna feel weird on camera too. So when you're speaking to camera, do a quick coffee shop check. Do a couple of reps where you talk to the camera and think, would I actually talk like this to a friend in a cafe? And if not, adjust your tone until it feels right, until it feels connected. Now this next mistake absolutely obliterates any connection that you're trying to build with your audience and it's called perfecting
versus connecting. Now, when I was a young free single man in my early twenties, I would go on dates and my default would be to try and impress the girls. I would just have this bad mindset where I would assume that they were sort of weighing me up and judging me, and so I would try to do my best to be perfect and to impress them. And this led to a lot of failed dates until I switched my mindset and decided that I was purely just gonna focus on connecting with them. And as soon as I made that shift from their eyes on me and me being judged to actually, I'm just gonna connect with this person in front of me, suddenly everything started going a lot better. This exact same shift can be applied to speaking on camera. And more than going on dates, when you are on camera, it feels like the whole world is watching you. That's why everyone freezes up and starts talking like a deer in the headlights because it feels like the Internet is watching you. It's very scary. And so instead of feeling that judgment and then trying to be perfect, you need to focus on connection. Because as soon as you're trying to be perfect, it's gonna kill connection. Like, how would I try and present right now if I was trying to be perfect? I don't even know what I would do. I'd be very stiff trying to get everything right and you wouldn't feel connected with me. Instead, I'm imagining you on the other side and I'm going for vibe. And more than focusing on your outer habits like your hand gestures and eye contact, which are important, this inner mindset will naturally ripple through to your outer gestures. So this a big one. Don't forget it, and it will help when you're on dates as well. Thank me later. Mistake number three is something that I like to call emotional spaghetti.
There's nothing that confuses your audience more than not knowing how you want them to feel. So a little while ago, was reviewing some of my client's videos,
and when I was watching one of them, I couldn't quite decide what was off. But there was something. There's something about it that I was like, this isn't gonna work. The title and the framing of the video was something like, how to be more confident and break past your blocks or something like that. And they went into this story
about how their their upbringing was hard and their family life was hard and this kind of stuff. So great job being vulnerable.
But then I realized,
about three minutes in, I was like,
as they're making this video, they don't actually know how they want me to feel.
And I was confused. I was like, is this an inspirational video where I'm gonna learn something and I'm gonna be inspired by the end? Or is this actually a video that where they're really opening up and maybe they're talking about something that they haven't actually processed yet and it's more of a sort of a cry for help. And it turns out that they didn't know either. They were just sort of making the video going in blind.
Now, this causes a real disconnect with the audience because
they need to feel safe and relaxed that you can hold their hand through watching your video. So hopefully, as you're watching this right now, you feel like I have a plan. I have something clear to say, and you're gonna learn something. And the kind of vibe that I'm trying to transmit is that you can do this. This is easier than you think, and hopefully, you're gonna leave feeling quite inspired. But if you came across a video where the creator didn't quite know how they wanted you to feel, you'd very likely click off straight away. So the fix here is knowing the feeling that you want to transmit,
that you want your audience to leave your video from, and know that from the start. So before you make your video, decide on how you want your audience to feel. Do you want them to feel inspired,
motivated, uplifted, whatever that is? Keep that in mind as you start your video, and you're gonna hit the ground running. Mistake number four is having all points and no pain. Not knowing if your content is actually landing with your audience or not is a huge killer for your own confidence when you're speaking. You just wanna end every sentence with, do you know what I mean?
Do know what I mean? This is because we don't have anyone nodding along and telling us, yeah. Great. Cool. This makes sense. And we're just sort of talking into the void. And if you make this mistake, it will also prevent people from following along, which causes them to click off. So to illustrate this, I'm gonna explain the same point in two very different ways. Here's the first way. Machine learning is a method of training algorithms on databases to detect patterns and make predictions versus this. Machine learning is like teaching a small child what a dog is. You don't show them the rule book of this is what a dog's leg and tail looks like. Instead, you just show them thousands of dogs until they learn to recognize one. So when I explained it the first time, you probably completely zoned down and just went over your head. But in the second example, I bet that you knew instinctively what I was talking about because I was using an analogy which was something that you already knew about. And when I put that new information on something that you already knew, that's when the click happened. So instead of just making a point, a point, a point, you need to use paint to fill in the points. And the paint is analogies,
metaphors,
stories, or examples. So to illustrate and paint in every single point that you make, you want to use one of these devices so you know that your points are landing. Mistake number five is going in cold. This And mistake really is the difference between bringing out your best self and bringing out your worst self on camera.
When I first started learning how to speak to camera, I decided to record myself in my parents' garden. And the first few videos, I was super frustrated. I just couldn't be myself on camera. I couldn't be confident. My words wouldn't come out right. I just didn't know who I was. I was really stiff. It was shit. And I got so frustrated that I thought to myself, well, athletes need to warm up before they sprint.
Actors need to warm up their voice and bodies before they act. So why don't I warm up before I speak to camera? And at the time, I was reading a book by Tony Robbins where he talked about this concept of state, and you can be in a higher consciousness, high energy, positive state of mind, which will affect your body and your physiology as well, or you could be in a really low state where you don't wanna do anything. And so I started doing exercises to raise my state and elevate my consciousness before I talked to camera. And as soon as I was talking to camera with my body activated, feeling warmed up, and feeling my words and my purpose aligned, that's when everything started to flow. You see, if you don't have heat, you don't have energy. You've got to warm up both your body and your mind before talking to camera. And what this looks like, warm up your body. Do a couple of minutes where you're shaking out your body. You're shaking out your voice even. Doing
this to get yourself really activated before you speak. And then warm up your mind. Visualize how you want your videos to land. Think about the benefits of doing this. Don't think about how hard this is. Think about the benefits on the other side of making these videos. What's that gonna bring into your life? Once you activate your mind, activate your body before you speak, you're gonna be elevating your state and elevating your communication. If you want a free one page cheat sheet that you can print out and stick on your wall that reminds you of the key things that you need keep in mind when you are talking to camera. Download that. That's in the description below. That one's on me. And if you wanna learn how to make videos that not only bring in your ideal audience, but also your ideal customers and make sales through those videos, check out this video next.