The Flow: Episode 84 - Improving On-Camera Presence

Music.

Aloha, Flow Riders, and welcome to another edition of The Flow.

I am your lovely host, Doc Rock. Today, I'm flying solo, like solo to the ground.

You won't even recognize me. Anyway, no, let's not do Tom Buck jokes today.

I'm flying solo. Katie is enjoying a little bit of R&R, a little vacay,

and she'll be back next week to kick it with us.

But for now, let's go ahead and do these things. Okay?

Okay. Okay, today we're going to be talking about increasing your on-camera presence.

Now, here's something that comes up in the community like pretty much every day.

I can do a show, right? I can record a video and the first question is,

oh my God, like how do you get your camera to look like this or how does your

camera do this or how does your camera do that?

And honestly it kind of

sort of doesn't matter as much as you think right what

most people are doing is rushing

to upgrade equipment and i've seen people on broadcast television with billions

of dollars of stuff and the show is just steady lacking like it is just lacking Right.

And where that comes from is you've definitely seen people.

Normally, it's a celebrity who isn't used to live TV, maybe doing a live recording

or doing an interview, and they just lack a certain presence.

Right. Or you see your favorite athlete or your favorite politician.

One of my most hilarious ones, which is funny because it turns out that the

person actually has an amazing personality.

So he was doing it on purpose because he was super irritated at having to speak to the media.

But if you remember Marshawn Lynch, a.k.a. Beast Mode, he would do preps conferences

after like, you know, Seahawks or Raiders games.

And they would ask him a question. He'd be like, yeah. No.

Okay. And then he would just walk away and leave. Those interviews were just terrible.

They were terrible. They were terrible. But turns out dude's a comedian.

He's actually pretty funny.

And he's on a TV show on Netflix with, uh, what's his name? Will,

uh, from smart list, uh, Will Arnett.

And I think that's his name. Uh, anyway. Yeah. So he would be with,

uh, Will Arnett, basically hilarious, like really, really funny cat. Right.

So it goes to show that even someone with the skills can have a bad camera day.

I think Bismo was just legit doing it on purpose because he hated talking to

the media. He just wanted to play football.

But you've definitely seen athletes, politicians, other people that come in

the news. Like when the news camera and you're not.

Riddle me this question real quick before we dive into how to increase your camera presence.

Does your local news team seem to go out and just find the worst on-camera people

to interview whenever they have to interview somebody about something that's

going on in your neighborhood?

Today, family, we just opened a brand new Piggly Wiggly here over in Martindale.

And let's go over and talk. What's your name? Luis.

Luis what? Luis.

Uh, Luis, uh, Vega, uh, Luis, what do you do?

I make videos on the internet. Like you ever seen that interview on the news?

Yeah, that's, that's what I'm talking about. Okay. So let's talk to you about

how to not have this problem for your show. There's a couple of tips that you can do.

This is legit a practice that you will have to put some effort into.

It is, some people say oh so and so is a natural on camera.

Yeah not really don't don't believe that when you hear people say that something

is quote unquote natural it's almost providing a cop-out for everybody else

or it's taking away that person's ability like oh well that doesn't take it

away but it sort of lessens that person's ability ability, right?

So yeah, you don't want to lessen a person's ability, right?

If someone's taking the time to get good at a particular task,

we want to sort of recognize that.

I really, really hate when someone says that someone is quote unquote talented.

That's like stealing the fact that they did tons of work to get to be that good.

Like rarely, if ever something exactly natural, unless it's a physical thing

where your body can just bend in the position that somebody else It doesn't bend, right?

Okay, so let's get into it. One of the first things that's going to be super

important is knowing why on-camera presence matters.

First of all, on-camera presence has a lot to do with bringing your credibility to the table, right?

If you could be the absolute smartest person in the world about your subject

matter, you could be the world's greatest scientist, and your credibility is not the same.

When you want to learn something about astrophysics, they go to Neil deGrasse

Tyson because Neil has mastered the on-camera presence.

Neil has mastered the ability to make it so that regular people will be engaged

in what Neil is talking about, right?

So that is why he is the go-to astrophysicist, whereas other astrophysicists

will come in with their, you know, slide rule calculator in the pocket and be like,

well, once the maps were, the stars were mapped out by ancient Mesopotamians

and therefore with the quadrilateral indices of the elliptical earth with the

paths of the transient and then like everybody's like, what?

Oh my God, this is out of here. This is out of here.

New has found a way to bring what would be an otherwise complicated or slightly

misunderstood understood and somewhat controversial conversation and bring that

to the table and make it sort of legible, if you will.

So on-camera presence will add to your credibility.

It also increases your audience engagement because audience is more likely to

sit there and listen to you if you have a decent on-camera presence.

Okay. So one of the first things I want to say that is very Very important is

you must absolutely, positively, 100% know your topic.

OK, even if even if you're going to this as I'm going to be a brand new beginner

about a particular thing and I want to have you follow me on my journey as I learn it,

you still need to know where you want to go and what you want to do.

You can be the inquisitive bystander along on the journey and you can talk to

and bring in experts and your general curiosity will be what carries that conversation.

But if you are a SMEs, a subject matter expert, if you're coming in to talk

about the thing that only you know,

if you want to talk about the thing that you absolutely love.

Love if you want to talk about your favorite

tv show you still need to kind

of sort of know your topic okay so uh

here's a for instance there's a brand new show that's on

the apple network and it's called sunny um it's really good it's a it's a dystopian

sci-fi type murder mystery if you will even though it is a brand new show no

one's going to be an expert on Sonny except for maybe Rashida Jones.

So you can still as a fan of

that know when it comes on who's

in it have discovered some of the actors and start to like get some biographical

information on Annie the Clumsy who is one of the actresses in the show with

Rashida Jones you can approach it from a level of fandom where where you've

taken some effort to study more than, say, the other person.

And so let's say if there was a score for everything there is to know about

Sonny being 100 and you could be 10, you could still record at 10.

Because there's some people jumping in at zero. So you're at least 10 above the zero.

People will follow you on the journey, provided you can bring something unique to the table.

Okay? So know your subject is important.

Now, the other thing I would say, the next thing on this topic list that I put

is you need to find a way to command your voice.

And a lot of

this has to do with your pitch

your tone your pace your

style your infliction your your diction and even knowing when is a proper time

to add a little bit of animation we tease Alec about it a lot but Alec can just

sit here and have the entire conversation and and barely move,

his British accent carries the rest.

So he can sit there with that stiff personality.

I wish the dude would move around on camera a little bit more.

And that's my buddy, right? It's just one of those things that you will oftentimes

see the people that we think are a little stiff on camera are exactly stiff on camera.

They're not moving, they're not adding, they're not commanding their voice.

One of the things that you can do to command your voice is just break the pattern.

So if you happen to speak in, say, pillars of three, like today I'm going to

talk a little bit about American football, and then we're going to talk about

basketball, and then we're going to talk about baseball.

You could still even break up that three.

Today we're going to talk about the United States' favorite sports.

First, we're going to talk about football, and then we're going to go into a

little bit about basketball.

And last but not least, America's national pastime, the old baseball.

Like, that's how you would break up and add a little style, a little tone,

a little infliction, a little pitch.

You could even add a little pitch, like what I just did. Like,

raise your voice a little bit and bring it back down.

Talk a little bit quicker and a little bit slower

like these things break up the monotony so you

don't sound so monotonous that's

the word we're trying to break up we're trying to break up the monotony

having a little bit of pit style tone in your voice will go a long way now this

one One is difficult for me because I 110% believe this is a switch.

It is a turn it on, turn it off type of switch.

And people will have all kinds of fights and reasons and excuses as to why they

can't turn said switch on and off, but it's a switch.

Okay. I don't think you can learn how to be confident.

Confident i think you either are or you're

not and if you can confidently fight

your inability to be on camera that is a level of confidence in itself i am

confident in standing here and not flipping on the camera right i completely

believe confidence is a switch and i believe you can just make a decision and

flip it on and you can make a decision and flip it off people He was like,

come and learn how to be more confident. I want to call BS.

I get a lot of fights about that, but it is.

And the reason why you know this, because talk to that person one-on-one about

the thing that they love and you can't get them to shut up.

But somebody told them normally something that happened in school,

stepping up to the board, or, uh,

they come from a family where they are sort of just browbeat by everybody else.

Everybody steps all over them or whatever.

Uh, there's a lot of things that can steal your confidence, but I don't think it's a learned value.

I think you turn it on, you turn it off, Right. Talk to anybody about something

that they're completely against and,

And they will confidently fight you for their position.

Pretty much anybody. So I don't think I really I just don't believe you can turn confidence on it.

I mean, I don't believe you can, quote unquote, train yourself to be confident.

You just turn it on and you turn it off when you feel like it.

Simple as that. And I believe also the similar thing with nervousness.

I think nervousness has to do with somebody at one point in time told you to

shut up when you were trying to say something that you really wanted to say.

And you have not been able to shake that ever since.

But there's some things that you can do in order to increase,

quote unquote, the ability to hit that switch.

First one, go back to knowing your topic. If you know your topic,

pretty much nobody can shut you up about anything.

Ask Luis about some old school camera joints or ask him about standup comedy.

Like he would just go. Like you don't have to, he won't take you one breath.

He's in there like swimwear, right? He can just get in there and talk about that.

And this is where knowing your, knowing your, your topic sort of helps out a lot.

So again, bringing in,

taking away your nervousness and learning to basically be articulate as possible

and learning how to sit in your position.

Like I own this joint, right?

When you sit there, like I own this mic it will

come out better if you sit there like oh I'm timid it's going to come off worse

it just is and here's what I want to say and I want you to write this down if

you skip everything else in this episode I want you to write this down.

If you don't trust you, why should anybody else?

If you don't trust you, why should I?

Right? You're trying to get to that first thousand subs.

You're trying to get to that 10,000 subs. You're trying to get to 20,000, right?

You're trying to earn, let's say, $1,000 a month being a content creator.

You're trying to earn $50,000 a month being a content creator.

If you don't trust you, why should I?

Like, legit, explain to me, if you don't trust you, why should I?

Why should I trust somebody that you don't trust?

That's the end of the whole damn show right there, family. Like,

if you don't trust you, why should I?

Super, super simple, right?

Super, super simple. Um, so basically some things that will help you with your general confidence.

I strongly believe that if you have a fantastic sounding microphone that actually

adds a lot to your ability, right?

I think because you know that your voice sounds incredible.

I have definitely been in situations where I'm a guest on a different radio

station or whatever, and the audio sounds funny and I feel different about my conversation.

So when your setup is proper.

I believe it does add a little bit to your security.

I don't want to call it confidence. I want to believe your security and the

fact that this is just going to be good because I look good. I sound good.

You know, there's a saying, uh, this is one company.

I forget the name of it, but it says, look fresh, sound fresh.

I believe that. I believe when you look fresh, you sound fresh.

If you come in, you got your best looking fit on, just got your herded,

you know, your, your glasses are clean. in your faces, nothing in your teeth,

different level of conversation.

If you're sitting there worried about how you look or how you sound,

that's going to mess with you a little bit.

Now, getting past that is a

different conversation, but I know that if you were to walk into a studio,

that was fully set up and working, and you know you could just sit down and

do your thing, I believe for you, it would come off a little bit different.

I believe if somebody was driving for you. Like today, Luis is driving for me.

There's a different level of, I'm not worried about pressing any of this.

So I'm not thinking about that. I can focus legit on talking to you about bringing

this incredible camera presence, right?

So I think a lot of times, if you're still feeling a little weird about it,

maybe you see if you can't get a buddy to produce or a family member to produce

or somebody else to press the buttons for you.

So you could take that off the table and that might add to some

of your confidence okay i still think it's very important that

you learn how to drive by yourself but in the beginning if you're really having

a rough time with it maybe let somebody else press all of that so you don't

have to think about it and you can just sit here and discuss your killer points

that you got to discuss okay moving down along i want to give you a couple of

practical tips that you can do before you crack the mic in the military.

We had a system before we take a shot and it was called bras,

you know, similar to a, uh, over the shoulder boulder holder.

Um, and the, the acronym stands for breathe, relax, aim, squeeze is basically

how to fire without like switching up and missing your target. Right.

So whenever you go to the range, especially when you're doing the situation,

we're shooting in the prone where you're laying on your stomach. You want to breathe.

Relax.

Aim. Squeeze. OK. We're going to switch that up for camera presence.

I still want you to breathe. I want you to breathe.

Right. I want you to relax.

I want you to be prepared to articulate. and then speak.

Breathe, relax, get confidence on your articulation and then speak.

So same thing. So we're going to use the Bras method.

You saw anybody who watches this show, 84 episodes deep.

How do we start every show? Hit it with a woosah. I always take a deep breath.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the flow, right? You always got to give it

a second to just calm it down.

So before you crack the mic, calm it down.

If you're doing an interview show and someone hits you with the difficult question

or you just want to be credible, it is perfectly fine to take a beat.

Okay. If someone says to me, all right, doc, I want to actually,

I got this question yesterday from Katie.

Katie said, I got a buddy of mine that wants to do a two, maybe three-person

podcast. They have a budget of $200 go.

The first thing I would do if I'm doing this on camera is take a beat. I'm like $200.

Well, it seems to me that probably the best option would be a Zune Z O O M H

four N, which is roughly 150 to one 99, depending on where you buy it and which model you pick up.

And they're all basically the same for this particular purpose.

And the pod track, which is a four channel recorder, similar to the Zune.

The primary difference is the pod track has no microphones the zoom

has microphones on it and then you'd want to

go get two samsung q2 use for the two-person setup

which will come with everything they need microphone cable the

whole nine yards and with that you can do a portable on the

road two cameras set up and the whole thing will

fit into a tupperware box now they

want to add that third microphone they're going to

bust that 200 limit just what it

is you basically add a third samsung q2u to

the mix in this case if you know you're going to do that the pod

track could be better off because that would actually handle four and you know

the pod track is 150 the samsung q2 user basically 70 a piece so you're going

to be at 210 plus 150 for a little bit over 300 bucks let's call it 360 you

could absolutely build a three-person mobile setup and your gravy let it out.

See, simple, but take a beat, man, like legit take a beat.

And it's just like, all right, here we go. And just give it a second.

I really will make a difference. If you nervously spit, not,

I mean like this kind of spit.

I mean like in the rhythmically spit, if you nervously just let things come

out of your mouth, you will probably get yourself in trouble.

So just take a beat, take a second, breathe it out.

Good to go. Uh, a lot of people will use thought tactics.

One of the biggest ones is the uh, the um, the uh, like really,

really try to get rid of that.

I have a saying in my world. I tell everybody eat the ums.

When I'm speaking on camera, you will barely, rarely, if ever,

hear me hit you with a uh or um.

I do them in my head.

Like wherever I want to go, uh, I just go. And no sound comes out.

You just like get it stuck back there. Like just don't let it come out of your head.

You can totally do the same thing without ever making a sound.

So everywhere where you want to take a pause between every other word so you can think,

you can just do the exact same thing without making an audible sound and give

yourself a second to process.

So then you can go ahead and spit out your words that you want to say.

Simple as pie. You can completely eat the ums, learn to make them inaudible

or to slow your talking down.

A lot of times, if you slow your talking down and bring it to an Obama-like

pace, you'll be perfectly fine and you will find you never um.

This is something that lifelong stutterers learn how to do is to control their

breathing and slow down their talking speed to give their lips a chance to catch up with their brain.

There you go. There you go. OK, so this next one is going to be hard for some of you people.

I'm going to tell you this, but this is a huge difference in whether you come off good or not good.

You have got absolutely positively one hundred and fifteen percent.

You have got.

To have a positive mindset. And I know that kills some of y'all,

but you have got to have a positive mindset back to the top.

If you don't trust you, why should we?

But whatever you focus on expands. If you focus on I'm nervous,

your mother bumping nervous.

If you focus on I have no confidence on camera, you have no confidence on camera.

If you focus on, I'm going to look like ish, you will look like ish.

The way the brain works, whatever you focus on expands.

If you said to yourself right now, I would like a large hot fudge sundae with

dripping hot topic with cream,

whipped cream and nuts and one of the fluorescent cherries on the top.

That is all you could think about.

And you're going to be stuck on it for a hot minute. And then you will see ice

cream motif oriented things all day. It's called ambient awareness.

I just did this to myself this week. Had a running joke the other day because

we were in a hurry to go somewhere to pick up the old image on.

And I was like, there's three lanes. Why would you pick the lane behind the person in the Corolla?

Whoever is in the Corolla can't drive.

The only people that have a Corolla can't drive, right?

They either don't care enough about driving to have a doper car.

They are over the age of 60 or they're teenagers who don't have a lot of experience.

Never, ever get behind the Corolla.

Since that day, every time I've been on the road, I swear to you,

I have seen more Corollas than I ever seen before in my life.

It is a thing. Every time I am, there's another Corolla, making a turn from

the wrong lane, stopping unnecessarily in front of me, heartbreaking.

Like I have this, that's called ambient awareness. Because I brought that conversation

up with strong infliction and strong demand, they have been in my way ever since.

Even yesterday, going to the hospital, person in the Corolla decides to drive

and turn from two lanes over and almost cause an accident.

And the person was in the older than Paul range, probably shouldn't be driving.

So it is definitely a thing. Whenever you focus on expense, right?

So don't focus on, I'm going to suck. This is going to be hard.

This is going to be difficult is what it is, right? You must absolutely have a positive mindset.

If you don't, you will fail period point blank.

I stand strongly in this. I completely stand strongly in this.

Now, another big one is your posture.

Now, I'm not saying you have to sit here and be like, hi, I'm Velvet Jones.

Today, I'm going to talk to you about how to run a proper business.

No, you don't have to do that.

But you also don't want to come up and be like, yeah, so the ancient Mesopotamians

were the very every incredible people, like you don't want to do that either.

Like you want to sit to where your diaphragm has room to do with a diaphragm

need to do so that you can properly get these sounds out. You want to be comfortable.

Um, definitely. I sit here elbowed on the table all the time.

A lot of times when I'm deep in thought or conversation, I will sit leaning on my arm.

And when I'm really, you can, you know, all

you know when the subject matter has got me got me

in the head with the little you know

the hamster with the wheel is like i am

normally doing this i'm pulling the cheek or

pulling a beard hair that is when i am thinking deeply about whatever the person

is talking about i'll be hand up and then you'll hear the asmr beard pulling

uh that's just a take of mine but ancient uh mesopotamian underwater basket weaving. Correct.

Right. So sit with a posture that allows you to be you like,

but yeah, you just can't slouch at the slouching thing.

It's just not going to come off good on camera. If you're sitting there,

you got tension in your shoulder the whole time that doesn't come off on camera.

So you're going to have to go back to bras, breathe, relax, prepare to articulate and speak.

It would just, it would just come out. Right.

Uh, if you, people having a zoom meetings laid

up in their couch doing whatever like no

man no that doesn't work it really doesn't work okay so i want to go back to

animate a little bit i just want to remind you that because i think it has a

lot to do with it i think being able to animate that face a little bit when

someone says something psycho you need to be like.

When someone says something incredible, let the whimsy shine.

Like you need to have a little bit of infliction in your face,

much harder for those of us who are respectable because they can hide it.

But you could do things like, what?

You know, like add a little, that's the showmanship, right?

Don't be over the top. Don't overthink it. But you have to remember to add a little something.

Now, you want to see something. When we get to the practice part,

this will make sense to you in a second.

But if you want to see something do your

practice recordings okay and

in your practice recordings i want you to record the

way you normally record and then i

want you to stop the recording there's gonna be a 15 20 30 second recording

i just want you to sit there crack the mic no thought just record record 15

seconds okay now i want you to stand up shake it out whatever that looks like to you. I'm stiff today.

Stretch, couple deep breaths. Do like a 30-second box breathe, which is in, hold for,

let it out in four, hold for, let it in in four, hold for, box breathe for a

second, calm down, sit back, turn it on again.

Before you open the mouth, smile. And now have that exact same conversation

with a smile on your face and watch the two recordings back to back.

Do one recording the way you just crack the mic and let it out

however you let it out and then the second one smile i

know this sounds crazy but in the dj booth

whenever we would read a commercial we had

a gigantic piece of tape stuck to the to the phone booth which says smiles and

there is a tiny little mirror in the recording booth right you know the box

is only this big barely fit in there and you got the little pad all the way

around you and then the microphone phone is there to put your headset on tiny

little window to look out,

but there's a little wee mirror and a piece of tape that says smile,

it sounds completely different when you have your line read with the smile on your face.

OK, if you do the exact same line read, I'm going to find something to read this just here.

I'll pick up this can of LaCroix and you say sparkling water,

passion, fruit, naturally essence is completely different from sparkling water,

passion, fruit, naturally essence.

It's the same thing. But something about the smile muscles actually change the

infliction of your voice.

So smile and mrs rosen

sixth grade algebra teacher lady used

to piss me off because she would smile

at you while she's cursing you out about your algebra you didn't

do all of the probably did not show your work i'm going to have to give you

a d today because you did not show your work how many times was we remind you

to show your work and i'm lady i'm brilliant i don't need to show my work i

can do the problem in my head and then she's like well i can't test your head

I go pull a random problem out the sky and I will do it.

Never touch a piece of chalk and I will spit out the answer. I'm not cheating.

I just do it in my head. I don't need to write it down. And we would fight about

this constantly because she swore to God, if you're not writing it down in the

steps, you're cheating.

I'm like, it's faster for me to do it in my head than it is for me to write

it down. Right? It's as simple as that.

Try that test. Do the test. Sit down, go to your bathroom, crack the mic,

do a 15 second read on whatever you want. Right.

For my homie, Yolanda is going to be the Ravens and the Chiefs season opener.

Right. To sit down, have a 15 second recording about that and then do the exact

same recording with a smile on your face. It is completely different.

The people you watch on TV that you want to punch in the face the most.

They probably smile while they're talking because it's like,

how can you be such an a-hole and be grinning about it the whole way?

All right anyway so um there's that and then this one of the last ones i want to bring to you.

Is a little weird at times

but i think it really helps me when i'm doing a live it's different i'm interacting

with you guys completely different conversation when i'm recording a video like

a solo and there's nobody to talk to i think and i pretend in my head that i'm

talking to a single person often so much.

So now when I do my shorts and my reels and stuff, I will actually mention the person's name, uh.

In the recording, keep it or

not, it doesn't matter, but it's often better to talk to a single person.

Number one, it makes the person on the other end of feel like they're talking to you.

Okay. So I see tons of people still going, Hey, what's up everybody?

Uh, yeah, kind of, it's better if you don't do that. It's better if you talk

to it in the, I'll say creators, right. Or I'll say, Hey creator.

And it sounds like I'm talking to a single person sitting

down and feeling like you're having a conversation with one person that

you deeply love is much much easier okay so

back in the day i used to actually put a legit paper i had a picture of jessica

albus taped to the underneath of my lens so whenever i was coming to do a recording

i was talking to jess me and jess was homies you know what i mean uh it could

be i like the vlog Vlogbrothers.

Vlogbrothers is the most perfect example of this.

They talk to John and Hank. They talk to each other.

They're talking to us, but they do their vlogs as good morning,

Hank, or good morning, John.

And then they will get into their talk because it feels like they're having

a talk with a close person that they love.

They're talking to their brother. I do a lot of my recordings saying I'm talking

to Mary Lou or I do a lot of my recordings, you know Like I'm talking to Aubrey, right?

I'm today. I'm doing recording I'm talking to Yolanda because football season

is coming up and after kickoff next week I ain't talking to her until February

or at least till after the the game and the Raiders beat the Ravens then I'll

talk all kind Of smack to her and then she will hide and cower in her little purple closet. I.

Raider Nation, Raider Nation. All right, back to the subject they had, right?

Again, being able to feel like you're having a conversation with a homie makes a big difference.

It really will help you woosah it out.

So talk to your homie. Like, put a picture over there if you got to.

Feel like you're having a conversation to your homie. It's a lot less creepy

to have anybody, which is why. Why? Hold up. Pump the brakes.

Luis, special effects.

Here's the reason why we say record your podcast live on YouTube with the live studio audience.

Because now I'm not talking to myself. I'm actually see Hank and Gretchen and

Will and Paul, Luis, like Aubrey. They're all here.

Right. So when I'm having these conversations, I'm talking to my homies.

I'm not sitting here talking to myself. So in the in the best chance possible,

if you record your podcast live, if nobody is sitting in the last of your audience,

but your mama, it will come out a lot better than talking to yourself.

It's just talking to yourself is extremely hard. It just is.

So the last thing I'm going to put on you is fam.

There is nothing to it, but to do it, you have got to practice.

Yes, AI, we are talking about practice.

You have got to practice. There's

no way you get good at this without practice. It just doesn't exist.

There's no such thing as natural born talent. None of that. That's just BS.

You've got to practice. Why are little kids so good on camera most of the time?

Nobody told them that they shy yet.

Roll up on a small, small kid and put them on camera. They would do their thing.

That Steve Harvey show, you know, about young superstars.

They're just brilliant they're brilliant because nobody told

them to be scurred yet so you literally really

just have to go in and do this

you've got to practice so i'm gonna back this up i'm gonna give you the rundown

really quickly this time because i made little notes see i wrote it down here

i'm gonna give you the rundown real quickly again so here's your list they're

not in any particular order, every single one of these is important.

I don't want to say any one is more important than the other.

These are all important.

And if you can only do three at a time, fine, you will eventually get to where

all of these things just come to you.

They will be muscle memory. They will be second nature.

Okay. So here's the list.

Those things actually work, by the way. No one does that for the fun of it.

It actually does work. Okay.

First of all, let's start with, if you don't know your topic,

you're going to have a hard time.

Even if you are coming in as a beginner, put yourself in the role of the beginner

and live there. Live there with full confidence.

I know jack about fountain pens.

I am sort of brand new to this, but I am all in.

Thank you, Aubrey. So as I'm going through learning my fountain pen journey,

I'm going in with the curiosity of an eight-year-old.

So that in itself is knowing my topic, right?

Know your topic. If you're wishy-washy on your topic, like if you're trying

to punch above your weight, so to speak, it's not going to work.

It's just going to really feel weird. It's going to feel fake.

It's going to feel placasant. Yeah, it's a whole bunch of things.

You don't want to do that.

So know your topic. command your voice what do

i mean by command your voice we're going to add a little style we're going

to add a little bit of tone we're going to add a little bit of

pitch and we're going to add a little just pace slow it down speed it up slow

it down you're going to control your voice you're going to add a little here's

the thing if you look at the greatest Right?

I'm going to give you the top three. I'm going to give you the top.

The list is ever evolving, but I'm going to just give you top three.

Biggie M10.

Right. One thing that they did very well is they changed the pace.

They changed the pace.

That wasn't a standard pentameter. It wasn't a standard on beat pentameter.

They all rhymed off beat.

And that alone made them stick out more than anybody else, because up until not really up until.

But before Biggie, most thing was da-dun, da-dun, da-dun, da-dun,

da-dun, da-dun, da-dun, da-dun, da-dun, da-dun, da-dun, da-dun. Very common.

Biggie came in with live from Bedford Stuyvesant, the live-est one,

representing BK to the fullest, right?

The beat would be here, he's over here, the word does not fit in the beat.

That, some of the best. If you look at the best, if you go down the list in

your head right now, pull your top five.

I'm not even gonna argue with you about it. If you got ye in your top five, I will hurt you.

The hell with that dude. But pull your top five and listen to them and notice

that they don't tend to end on B.

They start and start phrases in middle of the B, right? Just so you know that.

That's changing your pentameter so that it works, right?

Yes, Trevor goes on the list. He's in the top five for sure.

Tora. Okay. I'm not doing this live. I'm not paying attention to the audience.

I'm ignoring them anyway.

So I want to say confidence.

Yo, it matters. It shouldn't, but it does.

And one of the things that can lift your confidence is definitely having your setups. Correct.

If you have a good mic, you got good camera, you got good lighting.

You just feel better about it. And so you just come in and you do their thing.

I know this is not something where everybody can start and it's okay.

You can make up for it with style and grace.

But when you have your, your, your light game straight up, you got your mic

game straight up, your camera game is straight up.

You sit down in your spot and you're like, I am rent to go. And it just comes out.

So when and where you can bless up those things, it will definitely give you

a little boost the confidence.

Now, I want to say there's no such thing as like getting more confident on camera.

It's a switch, bro. Turn it on, turn it off. You either I'm good at this or

you sit there and suffer in your mindset that you suck at this.

If you have in your mindset, you suck at this, you suck at this, right?

You have to have a positive mindset that is deep on the list.

You got to have a positive mindset.

Remember the bras method, breathe, relax, be prepared to articulate in speech

control your breathing compose your thoughts and whenever necessary take a beat

like legit just like hold that thought.

Okay yeah so now i'm ready to let me go ahead and explain this to you,

those things come off very well on camera like it's absolutely okay to take

a beat it is okay to stop for a second and let it marinate i often talking about

controlling pitch you'll find out Now, nine times out of 10,

when I hit you with something hardcore,

I hit you with something deep that I let it marinate.

I always let it marinate. Right. So at the end of this list,

I'm going to hit you with something deep and then I'm going to let it marinate.

And it will just come out automatically. And you probably forget that I said this.

But before the show is over, I'm going to hit you with a deep one and then watch what happens.

Watch how I deliver the deep messages at all times. You go back to any of my old recordings.

Whenever I deliver a deep message, I'm going to let that joint marinate.

You must. It's necessary. Right. So don't be afraid to take a beat. It is OK.

In a negotiation, when you get to the part about closing the deal,

he who speaks first loses.

Next time you're negotiating with the other half about, you know,

buying this vacation thing or doing this, something like that,

boom, you're going to see that.

Okay. So you got to have the positive mindset. You want to work in your posture.

Like, I'm not asking you to sit there like a stiff, but, you know,

try to get comfortable in your seat. If your seat is uncomfortable,

you're going to have a hard time.

So get yourself a good seat, sit there, be where the position where you're not

compressing your diaphragm. If you compress your diaphragm, it does affect your

ability to speak and affect your ability to breathe.

So you want to give your diaphragm some space. You want to kind of be there.

And then, yeah, you want to run with that. Okay.

And then let's add a little bit of personality to that face.

Like don't get in here and be like, hi, I'm Velvet Jones.

Today, I'm going to talk to you about my brand new book. Like,

no, you want to add a little something and you can start with just smile,

crack a smile and have a conversation with your people.

And it's going to be good. But now let's say, what if you're talking about something

solemn and you can't necessarily smile?

Then care. Put on your caring face and care.

People, I want to absolutely make sure that nobody goes broke over the next five years.

I'm going to tell you today how to put your money in a position so that you

don't go broke over the next five years. Here's some very important things we're going to look at.

We're going to look out for you. We're going to look out for your family. having a caring

smile i'm a caring face just as helpful but try

to add don't just don't be stiff do not

be stiff and uh practice practice practice practice

practice practice practice practice you will get good at it it just will come

to you it will come to you it will take some time it will come to you now again

your nervousness that's confidence and that confidence comes from knowing

your subject, when you know what you're talking about, you probably ain't nervous about it,

you know, ask them, pull up on somebody that knows what they're talking about,

like, pull up on Luis and start talking to him about stand-up comedy,

you know, there won't be any slouching, there won't be any, oh,

give me a second, blah, blah, none of that, like.

Yeah, so, that's it, like, that's my on-camera presence,

know your topic, command your voice, uh you know

get your setup straight uh breathe relax articulate speak

positive mindset control your posture add

a little style and grace to your face add a little tone pitch flicks and addiction

to your conversation when you're talking and then uh talk to one person so and

the way you practice is record it watch yourself repeat record it watch yourself

repeat try different positions Try standing up, try sitting down,

try smiling before, try watching comedy before you record.

Try watching comedy before you record. Try watching something funny before you record.

Try not to have a conversation with a tough phone call before you crack the

mic. Sometimes it's going to come up, but this is when you switch.

Let's go. Let's go. Do not. No, do not do Sunday, Sunday, Sunday radio voice.

Today, welcome to the Alphabet Broadcasting System.

Don't do that. The reason why you don't want to do that, when people see you

real life at a conference, you don't sound like that.

You look like a dick. Like, second of all, you don't want to have that to where

you do have an off day where everybody can feel it.

Right now, what you probably don't notice, other than the way I sound,

I am sick as a dog right now.

But I turn that crap off. I come over here and I do the show.

And then I'm going to immediately finish this, go upstairs, relax for like an

hour, drink some hot tea, come right back and do another show.

And then I'm going to go back to bed.

But when you got it locked in, you're able to just switch it on, switch it off.

That's it. That is your camera presence in a nutshell. And this has been the flow.

Now, if you want to find out more about the flow, you can find us every single

week right here, live on YouTube, recording this show.

And you go to flow.ecam.com. This is where you can leave us feedback.

You can subscribe to the show. You can add it to your YouTube list,

your Spotify list, your Apple list, wherever you want to be.

This is how you get yourself connected with the flow. But by all means,

leave us questions, leave us comments, leave us feedback.

You can even leave us voicemail all over there on flow.ekm.com.

This show is recorded every week live on YouTube and brought to you by Captivate.

As soon as we record this show, I send these files over to Luis.

Luis chop it up like he chopping broccoli. And then the next week we issue it

live in the podcast space.

Basically using Captivate is one of the best podcast hosts in the game.

They come at you with a growth mindset. So having a podcast platform that really

focuses on growth is a good way to help you grow your show.

So big ups to Captivate. You can find out more about them at Captivate FM.

F M that's C A P T I V A T E dot F M.

Like now I won't say what the FM stands for.

Anyway, you can check out captivate and thanks to them for allowing us to do this fancy show.

That's it. That's it. So, uh, what are we going to do now is dip into the live studio audience.

Everybody who's watching this on YouTube, YouTube is going to show you a couple

of videos that they think you should watch. You know, I agree with them.

So check those out and, uh, you have been in the flow.

You know we do we finish this with our flow rider live crew we say flow riders out.

Music.