I’m far from perfect. In fact, I tend to be on the cynical side. Not that it’s necessarily bad in and of itself, but it makes me lean more toward thinking and acting negatively more often than not.
A lot of people are like that and go through life without giving a crap about it. That’s who they are, and the rest of the world can deal with it or screw off.
But I’m more self-conscious. I understand this part of mypersonality probably hasn’t helped me achieve the success I want. More importantly, it hasn’t helped me be the person I’d like to be.
My self-awareness has made me try to be better… more like normal humans. For instance, I hate small talk. Throughout my career, I’ve avoided it like the plague. Not kidding – I felt physical discomfort if someoneengaged me in small talk.
But then I realized… Well, small talk is something human beings do. So maybe I should at least try.
Now I make small talk with colleagues or even people behind the counter at the store. I don’t enjoy it – it’s just not my nature. But it doesn’t cause me discomfort any longer. It’s a skill I developed, and it took me several times of consciously making that effort.
One more example: I took my cat into the vet one day. They took him back to get blood for a test. While in the waiting room, a woman walked in, looking for a receptionist to pick up a prescription.
No one came out for about 5 minutes, so the woman just decided to sit down until someone came out.
Soon afterward, another woman came in. About 20 seconds later, the receptionist emerged. As the second woman began speaking to her, I realized the first woman, who’d been there longer, wasn’t going to assert herself and let the other lady know she was there first.
So I spoke up, “Excuse me. Sorry. I think she was here first.”
The second woman was nice. She didn’t realize the other person had been waiting, and she apologized.
As the first woman was leaving, she turned to me and mouthed, “thank you.”
Ordinarily I wouldn’t have done that. My cynical self would have said, “Hey. If she’s not going to speak up for herself, then that’s too bad for her.”
But again, I want to be a better person – someone who helps out a stranger even when there’s nothing in it for me. I felt that was a good opportunity to practice.
Why do I tell that story? I think it’s important that if you want to be more like a particular type of person – even if you don’t need to be 100% that type of person for the rest of your life – you should practice as often as possible.
If you want to be a nice person, do nice things. If you want to be a more outgoing person, do things from time to time that an extroverted person might do. The more you do it, the better you’ll be, and the closer you’ll get to
“Get to the damn point, Jon,” I can hear you uttering. The damn point is this:
You want to be a better video marketer. So you need to practice – do things that a good video marketer would do. Get on Facebook Live and offer some helpful tips to your followers. Record a quick demo video that shows how your product or service can bring value to your customers.
These are just abstract examples, but if you’re serious about becoming better at video marketing, maybe you need a little help to head in the right direction.
The little help you need might come by subscribing to Video Marketing Playbook.
But if you want a little more hands-on help, maybe my Pro or Elite Video Coaching Programs are the way to go. Either way, the bottom line is this: if you want to be a good video marketer, start acting like it.
Do things that a good video marketer would do. Reach out tome anytime and we’ll make you a better video marketer than you are right now.