OK so this isn’t turning out to be as easy or as fun as I’d like
When I was a child I was obsessed by the idea that one day I, like Michael Parkinson or Terry Wogan (I can’t remember any women back then) would have my own chat show. That I would sit on a beautifully made set, surrounded by fascinating people that would come in and chat with me about their amazing lives. I too would be living an amazing life full of adventure as I went ‘sciencing’ and travelling my way around the universe in search of stuff that would make me to ‘wow’. My role models for this part of my dream being Sir David Attenborough and Michael Palin.
I also loved the idea of having a ‘Blue Peter’ kind of show for children where I would make stuff and explain the adult world in more simple, relatable terms.
But then I turned into a teenager, forgot all of that and got on with my life.
Well, I didn’t forget it all, I did go travelling quite a bit and ending up as an adult with a job at Fizzics Education was a good way of getting my adult ‘sciencing’ and ‘explaining stuff to children’ fix.
And now I’m here.
Aged 40 (nearly 41) and what the world wants is video content.
Blogging on here is one of the lovely things I get to do as part of my consulting work. I love writing, it slows down and organises my brain, allows me to feel a flow that is so often missing in my non-writing life. The prospect of having to replace at least some of that writing time with screen time was something that I initially thought I’d enjoy, a dream come true of sorts. However, now I’m doing it I’m not so sure. Yet…..
At the moment I am filming myself. I have my smart phone (all you need these days is a smart phone!), a lab, a lab coat with MY COMPANY NAME ON IT and a bucket load of ideas. Should be easy huh?
But so far it hasn’t been that easy or that much fun. Well, parts of it have been OK but if truth be known the whole process has exposed some of my darkest dislikes about myself and I realise that I just HAVE to get over these.
In real life I am a bit of a real-life mad professor type. Everything is fascinating, everything is do-able and I am amazingly good at pulling ideas from all over the place and into a pretty spectacular formula which I then go on to sell my clients. I get that feeling of flow when I do this and it really is quite addictive.
When I teach classes in real-life I am animated, funny, engaging and full of life. It is not uncommon for people who have attended my classes to become my life-long blog-friends or clients which is really lovely.
But I’m finding that when the camera is on me I am losing all of that. Well, most of that.
My fear is that the things that come together to make me a pretty awesome and unique professional in real life are being left on the table at home when the cameras come out only to be replaced by a slightly middle-aged looking woman with averagely messy hair, stress written all over her face and a mouth that is prone to bursts of EITHER rambling OR Swearing (when I get it wrong). And when I come to move or show something on camera it looks a bit messy and not befitting of the elegance that I am perfectly capable of in my own time.
I fear that because I’m clearly not a neat, linear-thinking person whose always got their proverbial crapola together that rather than gain peoples attention and get my messages across I’ll lose them.
And I also detest the way the whole process of getting a video to air is taking me so long. I am nothing if not impatient.
I am sitting here asking myself ‘where is the joy, the fascination, the fun’ and to be honest at the moment I don’t know.
I am going away this weekend to try and re-kindle that and to sit back from myself and find space to be kind to me and appreciate all the things that I am instead of what I am not.
I am going to work on ridding myself of the habit that has crept up on me of comparing myself to other video bloggers, comparing myself in a bad way.
I am going to try and remember that I need to ‘be myself because everyone else is taken’.
and hopefully that will make me feel and perform better.
Turns out that being outside of my comfort zone in this way is actually much more confronting than I had thought.
Amanda x
Realize Beauty 
I’d say you’re being a little tough on yourself. You are a gifted writer, scientist, formulator, and teacher. Now, you are feeling blue that you are not meeting the videographer expectations you’ve set for yourself? Maybe you just need help from a pro and forget about the smartphone as camera. At least, for now.
That is true, I am hard on myself but it is essential to critically evaluate yourself in order to work out what the problem is and move forward. I can get professional help once I’ve worked out what I want to portray and how I want to portray it. It is getting to that part that is hard but I must say I enjoy a challenge.
Agreed but it is okay to get help from time to time. You wouldn’t want your clients formulating sunscreen, would you? 🙂
Aha now I see where you are going with that! You have misunderstood my frustrations entirely. I am not at all concerned with not being able to produce a technically good video. That was my initial frustration, how hard it was to get a good camera angle, how my phone camera doesn’t pick everything up, the lighting etc. But those problems are only minor and yes, I have people who can help with that and I absolutely respect their respective crafts. But as frustrating as it is to not be able to create something amazing with no effort at all that isn’t what has got to me.
What has (or I should say HAD as I’ve addressed it now) got to me was that on reflection I didn’t know what I actually wanted from the process. I didn’t actually know what part of me I wanted to portray. I had basically fallen into a trap of ‘oh yeh, I’m a cosmetic chemist, I should make videos about how to do stuff and they would be good’ only I actually don’t want to do that.
In trying to make a ‘how to’ video I kept coming across as blundering, forgetful, off-on-a-tangent and sometimes irrelevant. I lost all the good stuff that makes me me. But that was because I didn’t have a plan for what I wanted to portray.
I have had customers come to me wanting a product, let’s say a sunscreen as you mentioned that, but they have no idea of what it is about their ‘sunscreen’ that would sell the product, what are they trying to get across, what is their brand about.
I couldn’t believe I’d fallen into that trap and jumped on the ‘just gotta make a video’ bandwagon.
Writing and sharing it here has helped me identify what my problem has been and has helped me solve it and identify more clearly what my particular take on video blogging will be about.
I get that my original piece might have sounded a bit spoilt girl whiny and take responsibility for the possibility that I came across that way but I can assure you that Is not my personality at all.
I’m sharing all this BECAUSE I have a successful brand and business and I want people to see that I too can be vulnerable, can fall into the same traps as everyone else, can be clueless and frustrated but that ultimately I can work through it hopefully in doing that can help others find the space to work through frustrations and challenges too.
And if none of that happens at least I’ll have got to know another aspect of my personality and worked out how to handle it.
This video thing has been a deep and wuite psychologically challenging experience.
And yes, once I’ve got my act together I will get a professional video person in to help as I am not planning to be that girl. The only problem is, just like my clients I have to find a way to fund that 🙂
I hope that clears up any assumptions you might have had.