Building confidence on camera.
This is by far one of the biggest things that streamers struggle with
even I struggled with when I first got started, but how did I overcome
those challenges of being on camera, turning on the camera, being able
to speak in front of the camera?
What are some of the things that I did to be able to overcome that?
And hopefully today you can overcome those challenges as well, so that
people can be able to see your face.
See your emotions and be able to connect if you on a deeper level.
So, number one, the first thing that I did was I started to talk to myself and
it sounds kind of crazy, but you want to talk to yourself as much as possible.
And when I say talk to yourself, you really want to do it everywhere.
When I was brushing my teeth, I would talk to myself in front of the mirror.
When I'm driving in the car, I would talk to myself inside the car.
I would just have conversations when I was playing the game.
I would just talk to strangers on the game.
You say, well, Curry, you know, that's, that's talking, that's
not being in front of a camera.
It's a little bit different.
But.
A lot of the times, the reason why you're scared to turn the camera,
sometimes it's, it's physical appearance, but most of the time it's because of
the way that you speak or the things that you're gonna say or not knowing
how you're going to approach this.
So first you do gotta get comfortable speaking to a camera, speaking to
someone that's not physically there, but imagining that somebody is there.
And the easiest way to do that is to think of your best friend.
How do you approach talking to your best friend?
What are the things that you do to be able to go ahead and connect with them?
So you wanna make sure.
You're doing that then from there, like nowhere to look, I think it's
important that sometimes I'll look away, but for the most part, you wanna
make eye contact with the camera.
Now it may, you don't wanna be super locked into the camera.
Look a little bit above the camera, to the viewers.
It's gonna look like you're making eye contact and occasionally look away.
Remember, you're talking to a friend here and you treat everyone like an
individual, like you're just talking.
And when you do that, you're not having a conversation with your friend,
just being locked in you have a conversation, you look away, you think,
. So you also gotta get comfortable just being yourself on the camera.
And the easiest way to do that is.
Know where to look.
So that way, when you can't get your gaze off of the camera, you know exactly where
to come back to be able to reengage.
So those are some of the things that I did also know what it is
that you're gonna talk about.
I think is super important.
Confidence comes from knowing what it is.
You're gonna say, knowing from what it is you're gonna do.
And if you have an idea and I talk about this frequently about creating
a plan, creating a structure, understanding what you're coming
into your stream to be able to do.
It's gonna give you a little bit more confidence, outta the gate,
because you're gonna know your topic.
You're gonna know what you're talking about.
So you really, really want to lock into that.
It's super important.
It's something I did early on is something I constantly do.
I'm currently doing it now.
I'm not coming into the stream without a plan.
I have a plan.
What am I gonna talk about today?
How do I build confidence on camera?
What are the topics I'm gonna hit, having confidence in knowing what
it is you're gonna talk about.
And most of all, what is the biggest thing you could do is practice,
practice, practice, practice, turn the camera on, do a mock stream.
Do you know how many times I would turn my camera on and sit down at my desk,
do a live stream, but never go live.
Why because I just gotta get comfortable knowing that the camera
is there, but there's nobody here.
I just gotta get comfortable knowing that the camera is there and I'm just
able to talk and have engagements.
So do a practice stream.
Turn the camera on, get fully, fully dressed, get ready to
live stream, get all your stuff.
Ready to go.
Not only does this help you develop a.
But again, it's comfortability, you gotta step outside your zone because first off
you gotta get comfortable with the camera.
You gotta get comfortable looking at the camera.
You gotta get comfortable talking to the camera.
You gotta get comfortable.
Just like when I'm looking at the camera now, I don't see a camera.
I see my perfect viewer.
I see the person.
That's my friend.
I see.
I see Dom.
I see Shawna.
And I'm just talking directly to you guys.
I see everybody who's in the chat and I'm just like, you know, what,
how would I approach the camera and talk to the camera as a friend?
So that's number one.
Speaking is a big part of it.
So when you do a mock stream, you're gonna get that practice in.
And what else can you do?
Look at other streamers, take a look at other streamers to see what are
they doing to be able to engage.
And I'm gonna talk a little bit about, cause sometimes it is a, a,
a physical kind of fear of being on the camera, but at the end of the
day, The biggest challenges is you wanna look at other streamers, you
wanna look at other people, how are they engaging with their community?
What are the things that they're doing?
What are the things they're talking about?
How are they appearing on camera?
Are they more lax?
Are they more energetic or what are they doing?
And then just look to emulate that, take it to your practice zone.
Every single video game has a practice mode, before you dive into the
actual game, apex has a fine range, so I could work on my gun skill.
Same.
Create a mockup mockup stream practice, get in there, get
comfortable with the camera.
And before you know it, you're not gonna know what that's on.
So with that streaming also requires a lot of energy, you gotta be pumped up,
you gotta be able to project your voice.
You gotta, and, and not all streamers are like that.
Some streamers are more chill and relax and that's cool.
But you also gotta know yourself and know when is the best time for you to
be able to stream, when are your energy levels, the highest doesn't need to
be, you need to be 10 times energetic, but what is the time of the day that
you feel that you have the most energy to be able to not only sustain talking
for a long period of time and engaging and having that creativity and locking
into the game, you gotta figure that out, that comes in part of picking
your schedule and creating that plan.
And I talked about that on day one, so.
It's not about you, it's about what you say.
So again, when you come here and people watch your stream, cool, they
want to come and spend time with you.
But it's not about what, what I'm doing.
It's about what I'm saying.
It's about what value you guys are getting out of this content,
what are you coming to the stream?
To be able to get so more than like my setup, none of that matters
is what, what I have behind me.
Doesn't matter with the gear that I have.
Doesn't matter.
It plays a little bit of role, but when you think about 80,
20, 20% of that is the gear.
80% of that is what you say, what are you teaching?
What are you, what are you showcasing?
What are you, what value are you bringing to the community that you want to serve?
So focus more on what you're gonna talk about and, and what
you plan on doing on your stream.
More than you worry.
How you look, what kind of gear you have, what your setup is,
because that slows you down.
You first gotta get comfortable just talking and engaging and being yourself
and being the human that you are outside of streaming, outside of being outside.
I know your friends know you for better than who you are and they know the
kind of personality that you have.
They're like, wow, like, why are you being different on stream?
Don't be different, be yourself because that's, what's gonna attract the
people that you want to be able to see.
You have to share personal stories.
That's the easiest way to get comfortable, when you have a friend and you're
having that conversation share personal stories, the more comfortable you are
sharing your personal stories, the challenges that you have, the anxieties
that you have, the more comfortable you're gonna feel that when you turn on
that camera and you look at that chat.
You're gonna see friends that are there for you wanting to be there because they
get to know you, they know your story.
How often have you guys heard the coin story?
How often have you heard the challenges that I faced?
It's because it's a way for us to be able to connect and for
you to get me to know me better.
And then it also gets me more comfortable sharing more of those stories.
So again, you can do this in a mock stream.
You don't have to do it directly live.
It, it, but at the end of the.
It doesn't matter.
You're not going for perfection.
I can mess up here multiple times.
It's okay.
Like it's not a big deal.
We're live.
We're literally now, regardless of where you are at.
No matter the time, no matter the zone, no matter the place.
We're all here in the same moment at the same time, living
this moment out together.
So it's live it's in real time.
So when you're talking to a friend and you mess up, you just like, oh, you know, Cut.
Let's just start the conversation over again.
No, you just say, oh my bad boom.
And you just keep going.
So again, I think you, we lock into perfection and perfection slows us down.
So that's another thing you don't have to be perfect.
Okay.
You don't have to be perfect.
It's okay.
To be able to mess up.
And the biggest driver, the biggest thing that held me back when I first got started
getting comfortable with the camera was.
I'm literally getting rid of bad thoughts, get rid of your bad thoughts.
We, we sometimes self talk to ourselves and bring ourselves down.
Oh, how am I gonna look?
Oh, what are people gonna say, oh man, it's not perfect.
Oh, like my quality or like we self talk ourselves.
And when you realize that, like we're the hardest on ourselves, like other
people are not gonna be that hard on you.
Like they're not really concerned with that.
And if you do have people that come in and.
Oh, you look ugly or like, oh wow.
Your room is gross.
Or like, can you fix your audio quality?
A so what plenty of other streamers, you can go check out.
I'm worrying about me, I'm doing what I need to do.
And you'll see that the scale of the people that troll you and the people that
support you is always gonna be more so.
Try your best to be able to get rid of those thoughts.
And I say that that comes before you even start talking to yourself that
comes before you start to practice, you gotta get your mindset and
get yourself like, you know what?
Like, I don't care.
I'm turning on this camera.
I'm getting on here.
I'm not to practice.
Why?
Because streaming is something I wanna do.
Content Creation is what I wanna do and I'm not going to stop.
So what do you do?
Like when you go outside, you just hide, no, you go to the store, you go out there.
You and what, because people don't engage with you or talk to you.
It's a little bit easier.
It's the same thing.
Turning on the camera is the same thing going to work.
It's like going to the gas station.
It's like going to public places.
It's the same thing you can't hide.
You could, but you won't, you don't.
So it's the same thing don't hide in front of the camera.
You just gotta get comfortable with it.
So that's, that's the big, the biggest thing that I can tell you.
And then lastly, this is the biggest thing for me.
Is that you step outside of your comfort zone.
So many times you feel that fear inside, but that's what you have to do.
It took me a long time to be able to lean into that fear
when I was like, you know what?
Oh man, I'm uncomfortable.
Oh man.
Like, I don't really wanna do this.
You start shaking.
You start sweating, man.
I just showered up.
I stink now, like what is going on?
You, you just gotta lean into it.
Because at the end of the day, you're gonna suck in the beginning.
You're not gonna be good.
I didn't, I didn't like this is like you, you're seeing me here
now talking consistently for like five minutes or so about a topic,
but I didn't always start there.
Right.
I didn't always feel comfortable talking about the things that I talked about and
I never would get this real with people.
I would only do this outside now.
This is my personality.
What you're seeing here live is who I am.
Like, I'm gonna tell you how it is and I'm gonna try to help you as much as
possible and give you the idea of like, Hey, this is the things you gotta do.
But the only way that you're gonna be able to go ahead and combat having
confidence on camera is to step outside your comfort zone and just actually do
it all the tips that I gave you prior to this are important, they matter.
But if you don't feel the, find the courage to be able to say, you know
what, I'm gonna turn this camera and I'm gonna do this because at the end of the
day, like, I, I have a passion for this.
I wanna do this, like I want my audience to connect with me.
Like I want people to know that I'm a real human, like yeah.
There's faceless channels.
Yes.
You can go out there and make content without showing your face.
But at the end of the day, it's like, cool.
That's what you wanna do, do that.
But if you're doing it because you're afraid to turn the camera on, I'm
telling you now you're gonna regret it.
And the biggest thing that I told myself when I was younger,
I lived by this R R rule.
I'd rather get rejected than have.
I'd rather get rejected than have regret.
I'd rather turn on the camera, show up, start streaming and get
everybody trolling me than me.
Never turn the camera on and never even give somebody the opportunity to troll me.
Because I'm the only one that's gonna suffer because I it's, my it's what
I wanna do and I didn't push forward.
So I hope that this today inspires you to be able to push the go live.
To turn that camera on to, to get comfortable with who you are as a person,
understand that you're, you're beautiful.
You you're perfect.
You were made the way you were meant to be made, and you're meant to be able to share
the things that you're meant to be shared.
All your experiences.
All of your challenges are meant for a reason, because you have a story to tell.
So tell the story, get on the camera and build your community.
So.
Please just start.
I want you guys to start.
I want you guys to feel confident in what you're doing and understand that this is
a process and you have to fall in love with the actual process and the journey
of becoming the person you gotta become.