Why We Must Stay Optimistic During Setbacks

As I pulled into the gas station in a remote part of southeastern Utah, I was thankful to finally find cell reception to prepare for Watching Yourself.

Tethering my phone’s hotspot to my laptop, I hurriedly logged onto the webinar where I was my pre-recorded presentation for a client in Texas, engaging in realtime on the CHAT feature with the attendees.

It worked perfectly, and was so fun to see reactions of viewers to my virtual leadership presentation of comedy, music, impressions, stories, and ideas as to how real estate agents could keep The Promise and have a better Work From Home experience during COVID-19 Pandemic craziness.

Question: When was he last time you WATCHED YOURSELF?

If you are Kim Kardashian, and you’re reading this, first off, I’m very offended you’ve never commented on this blog, and secondly, this would be a question you could answer very quickly with:

“I was watching myself JUST NOW!”

But for the rest of us, how often are we not just taking the selfie and posting but rather taking a moment to sit and watch ourselves work?

If you’ve been in the industry of telemarketing, they are RECORDED and have to listen back to their performance with a manager!  As if that job isn’t tough enough!  Brutal.

When is the last time you re-watched your performance?

Candidly, I find myself watching back quite a few shows and speeches I’ve given, while I’m alone in my office at the video editing bay, and I can watch it objectively in order to share a video online later.

But it’s a WHOLE DIFFERENT ANIMAL watching yourself pre-recorded while others are commenting and chatting about it in realtime on ZOOM!

Let’s just say, terrifying, horrifying, and embarrassing may not be strong enough words for what I experienced – even on a recording and performance the client deemed as “Super Successful!”.

To me – this performance was not as good as the comment section suggested.

You see, I knew I could do better.

Not in the sense of “I’m My Harshest Critic” better…because that’s always there.

But this was a complete realization that I was doing too much:

Trying way too hard to get laughs
Jumping from one thought to another without tying the bow on top
Attempting to create engagement when it caused confusion

Singing a song that didn’t hit the mark
Not singing enough when it could have worked better to drive the point home
Stories that were good in person, but could be done differently on virtual
Etc etc etc
Remember: I MADE the video 2 weeks prior to the event, and watched it back alone in my office, yes I even thought it was AWESOME!  And then I confidently sent it to the client.

2 weeks later, there I was, watching it LIVE with hundreds of realtime attendees, and that was a completely new game in how I viewed my creation and what could be improved immediately for the next one.

Watching Yourself

After the video presentation ended, I turned off the computer, sitting in the parking lot of a gas station, and I had some choices to make, accountability to face…and it was simple, really:

I have room to improve – AND – I know EXACTLY what needs to be done!

The power of Watching Yourself while others are watching you is kind of an “Inception” moment – a dream within a dream – I was looking around for a top to spin and see which level I was in.

How often do we subject ourselves to this level of improvement?

Are we fearful of the reality check we’re about to experience?

Most likely, you would do anything you can to get away from this type of scrutiny.

But the greatest athletes demand watching the tape of their last game, golf swing, or the loss of a championship.

The best singers listen to the recording, over and over, until they get their best on tape.

The best actors insist on watching the last take, in order to do better on the next roll of film.

WATCHING YOURSELF is The Promise of Performance Improvement.

How can you foster an environment in your office/workplace to make this an exciting and positive experience?

The Watch Yourself Checklist:

Schedule a Performance Viewing Party – Announce: We are going to watch back over the last ZOOM sales call/performance/leadership meeting and discuss our findings
Start with The Leader – IF you are the Leader of this whole idea, you must begin with yourself
Be Vulnerable and Ready – Know that there may be some digs but lead the feedback to start with…

Every Positive Possible – Challenge your team to ONLY name the positives at first (write them down!)
Ask One-By-One for 2 Improvement Adjustments – Allow Team Members to give 2 thoughts on how to improve
Solutions – Let each Team Member know they can ONLY say what needs to be improved if they have a suggestion and solution for how it can be
What is your Promise for Improvement?

Watch Yourself!  It will blow your mind at how rapidly you level up the next performance.

Comment below about your experience doing this process, I’d love to know how this works for you, as it has changed all of my performances in the past week!

~ jason hewlett

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