Just be you… might just be the most unhelpful and complicated advice someone can receive. In my 20’s working in TV that would have sent me into a tailspin, or later on in my career I simply would have ignored it, experienced enough to know the Director didn’t really know how to articulate it any better himself.
Just be you… what does that mean?
We can accept that there are multiple characters, flavours, colours, and aspects to us. We’re an infinite possibility and with that comes a gift; multiple shades of our intricate selves of which we articulate from.
When approaching a topic, what we do without thinking is have a pre-conceived idea of how we’re going to approach it and of course, the best state of mind we can be in to present it. Most Presenters would like to believe they’ll be able to do this by putting their best foot forward and show up as the best version of themselves. But we’re human, what version is that?
On a regular basis when we go to articulate our topic, that version we were hoping would show up has failed to get the memo! And what we get instead is the melancholic, not funny, tired, deeper than usual version of ourselves. Basically, every other shade but the one we had imagined.
And here lies the real gold, the opportunity to express our topic from another shade of ourselves that in this moment, on this day, just happens to be perfect for not only yourself but someone listening.
Accepting how we’re feeling while still staying focused on our topic, we have the opportunity to articulate from this ‘shade’ which will take the viewer and ourselves on a whole new and unique journey. The words will be soaked with our truth, the viewer will feel more connected as we’ve not layered on a mask and tried to carry on as we had imagined it and the words will come from the place where we have given ourselves the best possible opportunity to play in flow or as I like to call it, become a conduit for infinite wisdom.
My Presenting Methodology is based around giving ourselves the opportunity to present from whatever shade we may be turning up in, accepting that here lies the truth and that when we get out of our own way, and remove pre-conceived expectations of how its ‘meant’ to be done, our fantasy or perception of what a Presenter should look like, we actually give ourselves a real chance of playing at the vanguard of what we do and discover things we didn’t even know that we knew.
That’s ‘Just Be You’…
