Confidence & Communication: Liz Mosley

[0:38] Part of it is that sort of vulnerability hangover of being visible and sharing what you do with the world and I think in the past we just didn't have to do that in the same way because we weren't sharing our work with the world we were usually sharing it with like our small community

[0:54] Ian: Hello, and welcome to the Confident Live marketing podcast. My name is Ian Anderson Gray. And in this season, we are joined by amazing guests to talk about their confidence and communication journey because getting in front of the camera, In front of the microphone can be scary. Sometimes when we first start, we can be really lacking in confidence, or maybe you'd be doing it for a while and you're just wanting to get better at your communication, your engagement in front of the camera and the microphone.

[1:22] That's what this season is all about. And I'm really excited to have a returning guest onto the show. Who is the fabulous Rosalie who who is a graphic designer with over 15 years experience and now specializes in creating creative branding and websites for small business owners. She also hosts a podcast called building your brand.

[1:40] Do check that out. And she teaches courses showing people how to create their own branding and gifts if they don't have the budget to outsource it. Her goal for her clients and students is for them to come away with branding that they love. And that helps them to feel so proud and confident promoting their businesses and showing what they do with the world.

[1:58] Welcome back to the show, Liz. thanks for

[2:00] Liz: having me back again.

[2:02] Ian: Yeah, we had such an interesting conversation last time. It was really interesting to, We're talking about tech and gear, but just the kind of the psychology really behind a lot of it. And so I'm really interested to hear a bit more about your journey.

[2:14] As I said last time, we've not known each other for that long, probably, I think you said five or something months but we've met each other a couple of times in person at a few conferences. You do a lot of work with Adobe and I think we, yeah, we first met Adobe Max, didn't we in London, which was really cool.

[2:27] So I wanted to ask you like let's go back in time. Let's Can you remember the first time you got in front of the camera or in front of the microphone? How did you feel at the time? Did you feel a bit scared about it? Tell us a little bit more about how you were feeling and why you first jumped into the into the world of video and podcasting?

[2:49] Liz: That's such a good question. I think, I'm trying to think what the first time was and I think aside from like just showing up a bit on social media, the first time was doing A live workshop for, I don't know if you've heard of Creative Mornings. They're like a global, okay, it's amazing. It's like a global creative meetup kind of thing.

[3:13] And basically this amazing designer in the U. S. started it and they now happen in cities all over the world. And the person this amazing woman called Melin, who at the time was hosting the Cardiff chapter, in lockdown, asked me to do a live. On their Instagram, because they obviously had to do everything virtually, they weren't doing in person events.

[3:34] So I did that, and then she said, Would you like to do It's what they were calling field trips. And so basically it was an online workshop and people from all over the world could sign up to come. And I did one all about making your own animated GIFs that you could then, upload to Giphy and have on Instagram.

[3:52] And so that was like my first time teaching Online or doing a live stream, I guess showing up in video, on video in that way. And I was so nervous about it because I hadn't done anything like that before, which is wild to me now because since then I've basically done that like non stop. But that was the start of it all.

[4:11] So I was really nervous and I took ages to schedule it in because I was oh, I can't do this. And then on the day I had to, I, like the setup was ridiculous. I was doing it on a small child's day. desk in a particular corner of my bedroom with the laptop set up like so that the backdrop looked okay because I was really like aware that it was going out to like hundreds of people and I had to pre record a bit of it so that it could Show me doing something on an ipad because I didn't have like a set a Set up where I could do that live.

[4:41] So it was all very I don't know, bodged together. But it was amazing and I absolutely, I mean I was terrified before I did it, but at the time I absolutely loved it. I think over, I think about 350 people showed up, which is a lot for a live stream. Or for a live workshop and It was really fun.

[4:59] People loved it. One of the things I really struggled with was keeping up with the chat at the same time. And what was really funny to me was it was going quite fast, but I saw, because there was people from all over the world, people were like commenting and joking about how I pronounce things, because obviously I've got quite a like British accent.

[5:16] So that was very entertaining. So yeah, that was my first experience. So I was very nervous. One of the things that I should say is I am definitely the sort of person who says yes to things and then worries about them afterwards. Basically I say yes to a lot of things and then the night before I like have a really bad night's sleep and totally I'm like freaking out and panicking about it and then I do it and most of the time I absolutely love it and it's an amazing experience.

[5:43] But yeah, does that answer

[5:44] Ian: the question? It does. It does. And I very much empathize with that. Yeah I, I, I always say yes. Not always, but I quite often say yes. And then I regret it. I regret it the night before or the hour before and then I do it. And more often than not, it does go really well.

[6:00] And I love it. And it's exciting. And there is this. Yeah, there is this kind of tension between fear and excitement, I think, they are similar emotions. So that presumably at the end of that, that first one that I mean, that's a bit of a baptism of fire. That's your first experience, my goodness for a lot of people, they will maybe go live they'll test it maybe on a, like a Facebook profile where they can go live to just themselves or maybe they don't have much of an audience to begin with.

[6:29] And that's maybe a good place to start, but you started with like hundreds of people are watching you and I wouldn't recommend that necessarily for everybody, but one thing that did do, I'm sure is that really got your adrenaline going because there was so many people watching you knew that you needed to give your best and that there's something about getting that continual feedback that helps with your focus as well.

[6:52] I find that speaking at a conference. I almost find that easier sometimes because there are physical people there and I'm bouncing off the energy in the room. Whereas if you don't have that many people watching you live, yes, in one sense that helps you maybe be less anxious, but there's less energy to help you move forwards with that.

[7:11] How much of that do you think helped the fact that there was a lot going into that? A lot of people watching you, how much did that help or hinder you?

[7:20] Liz: Yeah, it really helped. Their energy was like, it, yeah, I mean the chat was really buzzing and having experienced the other extreme synths where there's not many people, they're all they, I mean in this instance I couldn't see them, but you know when you do like a workshop and they've all turned their cameras off and you can't really see people and teaching in that setup, I totally get why people do it, but it is It's harder.

[7:43] So I feel like I've, yeah, I've experienced both extremes and yeah, it was a baptism of fire and it was, Yeah, it was a big thing to do as the sort of like my, yeah, first live streaming and online teaching kind of thing. But what was amazing is that it led on to so many other things.

[8:02] So actually that workshop, I had a chat with a friend Who you know as well, Maneksha, and she was like, Liz, if that number of people showed up to learn about this, you need to turn this into a course, and then I created my first course, and then that gave me, that was a very different experience, because then that was like recording video in my room, and like editing it myself, and all this kind of stuff, I learned a lot putting that course together.

[8:24] Again, what's my backdrop going to be? How am I going to sort out the lighting? What am I going to use to record it? All the stuff that we talked about in our tech episode. And from there things have just I guess grown, then I started the podcast and at the start that wasn't video, but I got You know, it then did become me recording video as well so then I that was like a different way of Showing up on video and then also, like with reels becoming such a big deal like recording more content For social media.

[8:57] So yeah, I feel like that was the start and now I spend so much of my time making video Yeah

[9:02] Ian: It's funny, isn't it? I don't know about for you, but I really didn't like video. The first time I did it I was, ah, it was so scary, but it, but I didn't do what you did. I started slowly and I, over time I started to get a little bit more confident and then I ended up loving it.

[9:17] You've also mentioned friends and so there must have been I'm assuming blips along the way like that was yes you were really nervous but you did it you just loved it but I'm assuming there were maybe kind of feelings of doubt occasionally like a bit of kind of nervousness occasionally in your journey so I'd be interested if you could share some of those how did friends and other people Help with that because I think those of us, most of us, listening and watching, we're probably a lot of us solopreneurs and we might have small teams.

[9:50] And there's so much freedom that comes with it. I love that part of it. But the thing that we miss is, when you're working in a team, you've got more of that bouncing ideas off people. You've got that encouragement a lot more. And that's why I think having people around you, like friends and other connections who can help you makes a big difference.

[10:08] So I'd love to know your thoughts on that and your experience there.

[10:11] Liz: Yeah, I think that does make a big difference. I feel like I've been really fortunate in that I have built a real community of online business owner friends around me, who I can, send things and be like, what do you think about this?

[10:22] Do you think I should re record this? How do you think this looks? And they give me feedback. And I think that's definitely helped. But I think another big piece of it, in terms of gaining confidence, is just doing it, and then I guess getting the response from people. That first time I did it, thankfully, it went really well and I had a really good response from people.

[10:41] It opened up other opportunities. And I think each sort of thing that I've done has built on that confidence and has given me more confidence. And as I've upgraded the tech that I use or improved my process of creating videos I've learned so much the last few years about editing videos.

[11:00] So all of those things have built up my confidence and I think ultimately it is just doing it over and over again I think I Have also just been okay with it not being perfect and that's really helped me because then I can just learn as I go Do you know what I mean? So it doesn't i'm not waiting for everything to be perfect before I put out the course or I do this live stream Or I create this and I think another you mentioned at the beginning that we've both worked with Adobe.

[11:28] I think working with them has really helped because, and I think we mentioned this in the previous episode we recorded, like they, they didn't need things to be perfect. Like they were really focused on the content and the setup didn't have to be perfect. And I think that gave me a lot of confidence because I was actually like, if I can do this with Adobe, then I can totally do this for myself.

[11:48] And. Like one of the big memories I have and this is another example of saying yes, and then totally freaking out they asked me a couple of years ago to do a virtual talk at their Adobe max conference And this is one of the biggest design conferences in the world and I said, yeah, of course like amazing opportunity and then they have a very particular way of They have got a very particular process for creating that content.

[12:12] So they have particular software that you have to use to record it. And they have a team that edits it. And there's all this, all these kinds of things that you have to do. And I remember recording my session and submitting it to be approved. And then that night I had a total like meltdown.

[12:29] I don't think I slept. at all, because in my head I was like, this is gonna, I guess I was gonna be way more visible than I ever had before, because in the past I was quite aware of like where my content was going, or who it was going out to, but in this instance it was, it just felt like it was going out to the world, and obviously Adobe's platform is far bigger than mine, and So I was like, I got imposter syndrome that you would never believe.

[12:53] But what was really amazing is that it came out, it went live. I was there in the chat, chatting to people. I had so many really lovely messages from people. And then Adobe asked me to do it again the next year. And so then that was just like a real confidence boost. Cause it was like, okay, it obviously went well enough that they want me to do it again.

[13:11] And I think, yeah, sometimes we have to go through the sort of like really hard emotions of like imposter syndrome and having to help freak out about what we're doing. But then, like that sort of extra step on the journey of, oh, actually, no, I can do this. And people, really responded well to it.

[13:28] And I think all of those, you know, layer up to build up your confidence. Ultimately, you just have to do it. Do you know what I mean? It's like the whole It's like an annoying thing, but it's like the practice makes perfect and obviously we're not aiming for perfection, but the practice really is a big part of it.

[13:43] Ian: Yeah. No I think you're right. It's just doing it, but also being aware of the struggles and the potential struggles. And there are certain things that you can do along the way that will help with that. You mentioned perfectionism and perfectionism is it's such a curse when it comes in and it can really, It can suck all your energy and stop you from creating your content.

[14:03] And most of the time, it seems that you've been able to, that's not been an issue, but there's been imposter syndrome, which is there is an element of perfectionism in that, isn't that? Because you were assuming that Adobe wanted something that was. like much higher standard than what you think you were, even though your standard was absolutely amazing.

[14:21] And so that's a, quite a common thing. And sometimes imposter syndrome can rear its ugly head at like random times. I think I used to really struggle with it. It's not so much of an issue. today as it was, but boy, it sometimes just pops up when you just don't, you just think you're doing okay.

[14:37] And then it pops up. You think where, where did that come from? What was all that about? Has that been like an experience that you've had?

[14:44] Liz: Yeah, I think so. I think like you, I, One of the things that I'm really pleased about is that I don't feel like it affects me as much now, but it definitely pops up.

[14:55] And like you said, at unexpected times, I think I'm better at talking myself down from it now, and also I think I just have more, like a bigger bank of proof that I'm not an imposter, I guess, do you know what I mean? Like I've got more work under my belt that like reassures me. I, yeah, I think imposter syndrome is a funny one because I, I've heard people talk about it and, Some people just don't even think it's a thing and that it doesn't exist.

[15:26] Some, like people have got very mixed feelings about it. And I think ultimately I don't know if you've ever heard people talk about a vulnerability hangover, but I think when we're very like visible and we put ourselves out there, obviously people are going to have opinions about that.

[15:41] And they're going to have thoughts on what you're doing. And I think. Part of it is that sort of vulnerability hangover of being visible and sharing what you do with the world. And I think, in the past, we just didn't have to do that in the same way because we weren't sharing our work with the world.

[15:59] We were usually sharing it with like our small community, like maybe the people in your team knew what you were doing or maybe you've got a write up in a magazine or something. But there wasn't like this possibility that hundreds of thousands of people around the world are going to see what you're doing.

[16:13] So yeah it's a complex one. It's an interesting topic. I think

[16:17] Ian: it is. And I think we're all different. Some people don't struggle with this hardly at all. Like I know people who don't struggle with imposter syndrome. That's what they say to me, but I think some people are more susceptible to it.

[16:27] I know that I personally, I'm very susceptible, but I've done a lot of inner work on this. I would love to say it's not, but just being aware of that is, is so important. And yeah, just doing that work on yourself. I think so. Have there been any? We all love to hear the disaster stories.

[16:44] Have there been any disasters or mistakes on the camera on camera? And how did you learn from that experience?

[16:50] Liz: I actually had this running joke. So when I was doing these weekly live streams for Adobe I had this like running joke with the guy who was like my producer, Tim, because I basically felt like I was almost like doing things that could go wrong on a live stream, bingo.

[17:07] I would just be taking them off one by one. So some of the highlights were the classic my earphones running out of battery halfway through a live stream and me having to like, I was interviewing someone else so I had to really like subtly reach over, like all of a sudden I couldn't hear anything, I had to find some other earphones, but try and do it as subtly as possible so it wasn't like distracting.

[17:27] I had one where Something went wrong with the live stream and I needed to get something from downstairs. I think I needed to get a cable that was downstairs and I ran down the stairs. So the live stream had gone down, ran down the stairs. I think that Wi Fi was playing up or something, got, so put in the ethernet cable and then came back on the stream and then was like hideously out of breath.

[17:49] So then that was it. Not bad. Another one, I tipped an entire glass of water over myself live stream. I mean Like literally so many things have gone wrong. And I basically, but I only ever do them once. So in my head, I was like, okay, that was awful. But I have now made that mistake and I won't make it again.

[18:06] So I won't have the glass of water right next to me while I'm live streaming. I'll have plugged in earphones, not AirPods. So yeah, I like gradually learn and correct it as I make it. Yeah, so many things have gone wrong.

[18:19] Ian: But that's good. That's good that you know, when you, I got to the point when I make a mistake and actually I was quite glad because I know that hopefully that won't happen again.

[18:27] I can put that on the checklist. Check it off the

[18:29] Liz: list. Check it

[18:30] Ian: off for next time. Yeah.

[18:31] Liz: Yeah.

[18:32] Ian: I want to move on to like personality because I think person, our personality comes into a lot and we mentioned about imposter syndrome, like some people, Struggle with it a lot. Some people don't there's different kind of things.

[18:44] And and I think some people would call themselves an extrovert, an introvert, ambivert. Some people are very shy, very bold. And there's so many other things that we could talk about with personality, with As human beings, we're just so diverse when it comes to that. So like, how does your personality affect the way you turn up on camera?

[19:03] And we could talk about that. It could be like energy levels. It could talk, we could talk about, extrovert, extrovert, but is that something you've thought about the way you are and how that affects the way you turn up on camera?

[19:14] Liz: Yeah, definitely. I am absolutely an extrovert. Like I, get energized by chatting to people, being around people, like that really builds up my energy to the point that like, my husband will sometimes be like, Liz you need to go out and see people, like get down.

[19:30] I think, yeah, and that obviously, helps for this sort of thing. I've always, my parents tell these stories about, like, how sociable I was, and how I would go and chat to people as a kid. And it's really interesting actually thinking about, stories I've heard of myself as a child, and seeing how that kind of relates to what I'm doing now.

[19:47] I also liked performing, so I did quite a lot of public speaking when I was a kid. I remember when I was like really young, speaking at an Oxfam conference. So I guess I had like opportunities to do public speaking from a young age, which helps, I think, build up like that confidence. And I think energy levels, so I wouldn't say I have particularly high energy levels, but because I get my energy from people, if I'm doing something, like light the workshop for 350 people, or like speaking to a room of people, like that gives me so much energy.

[20:23] so much energy. And I'm, I think I'm very good at even if beforehand I'm not feeling super energetic, I'm really good at building that up in the moment. And yeah, I'll probably crash afterwards, but I can build that up to get it done in the moment, if that makes sense.

[20:37] Ian: Yeah, it does. I think it's just really important just to understand how we all work.

[20:42] And you could, these words, introvert, extrovert, it's more complicated than that, I think, because I would describe myself as an introvert, but I need, if I'm on my own all the time, I will get depressed. I need people. So I'm an introvert in terms of I need I get my energy from being on my own or in small groups of people, but if I'm in that state too long, I will get depressed.

[21:04] So I think we just need to work out what's, what works for us, I think. Yeah,

[21:08] Liz: totally. And I think what's really helped me work that out is being married to an introvert. I think I would say we're both quite similar in, like that we both love being around people and we're both very sociable, but it's about how we recharge.

[21:22] So I get energy from Like recharge from being around people and he really doesn't he gets he has to have his time on his own But what's interesting is that since I would say since the pandemic and maybe since being married to him Like I have noticed that I need more time to myself and I think like you said It's not really, we'd love to put everything in neat boxes, don't we?

[21:43] But I just don't think it is that neat. And it isn't that, like introvert extrovert. I think we all have a mix of the two, but it's like you said, it's understanding what you need to feel recharged and what you need to feel like you've got the right balance of sort of time on your own and time with people.

[22:01] Ian: Yeah, that totally makes sense. We're almost out of time. I just wanted to ask you, what would be your words of encouragement? For people on their journey. So maybe they're getting really nervous in front of the camera or not. They want to improve that communication. So they're struggling. Maybe they're.

[22:19] They're analyzing themselves too much or whatever. So what would be your words of encouragement on helping on how people can help themselves on their journey?

[22:27] Liz: I think my words of encouragement would be that actually people want to learn and want to consume content from real people. And so You don't have to do it perfectly.

[22:38] It's fine to have ums and ahs. It's fine if you don't, say everything really eloquently and smoothly all the time. Yeah, I think there's places where we can learn and improve and become better communicators, but I think definitely to just Start having a go and almost like learning on the job I think i've seen so many creatives do this online where they basically Learn a new skill and they do it publicly and people come along with them for the journey and for the ride And that's just really relatable to people because that's what we're all doing and I think people feel really inspired seeing that so Yeah, my words of wisdom would be to just get going and learn as you go and Not feel this like pressure to have this sort of like really slick, perfect, polished, end result style of communication, work it out as you go.

[23:29] Ian: Love that. So true. And don't do it alone, so reach out to us. You can reach out to me at iag. me. And all Liz's websites and social channels are in the show notes. You're mainly on, you tend to like hanging out on Instagram. That's your kind of place. I

[23:48] Liz: am on everything else as well, but I don't spend as much time.

[23:52] Ian: Yeah, exactly. We all have our little, where we like to go, don't we? So thank you so much, Liz. It's been great to have you on the show. Do check out the show notes at ig. me forward slash podcast. I don't quite know which number this is yet because we were recording this earlier on. In the year, but thank you so much, Liz.

[24:06] It's been great. What are you what are you next working on? What's your grand plan to take over the world?

[24:11] Liz: Ooh, I would love to do an in person podcast event. So that's, I'm starting to put my feelers out and collect together. I guess information about how I could do that. So yeah, I think more in, in person events, running in person workshops doing a live podcast event, that sort of thing.

[24:28] Ian: That's exciting. Well, you, You heard it here first. Thanks so much, Liz. Great to have you on and yeah hopefully you can come back on the show maybe in the next year.

[24:36] Liz: Amazing. Thanks.

[24:37] Ian: So before you go, I'd love to tell you a little bit more about Adobe Express, who is sponsoring this episode. I'm a proud Adobe Express ambassador, and I've been using it for years to help create my visual content. Now, if you're anything like me, you're looking for ways to to spice up your digital content and also to make it really super easy and quick.

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[27:04] Thank you so much for plugging us into your ears and I hope you found that really useful.

[27:09] Don't. Try and do all of this on your own. You do check out Liz and do connect with me. I'd love to hear what you're working on, but until next time, I encourage you to level up your impact authority and profits through the power of confident live video. See you soon. Toodaloo.

[27:23] Thanks for watching the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson Gray. Make sure you subscribe at iag.me/podcast, so you can continue to level up your impact, authority and profits through the power of live video. And until next time. Toodaloo!

[27:39]