For the first 33 years of my life I loved my cameras. Well… I loved being behind the lens. Being in front of the camera was an entirely different matter. It was something I avoided as best I could.

There was always that group photo where, wanting to be part of the group and not exclude myself completely, I’d hide at the back. This was partly helped by my height but I was never comfortable having a picture taken, or being in pictures.

Then something changed. I needed to show up to the party.

I don’t mean the kind of party with cake and alcohol. I mean the figurative party of showing up and being present where your customer and peers are.

I joined a closed Facebook group and we were all challenged to publish a video to the group. It was to be a video of me speaking to a camera for a few minutes. I got proper FOMO (fear of missing out) and didn’t want to be the last one of the group to publish the video.

I did so many takes I lost count but after about 45min I had a finished video. The last take was the best, I gave up trying to follow some form of script and spoke from the heart. It felt a bit awkward as I am quiet by nature, but it was ok for a first video.

I was more nervous about uploading and posting the video.

Did I say the right thing? Will anyone be offended? Will it even be watched? Does anyone care? Will I be criticised? What if…

The fears played on my mind but I had to make a choice. It was a small private and supportive group. Only a few people would see it and I could always delete it. So I clicked ‘post’… and waited…

It wasn’t long before I received a few supportive comments. I read them all and replied. Spurred on by the positive feedback I half-jokingly said I’d publish the video in a larger public group.  I was gently encouraged to do so, but the choice was mine.

After a little thought, I shared the video with a public Facebook group of about 10,000 members at the time.

Guess what? Nothing bad happened.

I survived. I  put myself, laid bare, in the public domain and nothing bad happened. In fact I got a good reaction from people. None of the internet trolls I had been worrying about showed up. No one was offended and it turns out people did watch and they cared.

Here is that very video. The one that turned my love-hate into a love-love relationship with my cameras.

And that was the start of the change for me. It all started with that video and starting small, in a supportive environment.

It wasn’t an instant change, more of a transition but if I can do it then so can you!