Authentic Speaking

Welcome to Authentic Speaking! + Our community values

Video · 5 min

What values and norms would you love to see in the Student Discussion doc?

Think of yourself as one of the culture-setters of the Student Discussion doc ✨

Everytime you interact here, you are amplifying a particular type of behavior.

What values and ways of being would you love for others to be displaying here?

Let us know your thoughts in the Student Discussion doc 🙏🏼😊

Key points from the video

• Candid admission: this has been one of George's least popular/least-enrolled courses for years — he attributes this to (a) fear of public speaking ranking near fear of death, and (b) most people not yet understanding the power of being not just confident but authentically expressive on camera. He thanks students directly for seeing that deeper potential.
• Frames every course as a genuine learning community, not a one-way lecture: its culture is shaped by how every member expresses themselves and interacts with others. (Lesson comments are closed; use the Student Discussion doc.)
• Names his own top values for the space: authenticity first, paired with kindness (since everyone's energy/path differs), then encouragement, and — more tentatively — a shared reach toward excellence in the value given, held together with kindness.

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Your pre-course video 😅

Key points

• Day-one assignment: record a brief video sharing your sincere intention to grow your capacity for authentic, powerful speaking — and name any honest fear or anxiety you're carrying about it.
• Explicit instruction to do it imperfectly: "Please make this video imperfectly! -- (or rather, you're always perfect now)".
• Purpose beyond the exercise itself: this pre-course video becomes a baseline — at the end of the course you'll record a matching progress video, and the deliberately-unpolished starting point is what makes the contrast (and the felt sense of growth) visible.

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"Imperfect" speaking is how we begin - let's walk through the gate of full acceptance of ourselves 🥰

Video · 5 min

As you do the homework assignments (making videos) coming up, if you ever wonder:

• what if I'm rambling?
• how to remember what to say on camera?
• what if it's too raw or unfiltered?

...watch the above video to remind yourself of what we're really doing here.

And yes, later in this course we'll talk about how you'll start/end your videos and how to remember what to say... but first and foremost is the foundation: authentic speaking :)

Key points from the video

• Explicitly not a polish/perfection course — contrasts with a caricature of Toastmasters (counting "um"s, a 3-point structure with an introduction and conclusion), which he ties to a fixed mindset (name-checks Carol Dweck): the need to confirm an identity in order to feel worthy, perhaps in front of a parent.
• Argues this approach is (1) more sustainable — you'll keep making videos for life — and (2) more powerful, because full comfort with your own rambling and mental pauses on camera is what actually builds real authentic power.
• Reassurance: videos are uploaded as YouTube Unlisted; even your 2 Encouragers don't have to see the raw, unfiltered practice videos.
• Memorable idea: being willing to bore your audience and come across as unprofessional is the gateway to real, authentic power on camera.
• Frames later course content (best story, starting/ending videos, remembering what to say) as coming only after this foundational self-acceptance is practiced.

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2 Encouragers

Video · 1 min

Key points from the video

• Practical sourcing tips beyond the assignment text: scan Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts, or people you already text/WhatsApp with for 2 people who'd be willing to watch occasional videos and name what they like — framed as strengthening your strengths, not critique.
• Three concrete ways to find them: (1) ask friends/colleagues/clients directly, and if more than 2 say yes, put them all in one secret Facebook group so you can post videos to the whole group at once; (2) go public — post on whichever social platform gives you the most encouragement that you're doing an experimental video-growth journey and invite people to encourage you; (3) find a buddy among your fellow students in the course.

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Why do you want to make videos?

Video · 3 min

Take a moment to record a brief video -- about why it's important for you to make videos and speak authentically in your videos. Why does it matter to you?

Then add a comment in the Student Discussion doc with your video link. How to record? Use the methods from the precourse hw.

Key points from the video

• Names the common but unsustainable "why": making videos primarily to get clients or make money. His own data point undercuts it: of his ~2,000 uploaded videos, only some got him clients, and for many he can't tell whether they did.
• His real, sustaining reasons, in order: (1) every time he shows up for video, it's an opportunity to strengthen his own connection to his energy signature and move a little closer to his potential — done for himself/his "higher self" first; (2) trust in an unseen ripple effect from sincere service, even when he can't measure it.

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What other skill have you become confident by doing?

Video · 1 min

Record a video to tell us a story of what other skill (personal or professional) have you become confident by doing it over time, rather than only "learning" via courses or books?

This is how you'll get confident on camera too, by the way ;-)

Comment in the Student Discussion doc with your video link.

How to record?Use the methods from the precourse hw.

Key points from the video

• Core reframe stated directly: the belief that taking the course will make you confident is a fallacy. Confidence comes from practice in a supportive environment plus noticing the positive ripple effect on others — not from reading, watching, or merely taking a course.

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Talk to (be with) your ideal viewer...

Video · 4 min

What are you like when you’re with your favorite client? With someone who loves to hear your stories, ideas, and just simply be in your presence?

What practice might you do to feel that connection again... therefore feeling more centered, grounded, and at ease while making a video speaking to that ideal viewer?

Make a video speaking to your ideal viewer:

• Tell them what it feels like to have their supportive presence. Thank them 🥰

Comment in the Student Discussion doc with your video link.

How to record? Use the methods from the precourse hw.

By the way, this grounded feeling and connected speaking is an example of you expressing your energy signature :)

Key points from the video

• Precise definition of energy signature: the moment you are most fully expressed — like a vibration going out — completed only when someone else receives it; the cycle of expression plus being witnessed is what makes it a signature.
• Exercise instructions beyond the prompt: literally find the camera lens (top dot on a phone; webcam dot on a computer) and speak the thank-you video directly into it, as if to the real person.
• Extension technique: practice briefly recalling that supportive person's presence into your mind/heart right before each future recording, as a repeatable ritual — not just a one-time video.
• Names the exercise itself as an example of the concept: the grounded, connected feeling you get while speaking to your imagined ideal viewer is you expressing your energy signature.

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How to integrate feedback from other students?

Video · 1 min

Key points from the video

• Sorts incoming peer feedback into exactly two buckets: (1) qualities noticed that you want to amplify further, and (2) qualities noticed that you don't care to amplify / don't feel are part of your authentically-empowered on-camera self.
• For qualities you don't want to amplify, the follow-up question becomes what you might replace them with; the rest of the course offers more ways to play with amplifying the parts you do want.

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How is your video energy signature different from others in your niche?

Video · 4 min

If you know, comment in the Student Discussion doc...

If you don't know yet, take a guess for now and comment in the Student Discussion doc :)

You'll come back to this thread later in the course as you get more clarity about this!

Key points from the video

• Frames uniqueness as increasingly urgent because of AI-generated video, which he predicts will proliferate over the next 3 years, trained on the average of all public videos in a style or niche — so an AI asked for a comedian or a spiritual teacher produces the average comedian or teacher.
• Names two paths to succeed on video: (1) become the stereotypical, culturally most charismatic creator — which he thinks will eventually be a losing path, since AI will out-perform even the most charismatic influencer at that game; or (2) become the most uniquely weird, most-you version of you — something AI can't yet copy, and which stands out specifically online (vs. a small village, where standing out that much would be unwelcome).

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Discover your weird :)

Video · 2 min

Key points from the video

• Riffs on Austin, Texas's motto "Stay weird," proposing that the course's real motto be to discover your own weirdness and lean into it — names that many of us have suppressed our weirdness through years of living in society, often without realizing how much.
• Reframes "weird" as uniqueness / unique strength / unique genius — the place where you feel most alive and on fire in self-expression when received by someone nurturing.

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Different energy signatures

Comment in the Student Discussion doc with at least 2 video makers (maybe your favorite YouTubers or IG reel creators) who:

• make primarily talking head videos (where they're just talking to the audience, rather than fancy video editing)
• and have very different energy signatures

Briefly describe what you see as different about their energies and why each person's energy works well for their topic/style/audience.

Key points

• Observation exercise: find at least 2 video creators (favorite YouTubers or IG reel creators) who make primarily talking-head videos — no fancy editing — but have very different energy signatures from each other, then describe what's different about their energies and why each person's energy works well for their particular topic/style/audience.

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✨ Examples of Authentic Speaking

This is an ongoing page for us to collectively take notes and learn from observation...

Make a new comment in the Student Discussion doc whenever you come across a YouTube video (or anywhere else) where the person is speaking in a way that really resonates with you:

• Maybe it's their energy in the video that resonates.
• Maybe it's the story that they're telling.
• (Don't mention anything about video editing since that's not what we're focused on in this course.)

Add a comment in the Student Discussion doc with the link to that video, and include any observations/learnings about what exactly they're doing that resonates with you.

Because what resonates with you, might be something worth experimenting with in YOUR videos too. Golden rule: make videos similar to the videos that resonate with you :)

Key points

• An ongoing noticing exercise: whenever you come across a video (any platform) where the speaker's energy or story genuinely resonates with you, note what specifically resonates — their energy, or the story they're telling.
• Explicit exclusion: don't comment on video editing quality — that's deliberately outside this course's focus, which is speaking and storytelling, not production.
• States the underlying principle directly: "Golden rule: make videos similar to the videos that resonate with you" — what draws you as a viewer is itself data about what to try in your own videos.

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Eye Contact?

Video · 4 min

1. Bring to mind a topic that you've been thinking about recently.
2. Make a brief video where you talk about the topic but don't look at the camera lens... look anywhere else you want. Be yourself, talk authentically.
3. Make another brief video where you talk about the same thing (approximately, doesn't have to be exact of course) but this time, make as much eye contact with the camera lens as you can... imagining the soul of your ideal viewer in the camera lens 🥰
4. Send both videos to your encouragers and ask them which one they prefer and why?
5. Comment in the Student Discussion doc and tell us what they said :)

You're welcome to share your two videos with us in the Student Discussion doc as well but let's keep it organized -- reply under your comment.

Key points from the video

• Candid admission that George has changed his own stance over the years — he used to insist everyone make intense eye contact with the lens as the right online-video norm, and is no longer sure that's the correct universal answer; notes cultural variation in eye-contact norms.
• Extra framing for the second (eye-contact) video: imagine the soul of your ideal viewer actually inside the camera lens as you look at it, to make the connection feel real rather than performative.
• Concrete self-experiment structure: record the same topic twice — once deliberately avoiding the lens, once making as much eye contact as possible — then send both to your 2 Encouragers and ask which they prefer and why. Empirically testing your own norm this way, rather than following a rule, fits his broader stance that eye-contact conventions vary and aren't one-size-fits-all.

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Video Hardware/Software

Video · 2 min

Here's my recommended video hardware and software:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vHFtVAOERxHgW-EMCWBGaNtyzpedIE6AUKo9JVTdnE4/edit?usp=sharing

What's your favorite video recording device? Lighting? Audio device? Software? Feel free to comment in the Student Discussion doc.

We cover a lot more about the technicalities of video making, uploading, promotion -- in the YouTube Mastery course. In this course (Authentic Speaking) let's focus on the speaking/energy part, as well as storytelling on camera (we'll cover that later in the course!)

Key points from the video

• Core message: you almost certainly already own everything needed — any laptop or phone less than 10 years old is sufficient, and some of the most-viewed viral videos are far from studio quality.
• Names the impulse to buy the right equipment first as, for many people, an excuse to avoid the real work of practicing authentic speaking.
• Explicitly defers deep hardware/software/technical detail to the YouTube Mastery course, describing that course as a "prequel"/"buddy" course, sequence-agnostic (can be taken before or after this one).
• Shares a page of his own recommended video hardware/software picks as a starting-point resource, then redirects the real conversation back to this course's actual focus: the speaking/energy work and storytelling, not gear.

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Why not use a script/detailed outline to speak your videos?

Video · 7 min

Key points from the video

• Distinguishes two very different video styles: (1) b-roll/voiceover videos (narration over stock footage/images) — scripting is fine and common there; (2) videos where your face is the main thing — scripting looks inauthentic because your eyes visibly dart side to side reading, which makes viewers feel they are being read to rather than spoken to.
• Notes that only professional teleprompter rigs (newscasters, politicians, positioned far enough from the camera) hide the eye movement enough to look natural — DIY laptop setups don't have that distance.
• Forward-looking aside on AI: notes AI eye-correction editing (he thinks Descript offers it) already exists but he finds it still looks slightly unnatural, and fully AI-generated presenter video from a script + reference clips already exists (cites an AI-generated war-zone newscaster he'd seen) — but concludes that outsourcing your on-camera delivery to AI defeats the purpose of the course, since the goal is growing yourself through the embodied practice, not just producing a polished artifact.

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Can you prepare a lot and still be authentic?

Video · 4 min

Key points from the video

• Names TED Talks (specifically Brene Brown) as the counter-example: extensive rehearsal, professional speaking coaching, and script refinement by copywriters over many iterations can still land as authentic and natural — but that pace of preparation typically supports only about one video per quarter or year.
• His own honest pattern: heavily-prepared videos are usually not his best; lightly-prepared videos delivered with passion and energy usually are his best — describes this as a curve where the "messy middle" (some preparation, but not enough to be fully scripted-smooth, and not little enough to be fully spontaneous) is where you get into trouble. His guidance: find your spot along the curve, from very little prep to a lot of prep, but don't land in the middle.

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Recording a polished speaking video? Record segments of 10-15 seconds.

Video · 2 min

Key points from the video

• Concrete technique for wanting more polish: memorize 10-15 second (up to ~20 second) chunks, record, pause, repeat — Zoom auto-stitches paused segments into one continuous file, producing natural "jump cuts" that audiences are already used to from edited content.
• Notes this jump-cut style is commonly used for high-stakes short videos — homepage video, About page video, Work-With-Me page video — where you have only about a minute with a random website visitor who might be an ideal client and want that minute unusually polished and rehearsed.

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