Last week I had a tremendous learning that I want to share with you. I was presented with quite an opportunity. A gentleman from our community, Paul Manly, contacted me and expressed interest in doing an exchange of some chiropractic care for some video work. Paul is a local documentary maker who has quite an impressive background and portfolio. I jumped at the chance as I have been intending to bring some of my ideas to video making it more accessible for people and to provide it to a larger community via the internet.
I met with Paul at the beginning of Feb. and made plans for a video shoot that was to take place on Feb 20th. This allowed me over two weeks to prepare. I began brainstorming the various topics that I wanted to discuss. Having done talks in the office nearly every week since the opening of the Lifehouse I had a lot of material to organize and prioritize. Easily I had a list of my top 13 ideas I wanted to share. The next step was to organize each of the talks. I meticulously wrote out each script, picking the perfect words, having great lead-ins and tie-ins. The whole thing was quite a project. I invested around 30 hours in prep time. Which seemed strange as the topics were not new to me, many of them were ideas that I had communicated 100 times over. However, I wanted to prepare so I could really master them and complete as many as possible in the four hours that we had scheduled for the shoot.
The day of the shoot finally arrived. Lights were set up, cordless microphones in place and camera rolling….
“Hi, I’m Dr. Norm, a blah, blah, blahblahblah.” Shoot, okay, take two. “Hi. I’m Dr. Norm and these are your optimal health ideas.” I said with a nervous voice and no smile. Yikes, I was tight. Take three. Take four. And so the morning progressed. By the end of the shoot we struggled through to get 3 done, nowhere close to the 13 that I thought we would complete. I was left feeling tired, tight and disconnected - a feeling that was inconsistent to me to feel after any of my other talks. Well it was a beginning and was soon to be a giant learning for me as well.
Paul dropped off an unedited copy of the shoot so I could review the tape and learn more. Watching the video I could see within a few minutes of what was going on. I was not being myself. Wow! With all the excitement of doing video, of wanting to bring my message to a larger community somehow I convinced myself that I needed to be someone else. Someone bigger, someone smarter, someone more polished. Yikes!
This happens to the best of us, I’m sure. And as uncomfortable as this learning was for me it also included this most precious remembering:
Norm the world needs you, and needs you to be no one else but yourself.
The same goes for you as well. So when you feel bombarded and pushed to ‘fit’ a certain expectation others have on you… take a moment to stop, catch your breath, center and reflect on who you are and how you want to express yourself authentically and then take it from there. And remember if you don’t get it right the first time there is always….”take two”!
Living and learning.
Dr. Norm
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