A few months ago I attended a business summit where one of the speakers taught us how to go live on Facebook, or as we call it: Facebook Live. At the same time, I was working on a special short keynote speech for a conference in front of a live audience. It was somewhat like a five minutes TEDx talk speech. Now I am not new to speaking in front of an audience, but I tell you, to craft a five minutes’ message on stage was one of the most challenging projects I have ever had had in a while. Beyond the message, there was another component in the room: seven video cameras that will capture my message in one shot, no retakes. Which means that the video could turn out to be a professional video that represents my speaking skills, or not.
Back to the presenter at the Summit, one of the things that pulled my attention when the speaker was sharing his knowledge about going live on Facebook was the idea that the more you use Facebook live, the more comfortable you feel in front of a video camera. Although I started using more and more videos as part of what I do, I could still sense that I am not as comfortable as I wanted to be with video cameras. Since I wanted to get better with video skills and feel more comfortable in front of a camera, at that moment, I decided to experiment with Facebook live.
And that’s how one journey evoked another journey. To find a way to commit and be consistent with my Facebook live, I decided to connect the Facebook live with another activity – my runs. I run 2 or 3 times a week, depends on my schedule, so I decided that after each run I will do a Facebook live. I called my Facebook live: “on the run.” These Facebook live talks are casual talks; me with pink cheeks after a run, still catching up my breath, sweating and sharing a thought that came to mind while running. Beyond the practicing I felt that going live on Facebook will be an opportunity for me to walk my talk of getting messy, It wasn’t about creating the perfect well-crafted speech, it was about showing up with my raw thoughts and share them with my audience with no editing. And that’s how it all started.
Creating my intention to share my thoughts on Facebook required a new skill, from pure connection with self, I had to figure out what topic I should speak about after each run.
Sometimes I knew right away what the topic is going to be, but sometimes no real topic came to mind and I could sense how I am trying to force the topic on me. This is how I learned that I need to manage my thoughts, sometimes what I needed was to surrender, let go of finding a topic and allow the topic to find me. I had to learn how to quiet my mind and allow my running time to be what it meant to be for me, a time to think about nothing else, to connect with nature and see endless opportunities in the blue (or cloudily) sky.
Last week, when I went on my run, I felt that maybe I should shake things a bit and change my running route, and rather than turning left in the usual way I turned right. The moment I turned right, I smiled and told myself: Cool! Here is a topic for today’s Facebook live, I can talk about habits and how great it can be to shake things around, find a new way to do things, see how a new way can impact you and what you can learn from the experience. Perfect!” But at the same time, something unusual had happened, I had a sharp pain in both knees while running, it felt like needles pinched my nerves again and again and then it stopped. Ha! I told myself, my body doesn’t like the change, should I listen to what my body is saying to me?
I decided to keep going, but I could sense how this little change in my route felt so uncomfortable for my body; the downhill was uphill, what used to be behind me was now in front of me everything felt a bit off. But the sky was blue, and I was so excited to share my experience with my FB Live audience. I was almost home when I passed a lady who was walking with her dog. The lady and I smiled at each other, as we do in our neighborhood, I kept some space from her and the dog, but I know that Labrador-Retriever dogs are very calm and smiley dogs. And then it happened faster than the wind, the dog jumped, I thought it was a friendly jump to say hi, but then I could feel it. I looked at the lady with pain and told her: “Your dog just bit me!” we both looked at each other with surprise. I was hurt, not because of the pain from the bite (yes it did hurt!) but you see, I love dogs, as a child, my house was filled with dogs and animals. Beyond the burning pain, and the anti-tetanus shot and antibiotics and canceling all plans with clients, I think what hurt the most was that a dog, an animal I love so much just bit me.
For the rest of the day, I kept asking myself, what had just happened? Did the instant pinching pain in my knees was my body's way of communicating with me that I should not choose the opposite direction? Should I listen better to my body rather than going against it? What is the lesson I should learn?
But there was also another thought that brought a smile to my face: remember what I shared? I planned to share on Facebook Live how beautiful it can be to change our habits and see what we can learn from them but sometimes, just sometimes... reality bites…
Oh! If you want to check my 5min keynote talk – you can check this link.
New update June 2020 - if you want to follow my social media vlog, on there run - connect with me on Linkedin, or follow me on Instagram.