Your first video is supposed to be messy | November Newsletter
Published about 18 hours ago • 4 min read
November 2026
November: There's No Un-Do Button
Hi Video Kickstarters!
Have I ever shared that two little words used to scare the bejesus out of me? Those two words were, GOING LIVE.
When Periscope and Facebook Live first came out, live streaming scared the pants off of me. I would jump in for a few minutes and point the camera at my computer screen or a desk rather than my face, because I was too afraid that I would mess up, get tongue-tied, or look like a complete fool in front of an audience.
Pre-recorded videos allow you to easily fall into "take-thirty-four" mode where one little mistake means you stop, delete, and start all over again.
So, three years ago last week, I did something that still makes my stomach flip.
I went live. Every day. For 7 days straight, ending on Halloween.
That was huge for me. Live video used to give me real, physical panic. It started in the Periscope days and followed me right onto Facebook Live. Racing heart. Sweaty hands. All of it.
Recorded video was hard enough. Live has no edit button. No redo. No deleting the take where I lost my train of thought.
That's exactly why I picked it.
I wanted to stumble in public. I wanted the pauses and the unscripted moments out where I couldn't hide them in a folder. And I wanted people watching, so I'd have to come back the next day.
So I did. Then in 2024 I kept going and went live every single week for 11 months.
Going live forced me to accept a crucial reality: When there is no "undo" button, you have no choice but to keep going. I couldn't slice out my natural pauses, my stumbles, or my unscripted moments. And do you know what happened? Absolutely nothing...I didn't get trolled, I didn't collapse, nothing horrible happened. Sometimes people showed up and sometimes they didn't, but I kept going!
The Takeaway:
The fear of being seen does not go away but the gap between feeling fear and taking action gets smaller the more you do it. Do not edit out your humanity; the audience needs a real-life guide, not an AI robot.
So here's my question for you this month. What's the video you already made and never posted?
Hit reply and tell me. I read every single one.
Happy Creating,
Edie Clarke Video Strategist
In this issue:
Toolbox
Zoom and StreamYard
______________________________________________
Actionable Tips
Out of the Folder and Posted
Upcoming Live Events!
Webinars, Masterclass & Create + Post
This month's issue sponsored by
Embrace Video Action Lab
Building a video strategy by yourself is lonely and can be overwhelming. When you hit a snag, it is easy to quit. That is why I created the Embrace Video Action Lab.
Your new support system includes:
Visibility Masterclass monthly training and Q&A sessions.
A safe, judgment-free space to post your first draft.
Create & Post Sessions to get eyes on your work before you publish.
Trade procrastination for a published video library.
Zoom (free plan) You probably already have it. Start a meeting with just yourself and hit record. Camera on, you're talking straight to the lens. Camera off with a slide deck shared, you've got a faceless video. Save it to your computer and you're done.
The catch: free meetings stop at 40 minutes, and the free plan can't stream live.
StreamYard (free plan) When you're ready to go live, this is where I'd start. It runs in your browser, so there's nothing to install. Go live to one platform at a time, and share your screen if you'd rather not be on camera yet.
The catch: free streams carry StreamYard branding, and local recording is capped at 2 hours a month.
Your first video gets to be messy
In the last week, I had the honor of talking to a brave woman, a woman who prepared herself and made a 20 minutes introduction video for her business.
Then she sent it off for feedback.
Feedback was a lengthy process with detailed points. Not good lighting, wrong shirt, not suitable background were some of them. Even there was an opinion that she made you sleep on video.
This was depressing and discouraged her to keep filming.
I could feel that. Years ago, I would film videos and after watching them, I felt disgusted to see myself. But, I didn’t have enough courage to show videos to other people to take feedback from them. On my computer’s hard drive still, there are a lot of unedited videos no one had ever seen.
It took many years for me to understand this. When I looked at YouTubers who made videos so easily and professionally but couldn’t do that, I went back and saw their first videos. These were raw videos. Every video started with zero.
You need to expect that your first video would be a mess.
Actually, the only criterion of the bad video that is unusable is poor audio. Lighting, Wardrobe, Background – these things you will fix over time, from fifth video to 20th video. If every minute of your 20 minute video is about solving a problem of your audience.
The courage for this month is publishing an incomplete video.
Three small acts of courage you can take this week.
1. Post the one you already made. Open your camera roll or that folder on your desktop. Pick one video. If people can hear you, it's ready to post.
2. Say it the way your clients say it. Use the exact words your audience uses to describe their problem. That's how they search, and that's what makes them stop scrolling.
3. Pick the rung you can do today. If your face is the scary part, start on Rung 1, Voice. Talk over a few slides. Next time, try Rung 2, Frame, with a small box of you in the corner.
Don't Miss!
Upcoming Events
Monthly Masterclass
Wednesday November 18, 2pm ET
Create + Post Session
Saturday November 21, 1pm ET
You bring an idea. You leave with a video!
Start Messy
Tuesday, December 11, 10am ET,
Courage is usually small. One post. One live. One video out of the folder.
You don't have to do it alone. The door to Embrace Video Action Lab is free and open. Just an invitation to be in a room with people doing the same thing.
