stop hiding – A media coach argues that “cringe” isn’t a personality flaw but a moment of fear and inauthenticity—something she says professionals can fix through mindset, practice, and repetition. Her message is blunt: avoiding the camera isn’t about lighting or background
At South by Southwest, the confession came first. In her SXSW session, she opened with a memory of a video from more than a decade ago—footage broadcast on the local news during her stint as a local TV news reporter—where she impersonated Ron Burgundy from “Anchorman.”
She remembered the stiff delivery, the robotic cadence, and the lack of anything real in it. “Did I say video?” she said. clarifying she wasn’t even talking about a typical clip—she was pointing to what she once believed “being on camera” was supposed to look like. She realized, she told the room, she was wrong.
Today, she speaks on stages across the country, hosts a podcast, and coaches founders and executives on how to show up confidently on video. She doesn’t frame the change as magic. It’s mindset, skillset, and repetition—available, she says, to anyone willing to do the work.
The question she hears over and over is simple: “What’s the key to being better on camera?” and, even more pointedly, “How can I not be cringey on camera?” Her answer starts with a redefinition.
Cringe, she says, is not a trait. It’s a state of mind—an awkward feeling toward yourself or others. Watching yourself on video can trigger it so sharply you shudder at your own performance. In her framing, cringiness shows up when you’re inauthentic, like she was in that Ron Burgundy impersonation.
She also draws a line between feeling cringe and understanding why it happens. Worrying that you’ll be cringey. she argues. becomes the self-limiting belief that keeps people off camera in the first place—an issue she’s seen repeatedly during her 20 years in media and coaching founders. CEOs. and authors to appear on TV. on podcasts. and on social media.
Avoiding the camera, she insists, is the bigger error. The most common mistake professionals make isn’t bad lighting or a cluttered background. It’s not showing up at all.
“When you avoid video. ” she says. “you are actively hiding from potential clients. collaborators. and opportunities.” Her argument is tied to real outcomes she says she has watched unfold when people commit to appearing on camera: clients doubling their income. landing speaking gigs. attracting inbound client calls. and getting book deals.
One example she gives is a healthcare consultant who moved from being an off-camera consultant to moderating national conferences after a video and podcast series was built around her expertise. She says the result was closing three new clients. Another example involves an executive coach: after she crystallized her professional point of view on camera. she began receiving inbound client calls and podcast invitations.
The message is carried by a chain she describes as simple—confidence leads to visibility, visibility leads to career growth, career growth leads to freedom. But the chain, she adds, breaks when people refuse to be seen.
She then turns to what she calls the real reason people avoid the camera—something she says is often mistaken for practicality. “You’re not afraid of the camera,” she tells her audience. “You’re afraid of being seen.”
She recounts a client who said for six months she was “too busy” to make videos, while posting about Netflix and vacations during that same period. A year later, the client still hadn’t made videos. The coach frames it as fear that disguises itself as busyness, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome.
Fear can take different forms, she says—fear of judgment, fear of failing, or a feeling of being unqualified. But her core claim is that the judgment people imagine is largely inside their own heads. People, she says, are too busy with their own to-do lists to be waiting to critique a LinkedIn video.
Her instruction is direct: write down your why before you do anything else. More clients. More income. More visibility. A more flexible career. In her view, motivation has to be stronger than fear because the fear doesn’t disappear—so you film through it.
That sets up one of her biggest practical mental shifts: she asks people to ditch what she calls “supermodel mode” and enter “teacher mode.”
Supermodel mode, she says, is hyper-awareness of how you look, where you imagine the mean girl from high school watching and convinced everyone is judging you. That, in her telling, is the source of cringe—something you can see on other people and feel in yourself when you’re stuck there.
Teacher mode is the antidote. She says the shift is to focus on the person you’re trying to help—what they need to know and what problem you can solve. When you do that, the camera becomes a conduit instead of a mirror, and that’s where charisma lives.
She also argues that being confident on camera isn’t a performance skill. It’s a transfer skill. She points to how people already act during dinner parties or when telling a story to a friend—engaging. warm. and interesting—without rehearsing themselves as if they’re on stage. The task on camera, she says, isn’t to become a different person. It’s to bring that same energy to the camera.
But she warns against treating this as a confidence mantra. Mindset alone, she says, won’t fix it. Confidence on camera requires three things working together: mindset, skillset, and repetition.
Affirmations without practice, in her view, are just wishful thinking. The first five videos will likely be uncomfortable. The first 10, she says, might get better. She presents it as normal: the goal isn’t perfection on the first take—it’s showing up enough times that your body stops treating the camera like “a lion attack.”.
She closes the practical arc with basics: prepare your content so you’re not winging it; find a quiet spot where your brain can actually settle; and control your physical state—breathe, loosen up, and smile.
Her final line lands like permission: “You’re not cringey, you’re just overthinking. Now hit record.”
video coaching founders CEOs cringe on-camera confidence visibility podcasting media coaching SXSW client leads LinkedIn video skillset repetition