🔴 From being super shy, to my first LIVE Coding session

I’ll share the link later, but let me spend a few words on how I got to this point first!

This isn’t a technical article, but I hope it can inspire you in some ways. Have a nice read! :)

First attempt

Since day #1 of my YouTube adventure, I have always thought about doing some live coding.

But well… at first I was so shy I didn’t even show my face on camera! Long way to go…

My first videos were just screen sharing & voice over. Fun to make, but sometimes it was hard to find what to show on the screen when I was just talking.

This was December 2020, full covid lockdown and the topic was Game Development.

A new beginning

I took a long pause until August 2022 when I decided to get back on my channel with a new topic, Open Source (and a little bit of Web Development).

But once again, I was still super shy and the first couple of videos were voiceovers and a lot of stock videos to fill the gaps when I didn’t have anything to show.

Face reveal!

We’re in 2022, there are so many folks out there doing videos of themselves on all social or platforms you can think of. Maybe it’s time to get rid of this pointless fear of showing my face, isn’t it?

How to find an Open Source project is my first video where I appear on camera. Feels stupid because after publishing the video I realized that I didn’t really have any particular reason to NOT appear on camera. No one cares about how you’re looking, people are watching for the content and for the message you forward.

Ok, at this stage I overcame that obstacle and I started doing videos always appearing on camera, but…

Still needed a safety net

When you’re recording a video, you can do multiple takes, change the wording, cut parts of the video… you have many tools to make the final result cleaner and get rid of some dumb mistakes on camera.

I still wanted to do a live stream, but I felt I was still in need of this safety net that is video editing. English is not my native language, sometimes I get stuck finding a word, or the pronunciation is terrible. Recording and doing multiple takes help me pick the best one. But on live… this isn’t a tool you have!

🔴 LIVE!

I also said it in one of my videos about getting ready for Open Source. Why wait to feel ready? Well, if before doing anything you wait to feel ready, you will never move from that point!

Go! Jump! And during the airtime feel free to fine-tune the trajectory and learn by doing. That’s how you get ready!

So here’s the thing: if I gave this advice to my viewers attempting to join the Open Source world, why wouldn’t I listen to the exact same advice, but about going live?

So here it is, my first clunky attempt, and I’m so proud of myself!

You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/qSjqmRsPpDc

The live went on for 18 minutes, during which I added a feature on one of my open source projects.

Did I feel ready before going live? Absolutely not! Do I care? Well, not at all :D I know I will get more confident by doing more livestreams, so that’s the way to go!

Lesson learned

If you read until this point, thanks, you’re amazing! If you’re in the same situation, get out of your comfort zone and jump! Start doing what you wanted to do, there’s no need to be perfect at the first attempt, you’ll eventually get better later, by doing and having fun!

Even if this article can inspire at least one of you, reading until here, that’s a huge victory for me and I’m so proud of you!

Curious on what I did during this first live? Let me share again the link: https://youtu.be/qSjqmRsPpDc