Why no Vlogs.....

I get asked that so frequently and I wanted to put a few thoughts down. I might keep these thoughts to myself, I might put it on my website, I might even post it on LinkedIn, will see how I feel.

I started doing my little videos a couple of years ago, I wanted to do something different and stand out and it worked, crickey it worked more than I thought. And I loved the creativity behind it, the randomness, I even loved it when my cat, Aramis gate-crashed. But then it got a bit over whelming, I obviously touched on something with some people as I had people wanting to ask my advice, help them find a job, I even got propositioned a few times! And because of the joys of social media, I could easily find out that his wife thinks he’s great, my opinion was somewhat different. And someone I’d known for years had told me face to face that they hated my videos, for what purpose I don’t know. Why do people criticise other peoples work in a hurtful way? I guess the fault is with them and not me, but still, it’s hurtful.

And then everybody started doing videos and saying “wow, I got 300 views, amazing” and I was getting over 5,000 for each of mine so what I was doing was working, more than I ever imagined. My business had come through the rockiest of patches, I had new clients, I was getting on PSL’s, I had a stable and fab portfolio of clients who I continued to recruit for, and I made the decision to stop doing my Vlogs after taking some off over Christmas. I don’t want to grow my business, my business is me, not anyone else. I don’t want to employ people, I don’t want the added pressure of managing people, I just want to recruit. And I don’t want to do the videos because I don’t want to be like everybody else. I’m over watching videos; I’m over doing them and trying to think of new things. I also think a part of me is over social media, but I know there isn’t an option in these times to walk away from it.

I was quite slow in joining Facebook and I remember joining LinkedIn in 2010 / 2011 because everyone else was and I’d just got a new job. I never thought nearly 10 years later, 70 – 80% of my candidates would be found through LinkedIn. Snapchat, still no clue, Instagram – managed to hide my account and not got a clue how to recover it. Twitter – once got drunk and tweeted a load of famous people asking them if they knew if some C List celebrity could swim. That is the level that I operate at!

When you’re having a bad day and you see all the inspiration quotes and you think “Bollocks to it”. Or you see your friends doing amazing things on Facebook and you’re in your PJ’s, bad back, stuffing chocolate down your throat. Or you try calling a friend 3 times over a month and they don’t call you back, but you see that they’re on Facebook having a great time. Because it probably takes 5 seconds to put something on Facebook and 20 minutes to phone a friend and life is so busy, or so we think. On my recent infamous Thomas Cook holiday, I read an amazing book by Gelong Thubten and he hit the nail on head. We’re now living our lives by people liking what we’re doing, not be us liking what we’re doing ourselves. A Monks Guide to Happiness, read it if you can.

But are we all so busy doing so many things at the same time that we’re making mistakes and having to redo it? If we truly focused on just ONE THING AT A TIME, would we be more successful in achieving it first time, correctly and would that then free us up to text a friend to say “have a fab holiday”? I honestly feel that communication is shockingly shit. And I am possibly guilty of it at times or maybe because I’ve had a bit of time on my hands recently that I’ve had more time to think. People don’t seem to phone people any more to say “Hey, how are you?”. I had a real heart to heart with a dear friend the other day and she said “Thank you for trusting me with this conversation, it means the world”. Those are the friendships and communications that I want. Finding a man on the internet? NO NO NO!! I want to bump into someone in a coffee shop (I know I don’t drink coffee, but you’d have me at Chocolate Cornflake Cake!), I want to sit down with friends and look into the whites of their eyes and say “How are you?” and listen to the answer. And I want people to do that with me. I want my personal phone to ring and it to be someone other than my Mum or Dad, not a text message from a friend, I WANT HUMAN INTERACTION!!!!

So, I don’t know if that answers my question as to why I don’t do Vlogs anymore. I guess I want a less complicated, more straight forward way of being. And in text, things can get lost in translation. We’re all juggling but life shouldn’t be this complicated and impersonal? We should get back to basics, and to me, that starts with caring for people. That means treating people how you want to be treated. You push someone away enough; they won’t come back. You say something hurtful; you don’t see their tears or feel their heartache. The chosen few do but by all hiding behind technology, we’re playing a dangerous game with other people’s emotions.

I will keep my Facebook account as my best friend lives in America and I love seeing her adventures. I’ll keep Instagram for the moment but it’s on the wobble list. I’ve signed up to a couple of projects, 1) Postcards of Kindness where you write to the elderly in care homes and 2) From me to you – where you write to people who are in hospital fighting cancer and don’t have many visitors. 3) Postcrossing – every couple of weeks you send a postcard to someone and then you receive a postcard from someone. My latest postcard is sat on my desk making me smile as I think about it.

I guess in summary, I’m an old fashioned girl battling with Technology and where it’s taking us. Professionally, LinkedIn is phenomenal, and my business wouldn’t be what it is without it,  personally though you can take it or leave it. I just wish I could leave it.

Email: jo@winhurstrecruitment.co.uk

Tel: 0115 975 6513

@winhurstrec