#13) Self Analysis


Hello, and welcome back to "Always Be Better" with Mel Windham. I'm back after taking off a week.

And I figured this would be a good time to conduct a self-analysis on how I'm doing so far. Self-analysis is a useful tool that any of us can do at any time in our journey to becoming better people. We can pause and look at ourselves through an honest lens, praise our successes, identify our weaknesses, and make plans on what to do going further.

So, this past week, I went through all twelve of my first batch of videos. 68 minutes of Mel goodness. And I took notes. Overall, I'm pleased with what I've accomplished. I feel like we're starting to make progress, and I think I'm successfully communicating the messages I wish to deliver. I'm exactly where I expected to be, and I look forward to what comes next. 

However, there remains much room for improvement.

Okay, here we go. First video. I look scared. Deer in the headlights. Reading without expression. Slow pace. Yay!

Second video -- much more energy and more interesting, but man, that lighting was funky.

Third video about life coaches -- first time I added funky special effects. This remains my most popular video right now.

Fourth video -- the only time I went without a script. It may have shown a lot more sincerity, but it may also have the slowest pace. I may try it again sometime soon.

Fifth video -- introduced video filters. I can notice a difference, but I can still further improve the picture significantly. I have some ideas.

Sixth video about disagreements -- my personal least favorite video. It was all one take of me talking -- no music, no graphics, and no pictures.

Seventh video on the Drake Equation -- this was the most fun I've had so far putting together a video. It was my first attempt at a green screen, which failed miserably, so I ended up going with a black screen and flashlight-in-the-face lighting. It looks kind of funny, but that's okay for now. It was also the first time I added music, which I composed, by the way. It was also the first time I added an end screen, which is supposed to help increase view counts. This is my second-most popular video.

Eighth video on COSMOS -- let me tell you a funny story. I had some mishaps in the recording, but I didn't want to rerecord, so I tried two new tricks. 

#1 -- I wanted to remove a comment that was too negative. The trick: just insert a random picture, and I was able to sneak in a cut behind the scenes. 

And #2 -- when I held up the book to show the Drake equation, you really couldn't see anything at all in the book. So, I first tried an experiment where I superimposed myself holding the book without talking. It didn't work at all. Check it out here: (blooper reel appears inside the video). Yeah. Like I said, it didn't work.

Ninth video on logic -- my personal favorite. I thought I did a good job with the graphics, and I had lots of fun preparing everything -- introducing my second piece of music, a funny arrangement of a Dance by Grieg. However, it's one of my least-watched videos. You should watch it if you haven't already seen it.

And lastly, videos 10, 11, and 12. They were all good, but no new benchmark improvements -- just applying everything I had learned.

What comes next? I still need to overcome my stage fright. Even though I've already made great strides, there are some experiments I may try out.

I can certainly shorten my videos -- write cleaner scripts -- improve the video and audio quality. But baby steps. We'll get there together.

But guess what! I'm introducing two new features. 

#1) In my blog, you can now see a calendar showing when I released videos and what's coming next.

And #2) On YouTube, I've introduced three "Tracks" with more to come. These are playlists that will concentrate on specific topics I will cover in this video series, which can help a viewer watch the videos in the correct order when we start building on earlier videos. We now have a Mental Track for videos studying the brain, and a 7 Habits Track for videos touching on the 7 Habits book. And there's even the Everything Track where you can watch all the videos in order. I'll introduce other Tracks shortly.

Now that you've seen an example of self-analysis, it's your turn. Why not take a week and look over your life -- your recent accomplishments -- your recent disasters? What works? What doesn't? See if you can plan out a better path for the future.

As we progress through this series, I'll do these occasional self-analysis updates, and hopefully we can improve together. Thank you for watching, and remember, we can "Always Be Better."

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