On Thursday, January 3rd, 2013, I hosted my new radio show, Stand Up and Speak Up.
Walt 1.0 could never have done this. But Walt 2.0 can. And did. [Rule 1]*
At Craig Duswalt’s RockStar Marketing Bootcamp in Sept. of 2012 [Rule 5]*, John Martin, of Toginet & the RockstarRadioNetwork, presented the benefits of having an internet radio show .
Most people create a business, develop products, write a book, conduct seminars and then host a radio show to promote all of their products and services.
I had no business. No products. No services. Just a passion to help people overcome stage fright.
I had retired in August. I had a plan. Write a book. Create a blog. And then I thought, what if I had a radio show? Who could I have a guests? I quickly rattled off 15 names from the worlds of speaking, standup and improv that I felt confident would appear on my show. Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I immediately contracted for 52 weeks of Radio Shows. [Rule 2]*
This seemed to be the easiest way to reach a large number of people and share my story about overcoming stage fright. And give myself a post-retirement identity. Radio show host!
A couple of weeks before my debut, I was advised to do the first show by myself. Oooops!
While the thought of having a conversation with a guest for 48 minutes seemed easy, the thought of talking to my audience, alone, for 48 minutes … let’s just say I wasn’t as confident. OK, I was scared. So, trying to be clever, I planned on having a script. After all, this show is all I have … I wanted it to be perfect. Fortunately for my audience, I did a dry-run with two friends. After I wrote segment 1, I ran it by Randy Gold and Eno Inwek. They both said, essentially, your vocal variety is great but we know you are reading to us.
NOT GOOD!
I tossed the script. [Rule 14]* I made a list of topics to talk about and the 48 minutes of air time flew by. I had two fellow show hosts on the network share the positive impact it made on them.
I will listen to the show later this evening [Rule 15]*. (I videotape or record speeches. It takes me a while to listen to myself or watch myself, but I do get to it. This is a great way to learn.)
Tomorrow, January 10th, I will do my second show. My first interview. I am happy to have Darren Held, owner and lead instructor at “Held2gether, Improv for Life” , who will share stories about the value of improv for overcoming stage fright and changing how we live our lives.
I hope you will be listening live, or download the podcast later.
_______
* Walt’s Rules for overcoming stage fright
** Walt Grassl’s Stand Up and Speak Up is a weekly podcast on the Rockstar Radio Network, airing live Thursdays, at 11 am PST, and available for download afterward
