Opportunities and Luck
On Monday, Brandon and I had the outstanding opportunity to interview for the Business Makers radio show. The show was in Houston, and we drove down Sunday evening and had a nice little vacation.
I must add a note in here before I continue explaining my experience: I’ve recorded before. As a music student and musician since I was a kid, I’d been in a recording studio plenty of times, for my own music and that of friends and fellow musicians. While I had previously never been in a radio studio, I assumed it would be a piece of cake since I wouldn’t be playing any instruments or singing. Plus, this “show” was for an internet radio station, how hard could it be?Brandon and I got to the ClearChannel building a bit early to scope it out, and when I realized that this studio was a “legitimate” radio studio (you know, with all the satellites and antennas surrounding the place), I started freaking out. Things like, “Okay, this is the real deal, don’t screw it up,” “Why should YOU do this, you’re a jackass and don’t know what you’re talking about…” and other helpful self-assuring tidbits rolled through my mind, and we entered the studio booth.
(Here’s a pic of the studio, just so you know we were actually there…) And for some reason, as I was trying to reassure myself that I wouldn’t be a complete idiot during the session, I began thinking about some of the clientele this radio show has featured in the past:
- Steve Wozniak, Apple Computers
- Carly Fiorina, Hewlett Packard
- Nolan Bushnell, Atari
- Gordon Bethune, Continental Airlines
- Fred Smith, Federal Express
- Christopher Gardner
- Matt Mullenweg, WordPress
- Stephen King
- Steve Forbes
- Red McCombs
- Guy Kawasaki
- And a few hundred more…
My next thought:
“Oh shit.” As if that weren’t enough, I saw that Russ had printed out MY books, Building Viral and Ideas that Don’t Suck. “Was he planning on asking me about them? I hope they’re good enough. Did I put enough research into them? Oh, shit.”
“Why am I here? I’m a music major who enjoys entrepreneurship and starting businesses, but this is ridiculous. I’m a kid. I’m not an expert. I’m not…”
And then I realized–these are the opportunities in life that others refer to as luck. Sure, it was lucky Brandon introduced me to Don Minnick, and it was lucky that Don asked his friend and colleague Russ Capper to interview us, and it was lucky that Russ was doing a series on Aspiring Entrepreneurs, but during each of those specific stages of this experience, I made choices and accepted opportunities that brought to the next stage. I realized at that moment that I could either:
- Shy away from the moment and give one-word answers that proved I wasn’t cut out for business, or
- Talk about what I do know, what I’ve been working so hard on these past few years, and bullshit anything else with the honed skills of someone who BS’d their way through high-school English.
Guess which route I took? I’ll include a link to the interview once it goes live and airs. Suffice it to say Brandon did extremely well with the whole process and graduated from his radio show virginity with flying colors. I did alright as well, and whatever stumbles I had will hopefully be edited out and polished (gotta love technology!)
After the show, we met up with Don for drinks and just enjoyed the moment. We decided to keep the “head in the clouds” feelings going and grabbed some cigars at a way-too-ritzy-for-us 
cigar pub. Here are a few pics of the whole thing, and I’ll be sure to update when the episode airs. 
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