Gary Who Hired Me For My 1st Radio Job Came To Talk About The Importance Of Talking To Strangers

Everybody Knows My Show Theme is "Risk It or Regret It!" Whatever IT is for YOU! So, I thought it would be fun to share how I risked getting my first paying radio job after college.

It's a memorable story of driving in a thunderstorm at 11 o'clock at night after working all day at another job, to a radio station in an old house in Briarcliff Manor, NY where Howard Stern had worked, to audition for an immediate opening for a news reporter.

I invited the guy who called me the next morning to tell me I got the job as the news reporter for WRNW Radio, to come join me in the studio to co-host a show.

Ol' pal Gary Axelbank was the then Program Director of WRNW Radio. He's now the host of BronxTalk and Bronx Buzz on BronxNet and he also hosts The Bronx Music Podcast -with Gary Axelbank.

He got in touch with me recently, sparked by the theme of my new book out to say he was totally on board with the point of "How to Talk to Strangers Advice From A Professional Stranger Talker".

I wrote it to try and spark people to try to have more meaningful conversations 'in person' versus the virtual conversations we've become accustomed to having by texting and email. Even making an actual phone call is becoming a lost art. (These days when I make a phone call and a human answers, I actually get excited!)

Gary said,

"You know among many reasons that I responded to the point of your book is that I'm a communications professional like you are, and communication is so important, yet people don't talk to each other.

I talk to people who I work with and I'm like, you know, we've got to get this guest booked or whatever. I'll tell them, do me a favor, just pick up the phone and find out if they can do it or they can't do it. They say OK I'll send them an email. Send an email? If you send them an email we're going to wait forever. Then you get an email chain where there's a whole discussion about, well, I can't do 12.30, I'll do 1.30 and I've lost track of what's going on. If we picked up the phone, we could get to somebody."

Gary and I are alike in that we intentionally put good energy into engaging people to converse 'in person' pretty much every day. We both feel it matters a lot, wanted to talk more about why it matters.

So we did… in this podcast of my entire show which airs weekdays 11-12noon EST on WGCH Radio in the NY/CT area and airs live globally on the digital livestream on WGCH.com

I rarely post a whole show but decided to post this one because we both tell some good stories…. like the day I arrived to work at my usual 5:30am and found a drunk guy sitting on my typewriter. LOL And the day Famous Amos of Famous Amos cookies just walked in to introduce himself with a big box of his 'new' cookies he was trying to promote.

Gary tells a story about when Howard Stern worked there and what happened when he tried to kill a bee in the studio. Ha.

We also talked about all the famous people who came from the Bronx. People like Jennifer Lopez (who has my same birthday) and Chazz Palminteri who's stopped by the show in the past and told me I reminded him of his mother Ha!

Gary also teaches a course in TV performance and teaches his students that to conduct a great interview they need to 'listen'.

"Well, this is a cool thing that I do. One of the things that we talk about is like when you do an interview, how do you get good depth? You get good depth because you ask a question based on what I say. And then I demonstrate to them, and I do it with them. I ask, you know, where were you born? What are your parents like? To do this, you must be a good listener. I could walk into the pharmacy and talk to the pharmacist, and I could do a half hour right on the spot with that. And why? Because when I ask well, what medication do you sell a lot of? They'll say, we sell diabetes meds. And I'll say, oh, what are the options? And then he'll say, well, these are the options. Why would somebody choose one, and why would somebody choose the other? And I could stand there forever. And it doesn't matter."

We both could talk forever but that's what we do professionally. We both ust want to encourage the rest to you to talk a little more, listen a little more, and make a little more an effort to engage your fellow humans in authentic conversations.

Enjoy this podcast of our live conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show. If you'd rather read than listen the audio transcript is below.