TJ Walker (host) answers viewer questions about practical media-speaking problems and shares both concrete tips and personal anecdotes. Main practical advice: avoid rushing to interviews (allow an extra 15 minutes), dress appropriately for heat (avoid extra layers like vests), bring cold water, and—if necessary—use a restroom to dry off and calm yourself before going on air. He then recounts several embarrassing on-air moments from his career (violent hiccups during a live show; a producer falling asleep and losing call-ins; an interviewer brandishing what looked like a gun; a guest freezing and being unable to speak), and emphasizes that mistakes happen and speakers should learn, move on, and keep practicing.
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What's the most embarrassing thing that can happen to you during a media interview?
Speaking the show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in Life. Speaking with T.J. walker.
Eric writes in with a couple of questions. One of them is, TJ what is the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you in an interview? I'll answer that in a moment. And also, what do you do when your suit is sweaty before an interview? And how do you not look like a slob in front of others? A very practical concern. This is the venue for this. This show is about really nitty, gritty practical questions like that involving public speaking and speaking to the media. So this is a problem in the summer months for a lot of people. You get to a media interview or you get to a speech and you're sweaty and now you're nervous about, oh my gosh, I'm going to look sweaty. People are going to think I'm a slob. That makes you more nervous. Therefore you sweat even more. So I would recommend give yourself a little cushion. For starters, never rush. If you got a media interview, don't time it so you'll get there right when you're supposed to be there or five minutes before the show starts. Give yourself an extra 15 minutes. If you're walking, walk slowly. I'm here in the New York City area. There have been countless times when I've just walked up to CNN or other interviews on a summer day and it's warm. I always give myself extra time so I can walk slowly, perhaps buy a bottle of cold water on the way. If you rush, it's too easy to start perspiring, especially if you're nervous about being late, especially depending on what you're wearing. Now, with men, if you're wearing a standard business suit and tie, there's something like 32, 30 thicknesses of cloth around your neck. If you're wearing a normal suit, business shirt and tie. Women have a lot of things that can weigh them down and create heat as well. So take all of that into consideration. Give yourself extra time so that you don't have to rush. That's the biggest thing. Also, just dress accordingly. If it's a hot day and you like wearing a vest because that's your style, give real thought to that. I don't wear vests ever. I haven't in 20 years because it's just too hot. Even if it's a winter day, the room, the office, the TV studio you're in may be too warm. So that's one reason why I don't wear vests pretty much ever, even though the moment they've come back in style. Give yourself some time. Have cold water. Don't assume the TV outlet will provide you with water. You're giving a speech, don't assume that water will be provided. Bring your own water and make sure it's cold because you've got enough to worry about. You want to focus on delivering information in interesting, engaging, memorable way. And you don't want to distract people by being sweaty. Now, there have been times when I am scheduled to speak for a whole day, a training session. Something doesn't go right. I'm bringing in all my equipment. I used to have a lot heavier equipment. I'm setting it up, things are a little slow delay, people start coming in and I do get nervous. I have had to then go to the restroom, actually take Excuse me if this sounds too graphic folks, but this show is about nitty gritty, practical solutions to real problems. I've had to go into a restroom before, close the stall door, take my shirt, tie, jacket off and just really, really dry myself off with tissue so I'm completely dry. Take a few deep breaths, relax, get dressed, back again from the waist up and go back out there and do my presentation. Trying to look and act as calm, cool and collected as possible. Now onto the juicier subject of what's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to me during media interviews?
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So Eric, I've done at this point thousands, thousands of media interviews, both interviewing people and being interviewed. And I can tell you an awful lot of embarrassing things have happened to me. Once while hosting a live talk radio show, I could not stop hiccuping. And these were like the violent hiccups where you're practically falling out of your chair. It was live. I had no guest, I had time to fill and I kept, I had to just keep on going. Nothing I could do other than to occasionally say, sorry folks, I have violent hiccups. One of my most embarrassing moments was I was hosting a late night talk radio show in South Florida. The year was 1993. South beach was just sort of beginning to peak as a, as a fun night spot, cool place to hang out, and lots and lots of fun. Nightclubs were all in swing and listening to a political talk radio show from midnight to 4am on a Friday night, Saturday night was not most people's idea of oh, spend A fun night in South Beach. And I was doing this political talk show, Noon, excuse me, midnight to 4am Friday night and Saturday night. So one night, I believe it was a Friday night, putting out all sorts of controversial topics. Couldn't get a call. I had no guest for the program. It was a call in program with the host offering opinions. Hour one goes by. I've hit every single topic I can. I can't get a single call. Hour two goes by. I'm hitting every touch, tough hot button issue. Talking about national politics, local politics, state politics, controversial issues, Second Amendment, you name it. I can't get a call. The third hour goes by. I'm talking about everything. At some point, I think I'm reduced to reading pages from a book I'd recently published on politics that couldn't get anything. Now it's hour four. It's probably 3:30 in the morning. I'm begging, folks, I'm dying. I'm begging. I'm begging for calls. Finally, I look through the glass window into the control room. I see the phone lights up. I think, oh, thank goodness, a call. And I say to the board operator, jim, we have a line. We have a call on line one. We will go to line one now. And I look through the glass and sure enough, the board operator, the producer of the show, has fallen asleep. His head is down on the console. I'm yelling at him, please wake up, wake up. We're going to lose the console. This is, of course on the air. The phone rang about 20 times. We never got the call. I couldn't. And I was separated physically in a different room in the studio. So I couldn't leave to go get the call, otherwise it would have been dead air. And that's another big embarrassing blunder. So the caller hung up, didn't call, didn't call back. During the next commercial break, I finally woke up the board operator and I went the entire four hours without a single call. So that was not my finest moment. Another time around the same time period, I had a host interview me. He pulled a gun on me during the show. Now I have no idea if it's a real gun or it's a cigarette lighter, if it's loaded or what it is. But to my ignorant eyes, it certainly looked like a real gun. I didn't want to find out the hard way. And he was basically asking me to recant my own political positions because they were different from his. And he was a bit of an extremist and a fanatic. At one point he said, now do you see my point? Hubba. Humming, humming, humming. I didn't say much of anything interesting or intelligent. But you know what? I did get through the interview. Here's the thing about media interviews. There's no one interview that's typically going to destroy your career or destroy your life. It's a cumulative effect. If you're out there regularly communicating, you will, over time, build a good reputation for yourself as an expert and as an authority. So don't let it bother you. I do remember once I was not on the receiving end, but I was interviewing. This is during the O.J. simpson scandal when he murdered his wife. And it was a big, big, big news topic. In the mid-1990s, I was hosting a talk radio show, had a friend on who is highly articulate, a Harvard law degree, someone where I've had wildly opinionated, interesting conversations with for at that point, I'd known him more than a decade, and I introduced him to the radio guest. Huge build up, ladies and gentlemen, now the top legal analyst for the T.J. walker Show, Harvard Law School graduate, and I give his name, ask him the first question for his take on the O.J. simpson situation. His mouth opened, nothing came out. Pure panic. There was no sound. I could just see the look on his face. He didn't quite make the sound effect, but he might as well have. So I had to think quickly and say, while our esteemed guest is contemplating that we'll be back after this commercial message. And then I could shake him up a little. We got through the interview. It was not one of the more enjoyable experiences for him in his life. I have to say. I did kind of enjoy it, but we got through it. Here's the point, Eric. You do enough interviews, bad things will happen, mistakes will happen. You have to just learn from it, shake it off, and vow to do better the next time. It's a part of life. It's kind of like asking somebody who's dated a lot, have you ever had an embarrassing experience? Dating? Well, most people, if they're honest, would say, sure, but you wouldn't never ever date just to avoid embarrassing situations if you're single, presumably. Same thing with speaking to the media. Eric, thanks for the question. I'm T.J. walker, as always. May all of your presentations in life be a huge success.
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