TJ Walker recalls a radio host who berated him on air and pulled a gun during the interview decades ago. He shares the story to show he's stuck with media training and public speaking through humiliation, building trust with people he trains.
Not every presentation you give is going to go smoothly. One of my worst presentations happened more than a couple of decades ago. I was going on a talk radio show in South Florida. It was political season. I was promoting a book, and I liked a particular candidate. I'll never forget. I went on the show, and I go into the studio, and I couldn't help but notice my seat was very low to the ground. I had to sort of look up at the host glowering down at me. He was in a real position of authority. So we start the show. He's very confrontational. He's from a different political orientation than I'm in. And as soon as I made the case for a particular candidate I liked, he basically yelled at me and said, Mr. Walker, I have more respect for a Klansman than I do for you. And I hadn't said anything that provocative. I was shocked. This host name was. We'll call him Steve Stick. And I continued to rebut. I continued to say what I said. I had already been a talk show host myself at this point, a media trainer. I wasn't lacking in confidence. Next thing I know, he pulls the microphone out of my hand. He's pulling it out, I'm pulling it back. I don't want to let this guy intimidate me. Next thing I know, Mr. Stick reaches under the table and he pulls out a gun. He points it at me. Now, this is talk radio in South Florida. Nobody can see this. And he says, now do you see my point, Mr. Walker? You know what I said at that point? Not much. It was more of a hubla, hublablabla. I stammered something. It was not pretty. It was not my greatest talk show appearance. The whole segment ended. He theatrically kicked me out of the studio. He's yelling at his producer, call the police. Call. I want this guy kicked out of my studio. Escorted off the property. I quickly left. And it just so happened I had friends of mine recording the show that day, and they replayed that audio every time I went to their home for the next five years. They thought it was so funny to see me embarrassed. But here's the thing. I actually went back to that station a couple weeks later and was a guest on other host shows. I went back a month later, and I guest hosted on other shows on that station. Now, I still avoided Mr. Stick. I still think he's crazy. But I didn't let that one opportunity make me give up or quit or think, oh, my gosh, it's so humiliating. I'll never do an interview Again. I'll never present on radio or TV again. No. I've done thousands of talk shows since then. Why? It's because I have a real commitment to speaking and presenting and communicating and helping other people communicate. Not going to let one bad opportunity scare me away. Okay, so why did I tell that story? I tell that story to in part humanize me. People want to see. Well, the all knowing trainer in front of them has had some tough times also to let them realize everyone's going to have a bad day. But the main reason I tell that story is I want people to know that I as their trainer have a real commitment to this, a passion for this. And so I tell this story when I'm doing a media training or presentation skills training because I want people to know I didn't just sort of stumble into this last week or it seemed like a hot topic from a Google search or analytics two months ago. I have been in this for decades. I have some scars to prove it. And I have a real commitment to helping people speak, improve and to communicate because I love communicating myself. So that's the message for this particular story. That's why I use it now. It does happen to be memorable. I'll have people come up to me sometimes five years later since I was in a training with them and they'll say, hey tj, anyone pointing guns at you lately? So it is memorable. It's a little more emotional and dramatic than the typical story. People say, you know, was that really true? Yes, it was true. It did happen to me and it was annoying and frankly a little scary at the time. But that's why it's easy to tell as a story now, more than two decades later, I'm just reliving the actual experience.
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