Monday afternoon – the 24rd – I received the best email in my inbox… It read: “you are invited to fill a slot tomorrow morning on the local radio station East Coast FM, to talk about your book!" Whooohooooo!!!! Did that email just come falling out of the sky? No, of course not. This is how it came about…
I’ll rewind back to Friday the 14th of Jan. I was meeting up with my Da to have some coffee down town. We’re sitting, having a chat and in walks a friend of his. A woman named Monica. I’d never met her before but we hit it off and soon we were talking about my book. She was so excited for me and said how brilliant it would be if I could get an interview on the local radio, about the book – because you never know who could be out there listening! I got butterflies just at thoughts of sitting in a studio, talking down the mic… I could see it happening… yes! Monica didn’t suggest this interview, to tease me with something that would be impossible for me to experience. No…, her son actually works at that particular radio station! Connections, connections, connections, they can all lead to so many wonderful places!
Anyhow, to cut a long story short. This cup of coffee on the 14th got the ball rolling. She got me the right contact details, I got in touch with the producer of the Morning Show last week, and Monday afternoon they answered, telling me to be at the radio station in Bray (just south of Dublin) the following morning (which was yesterday, Tuesday the 25th) for an interview Live on Air at 11.30!
Wouw! This happened so fast.
I’d initially approached them for publicities sake. I wanted to start telling the world that a book is searching for an agent. And based on this intention I ‘prepared’ in my head what I wanted the 1000s of listeners to hear. However, I’d prepared to ONLY speak about the process of writing and what my aim was…
With the ‘certainty’ that I was as ready for this spontaneous interview as I would ever be, I geared myself up and set-off yesterday morning to the radio centre. It felt to be start of something really big…
I was calming my nerves, keeping myself focussed and trying to be as grateful as possible for this opportunity without thinking too much about what I was actually doing... hummm... wise? I'm not too sure...
So, I walked into the radio station. I met the producer, Claire, only 10 minutes before I was due to go on air. What a great lady she was! I felt so welcome and so at home… even with passing moments of feeling physically sick.
When we were talking, I realized that her expectations from this interview were slightly different to mine. Oops! The fact that I’d approached them with the aim of spreading the word about the manuscript, I'd let myself believe that this was all I was going to talk about. But… assuming and having expectations can backfire, or maybe challenge our ability to be flexible and ‘go with the flow’! I realized they wanted to focus the interview on the story of my own past issues that actually LED ME TO WRITE THE BOOK…
If this isn’t making sense… bear with me for a moment… these few pieces of writing, will be so revealing…
So please keep reading… if you haven’t got time… have a cup of coffee, and come back later! Hahah…. No pressure ;)
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