Never Walk away from a TV camera. I realize this sounds kind of obnoxious. It sounds like I'm asking you to be media promiscuous. But here's what I mean by that you're coming out of the grocery store, you see a TV camera. What I do and what I recommend you do is just walk up to the reporter, big smile on your face and say, Hi, what's the news today? 98% of the time, the reporter will say, oh, we're talking to people about their feelings on the new stadium going up, or how the local teams doing in this sports tournament?
Can we ask a few questions? They basically always ask me, the only team that hasn't happened, has been in New York City when it's a foreign network, and they're only speaking in Japanese and they can tell you don't speak Japanese. But otherwise it's set up. It's actually called man on the street and it can be a woman on the street too. They want to get people's opinions Now, is this an opportunity for me to promote my latest book or online course or website? Not really.
But it's yet another opportunity to practice on camera skills. It's another opportunity to meet a reporter. Give that reporter a business card. It's also another way of getting in people's faces when colleagues friends, family, others see you on the local news. It's just sending in another message that you are a public person that you're a good communicator. Not that long ago, I was just walking with my family around the block and I saw police cars and TV channel did what I always do walked up.
What's the story today? there happened to have been a crime. And they wanted to ask me how I felt so I gave a few thoughts. Here's the thing. It doesn't really matter for me. My business that anyone knows my feelings about crime in the neighborhood.
And this is a very low crime neighborhood I should point out, but it's more practice, it's an opportunity to essentially perform on camera although if this state, to me, it's just talking. It's a discipline you get better at when you're focused on speaking concisely, and delivering sound bites. As a way to test your skills in a no threshold way. When we walked away from that interview back home with my wife and daughter, I told my wife, I said, I guarantee you, they're gonna use my soundbites. Here's the one they're gonna use. And sure enough, 10 o'clock later that night, it was on exactly as I predicted to get not because I'm a genius.
It's just because the formulas, the procedures I talked about in this course, actually work in real life. Was there a huge benefit from it? No. But PR people I work with other people saw it and it just again sent this message out. Wow. TJ really knows about media.
TJ knows about TV. And there's really no downside now, am I suggesting that you're on your way to your wedding? And you have a chance and you're now missing your own wedding just to do an interview with no, I'm not being that extreme. But in many cases, you're out for a walk in the park, you see a camera. You're no particular Hurry, why not spend three minutes doing that? I was in Bryant Park in the middle of Midtown Manhattan A number of years ago.
And there's always cameras there because it's right where all the major TV networks are. I saw a camera walked over. Well, it was NBC today show which at the time was the number one rated show on all American morning TV. They asked me a few questions. I happened to be one of the few shows I'd never been on before. Now I could say I was on the Today Show.
Does it matter that much? No. But it's another little piece of the puzzle. So my advice just never turned down an opportunity. The other beauty of it is, is it's a low stakes way of speaking, and being less prepared. Maybe you don't have messages and soundbites.
It's a way of learning how to literally think on your feet, which normally I don't recommend. But if you didn't get to the advanced level, you really do have to get comfortable enough on camera, right lights and a mic so that you can literally think on your feet. It's great practice for that.