Okay, this is embarrassing. I really don't tell this story from the platform, or to my audiences when I'm training professionally around the world. But I'm going to share this with you because if you're here in this course, this spot, you're pretty diehard because we're deep into this course. The analytics on this course show me that, at this point, about 98% of the people who sign up for this course are watching. So I want to give you a reward for being with me at this point. Here's the situation I was almost in implicated in a male prostitution scandal.

Now, for we get ahead of ourselves. Let me make very clear I've never been a male prostitute. Or do you imagine this is why I don't like telling this story. I don't like having to tell people I've never been a male prostitute. That sounds a little sketchy right there. But here's the situation when I was in high school there was a very popular teacher named Jesse Campbell.

Everybody liked him. He had a master's degree from Duke I ended up going to do ki was the student council advisor. He knew me I knew him very sociable. After I graduated from high school, I went back to my high school, so I would have been 19. This was the summer of 1982. And I was having lunch with another teacher, my favorite English teacher, and the teacher cafeteria.

Jessie sat down, we started chatting, say how you like Duke. Oh, Jessie, it's great. And then he said, Hey, do you have a job this summer? I said, No, I'm looking for one. He said, great. I have a plant.

He was a biology teacher and an expert on plants and horticulture. He said I have a plant shop and a local amusement park. Hey, you're a good Looking at this is a long time ago Hey, you're a good looking guy you'll bring in the ladies come work for me, gave me his number. I called him didn't hear from him. I called him a couple more times. A week past I needed a job.

I kind of forgot about it. And I think I even left a message on his voicemail. In fact, I know I did. I forgot about a couple weeks ago by I'm now doing some kind of moving or manual labor job that isn't very exciting. I'm at home after a long week of manual labor. asleep on the couch, TV's on all of a sudden it's the news all of a sudden, Jessie space flashes up.

News flash man arrested in Charlotte for running male prostitution scheme. Jessie Campbell, well known popular teacher in Myers Park High School in Charlotte arrested today. Running a male prostitution ring. It's believed he ran the ring out of the young men who worked for him at the amusement park Carolyn's next day front page story. And it's mentioning men implicated. So my greatest fear is, there's this story about this guy's arrested.

Here are the five prostitutes who work for him. And here's the sixth guy who was going to start on Tuesday. And his name is TJ Walker. That was my fear. And at the moment, at that point, in my life, I had aspirations to be in the Senate, be president, all these things and I'm thinking, Wow, my whole life is over. And I'm only 19 years old.

I basically shut the curtains. And at home I told him, I don't answer the phone. I didn't say why. And I was frankly scared. Now at my day job doing this Some manual labor. Another friend of mine was there who also went to high school with me.

He's like, Hey, I heard from the police. Today, they're going through Jesse's house and calling every number that's in the house and interviewing people. And I had my interview and they asked me about this and this, I'm thinking, Oh, no, I know he has my phone number. I left it on the voicemail. I wrote it down and gave it to him. It's only a matter of time until the police call me.

The police never called. It was never in any headlines. I was not implicated as a male prostitute. It seems funny now, but at the time, it was scary. Here's the thing when you are a part of the story, or you think you're going to be a part of the story, and you can't control it's scary. So I get it when you and a lot of my clients feel Speaking of the media because you fear loss of control, you fear saying something stupid that will be taken out of context possibly ruin your career, because it can ruin careers.

In this case, I hadn't said anything to the media. But I was concerned about just being a part of a story. People do lose their careers because of dumb things they say or stories are implicated. And so it's a very real fear. I felt the fear and I can understand why you do too. Okay, so why do I tell that story?

At some point, it's a way of humanizing me because it's sort of comical man I didn't do anything bad but it's comical seeing this. You know, this little goody two and I was a goody two shoes hiding closing the curtains psycho has being afraid of being caught in a male prostitution scandal. But it also drives home the point that it's Totally normal to fear how you're portrayed in the media people come to me to learn how to present themselves to the news media as well as live audiences. So I want them to understand that I get their nervousness. I get their fear because I've been there too.