The Million-Dollar Lesson

I started my radio show, Business in Motion, to give me the opportunity to talk with and learn from successful business leaders. So naturally I contacted those business leaders who I admired and wanted to steal some secret sauce from. I wanted to bask in their success and hope that some of it would rub off on me.

In the beginning I felt very small compared to my radio guests. Sometimes I visited them in their imposing office towers. Sometimes they actually came to me. In either case I found myself tremble. I remember fighting with the little voice in my head, “Hey George, who do you think you are? You can’t talk to this person. He is a millionaire. He has made it. What do you have in common?”

And if that wasn’t bad enough – imagine my inner voice when I talked to a few billionaires.

It was a friend who pointed out my mistake. That’s what good friends are for. After he listened to an interview that I was proud of he commented, “George, you usually sound more confident.”

I considered his comment then listened to the interview again. He was right. I sounded timid, weak and non-confident. I listened to a few other interviews and noticed the same thing. How did I miss that? Why did I do that?

None of my guests had done anything to intimidate me – yet I let myself feel intimidated. I let myself feel inferior because I was not as successful as they.

The Million-Dollar Lesson:
I figured out that I was not the same as my guests – however, I was still equal to them.

They were successful in what they did and I was successful in what I did (running my interview show). And when we sat down to an interview it was a meeting of equals.

Once I got my mind past that, we had much better interviews – and I felt better about myself.


George Torok
http://www.businessinmotion.ca/