At the end of a particularly gratifying morning yoga class led by a slender, young, no-nonsense Russian blonde, the woman on the mat to my left whispered with a smile, “I’m yoga stoned.” Consistently doing yoga at least twice a week in 2019, I gotta tell you, is paying real dividends. The nourishment for my body, mind and spirit feeds the satisfaction I get from following through on what I said I was going to do.  

When I got home from my yoga class, I put away my mat, fished my cell phone from a pocket and noticed that I’d missed a call. It wasn’t local, but I recognized the 631 area code. About a week before, out of the blue, my wife had received an email from NBR FM, a New York radio station requesting to interview her. She wasn’t interested and I said, “Sure,” when she asked if I was into it. I’m a certified life coach helping adults become aware of self-empowering ways to improve their unresolved physical and emotional health concerns. Soon I got an email, then a call from NBR FM, and we booked a date which I’d kind of forgotten about until the day before the interview when I finally responded to their invitation to provide my own questions.

Shortly after my eight minute radio interview, I emailed them to apologize. I’d been a bit nervous and didn’t allow the host to ask the questions that I’d sent. I felt like I’d gone rogue right out of the gate, just started talking and kind of hijacked the show. Check it out for yourself--after you finish reading, of course--and let me know what you think (My Interview). Within an hour, I got a call from area code 631 but couldn’t hear anyone on the line. My phone rang again from the same area code, only this time a man from NBR FM told me how well I’d done with the interview before the call dropped. I didn’t hear back from them until the next morning--the voicemail I discovered when I came home from yoga:

Hi Dwayne. My name is Stan King. I am an Executive Producer for National Broadcasting Radio FM. Please give me a call back, um, as soon as possible. My phone number is 631.730.6640. I’m at extension 112. Thank you.

Super curious, I dialed the number and gave the extension to the young woman who picked up the phone. She asked me to wait and a bit of time passed before she reconnected to tell me that Stan was in a meeting. He’d have to return my call. I said I’d be available after 2:30. By 2:32 that afternoon, I was speaking to Executive Producer Stan King who informed me that my 9.1 out of 10 rating was exceptional, which led him to ask if I’d done radio before.  

“17 people called while you were on air. You’re really hot right now. I hope you’re as excited as I am.” I was elated and told Stan as much. He wanted to know when they could have me back on the air.

”Have you heard of Sal Giangrosso?” I hadn’t, of course, so Stan filled me in that New York radio personality Sal Giangrosso had worked with CNBC, CBS Radio, and Bloomberg Radio News to name just a few. Apparently, Sal wanted to interview me on NBR FM. Stan assured me that I had nothing to worry about. His team of four managing producers and his personal assistant would be available to help me prepare. “Just be yourself. And if you find yourself getting nervous,” he added, “it’s God’s way of shaking the truth out of you.”

I laughed a bit, feeling pumped, my head swelling up into the clouds. I was grateful to be recognized, to be chosen by these guys to deliver what I can bring to the world on their radio station. I could reach a wider audience and inspire more people to take control of their own health. What an incredible opportunity! I wish I could have seen what I looked like standing in my kitchen, still somewhat yoga stoned, with the rush of all of this playing out in my mind. I was also becoming aware of a blossoming internal struggle between fiercely wanting to believe what Stan King was telling me and this spidey sense skepticism that was starting to take root.

“Is this April Fool’s?” I asked.

“Absolutely not. It’s February 21st.”

Without missing a beat, Stan went on about growing exposure, multiple channel publicity, and things I’ve forgotten regarding his stature in the industry. He hoped that I realized what my radio success had opened up for me and talked about plugging me into some online subscription platform called TuneIn before asking when I could come back on NBR FM for a half hour show.

Turns out he had five 30 minute shows in mind for me.  At the eight minute mark of each show there would be a 15 second ad with another 30 second commercial coming seven minutes later. Other than those two corporate sponsored advertisements, the show’s content would be left up to me. Now I know good and well that the universe can respond to intention lickety split if it chooses, and, yes, I truly believe I would rock the platform that Stan King was laying out for me, but this whole thing was sounding like the textbook definition of too-good-to-be-true. The five 30 minute shows made up one unit, he explained, and one unit cost $5000. For the briefest of moments, I held on to the fiction of making $1000 per show before he asked me which credit card I wanted to use in order to get the promotion in motion. I wasn’t going to get paid; I was getting played. My man Stan was asking me to pay them five grand!

Now I really wonder what I looked like then--my face, my body language. I felt duped, deflated. Supremely foolish. Down right stupid, really. Of course this dynamite media platform the universe had conjured up for me wasn’t legit. What the hell was I thinking? How could I have been taken in by Stan’s unfounded flattery, his ego-pumping praise?

Truth be told, I felt a kind of emotional loss when I realized that I wouldn’t be doing any radio shows (unless I paid for them, I guess). I also felt angry and resented having to reckon with, first, believing that they really wanted me on their radio show to recognizing that this telephone call fell somewhere between a rather elaborately designed sales pitch and just another New York hustle.

The night before during our monthly Spiritual Wealth webinars in the Healthy, Wealthy and Wise Coaching Program, we’d been talking about what Derrick Sweet calls the Kindness Formula. In a nutshell, it centers on cultivating kindness as a daily practice. I find when I do make choices that are informed by kindness, I engage with people and my environment in more positive, synergistic ways. And in becoming more aware of windows to promote kindness, I’ve also become conscious of how often I miss opportunities to do so.

Kindness can go MIA whenever the ego takes charge. Once that bubble Stan created to inflate my ego had burst, I began beating myself up for being so gullible rather than being kind to myself given that I was targeted here and being grateful that I hadn’t lost a thing outside of the time that I’d been on the phone. With Stan waiting silently for my reply, I tossed aside the victim card.

Choosing neither to attack nor to accuse him of running a scam, I said I didn’t feel comfortable giving out my credit card number and asked him to send the offer in writing so I could think about it. Insisting that he didn’t want to make me uncomfortable, he told me whatever I decided to do was fine.

“It’s just, I mean, strike while the iron is hot, right? And you’re hot right now, Dwayne. We don’t want to lose that momentum.” He reminded me of those 17 callers again. Sharing his goal of eventually having sponsors pay for 90% of the $5000 fee, he mentioned some doctor whose shows were totally funded. “This guy’s making money.” Stan said he’d send me a detailed offer as soon as they processed my card. “So which one would you like to use?”

I asked him how the pharmaceutical companies that were supposed to be key sponsors would respond to me promoting food over medicine and criticizing big pharma on the radio. He claimed they would sponsor other shows, not mine. I chuckled, letting him know that their pharma sponsors didn’t sit well with me to begin with and, secondly, I didn’t believe any corporate sponsor would allow negative content regarding their business on any NBR FM radio show.

“You know what?” I asked. “You said 17 people called during my interview, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Can you put me in touch with some the callers before I make a decision?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Because we didn’t pick up the phones while you were on the air.”

“So how do you know they were calling about me?”

“Oh, they were calling about you all right. We just didn’t want to interrupt your interview. You’re really hot right now, I’m telling you.”

I told Stan to feel free to send a detailed offer in writing, but he wouldn’t be getting my credit card info. He sounded tired and small when he hung up the phone. As you might imagine, I haven’t received anything from NBR FM. Other than the gift of knowing that even though I let Stan ensnare my ego and whisk me off on an emotional roller coaster, I was able to ground myself, reclaim my power and take control of the ride.

 —DT