When you’re really focused – clear on what you want to do – you have a chance to be great.  When you’re not quite sure, or just “winging it” this break, your odds diminish.

The best programmers make it where you know the objective, which should be first, to keep the listener with you.  (When someone tunes out, that’s a misfire.)  And then, hopefully, make the listener want to come back tomorrow for more.

Like a great song.  You want to hear it again.

You lose your ego, and you gain confidence, when you do the right things right.

So don’t even think about your voice, forget trying to “sell” things, and just share.  What you and I have in common today is the real subject matter.  The rest is maintenance and branding.  (But do those well, too.)

Topics are just springboards to reveal emotions.  (Please read that sentence again.)

These thoughts will help you:

1. If you’re just talking about a subject, but I’m not in that picture, it won’t work well.
2. If it is about the Subject and about me (the listener) but not about YOU, too, you’re still missing an ingredient.
3. And anything that doesn’t have a clear emotion at the center of it is just fodder.

This is why all great Content comes from what’s around you that you and your listener have in common or can identify with, and feel something about.  Otherwise, it’s just a “topic” – which I consider to be basically the same as drain cleaner.

Best in your class.  Best in your school.  Best in the city.  At every level you attain, you should want to be the best at that level.

And then you want to find another level.

This is how growth happens.  The minute you get satisfied and think you have nothing else to learn, you’ll STOP learning.  And then you’ll become a dinosaur.

Radio is part science, part Art.  Part talent, part planning, part performance.  The desire to learn more is what fuels every great career.  If you need help, talk with friends, listen to each other’s work, and share thoughts.  Get a coach.  Study acting, movies, great books.

FEED the part of you that wants to be the best at your level.

Don’t get so obsessed with what you know you’re going to have to do later.  Stay in this moment.  Do what you have to do NOW first.  Clear your mind to do a good job with it.

More breaks are ruined (or made lackluster) by a lack of clarity than almost anything else.

The execution of something is far more important than the thinking of it.  When the time comes (when the mic opens), you have to be able to Stand and Deliver.

All the great ideas you’ll ever have won’t matter if you can’t put ’em across to the listener.  Even something as simple as saying the name of the station needs to be sincere, slightly different every time, and polished.

That’s why the biggest gap is between Good and Great.

And that’s why I coach. I love helping people get to Great.