This piece originally aired on 10/22/09, so for many folks, this is old news. For those who haven’t seen it and have been looking for the clip, I have finally uploaded it to YouTube and also have the video embedded in this post. For those interested, here is a little background on how this whole thing came together.
In late September I received an email from a lady who said she was an editor for NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly and was wondering if I was interested in being featured on the show. I was skeptical of the legitimacy of this email as the sender’s address was not something along the lines of ___@nbc.com. Nonetheless, I figured there wasn’t much to lose and called the number she provided in the email. I got what seemed to be her personal cellphone voicemail and reluctantly left her my contact info. A few days passed with no reply, so I moved on and let go of what little hope I had.
Out of nowhere on a Sunday afternoon, I received a call from an 818 area code. I answered and was greeted by Ted, another producer from Last Call. Now things were starting to get real. Over a span of about an hour, we covered everything from my story and background to the setting the logistics of making the shoot happen in less than two weeks time at a location hundreds of miles away for both parties. Nonetheless, the date was set for a Friday afternoon in Chicago. The location, at the flagship store of Leaders1354…of course. I would be driving down from school in Minneapolis and they would be flying in for LA.
The shoot went pretty smooth. We hit some minor bumps along the way such as learning how to shut off the hiss of the A/C to people buzzing the shop doors who were looking to shop and see what was going on. I had done video interviews before, but I knew nothing would compare to the length and importance of this one. Over the hour and a half that was filmed, we covered the common variety of topics. It was amazing to see the amount of editing put into the shot to trim it all the way down to 2 minutes. Some quotes and stories were pieced together with others, but I have no big complaints.
I personally have always been comfortable with public speaking, but it was hard to shake the nerves this time around. Looking back on the playback and final cut, there were things I wish I would have said differently and others I realized I left out, but in the end I would much rather have these few regrets rather than never be in the position to have such regrets in the first place.
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