REPLACING UNCERTAINTY WITH ASSURANCE
I'm proud of my All-California career as a disc jockey and broadcaster. I've met and worked with some of the best in the leagues; they have rubbed off on me and I am the better for it. So are my clients.
Mark Denis is one such luminary in my journal, a person with wa-a-ay too many wonderful things to itemize, and he's just going to have to satisfy himself with a bunch of sloppily written "I-love-you's." Each of us, over the years, and especially with the advent of social marketing online, has been watching each other of us grow, haven't we? We all saw the wrinkles begin to accumulate, and saw that they were kind warm creases, every one a smile in its own place.
We saw that but also saw far too many John Wayne movies to spontaneously burst into our natural emotional impressions. Cowboys never cried - not when I was learning all I could about them. No one can convey the deeply rooted disappointment I felt when learning that Texas wasn't like in the old west movies, every man with a pistol on his hip and every woman with a gradient of the color, ruby, on her lips. Bullets and gunfights, yeah, page one. Eyes brimming with tears, no. When saturated with sentiment, we're lovers not writers.
For this barbarian broadcaster, Mark was God's Puzzle Master, who found a missing piece of the riddle, and, once discovered, slid it into place. That's what good Program Directors did, once. When this one did, he put all my chaotic motion into a smoothly running specimen of harmony, then highlighted the footsteps that were backed by a higher purpose than imagined in my wanna-be-vagabond DJ life.
Mark was my green light.
Having read, re-read and digested my two Life Master Plan tomes, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, it seemed there was still this one monstrous red light remaining. One nasty, scary obstacle left, blocking, slowing, rendering uneven any progress. Too much mental noise has begun intimidating my otherwise undaunted dazzling radio dreams and imagination. I was waffling, putting uncertainty where there should be assurance, imputing a vague sense of unworthiness in place of a calm certainty, questioning my very presence in such a top-rated market. How is it that I "deserved" to be here?
Mark caught it right away. His calmly reassuring tone provided that missing slice of advice that helped me jump-start forward once again and go set the world on fire.
I came to him that afternoon with, "I don't know Mark," feeling the burdensome weight of criticism regarding my on-air style. "Maybe I'm just not ready for San Diego yet..." and it was right then, while I was struggling with self-doubt and confusion of purpose, that Mark Denis abruptly turned, loomed large with his unimposing but absolute certainty in natural authority.
He came at me fast, came through as my friend, Talent Director and Master Mentor at KGB, quietly restoring a critical steadiness that results when all parts are properly adjusted to each other, reminding me "You wouldn't be here if you weren't ALREADY ready. We're just here to iron out the rough spots."
It made all the difference in the world to me at the time. I'm still up to here with gratitude today for having had such a good friend and selfless professional on my side exactly when I needed it most, just as I was just getting my footsteps to go in the right direction...
Thanks, Mark. May God continue to bless us all, as always...
Having read, re-read and digested my two Life Master Plan tomes, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, it seemed there was still this one monstrous red light remaining. One nasty, scary obstacle left, blocking, slowing, rendering uneven any progress. Too much mental noise has begun intimidating my otherwise undaunted dazzling radio dreams and imagination. I was waffling, putting uncertainty where there should be assurance, imputing a vague sense of unworthiness in place of a calm certainty, questioning my very presence in such a top-rated market. How is it that I "deserved" to be here?
Mark caught it right away. His calmly reassuring tone provided that missing slice of advice that helped me jump-start forward once again and go set the world on fire.
I came to him that afternoon with, "I don't know Mark," feeling the burdensome weight of criticism regarding my on-air style. "Maybe I'm just not ready for San Diego yet..." and it was right then, while I was struggling with self-doubt and confusion of purpose, that Mark Denis abruptly turned, loomed large with his unimposing but absolute certainty in natural authority.
He came at me fast, came through as my friend, Talent Director and Master Mentor at KGB, quietly restoring a critical steadiness that results when all parts are properly adjusted to each other, reminding me "You wouldn't be here if you weren't ALREADY ready. We're just here to iron out the rough spots."
It made all the difference in the world to me at the time. I'm still up to here with gratitude today for having had such a good friend and selfless professional on my side exactly when I needed it most, just as I was just getting my footsteps to go in the right direction...
Thanks, Mark. May God continue to bless us all, as always...
