Rehearse Your Worst Fears to Be a Great Media Interview

SUMMARY: Release your fears and excel in media interviews by rehearsing worst-case scenarios. Through aggressive, assertive and overly intimate questioning in coaching sessions, clients learn to remain composed and handle difficult situations effectively. Just as facing fears in cognitive behavioral therapy lessens their impact, media coaching helps neutralize anxieties. Embrace storytelling and avoid excessive promotion to engage audiences authentically and effectively. Ultimately, letting go of fears enables you to deliver valuable information with ease and confidence.

Table of contents:

Rehearse Your Worst Fears to Be a Great Media Interview

During in-person or online media coaching sessions I leer, I snipe, I antagonize, I attack. This is in service to my clients and workshop participants so they can rehearse their worst fears to be a great media interview.

The first time I played the aggressive interviewer to a volunteer in a live seminar, she shrank back in her chair in fear. She grabbed her gut. She said, “I’m afraid of you now.”

I asked her to hang in there while I let loose my aggressive questions over and over again. Her job was just to remain calm, she didn’t need to say anything. After the fifth time, she said, “That wasn’t so bad.”

Oftentimes people hire me to media coach them after a similar frightening experience with the media – except it’s a real interview and they do need to respond.

Just the other day I took on the role of a disrespectful man during a media interview with my client, an accomplished millennial woman of color who had vast corporate experience dealing with a wide range of men of varied ages and ethnicities. Yet, I got under her skin and she took a bit of a snarky attitude at my jibing. When we debriefed she said she forgot it was me and pictured me as an a-hole white male and she saw that she needed to work on not getting triggered. We’ll keep practicing this “type” until she can manage her internal responses and reactions more skillfully.

Of course most of the time no one will be demeaning or shrieking at you. But it’s often not about the words, but the tone, the energy and the force that is scary. It activates the experience or trauma that is connected to the current circumstance that needs to shift internally as well as externally.

I heard an interview with New York Times reporter Bruce Weber discussing “The little-known world of “foul balls and face masks” on the NPR radio show Fresh Air with Terry Gross. For three years, Weber trained to be a baseball umpire at umpire school. He said he was terrified that he’d be hit in the face with a high-speed ball, even though he was wearing a face mask.

To help him get over his fear his instructor threw the ball at his head. After five times the fear started to lessen, by the fifteenth time it had dissipated and he had gotten over his fear.

Leading psychologists and psychiatrists work with their patients using cognitive behavioral therapy by repetitively exposing them to the fear so it eventually lessens or neutralizes it.

It’s the same with media coaching. Going through the visceral experience will help dispel any fears. Often my clients want to start with what they fear most – because either they’ve experienced their worst fear, or because it’s looming.

Everyone fears or wants to avoid something. Even the most experienced media guest. So practice the questions you DON’T want to be asked to get them off the table so you can focus on your true purpose….

1. Set Your Intention.

Ask yourself two key questions: What do I want my audience to know now? How can I help them? No one cares about your business, book, product, service or cause…until they see how it relates to something they need.

2. Tell a Good Story.

I had one client who spoke like a professor teaching a class based entirely on theory with no practical tips, stories, or anything that might engage a person at an emotional or visceral level. We worked on finding personal anecdotes that her audiences could relate to.

When I asked a recent client who sought me out to prep him for a job interview at an exclusive restaurant to tell me how he handled a disastrous or potentially disastrous situation he said to me, “Have you ever broken a cork on a $3000 bottle of wine? I have.” Then he told me how he calmly dealt with the situation without anyone at the table being any wiser. Every story starts out with a headline that makes you snap to attention. What follows should be equally riveting.

3. Don’t Be Overly Promotional.

While one of the essential things I teach is how to seamlessly integrate the information you want your audience to know about your product, service or cause into the conversation, don’t overdo it. Radio, TV and podcast producers and hosts biggest fear – after a guest being boring – is that they’ll be overly promotional.

I was on a radio show with a panel of people who were all famous in their own right. One person was obviously a very experienced media guest, but every single time she shared information she interjected something about herself, her credentials, her business and her services. Enough already. Although what she had to say was valuable I found myself recoiling from what felt like being drilled without respite.

The most important thing in an interview is to be natural while you’re interesting.

Letting go of your fears is a process that allows you to relax while you’re giving good information that people can use and enjoy.

More info:

To learn more about how to develop sound bites that sing here.

Check out our PR and Media Training Workshop to Jumpstart your Publicity