So who am I? Who is this TJ Walker fellow and why am I listening to him? How did I get into this media training? I was not anyone born a natural speaker or particularly outgoing. I was a very shy kid. didn't say much of anything.

I remember, teacher in fifth grade thought I was rude and arrogant and grabbed my arm and said, Who do you think you are not saying hello to people. I was just a shy little kid. Things changed for me a little bit sixth grade I was about to graduate from elementary school, my teacher came up to me and said, ATG, I'll make a deal with you. Right now you've got all good grades but a bad grade in handwriting a C in handwriting. I'll give you an A in handwriting. If you just give the welcoming speech to teachers and parents and students graduation day.

I didn't know about speaking but I thought doesn't seem that hard and I'd like to get an A in handwriting. So I did it. I stood up. Welcome parents, teachers, students of bronze Avenue Elementary. wasn't anything great, believe me, but I got through it. And then I learned at an early age if you just stand up and speak, people will give you things.

Fast forward a few months later, I'm now in what was then called junior high school seventh grade. There was a 50s day where students are asked to dress up like teenagers from the 1950s in America. So I had my hair slicked back I entered something called a Fonzie look alike contest from a very popular television sitcom called Happy Days. I won the Fonzie look alike contest. I had a little more hair back then it was a little darker to the reward for me was to do the junior high school newscast the Bicentennial minute it was 1975 leading into the bicentennial celebration of the United States. And so I did that on closed circuit TV in front of 1200 students.

So that was kind of my first taste with being on camera the in the media way back in 1975. And then I got an interest in student government, student politics ran for student council one. The next year, I became the student body president for the whole school, the head of the student council. So that gave me numerous opportunities to speak during the morning announcements to speak on microphone to the whole school, and to give speeches regularly at Student Assembly. So that was kind of my beginning, taste. And I got more comfortable with that I was as nervous as anyone I was nervous as some of you are right now is just that I got over that.

And I did it enough when I was 13 years old, to get to the point where it became normal wasn't any natural ingrained talent at all. So I developed an interest in in politics. And started following various political leaders, political commentators in college started doing TV commentaries for the local student TV channel, which nobody watched and did commentaries for the student radio station, which I don't think anybody listened to. But it was a start, I was really interested in commentary. And for many years, I did political commentary for, frankly, any radio station or TV stations, and they didn't bar me from the door. For the most part, I never got paid for it.

With few exceptions, for many, many years. I follow this political route. And I also was interested in working in campaigns and started volunteering on campaigns and did my first media training with a political candidate running for congress when I was still in college. So I'm a little bit unusual for most media trainers, and then I kind of started off in training and then also did media activities as an official Kenyan journalist is a talk show host. So I hosted political talk shows on radio stations and TV stations, networks all over the country. And I was a wildly unsuccessful talk show host to be brutally honest.

I was perhaps the youngest syndicated TV talk show host in America, way back in 1989, the late 80s when I was still in my mid 20s. And I was in 10, markets around the country, again, did not become wildly rich and famous and successful, but continue to work in politics continue to do media training on the side, and continue to be not only a host, but also a guest on every kind of network imaginable. And did this on the side for many, many years. Then at some point. So many political talk shows had died. radio talk show ventures of minor died, websites simply hadn't worked out I'm being totally candid with you here that I figured let me focus on what I liked doing, and I'm good at and people are willing to pay for.

So now almost 20 years ago, I started a full time, media training practice and public speaking training practice. And that's when things sort of took off, to be honest with you. And I hope that doesn't sound arrogant, but that's when my business took off. My practice took off. And once I focused on that, then it was easy to write half a dozen books on the subject, create hundreds of courses and DVD programs back when DVDs were popular. And that's when my practice took off.

The web started taking off so people were finding me from instead of down the street or 10 miles away from Delhi and Mumbai. So that's when my practice grew internationally. When I started my business. It was just TJ Walker communications. And what I found is the only thing that really worked as far as marketing. And this is, again, nearly 20 years ago, was online, people finding me online through search engine optimization.

So I talked to my search engine optimization company and said, I'm going to cancel all my advertising and trade publications, other giveaway programs and do more on online ventures online marketing. And I'm thinking of changing the name of my company. And they said, Okay, what is the search word people are using to find you that results in the most money. So that's easy media training. And they said, well, media training calm is taken. So if you pick the name of your company, media training, plus one more word calm, that's going to be the easiest to have.

You show up high in search engines when someone types in media training. So that's how I came up with the name of media training worldwide. I just wanted media training in it. was one more word. At the time of coming up with that, I think I'd done one training for about $100 in one country, Jamaica, so it wasn't particularly worldwide. But it's funny how I'm not a big fan of the whole, fake it till you make it.

But having a vision, having a goal, and focusing on growing in that direction can actually be very helpful and useful. And that is, frankly, what happened, named my company media training worldwide. And sure enough, the business did grow worldwide. I now have 30 countries I've been to to conduct trainings, I've trained people from every continent. And this point, online training, I've trained people from 91 countries, how many people I've trained in person from different title even No, it's fewer than 191, but it's probably more than 100. So it's been a fun, successful journey.

I've enjoyed it. Every day, there's something new. In the past, I tried online training way back in the 90s always failed. It was too early for doing online video and audio. I've had many different iterations of my online training. And it is never really taken off until just the last few years.

And this is very exciting too. So I appreciate this is long, but again, I didn't give this to you. The first video of the course of the second or third is way, way down. I hope I've given you enough value throughout this course. So that you even wanted to listen to this and watch and if you didn't, you didn't have to watch it. Thanks.