Tommy Kramer Tip #30 — Be Untypical

If you’ve never seen the great movie “The Sting” with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, it’s worth watching for one scene alone. Charles Durning, who plays a cop from Chicago on the trail of Redford, unknowingly intrudes on an FBI investigation. Taken to a big warehouse, he’s introduced to the head guy, who asks him a simple question. Durning gives a flippant answer, to which the FBI man says “Sit down. And try not to live up to my expectations.”

There’s a lesson here for you: The worst thing that can happen to your career in radio (or anything else, for that matter) is to be typical, to be only what the average person expects from a radio jock.

Being untypical is what makes great painters and photographers, great musicians, great character actors, and most of all, an INTERESTING person.
So the next time the mic opens, try to say something that’s not typical. Or try to do whatever the break calls for in some way that’s not the same old/same old. Being untypical is how you get noticed, instead of just going by unheard in the background.

There’s an art to being untypical. Everyone can do it, but it takes breaking down barriers (both real and self-imposed) and finding out what you have that’s unique.

That’s where a coach comes in. What you think you’re good at, you may not be good at. What you think is just nothing may be the very thing that we can take, nurture, and grow into the key ingredient that makes your mark. (Or just keeps your job when someone is going to be let go.)
I believe the phone number of a Talent Coach is below…