Shavers, My Sister and Radio

 

 

Just when I have no idea what I can write my blog about that won’t get my child kicked off a team or make my husband’s back hurt anymore something falls in my lap.  I opened my computer to write and saw an e-mail had come in from my sister Janet with a link to a download for a radio interview she did today.  It was a show out of Los Angeles called Tee It Up, which as you can guess is about golf.  Now my sister loves to play golf and has at one time or another been quite a good golfer, but not so much recently so I was really curious what she was being interviewed about on this radio show.

 

The download completed and the host started talking about shaving.  Ahhh…. I thought.  This is a show guys listen to; Janet owns a company that sells a shaver called ShaveTech, an electric shaver that plugs into a USB.  So for about ten minutes I listened to Janet talk to two men about shaving.  This was not normal radio, it was infomercial disguised as a conversation.  After all the shaving talk they spent a couple minutes talking about another one of her products, a knife sharpening tool called AnySharp.

 

Janet did a great job keeping the conversation casual about how men can keep this razor in their desk drawer at work in case they need to shave before a big meeting or a date.  These two radio hosts loved the USB charging capability since you did not need to carry adaptors and it works anywhere in the world.  On and on they went about Janet’s products and how they make great presents at $30.

 

How did my sister get in this business?  She went from telecom, to owning a women’s clothing store, to marketing consulting and now owns a business that sells all kinds of stuff from travel perfume sprayers called Travalo to Shavers.

 

All of a sudden a vision came to my mind of a time when Janet was about three and she practically cut her thumb off playing with my father’s razor.  I remember my mother screaming for me to get a towel to wrap her blood gushing hand in so she could drive her to the emergency room.  Little did any of us know she would grow up to sell electric shavers, which are much less dangerous than a razor with a straight blade.  What kid plays with razors anyway?

 

We just never know what path life is going to take.  If you asked me twenty years ago if I would ever hear my sister being interviewed about men shaving I would tell you absolutely not.  She’s really not that into men shaving.  But listening to her tonight I got a real charge, no pun intended, to hear carry on such an interesting conversation about something so mundane.

 

I wonder in Janet even remembers almost cutting off her thumb or her fascination with razors at a young age. I guess we should walk the path that is in front of us and eventually you are going to get somewhere.  It might not always be where you thought you were going, but it might be more fun than you expected.


My Fifteen Minutes of Radio Fame

 

Yesterday with my gravely chest congested voice I was interviewed by the brilliant Kristin Hiemstra for her radio show “The Art of the Potential” on WCHL.  We did a remote location taping at the Durham Branch of the Food Bank.  When Kristin asked me to be a guest on her show I had no idea we were going to do a whole forty-minute show on my volunteer work with the Food Bank.  I thought I might just be one of many guests.

 

With no script or outline for me Kristin and I talked about how I first got involved with the Food Bank, my weight loss connection, this blog and the work of the Food Bank in our community.  I should have known that I would have a lot more to say about the subject than a forty-minute show could hold.

 

One question Kristin asked me led to talk about a phrase I first coined when I was a consultant working with ex-monopoly telephone companies that applies to everything in life, “If it’s not a law of nature it can be changed.”  Working with bureaucracy I often heard things from people like, “It is a rule that customers wait three days for a new phone.” Or “Even if we were wrong it is our policy to never refund a call to a customer.”

 

Those kinds of words make me crazy.  See those “rules” and “policies” are not gravity, which is a “law of nature.”  I can’t change gravity, but lord knows I would like to in relation to a pair of my body parts, but rules and policies can be changed.  When people say things like, “that is the way we have always done it,” or “It’s just the way it is,” I think it is a huge cop out.

 

What do you want to change?  It can be things in the world, your community, your house or yourself.  If it’s not a law of nature go for it.

 

If you want to listen to the whole show it will air tomorrow, Sunday January 20, at 2:00 PM on WCHL 97.9 FM or 1360 AM.  Or you can go to this link and listen to it. http://chapelboro.com/pages/14088819.php