🎙️ New Episode Confidence, Mistakes, and Real Talk with Terry Evans | Real English Conversations For Business
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This is the Real English Conversations podcast, where we help you to communicate clearly and confidently in the conversations that matter most in the workplace and your professional life.

Hey everybody, I'm Curtis from realenglishconversations.com and today I've got a really exciting, inspiring guest for you. We haven't done this for a long time, but this is a brand new episode. So whether you're from Edmonton, like I am, born and raised true Edmontonian,

I've got an Edmontonian guest with me today here. Or if you just love hearing real English conversation stories like you're used to, my guest today is a person named Terry Evans. He is a Canadian radio legend. If you're one of my students living in Edmonton, you'll know him from the morning show there on K97. He has been on K97 since I could...

I can barely remember. My older brothers raised me on...

Edmonton Radio, and he is a legend in that city. So Terry Evans started his show decades and decades and decades ago, but he is here with me today, and I'm so honored to have him here with me. Terry Evans has hosted the morning show in Edmonton for a long, long time, and now he has just recently released his own podcast, which he'll tell you about too, called Reluctantly.

where he sits down with many different people in the Canadian music industry, Canadian broadcasting industry, and anybody and everybody unfiltered. He sits down on his podcast often to share very funny stories, memorable stories, and from different people of all walks of life. So we're starting this episode by talking to Terry about what got him into this industry in the first place.

which I'm totally obsessed with. I went to two different broadcasting schools in Edmonton, and it brought me to where I am today. So to have Terry share with you his stories about what made him want to be the voice, to be the first thing you hear in the morning as you wake up in the morning. From there, we'll dive into some topics about confidence, courage to crack the mic, and

and to be yourself. And especially when it's difficult or hard in life, we'll talk about making those mistakes, bouncing back from them. One thing a broadcasting teacher always taught me was to

it's not about how bad you screw up, but how good you recover and bounce back from things and not to worry about those mistakes and to move on and to fight through. So we'll talk about things about that. My students are really terrified about how they sound and how they come across and bring out information in a second language.

So it's about being courageous and moving past those mistakes and to eventually handle those through professional conversations with your boss and management and things like that. And things that nobody really wants to face or tackle, but you have to face them and eventually tackle them in your life eventually.

especially with being podcast hosts, being broadcasters and knowing how to move on with courage to face those things. So if you've ever worried about how you sound or about if you're being judged by others or just about speaking up, whether it's in English or just in life, this is the episode that's going to speak directly to you.

Terry, welcome. Welcome to Real English Conversations. It's great to have you here. Thank you very much, Curtis. Yeah, it's good to be here. I want to kick this off by knowing what inspired you to get into radio. Was there a moment or a memory where you thought, yeah, this is exactly what I want to do in my life? I was in high school in grade 10 and came to the sudden realization that

I was going to be graduating in a couple of years, so I figured I probably should...

find out what I am going to do. So that day after school, I walked up to the radio station in my hometown in Creston, BC and asked for the owner and told him that I wanted to be a radio guy, told him that I kept up on current events, that I listened to all kinds of music. I like talking to people and I thought I was a decent storyteller. So I said I wanted to be on the radio.

I sat in for six weeks or so with the Morning Man on KC Radio in Creston, B.C. And then January 23rd, 1980, I started my own show at 6 o'clock at night on a Monday night or whatever it was. And he had belief in you. He was like, okay, Terry, yes. All right, I'll give you a kick at the can here. I'll give you a chance to...

to, to be you. What, what was that like when you first cracked the mic open? Was it intimidating for you? Was it like, Oh God, what have I gotten myself into? Or was it like, yeah, yeah, this is, this is me. This is, this is what I was meant to be when he gave you that, that shot in Creston. What did that feel like when you first cracked the mic open? Well, it was, uh, uh,

a vast world of the unknown because I had never really done it before. Even sitting in with the morning man for the first six weeks, getting accustomed to the radio station. I was never on the radio.

It wasn't until my very first shift that all of a sudden I had to tear off the BN Newswire and read the news and then play a song. So I had to figure it out really quick, and I didn't have a whole lot of mentorship or anything like that. I kind of learned as I went and went from there. I was 15 years old trying to figure it out.

Wow. I went to CHIT in Drayton Valley. Mel Stevenson was the guy there.

He believed in me, but the morning man at the time when I went to that school in Drayton Valley, Alberta, completely threw me through the ringer. He was hard on me. He was so tough on me and many people who knew Mel Stevens. He was a pretty hard-edged guy, but it was his morning man that kicked my butt into gear, you know? Yeah.

I can't remember. I think his name is Steve. I walked in there and I was doing sports news, the farm report, much like Les Nesman, you know, from WKRP, you know, doing the hog report. Yeah.

in a country radio station. And it was very intimidating for me. And he was like, boom, cut me off the air back to the practice studio. Mel's like, you got to get your S H I T in together here at CHIT. It, it, it all evolved from there to, to, to, to help me out. So yeah,

So to do it without too much of a mentorship and to know that someone believed in you and to have that self-confidence to crack the mic like a natural, like you said, wow, that must take some confidence and courage to know that people are listening to you and to not be afraid. Yeah.

What was it for you that was so fearless for you to crack the mic and to not worry and to know that, yeah, man, no matter what I say on air and do on air, what was it for you that totally turned that around for you? I think it was just the biggest thing for me was the unknown. So it wasn't like there was hard and fast rules that...

You know, obviously there's certain things you were not allowed to say on the radio, but there was no real hard and fast rule that I had to follow because nothing was really laid out for me. I was given the opportunity to, you know, with a lot of rope, I could hang myself if I wanted and I could go in there. I was 15 years old. I was making mistakes and I was learning from those mistakes because if you don't make mistakes, you can't learn, learn from them. So, yeah.

The best thing to do is to plow forward and do what you think is right or what feels good. And if there's adjustment that needs to be made or somebody who's got more experience that can provide you with a path to go down so that you can refine things as far as your presentation on the radio goes, even at a young age and with limited experience, you can start to develop your personality.

and go from there. So that's pretty much what happened with me. I was there right through until I almost graduated. So around two years and then after I graduated from high school, I ended up going to the Lethbridge Community College and enrolling in a broadcast journalism course there. I was the only first year allowed on the college radio station because I had previous experience.

And I was only in college for like a couple of months before I got a job at LA 107 in Lethbridge. Wow. So you've had a long career. It's like 35, 40 plus years. Was there a moment early on where you felt, yeah, yeah, I found my groove. I found my path. I think when I was doing it in high school in my hometown in Creston,

It felt like a really good opportunity that I could continue to grow with. Then going to Lethbridge Community College, I found myself in a situation where I knew a lot of stuff because of previous experience. There were some other things there that were more the journalistic

of it that I wasn't really that much that interested in, you know, sports reporting, news reporting, television and that sort of thing. I just kind of stuck to radio and then getting the part time job while I was at college in my first year. That just kind of sent me off into and I didn't even finish college. I barely finished my first year. I just hung around for the parties sort of thing in college. And then after first year, I was I

I was off and running. Now, music plays a big part in it. Your passion for music and love for music. Are you a musician yourself? I have guitars. I'm not very good at playing them. I have some electric and acoustic guitars and a bass and some other stuff. My son is the musician in the family. Yeah, he's a drummer, right? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I'm a drummer as well. I grew up in a musical family. Always grew up listening to music and having a large record collection was always my thing. Jamming with my dad, who just turned 84 years old. He's still playing electric bass guitar, but we were always jamming together. And music has also been a huge part of why I got into music.

podcasting and broadcasting. So, uh, yeah, I wanted to see if you were, you were an actual musician yourself or just have a huge, huge passion for, for, I guess, rock music. You've always stuck true to, to the rock stations. So being a fan of blues and rock and, and,

always being out there at events on, you know, those huge, huge events in Edmonton. It was always Sidetrack Cafe, Blues on White, those influential places that you were always a part of the major music scene in Edmonton. So,

So just wanted to see if you were a musician yourself. So it's cool to find out that you may have dabbled in guitar, but music has always been a huge part of your life, right? Yeah.

Yeah, ever since I was a kid growing up, there was always music in the house. I always listened to radio. I'd go to sleep with a transistor radio under my pillow listening to 14C Fun out of Vancouver and listening to KEZE out of Spokane on cable. Yeah.

And, and then, you know, once I got into a bigger location, became a bit of a radio junkie and started getting interested in the local music scene. And of course, having the opportunity to meet a lot of people in the music industry, it's been a real blessing and a real, I feel very fortunate to have some friends

great friends in the music industry. Either locally or internationally as well. Confidence is a huge topic for my students who are the majority of my listeners on this podcast. Was there a time in your life or career on the radio where confidence kind of took a hit and, and how did you rebuild from that? How did you come back from it? Well, yeah, anytime you get fired, your, your confidence takes a bit of a hit.

Which is a common thing in radio these days. Yes, it's always been a common thing in radio. But I mean, I was working, I worked at K-97 in Edmonton from 1986 to 1992. And then from 92 to 97, I worked at the Bear.

And when I was working there doing the morning show, my program director fired me because of a personality conflict more than anything. And then it was not long before I got a job back at K-97 in 1997. All of a sudden, when you have no job, you wonder if anybody wants you. If anybody, if you've got...

something that people think is going to be entertainment or is going to be worthy of putting on their radio station. So, I mean, that's a big part of confidence. Then you get hired again and then your confidence goes up. You've always had...

people in the industry that believed in you. And that probably took you further. You know, it, it takes you past that, that kind of conflict, inner conflict where you're like, okay, well, yeah,

This station fired me, but these guys believe in me. And there's a process and rules and legalities that go into, okay, you can only be on the air again after a month or two or however long the rules CRTC lays out. And it's like, okay, well, I'm back to where I originated from.

And it's cool that it was in 97, you were back on K-97. It's almost like the universe calling you back and saying, this is where you're supposed to be. With legends like Todd, Todd James. Todd James, yes. Todd was at K-97 in 1986 when I first came to Edmonton. Wow. And he's a legend too. Yeah.

You know, even though, like you said in your amazing interview with Gord and Linda, nobody can recognize him anymore because he's got this easy top hair. And that's the way he likes it. He doesn't want people to come up and bother him on the street or to recognize him.

Now, how do you feel when people come up to you in Edmonton and they recognize you and you're not hidden behind a full beard of hair? How does that strike you? Is it okay for people to come up and say, hey, Terry, man, you've been such an influence on me and you're one of the reasons why I got into broadcasting or podcasting?

How do you feel about being recognized? Well, being recognized is part of the job, I suppose. And obviously, when you're on the radio, there's not the visual aspect to it. But when you do work in a radio station, you're expected to be out in the community and doing a lot of things, being in front of as many people as possible so that you can

Give them the idea of what it's like to meet the person that's on the radio so that they can listen to the radio longer or more or say, hey, I met that guy and he's a good guy. So being recognized in public is just part of the job and something that I enjoy. I have, you know, not really any problems.

qualms or anything like that about people coming up to say hi no matter where I am unless of course I'm sitting eating dinner with my family or something like that you would hope for hope for respect in that manner but it

You just kind of roll with it when it happens. What I really love about you and your presentation on air and who you are right now and who you are off air, I can tell it's consistent all across the board. You don't change. There are a lot of people and in the early days of going through broadcasting school and stuff like that too, you kind of...

have this fine line of putting on that, that, that radio voice. Hey, how are you? Blah, blah, blah. And, and not being authentic and being yourself. What I really like about you is you've always been Terry. You've always been real. And, and, you know, you can hear that on the air. You can hear that on a, on a podcast, um,

you can see the authenticity, you know, and, and hear it. You know, one of my first broadcast teachers, announcer teachers, Pat Galenza at Nate, who used to teach there a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. It still does. Good. Yeah. We're friends on Facebook and he, he remembers me as a student.

And what he always said to me was just be you. Don't try to put it on. Just do it. Just be you. Your voice will find you and you will find your voice.

So what keeps the authenticity for you, Terry? Why is authenticity the most important thing in public speaking and in any job, whether it be broadcasting or podcasting? But what...

What has stuck with you as the most important piece of advice for your authenticity?

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To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com and enter promo code SPACE80. One of the things that I mentioned before is don't be afraid to make mistakes because you learn a lot from the mistakes that you do make. The other thing too is if you try to be somebody that you're not...

You're constantly trying to figure it out. If you know who you are and you are just authentic and real, then it comes much easier. It's kind of like the old adage, you know, if you tell the truth all the time, you never need to remember what you said.

because it's just the truth. But if you make up stories and you make up lies, then you have to remember what you said, because there's always the chance that you can get caught in a lie or in a story or something like that. But if you're always just being yourself, then that's all there is. It's like from you to me, me to you. This is, I mean, what you see is what you get. It's not going to be the favorite thing in the whole wide world for everybody who's listening.

but you hope that something that you do and something about you, your personality is going to resonate with people. You know, something is going to be, you know, meaningful to somebody. They're going to be able to relate to what you are talking about because they may have gone through the same experience or they may be going through the same hardships.

the same happiness. There's all kinds of things and that's why you try and come up with things that are relatable as topics when you talk about them on the radio. And that's great. Just being yourself and knowing that other people can read right through it or hear right through it on the radio or on your podcast that you always want to be

You always want to know that in the back of your mind that someone can see through your honesty or dishonesty, your being vulnerable, being transparent, being just you. And that, I think, shows where the real people stand. You're still in the industry, which...

Some people might say is a dying industry. Some people might say is a evolving industry with technology and AI and all this. But to be here and real and unfiltered, like with your podcast and my podcast, we...

we're both being authentic and being real and want to get that across and not let any sort of thing vary from that. So it's, it's, it's real, real and authentic and it's nothing to be afraid of. And that's really cool to bring across to my audience and your audience to always to come out there and be you and,

And I think that is a, I don't know, it could be a big mistake now with up and comers in school and journalism courses and stuff like that, that they want to be a certain personality, but it comes back to just being yourself and always come across real and know that there's an audience that will listen to you.

Let's talk about some tough conversations. Can you think of a time where you had to speak up to maybe a program director, a boss, a manager, a co-host even, or someone that wasn't really easy to deal with, but you had to do it anyway? Can you think of a time where this happened in your career, where you had to deal with a difficult situation

boss or co-host and had to say, hey, man, just hear me out here. This is how it has to be and how it turned out for you.

Yeah, there's all kinds of opportunities for creative people to have personality clashes. Quite often, you know, there's type A personalities. Creative people are often very set in their ways and like to visualize something or execute something in a manner which best suits them. But it may not suit

Somebody else that you are working with as a broadcast partner or as a program director or, you know, somebody else who is in an authoritative position compared to what you are doing, you know, whatever facility, you know, that you're working in. So it's all about compromise.

Coming to an understanding of what each of the people that are involved needs out of a specific situation, whether it's executing something on the radio, communicating an issue or an event or something like that, or making sure that it's conveyed properly to an audience so that they completely understand what the intent is for everything that's going through on the radio station as far as the programming involved.

The situation is concerned. The program director is there to direct. He's there to shape. And, you know, it's kind of like digging a trough so that you want the water to flow out of your radio personalities.

but you want it to flow a certain way. So as you are letting the personalities who might be on the radio have their free-flowing thoughts, presentation, and relatable content, you also want to kind of dig it so that the trough goes the way, the direction that you want it to go.

So I've been a program director, but I've also, for the most part, been an on-air personality. So I know both angles of it. So I get a bit of a benefit from that aspect where quite often now I'm working with younger program directors and I understand what they are trying to convey and

Or I try to make sure that they understand what I need in order to execute what they want on the radio station. And being an on-air personality isn't just about being on the air every morning. It's about connecting with people.

the community going out to events like, you know, you sent me a message last night, you're like, I'm at an event, I might not respond to you right away. So it's about it's more than just being on the air. It's more about being a public figure.

in a lot of ways. So being out there with the Oilers fans, go Oilers, we're on our way to another cup. It's about their connecting with the people in the community. What have been some of your most important

favorite experiences connecting with the community of Edmonton? Well, anytime you go out and go to an event where there's radio listeners, you know, listeners to my show, it's generally fun and everybody comes together to have fun. So, I mean, that's the biggest part of it right there. But yeah, having events...

If they're a promotional or if they're an event like, you know, the hockey game, hosting a hockey game last night, or if it's bringing the community together to come to the assistance, the aid of somebody who may have been affected by a tragedy or a fire or something like that, bringing people together for charitable causes where everybody is like-minded and thinking of a specific goal to reach to support people who are

may have less or may be in need of specific medical attention or, you know, assistance through programs or that sort of thing. There's all kinds of different aspects of being in the community.

that come into play. Generally, they are all fun. Some are a little more serious than others, but having a connection to the listeners at the radio station is very important. You can't just go on the radio station and tell people or ask people to listen to you. You have to go out into different

sort of environments and ask them to listen to you. It's kind of, it's like advertising. You can't just advertise on the radio to listen to the radio. You have to advertise on billboards and television and newspaper and digital online and that sort of thing. You have to advertise in places where people aren't traditionally listening and try to get them to listen to you. So, you know,

You know, it's one of the aspects of it, except it's not a hard cost usually to get the people to, you know, try to be attracted to your show or your radio station.

Yeah.

how does it let you explore different kinds of coffers, you know, conversations? Uh, well, people have been asking me or, you know, wondering when I was going to start a podcast. They've been asking me for about 10 or 12 years. Hey, when are you going to start doing a podcast? And you think about that. So,

So that goes back to 2015. Well, podcasts have been around since what, 2005, 2007, somewhere in there. I guess I was part of one of the original online groups

podcasts when we had an uncensored show that we did back in the early 2000s after the old Terry Bill and Steve show. We'd finish the show up at nine o'clock in the morning and then we would go online and do an uncensored show for an hour.

But it was in such infancy that very few people even knew to go online, to listen to something, to stream something. Things like streaming weren't a thing yet.

There was no such thing as a podcast. Tom Green had not yet told Joe Rogan that you could monetize things going on the radio. And we didn't know it at the time either, but this is long before Howard Stern on satellite radio. This is long before the Joe Rogan podcast. This is long before the podcast with Mark Marin. Uh, it just, it was way too soon. So we kind of did that for a short period of time and

And then starting in, you know, 2015, people started asking me about doing a podcast. And I just kind of figured that the radio show was enough and I didn't want to do additional work. But as radio station is, the radio show has evolved and the radio industry has evolved. And there's, I don't, I think sometimes as hard as we try to keep our audience

retain them for long periods of time. They're very busy. They're in and out of the car. They take 19 minutes to drive to work, which is on average in a city the size of Edmonton. The difference between a radio show and a podcast is a podcast can be paused. A podcast can be listened to in the morning and then later in the afternoon. It's the same thing. A podcast is something that is targeted. If

If you're going to listen to a podcast or I'm going to listen to a podcast, I'm going to a specific podcast to listen to it because I'm interested in what that person has to say or the guests that they have or whatever the case. With radio, a lot of times there isn't that patience or an attention span for somebody to go for a long period of time on a radio show. People will quite often...

maybe change the channel or you know if they don't like what they hear on the radio they'll change to another radio station but in a podcast you know somebody's listening to this podcast because they're interested in what you are presenting and that's why it's long form that is not generally received well on radio in the grand scheme of things i suppose so

I was finally convinced, so I reluctantly acquiesced, and now I have a podcast. I'm six months into a podcast. Nice. That's awesome. Is that where the name came from? Yes. I reluctantly started to do a podcast. It's the podcast I never thought I would start. That's amazing for you to do that, and I think...

there's a lot of truth that rings from

With traditional radio, you can always switch and listen to somebody else and listen to this and listen to that. But I think with podcasts, people stick with you longer. I think your audience will stick with you longer. They'll always go back and listen to previous episodes. You can re-release old episodes and you'll get just as many followers, downloads, views

at least in my case. So now that I'm getting back into recording something new for a long time, way too long, there were some things going on in my personal life where I had to take a bit of a break, but now I'm, I'm the main host of the podcast and I'm just bringing on the most interesting people. And to collaborate with someone like you is, is great to have you as the, the, the first person,

person that I bring on this legendary broadcaster who's been an inspiration to me like other Edmonton broadcasters have as well to really give me the courage and all day I was like

am I nervous? There was a little hint of nervousness, but I'm like, man, it's Terry. He's just a human being. He's, he's, he's a great guy. He's an inspiration to me. What's there to be afraid of or to be scared of with this interview and to not go into it with the thoughts of, I'm going to totally train wreck this. Or what if he thinks this guy's going to come on here and,

and feel unauthentic and stuff like that. I just told myself all day, I got a good sleep last night, got some good hydration, good workout in the morning.

And said, okay, I'll teach my four or five lessons in the morning and then have this great interview with Terry. And it's going so well that, you know, it even broke me out of my own shell of not being scared or nervous and not saying to myself, okay, this guy has, you know, 35, 40 years of broadcasting experience.

And, um, he's, he's a legend that you grew up to, uh, in Edmonton and is part of the reason why you are doing what you do today. Why be nervous, scared, or, or full of fear? Those, those thoughts become things in your head. If I would have created that, um, um,

thing in my head of being scared, nervous, or afraid just because of who you are or what your experience, maybe this would have been a train wreck. But just being real with you and just showing up here and making sure that this happened for a huge important reason, because I got to get new content out there and I got to bring my audience back. But

But to bring it back in a strong way and to have somebody who's been through a lot of scary experiences or nerve wracking experiences. One thing that really holds my students back is the fear of sounding dumb or stupid or making a mistake in front of others.

Now, have you ever had a time where you went on air and you finished a segment or a part of your show and you were like, oh, shit, oh, my God, that was the worst thing. I'm going to get fired. My boss is going to call me into the office. Has there been any of these moments where you were like,

Oh, my God, that was the worst thing I ever put out there. And it went out live. Have you ever had any of these? Do you have any stories of, oh, my God, I shouldn't have even went on air?

I don't know if I have any specific stories off the top of my head to relate or relay to you. But, I mean, it's like a weekly sort of routine where something happens and you flub your words or stumble or get some information incorrect or partially correct.

Um, and the, the, the thing is there, there's people listening who are always smarter than you. And, and that's good because then you're, you know, it's kind of like a watchdog sort of a situation, but, uh, not one time have I ever said that I'm an expert on anything. And if there's anybody who can correct me with proper information or correct information, then I'm all for it. Uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm,

A little bit of a dilettante. I know a little bit about a lot of stuff, but I'm not an expert on anything. So I try to keep an open mind and look forward to opportunities to expand my knowledge. I mean, it doesn't get full.

So why not learn more from people from all walks of life, from all over the place, people who are different than you and came from different places than you. And anytime you have that opportunity to take in that information, it's just one more thing that you can share. You're never going to be a hundred percent right all the time, but if you have fun being wrong, at least people might see the humor in it or something like that. There's,

There's always an entertainment value to a certain extent. But at the same time, there's going to be times where you just plain old piss people off. And as far as, you know, if people are mad or people are, you know, think, oh, this guy's an idiot or he doesn't know what he's talking about or whatever, it may be the case. Quite often it is. And I'll say, I don't know a lot about... This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace.

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Other people's opinion of me is none of my business. I honestly don't really care if somebody doesn't like me. That's more their problem than my problem. I have children. I have parents. I have a wife. I have people who love me. And that is...

what I care about. If there's people out running around saying, oh, I hate Terry or I can't stand him, I can't listen to him, then that's fine. I will get by. I'm going to be okay. That's on them. Yeah. It really is their problem. It's not mine. So if people are expressing...

you know, weird views or, or condescension or, or what? I mean, just let them be miserable, let them be bitter and you just go and be happy away from them. It's much easier to do than being confrontational with nut bars. So in this whole large career span, um,

Have you ever had, you know, your boss come in and tear a strip off of you and say, Terry, man, what the hell are you doing? Yeah, it happens less frequently now than it did, say, 20 years into my career or 10 years into my career. But there's still times where things happen. And, you know, I'm a human being just like anybody else. We're all emotional.

And sometimes you say things or you do things before you think about what you're doing or before you think about the repercussions or what is three steps down the road. You're only thinking in the now and you're not thinking about what could possibly potentially happen down the road as a result of my actions right now. So sure, there's always something that could be handled differently.

There's always something that, you know, you can be reprimanded for, but it's quite often, it's not what you did that was wrong. It's, it's how you are able to make it right or make amends or, you know, just get things back on the straight and narrow instead of all squiggly and all over the place. Right. In the on-air control room, when you're doing your morning show, um,

Is it chaotic? Is there a lot going on? You're taking calls, you're lining stuff up on screens. You have like six different screens in front of you. Technology has changed.

Has it gotten easier to deal with the chaos in the control room and the on-air room or with, you know, evolving technology and all that? Or has it become more difficult compared to when you started? I don't know. It's not so much chaos. I mean, there was a time where we had four people on the morning show and it got a little chaotic and there was all kinds of

People trying to get in contact with us, and it was more of a talk show than a music show. So there was a lot of interaction between the hosts, you know, myself, our producer, and the other two hosts and the listeners.

Uh, but, uh, at that time there was the only way people could get into you to talk to you was to phone you, you know, to be on the show, to phone you. But now you can, you can text, you can do social media. You can, there's all kinds of things. There's not much chaos that happens, but it's, you know, radio is also different now than it was, uh, five years ago, 10 years ago, uh, 20 years ago, 40 years ago, it's five years ago. We were in the middle of a pandemic.

And everybody was freaking out and people were angry and it changed the way people listened to the radio. They sat in their basement and they weren't, you know, spending any time with their friends. Sometimes they weren't spending any time with their family. So it gave them an awful lot of time to do their own research and think inwardly and come up with crazy stuff.

And, you know, they would hear something that was said on the radio and say, oh, you're just trying to tow the liberal narrative or the conservative narrative or this narrative or whatever. I'm against vaccines or I'm like. And ever since, you know, 2020, it's been it's been kind of kind of wiggy, kind of weird. Yeah, because the people are much more vocal now.

And I'll give you a perfect example. If you go into a bank or a drugstore or something like that, a lot of times you'll see a sign at the counter saying that this premises, this work environment does not put up with anybody –

abusing, verbal abuse or physical abuse or anything like that of our employees. Right. You know, they say that we have the, we can ask you to leave the store and we can reserve the right to not serve you if you're being rude, if you're being an a-hole, right? Well, people do that to us all the time. Over the past five years, it's gotten exponentially more and more apparent that

where people think they can just be dropper,

a-holes just by email, by text, by phoning, and they think they can just scream at the guy on the radio. So, and that's all we're doing is playing music and trying to entertain people. But as soon as we say something, you know, somebody's got some conspiracy theory that he believes to be true, we say anything different. We're the ones that are in trouble for saying something that

It doesn't conform with what he's thinking. You're looked at as the person or the speaker for everybody in that aspect, being in media, radio, television, podcast, whatever. You're looked at as the spokesperson. Yeah.

for whatever you stand by and whatever you say. So there's a fine line between what your moral beliefs are and what you stand for as a person.

and what maybe the station wants you to say. And, of course, there are rules on... Well, I've never been one of those guys where I say what the station wants me to say. If the station starts telling me to say what they want me to say, that's the day that I'm not going to be working at that radio station anymore. And that's why you're loyal to K-97. Well, it's... I'm...

Yeah, but the thing is, I have a sense of right and wrong, and I have a sense of trying to provide verified, proper information, factual information to people. And sometimes my opinion comes into it, which I can get into trouble for, and that's fine. But I won't let a company tell me what to say.

Because that's just, that's not why I was hired. I was hired to be a radio personality. If you're going to take my personality away, then I am no longer a radio personality. I'm a machine. And I refuse to do that. So even if somebody new came in at K-97, you know,

and wanted you to be who you're not, you would have to

whether you want to stay there or not. And thank God that K-97 has given you your voice and your freedom to, they have that mutual respect with you where you can be you. You can be Terry on the air every morning that you crack that mic and

And I think Edmontonians can feed on that and can pick up on that. They know you're real as compared to whoever else is hosting morning radio in Edmonton. That's why there are people like you who become legends, who are part of that station, who have formed it, created it, and made it.

what K97 is today. And that's a good partnership to always stay in. And I hope that always lasts for people like you who need to be authentic and be real and be comfortable knowing, okay, I'm at a station that lets me be me.

I might come close to crossing the line and my boss might crack the whip a couple of times and say, oh, Terry, kind of back off. Has there been meetings like that where it's like, oh, man, I got to have this tough meeting with my boss and he's like cracking the whip on me?

And how do you come to that compromise? What do you say to each other within boss and on-air host? Where do you come to that common ground?

Well, it's what you were talking about earlier. You have to have a mutual respect. And if there isn't a mutual respect, then it's not going to work. And that's what happened with me when I was at the Bear, the program director at the time. And there was not a lot of mutual respect. He was the authoritative figure and he decided that he didn't want to have to put up.

He didn't. And he told me he said he didn't know how to handle me and didn't want me working for him anymore. So that was the thing. But, you know, there has to be an understanding of what is acceptable, you know, without.

There's a threshold that you can reach to the point where you are being a personality, sharing your opinion and being provocative. But at the same time, you know that if you go over that threshold, that's when you're going to have to start dealing with general managers, program directors, presidents, vice presidents of companies and that sort of thing.

So understanding the threshold, you know, the level that you can get. And sometimes you're going to peek over it. Sometimes you're going to have a little bit of a meniscus over top of the glass, right? So where you go further than you should. But as long as there's that mutual respect,

then it's easier to calm the waters if there is something that ends up stirring them up a little bit. Have you ever cried on the air? What has been your most vulnerable or emotional moment on the air?

It could have been one of those memorable stories from many different things that have happened in Edmonton. How did you hold it all together? What was the number one? What was the emotional thing where you're like, oh, man, I don't know if I can actually do

go in the air and hold myself together, or if you've cried on air or been very emotional on air, and what did you do to hold it all together? Yeah, lots of times. And that's all about being a real person with real emotions and that sort of thing. A lot of times it's got something to do with the loss of

or death or tragedy or something like that, something that's just heartfelt. You know, the opportunity to share the story about trying to teach my son about the spirit of giving at Christmas with Riley's story is some 24, 25 years old now and kind of tear up hearing that every year. And then

When Tom Petty died, it was very sad to me because Tom Petty had just gotten off his tour. He was just performing like two or three nights before and it seemed like such a tragedy and such a waste that there was that cocktail of drugs that he ended up succumbing to. But I mean, there's been all kinds of other tragedies and things that

have had to be described or told. And I ended up being the, you know, the thing that presented that to people, like the attacks on the World Trade Centers and

in New York city, uh, the morning that we were on the air, when, when all of that happened, we were watching it on TV and you know, the, uh, there's been plenty of other things that have made, made me emotional. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's knowing that, wow, uh, I have to be strong. I have to go out here and be the messenger to deliver that information to the public. Um,

And it's probably a lot of deep breathing. Like...

Oh crap. We're coming back out of commercial now. Hey, this is Terry Evans, K97, blah, blah, blah. And, and to instantly turn a switch from being in tears and going, holy crap, what the hell is going on with the world right now to have to deliver the message is, is not an easy thing to, to some people believe you can't just switch your emotions like the light switch, but it's,

in a job like yours and, you know, being a podcaster, you know, not every day I wake up and feel great and awesome. I try every day, but I have to be there for my students, my podcast audience. And no matter what goes on, you find that inner strength with inside yourself and you have to, you know, to take a deep breath or to stop and say, hey,

Okay. Well, the people have to know this and I don't, I can't be a blubbering mess on the air. So I just have to pull myself together. What is that? Where do you find that within yourself? I know within myself it's breathing meditation, a walk around the block and some ice cold water to hydrate me.

but when you only have minutes or seconds before you have to hop on the air, is it just like a reality check with yourself? You're like, Terry, oh my God, just get it together here, and then you're on the air? Honestly, I haven't figured it out yet. I don't have it.

I don't have that mechanism in my, in, you know, in here or in here that I can just shut it off. It's one of those things where if something is going to make me emotional, then it's something that's,

I feel is worth sharing. If it's ridiculous, then it's no different than laughing, hilarious fits of laughter. If you find something very genuinely funny and you can convey that message to people and make other people laugh, then that's something that you should do. And if you can do it

Often, then a lot of times people will remember that. But at the same time, if you find something, if something is, it's touched you emotionally and you can't hold your emotions inside, I don't, I don't think there's a problem sharing that.

I don't think there's an issue with that because quite often people are, are feeling the same thing and they might be confused about their, their feelings or you might be confused about their feelings, your, your feelings and your emotions. And you might not understand why you're shedding a tear or, or breaking down on, on, on the morning show on the radio, but it might be also helping other people deal with it too, because they also don't understand. They, they, they are confused. And, and you know, when, when, when,

When good friends die, it's a shame. And whether it's after a long life or not, it can be very sad because of what they brought to your life, how they made you feel. And if it's one of the things that has touched you, chances are it's touched other people. And they need to vent as well. And a lot of times it comes out through emotion. That's good. It's good to let it all out and to vent.

If you could talk to the younger version of yourself before your first big break in radio, the 14-year-old, the 15-year-old, what would you say to yourself? Would you give yourself any other different advice or what would you say to the younger version of yourself to maybe do things differently or would everything be the same? Well, I would...

Like anybody else, I would like to go back and teach myself how to handle money better. Because when you don't have a lot of it and you end up with credit cards and that sort of thing and you get yourself into trouble, I mean, everybody, a lot of people can relate to that. And I'm no different than anybody else because...

I'm here with you on that. Coming from Lethbridge to Edmonton, I was making $800 a month in Lethbridge and I came to Edmonton in 1986 making $1,200 a month. So it was a big raise in that it was a bigger city and it cost more. It cost money to move here and had to buy furniture and all kinds of things that came into play. And the first probably...

seven, eight years of my career, 10 years really, but it was, uh, it was pretty slim pickings and a lot of, a lot of high rate interest. Are you worried about the future of radio and, and where it's going or, uh, do you see it evolving? Do you see it, uh, you know, there, there half, half of the people out there, um, you

who are broadcasters, media people, see an evolution and a change with technology and AI and all that kind of stuff, which is real. But what's your opinion on the future of traditional radio? Is it going to shift more into...

the podcast era and the way podcast is podcasting is going and things like that is it going to completely die off is it going to always be around for people to listen to what's your personal opinion on it

Podcast, like this podcast is being recorded. So right now it's being recorded in this moment in time. And it will never change, right? So what I'm saying right now is going to be here on this recording and that's just how it's going to be. The thing is when I'm on the radio, I can say something and then two seconds later I can say something completely different and once it's done, it's gone.

Once you record something on a podcast, it's just there. A recording is a recording. The immediacy of radio will keep radio alive. There is nothing that can be more immediate than

than radio if you if you want to watch the if you want to find out what's going on in the news and you're watching the television news well you're watching stuff that happened last night or earlier in the day or on the other side of the world their different time zone at you know four o'clock in the afternoon in spain well you know what time that is here in canada and then you have to wait until the six o'clock news or the five o'clock news or the 11 o'clock news so

TV is not immediate. Newspapers, if there are still any around. If you're going to wait for the news to come out in a newspaper, like we get the Weekly Gazette here in St. Albert, which is great to find out what's happening in town and whatnot, but it comes out on Wednesdays. That's not your current events. That's not your current news. It tells you what has happened over the past week, which is very valuable and insightful, and a lot of people love having that.

which is great. But with radio, something can happen and I can tell you immediately. I can tell you that you need to evacuate. I can tell you that you need to go a different way because of something that's happening in traffic. I can tell you whether or not you need to wear a sweater

that day. It might be cold. Radio will never go away. It's always going to be there as a companion. It's always going to be there as an important source of information. The problem that we are facing is the people who are presenters on radio stations are being sort of, it's dwindling.

There's fewer, fewer presenters on radio stations compared to what there was 10 years ago, 20 years ago. There's fewer people doing more things. So it also provides maybe less of an opportunity for people to get into it. You know, new people out of, out of broadcasting school. Plus the fact that some broadcasting schools are shutting down, which is a real shame, but

I think there's still plenty of opportunity for people to get into radio and to make a difference to their communities and provide people with a sense of immediacy, information, and entertainment. Yeah, immediate information. And it sounds like you wouldn't discourage anybody from getting...

into the field, you'd just probably err on the side of caution of how to do it right. I wouldn't err on the side of caution. If you want to do it, do it. If you're going to do it, do it 100%, 110%. Don't kind of do it and think, okay, well, I'll try it and see what happens. No, if you're going to go into it, do it. I was 15 years old. You muster up the nuts to go up to the

owner of a radio station at 15. That's I was all in then. That's it wasn't something where I thought, you know what, maybe I'll try this and see if I like it. I went in and I thought, I'm going to do this. And if I fail, if I fail, I'm going to learn something from it. And I'm going to be able to adjust or go in a different direction or try again.

But I wasn't going into it thinking, this might be for me. I went into it 100% wanting to do it, and it worked out for me. It's not going to work out for everybody, and it doesn't have to be radio. It can be accounting. It can be a firefighter. How many people go in to be a firefighter, a first responder, a police officer? You don't go in to try and be a police officer and say, you know what, I'll give it a shot.

See what happens. Now, if you want to go in and try and be a police officer, chances are you've been thinking about it for years. You have done preparation. There's all kinds of things that you have had to do to get to the point where you step into that room, where you step into that training facility or whatever it is. And you have to be 100% committed to doing that. If you're not, you can't fake it. People are going to know.

They're going to know. And if they know, then it's not going to end up well for you. Yeah. Like you and I know in radio, you can always hear a smile. You can always hear the emotion that you radiate through the microphone.

And that has to be with every career. So if someone right now feels like they're nervous to speak in English, they don't have the voice they know they have, they're too nervous to speak up at work to ask for a promotion, they're too nervous to get out there and get that career and the job they know they were meant to have.

but they're holding themselves back, what would you say to them? What would your number one top piece of advice to any of my students out there that have confidence and low confidence and they're scared to speak up and ask for that raise or to get that job or to go for the job interview because they're too ashamed of their speaking abilities or their confidence within English?

Using your confidence and how strong you were with guiding that this is what I was meant to do in my life. What would you say to my students who feel stuck in

held back by their own fear of speaking to just get the opportunities and things that they want. Anybody can be nervous. Everybody is nervous at some point. And anybody who says they're not nervous, they're lying. Nerves are something that people, you just have. And you can develop methods to cope with your nerves, and that's fine. But you're always still going to be nervous.

Confidence. Confidence is something that you can build. You can have zero confidence and you can go to 100 confidence. That's what you do. You build confidence. You build confidence through experience. You build confidence through dealing with the nerves and finding ways to deal with the nerves so that it doesn't, it's not so debilitating.

And it doesn't matter if you're going on the radio or if you're asking for a raise or you're trying to communicate a sentence or something like that, if English is your second language. Quite often what happens is nerves are a result of what you think others think of you. And as soon as that doesn't matter to that extent,

it will start to have less of an impact on how you deal with things and how much confidence you feel. If you're standing up in front of five people or 5,000 people and you're giving a speech and you flub up some words, you're going to get that rush of hot. You're going to feel your ears get warm. You're going to feel your cheeks get flushed or whatever. And people have patience for that. People understand.

They know that standing in front of people and talking is one of the biggest fears on the planet. People are more scared of public speaking than they are of lions or tigers or bears. It's true. But if you have myself, I feel more comfortable speaking in front of 40,000 people than I do speaking one-to-one in the same room as a person.

I have a hard time having conversations with people one-to-one. And I don't know what it is about me, but I have a difficult time having a conversation one-to-one in a room. But then I can walk out of that room, stand on a stage and talk to 40,000 people and I don't have a problem.

I can, I stand in a room at a comedy club with 250 people. I can start talking. And if I make a fool of myself, I, Hey, I, I'll be done in a minute. Right. It's just a learning experience. I, I've stood on, I've stood on stages in front of 40,000 people at Commonwealth stadium and felt completely at home. And then, you know, try to ask a girl out on a date 20 minutes later and,

You start getting all flustered and nervous and that because you're worried about what they think of you. Are they going to, you get nervous. Are they going to turn you down or what? Well, you know what? Even if she does turn you down, that's her problem. It's not your problem. You can carry on with her day, with your day. But nerves are always going to be there. And if you're not nervous, you're probably dead, honestly. Yeah.

If you're not nervous, you're not learning. You're not growing. So it's part of it. It's part of life. And yeah. So it's great knowing how you deal with such situations where you're like, well, this is just

part of the process. It's a natural feeling. I'll just give my all and do my best and learn from whatever, you know, setbacks or, or, or flub ups I might might have. So, uh, Terry, this has been such an awesome conversation. I really appreciate how open and honest you've been about, um, you know, your career and how you get over these tough times and how you deal with situations, especially with

being a confident communicator. Tell my audience where they can listen to you because my audience loves to not only listen to my podcast, but loves to listen to other English podcasts as well. So it's called Reluctantly.

And when did you start Reluctantly? Where can you find it? I assume it's on all the major platforms, but this is your time to shine, to give yourself a plug. My way of saying thanks to you and giving back to you so you can have an audience, a bigger audience and have some of my international audience

who loves to hear English and real actual stories and conversations. Tell my audience where they can find you and where they can look you up. Sure. I started doing the podcast in late October of 2024. So it's just six months at the time of this recording, just over six months old.

And I record conversations with comedians, sports personalities, rock stars, TV and movie personalities.

weirdos, wackos, nut bars, people that, you know, kind of make my world go around. I like unusual people and I like people who have a story to tell. A lot of the people that I've talked to, everybody from Brian Johnson from ACDC, the lead singer of ACDC to, uh, George Strait's wife, you know, to, uh, uh, Brian Baumler from HT, HGTV to, uh, people who authors and, and, uh,

People who do documentaries and authors. And so it's been a lot of fun. Everybody has a story to tell. They're available on YouTube.

youtube.com slash at reluctantly podcast. And my website is www.reluctantlypodcast.com. And it's on all the social media at reluctantly podcast as well. Awesome. I'll put all those links in the show notes in the description of this podcast. So yeah,

any of my students who want to go and listen to Terry's awesome podcast reluctantly can go and do that. We might even make a whole speaking practice lesson out of it. So

I think that would be great for some of my listeners to come and check out your podcast as well. So I'll leave those links in the description area of the podcast. And thank you so much for joining me here today. It's been an honor to have one of the, one of the best, one of the best of the best and one of my true inspirations to get into broadcasting and podcasting, even though I wasn't one of those big main radio stars, but,

I was able to channel my talents into what I have now. And, you know, to have you here on the latest and greatest and newest episode after a long break in my podcast. Absolutely. Thank you very much, Curtis. I really appreciate it. Best of luck.

If you're ready to take your English to the next level and start speaking with confidence at work, whether it's in meetings, job interviews, presentations, or important conversations with your boss, co-workers, or clients, I can help you. You don't have to feel nervous about finding the right words.

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