Two years ago I would have never thought that I would be going on a TV station sharing my journey throughout my college years. This dream came true last Thursday, my second week of senior year, when I got interviewed on ABC 5 about my best selling book, Enrolling in Confidence: How To Live The Lifestyle You Want In College.
A lot of people, including myself, were amazed that I actually got the opportunity to share my story with thousands of people. They asked me, “How did you do it?”
It was actually a couple weeks back when I was randomly doing some work and I decided that I wanted to send some cold emails to TV stations. One of my main goals in life was to go on TV and share my message with the world so I decided to start taking action to do so. I sent cold emails for about an hour or so and then went back to doing the work that I was doing.
Hours went by.
Days went by.
Weeks went by. And I hadn’t gotten a response back.
At least I tried right?
Then one random day a couple weeks later I got a response back from ABC 5 saying “Can you come in next week?”, I about lost it. I was so overjoyed because I honestly didn’t think I was going to hear back because I had followed up and didn’t get an immediate response. What surprised me even more was that they didn’t ask any further questions, they just wanted to set up a time for me to come in and talk.
I had so many emotions going through me because I was going to go on live TV and I had never done that before. I was scared, nervous, anxious, happy, excited, all at once because I had so much I wanted to say on TV but I found out I only had 2.5 minutes to go live. At first I thought that was super short, but I asked Brandon who had been on TV numerous times and he said it was normal.
Before I went in to do my live segment I probably had rehearsed what I was going to say well over 50 times because I didn’t want to mess it up. When it came time to actually go live on set, it felt so unreal and I knocked it out of the park! It went by super fast, but I was extremely happy about the opportunity of me sharing my story with thousands of viewers.
The real reason why I got on TV and how you can too, is because I told a great story. When I was sending out cold emails I didn’t bluntly ask to come on TV because I wanted publicity for my book. I laid out my story and why I would be a good fit for the viewers on the station that I was pitching to. I didn’t flat out say I wanted to promote my book, I wanted to share tips and strategies I use on a daily basis in order to be a balanced college student. They saw the value I could bring, which is why they invited me to come on to do a segment.
It was probably one of the most nerve-racking things I have done in my lifetime because I was well out of my comfort zone when I did it. However, it was also one of the most rewarding things that I have done because now that I have one under my belt, the rest becomes so much easier!
Sabah Ali
#theclockisticking
Check out my segment!