I was out for lunch recently at the Nanaimo Golf Club in Nanaimo BC. I was with two old radio colleagues. Well, let’s be clear THEY weren’t old, in fact they were both quite young. I’m the old part in that description. We were sharing stories about our days in radio some of which I should tell you are very funny, if not a wee bit wrong on every level, certainly by today’s standards. At the time though, they were funny.

I told them one of my favourite stories from my years working in Kelowna radio. It was something about hiring a stripper to come down to the station at 6am with a breakfast McMuffin to dance for the on-air news reader. He was the legendary Eric Thorsen, of CFRB fame in Toronto, THE voice of news radio in Canada, although by the time he arrived in little old Kelowna BC he was at the very end of his career. Extraordinary talent and reputation aside he was also, now how should I say this, ah yes, he was a miserable prick. Jon Michaels, a wonderful morning show host and I decided we would get Eric ‘McDonalds’ for his birthday breakfast, something to put a smile on his face.

“Eric, we’re ordering in from McDonald’s. What do you want?”

“Screw you Jon, McDonald’s doesn’t deliver in!”

“Sure they do. What do you want?”

And so it went for two weeks, his birthday fast approaching, Eric finally relenting and placing his breakfast order with us. Our plan was in play.

On the occasion. of Eric’s birthday a young woman arrived at the station door promptly at 5:55am and I let her in. I do recall it was pouring rain outside but she was suitably dressed for the elements. Now Eric had a rigid pre newscast protocol; smoke at the side of his mouth (this was a while ago), arms out in front gripping the side of the news desk and silence, absolute silence. And into that smoky silent room I brought the young woman. Eric did not look up. It was 5:59am.

“Good Morning, It’s 6 o’clock. I’m Eric Thorsen.”

And he was off, and I should add so was she. Her raincoat that is. Eric delivered another impeccable read unaffected it would seem by what was now a completely naked and I might add, an extremely voluptuous young woman dancing all around him, doing her level best to distract him, her disgarded raincoat on the floor at his feet. Story after story, for eight long minutes she danced in that newsroom, Eric all the while moving seamlessly through his newscast as though there was nothing that could possibly distract him. The young woman was great and when Eric signed off he broke out into the heartiest laugh he’d had in years and the story became folk lore at Kelowna’s 101.5 SILK FM, an adult contemporary music station.

After I told my Nanaimo friends that story one of them said something which caught my attention.

“You’re nothing but a trouble maker Tony.”

“I am not” I replied. Now as you might imagine, I’ve been called a number of things in my life but never ‘troublemaker’ and I was actually taken aback but I’ve been wondering since that exchange how I am perceived by others.

We all have a brand, how we are thought of, which can be described in a word list. Once we understand our brand, how we want to be perceived we can then go about the business of teaching people to think about us ‘that way’. It’s all a bit Machiavellian but it’s what we do. So my list for example would be something like this:

Kind, honest, intelligent, responsive, funny, inquisitive, warm, honest, feisty, irreverent.

And quite frankly I’m good with that. If that is how I’m perceived, that’s okay. Some will suggest ‘bloviating blowhard’ should be added or ‘tedious’ or ‘arrogant’ or ‘self indulgent’. Yes, well whatever that’s just rude! And has no place on my word list.

And to be sure nowhere on my list of my brand qualities will you find ‘TROUBLEMAKER’! Just not going to happen. Until it did. Right there at lunch with my two friends at our table overlooking the putting green at the Nanaimo Golf Club. Not that it matters where it happened. What matters is that it did happen.

So I have reflected on my path, as one should when challenged. Sure I might have recently confronted an old man in a parking lot in Nanaimo after he very nearly hit my vehicle. I jumped out of my vehicle and strode over with all the authority a seventy-three year old man with bad knees can muster. I leaned over preventing him from getting out his own car.

“Listen to me Old Man, you don’t know the rules of the road. You nearly hit me!” my voice as far from reasonable and measured as it has ever been. As he tried again to get out of his car I pushed the door closed once more and then I went full ‘Clint Eastwood’ on him.

“You don’t want to do that Old Man.”

In fact, this Old Man called that Old Man, ‘Old Man!’ four times in forty-five seconds, one of the most ironic experiences of my life.

But ‘troublemaker’? Cha! I don’t think so.

And there was the time I scuttled an award ceremony at a radio station I worked at. Well you tell me this wasn’t justified. Radio stations are a snap shot of salary inequality. Sales managers can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars, administrative staff, a fraction of that. Generally speaking it is a fiscal pecking order that everybody understands. Provided the disparity is not thrown ‘in your face’.

At one of our weekly manager’s meetings, the station owner announced he wanted to present an annual award for the ‘Best Dressed Employee’. I was the News Director at the time and my news staff, all seven of them, earned on average about $20,000 annually. The sales manager earned well over $200,000 each year. The award would be presented at the Christmas party and come with a $2500 cash prize. The whole thing did not sit well with me from the beginning and I let my thoughts be known at the manager’s meeting. Several times in fact, each time being told my concerns had no merit, the last time being instructed not to bring it up again and “while you’re at it Tony, don’t come to these manager’s meetings anymore.” I was on the record.

I hatched my plot. Jeremy H. was a good young reporter earning a very meagre salary. His wardrobe reflected that, two pairs of blue jeans and three T-shirts, always clean but very lean. It was all he could afford. Jeremy I determined should win the ‘Best Dressed Employee’ award and the $2500 that came with it. So I’ll save you the long version and skip ahead to the staff Christmas party. We all arrived suitably dressed, Jeremy in his best blue jeans and new T-shirt for the occasion. By now, I had been warned in no uncertain terms that there would be consequences if I did anything to scupper the award so there was some palpable tension in the air as the votes were counted. Jeremy was none the wiser but I knew we had the votes and watched as they were tabulated.

“And the winner of the ‘Best Dressed Employee’ award is …. Jeremy H.” and you could have heard a pin drop until that is his workmates jumped to their feet and cheered his win, fueled no doubt by the co-conspirator bond we now shared. Jeremy’s face made the whole thing worth it.

The station owner was there to greet me at 4am the next morning as I arrived for work. We exchanged words, sharp words but lest you worry for me, there was no consequence.

But troublemaker? Cha! I think not.

And then there was the time I defended Hank The Dog in court in Kelowna BC. His owner had retained me to fight the ‘unlawfully at large’ charge he was facing. I arranged media coverage and had ‘Free Hank’ buttons made up. I appeared on Peter Gzowski’s ‘Morningside’ the national CBC radio morning show and complaining that the Crown prosecutor was barking up the wrong tree and exclaiming that we would not roll over on this. It amused me (and my client) that Hank The Dog was now watercooler chit chat across the country, from Alert Bay on Vancouver Island to St. John’s Newfoundland. The prosecutor was furious with me. In court I argued that Hank The Dog was actually ‘not that large’. And the case was dropped.

But troublemaker? Cha! I think not.

And then there was the time I threw a Christmas party for my clients. I was a criminal defence lawyer and the trouble with the party was quite frankly that some of my clients were ‘not available’. They were in jail. My invitation had a picture of a man looking out from behind bars, trying to bend them open. The caption read “If you can make it?”. It seems the prison officials at the Kamloops Regional Remand Centre had no sense of humour. Upon learning of these invitations they ratted me out to the RCMP. As an aside it is difficult tactically as a criminal lawyer to advertise directly to your core consumer base, those inclined toward a criminal lifestyle. It turned out that my Christmas party invitation was a brilliant marketing initiative, albeit unintentional. I was by all accounts the topic of some conversation among the inmates, my notoriety elevated among my target consumers, notoriety being a good thing in those circles. In the end result, my party which was a ribald, bawdy affair as I recall was surveilled and video taped from a roof top across from the building we were in, the RCMP correctly surmising that it was a rare opportunity to have so many ‘bad guys’ under the same roof at the same time.

But troublemaker? Cha! I think not.

Now don’t get wrong. In my world, my competitive place as a young defence lawyer ‘bold’, ‘feisty’ and ‘irreverent’ were good things. They polished my brand, how I wanted to be perceived.

But it is a wise man who has the capacity for authentic self evaluation, the humility to see oneself as one really is not as how one hopes to be seen. Now that is definitely not me but through all this I have had a chance to remember and reflect on some of these stories and others I have yet to tell, so I have decided that I may need to refresh my brand word list. Here it is:

Kind, honest, intelligent, responsive, funny, inquisitive, warm, honest, feisty, irreverent and ….. troublemaker.

Whatever, they’re just words. Right.

Who says a man can’t grow?

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