From reporting the news to being the story

During my journalism days, I couldn't go a day (sometimes a couple of hours) without interviewing someone for a news story. It's an essential part of the job. Rarely, though, the spotlight shifted to me and I quickly learned what it felt like to answer questions on the spot.

My conclusion? It's interesting. You basically approach someone and ask them questions with the expectation that those answers will be used for a story that many people will read. It adds a layer of pressure to the experience that wouldn't be there if you were having a casual conversation with someone you know or without it being recorded.

But for me, it became normal to walk up to someone and ask them questions about a difficult - sometimes polarizing - subject and expect them to spout off reflective, deep answers with a stoic demeanor.

That wasn't usually the case with the general public. The city officials and politicians became seasoned pros at answering questions fit for sound bites and direct quotes. Like anything in life, the more you do it, the better you become at it.

Before I became an author, I made the news sparingly. Sometimes, I was in the right place at the right time for an impromptu interview, such as when my former neighborhood flooded after a spring storm. A few other times, the local press would talk to me about DJ's Court Tourney, a charity 3-on-3 basketball tournament held in honor of my friend Christine Rathke. Aside from that, sharing my perspective only happened in person with friends and family (I also didn't share much on social media before Legend Has It).

Coverage of DJ's Court Tourney from the local newspaper in 2016.

While I'm a little past the six-month mark from the launch of Legend Has It, the interest in my debut work has begun picking up. I recently created a news section on this website to catalog these interviews as they happen. Even with a few already finished, it still feels a tad odd being on the other side of the mic.

Granted, I'm not a shy person, but it still evokes those uncertain feelings. After all, you want to do a good job when it represents something you've poured so much heart and dedication into. But I think that's where many people get tripped up. We tend to overthink our approach and worry about how we'll sound in an interview.

As I'm learning, it's best to take the pressure off the outcome. Each interview will have its own unique properties and nuances. You might say something that you could have articulated better or maybe you could have said something far more profound. Yeah, you could always have done something better, but in that moment, you did the best you could. It's all information that you can use to improve during the next interview.

It's kind of similar to one way you can approach life: Do the best you can in any given scenario and use the information from that experience to learn and improve. It's kind of the joy of being human. You'll never be perfect, but you don't have to be. That's why it's called being human.

I have a few interview opportunities lined up in the coming months. I look forward to sharing those imperfect experiences with all of you. While they get easier as you do them, the former journalist in me still smirks when I get a new opportunity, saying internally, "So that's what this feels like."