Exploring Mind and Body, a 15-minute radio show on health and wellness, recently celebrated two years and 100 shows on 96.5 CKFM in Olds.
Drew Taddia, a CanFit-certified fitness coach and author, started doing the show because he was new to town and wanted to get his name out into the area.
“The whole beginning is an interesting story, because when I went into the studio I was new in town and I wanted to find a way to advertise and get out there,” says Taddia.
“I didn't have any money -- I just showed up in town after travelling all over the world.”
He says he wanted to arrange some sort of trade, because airtime was a little pricey for him at the time, so he thought if he could offer weekly health and fitness tips to the radio listeners, he could get himself on air, he notes.
“So I was kind of countered by my producer, Jamieson Brown, and he said ‘Why don't you do a 15-minute show?' and I thought, 15 minutes? I can't talk for 15 minutes,” he said with a laugh.
The two discussed further and once they had ironed out the details, the first show took six to eight hours of recording and editing.
“It was miserable, and I'm sure we both thought this might not be such a good idea.”
Despite this, they agreed to do the show about three months before it actually went on air, and Brown told him that he would have to find sponsors to support the show.
It was hard for him to approach potential sponsors, because he hadn't even launched at that point, but once he worked up the courage to talk to some local companies, he ended up getting enough to get started.
The show does have some great sponsors that have been supporting it long term, and though others have come and gone, he is happy for the continued support from area companies, he said.
“I still have to do that to carry on with the show, but knowing that I've been on the air for that long and knowing that I've put myself in enough awkward situations to make it happen is more rewarding than anything,” he said.
After getting all that in order, he still had to develop his radio personality, because through the first few shows -- though they had good material -- he didn't sound confident, he said.
“Probably the 10th show, you could tell I was actually getting better, and then I think around the 20th show -- I turned it on kind of by accident, I was just flipping channels -- and that's the first time I realized that this could actually be a show people would listen to,” he said.
It took a while for him to get used to hearing himself on the radio, he said, noting that “We're all our own worst critics.”
But people would often tell him he had a good radio voice, and when more and more people said it, it became a reality.
“For the first three shows, I'm very timid, and I go back and listen and think, who's going to listen to this?” he said.
“For the first 10 it was like that, and then I started to get more comfortable. Probably for a good 50 shows, I was still uncomfortable hearing my voice and listening to it over and over again, because I used to sit in the room editing with Jamieson.”
He said the passion for the well-being of others was what kept him going, and as he started writing down things he wanted to share with his audience and questions people asked him, the show became a new voice for him, allowing him to reach more people.
“And that's what I really want to do. Everything, like the supplement with my book, it's all so I can reach more people and improve their lives, so I'm sure you'll be able to hear it in my voice in some of the segments where I feel strongly about something,” he said.
“It's just the passion behind wanting people to understand: this is what the industry is doing to you, this is what this food does to you.”
That passion is really what helped him to persevere and keep up with the segments.
Through his many shows, he has covered many topics concerning health, fitness, wellness and nutrition, but one of the highlights was when he was able to get world-famous author Dan Millman on air.
The Peaceful Warrior, one of Millman's bestselling books, is one of the few health books Taddia has read over and over, even to the point of getting an audio-book copy and listening to it many times, he said.
“It really resonated with me because he speaks from an athlete's perspective, because he was an Olympic gymnast,” he said, noting that he has a similar background from being a baseball player for years.
“So I read a large number of his books and I contacted him. We wrote letters a couple times and then I thought maybe he would come onto the show.”
They still email, Millman gives Taddia advice once in a while, and he has also agreed to come back on in October when he releases his next book.
Taddia has also hosted holistic nutritionists, and though he hasn't reached out very much so far, he wants to expand the subject matter of the show as he moves past this milestone.
He's recently started working on a new website, the shows are available on YouTube, and eventually all the shows will be available as podcasts, he notes, adding that he is currently looking to expand his audience beyond the CKFM broadcast area.
“When I started the show, I don't really consider myself a radio personality -- it's just something that I do -- so I never thought of making it anything more than just a once-a-week thing,” he said.
“But this whole hundredth show thing; I've been on for two years…I want to keep building on what I have.”
He's recently started speaking with nutritionists and is meeting more people in the health industry, and he says bringing in other specialists will help increase his fan base.
“I had been thinking of expanding in certain ways, and then after the hundredth show came up, I thought I had to do something to take that leap to get to the next level.”
