Usually when opportunity knocks, we fail to open the door and allow that chance to happen. We tend to fall under the mindset that if it sounds too good to be true, it IS too good to be true. And while that is more aptly correct nowadays, there are still chances and opportunity’s out there for the taking. Here’s a little story about how I got the chance to be a part of Oprah Winfrey’s podcast interview with Ina Garten.
Opportunity Knocked and I Almost Missed It
With the scammers and hackers out there today it’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t. I started receiving emails through my professional account from Harpo Productions. Harpo Productions is owned by Oprah Winfrey. I don’t need to tell you who that legend is…
So, as you can imagine when I saw that emails were coming from Harpo Productions, I took them as a scam, as spam and possibly even someone trying to gain access to my computer. I read them and then I deleted them. There is no possible way that Oprah’s production company wants anything to do with me. How stupid do these scammers think I am?? Well, I thought nothing of it and just continued on with daily life. More of those emails came in and more were promptly deleted. (Wow, these people don’t give up do they.)
A couple days later I checked my personal email account (I’m super bad at checking that because it’s mostly ad’s and spam) and I saw that I had a few LinkedIn requests sitting there waiting for my attention. They were all requests from different producers at Harpo Productions asking to link to my account. I checked them out, saw their accolades and accomplishments and thought what a fabulous way to network. Accept, accept, accept. Well, about 20 minutes later I received a message from one of these producers directing me to my FaceBook account for She’s in Her Element informing me that I had messages there needing my attention. They have been trying to get in touch with me for a couple days. My mind was spinning to say the least. This can’t be real. This has to be a cruel joke. I went back into LinkedIn and again poured through the profiles of these “Harpo Producers” and once again I realized that they are in fact who they say they are. Now I’m intrigued and I feel safe enough to give them my number to call me. I still cannot imagine what this is about. Did I do something wrong? Is Oprah suing me for something? All this nonsense was running through my garbled thoughts as I waited for my phone to ring.
Knock – Knock
It was only about a 5-minute wait but sure enough a call came in from Simi Valley in California. It was a lovely producer from Harpo Productions. My head is spinning more and more with each word she is saying and I’m finding it hard to concentrate on what exactly it is they want. “….. your channel…. Oprah’s podcast… she’s interviewing Ina Garten… we want to use your audio on the podcast…” I’m grabbing bits and pieces and none of this sounds right or even makes sense to me. I repeatedly asked her is this was real or a scam and bless her heart she understood my trepidation about the situation. After a few moments of convincing me that this is in fact real and giving me the scope of this new podcast of Oprah’s I was getting more and more excited. They have a podcast interview coming up that they need to record and edit to have it ready for Christmas Eve and they want to use a little excerpt from a video I shared on my YouTube channel over a year ago called Sundays with… Ina Garten.
Now because I had assumed that if it sounds too good to be true it is, I almost missed this opportunity, but the starts aligned, and God and the Universe came together to grab my attention and give me the courage to trust that maybe, just maybe this really is an opportunity that I am beyond honored to take. The sand in the hourglass was almost through.
I Opened the Door with a Hashtag
The producer explained to me that because this was a podcast first and foremost, they wanted to reach into social media from all angles to see what the world thinks of the legendary Ina Garten. They had their people scouring through the internet finding clips, articles, videos, blogs… whatever came up from the hashtag #inagarten. Thankfully I use hashtags on all my videos and posts. Now more than ever I see how important they really are. They found one of my videos that I made last year, and, in this video, I share a recipe from Ina Garten. That’s not what interests them, however. It’s the preface I give to the recipe that they want to use. I was talking about how Ina is just “Hamptons fabulous… I want to live her life… I want to go to one of her dinner parties… I want to be her friend. I think she’s fabulous…” and the producers thought that my audio embraced and encompassed how the word feels about Ina Garten, and they want to use it in the podcast as a form of an introduction of sorts. They sent the release over. I looked it over and signed it and sent it back immediately. I made the deadline! Oprah and Ina are gonna hear my voice and my little excerpt from that video!! I cannot believe this! This is Oprah Winfrey and Ina Garten. What an honor this is! And the best part is they will credit the audio with a link to She’s in Her Element so people can check it out if they’d like. Do you know what this could mean?? This could be huge! This could be my chance and there is no way I’m missing it!
Proceeding with Caution
This has shown me that there still are opportunities out there for the taking, but we have to be careful with how we proceed to get them. I’m no expert but after being highjacked by a hacker and losing everything BUT my YouTube channel and blog there are precautions I take regarding emails, opportunities and contracts. No contract ever sent over to you should be in an executed file format. They’re usually a PDF or even DocuSign. You never have to execute a contract. That’s a red flag right there. Unfortunately, the majority of the hackers are people overseas in other lands and if you pay attention to the email addresses that these “opportunities” come from you can clearly see something is off. Addresses with multiple letters and numbers in them that come from overseas are red flags and should never be opened without a proper scan, and even then, I still delete and take no chances. Having good malware protection on your computers and laptops is a must. My phone even has a malware installed for extra precautions. Do your due diligence to research the opportunity. It’s very easy to detect real from fake if you take the time and pay attention to details.
I don’t know where this opportunity will take me if anyplace at all. But I do know I’m honored beyond anything to be part of this. I hope you will tune in to the podcast on Christmas Eve and listen to Oprah interview the amazing Ina. The podcast will air Christmas Eve on her YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@Oprah) and wherever you listen to podcasts 😊
Dreams really do come true….
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