Q&A with Emily Jade O’keeffe
PORTIA LARGE: You’ve done many great interviews. What don’t people know about you?
EJ:
To be honest, not much. I work in radio which is all about sharing your life with others. So four hours a day I’m talking and sharing my life with our listeners – and after 25 years there isn’t much people don’t know about me. Add in the rise of social media and there pretty much isn’t anything I haven’t shared at some point.
PL: Do you believe in luck or that success is earned?
EJ:
I believe in both. You are lucky if you are born with a great family, great genetics, great intelligence, drive or common sense. Right place, right time, right era for your ideas, good physical and mental health. But it’s what you do with it that brings success and that is plain, old hard work, perseverance and endurance. You can be born with all the luck in the world, or have good luck, but if you are lazy about it, those without luck will surpass you if they have the drive to do so.
PL: Advice to young women considering a career in radio? EJ:
Work for free for a short time and be humble, no job offered should be beneath you in radio. Take what you can whereever you can and work hard. It’s a small industry with not a lot of jobs available and it’s getting smaller with syndication. Get in however you can and be willing to do and learn it all. From the street team to answering phones for the shows on air. That will give you time to observe, learn and develop the skills to understand all facets of radio. It’s so important to understand it all so as you go up the ladder you appreciate the hard work the people above you have put in to be where they are and be kind to those coming up after you. I would also say don’t be afraid of the word no, both to hear it and say it. To be afraid of hearing it means that we can sometimes miss out on going for a gig we really thought we wanted or could have leaned into, and being afraid to say it can compromise our boundaries and mean being taken advantage of, so learn to respect that little tiny word. It could almost become your super power.