Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Making a sale is rarely easy. It's even harder to convince someone to invest more year after year. Add on that they won't receive a product they can hold in their hand, and it can seem nearly impossible.
It all changes when the right people are broadcasting a message of tangible hope.
Welcome to the Defending Vision podcast, where this blind man shows you exactly how he sees it. Hardship, humor, and keeping a vision alive. Throw on some headphones for the full audio experience.
Welcome to the show. I'm so excited about the guests I have on today. I'm truly blessed to call them both a good friend.
I can certainly tell you how successful they've been in their careers. But what I truly hope listeners will take from our conversation today is just how much they've cared about the work they've done.
Ken Baroff was executive director of planning and development for Duke Children's Hospital from 1999 to 2011.
Bill Jordan was a popular morning show host for WRL Mix 101.5 in Raleigh, North Carolina, from 1989 to 2013.
So without further ado, welcome to the conversation.
Thank you both for joining the show. I met both of you years ago as a patient at Duke Children's Hospital, and my family and I became involved in a lot of the fundraisers there for the children's hospital. And obviously both of you were involved in making those events possible. And I just want to chat about a little bit of all of that and your experience with those events and working with Duke children's.
All right, Ken, I'll start with you. Why don't you just give me a quick background, sort of professional background, what you've done, how you got involved with Duke children specifically, and we'll go from there.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Sure.
So thanks for having me on. First of all, this is really an honor. So I started actually in marketing, advertising and marketing early in my career, after some health issues that I had, about ten years into my career, I made a very conscious, intentional decision that I wanted to find something where I could kind of put my energy into giving back.
And so this would have been in the late nineties. I had connected with some folks at Duke Children's Hospital earlier on, and over a couple of years, I found my way there. And so specifically, the radio Thon had been going on. I guess it was about ten years when I got there. And between that, the Duke children's classic other stuff that we did, it was just absolutely an honor and a privilege to find my way into that kind of work and to meet Bill.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Yeah. So what about you, Bill? Give a little background.
[00:03:14] Speaker C: Got involved in commercial radio or top 40 radio on air as a dj back in the day, and gosh, in 19, in the summer of 1973 and worked at several stations, wound up at WR E l F M in Raleigh.
Had been involved in the Duke children's classic just as a, but not involved with the hospital other than that, helping raise money and awareness via that. And I was at a party, like a media party, sort of an announcement thing prior to one year's ready, one year's classic. And I was told by one of the doctors there that we were going to be doing a 101 and a half, 101.5 hours radiothon or Duke children's hospital. I said, what are you talking about? Because I didn't know anything about it. And our sister station at the time was in Baltimore and it was 103 point something. So they were doing a 103 hours something. And he says, yeah, y'all are going to be doing it next year. I said, we're going to do what? He says, you're going to stay on the air for 101 and a half hours. And I remember my first selfish thought at that moment was, I wish we were mix ten.
But anyway, we started that and we used to be on the air initially for five days. That got pared down to, I guess, maybe two days, maybe three. But I think actually, I think it went down to two days and we raised as much money then. But that's where I met people like you and others that became heroes of mine and gave me a immensely healthy dose of perspective and to realize just how blessed I am in so many ways. So the Duke children's, Duke children's hospital in and of itself, and the radiothon for the kids and families there in particular, I view as the most important event or things I've ever done in a 40 year radio career.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Perfect.
It's interesting, I was kind of thinking, you know, so this podcast being defending vision, it seems both of you in your work with Duke were sharing Duke's vision. And I know the word that was always used when I was around these events was, was hope.
[00:05:45] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: And trying to share that with people and, and then at some level you convincing them to become part of that, whether that's donating or volunteering, et cetera. I don't know if that's kind of how you viewed your role, each of you.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: So, yeah, Matt, what I would say is going back to sort of my professional journey because I was doing marketing and advertising and product management, that I was convincing. For ten years, I was learning how to convince people to do stuff, you know, buy a particular brand of frozen shrimp, that kind of stuff. And it was cool. It was very, very interesting. And it's a very powerful feeling where you conceive, you know, you're working with a client who has something that they want to convince people to try or buy or I prefer. And it's a powerful feeling when you go out with a campaign and that happens, you see it happening or it's not happening the way you thought. You make adjustments.
Looking specifically at radiothon or at Duke children's in general, it's like 100 times more powerful to convince somebody to do something that's a so worthwhile, so inspiring, so incredible. And you have to think about ways to engage people, but you're engaging them in something.
I worked with somebody in my career who would say, when you do the thing right things for the right reasons, everything else kind of falls into place. And that was so much my experience with the time at Duke children's Hospital, because we ended up with a core. And I put Bill very much in this group of just like minded people who wanted to do whatever it is they can do. So if Bill, he used to say, you know, I'll let him speak for himself. But it's like I put, I talk into this microphone here, and the phones ring over there, and it's just, it's a really, really powerful thing to be a part of. So, Bill, you want to expand on that?
[00:08:09] Speaker C: No, I mean, that's exactly right. And when you talk about our team of like minded people, and I've been thinking about this for some reason.
If you think you are on a team, but the individual members do not share a vision of what the goal is or how to get there, then you don't have a team.
You can call it a team all you want, but you don't really have a team. If everybody's gonna be doing their own thing, they want to do it their own way.
But for the radio thon, for the deep, for the people around Duke children's in general, it, as a Kent said, it was a real team. Everybody had their, you know, their own little cog in the wheel kind of thing, their own little areas. But we knew and trusted each other to get the job done of whatever that job needed to be. And, you know, for me, it drove me when we did the five days on the air, pretty much. I mean, we would start at five in the morning and go until, you know, midnight or 01:00 a.m. and then crash for a couple of hours. You know, we were getting to where we were hallucinating. It wasn't. At some point we realized, you know, this may not be good.
So we backed it off. And I was reminded of the notion, too, that Ken and I talked about a job will take as long as you give it to Tate. We were raising the same amount of money in two days that we were in. Five, in fact, more as it grew. And people became accustomed to every. We moved that around as far as what time of year it was, but they became accustomed to what the radio thumb was about and the importance of it and the supporting of, of the kids and of the families and the volunteers there and just the overall work and mission and vision of Duke children's Hospital.
So, like I say, that it became, by far, for me, the most impactful. Not only, I mean, partly knowing that what I was doing was making a difference because for the other 51 weeks of the year, other than vacation or whatever, you know, you're talking about kind of looking back, I mean, it's just kind of dumb stuff. What were they wearing last night on the red carpet going into the Oscars or what, you know, I mean. I mean, it's kind of pop culture, pop culture stuff. With this, we knew without a doubt that we were making a difference.
And that's that whole thing about becoming part of something bigger than yourself. And I've been part of nothing bigger than the effort around Duke children's hospital.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Well, and I know the radiothon for my family, I mean, that that became an annual tradition. If, if we weren't many years, we would actually come down and hang out for parts of it. But if we weren't in person, we were at home and it was on the radio, guaranteed, because we came to know the stories of the patients that were told every year, the songs that would get played. We were waiting for our favorites. You know, it definitely became a staple in that area, for sure.
[00:11:12] Speaker C: And still is.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: And still is, I think something that speaks to the power of this is all these years later. So, Matt, I think I met. It was probably so I met Bill and I think it was 2000.
And if I can put him on the spot for a second, I was doing one of the night shifts. This was a. Right. Might have been like the last year or two that they were on the air till midnight. And I was assigned because I'm a new guy, so I'm going over there like 930 at night. And there's the people who are in the phone, on the phone bank, which at that time was at the radio station and, or maybe during the day you were in the hospital, and at night they would do it from the studio. And Bill sitting down at, in the room where the people are answering the phones, he was reading green eggs and ham, doing a dramatic reading of green eggs and ham to the people.
And I was like, oh, I get this guy. This is. And so I think. And then the first time I met you, Matt, would have been, you know, through your family.
I think it was probably the children's classic.
And all these years later, here we are, all of us connected through this experience.
And to me, that speaks to, you know, the, what Bill was saying. Well, it struck me your, the whole mission of what you're doing right now with defending vision and what vision actually means. And clearly, we have a shared vision because all these years later, we're doing other things and, you know, on different coasts of the country, and we're, we're still connected. And I think that's incredible.
[00:13:01] Speaker C: It's one of those things where, you know, we can't connect the dots while we're making the dots.
You can only connect the dots after it's all the journey's done. So, yeah, we're sitting here today and we're going, wow, I remember meeting Ken, and I remember meeting Matt and playing golf with Matt with actor Greg Gitson at the Duke classic. And then I, boom, here we are today. Who would have thought?
Podcasts. What the heck is a podcast? You know, we didn't even know what this had, no concept of what this was, or probably even social media in general, what it was when it happened, but, you know, connecting the dots. And here we are. And, you know, Matt, we're talking to you as a young patient at Duke children's, and here you are now, this whiz bang guy. And, man, you've accomplished so very much, but still inspired by you as you are sharing your story and getting others on to talk about vision. And vision is another way I think of also saying, our why? What is our why? What is your vision? And when people and I talk to people, and it's a cliche, but I like cliches because they tend to be true. When people tend to lose their way, it's because they have lost their why.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: And when they get back to their why, then they find their way. And you are on your way. You have been on your way.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to think because we started getting involved not, I mean, fairly early in my time at Duke.
I mean, I think I was probably six or seven when we first started traveling back there for my treatments.
So it definitely, definitely started early and got to meet so many people. And honestly, I think for me, it made such a difference to have other aspects of Duke that were positive to engage with. Right.
Anytime I was at one of the events or meeting you guys or anyone else, it was a different side of Duke for me compared to the hospital room, and that was always fantastic.
Now, in all of these events, really, whether it be the classic or the radiothon, I suppose the radiothon especially. But there's so much of telling the stories of patients and their families.
And I know as those of us who were listening to the radiothon and going to these events, the stories were always important, and they meant a lot. And obviously, they pull at the heartstrings. What does it do?
How does it affect you hearing these stories all the time? They're part of your job. You're working them into various projects.
Is it hard to set that emotional stuff down when you go home doing that kind of stuff?
[00:15:52] Speaker B: That's a fabulous question. And Bill was sort of the. For that period of time? Well, I wouldn't. That's not exactly true. But during the radio thon, like, people heard it, but all year long we were doing it, we were talking about it. He remains connected, he'll talk about it, but there are many, many families who he remains connected to. That started with an interview, a story.
So to answer your question directly, for me, because I was spending, you know, all my time in and around the hospital, taking people through the hospital while I was raising my own kids and all of whom, you know, and, you know, it was, it could be very difficult. There were, there were times where, like, if I ever separated myself from it to try and get a little professional distance, I think I would have lost my edge. So it had to be present with me and with the team. Going back to what Bill said, I think that it was 100% right. It was a team of people who just cared deeply, not about moving paper on their desk from one side to another. But we were all there for a shared vision and a shared mission and what it was we were really trying to accomplish. And if you have that, it's either. It's much easier to put aside difficult things that you might see and you're experiencing, because those, those difficulties that know the people that you're talking to and who you're exposed to, they're living it. You're just sharing it. You're trying to. To share it as effectively as you can. And you can tell when you're touring people through the hospital when they get it. And it's, it's always a different thing. It could be in the treatment room of kids getting infusion therapy or you go into the neonatal intensive care unit, but somewhere along the line they're just like, oh, my goodness, this is, it's incredible work. And once you know that and Bill's heard so many of these stories, you just want to share it to make sure that people are aware of it and they're moved to help. You want to find the helpers. That's, that's what it's all about.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Hmm.
[00:18:36] Speaker C: Yeah. I think for me, I'm going to give you maybe a weird answer as far as when it would hit me.
Because when you're doing it, when you're interviewing the families and you're playing what we used to call the montages, where production director Lori Rench would cut up the interviews and put them with a song like you talk about, you know, angels among us, Alabama comes to mind with Alan ay Cock and his dad, his grandfather Charlie being on this one. That really comes to mind. And, you know, they're powerful while you're playing them. And you know, you're, you're into something very special when you're doing an interview with a parent or a child or both, and it gets very emotional, you know, that's very special. But you're also having to perform is not the right word. You've got to execute the radio thon. Your job is to do that. So even when you get, when you're doing it, you're thinking, okay, we've got to get the commercials in, we've got to hit the news. We've got to have all this logistical thing while you're going on. So when it would hit me like a ton of bricks, man, we would be, say, in downtown Raleigh, where our studio was at the time. But then for the czech presentation, which would typically be around six or 07:00 on Sunday evening, I would leave the station and make that drive from downtown Raleigh to Durham over at Duke at the Searle center.
And it was in that span of time, that 30, 40, 45 minutes of time when I was hearing the parents and the kids or the montages, particularly while I was driving in the car by myself being fairly tired, that's when the emotion and the, and the true power of it would hit me personally then, and also after radiothon, after, you know, I go home and I get a night's sleep. And I get up the next day and I'm like, you know, they gave us a couple of days off, especially in the early days of doing five, five days on the air, they give us a couple of days off. That's when it started really sinking in about the stories that we got to share and the stories that we got to glean and kind of at times extract from the moms and the dads and the patients. Someone wouldn't want to talk, and you just have to learn to ask the hard questions sometimes.
What was it like that first night they told you that your child has cancer? That first night when you turned out the light to try to get some sleep, what went through your mind?
That's a hard question to ask, but you have to do that to make listeners understand and have that perspective, to put them as close as you can to being in the shoes of the moms and the dads and the grandparents and the brothers and sisters of the patients or the patients themselves.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: Well, and like you say, it's so important to think about those around the patient. And that's part of some of the guests I want to have on the show in the future as well, is. Yeah, there's so much more to it. I mean, as somebody who's been the patient, it's hard, but, you know, it wasn't easy for my sister, who's four years younger, growing up in the hospital every month or two.
[00:22:05] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: You know, and she, you know, had celebrated birthdays in the hospital and had nurses helping her celebrate, you know, so it's so important to remember them in those stories, for sure.
[00:22:18] Speaker C: The one other thing that really struck me numerous times through the radio thon is, and here's a quick example, one of the moms named Denise, I still remember her name talking about her son, and it was just constant for birth, one event after another.
And she, she told us it was just one of those magical moments. And I used to say that just, let's just get into this. There will be magic, and you'll know it when you hear it. I would tell my one ear partners and others, like, there will be magic. You want to be around for when the magic happens. And she had this line, and it wasn't, it was not rehearsed. I do not believe she said, some people would look at our lives and think it's a total nightmare, but it's been a dream come true.
The number of parent, the number of parents and even patients, but brothers and sisters. But especially, I remember the parents talking about what a blessing it had been to go through what they have gone through.
And that's just that you want to talk about some perspective that just the thought of that, I mean, I'm getting chills just talking about it and remembering particular events with that and the wisdom that these kids have at a much earned wisdom at a much too young age, very powerful.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, no, that's true. You'll hear someone say something like that and you just. All right, we found, we struck gold.
Yeah, that's so true.
So, Ken, outside of Radiothon, of course, there was a couple that I remember being involved in the classic golf tournament, of course, and then the teddy bear ball was another one.
And obviously all year fundraising, because Duke children's always needs the money year round. Is there also an art to having different types of events to engage different potential donors? I mean, the radiothon, of course, at least the way I think of it, it was particularly good at engaging with the general community.
Is that part of it is just trying to engage with all sorts of different groups of people?
[00:24:45] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the end game in the whole thing is to raise as much awareness as you can with people who can do what they can do. So for radiothon was this incredible opportunity to go big and broad across the area to build general awareness for Duke children's. And if somebody making a difference was like we did, there was late in the radio thon's run, we do change, bandits and kids bringing in piggy banks and that. And it was great because it's, you know, not everybody can do a huge gift, but some people who listen to Radiothon, and believe me, it happened, you know, would give $100.01 year. The next year they tune back in, they give $500, they're like, hey, you know, outside of Radiothon, I'd like to see the hospital, I'd like to see some of the things you're talking about. And then they become, you know, they develop relationships with the caregivers. They see some of the programs and they say, this is how I'd like to make an impact. That more broadly, whether you hit a golf ball, whether you like to see horses jump, that was another one. Whether you like to put on a black tie and go to the teddy bear ball during the holidays or whatever it is, we're just trying to create those venues to get the word out so that, you know, we can get people over to the hospital to see what's actually going on there. And if you do that enough, then not everybody is going to write a check at the end of their tour, and quite frankly, we don't want them to. Because for some people you want, their deliberation process is going to be much longer than that. You're going to have a series of conversations. So I wouldn't want somebody to be like, thank you very much for your time. I'm going to write a check for $500, which is nice. I mean, don't get me wrong, all that matters, and it's very important, but for somebody who could really do something significant, to name an area, that kind of thing, it's a process of bringing them closer. And I will also say, I keep coming back to this. If the development staff, they're the people, my team that put all this stuff together isn't absolutely authentic and sincere, and the doctors that they talk to aren't authentic and sincere, and the families that, you know, everybody has to be really in it because you're not. This isn't selling like you're trying to sell a product. This is involving somebody in a way. That's why I was really struck by your, the whole idea of vision. Where do you want to go? What are you going to do about getting there?
What does that look like? It's much more profound. If you lose your vision, your purpose, what's driving you?
For some people, they would go through, and that's pretty much, I remember having these conversations with Bill on the other side of many of the radio thons where it's like, you know, yeah, it was a little crazy in the middle of the whole thing and when this happened. But I think this is what I'm, me personally, this is what I'm supposed to be putting my time and energy into. This is really important. This really matters. And I think, you know, over that was proven over the course of time that, you know, donations over the course of a period of time go up and like Bill said, you know, from five days to four days to three days to two days, and you're raising over a million dollars, something's happening. You're doing something right.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: Well, it's coming to my mind that you're, you're providing everyone who's at an event or listening to the radio thon, you're providing them your vision and they get to become part of it.
And so I suppose that's a little bit of that year to year, if a kid brings in a piggy bank with a little bit, and the next year they go around their school and try to raise some every year because of that vision, they're more and more invested.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Yes. You hope that you connect with people who want to do things that matter, who want to be connected to things that matter, those who don't. And that's okay. Don't get me wrong. If somebody has done very well in their life, and they live down in Pinehurst and they play golf every day, there's nothing wrong with playing golf, taking trips and that kind of stuff, and that's their thing. That's cool.
And I can tell you there are some people, like volunteers, very well intentioned volunteers, who would take it personally when someone's like, okay, I toured the hospital, but this isn't moving me. And there were people that were so committed. They're like, how can this not move you? Because it doesn't move everybody. But for the people it does move, it really moves them because it matters. Right, Bill, do you have anything to.
[00:30:32] Speaker C: You said it exactly correct. Different strikes for different folks kind of thing. So part of the deal of just making people aware of it, the more people you make aware, the more people you'll find that it will matter to and it will click with them.
I'm going to apologize just early, just in case. If I drop out, it's because I noticed that my battery is about to die. So poor planning on my part. I should have had my. This hooked up to my power source. This is kind of an old Mac I'm using in the power. The battery doesn't last, but let me say before, and I'm not making you guys stop, but just I want to make sure I say this. Matt, thank you for having me included in this. Thank you and Ken both for bringing back some memories for me of the work that was done there and the passion that was there while we were there for Duke and for the kids. And I just got my notice came up. Your Mac may go to sleep at any moment. That's typically my line.
But anyway, that's. That's a. It's been a great time. Probably this has made my day, if not my week, just being on with you guys. So with that, I probably better sign off so I'm not just cut off in the middle of something. But thank you so much. And Matt, we're so proud of you and proud of what you're doing with your life and sharing your vision and my best to your family.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: I didn't get a chance to properly sign off and thank both Ken and Bill together during our recording, so ill do that now.
Events like the radiothon became an annual tradition for my family. We would sit at the dinner table listening to the radio intently, and each year my sister raised a little bit more, the first year taking in the few coins she had saved herself the next collecting the donations she could at school. And of course, she and her friends gave everything they made from their lemonade stand to Duke Children's hospital. She and the other change bandits got to dump the money they had raised into the counting machine to see just how much good they had done. In addition, my family was asked to speak at a Duke children's classic golf tournament one year, and I was fortunate enough to get to play in several.
Finally, I had the distinct honor of speaking at the teddy bear ball. This was one of those cases early in my public speaking when my parents told me there were maybe 40 50 people. In fact, there were probably 500.
I've tried to say it many times, but I'll say it again from myself, my family, and all the other patients and their families who have been helped and given hope at Duke Children's Hospital.
I want to thank Ken, Bill and every member of their teams for making hope possible.
If you would like to learn more, go to defendingvision.com. and if you enjoyed the show, rate, review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Thanks for listening.
