Talk radio is very popular in the Caribbean but the topics centre mainly on politics or bacchanal of some type.
With his online radio, The L.A.B Radio, Arnold Best is using the medium to inspire and motivate.
He says it is what the world needs as it emerges from the last two years of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“During the pandemic, a lot of people started to listen to foreign motivational speeches, they were unsure about their lives, career, and money, they were looking for hope and inspiration. They decided not to go the God way or religious way. They were listening to Gary Vee, Tony Robbins etc because they were putting out tons of content. Those people realised the world needed that voice,” he says.
“People found channels on YouTube that they were locked onto, some people slept with those channels running. During the pandemic, people wanted that hope but it didn’t come to me at that point to do radio,” Best adds.
A Tony Robbins-trained results coach, Best has built his name changing the lives of individuals and working with companies to get the best out of their employees.
He said it was while travelling to do a lecture at the Hilton Trinidad that he heard a voice urging him to do more. During the pandemic lockdown, Best started a podcast to help boost positivity at a time when many were unsure about what was happening in the world.
However, the voice told him the podcast wasn’t enough.
“I didn’t take it on. I went on stage, did the talk, and went back to the car. I heard the voice again and it said ‘start a radio station’. I stayed up that night researching until three in the morning, learning about online radio and what it takes. I knew I wanted to do more but sometimes the universe allows you to ask questions and when you ask you don’t often expect the answer,” he says.
Arnold Best
The L.A.B Radio was born.
An acronym for Learn, Adapt and Become, the station was launched on September 5, and from Monday to Friday, 6 am to 9 am, Best does a live recording. His topics to date included how to let go of relationships, how to deal with your worst enemy, defense mechanisms that prevent us from developing authentic self-confidence, and the parent/child relationships.
In the last month, he started having guests such as former news anchor Golda Lee Bruce, who spoke about the power and benefits of gratitude, WHY Farm founder Alpha Sennon who discussed faith, courage and determination in his advocacy for food security, and international guest Kusudo Muithi, who spoke about his journey from almost losing everything to redeeming himself and living a life of purpose.
The station has taken best of out of his comfort zone, as he had to learn about the technical aspects of running an online station, and equipment, and getting used to waking up at dawn.
“I get up at 4 am. I was never a morning person but I have to prepare to begin at 6 o’clock. The first week I asked myself what did I get myself into but being outside and being around people like Tony Robbins, it doesn’t faze me because I know in my heart this is what I wanted. I wanted to touch the Caribbean and global market. Technological advancements allow us to touch people all over and once you are creating content people will tune in and tell other people,” he says, noting that his listenership is growing.
L.A.B Radio has listeners from all over the region and the world including Germany and the Philippines.
“It is giving me an opportunity to meet people I never met before. My goal is to continue pushing personal development no matter the platform. The main goal is to remain the foundation of what I set out to do, t continue to let people know there is more to life than what they are seeing in front of them,” says Best.
Best isn’t just talking the talk; he is walking it.
A Trinidadian businessman, he realised that having all the markers of what is considered success, money, a wife, children and a home, didn’t give him the level of fulfillment he expected.
“After achieving all that and thinking I am somebody I still had a deep void. I gave up that life of the matrix and I started to search but when I got my US visa, my journey started there. I have been going to a new city every year for the past 18 years and looking at different programmes for personal growth. One day in Orlando, I saw a poster with Tony Robbins. I didn’t know who he was, and I spoke to a girl in the hotel and she said he had a conference there so I signed up.
“When I signed up I had US$500 on my credit card and the event was US$ 475. I thought that since I am getting breakfast, free cocktails in the afternoon, and small finger food from a buffet, I would wing it. I went into his event that Sunday morning and it changed my life, my perspective about people, about human beings and I wanted to be a part of that movement,” he recalled.
Best said when he came out of the room, he realised he wanted to become someone who helped others and transform lives.
“The day I found that fulfillment, I knew this was it,” he declares.
While he has other platforms through which he could fulfil his mission, such as a 12 Hours of Discovery forum that he wants to host, Best plans to expand his radio station by bringing on other hosts.
“It will always be live and there are plans to bring on people and move to a bigger studio. My vision is for it to be a content creation outlet. This platform is not about me, it is about the people I plan to serve on a daily basis and if there are people with the same vision, I will share the space for them to get new business. I got a call from an insurance company I never worked with from doing this station,” he said.
Stating that he wants to become the number one radio station in the Caribbean, Best said while his aim is to inspire, people must want to change.
He says: “People are looking for certainty, they want to trust themselves, and they want to know they can do it and that they can achieve what they set out to do because they don’t have people to rally them, to share that certainty with them. Every morning when I start I play a song called “I Believe in You”. I am here because I believe in you but I am not your pill….everything you are hearing is for you to take action but is up for you to decide what action to take.”