From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam. This is my unsung hero,

stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

My story is about a group of unsung heroes.

He just pulled up a chair and we talked, I'd say for about 90 minutes or something.

I don't know if she really understands or appreciates the full impact that she's had in my life and still continues to have.

Today's story comes from Adrian Graham.

When she was 25, Adrian decided to start her own business, a recruiting firm.

This was 1994, and in those days she would just pick up a phone book and start cold calling asking companies if

they needed help finding employees. One day she spent all morning making calls

getting nowhere. I was feeling really defeated and everyone was just no thank you, no thank you.

And I finally came across this one company and I remember the gentleman answered the phone and

he says, yeah, well you, how can I help you?

I said, oh, and I was very nervous. I didn't know how to do sales pitches at that time, very unpolished.

And I said, hey, you know, I have this employment agency and we place people for full-time and contract talent.

Are you interested?

He says, well, yeah, I might need some people, you know, what are you talking about?

I said, well, you know, we place anybody,

we can do anything.

So he says, well, you know, I might need a publisher,

I might need someone to do accounts.

What do you got?

So we talked a little bit about his needs, and then when we got down to the price I've quoted my price and he said

...