Fail Up (15 page)

“What, did somebody just say something?” Tom would jokingly ask his co-hosts.

“No, wasn't us; must have been Tavis.”

Once I was exposed, the crew would unload the one-liners:

“You think you being funny and cute, but it can turn on you real quick!”

“You ain't in this, Tavis. We done told you; don't get in grown folks' business!”

I'd just fall out laughing. I love stand-up comedy. Sometimes I'd crack a bad joke just so they'd beat up on me. I thought it made for great radio banter.

Well, one day, Tom matter-of-factly informed me that it wasn't so great.

“All jokes aside,” he said. “This comedy thing we keep teasing you about … I know you like it and think it's great, but this show requires that each person play his or her unique role.

“I am the point guard and you're the forward,” Tom continued. “In fact, you're so good, you're a power forward. So, all I'm asking you to do is run the play. If you get open, I'll get you the ball, and you'll score. I'm Magic Johnson and you're James Worthy.

“Let's just run the play.”

“Coach” Joyner was absolutely right. I had no comedic timing when I first joined the show. So after Tom schooled me about my role on the team, I committed myself to perfecting my position. I listened for the setup and waited for the openings to score with my commentaries. In the process of listening and watching my teammates do their thing, I developed my own rhythm and timing. I learned how to be the straight man, to gauge tone and tenor, and to weave into a joke without telegraphing the punch line.

In short time, my five-minute segments became a very popular part of Tom's show. I became comfortable in my assigned role, and Tom became more comfortable letting me play that role—which included comedy from time to time. The commentary/comedy combo was a hit. Ratings went through the roof. The show was syndicated to more than 100 markets with about 10 million Black listeners.

Tom knew his team's potential. His advice to learn my role was invaluable. We hit our stride when we perfected the team. The
Morning Show
crew offered balance that Black listeners, at the time, weren't getting on the airwaves elsewhere. Our approach got them addicted to our game. We provided the razzle-dazzle and entertainment they wanted and the serious contemplative challenge they needed. Learning the value of perfecting my game with Tom, made slam dunks seem like a natural part of our repertoire. In reality it was just a team of professionals each doing their own thing to win the proverbial game.

Use Your Talents Wisely

In today's culture, very few understand the value of perfecting their roles. Everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame; they want to be
the
star. We forget that sometimes the headliner isn't the scene-stealer in a movie. Often, it's a secondary or unknown actor who winds up stealing the picture and claiming the spotlight. The point is, if you strive to be the best in your role—particularly when you're just starting out—you just might become that unexpected rising star.

The key is honing in on your talent and multiplying it with hard work and deeds.

Why is this so important?

I'd like to use my favorite source, the Bible, to answer that question. The Parable of the Talents, found in both St. Matthew and St. Luke, contains variations of a story that emphasizes the importance of recognizing and using gifts to your best ability.

Here's the condensed version (Matthew 25:14–30): Jesus gives three individuals some talents, according to their own ability. One man was given five; the other, two; and the third, one. To paraphrase, Jesus basically said: “Take these talents and get busy!”

Sometime later, the men returned. One by one, they gave accounts of their gifts. The first man said: “Lord, you gave me five talents, and look at all I have done with them.” Jesus was so pleased the man had used the gifts given him wisely that he doubled his talents.

The second man showed Jesus that he, too, had developed his talents.

“Thou good and faithful servant,” Jesus replied before giving the man more gifts.

The third guy, with one talent, delivered “the poor me” victim's story: “Lord, look, you gave me only one gift. I was so ashamed, I hid it in the earth. I didn't do anything with it.”

“Thou wicked and slothful servant,” the Lord thundered. He took the man's talent and gave it to the one who had ten—someone who was going to do something with it.

So now, the guy who started with 5 wound up with 11 talents.

The Parable of the Talents, like so many other Scriptures written thousands of years ago, has retro relevance. This particular parable reinforces the popular belief that we all come into this world with talent—a gift, something that we can do better or different than anyone else. But as the story illustrates, if you don't use your gifts, you can lose your gifts.

The parable is written in didactic narrative. Jesus could very well have answered questions with “do this” or “don't do that.” No, he told stories. And there was a reason. He wanted his apostles to figure out the meanings and messages of those parables.

That requirement still applies today. If you really pay attention, you glean the message from the Parable of the Talents. For instance, each man went his own separate way; they didn't climb into a minivan and drive off together.

The moral of the story is to find comfort in our differences and to be pioneering. Don't worry about your neighbor's gifts or blessings. Don't envy someone else's gift. Discover your own. Remember, the men were given talents according to their own ability. Since we all don't have the same ability, we have to discover the roles we are destined to play. This may involve trial and error, stumbling before we can stand erect in our individual comfort zones, and even falling flat on our faces.

Learn the value of your assigned role and perfect it.

When speaking to young people, I encourage them to find their own way; discover their very unique roles; and go out and give the world something it needs—something that only they can uniquely deliver.

There's no doubt the Lord found favor with Marguerite Ann Johnson.

As a confused and abused eight-year-old rape victim, Marguerite chose silence based on the belief that “her voice” led to the brutal death of the man who had raped her. It took five years, but a benevolent teacher and family friend used the words of Dickens, Shakespeare, Poe, James Weldon Johnson, Frances Harper, Anne Spencer, Jessie Fauset, and others to help Marguerite find her own unique voice again. She found music and movement through the study of dance and drama. She found a cause to champion as the Northern Coordinator for Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). She studied African dance with Pearl Primus of Trinidad; modern dance with Martha Graham; and co-created the dance team of Al and Rita, with Alvin Ailey. Before becoming a worldrenowned author, she toured Europe as a producer and actress, vowing to learn the languages of every country she called home. In Africa, she wrote and acted in plays and edited the
African Review
before returning to the United States with her good friend, Malcolm X, in 1964 to help start a new civil rights organization called the Organization of African American Unity. The assassinations of her iconic friends—one in 1965, the other in 1968—did not dim her light for peace, equality, and spiritual freedom. The world knows Marguerite now as Maya Angelou, and her body of work is breathtaking. It includes books with titles such as
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
,
Just Give Me
a Cool Drink of Water
'
Fore I Diiie,
and
Gather Together in My
Name
. It includes “On the Pulse of Morning,” the first inaugural poem commissioned and recited for a president (Bill Clinton) since Robert Frost graced John F. Kennedy with an inaugural recital in 1961. She's been called Oprah's mentor and inspired President Obama to gift her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010. Maya Angelou, beyond a shadow of doubt, has been a “good and faithful servant” who multiplied her talents to the benefit of millions.

Whenever I use The Parable of the Talents in my speeches, I remind audiences that although the Bible enumerates the gifts—five, two, and one—it never tells us what those gifts are. That says to me that quantity isn't important. Quality is.

That one wasted gift could have been the greatest gift given, but the third man in the story never used it, never put it to work. Who knows? That one gift could have been the cure for cancer or the answer to poverty and hunger.

Just because it's one talent doesn't mean it isn't the greatest talent. It's what you do to magnify your gifts that counts. If you have no comedic timing, don't try to be a comedian. Be you. Hone your unique gift, work your talent, find your sweet spot, and let God do the rest.

What is that unique thing that you can do better than anyone else you know? Young Maya Angelou withheld her true talent for five years, but once she discovered the healing, redemptive, and uplifting power of her words, she utilized and expanded that talent in ways far beyond most.

Perhaps you are meant to be that invaluable team player—the axis of group motivation, persuasion, and implementation. If it feels right, use it.

Maybe, like Dr. King, you are cut from the cloth of servant-leader. Maybe you are destined to lead by serving the needs of the disenfranchised. If you hear that call, answer it.

Be that good and faithful servant. Find your talent. Work and multiply your gifts.

Get in where you fit in, and I guarantee you: When that opportunity comes—and it will come—you'll take that ball to the hoop and score big time!

CHAPTER 11

LIVING FOR
THE CITY

“Living just enough, just enough for the city … !”

—“LIVING FOR THE CITY”
BY STEVIE WONDER

M
idway through Stevie Wonder's 1973 hit single, the artist weaves commentary into the song that underscores big-city racism and injustice. A young man fresh from “hard-time Mississippi” travels to New York. He steps off the bus and, while savoring the city's “skyscrapers and everything,” a stranger hands him a bag and darts off. Sirens swirl; cops swoop; handcuffs are slapped on wrists. The judge cares not that the youth's an unwitting accomplice in the drug trade. The Southern boy is sentenced to ten years in prison.

Swap Wonder's Mississippi protagonist with a wide-eyed dreamer from Kokomo; substitute LA for New York; and replace prison with the reality of hopelessness and the possibility of homelessness, and you have my “Living for the City” interlude.

My tale crescendos with a life-changing intervention that left me with much-needed perspective and an invaluable lesson about the meaning of holding on.

Boo-Boo the Fool

“ … So they loaded up the truck
and moved to Beverly. Hills, that is.
Swimmin' pools. Movie stars.”

—“BALLAD OF JED CLAMPETT”
BY PAUL HENNING

It was early 1987. After spending Christmas with my family in Indiana, I packed everything I owned—which obviously wasn't much because it all fit into my orange Datsun 280Z two-seater—and hit the road to California.

Mayor Tom Bradley promised me a job after my internship, but he added a caveat: I had to go back to Indiana and finish my studies. I did. And although circumstances (mostly of my own doing) seriously delayed the receipt of my actual diploma, it wasn't going to deter me from accepting the mayor's promise. I had given him a date for my arrival, and, I was determined to show up for work in LA on the designated day.

After driving my overloaded Datsun nonstop from Kokomo to LA, I arrived in town eager to start my new job and new life. To my absolute shock and horror, I learned there was no job. The Reagan era was in full swing; the economy was bad; and California was still hemorrhaging from the recession. Mayor Bradley had just announced a citywide hiring freeze, which applied to all city employees except the police, fire, and sanitation departments.