Fail Up (20 page)

Sometimes our anger isn't even about the circumstance. The offending party may have tapped into negative past experiences. With the teacher, I sensed racial bias. That could have been more about me than her.

Psychologists and sociologists recommend that we try to leave room for analysis—examine the motivators that fuel the event. As with any good relationship, sometimes we have to compromise, even surrender. Be it on the job, in the home, or someplace else—sometimes being right can be detrimentally wrong.

I learned the hard way that the price paid for blind retribution can come back on you. As I've grown over the years, I've tried not to put people on the spot or back them into corners of no retreat. But honestly, it's been challenging.

An interview on my old BET show comes to mind. The guest was a celebrity whom I respect tremendously. But I was on edge during the conversation. In her book, the artist wrote that she'd rather be called a “bitch or a ho”—anything but “African-American.” She was not a hyphenation, the author insisted: She was just an “American.”

Her position, from my perspective, was wrong and insulting to Black people. During our back-and-forth discussion on the show, I said, “You can't be serious!”

“I am serious. How do I know I'm from Africa? I could be from … say … Egypt.”

WHAT?!

Everything in me wanted to say: You do know that Egypt is in Africa, don't you?

I didn't.

I reminded myself: Even when you're right and they're wrong, don't pounce.

We took a commercial break, and her handlers rushed over immediately to point out her egregious error. After coming back on the air, we continued talking about the book, never returning to the Egypt comment. Restraint was the order of that day. She got the point without being publicly challenged. Thankfully, I rejected the impulse to pounce.

We are still friends to this day.

A relationship was maintained because I had learned how to save space for grace.

CHAPTER 15

AND THE WINNER IS
… NOT ME

“I
can't stand here tonight and say it doesn't hurt.”

It was 9:50 p.m., Tuesday, November 4, 1980. Standing before supporters inside the Sheraton Washington Hotel, President Jimmy Carter delivered one of the earliest presidential concession speeches in history. The nation's 39th President had a difficult time containing his emotions. He had suffered a crushing defeat by Ronald Wilson Reagan. With an approval rating of just over 30 percent, Carter's loss meant that he would join Herbert Hoover as the only other elected incumbent ousted by voters.

I've interviewed many important people over the years, but the time I've spent with Carter has served as a powerful reminder that truth and goodness are much greater than money and power. In his book,
The Unfinished Presidency
, author Douglas Brinkley hints at why the Georgia peanut farmer was destined to become a one-term president:

“Carter never fit in the capital
because his leadership style was essentially
religious in nature, more preacher than politician.
Among American presidents only Carter peppered his
speeches with the word ‘love' and earnest Christian
entreaties for ‘tenderness' and ‘healing' …
Carter was a ‘wheeler-healer' who simply
refused to become a ‘wheeler-dealer.'”

After leaving the White House, the wheeler-healer used his influence to promote peace and justice around the globe. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. When announcing the award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee cited the ex-President's decades of “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

The universe, sometimes without our knowledge, fails us at critical junctures in order to nudge us toward our destinies. Carter's rejection by the voters—his loss to Reagan—was in some ways a win for humankind. His post-presidency mission echoes a truism that I have come to adore: “We plan and God laughs.” In Carter, we are reminded that sometimes rejection is really purposeful redirection.

Champing at the Bit

Folks who really knew me as a kid will recall how I used to brag about one day becoming the first Black U.S. Senator from Indiana. The embers were stoked in my teenage years when I served as an assistant for Councilman Douglas Hogan, a Black man with authentic passion for his job. Hogan asked me—at the age of 16—to join him at a Democratic fundraiser, where I sat next to U.S. Senator Birch Bayh, Indiana's most prominent politician. I lit up when the Senator shared his thoughts on Dr. King and the nobility of public service.

Those political embers were sparked as a result of my internship with Bloomington's Mayor Allison. They burst into flames after my joining Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley's staff, first as an intern, then, two years later, as Bradley's administrative aide.

Back then and even more so now, I placed public servants on the same tier as schoolteachers. Both are noble professions. I'm not talking about your garden variety, “me first” politician; I mean those, like Councilman Hogan who, above all else, put people first. There's also something sacred about people giving you their money, their vote, their time, and their trust. By these actions they say: “We entrust our future to you. Where you lead, we will follow.”

That sacred trust should never be taken for granted.

Bradley was an attentive and effective mayor. He was able to serve all corners of LA by dividing it into eight sections and assigning aides to serve as his eyes, ears, and voice in each of those sections. In this role, I was the pseudo-deputy mayor of South LA.

As the mayor's go-to guy, I met a whole lot of voters, made friends, and developed valuable connections. Perhaps I was a bit ambitious, but after only three years with Bradley, I decided to enter the political arena as a candidate. The 6th Council District seat was up for grabs. The district, at the time, was split—half Black, half white basically. I felt the councilwoman representing the district served her white constituents pretty well, but I can't say the same about how she served her Black constituents. I honestly believed I'd be a better public servant who would represent all citizens with equal amounts of energy, vigor, and focus.

Of course my peers in the mayor's office ridiculed me relentlessly: “Who does Tavis think he is? He's only been here three years and now he's running for office”—the usual negatives that flow from the jealous and the fearful. Most everyone, including the mayor, warned me that I was making a huge mistake. Some pointed out that I was putting the mayor in an awkward position. The incumbent wasn't particularly an enemy of the mayor's, and he needed her vote on a number of important issues. People feared that, by association, it would be assumed that the mayor had endorsed his assistant's campaign.

He didn't. He let me know that he couldn't endorse me.

What Bradley did do, however, was tell his campaign treasurer to work with me and provide access to all his fundraising contacts. In one sense, the mayor's campaign guy became my campaign guy, which helped me raise a lot of money and gain more support.

I ran a spirited campaign, a good campaign, a clean campaign.

I lost.

I came in third place.

Many people run for office just to get their name out in public. Not me. I wanted to win. I wanted to serve. But timing was my enemy. Most folks simply thought it wasn't my time. I was young, I'd get another shot, they figured. Others believed it was best not to make enemies and to stick with the incumbent.

I took the loss very personally. Not only was my political fire doused, I also felt the voters had rejected me as a public servant. The path I had passionately trod since boyhood had suddenly vanished.

Getting Your Hustle On!

Hustle was the order of the days that followed my political defeat. I was flat broke.

Again.

But this time, with a huge campaign debt over my head. I had left the mayor's office to run for the council. Not only did I lose the election, I lost a steady paycheck as well. It was back to my days of sardines and crackers and a regimen of hustle, hustle, and more hustle.

Actor Will Smith has been a guest on my programs many times. I will never forget the interview in which he defined his recipe for success:

“Tavis, I'm not the smartest, not the most handsome—although I do think I'm kinda cute—and I'm not the best actor. I'm the first to tell you all that and then some. But let me tell you this: I will never, ever be out-worked. You will not out-work me or out-hustle me.”

Smith, one of the number-one box office stars in the world, underscored the secret of survival after loss. Refusing to be out-hustled, out-strategized, or out-worked is the stuff that makes the difference.

Alexander Graham Bell added another survival tip: “When one door closes, another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

So after I licked my wounds, I hustled toward those yetunopened doors.

Although I didn't run for office to get my name out in public, I knew how important it was to keep it there. My background thus far had prepared me for my core strengths—debating, politics, and public speaking. LA was a big market, but there weren't any young, Black, insightful, and well-informed commentators on the air. I set my sights on radio.

The election was in May; by November, I had a gig on a local Los Angeles radio station. I've detailed the timeline in other chapters of this book. Here, I'll just summarize: That local radio job led to bigger local offers, which led to local TV, and later, to other opportunities that took me outside of LA's boundaries and onto the national media stage.

The point of this playback is to underscore the opportunity to use rejection as a launching pad and recognize the importance of links. When faced with failed endeavors or job loss, you don't have to know the exact steps to rebound, but it does help to know what opportunities link to your strengths. The opportunities may not pay much money, but they may further your new direction.

I was a pre-law/public policy major, not a communications guy. Neither media nor journalism was my field of study. But I was fortunate enough to create opportunities that linked to my core strengths. That placed me on a path that led to my being on national TV and radio and writing best-selling books. This was not what I expected. It was the blessing that came from rejection.

You Can't Dictate the Journey

The Bible says, in Romans 8:28, that “all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” Note that the scripture doesn't say: “all things are going to be good.” It says all things “work for” your good.

I think this applies to everyone—believer or not—because, ultimately, everything in life is a learning experience. When things don't work out the way you want them to, remember: Sometimes a dead end is in fact a finish line. Maybe the universe has prepared you for another race.

Perception is an important factor in assessing your chances for success. I explored this topic on my TV program with Maria Bartiromo
.
There will be times in your life when you're down and out. Bartiromo, who interviewed dozens of successful people for her book, stresses that the “down and out” period is the best time to define your future:

“It's exactly this time—when things are troubled and you're struggling and you're not sure when it's gonna end—that you actually find the tools to strengthen and rise above it and succeed,” Bartiromo told me, adding that successful people share a similar experience:

“I learned that one thing that they had in common, everyone that I spoke with … walked away feeling smarter—not during the peaks in their careers, but the valleys in their careers.”