The Best Advice I Ever Got (20 page)

M. Night Shyamalan

Filmmaker

Sadness

There is a book that has stayed with me, that has been able to express those feelings I am incapable of bringing forth into words.

The book is titled
Letters to a Young Poet
, and was written by Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke wrote a series of letters to an aspiring young poet advising him on art and life. In reading it, as countless have, I felt that he was writing to me.

Of the nineteen quotes of his that I have written down in my notebooks, this one stirs me every time I read it:

Perhaps we would bear our sadness with greater trust than we have in our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing

When I am hurt—and that is often—I now try to see it as something other than pain.

When I am lost—and that is often—I remember to take a deep breath and look around to see the new place I am in.

I have always been okay with being vulnerable to the attacks of the world. However, as I grow older, I am getting weary. I have the urge to protect myself and not feel sadness with as much frequency as I have recklessly done in my youth.

This would be a mistake. Sadness has been misunderstood. Sadness is the soul recognizing change.

Soledad O’Brien

Award-Winning Journalist, Anchor, and Special Correspondent for CNN

Push Beyond Prejudice

One day, when I was in middle school, I was walking down the hall to my sixth-period science class when an older kid, an eighth grader, came up to me and said, “If you’re a nigger, why don’t you have big lips?” I remember trying to formulate an answer, as if the boy’s question deserved a measured response. There was no hostility in his voice. It was just a question hurled at me in the rush to change class by a boy with long, sandy-brown bangs swinging in his eyes. I rushed past him. I just pursed my lips and kept moving.

I’ve always been proud of my heritage. I am the daughter of a black and Latina mother from Cuba and a white father from Australia. Both of my parents are immigrants. I was raised, with five brothers and sisters, to be proud of our cultural identity, but the issue of race never failed to stare me in the face. People did not see me in the way that I saw myself. I remember shopping at a store in our comfortable suburb of Smithtown, New York, and meeting a salesperson who explained that I “couldn’t be black” because black people were thieves and killers. Um, gonna put this jacket down and leave now, I thought to myself. Then there was the clerk at a photo store where I went to get a picture taken with my sister. He asked if we were black and then apologized for asking, as if being African-American was an offense. My sister and I sped off. At school, being half black and half white meant that I was the brunt of too many bad jokes to count. I just turned and walked away. My young life seemed like a schoolyard game of dodgeball: If you stood still, you got hit. But if you moved you survived to play again.

I’ve been a journalist now for nearly twenty years. I often sprint from story to story, and my life moves fast. I am a big version of the little girl in Smithtown, except that now I’m walking toward something rather than away from it. Each day I force people to consider what they’ve said in interviews. I dig into the awkward questions. I revel in making people rethink their words. I’ve produced award-winning documentaries about challenging subjects like race, and have gone on to write books, give speeches, marry a great guy, have four healthy kids, and anchor a network TV show. That eighth grader in the hallway didn’t hinder my forward motion. Whatever became of him, he was wrong about me. Whatever assumptions he made about me, I proved him wrong.

The important lesson, to me at least, is that I’ve succeeded in life despite the narrow-mindedness that I faced growing up. Dealing with prejudice actually changed me for the better, not for the worse. I learned that I didn’t need to acknowledge—or give power to—every injustice thrown in my way. Instead, I could win just by being myself. Yes, I felt angry at the time, but I used the negativism as motivation and didn’t let it fester. I realized that anger could teach me, and I’ve used those feelings in my work to identify with people—to say, “I’ve been there, too.”

One thing that’s certain in this country is that not far around the corner from every ugly experience is something really beautiful. And if you stop at every bitter comment you will never reach that beauty. My strategy has always been to push forward, to be proud, and to have faith in myself. In other words, never give intolerance the satisfaction of a backward glance.

EVERYONE NEEDS A CHEERLEADER

On Mentors and Encouragement

No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you
.

—WILMA RUDOLPH

A
husband and wife in their early sixties were celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary in a romantic little restaurant. Suddenly, a tiny, beautiful fairy godmother appeared on their table. “For being such an exemplary and loving married couple all these years,” she told them, “I will grant you one wish.” The wife answered, “Oh, I want to travel around the world with my darling husband.” The fairy waved her magic wand and—poof!—two tickets for the
Queen Mary 2
appeared in the wife’s hand. The husband thought for a moment, then said, “Well, this is all very romantic, but an opportunity like this will never come again. I’m sorry, sweetheart, but my wish is to have a wife who’s thirty years younger than me.” The wife and the fairy were deeply disappointed, but a wish is a wish. So the fairy waved her magic wand and—poof!—the husband became ninety-two years old. The moral of this story: Men should remember that fairy godmothers are female.

I love telling this joke, because it never fails to make me appreciate the collective power of the many wonderful women in my life. As women, we are all each other’s fairy godmother, watching over one another, suddenly appearing when we’re in dire straits, coming up with something to wear to the ball or on a dreaded blind date, picking the best photo for—
horrors!
—Match.com. I know that without my girlfriends my life would not be as rich or as rewarding—or nearly as much fun.

But before all the men out there flip to the next chapter with a collective groan or head to a sports bar to drink a beer and watch a game, wait a second. While fairy godmothers may be female, sometimes the best cheerleaders are men. In my case, the most vocal supporter with the biggest megaphone was none other than Tim Russert, one of the finest people I have ever known. It was 1989, and I was still recovering from my disastrous on-air debut at WRC when Tim called upstairs to the local newsroom in Washington and said he’d like to see me in his office. Tim was, of course, the Washington bureau chief and beloved anchor of
Meet the Press
. It was a very exciting day. He told me that he admired my work, especially the way I’d hounded Marion Barry, the controversial mayor of Washington, D.C., at the time, “like a pit bull hot on the trail of an alley cat.” He told me that I had spunk, and that, unlike Lou Grant, the gruff, cantankerous boss on
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
, Tim liked spunk. He offered me a job as a deputy Pentagon correspondent. Six months later, I was substitute-anchoring for the weekend edition of
NBC Nightly News
. Having Tim as my cheerleader was so meaningful—professionally and personally. Perhaps no one was more respected at NBC News than Tim—for his integrity, work ethic, and humility. His Buffalo roots were so integral to who he was, and he always thought about people like his dad, Big Russ, watching the show alongside inside-the-Beltway pundits and policy wonks. And his dogged preparation kept every politician on his or her toes, in a way that was appropriately challenging but never overly combative. He was the E. F. Hutton of NBC: When Tim talked … people listened. With him in my corner, opportunities started coming my way, and without those opportunities I would never be where I am today. When Tim died suddenly of a heart attack, it was the entire nation’s loss.

The object lesson from this experience is this: It takes one person—just one—to see something special in someone else, to lift her up and give her a chance. My mom used to say, “Everyone needs a cheerleader.” In my career, that was Tim—he changed everything. So find yourself a cheerleader, and perhaps even more important, someone
you
can cheer for.

Christiane Amanpour

Award-Winning International-Affairs Journalist and Anchor

Thank You, Colonel Shaki

I first met Colonel Shaki when I was five years old, growing up in Tehran. A loud and colorful former cavalry officer in the Iranian Army, Colonel Shaki was my horseback-riding instructor and my earliest mentor. At my first lesson, the colonel did not start me off on a little pony, ambling around the ring on a long leash, as my parents and I had perhaps expected. Instead, he hoisted me onto a full-grown horse—gigantic to my five-year-old eyes—and expected me to stay in the saddle, or not! At first it was terrifying, trying to control a beast with a mind of its own. I hung on for dear life as the horse took off at a death-defying pace around the ring. All the while, Colonel Shaki shouted indecipherable instructions that I strained to hear, let alone understand.

I fell off, I cried, I looked to my mum for rescue. Colonel Shaki strode over. Phew, I thought, he’ll give me a rest and a lollipop. No such luck. Suddenly he had me by the scruff of my neck and—plop!—I was back in the saddle. Over and over this happened. But I never gave up; I wasn’t allowed to. My mother didn’t step in to save me, and the colonel wasn’t going to let me off the hook. Slowly but surely, I grew proficient, capable, in control. I got good at it. And, best of all, from fear and dread I grew to love it.

Riding taught me all that I needed to know about life, its good times and how to get through its hard times. It taught me about persistence, toughness, courage, and I learned never to see a setback as a failure. It taught me passion, it taught me to have the commitment to master a “trade,” and, most of all, it taught me about compassion and shared endeavor. A rider does not ride alone; her horse is her teammate.

I learned these lessons from Colonel Shaki at his riding stables. You can learn them anywhere, and take them everywhere throughout your life.