I had a few minutes to scroll through the Twitter machine the other day and came across a Tom Brady speech on failure and success.
“There will come opportunities in life, when they are presented to you. It’s a matter of whether or not you are prepared to take advantage of the opportunity. Life is not about how much you succeed, it’s about what happens when you fail,” said Brady.
It got me to think of my more than three-decade professional career in politics and journalism that has been littered with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. As a candidate and consultant, I’ve won and lost big races.
Hard work, a huge effort, keeping my mouth shut and eyes wide open for opportunities, has led to incredible professional blessings. All of which were borne from the seeds of deeply planted failures that knocked me on my rear end.
It began in high school, where I spent many a weekend night traveling with our varsity basketball team. Yours truly and another Communications Arts student hit the road along with teacher Frank Austin, and we broadcast a “play-by-play” of the game using a massive VHS camcorder and two microphones.
This experience led to my first television news internship at WKBW-TV while still a 17-year-old senior in high school. The internet didn’t exist back then, so at times I was relegated to stuffing envelopes with “Mr. Food” recipes that mostly senior citizens mailed in and asked for.
Every chance I got, I would keep an ear close to the police scanner near the Assignment Desk, and if news broke, I positioned myself to be near a crew that was headed out the door. I often carried the tripod and other equipment for photojournalists, hoping that would sweeten the pot for them to bring along an ambitious intern.
I believe this professional experience helped gain admittance to the most prestigious journalism school in America: the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Almost 92% of applicants are rejected.
While I dove into my academic studies at SU, I also worked twice as hard volunteering at the student television station, known as University Union Television at the time. I spent 40 hours a week picking up professional-grade cameras and shooting/producing news stories across campus, including Syracuse University football and basketball games.
I rubbed elbows with the sports crew from the NBC affiliate in Syracuse, WSTM-TV. When the station needed a part-time photojournalist, I jumped at the chance to interview and was hired there at the age of 19 in 1993.
Once a week, I marched into the News Director’s office and asked to be put on the air as a reporter. For a year, the answer was always “no.” I persisted.
I finally caught my break when the weekend reporter called in sick, no one picked up the phone to substitute, and News Director Mark Carros rang me.
“If you suck, I’ll never put you on TV again. Go get 'em’” was his response.
I sucked. They never, ever should have put me on TV again.
One of my live reports was such a disaster that the photojournalist said to me right after “well kid, we’re all going to be fossil fuel in 100-million years anyway.”
It was Memorial Day 1994 when I had to tape those reporter standups you see in news stories. Usually ten seconds or less.
No exaggeration it took me 30 minutes standing by myself in a cemetery to spit out ten coherent seconds that I could put on tape.
Practice makes perfect, and I improved. We were expecting a massive blizzard the next weekend. Reporter Kelly French was going live downtown at 6:00 AM, and would shoot a live report with Today Show anchor Matt Lauer..
The station needed a second volunteer for storm duty to go live at the airport and serve as a Today Show backup.
I had already worked a 16-hour day, and at 11:00 PM, I did not feel like sleeping at the station to get four hours of sleep to then report live from a big blizzard.
Thankfully, I answered the call.
The next morning, Kelly’s truck experienced technical issues, and at 7:00 AM, my live talkback with Lauer was the lead story of the Today Show. This live, national appearance helped get me a job at WKBW in Buffalo, the same station I interned at years before.
Politically, I was on staff of former Erie County Executive Chris Collins. The year was 2011, and the well-funded incumbent should have cruised to victory.
We lost that race.
Thankfully, we did, because Chris ran for Congress and won the next year, defeating Kathy Hochul. I ran for Erie County Comptroller and won. I’d go on to win two more races and serve nine years.
Neither of those big wins would have happened had we won that race for County Executive in 2011.
Fast forward ten years later. I decided not to run again for Comptroller and run for my Town Supervisor position.
I lost, and didn't do too well as a “Trump Republican” in a two-to-one Democratic town.
Thank God I lost.
It led to a career as a political strategist with the national consulting firm “Big Dog Strategies.” This led to earning my position as Spokesman and Deputy Communications Director for Vivek Ramaswamy’s Presidential campaign.
That loss after the Iowa Primary led me right here, to the News Director of the South Shore Press.
We all want to avoid pain and failure in life. It’s completely natural to do so.
Thankfully, the good Lord has other plans and has the wisdom to give us the opportunity for strength and growth during sometimes painful moments in our lives.
It’s up to us to be prepared and answer the call.
Good things usually await us when we do.