Don’t Waste This Wisdom
It’s a crime against humanity to sit on wisdom. There are too many of us who want that knowledge — who need that knowledge. We’re all students, even those of us who are called teachers, presidents, revered leaders.
Many won’t read this post. Some won’t read it, because, in the ocean of ephemera and vitriol that is the Internet, this message — this clear coke bottle straight out of a Nicholas Sparks novel — will never find them. Sad panda.
But there are a precious few of you who will read this wisdom culled from men and women who are smarter than I — more on this later — that will feel as I did when I first heard it spoken.
Maybe one of you is a Power That Be, and you have no need of New Age Confucianism. Or, and this is likelier, you’re just a guy or gal trying to make good, trying to get better, working day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute to fulfill a dream. To the latter, that’s where I live, too. I love you. I respect you. Keep busting hump.
Here’s that wisdom:
Listen more than you talk
Have no sense of entitlement
You have to fail to succeed
You have one chance to make a good impression
Storytelling will win the day
Great conversations will win the day
You have to be the exception to the rule
Don’t forsake the things you do well
Dress like you want people to take you seriously
Use Twitter as a news feed
Always say yes
If you lack passion for it, you’ll never be great at it
Read, write, edit. Read, write, edit. Read, write, edit.
You’re either the steamroller or the pavement
Question: Where did I receive these sacrosanct sound bites? Answer: The Sports Journalism Institute, where the following folks dropped intellect profound:
(In no particular order)
John A. Walsh
Executive Vice President and Executive Editor at ESPN
Sandy Rosenbush
News Editor at ESPN
Leon Carter
Executive Editor at ESPNewYork.com
Greg Lee
Senior Assistant Sports Editor at Boston Globe
Bryan Burwell
Sports Columnist at St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Dan Le Batard
Miami Herald Sports Columnist and ESPN TVand radio personality
Malcolm Moran
Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society at Penn State University
Darnell Mayberry
Oklahoma City Thunder beat writer at The Oklahoman
Richard Deitsch
Media Columnist at Sports Illustrated
Joy Mayer
Director of Community Outreach at Columbia Missourian and Associate Professor at the University of Missouri
Stephen A. Smith
ESPN.com Columnist and TV personality
Jim Jenks
Vice President and Executive Producer at MLB.com
Carlton Thompson
Vice President and Executive Editor at MLB.com
Greg Bowers
Sports Editor at Columbia Missourian and Associate Professor at the University of Missouri
David Ubben
ESPN.com Big 12 blogger
Michael Anastasi
A Managing Editor at the Salt Lake Tribune and President of the Associated Press Sports Editors
Staggering list, right? Well, it staggered the heck out of me. Now, don’t waste what they gave us for free. If you do, there WILL BE CONSEQUENCES. I’ll … I’ll do something. I don’t know what that something is, but it will be BAD — very, very BAD. (OK, I won’t really do anything. But you should — act on their wisdom.)
Peace and soul,
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