Speaker 1: From executive search to talent strategy, leadership development, rewards and
Speaker 1: succession planning. Corn Fairy can help you realize the full
Speaker 1: potential of your people so you can take your business
Speaker 1: where it wants to go up. Learn more at corn
Speaker 1: Ferry dot com slash up. Keith Olverman you know him
Speaker 1: from ESPN, if you watched Sports Center in the nineties,
Speaker 1: or from his career as a commentator on MSNBC. This
Speaker 1: week on Game Plan, we're talking about his drama filled
Speaker 1: career where he got fired and rehired and apparently burned
Speaker 1: bridges along the way. I'm Rebecca Greenfield, a reporter at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg where I cover workplace culture, and I am Sam Grobart.
Speaker 1: I am a writer at Bloomberg Business Week magazine. So
Speaker 1: Keith Olrin's career from the beginning was filled with drama, Yes,
Speaker 1: from day one, essentially. Yeah. When he worked at up
Speaker 1: I Radio, he was almost fired and the only thing
Speaker 1: that saved him, according to a New York article, was
Speaker 1: his guild. Oh well, that's helpful. But he's continued this
Speaker 1: pattern quite successfully of going places, being very successful, and
Speaker 1: then getting very fed up, frustrated, some contention with his
Speaker 1: bosses and bolting. Yeah, do we think it's useful to
Speaker 1: just give like us quick rundown of the firings and hirings.
Speaker 1: I mean we have to do all of no, no, no,
Speaker 1: Here I can pick out some of the highlights, So
Speaker 1: here we go. Berman joins ESPN, He's there for five
Speaker 1: years when he leaves acrimoniously in He then goes over
Speaker 1: to MSNBC, but leaves there two years later when he
Speaker 1: joins Fox, but he's fired from there in two thousand one.
Speaker 1: In two thousand three, he goes back to MSNBC, but
Speaker 1: he's suspended from MSNBC in two thousand ten and leaves
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven. In July two thousand thirteen, he
Speaker 1: goes back to ESPN. He leaves that network for the
Speaker 1: second time two years later. Right, So what's crazy besides
Speaker 1: that he's boomeranged around these various companies is also the
Speaker 1: stories that have come out of this. When he left
Speaker 1: ESPN that first time in seven there's a famous quote
Speaker 1: saying he didn't burn bridges, he napalmed them like a
Speaker 1: cool guy. Yeah yeah, And when he left Fox, I
Speaker 1: believe Rupert Murdoch said he fired him because he's quote
Speaker 1: crazy as opposed to all of the incredibly sane people
Speaker 1: that Rupert Murdoch has kept in his employees. Yes, really
Speaker 1: great point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe yeah, probably Yeah.
Speaker 1: Olberman is is to the left of Rupert Murdoch, and
Speaker 1: maybe that's why he thought he was crazy. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: that's contributed a little bit to it. Um, but really
Speaker 1: it's hard to work with. I guess the question is this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: is he you know, should he be sort of um
Speaker 1: lambasted or feared as a difficult person or should he
Speaker 1: be sort of lionized for basically not giving a damn
Speaker 1: in a good way and saying I'm going to do
Speaker 1: what I do. I'm really good at it. If you've
Speaker 1: got a problem with that, you can take this job
Speaker 1: and shove it and finding another place where he can
Speaker 1: continue to apply his craft. Yeah, as we were talking
Speaker 1: about this, I definitely had a little bit of Oh,
Speaker 1: maybe he's my work hero, right, Maybe Keith Alberman is
Speaker 1: sort of like what we all wish we could be,
Speaker 1: which is apparently permanently employable, obviously very well compensated, and
Speaker 1: with the kind of courage of his convictions to leave
Speaker 1: a place when he starts to feel like things are
Speaker 1: going south for him. Yeah, and he obviously is good
Speaker 1: enough to get hired back from these same places. That's
Speaker 1: what's crazy. It's not like he's just jumped and dumped
Speaker 1: and dumped and dumped. He's he's so good in some
Speaker 1: ways that ESPN or MSNBC want to have him back
Speaker 1: even after reports of this friction, because whether he's Employee
Speaker 1: of the Month or the world's worst coworker, the fact
Speaker 1: remains Keith Olberman is a singular talent in broadcasting and
Speaker 1: that presumably affords him second and third chances that most
Speaker 1: of us would never get. Yeah, that's what we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about with him today. Keith is here with us.
Speaker 1: He's our guest. He has a new web series at
Speaker 1: with g Q. It's called The Closer, and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk with him about that latest comeback and his
Speaker 1: bumpy road to success. So why don't you start, Keith
Speaker 1: by telling us about your latest role at g Q.
Speaker 1: Um about August or so, I got a call from
Speaker 1: an editor at g Q named Jeff Ganion who had
Speaker 1: an idea that was similar one I did, which was,
Speaker 1: we would be a good idea if I was doing
Speaker 1: commentary on the campaign yeah, and I think ten days
Speaker 1: later we posted the first of them, which is not
Speaker 1: quite the record in my career for getting something started.
Speaker 1: But what we posted a piece called hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: six reasons Donald Trump should not be elected or cannot
Speaker 1: be elected or however it has various titles, which has
Speaker 1: been in the following ten days or so seen somewhere
Speaker 1: around three and a half million times. So you made
Speaker 1: the decisions so quickly to take the job, yeah, because
Speaker 1: it was we knew going into this at both ends
Speaker 1: of it that there was gonna be learning curves for
Speaker 1: both g Q and for me. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: they weren't going to hold the election until we were
Speaker 1: settled and ready to go. And I had talked to
Speaker 1: a lot of people about doing something like this, and
Speaker 1: most of them were just, well, we're at the cutting
Speaker 1: edge of new media and we're going to do this,
Speaker 1: and we're going to do that, but we can't move
Speaker 1: quickly or anything. How About in January? And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: look in January, maybe these commentaries won't be necessary or
Speaker 1: legal by then. So it's one of those two options.
Speaker 1: I'd like to just get on the air with it.
Speaker 1: Can we just get on the end. These these guys
Speaker 1: had the same idea I did, and the premise of
Speaker 1: it was similar to mine, which was, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you another question, based on the experience
Speaker 1: you're having right now, do you think this is the
Speaker 1: future of people like you and the work that you do,
Speaker 1: which is to say, not necessarily being tied in a
Speaker 1: very formal sense to one large entity. But you do
Speaker 1: g Q through the election, then you do something else
Speaker 1: for someone else, you know, by January, and you just
Speaker 1: kind of it could go in that direct. Let me
Speaker 1: put it to you this way. This is why I'm
Speaker 1: I don't have a distinct answer for it, apart from
Speaker 1: the fact that I can't see it clearly yet and
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody can. The first thing that was
Speaker 1: burned into my psyche when I started in the business.
Speaker 1: The first two major national television organizations I worked for
Speaker 1: did not exist the day I graduated college and where
Speaker 1: the day I started in broadcasting. I started at network
Speaker 1: Radio in New York, so I was, you know, already
Speaker 1: the third or fourth level of the business. These places
Speaker 1: didn't exist. I've been on the air longer than ESPN,
Speaker 1: and that was the place I have the most success
Speaker 1: except for CNN, which didn't exist, an MSNBC, which was
Speaker 1: seventeen years away from exist. Thing, So you have to
Speaker 1: adjust to it. If you're somebody who's working in the
Speaker 1: industry and this is you know, the possibility that you
Speaker 1: have a brand and then you marry your brand or
Speaker 1: date your brand to somebody else's brand is absolutely a possibility,
Speaker 1: and certainly we're doing that right now. Your career seems
Speaker 1: particularly well suited for that because I changed a lot
Speaker 1: over years because tattoos with with logos of companies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you're not particularly loyal to a specific company. Um,
Speaker 1: You've also not always loyal when I'm there, don't don't
Speaker 1: you know? I am actually a tremendous team player. It's
Speaker 1: one of the unfortunate things. You can't really convince anybody.
Speaker 1: How many teams have you played for? Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: was a team player for all those teams. But go ahead,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Well, you've you've been asked a large audience already. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's five and a half million as of the first
Speaker 1: six commentaries and one interview, which is a lot from
Speaker 1: a from a from a dead stop, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: we just there was nothing. This did not exist on
Speaker 1: Labor Day at all. Yeah, but I mean, we're build
Speaker 1: an audience. That's a really hard thing to do when
Speaker 1: you're just some people. Have you always had that view
Speaker 1: on your career, like I'm going to build an audience
Speaker 1: for me. I'm in this for my own personal growth
Speaker 1: only in the sense of that old philosophy that is,
Speaker 1: if it does not interest you, it cannot possibly interest
Speaker 1: the person you're talking to. In other words, I never
Speaker 1: associated the salary with the work or how much effort
Speaker 1: I should put into it, or what it should look like.
Speaker 1: And I never I mean, the venue is sometimes important.
Speaker 1: You reflect to some degree who you're working for, and
Speaker 1: there are rules in some places that don't exist in others.
Speaker 1: I always thought that I had an obligation to myself
Speaker 1: more than anything else, to do it in a way
Speaker 1: that matched my standards, And I would often get into
Speaker 1: conflicts with management places that didn't have the same standards,
Speaker 1: and I would be saying, I don't think we should
Speaker 1: do this, I don't think it's journalistically correct, and then
Speaker 1: they would say, well, you don't make that decision here,
Speaker 1: and I would say, well, I do make one decision here,
Speaker 1: and then it go to somewhere else. If you're working
Speaker 1: just to be on so you can say at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I work for such and such,
Speaker 1: forget it. I mean, there will be trained artificial intelligences
Speaker 1: who can take that job. You will be competing with
Speaker 1: the machine that never stumbles on the air. And I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're just going to be a voice, if you're
Speaker 1: going to have a set of codes and a point
Speaker 1: of view. I think, no matter what the medium turns
Speaker 1: out to be, even if we're speaking telepathically to the audience,
Speaker 1: eventually and there's no equipment required to except a small
Speaker 1: chip here in one of your teeth, that will always
Speaker 1: be in demand. And it will also if you stick
Speaker 1: to that, it will also be every work experience will
Speaker 1: be valuable in someone. You talk about the relationship that
Speaker 1: you've had with some of your employers, how you will disagree.
Speaker 1: You have the option to leave. Obviously you have done that.
Speaker 1: Was that always true for you from the beginning or
Speaker 1: did you come into that understanding later on in your career,
Speaker 1: and if so, what was that education. I was also
Speaker 1: like this as a child. Yeah. Now, I I tell
Speaker 1: you this is very interesting because my father, who had
Speaker 1: one full time two full time jobs in his life,
Speaker 1: and the rest of his career worked freelance. Said to
Speaker 1: me once I was leaving. My first job was at
Speaker 1: United Press International. That's how old I am. And when
Speaker 1: I left, the guy said, why are you leaving? I said,
Speaker 1: because the way you treat the younger people here, the
Speaker 1: place isn't going to exist in ten years. And he said, oh,
Speaker 1: what do you think? There will always be a u
Speaker 1: p I. Within ten years, I was on TV and
Speaker 1: he was managing a restaurant in Katona, New York. Anyway, Yes,
Speaker 1: and he's a great guy too, but there just wasn't
Speaker 1: a job for him. And he also it was he
Speaker 1: had enough of radio, so he left and was a manager.
Speaker 1: And I was going to leave, and I had two choices,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't sure because this was u p I.
Speaker 1: It had been in its two originators of United Press
Speaker 1: and News International, had been around since the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: And the place I was going to have been around
Speaker 1: for sixteen months, and it was more money and sleeker
Speaker 1: studios and less work, and it was a brand new
Speaker 1: thing and it's like a young adult audience and all
Speaker 1: the rest of that. And I still had a little
Speaker 1: hesitation in doing it. My father said, this is the
Speaker 1: first job you've ever been offered and I said no.
Speaker 1: He said, what was that other thing last year that
Speaker 1: you didn't take? That I wanted you to go to Boston?
Speaker 1: I said okay. He said, so that's you had, the
Speaker 1: one you got, the one in Boston, and this that's three.
Speaker 1: I said yeah. I said how old are you? I said,
Speaker 1: I think you should know this and he said how
Speaker 1: old are you? I said, I'm gonna be twenty two
Speaker 1: next month. He said, so you think these are the
Speaker 1: last three jobs you're ever going to be offered? And
Speaker 1: I said no. He said, then what are you worried about?
Speaker 1: This doesn't work? Get something else. By that point, I
Speaker 1: had already had more jobs than he'd had. So I
Speaker 1: don't know where this wisdom came from, but it's always
Speaker 1: stuck with me. And I just think that's a good
Speaker 1: way to operate, and many people can't, and I don't
Speaker 1: criticize them for doing so. I don't think I'm better
Speaker 1: than they are. I'm either smarter or much much stupider,
Speaker 1: and and it probably both. And it's probably also just
Speaker 1: to set a circum stances that I just I've never
Speaker 1: never sought security, and I've never wanted to compromise in
Speaker 1: exchange for security, and that often comes across as there's
Speaker 1: a bad employee in that sense. Yeah, I mean you're
Speaker 1: going to You're going to get what you get, and
Speaker 1: I am going to do what I think is appropriate.
Speaker 1: And trust me, I have compromised a thousand times. It's
Speaker 1: not I don't, it's not I won't, it's this is fine.
Speaker 1: These firmpromises are fine. Number one is where I draw
Speaker 1: the way. Yeah, I think that's worth pointing out that,
Speaker 1: you know, some people do have to compromise and some
Speaker 1: people are risk averse for other reasons. And maybe I
Speaker 1: don't know if you believe this, but do you think
Speaker 1: it's also particular to the profession that you or we
Speaker 1: are in, where all these things we're talking about about
Speaker 1: building a brand and skills are transferable and yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: the advantages that you are likely to rise in this
Speaker 1: in any kind of medium format and any kind of
Speaker 1: media format based on whether or not you have a
Speaker 1: personal appeal to the audience, and it's not it's not. Well,
Speaker 1: we like generic announcer number thirty two and he fits.
Speaker 1: He's new generic announcer number thirty two. It's not a
Speaker 1: character that's written for you. You You know, it's not Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: my friend, Elizabeth Montgomery's husband on Bewitched, who suddenly was
Speaker 1: a different guy in September, and I was like, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to all the characters are behaving like there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong here, and he's just regenerated like doctor Who.
Speaker 1: But you know that's fine. It's not like that. You
Speaker 1: are yourself and that is that is the brand. And
Speaker 1: the other thing I would point out in my defense
Speaker 1: in terms of this, it's not strategy, just it's a
Speaker 1: reflection of my personality. I have had my national television
Speaker 1: employers have been CNN, ESPN, MSNBC, and Fox and Current
Speaker 1: if you want to count that. The Current doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1: So that's not possible. Four television networks that I've had
Speaker 1: some success at, and I've gone back to work a
Speaker 1: second and in one case a third time with three
Speaker 1: of them. So I went back to mss NBC, I
Speaker 1: went back to See and and I went back to ESPN.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't me going can I please come back?
Speaker 1: It was a mutual decision. So there is in all
Speaker 1: the sort of wander lust quality to it, and it's
Speaker 1: not very usual that you go back to a former employer,
Speaker 1: especially when you have a reputation of burning down bridges.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's just that's just for show, so that
Speaker 1: when you leave someone it's like, so I didn't like
Speaker 1: that girlfriend anyway. It's the business equivalent of that. Ap
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Speaker 1: to take your business up. Learn more at corn Ferry
Speaker 1: dot com slash up. Do you ever think back on
Speaker 1: the different places that you've worked and wish they try
Speaker 1: to remember them? Right? Okay? Do you ever have any
Speaker 1: any regrets? Sir? Wish that maybe absolutely. My going back
Speaker 1: to work for ESPN the second time was instibly to
Speaker 1: change the ending of that experience because I did not
Speaker 1: think I had behaved particularly maturely, and I thought looking
Speaker 1: and particularly reading about how it was, seeing twenty years
Speaker 1: later that there needed to be a different ending to it.
Speaker 1: I think I succeeded accomplishing that. I would never go
Speaker 1: back and say that the opinions that I took my
Speaker 1: stances on were wrong, but there was absolutely no reason
Speaker 1: for me to have done certain things about them, like
Speaker 1: in a couple of cases going public. Certainly, you know,
Speaker 1: the twelve thirteen page memos that I would slip under
Speaker 1: my boss's door before going home at midnight probably were unnecessary.
Speaker 1: And they look at this thing and I I, oh, we
Speaker 1: hate this guy. This is really well written. It's just
Speaker 1: it's a mixed message. I could have just had a conversation,
Speaker 1: and that was largely why I went back there, and
Speaker 1: other cases where you sit there and you learn from it.
Speaker 1: If you don't learn from something constantly, I mean, there
Speaker 1: are mistakes I made in at at ESPN the second
Speaker 1: time that I learned from And I was, you know,
Speaker 1: fifty six years old when I was when that show ended, um,
Speaker 1: and there were mistakes that they made to which they
Speaker 1: may or may not have learned from. See, I'm still
Speaker 1: doing it so as someone I'm younger, younger than both
Speaker 1: of you, and if I want to learn something from you,
Speaker 1: and you know, you're talking about doing what you believe
Speaker 1: in and sticking to your conscience, but now you're saying
Speaker 1: that there are also things that you shouldn't have done.
Speaker 1: You could have acted more mature. So what advice would
Speaker 1: you give? Never put it on paper? I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a good that that sounds like either paranoia or a cliche,
Speaker 1: but it's there's a permanence to it that you may
Speaker 1: not be intending as you write it. And this also
Speaker 1: goes for texts and emails and just use paper generically.
Speaker 1: You may not want it to be preserved forever in
Speaker 1: a large main frame under the Kremlin. I mean, you
Speaker 1: don't know where that's going to be. And I always
Speaker 1: as the longer I got into it, the more computer
Speaker 1: materials came in. More I began to think, is it
Speaker 1: a good idea? And I would type all these memos
Speaker 1: on my home computer and just print them out. But
Speaker 1: even then it's something that you would say and you go, no,
Speaker 1: that's not exactly what I meant, and it's gone and
Speaker 1: there's no reason to That's the easiest one. It's just
Speaker 1: don't just sit down and say, here are my reservations
Speaker 1: and if you if you read from note cards or
Speaker 1: you read from what it is that you had written
Speaker 1: in anger. And the other one is always if you
Speaker 1: can wait till tomorrow to do it, wait till tomorrow
Speaker 1: to do it. Those are the two simplest things and
Speaker 1: the only other general advice in terms of succeeding that
Speaker 1: there's two things I always heard. One of them is
Speaker 1: becoming less and less important. But the first one is
Speaker 1: if you want to go and be involved in media
Speaker 1: in some way, you have to be able to do everything.
Speaker 1: If you have to be able to be in print,
Speaker 1: you have to be able to be on the spoken
Speaker 1: form in one way or the other, podcast, radio, internet, whatever.
Speaker 1: And you have to be able to be on video
Speaker 1: on camera in some way and be able to at
Speaker 1: least press the button to record the video. You must
Speaker 1: do all these things, and you know that's that's it's
Speaker 1: if there's another dimension that we haven't thought of yet,
Speaker 1: learn how to do that too. Snatch up. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Another question I have was that despite all of the
Speaker 1: turmoil that you've had another at some of your jobs,
Speaker 1: are you happy with your career? Yes, Oh, I I
Speaker 1: achieved everything I intended to achieve at least fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: possibly longer, everything that I had set out, and I
Speaker 1: literally other kids had day dreams of, I don't know what,
Speaker 1: being Donald Trump or something. I know what the average
Speaker 1: day dream was for a kid of my age in
Speaker 1: the seventies. But I actually thought, maybe be great. What
Speaker 1: if there was an all news television station and an
Speaker 1: all sports television station, and I'd like to work for
Speaker 1: them both. And I'd like to be involved in the
Speaker 1: baseball broadcasts, and I'd like to cover the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to if it's plausible, I'd like to
Speaker 1: get involved in the presidential inauguration press well by by
Speaker 1: by two thousand and nine, I had hosted all of
Speaker 1: these things, including a World Series between the two New
Speaker 1: York teams, which is by itself, I hope I've lived
Speaker 1: to see that. I was literally standing on the field
Speaker 1: at Yankee Stadium introducing Game one of the World Series
Speaker 1: when it suddenly dawned on me that if I did
Speaker 1: not stop talking, they would not get to play. I
Speaker 1: was to introduce the p A announcer Bob Shepherd, wh
Speaker 1: would then introduce the players. If I just kept talking,
Speaker 1: I was holding up this World Series was a great
Speaker 1: powerful moment as long as you understand you have to
Speaker 1: relinquish that fanciful power immediately. So I got everything done.
Speaker 1: So yes, absolutely no question of it. When you start
Speaker 1: a new job, do you start it in a particular way.
Speaker 1: I'm asking this. I'm thinking in my position, which is
Speaker 1: sort of very mid level. I come into a new job,
Speaker 1: I kind of lay low for a little yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: and then I sort of figure out what's what an
Speaker 1: hour or two? Yes, okay, before breaking any heads. Yes,
Speaker 1: now that would be there. That would be the assumption.
Speaker 1: It's it's an organic part of the process. You can't
Speaker 1: know where everything is, you can't know who everybody is
Speaker 1: by name. You have to have help very often going
Speaker 1: where's the door in this room? I know there is
Speaker 1: one I came in, but you you will absolutely need
Speaker 1: to be guided around for a long period of time.
Speaker 1: And that's a good time to be a little less obstreperous,
Speaker 1: because otherwise they'll just leave you and they'll tell you
Speaker 1: that the studios over here, when in fact that's the
Speaker 1: closet and you're you're late for the show. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there there is to some degree a sort of toning
Speaker 1: down you do have to go and correct people's impressions.
Speaker 1: The one thing, unfortunately about having a reputation, whether it's
Speaker 1: is the greatest person in the world or the worst,
Speaker 1: some large percentage will have a ridiculously wrong impression of you.
Speaker 1: When I went to work for Fox in I noticed
Speaker 1: when I would go through the hallways and say hi
Speaker 1: to people, they looked surprised, and some of them. As
Speaker 1: I'd be coming down the hallway, you'd see two guys
Speaker 1: chatting and suddenly they'd stop talking to each other and
Speaker 1: put their heads down and just sort of walked past me.
Speaker 1: I was like, what the hell did I do? And
Speaker 1: I found out only at about six or eight weeks
Speaker 1: in that literally one of the very few true idiot
Speaker 1: bosses I ever had had put out a memo saying,
Speaker 1: do not talk nor look in the eyes of Keith
Speaker 1: Olberman unless he has spoken to you. First, I was like, what,
Speaker 1: why We're I mean, lots of things you could accuse
Speaker 1: me of in a workplace, but not wanting to talk
Speaker 1: to the people I worked with. It was certainly not
Speaker 1: one of them. And this went on for six weeks
Speaker 1: to the point where I was getting paranoid, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's always an adjustment period, but but you
Speaker 1: have to go in and make sure people have a
Speaker 1: fairly good opinion of you before you start spending that
Speaker 1: in any way. Yes, yeah, I imagine that's gotten even
Speaker 1: harder for you as as you have more of a
Speaker 1: reputation as your career has gone on. In one sense,
Speaker 1: in other words, the baggage will seem larger. But if
Speaker 1: you don't act like the baggage, that point gets across
Speaker 1: to the relief of the people that you're working with
Speaker 1: much faster. It's like he didn't hurt anybody on the
Speaker 1: first day. It's like, I'm not you know, it's not
Speaker 1: that at all. That's that I never I never, never
Speaker 1: have been my reputation two colleagues or people who would
Speaker 1: be below me on the food chain. It's my employers
Speaker 1: that I've always treated that way, and I they would
Speaker 1: even say that, And that's I think that's part of
Speaker 1: the responsibility. You're supposed to punch up at the office
Speaker 1: and you spend many times it's been on in the
Speaker 1: in the behalf of people who did not have the
Speaker 1: kind of freedom that I described to you before. I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, people who have three mortgages and
Speaker 1: they have to keep this job. And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't care one way or the other. I'll just
Speaker 1: I'll stick my neck out. I don't care it grows back,
Speaker 1: it doesn't go back for everybody. One last question I have.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been scared that you wouldn't get another
Speaker 1: job again? Uh? The thought occurs every once in a while.
Speaker 1: I do remember a time I was fired from a
Speaker 1: job and I was reinstated two days later, because the
Speaker 1: boss can't fire you just because you're twenty one and
Speaker 1: he's drunk. But in that initial period of time, it's
Speaker 1: like I've been fired from my first job, and I
Speaker 1: it doesn't pay a lot, and I need four five
Speaker 1: dollars from my studio apartment at fifty fifth and Second,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to have to go sell blood. Now
Speaker 1: that's nineteen eighty. I don't think I've really had that
Speaker 1: feeling since then. And one of the more interesting things
Speaker 1: is every time the industry evolves into something else, mutates.
Speaker 1: I think it's probably a better word. There's a certain
Speaker 1: group of people who are grandfathered in, and now that
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to be a grandfather, it's literally true that,
Speaker 1: as say the studio sports news show deflates into something
Speaker 1: people don't need on cable. There are a few people
Speaker 1: who are who they'll still watch Bob Costas, Tony Kornheiser
Speaker 1: me while I'm I'm on I got under that wire.
Speaker 1: I'm somehow in the Yeah, okay, I remember him from
Speaker 1: my childhood or my father's childhood or whatever. I mean.
Speaker 1: I literally it's like I used to watch you with press.
Speaker 1: Secretary of the United States or the White House said
Speaker 1: to me the other day that he used to watch
Speaker 1: me on doing sports when he he was a kid.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, for God's sake, so so yes, and
Speaker 1: no you have anybody in a performing position whatsoever is
Speaker 1: always worried about that. But on the other hand, it
Speaker 1: seems like I've I've sneaked into some sort of permanent
Speaker 1: stature where people at least will tune in to laugh,
Speaker 1: even if I don't want them to laugh at that
Speaker 1: particular moment. So yeah, that seems like a nice luxury
Speaker 1: that you've built. That built it up. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for talking to us about your career. This
Speaker 1: was really interesting for me and for me glad. I
Speaker 1: hope so and I hope that any if anybody's still listening,
Speaker 1: I hope it was interesting for that. So there you
Speaker 1: have at Folks News you can use from a multimillionaire,
Speaker 1: legendary television and radio broadcaster. That being said, I do
Speaker 1: think that there were some lessons to be taken from
Speaker 1: that conversation that actually do apply to anybody in the workplace. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I felt a little inspired. Yeah, no, I'm I'm ready
Speaker 1: to go out there and you know, start kicking ass
Speaker 1: and taking names. Yeah, I mean not being in it
Speaker 1: for yourself a little bit. Seems like a good lesson
Speaker 1: that started running their career could use. Stally true to yourself,
Speaker 1: follow your dreams. That's the Keith Overmon way. He thought
Speaker 1: he reached his dreams like twenty years ago. We should
Speaker 1: all be so by the way I did them. Half
Speaker 1: then and I realized that he reached his dreams younger
Speaker 1: than I am. Now we're failures. Although maybe this is
Speaker 1: my dream. Yeah, come on, well if you put it
Speaker 1: that way, all right, And now it's time for our
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show. Half big takes, half fake takes.
Speaker 1: Have big takes are are not fully formed opinions about
Speaker 1: the world at work and not So what's your sam
Speaker 1: mine has to do with the business lunch, and it
Speaker 1: also has to do with what to order at the
Speaker 1: business lunch. The trick here is you want to pick
Speaker 1: a dish that is easy to eat, and that generally
Speaker 1: means food on fork, fork in mouth, clean, release, repeat.
Speaker 1: So the brisket sandwich with extra jo does not fit
Speaker 1: into this description. What does fit into this description? Two
Speaker 1: words chopped salad. Okay, I get that. I get it.
Speaker 1: It's like a first date. It is like a first
Speaker 1: date and you have to look good, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: get the ribs. But it's being paid for by your work.
Speaker 1: So like if there's a lobster roll on that many
Speaker 1: lobster salad, I do love lobsters. There you go. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying you've got a cheap out here. You could
Speaker 1: do the steak salad with prime rib on top, but
Speaker 1: you have to get something that's been cut up for
Speaker 1: you and that you can just kind of poke out
Speaker 1: almost like you don't even have to look down. You
Speaker 1: just know you're gonna get like manageable amounts of food
Speaker 1: in your mouth. All right, Okay, okay, My half fake
Speaker 1: take is that I think it's okay to use your
Speaker 1: phone during meetings. That is such a super troll. Well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the point it takes, you know, to
Speaker 1: get people riled. You know, meetings take up a lot
Speaker 1: of time. Everybody knows that they're too long. They waste
Speaker 1: a lot of time. I think that I can be
Speaker 1: engaged in the meeting and also sometimes check my email
Speaker 1: because you're meeting stinks. I will always be offended at
Speaker 1: you if and when you do that. Is this a
Speaker 1: generational thing? I don't think it is. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: all my friends have their phones out during dinner, so
Speaker 1: I'm used to it. Nah, that ain't right. That's not
Speaker 1: right at all. Well, maybe your meetings should be better.
Speaker 1: I don't have meetings. Let me tell you right now,
Speaker 1: so I don't look at me. Well, that would be nice,
Speaker 1: but I gotta tell you I will meet you halfway,
Speaker 1: which is to say, a discreet under the table kind
Speaker 1: of check, yeah, just to see what's up. I understand
Speaker 1: that I have an Apple Watch. Oh okay, that makes
Speaker 1: you better than the rest of us. I'm actually but
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, that's actually one of the benefits of it.
Speaker 1: In a meeting, you can just kind of be like,
Speaker 1: what's up? Okay, Okay, so the solution everyone gets Apple watches.
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about my Apple Watch. That's weird,
Speaker 1: all right. I will compromise with you. I think that
Speaker 1: discreet almost under the table, like at least make the
Speaker 1: effort to try and hide it. Be cool about it. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm obviously cool about it. There are some people that
Speaker 1: who will basically just like put the phone out at
Speaker 1: the middle of the table, like lean on the table,
Speaker 1: and that to me is just that's not that's like
Speaker 1: your time is not worth my time, right, But that's
Speaker 1: kind of what I'm saying, though, Do me the courtesy
Speaker 1: at least of trying to look like you know it's wrong.
Speaker 1: All right, This has been half big takes halfa takes.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to another episode of Game Plan. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter. I'm at RZ Greenfield and
Speaker 1: you should check out Keith Olberman's new web series The
Speaker 1: Closer over at g Q, and I'm Sam Grobart. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Sam Grobart. See you
Speaker 1: next week. Get the most from your people and send
Speaker 1: your busines a soaring with Corn Ferry from executive search
Speaker 1: to talent strategy, leadership development, rewards and succession planning. Corn
Speaker 1: Ferry knows Up is more than a direction, it's your future.
Speaker 1: Learn more at corn Ferry dot com. Slash up give
Speaker 1: me AFT two. You're not feeling well, but worry on
Speaker 1: to give the hill. It's gonna make you go from
Speaker 1: healthy to ll ha ha. You're really good at that.
Speaker 1: Thank you,