From Escaping to Embracing: My Lifelong Journey to Career Fulfillment

The Power of Saying YES to opportunity amidst life's challenges

Circa mid 1970’s, Mom, Dad and the Pine Tree in the background

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Reflecting on over thirty years of working, I often consider whether a moment or a critical decision aided my career.  It was not a single moment or one critical decision; instead, it was a changing mindset. 

Growing up in Oklahoma, our family was middle-class blue-collar.  I wouldn't say poor, but we didn’t have much.  There was no doubt the first and fifteenth of the month were crucial milestones for my parents.  If the checks didn’t show up, we would be in trouble, as we were living paycheck to paycheck.  My mom and dad hid those pressures from my brother and me for the most part, and I don’t think we ever realized the fragility of our home life. 

My childhood was complicated.  All of us have different issues from childhood, so I’m not assuming mine was any more or less special than anyone else’s.  Any abuse you experience as a child shapes you for decades to come.  Whether it is verbal, emotional, or physical, it all takes a toll on you, primarily if you never deal with the trauma properly.  My trauma manifested into a default mindset for me to be a runner - specifically, run away, escape, and protect myself.  Run from everything: problems, unhappiness, whatever I didn’t like - shut down and run. 

My earliest memories of running, in the physical sense, are from when I was around ten.  One of my favorite childhood hideouts was this tall pine tree outside my bedroom.  My years of winning hide and seek taught me that the neighborhood kids never looked up, so I climbed up.  They never found me; I nearly always won.  I loved it up there, just seeing how high I could go.  I sometimes got too bold, climbing higher and higher and creeping out on the limbs.  I would scoot my legs on the sharp pine bark to see how far out I could get before the flimsiness of the limb stopped me.  The higher I was, the more fragile the limbs were.  I was constantly testing the physics of weight, gravity, and my little body.  How I never fell from that tree, bouncing down like a metal ball in a Pachinko machine, is still baffling.   

One summer day, the home front was a war zone. I can’t remember what my mom and dad were yelling about for the life of me, but I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Kicking open the screen door, I ran. Instantly, I saw my refuge—the pine tree. Up, up, up. Higher than ever, I sat in silence. The only sounds were the wind, a few passing cars by the mall, and the faint echoes of the fight still happening.  That day had to be over 90% humidity, combining with the heat to make the heat index somewhere north of 100 degrees.  Sweat poured off me, and the tree was bleeding pine sap, so I was hot, tired, scratched up, covered with sticky sap and most of all, pretty miserable.  A few hours later, I climbed down, snuck into my house through the back door, and sat silently at the dinner table.  “I knew you’d come back,” said my mother.  

My coping mechanism for trauma at a young age was using my feet to get running.  The physical running also spilled over into emotional running, leading to avoidance, shutting down, and countless other not-so-great personality traits.  My therapist, whom I will call Jennifer (in honor of Dr. Melfi from The Sopranos), now has lifetime employment and works with me weekly on this trauma.  A lifetime of conditioned reactions to stress or trauma means that I react by running (physically) or emotionally (shutting down) at times still to this day.  

Running Away

However, the years of ingrained running served me well and ultimately became a power source. 

As a teenager, I got my first paying job dressing up as a radio station mascot - attending events and shaking hands as Chuck the Duck for KXY-FM and later as Cody the Coyote for KEBC.  In the early 1990s, I shed the brown fur of Cody the Coyote and hung up his foam head for the last time to become the Music Director at KEBC in Oklahoma City.  Music directors at radio stations picked the music, talked to the artists' record companies, and were live on air playing and announcing the songs as deejays.  Within a few years, I became the program director at KEBC, the BIG boss, who ran all the programming (not just music) and I was only 23.  Before I knew it, I was climbing the career ladder.  Climbing!  Just like that old pine tree!  It felt all too natural.  Looking up trying to find the next branch was how I began to think about my career.  Up, up, up.  Taking the job as program director in my hometown opened my eyes to employment in programming radio stations in every town and city in America. I no longer felt trapped or like I had to stay in Oklahoma.

At the the same time I was at KEBC, a new type of country radio took the ratings by storm in Dallas, Texas.  It was called Young Country.  The station had crazy deejays, out-of-this-world contests, next-level production - there was a freshness to it that I was drawn to.  Every spare moment I had, I would get into my banged-up black Chevy pickup truck, drive halfway to Texas to a Love's Truck Stop, park, and listen to the station. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure that this ‘driving to listen’ was another coping mechanism for dealing with my trauma, an excuse to run away; however, I convinced myself that, this time,  it was for legitimate business reasons. 

This is my first memory of my ‘running’ tendencies crossing into my professional life.  I drove to that Love’s often and would sit transcribing every word the deejays said and every song they played. I became determined to work for them.  I was a moth to a flame; I was inspired. I was determined; I had to get myself hired there.  Gone were the days of flinging the screen door of my house open, aimlessly running away from home just to get away.  Now, I found myself running toward something.  

One afternoon, after returning from lunch, I stopped to get my messages from Regina, our KEBC receptionist.  As I walked to my office, a message jumped out:  Dan P. with a phone number that had a 214 area code. O-M-G.  214 is the Dallas, TX area code! My walk turned into a sprint.  Dan P. was short for Dan Pearman, the Program Director for Young Country in Dallas.  I called him back as soon as I got to my desk.  I felt like I was on a sugar rush, and maybe I was, as I had just downed a 32oz Dr. Pepper from 7-11 and was talking a mile a minute.  Facts.  That call resulted in Dan and I talking almost weekly; we developed a professional friendship that lasted for many years.  On one of our frequent calls,  Dan conveyed that there would be a new Young Country station in Seattle, Washington and asked if I’d be interested.  Because I was very open to the idea, I soon heard from a new executive from Young Country, Gary Taylor.

Gary Taylor was Young Country Seattle's General Manager and a legendary radio executive in the Northwest. Before I knew it, he talked to me about taking the job in Seattle.  Gary was very formal, professional, and deliberate - his cadence and tone for the call was businesslike and systematic.   I cut him off at some point and said, “YES, I’ll take it.”  I can’t remember if he offered me the job then, but I didn’t care - I was having an out-of-body experience.

Seattle was the career break of a lifetime.  I didn’t see it then, but what had changed was that I was running toward something I wanted.  And it worked.  

I took that job with zero idea of the pay, where I would live, how to move across the country, or when I needed to be there. I hadn’t asked any important logistical questions.  Shit.  I needed to call him back and get answers to at least a couple of these questions!  When I did, he started with a bit of a chuckle and then gave me the needed details. “Yes, I’ll take it.”  Both calls were cut short by my enthusiasm and willingness to quickly say yes. I never considered asking for more money - I was running hard at Seattle.   

After Seattle, I moved seven more times.  About every four years, a new opportunity would arise that would spark me to lace up my shoes and run toward it.  When I decided it was an opportunity I was excited about, it was always a YES – figure out the details later.  Money, moving logistics, and personal issues can all be worked out, but whoever was hiring me needed to know I was all in.  I was so committed to this strategy that in 2002, after being in Chicago for only a few months with boxes still unpacked from my move from Tampa; I ran at a new opportunity.  I was offered the position of Vice President of Programming for Infinity Broadcasting in New York City - another colossal break! I ran toward New York, not caring about the personal and financial turmoil a second move in 12 months would cause.  

I know now that enthusiastically saying YES helped me secure more significant opportunities.  I have also seen potential hires project their own baggage toward their employers or focus on why they cannot move, as if the employer's job is to solve your life’s problems.  When that happens, inevitably, this prevents them from accepting the new position or, worse, even seeing the possibility of what the move could do for them. Companies want to hire people running at them, not walking with a suitcase of challenges or problems for the employer to solve. 

If you're hiring and talking to prospective employees, ask yourself: “Are they running toward you? Do you feel the positive energy coming toward you?”  You may find that you are trying to get them to come toward you, which isn’t the best indication of commitment and enthusiasm.  If you are applying for a job, don’t ever let the person interviewing you feel any emotion other than your YES!

Start with YES and run toward opportunity.  Do not focus on how disruptive the move or transition will be; instead, begin acknowledging that no transition will be perfect or 100% and keep your focus on moving forward and up. This will open and illuminate so many next steps in your career.  

Thirty-five years later, my juices flow when the telephone rings and a new opportunity presents itself. At 53, I am in a different phase of my life and thankful to the heavens that there is not a pine tree in my front yard, but I am certainly still ready to lace up for the next challenge when it comes my way.