Evolving with a Changing World

[Applause]

so uh

today i want to talk a little bit about

change i brought my cell phone if you’ve

noticed there’s a reason for that it’s

not because of notes not always at the

time me but it’s also

to give you a use as a prop a couple of

times as we move along

because when we talk about change it

happens every day right

so choosing the right path diversifying

networking those are three things you

can do

as you move forward when change happens

the change i’m going to be talking about

mostly is about

job change obviously change is

inevitable i remember sitting out here

for a lecture 25 years ago i’m gonna

date myself we had cell phones then by

the way they were a little bigger

uh and remember someone said you’re

gonna change your job

five times in your lifetime so one

generation later the numbers as of

2018 you can see behind me from the

bureau of labor statistics show

that the average person changes jobs now

15 times

up to 15 times with an average of 12 and

many

and most workers spend less than five

years at that job at each job

so things are actually okay you’re going

to be okay because there are far better

things ahead than behind basically stay

positive

as this change happens

that’s what i wanted to do i have to

show that because not often i get to

show when i was actually in shape and

younger

whenever i get the chance i roll that

baby

i want to be a baseball player but of

course even if i had gone very far which

i went decently far but if i played in

the big leagues the average bigger plays

three to four years so obviously you’re

not going to stay playing baseball very

long right

so you have to have an idea of what to

do next what i found interesting was

this with an

ever increasing number of different

career choices people aren’t just

changing their job they’re changing

their entire careers

on average up to five times now you’re

going to change your career before you

retire

um and 30 of the total workforce changes

jobs every 12 months it’s amazing to

think about how change has really come

in so many different ways and if you’re

under the age of 35 you may remember

this book but if you’re like me

and over the age of 35 just by one year

um you’ll notice that

the book is these books used to be

called the choose your own adventure

books who remember those you guys

remember those

right okay page 35 might say if you

should take the path if you want to take

the path

go to page 76 if you want to take the

boat across the amazon

go to page 84. when you go to 76 the

path leads to a golden city but on page

84 if you’re taking the boat you get

eaten by an alligator

same idea you got different paths to

take as you go forward

so i’ve already done three careers i’m

not the five so i’m definitely keeping

the average down but they’re three

totally different careers

baseball tv and wine making which i

wanted to bring a prop of wine but

pepper is still a dry campus so

i thought i might get in trouble

when i was here at pepperdine we had an

amazing baseball coach named andy lopez

he was a fantastic person to follow and

he always said you know there’s one line

we all need to understand and that is

life is difficult and he would use the

book written by

m scott peck the road less traveled and

he would always say tear the whole book

up

tear it up keep the first page tear half

of the first page and throw it away heck

tear three quarters of the first page

and just keep the first line

and understand the first line which is

life is difficult

basically get over it it’s okay because

more often

life is amazing and the reason why as we

move forward i’m showing these photos

because

as a correspondent obviously a lot of

times you’re covering some pretty bad

stories more often than not

so diversifying finding things to keep

your mind off those is a way to do it i

happen to choose photography so every

picture you’re seeing i actually took

out a story so far

and throughout the rest of this

presentation so what you can do now is

you can diversify you can start right

now

you can actually use your phone to your

advantage i know these things have

become

everybody’s nemesis but actually there

is zero reason that any of us no matter

what our age is cannot stay in touch

with each other

on this phone i have phone numbers from

professors here at pepperdine we didn’t

have smartphones in

we had cell phones but i still had in

their numbers at a later date and up to

someone i met a couple of days ago from

dallas texas

the idea is you never know when you

might cross paths again you never know

when someone might need

to know someone else in fact one of my

friends is in the car industry he’s a pr

guy

another one that’s got a new job with a

really cool company with a really cool

car technology

yesterday i put them together because i

still had their numbers together so

basically as change happens diversify

use your phone to your advantage

write down ideas open pass connect

there’s no reason why we can’t connect

but obviously limit the connection of

this used to your advantage

don’t be afraid i went from baseball to

television i mean i went from throwing a

baseball in front of people to

being in front of a camera i had no idea

that was never part of the plan when i

was a pepperdine i never thought i’d be

standing in front of a fire

or talking about anything in fact a lot

of times i’d make fun of the weather guy

like most of us do i would never

actually

thought i would be a tv newsman what’s

interesting as we go forward on some of

these photos is that

for example here they’re things you

never understood we don’t normally see

an everyday life this one here

these firefighters are actually looking

away from the fire behind them is where

the fire is burning

they’re looking out to see where the

fire is going

um i had never seen that before all the

fires i’ve covered all all the trucks

all the way down the highway

we’re looking and calling in the

airstrikes trying to save houses in the

other direction

these are u.s forces on the border with

mexico we’ve heard about all the issues

that go on

of course with our borders and these are

men and women

that have camouflaged themselves trying

to stop the coyotes who bring across

a lot of of our migrants who are trying

to come here

this one still hurts to this day this is

haiti about two days after the

earthquake

and this two-year-old boy uh says it all

look at his eyes

what you don’t see is the bigger picture

behind him was a pile of rubble with 50

of his classmates who didn’t make it

and they’re playing out front i mean

this is this is the reality of the world

so why can’t we embrace change when it

happens to our jobs i mean

these kids had to embrace change when it

was one of the most horrific things you

could ever see especially for a

two-year-old

obviously the war so much has happened

uh

in the last you know since 2000 voters

since 2001

but uh our wars began really in 2003

in afghanistan right before that in

korea

they’ve never embraced change in some

respects you can see the curb right

there that’s the line between the north

and the south

on this side the south on that side is

the north 24 hours a day seven days a

week 365 days a year they stare at each

other

just stare they try the both the koreans

on both sides of the border go out and

find the largest boys at young ages and

they bring them in

they actually sew bbs in their pants and

they march to make them sound louder

and the idea is we want bigger louder

armies on our side and they’re staring

at the people

on the other side in thailand for the

tsunami

um this obviously the boat into the side

of the home

these people had to embrace a lot of

change their lives were uprooted

what you don’t see is this boat’s a mile

inland the ocean is a mile away

that’s how powerful the tsunami was in

2005

or 2004 into 2005. katrina

that’s all i need to say on that one

right

when you are in the news sometimes you

become a news and you don’t want to

in this case in venezuela i was

threatened by hugo chavez

i basically said i was a racist a sexist

and i didn’t like people of color

uh what else did you say i was i was fat

i think too it takes one to know one

right

you’re trying to throw me out of the

country it’s funny because if you look

eva golinger was the name and it’s

supposed to be a lady in new york but

it’s actually him he writes the article

well he wrote the article himself he’s

no longer with us thankfully

and then i end on this one which is uh

really

says it all this is las vegas and that

was used as a gurney and there’s too

much violence in this country right now

and that’s something we have to change

so i talk about change we can actually

bring change ourselves and i’ll get to

that here at the end of this this

program the positive though again is

that with every negative i always

believe there are more positives

i got to swim with sharks i mean that’s

a great white

i took that photo off the coast of

mexico

i got to see the 70th anniversary of

pearl harbor

with marines one who was there

and others who were there completely

different generations

standing in attention super bowl go

niners

north california boy all right it’s okay

it’s okay if you’re kansas city i’m

sorry you’re still red it’s okay

the world series this is when the giants

won in 2010 but that’s actually the

people outside the stadium helping bring

the flag in for the national anthem i

thought it was a really cool

moment and life comes full circle here’s

baseball again

right got to cover spring training i’m

sitting there watching this little boy

just

going for an autograph remembering just

a few years before i never thought i’d

be sitting on this side taking a picture

of him

reporting about the event he was at and

finally

in chile no one thought 33 men would

come out of the ground alive

no one did and uh i still get chills

even thinking about it being there

and watching these families who’d sat

there and these kind of makeshift camps

for months waiting for their loved ones

not knowing if they were going to come

out alive

knowing they were alive but not knowing

that they’re going to come out alive

so as i show you all those great photos

right wow that’s cool you’re seeing

history from the front row adam why

would you leave well change happened

i’m not going to blame it on the white

house but let’s talk about washington

it’s a mess i don’t care where you are

politically it’s not fun and as a

reporter

it’s not fun we don’t cover those other

stories if we do it’s only death

so change happened and i thought you

know what i’m

i’m not going to be able to do this

anymore i want to be with my family i

want to enjoy life

so i went to the other extreme i opened

we opened a small tasting room in napa

uh never thought i’d be going into the

wine industry i have to say it’s a lot

of fun

meet many new people it’s almost very

similar to news in the sense that you’re

always meeting somebody new every day

but i embrace change i had people tell

me you are

crazy there’s already 34 tasting rooms

in downtown napa

uh this building here had flooded a

bunch years ago people say it’s gonna

flood again

what are you doing um but we embraced it

embraced it and ran with it and uh in

seven months we’ve had more than 5 600

people come through

and so the idea is again embrace change

go with it you can make change now i’m

talking about cabernet

not talking about hugo chavez i’m

talking about grapes

that’s not bad right i took that photo

earlier

talking about wine i never thought i

would be standing on stage at pepper and

talking about wine

it’s kind of cool i wish a couple of my

old professors were here i could

tease them a little bit about that

because i think they had a little wine

before they came to class

and they’re still doing television

because what’s amazing nowadays besides

having a phone that can keep you all in

touch

you can actually be your own reporters

you can you can actually bring change

along yourself

you can still do television if you want

to you can do television for the first

time

and obviously this is being streamed as

well so here’s what you can do

first of all never give up there’s no

reason to ever give i know it’s the

positive thing to say

change happens and it gets frustrating

but never ever give up there’s no reason

to

two i call it a mile wide i couldn’t fit

all the words on the slide but a mile

wide

there’s two ways to know in my opinion

one an

inch wide and a mile deep or two which

is i tried to shoot for which is a mile

wide

and an inch deep basically know a little

bit about a lot that’s what i shot for

you can go for that uh i think it’s

especially nowadays with i mean you can

google anything you find something over

there you’re like oh wow heck now you

can just point the phone at it and take

a photo and it tells you what it is

there’s no reason not to know more have

faith

whether you’re like me and believe in

god or you’re someone who believes in

one of these beautiful palm trees of

pepperdine

it’s okay but have faith there’s okay to

have faith

and you should be able to express that

and experience

everything there’s no reason not to

experience again back to these phones

right

you have no reason not to experience and

see what’s out there it helps you

embrace change helps you overcome

change so use the phone wisely

family whether like my family who i love

dearly

or if it’s even not blood relatives

embrace yourself and

surround yourself with family it could

be friends it could be acquaintances

but it’s important to have that support

structure to help with change

and finally as i wrap this whole thing

up the next slide is really personal for

me because

i went to pepperdine my wife went to

pepperdine my brother went to pepperdine

my sister-in-law went to pepperdine uh i

didn’t plant it that way you overlapped

by two years it’s kind of fun

and my niece went to pepperdine she was

one of the victims in thousand oaks

she’ll always be a wave 100 i wish she

was here to see this um so as we close

i’d like you guys to do this i’m the end

of the second session so i think it’s a

great way to close

when i speak now i i do what i call it

elena’s greeting but you can call

whatever you want to

there’s no reason for us not to network

for us not to meet new people for us not

to

have those connections to be able to

change and to overcome

change so as we leave and as i’m

finished here i want you guys to stand

up

i want you to find someone you don’t

know truly if you’re old someone young

if you’re gay someone straight if

assuming you know that probably more of

this probably know that but um

if you’re black someone white if you

have spiked hair someone who’s bald find

someone

opposite go over introduce yourself say

hello ask some questions

even for only a minute or two you’re

gonna go outside obviously be able to

mingle with it before the third session

so please do that i think it’s something

that would help you

it helps all of us and will help our our

country and our society

as a whole so i appreciate you guys

coming and have a great day and

please do the greedy