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