If you want to become really good at your vocation and profession—and if you’re a Christian, you should—then I would encourage you to watch this clip below from Ira Glass (“This American Life”), then to read the excerpt from an interview with Thomas Lake (Sports Illustrated). Both are operating at the highest levels of excellence at their craft, and both offer similar counsel on how to get there.
Ira Glass:
No fast start after college, no big-name internships. My hometown paper wouldn’t give me a look. Went begging to the Savannah Morning News. Showed up in the office, wouldn’t leave until managing editor came down to see me. Handed him a rewritten version of a story from his front page. Got a little freelance work out of that, but no job. Finally landed at The Press-Sentinel, in Jesup, Georgia, a twice-weekly, making 21 grand a year and living with my parents. Covered about six beats and learned to be a reporter.
You know, I think this is why Gary Smith got me my first freelance assignment at Sports Illustrated. He’s about the best man in the world, but that’s not why. Here’s why he called up Terry McDonell and asked Terry to open the door. Because I didn’t reach out to Gary Smith until I actually had something good for him to read. And you know how long that took me, after college? Six years, that’s how long. Four newspapers in three states. Easily more than a thousand stories. It took me more than a thousand stories to write something worth showing to Gary Smith. That’s something young reporters should think about. Networking is fantastic, opportunities are valuable. But you have to get yourself good. You make yourself. Those first impressions are hard to shake. I know someone at a national magazine who took the opposite path I did. This person is about as old as me, got out of college about the same time I did, and had much better luck than I did at first, or so it seemed. Started right away at this national magazine, in an entry-level position, and has how been there nearly ten years, and the editors have trouble seeing this person as better than entry-level, even though this person has become very good. And now this person wishes this person had taken a path more like mine. I didn’t show up to Sports Illustrated asking to write half a column. Gary talked to me about this. He said you have to show them who you are right away. Show them you’re going to write the bonus pieces. That’s just what you do. That’s how they’ll see you. As someone who writes bonus pieces. And that’s exactly what happened. I did that for two years, working on freelance stories for SI on nights and weekends on top of my regular full-time job. It was torture sometimes, for me and my wife, especially when the baby came along. My kid was born on May 18 and I had a deadline of July 1, and we really needed the money. So I missed a major chunk of the first six weeks of her life. I’ve been trying really hard to catch up since. But after two years, I asked Terry to bring me on staff, because what I was doing was unsustainable. And he somehow found a way to do it. I started at the bottom after college. But I started at the top at Sports Illustrated, as a senior writer, because I followed Gary Smith’s advice and defined myself that way. I’m not saying this advice is applicable for everyone. It’s totally possible to rise through the ranks; in fact I know someone else who did just that. But that’s how it worked for me, and I thank God for it. It’s the reason I can pay my mortgage, and the reason my wife could quit her job and stay at home with the baby, which is what she wanted.
