TV lesson #1, you ain't perfect, especially the first time

I've had a day of reflection. It started with a talk about reality TV in the newsroom. My executive producer was talking about this last season of The Voice. I chimed in, saying,"It's all rigged!!". Do I know if all reality TV is rigged? Nope. I have no scientific evidence, no survey. It's actually a theory I based on one single life experience.

Exhibit A: My ex-boyfriend John.

   Me and John in Oregon

He looks outdoorsy right? Well he is. John tried out for a reality TV show several years ago when we were in our first TV news market. He wanted to be the host of an outdoor show Comcast Sports was producing, so he drove up to Portland, Oregon to audition. At the time we lived in Medford, Oregon just a few hours south of the city. Once there, he slept overnight in his car. He should have made the show! He was made for it. Instead he got turned away, only making a quick appearance in one of the first audition episodes. John learned that just about every contestant who made it on the show had an agent and had been vetted before the audition. It shattered our hopes and dreams. Silly us, we really thought an awesome person could show up and just make it their first time trying.

Me in my first anchor job at NBC in Medford, OR sometime between 2008-2012

If I've learned anything in life, it's this. 98% of the time the people that make it have been working at it a long time. They've already been the guy who showed up at the first audition and got tragically turned away, but they went home, practiced and they kept coming back to audition again. The people who they auditioned for the first time remembered them, and eventually they made it on TV.

A former intern of mine constantly asks me for feedback. She asks me how come she can't just be great? Why is it so hard? Why do I feel like I suck at everything? The answer is, because it takes lots and lots and lots of practice to be good at anything.

Me anchoring in 2015

 This is my 8th year in the news business and this past year, it's felt as if I took 5 steps back in my performance level. Why? Because I just started a new job and EVERYTHING is new. When I first moved to New York from Nashville in 2015, I felt like I couldn't even think when I was anchoring the news. I was so worried about pronouncing town names wrong, pronouncing people's names wrong and making a good impression with my new co-workers. When I left Nashville, I was on top of the world and full of confidence. But in New York, when I started my new job, the confidence fell back a little bit because I couldn't tell you what street I was driving on. No one around me knew who I was or my work. No one knew if they could trust my judgement. No one knew my story or all the hard work I had put in in the two jobs prior. A year later, and I'm finally starting to get back to the old me again.

Me at CBS Albany recently in 2016

These uncomfortable situations are the times where we grow, and eventually they will make us greater than we were when we first showed up. Eventually, through our perseverance, the people we are trying to win over will see us for who we really are and we'll either snag that role we're dreaming of or thrive in the one we're in.

Today when I was on the struggle bus worrying that maybe I had gotten worse at my job because of the challenges I've faced in the last year adapting to a new city, I decided to go back and look at my old resume tapes.

Here's my resume tape from my first job out of Medford, Oregon market #140 (for non-news people that's a really small news market. For a reference, New York City is market #1, the smallest market is Glendive, Montana #210):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVjh6zybaV4&feature=youtu.be

Now here is a resume tape I made two years into my second job in Nashville, TN market #29:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF-8yMA22eM

I don't have a resume tape for my current job here in Albany (#58), but I took this clip of a show that I thought went well:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O83LuYgZLoI

It's AMAZING to see the progress I made in my career from the first job, to the second and now to the third. My reflections today confirmed something I have to constantly remind myself of in my career. The lesson is, it's never easy. Not if you've been doing it a day, not if you've been doing it for 40 years. You can't show up on your first day in a new place, even with years of experience, and expect it to be perfect. What's the old saying, practice makes perfect?

As for my ex-boyfriend John, as far as I know he never went back to audition for another reality TV show, but he did keep trying to get a job on-air as a reporter. Having never gone to journalism school and starting in the business as a photographer, he tried and failed several times before someone finally gave him his shot. Now he's reporting in Sacramento, CA (market #20). We broke up when he got his first official gig in Pennsylvania, a long way from where we started this crazy TV life in Oregon. I'm super proud of him and I'm proud of myself.

For all the new kids in this biz, my message is, don't get down on yourself. This craft is all about falling on your face, getting turned down, making a fool of yourself...and getting right back up to try again tomorrow. -Anne

Me working as an MMJ (shot, wrote, edited all of my stories) in Medford circa 2008-2010ish