The Career Clinic Blog

There was something about the hostess at our favorite Mexican restaurant that kept me from taking my eyes off her. And no, it wasn’t wondering whether she was the right person to ask about the TV. We wanted to enjoy a Final Four game with our chips and salsa--to enjoy the culmination of what some people say is the most exciting sporting event all year--but the big screen was on…hockey?

Never mind that. Let me draw your attention back to the woman I just mentioned.

Her posture was impeccable. She wasn’t walking through the restaurant. She was floating. She looked regal.

She reminded me of Diane Kruger, the actress, who glided into the Prada store in Manhattan a few years ago just as we were leaving. Katie held the door open for her, but she didn’t seem to see Kate--or anyone else in her path, for that matter. Which didn’t strike me as rude so much as otherworldly.

What would it be like, I wondered, to carry yourself in a way that inspires such respect? And if both a famous actress and a waitress in Fargo can pull it off, why couldn’t I?

What would it hurt to try?

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When I was home recuperating from a bad car accident the summer before my junior year in college, my dad took a picture of me.

I looked hideous. Until then I’d been a pretty college coed. Now, when I had the nerve to venture even as far as the grocery store--not often--little kids started crying and hiding behind their mothers.

I am not kidding.

What strikes me about the photograph isn’t so much the scar as the posture of the person bearing it. I was slumped over, with an expression on my face that seemed to apologize for my very existence.

I’d seen that look in other photographs of me, many times, before and after the accident. That’s why, when Darrell noticed my suddenly regal posture the summer I got an agent, we marked the moment. Was I not going to straighten my shoulders until I’d earned my own respect?

Dr. Nick Morgan thought that was plausible when I talked with him about it on the show recently. It’s possible to change the way you feel about yourself by changing your posture, he says, but it’s difficult. Much better to address why you feel the way you do. The posture, and everything else about your body language, will follow.

Body language is one of Nick’s passions--and lucky for all of us, in my opinion, that’s the subject of his next book.

Nick congratulated me on consulting my gut, literally consulting my gut, about a supposed upgrade to not only the ceilings but also the walls of our house. I’d stood quietly in the center of the first room where the ceiling had been treated with a beautiful texture--and I asked myself how I’d feel if it was on the walls, too. A current of fear ran through me. Nightmare averted. Our drywallers reassured me leaving the walls alone was the right move, and were relieved I’d arrived at the answer by myself.

Nick didn’t tell me to take more breaths, to pause more, when talking with him. He showed me, by doing it himself. Having him on the program is a great reminder we always have only now, and if we try to cram too much into any particular moment we’ll just waste everyone’s breath.

I want to stop here because I’d rather have you listen to the podcast than keep reading. It’s fascinating. Nick, that is--not me. The only part of my contribution that’s fascinating is how often I used the word fascinating.

That’s why I listen to every word of every show after we record these interviews. It reminds me to keep the nervous laughter in check--yeah, I still get nervous, which Nick would say is great because it shows I care--and to make sure I don’t fall back on the same reaction to my guest’s observations.

There’s a word for that. Annoying!

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Interviewing Bobby Knight fifteen years ago was a game changer for me. Not because of what happened during the interview, but because the interview happened at all.

I was hosting a radio talk show called Hodgepodge in the small town where I still live. Knight was head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers, and had a reputation for dismembering journalists if he talked with them at all.

I knew it wouldn’t hurt to write him a letter, but I was sure that would be it.

It wasn’t. It was, as they say, one shining moment.

I can spew advice all day long on this blog--but unless I’m testing it, why would you pay attention? This was a test of bestselling business author Harvey Mackay’s advice: “Don’t say no for the other guy.” Which quickly became a pep talk for myself when wondering whether to step onto the latest stage: “You can do this. You got Bobby Knight on Hodgepodge!”

Here’s where I owe you a link to the interview, but I’m not that evolved. I listened to it yesterday before I submitted another reverie on the subject to the Huffington Post. It was painful. There was too much nervous laughter, for one thing--and too few pauses. I was so uncomfortable I raced through my list of questions so as not to endure even two seconds of silence. Had I given Knight those, he might have elaborated more.

I’ll never know.

The thing I feel the best about, the biggest reason I’m filing this in the win column, is my reaction to the job I did. “I sucked,” I remember thinking. “And I can’t wait to do it again!”

I interviewed John Tesh last fall, and that conversation was practically flawless. One reason? I’ve been willing to suck. I’ve been at this talk show hosting thing a long time, and I’ve listened back to every word of almost every interview--analyzing each exchange the way college basketball coaches study each game video. I’ve learned a lot. And as someone once pointed out: “You can’t be learning and looking cool at the same time.”

I wasn’t all that cool with Bobby Knight, but that didn’t stop me from stopping people on the street to tell them about it. Come to think of it, I had delivery people come to my door--people I didn’t realize knew who I was, but it’s a small town so of course they did--and ask me how I got that interview.

You can hear the excitement in my voice on the promo that ran on KDLM the morning we aired the conversation.

I hear excitement--and potential.

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“What is it?” Darrell asked Katie a few hours ago.

“It’s a cat,” she told him. A tiny toy cat.

“Where was it a moment ago?” he asked.

“In the bag,” she said.

“Where is it now?” he asked.

“Out of the bag,” she said. Then she threw her head back and laughed so hard I thought I’d never get to explain what, exactly, was out of the bag.

You see, this summer will be full of surprises for Katie. I didn’t realize she could see something on my computer about one of those surprises--and in the course of comparing notes on what she had or hadn’t seen, I got confused.

So when it was time to fill her in, after we’d given her the bag with the toy cat in it, I was sure she’d already figured it out.

But she hadn’t.

Surprise!

Oh, well. It’s much better this way, we all agreed--the anticipation and all. Besides, what she accidentally found out represents about eleven percent of the total surprise--so there are lots of ways to mess with her head during the next few months.

Journalists aren’t supposed to raise questions they don’t answer, but I can’t fill you in on the specifics--even those I filled Katie in on today--and I can’t even tell you why. I can tell you she thinks I should’ve been a lawyer for what I’ve pulled off with Dad.

A lot of people say I would’ve made a good lawyer. I never considered it. I didn’t want to referee fights for a living--not that I’ve summed up the profession in a way that’s remotely fair.

I do get along really well with lawyers, though. I talked with one only this morning. He was the attorney for the other guy, actually--in a dispute we settled a few years ago.

“I remember you!” he said when I first got him on the phone. I guessed correctly it was because I’d written him a letter after we’d taken care of business. I’d called him “a pretty cool guy.” That might’ve been a corny thing to say. It was unusual, to say the least. But I cleared it with my own attorney, who promised me it was a classy gesture.

Whatever it was, I meant it--and I never expected to talk with the gentleman again. But he was as warm this morning as it’s possible to be. I half expected him to reach through the phone line to give me a hug, that’s how sweet he was.

I don’t know if he can help me with the little problem I’d called about. But he reminded me that telling someone you appreciate him is almost never a bad idea.

I also don’t know who ordained me the arbiter of “pretty cool”--but to each his own. This man is smart and funny and good at what he does. What’s not to like?

Better get back to some other work. I have more tracks to cover.

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When you’re old and gray--or at least, old--will you regret not telling more people they disappointed you?

You don’t have to like how other people live. So don’t live that way. If your life is a shining example of the way to be, they’ll catch on.

Telling them you’re disappointed they haven’t?

You might be inspiring a little disappointment right back.

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When I’m writing and I don’t know how to word something, I just note that and move on. I put “what?” in parentheses. Then I keep going.

Is that why so many people find writing difficult? They expect to be able to crank (what?) out in a linear way. But your mind doesn’t work like that.

You can come back to the trouble spots later. For now, just write. Commit what you’re thinking to the screen. It’s probably better than you’d guess.

It might bother you to work on the next sentence when you’re sure the last one isn’t perfect. Let it bother you--but don’t let it stop you. Just keep going.

What I love about my brain--and I bet the same is true for yours--is that it continues to work a problem after I’ve supposedly put it aside. Come back to that draft after you’ve taken care of a few other things, and I bet you’ll find it easy to fill in the blanks.

Go get ‘em!

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Before my first day as an intern at the Minnesota News Network, I used to drive by those offices in St. Paul constantly. There wasn’t much to them. A small building, a tiny parking lot, a smattering of satellite dishes. I had a cassette of the soundtrack from Hoosiers playing on the car stereo--remember cassettes?--and I felt mystical about how my life was about to change.

I’d had that feeling once before--in a freelance writing class at the University of Louisville--and I’d have it again, when I sat down for new talk show host orientation at AM 1100 in Fargo.

It felt like home. Home is where your heart is, after all--and my heart is in my work.

Now that I work from home, our house feels more like home. But we can work from anywhere--so a hotel room in San Francisco feels like home, too. I'm lucky that way.

Helen Gurley Brown said a woman is a sparkler, and her home is her setting. George Carlin said home is just a place for your stuff. What about you? Is home a personal statement, or merely a place to restock and recharge?

I think one of the most important decisions you’ll make is how you’re going to contain yourself. Decide that, set your figurative GPS to that setting, and find a way to get there.

If you aren’t sure where you’re going, try not to worry about it too much. Just pick a destination. You can always change your mind later.

Did you catch that? You can always change your mind.

One thing that will help is a couple of cheerleaders. It’s great if they’re your parents, but sometimes parents have difficulty getting behind a dream if it’ll take you too far away from them. Lucky for Katie, no difficulty here! We’d love to keep her close, but not at the expense of a life that’s about to get way more exciting.

Then again, Katie has the best cheerleader anyone could ask for.

Herself.

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Before running became the nonnegotiable part of my life it is now, I had to do quite the sales pitch on myself to haul my behind over to the track at the high school. Then I’d have to keep that sales pitch going, lap after lap.

Know what helped?

Pretending the bleachers were filled with people cheering me on. “Good job!” I imagined them hollering. “Way to go!” And, “It’s great you’re leaving baby Katie with Dad for a while on this beautiful summer evening to do something nice for yourself.”

Well, nice--and hell.

It was hell. I wasn’t in shape, I didn’t want to miss a second with Kate, and that was that.

The pretend cheerleaders must’ve helped. Certainly they didn’t hurt. Because eventually, through the process of learning and unlearning and relearning the importance of exercising, it’s what I do. No discussion. No skipping workouts unless I’ve made them up in advance. It’s soothing, really. There are no decisions to be made about exercise. I just do it.

To the extent anything else good happens, I attribute it to this: running is magic.

So is being your own cheerleader. More thoughts on that next week.

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Ever wish some people would just let you be?

You go first. Let them be.

If they want to be critical, let ‘em.

That, of course, is easier to say than do. I have to remind myself constantly I’m not running for mayor.

Not everyone is going to like you. It’s mathematically impossible, because people disagree with each other. Trying to get them to like you is a waste of time. If they were so open-minded you wouldn’t be on their list to begin with.

Have you noticed how rarely those who think you’re doing the wrong thing with your life are happy with theirs?

Happy people, in my experience, are busy being just that.

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I spent a lot of time daydreaming while we were watching Minnesota play Florida Sunday. If you saw the game, you can relate.

What inspired me the most was the big pizza the people at the next table had ordered. It was huge. It was also weighed down with so much sausage and so many mushrooms and so much cheese--just so much cheese--it was difficult to think of anything else.

So I thought, “What the heck?” I imagined taking one bite, and then another, until I’d eaten three or four slices and washed them down with something else I haven’t had in almost four years. A&W root beer. Yeah, that would be good.

But I didn’t stop there. I imagined how I’d feel afterward. Red-faced from trashing much of what I’ve claimed to be about, granted--but also bloated, and sleepy. I’d want to take a nap. And when I woke up I’d probably want to do it all over again--or go in search of something even more decadent. Stale Cheetos, chased with a big bowl of Fruity Pebbles.

Do you see where this is going? Nowhere good. It’s a vicious cycle. I love pizza and everything else I just mentioned. I love it.

But I don’t love the feeling--lethargic--it leaves me with. And I especially don’t love craving it all the more for having indulged.

Maybe you’ve heard that discipline is remembering what you want. I think it’s remembering what you want most.

What I want most is how I feel now.

Junk food still calls, obviously. But I don’t answer. And that feels terrific.

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