Career day
Meeting my Heroes is an occasional essay series from Matt Carmichael.
In the back of my head, this newsletter could be a lot of things: A book. A podcast. A TED talk. This week I delivered part of it to an audience for the first time. The venue was perhaps unexpected. Or perhaps perfect.
I introduced Meeting my Heroes to… middle school career day.
It is, after all, the story of my career in many ways. So I told the kids versions of several of the stories here as I talked about what journalism is, its importance, how I practice it, and lessons I’ve learned along the way. All through the lens of these heroes.
I asked the kids who their heroes were for starters and got a lot of one-name stars: LeBron. Taylor. Mom. Jesus.
Some of the kids didn’t admit to having heroes, but I hope they were just being shy. It’s good to have heroes.
I started by telling the David Bowie story because I figured (hoped, and was proven correct) that of my heroes, he was the one the most kids would know.
Then I talked about how I didn’t really ever have career goals in a traditional sense of “here’s what I want to be when I grow up.” Although I did want to get my name in Rolling Stone by the time I turned 30. I got there, but even that wasn’t as I expected. It was a photo credit, not a byline. I also retroactively added, “publish a book before 40.”
So no set goals, but rather I had values and things I thought would be attributes of a good job/career. I suggested they would develop their own list over time, but for me I wanted to work places where:
I would have good stories to tell
The job would keep me curious
I wouldn’t do the same thing every day
I wanted something that would attach me to communities, or where I could build them myself
I wanted to build things, not just maintain them
And I wanted to always have new things to lear, new challenge, or sometimes just new walls to bang my head against
I told them journalism was my ticket to that and that I’d achieved all of those goals and then some. Speaking and travel could have been on that list as well, for instance. I checked those boxes, too.
I told some of the stories in this newsletter and brought it back with lessons from those stories. Finally, I had them be journalists and ask me questions. I gave some examples of good starter questions and the foundations of the Ws. They asked some good questions.
But here’s the words of advice I left them with, based some heroes I introduced them to.
1. Figure out your goals and priorities (Doc)
2. Go big or go home (Dr. Welch)
3. Find your motivators (For the talk I broke Mary Ann Weston out, but she’s included in Steve Yahn’s post)
4. Be ready for the chances that come, and make your own (Steve Yahn)
5. Make the relationships that count. Don’t burn bridges, build them (Poi Dog Pondering)
6. Find ways to have fun (This was a big rocknroll.net digression but really comes down to the lessons in the Wilco/Lounge Ax post)
7. Use what you have to give back (The Calendar)
8. Show up, do the work, make the big ask (Richard Florida)
9. Build your network, find the connectors and be a connector (Amy Webb)
10. Your heroes are not necessarily your friends (Haven’t told this story here yet, but the Carl Bernstein and Dead Milkmen posts touch on some of this)
11. Surround yourself with interesting people (Mayors Emanuel)
Sure, it was middle school and then end of the year at that so I won’t pretend they were all raptly attentive but overall they were great kids and great listeners and different pieces seemed to hook different kids differently.
I should add that the setting was a little bittersweet.
I often think about the idea that we celebrate a lot of firsts but never know when something was the last until it’s over. This time, I think I saw it coming. As my youngest are leaving that school, it’s probably the last time I set foot in the place where my kids have spent so much time, had so many great teachers, maybe met some heroes for themselves and continued building their own stories toward who they will grow up to be.
And further, it’s hard to get invited into the high school. My kids sat in on one of the five sessions I got to give, and that’s also likely the last time I’ll see any of my kids in a class room. Today’s world really distances the parents from the classroom for a lot of mostly not great reasons. So I’m glad I seized the chance, and I hope that maybe I helped nudge a kid or two in a direction or two. If not, well, I enjoyed the experience too. Who knows, maybe someday one of those kids will tell their kids about the day they decided they wanted to get into journalism. I mean, I can dream still, right?