Inspiration for the New Year from Wavemaker Conversations
Ted Turner on Courage, Fay Vincent on Recreating a Life, Carol Dweck on the Growth Mindset, and Sarah Broom on the “Punishment” that helped her become a Great Writer
I would like to offer some inspiration for the new year from the Wavemaker Conversations archives — timeless stories and insights on courage, resilience, and personal growth — from some of the many outstanding guests I have hosted on this and other platforms.
Ted Turner on Courage
When Ted Turner was a young man, he loved studying the Classics. So one can imagine how painful it must have been for him, when he was a college student at Brown, to receive the following letter from his father.
My dear son, I am appalled, even horrified, that you have adopted Classics as a major. As a matter of fact, I almost puked on the way home today . . . I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass, and the sooner you get out of that filthy atmosphere, the better it will suit me . . . .
Soon after writing that letter, Turner’s father forced him to withdraw from Brown, return home, and help run the family’s billboard business.
But for Ted Turner, who courageously created CNN in the absence of proven demand for 24/7 news, the Classics have remained a lifelong passion.
When I interviewed him in 2013 for the radio program, CNN Profiles, we spoke about what he calls “the best treatise on courage I have ever read.”
The treatise is an epic poem entitled Horatius at the Bridge, which begins with a Roman army officer acting alone to defend one of Rome’s bridges against Etruscan invaders in the 6th century BC.
I asked Turner if he could recite the poem on the spot, from memory.
Please listen to his answer and this revealing 80-second exchange by clicking the image below.
You can listen to my full conversation with Ted Turner here.
Fay Vincent’s Life-Changing Fall From a Fourth Floor Window Ledge
When the former Commissioner of Major League Baseball, Fay Vincent, was in college, he was a formidable defensive tackle on the Williams freshman football team.
Near the end of his first semester, a college prank led to a horrific accident, in which Vincent fell four stories from his dorm room window ledge. This young man, whose identity centered on sports, did not know if he would ever walk again.
As he lay in the hospital, his mother provided words of wisdom that changed the course of his life.
And my mother, who was a great woman, said to me look, your brain is fine. Your body's hurt badly, but there's nothing wrong with your brain. And you oughta be able to construct a very good life centered around your brain, not on your legs.
In the following excerpt from our Wavemaker Conversation, Vincent provides a powerful account of that terrifying experience in his young life, in which he ultimately found a future full of hope and possibility.
Please listen now to this gripping, 95-second clip by clicking the image below.
You can hear Fay Vincent recount his remarkable journey from a young man paralyzed in a hospital bed to becoming the President of Columbia Pictures and MLB Commissioner, by listening to our full Wavemaker Conversation here.
Carol Dweck on Growing Your Brain by Embracing Struggle
In the 1970s, soon after graduating from Yale with a Ph.D in psychology, Carol Dweck “was interested in how kids coped with failures.”
In her first studies, of ten year olds, she observed that some children crumbled in the face of difficult problems they were given to solve. Others, however, reacted with a surge in motivation, saying things like, “I love a challenge” and “I was hoping this would be informative.”
Then and there, I thought, these are my role models. I’m gonna unlock their secrets and maybe bottle it, give it to everybody I can, including myself.
Dweck succeeded in unlocking their secrets and bottling them in the pages of her seminal book, Mindset.
Over the years, I came to recognize that it was the growth and the fixed mindsets that were creating these different patterns. The kids who were falling apart were thinking, "My intelligence is just fixed. I have a certain amount, and it's no good. This failure told me it's not good." In a fixed mindset, one of the major beliefs is that if you're really smart, you shouldn't have to work hard, and if you have to work hard, it means you're not that smart.
As for the kids with the growth mindset . . .
The kids who were loving the challenge were thinking, "My abilities, these are things I can develop. I don't wanna waste time just doing easy things and looking good. I want to get smarter. And these hard problems, these challenges are the way I can get smarter."
I am sharing a brief audio excerpt below that may be particularly relevant for the students and young adults in your life. Professor Dweck describes how her freshman students at Stanford often arrive “terrified” — a terror rooted in the fixed mindset. Listen to how she inculcates a growth mindset — and how you can too.
To hear this empowering, two-minute clip, click the image below.
In our full conversation, which you can listen to here, I asked Dweck if it’s ever too late to develop a growth mindset. Her answer is reassuring.
It’s never too late. We and others have worked with people of all ages, from preschool through the elderly. It’s never too late.
Sarah Broom on the “Punishment” that helped her become a Great Writer
Sarah Broom won the 2019 National Book Award for her epic memoir, The Yellow House.
Broom, the youngest of twelve children, grew up in impoverished, neglected, New Orleans East.
Her mother, Ivory Mae, who dedicated her life to raising her twelve children and trying to maintain what Broom called her mother’s “thirteenth and most unruly child” — the house — was consumed by the power of words. A “poet in her own right,” says Broom.
As a child, I watched her every move, seen her eyes fall upon every word, anywhere . . . She was always wolfing down words. Insatiable.
When young Sarah Broom spent the better part of a year cutting school, her mother, with her ardent love for language, conjured up a creative punishment for her “out of control” daughter.
Part of my punishment was to read aloud from The Book of Proverbs . . . Every day, for 365 days, I read a chapter a day, out loud, with my mother.
That punishment helped to develop Broom’s exceptional gift for the written, and spoken, word. She explains how, in the following captivating exchange.
Please watch the 70-second clip by clicking the image below.
You can hear my entire conversation with Sarah Broom, conducted for the Nantucket Book Festival’s online series, At Home With Authors, here.
A New Year’s Wish
With these four vignettes in mind, I wish for you all a 2023 that brings you courage, resilience, and growth — and in which the power of words elevates your life and the lives of those you love.