When you are in a new venture with unfamiliar people, all you really have is the people you trust and the values and beliefs that you carry as your foundation.
Those values help you distinguish and not retreat from them in the midst of precious and emotionally charged issues.
During my Television trials, my beloved brother, twin and self-appointed critic Wesley read a newspaper story is saying that if talk show host Les Brown was only willing to do what Phil and
Geraldo and Sally and Ricky and Ginny and Montel and Jerry were doing with their shows, he could be making millions upon millions.
Only a few weeks into the show, there were many feuds erupting everywhere.
It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to hold it all together.
The power and confidence that I had brought to my career as a public speaker were
conspicuously absent because I choked.
Even though they were trying to fit me into a format that wasn't right for me, even though they did not seem to know what I was really capable of.
The bottom line was that I had to take responsibility for the show.
If I believed in myself and my ability, I should have been capable of overcoming the obstacles in my path.
I had lost my center of balance.
I was no longer grounded in my values had become disoriented and thrown off my game, which shouldn't have happened if I had been strong within myself.
But I had let other people tell me who I was.
I've had a lot of time to think about this situation. And I've come up with a few suggestions to follow when you find yourself thrown off center.
One, accept responsibility for the things you are responsible for.
You can only do so much to let go of those things that you cannot influence.
When you let go, you give yourself permission to fail and to recover from failure.
Three, tell the truth to yourself and to anyone who asks.
When faced with hard times, some people feel they have to manipulate the truth to save face. The Les Brown show is failing because there is a conspiracy against me.
No, it failed because of two seriously conflicting philosophies.
And four, be honest with yourself.
Assess your performance in the light of truth.
Ask those you trust to discuss it with you. You will learn a great deal about yourself.
I decided that if this show was going to fail it was not going Because I didn't give it my best shot.
I recommitted myself to doing everything I possibly could to produce a good television show.
In spite of the fact that my approach and NGOs were at odds with those of King world.
I decided to ignore the distractions and the directions of people who didn't know
me, and to do the show my way.
And when I did that, the show took on a greater vibrancy, ratings climbed, I was starting to feel really good about the show. Unfortunately, the executioner's had already made up their minds.
During the November sweeps, rumors of our imminent demise began to fly.
When the King brothers sign Rolanda watts, who had been a reporter for one of their other shows to do a talk show the gloom over my show thickened.
The Kings insisted that her signing had nothing to do with my show.
I believed them.
I went to Miami to visit my mom and to have Thanksgiving dinner with her.
While I was there, I stayed in touch with people in New York, there were rumors flying all over the city that show was about to be canceled.
When I went to the dressing room, I noticed that my suits weren't there.
I went into the main office and none of the staff members there would look me in the eye. The door to my personal office was closed.
Though I never closed it myself.
I went inside and found that all of my things had been cleared off the desk and put into boxes.
My tailored suits for the show nearly 40 of them were there All Boxed Up.
Nobody had much to say.
Finally, one of them shook her head and offered her assessment of what had prompted
the premature decision to end a new talk show so quickly.
Your show was too decent for television, she said, providing an appropriate epitaph for the Les Brown show.
I'd be lying if I had claimed that it didn't hurt to fail in my experiment with television.
This is not supposed to happen to me.
I'm the motivator, I moaned. I knew I had failed, and so did millions of other people.
Failing privately is one thing.
Failing in public is another altogether.
See you next week
