158: How To Reinvent Your Career And Find Success | Steve Delsohn

0:00

i mean I have a kind of a mantra basically is I don't want to do anything that my children will be ashamed of or

0:08

embarrassed i'm not ethical when it's convenient so I I have actually walked away from a fair amount of money the

0:15

last several years what advice would you like to leave with our audience whether around

0:21

transitioning journalism or just maybe even something we haven't even discussed yet you wanted to i'm not the first

0:27

person to say this but I really What happens when your lifelong career ends overnight most people would panic

0:35

after 16 years of ESPN and a career-defining body of investigative work Steve Delome found himself laid off

0:42

instead of panicking or getting down Steve got to work went out on his own and has become a thriving entrepreneur

0:50

heading up Delson Strategies a strategic communications and public relations agency welcome to the Learn It All

0:56

Podcast the show for today's leaders who want to get ahead and stay ahead because we believe great leaders aren't born or

1:02

made they are always in the making i'm your host Damon Ley two-time best-selling author and CEO of Learn It

1:08

a live learning platform that has helped upskill over 2 million people over the past three decades i look forward to

1:14

asking Steve to share his insights on how he went from journalism to building a purpose-driven PR firm the secrets to

1:20

pitching powerful stories and getting noticed what sports journalism taught him about truth ethics and standing firm

1:26

and his best advice for anyone transitioning careers take me back to that week in 2017 when you won two

1:33

awards on a Tuesday and then the very next day you got let go what was going through your head at that point well

1:40

even before then real quick so I was a reporter at Outside the Lines on ESPN for 16 years and then it was in the news

1:48

that they were ESPN was going to have mass layoffs but nobody knew who was going to get let go and in my hearts I

1:57

thought I was actually not going to let go get let go i had had a big story about three weeks

2:04

before and then on a Tuesday I won two journalism awards for a story about a

2:10

New York Giant who had died at very young around 27 and was found to have CTE even though

2:18

he hadn't played football at least professionally that long so on Tuesday I

2:23

won two journalism awards and then on Wednesday I woke up and there were

2:29

already journalists at ESPN who were tweeting that they got laid off

2:35

uh mostly on the east coast i was in California and then I got a phone call

2:41

from Bristol Connecticut and it wasn't a phone number

2:46

I recognized so I knew it wasn't like a boss or a colleague and the minute I saw

2:53

that I knew I was done and I was done uh it was an

2:59

executive who I didn't actually have that much respect for so that was like the cherry on top but uh we had a

3:05

three-minute phone call there was an HR woman on the line i'm sure she didn't really want to be there but um and they

3:13

told me you know they were letting me go and they said that they would honor the rest of my

3:20

contract and then right at the end of the phone call my reporter's instincts

3:26

kind of kicked in and I said "So let me just confirm you're going to honor the rest

3:31

of my contract right?" Because I wanted to make sure that was documented and they said "Yes." Hung up the

3:38

phone i was in shock it felt surreal and I called my wife i said I

3:47

told her I said "Don't come home." home she was working in an office and of course she came home um and we were just

3:55

sitting around talking and uh it was really scary you know I was

4:01

59 i'd been a journalist for my entire adult life my identity was very wrapped

4:06

up in being a journalist and I had absolutely no idea what I was going to

4:12

do next i checked in with my agent and he said "You know you should decompress

4:17

for a while don't do anything which I completely ignored and literally the

4:23

next day I was looking for another job as a journalist so that was the it was kind

4:28

of a whirlwind 24 hours um yeah and a day I'll never forget no obviously a day

4:35

you never forget and I admire you for the sense that you lost your job after

4:41

16 years at ESPN Peabody Award all of this and then the very next day you were

4:47

able to get up and start start the hunt and looking for a job instead of I guess

4:53

soaking in your uh you know what happened to you whenever I have a some

4:59

kind of crisis or failure professionally if you could even call that a failure I usually double down on hard work i don't

5:07

really know any other way to go about it so I started looking immediately um and uh

5:15

ultimately there were a couple jobs I probably could have gotten but I had

5:20

been somewhat spoiled by working at Outside the Lines for 16 years and the

5:26

jobs that I thought I had a shot at I didn't particularly want um plus my wife and I didn't want

5:33

to lo uh leave Los Angeles you know she grew up here we had raised our kids here and so I just kept looking um and

5:42

then ultimately a couple people said "Have you thought about going into PR?"

5:50

And I had literally never once in my life thought about going into PR um but

5:57

I started thinking about it a little bit uh purely out of self-preservation what

6:03

was the identity piece like how did you navigate through that that was really hard

6:09

um you know I had was a journalism major in college and so I was a

6:16

journalist like from day one when I got into the workforce you know for 30 plus

6:23

years um so I was definitely wrapped up my

6:29

identity was definitely wrapped up with being a a journalist and I was a pretty accomplished journalist

6:37

um so really I spent several months trying to stay in journalism and when I

6:42

didn't get something that I wanted that's when I started to think what else can I do uh but the identity piece was

6:49

hard it's still hard i still identify to a certain degree as a journalist and like today especially

6:57

with everything going on in the news there's a lot of times I wish I still was a reporter um but I'm also

7:05

grateful for the ability to you know land on my feet and do something else um

7:11

but yeah it was difficult though because I've always seen myself as a journalist and then suddenly you're not you just

7:17

got to fight through it but I'm curious what about uh the world right now what's

7:22

going on makes you wish you were still a journalist well I was in sport so I wouldn't be covering you know the Trump

7:29

administration but there seems to be so much corruption right now in government

7:36

um you know so sometimes I'll read the nose and go "Oh man i wish I could get

7:41

in on this." Your investigative uh instincts are kicking in huh yeah and you know Outside the Lions the show I

7:47

worked for it was you know it was ESPN but it was not really a sports show it was really a an investigative news

7:55

show that covered sports um so yeah just

8:01

I guess just generally I miss you know being a reporter but but but I am dealing with

8:08

it and uh you know and things change you know um you know what's the old saying

8:14

people have you know ch you know three acts and I think people change careers

8:19

four or five times you know I went from being a newspaper reporter to a magazine

8:25

writer to an author to stumbling into TV with ESPN by

8:30

accident and now in strategic communication so you got to just keep

8:37

you know changing and and doing what you got to do to take care of your you know yourself and your family doesn't do you

8:43

a lot of good just sitting in the past you got to keep changing keep moving keep evolving during those first couple

8:50

months when you're looking for a new job Steve how much more difficult do you believe it was being the fact that you

8:56

were 59 and agism even back in 2017 was a real thing back then yeah I don't know

9:02

it's a great question um I'm not sure if it was that as much as the type of job I was

9:11

looking for you know investigative reporting there's not a ton of that you

9:18

know there's not a lot of those jobs in sports you know especially in TV which is what I wanted to be in so because you

9:24

had Outside the Lines you had HBO real sports um you know there wasn't a lot of

9:32

investigative TV jobs on the sports side so I think it was more that there was a

9:37

finite number of jobs um I don't know uh

9:43

you know I and I knew the guy that ran HBO Real Sports and he told me you know he would definitely be interested but he

9:49

said "We're like the Supreme Court somebody has to die you know for us to have an opening you

9:56

know." So I don't know if agism played a part or not um but when we get to it

10:05

I'll explain you know when I went into PR I didn't

I'll explain you know when I went into PR I didn't

10:10

jump right into opening up my own shop there was a big step prior to that which

10:16

I think is kind of interesting if you want to talk about that a little bit yeah what was that big step i looked for

10:21

a journalism job nothing really thrilled me um I started to think about

10:28

PR and I was hellbent on getting a steady

10:35

paycheck because I had gotten one for 16 years

10:40

meaning I wanted to work for somebody not for myself so I looked at a bunch of

10:46

like corporations to see if they had an in-house communications position i went

10:51

to a bunch of PR firms and I talked to a bunch of people in PR

11:01

just kind of picked their brains you know uh because I wasn't open to any PR job you know I wasn't going to

11:07

do crisis PR and try and you know cover up for you know jerks you know I wanted the right job or I wasn't going to do it

11:14

um and I finally got offered a job in LA

11:20

for good money but by the time they offered the

11:25

job I had been talking to this PR firm like on and off for like about eight months by the time they literally

11:32

offered me the job they had just taken on Harvey Weinstein as a

11:37

client and I said "No I'm not going to work there." and they wanted me to like build a sports

11:44

division i never would have been in the same room for Harvey Weinstein but I didn't want to be associated with Harvey Weinstein or with a PR firm that was

11:50

willing to work with Harvey Weinstein so I said no which was bizarre because I

11:56

had been searching for a job all this time and when I finally got offered one

12:01

I said no and shortly after that a friend said you know you've got like a

12:07

pretty good personal brand why don't you just open your own

12:13

shop and I had never used the word brand in my life as it related to

12:19

me um but I started thinking about it and then a short time after that I said to my wife you know what i'm going to

12:25

stop asking i'm going to stop looking for a full-time job and I'm going to open up my own shop and I did and the

12:32

name of it is Delson Strategies so that PR firm that was uh representing Harvey

12:37

Weinstein and you'd have you know you'd be in the sports division where did your values come from that made you turn down

12:45

a job like that right i mean obviously at some point you had to have a paycheck you've always been used to working for

12:51

somebody i mean that had to be a tough decision it was because I really wanted a full-time job

12:58

you know I wanted that security and the money was right and there were bonuses if you signed up a

13:04

certain amount of clients so in that respect it was hard but it's the ethical side was easy i

13:11

mean I have a kind of a mantra basically is I don't want to do anything that my

13:18

children will be ashamed of or embarrassed of um I mean it's that

13:24

simple and so you know I didn't want to work at a company you know where Weinstein was

13:31

represented you know period so it was a very easy decision in that regard it took me about a minute um you know once

13:40

they came back to me finally and they were not happy um although the guy that

13:46

ran the PR firm seemed to get it you know he said "We're getting rid of

13:51

Weinstein we They were about to cut loose." That's it so so yeah that was

13:58

not the easiest decision of my life but um I'm kind of ruthless about

14:04

ethics you know what I see is good ethics you know I I'm not ethical when

14:10

it's convenient um one of the things I was known for as a reporter was being a

14:16

completely straight shooter you know even at times where I

14:23

was harder on stories than my bosses who were all legitimate journalists you know

14:29

if we didn't have it nailed down I wouldn't keep moving forward in other

14:36

words I wouldn't say "Let's put it on TV." We kind of got it nailed down um so I've always been pretty consistent in

14:42

that way um and now having my own PR firm I won't work with anybody

14:49

toxic uh I had a chance to do some work for a bigger PR firm that was working

14:57

with Daniel Snyder the owner of the Redskins and that was also about a

15:03

10-second no yeah I heard he's not the easiest guy to work with well it's not

15:08

so much easy it's you know what kind of guy is he but yeah that's that's subjective but um so I I have actually

15:16

walked away from a fair amount of money the last several years some people think because I was an investigative reporter

15:23

that I might do crisis PR because sometimes that investigative

15:28

reporters do that so they'll reach out thinking I do crisis PR and I don't

15:35

and typically if you're doing crisis PR you're trying to cover up for somebody

15:41

who's doing bad things that's not always but so um yeah I've been

15:46

pretty hardcore about keeping my ethics

15:52

intact in strategic communications uh I wasn't about to

15:57

change that part of myself because I changed industries now were you always

16:03

like that or do you think that you got even more hardened on your ethics after

16:09

going through which we'll talk about in a bit you know as an investigative reporter some of

16:15

the stories you had um do you think that you you saw those and and how people

16:21

behaved and reacted that you're like I you doubled down on it or do you think that you're just naturally that way i

16:27

think it was probably naturally that way you know I used to write books i wrote 12 books and they're all non-fiction and

16:34

I interviewed a lot of people for those books and I think in

16:39

like there's probably you know maybe five or six were written with an athlete

16:46

like Jim Brown or EMTT Smith but five or six of them were books where I where I

16:51

wound up interviewing like hundred to 200 people and I think in all those books I

16:59

had maybe one quote that didn't have somebody's

17:05

name attached to it so another off the record everything else had somebody's

17:10

name attached to it so my thought was if someone's telling me something for a

17:16

book and they're not willing to put their name next to it I'm pretty much

17:22

not going to use it every time um and I also never literally had

17:28

anybody uh complain about something in a book uh

17:33

I had some people that didn't like some of my investigative pieces at ESPN but that kind of comes with the

17:40

territory you know if you're doing an investigative piece and the person you're investigating likes it

17:46

it's probably a tough piece you know so um but yeah so I'm not trying to sound

17:53

like more ethical than the next person and ethics are subjective um but for me there's not a

17:59

lot of gray area um and I'm not really driven by money uh I like money i need

18:07

money but it's not the thing that drives me you know Steve a lot of people are

18:12

going through layoffs these days you know and and they're maybe considering starting something new when you went

18:19

from journalism into PR did you uh have you found that a lot of the skills that

18:26

you used in journalism were transferable into PR yeah 100% particularly what I do

18:32

so I do one thing specifically for my clients i get them media

18:38

coverage and so one of the most important skills that transferred over

18:44

is I know how to frame and pitch stories you know so if I'm pitching

18:50

somebody at Forbes say I know how to frame and pitch a story or if you're

18:56

framing and pitching an executive to be interviewed on a podcast say um you know

19:02

I know how to frame and pitch stories because I had to frame and pitch stories to my bosses is at outside the

19:10

lines for 16 years and they were TV pieces most of them were investigative

19:15

they tended to be long and they tended to be expensive so if you didn't frame them

19:20

and pitch them effectively to your bosses you had no chance whatsoever to get them greenlighted and

19:27

then I also have written 12 books and I got lucky once in my life and did not

19:32

have to write a book proposal it was some kind of miracle but the other 11 were sold with book proposals which is

19:38

just a long detailed pitch so yeah knowing how to frame and pitch stories

19:44

is crucial to what I'm doing now and it was important to what I used to do

19:50

um and then you know just being succinct and being a you know a good

19:56

communicator um not using a lot of buzzwords and jargon

20:03

um being concise you know which is you know when I used to write TV

20:09

scripts you know you really need to be concise no fat and it's the same thing really when

20:16

you're pitching journalists now uh you know nothing extra stay lean stay

20:23

specific so yeah I think that's probably the biggest skill and then you know as a

20:28

investigative reporter you're probably going to be somewhat persistent by nature uh that doesn't hurt in business

20:36

um so yeah I feel like the skills have have crossed over for sure these are all

20:42

important i think business skills and also um just persistence and how

20:48

important persistence is now you mentioned sitting down with people like EMTT Smith and Jim Brown how do you

20:56

build trust and get that people like them to open up you know I think it's an

21:01

instinctive thing and what I mean by that is I think people either perceive you as honest or

21:09

they don't and I don't remember doing anything particularly to try to get Jim

21:15

Brown or EMTT Smith to trust me um I think they both interviewed a lot of

21:22

different writers who wanted to co-write their books and for whatever

21:29

reason they chose me um there were probably maybe some better writers just

21:36

pure stylists that wanted to write those books but there was something about me I

21:45

think that they felt comfortable with um so yeah I don't really remember

21:52

honestly trying to build trust i remember just being myself pretty

21:58

much and um I remember with EMTT Smith I was on with him and his

22:03

manager and they asked me the reasons I wanted to write the book and I I told him a couple and then I said and I could

22:10

use the money and uh they both laughed and said I like that i'm thinking about this in a

22:15

leadership perspective the same way is like what's the difference between asking a good question and asking a

22:22

question that really gets somebody to open up and be vulnerable with you at ESPN they brought in this guy who's

22:30

considered his name is John Sawatsky he's considered the interviewing

22:35

guru he goes all over the world and talks to news organizations to the journalists about

22:42

interviewing people and you know his thing which I followed pretty religiously is ask open-ended

22:49

questions like how why you know when and then you keep

22:56

following up but a lot of times like there's a show called Smart List that podcast i love it yeah I like it too but

23:04

like Justin Baitman says so was it this this or this so he gives him five

23:11

choices on the menu yes or no questions yeah and plus it's it's don't presume

23:18

don't ask somebody to confirm your assumptions when you're and this is

23:26

whether it's you're a journalist or you're talking to somebody for your job or a leader absolutely a leader yeah

23:34

don't give them options leave it open-ended it's not

23:40

about you first of all when you ask somebody so did you do this this you're

23:45

making it about you cuz and so very open-ended

23:51

questions um Swatskies talk about non-loaded questions so in other words

23:56

so what did you say next to that jerk that's a loaded question so and the key

24:03

is you know really listen and then keep following up so you

24:09

know so you know what happened that morning you know that's all you got to

24:15

start with say they tell you you know and then keep following up keep listening i used to teach a little bit

24:22

at USC some journalists and my running joke was that sometimes you'll see somebody

24:27

on TV and they'll be interviewing somebody and they'll say like "Well why

24:33

did you hit 30 home runs last year and

24:38

this year you only hit four?" And the interviewer and the guy says "Well you

24:43

know I was smoking a lot of crack and robbing a lot of banks this year."

24:49

And the the next question is also your stolen bases went down you know what was happening there other words they didn't

24:55

even hear what the person said they're they're too busy thinking about what their next question is going to be yeah which is an absurd analogy but the

25:02

students got it so you know you got to kind of stay in the moment short not

25:08

loaded open-ended questions and uh don't make it about you

25:15

don't be performative you know I did an interview once with Joe Pno and it was a tough

25:22

interview and um you know oh here's another good example actually is don't be afraid to

25:30

let there be some silence in the interview so in other words I asked Paterno a couple questions and he

25:38

answered and I didn't say anything i just sat there for a second and he

25:45

jumped in and said "I don't know what you want me to tell you you know you got a good-looking witch hunt here." Which

25:52

was a really good sound bite and I actually thought it was a badge of honor that he accused me of being on a witch

25:58

hunt because I wasn't but then I found out from a local reporter there that he

26:03

said that like once a week to everybody oh you're on it so when wasn't that big

26:09

a bad genre but um so those are some of the basics I think is

26:14

uh open-ended questions non-loaded don't give people a menu of

26:20

what they can answer uh listen and don't be afraid to have some

26:26

silence sometimes what I'm hearing you talk about you're talking about interviewing people in journalism what I

26:33

could tell you Steve this is gold for our audience for the individuals who are uh in sales everything you brought up

26:39

right there is exactly what you need to be doing especially in discovery meetings open-ended questions

26:47

listening pausing allowing people the opportunity to to speak more and not

26:52

being afraid to ask tough questions so for for a couple minutes we'll put away

26:59

all the corporate stuff and now I want to get into some of the fun stuff right you know so before ESPN before the

27:06

Peabody your big break came from uh doing a book I believe with John Matusac

27:12

how'd that all come about i mean he's a pretty wild wild guy um I wrote for a magazine called um Sports Fitness it was

27:22

Do you remember Joe Weider he he founded Muscle and Fitness and Shape well I know

27:27

the magazines i I didn't read enough of them though but yeah yeah he's the guy

27:33

who allegedly brought Arnold Schwarzenegger to America because Arnold was he was the guy that kind of made

27:40

muscle and fitness and I think Joe was part of his moving to America maybe

27:46

that's what Joe used to say um anyway he's wanted to start a sports magazine

27:52

that married sports and fitness sports and lifting weights really and so I was

27:57

one of the editor and I interviewed Matusac for a story for sports

28:02

fitness and we hit it off he was wild

28:07

um and then I I think I went to him and said "John have you ever thought about

28:13

writing a book and I had never written a book but I had done a fair amount of

28:18

writing." Um and uh he decided he wanted to do it and so you know we wrote a book

28:25

together was called Cruising with the Twos which is how he used to describe his week in New Orleans at the Super

28:33

Bowl uh where he was out of control before the game and uh that's how I got

28:39

into the book business uh I co-wrote his life story with him um and then I w up

28:46

doing one a book with Jim Brown which was a pretty big New York Times bestseller then I did one with Emtt

28:54

Smith which would have been a lot better if his mother his agent and his manager hadn't edited it taken out all the good

29:01

stuff uh including all the good stuff about Jerry Jones can I get one of the good stuff stories or is that not okay

29:09

yeah give me a good stuff give me a good stuff story i I I'm pretty sure he told

29:14

me Jerry Jones used to buy shirts that were too small so he'd look more muscular that's I'm pretty sure they

29:21

took they took that out of the book um he was also this was in the book but

29:28

I think they toned it down a little bit he also was not happy that Jerry Jones

29:33

handed over a huge contract extension to Troy Aman but like beat the hell out of EMTT

29:42

Smith during his negotiations to the point where EMTT actually I believe if I remember

29:49

correctly sat out a couple regular season games

29:54

uh because the contract was not resolved you know was really ugly and whereas

30:01

Aman it was just like here and he also paid Aman a lot more and I think that's

30:06

bothered EMTT forever um so yeah and then I wrote a book with Sam Kenisonson's brother speaking of

30:13

wild men uh Bill Kenisonson who was Sam's manager um and Sam was a failed

30:22

preacher who used to crack up the congregation but forget to ask for money

30:29

uh who kind of stumbled into standup and um that was a good book

30:35

actually howard Stern optioned it and it's been bouncing around Hollywood ever since uh and to this today you know

30:43

until today there still been has not been a Sam Kinison movie i uh I I'll put a link in the show notes i think I told

30:50

this to you the first time we spoke sam Kenison I saw him live once and he was my alltime all-time favorite comedian

30:57

really yeah that's right you did mention Yeah yeah he was amazing i don't know if he could do what he does now no come on

31:06

most most of them can't some of those bits haven't aged well yeah um but um he

31:13

had a really wild story because he came from a family of

31:19

evangelical preachers that would travel around the country and then he

31:26

finally quit being a preacher at his brother's his brother said if you want

31:32

to be a standup you got to be all in or not and so he quit and went into

31:39

standup and then sadly he died a car accident I think yeah car accident at a

31:45

point where he was he actually got hit by a drunk driver which was pretty ironic sad obviously was also bizarre

31:52

because he has had a drinking problem so yeah you have some amazing stories

31:58

you touched on it uh a moment ago but you've investigated paterno at Penn

32:04

State UNCC the NFL how do you go about preparing when

32:10

you're going up these going up against these massive powerhouses for one thing

32:15

it was a team effort at Outside the Lines so for every story the reporter is

32:21

paired with a producer and the producers at Outside the

32:27

Lines you know were not just good at making a piece look good they were you know hardcore

32:34

journalists themselves and then our bosses outside the lines were really

32:39

solid journalists so it wasn't you're not out there on an island um and that's important obviously

32:47

um you know cuz if you get something wrong about a North Carolina or the NFL you know it's going to you're going to

32:54

hear about it in a big way um you know I would just talk to a lot of people before I'd ever I talked to a lot of

33:01

people on the phone do a lot of reporting on the phone

33:06

before we ever interviewed somebody on camera you know so just like really

33:12

educate myself and try to talk to as many people

33:18

as possible uh try to read as much as possible with a big grain of

33:25

salt um you know because you can't literally believe everything you read

33:31

but you can certainly start to educate yourself by reading what's already been out there by good journalists um so just

33:39

a lot of research and due diligence talk to as many people as possible and be

33:44

really ruthless about not putting stuff in the script unless it's nailed down 100% um

33:51

and sometimes people don't complain that you got the facts wrong i've very virtually never had

33:59

anybody say I got the facts wrong sometimes they just don't like the fact that you're questioning them period like

34:06

I did a piece on whether Duke you know Duke is always known for its academics

34:12

and they like to boast a lot about how great the academics are for the athletes

34:18

too and it is a good school obviously but we found that the academic standards for

34:25

the men's basketball team which is the cash cow there the

34:32

standards were a lot lower than they were for the golf team or the tennis team or other sports that don't make

34:39

money basically in other words you could have certain grades and SAT scores and get

34:46

onto the Duke men's basketball team and there's no way if you have those scores

34:52

and SAT and and grades and get on the tennis team now that's not unusual

35:00

probably but Duke was freaked out that anybody was even questioning their

35:06

academics and I was not very popular with the school or their fan base for a

35:12

while yeah i was I would I would think you know going into that you know that

35:18

there's going to be backlash potentially for you right or or there's going to be a lot of pressure so in situations like

35:23

that going into it how do you keep yourself from either getting I guess overly anxious or just grounded going

35:30

into a story that you know is going to go national uh you know it's cliche but you know double down on on you know on

35:36

the work that you do you know talk to more

35:41

people find more documents you know documentation um it could be kind of

35:49

nerve-wracking um you know it could also be exhilarating particularly if you're

35:55

doing a store for example with a sexual assault survivor you know maybe a school I did some of these where a school tried

36:02

to brush it under the rug because it was an athlete where they slapped an athlete on the wrist and a lot of times those

36:09

survivors you know there's a term I heard called institutional

36:14

betrayal you know and that could be a corporation or a school or

36:20

um you know where the institution basically betrays the person

36:25

that got victimized but I've done some stories with sexual assault survivors who really felt that nobody was

36:33

listening to them including sometimes the cops either because the

36:39

cops were invested in not making the school look bad or maybe they

36:45

legitimately just couldn't prove the case um and so to

36:52

interview a woman who had been sexually assaulted and who felt got no justice

36:59

from the criminal justice system or from a school and for them to go on outside

37:05

the lines and tell their story takes a lot of courage takes a ton of courage

37:11

and can be very cathartic for them and those are the stories I think that were

37:18

most gratifying for me the types of stories

37:23

um and you again you got to be you know completely scrupulous

37:30

um because there are people that accuse people of something and it's not necessarily true but I think in my

37:37

experience you know a resounding majority of women who accuse somebody of

37:43

sexual assault sexual abuse in my experience are being

37:48

truthful and especially when it comes down to a college athlete say that woman is going to get a lot of

37:55

backlash you know why invite that into your life if something wrong didn't happen to

38:02

you do you think well I mean I think the answer is yes to this but over the last

38:07

10 years that the journalists just in general are are much quicker to publish

38:13

stories without you know getting getting enough facts to really where they should

38:19

yeah i mean so it really depends who you're talking about you know are you talking about the New York Times or the Wall Street

38:25

Journal you know or Washington Post no they're going to do their due diligence

38:31

they'll make mistakes they'll get some stuff wrong um but some of the more

38:36

tabloidy media outlets you know for sure

38:42

and you know you hear this citizen journalist thing I think Elon Musk talks about that you know 99% of the time that

38:50

person is not a journalist it's just somebody tweeting and unfortunately I

38:55

read a a summary of a really extensive study that had been done over

39:02

like 10 years by somebody reliable and I I forgot what the stat was but it was something like

39:08

lies travel five times faster on social media than the truth um so I think

39:17

what's a danger for any journalist is the fact that things are

39:23

being posted so quickly on social media and if you you know that desire for

39:28

journalists to be first you know is dangerous because

39:35

things happen immediately on social media and if you're trying to compete with the speed of social media then yeah

39:42

you may go too fast and post something or write a full-blown story that's not

39:50

fully documented or reported yet do you have any advice for somebody out there

39:56

who really struggles to be able to sit down with somebody and be direct and

40:02

have uh difficult uh call either I don't want to say call them out on something but just sit down across from somebody

40:09

like Joe Paternal which is not easy I I can't imagine um and have a conversation

40:14

like that you know asking one question at a time that's more of a nuts and bolts

40:20

thing um you know a lot of times You'll see somebody a journalist will ask three

40:25

questions at once and the person being interviewed's head explodes let's go back to what

40:31

you're doing now before we wrap up who's your target client for your PR firm i'd

40:37

say probably at any given time about 70% of my clients are in the sports world i

40:43

work with a lot of sports tech companies i've worked with several lawyers both inside and outside sports

40:53

um I work with the Recording Academy and the

40:59

Grammys um so you know if I had my way probably be you know somebody in sports

41:06

or entertainment and then ideally somebody that's having a

41:13

positive impact on the world i know that sounds a little bit corny um but that's

41:19

like the ideal client i don't think it sounds corny because essentially what I hear you saying is first of all you're

41:24

gonna start with who you're not going to want to work with you know you don't want to work with right you don't want to work with people that

41:30

would uh damage your reputation especially with your family uh and I think that's

41:36

important i think a lot of times especially when you're starting your own business you'll just grab on to whatever

41:42

clients you can get and and sometimes you can regret it and it really sounds

41:47

like the work you want to do you just want to have purpose and meaning and make money at it you know but purpose

41:53

and meaning sounds like it's very important to you yeah it is it is um so you know I the ideal client is

42:02

probably Steph Curry okay but I am still waiting to hear from him before we wrap

42:07

up here what advice would you like to leave with our audience whether around

42:13

transitioning journalism or just maybe even something we haven't even discussed yet you wanted to you know I think this

42:19

is probably I'm not the first person to say this but I really believe in the power of

42:26

networking um you know one of the things that I do

42:32

in my business is sometimes I will reach out to somebody and just say flat

42:38

out would you possibly want to work with me because you would like to get more

42:45

media coverage but a lot of times I just reach out to people and say "Hey are you do

42:52

you know anybody that might be looking to get more media coverage?" And a lot

42:57

of times that second that second approach they can say well actually I would like to do that but a lot of times

43:04

they'll say you know let me think about it and then they'll come back and say you know what yeah actually I have a

43:09

friend who owns this company but I find sometimes by just saying do you know

43:15

anybody there's no pressure on them and so they may start a

43:21

conversation and then you start to build up working relationship but I'm a you a

43:26

big believer in networking and I'm a very big believer again this is going to sound corny probably but I'm a very big

43:32

believer in helping other people when they ask you know when I left

43:40

ESPN I was astonished by how nice people were when

43:46

I told them I was looking for a job

43:51

um it was unbelievable and it was very healing actually you know cuz it's a

43:58

trauma when you get laid off and the amount of people that were willing to say you know hey yeah I know somebody at

44:05

the Washington Post or I know somebody at Sports Business Journal or I know

44:10

somebody at uh you know Catchum the PR firm and so I do that too and I

44:18

especially like to do it with either college kids

44:25

or college students who just graduated you know cuz they're always

44:30

trying to figure it out and so um I think if you help other

44:40

people they're going to help you but do it anyway whether they're going to help you or not um but yeah I think I think

44:49

that's important i believe in karma I guess uh to a certain degree life doesn't always turn out as we plan right

44:56

you you one day you wake up you're out of your journalism job i mean this is

45:01

kind of hypothetical but do you think that you're happier on the path that you're on now with where your life's at

45:08

that if you would have stayed in journalism your whole time i'm happy I don't have to travel much um I'm 1,000% happy that I

45:19

didn't get a job at a PR firm you know I work out of the house um

45:25

and I have worked out of the house for like 30 plus years so I hope I think that whole thing about you know well if

45:31

you work remotely you're not a hard worker you know you hear that sometimes from CEOs trying to bully people yeah

45:37

it's stupidest thing I've ever heard you're either wired to work hard or you're not uh my daughter likes going into an

45:44

office you know it's part of her social life i get that but the idea that if you

45:49

work remotely you're not a go-getter is a joke um

45:55

so I love being my own boss though it's a huge

46:00

perk um because you decide who you want to work with and who you don't

46:06

um you know you decide if you want to stay in sweats that day you know or

46:14

you want to work downstairs um you know or upstairs in your office

46:19

um you know no commute so yeah I I like being

46:27

self-employed um so and I'm very grateful frankly that I was able

46:35

to move from journalism into strategic communications and make a good living

46:42

and not compromise my ethics or anything like that so I'm very very grateful uh

46:48

am I happier than when I was a reporter at ESPN i don't know i got to I got to think about that one well I'm grateful

46:55

for getting to meet you Steve i'm reached out to you on LinkedIn uh great conversation you know we talked about

47:01

everything from what it's like to be at the top of your game to the next day questioning your identity then we also

47:08

discussed the importance of of having values and integrity in whatever line of work you want to go and what it's like

47:15

going out on your own and some great conversations around sitting down with some of the most powerful people in this

47:21

country and um you know going at it with integrity and having those tough

47:27

conversations and and creating great stories so speaking of great stories if people want to hear more great stories

47:34

from you or connect with you where's the best place for them to connect with you at uh my website is called Delson

47:42

Strategies and so you can go there and send me a message there um yeah that's

47:48

probably the best um and I think the URL is just delon.com i should probably know

47:54

that uh yeah but but Delson Strategies you can send me a message there on my

48:00

website yeah that's a good point actually I'm

48:06

real active on LinkedIn i like LinkedIn because everybody's not yelling at each other yeah not not like X or whatever

48:12

it's called so L LinkedIn you know it's good there well Steve I really enjoyed our conversation i I know it's not going

48:18

to be our last i'm I'm still gonna hold you to your idea of maybe starting your own podcast i think that would be great

48:24

um but what I want to say to our listeners are hey you know if you enjoy this episode please rate and review it

48:31

and also send it to somebody that you think that would really get value out of

48:36

this especially all these people going through layoffs right now i think Steve's got a great story an inspiring

48:42

story of somebody having to make a transition and going from one career to the next um so Steve thank you very much

48:50

and until next time everybody stay curious keep learning and have a great day thank you i often tell sellers like

48:57

"My job isn't here to say you're broken and I'm here to fix you." Because I think we'd all agree a lot of you guys

49:02

are doing great already what I'd like to lay out for you is a story of not how

‍

‍