There’s no such thing as maintaining. Not in your personal life, your fitness or your sports broadcasting career.
If you aren’t progressing, you’re going backward.
These 5 tips will ensure you are moving forward in your sportscasting career:
1. Find a mentor
Identify someone who’s been where you want to go. Take them to lunch once a month. Find out how they got where they are. Find out how they think. Follow their examples and advice. Even the best athletes have coaches and trainers.
2. Read every day
You’re not trying to accomplish anything that many other people haven’t already achieved. Tap into their wisdom. Learn from their successes and failures and get where you want to go faster. Mark Cuban tries to read for one hour every day.
The same information is available to everyone. The superstars are the people who take advantage of it.
[Tweet “If you aren’t moving your career forward, you’re going backwards.”]3. Listen to podcasts
Turn your car into a classroom.
4. Do online training
When you want a plant to grow, do you water it once or do you do it consistently? Through online training, you will avail yourself of new ideas and techniques. Education should never stop.
5. Attend a seminar each year
Success is more about who you know than what you know. You aren’t likely to run into sports broadcasting employers and other influential people at your local Starbucks. Go where they are. You’ll also learn ideas that will motivate and invigorate.
Will Rogers said, “Even if you’re on the right track, if you sit down, you’ll get run over.”
Don’t sit. Keep moving forward.
4 Comments. Leave new
It’s less of an issue now, but early in my career finding a mentor was difficult. I did not go to a college with a broadcasting factory and we had general radio but no sportscasting classes. Living in a geographically isolated area it took me a long time to find people who would give a good hard listen to my work and give honest feedback. Your fifth point, going to a seminar, was huge for finding those people.
Hi Logan — fortunately, the Internet has made it MUCH easier to find a mentor (though maybe not a local person that you can take to lunch). The relationship can often start simply by asking someone if you can send to them a sample of your work for critique.
Perhaps it would be useful of folks shared what they are reading/listening, what training, and what seminars they attend to try and improve and advance their careers. Including in anything in their past they thought was especially helpful.
Hi Don — GREAT idea. Ironically, at STAA, we are looking at incorporating those topics into an upcoming seminar. I would love for folks to chip in those ideas here, too.