Leap Academy with Ilana Golan - Your Authenticity is Your Superpower, Master The Art of Authentic Leadership with Scot Safon

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Early in his career, Scot was told that he wasn’t “tough enough” for the media industry. He didn’t fit the traditional image of a hard-nosed executive. But instead of changing who he was, Scot embraced his own authentic style of leadership, ultimately proving that enthusiasm and a focus on collaboration are just as powerful for success. He went on to lead groundbreaking marketing campaigns for major networks like CNN and HLN. In this episode, Scot shares his leadership lessons from building a successful career by staying true to himself. Scot Safon is a seasoned media executive who led marketing and branding efforts for major networks like CNN, HLN, and The Weather Channel. Known for overseeing award-winning marketing campaigns, he now consults for top brands, helping to shape their marketing strategies. In this episode, Ilana and Scot will discuss: - Turning passion into a career advantage - Embracing your true self in a tough industry - Scot’s rise to leading CNN’s marketing - Building a career without industry connections - Staying resilient when facing setbacks - The importance of collaborative leadership - How to empower teams and inspire creativity - Turning failures into growth opportunities - How Scot controls panic attacks while speaking publicly - Balancing creativity with business demands - Building a career that aligns with your passion - Finding fulfillment in a competitive industry - And other topics… Scot Safon is a seasoned media executive known for his leadership roles at major networks like CNN, HLN, and The Weather Channel. As Chief Marketing Officer of CNN, he oversaw award-winning campaigns for programs like Anderson Cooper 360 and Larry King Live. Under his leadership, CNN's marketing efforts during major events such as the 2008 Presidential Elections and Hurricane Katrina received critical acclaim. Later, as the President of HLN, Scot revamped the network, leading to its growth through shows like Morning Express with Robin Meade. He also served as EVP and CMO of The Weather Channel, where he further honed his expertise in media branding. Today, he consults for major brands, helping companies shape their marketing strategies through his extensive experience in media and branding​. Connect with Scot: Scot’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scotsafon/

I never had the connection. I didn't know anyone in the industry, in any of the industries, but in early part of my career, I wasn't thinking, oh, this could be a stepping stone to something else. It was more about the idea of, oh, I would love to get my hands on that.

Sometimes things are successful because you've learned a lot of stuff from them. People have to trust you. As you rise within an organization, it becomes your obligation to being that wise and realistic and enthusiastic boss to your team. You have to do that in every direction. Scott Stephan was a CMO or marketing head for brands including CNN, The Weather Channel, TNT, Modern Trend. He's now consulting clients, including companies like Ford and Hallmark and HBO, Showtime and

more. Scott, so many people are dreaming about getting into the media. How did you get to the media world? Well, I was one of those people dreaming about getting into the media when I was growing up and I was growing up in the 60s. In the 1960s, I was growing up on Long Island outside of New York City. And to me, the world of media, we didn't call it media back then. I would say I would want to work at a TV network or a radio station or the newspaper or the theater. I didn't care. That whole world interested me. And I was interested in it, not just as a person who would read the newspaper, because I did read the newspaper from when I was really little,

to watch TV or go to see any movie that I could possibly justify going to see, even as a little kid. I wanted to always be consuming the media. And I felt like, wow, being involved in work that was around these people who were making these shows or writing these things would be fascinating. It would be such an interesting way to spend every day. And I thought it was a little bit glamorous.

I thought it was very exciting to be part of that world. But I also knew that those worlds were very difficult to get into. That it wasn't like, oh, everybody goes. Because it seemed on the surface, who wouldn't want to work in television? Who wouldn't want to work in the movies? Maybe people didn't want to work in newspapers, but I did. But I just loved all of it. I just was a media omn in high school and everything, the only quote unquote plan that I had was I would take any opportunity possible to do something like it. So I was that editor of my high school newspaper. I was in all the plays. Whatever it was that got me closer to that, I did it. And I did it for the love of it. I did it because it was so much fun to have my hands on it, whether it was writing stories, editing stories, designing layouts of things. I didn't care if it gave me an opportunity to do it. And it's funny, at that time in your life, and this is through college and graduate school too, sometimes you're the only person willing to do that work. And so

I'll do the layouts. No one wants to do the layouts. I'll do the layouts. I'll write those stupid headlines. I wanted to touch everything. And so it meant that I would work a lot. I'd spend a lot of overnights getting stuff done. And I'd be working not that much on my schoolwork, but a lot on my extracurricular activities because they were all media related. And it was just for the love of it. And I was learning by doing and learning, even though it was amateur stuff, it was still a way to learn. I think about the difference now, if I was growing up now, I would probably be making YouTube videos and I would be making TikToks and I would be doing all of that stuff because you're so much more empowered to get your hands dirty with media now.

But I just wanted to do it. So any opportunity I took. So you raise your hand to a lot of opportunities, whatever it may be, but you don't have connections. So a lot of people will say, I don't have the connection. So this will actually never happen. And then they will basically kill their own dreams. What made you basically continue to

raise your hand and say, I really do want to try this, so tell us more? I never had the connections. I never got the connections. I didn't know anyone in the industry, in any of the industries, but when I got to college, I went undergraduate to the University of Virginia as a history major and economics major there, thinking I'll probably just go wind up being a lawyer and hopefully work at a media company as a lawyer or something. But then, of course, I worked on the radio station and I was the head of news and information because it was the job that nobody wanted. Everybody wanted to just DJ a music show. And I was like, I'll be head of news and information. And I was like, oh my God, this is so much fun. And I got a kick out of it.

And all along the way, I was never networking. I was never trying to figure out how to use that to make connections. But I was always learning how to do it. I was always learning how to have fun with it. Even stuff that didn't turn out well, like packages on the radio that were just nonsensical when I listened to them later after I had made them. And I was like, oh, I should have made that better. But again, just getting my hands dirty and doing it. And there really weren't repercussions. It was all voluntary. So if I did

a bad job, I just learned from it. I didn't get fired from anything. I just was like, wow, this is a great time, you know, way to learn it. Then I went to graduate business school, not law school. I went to graduate business school at Cornell right after undergrad, because I had then decided maybe I can get into a marketing department or at a media company, or maybe I could work in advertising because advertising was media, was a way to get into the media world. And I loved ads and I loved advertising. And so it's like, maybe that's how I'll do it. I'll go and work at an advertising agency and then eventually work in the advertising department of a media company. So that was the extent of the plan. And the first job out of graduate business school was at

an agency, a very traditional advertising agency called Benton and Bowles. If you ever watched Mad Men, they would talk about Benton and Bowles every once in a while as an agency that was boring. But they were a boring agency that had a lot of Procter & Gamble accounts. And so my very first job and my very first thing was I was the assistant account executive on Pepto-Bismol, the stomach remedy. And I was so happy. I was like, oh, my God, they make a lot of ads. I'm going to work on a lot of ads. The ads for Pepto-Bismol, but that's awesome. The very first day I get to work and they're like, hey, we're shooting a commercial down on Cornelia Street, down in the village. You want to go? And

I'm like, oh my God, I have the best job in the world. And I went downtown and went to the set of a Pepto-Bismol commercial out on the street in the village. And I was like, I'm the happiest man in the world. And so I wound up being on Pepto-Bismol as an account executive two years. Then I was on gravy train dog food. Then I was on Pampers. After like four or five years of this, I was like, I love this work. It's so much fun making commercials and print ads and working in that

world of creativity and everything. But I really want to get onto a media account if I can. And I just told everybody, if we ever get a media account, please consider me to move on it. And they're like, why? Why would you want to do that? You're working on these glamorous packaged goods products. And I was like, no, no, no. I really love the media and I'd love to work in the media if at all possible. And sure enough, another agency got the CBS television account and somebody I knew had moved over there and said, hey, you know, we have an opportunity here. And I went to work on CBS TV, mostly on CBS News and CBS Sports as an account director at another big agency. And

I just loved it. I just loved it. And then again, a through line for me, Ilana, all the time was being prepared to just be unapologetically enthusiastic about what I was doing and the chance to do it and the chance to work on it. And it wasn't even about making it fabulous or craft or anything. It was, oh my God, I'm so happy I get to touch this. I'm so happy I get to work on this. I want all of my teammates, everybody I worked with to also love it just as much and do everything possible to make their jobs fun and easy in the role that I had as an account person. Let me stop you here, Scott, for a second, because I think what you just said is really, really important.

And I want the audience to also listen to this because your energy is captivating and that passion of yours is coming through. So first of all, when people work with people who are really excited and energized and happy, because I'm sure not everybody was the same, right? There's definitely some downers. There's definitely some people that always complain and always vindictive and why me? So when you work with somebody that is that energized and that is really one of the things that I'm picking up here,

but also the fact that when you wanted something, you made sure people knew. And it's about knowing what you want, but also not being ashamed to just say, hey, when you have this opportunity, count me in and raising your hand to this and making sure that, again, when those opportunities open up, they're the hidden market. This is where they decide to

think of Scott and not a thousand other people. And that's where you're starting to create your own luck, basically. So I love that, Scott. I greatly appreciate that observation. And I will add an observation on top of that. When I would say to people, and I still to this day will always say, oh, if there's ever an opportunity to do that, I would just love to do that. In early part of my career, I would never say I'm trying to grow my career because I wasn't thinking of it in that way. I wasn't thinking, oh, this could be a stepping stone to something else. It was more about the idea of, oh, I would love to get my hands on that. Or, oh, I would love to be part of a team

that's working on that. That seems so great. It came from a totally authentic place. There wasn't a lot of strategy. Maybe it was strategic, but that was never the thing I was talking about. Like, help me grow my career. It was always like, wow, I would love to be part of the team that does that. I will say,

over the years, when I have mentored people and helped people along the way, I have responded a lot better to those pitches, too. When somebody says, oh, I see that you're working on this project. I've always been a fan of this. I've always been curious about this. If there's an opportunity for me to participate in some way, please just let me know. And I'm just like, okay, that's interesting that you actually care about this work. And if they do authentically care about it, I think that's a great kind of person to add to any team. And in the world of media and entertainment, every project is super collaborative. There's very few projects or very few things you do that you just do as a single entity. You're always working with people.

So I was working on the CBS television account and loving it, although the agency I was working at did not like it because those accounts are a lot of work and you're working really fast. You don't get three months to come up with a campaign. You have three days. And the agencies, big New York agencies, were like, why are we working this way? This is crazy. They should have an in-house group. So I said to anybody who would listen, if you ever create that in-house group and you want somebody to just do this all the time, I would love to be considered for it. And that led somebody who knew somebody else. I guess I did sort of weirdly have connections, but they weren't connections in the way that we think. People knew what I wanted to do. And somebody said,

oh, Ted Turner has just launched a cable TV network called TNT. This was like 1991. And they were like, he just launched TNT. And I think they're looking for people who have agency experience like you to work on the marketing of TNT. And I was like, send me in that direction. And I remember the woman who was running marketing at TNT at the time, a woman named Sue Kroll, she was the person who was hiring for this job that I was applying for. She was based in Atlanta, Georgia, because that's where TNT was and all of the Turner operation was. And she said, this is what we'll do. I want to hear how you talk about creative work and how we talk about it together. So I'm going to send you a FedEx box and I don't want you to open it until

we get on the phone. We will get on a telephone call. Then I will say, okay, open the FedEx box. The creative work will be in there and we will just have a conversation about it. And I was like, okay, this is an interesting way to do this. And I get home and my wife and I had just gotten married. We were been married for like eight months at that point. And she also potentially had a job opportunity in Atlanta. So that was lucky. She hands me two large FedEx boxes. She says, you got these two FedEx boxes. I'm like, oh my God, I was expecting one small box. This is a lot of work. So I get on the phone with Sue and I was like, okay, I'm ready to open up the box. And she said, oh, you didn't open it yet. I was like, no, you told me not to open it.

Let's do this. Let's do this. So she told me to open the first box and I poured it out. It must've been 25, 30 pieces of creative print ads, folders, collateral material, all sorts of stuff for like 20 different movies that they had been working on. And I was like, all right, I'm putting them together in groups. What movie we want to talk about first? I think she responded to that energy too, but I was genuinely enthusiastic through that conversation. After it was over, it was like a two and a half hour call. And my wife was like, well, how did it go? How did it go? I said, you know, I want this job so badly, I would do it for free. And she's like, well, don't tell them that. But I was like, no, no, no. I would love to spend my days talking about television marketing like this and talking with people like Sue Kroll, who was so brilliant and so interesting. And they did offer me the job. And I took it. We did move to Atlanta. And that job was better than a dream job. A great job. I went running marketing on the entertainment side and then ultimately marketing all of TNT,

ultimately, for 11 years, which was a long time. It is a long time. But first of all, the reason this came about is because we all have a brand. We might not talk about it, but we have a brand. The brand is what people think about you when you're not in the room, because that's when the opportunities open up, right? So there's a reason why that came about. And you were also very specific about being top of mind for the right thing, for what you want to be known for. So without knowing, you've been very, very strategic about it, right? So that came about. But then you also managed to also climb up the ladder there and take on more and more responsibility and do more and more, right? Which I think a lot of our listeners also kind of wondering, well, even if I land this

thing, how do I fast track to bigger responsibilities, bigger status, bigger impact? How do I even do that, Scott? I think the how you do this is a little bit dependent on who you are and the kind of organization that you're in. But I will tell you how it has worked pretty consistently for me. Showing up as a person who wants something to be great, but it's not ever about me because it's genuinely not about me. I get a bigger kick out of the fact that a whole group of people did something together that was successful. And I'm pretty flexible about what success looks like, because not everything is an undeniable success on every

single front. Sometimes things are successful because you've learned a lot of stuff from them, and they weren't really successful. But somebody who shows up, who doesn't get discouraged, doesn't go negative, doesn't care that much about what I do versus what anybody else is doing, I get a kick out of people. I really do. I really enjoy other people, and I really enjoy other people having a good time. If they're doing work that they care about, and they're getting a kick out of the project like I'm getting a kick out of the project. To me, that is great. And I do feel like in terms of the higher ups, maybe at Turner, we're like, good, we can give him more responsibility because he really wants the whole group to succeed. And he likes this.

He gets a kick out of his job. And that kind of person, I think that's a good way to be successful. And if you are happen to be in a job that you do get a kick out of in an organization that values that, that doesn't tend to reward people who are extra cynical or more cutthroat or good at creative tension or anything. I've never really loved that aspect of like some people do strategize around that say oh we create a lot of good creative tension and everything it's like that really leads to better work i mean that leads to more success i don't think it does i really don't and it has never in organizations that i've worked in so being an enthusiast and somebody who is enthusiastic for other people's successes. And again, I'm not

saying this in a Pollyanna way or a way that, oh, it's for the good of other people. No, it's more fun. It is definitely more fun if they're all having fun and they're all learning from it. And yes, there are things, especially in entertainment, which is a very emotional business, and things you do that just don't work and everything. So how you deal with failure, how you gather people together to talk about failure can still be an enthusiastic discussion, can still be something that is affirmative, that can still be something that leaves people excited to take on the next challenge. And that was also a part of it too. It's like, I learned this over time though too, that together, if you're in a team-oriented business or a team-oriented kind of work,

getting the team comfortable talking with each other, even if they're very different from each other, just comfortable being vulnerable with each other, comfortable being encouraging to each other, comfortable sharing partial criticism too, if that's necessary. But that comfort level of ease of being in the presence of other people was very important to success in the companies that I've been in when I was in corporate America.

Scott, do you have an example of a project or something that you went into and didn't have the success that you were hoping? At TNT, we were launching original movies. We were launching them like once a month. So we had big campaigns going on constantly. And there were movies that we were making. We were doing a series of films that were based on theater productions, and they were the film versions of theater productions.

So they were very, very, very high-end movies with very respected people in front of the camera, behind the camera. And they were trickier in terms of getting an audience because they weren't traditional crowd pleasers. When we did a Tom Selleck Western, we'd get a big number. We would do a Bible movie, a big numberck Western, we'd get a big number. We would do a Bible movie, a big number, a Civil War drama, a big number. But if we're doing the film version of Arthur Miller's The American Clock, it's going to be a smaller number and everything. And I think

that one of the things that happened with that was that I had to learn how to balance my always being enthusiastic and always being optimistic and always being inclined to say everything's successful on some level with the realities of business. We did a beautiful job crafting those movies, but they were not successful with our business model. So we couldn't do them anymore. And so learning how to recognize that, come to terms with that, and maybe not, you know, agree as part of the executive leadership team that we weren't going to make movies like that anymore was really challenging. Now, the optimist in me would be like, well, maybe there's a version of these movies that could be successful, so we should never give up.

And I'd hate to think that those movies were not worth doing because I definitely think they were worth doing. But I had a role at TNT because I was such a cheerleader for the company and for the brand and for every one of those movies that I couldn't be the person who also was pretending everything was successful. And I had to learn how to talk about business realities and raise everybody's business acumen a little bit. And sometimes in a creative job or in a creative company, having to be the person who makes everybody aware of the business side of it and just basically improving everybody's business acumen is a very tough job. And I realized that I had to become good at that. And later on, we could jump forward into my CNN experiences because then I later,

as I grew within the organization and had more responsibility, sometimes those things are bigger than a movie didn't work. It's sometimes a television series isn't working and everybody, the television series has to get canceled. And that's 30 people that you're letting go. And you're suddenly dealing with bigger responsibilities that have decidedly negative results. And you still want to be the optimist and get people excited about the next opportunity, the next challenge, and just learning how to be both those things, a realistic business person

and a cheerleader person who can rally people too. I think this is an issue. I'm not an entrepreneur and I've never founded a company, but I've heard this from entrepreneurs too, that they're trying to balance building the enthusiasm of their employees, but also of their investors and of the press at the same time, but also sometimes dealing with the harsh realities of how business plays out. Right. And to me, what you just said is so, so, so fundamental because you keep needing to balance between, yes, the cheerleader that can create the enthusiasm and the vision and, oh my God,

and the mission and let's go and do this together, but also have this extreme ownership of looking in the mirror and saying, this is not working. And this is what we need to do right now. We need to change course. And you still need to be that strong leader that needs to change the course. But also every conversation is like a mirror. Like if you're collapsing inside and you're going to show that to everybody, you're going to freak everybody out. So there's also a little bit of how do I navigate that and not freak everybody out to run away, but

also understand that that's okay. It's part of the game. This didn't work and we're going to continue anyway, Scott. That's a great observation. And as you climb in the organization, the people you have to think about, your audience for that. First of all, people have to trust you. Your employees have to trust that you can be the cheerleader and a steward of the business.

Your bosses have to trust you too. The other colleagues that you have, let's say the other C-suite people or the other have to do that too. So as you rise within an organization, it becomes your obligation to being that wise and realistic and enthusiastic boss to your team, you have to do that in every direction. And everybody's criteria about what's a trustworthy steward of the business is different. They've done what they're looking at. And that's, I think, one of the toughest things about rising in an organization, that you suddenly, you're managing more people, which, okay, you're

realizing how important it is to manage people and develop them. But then you're being entrusted with huge resources by your colleagues and your boss and your bosses. And there are big implications for the success of the company, but how you do not just what you do, but how you communicate it, how you build trust with everybody that you've got your hands on the controls, you know what you're doing and everything. And I think that I probably had more struggles as an executive with that part of it than how I managed.

Managing downward or laterally, whatever, I felt very confident in learning and growing and doing the right thing in that way. I do think that my natural optimism and my natural inclination to look at things in a positive way, I think there were probably people who were colleagues or bosses who were like, well, he's not being realistic, or maybe he's not that serious. And so I had to recalibrate that a little bit, certainly at CNN. And then I was the chief marketing officer for CNN for eight years, from 2002 to 2010, a pretty long time in CMO age. And then three years after that, from 2010 to 2013, I was the general manager of the HLN

network, the former Headline News Network, HLN. And that was my first job that was not a marketing job. I was running the network. And that required the enthusiastic cheerleader was part of that executive persona, but it couldn't be most of it. It needed to be a little different. I had to take a harder look at resources, a harder look at things going forward or not. I relied on the marketing people to be always being the optimist and always being, this is going to be great. And I had to be the person saying, well, you know what? I don't think it's going to be that great.

So we can't do it. And that was an evolution for me too. And that's exceptional. So first of all, I think we're not really taught how to be leaders. And me and you discussed it just a little bit before we started the episode, because I really think that for me, it was a lot of it scraping knees, almost like a trial and error a little bit. There's some great leadership books around how you find yourself

with like five types of leadership, right? Leadership from the front that basically like, okay, this is where we're going. Leadership from the back, which is like the cheerleader, right? Leadership from the side, like how do you actually help your board or your C-level, whatever, like really lead together. Leadership within, leadership on the field, et cetera, which is kind of the more spontaneous thing. But all of it, you know, you eventually need to lead yourself, which is really nice. But I wish somebody taught me a little, at least a little bit, you know, before I got all this responsibility to try on my own. But so to me, that's really, really, really interesting how you managed to climb all the way. And marketing, heading marketing is very different than heading operations and being in charge of everything. What would you say is some of the biggest learning from

that shift? So I shifted into this really running the operations job for three years and I went back to marketing. I didn't enjoy that other job. I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it because running HLN for those three years was a surprising amount of fun. And I got to make lots of programming decisions and decide on what we were going to develop as programs and stuff. And I had awesome people working for me and we were a little like a sort of side business for CNN. So we had a lot of freedom. It was really lovely and really great, but I really like marketing. I really like figuring out how we talk about what we're doing in ways that excite people. And I've always, and again, after I left

that, I had more marketing jobs and continue as a consultant in this world about helping people figure out how to get other people excited about things they're going to do, whether it's changes they're going to make in their company or new products they're going to introduce or new directions they're going to take their brands. I like helping them find the words in any way, shape, or form. So I like that. The great learning for me, I guess, from taking those three years out and taking on a head of a network job was, again, not knowing what I didn't like as much, but also realizing that there were things that I could do, that there were skills that I got as a marketer that could be useful in many other ways and could be useful in a lot of other circumstances that wasn't just about

when we're doing a marketing campaign. And that helped me as a consultant later because I was like, wait, when I had an opportunity to do projects with this wonderful agency called Civic Entertainment, and they had gotten the Ford Motor Company account, and they brought me in to help them figure out some strategies for Ford as Ford expanded the scope of their businesses. At first, I was like, I'm not sure I can do this. I don't know the automotive industry at all. And they're like, well, there's plenty of people who know the automotive industry who work at Ford and who work here at Civic on Ford, but you understand communications and you understand the news industry too. And you understand storytelling.

So bring all that. And I could say, wow, all of these things that I like and care about, not only are they relevant to these other businesses, they're just, if not more exciting in those other businesses, because not everybody is a communications person. When you work at a media company, everybody is a communications person. They're all good at it, and they all are smart, and they're all this. The Ford people or the Civic people and the Ford people, they're all smart, and they have many different types of skills, but not everybody's a communications person.

So you really got to bring something to the table that was kind of unique and a unique expertise. And because I wasn't steeped in automotives, my take on it was a little bit on the outside too. It's like, well, why would we say it this way? I know cars enough. I've always been a car owner. My family is deep in cars and professionally too, but I'm not. And I was like, but I like words. And these were words. And again, they appreciated my enthusiasm that I really wanted to help figure this out and think about it. And that's, I did a big project last year with the Grand Ole Opry. I don't know country music at all. I absolutely loved working on this project. It was an extraordinary eight-month project that I just loved every second of it. But again, I learned, I think, through the three years

of not being a marketing person that I wanted to go back into a communications job or communications projects. But also, there was a lot that was relevant about what a communications person does that can really move things along in other parts of business. And finding the right words, CFOs need to do that. CIOs need to do that. Board of director members need to do that. It's very hard. People are uncomfortable writing. They're uncomfortable even writing an email.

Finding the words for somebody like me is a joy. But for somebody else, it's like that's the thing they want to do the least. And I love that you said that to me. And first of all, the reason why you've been so successful at helping companies find their words and helping business leaders and their brands and whether it's Ford or Hallmark or HBO or Showtime. I mean, these are like incredible brands. And I do believe that your talent in communication, but also your understanding of what it's like to run an organization, that understanding and that tie into the importance of the words

and to be very strategic with the words, that is probably part of that zone of genius. So I do see how all of this is coming together and why this is so powerful. But I do want to ask you something because if I'm listening to this story as a listener, I hear movies, I hear sports, I hear music, I hear film, I hear news, I hear automotive.

How is marketing similar or different between industries and companies? I think you touched it, but I would love to understand more because everybody needs marketing these days. Without marketing, you don't exist. How is it similar or how do you jump between all these industries? Talk to us a little more about that. Well, I think that there is a need for people to explain themselves and explain what they want to do, explain why they want to do it.

And there's always in any industry, a need to leave people with a sense of anticipation, like that if they heard something from you, whether you're a leader or a colleague or a customer, whatever, you want to leave them going, I wonder what's next. I wonder what happens next. Now that's an instinct from the media world, but it's true anywhere.

You're building in marketing, in any industry, you're building a relationship between a business and a customer. And you want that relationship to be ongoing all the time and welcomed always and excitedly embraced all the time. So when you care so much about what the words are and where the words are, that's the thing is that I feel like one of the reasons why I've been able to work in

a lot of different types of industries on this is somebody will say, can you help me with a press release? We're not going to talk about a press release yet. Let's talk about what it is you want to do. What's the story here? What's the bigger story? Why is this a good thing? Let's get the whole thing. And it's like, yeah, maybe one of the five or six things you should do in this communications plan is a press release. But press releases today aren't what press releases were 20 years ago. Like a press release will be fine because somebody will need it because it needs to go somewhere as a reference point.

But that's not it. What's your email going to be? What's your email going to say? Even if you're just linking to the press release, they'll read the email. They won't read the release, but they'll read the email. So what do you want to say to your employees? What do you want to say to your customers? What do you want to say to your employees? What do you want to say to your customers? What do you want to say to your competitors, even indirectly? What do you want

to say to influencers who are following you? And when anything goes wrong in the world, like this outage that we're seeing right now with CrowdStrike, I go right to all the different people who have to make decisions about communications. I mean, I see it in politics too. I'm fascinated by all of the decisions you have to make in politics to leave people with a certain feeling. And the first thing I'm likely to say to a colleague, a friend, an employee, a family member, or a consulting customer is let's not talk about what we're going to create. Let's talk about why. Let's talk about what we're hoping to leave people with. And then the answer to this might be an email. It might be a TikTok video. It might be five fit. It could, who knows what it's going to be, but we're going to really think about what you want

to get across here. And sometimes that's intimidating. They go, oh no, I just want to do a press release. And I'm like, we'll do the press release. But I want you to have a big success with this. And it's not going to come from the press release and things like that. But that, you know, that as a marketing person, because the other thing you asked a little bit about this too. Over the years, one way to have success in marketing is to be very, very, very excited and enthusiastic about how the media landscape is changing. We do not look at messages in the same way anymore.

If I say to my kids, my younger daughter, I would say to her all the time, is there an ad campaign out there that you like? And she looks at me like I'm crazy. What do I mean by an ad campaign? And then is there a commercial that you've seen that you like? And she'll say, oh yeah, I really like such and such. Where have you seen it? She's not seeing it on television because she's not watching linear television. She is sometimes being exposed to commercials on some of the streaming services if there's a commercial, like maybe on Love Island or something like that.

She'll see that. But she's really not seeing the volume of advertising that I would have seen when I was her age. She's seeing it because if she finds a commercial that she likes, somebody has sent it to her and really has just sent her a link pretty much to that commercial on YouTube. And I was like, what prompted, what would make somebody send you a commercial to watch?

Oh, if the music is really good or if it made us laugh or it made us cry. All the criteria are not different because maybe that would have mattered too back in the day because you would have been exposed to certain campaigns might impact you a little more because of those things. But nowadays, that's like the price of entry. You have to push a button so much that somebody wants to share it, a YouTube link of it to somebody else. This is for that generation. And I think there are a lot of marketers who sit there and go, forget it. It's done. This is for that generation. And I think there are a lot of marketers who sit there and go, forget it. It's done. This is terrible. The whole world has collapsed. And I'm like, this is interesting. How fascinating is this that we get to use all of the stuff? And your job isn't

to just blast out ads. Your job is to really connect and connect so much with somebody that they feel like they want to use it to connect with somebody else. What a win that is. And the cost per impact would be higher, but be worth it because you really maybe made a real connection. And to me, that change is actually fascinating because I think, first of all, the way for us to control the narrative has never been easier as a brand. I can decide what I want people to see, you know, like how easy is that instead of try to make it eventually to TV or to the news, like, oh my God, that was an uphill battle. Now I can just put a few, I don't know, movies on TikTok or Instagram. And guess what? I'm already controlling the narrative. There's never been easier to reinvent and leap. It's never been easier for brands to conquer a market, but there's a lot of noise in the system. So you're absolutely right. You need to learn how to evoke emotions. You said words are feelings. I mean, it's just beautiful because you need to learn how to evoke emotions. You said words are feelings. I mean, it's just

beautiful because you need to create those feelings. Otherwise, again, you're part of a big, big people's pile of people trying to do the same thing, right? So to me, these are fascinating times, but if you're not leveraging it, you're definitely losing relevance at a speed that I've never seen before. I was talking to an MBA program, a bunch of marketers, and they were like, well, what's something that's fundamentally the same from when you first started in marketing versus now? And I said, one of the things that's interesting is my first job in marketing, when I was working on Pepto-Bismol, if you asked anybody at Procter & Gamble, you asked anybody at the agency I was working at,

what is the holy grail? What is the greatest thing that could, what's the best advertising period? They said, oh, word of mouth advertising. Word of mouth is the best because that's somebody telling somebody they care about to do something. And it's an endorsement from a person you trust and love. That would be the best. And there was that famous commercial, the hair care commercial, she'll tell two friends and she'll tell two friends and on and on and on. So that has always been the thing. The difference is that now you like something

enough to post on Facebook about it or Instagram about it or LinkedIn about it. You're telling thousands of people all at once and you're giving them a link to it. And you're not just telling them about it or LinkedIn about it, you're telling thousands of people all at once and you're giving them a link to it. And you're not just telling them about it, you're really introducing them to it. And so the power of every individual as a marketer or as an advocate or as a spokesperson for a product that they like is extraordinary. I'm sure it's scary too, because a bad impression also goes through the culture really fast also. And then you have to figure out how to counter the

bad impression. But I do think that this means that marketers, somebody said, well, does this mean that marketers are less relevant right now? It's like, no, I think they're more relevant right now. And maybe more people should be paying attention to it and thinking about it. But definitely, it's a very, very important function right now for business. I think without it, businesses die at the speed that we've never seen before. I think the one difference is that

because everybody's on social media, they get the unrealistic expectation that everybody is a marketer. Now, there's a little bit of a difference between posting on Facebook and actually knowing how to create a hook, how to evoke emotions, how to get people to share. I have to say that we stumbled upon something that you just shared. We did a big live retreat a few months ago and everybody was sharing about it on LinkedIn. And I don't know if I even realized that this will be one of our biggest marketing campaigns ever.

It wasn't even in my head that I can actually leverage it as a marketing tool. I just wanted to give value to my clients. So I think there's a lot in terms of when you're not a marketer, it does cost you a lot because you really are not leveraging it to the best extent. We're leaning a lot on marketing for sure. But what would you say, Scott, maybe one thing that people don't necessarily know about you that you think has built you to the person that you are now? Is there something?

I will say this. I am pretty much an open book, so I don't know if there's anything that people don't know about me. But I would say that there is something about me that I think surprises people when I share this. And that is, I had a period in my career when I got to TNT where I don't know why this happened, but I would get panic attacks if I had to present. So if I had to do a presentation, I would get panic attacks and I would be in front of audiences and just hyperventilate. I would lose my place. I had like one of those out of body experiences, like what is going on with me? And I was lucky enough, I guess, that the first time it happened, it was a disaster. And I just, I went and apologized to my boss. I was like, I don't know what happened to me. I just, and they were like, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. It happens to everybody.

I never saw it happen to anybody. The second time it happened, it happened like pretty much right after that. I was talking to a group, I was presenting a marketing plan to a group of people and it happened again. And for some reason, somebody in that audience of 30 raised their hand and said, Scott, you mentioned something at the top of this. Could you just repeat it? Because I just didn't quite hear it. And that snapped me. Somebody asked me a question, snapped me back into that mode. And so I went and I was fine for the rest of it. And so after that, I would always have somebody in the audience, even if I was talking to like a thousand people, I would be like, you interrupt me and ask me a question. If you see me start, like, I will tip it off. If I start to shake or whatever, raise your hand and

say, excuse me, whatever. I don't care what the question is. Ask me the question. And that's what did it. That's what would do it. And I was like, what's physically, like, what is wrong with me? And then anything I read about this, anything I heard about it just said, when you have a problem like this, you have to always say yes to any public speaking thing ever. Like you have to do this all the time. And what I learned to do in these, not in a conversation, I'm very comfortable with a conversation, especially you're a great conversationalist. So that's never going to be a problem. alone, if I'm just presenting, I will build in, as my case of emergency break lasts, it is, I will suddenly, apropos of nothing, just ask the audience a question. And sometimes I have no idea

why I'm asking them the question, but I have to get out of this loop. And I would be like, just how many of you are from Long Island? You know, and people will answer that question. And then later, like every once in a while, somebody will say, just out of curiosity, you asked about that early on in the presentation. Was that for a specific reason? Then I'll tell them. I was like, yeah, I was having a panic attack. It's the only way to get me out of it. So when I tell people that, and I'm very comfortable sharing things like that, they're always surprised. They're like, you're such a comfortable presenter.

You love presenting. You know, it's like, I don't know why I have this problem. It doesn't always happen anymore, but it sometimes still does happen. I just have to build in. Oh, and the other thing, there is one other thing about me, but a lot of people know this because I'm also very forthcoming, but I'm hearing impaired. Without my hearing device,

which is back here, I'm clinically deaf. That was progressive over my career, like actually as over my adult life. So when I was at TNT, like in the 90s, it started to get bad and I didn't think I needed a hearing aid, but I was missing a lot. And then by the, like around 2000, right before I went to CNN, I got a hearing device, hearing aids, and that's helped me, but it got progressively worse. So this device is a sound processor that uses bone conductive hearing that works better than my hearing aids. But that like living in the world of having an impairment like that, that's an invisible one to a lot of people. I mean, if you saw the device, you would say,

oh, he obviously has, maybe they would think it's a cochlear implant or something. It's not, it's something else. But those invisible impairments, they teach you a lot. They really do. And my only way of dealing with it has been fully transparent about it. Very, very, very transparent. And I have to be comfortable about it. And sometimes it prompts all sorts of interesting things because people come up to me later and say, actually, I have a hearing impairment, but I've been embarrassed about it or whatever. I'm like, why?

Like, let's talk. But sometimes people know that. They know that I struggled with that a little bit, but that's it. Thank you for sharing these incredible stories. I think, first of all, a lot of people are really scared of public speaking. So I think just standing there and saying it, like for me initially, to speak a whole lecture in English was freaking me out because that's not my first language. And I was just like, I don't even know if I'm, you know, my third grade language, you know, will do it. And that

was a really, really scary moment. But also, despite that, despite the panic, despite the hearing, you continue when most people will hold themselves back and will say, you know what, I have enough excuses to stop. And you, you look at it in the mirror and you just continue going. What motivates you, Scott? How are you able to just put it to the side and continue? I mean, you're in the freaking media company, you know, like, you know, you would think, you know, computers, you know, if you want to engineer and write code, you know, that is fine. But tell me, how did you continue, Scott?

It definitely scared me. And when I was first addressing this issue, because it really, the panic attacks just sort of started out of, I don't even know what prompted it in the first place. I wish I, I wish I could get in touch with that. But I think, honestly, it was a one time in my life where I was like, I love this job so much. I love this world so much. And presenting is always going to be a part of this. I can't not do this. So I just have to power through this and I have to make it work. And I don't know, like maybe it was the right time that I had that, you know, it was in my early thirties.

I was in the early days of the job that I thought was the greatest gift anyone had given me. And I didn't want to not do it. And I didn't want to try to do it in a compromised way. That was the other thing as well. I could, I could't want to try to do it in a compromised way. That was the other thing is, well, I could, I could always not say yes to speaking engagements. I could always say, you know, I could have like tried to avoid them because lots of, this is what a lot of people do. They don't like public speaking. So they avoid it. And I'm like, okay, I get it. But I don't,

I, somebody, a professor says, will you come and talk to my class? That's a panic attack kind of thing for me. I will go. I would just do it. I will just do it. Even though I go into it going, I might have one of those. I'm going to ask them all a question that will make no sense, but I'll get through it and we're going to have a good time. Absolutely. Absolutely love this, Scott. So tell me one of the things that we always ask kind of at the end, now that you've seen where you are right now and what would be an advice to your younger self? Early on in my career, when I was trying to make connections in the media to hope, like hope the connections would help me. I managed to convince a few people

who were in the movie and TV industry to have, like, breakfast with me while I was in New York, when I was working at the ad agencies. And what I heard consistently from the three or four people who did it was they were very nice and generous with their time, and I appreciated it. But they always said to me, I don't think that industry, the media industry is right for you. And I'd be like, why? I know a lot about it. I follow it really closely. I would love to work on it. They're like, you're too nice. Like, you have to be a tougher guy. You have to be harder edge. You're too nice. You would hate it. They would chew you up. And I heard that like consistently. And so what I would go, and it was always in the back of my head, like,

maybe I have to be more of a jerk, or maybe I have to have a thicker skin or whatever. But then if I was giving myself advice now, I'd be like, it's okay. It's okay. You be the enthusiastic person. You'd be the person who loves words and who loves getting, you know, loves rolling up your sleeves and working with everybody else. You're not trying for a corner office. Even when I had a corner office job, I never took the corner office because not because I don't think it's right to do. It's like, I didn't want to be away from the action. So I would encourage myself to don't worry about the fact that you don't have that hard edge. That's going to be okay for you. Oh, I love that.

Like you're going to find your flavor that is the right one for Scott and you're going to make it successful because you're just not going to give up because this is your passion. Well, and also if it makes you happy. I mean, if you're happy in what you're doing, everybody laughs when I tell the story about my first day of work at Pepto-Bismol and I'm so excited. They're like, you went to an ad agency to work in the media and you got on Pepto-Bismol. I was like, we were making ads. So they're like, okay, well,

that kind of says it all. I think it does say it all. I was cracking up here. But seriously, Scott, this was so, so, so exceptional. Anybody listening, if you need help with words and crafting kind of how do. And congratulations on Leap Academy. I think the podcasts have been just awesome. And I think your mission is fantastic. And I'm very excited that you pursue it this way. Thank you so much.