Update #1: Friday, Oct. 8, 13:23 Paris
TAKEAWAY: This is part 9 of my occasional series 40 Years/40 Lessons, which I call a “sort of career memoir” capturing highlights and reminiscing about what has been a spectacular journey for me, doing what I love most. Today’s segment: all about the element of luck, and how one must prepare to meet it. PLUS: Weekend Smoothies
Illustration by Ana Lense Larrauri/The Miami Herald
Is it luck or fate?
The blonde woman approached me barely 10 minutes after I got off the stage at the Society of News Design conference in Denver, 2010. It was a session titled, An Evening with Mario, and I was honored to have friends and colleagues like Ron Reason, Jeff Goertzen, Bryan Monroe and Randy Stano, and even my son, Mario Jr., celebrating my 40 years in the business.
The woman was intrigued by a statement I had made about success depending on luck, discipline and talent.
“Discipline and talent I agree with,” she told me with a smile. “But, luck? Are you sure luck is an ingredient in someone’s success? Didn’t you mean fate?”
I remember that I was on my way to getting a glass of white wine, in a state of exhilaration after the pleasant experience of having various phases of my life as a university professor, journalist, designer and even dad, reviewed in front of a friendly, loving audience. However, her question made me stop and think. What does luck have to do with it, the woman seemed to be implying.
“I do mean luck, I am sure that luck is important,” I told the lady, whom I never convinced, but who made me think about how important luck is when it comes to determining a person’s success.
I stand by my statement and I consider myself a relatively lucky person, that is, if luck is being in the right place at the right time. If so, my internal navigational map has led me to that one special dinner, or office, or conference along the way.
Luck and the Salutaris commercial
For 18 months I would do this Salutaris commecial three times a week during the hottest prime time telenovela of the era!
It all began when I was 8 years old, accompanying my dad to his rehearsal at the CMQ TV studios in Havana.
Dad, as you may recall, was a saxophone player. He took me along for this rehearsal in 1956, and told me to sit quietly outside the studio while he rehearsed. I was obedient and did exactly that. As usually happens, my surroundings were anything but obedient and quiet.
Unknown to me, there was a team from the hip Havana advertising agency of the moment, Fergo Arregui-—thoughts of Cuban MadMen come to mind, indeed—-rehearsing a commercial for one of Cuba’s most popular soft drinks of the era, Salutaris, a lemony equivalent of today’s Sprite. A woman from the ad agency named Alicia approached me and asked me who I was and if I was an actor.
“Not really,” said I, “but I think I could be one.” (I think I told her something like this, daring for an 8-year-old who had never acted officially). I must stop here to say something that I have repeated often: one does not have to be fully ready when the opportunity presents itself. If one waits to be, then the moment may pass. If your tank is 70% full, the rest will come with the rush of the experience, as in the last 5 miles of the 26.2-mile marathon.
Within the next 30 minutes, I was in a studio, bright lights shining on my face, as I sat and repeated two or three lines about how tasty Salutaris was, insisting that “Salutaris es la merienda favorita de todos los niños de Cuba” or “Salutaris is the favorite snack drink of all Cuban children”.
“Not bad,” said Alicia. “What’s your name? Who is your dad?”
The headline: by the time my dad emerged from his rehearsal, my acting career had started in earnest, all of this while he and the Riverside Orchestra rehearsed those ever so danceable standards like Vereda Tropical, Cachita, and Satin Doll over and over again.
Alicia explained that the boy doing the Salutaris commercial was getting older and his voice beginning to change, so they were looking for a new one and had just that day started the discussion when I appeared.
Lucky me.
I became the Salutaris boy, doing the commercial live three times a week, repeating the same lines and drinking Salutaris several times between commercial breaks of a top ranked telenovela.
(Indeed , Salutaris may have been the favorite drink of all Cuban children, but the commercial emphasized mixing Salutaris with condensed milk, and in those days commercials were live, and I truly got disgusted of drinking that soda/condensed milk concoction, so one year into the gig I was drinking just whole milk, forget the Salutaris!!!! Nobody knew. Nobody complained and I got stronger teeth and bones as a result, I think)
Do I believe that this was a lucky moment?
You bet. I was sitting in the right place at the very precise moment that another child was going into adolescence and those MadMen and MadWomen of Fergo Arregui were contemplating casting a new child actor.
But, of course, I think I had prepared all my life of 8 years to be on that spotlight that glorious day.
I read those lines the first time as if I had been trained to do so. I was fearless, still am.
The power of thinking that you can do it (self confidence they call it now, I guess), is still with me. At the time, I imagine I thought life began at 8, just like I believe that life begins at 63 or whatever my new age may be.
From Salutaris commercial I went to roles in the telenovelas, comedies, whatever presented itself in TV, theater, radio and one film. Then Fidel Castro came and my acting days were suddenly and rapidly over. But, this, too happened to be a lucky moment, in my view.
It brought me to my adopted country, the United States, and to a world that has been more than lucky and satisfying.
Luck had a lot to do with it.
Luck and the letter that got lost
Sometimes luck makes an entrance in a distinctive way: as in when you don’t get what you were hoping for.
Turn the calendar pages to 1968, start of my senior year in journalism at the University of South Florida. I was by then editor in chief of the college newspaper, The Oracle.
My journalism professor and mentor , Dr. Arthur M. Sanderson, suggested that I apply for a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund fellowship, which could have provided an opportunity at The New York Times to train as a possible foreign correspondent.
“You have the Spanish language ability, and good clips from your internship at The Miami News, and your work with The Oracle, so we would recommend you as the senior from USF for this summer program at the New York Times,” he told me.
I was honored and put all gears into motion to prepare my application. Remember, these are the pre-computer days. One had to assemble clippings, paste things together, and come up with a physical representation of what one’s journalistic career had been to that point. And so I remember precisely walking to the mailbox to drop my application, proud of all those clips, and dreamy about a summer in New York City, and perhaps a career covering Latin American events from a front row seat.
This was January of 1969 when I mailed the application. May 1969 came, no reply, no acknowledgement. June 1969, graduation time, still no answer.
Well, I said, Just did not get it and I must make other plans for summer (turned out that teaching became the thing to do).
Four years later, when I was an assistant professor of journalism at Miami-Dade College, I received a letter from a post office in Baltimore: so sorry, Mr. Garcia, but your application for the fellowship was found behind huge mail containers in our post office and was never delivered.
Well, shocking, but four years after the fact you have rearranged your life, started your career, got married, have two children and one on the way, so I remember that my reaction was pretty much Que sera, sera., or more like What was was!
Three weeks later, however, I had a nice letter from The New York Times stating that, had my application been received, I would have been accepted into the program.
Happiness sometimes arrives late, but, what the heck, you welcome it upon arrival. I still have that letter saved.
But, by then, I was in love with the design aspects of the business—-no regrets to this day.
Me as a foreign correspondent in Latin America? Sounds romantic, and perhaps I would have been there to cover the death of Che Guevara in Bolivia. Or perhaps I would have not survived the rigors of life in those unsafe trenches.
It was not meant to be. Luck played its part, I believe, by taking me into another direction.
But, come to think about it, I am a world correspondent, am I not? What is this blog if not a daily report from somewhere in the globe?
Luck and the first book
It was a cool spring day in New York City, circa 1973, and I was taking my Miami-Dade students to Columbia Unversity for its annual scholastic journalism convention.
In fact, I was asked to present a session on “Why is Layout important in a Student Newspaper?”. I did my session and spent the rest of the afternoon speaking to college and high school students from around the country, all eager to learn more about page layout.
There was the annual gala awards dinner that night and, as luck would have it, I was seated next to a man named Benjamin W. Allnut, one of the officers of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, and a respected journalism teacher in Bethesda, Maryland.
He introduced himself and we chatted through the dinner, the start of a friendship that lasted till his death in the 1990s. During the course of that dinner—I think it was between the soup and the main course—-Ben told me that there was a need in scholastic journalism, and, especially among new teachers, for a book that detailed the processes involved.
“Many of our journalism teachers are basically English teachers, who are assigned a journalism class and have never worked as journalists or editors,” he told me. “It is imperative that these people, who mean well and are eager to learn, get a crash course on the basics. I think you should put some of these wonderful ideas that you talked about in your session, in a book.”
Indeed, said I. Not only had I been thinking about it, but I already had three chapters written, although I did not know a publisher and had no idea where to send them.
“I do have some early drafts of chapters for what I would considrer to be the type of book you are talking about,” I told him.
“Well, show them to me when you have a chance,” he said.
I did and so my first book “The New Adviser: Learning the Craft,” was published by Columbia University Scholastic Press Association in 1974 , with subsequent editions in 1976, 1978.
Luck was obviously packed in my suitcase to New York City that spring day, but so were the three chapters that I had been writing in my spare time.
You see, luck needs the goods for it to flourish, and I love that sunny intersection called serendipity when luck and preparation meet.
It may help that I feel lucky most mornings when I wake up, wondering if that moment of lucky serendipity will appear somewhere.
It usually does. Lucky is not just about the big moments. There are little and medium sized lucky moments today. Savour them.
But, most importantly, prepare yourself for when they arrive.
And, did I tell you about about my lucky dollar?
1.Mirrors.
https://www.garciamedia.com/blog/articles/40_years_40_lessons_1—a_look_in_the_mirror
2.Refugee.
https://www.garciamedia.com/blog/articles/40_years_40_lessons_2—refugee
3.Teacher.
https://www.garciamedia.com/blog/articles/40_years_40_lessons_3—teacher/
4.Mentors.
https://www.garciamedia.com/blog/articles/40_years_40_lessons_4—mentors/
5.Consultant.
https://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/40_years_40_lessons_5—consultant/
6.Eagle.
https://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/40_years_40_lessons_6eagke
7.Abroad.
https://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/40_years_40_lessons_7._abroad
8. Books
https://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/40_years_40_lessons_8_books
How many iPads was that?
Apple (AAPL) is gearing up to sell 45 million of them next year, says Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White
who just chatted with supply-chain vendors in China and Taiwan.
That’s a lot of iPads out there, and at least 90 million eyeballs looking for information. Anyone who doubts the impact this little and wonderful screen has on our lives, better think again.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/229042-apple-gearing-up-to-sell-45-million-ipads-next-year?source=yahoo
Many readers, friends
Our favorite newspaper in the A4 format, Kleine Zeitung, of Graz, Austria, celebrating a milestone: 886,000 readers.
And that does not include hometown boy and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who may read it online from California! But his mom read KZ until the day she died, and that’s on the record.
Crazy, crazy……but fun
Bild of Germany does it again. Let’s see: what is the grid here, friends?
Or is there a grid?
Why do I like it? Don’t know, maybe because I could really never do something like this and get away with it.
The forbidden fruit, that is what Bild is for me time and again.