I left TV news 25 years ago

The photo above is of a much-younger me, doing a live shot as a television news reporter. As far as I know, it's the only visual evidence on the internet that I used to be on TV. I am grateful for many things about my brief career in broadcasting, not least of which being that social media didn't yet exist.

(By the way, I'm wearing a tuxedo outside a car dealership in the middle of the day because our station would do local cut-ins during the national Jerry Lewis MDA telethon.)

The job was the culmination of a long journey for a young person. After growing up watching Bill Kurtis and Peter Jennings deliver the news, I spent four years working on the high school paper and another four years in journalism school. I interned, I worked part-time... and then I landed an on-air job in downstate Illinois. With a contract!

It was really a great gig. The best I could have hoped for, as a 21-year-old straight out of college. As a bureau chief, I got to steer the coverage on most of the stories I reported. I wasn't required to work nights or weekends.

I had an amazing first boss who would set the bar high for my evolving ideas about leadership. I was sharing important ideas with a large audience. Powerful people returned my phone calls.

And 3-1/2 years later, I resigned.

I'd been exploring next steps in other mid-size cities and didn't like what seemed to be available to me: lower-ranked stations than the one I'd be leaving. Pay cuts. Starting at the bottom by covering fires and homicides.

I wanted to be more in charge of my career than I would if I simply market-hopped every couple of years. I was getting married to someone whose work needed to happen in a major city. So, when a group of college friends put on a full-court press to get me to join their startup in DC, I decided to give it a go.

I was done with television news almost as fast as I started, and was now the COO of a small web-development company with a shared office space. It was the first zigzag of my career squiggle.

I didn't know this at the time, but I now think I was also done with letting my job title define me as a person. "I'm a reporter for Channel 3" was the headline I led with when meeting new people. That simply wasn't me anymore -- which left me to figure out who I wanted to be instead.

News flash: I'll be 50 later this year. And I'm still working to figure it out.

"If I'm not this, then who am I?" is a question I've been helping a lot of people answer in 2025. If you're in search of some career clarity or retirement coaching, or just want to chat, let's talk.