Choosing Public Relations

As it turns out, I was 2+ years into my college career at Brigham Young University and I still had no idea what major I wanted to enter or career I wanted to pursue. Thankfully, I happened upon a brown-bag address in the Wilkinson Center at BYU being delivered by my then favorite author on spiritual topics: Truman Madsen.

I missed the opening of his presentation, but I caught the most important part — at least the part that seemed absolutely perfect for my circumstances. In addressing the question of how to choose a major and pursue a career, Madsen suggested three points:

1. Choose something you enjoy
2. Choose something you’re good at
3. Choose something you can change the world with while supporting your family

Interestingly, I do not remember anything else from his talk. But I do know that those three points resonated throughout my very being. I thought about his talk all the way home that afternoon, and as I did, I realized that the classes that I had enjoyed the most and had gotten the best grades in were EACH in Mass Communications. That was an incredibly eye-opening realization for me, and it led me on a short-lived but important journey to discover what majors were available in the Department of Mass Communications at BYU.

Long-story short (and for a variety of reasons, some of which I was actually mistaken about), I decided that Public Relations made the most sense for me versus pursuing a Mass Communications degree with an emphasis in Journalism, Advertising or Interpersonal Communications. And in spite of the fact that I only managed a C+ in my “Introduction to Public Relations” class — thank you very much, Dr. Bradley — the truth is that I excelled in PR and ended up with a GPA in my major of better than 3.5 on a 4.0 scale. (Not remarkable by itself, but given that I had been flirting with an overall 2.0 GPA, 3.5+ was pretty good for me.)

And for the past 27+ years, I’ve been doing PR every day of my career. And for the most part, not only has it been a blast (aka, I enjoy it), but I’m actually quite good at it too. I’ve since become quite good at many of the other areas of mass communications and marketing as well, which is nice. But I’ve also learned that done properly, PR has made it possible to support my family fairly well while helping to change the world.

The Backstory Behind Job Ready

To begin to understand what Job Ready means, it will probably help to share a bit about me and my background.

Although I didn’t know it when I was young, I’ve been in sales since I was 10-years-old. I was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area by good parents in a poor-to-middle class family as the eldest of five kids (two of whom were handicapped) that were born six-and-a-half years apart. When

Isn't that a cool-looking 3-speed Stingray bike?

I realized that my parents could not afford to buy me a three-speed Schwinn Stingray bicycle, I decided to take matters into my own hands by sending away for a Christmas card catalog found in an ad in the back of my Boy’s Life magazine.

The premise was simple: Sell 35 boxes of Christmas cards and earn a bike. So that’s what I did. I went door to door, I called on relatives, I bugged people at our Church, I approached just about anyone. And after a few months, I had sold 36 boxes of Christmas cards. Boy did I look cool on my bright yellow Schwinn Stingray bike with its metallic gold banana seat, the three-speed shifter and the wheelie bar I added on the back.

As it turns out, I also had a bit of the go-getter or hustler in me. That’s how I ended up collecting newspapers, aluminum cans, and boxes and boxes of broken glass to pay for my way for a month-long trip to visit cousins in Utah when I was 12-years-old. And I had the classic job as a newspaper boy for my early teen years as my first steps as an entrepreneur. And after my first employment-free semester at Brigham Young University, I ended up working my way through school where I was always employed (at least part-time) during college.

However, it wasn’t until after I returned to BYU in 1977 following two years of volunteer missionary service to the greater Washington, D.C. area (more selling, right?), that I found my future career in the College of Fine Arts and Communications. Specifically, I was gonna go into the field of Public Relations, and I did.