52 Cups of Coffee: Inspiring and insightful stories for navigating life’s uncertainties (26 page)

Clark Bunting

Discovery Channel Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland

Medium house coffee

The way you get from Point A to Point B won’t be a straight line. That’s okay.

When I met Clark Bunting
, he was the president and general manager of
Discovery Channel
. For the past 25 years, he had been a part of the team that brought to life programs like
Planet Earth, Shark Week
, and
Deadliest Catch
.

He
was also a proud Michigan State Spartan, so I reached out to him to see if he’d meet me for coffee while I was in Washington, D.C. on a road trip.

He said yes
, and a few weeks later, I was at the Discovery Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland outside of D.C. When I walked into the lobby, I found a massive dinosaur skeleton, photo-lined walls featuring network celebrities, and a great assortment of memorabilia from
Discovery
shows.

After I went through security, Clark
’s assistant, Laurie, met me in the lobby. We took the elevator up to Clark’s floor, and I waited for him in a small conference room where a picture of
Dirty Jobs
star Mike Rowe covered in mud stared at me. Clark walked in and introduced himself before we jumped into a conversation that continued as we took the elevator down to the coffee shop on the first floor.

Clark
was often called “the guy who started
Shark Week
,” so I couldn’t resist asking him how he felt about being known for the TV event with a cult following. He humbly pointed out that it had been a team effort before sharing a few amusing stories from the production. Stories that ranged from working with actor Andy Samburg to orchestrating live video shoots of sharks feeding in the middle of the ocean: it was obvious that Clark’s career had been out-of-the-ordinary.

* * *

Clark’s original plan had been a career on Capitol Hill. After receiving a Master’s degree from Michigan State, he and his wife had moved to Washington, D.C. where he got a job as a legislative assistant. It was during this job that he realized politics might not be the route for him. He looked at many of the lifestyles of the people who had been on the Hill for years: perpetually stressed and overworked, a high number of failed marriages, and problems with substance abuse. It wasn’t the lifestyle he wanted, so he decided to look for a job elsewhere.

The job he found was with a young company called Cable Educational Network
. He met with the founder, John Hendricks, and realized they shared a similar vision and entrepreneurial spirit. At the time, a big void existed in television programming—there were news, sports, and entertainment channels, but nothing educational. Cable Educational Network set out to change that. The company, which grew rapidly, eventually changed their name to Discovery Channel and became the most widely distributed channel in the world.

Clark, as one of the original employees, played a pivotal role in the company
’s growth. He helped bring many of Discovery’s popular programs to life before taking over as president in 2010. It was a role that he took very seriously. He knew the shows Discovery produced were having an impact on millions of viewers around the world—he was also having a lot of fun.

At one point in his career
, he was dangling a dead chicken over a hungry croc, while Steve Irwin coached him through the feeding process (certainly nothing he had expected when he responded to the classified ad). Clark said moments like that make you pause and think:
How did I get myself into this position?

The answer to that question
was a bit of luck, mixed with creativity, passion and a lot of hard work. Most importantly, he found meaning in the work. Discovery Channel uses the power of entertainment to shine light on important issues. Clark used Steve Irwin as an example. The two became close friends when Clark helped create and produce
The Crocodile Hunter
. The show, which became wildly popular, served a greater role than just entertainment. Clark said Steve’s genius was his ability to get people to care. He wasn’t just a crazy Aussie playing with reptiles; he was a passionate environmentalist who helped people see the world from a new perspective and generate positive environmental change.

Clark explained that Discovery succeeded because two things h
eld true for people: they are naturally curious, and they love to hear a good story.
The Crocodile Hunter
wasn’t the only show that told intriguing stories that served a greater purpose.
Planet Earth
was a remarkable series that let people gain a new appreciation and concern for the environment;
Shark Week
helped pass a law to ban shark finning
;
and shows like
Mythbusters
had gotten viewers excited about science.

As I listened to Clark talk, I was fascinated by the realiz
ation that he ultimately achieved the goal he was pursuing on Capitol Hill, he just had to leave the Hill to do it. His goal was to affect laws and generate positive change. While he thought politics would be the way to do that, he discovered that, for him, entertainment was the solution. It reminded me of something author Randy Pausch said in his famous Last Lecture:
It’s not about how to achieve your dreams; it’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself; the dreams will come to you
.

Clark lived his life around a certain moral foundation: he wanted to lead a good life for himself and his family, and he wanted to do work that mattered
. It may have been a stroke of luck that he stumbled into a great opportunity, but luck wouldn’t make you the president of a major company—Clark had worked hard to make Discovery Channel something fantastic. He has led his life with integrity, and the result has been an incredible career that has changed lives as well as the planet.

The
most valuable lesson I took from Cup 50 is that the way you get from Point A (the start of a career) to Point B (the end) isn’t going to be a straight line. But if you keep moving toward a goal you’re shooting for, you’ll get there.

Probably not in the way you expect.

Or in the time
frame you think.

But if you persevere and live right, you
’ll get there, and hopefully have fun in the process.

Elaine Rosenblatt

Starbucks in Chicago, Illinois

Grande Americano

When life changes unexpected
ly, grieve, grow, and move forward.

I
’ll be honest; Cup 51 was hard to write.

There
are a lot of explanations for why, but I think the most-relevant one is that I didn’t want the project to end—because I didn’t know what came next. The irony was that this Cup is about learning to let go and moving on to something better.

* * *

I met with Elaine Rosenblatt on a windy and gloomy Wednesday. I took the train to the outskirts of Chicago and arrived at the Starbucks first. When Elaine walked in, I recognized her immediately. She looked just like her son Brett, the stranger who had invited me to coffee three years ago, became one of my best friends, and showed me the power of reaching out to people you don’t know.

Elaine live
d outside of Chicago, and when I was invited to attend a fundraiser in Chicago, I decided to reach out to her to see if she could meet while I was in town. I thought it was fitting that she could help me end a project that her son had helped me start. I had also heard enough about her from Brett that I was certain she could give me good advice.

I caught Elaine
’s attention and introduced myself before we stood in line to get coffee. Because of her warm and nurturing spirit and the fact that we had a lot in common, we were already deep in conversation by the time we sat down at a small table by the window.

I had a feeling the conversation was going to go in all di
fferent directions, so I asked my most-important question first: “How did you end up where you are today?” I didn’t know anything about Elaine other than that she was a psychotherapist and had three sons.

It started out as a very simple story. For as long as she could remember, the only thing Elaine wanted to be when she grew up was a mom. She hadn
’t considered college or a career. She’d fallen in love, gotten married, and had a son in her early twenties. She had achieved her goal.

Of course
, that was not where the story ends. It’s where it began.

Elaine
’s marriage began to crumble, and before she knew it, she found herself a single mom with a child to support. Desperate for work, she took the first job she could find: a job at a clinic for women, where she unexpectedly discovered a love for advocacy work.

As her involvement in her job increased, she gained n
ational attention for her work, becoming a sought-after voice for women’s sexual rights, often doing radio interviews and speeches on the topic. Although she hadn’t followed the traditional educational route, she was passionate and constantly worked to stay educated about her field while preparing for the next step.

In the process of building her career, she remarried and had two more kids (the youngest was Brett). She said that even with all of her career success, raising her three boys
was her life’s greatest joy. Being a mom was a perfect fit for her nurturing spirit. It also helped her realize she had a natural ability to counsel others and help them through their problems. While engaged in advocacy work she started taking classes to become a certified divorce mediator, and then later a psychotherapist.

Elaine
was a strong, independent, complex and compassionate woman. Having coffee with her reminded me so much of the first conversation I ever had with Brett—the conversation just clicked.

When I asked her how people get through a difficult d
ivorce, her response was straightforward: “You just do.” Her son depended on her; she had no choice but to find a way to get through the hardship.

That
’s how our conversation took a deep dive into the nature of pain and hardships—two inevitable parts of life. While that may seem like a somber topic, the conversation was very encouraging.

I
t wasn’t until Elaine tested her strength that she realized how strong she could be. It wasn’t until she was forced to find work that she realized she could create an incredible career for herself. It was because she could navigate through her own pain that she discovered she could help others navigate through theirs. In short, the sadness in her life led her to a place of incredible happiness.

But it
didn’t happen overnight.

When she married her first husband
, she expected to stay married to him forever and built her hopes and dreams around that scenario. It is something we probably all would do. We become attached to visions of the future—expected outcomes over which we have little control—until the illusion feels like reality.

Then something
happens—the relationship falls apart, the job isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, the economy goes south—and the illusion (along with the feeling of security) shatters.

It
is a story that happens to everyone at some point, and one Elaine frequently hears in her work. The advice she gives comes down to three steps: grieve, believe, and wait out the discomfort.

When a major life change
happens, it is all right (and normal!) to be upset. Trying to cover up or numb the pain doesn’t make it go away any faster. The best course of action is to embrace it and give yourself time to grieve.

But in the process of grieving
, you shouldn’t lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel: faith, religion, optimism—call it what you want; it is hope for the future. If you can’t find it in yourself, find someone who can help you find it. Like Brett told me a week earlier when I’d called him during a particularly bad day: “History repeats itself—if you survived tough times in the past, you’ve proven you can survive tough times in the future.”

Then, once you
find the hope, accept that there is going to be a period of discomfort. Elaine went back to the tunnel metaphor. You know there is a light at the end, but it is going to be dark and uncertain for a while. It is an uncomfortable place to be, but if you keep pushing forward, you can make it to the end, and be stronger as a result.

* * *

While Elaine’s advice centered on hardship, it was also a solution for any change. It was a process for saying goodbye to what had been, and looking forward to what will be.

52 Cups
had been a big part of my life for the last year. Now I had to prepare for a post-52 Cups life. Leaving the security of this project for the unknown of the next one was a little uncomfortable. Coffee with Elaine reminded me that 52 Cups had prepared me for whatever’s next. While closing this chapter of my life would be difficult, I had learned to embrace change and use my experiences to make my next chapters even better.