Stephen A. Smith is known for a lot of things. One of those things is his business acumen. Shaking up the competitive world of sports, the sports journalist at one time could not get a job in the industry — and that’s after holding a position at ESPN. Smith recalled this period of his life in an interview with Tamron Hall.
“ESPN had let me go,” Smith said. “We had a contract dispute. I obviously thought I was worth more than they thought I was worth at that particular moment in time. I didn’t do enough of my homework and I felt like I was worthy of more than they were offering me.”
Smith retreated to his home, unemployed and hardly surviving.
“I mean a decade ago, I was completely unemployed living off of my savings — literally, living off of my savings and I had just become a father, so I was wondering what on earth is going to happen with my life, my career,” Smith said.
Smith continued, “I was humbled beyond belief. I was questioning myself in a lot of different areas because I knew that I came up in sports and I knew that I knew what I was doing. And to be let go under those circumstances and not have anybody in the sports world pursue you at all. I didn’t have any job offers. Everything was gone.”
It was his family, who taught him to know what he was talking about and never be afraid to be wrong, that reminded him of his own power and sparked the second wind that Smith needed to maneuver through the uncertain time.
“My sisters and my mom were like, ‘You know who you are. You know what you’re made of. This is a bump in the road. You’ve got to rebuild. But, it doesn’t start unless you look at yourself.”
Smith discovered that although he was confident, he was also uninformed about his own worth. He had to understand that popularity did not exactly equate to his value in business.
Smith had to switch his mentality from the glitz and glamour of being a public figure to focusing on the analytics of the business, such as ratings, queue scores, revenue generation, and so forth. He used this new approach to tabulate a pitch that would validate his worth, especially useful in a boardroom full of executives only concerned with the bottomline.
Watch the Tamron Hall Interview Below:
“I wake up everyday with two missions in mind,” Smith said. “How do I make my bosses more money and how do I get some of it. If you wake up with that mindset, number one, the boss wants to hear what you have to say because they know that you’re putting them first. And then, they don’t resent you for trying to get some of it yourself.”
To Smith, it’s about everyone trying to win and reach a common goal. Eventually, Smith would rebound from unemployment and return to work. He currently hosts Stephen A’s World on ESPN+ and ESPN First Take.
