Lessons I

Learned, dot, dot, dot, eventually.

And we decided to write this book, Mark, about a year ago because...

You know, these stories that I've encountered, the people that I've encountered over the years, you know, working in television news, it's been amazing.

And some of them have given me these amazing stories of wisdom.

And sometimes you accept it and sometimes you don't.

You know, if you're young, you're like, ah.

But is that something you cultivate or you do you strive for that?

What role did faith play in your home, and how did it mark you?

It was it was giant.

I mean, we are we are Irish Catholics.

And as you say, I grew up in San Diego.

And as a family, you know, we were I was the youngest of five and there was quite an age difference.

So when I was three, four and five years old and can remember going to mass with my parents.

You know, it wasn't with all the kids because there were different times.

I mean, and in a profession, Trace, where we're often covering the worst of human nature and behavior, how has your faith functioned as a protector or a leveler for you personally?

Oh, yeah

...

when I was in high school.

I mean, you know, I was, I was young and I went to a very small high school in northern California, a ski town, and they wanted you to play three sports, and I'd always played baseball and football.

Never played basketball.

I was terrible at basketball, but I thought if I could just go to that John Wooden camp in southern California, I would be the greatest basketball player.

But at the time, it was 500 bucks.

Yeah, go ahead

[laughs]

But at the time, it was 500 bucks.

You know, a- and back in, uh, late '70, that was real money.

A- and my dad said, "Listen, you get 250, you work and get it, I'll get the other 250.

We'll put it together, 500 bucks, off you go." And we did.

I worked at Bus Tables, I, I made beds, so on and so forth, and we get the money, and I'm down at the John Wooden Basketball Camp.

And I'm not in the gym with about 200 other kids more than two minutes, and in walks the Wizard of Westwood.

Yeah, go ahead

Why do you start the book

there? Because the book for me is all about leadership, right? It's about the people that I ran into.

I think the most compelling thing about these stories is there's all some kind of a wisdom or leadership takeaway.

And I didn't know, you know, I was playing football and it was eight, nine and 10 year olds.

And me and my buddy, who is still a good buddy of mine today, were the only two eight year olds to make the team.

And the first couple of weeks, I mean, I hated it.

because all we did was calisthenics.

And yet you end up going down to Newport Beach and you end up, ultimately, they actually got a field built.

Do you-

You go up.

You go up, and you do...

Your, your, uh, you have a rope and a handle in your hand, and so when you get to the top of the ramp, you pop, which means you go straight up in the air.

And then you pull in, you tuck, and you pull the rope into your stomach, and you rotate, and you come around, and you try to, you try to get a visual on the water.

And if you can see the water, then you land it, and you ski away.

When you learn 'em, you know, after I, after I did 150 of 'em and I started learning 'em, I'd make one out of two, sometimes one out of three, and then I started making nine out of 10.

True.

Why did you decide to write this?

Because I thought that, you know, some of these stories needed to be told.

I mean, these are things that I've been, uh, experiencing since I was a kid, and it's always been about, you know, leadership, people that had great wisdom and kind of were kind enough to pass that wisdom along with me.

And, and as the title says, sometimes I accepted it, and sometimes I waited.

You know, when you're young, you're like, "Ah, I got it.

I can handle this.

I can do it." And then you kinda think back, and you, you know, you come back around to that wisdom, and you accept it because you know it was valuable and you should have accepted it in the first place.

Yeah

He took some really valuable lessons from that interaction from that can tell us more about that.

Well, and this is actually tailor-made for you because I know you play college basketball.

And this is one of those things where I went to, when I was a kid, when I was, you know, growing up in San Diego, I played Little League baseball and I played Pop Warner football.

I was pretty good at both.

And then I moved to a small town in Northern California, a ski resort town called Mammoth Lakes, Mammoth Mountain, California, one of the biggest ski areas in the nation.

And you move up to a small school, Eric, and they want you to play three sports.

I mean, you only have a couple of hundred kids in the high school.

And you lay it out in the book.

And this was a pretty bold choice on their part.

Yeah, I mean, I think it was.

And I think, you know, you're going to see we've talked some legal experts today and you're going to see the courts are going to kind of flip this back and they're going to overturn this and they're going to give the press passes back to CNN and MS and Politico.

And, you know, listen, we have a free press.

That's the bottom line.

Right.

So that's the way it's going to work.

bad at

And this was a pretty bold choice on their part.

Yeah, I mean, I think it was.

And I think, you know, you're going to see we've talked to some legal experts today and you're going to see the courts are going to kind of flip this back and they're going to overturn this and they're going to give the press passes back to CNN and MS and Politico.

And, you know, listen, we have a free press.

That's the bottom line.

Right.

So that's the way it's going to work.

Very, very busy week for the administration where we might not have a White House press pool that's really playing ball.

But I also think when I'm reading this about the president and just the difference between term one and term two i mean all the way up to the president united states down to someone sitting here in the midwest right now who could pick up this book and and really openly be like i learned that lesson that is an admission and a little bit of humility involved in that and you can see in all sorts of different stories all sorts of different americans who have participated in that that little life lesson of humility to get to the other side of it and to show growth and and your book is just a story after story of opportunities like this that got you to where you were right now?

Yeah, it got me and it would, you know, these are lessons that everybody can use.

So I, you know, I find the book very relatable and so far, you know, it's been out for, almost a week, and the reaction has been really good.

So you look on Amazon and so on, and it's been really good because I think people view this.

In fact, we're doing the Reagan Library on Thursday night.

We're doing a book signing at the Reagan Library, and I think people view this, and I'm excited because I think that Ronald Reagan would have liked this book because it's preeminently about leadership.

There's a lot of leadership issues in here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

"Coach, th- th- they're not gonna let me quit." He looks at me.

He gets 40 yards away from me and he goes, "Now, get over there.

Get in formation.

You're with the running backs." They had footballs.

You know, you show up, they had footballs.

And you think the...

Right

Do you believe that people are beginning to understand Hollywood is going to become a relic?

Yeah.

I mean, listen, the whole problem here is, is that Hollywood has told the state of California again and again, listen, it's too expensive to do business here.

We have to pay these employees too much.

The taxes are too high.

The housing is too high.

We cannot afford to shoot in Southern California anymore.

Why was that important?

Where do you see America now as we get ready to vote?

You know, it's interesting because I was of the mind when I was listening to some friends of mine who were actually going down.

Some people that we have on the show were going down to this midterm convention, the first ever.

So I was listening to them and they were they were excited about it because they thought, oh, man, this is going to be this is going to be a novel concept.

Right.

See if it works.

Right.

So they have to somehow fend off the Democrats challenge on that issue.

But tell us about that moment.

Well, I mean, it was great.

I mean, clearly it was great.

There have been a lot of great moments of Fox News.

I mean, it wasn't my fault.

Listen, I've been here 30 years, Joe.

We are celebrating our 30th anniversary of Fox News Channel on October 7th.

Yours is a mix of breaking news, like unfortunately we had last night out of Los Angeles, but also there is an infotainment aspect to it as well to talk about issues in an authentic way that people would just sitting around, coffee table or around a bar or whatever and i think you get that obviously so you don't even have to point or at least uh talk about that but there are always in life high points and low points in the book is there a low point for you where you thought you wouldn't get where you want to go or despite all these great experiences that it just wasn't what it wasn't going in the direction that you had hoped five years or ten years before that

Did you find the same thing?

Yes, and in fact, I mentor some of these young correspondents that we have on the network, Sean, and I say the same thing.

I say, listen, nobody can ever or will ever do you better than you.

So quit trying to be somebody else and be you because you're authentic.

You can become better at what you do.

You can become a better you, but nobody – quit.

You cannot mimic somebody else.

You know, I never thought when I started out I'd be debating issues like men playing women's sports, for example.

an

unexpected group of very colorful people.

I mean, this is one of those things where, you know, in life you get advice, you get guidance from a bunch of different sources.

But sometimes you pick it up right away and sometimes it takes a while for it to hit you.

And so when we say they were right all along, it means all of the people who had experience.

an enormous impact on me.

And some of the, I mean, the subtitle is life lessons I learned dot, dot, dot eventually, because it takes you a while sometimes to really realize that you're getting good guidance, that you're getting good advice and that it actually is, it's kind of wisdom being handed down.

Why?

That is bananas.

So we're sitting there, and John Wooden walks out on the stage, and he taps the microphone three times and he says, "Boys." He says, "I want you to sit down, take off your shoes and socks.

You should have two pairs of socks." He says, "Take the first pair, put 'em on inside out.

You take the second pair, you put 'em on the right way.

And then you put your shoes on, tie 'em up nice and tight.

If you do that, you will never get blisters.

You cannot play good basketball with blisters." And then the Wizard of Westwood turned and walked off stage.

[laughs]

This is – Right down the fairway of be afraid.

I would argue the actual kind of opposite on that.

I think that one of the bases of human instinct and human beings is this necessity for power, this necessity for being able to tell people what to do, being able to kind of set the rules.

I mean, you go through and you look at anything, right? You go through airports, you talk about any subject on the planet.

When is the last time that you saw something where they were actually taking rules off the board? that you don't have to do this.

Well, just take stuff off the board and now you don't.

Adam Carolla was on a podcast the other day and he was saying something that I have said for years is that every time I go to the beach, there's a new rule on the sign.

Is that one of the life lessons in Turns Out They Were Right, your new book, Trace? Yeah, it's

Now, who is they?

They is the people that you come across in life, the people that give you wisdom, wisdom that you never thought you were gonna get.

And sometimes, as the subtitle says, Life Lessons I Learned Eventually, sometimes you pick up the wisdom on the second go-round.

And so these are all stories about famous people, some not famous, but all of them had a great impact on my life with some of the things that they told me.

And I think it's all kind of bundled up in 32 compelling stories.

Answer the question.

But I will say, you know, you talked about USA Today saying it's a coping mechanism.

It's not a coping mechanism.

Now, who is they?

They is the people that you come across in life, the people that give you wisdom.

Wisdom is... that you never thought you were gonna get.

And sometimes, as the subtitle says, Life Lessons I Learned Eventually, sometimes you pick up the wisdom on the second go-round.

And so these are all stories about famous people, some not famous, but all of them had a great impact on my life with some of the things that they told me.

Uh, and I think, uh, it's all kind of bundled up in 32 compelling stories.

Answer the question.

But I will say, you know, you talked about USA Today saying it's a coping mechanism.

So they have to somehow fend off the Democrats' challenge on that issue.

Yeah, I mean, that's the big issue.

It's the affordability thing.

It's hurting the Republicans because, you know, Trump has been saying the prices are gonna come down, and, and they may.

And, and certainly we are taking money in and wages are going up.

But for some reason, people, you know, people associate the, the cost of things with the presidency.

They, they associate that with the, the top dog, right? And, and because the prices haven't come down, it's going to hurt Republicans.

[laughs]

Did you find the same thing?

Yes, and I, and I in fact, and I mentor some of these young correspondents that we have on the network, Sean, and I say the same thing.

I say, "Listen, nobody can ever or will ever do you better than you.

So quit trying to be somebody else and be you because you're authentic.

You know, u- use...

You, you can become better at what you do.

You can become a better you, but nobody...

You know, I ne- I never thought when I started out I'd be debating issues like men playing women's sports, for example.

Three sports because we had 240 kids in the whole school.

So we had to play three sports and I was terrible at basketball and I thought if I could go to that John Wooden basketball camp, man, I'm going to be so great because Wooden at that time had just won 10 NCAA championships in 12 years.

But the camp was 500 bucks and my dad said, it's a bunch of money, right? So he says, you get half, I'll get half.

We get the money together.

I go to the wooden camp.

We walk in the gym, and five seconds after we sit down, out walks John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood, and every kid in the building just is jaw-dropped.

And he taps the microphone three times, and he says, boys, I want you to sit down.

So how much does sports figure in your book?

How much in your book and in your career was being physically present, being physically there, how much of a role did that play in your success?

Oh, I think it's 90%.

I mean, by the way, John Morgan, you know, when I was in Orlando doing the news in Orlando, John Morgan, that was the base for their mega company, right? And then they started kind of going to gravitating to states that were, you know, it would be more amenable for them where they could win these lawsuits and that.

So that's how John Morgan became this behemoth in the injury law profession.

But, you know, showing up, John, is 90% of the battle, right? I mean, it's like, I don't know who said this, but it's like someone once told me, and he said, you know, the bottom line here is it's great to win the fight, but it's a lot more important to show up for the fight.

Because if you show up for the fight, it tells your opponent that you are willing to go toe-to-toe and face-to-face.

And you are also willing to endure some very uncomfortable consequences, even if you win.

And you don't necessarily have the skill set as someone who has seen everything that you can throw at them.