Tag Archives: Orange County Register

Episode 115: Hit the Ball as Hard as You Can | Larry Welborn

One of the first guests I had on my podcast was David Kramer, the oldest son of Jack Kramer, one of the world’s most famous tennis players of all time.

One of the questions I was most excited to ask David was what advice did his father give him and he didn’t have a very clear answer.  I remember talking with my Dad after the interview telling him that I was a little bit disappointed about not getting a little nugget or a pearl of wisdom from the late Jack Kramer.

My Dad told me it wasn’t as easy as I thought it should be and then he asked me what I would say if somebody asked me, and I wasn’t sure what I would say.

In anticipation of this interview I was eager to see what my dad would when I asked him what piece of advice he would give to his children and here’s what he said:

“Hit the ball as hard as you can.”

Larry Welborn recently retired after a 43-year career as the legal affairs reporter for the Orange County Register, in which he covered many high-profile cases but showed a high level of enthusiasm and dedication in every story he covered.

Hit the Ball as Hard as You Can Larry Welborn Zeb Welborn

Larry & Zeb Welborn

Since 1981, Welborn has also been the chairman and president of CSPA, which is preparing for its 64th-annual high school journalism workshop on the campus of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

Larry Welborn knew hew wanted to become a journalist at an early age.  At the time, Larry liked two things, he liked baseball and he liked to read.  A book he read as a child, The Freshman Backstop, encouraged him to combine his two loves and become a journalist who wrote about baseball.

In High School he enrolled in journalism classes and he began to write.  A mentor of his, Ralph Alexander took him under his wing and encouraged Larry to pursue his career in journalism and helped him along the way.

Some of Larry’s most famous trial cases were:

  • the Manson Murder Trial
  • the Rodney James Alcala Serial Murder Trials
  • the Nick Adenhart DUI Trial
  • the 2 Fullerton Police Officer’s Beating of a Young Man
Larry, Annie, and Zeb Welborn Hit the Ball as Hard as You Can

Larry, Annie, and Zeb Welborn

Success Quotes:

  • The last line of the story is the one that readers remember.
  • Hit the ball as hard as you can.
  • Success is having a family who loves you, friends who care about you, colleagues who respect you, acquaintances who know you and the knowledge you lived your life caring about other people.  That you loved well, were loved, took care of your family, gave back to society and had fun.
  • Success on a daily basis is being prepared to do the best you can and doing it the right way with consideration to others.

Awards:

Larry Welborn has received numerous awards during his career, but two of the most memorable awards for him was the Sky Dunlap Award by the Orange County Press Club, and recently the California Attorney’s for Criminal Justice honored him with the Journalism Integrity Award.

Thank you for everything Dad.

The Welborn Family - Hit the Ball as Hard as You Can

Welborn Family

 

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Episode 61: Develop a Business Mind with Zeb Welborn

Develop a Business Mind Ashley Majeski The Ashley's Reality Roundup

Ashley Majeski

In my discussion with Ashley Majeski from The Ashley’s Reality Roundup, she explained how she first started writing about reality television and how much she enjoyed it.  She received encouragement from her family and friends, who loved her writing and suggested she do more of it.  She saw that as an opportunity to start her business.  She needed to develop a business mind.

Sometimes, doing what you love is not enough. Sometimes, you have to apply business principles to the things you love in order to turn your passion into a career.  I love being an entrepreneur because figuring out ways to build a better business, ultimately gives me the opportunity to help more people.  If you find yourself doing something you love, but you haven’t made a career out of it, you might need help to develop a business mind.

My wife, Cindy is very talented artistically.  She creates great pieces of artwork and truly enjoys the process of creating new art, but she can never do something she loves as often as she would want because she needs to focus on paying the bills.  But, if she would develop a business mind, she could do the thing she loves must and have a happy, fulfilling career.

A good friend of mine, Richie absolutely loves music.  I’ve never seen someone more passionate about a topic.  He even created a CD for a friend of mine for his bachelor party where the entire CD was personalized for his friend.  To do something like that . . . you have to love music.  He’s also extremely talented, but he hasn’t figured out a way to turn his passion into a career.  He is working on it though which I give him props for.  He just needs help developing his business mind.

Even if you do something you don’t love, but you’re good at, you can still create passive income from it.  My sister Lacey is very talented when it comes to website design, but early on she discovered that she didn’t enjoy it very much.  It was great that she discovered website design was not the career for her, but she still could have made more money from her unique website design skill.  She could have hired staff and trained them on website design skills and referred business their way, since people have come to respect her website design skills.

My Dad, Larry Welborn is the epitome of success.  In junior high school he knew he wanted to become a journalist and worked to get himself involved in a career he loved.  For 43 years my Dad worked for the Orange County Register and most of his time was spent in the courthouse as the court reporter for the Register.  He loved his job and was great at it.  He developed a business mind early on by connecting with the right people who could help him get the career of his dreams.  Once he found himself in his career he also began helping others who shared his same passion.

Larry Welborn Develop a Business Mind Orange County Register

Larry Welborn

I found something I love to do with Welborn Media.  Helping small business owners get more business through social media is the most rewarding thing I feel I could be doing with my time.  So many opportunities have come about because I developed my business mind to work to sell my goods and services so that I can grow my business and help more businesses thrives.  But, it hasn’t been easy.  Once I began to develop a business mind I really started to evolve as a business and it’s growing.  Even though my business mind isn’t fully developed, I’m working on it every day to try and develop new business and create more opportunities to help others.

Ashley figured out how to make money from something she loved.  She knew she couldn’t just keep writing for the fun of it, so she developed her business mind and created opportunities for herself to make a living from her writing.  The happiest and most successful entrepreneurs are those who have figured out how to make money from the things they love to do most.  Our economic system is geared to give us the opportunity to help people with our passions.

Develop a business mind in order to make a difference.

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Episode 49: Just Show Up! | Photographer Chris Carlson from the Associated Press

Chris Carlson has done photography in more than 40 different countries covering some of the world’s greatest sporting and political events.  He’s been involved in the business a long time but attributes his consistency and reliability to be one of the keys to his success.  Learn how to just show up in Episode 49 of the Defining Success Podcast.

Chris Carlson has been a staff photographer at the AP in Southern California for the past 6 years, Prior to that, he has been on the staff of the Orange County Register where he shared a Pulitzer Prize for coverage. During his career, he has been on assignment in over 40 countries.

Chris’s family was in the newspaper business.  Early on he realized his spelling was so bad that the only way he could stay in the newspaper business was by becoming a photographer.  Like any field you get into, you have to hone your craft. Chris was very lucky to work with people who were very skilled.  Many people took Chris under his wing and helped develop him into a world class photographer.

When Chris started in photography, there was a huge delay between the time he took a picture and the time he had it developed.  In some cases it was several hours.  Now, photographers know very quickly whether or not they have shot something great or not and they have the ability to take more if they are not happy with what they’ve shot.  Twenty years ago photographers were not as lucky because if they took bad shots, they would not be able to recognize this until hours later and in some cases this meant the opportunity was gone for good.

In photojournalism, they have deadlines and now the deadlines have sped up excessively.

One thing that Chris thinks many people in photography may not realize is the way that professional photographers are able to effectively use lighting to create a better picture.  The average person would be able to look at a picture and say it’s beautiful, but the professional photographer would be able to understand why the picture looks beautiful. A good photographer can take any situation and make it look like it was shot with photo studio lighting.

Some people get into journalism because they want to get into the world. Chris got into journalism because he wanted to see the world.  Being a photographer has given Chris the opportunity to see how the world has unfolded before him.

One of the best assignments Chris ever had was the 2007 U.S. Open where Tiger Woods won in a 19 hole playoff and watching him make a put on the 18th hole to force a playoff was probably the most exciting thing he had ever seen.  Watching the crowd react and watching Tiger’s reaction and seeing how competitive that day was was amazing.  And he felt very fortunate that photography was the vehicle that gave him the opportunity to witness the experience in person.

A lot of pressure comes from being a photographer.  Chris works hard to capture special moments, but sometimes many factors can contribute to the missing of a moment which can be lost and gone forever if he doesn’t capture it as it’s happening.  The stress of capturing these events can be a burden.  Over time the stress of having to capture that one moment can weigh on you a bit.

Chris attributes his success to luck, good decisions, hard work and sometimes, no matter how hard you try, something happens that you couldn’t plan for and in his case he feels very lucky.  Somebody once told Chris that a key to success is just showing up.  If you show up and do work you’re already ahead of your competition.  He looks at his colleagues that are very successful, he sees that it’s because they have a very strong work ethic.

One of the biggest mistake Chris has made was that he didn’t know if he enjoyed it enough in his time.  He wonders if when he retires if he’s going to say that he enjoyed it enough while he was doing it.

Working at the Associated Press, Chris feels fortunate that they cover big stories and the one event Chris wants to go to that he hasn’t yet is the Masters Golf Tournament.  Every year Chris covers the Kraft-Nabisco women’s golf tournament events which conflicts with the Masters, but he hopes he can make it to the Masters.

Chris has done countless brush fires, earthquakes, civil unrest. He was on the presidential campaign with President Obama and he’s done the Iowa Caucus and recommends that if anyone has an interest in politics that they should visit Iowa during that time because they are all very knowledgeable about politics.

If you’re interested in becoming a photographer you need to decide what kind of photography you’d like to do and then position yourself to be able to do that.  Sometimes it means starting at the high school level and hone your skills to build up to the big time.  Photography is incredibly competitive and in order to be successful you must love photography and if you have a good work-ethic, you’ll have a chance to be a good photographer.

When they started introducing digital cameras, your competition grew and the ability to make a living in photography is a lot tougher than it used to be.

Engaging Discussion Questions:

  • What does it take to make a great picture?
  • How important do you think being reliable is to business?
  • Would people say you just show up?

Links to Great Stuff:

AP Images – “AP Images gives you access to the world’s largest collections of historical and contemporary photographs, so you have all the imagery you need, right when you need it. AP’s timely, powerful and informative images cover topics ranging from breaking news and sports to business, entertainment, weather, fashion, travel, royalty-free, rights-managed, microstock and more. You can purchase the images you need immediately on our site or set up a subscription service with your sales representative. And with our new API delivery method, you get images in a more flexible, fast and reliable way, within your own interface. AP’s Assignment & Publicity Services is also ready to assist you with start-to-finish planning, execution and distribution for all your promotional needs.”

The International Center of Photography – “The International Center of Photography (ICP) is the world’s leading institution dedicated to the practice and understanding of photography and the reproduced image in all its forms. Through our exhibitions, educational programs, and community outreach, we offer an open forum for dialogue about the role images play in our culture. Since our founding, we have presented more than 500 exhibitions and offered thousands of classes, providing instruction at every level. ICP is a center where photographers and artists, students and scholars can create and interpret the world of the image within our comprehensive educational facilities and archive.”

MSNBC – Pictures of the Week – “NBC News Digital is a collection of innovative and powerful news brands that deliver compelling, diverse and visually engaging stories on your platform of choice. NBC News Digital features world-class brands including NBCNews.com, tv.msnbc.com, TODAY.com, theGrio.com, NBCLatino.com, NBCPolitics.com, Nightly News, Meet the Press, Rock Center, Dateline, Newsvine, Breaking News, and the existing apps and digital extensions of these respective properties. We provide something for every news consumer with our comprehensive offerings that deliver the best in breaking news, segments from your favorite NBC News shows, live video coverage, original journalism, lifestyle features, commentary and local updates.  NBC News Digital reaches an audience of more than 58 million unique visitors who generate more than 1.2 billion page views and 140 million online video streams each month.”

New York Times – Lens Blog – “Photography, Visual and Video Journalism.”

Success Quotes:

  • “Success is balancing my career, my family life, my social life and my future.”
  • “I got into journalism because I wanted to see the world.”
  • “The one thing that separates amateur photographers from professional photographers is the way they handle light.”
  • “Photography is about capturing the moment.”

Special Requests:

Engage with us on Facebook, Twitter and leave reviews on the Defining Success Podcast in iTunes.

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Personal Branding | Rich Hammond from the Orange County Register

Rich Hammond is the USC sports reporter for the Orange County Register and has wanted to be a sports journalist all his life. Pay particular attention to a story Rich tells about former Los Angeles Dodger player, Lou Johnson. Lou had problems with substance abuse and lost his World Series ring as a result. Listen to the podcast to learn how Lou Johnson got his World Series ring back and to learn about personal branding and what it takes to make it in the highly competitive field of sports journalism.

Thank you for visiting the Defining Success Podcast.  Please download, subscribe and rate our podcast on iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-success-podcast/id619459909 Thanks for listening!

Rich Hammond from the Orange County Register - Personal Branding

Rich Hammond from the Orange County Register

Recap:

Rich Hammond always knew he wanted to be a journalist.  He loved reading and writing at a young age.  Once he began writing for his junior high school newspaper, he knew that was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

Sports writing is a highly competitive field and Rich knew that he needed a strong foundation in his writing abilities and got lucky with some opportunities that were presented to him.  He attributes his success to the fact that he always seized opportunities when they came to him.  He encourages others to do the same.

He attended the CSPA (California Scholastic Press Association) Workshop and established some great connections that helped him along the way.  He goes back to volunteer his time every two weeks during the Summer’s at the campus at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Each day is a challenge writing and every day presents new opportunities for Rich and he tries to make the most of them.  He enjoys successed every day and feels very fortunate that he’s been able to cover numerous memorable sporting events.

Being a journalist is interesting in the sense that you have to understand people’s motivations and you need to distinguish who’s telling the truth.  Often times Rich feels he made mistakes because sometimes he was too cautious about using sources or sometimes he has taken sources at their word and it’s “bit (him) in the butt.”  Typos are also a concern to Rich and he knows the value of making sure to avoid typos.

The coolest part for Rich about being a journalist is going to major sporting events for free.  People pay money to attend these events and he feels very lucky that he’s been able to attend some of the greatest sporting events.  It also gives Rich the freedom to travel, see different parts of the country and a lot of interesting people.

Although journalism is changing the fundamentals are still the same.  You have to be able to tell a story, be accurate, to relate to people, to ask good questions, to be aware and you have to be able to communicate.  We are now in a 24-hour news cycle, if something happens, as a reporter, you need to be on that story.

One of the biggest changes in journalism is the more personalized relationship with their readers.  During the age of newspapers, all people would see was the persons name in print, but now writers appear in T.V., more pictures are shown, they appear on podcasts and establish more of a personal connection then what was done in years past.  Your online reputation is important and now everything you do matters.  With the easy to use Google searches, Facebook pages and LinkedIn accounts it is now more important than ever to establish your online reputation.  When people look for you online, what are you going to find? Personal branding is critical to the success of businesses in the online world.

For Rich, success was working hard, enjoying what he did, and being happy doing it.  For him, it has nothing to do with money.  If money, or titles determine your success than there will always be something that you don’t have.

Engaging Discussion Questions:

  • How Do You Know What You Were Meant To Do?
  • How Do You Know if You’re a Success?
  • How important is personal branding?

Links to Great Stuff:

Quotes of the Episode:

  • “Your name becomes your brand . . . your name is your currency.” – Rich Hammond
  • “If you can go to bed at night being happy with who you are and what you’ve done then I think that’s what makes you a success.”

Special Requests:

Rich Hammond at the CSPA Workshop

Rich Hammond at the CSPA Workshop

THANK YOU!

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